The False Rider

by Max Brand

  The first question that Gregor asked was: “How do we keep in the dark here?”

  “We don’t,” said Christian.

  He took the two canvas sacks, spread them out, and then hung them against the steel fence that ran between the front of the safe and the street windows.

  “This is the best we can do,” he said.

  “Hold on!” objected Gregor. “Anybody who looks in will be used to seeing the glimmering of the front of the safe! He’ll notice the difference when his eye runs into those sacks.”

  “People usually see what they expect to see, and nothing more,” answered Christian.

  “But what if somebody comes along and uses his brain?” asked Gregor.

  “Every job like this is fifty per cent chance and luck,” said Christian. “Would you want the money if it were simply given to you on a platter, Duff? I think better of you than that!”

  He seemed to mean what he said. But one never could tell what real thinking went on behind the mask of that smooth, easy voice and gentle intonation.

  “Hold a light. Open the shutter about halfway. You seem to have thought of a few of the necessaries,” said Christian by way of compliment.

  Gregor kneeled and opened the shutter gingerly. In spite of his precautions in greasing the slides, it seemed to him that he heard a faint sound, and he jumped.

  “Sorry the thing makes so much noise. I greased it, anyway,” said Gregor.

  Christian laughed out loud. The sound roared and thundered in the ears of Gregor. He thought, for an instant, that his companion had gone mad.

  “We’ll make more noise than that, before we’re through,” said Christian.

  He fell to work, straightway, running the mold of yellow laundry soap around the edges of the circular door. He worked rapidly, whistling to himself. Finally, when he had completed his work, he looked it over carefully. When he was certain that all was well—and this seemed to Gregor to have endured for an hour—he started pouring in the “soup.”

  After that, the preparations went quickly. The fuse was attached. They hurried to a far corner of the big room after the fuse had been lighted by Gregor. There they lay flat on their faces, and Gregor listened to the bumping of his heart and wondered how flesh and blood could withstand such a strain.

  Then came the explosion. It was a thick, dull, puffing sound which seemed to be accompanied, as if in the great distance, by a far-off report.

  Gregor felt a distinct pressure, as he thought, on his whole body. He was up like a cat, but Christian was ahead of him. They ran into the safe room, and saw that the door of the safe was still fitted snugly in place!

  Gregor whirled about with a groan.

  “We’re beaten! You bungled it! You bungled it like a great fool!” he said, and started to run.

  He ran straight into the hard fist of Christian. It bumped half the wits out of his head and deposited him with a solid thump on the floor of the bank.

  Staring up with dim, dazed eyes, he wondered, with what was left of his frightened brain, if Christian intended to double-cross him—to turn him over for the attempted job and drop the blame on his shoulders. Then he heard Christian saying calmly:

  “Don’t run out like a yellow hound till you know the job’s a lost job. Look here. The door’s been budged a little. It’s been budged and settled a shade. This crack on the top of it is a hair broader than the crack at the bottom, now. We can get some soup into that upper crack on the next try and—”

  “Next try?” exclaimed Duff Gregor, as he stumbled dizzily to his feet. “Are you goin’ to be fool enough to wait here and make another try when—”

  “Shut up and get to work,” said Christian. “I’d rather walk up Salt Creek with my eyes open than to walk out of this place before I’m driven out. You said one true thing today. There’s maybe half a million dollars inside that safe!”

  Gregor panted: “But that noise has been heard! We’d only stay here to be found out and—”

  “Take that soap, what’s left of it, and give me a hand,” said the calm bandit. “We have to work faster this time, that’s all. And we’re sure to win.”

  Gregor, staring mutely for a moment, was amazed to find himself bending to the task that had been assigned to him. All his volition was urging his heels to scamper away toward freedom, but his physical body he found bending there in front of the safe!

  Then came the thing that he had known would happen. There was a murmur of voices, dim and far away as the murmuring of bees. And then a hand shook at the front door of the bank, and succeeded in making it rattle faintly. He turned and stared past the two sacks that partially concealed them, and saw that a dozen people were gathered on the sidewalk, peering through the plate glass into the interior of the bank.

  Gregor turned to gasp out: “The sidewalk’s full of ’em, but there’s still the back door. Quick, Barry! We can get to the horses and run out of town before they tag us with lead, maybe.”

  Christian caught his arm with a rigid hand.

  “Go out there and open the door and send ’em away!” he commanded. “Don’t turn rotten and crumble to pieces on me. Remember that you’re Jim Silver! Tell ’em anything. Tell ’em that a lamp exploded, but get ’em all out of the bank again. Understand? March, Gregor! I’ll keep you covered till you get back to me!”

  Mad? Of course he was mad, but he was also armed, and the hand which held the Colt and covered Gregor was as steady as a stone. Duff Gregor did not argue. In another moment it seemed that the mob would break down the front door of the bank. Practically every penny of the savings of the men of Crow’s Nest was lodged in the big safe of Henry Wilbur, and the inhabitants would be as tender of the safety of the bank as of their own lives. If that door went down before Gregor had accomplished anything, he had a very strong idea that the cruel devil in front of him would shoot him down before managing an escape.

  So Gregor turned without a word and walked toward the door.

  He could not believe that he was headed in that direction. He could not believe that he was actually waving to the men beyond the door, covering the sidewalk. He went through the motions like a sleepwalker, and always the cold consciousness of the revolver that watched him nudged him forward.

  Then he heard a general outcry: “Jim Silver! It’s Jim Silver! There he comes. Everything’s all right!”

  The sound of those words warmed the freezing soul of Duff Gregor. He threw open the front door of the bank and stood on the threshold.

  “Hey, what happened, Jim?” asked half a dozen of them at once. They pressed close. If he gave an inch, they would swarm in a stream into the bank, he knew. Therefore, he stood fast and merely said:

  “I was fixing the gasoline lamp, and the fool thing went poom all at once. It made a terrible racket. I don’t wonder that it woke you up. Sorry, boys!”

  They began to smile and nod at him. It was a wild-looking crowd. Every man and youngster in the lot had a rifle, a shotgun, or a revolver showing. They had come out ready for business, and they looked the part.

  “How come you’re on duty at night?” asked one lean, gray, suspicious old fox of a trapper.

  “Bennett’s a little knocked out,” said Duff Gregor, “so I’m staying around. Not that Tom really needs any help, but there’s a lot of money in this bank, boys, and I sort of feel that the whole responsibility of watching it is on my shoulders. You know how it is.”

  “Good old Silver,” said one of the men. “We couldn’t have the bank better watched if we had ten men on the job day and night.”

  The crowd began to break up, and Duff Gregor, with amazement, watched them go. It was too simple; it was too easy. Suddenly he was struck with awe for the wisdom of Barry Christian, who had foreseen exactly what would happen.

  While still a few lingered, Gregor closed and locked the front door, hearing one of the bystanders remark:

  “Suppose that a gent was to break into that there bank and think that he had pretty clear sailing, and suppose t
hat up out of a corner comes Jim Silver at him—wouldn’t it be hell on him, eh?”

  And they laughed, as Duff Gregor closed that door and shut out their voices to a dimness.

  Before he reached the safe room again, the last of the men had scattered from the sidewalk. In front of the safe he found Barry Christian already calmly at work, running the mold with his swift, cunning fingers.

  Without looking up from what he was doing, he said: “You did that well, Gregor. You’re a man, partner. A real man. And these people of Crow’s Nest are real geese. All honest people are fools, or else they wouldn’t be honest. Duff, you and I are going to do things together. We may crack a sweeter nut than this, even, one of these days.”

  Duff Gregor, squinting at the future, was not sure that he wished to remain in partnership with a man like Barry Christian, who was himself fearless and who demanded heroism of all who worked with him. And yet there was a wonderful glory and exhilaration in being with that famous man. The future looked like a storm, but like a golden storm.

  He set about working as fast as he could to help Christian. They finished their preparations once more, and the last of the “soup” was poured into the mold. Over the top of the safe door they now battened rugs and carpets in thick masses, and when they had lighted the fuse and retired, there was at last an explosion far more muffled than the first one. Even so, the entire building jarred, and the windows shook and jingled like so many great castanets.

  They got up from the floor where they had been lying and ran forward. They saw that the huge door of the safe had swung wide open on its hinges, and, with a cry of joy, Gregor leaped forward and thrust into the inner door the key with which it was always opened. It had not been hard to get that key from its hiding place in the cashier’s desk, because no one considered the inner door of the safe of such very great importance. It was important enough now to make the heart of Gregor stand still, because, no matter how he turned and twisted, he could not budge the inner bolt. Then he understood. The force of the explosion which had knocked the outer door open had served to jam, hopelessly, the lock of the inner door!

  He turned a desperate face toward Barry Christian, and beyond him he saw the gray of the morning come shimmering through the eastern windows of the bank.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Loot

  Neither of them spoke. Christian made a gesture that forced Gregor to recoil while the chief partner himself took the key and worked with it for an instant. Then, in turn, he stood back, dusted off his hands, and nodded. He whirled on his heel, left the safe room, and it suddenly occurred to Gregor that Christian, in silence, was going to walk off and give up the job.

  He was wrong. Christian returned in a moment, bringing with him a small sack of padded canvas, which he laid on the floor and unrolled. It contained a good kit of burglary tools. Christian took out a mallet made of soft iron and a pair of untempered steel wedges, with points drawn down as fine as a pin. He wrapped the head of the mallet in cloth, laid the edge of a wedge against the top crack of the inner door of the safe, and began to tap gently. He tapped with force hardly sufficient to break an egg, then with greater and greater effort until the dull, padded sound of the blows was louder than a drumbeat in the frightened ears of Gregor.

  Then Gregor forgot his fears, for he saw that the first wedge had actually entered a little. Yes, more than that—the wedge was not only entering, but the door was beginning to groan under the strain. If the door could be made to yield the least bit to the first narrow wedge, the second one would soon have an entrance with its greater bevel and weight.

  In fact, that door was presently bending like a bow along the upper edge. Two wedges were shifted down the forward face, close to the lock, and driven in side by side. Before the heels of them had disappeared, the lock burst with a sound like a snapping piano wire. The little door came shuddering open, and there appeared before the eyes of Duff Gregor the most beautiful sight in the world—a series of little, bright, polished-steel drawers, each to be opened with its separate key.

  But they did not need to pause in order to fit the keys. Having passed the first barriers, these that remained were nothing. With a wedge and a little fine steel crowbar, the expert hands of Barry Christian pried open those drawers rapidly. Into the two capacious canvas sacks, which had already done a different sort of duty on this night, the riches of the mountains began to be dropped, in the form of bonds of all sorts of paper wealth; but most of all, the hearts of the pair were gladdened by the treasure in hard cash.

  It would not have been there if a few more weeks had passed. It would have gone into safe forms of investment, of course; but, in the meantime, the sudden jump in prestige which the bank had enjoyed since the arrival of “Jim Silver” had flooded the big safe with quantities of paper money.

  That money was snatched out and handed into the sacks. Only one thick packet enchanted the eye and the touch of Duff Gregor that he could not give up to the sack. It was a beautiful, thick sheaf of fifties, almost brand-new, stiff and firm as a board and full half an inch thick. He could not resist passing that wad into his own pocket. He knew that Christian marked him, but that did not matter. It was not the question of stealing the money, but the joy of having it intimately under his fingers and pressing in a lump against his body. He felt not only a richer but a better and more important man. He felt that Fate would not hand out such favors and fortune as this except to a friend.

  He had his grasp on the throat of the world, he felt, and the world would have to pay for his hold before he was finished with it.

  That was the mind of amiable Gregor as they finished loading the canvas sacks, and, looking out of the window, saw that the gray of the morning was turning to rose.

  They got to the back door of the bank, unlocked it, and listened. The town was wakening. The gambling and playing element must still be snoring, and its members would continue to sleep until noon; but the others, the workers, would be up before the sun.

  The vacant lot was pearl-gray with dew. As they started for the horses, a boy began to whistle like a lark. They saw him come over the grass in bare, brown feet. He left a double streak of darkness behind him, where he had knocked the moisture off the grass.

  Barry Christian turned a bit toward his friend and in a soft but profound voice he cursed that boy and all his forebears.

  They tied the bags to the saddles and mounted as the boy came up to them.

  “Hey, hullo, Jim,” said the youngster. “Whatcha doin’ up this time of day? You don’t go to work for three, four hours yet. And how come that you ain’t back there in the bank, Mr. Bennett?”

  He cocked his head on one side and peered at them. He was as bright and keen, as a magpie, and just as cruelly mischievous.

  “I’ve got my helper on the job, son,” said Barry.

  He turned his horse.

  “Hey, who’s your helper?” asked the boy. “Whatcha mean? Who’s your helper? I didn’t know that you had a helper.”

  “So long, son!” said Gregor.

  They began to jog their horses, but not in the direction up the gulch in which, as Gregor knew, his chief wanted to travel. Instead, Christian was heading straight across the town.

  The boy actually came scampering after them. He had a voice as clear and chanting loud as the voice of a rooster—a new, young rooster delighted with his task of rousing the world in the morning.

  “Hey, Jim!” he yelled. “Where you goin’? Who’s the new man in the bank? How come you both are off work?”

  That voice went like a hot needle through and through the brain of Duff Gregor. They turned up the first side alley. A woman was coming in from the woodpile behind the house, her apron filled with wood. She paused and shaded her eyes, looking into the bright east toward those two early travelers.

  When she saw Gregor, she actually dropped the wood so that she could clap her hands together, and she shouted:

  “Hi, Jim Silver! Go it, Jim! Good luck to ye, boy!”

&
nbsp; They passed out of sight of her, and still the shrill voice of the boy was piping in the distance.

  “The devil take him! He’s started the town on the trail with his yelling,” said Christian. “He’ll be back there at the bank, in a minute, and then he’ll be pretty sure to look around to see my helper. If he doesn’t spy the open door of the safe the first thing, I’ll be surprised.”

  “But why take this direction? I thought you wanted to ride up through the gulch! That’s the best way to get out of Crow’s Nest. There’s regular hole-in-the-wall country behind those hills.”

  “Because I want to start in a false direction, Duff,” said Christian. “We’ve not finished the hardest part of this job yet.”

  “Not finished it? Not when we’ve bamboozled the town and cracked the safe for them? What do you call hard?” said Gregor.

  “I call it hard,” answered Christian, “to get away from a thousand or so men who have good horses and who know how to shoot straight and who are going to keep on our trail until their feet wear out under them. Gregor, they trusted you as they would have no one else on earth, and when they find we’ve cheated ’em and that you’re gone, those men are going to go practically insane. Believe me, because I know. Every man in Crow’s Nest is going to be a bloodhound, and when the news gets out on the range, everybody in the mountains will be gunning for us.”

  They had cleared the outskirts of Crow’s Nest, by this time, and, coming to a narrow, rocky gorge that headed west, Christian at once turned down it.

  “You’re wasting time and distance,” cautioned Gregor. “If these people around here are goin’ to be as savage as you say, isn’t it our best dodge to get a few miles between us and Crow’s Nest—and lay it out in a straight line?”