Silvertip's Roundup (9 page)

S
ILVER
spent the majority of that night gradually freezing to stiffness and trying to get at the house. But it was a hard job. There were two men on beats, walking constantly back and forth, and each of them carried a sawed-off shotgun. Inside the clearing there would be no chance for long-range shooting, and sawed-off shotguns would be more efficient than a whole battery of rifles.

That was the Barry Christian touch, the perfect proportioning of means to ends. It seemed to Silver that he could see that handsome face, and the tall, elegant body relaxed in some easy chair near an open fire, while Christian thumbed the pages of a book, contented, or lowered the volume to see his brilliant dreams of the future build themselves in the flames of the fireplace. And that thought, like fire in the blood, sustained Jim Silver through the freezing hours of the night.

Three times he retired to a distance and ran himself warm. Three times he came back and resumed the watch. It was hopeless. He kept telling himself that and yet he kept on waiting. If Taxi had ever been there, he was probably dead long before this. Christian was unlikely to have any use for him.

Very little happened to break up the terrible monotony of the wait. Once the kitchen door opened, and a Chinaman came out and threw a pan of dish-water far out on the ground. Silver saw the pock-marked deformity of that ugly face in profile as the man turned back toward the light.

In the deep middle of the night, two men came out, and took the places of the pair that had been standing guard. Silver, lying couched in the brush near by, heard the conversation between one pair. He who had been pacing with great strides up and down beside the house exclaimed now:

“Yeah, and I thought you'd never come. You're an hour late, Scotty.”

“Steady, Pokey,” said Scotty. “I'm right on the dot. Maybe five minutes late, but the Chink didn't wake me up till a minute ago. I came right out.”

“It's a fool business, anyway,” said Pokey. “What's the good of walkin' a man up and down till his heart freezes inside of him? I feel as if I'd swallowed a chunk of ice. And what's the good of it? I'll tell you the good. It's the way that Christian has to show us that we're the dogs and he's the driver. That's the good of it.”

“Silver's on the job,” said Scotty tersely, and a shudder ran through Jim Silver as he listened.

“Silver?” exclaimed Pokey. “Silver's down there in Horseshoe Flat.”

“He's left the Flat,” said Scotty. “We got word a while ago. It came up from Pudge. Silver has tumbled to things. He knows about all he needs to know.”

“How
could
he know?” demanded Pokey.

“I don't figure that. He went in and made a play at Pudge. Silver knows that Taxi was knocked flat with the butt end of Pudge's gun, that Larue was on the job, and that a hole was shot in the ceiling. He guesses that Taxi was taken away alive by the boys. Is that enough for him to guess?

“But how?” groaned Pokey. “How the devil could he make that out unless he threw a scare into Pudge?”

“Pudge don't scare,” said Scotty. “Pudge is fat, but he don't scare. He's a fighting fool. I don't know how Silver made it all out. There's no use asking. Better ask a bloodhound how it manages to follow a trail.”

“I don't understand nothing,” complained Pokey. “I don't make out what Taxi is to Silver, anyway.”

“Silver must have sent for him. That's all. And Silver's the sort that never lets up when a partner of his gets into a pinch. He goes through hell if he has to, but he never lets up. It's the nature of the fool.”

“Aye,” said Pokey. “And I hope he never gets his fool hands on me!”

He went back to the house, while Silver gritted his teeth over the news that he had heard.

Yet, as he circled cautiously around the house, wondering what chance might come to him, hour by hour there was no opening. The house was entirely dark now, and around the cabin the two guards maintained a perfect watch, striding up and down with their sawed-off shotguns ready. Not once did they pause, even to make and light a cigarette. Not even Roman sentinels could have been truer to their posts.

And then the morning began, with definite notice to Silver that the end of his vigil was approaching. He felt a shuddering sense of rage and disappointment. He could have groaned aloud.

For one thing, he had not made out from the talk of the pair even so much as whether Taxi were alive or dead, though it seemed certain from what they had said that he
had
been alive when he was taken from the Round-up Bar.

In the meantime, he could see the fellow called “Scotty” more and more clearly, as the morning light commenced. He could see the steam of his breathing, and the glistening of his long mustache, and the resolute sway of his big shoulders.

And now chance for the first time inclined to Silver, for Scotty, as the light freshened, leaned his shotgun against a tree and made a moment's pause to swing his arms and bring the blood back into warm circulation through his body.

Silver, rising as a cat rises from its long vigil beside the rat hole, slipped from behind his patch of brush to the rear of the tree. He was there as Scotty turned to pick up the shotgun. Instead, he got Silver's fist against his chin and dropped in a heap.

Silver gathered him up, propped the heavy, loose burden in his arms, and carried him swiftly back among the trees.

By the time Silver put him down with his shoulders against the roots of a big pine, Scotty was already opening his eyes and muttering. The chilly muzzle of a revolver laid under his chin, after Silver had found and taken the man's own gun, quickly restored Scotty to his full senses. He tried to sit up, realized exactly his position, and sank his big shoulders back against the roots, that projected like knees above the ground.

“Scotty,” said Silver, “do you know me?”

“I never saw you before,” said Scotty. “But you're Silver.”

“Then you know,” said Silver, “that I'm not here to waste time, brother?”

“Right,” said Scotty.

“I want to know,” said Silver, “whether Taxi's alive or dead.”

“He — ” began Scotty, and then closed his teeth with a click.

“Mind you,” said Silver, “it would be a pleasure to me to lift the top off your head. Is that clear?”

Scotty locked his jaws, and said nothing.

“I count to three,” said Silver, “and then Heaven help you!”

He counted slowly, and at the third count the body of Scotty stiffened, his eyes shut tight.

Silver pulled the gun away from his chin.

“All right,” he said. “You win, Scotty. Only it's a pity that good stuff like you should work with Barry Christian. Roll over on your face. I'm going to tie and gag you. I won't choke you. I know how to do the trick.”

Without a word, Scotty turned on his face, and Silver took out some strong twine that was always in a pocket of his clothes and tied his man securely. Scotty's own bandanna, well knotted, made a sufficient gag.

Then Silver stood up gloomily. He had secured his retreat, to be sure, but that was his total accomplishment after two long days of labor.

A voice called from the house: “Scotty! Where are you, Scotty?”

Silver stepped quietly back among the trees until he could see the face of the house once more, and beside it he observed the form of an ape-like man standing at the top of what were apparently the cellar stairs. The creature was blinking as he stared around him, as though even the light of this pale day were unaccustomed.

“Hey, Scotty!” he repeated, more loudly. “Where are you, Scotty? Ain't you goin' to bring me my coffee? Hey, Scotty! Coffee! And a shot of whisky for Taxi, will you?”

It seemed to Silver, as he heard that last word, that he was repaid for the entire length of his vigil. He kneeled behind the brush that had sheltered him before.

Just inside one of the shuttered windows he heard a voice say: “Aw, shut up and leave us sleep and go get it yourself, will you?”

The man by the cellar stairs turned and stared at the window from which the voice had come. Then he nodded and strode with a waddling step toward the rear of the house. He turned out of view around the corner.

For half a breath, Silver considered. If that voice through the shutter had come from one who had merely wakened and turned in bed, he was safe. If it came from a man on the alert behind the window, he would be running straight into the face of death. However, his hesitation endured only that instant. Then he started up and ran rapidly over the ground toward the cellar entrance.

It was wide and clear before him. There was the dark descent into the black of the underground room which was only half relieved by the light that burned down there.

He went down those steps in two bounds, and came, gun in hand, into the presence of a body that lay sprawling on the beaten earth of the floor. It was like a dead thing; it lay with body uncomposed, as a lifeless creature would fall. One blood-soiled bandage was wrapped around the head. The face was battered almost out of human shape and covered with cuts intermingling with the bruises, and crusted over with dry scabs of blood. He was able to recognize Taxi more by the slender frame of him and the shape of the head than by the features.

He gave one look upward toward the floor above which the men of Barry Christian, and perhaps Christian himself, were living. If all their lives had been in his palm then, he would have closed his grip. Then he sank to his knees and picked up the senseless man.

He treated that limp figure carelessly enough, throwing it like a half-filled sack over his shoulder. The hands of Taxi dangled lifelessly about his knees. But, held in this manner, with one arm he could manage the weight of Taxi, and with the other hand he could fight his way, if there were need.

Then he ran lightly up the cellar steps, a drawn gun ready in his grasp.

As he came up, he could see that the rose of the morning was now thoroughly staining the zenith; when he reached the open level, coming as he did out of semidarkness, it was like issuing into the brightness of midday. The trees around the clearing seemed to be polished with dew; they shimmered softly before him. He heard, in the house, the voice of the Chinaman raised in a shrill protest, and then the laughing, booming voice of the ape man as he issued again from the house, letting a door slam behind him.

Silver was running toward the trees, as he heard this. He ventured no glance behind him, for he knew that at any instant the ape man would turn the corner of the house and see him. And the trees drew closer and closer. The green gloom of them was more than a blue heaven to Silver.

And then: “Hey! Help! Help!”

An automatic opened behind him with a rattling purr.

Another voice yelled on a shrill, echoing note: “Silver! Silver! He's here!”

A rifle struck out a more ringing, a more metallic note, and then Silver was with his burden among the trees. He was unhurt, if only that senseless body which was loosely pendant from his shoulder had not been struck!

He whistled.

Behind him, as he ran, he heard many voices shouting. He heard the squeal of a horse that was being mounted and started to a run by the cruel thrust of a spur into velvet flanks. And in front of him he heard the crashing of brush and the beating of hoofs; he saw the glimmer and then the whole body of Parade coming like a bird to the nest!

He swung his burden over that mighty back, mounted, and set Parade off at a large-striding gallop.

They broke out from the trees. Before them was the gradual and falling slope of the mountainside over which the morning was now brightening. Behind him the beating of hoofs sounded like a confused pulse in his ears. The arms and the legs of Taxi flopped up and down like the foolish, stuffed limbs of a doll. Silver cut to the left, and with one cry let Parade know that he was running for his life.

T
HE
best course for ultimate safety was straight back through the mountains toward Horseshoe Flat. But that was a helpless and hopeless ideal of safety. There had to be considered, first of all, that one horse must carry two men. And though there were seventeen hands of Parade, though no horse in the mountains could match strides with him, even his strength could not endure that weight for long.

That was why Silver sent him slanting across the long down slope as fast as he could leg it. He could only hope to put between him and the enemy a sufficient distance, early in the race, so that he could hide from the pursuit.

And that would be like trying to hide raw meat from hunting cats.

He picked up Taxi by the middle and steadied that loose bulk before him. The head of Taxi fell back on Silver's shoulder and jounced crazily up and down, up and down. Sometimes it flopped off the support and had to be replaced.

It was no time to be nice. Silver turned his head to the side and grasped a lock of Taxi's hair between his teeth. That steadied the bouncing of the head. He could give both hands to the support of the body. It seemed to be broken at every joint, and a terrible fury came up in Silver that made him want to turn and charge straight back into the teeth of destruction.

There came destruction itself in the form of five riders who had swept out of the woods far behind him.

They were far behind now, and they would be still farther to the rear after the stallion had maintained this pace for a few moments. For Parade, summoned by the voice that called out to him from between the teeth of his master — a deep, groaning, appealing voice — was flinging himself over the ground with the fullness of his might.

With side glances, his head turned, Silver counted again the men behind him. He who came first was that same ape man from whose immediate hands he had stolen the prisoner. Behind him at a good distance, gaining steadily because their bulk was less in the saddle, were three more. And last of all and most of all came a man who would have been by himself enough to occupy all the brains, the cunning, the experience, the fighting hands of Jim Silver.

He knew that upright carriage, that air almost of disdain, that calm indifference with which the rider was sweeping his horse over the broken ground. Even at that distance he thought that he could tell the magnificent silhouette of the head and shoulders against the rose of the morning sky. For that was Barry Christian!

He was to the rear now. There were lighter weights in front of him, far in the lead; but before the end he was sure to be in the forefront. Merely by the gigantic power of his will he would get from his horse more than any other man could summon.

Then Taxi roused from unconsciousness.

His eyes opened, and Silver saw the flash of the pale eyes, turned up toward the flames in the sky. A faint, twisting smile touched the lips. Then the eyes closed again.

They opened once more. They turned with a vague, struggling glance on Silver and remained on his face.

“Silver!” said the faint and groaning voice of Taxi.

“We're going to beat them, Taxi,” said Silver.

He no longer steadied the head of Taxi by holding the lock of hair between his teeth. That head no longer joggled and bounced lifelessly, but was sustained almost steadily by the man's own strength. His body seemed a lifeless pulp, but there was life in the head and eyes. A little life in the hands, also; for now one of them gripped the back of the saddle to take some of the strain away from Silver.

Taxi looked back.

He saw, behind him, the streaming flight of the five riders in pursuit. Their yelling voices sounded in his ear like the voices of so many hawks, screaming in the sky. And he was the prey that an eagle had seized on and was bearing off toward safety.

His brain was still clouded. It had seemed to him, at first, that he was borne through a sort of cold fire, a world of cold fire. He was dead then. He was dead, and his soul was carried on rushing wings through the flames of hell. Soon they would winnow him with ethereal heat, but now they were still at a distance.

Then the agony of his body called him back to life in a realer measure. He was aware of the strong arms that upheld him. The gallop of Parade forced the cold sweetness of the morning air into his lungs. He could think, and his first thought was of what motive worked behind the brown face of his deliverer.

In the beginning all was mystery. How this one man could have entered the house of the enemy and taken a senseless body out — that was the greatest mystery of all.

Why, now, he risked his life by making his horse carry double in a race which must be lost if it endured long was another thunderstroke to the brain of Taxi.

There was some hidden reason, of course. People don't do things unless they have a reason. The preservation of his life was important in the eyes of Silver. Otherwise Silver would not be there. What that importance might be was a closed book to Taxi. But he was willing to wait for developments. There are many things in this life which cannot be solved by the first glance of the eye.

And above all that was strange was this sense of being cared for by the brain, the courage, the skill of a stranger. There was no bond between them. They had entered into no partnership. They belonged to no “crowd.”

Back in the memory of Taxi remained the words that he had overheard between Silver and the girl. Silver had said that Taxi would be his care. But it could not be that there was no profound cause for that care.

In the basement of the house of Barry Christian, there in the mountains, gold was packed in many little buckskin sacks. That, perhaps, was the reason at the base of all. Behind every mystery there is always a question of money, if you look far enough!

So these thoughts struggled through the mind of Taxi as Parade rushed him forward through the cool morning air. Sometimes his physical agony made all thoughts a blank, but he kept the screaming of his nerves far back, as a rule, buried in a corner of his consciousness. When things like this were happening, it was no time to be aware of mere bodily pain.

A ravine opened to the right.

They swept down it with a speed increased by the greater slope. It seemed impossible that the shoulders of any horse could endure the frightful strain that was falling on the forelegs of Parade. But he was all steel — all steel under a golden sheathing.

A smile came again over the face of Taxi as he muttered: “What a horse!”

Silver said nothing. He rode with the grip of his legs only, his hands and arms supporting the body of Taxi. Now and then he turned his head a little to measure the increasing distance between him and the men behind. They were yelling no longer. They were saving brains and breath for the work of jockeying their horses to a greater and a greater speed.

Now Parade swept out of the ravine into a more open valley. Silver groaned as he saw it, and Taxi could understand why.

The going underfoot was smooth enough, but the floor of the valley stretched before them endlessly without so much as a tree to give a hint of shelter. To the left there were trees enough, to be sure. There was a great wave of brush and pines that swept on up the mountain, and in which they well might hide themselves. But on the nearer side of the narrow canyon there was no more than an occasional lone tree.

“What's up?” asked Taxi.

“We're done for,” said Silver through his teeth. “Parade is almost finished. There's no cover. And we can't stand off five men when one of ‘em is Barry Christian.”

That was simple mathematics. No, they could not stand off five men when one of them was Barry Christian!

Far behind them came the enemy, streaking. Tasxi, as he glanced back, saw them waving their hats in circles, a certain sign that they considered the battle won.

Then Silver with one sharp call brought Parade to a halt, and flung himself down to the ground.

Still with his hand he supported the limp body of Taxi.

Taxi said: “Go on, you fool! Let ‘em have me. You can't beat ‘em. But if you're riding alone in the saddle this pony will walk away from that crowd. Go on, Silver. I don't know what you expect to get back from me, but it's not worth the price!”

Silver made no answer. He had cut off the reins close to the head stall of the hackamore which served him instead of a bridle. Now, with the reins, he lashed the feet of Taxi beneath the belly of the stallion, and, drawing Taxi forward flat on his face, tied his hands with full force around the neck of Parade.

Next he picked up the light end of a fallen tree trunk that lay close to the verge of the little ravine. Years had stripped away its foliage. He upended it, walked it up into the air, and let it topple forward.

Crouched forward, tense with anxiety, Taxi saw Silver standing as the trunk fell straight and true across the dozen yards that separated the walls of the little ravine. It dropped with such force that it seemed certain that the slender tip of the tree would be broken off. But there was seasoned strength in the long, fragile sapling. The tip of it recoiled and bounced up from the shock, and the long trunk lay trembling across the breach.

Taxi could understand now. It was a sort of bridge that Silver had laid down across the stream with this one swift gesture. But what living man could cross such a structure, what walker of the loose wire, even, could step across that trembling, uncertain, rolling support?

The thought of walking was not in Silver's mind, however. But, swinging out from the near side of the gorge, he grasped the round of the trunk between his hands and so carried himself on, swinging pendulous from his hands, taking one great arm haul after another like a sailor on a rope.

That was the meaning of the big shoulders, the long and powerful arms.

To the left, rushing down the valley, came the five, with big Barry Christian already in the lead and pulling a rifle out of its sheath as he saw what went on before him. To win Taxi, to win the great horse, Parade, might be something; but it was nothing compared with the loss of such a prize as Silver. That was plain.

Taxi saw that Silver was close to the farther end of the trunk. He saw the meager tip of the tree bend, sag terribly, slip away at the point where it rested on the opposite rock. And then feebly Taxi yelled the warning, and saw the tree go down. Silver disappeared.

No, it seemed as though a mysterious hand caught and buoyed him up in mid-air while the trunk leaped like a living thing into that hundred-foot abyss.

Some projecting ridge, invisible to the eyes of Taxi at that angle, had been found by the catlike feet of Silver as the man fell. Now he was swarming up the face of the rock, standing on the top of it, shouting a wild appeal to Parade.

For what? To come to him!

The breath left the body of Taxi as the great stallion came to the edge of the ravine, so that Taxi could look down into the chasm and hear and see the white frothing of the stream. It sang on a hollow note, prolonged by endless echoing.

On the verge of the gorge Parade reared. The strength of his neighing sent a great shudder through the body of Taxi. Then the big horse whirled and ran back.

With dizzy eyes, as Parade turned, Taxi saw the men of Christian racing toward him. Christian himself, well in the lead, was firing shot after shot, not attempting to level the rifle from his shoulder on that racing horse, but shooting it from the ready. How closely he was edging the target was told by the keen wasp sounds that darted by the ears of Taxi.

And now, turning back toward the gorge, Parade rushed it at full speed. He was going to try the leap. Taxi knew that. There was no more turning the massive rush of the horse than of checking a huge avalanche.

That was as good a way as any, when a man had to die. Better than the torturing hands of Babe.

Then Parade left the ground with a wrench that jerked Taxi far to the side. Along the flank of the stallion he lay bunched beside the saddle. Beneath him he saw the white of the churning water. They seemed to hang in mid-air. They dropped. The hoofs of Parade struck the rock with a force that drove Taxi almost under his belly.

The big stallion was still struggling to gain a footing on the ledge when consciousness left Taxi.