The Max Brand Megapack (235 page)

“And yet we have four horses here, all loaded with it! More than a hundred thousand dollars, Jerry!”

“I wish it weren’t here!” she answered. “There’s no luck about it.”

“If you want,” he answered, “I’ll pitch the gold down into that ravine and let it lie there. Just say the word!”

The violence of his expression made her glance up to his face, startled; she glanced away as quickly. Such talk as this could mean only one thing. Moreover, she had seen a pale, intense face and eyes that burned out of it at her. The usual pale calm was gone from Jack Moon. He was no longer the aloof, superior leader. He was simply a man, a man in love. She was frightened, but she was not altogether displeased. She cast about, however, for some other topic to carry the talk away from the danger point.

“Perhaps you should. I don’t know. Perhaps Ronicky was right.”

Moon, gritting his teeth, saw that he must not take up the subject. Apparently the girl had recovered from her former aversion to Ronicky.

“Doone is all right,” he said mildly. “Anyway, he stuck by your father in the last pinch.”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” she murmured. “First he seems to throw his own life away, fighting for us against you and your men. He does it for nothing—without a hope of reward. Then he sells his honor and becomes one of your band. Next he leaves the band and at the last moment throws himself on the side of my father again. How do you explain him?”

“I don’t try to,” said the leader carelessly, far more carelessly than he really wished to speak. “He’s just a wild man. That’s all! Some gents are all straight and sane about most things, but go off on one subject. That’s the way with Doone. Talks straight till he gets a chance to fight. Then he goes mad.

“There’s only one thing I’m sorry about,” went on Moon, changing the subject, “and that’s the gold. I promised to get all of it for your father. But all I can give him is the stuff we have with us.”

“You’re going to give that to him?”

“Do you think I’m carrying it for my own use?” asked the bandit sorrowfully.

That won him a smile of gratitude.

“I knew you were brave,” she said, “and I knew you could be gentle and kind, but I didn’t know that you could be so generous.”

“It’s not for my sake or for his,” answered Jack Moon. “It’s you that have taught me what to do.”

He had come close to the point now, and he must press on.

“Will you let me tell you what I’ve been planning?”

She knew well enough what direction he was taking now, yet she could not stop him.

“I’m going East,” said Jack Moon. “You might think that that’s a fool play to make. But mighty few people have ever seen my face. And them that have, would never know me when I’m dressed up in store clothes and wearing gloves and talking smooth. I can put on smooth talk well enough, and lay off on the bum grammar, too, Jerry. You trust to that! So what’s to keep me from popping up in the East—in New York, say, with a new name and plenty of money to start me off in business of some kind? What’s to stop me from all of that?”

“Nothing,” said the girl heartily. “I wish you joy with all my heart. I know you can win out. Nobody would trail you there.”

“Nobody,” echoed Jack Moon. “And by the same way that I’ve made a place for myself in the mountains, I’ll make a place for myself in business, and I’ll make money for myself, too. It won’t be hard!”

“No,” agreed the girl. “You were born to lead men, Jack, and you can lead them in cities as well as you can in the mountains!”

“Yet,” said Jack Moon, “all the money in the world, tied up with a life in a city, wouldn’t make up for the freedom I have in the mountains. Up here I’m a king. Down there I’ll be just lost in the crowd. You see?”

She nodded, dreading what was to come.

“But there’s one thing that would make me go—one thing that would lead me anywhere, Jerry, and that’s you! Understand? You, Jerry!”

He swerved his horse close to her and rode with his left hand on the cantle of her saddle. He was leaning so that, when she looked up to him, his tensed face was hardly an inch away. Jerry Dawn grew pale. His words came in a stream now.

“Since I met you, Jerry, I’ve wanted one thing in the world more than all the rest of it, and that’s you. I’ve quit the band, to follow you. I’ve given up what it’s taken me years to build, to follow you. Understand? I’m through with the mountains—I’m through with the men. I’ve given it up for a new life, and the heart of the new life is you, Jerry. Without you, it’s nothing to me. With you, it’s everything. You’re getting pale, honey, but it’s not because you’re afraid. You’re too steady to do that. You know that, whatever I’ve been to the rest of the world, you can trust me to the finish. Will you tell me that, Jerry? Look up and tell me that!”

She flushed, frightened and miserable.

“But don’t you see. Jack, that I can only answer you—honestly—in one way, if I answer yes to all that?”

“What way?”

“I can only say that I care for you as you care for me. I—I don’t, Jack.”

“You couldn’t,” went on Moon. “It ain’t possible that you could. I don’t expect you to—yet. But with time, Jerry, I’ll pour so much love around you that you can’t help giving some of it back, any more than a mirror can help shining back some firelight! Will you believe that, or d’you see me only as an outlaw talking crazy words that mean nothing?”

“Whatever you may have been,” she answered, “I tell you truly now that you’ve honored me by saying all this to me. But what can I do? I simply don’t care for you in that way, Jack. I know that I owe the life of my father to you, and still—”

“Jerry,” he implored her, “think it over. Think quick and hard. If you turn me down, I go back where I started. I build a new band. I run the mountains again. But if you say the word, I’ll leave the hills. I’ll go to the city. I’ll work to make you a home and happiness as no other man ever worked for a woman.”

Sincerity was in his voice and in his heart. The very fact that she was repulsing him made her the more desirable to Jack Moon. It seemed to him then that the cool gray eyes and the pale, trembling lips of the girl were worth more to him than ten thousand treasures as rich as the treasure of Cosslett.

“I can’t answer you in any other way,” answered Jerry.

“Is there somebody else?” he said through his teeth.

“Nobody.”

“It’s that smooth-faced, smiling, good-looking Ronicky Doone?”

“On my honor, there’s no one!”

“Then, Jerry, the fact that you don’t love me as much as I do you is just nothing! I can’t expect you to. But in time I’ll teach you how. It takes time for all great things. I’ll surround you with it like a wall. You’ll know nothing else. Look here. I know what it is to run men. It’s better than running a thousand horses to run one man. And me, Jerry—I’ve run men and run ’em by the scores; and wherever I go, I’ll still run men!”

He raised his great head, and his voice swelled.

“Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve been king,” he declared. “I’ve never met a man that could match me if it came to strength of muscles or strength of quick thinking. I’ve planned better than the others, and I’ve beat ’em in cunning and in tricks. I’ve read their minds and beat them always. Just the same way, when it come to fighting, I’ve beat ’em at fighting. I’m going to go East, Jerry, if you say the word, and do the same thing there that I’ve done in the West. I’m going to run men—run ’em by the score—have ’em working for me! And you, Jerry—you’ll be the power behind. You’ll be the rider with your hand on the reins. I’ll run scores, and you’ll run me. You’ll be like a queen on a throne, Jerry. You hear?”

She believed him, as she had reason to. It was within his capabilities to do as he said—to build up a power relentlessly strong, to make her rich, to pour treasures into her lap. Wherever he went, he would be king, and she, by very virtue of the fact that she did not love him blindly, could be absolute dictator in his life and carry the great power of the man in the palm of her hand to do with it as she pleased.

Yet she shook her head, though she paused a moment before she answered. It had been a great temptation. Moreover, she knew that the man would lead as straight a life, for her sake, as he had led a criminal one for his own sake.

“I can’t do it,” she said simply. “I tell you frankly, Jack, that I admire you for your strength, and I’m grateful with all my soul for what you’ve done for me. But I respect you too much, and I respect all the possibilities in you too much, to do what you ask. There’s no use talking any further!”

It was her calmness that laid the whip on him more than her words. He had debased himself before her. He had offered to sell himself. He had, so to speak, put a saddle on his back and offered to go where she bid him, and her refusal tortured him.

“Then,” he said suddenly, “Heaven help Hugh Dawn!”

She winced and stared at him.

“I say it again,” said the outlaw. “Heaven help Hugh Dawn!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Last Card

There was no question about the threat which his words implied. He had drawn away from her as he spoke, and now he sat gloomily, drawing his horse to a halt.

“Here’s where I leave you,” said Jack Moon. “You go on with the hosses, and you take the gold. I’ve promised you that, and I keep my promise.”

“Do you think I value the money a straw’s weight?” she cried in terror. “Jack, what do you mean about my father?”

“Why, Jerry,” he said, frowning in wonder that she did not understand, “you see there ain’t more’n two ways open to me. Either I sell myself out to you and go East as your husband, or else I go back up the north trail and meet my boys and take command again. I’ll have to find an explanation for being away so long, but I’ll explain it away, right enough, and take command; and, once back in command, I’ll forget about you as though you never existed!”

“But my father?”

“Why, the boys have a claim on his life—and he’s got to go! He owes us a debt, and he’s got to pay. I’ve busted too many rules already. Once back at the head of the band, I play the game.”

“You can’t do it,” breathed the girl. “You can’t do it!”

“You think so?” he answered, almost sneering. “You don’t know me, Jerry. There’s one thing I love more than the rest of the world, and that’s you; but next to you I love power, and to me power is the band. The way I hold the band together is by being as cold as iron and as hard as iron. I rule ’em with a stiff rod, and they come to me when I tell ’em to come, they go when I tell ’em to go. One sign of softening, and they’ll turn and sink their teeth in me. So I won’t soften!”

It was a bluff. He knew that he had already hopelessly lost the band. But it was a bluff which must win.

“If I don’t soften, I’ve got to get your father out of the way. His life is a forfeit. And it’s got to be paid down. I go back up the north trail. I find the boys and swing ’em southward. Before night I ride down your father on the way to Trainor and leave him dead on the trail. There’s nothing else to do.”

He turned his horse, waving to her, settled his hat more firmly on his head, and touched the gray with the spurs, but at the first leap he heard her voice calling faintly after him. He checked the gray and turned, his heart bounding with triumph.

There she sat with her eyes almost closed in the pain of what she was to do, and both her hands clutched hard over the pommel of the saddle.

“Come back to me,” said Jerry Dawn sadly. “I didn’t know it was possible. Even now I’d go down on my knees and beg with you, Jack Moon, except that I know it’s worse than useless! You are what you say—hard as iron. I surrender. Tell me what I have to do. I’ll do it. But I never will forgive you.”

A strange sound of choked triumph came from the throat of the outlaw. He had played his last card, to be sure, but that last card had been enough, and he had won. He forbore, however, from pressing his triumph on her.

“We’ll ride out of the hills and down into the valley,” he said quietly. “And there well find a minister in the first town. In that town we’ll be married. You understand, Jerry?”

She swallowed and then nodded, never looking at him.

“But when we’re East, Jerry, I’ll teach you to forgive me. This thing may be hard for you to do. But someday—”

She raised a hand in mute entreaty, and he stopped abruptly. So they rode on in silence until they reached the crest of the highest mountain, where the trail drove straight down before them. Faraway, beyond the foothills, stretched the green fields of that rich farming country, and he could see the windows of the first town gleaming faintly in the early rays of the morning sun. There was, indeed, his promised land!

There was a sound of a caught breath from the girl. He glanced aside at her and saw that she had turned in the saddle and was looking back, though when he turned to her she instantly righted herself in the saddle and faced forward again. But that stifled exclamation of pleasure, or fear, aroused his interest, and, searching the ranges of hills which stretched behind and below him in wave after wave, he saw, two crests away, the form of a horseman riding over a summit at full gallop.

The outlaw set his teeth and whipped out the field glasses from the saddle pocket. By the time he had focused the glasses, he was able to catch only a glimpse as the horseman dipped out of sight among the trees, but that glimpse had been enough. He had made out the flashing sides of a bay horse. He had marked the gait of the animal, long and free as the flight of a swallow, dipping lightly up and down on the wind. There was no other horse in the range of the mountains with that high-headed grace, that spiritlike ease of gait. It was the mare, Lou, and that rider was Ronicky Doone!

“Ride!” he called to the girl. “Ride hard, Jerry. Don’t put your hopes in the fool behind us. He’s late. He’s too late, like all the rest that come up against Jack Moon. He’s late, and he’s beaten!”

“Who is it?” cried the girl above the roar of the hoofs as the horses broke down the slope of the mountain.

“Nobody worth thinking about,” said the other. “A gent I could wait for and salt away with lead. But I ain’t going to stain our first ride together.”