The Max Brand Megapack (402 page)

“Prison-guard?” said McGuire. “Me?”

“Well,” answered Marianne, “that’s the truth, isn’t it? You’re the guard and I’m the prisoner?”

“I’m watching these hosses,” said McGuire. “That’s all. They ain’t no money could hire me to guard a woman.”

“Really?” said Marianne.

“Sure. I used to have a wife. I know.”

She laughed, a little hysterically, but McGuire treated the mirth as a compliment to his jest and joined in with a tremendous guffaw. His eyes were still wet with mirth as she said: “Too bad you have to waste time like this, with such a fine warm day for sleeping. Couldn’t you trust the corral bars to take care of the horses?”

His glance twinkled with understanding. It was plain that he appreciated her point and the way she made it.

“Them hosses are feeling their oats,” said McGuire. “Can’t tell what they’d be up to the minute I turned my back on ’em. Might jump that old fence and be off, for all I know.”

“Well,” said Marianne, “they look quite contented. And if one of them did take advantage of you and run away while you slept, I’m sure it would come home again.”

He had quite fallen into the spirit of the thing.

“Maybe,” grinned McGuire, “but I might wake up out of a job.”

“Well,” said Marianne, “there have been times when I would have weighed one hour of good sleep against two jobs as pleasant as this. How much real damage might that sleep do?”

“If it took me out of the job? Oh, I dunno. Might take another month before I landed a place as good.”

“Surely not as long as that. But isn’t it possible that your sleep might be worth
two
months’ wages to you, Mr. McGuire?”

“H-m-m,” growled McGuire, and his little shifty eyes fastened keenly on her. “You sure mean business!”

“As much as anyone in the world could!” cried the girl, suddenly serious.

And for a moment they stared at each other.

“Lady,” said McGuire at length, “I begin to feel sort of yawny and sleepy, like.”

“Then sleep,” said Marianne, her voice trembling in spite of herself. “You might have pleasant dreams, you know—of a murder prevented—of a man’s life saved!”

McGuire jerked his sombrero low over his eyes.

“You think it’s as bad as that?” he growled, glaring at her.

“I swear it is!”

He considered another moment. Then: “You’ll have to excuse me, Miss Jordan. But I’m so plumb tired out I can’t hold up my end of this talk no longer!”

So saying, he dropped his head on both his doubled fists, and she lost sight of his face. It had come so inconceivably easily, this triumph, that she was too dazed to move, for a moment. Then she turned and fairly raced for the corral. It had all been the result of the first smile with which she went to McGuire, she felt. And as she saddled her bay in a shed a moment later she was blessing the power of laughter. It had given her the horse. It had let her pass through the bars. It placed her on the open road where she fled away at a swift gallop, only looking back, as she reached the top of the first hill, to see McGuire still seated on the stump, but now his head was canted far to one side, and she had no doubt that he must be asleep in very fact.

Then the hill rose behind her, shutting out the ranch, and she turned to settle to her work. Never in her life—and she had ridden cross-country on blood horses in the East—had she ridden as she rode on this day! She was striking on a straight line over hill and dale, through the midst of barbed wire. But the wire halted her only for short checks. The swift snipping of the pair of pliers which was ever in her saddle bag cleared the way, and as the lengths of wire snapped humming back, coiling like snakes, she rode through and headed into the next field at a renewed gallop. She was leaving behind her a day’s work for half a dozen men, but she would have sacrificed ten times the value of the whole ranch to gain another half hour of precious time.

For when she broke down the last of the small fenced fields the sun was already down. And when twilight came, she knew by instinct, the blow would fall. Yet the distance to the shack was still terribly far.

She straightened the gallant little bay to her work, but at every stride she moaned. Oh for such legs beneath her as the legs of Lady Mary, stretching swiftly and easily over the ground! But this chopping, laboring stride—! She struck her hand against her forehead and then spurred mercilessly. As a result, the bay merely tossed her head, for she was already drawn straight as a string by the effort of her gallop. And Marianne had to sit back in the saddle and simply pray for time, while the little thirty-two revolver in the saddle holster before her, flapped monotonously, beating out the rhythm of every stride.

And the night rode over the mountains with mysterious speed. It seemed to her frantic brain that the gap between crimson sunset and pallid twilight could have been spanned by a scant five minutes. And now, when she found herself at the foot of the last slope, it was the utter dark, and above her head the white stars were rushing past the treetops. The slope was killing the mare. She fell from her labored gallop to a trot, from the trot to a shambling jog, and then to a walk. And all the time Marianne found herself listening with desperate intensity for the report of a gun out of the woods ahead!

She threw herself out of the saddle, cast hardly a glance at the drooping figure of the bay, and ran forward on foot, stumbling in the dark over fallen branches, slipping more than once and dropping flat on her face as her feet shot back without foothold from the pine needles. But she picked herself up again and flung herself at her work with a frantic determination.

Through the trees, filtered by the branches, she saw a light. But when she came to the edge of the clearing she made out that the illumination came from a fire, not a lantern. The interior of the cabin was awash with shadows, and across the open doorway of the hut the monstrous and obscure outline of a standing man wavered to and fro. There was no clamor of many voices. And her heart leaped with relief. Hervey and his men, then, had lost heart at the last moment. They had not dared to attack Red Jim Perris in spite of their numbers!

But her joy died, literally, mid-leap.

“Hervey,” cried the voice of Perris, a trembling and fear-sharpened voice, “for God’s sake, wait!”

Red Perris begging, cringing to any man, to Lew Hervey? All at once she went weak and sick, but she hurried straight towards the cabin, trying to cry out. Her throat was closed. She could not utter so much as a whisper.

“Listen to me!” went on Perris. “I’ve been a fool all my life. I know it now. I’ve wandered around fighting and playing like a block-head. I’ve wanted nothing but action and I’ve got it. But now you tell me that I’ve had something else right in the hollow of my hand and I didn’t know it! Maybe you’ve lied about her. I dunno. But just the thought that she might care a little about me has—”

Marianne stopped short in the darkness and a hot wave of shame blotted out the rest of the words until the heavier voice of the foreman began again.

“Maybe you’d have me think you’re kind of fond of the girl—that you love her, all at once, just because I told you she’s in love with you?”

“I’d have you think it and I’d have you believe it. When a gent sits looking into the face of a gun he does his thinking and his living mighty fast and condensed. And I know this, that if you turn me loose alive, Hervey, I’ll give you my word that I’ll forget what’s happened. You think I’ll hit your trail with a gat. But you’re wrong. Make your own bargain, partner. But when I think of what life might be now—Hervey, I can’t die now! I’m not ready to die!”

She had been stumbling in a daze towards the door. Now she came suddenly in view of them, the broad back of Hervey turned towards her and Perris facing her, his face white, drawn, and changed. And the blood-stained bandage about his forehead. He leaned forward in his chair in the fervor of his appeal, his arms lashed against his sides with the loose of a lariat.

“Are you through begging?” sneered Hervey.

It threw Perris back in the chair like a blow in the face. Then he straightened.

“You’ve told me all this just to see me weaken, eh, Hervey?”

“And I’ve seen it,” said Hervey. “I’ve seen you ready to take water. That’s all I wanted. You’ve lost your grip and you’ll never get it back. Right now you’re all hollow inside. Perris, you can’t look me in the eye!”

“You lie,” said Red Jim quietly, and lifting his head, he stared full into the face of his tormentor. “You made a hound out of me, but only for a minute, Hervey.”

And then she saw him stiffen in the chair, and his eyes narrow. The chains of fear and of shame which had bound her snapped.

“Hervey!” she cried, and as he whirled she came panting into the door.

Just for an instant she saw a devil glitter in his eyes but in a moment his glance wavered. He admitted himself beaten as he thrust his revolver into the holster.

“Talk wouldn’t make Perris leave,” he mumbled. “I been trying to throw a little scare into him. And the bluff would of worked if—”

She cut in on him: “I heard enough to understand. I know what you tried to do. Oh, Lew Hervey, if this could be told, your own men would run you down like a mad dog!”

He had grown livid with a mixture of emotions.

“If it could be told. Maybe. But it can’t be told! Keep clear of him, or I’ll drill him, by God!” She obeyed, stepping back from Jim.

He backed towards the door where the saddle of Perris lay, and stooping, he snatched the revolver of Red Jim from the saddle-holster. For the moment, at least, his enemy was disarmed and there was no fear of immediate pursuit.

“I still have a day or two,” he said. “And the game ain’t ended. Remember that, Perris. It ain’t ended till Jordan comes back.”

And he turned into the darkness which closed over him at once like the falling of a blanket.

“You won’t follow him?” she pleaded.

He shook his head and a moment later, under the touch of his own hunting knife which she drew, the rope parted and freed his arms. At the same instant she heard the hoofs of Hervey’s horse crashing through the underbrush down the mountain side. And not till that final signal of success reached her did Marianne give way to the hysteria which had been flooding higher and higher in her throat ever since those words of Hervey had arrested her in the clearing. But once released it came in a rush, blinding her, so that she could not see Perris through her tears as he placed her gently in the chair. Only through the wild confusion of her sobbing she could hear his voice saying words she did not understand, over and over again, but she knew that his voice was infinitely soft, infinitely reassuring.

Then her mind cleared and her nerves steadied with amazing suddenness, just as the wind at a stroke will tumble the storm clouds aside and leave a placid blue sky above. She found Red Jim kneeling beside the chair with his arms around her and her head on his shoulder, wet with her tears. For the first time she could hear and really understand what he had been saying over and over again. He was telling her that he loved her, would always love her, that he could forgive Lew Hervey, even, because of the message which he had brought.

Had she confessed everything, then, in the hysteria? Had she confirmed what Lew Hervey said? Yes, for the voice of Red Jim was unquestioning, cherishing as men will the thing which they love and own.

“You’re better now?” he asked at length.

“Yes,” she answered, “I’m weak—and ashamed—and—what have I said to you?”

“Something that’s made me happier than a king. And I’ll make it a thing you’ll never have to regret, so help me God!”

He raised her to her feet.

“Now you have to go home—at once.”

“And you?”

“Hervey will come hunting me again tomorrow, and he’ll have his men with him. He doesn’t know I’ve forgotten him. He thinks it’s his life or mine, and he’ll try to run me down.”

“The sheriff—” she cried fiercely.

“That’s where I’m going. To Glosterville to hide like a coward where the sheriff can look out for me. I can’t take chances now. I don’t belong to myself. When your father comes back and takes charge of the ranch, and Hervey, I’ll come when you send for me. I’ll get my things together to-night, ride down the valley so they can’t trap me again here, camp out for an hour or so in the morning, and then cut out across the Eagles. But you’re strong enough to ride home?”

She nodded, and they walked side by side out across the clearing and down towards the place where she had left the bay. And it seemed to Marianne, leaning a little on the arm of Red Jim, that she had shifted the whole burden of her worries onto the shoulders of her lover. Her troubles disappeared. The very sound of his voice assured her of happiness forever.

They found the bay. The tough little mustang was already much recuperated, and Perris swept Marianne into the saddle. She leaned to kiss him. In the dark her lips touched the bandage around his head.

“It’s where Hervey struck you down!” she exclaimed. “Jim, you can’t ride across the mountains so terribly hurt—”

“It’s only a scratch,” he assured her. “I met Alcatraz to-day, and he won again! But the third time—”

Marianne shivered.

“Don’t speak of him! He haunts me, Jim. The very mention of him takes all the happiness out of me. I feel—almost as if there were a bad fate in him. But you promise, that you won’t stay to take one final chance? You won’t linger in the Valley to hunt Alcatraz again? You’ll ride straight across the mountains when the morning comes?”

“I promise,” answered Perris.

But afterwards, as he watched her drift away through the darkness calling back to him from time to time until her voice dwindled to a bird-note and then faded away, Red Jim prayed in his heart of hearts that he would not chance upon sight of the stallion in the morning, for if he did, he knew that the first solemn promise of his life would be broken.

CHAPTER XXIII

LOBO

The dawn of the next day came cold and grey about Alcatraz, grey because the sheeted clouds that promised a storm were covering the sky, and cold with a wind out of the north. When he lifted his head, he saw where the first rains had covered the slopes of the Eagle Mountains with tenderest green, and looking higher, the snows were gathering on the summits. The prophetic thickening of his coat foretold a hard winter.