The Max Brand Megapack (80 page)

He whispered something.

“What did he say?” murmured Sam.

“I dunno,” she answered. “I think it was ‘Delilah!’ See her shrink!”

“Shut up!” cautioned Sam. “Ma, he’s comin’ to his senses!”

There was no doubt of it now, for a meaning had come into his eyes.

“Shall I take her away?” queried Sam in a hasty whisper. “He may do the girl harm. Look at the yaller in his eyes!”

“No,” said his wife softly, “it’s time for us to leave ’em alone.”

“But look at him now!” he muttered. “He’s makin’ a sound back in his throat like the growl of a wolf! I’m afeard for the gal, ma!”

“Sam, you’re an old fool!”

He followed her reluctantly from the room.

“Now,” said his wife, “we c’n leave the door a little open—jest a crack—an’ you c’n look through and tell when she’s in any reel danger.”

Sam obeyed.

“Dan ain’t sayin’ a word,” he said. “He’s jest glarin’ at her.”

“An’ what’s she doin’?” asked Mrs. Daniels.

“She’s got her arm around his shoulders. I never knew they could be such a pile of music in a gal’s voice, ma!”

“Sam, you was always a fool!”

“He’s pushin’ her away to the length of his arm.”

“An’ she? An’ she?” whispered Mrs. Daniels.

“She’s talkin’ quick. The big wolf is standin’ close to them an’ turnin’ his head from one face to the other like he was wonderin’ which was right in the argyment.”

“The ways of lovers is as queer as the ways of the Lord, Sam!”

“Dan has caught an arm up before his face, an’ he’s sayin’ one word over an’ over. She’s dropped on her knees beside the bed. She’s talkin’. Why does she talk so low, ma?”

“She don’t dare speak loud for fear her silly heart would bust. Oh, I know, I know! What fools all men be! What fools! She’s askin’ him to forgive her.”

“An’ he’s tryin’ all his might not to,” whispered Mrs. Daniels in an awe-stricken voice.

“Black Bart has put his head on the lap of the gal. You c’n hear him whine! Dan looks at the wolf an’ then at the girl. He seems sort of dumbfoundered. She’s got her one hand on the head of Bart. She’s got the other hand to her face, and she’s weepin’ into that hand. Martha, she’s give up tryin’ to persuade him.”

There was a moment of silence.

“He’s reachin’ out his hand for Black Bart. His fingers is on those of the girl. They’s both starin’.”

“Ay, ay!” she said. “An’ what now?”

But Sam closed the door and set his back to it, facing his wife.

“I reckon the rest of it’s jest like the endin’ of a book, ma,” he said.

“Men is all fools!” whispered Mrs. Daniels, but there were tears in her eyes.

Sam went out to put up Kate’s horse in the stable. Mrs. Daniels sat in the dining-room, her hands clasped in her lap while she watched the grey dawn come up the east. When Sam entered and spoke to her, she returned no answer. He shook his head as if her mood completely baffled him, and then, worn out by the long watching, he went to bed.

For a long time Mrs. Daniels sat without moving, with the same strange smile transfiguring her. Then she heard a soft step pause at the entrance to the room, and turning saw Kate. There was something in their faces which made them strangely alike. A marvellous grace and dignity came to Mrs. Daniels as she rose.

“My dear!” she said.

“I’m so happy!” whispered Kate.

“Yes, dear! And Dan?”

“He’s sleeping like a child! Will you look at him? I think the fever’s gone!”

They went hand in hand—like two girls, and they leaned above the bed where Whistling Dan lay smiling as he slept. On the floor Black Bart growled faintly, opened one eye on them, and then relapsed into slumber. There was no longer anything to guard against in that house.

* * * *

It was several days later that Hal Purvis, returning from his scouting expedition, met no less a person that Sheriff Gus Morris at the mouth of the canyon leading to the old Salton place.

“Lucky I met you, Hal,” said the genial sheriff. “I’ve saved you from a wild-goose chase.”

“How’s that?”

“Silent has jest moved.”

“Where?”

“He’s taken the trail up the canyon an’ cut across over the hills to that old shanty on Bald-eagle Creek. It stands—”

“I know where it is,” said Purvis. “Why’d he move?”

“Things was gettin’ too hot. I rode over to tell him that the boys was talkin’ of huntin’ up the canyon to see if they could get any clue of him. They knowed from Joe Cumberland that the gang was once here.”

“Cumberland went to you when he got out of the valley?” queried Purvis with a grin.

“Straight.”

“And then where did Cumberland go?”

“I s’pose he went home an’ joined his gal.”

“He didn’t,” said Purvis drily.

“Then where is he? An’ who the hell cares where he is?”

“They’re both at Buck Daniels’s house.”

“Look here, Purvis, ain’t Buck one of your own men? Why, I seen him up at the camp jest a while ago!”

“Maybe you did, but the next time you call around he’s apt to be missin’.”

“D’you think—”

“He’s double crossed us. I not only seen the girl an’ her father at Buck’s house, but I also seen a big dog hangin’ around the house. Gus, it was Black Bart, an’ where that wolf is you c’n lay to it that Whistlin’ Dan ain’t far away!”

The sheriff stared at him in dumb amazement, his mouth open.

“They’s a price of ten thousand on the head of Whistlin’ Dan,” suggested Purvis.

The sheriff still seemed too astonished to understand.

“I s’pose,” said Purvis, “that you wouldn’t care special for an easy lump sum of ten thousand, what?”

“In Buck Daniels’s house!” burst out the sheriff.

“Yep,” nodded Purvis, “that’s where the money is if you c’n get enough men together to gather in Whistlin’ Dan Barry.”

“D’you really think I’d get some boys together to round up Whistlin’ Dan? Why, Hal, you know there ain’t no real reason for that price on his head!”

“D’you always wait for ‘real reasons’ before you set your fat hands on a wad of money?”

The sheriff moistened his lips.

“Ten thousand dollars!”

“Ten thousand dollars!” echoed Purvis.

“By God, I’ll do it! If I got him, the boys would forget all about Silent. They’re afraid of Jim, but jest the thought of Barry paralyzes them! I’ll start roundin’ up the boys I need today. Tonight we’ll do our plannin’. Tomorrer mornin’ bright an’ early we’ll hit the trail.”

“Why not go after him tonight?”

“Because he’d have an edge on us. I got a hunch that devil c’n see in the dark.”

He grinned apologetically for this strange idea, but Purvis nodded with perfect sympathy, and then turned his horse up the canyon. The sheriff rode home whistling. On ten thousand dollars more he would be able to retire from this strenuous life.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE SONG OF THE UNTAMED

Buck and his father were learning of a thousand crimes charged against Dan. Wherever a man riding a black horse committed an outrage it was laid to the account of this new and most terrible of long riders. Two cowpunchers were found dead on the plains. Their half-emptied revolvers lay close to their hands, and their horses were not far off. In ordinary times it would have been accepted that they had killed each other, for they were known enemies, but now men had room for one thought only. And why should not a man with the courage to take an outlaw from the centre of Elkhead be charged with every crime on the range? Jim Silent had been a grim plague, but at least he was human. This devil defied death.

These were both sad and happy days for Kate. The chief cause of her sadness, strangely enough, was the rapidly returning strength of Dan. While he was helpless he belonged to her. When he was strong he belonged to his vengeance on Jim Silent; and when she heard Dan whistling softly his own wild, weird music, she knew its meaning as she would have known the wail of a hungry wolf on a winter night. It was the song of the untamed. She never spoke of her knowledge. She took the happiness of the moment to her heart and closed her eyes against tomorrow.

Then came an evening when she watched Dan play with Black Bart—a game of tag in which they darted about the room with a violence which threatened to wreck the furniture, but running with such soft footfalls that there was no sound except the rattle of Bart’s claws against the floor and the rush of their breath. They came to an abrupt stop and Dan dropped into a chair while Black Bart sank upon his haunches and snapped at the hand which Dan flicked across his face with lightning movements. The master fell motionless and silent. His eyes forgot the wolf. Rising, they rested on Kate’s face. They rose again and looked past her.

She understood and waited.

“Kate,” he said at last, “I’ve got to start on the trail.”

Her smile went out. She looked where she knew his eyes were staring, through the window and far out across the hills where the shadows deepened and dropped slanting and black across the hollows. Far away a coyote wailed. The wind which swept the hills seemed to her like a refrain of Dan’s whistling—the song and the summons of the untamed.

“That trail will never bring you home,” she said.

There was a long silence.

“You ain’t cryin’, honey?”

“I’m not crying, Dan.”

“I got to go.”

“Yes.”

“Kate, you got a dyin’ whisper in your voice.”

“That will pass, dear.”

“Why, honey, you
are
cryin’!”

He took her face between his hands, and stared into her misted eyes, but then his glance wandered past her, through the window, out to the shadowy hills.

“You won’t leave me now?” she pleaded.

“I must!”

“Give me one hour more!”

“Look!” he said, and pointed.

She saw Black Bart reared up with his forepaws resting on the window-sill, while he looked into the thickening night with the eyes of the hunter which sees in the dark.

“The wolf knows, Kate,” he said, “but I can’t explain.”

He kissed her forehead, but she strained close to him and raised her lips.

She cried, “My whole soul is on them.”

“Not that!” he said huskily. “There’s still blood on my lips an’ I’m goin’ out to get them clean.”

He was gone through the door with the wolf racing before him.

She stumbled after him, her arms outspread, blind with tears; and then, seeing that he was gone indeed, she dropped into the chair, buried her face against the place where his head had rested, and wept. Far away the coyote wailed again, and this time nearer.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE COWARD

Before the coyote cried again, three shadows glided into the night. The lighted window in the house was like a staring eye that searched after them, but Satan, with the wolf running before, vanished quickly among the shadows of the hills. They were glad. They were loosed in the void of the mountain-desert with no destiny save the will of the master. They seemed like one being rather than three. The wolf was the eyes, the horse the strong body to flee or pursue, and the man was the brain which directed, and the power which struck.

He had formulated no plan of action to free Buck and kill Silent. All he knew was that he must reach the long riders at once, and he would learn their whereabouts from Morris. He rode more slowly as he approached the hotel of the sheriff. Lights burned at the dining-room windows. Probably the host still sat at table with his guests, but it was strange that they should linger over their meal so late. He had hoped that he would be able to come upon Morris by surprise. Now he must take him in the midst of many men. With Black Bart slinking at his heels he walked softly across the porch and tiptoed through the front room.

The door to the dining-room was wide. Around the table sat a dozen men, with the sheriff at their head. The latter, somewhat red of face, as if from the effort of a long speech, was talking low and earnestly, sometimes brandishing his clenched fist with such violence that it made his flabby cheeks quiver.

“We’ll get to the house right after dawn,” he was saying, “because that’s the time when most men are so thick-headed with sleep that—”

“Not Whistling Dan Barry,” said one of the men, shaking his head. “He won’t be thick-headed. Remember, I seen him work in Elkhead, when he slipped through the hands of a roomful of us.”

A growl of agreement went around the table, and Black Bart in sympathy, echoed the noise softly.

“What’s that?” called the sheriff, raising his head sharply.

Dan, with a quick gesture, made Black Bart slink a pace back.

“Nothin’,” replied one of the men. “This business is gettin’ on your nerves, sheriff. I don’t blame you. It’s gettin’ on mine.”

“I’m trustin’ to you boys to stand back of me all through,” said the sheriff with a sort of whine, “but I’m thinkin’ that we won’t have no trouble. When we see him we won’t stop for no questions to be asked, but turn loose with our six-guns an’ shoot him down like a dog. He’s not human an’ he don’t deserve—Oh, God!”

He started up from his chair, white faced, his hands high above his head, staring at the apparition of Whistling Dan, who stood with two revolvers covering the posse. Every man was on his feet instantly, with arms straining stiffly up. The muzzles of revolvers are like the eyes of some portraits. No matter from what angle you look at them, they seem directed straight at you. And every cowpuncher in the room was sure that he was the main object of Dan’s aim.

“Morris!” said Dan.

“For God’s sake, don’t shoot!” screamed the sheriff. “I—”

“Git down on your knees! Watch him, Bart!”

As the sheriff sank obediently to his knees, the wolf slipped up to him with a stealthy stride and stood half crouched, his teeth bared, silent. No growl could have made Bart more terribly threatening. Dan turned completely away from Morris so that he could keep a more careful watch on the others.

“Call off your wolf!” moaned Morris, a sob of terror in his voice.

“I ought to let him set his teeth in you,” said Dan, “but I’m goin’ to let you off if you’ll tell me what I want to know.”

“Yes! Anything!”

“Where’s Jim Silent?”