Bad Man's Gulch (29 page)

The people of Slosson's Gulch ran toward the limp figure that feebly hung on to his horse. They cut the leather straps and placed old Berenger on the pavement. Water was thrown down his throat, and, in the meantime, strange discoveries were being made.

Someone shouted: “What's happened to this old man's feet? Has the fool been walking on fire?”

And another snarled: “His back! Did you see his back?”

“It's Berenger. It's old Berenger that they say made the great strike. Will he live?”

“He's dead now! Look at his glassy eyes!”

For the eyes of Berenger had indeed opened and rolled up, and they stared above him with no expression and with no feeling.

“Try his pulse.”

“There ain't no pulse, and his hand's dead cold already!”

“Listen to his heart, will you?”

“Aye, now I hear something. Stand back, half a million of you, and let's see if he can get some air. No, he's had enough to drink.”

The lips of Berenger parted and whispered: “Hans Grimm.”

“He wants Grimm. Go get Hans. Get him quick. Here's a dying confession, or something. Somebody gimme a blanket to slide under him. This gent is about to die, boys!”

They made the bed for Berenger down on the sidewalk and stood about half brutally curious and half genuinely moved. Someone had gone to find Louise Berenger and tell her that she was sadly needed.

And then came Hans Grimm. He came in haste with men about him and he dropped to his knees beside the form of Berenger.

“Are you Grimm?”

“Yes. Where's Melendez?”

“Up the valley. Men . . . ,” Berenger quietly whispered, and closed his eyes.

He had fainted away, but the wits of Hans Grimm were applied where the voice of Berenger had ended. He was told how this man had come to town, tied on the back of the mare that stood panting nearby. He recognized that horse as belonging to Melendez. He made up his own mind about the rest of it. Melendez had sent Berenger on ahead in this desperate plight; Melendez himself must be either dead or in sore straits somewhere in the rear. And Grimm's influence made itself felt. The men were suddenly ashamed of their treatment of Melendez; they were incensed by the suffering the old man had undergone.

A score of men tumbled into saddles and followed Hans Grimm as the gambler rushed up the valley. They were hardly clear of Slosson's Gulch when they could hear the dim crackling of rifles in the distance.

Like a good general, Hans Grimm headed for the point of heaviest firing, and so he turned up the valley of the creek with his men riding hard behind him, their guns ready. As they approached the narrows of the pass, they could see the flame spurting from the mouths of the guns.

It ended suddenly as they came near, and then, as they drew rein in the throat of the pass, they could hear the departing roar of hoofs up the valley.

At the angle between two stones they found Melendez, his rifle still at his shoulder and five bullets through his body. But there was still life in the body of Judge, found not a dozen paces away up the hillside.

They brought them both back to Slosson's Gulch and they brought, also, Bert and Jerry, who were found at the shack. The others of the party were gone, except for the unknown dead man who lay, facedown, in the trail. Him they buried beneath the neighboring rocks.

Then the citizens of Slosson's Gulch who were in the vigilance committee were given free rein to handle the prisoners. Judge and Bert and Jerry were driven out of town. Then the people of the gulch sat down to learn what was happening to the two men who lay in one room of the house of Hans Grimm, with Louise Berenger ministering to them.

For a week the doctor could not return a sure answer, but after that the reports were all favorable. As the doctor said, each of them had too much to live for to allow himself to die at this moment. As for Melendez, there was the girl waiting. As for Berenger, there was the mine that hired men were opening for him now—finding the vein widening and deepening every moment, pouring forth riches.

The most frequent visitor to the sick man was, of
course, Hans Grimm. And when the brain of Melendez had cleared, Grimm sat by his bed and asked one day:

“Can you see it now, partner? All adds up . . . fact to fact . . . and no chance in it at all. A man came out here to dig gold with a book, and no guns. Had to have a gunman to help. So his daughter goes out and collects the right fellow. Meaning you. Now what chance was there in all of that? Nothing but logic!”

“Hans,” the sick man said, grinning, “I'm tired of arguing. Besides, I can afford to change my mind.”

And he looked between him and the door, where Louise Berenger was waiting, and smiling patiently toward him.

Max Brand
^®
is the best-known pen name of Frederick Faust, creator of Dr. Kildare, Destry, and many other fictional characters popular with readers and viewers worldwide. Faust wrote for a variety of audiences in many genres. His enormous output, totaling approximately thirty million words or the equivalent of 530 ordinary books, covered nearly every field: crime, fantasy, historical romance, espionage, Westerns, science fiction, adventure, animal stories, love, war, and fashionable society, big business and big medicine. Eighty motion pictures have been based on his work along with many radio and television programs. For good measure he also published four volumes of poetry. Perhaps no other author has reached more people in more different ways.

Born in Seattle in 1892, orphaned early, Faust grew up in the rural San Joaquin Valley of California. At Berkeley he became a student rebel and one-man literary movement, contributing prodigiously to all campus publications. Denied a degree because of unconventional conduct, he embarked on a series of adventures culminating in New York City where, after a period of near starvation, he received simultaneous recognition as a serious poet and successful author of fiction. Later, he traveled widely, making
his home in New York, then in Florence, and finally in Los Angeles.

Once the United States entered the Second World War, Faust abandoned his lucrative writing career and his work as a screenwriter to serve as a war correspondent with the infantry in Italy, despite his fifty-one years and a bad heart. He was killed during a night attack on a hilltop village held by the German army. New books based on magazine serials or unpublished manuscripts or restored versions continue to appear so that, alive or dead, he has averaged a new book every four months for seventy-five years. Beyond this, some work by him is newly reprinted every week of every year in one or another format somewhere in the world. A great deal more about this author and his work can be found in
The Max Brand Companion
(Greenwood Press, 1997) edited by Jon Tuska and Vicki Piekarski.

Additional copyright information:

“The Adopted Son” by Max Brand first appeared in
All-Story Weekly
(10/27/17). Copyright © 1917 by The Frank A. Munsey Company, Copyright © renewed 1945 by Dorothy Faust. Copyright © 2005 by Golden West Literary Agency for restored material.

“Billy Angel, Trouble Lover” by George Owen Baxter first appeared in Street & Smith's
Western Story Magazine
(11/22/24). Copyright © 1924 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1952 by Dorothy Faust. Copyright © 2005 by Golden West Literary Agency for restored material. Acknowledgment is made to Condé Nast Publications, Inc., for their co-operation.

“Bad Man's Gulch” by George Owen Baxter first appeared in Street & Smith's
Western Story Magazine
(7/17/26). Copyright © 1926 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1954 by Dorothy Faust. Copyright © 2005 by Golden West Literary Agency for restored material. Acknowledgment is made to Condé Nast Publications, Inc., for their co-operation.