Max Brand (16 page)

"All at once my knees gave way, and I began to weep on the window sill.
I heard voices coming, and I knew that I mustn't let them see me with
the tears running down my face. But the tears wouldn't stop coming.

"I ran to the door and locked it. Then someone tried to open the door,
and I heard the voice of my Aunt Jane calling. I gathered all my nerve
and made my voice steady. I told her that I couldn't let anyone in,
that I was preparing a surprise for them.

"'Are you happy, dear?' asked Aunt Jane.

"I made myself laugh. 'So happy!' I called back to her.

"Then they went away. But as soon as they were gone I knew that I could
never go out and meet them. Partly because I had no surprise for them,
partly because I didn't want them to see the tear stains and my red
eyes. Somehow little silly things were as big and as important as the
main thing—that I could never be the real wife of Jude Cartwright. Can
you understand?"

"Jig, once when I had a deer under my trigger I let him go because he
had a funny-shaped horn. Sure, it's the little things that run a gent's
life. Go on!"

"I knew that I had to escape. But how could I escape in a place where
everybody knew me? First I thought of changing my clothes. Then another
thing—man's clothes! The moment that idea came, I was sure it was the
thing. I opened the door very softly. There was no one upstairs just
then. I ran into my cousin's room—he's a youngster of fifteen—and
snatched the first boots and clothes that I could find and rushed back
to my own room.

"I jumped into them, hardly knowing what I was doing. For they were
beginning to call to me from downstairs. I opened the door and called
back to them, and I heard Jude Cartwright answer in a big voice.

"I turned around and saw myself in the mirror in boy's clothes, with my
face as white as a sheet, my eyes staring, my hair pouring down over my
shoulders. I ran to the bureau and found a scissors. Then I hesitated a
moment. You don't dream how hard it was to do. My hair was long, you
see, below my waist. And I had always been proud of it.

"But I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and cut it off with great
slashes, close to my head. Then I stood with all that mass of hair
shining in my hand and a queer, light feeling in my head.

"But I felt that I was free. I clamped on my cousin's hat—how queer it
felt with all that hair cut off! I bundled the hair into my pocket,
because they mustn't dream what I had done. Then someone beat on the
door.

"'Coming!' I called to them.

"I ran to the window. The house was built on a slope, and it was not a
very long drop to the ground, I suppose. But to me it seemed
neck-breaking, that distance. It was dark, and I climbed out and hung
by my hands, but I couldn't find courage to let go. Then I tried to
climb back, but there wasn't any strength in my arms.

"I cried out for help, but the singing downstairs must have muffled the
sound. My fingers grew numb—they slipped on the sill—and then I fell.

"The fall stunned me, I guess, for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I
saw the stars and knew that I was free. I started up then and struck
straight across country. At first I didn't care where I went, so long
as it was away, but when I got over the first hill I made up a plan.
That was to go for the railroad and take a train. I did it.

"There was a long walk ahead of me before I reached the station, and
with my cousin's big boots wobbling on my feet I was very tired when I
reached it. There were some freight cars on the siding, and there was
hay on the floor of one of them. I crawled into the open door and went
to sleep.

"After a while I woke up with a great jarring and jolting and noise. I
found the car pitch dark. The door was closed, and pretty soon, by the
roar of the wheels under me and the swing of the floor of the car, I
knew that an engine had picked up the empty cars.

"It was a terrible time for me. I had heard stories of tramps locked
into cars and starving there before the door was opened. Before the
morning shone through the cracks of the boards, I went through all the
pain of a death from thirst. But before noon the train stopped, and the
car was dropped at a siding. I climbed out when they opened the door.

"The man who saw me only laughed. I suppose he could have arrested me.

"'All right, kid, but you're hitting the road early in life, eh!'

"Those were the first words that were spoken to me as a man.

"I didn't know where I should go, but the train had taken me south, and
that made me remember a town where my father had lived for a long
time—Sour Creek. I started to get to this place.

"The hardest thing I had to do was the very first thing, and that was
to take my ragged head of hair into a barber shop and get it trimmed. I
was sure that the barber would know I was a girl, but he didn't
suspect.

"'Been a long time in the wilds, youngster, eh?' was all he said.

"And then I knew that I was safe, because people here in the West are
not suspicious. They let a stranger go with one look. By the time I
reached Sour Creek I was nearly over being ashamed of my clothes. And
then I found this place and work as a schoolteacher. I think you know
the rest." She leaned close to Sinclair. "Was I wrong to leave him?"

Sinclair rubbed his chin. "You'd ought to have told him straight off,"
he said firmly. "But seeing you went through with the wedding—well,
take it all in all, your leaving of him was about the rightest thing I
ever heard of."

Quiet fell between them.

"But what am I going to do? And where is it all going to end?" a small
voice inquired of Sinclair at last.

"Roll up in them blankets and go to sleep," he advised her curtly. "I'm
figuring steady on this here thing, Jig."

Jig followed that advice. Sinclair had left the fire and was walking up
and down from one end of the little plateau to the other, with a
strong, long step. As for the girl, she felt that an incalculable
burden had been shifted from her shoulders by the telling of this tale.
That burden, she knew, must have fallen on another person, and it was
not unpleasant to know that Riley Sinclair was the man.

Gradually the sense of strangeness faded. As she grew drowsy, it seemed
the most natural thing in the world for her to be up here at the top of
the world with a man she had; known two days. And, before she slept,
the last thing of which she was conscious was the head of Sinclair in
the broad sombrero, brushing to and fro across the stars.

With a bang the screen door of Sheriff Kern's office had creaked open
and shut four times at intervals, and each man, entering in turn with a
"Howdy" to the sheriff, had stamped the dust out of the wrinkles of his
riding boots, hitched up his trousers carefully, and slumped into a
chair. Not until the last of his handpicked posse had taken his place
did the sheriff begin his speech.

"Gents," he said, "how long have I been a sheriff?"

"Eighteen to twenty years," said Bill Wood. "And it's been twenty years
of bad times for the safecrackers and gunmen of these parts."

"Thanks," said the sheriff hastily. "And how many that I've once put my
hands on have got loose?"

Again Bill Wood answered, being the senior member.

"None. Your score is exactly one hundred percent, sheriff."

Kern sighed. "Gents," he said, "the average is plumb spoiled."

It caused a general lifting of heads and then a respectful silence. To
have offered sympathy would have been insulting; to ask questions was
beneath their dignity, but four pairs of eyes burned with curiosity.
The least curious was Arizona. He was a fat, oily man from the
southland, whose past was unknown in the vicinity of Woodville, and
Arizona happened to be by no means desirous of rescuing that past from
oblivion. He held the southlander's contempt for the men and ways of
the north. His presence in the office was explained by the fact that he
had long before discovered it to be an excellent thing to stand in with
the sheriff. After this statement from Kern, therefore, he first
glanced at his three companions, and, observing their agitation, he
became somewhat stirred himself and puckered his fat brows above his
eyes, as he glanced back at Kern.

"You've heard of the killing of Quade?" asked the sheriff.

"Yesterday," said Red Chalmers.

"And that they got the killer?"

"Nope."

"It was a gent you'd never have suspected—that skinny little
schoolteacher, Gaspar."

"I never liked the looks of him," said Red Chalmers gloomily. "I always
got to have a second thought about a gent that's too smooth with the
ladies. And that was this here Jig. So he done the shooting?"

"It was a fight over Sally Bent," explained the sheriff. "Sandersen and
some of the rest in Sour Creek fixed up a posse and went out and
grabbed Gaspar. They gave him a lynch trial and was about to string him
up when a stranger named Sinclair, a man who had joined up with the
posse, steps out and holds for keeping Gaspar and turning him over to
me, to be hung all proper and legal. I heard about all this and went
out to the Bent house, first thing this morning, to get Gaspar, who was
left there in charge of this Sinclair. Any of you ever heard about
him?"

A general bowing of heads followed, as the men began to consider, all
save Arizona, who never thought when he could avoid it, and positively
never used his memory. He habitually allowed the dead past to bury its
dead.

"It appears to me like I've heard of a Sinclair up to Colma," murmured
Bill Wood. "That was four or five years back, and I b'lieve he was
called a sure man in a fight."

"That's him," muttered the sheriff. He was greatly relieved to know
that his antagonist had already achieved so comfortable a reputation.
"A big, lean, hungry-eyed gent, with a restless pair of hands. He come
along with me while I was bringing Gaspar, but I didn't think nothing
about it, most nacheral. I leave it to you, boys!"

Settling themselves they leaned forward in their chairs.

"We was talking about hosses and suchlike, which Sinclair talked
uncommon slick. He seemed a knowing gent, and I opened up to him, but
in the middle of things he paws out his Colt, as smooth as you ever
see, and he shoves it under my nose."

Sheriff Kern paused. He was wearing gloves in spite of the fact that he
was in his office. These gloves seem to have a peculiarly businesslike
meaning for the others, and now they watched, fascinated, while the
sheriff tugged his fingers deeper into the gloves, as if he were
getting ready for action. He cleared his throat and managed to snap out
the rest of the shameful statement.

"He stuck me up, boys, and he told Jig to beat it up the trail. Then he
backed off, keeping me covered all the time, until he was around the
hill. The minute he was out of sight I follered him, but when it come
into view, him and Gaspar was high-tailing through the hills. I didn't
have no rifle, and it was plumb foolish to chase two killers with
nothing but a Colt. Which I leave it to you gents!"

"Would have been crazy, sheriff," asserted Red Chalmers.

"I dunno," sighed Arizona, patting his fat stomach reminiscently. "I
dunno. I guess you was right, Kern."

The others glared at him, and the sheriff became purple.

"So I come back and figured that I'd best get together the handiest
little bunch of fighting men I could lay hands on. That's why I sent
for you four."

Clumsily they made their acknowledgements.

"Because," said Kern, "it don't take no senator to see that something
has got to be done. Sour Creek is after Gaspar, and now it'll be after
Sinclair, too. But they got clear of me, and I'm the sheriff of
Woodville. It's up to Woodville to get 'em back. Am I right?"

Again they nodded, and the sheriff, growing warmer as he talked,
snatched off a glove and mopped his forehead. As his arm fell, he noted
that Arizona had seen something which fascinated him. His eyes followed
every gesture of the sheriff's hand.

"Is that the whole story?" asked Arizona.

"The whole thing," declared Kern stoutly, and he glared at the man from
the southland.

"Because if it's anything worse," said Arizona innocently, "we'd ought
to know it. The honor of Woodville is at stake."

"Oh, it's bad enough this way," grumbled Joe Stockton, and the sheriff,
hastily restoring his glove, grunted assent.

"Now, boys, let's hear some plans."

"First thing," said Red Chalmers, rising, "is for each of us to pick
out the best hoss in his string, and then we'll all ride over to the
place where they left and pick up the trail."

"Not a bad idea," approved Kern.

There was a general rising.

"Sit down," said Arizona, who alone had not budged in his chair.

Without obeying, they turned to him.

"Was that the Morris trail, Kern?" asked Arizona.

"Sure."

"Well, you ain't got a chance of picking up the trail of two hosses out
of two hundred."

In silence they received the truth of this assertion. Then Joe Stockton
spoke. He was not exactly a troublemaker, but he took advantage of
every disturbance that came his way and improved it to the last
scruple.

"Sinclair comes from Colma, according to Bill, and Colma is north. Ride
north, Kern, and the north trail will keep us tolerable close to
Sinclair. We can tend to Gaspar later on—unless he's a pile more
dangerous'n he looks."

"Yes, Sinclair is the main one," said the sheriff. "He's more'n a
hundred Gaspars. Boys, the north trail looks good to me. We can pick up
Gaspar later on, as Joe Stockton says. Straight for Colma, that's where
we'll strike."

"Hold on," cut in Arizona.

Patently they regarded him with disfavor. There was something blandly
superior in Arizona's demeanor. He had a way of putting forth his
opinions as though it were not the slightest effort for him to
penetrate truths which were securely veiled from the eyes of ordinary
men.