Bull Hunter - Max Brand
"Wait!" exclaimed Pete Reeve. "You walked?"
"Yep," he went on, heedless of the fact that Pete Reeve was peering
earnestly into the face of his companion, now puckered with the
earnest frown of thought. "I come down hoping to get you and kill you.
Besides, that wouldn't only pay back Uncle Bill. It would make him
think that I was a man. You see, Reeve, I ain't quick thinking, and I
ain't bright. I ain't got a quick tongue and sharp eyes, and they been
treating me like I was a kid all my life. So I got to do something. I
got to! I ain't got anything agin' you, but you just happen to be the
one that I got to fight. Stand over yonder by that stump. I'll stand
here, and we'll fight fair and square."
Pete Reeve obeyed, his movements slow, as if they were the result of
hypnotism. "Bull," he said rather faintly, looking at the towering
bulk of his opponent, "I dunno. Maybe I'm going nutty. But I figure
that you come down here to kill me for the sake of getting your uncle
to pat you on the back once or twice. And you find you can't get at me
because I'm in jail, so you work out a murder mystery to get me out,
and then you tackle me. You say you ain't very bright. I dunno. Maybe
you ain't bright, but you're mighty different!"
He paused and rubbed his forehead. "Son, I've seen pretty good men in
my day, but I ain't never seen one that I cotton to like I do to you.
You've saved my life. How can you figure on me going out and taking
yours, now?"
"You ain't going to, maybe," said Bull calmly. "Maybe I'll get to
you."
"Son," answered the other almost sadly, shaking his head, "when I'm
right, with a good, steady nerve, they ain't any man in the world that
can sling a gun with me. And tonight I'm right. If it comes to a
showdown--but are you pretty good with a gun yourself, Bull?"
"No," answered Bull frankly. "I ain't any good compared to an expert
like you. But I'm good enough to take a chance."
"Them sort of chances ain't taken twice, Bull!"
"You see," said Bull, "I'm going to make a rush as I pull the gun, and
if I get to you before I'm dead, well--all I ask is to lay my hands on
you, you see?"
The little man shuddered and blinked. "I see," he said, and swallowed
with difficulty. "But, in the name of reason, Bull, have sense! Lemme
talk! I'll tell you what that uncle of yours was--"
"Don't talk!" exclaimed Bull Hunter. "I sort of like you, partner, and
it sort of breaks me down to hear you talk. Don't talk, but listen.
The next time that frog croaks we go for our guns, eh? That frog off
in the marsh!"
He had hardly spoken before the ominous sound was heard, and Bull
reached for his gun. For all his bulk of hand and unwieldy arms, the
gun came smoothly, swiftly into his hand. He would have had an
ordinary man covered, long before the latter had his gun muzzle-clear
of the leather. But Pete Reeve was no ordinary man. His arm jerked
down; his fingers flickered down and up. They went down empty; they
came up with the burden of a long revolver, shining in the moonlight,
and he fired before Bull's gun came to the level for a shot.
Only Pete Reeve knew the marvel of his own shooting this day. He had
sworn a solemn and silent oath that he would not kill this faithful,
courageous fellow from the mountains. He could have planted a bullet
where the life lay, at any instant of the fight. But he fired for
another purpose. The moment Bull reached for his weapon he had lurched
forward, aiming to shoot as he ran. Pete Reeve set himself a double
goal. His first intention was to disarm the giant; the other was to
stop his rush. For, once within the grip of those big fingers, his
life would be squeezed out like the juice of an orange.
His task was doubly difficult in the moonlight. But the first shot
went home nicely, aimed as exactly as a scientist finds a spot with
his instruments. Where the moon's rays splashed across the bare right
forearm of Bull, he sent a bullet that slashed through the great
muscles. The revolver dropped from the nerveless hand of the giant,
but Bull never paused. On he came, empty-handed, but with power of
death, as the little man well knew, in the fingers of his extended
left hand. He came with a snarl, a savage intake of breath, as he felt
the hot slash of Pete's bullet. But Reeve, standing erect like some
duelist of old, his left hand tucked into the hollow of his back, took
the great gambling chance and refused to shoot to kill.
He placed his second shot more effectively, for this time he must stop
that tremendous body, advancing upon him. He found one critical spot.
Between the knee and the thigh, halfway up on the inside of the left
leg, he drove that second bullet with the precision of a surgeon. The
leg crumpled under Bull and sent him pitching forward on his face.
Perhaps the marsh ground was unstable, but it seemed to Pete Reeve
that the very earth quaked beneath his feet as the big man fell. He
swung his gun wide and leaned to see how serious was the damage he had
done. Bleeding would be the greater danger.
But that fraction of a second brought him into another peril. The
giant heaved up on his sound right leg and his sound left arm, and
flung himself forward, two limbs dangling uselessly. With a hideously
contorted face, Bull swung his left arm in a wide circle for a grip
and scooped in Pete Reeve, as the latter sprang back with a cry
of horror.
The action swept Pete in and crushed his gun hand and arm against the
body of his assailant, paralyzing his only power of attack or defense.
Reeve was carried down to the ground as if beneath the bulk of a
mountain. There was no question of sparing life now. Pete Reeve began
to fight for life. He wrestled at his gun to tug it free, but found it
anchored. He pulled the trigger, and the gun spoke loud and clear, but
the bullet plunged into empty space. Then he felt that left arm begin
to move, and the hand worked up behind his back like a great spider.
Higher it rose, and the huge, thick fingers reached up and around his
throat, fumbling to get at the windpipe. Pete Reeve made his last
effort; it was like striving to free himself from a ton's weight.
Hysteria of fear and horror seized him, and his voice gave utterance
to his terror. As he screamed, the big fingers joined around his
throat. Any further pressure would end him!
He looked up into the glaring eyes and the contorted face of the
giant; the rasping, panting breathing paralyzed his senses. There was
a slight inward contraction of the grip; then it ceased.
Miraculously he felt the great hand relax and fall away. The bulk was
heaved away from him, and staggering to his own feet, he saw Bull
Hunter supported against a tree, one leg useless, one arm streaming.
"I couldn't seem to do it," said Bull Hunter thickly. "I couldn't
noways seem to do it, Reeve. You see, I sort of like you, and I
couldn't kill you, Pete."
When Pete Reeve recovered from his astonishment he said, "You can do
more. You can go home and tell that infernal hound of an uncle of
yours that you had the life of Pete Reeve under your fingertips and
that you didn't take it. It's the second time I've owed my life, and
both times in one day, and both times to one man. You tell your
uncle that!"
The big man sagged still more against the tree. "I'll never go home,
Pete, unless ghosts walk; and I'll never tell Uncle Bill anything,
unless the ghosts talk. I'm dying pretty pronto, I think, Pete."
"Dyin'? You ain't hurt bad, Bull!"
"It's the bleeding; all the senses is running out of my head--like
water--and the moon--is turning black--and--" He slumped down at the
foot of the tree.
CHAPTER 10
When old Farmer Morton and his son came in their buckboard through the
marshes, they heard the screaming of Pete Reeve for help. Leaving
their team, they bolted across country to the open glade. There they
found Pete still shouting for help, kneeling above the body of a man,
and working desperately to arrange an effectual tourniquet. They ran
close and discovered the two men.
Old Morton knew enough rude surgery to stop the bleeding. It was he
who counted the pulse and listened to the heart. "Low," he said, "very
low--life is just flickerin', stranger."
"If they's as much light of life in him," said Pete Reeve, "as the
flicker of a candle, I'll fan it up till it's as big as a forest fire.
Man, he's got to live."
"H'm!" said Morton. "And how come the shooting?"
"Stop your fool questions," said Reeve. "Help me get him to town and
to a bed."
It was useless to attempt to carry that great, loose-limbed body. They
brought the buckboard perilously through the shrubbery and then
managed, with infinite labor, to lift Bull Hunter into it. With Pete
Reeve supporting the head of the wounded man and cautioning them to
drive gently, they managed the journey to the town as softly as
possible. At the hotel a strong-armed cortege bore Bull to a bed, and
they carried him reverently. Had his senses been with him he would
have wondered greatly; and had his uncle, or his uncle's sons, been
there, they would surely have laughed uproariously.
In the hotel room Pete Reeve took command at once. "He's too big to
die," he told the dubious doctor. "He's got to live. And the minute
you say he can't, out you go and another doc comes in. Now do
your work."
The doctor, haunted by the deep, fiery eyes of the gunfighter, stepped
into the room to minister to his patient. He had a vague feeling that,
if Bull Hunter died, Pete Reeve would blame him for lack of care. In
truth, Pete seemed ready to blame everyone. He threatened to destroy
the whole village if a dog was allowed to howl in the night, or if the
baby next door were permitted to cry in the day.
Silence settled over the little town--silence and the fear of Pete
Reeve. Pete himself never left the sickroom. Wide-eyed, silent-footed,
he was ever about. He seemed never to sleep, and the doctor swore that
the only reason Bull Hunter did not die was because death feared to
enter the room while the awful Reeve was there.
But the long hours of unconsciousness and delirium wore away. Then
came the critical period when a relapse was feared. Finally the time
came when it could be confidently stated that Bull was recovering his
health and his strength.
All this filled a matter of weeks. Bull was still unable to leave his
bed. He was dull and listless, bony of hand, and liable to sleep many
hours through the very heart of the day. At this point of his recovery
the door opened one day, and, in the warmth of the afternoon, a big
man came into the room, shutting the door softly behind him.
Bull turned his head slowly and then blinked, for it was the unshaven
face of his cousin, Harry Campbell, that he saw. With his eyes closed,
Bull wondered why that face was so distinctly unpleasant. When he
opened them again, Harry had drawn closer, his hat pushed on the back
of his head after the manner of a baffled man, and a faint smile
working at the corners of his lips. He took the limp hand of Bull in
his and squeezed it cautiously. Then he laid the hand back on the
sheet and grinned more confidently at Bull.
"Well, I'll be hanged, Bull, here you are as big as life, pretty near,
and you don't act like you knew me!"
"Sure I do. Sit down, Harry. What brung you all this ways?"
"Why, anxious to see how you was doing."
Again Bull blinked. Such anxiety from Harry was a mystery.
"They ain't talking about much else up our way," said Harry, "but how
you come across the mountains in the storm, and how big you are, and
how you got the sheriff, and how you rushed Pete Reeve bare-handed.
Sure is some story! All the way down I just had to say that I was Bull
Hunter's cousin to get free meals!" He licked his lips and grinned
again. "So I come down to see how you was."
"I'm doing tolerable fair," said Bull slowly, "and it was good of you
to come this long ways to ask that question. How's things to home?"
"Dad's bunged up for life; can't do nothing but cuss, but at that he
lays over anything you ever hear." Harry's eyes flicked nervously
about the room. "It was him that sent me down! Where's Reeve?"
This was in a whisper. Bull gestured toward the next room.
"Asleep? Can he hear if I talk?"
"Asleep," said Bull. "Been up with me two days. I took a bad turn a
while back. Pete's helping himself to a nap, and he needs one!"
"Now, listen!" said Harry. "Dad figured this out, and Dad's mostly
never wrong. He says, 'Reeve shot up Bull. Now he's hanging around
trying to make up by nursing Bull, according to reports, because he's
afraid of what Bull'll do when he gets back on his feet. But Bull
has got to know that, even when he's back on his feet, he can't beat
Reeve--not while Reeve can pull a gun. Nobody can beat that devil.
If he wants to beat Reeve, just take advantage of him while Reeve
ain't expecting anything--which means while Bull is sick.' Do you
get what Dad means?"
"Sort of," said Bull faintly. He shut out the eager, dirty, unshaven
face. "I'll just close my eyes against the light. I can hear you
pretty well. Go on."
"Here's the idea. Everybody knows you hate Reeve, and Reeve fears you.
Otherwise would he act like this, aside from being afraid of a
lynching, in case you should die? No, he wouldn't. Well, one of these
days you take this gun"--here Harry shoved one under the pillow of
Bull--"and call Pete Reeve over to you, and when he leans over your
bed, blow his brains out! That's easy, and it'll do what you'll want
to do someday. You hear? Then you can say that Reeve started
something--that you shot in self-defense. Everybody'll believe you,
and you'll get one big name for killing Reeve! You foller me?"
Bull opened his eyes, but they were squinting as though he was in the
severest pain. "Listen, Harry," he said at last. "I been thinking
things out. I owe a lot to your dad for taking me in and keeping me.
But all I owe him I can pay back in cash--someday. I don't owe him
no love. Not you, neither."
Harry had risen to his feet with a snarl.
"Sit down," said Bull, letting his great voice swell ever so little.
"I'm pretty near dead, but I'm still man enough to wring the neck of
a skunk! Sit down!"
Harry obeyed limply, and his giant cousin went on, his voice softening
again. "When you come in I closed my eyes," said Bull, "because it
seemed to me like you was a dream. I'd been awake. I'd been living
among men that sort of liked me and respected me and didn't laugh at
me. And then you come, and I saw your dirty face, and it made me think
of a bad nightmare I'd had when you and your brother and your dad
treated me worse'n a dog. Well, Harry, I'm through with that dream.
I'll never go back to it. I'm going to stay awake the rest of my life.
It was your dad that put the wish to kill Reeve into my head with his
talk. I met Reeve, and Reeve pumped some bullets with sense into me.
He let out some of my life, but he let in a lot of knowledge. Among
other things he showed me what a friend might be. He's stayed here and
nursed me and talked to me--like I was his equal, almost, instead of
being sort of simple, like I really am. And I've made up my mind that
I'm going to cut loose from remembering you folks in the mountains.
I ain't your kind. I don't want to be your kind. I want to fight,
like Pete Reeve. I don't want to murder like a Campbell! All the way
through, I want to be like Pete Reeve. He don't know it. Maybe when
I'm well he'll go off by himself. But whether he's near or far, I've
adopted him. I'm going to pattern after him, and the happiest day of
my life will be when I earn the right to have this man, that I tried
to kill, come and take my hand and call me 'friend'! I guess that
answers you, Harry. Now get out and take my talk back to your dad,
and don't trouble me no more--you spoil my sleep!"
As he spoke the door of the next room opened softly. Peter Reeve stood
at the entrance. Harry, shaking with fear, backed toward the other
door, then leaped far out, and whirled out of sight with a slam and
clatter of feet on the stairs. Pete Reeve came slowly to the bedside.
"I was awake, son," he said, "and I couldn't help hearing."
Bull flushed heavily.
"It's the best thing I ever heard," said Pete. "The best thing that's
ever come to my ears--partner!"
With that word their hands joined. In reality, far more than he
dreamed, Bull had been born again.
CHAPTER 11
When they were together, they made a study in contrasts. By seeing one
it was possible to imagine the other. For instance, seeing the high,
narrow forehead, peaked face, the gray-flecked hair of Pete Reeve, his
nervous step, his piercing and uneasy eyes--seeing this man with his
body from which all spare flesh was wasted so that he remained only
muscle and nerve, it was easy to conjure up the figure of Bull Hunter
by thinking of opposites.
Their very voices held a world of difference. The tone of Pete Reeve
was pitched a little high, hard, and somewhat nasal, and when he was
angry his words came shrill and ringing. The mere sound of his voice
was irritating--it put one on edge with expectancy of action. Whereas
the full, deep, slow, musical voice of Bull Hunter was a veritable
sleep producer. Men might fear Charlie Bull Hunter because of his
tremendous bulk; but children, hearing his voice, were unafraid.
The motions of Pete Reeve were as fast and as deft as the whiplash
striking of a snake. The motions of Bull Hunter were premeditated and
cautious, as befitting one whose hands might crush what they touched,
and whose footfall made a flooring groan.
He sat cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall. They had
moved a ponderous stool into the room so that Bull might have
something on which to sit, but long habit had made him uneasy in a
chair, and he kept to the floor by preference, with the great square
chin resting on his fist and his knee supporting his elbow. That
position pressed the forearm against the biceps and the big muscles
bulged out on either side, vast as the thigh of a strong man.
With lionlike wrinkles of attention between his eyes, he listened to
the exposition of the little man, and followed his movements with
patient submission--like a pupil to whom a great master has consented
to unfold the secrets of his brushwork; in such a manner did Bull
Hunter drink in the words and the acts of Pete Reeve. And, indeed,
where guns were the subject of conversation it would have been hard to
find a man more thoroughly equipped to pose as an expert than Pete
Reeve. That fleshless hand, all speed of motion as it whipped out the
gun from the nerve and sinew, became an incredible ghost with the
holster and the long, heavy Colt danced and flashed at his fingertips
as though it were a gilded shadow.
As he worked he talked, and as he talked he strode constantly back and
forth through the room with his light-falling, mincing steps. He grew
excited. He flushed. There came a thrill and a ring and a deepening of
the voice. For the master was indeed talking of the secrets of
his craft.
A thousand men of the mountains and the cattle ranges, men who, for
personal pride or for physical need, studied accuracy and speed in
gunplay, would have paid untold prices to learn these secrets from the
lips of the little man. To Bull Hunter the mysteries were revealed for
nothing, freely, and drilled and drummed into him through the weeks of
his convalescence; and still the lessons continued now that he was
hale and hearty once more--as the clean-swept platters from which he
ate three times a day gave evidence.
"I've practiced, you admit," said Bull in his slow voice, as Pete
Reeve came to a pause. "But I haven't got your way with a gun, Pete.
You've got a genius for it. I don't blame you for laughing at me when
I try to get out my gun fast. I can shoot straight. That's because I
haven't any nerves, as you say, but I'll never be able to get out a
gun as fast as a thought--the way you do. Fact is, Pete, I don't think
fast, you know."
"Shut up!" exploded Pete Reeve, who had been inwardly chafing with
impatience during the whole length of this speech. "Sometimes you talk
like a fool, Bull, and this is one time!"
Bull shook his head. "My arms are too big," he said sadly. "The muscle
gets in my way. I can feel it bind when I try to jerk out the gun
fast. Better give up the job, Pete. I sure appreciate all the pains
you've taken with me--but I'll never be a gunfighter."
Pete Reeve shook his head with a sigh and then dropped into a chair,
growing suddenly inert.
"No use," he groaned. "All because you ain't got any confidence,
Bull." He leaned forward in his sudden way. "Know something? I been
keeping it back, but now I'll tell you the straight of it. You're
faster with a gun right now than four men out of five!"
Bull gaped in amazement.
"Fact!" cried Reeve. "You get it out slicker than most; and after it's
out, you shoot as straight as any man I've ever seen. Trouble is, you
don't appreciate yourself. You've had it drilled into you so long that
you're stupid that now you believe it. All nonsense! You got more than
a million have and you're fast right now on the draw. Once get hold of
how important it is, and you'll keep trying. But you think it's only a
game. You just play at it; you don't work! I wish you could have seen
me when I was first practicing with a gun! I lived with it. Hours
every day it was my companion, and right up to now, there ain't a day
goes by that I don't spend some time keeping on edge with my revolver.
Bull, you'll have to do the same thing. You hear?"
He sprang up again. It was impossible for him to remain seated a long
time.
"You think it don't mean much. Look here!"
The Colt flicked into his hand and lay trembling in his palm, and as
he talked, it shifted smoothly, as if of its own volition, forward
toward his fingertips, backward, to the side, dropping out until it
seemed about to fall, only to be caught with one finger through the
trigger-guard and spun up again. Always the heavy weapon was in motion
as though some of the nervous spirit of Reeve had entered the heavy
metal. It responded to his thoughts rather than to his muscles. Bull
Hunter gazed enchanted. He was accustomed to forgetting himself and
admiring others.
"Look here!" went on the little man. "Look at me. I weigh about a
hundred and twenty. I'm skinny. I'm a runt. And look at you. You
weigh--heaven knows what! No fat, but all muscle from your head to
your feet. You're the strongest man that I've ever seen. Take me, I'm
not a coward; but you, Bull, you don't know what fear means. Well,
there you are, without fear, and stronger than three strong men.
You're pretty fast with a gun, and you shoot straight as a hawk looks.
And still, if we stood face to face and went for our guns, I'd live;
and you with your muscle would be dead, Bull."
"I know," Bull nodded.
"That's what this gun means," cried Pete. "This gun, and the fact that
I can get it out of the leather faster'n you do. Not very much faster.
But by just as much quicker as it takes for an eyelid to wink. That
ain't much time, but it's enough time to mean life or death! That's
all! I'm not the only man that's faster'n you are. They's others. I've
never been beat to the draw, but they's some that's shot so close to
me that it sounded like one gun going off--with a sort of a stammer.
And any one of those men would of shot you dead, Bull, if you'd fought
'em. Now, knowing that, tell me, are you going to keep practicing?"
"I'll keep tryin', Pete. But I'll never get much faster. You see, my
arm--it's too big, too heavy. It gets in my way, handling a little
thing like a revolver!"
Pete spun the big Colt and shoved it back into the holster so
incredibly fast that the steel hissed against the leather.
"There you go running yourself down," he muttered.
He began to pace the room again, biting his nether lip, and now and
then shooting side glances at Bull, glances partly guilty and partly
scornful. Presently he came to a halt. He had also come to a new
resolution, one that cost him so much that beads of perspiration
came out on his forehead.
"Bull," he said gravely, "I'm going to tell you the secret."
"You've told me a dozen already," Bull sighed. "You've taught me how
to swing the muzzle up, and not too far up, and how to lean back
instead of forward, and how to harden the arm muscles just as I pull
the trigger, and how to squeeze with the whole hand and keep my wrist
stiff, and how--"
"None of them things counts," said Pete gravely, almost sadly,
"compared to what I'm going to tell you. Stand up!"
It was plain that he was going to give something from the depths of
his mind. The cost and importance of it made his eyes like steel and
drew his mouth to a thin, straight line.
Bull Hunter arose; and as the great body unfolded and the legs
straightened, it seemed that he would never reach his full height.
At length he stood, enormous, wide, towering. He was not a freak,
but simply a perfectly proportioned man increased to a huge scale.
Pete Reeve canted his head back and looked into the face of the giant.
There was a momentary affectionate appreciation in his eye. Then he
hardened his expression.