The Rangeland Avenger - Max Brand
THE RANGELAND AVENGER
BY MAX BRAND
Originally published in 1922 in _Western Story Magazine_ under the
title of THREE WHO PAID, written under the pseudonym of George Owen
Baxter, and subsequently in book form under the title THE RANGELAND
AVENGER in 1924.
1
Of the four men, Hal Sinclair was the vital spirit. In the actual labor
of mining, the mighty arms and tireless back Of Quade had been a
treasure. For knowledge of camping, hunting, cooking, and all the lore
of the trail, Lowrie stood as a valuable resource; and Sandersen was
the dreamy, resolute spirit, who had hoped for gold in those mountains
until he came to believe his hope. He had gathered these three
stalwarts to help him to his purpose, and if he lived he would lead yet
others to failure.
Hope never died in this tall, gaunt man, with a pale-blue eye the color
of the horizon dusted with the first morning mist. He was the very
spirit of lost causes, full of apprehensions, foreboding,
superstitions. A hunch might make him journey five hundred miles; a
snort of his horse could make him give up the trail and turn back.
But Hal Sinclair was the antidote for Sandersen. He was still a boy at
thirty--big, handsome, thoughtless, with a heart as clean as new snow.
His throat was so parched by that day's ride that he dared not open his
lips to sing, as he usually did. He compromised by humming songs new
and old, and when his companions cursed his noise, he contented himself
with talking softly to his horse, amply rewarded when the pony
occasionally lifted a tired ear to the familiar voice.
Failure and fear were the blight on the spirit of the rest. They had
found no gold worth looking at twice, and, lingering too long in the
search, they had rashly turned back on a shortcut across the desert.
Two days before, the blow had fallen. They found Sawyer's water hole
nearly dry, just a little pool in the center, with caked, dead mud all
around it. They drained that water dry and struck on. Since then the
water famine had gained a hold on them; another water hole had not a
drop in it. Now they could only aim at the cool, blue mockery of the
mountains before them, praying that the ponies would last to the
foothills.
Still Hal Sinclair could sing softly to his horse and to himself; and,
though his companions cursed his singing, they blessed him for it in
their hearts. Otherwise the white, listening silence of the desert
would have crushed them; otherwise the lure of the mountains would have
maddened them and made them push on until the horses would have died
within five miles of the labor; otherwise the pain in their slowly
swelling throats would have taken their reason. For thirst in the
desert carries the pangs of several deaths--death from fire,
suffocation, and insanity.
No wonder the three scowled at Hal Sinclair when he drew his revolver.
"My horse is gun-shy," he said, "but I'll bet the rest of you I can
drill a horn off that skull before you do."
Of course it was a foolish challenge. Lowrie was the gun expert of the
party. Indeed he had reached that dangerous point of efficiency with
firearms where a man is apt to reach for his gun to decide an argument.
Now Lowrie followed the direction of Sinclair's gesture. It was the
skull of a steer, with enormous branching horns. The rest of the
skeleton was sinking into the sands.
"Don't talk fool talk," said Lowrie. "Save your wind and your
ammunition. You may need 'em for yourself, son!"
That grim suggestion made Sandersen and Quade shudder. But a grin
spread on the broad, ugly face of Lowrie, and Sinclair merely shrugged
his shoulders.
"I'll try you for a dollar."
"Nope."
"Five dollars?"
"Nope."
"You're afraid to try, Lowrie!"
It was a smiling challenge, but Lowrie flushed. He had a childish pride
in his skill with weapons.
"All right, kid. Get ready!"
He brought a Colt smoothly into his hand and balanced it dexterously,
swinging it back and forth between his eyes and the target to make
ready for a snap shot.
"Ready!" cried Hal Sinclair excitedly.
Lowrie's gun spoke first, and it was the only one that was fired, for
Sinclair's horse was gun-shy indeed. At the explosion he pitched
straight into the air with a squeal of mustang fright and came down
bucking. The others forgot to look for the results of Lowrie's shot.
They reined their horses away from the pitching broncho disgustedly.
Sinclair was a fool to use up the last of his mustang's strength in
this manner. But Hal Sinclair had forgotten the journey ahead. He was
rioting in the new excitement cheering the broncho to new exertions.
And it was in the midst of that flurry of action that the great blow
fell. The horse stuck his right forefoot into a hole.
To the eyes of the others it seemed to happen slowly. The mustang was
halted in the midst of a leap, tugged at a leg that seemed glued to the
ground, and then buckled suddenly and collapsed on one side. They heard
that awful, muffled sound of splintering bone and then the scream of
the tortured horse.
But they gave no heed to that. Hal Sinclair in the fall had been pinned
beneath his mount. The huge strength of Quade sufficed to budge the
writhing mustang. Lowrie and Sandersen drew Sinclair's pinioned right
leg clear and stretched him on the sand.
It was Lowrie who shot the horse.
"You've done a brown turn," said Sandersen fiercely to the prostrate
figure of Sinclair. "Four men and three hosses. A fine partner you are,
Sinclair!"
"Shut up," said Hal. "Do something for that foot of mine."
Lowrie cut the boot away dexterously and turned out the foot. It was
painfully twisted to one side and lay limp on the sand.
"Do something!" said Sinclair, groaning.
The three looked at him, at the dead horse, at the white-hot desert, at
the distant, blue mountains.
"What the devil can we do? You've spoiled all our chances, Sinclair."
"Ride on then and forget me! But tie up that foot before you go. I
can't stand it!"
Silently, with ugly looks, they obeyed. Secretly every one of the three
was saying to himself that this folly of Sinclair's had ruined all
their chances of getting free from the sands alive. They looked across
at the skull of the steer. It was still there, very close. It seemed to
have grown larger, with a horrible significance. And each instinctively
put a man's skull beside it, bleached and white, with shadow eyes.
Quade did the actual bandaging of Sinclair's foot, drawing tight above
the ankle, so that some of the circulation was shut off; but it eased
the pain, and now Sinclair sat up.
"I'm sorry," he said, "mighty sorry, boys!"
There was no answer. He saw by their lowered eyes that they were hating
him. He felt it in the savage grip of their hands, as they lifted him
and put him into Quade's saddle. Quade was the largest, and it was
mutely accepted that he should be the first to walk, while Sinclair
rode. It was accepted by all except Quade, that is to say. That big man
strode beside his horse, lifting his eyes now and then to glare
remorselessly at Sinclair.
It was bitter work walking through that sand. The heel crunched into
it, throwing a strain heavily on the back of the thigh, and then the
ball of the foot slipped back in the midst of a stride. Also the labor
raised the temperature of the body incredibly. With no wind stirring it
was suffocating.
And the day was barely beginning!
Barely two hours before the sun had been merely a red ball on the edge
of the desert. Now it was low in the sky, but bitterly hot. And their
mournful glances presaged the horror that was coming in the middle of
the day.
Deadly silence fell on that group. They took their turns by the watch,
half an hour at a time, walking and then changing horses, and, as each
man took his turn on foot, he cast one long glance of hatred at
Sinclair.
He was beginning to know them for the first time. They were chance
acquaintances. The whole trip had been undertaken by him on the spur of
the moment; and, as far as lay in his cheery, thoughtless nature, he
had come to regret it. The work of the trail had taught him that he was
mismated in this company, and the first stern test was stripping the
masks from them. He saw three ugly natures, three small, cruel souls.
It came Sandersen's turn to walk.
"Maybe I could take a turn walking," suggested Sinclair.
It was the first time in his life that he had had to shift any burden
onto the shoulders of another except his brother, and that was
different. Ah, how different! He sent up one brief prayer for Riley
Sinclair. There was a man who would have walked all day that his
brother might ride, and at the end of the day that man of iron would be
as fresh as those who had ridden. Moreover, there would have been no
questions, no spite, but a free giving. Mutely he swore that he would
hereafter judge all men by the stern and honorable spirit of Riley.
And then that sad offer: "Maybe I could take a turn walking, Sandersen.
I could hold on to a stirrup and hop along some way!"
Lowrie and Quade sneered, and Sandersen retorted fiercely: "Shut up!
You know it ain't possible, but I ought to call your bluff."
He had no answer, for it was not possible. The twisted foot was a
steady torture.
In another half hour he asked for water, as they paused for Sandersen
to mount, and Lowrie to take his turn on foot. Sandersen snatched the
canteen which Quade reluctantly passed to the injured man.
"Look here!" said Sandersen. "We got to split up on this. You sit there
and ride and take it easy. Me and the rest has to go through hell. You
take some of the hell yourself. You ride, but we'll have the water, and
they ain't much of it left at that!"
Sinclair glanced helplessly at the others. Their faces were set in
stern agreement.
Slowly the sun crawled up to the center of the sky and stuck there for
endless hours, it seemed, pouring down a fiercer heat. And the
foothills still wavered in blue outlines that meant distance--terrible
distance.
Out of the east came a cloud of dust. The restless eye of Sandersen saw
it first, and a harsh shout of joy came from the others. Quade was
walking. He lifted his arms to the cloud of dust as if it were a vision
of mercy. To Hal Sinclair it seemed that cold water was already running
over his tongue and over the hot torment of his foot. But, after that
first cry of hoarse joy, a silence was on the others, and gradually he
saw a shadow gather.
"It ain't wagons," said Lowrie bitterly at length. "And it ain't
riders; it comes too fast for that. And it ain't the wind; it comes too
slow. But it ain't men. You can lay to that!"
Still they hoped against hope until the growing cloud parted and lifted
enough for them to see a band of wild horses sweeping along at a steady
lope. They sighted the men and veered swiftly to the left. A moment
later there was only a thin trail of flying dust before the four. Three
pairs of eyes turned on Sinclair and silently cursed him as if this
were his fault.
"Those horses are aiming at water," he said. "Can't we follow 'em?"
"They're aiming for a hole fifty miles away. No, we can't follow 'em!"
They started on again, and now, after that cruel moment of hope, it was
redoubled labor. Quade was cursing thickly with every other step. When
it came his turn to ride he drew Lowrie to one side, and they conversed
long together, with side glances at Sinclair.
Vaguely he guessed the trend of their conversation, and vaguely he
suspected their treacherous meanness. Yet he dared not speak, even had
his pride permitted.
It was the same story over again when Lowrie walked. Quade rode aside
with Sandersen, and again, with the wolfish side glances, they eyed the
injured man, while they talked. At the next halt they faced him.
Sandersen was the spokesman.
"We've about made up our minds, Hal," he said deliberately, "that you
got to be dropped behind for a time. We're going on to find water. When
we find it we'll come back and get you. Understand?"
Sinclair moistened his lips, but said nothing.
Then Sandersen's voice grew screechy with sudden passion. "Say, do you
want three men to die for one? Besides, what good could we do?"
"You don't mean it," declared Sinclair. "Sandersen, you don't mean it!
Not alone out here! You boys can't leave me out here stranded. Might as
well shoot me!"
All were silent. Sandersen looked to Lowrie, and the latter stared at
the sand. It was Quade who acted.
Stepping to the side of Sinclair he lifted him easily in his powerful
arms and lowered him to the sands. "Now, keep your nerve," he advised.
"We're coming back."
He stumbled a little over the words. "It's all of us or none of us," he
said. "Come on, boys. _My_ conscience is clear!"
They turned their horses hastily to the hills, and, when the voice of
Sinclair rang after them, not one dared turn his head.
"Partners, for the sake of all the work we've done together--don't do
this!"
In a shuddering unison they spurred their horses and raised the weary
brutes into a gallop; the voice faded into a wail behind them. And
still they did not look back.
For that matter they dared not look at one another, but pressed on,
their eyes riveted to the hills. Once Lowrie turned his head to mark
the position of the sun. Once Sandersen, in the grip of some passion of
remorse or of fear of death, bowed his head with a strange moan. But,
aside from that, there was no sound or sign between them until, hardly
an hour and a half after leaving Sinclair, they found water.
At first they thought it was a mirage. They turned away from it by
mutual assent. But the horses had scented drink, and they became
unmanageable. Five minutes later the animals were up to their knees in
the muddy water, and the men were floundering breast deep, drinking,
drinking, drinking.
After that they sat about the brink staring at one another in a stunned
fashion. There seemed no joy in that delivery, for some reason.
"I guess Sinclair will be a pretty happy gent when he sees us coming
back," said Sandersen, smiling faintly.
There was no response from the others for a moment. Then they began to
justify themselves hotly.
"It was your idea, Quade."
"Why, curse your soul, weren't you glad to take the idea? Are you going
to blame it on to me?"
"What's the blame?" asked Lowrie. "Ain't we going to bring him water?"
"Suppose he ever tells we left him? We'd have to leave these parts
pronto!"
"He'll never tell. We'll swear him."
"If he does talk, I'll stop him pretty sudden," said Lowrie, tapping
his holster significantly.
"Will you? What if he puts that brother of his on your trail?"
Lowrie swallowed hard. "Well--" he began, but said no more.
They mounted in a new silence and took the back trail slowly. Not until
the evening began to fall did they hurry, for fear the darkness would
make them lose the position of their comrade. When they were quite near
the place, the semidarkness had come, and Quade began to shout in his
tremendous voice. Then they would listen, and sometimes they heard an
echo, or a voice like an echo, always at a great distance.
"Maybe he's started crawling and gone the wrong way. He should have sat
still," said Lowrie, "because--"
"Oh, Lord," broke in Sandersen, "I knew it! I been seeing it all the
way!" He pointed to a figure of a man lying on his back in the sand,
with his arms thrown out crosswise. They dismounted and found Hal
Sinclair dead and cold. Perhaps the insanity of thirst had taken him;
perhaps he had figured it out methodically that it was better to end
things before the madness came. There was a certain stern repose about
his face that favored this supposition. He seemed much older. But,
whatever the reason, Hal Sinclair had shot himself cleanly through the
head.
"You see that face?" asked Lowrie with curious quiet. "Take a good
look. You'll see it ag'in."
A superstitious horror seized on Sandersen. "What d'you mean, Lowrie?
What d'you mean?"
"I mean this! The way he looks now he's a ringer for Riley Sinclair.
And, you mark me, we're all going to see Riley Sinclair, face to face,
before we die!"
"He'll never know," said Quade, the stolid. "Who knows except us? And
will one of us ever talk?" He laughed at the idea.
"I dunno," whispered Sandersen. "I dunno, gents. But we done an awful
thing, and we're going to pay--we're going to pay!"
2
Their trails divided after that. Sandersen and Quade started back for
Sour Creek. At the parting of the ways Lowrie's last word was for
Sandersen.
"You started this party, Sandersen. If they's any hell coming out of
it, it'll fall chiefly on you. Remember, because I got one of your own
hunches!"
After that Lowrie headed straight across the mountains, traveling as
much by instinct as by landmarks. He was one of those men who are born
to the trail. He stopped in at Four Pines, and there he told the story
on which he and Sandersen and Quade had agreed. Four Pines would spread
that tale by telegraph, and Riley Sinclair would be advised beforehand.
Lowrie had no desire to tell the gunfighter in person of the passing of
Hal Sinclair. Certainly he would not be the first man to tell the
story.
He reached Colma late in the afternoon, and a group instantly formed
around him on the veranda of the old hotel. Four Pines had indeed
spread the story, and the crowd wanted verification. He replied as
smoothly as he could. Hal Sinclair had broken his leg in a fall from
his horse, and they had bound it up as well as they could. They had
tied him on his horse, but he could not endure the pain of travel. They
stopped, nearly dying from thirst. Mortification set in. Hal Sinclair
died in forty-eight hours after the halt.
Four Pines had accepted the tale. There had been more deadly stories
than this connected with the desert. But Pop Hansen, the proprietor,
drew Lowrie to one side.
"Keep out of Riley's way for a while. He's all het up. He was fond of
Hal, you know, and he takes this bad. Got an ugly way of asking
questions, and--"
"The truth is the truth," protested Lowrie. "Besides--"
"I know--I know. But jest make yourself scarce for a couple of days."
"I'll keep on going, Pop. Thanks!"
"Never mind, ain't no hurry. Riley's out of town and won't be back for
a day or so. But, speaking personal, I'd rather step into a nest of
rattlers than talk to Riley, the way he's feeling now."
Lowrie climbed slowly up the stairs to his room, thinking very hard. He
knew the repute of Riley Sinclair, and he knew the man to be even worse
than reputation, one of those stern souls who exact an eye for an
eye--and even a little more.
Once in his room he threw himself on his bed. After all there was no
need for a panic. No one would ever learn the truth. To make surety
doubly sure he would start early in the dawn and strike out for far
trails. The thought had hardly come to him when he dismissed it. A
flight would call down suspicion on him, and Riley Sinclair would be
the first to suspect. In that case distance would not save him, not
from that hard and tireless rider.
To help compose his thoughts he went to the washstand and bathed his
hot face. He was drying himself when there was a tap on the door.
"Can I come in?" asked a shrill voice.
He answered in the affirmative, and a youngster stepped into the room.
"You're Lowrie?"
"Yep."
"They's a gent downstairs wants you to come down and see him."
"Who is it?"
"I dunno. We just moved in from Conway. I can point him out to you on
the street."
Lowrie followed the boy to the window, and there, surrounded by half a
dozen serious-faced men, stood Riley Sinclair, tall, easy, formidable.
The sight of Sinclair filled Lowrie with dismay. Pushing a silver coin
into the hand of the boy, he said: "Tell him--tell him--I'm coming
right down."
As soon as the boy disappeared, Lowrie ran to the window which opened
on the side of the house. When he looked down his hope fled. At one
time there had been a lean-to shed running along that side of the
building. By the roof of it he could have got to the ground unseen. Now
he remembered that it had been torn down the year before; there was a
straight and perilous drop beneath the window. As for the stairs, they
led almost to the front door of the building. Sinclair would be sure to
see him if he went down there.
Of the purpose of the big man he had no doubt. His black guilt was so
apparent to his own mind that it seemed impossible that the keen eyes
of Sinclair had not looked into the story of Hal's broken leg and seen
a lie. Besides, the invitation through a messenger seemed a hollow
lure. Sinclair wished to fight him and kill him before witnesses who
would attest that Lowrie had been the first to go for his gun.
Fight? Lowrie looked down at his hand and found that the very wrist was
quivering. Even at his best he felt that he would have no chance. Once
he had seen Sinclair in action in Lew Murphy's old saloon, had seen Red
Jordan get the drop, and had watched Sinclair shoot his man
deliberately through the shoulder. Red Jordan was a cripple for life.
Suppose he walked boldly down, told his story, and trusted to the skill
of his lie? No, he knew his color would pale if he faced Sinclair.
Suppose he refused to fight? Better to die than be shamed in the
mountain country.
He hurried to the window for another look into the street, and he found
that Sinclair had disappeared. Lowrie's knees buckled under his weight.
He went over to the bed, with short steps like a drunken man, and
lowered himself down on it.
Sinclair had gone into the hotel, and doubtless that meant that he had
grown impatient. The fever to kill was burning in the big man. Then
Lowrie heard a steady step come regularly up the stairs. They creaked
under a heavy weight.
Lowrie drew his gun. It caught twice; finally he jerked it out in a
frenzy. He would shoot when the door opened, without waiting, and then
trust to luck to fight his way through the men below.
In the meantime the muzzle of the revolver wabbled crazily from side to
side, up and down. He clutched the barrel with the other hand. And
still the weapon shook.
Curling up his knee before his breast he ground down with both hands.
That gave him more steadiness; but would not this contorted position
destroy all chance of shooting accurately? His own prophecy, made over
the dead body of Hal Sinclair, that all three of them would see that
face again, came back to him with a sense of fatality. Some
forward-looking instinct, he assured himself, had given him that
knowledge.
The step upon the stairs came up steadily. But the mind of Lowrie,
between the steps, leaped hither and yon, a thousand miles and back.
What if his nerve failed him at the last moment? What if he buckled and
showed yellow and the shame of it followed him? Better a hundred times
to die by his own hand.
Excitement, foreboding, the weariness of the long trail--all were
working upon Lowrie.
Nearer drew the step. It seemed an hour since he had first heard it
begin to climb the stairs. It sounded heavily on the floor outside his
door. There was a heavy tapping on the door itself. For an instant the
clutch of Lowrie froze around his gun; then he twitched the muzzle back
against his own breast and fired.
There was no pain--only a sense of numbness and a vague feeling of torn
muscles, as if they were extraneous matter. He dropped the revolver on
the bed and pressed both hands against his wound. Then the door opened,
and there appeared, not Riley Sinclair, but Pop Hansen.
"What in thunder--" he began.
"Get Riley Sinclair. There's been an accident," said Lowrie faintly and
huskily. "Get Riley Sinclair; quick. I got something to say to him."
3
Riley Sinclair rode over the mountain. An hour of stern climbing lay
behind him, but it was not sympathy for his tired horse that made him
draw rein. Sympathy was not readily on tap in Riley's nature.
"Hossflesh" to Riley was purely and simply a means to an end. Neither
had he paused to enjoy that mystery of change which comes over
mountains between late afternoon and early evening. His keen eyes
answered all his purposes, and that they had never learned to see blue
in shadows meant nothing to Riley Sinclair.
If he looked kindly upon the foothills, which stepped down from the
peaks to the valley lands, it was because they meant an easy descent.
Riley took thorough stock of his surroundings, for it was a new
country. Yonder, where the slant sun glanced and blinked on windows,
must be Sour Creek; and there was the road to town jagging across the
hills. Riley sighed.
In his heart he despised that valley. There were black patches of
plowed land. A scattering of houses began in the foothills and
thickened toward Sour Creek. How could men remain there, where there
was so little elbow room? He scowled down into the shadow of the
valley. Small country, small men.
Pictures failed to hold Riley, but, as he sat the saddle, hand on
thigh, and looked scornfully toward Sour Creek, he was himself a
picture to make one's head lift. As a rule the horse comes in for as
much attention as the rider, but when Riley Sinclair came near, people
saw the man and nothing else. Not because he was good-looking, but
because one became suddenly aware of some hundred and eighty pounds of
lithe, tough muscle and a domineering face.