The Rangeland Avenger - Max Brand
"Brave girl!" cried Sinclair, his relief coming out in almost a shout.
"You stopped there at the last minute?"
"Ah, if I had! No, I didn't stop. I went on to the altar and met him
there, and--"
"You weren't married to him?"
"I was!"
"Go on," Sinclair said huskily.
"The end of it came somehow. I found a flood of people calling to me
and pressing around me, and all the time I was thinking of nothing but
the new ring on my finger and the weight--the horrible weight of it!
"We went back to my father's house. I managed to get away from all the
merrymaking and go to my room. The minute the door closed behind me and
shut away their voices and singing into the distance, I felt that I had
saved one last minute of freedom. I went to the window and looked out
at the mountains. The stars were coming out.
"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.
18
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.
Now he looked calmly, almost contemptuously upon the sheriff and the
rest of the posse.
"Gents, has any of you ever seen this Jig you talk about ride a hoss?"
"Me, of course," said the sheriff.
"Anything about him strike you when he was in a saddle?"
"Sure! Got a funny arm motion."
"Like he was fanning his ribs with his elbows to keep cool?" went on
Arizona, grinning.
The sheriff chuckled.
"Would you pick him for a good hand on a long trail?"
"Never in a million years," said the sheriff. "Is he?"
Kern seemed to admit his inferiority by asking this question. He bit
his lip and was about to go on and answer himself when Arizona cut in
with: "Never in a million years, sheriff. He couldn't do twenty miles
in a day without being laid up."
"What's the point of all this, Arizona?"
"I'll show you pronto. Let's go back to Sinclair. The other day he was
one of a bunch that pretty near got Gaspar hung, eh?"
"Yep."
"But at the last minute he saved Jig?"
"Sure. I just been telling you that."
Their inability to follow Arizona's train of thought irritated the
others. He literally held them in the palm of his hand as he developed
his argument.
"Why did he save Jig?" he went on. "Because when Gaspar was about to
swing, they was something about him that struck Sinclair. What was it?
I dunno, except that Jig is tolerable young looking and pretty
helpless, even though you say he killed Quade."
"Say he killed him?" burst put the sheriff. "It was plumb proved on
him."
"I'd sure like to see that proof," said the man from the southland.
"The point is that Sinclair took pity on him and kept him from the
noose. Then he stays that night guarding him and gets more and more
interested. This Jig has got a pile of education. I've heard him talk.
Today you come over the hills. Sinclair sees Woodville, figures that's
the place where Jig'll be hung, and he loses his nerve. He sticks you
up and gets Jig free. All right! D'you think he'll stop at that? Don't
he know that Jig's plumb helpless on the trail? And knowing that, d'you
think he'll split with Jig and leave the schoolteacher to be picked up
the first thing? No, sir, he'll stick with Jig and see him through."
"Well, all the better," snapped the sheriff. "That's going to make our
trail shorter--if what you say turns out true."
"It's true, well enough. Sinclair right now is camping somewhere in the
hills near Sour Creek, waiting for things to quiet down before he hits
the out-trail with this Gaspar."
"He wouldn't be fool enough for that," grumbled the sheriff.
"Fool? Has any one of you professional man hunters figured yet on
hunting for 'em near Sour Creek? Ain't you-all been talking long
trails--Colma, and what not?"
They were crushed.
"All you say is true, if Sinclair saddles himself with the tenderfoot.
Might as well tie so much lead around his neck."
"He'll do it, though," said Arizona carelessly. "I know him."
It caused a new focusing of attention upon him, and this time Arizona
seemed to regret that he stood in the limelight.
"You know him?" asked Joe Stockton softly.
The bright black eyes of the fat man glittered and flickered from face
to face. He seemed to be gauging them and deciding how much he could
say--or how little.
"Sure, I drifted up to this country one season and rode there. I heard
a pile about this Sinclair and seen him a couple of times."
"How good a man d'you figure him to be with a gun?" asked the sheriff
without apparent interest.
"Good enough," sighed Arizona. "Good enough, partner!"
Presently the sheriff showed that he was a man capable of taking good
advice, even though he could not stamp it as his own original device.
"Boys," he said, "I figure that what Arizona has said is tolerable
sound. Arizona, what d'you advise next?"
"That we go to Sour Creek pronto--and sit down and wait!"
A chorus of exclamations arose.
Arizona grew impatient with such stupidity. "Sinclair come to Sour
Creek to do something. I dunno what he wants, but what he wants he
ain't got yet, and he's the sort that'll stay till he does his work."
"I've got in touch with the authorities higher up, boys," declared
Kern. "Sinclair and Gaspar is both outlawed, with a price on their
heads. Won't that change Sinclair's mind and make him move on?"
"You don't know Sinclair," persisted Arizona. "You don't know him at
all, sheriff."
"Grab your hosses, boys. I'm following Arizona's lead."
Pouring out of the door in silence, the omniscience of Arizona lay
heavily upon their minds. Inside, the sheriff lingered with the wise
man from the southland.
"If I was to get in touch with Colma, Fatty, what d'you think they'd be
able to tell me about your record up there?"
The olive skin of Arizona became a bleached drab.
"I dunno," he said rather thickly, and all the while his little black
eyes were glittering and shifting. "Nothing much, Kern."
His glance steadied. "By the way, when you had your glove off a while
ago I seen something on your wrist that looked like a rope gall, Kern.
If I was to tell the boys that, what d'you figure they'd think about
their sheriff?"
It was Kern's turn to change color. For a moment he hesitated, and then
he dropped a hand lightly on Arizona's shoulder.
"Look here, Arizona," he muttered in the ear of the fat man, "what you
been before you hit Woodville I dunno, and I don't care. I figure we
come to a place where we'd both best keep our mouths shut. Eh?"
"Shake," said Arizona, and they went out the door, almost arm in arm.
19
For Jude Cartwright the world was gone mad, as he spurred down the
hills away from Sinclair and the girl. It was really only the second
time in his life that he had been thwarted in an important matter. To
be sure he had been raised roughly among rough men, but among the
roughest of them, the repute of his family and the awe of his father's
wide authority had served him as a shield in more ways than Jude
himself could realize. He had grown very much accustomed to having his
way.
All things were made smooth for him; and when he reached the age when
he began to think of marriage, and was tentatively courting half a
dozen girls of the district, unhoped-for great fortune had fairly
dropped into his path.
The close acquaintance with old Mervin in that hunting trip had been
entirely accidental, and he had been astounded by the marriage contract
which Mervin shortly after proposed between the two families.
Ordinarily even Jude Cartwright, with all his self-esteem, would never
have aspired to a star so remote as Mervin's daughter. The miracle,
however, happened. He saw himself in the way to be the richest man on
the range, the possessor of the most lovely wife.
That dream was first pricked by the inexplicable disappearance of the
girl on their marriage day. He had laid that disappearance to foul
play. That she could have left him through any personal aversion never
entered his complacent young head.
He went out on the quest after the neighboring district had been combed
for his wife, and he had spent the intervening months in a ceaseless
search, which grew more and more disheartening. It was only by chance
that he remembered that Mervin had lived for some time in Sour Creek,
and only with the faintest hope of finding a clue that he decided to
visit that place. In his heart he was convinced that the girl was dead,
but if she were really hiding it was quite possible that she might have
remembered the town where her father had made his first success with
cattle.
Now the coincidence that had brought him face to face with her, stunned
him. He was still only gradually recovering from it. It was totally
incredible that she should have fled at all. And it was entirely beyond
the range of credence that modest Elizabeth Mervin should have donned
the clothes of a man and should be wandering through the hills with a
male companion.
But when his wonder died away, he felt little or no pity for his wife.
The pang that he felt was the torture of offended pride. Indeed, the
fact that he had lost his wife meant less to him than that his wife had
seen him physically beaten by another man. He writhed in his saddle at
the memory.
Instantly his mind flashed back to the details of the scene. He
rehearsed it with himself in a different role, beating the cowpuncher
to a helpless pulp of bruised muscle, snatching away his wife. But even
if he had been able to do that, what would the outcome be? He could not
let the world know the truth--that his wife had fled from him in horror
on their marriage day, that she had wondered about in the clothes of a
man, that she was the companion of another man. And if he brought her
back, certainly all these facts would come to light. The close-cropped
hair alone would be damning evidence.
He framed a wild tale of abduction by villains, of an injury, a
sickness, a fever that forced a doctor to cut her hair short. He had no
sooner framed the story than he threw it away as useless. With all his
soul he began to wish for the only possible solution which would save
the remnants of his ruined self-respect and keep him from the peril of
discovery. The girl must indubitably die!
By the time he came to this conclusion, he had struck out of the hills,
and, as his horse hit the level going and picked up speed, the heart of
Jude Cartwright became lighter. He would get weapons and the finest
horse money could buy in Sour Creek, trail the pair, take them by
surprise, and kill them both. Then back to the homeland and a new life!
Already he saw himself in it, his name surrounded with a glamour of
pathetic romance, as the sad widower with a mystery darkening his past
and future. It was an agreeable gloom into which he fell. Self-pity
warmed him and loosened his fierceness. He sighed with regret for his
own misfortunes.
In this frame of mind he reached Sour Creek and its hotel. While he
wrote his name in the yellowed register he over-heard loud conversation
in the farther end of the room. Two men had been outlawed that
day--John Gaspar, the schoolteacher who killed Quade, and Riley
Sinclair, a stranger from the North.
Paying no further attention to the talk, he passed on into the general
merchandise store which filled most of the lower story of the hotel.
There he found the hardware department, and prominent among the
hardware were the gun racks. He went over the Colts and with an expert
hand took up the guns, while the gray-headed storekeeper advanced an
eulogium upon each weapon. His attention was distracted by the entrance
of a tall, painfully thin man who seemed in great haste.