The Untamed - Max Brand
"Dan," he whispered rapidly, "I got a gun behind the bar. Say the word
an' I'll take the chance of pullin' it on that big skunk. Then you
make a dive for the door. Maybe I can keep him back till you get on
Satan."
"Why should I beat it?" queried Dan, astonished. "I'm jest beginnin'
to get interested in your place. That tall feller is sure a queer one,
ain't he?"
With the same calm and wide-eyed smile of inquiry he turned away,
taking the glass of liquor, and left Morgan to stare after him with a
face pale with amazement, while he whispered over and over to himself:
"Well, I'll be damned! Well, I'll be damned!"
Dan placed the liquor before Silent. The latter sat gnawing his lips.
"What in hell do you mean?" he said. "Did you only bring one glass?
Are you too damn good to drink with me? Then drink by yourself, you
white-livered coyote!"
He dashed the glass of whisky into Dan's face. Half blinded by the
stinging liquor, the latter fell back a pace, sputtering, and wiping
his eyes. Not a man in the room stirred. The same sick look was on
each face. But the red devil broke loose in Silent's heart when he saw
Dan cringe. He followed the thrown glass with his clenched fist. Dan
stood perfectly still and watched the blow coming. His eyes were wide
and wondering, like those of a child. The iron-hard hand struck him
full on the mouth, fairly lifted him from his feet, and flung him
against the wall with such violence that he recoiled again and fell
forward onto his knees. Silent was making beast noises in his throat
and preparing to rush on the half-prostrate figure. He stopped short.
Dan was laughing. At least that chuckling murmur was near to a laugh.
Yet there was no mirth in it. It had that touch of the maniacal in it
which freezes the blood. Silent halted in the midst of his rush, with
his hands poised for the next blow. His mouth fell agape with an odd
expression of horror as Dan stared up at him. That hideous chuckling
continued. The sound defied definition. And from the shadow in which
Dan was crouched his brown eyes blazed, changed, and filled with
yellow fires.
"God!" whispered Silent, and at that instant the ominous crouched
animal with the yellow eyes, the nameless thing which had been
Whistling Dan a moment before, sprang up and forward with a leap like
that of a panther.
Morgan stood behind the bar with a livid face and a fixed smile. His
fingers still stiffly clutched the whisky bottle from which the last
glass had been filled. Not another man in the room stirred from his
place. Some sat with their cards raised in the very act of playing.
Some had stopped midway a laugh. One man had been tying a bootlace.
His body did not rise. Only his eyes rolled up to watch.
Dan darted under the outstretched arms of Silent, fairly heaved him up
from the floor and drove him backwards. The big man half stumbled and
half fell, knocking aside two chairs. He rushed back with a shout, but
at sight of the white face with the thin trickle of blood falling from
the lips, and at the sound of that inhuman laughter, he paused again.
Once more Dan was upon him, his hands darting out with motions too
fast for the eye to follow. Jim Silent stepped back a half pace,
shifted his weight, and drove his fist straight at that white face.
How it happened not a man in the room could tell, but the hand did not
strike home. Dan had swerved aside as lightly as a wind-blown feather
and his fist rapped against Silent's ribs with a force that made the
giant grunt.
Some of the horror was gone from his face and in its stead was baffled
rage. He knew the scientific points of boxing, and he applied them.
His eye was quick and sure. His reach was whole inches longer than his
opponent's. His strength was that of two ordinary men. What did it
avail him? He was like an agile athlete in the circus playing tag with
a black panther. He was like a child striking futilely at a wavering
butterfly. Sometimes this white-faced, laughing devil ducked under
his arms. Sometimes a sidestep made his blows miss by the slightest
fraction of an inch.
And for every blow he struck four rained home against him. It was
impossible! It could not be! Silent telling himself that he dreamed,
and those dancing fists crashed into his face and body like
sledgehammers. There was no science in the thing which faced him. Had
there been trained skill the second blow would have knocked Silent
unconscious, and he knew it, but Dan made no effort to strike a
vulnerable spot. He hit at anything which offered.
Still he laughed as he leaped back and forth. Perhaps mere weight of
rushing would beat the dancing will-o'-the-wisp to the floor. Silent
bored in with lowered head and clutched at his enemy. Then he roared
with triumph. His outstretched hand caught Dan's shirt as the latter
flicked to one side. Instantly they were locked in each other's arms!
The most meaning part of the fight followed.
The moment after they grappled, Silent shifted his right arm from its
crushing grip on Dan's body and clutched at the throat. The move was
as swift as lightning, but the parry of the smaller man was still
quicker. His left hand clutched Silent by the wrist, and that mighty
sweep of arm was stopped in mid-air! They were in the middle of the
room. They stood perfectly erect and close together, embraced. Their
position had a ludicrous resemblance to the posture of dancers, but
their bodies were trembling with effort. With every ounce of power in
his huge frame Silent strove to complete his grip at the throat.
He felt the right arm of Dan tightening around him closer, closer,
closer! It was not a bulky arm, but it seemed to be made of linked
steel which was shrinking into him, and promised to crush his very
bones. The strength of this man seemed to increase. It was limitless.
His breath came struggling under that pressure and the blood thundered
and raged in his temples. If he could only get at that soft throat!
But his struggling right hand was held in a vice of iron. Now his numb
arm gave way, slowly, inevitably. He ground his teeth and cursed. His
curse was half a prayer. For answer there was the unearthly chuckle
just below his ear. His hand was moved back, down, around! He was
helpless as a child in the arms of its father--no, helpless as a sheep
in the constricting coils of a python.
An impulse of frantic horror and shame and fear gave him redoubled
strength for an instant. He tore himself clear and reeled back. Dan
planted two smashes on Silent's snarling mouth. A glance showed the
large man the mute, strained faces around the room. The laughing devil
leaped again. Then all pride slipped like water from the heart of Jim
Silent, and in its place there was only icy fear, fear not of a man,
but of animal power. He caught up a heavy chair and drove it with all
his desperate strength at Dan.
It cracked distinctly against his head and the weight of it fairly
drove him into the floor. He fell with a limp thud on the boards.
Silent, reeling and blind, staggered to and fro in the centre of the
room. Morgan and Lee Haines reached Dan at the same moment and kneeled
beside him.
CHAPTER VII
THE MUTE MESSENGER
Almost at once Haines raised a hand and spoke to the crowd: "He's all
right, boys. Badly cut across the head and stunned, but he'll live."
There was a deep gash on the upper part of the forehead. If the
cross-bar of the chair had not broken, the skull might have been
injured. The impact of the blow had stunned him, and it might be many
minutes before his senses returned.
As the crowd closed around Dan, a black body leaped among them,
snarling hideously. They sprang back with a yell from the rush of this
green-eyed fury; but Black Bart made no effort to attack them. He sat
crouching before the prostrate body, licking the deathly white face,
and growling horribly, and then stood over his fallen master and
stared about the circle. Those who had seen a lone wolf make its stand
against a pack of dogs recognized the attitude. Then without a sound,
as swiftly as he had entered the room, he leaped through the door and
darted off up the road. Satan, for the first time deserted by this
wolfish companion, turned a high head and neighed after him, but he
raced on.
The men returned to their work over Dan's body, cursing softly. There
was a hair-raising unearthliness about the sudden coming and departure
of Black Bart. Jim Silent and his comrades waited no longer, but took
to their saddles and galloped down the road.
Within a few moments the crowd at Morgan's place began to thin out.
Evening was coming on, and most of them had far to ride. They might
have lingered until midnight, but this peculiar accident damped their
spirits. Probably not a hundred words were spoken from the moment
Silent struck Dan to the time when the last of the cattlemen took to
the saddle. They avoided each other's eyes as if in shame. In a short
time only Morgan remained working over Dan.
In the house of old Joe Cumberland his daughter sat fingering the keys
of the only piano within many miles. The evening gloom deepened as she
played with upward face and reminiscent eyes. The tune was uncertain,
weird--for she was trying to recall one of those nameless airs which
Dan whistled as he rode through the hills. There came a patter of
swift, light footfalls in the hall, and then a heavy scratching at the
door.
"Down, Bart!" she called, and went to admit him to the room.
The moment she turned the handle the door burst open and Bart fell in
against her. She cried out at sight of the gleaming teeth and eyes,
but he fawned about her feet, alternately whining and snarling.
"What is it, boy?" she asked, gathering her skirts close about her
ankles and stepping back, for she never was without some fear of this
black monster. "What do you want, Bart?"
For reply he stood stock still, raised his nose, and emitted a long
wail, a mournful, a ghastly sound, with a broken-hearted quaver at the
end. Kate Cumberland shrank back still farther until the wall blocked
her retreat. Black Bart had never acted like this before. He followed
her with a green light in his eyes, which shone phosphorescent and
distinct through the growing shadows. And most terrible of all was
the sound which came deep in his throat as if his brute nature was
struggling to speak human words. She felt a great impulse to cry out
for help, but checked herself. He was still crouching about her feet.
Obviously he meant no harm to her.
He turned and ran towards the door, stopped, looked back to her, and
made a sound which was nearer to the bark of a dog than anything he
had ever uttered. She made a step after him. He whined with delight
and moved closer to the door. Now she stopped again. He whirled and
ran back, caught her dress in his teeth, and again made for the door,
tugging her after him.
At last she understood and followed him. When she went towards the
corral to get her horse, he planted himself in front of her and
snarled so furiously that she gave up her purpose. She was beginning
to be more and more afraid. A childish thought came to her that
perhaps this brute was attempting to lure her away from the house, as
she had seen coyotes lure dogs, and then turn his teeth against her.
Nevertheless she followed. Something in the animal's eagerness moved
her deeply. When he led her out to the road he released her dress and
trotted ahead a short distance, looking back and whining, as if to beg
her to go faster. For the first time the thought of Dan came into her
mind. Black Bart was leading her down the road towards Morgan's place.
What if something had happened to Dan?
She caught a breath of sharp terror and broke into a run. Bart yelped
his pleasure. Yet a cold horror rose in her heart as she hurried. Had
her father after all been right? What power had Dan, if he needed her,
to communicate with this mute beast and send him to her? As she ran
she wished for the day, the warm, clear sun--for these growing shadows
of evening bred a thousand ghostly thoughts. Black Bart was running
backwards and forwards before her as if he half entreated and half
threatened her.
Her heart died within her as she came in sight of Morgan's place.
There was only one horse before it, and that was the black stallion.
Why had the others gone so soon? Breathless, she reached the door of
the saloon. It was very dim within. She could make out only formless
shades at first. Black Bart slid noiselessly across the floor. She
followed him with her eyes, and now she saw a figure stretched
straight out on the floor while another man kneeled at his side. She
ran forward with a cry.
Morgan rose, stammering. She pushed him aside and dropped beside Dan.
A broad white bandage circled his head. His face was almost as pale as
the cloth. Her touches went everywhere over that cold face, and she
moaned little syllables that had no meaning. He lived, but it seemed
to her that she had found him at the legended gates of death.
"Miss Kate!" said Morgan desperately.
"You murderer!"
"You don't think that _I_ did that?"
"It happened in your place--you had given Dad your word!"
Still she did not turn her head.
"Won't you hear me explain? He's jest in a sort of a trance. He'll
wake up feelin' all right. Don't try to move him tonight. I'll go out
an' put his hoss up in the shed. In the mornin' he'll be as good as
new. Miss Kate, won't you listen to me?"
She turned reluctantly towards him. Perhaps he was right and Dan would
waken from his swoon as if from a healthful sleep.
"It was that big feller with them straight eyes that done it," began
Morgan.
"The one who was sneering at Dan?"
"Yes."
"Weren't there enough boys here to string him up?"
"He had three friends with him. It would of taken a hundred men to lay
hands on one of those four. They were all bad ones. I'm goin' to tell
you how it was, because I'm leavin' in a few minutes and ridin' south,
an' I want to clear my trail before I start. This was the way it
happened--"
His back was turned to the dim light which fell through the door. She
could barely make out the movement of his lips. All the rest of his
face was lost in shadow. As he spoke she sometimes lost his meaning
and the stir of his lips became a nameless gibbering. The grey gloom
settled more deeply round the room and over her heart while he talked.
He explained how the difference had risen between the tall stranger
and Whistling Dan. How Dan had been insulted time and again and borne
it with a sort of childish stupidity. How finally the blow had been
struck. How Dan had crouched on the floor, laughing, and how a yellow
light gathered in his eyes.
At that, her mind went blank. When her thoughts returned she stood
alone in the room. The clatter of Morgan's galloping horse died
swiftly away down the road. She turned to Dan. Black Bart was crouched
at watch beside him. She kneeled again--lowered her head--heard the
faint but steady breathing. He seemed infinitely young--infinitely
weak and helpless. The whiteness of the bandage stared up at her like
an eye through the deepening gloom. All the mother in her nature came
to her eyes in tears.
CHAPTER VIII
RED WRITING
He stirred.
"Dan--dear!"
"My head," he muttered, "it sort of aches, Kate, as if--"
He was silent and she knew that he remembered.
"You're all right now, honey. I've come here to take care of you--I
won't leave you. Poor Dan!"
"How did you know?" he asked, the words trailing.
"Black Bart came for me."
"Good ol' Bart!"
The great wolf slunk closer, and licked the outstretched hand.
"Why, Kate, I'm on the floor and it's dark. Am I still in Morgan's
place? Yes, I begin to see clearer."
He made an effort to rise, but she pressed him back.
"If you try to move right away you may get a fever. I'm going back
to the house, and I'll bring you down some blankets. Morgan says you
shouldn't attempt to move for several hours. He says you've lost a
great deal of blood and that you mustn't make any effort or ride a
horse till tomorrow."
Dan relaxed with a sigh.
"Kate."
"Yes, honey."
Her hand travelled lightly as blown snow across his forehead. He
caught it and pressed the coolness against his cheek.
"I feel as if I'd sort of been through a fire. I seem to be still
seein' red."
"Dan, it makes me feel as if I never knew you! Now you must forget all
that has happened. Promise me you will!"
He was silent for a moment and then he sighed again.
"Maybe I can, Kate. Which I feel, though, as if there was somethin'
inside me writ--writ in red letters--I got to try to read the writin'
before I can talk much."
She barely heard him. Her hand was still against his face. A deep awe
and content was creeping through her, so that she began to smile and
was glad that the dark covered her face. She felt abashed before him
for the first time in her life, and there was a singular sense of
shame. It was as if some door in her inner heart had opened so that
Dan was at liberty to look down into her soul. There was terror in
this feeling, but there was also gladness.
"Kate."
"Yes--honey!"
"What were you hummin'?"
She started.
"I didn't know I was humming, Dan."
"You were, all right. It sounded sort of familiar, but I couldn't
figger out where I heard it."
"I know now. It's one of your own tunes."
Now she felt a tremor so strong that she feared he would notice it.
"I must go back to the house, Dan. Maybe Dad has returned. If he has,
perhaps he can arrange to have you carried back tonight."
"I don't want to think of movin', Kate. I feel mighty comfortable.
I'm forgettin' all about that ache in my head. Ain't that queer? Why,
Kate, what in the world are you laughin' about?"
"I don't know, Dan. I'm just happy!"
"Kate."
"Yes?"
"I like you pretty much."
"I'm so glad!"
"You an' Black Bart, an' Satan--"
"Oh!" Her tone changed.
"Why are you tryin' to take your hand away, Kate?"
"Don't you care for me any more than for your horse--and your dog?"
He drew a long breath, puzzled.
"It's some different, I figger."
"Tell me!"
"If Black Bart died--"
The wolf-dog whined, hearing his name.
"Good ol' Bart! Well, if Black Bart died maybe I'd some day have
another dog I'd like almost as much."
"Yes."
"An' if Satan died--even Satan!--maybe I could sometime like another
hoss pretty well--if he was a pile like Satan! But if you was to
die--it'd be different, a considerable pile different."
"Why?"
His pauses to consider these questions were maddening.
"I don't know," he muttered at last.
Once more she was thankful for the dark to hide her smile.
"Maybe you know the reason, Kate?"
Her laughter was rich music. His hold on her hand relaxed. He was
thinking of a new theme. When he laughed in turn it startled her. She
had never heard that laugh before.
"What is it, Dan?"
"He was pretty big, Kate. He was bigger'n almost any man I ever seen!
It was kind of funny. After he hit me I was almost glad. I didn't hate
him--"
"Dear Dan!"
"I didn't hate him--I jest nacherally wanted to kill him--and wantin'
to do that made me glad. Isn't that funny, Kate?"
He spoke of it as a chance traveller might point out a striking
feature of the landscape to a companion.
"Dan, if you really care for me you must drop the thought of him."
His hand slipped away.
"How can I do that? That writin' I was tellin' you about--"
"Yes?"
"It's about him!"
"Ah!"
"When he hit me the first time--"
"I won't hear you tell of it!"
"The blood come down my chin--jest a little trickle of it. It was
warm, Kate. That was what made me hot all through."
Her hands fell limp, cold, lifeless.
"It's as clear as the print in a book. I've got to finish him. That's
the only way I can forget the taste of my own blood."
"Dan, listen to me!"
He laughed again, in the new way. She remembered that her father had
dreaded the very thing that had come to Dan--this first taste of his
own powers--this first taste (she shuddered) of blood!
"Dan, you've told me that you like me. You have to make a choice now,
between pursuing this man, and me."
"You don't understand," he explained carefully. "I _got_ to follow
him. I can't help it no more'n Black Bart can help howlin' when he
sees the moon."
He fell silent, listening. Far across the hills came the plaintive
wail of a coyote--that shrill bodiless sound. Kate trembled.
"Dan!"
Outside, Satan whinnied softly like a call. She leaned and her lips
touched his. He thrust her away almost roughly.
"They's blood on my lips, Kate! I can't kiss you till they're clean."
He turned his head.
"You must listen to me, Dan!"
"Kate, would you talk to the wind?"
"Yes, if I loved the wind!"
He turned his head.
She pleaded: "Here are my hands to cover your eyes and shut out the
thoughts of this man you hate. Here are my lips, dear, to tell you
that I love you unless this thirst for killing carries you away from
me. Stay with me! Give me your heart to keep gentle!"
He said nothing, but even through the dark she was aware of a struggle
in his face, and then, through the gloom, she began to see his
eyes more clearly. They seemed to be illuminated by a light from
within--they changed--there was a hint of yellow in the brown. And she
spoke again, blindly, passionately.
"Give me your promise! It is so easy to do. One little word will make
you safe. It will save you from yourself."
Still he answered nothing. Black Bart came and crouched at his head
and stared at her fixedly.
"Speak to me!"
Only the yellow light answered her. Cold fear fought in her heart, but
love still struggled against it.
"For the last time--for God's sake, Dan!"
Still that silence. She rose, shaking and weak. The changeless eyes
followed her. Only fear remained now. She backed towards the door,
slowly, then faster, and faster. At the threshold she whirled and
plunged into the night.
Up the road she raced. Once she stumbled and fell to her knees. She
cried out and glanced behind her, breathing again when she saw that
nothing followed. At the house she made no pause, though she heard the
voice of her father singing. She could not tell him. He should be the
last in all the world to know. She went to her room and huddled into
bed.
Presently a knock came at her door, and her father's voice asked if
she were ill. She pleaded that she had a bad headache and wished to be
alone. He asked if she had seen Dan. By a great effort she managed to
reply that Dan had ridden to a neighbouring ranch. Her father left
the door without further question. Afterwards she heard him in the
distance singing his favourite mournful ballads. It doubled her sense
of woe and brought home the clinging fear. She felt that if she could
weep she might live, but otherwise her heart would burst. And after
hours and hours of that torture which burns the name of "woman" in the
soul of a girl, the tears came. The roosters announced the dawn before
she slept.
Late the next morning old Joe Cumberland knocked again at her door. He
was beginning to fear that this illness might be serious. Moreover, he
had a definite purpose in rousing her.
"Yes?" she called, after the second knock.
"Look out your window, honey, down to Morgan's place. You remember I
said I was goin' to clean up the landscape?"
The mention of Morgan's place cleared the sleep from Kate's mind and
it brought back the horror of the night before. Shivering she slipped
from her bed and went to the window. Morgan's place was a mass of
towering flames!
She grasped the window-sill and stared again. It could not be. It must
be merely another part of the nightmare, and no reality. Her father's
voice, high with exultation, came dimly to her ears, but what she saw
was Dan as he had laid there the night before, hurt, helpless, too
weak to move!
"There's the end of it," Joe Cumberland was saying complacently
outside her door. "There ain't goin' to be even a shadow of the saloon
left nor nothin' that's in it. I jest travelled down there this
mornin' and touched a match to it!"
Still she stared without moving, without making a sound. She was
seeing Dan as he must have wakened from a swoonlike sleep with the
smell of smoke and the heat of rising flames around him. She saw him
struggle, and fail to reach his feet. She almost heard him cry out--a
sound drowned easily by the roar of the fire, and the crackling of the
wood. She saw him drag himself with his hands across the floor, only
to be beaten back by a solid wall of flame. Black Bart crouched beside
him and would not leave his doomed master. Fascinated by the raging
fire the black stallion Satan would break from the shed and rush into
the flames!--and so the inseparable three must have perished together!
"Why don't you speak, Kate?" called her father.
"Dan!" she screamed, and pitched forward to the floor.
CHAPTER IX
THE PHANTOM RIDER
In the daytime the willows along the wide, level river bottom seemed
an unnatural growth, for they made a streak of yellow-green across
the mountain-desert when all other verdure withered and died. After
nightfall they became still more dreary. Even when the air was calm
there was apt to be a sound as of wind, for the tenuous, trailing
branches brushed lightly together, making a guarded whispering like
ghosts.