The Rangeland Avenger, Above the Law & Alcatraz (3 Wild West Adventures in One Edition). Max Brand
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enraged her. “You have a fever, kind of; it ain’t much. Just keep quiet an’ you’ll be all right.”
It was the crowning touch! He was still playing his part!
“Deary,” she said fiercely, “this is the first time in my life I ever wished I was Shakespeare. Nobody, but the old boy himself could do you justice—but I’m not Billy S. and I can only hint around sort of vague at what I think of you. But of all the tinhorn sports—the ham-fat, small-time actors, you’re the prize bonehead. Honey, does that begin to percolate? Does that begin to get through the armor plate down to that dwarfed bean you’re in the habit of calling your brain?”
He went on calmly pouring the hot water over her hand. She had not credited him with such self-control. He did not even blush as far as she could make out. It made her throat dry with impotence.
“An old woman’s home, that’s where you belong,” she went on. “Say, you’re wise to keep that mask on. You’d need a disguise to get by as a property man on small-time. Deary, you haven’t got enough bean to be number-two man in a monologue,”
He stared at her a moment and then went on with the work of cleansing the bullet wound in her hand. Evidently he did not trust himself to speak. It was not a severe cut, but it had bled freely, the bullet cutting the fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger. To look at it made her head reel. She lay back on the pile of blankets and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again he was approaching with a small bottle half full of a brownish-black fluid, iodine. She started, for she knew the burn of the antiseptic. She tucked her wounded hand under her other arm and glared at him.
“Nothing doing with that stuff, cutie,” she said, shaking her head. “This isn’t my first season, even if I’m not on the big-time. You can give that bottle to the marines. Go pour that on the daisies, Alexander W. Flathead, it’ll kill the insects. But not for mine!”
She saw his forehead pucker into a frown above the mask. He stopped, hesitated.
“Take it away and rock it to sleep, Oscar,” she went on, “because there’s no cue for that in this act. It won’t get across—not even with a make-up. Oh, this will make a lovely story when I get back to Broadway. I’m going to spill the beans, deary. Yep, I’m going to give this spiel to the papers. It’ll make a great ad for you—all scare-heads. You can run the last musical comedy scandal onto the back page with a play like this. Here! Let go my arm, you big simp—do you think—”
He caught her wrist and drew out the injured hand firmly. She struggled weakly, but the pain in the hand unnerved her.
“Go ahead—turn on the fireworks, Napoleon! Honey, they’ll write this on your tombstone for an epitaph.”
He spread her thumb and forefinger apart, poured some of the iodine onto a clean rag, and swabbed out the wound. The burning pain brought her close to a faint, but her fury kept her mind from oblivion. She clenched her teeth so that a tortured scream became merely a moan. When she recovered he was making the last turn of a rather skilful bandage. She sat up on the blankets.
“All right, honey, now you’ve played the music and I’ll dance. What’s the way to town from here?”
He shook his head.
“Won’t tell me, eh? I suppose you think I’ll stay up here till I get well? Think again, janitor.”
She rose and started a bit unsteadily to the door. Before she reached it his step caught up with her. She was swung up in strong arms and carried back to the blankets. While she sat dumb with hate and rage, he took a piece of rope and tied her ankles fast with an intricate knot which she could never hope to untie with her one sound hand.
“You’ll stay here,” he explained curtly.
“Listen, deary,” she answered between her teeth, “I’m going to do you for this. I’m going to make you a bum draw on every circuit in the little old U. S. I’m going to make you the card that doesn’t fill the straight, that’s all. Get your shingle ready, cutie, because after this all you can get across will be a chop-house in the Bowery.”
“Lie still,” growled the deep voice. “There ain’t any chance of you getting away. Savvy?”
He turned.
“Deary,” she cried after him, “if you don’t cut out that ghost-voice stunt, I’ll—”
The rickety door at the back of the shack closed upon him.
“I never knew,” said Jerry to herself, “that that big Swede could do such a swell mystery bit. He ought to be in the heavies, that’s all.”
She settled herself back on the blankets again more comfortably. The last sting of the iodine died away and left a pleasant sense of warmth in her injured hand. Now she set about surveying her surroundings in detail. It was the most clumsily built house she had ever seen, made of rudely trimmed logs so loosely set together that the night air whistled through a thousand chinks.
Two boards placed upon saw horses represented a table. A crazily constructed fireplace of large dimensions was the only means of heating the shack. Here and there from pegs and nails driven into the wall hung overalls, deeply wrinkled at the knees, heavy mackintoshes, and two large hats of broad brim. On the floor were several pairs of heavy shoes in various states of dilapidation. In the corner next to the hearth the walls were garnished with a few pots and pans. On the table she saw a heavy hunting knife. There were three doors. Perhaps one of them led to a second room. To know which it was, was of vital significance to her. If it was the door through which the masked man had disappeared then he was still within hearing distance. If that were true she could hardly succeed in reaching that knife upon the table unheard, for she would make a good deal of noise dragging herself across the floor to the table. She determined to make the experiment. If she could cut the bonds and escape she made no doubt that she could find the road to Three Rivers again, and even to wander across the mountains at night with a wounded hand was better than to stay with this bungler. Moreover, there was something in his sustained acting which made her uneasy. She knew his code of morals was as limited as the law of the Medes and the Persians and of an exactly opposite nature. On the stage, in the city, she had no fear of him. He was an interesting type and his vices were things at which she could afford to shrug her shoulders. But in the wilderness of the silent mountains even the least of men borrows a significance, and the meaning he gave her was wholly evil.
She commenced hunching herself slowly and painfully across the floor toward the table. Half, three-quarters of the distance was covered. In another moment she could reach out and take the knife.
A door creaked behind her. She turned. There he stood again, still masked and with his hands behind him. He started. His mouth gaped. She made another effort and caught up the knife. At least it was a measure of defense, even if it were too late for her to free herself.
IV. BLACK JIM
“Jerry!” said, in a strange, whispering voice.
She eyed him with infinite disgust.
“Playing a new role, Freddie, aren’t you?” she sneered.
He merely stared.
“You’re versatile, all right,” she went on. “First the grim bandit, and then the astonished friend. Say, deary, do you expect ‘warm applause’? No, cutie, but if I had some spoiled eggs, I’d certainly pass them to you.”
“Jerry, you’re raving!”
She gritted her teeth.
“I’m through with the funny stuff, you one-syllable, lock-jawed baby. Now I mean business. Get me out of this as fast as they hooked you off the boards, the last time you tried out in Manhattan.”
“Do you—have—will—”