The Rangeland Avenger, Above the Law & Alcatraz (3 Wild West Adventures in One Edition). Max Brand
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“Lay off on that stuff, deary. If words made a cradle, you’d rock the world to sleep.”
“How—how did you come here?”
She stared at him a moment and then broke into rather sinister laughter.
“I suppose you’ve been walking in your sleep, what? I suppose I’m to fall for this bum line, Freddie? Not me! You can’t get by even in a mask, Mr. Montgomery.”
“Geraldine.”
“Call me Annie for short.”
“Upon my word of honor—”
“Can the talk, cutie. You can tell the rest to the judge.”
“But how can I help you?” he asked. He turned and she saw his hands tied securely together behind him!
While she still stared at this marvelous revelation, the door opened again and another Montgomery strode into the room. He was the same build as the other man. He wore the same sort of mask. His hair was black. He could not be Montgomery. It was only when they stood together that she felt a significant difference in this man.
Seeing Jerry with the hunting knife in her hand, he crossed the room and learned above her.
“Give me the knife,” boomed the musical bass voice.
She shrank back and clutched the heavy handle more closely.
“Keep away,” she cried hoarsely.
“Give me the knife.”
“Black Jim!” breathed Jerry, for the first time wholly frightened, while her mind whirled in confusion, “Is the whole world made up of doubles or am I losing my brain? Keep off, Mr. Mystery, or I’ll make hash of you with this cleaver!”
She held the knife poised and the man observed her with a critical eye.
“Fighter,” he decided.
He leaned again; his hand darted out with the speed of a striking snake. She cut at him furiously, but the hand caught her wrist and stopped the knife while it was still an inch from his face. He shook her hand, and the numbing grasp made her fingers relax. The knife clattered on the floor and he carried her back to the pile of blankets. When she opened her eyes she saw Black Jim loosing the hands of Montgomery.
“No use in we-all stay in’ masked anymore,” said the bandit, “I’ve been down an’ seen the other boys. I thought maybe they’d vote yes on turnin’ the girl loose agin. I told ‘em she was too sick to see anything when I brought her in. I told ‘em I’d blindfold her when I took her out to the road agin. But they-all sort of figure she’d be able to track back with a posse followin’ jest a sense of direction like a hoss. They vote that she stays here, an’ so it makes no difference what she sees.”
He finished untying Montgomery’s hands, and drew off his mask.
Her faintness left Jerry. She saw a lean-faced man with great, dark eyes, singularly lacking in emotion, and forehead unfurrowed by worries. Montgomery, likewise withdrew his mask and showed a face familiar enough, but drawn and colorless.
“All I’m askin’,” said Black Jim, “is have you got anything against me?”
“I?” queried Montgomery, and he drew a slow hand across his forehead as if he were partially dazed.
“Yes, you,” said the other, and the dark eyes dwelt carefully on Montgomery’s face. “If you’ve got any lingerin’ suspicion that there’s something coming from you to me, we’ll jist nacherally step out an’ make our little play where there’s room.”
“Not a thing against you, my friend,” said Montgomery with a sudden heartiness for which Jerry despised him. “You had the drop on me and I guess you had special reasons for wanting that stage.”
The outlaw shrugged his shoulders. “I got to go out agin,” he said, “an’ I’m goin’ to ask you to watch this girl while I’m gone.”
“Glad to,” said Montgomery.
Black Jim turned, paused, and came back.
“If anything happens to her, my friend.” He hesitated significantly. “The boys seemed to be sort of excited when I told them about her bein’ in my cabin,” he explained. “If they-all come up here, don’t let ‘em come in. You got a gun!”
He stepped to the door and was gone. The eyes of Jerry and Montgomery met.
“Quick!” she ordered. “Talk out and tell me what has happened, Freddie, or I’ll go crazy! I’m half out of my head now!”
“It’s Black Jim!” he said heavily.
“I knew that half an hour ago. Your brains are petrified, Freddie. Start where I’m a blank. How’d you come here?”
“He held me up!”
“Black Jim?”
“Yes. I was waiting behind the rock with my mask on. I heard a horse coming up the road from behind and when I turned I was looking into the mouth of a pistol as big as a cannon. I put up my hands. I just stared at him. I couldn’t speak. He said he was sorry he couldn’t leave the job to me. He said there were two things clear to him. He went on thinking them over while his gun covered me. Then he told me that he couldn’t leave me alive near the road. He had to take me up to his camp. Then he came up behind me and tied my hands behind my back. Jerry, I felt that if he hadn’t thought me one of his own sort, he’d have dropped the curtain on my act forever!”
He shuddered slightly at the thought.
“He made me ride before him up here,” he went on, “and he put me in this cabin. As far as I can make out we’re in a little gulch of the mountains. It’s a sort of bandits’ refuge—the sort of thing that paper told about. When we rode over the edge of the hill and dipped down into the valley, I saw some streaks of smoke down the canon. There must be a half dozen places like this one, and some of the outlaws in every one. What’ll we do, Jerry, for God’s sake, what will we do?”
“Shut up!” she said fiercely, and her face was whiter than mere exhaustion could make it. “Lemme think; lemme think!”
Montgomery had no eye for her. He strode up, and down the room with a wild eye. He seemed to think of her as an aftermath.
“What happened to you? Was it Black Jim again?”
“I pulled my gun and shot in the air. He shot the pistol out of my fingers and put my hand on the blink. I fainted. He brought me up here. That’s all.”
Her thoughts were not for her troubles.
“I’m going to make a break for it!” he cried at last. “Maybe I can get free!”
She recognized him without emotion.
“And leave me here?” she asked.
He flushed, stammered, and avoided her eyes.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” he muttered, “I couldn’t find my way out, and maybe they’d take a pot shot at me as I tried to get away. It’s better to die quick than starve in the mountains. But, my God, Jerry, what’ll he do when he finds out that I’m not an outlaw like himself?”
“Stop crying like a baby,” she said. “I’ve got to think.”
“There’s only one thing for you to do,” she said at last, raising her head, “and that’s for you to play your part as he sees it. You can act rough. Go down and mix with them—but be here with me when Black Jim is here. They can only kill you, Freddie, but me—”
Her eyes were roving again.
“Maybe I can do it,” he said rapidly, half to himself. “Pray God I can do it!”
V.