The Rangeland Avenger, Above the Law & Alcatraz (3 Wild West Adventures in One Edition). Max Brand
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What?”
“Sure,” said the Doctor. “There ain’t nothing like the woman’s touch to make a home.”
They roared with laughter.
“Look out! She’s remembering some more and here comes the waterfall!” called another.
Jerry, in order to get time to plan her campaign, broke into heart-rending sobs. The bearded man, who rejoiced in the name of Porky Martin, now came forward again.
“Lemme take care of her,” he said. “I had two mothers, six sisters, an’ fourteen sweethearts. I know all about women!”
He dropped to one knee and put his arm around her.
“Take it easy, kid. You’re runnin’ loose now an’ we’ll give you all the rope you want, except enough for hangin’ yourself. Look around you, kid, here’s enough men to make a jury and you got a home with every one. Am I right, boys?”
“Let me—alone!” wailed Jerry, and she shuddered under the caress.
“Huh!” growled Porky Martin. “She’s proud, damn her.”
“Give her time, give her time,” said the Doctor. “The kid’s hurt. She don’t savvy yet, boys, that she’s in a real democracy where everything’s common property.”
“No more foolin’,” advised Montana Pete. “Jim’ll be coming back any time. He’ll sure be glad to find us here, I guess not.”
“Who’s Black Jim?” snarled Porky Martin. “I’ve stood for enough of his nutty ideas. I say to hell with Black Jim. We’ve had enough of him!”
“Say that to him,” said Montana easily. “I won’t hold your hands, Porky. Take it easy, kid “—this to Jerry—” we ain’t all swine!”
“Wha’ d’ya mean?” said Porky in a rising voice.
Jerry trembled, for she knew that if the men began fighting over her, her fate was sealed.
“You ain’t deer, I reckon,” said Montana Pete, with obvious scorn.
“Let me go!” cried Jerry, not that she hoped for freedom, but because she thought there was some chance of changing the issue. “Let me go! I won’t tell about you! I swear I won’t!”
She extended her hands, one slender and white, and then the other in its ominously stained bandage, first to Porky Martin and them to Pete.
“Look at that,” said Pete. “We’re a fine gang to stand around makin’ life hell for the kid.”
He dropped to one knee beside her.
“We’ll give you a square deal, you lay to that, but we can’t let you go. There ain’t a hope of that, understand.”
She shrank against the wall, her sobs coming heavily at intervals.
“What I say is this,” orated Porky Martin. “What do you make out of Jim bringin’ in two people in one day—and one of them a woman?”
“Why, you poor fat head,” said the Doctor soothingly, “Mac over there was blockin’ one of Jim’s plays an’ to get him out of the way Jim took him up here. Anyway, Mac’s one of us. What’s bitin’ you? She was hurt. Besides, maybe Jim wanted that woman’s touch around his house.”
“Aye,” said Porky, “but there’s a lot more to be said about that. As far as I go I’m sick of this feller who stays away from the rest of us—never even gets drunk with us—and now he gets a woman!”
“Look out!” warned a voice, “I think—”
Several heads turned to the open door which framed Black Jim. His eyes ran slowly from face to face until they settled on Montgomery. The men stirred uneasily.
“I told you-all to keep these out,” he said calmly. By his contemptuous gesture he might have been referring to dogs of the street.
“They said you’d changed your mind,” explained Montgomery.
“I ain’t ever done that yet,” said the bandit. “Hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves, boys.”
“Look here,” said Porky Martin, blustering. “What we want to know is about the calico here—we—”
“I told you about her before,” said Black Jim softly, “and you sat around am’ hollered an’ said she was to stay here. It’s too late to get rid of her now. She’s seen us all. She could identify every one of us.”
“We ain’t askin’ you to send her off,” said Porky, “but as long as she’s goin’ to stay here we don’t see no nacheral reason why she has to hang around here in one cabin. We’re boostin’ for a lot of changes of scenery,”
“We?” asked Black Jim and he frowned.
“You heard me before, damn you!”
He was half crouched with the fighting fury in his face. The rest of the men moved quickly back, leaving an open space between the two. Porky’s hand tugged and writhed about the handle of his revolver as though he found difficulty in drawing it, but Black Jim made no movement toward his weapon. His soft, dark eyes dwelt without change on the face of his opponent. Jerry watched, utterly fascinated. She saw Montgomery staring in the background. The rest of the men stood closer to Porky, as if they sympathized with him, and their eyes were fixed with a sort of mute horror on Black Jim. An instinct told her that the moment he made a motion toward his revolver every gun in that room would be out and leveled at him. Yet when the strange sympathy troubled her throat, it was not for the bandit who faced the roomful of enemies, but for the crouched, tense figure of Porky Martin.
His big beard quivered. She saw his jaws stir. A strange, gurgling sound came in his throat, and yet he could not draw his revolver.
“My God!” breathed the Doctor.
It was as if some spell broke with his voice. A dozen breaths were audible in quick succession. Porky Martin drew a long pace back and half straightened. His hand left the butt of his revolver, and then both hands moved in slow jerks up toward his head. The gurgling rose louder in his throat. It formed into gasping words.
“Jim—don’t shoot—for God’s sake!”
The whole of that great body shook. A moment before he had been the most awe-inspiring of them all, and the center of Jerry’s fears.
“Hypnotism,” she murmured to herself, but she did not believe her own diagnosis.
“Take your hands down, Porky,” said Black Jim. “I ain’t asked you to put ‘em up there.”
In spite of this permission, the big man’s arms remained as if fixed in air.
“Get out,” ordered Black Jim, and gestured toward the door.
Porky started side-wise, edging past Black Jim as if he feared to take his eyes off him. At the door he whirled and bolted suddenly into the dark. The order of the bandit had apparently been directed at Porky alone, but all the rest obeyed, each man moving silently, keeping his face with a religious earnestness toward Jim and his hand on his revolver until he came to the door through which each vanished with startling swiftness. They were all gone; Montgomery alone remained. Jim faced him.
“Get out,” said the bandit, “an’ tell the rest of ‘em that there’s a deadline drawn at the edge of the trees. They can cross it when they get tired of livin’.”
Jerry made vain motions to him with lips and hands to stay and wondered why she dared not sneak out; but his eves were not for her. Like the rest he moved side-wise, and darted out into the night. Black Jim turned to Jerry and she set her teeth to make her glance cross his boldly. There was a subtle change of his expression. He jerked a hand toward the door.
“That last man,” he said, “did you really want him to stay?”
“Yes,”