The Essential Max Brand - 29 Westerns in One Edition. Max Brand
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to him.
"How do you come here—with him?"
"He is my friend!"
"You sure pick a queer place to go walkin' with him."
"Hush, Dan! He brought me here to find you!"
"He brought you here?"
"Don't you understand?"
"When I want a friend like him, I'll go huntin' for him myself; an' I'll pack a gun with me!"
That flickering yellow light played behind Dan's eyes.
"I looked into his face—an' he stared the other way."
She made a little imploring gesture, but his hand remained on his hips, and there was no softening of his voice.
"What fetched you here?"
Every word was like a hand that pushed her farther away.
"Are you dumb, Kate? What fetched you here?"
"I have come to bring you home, Dan."
"I'm home now."
"What do you mean?"
"There's the roof of my house," he jerked his hand towards the sky, "the mountain passes are my doors—an' the earth is my floor."
"No! No! We are waiting for you at the ranch."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Dan, this wild trail has no end."
"Maybe, but I know that feller can show me the way to Jim Silent, an' now —"
He turned towards Haines as he spoke, but here a low, venomous snarl from Black Bart checked his words. Kate saw him stiffen—his lips parted to a faint smile—his head tilted back a little as if he listened intently, though she could hear nothing. She was not a yard from him, and yet she felt a thousand miles away. His head turned full upon her, and she would never forget the yellow light of his eyes.
"Dan!" she cried, but her voice was no louder than a whisper.
"Delilah!" he said, and leaped back into the shade of the willows.
Even as he sprang she saw the flash of the moonlight on his drawn revolver, and fire spat from it twice, answered by a yell of pain, the clang of a bullet on metal, and half a dozen shots from the woods behind her.
That word "Delilah!" rang in her brain to the exclusion of all the world. Vaguely she heard voices shouting—she turned a little and saw Haines facing her with his revolver in his hand, but prevented from moving by the wolf who crouched snarling at his feet. The order of his master kept him there even after that master was gone. Now men ran out into the clearing. A keen whistle sounded far off among the willows, and the wolf leaped away from his prisoner and into the shadows on the trail of Dan.
* * * * *
Tex Calder prided himself on being a light sleeper. Years spent in constant danger enabled him to keep his sense of hearing alert even when he slept. He had never been surprised. It was his boast that he never would be. Therefore when a hand dropped lightly on his shoulder he started erect from his blankets with a curse and grasped his revolver. A strong grip on his wrist paralysed his fingers. Whistling Dan leaned above him.
"Wake up," said the latter.
"What the devil—" breathed the marshal. "You travel like a cloud shadow, Dan. You make no sound."
"Wake up and talk to me."
"I'm awake all right. What's happened?"
There was a moment of silence while Dan seemed to be trying for speech.
Black Bart, at the other side of the clearing, pointed his nose at the yellow moon and wailed. He was very close, but the sound was so controlled that it seemed to come at a great distance from some wild spirit wandering between earth and heaven.
Instead of speaking Dan jumped to his feet and commenced pacing up and down, up and down, a rapid, tireless stride; at his heels the wolf slunk, with lowered head and tail. The strange fellow was in some great trouble, Calder could see, and it stirred him mightily to know that the wild man had turned to him for help. Yet he would ask no questions.
When in doubt the cattleman rolls a cigarette, and that was what Calder did. He smoked and waited. At last the inevitable came.
"How old are you, Tex?"
"Forty-four."
"That's a good deal. You ought to know something."
"Maybe."
"About women?"
"Ah!" said Calder.
"Bronchos is cut out chiefly after one pattern," went on Dan.
"They's chiefly jest meanness. Are women the same—jest cut after one pattern?"
"What pattern, Dan?"
"The pattern of Delilah! They ain't no trust to be put in 'em?"
"A good many of us have found that out."
"I thought one woman was different from the rest."
"We all think that. Woman in particular is divine; woman in general is —hell!"
"Ay, but this one—" He stopped and set his teeth.
"What has she done?"
"She—" he hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice did not tremble; there was a deep hurt and wonder in it: "She double-crossed me!"
"When? Do you mean to say you've met a woman tonight out here among the willows?—Where—how—"
"Tex—!"
"Ay, Dan."
"It's—it's hell!"
"It is now. But you'll forget her! The mountains, the desert, and above all, time—they'll cure you, my boy."
"Not in a whole century, Tex."
Calder waited curiously for the explanation. It came.
"Jest to think of her is like hearing music. Oh, God, Tex, what c'n I do to fight agin this here cold feelin' at my heart?"
Dan slipped down beside the marshal and the latter dropped a sympathetic hand over the lean, brown fingers. They returned the pressure with a bone- crushing grip.
"Fight, Dan! It will make you forget her."
"Her skin is softer'n satin, Tex."
"Ay, but you'll never touch it again, Dan."
"Her eyes are deeper'n a pool at night an' her hair is all gold like ripe corn."
"You'll never look into her eyes again, Dan, and you'll never touch the gold of that hair."
"God!"
The word was hardly more than a whisper, but it brought Black Bart leaping to his feet.
Dan spoke again: "Tex, I'm thankin' you for listenin' to me; I wanted to talk. Bein' silent was burnin' me up. There's one thing more."
"Fire it out, lad."
"This evenin' I told you I hated no man but Jim Silent."
"Yes."
"An' now they's another of his gang. Sometime—when she's standin' by—I'm goin' to take him by the throat till he don't breathe no more. Then I'll throw him down in front of her an' ask her if she c'n kiss the life back into his lips!"
Calder was actually shaking with excitement, but he was wise enough not to speak.
"Tex!"
"Ay, lad."
"But when I've choked his damned life away—"
"Yes?"
"Ay, lad."
"There'll be five more that seen her shamin' me. Tex—all hell is bustin'