 39. Victory. The entrance of the puppy, to liken small things to great, was the coming of Blucher in Kate's life, for the battle turned and all in five minutes she had gone from defeat to victory. She sat by the fire with Joan sleeping in her arms, and the puppy in turn in the arms of Joan. It was such a foolish trick of chance that had given her all this. She was almost inclined to laugh, but something of tragedy in the faces of Buck and Lee Haynes made her thoroughly serious. And she readily saw the truth, for after all a child's brain is a small affair. It holds so much and no more. One instant the longing for Dan was all that Joan could think of. The next she had no room for anything more than the burned nose of the puppy. And there were other phases to this matter, such as Buck Daniels had pointed out, fear that in some future crisis the blood of the father might show in the child. Kate pushed those thoughts away. She was too full of the present happiness. Now, while she sat there in the firelight, she sang softly into the dreams of Joan, and watched the smile of sleep grow and wane faintly on the lips of the child as the rhythm of her singing lifted and fell. One half of her mind was empty, that part where Dan should have been, and a dozen times she checked an impulse to turn to him in the place where he should be sitting and invite him with a smile to share her happiness. When her eyes moved they only fell on the gaunt intent face of Buck, or the leonain head of Haynes. Whistling Dan was gone, and if he ever came again her fear of him, her fear for Joan, would be greater than her love. Yet Dan being gone so finally she knew that she would never be truly happy again. Her spring of life was ended. But even now she was grateful for the full richness of those six years with Dan. And if she turned from him now it was only because a mighty instinct commanded her, and a voice without words drove her. Joan must go on to a normal, womanly happiness. Dan Barry lived from day to day, glutting himself with a ride in the wind, or the whistle of a far-off bird, or the wail of a mountain lion through the night. Each instant was to him complete. But the eye of Kate looked far away, and saw the night when this daughter of hers should sit holding an infant by such a fire, and her heart was both empty and full. It was no wonder then that she heard the first sound long before either Haynes or Buck Daniels. For her mind was on guard against dangers which might threaten her baby. It was a faint slipping, scratching noise on the veranda, then a breathing at the front door. Kate turned, and the men followed the terror of her eyes in time to see the door fall open, and a broad paw appear in the interval. The snaky head of Black Bart thrust into the room. Without a word Daniels drew his gun. Wait! commanded Kate. Joan awoke with a start at the sharpness of this voice. Don't shoot, Buck. See that bit of paper under his throat? He's bringing a message. Bart! cried Joan, slipping to the floor from her mother's lap. But when she ran toward the wolf-dog, that tremendous snarl of warning stopped her short. Bart slunked toward Kate. Look out, Kate! cried Haynes. The Black Devil means murder. Don't move, or he'll go at your throat, she answered. There's no danger to me. He's been ordered to go to me, and he won't let even Joan touch him. See? He had glided past the amazed, outstretched arms of Joan and went straight to Kate, and stopped beside her, obviously, expectant. She reached for the slip of folded paper, and as her hand approached, he crouched a little growling, but it was only to caution her, apparently, and though he distrusted the hand, he allowed it to unfasten the missive. She untwisted the note. She read aloud, Kate, send Joan back to me, or I come for her. Send her with Bart. It seemed as though the wolf-dog understood the written words, for now he moved toward Joan, and she, with a cry, dropped the squealing puppy and caught the great head of Bart in her arms. The puppy wailed, sitting down on his haunches and quivering with grief. Daddy, Dan, wants me! explained Joan with bright eyes. He sent for me. Go, quick, Bart! The big animal lay down to facilitate her mounting. Joan called Kate. The child hesitated and turned toward her. Her mother had taken up that light revolver which Dan had taught her to use so well, and now, as she leveled it at the wolf-dog, Bart laid his fangs bare in silent hate. The weapons of Buck and Lee Haines were ready, and now Bart raised himself a little and commenced to drag gradually forward to leaping distance. Drop your gun, Kate, caution, Buck, for God's sake drop your gun, even if you hit him with a bullet he'll be at your throat. As you kill him with a first shot he'll have you. Drop your gun, and then he'll go at us. But Joan knew perfectly well what those gleaming bits of metal meant. She had seen Daddy, Dan, shoot and kill, and now she ran screaming between Bart and danger. Mother! she cried, you bad, bad men, I won't let you hurt Bart! They won't hurt you, Bart! explained Joan, taming much mollified to the great wolf-dog. They just play, and now we'll go! And she started toward the door, with Bart slinking in front and keeping a watchful lookout from a corner of his eye. Are you going to leave the poor little puppy, Joan? said the mother, keeping her voice steady, for all the force of the two men could not help her now. It rested with her wit. I'll take him with me! answered Joan, and caught up the howling puppy from the floor. His wails died out against her breast. But you mustn't do that, honey. He'll die in this cold night wind long before you get there. Oh! sighed Joan, and considered her mother with great eyes. Bart turned and uneasily tugged at her dress. Will you take good care of him, mother, till I come back? But I don't know how to take care of him, dear. If you go he'll cry, and cry, and cry until he dies. Joan sighed. See how quiet he is when you hold him, Joan. Oh! muttered Joan again. The distress of the problem made her wrinkle her forehead. She turned to Kate for help. Mother, what'll I do? You'd best stay here, until the puppy is strong enough to go with you. She kept her voice well under control. It would not do to show the slightest emotion. And now she sat down and half turned away from the child. With her eyes she flashed a signal at the two troubled men, and they followed her lead. Their centre of vision was now upon the fire. It left Joan to all appearances quite out of notice. Oh! that'll be a long, long time, mother. Only a little while, Joan. But Daddy Dan will be lonesome up there. He has Satan and Bart to keep him company. Don't you think he wants Joan, mother? Not as much as the poor little puppy wants you, Joan, she added, with just the slightest tremor. You decide for yourself, Joan. Go if you think it is best. Bart! What'll Joan do? He hurried the child, turning in dismay toward the wolf-dog. But as soon as he saw the puppy in her arms, he greeted her with a murderous snarl. You see, suggested her mother, that Black Bart would eat up the poor little puppy if you went now with him. At this alarming thought, Joan shrank away from Bart, and when he followed her anxiously she cried, Go away, bad dog, bad Bart! She caught the edge of her dress and drew back toward the door, and this threw Joan into a sudden panic. She struck Bart across his wrinkled forehead. Go away! He slunk back, snarling at the puppy. Go back to Daddy Dan! Then as he pricked his ears, still growling like distant thunder, Go tell Daddy Dan that Joan has to stay here a while. Mother, how long? Maybe a week, dear. A whole week? She cried, dismayed. Perhaps only one or two or three days, said Kate. Some of her tenseness was leaving, as she saw victory once more inclining to her standards. One, two, five days, counted Joan, and then come for me again. Tell Daddy Dan that, Bart! His eyes left her and wandered around the room, lingering for a vicious instant on the face of each, then he backed toward the door. He's clear of Joan now, Kate, whispered Buck. Let me shoot. No! No! Don't even look at him! Then, with a scratching of sudden claws, Bart whirled at the door and was gone like a bolt down the hall. Afterwards for a time there was no sound in the room except the murmurings of Joan to her puppy. And then they heard the most mournful of sounds on the mountain desert, the long howl of a wolf which has missed its kill and hunts hungry on a new trail. End of Chapter 39 Chapter 40 The Failure When Black Bart returned without Joan, without even a note of answer about his neck, the master made ready to take by force. First he went over his new outfit of saddle and guns, looking to every strap of the former, and the latter, revolvers and rifle, he weighed and balanced with a meditative look as if he were memorizing their qualities against a time of need. With Satan saddled and Bart on guard at the mouth of the cave, he gathered up all the accumulation of odds and ends, divisions, skins, and made a stirring bonfire in the middle of the gravel floor. It was like burning his bridges before starting out to the battle. He turned his back to the cave and started on his journey. He had to travel in a loose semicircle, for there were two points which he must reach on the ride, the town of Alder, where lived the seventh man who must die for Gray Molly, and the Cumberland Ranch, last of all, where he would take Joan. Very early after his start he reached the plateau where he had lived all those years with Kate, and he found it already sinking back to ruin, with nothing in the corrals, and the front door swinging too and fro idly in the wind, just as Joan had often played with it. Inside he knew the rooms were empty, a current of air down the chimney had scattered the ashes from the hearth all about the living room. Here must be a chair overturned, and there the sand had drifted through the open door. All this he saw clearly enough with his mind's eye, and urged Satan forward, for a chill like the falling of sudden night had swept over him, and he shrugged his shoulders with relief when he swept past the house. Yet when he came to the long downslope which pitched into the valley so far below him, he called Satan to a halt again, and swung to look at the house. He could hear the clatter of the front door as it swung. It seemed to be waving a fair well to him. It was all the work of a moment to ride back, gather a quantity of paper and readily inflammable materials, soak them in oil, and scratch a match. The flames swept up the sides of the logs, and caught on the ceiling, first of all, and Dan Berry stood in the center of the room until the terrified whining of Black Bart and the teeth of the wolf dog at his trousers made him turn and leave the house. Outside he found Satan trembling between two temptations, the first to run as far and as fast as he could from that most terrible thing, fire, and the second to gallop straight into the blaze. The voice of the master, a touch quieted him, and Black Bart lay down at the feet of the master and looked up into his face. By this time the fire had licked away a passage through the roof, and through this it sent up a yellow hand that flickered up and down like a signal or a beckoning, and then shot up a tall, steady, growing, roaring column of red. No man could say what went through the mind of Dan Berry as he stood there, watching the house of his building burn. But now he turned and threw his arms over the neck and back of Satan, and dropped his forehead against the withers of the Black. It troubled the stallion. He turned his head and nose the shoulder of the master gently, and Black Bart, in an agony of anxiety, reared up beside Dan and brought his head almost up to the head of the man. There he whined pleadingly, for never before had he seen the master hide his face. A deep short report made the master stand away from Satan. The fire had reached a small stalk of powder, and the shock of the explosion was followed by a great crashing and rending as an inner wall went down. That fall washed a solid mass of yellow flame across the front door, but the fire fell back, and then Dan saw the doll which he himself had made for Joan. It had been thrown by the smashing of the wall, squarely in front of the door, and now the fire reached after it, long arms across the floor. It was an odd contrivance, singularly made of carved wood, and with arms and legs fastened on by means of bits of strong sinew. And Joan prized it above all the rosy-faced dolls which Kate had bought for her. For an instant Dan stood watching the progress of the fire, then he leaped through the door, swerved back as an arm of fire shot out at him, ran forward again, caught up the doll, and was outside, rubbing away the singed portions of brows and lashes. He did not wait until the house was consumed, but when the flame stood towering above the roof, shaking out to one side with a roar when the wind struck them, he mounted Satan once more, and made for the valley. He wanted to reach Alder at dark, and he gauged the time of his ride so accurately, that when he pulled out of the mouth of Murphy's pass, the last light of the day was still on the mountains and in the pass, but it was already dark in the village, and a score of lights twinkled up at him like eyes. He left Satan and Bart well outside the town, for even in the dark they might easily be recognized, and then walked straight down the street of Alder. It was a bold thing to do, but he knew that the first thing which is seen and suspected is the Sculker, who approaches from covert to covert. They knew he had ridden into Alder before in the middle of the night, and they might suspect the danger of such another attack, but they surely would not have fear of a solitary pedestrian unless a telltale light were thrown upon his face. He passed Captain Lorimer's saloon. Even in this short interval it had fallen into ill repute after the killing at Alder, and a shanty further down the street now did the liquor business of the town. Captain Lorimer's was closed, and the window nailed across with slats. He went on, partly by instinct and partly because it was a flame with lights. He moved straight to the house at which he had learned tidings of three men he sought on his last visit to Alder. Now there were more lights showing from the windows of that place than there were in all the rest of Alder. At the hitching rack in front horses stood tethered in long double rows, and a noise of voices rolled out and up and down the street. Undoubtedly there was a festival there, and all Alder would turn out for such an affair. All Alder, including Vic Gregg, the seventh man. A group came down the street for the widow's house. They were laughing and shouting, and they carried lanterns. Away from them Barry slipped like a ghost and stood in the shadow of the house. There might be other such crowds, and they were dangerous to Barry. So now he hunted for a means of breaking into the house of the widow unseen. The windows, as he went down the side of the building he noted to be high, but not too high to be reached by a skillful, noiseless climber. In the back of the house he saw the kitchen door illuminated indeed but the room, as far as he could see, empty. Then very suddenly a wave of silence began somewhere in a side of the house and swept across it, dying to a murmur at the edges. Barry waited for no more maneuvers, but walked boldly up the back stairs and entered the house hat in hand. The moment he passed the door he was alert, balanced. He could have swung to either side or whirled and shot behind him with the precision of a leisurely marksman. And as he walked he smiled, happily, with his head held high. He seemed so young then that one would have said he had just come in gaily from some game with the other youths of Alder. Out of the kitchen he passed into the hall, and there he understood the meaning of the silence, for both the doors to the front room were open and through the doors he heard a single voice, deep and solemn, and through the doors he saw the crowd standing motionless. Their heads did not stir, heads on which the hair was plastered smoothly down. And when someone raised a hand to touch an itching ear or nose, he moved his arm in such a caution that it seemed he feared to set a magazine of powder on fire. All their backs were towards Barry, where he stood in the hall, and as he glided toward them he heard the deep voice, stop, and then the trembling voice of a girl speak in reply. At the first entrance he paused, for the whole scene unrolled before him. It was a wedding. Just in front of him on chairs and even on benches sat the majority of adult Alder, facing these stood the wedding-pair with the minister just in front of them. He could see the girl to one side of the minister's back, and she was very pretty, very femininely appealing now in a dress which was a cloudy effect of white. But Barry gave her only one sharp glance, his attention was for the men of the crowd, and although there were only backs of heads and side glimpses of faces, he hunted swiftly for Vic Gregg. But Gregg was not there. He surveyed the assembly twice incredulous, for surely the tall man should be here. But when he was on the very point of turning on his heel and slinking down the hall to pursue his hunt in other quarters, the voice of the minister stopped, and the deep tone of Vic himself rolled through the room. It startled Barry like a voice out of the sky. He stared about bewildered, and then as the minister shifted his position a little, he saw that it was Gregg who stood beside the girl in white. It was Gregg being married. And at the same moment the eyes of Vic lifted, wandered, fell upon the face which stood there framed in the dark of the doorway. Dan saw the flush die out, saw the narrow, single-purposed face of Gregg turn white, saw his eyes widen, and his own hand closed on his gun. Another instant the minister turned his head, seemed to be waiting, and then Gregg spoke in answer. I will. A thousand pictures rushed through the mind of Barry, and he remembered first and last the wounded man on the gray horse who he had saved, and the long hard ride carrying that limp body to the cabin in the mountains. The man would fight. By the motion of Gregg's hand, Dan knew that he had gone even to his wedding, armed. He had only to show his own gun to bring on the crisis. And in the meantime the eyes of Vic held steadily upon him, past the shoulder of the minister, without fear, desperately. In spite of himself, Dan's hand could not move his gun. In spite of himself he looked to the confused happy face of the girl, and he felt as he had felt when he set fire to his house, up there in the hills. The wavering lasted only a moment longer, then he turned and slipped noiselessly down the hall, and the seventh man, who should have died for Gregg Molly, was still alive. End of Chapter 40 Chapter 41 of The Seventh Man, The Last Chapter This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, reading by Robert Kuiper. The Seventh Man by Max Brand. Chapter 41 The Wild Geese Twenty-four hours from Alder to Elkhead, and beyond Elkhead to the Cumberlade Ranch, is long-riding and hard-riding. But not far after dark on the following night Joan lifted her head where she played with the puppy on the hearth, and listened. There was no sound audible to the others in the living room. They did not even mark the manner in which she sat up and then rose to her feet. But when she whispered, Daddy, Dan... It brought each of the three out of his chair. Until they heard nothing, and Buck and Lee Haynes would have retaken their chairs had not Kate gone to the window and thrown it wide. Then they caught it, very far off, very thin and small, a delicate thread of music, an eerie whistling. Without a word she closed the window, crossed the room, and from the table she took up a cartridge belt from which hung the holster with the revolver which whistling Dan had taught her to use so well. She buckled it around her. Lee Haynes and Daniels, without a word, imitated her actions. Their guns were already on. Every moment since they reached the ranch they had gone armed, but now they looked to them and tried the actions a few times before they thrust them back into the holsters. It was odd to watch them. They were like the last remnant of a garrison outworn with fighting which prepares in grim quiet for the final stand. The whistling rose a little in volume now. It was a happy sound, without a recognizable tune, but a gay, wild improvisation as if a violinist drunk was remembering snatches of masterpieces, throwing out lovely fragments here and there and filling the intervals out of his own excited fancy. Joan ran to the window, forgetful of the puppy, and kneeled there in the chair, looking out. The whistling stopped as Kate drew down the curtain to cut out Joan's view. It was far too dark for the child to see out, but she often would sit like this, looking into the dark. The whistling began again as Joan turned silently on her mother, uncomplaining but with a singular glint in her eyes, a sort of flickering inward light that came out by glances and starts. Now the sound of the rider grew closer and closer. Kate gestured the men to their positions, one for each of the two inner doors while she herself took the outer one. There was not a trace of color in her face, but otherwise she was as calm as a stone, and from her an atmosphere pervaded the room so the men also stood quietly at their posts without a word, without a sign to each other. They had their unspoken order from Kate. She would resist to the death, and she expected the same from them. They were prepared. Still that crescendo of the whistling continued. It seemed as if it would never reach them. It grew loud as a bird singing in that very room, and still it continued to swell, increase, then suddenly went out. As if it were the signal for which she had been waiting all these heartbreaking moments, Kate opened the front door, ran quickly down the hall, and stood an instant later on the path in front of the house. She had locked the doors as she went through, and now she heard one of the men rattling the lock to follow her. The rattling ceased. Evidently they decided that they would hold the fort as they were. Her heel hardly sank in the sand when she saw him. He came out of the night like a black shadow among shadows, with the speed of the wind to carry him. A light creak of leather as he halted, a glimmer of starlight on Satan as he wheeled, a clink of steel, and then Dan was coming up the path. She knew him perfectly even before she could make out the details of the form. She knew him by the light, swift, almost noiseless step, like the padding footfall of a great cat, a sense of weight without sound. Another form skulked behind him. Black Bart. He was close, very close, before he stopped or seemed to see her, though she felt that he must have been aware of her since he first rode up. He was so close indeed that the starlight, the brim of his hat standing up somewhat from the swift riding, showed his face quite clearly to her. It was boyish, almost, in its extreme youth, and so thinly molded, and his frame so lightly made that he seemed one risen from a wasted bed of sickness. The wind fluttered his shirt, and she wondered, as she had wondered so often before, where he gained that incredible strength in so meagre a body. In all her life she had never loved him as she loved him now. But her mind was as fixed as a star. You can't have her, Dan. You can't have her. Don't you see how terrible a thing you'd make her? She's my blood, my pain, my love, and you want to take her up yonder to the mountains and the loneliness high to keep her. Now the moon, which had been buried in a drift of clouds, broke through them, and seemed, on an instant, to slide a vast distance toward the earth, a crooked half-moon with its edges eaten by the mist. Under this light she could see him more clearly, and she became aware of the thing she dreaded, the faint smile which barely touched at the corners of his mouth. And in his eyes a swirl of yellow light, half-guest at, half-real. All her strength poured out of her. She felt her knees buckle, felt the fingers about the light revolver but relax, felt every nerve grow slack. She was helpless. And it was not fear of the man, but something which stocked behind him, inhuman, irresistible, not the wolf-tog, but something more than Satan and Bart and whistling, Dan, something of which they were only apart. He began to whistle, thoughtfully, like one who considers a plan of action and yet hesitates to begin. She felt his eyes run over her as if judging how he should put her most gently to one side. Then from the house, very lightly, hardly more than an echo of Dan's whistling, came an answer, the very same refrain. Joan was calling to him. At that he stepped forward. But the thing which stirred him had hardened the mind of Kate. The weakness passed in a flash. It was Joan and Four Joan. Not a step! She whispered and jerked out her gun. Not a step! He stood with one hand trailing carelessly from his hip. And at the gleam of her steel, his other hand dropped to his holster, fumbled there, and came away empty. He could not touch her, not with the weight of a finger. That thoughtful whistle came again. Once more the answering whistle drifted out from the house, and he moved forward another pace. She had chosen her mark carefully. The upper corner of the seam of the pocket upon his shirt. And before his foot struck the ground, she fired. For an instant she felt she had missed the mark, for he stood perfectly upright. But then she saw that the yellow was gone from his eyes. They were empty of everything except a great wonder. He wavered to his knees, and then sank down with his arms around Black Bart. He seemed indeed to crumple away into the night. Then she heard a shouting and trampling in the house, and a breaking open of doors, and she knew that she had killed Whistling Dan. She would have gone to him, but the snarl of Bart drove her back. Then she saw Satan galloping up the path, and come to a sliding halt where he stood, with his delicate nose close to the face of the master. There was no struggle with death. Only a sigh, like a motion of wind in far-off trees, and then softly, easily Black Bart extricated himself from the master, and moved away down the path, all wolf, all wild. Behind him Satan whirled with a snort, and they rushed away into the night, each in an opposite direction. The long companionship of the three was ended, and the seventh man was dead, for Gray Molly. Lee Haines and Buck Daniels were around her now. She heard nothing distinctly, only a great vague clamour of voices while she kneeled and turned the body of Barry on its back. It was marvelously light. She could almost have picked it up in her arms, she felt. She folded the hands across his breast, and the limp fingers were delicate as the fingers of a sick child. Buck Daniels lay prone by the dead man, weeping aloud, and Lee Haines stood with his face buried in his hands. But there were no tears on the face of Kate. As she closed the eyes, the empty, hollow eyes, she heard a distant calling, a hoarse and dissonant chiming. She looked up, and saw a wedge of wild geese flying low across the moon. End of the Seventh Man by Max Brand. Reading by Robert Kuiper. Fairfax, Virginia. December 2009. January 2010.