 CHAPTER 33 Dr. Byron shows the truth. On this day of low-lying mists, this day so dull that not a shadow was cast by tree or house or man, there was no graver place than the room of old Joe Cumberland. Even lamplight was more merciful in the room, for it left the corners of the big apartment in obscurity. But this meagre daylight stripped away all illusion and left the room naked and ugly. Those colors of wall and carpet, once brighter than spring, showed now as faded, and lifeless, as foliage in the dead days of late November, when the leaves have no life except what keeps them clinging to the twig, and when their falling fellows are lifted and rustled on the ground by every faint wind, with a sound like breathing in the forest. And like autumn, too was the face of Joe Cumberland, with a color neither flushed nor pale, but a dull sallow which foretells death. Beside his bed sat Dr. Randall Byron, and kept the pressure of two fingers upon the wrist of the rancher. When he removed the thermometer from between the lips of Cumberland, the old man spoke, but without lifting his closed eyelids, as even this were an effort which he could only accomplish by a great concentration of will. "'No fever today, Doc? You feel a little better?' asked Byron. Dr. Byron glanced down at the thermometer with a frown, and then shook down the mercury. "'No,' he admitted. "'There is no fever.' Joe Cumberland opened his eyes a trifle and peered up at Byron. "'You ain't satisfied, Doc?' Dr. Randall Byron was of that merciless modern school which believes in acquainting the patient with the truth. "'I am not,' he said. "'Hmmm!' murmured the sick man. "'And what might be wrong? Your pulse is uneven and weak,' said the doctor. "'I've been feeling sort of weak since I seen Dan last night,' admitted the other. "'But the news Kate brought me will bring me up. She's kept him here, lad. Think of that.' "'I am thinking of it,' answered the doctor coldly. "'Your last interview with him nearly killed you. If you see him again, I shall wash my hands of the case. When he first came, you felt better at once. In fact, I admit that you seem to do better both in body and mind. But the thing could not last. It was a false stimulus. And when the first effects had passed away, it left you in this condition. "'Mr. Cumberland, you must see him no more.' But Joe Cumberland laughed long and softly. Life, he murmured, ain't worth that much, not half. "'I can do no more than advise,' said the doctor, as reserved as before. I cannot command.' "'A bit peeve, doc,' queried the old man. "'Well, sir. I know they ain't much longer for me. Lord man, I can feel myself going out like a flame in a lamp when the oil runs up. I can feel life just making its last few jumps in me, like the flame up the chimney. But listen to me. He reached out a long, large-knuckled, claw-like hand, and drew the doctor down over him, and his eyes were earnest. I got to live till I see him standing here beside me, hand-in-hand, doc. The doctor, even by that dim light, had changed color. He passed his hand slowly across his forehead. "'You expect to see that?' "'I expect nothing, I only hope.' The bitterness of Byron's heart came up in his throat. "'It will be an oddly-suited match,' he said, if they marry. But they will not marry.' "'Ha!' cried Cumberland, and, starting up in bed, he braced himself on a quaking elbow. "'What's that?' "'Lie down,' ordered the doctor, and pressed the ranchman back against the pillows. "'But what do you mean?' "'It would be a long story,' the scientific explanation. "'Doc, were Dan is concerned? I've got more patience than Job. In brief, then, I will prove to you that there is no mystery in this Daniel-Berry. If you can do that, doc, you're more of a man than I have been guessing you for. Start now.' "'In primitive times,' said Dr. Randall Byron, man was nearly related to what we now call the lower animals. In those days he could not surround himself with an artificial protective environment. He depended on the unassisted strength of his body. His muscular and sensuous development, therefore, was far in advance of that of the modern man. For modern man has used his mind at the expense of his body. The very quality of his muscles is altered, and the senses of sight and hearing, for instance, are much blunted. For in the primitive days the ear kept guard over man, even when he slept, in terror of a thousand deadly enemies, each stronger than he, and the eye had to be keenly attuned to probe the shadows of the forest for lurking foes. "'Now, sir, there is in biology the thing known as the sport. You will have heard that all living organisms undergo gradual processes of change, season by season and year by year. Environment affects the individual. Yet these gradual changes are extremely slow. Between steps of noticeable change there elapsed periods many times longer than the life of historic man. All speed and changes such as these comes in what we call sports. That is, a particular plant, for instance, gradually tends to have fewer leaves and a thicker bark, but the change is slight from age to age, until suddenly a single instance occurs of plant which realizes suddenly in a single step the ideal towards which the species has been striving. In a word, it has very, very few leaves and an extraordinarily thick bark. For a particular instance, one species of orange tended to have fewer and fewer seeds, but finally came an orange tree whose fruit had no seeds at all. That was the origin of the naval orange, and that was a typical sport. Now there is the reverse of the sport. Instead of jumping long distance ahead, an individual may lapse back towards the primitive. That individual is called an adivism. For instance, in this mountain desert there has, for several generations, been a pressure of environment calling for a species of man which will be able to live with comparative comfort in a waste region. A man, in a word, equipped with such powerful organisms that he will be as much at home in the heart of the desert as an ordinary man would be in a drawing-room. You gather the drift of my argument? I have observed this man bury carefully. I am thoroughly convinced that he is such an adivism. Among other men he seems strange. He is different, and therefore he seems mysterious. As a matter of fact, he is quite a common freak. I could name you others like him in differing from common men, though not differing from them in exactly the same manner. You see the result of this? Dan Berry is a man to whom the desert is necessary. Because he was made for the desert. He is lonely among crowds. You have said it yourself. But he is at home in a mountain wilderness with a horse and a dog. Doc, you talk well, broke-in Joe Cumberland. But if he ain't human, why do humans like him so much? Why does he mean so much to me, to Kate? Simply because he is differed. You get from him what you could get from no other man in the world, perhaps, and you fail to see that the fellow is really more akin to his wolf-dog than he is to a man. Suppose when I said you was right, murmured the old man frowning. How do you explain why he likes other folks? According to you, the desert and the mountains and animals is what he wants. Then how is it that he took so much care of me when he come back this time? How is it that he likes Kate enough to give up a trail of blood to stay here with her? It's easy to explain the girl's attraction, said the doctor. All animals wish to mate, Mr. Cumberland. And an age-old instinct is now working out in Danbury. But while you and Kate may please him, you are not necessary to him. He left you once before, and he was quite happy in his desert. And I tell you, Mr. Cumberland, that he will leave you again. You cannot tame the untameable. It is not habit that rules this man. It is instinct a million years old. The call which he will hear is the call of the wilderness, and to answer it, he will leave father and wife and children and ride out with his horse and his dog. The old man lay quite motionless, staring at the ceiling. I don't want to believe you, he said slowly. But before God, I think you're right. Oh, lad, why was I bound up in a tangle like this one? And Kate, what will she do? The doctor was quivering with excitement. Let the man stay with her. In time she will come to see the brute nature of Daniel Berry. That will be the end of him with her. Brute doc? There ain't nobody as gentle as Dan. Till he tastes blood, a lion can be raised like a house-dog, answered the doctor. Then she mustn't marry him. I felt it, just what you put into words. It's living death for Kate if she marries him. She's kept him here today. Tomorrow something may cross him, and the minute he feels the pull of it, he'll be off on the trail. The blow of a man, the hollering of the wild geese, God knows what it'll take to start him wild again and forget us all. Just the way a child forgets its parents. A voice broke in upon them, calling far away. Dan? Dan Berry? End of chapter 33. Chapter 34 of The Night Horseman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Night Horseman by Max Brand, chapter 34. The Acid Test. In the living room below they heard it, Dan and Kate Cumberland. All day she had sat by the fire, which still blazed on the hearth, replenished from time to time by the care of Wong Lu. She had taken up some sewing, and she worked at it steadily. Some of that time Dan Berry was in the room, sitting through long intervals, watching her with Link's eyed attention. Very rarely did he speak, almost never, and she could have numbered upon her two hands the words he had spoken, eye, and she could have repeated them one by one. Now and again he rose and went out, and the wolf-dog went with him each time. But towards the last Black Bart preferred to stay in the room, crouched in front of her, blinking at the fire, as if he knew that each time his master would return to the fire. Then why leave the pleasant warmth for the chilly grayness of the day outside? There he remained, stirring only now and then, to lift the clumsy paw and brush it across his eyes in an oddly human gesture. Once or twice also he lifted that great scarred head, and laid it on her knees, looking curiously, from her busy hands to her face, and from her face back again to her work, until having apparently assured himself that all was well, he dropped his head again and lay once more motionless. She could see him open a listless eye when the master entered the room again, and with each coming of Dan Berry she felt again surrounded, as if by invisible arms, something was prying at her, striving to win a secret from her. As the day wore on, a great singing happiness rose in her throat. At about the same time she heard a faint sound, impalpable, from the farther side of the room where Dan Berry sat. He was whistling. The simple thing for a man to do, to be sure, but the astonishment of it nearly stopped the heart of Kate Cumberland. For in all her life she had never before heard him whistle except when he was in the open, and preferably when he was a stride of the strength and the speed of Satan, with Black Bart scouting swiftly and smoothly ahead. But now he whistled here by the warmth of the fire. To be sure the sound was small and thin, but there was such music in it, as she had never heard before. It was so thin that it was almost ghostly, as if the soul of Wild Paganini played here on a muted violin. No tune that might be repeated, but as always when she heard it a picture rose before the eyes of Kate. It wavered at first against the yellow glow of the firelight. Then it quite shut out all else. It was deep night, starry night. The black horse and his rider wound up a deep ravine. To one side a bold mountain tumbled up to infinite height, bristling with mid-shape and trees here and there, and losing its head against the very stars. On the other side were jagged hills, all carved in the solid rock. And down the valley, between the mountains and the stars, blew a soft wind, as if that wind made the music. They were climbing up, up, up, and now they reached, the music rising also to a soft but triumphant outburst, a high plateau. They were pressed up against the heart of the sky. The stars burned low and low. Around them the whole earth seemed in prospect at their feet. The moon burst through a mass of clouds, and she saw far off a great river running silver through the night. Happy, I, and he was happy too, and his happiness was one with hers. He was not even looking out the window while he whistled, but his eyes were fixed steadily, unchangingly upon her face. It was then that they heard it. Dan, Dan Berry, come out. A horse-wringing cry, as of one who was shouting against the great wind, Dan, Dan Berry, come out. Dan Berry was on his feet and gliding to the wall, where he took down his belt from a nail and buckled it swiftly around him. And Kate ran to the window with the wolf-dog snarling beside her and saw standing in front of the house, his hat off, his black hair wildly tumbled, and two guns in his hands bucked Daniels. Behind him the tall bay-mayor shook with her panting and glistening with a sweat of the long ride. She heard a scratching next and saw the wolf-dog rear up and paw at the door. Once through that door he would be at the throat of the man outside she knew, nor he alone, for Dan Berry was coming swiftly across the room with that strange patting step. He had no eye for her, he was smiling, and she would rather have seen him in a cursing fury than to see this smile. It curled the upper lip with something like a sneer, and she caught the white glint of his teeth, and the wolf-dog snarled back over his shoulder to hurry as best her. It was the crisis which she had known all day was coming sooner or later. She had only prayed that it might be delayed for a little time. And confronting the danger was like stepping into the path of a runaway horse. Fear ruled her with an iron hand, and she swayed back against the wall and supported herself with an outstretched hand. What was there to be done? If she stepped in between him and his man he would brush her aside from his path and out of his life forever. If he went on to his vengeance he would no less be started on the path which led around the world away from her. The law would be the hound which pursued him and relentlessly nipped at his heels, an eternal terror and unrest. No thought of Buck Daniels who had done so much for her. She cast his services out of her mind with the natural cruelty of women. Her whole thought was selfishly for the man before her and for herself. He was there his hand upon the knob of the door, and then she remembered how the teeth of Black Bart had closed over her arm and how they had not broken even the skin. In an instant she was pressed against the door before Dan Barry, her arms outstretched. He fell back the slightest bit before her, and then he came again and brushed her slowly, gently to one side with an irresistible strength. She had to meet his eyes now, there was no help for it, and she saw there that swirl of yellow light, that insatiable hunger, and she knew fully and bitterly that she had failed. With Wolfdog indeed she had conquered, but the man escaped her. If time had been granted her she would have won, she knew, but the hand of Buck Daniels, so long her ally, had destroyed her chances. It was his hand now which shook the knob of the door, and she turned with a sob of despair to face the new danger. In her wildest dreams she had never envisioned that Buck Daniels transformed like this. She knew that in his past, as one of those long riders who roamed the mountain desert, their hand against the hands of every man, Buck Daniels had been known and feared by the strongest. But all she had seen of Buck Daniels had been gentleness itself. Yet what faced her as the door flew wide was a nightmare thing, with haggard face and shadow buried, glittering eyes, unshaven, unkept hair, his shirt open at the throat, his great hands clenched for battle. The wolf-dog at that familiar sight whined a low greeting, but with a glance at his master knew that there was a change. The old alliance was broken, so he buried his white teeth and changed his wine to a snarl of hate. Then a strange terror struck Kate Cumberland. She had never dreamed that she could fear for Dan Berry at the hands of any man, but now the desperate resolve which breathed from every line of Buck Daniels chilled her blood at the heart. She sprang back before Dan Berry, facing him. She saw that demoniac glitter of yellow rising momentarily brighter in his eyes, and he was smiling. No exe-curation or loud-voiced curse could have contained the distilled malignancy of that smile. All this she caught in a single glimpse. The next instant she had whirled and stood before Dan, shielding him without spread arms and facing Buck Daniels. The latter thrust back into the holster the gun which he had drawn when he entered the room. Stand away from him, Kate, he commanded, and his eyes went past her to dwell on the face of Berry. Stand away from him. It's been coming for a long time, and now it's here. Berry, I'm taking no start on you. Stand away from the girl and pull your gun, and I'll pump you full of lead. The softest of soft voices murmured behind her. I've been waiting for you, Buck, days and days and days. I ain't never been so glad to see anybody. And she felt Berry's lips shatter like to one side. She sprang in front of him again with a wild cry. Buck, she begged, don't shoot. Her wringing and unhuman filled the throat of Buck Daniels. Is it him you're begging for he sneered at her? Is it him you got your fears for? Ain't you got a word of pity for Buck Daniels that sneaked off like a whipped puppy? Ah, Dan Berry, the time has come. I've been leading the life of a hound dog for your sake, but it's ended. Pull your gun and get out from behind the skirts of that girl. As long as they faced each other with a challenge in their eyes, nothing on earth could avert the fight she knew. But if she could delay them for one moment, she felt that swift moving form behind her slipping away from behind her, and she could follow Berry's movements by the light in Daniel's eyes. Buck, she cried for God's sakes, for my sake, turn away from him and roll another cigarette. For she remembered the story, how Daniels had turned under the very nose of danger, and done this insane thing in the saloon at Brownsville. And in her despair, she could think of no other appeal. It was the very strangeness of it that gave it point. Buck Daniels turned on his heel. It's the last kindness I do you, Dan, he said, with his broad back to them. But before you die, you gotta know why I'm killing you. I'm going to roll one cigarette and smoke it, and while I smoke it, I'm going to tell you the concentrated truth about your worthless self, and when I'm done smoking, I'm going to turn around and drop you where you stand, do you hear? There's no need to waitin', answered the soft voice of Berry. Talkin' don't mean much. But Kate Cumberland turned and faced him. He was fairly a quiver with eagerness, and the hate welled and blazed and flickered in his eyes. His face was pale, very pale. And it seemed to her that she could make out, in the pallor, the print of the fingers of Buck Daniels, and that blow those many days before. And she feared him, as she had never feared him before. And yet she blocked his ways still with the outspread arms. They could hear the crinkle of cigarette paper as Buck Daniels rolled his smoke. No, said Buck, his voice suddenly altered, to almost a casual moderation. Talk don't mean nothing to you. Talk is human, and nothing human means nothing to you. But I got to tell you why you ought to die, Berry. I started out this morning hating the ground you walked on. But now I see there ain't no use to hate you. Is there any use in hating a mountain lion that kills calves? No, you don't hate it. But you get a gun, and trail it, and shoot it down. And that's the way with you. I heard the scratch of his match. That's the way with you. I got my back to you right now. Because if I looked you in the eye, I couldn't let you live no more than I could let a mountain lion live. I know you're faster with your gun than I am, and stronger than I am, and made to fight. But I know I'm going to kill you. You've done your work. You've left hell on all sides of you. It's your time to die. I know it. You've been lying like a snake in the rocks with your poison ready for any man that walks past you. Now your poison is about used up. He paused, and then, when he spoke again, there was a ring of exaltation in his voice. I tell you, Dan, I don't fear you. And I know that the bullet in this gun here on my hips is the one that's going to tear your heart out. I know it. Something like a sob came from the lips of Dan Berry. His hands moved out towards Buck Daniels as though he were plucking something from the empty air. You've said enough, he said. You've said plenty. Now turn around and fight. And Kate Cumberland stepped back out of the line of the two. She knew that in what followed she could not play the part of the protector or the delayer. Here they stood, hungry for battle, and there was no power in her weak hands to separate them. She stood far back and fumbled with her hands at the wall for support. She tried to close her eyes, but the fascination of the horror forced her to watch against her strongest will. And the chief part of that dreadful suspense lay in the even, calm voice of Buck Daniels as he went on. I'll turn around and fight soon enough. But Kate asked me to smoke another cigarette. I know what she means. She wants me to leave you the way I'd done in the saloon that day. I ain't going to leave Dan. But I'm glad she asked me to turn away, because it gives me a chance to tell you some things you've got to know before you go west. Dan, you've been like a fire that burns every hand that touches you. He inhaled a long breath of smoke and blew it up towards the ceiling. You've busted the heart of the friend that followed you. You've busted the heart of the girl that loves you. He paused again for another long inhalation, and Kate Cumberland, staring in fearful suspense, waiting for the instance when Buck should at last turn and when the shots should explode, saw the yellow glow was now somewhat misted in the eyes of Barry. He frowned as one bewildered. Thank of her, Dan, went on Buck Daniels. Think of her wasting herself on a no good hound dog like you, a no good wild wolf. My God Almighty, she might have made some man happy, some man with a soul and a heart. But instead of that, God sent you like a blast across her, you with your damn soul of wind and your heart of stone. Think of it. When you see what you've been, Barry, I wonder, you don't go out and take your own gun and blow off your head. Buck called Dan, so help me God if you don't turn your face to me, I'll shoot you through the back. I knew, said the imperturbable Daniels, that you'd come to that in the end. You used to fight like a man, but now you're following your instincts and you fight like a hunting wolf. Look at the brute that's slinking up to me there. That's what you are. You kill for the sake of killing, like the beasts. If you was a man, could you treat me like you've done, your damned cold heart and your yellow eyes, and all would have burned up in the barn the other night, you and your wolf and your damned horse, why didn't I let you burn, because I was a fool, because I still thought there was something of the man in you. But I seen afterwards what you was, and I wrote off to get out of your way, to keep your hands from getting red with my blood, and then you plan on following me, damn you, and following me. So that, Dan, is why I've come to put you out of the world, as I'm going to do now. Once you hated to give pain, and if you hurt people, it was because you couldn't help it. But now you live on torture and others. Barry, pull your gun. As he spoke, he whirled at the heavy revolver, leaping into his hand. Still Kate Cumberland could not close her eyes on the horror. She could not even cry out she was frozen. But there was no report, no spurt of smoke, no form of a man stumbling blindly towards death. Dan Berry stood, with one hand pressed over his eyes, and the other dangled at his side, harmless, while he frowned and bewilderment at the floor. He said slowly at length, Buck, I kind of think you're right. There ain't no use in me. I've been remembering, Buck, how you sent Kate to me when I was sick. There was a loud platter. The revolver dropped from the hand of Buck Daniels. The musical voice of Dan Berry murmured again. And I remember how you stood up to Jim Silent for my sake. Buck, what's come between us since them days? You hit me a while back, and since then I've been wanting your blood. But hearing you talk now, somehow, I feel sort of lost and lonesome. Like I've thrown something away that I valued most. Buck Daniels threw out his great arms, and his voice broke terribly. Oh, God, a mighty Dan, he cried. Just take one step back to me, and I'll come all the way around the world to meet you. He stumbled across the floor and grasped at the hand of Berry for a mist half-blinded his eyes. Dan, he pleaded, ain't things as they once was. Do you forgive me? Why, Buck, murmured Dan Berry in that same bewildered fashion. Seems like we was bunkies once. Dan, muttered Buck Daniels, choking Dan. But he dared not trust his voice further, and turning, he fairly fled from the room. The day's eyes of Dan Berry followed him. Then they moved until they encountered the face of Kate Cumberland. A shock, as if of surprise, widened the lids. And for a long moment they stared in silence, and then he began to walk very slowly, a step at a time, towards the girl. Now as he faced her, she saw that there was no longer hint of yellow in his eyes. But he stepped closer and closer. He was right before her, watching her with an expression of mute suffering that made her heart grow large. He said more to himself than to her. Seems like I've been away a long time. A very long time, she whispered. He drew a great breath. Is it true what Buck said about you? Oh, my dear, my dear, she cried. Don't you see? He started a little, and taking both her hands, he made her face the dull light from the windows. Seems like you're kind of pale, Kate. The color went out while I waited for you, Dan. But there comes a touch of red like morning in your throat, and running up your cheeks. Don't you see? It's because you've come back. He closed his eyes and murmured. I remember we was close, closer than this. We were sitting here in this room by a fire, and then something called me out, and I followed it. The wild geese, yes. Wild geese, he repeated blankly, and then shook his head. How could wild geese call me? But things happened. I was kept away. Sometimes I wanted to come back to you, but somehow I could never get started. Was it 10 years ago that I left? Months, months longer than years. What is it, he asked? I've been watching you, and waiting to find out what was different in you. Black Bart's seen something in you. I don't know what. Today I sort of guessed what it is. I can feel it now. It's something like a pain. It starts sort of in the stomach, Kate. It's like being away from a place where you want to be. Queer, ain't it? I ain't far from you. I got your hands in mine, but somehow you don't feel near. I want to walk a long ways closer, and the pain keeps growing. His voice fell away to a murmur, and now a deadly silence lay between them, and it seemed as if lights were varying upon their faces, so swift and subtle were the changes of expression. And they drew closer by imperceptible degrees. So his arms fumbling found their way about her, drew her closer till her head dropped back, and her face was close beneath his. Was it true, he whispered, what Buck said? There's nothing true except that we're together. But your eyes are brim full of tears. The same pain you feel, Dan, the same loneliness and the hurt. But it's going now. I feel as I've been riding three days without more than enough water to moisten my tongue every hour, and with sand white hot, and my horse staggering, and the sun dropping closer and closer till the mountains are touched with white fire. Then I come in the evening to a valley with cool shadows beginning to slip across the western side. And I stand in the shadow and feel the red hot blood go smashing, smashing, smashing in my temples. And then a sound of running water somewhere up the hillside, running cool, fresh, sparkling water, whispering over the rocks. Oh, God, that's what it means to me to stand here close to you, Kate. And it's like standing up in the morning on the top of a high hill and seeing the light jump up quick in the east. And there lies all the world at my feet, mile after mile of it. There's a river like silver away off yonder, and there's range after range walking off into the blue nothing. That's what it's like to stand here and look down into them blue eyes of yours, Kate, miles and miles into them till I feel as if I can see your heart beneath. And there is the rose of the morning on your cheeks and the breath of the morning stern between your lips and the light of the rising sun comes flaring in your eyes, and I own the world. I own the world. Two burning pieces of wood, that's you and me. And when I was away from you, the fire went down to a smolder. But now that we're close, a wind hits us. The flames come together and rise and jump and twine together. Two pieces of burning wood, but only one flame. Do you feel it? Oh, Kate, our bodies as ashes and dust. And all that's worth wild is that flame blowing up from us, setting the world on fire. End of chapter 34. Chapter 35 of The Night Horseman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Night Horseman by Max Brand, chapter 35, Pale Annie. Even in Elkhead there were fires this day. In the gill-aid saloon one might have thought that the liquid heat which the men had invited would serve in place of stoves. But the proprietor, Pale Annie, had an eye to form, and when the sky was gray he always lighted the stove. Pale Annie he was called because his real name was Anderson Hallbury Sandringham. That name had been in great aid to him when he was an undertaker in Kansas City. But Anderson Hallbury Sandringham had fallen from a straight and narrow path of good undertakers some years before, and he had sought refuge in the mountain desert, where most things prosper except sheriffs and grass. He was fully six inches more than six feet in height, and his face was so long and pale that even ha ha Langley seemed cheerful beside the ex-undertaker. In Kansas City this had been much prized, for that single face could lend salinity to any funeral. In Elkhead it was hardly less of an asset. People came out of curiosity to see Pale Annie behind the bar with his tall silk hat, which he could never bring himself to lay aside among the cobwebs of the rafters. They came out of curiosity, and they remained to drink, which is a habit in the mountain desert. A traveling drummer or a patent medicine man had offered Pale Annie a handsome stake to simply go about with him and lend the sanction of his face to the talk of the drummer. But Pale Annie had discovered a veritable philosopher's stone in Elkhead, and he was literally turning whiskey into gold. This day was even more prosperous than usual for Pale Annie. For the gray weather and the chilly air made men glad of the warmth, both external and internal, which Pale Annie possessed in his bar room. His dexterous hands were never for a moment still at the bar, either setting out drinks or making change, except when he walked out and threw a fresh feed into the fire, and stirred up the ruddy depths of the stove with a tall poker. It was so long, indeed, that it might have served even Pale Annie for a cane, and it was a plain, untapored bar of iron which the blacksmith had given him as the price of a drink on a day. He needed a large poker, however, for there was only the one stove in the entire big room, and it was a giant of its kind, as capacious as a hog's head. This day Pale Annie kept it red-hot, so that the warmth might penetrate to the door on the one hand and to the rear of the room where the tables and chairs were on the other. Since Pale Annie's crowd took little exercise except for bending their elbows now and again, and since the majority of them had been in the place fully half the day, by ten in the evening sounds of hilarity began to rise from the saloon. Salim-faced men, who had remained in their places for hour after hour, industriously putting away the red eye, now showed symptoms of life. Some of them discovered hitherto hidden talents as singers, and they would rise from their places, remove their hats, clean their bearded mouths, and burst into song. An antiquarian, who had washed gold in forty-nine and done nothing the rest of his life, say, grow a prodigious set of pure white whiskers, sprang from his place, and did a hoedown that ravished the beholders. Thrice he was compelled to return to the floor, and in the end his performance was only stopped by an attack of sciatica. Two strong men carried him back to his chair and wept over him, and there was another drink all around. In this scene of universal joy there were two places of shadow. For at the rear end of the room, almost out of reach of the lantern-light, sat Ha Ha Langley and Max Dran. The more Ha Ha Langley drank, the more cadaverous screw his face, until in the end it was almost as solemn as that of Pail Annie himself. As for Max Dran, he seldom drank at all. The full hour had just elapsed since either of them spoke, yet Ha Ha Langley said, as if in answer to a remark, he's heard too much about you, Mac. He ain't no such fool as to come to Elkhead. He ain't had time, answered the giant. Ain't had time all these days? Wait till his dog gets well. He'll follow the dog to Elkhead. For, Mac, that trail's been washed out long ago. The wind the other day would have knocked out any trail, less than a big wagon. It won't wash out the trail for that dog, said Max Dran calmly. Well, snarled Ha Ha, I got to be getting back home pretty soon. I ain't rollin' and coinin' the way you are, Mac. The other returned at no answer. But let his eyes row vacantly over the room, and since his head was turned the other way, Ha Ha Langley allowed a sneer to twist at his lips for a moment. If I had the price, he said, we'd have another drink. I ain't drinkin', answered the giant monotonously. Then I'll go up and bum one off of Pale Annie, about time he come through with a little charity. So he unfurled his length and stalked through the crowd up to the bar. Here he leaned and confidentially whispered in the ear of Pale Annie. Partner, I've been sprinklin' dust for a long time in here, and there ain't been any reward. I'm dry, Annie. Pale Annie regarded him with grave disapproval. My friend, he said solemnly, liquor is the real root of all evil. For my part, I quenched my thirst with water. There's a tub over there in the corner with a dipper handy. Don't mention it. I didn't thank you, said Ha Ha Langley furiously. Damn tight wad, say I. The long hand of Pale Annie curled affectionately around the neck of an empty bottle. I didn't quite gather what you said, he remarked courteously, and leaned across the bar within striking distance. I'll tell you later remarked Ha Ha sullenly, and turned his shoulder to the bar. As he did so, too comparatively, recent arrivals came up beside him. They were fresh from a couple of months of range-finding, and they had been quenching a concentrated thirst by concentrated effort. Ha Ha Langley looked them over, sighed with relief, and then instantly produced a Durham and the brown papers. He paused in the midst of rolling his cigarette and offered them to the nearest fellow. Smokey asked. Now a man of the mountain desert knows a great many things, but he does not know how to refuse. The proffer of a gift embarrasses him, but he knows no way of avoiding it. Also, he never rests easy until he has made some return. Sure said the man, and gathered in the tobacco and papers, thanks. He covertly dropped the cigarette which he had just lighted, and stepped on it. Then he rolled another from Ha Ha's materials. The while he kept an uneasy eye on his new companion. Drinking, he asked at length. Not just now, said Ha Ha carelessly. Always got room for another, protested the other. Still more in earnest as he saw his chance of return disappearing. All right, then, said Ha Ha, just one more. And he poured a glass to the brim, waved it gracefully towards the others without spilling a drop, and downed it at a gulp. Been in town long, he asked. Not long enough to find any action, answered the other. The eye of Ha Ha Langley brightened. He looked over the two carefully. The one had black hair and the other red, but they were obviously brothers, both tall, thick-shouldered, square-jawed, and pug-nosed. There was Irish blood in that twain. The fire in their eyes could have come from only one place on earth. And Ha Ha grinned, and looked down the length of the room to where Max Strand sat. A heavy, inert mass, his fleshy forehead puckered into a half-frown of animal wistfulness. You ain't the only ones, he said, to his companion at the bar. There's a man in town who says they don't turn out any two men in this range that could give him action. The hell grunted he of the red hair. And he looked down to his blunt knuckled hands. Smatter fact continued Hall easily. He's right here now. He looked again towards Max Strand and remembered once more the drink which Max might so easily have purchased for him. It ain't pale Annie, is it, asked the black-haired man, cast in a dubious glance up and down the vast frame of the undertaker. Him, not half, grinned Ha Ha. It's a fat fella, down to the end of the bar. I guess he's been drinking some, kind of off his nut. He indicated Max Strand. He looks to me, said the red-haired man, setting his jaw, like a fella that ain't too old to learn one more thing about the range in these parts. He looks to me, chimed in the black-haired brother, like a fella that might be taught something right here in pale Annie's bar room. Anyway, he's got room at his table for two more. So saying the two swallowed their drinks and rumbled casually down the length of the room until they came to the table where Max Strand sat. Ha Ha Langley followed at a discreet distance and came with an earshot to hear the deep voice of Max Strand rumbling. Sorry, gents, but that chairs took. The black-haired man sank into the indicated chair. You're right, he announced calmly. Anyone could see, with half an eye, that you ain't a fool. It's took by me. And he grinned impudently in the face of Max Strand. The latter, who had been sitting, with slightly bent head, now raised it, and looked the pair over carelessly. There wasn't his eye the same dumb curiosity which Ha Ha Langley had seen many a time in the eye of a bull, leader of the herd. The giant explained carefully, I mean, there's a friend of mine that's been sitting in that chair. If I ain't your friend, answered the black-haired brother instantly, it ain't any fault of mine. Lay it up to yourself, partner. Max Strand stretched out his hand on the surface of the table. He said, I got an idea. You'd better get out of that chair. The other turned his head slowly on all sides and then looked Max Strand full in the face. Maybe there's something wrong with my eyes, he said, but I don't see no reason. The little dialogue had lasted long enough to focus all eyes on the table at the end of the room, and therefore there were many witnesses to what followed. The arm of Max Strand shot out, his hand fastened in the collar of the black-haired man's shirt, and the latter was raised from his seat and propelled to one side by a convulsive jerk. He probably would have been sent crashing into the bar had not his shirt failed under the strain. It ripped in two at the shoulders, and the seeker after action naked to the waist went reeling back to the middle of the room before he gained his balance. After him went Max Strand, with an agility astonishing in that squat formless bulk. His long arms were outstretched and his fingers tensed, and in his face there was an uncanny joy. His lip had lifted in that peculiarly disheartening sneer. He was not a pace from him of the black hair, when a yell of rage behind him and the other brother leaped through the air and landed on Max Strand's back. He doubled up, slipped his arms behind him, and the next instant without visible reason the red-headed man hurdled through the air and smashed against the bar with a jolt that sent glassware shivering and singing. Then he relaxed on the floor, a twisted and foolish looking mass. As for the seeker after action, he had at first reached after his revolver, but he changed his mind at the last instant and instead picked up the great poker which leaned against the stove. It was a ponderous weapon, and he had to wield it in both hands. As he swung it around his head there was a yell from men ducking out of the way, and pale Annie curled his hand again around his favorite empty bottle. He had no good opportunity to demonstrate its efficiency, however. Max Strand, crouching in a position from which he had catapulted the red-haired man, cast upwards a single glance at the other brother, and then he sprang in. The poker hissed through the air with a vigor of a strong man's arms behind it, and it would have cracked the head of Max Strand like an empty eggshell, if it had hit its mark. But it was heaved too high, and Max Strand went in like a football player rushing the line, almost doubled up against the floor as he ran. His shoulder struck the other hardly higher than the knees, and they went down together, but doing so the head of Max Strand's victim cracked against the floor, and he also was still. The exploit was greeted by a yell of applause, and then someone proposed a cheer, and it was given. It died off short on the lips of the applauders, however, for it was seen that Max Strand was not yet done with his work, and he went about it in a manner which made men sober suddenly and exchanged glances. First the stranger dragged the two brothers together, laying one of them face down on the floor. The second he placed over the first, back to back. Next he picked up the long poker from the floor and slipped it under the head and down to the neck of the first man. The bystanders watched in utter silence, with a touch of horror coming now into their eyes. Now Max Strand caught the ends of the iron, and began to twist up on them. There was no result at first. He refreshed his hold and tried again. The sleeves of his shirt were seen to swell, and then grow hard and pond, with vast play of muscle beneath. His head bowed lower between his shoulders, and those shoulders trembled, and the muscles over them quivered like heat waves rising of a spring morning. There was a creaking now, and then the iron was seen to shiver, and then bend slowly. And once it was wrenched out of the horizontal, the motion was more and more rapid, until, when the giant was done with his labors, the ends of the iron overlapped around the necks of the two luckless brothers. Max Strand stepped back and surveyed his work. The rest of the room was in silence, saving the red-headed man who was coming back to consciousness and now withered and groaned feebly. He could not rise, that was manifest, for the thick band of iron tied his neck to the neck of his brother. Upon this scene Max Strand gazed, with a thoughtful air, and then stepped to the side of the room, where stood a bucket of dirty water, recently used for mopping behind the bar. Once he caught up, returned, and dashed the black greasy water over the pair. If it had been electricity it could not have operated more effectively. The two awoke with one mind, and, with a tremendous sputtering and cursing, struggled to regain their feet. It was no easy thing, however, for when one stood up the other slipped and, in his fall, involved the brother. In the meantime it made a jest exactly suited to the minds of Elkhead, and shrieks of hysterical laughter rewarded their struggles. Until at length they sat solemnly back to back, easing the pressure of the iron as best they might with their hands. Assembled Elkhead reeled about the room, drunken with laughter, but Max Strand went quietly back to his table and paid no attention to the scene. There is an end to all good things, however, and finally the two brothers concerted action together, rose, and then sidestepped towards the door, dripping the mop water at every step. Obviously they were bound for the blacksmith to lose their collar, and everyone in the saloon knew that the blacksmith was not in town. The old man who had done the hoedown hobbled to the end of the bar room, and before the table of Max Strand made a speech to the effect that Elkhead had everything it needed except laughter, that Max Strand had come to their assistance in that respect, and that if he, the old man, had the power he would pension such an efficient jester and keep him permanently in the town. To all of this Max Strand paid not the slightest heed, but with his fleshy brow puckered considered the infinite distance. Even the drink which pale Annie, grateful for the averted riot placed on the table before him, Max Strand allowed to stand untaste it, and it was private stock. It was at this time that Ha Ha Langley made his way back to the table and occupied the contested seat. That was a bum play, he said solemnly to Max Strand. When Barry hears about what you'd done here to two men, do you think that he'll ever hit your trail? The others started. I never thought about it, he murmured. His thick lips as always framing speech with difficulty. They suppose I ought to go back to the Cumberland place for him? A yell rose at the farther end of the room. A wolf! Hey, shoot the damn wolf! You fool, cried another. He ain't skinny enough to be a wolf. Besides, who ever heard of a tame wolf coming into a bar room? Nevertheless many a gun was held in readiness, and the men, even the most drunken, fell back to one side and allowed a free passage for the animal. It seemed indeed to be a wolf and a giant of its kind, and it slunk now with soundless step through the silence of the bar room, glancing neither to right nor to left until it came before the table of Max Strand. There it halted and slunk back a little. The upper lip lifted away from the long fangs, its eyes glittered upon the face of the giant, and then it swung about and slipped out of the bar room as it had come in utter silence. In the utter silence Max Strand leaned across the table to ha-ha-langly. He's come alone this time, he said, but next time he'll bring his master with him. We'll wait. The Adam's apple rose and fell in the throat of ha-ha. We'll wait, he nodded, and he burst into the harsh, unhuman laughter which had given him his name. CHAPTER XXXVI This is the letter which Swinerton Lawborne received over the signature of Dr. Randall Byron. It was such a strange letter that between paragraphs Swinerton Lawborne paced up and down his Gramercy Park Studio and stared, baffled, at the heights of the Metropolitan Tower. Dear Swinerton, I'll be with you in good old Manhattan about as soon as you get this letter. I am sending this ahead because I want you to do me a favor. If I have to go back to those bare, blank rooms of mine, with the smell of chemicals drifting in from the laboratory, I'll get drunk. That's all. Here Swinerton Lawborne lowered the letter to his knees and grasped his head in both hands. Next, he turned to the end of the letter and made sure that the signature was Randall Byron. He stared again at the handwriting. It was not the usual script of the young doctor. It was bolder, freer, and twice as large as usual. There was a total lack of regard for the amount of stationery consumed. In his head in B. Wildermitt, Swinerton Lawborne shook his fine gray head and read on. What I want you to do is to stir about and find me a new apartment. Mind you, I don't want the loft of some infernal arcade building in the sixties. Get me a place somewhere between thirtieth and fiftieth. Two bedrooms. I want a place to put some of the boys when they drop around my way. And at least one servants' room. Also at least one large room where I can stir about and wave my arms without hitting the chandelier. Are you with me? Here Swinerton Lawborne seized his head between both hands again and groaned. Dementia, plain and simple dementia, and at his age, poor boy. He continued, find an interior decorator. Not one of those fuzzy-haired women in pants, but a he-man who knows what a he-man needs. Tell him I want that place furnished regardless of expense. I want some deep chairs that will hit me under the knees. I want some pictures on the wall. But nothing out of the eighteenth century. No impressionistic landscapes. No girls dolled up in fluffy stuff. I want some pictures I can enjoy, even if my maiden aunt can't. There you are. Tell him to go ahead on those lines. In a word, Swinerton Old Top, I want to live. For about thirty years I've thought, and now I know that there's nothing in it. All the thinking in the world won't make one more blade of grass grow, put one extra pound on the ribs of a longhorn, and in a word, thinking is the bunk, pure and simple. At this point Swinerton Lawborne staggered to the window, threw it open and leaned out into the cold night. After a time he had strength enough to return to his chair and read through the rest of the epistle without interruption. You wonder how I've reached this new viewpoint? Simply by seeing some concentrated life here at the Cumberland Ranch. My theories are blasted and knocked in the head, praise God, and I've brushed a million cobwebs out of my brain. Chemistry wrought. There's another sort of chemistry that works on the inside of a man. That's what I want to study. There are three great preliminary essentials to the study. First, how to box with a man. Second, how to talk with a girl. Third, how to drink old wine. Try the three, Swinerton. They aren't half bad. At first they may give you a sore jaw, an aching heart, and a spinning head, but in the end they teach you how to keep your feet and fight. This is how my eyes were opened. When I came out to this ranch it was hard for me to ride a horse. So I've been studying how it should be done. Among other things you should keep your toes turned in, you know, and there are many other things to learn. When I had mastered them one by one I went out the other day and asked to have a horse saddled. It was done, and a lantern-jawed cow-puncher brought out a piebald gelding with long ears and sleepy eyes. Not a lovely beast, but a mild one. So I went into the saddle, according to theory, with some slight hesitation here and there, planted my feet in the stirrups and told the lantern-jawed fellow to turn loose the head of the piebald. This was done. I shook the reins. The horse did not move. I called to the brute by name. One ear wagged back to listen to me. I kicked the beast into ribs. Unfortunately I had forgotten that long spurs were on my heels. The horse was instantly aware of that fact, however. He leaped into a full gallop, a very jolty process. Then he stopped, but I kept on going. A fence was in the way, so I was haunted. Afterwards the lantern-jawed man picked me up and offered to carry me back to the house, or at least get a wheel-barrow for me. I refused with some dignity. I remarked that I preferred walking, really, and so I started out across the hills and away from the house. My head was sore, so were my shoulders where I hit the fence. I began to think of the joy of facing that horse again, armed with a club. It was evening after supper, you see, and the light of the moon was already brighter than the sunlight. And by the time I had crossed the first range of hills it was quite dark. As I walked I brooded upon many things. There were enough to disturb me. There was old Joe Cumberland at death's door and beyond the reach of my knowledge, and he had been taken away from death by the wild man, Dan Berry. There was the girl with the bright hair, Kate Cumberland. In education nothing. In brain nothing. In experience nothing. And yet I was attracted. But she was not attracted in the least, until along came the wild man again, and then she fell into his arms, actually fought for him. Why? I could not tell. My name and the things I have done and even my money met nothing to her. But when he came it was only a glance, a word, a smile, and she was in his arms. I felt like Caligula. I wished the world had only one neck and eye and axe. But why should I have felt depressed because of failures in the eyes of these silly yokels? Not one of them could read the simplest chemical formula. All very absurd you will agree, and you may get some inkling as to my state of mind, while I walked over those same dark hills. I seemed the part of that darkness. I looked up to the stars. They were merely like the pages of a book. I named them offhand, one after the other, and thought of their characteristics, their distances, their composition, and meditated on the marvels the spectrum has made known to us. But no sooner did such a train of thought start in my brain than I again recurred to the girl, Kate Cumberland, and all I was aware of was a pain at heart, something like homesickness, very strange. She and the man are together constantly. The other day I was in Joseph Cumberland's room, and we heard whistling outside. The face of the old man lighted. They are together again, he said. How do you guess at that, I asked. By the sound of his whistling, he answered. For he whistles, as if he expected an answer. As if he were talking with someone. And by the Lord? The old man was right. It would never have occurred to me. Now as I started down the farther slope of a hill, a whistling sound ran upon me through the wind, and looking back I saw a horseman galloping with great swiftness along the line of the crest, very plainly outlined by the sky. And by something of the smoothness in the running of the horse, I knew that it was Barry and his black stallion. But the whistling, the music, dear God-man, have you read of the pipes of pan? That night I heard them, and it made a riot in my heart. He was gone suddenly, and the whistling went out like a light. But something had happened inside me. The first beginning of this process of internal change. The ground no longer seemed so dark. There were earth smells, very friendly. I heard some little creature chirping contentedly to itself. Something hummed, a grasshopper perhaps. And then I looked up to the stars. There was not a name I could think of. I forgot them all, and for the first time I was contented to look at them and wonder at their beauty without an attempt at analysis or labeling. If I say that I went back to the ranch house with my feet on the ground and my heart up there among the stars, will you understand? I found the girl sewing in front of the fire in the living room. Simply looked up to me with a smile and a certain dimness about the eyes. Well, my breath stopped. Kate said, I am going away tomorrow morning. And leave dad, said she. To tell you the truth, I answered, there is nothing I can do for him. There has never been anything I could do for him. I am sorry, said she, and lifted up her eyes to me. Now I had begun by being stiff with her. But the ringing of that whistling, pipes of pan you know, was in my ears. I took a chair beside her, something overflowed in my heart. For the first time in whole days I could look on her beauty without pain. Do you know why I'm going, I asked. She waited. Because, said I, and smiled right into her face, I love you, Kate, most infernally. And I know perfectly well that I will get never the devil a bit of good out of it. She peered at me. You aren't jesting, says she. No, you're serious. I'm very sorry, Dr. Byron. And I, I answered, am glad. I wouldn't change it for the world. For once in my life, tonight, I have forgotten myself. No, I won't go away and nurse a broken heart. But I'll think of you as a man should think of something bright and above him. You'll keep my heart warm, Kate, till I'm a very old man. Because of you, I'll be able to love some other girl and a fine one by the Lord. Something in the nature of an outburst, huh? But it was the music which had done it. All the time it rang and echoed through my ears. My words were only an echo of it. I was in tune with the universe. I was living for the first time. The girl dropped her sewing, tossed it aside. She came over to me and took my hands in a way that would have warmed even the icicles of your heart, Swinerton. Doctor says she, I know that you are going to be very happy. Happiness, said I, is a trick like riding a horse. And I think that I've learned the trick. I've caught it from you and from Barry. At that, she let go my hands and stepped back. The very devil is in these women, Swinerton. You can never place them for a minute at a time. I'm trying to learn myself, she said. And there was a shadow of wistfulness in her eyes. In another moment I should have made a complete fool of myself. But I remembered in time and got out of the room. Tomorrow I start back for the old world, but I warn you beforehand, my dear fellow, that I'm bringing something of the new world with me. What has it all brought to me? I am sad one day and gay the next. But at least I know that thinking is not life. And now I'm ready to fight. Randall Byron. End of chapter 36. Chapter 37 of The Night Horseman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Night Horseman by Max Brand. Chapter 37. The Piebald. The morning of the doctor's departure witnessed quite a ceremony at the Cumberland Ranch. For old Joe Cumberland insisted that he be brought down from his room to his old place in the living room. When he attempted to rise from his bed, however, he found that he could not stand, and big Buck Daniels lifted the old man like a child and carried him down the stairs. Once ensconced on the sofa in the living room, Joe Cumberland beckoned his daughter close to him, and whispered with a smile as she leaned over. Here's what comes of pretending, Kate. I've been pretending to be too sick to walk. And now I can't walk. And if I had pretended to be well, I'd be riding Satan right now. He looked about him. Where's Danny, he asked. Upstairs getting ready for the trip. Trip? He's riding with Dr. Byron to town, and he'll bring back Dr. Byron's horse. The old man grew instantly anxious. There's a lot of things can happen on a long trip like that, Kate. She nodded gravely. But we have to try him, she said. We can't keep him here at the ranch all the time. And if he really cares, Dad, he'll come back. And you let him go of your own free will? Asked Joe Cumberland, wonderingly. I asked him to go, she answered quietly. But some of the color left her face. Of course it's going to come out all right, not at the father. I asked him when he'd be back. And he said he would be here by dark tomorrow night. The old man sighed with relief. He'd don't never slip up on promises, he said. But, oh, lass, I'll be glad when he's back again. Buck, how'd you and Dan come along together? We don't come, answered Buck gloomily. I tried to shake hands with him yesterday and call it quits. But he wouldn't touch me. He just leaned back and smiled at me and hated me with his eyes. That way he has. He don't even look at me, except when he has to. And when he does, I feel like someone was sneaking up behind me with a knife ready. And he ain't said 10 words to me since I come back. He paused and considered Kate with the same dark, lowering glance. Tomorrow I leave. You'll think better of that, not at Joe Cumberland. Here's the doctor now. He came in with Dan Berry behind him. A changed man was the doctor. He was a good two inches taller because he stood so much more erect. And there was a little spring in his step, which gave aspiration and spirit to his carriage. He bade them goodbye one by one. And by Joe Cumberland he sat down for an instant and wished him luck. The old ranch man drew the other down closer. There's no luck for me, he whispered. But don't tell none of them. I'm about to take a longer trip than you'll ride today. But first I'll see them settle down here. Dan, quiet, and both of them happy. Salon doc, thanks for taking care of me. But this here is something that can't be beat no way. Too many years to break the back of any man, doc. Luck to you. If you'll step to the door and say the doctor's smiling upon the rest, you'll have some fun to watch. I'm going to ride on the piebald. Him that throwed you yesterday grinned Buck Daniels. The same said the doctor. I think I can come to a gentleman's understanding with him. A gentleman, from the piebald's point of view, is one who is never unintentionally rude. He may change his mind this morning, or he may break my back. One of the two is sure to happen. In front of the house, Dan Berry already sat on Satan, with Black Bart sitting nearby, watching the face of his master. And beside them the lantern-jawed cow-puncher held the bridle of the piebald mustang. Never in the world was there a lazier-appearing beast. His lower lip hung pendulous a full inch and a half below the upper. His eyes were rolled so that hardly more than the whites showed. He seemed to stand to sleep, dreaming of some nirvana for equine souls, and the only signs of life were the long ears which wobbled occasionally back and forth. When the doctor mounted, the piebald limited all signs of interest to opening one eye. The doctor clucked. The piebald switched his tail. Satan, at a word from Dan Berry, moved gracefully into a soft trot away from the house. The doctor slapped his mount on the neck, an ear flicked back and forth. The doctor stretched out both legs, and then he dug both spurs deep into the flanks of the mustang. It was a perfectly successful maneuver. The back of the piebald changed from an ugly humped line to a decidedly sharp parabola, and the horse left the ground with all four feet. He hit it again, almost in the identical hoof marks, and with all legs stiff. The doctor sagged drunkenly in the saddle, and his head first swung far back and then snapped over so that the chin banged against his chest. Nevertheless, he clung to the saddle with both hands and stayed in his seat. The piebald swung his head around sufficiently to make sure of the surprising fact, and then he commenced to buck in earnest. It was a lovely exhibition. He bucked with his head up and his head between his knees. He bucked in a circle and in a straight line, and then mixed both styles for variety. He made little spurts at full speed, leaped into the air, and came down stiff-legged at the end of the run. His head between his braced four feet, and then he whirled as if on a peg, and darted back the other way. He bucked crisscross, jumping from side to side, and he interspersed this with samples of all his other kinds of bucking thrown in. That the doctor stuck on the saddle was a miracle beyond belief. Of course he pulled leather shamelessly throughout the contest, but riding straight up is a good deal of a myth. Fancy riding is reserved for circusmen. The mountain desert is a place where men stick close to utility, and let style go hang. And the doctor stuck in the saddle. He had set his teeth, and he was a seasick greenish white. His hat was a jog over one ear. His shirt-tails flew out behind, and still he remained to battle. Why, for he ceased the passive clinging to the saddle. He gathered up the long quirk, which had hitherto dangled idly from his wrist, and at the very moment when the pie-bold had let out another notch in his feet, the doctor holding on desperately with one hand, and with the other brannish the quirk around his head and brought it down with a crack along the flanks of the pie-bold. The effect was a little short of a miracle. The mustang snorted it, and leaped once into the air. But he forgot to come down stiff-legged, and then instantly he broke into a little soft dog-trot, and fottled humbly in the trail of the black stallion. The laughter and cheers from the house were the sweetest of music in the ears of Dr. Randall Byron. The most sounding sentences of praise from the lips of the most learned of professors after this would be the most shabby of anti-climaxes. He waved his arm back to a group standing in front of the house. Buck Daniels, Kate, the lantern-jawed cowboy, and Wong Lu waving his kitchen apron. In another moment he was beside the rider of the stallion, and the man was whistling one of those melodies which defied repetition. It simply ran on and on, smoothly sweeping through transition after transition, soaring and falling in the most effortless manner. Now it paused, now it began again. It was never loud, but it carried like the music of a bird on wing blown by the wind. There was about it also something which escaped from the personal. He began to forget that it was a man who whistled, and such a man. He began to look about to the hills and the sky and the rocks. For these it might be said were set to music. They too had the sweep of line and the broken rhythms, the sense of spaciousness, the far horizons. That day was a climax of the unusual weather. For a long time the sky had been periodically blanketed with thick mists, but today the wind had freshened, and it tore the mists into a thousand mighty fragments. There was never blue sky in sight, only far up, a diminishing and lighter gray. To testify that above it, the yellow sun might be shining. But all the lower heavens, or a sweep, with vast cloud masses, irregular, huge, hurling across the sky, they hung so low that one could follow the speed of their motion and almost gauge it by miles per hour. And in the distance they seemed to brush the tops of the hills. Seeing this the doctor remembered what he had heard of rain in this region. It would come, they said, in sheets and masses, literal waterfalls, dry arroyos, suddenly filled and became swift torrent, rolling big boulders down their courses. There were tales of men, fording rivers, who were suddenly overwhelmed by terrific walls of water which rushed down from the higher mountains in masses four and eight feet high. In coming they made a thundering among the hills, and they plucked up full-grown trees like twigs thrust into wet mud. Indeed, that was the sort of rain one would expect in such a country, so whipped and naked of life. Even the reviving rain was sent in the form of a scourge, and that, which should make the grass grow, might tear it up by the roots. That was a time of change and of portent, and a day well fitted to the mood of Randall Bryan. He also had altered, and there was about to break upon him the reign of life. And whether it would destroy him or make him live, and richly he could not guess. But he was naked to the skies of chance, naked as this landscape. Far past the midday they reached the streets of Elkhead and stopped at the hotel. As the doctor swung down from his saddle, cramped and sore from the long ride, thunder rattled over the distant hills, and a patter of rain splashed in the dust and sent up a pugent odor to his nostrils. It was like the voice of the earth proclaiming its thirst. And a blast of wind leaped down the street and lifted the brim of Berry's hat and set the bandana at his throat fluttering. He looked away into the teeth of the wind and smiled. There was something so curious about him at that instant that Randall Bryan wanted to ask him into the hotel. Wanted to have him knee to knee for a long talk. But he remembered the old poem. The seashell needs the waves of the sea. The bird will not sing in the cage. And the yellow light in the eyes of Berry, phosphorescent almost, a thing that might be nearly seen by night. That surely would not shine under any roof. It was the wind which made him smile. These things he understood without fear. So he said goodbye, and the rider waved carelessly, and took the reins of the piebald, and turned the stallion back. He noted the cat-like grace of the horse in moving, as if his muscles were steel springs. And he noted also that the long ride had scarcely stained the glossy hide with sweat, while the piebald reeked with the labor. Randall Byron drew thoughtfully back onto the porch of the hotel, and followed the rider with his eyes. In a moment a great cloud of dust poured down the street, covered the rider, and when it was gone, he had passed around the corner and out of the life of the doctor. End of Chapter 37 Chapter 38 of The Night Horseman This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Night Horseman by Max Brand Chapter 38 The Challenge All this time Black Bart had prodded contentedly ahead of Satan, never having the glance back, but apparently knowing the intended direction. Save that when Dan Berry turned to the road leading out of the little town, the wolf-dog had turned in an opposite direction. The rider turned in the saddle, and sent a sharp whistle towards the animal. But he was answered by a short howl of woe that made him check Satan and swing around. Black Bart stood in the center of the street facing in the opposite direction, and he looked back over his shoulder towards his master. There was apparently a perfect understanding between them, and the master first glanced up and made sure of the position of the sun. In the length of time he might allow for the trick home, before he decided to follow the whim of the wolf-dog. Then he turned Satan and cantered, with the pie-balled trailing back towards Black Bart. At this the wolf-dog began the trot down the street, turned the next corner, and drew up at the door of a rambling building above which hung a dirty, cracked sign, Gilead Saloon, and underneath in smaller letters was painted the legend. Here's where you get it. Black Bart strolled up to the swinging doors of the Emporium, and then turned the look back at his master. Clearly he wished Dan to enter the place. But the rider shook his head, and would certainly have ridden on, had not, at that moment, the rain which had hitherto fallen only in rattling bursts. Now burst over the roofs of the town, with a loud roaring as of wind through a forest. It was possible that the shower might soon pass over, so Dan rode under the long shelter which stretched in front of the saloon, dismounted and entered behind Black Bart. It was occupied by a scattering of people, for the busy time of the day had not yet commenced, and Pale Annie was merely idling behind the bar, working at half-speed as it were. To this group Black Bart paid not the slightest teed, but glided smoothly down the center of the long room, until he approached the tables at the end, where in a corner sat a squat, thick-chested man, and opposite him the most cadaverously lean fellow that whistling Dan had ever seen. Before these two Black Bart paused, and then cast a glance over his shoulder towards the master. Whistling Dan frowned in wonder. He knew neither of the pair. But Black Bart apparently did. He slouched the pace closer, crouched, and bared his fangs with a tremendous snarl. At this the lean man left his chair and sprang back to a distance. Terror convulsed his face, but his eyes glittered with a fascinated interest, and he glanced first at his companion, and then at the great wolf-dog, as if he were making a comparison between them. It was the broad-shouldered man who first spoke. "'Partner,' he said in a thick voice, in which the articulation was almost lost. Maybe it better take your dog out before he gets hurt. He don't like me, and I don't like him none too much.' Bart called Dan Berry. But Black Bart gave no heed. There had been a slight flexing of his muscles as he crouched, and now he leaped, a black bolt of fighting weight squarely in the face of the giant. He was met and checked midway in his spring. For the two long arms darted out, two great hands fastened in the throat of the beast, and Black Bart fell back upon the floor with Max Trann following, his grip never broken by the fall. A scurry of many feet running towards this scene, a shouting of twenty voices around him, but all that whistling Dan saw were the fangs of Bart as they gnashed fruitlessly at the wrists of Max Trann. And then the great red tongue lowling out, and the eyes bulging from their sockets. All he heard was the snarling of the wolf, and the peculiar whine of rage which came from the throat of the man-beast fighting the wolf. Then he acted. His hands darted between the thick forearms of Max Trann. His elbows jerked out and snapped the grip. Next he dragged Black Bart away from the danger. The wolf was instantly on his feet and lunging again, but a sharp heel from Dan checked him mid-leap. He came to a shuddering halt behind the legs of his master. Whistling Dan slipped a little closer to the giant. "'I should have known you before,' he said in a voice which carried only to the ears of Trann. "'You're the brother of Jerry Strann, and there's a reason why Bart hates you, partner.' The thick upper lip of Strann lifted slightly as he spoke. "'Him or you, you and your wolf-dog together, or one by one, it don't make no difference to me. I've come for you, Barry.' The other straightened a little, and his eyes traveled slowly up and down the form of Strann. "'I've been hungering to meet a man like you,' he said. Hungering, partner. North of town, there's the old McDuffie place, all in ruins, and nobody ever near it. I'll be there in an hour, my friend. I'll be waiting for you there, not at Max Trann. And so, saying, he turned back to his table, as if he had been interrupted by nothing more than a casual greeting. Still Dan Barry remained a moment, with his eyes on the face of Max Trann. And when he turned, and walked with his light soundless step down the length of the silent bar-room, the wolf-dog slunk at his heels, ever and anon, swinging his head over his shoulder and glancing back at the giant at the end of the room. As the door closed on man and dog, the saloon broke once more into murmur, and then into an excited clamoring. Pale Annie stepped from behind the bar and leaned upon the table beside Max Trann. Even while leaning in this manner, the bartender was as tall as the average man. He waved back the others with a gesture of his tremendous arm. Then he reached out and took the hand of Max Trann in his clammy fingers. My friend, said the ex-under-taker in his careful manner, I've seen a man once, California, a husky two-year-old, which nobody said could be done. And I've seen some other things, but I've never seen anything to touch the way you handled Black Bart. Do you know anything about that dog? Max Trann shook his ponderous head, and his dull eyes considered Pale Annie with an expression of almost living curiosity. Black Bart has a record behind him that an old-time gunman would have heard with Envy. There are dead men in the record of that dog, sir. All this he had spoken in a comparatively loud voice. But now, noting that the others had heeded his gesture and had made back towards the bar to drink on the strength of that strange fight between man and beast, the bartender approached his lips close to the ear of the giant. He said in a rapid murmur, I watched you talking with Dan Berry, and I saw Berry's face when he went out. You and he are to meet somewhere again today. My friend, don't throw yourself away. Here Max Trann stared down at his mighty hand. A significant answer, but Pale Annie went on swiftly. Yes, you're strong, but strength won't save you from Dan Berry. We know him here in Elkhead. Do you know that if he had pulled his gun and shot you down right here where you sit, that he could have walked out of this room without a hand raised to stop him? Yes, sir, and why? Because we know his record, and I'd rather go against a wolf with my bare hands as you did than stand up against Dan Berry with guns. I could tell you how we fought Jim Silence Gang, one of the six. I could tell you a lot of other things. My friend, I will tell you about him if you'll listen. But Max Trann considered the speaker with his dull eyes. I was never much on talking, he observed mildly. I don't understand talking very well. Pale Annie started to speak again, but checked himself, stared earnestly at Max Trann, and then hurried back behind the bar. His face was even graver than usual. But business was business with Pale Annie, and all men have to die in their time. Ho Ho Langley took the place which Pale Annie had left vacant opposite Max Trann. He cast a frightened glance upward, where the rain roared steadily on the roof of the building, then his eyes fluttered back until they rested on the face of his companion. He had the moistened his thin lips before he could speak, and even then it was a convulsive effort, like a man swallowing too large a morsel. Well, said Ho Ho, is it fixed? It's fixed, said Max Trann. Maybe you'd get the hausses, Ho Ho, if you're coming with me. The dark shadow swept over the face of Ho Ho Langley. You're going to beat it, he sneered. After you come all this way you're going to run away from Barry, and him not half your size. I'm going out to meet him, answered Max Trann. Ho Ho Langley started up as if he feared Max Trann would change his mind if there were any delay. His long fingers twisted together as if to bring the blood into circulation about the purple knuckles. I'll have the horses right around to the front, he said. By the time you've got your slicker on, Mac, I'll have him around in front. And then he stalked swiftly from the room. CHAPTER XXXIX When they rode out of the town, the wet sand squashed under the feet of their horses, and splashed up on their riding boots and their slickers. It even spotted their faces here and there. And a light brown spray darted out to right and left of the falling hoofs. For all the streets of Elkhead were running shallow rivers, with dark swift currents. And when they left the little town, the landscape was shut out by the falling torrents. It made a strange and shifting panorama, for the rain varied in its density now and again, and, as it changed, hills which had been quite blotted out, leaped close upon them, like living things, and then sprang back again into the mist. So heavy was that tropical fall of water that the horses were bothered by the beating of the big drops, and shook their heads and stamped fretfully under the ceaseless bombardment. Indeed, when one stretched out his hand, the drops stung him, as if with lashes of tiny whips. There was no wind, no thunder, no flash of lightning, only the tremendous downpour which blended earth and sky in a drab, swift river. The air was filled with parallel lines, as in some pencil drawings, not like ordinary rain, but as if the sky had changed into a vast watering spout, and was sending down a continuous flood from a myriad holes. It was hard to look up through the terrific downpour, for it blinded one, and whipped the face, and made one breathless. But now and again a puff of the rare wind would lift the sodden brim of the sombrero, and then one caught a glimpse of the low hanging clouds, with the nearest whiff of black mist dragging across the top of a hill. Without noticeable currents of wind, the mass of clouds was shifting slowly, with a sort of rolling motion across the sky, and the weight of the rain forced the two to bend their heads and stare down to where the face of the earth was alive with the gliding brown waters, whose surface was thrashed into a continual foam. To speak to each other through the uproar, they had to cup their hands about their lips and shout. Then again the rainfall around them fell away to a drizzling mist, and the beating of the downpour sounded far away, and they were surrounded by distant walls of noise. So they came to the McDuffie place. It was a helpless ruin, long abandoned. Not a niota of the roof remained. The sheds for the horses had dropped to the earth, but the walls of the house still remained standing, in part, with the empty windows looking out with a mocking promise of the shelter which was not within. Upon this hollow shack, the rain beat with redoubled fury, and even before they could make out the place through the blankets of rain, they heard the hollow drumming, for there were times oddly enough when any sound would carry a great distance through the crashing of the rain. The wind now sprung up, and it once veered the rain from its perpendicular fall. It slashed them in the face under the drooping brims of their sombreros, so they drew into the shelter of the highest part of the standing wall. Still, some of the rain struck them, but the major part of it was shunted over their heads. Moreover, the wall acted as a sort of sounding board, catching up every odd noise from the storm-beaten plane beyond. They could speak to each other now, without effort. Do you think, asked Hall Hall Langley, pressing his reeking horse a little closer to Maxtran, that he'll come out after us in a rain like this? But simple-minded Maxtran lifted his head and peered through the thick curtains of rain. Do you think, he parried, that Jerry could maybe look through all this and see what I'm doing today? It made Hall Hall Langley grin, but peering more closely and observing that there was no mockery in the face of the giant, he wiped out his grin with a scrubbing motion of his wet hand, and peered closely into the face of his companion. There ain't no doubt of it, he answered reassuringly. He'll know what you do, Mac. What was it that Pail Annie said to you? Wanted me not to meet Barry, said that Barry had once cleaned up a gang of six. And here we are only two. You ain't going to fight, warned Maxtran sharply. It'll be man to man, ha-ha. But he might not notice that, cried Hall Hall. And he caressed his scrawny neck as though he already felt fingers closing about his windpipe. Him being used to fight crowds, Mac, did you think of that? I never asked you to come, responded Maxtran. Mac cried Hall Hall in a sudden alarm. Suppose he wasn't to win. Suppose he wasn't able to keep him away from me. The numb lips of Maxtran sprawled into an ugly smile. But he made no other answer. You don't think you'll lose, hurried on, ha-ha. But neither did them six that Pail Annie was talking about most like. But they did. They lost. But if you lose, what'll happen to me? There ain't no call for you to stay here, said Maxtran, with utter indifference. Ha-ha answered quickly. I wouldn't go. I wouldn't miss it for nothing. Ain't I come all this way to see it? I mean to help. Would I fall down on you now, Mac? No, I wouldn't. And twisting those bony fingers together, he burst once more into that rattling, unhuman laughter which all the three bees knew so well, and dreaded as the dying dread the sight of a circling buzzard above. Stop laughing, cried Maxtran, with sudden anger. Damn you, stop laughing. The other peered upon Maxtran with incredulous delight, his broad mouth gapping to that thirsting grin of enjoyment. You ain't gettin' nervous, Mac, he queried, and thrust his face closer to make sure. You ain't bothered, Mac. You ain't doubting how this would turn out. There was no answer, and so he replied to himself. I know what done it to you. I seen it myself. It was that yellow light in his eyes, Mac. My God, it come up there out of nothing. And it wasn't a light that ought to come in the no man's eyes. It was like I woke up at night, with a cold weight on my chest, and found two snake's eyes glittering close to my face. Makes me shivery-like, just to think of it now. Do you notice that, Mac? I'm tired of talking, said Maxtran, hoarsely. Damn tired. And so sane, he swung his great head slowly around and glared at ha-ha. The latter shrank away with an undulatory motion in his saddle. And when the head of Maxtran turned away again, the broad mouth began gibbering. It's getting him like it done me. He scared, scared, scared, even Maxtran. He broke off. For Maxtran had jerked up his head and said in a strangely muffled voice. What was that? The bullet-head of ha-ha-langly leaned to one side, and his glittering eyes rolled up while he listened. Nothing, he said. I don't hear nothing. "'Listen again,' cried Maxtran, in that same cautious voice, as of one whispering in the night in the house of the enemy. It's like a voice in the wind. It comes down the wind. Do you hear now? Now? Now?' It was indeed the faintest of faint sounds when ha-ha caught it. It was in the roar of the rain, as indistinct has some distant light on the horizon, which may come from either a rising star or from the window of a house. But it had a peculiar quality of its own. Even as the house-light would be tinged with yellow when the stars are cold and white. A small and distant sound, and yet it cut through the crashing of the storm more and more clearly. Someone rode through the rain, whistling. "'It's him,' gaffed ha-ha-langly. My God, a mighty Mac, he's whistling. It ain't possible.' He reigned his horse closer to the wall, listening with mouth a gap. He shrilled suddenly. "'What if he should hit us both, seeing us together? There ain't no heart in a fellow that can whistle in a storm like this.'" But Mac Strand had lowered his head bulldog-like, and now he listened and thrust out his blunt jaw farther and farther, and returned no answer. "'God, give me the grit to stick it out,' begged ha-ha-langly, in an agony of desire. "'God, let me see how it comes out. God, let me watch him fight. One of them's going to die. Maybe two of them. Nothing like it has ever been seen.'" The rain shifted, and the heart of the storm rolled far away. For the moment they could look far out across the shadow-swept hills, and out of the heart of the desolate landscape the whistling ran thrilling upon them. It was so loud and close that, of one accord, the two listeners jerked their heads about and stared at each other, and then turned their eyes as hastily away, as though terrified by what they had seen, each in the face of the other. It was no idle tune, which they heard whistled. It was the rising, soaring, pin of delight. It rang down upon the wind, it cut into their faces like drops of the rain. It branded itself like freezing cold into their foreheads. And then, upon the crest of the nearest hill, ha-ha-langly saw a dim figure through the mist, a man on a horse, and something else running in front. And they came swiftly. It's the wolf that's running us down, screamed ha-ha-langly. Oh, God Almighty, even if we was want to run, the wolf would come and pull us down. Mac, will you save me? Will you keep the wolf away? He clung to the arm of his companion. But the other brushed him back with a violence which almost unseated ha-ha. Keep off on me, growled Mac's ran. Because when you touch me, it feels like something dead was next to my skin. Keep off on me. Ha-ha dragged himself back into the saddle with effort, for it was slippery with rain. His face convulsed with something black as hate. It ain't long you'll do that ordering, and be so free with your hands. He's coming soon, Mac. I'd like to stay. I'd like to see the finish. He stopped. His buzzard eyes glittering against the face of the giant. The rain blotted out the figure of the coming horsemen. And at the same instant the whistling leaped close upon them. It was as if the whistling man had disappeared at a place where the rain swallowed his form and had taken body again at their very side. Mac's ran shrank back against the wall, bracing his shoulders, and gripped the butts of his guns. But Ha-ha Langley cast a frightened glance on either side, his head making bird-like pecking motions. And then he leaned over the pommel of his saddle with a whale of despair and spurred off into the rain. End of chapter 39