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- Herausgeber: e-artnow
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
This carefully crafted ebook: "THE SILVERTIP SERIES – Complete Collection: 11 Western Classics in One Volume" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. In his Silvertip novels, Max Brand follows a trail of a wandering cowboy named Silvertip and his loyal stallion called Parade, as they stroll around the Old West ruining the criminal schemes of viscous bandits and fierce outlaws. In this series of novels Brand mixes western genre with the mystery making the horse a sidekick to a main character in a sort of Watson-Holmes manner. Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944) was an American author known primarily for his thoughtful and literary Westerns under the pen name Max Brand. Brand also created the popular fictional character of young medical intern Dr. James Kildare in a series of pulp fiction stories. Prolific in many genres he wrote historical novels, detective mysteries, pulp fiction stories and many more. His love for mythology was a constant source of inspiration for his fiction, and it has been speculated that these classical influences accounted in some part for his success as a popular writer. Many of his stories would later inspire films. Table of Contents: Silvertip The Man from Mustang Silvertip's Strike Silvertip's Roundup Silvertip's Trap Silvertip's Chase Silvertip's Search The Stolen Stallion Valley Thieves The Valley of Vanishing Men The False Rider
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THE SILVERTIP SERIES – Complete Collection: 11 Western Classics in One Volume
Table of Contents
SILVERTIP
Table of Contents
I. BECKONING LIGHTS
“Silvertip” was what men called him, since the other names he chose to wear were as shifting as the sands of the desert; but he was more like a great stag than a grizzly. For he was built heavy to the waist; below, he was as slender as any swift-running deer. Yet the nickname was no accident. Above his young face, high up in the hair over his temples, appeared two tufts of gray that at times and in certain lights had the look of small horns. For this reason the Mexicans were apt to call him “El Diablo,” but Americans knew him as Silvertip, which they shortened often to Silver, or Tip.
On this day, he had ridden out of the green of the higher mountains, and now, among the brown foothills, he sat on his mustang and looked over the gray of the arid plains below. The day had hardly stopped flushing the upper peaks with color, but night was already rolling in across the plain beneath. It covered the river; it covered Cruces for a few moments, also, but then the lights of the town began to shine through.
The place glimmered in the thickening welter of shadows, and as Silvertip watched the gleaming, he remembered the little garden restaurant of Antonio Martinelli, down yonder in Cruces. He remembered the taste of the acrid red wine, and the heaping plates of spaghetti, seasoned with Bolognese sauce and powdered with Parmesan cheese.
He knew, then, why he had ridden down through the upper valleys. It was not only because the law did not threaten him, at the moment, but because he was a little tired of venison or mountain grouse roasted over a camp fire. It was dangerous for him to leave the fastnesses and descend into the plains, for even when the law did not want him, there were always sundry men who did. If they could not pull him down single-handed, they would try in numbers. They had tried before, and his body was streaked and spotted with silver where their grip had touched him.
But just as an old grizzly rouses from the whiter sleep in the highlands and looks off the brow of some mountain promontory down into the shadows of the plains, remembering the danger of guns and dogs and men, feeling his ancient wounds ache, but recalling also the taste of fat beef and, above all, the delight of the dangerous game— so Silvertip looked down into the shadows and smiled a little. With an unconscious reaction, his right hand went up under his coat to the butt of the six-gun that hung beneath the pit of his left arm, in a clip holster; then Silver started the gelding down into the night.
It was not long before his horse was slipping and stumbling over the water-polished rocks at the bottom of the ford; then the close warmth within the streets of the town received him, the half-sweet, half-pungent odors. The children were still playing, flashing through pale shafts of lamplight and turning dim in the darkness beyond; the house dogs ran with them; only the pigs had gone to sleep.
A sense of comfortable security began to come over Silvertip. He fought against that as a traveler in the arctic struggles against the fatal drowsiness of cold. He sat straighter hi the saddle, shrugged back his shoulders, expanded his nostrils to take a deeper breath. As he rode on, his head automatically kept turning a trifle from side to side while his practiced eyes, with side glances, studied the houses at hand and all the street behind him, as well as the way before.
He had to go most of the way through Cruces before he came to the jingling sound of a mandolin and the noise of jolly laughter that told him he was near Antonio Marti-nelli’s place. It stood off by itself, surrounded by the olive trees and grapevines, which only the pain of Italian handwork could make flourish in the dry West. The two windmills which gave life and greenness to that spot were both whirling their wheels high overhead with a soft, well-oiled clanking.
He did not go directly in, but first rode past the lighted front of the saloon, hotel, and restaurant; for Martinelli’s place was complete. He rode close, piercing the windows with his glance, peering over the top of the swinging doors of the saloon through the smoke wreaths at the faces within. All seemed friendliness and cheer; the dangerous feeling of security welled up in him, again, irresistibly. His taut mind relaxed as a body relaxes, after labor, in a warm bath.
He rode straight back around the building to the stable, and led the mustang inside. The horse drew back, cowering a little. It snorted and stamped; it trembled at the unfa-miliarness of inclosing walls, for it was as wild as the mountains among which Silvertip had caught it.
High up on the mow, a voice was singing. Hay rustled and thumped down into a manger.
“Hey, Piero!” called Silvertip.
“Hey? Who’s there?” called the voice of a man from the top of the haymow. Then, as though the tones of Silvertip had gradually soaked deeper into his memory: “Oh, Silver! Is it Silvertip?”
“Yes,” said Silver.
“I am coming—quickly!” panted Piero Martinelli. “Oh, Silver, this is good! Is it safe for you to be here? Are we to hide you? Must I talk softly? How long will you stay? Father will be happy—mother will dance and sing. Ah, Silvertip,” he finished, as he came breathless to the bottom of the ladder and gripped the hand of the larger man, “how happy I am to see you again!” said Silver. “And I don’t have to hide, this time. Look out —this is a wild devil of a horse.”
“I know,” said Piero, laughing. “You don’t like tame things; you like them wild. Oh, we all know about that. I won’t come near those heels. Does it bite and strike?”
“Like a mountain lion,” said Silvertip, stripping the saddle from the round, strong barrel of the horse. “There’s plenty of hay for him. Will you come in with me? Are you through here?”
“Of course I’m through,” said Piero. ”The work ends when you come. I’ll tell every one that—”
“No,” cautioned Silvertip. “Don’t do that. I want a corner table in the garden; to be -as quiet as possible; to hear the singing; to eat pounds of spaghetti. You know, Piero, that the day has passed when I could walk into a crowd and be comfortable. It’s bad medicine for me to have any one standing at my back.”
“Ah, ah,” groaned the other. “I know! Well, we’ll go in the side door.”
They walked out into the open, following a curving path covered with gravel. The step of Piero was a loud crunching, but the foot of Silver, in spite of his weight, made hardly a sound.
“Tell me who’s inside,” said Silvertip.
“All good fellows,” answered Piero. “All except one.”
“Never mind about the others, then. Tell me about him.”
“The Mexican, Bandini, he—”
“You mean Jose Bandini?”
“Yes, that one—with the record of killing so many men—that same Jose Bandini.”
“He’s a bad hombre,” remarked Silvertip, pausing. “And there’s an old grudge between us.”
“Hi!” exclaimed Piero under his breath. “Is there an old grudge? And will he face you? Will he really dare to face you, Silver?”
“He’ll face anybody if he has to,” answered Silver. “But he’d rather shoot from behind. Bandini’s there, is he? Well, that’s bad.” He walked on, slowly, saying in addition: “I know him and I know his record. But his killings are mostly talk. Like mine, Piero. You know what they say of me, and it’s mostly talk.”
“Ah—yes?” murmured Piero politely. Then he went on, with a touch of passion: “That Bandini is with another Mexican—a young man—a very fine-looking young Mexican. They are eating together in one of the small rooms. Bandini is making trouble. We hear their voices jump up high, for a minute or two, and then drop away, again. There is a lot of trouble between them. My mother is worried.”
“If Bandini’s talking,” said Silvertip, “you don’t need to worry. That sort of snake doesn’t rattle before it strikes.”
They went in through a side door into a kitchen filled with smoke and whirling wreaths of steam, for all the cooking was done at a great open hearth, with black pots hoisted on cranes in various places above the flames. Two women were working, one slender and young, one overflowing with fat and energy and high spirits. Her rosy face grew redder still when she saw Silvertip. She threw out her arms as though she would embrace him, and then with moist hands, took both of his and struck them softly together.
“Ah, Silver,” she cried, “I speak of you, and you come. But I am always speaking of you, and you are seldom here. Look, Maria! Do you see him? He is bigger than I said, eh? See the gray spots in his hair? See how brown he is, too, and how his eyes laugh. See how he smiles, exactly as I said; mostly with his eyes. Look at him! You’ll never see such a man again, so good and so bad and so gentle and cruel and so much of everything that we love. We have reason to love him; I’ve told you the reason, too.”
The girl began to blush and laugh. Silvertip, with that faint smile of his, picked a handful of smoke out of the air and made as though to throw it into the face of Mrs. Martinelli.
“What do you have, Silver?” she asked him. “Antonio has a bottle of red wine saved for you. It is the last of the old wine, that you liked. It is down in the cellar, covered with dust, old with waiting for you. But what will you eat? Look—here are Spanish beans—yonder is roast kid —here’s roast chicken. Look at the brown of it, Silver! And here—”
“Spaghetti, that’s what I want,” said Silvertip.
“Spaghetti of course, and then?”
“Spaghetti first, with that meat sauce, and lots of Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on it. I can’t think about what I’ll want next until I’ve looked at that spaghetti.”
“You see, Maria?” said Mrs. Martinelli. “I told you that he was true Italian. He will have his pasta. And if—”
“No!” cried a voice from beyond the wall on the left. “No, Jose!”
That cry struck a silence through the kitchen, and banished all the smiles except that quiet smile of Silvertip which was so often on his face.
“There! There!” whispered Mrs. Martinelli. “You hear, Silver? It’s Bandini. There’s murder in the air. It’s Ban-dini—and he means to kill, I’m sure.”
“Tush,” said Silver. “He’s talking too much. There’ll be no shooting.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Martinelli, “you may say that, but I tell you, Silver, that a man’s eyes—even your eye—can only see what it falls on. But I see something more. And there is death in the air tonight. Some one will die before the kind daylight comes back.”
A door opened, with a sudden bang, and Jose Bandini stood on the kitchen threshold.
II. THE SHOT IN THE DARK
Even without the force of his reputation, Bandini would have given pause to the eye and the mind of any observer. He was one of those tall men with narrow shoulders and long fingers, who are strong as apes in spite of their slen-derness. Of the meager width of his shoulders he was very conscious, and usually wore, as he was doing now, a cloak with a wide-flaring collar. He was dressed like a Mexican cow-puncher on holiday, with a silk shirt and a colorful scarf tied about his hips. But nothing mattered, on second glance, except the face of the man. For it was built back from the chin in a series of steps, all rugged. Chin and mouth, nose, brow, receded in due order, and yet there was plenty of brain capacity in that head. It was a handsome face, in a strange way, time-battered, life-worn; and at will Bandini could be either charmingly pleasant, or savagely dangerous.
He was dangerous now. He thrust forward his head a little and blazed his eyes at Mrs. Martinelli.
“You woodenhead!” he shouted. “Where’s the pepper sauce for those frijoles? And send me a waiter with another face, because if I see the fool again, I’m going to scramble his brains on the floor!”
Suddenly he was silent. He had seen the face of Silver-tip, and the faint, small smile on it. The fingers of the right hand of Bandini made a sudden movement which could hardly be followed; it was the sign against the evil eye. The glance of Bandini lifted to the small gray tufts, like incipient horns, high above the temples of Silvertip. “Senior Silver,” said Bandini, and made an ironic bow. Then he came across the room, deliberately. It was plain that he was afraid, but a devil of the perverse in him forced him on into the danger. He stood right in front of Silvertip, and eye to eye.
“Have you come to see me, senior?” he asked. Silvertip said nothing. He kept on smiling, and looking. The moment lasted ten grim seconds. Suddenly Bandini turned white, and shouted:
“Have you come here to insult me? You know where to find me! Bandini does not run!”
“I want to talk with you,” said Silver. “Come outside into the dark for a moment, will you?”
Bandini turned yellow-white about the corners of his mouth.
“Only for talking; I want a word with you alone,” said Silver.
“Dark or light and day or night, I avoid no man,” said Bandini, and went out through the door with a swagger that brushed his cloak against both sides of it.
Silver took heed of the round eyes of fear that were fixed upon him from both sides, and he reassured them with a smile. Then he stepped behind Bandini into the darkness, and pulled the door shut behind him.
There was only starlight here, and the stars were dim lanterns by which to follow the movements of Bandini.
Silver became just a trifle more alert than a hunting cat.
“Now!” breathed Bandini. “And what do you want?”
“I want some news,” said Silver. “I want to know about the fellow who’s having dinner with you. I want to know what’s in the air.”
“Just a fool of a boy—that’s all he is,” said Bandini. after a moment. But there was that in his eyes that made Silvertip yearn to see the face. A single glint of light would have helped then, to reveal a story. “And what business is it of yours?”
“It ought to be every man’s business,” said Silvertip, “to watch you. No good ever came out of you, Bandini.”
“Do you insult me?” snarled the Mexican.
“You don’t understand me, Bandini,” said Silvertip. “I don’t insult you. A man doesn’t insult a rattlesnake; he shoots it. And that’s what will happen between us, before the wind-up.”
He heard no answer—only the heavy, irregular breathing of the Mexican. Bandini was afraid—sick with fear— and Silver knew it.
“Every man who has ever seen you at work has reasons enough to wish you dead, Bandini. That’s why I’m asking you what deviltry you’re up to with that other young Mexican, to-night?”
No matter what fear there was in Bandini, he exclaimed suddenly: “Is every man to tell you his secrets—or be murdered?”
Silver, gritting his teeth slowly together, mused on that answer before he said: “I’ve seen you deal crooked cards; I’ve seen the scar of your knife left on a man’s back; I knew some of the dead men you’ve left behind you. Now you’re at some deviltry again, and you’re not going through with it, if I can help it. I’m going to give you time to think it over. Pull yourself together and make up your mind.
“There’s no reason why we should spoil our dinners about this. But by nine thirty I’ll look for you in front of the restaurant—anywhere on the street in front of it. If you’re there, I’ll know that you want to have it out with me. If you’re not there, I’ll know that you’ve left town. But if you’re neither in the street nor out of town, I’m going to start looking for you, Bandini, and I’ll break down doors until I get at you. It was never intended that rats like you should go about the world gnawing at the lives of honest men!”
There was another moment of pause; he heard, again, the hurried breathing of the Mexican, like that of a man who has been running hard. Then Bandini turned on his heel. His cloak swished with a whispering sound through the air, and he passed back into the kitchen. As Silvertip entered in turn, the farther door banged behind Bandini, and Silver stepped into a strained moment of silence in the kitchen.
Silver turned with a sudden cheerfulness to Piero.
“If there’s a corner table in the garden, I’m going to have it, Piero.”
“Come!” said Piero Martinelli.
“No,” said Silvertip. “Quietly does the trick. I’ll find my way. I’m hungry for that spaghetti, Mrs. Martinelli.”
Then he went out toward the garden. The bustling in the kitchen began again, behind him.
“Wake up!” cried Mrs. Martinelli to the kitchen maid. “Get the pepper sauce for that Bandini devil. Fan that charcoal and bring it to life. Do something! What’s the matter with you?”
Maria looked at her with wide, dark eyes.
“You were right,” she said. “There will be a killing. And Bandini will be the dead man!”
Then she fell to her work again.
But out in the garden, there never was a more tranquil face than that of Silvertip as he passed under the high grape arbors until he found a small corner table. All the rest of the little garden was filled with family groups, Americans, flavoring their food with hearty portions of the red, home-made wine of Martinelli. No one paid any attention to Silvertip as he passed. Americans lack the public curiosity of the Latins, and only unhappiness makes them aware of the outside world. A contented party is surrounded by an unpenetrable wall of its own pleasure, as it were, and that wall is rarely peered over. So those ranchers, miners, town tradesmen and shopkeepers of Cruces, with their families about them, talked high or low, and paid no heed to Silvertip as he went by.
He, apparently, had no more eye for them, and yet he studied every face in turn, analyzed it, shaved a mustache here to see if the naked skin might bring out a dangerous likeness; put on a beard there for the same reason. By the time he had reached his corner table, he was fairly well convinced that he knew none of them, and that none of them knew him.
Still, as he sat down, he was by no means willing to relax. He measured the height of the wall behind him.
He regarded the thickness of the arbor foliage, behind which a man might easily hide.
For Bandini was near, and Bandini would kill him by courage or by craft, if possible.
Antonio Martinelli came hobbling on his crippled leg. He embraced one of Silvertip’s hands in both of his. He leaned over Silver’s table, and beamed upon him.
“How are things?” said Silvertip.
“How can anything be bad with me? How can I ever complain?” said Martinelli. “I have a leg and a half, instead of no legs at all. Therefore we all thank God and Silvertip every day of our lives. Look! Here is the wine. If it is not beautiful, every drop, you shall have the blood out of my heart.”
Silvertip made him sit down at the table. They tried the wine together, Martinelli smacking his lips.
“What’s happening in there between Bandini and his friend?” asked Silvertip.
“It’s no friend that’s with Bandini,” said Martinelli. “All I know is that Bandini wants something out of that young Mexican, and can’t get it. But there’ll be trouble! There’ll be trouble!”
“I think so, too,” said Silvertip, with a voice filled with quiet meaning. “I wish you’d watch and listen as much as you can. And let me know if a break seems to be coming on.”
“You would help? You would stop the trouble?” asked Martinelli. “You know what one gun fight does—it spoils the name of a place. It takes away the cheerfulness. If people say: ‘Martinelli’s, where the man was killed the other day’—if they say that, they will come to me no more. I’ll go and watch them like a hawk. I would give twenty dollars to have them under my eye as well as under my ear. I can only hear mumblings through the door, and very few words.”
He went off, and Maria came, bearing a plate, the grated cheese, the Bolognese sauce, and a great platter of spaghetti. She put all the dishes down, deftly, and arranged them without making a clatter, and yet all the time her thoughtful eyes were on the face of Silvertip, not on her automatic work.
She paused one instant, watching Silvertip lift from the platter the first white-dripping forkful of spaghetti and bring it over to his plate.
“You think of him still,” said the girl, “But he will not harm you if you keep away from him.”
She hurried away, as though frightened by her own boldness in giving an opinion, and the hazel-gray eyes of Silvertip watched her out of sight, before he moved his hand again.
He finished the spaghetti slowly. The goodness of the food to one who had eaten little except meat for many weeks, filled him again with that sleepy content against which he had to be so on guard. Finally he roused himself, as Martinelli came hobbling up the path, ducking under the trailing green of the arbor.
His face beamed a brighter red than before, as he exclaimed: “It is all finished; it is all well; and they’re in the saloon drinking together like brothers!”
“Are they?” said Silvertip. “Then the trouble is right on the verge of breaking. I know the sort of brotherhood there is in Bandini!”
He looked at his watch. It was nine thirty.
He finished his wine with a gulp, and rising from the table, with a swift, secret gesture he touched the revolver that hung under his coat. Martinelli gaped vaguely at the form that strode so quickly before him, and started to hobble in pursuit.
But Silvertip entered the barroom far ahead. One glance showed him that Bandini was not there, in the long irregular line of noisy drinkers. He called the bartender with a crooking of his forefinger.
“Bandini?” he said.
“Bandini’s just gone out with a young fellow, a friend who—”
Silvertip waited to hear no more. He felt sure that the young fellow was now indeed in grave danger, so he slipped out of the swinging doors onto the street. He whipped that street from end to end with a rapid glance, and saw the mere fluttering of a cloak as a man passed from view. Bandini, after all, was awaiting him in the street!
That was enough for Silvertip. He ran like a greyhound to that corner. A dark, narrowly winding alley moved away on his left. He winced back a little from that darkness, as a kennel terrier might wince from the black tunnel of a fox’s earth. Then he hurried straight forward, stepping long and light, every nerve in his body made acute, every sense working with electric surety and speed.
Something moved before him. Heels ground against the earth. He saw the swaying of a cloak, dimly seen through the shadows.
“Are you ready?” cried Silvertip. “Then fill your hand!”
The form whirled toward him, the cloak fanning well out to the side. One hand rose, as if to let go with the gun it seemed to hold. The other did not rise.
“Take it then, damn you!” muttered Silvertip, and drawing, he fired.
The finger of red fire flicked out of the muzzle of the gun, as though pointing the way for the bullet with the death it carried. That flash showed Silvertip not the face of Bandini, but a dark-skinned, handsome youth. The horror in those wide eyes flashed at Silvertip for an instant, and then the inflooding darkness covered the falling body.
Silvertip could not move; he could not catch that weight before it struck solidly against the ground. The dust that puffed out under the impact rose in a cloud, acrid against the nostrils of Silvertip.
He kneeled and put his hand over the heart of the fallen body. There was no beat. The coat was wet and warm with blood.
Silvertip, still kneeling, lifted his head as though to listen, but he was not heeding any human sound, far or near. He had killed the man he would have protected. A vow was forming in his heart, filling his throat
III. CROSS AND SNAKE BRAND
When Silvertip rose, he was carrying the loose weight of the body in his arms. He felt the sway of the hanging head, the swinging of the feet with every step he took. There was still the warmth of life coming out of the body. The weight made his own step loud and heavy, like the footfall of a stranger, to his ear; and already his heart was heavier, too, with the double burden which he had taken upon himself.
He rounded to the rear of the restaurant of Martinelli, and through a side door carried the dead man straight into the small room where, only a few minutes before, this youth and Bandini had been at dinner. Two crumpled napkins lay on the table, now, and a scattering of soiled dishes, and glasses dimly stained by wine.
He put the body down in a chair. The form sagged helplessly against him, the head hanging, the arms dropping straight down toward the floor. Still supporting the inert thing, he cleared half the table with a few sweeps of his arm; then he laid out the young Mexican in the free space.
The puncture in the coat was a neat little round hole. There was not much blood anywhere on his clothing. He straightened the legs and the arms. They did not seem to lie naturally along the side, so he folded them across the stomach of the dead man. The lips were still parted, as though in a gasp; the eyes of horror stared upward, unwinkingly, at the ceiling.
A footfall paused at the door; then Mrs. Martinelli’s scream rose in shrill, endless waves that cut ceaselessly through his whirling brain.
Other people came, running. He regarded them not at all. He closed the eyes, and they remained closed. He touched the tip of the chin, still soft and warm, and brought the lips together.
It was as though he had dragged the soul of the dead man up from hell to heaven, for it was a faintly smiling face, a happy, dreaming face. He was not more, this handsome young Mexican, than twenty or twenty-two; and the features were beautifully carved. There was strength and manliness in the face, also; and Silvertip felt that Fate, with sinister malice, had driven his bullet into one of the chosen men of the earth. If there had been a garden of weeds with one priceless flower blooming, he, like a blind gardener, had felled the once choice plant.
In a hundred years of striving, what could he do for the world that would equal the value of the life he had canceled?
Silvertip, stirring from his dream, took a handkerchief, and wiped the dust from the black, silky hair. There was still warmth in the brow, also. With every touch it seemed to Silvertip that the life could not actually have gone, that the forward running of the years could not have ended, as a river ends at the sea.
Silvertip himself was not so many years the senior of this dead man, yet he felt like an old man beside a child. What would that child have grown into? Upon what labors would it have set its hands?
He regarded the soft, slender tapering of the fingers— far unlike his own hands.
And now, as he looked down at the still face, he laid his grip on the two hands which he had joined, and groaned.
Some great purpose burns in every soul; if only he could penetrate into the dead mystery of that mind, he swore, in that solemnity of silence, that he would undertake the unfinished labor of this life.
A voice broke in upon him. He looked up. People were staring at him, not at the dead man, for there was something in the face of Silver that filled them with awe.
It was the sheriff speaking.
“Silvertip, can you tell us about this?”
“I found the dead body in the alley one block down from the restaurant,” said Silvertip.
“Bandini!” cried the voice of young Piero Martinelli. “Jose Bandini was with him all the evening, right here in this room. Bandini did it.”
“Bandini?” said the sheriff. “Where is he?”
“Not Bandini,” said Silvertip firmly. “I saw him going down the street a minute or two before the shot was fired. It certainly wasn’t Bandini.”
“No,” said the bartender. “It couldn’t have been Bandini. He may have been arguing with this poor kid, but he stopped the arguing before they left the barroom. I seen them make up and shake hands. I seen Bandini go and take off his cloak and put it around the shoulders of this dead kid. I seen him do it, kind of like a gift, to show that he meant to be friends, honest and straight.”
Silvertip looked up, slowly, into the eyes of the bartender. The trick of Bandini had been too simple for belief. By that simple change of dress he had made another man walk in his own footsteps to meet a death that should have been his own.
It was not just chance that had killed this victim. It was not the hand of Silvertip, either, though he had fired the shot. It was Bandini’s craft that had performed the murder!
Silvertip drew in a great, slow breath.
The sheriff said again, slowly: “Silver, I know that it ain’t like you to be shootin’ gents in dark alleys. It ain’t your style or your cut. But you’ve used guns, plenty. Where was you, all the evening?”
“He was in there in the barroom,” said the bartender. “When the gun went off, I heard the shot. I heard it, but I didn’t think much about it. Silvertip hadn’t hardly got through the door.”
Silvertip looked into the broad, red face of the bartender and silently thanked him for that lie.
“It’s goin’ to be one of them mysteries,” said the sheriff sadly. “Does anybody know who he is?”
No one knew. So the sheriff started a careful examin-ation of the pockets.
They revealed very little. There was a small pearl-handled pocket-knife which made some of the men smile a little. There was a little .32-caliber revolver of a bulldog model that would fit neatly into almost any pocket. There was a bill fold containing a hundred and forty-seven dollars. There was a gold watch of a fine Swiss make, with a delicately worked gold chain that had been simply dropped into the pocket that held the watch.
The sheriff pried open the back of the watch, examined it with care, and replaced it with the little heap of belongings.
He turned his baffled eyes upon Silvertip. “Silver,” he said, “you look kind of cut up. Wasn’t he a friend of yours?”
“No,” said Silvertip. “He’s just so young—that’s all!” He added: “Have you looked at his horse?” They trooped out to the stable and found the horse. “It was a high-headed queen of a mare, a blood bay with four black silk stockings on her legs and eyes like liquid diamonds that turned and shone in the lantern light. On of her quarters was burned a cross with a wavering under it. That’s the Cross and Snake brand of old Arturo Monterey, down in the Haverhill River country,” said the sheriff. “I know that brand! Maybe down there I could pick up a clew to the name of this gent. Why, it’s a fifty-mile ride.”
Silvertip touched the sheriff’s shoulder.
“I’ll go,” he said. “I’ve never been down there, but I know the way. I’ll take the outfit of that poor fellow; I’ll take his horse along, too.”
“Would the outfit and the horse arrive if you started with ‘em?” asked the sheriff tersely.
Then, under the steady eye and the faint smile of Silvertip, he flushed.
“I didn’t mean that. It just sort of come popping out,” he explained. “Silver, no matter what some say about you, I’ll trust you around the world and back. When will you start?”
“Now,” said Silvertip.
“You mean in the morning?”
“I mean—now!”
The sheriff nodded slowly. “Something about this job has sort of burned you up, Silver, eh? Take the lot and start now, then, if you want to. Find old Arturo Monterey if you can. They say he’s a hard case; I dunno in what way. But find out if he remembers selling a hoss like this to anybody, and the name of the hombre that got it. That’s all. Then you’ll come back here and let me know?”
“I’ll come back,” said Silvertip.
He was lifting his saddle off a peg as he spoke, and the sheriff, after pausing for a last glance at his messenger, went back to the restaurant and the dead body, the curious crowd following him. Only the red-faced bartender remained.
“I would have been in the soup,” Silvertip told him curtly. “Thanks for that lie.”
“You did the job, eh?” said the bartender, leaning against the manger on one hand and peering into the face of Silver.
“I did the job.”
“Thinking it was Bandini?”
“Yes.”
The bartender nodded his head slowly. “A kind of an idea come over me,” he said. “A kind of an idea that there was a dirty trick in the brain of Bandini when he give that kid his cloak. He ain’t the kind that gives something for nothing.”
“You saved my neck,” said Silver.
“That’s all right,” said the bartender. “But I’d kind of like to ask you a question.”
“Anything you like.”
“You got something in your mind, Silver. What’s dragging you down into that hell hole, the Haverhill?”
“Because there’s a brand on the boy’s horse; and the brand come out of the Haverhill Valley, they say.”
“Yeah, that’s all right. But there’s something more on your mind than that. What’s on your mind, Silver?”
“I’ve killed a man,” said Silver.
“According to yarns, he ain’t the first.”
“I’ve had fights with men who were born with guns in their hands,” said Silvertip. “I’ve fought in the dark, too, as far as that goes. But this was no fight. It wasn’t murder, either. There can’t be a murder except when there’s murder in your mind. I was sure he had drawn on me. What was it, then?”
“It was just a kind of a wiping out of the poor young gent” suggested the bartender.
I wiped him out,” said Silvertip slowly. “And by the look of him, he was a better man than I’ll ever be. What can I do? Two things, partner, and, by heavens, I’m going to do them!”
“Two things?” said the bartender.
“If I can find out his name and the lives that he fitted into, I can find out at the same time what he was meant to do in the world. By the look of him, that would be something too fine for my hands. But whatever his job was, I can try to do it, partner.”
The bartender shrugged.
“I see what you mean, Silver,” said he. “And a doggone strange thing it seems to me. Now, supposing that this here gent, maybe, has got a wife and a coupla brats stowed somewhere? What would you do? Marry the widow?”
“Work for her and the youngsters,” said Silvertip solemnly, “till I rubbed the flesh off the bones of my hands.”
“Would you?” said the bartender. “Well, you beat me. But that ain’t queer. You beat most people. Well, that’s the first thing you wanta do. Mind telling me the second?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Silvertip, through his teeth, and suddenly in a cold rage. “You ought to be able to guess, though.”
“I know,” agreed the bartender, “Bandini is the bird that fixed up this job on you. You never would ‘a’ picked out the kid for a gun play except that he was wearing the cloak—and Bandini must ‘a’ known that. Are you going after him?”
“Before I die,” said Silvertip, “I’ll see Bandini in front of me, and I’ll get at him with a gun or a knife or my bare hands.”
“Yeah,” said the bartender. “You will! I can see it like a picture in a book, Silver, I’m goin’ to wish you luck. You’re a cut different from all the rest of us—but I’m goin’ to wish you luck. But fit yourself into the skin of another gent’s life? Man, man, nobody in the world ever had an idea like that!”
That was all he said before he went out from the barn.
Silvertip, in the meantime, finished saddling and bridling. He saddled and bridled the bay mare, also, and tied her lead rope to his pommel. Then he brought the two horses out into the open and mounted.
He wanted, above all else, to go back into the restaurant and look once more at the delicate, olive-skinned beauty of that dead face, but he kept that impulse in check.
He gathered the reins for the start; inside the house he could hear the high-pitched, excited voice of Mrs. Marti-nelli, babbling out her woes.
The broncho moved suddenly and set jingling all the possessions of the dead man, which the sheriff had poured into one of the saddlebags. So Silvertip rode from Cruces into the night.
IV. THE HAVERHILL COUNTRY
It was early morning when he got through the Haverhill pass and looked down along the valley of the Haverhill River. As far as his eye could reach, from the height, the bright water was running in wide, sweeping curves, silver-clear just below him, and a dull-blue sheen far off, with winkings of high lights on it now and then.
Men had told him that there was a curse on this country, and, in fact, he had always heard strange tales of it.
So had every one. Very few exact reports came through,
But there were mysterious murmurings. Now and then some one was pointed out as a “Haverhill man,” and that fellow was sure to be avoided by all other people on the range. At least, until he had proved himself anew.
There was always talk about the Haverhill country, yet it was odd that so few people had accurate knowledge.
It was not simply that the high mountains encircled it.
Mountains cannot fence any place from a Westerner. But those who went into the valley seldom came out, and if they did, they were not easily drawn into talk. One might have thought that it was a hellish place—but never had silvertip looked on pleasanter country.
There was plenty of water, for one thing. He had ridden up out of a plain where the grass was all dust-gray, but what he looked on now was a soft green comfort to the eye. And from the highlands on both sides he had glimpses of brooks running silver and white down the slopes to the Haverhill River below. Moreover, there were trees. There were big, roundheaded trees in groves that hung against the more brilliant green of the grass hillsides like dark clouds against the blue sheen of the sky. A heavenly place altogether, he decided. Nothing but gossip could poison it.
He made a cigarette, lighted it, began to inhale smoke in great whiffs.
He laughed, threw his hat in the air, and caught it again in spite of the frantic dodging and bucking of the mustang beneath him. He had changed from saddle to saddle all the way during the night. The horses were still fresh, especially that deer-shaped, wing-footed bay mare; so he made no longer halt, but rode down the trail toward the little village that lay at the side of the stream in the central valley beneath.
The trail was very winding, and he never could endure to push a horse going downhill. It meant ruined shoulders too often. So it was nearly prime of the morning before he came off the trail onto a beaten road near the town.
A man in a buckboard came past him from the village. Silvertip lifted his hat and called good morning.
The fellow kept his reins in one hand and his stub of a buggy whip in the other. He kept jerking at the reins constantly, and tapping at the down-headed span of mustangs with the other, without in the slightest degree altering their gait. He returned no salute or gesture or word. The wind tipped the brim of his felt hat up and down, but there was not even a nod of actual greeting.
Silver turned in the saddle and looked back. The stranger had turned also, and was staring. He was a gaunt man, of late middle age. The stubble of his beard gave a gray sheen to his face. His eyes were set in dark hollows. It was a craggy face. It was to the faces of other men as a rocky upland farm is to the rich green acres of a smooth river bottom.
At length Silver faced the town again, frowning. He had been through a great part of the West, and he had been through it on horseback or on foot. He had used his eyes, too, simply because he had to use them to save his scalp. But he could never remember encountering behavior like this.
All that he had heard of the Haverhill country swept over his mind again like clouds across a sunny day.
He rode on at a walk, because he wanted to digest this town as well as he could with his eyes before he entered it.
It looked like any of a thousand other Western villages. There were the same flimsy shacks that seemed to have been thrown together at random—mere tents to be occupied by an army that would soon pass on. For Westerners have had something to do other than lavish time on places to eat and sleep and sit. They have had business to do, and their business has been the whole outdoors.
This was like all the rest, in so far as Silvertip could see, and there was little that his keen eye missed. He hunted every board, every shingle, every window like a hawk searching for game.
As he came into the single winding street, he heaved a sigh of relief. Everything was the same. The signs in front of the shops, and the stores, and the hotel, and the saloons —all were the true Western pattern.
Then he saw a small boy of eight standing in an open doorway with a grown-up’s shotgun in his hands.
“Hello, son!” called Silvertip.
The boy made no answer. He turned his grave face to stare after Silvertip, but he spoke not a word, made not a gesture. It was a broad, roughly made face with an expression far older than the possible years. And the eyes were set in deep hollows filled with shadow!
The chill struck again through the blood and up the spinal marrow of Silvertip.
Men may be different in varying parts of the world, but the children should all be the same.
Then he heard the cheerful beating of hammers on an anvil. Yonder was a blacksmith’s shop with horses tethered before it, waiting to be shod. And through the open doors drifted thin puffs of blue coal smoke.
Silvertip breathed more easily again. The noise of the hammers rejoiced him, at that moment, as much as the sound of human voices could have done.
He halted in front of the shop, dismounted, and looked inside. A cow-puncher sat just inside the door, making a cigarette as he sat on an upturned tempering tub. The elderly blacksmith was holding a bar of iron with a large pair of pincers, and as he turned it and tapped it with his light hammer, a powerful striker banged on the indicated spots with a twelve-pound sledge.
The head blacksmith spoke two words, or three—no more. And then both turned full on Silvertip. He saw their faces were broad, their eyes set in deep, shadowy hollows!
V. THE SILENT MEN
There had been something of a nightmare ghastliness about the passing of that farmer down the road silently, and the sight of that silent lad on the porch, gun in hand, silent, also. But now the dreamlike quality departed from the scene and left to Silvertip a most absolute sense of reality. A grim reality, but one with the full sun of truth playing on it. He had simply run into a backward lot of sour men who had migrated, no doubt, from some single section of the East or of the Old World, and had developed a common surliness of manner just as they had grown to be similar in features. That cow-puncher who sat by the door, at least, was a distinct type. He was small, wizened, with a birdlike beak of a nose and birdlike eyes. But there was no more friendliness in him than in the others.
“Morning to you all,” said Silvertip cheerfully.
A nod of greeting is an inclination of the head; the head blacksmith merely jerked his up a trifle. His striker did not move at all. Their heavy, obstinate, unlighted eyes weighed down upon the face of Silvertip in silence.
He ran on briskly: “I’ve got a mare out there with a brand that I’ve heard called the Cross and Snake brand. I’ve heard that the brand comes out of this valley. Is that right?”
He was incredulous when silence greeted this direct question. Anger burned up in him with a gust, like flame through dry tinder. He mastered it at once. He had learned, by hard lessons, that a quick temper must not be allowed to flare—no, never!
However, there is such a thing as standing up for one’s rights. And he said coldly: “I asked a question. Did any of you hear me?”
He smiled as he said that. There was something about that smile of Silver’s that cut like a knife edge through the most obdurate stupidity and the most sullen resentment. It never failed to point his words.
The elder blacksmith jerked a thumb toward the cow-puncher who sat by the door.
“You talk to him, Ed,” he said.
The little man by the door pushed back his sombrero, scratched his head until a bushy forelock fell down across his eyes, lighted a cigarette, threw the match away, inhaled and exhaled the first smoke cloud.
“I dunno much about brands here,” said Ed.
“Well,” answered Silvertip, “suppose you come out and take a look, partner?”
“I dunno that looking would do much good,” said Ed. “I ain’t a brand expert.”
He became aware, then, of the small, cold smile of Silvertip, and rose slowly to his feet.
“Ain’t any harm in taking a look, I guess,” said he.
He stood by the mare. The sight of the brand did not seem sufficient to him. He had to run a forefinger across the lines of it. Then he had to thumb up the gloss of the hair to see the print of the scars on the hide.
At last he stood back and shook his head.
“Never saw that brand before?” asked Silvertip.
“A man sees a lot of brands here and there,” said Ed, looking at his cigarette.
“How long have you been living in Haverhill Valley?”
“Why, quite a spell,” said Ed.
“What do you mean by ‘quite a spell’?” asked Silvertip.
“Why, quite a heap,” said Ed.
“Oh, you’ve stayed here quite a heap, have you? Ever heard of a Mexican called Arturo Monterey?”
“Arturo Monterey?” asked Ed, looking still at the fuming point of his cigarette.
“Yes, Arturo Monterey.”
“Well, it seems to me,” remarked Ed, “that I’ve heard the name somewheres. I ain’t well acquainted around Haverhill Valley.”
He turned and walked back into the blacksmith shop slowly, dragging the heels of his boots in the dust, and sat down again in the shadow within the door.
Silvertip took a deep breath and let curses flow out silently with the exhalation. It was a new experience for him. He had been through many difficult times, and through many dangers among savage and brutal men; but he had never been badgered like this before. Something about him usually prevented light treatment at the hands of others.
He went back to the door of the blacksmith shop and made for himself a new cigarette. The clangor of the hammers on the iron had recommenced, and every beat of the metal on metal sent a savage pulse through his body and through his brain.
Slowly he made the cigarette, and slowly he lighted it. He was aware—as if through the back of his head— that Ed had smiled at the blacksmith, and that the blacksmith had smiled at Ed. The poison of anger invaded every portion of Silvertip’s being.
And yet his hands were tied. Besides, he had been forewarned. Men had told him that there was danger and death in the very air of the Haverhill Valley. He could understand that now. He had a strong feeling, amounting to surety, that if he attempted to discipline any one of ‘these three, they would all be at him, like so many wolves of a pack. No matter what else could be said of them, they seemed all capable of giving a good account of themselves with their hands. They were made to endure shocks and to give them.
So he stood there, trying to think, but unable to connect one idea with another.
And then he told himself, suddenly and grimly, that this was as it should be. He was trying to find the unfinished life of a, dead man and complete it, and therefore every step of the way, from the beginning, was sure to be hard. It was better so. Only with pain could he pay his debt, and far bitterer pain than this must be his before the end.
Ed stood up presently, and sauntered out of the shop and up the street. A butcher—wearing the badge of a red-stained apron—walked out with a bucket of slops, which he threw into the dust of the street. It made a great black triangle of mud in the midst of the white.. Ed paused by him, spoke to him. And the butcher turned sharply around to stare at Silvertip.
Then he laughed.
That whip cut made Silvertip tremble as though a cold wind had struck him.
Ed and the butcher went into the shop door together, the butcher still laughing. The sound of his laughter came braying down the street even when he was inside his shop again.
Silver turned his head. The blacksmith was grinning, too. He looked steadily back at Silver, all the while busy with both hands at his work, and continued to grin. Silver glanced quickly back at the street.
Out of the distance a sound of a herd of cattle driven on a narrow trail had been growing, a thunder of lowing mingled with sharp, clashing sounds, such as horns make against horns, or splay hoofs clacking together. Now the river of noise entered the street, was confined by the houses, and doubled and redoubled suddenly.
He looked back and saw the swaying fronts of the steers coming, big, wide-shouldered, deep-bodied animals. Two Mexicans rode before them, slender, graceful fellows with enormous hats set over the darkness of their faces. They rode proudly, as all Mexicans ride.
They went by. The steers followed. The wide wash of that crowded herd almost scraped against fences and posts on either side of the roadway. They came in a thin smother of dust, like a blowing sea mist that rolls over the waves. Silvertip saw the red shining of the eyes, the sheen of the long, lyre-shaped horns, the glistening of the wet noses.
They were fat, these great brutes. They showed the green grass they had been battening on. Rolls of heavy flesh were bouncing up and down their flanks. Their tails swung like great flails. They beat up a clashing uproar with their feet, and the dust squirted out in thickening clouds.
But in a moment more Silvertip saw something else to take his eye. For on one of the quarters of every one of these animals there was the big pattern of a very distinct brand—a cross with a wavering line beneath it!
This was the brand about which Ed was not sure—not sure whether he had seen it or not—not sure that it belonged to the herds of Arturo Monterey or no!
He turned and saw the blacksmiths laughing in unison, boldly, openly, laughing Silvertip to scorn, laughing in his very face. And still he controlled himself.
The end of the herd poured past in thick dust masses; the mouths of the steers were hanging open; they crowded against those in the lead, just like fish swarming in a shoal. Close behind them came more riders.
Silvertip stepped out through the billowing mist and waved his hand before a rider. The man drew up with a jerk. His gray-powdered face turned impatiently toward the questioner.
“Partner,” said Silvertip, “I want to know where I can find the house of Arturo Monterey?” The teeth of the Mexican flashed. “Gringo swine!” he yelled, and sent his mustang ahead again with a slash of the quirt.
Silver turned, and saw that the blacksmith and his helper were both standing hi the door of the shop, swaying with delighted laughter.
Another rider galloped up the street, the last of the lot. Silver sprang before him with raised hand. The horse dodged.
“Out of my way, gringo!” yelled the Mexican with a curse.
The refined steel of Silvertip’s patience parted with a snap. With one long bound he reached that Mexican’s side and caught him by the wrist and the collar. The speed of the horse did the rest. It tore the Mexican from his saddle and rolled him with Silvertip in the deepness of the dust. Something winked before Silver’s eyes. He reached at the flash and caught the wrist of the Mexican’s knife hand.
One twist and the knife dropped. Silver stood up, lifting the cow-puncher with him. Dust poured down like water from the clothes of both of them. The roar of the herd departed; the shouted laughter of the blacksmiths began to predominate.
Suddenly that laughter had increased, not diminished in volume, and Silvertip was more bewildered than ever. Was it a common thing to the people of these parts to see a dashing Mexican caballero, a man with the shoulders of a bull, plucked from his horse and disarmed as he drew a knife? .
He laid the point of that knife against the shirt of the herdsman.
“Now, amigo,” said Silvertip, “we talk.”
The Mexican glanced over his shoulder at the diminishing cloud of dust that was the herd. And Silver could read the thought. How long before the fellow’s companions saw a riderless horse coming after them and turned back to learn the fate of their companion?
“We talk,” said Silvertip. “I ask you, first, if the Cross and Snake brand belongs, really, to Arturo Monterey?”
The vaquero stared into his face with eyes yellow and red-stained by fury. He said nothing.
“Tell me,” said Silver.
The body of the Mexican was shaking with rage. His hands kept flexing and unflexing.
“Yes,” he said at last.
“Very well,” said Silver: “And where is the house of Monterey?”
Even fear of the knife could not prevent the Mexican from shouting savagely: “In it’s own place, gringo!”
And he swayed forward a little, as though expecting the thrust of the knife.
“Look at that bay mare,” said Silvertip. “Did you ever see her before?”
The Mexican glanced at the high-headed beauty. His eyes widened; his jaw dropped; his very color changed, it seemed to Silvertip. Then the big head of the man swung back, and he scowled at his questioner.
It was plain to Silvertip that he had reached the end of the rope, that he could extract no more words from this fellow. It was equally plain that the mare was known to the Mexican intimately. Yet it seemed that all the men of the Haverhill Valley would rather die, almost, than talk.
“All right, hombre,” said Silvertip, and tossed the knife to him carelessly. The Mexican caught it out of the air with a hungry hand. He had the air, for an instant, of one about to leap forward; but again there was something in the faint smile and the steady eyes of Silvertip that discouraged attack. Presently the big man turned and strode off down the street, making violent gestures, cursing volubly to himself.
The two blacksmiths had stopped their laughter. They remained in the doorway and watched with brutally inexpressive faces while Silver remounted and rode down the street to a hotel. He found stable room behind the place; when he entered the hotel itself, a lowering clerk seemed unwilling to give him a room at first, but eventually he was shown to a dingy corner apartment that overlooked a side lane and the back yard. There he sat down and took his head between his hands. He was sleepy from his all-night ride, but the jumping of his nerves kept him from lying down.
He was half beaten within an hour of his arrival in the Haverhill Valley. All the self-confidence had melted from him, and he felt that he was leaning the weight of his mind against an impenetrable wall.
