Black Jack, Max Brand [snow like ashes .txt] 📗

CHAPTER 26

“It don’t mean nothing,” Pollard hastened to assure Terry. “It don’t mean

a thing in the world except that she’s a fool girl. The queerest,

orneriest, kindest, strangest, wildest thing in the shape of calico that

ever come into these parts since her mother died before her. But the more

you see of her, the more you’ll value her. She can ride like a man—no

wear out to her—and she’s got the courage of a man. Besides which she

can sling a gun like it would do your heart good to see her! Don’t take

nothing she does to heart. She don’t mean no harm. But she sure does

tangle up a gent’s ideas. Here I been living with her nigh onto twenty

years and I don’t savvy her none yet. Eh, boys?”

 

“I’m not offended in the least,” said Terry quietly.

 

And he was not, but he was more interested than he had ever been before

by man, woman, or child. And for the past few seconds his mind had been

following her through the door behind which she had disappeared.

 

“And if I were to see more of her, no doubt—” He broke off with: “But

I’m not apt to see much more of any of you, Mr. Pollard. If I can’t stay

here and work off that three-hundred-dollar debt—”

 

“Work, hell! No son of Black Jack Hollis can work for me. But he can live

with me as a partner, son, and he can have everything I got, half and

half, and the bigger half to him if he asks for it. That’s straight!”

 

Terry raised a protesting hand. Yet he was touched—intimately touched.

He had tried hard to fit in his place among the honest people of the

mountains by hard and patient work. They would have none of him. His own

kind turned him out. And among these men—men who had no law, as he had

every reason to believe—he was instantly taken in and made one of them.

 

“But no more talk tonight,” said Pollard. “I can see you’re played out.

I’ll show you the room.”

 

He caught a lantern from the wall as he spoke and began to lead the way

up the stairs to the balcony. He pointed out the advantages of the house

as he spoke.

 

“Not half bad—this house, eh?” he said proudly. “And who d’you think

planned it? Your old man, kid. It was Black Jack Hollis himself that done

it! He was took off sudden before he’d had a chance to work it out and

build it. But I used his ideas in this the same’s I’ve done in other

things. His idea was a house like a ship.

 

“They build a ship in compartments, eh? Ship hits a rock, water comes in.

But it only fills one compartment, and the old ship still floats. Same

with this house. You seen them walls. And the walls on the outside ain’t

the only thing. Every partition is the same thing, pretty near; and a

gent could stand behind these doors safe as if he was a mile away from a

gun. Why? Because they’s a nice little lining of the best steel you ever

seen in the middle of ‘em.

 

“Cost a lot. Sure. But look at us now. Suppose a posse was to rush the

house. They bust into the kitchen side. Where are they? Just the same as

if they hadn’t got in at all. I bolt the doors from the inside of the big

room, and they’re shut out agin. Or suppose they take the big room? Then

a couple of us slide out on this balcony and spray ‘em with lead. This

house ain’t going to be took till the last room is filled full of the

sheriff’s men!”

 

He paused on the balcony and looked proudly over the big, baronial room

below them. It seemed huger than ever from this viewpoint, and the men

below them were dwarfed. The light of the lanterns did not extend all the

way across it, but fell in pools here and there, gleaming faintly on the

men below.

 

“But doesn’t it make people suspicious to have a fort like this built on

the hill?” asked Terry.

 

“Of course. If they knew. But they don’t know, son, and they ain’t going

to find out the lining of this house till they try it out with lead.”

 

He brought Terry into one of the bedrooms and lighted a lamp. As the

flare steadied in the big circular oil burner and the light spread, Terry

made out a surprisingly comfortable apartment. There was not a bunk, but

a civilized bed, beside which was a huge, tawny mountain-lion skin

softening the floor. The window was curtained in some pleasant blue

stuff, and there were a few spots of color on the wall—only calendars,

some of them, but helping to give a livable impression for the place.

 

“Kate’s work,” grinned Pollard proudly. “She’s been fixing these rooms up

all out of her own head. Never got no ideas out of me. Anything you might

lack, son?”

 

Terry told him he would be very comfortable, and the big man wrung his

hand again as he bade him good night.

 

“The best work that Denver ever done was bringing you to me,” he

declared. “Which you’ll find it out before I’m through. I’m going to give

you a home!” And he strode away before Terry could answer.

 

The rather rare consciousness of having done a good deed swelled in the

heart of Joe Pollard on his way down from the balcony. When he reached

the floor below, he found that the four men had gone to bed and left

Denver alone, drawn back from the light into a shadowy corner, where he

was flanked by the gleam of a bottle of whisky on the one side and a

shimmering glass on the other. Although Pollard was the nominal leader,

he was in secret awe of the yegg. For Denver was an “in-and-outer.”

Sometimes he joined them in the West; sometimes he “worked” an Eastern

territory. He came and went as he pleased, and was more or less a law to

himself. Moreover, he had certain qualities of silence and brooding that

usually disturbed the leader. They troubled him now as he approached the

squat, shapeless figure in the corner chair.

 

“What you think of him?” said Denver.

 

“A good kid and a clean-cut kid,” decided Joe Pollard judicially. “Maybe

he ain’t another Black Jack, but he’s tolerable cool for a youngster.

Stood up and looked me in the eye like a man when I had him cornered a

while back. Good thing for him you come out when you did!”

 

“A good thing for you, Joe,” replied Denver Pete. “He’d of turned you

into fertilizer, bo!”

 

“Maybe; maybe not. Maybe they’s some things I could teach him about gun-slinging, Pete.”

 

“Maybe; maybe not,” parodied Denver. “You’ve learned a good deal about

guns, Joe—quite a bit. But there’s some things about gun fighting that

nobody can learn. It’s got to be born into ‘em. Remember how Black Jack

used to slide out his gat?”

 

“Yep. There was a man!”

 

“And Minter, too. There’s a born gunman.”

 

“Sure. We all know Uncle Joe—damn his soul!”

 

“But the kid beat Uncle Joe fair and square from an even break—and beat

him bad. Made his draw, held it so’s Joe could partway catch up with him,

and then drilled him clean!”

 

Pollard scratched his chin.

 

“I’d believe that if I seen it,” he declared.

 

“Pal, it wasn’t Terry that done the talking; it was Gainor. He’s seen a

good deal of gunplay, and said that Terry’s was the coolest he ever

watched.”

 

“All right for that part of it,” said Joe Pollard. “Suppose he’s fast—

but can I use him? I like him well enough; I’ll give him a good deal; but

is he going to mean charity all the time he hangs out with me?”

 

“Maybe; maybe not,” chuckled Denver again. “Use him the way he can be

used, and he’ll be the best bargain you ever turned. Black Jack started

you in business; Black Jack the Second will make you rich if you handle

him right—and ruin you if you make a slip.”

 

“How come? He talks this ‘honesty’ talk pretty strong.”

 

“Gimme a chance to talk,” said Denver contemptuously. “Takes a gent

that’s used to reading the secrets of a safe to read the secrets of a

gent’s head. And I’ve read the secret of young Black Jack Hollis. He’s a

pile of dry powder, Joe. Throw in the spark and he’ll explode so damned

loud they’ll hear him go off all over the country.”

 

“How?”

 

“First, you got to keep him here.”

 

“How?”

 

Joe Pollard sat back with the air of one who will be convinced through no

mental effort of his own. But Denver was equal to the demand.

 

“I’m going to show you. He thinks he owes you three hundred.”

 

“That’s foolish. I cheated the kid out of it. I’ll give it back to him

and all the rest I won.”

 

Denver paused and studied the other as one amazed by such stupidity.

 

“Pal, did you ever try, in the old days, to give anything to the old

Black Jack?”

 

“H’m. Well, he sure hated charity. But this ain’t charity.”

 

“It ain’t in your eyes. It is in Terry’s. If you insist, he’ll get sore.

No, Joe. Let him think he owes you that money. Let him start in working

it off for you—honest work. You ain’t got any ranch work. Well, set him

to cutting down trees, or anything. That’ll help to hold him. If he makes

some gambling play—and he’s got the born gambler in