Black Jack, Max Brand [snow like ashes .txt] 📗
- Author: Max Brand
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determined to dodge the issue. He started toward the door, taking care
not to walk hastily enough to draw suspicion on him because of his
withdrawal, but to the heated brain of Larrimer all things were
suspicious. His long arm darted out as Terry passed him; he jerked the
smaller man violently back.
“Wait a minute. I don’t know you, kid. Maybe you got the information I
want?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Terry blinked. It seemed to him that if he looked again at that vicious,
contracted face, his gun would slip into his hand of its own volition.
“Who are you?”
“A stranger in these parts,” said Terry slowly, and he looked down at the
floor.
He heard a murmur from the men at the other end of the room. He knew that
small, buzzing sound. They were wondering at the calmness with which he
“took water.”
“So’s Hollis a stranger in these parts,” said Larrimer, facing his victim
more fully. “What I want to know is about the gent that owns the red hoss
in front of the store. Ever hear of him?”
Terry was silent. By a vast effort he was able to shake his head. It was
hard, bitterly hard, but every good influence that had ever come into his
life now stood beside him and fought with and for him—Elizabeth Cornish,
the long and fictitious line of his Colby ancestors, Kate Pollard with
her clear-seeing eyes. He saw her last of all. When the men were scorning
him for the way he had avoided this battle, she, at least, would
understand, and her understanding would be a mercy.
“Hollis is somewhere around,” declared Larrimer, drawing back and biting
his lip. “I know it, damn well. His hoss is standing out yonder. I know
what’ll fetch him. I’ll shoot that hoss of his, and that’ll bring him—if
young Black Jack is half the man they say he is! I ain’t out to shoot
cowards—I want men!”
He strode to the door.
“Don’t do it!” shouted Bill, the storekeeper.
“Shut up!” snapped Baldwin. “I know something. Shut up!”
That fierce, low voice reached the ear of Terry, and he understood that
it meant Baldwin had judged him as the whole world judged him. After all,
what difference did it make whether he killed or not? He was already
damned as a slayer of men by the name of his father before him.
Larrimer had turned with a roar.
“What d’you mean by stopping me, Bill? What in hell d’you mean by it?”
With the brightness of the door behind him, his bearded face was wolfish.
“Nothing,” quavered Bill, this torrent of danger pouring about him.
“Except—that it ain’t very popular around here—shooting hosses,
Larrimer.”
“Damn you and your ideas,” said Larrimer. “I’m going to go my own way. I
know what’s best.”
He reached the door, his hand went back to the butt of his revolver.
And then it snapped in Terry, that last restraint which had been at the
breaking-point all this time. He felt a warmth run through him—the
warmth of strength and the cold of a mysterious and evil happiness.
“Wait, Larrimer!”
The big man whirled as though he had heard a gun; there was a ring in the
voice of Terry like the ring down the barrel of a shotgun after it has
been cocked.
“You agin?” barked Larrimer.
“Me again. Larrimer, don’t shoot the horse.”
“Why not?”
“For the sake of your soul, my friend.”
“Boys, ain’t this funny? This gent is a sky-pilot, maybe?” He made a long
stride back.
“Stop where you are!” cried Terry.
He stood like a soldier with his heels together, straight, trembling. And
Larrimer stopped as though a blow had checked him.
“I may be your sky-pilot, Larrimer. But listen to sense. Do you really
mean you’d shoot that red horse in front of the hotel?”
“Ain’t you heard me say it?”
“Then the Lord pity you, Larrimer!”
Ordinarily Larrimer’s gun would have been out long before, but the change
from this man’s humility of the moment before, his almost cringing
meekness, to his present defiance was so startling that Larrimer was
momentarily at sea.
“Damn my eyes,” he remarked furiously, “this is funny, this is. Are you
preaching at me, kid? What d’you mean by that? Eh?”
“I’ll tell you why. Face me squarely, will you? Your head up, and your
hands ready.”
In spite of his rage and wonder, Larrimer instinctively obeyed, for the
words came snapping out like military commands.
“Now I’ll tell you. You manhunting cur, I’m going to send you to hell
with your sins on your head. I’m going to kill you, Larrimer!”
It was so unexpected, so totally startling, that Larrimer blinked, raised
his head, and laughed.
But the son of Black Jack tore away all thought of laughter.
“Larrimer, I’m Terry Hollis. Get your gun!”
The wide mouth of Larrimer writhed silently from mirth to astonishment,
and then sinister rage. And though he was in the shadow against the door,
Terry saw the slow gleam in the face of the tall man—then his hand
whipped for the gun. It came cleanly out. There was no flap to his
holster, and the sight had been filed away to give more oiled and perfect
freedom to the draw. Years of patient practice had taught his muscles to
reflex in this one motion with a speed that baffled the eye. Fast as
light that draw seemed to those who watched, and the draw of Terry Hollis
appeared to hang in midair. His hand wavered, then clutched suddenly, and
they saw a flash of metal, not the actual motion of drawing the gun. Just
that gleam of the barrel at his hip, hardly clear of the holster, and
then in the dimness of the big room a spurt of flame and the boom of the
gun.
There was a clangor of metal at the farthest end of the room. Larrimer’s
gun had rattled on the boards, unfired. He tossed up his great gaunt arms
as though he were appealing for help, leaped into the air, and fell
heavily, with a force that vibrated the floor where Terry stood.
There was one heartbeat of silence.
Then Terry shoved the gun slowly back into his holster and walked to the
body of Larrimer.
To these things Bill, the storekeeper, and Jack Baldwin, the rancher,
afterward swore. That young Black Jack leaned a little over the corpse
and then straightened and touched the fallen hand with the toe of his
boot. Then he turned upon them a perfectly calm, unemotional look.
“I seem to have been elected to do the scavenger work in this town,” he
said. “But I’m going to leave it to you gentlemen to take the carrion
away. Shorty, I’m going back to the house. Are you ready to ride that
way?”
When they went to the body of Larrimer afterward, they found a neat,
circular splotch of purple exactly placed between the eyes.
The first thing the people in Pollard’s big house knew of the return of
the two was a voice singing faintly and far off in the stable—they could
hear it because the door to the big living room was opened. And Kate
Pollard, who had been sitting idly at the piano, stood up suddenly and
looked around her. It did not interrupt the crap game of the four at one
side of the room, where they kneeled in a close circle. But it brought
big Pollard himself to the door in time to meet Denver Pete as the latter
hurried in.
When Denver was excited he talked very nearly as softly as he walked. And
his voice tonight was like a contented humming.
“It worked,” was all he said aside to Pollard as he came through the
door. They exchanged silent grips of the hands. Then Kate drew down on
them; as if a mysterious; signal had been passed to them by the subdued
entrance of Denver, the four rose at the side of the room.
It was Pollard who forced him to talk.
“What happened?”
“A pretty little party,” said Denver. His purring voice was so soft that
to hear him the others instantly drew close. Kate Pollard stood suddenly
before him.
“Terry Hollis has done something,” she said. “Denver, what has he done?”
“Him? Nothing much. To put it in his own words, he’s just played
scavenger for the town—and he’s done it in a way they won’t be
forgetting for a good long day.
“Denver!”
“Well? No need of acting up, Kate.”
“Who was it?”
“Ever meet young Larrimer?”
She shuddered. “Yes. A—beast of a man.”
“Sure. Worse’n a beast, maybe. Well, he’s carrion now, to use Terry’s
words again.”
“Wait a minute,” cut in big blond Phil Marvin. Don’t spoil the story for
Terry. But did he really do for Larrimer? Larrimer was a neat one with a
gun—no good otherwise.”
“Did he do for Larrimer?” echoed Denver in his purring voice. “Oh, man,
man! Did he do for Larrimer? And I ain’t spoiling his story. He won’t
talk about it. Wouldn’t open his face about it all the way home. A pretty
neat play, boys. Larrimer was looking for a rep, and he wanted to make it
on Black Jack’s son. Came tearing in.
“At first Terry tried to sidestep him. Made me weak inside for a minute
because I thought he was going to take water. Then he got riled a bit and
then—whang! It was all over. Not a body shot. No, boys, nothing clumsy
and amateurish like that, because a man may live to empty his gun at you
after he’s been shot through the body. This young Hollis, pals, just ups
and drills Larrimer clean between the eyes. If you’d measured it off with
a ruler, you couldn’t have hit exact center any better’n he done. Then he
walks up and stirs Larrimer with his toe to make sure he was dead. Cool
as hell.”
“You lie!” cried the girl suddenly.
They whirled at her, and found her standing and flaming at them.
“You hear me say it, Kate,” said Denver, losing a little of his calm.
“He wasn’t as cool as that—after killing a man. He wasn’t.”
“All right, honey. Don’t you hear him singing out there in the stable?
Does that sound as if he was cut up much?”
“Then you’ve made him a murderer—you, Denver, and you, Dad. Oh, if
they’s a hell, you’re going to travel there for this! Both of you!”
“As if we had anything to do with it!” exclaimed Denver innocently.
“Besides, it wasn’t murder. It was plain self-defense. Nothing but that.
Three witnesses to swear to it. But, my, my—you should hear that town
rave. They thought nobody could beat Larrimer.”
The girl slipped back into her chair again and sat with her chin in her
hand, brooding. It was all impossible—it could not be. Yet there was
Denver telling his story, and far away the clear baritone of Terry Hollis
singing as he cared for El Sangre.
She waited to make sure, waited to see his face and hear him speak close
at hand. Presently the singing rang out more clearly. He had stepped out
of the barn.
Oh, I am a friar of orders gray,
Through hill and valley I take my way.
My long bead roll I merrily chant;
Wherever I wander no
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