Gunman's Reckoning, Max Brand [books to get back into reading txt] 📗

him, but when did pity wholly rule the heart of a woman? And as for Nelly Lebrun, she had the ambition of a young Caesar; she could not fill a second place. He who loved her must stand first, and she saw Donnegan as the invincible man. She had not believed half of his explanation. No, he was shielding Lord Nick; behind that shield the truth was that the big man had quailed before the small.

Of course she saw that Donnegan, pretending to be constrained by his agreement with Lord Nick, was in reality cunningly pleading his own cause. But his passion excused him. When has a woman condemned a man for loving her beyond the rules of fair play?

"Whatever you may decide," Donnegan was saying. "I shall be prepared to stand by it without a murmur. Send Landis back to your father's house and I submit: I leave The Corner and say farewell. But now, think quickly. For Lord Nick is coming to receive your answer."

37

If the meeting between Lord Nick and Donnegan earlier that day had wrought up the nerves of The Corner to the point of hysteria; if the singular end of that meeting had piled mystery upon excitement; if the appearance of Donnegan, sitting calmly at the table of the girl who was known to be engaged to Nick, had further stimulated public curiosity, the appearance of Lord Nick was now a crowning burden under which The Corner staggered.

Yet not a man or a woman stirred from his chair, for everyone knew that if the long-delayed battle between these two gunfighters was at length to take place, neither bullet was apt to fly astray.

But what happened completed the wreck of The Corner's nerves, for Lord Nick walked quietly across the floor and sat down with Nelly Lebrun and his somber rival.

Oddly enough, he looked at Donnegan, not at the girl, and this token of the beaten man decided her.

"Well?" said Lord Nick.

"I have decided," said the girl. "Landis should stay where he is."

Neither of the two men stirred hand or eye. But Lord Nick turned gray. At length he rose and asked Donnegan, quietly, to step aside with him. Seeing them together, the difference between their sizes was more apparent: Donnegan seemed hardly larger than a child beside the splendid bulk of Lord Nick. But she could not overhear their talk.

"You've won," said Lord Nick, "both Landis and Nelly. And—"

"Wait," broke in Donnegan eagerly. "Henry, I've persuaded Nelly to see my side of the case, but that doesn't mean that she has turned from you to—"

"Stop!" put in Lord Nick, between his teeth. "I've not come to argue with you or ask advice or opinions. I've come to state facts. You've crawled in between me and Nelly like a snake in the grass. Very well. You're my brother. That keeps me from handling you. You've broken my reputation just as I said you would do. The bouncer at the door looked me in the eye and smiled when I came in."

He had to pause a little, breathing heavily, and avoiding Donnegan's eyes. Finally he was able to continue.

"I'm going to roll my blankets and leave The Corner and everything I have in it. You'll get my share of most things, it seems." He smiled after a ghastly, mirthless fashion. "I give you a free road. I surrender everything to you, Donnegan. But there are two things I want to warn you about. It may be that my men will not agree with me. It may be that they'll want to put up a fight for the mine. They can't get at it without getting at Macon. They can't get at him without removing you. And they'll probably try it. I warn you now.

"Another thing: from this moment there's no blood tie between us. I've found a brother and lost him in the same day. And if I ever cross you again, Donnegan, I'll shoot you on sight. Remember, I'm not threatening. I simply warn you in advance. If I were you, I'd get out of the country. Avoid me, Donnegan, as you'd avoid the devil."

And he turned on his heel. He felt the eyes of the people in the room follow him by jerks, dwelling on every one of his steps. Near the door, stepping aside to avoid a group of people coming in, he half turned and he could not avoid the sight of Donnegan and Nelly Lebrun at the other end of the room. He was leaning across the table, talking with a smile on his lips—at that distance he could not mark the pallor of the little man's face—and Nelly Lebrun was laughing. Laughing already, and oblivious of the rest of the world.

Lord Nick turned, a blur coming before his eyes, and made blindly for the door. A body collided with him; without a word he drew back his massive right fist and knocked the man down. The stunned body struck against the wall and collapsed along the floor. Lord Nick felt a great madness swell in his heart. Yet he set his teeth, controlled himself, and went on toward the house of Lebrun. He had come within an eyelash of running amuck, and the quivering hunger for action was still swelling and ebbing in him when he reached the gambler's house.

Lebrun was not in the gaming house, no doubt, at this time of night—but the rest of Nick's chosen men were there. They stood up as he entered the room—Harry Masters, newly arrived—the Pedlar—Joe Rix—three names famous in the mountain desert for deeds which were not altogether a pleasant aroma in the nostrils of the law-abiding, but whose sins had been deftly covered from legal proof by the cunning of Nick, and whose bravery itself had half redeemed them. They rose now as three wolves rise at the coming of the leader. But this time there was a question behind their eyes, and he read it in gloomy silence.

"Well?" asked Harry Masters.

In the old days not one of them would have dared to voice the question, but now things were changing, and well Lord Nick could read the change and its causes.

"Are you talking to me?" asked Nick, and he looked straight between the eyes of Masters.

The glance of the other did not falter, and it maddened Nick.

"I'm talking to you," said Masters coolly enough. "What happened between you and Donnegan?"

"What should happen?" asked Lord Nick.

"Maybe all this is a joke," said Masters bitterly. He was a square-built man, with a square face and a wrinkled, fleshy forehead. In intelligence, Nick ranked him first among the men. And if a new leader were to be chosen there was no doubt as to where the choice of the men would fall. No doubt that was why Masters put himself forward now, ready to brave the wrath of the chief. "Maybe we're fooled," went on Masters. "Maybe they ain't any call for you to fall out with Donnegan?"

"Maybe there's a call to find out this," answered Lord Nick. "Why did you leave the mines? What are you doing up here?"

The other swallowed so hard that he blinked.

"I left the mines," he declared through his set teeth, "because I was run off 'em."

"Ah," said Lord Nick, for the devil was rising in him, "I always had an idea that you might be yellow, Masters."

The right hand of Masters swayed toward his gun, hesitated, and then poised idly.

"You heard me talk?" persisted Lord Nick brutally. "I call you yellow. Why don't you draw on me? I called you yellow, you swine, and I call the rest of you yellow. You think you have me down? Why, curse you, if there were thirty of your cut, I'd say the same to you!"

There was a quick shift, the three men faced Lord Nick, but each from a different angle. And opposing them, he stood superbly indifferent, his arms folded, his feet braced. His arms were folded, but each hand, for all they knew, might be grasping the butt of a gun hidden away in his clothes. Once they flashed a glance from face to face; but there was no action. They were remembering only too well some of the wild deeds of this giant.

"You think I'm through," went on Lord Nick. "Maybe I am—through with you. You hear me talk?"

One by one, his eyes dared them, and one by one they took up the challenge, struggled, and lowered their glances. He was still their master and in that mute moment the three admitted it, the Pedlar last of all.

Masters saw fit to fall back on the last remark.

"I've swallowed a lot from you, Nick," he said gravely.

"Maybe there'll be an end to what we take one of these days. But now I'll tell you how yellow I was. A couple of gents come to me and tell me I'm through at the mine. I told them they were crazy. They said old Colonel Macon had sent them down to take charge. I laughed at 'em. They went away and came back. Who with? With the sheriff. And he flashed a paper on me. It was all drawn up clean as a whistle. Trimmed up with a lot of 'whereases' and 'as hereinbefore mentioned' and such like things. But the sheriff just gimme a look and then he tells me what it's about. Jack Landis has signed over all the mines to the colonel and the colonel has taken possession."

As he stopped, a growl came from the others.

"Lester is the man that has the complaint," said Lord Nick. "Where do the rest of you figure in it? Lester had the mines; he lost 'em because he couldn't drop Landis with his gun. He'd never have had a smell of the gold if I hadn't come in. Who made Landis see light? I did! Who worked it so that every nickel that came out of the mines went through the fingers of Landis and came back to us? I did! But I'm through with you. You can hunt for yourselves now. I've kept you together to guard one another's backs. I've kept the law off your trail. You, Masters, you'd have swung for killing the McKay brothers. Who saved you? Who was it bribed the jury that tried you for the shooting up of Derbyville, Pedlar? Who took the marshal off your trail after you'd knifed Lefty Waller, Joe Rix? I've saved you all a dozen times. Now you whine at me. I'm through with you forever!"

Stopping, he glared about him. His knuckles stung from the impact of the blow he had delivered in Milligan's place. He hungered to have one of these three stir a hand and get into action.

And they knew it. All at once they crumbled and became clay in his hands.

"Chief," said Joe Rix, the smoothest spoken of the lot, and one who was supposed to stand specially well with Lord Nick on account of his ability to bake beans, Spanish. "Chief, you've said a whole pile. You're worth more'n the rest of us all rolled together. Sure. We know that. There ain't any argument. But here's just one little point that I want to make.

"We was doing fine. The gold was running fine and free. Along comes this Donnegan. He busts up our good time. He forks in on your girl—"

A convulsion of the chief's face made Rix waver in his speech and then he went on: "He shoots Landis, and when he misses killing him—by some accident, he comes down here and grabs him out of Lebrun's own house. Smooth, eh? Then he makes Landis sign that deed to the mines. Oh, very nice work, I say. Too nice.

"'Now, speakin' man to man, they ain't any doubt that you'd like to get rid of Donnegan. Why don't you? Because everybody has a jinx, and he's yours. I ain't easy scared, maybe, but I knew an albino with white eyes once, and just to look at him made me some sick. Well, chief, they ain't nobody can say that you ever took water or ever will. But maybe the fact that this Donnegan has hair just as plumb red as yours may sort of get you off your feed. I'm just suggesting. Now, what I say is, let the rest of us take a crack at Donnegan, and you sit back and come in on the results when we've cleaned up. D'you give us a free road?"

How much went through the brain of Lord Nick? But in the end he gave his brother up to death. For he remembered how Nelly Lebrun had sat in Milligan's laughing.

"Do what you want," he said suddenly. "But I want to know none of your plans—and the man that tells me Donnegan is dead gets