Gunman's Reckoning by Max Brand (read novel full TXT) 📗

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"You're the gent that cleaned up on Landis, ain't you?" continued the sandy-haired man.

There was still the same silence, and Lester burst out: "It don't work, Donnegan. You've showed you're man-sized several ways since you been in The Corner. Now I come to tell you to get out from under Colonel Macon. Why? Because he's crooked, because we know he's crooked; because he played crooked with me. You hear me talk?"

Still Donnegan considered him without a word.

"We're goin' to run him out, Donnegan. We want you on our side if we can get you; if we can't get you, then we'll run you out along with the colonel."

He began to talk with difficulty, as though Donnegan's stare unnerved him. He even took a step back toward the door.

"You can't bluff me out, Donnegan. I ain't alone. They's others behind me. I don't need to name no names. Here's another thing: you ain't alone yourself. You got a woman and a cripple on your hands. Now, Donnegan, you're a fast man with a gun and you're a fast man at thinkin', but I ask you personal: have you got a chance runnin' under that weight?"

He added fiercely: "I'm through. Now, talk turkey, Donnegan, or you're done!"

For the first time Donnegan moved. It was to make to big George a significant signal with his thumb, indicating the visitor. However, Lester did not wait to be thrown bodily from the cabin. One enormous oath exploded from his lips, and he backed sullenly through the door and slammed it after him.

"It kind of looks," said big George, "like a war, sir."

And still Donnegan did not speak, until the afternoon was gone, and the evening, and the full black of the night had swallowed up the hills around The Corner.

Then he left the chair, shaved, and dressed carefully, looked to his revolver, stowed it carefully and invisibly away among his clothes, and walked leisurely down the hill. An outbreak of cursing, stamping, hair-tearing, shooting could not have affected big George as this quiet departure did. He followed, unordered, but as he stepped across the threshold of the hut he rolled up his eyes to the stars.

"Oh, heavens above," muttered George, "have mercy on Mr. Donnegan. He ain't happy."

And he went down the hill, making sure that he was fit for battle with knife and gun.

He had sensed Donnegan's mental condition accurately enough. The heart of the little man was swelled to the point of breaking. A twenty-hour vigil had whitened his face, drawn in his cheeks, and painted his eyes with shadow; and now he wanted action. He wanted excitement, strife, competition; something to fill his mind. And naturally enough he had two places in mind—Lebrun's and Milligan's.

It is hard to relate the state of Donnegan's mind at this time. Chiefly, he was conscious of a peculiar and cruel pain that made him hollow; it was like homesickness raised to the nth degree. Vaguely he realized that in some way, somehow, he must fulfill his promise to the girl and bring Jack Landis home. The colonel dared not harm the boy for fear of Donnegan; and the girl would be happy. For that very reason Donnegan wanted to tear Landis to shreds.

It is not extremely heroic for a man tormented with sorrow to go to a gambling hall and then to a dance hall to seek relief. But Donnegan was not a hero. He was only a man, and, since his heart was empty, he wanted something that might fill it. Indeed, like most men, suffering made him a good deal of a boy.

So the high heels of Donnegan tapped across the floor of Lebrun's. A murmur went before him whenever he appeared now, and a way opened for him. At the roulette wheel he stopped, placed fifty on red, and watched it double three times. George, at a signal from the master, raked in the winnings. And Donnegan sat at a faro table and won again, and again rose disconsolately and went on. For when men do not care how luck runs it never fails to favor them. The devotees of fortune are the ones she punishes.

In the meantime the whisper ran swiftly through The Corner.

"Donnegan is out hunting trouble."

About the good that is in men rumor often makes mistakes, but for evil she has an infallible eye and at once sets all of her thousand tongues wagging. Indeed, any man with half an eye could not fail to get the meaning of his fixed glance, his hard set jaw, and the straightness of his mouth. If he had been a ghost, men could not have avoided him more sedulously, and the giant servant who stalked at his back. Not that The Corner was peopled with cowards. The true Westerner avoids trouble, but cornered, he will fight like a wildcat.

So people watched from the corner of their eyes as Donnegan passed.

He left Lebrun's. There was no competition. Luck blindly favored him, and Donnegan wanted contest, excitement. He crossed to Milligan's. Rumor was there before him. A whisper conveyed to a pair of mighty-limbed cow-punchers that they were sitting at the table which Donnegan had occupied the night before, and they wisely rose without further hint and sought other chairs. Milligan, anxious-eyed, hurried to the orchestra, and with a blast of sound they sought to cover up the entry of the gunman.

As a matter of fact that blare of horns only served to announce him. Something was about to happen; the eyes of men grew shadowy; the eyes of women brightened. And then Donnegan appeared, with George behind him, and crossed the floor straight to his table of the night before. Not that he had forethought in going toward it, but he was moving absent-mindedly.

Indeed, he had half forgotten that he was a public figure in The Corner, and sitting sipping the cordial which big George brought him at once, he let his glance rove swiftly around the room. The eye of more than one brave man sank under that glance; the eye of more than one woman smiled back at him; but where the survey of Donnegan halted was on the face of Nelly Lebrun.

She was crossing the farther side of the floor alone, unescorted except for the whisper about her, but seeing Donnegan she stopped abruptly. Donnegan instantly rose. She would have gone on again in a flurry; but that would have been too pointed.

A moment later Donnegan was threading his way across the dance floor to Nelly Lebrun, with all eyes turned in his direction. He had his hat under his arm; and in his black clothes, with his white stock, he made an old-fashioned figure as he bowed before the girl and straightened again.

"Did you send for me?" Donnegan inquired.

Nelly Lebrun was frankly afraid; and she was also delighted. She felt that she had been drawn into the circle of intense public interest which surrounded the red-headed stranger; she remembered on the other hand that her father would be furious if she exchanged two words with the man. And for that very reason she was intrigued. Donnegan, being forbidden fruit, was irresistible. So she let the smile come to her lips and eyes, and then laughed outright in her excitement.

"No," she said with her lips, while her eyes said other things.

"I've come to ask a favor: to talk with you one minute."

"If I should—what would people say?";

"Let's find out."

"It would be—daring," said Nelly Lebrun. "After last night."

"It would be delightful," said Donnegan. "Here's a table ready for us."

She went a pace closer to it with him.

"I think you've frightened the poor people away from it. I mustn't sit down with you, Mr. Donnegan."

And she immediately slipped into the chair.

27

She qualified her surrender, of course, by sitting on the very edge of the chair. She had on a wine-colored dress, and, with the excitement whipping color into her cheeks and her eyes dancing, Nelly Lebrun was a lovely picture.

"I must go at once," said Nelly.

"Of course, I can't expect you to stay."

She dropped one hand on the edge of the table. One would have thought that she was in the very act of rising.

"Do you know that you frighten me?"

"I?" said Donnegan, with appropriate inflection.

"As if I were a man and you were angry."

"But you see?" And he made a gesture with both of his palms turned up. "People have slandered me. I am harmless."

"The minute is up, Mr. Donnegan. What is it you wish?"

"Another minute."

"Now you laugh at me."

"No, no!"

"And in the next minute?"

"I hope to persuade you to stay till the third minute."

"Of course, I can't."

"I know; it's impossible."

"Quite." She settled into the chair. "See how people stare at me! They remember poor Jack Landis and they think—the whole crowd—"

"A crowd is always foolish. In the meantime, I'm happy."

"You?"

"To be here; to sit close to you; to watch you."

Her glance was like the tip of a rapier, searching him through for some iota of seriousness under this banter.

"Ah?" and Nelly Lebrun laughed.

"Don't you see that I mean it?"

"You can watch me from a distance, Mr. Donnegan."

"May I say a bold thing?"

"You have said several."

"No one can really watch you from a distance."

She canted her head a little to one side; such an encounter of personal quips was a seventh heaven to her.

"That's a riddle, Mr. Donnegan."

"A simple one. The answer is, because there's too much to watch."

He joined her when she laughed, but the laughter of Donnegan made not a sound, and he broke in on her mirth suddenly.

"Ah, don't you see I'm serious?"

Her glance flicked on either side, as though she feared someone might have read his lips.

"Not a soul can hear me," murmured Donnegan, "and I'm going to be bolder still, and tell you the truth."

"It's the last thing I dare stay to hear."

"You are too lovely to watch from a distance, Nelly Lebrun."

He was so direct that even Nelly Lebrun, expert in flirtations, was given pause, and became sober. She shook her head and raised a cautioning finger. But Donnegan was not shaken.

"Because there is a glamour about a beautiful girl," he said gravely. "One has to step into the halo to see her, to know her. Are you contented to look at a flower from a distance? That's an old comparison, isn't it? But there is something like a fragrance about you, Nelly Lebrun. Don't be afraid. No one can hear; no one shall ever dream I've said such bold things to you. In the meantime, we have a truth party. There is a fragrance, I say. It must be breathed. There is a glow which must touch one. As it touches me now, you see?"

Indeed, there was a faint color in his cheeks. And the girl flushed more deeply; her eyes were still bright, but they no longer sharpened to such a penetrating point. She was believing at least a little part of what he said, and her disbelief only heightened her joy in what was real in this strangest of lovemakings.

"I shall stay here to learn one thing," she said. "What deviltry is behind all this talk, Mr. Donnegan?"

"Is that fair to me? Besides, I only follow a beaten trail in The Corner."

"And that?"

"Toward Nelly Lebrun."

"A beaten trail? You?" she cried, with just a touch of anger. "I'm not a child, Mr. Donnegan!"

"You are not; and that's why I am frank."

"You have done all these things—following this trail you speak of?"

"Remember," said Donnegan soberly. "What have I done?"

"Shot down two men; played like an actor on a stage a couple of times at least, if I must be blunt; hunted danger like—like a reckless madman; dared all The Corner to cross you; flaunted the red rag in the face of the bull. Those are a few things you have done, sir! And all on one trail? That trail you spoke of?"

"Nelly Lebrun—"

"I'm listening; and do you know I'm persuading myself to believe you?"

"It's because you feel the truth before I speak it. Truth speaks for itself, you know."

"I have closed my eyes—you see? I have stepped into a masquerade. Now you can talk."

"Masquerades are exciting," murmured Donnegan.

"And they are sometimes beautiful."

"But this sober truth of mine—"

"Well?"

"I came here unknown—and I saw you, Nelly Lebrun."

He paused; she was looking a little past him.

"I came in rags; no friends; no following. And I saw that I should have to make you notice me."

"And why? No, I shouldn't have asked that."

"You shouldn't ask that," agreed Donnegan. "But I saw you the queen of The Corner, worshiped by all men. What could I do? I am not rich. I am not big. You see?"

He drew her attention to his smallness with a flush which never failed to touch