Black Jack - Max Brand (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) 📗
- Author: Max Brand
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last thing that’ll be apt to keep him here.”
“What’s that?”
“Kate.”
Pollard stirred in his chair.
“How d’you mean that?” he asked gruffly.
“I mean what I said,” retorted Denver. “I watched young Black Jack
looking at her. He had his heart in his eyes, the kid did. He likes her,
in spite of the frosty mitt she handed him. Oh, he’s falling for her,
pal—and he’ll keep on falling. Just slip the word to Kate to kid him
along. Will you? And after we got him glued to the place here, we’ll
figure out the way to turn Terry into a copy of his dad. We’ll figure out
how to shoot the spark into the powder, and then stand clear for the
explosion.”
Denver came silently and swiftly out of the chair, his pudgy hand spread
on the table and his eyes gleaming close to the face of Pollard.
“Joe,” he said softly, “if that kid goes wrong, he’ll be as much as his
father ever was—and maybe more. He’ll rake in the money like it was
dirt. How do I know? Because I’ve talked to him. I’ve watched him and
trailed him. He’s trying hard to go straight. He’s failed twice; the
third time he’ll bust and throw in with us. And if he does, he’ll clean
up the coin—and we’ll get our share. Why ain’t you made more money
yourself, Joe? You got as many men as Black Jack ever had. It’s because
you ain’t got the fire in you. Neither have I. We’re nothing but tools
ready for another man to use the way Black Jack used us. Nurse this kid
along a little while, and he’ll show us how to pry open the places where
the real coin is cached away. And he’ll lead us in and out with no danger
to us and all the real risk on his own head. That’s his way—that was his
dad’s way before him.”
Pollard nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I am. He’s a gold mine, this kid is. But we got to buy him with
something more than gold. And I know what that something is. I’m going to
show him that the good, lawabiding citizens have made up their minds that
he’s no good; that they’re all ag’in’ him; and when he finds that out,
he’ll go wild. They ain’t no doubt of it. He’ll show his teeth! And when
he shows his teeth, he’ll taste blood—they ain’t no doubt of it.”
“Going to make him—kill?” asked Pollard very softly.
“Why not? He’ll do it sooner or later anyway. It’s in his blood.”
“I suppose it is.”
“I got an idea. There’s a young gent in town named Larrimer, ain’t
there?”
“Sure. A rough kid, too. It was him that killed Kennedy last spring.”
“And he’s proud of his reputation?”
“Sure. He’d go a hundred miles to have a fight with a gent with a good
name for gunplay.”
“Then hark to me sing, Joe! Send Terry into town to get something for
you. I’ll drop in ahead of him and find Larrimer, and tell Larrimer that
Black Jack’s son is around—the man that dropped Sheriff Minter. Then
I’ll bring ‘em together and give ‘em a running start.”
“And risk Terry getting his head blown off?”
“If he can’t beat Larrimer, he’s no use to us; if he kills Larrimer, it’s
good riddance. The kid is going to get bumped off sometime, anyway. He’s
bad—all the way through.”
Pollard looked with a sort of wonder on his companion.
“You’re a nice, kind sort of a gent, ain’t you, Denver?”
“I’m a moneymaker,” asserted Denver coldly. “And, just now, Terry Hollis
is my gold mine. Watch me work him!”
It was some time before Terry could sleep, though it was now very late.
When he put out the light and slipped into the bed, the darkness brought
a bright flood of memories of the day before him. It seemed to him that
half a lifetime had been crowded into the brief hours since he was fired
on the ranch that morning. Behind everything stirred the ugly face of
Denver as a sort of controlling nemesis. It seemed to him that the chunky
little man had been pulling the wires all the time while he, Terry
Hollis, danced in response. Not a flattering thought.
Nervously, Terry got out of bed and went to the window. The night was
cool, cut crisp rather than chilling. His eye went over the velvet
blackness of the mountain slope above him to the ragged line of the
crest—then a dizzy plunge to the brightness of the stars beyond. The
very sense of distance was soothing; it washed the gloom and the troubles
away from him. He breathed deep of the fragrance of the pines and then
went back to his bed.
He had hardly taken his place in it when the sleep began to well up over
his brain—waves of shadows running out of corners of his mind. And then
suddenly he was wide awake, alert.
Someone had opened the door. There had been no sound; merely a change in
the air currents of the room, but there was also the sense of another
presence so clearly that Terry almost imagined he could hear the
breathing.
He was beginning to shrug the thought away and smile at his own
nervousness, when he heard that unmistakable sound of a foot pressing the
floor. And then he remembered that he had left his gun belt far from the
bed. In a burning moment that lesson was printed in his mind, and would
never be forgotten. Slowly as possible and without sound, he drew up his
feet little by little, spread his arms gently on either side of him, and
made himself tense for the effort. Whoever it was that entered, they
might be taken by surprise. He dared not lift his head to look; and he
was on the verge of leaping up and at the approaching noise, when a
whisper came to him softly: “Black Jack!”
The soft voice, the name itself, thrilled him. He sat erect in the bed
and made out, dimly, the form of Kate Pollard in the blackness. She would
have been quite invisible, save that the square of the window was almost
exactly behind her. He made out the faint whiteness of the hand which
held her dressing robe at the breast.
She did not start back, though she showed that she was startled by the
suddenness of his movement by growing the faintest shade taller and
lifting her head a little. Terry watched her, bewildered.
“I been waiting to see you,” said Kate. “I want to—I mean—to—talk to
you.”
He could think of nothing except to blurt with sublime stupidity: “It’s
good of you. Won’t you sit down?”
The girl brought him to his senses with a sharp “Easy! Don’t talk out. Do
you know what’d happen if Dad found me here?”
“I—” began Terry.
But she helped him smoothly to the logical conclusion. “He’d blow your
head off, Black Jack; and he’d do it—pronto. If you are going to talk,
talk soft—like me.”
She sat down on the side of the bed so gently that there was no creaking.
They peered at each other through the darkness for a time.
She was not whispering, but her voice was pitched almost as low, and he
wondered at the variety of expression she was able to pack in the small
range of that murmur. “I suppose I’m a fool for coming. But I was born to
love chances. Born for it!” She lifted her head and laughed.
It amazed Terry to hear the shaken flow of her breath and catch the
glinting outline of her face. He found himself leaning forward a little;
and he began to wish for a light, though perhaps it was an unconscious
wish.
“First,” she said, “what d’you know about Dad—and Denver Pete?”
“Practically nothing.”
She was silent for a moment, and he saw her hand go up and prop her chin
while she considered what she could say next.
“They’s so much to tell,” she confessed, “that I can’t put it short. I’ll
tell you this much, Black Jack—”
“That isn’t my name, if you please.”
“It’ll be your name if you stay around these parts with Dad very long,”
she replied, with an odd emphasis. “But where you been raised, Terry? And
what you been doing with yourself?”
He felt that this giving of the first name was a tribute, in some subtle
manner. It enabled him, for instance, to call her Kate, and he decided
with a thrill that he would do so at the first opportunity. He reverted
to her question.
“I suppose,” he admitted gloomily, “that I’ve been raised to do pretty
much as I please—and the money I’ve spent has been given to me.”
The girl shook her head with conviction.
“It ain’t possible,” she declared.
“Why not?”
“No son of Black Jack would live off somebody’s charity.”
He felt the blood tingle in his cheeks, and a real anger against her
rose. Yet he found himself explaining humbly.
“You see, I was taken when I wasn’t old enough to decide for myself. I
was only a baby. And I was raised to depend upon Elizabeth Cornish. I—I
didn’t even know the name of my father until a few days ago.”
The girl gasped. “You didn’t know your father—not your own father?” She
laughed again scornfully. “Terry, I ain’t green enough to believe that!”
He fell into a dignified silence, and presently the girl leaned closer,
as though she were peering to make out his face. Indeed, it was now
possible to dimly make out objects in the room. The window was filled
with an increasing brightness, and presently a shaft of pale light began
to slide across the floor, little by little. The moon had pushed up above
the crest of the mountain.
“Did that make you mad?” queried the girl. “Why?”
“You seemed to doubt what I said,” he remarked stiffly.
“Why not? You ain’t under oath, or anything, are you?”
Then she laughed again. “You’re a queer one all the way through. This
Elizabeth Cornish—got anything to do with the Cornish ranch?”
“I presume she owns it, very largely.”
The girl nodded. “You talk like a book. You must of studied a terrible
pile.”
“Not so much, really.”
“H’m,” said the girl, and seemed to reserve judgment.
Then she asked with a return of her former sharpness: “How come you
gambled today at Pedro’s?”
“I don’t know. It seemed the thing to do—to kill time, you know.”
“Kill time! At Pedro’s? Well—you are green, Terry!”
“I suppose I am, Kate.”
He made a little pause before her name, and when he spoke it, in spite of
himself, his voice changed, became softer. The girl straightened
somewhat, and the light was now increased to such a point that he could
make out that she was frowning at him through the dimness.
“First, you been adopted, then you been raised on a great big place with
everything you want, mostly, and now you’re out—playing at Pedro’s. How
come, Terry?”
“I was sent away,” said Terry faintly, as all the pain of that farewell
came flooding back over him.
“Why?”
“I shot a man.”
“Ah!” said Kate. “You shot a man?” It seemed to silence her. “Why,
Terry?”
“He had killed my father,” he
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