Black Jack - Max Brand (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) 📗
- Author: Max Brand
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into the air and landed on legs of jack-rabbit qualities that flung him
sidewise. The hand and voice of Terry quieted him, while the others stood
around grinning with delight at the fun and at the beautiful
horsemanship.
“But what’ll he do if you pull a gun yourself?” asked Joe Pollard,
showing a sudden concern.
“He’ll stand for it—long enough,” said Terry. “Try him!”
There was a devil in Slim that morning. He snatched up a shining bit of
quartz and hurled it—straight at El Sangre! There was no warning—just a
jerk of the arm and the stone came flashing.
“Try your gun—on that!”
The words were torn off short. The heavy gun had twitched into the hand
of Terry, exploded, and the gleaming quartz puffed into a shower of
bright particles that danced toward the earth. El Sangre flew into a
paroxysm of educated bucking of the most advanced school. The steady
voice of Terry Hollis brought him at last to a quivering stop. The rider
was stiff in the saddle, his mouth a white, straight line.
He shoved his revolver deliberately back into the holster.
The four men had drawn together, still muttering with wonder. Luck may
have had something to do with the success of that snapshot, but it was
such a feat of marksmanship as would be remembered and talked about.
“Dugan!” said Terry huskily.
Slim lunged forward, but he was ill at ease.
“Well, kid?”
“It seemed to me,” said Terry, “that you threw that stone at El Sangre. I
hope I’m wrong?”
“Maybe,” growled Slim. He flashed a glance at his companions, not at all
eager to push this quarrel forward to a conclusion in spite of his known
prowess. He had been a little irritated by the adulation which had been
shown to the son of Black Jack the night before. He was still more
irritated by the display of fine riding. For horsemanship and clever
gunplay were the two main feathers in the cap of Slim Dugan. He had
thrown the stone simply to test the qualities of this new member of the
gang; the snapshot had stunned him. So he glanced at his companions. If
they smiled, it meant that they took the matter lightly. But they were
not smiling; they met his glance with expressions of uniform gravity. To
torment a nervous horse is something which does not fit with the ways of
the men of the mountain desert, even at their roughest. Besides, there
was an edgy irritability about Slim Dugan which had more than once won
him black looks. They wanted to see him tested now by a foeman who seemed
worthy of his mettle. And Slim saw that common desire in his flickering
side glance. He turned a cold eye on Terry.
“Maybe,” he repeated. “But maybe I meant to see what you could do with a
gun.”
“I thought so,” said Terry through his teeth. “Steady, boy!”
El Sangre became a rock for firmness. There was not a quiver in one of
his long, racing muscles. It was a fine tribute to the power of the
rider.
“I thought you might be trying out my gun,” repeated Terry. “Are you
entirely satisfied?”
He leaned a little in the saddle. Slim moistened his lips. It was a hard
question to answer. The man in the saddle had become a quivering bundle
of nerves; Slim could see the twitching of the lips, and he knew what it
meant. Instinctively he fingered one of the broad bright buttons of his
shirt. A man who could hit a glittering thrown stone would undoubtedly be
able to hit that stationary button. The thought had elements in it that
were decidedly unpleasant. But he had gone too far. He dared not recede
now if he wished to hold up his head again among his fellows—and fear of
death had never yet controlled the actions of Slim Dugan.
“I dunno,” he remarked carelessly. “I’m a sort of curious gent. It takes
more than one lucky shot to make me see the light.”
The lips of Terry worked a moment. The companions of Slim Dugan scattered
of one accord to either side. There was no doubting the gravity of the
crisis which had so suddenly sprung up. As for Joe Pollard, he stood in
the doorway in the direct line projected from Terry to Slim and beyond.
There was very little sentiment in the body of Joe Pollard. Slim had
always been a disturbing factor in the gang. Why not? He bit his lips
thoughtfully.
“Dugan,” said Terry at length, “curiosity is a very fine quality, and I
admire a man who has it. Greatly. Now, you may notice that my gun is in
the holster again. Suppose you try me again and see how fast I can get it
out of the leather—and hit a target.”
The challenge was entirely direct. There was a perceptible tightening in
the muscles of the men. They were nerving themselves to hear the crack of
a gun at any instant. Slim Dugan, gathering his nerve power, fenced for a
moment more of time. His narrowing eyes were centering on one spot on
Terry’s body—the spot at which he would attempt to drive his bullet, and
he chose the pocket of Terry’s shirt. It steadied him, gave him his old
self-confidence to have found that target. His hand and his brain grew
steady, and the thrill of the fighter’s love of battle entered him.
“What sort of a target d’you want?” he asked.
“I’m not particular,” said Hollis. “Anything will do for me—even a
button!”
It jarred home to Slim—the very thought he had had a moment before. He
felt his certainty waver, slip from him. Then the voice of Pollard boomed
out at them:
“Keep them guns in their houses! You hear me talk? The first man that
makes a move I’m going to drill! Slim, get back into the house. Terry,
you damn meateater, git on down that hill!”
Terry did not move, but Slim Dugan stirred uneasily, turned, and said:
“It’s up to you, chief. But I’ll see this through sooner or later!”
And not until then did Terry turn his horse and go down the hill without
a backward look.
There had been a profound reason behind the sudden turning of Terry
Hollis’s horse and his riding down the hill. For as he sat the saddle,
quivering, he felt rising in him an all-controlling impulse that was new
to him, a fierce and sudden passion.
It was joyous, free, terrible in its force—that wish to slay. The
emotion had grown, held back by the very force of a mental thread of
reason, until, at the very moment when the thread was about to fray and
snap, and he would be flung into sudden action, the booming voice of Joe
Pollard had cleared his mind as an acid clears a cloudy precipitate. He
saw himself for the first time in several moments, and what he saw made
him shudder.
And still in fear of himself he swung El Sangre and put him down the
slope recklessly. Never in his life had he ridden as he rode in those
first five minutes down the pitch of the hill. He gave El Sangre his head
to pick his own way, and he confined his efforts to urging the great
stallion along. The blood-bay went like the wind, passing up-jutting
boulders with a swish of gravel knocked from his plunging hoofs against
the rock.
Even in Terry’s passion of self-dread he dimly appreciated the prowess of
the horse, and when they shot onto the level going of the valley road, he
called El Sangre out of the mad gallop and back to the natural pace, a
gait as swinging and smooth as running water—yet still the road poured
beneath them at the speed of an ordinary gallop. It was music to Terry
Hollis, that matchless gait. He leaned and murmured to the pricking ears
with that soft, gentle voice which horses love. The glorious head of El
Sangre went up a little, his tail flaunted somewhat more proudly; from
the quiver of his nostrils to the ringing beat of his black hoofs he
bespoke his confidence that he bore the king of men on his back.
And the pride of the great horse brought back some of Terry’s own waning
self-confidence. His father had been up in him as he faced Slim Dugan, he
knew. Once more he had escaped from the commission of a crime. But for
how long would he succeed in dodging that imp of the perverse which
haunted him?
It was like the temptation of a drug—to strike just once, and thereafter
to be raised above himself, take to himself the power of evil which is
greater than the power of good. The blow he struck at the sheriff had
merely served to launch him on his way. To strike down was not now what
he wanted, but to kill! To feel that once he had accomplished the destiny
of some strong man, to turn a creature of mind and soul, ambition and
hope, at a single stroke into so many pounds of flesh, useless, done for.
What could be more glorious? What could be more terrible? And the desire
to strike, as he had looked into the sneering face of Slim Dugan, had
been almost overmastering.
Sooner or later he would strike that blow. Sooner or later he would
commit the great and controlling crime. And the rest of his life would be
a continual evasion of the law.
If they would only take him into their midst, the good and the lawabiding men of the mountains! If they would only accept him by word or
deed and give him a chance to prove that he was honest! Even then the
battle would be hard, against temptation; but they were too smugly sure
that his downfall was certain. Twice they had rejected him without cause.
How long would it be before they actually raised their hands against him?
How long would it be before they violently put him in the class of his
father?
Grinding his teeth, he swore that if that time ever came when they took
his destiny into their own hands, he would make it a day to be marked in
red all through the mountains!
The cool, fresh wind against his face blew the sullen anger away. And
when he came close to the town, he was his old self.
A man on a tall gray, with the legs of speed and plenty of girth at the
cinches, where girth means lung power, twisted out of a side trail and
swung past El Sangre at a fast gallop. The blood-bay snorted and came
hard against the bit in a desire to follow. On the range, when he led his
wild band, no horse had ever passed El Sangre and hardly the voice of the
master could keep him back now. Terry loosed him. He did not break into a
gallop, but fled down the road like an arrow, and the gray came back to
him slowly and surely until the rider twisted around and swore in
surprise.
He touched his mount with the spurs; there was a fresh start from the
gray, a lunge that kicked a little spurt of dust into the nostrils of El
Sangre. He snorted it out. Terry released his head completely, and now,
as though in scorn refusing to break into his sweeping gallop, El Sangre
flung himself ahead to the full of his natural pace.
And the gray came back steadily. The town was shoving up at them
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