Black Jack - Max Brand (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) 📗
- Author: Max Brand
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Craterville lately!”
He seemed to consider.
“Could I have told anyone? Could I, possibly? No, Elizabeth, I’ll give
you my word of honor that I’ve never spoken a syllable about that subject
to anyone!”
“Ah, but what have you written?”
“I’ve never put pen to paper. But—how did it happen?”
He had control of himself now. His voice was steadier. He could feel her
recede from her aggressiveness.
“It was dated after you left Craterville, of course. And—I can’t stand
imagining that you could be so low. Only, who else would have a motive?”
“But how was it done?”
“They sent him an article about his father and a picture of Black Jack
that happens to look as much like Terry as two peas.”
“Then I have it! If the picture looks like Terry, someone took it for
granted that he’d be interested in the similarity. That’s why it was
sent. Unless they told him that he was really Black Jack’s son. Did the
person who sent the letter do that?”
“There was no letter. Only a magazine clipping and the photograph of the
painting.”
They were both silent. Plainly she had dismissed all idea of her
brother’s guilt.
“But what are we going to do, Elizabeth? And how has he taken it?”
“Like poison, Vance. He—he burned all the Colby pictures. Oh, Vance,
twenty-four years of work are thrown away!”
“Nonsense! This will all straighten out. I’m glad he’s found out. Sooner
or later he was pretty sure to. Such things will come to light.”
“Vance, you’ll help me? You’ll forgive me for accusing you, and you’ll
help me to keep Terry in hand for the next few days? You see, he declared
that he will not be ashamed of his father.”
“You can’t blame him for that.”
“God knows I blame no one but myself.”
“I’ll help you with every ounce of strength in my mind and body, my
dear.”
She pressed his hand in silence.
“I’m going up to talk with him now,” he said. “I’m going to do what I can
with him. You go in and talk. And don’t let them see that anything is
wrong.”
The door had not been locked again. He entered at the call of Terry and
found him leaning over the hearth stirring up the pile of charred paper
to make it burn more freely. A shadow crossed the face of Terry as he saw
his visitor, but he banished it at once and rose to greet him. In his
heart Vance was a little moved. He went straight to the younger man and
took his hand.
“Elizabeth has told me,” he said gently, and he looked with a moist eye
into the face of the man who, if his plans worked out, would be either
murderer or murdered before the close of the next day. “I am very sorry,
Terence.”
“I thought you came to congratulate me,” said Terry, withdrawing his
hand.
“Congratulate you?” echoed Vance, with unaffected astonishment.
“For having learned the truth,” said Terry. “Also, for having a father
who was a strong man.”
Vance could not resist the opening.
“In a way, I suppose he was,” he said dryly. “And if you look at it in
that way, I do congratulate you, Terence!”
“You’ve always hated me, Uncle Vance,” Terry declared. “I’ve known it all
these years. And I’ll do without your congratulations.”
“You’re wrong, Terry,” said Vance. He kept his voice mild. “You’re very
wrong. But I’m old enough not to take offense at what a young spitfire
says.”
“I suppose you are,” retorted Terry, in a tone which implied that he
himself would never reach that age.
“And when a few years run by,” went on Vance, “you’ll change your
viewpoint. In the meantime, my boy, let me give you this warning. No
matter what you think about me, it is Elizabeth who counts.”
“Thanks. You need have no fear about my attitude to Aunt Elizabeth. You
ought to know that I love her, and respect her.”
“Exactly. But you’re headstrong, Terry. Very headstrong. And so is
Elizabeth. Take your own case. She took you into the family for the sake
of a theory. Did you know that?”
The boy stiffened. “A theory?”
“Quite so. She wished to prove that blood, after all, was more talk than
a vital influence. So she took you in and gave you an imaginary line of
ancestors with which you were entirely contented. But, after all, it has
been twenty-four years of theory rather than twenty-four years of Terry.
You understand?”
“It’s a rather nasty thing to hear,” said Terence huskily. “Perhaps
you’re right. I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right.”
“And if her theory is proved wrong—look out, Terry! She’ll throw you out
of her life without a second thought.”
“Is that a threat?”
“My dear boy, not by any means. You think I have hated you? Not at all. I
have simply been indifferent. Now that you are in more or less trouble,
you see that I come to you. And hereafter if there should be a crisis,
you will see who is your true friend. Now, good night!”
He had saved his most gracious speech until the very end, and after it he
retired at once to leave Terence with the pleasant memory in his mind.
For he had in his mind the idea of a perfect crime for which he would not
be punished. He would turn Terry into a corpse or a killer, and in either
case the youngster would never dream who had dealt the blow.
No wonder, then, as he went downstairs, that he stepped onto the veranda
for a few moments. The moon was just up beyond Mount Discovery; the
valley unfolded like a dream. Never had the estate seemed so charming to
Vance Cornish, for he felt that his hand was closing slowly around his
inheritance.
The sleep of the night seemed to blot out the excitement of the preceding
evening. A bright sun, a cool stir of air, brought in the next morning,
and certainly calamity had never seemed farther from the Cornish ranch
than it did on this day. All through the morning people kept arriving in
ones and twos. Every buckboard on the place was commissioned to haul the
guests around the smooth roads and show them the estate; and those who
preferred were furnished with saddle horses from the stable to keep their
own mounts fresh for their return trip. Vance took charge of the wagon
parties; Terence himself guided the horsemen, and he rode El Sangre, a
flashing streak of blood red.
The exercise brought the color to his face; the wind raised his spirits;
and when the gathering at the house to wait for the big dinner began, he
was as gay as any.
“That’s the way with young people,” Elizabeth confided to her brother.
“Trouble slips off their minds.”
And then the second blow fell, the blow on which Vance had counted for
his great results. No less a person than Sheriff Joe Minter galloped up
and threw his reins before the veranda. He approached Elizabeth with a
high flourish of his hat and a profound bow, for Uncle Joe Minter
affected the mannered courtesy of the “Southern” school. Vance had them
in profile from the side, and his nervous glance flickered from one to
the other. The sheriff was plainly pleased with what he had seen on his
way up Bear Creek. He was also happy to be present at so large a
gathering. But to Elizabeth his coming was like a death. Her brother
could tell the difference between her forced cordiality and the real
thing. She had his horse put up; presented him to the few people whom he
had not met, and then left him posing for the crowd of admirers. Life to
the sheriff was truly a stage. Then Elizabeth went to Vance.
“You saw?” she gasped.
“Sheriff Minter? What of it? Rather nervy of the old ass to come up here
for the party; he hardly knows us.”
“No, no! Not that! But don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what Joe
Minter did?”
“Good Lord!” gasped Vance, apparently just recalling. “He killed Black
Jack! And what will Terry do when he finds out?”
She grew still whiter, hearing him name her own fear.
“They mustn’t meet,” she said desperately. “Vance, if you’re half a man
you’ll find some way of getting that pompous, windy idiot off the place.”
“My dear! Do you want me to invite him to leave?”
“Something—I don’t care what!”
“Neither do I. But I can’t insult the fool. That type resents an insult
with gunplay. We must simply keep them apart. Keep the sheriff from
talking.”
“Keep rain from falling!” groaned Elizabeth. “Vance, if you won’t do
anything, I’ll go and tell the sheriff that he must leave!”
“You don’t mean it!”
“Do you think that I’m going to risk a murder?”
“I suppose you’re right,” nodded Vance, changing his tactics with
Machiavellian smoothness. “If Terry saw the man who killed his father,
all his twenty-four years of training would go up in smoke and the blood
of his father would talk in him. There’d be a shooting!”
She caught a hand to her throat. “I’m not so sure of that, Vance. I think
he would come through this acid test. But I don’t want to take chances.”
“I don’t blame you, Elizabeth,” said her brother heartily. “Neither would
I. But if the sheriff stays here, I feel that I’m going to win the bet
that I made twenty-four years ago. You remember? That Terry would shoot a
man before he was twenty-five?”
“Have I ever forgotten?” she said huskily. “Have I ever let it go out of
my mind? But it isn’t the danger of Terry shooting. It’s the danger of
Terry being shot. If he should reach for a gun against the sheriff—that
professional mankiller—Vance, something has to be done!”
“Right,” he nodded. “I wouldn’t trust Terry in the face of such a
temptation to violence. Not for a moment!”
The natural stubbornness on which he had counted hardened in her face.
“I don’t know.”
“It would be an acid test, Elizabeth. But perhaps now is the time. You’ve
spent twenty-four years training him. If he isn’t what he ought to be
now, he never will be, no doubt.”
“It may be that you’re right,” she said gloomily. “Twenty-four years!
Yes, and I’ve filled about half of my time with Terry and his training.
Vance, you are right. If he has the elements of a mankiller in him after
what I’ve done for him, then he’s a hopeless case. The sheriff shall
stay! The sheriff shall stay!”
She kept repeating it, as though the repetition of the phrase might bring
her courage. And then she went back among her guests.
As for Vance, he remained skillfully in the background that day. It was
peculiarly vital, this day of all days, that he should not be much in
evidence. No one must see in him a controlling influence.
In the meantime he watched his sister with a growing admiration and with
a growing concern. Instantly she had a problem on her hands. For the
moment Terence heard that the great sheriff himself had joined the party,
he was filled with happiness. Vance watched them meet with a heart
swelling with happiness and surety of success. Straight through a group
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