The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Part 3

Mackenzie nodded, pipe raised toward his lips. "Well, you come to the right country. You ever had any work around a ranch?"

"No."

"No, I didn't think you had; you look too soft. How much can you lift?"

"What's that got to do with sheep?" Mackenzie inquired, frowning in his habitual manner of showing displeasure with frivolous and trifling things.

"I can shoulder a steel rail off of the railroad that weighs seven hundred and fifty pounds," said Swan. "You couldn't lift one end."

"Maybe I couldn't," Mackenzie allowed, pretending to gaze out after his drifting smoke, but watching the sheepman, as he mopped the last of the eggs up with a piece of bread, with a furtive turning of his eye. He was considering how to approach the matter which he had remained there to take up with this great, boasting, savage man, and how he could make him understand that it was any of society's business whether he chained his wife or let her go free, fed her or starved her, caressed her, or knocked her down.

Swan pushed back from the table, wringing the coffee from his mustache.

"Did you cut that chain?" he asked.

"Yes, I cut it. You've got no right to keep your wife, or anybody else, chained up. You could be put in jail for it; it's against the law."

"A man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own woman; she's his property, the same as a horse."

"Not exactly the same as a horse, either. But you could be put in jail for beating your horse. I've waited here to tell you about this, in a friendly way, and warn you to treat this woman right. Maybe you didn't know you were breaking the law, but I'm telling you it's so."

Swan stood, his head within six inches of the ceiling. His wife must have read an intention of violence in his face, although Mackenzie could mark no change in his features, always as immobile as bronze.

She sprang to her feet, her bosom agitated, arms lifted, shoulders raised, as if to shrink from the force of a blow. She made no effort to reach the ax behind the door; the thought of it had gone, apparently, out of her mind.

Swan stood within four feet of her, but he gave her no attention.

"When a man comes to my house and monkeys with my woman, him and me we've got to have a fight," he said.

CHAPTER III

THE FIGHT

Mackenzie got up, keeping the table between them. He looked at the door, calculating whether he could make a spring for the ax before Carlson could grapple him. Carlson read in the glance an intention to retreat, made a quick stride to the door, closed it sharply, locked it, put the key in his pocket. He stood a moment looking Mackenzie over, as if surprised by the length he unfolded when on his feet, but with no change of anger or resentment in his stony face.

"You didn't need to lock the door, Carlson; I wasn't going to run away--I didn't wait here to see you for that."

Mackenzie stood in careless, lounging pose, hand on the back of his chair, pipe between his fingers, a rather humorous look in his eyes as he measured Carlson up and down.

"Come out here in the middle and fight me if you ain't afraid!" Swan challenged, derision in his voice.

"I'll fight you, all right, after I tell you what I waited here to say. You're a coward, Swan Carlson, you're a sheepman with a sheep's heart. I turned your woman loose, and you're going to let her stay loose. Let that sink into your head."

Carlson was standing a few feet in front of Mackenzie, leaning forward, his shoulders swelling and falling as if he flexed his muscles for a spring. His arms he held swinging in front of him full length, like a runner waiting for the start, in a posture at once unpromising and uncouth. Behind him his wife shuddered against the wall.

"Swan, Swan! O-o-oh, Swan, Swan!" she said, crying it softly as if she chided him for a great hurt.

Swan turned partly toward her, striking backward with his open hand.

His great knuckles struck her across the eyes, a cruel, heavy blow that would have felled a man. She staggered back a pace, then sank limply forward on her knees, her hands outreaching on the floor, her hair falling wildly, her posture that of a suppliant at a barbarian conqueror's feet.

Mackenzie s.n.a.t.c.hed the heavy platter from the table and brought Carlson a smas.h.i.+ng blow across the head. Carlson stood weaving on his legs a moment as the fragments of the dish clattered around him, swaying like a tree that waits the last blow of the ax to determine which way it will fall. Mackenzie threw the fragment that remained in his hand into Carlson's face, laying open a long gash in his cheek. As the hot blood gushed down over his jaw Carlson steadied himself on his swaying legs and laughed.

Mrs. Carlson lifted her face out of the shadows of the floor at the sound. Mackenzie glanced at her, the red mark of Swan's harsh blow across her brows, as he flew at Swan like a desert whirlwind, landing heavily on his great neck before he could lift a guard. The blow staggered Carlson over upon his wife, and together they collapsed against the wall, where Carlson stood a breath, his hand thrown out to save him from a fall. Then he shook his haughty, handsome, barbarian head, and laughed again, a loud laugh, deep and strong.

There was no note of merriment in that sound, no inflection of satisfaction or joy. It came out of his wide-extended jaws with a roar, no facial softening with it, no blending of the features in the transformation of a smile. Mrs. Carlson struggled to her knees at the sound of it, lifting her moaning cry again at the sight of his gus.h.i.+ng blood. Swan charged his adversary with bent head, the floor trembling under his heavy feet, his great hands lifted to seize and crush.

Mackenzie backed away, upsetting the table between them, barring for a moment Swan's mad onrush. In the anger-blind movements of the man he could read his intention, which was not to strike foot to foot, knee to knee, but to grapple and smother, as he had smothered the sheepherders in the snow. Across the overturned table Mackenzie landed another blow, sprang around the barrier out of the pocket of corner into which Carlson was bent on forcing him, hoping by nimble foot work to play on the flockmaster for a knockout.

Swan threw a chair as Mackenzie circled out of his reach with nimble feet, knocking down the stovepipe, dislodging a shower of tinware from the shelves behind. Carlson had him by the shoulder now, but a deft turn, a sharp blow, and Mackenzie was free, racing over the cluttered floor in wild uproar, bending, side-stepping, in a strained and terrific race. Carlson picked up the table, swung it overhead until it struck the ceiling, threw it with all his mighty strength to crush the man who had evaded him with such clever speed. A leg caught Mackenzie a glancing blow on the head, dazing him momentarily, giving Carlson the opening he desired.

In the next breath Mackenzie was down, Carlson's hand at his throat.

Mackenzie could see Swan's face as he bent over him, the lantern light on it fairly. There was no light of exultation in it as his great hand closed slowly upon Mackenzie's throat, no change from its stony harshness save for the dark gash and the flood of blood that ran down his jaw and neck.

Mackenzie writhed and struggled, groping on the floor for something to strike Carlson with and break his garroting grip. The blood was singing in his ears, the breath was cut from his lungs; his eyes flashed a thousand scintillating sparks and grew dark. His hand struck something in the debris on the floor, the handle of a table knife it seemed, and with the contact a desperate accession of life heaved in him like a final wave. He struck, and struck at Swan Carlson's arm, and struck again at his wrist as he felt the tightening band of his fingers relax, heard him curse and growl. A quick turn and he was free, with a glimpse as he rolled over at Swan Carlson pulling a table fork out of his hairy wrist.

Mackenzie felt blood in his mouth; his ears were m.u.f.fled as if he were under water, but he came to his feet with a leg of the broken table in his hand. Swan threw the fork at him as he rose from his knees; it struck the lantern, breaking the globe, cutting off more than half the dim light in which the undetermined battle had begun.

Over against the door Mrs. Carlson stood with the ax in her hands, holding it uplifted, partly drawn back, as if she had checked it in an intended blow. Swan tore a broad plank from the table top, split it over his knee to make it better fit his hand, and came on to the attack, bending in his slouching, bearish att.i.tude of defiant strength. Mackenzie gave way before him, watching his moment to strike the decisive blow.

This maneuver brought Mackenzie near the door, where the wild-eyed woman stood, an ally and a reserve, ready to help him in the moment of his extremity. He believed she had been on the point of striking Swan the moment his fingers closed in their convulsive pang of death over the handle of the fork.

Swan followed, warily now, conscious of this man's unexpected strength and agility, and of his resources in a moment of desperation, making feints with his board as a batter does before the ball is thrown.

Mackenzie pa.s.sed Mrs. Carlson, backing away from Swan, sparring for time to recover his wind and faculties after his swift excursion to the borderland of death. He parried a swift blow, giving one in return that caught Swan on the elbow and knocked the plank out of his hand.

Mackenzie sprang forward to follow up his advantage with a decisive stroke, when, to his amazement, Mrs. Carlson threw herself between them, the ax uplifted in her husband's defense.

"No, no!" she screamed; "he is my man!"

Swan Carlson laughed again, and patted her shoulder, stooping to recover his board. But he flung it down again, taking the ax in its place, pus.h.i.+ng his woman, not without some tenderness in his hand, back into the corner, throwing himself in front of her, his wild laugh ringing in the murky room, stifling from the smoke of lantern and stove.

Mackenzie felt his hope break like a rope of straw at this unexpected turn of the woman. With those two mad creatures--for mad he believed the isolation and cruelty suffered by the one, the trouble and terror of the law by the other, had driven them--leagued against him it seemed that he must put down all hope of ever looking again upon the day.

If there was any chance for him at all, it lay in darkness. With this thought Mackenzie made a quick dash past Carlson, smas.h.i.+ng the lantern with a blow.

There was one window in the room, a small, single-sash opening near the stove. Even this was not apparent for a little while following the plunge into the dark; Mackenzie stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust themselves to the gloom. No sound but Carlson's breathing came from the other side of the kitchen. The square of window appeared dimly now, a little to Mackenzie's left. He moved cautiously away from it, yet not without noise for all his care. Swan let drive with his board at the sound of movement. His aim was good; it struck Mackenzie's shoulder, but fortunately with its flat surface, doing no hurt.

Mackenzie threw himself down heavily, getting cautiously to his feet again instantly, hoping to draw Carlson over in the belief that he had put him out of the fight. But Carlson was not so rash. He struck a match, holding it up, peering under it, blinking in the sudden light.

Mackenzie was not more than eight feet away. He closed the distance in a bound, swung the heavy oak table leg, and stretched Carlson on the floor. Mrs. Carlson began wailing and moaning, bending over her fallen tyrant, as Mackenzie could gather from her voice.

"You've killed him," she said; "you've killed my man!"

"No, but I will kill him if you don't open the door!"

Mackenzie stood by Carlson as he spoke, feeling his body with his foot. He bent over Carlson, exploring for his heart, fearing that he had killed him, indeed. His first efforts to locate a pulse were not a.s.suring, but a feeble throbbing at last announced that the great ruffian's admirable machinery was stunned, not broken.

"Open the door; he'll be all right in a little while," Mackenzie said.