The Night Horseman Part 19

"The biggest bet you ever heard of," said Daniels grimly. "You can tell the boys along the road that I'm tryin' for time. Have you got a fast hoss to start with?"

"Got a red mare that ain't much for runnin' cattle, but she's greased lightnin' for a short bust."

"Then get her out. Saddle her up, and be on your way. Here's my stake--I'll keep back one twenty for accidents. First gimme a list of the places you'll stop for the relays."

He produced an old envelope and a stub of soft pencil with which he jotted down Gary Peters' directions.

"And every second," said Buck Daniels in parting, "that you can cut off your own time will be a second cut off'n mine. Because I'm liable to be on your heels when you ride into Elkhead."

Gary Peters lifted his eyebrows and then restored his pipe. He spoke through his teeth.

"You ain't got a piece of money to bet on that, partner?" he queried softly.

"Ten extra if you get to Elkhead before me."

"They's limits to hoss-flesh," remarked Peters. "What time you ridin'

against?"

"Against a cross between a bullet and a nor'easter, Gary. I'm going back to drink to your luck."

A promise which Buck Daniels fulfilled, for he had need of even borrowed strength. He drank steadily until a rattle of hoofs down the street entered the saloon, and then someone came in to say that Gary Peters had started out of town to "beat all h.e.l.l, on his red mare."

After that, Buck started out to find Dan Barry. His quarry was not in the barn nor in the corral behind the barn. There stood Satan and Black Bart, but their owner was not in sight. But a thought came to Buck while he looked, rather mournfully, at the stallion's promise of limitless speed. "If I can hold him up jest half a minute," murmured Buck to himself, "jest half a minute till I get a start, I've got a rabbit's chance of livin' out the night!"

From the door of the first shed he took a heavy chain with the key in the padlock. This chain he looped about the post and the main timber of the gate, snapped the padlock, and threw the key into the distance. Then he stepped back and surveyed his work with satisfaction. It would be a pretty job to file through that chain, or to knock down those ponderous rails of the fence and make a gap. A smile of satisfaction came on the face of Buck Daniels, then, hitching at his belt, and pulling his sombrero lower over his eyes, he started once more to find Dan Barry.

He was more in haste now, for the sun was dipping behind the mountains of the west and the long shadows moved along the ground with a perceptible speed. When he reached the street he found a steady drift of people towards...o...b..ien's barroom. They came by ones and twos and idled in front of the swinging doors or slyly peeked through them and then whispered one to the other. Buck accosted one of those by the door and asked what was wrong.

"He's in there," said the other, with a broad and excited grin. "He's in there--waitin'!"

And when Buck threw the doors wide he saw, at the farther end of the deserted barroom, Dan Barry, seated at a table braiding a small horsehair chain. His hat was pushed far back on his head; he had his back to the door. Certainly he must be quite unaware that all Brownsville was waiting, breathless, for his destruction. Behind the bar stood O'Brien, pale under his bristles, and his eyes never leaving the slender figure at the end of his room; but seeing Buck he called with sudden loudness: "Come in, stranger. Come in and have one on the house.

There ain't nothing but silence around this place and it's getting on my nerves."

Buck Daniels obeyed the invitation at once, and behind him, stepping softly, some of them entering with their hats in their hands and on tiptoe, came a score of the inhabitants of Brownsville. They lined the bar up and down its length; not a word was spoken; but every head turned as at a given signal towards the quiet man at the end of the room.

CHAPTER XVI

THE COMING OF NIGHT

It was not yet full dusk, for the shadows were still swinging out from the mountains and a ghost of colour lingered in the west, but midnight lay in the open eyes of Jerry Strann. There had been no struggle, no outcry, no lifting of head or hand. One instant his eyes were closed, and then, indeed, he looked like death; the next instant the eyes open, he smiled, the wind stirred in his bright hair. He had never seemed so happily alive as in the moment of his death. Fatty Matthews held the mirror close to the faintly parted lips, examined it, and then drew slowly back towards the door, his eyes steady upon Mac Strann.

"Mac," he said, "it's come. I got just this to say: whatever you do, for G.o.d's sake stay inside the law!"

And he slipped through the door and was gone.

But Mac Strann did not raise his head or cast a glance after the marshal. He sat turning the limp hand of Jerry back and forth in his own, and his eyes wandered vaguely through the window and down to the roofs of the village.

Night thickened perceptibly every moment, yet still while the eastern slope of every roof was jet black, the western slopes were bright, and here and there at the distance the light turned and waned on upper windows. Sleep was coming over the world, and eternal sleep had come for Jerry Strann.

It did not seem possible.

Some night at sea, when clouds hurtled before the wind across the sky and when the waves leaped up mast-high; when some good s.h.i.+p staggered with the storm, when hundreds were shrieking and yelling in fear or defiance of death; there would have been a death-scene for Jerry Strann.

Or in the battle, when hundreds rush to the attack with one man in front like the edge before the knife--there would have been a death-scene for Jerry Strann. Or while he rode singing, a bolt of lightning that slew and obliterated at once--such would have been a death for Jerry Strann.

It was not possible that he could die like this, with a smile. There was something incompleted. The fury of the death-struggle which had been omitted must take place, and the full rage of wrath and destruction must be vented. Can a bomb explode and make no sound and do no injury?

Yet Jerry Strann was dead and all the world lived on. Someone cantered his horse down the street and called gayly to an acquaintance, and afterwards the dust rose, invisible, and blew through the open window and stung the nostrils of Mac Strann. A child cried, faintly, in the distance, and then was hushed by the voice of the mother, making a sound like a cackling hen. This was all!

There should have been wailing and weeping and cursing and praying, for handsome Jerry Strann was dead. Or there might have been utter and dreadful silence and waiting for the stroke of vengeance, for the brightest eye was misted and the strongest hand was unnerved and the voice that had made them tremble was gone.

But there was neither silence nor weeping. Someone in a nearby kitchen rattled her pans and then cursed a dog away from her back-door. Not that any of the sounds were loud. The sounds of living are rarely loud, but they run in an endless river--a monotone broken by ugly ripples of noise to testify that men still sleep or waken, hunger or feed. Another ripple had gone down to the sea of darkness, yet all the ripples behind it chased on their way heedlessly and babbled neither louder nor softer.

There should have been some giant voice to peal over the sleeping village and warn them of the coming vengeance--for Jerry Strann was dead!

The tall, gaunt figure of Haw-Haw Langley came on tiptoe from behind, beheld the dead face, and grinned; a nervous convulsion sent a long ripple through his body, and his Adam's-apple rose and fell. Next he stole sideways, inch by inch, so gradual was his cautious progress, until he could catch a glimpse of Mac Strann's face. It was like the open face of a child; there was in it no expression except wonder.

At length a hoa.r.s.e voice issued from between the grinning lips of Haw-Haw.

"Ain't you goin' to close the eyes, Mac?"

At this the great head of Mac Strann rolled back and he raised his glance to Haw-Haw, who banished the grin from his mouth by a vicious effort.

"Ain't he got to see his way?" asked Mac Strann, and lowered his glance once more to the dead man. As for Haw-Haw Langley, he made a long, gliding step back towards the door, and his beady eyes opened in terror; yet a deadly fascination drew him back again beside the bed.

Mac Strann said: "Kind of looks like Jerry was ridin' the home trail, Haw-Haw. See the way he's smilin'?"

The vulture stroked his lean cheeks and seemed once more to swallow his silent mirth.

"And his hands," said Mac Strann, "is just like life, except that they's gettin' sort of chilly. He don't look changed, none, does he, Haw-Haw?

Except that he's seein' something off there--away off there. Looks like he was all wrapped up in it, eh?" He leaned closer, his voice fell to a murmur that was almost soft. "Jerry, what you seein'?"

Haw-Haw Langley gasped in inaudible terror and retreated again towards the door.

Mac Strann laid his giant hand on the shoulder of Jerry. He asked in a raised voice: "Don't you hear me, lad?" Sudden terror caught hold of him. He plunged to his knees beside the bed, and the floor quaked and groaned under the shock. "Jerry, what's the matter? Are you mad at me?

Ain't you going to speak to me? Are you forgettin' me, Jerry?"

He caught the dead face between his hands and turned it strongly towards his own. Then for a moment his eyes plumbed the shadows into which they looked. He stumbled back to his feet and said apologetically to Haw-Haw at the door: "I kind of forgot he wasn't livin', for a minute." He stared fixedly at the gaunt cowpuncher. "Speakin' man to man, Haw-Haw, d'you think Jerry will forget me?"

The terror was still white upon the face of Haw-Haw, but something stronger than fear kept him in the room and even drew him a slow step towards Mac Strann; and his eyes moved from the face of the dead man to the face of the living and seemed to draw sustenance from both. He moistened his lips and was able to speak.

"Forget you, Mac? Not if you get the man that fixed him."

"Would you want me to get him, Jerry?" asked Mac Strann. And he waited for an answer.