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Charles Mackay - "Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684"

William Blades - "Enemies of Books"

Rafael Sabatini - "Captain Blood"

Alexandre Dumas - "Twenty Years After"

The Seventh Man

M >> Max Brand >> The Seventh Man






Chapter XXI. The Acid Test

Mrs. Johnny Sommers managed to preserve her dignity while she escorted the
visitor into the front room, and even while she asked him to sit down and
wait, but once she had closed the door behind her she cast dignity far away
and did two steps at a time going upstairs. The result was that she,
reached the room of Betty Neal entirely out of breath; two hundred pounds
of fat, good-natured widowhood do not go with speed. She tossed open the
door without any preliminary knock and stood there very red with a clearly
defined circle of white in the center of each check. For a moment there was
no sound except her panting and Betty Neal stared wildly at her from above
her book.

"He's come!" gasped Mrs. Sommers.

"Who?"

"Him!"

As if this odd explanation made everything clear, Betty Neal sprang from
her chair and she grew so pale that every freckle stood out.

"Him!" she echoed ungrammatically.

Then: "Where is he? Let me downstairs."

But the widow closed the door swiftly behind her and leaned her comfortable
bulk against it.

"You ain't goin'," she asserted. "You ain't goin', leastways not till you
got time to think it over."

"I haven't time to think. I--he--"

"That was the way with me," nodded Mrs. Sommers, and her eyes were tragic.
"I went ahead and married Johnny in spite of everything, and look at me
now--a widder! No, I ain't sorry for myself because I was a fool."

"Mrs. Sommers," said Betty, "will you please step out of my way?"

"Honey, for heaven's sake think a minute before you go down and face that
man. He's dangerous. When I opened the door and seen him, I tell you the
shivers went up my back."

"Is he thin? Is he pale?" cried Betty Neal. "How did he get away? Did he
escape? Did they parole him? Did they pardon him? Did he--"

"Let me get down!" she cried.

Mrs. Sommers flung away from the door.

"Then go and marry your man-killer!"

But Betty Neal was already clattering down the stairs. Half way to the
bottom her strength and courage ebbed suddenly from her; she went on with
short steps, and when at last she closed the parlor door behind her, she
was staring as if she looked at a ghost.

Yet Vic Gregg was not greatly changed--a little thinner perhaps, and just
now he certainly did not have his usual color. The moment she appeared he
jumped to his feet as if he had heard a shot, and now he stood with his
feet braced a little to meet a shock, one hand twitching and playing
nervously with the embroidered cloth on the table. She did not speak;
merely stood with her fingers still gripping the handle of the door as if
she were ready to dart away at the first alarm. A wave of pain went over
the face of Vic Gregg and remained looking at her out of his eyes, for all
that his single-track, concentrated mind could perceive in her was the
thing he took for fear.

"Miss Neal," he said. His voice shook, straightened out again. He made her
think of one of her big school boys who had forgotten his lesson and now
stood cudgeling his memory and dreading that terrible nightmare of "staying
after school." She had a wild desire to laugh.

"Miss Neal, I ain't here to try to take up things that can't be took up
ag'in." Apparently he had prepared the speech carefully, and now he went on
with more ease: "I'm leavin' these here parts for some place unknown.
Before I go I jest want to say I know I was wrong from the beginnin'. All I
want to say is that I was jest all sort of tied up in a knot inside and
when I seen you with him--" He stopped. "I hope you marry some gent that's
worth you, only they ain't any such. An'--I want to wish you good-luck, an'
say good-by--"

He swept the perspiration from his forehead, and caught up his hat; he had
been through the seventh circle of torture.

"Oh, Vic, dear!" cried a voice he had never heard before. Then a flurry of
skirts, then arms about him, then tears and laughter, and eyes which went
hungrily over his face.

"I been a houn'-dog. My God, Betty, you don't mean--"

"That I love you, Vic. I never knew what it was to love you before."

"After I been a man-killin', lyin', sneakin'--"

"Don't you say another word. Vic, it was all my fault."

"It wasn't. It was mine. But if you'd only kind of held off a little and
gone easy with me"

"You didn't give me a chance."

"When I looked back from the road you wasn't standin' in the door."

"I was. And you didn't look back."

"I did."

"Vic Gregg, are you trying to--"

But the anger fled from her as suddenly as it had come.

"I don't care. I'll take all the blame."

"I don't want you to. I won't let you."

She laughed hysterically.

"Vic, tell me that you're free?"

"I'm paroled."

"Thank God! Oh, I've prayed and prayed--Vic, don't talk. Sit down there--
so! I just want to look and look at you. There's a hollow, hungry place in
me that's filling up again."

"It was Pete Glass," said Gregg brokenly. "He--he trusted me clean through
when the rest was lookin' at me like I was a snake. Pete got word to the
governor, an'--"

There followed a long interval of talk that meant nothing, and then, as the
afternoon waned towards evening, and the evening toward dark, he told her
the whole story of the long adventure. He left out nothing, not a detail
that might tell against him. When he came to the moment when Glass
persuaded him to go back and betray Barry he winced, but set his jaw and
plunged ahead. She, too, paled when she heard that, and for a moment she
had to cover her eyes, but she was older by half a life-time than she had
been when he was last with her, and now she read below the surface.
Besides, Vic had offered to undo what he had done, had offered to stay and
fight for Barry, and surely that evened the score!

There was a light rap on the door, and then Mrs. Sommers came in with a
tray.

"Maybe you young folks forgot about supper," she said. "I just thought I'd
bring in a bite for you."

She placed it on the table, and then lingered, delighted, while her eyes
went over them together and one by one. Perhaps Betty Neal was a fool for
throwing herself away on a gun-fighter, but at least Mrs. Sommers was
furnished with a story which half Alder would know by tomorrow. The walls
of her house were not sound proof. Besides, Mrs. Sommers had remarkably
keen ears.

"They's been a gentleman here ask for you, Vic," she said, "but I thought
maybe you wouldn't like it much to be disturbed. So I told him you wasn't
here."

Her smile fairly glowed with triumph.

"Thanks," said Gregg, "but who was he?"

"I never seen him before. Anyway, it didn't much matter. He wanted to see
some of the rest of the boys quite bad: Pete Glass and Ronicky Joe, and
Sliver Waldron, and Gus Reeve. He seemed to want to see 'em all particular
bad."

"Pete Glass and Ronicky and--the posse!" murmured Vic. He grew thoughtful.
"He wanted to see me, too?"

"Very particular, and he seemed kind of down-hearted when he found that
Pete was out of town. Wanted to know when he might be back."

"What sort of a lookin' gent was he?" asked Vic, and his voice was sharp.

"Him? Oh, he looked like a tenderfoot to me. Terrible polite, though, and
he had a voice that wasn't hardly rougher'n a girl's. Seemed like he was
sort of embarrassed jest talkin' to me." She smiled at the thought, but
Gregg was on his feet now, his hands on the shoulders of Mrs. Sommers as
though he would try to shake information from her loose bulk.

"Look quick, now," he said. "Where did you send him?"

"How you talk! Why, where should I send him? I told him like as not
Ronicky and Sliver and Gus would be down to Lorrimer's--"

The groan of Vic made her stop with a gasp.

"What did be look like?"

Mrs. Sommers was very sober. Her smile congealed.

"Black hair, and young, and good-lookin', and b-b-brown eyes, and--"

"God!"

"Vic," cried Betty Neal, "what is it!" She looked around her in terror.

"It's Barry."

He turned towards the door, and then stopped, in an agony of indecision.
Betty Neal was before him, blocking the way with her arms outstretched.

"Vic, you shan't go. You shan't go. You've told me yourself that he's sure
death."

"God knows he is."

"You won't go, Vic?"

"But the others! Ronicky--Gus--"

She stammered in her fear.

"That's their lookout! They're three to one. Let them kill--"

"But they don't know him. They've never been close enough to see his face.
Besides, no three men I--he--for God's sake tell me what to do!"

"Stay here--if you love me. I won't let you go. I won't!"

"I got to warn them."

"You'll be killed!"

He tore away her hands.

"I got to warn them--but who'll I help? Them three against Dan? He saved
me--twice! But--I got. I got to go."

"If you fight for him first he'll only turn on you afterwards. Vic, stay
here."

"What good's my life? What good's it if I'm a yaller dog ag'in? I'm goin'
out--and be a man!"



Chapter XXII. The Fifth Man

The moment Vic Gregg stood in the open air, with the last appeal of Betty
ringing still at his ear, he felt a profound conviction that he was about
to die and he stood a moment breathing deeply, taking the faint alkali
scent of the dust and looking up to the stars. It was that moment when
night blends with day and there is no sign of light in the sky except that
the stars burn more and more bright as the darkness thickens, and Vic Gregg
watched the stars draw down more closely and believed that he was seeing
this for the last time. Alder seemed inexpressibly dear to him as he stood
there through a little space, and the vaguely discernible outlines of the
shacks along the street were like the faces of friends. In that house
behind him was Betty Neal, waiting, praying for him, and indeed, had it not
been for shame, he would have weakened now and turned back. For he hardly
knew which way to turn. He wanted to save Ronicky and the other two from
the attack of Barry, yet he would not lay a trap for Dan. To Barry he owed
a vast debt; his debt to the three was that which any human being owes to
another. He had to save them from the wolf which ran through the night in
the body of a man.

That thought sent him at a run for Captain Lorrimer's saloon. It was
lighted brilliantly by the gasoline lamp within, but a short distance away
from it he heard no sound and his imagination drew a terrible picture of
the big, empty room, with three dead men lying in the center of it where
the destroyer had reached them one by one. That was what took the blood
from his face and made him a white mask of tragedy when he stepped into the
door of the saloon. It was quiet, but half a dozen men sat at the tables in
the corner, and among them were Ronicky and the other two. Sliver Waldron
was in the very act of pulling back his chair, and perhaps all three had
just come in. Perhaps Barry had come here to look for his quarry and found
them not yet arrived; perhaps he was now hunting in other places through
the town; perhaps he was even now crouched in the shadow near at hand and
ready to attack.

It made the hand of Vic Gregg contract with a cruel pressure when it fell
on the shoulder of Sliver Waldron.

"Now, what in hell!" grunted that hardened warrior.

He had no love for Vic Gregg since that day when the posse rode through the
hills after him; neither had Ronicky or Gus Reeve, who rose from their
chairs as if at a signal. "Come with me, gents," said Vic. "An' come
quick!"

They asked no questions and did not stay to argue the point for he had that
in his face which meant action. He led them outside, and behind the horse
shed of the saloon.

"We're alone?" he asked.

"Nothin' in sight."

"Look sharp."

They peered about them through the night, and a wan moon only helped to
make the darkness visible.

"Gents, we may be alone now, but we ain't goin' to be alone long. Get your
bosses and ride like hell. Barry is in town!"

"Vic, you're drunk."

"I tell you, he's been seen--"

"Then by God," growled Sliver Waldron, "lead me to him. I need to have a
little talk with that gent."

"Lead you to him?" echoed Vic Gregg. "Sliver, are you hungerin' to push
daisies?"

"Look here, Bud," answered the older man, and he laid a hand on the
shoulder of Vic. "You been with this Barry, gent, and you've lived in his
house. D'you mean to say you're one of the lot that talks about him like he
was a ghost bullets couldn't harm? I tell you, son, they's been so much
chatter about him that folks forget he's human. I'm goin' to remind 'em of
that little fact."

Vic Gregg groaned. Even while he talked he was glancing over his shoulder
as if he feared the shadows under the moon. His voice was half gasp, half
whisper.

"Sliver--Ronicky--don't ask me how I know--jest believe me when I say Dan
Barry'll never die by the hand of any man. I tell you--he can see in the
dark!"

A soft oath from Gus Reeve; a twitching of Ronicky's head told that this
last had taken effect. Sliver Waldron suddenly altered his manner.

"All right, Vic. Trot back into town, or come with us. We're going to move
out."

"The wisest thing you ever done, Sliver."

"I'm feelin' the same way," breathed Gus Reeve.

"S'long," whispered Vic Gregg, and faded into the night, running.

The others, without a word among themselves, gathered their horses and
struck down the valley out of Alder. The padding and swish of the sand
about the feet of their mounts; the very creaking of the saddle leather
seemed to alarm them, and they were continually turning and looking back.
That is, Gus Reeve and Ronicky Joe manifested these signs of trouble, but
Sliver Waldron, riding in the center of the trio, never moved his head.
They were hardly well out of the town when a swift rush of hoof beats swept
up from behind, and a horseman darted into the pale mist of the valley
bending low over his pommel to cut the wind of his riding.

"Who is it?"

"Vic Gregg!" muttered Gus Reeve. "Stir, along, Sliver. Vic ain't lingerin'
any!"

But Sliver Waldron drew rein, and let his horse go on at a walk.

"Hearin' you talk, Ronicky," he said, "you'd think you was really scared of
Dan Barry."

Ronicky Joe stiffened in his saddle and peered through the uncertain light
to make out if Sliver were jesting. But the latter seemed perfectly grave.

"A gent would almost think," went on Sliver, "that we three was runnin'
away from Barry, instead of goin' out to set a trap for him,"

There was something nearly akin to a grunt from Gus Reeve, but Ronicky
merely continued to stare at the leader.

"'S a matter of fact," said Sliver, "when Vic was talkin' I sort of felt
the chills go up my back. How about you, Ronicky?"

"I'll tell a man," sighed Ronicky. "While Vic was talkin' I seen that devil
comin' on his hoss like he done when he broke out of the cabin that night.
I'll tell you straight, Sliver. I had my gun drilled on him. I couldn't of
missed; but after I fired he kept straight on. It was like puncturin' a
shadow!"

"Sure," nodded Sliver. "Shootin' by night ain't ever a sure thing."

Ronicky wiped his heated brow.

"So I sent Vic away before he had a chance to get real nervous. But when he
comes back--well, boys, it'll be kind of amusin' to watch Vic's face when
he saunters into town tomorrow and sees Dan Barry--maybe dead, maybe in the
irons. Eh?"

Only a deep silence answered him, but in the interest which his words
excited the terror seemed to have left Ronicky and Gus. They rode close,
their heads toward Sliver alone.

"There goes Vic," mused Sliver. "There he goes--go on. Mac, you old fool!--
scared to death, ridin' for his life. And why? Because he believes some
ghost stories he's heard about Dan Barry!"

"Ghost stories?" echoed Reeve. "Some of 'em ain't fairy tales, Sliver."

"Jest name one that ain't!"

"Well, the way he trailed Jim Silent. We've all heard of Silent, and Barry--
was too good for him."

"Bah," sneered Sliver. "Too good for Silent? Ye lied readily enough: booze
done for Silent long before Barry come along."

"That right?"

"I'll tell a man it is. Mind you, I don't say Barry ain't handy with his
gun; but he's done a little and the gents have furnished the trimmin's.
Look here, if Barry is the man-eater they say, why did he pick a time for
comin' down when the sheriff was out of town?"

"By God!" exclaimed Ronicky. "I never thought of that!"

"Sure you didn't," chuckled Sliver. "But this sucker figures that you and
Gus and me will be easy pickin's. He figures we'll do what Vic did--hit for
the tall pines. Then he'll blow around how he ran the four of us out of
Alder. Be pleasant comin' back to talk like that, eh?"

There was a volley of rapid curses from the other two.

"We'll get this cheap skate, Sliver," suggested Ronicky. "We'll get this
ghost and tie him up and take him back to Alder and make a show of him."

"We will," nodded Sliver. "Have you figured how?"

"Lie out here in the bush. He'll hunt around Alder all night and when the
mornin' comes he'll leave and he'll come out this way. We'll be ready for
him where the valley's narrow down there. They say his hoss and his dog is
as bad as any two ordinary men. Well, that's three of them and here's three
of us. It's an even break, eh?"

"Ronicky," murmured Sliver, "I always knowed you had the brains. We'll take
this gent and tame him, and run him back to Alder on the end of a rope."

Gus Reeve whooped and waved his hat at the thought.

So the three reached the point where the shadowy walls of the valley
narrowed, drew almost together. There they placed the horses in a hollow
near the southern cliff, and they returned to take post. There was only one
bridle path which wound through the gulch here, and the three concealed
themselves behind a thicket of sagebrush to wait.

They laid their plan carefully. Each man was to have his peculiar duty: Gus
Reeve, an adept with the rope, would wait until the black stallion was
cantering past and then toss his noose and throw the horse. At the same
instant, Ronicky Joe would shoot the wolf-dog, and Sliver Waldron would
perforate Dan Barry while the latter rolled in the dust, unless, indeed, he
was pinioned by the fall of his horse, in which case they would have the
added glory of taking him alive.

By the time all these details were settled the pale moonlight was shot
through with the rose of dawn. Then, rapidly, the mountains lifted into
view, range beyond range, all their gullies deep blue and purple, and here
and there sharp triangles of snow. There was not a cloud, not a trace of
mist, and through the crisp, thin air the vision carried as if through a
telescope. They could count the trees on the upper ridges; and that while
the floor of the valley was still in shadow. This in turn grew brilliant,
and everywhere the sage brush glittered like foliage carved in gray-green
quartz.

It was then that they saw Dan Barry, while the dawn was still around them,
and before the sun pushed up in the east above the mountains. He came
winding down the bridle path with the dawn glittering on the side of Satan,
and a dark, swift form spiriting on ahead.

"Look at him!" muttered Sliver Waldron. "The damned wolf is a scout. See
him nose around that hummock? Watch him smell behind that bush. The black
devil!"

Bart, in fact, wove a loose course before his master, running here and
there to all points of vantage, as if he knew that danger lurked ahead, but
where he came close, with only the narrow passage between the cliffs, he
seemed to make up his animal brain that there could be no trouble in so
constricted a place, and darted straight ahead.

"They're ours," whispered Waldron. "Steady, boys. Gus, get your rope, get
ready!"

Gus tossed the noose a little wider, and gathered himself for the throw,
but it seemed as if the wolf saw or heard the movement. He stopped suddenly
and stood with his head high; behind him the rider checked the black horse;
all three waited.

"He's tryin' to get the wind," chuckled Waldron, "but the wind is ag'in'
our faces!"

It was only a slight breeze, but it came directly against the lurking
three; and moreover the scent of the sage was particularly keen at this
time of the day, and quite sufficient to blur the scent of man even in the
keen nostrils of Black Bart. Only for a second or so he stood there
sniffing the wind, a huge animal, larger than any wolf the three had ever
seen; his face wise in a certain bear-like fashion from the three gray
marks in the center of his forehead. Now he trotted ahead, and the stallion
broke into a gallop behind.

"My God," whispered Sliver to Gus, "don't spoil that hoss when you daub the
rope on him! Look at that action; like runnin' water!"

They came more rapidly. As if the rider knew that a point of danger was
there to be passed, he spoke to his mount, and Satan lengthened into a
racing gait that blew the brim of the rider's hat straight up. On they
came. The wolf-dog darted past. Then as the horse swept by, Gus Reeve rose
from behind his bush and the rope darted snakelike from his hand. The
forefeet of Satan landed in the noose, and the next instant the back-flung
weight of Gus tightened the rope, and Satan shot over upon his side,
flinging the master clear of the saddle.

It sent him rolling over and over in the dust, and Sliver Waldron was on
his feet with both guns in action, sending bullet after bullet towards the
tumbling body. Gus Reeve was running towards the stallion, his rope in
action to entangle one of the hindfeet and make sure of his prey; Ronicky
Joe had leaped up with a yell and blazed away at Black Bart.

It was no easy mark to strike, for the moment the rope shot out from the
hand of Gus, the wolf-dog whirled in his tracks and darted straight for the
scene of action. It was that, perhaps, which troubled the aim of Ronicky
more than anything else, for wild animals do not whirl in this fashion and
run for an assailant. He had expected to find himself plugging away at a
flying target in the distance; instead, the black monster was rushing
straight for him, silently. Indeed, all that followed was in silence after
that first wild Indian yell from Ronicky Joe. His gun barked, but Black
Bart was running like a football player down a broken field, swerving here
and there with uncanny speed. Again, again, Joe missed, and then flung up
his arm toward the flying danger. But Black Bart shot from the ground to
make his kill. He could bring down the strongest bull in the herd. What was
the arm of a man to him? His snake-like head shot through that futile
guard; his teeth cut off the screams of Ronicky Joe. Down they went. The
gun flew from the hand of Ronicky; for an instant he struggled with hands
and writhing legs, and then the murderous teeth of Bart sank deeper, found
the life. The dead body was limp, but Bart, shaking his hold deeper to make
sure, glared across to the fallen master.

The third man had died for Grey Molly.

All this had happened in a second, and the body of Barry was still rolling
when a gun flashed in his hand, drawn while he tumbled. It spat fire, and
Sliver Waldron staggered forward drunkenly, waved both his armed hands as
if he were trying to talk by signal, and pitched on his face into the dust.

The fourth man had died for Grey Molly.

No gun was destined for Gus Reeve, however. Black Bart had left the
lifeless body of his victim and was darting towards the third man; the
master was on his knee, raising his gun for the last shot; but Gus Reeve
was blind to all that had happened. He saw only the black stallion, the
matchless prize of horseflesh. He tossed a loop in the taut rope to
entangle a bind foot, but that slackening of the line gave Satan his
instant's purchase, and a moment later he was on his feet, whirled, and two
iron-hard hoofs crushed the whole framework of the man's chest like an
egg-shell. The impact lifted him from his feet, but before that body struck
the ground the life was fled from it. The fifth man had died for Grey
Molly.



Chapter XXIII. Bad News

News of the Killing at Alder, as they call that night's slaughter to this
day in the mountain-desert, traveled swiftly, and lost nothing of bulk and
burden on the way; so that two days later, when Lee Haines went down for
mail to the wretched little village in the valley, he heard the
store-keeper retailing the story to an awe-stricken group. How the tale had
crossed all the wild mountains which lay between in so brief a space no man
could say, but first there ran a whisper and then a stir, and then half a
dozen men came in at once, each with an elaboration of the theme more
horrible than the last. The store-keeper culled the choicest fragments from
every version, strung them together with a narrative of his own fertile
invention, polished off the tale by a few rehearsals in his home, and then
placed his product on the open market. The very first day he kept the
store-room well filled from dawn until dark.

And this was the creation to which Lee Haines had to listen, impatient,
sifting the chaff from the grains of truth. Down upon Alder, exactly at
midnight, had ridden a cavalcade headed by that notorious, half-legendary
man-slayer, Dan Barry--Whistling Dan. While his crew of two-score hardened
ruffians held the doors and the windows with leveled rifles, Barry had
entered with a gun and a wolf--a wild wolf, and had butchered ten men,
wantonly. To add to the mystery, there was no motive of robbery for the
crime. One sweeping visitation of death, and then the night-riders had
rushed away. Nor was this all, for Sheriff Pete Glass, hearing of the
tragedy, had ridden to Rickett, the county seat, and from this strategic
point of vantage he was sending out a call for the most practised fighters
on the mountain-desert. He wanted twenty men proved beyond the shadow of
question for courage, endurance, speed, and surety in action.

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