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HARRIGAN
MAX BRAND
1918
Also by Max Brand: BLACK JACK; TROUBLE KID; CLUNG; THUNDER MOON;
THE STINGAREE; RIPPON RIDES DOUBLE; ON THE TRAIL OF FOUR;
STEVE TRAIN'S ORDEAL; LARRAMEE'S RANCH; RIDE THE WILD TRAIL;
THE GUNS OF DORKING HOLLOW; TORTURE TRAIL; THE GENTLE GUNMAN;
THE GARDEN OF EDEN; GOLDEN LIGHTNING; THE STRANGER; MIGHTY LOBO
CHAPTER 1
"That fellow with the red hair," said the police captain as he pointed.
"I'll watch him," the sergeant answered.
The captain had raided two opium dens the day before, and the pride of
accomplishment puffed his chest. He would have given advice to the
sheriff of Oahu that evening.
He went on: "I can pick some men out of the crowd by the way they walk,
and others by their eyes. That fellow has it written all over him."
The red-headed man came nearer through the crowd. Because of the
warmth, he had stuffed his soft hat into a back pocket, and now the
light from a window shone steadily on his hair and made a fire of it, a
danger signal. He encountered the searching glances of the two officers
and answered with cold, measuring eyes, like the gaze of a prize
fighter who waits for a blow. The sergeant turned to his superior with
a grunt.
"You're right," he nodded.
"Trail him," said the captain, "and take a man with you. If that fellow
gets into trouble, you may need help."
He stepped into his automobile and the sergeant beckoned to a nearby
policeman.
"Akana," he said, "we have a man-sized job tonight. Are you feeling
fit?"
The Kanaka smiled without enthusiasm.
"The man of the red hair?"
The sergeant nodded, and Akana tightened his belt. He had eaten fish
baked in ti leaves that evening.
He suggested: "Morley has little to do. His beat is quiet. Shall I tell
him to come with us?"
"No," grinned the sergeant, and then looked up and watched the broad
shoulders of the red-haired man, who advanced through the crowd as the
prow of a ship lunges through the waves. "Go get Morley," he said
abruptly.
But Harrigan went on his way without misgivings, not that he forgot the
policeman, but he was accustomed to stand under the suspicious eye of
the law. In all the course of his wanderings it had been upon him. His
coming was to the men in uniform like the sound of the battle trumpet
to the cavalry horse. This, however, was Harrigan's first night in
Honolulu, and there was much to see, much to do. He had rambled through
the streets; now he was headed for the Ivilei district. Instinct
brought him there, the still, small voice which had guided him from
trouble to trouble all his life.
At a corner he stopped to watch a group of Kanakas who passed him,
wreathed with leis and thrumming their ukuleles. They sang in their
soft, many-voweled language and the sound was to Harrigan like the rush
and lapse of water on a beach, infinitely soothing and as lazy as the
atmosphere of Honolulu. All things are subdued in the strange city
where East and West meet in the middle of the Pacific. The gayest
crowds cannot quite disturb the brooding peace which is like the
promise of sleep and rest at sunset. It was not pleasing to Harrigan.
He frowned and drew a quick, impatient breath, muttering: "I'm not long
for this joint. I gotta be moving."
He joined a crowd which eddied toward the center of Ivilei. In there it
was better. Negro soldiers, marines from the _Maryland_, Kanakas,
Chinamen, Japanese, Portuguese, Americans; a score of nationalities and
complexions rubbed shoulders as they wandered aimlessly among the many
bright-painted cottages.
Yet even in that careless throng of pleasure-seekers no one rubbed
shoulders with Harrigan. The flame of his hair was like a red lamp
which warned them away. Or perhaps it was his eye, which seemed to
linger for a cold, incurious instant on every face that approached. He
picked out the prettiest of the girls who sat at the windows chatting
with all who passed. He did not have to shoulder to win a way through
the crowd of her admirers.
She was a _hap haoli_, with the fine features of the Caucasian and the
black of hair and eye which shows the islander. A rounded elbow rested
on the sill of the window; her chin was cupped in her hand.
"Send these away," said Harrigan, and leaned an elbow beside hers.
"Oh," she murmured; then: "And if I send them away?"
"I'll reward you."
"Reward?"
For answer he dragged a crimson carnation from the buttonhole of a tall
man who stood at his side.
"What in hell--" began the victim, but Harrigan smiled and the other
drew slowly back through the crowd.
"Now send them away."
She looked at him an instant longer with a light coming slowly up
behind her eyes. Then she leaned out and waved to the chuckling
semicircle.
"Run away for a while," she said; "I want to talk to my brother."
She patted the thick red hair to emphasize the relationship, and the
little crowd departed, laughing uproariously. Harrigan slipped the
carnation into the jetty hair. His hand lingered a moment against the
soft masses, and she drew it down, grown suddenly serious.
"There are three policemen in the shadow of that cottage over there.
They're watching you."
"Ah-h!"
The sound was so soft that it was almost a sigh, but she shivered
perceptibly.
"What have you been doing?"
He answered regretfully: "Nothing."
"They're coming this way. The man who had the carnation is with them.
You better beat it."
"Nope. I like it here."
She shook her head, but the flame was blowing high now
in her eyes. A hand fell on Harrigan's shoulder.
"Hey!" said the sergeant in a loud voice.
Harrigan turned slowly and the sergeant's hand fell away. The man of
the carnation was far in the background.
"Well?"
"That flower. You can't get away with little tricks like that. You
better be starting on. Move along."
Harrigan glanced slowly from face to face. The three policemen drew
closer together as if for mutual protection.
"Please--honey!" urged the whisper of the girl.
The hand of Harrigan resting on the window sill had gathered to a
hard-bunched fist, white at the knuckles, but he nodded across the open
space between the cottages.
"If you're looking for work," he said, "seems as though you'd find a
handful over there."
A clatter of sharp, quick voices rose from a group of Negro soldiers
gathering around a white man. No one could tell the cause of the
quarrel. It might have been anything from an oath to a blow.
"Watch him," said Harrigan. "He looks like a man." He added
plaintively: "But looks are deceivin'."
The center of the disturbance appeared to be a man indeed. He was even
taller than Harrigan and broader of shoulder, and, like the latter,
there was a suggestion of strength in him which could not be defined by
his size alone. At the distance they could guess his smile as he faced
the clamoring mob.
"Break in there!" ordered the sergeant to his companions, and started
toward the angry circle.
As he spoke, they heard one of the Negroes curse and the fist of the
tall man darted at the face of a soldier and drove him toppling back
among his comrades. They closed on the white man with a yell; a passing
group of their compatriots joined the affray; the whole mass surged in
around the tall fellow. Harrigan's head went back and his eyes half
closed like a critic listening to an exquisite symphony.
"Ah-h!" he whispered to himself. "Watch him fight!"
The policemen struck the outer edge of the circle with drawn clubs, but
there they stopped. They could not dent that compacted mass. The
soldiers struggled manfully, but they were held at bay. Harrigan could
see the heaving shoulders of the defender over the heads of the
assailants, and the crack of hard-driven fists. The attackers were
crushed together and had little room to swing their arms with full
force, while the big man stood with his back against the wall of the
cottage and made every smashing punch count.
As if by common assent, the soldiers suddenly desisted and gave back
from this deadly fighter. His bellow of triumph rang over the clamor.
His hat was off; his long black hair stood straight up in the wind; and
he leaped after them with flailing arms.
But now the police had managed to pry their way into the mass by dint
of indiscriminate battering. As the black-haired man came face to face
with the sergeant, the light gleamed on a high-swung club that thudded
home; and the big man dropped out of sight. He came up again almost at
once, but with men draped from every portion of his body. The soldiers
and police had joined forces, and once more a dozen men clutched him,
spilling over him like football players in a scrimmage. He was knocked
from his feet by the impact.
"Coming!" shouted Harrigan.
He raced with long strides, head lowered and back bowed until his long
arms nearly swept the ground. Gathering impetus at every stride, he
crushed into the floundering heap of arms and legs. The police sergeant
rose and whirled with lifted club. Harrigan grunted with joy as he dug
his left into the man's midsection. The sergeant collapsed upon the
ground, embracing his stomach with both arms. Harrigan jerked away the
upper layers of the attackers and dragged the black-haired man to his
feet.
"Shoulder to shoulder!" thundered Harrigan, and smote Officer Akana
upon the point of the chin.
The victory was not yet won. The black soldiers of Uncle Sam's regular
army need not take second place to any body of troops in the world.
These men had tasted their own blood and they came tearing in now for
revenge.
Harrigan, standing full in front of the rescued man until the latter
should have recovered his breath, found food for both fists, and his
love of battle was fed. The other man had fought stiffly erect,
standing with feet braced to give the weight of his whole body to every
punch; Harrigan raged back and forth like a panther, avoiding blows by
the catlike agility of his movements, which left both hands free to
strike sledge-hammer blows. Presently he heard a chuckling at his side.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the black-haired man come into the
battle, straight and stiff as before, with long arms shooting out like
pistons.
It was a glorious sight. Something made Harrigan's heart big; rose and
swelled his throat; rose again and came as a wild yell upon his tongue.
The unfortunates who have faced Irish legions in battle know that yell.
The soldiers did not know it, and they held back for a moment.
Something else lowered their spirits still more. It was the clanging of
the police patrol as it swung to a halt and a body of reserves poured
out.
"Here comes our finish!" panted Harrigan to his comrade in arms. "But
oh, man, I'm thinkin' it was swate while it lasted!"
In his great moments the Irish brogue thronged thick upon his tongue.
"Finish, hell!" grunted the other. "After me, lad!"
And lowering his head like a bull, he drove forward against the crowd.
Harrigan caught the idea in a flash. He put his shoulder to the hip of
his friend. They became a flying wedge with the jabbing fists of the
black-haired man for a point--and they sank into the mass of soldiers
like a hot knife into butter, shearing them apart.
There were few who wished more action, for the police reserves were
capturing man after man. One or two resisted, but a revolver fired
straight in the air put a sudden period to such thoughts. The crowd
scattered in all directions and Harrigan was taking to his heels among
the rest when an iron hand caught his shoulder and jerked him to a
halt. It was the black-haired man.
"Easy," he cautioned. He pulled a cap out and settled it upon his head.
Harrigan followed suit with his soft hat.
"Are you after givin' yourself away to the law?" he queried,
bewildered.
"Steady, you fool," said the other; "they're only after the ones who
run away."
An excited Kanaka confronted them with brandished club.
"What's the cause of the disturbance, officer?" asked the big man.
The policeman for answer waved them away and darted after a running
soldier.
"I'll be damned!" murmured Harrigan, and his eyes dwelt on his
companion's face almost tenderly.
They were at the edge of the crowd when a shrill voice called: "Those
two big men! Halt 'em! Stand!"
Officer Akana ran through the crowd with his regulation Colt brandished
above his head.
"The time's come!" said Harrigan's new friend, and broke into a run.