SUSPENSE
He found them as he had expected, the girl beside the couch, and the old
man prone upon it, wrapped to the chin in a gaudy Navajo blanket. But
to-night his eyes were closed, a most unusual thing, and Byrne could
look more closely at the aged face. For on occasions when the eyes were
wide, it was like looking into the throat of a searchlight to stare at
the features--all was blurred. He discovered now wrinkled and
purple-stained lids under the deep shadow of the brows--and eyes were so
sunken that there seemed to be no pupils there. Over the cheek bones the
skin was drawn so tightly that it shone, and the cheeks fell away into
cadaverous hollows. But the lips, beneath the shag of grey beard, were
tightly compressed. No, this was not sleep. It carried, as Byrne gazed,
a connotation of swifter, fiercer thinking, than if the gaunt old man
had stalked the floor and poured forth a tirade of words.
The girl came to meet the doctor. She said: "Will you use a narcotic?"
"Why?" asked Byrne. "He seems more quiet than usual."
"Look more closely," she whispered.
And when he obeyed, he saw that the whole body of Joe Cumberland
quivered like an aspen, continually. So the finger of the duellist
trembles on the trigger of his gun before he receives the signal to
fire--a suspense more terrible than the actual face of death.
"A narcotic?" she pleaded. "Something to give him just one moment of
full relaxation?"
"I can't do it," said Byrne. "If his heart were a shade stronger, I
should. But as it is, the only thing that sustains him is the force of
his will-power. Do you want me to unnerve the very strength which keeps
him alive?"
She shuddered.
"Do you mean that if he sleeps it will be--death?"
"I have told you before," said the doctor, "that there are phases of
this case which I do not understand. I predict nothing with certainty.
But I very much fear that if your father falls into a complete slumber
he will never waken from it. Once let his brain cease functioning and I
fear that the heart will follow suit."
They stood on the farther side of the room and spoke in the softest of
whispers, but now the deep, calm voice of the old man broke in: "Doc,
they ain't no use of worryin'. They ain't no use of medicine. All I need
is quiet."
"Do you want to be alone?" asked the girl.
"No, not so long as you don't make no noise. I can 'most hear
something, but your whisperin' shuts it off."
They obeyed him, with a glance at each other. And soon they caught the
far off beat of a horse in a rapid gallop.
"Is it that?" cried Kate, leaning forward and touching her father's
hand. "Is that horse what you hear?"
"No, no!" he answered impatiently. "That ain't what I hear. It ain't no
hoss that I hear!"
The hoof-beats grew louder--stopped before the house--steps sounded loud
and rattling on the veranda--a door squeaked and slammed--and Buck
Daniels stood before them. His hat was jammed down so far that his eyes
were almost buried in the shadow of the brim; the bandana at his throat
was twisted so that the knot lay over his right shoulder; he carried a
heavy quirt in a hand that trembled so that the long lash seemed alive;
a thousand bits of foam had dried upon his vest and stained it; the
rowels of his spurs were caked and enmeshed with horsehair; dust covered
his face and sweat furrowed it, and a keen scent of horse-sweat passed
from him through the room. For a moment he stood at the door, bracing
himself with legs spread wide apart, and stared wildly about--then he
reeled drunkenly across the room and fell into a chair, sprawling at
full length.
No one else moved. Joe Cumberland had turned his head; Kate stood with
her hand at her throat; the doctor had placed his hand behind his head,
and there it stayed.
"Gimme smoke--quick!" said Buck Daniels. "Run out of Durham a thousan'
years ago!"
Kate ran into the next room and returned instantly with papers and a
fresh sack of tobacco. On these materials Buck seized frantically, but
his big fingers were shaking in a palsy, and the papers tore, one after
another, as soon as he started to roll his smoke. "God!" he cried, in a
burst of childish desperation, and collapsed again in the chair.
But Kate Cumberland picked up the papers and tobacco which he had dashed
to the floor and rolled a cigarette with deft fingers. She placed it
between his lips and held the match by which he lighted it. Once, twice,
and again, he drew great breaths of smoke into his lungs, and then he
could open his eyes and look at them. They were not easy eyes to meet.
"You're hungry, Buck," she said. "I can see it at a glance. I'll have
something for you in an instant."
He stopped her with a gesture.
"I done it!" said Buck Daniels. "He's comin'!"
The doctor flashed his glance upon Kate Cumberland, for when she heard
the words she turned pale and her eyes and her lips framed a mute
question; but Joe Cumberland drew in a long breath and smiled.
"I knowed it!" he said softly.
The wind whistled somewhere in the house and it brought Buck Daniels
leaping to his feet and into the centre of the room.
"He's here!" he yelled. "God help me, where'll I go now! He's here!"
He had drawn his revolver and stood staring desperately about him as if
he sought for a refuge in the solid wall. Almost instantly he recovered
himself, however, and dropped the gun back into the holster.
"No, not yet," he said, more to himself than the others. "It ain't
possible, even for Dan."
Kate Cumberland rallied herself, though her face was still white. She
stepped to Buck and took both his hands.
"You've been working yourself to death," she said gently. "Buck, you're
hysterical. What have you to fear from Dan? Isn't he your friend? Hasn't
he proved it a thousand times?"
Her words threw him into a fresh frenzy.
"If he gets me, it's blood on your head, Kate. It was for you I done
it."
"No, no, Buck. For Dan's sake alone. Isn't that enough?"
"For _his_ sake?" Buck threw back his head and laughed--a crazy
laughter. "He could rot in hell for all of me. He could foller his wild
geese around the world. Kate, it was for you!"
"Hush!" she pleaded. "Buck, dear!"
"Do I care who knows it? Not I! I got an hour--half an hour to live; and
while I live the whole damned world can know I love you, Kate, from
your spurs to the blue of your eyes. For your sake I brung him, and for
your sake I'll fight him, damn him, in spite----"
The wind wailed again, far off, and Buck Daniels cowered back against
the wall. He had drawn Kate with him, and he now kept her before him,
towards the door.
He began to whisper, swiftly, with a horrible tremble in his voice:
"Stand between me, Kate. Stand between me and him. Talk for me, Kate.
Will you talk for me?" He drew himself up and caught a long, shuddering
breath. "What have I been doin'? What have I been ravin' about?"
He looked about as if he saw the others for the first time.
"Sit here, Buck," said Kate, with perfect quiet. "Give me your hat.
There's nothing to fear. Now tell us."
"A whole day and a whole night," he said, "I been riding with the fear
of him behind me. Kate, I ain't myself, and if I been sayin' things----"
"No matter. Only tell me how you made him follow you."
Buck Daniels swept his knuckles across his forehead, as though to rub
out a horrible memory.
"Kate," he said in a voice which was hardly more than a whisper, "why
did he follow Jim Silent?"
The doctor slipped into a chair opposite Buck Daniels and watched him
with unbelieving eyes. When he had last seen Buck the man had seemed an
army in himself; but now a shivering, unmanned coward sat before him.
Byrne glanced at Kate Cumberland for explanation of the mysterious
change. She, also, was transformed with horror, and she stared at Buck
Daniels as at one already among the dead.
"Buck, you didn't--_strike_ him?"
Buck Daniels nodded jerkily.
"I'll try to tell you straight from the beginning. I found Dan in
Brownsville. I begged him to come back with me, but he wouldn't stir.
This was why: A gunman had come to the town lookin' for trouble, and
when he run acrost Dan he found plenty of it. No, don't look like that,
Kate; it was self-defense, pure and simple--they didn't even arrest Dan
for it. But this dyin' man's brother, Mac Strann, come down from the
hills and sat beside Jerry Strann waitin' for him to go west before he
started out to clean up on Dan. Yesterday evenin' Jerry was near dead
and everybody in Brownsville was waitin' to see what would happen,
because Dan wouldn't budge till Mac Strann had had his chance to get
back at him. So I sent a feller ahead to fix a relay of hosses to
Elkhead, because I made up my mind I was going to make Dan Barry chase
me out of that town. I walked into the saloon where Dan was
sittin'--braidin' a little horsehair strand--my God, Kate, think of him
sittin' there doin' that with a hundred fellers standin' about waitin'
for him to kill or be killed! I went up to him. I picked a fight, and
then I slapped him--in the face."
The sweat started on Daniels' forehead at the thought.
"But you're still alive!" cried Kate Cumberland. "Had you handled his gun
first?"
"No. As soon as I hit him I turned my back to him and took a couple of
steps away from him."
"Oh, Buck, Buck!" she cried, her face lighting. "You knew he wouldn't
shoot you in the back!"
"I didn't know nothin'. I couldn't even think--and my body was numb as a
dead man's all below the hips. There I stood like I was chained to the
floor--you know how it is in a nightmare when something chases you and
you can't run? That was the way with me."
"Buck! And he was sitting behind you--while you stood there?"
"Ay, sitting there with my death sittin' on his trigger finger. But I
knowed that if I showed the white feather, if I let him see me shake,
he'd be out of his chair and on top of me. No gun--he don't need nothin'
but his hands--and what was in front of my eyes was a death like--like
Jim Silent's!"
He squinted his eyes close and groaned. Once more he roused himself.
"But I couldn't move a foot without my knees bucklin', so I takes out my
makin's and rolls a cigarette. And while I was doin' it I was prayin'
that my strength would come back to me before he come back to
himself--and started!"
"It was surprise that held him, Buck. To think of you striking him--you
who have saved his life and fought for him like a blood-brother. Oh,
Buck, of all the men in the world you're the bravest and the noblest!"
"They ain't nothin' in that brand of talk," growled Buck, reddening.
"Anyway, at last I started for the door. It wasn't farther away than
from here to the wall. Outside was my hoss, and a chance for livin'. But
that door was a thousand years away, and a thousand times while I walked
towards it I felt Dan's gun click and bang behind me and felt the lead
go tearin' through me. And I didn't dare to hurry, because I knew that
might wake Dan up. So finally I got to the doors and just as they was
swingin' to behind me, I heard a sort of a moan behind me----"
"From Dan!" whispered the white-faced girl. "I know--a sort of a stifled
cry when he's angered! Oh, Buck."
"My first step took me ten yards from that door," reminisced Buck
Daniels, "and my next step landed me in the saddle, and I dug them spurs
clean into the insides of Long Bess. She started like a watch-spring
uncoilin', and as she spurts down the streets I leans clean over to her
mane and looks back and there I seen Dan standin' in the door with his
gun in his hand and the wind blowin' his hair. But he didn't shoot,
because the next second I was swallowed up in the dark and couldn't see
him no more."
"But it was no use!" cried the girl. "With Black Bart to trail you and
with Satan to carry him, he overtook you--and then----"
"He didn't," said Buck Daniels. "I'd fixed things so's he couldn't get
started with Satan for some time. And before he could have Satan on my
trail I'd put a long stretch behind me because Long Bess was racin'
every step. The lay of the land was with me. It was pretty level, and on
level goin' Long Bess is almost as fast as Satan; but on rocky goin'
Satan is like a goat--nothin' stops him! And I was ridin' Long Bess like
to bust her heart, straight towards McCauley's. We wasn't more'n a mile
away when I thought--the wind was behind me, you see--that I heard a
sort of far off whistling down the wind! My God!"
He could not go on for a moment, and Kate Cumberland sat with parted
lips, twisting her fingers together and then tearing them apart once
more.
"Well, that mile was the worst in my life. I thought maybe the man I'd
sent on ahead hadn't been able to leave me a relay at McCauley's, and if
he hadn't I knew I'd die somewhere in the hills beyond. And they looked
as black as dead men, and all sort of grinnin' down at me.
"But when I got to McCauley's, there stood a hoss right in front of the
house. It didn't take me two second to make the saddle-change. And then
I was off agin!"
A sigh of relief came from Byrne and Kate.
"That hoss was a beauty. Not long-legged like Bess, nor half so fast,
but he was jest right for the hills. Climbed like a goat and didn't let
up. Up and up we goes. The wind blows the clouds away when we gets to
the top of the climb and I looks down into the valley all white in the
moonlight. And across the valley I seen two little shadows slidin',
smooth and steady. It was Dan and Satan and Black Bart!"
"Buck!"
"My heart, it stood plumb still! I gives my hoss the spurs and we went
down the next slope. And I don't remember nothin' except that we got to
the Circle K Bar after a million years, 'most, and when we got there the
piebald flops on the ground--near dead. But I made the change and
started off agin, and that next hoss was even better than the piebald--a
sure goer! When he started I could tell by his gait what he was, and I
looked up at the sky----"
He stopped, embarrassed.
"And thanked God, Buck?"
"Kate, I ain't ashamed if maybe I did. But since then I ain't seen or
heard Dan, but all the time I rode I was expecting to hear his whistle
behind me, close up."
All the life died from her face.
"No, Buck, if he'd a followed all the way he would have caught you in
spite of your relay. No, I understand what happened. After a while he
remembered that Mac Strann was waiting for him back in Brownsville. And
he left your trail to be taken up later and went back to Brownsville.
You didn't see him follow you after you left the Circle X Bar?"
"No. I didn't dare look back. But somehow I knew he was comin'."
She shook her head.
"He won't come, Buck. He'll go back to meet Mac Strann--and then----"
She ran to the chair of Buck swiftly and caught his hands: "What sort of
a man is Mac Strann?"
But Buck smiled strangely up into her face.
"Does it make any difference," he said, "to Dan?"
She went slowly back to her place.
"No," she admitted, "no difference."
"If you came by relays for twenty-four hours," said the doctor,
numbering his points upon accurate fingertips, "it is humanly impossible
that this man could have followed you very closely. It will probably
take him another day to arrive."
But here his glance fell upon old Joe Cumberland, and found the
cattleman smiling faintly to himself.
Buck Daniels was considering the last remark seriously.
"No," he said, "it _ain't_ possible. Besides, what Kate says may be
true. She ought to know--she says he'll wait for Mac Strann. I didn't
think of that; I thought I was savin' Dan from another--well, what a
damn fool I been!"
He unknotted his bandana and with it mopped his face to a semblance of
cleanliness.
"It was the ridin' that done it," he explained, shame-faced. "You put a
man on a hoss for a certain time, and after a while he gets so he can't
think. He's sort of nutty. That was the way with me when I come in."
"Open the window on the veranda," said Joe Cumberland. "I want to feel
the wind."
The doctor obeyed the instruction, and again he noted that same quiet,
contented smile on the lips of the old man. For some reason it made him
ill at ease to see it.
"He won't get here for eight or ten hours," went on Buck Daniels, easing
himself into a more comfortable position, and raising his head a little
higher. "Ten hours more, even if he does come. That'll give me a chance
to rest up; right now I'm kind of shaky."
"A condition, you will observe, in which Mr. Barry will also be when he
arrives," remarked the doctor.
"Shaky?" grinned Buck Daniels. "M'frien', you don't know that bird!" He
sat up, clenching his fist. "And if Dan _does_ come, he can't affo'd to
press me too far! I'll take so much, and then----"
He struck his fist on the arm of the chair.
"Buck!" cried Kate Cumberland. "Are you mad? Have you lost your reason?
Would you _face_ him?"
Buck Daniels winced, but he then shook his head doggedly.
"He had his chance down in Brownsville," he said. "And he didn't take
it. Why? Because my back was turned? Well, he could of got in front of
me if he'd been terrible anxious. I've seen Dan in action; he's seen
_me_ in action! Maybe he's seen too much. They've been stranger things
than that, in this world!" He hitched his belt so that the butt of his
revolver came farther forward. But now Kate Cumberland advised: "Buck,
you're tired out; you don't know what you're saying. Better go up to
bed."
He flushed a ruddy bronze.
"D'you think I'm jest talkin' words, Kate, to hear myself talk?"
"Listen!" broke in Joe Cumberland, and raised a bony forefinger for
silence.
* * * * *
And the doctor noted a great change in the old man. There was no longer
a tremor in his body. There was only a calm and smiling expectation--a
certainty. A tinge of colour was in his withered face for the first time
since Byrne had come to the ranch, and now the cattleman raised his
finger with such an air of calm authority that at once every voice in
the room was stilled.
"D'ye hear?"
They did not. They heard only the faint rushing of the air through the
window. The flame danced in the chimney of the lamp and changed the
faces in phantastic alteration. One and all, they turned and faced the
window. Still there was not a sound audible, but the doctor felt as if
the noise were approaching. He knew it as surely as if he could see some
far-off object moving near and nearer. And he knew, as clearly, that the
others in the room felt the same thing. He turned his glance from the
window towards Kate Cumberland. Her face was upturned. There was about
it a transparent pallor; the eyes were large and darkly ringed; the lips
parted into the saddest and the most patient of smiles; and the slender
fingers were interwoven and pressed against the base of her throat.
For the first time he saw how the fire that was so manifest in the old
man had been consuming her, also. It left no mark of the coming of death
upon her. But it had burned her pure and left her transparent as
crystal. Pity swelled in the throat of Byrne as he realised the anguish
of her long waiting. Fear mingled with his pity. He felt that something
was coming which would seize on her as the wind seizes on the dead leaf,
whirling her off into an infinity of storm and darkness into which he
could not follow a single pace.
He turned back towards the window. The rush of air played steadily, and
then in pulses, upon his face. Then even the wind ceased; as if it, too,
were waiting. Not a sound. But silence has a greater voice than discord
or music. It seemed to Byrne that he could tell how fast each heart was
beating.
The old man had closed his eyes again. And yet the rigid forefinger
remained raised, and the faint smile touched at the corners of his
mouth. Buck Daniels sat lunging forward in his chair, his knees
supporting his elbows, and scowled up at the window with a sort of
sullen terror.
Then Byrne heard it--so small a voice that at first he thought it was
only a part of the silence. It grew and grew--in a sudden burst it was
clear to every ear--the honking of the wild geese!
And Byrne knew the picture they made. He could see them far up in the
sky--a dim triangle of winter grey--moving with the beat of lightning
wings each in an arrowy flight north, and north, and north. Creatures
for sport all the world over; here alone, in all the earth, in the heart
of this mountain-desert, they were in some mysterious wise messengers.
Once more the far discord showered down upon them, died as they rose,
perhaps, to a higher level, and was heard no more.