That moment Streak Malone flung the door open. That is, he would
have flung it open, but something caught under the door, blocking it
half-open.
A man ripped out a curse, and a bullet smashed into the door. At the
same moment the other man crashed the lamp, throwing the place into
darkness. Streak managed to force his way past the partly-opened
door, clawed for the doorway into the saloon. He heard the men racing
down the saloon to the door, but he was not able to orient himself
enough to shoot in the dark. Then the front door banged shut, and the
men were gone.
Streak said, “Are yuh all right, Flack?”
“Yes, I am all right, thanks to you, Malone. That was a close call.
Let’s get the lamp from the bedroom.”
The windows were covered, the door shut, when Streak lighted the lamp,
and they looked at each other.
Flack said, “You came just in time, Malone. He was pulling the trigger.”
“Glad I did.” Streak smiled. “But I’m sorry the door stuck. Do yuh know
either of them fellers, Flack?”
Flack shook his head. “They were both masked,” he said.
“Do yuh know Buck Smith?”
“Oh, you mean the name on that bill-of-sale? No, I don’t. It was only a
name. But we know why they let me go ahead with this place. Well,
they’ve ruined their first attempt, Malone, thanks to you. I’ll go out
the back way and get to the hotel. I don’t believe they’ll make another
attempt tonight.”
They went into the dark office and Jim Flack opened the back door.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Malone,” he said. “Maybe I can make it
up to you--some way.”
“Forget that part of it,” said Streak. “Good luck.”
Streak went back to the bedroom and examined the bullet hole in the
door. That bullet hadn’t missed him by more than a scant few inches.
In fact, it had blown splinters onto the blanket. He stretched out
again, trying to figure out more angles, but went to sleep quickly.
Jim Flack was over there next morning, before Streak awoke, and they
talked things over. Flack said that he had talked with the
superintendent of the hard-rock men on the railroad, and that the man
was worried. Some of the more intelligent laborers realized that Zero
Brant’s brace-games were keeping the men broke, and the bad liquor had
made several of them unable to work at all. He said that any incident
might start serious trouble.
“It’s a bad situation,” agreed Streak. “But what can be done about it,
Flack? You can’t make arrests on what people think. Zero Brant has a
tough following, and as far as enforcing the law is concerned, who or
what is the law? I could put a man in jail, but how could he ever be
convicted? What jury could, or would, decide guilt or innocence? Flack,
this is a case where Old Man Colt is the only judge and jury.”
“I realize that, Malone,” nodded Flack. “I realize more than ever now
that there will be trouble. Those men, last night, trying to force me
to sign this place over to them, proved to me that they will stop at
nothing.”
Streak found Mack Shell on the street and told him what happened at the
Eureka. The little outlaw grinned slowly.
“So that’s why they let Flack go ahead with everythin’,” he remarked.
“If you hadn’t been there, Flack would be dead now. Zero Brant is behind
all this, Streak.”
Streak nodded. “But we can’t prove it,” he said.
The opening of the Eureka was not auspicious. Zero Brant was
furnishing free whisky at the Silver Dollar and the house was packed
with half-drunk humanity, mostly foreigners. A half-dozen bartenders
were working at top speed but the games were not being patronized too
well. A three-piece orchestra could hardly be heard above the roar of
the crowd.
* * * * *
Brant was watching the crowd, a scowl on his face. The free whisky was
keeping the crowd away from the games. Streak stood back against the
wall, watching Brant. It was the first time Streak had ever seen Zero
Brant without a hat, and he noticed that Brant’s forehead was
criss-crossed with scars which were not too visible under a low-pulled
hat-brim.
Chap-clad cowboys, wild as hawks, rubbed elbows with perspiring,
muck-stained laborers, who gulped free whisky and roared songs in
strange tongues. Here and there in the crowd were men in buckskin,
bearded, long-haired, buffalo-hunters and trappers. The buffalo
hunters furnished meat for the railroad crews.
At one end of the room El Chuchilla, the Knife, presided over a
Three-Card-Monte game. This layout was not popular with the rank and
file of patrons, but it placed the knife-throwing halfbreed in a good
position to overlook the room, and flash signals to Zero Brant.
Mack Shell worked his way through the crowd and came in beside Streak.
He said, “There’s a storm comin’, Streak.”
Streak nodded. “It’s bound to.”
“I mean outside,” said Shell. “Wind blowing, and yuh can hear the
thunder. Yuh can’t hardly see through the dust right now.”
Streak nodded, watching Conchita at the roulette wheel. She was blazing
with jewels, but the wheel was stopped. Shell laughed.
“Free whisky and no gamblers,” he said. “Serves him right.”
Conchita was looking at them now, and Streak noticed that her eyes were
almond-shaped and almost green.
Mack Shell said, “Some day she’ll kill Brant. There’s a rattler down
along the Mexican Border, with green eyes--like hers--and they don’t
always rattle before they strike.”
One of Mack Shell’s cowboys forced his way through the crowd and came in
beside them. He said, “If you think Conchita is pretty, take a look at
the gal in the Eureka. She’s got this’n beat four ways from the jack.
And she’s runnin’ an honest wheel. I won forty dollars on one whirl.”
The cowboy went on, circulating through the crowd, telling them about
the Eureka. Streak smiled. Flack had probably hired several cowboys to
pass out the good news, and the patrons were already drifting outside.
“Let’s go over to the Eureka,” suggested Shell.
“These men won’t leave free whisky,” said Streak.
“The free whisky is over.” Shell laughed. “They’ve just put up the
sign.”
Slowly the crowd was drifting out of the place, some of them barely able
to walk. Streak and Shell went outside. Lights were blotted out in the
swirl of dust, and flashes of lightning were frequent now. Just as they
found the entrance to the Eureka, a crash of thunder brought the first
splatter of rain.
The new saloon was filling fast as they came in. The polished furniture
reflected the lamplight, a thing of beauty in that rough, wild country,
but the patrons were not interested in that sort of beauty.
Jim Flack, backed against the bar, was watching the gathering crowd,
many of whom crowded around the roulette, where Clare Ames was running
the layout. Mack Shell circulated among the crowd but Streak stayed
near the end of the bar, out of the crowd. Men shoved through the open
doorway, most of them drenched with rain.
The building shuddered under the concussion of thunder.
More men shoved in around the roulette, singing, cursing. It was a
terrible place for a woman--even for the wrong kind. Flack came slowly
over to Streak, tense, hard-eyed.
“I don’t like it, Malone,” he said. “They tell me that Zero Brant dished
out free whisky to this mob. They’re all drunk.”
Streak nodded, his face grim. “Even free whisky wouldn’t hold ’em,
Flack. They’re like a pack of wolves.”
* * * * *
More men surged in, possibly twenty or thirty huge foreigners, singing
some sort of a chant. The room filled to suffocation, humming like a
giant bee-hive, rank with the smell of unwashed humanity, liquor and
strong tobacco smoke.
Somebody deep in the crowd cursed in a foreign tongue, screaming his
words against the thud of a pistol shot. Came a babel of oaths, two
more pistol shots, and pandemonium broke loose. Men surged toward the
disturbance, and Streak caught sight of upraised bottles as the wave
of men crushed tables and chairs, trampling drunken men to the floor,
yelling like animals.
Suddenly they seemed to split into two factions, fighting each other.
Streak knew what this meant. This drunken horde was bent on destroying
everything in the Eureka.
Streak backed in against the end of the bar, gun in hand. He lost sight
of Jim Flack. Out of the packed mob, like a football player packing the
ball, came a huge, bearded giant, carrying a man in his arms. It was one
of Mack Shell’s men. He dropped the unconscious cowboy and drew back a
foot to kick him in the head when a shot crashed out, and the kick was
not delivered. The big man went down, and the crowd trampled over him.
Mack Shell was there, smoking gun in hand, dragging his cowboy away.
Streak tried to help him, but a man crashed into him, and he went
spinning against the wall at the end of the bar.
Streak went to his knees but came up quickly. Bottles were whizzing
across the room, smashing the lamps, and the smoke-chopped room became a
blurred mass of fighting men. Windows were smashed, letting in the wind
and storm, and while men battled in the Eureka, nature battled outside,
the claps of thunder shaking the building.
Streak fought his way across the room, forcing his way by swinging his
six-shooter over-hand, climbing over men, trying to reach the smashed
roulette layout. It was like a nightmare, where everything went wrong.
Men screamed curses in his face, but he drove them aside and kept on
going, while that crazy mob destroyed everything in the place.
He found Clare Ames, pinned under the wreckage of the wheel, unable to
escape or protect herself. She was too dazed to know what was going on,
when Streak picked her up in his arms. She tried weakly to strike him,
but her strength was gone. A man crashed into him and tried to take her
away, but he shouldered the man back into the mob.
Streak clawed his way along the wall to a broken window where he shoved
her through. Then he crawled after her into the downpour. From inside
the saloon came a warning scream, and he looked back. The smashed lamps
had started a fire. Someone threw a smashed keg of whisky into the
flames and a moment later the place was an inferno.
V
Finally, Streak reached the office with the girl. He didn’t dare to
light a lamp but the blazing saloon gave plenty illumination. Clare
Ames was recovered now. She wiped some blood off her face and looked
closely at Streak.
She said, “What is your name?”
“I’m Streak Malone,” he replied.
“You are Keith Delmar,” she said. “No man could look as much like Jim
Delmar and not be his brother.”
Streak Malone hunched forward, staring at her in the light of the
flickering flames. Keith Delmar! No man in the West knew that he was
Keith Delmar--and this woman came out of nowhere to tell him.
“Jim’s wife?” he whispered. “How on earth--”
“You look like Jim,” she said. “I know the whole story--know that you
escaped from a court room, before the jury came back. You should have
waited--the jury disagreed. Jim got new evidence. A gambler, who was
a friend of your step-father, pawned some of the jewelry you were
accused of stealing. It was traced to him, but he was gone. He killed
your step-father--not you, Keith Delmar. The law knows it.”
“For heaven’s sake, keep talkin’!” gasped Streak. “I never knew what
happened, after I leaped from that window in St. Louis, ten years ago.
Where is Jim?”
“That gambler killed him in Medora two years ago,” she whispered. “Jim
lived long enough to tell me--it was the same man. In St. Louis he was
Tom Hall, but I don’t know what name he had in Medora. Jim made him
confess to the murder but, in some way, he managed to shoot Jim. Jim
told me who shot him, but he never gave me the name.”
Clare hesitated, choked, but managed to say, “Jim said to look for the
man with the Mark of Cain.”
“Mark of Cain?” whispered Streak Malone. “Yuh mean--well, what does it
mean--this Mark of Cain?”
“An M, branded on his forehead,” said Clare. “It’s the only solution
I’ve ever heard. I’ve kept going, trying to find that man, but I can’t
find him.”
The door banged open and Mack Shell limped in. He saw them and blurted,
“Thank God, you’re both alive! Streak, I’ve got our two horses out
behind the jail. The devil is dancin’ tonight in Silver Butte, and the
fiddler ain’t been paid yet. There’s a lot of people who never got out
of the Eureka--drunken workmen, a cowboy or two--that little Mazie, the
singer. Somebody said she died in there. That buildin’ next to the
Eureka is gone, too. Only the wind and rain can save the rest of that
side of the street.”
Streak Malone said, “You stay here, Clare. Bar that door and don’t open
it. There’s more work to be done. C’mon, Mack.”
They went out into the rain and they heard Clare drop the heavy bar into
the slots. A man came running, saw them and came back.
He said, “I recognize you now. I’m the superintendent of construction
and I want to tell you that the men have gone crazy. A lot of them
burned in that building, and they blame Brant. They say he had men
start the trouble in the Eureka.”
“What are they going to do?” asked Streak anxiously.
“They’ve got dynamite. It’s the one weapon they understand. I can’t stop
them for they’re seeking revenge. Do what you can, but don’t take too
many chances, because they’re a crazy, drunken mob of men, who will stop
at nothing.”
“We’ve got to stop ’em!” exclaimed Shell. “I’ll see what I can do. Maybe
the buffalo hunters can help us. I’ll try.”
Mack Shell went limping away in the rain. Streak tried to think of some
way to halt the mob, but his mind kept hammering:
“You’re free again, free again, free again! You’re not Streak
Malone--you’re Keith Delmar. The law knows you didn’t kill your
step-father. You’re free again!”
Streak drew a deep breath and went across the street. Smoke still
billowed up from the heaps of hot ashes as the rain hissed down. Streak
was hatless, bleeding from several cuts on his face.
* * * * *
He stopped in front of the Silver Dollar. A crowd had gathered in there,
but they were not drinking or gambling. Streak shoved his way through
the crowd. There was Zero Brant, Conchita, El Chuchilla, Monk Moore and
others. Between them and the crowd was Joe East, the young cowboy from
Shell’s ranch. Joe had no gun, and he had very few clothes. Dirty, torn,
bleeding, he stood there accusing Zero Brant, who hunched forward, his
evil, little eyes watching Joe East. As Streak shoved forward, he heard
Joe say hoarsely:
“You sent one of yore men into the Eureka to start that fight, Brant,
you dirty murderer, and they’re comin’ to get yuh. If I had a gun, I’d
shoot out yore black heart myself.”
Brant, still hunched, his huge hands opening and closing, came slowly
toward Joe East. It was like a gorilla attacking a pigmy. Joe didn’t
move. He seemed incapable of movement. But before Brant could reach him,
Streak Malone stepped out from the crowd and walked between them. Zero
Brant stopped as he considered this new enemy, and his eyes blinked. A
sudden rage seemed to strike him. His brow furrowed, bringing his brows
down over his eyes. There was some sort of a commotion behind Streak,
and he heard Clare’s voice scream:
“The Mark of Cain!”
Streak leaned forward, staring at Brant, who had lifted his head. Those
scars on his forehead, when pulled down in that bestial scowl made a
perfect letter M in the middle of his sloping forehead.
It was then that Brant dived at Streak, trying to clutch him in his
powerful hands. But Streak was watching and sidestepped quickly,
bumping into a man to his left, and Brant almost went into the crowd.
Streak suddenly realized his danger and reached for his gun, but the
man he had bumped into had taken it.
Brant had swung around, aimed a powerful smash at Streak’s head, which
he barely avoided. Then he smashed Brant full in the face with a right
hand that would have knocked most men down, but it only drove Brant’s
head back momentarily. Brant was cut and bleeding now.
Men jostled Streak from behind, and he realized that the odds were
heavily against him. Then Zero Brant came with a bull-like rush, driving
Streak against the crowd, but Streak managed to uppercut him with rights
and lefts, sending him off balance. A man threw a shoulder into Streak’s
back, sending him stumbling ahead, but he recovered and faced Brant
again.
Something whizzed past his ear, and he heard a man cry out with pain.
El Chuchilla had missed his target and pinned the wrong man. Someone
tripped Streak, and at that moment Zero Brant caught one of Streak’s
arms in a viselike grip. Brant was bleeding from a badly-cut eye,
nose and mouth, and he didn’t seem to know what to do, now that he
had caught Streak.
“The wishbone, Streak!” yelled Mack Shell’s voice. “Hit him in the
wishbone!”
Streak’s right hand was free, and he smashed Brant’s nose flat. Again
and again he smashed that nose, until Brant released the hold on
Streak’s left arm, trying to protect himself. Streak drew a deep breath.
Brant had flung both hands up, trying to protect his face, when Streak,
putting every ounce of power into a right hand blow, drove it deep into
Brant’s body, just below the arch of his huge ribs.
Zero Brant’s mouth snapped wide and he grunted with pain. His stomach
was not fortified against such a punch. He sagged, both hands dropping
to his sides, and Streak hit him again in the same spot. But Brant
merely grunted.
With the agility of a monkey, El Chuchilla had reached the top of the
bar, knife in hand, but a pistol cracked, and the little knife-artist
was fairly lifted off the bar by the heavy bullet.
“Get out of here!” a man yelled. “They’re goin’ to dynamite yuh!”
Streak whirled, but at that moment something hit him, and he went
reeling against the wall. It was several minutes before Streak could
realize what had happened. Clare was trying to help him up, and the
place was deserted except for El Chuchilla, behind the bar, and a man
sitting against the wall, looking wearily at life. He was the one El
Chuchilla had hit.
* * * * *
Streak managed to get to his feet on rubbery legs. Gradually the
building stopped whirling, and he could recognize her.
“I’m all right,” he whispered. “Why did you follow me?”
“I had to come,” she said. “I couldn’t stay in the office. You saw the
Mark of Cain on Zero Brant?”
Streak nodded wearily. “Let’s get out,” he said. “We’ve got to help--
somebody.”
They went outside. There was a crowd further down the street, yelling
and cursing.
Streak said, “I forgot the dynamiters. Clare. You go to the office and
wait for me.” He went at a staggering run down the middle of the street.
“Don’t let Brant get away!” he heard someone yell.
A man was running up the street, and Streak called to him. It was Mack
Shell, going back to find Streak, panting, swearing.
“They knocked me down and rolled me plumb into the street!” Shell
panted. “Brant and his woman got away somewhere.”
“The dynamiters?” queried Streak anxiously.
“They ain’t got here yet. We’ve got to find Zero Brant!”
They reached the office and stopped. A revolver exploded somewhere
behind the jail, followed by a yell. Shell exclaimed, “The horses!”
Streak had forgotten that Shell had saddled their horses. They hurried
down the narrow alley. It was quite dark down there.
Streak heard a voice saying huskily, “I came to get you, Brant. You
killed her, so I’ll kill you.”
A six-shooter flamed so close to a man that the sparks splattered off
like water from a hose. A moment later a man was flung almost into them.
It was Joe East, but they didn’t know it. A horse snorted and they heard
Zero Brant’s voice:
“Whoa, you devil!”
The fence suddenly splintered, and a horse lunged almost into Streak and
Shell. It was Ghost, with Zero Brant on his back. The big gambler had
neglected to untie the rope, and the big outlaw was dragging nearly a
panel of the fence with him as they went out through the alley. Streak
and Mack Shell ran in behind them, and saw Ghost whirl in the middle of
the street, that section of fence acting like a scythe.
A crowd of men were coming up the street, yelling, swearing.
“The dynamiters, Streak!” said Mack Shell.
They were almost to the spot, where Ghost had plunged with his swaying
rider. With a scream of rage the big gray horse bucked straight into
that crowd, the roped fence cutting a swath. They broke for cover and
the big gray broke loose from the fence, going into a real bucking
frenzy. They saw Zero Brant crash into the street, and the gray
whirled, looking for more worlds to conquer.
Streak and Mack Shell were the first to reach Zero Brant. The crowd had
been scattered, but they began coming back. The men had the dynamite and
right now they didn’t seem to remember just what they had intended doing
with it. Streak told them, “The man you wanted is dead--here. Pick him
up and carry him to the Silver Dollar.”
One huge man said stubbornly, “I no carry him--he kill my brother.”
“He killed mine, too,” said Streak, and without any further word,
several of them picked up Brant.
They trooped up to the Silver Dollar. Jim Flack was there, and so was
Joe East. Jim Flack looked like he had been sent through a threshing
machine, and Joe East looked worse, but Joe didn’t mind. He had his
arms around Mazie, and Mazie was smiling.
Jim Flack said, “The kid thought Mazie was dead--in the fire--but I
threw her through a window. I guess she must have struck on her head,
because she’s been wandering around in the dark. She’s all right now.”
Clare Ames had followed the crowd over there, and she went to Mazie.
Streak looked around and saw Jim Buskirk. The merchant was carrying
a buffalo gun, and he looked as though he had been burrowing in a
coal-pile.
“I think this town will be all right now,” Buskirk said. “Zero Brant
can’t run it any longer. I guess the rest of his gang got away, but
that’s all right. I believe we’ll agree that Jim Flack is entitled to
the Silver Dollar--since Brant was to blame for wiping out the Eureka.
Is that all right with you, Malone?”
“I’m satisfied,” replied Streak wearily. “Buskirk, can you and yore wife
take in Miss Ames and Mazie for a day or two?”
“You bet we can! I’ll take ’em right down there.”
“You walk ahead and blaze the trail. I’ll take her myself.”
Buskirk grinned through his grime, as he said, “What about Mazie?”
“She’ll get there,” said Joe East huskily, “but she may have to drag
me.”
Mack Shell drew a deep breath, wiped a grimy hand across his face and
said:
“I reckon everythin’ is all right, folks. The marshal has done taken
over for himself.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the Summer, 1948 issue
of _Giant Western_ magazine.]