Brand, Max - 1925 Read online

  "Perhaps it would, but for the West a man needs some sort of equipment... horses, guns, traps, and what not. A trader needs capital. That's the main reason that has brought me here."

  I saw Uncle Abner's face change color. "I suppose you do," he said in a weak voice.

  "Now," said Will Dorset, "I left you a thousand to put into your farm or keep for my boy, just as you pleased, and I left you another five hundred to be kept in hard cash, ready at all times in case I might ever need it. You remember you agreed to that?"

  "I remember," said Abner, "I agreed under the condition the boy didn't cost more than a thousand...."

  "You agreed," cut in my father, "with no conditions. But now that I've come for the money, you'll tell me that you had to spend it on him?"

  "A hundred dollars a year," said Uncle Abner in a fumbling voice, "isn't much to spend...."

  "A hundred dollars a year!" cried my father, standing up. "Why, your whole family lives on less than that, and always has, while you, like a miser, count up the pennies. You've taken that money, then?"

  "Will," said my uncle, "I want to be calm and talk...."

  "I want money, not talk. Will you get it for me?"

  "Whatever I have...."

  "Two hundred dollars. I'll compromise for that amount."

  "Two hundred dollars! What little I have is tied up...."

  "By the heavens," said my father, "I don't believe it. Yonder in that old chest you used to keep spare cash, and a good deal of it."

  Uncle Abner turned white. Then he raised his hand. "listen," he said, and off through the night we could hear the baying of bloodhounds in a deep chorus. "They've put the dogs on your track, Will!"

  "Damn the dogs," he said. "What I want and what I'll have is a sufficient supply of cash, and you'll give it to me. That chest...."

  "You're wrong, Will."

  "You fool, I've seen you put money into it myself, when you thought I was sleeping on the far side of the room. I'll have a look at it now."

  He started forward, and Uncle Abner, with a wild cry, snatched up a rifle. He had not time to get to the trigger. But he used it as a club. It was an old-fashioned, heavy gun, and Uncle Abner, as I've said, was a giant. But it seemed to me that my father put aside that blow as if it were delivered with a feather. He stepped in and struck with that knotted fist, and Abner slumped down against the wall.

  There was a big maul nearby, used for driving posts and all manner of heavy work. It had a twenty-five pound head, but my father lifted and whirled it as though it were nothing. At the first blow the lock on the chest bulged. At the second it snapped, and the lid of the chest heaved open.

  Inside there was a litter of papers and books and small boxes. Among the latter my father worked. He did not pause to unlock them. He simply crushed them in his great fingers and broke them open as I could have broken kindling wood. At last he jumped up with a shout, and there was a little time-soiled canvas bag in his hand.

  "Good bye, Abner," he said. "This will do for me."

  I shouted with all my might as I saw him going for the door: "Father! Oh, Father!"

  But just then, as I jumped through the trap door, the wind came fresh, and the whole chorus of the big hound pack boomed and crashed around the house and drowned my voice. I saw Father tear the door open and leap out into the darkness. I tried to follow him, but a long arm reached out, a big hand caught me, and dragged me back. Uncle Abner had recovered his senses in time to make at least one arrest.

  YOUNG DORSET'S ESCAPE

  I remember, in a wild yarn Aunt Agnes once read to me, there was an account of how a fisherman in a small boat was surprised at his lines by a white, slimy, greasy arm that writhed like a snake over the edge of his craft and fixed itself upon him by means of suckers. How he pulled against that flexible arm, and how his effort simply made the arm grip deeper, burning the flesh that it touched. How another arm came to join the first, wrapped about his body, and drew him to the gunwale over which, staring down into pale green surface water, he saw a flat, shapeless face with two huge saucer eyes. Toward that shadowy creature the arms were drawing him. He had one hand free. With it, he seized upon a wide-bladed hatchet that was near and hewed at the creature's limbs, and other arms were flung out to aid the first crippled ones.

  Such a nightmare of fear came writhing up in me while I listened to that story that I had jumped to my feet and shouted: "Aunt Agnes! Did the devilfish get him? Don't read any more .. .just tell me!"

  It was a horror somewhat like this I felt when the great hand of Uncle Abner seized upon me and dragged me down to the floor. I writhed in his grip. I smashed at his face. It was like striking at a stone image. What was my boy's might compared to his seasoned power? He crushed me in his arms and sneered down at me.

  "They'll get him. You rest easy, son. They'll get him. This time it'll be hanging, and no doubt about it. He's left dead men behind him on his trail, the fool."

  I remember feeling then, in spite of my fury and my hate and the exquisite agony of my desire to get out to my fleeing father and help him against the posse, that if Uncle Abner killed a man, the outer world would never have a chance to learn of it. He would accomplish the most terrible of crimes not boldly, face to face as my poor father had done, but by stealth and from behind. No one would know. And the next Sunday he would be praying with the loudest voice in the church.

  I had such a loathing for the man come upon me, I could only bow my head and submit to his grip. In the meantime the hunt reached the little house and roared past. I heard the beating of the horses' hoofs and the shouting of men, making a great undertone beneath the clamoring of the dogs. It seemed a fitting thing to me that such a man as my father, having gone on his way through the country, should drag behind him a wake of this sort, full of hatred and blind fury. I remember that I rejoiced because of the greatness of his strength - because to a boy nothing seems really worthwhile but strong hands and a stout heart.

  When the leaders of the hunt had poured past, some of the tag-enders kicked open the door of the house and lunged in upon us. There must have been a score of men who swept around the shack and searched every cranny in it. Heaven alone could tell how many men had gone ahead with the main body of the hunt. Virginia has always loved the chase, whether of beast or of man. And the pursuit of my father was not that of some cowed slave, but of a whole-hearted man who could strike in his self-defense, as Will Dorset had already done and left blood behind him.

  The men who rushed into the house showed me the most demoniacal faces I had ever seen. I was filled with terror. They stormed through the building. They herded my Aunt Agnes out into the one big room with the rest of us. They even tore up the flooring and went into the dark little cellar in their hunt for the lost man. They reminded me of nothing so much as of ferrets, red-eyed with the blood lust, blind to greater dangers.

  I had always thought of myself as brave, even very brave. I had wondered what danger in the world could unnerve me and make me helpless, as fear made some boys when I attacked them - turning them into hulks to be pummeled or booted about at my pleasure. But I understood now what it was. I was sick at the stomach and dizzy of brain, so great was my fear. One of the biggest, a brute with an unshaven face and little pig eyes, glittering with excitement, caught me by the nape of the neck and wrenched me out upon the floor of the room.

  "Here's the little Dorset, and, by the heavens, he'll grow up like the big ones! If I had my way, I'd take 'em, old and young, and stretch their necks. They'll never come to no good. Little that they'll ever do for the world."

  By his looks, but more by what he had to say, I knew that this was a Connell. Another from the crowd caught at my shoulder and wrenched me around.

  "Hey, you young vermin," he shouted, "has your pa been here? D'you hear me?"

  I was too sick with fear to speak. I could only stare at him. My throat was as dry as though a handful of sand had been poured down it.

  The man drew back his fist and struck me
in the face. "There's the Dorset blood for you," he said. "Wild horses couldn't draw out of him what he knows about his clan."

  There was one place where fear was given all the credit that could have been offered to courage. They turned on Uncle Abner then, and he talked freely enough. What he said was a mere tissue. of lies. Partly I suppose, he wanted to win the favor of the crowd by showing that he was very little of a Dorset, at the best. Partly, too, he wanted to prevent the return of my father, because he feared further claims made on that stolen money which he - the hypocrite - claimed had been spent upon me. At any rate, he told them freely that my father had been there, stated that he himself, at the point of a gun, had been forced unwillingly to bring food to the fugitive, and declared that my poor father had expressed a determination to go West and there strive to find a new life.

  "If he has that in his mind," said Uncle Abner, "he'll head straight up the river, I guess. If you're in doubt, you ought to go straight up the banks. That'll bring you to him if anything will."

  They could not doubt his sincerity. They left almost at once with a great rush for there was a high price offered for the head of Will Dorset, and that reward, even more than the excitement of a manhunt, had brought out such a crowd on this dark night. I tried to squeeze out on the heels of the others, but Uncle Abner caught me and pulled me back. There was such a devil in his face that Aunt Agnes stammered at him and asked him, with a shaking voice, what he intended to do with me. He told her, with an oath, to get off to bed and lock her door if she wanted to keep trouble out.

  She ran into her room, then, and slammed the door. I think she dreaded my uncle more than she dreaded God, and yet she was a very religious woman. But from what I have seen of the hearts of men and women, they are more governed by dread than by anything else - except hatred. Yes, I suppose that love is a stronger thing than either, now and then, but as a rule love comes in a flash and disappears again, but hate or dread can rule all of a life, as it had ruled Aunt Agnes. She married my uncle from fear of him; she had been his slave for nearly twenty years for the same reason. He gave her wages of one kind word a month, and that was all. I did not understand it then, but now that I have had time to think over it, I feel that nothing I have seen in my travels and my wild life was half so dreadful as the existence of my poor aunt.

  When I was alone with Uncle Abner, he turned to me with a ghastly smile on his face. He was fairly drunk with rage and with the opportunity of spending it. He had been knocked down and abused. He had had his hoard of money broken open, and the greater part of it seized. He had been shamed and disgraced. All of these harms he was to take out on me, and I have never seen such a devilish relish for the work as was in his face. He was trembling from head to foot. His very lips were shaking, and now his tongue lolled out and went across his lips. He went, to the gratification of his rage like a starved glutton, approaching a table loaded with a feast.

  I knew that after he had struck me one blow he would go mad with the pleasure of it and kill me or, worse, maim me for life. He began to stroke my head, and the tips of his fingers were like iron, and there was still that loose-lipped devil's smile upon his mouth.

  It may seem strange that I was not afraid of him. But that is the fact. Or perhaps there is a super fear above and beyond ordinary terror, just as there are calls and cries in the insect world, so shrill and high that they pass through the human ear and are not heard at all. I was cold with dread, but I was not trembling. I had possession of my body and my nerves. I could think swiftly and surely. There was no one to call to. I was alone with this brute, and he was so much more powerful than I, at least in this frenzy of his, that he was able to take my two wrists with one hand and keep them frozen there in helplessness.

  I knew, too, that, if I showed the slightest fear of him, I should instantly feel all of his cruel strength. I had to avoid that, and I had to smile. And smile I did. You will think it strange. But I tell you on my honesty that I could have laughed aloud, if laughter would have served my purpose. But I did smile steadily into his face. And that made him hesitate. It takes a super devil to harm a thing mat seems to trust it, but my uncle was a super devil, indeed. Presently I saw the black madness coming back across his face and, at the same time, there was a change in the wind that had been blowing steadily up the river. It altered now and struck straight down the valley, bearing with it a great clamoring of the hounds. I could hear the yell of Trelawney's big, spotted boar hound above the rest.

  "Uncle Abner! Uncle Anner!" I cried up to that awful face of his. "They have overtaken Father. They have turned him back... and he's ninning this way again! Hell come here for shelter, and that'll bring the crowd after him. What'll we do, Uncle Abner? What'll we do?"

  The last of this I let out in a wail of terror into which I put all the agony of fear that was already in me. Uncle Abner turned his back for a second to listen, while the wind carried the clamor of the dogs loudly about us. I feared that he might see, as I had seen, that it was the wind and not the approach of the dogs themselves, but his mind was too clouded by his passion to make any nice observance. He cast me away from him with a sweep of the hand that sent me crashing against the wall, and he reached for his rifle.

  There was no doubt about the welcome that he intended to extend to my poor father, if he returned. At that moment, however, the wind fell away after a breath of quiet. We could hear the yelling of the dogs as far away as ever. He saw that he had been tricked, and he turned to me with a shout of fury, but I was already at the door.

  "You hell brat!" screamed Uncle Abner, and lunged at me. His great claw reached me just as I jerked the door open. The feel of his finger tips, even through my shirt, was like the feel of red hot irons grinding into my flesh, but I was already underway. If the shirt had been strong cloth - the sort of shirt I should have been wearing, if his story to my father about money spent on me had been true - he would have snatched me back. But that shin was worn to tatters and rubbed thin with many washings. It gave like the rotten thing it was, and I, naked to the waist, leaped away into the night.

  ADVENTURE

  He followed me for a dozen strides, but he might as well have lumbered after a whippet, for I was off in an ecstasy of speed, winging away like a driving hawk. I heard him shout and threaten to shoot. The trees were only six leaps away, and I bounded among them as the rifle crashed behind me. There was one crackle as the bullet cut through the branches before me. Then I was alone, racing for life.

  I was sixteen years old, lean and hard as a hunting dog, and with the wind of a foxhound. After the first wild burst had taken me half a mile from the house, I stood leaning against a tree, taking my breath, and listening. After a time I made out the far, far cry of the hounds, still going up the river, and that was a great comfort to me. For I told myself that, if a man like my father had managed to keep his distance as long as that, they would never catch him. He would use his wits to baffle them. In the meantime the great desire in my heart was to join him, and mat I could never manage to do, at present, because between us was my uncle, like an angry ghost, and beyond my uncle was the troop of men and their dogs. What was best for me was to keep straight on and put as much solid ground between me and my uncle as I could possibly manage. Now that my panting had died away, I could hear the forest whispering, and a whippoorwill was calling sadly somewhere near me, and the sharp, sweet breath of the pines was blowing about me. When I lifted up my face, I saw beyond the blackness of the trees the night blue of the sky, dotted with the gold of the stars.

  I cannot find the right words to say what I felt, except that it was like taking my soul out of an old body and putting it into a new one. I suppose that most of you have heard the story of Beauty and the Beast, and how the Beast was transformed into a handsome prince in the end? I felt as the prince must have felt when he was restored to his true self. Freedom made that difference to me. And now, dressed up with a bright new life, all my existence with Uncle Abner was a nightmare - one forgets a nightm
are under the brightness of the sun.

  I started on again, running steadily down the river. There was no weariness in me; there was no fatigue. Freedom made my toes as light as feathers. I simply swung along on wings, following the road nearest to the river for miles and miles, while the river widened, and then the salt freshness of the sea was in the air.

  After a vast length of hours, when even my newly found strength was playing out, I saw a rim of gray across the horizon, and, far off in front of me, the stars seemed to be spread out on the ground, so that I knew I was near the harbor. At that, I crawled away in the brush and curled up in a sheltered spot and went to sleep. Sleep, you will say, naked to the waist, soaked with perspiration, with my back raw from the last whipping? Oh, yes, that was nothing to me. My skin was a rough leather in those days. Nothing troubled me. I expected to sleep until noon, but in a couple of hours I sat up wide awake, shuddering with the chill of the morning which had eaten its way down to my very bones. Up the road nearby I heard the cheerful clattering of a horse's hoofs. The first picture that shot across my mind was of my uncle, riding in pursuit, with his long rifle balanced across the pommel of his saddle. So I went up a tree like any squirrel and looked out. It was not Uncle Abner. I might have known that no horse he owned was capable of covering ground at such a round pace. It was a young fellow of seventeen or eighteen, riding a fine young horse that fairly danced along over the ground. But more to me than the beauty of the horse were the clothes the rider wore. He had on a thick woolen coat and mittens on his hands. He was wearing strong boots and trousers of as stout a material as the coat. At the neck I could see that his shirt was of thick flannel. And here was I, trembling in a treetop with the wind piercing my naked body.

  No pirate ever felt a greater touch of joy when he saw the huge sails of some rich merchant ship, sagging down the horizon. I dropped into the lower part of the tree and ran out on a great limb that hung over the road. There I lay, stretched out flat on my belly. I kicked off my shoes, so that I could grip with toes as well as fingers. Like a mountain lion I watched him come. He was whistling. His face was red with the raw morning air. He was so full of good spirits and good food that he could not keep in his self-content. When he was just beneath, I shouted. I could not help it. It was the pure excess of savagery as I dropped, and he looked up in time to see me spread-eagled in the air with my hands stretched out at him like the talons of a bird.