Free Range Lanning/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV
INVISIBLE BONDS
AFTER that things happened to Andrew in a swirl. They were shaking hands with him. They were congratulating him on the killing of Bill Dozier. They were patting him on the back. Larry la Roche, who had been so hostile, now stood up to the full of his ungainly height and proposed his health. And the other men drank it standing. Andy received a tin cup half full of whisky, and he drank the burning stuff in acknowledgment. The unaccustomed drink went to his head, his muscles began to relax, his eyes swam. Voices boomed at him out of a. haze. "Why, he's only a young kid. One shot put him under the weather."
"Shut up, Larry. He'll learn fast enough."
"Ah, yes," said Larry to himself, "he'll learn fast enough!"
Presently he was lifted and carried by strong arms up a creaking stairs. He looked up, and he saw the red hair of the mighty Jeff, who carried him as if he had been a child, and deposited him among some blankets, with as much care as if he had been a child indeed.
"I didn't know," Larry la Roche was saying. "How could I tell he didn't know how to handle his booze? How could I tell a man-killer like him couldn't stand no more than a girl?"
"Shut up and get out," said another voice. Heavy footsteps retreated, then Andrew heard them once more grumbling and booming below him.
After that his head cleared rapidly. Two windows were open in this higher room, and a sharp current of the night wind blew across him, clearing his mind as rapidly as wind blows away a fog. The alcohol had only stupefied him for the moment. It was not enough to make him sleep, and, instead, it reacted presently as a stimulus, making his heart flutter, while a peculiar sense of depression and guilt troubled him. Now he made out that one man had not left him; the dark outline of him vas by the bed, waiting.
"Who's there?" asked Andrew.
"Allister. Take it easy."
"I'm all right. I'll go down again to the boys."
"That's what I'm here to talk to you about, kid. Are you sure you want to go down?"
He added slowly, "Are you sure your head's clear?"
"Yep. Sure thing."
"Then listen to me, Lanning, while I talk. It's important. Stay here till the morning, then ride on."
"Where?"
"Oh, away from Martindale, that's all."
"Out of the desert? Out of the mountains?"
"Of course. They'll hunt for you here." Allister paused, then went on. "And when you get away what'll you do? Go straight?"
"God willing," said Andrew fervently. "It—it was only luck, bad luck, that put me where I am."
The outlaw scratched a match and lighted a candle; then he dropped a little of the melted tallow on a box, and by that light he peered earnestly into Andrew's face. He appeared to need this light to read the expression on it. It also enabled Andrew to see the bare rafters and the cobwebs across the ceiling, and it showed him the face of Allister. Sometimes the play of shadows made that face unreal as a dream, sometimes the face was filled with poetic beauty, sometimes the light gleamed on the scar and the sardonic smile, and then it was a face out of hell.
"You're going to get away from the mountain desert and go straight," said Allister in résumé.
"That's it." He saw that the outlaw was staring with a smile, half grim and half sad, into the shadows and far away.
"Lanning, let me tell you. You'll never get away."
"You don't understand," said Andrew. "Those fellows downstairs wouldn't have known what I was talking about, but I can explain to you. Allister, I don't like fighting. It—it makes me sick inside. It isn't easy to say, but I'll whisper it to you—Allister, I'm not a brave man!"
He waited to see the contempt come on the face of the famous leader, but there was nothing but grave attention.
"Why," he went on in a rush of confidence, "everybody in Martindale knows that I'm not a fighter. My uncle made me work with guns. He's a fighter. He wanted to make a fighter out of me. But I don't want to be one. I feel friendly toward people, Allister. I want them to like me. When they sneer at me it hurts me like knives. The only reason I ever wanted to do any fighting was just to get the respect of people. Those fellows downstairs think that I'm a sort of bad hombre. I'm not. I want to abide by the law. I want to play clean and straight. Why, Allister, when I turned over Buck Heath and saw his face, I nearly fainted, and then"
"Wait," cut in the other. "That was your first man. You didn't kill him, but you thought you had. You nearly fainted, then. But as I gather it, after you shot Bill Dozier you simply sat on your horse and waited. Did you feel like fainting then?"
"No," explained Andrew hastily. "I wanted to go after them and shoot 'em all. But that was because they'd hounded me and chased me. They could have rushed me and taken me prisoner easily, but they wanted to shoot me from a distance—and it made me mad to see them work it. I—I hated them all, and I had a reason for it. Curse them!"
He added hurriedly: "But I've no grudge against anybody. All I want is a chance to live quiet and clean."
There was a faint sigh from Allister.
"Lanning," he murmured, "I'll tell you a story. Away east from here there was a young chap of a mighty good family, but rather gay habits—nothing vicious. He simply spent a little too much money, and his father didn't approve of it. Well, one day his father gave him twenty dollars to take to another man. Mind that—just twenty dollars. Our young fellow started out, but in the crowd his pocket was picked. It made him sick when he found that he hadn't that money. He knew that his father would put it down to a lie. His father would think that he'd spent that money on himself, and the idea of another row with the governor made the boy sick inside. Just the way you felt about fighting.
"He told himself he couldn't go home until he had that money back. He couldn't face his father, you see? Well, he was pretty young and pretty foolish. He went into an alley that evening, pulled a cloth over his face with eyeholes in it, and waited until a well-dressed fellow came through. He held up that man by putting a little toy pistol under the man's nose. Then he went through his victim's pockets and took twenty dollars—just that, and left over a hundred. And he went away.
"There was a hue and cry, but our young chap was safe at home in one of the most respectable families in the city. Who'd think of looking there?
"But one night at a party—a sort of town dance, you see, our young chap was talking in one of the anterooms. Pretty soon a big fellow stepped up and drew him to one side. 'Youngster, I recognized your voice,' he said. 'You're the one who stuck me up in the alley and got twenty bucks from me, eh?'
"Of course, our friend could have denied it. But he didn't think of that. He was afraid. He turned white. Then he took out twenty dollars and put it into the other man's hand. 'It was a joke,' he said. 'Forget about it.' 'Sure,' said the other. 'It was a joke.'
"But ten days later the victim of the holdup came again. He was in trouble. He wanted a hundred dollars. And the young chap had to get that money—otherwise he'd be exposed.
"And a week after that there was another call for money. It came while the youngster was in the garden of the girl he loved, talking to her. This big chap looked over the hedge and called. He had to come. He was afraid. Also, he was cold inside. But his nerves were steady. He was frightened to death, he was white, but his brain was clear. Ever feel like that, Lanning?"
"Go on," said Andrew hoarsely.
"He said to the big man, 'Go away from here, or I'll kill you.' Of course, the big man laughed. And the hands of the youngster went up of their own accord and fastened in that fellow's throat. There wasn't a sound. But in one minute he had become a murderer. All the time he was frightened to death, but he felt that he had to kill that man.
"Then he ran. He got on a train. He went two thousand miles. He stayed in a small town a month, then the police were on his trail. He broke away. He went on a ship to the other side of the world. The police dropped in on him, and, in one terrible ten seconds, he shot down and killed three men. He doubled straight back on his trail. He landed in the mountain desert. All he wanted was a chance to play clean—to settle down and be a good citizen. But the law wouldn't let him. It kept dogging him. It kept haunting him. And whereever it crossed his path there was a little cross of blood. And, finally, a good many years later, this youngster of ours, grown into a man, sat in an attic of an old shanty and told another youngster what was coming to him."
"You!" breathed Andrew.
"I," said Allister calmly. "And this is what you have to hear: All the time I thought that I was trying to run away from trouble, but really I was hungry for the fighting. I wanted the excitement. What I thought was fear was simply a set of nerves which could be tuned up to a thrilling point, but which would never break. I'll tell you why. I had the metal in me from the first. In the blood; in my muscles. A queer sort of foreknowledge of things. Lanning, the moment I lay eyes on a man I know whether I can beat him or not. I even know whether his bullet will strike me. Queer, isn't it? And when I meet the man who is going to kill me in a fair fight, I'll know I'm a dead man before the bullet goes through my heart. Oh, it's nothing altogether peculiar to me. I've talked with other men of the ilk. It's a characteristic; it's in my blood; it's iron dust inside me, that's all."
Andrew caught a great breath.
"Now I'll tell you why I say all this, Lanning. The minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you were one of my kind. In all my life I've known only one other with that same chilly effect in his eyes—that was Marshal Langley—only he happened to be on the side of the law. No matter. He had the iron dust in him. He was cut out to be a man-killer. You say you want to get away: Lanning, you can't do it. Because you can't get away from yourself. I'm making a long talk to you, but you're worth it. I tell you I read your mind. You plan on riding north and getting out of the mountain desert before the countryside there is raised against you, the way it's raised to the south. In the first place, I don't think you'll get away. Hal Dozier is on your trail, and he'll get to the north and raise the whole district and stop you before you hit the towns. You'll have to go back to the mountain desert. You'll have to do it eventually, why not do it now? Lanning, if I had you at my back I could laugh at the law the rest of our lives! Stay with me. I can tell a man when I see him. I saw you call Larry la Roche. And I've never wanted a man the way I want you. Not to follow me, but as a partner. Shake and say you will!"
The slender hand was stretched out through the shadows, the light from the candle flashed on it. And a power outside his own will made Andrew move his hand to meet it. He stopped the gesture with a violent effort.
The swift voice of the outlaw, with a fiber of earnest persuasion in it, went on: 'You see what I risk to get you. Hal Dozier is on your trail. He's the only man in the world I'd think twice about before I met him face to face. But if I join to you, I'll have to meet him sooner or later. Well, Lanning, I'll take that risk. I know he's more devil than man when it comes to gun play, but we'll meet him together. Give me your hand!"
There was a riot in the brain of Andrew Lanning. The words of the outlaw had struck something in him that was like metal chiming on metal. Iron dust? That was it! The call of one blood to another, and he realized the truth of what Allister said. If he touched the hand of this man, there would be a bond between them which only death could break. In one blinding rush he sensed the strength and the faith of Allister.
But another voice was at his ear, and he saw the crystal purity of the eyes of Anne Withero, as she had stood for that moment in his arms in her room. It came over him with a chill like cold moonlight; it came over him with a chill like the bouquet of a fine wine.
"Do you fear me?" he had whispered.
"No."
"Will you remember me?"
"Forever!"
And with that ghost of a voice in his ear Andrew Lanning groaned to the man beside him: "Partner, I know you're nine-tenths man, and I thank you out of the bottom of my heart. But there's some one else has a claim to me—I don't belong to myself." There was a breathless pause. Anger contracted the face of Henry Allister; he nodded gravely.
"It's the girl you went back to see," he said.
"Yes."
"Well, then, go ahead and try to win through. Try to get out of the desert and get away among men. I wish you luck. But if you fail, remember what I've said. Now, or ten years from now, what I've said goes for you. Now roll over and sleep. Good-by, Lanning, or, rather, au revoir!"