Produced by Suzanne Shell, Richard Prairie, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders BLACK JACK Max Brand 1922 CHAPTER 1 It was characteristic of the two that when the uproar broke out Vance Cornish raised his eyes, but went on lighting his pipe. Then his sister Elizabeth ran to the window with a swish of skirts around her long legs. After the first shot there was a lull. The little cattle town was as peaceful as ever with its storm-shaken houses staggering away down the street. A boy was stirring up the dust of the street, enjoying its heat with his bare toes, and the same old man was bunched in his chair in front of the store. During the two days Elizabeth had been in town on her cattle- buying trip, she had never see him alter his position. But she was accustomed to the West, and this advent of sleep in the town did not satisfy her. A drowsy town, like a drowsy-looking cow-puncher, might be capable of unexpected things. "Vance," she said, "there's trouble starting." "Somebody shooting at a target," he answered. As if to mock him, he had no sooner spoken than a dozen voices yelled down the street in a wailing chorus cut short by the rapid chattering of revolvers. Vance ran to the window. Just below the hotel the street made an elbow-turn for no particular reason except that the original cattle- trail had made exactly the same turn before Garrison City was built. Toward the corner ran the hubbub at the pace of a running horse. Shouts, shrill, trailing curses, and the muffled beat of hoofs in the dust. A rider plunged into view now, his horse leaning far in to take the sharp angle, and the dust skidding out and away from his sliding hoofs. The rider gave easily and gracefully to the wrench of his mount. And he seemed to have a perfect trust in his horse, for he rode with the reins hanging over the horns of his saddle. His hands were occupied by a pair of revolvers, and he was turned in the saddle. The head of the pursuing crowd lurched around the elbow-turn; fire spat twice from the mouth of each gun. Two men dropped, one rolling over and over in the dust, and the other sitting down and clasping his leg in a ludicrous fashion. But the crowd was checked and fell back. By this time the racing horse of the fugitive had carried him close to the hotel, and now he faced the front, a handsome fellow with long black hair blowing about his face. He wore a black silk shirt which accentuated the pallor of his face and the flaring crimson of his bandanna. And he laughed joyously, and the watchers from the hotel window heard him call: "Go it, Mary. Feed 'em dust, girl!" The pursuers had apparently realized that it was useless to chase. Another gust of revolver shots barked from the turning of the street, and among them a different and more sinister sound like the striking of two great hammers face on face, so that there was a cold ring of metal after the explosion--at least one man had brought a rifle to bear. Now, as the wild rider darted past the hotel, his hat was jerked from his head by an invisible hand. He whirled again in the saddle and his guns raised. As he turned, Elizabeth Cornish saw something glint across the street. It was the gleam of light on the barrel of a rifle that was thrust out through the window of the store. That long line of light wobbled, steadied, and fire jetted from the mouth of the gun. The black-haired rider spilled sidewise out of the saddle; his feet came clear of the stirrups, and his right leg caught on the cantle. He was flung rolling in the dust, his arms flying weirdly. The rifle disappeared from the window and a boy's set face looked out. But before the limp body of the fugitive had stopped rolling, Elizabeth Cornish dropped into a chair, sick of face. Her brother turned his back on the mob that closed over the dead man and looked at Elizabeth in alarm. It was not the first time he had seen the result of a gunplay, and for that matter it was not the first time for Elizabeth. Her emotion upset him more than the roar of a hundred guns. He managed to bring her a glass of water, but she brushed it away so that half of the contents spilled on the red carpet of the room. "He isn't dead, Vance. He isn't dead!" she kept saying. "Dead before he left the saddle," replied Vance, with his usual calm. "And if the bullet hadn't finished him, the fall would have broken his neck. But--what in the world! Did you know the fellow?" He blinked at her, his amazement growing. The capable hands of Elizabeth were pressed to her breast, and out of the thirty-five years of spinsterhood which had starved her face he became aware of eyes young and dark, and full of spirit; by no means the keen, quiet eyes of Elizabeth Cornish. "Do something," she cried. "Go down, and--if they've murdered him--" He literally fled from the room. All the time she was seeing nothing, but she would never forget what she had seen, no matter how long she lived. Subconsciously she was fighting to keep the street voices out of her mind. They were saying things she did not wish to hear, things she would not hear. Finally, she recovered enough to stand up and shut the window. That brought her a terrible temptation to look down into the mass of men in the street--and women, too! But she resisted and looked up. The forms of the street remained obscurely in the bottom of her vision, and made her think of something she had seen in the woods--a colony of ants around a dead beetle. Presently the door opened and Vance came back. He still seemed very worried, but she forced herself to smile at him, and at once his concern disappeared; it was plain that he had been troubled about her and not in the slightest by the fate of the strange rider. She kept on smiling, but for the first time in her life she really looked at Vance without sisterly prejudice in his favor. She saw a good-natured face, handsome, with the cheeks growing a bit blocky, though Vance was only twenty-five. He had a glorious forehead and fine eyes, but one would never look twice at Vance in a crowd. She knew suddenly that her brother was simply a well-mannered mediocrity. "Thank the Lord you're yourself again, Elizabeth," her brother said first of all. "I thought for a moment--I don't know what!" "Just the shock, Vance," she said. Ordinarily she was well-nigh brutally frank. Now she found it easy to lie and keep on smiling. "It was such a horrible thing to see!" "I suppose so. Caught you off balance. But I never knew you to lose your grip so easily. Well, do you know what you've seen?" "He's dead, then?" He locked sharply at her. It seemed to him that a tremor of unevenness had come into her voice. "Oh, dead as a doornail, Elizabeth. Very neat shot. Youngster that dropped him; boy named Joe Minter. Six thousand dollars for Joe. Nice little nest egg to build a fortune on, eh?" "Six thousand dollars! What do you mean, Vance?" "The price on the head of Jack Hollis. That was Hollis, sis. The celebrated Black Jack." "But--this is only a boy, Vance. He couldn't have been more than twenty- five years old." "That's all." "But I've heard of him for ten years, very nearly. And always as a man- killer. It can't be Black Jack." "I said the same thing, but it's Black Jack, well enough. He started out when he was sixteen, they say, and he's been raising the devil ever since. You should have seen them pick him up--as if he were asleep, and not dead. What a body! Lithe as a panther. No larger than I am, but they say he was a giant with his hands." He was lighting his cigarette as he said this, and consequently he did not see her eyes close tightly. A moment later she was able to make her expression as calm as ever. "Came into town to see his baby," went on Vance through the smoke. "Little year-old beggar!" "Think of the mother," murmured Elizabeth Cornish. "I want to do something for her." "You can't," replied her brother, with unnecessary brutality. "Because she's dead. A little after the youngster was born. I believe Black Jack broke her heart, and a very pleasant sort of girl she was, they tell me." "What will become of the baby?" "It will live and grow up," he said carelessly. "They always do, somehow. Make another like his father, I suppose. A few years of fame in the mountain saloons, and then a knife in the back." The meager body of Elizabeth stiffened. She was finding it less easy to maintain her nonchalant smile. "Why?" "Why? Blood will out, like murder, sis." "Nonsense! All a matter of environment." "Have you ever read the story of the Jukes family?" "An accident. Take a son out of the best family in the world and raise him like a thief--he'll be a thief. And the thief's son can be raised to an honest manhood. I know it!" She was seeing Black Jack, as he had raced down the street with the black hair blowing about his face. Of such stuff, she felt, the knights of another age had been made. Vance was raising a forefinger in an authoritative way he had. "My dear, before that baby is twenty-five--that was his father's age--he'll have shot a man. Bet you on it!" "I'll take your bet!" The retort came with such a ring of her voice that he was startled. Before he could recover, she went on: "Go out and get that baby for me, Vance. I want it." He tossed his cigarette out of the window. "Don't drop into one of your headstrong moods, sis. This is nonsense." "That's why I want to do it. I'm tired of playing the man. I've had enough to fill my mind. I want something to fill my arms and my heart." She drew up her hands with a peculiar gesture toward her shallow, barren bosom, and then her brother found himself silenced. At the same time he was a little irritated, for there was an imputation in her speech that she had been carrying the burden which his own shoulders should have supported. Which was so true that he could not answer, and therefore he cast about for some way of stinging her. "I thought you were going to escape the sentimental period, Elizabeth. But sooner or later I suppose a woman has to pass through it." A spot of color came in her sallow cheek. "That's sufficiently disagreeable, Vance." A sense of his cowardice made him rise to conceal his confusion. "I'm going to take you at your word, sis. I'm going out to get that baby. I suppose it can be bought--like a calf!" He went deliberately to the door and laid his hand on the knob. He had a rather vicious pleasure in calling her bluff, but to his amazement she did not call him back. He opened the door slowly. Still she did not speak. He slammed it behind him and stepped into the hall. CHAPTER 2 Twenty-four years made the face of Vance Cornish a little better-fed, a little more blocky of cheek, but he remained astonishingly young. At forty-nine the lumpish promise of his youth was quite gone. He was in a trim and solid middle age. His hair was thinned above the forehead, but it gave him more dignity. On the whole, he left an impression of a man who has done things and who will do more before he is through. He shifted his feet from the top of the porch railing and shrugged himself deeper into his chair. It was marvelous how comfortable Vance could make himself. He had one great power--the ability to sit still through any given interval. Now he let his eye drift quietly over the Cornish ranch. It lay entirely within one grasp of the vision, spilling across the valley from Sleep Mountain, on the lower bosom of which the house stood, to Mount Discovery on the north. Not that the glance of Vance Cornish lurched across this bold distance. His gaze wandered as slowly as a free buzzes across a clover field, not knowing on which blossom to settle. Below him, generously looped, Bear Creek tumbled out of the southeast, and roved between noble borders of silver spruce into the shadows of the Blue Mountains of the north, half a dozen miles across and ten long of grazing and farm land, rich, loamy bottom land scattered with aspens. Beyond, covering the gentle roll of the foothills, was grazing land. Scattering lodgepole pine began in the hills, and thickened into dense yellow-green thickets on the upper mountain slopes. And so north and north the eye of Vance Cornish wandered and climbed until it rested on the bald summit of Mount Discovery. It had its name out of its character, standing boldly to the south out of the jumble of the Blue Mountains. It was a solid unit, this Cornish ranch, fenced away with mountains, watered by a river, pleasantly forested, and obviously predestined for the ownership of one man. Vance Cornish, on the porch of the house, felt like an enthroned king overlooking his dominions. As a matter of fact, his holdings were hardly more than nominal. In the beginning his father had left the ranch equally to Vance and Elizabeth, thickly plastered with debts. The son would have sold the place for what they could clear. He went East to hunt for education and pleasure; his sister remained and fought the great battle by herself. She consecrated herself to the work, which implied that the work was sacred. And to her, indeed, it was. She was twenty-two and her brother twelve when their father died. Had she been a tithe younger and her brother a mature man, it would have been different. As it was, she felt herself placed in a maternal position with Vance. She sent him away to school, rolled up her sleeves and started to order chaos. In place of husband, children--love and the fruits of love-- she accepted the ranch. The dam between the rapids and the waterfall was the child of her brain; the plowed fields of the central part of the valley were her reward. In ten years of constant struggle she cleared away the debts. And then, since Vance gave her nothing but bills to pay, she began to buy out his interest. He chose to learn his business lessons on Wall Street. Elizabeth paid the bills, but she checked the sums against his interest in the ranch. And so it went on. Vance would come out to the ranch at intervals and show a brief, feverish interest, plan a new set of irrigation canals, or a sawmill, or a better road out over the Blue Mountains. But he dropped such work half-done and went away. Elizabeth said nothing. She kept on paying his bills, and she kept on cutting down his interest in the old Cornish ranch, until at the present time he had only a finger-tip hold. Root and branch, the valley and all that was in it belonged to Elizabeth Cornish. She was proud of her possession, though she seldom talked of her pride. Nevertheless, Vance knew, and smiled. It was amusing, because, after all, what she had done, and all her work, would revert to him at her death. Until that time, why should he care in whose name the ranch remained so long as his bills were paid? He had not worked, but in recompense he had remained young. Elizabeth had labored all her youth away. At forty-nine he was ready to begin the most important part of his career. At sixty his sister was a withered old ghost of a woman. He fell into a pleasant reverie. When Elizabeth died, he would set in some tennis courts beside the house, buy some blooded horses, cut the road wide and deep to let the world come up Bear Creek Valley, and retire to the life of a country gentleman. His sister's voice cut into his musing. She had two tones. One might be called her social register. It was smooth, gentle--the low-pitched and controlled voice of a gentlewoman. The other voice was hard and sharp. It could drive hard and cold across a desk, and bring businessmen to an understanding that here was a mind, not a woman. At present she used her latter tone. Vance Cornish came into a shivering consciousness that she was sitting beside him. He turned his head slowly. It was always a shock to come out of one of his pleasant dreams and see that worn, hollow-eyed, impatient face. "Are you forty-nine, Vance?" "I'm not fifty, at least," he countered. She remained imperturbable, looking him over. He had come to notice that in the past half-dozen years his best smiles often failed to mellow her expression. He felt that something disagreeable was coming. "Why did Cornwall run away this morning? I hoped to take him on a trip." "He had business to do." His diversion had been a distinct failure, and had been turned against him. For she went on: "Which leads to what I have to say. You're going back to New York in a few days, I suppose?" "No, my dear. I haven't been across the water for two years." "Paris?" "Brussels. A little less grace; a little more spirit." "Which means money." "A few thousand only. I'll be back by fall." "Do you know that you'll have to mortgage your future for that money, Vance?" He blinked at her, but maintained his smile under fire courageously. "Come, come! Things are booming. You told me yesterday what you'd clean up on the last bunch of Herefords." When she folded her hands, she was most dangerous, he knew. And now the bony fingers linked and she shrugged the shawl more closely around her shoulders. "We're partners, aren't we?" smiled Vance. "Partners, yes. You have one share and I have a thousand. But--you don't want to sell out your final claim, I suppose?" His smile froze. "Eh?" "If you want to get those few thousands, Vance, you have nothing to put up for them except your last shreds of property. That's why I say you'll have to mortgage your future for money from now on." "But--how does it all come about?" "I've warned you. I've been warning you for twenty-five years, Vance." Once again he attempted to turn her. He always had the impression that if he became serious, deadly serious for ten consecutive minutes with his sister, he would be ruined. He kept on with his semi-jovial tone. "There are two arts, Elizabeth. One is making money and the other is spending it. You've mastered one and I've mastered the other. Which balances things, don't you think?" She did not melt; he waved down to the farm land. "Watch that wave of wind, Elizabeth." A gust struck the scattering of aspens, and turned up the silver of the dark green leaves. The breeze rolled across the trees in a long, rippling flash of light. But Elizabeth did not look down. Her glance was fixed on the changeless snow of Mount Discovery's summit. "As long as you have something to spend, spending is a very important art, Vance. But when the purse is empty, it's a bit useless, it seems to me." "Well, then, I'll have to mortgage my future. As a matter of fact, I suppose I could borrow what I want on my prospects." A veritable Indian yell, instantly taken up and prolonged by a chorus of similar shouts, cut off the last of his words. Round the corner of the house shot a blood-bay stallion, red as the red of iron under the blacksmith's hammer, with a long, black tail snapping and flaunting behind him, his ears flattened, his beautiful vicious head outstretched in an effort to tug the reins out of the hands of the rider. Failing in that effort, he leaped into the air like a steeplechaser and pitched down upon stiffened forelegs. The shock rippled through the body of the rider and came to his head with a snap that jerked his chin down against his breast. The stallion rocked back on his hind legs, whirled, and then flung himself deliberately on his back. A sufficiently cunning maneuver--first stunning the enemy with a blow and then crushing him before his senses returned. But he landed on nothing save hard gravel. The rider had whipped out of the saddle and stood poised, strong as the trunk of a silver spruce. The fighting horse, a little shaken by the impact of his fall, nevertheless whirled with catlike agility to his feet--a beautiful thing to watch. As he brought his forequarters off the earth, he lunged at the rider with open mouth. A sidestep that would have done credit to a pugilist sent the youngster swerving past that danger. He leaped to the saddle at the same time that the blood-bay came to his four feet. The chorus in full cry was around the horse, four or five excited cow- punchers waving their sombreros and yelling for horse or rider, according to the gallantry of the fight. The bay was in the air more than he was on the ground, eleven or twelve hundred pounds of might, writhing, snapping, bolting, halting, sunfishing with devilish cunning, dropping out of the air on one stiff foreleg with an accompanying sway to one side that gave the rider the effect of a cudgel blow at the back of the head and then a whip-snap to part the vertebrae. Whirling on his hind legs, and again flinging himself desperately on the ground, only to fail, come to his feet with the clinging burden once more maddeningly in place, and go again through a maze of fence-rowing and sun-fishing until suddenly he straightened out and bolted down the slope like a runaway locomotive on a downgrade. A terrifying spectacle, but the rider sat erect, with one arm raised high above his head in triumph, and his yell trailing off behind him. From a running gait the stallion fell into a smooth pace--a true wild pacer, his hoofs beating the ground with the force and speed of pistons and hurling himself forward with incredible strides. Horse and rider lurched out of sight among the silver spruce. "By the Lord, wonderful!" cried Vance Cornish. He heard a stifled cry beside him, a cry of infinite pain. "Is--is it over?" And there sat Elizabeth the Indomitable with her face buried in her hands like a girl of sixteen! "Of course it's over," said Vance, wondering profoundly. She seemed to dread to look up. "And--Terence?" "He's all right. Ever hear of a horse that could get that young wildcat out of the saddle? He clings as if he had claws. But--where did he get that red devil?" "Terence ran him down--in the mountains--somewhere," she answered, speaking as one who had only half heard the question. "Two months of constant trailing to do it, I think. But oh, you're right! The horse is a devil! And sometimes I think--" She stopped, shuddering. Vance had returned to the ranch only the day before after a long absence. More and more, after he had been away, he found it difficult to get in touch with things on the ranch. Once he had been a necessary part of the inner life. Now he was on the outside. Terence and Elizabeth were a perfectly completed circle in themselves. CHAPTER 3 "If Terry worries you like this," suggested her brother kindly, "why don't you forbid these pranks?" She looked at him as if in surprise. "Forbid Terry?" she echoed, and then smiled. Decidedly this was her first tone, a soft tone that came from deep in her throat. Instinctively Vance contrasted it with the way she had spoken to him. But it was always this way when Terry was mentioned. For the first time he saw it clearly. It was amazing how blind he had been. "Forbid Terence? Vance, that devil of a horse is part of his life. He was on a hunting trip when he saw Le Sangre--" "Good Lord, did they call the horse that?" "A French-Canadian was the first to discover him, and he gave the name. And he's the color of blood, really. Well, Terence saw Le Sangre on a hilltop against the sky. And he literally went mad. Actually, he struck out on foot with his rifle and lived in the country and never stopped walking until he wore down Le Sangre somehow and brought him back hobbled--just skin and bones, and Terence not much more. Now Le Sangre is himself again, and he and Terence have a fight--like that--every day. I dream about it; the most horrible nightmares!" "And you don't stop it?" "My dear Vance, how little you know Terence! You couldn't tear that horse out of his life without breaking his heart. I _know!_" "So you suffer, day by day?" "I've done very little else all my life," said Elizabeth gravely. "And I've learned to bear pain." He swallowed. Also, he was beginning to grow irritated. He had never before had a talk with Elizabeth that contained so many reefs that threatened shipwreck. He returned to the gist of their conversation rather too bluntly. "But to continue, Elizabeth, any banker would lend me money on my prospects." "You mean the property which will come to you when I die?" He used all his power, but he could not meet her glance. "You know that's a nasty way to put it, Elizabeth." "Dear Vance," she sighed, "a great many people say that I'm a hard woman. I suppose I am. And I like to look facts squarely in the face. Your prospects begin with my death, of course." He had no answer, but bit his lip nervously and wished the ordeal would come to an end. "Vance," she went on, "I'm glad to have this talk with you. It's something you have to know. Of course I'll see that during my life or my death you'll be provided for. But as for your main prospects, do you know where they are?" "Well?" She was needlessly brutal about it, but as she had told him, her education had been one of pain. "Your prospects are down there by the river on the back of Le Sangre." Vance Cornish gasped. "I'll show you what I mean, Vance. Come along." The moment she rose, some of her age fell from her. Her carriage was erect. Her step was still full of spring and decision, as she led the way into the house. It was a big, solid, two-story building which the mightiest wind could not shake. Henry Cornish had merely founded the house, just as he had founded the ranch; the main portion of the work had been done by his daughter. And as they passed through, her stern old eye rested peacefully on the deep, shadowy vistas, and her foot fell with just pride on the splendid rising sweep of the staircase. They passed into the roomy vault of the upper hall and went down to the end. She took out a big key from her pocket and fitted it into the lock; then Vance dropped his hand on her arm. His voice lowered. "You've made a mistake, Elizabeth. This is Father's room." Ever since his death it had been kept unchanged, and practically unentered save for an occasional rare day of work to keep it in order. Now she nodded and resolutely turned the key and swung the door open. Vance went in with an exclamation of wonder. It was quite changed from the solemn old room and the brown, varnished woodwork which he remembered. Cream-tinted paint now made the walls cool and fresh. The solemn engravings no longer hung above the bookcases. And the bookcases themselves had been replaced with built-in shelves pleasantly filled with rich bindings, black and red and deep yellow-browns. A tall cabinet stood open at one side filled with rifles and shotguns of every description, and another cabinet was loaded with fishing apparatus. The stiff-backed chairs had given place to comfortable monsters of easy lines. Vance Cornish, as one in a dream, peered here and there. "God bless us!" he kept repeating. "God bless us! But where's there a trace of Father?" "I left it out," said Elizabeth huskily, "because this room is meant for--but let's go back. Do you remember that day twenty-four years ago when we took Jack Hollis's baby?" "When _you_ took it," he corrected. "I disclaim all share in the idea." "Thank you," she answered proudly. "At any rate, I took the boy and called him Terence Colby." "Why that name," muttered Vance, "I never could understand." "Haven't I told you? No, and I hardly know whether to trust even you with the secret, Vance. But you remember we argued about it, and you said that blood would out; that the boy would turn out wrong; that before he was twenty-five he would have shot a man?" "I believe the talk ran like that." "Well, Vance, I started out with a theory; but the moment I had that baby in my arms, it became a matter of theory, plus, and chiefly plus. I kept remembering what you had said, and I was afraid. That was why I worked up the Colby idea." "That's easy to see." "It wasn't so easy to do. But I heard of the last of an old Virginia family who had died of consumption in Arizona. I traced his family. He was the last of it. Then it was easy to arrange a little story: Terence Colby had married a girl in Arizona, died shortly after; the girl died also, and I took the baby. Nobody can disprove what I say. There's not a living soul who knows that Terence is the son of Jack Hollis--except you and me." "How about the woman I got the baby from?" "I bought her silence until fifteen years ago. Then she died, and now Terry is convinced that he is the last representative of the Colby family." She laughed with excitement and beckoned him out of the room and into another--Terry's room, farther down the hall. She pointed to a large photograph of a solemn-faced man on the wall. "You see that?" "Who is it?" "I got it when I took Terry to Virginia last winter--to see the old family estate and go over the ground of the historic Colbys." She laughed again happily. "Terry was wild with enthusiasm. He read everything he could lay his hands on about the Colbys. Discovered the year they landed in Virginia; how they fought in the Revolution; how they fought and died in the Civil War. Oh, he knows every landmark in the history of 'his' family. Of course, I encouraged him." "I know," chuckled Vance. "Whenever he gets in a pinch, I've heard you say: 'Terry, what should a Colby do?'" "And," cut in Elizabeth, "you must admit that it has worked. There isn't a prouder, gentler, cleaner-minded boy in the world than Terry. Not blood. It's the blood of Jack Hollis. But it's what he thinks himself to be that counts. And now, Vance, admit that your theory is exploded." He shook his head. "Terry will do well enough. But wait till the pinch comes. You don't know how he'll turn out when the rub comes. _Then_ blood will tell!" She shrugged her shoulders angrily. "You're simply being perverse now, Vance. At any rate, that picture is one of Terry's old 'ancestors,' Colonel Vincent Colby, of prewar days. Terry has discovered family resemblances, of course--same black hair, same black eyes, and a great many other things." "But suppose he should ever learn the truth?" murmured Vance. She caught her breath. "That would be ruinous, of course. But he'll never learn. Only you and I know." "A very hard blow, eh," said Vance, "if he were robbed of the Colby illusion and had Black Jack put in its place as a cold fact? But of course we'll never tell him." Her color was never high. Now it became gray. Only her eyes remained burning, vivid, young, blazing out through the mask of age. "Remember you said his blood would tell before he was twenty-five; that the blood of Black Jack would come to the surface; that he would have shot a man?" "Still harping on that, Elizabeth? What if he does?" "I'd disown him, throw him out penniless on the world, never see him again." "You're a Spartan," said her brother in awe, as he looked on that thin, stern face. "Terry is your theory. If he disappoints you, he'll be simply a theory gone wrong. You'll cut him out of your life as if he were an algebraic equation and never think of him again." "But he's not going wrong, Vance. Because, in ten days, he'll be twenty- five! And that's what all these changes mean. The moment it grows dark on the night of his twenty-fifth birthday, I'm going to take him into my father's room and turn it over to him." He had listened to her patiently, a little wearied by her unusual flow of words. Now he came out of his apathy with a jerk. He laid his hand on Elizabeth's shoulder and turned her so that the light shone full in her face. Then he studied her. "What do you mean by that, Elizabeth?" "Vance," she said steadily, but with a touch of pity in her voice, "I have waited for a score of years, hoping that you'd settle down and try to do a man's work either here or somewhere else. You haven't done it. Yesterday Mr. Cornwall came here to draw up my will. By that will I leave you an annuity, Vance, that will take care of you in comfort; but I leave everything else to Terry Colby. That's why I've changed the room. The moment it grows dark ten days from today, I'm going to take Terry by the hand and lead him into the room and into the position of my father!" The mask of youth which was Vance Cornish crumbled and fell away. A new man looked down at her. The firm flesh of his face became loose. His whole body was flabby. She had the feeling that if she pushed against his chest with the weight of her arm, he would topple to the floor. That weakness gradually passed. A peculiar strength of purpose grew in its place. "Of course, this is a very shrewd game, Elizabeth. You want to wake me up. You're using the spur to make me work. I don't blame you for using the bluff, even if it's a rather cruel one. But, of course, it's impossible for you to be serious in what you say." "Why impossible, Vance?" "Because you know that I'm the last male representative of our family. Because you know my father would turn in his grave if he knew that an interloper, a foundling, the child of a murderer, a vagabond, had been made the heir to his estate. But you aren't serious, Elizabeth; I understand." He swallowed his pride, for panic grew in him in proportion to the length of time she maintained her silence. "As a matter of fact, I don't blame you for giving me a scare, my dear sister. I have been a shameless loafer. I'm going to reform and lift the burden of business off your shoulders--let you rest the remainder of your life." It was the worst thing he could have said. He realized it the moment he had spoken. This forced, cowardly surrender was worse than brazen defiance, and he saw her lip curl. An idler is apt to be like a sullen child, except that in a grown man the child's sulky spite becomes a dark malice, all-embracing. For the very reason that Vance knew he was receiving what he deserved, and that this was the just reward for his thriftless years of idleness, he began to hate Elizabeth with a cold, quiet hatred. There is something stimulating about any great passion. Now Vance felt his nerves soothed and calmed. His self-possession returned with a rush. He was suddenly able to smile into her face. "After all," he said, "you're absolutely right. I've been a failure, Elizabeth--a rank, disheartening failure. You'd be foolish to trust the result of your life labors in my hands--entirely foolish. I admit that it's a shrewd blow to see the estate go to--Terry." He found it oddly difficult to name the boy. "But why not? Why not Terry? He's a clean youngster, and he may turn out very well--in spite of his blood. I hope so. The Lord knows you've given him every chance and the best start in the world. I wish him luck!" He reached out his hand, and her bloodless fingers closed strongly over it. "There's the old Vance talking," she said warmly, a mist across her eyes. "I almost thought that part of you had died." He writhed inwardly. "By Jove, Elizabeth, think of that boy, coming out of nothing, everything poured into his hands--and now within ten days of his goal! Rather exciting, isn't it? Suppose he should stumble at the very threshold of his success? Eh?" He pressed the point with singular insistence. "Doesn't it make your heart beat, Elizabeth, when you think that he might fall--that he might do what I prophesied so long ago--shoot a man before he's twenty-five?" She shrugged the supposition calmly away. "My faith in him is based as strongly as the rocks, Vance. But if he fell, after the schooling I've given him, I'd throw him out of my life-- forever." He paused a moment, studying her face with a peculiar eagerness. Then he shrugged in turn. "Tush! Of course, that's impossible. Let's go down." CHAPTER 4 When they reached the front porch, they saw Terence Colby coming up the terrace from the river road on Le Sangre. And a changed horse he was. One ear was forward as if he did not know what lay in store for him, but would try to be on the alert. One ear flagged warily back. He went slowly, lifting his feet with the care of a very weary horse. Yet, when the wind fluttered a gust of whirling leaves beside him, he leaped aside and stood with high head, staring, transformed in the instant into a creature of fire and wire-strung nerves. The rider gave to the side- spring with supple grace and then sent the stallion on up the hill. Joyous triumph was in the face of Terry. His black hair was blowing about his forehead, for his hat was pushed back after the manner of one who has done a hard day's work and is ready to rest. He came close to the veranda, and Le Sangre lifted his fine head and stared fearlessly, curiously, with a sort of contemptuous pride, at Elizabeth and Vance. "The killer is no longer a killer," laughed Terry. "Look him over, Uncle Vance. A beauty, eh?" Elizabeth said nothing at all. But she rocked herself back and forth a trifle in her chair as she nodded. She glanced over the terrace, hoping that others might be there to see the triumph of her boy. Then she looked back at Terence. But Vance was regarding the horse. "He might have a bit more in the legs, Terry." "Not much more. A leggy horse can't stand mountain work--or any other work, for that matter, except a ride in the park." "I suppose you're right. He's a picture horse, Terry. And a devilish eye, but I see that you've beaten him." "Beaten him?" He shook his head. "We reached a gentleman's agreement. As long as I wear spurs, he'll fight me till he gets his teeth in me or splashes my skull to bits with his heels. Otherwise he'll keep on fighting till he drops. But as soon as I take off the spurs and stop tormenting him, he'll do what I like. No whips or spurs for Le Sangre. Eh, boy?" He held out the spurs so that the sun flashed on them. The horse stiffened with a shudder, and that forward look of a horse about to bolt came in his eyes. "No, no!" cried Elizabeth. But Terry laughed and dropped the spurs back in his pocket. The stallion moved off, and Terry waved to them. Just as he turned, the mind of Vance Cornish raced back to another picture--a man with long black hair blowing about his face and a gun in either hand, sweeping through a dusty street with shots barking behind him. It came suddenly as a revelation, and left him downheaded with the thought. "What is it, Vance?" asked his sister, reaching out to touch his arm. "Nothing." Then he added abruptly: "I'm going for a jaunt for a few days, Elizabeth." She grew gloomy. "Are you going to insist on taking it to heart this way?" "Not at all. I'm going to be back here in ten days and drink Terry's long life and happiness across the birthday dinner table." He marvelled at the ease with which he could make himself smile in her face. "You noticed that--his gentleman's agreement with Le Sangre? I've made him detest fighting with the idea that only brute beasts fight--men argue and agree." "I've noticed that he never has trouble with the cow-punchers." "They've seen him box," chuckled Elizabeth. "Besides, Terry isn't the sort that troublemakers like to pick on. He has an ugly look when he's angry." "H'm," murmured Vance. "I've noticed that. But as long as he keeps to his fists, he'll do no harm. But what is the reason for surrounding him with guns, Elizabeth?" "A very good reason. He loves them, you know. Anything from a shotgun to a derringer is a source of joy to Terence. And not a day goes by that he doesn't handle them." "Certainly the effect of blood, eh?" suggested Vance. She glanced sharply at him. "You're determined to be disagreeable today, Vance. As a matter of fact, I've convinced him that for the very reason he is so accurate with a gun he must never enter a gun fight. The advantage would be too much on his side against any ordinary man. That appeals to Terry's sense of fair play. No, he's absolutely safe, no matter how you look at it." "No doubt." He looked away from her and over the valley. The day had worn into the late afternoon. Bear Creek ran dull and dark in the shadow, and Mount Discovery was robed in blue to the very edge of its shining crown of snow. In this dimmer, richer light the Cornish ranch had never seemed so desirable to Vance. It was not a ranch; it was a little kingdom. And Vance was the dispossessed heir. He knew that he was being watched, however, and all that evening he was at his best. At the dinner table he guided the talk so that Terence Colby was the lion of the conversation. Afterward, when he was packing his things in his room for his journey of the next day, he was careful to sing at the top of his voice. He reaped a reward for this cautious acting, for the next morning, when he climbed into the buckboard that was to take him down the Blue Mountain road and over to the railroad, his sister came down the steps and stood beside the wagon. "You _will_ come back for the birthday party, Vance?" she pleaded. "You want me to?" "You were with me when I got Terry. In fact, you got him for me. And I want you to be here when he steps into his own." In this he found enough to keep him thoughtful all the way to the railroad while the buckskins grunted up the grade and then spun away down the long slope beyond. It was one of those little ironies of fate that he should have picked up the very man who was to disinherit him some twenty- four years later. He carried no grudge against Elizabeth, but he certainly retained no tenderness. Hereafter he would act his part as well as he could to extract the last possible penny out of her. And in the meantime he must concentrate on tripping up Terence Colby, alias Hollis. Vance saw nothing particularly vicious in this. He had been idle so long that he rejoiced in a work which was within his mental range. It included scheming, working always behind the scenes, pulling strings to make others jump. And if he could trip Terry and actually make him shoot a man on or before that birthday, he had no doubt that his sister would actually throw the boy out of her house and out of her life. A woman who could give twenty-four years to a theory would be capable of grim things when the theory went wrong. It was early evening when he climbed off the train at Garrison City. He had not visited the place since that cattle-buying trip of twenty-four years ago that brought the son of Black Jack into the affairs of the Cornish family. Garrison City had become a city. There were two solid blocks of brick buildings next to the station, a network of paved streets, and no less than three hotels. It was so new to the eye and so obviously full of the "booster" spirit that he was appalled at the idea of prying through this modern shell and getting back to the heart and the memory of the old days of the town. At the restaurant he forced himself upon a grave-looking gentleman across the table. He found that the solemn-faced man was a travelling drummer. The venerable loafer in front of the blacksmith's shop was feeble-minded, and merely gaped at the name of Black Jack. The proprietor of the hotel shook his head with positive antagonism. "Of course, Garrison City has its past," he admitted, "but we are living it down, and have succeeded pretty well. I think I've heard of a ruffian of the last generation named Jack Hollis; but I don't know anything, and I don't care to know anything, about him. But if you're interested in Garrison City, I'd like to show you a little plot of ground in a place that is going to be the center of the--" Vance Cornish made his mind a blank, let the smooth current of words slip off his memory as from an oiled surface, and gave up Garrison City as a hopeless job. Nevertheless, it was the hotel proprietor who dropped a valuable hint. "If you're interested in the early legends, why don't you go to the State Capitol? They have every magazine and every book that so much as mentions any place in the state." So Vance Cornish went to the capitol and entered the library. It was a sweaty task and a most discouraging one. The name "Black Jack" revealed nothing; and the name of Hollis was an equal blank, so far as the indices were concerned. He was preserved in legend only, and Vance Cornish could make no vital use of legend. He wanted something in cold print. So he began an exhaustive search. He went through volume after volume, but though he came upon mention of Black Jack, he never reached the account of an eyewitness of any of those stirring holdups or train robberies. And then he began on the old files of magazines. And still nothing. He was about to give up with four days of patient labor wasted when he struck gold in the desert--the very mine of information which he wanted. "How I Painted Black Jack," by Lawrence Montgomery. There was the photograph of the painter, to begin with--a man who had discovered the beauty of the deserts of the Southwest. But there was more--much more. It told how, in his wandering across the desert, he had hunted for something more than raw-colored sands and purple mesas blooming in the distance. He had searched for a human being to fit into the
{'title': 'Black Jack by Max Brand', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}