The Night Horseman Part 23

"You're hungry, Buck," she said. "I can see it at a glance. I'll have something for you in an instant."

He stopped her with a gesture.

"I done it!" said Buck Daniels. "He's comin'!"

The doctor flashed his glance upon Kate c.u.mberland, for when she heard the words she turned pale and her eyes and her lips framed a mute question; but Joe c.u.mberland drew in a long breath and smiled.

"I knowed it!" he said softly.

The wind whistled somewhere in the house and it brought Buck Daniels leaping to his feet and into the centre of the room.

"He's here!" he yelled. "G.o.d help me, where'll I go now! He's here!"

He had drawn his revolver and stood staring desperately about him as if he sought for a refuge in the solid wall. Almost instantly he recovered himself, however, and dropped the gun back into the holster.

"No, not yet," he said, more to himself than the others. "It ain't possible, even for Dan."

Kate c.u.mberland rallied herself, though her face was still white. She stepped to Buck and took both his hands.

"You've been working yourself to death," she said gently. "Buck, you're hysterical. What have you to fear from Dan? Isn't he your friend? Hasn't he proved it a thousand times?"

Her words threw him into a fresh frenzy.

"If he gets me, it's blood on your head, Kate. It was for you I done it."

"No, no, Buck. For Dan's sake alone. Isn't that enough?"

"For _his_ sake?" Buck threw back his head and laughed--a crazy laughter. "He could rot in h.e.l.l for all of me. He could foller his wild geese around the world. Kate, it was for you!"

"Hush!" she pleaded. "Buck, dear!"

"Do I care who knows it? Not I! I got an hour--half an hour to live; and while I live the whole d.a.m.ned world can know I love you, Kate, from your spurs to the blue of your eyes. For your sake I brung him, and for your sake I'll fight him, d.a.m.n him, in spite----"

The wind wailed again, far off, and Buck Daniels cowered back against the wall. He had drawn Kate with him, and he now kept her before him, towards the door.

He began to whisper, swiftly, with a horrible tremble in his voice: "Stand between me, Kate. Stand between me and him. Talk for me, Kate.

Will you talk for me?" He drew himself up and caught a long, shuddering breath. "What have I been doin'? What have I been ravin' about?"

He looked about as if he saw the others for the first time.

"Sit here, Buck," said Kate, with perfect quiet. "Give me your hat.

There's nothing to fear. Now tell us."

"A whole day and a whole night," he said, "I been riding with the fear of him behind me. Kate, I ain't myself, and if I been sayin' things----"

"No matter. Only tell me how you made him follow you."

Buck Daniels swept his knuckles across his forehead, as though to rub out a horrible memory.

"Kate," he said in a voice which was hardly more than a whisper, "why did he follow Jim Silent?"

The doctor slipped into a chair opposite Buck Daniels and watched him with unbelieving eyes. When he had last seen Buck the man had seemed an army in himself; but now a shivering, unmanned coward sat before him.

Byrne glanced at Kate c.u.mberland for explanation of the mysterious change. She, also, was transformed with horror, and she stared at Buck Daniels as at one already among the dead.

"Buck, you didn't--_strike_ him?"

Buck Daniels nodded jerkily.

"I'll try to tell you straight from the beginning. I found Dan in Brownsville. I begged him to come back with me, but he wouldn't stir.

This was why: A gunman had come to the town lookin' for trouble, and when he run acrost Dan he found plenty of it. No, don't look like that, Kate; it was self-defense, pure and simple--they didn't even arrest Dan for it. But this dyin' man's brother, Mac Strann, come down from the hills and sat beside Jerry Strann waitin' for him to go west before he started out to clean up on Dan. Yesterday evenin' Jerry was near dead and everybody in Brownsville was waitin' to see what would happen, because Dan wouldn't budge till Mac Strann had had his chance to get back at him. So I sent a feller ahead to fix a relay of hosses to Elkhead, because I made up my mind I was going to make Dan Barry chase me out of that town. I walked into the saloon where Dan was sittin'--braidin' a little horsehair strand--my G.o.d, Kate, think of him sittin' there doin' that with a hundred fellers standin' about waitin'

for him to kill or be killed! I went up to him. I picked a fight, and then I slapped him--in the face."

The sweat started on Daniels' forehead at the thought.

"But you're still alive!" cried Kate c.u.mberland. "Had you handled his gun first?"

"No. As soon as I hit him I turned my back to him and took a couple of steps away from him."

"Oh, Buck, Buck!" she cried, her face lighting. "You knew he wouldn't shoot you in the back!"

"I didn't know nothin'. I couldn't even think--and my body was numb as a dead man's all below the hips. There I stood like I was chained to the floor--you know how it is in a nightmare when something chases you and you can't run? That was the way with me."

"Buck! And he was sitting behind you--while you stood there?"

"Ay, sitting there with my death sittin' on his trigger finger. But I knowed that if I showed the white feather, if I let him see me shake, he'd be out of his chair and on top of me. No gun--he don't need nothin'

but his hands--and what was in front of my eyes was a death like--like Jim Silent's!"

He squinted his eyes close and groaned. Once more he roused himself.

"But I couldn't move a foot without my knees bucklin', so I takes out my makin's and rolls a cigarette. And while I was doin' it I was prayin'

that my strength would come back to me before he come back to himself--and started!"

"It was surprise that held him, Buck. To think of you striking him--you who have saved his life and fought for him like a blood-brother. Oh, Buck, of all the men in the world you're the bravest and the n.o.blest!"

"They ain't nothin' in that brand of talk," growled Buck, reddening.

"Anyway, at last I started for the door. It wasn't farther away than from here to the wall. Outside was my hoss, and a chance for livin'. But that door was a thousand years away, and a thousand times while I walked towards it I felt Dan's gun click and bang behind me and felt the lead go tearin' through me. And I didn't dare to hurry, because I knew that might wake Dan up. So finally I got to the doors and just as they was swingin' to behind me, I heard a sort of a moan behind me----"

"From Dan!" whispered the white-faced girl. "I know--a sort of a stifled cry when he's angered! Oh, Buck."

"My first step took me ten yards from that door," reminisced Buck Daniels, "and my next step landed me in the saddle, and I dug them spurs clean into the insides of Long Bess. She started like a watch-spring uncoilin', and as she spurts down the streets I leans clean over to her mane and looks back and there I seen Dan standin' in the door with his gun in his hand and the wind blowin' his hair. But he didn't shoot, because the next second I was swallowed up in the dark and couldn't see him no more."

"But it was no use!" cried the girl. "With Black Bart to trail you and with Satan to carry him, he overtook you--and then----"

"He didn't," said Buck Daniels. "I'd fixed things so's he couldn't get started with Satan for some time. And before he could have Satan on my trail I'd put a long stretch behind me because Long Bess was racin'

every step. The lay of the land was with me. It was pretty level, and on level goin' Long Bess is almost as fast as Satan; but on rocky goin'

Satan is like a goat--nothin' stops him! And I was ridin' Long Bess like to bust her heart, straight towards McCauley's. We wasn't more'n a mile away when I thought--the wind was behind me, you see--that I heard a sort of far off whistling down the wind! My G.o.d!"

He could not go on for a moment, and Kate c.u.mberland sat with parted lips, twisting her fingers together and then tearing them apart once more.