The Flockmaster of Poison Creek Read online

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  SWAN CARLSON LAUGHS

  "So, you are here?" said Swan, standing in the door, looking about himas if he had entered an unfamiliar place.

  "Didn't you look for me?" Reid returned. He stood between Carlson andthe closed inner door, foot on a rung of the chair in which he latelyhad sat, his attitude careless, easy.

  "A man never knows," Carlson replied, coming into the room.

  Hertha Carlson lingered just outside the door, as if repelled by therecollection of old sufferings there. Swan reached out, grasped herwrist, drew her roughly inside, pointed to a chair. The woman satdown, her eyes distended in fright, her feet drawn close to the chairas if to hide them from the galling chain that she had dragged so manyweary months across the floor of her lonely prison.

  Swan pulled a chair to the table and sat down, elbows on the board,facing Reid, a question in his attitude, his face, to which he at oncegave words:

  "Where's your woman?"

  "Where's the money?" Reid countered, putting out his hand. "You threwme down after I delivered you three hundred sheep--you didn't comeacross with a cent--on the plea that one thief couldn't collect fromanother. All right, Swan; we'll forget the sheep deal, but this isanother matter. Put your money in my hand; then we'll talk."

  "Is she in there?" Swan pointed to the door behind Reid, half risingfrom his chair.

  Reid put his hand to his empty holster, his body turned from Carlsonto conceal his want of a weapon. Carlson jerked his head in highdisdain, resumed his chair, his great hand spread on the table.

  Mackenzie stepped back from the window, leveling his pistol at Reid'shead. Joan was the subject of this infamous barter.

  A moment Mackenzie's finger stiffened to send a bullet into Reid'sbrain, for he considered only that such depravity was its own warrantof death. But Reid was unarmed, and there was something in hisattitude that seemed to disclose that it was a bluff. Joan was notthere.

  Joan was not there. She would not remain silent and unresisting, shutin a room while a cold-blooded scoundrel bargained to deliver her fora price like a ewe out of his flock. Reid was playing to even thedeceit Carlson had put over on him in dealing for the stolen sheep. Itwas a bluff. Joan was not there.

  Mackenzie let down the weapon. It was not the moment for interference;he would allow the evidence to accumulate before passing sentence andexecuting it with summary hand.

  "Come across with the money before we go any further," said Reid, firmin his manner, defiantly confident in his bearing. "I've got to getout of this country before morning."

  "I wouldn't give five hundred dollars for her," Swan declared. "How doI know she'd stay with me? She might run off tomorrow if I didn't havea chain on her."

  Reid said nothing. He backed a little nearer the door as if he had itin mind to call the negotiations off. Swan looked at him with chinthrust forward, neck extended.

  "She ain't here--you're a liar!" he charged.

  "All right; there's a pair of us, then."

  "I've brought my woman--" Swan stretched out his hand to callattention to her where she cowered in her chair--"fixed up to meet youlike a bride. Woman for woman, I say; that's enough for any man."

  "I don't want your woman, Carlson."

  "You tried to steal her from me; you was lovin' her over on therange."

  "What do you care? You don't want her."

  "Sure I don't," Swan agreed heartily; "if I did I'd 'a' choked yourneck over there that night. Woman for woman, or no trade."

  "That's not our bargain, Carlson."

  Reid spoke sharply, but with a dry quaver in his voice that betrayedthe panic that was coming over him on account of this threatenedmiscarriage of his plans. Mackenzie was convinced by Reid's mannerthat Swan had read him right. Joan was not there.

  The thought that Joan would accompany Reid in the night to SwanCarlson's house on any pretext he could devise in his crafty mind wasabsurd. It was all a bluff, Reid playing on Swan's credulity to inducehim to hand over the money, when he would make a dash for the door andride away.

  Mackenzie stood close to the window, pistol lifted, thinking it allout between Reid's last word and Carlson's next, for the mind canbuild a castle while the heart is pausing between throbs.

  "My woman for yours, that's a fair trade," said Swan. "I don't want toput no money in a wild colt that maybe I couldn't break. Open the doorand bring her to me, and take my woman and go."

  "Nothing doin'," said Reid, regaining his nonchalance, or at any ratecontrol of his shaking voice.

  "You're a liar, you ain't got no woman here."

  "She's in there, all right--come across with the money and take her."

  "How do I know you've got any right to make a trade? Have you got thepapers to show she's yours?"

  "I've got all the papers you'll ever need."

  "You ain't got no papers--she's as much mine as she is yours. Open thedoor!"

  Carlson got up, towering above Reid in his great height. He took offhis hat and flung it on the table, stood a little while bendingforward in his peculiar loose droop with arms swinging full length athis sides. Reid backed away from him, standing with shoulders againstthe door as if to deny him passage, hand thrown to his empty holster.

  "You ain't got no gun!" Swan said, triumphantly. "I seen the minute Icome in the door you didn't have no gun. I wouldn't fight a fellerlike you--you couldn't stand up to me like that other feller done herein this house one night."

  Swan looked round the room, the memory of that battle like a lightupon his stony face. He stood in silence, turning his head slowly, asif he found a pleasure in the stages of the past battle as recalled tohim by the different locations in the place.

  "You wanted me to kill that feller so he couldn't take your woman awayfrom you, didn't you?" Swan said, contemptuously. "Over there that dayme and you made that joke on him runnin' my sheep over into his. Buthe didn't take that joke--what? He stood up to me and fought me likean old bear, and he'd 'a' whipped me another time if it hadn't beenfor them dogs helpin' me. You bet your hat he would! Yes, and then youcome up, and you said to me: 'Soak him another one!' And I looked atyou, with red in my eyes. 'Soak him, put him out for good this time!'you says. And I looked at you another time, my eye as red as blood.

  "'No,' I says, 'damn your skin, I'll not soak him when he's down, andyou'll not do it, and no man ain't a goin' to do it! He's the only manon this range that can stand up to me,' I told you, 'and I'm goin' tosave him to fight!' That's what I said to you. Well, he'll come afterme when I take his woman away from him--he'll come after me so hardhe'll make the ground shake like a train--and he'll fight me for her,a fight that men will remember! We'll roar like the wind, him and me,when we stand up and fight for his woman that I took away from himthis night."

  Reid drew away from him, seeming to contract upon himself against thedoor, and whether Swan read it Mackenzie could not tell, but he couldsee from the window the sickness of fear spread over Reid's paleface.

  "You ain't got no gun on you," Swan mocked, taking joy from thatmoment. "Hell! my old woman can lick you, and I'm goin' to make her doit. Then I'll take that feller's woman away from you and kick you tohell out of here!"

  Swan turned to Hertha, who had left her chair on his first threateningmove toward Reid. She had advanced a little way into the room, a wildfury in her face against the man who had bargained to bring anotherwoman between her and her fierce, harsh-handed lord. Swan took her bythe arm, his hand at her back as if to give her courage.

  "Go on--lick him--choke him the way I showed you how to choke a man!"

  Swan clapped his hands, stamping his foot sharply, as he had clappedand stamped to urge on the dog against Mackenzie that day they foughton the range. And like a dog that has strained on a leash the womanleaped, flinging herself upon Reid with a wild, high-shrilling cry.

  Reid tried to guard his face against her fury, attempted to grappleher arms and hold her. She broke away, clawing his face, screaming hermaniacal cry.
In a moment they were a whirling tangle of arms,wild-flying hair, swaying bodies bent in fierce attack and desperatedefense. The furious creature had Reid by the throat in the grip Swanhad taught her, strangling out his life.

  Reid clung to her wrists, struggling to tear her hands from histhroat, thrashing wildly about before the closed door, his headstriking it now as the woman flung him, now his shoulders as she benthim to force him to the floor.

  Swan stood by, leaning forward in a pose of deep interest, deepsatisfaction, savage enjoyment, his loose-hanging arms at his sides,his long mustaches down beside his mouth. He said nothing to encouragehis woman in her mad combat, only seemed waiting the issue, ready tolay his hand to finishing it in the event that she should fail.

  The fighting woman, still screaming above the din of their tramplingfeet, struggled to lift her knee to Reid's chest. Mackenzie turnedfrom the window to interfere, not caring to see Reid go that way, nomatter what sins lay upon his young soul. As he came running to thedoor, he saw Reid struggle to his feet, tear the mad woman's handsaway, and strike her a sharp blow in the face.

  There must have been surprising power in that slender arm, or else itsstrength was multiplied by the frenzy of the strangling man, for thewoman dropped as if she had been struck with an ax. Swan Carlson,standing there like a great oaf, opened his immense mouth andlaughed.

  Reid staggered against the wall, hands at his throat, blood streamingfrom his nostrils, bubbling from his lips as he breathed withwide-gasping mouth. He stood so a little while, then collapsed withsudden failing, no strength in him to ease the fall.

  Carlson turned to face Mackenzie, his icy mirth spent.

  "It's you?" he said. "Well, by God, it's a man, anyhow!"

  Carlson offered his hand as if in friendship. Mackenzie backed away,watchful of him, hand to his pistol.

  "Who's in that room, Carlson?" he asked.

  "Maybe nobody," Swan replied. "We'll fight to see who opens thedoor--what?"

  There was an eager gleam in Carlson's face as he made this proposal,standing between Mackenzie and the closed door, his arm stretched outas if to bar the schoolmaster's nearer approach. He bent towardMackenzie, no hostility in his manner or expression, but rather morelike a man who had made a friendly suggestion, the answer to which hewaited in pleasurable anticipation.

  Mackenzie looked at him coldly, measuring his great strength, weighinghis magnificent body down to the last unit of its power. Carlson'sshirt was open at his throat, his laced boots came to his knees overhis baggy corduroy trousers, his long red hair hung over his templesand ears.

  "No, there's been fighting enough," Mackenzie said, thinking that Joanmust be bound and gagged if in that room. Surely she would have spokenotherwise at the sound of his voice.

  Hertha Carlson rose to her hands and knees, where she remained a spelllike a creeping child, almost at Mackenzie's feet. Reid lay where hehad sunk down, pitched forward in front of the closed door.

  "I'll open it, then," said Swan in the same glowing eagerness. "It'llbe a game--whatever I find I'll keep!"

  "Don't touch it!" Mackenzie warned, drawing a little nearer, hisweapon half out of the scabbard.

  Mrs. Carlson rose between them, tall, disheveled, dress torn open ather bosom. She seemed dazed and oblivious to what was passing, stood amoment, hands pressed to her face as one racked by an agony of pain,went to the door, and out. Carlson stood staring after her a breath,his bold chin lifted high, a look of surprise passing like a lightover his eyes.

  "What I find will be mine," Carlson said, almost happily. "Comeon--we'll fight like a couple of men!"

  Carlson thrust his hand into the bosom of his shirt as he spoke, anddrew out a revolver with a long sweep of his mighty arm, throwing hisbody with the movement as if he rocked with a wild, mad joy. Mackenziefired as Carlson lifted the weapon to throw it down for a shot.Carlson's pistol fell from his shattered hand.

  Swan stood a moment, that flickering light of surprise flashing in hiseyes again. Then he threw back his head and shouted in the mad joy ofhis wild heart, his great mouth stretched wide, his great mustachesmoving in his breath. Shouting still, as his Viking forebears shoutedin the joy of battle, the roar of his great voice going far into thenight, Swan rushed upon Mackenzie like a wounded bear.

  Mackenzie gave back before him, leaping aside, firing. Checked amoment, more by the flash of the discharge in his eyes than by thebullet, it seemed, Swan roared a wilder note and pressed the charge.His immense, lunging body was dim before Mackenzie through the smoke,his uninjured hand groping like a man feeling for a door in a burninghouse.

  Swan fell with the mad challenge on his tongue, and cried hisdefiance still as he writhed a moment on his back, turning his face tothe open door and the peace of the night at last, to die. To die ingreater heroism than he had lived, and to lie there in his might andwasted magnificence of body, one hand over the threshold dabbling inthe dark.

  Mackenzie took the lantern from the corner where Reid had set it inhis studious play for the advantage that did not come to his hand, andturned back to the closed door. Reid lay as he had fallen, Carlson'srevolver by his side. Mackenzie stepped over him and tried the door.It was unlocked, fastened only by the iron thumb-latch.

  A moment Mackenzie stood, lifting the lantern to light the small roomto its corners, then went in, peering and exploring into everyshadow.

  "Great God! She wasn't here at all! And I've killed a man for that!"he said.

  He turned to the open door, stifled by remorse for what he had done,although he had done it in a fight that had been pushed upon him, asall his fights in the sheeplands had been pushed. He might have takenSwan at his manly offer to fight hand-to-hand to see who should openthe door; or he might have allowed him to open it, and saved allviolence between them.

  And this was the end of Earl Reid's bluff to Carlson that he woulddeliver Joan to him there, bargained for and sold after the wild andlawless reasoning of the Norse flockmaster. And Swan had drawn hisweapon with a glad light in his face, and stood up to him like a man.

  "Throw it down here, Mackenzie--you can't get by with it this time!"

  Mackenzie looked up from his daze of remorseful panic, slowly,amazedly, not fully realizing that it was a human voice he heard, tosee Reid where he had scrambled to his knees, Carlson's gun in onehand, the other thrown out to support his unsteady body.

  "You can have it, Earl," Mackenzie said, with the relief in his voiceof a man who has heard good tidings.

  "Hurry!" said Reid, in voice strained and dry.

  "My gun's empty; you can have it too. I'm through," Mackenzie said.

  As he spoke, Mackenzie jerked the lantern sharply, putting it out.Reid fired. Mackenzie felt the shot strike his thigh like the flip ofa switch when one rides through a thicket. He threw himself upon Reid,and held his arm while the desperate youth fired his remaining shotsinto the wall.

  Mackenzie shook Reid until he dropped the empty revolver, then tookhim by the neck and pushed him to the open door. And there the morningwas spreading, showing the trees outlined against the east.

  "Come out here and we'll talk it over, Reid." Mackenzie said.

  Reid had nothing to say. He was sullen, uncontrite. Mackenzie waited alittle while for him to speak, holding him harshly by the collar.

  "Well, there's the road out of this country," Mackenzie said, seeinghe would not speak. "This is the last trick you'll ever try to throwhere on me or anybody else. I suppose you came here on one ofCarlson's horses; go and get it, and when you start, head south."

  Mackenzie felt the leg of his trousers wet from the blood of hiswound, and began to have some concern lest an artery had been cut. Butthis he put off investigating until he heard Reid ride out to the dimroad in front of Carlson's cabin, and go his way out of the sheeplandsto whatever destiny lay ahead.

  Then Mackenzie looked himself over, to find that it was not a seriouswound. He bound up the hurt with his handkerchief, and turned his faceaway from that tragic spot among
the cottonwoods, their leaves movingwith a murmur as of falling rain in the cool morning wind.