Читать книгу Valley of Vanishing Men - Max Brand - Страница 4

Table of Contents

JIM SILVER waved his hand. His voice came dimly to the ears of Trainor, asking him to wait there, because Silver would come down to the floor of the ravine through a gap that opened a little distance ahead. Then he shouted: "Stay there, Frosty! Hi!"

The gray wolf dropped to the ground like a stone in answer to the gesture and the voice of the man. There he remained, while Silver disappeared along the top of the ridge.

"Frosty!" said Trainor, shaking his head with awe and admiration. "Frosty!"

The bright eyes of the wolf shifted toward him, but flashed instantly back to the point where his master had last appeared. Now that the sun began to dry his fur, he appeared a dust-gray, ideally fitted for melting into Western backgrounds of rocks and desert or sunburned grasses. His great paws seemed as large as the hands of a man. His head was like the head of a bear. He seemed too big to belong to his kind. And then a flood of tales came sweeping over the mind of Trainor, reminding him of the feats that were attributed to this huge beast—feats of almost human intelligence. Men said that Frosty, under the guidance of Jim Silver, was as valuable in war as three knife-bearing Apaches—that hardly a trail could be laid down that Frosty was unable to solve and follow at the will of Jim Silver.

Here the rider himself appeared around the next corner of the ravine.

At his call, Frosty leaped to his feet and went like a bullet to give greeting. He flung himself high at the side of Silver, bounding up again and again, biting at the hand of his master with terrible fangs that seemed able to sever the thick of the wrist joint.

That was the affectionate meeting of the pair, after danger had come between them, and Trainor laughed at the sight. It was something to remember. It was something to tell to his friends when he was back among them again. He had seen Silver and the wolf acting like happy children together. Now he could hear that savage snarling which was Frosty's nearest approach to a tone of caress. And now he could hear Silver laughing with pleasure.

The big fellow grew on the eye, and so did his horse. They seemed almost gigantic, in the eyes of Trainor, as Silver drew rein. But perhaps that was chiefly the effect of the excited imagination of Trainor, the effect of those accumulated legends which had been heaping up around the name of Silver and his horse and his wolf during these last years. Wherever men met together along the mountain desert, whether in logging camp or bunk-house, or tramp jungle, or hotel veranda, there was sure to be talk of Silver before the long evening was over. If someone spoke of a feat of strength, Silver's name came up for comparison. If there was talk of a fast horse which had recently cleaned up the prizes at a rodeo, Parade had to be brought in for comparison. A cowpuncher would say: "As strong in the legs as Parade!" Or "Longer-winded than Parade!" Or "As fine an eye as Parade ever had in his head!"

For this was the way of establishing a superlative. And when the talk was of humans, then there was sure to be mention of gun or hand or wit that brought in again the name of the hero. That was why, when Trainor looked at this man, his heart swelled and enlarged to receive a noble idea. As Silver leaped down from the saddle and held out a hand, Trainor looked with a sort of worship into that handsome brown face.

But more than the bright, piercing eye, so strangely direct and steady, more than the big spread of forehead, Trainor was impressed by the sheer physical fitness of this man. He seemed ready to enter a race the next moment, or stand in the ring and fight for his life against great odds.

Well, one does not often see a fat panther! And Silver lived a life as natural, as rugged, as full of labor and effort as that of any wild beast that has to hunt for a living every day of its life. All spare flesh was worked away from his face, from his throat. His shirt was open, and over the arch of the breast bones, Trainor could see the ardent pull of the network of muscles. No wonder this man had endurance, on foot, like a running Indian. He had the depth of lungs for it, the slender hips, the wiry, powerful legs to give force for locomotion. And set on the top of this mechanism of grace and speed and endurance, there were the shoulders and the long, heavy arms of the man fit to heave and draw—and fight for his life!

Trainor, gripping that hand, smiled into the brown face of Silver and then laughed a little.

"Silver," he said, "I thought it was just an ordinary wolf, when I saw it up there running the deer. I was going to take a crack at it with my rifle. And then—well, then it took the slide!"

"Did you think that it was only an ordinary wolf?" asked Silver. "Then what made you risk your neck by wading into the creek to save it?"

"I wasn't risking my neck."

"I saw the water beat at you and curl up around your hips," said Silver calmly. "I saw the riffle of the current in your wake. It was hard for you to keep your feet in there. And what made you do it for an ordinary, cattle-killing lobo?"

"Because he was fighting like a man, and a damn brave man."

Silver handled Trainor for one quick instant with his eyes and then he smiled a bit as though he were embarrassed by a personal compliment.

"Old Frosty!" he said, and the gray wolf growled at his hand and licked it. "It was a kind thing and a nervy thing that you did," went on Silver. "I'm thanking you, pardner. Which way does your trail lead?"

"Alkali," said Trainor, "if you've ever heard of that town."

"Alkali?" said Silver, with a bit of a start. "Why, that's queer. I'm going in that direction myself!"

He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Trainor saw with a curious excitement the spots of gray hair over the temples which, in the beginning, men said, had given a name to Silver. They looked like little horns just breaking through.

"We'll ride along together," said Silver, "if you don't mind. What takes you in that direction? Working in the mines?"

"No," said Trainor, "I'm working on a lost trail. My brother was down there and faded into the desert one day. He never came back, and I want to find out where he went."

"I've heard of other men," said Silver slowly, "who rode out of that town and vanished in Alkali Valley. That's why I'm heading in that direction."

"Silver," demanded Trainor suddenly, "are you going toward Alkali because you think that Barry Christian is around there?"

"I don't know," said Silver. "I'm only guessing. But we can ride together most of the way."

It was a happiness to Ben Trainor that made him squirm in the saddle and caused him to laugh a good deal, rather foolishly, all the distance that Silver rode beside him. After all, Ben Trainor had a good deal of boy in his make-up. It made most strangers take him and his cheerful, smiling face rather lightly, but that face could harden in a pinch as quickly as his hand could turn into a fist. Physically, he was neither large nor small, neither handsome nor ugly, but there was a spirit in the heart of Trainor that was a bright and ever-rising fountain.

They went out of the canyon into the gray sweep of Alkali Valley. A whirlwind promptly covered them with alkali dust that kept the horses sneezing for some time afterwards. Now they had to ride with their bandannas drawn over the bridges of their noses. Their eyes puckered and grew red of rim. Only Frosty seemed perfectly contented as he slunk before them over the gray sands, melting into the background the moment he was at any distance.

He was continually roving, shifting here and there, and continually lifting his nose to read any story that might come down the wind. Once or twice he put up a rabbit, and the second time, since the jack was big and looked fat, a gun jumped into Silver's hand, spoke, and disappeared, all in a single gesture. The rabbit dropped into a cactus scrub from its death leap, and Frosty brought it obediently to the master.

"That'll make supper," said Silver, as he cleaned the kill. "You're welcome to have it with me. Or do you have to go on into the town?" he asked, as they rode on again.

"I have to go on into the town," answered Trainor.

"Well, there you are," said Silver, pointing ahead.

All that Trainor could see, at first, was the wide sweep of the distant hills, rolling low, like heat clouds against the horizon. And he saw the Spanish bayonet here and there, and grisly cactus forms, and the nightmare shape of the ocotillo, and whatever barbed spikes and noisome varnishes could preserve from the teeth of deer or desert cattle. Finally, he saw a winking light in the distance and knew it was the sun flashing from glass. That was Alkali town, far away.

"There you are," said Silver, "but my trail goes this way. If you have to hunt long and hard for your brother, we may meet again. Do you mind a bit of advice?"

"No," said Trainor. "I'd like to have it—from you."

"Do a lot of looking and very little talking in Alkali," said Silver. "That's my advice. Sometimes things will show themselves, if a man waits long enough."

He gripped the hand of Trainor and said, with a faint smile:

"Frosty will remember you. So shall I!"

Then he rode away, letting Parade stretch out into a swinging canter that bore him off so rapidly that Trainor could see how much the gait of his mustang had held Silver back this day.

Where would the man go, if not into the town itself? All that he needed, men said, were salt and a gun; he would find enough to eat with that provision and no other. Therefore, at what dry camps would he halt, what trails would he pick up and use the nose of Frosty for following?

Trainor jogged his horse steadily on until he came into a beaten trail, and this led him rapidly to a road, deeply rutted by freight wagons. This, in turn, carried him to Alkali.

It was just one of those unpainted towns, half of frame and half of canvas, which look so time-dried that the wind might pick them up and scatter them over the desert the next time a storm blew. But Trainor knew that fortunes had passed through that town from the mines that were dug into the slopes of the southern hills. The mines had been failing for a long time, now, and Alkali was shriveling rapidly, but a sense of an exciting past breathed to him out of the old shacks as he went by.

Then he saw the Wilbur Hotel, tied his horse at the hitch rack, and went over the creaking boards of the veranda into the dark coolness of the lobby.

He said to the one-armed clerk at the desk: "My name is Trainor, and—"

"Wait a minute," interrupted the clerk.

He disappeared into another room and came back with a tall, lean, pale-faced man whose hair had disappeared from the crown of his head.

"You're Ben Trainor?" he asked. "My name is Wilbur." He paused to consider Trainor. "I'll show you your brother's stuff," he added, and led the way up two flights of noisy stairs to an attic. There he pulled a tarpaulin-wrapped bundle from among a mass of trunks and suit-cases and dropped the burden on the floor.

"Maybe you can find out something from this stuff," said Wilbur. "Otherwise—well, there's the desert, and it doesn't answer many questions."

"While my brother was here," said Trainor, "did you see him about with any suspicious characters? Notice anything about what he did?"

"Most of the characters in Alkali are suspicious," said Wilbur. "That's why I charge high prices in this hotel. This is one of the ends of the trail, Mr. Trainor. If you want to look that stuff over, I'll show you to a room."

He took Trainor down to the floor below and opened for him a small bedroom.

"You had something in your mind when you wrote me the letter. There was something between the lines," insisted Trainor.

Wilbur looked out of the window as a wall of desert dust went by and allowed the face of the saloon across the street to be seen again.

"I had an idea," he said at last, "but ideas are cheap."

"I'd like to hear this one," answered Trainor.

"Well, then," said Wilbur, "my idea was, after he was a week overdue, that he would never come back. I'm sorry to say that, and I hope there's nothing in it. I've had the same ideas about other people, though, and I'm generally right."

"What made you think that?" asked Trainor, tense with fear and excitement.

"I don't know," said Wilbur. "Your brother Clive was just a little too well-washed for this part of the world. He kept the salt washed out of his shirt, and that's being almost a dandy down here in Alkali."

He turned, then, and left the room.