The Seventh Man by Max Brand (books to read romance .TXT) 📕

eyes fixed steadily upon him. He dropped his head again, as if to hear more.

“What's it mean, Daniels?”

“You ought to know. I don't. But he don't mean you no good. He's lookin' at you too steady. If I was you—”

Through the whisper of Buck, through the loud, steady talk of Lee Haines, cut the voice of Barry.

“Vic!”

The latter looked up and found that Barry was standing just within the glow of the hearth-light and something about him made Gregg's heart shrink.

“Vic, how much did they pay you?”

He tried to answer; he would have given ten years of life to have his voice under control for an instant; but his tongue froze. He knew that every one had turned toward him and he tried to smile, look unconcerned, but in spite of himself his eyes were wide, fixed, and he felt that they could stare into the bottom of his soul and see the guilt.

“How much?”

Then his voice came, but he could have groaned when he heard its crazily shaken, shrill sound.

“What d'you mean, Dan?”

The other smiled and Gregg added hastily: “If you want me to be movin' along, Dan, of course you're the doctor.”

“How much did they pay?” repeated the quiet, inexorable voice.

He could have stood that, even without much fear, for no matter how terrible the man might be in action his hands were tied in his own house; but now Kate spoke: “Vic, what have you done?”

Then it came, in a flood. Hot shame rolled through him and the words burst out:

“I'm a yaller houn'-dog, a sneakin' no-good cur! Dan, you're right. I've sold you. They're out there, all of 'em, waitin' in the rocks. For God's sake take my gun and pump me full of lead!”

He threw his arms out, clear of his holster and turned that Barry might draw his revolver. Vaguely he knew that Haines and Buck had drawn swiftly close to him from either side; vaguely he heard the cry of Kate; but all that he clearly understood was the merciless, unmoved face of Barry. It was pretense; with all his being he wanted to die, but when Barry made no move to strike he turned desperately to the others.

“Do the job for him. He saved my life and then I used it to sell him. Daniels, Haines, I got no use for livin'.”

“Vic,” he said, “take—this!—and march to your friends outside; and when you get through them, plant a forty-five slug in your own dirty heart and then rot.” Haines held out his gun with a gesture of contempt.

But Kate slipped in front of him, white and anguish.

“It was the girl you told me about, Vic?” she said. “You did it to get back to her?”

He dropped his head.

“Dan, let him go!”

“I got no thought of usin' him.”

“Why not?” cried Vic suddenly. “I'll do the way Haines said. Or else let me stay here and fight 'em off with you. Dan, for God's sake give me one chance to make good.”

It was like talking to a face of stone.

“The door's open for you, and waitin'. One thing before you go. That's the same gang you told me about before? Ronicky Joe, Harry Fisher, Gus Reeve, Mat Henshaw, Sliver Waldron and Pete Glass?”

“Harry Fisher's dead, Dan, if you'll give me one fightin' chance to play square now—”

“Tell 'em that I know 'em. Tell 'em one thing more. I thought Grey Molly was worth only one man. But I was wrong. They've done me dirt and played crooked. They come huntin' me—with a decoy. Now tell 'em from me that Grey Molly is worth seven men, and she's goin' to be paid for in full.”

He stepped to the wall and took down the bridle which Vic had hung there.

“I guess you'll be needin' this?”

It ended all talk; it even seemed to Gregg that as soon as he received the bridle from the hand of Barry the truce ended with a sudden period and war began. He turned slowly away.