Black Jack by Max Brand (short story to read TXT) 📕

it at once and shook his head in deprecation.

"Well, well! As bad as that? I suppose you may see my sister. For a moment. Just a moment. She is not well. I wish I could understand your purpose!"

The last was more to himself than to her. But she was already off her horse. The man with the blueprint glared at her, and she passed across the veranda and into the house, where Vance showed her up the big stairs. At the door of his sister's room he paused again and scrutinized.

"A killing—by Jove!" he murmured to himself, and then knocked.

A dull voice called from within, and he opened. Kate found herself in a big, solemn room, in one corner of which sat an old woman wrapped to the chin in a shawl. The face was thin and bleak, and the eyes that looked at Kate were dull.

"This girl—" said Vance. "By Jove, I haven't asked your name, I'm afraid."

"Kate Pollard."

"Miss Pollard has some news of Terry. I thought it might—interest you,
Elizabeth."

Kate saw the brief struggle on the face of the old woman. When it passed, her eyes were as dull as ever, but her voice had become husky.

"I'm surprised, Vance. I thought you understood—his name is not to be spoken, if you please."

"Of course not. Yet I thought—never mind. If you'll step downstairs with me, Miss Pollard, and tell me what—"

"Not a step," answered the girl firmly, and she had not moved her eyes from the face of the elder woman. "Not a step with you. What I have to say has got to be told to someone who loves Terry Hollis. I've found that someone. I stick here till I've done talking."

Vance Cornish gasped. But Elizabeth opened her eyes, and they brightened—but coldly, it seemed to Kate.

"I think I understand," said Elizabeth Cornish gravely. "He has entangled the interest of this poor girl—and sent her to plead for him. Is that so? If it's money he wants, let her have what she asks for, Vance. But I can't talk to her of the boy."

"Very well," said Vance, without enthusiasm. He stepped before her. "Will you step this way, Miss Pollard?"

"Not a step," she repeated, and deliberately sat down in a chair. "You'd better leave," she told Vance.

He considered her in open anger. "If you've come to make a scene, I'll have to let you know that on account of my sister I cannot endure it. Really—" "I'm going to stay here," she echoed, "until I've done talking. I've found the right person. I know that. Tell you what I want? Why, you hate Terry Hollis!"

"Hate—him?" murmured Elizabeth.

"Nonsense!" cried Vance.

"Look at his face, Miss Cornish," said the girl.

"Vance, by everything that's sacred, your eyes were positively shrinking.
Do you hate—him?"

"My dear Elizabeth, if this unknown—"

"You'd better leave," interrupted the girl. "Miss Cornish is going to hear me talk."

Before he could answer, his sister said calmly: "I think I shall, Vance.
I begin to be intrigued."

"In the first place," he blurted angrily, "it's something you shouldn't hear—some talk about a murder—"

Elizabeth sank back in her chair and closed her eyes.

"Ah, coward!" cried Kate Pollard, now on her feet.

"Vance, will you leave me for a moment?"

For a moment he was white with malice, staring at the girl, then suddenly submitting to the inevitable, turned on his heel and left the room.

"Now," said Elizabeth, sitting erect again, "what is it? Why do you insist on talking to me of—him? And—what has he done?"

In spite of her calm, a quiver of emotion was behind the last words, and nothing of it escaped Kate Pollard.

"I knew," she said gently, "that two people couldn't live with Terry for twenty-four years and both hate him, as your brother does. I can tell you very quickly why I'm here, Miss Cornish."

"But first—what has he done?"

Kate hesitated. Under the iron self-control of the older woman she saw the hungry heart, and it stirred her. Yet she was by no means sure of a triumph. She recognized the most formidable of all foes—pride. After all, she wanted to humble that pride. She felt that all the danger in which Terry Hollis now stood, both moral and physical, was indirectly the result of this woman's attitude. And she struck her, deliberately cruelly.

"He's taken up with a gang of hard ones, Miss Cornish. That's one thing."

The face of Elizabeth was like stone.

"Professional—thieves, robbers!"

And still Elizabeth refused to wince. She forced a cold, polite smile of attention.

"He went into a town and killed the best fighter they had."

And even this blow did not tell.

"And then he defied the sheriff, went back to the town, and broke into a bank and stole fifty thousand dollars."

The smile wavered and went out, but still the dull eyes of Elizabeth were steady enough. Though perhaps that dullness was from pain. And Kate, waiting eagerly, was chagrined to see that she had not broken through to any softness of emotion. One sign of grief and trembling was all she wanted before she made her appeal; but there was no weakness in Elizabeth Cornish, it seemed.

"You see I am listening," she said gravely and almost gently. "Although I am really not well. And I hardly see the point of this long recital of crimes. It was because I foresaw what he would become that I sent him away."

"Miss Cornish, why'd you take him in in the first place?"

"It's a long story," said Elizabeth.

"I'm a pretty good listener," said Kate.

Elizabeth Cornish looked away, as though she hesitated to touch on the subject, or as though it were too unimportant to be referred to at length.

"In brief, I saw from a hotel window Black Jack, his father, shot down in the street; heard about the infant son he left, and adopted the child—on a bet with my brother. To see if blood would tell or if I could make him a fine man."

She paused.

"My brother won the bet!"

And her smile was a wonderful thing, so perfectly did it mask her pain.

"And, of course, I sent Terry away. I have forgotten him, really. Just a bad experiment."

Kate Pollard flushed.

"You'll never forget him," she said firmly. "You think of him every day!"

The elder woman started and looked sharply at her visitor. Then she dismissed the idea with a shrug.

"That's absurd. Why should I think of him?"

There is a spirit of prophecy in most women, old or young; and especially they have a way of looking through the flesh of their kind and seeing the heart. Kate Pollard came a little closer to her hostess.

"You saw Black Jack die in the street," she queried, "fighting for his life?"

Elizabeth dreamed into the vague distance.

"Riding down the street with his hair blowing—long black hair, you know," she reminisced. "And holding the crowd back as one would hold back a crowd of curs. Then—he was shot from the side by a man in concealment. That was how he fell!"

"I knew," murmured the girl, nodding. "Miss Cornish, I know now why you took in Terry."

"Ah?"

"Not because of a bet—but because you—you loved Black Jack Hollis!"

It brought an indrawn gasp from Elizabeth. Rather of horror than surprise. But the girl went on steadily:

"I know. You saw him with his hair blowing, fighting his way—he rode into your heart. I know, I tell you! Maybe you've never guessed it all these years. But has a single day gone when you haven't thought of the picture?"

The scornful, indignant denial died on the lips of Elizabeth Cornish. She stared at Kate as though she were seeing a ghost.

"Not one day!" cried Kate. "And so you took in Terry, and you raised him and loved him—not for a bet, but because he was Black Jack's son!"

Elizabeth Cornish had grown paler than before. "I mustn't listen to such talk," she said.

"Ah," cried the girl, "don't you see that I have a right to talk? Because
I love him also, and I know that you love him, too."

Elizabeth Cornish came to her feet, and there was a faint flush in her cheeks.

"You love Terry? Ah, I see. And he has sent you!"

"He'd die sooner than send me to you."

"And yet—you came?"

"Don't you see?" pleaded Kate. "He's in a corner. He's about to go—bad!"

"Miss Pollard, how do you know these things?"

"Because I'm the daughter of the leader of the gang!"

She said it without shame, proudly.

"I've tried to keep him from the life he intends leading," said Kate. "I can't turn him. He laughs at me. I'm nothing to him, you see? And he loves the new life. He loves the freedom. Besides, he thinks that there's no hope. That he has to be what his father was before him. Do you know why he thinks that? Because you turned him out. You thought he would turn bad. And he respects you. He still turns to you. Ah, if you could hear him speak of you! He loves you still!"

Elizabeth Cornish dropped back into her chair, grown suddenly weak, and
Kate fell on her knees beside her.

"Don't you see," she said softly, "that no strength can turn Terry back now? He's done nothing wrong. He shot down the man who killed his father. He has killed another man who was a professional bully and mankiller. And he's broken into a bank and taken money from a man who deserved to lose it—a wolf of a man everybody hates. He's done nothing really wrong yet, but he will before long. Just because he's stronger than other men. And he doesn't know his strength. And he's fine, Miss Cornish. Isn't he always gentle and—"

"Hush!" said Elizabeth Cornish.

"He's just a boy; you can't bend him with strength, but you can win him with love."

"What," gasped Elizabeth, "do you want me to do?"

"Bring him back. Bring him back, Miss Cornish!"

Elizabeth Cornish was trembling.

"But I—if you can't influence him, how can I? You with your beautiful— you are very beautiful, dear child. Ah, very lovely!"

She barely touched the bright hair.

"He doesn't even think of me," said the girl sadly. "But I have no shame. I have let you know everything. It isn't for me. It's for Terry, Miss Cornish. And you'll come? You'll come as quickly as you can? You'll come to my father's house? You'll ask Terry to come back? One word will do it! And I'll hurry back and—keep him there till you come. God give me strength! I'll keep him till you come!"

Outside the door, his ear pressed to the crack, Vance Cornish did not wait to hear more. He knew the answer of Elizabeth before she spoke. And all his high-built schemes he saw topple about his ears. Grief had been breaking the heart of his sister, he knew. Grief had been bringing her close to the grave. With Terry back, she would regain ten years of life. With Terry back, the old life would begin again.

He straightened and staggered down the stairs like a drunken man, clinging to the banister. It was an old-faced man who came out onto the veranda, where Waters was chewing his cigar angrily. At sight of his host he started up. He was a keen man, was Waters. He could sense money a thousand miles away. And it was this buzzard keenness which had brought him to the Cornish ranch and made him Vance's right-hand man. There was much money to be spent; Waters would direct and plan the spending, and his commission would not be small.

In the face of Vance he saw his own doom.

"Waters," said Vance Cornish, "everything is going up in smoke. That damned girl—Waters, we're ruined."

"Tush!" said Waters, smiling, though he had grown gray. "No one girl can ruin two middle-aged men with our senses developed. Sit down, man, and we'll figure a way out of this."

CHAPTER 38

The fine gray head, the hawklike, aristocratic face, and the superior manner of Waters procured him admission to many places where the ordinary man was barred. It secured him admission on this day to the office of Sheriff McGuire, though McGuire had refused to see his best friends.

A proof of the perturbed state of