Destry Rides Again by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [BRAND ®, MAX]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781428506459
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-two

A wind blew across that height and cut against the face of Destry, whipping the dust from his lungs, the weariness from his heart. Across the rise and fall of the hills, he saw the dirty smudge which was the desert atmosphere; behind him the mountains rose up, splitting apart at the pass through which he had just ridden. He gave it one glance, and then made up his mind. The wind came from the left; it was to the right that he sent Fiddle, down into the hollows, so that the wind’s own voice might help to stifle the sound of her hoofbeats. Cat claws tore at them as they whipped through, and the mesquite rose up around them like a dusky mist, rolling back on either hand, as he kept Fiddle at full gallop for two miles at least, jockeying her forward with his weight shifted toward the withers.

Then he pulled her up onto the trail, the old trail in the red of the sunset, and, leaping down, threw the reins. She was breathing hard, but cleanly.

He hurried to the crest of the swale before him, and, glancing cautiously over, he saw the pinto and its rider jogging through the hollow beneath, straight into his hands.

He looked back over his shoulder. Fiddle already was cropping grass at the side of the road, and far off he saw a slowly moving cloud of smoke in the lowlands. It might have been dust raised by a whirlwind, but it leaned back too far for that, and he knew it was a train. From this same rise the fugitive—if fugitive he were—would sight his open door to flight.

The thought pleased Destry and all the iron in his heart!

He crouched in a nest of stones and waited. He stayed there until he saw the sombrero grow up on the other side of the rise, then the nodding head of the mustang—and the face of the rider.

It was Lefty Turnbull! It was Lefty, who, during the trial six years before, of all the twelve jurors, alone had sat from first to last with a fixed sneer of hostility on his lips.

It seemed to the startled and vengeful eyes of Destry that the same smile was now on the lips of this man, and it transported Destry back to the courtroom, to the spiderweb in the corner of the ceiling, to the slant shaft of the sunlight that streamed through the window, to the barking voice of the district attorney— and again to this sneering smile of Turnbull!

Or was it merely weariness, the grin of long labor, which will make men seem to smile?

“Hey—!” cried out Lefty softly, and reined in his horse as he saw the mare before him.

“Fill your hand, Lefty,” cried Destry, from the side. “Fill your hand.” Then, remembering on what commission he rode, he added loudly: “In the name of the law!”

There was an old saying among those who knew that there was enough of the cat in Lefty Turnbull to land him on his feet from any height.

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