The Streak by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2016-11-19T23:00:00+00:00

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XVIII. — BLONDY’S COURAGE

THAT ragged old mustang of Calico Charlie’s had a nice little dog-trot, and it moved along with its head down, and nodding, and its hoofs just trailing through the dust in the way that a mustang knows how to travel all day long. Blondy was not the best rider in the world, but he sat that dog-trot without stirring in the saddle.

Around him, green islands of trees on the paler green of the grass drifted past, and he looked on them with a hopeless and dim eye.

He hardly guided the mustang at all. It seemed to know the way and went straight on until it came to that brake of lodge pole pines. Even there it did not hesitate. Having once been crowded through that dense thicket, it pressed forward again. Its flattened ears showed how it hated all riders; the spur scars on its flanks were the symbol that it had learned the wisdom of serving them. So they came to the little side door of the barn.

Blondy dismounted, threw the reins, and walked into the dimness of the interior. It was quite black, after a trip through the brilliance of the outer day, even though the sun was almost down. Blondy found the lantern, lighted it, and went to the post from which his spare clothes were hanging. He began to go through the pockets of everything: the breast pockets of flannel shirts, the hip and side and watch pockets of overalls, the outside, inside, complicated pockets of a cheap old coat.

Finally he paused in his work and rested a hand blindly against the post.

Behind him the voice of Calico Charlie suddenly said: “Just rest a while, kid. Then you can turn around and talk to Calico.”

Then someone laughed, in a husky, high-pitched, whining key. That was Shine, of course.

Blondy turned around. He seemed to see nothing except the two of them smiling, the shine of their eyes and of their teeth.

Calico said: “Fan him.”

Shine went up to Blondy and took a grip on his flannel shirt at the base of the neck. The vast grasp of his black hand took up all the spare of the shirt and put on a pressure that made breathing hard. He slapped his other hand against the clothes of Blondy.

The slaps were so flat and heavy that they stung right through the cloth and made Blondy seem naked. The first thing that he found was the gun of Calico, the famous old Colt with the extra inches on the barrel.

Calico said: “Any bullets in that old gun, Shine?”

“No, sir,” said Shine.

“Give it back to him,” said Calico.

Shine gave it back.

He found tobacco, papers, matches, a little twist of a sewing kit that contained, also, twine and buttons of three sizes. There was a wallet containing over a hundred dollars, and a letter.

That was all. There was nothing else.

“What’s in the letter?” asked Calico. “Let him go, now. Maybe he’s gunna jump the two of us. But that’s all right.

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