Acres of Unrest by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Chapter Twenty-three

That instant, the hold of the cripple relaxed and he said: “Now, Soapy, I think that you and I shall understand each other very well. We shall get on, Soapy, like old friends, eh?”

These words were, only partially heard by the mulatto. He was staring down at his hand as though it were a diseased part of him or as though, like a traitor, it had refused its duty to its master. It lay upon the table, crushed and weakened and numbed, a fiery red except where four snowy-white bands crossed it—in symbol of the four fingers of Peter Hale that had done their work so well. Soapy had been beaten, although he would never have suspected it, not by a superior might, but simply by the fear of something supernatural.

The force that, it had seemed to him, had crushed his hand as though it were that of a child or a woman had not been the might of the cripple, but the crumbling weakness in Soapy himself. Now, as he dragged that hand from the table, he moistened his shapeless white lips and looked at Peter like a poor martyr being thrown to the lions.

“Yet,” Peter said again, “I don’t wish for an instant to force you into a service which may be unpleasant to you. The fact is, Soapy, that I need a strong and brave and clever man to help me in this work. And it seems to me that you are the fellow for me. Am I wrong?”

Soapy pushed himself back in his chair and rose. “You got any need of me right now, boss?” he asked.

“No,” said Peter, “no need of you at all.”

Soapy slunk sidewise toward the door.

“But I’ll expect you back here before dark, say?” called Peter.

Soapy marked that fact by rolling the yellow of his eye toward his new-found master, and then issued from the house. Those who still lingered on the outside looked with wonder as they saw him pass with staring eyes and drawn face. Soapy had aged by ten years, so it seemed. He skulked across the open part of the circle like one who glides away from a beating, inflicted by a superior force.

“He’s killed Hale!” cried Jarvin. “Curse him, he’s throttled Hale!”

He tore the door open. But there was Peter in the act of swinging himself lightly to his feet.

“You’re safe, Pete?”

“I’m safe, Mike.”

“Curse it…then what did you do to Soapy? It’s all right, boys!”

It was something more than all right. The point of the matter was that, from the bearing of the mulatto, they had felt that some desperate deed had Just been done—if not by Soapy, then by the cripple. Those who wandered after Mike, filled with grinning, yet breathless curiosity, were just in time to see the great shining body of the stallion, Larribee, flash down the back trail from the camp, with the mulatto stooped low on his back, as though to avoid any random bullets that might be sent in pursuit.

That news was brought back to Jarvin at once, and it threw big Mike into a fury.

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