The Cross Brand by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2016-09-18T22:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XI

IN the first cold gray of the morning they came to Jack Bristol in the cellar room of the Carney house where he was being guarded. A cup of black coffee and a piece of bread with a couple of slices of bacon on top made the breakfast. And a little later they started up the valley with brown Susan dancing gaily on the way while her rider was held in the noose of a lariat which was twisted around the horn of Carney’s saddle.

Jack looked back at the house and he saw, in a window which opened just above the roof of the veranda, the face of Nell Carney watching him depart, with a strained expression of loathing and terror. His hands were lashed together, but he raised them both and lifted his sombrero to her. She disappeared to the side at once and Jack, as he settled the hat back on his head with a grim smile, saw Carney himself eyeing him with a measure of grim interest, but not a word was spoken.

It was plain, however, that whatever Nell had told her father, she had not completely prejudiced him against her escort of the night before, for all during the ride Captain Carney rode near the prisoner. It was at his suggestion that the rope was removed from Jack and attached merely to the neck of Susan. And above all, something in his manner was a steady assurance to Jack that in a pinch there was one man in the posse who would see that some measure of justice was meted out to the captive.

As for the others in the group, riding before and behind Jack, they maintained a resolute silence, so far as the man they guarded was concerned. They avoided even looking at him, as though they feared that if they met his glance they would have to recognize him as a human being worthy of mercy, at least. So grim was their mood that even when they spoke to one another it was in lowered voices.

So they worked their way quickly out of the valley before the morning fires began smoking in the chimneys they passed. They were entering the hills before, looking back, Jack saw a dozen ghostly and wavering fingers of smoke rising. The valley was still half lost in dimness, but the crests above them were already brightening with the sun. The sun itself came gleaming over an eastern mountain as the posse rode into view of the Sherry cabin.

They heard him before they saw him. An ax was swinging lustily somewhere below them, where the roof of the cabin was visible, and with every blow the thin and tempered steel rang loudly. Captain Carney bent his head to one side and listened with a critical air.

‘That’s a good ax man,’ he said. ‘He’s sinking her up to the wood every wallop, pretty near. That’s old Hank Sherry himself, I should say. He was always fast with an ax.

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