Max Brand

Peter Blue

Warsaw 2019

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER I

IN every sunny day, there is one golden moment which lasts just long enough to fill a man’s heart. One cannot find the proper instant on the clock, and it will never come at all if one remains indoors, but, if you go out in the late afternoon with no purpose except to live and breathe and see, certainly with no expectation of magic, the golden moment will come upon you by surprise. It may be any instant after the sun has lost its burning force, when it may be looked on without blindness in the west, and it will be before the face of the sun turns red and his cheeks are blown out as he enters the horizon mists. It may be that you walk through the town and suddenly come on a street down which flows a river of yellow glory, and then one cannot help turning toward the light, for it seems a probable thing that heaven lies at the end of that street, and, if one hurries a little, one may pass through the open gates.

It was not through the narrow vista of any street that Sheriff Newton Dunkirk and his daughter saw the perfect moment on this day. They had before them the great bald sweep of the Chirrimunk Hills–to what lofty spirits of the old days were those grand summits merely hills?–and, as their horses cantered on around a bend, suddenly they saw the Chirrimunk River running gold, and all the west before them was blended with golden haze, and above the haze was a golden sun hanging out of a dark blue sky.

Horses can understand, I think, and that pair of mustangs slowed to a walk that there might be no disturbing creak of saddle leather or clatter of hoofs, while father and daughter lifted their heads and smiled first at the beauty of this world and then at one another as their hearts overflowed.

But when the mustangs had climbed to the top of the next rise, the golden moment had passed. There was lavender, green, and rolling fire in the west; the sun was half in shadow and half in flames. But the magic was gone, and Sheriff Dunkirk looked across the foothills and pointed.

“Who’s in the Truman shack?” he asked.

“Nick and August, perhaps,” said Mary Dunkirk. “They live there when they’re trapping along the river, you know.”

“It ain’t time for Nick and August,” the sheriff contradicted. “It’s some tramp, more likely. I’ll have a look.”

Mary, with a shadow in her eyes, looked again at the smoke that lolled out of the crooked smokestack above the Truman shanty. All manner of danger to her father might wait under that sign of habitation, but she had learned her lesson long ago and never allowed her protests to reach her lips. The folly of her mother had taught her this wisdom.

She caught the reins that Dunkirk threw to her as he dismounted near the hut, and, as her father neared the shack, she saw a tall man step into the doorway, but whether he were young or old she could not guess, only by the darkness of his face she knew that he was long unshaven. She saw her father pause to speak, then pass inside, and the doorway was left black and empty. Perhaps he never would come out again alive–and only a moment before they had been so happy.

Inside the shack the sheriff was saying: “I’m Sheriff Dunkirk of this county. What’s your name, stranger?”

“My name is Tom Morris.”

“Ah! Are you Tom Morris from over Lindsay way?”

“Did you know him?”

“Did I? Well, that’s right... he died last year. And what are you doing here, Morris?”

“I’m looking around.”

“For what? Work? There’s plenty on the range. Old man Bristol wants hands. I know he needs two ‘punchers. Have you tried him?”

“No,” the tall man said slowly. “I haven’t tried him.”

“And you don’t expect to?” suggested the sheriff curtly. His eyes wandered around the shack, touched on the patched and sagging stove, and the table that was kept on its feet by being wedged tightly into a corner. “No traps,” resumed the sheriff. “Not a trapper, then. You’re only looking? Enjoying the view, I suppose?”

A horse snorted in the adjoining shed, and Dunkirk pushed open the connecting door. He saw two blood horses, big, magnificently made, that threw up their heads and stared at him with a childish brightness. One was a deep bay, and one a black chestnut with a long white stocking on the near foreleg.

The sheriff whirled sharply around, a frightened but determined man.

“You’re Peter Blue!” he said. “You’re Peter Blue, and that’s your horse Christopher... that black one.”

“Not black,” corrected Peter Blue. “Black chestnut. Step in and look at him more closely, if you wish. Then you’ll see the leopard dapplings.”

The sheriff looked into the inscrutable eyes of Peter Blue and remembered that the horse shed was very narrow and crowded, and the arms of Peter Blue were very long. He shook his head with decision. “I’ve seen enough,” he said. “We don’t want you in this county and we won’t have you, Blue. You needn’t talk. I know you.”

“Very well,” said the other patiently. “Tell me first what law I have broken?”

“Law? I understand. You’re a slick operator, Blue, and you’ve never done anything wrong in your life... only had to defend yourself quite often. But I can find the law to fit you. Vagrancy. We have a vagrancy ruling in this county, and I enforce it when it needs enforcing. Is that clear?”

“Dunkirk,” Peter Blue said, “I’ve heard that you’re a straight man and a fair man. I intend to make no trouble here, but I want a few weeks of quiet.”

“You’ve always wanted quiet,” said the sheriff. “I’ve known a good many of your kind and they’ve always wanted peace and rest, but trouble comes and hunts them out, at last. Come, come, man. I’ve spent years in this county and those years have turned me gray... you’re not talking to a fool. I’ll be riding this way tomorrow, and I’ll expect to find the Truman shanty vacant. That’s final.” He paused in the doorway. “I’d like to know a thing, though. You’re a smart fellow, Blue, whatever else they may say about you. Then why the devil don’t you drop your horse, Christopher, and get another just as good? You’re always spotted through that nag. Is he your good luck, maybe?”

“No,” Peter Blue replied, touching the bolstered gun on his hip. “He’s not my good luck, but I keep him because there would be a difference between Christopher and another just as good.”

“Yes,” said the sheriff grimly. “It would be hard for any man to get away from that long-legged devil, I suppose.”

“Or,” the other picked up, “to put it another way, it would be hard for a man to catch that long-legged devil. Besides, Christopher was made for the bearing of burdens... and I’m a heavyweight, as you can see for yourself.” As he said this, his eyes seemed deeper and darker than ever, and the sheriff frowned.

“You’re mocking me, somehow, Mister Blue,” Dunkirk declared, “but that don’t bother me. All I want is to see this shack empty tomorrow. So long. But wait a minute. If you wanted to sell that Christopher, I might find you a buyer. Would you sell him?”

“Oh, yes,” said Peter Blue. “I’d sell him, of course. But,” he added rather dreamily, “not for money. No, no, not for money.”

“For what, then?”

“I don’t want to keep you here too long,” said Peter Blue.

The sheriff frowned again, hesitated again, and his face lighted beautifully. “I understand,” he said. “You love ‘im, eh? Well, so long, and good luck to you, Blue.”

He held out his hand and the other made a gesture to meet it, but the sheriff stepped back with a little muttered oath.

“I’ve never taken the left hand of a man in my life,” he said, “and I don’t intend to begin with you, my friend.” So saying, he backed slowly down the steps, and into the path, and walked sidling toward his horse, looking back. He even kept his eye on the blank doorway while he was mounting, and, as he spurred away, Mary saw him shudder strongly, like a child who has escaped from darkness into the light of another room.

“What is it, Dad?”

“I don’t know,” murmured the sheriff. “Nothing, I guess.”

She was glad to change the subject by pointing toward a meadow near the river edge, where an old man held the staggering handles of a plow that was drawn slowly by two oxen.

“There’s Uncle Harry. He puts in a long day, doesn’t he? Poor old man.” She added: “Who takes care of him?”

The sheriff turned a little and cast another glance down the road, as though to make sure that he was not being followed. Then he answered rather briefly: “Uncle Harry? Those old codgers don’t need care. The more they wither up, the tougher they get.”

The oxen were drawing their furrow up the hill, and the sheriff drew rein a moment to await the plowman. For, after all, men never are too old to vote. But Uncle Harry turned the corner of his land with deliberation before he stopped his team and saluted the two with a formal lifting of his hat. His long white hair flashed in the evening light.

“How are you, Uncle Harry?”

“Never no better, folks. And how’s yourself?”

“What do you hear from Judy and Dick?”

“Well, you and Judy was right fond of each other, Mary, wasn’t you? I got a letter from her last month. Her boy has had the chicken pox, but they’re getting on pretty good. I ain’t heard from Dick for a spell. Not since he headed for Utah.”

“Why, Uncle Harry, wasn’t that six months ago?”

“Let the young ‘uns rove and ramble, and, when they get slowed up a mite, then they’ll remember the old ‘uns, I always say.”

“Dear Uncle Harry, you never come over any more.”

“Well, honey, when I go to your place now, I miss your grandpa a tolerable lot. I dunno but your front porch looks sort of empty without him setting there with his pipe.”

“I’m going to bake you a big mince pie, one of these days, and bring it over.”

“You jes’ bring yourself, dearie, and don’t you bother about no pie!”

They turned their horses down the road again, for it was growing late, and, glancing back to Uncle Harry, the girl saw him reeling at the handles of the plow as he ran furrow.

“Poor old fellow! How does he manage?”

“Don’t you go getting sad about him, Mary. Those old ones, they don’t have the same feelings young folks do. When they sit quiet, they ain’t thinking so deep as you guess. They ain’t thinking at all. When they smoke their pipe, all they’re seein’ is the white curling of the smoke. They get like babies.”

“I wonder,” said the girl.

CHAPTER II

IN the Truman shanty, as the sheriff rode away, Peter Blue went back to his interrupted work. At that rickety corner table, on which the last western light was falling, he placed a little square mirror against the wall and sat down before it with a paper and pencil. He began to write with intensely knitted brows, and there was reason for his clumsiness, for he was looking not at the paper but into the mirror, guiding his pencil by the image that he saw. What made the matter worse was that he was using his left hand. He worked until the sweat stood on his forehead, and he stopped only when the fading light made the image in the mirror a blur.

Even though he knew what the sentence should be, he could hardly decipher this crazy scrawling:

The quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog. The quick red fox jumps over the lazy...

Then, with an impatient exclamation, he shifted the pencil to his right hand and attempted to write. He made but a single stroke, a wobbling, jerking, unmanageable stroke that ran off the side of the paper, and, with that effort at nervous concentration, his entire right arm began to quiver and jump. He dropped the pencil with a faint exclamation and with his left hand gripped the other wrist hard as though by sheer strength he would crush the senselessness out of his right hand and restore its old cunning.

However, it was only the petulance of a moment, which he mastered with a grim effort and went to the door to breathe the crisp night air. He could see the blurred outlines of two oxen and a man coming up from the river toward another shack, not half a mile away, and Blue sighed and turned thoughtful. For in the old days he would have scorned a spirit so pedestrian that it enabled a man to work at the plow behind oxen from dawn to dark. He felt no scorn now, but only a profound, sick envy of all in this world who suffered under a lesser curse than that which weighed him down.

A rabbit, bound home for the warren late, scampered across the trail–a tidy bit of fresh meat for his supper–and the old instinct made him sweep the Colt from its holster. It came clear of the leather, but slipped through his nerveless fingers and crashed upon the floor; the frightened rabbit turned into a dim streak across the field. It was a moment before he picked up the gun–with his left hand, and, reaching clumsily across his body, he dropped the weapon back in its sheath, but he remained a little longer leaning against the doorjamb, for a deeper darkness than that of the night was spinning across his brain.

At length, however, he went to the stove and made a great rattling in shaking down the ashes and freshening the fire, for the blaze was cheerful and gave him heart to fry bacon for his supper, boil strong coffee, and complete his meal with heavy, soggy pone. After that, all of the evening was before him, and he prepared for it by taking a candle from the pack that lay open on the floor and lighting it so that he could resume his work.

But before he began, he opened again the little book that he had read so many times before. The leaves parted at a well- thumbed place, and he read:

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