Max Brand

His Fight for a Pardon

Warsaw 2019

Contents

I. LEON MAKES A DECISION

II. ON THE EDGE OF THE TOWN

III. THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE TOWN

IV. LEON INVADES THE HOUSE

V. LEON'S BARGAIN WITH THE GOVERNOR

VI. FACING GUNS

VII. AN UNEXPECTED CHALLENGE

VIII. THE TOWN IS EMPTIED

IX. PORFILO MEETS DINSMORE

X. AT THE O'ROURKES' AGAIN

XI. LEON NO LONGER A HERO

XII. DINSMORE'S CRUSHING ANSWER

XIII. PORFILO'S RETURN TO TOWN

XIV. ENEMIES FACE TO FACE

XV. THE DUEL

XVI. ACQUITTAL

I. LEON MAKES A DECISION

WHEN I got down to see Molly O’Rourke, Sheriff Dick Lawton crossed my way with three of his hard-riding man-getters. Every man-jack of them was on a faster nag than my mule, but I kept Roanoke in the rough going, and Dick Lawton was foolish enough to follow right on my heels instead of throwing a fast man out on my course. For he knew what that course was. He had hunted me before, and it was a sort of unwritten law between us that, if I got into the mouth of the little valley where the O’Rourke house stood, I was free.

That may sound specially generous on his side. But it wasn’t–altogether. Twice he had pushed his posse up that ravine after me, and it almost cost him his next election. Because that ravine twisted like a snake, back and forth, and it was set out with shrubs and trees as thick as a garden. I simply laid up in a comfortable shady spot, and, when the boys came rushing around the bend, I let them have it. So easy that I didn’t have to shoot close to a dangerous spot. I could pick my targets. However, I think that there were half a dozen had wounds in arms and legs. Also, I pulled too far to the left on one boy and drilled him through the body. So, as I say, the sheriff nearly lost his election after that because it was said that he had ridden his men into a man trap.

So far as Dick Lawton was concerned, I knew that valley was forbidden as a hunting ground to him. And, of course, I could trust Dick as far as he could trust me–that is to say, to the absolute limit. Because, except when we were shooting at each other, we were the best friends in the world. I know that Dick never shot extra straight at me, and I know that I never shot straight at him. My guns simply wobbled off the mark when I caught him in the sights.

Well, as I was saying, I kept old Roanoke in the rough where he could run four feet to the three of any horse that ever lived–for the simple reason that a mule’s hoofs and skin are a lot tougher than a horse’s. By the time I got across the valley, there was a clean furlong between me and Dick Lawton’s boys. So I took off my hat and said good bye to them with a wave that was nearly my last act in life. Because just as I put that hat back on my head, a.32-caliber Winchester slug drilled a clean little hole through the brim a quarter of an inch from my forehead.

I’ve noticed that when a fellow stops to make a grandstand play of that sort, he generally gets into pretty hot trouble. I sent Roanoke into the brush with a dig of the spurs, but the minute I was out of sight, I knew that there was no trouble left.

But I didn’t slow up Roanoke. I didn’t even stop to roll a cigarette, because I hadn’t seen Molly for three months. You see, it was right after the Sam Dugan murder which some fools hung on me. Of course, Lawton hadn’t the least idea in the world that I could have done such a rotten, treacherous thing. But they stirred up such a fuss that I didn’t dare to try to slip in to see Molly. Because everyone had known for years that I loved Molly and got down to see her once in a while, and, when things were pretty hot, they used to watch her house.

So I slithered up the ravine until I got a chance to squint at the ridge, and there I found a little green flag, jerking up and down and in and out in the wind, on top of the O’Rourke house. I knew that was the work of Molly’s father. I think that every day of his life the old man went snooping through the woods to see if the land lay quiet. If it was, he tagged the house with that little green flag–green for Ireland, of course–and then, when someone was laying for me near the house, he would hang up a white flag.

When I saw that green, I dug into Roanoke and sent that mule hopping straight to the house. As I hit the ground, I heard old man O’Rourke singing out inside the screen door of the porch: “Hey, Chet! Here’s Roanoke to put up, and sling a feed of barley into him. Hey, mother, come and look at that dog-gone mule! Hey, Molly, there’s that Roanoke mule wanderin’ around loose in the yard!”

Chet O’Rourke came first, and his old mother at his shoulder, and then the old man came next. I grabbed all their hands. It was like stepping into a shower of happiness, I tell you, to get among people where the feel of their eyes was not like so many knives pointed at you. But I brushed through them pretty quick. I wanted Molly.

“Hey, Molly!” yelped old O’Rourke. “Ain’t you comin’ to see Roanoke?”

He laughed. I suppose that he was old enough to enjoy a foolish joke like that. I heard Molly sing out from the stairs beyond the front parlor. I reached the bottom of those stairs the same minute she did and caught her.

She said: “Chester O’Rourke, will you take this man away from me?”

I kicked the door shut in Chet’s face and sat Molly on the window sill where the honeysuckle showered down behind her like green water, if you follow my drift. It would have done you good to stand there where I was standing and see her smile until the dimple was drilled into one cheek. She began to smooth her dress and pat her hair.

“My Lord,” I said, “I’m glad to see you.”

“You’ve unironed me,” said Molly. “Just when I was all crisped up for the afternoon.”

“Have they nailed the right man for the Dugan murder?” I asked. Because I was as keen about that as I was about Molly.

“They’ve got the right man, and he’s confessed,” she said.

I lowered myself into a chair and took a deep breath. “That’s fixed, then,” I said.

“That’s fixed,” she agreed.

“Why do you say it that way?” I asked.

“How old are you, Leon?” she said.

“I’m twenty-five.”

“How old does that make me?” said Molly.

“Twenty-three.”

“That’s right, too. How long have you been asking me to marry you?” Molly asked.

“Seven years,” I said.

“Well, the next time you ask me, I’m going to do it.”

“Law or no law?” I said.

“Law or no law.”

It made my head spin, of course, when I thought of marrying Molly and trying to make a home for her while a hundred or so cowpunchers and sheriffs and deputies, et cetera, were spending their vacation trying to grab me and the $20,000 that rested on top of my head as a reward. I moistened my lips and tried to speak. I couldn’t make a sound.

“You know that I’ve done what I could,” I said finally.

“I do. But now things are different.”

“What do you mean?”

“William Purchase Shay is the governor, now.”

“What difference does that make?”

“He’s a gentleman,” she said.

“Well?”

“I think he’d listen to reason.”

“You want us to go see him?”

“Just that.”

“I see myself handing in my name at his office,” I said. “I guess he’s not too much of a gentleman to want to make twenty thousand dollars.”

“Money has spoiled you, Leon,” said Molly.

“Money? How come?”

“You’re so used to thinking about how much you’ll be worth when somebody drills a rifle ball through you... that it’s turned your head.”

“Are you talking serious?”

“Dead serious,” she replied. “Besides, you’re not the only one that folks have to talk about now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Jeffrey Dinsmore is the other man.”

Of course, I had heard about Dinsmore. He was the Texas man whose father left him about a million dollars in cattle and real estate, besides having a talent for shooting straight and a habit of using that talent. Finally he killed a man where self-defense wouldn’t work, because it was proved that Dinsmore had been laying for him. The last heard, Dinsmore was drifting for the mountains.

“Is Dinsmore in these parts?” I asked Molly.

“He showed up in town last week and sat down in the restaurant...”

“Disguised?”

“Yes, disguised with a gun that he put on the table in front of his plate. They didn’t ask any questions, but just served him as fast as they could.”

“Nobody went to raise a crowd?”

“The dishwasher did, and a crowd gathered at the front door and the back.”

“What happened?”

“Dinsmore finished eating and then put on his hat and walked out.”

“Good Lord, what nerve! Did he bluff out the whole crowd?”

“He did.”

“What’s on him?”

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