Max Brand

Rifle Pass

Warsaw 2019

Contents

I. UNLOCKED HANDCUFFS

II. COVERT SIGNAL

III. "CLOSE IN, BOYS!"

IV. LONE RIDER

V. GAME OLD DEVIL

VI. WATCHFUL, WAITING

VII. OUTSIDE THE LAW

VIII. RIFLE PASS

IX. PA LERMOND

X. ONLY A WELLER'S DUTY

I. UNLOCKED HANDCUFFS.

THE sheriff said: “There was a Weller at sea when the Constitution sunk the Guerrière. There was a Weller at the taking of Mexico City. There was a Weller under Sheridan and another under Mosby. There was a Weller that died with Custer. And I’ve been sheriff of this country for twenty years. Not that I rank with the rest of the family. But I’ve kept on riding, and I’ve never turned my back. And now the Wellers come down to you–to you–and there’s not another man in the family. You’re the last. And you spend your time playing cards, thrumming on a damned guitar, making love to girls, and lazying around the ranch smoking cigarettes.”

He pulled a long, sleek Colt forty-five with an eight-inch barrel from the holster. “Take this!” he directed.

Young Dick Weller took the revolver without rising from his position of perfect leisure in the veranda hammock. He had the long, sleek, easy lines of a mountain lion and a smile which was the most good natured and disarming that a man could wear. He used that smile on his father now, but it had no effect on the iron-gray sheriff. Thomas Weller had become a sheriff twenty years before, in order to carry on the bold tradition of public service in the Weller family and also because his huge holdings of land and cattle made it necessary for him to keep a close eye upon law and order. For twenty years he had struggled, and after all his ten wounds and his many battles he could only say that he had succeeded in part. Five years before, Papa Lermond, that prematurely bald young son of a lightning flash and the devil, had appeared on the horizon, and since that day the rustling of cattle had increased, to say nothing of stage and even train holdups. Ranches were raided constantly. In the three big towns there had been three big bank robberies. And the people who had looked up to Sheriff Tom Weller for twenty years were beginning to murmur against him more than a little.

“This gun,” said the idle son who was to inherit all the wealth of the family–and the family’s unstained name–dandled the long Colt for a moment and then said: “Has a good feel. Nice balance to this gun, dad.”

“Look yonder,” said the sheriff. “You see that pair of crows on the fence, there? Knock them off it. Sit up and try your luck!”

“I’ll try my luck lying down,” said Dick Weller, and swaying the gun to the side he flicked the hammer twice with his thumb. One crow disappeared from the top of its post, leaving a puff of black feathers hanging in the air.

The other shining bird left some feathers behind it, also, but rose with a startled squawking, then dipped towards the ground to gather more speed, quickly.

It kept on dipping, however. The revolver spoke the third time from the leisurely hand of Dick Weller, and the black crow skidded along the ground, turning over and over. It lay still. Only the wind fluttered the red-stained feathers.

“Shoots high and to the right,” said young Dick Weller. “I wouldn’t have it for a gift.”

The sheriff narrowed his eyes. He was still staring at the two dead birds, but he seemed to be seeing his own thoughts, farther away than the dim horizon.

“Get your own guns, then,” he said. “Saddle your own horse, the best you’ve got, and go get Harry Sanford for me. I appoint you deputy sheriff for this job.”

“All right,” said the son. “But who’s Harry Sanford?”

“He’s the right-hand man of Papa Lermond.”

“Why go after Lermond’s right hand? Why not go after Lermond himself?” asked the son.

“Why not go after the blue in the sky?” demanded the sheriff. “What I been doing for five years except trying to get Lermond? Do what I tell you, and do it fast!”

“Yeah. But tell me where this Sanford hangs out, and what sort of a looking hombre he is,” answered Dick Weller.

“He’s big. Dark as a Mexican. Last seen down near San Jacinto on the river.”

“What’s he done, recently?”

“Raised hell all over the map. Some crooks run off the cattle from his ranch and now he seems to think that the world owes him a livin’.”

“Dad,” said Dick Weller, “you know where he is and what he looks like. Why don’t you give this job to Hughie Jacobs or Walt Miller, or one of the other deputies that’s all set to make himself a big reputation?”

“You–” said the sheriff, “you don’t need any reputation, eh?”

“I’d rather take it easy till there’s some excitement around,” answered Dick Weller.

“You know what you’re going to be?” said the sheriff. “You’re going to be a disgrace to the family name. There’s plenty of people right now that say you haven’t the nerve to be a man!”

“People will always be talking,” said Dick Weller.

“Get up and out of that hammock and go get your horse and guns!” shouted the older Weller. “I don’t want to see you back under my roof till you’ve put young Sanford in jail! Understand?”

“Well,” answered Dick Weller, “that sounds pretty serious, I must say.”

He sat up, slowly, in the hammock.

“I don’t come back till I’m carrying the bear-meat. Is that it? I come back with blood on my hands or I don’t come at all?”

“Say it any way you please,” said the sheriff. “I’d rather see you dead than talked about the way people do now.”

“All right,” said Dick Weller. “I’d better go and make a reputation for myself.”

SAN JACINTO was a mere junk heap of a town–mud walls with whitewash daubed over the dobe bricks. The white rubbed off near the ground and the occasional rains washed away small portions of the walls. The streets were deep in dust, which made them comfortable resting places for the pigs, dusting baths for the chickens and playgrounds for the children. The back yards of the little houses contained grave vines; the front yards contained hitching racks. San Jacinto produced, every evening, a certain number of tortillas and frijoles, a certain amount of wretchedly empty bellies, and a certain amount of song.

Dick Weller, riding down the street with his guitar, thrummed the instrument and made a contribution to the song. People came to the doorways and gave him their Mexican smiles, which are the most brilliant in the world–more white and less pink than the smile of the Negro.

He waited until he saw a girl in one of those doorways, the young body silhouetted slenderly against the lamp-shine from inside the hut. Then he stopped his horse, lifted his sombrero, swept it through a liberal arc in the greatness of his courtesy.

“Señorita,” he said, “I am looking for a compadre of mine, Harry Sanford. Where shall I find him?”

The gruff voice of a man growled: “Maria, be still!”

But she answered: “What harm could come from such a caballero? Señor, you will find him in the cabin there on that side, in the house at the far end of the street, against the river.”

“And where shall I find you, my lady?” asked he. “In the heart of what song, lovely Maria?”

Dick Weller rode on, while the girl in fact sent her pretty laughter after him, and he heard a man growling: “That music is smooth enough; I could sharpen a knife on it!”

Down to the end of the village passed Dick Weller before he dismounted and went on foot to the little house at the edge of the river.

The sunset lay like bright, flowing oils on the slack of the river; and the damp coolness passed gratefully into the air. Climbing vines shrouded the small house, to distinguish it from all the rest in the adjoining town; one light shone through a window, but the man of the place still sat outside to enjoy the evening, his chair tipped back against the wall as tall Dick Weller stepped around the corner of the house.

“Mr. Harry Sanford, I presume?” said Dick Weller, a gun in his hand.

But the gun was held low, hardly higher than the hip, and perhaps it was this casual position of the revolver that made Harry Sanford try his luck in a desperate chance. He leaned slightly to the left and snatched a sawed-off shotgun which stood against the wall beside him.

The thumb of Weller caressed the hammer of his gun without actually firing the shot. Instead, he stepped a little closer and with a whip-snap movement of his left arm drove the hard fist against the chin of Sanford. The other spilled loosely back against the wall. He would have fallen from the chair if Weller had not clicked a pair of handcuffs over his wrists and held him up by the chain which linked them.

Sanford, recovering himself, groaned heavily. Flying footfalls and the whishing of skirts brought a dark beauty of a girl into the doorway, exclaiming: “Harry? Anything wrong?”

Then the sight of the gun and the handcuffs stopped her, staggered her against the side of the door.

“Wife?” said Weller.

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