Max Brand

Mountain Riders

Warsaw 2020

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 XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

I. TOM DERRY

TOM DERRY was not a handsome man. He was rather tall and very lean, and the narrows of his waist ran up almost to his shoulders, and one had to look twice to see where his hips appeared. But his appearance was deceptive, for his leanness was twisted about with muscles like hard fingers of wisteria that intertwine around the trunk of an old tree.

His face was no better-looking than his scrawny body. He had a nose, but that was about all one could say for it He had plenty of mouth. He had a blunt jaw of the sort that does not telegraph the shock of blows against the base of the brain. In fact, he had what is generally called a “mug,” but his eyes were so bright and good-humoured and active, and his smile was such a genuine flash of happiness that people always put him down as a harmless sort.

That had been the wrecking of Tom Derry’s life, so far. Because there was a time when all the good nature in him was exhausted, and his grin was not one of pleasure, and his eyes were a blue fire. A good many people had discovered that second half of Tom’s being, but most of those who made the discovery went to the hospital for quite a period, and long before they came out, Tom Derry had found it advisable to move on.

He kept on moving.

He had grown up on the range as easily, as carelessly, as naturally as the grama-grass and the wild-eyed cattle that grazed on it. Then, in the midst of a little friendly wrestling bout, a Mexican lad had pulled a knife on Derry and had seen the smile of Tom turn into the battle grin. Derry broke the Mexican’s arm, got the knife, and used it.

The Mexican did not die, but Tom thought he would. He lighted out from the home and dived into the wilderness and came up in a lumber camp, far north, where he worked happily until a peevish Canuck one day threw an axe at him. Tom pulled the axe out of the tree in which its blade was buried and threw it right back at the Canuck–and hit his mark.

The Canuck did not die, in fact, but Tom never knew that. He dived into the wilderness again and came to the surface in a town far east and south, where he drove a delivery wagon for a butcher’s shop until a pair of town toughs decided to help themselves to some steaks across the tailboard of the wagon. Tom took a cleaver, dealt with them, and moved on again.

He worked on the streets; he became a tramp; he did a few shifts in a coal-mine; he finally felt that he had achieved the really free and noble life that is proper for a man when he signed aboard a tramp freighter which used sail and a crew of Swedes. The Swedes did not like Derry because he was not a Swede. They started to ride him, and they rode him all the way to Acapulco. There he threw off the load, and in the fall three Swedish heads were broken.

Derry left the ship and drifted north through Mexico until he found a job as a vaquero. There he endured, happily, until a Mexican caballero turned the edge of his knife on Derry’s skull; but the knife still had a point, and Tom drove that point between the greaser’s ribs, and moved north, by night.

So, at the age of twenty-two, he got off his mustang and stood in Cleve Walker’s saloon, hankering for nothing more than beer for his stomach and peace for his soul.

Walker’s place was cool. The floor had been sloshed down recently with buckets of water. A mist was still rising from the boards. The saloon was so dim and calm that one lowered the voice instinctively on entering. Derry had lowered his voice, though he always spoke quietly enough. Now he stood at the bar, and with his finger-tips caressed the frost on the outside of his glass of beer, and was thankful that he was safely out of Mexico.

All he wanted was more safety–and a little beer. All he wanted the rest of his life was peace, perfect peace. He could almost envy dead men, they were so peaceful.

So he dropped his head back a little–which made his neck look broken at the Adam’s apple–and sipped his beer, and smiled dreamily on the bartender.

When he opened his eyes wide, he saw, on the wall above the bar, a big white placard that carried in the centre the photograph of a man with a long moustache and deadly, dull, expressionless eyes. Underneath the picture there was the terrible caption, “Wanted. For Murder,” and then, “Twenty-five Hundred Dollars Reward.” And there was some more of the usual stuff–the description–information leading to the apprehension–and that sort of thing.

Derry shook his head, still staring at that picture.

“The fool!” he said softly.

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