Bad Man's Gulch Read online

  FAIR WARNING

  “If you can get away from here, you will have a chance to live a happy life again.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Why, meaning that you could go back to drifting . . . no fighting . . . taking things easy . . . never worrying. That was what made you very happy, Melendez.”

  “Aye,” said the younger man, “you seem to know me pretty well! And if I stay here?”

  “You’d have to be on your guard every moment of the day and the night. You’d have to have your head turned to look over your shoulder, never knowing when a bullet would come at you from behind.”

  —from “Bad Man’s Gulch”

  Other Leisure books by Max Brand ®:

  HAWKS AND EAGLES

  MOUNTAIN STORMS

  THE RANGE FINDER

  THE GOLDEN CAT

  PETER BLUE

  MORE TALES OF THE WILD WEST

  FLAMING FORTUNE

  THE RUNAWAYS

  BLUE KINGDOM

  JOKERS EXTRA WILD

  CRUSADER

  SMOKING GUNS

  THE LONE RIDER

  THE UNTAMED WEST (Anthology)

  THE TYRANT

  THE WELDING QUIRT

  THE BRIGHT FACE OF DANGER

  DON DIABLO

  THE OUTLAW REDEEMER

  THE GOLD TRAIL

  THE PERIL TREK

  THE MASTERMAN

  TIMBER LINE

  THE OVERLAND KID

  THE HOUSE OF GOLD

  THE GERALDI TRAIL

  GUNMAN’S GOAL

  CHINOOK

  IN THE HILLS OF MONTEREY

  THE LOST VALLEY

  THE FUGITIVE’S MISSION

  THE SURVIVAL OF JUAN ORO

  THE GAUNTLET

  STOLEN GOLD

  THE WOLF STRAIN

  MEN BEYOND THE LAW

  BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS

  THE STONE THAT SHINES

  THE OATH OF OFFICE

  DUST ACROSS THE RANGE/THE CROSS BRAND

  THE ROCK OF KIEVER

  SOFT METAL

  THUNDER MOON AND THE SKY PEOPLE

  RED WIND AND THUNDER MOON

  THE LEGEND OF THUNDER MOON

  THE QUEST OF LEE GARRISON

  SAFETY McTEE

  TWO SIXES

  SIXTEEN IN NOME

  MAX BRAND®

  BAD MAN’S GULCH

  Dorchester Publishing

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  Published by special arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency.

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © 2005 by Golden West Literary Agency

  Additional copyright information on p. 277

  The name Max Brand ® is a registered trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark office and cannot be used for any purpose without express written permission.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1817-9

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-1816-2

  First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: March 2007

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  BAD MAN’S GULCH

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THE ADOPTED SON

  I WAYLAID

  II RESURRECTION

  III THE FAIR

  IV THE SHOOTING

  V THE DANCE

  VI TO END THE FEUD

  VII FOREWARNED

  VIII THE END OF THE FEUD

  BILLY ANGEL, TROUBLE LOVER

  I SUE TO THE RESCUE

  II THE SHERIFF CONDEMNS

  III HOPPER LEARNS HER SECRET

  IV DELIRIUM

  V UNCLE PETE TELLS A TALE

  VI SUE RECEIVES HOMAGE

  VII INGRATITUDE

  VIII STRANGE PROCEEDINGS

  IX IMPOTENT FURY

  X SPYING IN THE DARKNESS

  XI CAPTURE

  XII SUE’S REWARD

  XIII NO HOPE FOR STEVE

  XIV A MYSTERY SOLVED

  BAD MAN’S GULCH

  I LAW AND ORDER

  II THE FURY OF NATURE

  III THE CRUEL SNAKE

  IV THE THINGS THAT ARE FATED

  V A BORN KILLER

  VI NOTHING BUT DEATH

  VII HANS GRIMM’S PLACE

  VIII THE GIRL’S MAN

  IX NO FIGHT IN HIM

  X A PROPHECY

  XI IT JUST HAPPENED

  XII HOPE

  XIII A LITTLE INFORMATION

  XIV RESCUE

  XV AT THEIR MERCY

  XVI IT ALL ADDS UP

  THE ADOPTED SON

  “The Adopted Son” was Frederick Faust’s seventh published work of fiction. It appeared in 1917 in the October 27th issue of All-Story Weekly under the pen name Max Brand. The story was featured prominently on the cover by way of a photo of Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne, who starred in the film version of “The Adopted Son” that same year. “Read it all here. See it on the screen,” announced the caption. From the beginning Faust was seen as a gifted writer who was marketable to a large audience.

  I

  WAYLAID

  If he had confined his attentions to Mexicans, it would have been all right, for those were days when guns were very popularly worn in Texas and almost as popularly used. In fact, his little affairs with Mexicans helped to make Lazy Purdue pleasing to the populace of several towns in southwestern Texas, and they led to no further result than a brief interview with a sheriff who would half playfully insist that such things must stop.

  For the rest, people refused to take Lazy seriously, except when he was angry, which happened very, very seldom. Under the influence of the peculiar caress of his eyes, his voice, and his smile, his man-eating past was forgotten.

  Besides, he was very young, and many things are forgiven one under thirty. He had floated irresponsibly for several years between boyhood and manhood, absolutely refusing to work more than a fortnight at a time. Because of this, and also because he generally replied to all questions that he was “just lazyin’ around,” he had acquired his uncomplimentary nickname.

  But when Lazy Purdue shot young Colton in Calamity Ben’s saloon, public sentiment changed. Even the sheriff forgot to smile.

  Lazy got away from Averyville to a good start because nobody in town felt equal to following him single-handedly, and it took nearly half an hour to organize a posse. He maintained his lead because he had won one of the best horses in those parts gambling with Jimmy Bixbee the week before. He rode that horse to death thirty miles east of Averyville, and then “borrowed” a mount from the corral of the Double X Ranch.

  After he made the loan, Lazy knew that he was done with Texas for good. In those days the brand of Cain could fade from a man’s forehead and be forgotten, but the horse thief was damned through eternity.

  So Lazy took a deep cinch on his
new mount and rode for life. He made the railroad station an hour and a half ahead of the posse and took an eastbound freight. After that he kept on east. He had no plan. He merely felt that he wanted to get as far east and north as possible. He had dreams of Canada.

  At New Orleans he shifted north after working his way across the river. With the Mississippi behind him, he began to feel more careless. He had shifted from freight boxcars by this time, and was riding the rattlers, when on a clear, moonlit night the train came to a stop and Lazy felt someone beating on his feet and shouting: “Get out of there!”

  He was quite aggrieved. He had not noted the lights of a station and thought that the train had merely stopped to take on water. Therefore he worked his way off the rods with some irritation and stood before the conductor.

  “You worthless swine,”shouted that official, “you can’t get by with this sort of stuff on my train! Beat it!”

  “My,” sighed Lazy, “ain’t you rough.”

  Something in his soft voice made the conductor raise his lantern to look over his tramp more carefully. At the same time he took several backward steps. “It’s all right,” said the conductor, “but you can’t travel on my train. Wait for the next one. There’s a freight due in a few hours.” He continued his backward progress, still with his lantern held high and shining into Lazy’s eyes.

  “Wait a minute, old pal,” said Lazy, “I reckon I’ve traveled quite a ways from my old stamping grounds. Just what part of the country may this be?”

  The conductor laughed somewhat uneasily. “This is eastern Tennessee,” he said. “Don’t you see the mountains?”

  With that he swung himself onto his steps, waved his lantern, and the train went swirling out into the night, leaving Lazy, rapt and motionless, staring the other way. He might have caught one of the rearward coaches, but he had quite forgotten the existence of the train. He had almost forgotten what mountains were like, so long had he been conscious only of the white, shining levels and flat monotony of the Texas plains.

  Now he remembered. Now a thousand things came back to him. He felt the full force of the velvet-black masses rolling and leaping up to the cool blue sky. And a light May wind touched his forehead with a remembered gentleness and laden with forgotten scents of unseen, growing things.

  He was fresh from the vast arching horizons of the desert. He was fresh from space filled only with terrible heat or formless night, a space wherein man’s thought grows into a meaningless monody of commonplace. But here was space more impressive because it was partly filled. There was the sense of life in every movement of the air. The sky was framed between the muscular upthrusting arms of the hills. He let his eyes move softly from one familiar outline to the next.

  Lazy Purdue removed his shapeless hat and stretched his arms and legs where they still ached from the continuous jar of the rods. “Lazy, my friend,” he murmured, “I reckon you’ve been a tolerable long time coming back home, but you’ve arrived here at last.”

  He started up the road that wound dimly up- and downhill, beside woods where all the leaves were murmurously astir, beside rolling pasture land where the bells sounded faintly as the cattle moved, browsing. He could see them sometimes in the moonlight. And once on a hilltop, black against the skyline, a great bull paused and turned his head and gazed at him in sullen, bovine inquiry.

  He did not know how far he had walked when he heard a beat of galloping hoofs behind him. He turned to stop the rider and parley. The horseman came to an abrupt halt before his upraised arm, and Lazy found himself looking up into a handsome, boyish face, above which a broad-brimmed hat flared cavalier fashion. A cravat was folded loosely about his throat.

  “Who might you be?” queried the boy, frowning curiously at him.

  “I’m a stranger,” began Lazy Purdue’s soft voice, “and I’m looking for work. Can you tell me where I’m apt to find it in these parts?”

  The boy considered him a moment, rubbing his chin as if in thought. “Sure,” he said after the moment’s pause. “I reckon there’s two places where you’d find work. One’s over to McLane’s. I don’t know as I’d advise anyone goin’ there.”

  Lazy Purdue started. The deeper shadow of the night concealed a frown that stirred his forehead. “An’ what’s the matter with the McLanes?” he queried.

  “They’s a tolerable lot that’s wrong with ’em,” stated the boy. “For my part, I never heard anything good about them. If you want work, you better go up to Conover’s. That’s my name.”

  Lazy Purdue started so perceptibly that young Conover leaned down from his saddle to look more closely at him.

  “Are you George Conover?” asked Lazy Purdue.

  “I reckon I am,” said the boy, “but who might you be? How did you know me?”

  “I didn’t know ye,” answered Lazy Purdue in a murmur, “I jus’ heard a little about you when I come first into these parts. I reckon I’ll go along up to your place.”

  “Can you find the way?” asked Conover.

  “Sure,” said Purdue. “I reckon I can pick it out from what people have told me. It lies to the right from that forking of the road right ahead, doesn’t it?”

  “Right,” said Conover. “Hope you land a place. I’m thinkin’ Pa wants another man.”

  He spurred down the road, drowning the sound of Lazy’s thanks with the rattle of hoofs. Lazy looked after him with a strange chuckle. “Me go to the Conovers?” he murmured. “I reckon not. Will a cat go into a dog’s house? The McLanes is no good, eh?” He broke off with a sudden laugh. Something in the idea struck him as irresistibly humorous.

  In the meanwhile, young Conover whirled out of sight behind the trees at the fork of the road ahead. At the same instant two shots struck through the quiet of the night, followed by a choking shout, then a moment of silence, and a horseman, bent far over his mount’s neck, raced down the left side of the fork.

  Lazy ran toward the forking of the ways. He found young Conover propped against a rock by the roadside with his horse standing motionlessly beside him. Lazy cursed softly as he leaned over him.

  “Where’s you hurt?” he asked gently as he raised the fallen head to the light.

  The boy smiled feebly up at him in the moonlight. “I reckon I’m hurt all over,” he answered in his drawling voice.

  “That dirty dog that rode down the road did it?” whispered Lazy fiercely. He had seen many a death, but this helpless body that a few moments before had ridden so strongly and bravely to be shot down without warning—Lazy Purdue struck the back of his hand against his forehead.

  “Tell me,” he demanded, “was it one of the McLanes?”

  Conover looked up at him with a dim wonder. “You seem tolerably familiar with things in these parts for a stranger,” he answered. “Yep, it was one of the McLanes. I don’t know which one. I didn’t get a good look at his face, but I know it was a McLane. It’s the old feud. I reckoned it was dead years ago when old Henry McLane was driven out of the country for killin’ two Conovers. The feud’s come again. You tell Dad it was a McLane. I ain’t goin’ to last long enough to tell him myself.”

  “I’ll remember it till I’m dead,” breathed Lazy Purdue. “Where’re you hurt, partner? Maybe it ain’t so bad!”

  “Aw, I’m done for all right,” said the boy faintly. “He got me clean with both shots. One high in the chest. One’s lower down. That one’ll do the work.”

  Lazy was already stripping his shirt into long pieces. He tore off the boy’s upper garments and saw against the white skin two purple patches from which ran the telltale trickle. He used up the shirts with his hasty bandages.

  “It ain’t much use”—the boy sighed—“I’m tol’able sleepy already, and . . . and it hurts like . . . like hell!”

  “Steady, old pal,” commanded Lazy Purdue, “we’re goin’ to pull you through yet . . . or God help the McLanes!”

  “Maybe you c’n get me home,” whispered Conover. “I kind of hanker to get home before . . . befo
re . . . My, I’m awful sleepy.”

  The horse shied twice before Lazy could lift his helpless burden to the saddle. Then he climbed on behind and started the horse at a walk up the road. Young Conover’s head fell back limply against his shoulder. He talked feebly with little silences between his words.

  “I dunno why they wanted so powerful bad to get me,” he said. “I ain’t never done anything to harm ’em except that I’m the last of the old line of Conovers. Think o’ that. The very last one, ’ceptin’ Pa, who ain’t due to live much longer. My, ain’t it a terrible chilly night for May time?”

  Lazy said nothing, but urged the horse to a faster walk. He felt an almost brotherly urge of affection for the dying boy. A peculiar gritting sound reached his ear. It was a moment or two before he realized it was the grinding of his own teeth.

  Young Conover was beginning to rave. He repeated bits of remembered conversation, and terms of fishing and hunting. By the time they reached the long avenue of trees at the end of which the old Conover house rose, white and tall, he fell silent, and his breath began to come in great, hoarse gasps.

  “Faster,” he urged. “Faster. I’m goin’ quick. My Gawd, ain’t the trees powerful dark an’ powerful high?”

  They came to the verandah, and Lazy halted, dropped to the ground, and exerted all his unusual strength to gather the boy into his arms. The verandah was dark, but through the open door came a glow of lights down the steps. As he put his foot on the lowest of these, Lazy felt the body in his arms stir convulsively. He ran up the steps and entered the open door, but, as he did so, the body fell limp. Something told Lazy that he had carried death into that home.

  “Hello, there!” called Lazy Purdue in loud tones. “Yoo-hoo! Come here, someone!”

  An old Negress ran into the hall. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw the light from the pendant lamp white on Lazy’s strong, naked torso and glimmering ominously on the limp body in his arms.

  “Oh, my Gawd!” she screamed. “Marse Conover! Oh, my Gawd, come quick!”

  A white-haired little man appeared in the door that she had left ajar. Lazy Purdue thrilled a little as he studied the face.