Where the Trail Divides

by Will Lillibridge

"I'll give you one more chance there, aborigine;" slowly, with an effort, almost gratingly came the words, like the friction of a rusty spring at the striking of a clock; "and I ain't in the habit of doin' that either, pard." He halted and his great chest heaved with the effort of a mighty breath, his whole body leaned a bit forward. "Tell me what you want here, and tell me quick, or by the eternal I'll fill you so full of holes your own mother wouldn't recognise you."

One by one the two repeaters shifted, shifted until they were focussed upon a spot midway between the belt and the rolling collar of the flannel shirt. "I'm listening, How Landor."

At last the moment had come, the climax, the supreme instant in the career of those eight men in that tiny weather-boarded room. No need to tell seven of them at least that it was a moment of life or death. If something, something which seemed inevitable, happened, if one of those curling, itching fingers on the triggers tightened, if but once that took place, their lives were not worth the wording of a curse. If once again that black-visaged, passion-mastered human smelt powder, there would be no end while a target had power to move, while a tiny gleaming cylinder remained in the row within his belt. This they knew; and man by man, as the Creator made them, revealed the knowledge. The jaws of Bob Manning were quiet now, but the old eyes blazed from beneath their sockets like the eyes of a grey timber wolf, the centre of a howling pack. Next to him lank Wagner stood, waiting with closed lips; his lips as grey as those of the dead man on the floor. Rank Judge had not moved, but the harness on his wooden stump creaked softly as his weight shifted from leg to leg. Fat Buck Walker was perspiring almost grotesquely, like an earthenware pitcher. Great drops hung from his chin, from his uptilted nose, and his cotton shirt was dark. Slim Simpson, white before, was like a corpse; only his great boyish eyes stared out, as a somnambulist stares, as one hypnotised. Last of all, at the end of the line was the stranger from the East, representative of another world. Piteous, horrible, the others had been; but he—but for his clothes, his most intimate friend would not have recognised him at that moment. In him, blind, racking terror was personified. To have saved his soul he could not keep still, and his heavy walking shoes grated as they shuffled on the rough floor. He had bitten his lip and the blood stood in his mouth and trickled down, down his clean-shaven face. His eyes, like those of Slim Simpson, were abnormally wide, but shifting constantly in a hopeless search for a place of concealment, of safety. If aught in his life merited retribution, the man paid the price a hundred times over and over that second.

Thus man by man they stood waiting; a background no art could reproduce, no stage manager prodigal of expense. If on earth there ever was a hell, that tiny frontier room with the smoke-blackened ceiling and the single kerosene lamp sputtering on the wall, was the place. Not an imp thereof, but Satan himself, stood in the misshapen boots of Cowman Pete; doubly vicious in the aftermath of a debauch, Pete with the lust of blood in his veins. And against him, scant hope to those who watched, was a man; tall, but not heavy, smooth-cheeked as a boy of fourteen, soft-eyed, soft-handed, without the semblance of a weapon. One branded unmistakably a sleeper, a dreamer, one apparently helpless as a woman. Yet there that night, within the space of minutes, from the time there fell that last speaking silence, with this man the chief actor, there took place something, the report of which spread swifter than wildfire, from the river to the Hills, from the north Bad Lands to the sandy Platte, that will live and be repeated while tales of nerve and of man mastery quicken the pulses of listeners. For after that night Coyote Centre knew Long Pete Sweeney no more; Dakota knew him no more. Not that he was murdered in cold blood as he had murdered others: it was not that. Alone, unmolested, he left, in the starlight of that very night; but he knew, and they who permitted him to go, knew that it had been better—

But we anticipate.

"I'm listening, How Landor," he had said.

But he heard nothing:—yet he saw. He saw a tall, lithe, catlike figure straighten until it seemed fairly to tower. He saw this same figure look at him fully, squarely; as though for the first time really conscious of his presence. He saw two unflinching black eyes, flanked by high cheek bones, out of a copper-brown face meet his own, meet them and hold them; hold them immovably, hold them so he could not look away. He saw the owner of those eyes move—he did not hear, there was no sound, not even a pat from the moccasined feet, he merely saw—and move toward him. He saw that being coming, coming, saw it detour to pass a prostrate body on the floor; always silent, but always coming, always drawing nearer. He saw this thing, he, Pete Sweeney, he, Long Pete, whose name alone was terror. He knew what it meant, he knew what he should do, what he had sworn to do; the muzzles of his two revolvers were already focussed, but he made no move. His fingers lay as before on the triggers. Once in unison they tightened; then loosened again. He did not act, this man. As his maker was his judge, he could not. He was wide awake, preternaturally wide awake; he tried to act, tried to send the message that would make the muscles tense; but he could not. Those two eyes were holding him and he could not. All this he knew; and all the while that other was coming nearer and nearer. He began to have a horror of that coming that he could not halt. The great unshaven jaw of him worked; worked spasmodically, involuntarily. His skin, flaming hot before, of a sudden felt cool. The sweat spurted, stood damp on the hairy hands. Something he had never felt before, something he had observed in others, others like those six in the background, began to grip him; something that whitened his face, that made him feel of a sudden weak—weak as he had never felt before. And still those eyes were upon him, still that dark face came closer and closer. Once more his brain sent the message to kill, once more he battled against the inevitable; and that me ssage was the last. There was no more response than if he were clay, than if his muscles were the muscles of another man. In that instant, without the voicing of a word, the deed was done. That instant came the black chaotic abandon that was terror absolute. In pure physical impotence, his arms dropped dangling at his sides. The other was very near now, so near they could have touched, and the cowman tried to brace himself, tried to prepare for that which he knew was coming, which he read on the page of that other face. But he was too late. Watching, almost doubting their own eyes, the six saw the end. They saw a dark hand of a sudden clench, shoot out like a brown light. They heard an impact, and a second later the thud of a great body as it met the floor. They saw the latter lift, stumble clumsily to its feet, heard a muffled, choking oath. Then for a second time, the last, that clenched fist shot out, struck true. That was all.

For a minute, a long, dragging minute, there was silence, inaction. Then for the first time the victor turned, facing the spectators. Deliberately he turned, slowly, looked at them an instant almost curiously,—but he did not smile. Twelve arms, that had forgotten to lower, were still in the air—but he did not smile. Instead he sought out the stranger in knickerbockers and blouse.

"I came to meet Mr. Craig, Mr. Clayton Craig, and guide him to the B.B. ranch," he explained, "It is Mr. Landor's wish. Is this he?"