Black Jack Read online

  Black Jack

  Max Brand

  *

  "If Terry worries you like this," suggested her brother kindly, "why don't you forbid these pranks?"

  She looked at him as if in surprise.

  "Forbid Terry?" she echoed, and then smiled. Decidedly this was her first tone, a soft tone that came from deep in her throat. Instinctively Vance contrasted it with the way she had spoken to him. But it was always this way when Terry was mentioned. For the first time he saw it clearly. It was amazing how blind he had been. "Forbid Terence? Vance, that devil of a horse is part of his life. He was on a hunting trip when he saw Le Sangre-"

  "Good Lord, did they call the horse that?"

  "A French-Canadian was the first to discover him, and he gave the name. And he's the color of blood, really. Well, Terence saw Le Sangre on a hilltop against the sky. And he literally went mad. Actually, he struck out on foot with his rifle and lived in the country and never stopped walking until he wore down Le Sangre somehow and brought him back hobbled-just skin and bones, and Terence not much more. Now Le Sangre is himself again, and he and Terence have a fight-like that-every day. I dream about it; the most horrible nightmares!"

  "And you don't stop it?"

  "My dear Vance, how little you know Terence! You couldn't tear that horse out of his life without breaking his heart. Iknow! "

  "So you suffer, day by day?"

  "I've done very little else all my life," said Elizabeth gravely. "And I've learned to bear pain."

  He swallowed. Also, he was beginning to grow irritated. He had never before had a talk with Elizabeth that contained so many reefs that threatened shipwreck. He returned to the gist of their conversation rather too bluntly.

  "But to continue, Elizabeth, any banker would lend me money on my prospects."

  "You mean the property which will come to you when I die?"

  He used all his power, but he could not meet her glance. "You know that's a nasty way to put it, Elizabeth."

  "Dear Vance," she sighed, "a great many people say that I'm a hard woman. I suppose I am. And I like to look facts squarely in the face. Your prospects begin with my death, of course."

  He had no answer, but bit his lip nervously and wished the ordeal would come to an end.

  "Vance," she went on, "I'm glad to have this talk with you. It's something you have to know. Of course I'll see that during my life or my death you'll be provided for. But as for your main prospects, do you know where they are?"

  "Well?"

  She was needlessly brutal about it, but as she had told him, her education had been one of pain.

  "Your prospects are down there by the river on the back of Le Sangre."

  Vance Cornish gasped.

  "I'll show you what I mean, Vance. Come along."

  The moment she rose, some of her age fell from her. Her carriage was erect. Her step was still full of spring and decision, as she led the way into the house. It was a big, solid, two-story building which the mightiest wind could not shake. Henry Cornish had merely founded the house, just as he had founded the ranch; the main portion of the work had been done by his daughter. And as they passed through, her stern old eye rested peacefully on the deep, shadowy vistas, and her foot fell with just pride on the splendid rising sweep of the staircase. They passed into the roomy vault of the upper hall and went down to the end. She took out a big key from her pocket and fitted it into the lock; then Vance dropped his hand on her arm. His voice lowered.

  "You've made a mistake, Elizabeth. This is Father's room."

  Ever since his death it had been kept unchanged, and practically unentered save for an occasional rare day of work to keep it in order. Now she nodded and resolutely turned the key and swung the door open. Vance went in with an exclamation of wonder. It was quite changed from the solemn old room and the brown, varnished woodwork which he remembered. Cream-tinted paint now made the walls cool and fresh. The solemn engravings no longer hung above the bookcases. And the bookcases themselves had been replaced with built-in shelves pleasantly filled with rich bindings, black and red and deep yellow-browns. A tall cabinet stood open at one side filled with rifles and shotguns of every description, and another cabinet was loaded with fishing apparatus. The stiff-backed chairs had given place to comfortable monsters of easy lines. Vance Cornish, as one in a dream, peered here and there.

  "God bless us!" he kept repeating. "God bless us! But where's there a trace of Father?"

  "I left it out," said Elizabeth huskily, "because this room is meant for-but let's go back. Do you remember that day twenty-four years ago when we took Jack Hollis's baby?"

  "Whenyou took it," he corrected. "I disclaim all share in the idea."

  "Thank you," she answered proudly. "At any rate, I took the boy and called him Terence Colby."

  "Why that name," muttered Vance, "I never could understand."

  "Haven't I told you? No, and I hardly know whether to trust even you with the secret, Vance. But you remember we argued about it, and you said that blood would out; that the boy would turn out wrong; that before he was twenty-five he would have shot a man?"

  "I believe the talk ran like that."

  "Well, Vance, I started out with a theory; but the moment I had that baby in my arms, it became a matter of theory, plus, and chiefly plus. I kept remembering what you had said, and I was afraid. That was why I worked up the Colby idea."

  "That's easy to see."

  "It wasn't so easy to do. But I heard of the last of an old Virginia family who had died of consumption in Arizona. I traced his family. He was the last of it. Then it was easy to arrange a little story: Terence Colby had married a girl in Arizona, died shortly after; the girl died also, and I took the baby. Nobody can disprove what I say. There's not a living soul who knows that Terence is the son of Jack Hollis-except you and me."

  "How about the woman I got the baby from?"

  "I bought her silence until fifteen years ago. Then she died, and now Terry is convinced that he is the last representative of the Colby family."

  She laughed with excitement and beckoned him out of the room and into another-Terry's room, farther down the hall. She pointed to a large photograph of a solemn-faced man on the wall. "You see that?"

  "Who is it?"

  "I got it when I took Terry to Virginia last winter-to see the old family estate and go over the ground of the historic Colbys."

  She laughed again happily.

  "Terry was wild with enthusiasm. He read everything he could lay his hands on about the Colbys. Discovered the year they landed in Virginia; how they fought in the Revolution; how they fought and died in the Civil War. Oh, he knows every landmark in the history of 'his' family. Of course, I encouraged him."

  "I know," chuckled Vance. "Whenever he gets in a pinch, I've heard you say: 'Terry, what should a Colby do?'"

  "And," cut in Elizabeth, "you must admit that it has worked. There isn't a prouder, gentler, cleaner-minded boy in the world than Terry. Not blood. It's the blood of Jack Hollis. But it's what he thinks himself to be that counts. And now, Vance, admit that your theory is exploded."

  He shook his head.

  "Terry will do well enough. But wait till the pinch comes. You don't know how he'll turn out when the rub comes.Then blood will tell!"

  She shrugged her shoulders angrily.

  "You're simply being perverse now, Vance. At any rate, that picture is one of Terry's old 'ancestors,' Colonel Vincent Colby, of prewar days. Terry has discovered family resemblances, of course-same black hair, same black eyes, and a great many other things."

  "But suppose he should ever learn the truth?" murmured Vance.

  She caught her breath.

  "That would be ruinous, of course. But he'll never learn. Only you and I know."


  "A very hard blow, eh," said Vance, "if he were robbed of the Colby illusion and had Black Jack put in its place as a cold fact? But of course we'll never tell him."

  Her color was never high. Now it became gray. Only her eyes remained burning, vivid, young, blazing out through the mask of age.

  "Remember you said his blood would tell before he was twenty-five; that the blood of Black Jack would come to the surface; that he would have shot a man?"

  "Still harping on that, Elizabeth? What if he does?"

  "I'd disown him, throw him out penniless on the world, never see him again."

  "You're a Spartan," said her brother in awe, as he looked on that thin, stern face. "Terry is your theory. If he disappoints you, he'll be simply a theory gone wrong. You'll cut him out of your life as if he were an algebraic equation and never think of him again."

  "But he's not going wrong, Vance. Because, in ten days, he'll be twenty- five! And that's what all these changes mean. The moment it grows dark on the night of his twenty-fifth birthday, I'm going to take him into my father's room and turn it over to him."

  He had listened to her patiently, a little wearied by her unusual flow of words. Now he came out of his apathy with a jerk. He laid his hand on Elizabeth's shoulder and turned her so that the light shone full in her face. Then he studied her.

  "What do you mean by that, Elizabeth?"

  "Vance," she said steadily, but with a touch of pity in her voice, "I have waited for a score of years, hoping that you'd settle down and try to do a man's work either here or somewhere else. You haven't done it. Yesterday Mr. Cornwall came here to draw up my will. By that will I leave you an annuity, Vance, that will take care of you in comfort; but I leave everything else to Terry Colby. That's why I've changed the room. The moment it grows dark ten days from today, I'm going to take Terry by the hand and lead him into the room and into the position of my father!"

  The mask of youth which was Vance Cornish crumbled and fell away. A new man looked down at her. The firm flesh of his face became loose. His whole body was flabby. She had the feeling that if she pushed against his chest with the weight of her arm, he would topple to the floor. That weakness gradually passed. A peculiar strength of purpose grew in its place.

  "Of course, this is a very shrewd game, Elizabeth. You want to wake me up. You're using the spur to make me work. I don't blame you for using the bluff, even if it's a rather cruel one. But, of course, it's impossible for you to be serious in what you say."

  "Why impossible, Vance?"

  "Because you know that I'm the last male representative of our family. Because you know my father would turn in his grave if he knew that an interloper, a foundling, the child of a murderer, a vagabond, had been made the heir to his estate. But you aren't serious, Elizabeth; I understand."

  He swallowed his pride, for panic grew in him in proportion to the length of time she maintained her silence.

  "As a matter of fact, I don't blame you for giving me a scare, my dear sister. I have been a shameless loafer. I'm going to reform and lift the burden of business off your shoulders-let you rest the remainder of your life."

  It was the worst thing he could have said. He realized it the moment he had spoken. This forced, cowardly surrender was worse than brazen defiance, and he saw her lip curl. An idler is apt to be like a sullen child, except that in a grown man the child's sulky spite becomes a dark malice, all-embracing. For the very reason that Vance knew he was receiving what he deserved, and that this was the just reward for his thriftless years of idleness, he began to hate Elizabeth with a cold, quiet hatred. There is something stimulating about any great passion. Now Vance felt his nerves soothed and calmed. His self-possession returned with a rush. He was suddenly able to smile into her face.

  "After all," he said, "you're absolutely right. I've been a failure, Elizabeth-a rank, disheartening failure. You'd be foolish to trust the result of your life labors in my hands-entirely foolish. I admit that it's a shrewd blow to see the estate go to-Terry."

  He found it oddly difficult to name the boy.

  "But why not? Why not Terry? He's a clean youngster, and he may turn out very well-in spite of his blood. I hope so. The Lord knows you've given him every chance and the best start in the world. I wish him luck!"

  He reached out his hand, and her bloodless fingers closed strongly over it.

  "There's the old Vance talking," she said warmly, a mist across her eyes. "I almost thought that part of you had died."

  He writhed inwardly. "By Jove, Elizabeth, think of that boy, coming out of nothing, everything poured into his hands-and now within ten days of his goal! Rather exciting, isn't it? Suppose he should stumble at the very threshold of his success? Eh?"

  He pressed the point with singular insistence.

  "Doesn't it make your heart beat, Elizabeth, when you think that he might fall-that he might do what I prophesied so long ago-shoot a man before he's twenty-five?"

  She shrugged the supposition calmly away.

  "My faith in him is based as strongly as the rocks, Vance. But if he fell, after the schooling I've given him, I'd throw him out of my life- forever."

  He paused a moment, studying her face with a peculiar eagerness. Then he shrugged in turn. "Tush! Of course, that's impossible. Let's go down."

  * * *

  Elizabeth left the ordering of the guests at the table to Vance, and she consulted him about it as they went into the dining room. It was a long, low-ceilinged room, with more windows than wall space. It opened onto a small porch, and below the porch was the garden which had been the pride of Henry Cornish. Beside the tall glass doors which led out onto the porch she reviewed the seating plans of Vance. "You at this end and I at the other," he said. "I've put the sheriff beside you, and right across from the sheriff is Nelly. She ought to keep him busy. The old idiot has a weakness for pretty girls, and the younger the better, it seems. Next to the sheriff is Mr. Gainor. He's a political power, and what time the sheriff doesn't spend on you and on Nelly he certainly will give to Gainor. The arrangement of the rest doesn't matter. I simply worked to get the sheriff well-pocketed and keep him under your eye."

  "But why not under yours, Vance? You're a thousand times more diplomatic than I am."

  "I wouldn't take the responsibility, for, after all, this may turn out to be a rather solemn occasion, Elizabeth."

  "You don't think so, Vance?"

  "I pray not."

  "And where have you put Terence?"

  "Next to Nelly, at your left."

  "Good heavens, Vance, that's almost directly opposite the sheriff. You'll have them practically facing each other."

  It was the main thing he was striving to attain. He placated her carefully.

  "I had to. There's a danger. But the advantage is huge. You'll be there between them, you might say. You can keep the table talk in hand at that end. Flash me a signal if you're in trouble, and I'll fire a question down the table at the sheriff or Terry, and get their attention. In the meantime you can draw Terry into talk with you if he begins to ask the sheriff what you consider leading questions. In that way, you'll keep the talk a thousand leagues away from the death of Black Jack."

  He gained his point without much more trouble. Half an hour later the table was surrounded by the guests. It was a table of baronial proportions, but twenty couples occupied every inch of the space easily. Vance found himself a greater distance than he could have wished from the scene of danger, and of electrical contact.

  At least four zones of cross-fire talk intervened, and the talk at the farther end of the table was completely lost to him, except when some new and amazing dish, a triumph of Wu Chi's fabrication, was brought on, and an appreciative wave of silence attended it.

  Or again, the mighty voice of the sheriff was heard to bellow forth in laughter of heroic proportions.

  Aside from that, there was no information he could gather except by his eyes. And chiefly, the face of Elizabeth. He knew her like a book in which he had o
ften read. Twice he read the danger signals. When the great roast was being removed, he saw her eyes widen and her lips contract a trifle, and he knew that someone had come very close to the danger line indeed. Again when dessert was coming in bright shoals on the trays of the Chinese servants, the glance of his sister fixed on him down the length of the table with a grim appeal. He made a gesture of helplessness. Between them four distinct groups into which the table talk had divided were now going at full blast. He could hardly have made himself heard at the other end of the table without shouting.

  Yet that crisis also passed away. Elizabeth was working hard, but as the meal progressed toward a close, he began to worry. It had seemed impossible that the sheriff could actually sit this length of time in such an assemblage without launching into the stories for which he was famous. Above all, he would be sure to tell how he had started on his career as a manhunter by relating how he slew Black Jack.

  Once the appalling thought came to Vance that the story must have been told during one of those moments when his sister had shown alarm. The crisis might be over, and Terry had indeed showed a restraint which was a credit to Elizabeth's training. But by the hunted look in her eyes, he knew that the climax had not yet been reached, and that she was continually fighting it away.

  He writhed with impatience. If he had not been a fool, he would have taken that place himself, and then he could have seen to it that the sheriff, with dexterous guiding, should approach the fatal story. As it was, how could he tell that Elizabeth might not undo all his plans and cleverly keep the sheriff away from his favorite topic for an untold length of time? But as he told his sister, he wished to place all the seeming responsibility on her own shoulders. Perhaps he had played too safe.

  The first ray of hope came to him as coffee was brought in. The prodigious eating of the cattlemen and miners at the table had brought them to a stupor. They no longer talked, but puffed with unfamiliar awkwardness at the fine Havanas which Vance had provided. Even the women talked less, having worn off the edge of the novelty of actually dining at the table of Elizabeth Cornish. And since the hostess was occupied solely with the little group nearest her, and there was no guiding mind to pick up the threads of talk in each group and maintain it, this duty fell more and more into the hands of Vance. He took up his task with pleasure.