Silvertip's Search
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Authors: Max Brand
BRAND
SILVERTIP'S SEARCH
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The Judge's Visitor
J
UDGE
B
RENDER
had a wooden leg. That was why he refused to let his wife get up and answer the knock at the front door of the ranch house; he always wanted to show that in spite of a wooden leg he was about as active and agile as ever.
So he waved his wife back to her newspaper â it was the idle hour of a mid-morning on Sunday â and he swung himself on his crutches and his sound leg into the hallway. The judge was a big man, but he found himself scowling through the screen door and the blinding light of the day at a man fully as tall as himself. The visitor was big and brown and handsome, and he wore a faint and amiable smile as he took off his hat.
“Are you Judge Brender?” he asked.
The judge, now that the man's hat was off, could see a pair of gray spots in the hair of the stranger above the temples. They looked like horns pushing out through the hair. He never had seen a more peculiar or characteristic marking.
“I'm Brender. Who are you?” demanded the judge.
“My name is Silver. I saw an ad in a newspaper saying that you wanted a man. I dropped in to find out what it was all about.”
“I want a man who can ride, shoot, and tell a lie,” said the judge. “But I'm tired of talking to men who want the place. Some of them can ride; some of them can shoot a little; but there ain't a one in the lot that's worth anything when it comes to brains. Are you any different from the rest of the lot?”
“Do you want me to tell you how clever I am?” asked the stranger.
The judge considered him with a scowl that grew a little less black. After a while he said:
“Well, come on inside.”
Silver stepped into the hallway. The judge noticed two things about him. The first was that the screen door, which usually screamed on its rusty hinges, made no sound as Silver drew it open and closed it behind him. The second thing the judge noticed was that the step of Silver, in spite of his size, made no noise on the squeaking, thin boards of the floor.
The judge put one and one together, and guessed at a million. He knew from that moment that his guest was no ordinary man, and a dim hope began to flicker up into the judge's mind.
“Step into the front room,” he said.
Silver laid down his hat, brushed his hair smooth with the flat of his hand, and gave a look at the mask of a huge grizzly bear which was mounted on the wall near the stairs. Then he stepped into the front room. He paused near the door and bowed to Mrs. Brender.
“Name of Silver,” said the judge by way of introduction. “He's come about that business. You scatter, Martha, because I gotta waste a coupla minutes finding out what he don't know and why he won't do.”
She looked at Silver and shook her head with a smile, apologizing for the roughness of this talk, and silently begging Silver to make allowances. He smiled in return as she shook hands, and then she went out of the room, saying at the door into the hall:
“Mr. Silver had better stay for lunch. There's a mighty good roast of pork in the oven.”
“He ain't likely to be staying for no lunch,” said Judge Brender grimly.
Mrs. Brender made with her thin hands a gesture of surrender, and disappeared.
“You don't need to sit down and get a chair all dusty,” said the judge. “Not till I find out if you can do the first part of the job. Can you shoot?”
Silver shrugged his shoulders, while Brender looked about him as though in search of a proper target right in the room. Then he nodded toward a window.
“There's a three-strand barbed-wire fence out yonder. Cut them three strands with a revolver. Can you do that?”
Silver turned. The wires were glimmering lines of light â dotted lines.
“With a rifle. Not with a revolver,” he said.
The judge grinned.
“Well,” he said, “there's a pair of birds just lighted on the top strand. What about them?”
Silver walked to the window.
“I'll try,” he said.
His back was to the judge, who therefore could not see the movement that drew the revolver. He could not see the gun at all, in fact, and he only knew that the weapon was not leveled shoulder-high, but fired a little above the height of the hip.
At the first explosion, one of those birds on the fence dissolved into a puff of gray feathers. The second dipped off the wire as another shot was fired, then flirted up into the air, unharmed by the bullet, gathering speed. The third shot followed right on the heels of the first pair, and the second bird was blotted out by the big slug of lead.
Silver turned, with his revolver already out of sight beneath his loosely fitted coat. He was not smiling.
“You missed with one of them shots,” said the judge, making himself scowl. “Out of practice, are you?”
“I'm never out of practice,” said Silver.
“Satisfied with that sort of shooting, are you?” asked the judge.
“Perfectly,” said Silver.
The judge wanted to smile, but he controlled himself.
“Well, sit down and rest your feet,” he said.
Silver sat down.
“You can shoot,” said the judge. “We'll see later about the riding. Now I'm going to find out what you got in your head.”
He fell straightway into a long silence.
Silver first looked out the window and saw a pair of gray geldings gallop into view across the nearest field and out of sight again, the sunlight shimmering and winking on the silk of their flanks.
After that he glanced around the room at several enlarged photographs which hung in their frames against the striped paper of the walls. Since the silence continued, he opened an album of old family photographs and ran rapidly through it.
He was closing it when the judge asked:
“What am I thinking about?”
“Your son,” said Silver.
The judge started to rise, forgetful that he needed crutches for that purpose. So he toppled a little to the side before he grabbed the crutches, steadied himself, and then thrust his body more deeply into the chair. He grunted loudly.
“You been around making questions of the people before you come to see me?” he asked.
“No. I never have mentioned your name to a soul,” said Silver.
The judge narrowed his eyes. He hated a lie.
“But you know I got a son, all the same?” said he.
“Yes,” said Silver.
“All right, if you know that much, tell me what he looks like.”
“More than medium height, dark eyes, black hair, very handsome. And he seems to be on tiptoe, ready for a start at any time.”
The judge glanced absently toward the wall, then back at his guest.
“And you never seen him?”
“No,” said Silver.
“And you never talked to anybody about him?”
“No. Not a word.”
“All right, all right,” said the judge impatiently, making a gesture to clear the atmosphere. “You might go on ahead and tell me about what kind of a boy he is â since you can sit the picture of him right in the air, so to speak.”
“Well,” said Silver, “he loves fast horses and hunting. Big game and a close shot is his idea of sport. He holds his fire to the last second. He likes poker â when the stakes are high. And he doesn't care what company he keeps, so long as it's exciting.”
“Damn!” exploded the judge. “And you mean to tell me that you never seen him or talked about him to nobody?”
“Never,” said Silver.
“Where is he now?” asked the judge, holding himself in.
“In disgrace,” said Silver. “And you want to get him home. That's why you advertised for a man who can shoot straight and who has a brain to work with.”
“By thunder,” cried the judge, “you're going to sit there and lie and tell me you never seen my boy, and never talked about him to nobody?”
“Never,” said Silver with his faint smile.
“What's his name?” asked the judge.
“That I don't know.”
“Mr. Silver,” said the judge, “I been on the bench, and I got to be quite a judge of lying when I was paid a government salary. But I never heard anybody lie as fast and as hard as you!”
The smile left the face of Silver.
“You shouldn't say that,” he remarked. “Nothing gives you a right to say that. I'll want an apology for that, if you please.”
“Apology? Not much!” exclaimed Brender. “If you didn't use your eyes and your ears, how'd you come to know all about Rap â all except you pretend that you don't know his name. Because even you know that pretending to know his name would be pretty thick! How'd you come to know these things? How'd you come to know what he looks like?”
“I saw some pictures of him when he was a boy â pictures in that album,” said Silver.
“There ain't any names in there,” said the judge angrily. “You couldn't tell which was him!”
“There were half a dozen pictures of one face â from four years up to twelve or fourteen,” said Silver. “Only the son of the house would have as many pictures in the family album.”
“Humph,” said the judge. “It don't give you no idea about his inches, not out of a picture book like that.”
“You're big, and his mother is small,” said Silver. “I simply guessed that your boy might be of a size between the pair of you.”
“Yes,” said the judge, “that makes a sort of sense. But tell me how comes it that you knew he was always like something on springs, ready to jump?”
“I guessed that from the rest of his character, and by the look of his face when he was a boy.”
“Character? What d'you know about his character? Who told you that he liked to shoot big game, and hold his fire till the last fool second, the way I've seen the idiot do?”
“He shot that grizzly bear â the one whose head is mounted in the hall.”
“How do you know that?”
“The hair is still sleek, and has a sheen. I should say that bear was shot inside the year.”
“Humph!” grunted the judge. And again he narrowed his eyes at the stranger. But this time he had a doubt. It might be that Mr. Silver was really using brains, and not merely hearsay. “I might âa' shot that bear myself, for that matter.”
“One-legged men don't go bear hunting,” answered Silver. “Besides, you've been on those crutches for about two years.”
“Eh? Two years? How come you put it down to that length of time? Matter of fact, I might âa' been on them all my life!”
“You'd handle them better if you had had them that long,” said Silver. “But the rubber tips are pretty well worn. So I imagine about two years is the time.”
“Within a few months, you're right,” admitted the judge. “But get back to the boy. You ain't said how you know that he holds his fire when he goes shooting.”
“That grizzly was shot straight between the eyes. They've repaired the damage, but they couldn't help letting a bit of the fur rough up where the hole was made. And usually a man shoots a bear through the shoulder, if he gets a chance at a distance that's safe. A shot right between the eyes is careful work, or else it's done at close hand. From the character of your son, I guess at close range.”
“Either,” said the judge, “you heard all this before, or else you're one of the slickest pieces of thinking machines that I ever come across. But you said that he liked fast horses. How come that you guessed that?”
“I saw a pair of very neat grays galloping in that field. A man of your age doesn't care so much about showy horseflesh. Besides, your weight would break down horses of that build. They're too fine to be used for punching cattle. No cowboy could afford them. So I take it that they belong to your son. A man who owns horses like that is pretty sure to race them when he gets a chance. And a fellow who races is sure to gamble.”
“By thunder,” breathed the judge, “by the look of a man's shoe you could tell whether his grandfather was clean shaved or wore a beard. What made you guess at cards?”
“A fellow who gambles can't keep away from poker in this part of the world, and a fellow like your son wouldn't play except for high stakes.”
“You said he doesn't care what sort of people he's with, so long as they're exciting.”
“He's gone astray, he's in disgrace,” answered Silver.
“What makes you say that?”
“There,” said Silver, pointing, “is where his picture used to hang on the wall.”
He indicated a square patch between two windows, slightly darker than the wall paper that was around it.
“Well,” declared the judge, “you got eyes
and
a brain. But it might âa' been the picture of his grandfather that hung there.”
“The picture hasn't been up very long,” said Silver. “Otherwise there would be more difference between the color of that paper and the paper around it. That paper has been on the wall for more than twenty years.”
The judge sighed in a sort of pleasant despair.
“You pretty near beat me,” he admitted. “But, far as you know, he may be dead, not disgraced at all!”
“If he were dead,” said Silver, “his picture would be back on the wall.”
The judge banged his crutches on the floor and then stared mutely at his guest.
“Well,” he said, “I guess we'll go out and look at you on a horse. I've always said that a man would have to shoot and ride and think before I'd hire him.”
He led the way, swinging clumsily along on his crutches, and, as they came out on the front veranda, he saw a great golden chestnut at the hitchrack, seventeen hands of glory.
“Hey!” exclaimed the judge. “Is that your hoss?”
“Yes,” said Silver. “Come here, Parade.”
It then appeared that though the great horse stood at the hitch rack, it was not tied, for it turned at once and came straight to its master's hand.