Black Jack

“ He had been a boy of eighteen then, shooting with a rifle across a window sill. That shot had formed his life. He was now forty-two and he had spent the interval as the professional enemy of criminals in the mountains. For the glory which came from the killing of Black Jack had been sweet to the youthful palate of Minter, and he had cultivated his taste. He became the most dreaded manhunter in those districts where manhunting was most common. He had been sheriff at Craterville for a dozen years now, and still his supremacy was not even questioned. ”

“ But he gathered his toes under him, so that he remained continually poised in spite of the seeming awkwardness of his position.
"Who am I?" asked Terry.
"Why, Black Jack's kid. It's printed in big type all over you."
His keen eyes continued to bore at Terry as though he were striving to read features beneath a mask. Terry could see his visitor's face more clearly now. It was square, with a powerfully muscled jaw and features that had a battered look. Suddenly he teetered forward in his chair and dropped his elbows aggressively on his knees. ”

“ Terry winced. But Joe Pollard rambled on, ignorant that he had struck a blow in the dark: "When I met up with the original Black Jack, I was slavin' my life away with a pick trying to turn ordinary quartz into pay dirt. Making a fool of myself, that's what I was doing. Along comes Black Jack. He needed a man. He picks me up and takes me along with him. I tried to talk Bible talk. ”

“ But Denver, alias Shorty, alias Pete, merely laughed.
"Come in nothing, you fool! Joe, you're about half a second from hell, and so's a couple more of you. D'you know who the kid is? Eh? I'll tell you, boys. It's the kid that dropped old Minter. It's the kid that beat foxy Joe Minter to the draw. It's young Hollis. Why, you damned blind men, look at his face! It's the son of Black Jack. It's Black Jack himself come back to us!"
Joe Pollard had let his hand fall away from his gun. He gaped at Terry as though he were seeing a ghost. ”

“ Then Terry shoved the gun slowly back into his holster and walked to the body of Larrimer.
To these things Bill, the storekeeper, and Jack Baldwin, the rancher, afterward swore. That young Black Jack leaned a little over the corpse and then straightened and touched the fallen hand with the toe of his boot. Then he turned upon them a perfectly calm, unemotional look.
"I seem to have been elected to do the scavenger work in this town," he said. "But I'm going to leave it to you gentlemen to take the carrion away. Shorty, I'm going back to the house. Are you ready to ride that way?" ”

“ He'll never dream that I would go right back to Pollard and sit down under the famous nose of McGuire!"
The dawn was brightening over the mountains above them, and the skyline was ragged with forest. A free country for free men—like the old Black Jack and the new. A short life, perhaps, but a full one.
The coming of the day showed Denver's face weary and drawn. Those moments in the bank, surrounded by danger, had been nerve-racking even to his experience. But to him it was a business, and to Terry it was a game. ”

“ With all these things taken into consideration, Slim Dugan was in the mood to fight and die; for he felt that his honor was concerned. A single slighting remark to Terry, a single sneering side glance, would have been a signal for gunplay. And everyone knew it.
The moment there was silence the son of Black Jack went straight to Slim
Dugan.
"Slim," he said, just loud enough for everyone to hear, "a fellow isn't himself before noon. ”

“ He's seen a good deal of gunplay, and said that Terry's was the coolest he ever watched."
"All right for that part of it," said Joe Pollard. "Suppose he's fast— but can I use him? I like him well enough; I'll give him a good deal; but is he going to mean charity all the time he hangs out with me?"
"Maybe; maybe not," chuckled Denver again. "Use him the way he can be used, and he'll be the best bargain you ever turned. Black Jack started you in business; Black Jack the Second will make you rich if you handle him right—and ruin you if you make a slip." ”

“ Why, the kid that come tonight. Black Jack as sure as if he was a picture out of a book, and me a blind fool that didn't know him. Kate, here's the second Black Jack. Terry Hollis. Give him your hand agin and say you're glad to have him for his dad's sake and for his own! Kate, he's done a man's job already. It's him that dropped old foxy Minter! ”

“ Glad of the turn of the conversation from Hortense Lecroix to Black Jack, Stuart amused himself by suggesting:
“You tell Black Jack that M'sieu' Stuart is big medicine man. He will put devils into Black Jack if he doesn't behave himself.” ”

“ She roped the toughest mustang of her "string" in the corral, and ten minutes later she was jogging down the trail. Halfway down a confused group of riders—some dozen in all—swarmed up out of the lower trail. Sheriff McGuire rode out on a sweating horse that told of fierce and long riding and stopped her.
His salutation was brief; he plunged into the heart of his questions. Had she noticed anything unusual this morning? Which of the men had been absent from the house last night? Particularly, who went out with Black Jack's kid?
"Nobody left the house," she said steadily. "Not a soul." ”

“ Why ain't you made more money yourself, Joe? You got as many men as Black Jack ever had. It's because you ain't got the fire in you. Neither have I. We're nothing but tools ready for another man to use the way Black Jack used us. Nurse this kid along a little while, and he'll show us how to pry open the places where the real coin is cached away. And he'll lead us in and out with no danger to us and all the real risk on his own head. That's his way—that was his dad's way before him."
Pollard nodded slowly. ”

“ No, no, steward—Black Jack is not so sick of his life as to throw himself into a furnace. There were not less than one hundred smiths and miners about him; and woe be to the man who should stir their ire. ”

“ I take a man the way I find him. And I've found you all right. The reason I got to let you go is what I said."
But Terry grinned mirthlessly.
"You know I'm the son of Black Jack Hollis," he insisted. "You think that if you keep me you'll wake up some morning to find your son's throat cut and your cattle gone. Am I right?"
"Listen to me," the rancher said uncertainly. "I know how you feel about losing a job so suddenly when you figured it for a whole season. Suppose I give you a whole month's pay and—"
"Damn your money!" said Terry savagely. "I don't deny that Black Jack was my father. ”

“ Black Jack's son is around—the man that dropped Sheriff Minter. Then
I'll bring 'em together and give 'em a running start."
"And risk Terry getting his head blown off?"
"If he can't beat Larrimer, he's no use to us; if he kills Larrimer, it's good riddance. The kid is going to get bumped off sometime, anyway. He's bad—all the way through."
Pollard looked with a sort of wonder on his companion.
"You're a nice, kind sort of a gent, ain't you, Denver?"
"I'm a moneymaker," asserted Denver coldly. "And, just now, Terry Hollis is my gold mine. Watch me work him!" ”

“ I'll tell you why, Terry. Because if you stay around here too long, they'll make you what you don't want to be—another Black Jack. Don't you see that that's why they like you? Because you're his son, and because they want you to be another like him. ”

“ Struggling to wrench himself free, he rolled over, dragging the panting enemy with him, their movements carrying them nearer and nearer to the camp-fire; and in a sudden flicker of light he recognized the savage features of Black Jack.
In sheer muscular strength he was no match for the Kalmuck dwarf. Under the crushing pressure of Black Jack's fierce grip his hold on the knife was relaxing: the weapon was slipping from him. His hold upon the man's throat weakened; the Kalmuck was digging his nails into his left arm. As the under dog he was not able to cope with the man pressing him down. ”

“ Just beckon one mite of an inch and a life goes scooting up to heaven or down to hell. I never got over seeing Hollis spill sidewise out of that saddle. There he was a minute before better'n any five men when it come to fighting. And now he wasn't nothing but a lot of trouble to bury. Just so many pounds of flesh. You see? Well, sir, the price on Black Jack set me up in life and gimme my start. After that I sort of specialized in manhunting, and I've kept on ever since."
Terry leaned across the table, his left arm outstretched to call the sheriff's attention. ”

“ But when a gent has got more, I figure he'd ought to cover with it."
Unreasoning anger swelled in the throat of Terry Hollis; the same blind passion which had surged in him before he started up at the Cornish table and revealed himself to the sheriff. And the similarity was what sobered him. It was the hunger to battle, to kill. And it seemed to him that Black Jack had stepped out of the old picture and now stood behind him, tempting him to strike.
Another covert signal from Pollard. Every one of the four turned toward him. ”

“ He had a standing theory that the only way to make a woman meditate is to keep her from talking. And he wanted very much to make Elizabeth meditate the evil in the son of Black Jack. Otherwise all his plans might be useless and his seeds of destruction fall on barren soil. He was intensely afraid of that, anyway. His hope was to draw the boy and the sheriff together on the birthday and guide the two explosives until they met on the subject of the death of Black Jack. Either Terry would kill the sheriff, or the sheriff would kill Terry. ”

“ And if he could trip Terry and actually make him shoot a man on or before that birthday, he had no doubt that his sister would actually throw the boy out of her house and out of her life. A woman who could give twenty-four years to a theory would be capable of grim things when the theory went wrong.
It was early evening when he climbed off the train at Garrison City. He had not visited the place since that cattle-buying trip of twenty-four years ago that brought the son of Black Jack into the affairs of the Cornish family. Garrison City had become a city. ”

“ He was anxious to put in the name of Black Jack, since the sheriff was sticking so close to "Jack Hollis," which was a name that Terry had not yet heard for his dead father. But before he could get out the name, the sheriff, angry at the interruption, resumed the smooth current of his tale with a side flash at Vance.
"Not all bad, you say? Generous? Sure he was generous. Them that live outside the law has got to be generous to keep a gang around 'em. ”

“ Take a son out of the best family in the world and raise him like a thief—he'll be a thief. And the thief's son can be raised to an honest manhood. I know it!"
She was seeing Black Jack, as he had raced down the street with the black hair blowing about his face. Of such stuff, she felt, the knights of another age had been made. Vance was raising a forefinger in an authoritative way he had. ”

“ I'll shoot that hoss of his, and that'll bring him—if young Black Jack is half the man they say he is! I ain't out to shoot cowards—I want men!"
He strode to the door.
"Don't do it!" shouted Bill, the storekeeper.
"Shut up!" snapped Baldwin. "I know something. Shut up!"
That fierce, low voice reached the ear of Terry, and he understood that it meant Baldwin had judged him as the whole world judged him. After all, what difference did it make whether he killed or not? He was already damned as a slayer of men by the name of his father before him.
Larrimer had turned with a roar. ”

“ When I perceived the truth, it was Jack himself who pointed it out to me, indicating a spot high up on the wall of the cavern, where the Frenchman crouched like a wildcat and spat his defiance upon his enemies.
Stripped of the best part of his clothes, his white flesh shone out against the black rock as a painting upon a wall in monotone; and I could see his grinning face and protruding teeth with a distinctness which revolted me. Another moment and I heard Jack cry to me to shoot him, for God's sake, or every man would hang. ”

“ A moment later she was able to make her expression as calm as ever.
"Came into town to see his baby," went on Vance through the smoke.
"Little year-old beggar!"
"Think of the mother," murmured Elizabeth Cornish. "I want to do something for her."
"You can't," replied her brother, with unnecessary brutality. "Because she's dead. A little after the youngster was born. I believe Black Jack broke her heart, and a very pleasant sort of girl she was, they tell me."
"What will become of the baby?"
"It will live and grow up," he said carelessly. "They always do, somehow. ”

“ It is in Terry's. If you insist, he'll get sore. No, Joe. Let him think he owes you that money. Let him start in working it off for you—honest work. You ain't got any ranch work. Well, set him to cutting down trees, or anything. That'll help to hold him. If he makes some gambling play—and he's got the born gambler in him—you got one last thing that'll be apt to keep him here."
"What's that?"
"Kate."
Pollard stirred in his chair.
"How d'you mean that?" he asked gruffly.
"I mean what I said," retorted Denver. "I watched young Black Jack looking at her. He had his heart in his eyes, the kid did. ”

“ But there's some things about gun fighting that nobody can learn. It's got to be born into 'em. Remember how Black Jack used to slide out his gat?"
"Yep. There was a man!"
"And Minter, too. There's a born gunman."
"Sure. We all know Uncle Joe—damn his soul!"
"But the kid beat Uncle Joe fair and square from an even break—and beat him bad. Made his draw, held it so's Joe could partway catch up with him, and then drilled him clean!"
Pollard scratched his chin.
"I'd believe that if I seen it," he declared.
"Pal, it wasn't Terry that done the talking; it was Gainor. ”