The Fighting Four
Max Brand
I—THE ELKDALE BANK
The first national bank of Elkdale was robbed at two thirty in the afternoon of an early spring day. It was still so early in the season that it was possible to see a flush of green on the lower slopes of the hills, and the head of Iron Mountain, in the farther distance, was snow-hooded far down to the breadth of the shoulders.
It was a still, hushed afternoon, with thin clouds chasing one another cheerfully across the sky, and the air above the earth perfectly motionless except when a little whirlpool started in the increasing heat and sucked up a whirling pyramid of dust.
At two o’clock that afternoon Oliver Wayland, the cashier of the First National, took advantage of a moment when there was no customer in the building and went into the office of the president, William Rucker, carrying a big, flat parcel under his arm.
Rucker was a burly, fierce old man, and he looked up with a scowl at the interruption; but when he saw the fragile form of his cashier, the lean, handsome face, and the big, pale structure of the brow, he turned his scowl into a smile. He liked his cashier. He liked him so well that he was pleased by the approaching marriage between Wayland and his daughter. May Rucker.
Wayland pulled the wrapping paper of the parcel away and revealed a big, framed photograph, saying:
“This came in the mail today, Mr. Rucker. I suppose we’ll put it on the wall, and I wanted to ask you where.”
He held up before the eyes of Rucker the photograph, which showed a tall man with big shoulders and a patiently smiling face standing at the side of a great stallion which had his head thrown high and looked a challenge from the picture.
Under the photograph was written, in a bold, strong hand, these words: “From the town of Crow’s Nest to every lover of justice and law in the West. We hope the face of Jim Silver, who saved us, will become just as well known as his life.”
Rucker looked at the photograph silently for a moment. He was a rough fellow, was Rucker. He had not been a banker all his days. He had begun his days by working on a ranch, and he still knew the working end of a hunting knife or a Colt revolver. He stuck out his big, square jaw and scowled again.
“A picture of Jim Silver, eh?” said he. “What the devil is he doing? Running himself for office? Dog catcher, or something?”
“Not dog catcher,” said the cashier. “Wolf catcher would be more like it.”
“It would, would it?” asked Rucker. “I suppose that you’re in favor of cluttering up the wall space of the bank with pictures like this?”
“A picture of Jim Silver,” said the cashier, “would look good to me, no matter where it might be hung.”
“Well,” said Rucker, “what the devil good does a picture like that do?”
It was, at this time, about twenty minutes before the robbery of the bank took place, and there was a touch of prophecy in the voice of Wayland as he answered:
“Well, I think that crooks would go more slowly if they saw a picture of Jim Silver. And every honest man would feel that he had one friend in the world. After all, honesty is what a bank wants to encourage.”
“Jim Silver,” remarked the bank president, “has done more for law and order than any other man in the West, I suppose. There’s only one thing you can be sure of-— that he’d hate to see his pictures of himself being spread around the countryside. But you can’t blame that town of Crow’s Nest for wanting to make a fuss about him. Go hang that picture up where everybody can see it, will you?”
“I’ll hang it up where I can have a good look at it myself every minute of the day,” said Wayland.
“Why?” asked Rucker curiously. “Why d’you want to look at it yourself, Oliver?”
“Because,” answered Wayland slowly, as though he were thinking out the thing for himself bit by bit, “because thinking about a fellow like Jim Silver helps any man to do his duty. Helps any man to be ready to die on the job.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Rucker. “Are you afraid of robbers?”
“There’s more hard cash in our safe than we have a right to keep there,” answered Wayland.
“Are you afraid of it?” exclaimed Rucker. “I’m the one to say how much is safe with us. Now trot along and get to your work. Don’t dictate bank policies to me, young man!”
The temper of Rucker was always uncertain. As it exploded this time, with a roar, Wayland retreated from the office to the outer corridor that ran past the windows of the bank.
Rucker would get over his temper before long. But the fact was that the safe was old and worthless, and inside of it there was over a half million in cash. Wayland had reason to worry about it; Rucker had even better reason.
Wayland got a chair, pulled it close to the wall facing his cashier’s window, and then, climbing onto the chair, he tacked up the photograph of Jim Silver and Silver’s horse. Parade. Hal Parson, the ruddy old janitor, who stood by to assist, delayed matters by dropping his handful of nails when they were wanted. As Wayland got down from the chair, he smelled the pungency of Parson’s breath, and said to him in a low tone:
“Hal, you’re tight again.”
“Tight?” answered Hal Parson. “Who says that I’m tight? I’ll break the jaw of the gent that calls me tight.”
“I say you’re tight,” answered the cashier. “You’re full of whisky. It’s the second time this month that you’ve had your skin full. And I warned you the other day that the very next break would be the last one.”
The janitor lowered his big head like a bull about to charge. He made no answer, because he knew that the young, pale-faced cashier was his best friend in the world.
“I ought to march you into the office of Mr. Rucker right now,” went on Wayland. “I ought to let him see your condition, because a fellow like you is not safe around a bank. Remember what I’m telling you. I’m responsible for the way the things go on in this bank—outside of the president’s office. And I can’t let this happen to you again. Now go out and run some cold water over your head. Then come back, and I’ll take a look at you.”
The janitor went off, his head down, growling to himself. And the cashier turned his head and saw a girl in a straw hat and straw-colored dress smiling toward him as she stood with her hand on the knob of the door of the president’s office.
That was May Rucker. He went to her happily. She was a rather plain girl. When she grew older, she would look a bit too much like her big-jawed father. But at the moment she had the beauty of youth and much smiling, and she had a good, steady pair of eyes that would never grow old or dim.
“What’s the matter, Oliver?” she asked him. “Is there something wrong with poor old Hal Parson again?”
“You know what’s generally wrong with him,” said the cashier. “I like him as much as you do, but he’s got to reform!”
“I’ll take him in hand,” said the girl. “He’s done a lot for me. If I talk to him, maybe he’ll do something for himself.”
She gave Wayland her smile again and went on into her father’s office, while the cashier turned back down the corridor and went toward his own cage, which contained the great, old-fashioned safe. He never looked at that safe without wondering how the yeggs who had traveled the West in search of easy marks had not picked out this as a choice opportunity.
He was thinking, as he walked, that life was simple for him—a straight path to a goal that could not fail to be reached, unless he died suddenly. He could not help marrying May Rucker. She could not help inheriting her father’s interest in the bank. And so the whole business would one day rest entirely in his hands.
He felt that he would be competent to handle the affairs of the community. He did not look upon banking as a means of bleeding patrons who were in debt to the institution. He looked upon banking as a means of pumping lifeblood through a developing region. And he felt that he knew the men and the industries which were worth support in that part of the world. He had been a cowpuncher, lumberjack, and various other things. It was chiefly his lack of physical strength that had forced him to take up clerical work. Half of his nature was still out roaming the highlands or riding the desert ranges.