Black Jack

“I was saying,” proceeded the sheriff, “that they scared their babies in these here parts with the name of Jack Hollis.  Which they sure done.  Well, sir, he was bad.”

“Not all bad, surely,” put in Vance.  “I’ve heard a good many stories about the generosity of—­”

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.  Not that Hollis ever played with a gang much, but he had hangers-on all over the mountains and gents that he had done good turns for and hadn’t gone off and talked about it.  But that was just common sense.  He knew he’d need friends that he could trust if he ever got in trouble.  If he was wounded, they had to be someplace where he could rest up.  Ain’t that so?  Well, sir, that’s what the goodness of Jack Hollis amounted to.  No, sir, he was bad.  Plumb bad and all bad!

“But he had them qualities that a young gent with an imagination is apt to cotton to.  He was free with his money.  He dressed like a dandy.  He’d gamble with hundreds, and then give back half of his winnings if he’d broke the gent that run the bank.  Them was the sort of things that Jack Hollis would do.  And I had my head full of him.  Well, about the time that he come to the neighborhood, I sneaked out of the house one night and went off to a dance with a girl that I was sweet on.  And when I come back, I found Dad waiting up for me ready to skin me alive.  He tried to give me a clubbing.  I kicked the stick out of his hands and swore that I’d leave and never come back.  Which I never done, living up to my word proper.

“But when I found myself outside in the night, I says to myself:  ’Where shall I go now?’

“And then, being sort of sick at the world, and hating Dad particular, I decided to go out and join Jack Hollis.  I was going to go bad.  Mostly to cut up Dad, I reckon, and not because I wanted to particular.

“It wasn’t hard to find Jack Hollis.  Not for a kid my age that was sure not to be no officer of the law.  Besides, they didn’t go out single and hunt for Hollis.  They went in gangs of a half a dozen at a time, or more if they could get ’em.  And even then they mostly got cleaned up when they cornered Hollis.  Yes, sir, he made life sad for the sheriffs in them parts that he favored most.

“I found Jack toasting bacon over a fire.  He had two gents with him, and they brung me in, finding me sneaking around like a fool kid instead of walking right into camp.  Jack sized me up a minute.  He was a fine-looking boy, was Hollis.  He gimme a look out of them fine black eyes of his which I won’t never forget.  Aye, a handsome scoundrel, that Hollis!”

Elizabeth Cornish sank back in her chair and covered her eyes with her hands for a moment.  To the others it seemed that she was merely rubbing weary eyes.  But her brother knew perfectly that she was near to fainting.

He looked at Terry and saw that the boy was following the tale with sparkling eyes.

“I like what you say about this Hollis, sheriff,” he ventured softly.

“Do you?  Well, so did I like what I seen of him that night, for all I knew that he was a no-good, man-killing, heartless sort.  I told him right off that I wanted to join him.  I even up and give him an exhibition of shooting.

“What do you think he says to me?  ‘You go home to your ma, young man!’

“That’s what he said.

“‘I ain’t a baby,’ says I to Jack Hollis.  ’I’m a grown man.  I’m ready to fight your way.’

“‘Any fool can fight,’ says Jack Hollis.  ’But a gent with any sense don’t have to fight.  You can lay to that, son!’

“‘Don’t call me son,’ says I.  ’I’m older than you was when you started out.’

“I’d had my heart busted before I started,’ says Jack Hollis to me.  ’Are you as old as that, son?  You go back home and don’t bother me no more.  I’ll come back in five years and see if you’re still in the same mind!’

“And that was what I seen of Jack Hollis.

“I went back into town—­Garrison City.  I slept over the stables the rest of that night.  The next day I loafed around town not hardly noways knowing what I was going to do.

“Then I was loafing around with my rifle, like I was going out on a hunting trip that afternoon.  And pretty soon I heard a lot of noise coming down the street, guns and what not.  I look out the window and there comes Jack Hollis, hellbent!  Jack Hollis!  And then it pops into my head that they was a big price, for them days, on Jack’s head.  I picked up my gun and eased it over the sill of the window and got a good bead.

“Jack turned in his saddle—­”

There was a faint groan from Elizabeth Cornish.  All eyes focused on her in amazement.  She mustered a smile.  The story went on.

“When Jack turned to blaze away at them that was piling out around the corner of the street, I let the gun go, and I drilled him clean.  Great sensation, gents, to have a life under your trigger.  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.

“I didn’t catch that last name, sheriff,” he said.

The talk was already beginning to bubble up at the end of the sheriff’s tale.  But there was something in the tone of the boy that cut through the talk to its root.  People were suddenly looking at him out of eyes which were very wide indeed.  And it was not hard to find a reason.  His handsome face was colorless, like a carving from the stone, and under his knitted brows his black eyes were ominous in the shadow.  The sheriff frankly gaped at him.  It was another man who sat across the table in the chair where the ingenuous youth had been a moment before.

“What name?  Jack Hollis?”

“I think the name you used was Black Jack, sheriff?”

“Black Jack?  Sure.  That was the other name for Jack Hollis.  He was mostly called Black Jack for short, but that was chiefly among his partners.  Outside he was called Jack Hollis, which was his real name.”

Terence rose from his chair, more colorless than ever, the knuckles of one hand resting upon the table.  He seemed very tall, years older, grim.

“Terry!” called Elizabeth Cornish softly.

It was like speaking to a stone.

“Gentlemen,” said Terry, though his eyes never left the face of the sheriff, and it was obvious that he was making his speech to one pair of ears alone.  “I have been living among you under the name of Colby—­ Terence Colby.  It seems an appropriate moment to say that this is not my name.  After what the sheriff has just told you it may be of interest to know that my real name is Hollis.  Terence Hollis is my name and my father was Jack Hollis, commonly known as Black Jack, it seems from the story of the sheriff.  I also wish to say that I am announcing my parentage not because I wish to apologize for it—­in spite of the rather remarkable narrative of the sheriff—­but because I am proud of it.”

He lifted his head while he spoke.  And his eye went boldly, calmly down the table.

“This could not have been expected before, because none of you knew my father’s name.  I confess that I did not know it myself until a very short time ago.  Otherwise I should not have listened to the sheriff’s story until the end.  Hereafter, however, when any of you are tempted to talk about Black or Jack Hollis, remember that his son is alive—­and in good health!”

He hung in his place for an instant as though he were ready to hear a reply.  But the table was stunned.  Then Terry turned on his heel and left the room.

It was the signal for a general upstarting from the table, a pushing back of chairs, a gathering around Elizabeth Cornish.  She was as white as Terry had been while he talked.  But there was a gathering excitement in her eye, and happiness.  The sheriff was full of apologies.  He would rather have had his tongue torn out by the roots than to have offended her or the young man with his story.

She waved the sheriff’s apology aside.  It was unfortunate, but it could not have been helped.  They all realized that.  She guided her guests into the living room, and on the way she managed to drift close to her brother.

Her eyes were on fire with her triumph.

“You heard, Vance?  You saw what he did?”

There was a haunted look about the face of Vance, who had seen his high-built schemes topple about his head.

“He did even better than I expected, Elizabeth.  Thank heaven for it!”