Coward of the Clan

Coward of the Clan Max Brand (Frederick Faust)

I

The first thing that Paul Torridon remembered was being led by the hand to a tall man with long hair and a short gray beard, a beard that was chopped off brutally, for convenience rather than for appearance. Seen from the back with his curls flowing down over his shoulders, John Brett looked the portrait of some chivalrous cavalier. Seen from the front with that blunt stub of a beard, he seemed partly grotesque, partly savage. To heighten the contrast, his beard had turned while his hair still remained a glossy, youthful black.

Of what had gone before, Paul Torridon had no idea, but something about the face of this giant pierced his mind and remained in his thoughts forever.

“Is this one of them? Is this one of them?” shouted John Brett. “Why did you bring this thing home to me?”

“Shall I take him back and turn him loose in the woods?” asked the man who held the hand of Paul. “That’ll answer the same purpose.”

“You fool!” cried Brett. “You blathering, hopeless fool. You’ve brought him inside my house, haven’t you? Turn him over to the women and never let me see his face.”

How the women received him, Paul Torridon forgot, except for one flash of recollection that had to do with an old crone who shook her finger at his head and groaned: “He’ll bring harm to us all!”

Then the mists closed again around the mind of Paul Torridon.

He should have remembered much more, for he was well over seven years of age and, of course, far advanced into the period of full memory, but something had shocked the past into total oblivion, or else there was a sense of mere shadows moving among shadows, in the beginning.

His recollection of the past was cut like a thread, and at the same time his knowledge of the present washed away in waves, today carrying off in its withdrawal yesterday, and all the days before, so that for some time to come his only surviving sense of that period was that he had been surrounded by cloth, a world of homespun in drab colors, the enormous skirts of the women, and the bulky coats of the men.

He could see, later, that this was the time during which he was left exclusively to the hands of the women, and so he voyaged by degrees out into the open light of full memory, full understanding.

He used to help the women at the milking of the cows. Once, as he was bringing in a three-gallon pail half filled, the giant, John Brett, loomed suddenly before him.

“What’s your name?” asked John Brett.

“Paul Torridon.”

The face of John Brett grew black.

“As quick as the bell answers the bell hammer,” he said.

He turned away, but poor little Torridon was so frightened that the milk pail fell to the ground and spilled a white tide across the mud. He knew that he would be beaten, but a whip could not fill his mind with terror as did the mere echo of the voice of John Brett.

He came upon one great and important truth—that there was something wrong with the name Torridon, and there was something right in the name Brett. Everyone around the place was a Brett. The house of John Brett, in fact, was hardly a house so much as it was a village gathered hodge-podge under one roof. There was a blacksmith, a carpenter, a shoemaker, for instance. There was a storekeeper, even. And all these people, and those who plowed in the fields and rode off hunting through the mountains, bore the name of Brett. To the dawning intelligence of Paul Torridon it appeared that the world was filled with the name of Brett, for on holidays and Sundays, sometimes, strangers rode up. They were all big men on big horses, like those who lived under the roof of John Brett. And these visitors, too, carried the name of Brett.

Paul began to feel that his name was a freak, just as he himself was a freak compared to the sons of the house—he was so slenderly made, so delicate, and they were so big and brawny. Once Charlie Brett, who was a little younger than Paul, took both the boy’s hands in one of his and crushed them with his grip. Paul wrenched and pulled. At last he cried out with the pain and began to weep. Charlie Brett looked at him, agape, and dropped the tortured hand.

“You’re just like a girl, ain’t you?” remarked Charlie.

There were other Torridons. But they were far away. All by that name on the western side of the mountains had been wiped out in that night of blood and fire that had blotted the mind of Paul. The only Torridons who remained in all the world lived on the eastern side of the mountains. There let them remain, unless the Bretts should decide to strike even at that distance and, riding through the passes, storm down on the enemy and smash them.

Charlie Brett used to talk about that. And he would end: “Then there’ll be no Torridon left but you!” With that he would laugh triumphantly, mockingly.

Later Paul learned that in the distant past the Bretts and the Torridons had been so matched in strength that each side occasionally won a battle.

John Brett kept Paul for two years without further important remark. Then he met little Paul in a hall of the house and seemed startled at seeing him.

“Are you still around? Are you still around?” he exclaimed gloomily. “You’re growin’ up, too.”

He took Torridon by the shoulder and pushed him toward the light. There he examined his face thoughtfully.

“You’re growin’ up,” he repeated. “In a couple of years there’ll be enough poison in you to kill a man . . . and a Brett!”

“I never would kill a man,” said Paul.

“You’re a Torridon, ain’t you?” asked John Brett.

Paul began to cry.

“Why are you whimpering?” asked John Brett curiously. “Have I hurt you?”

“I don’t know,” said Paul. “I can’t help crying. You . . . you make me tremble inside.”

John Brett went away.

Afterward Torridon was told that he was to be taken over the mountains to his kin, but two days after this he was ill with scarlet fever.

The summer went before he was strong enough to walk. In the spring of his tenth year a cow broke his leg with a kick. And another summer passed during which he was incapable of traveling. Bad luck dogged him. When he was twelve, pneumonia reduced him to a mere trembling wisp of a body. At thirteen he had not recovered. He was so weak that even Aunt Ellen Brett, that cruel and keen old woman who managed the household, forbade him to be given outdoor work. He was employed in the kitchen to scrub pans and light fires and carry in wood from the shed; in the long evenings he was set to work helping the women spin.

Now in the fourteenth year of his life, two great events happened. One affected the entire clan. One had to do with Paul Torridon alone.

The first thing was the foaling of the black colt, and the reason it was of such importance was that John Brett had been hoping for twenty years to produce a colt of that color. For in the old days he had owned a great black stallion, Nineveh, still famous through all the country—a sort of legendary flyer. People said of a horse that it was “as fast as Nineveh,” “as strong as Nineveh,” just as they might say that a man was as strong as Hercules. All the horses that the Bretts rode were descended directly from that famous stallion, but there was never his like again and, strange to say, in all his get there appeared the pure black strain only twice, and these were mares and of little note.

Now, however, after twenty years of waiting, a black colt was foaled. The whole clan swept from the house—man, woman, child—and stood in the pasture in a large open circle.

The mother was an undistinguished creature, with a backbone thrusting up like a mountain ridge and a vast prominence of hips. Ewe-necked, lump-headed, she was like an ugly spot in the fine race that had descended from Nineveh. But her foal was another matter.