Harrigan

Harrigan

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Title: Harrigan
Author: Max Brand
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9791] [This file was first posted
on October 17, 2003]
Edition: 10

Language: English
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HARRIGAN ***

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HARRIGAN
MAX BRAND
1918
Also by Max Brand: BLACK JACK; TROUBLE KID; CLUNG;
THUNDER MOON; THE STINGAREE; RIPPON RIDES DOUBLE;
ON THE TRAIL OF FOUR; STEVE TRAIN'S ORDEAL;
LARRAMEE'S RANCH; RIDE THE WILD TRAIL; THE GUNS OF
DORKING HOLLOW; TORTURE TRAIL; THE GENTLE
GUNMAN; THE GARDEN OF EDEN; GOLDEN LIGHTNING; THE
STRANGER; MIGHTY LOBO
CHAPTER 1
"That fellow with the red hair," said the police captain as he pointed.
"I'll watch him," the sergeant answered.
The captain had raided two opium dens the day before, and the pride of
accomplishment puffed his chest. He would have given advice to the
sheriff of Oahu that evening.
He went on: "I can pick some men out of the crowd by the way they
walk, and others by their eyes. That fellow has it written all over him."

The red-headed man came nearer through the crowd. Because of the
warmth, he had stuffed his soft hat into a back pocket, and now the
light from a window shone steadily on his hair and made a fire of it, a
danger signal. He encountered the searching glances of the two officers
and answered with cold, measuring eyes, like the gaze of a prize fighter
who waits for a blow. The sergeant turned to his superior with a grunt.
"You're right," he nodded.
"Trail him," said the captain, "and take a man with you. If that fellow
gets into trouble, you may need help."
He stepped into his automobile and the sergeant beckoned to a nearby
policeman.
"Akana," he said, "we have a man-sized job tonight. Are you feeling
fit?"
The Kanaka smiled without enthusiasm.
"The man of the red hair?"
The sergeant nodded, and Akana tightened his belt. He had eaten fish
baked in ti leaves that evening.
He suggested: "Morley has little to do. His beat is quiet. Shall I tell him
to come with us?"
"No," grinned the sergeant, and then looked up and watched the broad
shoulders of the red-haired man, who advanced through the crowd as
the prow of a ship lunges through the waves. "Go get Morley," he said
abruptly.
But Harrigan went on his way without misgivings, not that he forgot
the policeman, but he was accustomed to stand under the suspicious
eye of the law. In all the course of his wanderings it had been upon him.
His coming was to the men in uniform like the sound of the battle
trumpet to the cavalry horse. This, however, was Harrigan's first night

in Honolulu, and there was much to see, much to do. He had rambled
through the streets; now he was headed for the Ivilei district. Instinct
brought him there, the still, small voice which had guided him from
trouble to trouble all his life.
At a corner he stopped to watch a group of Kanakas who passed him,
wreathed with leis and thrumming their ukuleles. They sang in their
soft, many-voweled language and the sound was to Harrigan like the
rush and lapse of water on a beach, infinitely soothing and as lazy as
the atmosphere of Honolulu. All things are subdued in the strange city
where East and West meet in the middle of the Pacific. The gayest
crowds cannot quite disturb the brooding peace which is like the
promise of sleep and rest at sunset. It was not pleasing to Harrigan. He
frowned and drew a quick, impatient breath, muttering: "I'm not long
for this joint. I gotta be moving."
He joined a crowd which eddied toward the center of Ivilei. In there it
was better. Negro soldiers, marines from