Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox

Скачать книгу

peace, plenty trouble," said Pattipaws, his moccasined heels banging at the paint pony's flanks. "Boss, he dyin'."

      And when they reached the ranch and entered the house Lilly found old Jim Breck lying in bed, the massive face turned to the color of old ivory. But there was still a gleam in the heavy eyes; when he saw Lilly he smiled in a grim sort of way at his daughter and an elderly man who bent over him. "I'm playin' my last card," he muttered and for a moment was silent, collecting his energy. Short, clipped words issued from his strangely immobile lips.

      "Red, you come to this country lookin' fer trouble. Well, you're goin' to get it. I'm passin' out. You take my cards from now on. I'm makin' you foreman on the spot. Ain't time to tell you what to do, or what to watch for. But—you'll have to fight Trono. He's bent on bustin' the JIB. Act as if this place belonged to you. Jill understands. Take care of the kid. You promise?"

      The elderly man, who appeared to be a doctor, leaned over to mark Breck's flagging pulse and shook his head in warning. Lilly, plunged in a profound and wondering study, saw the girl fasten a sharp glance on him that had all the effect of a blow. Then she dismissed him with a pressure of her lips and turned toward her father, her hands tightly clenched and her whole body rigid. "Father, what is it you are doing?"

      "Yeah," assented Lilly. "You don't know me."

      "I've seen yore kind afore," muttered Breck. "Know you right down to the ground. I'm bankin' on you, Red. It's a go!"

      "It's a go," said Lilly in a gentle voice. "But there'll have to be a showdown with Trono. You don't know half o' what he's up to."

      "I can guess," replied Breck, grimly. His chest filled and swelled under the bed covers. "Damnation I'd like to be strong fer five minutes. I'd break him with my two hands!"

      "That," broke in the doctor, "is no way to leave the earth. You'd better get a little charity in your system, Jim. You'll need it."

      "I ain't no hypocrite," said Breck. "A man can't change himself in the last five minutes." His face turned toward Pattipaws who stood silently in the background. Of a sudden the room was filled with a guttural droning of the Bannock dialect, at the end of which the Indian stepped between Lilly and the girl, laying his hands on both and in turn tapping his own heart. Gratitude crept over Breck's face—a strange emotion for that heavy, granite countenance. "He'll stick when all the rest are gone," said the old man, pointing toward the Indian. "I fought this buck's tribe forty years ago. Made friends with 'em and quartered 'em on the ranch. They'll be leavin' now, but Pattipaws said he'd stick. He knows a few things that may be helpful when the shootin' starts. Now, Jill girl, I don't want you to feel harsh to'rds yore paw fer what he's told you in the last couple hours. When a man plays with a deck that's been marked by crooks, he's got to do the best he can. Doc, gimme a cigar."

      But the cigar was of no earthly use to him. He died before it touched his mouth. Pattipaws turned sharply and darted out; in a moment there was a long subdued wailing from the Indian quarters and when Lilly left the room he saw the Bannocks filing slowly away toward the pine forest, their travois raising dust in the fresh morning air. One by one the cowhands began to collect in front of the porch, staring at Lilly in the manner of men not pleased by what they saw. The Octopus had departed and with him went the iron discipline surrounding his name. Trouble brewed, even as the doctor emerged and spoke briefly. "He's on his way, boys. Said he wanted to be buried before noon. You know what to do."

      SHOW-DOWN

       Table of Contents

       "When a gent figgers to pick a quarrel with yuh, don't watch his eyes ner his gun arm. Keep yore orbs plastered in the middle o' his chest. He'll telegraph his nex' move from there."—Joe Breedlove.

      It was a hurried, brief funeral and of all the crowd only Jill, the doctor and Pattipaws seemed to show grief at the old Octopus' passing. The doctor, standing beside Lilly as the grave was dug—on a knoll near the house—spoke sadly. "He never was a hand for sentiment. Never gave any and never expected any, except with Jill. There ought to be a parson to say a few right words, but he wouldn't have it that way. Said he wanted to be out of the road so he wouldn't be cluttering the affairs of live folks. My boy, there was iron in old Jim!"

      It was wholly a man's affair. Jill had taken leave of her father in the bedroom and after that vanished somewhere in the dark recesses of the house. One of the hands who was something of a carpenter made a coffin and presently they were lowering it, with its great burden, into the earth. All of the crew stood about, with Theed Trono in the background. Lilly, turning his eyes on the foreman, saw nothing of sympathy in the hard, coarse face, nothing of regret. Rather, there was a kind of sardonic, illy-concealed triumph on his countenance as the coffin vanished from sight. It was an expression that, in varying shapes and degrees, could be seen among the others also. The doctor, conscious of his lack of Biblical knowledge, stooped and took up a handful of soil, letting it trickle beneath his fingers.

      "There ain't nothing I could say to speed Jim along," he murmured. "There ain't much he'd want me to say. He always figured he could fight his own way, here and hereafter. He never needed help, he never turned color when he was in a hard fix. It was always up and a-doing. He took his medicine and kept his mouth shut. He was hard, but he never double crossed a friend and he never pretended to be something he wasn't." The doctor pressed his lips tightly together and surveyed the crew with a defiant, unfriendly glance. "You won't ever see another like him—never. Good hunting, Jim."

      That was all. Pattipaws stretched his skinny hand toward the west and turned away. Trono stepped to the fore and pulled his gun, firing once into the air. "That was the sound he like best to hear," he explained and stared at Lilly from beneath his heavy lids. The newcomer met the challenge with a brief glance and followed the doctor down the hill. On the porch he tarried, building himself a cigarette and watching the crew drift slowly toward the bunkhouse. The doctor went inside and presently came out, looking very glum. As he climbed into the saddle he swept the ranch with an arm and spoke.

      "You got a job, boy. I don't envy you. But you better be straight to the girl or I'll have something to say."

      With that warning he galloped away, his little black satchel flopping from the pommel and his coat-tails streaming in the wind. In a moment he was beyond a ridge and out of sight, leaving Lilly to his problem. The crew had disappeared and the yard baked under the hard noon-day light. A Sunday's stillness pervaded the place, but it was not the silence of peace. Lilly could feel a threat in the warm, lazy air, a warning of trouble to come. Still he smoked on as if serenely unconscious of impending danger. Perhaps he put more of negligence in his bearing than he felt, for he knew that from the windows of the bunkhouse he was being surveyed by many pairs of eyes.

      "If the old man had wanted to get even with me," he reflected, "he shore couldn't have picked a better way. Here I am plumb in the middle of uncertainty with nine chances out of ten that I'll get my head shot off before sundown. A pleasant prospect. If I got any value on my hide it'd be better for me to take a good long pasear and never come back."

      But he was only kidding himself. He was in this fight up to his neck and he had no idea of backing out. Meanwhile time rolled on and there was something being hatched over at the bunkhouse. It would do no good standing here and letting them get the bulge on him. He had to get busy. So he tossed the cigarette into the yard and went through the door to the main room. It was dark and cool in this long, low-beamed parlor and for a moment his eyes, dilated by the sun, saw nothing.

      He stood there on the threshold sweeping the dark corners until he made out a figure huddled in a chair. A silent figure who stared at him with hot, mistrustful eyes. She had been crying, he could see that; but the tears had dried, leaving her with somber, unpleasant thoughts. Lilly guessed that Breck had told his daughter many things about the JIB she had never known and that she was struggling now to reconcile them with her father's kindness and with her own sense of loyalty. He hated to break in, but he knew very well he had to come to some understanding with this girl. He could not begin unless she supported him, and already he felt he had in some manner aroused her antagonism.

Скачать книгу