Читать книгу Painted Ponies - Alan Le May - Страница 18

Jake Downey squatted on his heels smoking his pipe, an old companion of his; it was a slender briar, a type of smoking implement not often seen in those days in the regions of the North Platte. It was said of Downey that he feared nothing in the world except the breaking of its stem.

For some minutes after Slide Morgan had finished the tale of his mysterious discharge, Downey remained silent. The bricky stubble bristled on his solid cleft chin, and Downey felt of it tentatively with his fingers, as a man feels of cactus spines.

“Lew Cade is back o’ that,” he said at last, looking up. He tossed off the opinion casually, as if it were only an obvious minor point in a complicated problem.

“I knew it!” Morgan snarled, slamming his hat into the dust. “Him! The sneakin’—”

“He been out there?” Jake asked.

Lew Cade had been, upon the evening before. Morgan and Cade had acknowledged their introduction with perfunctory nods. During supper Morgan had studied Cade’s face, lean, handsome, and paler than those of other men, made unusual by those ash-gray eyes, oddly light in color beneath his dark brows. The man talked fluently and well; often his remarks were edged with a taunting humor that made folks laugh.

The man from Roaring River had spent the evening playing checkers with Nancy under a lantern in one corner. From this position he had alternately talked to the girl in low tones, and raised his voice to rally Chase or Happy Bent. The two had still been playing when Morgan retired to the bunkhouse, annoyed by the sight of this man talking to the daughter of John Chase.

“He’s kind o’ sweet on Nance,” Jake supplied.

Morgan’s naturally friendly face was furious. In the heat of his anger the angles of his cheek bones, high-bridged nose, and jaw stood out sharply, making him another man.

“He most likely told ’em I was Injun Frank,” he fumed.

“Don’t think that was it,” said Downey. “It took me jest three days to squash that little theory. But these Cades is a sour pair if yuh rub ’em the wrong way. Abner has a lot o’ sense, an’ tries to hold Lew down, but Lew is off the same piece he is, an’ Ab can’t do much with him. Half the time they ain’t on speakin’ terms, like now. But once one of ’em gets in a tight place, then it’s Cades against all, an’ Abner can go as crazy loco as Lew can, if he wants.”

“Then what d’yuh s’pose he told ’em?” Morgan wanted to know.

Downey considered. “He rode off before you did, did he? Prob’ly saddled before breakfast? Uh-huh. Well, prob’ly Lew jest says to old John Chase, he says, ‘Nice boy, this Morgan. Pity he’s a breed.’ An’ when old Chase looks surprised, then Lew prob’ly looks plumb astonished. ‘Never knew that?’ he says, says he, ‘Why, I thought ever’body knew that.’ An’ mebbe he mentions that his brother has knowed you all yore life.”

“A half-breed, am I?” raged Morgan. “Why, that—”

“That’s what I’d say happened,” said Downey. “Old Chase is terrible sour on Injuns. He wouldn’t have a breed around that girl o’ his at no price.”

Morgan felt a wrenching sickness, a nausea of choking wrath. Through a muffling red fog he heard Downey’s voice.

“Partridge Geer left a letter fer you, when he stopped by goin’ south.”

“Where is it?” Slide forced himself to ask.

Downey went into the wretched little shanty that served him for a ranch house, and brought a bit of paper into the hot morning sunlight. Morgan unfolded it curiously.

To Whome It May Consern [he read]:

I have knowed Benj. Morgan 20 yrs. I also knowed Henry Morgan his pa and Julie Morgan his ma & know positive that there was not any Indian blood in ether one. Benj. Morgan come from a sqwar famly & is full-blooded white.

Amos Geer.

Morgan twice puzzled through the tangled scrawl before he looked up. Then he silently handed the sheet to Jake Downey.

“Up until last week, I never saw the feller in my life,” he told him.

“Seems to know you,” Jake replied.

“How’d he know this would come up?”

“He said it might come in handy to yuh—he didn’t know.”

“Nothin’ else?”

“Nope.”

Downey put one foot on the bench by the door, and lounged against the wall. “Geer don’t say a whole lot. Most o’ his remarks has a question tied to their tail. He listens a whole heap.”

Morgan slumped down onto the bench, his hands dangling between his thighs, his eyes distant. “Well,” he said heavily, “still got a job open?”

“Shore. Yo’re takin’ this a sight too hard, Slide. What the heck is one or two firin’s to a rider that’s rode as many as you have? ’Smatter with yuh? Yuh look like yuh tried to crawl off somewhere, an’ got pulled back.”

“Aw—ain’t nothin’.”

“Well, fer cripes’ sake come to life, then! Stand up, once.”

He heaved Slide to his feet by one arm, and planted a firm, fatherly kick in the pants that sent Morgan staggering.

“Get the saddle off o’ that ratty-lookin’ hunk o’ picket fence,” Downey ordered, “if yuh call that man-eatin’ sawbuck a saddle. Such a crool-shaped place to sit I never see. Ridin’ that dislocatin’ contraption from Roarin’ River I thought I was kilt. I tried layin’ crossways, like a sack—”

“That’s the most comfor’ble little saddle—” Slide rallied feebly.

“I got a boneless wonder, here,” Downey offered. “He can snap hisself jest like a whip. He’s one o’ these zebra duns, with a stripe down his back.”

“Where’s he at?” asked Morgan, showing a flicker of interest.

“I’ll point him out,” said Downey, leading the way. “I been keepin’ him fer a curiosity. I think some o’ gettin’ Hank Harris over here to ride him.”

“Pooh,” Morgan scoffed. “Leave the Hank party stay home. I guess I can take care o’ these little details.”

“Might have once,” Downey admitted. “But not right now. Yuh shore look weakish. What they been feedin’ yuh—milk?”

“Drop a rope on him,” said Slide. “I’ll get my saddle.”

“Ain’t a bit o’ use. That dun’ll unload yuh quicker’n chain lightnin’. Wait now, Slide. Some day when yuh feel—”

“You rope that horse!”

“Oh, all right.”

There was something lacking in Morgan’s general attitude as he swung onto the zebra dun. Jake Downey cast loose the halter shank; he had hardly dodged around the snubbing post before the fight was over. Three savage, up-ended plunges, and Slide Morgan snatched for the saddle—and clutched two handfuls of dust.

“Now that’s too bad,” said Jake Downey as he made much over helping Morgan to his feet. “You didn’t stay long enough to see nothin’. He was jest gettin’ ready to warm up. What made yuh fall? The horse was plumb astonished.”

“I can ride him,” said Morgan, a trace of a fighting gleam in his eye. “I could ride him the best day he ever see. I’ll do it, too. To-morrow.” The gleam flickered out.

“To-morrow?” repeated Downey, his jaw dropping.

“One o’ these days,” Morgan said listlessly.

Downey whistled a little tune softly through his teeth as he turned away.