Читать книгу Painted Ponies - Alan Le May - Страница 22

The trade rat dropped something from the high shelf with a clatter, and the three men started nervously. Jake Downey spoke, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet cabin.

“Thing t’do is to lay up for a while, till this blows over,” he said. “Abner is apt to act nasty, otherwise folks wouldn’t give it a second thought. In three-four weeks the range’ll forget it. Course Ab will stay on the shoot; but you can prob’ly avoid him all right. An’ even if yuh can’t, he ain’t so quick, an’ once he’s settled, that’s the last o’ the Cades, an’ a end to the whole business.”

“Nothin’ to worry about,” put in Talky.

“But meantime, I’d lay up,” Jake went on. “Nick LaFarge’s is the place. He’s practically alone over there; he has jest a nester layout on the South Platte, an’ he hates the Cades like they was snakes. Talky knows him real well.”

“I’ll ride over with yuh,” said Talky, as if the South Platte were but a few moments away.

“Meantime,” continued Jake, “they ain’t no positive evidence who done it.”

Morgan looked up sharply. He was certain that Nancy Chase had recognized him in the twilight.

“Well,” said Jake, noticing his movement, “there wasn’t no one else there, was there?”

“No,” Morgan lied slowly, “there wasn’t no one else there.”

“Happy Bent says he saw a feller on a dark-lookin’ horse movin’ off; that’s all. Fine evidence that is. A dark-lookin’ horse! Li’ble to be took for most any horse but yore horse. An’ o’ course Talky and me didn’t let on to know anythin’ about it.”

“Abner Cade is hell on guesses,” Talky offered.

“He’ll call the turn pretty close,” Downey agreed. “But the general misconfusion will help out. All in all, I say you two ride to-night; yuh can get over the North Platte about sun-up, an’ pretty well clear o’ the whole works by to-morrow night. You should sleep in Colorado easy, to-morrow night.”

“No call for Talky to go,” said Slide. “I guess I can—”

“Ain’t no trouble,” Talky declared. “I need the ride.”

“Meantime I’ll do what I can to smooth it out at this end, an’ pretty quick we’ll—”

“I figgered to head south anyway, Jake. I—”

“Best take the black pacer for a extra horse, so’s you can push along steady. Sorry to work off a old plug like that on yuh, but prob’ly you’ll want one that won’t be missed here, in case anythin’ happens to him. He’s worthless, but mebbe he’ll do to hobble along on when the gray starts limpin’.”

“The black?” Slide exclaimed. “Next to my gray, that black is the best—”

“Pooh,” said Jake, “that jest shows yo’re not used to a real horse country like we got here. Did yuh oat him, Talky?”

“Oated all four soon’s I got back,” replied the other. “I put travelin’ oats in a sack.”

There was a mechanical smoothness about the plans offered, telling Slide that these men had discussed every move when first they had foreseen the probability of Cade’s death.

Talky, with a few efficient motions, packed into a pair of saddlebags the provisions which Slide had seen him lay aside.

“Talky doesn’t need to go puttin’ himself out,” Morgan protested again. “I guess I—”

“Don’t blame yuh a bit,” Jake said. “He shore is pestiferous. Mebbe you can give him the slip, after you’ve rode a piece.”

“I guess,” said Talky, “a man has a right to ride a ways with a friend,—or don’t the Vigilantes allow that, any more?”

Morgan, weakened by the after-effects of his first kill, protested no further. There was a bracing comfort in the dependability of these men, as rugged in their casual friendships as in the arduous labors which twisted short their lives.