Читать книгу Tiger Eye - B. M. Bower - Страница 9

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THE kid was scouting along the rim of the Big Bench a day or two later, playing his mouth organ as he rode. Softly, because yo'all had to be mighty careful nobody down in the valley noticed and took a long shot at you, just for luck. Lead hornets buzzed quite plentiful down where the cow thieves lived, and a man had to be careful how he rode. But shucks! Yo'all couldn't hear that mouth organ any farther'n you could flip a rock with your thumb and finger.

So the kid played "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" with all those variations he had invented while he rode the long trail from Texas. Any mouth-organ player could play "Bonnie", but nobody played it just like the kid. Same way with the "Mocking Bird." Yo'all had to know mockers before you could play that piece so it sounded like anything at all. The kid could do it. He could start the chorus same as anybody, "Listen to the mocking bird! Listen to the mocking bird—" and from there on he could trill and warble and twitter and cheep that old mouth organ for half a mile, Pecos going at a walk with his head swinging low, half asleep.

The kid didn't play the "Mocking Bird" now. You had to have your mind at rest and nothing to do but ride the long trail when you put the mocker into that tune. Couldn't play it worth shucks when you didn't know what minute yo'all might have to quit playing and grab your gun and shoot. So the kid played "My Bonnie" softly, and his eyes glanced warily this way and that as he rode.

Bad country up this way. Worse than down on the Brazos, when Pap and Buck Thomas got to fighting the Gonzales boys. Never knew what minute a Gonzales might try to pot shot yo'all just 'cause you were one of old Killer Reeves' boys. Up here it was worse, because the whole blamed country was out gunning for each other. Nice country, but plumb full of ornery no-account cow thieves that wouldn't wait to see if a fellow was all right but would holler, "Draw, you coyote!" and come a-shooting, plumb crazy like. Well, the kid drew, all right. No boy of old Killer Reeves could be slow with a gun and keep his hide on his back.

Funny, though. If Nate Wheeler hadn't come riding and shooting that-a-way, the kid wouldn't have met up with Babe Garner. It shoah was worth riding all the way up from Texas to Montana, just to meet up with a fellow as nice and friendly as Babe Garner was. The kid felt a warm wave of gratitude shoot up his spine at the thought of Babe's fine hospitality and friendship. Couldn't beat that nowhere, not even back home on the Brazos.

Shoah was a snaky kinda country, though. The kid didn't know just all the ins and outs of the fuss, for Babe Garner didn't tell any more than he had to. But he seemed to think the kid ought to be told enough so he wouldn't go riding straight up to a man again in this country.

The way Babe told it, the cow thieves, that let on like they were nesters, had banded together to wipe out the Poole, which was a big Eastern outfit. Babe said the nesters were stealing the Poole blind and the bosses back East wanted it stopped. Babe said the Poole wouldn't stand for no more, and they now looked on all cow thieves same as they did on wolves,—varmints to be got rid of. Nate Wheeler was gunning for Poole riders, Babe said, and that was why he rode at the kid that-a-way.

Babe said the kid could stay right there in line camp with him and ride for the Poole. He said the kid would be on the payroll because the Poole needed good honest men and Babe would send word to the boss he had one over here. That was shoah white of Babe. Again the kid felt that warm, boyish glow of gratitude.

He played absently, his thoughts dwelling on what Babe had said. Babe seemed to think Poole riders had to be fighters. Reckon he ought to tell Babe he wouldn't kill a man for nobody; he'd seen too much of that back home. But Babe never had asked him yet if he'd kill a man. Babe knew he could shoot and would shoot, and he seemed to kinda take it for granted that meant shoot to kill. The kid hated to lay down on Babe, but it was kinda hard to explain just how he felt about killing. Anyway, Babe never asked him a word about that part. If he did, the kid would tell him straight out where he stood.

Poole riders kinda expected to down a man for keeps if it came to gun play between them and nesters, the kid reckoned. Babe said ranching was just a blind with the nesters, and they really were outlaws that made a business of robbing and killing and slapping their brands on Poole stuff. Brand the calves and beef the cows, and peddle the meat to butchers in the towns around that stood in with the gang. Babe said the Poole had tried the law and it wouldn't work, because the Poole was an Eastern firm and all the nesters and town folks hung together. No jury in the country would convict a cow thief, Babe said.

So the Poole was going to shoot it out with the gang. He said the kid must keep his weather eye peeled and not let any rider get within gunshot of him unless he was a friend and a Poole man. What the kid should do if the man turned out to be a rustler, Babe didn't say. Reckon he thought a man just up from the Brazos would know without any telling. Draw and shoot—and be darn shoah yo'all do it quicker than the other feller. That was the way it was when Nate Wheeler rode at him. If that was a sample of what folks in the valley were like, the kid decided that Babe Garner didn't make the story against the cow thieves half strong enough.

Riding slowly along the rim of the bench land as he thought things over, the kid stared curiously at the country spread below. Little hills and wide valleys, all covered with grass and flowers, and meadow larks singing on every bush and weed, and a creek running along the bottom of every wrinkle between the hills—all down in there was cow-thief country. All that wide stretch away north to the Missouri was cow-thief country too, according to Babe. Back up here, on what Babe called the Big Bench, was Poole country. Nesters in the low land, Poole in the high country, and the cattle wanting to drift down off the Big Bench into the valley—or being driven where the grass looked green and the winding creeks cool, and only the war between the nesters and the Poole to make the valley bad range for Poole cattle.

That rough country away over there next the river, that was Bad Lands, according to Babe. That was where the cow thieves drove the cattle they stole. Had their little ranches back up here in the coulees and planted oats and wheat and ran their fences where all the best water and grass would be inside. Looked like honest nesters getting a home fixed up for their families and never harming anybody—but they were all banded together against the Poole, stealing cattle, running off horses, shooting Poole riders on sight.

The kid's job was to ride along up here on the rim, just lazy like, and watch through field glasses for any bunch of cattle being rounded up or driven along in the nester country below. Anything that looked like a round-up down there, or even a bunch of riders going anywhere, the kid was to ride to the top of a small pinnacle, standing back from the rim of the bench, and signal with a little, round looking-glass Babe Garner had given him.

It wasn't much of a job. The kid would rather ride with Babe, wherever it was he had struck out for at daylight. But Babe didn't act like he wanted anybody along. Just gave the kid the field glasses and the little looking-glass and told him where to go and what to do, and to look out no nester went to bouncing bullets around him. Watch the valley and report any movement of men or cattle. Three quick flashes for a bunch of riders, and three, two, one for riders driving cattle. Then one flash if they went toward the Bad Lands, two for the river, three for the Big Bench. Poole headquarters was back somewhere on the Big Bench and somebody at the ranch would get the signals, Babe said. Easy. Too blamed easy for Tiger Eye Reeves from down on the Brazos.

The kid watched faithfully for awhile, halting Pecos behind bowlders while he got off and focused the glasses on this ranch and that ranch and the tranquil range land in between. Quiet as Sunday afternoon in a Quaker village, down there. Chickens walking around hunting grasshoppers in the edge of the grain fields—darn good glasses, that would show you a hen after a grasshopper three, four miles off! These belonged to Babe. The kid hoped he wouldn't be needing them to-day. He liked Babe Garner. Shoah would hate to have anything happen to him. If any cow thief got Babe—The kid did not follow that thought to its conclusion, but his yellow right eye took on a menacing stare altogether deadly and misleading. They better not touch Babe Garner!

He mounted and rode slowly on to where new vistas presented themselves. Coulees whose high, sheltering arms had heretofore blocked his view lay wide open now to his sight, and the kid once more dismounted and settled himself comfortably on a rock while he inspected each ranch in turn and compared it with that map of the valley he had found.

Nobody seemed to be stirring in the valley: no riders bobbing around on the levels, nobody working in the fields, no dust cloud showing where cattle were being held in a round-up. Babe had thought there might be some action to-day on account of Nate Wheeler being shot, but there wasn't. Reckon the nesters were laying low; waiting for dark, maybe. Over across there was Nate Wheeler's place, back in its deep coulee. The kid could see the trail down off Big Bench, where he had been riding along down, when Nate Wheeler came spurring straight at him hollering "Draw, you coyote!"

The kid's mouth drooped a little at the corners as the very spot seemed to spring right at him through the powerful glasses. Damn' fool, coming at him that-a-way without waiting to see who he was meeting up with. If all the nesters were like that one, it shoah did pay a man to watch out for 'em.

The kid swung the glasses farther into the coulee and along the trail to the gate, and on up to Wheeler's cabin. There he held them steady, little puckers showing in the skin around his eyes, he squinted so. His lips fell slightly apart as he watched. No wonder the valley was empty and no nesters were stirring! Having a funeral for Nate Wheeler, that was why. Yard full of wagons and saddle horses, men standing around outside the house, not talking but just standing there, looking sour. Every one packing guns. A Poole man wouldn't stand no show a-tall in that crowd. About as much show as a brush rabbit with a pack of hounds. If they knew who it was shot Nate Wheeler—if they knew it was Babe Garner and Tiger Eye Reeves—hell shoah would be a-popping right soon!

"Nate Wheelah mus' be a right populah man," the kid murmured to himself. But his forehead pulled into deep lines of puzzlement while he gazed. Something about that crowd over there in the coulee nagged at him with a sense of strangeness, but it wasn't the guns, and it wasn't the harsh quiet of the men.

The kid sharpened the focus a little, still gazing with his forehead wrinkled, trying to figure out what was wrong. Now the men were edging back from the door—plain as if he stood in the yard with them he could see all they did; plain as looking at a play on the stage. Fetching the coffin out now. Just a board box with strap handles nailed on, nesters all stretching their necks like turkeys in a grain field, minding their manners but wanting to see it all. Something mighty strange, though. And then the kid knew what it was. There weren't any women at that funeral. Nate Wheeler had a wife and baby, but they weren't there, either. Just men, not dressed up in their Sunday clothes, but wearing colored shirts and overalls. Not shaved, either. Looked like they had just stopped by from their work. Plenty of guns, though, and belts full of shells.

Seemed like he could hear the wagons rattling. Never knew yo'all could bring wagons so close with glasses you could hear 'em rattle. The kid stared for two seconds longer and took the field glasses from his eyes.

Instantly that grim gathering in the coulee receded into the slight movement of vague dots three miles and more away. The scene was gone, wiped out by the distance. Instead, the kid was staring down off the hill at a wagon that came rattling down a long slope directly toward him. The driver was standing up, lashing the horses into a run, with the long ends of the lines which he swung like a flail upon their backs. The wagon was jouncing along over hummocks and a woman with her bonnet off, and her hair flying straight out behind her like the tail of a running horse, was hanging to the seat like grim death.