Читать книгу Hopalong Cassidy and the Eagle's Brood - Clarence E. Mulford - Страница 3

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A line of frame buildings stood shoulder to shoulder along one side of the street. Before them lay the more unregenerate part of the town, its southern limits the river. Between the two, acting as a dead-line, were the railroad trades. Back of Railroad Street sprawled the rest of the town, made up of two score or more private dwellings, several boarding houses, a frame schoolhouse of two rooms, a few scattered stores, and Boot Hill.

Boot Hill was well named. None of its inmates, sleeping the long sleep, had died with their boots off, except the one woman buried there. The flat topped hummock, rising perhaps sixty feet above the comparatively level prairie, was about an acre in extent on its top. There were no marble shafts to glisten in the sun, no granite to gleam gray or blue or brown and to mark it, at a distance, for what it was. A few twisted wooden crosses, but mostly straight boards where they remained standing, their penciled names already faded to match the color of the sun-bleached wood, stood drunkenly here and there. Weeds, half-grown before the drought and sun had killed them, made brown cicatrices on the gray-white earth. Empty bottles, a few empty cans, and odds and ends of litter added their note of hopelessness to the general air of forsakenness. Twisting, shallow gullies scored the steep slopes, showing where storm-water had raged furiously for a few moments before finding the peace of the lower levels; much the same as the moldering inmates of the hill had raged before they had found their peace.

Below Boot Hill, a quarter of a mile away, lay an orthodox square of ground, outlined by a white fence, criss-crossed by paths and set into small squares, like sections of a chessboard, each bearing rooks, bishops, and knights in marble and granite, the pretentiousness of each individual marker serving as an indicator to the importance of the surviving members of the family. Here lay those who had died in the approved fashion, with their boots off before the end; those who were not forgotten, so far as outward show was concerned; those who had not ridden in from nowhere to burst into flame and smoke for one heroic instant, and to go Nowhere.

Let us make Boot Hill our vantage point. From it we look across the rolling plain to a far horizon, eastward over the roofs of humble buildings; southward across the glistening lines of steel, the mercurial and turgid river with its low, perpendicular banks, its twin lines of rank vegetation, its twin rows of trees, and beyond to the tops of the rounded sandhills; westward, over the swelling rises and hollows of a gray-green sea of sparse grass not yet hidden by alien weeds; northward the vista is much the same, barring a distant, faint line of greenery which marks the twisting course of a tributary stream.

The morning train which rumbled west was poorly attended in the matter of curious idlers at the station, and the stop at Bulltown was not one to engender memories or to mark the town; but the evening train, rumbling east, was another story. This eastern train was the favorite, and its stop was well attended. If personal feelings chanced to coincide with its arrival, shots might arouse the weary passengers, and they might even see, if they were fortunate, some quick duel on the street almost under their windows, and take home with them a vivid memory of frontier lawlessness. For the moment we will ignore the evening train, and turn to meet the westbound in cheery expectancy, for on it there will be persons in whom we have interest; and we now watch them come out of the smoking car, each carrying a sacked saddle, pause on the platform, and then move lazily across it and toward a faded shack which served as a hotel.

All hotels on Railroad Street gave over their lower floor to a bar and its accessories. This hotel is no exception, and we follow the strangers, noting that one of them limps a very little, and that the thin hair below his huge hat is a faded red. Having entered the lower story of the building, let us sluice the top layer of dust from our mouth and throat, seat ourselves in a far corner of the room, between two windows, and watch the newcomers and the doors. Somehow, instead of marking us as strangers, this double watchfulness will tend to indicate that we are not strangers, but thoroughly cognizant of the present surroundings, even though it is broad daylight. Boot Hill, behind us and north of the tracks, is full of those persons who became careless of doors, windows, and newcomers.

While we watch, let us consider our position geographically. Twin River is a far cry from Gunsight; McLeod a long way in miles from Los Altos; and Cottonwood Gulch is far enough away from McKenzie to arouse our comment, especially if we were to cover the distance on horseback. Yet an occasion arose when these six towns were to meet, in the persons of individual representatives, at one common center. That center was Bulltown, not to make use of its real name. The time was about even with the dying out of the Great Western Cattle Trail.

We have to consider the meeting of seven men, arranged by Fate, and to see what came of it. All came to Bulltown for reasons sufficient for the making of the journey. One wanted to buy cattle; another, to sell. Two of these seven came for the sake of friendship, after considerable misspelled correspondence. One came again to taste the flavor of a hectic cowtown in the height of its convulsions, to sniff memories from the dust of that northbound trail, and on the off chance of meeting old friends up from Texas. One came hopelessly out of the West, from a land of arid plateaus and frowning mesas; from the accursed proximity of a great lava desert; from the scene of his loss, his heartbreak, and his failure.

Since the foregathering of these seven men make up our story, we will have done with forewords, and watch the doors—aye, and even the windows!