Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 38

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"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.

"Ma'am," said he, still on the threshold. "It's a hard time to palaver, but we've got to thresh a few things out. What I want to know is: Are you acceptin' me as foreman o' this ranch?"

He thought she had not heard him, so long was the silence. In the end she moved her head slightly. "You heard what my father told you."

"Yes, I heard. But I ain't heard what you think about it. We've got to work together if we work at all."

The dam broke all of a sudden. "Who are you? What do I know about you? What did my father know? He saw you twice and then trusted you with the ranch—and with me. Am I to believe you are the only honest man in the county?"

"As to that," said he, "I don't know. I'm not claimin' any particular virtue for myself. But yore daddy appeared to be in trouble and he thought I could help you. Give him a little credit if you can't trust yore own eyes. That's about all I can ask. Maybe there's lots of honest men hereabouts, but there's also a considerable number o' crooks—a few of which are on this ranch at the present time."

"How do you know? You rode into this country yesterday and now you say you are quite honest and that the crew is not. That's taking in a lot of ground."

"You heard what yore daddy said. I'm no prosecutin' attorney. I've been given a job to do and I got to have yore help to do it. If yore goin' to buck me I might as well roll my blankets."

"You know the way out," she reminded him. "You can quit now if you want."

"I can," he admitted grimly, "but I won't. I give my word and I'll keep it. Yore old enough to know better. Don't be so foolish. I don't love this ranch, ma'am, and I don't hone to assume any responsibility for its past misdemeanors. But we're in a hole right now and we've got to pull together." He saw that he had spoken more sharply than he meant so he tried to soften his words. "There ain't any reason why you should jump on me."

"Oh, I know it! But can't you see—my father told me things—! Everything is crooked, everything is opposite what I've always believed it to be. Now you come and ask me to trust you. How can I know that the men here are not loyal, or that you are any better than they are—if they are not loyal?"

"You better believe me on that subject," said he. "And come to a decision."

Again a long silence. There was a rumbling of voices outside, a short distance from the house and the girl seemed to see the tightening of Lilly's face muscles. "Well," she admitted, "I'll do what my father asked. You are the foreman. But remember I have the final say. I won't have you discharging men who have worked here for years."

"We'll strive to please," said he, though he disliked her assumption that she was doing him a favor. "But there'll have to be a show-down between Trono and me. Unless I'm plumb wrong, one of us has got to go. We'll know in a minute, for I think I hear a committee."

When he reached the porch they were grouped around the steps—every man who had been at the funeral. It was not a committee, it was the whole crew and they were led by Trono who was standing with his shoulders squared and a light of trouble in his eyes. The man was reaching out now to new heights of recklessness. The only power that had ever been able to check him was gone and he had come to the point where he might work his own will, whatever it was. Lilly understood instantly that Trono regarded him as only a straw to be blown away, and at the thought he scanned the crew with a careful, hopeful glance. But if he hoped for supporters he was to be mistaken. The character of the JIB cowpunchers was written quite plainly on their faces. With the exception of one or two, they were the sort of men to be found along the border, one jump from Mexico; restless, unscrupulous men who hired out their services to the highest bidder. They were not the type that ran a peaceful cattle ranch. Lilly did not fail to note their white hands and the way their gunbutts swung forward; the new foreman guessed that they were better with the gun than with the rope.

Well, it was none of his business if this was the kind of a puncher old Jim Breck had needed in his business. Many and many a ranch had to have its professional fighters if it were to survive the encroachment of other ranches. Still, this kind of warfare was dying out; cattlemen used more peaceful methods and it was something of a surprise to Lilly that the JIB still carried its full complement of feudists. It would make his job the more difficult. He stood immobile, trying to gauge the extent of their hostility toward him; and while he was thus groping for the right word to say Trono took the bit in his mouth and issued his challenge.

"Don't yuh believe in signs, amigo?"

"Depends on the sign," replied Lilly amiably.

"Well, yuh heard my statement the other night. Yore twenty- four hours is about up. I ain't a man to go back on my word. What yuh doin' around here?"

Nothing could come of the delay or soft speech. Trono was not the kind to understand it. So Lilly spoke his piece.

"I'm foreman here now, Trono. Yore out of a job. My orders are to give you a job as top hand if you want it. If you don't want it, roll your blanket and walk."

Trono had not looked for such an attack. It took the belligerent words from his mouth and he stood with his head craned forward while the ruddy blood rushed into his face. The green eyes were unblinking. "Who told yuh that?"

"The old man."

Trono's reply was short and unmentionable. He took half a step forward, his arms swinging wide. "Yuh lie! Bring Jill out here a minute and I'll talk to her! Don't fool me, Red."

From somewhere came Jill's voice. "That is the truth, Theed. You have your choice."

Trono looked from window to window; but Jill had vanished again and in the silence Lilly tried again to find a friendly face in the crowd. "Well, we might as well get this straight. Are you working for me or are you pullin' out?"

"Work fer yuh? Hell, I wouldn't take yore orders if I starved. Yuh ain't gettin' away with that, Red. As to pullin' out, I dunno about that, either. Misdoubt if you got any right to hire or fire."

Lilly looked to the others. "You boys have yore choice. It's me or Trono."

There was no answer. None was needed. Lilly understood his situation thoroughly. These were Trono's creatures, they would fight at Trono's nod. The new foreman, watching Trono with a steady, cautious glance, wondered why that nod didn't come. If the man was brash enough to force the issue now was the proper time. Trono's face was settled in reflection and there was a slow evaporation of his belligerence. Again, as in the saloon, he hesitated, seeming to weigh Lilly. In the end he turned and spoke briefly to the men. "We're pullin' out We ain't workin' on no ranch run by this jasper. If the old man wanted him so bad that ain't no skin off our nose."

The whole group turned and walked toward the bunkhouse. A quarter hour later they were galloping over the ridge and out of sight. Lilly watched them go, both relieved and puzzled; it was hard to understand Trono's mildness, hard to fathom why the man hadn't made a stronger bid for control.

"It shore looks like he's backed down from his bluff about me leavin' the country in twenty-four hours. Yet, somehow, it don't seem Trono would give in that easy. Must be a nigger in the woodpile."

Rolling a cigarette, he settled in a chair and watched the sun dip westward. Life on the ranch had come to a full stop. Nothing moved in the yard, no sound came from the corrals. It was as if Breck's passing had withdrawn the JIB's driving force; as if Pilgrim Valley had shrunk and shriveled and like many another deserted cattle ranch would forthwith be a place of memories. Well, perhaps the old man in his sickness had been too suspicious, too willing to believe in trouble and disaster. Anyhow, it was a serious matter to usurp authority without sufficient reason. Perhaps Trono had realized it and ridden away to other fields.

Here was a job for a man to do. Somehow or other, he had to get a decent, faithful crew and start the ball rolling again; prepare for the fall roundup and patch up any number of things. It took but a brief glance to see that Breck had let things sort of slide. Some of the top rails of the corral were down, the barn doors sagging on their runners. The Indian quarters were strewn with trash piles and the sod roofs of all houses were badly shaken. When the fall rains set in there wouldn't be a dry spot in any of these old structures.

"If it's this way on the home stretch," he mused, "what will it be like out on the range? How many cows am I goin' to find?"

Considering the night party that had passed by the homesteader's shack, it looked as if he wasn't going to have much rest. Well, he could put a stop to rustling and he could make a sweet-running place of it, providing he could find men. There was the rub. Being a stranger in the land, knowing nothing of ranch politics or of men's sympathies, he was going to have difficulty in collecting six or seven good top hands.

Studying this from all its angles he was interrupted a couple of hours later when a pair of riders dropped over the ridge and galloped down the slope toward him. Within fifty yards he recognized them to be from Trono's party and he stood up, suddenly wary. They whirled before the house and dismounted, each looking to the other until one took up the burden of explanation.

"It's like this," said the spokesman looking the new foreman squarely in the face. "We couldn't nowise break away from Trono here on the ranch. We ain't his kind, y'understan'? But a fella has got to watch his p's and q's. Bill an' me is square an' we like the JIB. So we sorter told Trono we was a-goin' to ride up in the pines to have a look-see. When the boys got out o' sight we come foggin' back here. If yuh need help we'd be right pleased to throw in. They'll be gunplay sooner or later, yuh bet."

Lilly worked his thumbs through his belt and stared at them with a mild, disbelieving countenance. "If you weren't Trono's men how does it come you worked under him?"

"Hell, a man's got to eat, ain't he? Now, amigo, let that ride. We didn't bust into this jes' cause we liked to be shot at. The old man was white to us. We been here a long time—before most o' those jaspers Trono hired on his own hook. Yu' see? Better make peace an' take what help yu' can get, which ain't goin' to be plenty, Trono'll scare cowhands away from here an' yu' ain't ble to turn this job by yoreself."

"Lads, it's too good to be a real yarn. I'm obliged but I don't hire on Tuesdays or Fridays. Just run back an' tell Trono it didn't work."

The pair looked mournfully disappointed. The spokesman shook his head and observed that you never could tell which way a red- head would jump and wasn't it a fact. "Amigo, what's bit yu'? Yu' asked for help an' now yu' won't take it. Tell a man!"

"I've changed my mind. It's goin to be a new deck. I'm obliged but the road out is over yonder—"

"They can stay."

It was Jill speaking. She had come from the house and stood with her back to the logs, tight-lipped and somber. "I know these men. Billy and Slim have always been good hands. My father spoke highly of them. Hang your saddles in the bunkhouse, boys, And thanks for coming."

The two made off, but not before Slim, the spokesman, had gravely assured Lilly he didn't hold anything against him for the refusal. "A man can't be too careful these days."

Lilly waited until they were well out of sight before speaking. "Ma'am, why do you suppose they come back? Don't you think they'd of stayed when I asked for 'em to choose between me and Trono? Their yarn is full of holes. They're Trono's men shore as shootin' an they'll only make trouble—of which we've got a-plenty right now."

She was bitter-eyed, resentful; and when he had finished she laid down the law to him in no uncertain terms. "Remember, you are the foreman. Nothing more. I told you I would do the firing. As for those two I know them better than you do. How is it that you, a complete stranger, insist that all this crew is untrustworthy? I might use the very same words to you."

He rubbed his hand slowly along the back of the chair, watching her as the anger seemed to mount. Perhaps he would have washed his hands of the affair then and there, have taken his horse and ridden over the ridge—if the saving grace of humor had not helped him. She was a spitfire and no mistake! But he knew, or thought he knew, what was behind those hard words. Her pride and her loyalty had been shaken by Jim Breck's confession of fault and in the after hours of tragedy when she was trying to rebuild something from the wreck, trying to regain her own self-respect, she had unconsciously laid the blame on the nearest man. Which happened to be himself. "She hates to have me see her humbled like this," he reflected. "She thinks I'm passin' judgment." Well, that would pass and she would be sorry for it. He could bear it. If she didn't change he would still stick until the trouble was averted and then pull freight. He hated a shrewish woman.

So he turned her accusation aside. "Well, if you think they're all right that settles the matter. Maybe I'm wrong. I've always been taught to be suspicious until I was shown otherwise. Now, ma'am, if you don't mind I'd like to see yore daddy's books. I've got to understand his business before I can start working."

She turned this over in her mind for some time and Lilly thought she was about to refuse him. "I guess you have a right to that," she admitted. "His office was at the end of the house. Look for yourself."

"Look for himself," he judged was going to be his motto on the JIB. Entering the old man's office—which was a bare room with only a great roll-topped desk and pine chair to relieve its emptiness—he sat down and tried to find his way through the mass of letters, catalogues and bills of lading. Everything was in confusion and according to the dates of the letters nothing had been filed for six months. The drawers and the pigeon holes were jammed full of unrelated things as if the old man, suddenly tired of seeing the top of the desk so cluttered, had swept it clear with his fist.

It grew dark long before Lilly had reduced anything to order or had found what he most wanted to find—the tallies of the spring roundup. Abandoning the job for the day he strolled to the porch. A light burned in the kitchen and he saw the girl bending over the stove; her white, strong arms moved swiftly and once as she turned Lilly thought she looked somewhat happier. She had forgotten for the moment the troubles of the day. Work did that, Lilly reflected, strolling across the yard. Many a time he had plunged headlong into any kind of labor to keep himself from thinking. Dusk fell across the land in gray, swirling waves, bringing with it a cool night breeze. There was a light in the bunkhouse and he heard one of the hands singing a doleful ditty about Sam Bass.

He moved by the corner of an Indian house and started toward the corrals. There was a slight, hissing sound to his rear and the crunch of a boot. He turned swiftly, arm dropping toward his gun; but he was too late to save himself. A loop fell over his shoulders and tautened with such a force that it threw him to the ground. In the dusk he heard a man breathing heavily, advancing on the run; and when the fellow stooped to take another hitch in the rope he saw it to be Slim the spokesman. Slim grunted his satisfaction. "Yu' damn rascal! I knew I'd ketch yu' if I waited long enough. Quit that squirmin' or I'll bust yu' to aitch! Hey, Billy—come on now. I done snared him!"

Slim was on his knee, one arm planted in Lilly's chest. Lilly bent upward and with one desperate wrench of his shoulders butted the puncher beneath the chin, throwing the man off balance. A stream of profanity followed, and though Lilly tried to pull his hands clear of the rope he failed. Slim's fist shot through the shadows and took Lilly in the temple. "Yu' damn fool, I could smash yu' fer that! Now git up an' travel to'rds the bunkhouse!"

"Here," said Lilly, "what kind of a game are you playin'? Just what's yore profit in this?"

Bill, who had joined Slim, chuckled. "You'll have to ask Trono that, amigo. Hey, Slim, it's the smokehouse we want. Yeah. All right, fella, back in there an' hold yore nose."

Lilly could not see where they were putting him. A door groaned and Slim's hand went rummaging through his pockets for knives and sundry weapons. The gunbelt dropped from his hip and he was shoved none too gently across the high sill of a shed no more than three feet square. Then the door closed and the hasp fell over a staple, to be locked. The two men, retreated speaking softly. By-and-by Lilly heard three shots near the main house. Three shots evenly spaced—the ancient signal of the range. Within ten minutes he heard many men riding into the yard. Trono had returned.