Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 81

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"Nothin'," said Steve softly.

"I had better luck," was Denver's rejoinder. Grogan himself, an overbearing man with a spurious smile of good humor, came down the bar, and Steve changed the subject.

"Well, go see the show, and what do I care? I'll play poker." Then, remembering this was also one of those pastimes an engaged man should not participate in, he hastily qualified. "I mean I can spend a large evenin' lookin' on.

"It certainly sounds violent," jeered Denver and strolled out. Instead of going directly across the street to the opera house, he mixed rather casually with the tide of aimless punchers and so was carried as far as the hotel porch. He stopped short of the strong light coming out of that hostelry and stepped into the mouth of an alley. A man drifted by, went up the hotel porch and inside. Presently he came out and halted to light his cigarette; by the glow of the match Denver saw puzzlement on the fellow's features.

"I thought so," grunted Denver. "Same man that Stinger Dann had posted by the stable this afternoon. Don't know him. Red- main's got a lot of fresh blood in his band lately. Now what is the present idea?"

The man crossed the street quickly and shouldered through the crowd, dropping out of sight somewhere near the Palace. On impulse Denver withdrew into obscurity, made a wide circle of town, and crept through the back lots of the north side. He found himself suddenly arrested by the half-open door of the opera house; Lola Monterey was singing, and her tempestuous, throbbing cadences swept away the years of her absence and brought him back once more to the days when he had watched her dancing in the Palace—a slim, scarlet figure cutting through the smoke haze of the hall. Always, he recalled, there had been in her songs something to remind him life was short and sad; always there was that haunting appeal to stir him profoundly and the direct glance of her dark, glowing eyes to set his own wild blood racing.

Half angry, he drew himself away from the door. "Old times, old ways. She's changed in some ways. She's no longer a hungry little girl, half scared, half savage. She's fought her way up, she's sure and confident—she's a matured woman. But her heart is the same. Women like her never change that way."

A murmur of sound put all this introspection out of his head. Somewhere in the farther blackness men were talking discreetly, hurriedly. Rising on his toes Denver advanced, skirted the blind wall of the Palace, paused beside the adjoining butcher shop, and slid quietly near the last building in the north line. Below was a harness shop; above was Colonel Fear Langdell's law office, reached by an outside stairway. Boots scuffed against the steps. There was more talk.

"...how in hell do I know?"

"Yuh ought to."

"Well, I don't. And there's apt to be a bullet in this for somebody."

"Will be if yuh keep on blattin' our location to the wide world. Now go on up there."

"Bad business, I tell you!"

"You do as I say or get out of the country, see? I thought you was tough..."

Denver crouched to the ground, grimly amused; one of these nighthawks was shuffling up the stairway toward Langdell's dark office, prodded on by the taut sarcasm of the man below. "If they're tryin' to set a trap for Langdell," he reflected, "they're apt to find hard luck. He's had his eye teeth cut on trick stuff."

The exploring one had arrived at the top landing. A knob squealed. Silence settled down. Denver grinned in the darkness, and his hand closed around a loose stone the size of a grape. Rising in his tracks he tossed the stone toward the building and dropped to the earth again as it struck and rattled down the stairway, sounding like an avalanche in the utter quiet. The man in Langdell's office ran out, made a clean jump, and hit the ground with a belch of air.

"For Gawd's sake—!"

Both of them were running clumsily off. Denver hurried back to the nearest alley and came out on the street in time to see Stinger Dann go along the sidewalk with a mighty scowl on his face; and a little afterward the man who had followed him to the hotel appeared. Both of them drifted into Grogan's.

"Cheap way of havin' a good time," grunted Denver, trying to fathom Dann's purpose. He walked to the opera house and put his head inside the door, getting the attention of the nearest man in the jammed lobby. "Dell, you seen Langdell in here?"

"Ahuh. Down front somewheres. Want him?"

"No, thanks," said Denver retreating. The more he considered the more he became interested. Stinger Dann was not a man to move without purpose. So thinking, he ambled onward and ran into Jake Leverage, who immediately pulled him out of the crowd.

"Want to see you, Dave."

"I'll lend you money, go on your bail, brand your strays, or furnish character reference for you at the bank," drawled Dave, "but nothing doing as far as this vigilante business is concerned."

"I counted on you," stated Leverage gravely. "If I'm goin' to be useful I've got to have support. You're interested in this."

"I sang my song at the meetin'," returned Dave. "You heard the tune and the words."

"Tell me straight," demanded Leverage, "what's the matter with this business that you won't touch it? Your influence has kept quite a few fellows out of it, and that ain't right."

"I don't like to trail with a herd just to have company," said Dave. "And who do you think you're doing this dirty work for, Jake?"

"For Yellow Hill—for the Association—for me and my family," was Leverage's sober answer.

"And for a bunch of big fellows plenty able to shoulder their own grief," added Dave. "It don't seem right. I hate to see you draw down all the enmity of the wild bunch, which is just what will happen when you hit 'em."

"What's right is right," responded Leverage, somewhat nettled. "I won't back out of trouble."

"Good enough—but the big boys were damned quick to back out of it and let you inherit the grief. No, sir. I'm not buyin' any chips."

"Is that your whole reason?" pressed Leverage.

Denver hesitated and stared toward Grogan's, eyes narrowing down in thought. "No-no, it isn't. But I never make a statement I can't prove, and these other reasons of mine are beyond proof at the present moment. I'll just say I'm not satisfied with the layout. Let it go like that."

"Let me tell you this," remarked Leverage earnestly. "When the scrappin' comes there won't be any neutrals. I foresee that. Black or white is the colors. And don't let your slim hunches maneuver you over to the wrong side. It'll cause you trouble."

"In other words, I'm apt to get hazed down for mindin' my own strict business?" Denver's face darkened. "That happens to be one of the things about mob action I don't like. I'll take care of myself, and I'll see that I am let alone. That applies to the wild bunch, and that applies to any vigilante who tries to make me swap opinions."

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of," exclaimed Leverage. "I have known you since you was a kid. You're as independent as a hog on ice. You don't bend. And I foresee difficulties. I have been through these rustlin' wars before. I know just what happens. Everybody lines up, for or against. And if you stand back somebody's going to suggest you're lined up with the rustlers. Then it's too bad."

"The pack will howl at my heels, is that it?" suggested Denver, rugged face somber and unpleasant.

"I foresee it."

"Then the pack will get a dose of lead," snapped Denver. "I make no distinction between an outlaw who tries to steal my cattle and a red-eyed fanatic who tries to change my mind for me."

Leverage shook his head sadly and turned away. "No hard feelin's, Dave?"

"Not between you and me, Jake. I'm just thinkin' of the buzzards who will go hog-wild and want to shoot everybody on sight."

Leverage moved away. Denver stood still, mastering his temper. Of a sudden the even thread of life had become snarled with knots. Standing aloof he became at once the target of both factions. More than that, he found himself wondering how he should deal with Jake Leverage, who was one of his best friends. He knew things Leverage ought to know for the sake of personal safety. Yet in telling Leverage he became a partisan of the vigilantes. Rather irritably he headed for Grogan's and bought a drink. Through the crowd he saw Steve sitting in at a poker game and went over to find a seat; but the table was full, and so he contented himself with looking on.

It was an odd company. Directly across from Steve was Stinger Dann, who ventured a sullen half glance at Dave Denver and snapped his cards together. Niland and Cal Steele were in the game, and Buck Meems; and the sixth man was the newly arrived Englishman, Almaric St. Jennifer Crèvecoeur Nightingale, whose ruddy cheeks and sky-blue eyes mirrored a certain puzzlement with the game. Cal Steele, possessing under all circumstances the manners of a gentleman, laid down his hand momentarily.

"You fellows ought to know each other. Nightingale, this is Dave Denver, owner of a spread known as D Slash. Nightingale has bought out the Bucket range from the administrator of old Lindersleeve's estate, Dave."

Nightingale rose slowly and stretched his loose frame to substantial height. The two shook hands. Nightingale's slurred and casual "pleasure'm'sure," seemed lackluster, but his steady, square glance contained something that struck Denver pleasantly.

"Any time you want advice or help," went on Steele, "go to Denver. I pass the information on to you because I understand how a newcomer feels. Was one myself, and I considered it a lucky break to have had Dave to steer me through the early rough spots." Then Steele smiled, fine handsome face lighting. "So if I have taken the easy and evil road it is not because I didn't have sound advice."

"We will now pray," drawled Denver. "You'll have to learn the difference between that man's truthfulness and alleged humore, Nightingale. I see you play our pastime."

Nightingale was dealing and doing it rather awkwardly. "Poker? Well, y'know, I heard it was the thing out here, so I took pains to purchase a book by a fella and read the rudiments. Hoyle—that was the chappie's name. I read his strictures on the game. Seems simple though entertainin'."

Eyebrows drooped around the circle of watchers. "Call it that," grumbled Steve. "I got a different sentiment."

"See you slopped over on your resolution," accused Dave.

Steve thumped the table to indicate he could not open and stared at Denver. "Yeah. Debbie come to town to see the show. How in hell was I to know she was a-goin' to come? She sends for me. I goes. I gets the hide blistered off me for not bein' cleaned up and good clothes on. I asks yuh again, how was I to know? She wouldn't let me take her to the show, wouldn't be seen walkin' beside a dirty son of a gun like me. Cast me to the outer shadders. Ha!"

Niland and Meems likewise passed, though Meems expressed audible grief that he wasn't permitted to open on four good- looking clubs. Steele shook his head; at which Stinger Dann, calculating a pile of ante chips grown healthy by several infertile rounds, shoved out a stiff opener. Nightingale studied his cards for so long a time that Stinger Dann grew heavily sarcastic.

"Didn't Hoyle tell yuh how to read the spots?"

Nightingale was apologetic and entered his chips with the air of a man somewhat flustered. The percentage being rather sweet, all the others took a flyer, and Nightingale slowly thumbed out the draw cards. Niland had been prospecting, and he threw down out of his turn, studying the Englishman with sharp attention as if he were finding angles of the man that intrigued his legal mind. Dann having opened, it was his first bet, and he was about to shove out a stiff one when the Englishman exclaimed plaintively:

"These ruddy sequences and combinations elude one damnably. Let's stop a minute while I get this clear. Purely hypothetical question, y'understand. I have no such hand, but just what relative value do five of the same color and suit possess? Mind, it's purely hypothetical."

Someone in the back of the crowd guffawed, at which Dann bellowed irately: "If some of you damned monkeys don't quit breathin' down my neck I'll bust yuh!" He drew back his tentative bet and snapped at Nightingale. "Supposin' you bet."

"But, I say—"

"The unique situation of which you speak," drawled Denver, deriving considerable pleasure from the scene, "is known as a flush and generally considered easy to look at. Among honest men, such as these present, it tops a straight but not a full house."

Dann's heavy eyes flicked dangerously across Denver's face and settled on the Englishman. He, feeling the weight of both players and spectators upon him, grew plainly flustered. "But I haven't got a flush, gentlemen," he muttered and pushed a bet into the center. Meems instantly laid down with an exaggerated politeness. "I'll just take yore word for it, Nightingale. I won't contribute to no painful knowledge." Cal Steele smiled broadly and likewise threw his cards away. Dann studied the Englishman at length, more and more belligerent. In the end he hurled his cards across the table without so much as showing openers.

"Take the pot, you!" he snapped. "I despise playin' with a beginner that's got fool luck!"

"Do I gather the stakes are mine?" asked Nightingale humbly.

Dann swore brutally and brushed the chips into the Englishman's lap at one violent sweep of his arm. The spectators fell quite silent, some edging off from the table. Nightingale seemed oblivious of the insult. "How odd," he remarked. "I believe you thought I had a flush." And he laid down, face up, five cards of no related poker value at all. Then he reached for his fallen chips.

Cal Steele exploded in laughter. "You'll never work that one again, Nightingale! But it was good acting while it lasted!" And Niland nodded as if some guess he had made to himself was verified. Stinger Dann swore again and reached over to tear Nightingale's discarded hand into fragments. "Damn you, Englishman, don't try to make a fool out of me!"

Denver's suddenly cold rebuke fell into the expectant quiet. "Don't you know better than to haze a stranger, Dann?"

Dann, still seated, thrust his long jaw up at Denver. "Who asked you to butt into this affair, Mister Denver?"

"I usually act on my own judgment, as you well know," replied Denver coolly, "and I dislike Nightingale to think your poker manners are the manners of Sundown in general."

"Pretty damn proud of yore manners, ain't you?" cried Dann.

"They're better than yours, which is sayin' little enough."

Dann's full cheeks slowly purpled, and his big neck began to swell at the collar. "Maybe you'd like to give me a lesson," he sneered.

"You might not like my price for teachin'," was Denver's level reply. He had never stirred, never moved his fists from their hooked position in his belt. All the sounds of Grogan's saloon had ceased to the uttermost corners of the room; and as if by invisible command the spectators drifted clear of the table, leaving a wide alley down which the two men stared. Those sitting at the table kept their places, very grave. Cal Steele's cheeks slowly drained to pale gray, and he tried to catch Denver's attention.

"When I pay you," shouted Dann, "it will be a long cold day! You know my regards as to you! It's public knowledge and yores for the havin'! Any time yuh want to take exception, just go ahead!"

"My idea exactly," said Denver. "You've been stampin' around Sundown all day tryin' to start something. What it may be I don't know. But I'm tired of havin' to watch you. Takes up too much of my time, and you're not worth it. It's a pretty cheap way of gettin' a reputation for bein' a bad man—this business of standin' on street corners and scowling at peaceful people. If you are pointed my way, I suggest you get up from your chair and start forward."

As quiet as the words were, each one of them fell across the table like the lash of a whip and stung Dann's savage, undisciplined temper. The kick of his foot against his chair shot through the room, and his great body sprang forward. At the same time Cal Steele leaped in front of him, crying, "Stop that!" and Steele's hand plunged down to check Dann's draw. "Stop it! This is no night for gunplay!"

Dann cursed wildly and by a heave of his shoulders threw Steele aside; but the moment of attack was past. Denver's unmoving position somehow took the edge off gunplay, as also did his next drawling suggestion.

"You took a chance, Cal, but maybe you're right. However, we've got to satisfy this amateur bad man before the night's over. Unbuckle your belt, Dann, and I'll do the same. We'll give the boys a treat."

Dann ripped his gun belt free and threw it aside, rolling out from the table into the center of the room. Denver dropped his own belt and moved to meet him. Somebody cried a suggestion that fell on deaf ears. In the flash of a second Stinger Dann yelled, "I'll kill you—I'll break your neck with my fists!" and lunged into Denver. His bare head struck Denver on a shoulder blade, and the sharp impact cracked across the circle; Denver's upswinging fist smashed into Dann's lowered face, drove it back, and set the gunman on his heels; and in that brief respite Denver saw the common passions of mankind staring at him from all those faces ringed around; savagery glittering out from gluttonous eyes and flaring lips; fear pinching the cheeks of the craven hearted; and the lust and carnivorous instincts of those who watched their own desires to crush and kill being here played out second hand. Then Dann ran in again, unmercifully beating down Denver's rapier jabs, disregarding them, knocking them aside. He roared. His hot breath belched in Denver's nostrils, and his black face became two great bloodshot eyes. Denver felt his backbone snapping to pressure; a stabbing weight stamped down the arch of his foot; he was backheeled, overbalanced, and he went sprawling through the air and struck the resilient flesh of those onlookers who were baled into so tight a mass. A long rolling pain surged through his body, and he saw blood, his blood, sprinkled on the floor. Dann's brute roar challenged him. His head cleared, and he was up, beating back another relentless rush.

Dann's face was a crimson, dripping disk, and Dann's arms reached again for that bone-crushing grip. Denver stepped aside, pounded at the gunman's face, crashed a blow into the gunman's exposed temple, and swerved to attack again. The temple blow confused Dann, and he stopped to find his opponent, head tipping on the huge muscles of his neck. There was no more for Denver to ask; he had turned tiger, he had unleashed all those wild, primal impulses that stirred in him and were subdued by gentler rules of society. Tonight he was no better than a man of the Stone Age, and through the welter of this conflict the crimson target of Dann's head, the shimmer of pale faces all around, the sharp bursts of pain, the feel of a body giving way—through this his mind ran clearly, sharply, exultantly. If he were no better than a savage, then thank God he was still enough of one to meet savagery and beat it down. Dann had found him uncertainly and lumbered in. Denver heard himself laughing—the sound of it like jagged metals conflicting. He struck aside the groping arms, he pounded the staring face, ripped blows into the swaying body, and sank his fist into a bull neck that rolled away from him and sank down.

Like a man coming out of ether, he stood back to watch Grogan's saloon and all roundabout objects grow clear. The mist fell away; men became something more than blurred outlines, and he was again David Denver instead of a body twisting and swerving under the impulse of a stark, single-celled will. Dann rolled on the floor and shuddered; climbed to his knees and gained his feet. He looked apathetically at Denver, not yet clear headed.

"I said the lesson in manners might cost you something," stated Denver. "My advice is you ride out of town and stay out for a while."

"It's a mistake I ain't apt to repeat," muttered Dann without emotion. "I never will use my fists on yuh again, Denver. I'll set for you—don't make any mistake on the subject. But it will be with a gun—remember it." Gradually the venom returned to him. "Mebbe I paid a steep price, but, by God, you'll regret this night's work the last day of your life! And on that day I'll show yuh how a white man can rip the livin' heart out of yuh and laugh when he does it!"

"When you ride tonight," said Denver, "take those two strays you been nursin' along with you. They're around somewhere."

The crowd was disturbed by a man shouldering impatiently through. It was Lou Redmain.

"You through with Dann?" he asked Denver. "Had your pleasure with him?"

There was again in Grogan's dropping off of talk, a premonitory chill. Denver nodded somberly. "I'm finished. He's yours."

"Then," said Redmain, pointing a finger at Dann as he would have beckoned a dog, "get out of town within two minutes. And if you ever disobey my orders again I shall shoot you down. Go on, get out." He confronted Denver. "I want you to know this is not my doing. You've got my word on that point."

Dann rolled down the lane made for him and disappeared through the door. Denver, knowing every word of his was witnessed and would be carried far, spoke deliberately.

"Your word is good with me, Lou. When you give it I never doubt it. I have nothing against you now. You are not my kind of a man—you see things considerably different. The day may come when we will have to scrap. Until then consider me as a neutral minding my own business. I expect to mind my own business; I expect others to allow me to mind my own business. If they don't, that will be another story. Supposin' we drink on that?"

"Agreeable," said Redmain. They walked to the bar. Grogan set out the glasses and bottle, and in perfect silence they downed the liquor. A slight flush appeared on Redmain's triangular face as he turned to the crowd. Nodding again at Denver, he walked quickly from the place. Talk sprang up on his departure like air rushing into a vacuum. Nightingale came forward, with Steve Steers and Steele and Niland. The Englishman's bright blue eyes held some reserved, remote expression.

"Thanks," he drawled, "for the timely intervention. Y'know, I gen'rally take care of my own sorrows. Would have done so this evenin', but things moved so blasted fast that I scarcely had puckered my mouth to say something than it was all over. I shall have to be a little—er—quicker on the trigger, as it were. Now, I wonder if the proper move in the circumstances isn't to have a little spirituous stimulant? Not so?"

"Any time's time to drink," observed Cal Steele.

"My judgment is that your poker technique was derived from other sources beside Hoyle," grinned Denver.

"I have played—a game or two," drawled Nightingale; and it seemed to Denver that somewhere behind those remarkably azure eyes there was a cheerful grin.

"Here's to sin," observed Steve Steers; and so they christened a friendship.

"Do I look bad?" questioned Denver.

"Yore spine may be crooked," said Niland, "but he didn't reach your face at all. However, that shirt will do you no further good. Button up your coat."

"I will do same and depart," agreed Denver. "See you in church."

"Stick around," adjured Steve. "The night's but a pup."

"It'll be a long-haired dog before you drag out of here," said Denver and walked down the hall, stiff from the pounding he had received. Nightingale looked thoughtfully at the rugged back and made a quiet observation.

"A most cur'ous combination of dynamite, the irresist'ble force, nine hungry leopards, and Vesuvius in eruption. I take it he was rather angry with this Stinger Dann. Am I right?"

"That's approximately correct," chuckled Cal Steele.

"I like the beggar," stated Nightingale three drinks later, "and trust the feeling may presently be reciprocated."

"Hold on," broke in Steve Steers coldly. "No man can say that word in my presence. I want you to understand I'm a lady."

Denver walked out to his horse and led it down as far as the hotel, where he discovered the Leverage family gathered. Jake Leverage appealed to him. "I've got to stay over tonight, Dave, and Ma is too tired to go back this evenin'. But Eve figgers she wants to drift home."

"I'm heading that way," said Denver, "and came to offer my company."

"It's three miles out of your way," observed Eve. "I can go alone."

"Would it be the first time I took the long way home with you, Eve?" drawled Denver. The girl blushed and drew up the collar of her coat against the encroaching cold. Mrs. Leverage smiled knowingly. The crowd, released from the show, eddied around them, and there was a general shifting to make room on the porch. Lola Monterey walked swiftly by, smiling through a pale and weary face. Dave lifted his hat. Lola's husky "Goodnight, Dave" floated gently over the assembled people; then she was gone. Dave tied his pony to the Leverage buggy and helped Eve to the seat, wrapping the robe about her feet. When he settled beside her and gathered the reins she leaned nearer to him, to speak just above a whisper.

"She's beautiful, David."

"I have always thought so," he replied, and looked more closely at the clear, frank face turned up to him. "So are you, Eve."

"I think," said she, smiling wistfully, "this is going to be the nicest part of the evening."

He turned the buggy in the choked street and drew aside. Dr. Williamson reined in on a borrowed horse, heavy eyed. "It was a boy, Dave, and the Jessons said to thank you."

"Another young Stephen to buck the world, I reckon," mused Dave.

Williamson looked at the pair with solemn approval. "Tuck the robe higher on Eve's throat. It's raw tonight. Don't drive too fast goin' home. It's a fine evenin'—for young people." As he swung away he added another phrase. "No, they named the baby David, which I thought fit and proper."

"The first David named after me," said Denver uncomfortably and maneuvered down Prairie Street. The damp, swirling darkness of the stage road absorbed them. Eve stirred slightly, and he put his arm about her to catch up the robe—and left it there.

"A brotherly interest, David?" asked Eve, softly.

"Sometimes I'm not so sure of that, Eve."

"Well, it makes no difference. It helps to keep the cold away."

He thought she was smiling to herself. So in comfortable silence they jogged along.