Читать книгу Sundown Jim - Ernest Haycox - Страница 5

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NOBODY in this town made any gesture toward the dead man or toward the girl who crouched in the smoky dust and cried out her heart; and this was a brutal indifference Jim Majors didn't understand until his glance crossed the street again and discovered Ben Maffitt bulked in the saloon's doorway. Maffitt waited there with his silence, so sure, so arrogant.

This was the story of the town completely told. A thousand nights could add nothing to what Jim Majors knew at that exact moment. If there was any pity in Reservation it cringed away from Ben Maffitt's presence; if there was any decency on this street, it remained shamefully silent. The newly-arrived riders rounded in at the saloon, but he saw them only as a massed blur on the corner of the scene. For it was Maffitt he watched, studying the man's motionless shoulders and arms with the premonition of trouble to come. Anger burned rankly in him, and the cool game he intended to play here became impossible. The crying of that forlorn girl destroyed the set of his judgment, and, even though he knew he opened up every risk he should now be avoiding, he couldn't stop the swing of that temper. It was a weakness for which he had more than once been punished, as the scars on his face showed; nevertheless he walked into the dust, as far as the kneeling girl, and spoke to her.

"I'll take you back to the room."

He stood patiently by, the details of this roundabout scene vivid on his senses. The new riders made a still group on the street, not dismounting. He had an incomplete view of the tall blond man still posted by the edge of the empty building. Maffitt's crowd showed their scattered and indistinct shapes in the surrounding dark and Maffitt remained as solid as a stone image in the glow of the saloon's doorway. Maffitt watched him and the blond man watched him—and every eye in the town was turned his way. It was an impact he could feel.

Nobody spoke. The girl's crying was a fading, hopeless note in a silence that got heavier; when he spoke again his own voice, gentle as it was, ran solidly through the dark for the whole town to hear.

"Come up."

But he knew she couldn't rise, and so he reached down and lifted her and turned her against his chest. She murmured, "Don't let him stay there," and nothing held her upright except the pressure of his arm. Meanwhile in his ears was the sound of somebody crossing from the group of riders just arrived in town. He changed the position of his arm around the girl and turned his head.

It was another girl, dressed in a man's riding clothes, her shape turned slim and tall by the half-shadows lying in the center of this square. She walked with a swinging step and all he could distinctly see at the moment was a surface of black hair and features sharpened by the sight before her. She stopped, her glance touching the dead man and rising afterwards to the girl half-collapsed in Jim Majors' arms.

She said: "Tony, why are you here?" Her voice was strong, evenly rounding off the words. It carried an authority that scraped against Majors; it churned up his temper.

He said: "This is a hell of a time to ask questions."

Her chin lifted, moving her cheeks into clearer light. She had been looking at Tony, never seeing him. Now she saw him, and anger visibly colored her judgment and her lips made a long part across white teeth.

One of the mounted figures by the saloon called to Majors in a grating voice: "Keep your voice down, pilgrim," and spurred on. Majors saw the shape of the man weave in the saddle as he came, old and stiffly tall, with a narrow face further brought to point by a white goatee. He had a rawhide quirt half-lifted in his hand, and when he halted he shook it at Majors. "Keep your voice down."

The slim girl said: "Dad, never mind."

All the town watched through the cold shadows. Majors said to the girl Tony, "I'll take you to the room." But the heaviness of her body remained constant and he thought he had to carry her. Time ran slow and thin, the threat of the old man above him and the tall girl's eyes emptying anger on him, and all the yonder men carefully listening. His mouth was a long streak across the weather-bronze of his skin, narrowed to that edged, tough half-smile.

Tony pulled away from him and murmured, "It's all right." He turned her and walked back to the hotel with her.

The hotel man stepped aside from the doorway, the steel hook of his arm flashing in the light. Majors followed the girl up the loose stairs, going into her room. Dust yellowed her white shirtwaist and tears caked dust against her face, and her eyes were half-open, showing him a glance dim and wild. She sat loose-shouldered on the edge of her bed. He removed his hat and stood uncertainly at the door, making his guesses about her. She wasn't very old and she had a shapeliness and a prettiness that a good many men had probably observed.

"Don't let him stay out there."

He said: "I'll take care of that. Your husband?"

Her head rolled on the pillow. "No." But the question had seemed to break through her despair. "I guess you must be new here."

"Sure. Why?"

"Nobody else would ask me that question. Don't let him stay there. He was—" She rose from the bed and turned her back to him in the far corner of the room, wiping her cheeks. She said dully: "Guess I must look pretty bad. Well, that's the way things happen to me. I liked him. He was a boy and he got mixed up the wrong way. That's all. I liked him. He was trying to get out of the country." She came about, fear slowly thawing from her face. "I hope I live long enough to see Ben Maffitt die like that!"

Someone came up the stairs with a light, quick step. Majors said: "This Ben Maffitt—" A voice called through the doorway: "Maybe you're too curious."

Spinning on his heels, Majors saw the dark-haired girl there, her eyes considering him without friendliness. He had a clear picture of her then. She wasn't as tall as the street's darkness had made her seem. The riding trousers had helped to create that illusion, shaping her in a slim, boy-figured fashion. She wore a man's shirt open at the neck; it fell carelessly away from her throat and showed the smooth, ivory shading of her skin. He had gathered the impression that her features were sharp, but this too was an illusion dispelled by the room's light. Her lips were long and her eyes wide-spaced and colored by a gray that had no bottom; and the strongest impression she left with him was of a temper that could swing to the extremes of laughter, and softness, and anger. There was, he thought, this capacity for emotion in her.

She broke his thoughts with her curt question. "Are you through looking at me?"

He could be soft or he could be blunt. He matched her temper now. "Don't be so proud. I see nothing to justify it."

Her eyes showed him a fresh outrage. But Tony, in the corner, was crying again in an exhausted tone. It turned the dark-headed girl across the room. Majors watched the way she went over to Tony and put her arms around the girl.

She said, so gently: "Tony—Tony. I'm sorry you've been hurt. I'm so sorry."

The roughness went out of Jim Majors. This girl held Tony against her breasts and her lips were broad and maternal and she was saying: "Cry, if it will help, Tony."

Majors swung from the room, but he turned again to have a final look, not quite knowing why. There was a difference between these two that any man could see and it added something to the dark-haired girl's character that she should be here comforting this Tony whose life, he guessed, was pretty much of common record in the town. The dark girl's eyes lifted and met his smileless glance, and held it, with a faint expression of curiosity. He made a burly, heavy-boned shape in the doorway, the scars on his face definitely toughening its expression. He said, "Maybe I was wrong," and went to his own room. He had left the door open and the light on—and he saw the edge of the bed quilts hanging straight down, though he had tucked them in before leaving. A small smile struck across his lips again, harder than before; and he blew out the light and shut the door, descending to the lobby.

The hotel-keeper swung himself in a rocker, the steel-hooked arm hanging idly down. He rolled his head toward Majors, using no extra effort. Breathing made an unusual sound in his heavy chest. There was a layer of fat under his chin and his round, copper-stained face showed a gray, surly composure; as though he believed in nothing.

Majors remained by the street door, tapering up a cigarette while he considered the crowd rolling around the yonder saloon. Apparently Maffitt had entered the saloon, but the old man with the white goatee stood on the walk and other riders made a half-circle around him. The night was colder and blacker than it had been. They had taken the dead man from the square. Shadows shifted along the base of the empty building opposite; a cigarette glowed and died there, to tell him that all his hope of playing a quiet game was gone. They were watching him, they were weighing him, and they would never get him out of their minds. For this was a country that hated strangers and a country filled with men who looked over their shoulders at a past they had run from and couldn't forget.

The hotel-keeper's voice rustled like dry sheets of paper rubbed together. "How was the Sundown country when you left it?"

The question held all the shock of a bullet fired at his ear. Majors had his back to the hotel-keeper and he remained that way, but his lids crept nearer together and his lips ran thin; and the last thought of ease went out of him. He said, over his shoulder, "I don't know you."

"I wondered about that. I lived in the Yellow Hills five years ago—and I heard of a J.J. Majors." Afterwards a heavier tone weighted down the hotel man's talk. "Sundown Jim. Sure."

"Who's the man with the white chin-whiskers?"

"Pedee Barr. It's his daughter Katherine upstairs. You'd better be right. If you ain't right..."

"You'll never find anything under my bed, friend."

"It wasn't me that looked," said the hotel man. "But I guess you knew the kind of country you was ridin' into. Better never be anything under your bed—and nothin' pinned on your vest."

"We'll wait and see who's curious enough to have a look at my vest."

"It won't be a long wait."

Jim Majors saw the high, stiff frame of Pedee Barr wheel through the saloon door. He had wanted to play it quiet for a while, but that would never be possible now; and at once a weight in his mind tipped the other way, throwing him back to habits and impulses he liked better. It was time to make a break, to roll up a little lightning and find out where it struck. He had a trick that always betrayed this kind of decision; he pulled his shoulders forward and threw down his cigarette, expelling the smoke through his nostrils in a long sweep of breath. Light struck the solid irregularity of his features and the scar on his temple showed white, and he was smiling again, the powder color of his eyes brighter than before. When he crossed the square he noted that the blond man had disappeared. He shouldered through the doors, a strong draft of smoke and sound running against him. Certain things he wanted to see—and instantly saw. Pedee Barr stood in a corner of the saloon, his goateed face narrow and small-boned and strictly unsmiling. The men around him, Majors judged, were his own men; and when Pedee Barr's glance lifted and came over to him, full of a proud man's intolerance, Majors noted how all those others swung about to copy the gesture. Ben Maffitt sat before a poker table at the room's other end, the chair turned to permit his wide chest more freedom. His hat clung to the extreme back of his head and a clump of coal-colored hair fell down across his brow. He had a cigar clenched between his big teeth and his interest was only half-captured by the game.

Majors caught his slanting, sly glance; it was a manner of indifference not quite hiding the catlike alertness of his interest. Majors went on to the bar, using his shoulders to make himself a place. The men on each side gave way to this pressure, their glances bracketing him cheerlessly. He recognized one of them as the rider who had been up at the summit stage station.

Majors laid his arms on the bar, waiting his turn. He felt a growing pressure in the place; it was like a steady force on his shoulder blades. He made a circle on the bar with one forefinger, watching the pale imprint show on the scarred hardwood surface, and he was carefully laying away in his head the thing he had learned, which was that Ben Maffitt and this Pedee Barr were friendly enough to share the shelter of this saloon. It was one piece of a puzzle to be shaped against other pieces when the time came.

He got his bottle and glass and poured a drink.

Behind him a man said: "Heard you asked about Ed Dale."

Jim Majors put his fingers around the bottle when the barkeep came back to get it. He said: "Leave it here," and turned and saw Brick Brand. The edges of Brand's hair burned a pure red in the light. He had a self-assurance gleaming like humor in pale blue eyes.

"You know Ed Dale?" said Majors.

The redhead considered Majors blandly. "Where was he from?"

Majors said, "Maybe same place I'm from."

"Why you think he's in this country?"

"He came in one side and he didn't come out the other. So he's here."

"It's a big country. Might be any one of a dozen places."

Majors looked at the redhead's poker expression. He said: "If you don't know him what the hell you bothering me for?"

The redhead's eyes grew rounder. But there were other things here to trap Majors' attention. The talk had fallen away so that all the room could hear this. Men watched him. Pedee Barr's head was craned forward and he had cupped a hand behind his left ear to catch the cool run of those words. Ben Maffitt swung his body in the chair and his glance slanted over the room, very keen.

The redhead's grin came back, like a warning; he was, Majors judged carefully, a tougher man than he appeared. The silence tightened and the redhead drawled: "Your time ain't so valuable, mister. Maybe you're a friend of Ed Dale's. Maybe you just want to find him and pay back the five dollars you owe, or maybe you got a letter for him from his grandmother. Then again, maybe you don't know Ed Dale at all, except what you learned from a reward notice."

Majors said: "He had a fresh bullet-mark on his right hip and a picture of a girl in his coat pocket."

His attention was half on the redhead and half on Ben Maffitt. His answer was like added weight to a silence already heavily strained. Maffitt's head rose another inch and his stare was direct now, all indifference gone. Majors had the full effect of the man's black eyes. And then there was a little byplay that gave the scene away. The redhead looked back at Maffitt and when he returned his attention to Majors he wasn't smiling.

He murmured, "That's different," and put one hand forward and in a quick motion threw back the lapels of Majors' coat.

Majors made no gesture to stop that. But he knew he had reached the end of an alley. All the men in the saloon waited and watched, and the tension in here was something that couldn't last. What he did now would make him or it would break him, for that was the kind of crowd he faced and this was the kind of country he was in. He was a big, idle shape backed against the bar, his heavy elbows hooked over its edge, and his solid shoulders negligently drooped. His lips ran a rolling half-smile across the heavy irregularity of his cheeks. It wasn't that he meant to smile, but he was remembering how changeless were the rules of this game. The incidents of his life kept repeating themselves, move for move, fight for fight, scar for scar.

He said: "Pull the coat together, like you found it, Brick."

The redhead was smart enough to know trouble when he saw it, and he saw it now. His answer was to take one backward step and stop there, stiffly placed.

"No," he drawled, "I guess not."

Majors pushed himself away from the bar, gently speaking. "All right, Red. This is a treat on me."

The redhead raised both arms, but he never got them fully lifted. Majors was away from the bar before he had finished speaking. He caught the redhead's jaw with a straight jab that made a pulpy echo in the room, like the flat of a cleaver against meat. Brand's face tilted toward the ceiling and he hit out with his fists and struck nothing. Majors shot a blow into the man's stomach, doubling him up. The redhead fell against Majors and tried to hang on. There was another man coming up from the comer of the room, yelling: "Boot him, Red, boot him!" Majors threw Brand backward and measured him and hit him twice on the face and sent him to the floor. Brand lay there, supporting himself on his arms, his breath caught in his throat.

The second man rushed on, whirling his arms in windmill style. He struck Majors and got his arms around the latter's neck and jammed his knee into Majors' crotch. It was barroom fighting, wicked and punishing. He jabbed his thumb into Majors' ears and stamped on his feet and tried to swing his weight to catch Majors in a strangle grip.

Majors wheeled and carried this man in a complete circle, meanwhile watching Brand try to come up from the floor. All the faces in this room were pulled into lines of strict, savage attention; these men were ringed around him, a wolf glitter in their eyes.

Brand was half-upright. Majors waited for the other man's head to duck in again, and reached up and slugged him in the temple. He felt the fellow's grip loosen, which was his opportunity. He jumped aside and caught the man from behind, shoulders and crotch, and lifted him off the floor; he swung him face downward, forward and backward for momentum, and threw him through the saloon doorway.

Everybody heard that crash on the yonder walk—that and the wild howl that followed. Red was on his feet, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. There was a gap between his teeth, and his eyes didn't quite see Majors, who stood there and waited. The redhead said, between breathing: "That's all!" Majors stepped back into the center of the room. He wasn't looking at Brand. He had turned away from the man and it was this indifference the men in the saloon saw; this indifference and the hardness of that smile which remained so constant on his lips. The scar on his temple showed white in the lamplight and his hair fell across his forehead; and the depth of his breathing lifted and lowered his chest. He had his eyes on Ben Maffitt then, and in them was bright eagerness.

He waited like that, measuring Maffitt—as though inviting him to speak. Then he said: "Brick, come around here and pull my coat together."

The silence got close and dangerous. Ben Maffitt, motionless in his chair, showed the room no expression, though Majors knew the room waited for Maffitt to speak.

Majors repeated softly, "Come around, Brick, or I'll bust every rib you own."

Red came around. Pain had begun to punish him and he held a hand across his lips and mumbled through his broken teeth: "You got to rub it in?"

Majors said: "Just teaching a dog to mind."

Red reached out and pulled at the lapels of Majors' coat; and he wheeled and charged out of the saloon.

Majors went to the bar and helped himself to another drink. His back was to the crowd, but he could see the reflections of all those men in the bar mirror. Nobody moved and nobody spoke. He paid for his drink and wheeled, and for a moment Ben Maffitt's eyes considered him with a tremendous interest. But there was no other expression on the man's cheeks and he made no move; and so Majors walked across the floor and through the swinging doors.

Brand crouched over the other man, who lay flat on his back. Brand stared up at Majors. He said: "You busted his arm."

Majors said, "Too bad," and crossed to the hotel. But he wasn't thinking of those two. He was thinking of Ben Maffitt who had never stirred, never spoken. Maffitt could have broken up the fight, or he could have put more men into that fight. But he hadn't. Majors remembered the sharpness of his eyes—and the underlying slyness. This man was a schemer before he was a killer, and so twice as dangerous.

Majors filed that in the back of his head, and walked up the stairs. No light showed from the girl Tony's room, and there wasn't any talk in there. A faint odor of tobacco smoke lay in the hall's blackness. Majors caught the heel of his boot in a knothole and stumbled against his own door. Suddenly he halted here, kicked open the door, and drew swiftly aside. Smoke was ranker in the room, and then a match burst against the dark and by its glow he saw the ruddy face of the blond man.

The match went out. The blond man said:—

"Come in and shut that door."