Читать книгу Riders of the Night - Eugene Cunningham - Страница 8

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Myra having come to the Star Hotel, Burk had had his luggage brought from the Municipal’s porch to the Star. Now, he sat in a big cypress rocker at the end of the Star’s porch. On the rail at his left, with back comfortably against the corner post, Turkey Adkins perched with one gray eye closed against his cigarette’s upwreathing smoke. He looked half-asleep—an attitude that had deceived a good many persons.

‘I take it,’ Burk said slowly, ‘that you haven’t been exactly horsing around to find anything about this so-called One-Gang. Not since Myra fired you, anyway. But, while you were out at the ranch, did you see anything? Anything that’d serve us for a point of departure?’

‘Reckon not,’ Turkey shrugged. ‘I know I got dam’ sick an’ tired o’ Lance Gregg Wallop-8-in’ the ol’ Y all-time. Oh, no! I don’t mean blottin’ our brand. I mean he was always clutterin’ up the landscape like yuh might say; ary which way a man’d look, the’d be Lance, a-goin’ or a-comin’ or a-settin’.

‘An’ advice! Burk, that hairpin’d make Sollermon look a modest li’l’ violet, he would! He’s fuller o’ advice than ary human ever I see—an’ I’ve knowed a lot o’ preachers! Myra, she naturally figgered that a nice, polished-up fella like Lance, he’s bound to know more’n her—uh—servants could. Ever’ time a critter had a tick on it, she’d ask Lance what to do!’

Expertly, he rolled the stub of his cigarette from one side of wide, thin-lipped mouth to the other, then spat through his teeth.

‘Like one time I’d found me a nice, neat kind o’ hole in the air, over at Brushy Crick pasture—a hole that was all that was left o’ sixty head o’ prime Long Twos. I kind o’ scally-hooted around till I found a bunch o’ hawse-tracks. Over an’ on top the bunch the’ was the near hind-track o’ somebody’s big hawse with a busted shoe. I got right worked up over that track. Looked like the firstest chance I’d got at them long-ropin’ sticky loopers.

‘Well, I snooped around plenty. I found this fella’s hoof prints just ever’wheres—down in the crick-bed where them steers had been shoved along onto rocky ground; all over a soft spot where they’d crossed over, goin’ towards the Tortugas. Yuh couldn’t make out much o’ anything but that dam’ busted shoe. I trailed along a spell till it petered out. So I hightailed for the house an’—by Gemini!—I run across it right in the dooryard! Over at the corrals I found the hawse itself—Lance’s big Wallop-8 sorrel! I went inside fast an’, shore enough! the’ was Lance an’ Myra ...’

He spat again through his teeth and made a contemptuous sound in his throat. Burk watched him narrowly as he got out Durham and papers.

‘Myra looked at me like I was somethin’ the cats’d drug in—somethin’ that’d died out on the range, yuh know—an’ died a right smart while back. She wanted to know what I thought I wanted. I told her about the steers bein’ gone an’ about me trailin’ that busted hawse-shoe over the country. An’ I’m tellin’ yuh, Burk! The ol’ hawglaig was ridin’ light in the holster! For right then I was suspicionin’ that fella like ’twouldn’t do to tell. I would’ve splattered him all over them new Navajo rugs o’ Myra’s on general principles, if he’d made one li’l’ ol’ bitsy eyebrow jiggle!

‘They kept lookin’ at each other an’ grinnin’ like—like I was about five year ol’, yuh know, an’ had just come runnin’ to break the news that all the hawses had four laigs, not just some o’ the caballado. Myra, then, she ask’ me if that was all I wanted. Yes, sir! Like ’twasn’t nothin’ a-tall!

‘Lance Gregg, he says I’m ’way behind-time, like always. Says he’s already found the tracks an’ follered ’em till they petered out an’ come an’ told Myra about it. He explains, then, to Myra, that his hawse has got a busted hind-shoe an’ I been trailin’ it an’ I’m so disappointed because he ain’t the king-rustler like I thought I’d found! An’ he says he’s mightily sorry he has to disappoint me when I’m expectin’ to find a rustler settin’ in the house waitin’ for me.

‘They both laughed fit to kill. Man! I was fit to tie! I went out right soft an’ quiet before I killed me somebody. I ain’t usual a bid fonder o’ bein’ made a dam’ fool of than other folks is. But the’s more to this, Burk: I keep wonderin’ which way I’m bein’ made a fool of, by Lance Gregg!’

The heavy brown paper ripped in his hands. The tobacco sifted down over Turkey. Burk lifted his brows at this sign of emotion—which was not betrayed by anything in Turkey Adkins’s weather-carved brown face.

‘Later on, when I’d cooled off some, I lit into Lance kind o’ easy-goin’. I ask’ him if he’d ever hear-tell about the right way to foller a trail—keepin’ off the tracks, so’s they wouldn’t be messed up an’ all that. He got mad, o’ course. He ’lowed he knowed as much about trailin’ an’ likely more as I could. An’ Myra come outside with her voice right off the ice. So I let it go at that. An’ when I tried to git her to send to the Association for a stock-detective, she wouldn’t. I done it myself, then. I know the president an’ he knows me. I wrote him a letter an’ I told him things was bad an’ I was workin’ for a dam’ fool gal an’ would he send up a man.’

‘One come?’ Burk asked curiously, watching the little man.

‘Yeh ... An’ a Fargo detective was with him. An’—well, mostly, the Association has good men. But I do’ no’ what-for they ever hired Bud Burney. I have knowed him too long an’ in-tric-ate to be took in by that gab o’ his. Mebbe the Association ain’t. Anyhow, he come into town an’ inside an hour ever’body knowed he’d come to heel the One-Gang. Same for this Fargo detective. Now, how the hell yuh goin’ to loop anybody, when they know yuh from the back?

‘I’ve seen a lot o’ them two since I rolled my bed off the Y. They come in an’ look an’ talk as wise as ary thing on top the earth except a burro. They are a matched team o’ the finest saloon-detectives ever I laid eyes on. They talk about investigatin’ an’ follerin’ clues an’ so on—an’ the stage is stuck up inside ten mile o’ where they’re gassin’. That was last week. The two of ’em rode out, wavin’ back to let us know they’d bring in the stage-robbers by supper time. They ain’t back yet!’

Myra Yarborough came out of the wide center door from the hotel hallway. She had a letter in her hand which seemed to interest her—judging from her expression. She was so engrossed with it that she could not see—or did not care to see—Burk and Turkey. Burk wondered which. She walked to the other end of the porch and sat down, to continue her reading.

Burk watched her idly, sitting with skinned hands locked behind his dark head. He found himself thinking that she had certainly grown up into a pretty girl. But spoiled! Lord, but she was spoiled by a little authority and money and education!

Then he shrugged the shoulders of his spirit. If she had been marked by Eastern schooling, hadn’t he been also? If he were willing to put aside everything—he was very conscious of that bit of elastic and ribbon in his coat-pocket—and concentrate on ranch affairs, present problems, mightn’t she be also? It seemed only fair to credit her with the intent.

‘Any idea when you’re going home?’ he called to her.

She ignored the question—he thought that she could hardly help hearing it. She continued reading and Burk got up to move over and stand beside her.

‘I’ll ride out with you when you go—if you don’t mind.’

‘What?’ she asked, lifting her yellow head jerkily from the study of her thick sheaf of letter-pages.

‘What have you been doing?’ she gasped. ‘Your face!’

He had forgotten for the moment that he was bruised. Even washing had not removed the signs of battle. And his clothes were badly disheveled.

‘Doing?’ he said blankly. ‘Oh! A small argument, with a hardly important personage ...’

‘He thought that he’d start his graduate-life by a row with me,’ a voice drawled amusedly, from behind Burk. ‘Which was, of course, merely continuation of education—if he’d known it. I had to demonstrate to him the folly of youthful impulses.’

Burk turned slowly, keeping careful grip on himself. He looked steadily at Lance Gregg.

‘What you demonstrated was something that I knew ... that several days on a train are very poor training for a fist-fight—even with a rather crude practitioner who fights foul. But, of course, you naturally wouldn’t know how gentlemen fight ...

‘But, outside of that one point, I don’t know of anything I noticed. If you’re expecting any permanent effects from that little sparring-match—how disappointed you’re going to be! For I’m staying on the Y. I told your Man Friday. Did Pinck’ tell you?’

Lance Gregg’s face darkened furiously with the rush of blood and the long blue eyes went opaque again, as in the Congress bar-room before he swung his first furious blow. But this time his hand fumbled at the empty pistol-holster. Burk looked steadily, contemptuously, at the fumbling hand.

‘Too bad! It’s not there. But haven’t you got a derringer palmed, this time?’

He shifted his feet slightly, ready for any move. But Myra, staring palely from one to the other of them jumped up.

‘Lance! Burk! Are you trying to imitate drunken mule-skinners? I’m not used to having men stand at my elbow and begin fights! You two have no business quarreling, anyhow. Burk! You owe entirely too much to Mr. Gregg, for help in managing your property, to take this attitude. You should be——’

‘I’ve been trying diligently to decide just how much I do owe the—counselor.’ Burke nodded cryptically. ‘As soon as I decide how the matter stands—don’t worry! I’ll pay him, with interest and something for pelon! With heaps and heaps of pleasure, too. Until that time of reckoning, the less I see of him, the better!’

Lance Gregg’s face grew suddenly cold and set. His eyes were no longer angry, but very watchful. Once more, gun-hand twitched about the empty holster. From behind him came Turkey’s voice:

‘It’s under yo’ shirt, Gregg,’ he drawled blandly. ‘In the halfbreed holster under yo’ arm. Jist thought I’d mention it, me carryin’ mine like that—oftentimes ...’

While the three men stood stiffly there, from downstreet near the courthouse sounded the gabble of many voices—excited voices. They whirled toward the noise. Gregg’s hand dropped away from the gunless scabbard. But Turkey’s thumb stayed where it had been—hooked in the front of unbuttoned shirt.

There was a buckboard, drawing to a halt before the courthouse door. It was possible to see only the two figures on the seat, because of the thick press of men ringing it about. When it stopped, the crowd jammed in closer. They saw Judge Amblet come out and gesture authoritatively, trying to make a passage. The two men on the seat stood up. Their high-pitched voices seemed to be turned to the same effort as Amblet’s.

‘Now, what?’ Turkey wondered, aloud. ‘Burk! Reckon me an’ yuh might’s well hightail down the’—so’s all the prominent citizens’ll be represented. Yonder comes Faraday! An’ the’s only three things could git our noble marshal on any spot, quick’s he’s comin’ to this’n’: free whiskey; a circus; or a dead man. An’ I don’t reckon she’s free whiskey, nor yet a circus. So it must be a dead man, an’ with this sneakin’ gang we got loose——’

He and Burk cleared the porch-rail at a jump and went trotting down to the courthouse. The first man Burk touched on the arm turned grim face.

‘That Cattle Raisers’ detective an’ his mouthy side-kick, the Fargo agent. Both deader’n Judas Iscariot. Been dead some time—a day, anyhow. The Peters boys was comin’ into town an’ found ’em propped up alongside the trail. They been shot into doll-rags.’

Burk pushed through the packed men to the buckboard’s side. He knew neither of the dead men whom the marshal and a few bystanders were getting ready to lift out of the vehicle. But beside the bodies was a cottonwood branch, one end sharpened to a point. Sticking upon it was a large piece of paper, and at sight of the terse, sinister legend on the improvised placard, Burk felt queer along his spine.

‘Next!’ was all it said. At the bottom was the signature Yates County had come to know well: the figure ‘1.’

It was his first actual contact with the gang which had been chewing the Y to pieces. He stared at the notice, and men about him—seeming to become gradually aware of his presence and his identity—turned curious eyes upon the big young figure and the unconsciously set face. Obviously, some there were wondering, as they looked at him, if Burk Yates might not be that ‘next’ mentioned—virtually promised!—on the notice.

One of the Peters brothers, standing at the buckboard wheel with Judge Amblet, was talking excitedly:

‘Y’ see, we was comin’ along towards town, an’ when we got to Arroyo Seco an’ topped out o’ it, I seen them two fellers settin’ alongside the trail. An’ I seen this-yere sign alongside ’em. I says to Andrew it looks funny; what’re they settin’ down there with a sign for? I says. Then we come up to ’em ...’

‘No traces of the killers—that you could see?’

‘Nary sign, Judge. Y’ see, the trail’s right hard along there. Whoever’d set ’em by the side o’ the trail had just rid up on the road an’ off the same way. They must’ve been plumb dead when they was rested up ag’inst a big rock. There was blood all over the ground—looked like a dam’ butcher-block!’

‘The One-Gang!’ Turkey drawled in Burk’s ear. ‘Uh-huh, the ol’ One-Gang ... Well, Burk, what d’ yuh ’low? Me, I was plumb expectin’ it, like I much as told yuh. A couple saloon-detectives that ever’body knowed, they wasn’t apt to last too long.’

‘Let’s hightail for the ranch,’ Burk shrugged. ‘This is really none of our affair. We won’t bother Myra any—we’re not apt to be bothering her for a while, I’d guess! I can hire a horse at the corral. We’ve lots of work to do, Turkey. Lots! And I’m anxious to be about it. We——Come on! I don’t want to do any more talking here. No telling who’s listening.’