Читать книгу Hands Up! - Frederick John Niven - Страница 8

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Within one minute the "Dago Push" was in full flight round the bend, campwards. Within the hour, with Douglas unconscious across the saddle, my splendid ally and I came into Black Kettle. The friendly Dago, we suggested, should accompany us. But no—he said he would be all right with the gang and so, as he spoke as one who knew, we did not urge him to come with us. We came to Black Kettle, which clustered there, oblivious of all things at the foot of the benches, in the sunlight and sand. Looking round for sign of any inhabitants I saw, on this occasion, what I had never noticed before: corrals to South of the track, in a fold of the benches; and, standing in the centre of the little cluster of houses, upright in the sand, a couple of hitching posts with rings in their tops. Strange that I had not noticed them before. I suppose I had been so possessed of my half panicky idea that there was nothing in the country but the railroad that those two signs simply whispered to me in vain—of ranches backward in the hills, and horsemen, sometimes at least, riding into town from somewhere.

A hail brought Scotty, the lean, tobacco-juice-attenuated operator on to the platform, rubbing his eyes from sleep and with dishevelled hair, the ends of his sparse moustache, which he had a habit of chewing, draggling in his mouth. He simply called out an oath (in a way common to the place) at sight of our burden, and hastened, flurried and jerkily, to our aid, helped us to carry Douglas into the depôt office and lay him on the floor there, and then he rushed to his instrument to call up a doctor from Lone Tree. His tap-tapping over he turned to consider Douglas, who now broke into pitiable moans.

"By——, Apache," said he. "It gives him a twist. I think I'd rather be a stiff than like that."

"Oh, I don't know," said he who was called Apache, and raised and nodded his head in a determined fashion. I noticed then, for the first time, that he wore very little gold ear-rings. The light caught them as he moved his head so. "I'm not so sure about that. Life is not worth living for the man who can't get a move on things, for the man who is, as you might say, waiting—for a man with a mine two hundred miles beyond rail-head and he maybe sixty years old and the railway not liable to extend for twenty years. He does not want a pompous funeral, and he is not going to eat and drink his gravestone. Waiting is bad when there is no show. If you are five hundred dollars in debt to the hotel-keeper and your wages are only forty-five, it's bad waiting for that forty-five, especially if you want to buy a new undershirt and a pair of pants. It must be bad waiting in a cell for a hanging. But Life's worth living when things are moving—Life's worth living for the prospector when the track-layers are moving a mile a day nearer his prospective mine and he's only ætat fifty. If he was only twenty-one it would be futile, for he'd be broke again long before he was forty. Life's worth living if you owe your hotel-proprietor last month's grub and bed—thirty dollars—and have a hundred dollars coming to you at end of the month. You'll be liable to celebrate paying him off," he added, "and go broke again. It's all right waiting even for the hangman in the condemned cell if you've got a file up your sleeve. Yes, sir—and Alf Douglas is not so bad just now as you might think. He's putting up a fight and you've wired for the doc. Life is not a bed of roses—and only a man who thinks it is, is going to go and say anything so damn futile. There's something to be said for pain, too, my friend. Pain will teach you how to grip your jaws together and I never heard that a cod-fished-mouthed man was much use. Got any cigarettes?"

"No—don't smoke them," said Scotty. "I got a plug of chewing tobacco."

Apache shook his head. I took more stock of him now—this man who had come so appropriately to my aid and to the aid of the boss. He was a lithe, sunburnt fellow, wearing open a loose jacket, beneath which was a black shirt with pearl buttons. Round his neck was a great cream-coloured neckerchief that hung half down his back in a V shape. He wore heavy leathern "chaps" (chaparreras). On his head was a round, soft hat, broad of brim. He was a picturesque figure, one to look at with interest, though he bore himself without swagger and apparently made no attempt to attract attention.

He shook his head again.

"No use for an invalid," he said; "but Douglas is liable to want a smoke after the doc's been along." He produced a bag of tobacco and cigarette papers and squatted down cross-legged on the floor and began to roll. "I can't stay on too long," said he. "I have an appointment."

Scotty looked out on the sunny square (I learnt afterwards that the patch of sand was called a square) and said absently: "Far away?"

"Not very far away," said Apache. "See—I've rolled half a dozen and pinched them firm. He's only got to lick them if he wants them. No, not very far."

There was a long pause.

"You working with Johnson up at his new ranch, ain't you?"

"Yes."

"Kind of a gardening job for a man like you, ain't it?" This said a little tentatively.

"Well, there are sure some implements to handle."

"They tell me he ain't got no stock at all on the place—that he's one of these yere new gents that grows a rose tree in a dump of cinders."

"That's what they say," said Apache. "Maketh the desert to blossom with the rose."

"That's what they say!" grunted Scotty, still staring out, his back turned. "Don't you know yourself when you're aidin' him in his pursuits? If it wasn't a man like you I'd say you were both locoed to try and grow fruit up there."

"It's been done all right," said Apache. "I've seen these gardeners come in where you'd think the only profession, bar cow-punching, would be making lava ornaments—in a drier country than this—just a day's ride more to hell, as they say—and—" he paused—"before three years were past there were these gardeners coming down in waggons and telling the cattle man that his day was done and—" he stopped short, aware of how he was maligning what had been given out as his occupation. At the same time Scotty turned slowly and surveyed him.

There they stood: the lean, little Scotsman with his brows frowning and a grin breaking on his mouth, looking down on Apache Kid, making the drollest distorted face imaginable; Apache Kid looking up at him, his head a little on one side, his eyes dancing with merriment.

And then, in the chirring silence outside, we heard the rattle, rattle, rattle of a pump-car abruptly break out and come smartly nearer.

I stepped out and there, just whirling round the bend, were four men on a pump-car, two going up and two going down, two up and two down, with a precipitancy that must have been something of a record.

A little later on in the day I was to see a pump-car driven as swiftly, but I had never before seen such action. It thrilled me. There was something magnificent in the rising and falling bodies, two forward, two to rear, coming thus, rattling, on the jump, into quiet Black Kettle. The first glimpse of the pump-car and the men suggested some pre-historic beast, come awake in these sunny sand-hills after a sleep of a million years, and cavorting down on the little depôt. Up and down went the bodies and then the pump-car rattled alongside the platform, one of the men snapped "Whoa!" and all four clung to the handles that had been going up and down for fourteen miles and stopped their motion. But before the car stopped, one of the men (who had been pumping facing the direction in which the car was urged) stooped carefully, to avoid a hit on the head from the still rising and falling pump-handles, lifted a little black bag and a jacket, and stepped neatly off to the platform. He was pouring with sweat. His white shirt clung to him and showed a solid, square little chest. In his mouth he held, daintily with his teeth, a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses. This was "the Doc."

He saw me and said to me, setting down his bag with the jacket over it and taking his eye-glasses from his mouth: "The Godam sweat blinds my Godam eye-glasses," in quite a cultured voice. If Douglas had not given a moan within at that moment I think I might have smiled. No wonder that these better women who do not lecture us on swearing do sometimes smile at us for the ridiculousness of our pet swears. I remember once telling a dry stick of a man, very excitedly, about a storm, and saying: "My mother tells me that she had a hell of a time in a storm off Cape Horn." He looked at me with a dry twinkle and said: "Did the good lady really say so?"

The Doc wiped his eye-glasses with a handkerchief and fitted them upon his nose. He was a capable man I thought; for, as he was thus employed, one of the men on the pump-car was lifting on to the platform buckets of water which they had brought along with them. The Doc stepped into the agent's room at the sound of Douglas's moan; and one of the men on the pump-car, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, gave a little chuckling laugh.

"Doc would make a heck of a section boss," said he.

"Reckon we never got over a track like it before," said another.

"I never did," said the one who was lifting off the buckets of water. "He made me laugh, did Doc, when the sweat got running on his glasses and he took them oft and then couldn't catch hold of the pump-handle again."

"He got his knuckles rapped with the handle, I suppose," said I.

The man turned and examined me and evidently I bore his scrutiny well.

"No, sir," he said. "But we were going to slow up for him to catch hold, and he yelled out to us to pump on. 'I'll catch the Godam thing!' says he. He makes me smile—the English way he nips his cusses."

"He's all right," said another. "I see he knew his business when he shouts out: 'The water-tank! Black Kettle ain't got water at the depôt, has it?' and when we all says 'No'—'Good,' he says, and we appropriates all the five buckets in the freight shed, fills 'em full at the tank, and sets 'em round our feet. It seemed a heck of a lot to bring five full buckets—but it's five half ones now," and he nodded at the half-empty pails.

Apache Kid came out to the platform abruptly, his sleeves rolled up, very alert, snatched up one of the buckets and hastened back again to the agent's room. It struck me that I could be of assistance and I stepped quickly after him. One of the men who had helped to pump the Doc, having dried his face and neck, followed me. We passed inside and I saw Douglas propped up and the Doc bending over him, his black bag open at his side, steel instruments glinting in it, Apache Kid kneeling beside the Doc, mopping away with a sponge at Douglas's head. I saw the Doc's hand come up with the gesture of one sewing with a short thread. I had never been in a hospital. I had never seen an accident, and I felt horribly sick. Suddenly the man who had come in with me, a great hulking fellow, said "Oh!" and staggered from the room on to the platform and I heard his boots give a foolish clatter, heard a grunt and, looking out, saw him in a dead faint outside. Some quite stalwart men are like that.

"Some more water!" I heard the Doc's voice rasp and I leapt to a pail and lifted it and carried it in.

"That'll do, you," said the Doc to Apache as I entered, and Apache rose as I set the pail down. I felt better now, though I knew my face was cold. Apache said: "He's all right now, Doc?"

"He's all right," said the Doc, and fell to sponging and cleaning his hands in the bucket, staring at Douglas the while.

Apache looked at me and said: "Hullo, you look white."

"Queer," I muttered, "I felt sick at first."

"Yes," he said, "Even a man who can hold off a gang of Dagoes may feel sick when he comes suddenly up against this side of life." He stretched erect and said: "The only way to keep some sides of life from not making you sick is to get right in and do something. He's all right, Doc?"

The Doc looked up and took stock of Apache, evidently more carefully.

"All right sir," he said. "We'll get him down to Lone Tree Hospital when the train comes in."

"Then I'll get off to my appointment. So-long Doc. So-long Scot! So-long Kid!" He trotted out. "Hullo!" I heard him say outside. "Feeling bad? Yes I know. Yes—it does make you feel mean, doesn't it? Well, when a man's built that way there's no mere looking on possible for him—he must either step right in and be of use, or step right out—go get him to a nunnery, so to speak. But there's nothing to be ashamed about, sir. Ninety-nine out of a hundred can rubber-neck over the heads of a crowd at a dog in a fit in the gutter and neither go away nor help. That's humanity. You can get sick, sir, when you aren't helping anyhow. So-long! So-long boys! Where's my bronco? Oh, there he is. Hi! Hi! White-face!"

The doctor was drying his hands, half kneeling still at the bucket, half sitting on his heels—a whimsical smile spreading on his face.

"Who is the cowboy philosopher?" he said as he put his towel in his bag on top of his instruments and cotton wool, and snapped it shut. He saw the cigarettes lying in the corner, stretched for one, wet it, and felt for matches.

"They call him Apache Kid," said Scot. "A light, Doc?" and Scot tore off a Chinese match from a block, lit it on his pants, and held it while the sulphur burned.

The doc was looking at me, and Scotty said "Damn!" as his fingers were burnt.

"You've been scrapping!" said the doc, and looked at my battered face, touching it lightly. "Oh I don't think you need anything much. If you like, a little arnica—three parts water, and bathe that jaw."

"This is nothing," I said.

"Nothing by comparison," he agreed and turned. Then he held his head forward and lit the cigarette at Scotty's second match, and blew a cloud. The aroma of the weed filled the place very pleasantly. It seemed like vespers or a benediction. Douglas stirred, opened his eyes. He muttered something.

"Yes?" said the doctor and knelt to him.

"Give me a draw," said Douglas.

Past the window, in the glaring sun, back of the railway track, the white pony charged in a quick lope with Apache Kid bending forward and urging it on. A whirl of dust rose and fell.

There was a shuffle outside on the platform of the men who had pumped the doctor up getting into a shady place to wait for him; and then again the silence, with the little ceaseless crackling in it, of the grasshoppers and, inside, the faint clicking of the operator's instrument.