Читать книгу Gunmen's Feud - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 7

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The nonchalant speech made the sheriff look again at his prisoner. “Tut, tut,” he said good-naturedly, “you s’prise me, partner. What d’you figure on doin’?”

“Sitting down on that rock and talking to you.”

“It’ll get us back to the town after dark,” said the sheriff, “but outside of that, it’s a hog-ear to me whether you walk back now or after we’ve talked.”

They made themselves comfortable on the rock, each twisting round so that his face was to the other.

“Now, what d’you want to do?” said the sheriff.

“I want your horse.”

“Yes?”

“And I want you to take back to Sloan the price of the horse I’ve just ridden to death, along with the price of your own horse.”

“Oh,” murmured the sheriff mildly, “maybe you’ll give me a check?”

The stranger did not smile. “Here’s my wallet,” he said.

“You count it for me,” suggested Sturgis.

So the thief unfolded the leather, and extracting a thick wad of greenbacks, he counted over silently and slowly into the sheriffs hand five bills of one thousand dollars each and thirty more of the hundred-dollar denomination.

“One thousand dollars for the dead horse,” said the stranger, “one hundred for your horse, and six thousand, nine hundred dollars to pay for your long walk back to Sloan.” He raised his eyes from the count, retaining a few bills in his hand.

The sheriff laid the money back on his knee with a sigh. “Sorry,” he said.

“Naturally you’re sorry that I should underestimate your dislike for walking,” said the stranger calmly. “Accordingly, I hasten to correct the mistake,” and he added to the little pack four more bills of a thousand dollars each. “Ten thousand, nine hundred is the price of that walk back to Sloan. And now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll take your horse and hurry along.”

The sheriff sat with his shoulders bowed; he looked like a man over whom old age had suddenly swept, unstringing all his nerves, and he squinted up at the stranger with eyes of pain. “Sit down again,” said the sheriff huskily. “I hate to say it, but you’ve no idea how I hate walkin’.”

The other sighed; then he sat down and leaned a little closer. “I want you to take note of these things,” he said, and checked them off on the tips of his fingers. “Did you ever hear of a horse thief with close to eleven thousand dollars in his wallet? Does it seem possible to you that a man might be making a journey in such desperate haste that he would change saddles from one horse to another without stopping to haggle with the owner of the second horse about a price? Finally, do you think it absurd and beyond reason that a man making such a desperate journey would, when it is completed, send back the price of the horse he had taken?”

“I’ll tell you what,” said the sheriff, “them are three questions that twelve men could answer better than one.”

For the first time the stranger flushed. He sat back, gritting his teeth, and looked the sheriff straight in the eyes. “I have a checkbook with me,” he said at length. “Name the price of that walk back to Sloan. It’ll be yours.”

“H-m-m,” murmured the sheriff, “I’d a sort of an idea that it would come down to a matter of writing a check.”

“Because,” said the other earnestly, “you know that my check for almost any amount would be good.” He clenched one hand into a fist while he talked, and the sheriff, looking down, wondered at the smallness of the hand, and the whiteness of the skin. “Besides,” went on the stranger, “in your heart you’re absolutely convinced that what I’ve told you is the truth; you know that I’m here on business only; you know from my appearance that I’m not a horse rustler; you know that I’m talking to you as straight as my money talks.”

“Straighter, in fact,” said the sheriff.

The stranger flushed again. “If you’re offended because I’ve attempted to bribe you,” he said, “I’m sorry. But I’ve most urgent need to get across those hills; I couldn’t stop to be scrupulous.”

“D’you ever notice,” said the sheriff absently, “that when a gent starts elbowin’ in a crowd most generally he starts a fight that everybody gets hurt in?”

The stranger caught his breath with impatience but said nothing.

“It’s that way about the chestnut hoss,” went on the sheriff. “He ain’t worth more’n a thousand dollars, that hoss that you turned into so much meat—with your knife! No, he ain’t hardly worth more’n a thousand, but maybe he means more’n money to the gent that raised him from the time he was a foal. You see?”

The stranger nodded, yet it was evident that he did not altogether get the sheriff’s viewpoint.

“Look at it another way,” Sturgis continued. “You grab this hoss and ride on, expectin’ to pay for him later. Well, the gent that owns this hoss finds him gone and right off he says that a gent near by is the one that done the stealin’. He’s sure of that, because he knows this young gent hates him. Well, he starts out and rounds up a pile of ornery boys like himself and they come boilin’ down to my office bent on revenge. They go one way; I go the other. I have all the luck, it turns out. Now, suppose that gang of farmers misses the hoss—which they will—and comes back thinkin’ a lot of hard things about the young gent that they first thought done the stealin’? Well, people take it kind of hard around here when a hoss is stolen, and when they got a suspicion they don’t always wait for a jury; they go straight to Judge Lynch and get an opinion. You foller me, maybe?”

“I do,” said the other, frowning. “You think there’ll be a lynching party on account of this chestnut horse?”

His face convulsed as he spoke, and for a moment the sheriff sat with his mouth parted over his next word, staring at the stranger. He seemed to see new things in the horse thief; as if it were the middle of night and a match had been lighted under that face.

“I got to tell you another side of it,” said the sheriff. “Suppose the bunch of farmers don’t lynch this gent I’m talking about, but they only muss him up a lot and call him names. Well, he’s the kind of a boy that takes hard names to heart terrible bad.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” said the stranger, “this young fellow won’t use his gun more than once in your district. You’re the sheriff, I take it.”

“My name is Sturgis,” the sheriff replied. There was no change in the horse thief’s expression. “Yes, I’m the sheriff and my record is pretty long and pretty clean.”

“I’m sure it is,” the stranger agreed earnestly.

“But,” went on Sturgis, “if all the gents I’ve ever taken was rolled into one, all their tricks, and all their speed with guns, and all their coolheadedness, and all their cussedness—if they was all rolled into one I’d rather tackle them all over again than tackle this same young gent.”

The stranger rubbed his chin nervously with his knuckles and then replied: “I begin to understand what you mean—but I’d like to see this remarkable young man.

“Oh, he ain’t so different,” said the sheriff. “He ain’t so different from the rest; he’s just a split-second faster with his gun; he’s just an inch closer to the bell with his slug; he’s just a quiver steadier in his hand; he’s just a dash cooler in the head.” He sighed. “It’s surprisin’ what a lot of difference a few little things make when they’re all added up. You see, this boy had a considerable pile of an inheritance, and he improves a lot on what he got for a start.”

“That description reminds me of someone I knew,” the stranger said musingly.

“Was it, maybe, La Paloma that you knew?” murmured the sheriff innocently.

The eyes of the other scanned the face of the sheriff with a swift, peculiar glance. “No,” he said, “who was La Paloma?”

“I’ll tell you what,” said the sheriff suddenly, “in spite of all the harm that maybe you’ve done by stealin’ that hoss, I can’t help lettin’ my heart go out to a gent that knows how rotten it is to walk on foot.”

“Ah?” murmured the other. Then he drew out a folded checkbook.

“Suppose,” said the sheriff, “that I had some dice here, I might take a chance to see whether you take my hoss or whether you come back to Sloan with me.”

“We could flip a coin,” said the stranger.

“Too risky,” murmured the sheriff. “If we even had a pack of cards we could get along.”

“Ah,” murmured the stranger, and instantly a black leather case of playing cards was in the palm of his hand.

“So,” sighed the sheriff. “Kind of looks like you’ve took me up. What’ll we play to decide?”

“Something short?” suggested the other.

“Sure.”

“Anything you say will do with me,” said the horse thief. “But wait a moment—why not cut for the first ace?”

He broke off with a frown, for he suddenly discovered that the sheriff was smiling quietly, straight into his eyes.

“D’you know,” said the sheriff, “that I been waiting for this minute for years and years?”

“What?”

“You was always a queer one,” murmured Sturgis, “but still I can’t understand why you’d ever come back here, Pat.”