Читать книгу Lucky Larribee - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 8

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Hannahan did not leave Fort Ransome; he was not laughed out of office. Neither did Mullins withdraw from the town where he had been so badly beaten; nor did young Josiah Ransome III take a vacation. The reason was that there was a new object of interest in Fort Ransome the very day after the affair at the Potswood.

This was not the arrival of a new regiment, or some foreign duke or prince. It was the arrival of something in which Fort Ransome could take a far more intelligent interest.

It was a horse, a stallion, pale blue, whose mane and tail matched his body colour, so that on the whole he was the tint of the horizon when seen at a little distance, and this was the reason for his name, Sky Blue.

With the stallion came his owner. He was named Dan Gurry. He was a short, stocky fellow with a bright and steady eye and the air of one who has persistence. That air was not an illusion. Fort Ransome learned that four years ago he had bought this thoroughbred colt when he was less than a yearling, and had got him comparatively cheap for two reasons: the stallion was both an unusual and a “washy” colour, and was so scrawny of body and vast of limb that no one could believe he would amount to very much. Nevertheless, his blood lines were excellent, and Dan Gurry had to pay a cool thousand for the colt.

There was one fly in the ointment. The reason that Sky Blue had come to the age of five years without a track engagement was that no jockey could sit his back. The best which the Eastern and Southern stables could offer had been tried, and they had failed.

In speaking of this, Dan Gurry had said: “I’ve heard about your boys out here. I’ve heard that they can ride anything that wears a hide. Now I want to see. I paid a thousand for this colt. I’ll pay another thousand to anybody who can ride him three times running. That offer stands. You fellows tell about it in the saloons, will you?”

Tell about it? They could talk of nothing else.

On the very first morning, Fort Ransome gathered to see three riders of celebrity mount that running machine. One was a frontiersman; one was a full-blooded Comanche, those kins of plain riders; one was a half-breed from the Sioux nation. They did their best. They were not content with one fall, but tried several times apiece, and their average endurance on the back of the stallion amounted to something like a minute and a half. When Sky Blue bucked, he bucked with three years of experience behind him.

Fort Ransome gathered to watch the show continue that afternoon.

It began with Joe Creary, who had been riding broncos with educated dispositions and a full command of the whole vocabulary of pitching. Joe was well known. In addition he was miraculously sober. When he appeared, the odds on him were quoted to two to one. Some people pitied Sky Blue once Creary’s legs were forked over his back.

But the second time the stallion bounded into the air and landed on one forefoot, the face of Creary wore an abstracted look. During the next manoeuvre, when Sky Blue executed a snap in the middle of the sky, Creary came off and fell all the dizzy way to the earth below. He landed flat on his back, and though he was unconscious when they picked him up, he bent backward in the middle and suddenly screamed with agony.

The sound of that yell brought the sweat out on the upper lips of the hardiest in Fort Ransome. When Creary was carried off the field, the line of other ambitious applicants dwindled suddenly away to nothing.

Then Wilbur Dent said to his cousin: “Look here, Alfred. I ain’t askin’ you to hunt for trouble. But a thousand dollars is a thousand dollars. If you can hypnotize twelve man-eatin’ mustangs in a morning, maybe you can hypnotize Sky Blue in an afternoon. What you say?”

Larribee looked across the corner of the corral towards a section of the crowd which contained the bluest blood in Fort Ransome. The Rigby Petersons were here, and the Walters family, and so were the Ransomes themselves, headed by the dignified major with his moustache shining like marble. Even young Josiah Ransome III, with a broad bandage around his head, had braved the public eye and the tongue of ridicule to stand there and see the horse show. With the Western Ransomes stood their Eastern cousin, Arabelle Ransome.

She was looking at Larribee as though he were a new sort of animal, and he was looking back at her.

“Look over there!” he said to Wilbur Dent.

“You mean the Ransome girl?” said Wilbur Dent. “They say it’s gonna be a match betwixt her and young Josiah, blast him!”

“No,” said Larribee, “I don’t think that she’ll ever marry a loser!”

That was the only answer he made to the remark of Dent about riding the horse. The next Dent knew, there was Larribee, actually striding in among the Ransomes on his way somewhere else, as it seemed.

“The fool!” said Dent. “He’ll get himself tapped over the head one of these days. And even a Larribee’s head is not tough as iron, quite!”

But Larribee, sleek and sleepy of eye, moved onward as though he hardly realized what people were about him.

He heard the girl’s voice saying: “I hear the fellow is a horse tamer, too. But I suppose that he does his horse taming at home!”

“Hush, Arabelle!” said Mrs. Ransome. “Hush, child, or the creature will hear you!”

“He’s heard me already,” said Arabelle clearly.

Larribee turned his head and raised his hat.

It was a battered hat. In his first fracas in Fort Ransome it had received something more than its due share of attention.

“Of course I’ve heard you,” said Larribee. “But I like my neck more than I like a thousand dollars. Don’t you?”

The Ransomes looked coldly upon him. Young Josiah, equal to the occasion, proved himself a true scion of the blood by not turning his head, but keeping his frosty glance steadily upon that huge horse.

“There’s your chance at glory,” said the girl. “And a lot more newspaper talk, too.”

She pointed towards the stallion in the centre of the corral. But Larribee looked back at her, and at her only.

“I think Creary’s back is broken,” said he.

“You have a spine of your own,” said she.

“It’s made of stuff like Creary’s,” he answered.

“I’ll bet that you’ll try to ride that horse, though,” she persisted.

The Ransomes tried to stop her, but she waved them away.

“What makes you think that I shall?” he asked.

“Because someone dares you to,” she replied. “Isn’t that reason enough for you?”

“Would you bet against me?” said Larribee.

“I’d bet that fiend of a horse against the world,” she said.

“What would you bet?” asked Larribee.

“Why, anything you want.”

He pointed. “There’s an emerald on your finger,” said he. “Will you bet that?”

She looked down at the ring. She looked back again curiously at Larribee. “I’ll bet you the value of the ring; it’s about a thousand,” said she. “But the ring has a sentimental value. I don’t want to part with it.”

“But this is a sentimental bet,” said Larribee. “I’ll bet you a thousand against the ring that I can ride that horse around the corral.”

She stared at him. And he stared back.

“I told you that the ring was not up,” said she.

“Oh, it will be,” said Larribee.

“What makes you think so?” asked the girl.

“Because you’ll do almost anything to see me piled in the dust,” replied Larribee.

“What’s your reason for thinking that?” asked she.

He shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head towards Josiah III.

“Because of the crack in that head,” said he. “You want to put the Ransomes up again, even if it takes a horse to do it!”

“Arabelle,” said Mrs. Ransome, “I forbid you to speak to this fellow again!”

“Arabelle,” said Larribee, “you’d really better not. For if you lost that ring, what would somebody say to you?”

Her face flushed hotly. “I won’t let him brag and talk me down,” she declared.

Larribee took out his wallet and counted out the money slowly.

“Here’s a thousand that grew out of dice and cards,” said he, “with a little whisky flavouring. Your cousin might hold the stakes.”

“Arabelle!” exclaimed Mrs. Ransome.

But Arabelle, looking steadily at Larribee, twisted the emerald ring from her hand.

Larribee walked straight up to Mrs. Ransome and held out the money.

“You don’t need to be ashamed,” said he. “My backbone is worth an emerald ring, I think.”

She gestured as though to ask the stiff-backed major to her assistance, but before he could stir, she suddenly reached out her hand and took the sheaf of money. Larribee turned away.

“My dear,” said the major, “what are you thinking about?”

She was the gentlest woman in the world, but her answer staggered him.

“To-day,” said she, “I’m thinking my own thoughts for a change. Arabelle, I’ll trouble you for the ring, if you please!”

And Arabelle handed it over.