Читать книгу Speedy - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 9

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By the time John Pierson reached the front door of the Chalmers house, he was beginning to think that perhaps this little adventure might be worth all of four hundred dollars and even more. He was reasonably sure of it, when the district attorney followed him, and from the front porch shouted: “This is a damnable trick on your part, Pierson. This is a trick, a low, deceiving trick, to appeal to my foolish and soft-hearted humanity. But I see through you, Pierson. I’ve always seen through you. You won’t be able to make me a laughing stock through this, as now I demand your assistance to lay hands upon the worthless puppy who was your tool, in this matter.”

Pierson stood still, near the front gate of the yard. He was counting from his wallet, four hundred dollars into the hand of the boy. And, as he finished, he turned with a chuckle:

“You’re a laughing stock already, Chalmers,” he said. “This business will roar you out of town. People will learn from this just what a windy joke you are, and always have been!”

This was language brought home with a smash, but Pierson’s heart was still sore because of his political defeat. And he relished mightily this opportunity to get a little of his own back.

So he went on laughing, while Chalmers began to roar again and again from the front porch. At last, Chase came out, and taking his friend by the arm, told him bluntly not to make a further fool of himself, and so got him back into the house. Already neighbors were opening doors and murmurs of interest came drifting through the air.

The lawyer at the front gate was saying to the boy: “Come along with me, Speedy. I’ve several things to say to you.”

“I can’t go along,” said Speedy. “I have to stay here to do one thing more.”

“Then answer me one question.”

“Certainly.”

“How did you make your feet seem to be bleeding?”

“They didn’t seem to be. They were.”

“Tut, tut,” said the lawyer. “Don’t tell me that!”

“It’s true, though,” insisted Speedy. “After all, a tablespoonful of blood makes a pretty big stain.”

“But where did you get the blood?”

“Out of my feet, man! I simply made a small cut behind the ball of each foot, where the skin’s tender and the blood’s near the surface. The movement of walking kept the drops of blood leaking out. It isn’t painful, but, as you saw, it makes a good lot of blood. And a bit of sticking plaster on each cut will make it as sound as ever. You should have asked me to wash my feet. Then they could have seen through the sham. But people get excited and careless, at times like that. They’re apt to believe their eyes, and eyes are almost never right, you know.”

John Pierson paused in thought. There was much in the last remark of this odd youth. Finally he said: “I want to see you again, Speedy. Shall I?”

“I’ll be in the town long enough to get a new suit of clothes,” said the tramp. “And then I’ll go on again. I need an outfit. I was trimmed down almost to my guitar, when I luckily met you, and since then I’ve been thanking my stars.”

“Will you come to my office tomorrow?” asked Pierson. “It’s been growing in my mind almost ever since I met you.”

“Thanks,” said the boy. “You don’t mean that you’re going to try to reform me?”

“No. Not that. You have a pretty thick skin, I take it?”

“I don’t pride myself on it,” said Speedy. “But I suppose that I have a pretty thick skin, all right.”

“Now, then, listen to me. I have some work in mind that will need the thickest skin in the world. It’s not dishonest, but it’s a gamble and a chance, and a good chance. I want to put it up to you. What do you say?”

“I always liked chances,” said Speedy. “And I always liked long ones. I’ll come in tomorrow at the end of the morning.”

“No, come early in the afternoon, because our talk will take a long time,” said Pierson.

So it was agreed. They shook hands, and Pierson went up the street, while the boy waited behind until the door of the Chalmers house opened, and Mr. Chase came down the front steps hastily, making rambling sounds in his throat. It seemed certain that among other things, Mr. Chalmers had not cemented his friendship with Chase any more firmly on this night of nights!

At the gate, the boy stepped out from the shadow of a tree.

He said: “May I speak to you for a minute, Mr. Chase?”

“It’s the young whippersnapper, again,” said the rancher, stopping short. “I want nothin’ to do with you, friend. And you want nothing to do with me, if you know what’s good for you. Goodnight!”

“I want to talk to you for half a minute,” replied the tramp, quickly. “I went there to make a joke of Chalmers. Not of you. I’m sorry you were there, because you’re real, and he’s only a sham. I couldn’t make a joke of him; he’s a joke already.”

Chase sputtered for a moment, and then he exclaimed: “By the jumping lord jackrabbit, if you ain’t right. You got a brain in your head, young man. It’s all right, the way you pulled the wool over my eyes. I ain’t one that pretends to sharp sight with men, anyway. I can see a hoss, a cow, or a sheep. But that lets me out.”

“Goodnight, then, Mr. Chase. And no hard feelings, sir,” said the boy.

“Why, boy,” said the rancher, “doggone me if you ain’t pretty clean speakin’, too. I take a sort of a likin’ to you.”

“You ought not to go on trusting your impressions of me,” warned Speedy. “You’ve already found out that it doesn’t pay.”

At this, the other chuckled.

And he said: “It’s been worth more than me bein’ made a fool of tonight—worth a lot more, because I’ve had a chance to see through one special kind of varmint. I’m gunna make a change in lawyers right pronto!”

He waved goodnight, and went with a firm, heavy stride up the street, a rather weaving step, such as one often sees in men who have spent most of their lives in the saddle.

The boy watched him for a moment; then he went to the smallest hotel in Durfee, down by the railroad track, and got a little room, and turned in. He was very tired. He simply wrapped himself in a blanket, and without taking off a stitch, he fell asleep as soon as he had closed his eyes.

He slept smiling, as one whose conscience is absolutely whole; and when he wakened in the morning, he was singing in five minutes. Ragged and unkempt he went down to buy his breakfast. But when he had finished a busy morning, a very neat young man sat down to lunch, dressed in a natty brown suit, with a broad-brimmed hat of tan color, and a tie to match. There was nothing showy about him, but he looked as though much money had flowed through his hands, and as though he expected the future to deal kindly with him, also.

After lunch, he went to his room for a siesta. And then, fresh and wide awake, he found the office of the lawyer. It was in a small wooden shack; and the “shingle” of John Pierson was not in large letters. But the building was itself a relic of the old, early days of Durfee, and the people looked upon it with affection, and with respect on a man who was willing to content himself with such quarters. It made Pierson seem more an intimate part of the town’s life, and in the West, townsfolk like to see men who identify themselves with the life of the community.

Chase walked out from Pierson’s door, as the boy came to it.

He himself reopened the door.

“Here’s another client for you, Pierson,” he called. “And I reckon that he’ll keep you busier than I do!”

But he shook hands with the youngster, and then closed the door after him as Speedy went inside.

There was triumph in the eyes of Pierson, as he took the boy into his inner room.

Said Speedy: “I imagine that it was worth four hundred dollars, after all, Mr. Pierson?”

The lawyer laughed.

“Worth ten times that much,” he said, brushing back his short black mustache with a nervous gesture of thumb and forefinger. “And still more than that. It pried Chase loose from Chalmers—that wind-bag! And it put him in my hands. You’ve made your peace with Chase, it seems! How did you manage that?”

“I stayed behind to apologize to him,” answered the boy. “You know, Mr. Pierson, I don’t live off honest men—unless they make bets with me!”

The two of them smiled at one another, with understanding. It was a bright day for Pierson, and he could endure remarks far more stinging than this one. Then he sat down, waved the boy into a chair, and leaning his elbows on his desk, he plunged into his idea.

He said: “Speedy, there’s a big ranch on the Rio Grande. Thousands and thousands of acres. You don’t measure a place like that in acres. You measure it in miles and leagues. You don’t walk over it. You ride. And you ride hard, and change horses in the middle of the day, if you want to get around the land and back to the main ranch house by nightfall.”

“I’ve seen a couple of places like that,” said the boy. “Spanish landgrant somewhere at the bottom of ’em, usually.”

“That’s what’s at the bottom of this one, too,” said the lawyer.

He paused, and cleared his throat.

“Now, then,” he said, “in the house on that ranch lives a man eighty years old. He lives alone. His wife is dead. His one son died a good many years ago. He thinks that he has no heir. But he’s wrong. He has a granddaughter, and I can prove her claim to the place—the whole estate—all of those millions! Unfortunately, other people also know her claim. And they’re trying to get her married to one of themselves. She doesn’t know that she’s an heiress. But what she does know, apparently, is that she doesn’t want to marry. They’ve wooed and sued her, but they’ve all failed. Now, then, it seems to me that you’re the sort of a fellow who succeeds best when the work is the hardest. Half the brains you invested in winning four hundred dollars from me, would be enough to bring that girl into camp. You’d find yourself a rich man. And then I come in. Not for a split. I simply want the regular legal fees for handling that property when the old man dies, and the land goes into your hands. That’s my case as simply and shortly as possible.

“Now tell me whether you want to remain a hobo, or marry a fortune?”

Said the boy, without hesitation: “Thanks a lot. But the fortune can go hang!”