Читать книгу Slow Joe - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 3

Table of Contents

San Whiskey was the American of a Spanish-named town on the border. I never found out the real name, or else I’ve forgotten what it was. San Whiskey is all that sticks in my mind, and yet I was down there at least half a dozen times, for long or short visits.

This time I came in by night. There were a lot of reasons why I should stay away, Marshal Chip Werner and his jolly boys being one. There was only one good reason why I should go in. That was because I wanted to stretch my legs under a table and smile at a pretty waitress, and eat red hot frijoles.

The last reason won, of course. You try two months of flapjacks and bacon and see what even the thought of good chuck does to you!

The last time, I had come in over the desert stretch north of the town. This time I went down to the river, and followed the winding up it. My pony stuck knee deep in a muddy bog just outside of the place. He pulled out his forefeet with a sound like the popping of guns. But after that, we came right in, and I went to the house of Mike Doloroso.

Yes, he had another name, too, but I can’t remember what. That was all quite a while back—what I’m talking about.

Mike was as Mexican as grease, but he had red hair, so we gave him a new front name for himself. It used to make him get mad and show the white of his teeth.

I went the back way to his house. A couple of pigs got out of their wallows and grunted away from me. Then I banged on the back door. A girl opened it. The lamplight from inside shone on the brown curve of her legs and made a red smudge of her hair.

“Where’s your old man?” I asked her.

“He’s around,” says she.

“Around what?” says I.

“Town,” says she.

“Listen, sweetheart,” says I, “you ever hear the old boy speak of Slow Joe Hyde?”

“You know Slow Joe?” asked the girl.

She came out a step into the dimness, but I could see her cock her head, and clasp her hands with interest. She was a pretty thing. You take a Mexican girl around fifteenish and they’re worth while.

“Sure, I know him pretty well,” said I. “It’s me they call Slow Joe, honey.”

“Go on,” says the fresh kid, “you ain’t big enough to wear two names!”

It made me mad. As a matter of fact, I stand five feet nine of anybody’s money. Only, I sit rather low in the saddle. That’s what used to make some of the boys talk as though I were a runt. I reached out and got her by one ear. It was so delicate to the touch that I was half afraid of breaking it off. She began to squeal, softly, dancing up and down on her toes with the pain.

“Go tell your old man that I’m here,” said I.

I let her go. She whisked inside, made a face at me, and slammed the door in my face. But I guessed that she would go to tell her mother, or her father, or someone about me, and she did. After a while, the door opened, and Mike Doloroso was standing there in front of me. One hand was behind his back, and he was sticking his jaw out. But when he heard me speak, he grinned. You could see Mike grin on the darkest night, as if he had a light in his mouth.

“You damn gringo,” said he.

“You damn greaser,” said I.

I got out of the saddle and stretched myself, one half at a time; I’d been riding about twelve hours with hardly a break. Mike whistled; a kid showed out of the dark, took the mustang, and started off. I hollered after him to shove a good lot of crushed barley into that pony’s feed box. Hot or cold, you couldn’t founder that little rat of a horse no matter what you fed him.

Then I went inside with Mike. He took me into a back room. There was a stained, naked, wooden table in the middle of the place, and four or five wooden stools around it. There wasn’t anything on the floor, not even cheap matting. It was damp underfoot. The walls were sweating, and streaked. There had been an overflow of the river about a month before.

“This is pretty comfortable and cheerful, Mike,”—I said.

“Si, señor,” says Mike, through his white teeth.

He always dropped into Mexican when he didn’t follow your drift.

“I always like,” says I, “to drop into a place where there’s a good fire on the hearth and a coupla kids turning on the spit, and some jugs of red paint circling around, and the boys putting up a smoke screen around the faro layout. This is just what I’m looking for.”

He seemed to tumble, then.

“I been closed up,” he said.

“Who did it?” said I.

He made a face that gagged him, for a moment. Then he managed to say:

“That Werner—that marshal.”

“He’s bad business,” I agreed.

“He ruin me!” said Mike. “He ruin Doloroso. Oh, damn!”

It was wonderful to hear Mike swear in Mexican, but in English he was only one-handed; left-handed, at that. It made me laugh to hear him.

“What you got around here?” I asked. “Where’s the guitars, and the chow, and the singing.”

“That Werner, he take everything,” said Mike.

“And the roulette wheel?” I asked.

Because Mike used to have a crazy little roulette wheel, too.

“Roulette? Pah!” spat Mike. “That make me a ruin man, Joe. Werner come in and watch that wheel work and say: ‘Crooked, by God!’ Then he pinched the place. He pinched it black and blue. Oh, damn!”

“Well,” I said, “Werner had a wrong steer. He’s not so bad as all that, after all. Now, you go and rustle me up a meal. I’m sorry that you’re cleaned out. But you get the old woman to cook for me. She’s got some tortillas and frijoles handy, to begin with, and she can jam some meat on the spit while I’m downing that. You can find some red paint for me, too.”

He blinked thoughtfully for a moment, but then he seemed to have an idea, and he grinned and nodded.

“Then you work up some music and singing for me,” said I.

“I’m closed down,” says Mike, very sad.

“Listen, Mike,” said I, “you’re closed down to the public, but I’m a member of the family. I saw a red-headed streak of sass that can play a guitar, or I’ll eat my hat. She can sing, too. I can’t eat in San Whiskey if I don’t get my regular music with my meals.”

Mike’s face was a tombstone.

“That’s my daughter, Joe,” said he.

“Listen, Mike,” said I, tapping him on the shoulder, “I don’t steal horses, either.”

He blinked his eyes again and swallowed hard on the idea. But then he managed to nod.

“All right,” said Mike.

He went out, shuffling the heels of his huaraches; he’d begun to hum before he reached the door, and then I stopped him with: “There’s another fellow down here in the house that’s waiting for me.”

“There ain’t nobody but my family in this house, now,” said Mike.

“Look, Mike,” said I, “he’s about that high. Blue eyes. Corn-colored hair. A smile on both sides of his face. He wears two guns, rides a fast horse, and wears high heels and golden spurs, with bells in ’em.”

“I never seen him,” says Mike, shaking his head in a bewildered way.

“You’re lying,” says I.

“I never seen him,” says Mike.

“Well,” I told him, “if you should happen to see an hombre of that cut around the town, you might tell him that Slow Joe Hyde is in here, waiting to see him.”

“Sure,” said Mike. “If I should happen to meet him—”

He went on out, forgetting to hum as he went, and I sat down on one of the wooden stools and leaned my elbows on the table, and did a little quiet damning.

Werner was making too much trouble. It’s all right for a marshal to be honest, and devoted to duty, and all of that, but why should he be a hog and skin a poor little fellow like Mike Doloroso?

I made a cigarette, lighted it, threw it away. Made another, scratched a match, and put the match into my mouth instead of the cigarette. That made me spit and damn for a while. I wanted to kill Werner before I was through.

I never had had much use for the law. I hated it worse than ever, now. Just then the door opened, and a fellow with golden spurs and blue eyes and corn-colored hair came into the room. I forgot my troubles.