Читать книгу Happy Jack - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 4

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There is a power in names, and the nickname which is bestowed by chance may become true out of its own strength of suggestion. Many a man has become indolent because some careless observer called him “lazy,” and many a cheerful man has grown dark because he was termed “gloomy.” But Happy Jack Aberdeen needed no nickname to make him merry. He could not be downhearted. His life of hard labor and small pay made no impression upon his mind. He lived like a bird in a tree, from day to day, never thinking of the future, never thinking of yesterday.

This is the sort of companion that most men love to have about them, and, therefore, Happy Jack never lacked for friends. He did not need to have money in order to enjoy a trip to town, for there were always companies which were glad to include him at their own expense.

Such men always have little incidental accomplishments, and Happy Jack had them, too. In a small way, he was a juggler. He could snatch four or five fragile teacups from a table and spin them in the air like lightning. Or he could make objects of strange sizes disappear from the midst of the air, and pluck them again from the hair, or the ear, or even the mouth of a friend. The clever Happy Jack was a musician, also.

He carried about with him a guitar. He could play and sing Negro songs, and Mexican wailing ballads, and galloping cowboy songs, and even a few Italian airs. If there were a violin at hand, he could play dance music on it. He could whistle with real skill, and sometimes it seemed that a blackbird had risen literally from the floor of the bunk house, and again that a meadow lark was showering her notes over a fresh green April field.

This, even, was not the end of his talents.

He could put down with the pencil all the sights that his eyes had fallen upon, and many and many an evening the men crowded about him and stared bewildered, delighted, over his shoulder as he scratched his pictures upon rough sheets of brown wrapping paper.

It was no wonder that he was admired. More than that, he was almost loved.

Almost, because there was something careless, indifferent, birdlike, about him in his way of living. He could not stay on a job more than a few months. Then he drifted off like a true migratory creature.

In the winter he winged his way south; in the summer he traveled north. In the spring he sought the happiest valleys, in the autumn the richest orchard lands. He was a taster of life, a connoisseur who gave to everything no more than enough to enjoy it. He was of all creatures the laziest, the idlest, the most capable of lying in the sun and forgetting that the night might be cold or the sky might presently let down chill showers.

This very quality endeared him to the wandering, semi-vagrant men of the cattle range. But, at the same time, they could not form any strong bonds with him. He gave to every man his hand and his smile, but he gave to no man his inmost soul, and that is what is wanted by your Westerner before he is willing to call you “friend.”

These qualities in Happy Jack which made him welcome wherever he went, which made men smile the instant that he entered a room and made them keep him almost by force when he wanted to leave, were also the qualities which fenced him away from all friendships.

He was aware of the fact that he was skimming the mere surface of life; but he had not, as yet, seen anything about it that demanded a more profound attention. He never had been greatly stirred. He had never seen a man or a woman whom he cared to remember from one year’s end to the other.

He sat up late this night describing an adventure he had had during the day with an old cow, bogged down at the side of a tank; and he brought yells of laughter from the punchers as he produced on great scraps of stout paper life-size caricatures of the expression of the poor beast when he was tailing her up, and finally her wild charge when she found herself free to turn upon her tormenter.

These things delighted his audience, and it was late when the foreman showed his grim face inside the door.

“You waddies, you think to-morrow’s Sunday?”

They groaned, but they turned in at once. Happy Jack turned in, also. He reached under his pillow, made sure that his wallet was there, and pinched fondly the fatness of it. Then his eyes closed. And he was instantly asleep.

The morning came before his eyes had been well closed, as it seemed to him. He was the last out, the last at breakfast; he lingered the longest over his food because, of course, he was a favorite with the cook; and he was the last man to finish his cigarette; the last man to catch his horse in the corral; the last to saddle, the last to ride out, trailing far behind the others.

The foreman came back to him, and cursed.

“You gotta wake up, Jack. The boss has his eye on you. He don’t like the way that you’re carrying on.”

“Don’t he?” said Happy Jack.

And he shrugged. Instantly his mind wandered south. It was almost time for him to begin his migration in pursuit of the sun!

However, he went through his morning’s duties with as much care as usual, which was not much, and he came back with the rest of the punchers for lunch.

There he saw a figure which he had been expecting, the sour face and the brutal little pig eyes of Charlie Lake. Charlie had come for his money.

He stood up. There was nothing distinguished about Charlie except his brutality. It appeared in his face, in his gait, in his manner. It appeared in his crimes, also. He was accepted by the incoming punchers with careless nods and a few muttered words. It was dangerous to be rude to this brute. It was also unpleasant to be cordial to him, and, therefore, he was strictly avoided.

When young Jack Aberdeen came in, Charlie Lake raised his left hand and crooked the forefinger significantly. It was an insult to be hailed in such a silent, contemptuous manner, but the boy was not burdened with foolish pride. No man ever had done him physical harm, and it never entered into his mind that any man ever would. And if, now and again, a bully rose to threaten him, he could afford to sit back and shrug his shoulders, because others were always ready to fight his battles for him.

In one word, Happy Jack was a spoiled child, and with the assurance of a spoiled child, he approached the man of guns and hailed him.

Charlie Lake looked him over with an air of gloomy disgust. He said at last: “You know why I’m here?”

“I dunno,” said Happy Jack. “Likely that you’re over here for the mornin’ air, or else, that you wanted to try out the cookin’ here, which after all, it ain’t as prime as some that I’ve ate after.”

“You think that I come for that?” said Charlie Lake, his eyes flashing.

“Why, I don’t know,” said Happy Jack, and he smiled around at the others. “What else would bring you here?” Jack Aberdeen could notice a difference when he looked around at his bunkies. They did not respond in the manner which he was accustomed to see, but every man hastily looked elsewhere, and seemed suddenly occupied. It was as though they did not know that Charlie Lake had ridden in. One was busy at the wash pan; another was pumping up a bucket of water, and another was splicing a broken bridle.

Such business was not their way at noon.

And suddenly Happy Jack was mystified. It was as though these punchers who had been so friendly now had lost all care about him. He was puzzled and worried by this change.

“I’ll tell you what brought me here, kid,” said Charlie Lake. “I come here for eighty dollars of my money that you sneaked out of my pocket six months ago. Now hand it over!”

His nostrils flared and his eyes gleamed as he spoke. Plainly he did not expect the money, and plainly he would take compensation of another sort.

“Wait two seconds,” said the boy, “and I’ll pay you in full, old-timer!”

As the boy disappeared into the bunk house, Charlie demanded: “What’s the kid been doing? Having a lucky turn at poker?”

No one answered.

Suddenly, Charlie pitched from the box he was sitting on to his feet. His voice rose into a squeak, like the voice of a bull terrier.

“Look here, dang you all, did I ask a question? Do I get an answer?”

One or two ugly words were covertly exchanged by the punchers, but nothing was answered except by the foreman, who made a dry face and then said:

“The kid never wins at cards. He’s been saving to pay you off.”

“I never heard of a puncher that saved eighty dollars,” said Charlie Lake. “He’s a crook. He’s picked somebody’s pocket, the way that he picked mine.”

Happy Jack came sauntering from the bunk house door, the wallet in his hand.

“Here you are, Charlie,” said he. “Take a look at it and count it, will you?”

“Aye. I’ll take a look at it, and I’ll count it, too. Most likely it’s queer.”

Happy Jack laughed. “There’s a gent with a sore head,” said he.

“Who’s got a sore head?” snapped Charlie Lake fiercely.

“Aw, quit it,” said the good-natured boy. “Nobody’s stepping on your toes as hard as that, I guess.”

Charlie Lake opened the wallet, and took from it—a thin sheaf of newspaper clippings! He looked up at the face of the boy, which had gone blank indeed.

“Is this my pay?” said he slowly, drawing in his breath in a strange way as he spoke.

“Why—somebody’s done a switch on me,” said the boy. “Somebody’s—somebody’s—why—”

“Is this my pay?” repeated Charlie Lake.

Happy Jack could say nothing.

“Then here’s the first part of my receipt,” said Charlie Lake, and lurching forward, he drove a smashing blow against the face of Aberdeen with disastrous effect.

Happy Jack went down as though he had been clubbed. The violence of the blow rolled him over, stunned, and he could hardly have regained his feet at once if a violent kick from Charlie Lake had not helped him.

He stood up, staggering. Red was running down his face. It entered his gaping mouth, and the taste of it was salt.

“I’m gunna beat you to a pulp,” announced Charlie Lake, his fists gripped. “After that, I’m gunna skin you, you sneakin’ crook!”

The boy turned his head toward the others.

But these fair-weather friends remained stationary.

Many a time before he had been rescued from some ruffian, but those were men of fisticuffs alone, and Charlie Lake was a two-gun man. Those guns hung low down on his thighs, easily in gripping range of his fingers, and he might meet intervention of any sort with bullets.

So, suddenly, the boy realized that he was alone. Lake rushed again. Instinctively, the boy stepped aside, and the bull fury of Lake carried him past. He recovered, whirled, and struck again, not a blind and clumsy swing, but a pile-driver straight-arm punch, aimed at the chin of the youngster.

Happy Jack ducked, and the next instant his chest struck the chest of Lake, he was in the mighty arms of the gunman.

“I’ll paint your pretty face for you,” said Charlie Lake, laughing horribly. “I’ll make you a new face, by gravy!”

With one hand, he held the boy. The other hand he raised, like a battering club.

And Happy Jack reached up and caught that poised destruction. By the wrist he gripped “Gunman Charlie,” and as he caught hold of the man, from the touch a new power ran down into his body, into his heart.

Every muscle in his frame leaped. And every nerve burned, and his mind cleared suddenly, as though a film had been snatched away from before his eyes.

It was not only that he could see clearly, but he could see with wonderful speed, and in a single glance he could behold the faces of all the men around him, and the blue of the sky, and the white puff of cloud which was drifting up above the corner of the bunk house roof; and the trail of smoke that sagged from the top of the cook’s chimney; and the mist of dust which hung over the milling horses in the corral, where a wild mustang was careening.

He saw these things, and, furthermore, he saw the face of Charlie Lake, turned to a fierce bewilderment.

The hand of Charlie, tugged and twisted and writhed in vain, but it could not escape. It was as though an electric current flowed up through the fingers of Happy Jack, and held the wrist of Charlie as a magnetic current sticks to iron.

“Why, dang you—” gasped Charlie.

And the boy knew that the monster had shriveled, and had become less, and that the power of Charlie Lake was as nothing, compared with his.

It gave him, also, a peculiar contempt for the man, as well as a wonder at the miracle which had been performed in his own being. He cast Charlie Lake from him, and the gunman went backward a staggering step or two.

“You—” shouted Lake. And then a gun winked into his hand, like a gleaming sickle of silver. The boy stepped in, and he struck, not over-hard, upon the snarling mouth of the gun fighter. Charlie Lake pitched backward and rolled in the dust. His gun exploded; the sense of smoke was in the nostrils of the boy, and the gun was at his feet.

He picked it up and saw Charlie coming to his knees, tugging at his second weapon.

“You jackass,” said the boy calmly, “drop that gun or I’ll kill you!”

A curse barked on the lips of Lake as the second gun jumped from its holsters, and all of this young Happy Jack Aberdeen saw and waited upon before he moved in answer; for there was no slightest doubt in his mind that he could be first with his bullet, and that that bullet could strike where he wanted it to strike.

He could drive the slug through the right shoulder of this ravening being and so cripple him now and forever, or he could crush in the forehead of the man with a slug.

Only one instant he hesitated, and then he chose to kill.

He fired. The head of Charlie Lake jerked back, as though he had been tugged suddenly by the hair from behind.

Then he sank upon his side and lay still. The mark was there in the center of the forehead, and the boy leaned over and looked quietly, to make sure. He had not missed.

Every horrible detail of that event he looked down quietly upon; even upon the bubbles which formed slowly on the lips of the dead man, and then burst and left the face blackened with the dust.

He looked around him at the circle of frozen faces, for something told him that another man might challenge him.

More, much more than that, something shouted aloud in him with a vast hunger to be satisfied, which could only be contented by more slaughter. It was not, he suddenly knew, that he dreaded lest another should champion the cause of the dead man, but an actual craving that such intervention should be attempted.

Here was the gun, warm in his hand, that would give a second answer. And suddenly he was laughing a little, very softly, and looking from face to face.

What he said then was remembered long after, when this day became historic in the West, as all famous beginnings are important.

“That wasn’t so hard,” said Happy Jack.

It was not hard. It was no more difficult than the snuffing of a candle, and yet the result, how important, how vast!

Let who would content himself with creation. He, Jack Aberdeen, preferred the exquisite pleasure of extinction.

He had heard that other men felt horror and remorse for such deeds, but there was no horror, there was no remorse, there was nothing but abounding joy in the whole soul and in the body of the boy. So he stood before his companions and laughed, and he saw in their faces pallor, shrinking, some disgust, and a great, nameless fear.

“Somebody’d better tell the boss,” said he.

Then he went into the bunk house and sat down on his bunk. He looked down at the warm gun in his hand. He opened his fingers and regarded it with a new, companionable curiosity, and he saw that there were two notches filed into the handle.

From the tool chest in the corner, absently, he took a small file, and he began to sink another notch, just beneath the other two!