Читать книгу Happy Jack - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 5

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Outside the bunk house, voices murmured like bees; then all over voices ceased, and one booming note dominated. An instant later, the form of Bill Kinney blocked the doorway, and the boy looked up to him and wondered why he did not feel the usual awe. The luster of the fame of Bill Kinney had been enough to half blind him before, and to fill him with fear; but now he was at ease.

So he looked up from his work on the revolver and calmly regarded the marshal.

The latter hung there in the doorway for a moment. He had not believed the frightened report which had been brought to him. And now he looked into the bunk house and saw enough to bewilder him; for it was the same young face and the same young form, but the eyes were different, the spirit was different.

He said, “What in heck have you been doing?”

Happy Jack smiled and said, “Shooting pigs, Kinney.”

There were two things that upset the marshal. In the first place he felt the aptness of the comparison between Charlie Lake and a pig—a wild and dangerous boar, say; in the second place, it was the first time that one of his hired men had failed to call him “mister.”

It was his pride that he was rarely addressed except with a title. He was Mr. Kinney, or he was Marshal Kinney. Far off, when his name appeared not infrequently in the newspapers of the East, the South, and the North, he was always referred to as Bill Kinney. But the newspapers closer at hand had learned their lesson.

They spoke of “Federal Marshal William Kinney,” or “The famous William Kinney, marshal of this district.” For that matter, there were not three men in the world who were such close friends of the marshal that they presumed to call him by one name alone, either the first or the last.

But here was a beardless youth who smiled blithely in his face and had said: “Shooting pigs, Kinney.”

The shock of that struck him as a bullet strikes.

He said: “You’ve done a murder, young feller. D’you know that? Stand up and come with me.”

“How come?” asked the boy.

And with the file, he gave a last touch to the third notch, and put the gun away in his clothes.

The marshal could not believe his ears. Suddenly he thundered: “Stand up!”

The boy lifted his head slowly. “Are you tellin’ me to do that?” he asked. “Or is the law telling me?”

The thunderstruck marshal almost reached for the shoulder of Happy Jack. Then he recalled himself; it was his first principle never to overstep the actual province which the law assigned to him.

“You’re arrested, in the name of the law!” said he.

“Well,” said the boy, “I dunno that it’s your right to arrest me; I’ve an idea that the sheriff ought to do that! But as long as the law may be on your side—”

With the rest of his defiance to be implied, he slowly rose, and sauntered past Kinney toward the door.

“And what’s the next step?” he asked. “Town? Jail? And all the rest?”

“Go to the house and wait for me there,” said the marshal hoarsely.

The boy turned and looked at him, as though even then he half wished to resent this rudeness of tone; but after this, he went calmly away toward the house.

The marshal paused behind him to give certain directions about the disposal of the body and to gather first-hand evidence.

Boone, the foreman, looking rather pale and sick, narrated the facts.

“Self-defense?” asked the marshal.

“Nothin’ but,” said the foreman. “He knocked Aberdeen down. Aberdeen got up, and they grabbed each other. He started to smash up Aberdeen. But he wasn’t able to. He pulled a gun—and Aberdeen took that gun away and shot him with it—”

He paused and passed a hand across his forehead.

“There’s one thing more. I stood where I could see Aberdeen’s face, at the last minute. I swear that he was as cool as you are now! And when he pulled the trigger, he was smiling!” He shrugged. “It don’t seem to mean much, telling it like this, but you can bet your boots that it meant something to stand by and see it. It give me a chill that even whisky couldn’t cure!”

The marshal stared at him. “You talk like a fool!”

His own mind was in the maddest whirl that ever had bewildered him. He was guilty of this killing, in a sense, because he knew that, deliberately, he had given the provocation for it; but his conscience was not greatly troubled by that fact. He could have sworn that the boy never would have dared to stand up to famous Charlie Lake. The miracle had happened. And happening as it had—

“I want to know this: When the fracas started, was the kid scared?”

“Aberdeen?” said the foreman. “He looked scared to death, while Lake walked up and smashed him in the face and knocked him down. I thought that Lake was going to eat him up. Then all at once Aberdeen was the boss, and Lake was like a baby in his hands.” He paused, breathing hard. “You know Lake? You ever seen him wrestling, or in a tug of war?”

The marshal nodded, biting his lip.

“He took hold of Charlie Lake and threw him off. Then he knocked him flat when Lake started to pull a gun. I never seen anything faster and neater—Say, Mr. Kinney, who is Aberdeen?”

And the marshal slowly answered, because the words were drawn out of his soul by wonder: “I dunno. Maybe he don’t know his own self.”

After that, he walked to the house.

The professor might be able to explain this still further. If he could persuade that man to postpone his departure until the next day, the marshal was willing, now, to practically sit at the knees of the man of learning and drink in his wisdom; for a miracle had been performed, and that miracle had been announced beforehand by Professor Walter Lang.

It was no wonder that the hard-headed Kinney felt a little dizzy, a little sick, as he went on. He paused again with his hand on the knob of the door, not knowing why he hesitated.

And at this moment the sweet, swift strumming of a guitar issued from the front room, and he heard the rich, strong voice of Happy Jack singing:

“Have you ever heard the story of Cheyenne Pete,

That was known for the speed of his hands and his feet?

He was all broke down and he had the spavin

And the size of his shoes they was number eleven.

But when that cowboy begun to step

There was nothin’ left to do excep’

To give him room and hold the ladies

That sure would of—”

The marshal opened the door and stepped into the room. There on the piano stool sat his prisoner, guitar on knee, head tilted back in song; and lounging on the other side of the room appeared the professor.

“Shut up!” said the marshal to the boy.

In midline, Happy Jack broke off, with a wave of his hand.

“You’re the boss here,” said he, “and I seem to be the guest of the house, eh?” He laughed as he spoke.

“You, Lang,” said the rancher, “you know what’s happened?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Lang. “I’ve heard that one of the dogs went mad and had to be shot—”

The big man raised his hand to stop the rest of the sentence.

“The dog that was killed was wearin’ a hat and shoes, professor,” said he seriously.

Lang got slowly to his feet. He looked wildly at the rancher and again at Happy Jack. “You mean that the boy, here, shot—”

“Oh, yes. He shot Charlie Lake.”

“And hurt him badly?”

“He’ll never need to be hurt again,” said the grim marshal. “And it seems to me that you and me had better have a little talk with the killer!”