Читать книгу Silvertip's Roundup - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Taxi knew everything suddenly. He knew as well as if he had opened doors in the foreheads of these men and read their minds. The two fellows in the back room stopped playing their game and went up to the bar to get a drink. They should not have done that—not if they wished to make their bluff appear good. It seemed to Taxi too patent that the thing was a plant.

The boy had trailed him. These two had entered, one of them naming the man Taxi was after. And it was apparent that the people in Horseshoe Flat knew perfectly well that he was after Larue. Even the girl at the boarding house had seemed to divine it. She, no doubt, had quickly passed the word along. Or Silver had spoken. And the conversation which he had overheard between Silver and the girl—why, that was simply another part of the big plant, purposely spoken so that he might listen in to things that were untrue.

The whole picture flashed clear and true before the eyes of Taxi. And he liked it.

They had brains, these Westerners, and so did he. Wit for wit, he felt that he could match them. Only the matter of numbers was not so cheerful. Four to one. That was a heavy count. Perhaps the bartender made five.

Still, a pair of automatics can spill lead fast when an ambidextrous man is using them. The thing to do was to sit tight and drink beer—with the left hand. The bartender was setting out the drinks. He took four glasses and without moving a step, he spun them up and down the bar. Each one stopped and rocked to a standstill near one of the drinkers. Then he took out two whisky bottles and sent them spinning in the same fashion so that they found their proper halting places.

The men poured out drinks—stiff drinks.

Larue said: “Water your face, Pudge.”

That was the bartender. He took half a finger in the bottom of a glass and made a face over it before it passed his lips. He stuck out his lower lip, ready to receive the liquor in his mouth.

“Here’s in everybody’s eyes,” said Larue. “Here’s to all good guys and to hell with sneaking bums and foreign hoboes!”

That was for Taxi. His pale eyes smiled behind the dark hedge of the lashes.

“Here!” said the other four, and they drank.

One of the two fellows who had been playing seven-up called for another round. All four swung into new position, waiting. The two end men, Larue and a fellow with black, glistening mustaches dripping from the corners of his mouth, rested their elbows on the bar. The other two stepped back and dropped the tips of their fingers on the bar. This made a hollow semicircle, fit for conversation.

They would talk about Taxi. He knew it. They were spoiling for trouble.

Good sense told him to get out of the place, but instinct told him that if he tried to withdraw, he would get bullets through the back. It was a tight fit. He was not afraid, he was simply stimulated to the dancing point, so that his feet would hardly keep still. It was always that way before a fight. He never expected to be killed. He had been shot so many times, however, that at the thought of guns exploding all his old wounds ached.

There was a spot on the back of his neck that started throbbing as though an iron finger were pressing there to find the life. That was where Nick Francolini had shot him the time he was left for dead—in the waters of the East River. That had cost him four months and a long hospital bill, but a little later Nick had had quite a surprise. He had looked more surprised than dead, as a matter of fact, as he lay on his back in his swell apartment with the thick Persian rug getting all soggy with blood. A girl had been screaming, all the while, in a corner of the room. The brain of Taxi began to ache a little as the memory of her screams beat into it again.

He was not afraid of dying. But it would be painful. All the thugs out this way, he knew, carried .45-caliber Colts, and soft-nosed bullets tear out your insides. They knock you down and tear hell out of you.

“Here’s to you, Scotty,” they were saying to the man with the black mustache.

“Here’s to all good guys,” said “Scotty” slowly, “and to hell with rotten punks!”

He shifted his glance and found the face of Taxi with his eyes. Taxi sipped his beer.

Words don’t hurt, but Taxi had a certain code. He felt it was foolish. He knew it was foolish. But even from a cop he never took more than a certain amount. Words don’t hurt you, but he was queer in that respect. After a couple of verbal socks, he wanted to kill the other fellow. It was just a little peculiarity of his. It made him “go crazy” just the way he went after Paddy had clouted him on the chin about six times in a row. One more remark like this and he would have to start something.

“Here’s to Babe and all other good guys,” said Larue.

He slapped the squat, mighty gorilla of a man on the shoulder, and the gorilla turned its brutal face and grinned.

“Here’s how,” said “Babe.”

“I’ll buy one,” said the second man from the card table. He had nervous hands that were always wandering over his face or rubbing a perpetual chill out of his arms. He was thin, his hair had no color, and his eyes were as pale as straw. In a horrible, dead-faced way he was handsome. He kept smiling. His mouth was as nervous and jerky as his hands. Taxi knew all about him at the first glance. That fellow was bad news.

“We ain’t in any rush, Pokey,” said Larue. “Take it easy. What’s the use getting boiled on the stuff that Pudge hands out in this dump? Why don’t you get some decent booze in here, Pudge?”

“What’s the use?” said “Pudge,” smiling. “The real men don’t mind much, and the other kind drink beer.”

That was for Taxi again.

He smiled at his beer and straightened in his chair a little, slowly. He knew that he was going to start something. He knew that he would continue this slow motion of his body until he was standing on his feet, saying things. He was surprised and rather awed by his own knowledge of himself. Sometimes it was like that. A will inside of him took charge and carried him along, and he could only stand by and watch where it carried him.

“I’m goin’ to buy a drink,” the man called “Pokey” was saying. “I gotta buy a drink because I feel a drink comin’ over me. Fill ’em up.”

“I’m not going to have another for a minute.”

“I don’t care when you have it, but fill them glasses!” cried Pokey. The last three words were a yell. He stood there gripping the edge of the bar and looking with rapid movements of his head from one to the other of them. His nostrils had flared out so that the light glinted pink through the translucent flesh. Taxi knew all about Pokey, but it made him a little sick. He was bad business, Pokey was.

The others looked steadily at him; they glanced at one another; they filled their glasses.

Pudge said: “It’s all right, Pokey. Don’t get heated up, old horse. Everybody’s goin’ to drink with you—except one.”

He did not laugh with his whole face, as he said this. Only his eyes laughed.

Pokey turned around like a flash. He was all whipcord. The muscles of his rage stood out in ropes along his neck, right up to the base of his jaw. It seemed unfair that there should be a tiger’s strength in a thing like that.

“He’ll drink, too,” said Pokey. “Nobody holds out on me. You drink, kid!”

He pointed a swift finger at Taxi.

“Not now, Pokey,” said Taxi. “I’m having a little beer. That’s all. I’ll drink with you later.”

“You’ll drink now, or I’ll pour it down your throat!” yelled Pokey.

Larue broke out into laughter. But his laughter did not make him put his head back. He kept his chin down. He kept watching Taxi, and his hands were always ready.

Maybe this was a plant, too, and Pokey had been elected to bring out the Easterner, the stranger.

Then the others would step in?

Well, something had to be done. Pokey came straight for him, striding big.

“I’m not drinking with you now,” said Taxi.

“You lie! You’ll drink it or choke on it!” screeched Pokey.

Taxi slid out of his chair. It’s an art to get out of a chair the way Taxi got out of his, with a sidestep that brought him to the toes of his feet, nicely balanced.

He looked at the devil in the face of the charging man. A spark leaped out of his brain, ran down his right arm, and sprang with his fist against Pokey’s chin. That spark knocked the light out of Pokey’s wits. His knees went to pieces. Scotty caught him as he fell backward, and leaned him against the bar. Scotty shifted the weight into the hollow of his left arm and kept his right hand free. He paid no attention to the head of Pokey that lolled on his shoulder. He simply licked his red lips with the tip of his tongue and kept watching Taxi.