Читать книгу Montana Rides Again - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 7

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Sunday morning on the Lavery ranch found the Montana Kid moving about in his room with a slight limp, but whistling at the work of incasing his long body and his strong shoulders in white shirt and collar, in socks of black silk, and in a fine blue-black serge, at last. One thing he would not do—he would not change boots for shoes. But unless his trousers were hitched up, no one could tell that boots of softest, most highly-polished calf were what he wore. For they were not the high-heeled pinch-toes of the usual cowpuncher. If the horse dropped under Montana, he could not afford to be hobbled by tight boots; he had to land like a running cat into which sundry enemies of his had seen him transformed more than once. Even as he knotted his necktie on his wedding day, he kept flexing his feet a little in the softness of those boots because he could not tell what guns might look at him before this day was ended. It was what he most disliked—an advertised appearance; and there were plenty of men in the world who might want to take advantage of it. He would need three pairs of eyes with which to keep on guard this day; but that was what he had needed a great part of his life, and perhaps it was why he was whistling now.

His stay on the Lavery ranch had been a quiet backwater, a pause in the hurry of the current that was headed towards some wild and unknown sea. Now that he was dressed, he looked quizzically at the brown face in the mirror and found that the blue-bright eyes were alert for danger rather than for happiness.

Grey-headed Ransome, the foreman, poured tight and helpless into Sunday clothes, smoked a cigarette and watched the procedure of his friend. “It’ll be a great day,” said Ransome.

“A long day,” corrected the Kid.

“Any bozo might think,” suggested Ransome, “that you wasn’t gunna step out with a beauty that had a coupla millions to float her.”

“Might any bozo think that?” murmured Montana.

“Any bozo might think,” went on Ransome, heavily, frowning, “that you didn’t give much of a damn about one of the prettiest girls in the world.”

Montana turned. There was a certain speed and luxurious leisure combined in his movements, like the juggler who lets not the flash but the pausing of his hands be seen. Ransome stood up as though danger threatened him; and perhaps danger did. But though the temper of the Kid was as quick as the stroke of a startled diamondback, his friendship was a force as unalterably persistent as gravity. And Ransome was his friend. So the foreman went on:

“Montana, I don’t care if you get sore. I’m gunna tell you what I think. You were pretty fond of Mrs. Lavery. After she died, you begun to find this here ranch sort of cramped. It wasn’t no pasture for a mustang like you. It wasn’t a box stall, even. You’ve got so tired of the Lavery ranch that you’re tired of the girl, too, before you marry her!”

The Kid, instead of answering, looked at Ransome with eyes that had become the colour of slate; then he picked up that pair of Colts with the extra long barrels and made it disappear inside his clothes with one of those swift, easy gestures which the eye could not follow very well. After that he went to Ransome and laid a light touch on his shoulder.

“Old Ransome!” he said.

“Yeah, old Ransome be damned,” said the foreman. “What about old Montana, I’m asking?”

Many other things were going on at the same time about the big Lavery house. There was Ruth Lavery in her room, being draped in films of white. She smiled a good deal until the girl who was the best of her friends said to her, suddenly, whispering:

“Ruth, are you smiling because you’re happy, or just to please me?”

“I’m happy, of course,” answered Ruth Lavery. “But I’m frightened. Something is going to happen!”

And in front of the house Richard Lavery, senior, was walking restlessly up and down, up and down, scanning the horizon from time to time as though he expected a sign of changing weather to roll darkly up on the edge of the world.

He turned almost expectantly towards a sudden rattle of hoofs that beat on the lower trail and then revealed a rider on a sweating mustang. It was a young fellow with a look of anxiety, as though wild Indians might be behind him. He threw himself out of the saddle and ran to Lavery.

“D’you know what’s happened?” he gasped. “Jack Lascar—that yaller-faced feller called Lascar that showed up in town the other day—he’s gone and nailed a notice on the bulletin-board in front of the post-office. I’ve copied it down!”

He pulled out a piece of paper and read aloud. Half the words were a gasping whisper and half were almost shouted.

“Everybody notice that wants to:

“Me, that is Jack Lascar, is going to stand out in the middle of the street in front of Hi Bailey’s blacksmith shop at ten-thirty this same morning and wait for the low yaller hound by name of Montana Kid.

“If he don’t show up then and there, you all know what kind of a skunk he is.

(Signed)

“Jack Lascar.”

“Wait a moment,” exclaimed Lavery. “Where’s the sheriff? What does he mean by permitting open challenges in a place like Bentonville?”

“The sheriff’s out of town,” said the messenger. “Some of the boys have sent for him. He ought to be back by about ten-thirty. But I thought that you might want to know——”

“Get off the ranch!” cried Lavery. “Don’t let Montana see you. If he should find out——”

He found that the rounded eyes of the messenger were peering straight past him and, turning, Richard Lavery saw Montana standing in the open door of the house. Above the white of the stiff collar his face looked browner and younger than ever. Montana was rolling a cigarette, letting his fingers see their own way, while he said:

“You ride back and tell Jack Lascar that it’s a little late for me to get his message, but I’m coming down there as fast as a good horse will take me. Tell him that I’ll finish the job I left half done a while back.”

He scratched the match, touched the flame to the crimped end of the wheat-straw paper, and took in a good, deep breath of the smoke. His eyes had an absent look, as though he were considering a further answer. But the messenger jerked his head in understanding and ran back to his pony. It was something worth remembering during a life to be the connecting link between a Jack Lascar and a Montana.

The Kid started for the corrals. As for Lavery, he made a few steps in pursuit; then he paused and lifted an arm and parted his lips, but the words did not come. Instead, he turned and made for the house. He walked with short steps, like a man stiffened with anger.

The Kid, in the small corral nearest the big barn, went out to the blood-bay mare that he had christened Sally. She fled for a moment like a bird with a hawk overhead, but presently she stood still and laughed at the man and her own fear, with her bright eyes. For they had become new friends, but very deep friends, since the day of their fight to a finish. Montana led her by the mane into the saddle-shed. Already his serge suit was dusted over with white. But there was no time to change. Even as things stood, he would have to travel fast to get to Bentonville by ten-thirty.

When he got into the saddle and jogged around the corner of the barn he saw that he would have to face all the music in one great burst. A whole picture of disapproval had been painted for him. For on the veranda stood the assembled family down to the one-legged cook, with a shimmer of white for Ruth Lavery in the centre of the group, and her father tall and straight and forbidding beside her.

Montana rode straight up to them and pulled off his hat.

“I’ve got the call that a man has to answer, Ruth,” he said.

She only stared at him. Her lips were parted a little. She looked older; she seemed to be squinting at a bright, distant light. The future, as like as not. Montana tried to feel sorry, but couldn’t.

Richard Lavery did the speaking. He said:

“This will be about all, my lad. My girl has put up with a good bit. She’s put off the wedding because of a hunting trip you wanted to go on; and then because you had to chase a wild horse; and now you’re going down to face the challenge of a poisonous bit of scum called Jack Lascar. You’ll forget about him here and now, or else you’d better forget about Ruth.”

Montana dismounted. The “wild” mare started to follow him up the steps, but shrank away from these strangers. Her master stood over Ruth.

“He’s speaking for you, I suppose?” said Montana. But she only kept on staring. One could not say whether there was more pain or fear in her eyes.

“It appears that I am speaking for her,” said Lavery. “We know what we owe to you, but there’s a future as well as a past to think of.”

“Wait a minute,” said Montana. “You can only talk for yourself. Say something, Ruth!”

“I can’t,” she answered. “If I try to talk—I’ll only be weeping.”

“People cry about things that are gone, finished. Am I finished as far as you’re concerned?”

She shook her head.

“I gave you a promise about the riding of the mare, and then I broke it. Does that make you feel that you can never trust me?”

“Do you trust yourself?” she asked.

This struck him very hard, apparently. He began to reason on her side:

“It’s our wedding day—and I ride off—I’ll always be riding off. Is that what you feel?”

She was silent.

“I know,” concluded Montana. “I can see it. What’s left in you is mostly fear.”

“I want to be braver and bigger,” said the girl, “but I can’t help it. Why are you this way?”

“Because the devil got into me between breaths, I suppose,” said Montana. “You won’t believe how my heart’s aching for you now. You seem to me everything that’s right and beautiful. If I go away, the best half of the world will be behind me. But I can’t stay and be the happy cat by the fire. Even thinking of that drives me crazy. In the middle of the night something would catch me by the hair of the head and yank me a thousand miles away into some sort of trouble. If we had children, you’d be counting them orphans two or three times a year. Ruth, I’m going away.... No matter what happens to-day, there’s no coming back for me.”

He took her suddenly in his arms. The tears began to run down her face, but she said, very gently:

“I’m not pitying myself. It’s for you! I think God pities you, too—and loves you.”

She lifted her face and he kissed her.

Then he turned to Lavery and shook hands.

“I was hating you a minute ago—but you’re right,” he said.

“There’ll be another chance for me to show you that I’ll never forget you,” said Lavery. “If you’ll still listen to me, I’ll still beg you——”

He checked himself. His unspoken words filled a beating moment of silence, and then Montana was walking jauntily down the steps and waving his hand.

“So long, everyone,” he called.

Ransome started making a mumbling sound, but he kept changing his mind about the words he intended to speak, so that none of them was clear. Only the cook shouted out, as the Kid mounted:

“I wish to God I had two legs under me, and I’d ride with you, Montana!”

Afterwards, as he sat the saddle, he heard Ruth crying:

“But he’ll be killed! Father, he’s going to be——”

The sudden beating of the hoofs of the red mare drowned out that complaint. As he came to the turn of the road, he felt an invisible hand tugging at his shoulder and therefore he turned in the saddle and rode out of view with his hat waving over his head.

Well, the girl feared him more than she loved him; and he loved her less than he feared a housed life. To see the spring and the summer and the winter show their faces always at the same spots, that was as forbidding to Montana as the thought of a prison cell might be to other men.

Now the house was out of view behind him. He let the red mare race to get through the pass between the hills, pointing towards far-off Bentonville. After that he felt that he had slipped the hand of the past from his shoulder. He began to laugh like a child. He had not realized how he had dreaded double harness until he was started on the empty trail again!