Читать книгу Montana Rides Again - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 9

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With the fall of Jack Lascar there came out of the watchers a deep, quick, animal sound. The lips of men and women and children grinned back suddenly as though there were something in the sight that filled them with a food of satisfaction, or of horror. After that first grunting noise came the babel of spoken words and an uneasy movement forward.

The Kid went up to the body of Lascar and put his foot brutally on the shoulder of the man, and pushed him back so that he sprawled face up. Then Montana could see that a trickle of blood was still running down the side of Lascar’s head—sure proof that the fellow was not dead as yet. Well, if that bullet had glanced, it meant that there would be more trouble, great trouble, ahead of Montana. For a man like this, with the courage to face him in the open public, made an enemy worth much consideration.

There was something more to be considered, just now. That was the persistent beating of hoofs down the street and now rounding the last corner. So the Kid jumped Sally, looking back as he jammed his feet into the stirrups. And he saw the sheriff come grandly around the next bend of the street with his mustang aslant, the dust spilling out sidewise from the slashing hoofs, and the wind of the gallop furling back the brim of the sheriff’s hat. There was patience, kindness, understanding in the face of this man of the law, and he had shown all of these qualities in his dealing with Montana long before. There was also a bulldog persistence and that sort of courage which is found in a man who loves duty more than glory.

And as the sheriff saw the picture before him, the dust still rising above the place where Jack Lascar lay, the man of the law shouted. His cry was like the hoarse bark of a sea lion as he went for his gun.

Montana did not try to get away down the street. Neither did he open fire on the sheriff, because it was not his habit to shoot at the law-abiding. Instead, he sent the mare winging over a four-foot fence and then crashing through tall shrubbery that closed over man and horse like water. The sheriff’s bullets crackled through the brush; other bullets sang a smaller and a higher note around the ears of Montana.

He looked up and saw a rifleman seated on the very ridge of a roof. The fellow had gone up to get a perfect view of the meeting between Montana and Lascar. He had carried his gun with him in case there was a chance for him to put in his hand safely at the end of the fight.

The lips of the Kid twitched back from his teeth.

There are a lot of people in the world who need killing! But now he had to swerve the mare on to a back lane, and send her scooting. There was going to be plenty of trouble. He could hear the voice of it growl and howl through Bentonville.

The lions had finished fighting, and now the spectators would take part in a lion-hunt. Horses began to snort and squeal under the spur as men mounted and drove away in the pursuit. Men yelled orders in voices that squeaked with excitement. There was even a sudden discharge of three or four shots that could not have been aimed at anything.

The Kid smiled a little. His eyes filled with reminiscent pleasure. He knew all the instruments in this orchestra. He had heard them many times before. And the music assured him that he was out of the drowsy noontide of the commonplace and back in the chill wind of the world of adventure.

From his position, the south trail was the best trail. He went straight for it, taking note how the mare carried her head high, moving it in observation, keeping her ears pricked. She was iron-hard. The run from the ranch had not weighted her hoofs with the least weariness. Even if she had found a master and flown at last to a lure, she was still strong from those wild years of winging through the wilderness. He felt that he had caught from the sky something that would carry him safely away from any earthbound dangers.

The last house, the last barn, whirled away behind him. He was heading towards the beginning of the south trail with the tumult of Bentonville drawing to a single head behind him, when he saw a man on a black horse riding furiously down the northern slope to head him off.

There was still time to turn to the left down a broken ravine, but though he might avoid one enemy in this manner, he would leave himself trapped for that purring crowd whose horses were beating up a thunder behind him. Besides, he was in no mood to turn for one man or for two. So he drew a gun.

The mare flowed beneath him like the current of a river; to shoot from her back would be as easy as shooting from the deck of a ship. But then he saw that the stranger had neither drawn a revolver nor unsheathed the rifle whose holster slanted down under the right leg of the rider. It was a brown-faced Mexican, in overalls, with a tattered rag of a hat fluttering on his head. He was dressed like a peon, though he rode a horse fit for a king. Something in that contrast, and in the thick solidity of the fellow’s shoulder, put knowledge in the eyes of the Kid.

“Rubriz!” he shouted.

He got a wild yell and the wave of an arm for answer. It was Rubriz himself who pulled on to the trail beside him, checking the great black horse with a cruel Mexican bit that wrenched open the mouth of the stallion.

“Welcome! Well seen, El Keed!” cried Rubriz. “But take another way than this. The whole town is on horseback. They’ve seen me and they’re chasing me. Some dog of a spy has warned them that I’m north of the Rio Grande!”

The shouted Mexican speech was music in the ears of Montana. If he added up the happiness of his life, half of it, and the spicier half, he had found in the land of that tongue. He smiled as he answered:

“They hunt me, Mateo!”

“They hunt you? Then they hunt us both!” answered Rubriz.

He turned in his saddle. Montana knew what the Mexican was seeing—the first riders out of Bentonville, lashing or spurring their horses, riding a race with the wicked joy of the man-hunt maddening their hearts. What Montana looked at were the gross, powerful lines of the Mexican and the white scar of the whiplash across his face. It would not have surprised him if, at this meeting, the bandit had leaped for his throat. Neither did it surprise him that Rubriz was ready to fight and die with him. The smile of Montana became a laugh.

“They are coming like ten thousand devils!” shouted Rubriz, turning front again. “San Juan of Capistrano, lame their horses, throw sand in their eyes. Hai, Montana! We ride our first trail together. They can never catch us. Not this black and not the mare—but I have a poor friend down the trail a few miles with only a mule to carry him. No horse would have the patience to carry the bulk of him. Look—there!—there! See him lumbering the mule, flopping his elbows!”

Far in the distance Montana saw a figure that was huge even when it was far away—a long-robed friar on a jogging mule. The arms of the man flopped like clipped wings; his head was bare to that powerful sun.

There was only a glimpse before a turn of the trail snatched the figure from view.

“They’ll never harm a friar,” said Montana. “He’s safe enough.”

“No Mexican is safe, not even if there were a halo instead of a hat on his head,” answered Rubriz. “But how shall we save him? How shall we snatch him away? Aha! He sees trouble behind him at last!”

The friar had in fact halted his mule, which turned sidewise as the rider stared behind him at the two fugitives and that rising dust-cloud from under which the horses of the men from Bentonville were darting.

“Save yourself, thick-skull! Help yourself out of the way, half-wit!” shouted Rubriz, angrily.

The man was much too far away to hear, but, as though he knew the meaning of Rubriz, he stared first into the depths of the gorge that fenced the trail on one side and then looked helplessly up the steep slope of the hill which was littered with a vast strewing of boulders, big and small.

Another bend of the trail again shut out the view of the friar, but when he was seen again, he had dismounted from the mule, which was picking at grass beside the trail, while the master clambered actively over the rocky junk-heap of the slope, looking too big to be human, against the sky.

“That’s the best way for him,” said Rubriz. “What’s he at, now? Run on, fool! Run on and save your hide!”

For the friar was seen heaving at the boulders on the slope. There he laboured as Rubriz and Montana went by, the Mexican rising in his stirrups to screech: “Run, brother! Pascual, run for your life!”

For answer, a stentorian shout rolled down the hill, and Montana had sight of a flashing smile and a brown-black face. Then, bending to his work again, the friar toppled a boulder of several hundredweight. It swayed; it staggered. It began to hop down the hill with increasing bounds, and wherever it struck it loosened a mass of other huge rocks until the hillside became alive. The thunder of the rocks quite shut out the hoof-beats of the posse. Only thin, screaming voices of dismay came wavering through the air above the tumult of the landslide.

Brother Pascual was already hurrying down to the trail, where he remounted his mule and jogged on after the other two, while behind him the boulders still skipped and danced, hurtling down the trail with force that chewed great portions out of the lip of the rock; the overflow made a cataract of thunder into the bottom of the ravine and set the echoes rolling. The whole slope, above, seemed to be in motion, a river of down-flooding stone, and even when it stopped rushing, how could the men of the town climb their horses over those vast blocks which now obstructed the way?

The delight of Rubriz was like that of a child. He laughed till the tears were rolling on his face.

“Where’s the fool who denies the power of prayer?” he demanded. “There’s Brother Pascual, as simple as a sheep, but he’s sharpened his wits by arguing with the saints and gossiping with the angels till he’s able to think of a trick like that. You and I can do a few little things, but it takes a man of God to move mountains, Montana!”

Here the friar came up with them and, in response to a few words from Rubriz, took the hand of Montana in a vast, slow, and long-continued pressure, while his doubting eyes seemed to be struggling to grapple with the soul of the Kid at the same time.

“Here’s three of us that make one man,” said Rubriz, “and while we’re together, let’s see the mountain we can’t fly over and the river we can’t jump across.”