Читать книгу Pillar Mountain - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 10

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Philip looked to his companion for an explanation, but Doc Rivers was clutching the bar tightly with both hands. A tremor, or what seemed a tremor, shuddered through him. Beyond him appeared half a dozen blank faces of men who were slowly craning back or forward in order to have a clear view of the last speaker. As for the bartender, a light of terror and wonder appeared in his eyes, and he was the first to break the silence with a hoarse voice.

“Milk,” said the bartender.

“Sufferin’—sweet—mama!” said Doc Rivers.

A deep and sympathetic voice added, from farther down the bar, “It’s these here damn cooped-up autumn days. They burn the heart out of you. They burn the head out of you. You better lay the kid out and wrap up his head in wet towels. He’s gunna be took right bad in a few minutes.”

“I’m very sorry,” said Philip. “If you haven’t any milk, a glass of water will do very well for me, thank you.”

Another silence followed, but it was shorter. The bartender slowly and carefully moistened his white lips.

“My God,” said he, “this here is a bad case. Bill, you’ve done some doctoring in your day, ain’t you?”

“Hold on!” cried Doc Rivers, as though returning to himself. “Hold on, boys. Lemme ask the kid a few questions. Son, have you ever tasted beer?”

“No,” said Philip, “I haven’t.”

Doc Rivers waited for this important information to be heard upon all hands, in the meantime turning a triumphant eye about the barroom and challenging every face.

Then he added: “I ask you a simple question, kid. You try to recollect. Did you ever see a glass of whisky?”

He underlined these words with little pauses before and after every one. But Philip answered at once: “Oh, no. But my uncle once had a glass of whisky.”

Even Doc Rivers, who seemed braced and prepared for some such reply, who had led on the others towards the shock of it, seemed fairly unstrung, and as for the rest, they simply were staggered. One man, heavy of body and red and round of face, sank into a chair with a crash and remained there. The others wandered slowly in the direction of Philip and came to a focus upon him.

“Is it real?” said one slender and sun-dried man. “It ain’t a dream, boys,” he added in rather pathetic tones. “It ain’t something that you’re puttin’ over on me?”

He reached out and touched Philip’s shoulder with the tip of a forefinger, and then he started back a little, almost as though he had been burned. Loafer began to rumble a danger signal, and the crowd scattered a little.

“You better fork over that glass of water,” said Doc Rivers, and when it was presented to Philip and the latter had drunk it, he added: “You might go out onto the veranda and rest yourself a minute. I won’t be long.”

To the veranda Philip went. He would have preferred to remain among these strangely silent men in the cool of the barroom, but he felt that the suggestion was more or less of a command. So he went out onto the veranda, shadowed, to be sure, but drenched with the heat which was reflected from the street. Before the watering trough, one hip sagging, and mouth still adrip, Doc Rivers’ mustang was submitting to the flare of the sun, just as the other horses of earlier arrivals were doing, here and there.

Sadness fell steeply, like midnight at midday, upon the soul of Philip, for he felt now that between him and others of his race there existed great voids and gulfs of difference which he might spend half a life-time attempting to cross and yet never arrive at the goal. Behind beer and whisky there lay, apparently, some important mystery. He would attempt to learn what it was, in due time.

A pleasant breeze was rising, and fanning against the swinging doors of the barroom, it kicked them open a trifle and allowed flashes of conversation to float out to him.

“He could hit the white of your eye at a thousand yards, that’s all that he could do.”

“Come off the mountain with a damn wolf that he called a dog.”

“Never knew nothin’, never seen nothin’, never heard nothin’. He was raised in a glass case!”

He felt, with no real assurance, that some of these remarks, at least, were intended for him, for it was always the voice of Doc Rivers, and then he heard a burst of loud laughter, a stamping of feet, and Rivers protesting in shrill tones.

The swinging doors were thrust open.

“Kid, you come on in!” commanded someone.

Philip rose and faced a burly man with a neck as knotted with strength as the trunk of a tree. Two small, overbright eyes, now sparkled at him, now were lost in gloom, as the heavy brows of the stranger twitched up and down.

“You come on in. I’m gunna teach you some tricks!” laughed the stranger.

Philip passed through the doorway, obediently. He hardly liked the appearance of this man, and certainly he did not like an ugly quality which lurked behind his voice.

“Me an’ Archie, we’re gunna take you in hand,” said the other. “What in hell could a dried-up runt like Doc Rivers do for you? Me an’ Archie, we’ll make you a regular college graduate, in no damn time whatever. I’m Chisholm. I’m Bert, and there’s Archie. Maybe you’ve heard of us?”

He leered, and Philip blinked once or twice to clear his eyes, to clear his mind.

“I really haven’t,” said he.

Someone in the barroom chuckled, and Bert Chisholm swerved with a roar of anger.

“Who started a horselaugh?” he asked fiercely.

All at once, there was silence. Doc Rivers was pale and stiff, gripping his glass hard. The tall bartender had begun to bite his lips anxiously.

“Here’s your place,” said Bert Chisholm. “Right over here in the middle.”

He took the arm of Philip with a mighty hand and placed him in the center of the bar.

“Here’s Archie on one side of you. Here’s me on the other. I guess you ain’t got pretty good company, eh?”

He leered at Philip again.

“I’m a man-maker, or I’m a man-breaker,” said Bert Chisholm. “Ain’t I, Archie?”

“I don’t appear to see nobody that says you ain’t,” said Archie. “But maybe I ain’t hearing good, today. I thought I heard somebody laugh, a minute ago, and I been waitin’ for the coyote to howl agin!”

Philip looked anxiously to Doc Rivers for a clue as to what he should do, or what was expected of him, but Rivers had a face of stone.

“Now,” said Bert, “you see this here glass? This is whisky, kid. And you’re gunna drink it.”

“Certainly,” said Philip meekly, and took the glass.

He was certain that scorn and derision appeared on the face of both the giants who surrounded him. However, he took the glass and tasted it. He set it down and coughed. Fire had been introduced to his throat.

“I can’t drink it,” choked Philip. “I don’t like it, you know.”

“He don’t like it,” said Archie Chisholm.

“He don’t like it!” repeated Bert. “He don’t like it. It ain’t milk, is it?”

“No,” said Philip. “It’s not milk.”

“But when I say it’s milk, it is milk.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Philip. “I’m sorry sir.”

“He’s sorry, sir,” said Archie, and began to laugh in a vast flood of noise.

“He calls me ‘sir’, now. He’s gunna call me God A’mighty, in another minute,” said Bert Chisholm. “And this was your idea of a dangerous man, was it? This was your idea of a fightin’ man, Rivers?”

Rivers, attempting to speak, made only a faint bubbling sound; and his face was a dreadful thing to see, so splotched was it with white and with purple.

“Drink it up—drink it down!” bellowed Archie. “He shoots out the whites of a gent’s eyes, does he? I’m gunna see. I think he’s a yaller dog!”

Philip sighed. He felt rather sick and cold. And then he raised the unwelcome glass of fire again.

“Stop it, and put it down,” barked Doc Rivers.

He obeyed with a start.

Then, after a terrible hush, two burly heads turned towards Rivers.

“It ain’t possible that I heard somebody speak?” suggested Bert Chisholm. “It wasn’t a skinny fool by name of Rivers, was it?”

“If there ain’t any shame in the kid, there’s shame in me,” said Rivers. “I’ll die before I see you make him take water!”

“Whisky, son. Whisky—not water. But maybe water, too. You’re gunna stop us, are you?”

“I’m gunna do my best,” said Rivers.

He was trembling violently, his back to the bar. His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed with difficulty.

“You—hell!” said Bert Chisholm, and his big hand shot forth.

It was only his left hand, but it was enough. It grazed the head of Rivers and shot him sidelong to the floor. At the same instant the other bystanders leaped for the wall, and Philip saw Bert standing over Rivers, a gun naked in his hand.

“You pull that gun,” screamed Chisholm, “and I’m gunna kill you as sure as God made little apples. I’m gunna drill you. I’m gunna blow you to hell!”

Doc Rivers, blood on his face, lay still; he no longer fumbled at the gun which was belted at his hip, but he raised one hand and covered his eyes as if to shut out some dreadful sight, and Philip could guess that the terrible picture had something to do with himself.

“Now,” said Archie Chisholm, “we’re gunna get back to that little drink of whisky, brother?”