Читать книгу Pleasant Jim - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 5

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Long Tom showed no alarm whatever, as though realizing that the sanctity of a guest armed him against all danger. He put the coffee pot on the back of the stove and extended his hand.

“Before we shake,” suggested Pleasant, “tell me if you know about Charlie?”

“Sure do I know about him,” nodded the other.

And at that, since his smile of good will persisted, their hands closed together.

“Had your breakfast, Jim?”

“No.”

“Sit down to this. I’ll drop some more bacon in the pan.”

“Sit down and rest yourself, Tom. This is my business.”

He went to the stove, and a little shudder went through him as he turned his back on the long-rider. With such a man, one never could tell. Perhaps all would be well; perhaps not—and if not, a well-placed forty-five caliber bullet would end the dreams of Pleasant Jim!

However, Long Tom was talking of cheerful odds and ends—how well the valley looked; how the water from the limestone mountains put bone on the yearlings; and there was a brown mare whose cut appealed to Long Tom; perhaps she was for sale?

They were opposite one another at the table, at last, taking stock, letting their imaginations have some scope. To Long Tom it seemed that never before had he seen a man so fit; and there was something about the wrists and the fingers of the rancher that promised speed and power in equal proportion. To Pleasant Jim came the feeling that his match sat before him. Whether hand to hand or gun to gun, for deftness or for strength, Long Tom was a formidable man, and would have been judged so even without the past which was attributed to him. His jaws were somewhat underhung and his expression, perhaps on account of that peculiar feature, was a trifle grim in ordinary moments of repose, though at other times his gay manner and a suggestion of libertinage in his air counteracted the impression. In the meantime, Pleasant determined to give away nothing and to watch every motion of his dangerous guest. At the same time, it was not altogether unpleasant to be near this famous brigand who stood out among other men as a gigantic menhir rises over a ruined city.

“I haven’t come about Charlie,” said Long Tom, dropping suddenly to business, “but I’ve come to see the man who was good enough to take him. Ten hands, they generally have to have; you needed only two. Well, Pleasant, I’m going to use you!”

Pleasant Jim smiled a little.

“All right,” said he.

“I want,” said the other, “anywhere from five days to a week of your time. You’ll need two fast horses—your place is full of them—and you’ll have to have your wits about you. What money do you want for a job like that?”

“Go on,” said Pleasant Jim.

“You have a price on your time. If somebody wanted an extra puncher in your off season, what would you work for?”

“I’d never leave my place for less than fifty a week.”

“I want you to ride two days from here and light a fire on a mountain. Up at the top. There are people who don’t want that fire to be lighted. They might try to give you a bad time coming away. Dangerous, but not too dangerous for you, I’d take it. Well, what would you say to that?”

“A little off the line of punching.”

“Yes. A little. What would you name as a price for that?”

“About five hundred dollars,” said the rancher, striking out at a bold figure.

“I’ll make it a thousand,” replied Long Tom instantly.

“Mind you, if there’s anything crooked about it, I’ll have nothing to do with it.”

“Why should you care, Pleasant, if you’re well paid?”

“Nobody can pay me high enough for a thug’s job. I’ve got my work cut out for me here and what if I have to lose this for the sake of a thousand or two that looks easy but ain’t?”

“You’re tied to this racket?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a snug little valley,” replied the bandit. “I’d choke without a bigger horizon than this, but every man to his own likings—and now I’ll tell you: All you’d have to do would be to take this matchbox, you see? Filled with these same matches—which you’re not to use on your cigarettes because, as you may notice”—here he opened the little metal box—“the heads of these here ain’t apt to light very well! You take this along, and when you get to the place you’re bound for, you light a fire and hang around for a while. Maybe you’ll see a fire blaze up to answer you on one of the nearest peaks. If you do, just put your fire out, and a few inches under the ashes, you bury this here matchbox. After that you can come home.”

“If there was no answering fire?”

“Then you go back to the top of the mountain three nights running and you light the fire every night. If there’s no answer after that, you come back here to me, and you bring the box and the matches with you. I’d do this job myself,” went on Long Tom, “but I got to get Charlie out.”

“You’ll manage that?” grinned Pleasant Jim.

“It’s nothing at all—except a little time and money,” replied the outlaw. “But look at your own part. All you know is, if you’re caught, that somebody gave you this box of matches and told you what to do with it. Nobody can hang you for that, I suppose?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then what do you say?”

One thousand from twenty-five hundred would leave fifteen hundred. There was nothing niggling or obscure about the thinking of Pleasant. He took out a bone-handled bowie knife and began to carve the edge of the table, already much nicked from similar absent-minded whittlings.

“Them that ask too many questions could be damned, I suppose,” said Pleasant Jim.

“Naturally.”

One thousand from twenty-five hundred would leave fifteen hundred—another stroke or two, or a few good sales of horses, and he could pay off Lewis Fisher and thereafter look the world in the face.

He rammed the knife back into its holster.

“Sometimes,” said Pleasant Jim, “you fellows ring in somebody and try to work him all the time afterwards. Now I’ll tell you. I fall for this job; but it’s the last one. I see no harm in it. I don’t stick up anybody. I don’t touch a match to anybody’s barn or reputation. But tell me who the gents will be that might try to snag me?”

“Four chances out of five, you won’t be bothered. The fifth chance is that a lot of hard-boiled gents with a United States marshal at their head may try to lag you.”

Pleasant Jim whistled softly.

“A marshal?” he echoed.

“Does that come too high? You see, I put the cards on the table.”

Pleasant Jim looked slowly around him—but he failed to see the dingy room, the bunk with the tangle of soiled blankets in it, the heap of broken saddles, bridles, spurs, bits, old clothes, worn-out shoes, and a hundred other odds and ends in the corner; he did not notice the staggering, lopsided little table, the stove which leaned wearily to one side, the window, with thin boards from cracker boxes taking the place of panes in several instances, or the footworn boards of the flooring. Instead, he saw a vision of a strong-walled house of stone, thick, soft rugs under foot, fireplaces yawning for the logs piled in the woodshed, and a breath of sweetness and cleanliness through the entire place. Some day all of this vision would come to pass, assuredly, and in that good time, he would have a wife, no doubt, and children to care for, and a high place in the community, and no man on the face of the earth could look up higher than to Pleasant Jim, in the height of his self-respect. Behind him lay the dark years of labor and struggle, of saving of money and spending of soul and body, of all that lay upon his consciousness as remembered night terrors lie on the spirit of a child.

One thousand dollars for a week’s work lifted him closer to the ideal! And if it were work done for a criminal, could he not close his eyes to that fact? Whatever the crime might be, it was hidden from his eyes, and he could say that his only knowledge was of a box of matches to be buried in the hot ashes of a fire!

He turned back to Long Tom; and he saw that though the face of his companion was calm, yet there was a tenseness about the mouth and a grimness about the eyes, so that it was plain that the outlaw set much upon this decision. Well, perhaps Tom felt that this was the beginning of a long association, but as for the illusions of the bandit, let them take care of themselves; they had no part in the life of Pleasant Jim, and they were no portion of his care.

“I’ll take the job,” said he.

Long Tom paused to swallow a mouthful of hot coffee, and as it went down he looked at the other with eyes pleasantly misted by the strength of the drink.

“All right,” he nodded.

He took out a wallet without hesitation and opened it. Pleasant Jim saw within a giddy prospect of banknotes crowded together as thickly as they could be pressed, a veritable book of wealth. The outlaw took forth a slender sheaf—a mere fraction of the whole! He counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills and laid them upon the table under the edge of the plate.

“There you are,” he said.

“No C.O.D. business with you, I see,” murmured Pleasant Jim, highly gratified.

“If you want to play crooked,” said the other, “of course you can. But I trust you, Pleasant. Got anything stronger than coffee, here?”

Jim, without a word, brought from behind the door a small jug of whiskey and poured a liberal dram into a tin cup.

“And you?” asked the other.

“I ain’t sick; and otherwise I don’t take it.”

“You play safe,” remarked Long Tom.

He tossed off his potion and stood up.

“But you’ve done your stepping?” he suggested.

“I’ve done my stepping,” answered Pleasant. “You can’t step and work at the same time, I take it.”

Long Tom walked out. Only at the door he paused and turned again.

“You know Black Mountain?”

“I know it.”

“You might as well start to-day. To-morrow night there may be somebody watching to see a fire, Pleasant. Good luck to you.”

From the saddle he spoke again.

“If you have to shoot at all, I advise you to shoot straight. Second thoughts ain’t worth a damn at a time like that. So long!”

Straight down the valley he galloped his horse with the freedom of one who spent horseflesh as readily as he spent money. The strength of oil-tempered steel was in him; for how readily he had made this gamble and trusted his thousand to one who might keep it and make no return! A touch of envy mingled with Pleasant’s admiration and not for the first time he felt that there was little freedom in his lot. Yonder man lived, but he in his shanty was like a corpse in the lich gate.