Читать книгу Pleasant Jim - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 9

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So Jim Pleasant went to jail. He had a man on either side of him, and two men behind him, and in this fashion they walked their horses down the main street of Fisher Falls.

“Kind of making a little show of me, ain’t you?” said Pleasant to the marshal.

Sam Lee turned his head and blinked a little, for the eye of Pleasant Jim, at certain times, was not as kindly as his name.

“Why, Pleasant,” said he, “the jail is on this street, ain’t it? I could of taken you around the back way, though. Doggone me for not thinking of it! No malice, Jim!”

But malice there was, Pleasant could not help feeling, and he lodged the grudge deep in his heart, where such matters never were forgotten. On either side he had spectators. The blacksmith and both his apprentices ran out, hammer or tongs in hand, to view the procession; Mr. Jackson, the grocer, came to his door with his hands white with flour, and gaped widely, his innocent face turning pale; and trailing behind them, and then running ahead, six, a dozen, twenty boys and girls scampered, shouting, calling, pointing.

Dull red began to rise in the face of Pleasant Jim, and he sat straighter in his saddle; for he felt a weight settling upon him as the ox-bow settles over the neck of the ox. Not faces only, but words were spoken which he never would forget. Men, he thanked his proud gods, dared not say them, but the women found their tongues readily enough, calling to one another from their doorsteps:

“It takes a thief to catch a thief!”

“I knew no good never would come out of him. No good never comes out of a killer!”

He turned grimly to the marshal.

“Did you hear that?”

“Don’t you mind ’em, Jim. They think you’re down. But you ain’t. You been a little careless; that’s all. And when you’re out, they’ll grin at you again.”

“They called me a killer. Why, I never killed a man in my life!”

“No?” said the marshal, raising his eyebrows. “I was thinking about the three half breeds that came down from Fort Mason to hunt you—that was five years back, wasn’t it?”

“Half breeds!” sneered Pleasant.

“And the Mexicans that cornered you in Phœnix?”

“Maybe you could find a nigger or two to add to the list,” said Pleasant angrily, “but I’m talking about white men, Sam! I never killed one in my life!”

“Now, that’s a true thing,” said the marshal. “Mighty true. There is some that shoot straight enough to kill; but there is some that shoot so much straighter that they don’t have to kill. And I wonder, Pleasant, how many fellows you’ve dropped with a slug through the shoulder or the hip? Yes, sir, that straight shooting of yours has saved many a man his life! Take young Charlie Rizdal, for instance!”

To this the prisoner made no answer, for he suspected that there was more than a touch of irony in the speeches of the marshal. They came before the jail, and over the door, upon the eaves, a maize bird sat, tilting in the wind and eyeing Pleasant Jim, as he thought, like a little red-stained spirit of darkness.

He held back at the door for an instant; but the three deputies closed up instantly behind him; the jailer was standing before him, grinning broadly, and trying to mask his malice behind an insufficient hand. He was too close to the trap and he must enter.

He stood in a little room and had to answer questions: “What was his full name? Where was he born? When was he born? What was his occupation? Had he ever been in jail before and if so for what offense?”

“Hell, Danny,” said he to the jailer, “you can answer all those questions about as good as I can. Why do you ask ’em?”

“Matter of form,” said the other. “I dunno; I’d get fired if I didn’t do it this way.”

Pleasant answered grudgingly, for he had an increasing desire to make trouble; but now he was to be searched, and a thorough job they made of it, going through every stitch of his clothes, taking away his knife, his wallet, even his comb.

“It’s made of steel,” said the jailer in explanation.

“You hound!” exploded Pleasant. “I’ll make you sweat for this!”

“Will you?” sneered the other. He stepped up close and looked his prisoner closely in the eye. “You’ll sing smaller before you get out of this,” he suggested.

For the first time, Pleasant was thoroughly frightened, for since he came to manhood all men in this district had known and feared him; this jailer, for instance, would sooner have twitched the beard of a lion than badgered Jim Pleasant the day before. But now the jailer was something more; he was magnified by the power of the law which lay like a shadow behind him, and out of the excess of that power, he could afford to sneer at his new prisoner.