Читать книгу Trouble Trail - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 10

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It scared me, in a way, to see a girl act as smart as that. What would even a man do, if he hadn’t been able to get a side look at her face, that way that I had?

Mrs. Ops stood it with her lips set for a moment, but Lew was busted up and he said: “Aw, Julie, aw, what’s the matter?”

“You be quiet an’ leave the room!” snaps Mrs. Ops, who had to be mad at somebody.

Lew got as far as the door, and there he stuck, looking back at his sister, while Mom Ops run around the table and laid her fat hand on the back of Julie.

“Now, Julie,” said she, “now don’t you go carrying on like a silly!”

The sobbing of Julie—I mean the laughing—it got worse than ever.

“If it’s the dance, I don’t suppose that I’d stand in the way of your going,” says Mrs. Ops.

She stood back and took a side squint at Julie, and that girl, she settled forward and laid her head on her arms.

“What would your pa say was he to see the state that you’re in?” says Mrs. Ops.

“Poor father!” says Julie.

“Is it him that’s worrying you, honey?” says Mrs. Ops. “He’s g-g-g-gone to fight that m-m-murdering Larry Dickon!” sobs Julie.

“Yes,” says her mother, “and he’ll bring him back in irons.”

She settled down to do some more comforting.

“It’s been preying on you, child,” says she. “It’s worn your nerves thin, thinking about my Wally. But don’t you worry. Wally ain’t the kind to be beat by any one man. I looked over a lot of men before I picked him out, and I’ve never regretted it. If he’d only get some flesh on his bones! Julie, will you please stop crying, honey? Because what will Danny Murphy think when he comes and finds you—”

“I don’t care!” says Julie. “I won’t go with Danny!”

“Julie!” gasps Mom Ops. “And Danny with his fine new rubber-tired rig and his new span of sorrels coming all shined up to take you—”

Now, I slid away from the window, at that. There wasn’t a great deal of brightness on this night, but I aimed to believe that I could tell a span of sorrels taking a new rubber-tired rig down the road.

I went back to Cherry and took her out from the trees and jumped the fence into the road. She was very neat at fences, my Cherry! I cantered straight up the road for a quarter of a mile to the first forking, and then I waited in the shadow of the trees.

I hadn’t been there for a half hour when I heard the clicking of trotting horses coming down the road with no rattle of steel tires behind them, but only a whirring sound, which made me guess that it was Danny. Then, squinting ahead, I saw a pair of high-headed roadsters coming with the checkreins snapping above their necks, and behind them the starlight glistened on the wheels of a new-painted rig and streaked a highlight along its body.

That ought to be Danny Murphy’s layout, I thought. But there wasn’t enough light to tell them bay or sorrel, as they went by. But they was no sooner past than I leaped Cherry after them.

“Steady up, Danny!” said I.

He hadn’t heard Cherry come, because her gallop was as light as blowing dust. But at my voice, he jerked his head around and gave a good look at the muzzle of my Colt.

Then he pulled up.

He was a cool kid. You could tell by the acting of him that Julie must have picked about the best young gent in the countryside to take her to that dance.

He says: “All right, partner. You have me dead to rights. But just tell me how I’m to get my hands up over my head without having these high-headed fools run away with me?”

“You don’t need to have your hands up, Danny,” said I. “Just you keep your hands on the reins for a minute. Keep a hold on them still, get down from the rig, and walk up to their heads. And all the time, I’ll ask you to remember that there is plenty of light for me to see by.”

He turned his head and looked at me, once more. I could see that it was poison for him to give in without a fight, but when he turned his head this time he started a bit and said: “Larry Dickon!” under his breath.

For even at midnight, under a clouded sky, you couldn’t help recognizing Cherry by the silver of her mane and tail. It was embarrassing, in a way, to get myself known, but I was glad of it, in a way, because it was most likely that even a hot-head like Danny Murphy wouldn’t take a chance against me.

He did just as I told him. And when he arrived at the head of the span, I had him lead them to the side of the road. I watched him tie them to a post, and then I tied Danny.

He put up a stiff fight—talking. He explained that he had seventy-two dollars on him, and that he was glad enough to let me have all of it, and that if I would turn him loose, after taking that money, he would swear not to inform against me, but that he was going to a dance that night with a girl that meant a lot to him—

I listened to this talk, holding the rope in my hand, and as I shook my head for the last time and told him to hold out his wrists to have them tied, he set his teeth and let drive straight at my head.

By instinct I pretty nearly pulled the trigger of my Colt and sent him out where the lights don’t shine no more, but I managed not to do that. I just sidestepped that smashing punch and, as he came lurching on in, I let him have a right hook that started from my hip and nearly jerked my own shoulder out of place as it slammed home on the point of Danny’s jaw.

He folded his arms across his face and spilled on the ground, so there I tied him and gagged him—not a mean gag, but one that had ought to of kept him working for a couple of hours before he could do much noise making.

After that I went to the team, unhooked them from the traces, brought them into the woods, drew the buggy in after them, and when I seen that all was clear out of sight from the road, I took Cherry back to her place near the sheriff’s house.

It was a neat little job, and I was pleased. Because though knives and guns have their places, there ain’t anything so satisfying as to land one solid, honest punch and see the other gent turn into a sandman and crumble away into the dirt. If trouble hadn’t started so early with me, I always had intentioned going into the ring and trying my whirl with the best of them. Even Choctaw, that never agreed with me about anything else, always said that it was a shame that I couldn’t make an honest living out of fighting.

Well, I spruced myself up a bit, and parted my hair with my hands, and dusted the outside inch of sand off my coat and my face, and I sashayed up to the front door of the sheriff’s house.

I didn’t know exactly what I aimed to do, except that I was pretty glad that I was standing there. Lew come in answer to my knock.

“Hello, Lew,” says I, “is your sister here?”

“Hello,” says Lew. “Who might you be? Sure she’s here. Come on in!”

Free and easy, that boy always was. He was always at home himself and he wanted everybody else to be at home.

I said that I was all over dust from such a long ride, and that would he just call his sister to the door? He said that he would, and along come the sheriff’s daughter.

She didn’t stop inside the door, or the screen door, either. She just walked right out onto the porch and stood looking up to me. It was a considerable comfort to me to see that she didn’t come no higher than my chin, or not much. Because I was made more broad than long.

I told her that I had come along with a message from Danny Murphy that he was held up and that he wouldn’t be able to get along to see her for about an hour later than he had expected.

“An hour!” says Julie. “Now, what in the world has happened? Come inside and tell me about it?”

“Matter of fact,” says I, “I’m too dusty and I ain’t cleaned up fit for lamplight.”

“That makes no difference,” says Julie. But she didn’t insist. “What’s happened to Danny? Has he had another fight?”

“He’s a great one for that, ain’t he?” says I.

“He is,” said Julie, “but he promised me—oh, well!”

She stopped on that.

“Who was it this time? And has Danny a black eye to take to the dance with me tonight?”

“Nothing,” says I, “except a lump on the side of his chin that don’t look bad at all. Just as if it was a mosquito bite, and no more than that.”

“Humph!” says Julie. “I didn’t hear you say who you were, though?”

“Name is Ripley, called Hank.”

“Are you an old friend of Danny’s?”

“Not special, but I was riding along past his place, down the road, and he spotted me.”

“Oh,” says she, “you were coming down from the hills, then?”

I thought I might as well say yes, and so I did.

“Isn’t it odd, though,” said Julie, “that Danny never has mentioned your name to me? And—you must be an assistant sheriff, or something. Because here you are, wearing two guns! Are they real?” she asked me, laughing a little.

“Oh yes,” says I.

She reached right into the nearest holster and pulled the Colt out. “It feels heavy enough to be real,” says she. “And I think it is real. So hold up your hands, Mr. Ripley!”