Читать книгу The Gambler - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 9

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Even an enemy may give obviously good advice. Poor Ralph Cromarty could do nothing but turn his head and stagger down the hill. His glory had departed from him. He was no longer the invincible. Perhaps, to-morrow, he would have to begin again in the ranks and fight his way back toward acknowledged leadership. Oh, life was bitter, indeed!

The conqueror turned on Corcoran. “Looks like you owe me ten dollars,” he said.

“Ten dollars?”

“For seeing Willie Kern and then for bringin’ him to you.”

“You’re Willie, of course?”

“I’m him.”

Without a word Corcoran drew out two five-dollar bills and extended them toward the youngster, but Willie Kern turned the brightest crimson; his hand did not stir to take the money.

“Look here, mister,” he said. “I only asked for it because I thought you wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Why, son,” said Corcoran, “it’s yours.”

Willie drew back a little, standing very straight. He was as fearless and wild, indeed as the very hawk to which young Cromarty had likened him.

“I ain’t no beggar,” he said. “I don’t have to go around askin’ for something for nothin’.”

Corcoran knew when a point must not be pressed. He put up his money.

“Well, Willie,” he said, “you’ve earned the money, and it’s yours whenever you’re willing to take it. And, between you and me, I understood that you have only yourself to depend upon. Does any one take care of you?”

“Me? I don’t need no takin’ care of.”

He talked with his face half turned away so that he could keep a careful outlook over the countryside.

“You make your own way?” suggested Corcoran.

“Sure.”

“How do you make money, then?”

“I work for chuck and a bunk, mostly,” said the boy.

“And what do you do?”

“Pretty nigh anything. I could rope, if I had a hoss. You bet I can swing a rope and daub it on, too! But they don’t gimme no hoss to ride. They got some waddles around these here parts that’d make your head swim to watch ’em work. But they won’t gimme a chance to show ’em what I can do. Mostly I got to milk cows and such like chores that ain’t fit for nothin’ but the womenfolk. I’m a boss woodchopper, though.”

“You make enough to keep yourself and to go to school, eh?”

The boy flushed, as though revealing a secret shame. “A gent has got to have something to do with his time,” he said. “Besides, that’s Miss Murran. Dog-goned if she can’t talk you into most anything!” He added sharply:

“Why’d you want to see me?”

“I have a message for you from Harry Bristol.”

“Him!” snorted Willie. Rage and disgust clouded his face. “What you got to do with him?”

“He thought you’d be interested to know that he was a dead man when I left him.”

The cloud disappeared from the face of the boy. “Dead!” he echoed. “Well, he was a hand with a buckin’ bronc. He didn’t pull no leather even on the wild uns. They’ll have to shoot their outlaw hosses now that Harry Bristol ain’t around to break ’em in! How’d they corner him? How many did it take to kill him?”

“Only one.”

“You don’t say!” He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers and with his legs braced wide apart, he stood regarding his companion and wiggling his brown toes thoughtfully in the dirt.

“One man and a little luck beat Bristol,” admitted Corcoran. “He thought you’d be glad to know that no more whippings were coming your way.”

The boy flushed again. “That was when I was a kid,” he said. “If he tried it now, he’d wish he’d set fire to his house before he tackled me!”

“I believe it,” said Corcoran.

“Look here, Mr. Corcoran, who done that there shooting? Or was it knives?”

“A gun turned the trick. I was using the gun, Willie.”

The boy blinked at him and then whistled softly. “I know,” he said at last. “Talkin’ soft and shootin’ quick. I might of knowed that was your kind.” He looked at Corcoran with new eyes. “How’d it happen?” he asked reverently.

“I saw the sun wink on his rifle through the brush.”

“He was lyin’ there waitin’ to take you when you wasn’t ready?”

“That was about it!”

“Think of him,” said Willie Kern, “bein’ once the husband of my mother. Well, sir, dog-goned if it don’t make me sort of sick.”

“Look yonder, Willie. Some of your friends are coming back to find you, but I don’t see Ralph Cromarty among them.”

“He’s peppered,” said the boy, “and he’s salted, too. Inside of a week they’ll be ten boys in town that can lick him easy. Up to to-day they wasn’t nobody that had a chance with him. Gents are like that. One lickin’ sort of takes the heart out of ’em. About the rest of ’em—well, I seen ’em comin’ half a minute ago.”

“You don’t need to worry, partner. I’ll keep them away from you.”

“Huh!” grunted the boy. “I don’t need no help.”

“You won’t let me give you a hand?”

“Thankin’ you kindly, I’ll ride my own hoss!”

“But they’re making a circle to shut you in.”

“I’ll bust the circle in two then,” said this dauntless firebrand, surveying the scurrying groups with a calm eye.

In another moment the two flank parties, running at full speed, had joined hands. The circle was complete, and now it began to shrink in on its center, which was the huge oak tree, standing solitary on the hilltop.

“What can you do?” asked Corcoran.

“Shimmy up the tree,” said the boy, yawning with a rather overacted carelessness. “But they wouldn’t play fair. They’d fire stones at me till they got me down. Only other thing is to run right through ’em.”

“What will they do if they catch you?”

“More’n half kill me,” decided Willie aloud. “That’s the fun of it. I’d move on out of San Pablo, but I’d hate to miss seein’ some of them black eyes!”

He chuckled softly to himself, and the light in his eyes were the light in the eyes of a cat when it stalks the canary, helpless in the cage.

“You won’t let me give you a hand?”

“D’you aim to stay on in San Pablo, partner?”

“I don’t know. I may.”

“Then you better not be none too friendly to me. They won’t give you no vote of thanks for it. I’m mighty glad to of met you, Mr. Corcoran. See you later.”

He was off like a flash down the hillside, running not toward the thinnest part of the line which hurried in toward the tree, but aiming his descent straight at a dense group which compacted and stopped its advance in order to meet his charge. From every part of the circle came frantic shouts of encouragement bidding those in the line of the attack to stand fast, for succors were coming. In an instant the boys were in motion toward that vital spot. And as soon as they were in movement, gaps began to appear in the line.

The able tactics of Willie were most apparent then. Just before the movement when he seemed about to crash into the crouched, waiting mass of youngsters straight before him, he veered to the right sharply as a hawk veers when it beats against the wind with a wing tip pointed down to the earth. At one of the near-by gaps in the line he darted.

Three or four, with yells of alarm, threw themselves into his path. They were like stubble before the breath of the fire! One dived at Willie. He leaped into the air and doubled up like a jackknife closing, clearing the head of the tackler. His knotted body drove into a second foe. Both tumbled headlong, but Willie was up like a bounding rubber ball. Two more were just before him. His brown arms flashed in the sun; the two staggered back, and Willie was through.

As he ran, his head was turned over his shoulder, and his shrill, taunting voice floated back up the hill to Corcoran. There was no need for the fugitive to use his best speed. He merely lounged along through the sunburned grass, for the “gang,” after a feeble, futile lurch in his direction, gave up all hope of coming up with him. Instead, they picked up stones and clods of dirt and hurled them in his direction in the hope that they might cripple him with an accurately placed missile. To this annoyance Willie gave not even the small attention of a turned head. Neither did he increase his speed, but, giving his course a zigzag current, he soon dropped out of sight over the top of the next hill, leaving his would-be captors discouraged.

The fight and the pursuit was over and Corcoran, feeling as though he had witnessed a scene out of a new Odyssey, swung into the saddle on his black horse.

The boys stood about in confused groups, muttering to themselves, panting with the labor of their much running, with here and there a few shrill voices of the leaders pointing out what had been done amiss and accusing those at fault recklessly on every side.

“Will you ever get him, boys?” asked Corcoran, as he went by.

“You bet!” they shouted furiously.

“Ten dollars,” said Corcoran, smiling, “to the first boy who gives him a black eye.”

And he rode chuckling back toward San Pablo.