Читать книгу The Sheriff Rides - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 10

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To his mind, there was no better way of expressing the difference between his first entrance and this one; for when he first rode into the place, he had been surrounded by sneers and short answers, but now he knew beforehand that all of this was altered.

He had proof positive as he clattered across the bridge, for as he reached the arch of it, he passed a small boy who cried out to a companion:

“Look! He’s got it again.”

Their voices followed in Signal’s ear as he rode on.

“He must of bought it back!”

“Bought nothin’. Would Langley sell?”

And after this, Signal reduced the pace of his horse to a jog trot, because he was anxious to hear any further comments that might be made.

The town of Monument was large enough to use two newspapers which mutually abused one another, but the papers were not needed to spread about the local news, it appeared. They could comment, but they could hardly spread any tales. Before Signal had ridden three blocks, he was aware that the entire city knew about the stealing of his horse. Men and women stopped short upon the street and stared at the roan, and at him. And when he came back to the sheriff’s office and dismounted to tether his horse at the rack, a little crowd gathered—across the street, as though they did not wish to come closer for fear of committing themselves.

Now, stepping onto the sidewalk, he made reasonably sure that the roan would not be stolen a second time. He could tell that, as it were, by the signs of the times, and those signs he read in the little murmur that ran before him and behind. Upon the sidewalk he passed the same tall, pale man in the frock coat who had treated him with such rudeness before. He now gave Signal a cheerful smile and a nod which said, as clearly as though words had been used:

“Well done!”

Signal went up the stairs to the sheriff’s office and walked in upon a moment so tense that no head turned toward him. He waited. He could afford to wait! And so he saw the sheriff’s big friend rake in the stakes with a smile and turning—

“By the long arm of Aaron!” said he. “The kid is back already.”

The sheriff turned to the boy with a grin.

“You lost your—way, kid, I suppose?”

Said Signal: “I’ve come to be sworn in as deputy sheriff.”

He had been turning over that sentence in his mind on the way back to town, and the spectacular quality in it pleased him enormously. As for the sheriff, he seemed thoroughly staggered. He got up from his chair and came to the counter with a frown.

“You went out there and found your horse at the Pineta house?”

“I don’t know the name of the house.”

“Langley wasn’t there, then. But what about the greasers?”

“Langley was there; there were only a couple of greasers.”

“But you slipped the horse away without anybody seeing? That’s smart work, my boy!”

“They saw, well enough, but Langley tripped and fell down at just the right time for me. There wasn’t much shooting; I don’t think anyone was hurt.”

“Langley was there—also the greasers; and still you got that horse away!”

The sheriff summed up in a puzzled voice, as one to whom a conundrum had been proposed, incapable of solution. Then he said quietly:

“My boy, if you’re what you seem to be, you’re what I want as a deputy. I don’t know exactly what happened at the Pineta place, but if you’ve brought back your horse, that’s enough for me. We’ll swear you in right now, if you want. And you can take down two weeks’ advance, if that will please you!”

In five minutes, Monument received a new deputy sheriff, named John Alias.

“You stick by that name?”

“It’s as good as another.”

“As good as any other to start trouble, but that’s your business. What do you know about Monument?”

“Nothing.”

“You have to know everything. You know the Eagans and the rest of ’em?”

“I never heard of any Eagans of Monument. I’ve only heard of a Fitzgerald Eagan.”

The sheriff turned to his companions.

“The kid has heard a lot,” he said. “He’s heard of Fitzgerald Eagan.”

And a white whiskered elderly fellow remarked:

“He must of been plumb diving into the old books of lore, I’d say. He’s been hunting the newspapers pretty close, if he’s heard of Fitz.”

By which, Signal was wise enough to understand that he had mentioned a great celebrity, for one cause or another.

“You boys clear out,” said the sheriff. “I’ve gotta talk to this lad. Run along. We gotta be alone in here!”

“Teach him how to shoot and how to pray,” said he of the white whiskers. “I got an idea that he’ll need to do both before he’s many days older!”

They trooped away. Signal sat down at the center table in a shaft of sunshine; the sheriff sat down in the shadow out of which the fume of his cigar ascended and made a strange, blue-brown writing, like the scrawl of a child, across the pathway of the sun.

“Now, John Alias, we’ll talk shop.”

“I suppose we’d better.”

“You’ve lodged yourself here,” said the sheriff, “in a house where trouble is served up boiled for breakfast and fried for lunch and hashed for supper. You know that?”

“I guessed that,” observed the boy. “Nobody glad-handed me when I came in.”

“You didn’t look worth a tumble, or you’d have had plenty of lying, sneaking crooks around trying to pick your pockets or to lead you into one of the gambling houses, or to dope you in a saloon and roll you afterward. You understand what sort of place Monument is, now?”

“I begin to read a few of the headlines. I don’t know the whole article, as yet.”

“You won’t, either, my boy! Not for years. Not even then. I’ve been here for three years, studying everything like a book, and still I don’t know much. Hardly anything at all, as a matter of fact. Do you follow that?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Where were you raised? Back East?”

“No. Just on the other side of the mountains.”

He hesitated to say this much; but, after all, “the other side of the mountains” included a large sweep of country. The sheriff, noting this hesitation, smiled in turn. He grew more amiable with every moment.

“You didn’t come here for fun, my boy,” he suggested.

Signal shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t talk, then,” said the sheriff. “Don’t say a word, if it hangs on your tongue a little. What people were before they came to Monument hardly matters at all. It’s what they turn out to be here that bothers me. I’ve seen the hardest boiled crooks in the world tame down and turn white inside of two days in Monument. And I’ve seen the straightest lads that ever came out of good homes come out here to have a little fun and to take a whack at silver—and they’ve gone bad quicker than meat in hot weather. So I say that you never can tell. Only, I want you to open up your ears and listen to one piece of advice from me.”

“I’m listening,” said the youth.

“You’ve been raised to shoot and ride. I can see that. Ride straight and shoot straight. There’s nothing better than that. But remember this. If you never crossed those mountains before, this is your first trip to the West. This is your first trip to Montana days, to California in Forty-nine, to hell-and-fire. They’ve got the railroad and the telegraph spilled all over the country, now. They’ve got newspapers in Monument, and they’ve got a doggone opera house, and everything else that a man would like to see. But I’ll tell you, under that flossy front, this Monument city is as wild as ever any camp in California or Montana; it’s as crazy and as hot as Abilene or Dodge City ever was in their palmiest days—which ain’t so long ago, at that! Discard all your first ideas, while I take you by the hand and lead you up to meet Miss Monument!”