Читать книгу The Long Chance - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 7

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However, as the boat pulled down the stream, cutting along fast with the current behind her, Fort Bostwick came into view again and I looked the place over hungrily, wondering if I should ever forget it.

No, I have never forgotten. I remember perfectly the square shoulders of the fort itself rising above the huddle of houses, which surround it like children pressing to its knees for protection. Protection from the nakedness of the plains that slipped away on all sides. Protection from the dangers of the mountains that piled rough castles of blue in the north and west. I think that I could sit down and draw the whole thing now, if I had any craft for such an art. I could put in the special color of each roof, and the degree of blackness which weather had given to each unpainted shack; and I think that the last thing that I saw was the major’s favorite gray mare on top of the hill near the river, for the snow had not yet driven her in to seek shelter. Very bleak and desolate she looked on the crest of that hill against the dark, smoky, rolling sky—bleak and desolate as my own heart felt in my breast.

And it was well that I remembered the fort so perfectly, for I was never to be able to refresh my recollection. I never laid my eyes upon it again; no, nor upon the whole section of the mountains around it. Other portions of the West I was to know, but my immediate past was wiped out. A new life lay before me.

How new and strange that life was to be, I hadn’t the slightest guess at that moment. But I knew that my soul had turned to the thinnest sort of air when a man paused by me. I looked at him and saw that he was smiling. And then I saw the clerical collar which he wore, and the black hat, and the robe.

Though my religion was not his, yet I could not help feeling that there was a wonderful understanding and kindness in his eyes.

“A year from to-day, my boy,” said he, “you will wonder if you were ever really unhappy in your life! What has sorrow to do with your broad shoulders? Shrug it off! Shrug it off!”

He walked on. I found out afterward that he was nursing a sick companion, so I didn’t see him again in the whole course of our trip down the river. But those words of his remained with me.

That night was wretched enough. But in the morning, the sun was glistening outside the stateroom window. Through the port I saw that we had passed beyond the area of the storm; and the familiar brown fields stretched away on either hand, for the banks of the river were very low here, and the tide more than reasonably high.

My good cheer came back to me at once and, after I had washed and shaved, I walked up and down the deck, ready to smile at the world, if need be, with no qualms of spirit.

About mid-morning, we ran into a section of buffalo herd, swimming the stream. They swam sluggishly and, according to their nature, paid not the slightest heed to the big boat which was steaming down on them. The captain had to reverse his engines and, backing water all the time, he let the current steal us forward inch by inch through the crowd of swimmers. The passengers were in a great state of excitement. And I saw a tenderfoot fire bullet after bullet into the herd, and yell with joy as he saw the dead ones go down. He couldn’t use the meat, he couldn’t stop to take the robes. It wasn’t even sport. Simply contemptible butchery. But no one spoke to him. A few of the true plainsmen shrugged their shoulders, but that was all.

In the meantime, there was another commotion on the bridge of the boat, and I heard some vague words about a white buffalo. I had seen two white robes. And I had watched the Indians pay fabulous prices for them; for, of course, the tribe which can sacrifice a white buffalo robe to the sun is sure to have good fortune in war and hunting for years to come! But I had never seen a white buffalo, and so I ran up to the bridge without asking permission.

The captain was in a great state of excitement. And, looking in the direction in which he pointed, I was able to see the big bull, a beautiful dazzling white, for he was fresh from his bath in the river. He was rambling on across the plains, with hundreds of his fellows around him, but his color, or perhaps it was his great size, made him stand out above the rest.

“I’d give five hundred for that robe!” cried the captain. “I’d give nearly that much for the mask alone!”

And he stopped the boat and ordered the skiff to be lowered over the side.

It seemed to me odd that no one attempted to shoot the bull. I pointed out to the captain that, by the time the skiff reached shore, the bull would probably be out of range, and the men had no horses with which to follow. He agreed, with a groan, and then, leaning over the rail, he begged some one on board to take a chance at a long-distance shot to bring down the quarry.

“There’s Sam Cross standing beside you,” said a passenger. “He’s about as good as the next one with a rifle.”

The captain whirled around on me, and he didn’t have to ask me twice. I got them to bring me three rifles, loaded. Three of exactly the same make and weight and caliber. Uncle Steve had taught me the trick. You get your aim with the first bullet as nearly as you can; then, if you make an error, you can try to correct it a little with the second shot, and the third one gives you a really good chance, even at a great distance.

If only the bull didn’t bolt!

I took a careful aim, with the captain dancing about me and begging me to shoot quickly, because he pointed out that the bull was moving away every second. The first shot was fired, and the captain groaned, and so did half of the passengers. There was such interest in that queer hunt.

But the white bull wasn’t touched. I thought that I had fired a little to the right and short; and, sure enough, while the white bull remained unconcerned, a cow near him whirled around and started plunging and fighting.

I corrected my aim quickly, and setting my teeth I slammed the second shot. Straight at him, but a little short, I suppose. The third time I tried and, by this time, I was holding the piece in the air at such a sharp angle that it seemed impossible to strike the mark. It was impossible—had not Uncle Steve given me a tremendous schooling in range-finding.

At any rate, after I fired the third shot, everything went on as before. I was shooting from such a distance, and the banks of the river so shut in the noise of the explosions, that the buffalo paid no attention, except the wounded cow. The white bull walked straight on after the third shot, and the captain yelled, “Man the boat!”

Just then the white chief paused, swung his head from side to side, and dropped suddenly to his knees.

“He’s hit!” screamed a hundred throats. And then, “A kill! A kill!”

For, sure enough, the white bull had toppled over on his side.

Well, it was a great shot, and I was as vain and as flattered as could be at having managed it. But of course there was a whacking lot of luck about the thing.

You see, that bullet had been fired at such an angle that it caught the bull just behind the horns and, glancing down, broke his neck. He had gone on a few automatic paces. But when he dropped, he was stone dead.

They rowed ashore, got the hide off, and the mask, and brought them back to the boat; and the captain wanted to pay me anything that I would name. But I didn’t want money. I felt, somehow, that any money I made out of skill with weapons was poisoned. I thanked him and told him that it was the best sport I had ever had.

I want to be forgiven for having insisted in such detail on the way I shot that buffalo, because I freely admit that it sounds a great deal like boasting. However, as a matter of fact, I have to tell about the thing, because it has a bearing on the moment which was the turning point of my life, as you’ll learn later on.

At any rate, my not taking money from the captain was a pretty good thing for me in a great many ways. After that, there was nothing that he wouldn’t do for me, and all the passengers were extremely cordial. On the third day after the shooting affair, an old, nut-brown fellow took hold of my arm, gave it a squeeze and said to me: “Kid, they been lying to me about you back there at the fort. You ain’t no safety killer, and you never could have been. I know the type too well, and you ain’t it!”

I couldn’t give him an answer, of course, but it almost choked me with anger and with shame to hear him say it. I wanted to go back and murder the whole civilian population at Fort Bostwick. And yet, another mean moment of reflection told me that the report had been right, and I had been the lowest hound in creation.

Now we drifted down the river, making pretty good time. It was a jolly company, because people who go West are apt to feel a little desolate and dreary; but people going back East are like country folks headed for town. They expect fun and excitement.

So we all became jolly and comfortable, and the men were calling each other by their first names, and the few women aboard were very friendly, except to one another; and, as for me, I grew so good-natured that I wandered into a game of monte, and lost every penny that I had except a souvenir five-dollar gold piece.

It made me gloomy for a little while, but the very next day we came to the end of our trip; and I was so excited over seeing the waters of the Mississippi for the first time that I forgot all about my bad luck.

The captain made me take fifty dollars. So I left him one of my rifles as part payment for the loan, and went through the town to see the sights. I woke up in the morning broke again and ready to admit that Chandler had sheltered me from a great many of the dangers of the world—and kept me from a great deal of knowledge of it, too.

In fact I was as raw a greenhorn as ever came out of the wilderness, when I first looked at the muddy, sliding current of the Mississippi.

I had intended trying to press straight across the continent and get to one of the big Eastern cities; Philadelphia, Boston, New York, they were only names to me, and I really didn’t care which one of them I landed in.

So I went down with my bag to the edge of the river where the boats were at the docks, and there fortune took the game in hand and sent me in a direction of which I had never thought.