Читать книгу The Gentle Desperado - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 5

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To Robert it would have been sacrilege to start his pilgrimage after sunrise. Only base, laggard souls will let the sun precede them on their journeys. The sacred enthusiasm sustained Robert even through a breakfast of cold bacon and stale pone, washed down with ice water from the creek, until Uncle Jimmy roused and reared himself upon one elbow.

“You stirrin’?” he asked. “Gonna go fishing?”

He learned then that Robert’s instant determination was to start for the grave of his father and thence into the world.

“But maybe you’ll find the world before you find the grave,” suggested the prospector. “Comanche Corner is a dead town, lad, and it died almost as long ago as your dad. But I’ll tell you where it lies.”

He took a bit of charred wood and sketched a map on the floor beside his bunk. A chimney butte to the north, and the bed of the vanished river crossing the plain. There he would find Comanche Corner. God knew how many days’ ride away; Uncle Jimmy did not!

But what he did know was that he had five hundred dollars in his wallet and that it must go into the pilgrim’s pocket. Robert made stout resistance, but finally submitted because he saw that Dinsmore seemed eager to make the gift, and even heaved a breath of relief when Robert accepted.

So he took the money; clasped the hand of his dear benefactor and guardian; and strode off down the mountainside with a pack on his shoulders, a rough staff in his hand, and a Colt automatic which launched seven shots at one pressure of the trigger in a clip holster under his left armpit.

So had Wild Bill, of deathless memory, worn his weapons when in the prime of his glorious career! And even if a man cannot himself be great, he should follow the best examples.

Robert walked for seven hours that morning. His limp grew worse and worse and his feet sorer and sorer. He began to suffer dreadfully, but tasted joy in enduring this torment; for he felt that he had entered the fire which was to change the metal of his nature and give it the finer and sterner quality which it required. He believed in pain; he believed that it had a purifying property. If that were true, by the time he reached the first village in the foothills, all taint should have been washed from Robert’s soul.

He hobbled into the dining room of the hotel and the waitress hooked her thumb over her shoulder.

“Beat it, kid,” said she. “No handouts for bums, bindle-stiffs, or tramps royal here. Not in this joint, baby!”

Robert looked upon her in hurt astonishment, but then he saw that she was a woman and that she was young. Therefore she must be good.

He flushed a little, not because of her rudeness but because of his first harsh thought.

“I beg your pardon,” said Robert. “I don’t blame you for mistaking me for a beggar. I should have brushed my clothes before I came in.”

He backed out, and went to find the pump at the back of the building, while the waitress turned toward a man who sat at the long table eating busily. Above his hat mark his hair was brown; below the hat mark it was white with dust, and all the back of his shirt was also white with dust.

“Bud, did you see that nut?”

“Naw, but I heard him,” said Bud. “Gimme some coffee, will you?”

Hebe had vanished, however. Presently she was hanging out a back window watching our hero soaking his feet in a bucket of cold water. She saw; she nodded with a knowing air; and without a single question she went to her own room and came down with a strip of cotton cloth, washed and worn to the texture of the softest down.

“Wrap ’em up in this,” said she, “and here’s some lard to rub on the skinned places.”

Fernald looked up to her again and flushed even more crimson than the sunburned tip of his nose. He lifted his hat and said in his timid voice: “You’re terribly kind to me! You’re terribly kind,” he repeated.

“Aw, it’s nothing,” said she, and vanished to get the coffee for Bud.

But when Robert had struggled into his shoes again—they seemed a size too small by this time—and sat in his turn at the dining table, the girl served him with heaping portions. Twice she lingered near him until he looked up with his wistful smile.

“What made you do it, kid?” she asked.

“I don’t understand,” said Robert.

“Aw,” remarked the waitress, “you been pounding your feet to pulp for nothing, or just fun, maybe?”

“It’s foolish to have one’s feet give out so soon, isn’t it?” he admitted seriously. “But I don’t quite understand what—”

“Nothin’! Nothin’!” said she in haste. “I’m a sap. But you never can tell—the birds that come through this town!”

She hurried to the kitchen and came back quietly with a white breast of cold chicken.

“Stow that under your ribs, kid. It’ll stick to ’em, I guess.”

When he had finished his meal and paid for it, he begged her to accept a dollar for her kindness. Not that it was a reward for her goodness!

She crinkled the bill between thumb and finger; it was real; and she turned from Robert to put the money in a place of security.

He asked if she could tell him where he could buy a horse.

“I can tell you, honey. Everybody in town has got a horse to sell. All crooks! My stars, when you think what a lot of thieves there are when it comes to selling a horse! But I tell you what you do. You go to Hank Chandler at the far end of the town. He’s got a little paint horse that’d be a regular sweetheart for you. He’ll ask you three hundred. If you pay him more than a hundred and a quarter you are dumb! Oh, that’s all right.” She followed him to the front door. “Is there a ‘she’ in why you left home? You don’t understand? How old are you? Well, never mind! Are you coming back this way again? So long, honey. Now, you take care of yourself. And—hey—you better get a hat with a wider brim or you’ll have that nose burned right offn your face!”

Robert, hat in hand, looked earnestly upon the speaker. “I shall never forget you,” said he softly. “I never shall forget you!”

The waitress watched him out of sight.

“Aw,” said she, “I’m gonna have a heartache for you, baby face!”

Robert walked in a rosy mist, to the farther end of the village. Hank, the horse dealer, sat on the top rail of his corral and talked about the pinto.

Robert heard that this was the one horse that Hank had learned to love. This was the one horse that his family loved.

“Lord pity me if the missis should ever hear of me sellin’ this pony,” said Hank, turning up his eyes.

Robert caught his breath.

“I hope that no act of mine—” he began. “I wouldn’t wish to be a cause of friction!”

The dealer scratched his chin and looked askance.

“But I see that you got an eye for a horse, my son. And them that knows ’em should have ’em! I’d give that horse away to you for five hundred bucks.”

“Isn’t that odd?” said Robert. “It’s exactly the sum that I have in my wallet!”

He took out the sheaf. The dealer steadied himself on the top rail and added, rather hoarsely: “And I wouldn’t mind throwin’ in a bridle, kid, at that!”

The money had almost changed hands, when Robert quite suddenly remembered.

“But,” said he, “I’m under instructions not to pay more than a hundred and twenty-five dollars for that horse. I’m sorry that I forgot.”

The dealer dropped heavily from the fence to his feet. “A hundred and twenty-five damnations!” said he. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

Robert drew back a little.

“I’m very sorry,” said he. “I don’t want to waste your time. I admired the horse so much—but thank you for letting me see—”

He had reached the road when a loud bellow called him back.

“I’ll make it two hundred,” said the dealer, “and make it even. Doggone me if I’ll be able to face the wife though.”

Robert hesitated. The voice of the waitress was still in his ear; but, after all, it was only an extra seventy-five dollars. Moreover, Robert knew horses, and the pinto was made like a watch—neatly, and filled with springs, and all his parts fitted together as by the skill of a jeweler. He would never see fifteen hands, and his blood was pure ragamuffin from the plains and the mountain desert, whereas Robert, in his dreams, never mounted anything less than a coal-black charger of at least seventeen hands; but, after all, Robert was himself some ninety pounds short of his wishes and could content himself with a lightweight pony.

He paid the two hundred without more ado. He bought an old saddle, too, and a bridle, and saddlebags, and a slicker. The individual prices seemed small, but the aggregate was oddly large.

“But who told you,” asked the horse dealer, eying the little sheaf of bills which our hero was restoring to his wallet at the end of these transactions, “who told you that paint horse ought to go at a hundred and twenty-five?”

“The lady in the hotel,” said Robert. “The lady—who waits on the table—”

“That cross-eyed, flat-faced calico!” cried Hank. “I’ll teach her to—”

“Don’t!” said Robert.

“Don’t what?”

“You mustn’t, you know. You mustn’t speak of a lady in such language.”

“I mustn’t?”

He roared so loudly that a tremor passed through Robert; and then, looking earnestly upon Hank, he saw that he was in the presence of one of the evil ones of the world.

“Good Lord!” cried Hank. “Are you crowin’ at me, kid? A youngster like you! Can’t I call that—”

“Not another word!” said Robert firmly.

He raised his hand, his left hand, and shook a warning forefinger. It seemed that Hank was paralyzed with fear. Alas, he was only paralyzed with rage and astonishment. Then, with the flat of his hand, Hank smote the bare cheek of his young customer.

Hank’s was a heavy hand, and it shook Robert to the toes; but not so much as he was shaken by another consideration. For in all the frontier tales which had flowed from the lips of Uncle Jimmy, Robert hardly recalled a dozen clenched fists; certainly no blow had ever been struck with the palm! No, in the mountain desert guns blazed instantly when men quarreled, and, as the flames leaped, lives flickered and went out. And he, Robert Fernald, had been deemed worthy of no greater insult than a blow, flatlings, upon the cheek!

Rage turned his hand to steel—that hand which had been ready for the draw—and shooting it up and over from the hip, Bob lodged the knuckles fairly on the point of Hank’s chin. It was Robert’s favorite punch, in which he had been schooled by the boxing instructor until that gentleman, contented, swore that the blow was as nifty a right hook as ever extracted teeth.

As for Hank, he acknowledged the magic touch by falling on his face like a log; and Robert left him lying there, mounted the pinto and cantered down the street. But even when he was far from the village and the open country received him, Robert’s cheek burned hot with shame, as a knight would have blushed who had been smitten with the flat of the sword.