Читать книгу The Longhorn Feud - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 6

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Young Mr. Litton overtook Willow just as the latter was approaching the neighborhood of Pudge Oliver’s place.

He said, “Tom, the time has come for us to settle down for a little while.”

“Sure, I knew that, I knew that,” answered Willow. “We’ll settle down here in a harbor full of reefs open to the wind, with a steer called the Dead Man for an anchor to windward. Ain’t that the plan?”

“That’s the advantage of having had you with me so long, Willow,” said Litton. “You know what’s in my mind—and that’s a great thing for me.”

“Me?” said Willow. “I don’t know what’s in your mind, and I don’t wanta know. I ain’t such a fool that I wanta know the future. I’d rather keep hopin’ about it.”

“The first thing,” said Litton, “is to get a place to stay here in town—somewhere on the edge of it. Next, we’ll have to put in a supply of guns, because we may need some of ’em, Willow. You can see that. The people around here have an itch that only a spray of lead can cure.”

Willow groaned, but made no answer.

“You collect the horses,” directed Litton, “and I’ll step into the gun shop and see what they have in the way of what we want.”

“Samuel Raeburn, Guns and Ammunition,” was the legend that appeared above the door of the shop.

Pushing open the door, Litton stepped in and found sitting on the counter the same freckle-faced lad whom he had collared on the street, not long before. The boy’s hands were idly gripping the edge of the counter, and his brown, bare legs were swinging. He looked at Litton with blank eyes.

“You the proprietor of the shop, brother?” asked Litton.

The boy’s bland, deceptively innocent expression did not change as he called out, “Hey, Lou!”

A girl’s voice answered, “Yes, Jimmy?”

“Come and look at,” said Jimmy.

Footsteps hurried, a door was pulled open. “That worthless mongrel of yours has treed my cat again,” scolded the girl in the doorway. “If you—” She paused, seeing the stranger. With eyes as blue and bright as Blue Barry Litton’s eyes she looked straight back at him.

“Look at,” said the boy. “This is what I wanted you to see.—This is the one that grabbed me on the street.”

“I want to look at a pair of eight-bore double-barreled shotguns,” said Litton to the girl, “and a couple of Winchesters.”

“Yeah,” said Jimmy, “I knew you’d be needing guns, pretty soon. Maybe you’ll be needing a grave before long.”

The girl had laid the guns on the counter in silence. But now she said, “Jim, get off that counter and go away! You’re rude.”

“Him and me are both rude,” admitted Jimmy. “But he’s the rudest. He’s the one that licked Jerry Deacon, down at Pudge Oliver’s.”

“Jimmy, get out of the store!” exclaimed the girl.

“She’s none too pleased about Jerry getting a sock on the chin,” explained the boy, slipping from the counter and going towards the door, though at a snail’s pace. “She’s pretty crazy about Jerry.—That big ham!”

His sister gave him a calmly disdainful glance.

“Here are the Winchesters,” said she. “They’re all the same, and all good. These shotguns are right, too,” she added.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve used the same kind myself,” said she.

He looked at the heavy guns, and then at her slenderness.

“She’s pretty proud of that,” said Jimmy. “She puts in about that every time she can.”

A side flick of the eyes touched Jimmy, but failed to daunt him. Still he moved towards the door, and still his progress was that of a snail.

“These will do,” said Litton. “I’m sure the shotguns are all right. But the rifles? Well, I’ll have to try one of ’em.”

She filled the magazine without a word. He felt a certain curiosity behind her eyes, but saw that she would not let it rise to the surface.

And he, thanking her, stepped to the door. “Come along, Jimmy,” he said, “and show me something to shoot at.”

He saw a slight movement on the part of Lou, as though she longed to be present at that testing, but he left her uninvited.

Jimmy, aggressively eager, hurried forward to open the door. In the blaze of the sun before the shop he stood beside the tall man, glancing hungrily around him.

“There!” he said.

“Where?” asked Litton.

“See that sign?—That sign that says ‘Morgan and Company, Grain, Hay, and Livestock,’ right there across the street?”

“Well,” said Litton. “What about it? There’s another sign just opposite that says ‘Chaney and Company, Grain, Hay, and Livestock.’ Which shall it be?”

“Take either one of ’em,” said the boy. “They’re hangin’ by a pair of wires each. If you can shoot those wires in two, it proves that the rifle carries pretty straight, doesn’t it?”

“And the signs fall?” suggested Litton, grinning.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” said Jimmy. “The Chaneys and the Morgans are dead pleased when anybody shoots down those signs. It gives them a lot of free advertising.”

“Well,” said Litton, “why not? You know, Jimmy, the way I’m fixed in this town, it won’t do for me to let people think that I’m a bad shot. Because I’m not. I’m pretty good.”

“Oh, are you?” said Jimmy, sneering instantly at the first suggestion of bragging.

“I’m not a champion, but I’m pretty good,” said the other. “And it’s only fair to let people know it.”

Jimmy, with an uncertain mind, stared at the big man. Then he shrugged his shoulders, reserving judgment.

Litton, in the meantime, looked earnestly at the gleam of the heavy wires that upheld the Morgan sign. Then he lifted the rifle quickly to his shoulder.

The butt had hardly settled into the hollow of his shoulder before he pulled the trigger. The great sign swung down and hung by a single wire.

“Jumping jiminy!” said Jimmy, under his breath. He looked up with worshiping eyes at the stranger; and, behold, as the sign swung slowly back and forth, the rifle spoke again, and the heavy board crashed to the ground.

Jimmy yelled with joy.

From the great, yawning double doors of the warehouse ran two or three men. They recoiled with shouts when they saw the figure with levelled rifle across the street. But the direction of the weapon was no longer towards them.

“If the Morgans are down,” said Litton, “turn and turn about is fair play. What about the Chaneys?”

Straightway the rifle barked twice, and the Chaney sign smote also the dust and broke in two.

Jimmy could no longer shout. His eyes were two blue and white saucers. And Litton, turning, had a faint glimpse of a girl’s face, pressed so close against the front window of the store that the nose made a white spot on the pane.

He reëntered the door as Lou Raeburn was scampering to regain her place behind the counter. She was panting a little, and her eyes were dancing as he paid his bill.

“Straightest shooting rifle I ever had,” said Barry Litton. “Maybe I can get some advice, here?”

“You bet you can get advice,” said Jimmy, his voice a crow of ecstasy.

“I want to find a shack on the edge of town—a place to rent. A couple of rooms would do. Know about a place like that?”

“Si Turner’s place,” said the boy and the girl, in one breath.

“Will you show me, Jim?” he asked.

“Don’t forget about ammunition,” said Jimmy. “Oh, but there’s gonna be a stir. The Chaneys and the Morgans! Both slapped in the face! Wow!” The boy who liked to kick up dust yelled with joy.

So it was that ammunition in quantity was bought.

“Have you got a lot of friends?” asked the girl behind the counter.

“Quite a few, here and there,” said Litton, who was standing at the door.

“You’d better spend the night writing to them,” said she. “They’d probably all like to have a farewell letter!”

“I might do that,” he answered, “but I haven’t any writing paper with my crest on it.” He passed out to the street, with Jimmy fairly dancing beside him.

Already a crowd was gathering around the fallen signs, and more men and women and children were coming at full speed.

“You’ve raised a dust, all right,” said the boy. “Look at ’em! By jingo, won’t the Chaneys and the Morgans choke!”

Tom Willow, with the two horses and the steer, stood near by.

“Great thunder, sir,” said he. “What you been up to?”

“I was trying out a rifle,” said Litton. “Which way is the Si Turner place?” he asked of the boy.

“Right down the street, between them two fallen signs,” said Jimmy.

“Go down the street,” said Litton to Willow, “and we’ll overtake you. Where’s there a shop to buy chuck, Jimmy?”

“There’s Mayberry’s, across the way,” said Jimmy. “They’ve got everything from whole sides of beef to crackers.”

“We’ll try Mayberry’s,” said Litton.

They crossed the street, and as they crossed, Litton called after Willow, “Step up and give Chaney and Morgan enough money to pay for putting their signs back in place, will you, Willow?”

There was a groan from that worthy, and Litton and the boy entered Mayberry’s big store.

“Look,” said Jimmy, “there’s everything that anybody could want, here.”

“Go on and order, Jim,” said his companion.

“Me? Me order?” exclaimed Jimmy.

“That’s the idea. You order. Nobody knows what he wants to eat, after he gets past twelve or thirteen years old. But at that age a fellow knows exactly what he wants.”

“You like jam?” asked Jimmy, wistfully. “I mean, with bread that’s thick with butter?”

“Nothing better, now that you speak of it,” said Litton.

“And sardines?” asked Jimmy.

“Yes, and sardines, of course! You go ahead and order.”

“How much?”

“Why, as much as you think a pair of people would want to have around them, if they were staying a month or so.”

Jimmy’s blue eyes flared with joy.

He stepped to the counter. “Hey, you,” he said to the clerk.

“Whacha want, Jim?” asked a yawning clerk.

“Trot out that deer that was brought in this morning.”

“How much of it?” asked the clerk.

“The all of it,” said Jimmy. “There’s gonna be venison ate around this town, before long.—And rake down that shelf of blackberry jam. I wish that there was two shelves, but I’ll take what you got.—And all the canned brownbread that’s in the place, too.”

“Hey, Jim, what sort of a jamboree is this going to be?” asked the clerk. “And who’s gonna pay for this here?”

“This here gentleman is gonna pay for it all,” said Jimmy. “I wantcha to know, boy, that a gent has struck Holy Creek who knows what chuck is!”