Читать книгу Trouble's Messenger - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 6

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Straight down into the compound Lessing went.

The store itself was thickly crowded, still. Through the open door he could hear a sort of babbling song that went up from the crowd inside. Men, women, and children, they all were handling, exclaiming over, crying out about the articles for sale. But nothing would be stolen, even by their clever fingers, for in the background appeared the face of Dancing Shadow, with her double-direction eyes and her weird ugliness. Yet, her expression now made her almost beautiful. For in her hands was all the delegated authority of her husband. She was in importance like a chief among warriors. She could even make small gifts, here and there, to the wife or to the child of some redoubtable figure of the Indians. And she never gave in vain. With that might to give and to receive, she was richly content, and a strange smile beamed upon her lips.

Lessing went on past the store, and almost fell over a pair of Indian lads who, wrestling violently, tumbled out of the doorway of the store, and rolled over and over in the dust, for the grass of the compound had been worn away by the pounding of many hoofs and many moccasined feet.

Weariness of his kind came suddenly over Lessing. He had been several days at the fort, visiting his old friend Desparr, and now a wave of disgust for men and their ways passed over him. The furnishings of his own life were simple. A horse and a mule loaded with traps, a bit of tobacco and salt, some tea, ammunition for his rifle, a good new axe, a pair of knives, and he was ready to start his trek through the wilderness until, someday, he saw before him the heads of unknown mountains, like vast monsters holding up their hands to stop him. There he would settle into another year of life, sinking deeper and deeper into the woods, until the voices of the wind and of the rivers cleansed from his mind the sound of human speech, human wranglings. The crowd through which he had to elbow his way depressed him unutterably, but at last he found himself on the edge of the open space that surrounded the tenderfoot, Peter Messenger.

Lessing did not hesitate. He walked straight up to the youth. There was an odd feeling that the boy grew as one came nearer to him. From a little distance, he seemed slender, light, made for swift activity rather than for the bearing of burdens. But, close at hand, the dimensions of the shoulders grew. And, from a distance, it seemed a pale, meager face, but, near at hand, he saw the noble proportions of the forehead and, deep beneath the brows, the gray eyes that were both alert and still.

“Come with me, Messenger,” said the trapper curtly, and, turning on his heel, he walked away. He half smiled, wondering if the boy would do as he was bid. To his deep surprise and satisfaction, he was presently aware that the tall youth was stepping lightly after him. He led straight out through the open gate in the palisade, and through the woods to the edge of the water. There he paused, and Messenger stepped out of the trees to his side. As he came, he looked searchingly into the face of Lessing, and then his glance darkened a little with disappointment.

It was as though he had hoped vaguely that this stranger might prove to be the thing for which he was searching. Instantly Lessing knew that the boy was hunting, indeed, for a human face. Messenger, halting at the edge of the water, faced his guide and waited.

“We’re alone here for a minute or so,” observed Lessing cheerfully. “Though it won’t take ’em long to get on the trail, ag’in.”

“Who?” asked Messenger, his frown deepening.

Lessing watched him, half amused and half surprised. “You mean you dunno who would want to take your trail, son?”

Messenger shook his head. He maintained this aloof attitude of his without effort. It seemed natural for him to act as though he were of a superior race, or a superior class, looking down upon the rest of the world.

“Well,” said Lessing, “d’you know the names of the two bucks that you laid out?”

“No,” said Messenger coldly.

“The first one is Spotted Deer. He has a father that’s still a warrior in his prime. He has two young uncles, as hard as nails. He has a brother and half a dozen cousins.”

“He’s a lucky fellow,” said Messenger with his natural sneer.

Lessing nodded. “Any one of those people would be glad to throw a war spear into you, my lad. Then there’s Dust-In-The-Sky....”

“Who is he?” Messenger permitted himself to ask.

“Somebody that you’ll be sure to hear of again,” declared Lessing. “Dust-In-The-Sky is the second one ... the fellow that you flattened with that left uppercut. Are you left-handed, Messenger?”

“No,” said the boy.

Lessing could not help smiling a little.

“The left is the hand they don’t expect,” he commented. “The point I’m making, though, is that Dust-In-The-Sky has even more friends than the other lad. He could easily bring out a dozen men to run you down.”

“Very well,” answered Messenger. “It’s plain that I’ll have to take my chances with them.”

“You take your chances,” said Lessing, “and get a knife through your gizzard. That’s all it would amount to.”

“Is that all you brought me here to tell me?” asked Messenger with his habitual cold sneer.

Lessing was a man who had been through his share of troubles in this world, but now he flushed a little.

“Are you going to stick at that?” he asked.

“At what?” said the boy.

“At being a young, hard-headed fool?” explained Lessing.

Messenger started. His gray eyes, losing some of their indifference, sparkled for an instant, but almost at once they grew dull again. But the trapper felt as though he had seen a wild animal raise its head and look at him.

“I don’t know,” said Messenger, “what I ought to say to you. I haven’t asked for your advice. And I haven’t asked to be brought away from the fort, where I was busy.”

“Aye, you were busy,” agreed the other. “Busy makin’ enemies. I never seen nobody make ’em faster.”

“How was I making enemies?” asked the boy, a touch of harsh anger appearing in his voice.

“Why, by lookin’ over people as though they was horses. Back in your part of the country, maybe it’s different. I guess that back there it’s good manners to stare at everybody as though they had two heads. But out here, it’s different. There’s a proud lot, out here, young feller. And if you start to handlin’ Injuns and Westerners like that with your eyes, you ain’t gonna last long.”

“No?” inquired Messenger coldly. “I’ll have to take my chances in my own way, as I said before, I believe.”

“You won’t take ’em long,” declared Lessing, “because you’ll be dead.” He picked up a stone from the bank of the stream and began to juggle it carelessly in his hand.

“Suppose you tell me,” asked the boy, “why you’re troubling yourself so much about me?”

“You oughta be able to guess.”

“No. I don’t see what my business has to do with you.”

“Well,” said the other, “a man can’t help bein’ interested when he sees a youngster start lookin’ for trouble.”

“I’m not looking for trouble,” insisted Messenger. “I didn’t raise a hand at either of those two Indians until they forced trouble on me.”

“You hadn’t asked for it, either, I reckon?” asked the trapper.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this ... that you stand there and sneer and stare at everybody.”

“I wasn’t sneering,” said the boy.

“I didn’t have no eyes to see you, eh?”

“I’m going back to the fort,” said Messenger suddenly, and in impatience.

“Wait a minute,” said the other. “Lemme see what’s in the brush over there.”

Suddenly he flung the stone that he was holding through the face of a tall, dense shrub, at the same time shouting out. In answer, came several deep-throated, muffled exclamations, and a noise of the bush crackling as people retired through it. “Maybe the other side of the brush is the same way,” suggested Lessing cheerfully.

Messenger, in the meantime, stood up in the attitude of a soldier, stiff and tense, with his hands gripped into fists at his sides. He looked to the trapper as though he were about to leap away into the shrubbery in pursuit of the sounds that he was still hearing faintly in the distance. But, if he had this impulse, he managed to control it. His face worked. He grew a little pale, and this pallor made his eyes seem darker and brighter, at the same instant. His nostrils trembled. His lips pressed together. He looked the very picture of a man about to deliver a savage attack.

This picture Lessing studied with an almost professional interest. Then he rubbed his knuckles across his chin. “Are you goin’ after them?” he said.

“What do you think?” asked the boy, snapping out the words suddenly.

Lessing grinned. “Did you ever ask advice in your life before?” he demanded.

All at once the other smiled, and his expression, his whole appearance, were so marvelously altered by this smile that the trapper marveled at him more than ever.

“You’re a strange fellow,” said the boy.

“Am I?” Lessing answered in perfect good nature. “Somehow, I was thinkin’ the same thing about you.”

The boy smiled again. “I owe you something,” he said slowly. “If I’d gone back toward the fort....” He hesitated. Then he brought the words out one by one, as though his honesty were forcing them through his lips. “If I’d started back for the fort, they would have had me. In the back, I suppose.” And he held out his hand toward the older man.