Читать книгу Colorado Jim - George Goodchild - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Out of the brooding darkness was born the first timid blush of the morn. It sprang to life along the serried edge of the Medicine Bow, a broadening band of blood-red light. For one instant it seemed that some titan breath had blown at the source, darkening the red to purple; and then, with startling suddenness, the whole wide range flamed up. The full red rim of the sun smote aloft, sending the shades scuttling down the valleys, to vanish in thin air.

The man at the window of the Medicine Bow Hotel drew in his breath with a slight hissing 2 sound, as the whole magnificent landscape sprang into dazzling light. It had always taken him like that. He remembered the day when, as a boy of seven, he had first seen the sun soar over the ridge, from the old “Prairie Schooner” encamped in “The Garden of the Gods.” No less wonderful was it now; for Jim Conlan, late owner of Topeka Mine, and almost millionaire, was but a magnified version of the boy of twenty-three years back. Time had brought its revenges, its rewards, its illusions; but the great winds, the everlasting hills, and the wild life of the West had combined in cementing the early resolutions and ideas.

He had won through by dint of muscle and hard thinking. He saw now that the secret of his success was determination. He had earned a reputation for never letting go anything to which he had put his hand. Men feared him, but loved him at the same time. He had proved himself to be a staunch friend but an implacable enemy. His six feet three inches of bone and sinew was usually sufficient to scare off any trouble-seekers. Colorado Jim, as they called him, was the product of primal Nature, unpolished, rough as the 3 gaunt mountains of the Medicine Bow, and as inscrutable.

All through the short summer night he had sat at the window waiting for the dawn. The man who never let go had let go something this time, and that something was nothing less than his whole life. He never believed it would hurt him like it did. For the past three years he had been restless. The soul and mind of him ached for expansion. The chief incentive to work had gone. He had more money than he could spend—in the West. Yonder was New York, Paris, London. Alluring visions of civilization flashed through his brain. What was the use of money if not to burn, and where in the whole of Colorado could one burn money and get full value?

The idea to sell out began to obsess him, and in the end he sold. Hating sentimentality and fearing any demonstration of such, he had packed up secretly and left the rough shack by the Topeka Mine for the comparatively Arcadian comforts of the hotel in the township ten miles back. In a few hours he would be on the train bound for the East—and the future. 4

Thorough in all things, he had packed his bags overnight, leaving but a few necessities such as razor and tooth-brush (recent acquisitions) to complete. He left the window now with a curious sigh, and gave a last pull on the strap of the largest bag with his big, muscular hands. Even now, with the ramshackle stage-coach almost at the door, he could not bring himself to believe that the old life was over and done with. What the devil was he up to, anyway, hiking around in creased trousers and black boots? Colorado Jim bound for Europe—London! It sounded impossibly fantastic. But there it was, written on the labels of his bags—“James Conlan, London, via New York.” He tucked the rebellious collars of his soft blue shirt into his waistcoat, and pulled out an enormous watch.

“Rob ain’t on time,” he muttered; then, “Emily!”

A voice that sounded like the action of a saw in contact with a nail came from below.

“Yeah?”

“My bill—quick!”

“But you ain’t had no breakfas’ yet.” 5

“Ain’t takin’ none. Come along right now and give a hand with these grips.”

The owner of the voice, a shriveled-up, extremely untidy girl of about eighteen, with her hair in “crackers” and her eyes scarcely more than half open, entered the room, and stood gaping at him. She had gaped at him consistently for two whole days, and he didn’t like it. He wasn’t used to women—didn’t understand them and didn’t want to. He didn’t even understand that the romantic Emily had fallen passionately in love with him exactly forty seconds after her sleepy eyes had first beheld him.

“For God’s sake don’t stare at me! Take the grips, gal, take ’em. Not that one, it would dislocate your internals.”

She dropped the big one like a hot brick and grabbed the two smaller ones. At the door she found opportunity to scan him once more, and to murmur under her breath, “Lor’, ain’t he wonderful!” before her master came along and ended her rapturous soliloquies. He entered the room and nodded to Jim.

“So you’re making out, Jim?”

“Looks like it.” 6

“Wal, I’m sure sorry, and there ain’t a guy in these parts who ain’t sorry too.”

Jim shrugged his big shoulders and jerked out his chin.

“Maybe there ain’t one more sorry than yours truly.”

“What!”

“Jest that.”

“It’s junk you’re talking.”

Jim smiled whimsically.

“Nope, it’s God’s truth. I didn’t figure it all out till I came here. I wish I hadn’t sold out. I guess I’m best fitted for running mines or herding cattle, Dan. And I’m leaving all the boys who know me for those who don’t—and I don’t git on with folks who don’t know me. God knows what persuaded me to sell to that macaroni-eating swab. But it’s done, and there ain’t no manner of good wailing about it.”

Dan laughed lugubriously.

“A man that can knock a million out of a mountain can git along most anywheres, I guess. Wish I had your chance.”

“What’d you do?” 7

“I’d hitch up to some smart gal in New York or London and start a family.”

Jim made a grimace.

“ ’Pears to me you ain’t strong on originality. I’d rather run a cattle ranch—they don’t talk back.”

“Gosh! man, wimmen’s all right if you know how to treat ’em. They’re like bosses, they want careful breakin’ in.”

Jim shook his head. He remembered the time when a girl from down East, on a holiday tour, had looked over his mine. Her eloquent blue eyes had made him feel decidedly sheepish. Colorado Jim, who had tackled most of the bad men around Medicine Bow, and had tamed the wildest bronchos that ever roved prairie, was lamentably lacking where the fair sex was concerned. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, or how to say it.

“Dan,” he said, “you hev to have a gift that way—an’ I ain’t got it.”

“My lad, you’ve got a figure and a ’physog’ that’ll sure turn every gal’s head that takes a slant at ’em.”

“Let up!” growled Jim. 8

“It’s honest truth, laddie. Gee! I gotta hankering for the bright lights myself. I lived in New York once. Some village. And with a million in your wallet … Ah!”

He gave a long sigh as he reflected upon the quantity of “bright lights” a million would purchase.

“I’d have three houses, a hundred suits, a footman with a powdered wig like I seen in the magazine pictures. I’d have a bath each night in eau-de-Cologne, and go to roost in real silk peejamas. I’d larn to dance, and have a valee to dress me and shave me. …”

“Yep,” mused Jim, “and then you’d wake up, Dan. Here, where’s that bill? You talk too much. What in hell is that?”

A terrific hullabaloo came up from below. A roar of laughter and the babble of male voices was mixed with the rumble of wheels and the pistol-like crack of a whip.

“Looks like a celebration,” said Dan.

Jim sauntered to the window. Underneath was Rob’s coach, packed full of miners. They slid from the roof of the vehicle and from inside, 9 and began to fire revolvers and dance around like niggers. Then one of them saw Jim.

“Hi, Colorado Jim, come out of that!” he bawled.

Jim ducked back from the window as a roar came up from below.

“Looks like they’re for giving you a send-off,” said Dan.

“Who told them? I kept it quiet—can’t stand ceremonies.”

“It must have been Rob.”

“Confound him! There’s no time for kissing. It’s fifty miles to Graymount, and the train is scheduled for noon. Send ’em away.”

Dan opened his eyes with horror at the suggestion.

“I ain’t takin’ risks. You got heaps of time. It’s only five o’clock and the road is good to Graymount.”

“More’n Rob’s hosses are. That off-side mare’s like a sausage on four crooked sticks.”

“Jim! We want Colorado Jim!” was howled up from below.

The much desired went to the window. 10

“Boys,” he bawled, “you all run along home. I gotta catch a train.”

His voice was drowned by horrible threats of what they would do if he didn’t hike down immediately. He turned to Dan.

“They’re a darn fine lot of boys, but I wish they wouldn’t git so worked up. Where’s Emily?”

Emily, who was standing in the doorway, ogling him unseen, came forward.

“There’s something to buy a dress with, and see here, don’t get a draughtboard pattern. If there’s any money over, buy soap—scented soap.”

Emily’s eyes almost fell from her head at the sight of the fifty-dollar note. She rubbed her hands down her dress and took it. Jim had grabbed the heavy bag and was half-way down the stairs before she could summon enough breath to murmur the incessant refrain, “Ain’t he jest wonderful!”

At the door Jim was grabbed by a dozen hefty pairs of hands and hoisted on to shoulders. One man took the big bag, and with remarkable skill flung it clean on the top of the waiting coach, 11 much to Rob’s disgust. The hurtling missile came down like a thunderbolt, and nearly went through the roof.

“Don’t get fresh, boys,” pleaded Jim. “These are my Sunday clothes.”

They ran him twice up the main street, yelling and whooping like a pack of wild Indians. A queer awry figure stuck its head from the window of a tumble-down shop and, seeing the cause of the disturbance, shook his fist and yelled:

“The sheriff ought to be fired, to allow …”

A shot from a revolver shivered his shop-window to atoms, and a ten-dollar note was flung at him. He slammed down the window, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor. The high-spirited men went on their way, rousing the whole population as they progressed. After about twenty minutes of these capers they reached the hotel again. Jim was praying that the business was over. He fought his way to the ground, but was immediately hoisted on to the top of Rob’s coach.

“Give over, boys …”

“Who is the whitest man in Medicine Bow?” sang Ned Blossom. 12

“Colorado Jim!” howled the chorus.

“Who is the huskiest two-hundred-pounder in the hul of Ameriky?”

“Colorado Jim!”

“Who is it the gals all lu-huv?”

“Colorado Jim—sure!”

Jim swung his big figure over the side of the coach. He grabbed two of his tormentors by the scruffs of their necks and jerked them on to the ground.

“I’m through with all this,” he cried. “Rob, get that animated bunch of horse-hair going.”

Ned Blossom held up his hand.

“Cut it out, boys,” he ordered. “See here, Jim, we got wise to this absconsion of yours, and we thought we’d jest bunch in. The boys are feeling queer about it, though there ain’t much show of handkerchiefs. We—we thought mebbe you’d accept a little—kinder keepsake. It—it ain’t much, but—but—— Wal, here it is.”

He jerked something from his pocket and put it into Jim’s hand. It was a gold cigarette-case, with an inscription worked in small diamonds: “To Colorado Jim from his chums.” Jim stood gazing at this token of their regard. He hated 13 sentiment, and yet was as big a victim of it as anyone. When he spoke his great voice wavered.

“I’m going a hell of a distance before I find boys like you. I wish I wasn’t going. I—wish——”

He grabbed Ned’s hand quickly, and then that of each of the other men, and jumped into the coach. They understood the emotion in the big heart of him. Rob started the team and away went the coach in a cloud of dust. Hats went up in the air and revolvers barked.

“Good-bye, Colorado Jim! Good-bye!”

Emily at the door, clasping the fifty-dollar note in her grimy paw, waited until the coach was a mere dot in the distance. Then she rubbed a sorrowful eye.

“Gee, but he was jest wonderful!” she moaned.

14