Читать книгу The Promise - James B. Hendryx - Страница 14

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BILL HITS THE TRAIL

In a long-abandoned shack midway between Moncrossen's Blood River camp and Hilarity, Bill Carmody hugged close the rusty, broken stove.

All day he had tramped northward, guided through the maze of abandoned roads by the frozen ruts of Moncrossen's tote wagons, and it was long after dark when he camped in the northernmost of the old shacks with civilization, as represented by Hilarity's deserted buildings and the jug-tilting, barrel-head conclave of Hod Burrage's store, forty miles to the southward.

It had been a hard day—this first day of his new life in the Northland. And now, foot-sore, dog-tired, and dispirited, he sat close and fed sticks to his guttering fire which burned sullenly and flared red for want of draft.

The chinking had long since fallen from between the logs and the night wind whipped the smoke in stinging volleys from gaping holes in the rust-eaten jacket of the dilapidated air-tight.

Tears streamed from the man's smoke-tortured eyes, every muscle of his body ached horribly from the unaccustomed trail-strain, and his feet, unused to the coarse woolen socks beneath heavy boots, were galled and blistered until the skin hung in rolls from the edges of raw scalds.

He removed his foot-gear and the feel of the cold wind was good to his burning feet. He scowled resentfully at the galling newness of his high-laced boots and with a tentative finger explored his hurts.

Unbuckling his pack, he drew forth the ready prepared food with which he had supplied himself at the store. The pack had seemed trifling when he swung lightly into the trail that morning, but twelve hours later, when he stumbled painfully into the disused shack, it had borne upon his aching shoulders as the burden of Atlas.

Hungry as he was, he glared disgustedly at the flaunting label of the salmon can and the unappetizing loaf of coarse bread dried hard, rather than baked, from sodden dough, by Hod Burrage's slovenly spouse.

And as he glared he pondered the words of advice offered by the old man with the twisted leg who sat upon Burrage's counter and punctuated his remarks with quick, jerky stabs of his stout, home-made crutch.

"Tha' cann't fish ben't no good f'r trail grub, son. Ye're a greener, you be. Better ye lay in what'll stay by ye—a bit o' bacon, like, or some bologny—an' a little tin coffee-pot yonder.

"Ye'll be thinkin' o' steppin' out the door wi' ye're new boots an' ye're pack an' trippin' up to Blood River in maybe it's two walks, wi' naught in ye're belly but a can o' cold fish an' a stun weight o' Mary Burrage's bread, which there ain't no more raisin' into it nor a toggle-chain.

"'Tis plain ye're a greener, son; but take an old fool's advice an' get ye a pair o' the shoe-packs yonder to spell off the boots. Bran' new, they be, an' they'll gald ye're feet till ye'll be walkin' ankle-deep in hell again' night. F'r Oi'll be tellin' ye Blood River lays a fine two walks f'r a good man, an' his boots broke in to the wear."

Now Bill Carmody was, by environment, undemocratic, and he resented being called a greener. Also the emphasis which old Daddy Dunnigan had placed upon the words "good man," in evident contrast to himself, rankled.

How he wished, as he sat in the cold discomfort of the shack, that he had heeded the timely and well-meant advice. His was not an arrogant nature, nor a surly—but the change in his environment had been painfully abrupt. All his life he had chosen for companions men whom he looked upon as his social equals, and he knew no others except as paid hirelings to do his bidding. And all his life money had removed from his pathway the physical discomforts incident to existence.

But all this was in the past. Unconsciously he was learning a lesson and this first lesson would be hard—but very thorough, and the next time he met Daddy Dunnigan he would take him by the hand. For here was a man—a good man—in the making. But a man new to his surroundings. A man who would learn hard—but quickly—and who would fight hard against the very conditions which were to make him.

His perspective must first be broken on the wheel of experience, that he might know human nature, and the relative worth of men. His unplastic nature would one day be his chief bulwark; as now, it was his chief stumbling block. For in his chosen life-work he must take men—many men—rough men—of diverse codes and warring creeds, and with them build an efficient unit for the conquering of nature in her own fastnesses. And this thing requires not only knowledge and strength, but courage, and the will to do or die.

Alighting from the caboose of the local freight train on the previous evening, he entered Hod Burrage's door as he had entered the doors of trades-places all his life. To him, Hod Burrage was not a personality, but a menial existing for the sole purpose of waiting upon and attending to the wants of him, Bill Carmody. The others—the old men, and the crippled ones, and the hard-handed grubbers of stumps, who sat about in faded mackinaws and patched overalls—he regarded not at all.

He deposited his pack-sack on the floor where its canvas sides, outbulging with blankets and duffel, fairly shrieked their newness.

After some minutes of silence—a silence neither friendly nor hostile, during which Bill was conscious that all eyes were turned upon him in frank curiosity, he spoke—and in speaking, inadvertently antagonized the entire male population of Hilarity. For in his speech was no word of greeting.

He addressed no one in particular, but called peremptorily, and with a trace of irritation, for a salesman.

Now, Hod Burrage was anything but a salesman. His goods either sold themselves or remained on their shelves, and to Mr. Burrage it was a matter of supreme indifference which. He was wont to remark to hesitating or undecided customers that "if folks didn't know what they wanted when they come into the store, they better keep away till they find out."

So, in answer to the newcomer's demand, Hod shifted his quid and, with exasperating deliberation, spat in the direction of a sawdust-filled box near which the other was standing.

Without rising from his seat in the one undamaged chair, he answered: "If it's the storekeeper you mean, I'm him." Then, as an after-thought. "Was they somethin' you wanted?"

Bill resented the implied rebuke in the storekeeper's words even more than he resented the bombardment of tobacco juice which barely missed his boots. Take it all in all he was having a rather rough time of it.

The railway people had refused to stop their fast train at Hilarity for his special benefit, and he had been compelled to get off at the nearest division point, some forty miles to the westward, and continue his journey in the evil-smelling caboose of the local freight-train which crawled jerkily over the rails, and stopped to shunt cars at every siding.

Nearly the whole day had been consumed for the trip, during which time he had sat in the stuffy, superheated car, whose foul air reeked of cheap tobacco and drying garments, and listened to the guffaws of the train-crew as they regaled each other with vile stories and long accounts of revolting personal experiences among the dives of cities.

So now, tired, grimy, and with his head aching dully from the long breathing of foul air, he was in no humor for comprehensive amiability.

He made his few purchases and replied curtly to the questions of the storekeeper. It is doubtful if he would have replied at all but for the fact that he must have information in regard to the whereabouts of Moncrossen's Blood River camp.

There was a roar of merriment, which he answered with a scowl, when he inquired the location of the hotel.

"Jest help yourself, stranger," said Burrage, with a generous sweep of the arm which included all Hilarity not within the confines of the room. "They's about fifty buildin's, cabins, an' shacks along the street, an' you can take your pick. Rent's the cheapest thing they is in Hilarity—jest kick out the rats an' spread your blankets."

It was when Bill stooped to add the gaudy-labeled cans to his pack that Daddy Dunnigan, of the twisted leg, volunteered the bit of advice that fell upon his ears unheeded.

He was openly resentful now, having detected certain smiles, winks, and nudgings with which the assembled men called each other's attention to various details of his clothing and pack.

During the storekeeper's temporary cessation of vigilance while waiting upon his customer, the others had seized the opportunity to refresh themselves at his expense.

A thick, heavy tumbler, so cloudy and begrimed as to be almost opaque, was filled from a large jug placed conveniently upon a sack of potatoes, and passed from one to the other, each absorbing little or much as the thirst was upon him, and passing it on to his neighbor.

Daddy Dunnigan offered it to Bill along with the advice; but the latter ungraciously refused and, turning abruptly away, shouldered his pack and proceeded to select his "hotel."

"Wonder who's he?" remarked Hod Burrage as he lazily resumed his seat.

"Too damned upity to suit me!" vociferated Creed, Hilarity's self-alleged bad man, with a fierce exhalation that dislodged a thin volley of cracker-crumbs from his overhanging mustache. "A heap too damned upity for this camp, says I."

He shook a hairy fist menacingly toward the door through which the man had departed. "It's lucky for him it was old Daddy there 'stead of me he wouldn't drink with or I'd of went to the floor with him an' teached him his manners."

"Naw ye wouldn't, Creed," said the old man. "Ye'd done jest loike ye done—set there atop yer barr'l an' blinked. An' when he'd went out ye'd blowed an' bragged an' blustered, an' then fizzled out like a wet fuse. 'Stead of which Oi predic' that the young feller's a real man—once he gets strung out. Anyways, Oi bet he does his foightin' whiles the other feller's there 'stead of settin' 'round an' snortin' folks' whisky full o' cracker-crumbs."

He gazed ruefully into his half-filled glass.

"Throw it out, Daddy, an' have one on me," offered Burrage, reaching for the jug.

With a sly wink toward the others, the old man drained the glass at a gulp and passed it innocently to be refilled.

"I'll let him go this time," rumbled Creed with a frown. "He's headin' for Buck Moncrossen's camp—Moncrossen'll break him!"

"Or he'll break Moncrossen!" interrupted Daddy, bringing his crutch down upon the floor. "The one camp'll not hold the two o' thim f'r long. Heed ye now, Oi predic' there'll be hell a poppin' on Blood River, an' be this time a year fr' now one o' thim two'll be broke f'r good an' all, an', not to mention no names, it won't be yon stranger."

The strong liquor had loosened the tongue of the ordinarily silent old man and he continued:

"Oi catched his eye fair; an' 'tis the eye of a foightin' man—an eye, the loike o' which Oi ain't seen since Oi looked f'r the last time in the dead eyes o' Captain Fronte McKim, in the second outbreak o' the wild Boh, Hira Kal, in the brown hills o' the Punjab."

The men listened expectantly, for when the liquor was right the old man could tell of strange wars in far climes.

"One night the little hillmen sneaked up on Captain Barkley's flyin' battery. They left his head an' his men's stickin' atop a row o' stakes an' dragged the guns to a hilltop overlookin' the pass. An' in the mornin' they unlimbered, sweepin' our left wing.

"Fronte McKim was captain o' the Lights an' Oi was a corp'l. All that mornin' the Boh kep' pepperin' away, wi' 'Miss Fanny,' the colonel he was, an' his parade-groun' staff o' book sogers, wi' tables o' figgers an' the book o' rules an' maps an' a pair o' dividers, tryin' to figger out how to chase a bad Boh offen a hilltop wi'out clim'in' the same.

"An' he lived a long time after, did Miss Fanny, to die in his bed o' some nice, fine disease, wi' his fambly an' his Scotch an' sody gathered about him.

"An' he was put in a foine, big coffin wi' a bran' new flag spread atop to keep off the dust, an' carried back to Englan' in a war-ship, wi' the harbor guns firin' salutes—the whiles Fronte McKim lays back among the hills o' Punjab, wropped in his powder-burnt, shot-tore blanket.

"The hillmen an' their women an' the shiny hill kids give wide berth in passin', an' make low salaams to the grave o' the terrible fightin' sahib that put the fear o' God in the heart o' the wild Boh. An' it's as Captain Fronte would wished—Oi know'd um well.

"But, as Oi was sayin', the whiles Miss Fanny was tryin'—by nine times six is forty-seven an' traject'ry an' muzzle v'locity an' fours right an' holler squares—to wish the Boh offen the hilltop so he could march us through the pass accordin' to Hoyle, Fronte McKim was off ahead among the rocks, layin' on his belly behint a ant-hill studyin' the hillside through his spyglass.

"Well, 'long 'bout noon he come gallopin' up, wi' his big black horse all a lather, to where we was layin' in the scrub cursin' the flies an' the department an' the outbreaks o' Bohs.

"'Come on, boys!' he hollers, wi' the glitter in his eye; 'Oi found the way! All together now, an' we'll see the top o' yon hill or we'll see hell this day!'

"Wi' that he tears loose a yell 'twould strike a chill to the heart o' an iceberg, an' wheels his horse into the open—an' us in the saddle an' follerin', all yellin' like a hellful o' devils turned loose for recess."

The old man shifted his crutch and sipped at his liquor.

"Most o' us seen the top o' the hill," he resumed, "an' the brown hillmen, what of 'em wasn't layin' limp by the guns, a skitterin' through the scrub after a Boh who'd took off on a stray cavalry horse.

"But they was a many o' us as didn't—layin' sprawled among the rocks o' the bare hillside, an' their horses runnin' wild to keep up wi' the charge. We found Captain Fronte wi' his whole front blow'd out by a shell an' his shoulders kind o' tumbled in where his lungs belonged—but thim eyes was lookin' straight at the hilltop.

"An' Oi looked in 'em long—for Oi loved him—an' was glad. 'Cause Oi know'd Captain Fronte McKim was seein' hell—an' enjoyin' it."

He set down the empty glass and favored Creed with a cold stare: "An' his eyes is like that—the stranger's—an' yours ain't, nor Moncrossen's."