Читать книгу Wild Paradise - Kenneth Taylor Perkins - Страница 6

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The stranger found refuge from the crowd by retiring to the back corral of the veterinarian’s shop.

“I need some liniment,” he said.

“I reckon you do,” the horse doctor replied, as the young man divested himself of his shirt. The latter displayed the finest torso, rippling muscles and sloping shoulders, that the old doctor had ever seen. “I’m advisin’ you not to mix in with this circus gang any more,” the vet said. “The sheriff’s protectin’ same.”

He added as he was doctoring the patient’s wounds: “Of course, a young coot like you, which you ain’t afeared of elephants and a couple cagefuls of pumas—why, it looks ridiculous to warn you ag’in’ a plain ordinary sheriff.”

“I admit I didn’t like the way he pulled his mustache when he was advising me to leave town,” the stranger said. “Kind of like a cat.”

“Worse’n a cat. Because you cain’t bribe a harmless necessary cat. But this here Sheriff Flapjohn—well, the town’s beginnin’ to git his number. He’ll always git his man—providin’ they’s a reward. If not, well, it means the hoss thief has offered a bigger reward.

“He’s been sheriff now for ten years, and durin’ that time he’s officiated at a few lynchin’s which you wouldn’t exactly call them within the law. But we leave our sheriffs to handle their own hoss thieves. Sometimes they cain’t tote ’em back out of the desert, bein’ most hoss thieves is breeds which they have kinfolk around who’ll save ’em, provided they have time. Best thing to do is to hang a outlaw pronto. Sheriff winks at lynchin’, and the ranchers hereabouts wink at the sheriff—if he leaves a posse lynch his prisoner afore bringin’ same to trial.”

“I haven’t lived around these parts very long,” the stranger said; “but I understand that’s the custom in these frontier and desert cow towns.”

The horse doctor examined the man’s face, peering over silver-rimmed glasses. “You look like a Westerner to me, all righto.”

“I been doing some panning down in Coyotero Desert,” the other said. “Been two years down there without getting back to civilization.”

“Had some schoolin’, I reckon?” the other suggested warily. It was not customary in Cobb’s Coulee to inquire into a man’s past.

“A little up in Tucson. My name’s Dave Huppert. My father was a missionary to the Navahos up north.”

“All right, Mr. Huppert,” the other said. “Bein’ you’ve introduced yourself, I’ll speak plainer. Them show folks are goin’ to plant a scrap on you, and they’ll dump you.

“If you shoot up any of ’em, which I reckon you kin easy enough, the sheriff will step in—and he won’t be on your side. This hellbender Vasto has money—and he’s got the sheriff fixed. Heard ’em talkin’ when I was doctorin’ up one of Flapjohn’s hosses.”

Dave Huppert felt a little cooler now that his cuts had been doctored with the vet’s lotions. He rolled a cigarette and breathed comfortably. He seemed to be turning this advice over in his mind. He was not an ass.

There was a time to be rash and a time to be cautious. A frontier town with a sheriff who virtually had the power of hanging a man was a bad place to get framed.

He was about to thank the vet for his advice and mount his horse and go, when a member of the Vasto organization arrived at the shop, and announced to Dave that “he’d come to give him a message.”

He was not a very formidable looking messenger. He had bow legs, silvery hair and a red eye. He spoke with conviction, focusing his eye upon the listener as if daring him to call him a liar. He spoke respectfully and his accent suggested Coney Island.

“My name is Padin, sir, boss hostler of the Vasto Circus an’ Rodeo Company. I seen the way you trimmed that bucko when you caught him whipping the white stud—Ali Baba’s his name. I mean the name of the stud. Vasto is the gent you worked over. We all seen it and some of us is thankin’ you, sir.”

“You’re welcome. And what else can I do for you?” Dave asked observing that the old hostler was waiting politely and respectfully for a cue to go on.

“My pard, sir, which is sick and layin’ in the hotel room and which loves that horse like a brother, why I was wonderin’——”

“Wondering what?”

“Well, my pard which is in a sort of bad mental state, seen the way you acted in defense of that horse, and wants to see you. I said: ‘Oh no, he wouldn’t come to see no member of the Vasto Circus, no matter if they was dyin’,’ which may be the case now.

“But I swear to you, sir, that if you come and tell why you saved that horse—and the inspiration of just shakin’ your hand—why it may save my pard from a very serious breakdown.”

“Buckjumpin’ tombstones!” the horse doctor exclaimed.

“Where is this hotel?” Dave asked.

“The Rex Cantina,” said the other.

“Lolly-paloozin’ tombstones!” the horse doctor exclaimed again. The other two turned to him, wondering what these cryptic explosions signified. The doctor interpreted himself:

“The Rex Cantina is the sheriff’s main joint! And he’s rented his rooms out to the Vasto actors. Can’t you figure what this game is, you poor young sheephead!”

“You don’t mean to insinuate, mister, that I’m dealin’ the odd! It’s an honest game. And your police chief ain’t got a thing to do with it!”

“I ain’t insinuatin’ nothin’, hombre. All as I’m sayin’ is that you, Mr. Huppert, better git to your hoss and trail out of town.”

“My pard——”

“The Rex Cantina is the worst joint in town—all perforated by gunshots which they fly around indiscriminate every Saturday night,” the doctor cried excitedly. “Do you need any outfit, Mr. Huppert, for your journey back to the Coyotero where you’re now headin’ back to?”

“If this hombre is telling the truth——” Huppert began.

“Do I look as I could lie, sir?”

“No, you don’t,” Huppert rejoined. “Otherwise I’d take the vet’s advice and steer clear of trouble.”

“Trouble?” the circus hostler said in an injured tone. “You call it trouble to come and see my sick pard? When some one asks you to come and shake their hand—a heart-rendin’ appeal like that, you call it trouble!”

“Blatherin’, hell-bustin’ tombstones!”

“I’ll go,” Dave said. He broke open his six-gun and satisfied himself that it was loaded. “If there’s any trick to this story of yours, hombre, you’re the first one to get dumped. Sheriff Flapjohn’s the second.”

The Rex Cantina was a warped structure of unplaned lumber, in the vast interior of which extended a bar practically the length of a city block. In the center was a dance floor, and on the opposite side, raised on platforms the height of a man, were the booths.

After the circus parade, the cantina began to take on its early afternoon gayety. Gamblers returned; herders came in to wash from their throats the alkali which the parade had stirred up. The full battery of barkeeps was posted, for the day was hot and the town overcrowded. Likewise, the cantina girls returned—dressed in their spangled dresses, silk stockings and war paint.

Dave Huppert followed the stove-up hostler down the hall in back of the saloon into which opened the bunk-rooms. It was a dark place, even in day time, for there were no windows. The door at the end, furthermore, was closed.

As the veterinarian had said, the walls were perforated from the many fights which Rex Cantina’s history boasted of during the past decade. Dave felt the flap of his holster, assuring himself that he could unbutton it, draw and fire in the blink of an eye.

Old Padin knocked at the door, listened, opened it, and beckoned to his young companion. There seemed to be an ominous silence.

Dave listened intently, limbering up his right hand so to speak, then walked in.

Yes, it must be some sort of a frame-up. A blackmail scheme probably. But Dave had no fear of blackmail schemes. He had nothing to lose.

Most blackmail schemes were based on the fear of the victim; fear either of getting into a bad fight with a “husband” of the decoy; or fear of losing one’s reputation! In either case the framers would expect a sum of money. Inasmuch as Dave was not troubled by either one of these fears, he went in.

He did not find a gang of rough looking circus hostlers and tent-peggers or con men. He found just one person in that tiny room. It was the “decoy.”

She was the girl who had first given him a drink of water in the street after the fight. At first, she gave the impression of being one of the cantina girls; for she was dressed in their garb, and her chin, which had three little freckles, was powdered. Smoking a cigarette, she had filled the room with an aura of tiny rings that were rapidly dissolving. She made the picture of a fairy child blowing bubbles.

“You said something about a sick pard——” Dave grumbled turning to the bowlegged, red-eyed liar beside him.

“She’s my pard. And she’s sick—sick in spirit because of the way Ali Baba is getting broke inch by inch. Who wouldn’t be sick at that? Posey Nuggins, she is. Billed as Mam’zelle Nugent. This here is the bird you sent for, mam’zelle.”

Mam’zelle’s blue eyes widened. She had just been enlarging them with touches of light blue grease paint. They were large to start with. And when she widened them while staring at her visitor in wonderment and admiration, they were the largest orbs Dave Huppert had ever seen.

“Glad to meet you, mister,” she said, holding out a flashing white arm.

Dave’s forehead was wet. They had trapped him, despite his own wisdom. His face which was quite long and horselike, lengthened and turned scarlet.

Mam’zelle, however, seemed well pleased with his appearance. She feasted her eyes on his firm, angry mouth; on his rusty faded brown hair, which curled over boiled sunburned ears; on his tall-peaked sombrero, tilted back from a forehead that was corrugated by desert wind and sand. He removed this hat under the ferocity of her gaze.

“I’ve been looking for you, mister for a long time—for months,” was her astonishing greeting.

“For months?” Dave repeated bewildered. “Well, I reckon you couldn’t have found me in any of these cow towns till today. I’ve been in the desert for a couple years.”

“I don’t mean I was hunting for exactly you yourself,” she explained. “But for a man like you. I wanted some one to save that horse.

“I was praying for you to come along when Vasto started to work him over—out there in the street. And sure enough my prayer was answered: there you were right on the spot—and at the right time.”

She motioned Dave to a chair, and cast the bowlegged hostler a withering look. Padin retired and closed the door.

Dave looked around uncomfortably. There were pictures on the walls of cantina girls and race horses—left there by the former occupants of the room. There also were pencil marks, names carved in the boards, and bullet holes.

Dave stayed because he observed again that the girl was prettier than any cantina girl, than any other girl for that matter who had ever come to Cobb’s Coulee.

“Ali Baba was brought from Arabia when he was a yearling,” she said with the air of immediately jumping to the matter at hand. “A German animal company brought him—and we took him on with the show. You ought to have seen him then, mister!”

She held up her dainty hands, the smoke mounting in a slender thread from one of them. Dave watched her hands without hearing what she said. “You know what a wild stallion looks like when he’s a punk, mister—mister; say, what is your name anyway?”

“Huppert. My friends call me Dave. One or two of my best friends, why they call me pard.”

“All right, pard, I’ll tell you the whole story straight from the shoulder. That horse was the most beautiful thing in the world, with mane tossing, feet prancing, eyes rolling. But he doesn’t toss his head any more; he just hangs it. He doesn’t prance. He stamps on the ground like a bull that’s going to charge. Are you listening, pard?”

Dave gave the impression that he was looking at her without hearing her. It was not only an impression, it was a fact. He was entranced with those freckles which the Arizona sun had brought out on her delicate white skin.

“What did you say, ma’am?”

“Look here, pard, I’ll come out with it and no more hedging. I want that horse taken away from Vasto. Vasto’s a double-dyed, fire-eating brute. You saw that.

“Ali Baba is a prince, and Vasto isn’t good enough to touch his off hind foot. But if his off hind foot would only connect with Vasto’s chin, here’s one member of the circus who’d give him a lump of sugar for a reward!”

“I reckon Vasto and this horse can be separated easily enough, ma’am.”

The girl beamed.

“Then you’ve got what I mean, pard!” she cried enthusiastically. “Look here. Can you imagine how that horse has been dreaming of his Arabian desert ever since he’s been brought down here to Arizona. It’s just like it, I suppose, though I’ve never seen an Arabian desert except as a backdrop to Madame Zuzu’s educated snakes.

“But we’re near a desert here—and Ali Baba knows it. I’ve seen his nostrils tremble every time a breeze comes up from down that way. And I’ve seen his muscles quiver, and his gold hoofs paw at the ground, as if he wanted to get off and run free and wild.”

“This coyote you call Vasto,” Dave Huppert inquired, “is he just plain ornery cruel? Or has he a reason for persecuting a fine critter like that——”

“Both. He’s naturally ornery. A screw or two loose up here. But that’s not the real reason. He’s persecuting me through that horse——”

Dave Huppert jumped to his feet. He saw red.

“That settles it!” he cried. “I’ve just started with that hombre. The next time you see him you won’t see him plaguing a stallion. He won’t be able to stand up and whip a sage rabbit when I’m through.”

“What are you going to do?” she demanded in alarm. “You don’t get my idea at all.”

“What did you want me to do, child? I thought you were steering me into another fight. Well, I’m ready.”

“You don’t get me at all, pard. I want you to take the horse.”

“Take him? What do you mean? Rustle him?”

“No—buy him. He’s for sale. Vasto’s afraid of him going bad one of these days—and he’ll sell him if you pay the price.”

“I haven’t got the price for even a stove-up stock horse!”

“You what!”

He stared at her in surprise. Her face seemed transfixed with a deadly disillusion.

“Look here, child, what do you figure I am, anyway! I’m only a mucker from the Coyotero Desert. I said I couldn’t buy a stock horse to make soap with!”

“Padin—the old duffer out there—why he said you’d just discovered a gold mine!” she exclaimed without attempting to hide her disappointment.

Dave burst out in a hearty guffaw. “Why, child, he also told me one! He said he had a sick pard here ready to die unless I came down here with him and shook your hand.”

“All right. I am his pard. I feel like dying, too—if that’s the way he wants to put it.”

Dave took her hand again. She winced under the grasp. “There’s only one way I can save your horse for you. And that’s to kill this Gila monster who’s been breaking him.”

“No—not that! I didn’t ask you here for that.”

“If I had this gold mine—I’d do what you want, girl. I’d buy the whole circus—hoping you’d stay with it. But I can’t see you disappointed like this. You’re like a kid who’s just found out there’s no Santa Claus. Well, there’s one way to satisfy you.”

He shoved on his hat and went to the door. She followed him, but appeared afraid of getting her hand wrenched again.

In another minute he was thumping down the dark corridor.

Old Padin who had been listening at the keyhole, recovered his balance, after being tossed aside by this charging bull. He came into the room, grinning from ear to ear, and sucking in his overflowing tobacco juice.

“Well, he came through, mam-zelle—a hundred per cent—didn’t he now! Hope he finishes Vasto right this time.”

“You little old liar!” the girl cried. “Do you know what you’ve done? I’ve sent that boy to commit a murder!”

“Good enough!” said the old hostler, slapping one of his crooked legs. “Didn’t think he’d come through so easy. The boss is as good as dead.”

He changed his tone, seeing the girl burst into frantic tears. “Look here, mam-zelle, what more do you want? Vasto’ll be dead in ten minutes, I tell you. If you ain’t satisfied with that, why then you’re pretty hard to please, I’ll say.”

The girl brushed the white-haired hostler aside and rushed down the hall. The hostler followed.

Dave Huppert had stopped at the long bar—as was natural enough under the circumstances, to cool himself off with a swig.

“There he is!” she said, taking Padin’s arm. “You go on and stop him. You tell him—tell him anything. Tell him one of your lies—the biggest one you can think up. But if you let him go to Vasto——”

“You mean you don’t want him to dump the measly cut-throat?”

“That’s not it!” Posey Nuggins said hysterically. Her old hostler saw that the tears were coursing down the powder of her carnelian cheeks. “I’m afraid Vasto will get him!”

“Oh, so that’s it! Well, well! That’s different. Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you was just usin’ the woolly young cowboy as a tool. But if you’ve gone and tumbled for ’im——”

He waddled out on the floor on his bow legs, scuffing up the sawdust. If his mistress had told him this in the first place, he could have thought up a lie sufficient for the occasion. He hitched up his belt, went to the bar, tapped the stranger on the elbow, and prepared to tell the biggest whopper of his spectacular career.