Читать книгу Billy Angel, Trouble Lover - Max Brand - Страница 5

II. THE SHERIFF CONDEMNS

SHE stood up from lowering the wounded man to that shelter in time to see young Tom Kitchin, the sheriff, stride through the door with half a dozen men shouldering after him. They came stamping their feet for warmth, their heavy coats powdered with snow. But there was an eagerness in their faces that made her heart shrink. Surely they had seen. Their first words reassured her.

“The boys tell me that they seen a chap that answered his description come in here... Billy Angel... we want him, Sue.”

She leaned on the counter, resting both her elbows on it. She took all her courage in her hands, so to speak, and she made herself smile back at handsome young Tom Kitchin.

“I’ve never met anyone called Billy Angel. Is this a joke, Tommy?”

He shook his head, too serious for jest. “A great big chap. Looks strong enough for two. Wore a heavy Mackinaw. Got a devil-take-the-next-man look to him. Couldn’t mistake him once you set eyes on him. Old Pete Allison says he was here and that he ain’t seen him leave.”

“Did Pete say that?” said the girl, silently registering a grudge against the old man.

“He did.”

“He went out the back door about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Back through here?”

“Yes.”

“We’re off, boys!” cried the sheriff. “We’ll run the dog down in an hour.”

“Wait a minute, Sheriff,” said Jack Hopper, the engineer, who was the rearmost of the party. “Wait a minute. If he cut back through the back door, he’s headed for the hills.”

“Weather like this? You’re wild, Jack,” answered the sheriff. “He’ll cut for cover!”

“What’s weather to him? He’s got something inside him that’ll make him warm.”

Another broke in: “You’ll never get him. It’s blowing up a hundred-percent storm. Let him go for a while, Sheriff. After he’s run around through the snow all night, tryin’ to keep his blood goin’... he’ll be spent pretty bad. We’ll go out and ride him down in the morning.”

The sheriff, growling deep in his throat and scowling, stepped to the back door of the room and cast it open. A great white hand of snow struck in at him. The flame leaped in the throat of the lamp, and the fire roared in the stove. He closed the door with a bang and turned his head down, shaking off the snowflakes.

“You’re right, Jack,” he said. “He’s gone for the hills. And we’d never find him in this weather. Maybe he’ll freeze before morning, at that. I hope not. I want to see the hanging of that rat.” He came back to the lunch counter. “Coffee all around, Sue. We’re cold to the marrow.”

Her heart sank. Under her feet lay the wounded man. Perhaps at this very moment he was dying! His face was a dull white, his eyes were partly opened, and showed a narrow, glassy slit. She could not repress a shudder. But there was nothing to do except to obey the order. She went about it as cheerfully as possible.

From the big percolator, the polished, gleaming pride of the counter, she drew the cups rapidly, one after another, and then held them under the hot-milk faucet until they were filled. She set them out; she produced the sugar bowls and sent them rattling down the counter, where they came to a pause at an appropriate interval before the line.

They were beginning to grow comfortable, making little pilgrimages to the stove to spread their hands before the fire, and then returning in haste. Their faces grew fiery red, and the blood rushed up to the skin. The frowns of effort began to melt from their foreheads.

She was showered with orders.

“Lemon pie, Sue.”

“That custard, Sue, under that glass case.”

“Some of that coconut cake, Sue. Make it a double wedge.”

“When are you gonna leave off cooking for the world and center on one man, Sue?”

“I’m waiting for a silent man, Harry.”

“I’m silent by nacher and education, Sue.”

“We won’t know till you’ve growed up, Harry.”

“Sue, gimme a dash of that Carnation cream, will you? This here milk ain’t thick enough.”

“It’s real cow’s milk, Bud.”

“The only kind of cows I like are canned, Sue. This here fresh milk, it ain’t got no taste to it.”

She opened a can of condensed milk and set it before Bud.

“Another slice of apple pie, Sue.”

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