Читать книгу Gunman's Gold - Max Brand - Страница 8

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THERE was rejoicing in the town of Deerfoot, and merited rejoicing, it seemed. For an hour before, a hard-riding messenger had rushed his horse into the town, whooping at the top of his voice, while he stood in the stirrups, and, swinging his hat, yelled:

"Turn out! Turn out! Reynolds is five miles from town! Turn out!"

Deerfoot turned out with a vengeance.

The career of Jack Reynolds had been largely centered in the range of which Deerfoot was the focal point, whether for the miners, the lumbermen, or the cow-punchers of that district. It had not been a long career, but it had been a brilliant one, and the color for printing it, the only color, was red!

He had been a public danger for a long time, but usually there was more than a fair degree of justice behind his claims of battles fought purely in self-defense. However, when he entered the Owens Desert with Doc Halpin and Chad Powell, and their dead bodies were found, afterward, in the middle of the great stretch of sand, Deerfoot lost its temper. The sign of young Mr. Reynolds was upon the two dead men—for each had a bullet hole planted squarely between the eyes. And how many men were there, like Reynolds, who dared to shoot for the head instead of the body when it came to a battle where speed and surety both counted so much?

In the meantime, they had sent out their full force of active men, well-mounted, to follow the trail, and their patient trailing had been rewarded. Far away among the mountains they had come on the fugitive, and when he was surrounded he had pretended eloquently that he did not know why he was being trailed. But the instant that they informed him, he had fought like a tiger. There were three badly wounded men before a stroke with the clubbed butt of a rifle brought him down. That was why the return trip had taken so many dreary days—because the wounds of the injured men had to be considered constantly.

Now, after long waiting, the party was returning to Deerfoot—was actually at the gates of the town!

No wonder that Deerfoot turned out to a man. The younger element had cinched saddles upon their best mounts and raced a few times up and down the streets, to get in practice for the reception which it was intended that they should give to the returning posse. The older elements in the town's population remained on foot, but their eyes were bright and their jaws were set.

It was time that a signal blow should be struck on behalf of justice, and what better occasion was there than this? What more notable character could they find and make an example of than the famous young Jack Reynolds?

Among the spectators, the most silent and yet far the most interested of all was that tall man with the lantern jaw and the lean, brown face—Arthur Howison.

He spoke to no one. When the critical moment came, he was gathering himself, he was preparing the words in the hollow of his throat, for a final appeal that might at least make the men of the town ready to let the law take its due course. That course might be fatal to young Reynolds, but not if the Howison millions were able to effect anything—the millions and the best of legal talent.

However, as time went on, he saw that his hope was so very frail and light that even a single thread of a cobweb could have supported it.

It was at this interval when the stage rolled up to the hotel, which was the center around which the townsmen had gathered. The six sweating horses came to a halt and failed to receive the usual cheer from the bystanders. Their thoughts were fixed upon other things than stagecoaches, to be sure!

But some one noticed the faces of the men in that coach, and above all, the gloom that was written over Mike Flynn, the driver. Darker even than his was the face of the stalwart guard, "Long Joe" Tucker.

Long Joe leaped a mighty leap from the high seat to the ground even while the stage was still in motion. Bringing himself from a run to a halt in the front ranks of the crowd, he exclaimed in a voice that was heard by twenty armed men standing around him:

"Gents, got the most beautiful girl in the world inside that stage! She's left her beautiful babies to home back East, and she's made a flyin' trip out here to surprise her darlin' husband, which his name is Jack Reynolds! Quick—spread the word around!"

The word was spread, behind the backs of broad, brown hands, none too clean.

And then, as the men piled out of the body of the stage and stood solemn as a funeral cortège, a burly fellow stepped forward—he had descended from the back of the stage beforehand—and took off a hat that revealed a head covered with tight black curls, and saying: "Here we are, ma'am!" he handed down a lady in white.

Her hat was white. Her dust coat was white. Her dress, as she tossed the coat open, was white, also, and as little rumpled as though that stage had rolled not a mile over smooth pavements instead of bumping and jolting and careening over the rough forty miles from the railroad!

A hoarse whisper passed through that crowd.

"Jack Reynolds's wife!"

One small man in the rear muttered: "It's too pat! There's something wrong about it all!"

His neighbors, right and left, tore their eyes from the vision long enough to condemn the little man with silent glances. Then they stared again at the new arrival.

For what suspicion could adhere to her? Is the sky blue? And like the color of the deepest sky were the cornflowers that decorated her hat, and under the brim of that hat were eyes as blue as the flowers, and a sun-browned face, and rosy cheeks. And, above all, there was the brightly expectant smile with which she stepped forward, rather daintily, and holding up her skirts a little, which made it clear that her footfall was rarely in dust so deep.

A hundred men who had considered that town "good enough for real folks," suddenly blushed, and wondered why the infernal street had not been paved!

Now she was touching the arm of Long Joe, while the burly fellow—who must be a mulatto—picked up two massive bags which he made light with the prodigious strength of his arms and shoulders. She was touching the arm of Long Joe and looking up to him with more and more of that delightful smile, while she said:

"Oh, how many of them must be his friends, and I don't know a single one by sight!"

But apparently she was going to make up for that ignorance as soon as possible, for she turned from Long Joe and let her smile drift gradually from face to face. Wherever her glance fell, a sweetness more than spring flowers, or wine, or letters from home, slipped into the hearts of those mighty men.

The servant, for such he seemed to be, said: "I guess this is the only hotel, ma'am. Shall I take the bags in here? It don't look like nothin' much for you, Mrs. Reynolds."

"Of course, it's the only hotel, Sam," said the girl. "And I know that I'm going to like it. Jack has mentioned it in his letters ever so often!"

That looking up, with a slender brown hand against her breast, and always that smile—never the same, but each instant newly delightful!

Sam straightway carried the ponderous luggage and strode up the steps and over the veranda into the hotel.

His mistress would have followed him, but now the spirit of the devil invaded the gloomy soul of Mike Flynn and caused him to sweep off his hat, while a thin cloud of dust spurted out from it, and left the gesture inscribed in the air.

"Excuse me a minute, Mrs. Reynolds," said he. "I'd like just to say a couple of words to the boys, if you'll be so kind as to wait."

"Of course I'll wait, Mr. Flynn," said she.

It sent a shock through all listeners. That Mike should be called "Mr. Flynn"! Aye, but there you are! To a perfect lady, all men are gentlemen. Had she not had her gentle smile even for the mulatto fellow who carried her bags into the hotel?

Now, with nervous curiosity, the crowd gathered closer as "Mr." Flynn handed the girl to the top of the veranda steps and then stood beside her.

"It's like this, gents," said Mike Flynn. "I ain't one to make a speech, and I ain't going to make a speech now. I'm just goin' to say a coupla words that'll save a lot of time to all of you. Because it stands to nature that you gents wanta know the lady that's come way out here from the East to visit our town.

"And I'm goin' to tell you who she is.

"I guess you all know Jack Reynolds."

He made a slight pause, and his fiercely ironic eye rolled across that audience.

The girl beside him was seen to swallow and gasp a little with happy excitement. She looked up to the speech maker with shining eyes, as if expecting many more good things to follow.

A deadly chill went through the heart of every man present. With grim glances they strove to catch the eye of the speaker and warn him off the subject.

But Mike Flynn seemed suddenly blind to them as he went on: "I reckon in a lot of ways there ain't a better known man in Deerfoot than Jack Reynolds. I reckon there ain't a man that's more talked about. There ain't a man here that folks would more hate to have for an enemy than Handsome Jack Reynolds. There ain't a man ever come to this here town that ever made a stronger impression on everybody, or ever made it quicker. The hardest- riding and straightest-shooting man on the range we've had ever since Jack Reynolds has been with us.

"And now, gents, I wanta tell you that we ain't the only ones that's been thinking a lot about Jack. There was a wife back East that was always waiting for him to come back home, her and her two little children, that I've seen the pictures of, and finer babies I never seen nowheres. And that wife of Jack's, she kept waiting and waiting, and sorrowing a mite because she knew that Jack had to stay out here slavin' in the mines, and laborin' away on the cattle ranches, and tearing down the trees and getting his hands all calloused up to make a fortune for them he loved.

"And finally she couldn't stand it no more, and she just up and sends the children to her mother's house and throws a coupla things into a grip or two, and takes a trusty old servant along, and away she flies clean across the dog-gone continent, boys. And now, here she is—Mrs. Jack Reynolds, the wife of a gent that all of us know pretty near by heart. And I'm goin' to call for three cheers, and three big cheers, for little Mrs. Jack Reynolds!"

There was a pause, as though of men catching their breath. Then out came the roar of cheers that the driver had asked for. With swelling hearts of pity, with solemn eyes, and with thundering voices, the honest men of Deerfoot cheered "Mrs. Jack Reynolds."

It was a cheer that was noisy, but not very prolonged.

And then every one waited, breathless, and every man standing there could swear that he had seen the tears of joy shining in the eyes of that happy, laughing young girl wife.

They were silent. A whisper could have been heard, and certainly every murmur of her voice, broken with emotion, as she said:

"Thank you, Mr. Flynn, for speaking so beautifully about Jack. And thank all of you, oh, from my heart! But I know that every one loves him—every one always has! And if—"

Here the emotion overcame her. She turned and hurried toward the door of the hotel. But as she reached it, she mastered herself enough to turn and give them one more glimpse of her tearful, laughing face, and to make one gesture that certainly went home to the hearts of every man who saw her—all except that small man at the rear of the crowd, who was seen to shake his head and heard to mutter:

"Too pat! Clever—but too pat!"

Probably some of those standing about him would have given him the full weight of their fists without charge, but they had something else on their minds.

Mike Flynn, having finished his speech, as the girl disappeared into the door of the hotel, strove to make his escape. But he was caught by many hands, strong with just wrath, and pinioned, and thrust back against the side wall of the building.

Their savage faces pressed closely about him.

"You dog-gone, worthless mule skinner," said a foremost member of the crowd, "what you mean by holdin' us up and makin' a speech like that when you mighty well know that we got the ropes already stretched that are goin' to break the neck of Handsome Jack?"

"You talk, do you?" said Mike Flynn savagely. "You think that you got a right to talk, do you? Lemme ask if any one of you would 'a' liked to have that girl settin' on the driver's seat beside him for twenty miles between here and the railroad? And seein' her laughin' with joy at the lovely mountains, and the lovely birds in the air—which they was buzzards sailin'—and jumpin' up and nigh fallin' off the seat when we come slam on sight of a waterfall back there in the canyon! And her claspin' her hands together and near cryin' with joy when she found out that I actually knew her husband, and actually had sat and played cards with him, and actually had seen him a lot of times! And her asking: 'Didn't everybody love him? Wasn't he just such a man?'

"And every now and then she bubbled down in her throat, 'My darlin'!' And she popped out the picture of a pair of the sweetest-lookin' brats that ever I seen, and told me their names, and how bright they was, and what a lot darling little Jack looks like his darling papa! And me settin' right there beside her and saying 'Yes' or 'No,' and laughing till my heart ached, and wondering had the boys already strung up man- killing Jack Reynolds or not! I say, after twenty miles like that, you wonder that I wanta pass some of the poison on to you galoots that been doin' nothin' all day but set around and stretch the rope that's goin' to hang her dear husband, that's been out here so long, slavin' and sweatin', and sendin' home quite piles of money, but never lettin' them have what is more than money, his own self!

"Now, you gents go on and hang your man. Heaven knows that there ain't anybody in the world, I reckon, that deserves hangin', and needs hangin', so much as Jack Reynolds, the gunman, but Heaven pity the ornery skunk that would raise a hand again' the husband of that poor little girl inside there!"

The hands that had captured Mike Flynn had gradually loosened their grasp. And before the end they had quite fallen away from him.

He now said: "You gents, you settle the business to suit yourselves. But him that hauls on the rope that hangs her husband ain't a friend of mine. And he ain't fit to be the friend of no right-thinkin' man!"