Читать книгу The Long, Long Trail - Max Brand - Страница 10

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It was not until they had reached the very shadow of the sprawling old house that the rancher recovered from his absent-mindedness.

"How am I to introduce you?" he asked.

"As Jess Dreer," said the bandit. "I guess I've outrode my reputation."

"I think so. But where have I met you?"

"Somewhere south."

"I haven't traveled about much in the south. Let me see. Five years ago I was in Ireton; have you ever been there?"

"Nope. What's it like?"

"Common cow town."

"All right. I know it then. You met me there."

"That's all I'll have to say unless Mary starts asking questions. She's the outbeatingest girl for talking when she gets started on a thing."

At this the bandit sidestepped and scowled at his companion.

"You hitched up to a pile of womenfolks?" he muttered.

"My wife and my daughter won't bother you none, and my two boys knows what's manners between men, but Mary—she's my niece—can make a murderer talk if she sets her mind right on it."

At this the bandit chuckled. It was always a surprise to hear the soft, musical voice of this man.

"Leave her to me, pardner. It's been a good many years since I got my imagination all going at once, but when I get oiled up, I can spin the yarns out all night. What was the name of that town—Ireton? Nothing queer about it? Well, leave the rest to me, Valentine. If she wants talk, I'll let her have it."

"Aye, but one thing more, while we're on the subject of Mary. She's a fine girl, Dreer, but she has her ways. And one of them is to get all excited about any stranger man that comes around. She starts in by being foolish about 'em and most generally they wind up by being foolish about her. Now, I don't mean that you're the kind to get foolish about any girl, but I'm just telling you beforehand that if Mary begins to smile at you and act like you was a gold mine that she'd discovered all by herself, don't let it bother you."

"Don't bother none about me, Valentine. I'm well broke, pardner. I ain't gun- shy and I ain't girl-shy. Lead on!"

Since the night had turned crisp, Valentine found his entire family grouped near the big fireplace in the living room. They were in characteristic attitudes. Maude Valentine sat with her feet tucked well back under her chair and her knitting needles flew with soft precision. Elizabeth, her daughter, lay in a big chair with her hands locked behind her head, looking dreamily out the black window. In another corner Mary was plotting with Charlie Valentine, and Louis, disconsolately out of the picture, attempted to bury himself in a book, out of which he lifted envious glances at Charlie from time to time. When the door opened, there was a general shifting of eyes and attitudes; the tall and deceptively graceful form of Jess Dreer became the center of attention.

"Mother, I've brought home an old friend. Jess Dreer. Dreer, this is my girl Elizabeth. Mary Valentine, my niece, and my boys, Charlie and Louis."

They shook hands.

How much did the bandit learn from the touch of their fingers—from the cold, faint pressure of Mrs. Valentine; from the grip of Charlie, boyishly eager to test the comparative strength of this tall stranger; from the nervous touch of Louis's hand, for Louis was always ill at ease and apt to be embarrassed before newcomers. "Lizbeth" greeted him at the full distance of her rather thin arm. She was one of those who come late to womanhood. Her eyes still held that infinite quiet of childhood; her throat was small, but her mouth had a kindly softness. She would never have Mary Valentine's gemlike beauty of detail, but in time she would ripen to a rare womanhood. And as for Mary, her hand and her glance both lingered on him. It was as if she had seen him before and was now trying to resurrect the complete memory.

Mrs. Valentine took them into the dining room, and there she busied herself all the time they were eating by popping up out of her chair and running to get something as soon as she was once fairly seated. She discovered that Morgan's napkin was spotted, that his favorite chow-chow had been left off the table, that the baked potatoes were underdone, for which the cook received a brief, stern sentence, that the window was too widely open; in short, she spent the entire space of the meal asking Jess Dreer how long he had been in that part of the country, and interrupting herself every time before she got through with the interrogation. Finally she forgot all about her question, and sat as usual, with a smile of attention on her lips, listening to the men talk, while her eyes roved wistfully about the table hunting for the missing things. Yet never once did she win a glance from Morgan Valentine. She filled the time of the meal with an atmosphere of flurry and uncertainty, quite unheeded by her husband. But once, twice the gray eye of Jess Dreer fixed her through and through and tumbled her sad, small soul into full view. Not that she understood it; she only felt a vague fear of the stranger, his silences, his alert calm.

When they went back into the living room, two big chairs were drawn comfortably near to the fire, and the other chairs arranged in a loose semicircle on both sides of the fireplace so that the travelers could rest in ease.

"And how's young Norman?" asked Morgan Valentine.

He had turned to Charlie, but the latter indicated Louis with a jerk of his thumb.

"I dunno. Lou went over to see how Joe was coming on."

"I rode over," said Louis, embarrassed by the sudden focusing of all eyes upon him, "but I might as well have stayed away. They was about a thousand Normans hanging around the house. When I come up the path from the hitching rack, they was about a dozen of 'em on the front veranda. I hear 'em say: 'It's him.' 'No,' says someone, 'it ain't him, but it's his brother.' Then I come up and says howdy to 'em, but all they do is grunt like pigs?"

"Which they are!" cried Charlie.

The chair of Morgan Valentine creaked as he turned, and under his glance his eldest son lowered his gaze. All of this byplay was noted by the shrewd eye of the bandit. And the fact that he had been observed by a stranger to endure a reprimand made Charlie jerk up his head again and glare defiantly at Jess Dreer. The latter did not turn his head politely as another man might have done. He met the challenging glance of the younger man with a calm indifference so that it could be felt he was coolly measuring the other and filing an estimate of him away.

"Anyway," went on Louis, "I went up to the door and knocked. Mrs. Norman came, and I took off my hat and says: 'I've come to ask after Joe. How is he?'

"She didn't say nothing for a minute. She just stood there drying the dishwater off her hands and looking me up and down.

"'Oh,' she says after a while, 'it's you, is it? And why didn't your brother come and ask about his murdered man?'

"And when she said that, all the men on the veranda growled. I turned away and didn't say any more?"

"Oh," cried Mary Valentine, "I wish that I'd been in your boots! I'd have found something to say!"

"Mary," said Mrs. Valentine, "it looks to me like you'd found too much to say other times."

Her husband checked her with a swiftly raised hand, but Mary continued to stare defiantly at her aunt. Since the episode of Joe Norman they had been almost openly at war, and now Mrs. Valentine compressed her lips and knitted with a venomous speed.

"You needn't think that I wouldn't have talked back fast enough if one of the men had talked up," said Louis, turning red. "I wasn't afraid of any of 'em, Mary, if that's what you mean."

"You know it isn't what I mean, Lou," she said with a diplomatic change of voice. "Nobody is fool enough to doubt your courage; you're a Valentine, I guess! But it makes me mad to think of you turning away without giving that mob a few hot shots between wind and water."

"I wish I'd had the chance at 'em," said Charlie ferociously, and he flashed Mary a glance that sought approval.

"Good thing you hadn't," replied the girl instantly. "You'd probably have had ten men on your hands in no time. Better to say nothing at all, like Lou, than say the wrong thing."

It made Charlie glower at her, but Louis smiled in triumph. Plainly Jess Dreer saw how the clever girl balanced one of them against the other.

"But here we are talking family shop before a stranger!" continued Mary Valentine, and she smiled an apology at Jess Dreer.

He shifted his regard from Louis to his cousin, and, if ever a smile failed to strike its target, certainly Mary's smile glanced harmlessly away from the impersonal eyes of Dreer. She found herself suddenly sobered.

"Don't mind me," he was saying in that surprisingly gentle voice.

"A little fracas," explained his host swiftly. "Charlie had a mix-up with Joe Norman and dropped him—through the arm—nothing to talk of."

Here Mrs. Valentine raised her eyes, let her glance fall pointedly upon Mary, sighed, and shook her head. It was impossible to miss her meaning. Mary had been the cause of the quarrel. But Jess Dreer was looking toward the ceiling and had apparently seen nothing. Mary did not know whether to be relieved or piqued. But now that the stranger's attention was diverted to other things she took the occasion to examine him more minutely. Ordinarily she was not in the least interested in the few acquaintances whom her uncle brought home, but now she discovered that this stranger was probably not quite so old as his weather- beaten appearance had at first led her to imagine.

Then she found that the conversation had taken a new turn. Mrs. Valentine apparently felt that it was the part of a perfect hostess to draw the stranger into the center of attention.

"How long have you and Mr. Dreer known each other, Morgan?" she asked.