Читать книгу The Long, Long Trail - Max Brand - Страница 11

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At this Morgan Valentine flashed a glance at his companion, indicating that the danger line was being approached.

"Oh—about five years," he said carelessly. He should have said more. His very carelessness made Mrs. Valentine continue her inquiry as though she feared that Dreer would consider himself slighted by so summary a dismissal from conversation.

"Five years? Well, you're a secretive man, Morgan. Would you believe, Mr. Dreer, that he's never mentioned you in all that time? I've known him to do the same with some of his oldest and best friends. That's Morgan's way! Where was it you first met Mr. Dreer, Morgan?"

"Down in Ireton."

"Well, well! As long ago as that?" And the subject was closed for Mrs. Valentine. Then Mary entered the lists.

"Why, that was the time you bought the timber, Uncle Morgan?"

"I guess it was. I disremember."

"Were you one of the men Uncle Morgan bought it from?"

"I never been interested in timber," said Jess Dreer. "Horses is more my line. But speaking about timber?"

Who knows how far he might have rambled afield on the subject of timber and all its possibilities had not chance interrupted him. There was a snap, and a bright coal leaped out of the fireplace and onto the rug. In the flurry of putting it out Dreer's promised anecdote was forgotten, and before he could resume it, Mary was back on the subject.

"Oh, did you buy that string of grays from Mr. Dreer, Uncle Morgan?"

"I disremember how it was that I met Dreer," said Valentine, with a mild voice like that of one who labors in vain to find a suitable lie.

Dreer came to his rescue.

"It was in Tolliver's saloon. We were drinking—"

"Why, Uncle Morgan! I thought it was ten years since you'd had a drink!"

"Not drinking whisky," put in Jess Dreer calmly. "Leastways, he was taking lemonade, and I was tossing off my redeye. That was how we come to talk."

As plain as day the steady eye of the girl said to him: "You are lying, Mr. Jess Dreer, and I know it."

But he went on: "And I'll tell you why Mr. Valentine ain't ever mentioned me. It's because he's a modest man. But here's the facts. I was saying that I had been drinking whisky. Well, when I went out into the sun, it got into my head and made it spin. When I climbed onto my hoss, I raked his side with a spur, and the next thing I knew my pinto was ten feet in the air. When he landed, I kept right on traveling. And when pinto seen me on the ground, he allowed I was his meat and started for me. He was a maneater, was pinto.

"There I lay stretched out with eight hundred and fifty pounds of redeyed hossflesh tearing for me and about twenty fools laughing their heads off in front of the saloon. But they was one man cool enough to see what was coming off: a man-killing. He had a split part of a second to keep that hoss from reaching me, and he done it. He outs with his guns and drills pinto clean through the temples. As pretty a snapshot as ever I seen. And that man was Morgan Valentine!"

He dropped his hand lightly on the shoulder of Valentine.

"But he's so modest that it ain't no wonder he's never talked about me."

Now Mary Valentine sat next to the tall stranger, and she was leaning forward to catch every syllable and read every detail of his expression, but for some reason he did not seem to see her. His target lay beyond. It was Elizabeth who had pushed her chair a little out of line with the rest of the circle, quite content to let Mary take the lion's share of the attention of the evening. On her Jess Dreer bent his steady eye, and every inflection of his voice was aimed at the girl, so that she, too, leaned forward, and before the end was smiling in breathless interest.

While the general exclamation went the rounds at the end of the tale, Mary snapped a glance over her shoulder at her cousin. Then she turned her attention back upon the tall man.

"I guess you've made that a bit strong," Valentine was saying.

"Facts are facts," said the bandit, and rolled a cigarette.

He had adroitly pushed his host out of the embarrassing center of the stage and stepped into the spotlight himself.

"Pinto reared when the lead hit him; coming down, one of his forefeet clipped me here."

And the bandit touched the scar upon his forehead. There was a general leaning forward and an intaken breath; Mrs. Valentine fixed her starry eyes upon her husband. In the clamor Mary could say to the stranger without fear of being overheard:

"Mr. Dreer, how much of that is made up?"

He neither smiled nor flushed.

"Guess," he said.

"The whole thing."

"Lady," he answered calmly, "you sure got faith in my imagination!"

At this point the fire blazed up so hot that Mrs. Valentine had to move her chair. It was Jess Dreer who read her wish and pulled the chair back, and when he sat down again, it was in a place beside Lizbeth.

It would not be fair to Mary to say that she was piqued by this occurrence. She was not angered; she was merely gathered up in the silence of a vast astonishment. For the first time in her life she had been overlooked, it seemed, and her cousin was preferred. And yet she had given Jess Dreer his full share of intriguing glances and bright smiles.

Indeed, the interest of the stranger in Lizbeth was so pointed that the whole family began to notice. He gave his host and hostess a phrase or a word now and then, but he contrived to make his talk go constantly toward the girl. And it was plain that Mrs. Valentine was not altogether displeased. As for Elizabeth, Mary saw her at first embarrassed, and then flushed, and then lost in a great interest. She was beginning to dwell on the face of Dreer while he spoke. Mary drew her uncle to one side.

"Your friend likes Lizbeth," she said pointedly. "And Lizbeth seems to like him."

"Now, Mary, what are you aiming to come at?"

"I aim to know who Jess Dreer is."

"Ain't you been told tolerable in detail?"

"Too much detail, dear Uncle Morgan. Do you think I was taken in by that cock- and-bull story about the mad horse?"

"Hush, Mary!" and his glance sought his wife guiltily.

"I knew it!"

"Mary, you're a nuisance."

"But just tell me who he is, and I won't bother you a word more."

"He's a man. Two legs, tolerable long; two arms, tolerable strong, and, speaking in general, he's like any other man."

"He's as much like any other man," said the girl, watching him earnestly, "as a wolf is like a dog. Look at his hands, Uncle Morgan. They're brown. He hasn't worn gloves much, the way honest cowpunchers do. Look at the inside of his palms. No calluses. I noticed when I shook hands with him. Look at the way he moves! Like a cat moves, Uncle. Don't tell me he's an ordinary man!"

"They's all kinds of men, and when you're older, you'll know it. Wolf? That's foolishness, honey."

"A wolf, Uncle."

"You think he's talking too much to Lizbeth?"

"Oh, no. Lizbeth is too much of a baby to be harmed."

"She's grown up, Mary."

"On the outside; inside she's about ten years old. But I'm right about this stranger. Even Charlie and Louis see that he's different. Usually Charlie starts edging up to new men, but he keeps clear of Dreer. See how he eyes him!"

"There you go again."

"Then tell me the truth about him."

"I'll tell you this much, honey. He's not the kind for you to set your cap at."

"You mean that you think I'll flirt with him?"

"Maybe."

"Uncle! With a man fifteen years older than I am?"

"Maybe not so old as that. But he's old enough. You've played around with boys, Mary, and they was no particular harm in it, excepting for getting Charlie into scrapes now and then. But when you start making eyes at a grown man, trouble will hit you and not them."

"You admit that it isn't very safe to be friendly with him. And yet you've known him five years—"

"No matter how long. I know him. And you keep away from him, honey."

"How long does he stay?"

"Till after you go."

"Somewhere there's a mystery," said Mary Valentine, and she added suddenly: "There he is laughing at us now. Why, he knows we're talking about him, and he's mocking me."

"Honey, he ain't laughing."

"With his eyes, Uncle Morgan. Oh, he's a deep one!"