Читать книгу The Long, Long Trail - Max Brand - Страница 9

Table of Contents

It should not be thought that Valentine was that cheap type of fellow who attempts to carry his points by surprise, but as the stranger talked with him, the gradual conviction grew in him that he must see more of Jess Dreer. In the meantime Jess stared at his host as though the latter had gone mad.

"Mr. Valentine," he said, "I ain't prying into what's behind your mind. I'll just say one little thing: I ain't been under the roof of another man for eight years—as a friend."

"Why, then, if you object to coming as a friend, come as an enemy."

"With the bars down and you free to call in the sheriff when you please?"

"Dreer, do you think I'm the sort who'd call in a sheriff while you're under my roof?"

"I didn't mean no insult," replied the bandit more gently. "But I ain't a mind reader, Mr. Valentine. Why the devil should you want me to come home with you?"

"Because," said the rancher, "although I've lived some fifty years and a bit more, I don't think I've met more'n two men that particularly interested me. And you're one of 'em. As a matter of fact, there's nothing so strange. You've taken some of my money. Well, what you've taken won't break me. I'm what you might call a pretty well-to-do man, Dreer. Now, I'd spend fifteen hundred on a fine hoss and never think twice about it. Why shouldn't I spend fifteen hundred for a man and enjoy talking to him? Think it over."

"I stick you up and lift fifteen hundred iron men. Then you step out and ask me home. I go to your home. I put my legs under your table. I eat your chuck—" He made a face of disgust. "I couldn't do it, pardner, even though you don't mean nothing but kindness."

"Think it over," echoed the rancher.

A silence fell. The geldings jogged relentlessly, tirelessly forward; the roan cantered softly behind the buckboard.

"If I could figure how you'd gain anything," the bandit murmured finally, "I might chance it, but—"

"Take your time and think it over," insisted Morgan Valentine.

"Well, sir," said the bandit suddenly, "I call your bluff. If it's a trap—well, a nerve like yours ought to catch something. I'll go home with you."

Valentine stretched out his hand. But the tall man glanced down at the stubby, proffered fist, and then back to the rancher.

"Some ways," he said, "you might put me down as queer. But I ain't any too fond of shaking hands. You see, a handshake means a pile to me. I shook hands with a man that sold me to a sheriff once."

"And the sheriff got you?"

"No, the other way round. But I couldn't touch the gent that had double- crossed me—the skunk!—because I'd shaken hands with him. Now, remembering that, I guess you'll change your mind about this handshaking?"

"It goes with me as far as it goes with you."

Suddenly they shook hands.

Then they said in one voice, like a trained chorus: "That takes a load off my mind!"

In the meantime the evening was approaching. The early night had patched the mountains with purple and filled every ravine with tides of incredible blue. Before them the hills began to divide.

"D'you know something?" said the bandit.

Valentine saw that his companion was leaning far forward, his elbows on his knees and his face wistful. It meant a great deal more than words, that unguarded attitude. It meant that Morgan Valentine had been judged by this man and had been accepted according to his standards.

"What's that?"

"Yonder—behind them hills—well, I'll be stepping out into a new part of my life."

"I wouldn't wonder much if you were."

Still the geldings jogged on, and the hills moved by them slowly, awkwardly, growing each moment more dusky. They turned a sharp bend, and below them lay the valley of the Crane River; above it the red of the sunset filled the sky, and the river itself was a streak of dark crimson.

"Gimme the reins," said the bandit.

Silently the rancher passed them to his companion, who now gathered them in closer. He did not speak a word, but perhaps the tenseness of the reins, the new weight vibrating against their bits, carried a message to the geldings. Of one accord, they stepped out into a freer gait, their heads raised, their ears pricked. Life came into their step. If two whips had touched them at the same instant the effect could not have been more noticeable. And it seemed to Morgan Valentine that a current of strength and knowledge was passing down the reins and into the minds of the dumb brutes. To him it was more than a miracle.

"Do you know," he said, as the buckboard was whipped forward with redoubled speed and jolted noisily over the bumps in the road, "that's the first time I've seen those nags change that old dogtrot of theirs—"

The bandit made no reply for some time. He was changing the pressure on the reins. First the off horse came up on the bit and strained against the collar; then the near horse, who had been pulled back, was released and quickened his pace until he was snorting beside his companion and even ahead of him. And then both increased their pace, and the jolting was redoubled.

"Look at that!" murmured the bandit. "As long as they agreed, they wasn't worth a nickel. As long as they went ahead at that same old sleepy trot, they wasn't worth powder and lead enough to blow their heads off. But now they're beginning to try each other out. They're beginning to race. I tell you what, Valentine, the way to get the most out of men—or hosses—is to play 'em one agin' the other."

Indeed, the two geldings now had their heads as high as if they were just beginning a journey—higher than they had ever held them for Morgan Valentine.

And the latter was naturally full of thought as the buckboard careened down the hillside and dropped into the valley floor. Now and again, as the dusk thickened, he looked behind him and saw the roan mare following patiently, always with her ears flat against her neck. It was almost as if the fear of the master she hated were still in the saddle, spurring her on, curbing her free spirit, and breaking it to do his will.

Something in this thought made him look up at the face of the bandit, and he saw him sitting with his face tense and a light of cruel enjoyment in his eyes. It was as if he drew a deep delight out of the rivalry which he had put in the hearts of the two geldings.

It was, of course, night when they reached the stables behind the ranch house, although the moon, which hung over Grizzly Peak, was sending a faint, slant light down the valley. One of the hands came out to unhitch the horses, but the outlaw insisted upon handling his own mount. He led it into one of the individual corrals.

"A roof over her head always sort of bothers Angelina," he explained, while the rancher looked on in curiosity.

He watered her carefully, fed her grain and hay in cautious portions, and rubbed away the sweat under the saddle blanket. Yet the instant he turned to answer a word from the rancher, she whirled on her master. He did not turn his head to make sure that she was coming; though she veered noiselessly, her master did not pause, but leaped straight for the bars and vaulted over them. The teeth of the mare clicked with the noise of a steel trap shutting, just at the place where his hand had rested on the top bar.

"Ah, beauty! Ah, Angelina!" cried Jess Dreer, and came back to the bars. "Eyes in the back of my head, girl, and tomorrow you'll pay for this. Remember— Tomorrow— Or the next day; it's added to the score."

There was, at this point, a sudden outbreak of snorting and a rattle of harness from the big watering trough.

"What the dickens! Jud! Harry!" a man was crying. "What the devil has got into you? Quiet there!"

"By Heaven," murmured the rancher, "the geldings are fighting!"

"Is that strange?" asked Jess Dreer.

"They've lived like two brothers—which they are—ever since they were foaled."

"All the better," said Jess Dreer gaily. "A hoss is like a man. Needs a good fight now and then to keep 'em on edge."

And Morgan Valentine shivered. He did not say another word on the way to the house. He was beginning to think of many things.