Читать книгу The Red Bandanna - Max Brand - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The cook threw a half dozen tomato cans out of the cook wagon, and the men began to knock them about with their Colts. Clancy Morgan, being a new hand on that ranch, took his turn with the rest, but he found that a quart can diminishes to too small a point when it has been hurled by a strong arm. He missed three times running. The other 'punchers looked at him and grinned and nodded. Most of them were missing, too. Only the foreman and the freckle-faced kid from Arizona kept knocking holes in those cans.

That swarthy chunk of a cowpuncher, Bill, had taken no part in the proceedings, so Clancy Morgan went over and sat on his heels beside the taciturn man.

"You don't waste your time and lead on tin cans, eh?" asked Morgan.

"Yeah, and what's the use?" answered Bill. "New cartridges cost money. Maybe I could hit those tin cans as good as the next man. I dunno. I hate waste."

"Speaking of real shooting," said Clancy, "Danny Travis is the boy to shoot the spots out of everything."

Bill started. Or, at least, there seemed to be a movement of his entire body, but, when Clancy Morgan looked down at him again, Bill was simply scratching one shin.

"Those new chaps of mine," explained Bill, "they got me all chafed up."

"You take new sheepskin, it acts that way," said Clancy.

He made his cigarette and looked across the range, now blooming for a few moments in the sunset color. It had been a light day spent entirely in the saddle, with very little pulling and hauling. The cowpunchers were not sprawling on the ground—as usual in rest period—they were up and about, ready to play pranks. Their spirit was more like noon than night.

"Speaking of this gent—this Danny Travis," said Bill in a careful voice. "Just how good might he be?"

"An ace," Clancy Morgan said. "A regular ace." He broke off to remark: "Look at old Dick knock that can right out of the air! I'd like to be able to shoot like that." He shook his handsome young head. He was not over two and twenty, and his face was as happy as his heart, which had a way of singing all day long. The shadows of life meant nothing to Clancy Morgan. They never had crossed him, and it seemed probable that they never would cross him. When he smiled, the flash of his eyes and the white glimmer of his teeth, and a bursting good humor and gentleness and kindly content with the world dissolved criticism. Men liked to have him around. So did women. If trouble ever came Clancy's way, one would expect it to be because women liked him too well.

"But I'm no good with a gun," continued Clancy Morgan. "I've spent my time learning to ride and rope and work cows—I've never had the spare hours to play around with a gun. But a gun can be useful, too."

"Yeah, a gun can be useful," Bill agreed, with a certainty that made his voice very quiet. "About this here Danny Travis"he returned to the subject smoothly"might he be a friend of yours?"

"Why?" asked Clancy Morgan cheerfully. "Friend of mine? Why, I guess old Danny's about the best friend I have in the world. He taught me how to daub a rope on a cow. Good old Danny! He is a friend."

"A friend is something worth having these days," said Bill profoundly. "Yeah, or any days at all."

"Danny tried to teach me to shoot," said Clancy.

Bill lifted his eyes slowly and sharpened them to look into the face of Morgan. "He's a good hand, you say," muttered Bill.

"He's a top hand," declared Clancy. "He's a top hand at everything. He can rope, and he can ride, and he can do about everything. He could be governor, or something like that, if he wanted to, I guess. The way he can talk, it's a caution. He's a man, is Danny Travis. You wouldn't think of him settling down, though, would you?"

"I'd as soon think of a hawk squatting down in a barnyard!" exclaimed Bill.

"You know Danny, do you?"

"No, no," muttered Bill, "I don't know him. I mean, the kind of a fellow you talk about that can ride and rope and shoot and talk, and play a top hand at poker—that kind of a fellow, you'd expect him to keep on ranging and not to go and settle down on any patch of ground."

"Did I speak about him being a good card player?" asked Clancy thoughtfully.

"Sure you did," said Bill in haste. "You spoke about him being a good shot and roper and rider and card player."

Suspicion could not live in the mind of Clancy any longer than clouds can rule the sky in May.

"Cards are the way poor Danny has always lost his money," said Clancy Morgan.

"Where would he have settled? Where would he have taken up land?" asked Bill. And he looked suddenly down to the ground and gripped a hand behind his back.

"Right down beside my home town," said Clancy Morgan. "Danny Travis sort of takes to me a little. I don't know why." He flushed with pride. "He says I'm a fool kid, but he sort of takes to me—and he settled on a piece of ground right outside of Tartartown. He's got a section that looks better for rabbits than for cows, but Danny'll be able to work it, all right. He always is able to do what he wants."

"Tartartown—that's south," murmured Bill. He became silent. After a moment he rose and stretched. Then he walked off toward the place where the boss was pacing up and down. The back view of Bill was something like the back view of an ape, for the width of his shoulders, the length of his arms, and the shortness of his extremely bowed legs were accentuated.

Clancy watched him walk up and down with the boss. They came to a halt and appeared to argue a point. Clancy was not interested in arguments. He rolled down his blankets. It was not quite dark, and the moon would be up before very long, and it was better to get to sleep before the moon' slanted its pale light across the range.

So Clancy rolled into the blankets, put his hands under his head, and fixed his mind on a pleasant thought. The first thought that jumped into his mind was Olivia Gregor. Of late she was always his first thought. He never had asked her to marry him because it seemed an impertinence to speak of marriage before he was further on his way toward an established home, but he always thought of her with a sense of possession. Certain moments of silence had passed between them, and he was sure. Now he closed his eyes. He thought of her as he had last seen her, when she pulled up her horse and her hand and her laughter went out to him. He had wanted to pick her off that little mustang and hold her high in his arms. She had known what he wanted, too. Girls always know. They're clever that way. So Clancy Morgan smiled, and pleasant sleep was clouding his brain when he heard the voice of the boss, talking to the foreman.

"I told Bill I counted on him to finish the job. He wouldn't stay. There was something working in him. He saddled up and took the south trail."

Some of the sleep rolled back from the mind of Clancy Morgan. The south trail led toward Tartartown, and in Tartartown lived Olivia Gregor.

"It's too bad," said the foreman. Their voices lowered as they made down their blankets for the night. "It's too dog-gone bad, because Bill's a good cowhand. And he handled that string of outlaws that I gave him like they was house pets. There's something to that Bill."

"I'll give you an idea what," said the boss.

"All right. What's so mysterious?"

"I give him a good look in the eye while I was talking to him," said the boss. "You know how a resemblance misses you for a long time and then comes back sudden?"

"Yeah. I know."

"I'd been lookin' at Bill for days. All at once, tonight, it hit me between the eyes—it's nobody but Jasper Orping."

The name awakened Clancy Morgan and brought him up to one elbow, blinking. There was only one Jasper Orping. The ghosts of his dead men would agree to that. Moreover, on a day, had there not been bad blood between Danny Travis and Jasper Orping? It was a thing that increased the air of dignity that surrounded Danny Travis—that he could have fallen out with Jasper Orping and have remained intact in life and limb.

"That ain't Jasper Orping," declared the foreman. "Jasper's three inches taller, and his legs are straight, pretty nearly. I seen him once. I only had a rear view, but I seen him once."

"Sure, it ain't Jasper. I ain't said that it was Jasper. I said that it reminded me of Jasper, is all. It ain't Jasper. It's Jasper's brother, Bill Orping."

Clancy Morgan sat up straight. Suspicion was something he detested and shut out of his mind as a rule, but this was more than suspicion. It was a straight trail to trouble. Clancy Morgan disbelieved in tales of murderers, traitors, gunmen, and crooks and scoundrels in general. He never had seen a killing. He never expected to see one. When he heard of acts of villainy, he always made a mental reservation. What we have not seen remains a fairy tale.

But this was different. Bill had been singularly interested in the name of Danny Travis. He had brought up the name again and again. The moment he knew where Danny was to be found he had gone to the boss, drawn his pay, and hit the south trail—toward the place where Travis lived. Did Bill Orping mean well? Only a child or a fool could think that he did. He must warn Danny.

Clancy Morgan turned out of his blankets, dressed with a few swift motions, and stood up as a great rim of red-gold pushed above the eastern horizon. At least, he would have moonlight to show his way through the hills.

The boss was just pulling off his boots, when Morgan stood before him, saying: "I've got to ride to Tartartown. I've remembered something. I've got to go!"

The boss slammed onto the ground the boot he had just drawn off.

"You aim to go and come back?"

"Yes," said Clancy.

"If you go, you stay."

"All right," said Clancy. "I'm sorry."

"Running out on the middle of the job—like a lot of pikers—like a lot of tinhorn sports!" exclaimed the boss. "What's the matter with you, kid? What's on your brain? What's biting you? That's what I'd like to know."

"It's something terribly important. I can't tell you."

"Well, get out, then, and hurry back as soon as you can!"

Clancy Morgan turned.

"This got anything to do with Bill leaving?" asked the boss curiously.

It was not the custom of Clancy Morgan to leave questions unanswered. This time he felt that he should turn and tell a lie, but lies did not come smoothly off his tongue, so he simply walked straight on as though he had not heard.

He found his horse and got the hobbles off it and the saddle on its back. It was a four-year-old, not quite hardened, but with promise of making a cutting horse one day. Clancy Morgan regarded it sometimes with impatience, but usually with awe. What did children of four know, compared with the knowledge possessed by this mustang?

He bade no farewells, but took the road south on the long trail. Ordinarily he would have made that ride in two stages, but this time he dared not pause. If one of the Orping crew wanted the scalp of Danny Travis, he must rush the warning through.

He saw the moon climb up to the lonely center of the sky. He saw it slope westward, whitening the hills. The dawn came, and a great weariness ached behind his eyes. The mustang began to stumble. He eased the horse of its burden and walked several miles. With sunup he was in the saddle again, and rode through the gap of the north trail into view of Tartartown. All the houses blinked their windows at him, like signal lights, and a sudden warmth of assurance and relief came over him, for this was home.

Tartartown was hardly more than a sprinkling of houses gathered around the crossing of two rather dim trails. From the little cluster of buildings at the crossing, the outskirts grew more and more sparse until the ranches began, mere spots that the unpracticed eye could hardly find without much searching. For it was not a land of trees, neither was there a big growth of shrubbery. It was a land of cactus and bitter mesquite.

But scenery makes no more than a backdrop, and it is people who must fill the stage. Clancy Morgan no longer had a house, but still Tartartown was home, when he thought of all the faces and all the voices that he could call into his eye and into his ear. His heart swelled as he thought of the good fellowship of the men and the gentleness of the women. Suddenly he was assured that no real danger could have been moving toward Danny Travis. He felt that he had been a fool to make this long ride for nothing. But being here, of course, he would go to see Danny.

He headed down through the town. It was quite early, but not too early to find a Western town awake. He saw Dick Richards entering his blacksmith shop.

"I'm in a hurry, Dick. Seeing you later!" he called.

"Hey, Molly—hey, Dickie—Clancy's come back to town!" thundered the blacksmith. And he stepped out into the street to follow Morgan with his eyes.

A sweet pang of joy slid up the spine of Morgan and rose like a summer sun in his mind. This was home!

Doctor Walters came out on his verandah. "My dear boy! My dear Clancy!" he cried.

"I'm coming back, Doctor," said Clancy. "I'm in a hurry, but I'm coming back."

"Martha," called the doctor, "here's Clancy Morgan, looking as brown as a berry."

"Berries are not brown, silly," said the sharp voice of Mrs. Walters from inside the house.

And Clancy Morgan laughed. What a good world!

Little Harry Stephens rushed at him barefooted, barelegged, out of the vacant lot beside his father's house.

"Hey there, Clancy—Clancy!" he yelled, incredulous, squeaking with joy.

"I'm coming back," said Clancy Morgan.

"I'll tell Nell," said the boy. "She'll just yell! Hey, Clancy, I'm glad!"

Clancy Morgan went on. He wished that he might be passing the house of the Gregor family, but that, unfortunately, was not his luck. And it was right to save the best for the last. When he saw Olivia—

The houses cleared away. Before him appeared the twisting, dim little trail that led in the direction of Danny Travis's new house. It was just over the hill—and there was Danny himself coming out of the mesquite. He saw the rider. Something flashed out of the hand of Travis as he hurried forward, waving.

They met in front of the little adobe house. Danny Travis looked flushed, perhaps from walking through the soft, deep sand among the mesquite. But Clancy Morgan paid little heed to this as he hurled himself off his horse and gripped the hand of his friend.

"It's like years and years, Danny!" shouted Clancy Morgan.

The older man looked him up and down, almost coldly. Then he nodded.

"More shoulders and less stomach on you than there used to be, Clancy," he said.

"Oh, they work you up there," said Morgan. "Is there some barley in that shed? This pony has come a ways."

"Yes, he's gaunted up a bit," said Travis. He turned his solemn face toward the little shed that leaned against one end of the cabin. "There's no grain in there. I'll tell you the best idea—I'll go back into town with you. We'll have a feed ourselves, and we'll feed the horse, too. Come along, Clancy."

"Before I've seen how you've fixed up the place?" exclaimed Morgan, stepping to the door.

"Get out of there!" commanded Dan Travis.

His voice had a metal clang in it that flicked through the blood of Morgan like cold air. But the hand of Clancy already had struck the door, knocking it open with a stagger, and inside, a pale thing among the shadows on the floor, he saw the face of Bill Orping. He saw the body of Bill Orping stretched out. And he knew that the man was dead!