Читать книгу Red Devil of the Range - Max Brand - Страница 8

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HARRY LAWSON was seated on top of the corral fence. He was like a stuffed bird; there was not a trace of emotion on his face.

Ever dismounted and then tried the stallion on the lead. It was as though the horse had learned, long, long ago, in the days of its colthood, all the lessons that can be taught. For it now responded quite readily to the pull on the reins and to the pressure on the side of the neck.

Until noon the boy led the great horse up and down. Then he went to the shack, hoping for lunch. But the half-breed remained sitting on top of the corral fence, his arms folded on his knees, studying the stallion with a blank face.

That made little difference. In the West, on the range, one may take it for granted that there is a certain hospitality. And young Everard Winton sliced up potatoes with bacon, put on a pot of coffee, and banged on a tin pan when the meal was ready.

Harry Lawson had not moved from his perch all that while, but now he climbed down to the ground and went to the house. He pumped some water into a basin and took off his felt hat, time-altered from black to green. Above the hat rim his hair was shining black, but below the line of the rim it was gray with dust. In the cold water, without soap, the breed washed his hands and face with a few brief gestures. Then he dried his face by slicking off the water with the edge of the hand, and dried his hands by flicking them together a few times and giving them a final wipe on his greasy overalls. He removed his felt hat from the nail on which he had hung it, replaced it on his head, and sat down to lunch.

He ate slowly. Most of the time he spent in carefully loading his knife. The fork, though he preferred his fingers, was used to build up a high stack of food along the length of the knife blade, and after the load was built the knife was slowly raised, the mouth opened so wide that the eyes were reduced to glimmering slits, and the knife-load disappeared. Once the whole load fell off just as it reached his lips, but that was the only mishap; and after that accident he built the heaps more recklessly high than ever, and never made a mistake.

Ever's own appetite was good, but the half-breed fairly beat him, consuming at least two-thirds of the amount of food Ever had cooked. Still Harry Lawson had not spoken. But at the end of the bacon and fried potatoes, he winked, grinned all on one side of his leathery face, rose from the table, and from a hidden shelf brought down two cans of blackberry jam. He cut off the tops of both cans, put one in front of his guest and took the other for himself. He used no bread with the conserve instead, he simply raised the can above his face and shook clotted lumps of the sweetness into his vast mouth.

Young Everard Winton finished his meal and his coffee with haste, and went outside to take the air.

He could still feel the effects of the falls he had had that morning, but no pain of body could match or master the joy that was in his soul.

After a time, while he was smoking a cigarette, Harry Lawson came out and sat beside him.

"How much you want for that Red Pacer?" asked Winton.

The other held up five grimy fingers. And a swift, fiery hope rushed through the soul of the boy.

"Five hundred dollars?" he asked.

Harry Lawson shook his head, and a cold hopelessness filled the boy.

"Five thousand?" he demanded.

The other nodded, and put down his hand again while Everard Winton looked desperately ahead of him, his eyes straining as though he were trying to make out obscure print. Five thousand dollars! The sum rang and beat against his ear like a death bell.

"That's a lot of money, Lawson," he argued. "You've got to remember that the mustang's not a thoroughbred."

The Indian shrugged his shoulders, seemed to consider, and held up three fingers.

The world, for Harry Lawson, had suddenly shrunk to the shape of that silken monster; and the price of the horse was three thousand dollars. Not a very great price for a man's entire world, but an impossible price for young Winton.

Winton picked up the wreckage of the saddle and returned to the corral. For hours he worked steadily, and at four o'clock sharp he climbed tentatively, gently, into the saddle. This time the stallion did not strike for the sky. Instead, he sank almost to his knees, trembled, and gradually straightened. With loose rein, Winton kept his place, talking constantly to the great horse soothingly. And down from his hand, through the leather of the reins to the steel bit and to the brain of the horse, he felt an electric current running.

It was not a conquest.

Not as a fighter was Ever winning the Red Pacer, but as a companion and a friend.

He dismounted, undid the cinches, and carried the saddle back to his mustang. Harry Lawson was again at work on the stretchers, making them with wonderful handicraft, binding the joints with waxed twine. Hundreds of years before, perhaps, Comanches had made stretchers just like these!

"Three thousand dollars, eh, Lawson?" Ever asked wearily.

The half-breed shook his head, and lifted two fingers.

"Two thousand?" exclaimed the boy.

The other nodded.

Two thousand dollars seemed to Ever so little, by contrast, that it seemed for a burning instant that the red horse was already in his hands. And then he remembered; he had not twenty dollars in the world. His father had plenty in the bank, perhaps; but his father had forbidden him to come near the horse.

Only Uncle Clay Winton might have ideas.

Everard went to his own horse. It was not necessary to waste an adieu on that brutally silent animal of a man; so he mounted and rode back over the trail toward home. And his heart was like red-hot steel in his breast.