Читать книгу Red Devil of the Range - Max Brand - Страница 9

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IT was after supper time when young Everard Winton put up his mustang and came to the house.

He went into the kitchen and found his mother washing dishes. She merely turned her head over her shoulder, offering him no food, only the stern greeting:

"Your pa wants to see you on the front porch."

The son looked back at her curiously. Her head was bowed lower over the dishpan, and she worked her elbows furiously, as though she were over a washtub.

He went to her and laid a hand on her shoulder; her whole body trembled.

"What's the matter, Mother?" said he. "Are you going to take it as hard as all this?"

She stiffened at that, and whirled around to face him.

"It ain't me that you're to wheedle! It's your pa that wants to talk to you," she said.

He looked again into her angry face. Fear was in it, too, but he saw that his advance was taken in the wrong spirit entirely. She felt that he was trying to break ground with her before he went out to see the head of the family.

But that was mere pretense, for she was the head of the family, as he very well knew.

He was ravenously hungry, so he picked up a crust of bread, spread it with butter from a dish on the kitchen table, and paused at the door to munch.

"You didn't go to the blacksmith shop at all," she exclaimed, without turning her head. "Don't lie and say you did. Pa went and inquired, and you wasn't there!"

"I wasn't going to lie about it," he answered, simply. Anger jumped up in his breast. "What sort of a fellow d'you think I am, anyway?" he asked her.

"Go and talk to your pa!" she retorted.

He went out of the kitchen and through the dining room and down the narrow darkness of the hall, very slowly. He was finishing the heel of the loaf as he stepped onto the front porch.

There were two spots of light in the dusk; one was from his father's pipe, one from his uncle's cigarette.

"Hello, Clay. Hello, Father," said Ever.

"How are things?" asked Clay Winton.

The father merely grunted.

"Mother says you want to talk to me, Father," said the boy.

"I do," said Ned Winton, gruffly.

Now that the time had come, the words came out with a surprising ease. Ned Winton added:

"Were you at the blacksmith shop, today?"

"No," said the boy.

"Why not?"

"I was busy at something else."

"What was it?"

"I rode the Red Pacer," answered Everard, frankly.

"You rode him, eh?" exclaimed Clay Winton. "Good boy, Ever!"

Ned leaned forward to face his brother. "Are you gonna keep your mouth out of this?" he asked, with a dangerous softness.

"Yeah. I'll keep out of it," answered Clay.

"So you rode the hoss, eh?" said the father.

The boy was silent. It was a question he had already answered.

"I told you not to and you went and did it?" questioned the father.

"I said that I pretty near had to," replied Everard. "You know how a thing gets into you—and burns."

"But I told you not to!" insisted the father.

"That's true," said the boy.

"And still you went and done it?"

"Yes."

"What had I ought to do about a thing like that?"

"I don't know."

"I know," said the father, savagely. "I'd oughta throw you out of this house and into the road! That's what I oughta do—and I got a mind to do it."

The boy lifted his head.

"It's easily done," he said. "One word will turn the trick. Just one word more is all you need to use.

Ned Winton leaped from his chair and stamped until the boards creaked under him.

"Sassing me back, are you?" he shouted.

"I don't want to," said Everard. I don't want to make you angry, either."

"All you want is to have your own way, eh?"

"Father," said the boy, "I know you're angry—and I don't blame you, either. You told me there was something I mustn't do, and I did it. That was wrong of me, but I just couldn't help myself. I want to make a business deal with you. You've always wanted me to stay and work more on the ranch. You never wanted me to go into the blacksmith shop, for instance. It was only that I thought that I couldn't be interested in the ranch, you see. Well, I'll change my mind, if I can. I'll come back here and work on the ranch; I'll be a hired hand. I'll show you how I can pitch in and work for you."

"What makes you say all of this, so unexpectedly?" asked the farmer. "What makes you so doggone eager to get to work on the ranch?"

"I'm not eager to do that," answered Everard. "But I want to please you and I want to please myself. I've got a chance to get a thing that means more to me than anything else in the world. You can help me get it. And if you'll do it, I'll work out what I want you to give me. I'll work without any pay as common puncher, plough-hand, anything you say."

"What is it that you want?" asked the father.

"Two thousand dollars!"

"What?"

The boy was silent.

The father exclaimed again, "What you done that you need two thousand dollars?"

"That's the price of the Red Pacer."

"My God!" cried Ned Winton. "I could buy twenty good hosses—I could buy a whole herd of 'em—for that price. Are you clean crazy, Ever?"

"Well, after seeing the Pacer twice, I'll about die unless I have him; and Harry Lawson wants two thousand dollars for him."

Said Ned Winton, "I ain't that kind of a fool!"

Said the boy, "Would I be worth five hundred dollars a year to you, and keep, as a regular ranch hand—and to run things, too, while you're away from the place, now and then?"

"Five hundred dollars!" said the father, scenting a bargain, and beginning to cavil. "While you have boxing matches behind the barn?"

"I'll stop that," said the boy. "I promise."

"And burn up ammunition with revolvers and rifles—and never shoot no game—just practice?"

"I'll stop that, also," said Everard. "I'll stop it all. I'll be what you want me to be. I'll throw myself into the job. I'll study the cattle business day and night, when I'm not riding range or doing other things. I'll work out of books and take notes on everything that the old-timers say to me. I'll never look at a gun or anything like that. It'll be work, work, work, for me. I'll give you four years of work like that, if you'll advance the two thousand dollars now."

The father sighed.

"To think of a son of mine actually wantin' to blow in two thousand dollars on a hoss!"

"I'll work six years for you," said the boy, steadily and quietly. "I'll spend no more time making things in the blacksmith shop, or fiddling around with the locksmith, or shooting, or hunting, or playing foolish games. I'll toe the line every minute of those years. I'll do that for the two thousand dollars."

"You will?" muttered the father.

There was a long silence. Then the parent whispered, "Two thousand dollars for a worthless hoss! You'd be the laughin' stock of the range, and so would I. Folks would just laugh at us. Two thousand dollars? You could get that hoss for five hundred!"

"Harry Lawson spent fifteen or twenty thousand dollars to catch that mustang," said the boy. "What with the hire of men and the burning up of horse-flesh, he spent at least that much. And his place went to pieces while he was away. He was pretty well heeled a few years ago, and he's broke now. But he did that for the horse. He asked five thousand at first; but afterwards he came down to two thousand—after I'd ridden the Pacer. That's his lowest price. I saw in his face that it was the lowest."

"Harry Lawson is a half-breed fool!" said the father.

Clay Winton broke in. "Ned, do it. Ever offers you six years of his life. By the end of that time he'll be a cattleman in spite of himself, and that's what you want him to be. Let him have the money. I'll advance it to you if you're short on hard cash."

That word from his brother simply happened to strike Ned Winton at the wrong moment and in the wrong place.

"I want none of your stolen money in my hands!" he shouted.

His brother stood up and leaned a hand against a wooden pillar. He felt the eyes of the boy on him, through the darkness.

"You've said a hard thing to me," said Clay.

"I've said a true thing. Tell Ever if it's true or not. On your word of honor, tell him true—if you dare!"

"It's true," said Clay Winton. I live on stolen money.

After a deadly pause Ned Winton muttered, "I didn't want to kick you in the face like this—only—"

His voice faded into an obscure mumbling that had little or no meaning.

Clay said, "I might of guessed from last night that it would pan out this way. Well, I'll be rolling my blankets."

He stepped through the doorway and into the house.

"Hadn't you better call him back?" asked Everard of his father.

Ned Winton exploded again. He felt that he had done something brutally wrong, for he loved Clay and always had. It had been a stunning shock to him to learn that his wife's suspicions, after all, were correct. Now he turned and poured his rage on the boy.

"Are you gonna give me advice now?" he demanded. "You, that has been the cause of it all?"

"No," said Everard. "I'll give you no more advice."