Читать книгу Marbleface - Max Brand - Страница 11

Table of Contents

AS you can tell electricity by the shock and the thrust of it, so you could tell by the sound of those fellows' growling that they meant trouble and big trouble for the three of us. I sat numbed and sick in my place, and my heart began to race like a stone bounding downhill, rattling and crashing. That was the thing that I had to think of first.

The four guards of the bridge had their guns under our noses. And Slim Jim Earl seemed to give up the fight, for he said:

"Well, I'm from Piegan, and that's a fact. What of it?"

One of the Makerites fairly shouted with rough laughter.

"He says what about it, but we'll show him what about it!" he declared. "We'll show him pronto. If they ain't ropes in Piegan, they maybe think that we ain't got 'em in Makerville. Who is these other two?"

The lantern was thrust in the face of Dan Loftus.

"I know that fellow, too," said one. "That's Loftus, and he's from Piegan, too. The whole three of 'em are from Piegan. Get them out of that rig. I dunno that we'll find a tree handier than the arch of this here bridge."

"D'you mean that you'll hang us for doing nothing but drive into your town?" roared Dan Loftus.

"Doing nothing?" said the lantern bearer, a big man, who seemed to be the chief spirit among them all. "Living in Piegan is doing something. I'd rather see a man from the pen than from Piegan. A lot of worthless crooks you all are. And who's this one?"

He flashed the lantern on me, his face all viciously set to jeer. It wasn't an easy moment. I was walking on tiptoe, as you might say, along the edge of a cliff high enough to put the life out of all three of us. They meant murder, right enough.

Well, when I had the glare of the lantern in my face, I had to think fast and reach far for my words, and the only name or word or idea that came to me was what I blurted out:

"Maker! That's who I want to see."

The lantern bearer turned, like the brute and fool that he was, to one of his companions, with that same loud, bawling laugh.

"He wants to see Maker, he says. He'll see Maker, all right!"

"Yeah, we'll show him to Maker, and Maker to him," said another of the guards, and they laughed again, as though they were great wits.

I saw Slim Jim turn his head and look at me. His eyes rolled, and the whites of them were glistening. I never saw a man in greater fear.

"Look what you've brought us into!" he snapped at me, with a whine of high terror in his voice.

"You done the bringing, did you?" said the man of the lantern, jeering at me again. "We'll do the taking, though!"

"Is there any one here with half his wits about him?" I asked, looking around past their leader.

"Hey!" he shouted at me. "I don't suit you, eh?"

I still had my hands in the air and knew that I dared not lower them. But I was thinking of all sorts of chances—I might crash my fists down into his face and jump for the rail of the bridge and so dive over for the water beneath. Though probably the water was shallow enough to let me break my head on the bottom.

"You don't suit me," I said to him. "Or has Maker nothing but fools working for him? He talked sensibly enough when he told me to bring these two boys over from Piegan."

The man of the lantern was hot as a coal, when he heard me talk like this. He swung back his fist and seemed about to slam me with it, when something stopped him and kept him wavering for an instant, poised on the blow.

"He told you to bring them here?"

"Yes," said I.

"Sid Maker told you?"

I pretended to lose my temper.

"I've told you that before, you jackass," said I. "How many times do I have to repeat it? Why else should I be here with the pair of them if Maker hadn't promised me a good fat split, and pay for both the boys, if I brought them in?"

The man of the lantern lowered his fist. And at the same time I lowered my hands—but slowly. The guards hardly seemed to notice what I had done with my hands, they were so troubled by what I had just said to them.

Jim Earl looked at me again, but this time there was a wild hope mingled with the fear in his rolling eye. I was beginning to do a little hoping myself.

"What would he want you to bring them in for?" asked the leader of the guards, scowling at me.

"Go and ask him," I snapped back, sharp and quick. "You know most of his business, it seems, and so you might as well know that, too. Take us along to Sid Maker. He's the man that I have to see to-night—unless I'm hanged by fools on the way. Take us on to Sid Maker."

"What would Maker want men from Piegan for?" said the lantern bearer, growling out the words to one of the others.

"I dunno," said his companion. "I dunno what he would want with anybody out of Piegan."

"You know everything about Piegan, do you?" I broke in.

"I know enough about Piegan. I don't wanta know any more," said the fellow.

"Well," said I, "Sid Maker doesn't feel that way. He finds it hard to learn too much about Piegan. He wants to learn and to keep right on learning. That's his way. That's what he willing to pay hard cash for. Take us on to Maker, will you?"

"I dunno," said the lantern bearer. "I never thought of that. I never thought that they might be deserters, coming over to our side. I wouldn't blame anybody for leaving Piegan and coming over to our side."

"Scotch Malmsby came over last week, just this way," said another of the men.

That recollection seemed to make up their minds for them all.

The lantern bearer turned back on me and shrugged his shoulders.

"I dunno," said he, "but I guess that you're all right. I'd like to knock the loose jaw off of your face, and I guess that I'll do in for you, the next time that we meet—but you can go through, to-night."

"Come along with us," said I. "I want you to come along."

"Why do you want me to come along?" he asked.

"I want Sid Maker to see the sort of fools he has working for him," said I.

The man swelled like a pouter pigeon.

"I'm going to slam you right now. I ain't going to wait!" he snarled and made a step at me.

I let him come right up close and laughed in his face. I knew that he didn't have the nerve to hit what he thought was one of his boss's men. And I was right.

"Go on and slam me," said I. "Sid Maker won't believe what I've got to tell him, unless I've got your signature on me. But if I can show him that, he'll have your hide instead of pigskin and cover saddles with it. It's thick enough for that, I guess."

He went into another convulsion, but, stepping back, he ordered us to drive on. He said that he would fill us full of buckshot if we remained there another moment.

Well, I badgered him a little longer, and invited any of them to come with us, but they declined the job, with thanks. They had enough of our company, it seemed, and finally Slim Jim Earl started the mustangs up, and we went walking, and then jogging across the bridge.

When there was enough night and rumbling behind us to shut us completely away from the guards, Earl gave a little yell of triumph, and Dan Loftus joined him in cheering.

They seemed pretty pleased with the way that I had handled the thing, and I thought, myself, that I had been fairly smart about it. However, the truth was simply that a chance bluff had worked. Slim Jim wouldn't have it so. I couldn't tell him that his own words had popped into my mind the proper answer to the guards.

Slim Jim said that he was ready to follow on any trail in the world, no matter where it led. He said that he had been close to trouble before, but this night he had been so close to hanging that he could feel a kink in his neck.

And Dan Loftus said that he could agree to all that and that he had felt the scratching of the rope and the pressure of the knot under his ear.

I laughed a little as I heard them talking. It made me feel prouder, and I was warm all through to think of the way we had driven straight through that bridge guard.

But I didn't laugh very long. There were too many things before us and behind us now. For one thing, there was the necessity of getting back across that creek, if we were to return. And across the bridge we could not go. That was settled!

I thought the thing over and wished that I had made inquiries about the state of the creek's bank. We drove the buckboard down the side of the water until we found a place where the two shores were shelving and the water spread out so wide that it was almost sure to be a sound ford.

We would have to unhitch the horses from the rig and have them in readiness to use as riding mounts, on that return trip.

Both Slim Jim and Loftus groaned at the thought of this. Those mustangs were meant for driving, anyway. They were not intended to be riding horses, both of my companions said. So I had them unhitched, and bareback they rode the four.

I thanked my luck that only one of the four bucked, and even that mustang seemed to do it rather from excess of spirit than any real intention of getting its rider off.

Then I turned my mind straight toward the business of the evening.