Читать книгу Marbleface - Max Brand - Страница 7

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ZINGO, but it was something to hear her talk! It would have taken a pretty confirmed coward to face that Cole girl, I tell you. Her brother, at least, didn't dare to stand up to her for a moment. He took the gun that she shoved into his hand and whirled about toward me.

I kept my own gun in my side pocket and my hand on top of it. I could feel my heart beginning to race. In another minute I would be sick with the strain. So, once again, the total call on me was to keep calm. Great Scott! Keep calm when every nerve in my legs was tingling to be off at full speed! But I had to keep that crazy pulsation in hand, and I did. I just walked on, while Steven Cole made a few running steps toward me.

I looked past him and saw his sister standing straight as a post. She looked like an Indian, her hair was so black, her skin so coppery, but there was more flame in her cheeks than there would be in the skin of an Indian. She was all lighted up now and if she feared for her brother, she didn't show it.

That fellow Cole charged at me, pulling the trigger twice. That didn't worry me so much, either, because I could see the crazy shaking of his hand as he shot. Then his gun clogged; he came straight on at me, swung up the Colt, and heaved it at my head. It barely missed, and as he rushed in, I heard the girl calling to him to fight like a man.

It was the effect of her voice on me that made me think twice. The first thought was that the Colt, of course, was what I had to use on the fool. The second thought was that there had been something rather fine, after all, in the way he had charged across that big hall at me. It made the killing of him murder. Murder of a real man, too, or of what might grow into a man!

Anyway, I used the second thought. I decided that for once I would do what the doctors said I never must—use my strength again. I brought out my hand with no gun in it and, as Steve Cole came in, I plugged him on the button with everything that I had. He went right on running by me, hit a wall, and flopped back on the floor, clean out.

That left the girl. And now I heard doors slamming and men's voices very loud in the front of the house. They had reserves coming in to swamp me, of course! But the girl hadn't moved from her place. I looked at her, a little bitterly.

That one wallop had seemed to tear me in two; the heart was pattering like rain, and noises roared in my ears. So I pulled out the gun and showed it to her. By thunder, she straightened, as though she expected me to shoot and didn't intend to run away. She would take the fire in front, like a man!

I only said: "I should have used this on him, but you saw that I didn't. Show me a back way, or a side way out of this place, will you?"

Watch the weight of the wind tip a bird on a branch—that's the way she hesitated for half an instant, and then she came up to me and said, "This way!"

She steered me through about twenty doors. That house was ten in one. And always we were hearing voices and footsteps, roaring and rushing. We came to a narrow, dark hallway. The light from a street lamp glimmered through a little pane of heavy glass, and beyond I could see the green of a garden.

Just there, I had to stop. My head was spinning, and my breath wouldn't come. It was like the fourth round of the fight, and I felt myself going down—forever, this time!

So I put my hand against the wall and paused, and the girl came running back to me.

"Have you got a bullet in you? Did they shoot you, man?"

She shook my arm impatiently.

"Is it just a dead funk?" she exclaimed, stamping. I grinned at her like an idiot. I could feel the stretch of that grin as far back as my ears almost.

"Rotten heart," said I.

She shoved her hand inside my coat, then she shuddered.

"Will it pass?" she asked.

"Sure," said I.

"Lean on me," said the girl. "It isn't far to the garden. They won't search there. Put your weight on me. I'm strong."

She was, too. She braced herself and took the soggy, sagging bulk of me along with her down the corridor.

She began to pant. She said: "A fine one you, to be a robber! And you use your fists, too! You should have taken the gun to him. Shooting low, I mean!"

"All right," said I. "But I didn't."

We got to the door. She opened it and pushed me through. I staggered and nearly flopped.

But she had me under the armpits at once and supported me again to a bench in an arbor. I lay down flat. I was so far gone that she had to pick up my legs at the ankles and stretch me out. Then things got exceedingly dim, until cold water fell on my face.

I looked up and saw the girl, just an outline of blackness against the black pattern of the leaves behind and above her. She was kneeling beside me.

"How's it coming?" she asked.

"I'm all right," said I.

"Don't be a fool," she replied. "You're not all right."

She was taking my pulse.

"It's getting better," she said. "Try not to think about yourself. Give your rotten heart a chance."

"I'm not thinking about myself," I whispered.

"That's right; think about something else, will you? You're all right now. You're getting better. I'll see you out of this tangle. What mixed you up with a lot of crooks? No, don't tell me that, either. Don't excite yourself. I won't even ask for your name."

"My name's Jerry Ash," said I. "They call me Poker-face."

"What's the matter? Too sick to work for an honest living?"

I thought.

"No, I could have gone straight," said I. "But I took the easiest way out. Help me to sit up."

She did that. I was still pretty dizzy, but I could breathe a lot better, and my head was clearing at an astonishing rate. I slid my right arm over her strong shoulders, and she lifted most of the burden as I got to my feet.

"Steer me out," said I.

"You're not fit to go," said she.

"Steer me out. Don't argue."

She did as I told her to do, leading me to a little back gate of the garden. The lock screeched a little when she turned the key.

Then I turned my head so that my face was close to hers.

"Are you going to be a silly fool?" she asked me, though she didn't shrink away.

"I'm going straight," said I. "Will you try to believe that?"

"Never mind the future," said the girl. "To-day is enough for you to think about. How are you to get away from here?"

"On my feet," said I. "What's your front name?"

"Betty," said she.

"Well, Betty," I answered, "you're all out by yourself in front, and the rest are nowhere. Good-by."

"Good-by," said she, "and good luck."

I stepped back into the opening of the narrow gate and paused there a moment to look her over and to let her soak in. Feature by feature, the shape of her head, the shoulders, her height and bulk, I worked them well back into my mind because I felt that I would be needing to remember what she looked like one of these days.

"Good-by again," said I, and went out into the street.

When I heard the creak of the gate being closed behind me, it made me feel pretty much alone, and in need of a doctor.

But I got on, stepping slowly.

I had my hands in my pockets as I came up to the next corner, and there a couple of flatties jumped out at me. I looked at them with a dull eye, and they split away to each side of me.

"Just a drunk," said one of them, but as I went on across the street, I couldn't help thinking how well the trap had been set around the house of Parker Cole. Young Steven must have been at the bottom of it, I decided, and that was enough for me.

Well, strange to say, the walking didn't knock me out, but straightened me up. The ripple and stagger of the heartbeats grew better. And then a cab came along, and I hailed it and went home.

I had the cab wait in the street, because I suspected that everything might not be right. If the others wanted to double-cross me, they had had plenty of time, and police might be waiting for me in the house at that moment.

When I unlocked the door of the rooming house, therefore, and pushed it open, I wasn't very much surprised to see two men waiting inside. They got up, pale faces under the light, and came for me. So I slammed the door and got back to the cab in time. They yelled and fired a couple of shots, but we got away.

I had not gotten very far, however, before trouble slugged me again. They wanted my hide and they wanted me badly. I was hunted from New York to Pittsburgh, down the Mississippi, on boats, on railroads, and they got wind of me in New Orleans and stuck a two-thousand-dollar reward on my head. However, on that entire trip I never went faster than a walk and I put in eight hours' sleep each night. Because I knew that I had nearly died in the Cole house, from excitement and physical effort.

Things were getting pretty hot on my trail all over the East and the South, and that was why I slipped out West. I didn't have much idea what I could do, but I knew I had told the girl that I would go straight, and that was my goal. The job that I had in doing that is what comes next to relate. That brings me to Barney Peel, and Sid Maker, and Makerville; to Colonel Riggs and Piegan. In fact, this opens up everything—so many things that I hardly know where to start.