Читать книгу The Comancheros - Paul Iselin Wellman - Страница 11

He remembered that journey as an eternity of wetness and mud, for it rained incessantly the entire time. The passengers slept where darkness overtook them—in filthy taverns, private homes, even stables—and swore at the fleas that made their sleeping hideous.

All the creeks ran bankfull, and these they forded with great lurchings of their vehicle, and whip crackings and profanity from the driver. At the larger rivers, crude ferries assisted their crossing.

Days which seemed months passed before at length they mounted some low rocky hills and descended into the valley of a yellow, muddy river called the Brazos. On the opposite bank, the houses of the capital of Texas—Washington-on-the-Brazos—were visible.

A ferry, operating on the power of the current pulling against its slanted side, and pushing it on pulleys along a cable, eventually conveyed the stagecoach across, and they got down from the equipage in what might be called—but only in derision—the main street of the town. Mercifully, the rain had ceased for the moment, and Regret, so weary of the coach as to be happy at arriving even in such a destination as this, splashed across the miry road, where currents of water still ran in the wheel ruts, to the shelter of a wooden “portico” supported by a few rickety posts in front of a store.

There he stood for a moment, ruefully examining his mud-smeared, wrinkled clothes. This did nothing to lift his spirits, but when he raised his eyes to the squalid hamlet in which he had arrived, he almost shuddered.

As every gambler is aware, fate at times works stunning reverses. Today, a man may be living at Fracasse’s in something like splendor, with gay companions, the best tables and the best wines, the finest tailors, and the prettiest women to make life worth living. And tomorrow the same man may be pawning the coat off his back and wondering where his next breakfast is to come from, while his associates of the day before yawn and look in another direction when he passes.

It requires jauntiness and courage to overcome such vicissitudes. More than once Regret had done so: but now he was confronted by a change in fortune so prodigious that it shook him. That he, to whom the smartest cafés and theaters on the continent, the latest trick of dress, the newest bon mot were as familiar as his own mustache, should be reduced to—this!

Now he did shudder—visibly. Never had he seen such bleakness, such crudity, such ugliness.

Under the gray sky, which commenced now to weep again, was a scattering of mean log cabins and shacks of clapboard style. Unpainted stores with false fronts straggled down the quagmire of a street. At the hitchracks gaunt horses stood, their flanks and sides streaming with rain water, their heads bowed as if in silent shame at their surroundings. Here and there, where shelter offered, a few lean, sallow men lounged, prodigious as to face hair, and without exception chewing tobacco in the atrocious manner of the frontier.

For a moment despair and homesickness rushed over Regret like a nausea. Then he thought of Judge Beaubien—and the nostalgia left him. Even Washington-on-the-Brazos, with its squalor, was preferable at that moment to New Orleans, and Judge Beaubien.

He was just beginning to feel better at this thought, when he became conscious of a man who was staring at him intently—a very tall and long-legged man, in age perhaps thirty, with a face clean-shaved but of a mahogany color from sunburn, out of which a pair of extremely light blue eyes gleamed in startling contrast. Regret had seen such eyes in a born killer more than once. His own eyes were jet black, and he could kill too. But eyes of this peculiar pale blue invariably set him on his guard.

At first he ignored the fellow’s stare. But as the scrutiny continued, it became distasteful. So he turned, and deliberately looked the man up and down. Perhaps, he reflected, the journey on the coach had done little to make him prepossessing, but after all this person’s appearance was no better than his own. Its chief features were immense mule-eared boots, a heavy pistol holstered at the hip, a blue flannel shirt, and the wide hat which seemed to characterize all males in this country, the whole indescribably splashed with mire.

Regret cocked his hat aggressively, with a warning gleam in his eye. “Is there something about me that is amiss?” he asked sharply. “Something, monsieur, that perhaps does not appeal to you?”

The other’s light blue eyes ceased their minute inspection of his costume, his features, the very hairs of his mustache, and for an instant their gazes met and locked.

In that moment a strange thing was born. There is such a thing as love at first sight, in which one look weds two souls in everlasting devotion. This was exactly the opposite—hate at first sight. But it wedded their two souls as indissolubly as the opposite emotion ever joined two lovers. For good or ill, an instinct taught Paul Regret, he was fated to see very much of this man until the end came for one or the other of them.

“M’soo,” said the Texan in a ridiculous mincing imitation of Regret’s “monsieur.” Then he added, in a curious flat drawl, “That’s French, ain’t it? Then you’ll be Paul Regret.”

“You have the advantage of knowing my name,” Regret said coldly, “while I don’t enjoy the dubious honor of knowing yours.”

His manner was challenging, but it left the other indifferent. In the same negligent drawl, he said, “I’m Tom Gatling, Texas Rangers.”

Regret’s complete astonishment showed. New Orleans had heard much of the redoubtable corps of men that patrolled the far frontiers of Texas, but he was little prepared to find in this slovenly figure a member of that famous fighting force.

“You got any weepons?” the Ranger now said.

“No.”

“Then come along with me.”

Regret drew himself up. “May I inquire why?”

“The Big Mingo wants to see you.”

Regret understood that this was the Ranger’s odd way of taking him into custody, and for a moment hesitated. But among other things he was a good judge of men. He observed the revolver, and a menacing glint in the blue eyes.

“As you wish, my friend,” he said lightly.

“Git this straight,” the other retorted. “I ain’t your friend.”

Regret bowed ironically. “It gives me pleasure, monsieur, to return the compliment in kind.”

Then he flicked a spot of mud from his sleeve, and disdaining to inquire who the “Big Mingo” might be, fell into step with him.

At once he found this required some effort, for the man’s legs were inordinately long, and his strides immense. Nevertheless he managed to walk, so he flattered himself, with something of a swagger, ignoring the stares of the yokels loafing under the porticos. At the same time he took note that Gatling had not even bothered to search him for weapons, taking his bare word that he was unarmed, which argued either for exceptional naïveté or exceptional self-confidence, he hardly knew which.

A moment later it became difficult even to swagger successfully, for they began crossing the atrocious morass which passed for a street. His varnished French shoes now sustained their final ruin, although he endeavored as much as possible to hop from one spot that looked moderately firm to the next, his discomfort adding to his anger. Behind him his companion strode stolidly, his high boots making nothing of the execrable mud. Neither spoke, but when they were across the Ranger jerked his thumb toward the left.

Fuming but silent, Regret waded in the rain with him past a succession of log houses. One of these, slightly larger than the others, was of two sections, with a roofed passage between, known in this country as a “turkey walk.” On this open porch Regret noticed a big man with brindle side whiskers, shaving by the poor light, crouching forward at it, but using no mirror, from which he reasoned he was an old soldier accustomed to campaigning, for it is a trick that is learned in the bivouac.

“Turn in here,” Gatling said.

“Here?”

“Yep. This here’s the execootive mansion.”

In spite of himself Regret gave a quick glance to see if, for some weird reason, Gatling was joking. Then he saw the man in the passageway glance over toward them, toss the contents of his tin basin on the ground, wipe his face and hands on some kind of huck towel, and go within.

The dazed realization came over him that it was no joke. This mean hovel was actually the “executive mansion” of Texas, and the stark figure he had just seen, shaving in cold water and without even a mirror, must be none other than the celebrated soldier, statesman, and adventurer—General Sam Houston, president of the Republic of Texas.