Читать книгу The Enchanted Hill - Peter B. Kyne - Страница 4

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The conductor, hurrying up the track, found the engineer and the fireman abusing Lee Purdy. They were casting thinly veiled aspersions upon his intelligence and impudence; to all of which Purdy paid not the slightest attention until the arrival of the conductor.

“Got a friend of mine here,” he explained. “Shot accidentally. Take him into the baggage-car and drop him off at Arguello. Tell the station agent to see that he’s sent to the railroad hospital and that Lee Purdy will guarantee the expenses.”

“Whoa, boy,” the conductor retorted. “You’re a cool citizen of a mighty hot country, you are. I don’t know Lee Purdy and the company doesn’t trust him. Nobody rides on my train on any stranger’s guarantee; so unless your friend has a valid pass, somebody will have to buy a ticket; otherwise I’ll not attend the obsequies.”

“I should have known there is no sentiment in a railroad company,” Purdy retorted, and handed the conductor a dollar. The latter gravely made change, punched a receipt for a cash fare collected and handed it to Purdy, who tucked it in the killer’s vest pocket. “Now, then,” he suggested cheerfully, “let’s go.”

Bud Shannon was deposited on the floor of the baggage-car, but not until Lee Purdy had sacrificed a villainous old auto robe to furnish the desperado a pillow. As he prepared to leave the car he slapped the Shannon legs smartly and said, “Well, it might have turned out worse for both of us, Bud. Take care of yourself, old-timer. I’ll see you at the railroad hospital at the earliest opportunity.”

Shannon reached for his would-be victim’s hand. “Mr. Purdy,” he whispered, “if I knew your enemies in this country I’d tell you who they were. If I ever find out and provided I get over this, I’ll kill ’em for you and it won’t cost you nothing. Compliments of Bud Shannon.”

“Well, so long, Bud. Pleasant green fields.”

He stood on the station platform and watched the Limited wind swiftly away and lose itself among some low hills. Then he looked at his watch.

“Five o’clock,” he soliloquized. “Guess I’ll wash up and get out of here. I’m as bloody as a butcher.” He went over into the corral and washed himself at the watering trough, combed his hair with his fingers and caught up Bud Shannon’s horse. After loosening the sixty-pound stock saddle he fastened a long horsehair leading rope around the animal’s neck and tethered the horse to the rear of his automobile.

“Well, old boy,” he addressed the animal as he favored him with an affectionate rubbing under the jaws, “it’s up to you to step ten or twelve miles an hour for an hour and a half.”

Footsteps crossing the station platform caused him to whirl and leap behind the automobile; on the instant he drew the gun he had taken from Bud Shannon. Upon his word, San Onofre was coming to life today.

He crouched behind the automobile, fully conscious of the fact that while the tonneau was no protection from bullets, at least it furnished fair camouflage for the target. A minute passed; and then a very pleasant, cool voice addressed him.

“You may put up your pistol, Mr. Purdy, and come out from behind your automobile. I give you my word of honor I am unarmed, and if I were I wouldn’t dream of shooting you.”

“Anybody with you?” Purdy demanded.

“No.”

“I hope you’re telling the truth. I’m coming out, but if anybody shoots at me it would be well to get me through the head with the first shot. I’ll come a-fogging and I’ll get you, even if you are a woman.”

“Wait! I’ll come to you. You’re much too suspicious for comfort.”

“Fair enough. I’ll wait.”

Footsteps crunched the sand; presently before Lee Purdy stood a girl. He stared at her amazed for about five seconds; then thrust his pistol down between his shirt and the waist-band of his trousers. He bowed a Castilian bow—sweeping in its completeness.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This happens to be an off day for me. I suppose, however, one may be permitted at least a day a year to indulge himself in suspicion.”

“You are a bit jumpy,” the stranger assured him soberly. “However, I dare say your reasons are sound and sufficient.”

He nodded. “You addressed me by name. May I remind you that I am desolated at my ignorance of your identity?”

“I am Miss Gail Ormsby of Los Angeles. Mr. Todd was to meet me here.”

“Oh, so you dropped off the Limited here? I didn’t see you alight.”

The girl nodded. “You were otherwise engaged.”

“And that engine crew abused me for flagging the train with my automobile, when all the time the greasy rascals knew the train was going to stop at San Onofre anyhow. So you were expecting Mr. Ira Todd to call for you here?”

The girl nodded again.

“Well, Miss Ormsby, he isn’t going to keep his engagement. He drove in from his ranch to Arguello last night. I saw him there this morning and shortly after that he was taken ill.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! What is the matter with him?”

Lee Purdy hung his head and slowly scuffed a hole in the dirt with his boot toe. He admitted finally: “A worthy citizen of Arguello found it necessary to bend an iron bar over Mr. Ira Todd’s head, Miss Ormsby. I think he fractured the Todd skull; at any rate, the last I saw of Ira Todd the pupils of his eyes had contracted to mere pin-points, and it is my personal although unprofessional opinion that Ira Todd has concussion of the brain.”

“How perfectly dreadful!” Miss Ormsby’s fine eyes and finer features puckered with horror. “What has been done to his assailant?”

“He has been congratulated by a number of solid citizens and cursed and threatened by other citizens not quite so solid.”

“I do believe you are Ira Todd’s assailant.”

“Hot, hot, red-hot!” he replied lightly. “You’re on my trail, Miss Ormsby; you’ll tree me in a minute. However, you’re just a trifle wrong. Ira Todd was my assailant. He went into a restaurant in Arguello and there in a loud voice made statements derogatory to my honor. I was breakfasting there at the time. Unfortunately for him, the restaurant happens to be owned and operated by a very good friend of mine, a Chinaman who drifted down into this country about five years ago suffering from tuberculosis. I found the poor devil hungry and broke in Arguello and without a friend, so I had him come out to my ranch and stick around until he got well. Then I loaned him five hundred dollars to get into business in Arguello. He has repaid the money but still feels indebted to me, so when the unfortunate Ira spoke out of his turn in Chan’s presence and in Chan’s restaurant, Chan just naturally busted him with a short iron slice-bar he uses to poke up the charcoal under his steak broiler. What makes you think I discommoded you by ruining Ira?”

“Because you’re quite gory now and I saw you help put a wounded man aboard the train. Somebody said he had been shot and was dying.”

“Maybe so,” murmured Lee Purdy. “I fear the best but hope for the worst.”

“You told the conductor he had been shot accidentally. Who shot you accidentally?” And she tapped her shoulder significantly.

Purdy laughed softly. “This is the most accidental country I ever knew, Miss Ormsby. However, I haven’t been shot. Almost, but not quite. Where are you bound?”

“For the Box K Ranch.”

“Oh! I never would have guessed it.”

The gentle irony in his soft voice was not lost on the girl. She stared at him haughtily.

“This your first visit to our country, Miss Ormsby?”

“Yes.”

“Did I understand you to say you were from Los Angeles?”

The girl nodded, without abating her cool scrutiny of him.

“I suppose,” he resumed presently, “I’ll have to be Ira Todd’s attorney-in-fact and do for him and in his name, place and stead all of those things which he would or could do if personally present. That car of mine is sound and seaworthy, although it looks like original sin; there’s room for you in the front seat and for all of your baggage in the tonneau. I’m a safe, sane, conservative driver, and I am at your service.”

“I’m not so certain that I ought to accept your invitation, Mr. Purdy, although I thank you for it. I think you’re a cool sort of desperado. I’m quite certain you and that wounded man have been shooting at each other because—because—well, when I saw that you hadn’t noticed me sitting quietly on that bench yonder, I started toward you. And at the sound of my first footfall on this platform you turned like a flash and reached for the pistol in your waistband and hid behind this motorcar.”

“The witness declines to answer any accusations upon the ground that he may incriminate himself.” He glanced at his watch. “Five minutes after five,” he announced, “and all members of the desperadoes’ union, knock off at five. Better take a chance and ride with me.”

“Somebody else may call for me in Ira Todd’s place.”

“Scarcely probable, unless Ira issued instructions to that effect before my friend Chan stretched him. And even if somebody should call for you I wouldn’t think of permitting you to go with him; no, that was a stupid way to express it—I mean I wouldn’t think of permitting him to—ah—serve you. However, I’m certain no such regrettable contingency will arise.”

“You are much too certain of yourself, Mr. Purdy. I shall not accompany you—at least, not willingly.”

He appeared to accept her decision as final. “Then may I have the pleasure of freighting your baggage for you? Whoever calls here for you will arrive in a flivver, and flivvers and that wardrobe trunk of yours were never meant to be coupled in the betting. Still, if you think I might steal your trunk, you have my word that it will be quite safe if left on the platform. Very few white men are around here lately.”

She repressed with difficulty a desire to laugh. “In that case it is scarcely kind to trouble you with my baggage.”

“A lady’s slightest whim is, to me, a command. I am bound for Arguello. If I do not meet anybody on the road coming to fetch you I’ll engage somebody in Arguello with a car to do it. However, I have to proceed slowly, because I am going to lead this horse behind my car. I imagine it will be about three, perhaps four, hours before anybody comes for you, and San Onofre is a very lonely place after dark. The altitude is about two thousand feet here and after the sun sets the nights are bitterly cold. Coyotes howl in the sage hereabouts and once in a while a lobo wolf drops around to see if anybody has left a sick steer in the loading corral. However, since you cannot trust me, of course——”

“Pick up the marbles, Mr. Purdy. You win,” Miss Ormsby, of Los Angeles, interrupted, bravely enough but with a suspicious eagerness.

Lee Purdy bowed acknowledgment of her surrender.