Читать книгу The Enchanted Hill - Peter B. Kyne - Страница 7

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There sounded presently, along the path from the house, the clumping of many boots. The mob had left its automobiles in front of the ranch-house and was coming on foot to the mess hall. Lee Purdy’s pleasant voice was speaking:

“Hello, Jake. Hello, men. I’ve been expecting you. Saw you coming five miles away.”

“We want that Chinaman, Purdy,” a husky voice made answer.

“I knew that too, Jake. Well, I suppose you’ll have to have him if you really want him. He doesn’t appear to be very much worried about your visit; consequently I concluded to view the situation rather calmly myself.”

“That’s where you’re sensible, Purdy. Where’s the Chink?”

“He’s helping Joaquin get breakfast for you boys.”

“Well, I’ll be shot!” said the husky-voiced Jake, and proved he was a human being by emitting a brief chuckle. Others followed his example. Having anticipated trouble and keyed themselves to meet it, they found relief in their pleasant reaction to the attitude of the master of the Enchanted Hill. Purdy continued:

“I had an idea you boys would not be averse to ham and eggs and hot coffee before proceeding on your way with Chan. By the way, what are you going to do with him, Jake?”

“We’re going to hang him to a convenient tree,” Jake replied ferociously.

“Well, there are a dozen trees extremely convenient. Will you boys have breakfast before or after the interesting event?”

Ensued a brief silence and a murmur of voices. The situation was being canvassed. Lee Purdy’s cheerful voice interrupted. “There are two excellent arguments for and against breakfasting before and after, Jake. Those who breakfast before may lose their breakfast after. It is no unusual thing for strong men to become ill at a hanging. On the other hand, those who elect to breakfast after may discover they have lost their appetite for breakfast. My principal argument in favor of immediate acceptance, however, lies in the novelty of my entertainment, plus the superior service. The man you plan to hang after breakfast will wait on you during breakfast. How’s that for an original idea, Jake?”

“I dunno,” the man Jake replied suspiciously. “I don’t rightly know how to take you, Purdy. How do I know you won’t poison us?”

“Don’t feel badly about that, Jake. Nobody in this country ever understands me, and if you suspect poison, why, I’ll trade breakfasts with any man present and eat them to the limit of my capacity.”

The Chinaman appeared in the door of the mess hall. “Come and gettee,” he piped shrilly. “You no come and gettee I thlow him out.”

It was too much. The mob laughed. “Come on, Jake,” one of them urged. “We can’t be outdone in politeness; we got to be as good sports as Purdy an’ that Chinaman. At that the heathen is scared to death.”

“You’re a man of remarkable penetration, Joe,” Purdy replied to this last speaker. “My little friend Chan is indeed badly frightened. Consequently, if his hand should shake while he’s serving the coffee and if the overflow should scald some of you, I know you will understand and forgive him. Come in, boys. Welcome to La Cuesta Encantada. Chuck your rifles in the corner, but hang on to your lesser hardware if you still suspect me of guile.”

Through the tiny knot-hole in the commissary door Gail Ormsby watched the men from Arguello shuffle into the mess hall, hang their hats on the wall pegs and take their seats. While they were not a particularly presentable lot of men, neither were they of a type particularly villainous-looking. There were a couple of half-breed Mexicans among them. The others were ranchers or cow-hands; some might have been town loafers.

The trembling Chan passed around the table, setting huge platters laden with ham and eggs, which in turn were passed from guest to guest, who scooped the contents off onto plates. The coffee-pot traveled briskly up and down the table and there was no general conversation. Nobody offered anything to anybody; all Gail heard was an occasional “I’ll trouble you for the coffee-pot” or “I’ll trouble you for the bread,” “Gracias, amigo” or “Much obliged.” In their primitive way the members of this quiet mob were meticulously polite to each other. Gail concluded that these men were not ferocious thugs bent on a lynching for the fun of it, but rather serious-minded men with a yearning for justice, albeit not too particular as to the methods to be employed in securing it. Racial resentment was quite as much at the bottom of their mental attitude as was their primitive instinct to avenge a murderous assault on a prominent citizen whose friends were as numerous and sincere as his enemies.

Breakfast is quickly over when one gives himself up to rapid and efficient eating. Ten minutes sufficed for the majority of the guests, and these at once rolled cigarettes and sat back to enjoy the fruits of their digital dexterity. The man Jake, a huge fellow with an appetite to match, was the last man to finish; plainly the others had remained seated at the table out of respect for Jake. Purdy had gone into the kitchen, apparently to assist Chan in bearing food to his guests, and upon the occasion of his last trip in he had remained there. He leaned out of the kitchen now into the mess hall, his elbows resting on a twelve-inch wooden shelf that crowned the half-wall between kitchen and mess hall. As Jake drained the last cup of coffee and looked up he caught Purdy’s calm blue eyes fixed upon him.

“Have you had enough to eat, Jake?” he queried hospitably.

“Full up,” Jake answered heartily. Then, as Chan leaned over him to fill his cup again, he caught the little Oriental’s wrist in his huge hand. “Well, I reckon we might as well proceed, gentlemen,” he said to his fellows.

“May I crave your indulgence for about fifteen minutes, Jake?” Lee Purdy called mildly. “Chan hasn’t had any breakfast yet. Is it quite fair to hang him on an empty stomach? Personally, I have never read of a hanging where the condemned man did not arise early and partake of a hearty breakfast.”

“Well, I won’t argue the question, Purdy. He can eat breakfast if he wants to, but I’m here to tell you that if he tries to get out of that kitchen before I send for him, Joaquin can use him for a sieve.”

Jake released his hold on the little Chinaman and struck him a heavy blow across the face with his hard open hand. Chan fled to the kitchen and then Lee Purdy spoke again.

“Are you boys dead set on hanging Chan? Has Todd died from the effects of that crack on the head?”

“No, but it looks mighty like he might, Purdy.”

“Well, in any event it doesn’t suit me to have you and your friends take the law into your own hands, Jake. Now listen. You’ve partaken of my hospitality, so out of sheer politeness you’ll have to listen to my argument for the defendant. I’ll make it snappy and if when I have finished you boys still think that the right and reasonable thing to do is to hang Chan, why, go to it. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Fair enough,” half a dozen voices answered.

“And you all agree not to interrupt me while I’m pleading for fair play for this Chinaman?”

“Absolutely.” Apparently the resolution was unanimous.

Beside Purdy stood a small kitchen table, the top of which was level with the twelve-inch shelf upon which the master of the Enchanted Hill had been leaning. Upon the table something—had any of Purdy’s guests been asked to guess what this something might be they would have replied “dirty dishes”—had been piled and a soiled table-cloth spread over it. Purdy stepped around in back of this table, whisked the soiled table-cloth off with his left hand and with his right swung the muzzle of a machine gun into position to rake the long table with his fire. Simultaneously his voice rang out, harsh, dissonant, with a metallic ring in it—the voice of a soldier giving orders. And when a trained soldier gives an order there is that in his voice, in his bearing, which enforces instantaneous obedience as readily as does the knowledge of the punishment disobedience will entail.

“Hands up—everybody!”

He did not wait for them to obey. Indeed, he knew more than to expect unanimous acquiescence to his command, since in all probability none of his guests had hitherto seen a machine gun. In their ignorance they would not realize that he was threatening them. Therefore it behooved him to impress them. He pulled the trigger and fired a burst down the center of the table between the two lines of men; and the hiss of the bullets, their crash through the rear of the mess hall and the furiously fast staccato explosions convinced the half-dozen doubting Thomases of the urgent necessity for prompt obedience. Twenty-four pairs of arms shot skyward, but the leader, Jake, sat calmly staring at Purdy.

“What kind of a contraption is that thing?”

“It’s a machine gun, Jake. If I spray it down this table I can riddle twelve men in a row—like that!”

“You’d have to move the table over a few feet in order to riddle thirteen on this side of the table—like that! Thirteen’s an unlucky number.”

Jake’s hand was under the table. Purdy, realizing that when that hand came up it would be holding a barking forty-five, swung the barrel of his machine gun and covered Jake. The two men stared at each other for an instant, unafraid—then from his post in front of the cook stove Joaquin José Ramon Oreña y Sanchez spoke.

“I bet you my life t’irteen she ees muy unlucky—for numero t’irteen.” He reached into a bread pan on the sink beside him where reposed, ready to his hand, a weapon that Jake knew and understood—to wit, an old single-action forty-five-caliber pistol, with a six-inch barrel. From his hip the descendant of a hundred peons fired at Jake, and the bullet ripped away a fair-sized section from Jake’s large, radiant right ear. Joaquin cocked his pistol and smiled.

“Mebbeso, Señor Jake, you theenk these gun don’ go off, no?” he suggested sweetly. “Please! I theenk ees poco mas major eef the señor find out pretty queeck who she is the boss of thees rancho.”

“Some peevish Greaser,” Jake complained, but his hands went up.

Purdy laughed long and heartily. “Well, Jake, you’re no longer a maverick,” he declared. “Joaquin has run his earmark on you; the first thing you know he’ll beef you. He tried hard enough to do it a moment ago.”

“I’ll get him for that,” said Jake simply.

“You’ll have to get me first in order to enjoy that privilege, Jake.” Purdy half turned to his cook. “Gracias, Joaquin. If I could afford it I’d raise your wages for that.” Then to his guests:

“Gentlemen!” He paused, after the manner of the trained speaker, and his grave face lighted with a little, whimsical smile.

“There isn’t going to be any hanging today. You all agree with me that there isn’t going to be any hanging today, do you not?” He glanced interestedly up and down the two lines of faces turned toward him. “All those in favor of a hanging today will signify by saying ‘Aye.’ All those not in favor of a hanging today will signify by saying ‘No.’ The ‘Noes’ have it and it is so ordered.”

“You’d ought to run for a political office, Purdy,” Jake jeered. “You got a nice, pleasant line o’ conversation.”

“Thank you, Jake. I’m not through making my speech yet, so until I give you permission to interrupt me, please do not do so again. Joaquin, if that fat idiot opens his mouth before I ask him to, do me a favor and notch his other ear. That may induce him to harken to good sound advice in the future. Now then, Jake, I’m talking to you. If there is to be a hanging later, when I’m not present, I trust you will not be so foolish as to superintend the obsequies. I grow a trifle weary of you, Jake Dort. You will persist in calling yourself to my attention; some day you’re going to speak out of your turn and I’ll be the only person present to take down your last words. Now, then, beginning with you, Jake, the gentlemen on the left side of the table will rise without indecent haste and deposit their artillery on the table in front of them. Having done so, each man in turn will pass out the door, pausing at the door, however, long enough for this trembling exile from far Cathay to pat him on the hips and under the arms for extra and concealed lighter artillery. Each gentleman will then step outside and sit down under yonder oak tree. All set? Jake, it’s your deal and the play is to the left.”

When the mess hall was empty Purdy opened the door of the commissary.

“Come out, please, Miss Ormsby,” he requested, and the girl, pale but composed, obeyed. Purdy took her by the arm and led her to the door. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I have pleasure in presenting to you the orator of the day, Miss Gail Ormsby. Miss Ormsby has been looking at you naughty lads through a knot-hole and has enjoyed immensely the spectacle of twenty-five good men and true metamorphosed into monkeys. Gentlemen, Miss Ormsby!”

Miss Ormsby was received in absolute silence. “The next time you men come to a gentleman’s house,” she commenced, “wait until you are invited. And never again make the mistake of thinking that because a man wears rather full riding trousers, riding boots and a necktie, he isn’t a gentleman—that he is devoid of brains and courage. Please return to Arguello and stay there. I thank you.”

“Jake, on behalf of the visiting brethren may we not have a few extemporaneous remarks from you?” Purdy pleaded.

To his credit be it said that Jake Dort found his feet, doffed his hat and bowed low to the two on the mess-hall steps. “Thus endeth the first lesson, my brethren,” he declared comically. “And the moral is—never bunch up for a flock shooter, and when you accept his invitation to breakfast, frisk him first and then make him sit between two of your trusted friends. While realizin’ that we return to Arguello lookin’ more or less ridiculous, still we’ll get there with what dignity we can muster. Miss Ormsby, adiós! Mr. Purdy, sir—until we meet again.”

And he sat down and applied a red bandanna handkerchief to his ear. Gail Ormsby broke the silence.

“I believe most of you men would almost rather be robbed of your chewing tobacco than be made ridiculous. Personally, I think it would be rather nice to have you return to Arguello looking as brave and full of conceit as when you left it; therefore, if any gentleman present wishes his weapon he can have it by pledging me his word of honor not to use it on this ranch and to refrain from assisting in the lynching of Chan today, tomorrow or any other day. When you return to Arguello you can tell Ira Todd and your friends whatever tale occurs to you.”

“That’s a fair proposition, miss,” a member of the mob declared. “I paid twenty-four dollars for that gun of mine and I don’t want to lose it. You’ve got my word of honor, miss.”

“And mine—and mine!” There was a chorus of assent from a badly disorganized and chopfallen crew; one by one they came forward and selected their weapons from the pile which, at Purdy’s command, Chan brought forth from the mess hall. Jake Dort, however, declined to surrender.

“I don’t think so much of that old gun o’ mine anyhow,” he defended his action. “It ain’t balanced proper and I always did tend to shoot high with it.”

Five minutes later all that was left to remind the dwellers on La Cuesta Encantada of the visit of the mob from Arguello was Jake Dort’s gun, the dust of their going and an unusually heavy job of dish-washing confronting Joaquin José Ramon Oreña y Sanchez and his volunteer assistant, the temperamental Chan.