Читать книгу Curly: A Tale of the Arizona Desert - Roger Pocock - Страница 13

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Being given to raising fowls, I'm instructed on eggs a whole lot. Killed young, an egg is a sure saint, being a pure white on the outside, and inwardly a beautiful yellow; but since she ain't had no chance to go bad she's not responsible. But when an egg has lingered in this wicked world, exposed to heat, cold, and other temptations, she succumbs, being weary of her youth and shamed of virtue. So she participates in vice to the best of her knowledge and belief. Yes, an old egg is bad every time, and the more bluff she makes with her white and holy shell, the more she's rotten inside, a whited sepulchre.

I reckon it's been the same with me, for at Holy Cross I was kept good and fresh by the family. Shell, white, and yolk, I was a good egg then, with no special inducements to vice. Now I know in my poor old self what an uphill pull it is trying to reform a stale egg.

In those days, when I thought I was being good on my own merits, I had no mercy on bad eggs like poor McCalmont, however much he tried to reform. Balshannon took me aside, and wanted to know if he could trust this robber.

"So far as you can throw a dawg," said I.

That night the lady fed alone, and we dined in the great hall, the patrone at the head of the table, McCalmont and Curly on one side, the padre and me on the other. Curly's ankle being twisted, and wrapped up most painful in wet bandages, the priest allowed that he couldn't ride away with his father, but had better stay with us.

Curly shied at that. "I won't stay none!" he growled.

But McCalmont began to talk for Curly, explaining that robbery was a poor vocation in life, full of uncertainties. He wanted his son to be a cowboy.

"If he rides for me," says I, "he'll have to herd with my Mexicans. They're greasers, but Curly's white, and they won't mix."

"I'd rather," says McCalmont, "for Arizona cowboys are half-wolf anyways, but this outfit is all dead gentle, and good for my cub."

Then the boss offered wages to Curly, and the priest took sides with him. So Curly kicked, and I growled, but the boy was left at Holy Cross to be converted, and taught punching cows.

As to McCalmont, he rode off that night, gathered his wolves, and jumped down on Mr. George Ryan at the Jim Crow Mine, near Grave City. He wanted "compensation" for not getting any plunder out of Holy Cross, so he robbed Mr. Ryan of seventy thousand dollars. The newspapers in Grave City sobbed over poor Mr. Ryan, and howled for vengeance on McCalmont's wolves.

Curly read the newspaper account, and was pleased all to pieces. Then he howled all night because he was left behind.

It took me some time to get used to that small youngster, who was a whole lot older and wiser than he looked. He had a room next to my quarters, where he camped on a bed in the far corner, and acted crazy if ever I tried to come in. Because he insisted on keeping the shutters closed, that room was dark as a wolf's mouth—a sort of den, where one could see nothing but his eyes, glaring green or flame-coloured like those of a panther. If he slept, he curled up like a little wild animal, one ear cocked, one eye open, ready to start broad awake at the slightest sound. Once I caught him sucking his swollen ankle, which he said was a sure good medicine. I have seen all sorts of animals dress their own wounds that way, but never any human except little Curly. As to his food, he would eat the things he knew about, but if the taste of a dish was new to him, he spat as if he were poisoned. At first he was scared of Lady Balshannon, hated the patrone, and surely despised me; but one day I saw him limping, attended by four of our dogs and a brace of cats, across to the stable-yard. I sneaked upstairs to the roof and watched his play.

There must have been fifty ponies in the yard, and every person of them seemed to know Curly, for those who were loose came crowding round him, and those who were tied began whickering. Horses have one call, soft and low, which they keep for the man they love, and one after another gave the love-cry for Curly. He treated them all like dirt until he came to Rebel, an outlaw stallion. Once Rebel tried to murder a Mexican; several times he had pitched off the best of our broncho busters; always he acted crazy with men and savage with mares. Yet he never even snorted at Curly, but let that youngster lead him by the mane to a mounting-block; then waited for him to climb up, and trotted him round the yard tame as a sheep.

"Curly!" said I from the roof. And the boy stiffened at once, hard and fierce. "Curly, that horse is yours."

"I know that!" said Curly; "cayn't you see fo' yo'self?"

The dogs loved Curly first, then the horses, and next the Mexican cowboys, but at last he seemed to take hold of all our outfit. He thawed out slowly to me, then to the patrone and the old priest; afterwards even to Lady Balshannon. So we found out that this cub from the Wolf Pack was only fierce and wild with strangers, but inside so gentle that he was more like a girl than a boy. He was rather wide at the hips, bow-legged just a trace, and when his ankle healed we found he had a most tremendous grip in the saddle, the balance of a hawk. Yes, that small, slight, delicate lad was the most perfect rider I've seen in a world of great horsemen. The meanest horse was tame as a dog with Curly, while in tracking, scouting, and natural sense with cattle I never knew his equal. Yet, as I said before, he was small, weak, badly built—more like a girl than a boy. With strangers he was a vicious young savage; with friends, like a little child. He did a year's work on the range with me, and that twelve months I look back to as a sort of golden age at Holy Cross.

We were raising the best horses and the finest cattle in Arizona; prices were high, and the patrone was too busy to have time for cards or drink over at Grave City; and even the lady braced up enough to go for evening rides.

And then the Honourable James du Chesnay rode home to us from college.

The patrone and his lady were making a feast for their son; the cowboys were busy as a swarm of bees decorating the great hall; the padre fluttered about like a black moth, getting in everybody's way; so Curly and I rode out on the Lordsburgh trail to meet up with the Honourable Jim.

"I hate him!" Curly snarled.

"Why for, boy?"

"Dunno. I hate him!"

I told Curly about my first meeting with that same little boy Jim, aged six, and him turning his hot gun loose against hostile Indians, shooting gay and promiscuous, scared of nothing.

"I hate him," snarled Curly between his teeth. "Last night the lady was reading to me yonder, on the roof-top."

"Well?"

"There was a big chief on the range, an old long-horn called Abraham, and his lil' ole squaw Sarah. They'd a boy in their lodge like me, another woman's kid, not a son, but good enough for them while they was plumb lonely. That Ishmael colt was sure wild—came of bad stock, like me. 'His hand,' says the book, 'will be up agin every man, and every man's hand agin him.' I reckon that colt came of robber stock, same as me, but I allow they liked him some until their own son came. Then their own son came—a shorely heap big warrior called Isaac—and the old folks, they didn't want no more outlaw colts running loose around on their pasture. They shorely turned that Ishmael out to die in the desert. Look up thar, Chalkeye, in the north, and you'll see this Isaac a-coming on the dead run for home."

"Curly," says I, "this young chief won't have no use for old Chalkeye; he'll want to be boss on his own home range, and it's time he started in responsible to run Holy Cross. At the month's end I quit from this outfit, and I'm taking up a ranche five miles on the far side of Grave City. Thanks to the patrone, I've saved ponies and cattle enough to stock my little ranche yonder. Will you come at forty dollars a month, and punch cows for Chalkeye?"

"No, I won't, never. I come from the Wolf Pack, and I'm going back to the Wolf Pack to be a wolf. That's where I belong—thar in the desert!"

He swept out his hand to the north, and there, over a rise of the ground, I saw young Jim du Chesnay coming, on the dead run for home.