Читать книгу Stampede - Stewart Edward White - Страница 8

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The hero of this episode took his place alongside Leslie.

“Here’s your pistol,” said he, “and I want to thank you again. It’s a beauty. I wish I had one like that. My father has one of the first ones that ever came out here, and he’s promised me one when I can beat him shooting. That’ll be never, I guess,” the young man sighed.

Reassured that his wearing of the weapon was not scorned, Leslie slipped it back in its holster.

“It was nothing,” he muttered. “Nobody could stand by and see a man murdered in cold blood.” He laughed. “But you don’t need any pistol. I never saw anything like that. Is it difficult?”

“Not that close. Just a trick. Takes practice.”

“It was a mighty fine thing to do.”

The other boy’s face flushed slowly.

“It was foolish,” he acknowledged candidly. “My father is going to give me the devil when he hears about it. He thinks it’s foolish to fight unless you have to.”

“But you certainly had to,” cried Leslie loyally; “you’d have been killed otherwise.”

His companion smiled wryly.

“I didn’t have to get into the mess in the first place. What difference does it make what that sort says?” He changed the subject abruptly. “My name is Djo Burnett,” said he. “You spell it D-j-o.”

“I am Leslie Dayton. I am from Philadelphia. Have you been out here long?”

“Me? Oh, I was born here.” Djo brushed this aside. “Philadelphia?” he cried. “And have you been to New York?”

His steady gravity had dropped from him, and with it the illusion of greater maturity and more years. He was of an age with his companion. He plied Leslie with eager questions of the great cities of the East and their peoples and their customs.

“It must be wonderful!” he sighed. “I’ve never seen a city. Only Monterey and this new San Francisco. But they are not the same. I’d like to go back there. I’d like to go to one of the colleges. Have you been to college?”

“Only for a year, at the Boston college of Harvard. Then my mother died, and I came out here to my uncle, her brother.”

“Ah, I am sorry,” said Djo gently. Then after a moment, “Is he all you have left?”

“No, no”—Leslie hastily disclaimed the pathetic role—“but—well, you see, I wanted to get out here——”

“Been to the diggings?” asked Djo shrewdly.

“My uncle says it is too late for them.”

Djo nodded. “Yes, that’s so, I guess. The fun’s mostly out of it now. Five years ago——”

“Did you see them?”

“Oh, I was too young. I wanted to, but my father wouldn’t let me.”

“He went, didn’t he? Did he have any luck?”

“No, he didn’t go.”

“I thought everybody went, according to the stories they tell.”

“Almost everybody did. But you see one side of my family is Spanish. My mother is Spanish. My grandfather is a very wise man, an hidalgo. When they found this gold, and everybody dropped everything and began to rush to the placers, Don Sylvestro—that’s my grandfather—called in all my uncles and all the family to talk it over. This is what he said to us: that God must have intended the gold for the Americans. ‘If he had wanted the Spanish to have had it,’ he said, ‘he would have let them discover it before now. So do not go after it. Go back to the ranchos. Raise meat, for these people must eat while they live.’ ”

“So did none of you go?” asked Leslie, curious.

Djo opened his eyes in surprise.

“Why, for sure not! Don Sylvestro is the head of the family!”

Leslie remembered the enormous upheaval in his own family before he was allowed to come West.

“But your father—he is not Spanish,” he pointed out.

“No, but he is of the family,” replied Djo, as though this settled it.

The stage had by now left the shore of the Bay. Through the wide flat gap between the hills of Visitación and the beginnings of the Santa Cruz mountains sucked a westerly breeze, bringing with it a faint, far tang of the sea. It flattened the lazy dust clouds, bore them away in long streamers low to the ground.

“Whee, that’s better!” cried Leslie, breathing deep of the unsullied air.

The passengers undid the protective bandannas and handkerchiefs, wiped their faces, beat themselves partially free from the powder of dust.

“It’s no way to travel,” said Djo contemptuously. “We shan’t get into San Jose before dark. California fashion we’d do it in six hours.”

“Sixty miles? What do you do: fly?”

Djo explained. A half-dozen horses apiece, vaqueros to drive them and shift saddles, frequent changes of mount before anyone tired, abandoning any that showed signs of actual exhaustion.

“Though that is not often; our horses are good,” said he.

“I’d be the one to be abandoned,” chuckled Leslie. “I’d never be able to ride sixty miles. I’d die.”

But he got the impression of a certain magnificence that inspired his imagination. He turned the tables on Djo, began to question in his turn. Djo knew everything. He knew the smallest animals, the tiniest birds, often by only a flick of color, a flutter of wing, or a single note of song caught above the rumble and creak of the stage. He knew the reasons for apparent foolishness, such as the broad leather band, or corset, fully eight inches wide, that the stage driver wore about his middle. It was studded with silver conchas and embroidered in intricate patterns of stitches, and Leslie had imagined it sheer swank and display, with which, secretly, he sympathized. But it seemed the thing had sense.

“You’ll know why before you get to Monterey,” said Djo. “You’ll feel as if your insides had been jarred loose, and you’ll be so sore around the body that you can’t wiggle.” He showed Leslie that he had bound his own waist close with a number of folds of a broad Spanish sash. “It’s no way to travel,” he repeated, “but sometimes you’ve got to do it.”

In spite of Djo’s scorn, however, the stage made good time. It was part of a service new since the Occupation. Leslie had difficulty in understanding that only so few years ago wheeled vehicles were practically unknown in California—except carretas and a few state carriages. Djo described carretas. Behind his habitually grave expression was hidden a delightful humor. Leslie shouted with laughter.

Every ten miles or so they stopped briefly for a change of horses. On these occasions the passengers debarked for a hasty stretch of the leg. But not for long. Jim, the driver, herded them aboard. He permitted no unnecessary delay. The company was proud of the fact that it covered the distance to San Jose in a single day. Nevertheless it was a hard and jolting journey; and, in spite of his interest in new things and his vital youth, Leslie found himself lapsing into longer and longer silences as the day progressed. When at last the stage made its dashing entrance into the sprawling little town and drew up before the crude frame structure of its leading hotel, he was glad of the cool basin of water and the bed in the little redwood box of a room assigned to him.

There he fell promptly asleep, nor did he stir until aroused by the beating of a gong. He went to the dining room where he was placed at a long table seating perhaps forty people. He recognized among them all his fellow passengers with the exception of young Burnett. A printed menu offered him, besides beef, a choice of bear steak, elk steak, venison, rabbit, wild goose, duck, quail, and snipe. These were on the regular bill. By payment of an extra dollar he could have canned oysters. One fresh egg was fifty cents. Potatoes were fifty cents. He resisted these temptations and ordered bear steak, largely because the sound of it was picturesque. It proved fibrous and strong, but Leslie chewed away on it obstinately, unwilling to confess his mistake.

After the meal he sauntered outside toward the narrow wooden veranda where a row of chairs fronted the night. On his way he was intercepted by a clerk who handed him a folded paper.

I waited a while but did not want to wake you up. [it read] I am staying with some friends on a rancho and have to go on. But I’ll be seeing you in Monterey before long. I’ll look you up. And I certainly do appreciate how you stood by. I might have missed my throw, and then I’d have been in a nice fix. That’s what my father is going to tell me.

Djo Burnett

Leslie read the note under the oil lamp. Djo had, he remembered, assumed that he was on his way to Monterey. That was natural, for Monterey was the stage-line terminus. Now he would not see him again. That was distinctly disappointing. He liked Djo.

The other guests idled by him on their way from the dining room to the bar or to the veranda. Among them Djo’s antagonist, his arm in its sling, was bragging loudly.

“It’s a damn lucky thing for him he run away,” he was saying to anyone who would listen. “He knows what’s good for him. But he’ll hear from me yet.”

“Better keep out of knife range, Ransom,” someone advised him dryly.

“He don’t ketch me like that again. Now I know he’s a rattlesnake. As for that other little whelp——” His eye fell on Leslie. He advanced to within two feet and spread his feet apart truculently. “I got you fixed in my mind, too, young feller, and when I get the use of my arm again I’m going to make it my business to l’arn you to keep out of what ain’t your business. Understand me?”

Leslie flushed. He was acutely uncomfortable. The man’s bloodshot eyes glared; his jaw was thrust forward belligerently. It was obvious that he was more than half drunk. But his right arm was helpless, and Leslie noted that his holster was still empty. It was not fear that held the young man tongue-tied and embarrassed. Simply that he did not know how he should act in such a situation, and he felt he had a critical audience.

He was relieved of the necessity by the sudden interposition of the doctor. The little man, without the envelopment of his linen duster, was seen to be dressed with exquisite neatness in the height of fashion. He stopped on his way by, arrested by the desperado’s vehemence and the expectant group around him. He fixed Ransom with his birdlike black eyes.

“You’d better ‘l’arn’ yourself to behave and go to bed at once, or you may not have any arm to get the use of,” he snapped contemptuously. “What did I tell you about drinking?”

The bigger man wilted ludicrously.

“I only had a few little ones, Doc,” he pleaded.

The doctor stared him down, then deliberately produced from his waistcoat pocket an old-fashioned flat snuffbox of silver from which he took a pinch. He held it suspended before him between his thumb and forefinger.

“You’ve had a dozen,” he said flatly. He swept his eyes with a bland and impersonal arrogance over the men standing about. “I don’t know whether any of you have any interest whether this man lives or dies,” said he. “I’m sure I have not. But if you have, get him to bed.” He carried the snuff to his nostrils, turned his back abruptly, hooking his arm through Leslie’s.

“Let us enjoy the cool of the evening,” he said.

They walked away together.

“I did not suppose he was so badly hurt,” said Leslie.

“He isn’t badly hurt. But if he drinks, he will have a fever; and if the wound becomes inflamed—that type have none too clean blood.”

They sat in two of the wooden chairs on the veranda and tilted back against the wall. The doctor produced two long thin cigars, one of which he offered to Leslie.

“Right. Filthy habit,” said he when the young man declined. “I don’t recommend it.” He lighted the other and puffed comfortably for a few moments in silence.

“None of my business,” he said abruptly, “but are you going on tomorrow—on the stage, I mean?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. This man Ransom is a good deal of a bully and a braggart, but he is dangerous. I’d hate to see the two of you in the same town.”

“Then he’s not going on?”

“He thinks he is. But by morning that arm will change his mind for him. Unless he has more physical nerve than I credit him with.” The doctor removed the cheroot, looked at the end of it, returned it to his mouth. “I don’t want to exaggerate things, but look out for this fellow. He’s thoroughly vindictive. He’s the kind that does not forget what he considers an injury, and he’ll go to considerable lengths to get even. If you ever meet up with him again, keep your eyes open. But he’s a coward,” he added.

“I will,” said Leslie. “Do you know who he is?”

“I’ve seen him about. I know of him. He’s just a sort of professional bad actor. Thug for hire. Political henchman. Shyster lawyer, I understand. Bravo. I don’t know what all. Worthless—but dangerous. Now about that thing you wear around your waist.” The little man permitted himself a brisk small grin. “You don’t impress me as an expert in its use.”

Leslie flushed painfully.

“I’m not making fun of you, boy,” said the physician kindly, “but let me tell you this: unless you are able to use a revolver quicker and better than the other man, it is much better not to wear one at all. It’s just an invitation for trouble.”

“That’s what my uncle says,” said Leslie in a small voice. “Do you advise me not to wear it at all?”

“Your uncle has sense.” The doctor turned his eyes quizzically on his embarrassed companion. “None of my business,” he repeated. “Needn’t incriminate yourself unless you want to, but aren’t you the young man who got into a row with Yankee Sullivan?” He chuckled. “Well, you certainly are a connoisseur when it comes to making enemies! I shall follow your career with interest. Now don’t mind me.” He laid his hand on Leslie’s knee. “As a matter of fact, I admire your action keenly. But if you really want my advice, I should say to wear your revolver by all means, but for heaven’s sake, to learn to use it. And until you do, just arrange, if you can, to keep it out of the way a little. What think?” He cocked his head sidewise like a bird and laughed. After a moment Leslie, too, laughed, but reluctantly.