Читать книгу The Collected Western Classics & Adventures Novels - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 47

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They bedded that night under the great vault-roof where twinkle a million stars.

There were three of the outlaw's men with him, and both Mcwilliams and his friend noticed that they slept a little apart from their chief. There were other indications among the rustlers of a camp divided against itself. Bannister's orders to them he contrived to make an insult, and their obedience was as surly as possible compatible with safety. For all of the men knew that he would not hesitate to shoot them down in one of his violent rages should they anger him sufficiently.

Throughout the night there was no time that at least two men were not awake in the camp. The foreman and the sheepman took turns keeping vigil; and on the other side of the fire sat one of the rustlers in silent watchfulness. To the man opposite him each of the sentinels were outposts of the enemy, but they fraternized after the manner of army sentries, exchanging tobacco and occasional casual conversation.

The foreman took the first turn, and opposite him sat a one-eyed old scoundrel who had rustle calves from big outfits ever since Wyoming was a territory and long before. Chalkeye Dave, he was called, and sometimes merely Chalkeye. What his real name was no man knew. Nor was his past a subject for conversation in his presence. It was known that he had been in the Nevada penitentiary, and that he had killed a man in Arizona, but these details of an active life were rarely resurrected. For Chalkeye was deadly on the shoot, and was ready for it at the drop of the hat, though he had his good points too. One of these was a remarkable fondness for another member of the party, a mere lad, called by his companions Hughie. Generally surly and morose, to such a degree that even his chief was careful to humor him as a rule, when with Hughie all the softer elements of his character came to the surface. In his rough way he was ever humorous and genial.

Jim McWilliams found him neither, however. He declined to engage in conversation, accepted a proffer of tobacco with a silent, hostile grunt and relapsed into a long silence that lasted till his shift was ended.

“Hate to have y'u leave, old man. Y'u're so darned good company I'll ce'tainly pine for you,” the foreman suggested, with sarcasm, when the old man rolled up in his blankets preparatory to falling asleep immediately.

Chalkeye's successor was a blatant youth much impressed with his own importance. He was both foul-mouthed and foul-minded, so that Jim was constrained to interrupt his evil boastings by pretending to fall asleep.

It was nearly two o'clock when the foreman aroused his friend to take his turn. Shortly after this the lad Hughie relieved the bragging, would-be bad man.

Hughie was a flaxen-haired, rather good-looking boy of nineteen. In his small, wistful face was not a line of wickedness, though it was plain that he was weak. He seemed so unfit for the life he was leading that the sheepman's interest was aroused. For on the frontier it takes a strong, competent miscreant to be a bad man and survive. Ineffectives and weaklings are quickly weeded out to their graves or the penitentiaries.

The boy was manifestly under great fear of his chief, but the curly haired young Hermes who kept watch with him had a very winning smile and a charming manner when he cared to exert it. Almost in spite of himself the youngster was led to talk. It seemed that he had but lately joined the Teton-Shoshones outfit of desperadoes, and between the lines Bannister easily read that his cousin's masterful compulsion had coerced the young fellow. All he wanted was an opportunity to withdraw in safety, but he knew he could never do this so long as the “King” was alive and at liberty.

Under the star-roof in the chill, breaking day Ned Bannister talked to him long and gently. It was easy to bring the boy to tears, but it was harder thing to stiffen a will that was of putty and to hearten a soul in mortal fear. But he set himself with all the power in him to combat the influence of his cousin over this boy; and before the camp stirred to life again he knew that he had measurably succeeded.

They ate breakfast in the gray dawn under the stars, and after they had finished their coffee and bacon horses were saddled and the trail taken up again. It led in and out among the foot-hills slopping upward gradually toward the first long blue line of the Shoshones that stretched before them in the distance. Their nooning was at running stream called Smith's Creek, and by nightfall the party was well up in the higher foot hills.

In the course of the day and the second night both the sheepman and his friend made attempt to establish a more cordial relationship with Chalkeye, but so far as any apparent results went their efforts were vain. He refused grimly to meet their overtures half way, even though it was plain from his manner that a break between him and his chief could not long be avoided.

All day by crooked trails they pushed forward, and as the party advanced into the mountains the gloom of the mournful pines and frowning peaks invaded its spirits. Suspicion and distrust went with it, camped at night by the rushing mountain stream, lay down to sleep in the shadows at every man's shoulder. For each man looked with an ominous eye on his neighbor, watchful of every sudden move, of every careless word that might convey a sudden meaning.

Along a narrow rock-rim trail far above a steep canon, whose walls shot precipitously down, they were riding in single file, when the outlaw chief pushed his horse forward between the road wall and his cousin's bronco. The sheepman immediately fell back.

“I reckon this trail isn't wide enough for two—unless y'u take the outside,” he explained quietly.

The outlaw, who had been drinking steadily ever since leaving the Lazy D, laughed his low, sinister cackle. “Afraid of me, are y'u? Afraid I'll push y'u off?”

“Not when I'm inside and you don't have chance.”

“'Twas a place about like this I drove for thousand of your sheep over last week. With sheep worth what they are I'm afraid it must have cost y'u quite a bit. Not that y'u'll miss it where you are going,” he hastened to add.

“It was very like you to revenge yourself on dumb animals.”

“Think so?” The “King's” black gaze rested on him. “Y'u'll sing a different song soon Mr. Bannister. It's humans I'll drive next time and don't y'u forget it.”

“If you get the chance,” amended his cousin gently.

“I'll get the chance. I'm not worrying about that. And about those sheep—any man that hasn't got more sense than to run sheep in a cow country ought to lose them for his pig-headedness.

“Those sheep were on the right side of the dead-line. You had to cross it to reach them.” Their owner's steady eyes challenged a denial.

“Is that so? Now how do y'u know that? We didn't leave the herder alive to explain that to y'u, did we?”

“You admit murdering him?”

“To y'u, dear cousin. Y'u see, I have a hunch that maybe y'u'll go join your herder right soon. Y'u'll not do much talking.”

The sheepman fell back. “I think I'll ride alone.”

Rage flared in the other's eye. “Too good for me, are y'u, my mealy-mouthed cousin? Y'u always thought yourself better than me. When y'u were a boy you used to go sneaking to that old hypocrite, your grandfather—”

“You have said enough,” interrupted the other sternly. “I'll not hear another word. Keep your foul tongue off him.”

Their eyes silently measured strength.

“Y'u'll not hear a word!” sneered the chief of the rustlers. “What will y'u do, dear cousin?

“Stand up and fight like a man and settle this thing once for all.”

Still their steely eyes crossed as with the thrust of rapiers. The challenged man crouched tensely with a mighty longing for the test, but he had planned a more elaborate revenge and a surer one than this. Reluctantly he shook his head.

“Why should I? Y'u're mine. We're four to two, and soon we'll be a dozen to two. I'd like a heap to oblige y'u, but I reckon I can't afford to just now. Y'u will have to wait a little for that bumping off that's coming to y'u.”

“In that event I'll trouble you not to inflict your society on me any more than is necessary.”

“That's all right, too. If y'u think I enjoy your conversation y'u have got another guess coming.”

So by mutual consent the sheepman fell in behind the blatant youth who had wearied McWilliams so and rode in silence.

It was again getting close to nightfall. The slant sun was throwing its rays on less and less of the trail. They could see the shadows grow and the coolness of night sift into the air. They were pushing on to pass the rim of a great valley basin that lay like a saucer in the mountains in order that they might camp in the valley by a stream all of them knew. Dusk was beginning to fall when they at last reached the saucer edge and only the opposite peaks were still tipped with the sun rays. This, too, disappeared before they had descended far, and the gloom of the great mountains that girt the valley was on all their spirits, even McWilliams being affected by it.

They were tired with travel, and the long night watches did not improve tempers already overstrained with the expectation of a crisis too long dragged out. Rain fell during the night, and continued gently in a misty drizzle after day broke. It was a situation and an atmosphere ripe for tragedy, and it fell on them like a clap of thunder out of a sodden sky.

Hughie was cook for the day, and he came chill and stiff-fingered to his task. Summer as it was, there lay a thin coating of ice round the edges of the stream, for they had camped in an altitude of about nine thousand feet. The “King” had wakened in a vile humor. He had a splitting headache, as was natural under the circumstances and he had not left in his bottle a single drink to tide him over it. He came cursing to the struggling fire, which was making only fitful headway against the rain which beat down upon it.

“Why didn't y'u build your fire on the side of the tree?” he growled at Hughie.

Now, Hughie was a tenderfoot, and in his knowledge of outdoor life he was still an infant. “I didn't know—” he was beginning, when his master cut him short with a furious tongue lashing out of all proportion to the offense.

The lad's face blanched with fear, and his terror was so manifest that the bully, who was threatening him with all manner of evils, began to enjoy himself. Chalkeye, returning from watering the horses, got back in time to hear the intemperate fag-end of the scolding. He glanced at Hughie, whose hands were trembling in spite of him, and then darkly at the brute who was attacking him. But he said not a word.

The meal proceeded in silence except for jeers and taunts of the “King.” For nobody cared to venture conversation which might prove a match to a powder magazine. Whatever thoughts might be each man kept them to himself.

“Coffee,” snapped the single talker, toward end of breakfast.

Hughie jumped up, filled the cup that was handed him and set the coffee pot back on fire. As he handed the tin cup with the coffee to the outlaw the lad's foot slipped on a piece wet wood, and the hot liquid splashed over his chief's leg. The man jumped to his feet in a rage and struck the boy across the face with his whip once, and then again.

“By God, that'll do for you!” cried Chalkeye from the other side of the fire, springing revolver in hand. “Draw, you coyote! I come a-shooting.”

The “King” wheeled, finding his weapon he turned. Two shots rang out almost simultaneously, and Chalkeye pitched forward. The outlaw chief sank to his knees, and, with one hand resting on the ground to steady himself fired two more shots into the twitching body on the other side of the fire. Then he, too, lurched forward and rolled over.

It had come to climax so swiftly that not one of them had moved except the combatants. Bannister rose and walked over to the place where the body of his cousin lay. He knelt down and examined him. When he rose it was with a very grave face.

“He is dead,” he said quietly.

McWilliams, who had been bending over Chalkeye, looked up. “Here, too. Any one of the shots would have finished him.”

Bannister nodded. “Yes. That first exchange killed them both.” He looked down at the limp body of his cousin, but a minute before so full of supple, virile life. “But his hate had to reach out and make sure, even though he was as good as dead himself. He was game.” Then sharply to the young braggart, who had risen and was edging away with a face of chalk: “Sit down, y'u! What do y'u take us for? Think this is to be a massacre?”

The man came back with palpable hesitancy. “I was aiming to go and get the boys to bury them. My God, did you ever see anything so quick? They drilled through each other like lightning.”

Mac looked him over with dry contempt. “My friend, y'u're too tender for a genuwine A1 bad man. If I was handing y'u a bunch of advice it would be to get back to the prosaic paths of peace right prompt. And while we're on the subject I'll borrow your guns. Y'u're scared stiff and it might get into your fool coconut to plug one of us and light out. I'd hate to see y'u commit suicide right before us, so I'll just natcherally unload y'u.”

He was talking to lift the strain, and it was for the same purpose that Bannister moved over to Hughie, who sat with his face in his hands, trying to shut out the horror of what he had seen.

The sheepman dropped a hand on his shoulder gently. “Brace up, boy! Don't you see that the very best thing that could have happened is this. It's best for y'u, best for the rest of the gang and best for the whole cattle country. We'll have peace here at last. Now he's gone, honest men are going to breathe easy. I'll take y'u in hand and set y'u at work on one of my stations, if y'u like. Anyhow, you'll have a chance to begin life again in a better way.”

“That's right,” agreed the blatant youth. “I'm sick of rustling the mails and other folks' calves. I'm glad he got what was coming to him,” he concluded vindictively, with a glance at his dead chief and a sudden raucous oath.

McWilliams's cold blue eye transfixed him “Hadn't you better be a little careful how your mouth goes off? For one thing, he's daid now; and for another, he happens to be Mr. Bannister's cousin.”

“But—weren't they enemies?”

“That's how I understand it. But this man's passed over the range. A MAN doesn't unload his hatred on dead folks—and I expect if y'u'll study him, even y'u will be able to figure out that my friend measures up to the size of a real man.”

“I don't see why if—”

“No, I don't suppose y'u do,” interrupted the foreman, turning on his heel. Then to Bannister, who was looking down at his cousin with a stony face: “I reckon, Bann, we better make arrangements to have the bodies buried right here in the valley,” he said gently.

Bannister was thinking of early days, of the time when this miscreant, whose light had just been put out so instantaneously, had played with him day in and day out. They had attended their first school together, had played marbles and prisoners' base a hundred times against each other. He could remember how they used to get up early in the morning to go fishing with each other. And later, when each began, unconsciously, to choose the path he would follow in already beginning to settle into an established fact. He could see now, by looking back on trifles of their childhood, that his cousin had been badly handicapped in his fight with himself against the evil in him. He had inherited depraved instincts and tastes, and with them somewhere in him a strand of weakness that prevented him from slaying the giants he had to oppose in the making of a good character. From bad to worse he had gone, and here he lay with the drizzling rain on his white face, a warning and a lesson to wayward youths just setting their feet in the wrong direction. Surely it was kismet.

Ned Bannister untied the handkerchief from his neck and laid it across the face of his kinsman. A moment longer he looked down, then passed his hands across his eyes and seemed to brush away the memories that thronged him. He stepped forward to the fire and warmed his hands.

“We'll go on, Mac, to the rendezvous he had appointed with his outfit. We ought to reach there by noon, and the boys can send a wagon back to get the bodies.”