Читать книгу Texas Man - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 7

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TOUGH Nut lay in a coma of sunshine. Apache Street was almost deserted. A hound crossed the dusty road, leisurely pursued by a three-year-old child giving orders in a piping voice.

“Tum here, Tarlo, dod-done you.”

Carlo went his way, magnificently oblivious of the infant. Drooping horses waited patiently at the hitch racks in front of the saloons. A grocery clerk came out of a store and from a watering can sprinkled the hot ground in front.

A four-mule team came down the street. The fine yellow dust of travel lay thick on the canvas covering the load. The mule skinner, Boone Sibley, now grown to manhood, was a stranger to Arizona. He had come to Cochise County from New Mexico by way of the San Simon Valley. Already he was pleased with Tough Nut. It sat on the top of the world. A roll of hills and valleys fell away on either side to the shining mountains, to the Mules and the Whetstones, the Dragoons and the Huachucas. The miles of cholla and greasewood and mesquite in that panorama of space were telescoped to a minimum in the clear, untempered light of the champagne atmosphere.

The adobe town was clean. The road of disintegrated granite gave evidence of municipal pride. Tough Nut belied its name, its evil reputation. So Boone Sibley decided. It was a nice town, and peaceful as old age. He was glad he had come. His arms and his long lithe body stretched in a yawn of indolent well-being. Soon he would hit the hay. For thirty hours he had not slept. Grub first, then sleep. Yes, a real nice, quiet town. That woman now going into the butcher shop with the baby in her arms ...

A shot shattered the stillness. Through the swing doors of a saloon burst a man. He was small, past the prime of life. As he ran, odd sounds came from his throat. They were not yelps or shouts, nor were they moans; rather a combination of all three. The awkwardness of his flight would have been comical but for the terror on his face.

A big man, revolver in hand, tore through the doors in pursuit. Another shot ripped the silence. The little man staggered, stumbled, and went down just beside the wagon. With swift strides the gunman moved toward him. The eyes in his bearded face blazed.

Boone Sibley lived by the code of the West. This was a private difficulty. Therefore, none of his business. He started to slide from the far side of the wagon in order to use it as a bulwark between him and stray bullets.

Started to do so, but changed his mind. The hound had come around the tail of the wagon, and hard on its heels the three-year-old. The bearded man, intent on the kill, did not see the youngster. His weapon jerked up, covering the victim.

The mule skinner swung his whip, swiftly, expertly. He could pick a fly from the ear of the off leader. Now the lash snaked out, twined itself around the wrist of the big man, and sent the revolver flying. Yet another moment, and one hundred and ninety pounds of bone and muscle had descended upon the killer from the sky. The fellow went down as though hurled into the earth by a pile driver. He lay motionless, the breath driven out of his body by the shock of the assault.

Lean-loined and agile, Boone was up like a cat. He scooped up the revolver from the ground and whirled, his back against the front wheel of the wagon. For out of the saloon had come men, four or five of them. They had drawn guns—at least, two of them had—and they were moving toward the scene of action. Out of the tail of his eye Boone saw the little man, dragging one leg, vanish behind the wagon.

The bearded man sat up, one side of his face covered with dust. He was still dazed, but anger and annoyance were rising in him. He glared at Boone, ferocious as a tiger with its claws cut. His .44 gone, he was momentarily helpless.

“Who in Mexico are you?” he roared.

The mule whacker answered not the question but the issue: “The kid. You didn’t see it.”

“What kid?”

“With the dog. In the line of yore fire.” Boone’s words were directed toward the bearded man, his eyes and his attention toward the newcomers.

They were big, rangy men, hard-eyed and leathery. They wore long drooping moustaches after the fashion of the period.

One of them spoke, harshly, with authority. Beneath the black moustache he had a stiff imperial. His mouth was straight and thin-lipped. “That’s right, Curt. You didn’t see the kid.”

The bearded man rose and took two long steps toward Boone. “Gimme that gun,” he demanded.

The young teamster had lived all of his twenty-three years on the frontier where emergencies must be met by instant decision. Already he knew that the man with the imperial was a leader. The breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, the poised confidence of manner were certificates of strength. He alone had not yet drawn a weapon.

“I’ll give it to you, sir,” Boone replied. “Yore friend is some annoyed yet, I expect.”

Holding the revolver by the long barrel he handed it to the man selected.

“I’ll take that gun, Whip,” its owner said roughly.

“Don’t burn up the road, Curt,” his friend answered. “This young pilgrim is right. You might have hit the kid. He didn’t aim to jump you but to save the little fellow. I reckon you’ll have to leave him go this time.”

“Leave him go? After he lit on me all spraddled out? Gun or no gun, I’ll sure take him to a cleaning.” Curt moved toward Boone, a trifle heavily. He was a full-bodied man, physically more like the grizzly than the panther. He stopped in front of the teamster.

Young Sibley looked at him quietly, steadily. “I’m not lookin’ for trouble, sir,” he said. “Sorry I had to drap on you on account of the kid. I figured you wouldn’t want to hurt the little fellow.”

“I aim to work you over proper,” the bearded man announced. “I don’t need no gun.”

Boone’s revolver was on the wagon seat. This was just as well. He was debarred from using it, both because his antagonist was unarmed and because the man’s friends would instantly have shot him down if he had drawn a weapon. A crowd was beginning to gather. He heard comments and prophecies. “Curt will sure eat up this pilgrim.”—“Y’betcha! If Mr. Mule Skinner allows he’s the venomous kypoote, he’s due to get unroostered pronto.”

The bearded man lashed out at his intended victim. Boone ducked, drove a left to the fellow’s cheek, and danced out of range. Curt roared with anger, put down his head, and charged. His heavy arms swung like flails, savagely, wildly, with great power behind the blows. The younger man, lithe as a wildcat, alert to forestall each movement, smothered some of these swings, blocked others, dodged the rest. His timing, his judgment of distance, were perfect. He jolted the bearded man with two slashing lefts and a short-arm uppercut, sidestepped the ensuing rush, and with a powerful right, all the driving power of his weight back of it, landed flush on the chin at precisely the right instant. Caught off balance, the big man went down like a pole-axed steer.

He went down and he stayed down. His body half rolled over in the dust. He made a spasmodic effort to rise, one of his hands clawing the ground for a hold. Then he relaxed and seemed to fall into himself.

For a moment nobody spoke, nobody moved. Curt French had the reputation of being the best bit of fighting machinery in the new camp. In the current parlance, he could whip his weight in wildcats. So it had been said, and he had given proof in plenty of his prowess. And now an unknown mule skinner, probably a greener who hailed from some whistling post in the desert, had laid him out expertly, with a minimum of effort, and there was not a scratch on the young chap’s face to show that he had been in a fight.

An enthusiastic miner slapped his hat against the leg of a dusty pair of trousers. “Never saw the beat of it. Short an’ sweet. Sews Curt up in a sack, an’ when he’s good an’ ready, bing goes the sockdolager, an’ Curt turns up his toes to the daisies.”

“Say, you ain’t Paddy Ryan,^[2] are you?” demanded an admiring bartender.

[2]	This was a few months before John L. Sullivan defeated Paddy Ryan for the heavyweight boxing championship of America.

The man who had been called Whip pushed forward and spoke curtly. “What’s yore name, young fellow? And where d’you hail from?”

The teamster met his heavy frown steadily. “Boone Sibley. I’m from Texas.”

“Well, Texas man, I’m offerin’ you advice free gratis. Drive on an’ keep right on going. Tucson is a good town. So’s Phoenix.”

“What’s the matter with this town?”

“Not healthy.”

“For me, you mean?”

“For you.”

The eyes of the two clashed, those of Boone hard and cold as chilled steel, his opponent’s dark and menacing, deep-socketed in a grim, harsh face. It was a drawn battle.

The older man added explanation to his last answer. “For anyone who has done to Curt French what you’ve done.”

“Meanin’ there will be a gun play?” Boone asked quietly.

“Don’t put words in my mouth, young fellow,” the other said stiffly. “Leave it as it lays. Light out. Make tracks. Vamos.”

Boone did not say he would take this advice. He did not say he would not. “I’m sure a heap obliged to you,” he murmured, with the little drawl that might or might not conceal irony. His glance went around the circle of faces, some curious, some hostile, some frankly admiring. It dropped to the man he had vanquished and took in the fact that the fellow was beginning to stir. Then, unhurriedly, he turned his back, put a foot on the hub of the wheel, and climbed back into the wagon.

“Gidap!” he clucked to the mules.

The long whip snaked out. The tugs straightened as the mules leaned forward. The wagon went crunching down the street.