Читать книгу Texas Man - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 9

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A THIN old man, toothless, sat in the Can-Can eating a plate of flapjacks. Dusty Rhodes hailed him.

“How you makin’ it, Dad?”

“Fat like a match. How’s yore own corporosity sagasuate?”

“I’m ridin’ high, wide, an’ handsome.”

“Hmp! You sayin’ it don’t mean a thing to me. You got no ambition—none of you young riders. Give you a saddle, a quirt, spurs, a bronc, a forty-dollar job, an’ onct in a while God send Sunday, an’ you don’t ask another thing.”

“Meet Mr. Sibley,” the cowboy said. “Mr. Sibley, shake hands with Mobeetie Bill. Don’t ask me what his onct name was. All I know is he lit in Cochise three jumps ahead of a posse.”

“Nothin’ to that, Mr. Sibley,” the old man corrected. “Fact is, I skinned a jerk-line string when I fust come.”

“I been told he hit Texas when the Palo Duro wasn’t a hole in the ground yet. No tellin’ how old he is. Mebbe a hundred. Don’t you believe anything this old Hassayampa^[3] tells you, Mr. Sibley. By the way, Dad, Mr. Sibley is from yore own range.”

[3]	The legend is that anyone drinking of the waters of the Hassayampa River cannot afterward tell the truth.

“Not exactly, if you hail from the Panhandle,” Boone said. “I come from the Brazos.”

“Sit down, Texas man,” the old-timer invited. To the slant-eyed waiter he gave orders. “Another stack of chips. An’ wait on these gents, Charlie.”

They sat down, ordered, ate. Casual conversation flowed on. For the most part Boone listened. Mobeetie Bill had been a buffalo hunter. He had, in his own words, “tooken the hides off’n a heap of them.” Before that he had served with the Confederate army, and prior to that with General Sam Houston. He had known the Southwest many years before barb wire had come in to tame it.

“Yes, sir, them was the days,” he said reminiscently. “There was mighty few cutbacks in the herd when I fust come to Texas. Clever folks, most of ’em. Course, there was trouble, lots of it. If you was anyways hostile, you could always be accommodated. At El Paso there usta be a cottonwood at the head of a street where folks grew personal. They nailed their opinions of each other on it. Anse Mills posted three citizens as liars. That was sure fightin’ talk then. Dallas Studenmire stuck there a list of bad men he aimed to kill pronto if they didn’t light out sudden. He bumped off three-four to show good faith, an’ the rest said ‘Good-bye, El Paso.’ Times ain’t like they was. Folks either. Me, I’m nothin’ but a stove-up old donker.”

“This country is wild enough for me right now,” Rhodes said. “Four of us was jumped by ’pachies last year. If it’s shootin’s you are pinin’ for, why, I expect Tough Nut could accommodate you.”

“Hmp! Boy, you’re a kid hardly outa yore cradle. You brag about yore Quinns an’ yore Curt French. Say, if they had bumped into John Wesley Hardin when he was going good, or even Clay Allison, our Texas killers would sure have made ’em climb a tree.”

Boone observed that Rhodes looked around quickly to make sure nobody else had come into the restaurant. “I ain’t arguing with you, Dad. All I say is that when I meet the gents referred to I’m always real polite.” He had, even in making this innocuous remark, lowered his voice.

“Why, someone was tellin’ me on the street that some pilgrim from back East beat up yore Curt French this very damned day,” Dad said belligerently.

“No need to shout it, Dad,” the cowboy warned. “Old as you are, you might annoy Curt considerable if he heard you. In which case, he’d take it outa either you or me or both of us. But since you’re on the subject, it wasn’t any pilgrim from the East but this Texas brother of yores who mixed it with Curt to-day.”

Mobeetie Bill’s eyes glistened. “Son, you’ll do to take along, looks like. But, boy, pack yore hogleg wherever you go, or you’ll sure sleep in smoke. Hell coughed up this fellow Curt French. He’s a sure enough killer, an’ he trails with a bad bunch.”

“You’re certainly gabby to-day, Dad,” Rhodes protested mildly. “A young fellow like you had ought to learn to keep his trap shut.”

The old-timer paid no attention to the cowboy. He addressed himself to his fellow Texan. “If you’re a false alarm you better cut dirt pronto.”

“For Tucson?” Boone asked gravely.

Dusty grinned. “Mr. Sibley has been told two-three times already that Tucson is a right good town, an’ the wagon tracks are plain headin’ thataway.”

“Correct,” agreed the old buffalo hunter. “That’s good advice, Texas man, an’ it don’t cost a cent Mex.”

“Good advice for anyone that wants to take it,” amended Boone.

Mobeetie Bill looked into his cool flinty eyes.

“Correct once more. Good for anyone but a fightin’ fool, an’ maybe for him, too. If I get this Curt French right, he’ll aim to make Tough Nut hotter’n Hades with the blower on for you. He’ll likely get lit up with tarantula juice an’ go gunnin’ with a pair of sixshooters. Like enough he’ll take two-three Quinns along when he starts to collect.”

“Cheerful news,” commented the young Texan. “He seems to be some lobo wolf.”

“Prob’ly you could get a job freightin’ up Prescott way, thereby throwin’ two stones at one bird.”

“Right now I’ll throw my stones, if any, at birds in Tough Nut. For a day or two, anyhow, while I look around.”

Mobeetie Bill let out a soft-pedalled version of the old Rebel yell. “You’re shoutin’, boy. That’s the way folks talked in the good old days. Make this tinhorn climb a tree.”

Rhodes spoke quickly, in a low voice: “Chieto, compadre!”

Men passed the window of the restaurant. A moment later they came in, two of them. Instantly Boone recognized them as two of the men who had been with French at the time of his difficulty with the gambler. They took seats at a small table in a corner of the room. As they moved across the floor the Texan saw again that they were big and rangy. An arrogant self-confidence rode their manner.

“Brad Prouty an’ Russ Quinn,” murmured Rhodes.

The buffalo hunter bridged any possible silence the entry of the newcomers might have made. His voice flowed on as though he had been in the midst of narrative.

“... made camp in a grove of cottonwoods on White Deer creek that night. I rec’lect I was mixin’ up a batch of cush^[4] when a fellow rode up with his horse in a lather. The Cheyennes were swarmin’ over the country, he claimed. They had burned his ranch, an’ he had jest saved his hide. Well, sir, we headed for ’Dobe Walls an’ got there right after the big fight Billy Dixon an’ the other boys had there with about a thousand Injuns. That’s how clost I come to being in the ’Dobe Walls battle.”

[4]	Cush was made of soaked corn bread and biscuit, stirred together and fried in bacon grease.

“Was you in the War of 1812, Dad?” asked Rhodes with innocent malice.

The old man shook a fleshless fist at him. “I ain’t so old but what I could take you to a cleanin’ right now, boy,” he boasted. “Trouble with you young sprouts is you never was wore to a frazzle with a hickory limb when you needed it most.”

Dusty slapped his thigh with a brown hand. “Dawged if I don’t believe you’d climb my frame for four bits,” he chuckled.

“Make it two bits. Make it a plug of tobacco,” Dad cackled with a toothless grin.

Quinn and Prouty ordered supper and ate. Russ, facing Boone, said something to his companion in a low voice. Brad turned and stared at Sibley. The young Texan, apparently absorbed in what his friends were saying, endured the look without any evidence that he knew he was the object of attention.

“Curt’s right. Population of this town too promiscuous,” Russ said, not troubling to lower his voice.

“That’s whatever, Russ. Ought to be thinned out.”

“Good thing if some emigrated. Good for the town. Good for them.” Through narrowed lids slits of eyes watched Boone. “If I was a friend of some of these pilgrims, I’d tell ’em to hive off for other parts—kinda ease outa the scenery, as you might say.”

Making notes of these men without seeming to see them, Boone took in the lean shoulders, muscular and broad, of Russell Quinn, his close-clamped jaw, a certain catlike litheness in the carriage of his body. Brad Prouty was heavier and shorter of build, a hairier man. His mouth was a thin, cruel line below the drooping moustache. It might be guessed that Brad was of a sullen disposition, given to the prompt assertion of what he considered his rights.

“Yep, slap a saddle on a broomtail an’ light out. I’d sure call that good medicine.” This from Prouty.

Quinn took up the refrain: “Sometimes a guy has a li’l’ luck an’ presses it too far. I’ve seen that happen seve-re-al times. Don’t know when to lay down a hand. Boot Hill for them right soon. Nobody’s fault but their own.”

Into this antiphony Boone interjected a remark, addressed apparently to Mobeetie Bill, in an even, level voice.

“Yes, like I was sayin’, I like yore town. Reckon I’ll camp here awhile. Lots of work, an’ folks seem friendly an’ sociable.”

The old hunter strangled a snort. “Well, they are an’ they ain’t. Don’t you bank on that good feelin’ too much.”

“Oh, I’ll take it as it comes,” Boone answered carelessly.

It occurred to Mobeetie Bill, looking at this tall, lean young man, with cool, sardonic blue-gray eyes in the sunburned face, that he was competent to look after himself.

“If you stay, it’s on yore own responsibility,” Dusty Rhodes chipped in. The cowboy’s eyes were shining. This byplay took his fancy. If the odds had not been so great, he would have been willing to take a long-shot bet on Sibley’s chances.

“Well, yes,” drawled Boone. “I eat an’ sleep an’ live on my own responsibility. Fact is, I’ve been hittin’ too fast a clip. I kinda want to rest awhile in a nice, quiet, peaceable town like this. Two churches here already, an’ another headin’ this way, they say. Nice li’l’ schoolhouse on Prospect Street. First-class climate. Good live newspaper.”

It was Russ who took up the refrain on the part of the other table. “That’s right, come to think of it, nobody been buried in Boot Hill for a week. Liable to be someone soon—some guy who blows in an’ wants to show he’s a bad man from Bitter Creek. Well, here’s hopin’. Shove the salt thisaway, Brad.”

“So a quiet young fellow like me, trying to get along, lookin’ for no trouble an’ expectin’ none, had orta do well here,” Boone went on placidly.

What Dusty Rhodes thought was, “You durned ol’ horn toad, you sure have got sand in your craw.” What he said was, “I can get you a job on a ranch in the Chiricahuas, above the San Simon, forty dollars per if you’re a top hand with a rope.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up later. No rush. I reckon the cows will calve in the spring, same as usual,” Boone said nonchalantly.

“I’ll be rockin’ along thataway in a day or two. Like to have yore company,” Rhodes insisted.

“Oh, well, we’ll see.”

Dusty Rhodes paid the bill, insisting that it was his treat. His guests reached for their hats and sauntered out.

Russ Quinn spoke a word as the cowboy was leaving. “Dusty.” Rhodes turned and went back to the table. A minute later he joined Sibley and the old buffalo hunter outside.

“What’d he want?” asked Mobeetie Bill.

“Wanted I should get this yere durn fool pilgrim outa the neighbourhood before Curt qualified him for his private graveyard.”

“Kind of him,” Boone said with mild sarcasm.

Dusty had his own point of view. “Russ is no crazy killer. Course, he’ll gun a guy if he has to, but he’s not lookin’ for a chance. I reckon he’d like to see you light out for yore own sake.”

They walked along the roaring street. Already it was filled with lusty, good-natured life. Men jostled each other as they crowded in and out of the gambling halls. Sunburned cowboys, sallow miners, cold-eyed tinhorns, dusty freighters, and prosperous merchants were out for amusement. Inside the variety halls and the saloons, gaudily dressed women drank with the customers and offered their smiles to prospective clients. But outside none of the weaker sex showed themselves on Apache Street. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief: they crowded one another impartially in democratic simplicity. One was as good as another. All were embryonic millionaires, sure that the blind goddess Luck would strike them soon.

Whatever else it was, Tough Nut was a man’s town.