Читать книгу Colorado - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 10

Table of Contents

A RED-HEADED GIRL

Now, after ten years, Tom had met again the man who had done so much to blot the sunshine from his youth. It seemed almost as though some freakish destiny had taken in charge the current of their lives. Already, within two short weeks, they had been flung twice into sharp conflict, and Tom felt sure that this was only a beginning. The issue was joined between them. They would meet again and again, until one of them had been obliterated from the path of the other.

But which? Tom was not proud of his conduct. A moment of panic, a resurgence of childish fear, had set his feet flying from the man. It was no excuse to tell himself that there were four of the outlaws, because he had been thinking of only one of them. It was no excuse to say that he had run, not from a roaring gun, but from the memory of a red-hot whip lash.

Julesburg was but a frontier village. Wilson would soon find him. He must either kill or be killed, unless he preferred to fling a saddle on a horse and light out.

Massie came to Tom after nightfall. “Boy, you better hit the trail,” he said. “That fellow Wilson is makin’ his brags what-all he aims to do to you. He will, too, for he’s a sure-enough wolf. I want a letter taken back to a bull train the other side of Cottonwood. Saddle up an’ get out with it.”

Tom did not ask how much of this was a friendly device on the part of the station keeper to get him out of the way of Wilson. Inside of fifteen minutes, he was in the saddle. Presently, the lights of the town were behind him.

His lonely ride did not disturb him. There was to come a time soon, within four years, when this whole country would be full of hostile Indians, when hundreds of emigrants would fall victims to their attacks. But as yet the Redskins were troublesome only as petty thieves. He was safer alone on the plains than in Julesburg with Wilson priming himself with drink for murder.

Gray morning sifted into the sky. He roused a small herd of buffaloes that had come down to the stream for water. The lumbering animals scurried for safety. When it grew lighter, he shot three quail and cooked them for breakfast. Having eaten, he slept for a few hours. It was well past midday when he passed Alkali Springs.

There was no hurry. Tom did not push his horse, and he gave it plenty of rest. Darkness had fallen before he gave the coyote yell and cantered into O’Fallon’s. This was a large station and range house. The buildings spread over a good deal of ground. There were quarters for hostlers and extra help, a blacksmith shop, stables, a stage station, and a store where flour, tobacco, feed, and grain could be bought by emigrants.

An hostler came out from the stables. “Thought first off you was the stage. It’s late. Wish old Baldy would bring it in on time. He’s gettin’ lazy, that old bird is. I don’t blame him none. If I had a stake, I wouldn’t be pluggin’ away here. But, dawggone it, if shoe-strings was sellin’ for six bits a mile, I couldn’t buy one. It sure would be duck soup to be rich like old Commodore Vanderbilt. A fellow could read his title clear to a heap of good times. I’d light out for the diggings, but, shucks! I don’t swallow all this talk about gold. If it’s there, what are the yellow-bellys on the ground hollerin’ their heads off for? When a rooster finds grain, he don’t cluck for the hens to come.”

Tom swung from the saddle without speech. What was the use of talking when this gabby fellow had so much to say?

“Danged if there ain’t the stage now. Still an’ all, if I thought there was a chanct, I’d say by-by to this job. A fellow don’t git anywheres workin’ for wages. Don’t you know it?”

The stage rolled in. A man in buckskin trousers and dirty undershirt came out from the station and beat with a hammer a rusty triangle as a signal that supper was ready. A yellow dog howled dismally.

The hostler made comment. “I don’t see why that dog howls. He belongs with a freight outfit an’ don’t have to eat here.”

The cook turned viciously to the stableman. “If you don’t like the grub here why——”

“—Why, I’ve gotta eat it anyhow. You’re right, Johnnie. I’d ruther eat it than starve to death.”

The stage was disgorging its contents. The driver descended from his seat and stretched. A fat man in broadcloth rolled down from the place beside him. Two others lowered themselves from the roof. The inside passengers numbered six or seven. Two of them were ladies, and most of the others made themselves busy assisting the ladies out and carrying their small bundles to the station.

Tom watched the little procession. Women were as yet a novelty in this country. There were scarcely a dozen in the whole region. Probably these two were going to join their men folks at the new Cherry Creek goldfields. He could see that they wore poke bonnets. One of them, at least, was young. As they moved into the light, a young eager face turned toward Tom. The hair that fell in curls below the bonnet, was a dark red. For just the flash of a heartbeat, brown eyes with amber lights in them met the gray ones of Tom. Then the fat man waddled between them, full of unctuous politeness to the girl.

Baldy Brown drifted toward young Collins. “The boys are some excited, looks like. They hang on to the ladies like grim death to a nigger’s heel. That fat old jay bird, Price, don’t give ’em a minute’s peace. Betcha he proposes to both of ’em before he reaches Denver. He certainly has burnt his breeches behind him, as the old sayin’ is.”

“Him! Why, they wouldn’t look at him, would they?”

“I reckon not,” the stage driver assented. “Say, that fat old duck is liable to have appleplexy when he knows what I know. He’s arranged for to ride inside to the next station, an’ the ladies aim to be outside. He don’t know that.... I reckon they’re sisters. The oldest one is too young to be the other’s mother. She’s one lovely lady, the oldest, plump as a quail’s breast an’ right nice dispositioned. She’s gonna sit on the box next me. Me. I’d propose my own self, but shucks! I’m a married man, fur as I know, leastways if she ain’t diseased since I left the states. She’s a right pleasant lady to be away from, referrin’ to Mrs. Brown.”

“Betcha they get lots of proposals,” Tom said.

“Them ladies? Boy, hush, they’ll git a million apiece. They’re high-grade ore, I want to tell you right now. Kinda surprising two lone women like them leavin’ God’s country to come out here. Different with men. Natural for them to roll around. I always did claim the best buffaloes are on the edge of the herd, sniffin’ the breeze ahead of the others. The best an’ the worst too. There’s some right ornery sons of guns out here, sure as hell’s hot.”

“Mebbe their men folks are out at the diggings already,” Tom suggested, recurring to the question of the day.

“No, they ain’t. These here ladies are playin’ a lone hand. One of ’em told me so. Ain’t that sand for you?” Balky was silent a moment, then ruminated aloud. “Expect I better padlock my fool tongue when I git that lady on the box with me. Onct in Texas I kinda married a Mrs. Brown Number Two. If I was to git spliced again, it would be trigamy, don’t you s’pose, Slim?”

“The law is some particular about how many women a man marries,” Tom admitted.

“Well, I don’t reckon she’d have me, anyway,” Baldy said ruefully. “S’long, boy. I got to wash up for supper an’ kinda keep an eye on that fat duck, Price. Far as these here ladies go, he won’t git over the first hill, that bird won’t.”

With which prediction the garrulous driver passed into the station.