Читать книгу Colorado - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 8

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GUNS ROAR

During the next twenty-four hours, Tom heard a good deal about the Wilson gang. They were at the roadhouse drinking steadily and heavily. Sometimes their voices were raised in ribald song. Once, at least, there was a noisy outburst of anger. Several times they sallied into the main street of the little frontier town and paraded up and down, firing a few shots in wanton bravado.

They had it all their own way. Nobody cared to oppose them. The few company employees at Julesburg were not looking for trouble with so desperate a crew as this. Wilson himself was a vicious killer. Those with him were hard and reckless characters ready to appeal to the Colt at the drop of a hat. A wise man, no matter how brave, discreetly avoided any difficulty with such outlaws. Only one more wild and desperate than themselves would fling down a challenge to them. Tom knew one such man, but he was in Denver attending to a shattered elbow.

Rumours flew. One was that Wilson was threatening to burn the town before he left. Another was that he and Orton had quarrelled again, that only the interference of Musgrove had prevented the flash of six-shooters. This last proved to be a fact. Orton had withdrawn from the group at the roadhouse. He was drinking in solitude, and he had been heard to say that he would shoot Mose on sight.

Tom went warily. He never moved without a gun on his hip. The outlaws probably did not know that he was in town, but at any moment they might come on him. He guessed too that, though Orton and Wilson were quarrelling about the Indian girl, neither of them was aware of her presence in Julesburg. For neither of them had molested her.

On the afternoon of the second day of the outlaws’ visit, Tom had occasion to see Massie, the station tender, about some wagon tires. Everything had been quiet in the roadhouse for some time. No doubt he could slip past the place unnoticed.

He was almost opposite the door when there came a sudden burst of song and a grating noise as though chairs were being pushed back. That song held him spellbound. His memory fastened on the last time it had come to him in that same loud, boisterous voice. The place St. Joe, ten years ago.

“I’ll scrape the mountains clean, old girl;

I’ll drain the rivers dry;

I’m off for California,

Susannah, don’t you cry.”

Tom’s heart seemed to drop into his stomach. He was back in his childhood, back in the days when the timbre of that voice, jubilant and cruel, was wont to shake the courage from his forlorn little soul. The past had stretched across the years, across hundreds of miles of dusty desert, to lay its hand upon the present. He had hoped for this day, yet now it had come he found himself weak and trembling. The old instinct to cower before his master laid hold of him.

Out of the building men came, treading on each other’s heels, four of them. Tom had eyes for only one, the first, Mose Wilson. In spite of the long flowing beard, in spite of the added weight, the coarser look, the boy knew him instantly. Mose Wilson was Dr. Moses Shipley, medicine faker, bully, brawler, the man whose slave he had been, the man who had murdered his best friend Abner Leeds. The fellow’s figure had lost its grace, his step its lightness of tread. Time and dissipation and evil life had taken their toll of his good looks. None the less, the slovenly leader of road agents was a grosser, older edition of the spruce, cheap dandy Moses Shipley.

The pallid-faced man Holt nudged his chief. “Look who’s here, Mose.”

Wilson caught sight of Tom and let out a yell of triumph. His gun flashed in the sunlight. Even before the roar of it, while Tom’s six-shooter was sweeping up to the level, the young man knew that a third party had flung himself into the battle.

Orton had come out of a sod house and was running forward, dragging out his Colt as he did so. Wilson’s back was toward him.

The flash and roar of guns! Lances of fire marking the swift terrible track of death! A startled sobbing oath! Thick crouched figures, hideous faces stamped with hate!

It seemed to Tom that the guns would blaze forever, but in reality the tri-cornered duel could have lasted only a few seconds. Afterward, when he had time to think of it, Tom knew that the coming of Orton had saved him. Twice Wilson’s six-shooter crashed bullets at Tom. Twice the young man answered the challenge. They were too far for accurate aim. The killer moved closer, with the long, crouched step of the panther intent on its kill.

A shout from the man Dave Pope warned Wilson. “Look out behind!” The big man whirled, catlike in his swiftness.

Already Orton’s gun was belching fire. But he was running and his shots went wild. Wilson threw down on him, quickly, accurately. His aim was rapid but not hurried.

His first shot brought the long man down, the weapon clattering from his hand. Orton glared at his foe. From his throat there came a startled oath that was half a sob. He started to crawl toward the weapon just out of reach. Deliberately, Wilson fired again. Orton’s arm dropped laxly, his head fell forward, and he collapsed. The killer took no chances. He moved toward the other, his eyes never lifting from that limp huddled figure, and at close range sent a bullet into the body.

Wilson had momentarily forgotten Tom, but he remembered him now. He turned, pulling out a second gun.

The young fellow was no longer in sight. He had ducked behind an adobe building and was legging it for safety. There were four of the outlaws and only one of him. That was the plea he used later to excuse himself to himself. But he knew, whether he admitted it or not, that it was a renewal of his childhood panic that had sent him flying from the master whose whip had so often set him screaming.

Wilson’s face was a mirror of his emotions. He was exhilarant with the triumphant lust of the kill. He would have been completely satisfied if he could have added two notches to his gun instead of one. But one was better than none. This young fellow, Collins or whatever he called himself, would find it his turn if they ever met again.

His companions congratulated Wilson fulsomely, all but Musgrove.

“You were that cool,” Dave Pope said admiringly. “I never saw the beat. Steady as a rock, Mose.”

“Bet yore boots! An’ drapped him at the first shot. You’re sure chief of this country.” Holt added.

Pope came in with more praise, and Holt capped this with added encomiums.

Wilson boasted. “Try to take my girl, will he? Well, I done showed him. I’ll show that boy too, soon as I get a chanct.”

“He’ll never stop runnin’,” jeered Pope.

The killer lifted his head exultantly and sang the old song of the ’forty-niner, the melody that ten years before had swept the country from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate.

“I’ll scrape the mountains clean, old girl;

I’ll drain the rivers dry;

I’m off for California,

Susannah, don’t you cry.”

It was the equivalent of the hunter’s old view-halloo after the kill.