The Max Brand Megapack (432 page)

The cold irony of this speech caused the Kid to look attentively and somewhat sadly on the old man, but before any of them could speak again, a horse neighed loudly somewhere near by.

The Kid sprang from the shed to listen.

But the sound had died down instantly. It was full night, now, and the stars thickly stippled the sky, setting out the black, heavy forms of the hills and more dimly, of the mountains beyond. He turned his head a little from side to side, trying to locate the sound, but it was not clear enough in his mind.

“Here, girl!” he called softly.

The mare instantly stepped from the shed to his side, and there he watched her as she lifted her head high and stared straight across the ravine.

“It was over there,” said the Kid thoughtfully, nodding in the direction at which the mare was still looking. “What would you say, Dad,” he added to the old man. “Was that neigh in the ravine or up on the bluff, there?”

“It was up there,” said Dad Trainor.

“Nope, it was down in the ravine,” broke in Davey instantly. “I heard the echo break.”

“I think I did, too,” said the Kid.

“It was off of the bluff,” said Dad insistently. “Sure you’d hear some echo, but not loud, and bangin’ back and forth from side to side of the ravine, like it would ’a’, if the critter had been down on the floor. A noise like that, it’s like a whangin’ in a dish pan, I tell you.”

“Any stray horses around here?” asked the Kid, his ear canted a little, his eyes still struggling with the darkness.

“Yeah. Pretty often some of the Milman stock, it straggles here across the badlands. Most likely was one of them out there on the rim of the valley.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen ’em there a lot,” said Davey.

“Milman lands run this far?”

“Pretty nigh,” said Dad Trainor. “He’s been buyin’ up and buyin’ up all the time. Them that have enough money is like stones rollin’ downhill. The longer they live, the faster they go. He’s gunna own most of the countryside around here, before long. They’s trouble ahead for him!”

“Because he is so rich?”

“A rich man with a pretty daughter is like a gent smeared with honey, when they’s wasps flyin’ in the air, on a hot August afternoon. Pretty soon he’s gunna get stung bad, I can tell you! Stung right to the bone, so’s he’ll ache good and plenty.”

“I’ve seen her,” said the Kid, looking aimlessly across the night.

He seemed to begin to forget the alarm which he had been feeling the moment before.

“Scout out there and see if there’s anything moving,” he said to Davey. “Get close to the ground, and look at the sky line, will you?”

“Sure!” said Davey, delighted, and he bounded away.

“What are you suspicionin’ about?” asked Dad Trainor suddenly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered the Kid. “You never know. In a way, I’m the honey that attracts a kind of wasp, too. The humming of them, Dad, is a thing that has waked me up in the night, a good many times.”

“If you got any doubts,” said Dad Trainor, “you wouldn’t be sendin’ out a wee kid like that one, would you? Kind of half town raised, too! If I could have him out here all the time, his eyes and ears would sharpen up, maybe.”

“They’re sharp enough,” said the Kid, easily. “If so much as a partridge whirs within a mile of him, he’ll hear it and he’ll see ft. I’ll trust Davey. He knows how to look at a man in the clay, and he’ll know how to look for a man in the night. My bet is on Davey.”

“Well, he’s a good lad,” said Dad Trainor. “Bright and quick, and I gotta say that town livin’ ain’t made his fists soft. The tannin’ that he give to little Harry Michaels one-two year back, it was a beauty. He handed Harry a ten-pound handicap and a lickin’ that was worth watchin’. But still, if they’s any doubt about what’s out there in the dark of the valley—”

“There’s always doubt, Dad,” said the younger man. “But if a fellow has nightmares by day as well as by night, what’s the use of living at all, I say.”

“Aye, and a true thing that is,” said Dad. “Them that takes chances and changes horses is them that makes the round trip through life, and the rest of us, we just travel along one road and never see nothin’—but dust!”

He shook his head violently, and led the way on toward the house. They only stopped outside to give the mare a nose bag of barley, and then they went into the little shack where Ma Trainor greeted them with a smile and a face shining with the steam of cookery. She declared that she had some sour-milk biscuits in that oven that would warm the heart of any man in the world. In the meantime the stove enriched the air with a multitude of vapors, while the Kid went over to lift lids, sniff contents, and discuss the properest ways of seasoning and baking in a Dutch oven. In these matters, Mrs. Trainor was a mint of information.

“Where you been keepin’ yourself, Kid?” she said.

“A little bit of all around,” said he. “But mostly south. What What have you been thinking since I last saw you?”

She accepted the question with a smile.

“Mostly tasting the first part of my life over again,” said she. “That’s what you do when you get my age, Kid. Them biscuits oughta be ready now. Kick that dog off that chair and sit down. Where’s them other two?”

There was only one small lamp, the chimney slightly yellowed with smoke, and when this was placed on the table and the glass still further obscured with the steam of the food, it gave the room new dimensions, and a sort of gloomy dignity. In the corner, the ladder which led to the garret now climbed quite out of sight. As the food was piled on the table, which sagged a little to one side even under this light weight, the missing two now came in.

“I met Bud,” said Davey, “and he told me that he’d already scouted around.”

“Yeah,” said Bud, rather gloomily. “When I heard that hoss nicker, I just took a look around, but it ain’t nothin’ but one of the Milman cayuses up there on the bluff. Them Milmans, it ain’t no wonder that they lose a lot of stock by rustlers. They go and shove their hosses and cows right down your throat, sort of.”

“A loose horse, eh?” asked the Kid.

“Yeah, a loose horse.”

“I’m glad to know that. I thought that one hadn’t whinnied himself out at the finish.”

“Can you tell when a hoss has had his fill up of neighin’?” demanded Bud, somewhat sulkily.

“Pretty close,” replied the Kid. “There’s something about the way that he tunes up at the start that can tell you whether he’s going to wheeze, snort, cough, or squeal at the finish.”

“Well, I never could read the mind of a hoss that close,” said Bud. “Throw me a coupla them biscuits, will ya?”

The Kid, silently, passed the plate, and while Bud helped himself, the eye of the Kid lingered for a moment, thoughtfully, upon the gloomy face. He shifted his glance, then, over his shoulder toward the door and seemed for an instant uneasy, but in a moment shrugged his shoulders and settled himself to his meal.

He had begun a little story of Yucatan in which the very steam of the jungle of that southland appeared, when, into the doorway behind him, stepped two men, silent as shadows. The Kid had his back fairly turned, but something made him stiffen as though he actually had seen the naked guns in their hands, leveled upon him.

But, little Davey, who hardly had been able to shift his eyes from his hero, up to this moment, now slowly rose like a ghost from his stool.

“Jimmy!” he breathed.

“Jus’ take it quiet,” said a voice from the doorway.

“Aye, take it slow and easy, Kid,” said the second man. “And give a jury a chance at you!”

CHAPTER 12

Notched Gun

The kid rested his elbows upon the edge of the table.

“You wouldn’t object if I was to stretch my arms—so long as I stretched ’em up?” he asked.

“Leave ’em be. Leave ’em still. We know you, Kid. It ain’t where your hands are that counts. It’s the way that you can move ’em. Watch him now!”

“Heck! Ain’t I watchin’ till my eyes ache?” said the other. “Go up and fan him for his armory. I’ll keep him covered.”

Old Dad Trainor had recovered from his stupor and had risen again.

“What’s the meanin’ of this, boys?” he demanded.

“Why,” said the Kid, “it’s just two old friends of mine dropped in for a little call. It’s Sam Deacon and Lefty Morgan. How’s everything, Deacon?”

“Right now,” said Deacon, “it’s pretty good. I reckon I can tell how good things is with you, though.”

“You, Morgan and Deacon,” said Dad Trainor. “What kind of jamboree d’you reckon that this here is, anyway? You ain’t gunna do nothin’ to the Kid, in my house!”

“Ain’t we?” asked Morgan.

He had come well into the dull circle of the light, showing a death’s-head, all bones, scantly covered with a tight-drawn parchment skin. His teeth were so prominent that the pale lips constantly grinned back from them, and they flashed brightly in even that dull illumination.

“Watch that old fool,” said Morgan.

“You handle the Kid, then,” said Deacon.

He had cone up to his partner’s shoulder, a great contrast to the other. He was one of those little, heavy-shouldered men with legs so bowed that they waddled like ducks in walking. He looked like a sailor. There was something free-swinging, frank, and easy about his hearing, and about his face.

“Here, Bud,” said the other, “ain’t you gunna keep the old man in hand?”

“Yeah,” said Bud, rising in turn, “I’m gunna keep him in hand, all right.”

He turned a grim face upon his father.

“You set down and don’t make no fool or yourself, no more,” said he.

Old Dad looked as though be had been struck with a heavy fist.

“You ain’t with ’em, Bud,” said he. “You can’t be with ’em, ain’ the Kid—ain’ any guest right in our own house. There ain’t no Trainor so dog-gone low as all of that! Bud, Bud, look me in the eye and tell me that I got the wrong steer about you, just now!”

“Aw, shut up and set down,” commanded the big son. “Use your eyes. You ain’t a hoss that’s gotta keep neighin’ till you’ve lost your wind—the way the Kid was sayin’!”

“Was it your horse that neighed, Deacon?” asked the Kid.

“What made you guess that?” said the Deacon, curiously.

“The last time I saw you, you were riding a piebald speed-burner, with the nerves of a sick woman and the look of a fool. That’s the sort of a horse that doesn’t know the right time for making a noise. You had to pinch his nose, didn’t you?”

“I about pulled the nose off of him,” agreed Deacon. “He’s a fool, that gelding, but he sure can hump himself along. Fan him, Lefty. And fan him good!”

Lefty, nothing backward in this work, went carefully through the clothes of the Kid, searching his pockets and patting him all over to discover weapons.

Old Dad Trainor, in the meantime, had slumped down into his chair and remained with a leaden, hanging head.

To him, the Kid now addressed himself.

“Why, Dad,” he declared, “these are hard times. You can’t expect a man to turn down a chance to pick up a few thousand as easily as this. How much is your split, Bud?”

“None of your damn business,” answered Bud.

“Oh, Bud, Bud!” said his mother.

Suddenly he shouted, white and crimson: “Leave me be, will ya? The two of ya leave me be! You kep’ me out here all these years takin’ care of you, didn’t you? You never give me no chance to make anything decently, did ya? Now shut your faces and leave me be, while I make some money on my own account. I wanted a start, and I’ve got it.”

His mother, looking like one who sees a ghost, stared straight before her, pressing her folded hands first against her mouth, and then against her breast.

“Take it easy,” urged the Kid. “I’ll be out of this mess, perhaps, before long. And I’ll never come after Bud, if that’s what you worry about. Bud’s human, that’s all, and he’s been hungry for a long time!”

Dad Trainor lifted his head and looked with hollow eyes at the Kid, but he said nothing; and Ma Trainor, also, was mute.

In the meantime, as the weapons were produced from the person of the Kid, various comments were made upon them.

First of all, out came a sleek Colt of the old single-action model from a spring holster beneath his left armpit.

“I never could see no reason for packin’ a gun there,” declared Morgan. “It ain’t gonna fool nobody nor make them think that you ain’t loaded for bear. What’s the good of buryin’ your gat under your coat, that way?”

“Because it’s the fastest place,” said the Kid. “A gun comes up slower than it falls down. I jump an empty hand for that gun, and the weight of the gun itself helps the gun down and out.”

“I don’t see it,” persisted Lefty Morgan.

“All right. I’ll show you. Just hand me the old gat—”

“Easy, sonny, easy!” said Lefty Morgan, continuing the search. “I’m mighty young, and I’m mighty tender, but you can’t see through me that quick. I’ve heard about the way you move, and I’ve seen it too.”

“Look at it,” said Sam Deacon, his voice lowered to a profound admiration. “Will you look at it now? Ain’t it a bird? Them sights slicked off so smooth and polished up. There ain’t no friction about that there Colt, sonny.”

“How long.” demanded Lefty, “did it take you to learn to fan a gat with one hand and hit something?”

“I used to work every Sunday in our back yard,” said the Kid gently. “After I came home from Sunday school, I used to take off my little jacket and turn up the starched cuffs of my shirt, and I used to take a gun in my little hand and amuse myself, boys.”

“Yeah,” said Lefty, “and every week day, too, and twice on Christmas. Say, Kid, what was you? A juggler in a circus, once? Where’d you get them hands of yours?”

The Kid spread the taper fingers upon the edge of the table.

“Every night,” said he, “I used to wash them with violet soap, boys, and then give them a good massaging with a pure cold cream, and then I put on kid gloves when I went to bed. You’ve no idea how that sort of treatment helps them.”

Morgan, now facing the Kid from the far side of the table, with a ready gun balanced on the table’s edge, grinned widely.

“Yeah,” said he. “I reckon that you’ve used cold cream. Well, you don’t have to confess to us. The jury’ll be what will want to hear you talk.”