The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ so was carried as far as the hotel porch. He stopped short of the strong light coming out of that hostelry and stepped into the mouth of an alley. A man drifted by, went up the hotel porch and inside. Presently he came out and halted to light his cigarette; by the glow of the match Denver saw puzzlement on the fellow's features.

      "I thought so," grunted Denver. "Same man that Stinger Dann had posted by the stable this afternoon. Don't know him. Red- main's got a lot of fresh blood in his band lately. Now what is the present idea?"

      The man crossed the street quickly and shouldered through the crowd, dropping out of sight somewhere near the Palace. On impulse Denver withdrew into obscurity, made a wide circle of town, and crept through the back lots of the north side. He found himself suddenly arrested by the half-open door of the opera house; Lola Monterey was singing, and her tempestuous, throbbing cadences swept away the years of her absence and brought him back once more to the days when he had watched her dancing in the Palace—a slim, scarlet figure cutting through the smoke haze of the hall. Always, he recalled, there had been in her songs something to remind him life was short and sad; always there was that haunting appeal to stir him profoundly and the direct glance of her dark, glowing eyes to set his own wild blood racing.

      Half angry, he drew himself away from the door. "Old times, old ways. She's changed in some ways. She's no longer a hungry little girl, half scared, half savage. She's fought her way up, she's sure and confident—she's a matured woman. But her heart is the same. Women like her never change that way."

      A murmur of sound put all this introspection out of his head. Somewhere in the farther blackness men were talking discreetly, hurriedly. Rising on his toes Denver advanced, skirted the blind wall of the Palace, paused beside the adjoining butcher shop, and slid quietly near the last building in the north line. Below was a harness shop; above was Colonel Fear Langdell's law office, reached by an outside stairway. Boots scuffed against the steps. There was more talk.

      "...how in hell do I know?"

      "Yuh ought to."

      "Well, I don't. And there's apt to be a bullet in this for somebody."

      "Will be if yuh keep on blattin' our location to the wide world. Now go on up there."

      "Bad business, I tell you!"

      "You do as I say or get out of the country, see? I thought you was tough..."

      Denver crouched to the ground, grimly amused; one of these nighthawks was shuffling up the stairway toward Langdell's dark office, prodded on by the taut sarcasm of the man below. "If they're tryin' to set a trap for Langdell," he reflected, "they're apt to find hard luck. He's had his eye teeth cut on trick stuff."

      The exploring one had arrived at the top landing. A knob squealed. Silence settled down. Denver grinned in the darkness, and his hand closed around a loose stone the size of a grape. Rising in his tracks he tossed the stone toward the building and dropped to the earth again as it struck and rattled down the stairway, sounding like an avalanche in the utter quiet. The man in Langdell's office ran out, made a clean jump, and hit the ground with a belch of air.

      "For Gawd's sake—!"

      Both of them were running clumsily off. Denver hurried back to the nearest alley and came out on the street in time to see Stinger Dann go along the sidewalk with a mighty scowl on his face; and a little afterward the man who had followed him to the hotel appeared. Both of them drifted into Grogan's.

      "Cheap way of havin' a good time," grunted Denver, trying to fathom Dann's purpose. He walked to the opera house and put his head inside the door, getting the attention of the nearest man in the jammed lobby. "Dell, you seen Langdell in here?"

      "Ahuh. Down front somewheres. Want him?"

      "No, thanks," said Denver retreating. The more he considered the more he became interested. Stinger Dann was not a man to move without purpose. So thinking, he ambled onward and ran into Jake Leverage, who immediately pulled him out of the crowd.

      "Want to see you, Dave."

      "I'll lend you money, go on your bail, brand your strays, or furnish character reference for you at the bank," drawled Dave, "but nothing doing as far as this vigilante business is concerned."

      "I counted on you," stated Leverage gravely. "If I'm goin' to be useful I've got to have support. You're interested in this."

      "I sang my song at the meetin'," returned Dave. "You heard the tune and the words."

      "Tell me straight," demanded Leverage, "what's the matter with this business that you won't touch it? Your influence has kept quite a few fellows out of it, and that ain't right."

      "I don't like to trail with a herd just to have company," said Dave. "And who do you think you're doing this dirty work for, Jake?"

      "For Yellow Hill—for the Association—for me and my family," was Leverage's sober answer.

      "And for a bunch of big fellows plenty able to shoulder their own grief," added Dave. "It don't seem right. I hate to see you draw down all the enmity of the wild bunch, which is just what will happen when you hit 'em."

      "What's right is right," responded Leverage, somewhat nettled. "I won't back out of trouble."

      "Good enough—but the big boys were damned quick to back out of it and let you inherit the grief. No, sir. I'm not buyin' any chips."

      "Is that your whole reason?" pressed Leverage.

      Denver hesitated and stared toward Grogan's, eyes narrowing down in thought. "No-no, it isn't. But I never make a statement I can't prove, and these other reasons of mine are beyond proof at the present moment. I'll just say I'm not satisfied with the layout. Let it go like that."

      "Let me tell you this," remarked Leverage earnestly. "When the scrappin' comes there won't be any neutrals. I foresee that. Black or white is the colors. And don't let your slim hunches maneuver you over to the wrong side. It'll cause you trouble."

      "In other words, I'm apt to get hazed down for mindin' my own strict business?" Denver's face darkened. "That happens to be one of the things about mob action I don't like. I'll take care of myself, and I'll see that I am let alone. That applies to the wild bunch, and that applies to any vigilante who tries to make me swap opinions."

      "That's exactly what I'm afraid of," exclaimed Leverage. "I have known you since you was a kid. You're as independent as a hog on ice. You don't bend. And I foresee difficulties. I have been through these rustlin' wars before. I know just what happens. Everybody lines up, for or against. And if you stand back somebody's going to suggest you're lined up with the rustlers. Then it's too bad."

      "The pack will howl at my heels, is that it?" suggested Denver, rugged face somber and unpleasant.

      "I foresee it."

      "Then the pack will get a dose of lead," snapped Denver. "I make no distinction between an outlaw who tries to steal my cattle and a red-eyed fanatic who tries to change my mind for me."

      Leverage shook his head sadly and turned away. "No hard feelin's, Dave?"

      "Not between you and me, Jake. I'm just thinkin' of the buzzards who will go hog-wild and want to shoot everybody on sight."

      Leverage moved away. Denver stood still, mastering his temper. Of a sudden the even thread of life had become snarled with knots. СКАЧАТЬ