The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ that a man has in winning a pot on a bluff. He grinned, though it was a wry grin. "If I see you in Deadwood I'll treat you to a drop of rye. But don't try to stop a Texas traveller. And I sure hope that bacon and coffee chokes you." Talk sometimes served a purpose, and apparently it bridged that parlous interval while he retreated still farther from the fire and reached his horse. He was up on the moment. The man named Hazel started to reach for his gun, but the giant, standing near, kicked his arm away; the Kid's yellow teeth glimmered in the light—the Kid was one of those adolescent white savages turned utterly bad. Tom Gillette studied the faces a moment longer, engraving them on his memory.

      "Yore spotted!" cried Hazel. "I'll see the word gets out to bring back yore skelp."

      "Something tells me you're a fraud," murmured Gillette. "How long has Deadwood stood for this foolishness?"

      "Go on, get out of here," advised the giant. "Don't crowd your luck."

      "That's advice, too," said Tom and backed his pony up the slope. The shadows closed about him and the circle, freed of threat, began to stir. The Kid whipped about, and at that moment Gillette touched his spurs and raced away, sliding to the far side of the pony. A juniper bush grazed his face and took his hat; a single explosion followed after, and then the giant's voice rose and fell like a maul. "You cussed little nipple rat, stop that or I'll tear yore lungs outen yuh! Want to spoil..."

      The rest of it was lost to Gillette. His pony carried him up and over the ridge; the fire winked out. He regained the trail and galloped steadily onward.

      "I stumbled into a convention," he mused. "They've got a piece of business on their chests and I upset 'em."

      Weariness came on the heels of the let-down. It seemed he was born into a world full of treachery, full of disappointment. His mother had only thought to make a better man of him in shipping him East to school; yet it seemed to him he would have been better off in Texas, toughening himself inside and out. Four years had left him a little soft, had confused him as to the elemental facts of existence; and again he remembered a piece of his father's advice: "East is sheltered, it's a woman's country. West is for a man, my son, and don't you ever forget it."

      How could he forget it? The sight of the P.R.N. ranch boss sliding forward to the saloon floor still sickened him. So thinking, he at last sighted the lights of Deadwood, forded a creek, and rode down the single uneven street of this boisterous Mecca of the West.

      Deadwood crouched between hill and creek, its tents and log huts and frame structures rambling along the street in a disjointed double row. There were no sidewalks, and the crowd, wandering from place to place, kept out upon the pock-marked road running between. A cordwood pile and a tent nearly blocked this end of the thoroughfare; Gillette circled around and rode by the suspended sign-boards: Denver Grocery Store, City Market, The Senate, and so on past the outflung beams of lamplight. An occasional tree stood like a sentry on the street. Everywhere was a clutter of boards and timber and boxes—the roughing-in material of a town on the make. Then the street ran up a scarred slope and wound around stumps into the hills. The straggling pines marched down to the very building walls of Deadwood.

      He halted by a restaurant and got out of the saddle, both stiff and weary. This was a strange land, and as he met the faces of the men bobbing in and out of the patches of light he was conscious of being out of his proper environment. They dressed differently, they had a different twang to their speech, the stamp of a distinctive profession was plain upon them. A supply wagon lumbered past, eight oxen at the traces; a bull whip cracked like the explosion of a gun, and the wheels groaned in the ruts. He shouldered into the restaurant and sat up to the counter. The time of eating was past, the waitress out in the kitchen. He dropped his head and passed a hand across his face; he wanted nourishment, and he wanted a long sleep before beginning his hunt. The kitchen door opened, light steps tapped across the boards.

      "Something—anything you've got to eat," muttered Gillette, head still bent. There was a swift intake of breath, and he raised his eyes.

      Lorena Wyatt leaned across the counter. Her hand fell on his arm, and it seemed to him she looked through and through him.

      "Why—Tom..."

      It was astonishing how the depression and the grime of the long journey vanished. And because he had carried one thought and one desire in his head for so long a time, the phrase that came first to his tongue was a question. "Lorena, I—what did you run off for?"

      Her hand retreated and she relaxed. "What's happened to your forehead, Tom? You've been in trouble."

      He turned that aside. "What did you run away for? Is your dad here?"

      "He went back to Texas. I will never see him again, Tom. Never. Here I am, making my own living."

      "All by yourself—among these men?"

      "Why not? Look at me. Don't you see how strong I am?" She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin, her cheeks the colour of pink roses. "Why shouldn't I work? What can happen to me? Nothing can hurt me—nothing. Oh, I know what you are thinking. Men sometimes forget the bridle on their tongues—and sometimes they mistake me when I smile at them. I've quit smiling because of that. But what does it matter? All that griminess doesn't hurt me. It doesn't get into my heart, Tom. After work is done I forget it, and I'm free again for another night."

      "If I ever heard a man say..." It shook him profoundly, it woke a blind anger. What right had some of these guttersnipes to bully her, to take advantage of their power and her helplessness? "—I'd kill him!" Men of the range, no matter how rough they might be, were trained in rigid courtesy; but the mining camps brought the dregs of the earth along with the decent.

      Her small hands formed a cup on the counter. "I know. All good men feel the same toward a woman and it isn't as bad as you believe here. All I'd have to do is speak about it and there are plenty of fine gentlemen to protect me. But we can't live without getting our shoes in the mud. Only—mud doesn't scar. It can be washed away. And at night I'm free."

      "Free for what?" he demanded, half angry. "Are you happy here, doing this?"

      There was a piece of a smile on her lips, a small quirk at the corners that might have meant anything. She shook her head, refusing to answer. "You're hungry. But I won't let you eat here. I'm through now. Wait for me."

      She went back to the kitchen. Tom Gillette moved to the outer door and looked along the street. Deadwood was on the crest of the night, and the yellow dust gutted from the hills during the day now passed across the counters and bars in commerce. A piano somewhere was being hammered, and a crowd roared the chorus of a popular song while the sharp-edged notes of a soubrette sheared through the masculine undertone. This was the dance girl's harvest and the professional man's harvest. And among these men San Saba stalked. Well, a night's rest...Lorena was beside him with a basket. He took it from her, and they passed out and along the street to where the hillside began to climb, Gillette leading his horse.

      "Now where?"

      "To my cabin. It's only a half mile along the trail and a little to one side."

      "And you walk it every night alone, in this darkness? Lorena, you're crowding your luck."

      "I have a gun and I've always known how to shoot. Nothing can hurt me, haven't I told you? Nothing—any more." It seemed to him there was a trace of bitterness in the last words, but she quickly covered it by a more practical explanation. "The diggings are travelling on up the canon and farther back into the hills. Some of the old cabins have been abandoned. I use one—it's cheaper."

      He shook his head. It was dark СКАЧАТЬ