The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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      A ripping, explosive oath. Men dropped out of their saddles and circled around the house. A match flared again and by it Lilly saw someone move in and out the door of the shanty. "Well," announced a voice, "He ain't here now. Guess he got cold feet an' departed. Whyn't you let me know this before, Trono?"

      "Wasn't able to get away. Been a lot o' thunder raised at the rancho."

      "Old man gettin' ticklish, eh?"

      "I told him where to head in," muttered Trono. He was in the saddle again, moving toward Lilly's position. "And I give this red-head twenty-four hours to vamoose, but he's plumb bull-faced an' won't scare. Can't have him puttin' his long nose into our affairs, Stubbins."

      "Well, if he meddles he'll get badly scorched," replied the Englishman. "No great worry about that. You're always issuin' some sort of a challenge, me lad. Better salve yourself. And I wouldn't cross old Jim. He's a tough fellow. Easy does it."

      "Pussyfoot," snorted Trono. He was within ten feet of Lilly, turning from side to side in his saddle. "That don't get you nowhere."

      "Sometimes it does," countered the Englishman. "The trouble with you, me lad, is that you fail to understand when a soft word will do the work of a hard one. I have no scruples about violence, you mind. But I'd rather take the easy path than the hard one. There is trouble enough in this country without creating more. Well, let's haze these brutes out of the timber before daylight. Onward."

      The party drifted around the shack and were lost in the rising ground to the south. Lilly rose and returned to his blanket, piercing together diverse bits of information. Trono was a JIB man and Stubbins ran the 3Cross. Why all this fraternizing when the two outfits were in a state of armed truce? The answer was simple enough. Trono was knifing his boss. This night party was making a raid on JIB stock; they meant to break the old Octopus who was no longer able to fight for himself. Lilly shook his head in disgust. "I'd as lief sleep with a skunk as have any business with Trono. The doggone doublecrosser! If he ain't even loyal to his own outfit he ain't fit to be shot." Perhaps old Jim Breck was unscrupulous, but it was plain dirty to knife a man when he was down. And so he drifted off to a light slumber, mildly sympathizing with the man he had not long before defied.

      He had trained himself to wake at the slightest sound. Yet when he did wake it was at no sound, but rather from a sense of danger close by. Even before his eyes opened the nerves at the back of his neck sent a chilly warning through him and he groped for his gun, rolling swiftly aside from his blanket. Gray dawn had come and at his very feet, crouched, was the skinny Indian buck who had held his reins the day before, Pattipaws. The Indian had crept within five feet of Lilly without betraying himself and now as he saw Lilly rising up in self-defense he held out a hand, palm to the front, and the inscrutable copper-colored visage moved from side to side. "Pattipaws a frien'. You come with me. Boss he want to see you now."

      Lilly studied the Indian with mild indignation. "You shore had me in a hole, Smoke Face. First time I was ever trapped like that."

      "Indian way," said Pattipaws briefly. His faded, murky eyes played across Lilly's face for a long while. He put out his hand. "We frien's. Come."

      Lilly saddled and swung up. The Indian trotted over the ridge and reappeared on a flea-bitten paint pony, riding bareback. Together they galloped eastward toward the ranch. Rose dawn suffused the sky and the light, cold air carried the heavy aromatic smell of the sage. Lilly bent toward Pattipaws. "This a peace talk, Smoke Face, or are we raisin' the hatchet?"

      "Plenty peace, plenty trouble," said Pattipaws, his moccasined heels banging at the paint pony's flanks. "Boss, he dyin'."

      And when they reached the ranch and entered the house Lilly found old Jim Breck lying in bed, the massive face turned to the color of old ivory. But there was still a gleam in the heavy eyes; when he saw Lilly he smiled in a grim sort of way at his daughter and an elderly man who bent over him. "I'm playin' my last card," he muttered and for a moment was silent, collecting his energy. Short, clipped words issued from his strangely immobile lips.

      "Red, you come to this country lookin' fer trouble. Well, you're goin' to get it. I'm passin' out. You take my cards from now on. I'm makin' you foreman on the spot. Ain't time to tell you what to do, or what to watch for. But—you'll have to fight Trono. He's bent on bustin' the JIB. Act as if this place belonged to you. Jill understands. Take care of the kid. You promise?"

      The elderly man, who appeared to be a doctor, leaned over to mark Breck's flagging pulse and shook his head in warning. Lilly, plunged in a profound and wondering study, saw the girl fasten a sharp glance on him that had all the effect of a blow. Then she dismissed him with a pressure of her lips and turned toward her father, her hands tightly clenched and her whole body rigid. "Father, what is it you are doing?"

      "Yeah," assented Lilly. "You don't know me."

      "I've seen yore kind afore," muttered Breck. "Know you right down to the ground. I'm bankin' on you, Red. It's a go!"

      "It's a go," said Lilly in a gentle voice. "But there'll have to be a showdown with Trono. You don't know half o' what he's up to."

      "I can guess," replied Breck, grimly. His chest filled and swelled under the bed covers. "Damnation I'd like to be strong fer five minutes. I'd break him with my two hands!"

      "That," broke in the doctor, "is no way to leave the earth. You'd better get a little charity in your system, Jim. You'll need it."

      "I ain't no hypocrite," said Breck. "A man can't change himself in the last five minutes." His face turned toward Pattipaws who stood silently in the background. Of a sudden the room was filled with a guttural droning of the Bannock dialect, at the end of which the Indian stepped between Lilly and the girl, laying his hands on both and in turn tapping his own heart. Gratitude crept over Breck's face—a strange emotion for that heavy, granite countenance. "He'll stick when all the rest are gone," said the old man, pointing toward the Indian. "I fought this buck's tribe forty years ago. Made friends with 'em and quartered 'em on the ranch. They'll be leavin' now, but Pattipaws said he'd stick. He knows a few things that may be helpful when the shootin' starts. Now, Jill girl, I don't want you to feel harsh to'rds yore paw fer what he's told you in the last couple hours. When a man plays with a deck that's been marked by crooks, he's got to do the best he can. Doc, gimme a cigar."

      But the cigar was of no earthly use to him. He died before it touched his mouth. Pattipaws turned sharply and darted out; in a moment there was a long subdued wailing from the Indian quarters and when Lilly left the room he saw the Bannocks filing slowly away toward the pine forest, their travois raising dust in the fresh morning air. One by one the cowhands began to collect in front of the porch, staring at Lilly in the manner of men not pleased by what they saw. The Octopus had departed and with him went the iron discipline surrounding his name. Trouble brewed, even as the doctor emerged and spoke briefly. "He's on his way, boys. Said he wanted to be buried before noon. You know what to do."

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       "When a gent figgers to pick a quarrel with yuh, don't watch his eyes ner his gun arm. Keep yore orbs plastered in the middle o' his chest. He'll telegraph his nex' move from there."—Joe Breedlove.

      It was a hurried, brief funeral and of all the crowd only Jill, the doctor and Pattipaws seemed to show grief at the old Octopus' passing. The doctor, standing beside Lilly as the grave was dug—on a knoll near the house—spoke sadly. "He never was a hand for sentiment. СКАЧАТЬ