Trouble Shooter (Musaicum Vintage Western). Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ licking across his mouth, Big Sid Campeaux tooled his team through the rain-bubbled mud and stopped beside the track. He stood up in the seat and threw a solid yell back behind him. "Al!"

      There was a man riding forward from that darkness on a high gray horse. He sloshed around the buggy, wheeling before Frank Peace. Rain glistened all down his yellow slicker; it roped off his hat. He tipped up the brim of the hat a little to show a face entirely smooth and thin and unemotional.

      He said: "Hello, Frank."

      Peace murmered, "How are you, Brett?"

      Mitch boosted his heavy complaint back over one shoulder, never letting his eyes lose Peace. "I don't need any help to handle Bucko."

      Nan Normandy looked from Campeaux to Al Brett to Mitch Dollarhide. All these three were taciturnly established in their places, attentions narrowed on Peace. It was a scene, and it was clear to her. Her words reached Peace calmly: "Don't make an issue of it—not for me."

      Al Brett said: "Trouble here, Campeaux?"

      Campeaux said: "Ask Peace if he's lookin' for it."

      "You standin' in the way, Bucko?" questioned Al Brett, gentle with his talk.

      Peace showed a hard and instant grin. It fired up his face, swinging it immediately reckless. "You don't have to go with these men, Miss Normandy."

      Campeaux hurled his warning against an increasing wind. The rain whirled rashly down from the ruptured clouds overhead, each fat drop glittering diamond-bright in the headlight's glare.

      "Don't interfere with me this year, Peace! Keep out of my way—and keep your hands off my business! Mitch—help Miss Normandy over to the buggy!"

      Peace repeated himself. "You don't have to go with Sid, Miss Normandy."

      Al Brett unhooked the front of his slicker, the wind instantly ripping it back from his wire-thin body. He put his right hand casually on a holster there. He was remotely smiling.

      "I wouldn't be proud, Bucko," he called.

      The engine's bell started up a steady ringing. Campeaux yelled at Dollarhide; he swore at Dollarhide. "Lend Miss Normandy your arm!"

      A pair of Irishmen from the train stumbled forward into the light, both carrying rifles; and at that moment Overmile and Morgan and Ed Tarrant came up from the turbid blackness at a slashing gait. They rode onto the track. Overmile got down; he took his station near Peace.

      "Mother," he drawled, "I'm about to be queen of the May. You want a party, Al?"

      "Anytime you say," called Al Brett and sat still. Mitch Dollarhide shifted doggedly toward the girl. Water collected at the corner of his stringy mustache and dripped down. He froze in his position, dull and stubborn.

      One of the Irishmen near the engine called out: "You want help, Mr. Peace?"

      Campeaux said: "What are you going to do, Miss Normandy?"

      The girl swept the scene with a long glance. There was no give to any of these men. An old hatred seemed to have brought them together in this wild, bleak night; an old hatred kept them here. She saw no fear and no softness. Their tempers were beds of tinder waiting for a careless spark. Overmile's lazy, unmoved face revealed a faint rashness. Al Brett continued his still attitude, one hand touching the gun butt, a remote smile at the corners of his lips. Campeaux was a shadow in the buggy. Dollarhide a dull presence beside her. Frank Peace didn't speak again. He had his head tipped toward her, and she clearly observed the long riot of his temper. On the train she had guessed he was like this and her guess was confirmed now. Not one of them would retreat; the idle quietness they displayed was a lie.

      She said to Peace: "Please," and took hold of Mitch Dollarhide's arm. She went across the track and climbed up the hub wheel to the seat, beside Campeaux, Dollarhide went around, crawling in behind the buggy. Al Brett was broadly grinning now.

      "No luck tonight, boys."

      "Not tonight," said Overmile, only indolent.

      Al Brett lifted his reins. Campeaux turned the horses around, driving them straight through the mud toward the trackless grade beyond. Fires far off to the north laid fitful beacon lights along the way. Brett said coolly: "Don't worry, Leach. I'll blow a hole through your guts before the summer's done." He had one more look at Frank Peace—a long, smileless look. "See you in Laramie, Bucko," he said, and rode away.

      Overmile had left Peace's horse beyond the track. Peace slogged through the mud and swung into a thoroughly wet saddle. He came back, following the rails until they suddenly quit. Loose ties lay scattered ahead, indicating where the steel would march tomorrow. He paralleled the ties, his partners riding behind him, and came at last to the pure dirt grade running north, Leach Overmile forged abreast; Tarrant and Morgan made a pair behind. The engine's headlight died out and they traveled beneath the uneasy, leaking sky, the western wind slapping strongly on them. Deep rain pools were forming, water channeled all the ruts, and yonder they saw Campeaux's rig appear abreast another grader's fire and sink then into the murk.

      "If it keeps rainin'," said Overmile, "you'll want pontoons on your trains."

      Due ahead, the lights of Fort Sanders blinked intermittently; farther on was the stronger glitter of Laramie Town waiting restlessly for its hour to come. They passed the last fire on the grade and found a harder footing. The way was gently downward toward a creek that hit them on their boots when they forded. Laralnie River, directly on the left, sent its swollen racket through the black. Beyond, the high, rolling ridges ran westward toward Fort Steele on the Platte; still beyond lay the flatness of the Red Desert, bleak by winter and summer. Far over was the Green River crossing and farther still the Wasatch range waited. It was five hundred miles to Salt Lake. Somewhere out on the Nevada desert this same brawling night the bonfires of the Central were burning their crimson holes through the night, beside an end of track pointed east.

      Overmile said: "What in hell is she doin' with Campeaux?"

      Peace bowed his head against the drive of the rain. The wind's chilliness isolated him, it sharpened his thinking. Eileen's dress had been a soft gray and tight around her waist. She brought tranquility with her, whatever she was. The softness and the calm of that room remained with him, not to soothe him now but to bring vividly back the heavy emotion of touching something that he could not hold, of possessing something that he would lose. Her voice, he thought, had been uncertain in the hallway's darkness. She had relented, to kiss him; it was as near surrender as she could ever come. His life ran a different way, his days were full of heat and trouble. He could not order them otherwise and he would not order them otherwise; yet the controlling desire of his life lay back in Cheyenne. He saw no solution, he could think of none, and his mind grew weary with the struggle.

      They turned into the Fort Sanders road. A low line of buildings sat in scattered shape, marked only by faint lights hurning. A sentry wheeled from the darkness, palms slapping curtly on his gun. "Halt! Who's there?"

      "Frank Peace—and party."

      "Halt, Frank Peace and party. Sergeant of the guard—post number one!"

      A lantern bobbed out of the guardhouse hard by, drawing the slanted rain against it. The sergeant came on and lifted the lantern above his head, revealing his own long, heavy-boned jaw. Above a still mustache a pair of old soldier's eyes showed a sad, surly gleam.

      "Hello, Malloy. We're putting up."

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