Trail Smoke (Musaicum Vintage Western). Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ reached the doorway. He stopped there. He seemed to be suppressing laughter. "Come in, Bill." A boot began scraping behind Surratt, and he stared around and saw the kid, Ferd Bowie, waving a little. He said: "Stop that, kid." The kid's glance burned wickedly on him. Torveen had taken a few deliberate back steps into the room; and now men filed in and made a sober, alert rank there. He recognized Bill Head and the sheriff. The others were strange to him.

      Bill Head's ruddy face veered and his eyes found Surratt The angry memory of Morgantown wrote itself across the man's bold features. He said to Surratt: "Get your belongings. You're going to Morgantown."

      Torveen laid his electric grin on Head. He said: "You offered this man a job today. What for, Bill?"

      "To keep my eyes on him," grunted Head.

      "He's got a job here—and I'll keep my eyes on him."

      "No," grunted Head. "He's bein' arrested."

      Torveen turned his attention to the sheriff. "You got a warrant, Ranier?"

      "Yeah."

      Surratt spoke quietly. "What for?"

      "The killin' of a man named Leslie Head," said Ranier.

      Silent laughter showed across Torveen's eyes. "Tear up the warrant, Sheriff."

      Bill Head swung and threw his shoulders forward. "What?"

      "He ain't goin'."

      The breathing of these men filled the room. Lamplight disturbed and stained their expressions. The shadow of violence lay here. The sheriff's body was stiff and crooked. Bill Head seemed to be rummaging his mind. Surratt thought that his first impressions had been right; the man was slow on the bounce. But it was to be seen now that he had an implacable stubbornness.

      "That's bad, Torveen."

      Torveen said, almost idly: "I stand back of my men. You should have known that before you came. You might have guessed a warrant would do you no good. There is no way of getting Surratt except by takin' him. You think you want to take him, Ranier?"

      Sweat glinted along the sheriff's forehead. His eyes turned and begged Head for an answer. Behind Surratt the kid's feet were restlessly shuffling again.

      Head said definitely: "No. We'll leave the gunplay alone. It isn't necessary." He directed his talk at Surratt. "Better consider this and ride into Morgantown tomorrow. You're in a trap. If I don't see you in town twelve hours from now it's open season on you, wherever you're found."

      "That's plain," said Torveen cheerfully.

      Head's face showed the sting of the remark. It was flushed and irritated. "You better take a long look at your own hole card, Sam. Come on."

      They filed out. Motionless, Surratt listened to them mount and ride away. Nobody spoke until the echo of their departure had died beyond the trees. Ed came across the porch then and put his head through the doorway. Torveen said: "You plant yourself on the bridge, Ed, and stay till you're relieved."

      It broke up the party. Ed disappeared, and Perrigo led Osbrook and the kid out of the room. Torveen turned on Surratt. He had ceased to smile.

      "Your reason for comin' up here was to get yourself some protection you saw you were goin' to need. Well, I gave you the protection. That's my part of the bargain. But call it quits if you want. I'll not hold you from ridin' away."

      Surratt murmured: "I don't welsh on my debts."

      "I didn't think you would," drawled Torveen. "Well, I told you I had my reasons, too. You'll discover them soon enough. As for the crew I've got, you know their kind. But I'm in a fight and I can't be nice about my choice of men." He stopped, framing some further explanation. Surratt saw it die. Torveen only added: "What you have to do to those boys is your business, not mine. I guess you've figured that already, so I don't have to warn you."

      Surratt turned to the porch. He went along it, stepping into the bunkroom. Osbrook was lying on one bunk, Perrigo on another. The kid sat up to the table, playing solitaire in moody silence. None of them looked directly at him, yet as he unrolled his blankets and pulled off his clothes he felt the effect of a sidewise, covert scrutiny. He rolled into the bunk and put a palm over his eyes and stared above him, slowly balancing the help they had given him against the unqualified hatred they bore him. There was the thread of motive running through this contradiction, but he could not ferret it out They were men who answered only to the whip: they did not understand softness. He knew then he had something to do here.

      He turned his head toward the kid and spoke bluntly, ungently. "Kill that light, kid."

      Ferd Bowie's head jerked. The sullen hatred that was so strong in him poured across the room. He burst out: "What the hell did you come here for?"

      Surratt reared from his blankets. He put a hand on the edge of the bed. "If I come over there, runt, I'll spank you dry. Put out the light."

      The kid kicked back his chair, rising. There was a violent agony of choice printed on his sallow cheeks. Nick Perrigo remained still on his bunk and looked at this scene with a bright, scheming attention. But the kid blew out the light and stamped from the room. Presently Surratt heard Perrigo get up and call Osbrook. They went out. A door slammed down the porch. In a moment he heard their voices rising and quarreling with the fainter voice of Torveen.

      Something was plain enough to Surratt then. Torveen hired them because he needed them. But it appeared they had gotten beyond his control. Maybe this was why Torveen had offered him the job. He considered it slowly. But he was tired, and there was a sharp regret in him for the ways of life he could not escape and the hope of something he could not name and could never reach; and presently he fell asleep.

      GIRL WITH THE YELLOW HAIR

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      Surratt swung into his saddle. "I'm going to have a look at this country."

      Torveen murmured idly: "That's all right."

      Morning swelled across the meadow in warm full waves of sunlight. Surratt's horse pitched gently around the yard, strong with the desire to travel, but Surratt was watching Nick Perrigo, who remained so still and dissenting by the bunkroom door. There was a challenge in this man, rising from some obscure purpose. And then Surratt let the pony go, lining out over a meadow still sparkling with night's dew.

      The sky was flawlessly blue, and a piny smell lay thick and pleasant in this upland air. Five hundred yards beyond he reached the trees and passed into them, following the climbing curves of a broad trail. He looked back at this point to find what he had expected he might find; a rider cut away from the ranch house and trotted over the meadow at a different angle, soon disappearing.

      But the morning laid its ease upon Surratt and he was smiling in a way that relieved the gray sharpness of his smoky eyes, and his glance traveled the quiet brown corridors of these hills with an eagerness long unknown to him. He passed the scar of a woodcutter's camp, thereupon falling into an ancient corduroy road. The day was turning hot, a faint drone of the forest's minute life disturbing this shadowy stillness. A bird's scarlet wings flashed out sudden brilliance across the trail. Impelled by the restless vigor of his body, СКАЧАТЬ