Red Men and White. Owen Wister

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СКАЧАТЬ quite suddenly. “I—I’m not used to riding all day. I’ll get used to it, you know,” he hastened to add.

      “ ‘Ha-ve you seen my Flo’—Say, kid, where y’u bound, anyway?”

      “San Carlos.”

      “San Carlos? Oh. Ah. ‘Flora pass this way?’ ”

      “Is it far, sir?”

      “Awful far, sometimes. It’s always liable to be far through the Arivaypa Cañon.”

      “I didn’t expect to make it between meals,” remarked Cumnor.

      “No. Sure. What made you come this route?”

      “A man told me.”

      “A man? Oh. Well, it is kind o’ difficult, I admit, for an Arizonan not to lie to a stranger. But I think I’d have told you to go by Tres Alamos and Point of Mountain. It’s the road the man that told you would choose himself every time. Do you like Injuns, kid?”

      Cumnor snapped eagerly.

      “Of course y’u do. And you’ve never saw one in the whole minute-and-a-half you’ve been alive. I know all about it.”

      “I’m not afraid,” said the boy.

      “Not afraid? Of course y’u ain’t. What’s your idea in going to Carlos? Got town lots there?”

      “No,” said the literal youth, to the huge internal diversion of Jones. “There’s a man there I used to know back home. He’s in the cavalry. What sort of a town is it for sport?” asked Cumnor, in a gay Lothario tone.

      “Town?” Specimen Jones caught hold of the top rail of the corral. “Sport? Now I’ll tell y’u what sort of a town it is. There ain’t no streets. There ain’t no houses. There ain’t any land and water in the usual meaning of them words. There’s Mount Turnbull. It’s pretty near a usual mountain, but y’u don’t want to go there. The Creator didn’t make San Carlos. It’s a heap older than Him. When He got around to it after slickin’ up Paradise and them fruit-trees, He just left it to be as He found it, as a sample of the way they done business before He come along. He ’ain’t done any work around that spot at all, He ’ain’t. Mix up a barrel of sand and ashes and thorns, and jam scorpions and rattlesnakes along in, and dump the outfit on stones, and heat yer stones red-hot, and set the United States army loose over the place chasin’ Apaches, and you’ve got San Carlos.”

      Cumnor was silent for a moment. “I don’t care,” he said. “I want to chase Apaches.”

      “Did you see that man Ephraim found by the cañon?” Jones inquired.

      “Didn’t get here in time.”

      “Well, there was a hole in his chest made by an arrow. But there’s no harm in that if you die at wunst. That chap didn’t, y’u see. You heard Ephraim tell about it. They’d done a number of things to the man before he could die. Roastin’ was only one of ’em. Now your road takes you through the mountains where these Injuns hev gone. Kid, come along to Tucson with me,” urged Jones, suddenly.

      Again Cumnor was silent. “Is my road different from other people’s?” he said, finally.

      “Not to Grant, it ain’t. These Mexicans are hauling freight to Grant. But what’s the matter with your coming to Tucson with me?”

      “I started to go to San Carlos, and I’m going,” said Cumnor.

      “You’re a poor chuckle-headed fool!” burst out Jones, in a rage. “And y’u can go, for all I care—you and your Christmas-tree pistol. Like as not you won’t find your cavalry friend at San Carlos. They’ve killed a lot of them soldiers huntin’ Injuns this season. Good-night.”

      Specimen Jones was gone. Cumnor walked to his blanket-roll, where his saddle was slung under the shed. The various doings of the evening had bruised his nerves. He spread his blankets among the dry cattle-dung, and sat down, taking off a few clothes slowly. He lumped his coat and overalls under his head for a pillow, and, putting the despised pistol alongside, lay between the blankets. No object showed in the night but the tall freight-wagon. The tenderfoot thought he had made altogether a fool of himself upon the first trial trip of his manhood, alone on the open sea of Arizona. No man, not even Jones now, was his friend. A stranger, who could have had nothing against him but his inexperience, had taken the trouble to direct him on the wrong road. He did not mind definite enemies. He had punched the heads of those in Pennsylvania, and would not object to shooting them here; but this impersonal, surrounding hostility of the unknown was new and bitter: the cruel, assassinating, cowardly Southwest, where prospered those jail-birds whom the vigilantes had driven from California. He thought of the nameless human carcass that lay near, buried that day, and of the jokes about its mutilations. Cumnor was not an innocent boy, either in principles or in practice, but this laughter about a dead body had burned into his young, unhardened soul. He lay watching with hot, dogged eyes the brilliant stars. A passing wind turned the windmill, which creaked a forlorn minute, and ceased. He must have gone to sleep and slept soundly, for the next he knew it was the cold air of dawn that made him open his eyes. A numb silence lay over all things, and the tenderfoot had that moment of curiosity as to where he was now which comes to those who have journeyed for many days. The Mexicans had already departed with their freight-wagon. It was not entirely light, and the embers where these early starters had cooked their breakfast lay glowing in the sand across the road. The boy remembered seeing a wagon where now he saw only chill, distant peaks, and while he lay quiet and warm, shunning full consciousness, there was a stir in the cabin, and at Ephraim’s voice reality broke upon his drowsiness, and he recollected Arizona and the keen stress of shifting for himself. He noted the gray paling round the grave. Indians? He would catch up with the Mexicans, and travel in their company to Grant. Freighters made but fifteen miles in the day, and he could start after breakfast and be with them before they stopped to noon. Six men need not worry about Apaches, Cumnor thought. The voice of Specimen Jones came from the cabin, and sounds of lighting the stove, and the growling conversation of men getting up. Cumnor, lying in his blankets, tried to overhear what Jones was saying, for no better reason than that this was the only man he had met lately who had seemed to care whether he were alive or dead. There was the clink of Ephraim’s whiskey-bottles, and the cheerful tones of old Mr. Adams, saying, “It’s better ’n brushin’ yer teeth”; and then further clinking, and an inquiry from Specimen Jones.

      “Whose spurs?” said he.

      “Mine.” This from Mr. Adams.

      “How long have they been yourn?”

      “Since I got ’em, I guess.”

      “Well, you’ve enjoyed them spurs long enough.” The voice of Specimen Jones now altered in quality. “And you’ll give ’em back to that kid.”

      Muttering followed that the boy could not catch. “You’ll give ’em back,” repeated Jones. “I seen y’u lift ’em from under that chair when I was in the corner.”

      “That’s straight, Mr. Adams,” said Ephraim. “I noticed it myself, though I had no objections, of course. But Mr. Jones has pointed out—”

      “Since when have you growed so honest, Jones?” cackled Mr. Adams, seeing that he must lose his little booty. “And why didn’t you raise yer objections when СКАЧАТЬ