The Orphan - Clarence E. Mulford (that summer book .TXT) 📗
- Author: Clarence E. Mulford
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Book online «The Orphan - Clarence E. Mulford (that summer book .TXT) 📗». Author Clarence E. Mulford
“I want yu to stay just like yu are!” snapped the man with the drop. “And yu keep yore mouth shut, too!”
“Since it’s your last wish, why, it goes,” replied the sheriff, ignoring the command for silence. “Got any message for your folks? Any keep-sakes you’d like to have sent back East? Give me the address of your folks and I’ll send them your last words, too.”
“That’s enough, Sheriff,” said Tex, moving cautiously forward behind his leveled Colt. “I’ll do all th’ talkin’ that’s necessary; yu just listen for a while.”
“Well, well,” replied the sheriff, grinning and simulating surprise. “If here ain’t Tex Williard, too! What’s your pet psalm, sonny? Good God, what a face!”
“What’s that got to do with this?” asked Tex, intently watching for war.
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all,” replied the sheriff. “But, Lord, that cayuse of yours can shore kick! Was you tickling it? They do go off like that some times. Any of your nose coming out the back of your head yet? But to reply to your touching inquiry, I’ll say that the psalm might work in handy after while, that’s all. If you’ll only tell me, I’ll see that it is sung over your grave. But, honest, how did you get that face?”
“That’ll just about do for yu!” cried the cowboy, angrily. “An’ sit still, yu!” he added.
“Say, bub,” confidentially said Shields, “my stomach itches like blazes. Can’t I scratch it, just once?”
“No! Think I’m a fool!” yelled Tex, his finger tightening on the trigger. “Yu sit still, d––n yu!”
“Well, I only wanted to see just how much of a fool you really are,” grinned the sheriff exasperatingly. “Judging from your present position I must say that I thought you didn’t have any sense at all, but now I reckon you’ve got a few brains after all. But suppose you scratch it for me, hey? Just rub it easy like with your left paw.”
Tex swore luridly, too tense to realize what a fool the sheriff was making of him. He could think of only one thing at a time, and he was thinking very hard about the sheriff’s hands.
“Tut, tut, don’t take it so hard,” jeered the sheriff, smiling pleasantly. “Now that I know that you are some rational, suppose you tell me the joke? What’s the secret? Who skinned his shin? What in thunder is all this artillery saluting me for?”
“Since yu want to know, I’ll tell yu, all right,” replied Tex. “Why are yu an’ Th’ Orphant so d––d thick? Don’t be all day about it?”
“You d––d excuse!” responded the sheriff. “You mere accident! As the poet said, it’s none of your business! Catch that?”
“Yes, I caught it,” retorted Tex. “I reckon we needs a new sheriff, an’ d––d soon, too,” he added venomously.
“Well, people don’t always get what they need,” replied Shields easily. “If they did, you would get yours right now, and good and hard, too,” he explained, making ready to put up the hardest fight of his life. Three men had him covered, and he knew they would all shoot if he made a move, for they had placed themselves in a desperate situation and could not back out now. He knew that never before had he been in so tight a hole, but he trusted to luck and his own quickness to crawl out with a whole skin. If he was killed, he would have company across the Great Divide; of that he was certain.
“I reckon I’ll take yore guns for a while, just to be doin’ somethin’,” Tex said as he advanced a step. “Mebby that itch will go away then.”
“I reckon you’ll be a d––n sight wiser if you don’t force matters, for they are purty well forced now,” Shields replied. “No man gets my guns’ butts first without getting all mussed up inside. You’ll certainly be doing something if you try it.”
“Well, then,” compromised Tex, “answer my question!”
“And no man gets an answer to a question like that in words,” the sheriff continued, as if there had been no interruption. “But I’ll give you and your white-faced bums a chance for your lives–and I don’t wonder The Orphan shot up Jimmy, neither. Put up your wobbling guns and get out of this country as fast as God will let you! If you ever come back I’ll fill you plumb full of lead! It’s your move, Lovely Face, and the quicker you do it the better it’ll be for your health.”
“‘The less you count the longer you’ll live!’ said Shields” (See page 192.)
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” replied Tex with a leer and swagger. “To a man up a tree it looks like yu are up agin a buzz saw this time.”
“To a man on the ground it looks like your tin buzz saw has hit the hardest knot it ever struck, and you’ll feel the jar purty soon, too,” Shields countered, his hazel eyes beginning to grow red. “You put up that gun and scoot before I blow your d––d head off!”
“I’ll give yu ’til I counts three to answer my question,” Tex said, ignoring the advice. “One!”
“The less you count the longer you’ll live,” said Shields, gripping his horse with his knees in readiness to jump it sideways.
“Two!”
“Afternoon, gents,” said a pleasant voice up above them, and all jumped and looked up. As they did so Shields jerked his guns loose and laughed softly: “That itch has plumb gone away,” he said. “It’s a new deal,” he exulted, his face wreathed in grins.
CHAPTER XIIA NEW DEAL ALL AROUND
ON the edge of the bank, thirty feet above them, a man squatted on his heels, his forearms resting easily on his knees. In each hand was a long-barreled Colt, held in a manner oppressively businesslike. One of the guns was leveled at the stomach of the man who guarded Bill, and who still held the rope; the other covered the man who had baited the sheriff. Shields took care of the remaining two. One of the newcomer’s eyes was half closed, squinting to keep out the smoke which curled up from the cigarette which protruded jauntily from a corner of his mouth. If anything was needed to strengthen the air of pertness of the man above it was supplied by his sombrero, which sat rakishly over one ear. A quizzical grin flickered across his face and the cigarette bobbed recklessly when he laughed.
“Was you counting?” he asked of Tex in anxious inquiry. “And for God’s sake, who stepped on your face?”
Tex made no reply, for his astonishment at the interruption had given way to the iron hand of fear which gripped him almost to suffocation. In the space of one breath he had been hurled from the mastery to defeat; from a good fighting chance, with all the odds on his side, to what he believed to be certain death, for to move was to die. Had it been anyone but The Orphan who had turned the scale he would have hazarded a shot and trusted to luck, for his gun was in his hand; but The Orphan’s gunplay was as swift as light and never missed at that distance, and The Orphan’s reputation was a host in itself. He had threatened the sheriff with death, he had used Bill worse than he would have used a dog, and now his cup of bitterness was full to overflowing. Above him a pair of cruel gray eyes looked over a sight into his very soul and a malevolent grin played about the thin, straight lips of the man who had killed Jimmy, who had led his five friends to an awful death, and who had instilled terror night after night into the hearts of seven good men. His mind leaped back to a day ten years before, and what he saw caused his face to blanch. Ten years of immunity, but at last he was to pay for his crime. Before him stood the son of the man he had been foremost in hanging, before him stood the man he had cruelly wronged. His nerve left him and he stood a broken, trembling coward, a living lie to the occupation he had made his own, an insult to his dress and his companions. Had he by some miracle been given the drop he could not have pulled the trigger. He now had no hope for mercy where he had denied it. He had played a good hand, but he had made no allowance for the joker, and no blame to him.
No sooner had The Orphan spoken and the sheriff discovered that he had things safely in his hands, than Shields had leaped to the ground and quickly disarmed his opponents, tossing the captured weapons to the top of the bank near the outlaw. Then he folded his arms and waited, laughing silently all the while.
As soon as Shields had disposed of the last gun, The Orphan gave his whole attention to the man who was guarding Bill, and that person changed the course of his hand just in time.
“No, I wouldn’t try to use that gun, neither, if I was you,” The Orphan said, still smiling. “You can just toss it up on the bank over your head–that’s right. Now drop that rope–I’m surprised that you didn’t do it before. When you get Bill all untangled from those fixings come right around here, where I can see how nice you all look in a bunch. It’ll take you one whole minute to get out of sight around that turn, so I wouldn’t try any running.”
The Orphan was ignorant of the condition of Bill’s face, since he had only seen the driver’s back as he had crawled to the edge of the bank, and now the bend in the opposite wall just hid Bill from his sight. So he gave no great attention to the driver, but turned to the sheriff and laughed.
“I knew that you would pull through, Sheriff,” he said, “but I couldn’t help having a surprise party; I’m a whole lot fond of surprise parties, you know. And it’s shore been a howling success, all right.”
“You have a very pleasant way of making yourself useful,” Shields replied. “From the holes you’ve pulled me out of within the past six weeks you must have a poor impression of me. But seeing that you have reason to laugh at me, I accept your apology and bid you welcome. It’s all yours.” Then he glanced quickly up the trail and his face went red with anger. “Hell!” he cried in amazement.
The Orphan looked in the direction indicated and he leaped to his feet in sudden anger at what he saw. A man, followed by a cowboy, staggered and stumbled drunkenly along the trail toward them, his face a mass of cuts and bruises and blood. His hair was matted with blood and dirt, and a red ring showed around his neck. His hands opened and shut convulsively and he made straight as he could for Tex, who shrank back involuntarily.
“My God! It’s Bill!” cried The Orphan, hardly able to believe his eyes.
“You’re the cur I want!” Bill muttered brokenly to Tex, straightening up and becoming rapidly steadier under the stimulus of his rage. “You’re the –– I want, d––n you!” he repeated as he slowly advanced. “It’s my turn now, you cur! Lynch me, would you? Lynch me, eh? Tried to hit me when I was tied, eh?
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