The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories by Owen Wister (the best novels to read TXT) 📗

at random, whirled their arms, and, screaming till they gathered heart, charged with wavering menace at the door. The foremost was flung from the sill, and he shot along toppling and scraped his length in the dust, while the owner of the cabin stood in the entrance. The Indian picked himself up, and at some word of Jake's which the emigrants could half follow by the fierce lift of his arm, all got on their horses and set up a wailing, like vultures driven off. They went up the river a little and crossed, but did not come down this side, and Mrs. Clallam was thankful when their evil noise had died away up the valley. They had seen the wagon coming, but gave it no attention. A man soon came over the river from the cabin, and was lounging against a tree when the emigrants drew up at the margin.

“I don't know what you know,” he whined defiantly from the tree, “but I'm goin' to Cornwall, Connecticut, and I don't care who knows it.” He sent a cowed look at the cabin across the river.

“Get out of the wagon, Nancy,” said Clallam. “Mart, help her down.”

“I'm going back,” said the man, blinking like a scolded dog. “I ain't stayin' here for nobody. You can tell him I said so, too.” Again his eye slunk sidewise towards the cabin, and instantly back.

“While you're staying,” said Mart, “you might as well give a hand here.”

He came with alacrity, and made a shift of unhitching the horses. “I was better off coupling freight cars on the Housatonic,” he soon remarked. His voice came shallow, from no deeper than his throat, and a peevish apprehension rattled through it. “That was a good job. And I've had better, too; forty, fifty, sixty dollars better.”

“Shall we unpack the wagon?” Clallam inquired.

“I don't know. You ever been to New Milford? I sold shoes there. Thirty-five dollars and board.”

The emigrants attended to their affairs, watering the horses and driving picket stakes. Leander uselessly followed behind them with conversation, blinking and with lower lip sagged, showing a couple of teeth. “My brother's in business in Pittsfield, Massachusetts,” said he, “and I can get a salary in Bridgeport any day I say so. That a Marlin?”

“No,” said Mart. “It's a Winchester.”

“I had a Marlin. He's took it from me. I'll bet you never got shot at.”

“Anybody want to shoot you?” Mart inquired.

“Well and I guess you'll believe they did day before yesterday”

“If you're talking about up at that cabin, it was me.”

Leander gave Mart a leer. “That won't do,” said he. “He's put you up to telling me that, and I'm going to Cornwall, Connecticut. I know what's good for me, I guess.”

“I tell you we were looking for the ferry, and I signalled you across the river.”

“No, no,” said Leander. “I never seen you in my life. Don't you be like him and take me for a fool.”

“All right. Why did they want to murder you?”

“Why?” said the man, shrilly. “Why? Hadn't they broke in and filled themselves up on his piah-chuck till they were crazy-drunk? And when I came along didn't they—”

“When you came along they were nowhere near there,” said Mart.

“Now you're going to claim it was me drunk it and scattered all them bottles of his,” screamed Leander, backing away. “I tell you I didn't. I told him I didn't, and he knowed it well, too. But he's just that mean when he's mad he likes to put a thing on me whether or no, when he never seen me touch a drop of whiskey, nor any one else, neither. They were riding and shooting loose over the country like they always do on a drunk. And I'm glad they stole his stuff. What business had he to keep it at Billy Moon's old cabin and send me away up there to see it was all right? Let him do his own dirty work. I ain't going to break the laws on the salary he pays me.”

The Clallam family had gathered round Leander, who was stricken with volubility. “It ain't once in a while, but it's every day and every week,” he went on, always in a woolly scream. “And the longer he ain't caught the bolder he gets, and puts everything that goes wrong on to me. Was it me traded them for that liquor this afternoon? It was his squaw, Big Tracks, and he knowed it well. He lets that mud-faced baboon run the house when he's off, and I don't have the keys nor nothing, and never did have. But of course he had to come in and say it was me just because he was mad about having you see them Siwashes hollering around. And he come and shook me where I was sittin', and oh, my, he knowed well the lie he was acting. I bet I've got the marks on my neck now. See any red marks?” Leander exhibited the back of his head, but the violence done him had evidently been fleeting. “He'll be awful good to you, for he's that scared—”

Leander stood tremulously straight in silence, his lip sagging, as Wild-Goose Jake called pleasantly from the other bank. “Come to supper, you folks,” said he. “Why, Andy, I told you to bring them across, and you've let them picket their horses. Was you expectin' Mrs. Clallam to take your arm and ford six feet of water?” For some reason his voice sounded kind as he spoke to his assistant.

“Well, mother?” said Clallam.

“If it was not for Nancy, John—”

“I know, I know. Out on the shore here on this side would be a pleasanter bedroom for you, but” (he looked up the valley) “I guess our friend's plan is more sensible to-night.”

So they decided to leave the wagon behind and cross to the cabin. The horses put them with not much wetting to the other bank, where Jake, most eager and friendly, hovered to meet his party, and when they were safe ashore pervaded his premises in their behalf.

“Turn them horses into the pasture, Andy,” said he, “and first feed 'em a couple of quarts.” It may have been hearing himself say this, but tone and voice dropped to the confidential and his sentences came with a chuckle. “Quarts to the horses and quarts to the Siwashes and a skookum pack of trouble all round, Mrs. Clallam! If I hedn't a-came to stop it a while ago, why about all the spirits that's in stock jest now was bein' traded off for some blamed ponies the bears hev let hobble on the range unswallered ever since I settled here. A store on a trail like this here, ye see, it hez to keep spirits, of course; and—well, well! here's my room; you ladies'll excuse, and make yourselves at home as well as you can.”

It was of a surprising neatness, due all to him, they presently saw; the log walls covered with a sort of bunting that was also stretched across to make a ceiling below the shingles of the roof; fresh soap and towels, china service, a clean floor and bed, on the wall a print of some white and red village among elms, with a covered bridge and the water