The Flying U Ranch - B. M. Bower (ebook reader with built in dictionary .txt) 📗
- Author: B. M. Bower
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learned as much as it was politic to tell in the presence of the
Little Doctor; and afterward, while Pink was putting the chaps
back upon the willow, where Miguel had left them, he was told
that they looked to him, Andy Green, for assistance.
“Oh, gosh! You don’t want to depend on me, Pink,” Andy
expostulated modestly. “I can’t think of anything—and, besides,
I’ve reformed. I don’t know as it’s any compliment to me, by
gracious—being told soon as I land that I’m expected to lie to a
perfect stranger.”
“You come on down to the stable and take a look at his saddle and
bridle,” urged Cal. “And wait till you see him smoking and
looking past you, as if you was an ornery little peak that didn’t
do nothing but obstruct the scenery. I’ve seen mean cusses—lots
of ‘em; and I’ve seen men that was stuck on themselves. But I
never—”
“Come outa that ‘doby,” Pink interrupted, “mud to his eyebrows,
just about. And he knew darned well we headed him in there
deliberate. And when I remarks it’s soft going, he says: ‘It is,
kinda,’—just like that.” Pink managed to imitate the languid
tone of Miguel very well. “Not another word outa him. Didn’t even
make him mad! He—”
“Tell him about the parrots, Slim,” Cal suggested soberly. But
Slim only turned purple at the memory, and swore.
“Old Patsy sure has got it in for him,” Happy Jack observed. “He
asked Patsy if he ever had enchiladas. Patsy won’t speak to him
no more. He claims Mig-u-ell insulted him. He told Mig-u-ell—”
“Enchiladas are sure fine eating,” said Andy. “I took to ‘em like
a she-bear to honey, down in New Mexico this winter. Your Native
Son is solid there, all right.”
“Aw, gwan! He ain’t solid nowhere but in the head. Maybe you’ll
love him to death when yuh see him—chances is you will, if
you’ve took to eatin’ dago grub.”
Andy patted Happy Jack reassuringly on the shoulder. “Don’t get
excited,” he soothed. “I’ll put it all over the gentleman, just
to show my heart’s in the right place. Just this once, though;
I’ve reformed. And I’ve got to have time to size him up. Where do
you keep him when he ain’t in the show window?” He swung into
step with Pink. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he confided
engagingly. “Any man that’ll wear chaps like he’s got—even
leaving out the extra finish you fellows have given ‘em—had
ought to be taught a lesson he’ll remember. He sure must be a
tough proposition, if the whole bunch of yuh have had to give him
up. By gracious—”
“We haven’t tried,” Pink defended. “It kinda looked to us as if
he was aiming to make us guy him; so we didn’t. We’ve left him
strictly alone. To-day”—he glanced over his shoulder to where
the becurled chaps swung comically from the willow
branch—“to-day’s the first time anybody’s made a move. Unless,”
he added, as an afterthought, “you count yesterday in the ‘doby
patch—and even then we didn’t tell him to ride into it; we just
let him do it.”
“And kinda herded him over towards it,” Cal amended slyly.
“Can he ride?” asked Andy, going straight to the main point, in
the mind of a cowpuncher.
“W-e-ell-he hasn’t been piled, so far. But then,” Pink qualified
hastily, “he hasn’t topped anything worse than Crow-hop. He
ain’t hard to ride. Happy Jack could—”
“Aw, I’m gittin’ good and sick of’ hearin’ that there tune,”
Happy growled indignantly. “Why don’t you point out Slim as the
limit, once in a while?”
“Come on down to the stable, and let’s talk it over,” Andy
suggested, and led the way. “What’s his style, anyway? Mouthy, or
what?”
With four willing tongues to enlighten him, it would be strange,
indeed, if one so acute as Andy Green failed at last to have a
very fair mental picture of Miguel. He gazed thoughtfully at his
boots, laughed suddenly, and slapped Irish quite painfully upon
the back.
“Come on up and introduce me, boys,” he said. “We’ll make this
Native Son so hungry for home—you watch me put it on the
gentleman. Only it does seem a shame to do it.”
“No, it ain’t. If you’d been around him for two weeks, you’d want
to kill him just to make him take notice,” Irish assured him.
“What gets me,” Andy mused, “is why you fellows come crying to me
for help. I should think the bunch of you ought to be able to
handle one lone Native Son.”
“Aw, you’re the biggest liar and faker in the bunch, is why,”
Happy Jack blurted.
“Oh, I see.” Andy hummed a little tune and pushed his hands deep
into his pockets, and at the corners of his lips there flickered
a smile.
The Native Son sat with his hat tilted slightly back upon his
head and a cigarette between his lips, and was reaching lazily
for the trick which made the fourth game his, when the group
invaded the bunk-house. He looked up indifferently, swept Andy’s
face and figure with a glance too impersonal to hold even a shade
of curiosity, and began rapidly shuffling his cards to count the
points he had made.
Andy stopped short, just inside the door, and stared hard at
Miguel, who gave no sign. He turned his honest, gray eyes upon
Pink and Irish accusingly—whereat they wondered greatly.
“Your deal—if you want to play,” drawled Miguel, and shoved his
cards toward Big Medicine. But the boys were already uptilting
chairs to grasp the quicker the outstretched hand of the
prodigal, so that Miguel gathered up the cards, evened their
edges mechanically, and deigned another glance at this stranger
who was being welcomed so vociferously. Also he sighed a bit—
for even a languid-eyed stoic of a Native Son may feel the twinge
of loneliness. Andy shook hands all round, swore amiably at
Weary, and advanced finally upon Miguel.
“You don’t know me from Adam’s off ox,” he began genially, “but I
know you, all right, all right. I hollered my head off with the
rest of ‘em when you played merry hell in that bull-ring, last
Christmas. Also, I was part of your bodyguard when them greasers
were trying to tickle you in the ribs with their knives in that
dark alley. Shake, old-timer! You done yourself proud, and I’m
glad to know yuh!”
Miguel, for the first time in two weeks, permitted himself the
luxury of an expressive countenance. He gave Andy Green one
quick, grateful look—and a smile, the like of which made the
Happy Family quiver inwardly with instinctive sympathy.
“So you were there, too, eh?” Miguel exclaimed softly, and rose
to greet him. “And that scrap in the alley—we sure had a hell of
a time there for a few minutes, didn’t we? Are you that tall
fellow who kicked that squint-eyed greaser in the stomach? Muchos
gracios, senor! They were piling on me three deep, right then,
and I always believed they’d have got me, only for a tall vaquero
I couldn’t locate afterward.” He smiled again that wonderful
smile, which lighted the darkness of his eyes as with a flame,
and murmured a sentence or two in Spanish.
“Did you get the spurs me and my friends sent you afterward?”
asked Andy eagerly. “We heard about the Arizona boys giving you
the saddle—and we raked high and low for them spurs. And, by
gracious, they were beauts, too—did yuh get ‘em?”
“I wear them every day I ride,” answered Miguel, a peculiar,
caressing note in his voice.
“I didn’t know—we heard you had disappeared off the earth.
Why—”
Miguel laughed outright. “To fight a bull with bare hands is one
thing, amigo,” he said. “To take a chance on getting a knife
stuck in your back is another. Those Mexicans—they don’t love
the man who crosses the river and makes of their bull-fights a
plaything.”
“That’s right; only I thought, you being a—”
“Not a Mexican.” Miguel’s voice sharpened a trifle. “My father
was Spanish, yes. My mother”—his eyes flashed briefly at the
faces of the gaping Happy Family—“my mother was born in
Ireland.”
“And that sure makes a hard combination to beat,” cried Andy
heartily. He looked at the others—at all, that is, save Pink and
Irish, who had disappeared. “Well, boys, I never thought I’d come
home and find—”
“Miguel Rapponi,” supplied the Native Son quickly. “As well
forget that other name. And,” he added with the shrug which the
Happy Family had come to hate, “as well forget the story, also. I
am not hungry for the feel of a knife in my back.” He smiled
again engagingly at Andy Green. It was astonishing how readily
that smile had sprung to life with the warmth of a little
friendship, and how pleasant it was, withal.
“Just as you say,” Andy agreed, not trying to hide his
admiration. “I guess nobody’s got a better right to holler for
silence. But—say, you sure delivered the goods, old boy! You
musta read about it, you fellows; about the American puncher that
went over the line and rode one of their crack bulls all round
the ring, and then—” He stopped and looked apologetically at
Miguel, in whose dark eyes there flashed a warning light. “I
clean forgot,” he confessed impulsively. “This meeting you here
unexpectedly, like this, has kinda got me rattled, I guess.
But—I never saw yuh before in my life,” he declared
emphatically. “I don’t know a darn thing about—anything that
ever happened in an alley in the city of—oh, come on, old-timer;
let’s talk about the weather, or something safe!”
After that the boys of the Flying U behaved very much as do
children who have quarreled foolishly and are trying shamefacedly
to re-establish friendly relations without the preliminary
indignity of open repentance. They avoided meeting the
velvet-eyed glances of Miguel, and at the same time they were
plainly anxious to include him in their talk as if that had been
their habit from the first. A difficult situation to meet, even
with the fine aplomb of the Happy Family to ease the awkwardness.
Later Miguel went unobtrusively down to the creek after his
chaps; he did not get them, just then, but he stood for a long
time hidden behind the willow-fringe, watching Pink and Irish
feverishly combing out certain corkscrew ringlets, and dampening
their combs in the creek to facilitate the process of
straightening certain patches of rebellious frizzes. Miguel did
not laugh aloud, as Big Medicine had done. He stood until he
wearied of the sight, then lifted his shoulders in the gesture
which may mean anything, smiled and went his way.
Not until dusk did Andy get a private word with him. When he did
find him alone, he pumped Miguel’s hand up and down and afterward
clutched at the manger for support, and came near strangling.
Miguel leaned beside him and smiled to himself.
“Good team work, old boy,” Andy gasped at length, in a whisper.
“Best I ever saw in m’life, impromptu on the spot, like that. I
saw you had the makings in you, soon as I caught your eye. And
the whole, blame bunch fell for it—woo-oof!” He laid his face
down again upon his folded arms and shook in all the long length
of him.
“They had it coming,” said Miguel softly, with a peculiar relish.
“Two whole weeks, and never a friendly word from one of them—oh,
hell!”
“I know—I heard it all, soon as I hit the ranch,” Andy replied
weakly, standing up and wiping his eyes. “I just thought I’d
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