Read Ebook: Judith of the Plains by Manning Marie

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1138 lines and 85768 words, and 23 pages

Miss Carmichael's air of perfect composure seemed a trifle out of tune with her surroundings; the nice elevation of eyebrow, the slightly questioning curl of the lip as she, for the first time apparently, became aware of the man opposite, seemed to demand a prim drawing-room rather than the atmosphere of the slouching eating-house.

"Well, really, I've hardly had a chance of finding out." And her eyes were again on her coffee-cup. And there was joy among the men at table that they had not rushed in after the manner of those who have a greater courage than the angels.

"No offence meant," deprecated Simpson, with an uneasy glance towards the other end of the table, where the men sat with necks craned forward in an attitude uncomfortably suggestive of hounds straining at the leash. Simpson felt rather than saw that something was afoot among the sombreros. There was a crowding together in whispered colloquy, and in a flash some half-dozen of them were on their feet as a man. Descending upon Simpson, they lifted him, chair and all, to the other end of the table, as far removed as possible from Miss Carmichael.

The man who thought Simpson's system lacked science rubbed his hands in delight. "She took the trick all right; swept his hand clean off the board!"

Simpson, from the seat to which he had been so rapidly transplanted, looked about him with blinking anxiety. It was more than probable that the boys intended "to have fun with him," though his talking, or rather trying to talk, to a girl that sat opposite him at an eating-house table was, according to his ethics, plainly none of their business. He knew he wasn't popular since he had done for Jim Rodney's sheep, though the crime had never been laid at his door, officially. He had his way to make, the same as the next one; and, all said and done, the cattle-men were glad to get Jim Rodney's sheep off the range, even if they treated him as a felon for the part he had played in their extermination.

Thus reasoned Simpson, while he marked with an uneasy eye that the temper of the company had grown decidedly prankish with the exit of the girl, who, after having caused all the trouble, had, with an irritating quality peculiar to her sex, vanished through the kitchen door.

Some three or four of the boys now ran to Simpson's former seat at the table and rushed towards him with his half-eaten breakfast, as if the errand had been one of life and death. They showered him with mock attentions, waiting on him with an exaggerated deference, and the pale, fat man, remembering the hideousness of some of their manifestations of a sense of humor, breathed hard and felt a falling-off of appetite.

Costigan, the cattle-man, a strapping Irish giant, was clearing his throat with ominous sounds that suggested the tuning-up of a bass fiddle.

"Sure, Simpson, me lad, if ye happen to have a matther av fifty dollars, 'tis mesilf that can tell ye av an illegint invistmint."

Simpson looked up warily, but Costigan's broad countenance did not harbor the wraith of a smile. "What kin I git for fifty chips? 'Tain't much," mused the pariah, with the prompt inclination to spend that stamps the comparative stranger to ready money.

"Ye can git a parrut, man--a grane parrut--to kape ye coompany while ye're aiting--"

Simpson interrupted with an oath.

"Don't be hard on old Simmy; remember he's studied for the ministry! How did I savey that Simpson aimed to be a sharp on doctrine?" A cow-puncher with a squint addressed the table in general. "I scents the aroma of dogma about Simpson in the way he throwed his conversational lariat at the yearling. He urbanes at her, and then comes his 'firstly,' it being a speculation as to her late grazing-ground, which he concludes to be the East. His 'secondly' ain't nothing startling, words familiar to us all from our mother's knee--'nice weather'--the congregation ain't visibly moved. His 'thirdly' is insinuating. In it he hints that it ain't good for man to be alone at meals--"

"'Twas the congregation that added the 'foinelly,' though, before hastily leaving be the back door!" and Costigan slapped his thigh.

"The gentleman in question don't seem to be makin' much use of his present conversational opportunities. I'm feelin' kinder turned down myself"; and the Texan began to look over his six-shooter.

The man with the squint looked up and down the board.

"Gentlemen, I believe the foregoing expresses the sentiment of this company, which, while it incloodes many foreign and frequent-warring elements, is at present held together by the natchral tie of eating."

Thumping with knife and fork handles, stamping of feet, cries of "Hear! hear!" with at least three cow-boy yells, argued well for a resumption of last night's festivities. Simpson glowered, but said nothing.

"Seems to me you-all goin' the wrong way 'bout drawin' Mistu' Simpson out. He is shy an' has to be played fo' like a trout, an' heah you-all come at him like a cattle stampede." The big Texan leaned towards Simpson. "Now you-all watch my methods. Mistu' Simpson, seh, what du think of the prospects of rain?"

There was a general recommendation from Simpson that the entire company go to a locality below the rain-belt.

"Gentlemen, you have all heard Simpson say it is lonesome having no one to talk to during meals. We sympathized with him and offered him a choice of subjects. He greets our remarks by a conspicuous silence, varied by profanity. This, gentlemen, reflects on us, and is a matter demanding public satisfaction. All who feel that their powers as conversationalists have been impugned by the silence of Simpson, please say 'Ay.'"

"Ay" was howled, sung, and roared in every note of the gamut.

"If me yoong frind here an me roight"--and Costigan jerked a shoulder towards the boy--"will be afther closin' that silf-feeding automatic dictionary av his for a moment, I shud be glad to call the attintion av the coomp'ny to somethin' in the nature av an ixtinuatin' circoomsthance in the case av Simpson."

"Hear! hear!" they shouted. The broad countenance of Costigan beamed with joy at what he was about to say. "Gintlemin, the silence av Mr. Simpson is jew in all probabilitee to a certain ivint recalled by many here prisint, an' more that's absent, an' amicablee settled out av coort--"

Up to this time the unhappy Simpson had shown an almost superhuman endurance. Now he bristled--and after looking up and down the board for a sympathetic face, and not finding one, he declared, loudly and generally, "'Tain't so!"

"Ye may have noticed that frind Simpson do be t'reatened wid lockjaw in the societee av min, but in the prisince av a female ye can't count on him. Now, talk wid a female is an agreeable, if not a profitable, way av passin' the toime, but sure ye niver know where it will ind--as witness Simpson. This lady I'm recallin'--'tis a matther av two years ago--followed the ancient and honorable profission av biscuit shootin' not far from Caspar. Siz Simpson to the lady some such passin' civilitee as, 'Good-marnin'; plisent weather we're havin'.' Whereupon the lady filt a damage to her affictions an' sued him for breach av promise."

"'Twan't that way, at all!" screamed Simpson. "'Sall a lie!"

"Yu ought er said 'Good-evenin'' to the lady, Mistu Simpson; hit make a diffunce," drawled the man from Texas, pleasantly.

"But 'twas 'Good-marnin'' Simpson made chyce av," resumed Costigan. "An' the lady replied, 'You've broke my heart.' Whereupon Simpson, havin' a matther av t'ree thousand dollars to pay for his passin' civilitee, learned thot silince was goolden."

They all remembered the incident in question, and thundered applause at the reappearance of an old favorite. Without warning, a shadow fell across the sunlight-flooded room, and, as one after another of the men glanced up from the table, they saw standing in the doorway a man of such malignant aspect that his look fell across the company like a menace. The swing of their banter slowed suddenly; it was as if the cold of a new-turned grave had struck across the June sunshine checking their roughshod fun. None of them had the hardihood to joke with a man that stood in the shadow of death; and hate and murder looked from the eyes of the man in the doorway and looked towards Simpson. One by one they perceived the man of the shadow, all but Simpson, eating steak drowned in Worcestershire.

The man in the doorway was tall and lean, and the prison blench upon his face was in unpleasant contrast to the ruddy tan of the faces about the table. His sombrero was tipped back and the hair hung dank about the pale, sweating forehead, suggestive of sickness. But weak health did not imply weak purpose; every feature in that hawk-like face was sharp with hatred, and in the narrowing eye was vengeance that is sweet.

He stood still; there was in his hatred a something hypnotic that grew imperceptibly and imperceptibly communicated itself to the men at table. He gloated over the eating fat man as if he had dwelt much in imagination on the sight and was in no hurry to curtail his joy at the reality. The men began to get restless, shuffle their feet, moisten their lips; only the college boy spoke, and then from a wealth of ignorance, knowing nothing of the rugged, give-and-take justice of the plains--an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and the law and the courts go hang while a man's got a right arm to pull a trigger. Not one in all that company, even the cattle-men whose interests were opposed to Rodney's, but felt the justice of his errand.

"When did they let him out?" whispered the college boy; and then, "Oughtn't we to do something?"

"Yis, me son," whispered Costigan. "We ought to sit still and learn a thing or two."

The fat man cleaned his plate with a crust of bread stuck on the point of a knife. There was nothing more to eat in the way of substantials, and he debated pouring a little more of the sauce on his plate and mopping it with a bit of bread still uneaten. Considering the pro and con of this extra tid-bit, he glanced up and saw the gaunt man standing in the doorway.

Simpson dropped the knife from his shaking hand and started up with a cry that died away in a gurgle, an inhuman, nightmare croak. He looked about wildly, like a rat in a trap, then backed towards the wall. The men about the table got up, then cleared away in a circle, leaving the fat man. It was all like a dream to the college boy, who had never seen a thing of the kind before and could not realize now that it was happening. Rodney advanced, never once relaxing the look in which he seemed to hold his enemy as in a vise. Simpson was like a man bewitched. Once, twice, he made a grab for his revolver, but his right hand seemed to have lost power to heed the bidding of his will. Rodney, now well towards the centre of the room, waited, with a suggestion of ceremony, for Simpson to get his six-shooter.

It was one of those moments in which time seems to have become petrified. The limp-clad proprietress of the eating-house, made curious by the sudden silence, looked in from the kitchen. Simpson, his eyes wandering like a trapped rat, saw, and called, through teeth that chattered in an ague of fear, "Ree--memm--her thth--there's la--dies p--present! For Gawd's sake, remember t--there's ladies p--present!"

The pale man looked towards the kitchen, and, seeing the woman, he gave Simpson a look in which there was only contempt. "You've hid behind the law once, and this time it's petticoats. The open don't seem to have no charm for you. But--" He didn't finish, there was no need to. Every one knew and understood. He put up his revolver and walked into the street.

The men broke into shouts of laughter, loud and ringing, then doubled up and had it out all over again. And their noisy merriment was as clear an indication of the suddenly lifted strain, at the averted shooting, as it was of their enjoyment of the farce. Simpson, relieved of the fear of sudden death, now sought to put a better face on his cowardice. Now that his enemy was well out of sight, Simpson handled his revolver with easy assurance.

"Put ut up," shouted Costigan, above the general uproar. "'Tis toime to fear a revolver in the hands av Simpson whin he's no intinsions av shootin'."

Simpson still attempted to harangue the crowd, but his voice was lost in the general thigh-slapping and the shouts and roars that showed no signs of abating. But when he caught a man by the coat lapel in his efforts to secure a hearing, that was another matter, and the man shook him off as if his touch were contagion. Simpson, craving mercy on account of petticoats, evading a meeting that was "up to him," they were willing to stand as a laughing-stock, but Simpson as an equal, grasping the lapels of their coats, they would have none of.

He slunk away from them to a corner of the eating-house, feeling the stigma of their contempt, yet afraid to go out into the street where his enemy might be waiting for him. Much of death and blood and recklessness "Town" had seen and condoned, but cowardice was the unforgivable sin. It balked the rude justice of these frontiersmen and tampered with their code, and Simpson knew that the game had gone against him.

"What was it all about? Were they in earnest, or was it only their way of amusing themselves?" inquired Mary Carmichael, who had slipped into Mrs. Clark's kitchen after the men at the table had taken things in hand.

"Jim Rodney was in earnest, an' he had reason to be. That man Simpson was paid by a cattle outfit--now, mind, I ain't sayin' which--to get Jim Rodney's sheep off the range. They had threatened him and cut the throats of two hundred of his herd as a warning, but Jim went right on grazin' 'em, same as he had always been in the habit of doing. Well, I'm told they up and makes Simpson an offer to get rid of the sheep. Jim has over five thousand, an' it's just before lambing, and them pore ewes, all heavy, is being druv' down to Watson's shearing-pens, that Jim always shears at. Jim an' two herders and a couple of dawgs--least, this is the way I heard it--is drivin' 'em easy, 'cause, as I said before, it's just before lambing. It does now seem awful cruel to me to shear just before lambing, but that's their way out here.

"Well, nothing happens, and Jim ain't more'n two hours from the pens an' he comes to that place on the road that branches out over the top of a ca?on, and there some one springs out of a clump of willows an' dashes into the herd and drives the wether that's leading right over the cliff. The leaders begin to follow that wether, and they go right over the cliff like the pore fools they are. The herder fired and tried to drive 'em back, they tell me, an' he an' the dawg were shot at from the clump of willows by some one else who was there. Three hundred sheep had gone over the cliff before Jim knew what was happening. He rode like mad right through the herd to try and head 'em off; but you know what sheep is like--they're like lost souls headin' for damnation. Nothing can stop 'em when they're once started. And Jim lost every head--started for the shearing-pens a rich man--rich for Jim--an' seen everything he had swept away before his eyes, his wife an' children made paupers. My son he come by and found him. He said that Jim was sittin' huddled up in a heap, his knees drawed up under his chin, starin' straight up into the noonday sky, same as if he was askin' God how He could be so cruel. His dead dawg, that they had shot, was by the side of him. The herder that was with Jim had taken the one that was shot into Watson's, so when my son found Jim he was alone, sittin' on the edge of the cliff with his dead dawg, an' the sky about was black with buzzards; an' Jim he just sat an' stared up at 'em, and when my son spoke to him he never answered any more than a dead man. He shuck him by the arm, but Jim just sat there, watchin' the sun, the buzzards, and the dead sheep."

"Was nothing done to this man Simpson?"

"The cattle outfit that he done the dirty work for swore an alibi for him. Jim has been in hard luck ever since. He's been rustlin' cattle right along; but Lord, who can blame him? He got into some trouble down to Rawlins--shot a man he thought was with Simpson, but who wasn't--and he's been in jail ever since. Course now that he's out Simpson's bound to get peppered. Glad it didn't happen here, though. 'Twould be a kind of unpleasant thing to have connected with a eating-house, don't you think so?" she inquired, with the grim philosophy of the country.

The eating-house patrons had gone their several ways, and the quiet of the dining-room was oppressive by contrast with its late boisterousness. Mrs. Clark, her hands imprisoned in bread-dough, begged Mary to look over the screen door and see if anything was happening. "I'm always suspicious when it's quiet. I know they're in deviltry of some sort."

Mary tiptoed to the door and peeped over, but the room was deserted, save for Simpson, huddled in a corner, biting his finger-nails. "The nasty thing!" exploded Mrs. Clark, when she had received the bulletin. "I'd turn him out if it wasn't for the notoriety he might bring my place in gettin' killed in front of it."

"I dare say I'd better go and see after my trunk; it's still on the station platform." Mary wondered what her prim aunts would think of her for sitting in Mrs. Clark's kitchen, but it had seemed so much more of a refuge than the sordid streets of the hideous little town, with its droves of men and never a glimpse of a woman that she had been only too glad to avail herself of the invitation of the proprietress to "make herself at home till the stage left."

"Well, good luck to you," said Mrs. Clark, wiping her hand only partially free from dough and presenting it to Miss Carmichael. She had not inquired where the girl was going, nor even hinted to discover where she came from, but she gave her the godspeed that the West knows how to give, and the girl felt better for it.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet