by Max Brand
“Well, there had been a fight that day. Jingo was in it.”
“What sort of a fight?”
“With guns,” she admitted. She hated to go on. She could see how her father would judge the thing.
“Where was the fight?” asked Tyrrel.
“In a saloon—in Tower Creek.” Then she went on rapidly: “The other fellow was cheating at cards. Jingo shot him. After the other man had pulled a gun! It was just self-defense.”
The judge raised his hand, saying: “When you’re older you’ll hear other stories of men who shoot down others in self-defense. Cold-blooded rascals who spend half their time practicing with guns and know that they can depend on their skill. Men against whom an ordinary honest citizen has no chance. No more chance than a pigeon has against a hawk.”
“Jingo wouldn’t spend half his time practicing at any sort of work,” she declared.
The dark brows of her father were turned constantly toward her. “Afterward,” he said, “when he had shot down his man, he wanted more amusement, and it seemed to him a good idea to go to the dance and defy the sheriff and take for his dancing partner my daughter. He tricked the sheriff out of the way once. The next time he got your escort away from you, knocked him senseless, took his clothes, and paraded past the sheriff a second time. And you were willing to dance with the blackguard!”
The words were emphatic enough, but not once was the voice of the judge lifted. She saw how things were going. She wished heartily that she had not made her free confession.
“And then,” said the judge, “the brazen scoundrel has the effrontery to tell you that he intends to call on you before to-night! Is that it?”
“It’s just sort of game with him,” said the girl. “He doesn’t mean—”
“Eugenia,” said the judge, “I want you to be perfectly honest with me. Do you like him very much?”
She wanted to talk down about Jingo, but that appeal to her honesty staggered her. She said: “I’ll tell you frankly—I’ve never met a man I liked so well.”
The judge smiled without mirth. “I’ve told you that I might have to take strict measures. I’ll tell you now what those measures are going to be. You’re to confine yourself to the house—until dark. And after that we’ll see. In the meantime, I can pledge my faith to you that young Mr. Jingo will not call on you before twilight has ended.”
She was on her feet by this time. “What do you mean to do?” she gasped at him.
“I simply mean to keep trespassers off the premises,” said the judge. “When you go in, tell the cook to get Hooker and send him to me. Hooker’s back, watching the putting away of the hay in the barns.”
She wanted to beg her father to limit his anger. She wanted to urge the youth and the careless mind of Jingo. She wanted to say that Jingo was like his name—just a reckless, strange sort of a person. But she saw that every word she spoke on his behalf would serve to increase the calm anger of Judge Tyrrel. So she went back into the house and sent the cook on the errand.
So Lem Hooker came out to meet the big boss. Lem was a fellow tall and very lean, and he had a long and very lean face with prominent buck teeth. The projection of his teeth made Lem seem to smile all day long, and he had spent his life trying to prove that the good nature was only a matter of the surface, and not of the soul. He had a bull terrier’s love of trouble, and the men who worked under him on the big ranch knew all about his nature.
When he came up to the judge he tipped his hat. The only thing in the world that he loved—outside of a fight—was Judge Tyrrel. He would have hanged a good many years ago had it not been for the judge. But there was more than a sense of gratitude in Hooker. He looked up to Tyrrel as one strong man may to another who is still stronger.
Said the judge: “If you’ve heard any gossip from Tower Creek, you’ve heard about the carryin’s-on of a fellow called Jingo.”
“I have,” said Lem Hooker.
“Know what he looks like?”
“Five feet eleven. About a hundred and sixty pounds. Dark eyes and skin. Mighty handsome sort of a gent.”
“He says,” went on the judge, “that he’s going to call on Eugenia before night. Before the end of the twilight, he’s going to call on Eugenia, no matter where she may be on the place. Your job is to see that he doesn’t arrive. Search the house first. Then search the barns. Give every man on the place a description of the man. Make sure that he’s nowhere near us. When you’ve made sure of that, stretch a cordon around the house and the barns. There’s an early moon, but you won’t need its light. If he doesn’t show up before night, he’s missed his bet. Hooker, this may sound to you like a joke, but it’s not.”
“In this here kind of a game of tag,” said Hooker, “somebody’s likely to stay down after he’s ‘it’.”
The judge considered for a long moment. He began to whittle at his stick again. “Lem,” he said, “this fellow Jingo is a gunman and gambler and worthless idler, I take it. If he intrudes on these premises, I think I’m right in my own mind—I know I’m right in the law—if I stop him at any cost. You understand?”
The right hand of Lem Hooker stole in a subtle gesture toward his hip and came slowly away again. A real smile allowed his big buck teeth to flash in the slanting light of the sun. “I sure understand,” he said.
The judge said one thing more, deliberately: “If Jingo manages to break through, I won’t be expecting to have you around to-morrow.”
CHAPTER 14
The Oasis
The work of Lem Hooker was always done thoroughly. He got a group of men together first and searched the house from the attic to the floor. Then he went through the barns. He had thirty hands or more hauling hay, leading the derrick horses, handling the big Jackson forks, or stowing the hay away in the tops of the barns. There were plenty of hands present, therefore, and when the search had been completed without finding Jingo, Lem Hooker made a little speech to the gang in which he described Jingo.
“He ain’t here now,” he said. “All you need to do is to make sure that he don’t get here later on. Now go to work—and keep your eyes open. Act like he could burrow underground, or turn himself into a load of hay, or drop down out of the sky on a pair of wings. If any of you ain’t packing a gun, go and load yourselves down. In this here game, the gent that’s tagged is going to know he’s ‘it’ without nobody telling him.”
In the meantime, Jingo and the Parson had cut across country, taking their ease on the way, since there was no great hurry in performing the journey. The tireless trot of Lizzie, which would have broken the bones of any man other than the Parson, continued steadily, and Jingo’s fierce-eyed horse easily kept pace.
So they came, in the heat of the afternoon, to the crest of a hill from which they looked down on the white windings of the road that ran through a valley beneath them. The wind was traveling down the valley. Now and then it picked up a whirl of dust and carried it like a ghost over the road. The day was hot; the wind blew the heat even through flannel shirts and scorched the skin.
The Parson said: “Down yonder, Jingo, there’s a thing that looks to me like a dog-gone oasis, and to-day’s hot enough to be a desert. You see them trees and the red roof in the middle of ’em, and the shed that sticks out onto the side of the road? That’s a place where a man could get a glass of beer, I’m thinking.”
“And show our faces and show our hands?” said Jingo. “Would that make any sense?”
“I’ll throw a coin,” said the Parson.
Jingo laughed. “All right,” he said. The coin spun, winking high in the air, off the thumb of the Parson.
“Heads!” said Jingo.
The half dollar spatted in the great, hard palm of the Parson. “Tails,” said he, closing his fingers over it.
“I didn’t see it,” answered Jingo.
“Hey, you wouldn’t argue about a glass of beer, would you?” asked the Parson.
Jingo laughed again. “You love trouble, Parson,” he said. �
�You’re going to have a ten-course dinner of it before very long. You’re going to have trouble roasted with the feathers on. But come along.”
He turned his horse down the slope, and they swept up in good style to the front of the tavern. It was a comfortable type, white-painted, with watering troughs stretching in front, enough of them to accommodate a sixteen-mule team with the spans still harnessed to their single-trees. A big wooden awning stood out from the front of the saloon, so that buggies and carts and horsemen could come right up to the door of the place and hitch at the inside rack. Above the saloon rose the vast green cloud of the trees.
The Parson and Jingo went inside. The floor was black-spotted with water that had recently been flung over it, and there were fresh strewings of sawdust arranged in dim lines as it had fallen from the fingers, somewhat like iron filings on a paper above a magnet. The air was damp and cool. A windmill was clanking not far from the house, and Jingo could hear the whisper of the gushing water. The sour-sweet pungency of many drinks was in the air; the bar rail had been scarred by ten thousand heels and scratched to brightness; but at that moment Jingo and the Parson were the only people in the place, except the bartender and a boy who was washing windows.
The bartender looked like an ex-prize fighter. Now his blunt face and his chunky body were layered over with soft fat. He was constantly moist with perspiration. When he picked up a glass he left his finger marks outlined in mist.
“We’ll have a game of seven-up,” said the Parson. “Give us some cards, bartender. We’ll play a game while we have a drink. Take something with us?”
The bartender admitted that it might be a good idea. He took a small beer that was mostly froth, and punched the register for three full-sized drinks. He put out two packs of cards, and as the Parson and Jingo sat down at a corner table to finish their beer slowly and play a hand or two of seven-up, the barman motioned the boy to him from the window that he was washing.
The Parson was dealing, flicking out the cards with expert fingers, when Jingo said to him: “Did that bartender look you in the chin or in the eyes?”
“He slammed me in the eyes once, and after that he couldn’t look higher than my stomach,” said the Parson. He announced, immediately afterward, that he was shooting the moon. But he was playing his jack for high, and a queen fitted neatly on top of it out of Jingo’s cards.
“There’s something on the bartender’s mind,” urged Jingo. “Did you ever hit him while you were wading through a crowd?”
“I’ve got a memory for mugs,” answered the Parson, “and I never saw his map before.”
A door slammed with a jangling of a wire screen at the rear of the place. The boy was gone from the saloon, and the bartender was polishing the bar.
The Parson added: “What’s eating you, Jingo?”
“He’s sent the kid out on an errand, and the errand is about us,” said Jingo. “He’s thinking so hard about us right now that he’s turning redder than his work oughta make him.”
“Well?” asked the Parson.
“We’ve got to make him call the boy back,” said Jingo.
“Got to?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, bartender, what’s your name?” demanded the Parson suddenly.
“Wilson,” came the answer from the saloon keeper as he continued to polish off the bar.
“Wilson,” said the Parson, “I wanta take a look at that boy. Call him back.”
Wilson continued his work. He lifted his eyes for one brief glance at the giant, and dropped them again to his cloth. Then he said: “The kid’s busy.”
“Maybe he’s too busy to suit us,” said the Parson.
Wilson tossed his cloth aside, leaned, and picked up something from the shelf under the bar. He looked not at his two guests, but straight ahead. It was perfectly plain that he had taken up a gun.
The Parson laid one pack of cards on top of the other and tapped them into a trim-edged little mass. “I ain’t a mind reader,” said he, “but sometimes I can tell a fool when he’s in the middle of a play.” He took the two packs between his hands with a reversing grip, and slowly, without a jerk, twisted the stiff mass in two. He flung the mass from him, and they fell with a little rattling shower on the floor.
“Now call back that kid!” said the Parson.
The bartender stared for an instant at the torn packs which were scattered before him. Then he turned toward the door behind the bar.
“Don’t leave the room!” barked the Parson.
Wilson stood fast. His back was turned to them. He was breathing so hard that his head kept lifting and nodding a little. Finally he went to an opened window and sent out a long, shrilling whistle. After that he returned to the bar and began to rub it meditatively with the heel of his hand, looking with vague eyes straight before him.
“Maybe he’s calling up all hell to drop in and visit us,” muttered the Parson to Jingo.
Jingo sat back from the table a little, at ease. “Maybe,” he said. “I thought we’d get more trouble than beer down here.”
Presently the rear door opened with a squeak and closed with a jingling rattle again. The barefooted boy came into the saloon. He had a tattered straw hat on his head now. His eyes were big and pale with excitement.
“Go on with that window. Forget the other thing,” said Wilson.
The boy gasped. Then, without a word, went back toward the window.
“Bring over some more beer,” said the Parson. “Bring one for yourself and sit down.”
There was the same hesitation in the manner of Wilson, but finally he obeyed. He put down two glasses before them.
“Where’s your own?” asked the Parson.
Wilson shook his head.
“Now then,” went on the Parson, “I wanta know where you was sending that kid. Talk soft. No reason why he should hear you.”
“I was sending him to town,” said Wilson. “Why?”
“I got a lot of curiosity,” went on the Parson. “What was he going to do in town?”
“Get some nails,” said Wilson. He looked straight at the Parson.
“Nails for what?” asked the Parson.
“Nails to use making some chicken coops. They use up a lot of nails.”
“What would you want chicken coops for?” asked the Parson. “Ain’t the range free for chickens to walk on?”
“Yeah, and for coyotes to eat them,” said Wilson. “Besides, they’re always scratching up my vegetable garden.”
“Let’s take a look at the vegetable garden,” suggested Jingo.
Wilson said nothing, but led the way out through the back of the house, across the floor of a very clean kitchen, and down the back steps into a fenced yard irrigated from the windmill. There was a growing crop of alfalfa that covered half the ground. The rest was given over to vegetables. Off to the side were a series of chicken runs enclosed in bright new wire. And in one of the runs there were no chickens, only a quantity of slats, strips of one-by-two boards, and several coops already completed.
Jingo went to the coops.
“It’s all right, by thunder,” said the Parson. “There’s the coops he’s making, sure enough.”
“It can’t be right,” said Jingo calmly. He looked about him. On a work bench which was improvised out of a pair of sawbucks and some cross boards lay a hammer and a saw; there was not a nail in sight. Still he searched, and at last lifted a small fold of tarpaulin that lay on the ground under the bench. Inside it were a couple of pounds of glittering new nails.
Jingo came back and confronted the pale, set face of Wilson. “Now come out with it,” said Jingo.
Wilson made no answer. He kept looking at vacancy.
“Persuade him, Parson,” said Jingo.
The Parson laid his enormous hand upon the fat, soft shoulder of the bartender. “Talking is the best way,” said the Parson.
“Aw,” muttered Wilson suddenly, “they want your scalp, is all. I was to tip them off if you came this way.”
“Who were you to tip off?” asked Jingo.
“Jake Rankin and the other two.”
“What other two?”
“Boyd and Oliver.”
“What do Boyd and Oliver look like?”
“Boyd’s a little runt with a face like a rat. Oliver’s a bulldog. He’s gotta pull in his jaw to make his teeth meet.”
“Where are they now?” asked Jingo.
“I’ve double-crossed them and I’ve double-crossed you,” said Wilson sullenly. “Now I’m through double-crossing. You don’t get any more talk out of me!”
“Don’t we?” asked the Parson, his vast hands twitching. “I dunno but what I could get something out of you!”
“Let him alone,” commanded Jingo. “He’s not going to keep walking crooked. And as long as he goes straight, we leave him alone. Wilson, I’m glad we found out that Jake Rankin and another pair are on the lookout. Boyd and Oliver—are they pretty tough?”
“They ain’t pretty, but they’re tough,” said Wilson. “You gents watch your step, I’d say. Get out of this neck of the woods, if you got any sense.”
“Why,” said Jingo, “I never refuse to go to a dance so long as I know who I’ve got to dance with. Come along, Parson. We’re losing time.”
CHAPTER 15
Jingo’s Scheme
Travel up the well-graded road to Blue Water was obviously too dangerous a business, so long as Rankin and two others were watching the way at some point. Parson and Jingo cut back through the hills, and so arrived, in the late afternoon, within view of the ranch of Judge Tyrrel. They left their horses behind the crest of a hill and sat down in a clump of brush that screened them, while it allowed them to look intimately down on the buildings and the men who were working at the barns.
“Pretty, ain’t it?” asked the Parson. “Look at the way the evening is starting ahead of time over yonder in the ravine. Look at the way the snow is shining down at us. Look at the mob of those fellows handling the hay into the barns. Pretty, I’d say it is!”