Jingo

by Brand, Max; Burns, Traber;

  “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 bare-footed 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 gaped. Then, without a word, went back toward the window.

  “Bring over some more beer,” the Parson said. “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 wanna know where you was sending that kid. Talk soft. No reason why he should hear you.’

  “I was sending him to town,” Wilson answered. “Why?”

  “I got a lot of curiosity,” the Parson explained. “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 in the making of 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,” Wilson replied. “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,” Jingo said calmly.

  He looked about him. On a workbench that 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 vacantly.

  “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 scalps, 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,” Wilson said sullenly. “Now I’m through double-crossing. You don’t get any more talk out of me.”

  “Don’t we?” the Parson said, his vast hands twitching. “I dunno but what I could get something out of you.”

  “Let him alone,” Jingo commanded. “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,” Wilson informed him. “You gents watch your step, I’d say. Get out of this neck of the woods, if you got any sense.”

  “Why,” Jingo announced, smiling, “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 Fifteen

  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.”

  At the end of each of the three great barns there was a wagon of hay being unloaded by the use of a great four-tined Jackson fork that was lifted by a team of two horses, led or driven. They could hear the slow groaning of the pulleys as the horses started the forkful up. They could hear the click and then the smooth rumbling as the load ran back along the iron running rail at the top of a barn, while the tugging team of derrick horses no longer strained at their collars, but walked easily forward, their traces slack.

  The observers were so close that they could even hear, dim and far away, the voice of the headman who stowed the hay, calling—“Dump!”—when the loaded fork had reached the desired spot.

  “How’d you like to be in there, Parson?” asked Jingo. “There’s the place for a fellow like you. You’d be worth a whole crew of three or four in there. You could shift a whole load with your pitchfork, and every time you put down your foot on the loose stuff, it would be worth the drop of a beater in a baling machine. You’d be worth your weight ... in lead.”

  The Parson grinned.

  “The time was,” he said, “when I figured that it was a proud and noble doggone’ thing to be able to heave twice as much on a pitchfork as anybody else could. I used to roll bales on a Little Giant press, and throw up the bales four high, and sometimes I’d chuck up a few five high. The ranchers, they used to like to have me working on the hay baler, because they could roll off the top two tiers of the stack onto their wagons afterward without no derrick at all. But after a while I figured out that a strong head was better than a strong back. I’ve given up working like that, Jingo.”

  “What do you do now?” Jingo asked curiously.

  “I hunt for hard-shelled crabs and crack ’em, and eat the white meat,” said the Parson, moving his hands as though he were breaking a crab in two like a piece of bread.

  “That sort of business is hard on the hands,” Jingo advised, grinning.

  “Yeah,” agreed the Parson, “but now I’m resting up. All I gotta do is follow the lion and get fat on what he leaves of his kill.”

  He chuckled as he said this, and Jingo, eying him almost tenderly, remarked: “Someday we’re going to have it out, Parson.”

  “It’ll make a lot of dust,” said the Parson. “But I’ll have to break you up small enough for pocket size one of these days. You’re too fresh, Jingo.”

  Jingo smiled meditatively. He waved toward the picture before them.

  “The whole world knows that we’re coming here,” he observed.

  “The whole world kno
ws that you’re coming ... and that I’m with you,” corrected the Parson. “It wouldn’t be enough for you to bust in on that dance, you had to stand up and announce that you’re going to call on the lady at her own home. Well, go on and call, and meet your finish. Because that’s what it will be when you try to get into that house. I’ll call for the body tomorrow.”

  He rolled a cigarette. Jingo took it out of his hand and threw it away.

  “If we’re close enough to see the dust come out of every forkful of that hay,” said Jingo, “they’re close enough to see the smoke come out of this patch of brush. We might as well be careful.”

  “All right,” said the Parson. “Tell me what scheme you’ve got in your crazy head?”

  “I haven’t any scheme,” Jingo answered.

  “Hey!” cried the Parson. “You mean that you’ve rode out here all the way without no idea in your head of how you’re going to get into that house?”

  “Never worry about a bridge till you come to it,” answered Jingo. “They’ve got more men about than I figured on. That’s the chief trouble. And a fellow like Judge Tyrrel is apt to be thorough-minded. It might just happen that he won’t want me to call on his girl.”

  “Maybe he won’t know that you’re going to come?” the Parson suggested hopefully.

  “A fellow like Tyrrel knows everything,” said Jingo. “Besides, she’ll tell him. A girl like that doesn’t keep secrets from the head of the family. That’s the difference, Parson, between her and the rest. That’s why she has clean eyes. Because she washes her mind clean every day of her life. Little secrets are what dirty up the souls of most women. But there’s nothing small about her.”

  “She’s the queen, eh?” the Parson said.

  “That’s what she is.”

  “Then a rosy chance you’ve got of getting her for yourself,” said the Parson.

  “I keep running,” Jingo answered, “not because I expect to win the race, but because I like the exercise. But how am I to get into that house?”

  “My head,” the Parson admitted, “is as empty as a doggone’ bell. There ain’t any way you can get into the house.”

  “Suppose that I were to sneak into one of the barns?” suggested Jingo. “And ... Look here, Parson. Do you think that Tyrrel’s men will be wearing guns on account of you and me?”

  “On account of you, they certain sure will be wearing guns,” replied the Parson. “And when they salt you down with lead, you’ll stay dead as long as a side of pork.”

  “Simply because a fellow is coming to call?” Jingo commented. “It’s absurd for them to go that far.”

  “Well, suppose that the girl has a kind of a notion that you’re the prince of the range, and her father knows what she feels? Ain’t he going to do what he can to side-step you? And if you come around there trespassing ... mightn’t you be a burglar or something? But hurry up with your ideas. It’s going to be sundown before very long.”

  Beneath them, two more hay wagons came groaning around the side of the hill, running down the grade against the brakes, the horses backing into their breechings and shuffling their hoofs, while the long poles thrust out and up, swaggering from side to side.

  “Well,” said Jingo, “there’s only one thing for me to do, and that’s to turn myself into hay. Once I get into those barns, I’m a poor fool if I can’t wangle it as far as the house.”

  “Turn yourself into hay?” Parson said. “Now, whatcha mean by that?”

  “Keep the horses and stay near this spot,” answered Jingo. “I’ve got an idea that may bring me nothing but the tines of a Jackson fork among my ribs, but I’m going to try it out.”

  “Well, go to it,” said the Parson.

  He held out his vast hand and took that of Jingo with an almost gentle pressure.

  “If anything happens to you,” the Parson said, “I’m going to take and kick Judge Tyrrel and his whole ranch into a stack of kindling wood.”

  “Thanks,” said Jingo. “But nothing is going to happen. I’ve got luck in my bones.”

  With that he left the brush, ran back down the rear slope of the hill, and came out through a little gullet just as the last of the two wagons was passing.

  The Parson, from his post of vantage, could see his companion climb up the back of the hayrack and wriggle instantly, with snakelike speed, into the top of the load. And, lifting his big hands, the Parson shook them in a silent wonder at the sky.

  Jingo had tied his bandanna over his face up to his eyes. He would have been glad to cover the eyes, also, for the dust and chaff that stirred in the load of hay threatened to blind him. Breathing through the silk, he was at least assured of not stifling.

  He kept working until he was at what he felt to the right depth in the upper layer of the hay. His hope was simply that he would be included in a forkful of the hay, and that when the Jackson fork was dumped in the mow, he would fall with it, and be able to wriggle through the dust cloud and the flying hay out of the observation of the men who were in the mow.

  He felt that he had one chance in five, but he was accustomed to taking the short end of long odds. The chances against him were that he would be found as soon as the driver of the load began to walk over it after halting his wagon beside the barn; that the Jackson fork itself would be fleshed in his body; that even if that were not the case, the weight of his body would prove that something was wrong when the forkful was lifted by the derrick team, and that, if the fall from the traveling beam at the top of the barn were very great, he might be stunned or even break his neck when the fork was tripped. Last of all, of course, there was the very high chance that the men in the barn, stowing the hay, would discover him as he tried to wriggle into hiding.

  When he added up these chances, he told himself that he was the greatest fool in the world. He was prepared to slide out from the load, but at that moment he heard many voices all about him, and over the amber sunshine that seeped through the hay above his face there passed a cool wall of shadow. The wagon halted, and he knew that he was under the door of the barn.

  Whatever he feared, it was too late to make a change now. He had to submit.

  Fear in a vast wave came over him, stifling him. After all, the thing had not gone very far. It was only a jest, a prank, and if he appeared out of the load of hay, he would be thrown off the place, to be sure, but he would be thrown off with no more than jeers and laughter.

  But pride was the controlling devil in the heart of Jingo. And when he thought of being hustled off the ranch, he set his teeth grimly and waited.

  And still the fear was choking him. He heard the rustling and crunching of the hay as the driver of the wagon, leaving his seat, caught the guide rope of the big Jackson fork with its array of four glistening steel tines, each sharper than a dagger. Those curving teeth would run through his body as through butter. And the driver was coming aft on the load to commence forking it off from that end where Jingo lay!

  Chapter Sixteen

  Before the unloading commenced, however, there was an argument that made Jingo fear that he had made this journey for nothing, perhaps. And that he would have to lie there in the load of hay, able only to sneak away for safety during the middle of the night.

  A man’s voice nearby said: “It’s damned near sunset time. There ain’t enough time to snake off this load. It’ll be getting dark up there in the mow. We ought to quit right here.”

  “What’s the good?” said the gruff voice of the driver. “We gotta work all night, don’t we? What’s the good of knocking off this job and starting to walk a beat? Is that any good? You’re going to be tired of that before morning, I can tell you.”

  “It’s a fool’s game, anyway,” said the other. “He ain’t going to come anywhere near.”

  “Sure he ain’t, but we’ll get extra pay for the time we put in walking around. And suppose he does show up, the gent that po
ts him will get a cash present that’ll keep him flush for a year.”

  “He won’t show up. Not even Jingo is fool enough to try to walk in through the whole gang, all for the sake of a joke, too.”

  “Well, sink your fork, and we’ll get that load off.”

  Jingo dared not stir for fear of making a noise that might betray him, but he shrank inwardly and lay still in dread. He had a more desperate impulse than ever to spring up from the hay and get out of this pinch. For it was clear that everything he feared might happen was actually in the air. The big gangs of men who worked for Judge Tyrrel were armed and expected to remain on duty all through the night to prevent the approach of Jingo.

  And now he lay like a fool in a load of hay, waiting to be pronged like a senseless beast.

  He heard the rope run with a loose rattle in the pulley far overhead. Then there was a great crash in the hay near him, a puffing of dust and chaff into his face.

  “All-l-l right!” yelled the wagoner.

  The derrick driver called to his team and snapped his black snake. The pulley above the wagon rattled again, then groaned as the rope began to straighten at the weight of the embedded fork. The whole load of hay shuddered. There was a pulling on the masses in which Jingo lay so that he hoped that his own body would be drawn up at this first venture. There with a tearing, crunching sound the fork-load was torn clear of the rest of the hay. The rope ran up more easily, more swiftly. High above, the fork clinked as it struck the carrier and the iron wheels of the carrier rumbled softly as the load was swept along that hanging track into the mow.

  “Dump!” called a stifled voice inside.

  There was a rushing sound followed by the thump of a good, solid blow.

  Jingo closed his eyes and shut back a groan. It seemed that the mow of this barn was just beginning to fill, and there might be a fall of forty feet from the roof to the low level of the mowed hay.

  “Don’t try to snake off the whole load in two bites!” yelled the angry voice of the derrick driver. “What you trying to do? Break the backs of these horses?”