Snipe drove across the yard with the buckboard and stopped. “Any orders?”
Mamerock shook his head. “You know the folks I always ask to come. Find ’em and leave an invite. Don’t get drunk. And don’t pass out any invite to the buzzards. Remember that, Snipe. It’s been a pride o’ mine to honor every invite presented at the bridge. They’re the same as old Rube Mamerock’s word, no matter whose fists they get into. The buzzards know that, Snipe. So see you don’t give any the wrong way. And don’t get drunk. Hustle on. And say—”
His cheeks fell away from the accustomed hardness; he almost smiled. “You might stop in at the saloon or the hotel and find Ray Casteen. Say to her I’m countin’ time till I hear her sing tomorra.”
“Leave a invite to her?” questioned Snipe.
“No, you fool brute!” snapped Mamerock. “What’s she need one for? She’s Sam Trago’s girl, ain’t she? He’ll bring her. Go on, drag a line.”
Snipe tooled the buckboard down the drive and across the insecure bridge. The old baron of Terese watched the puncher go eastward! And when the vehicle was but a dim blur in the distance he turned about and walked to the house. “The buzzards will shore be disappointed when I announce tomorrow that Sam Trago inherits the Ox Bow, lock, stock and barrel. They been waitin’ to pick up the pieces. God condemn ’em, they ain’t powerful enough to hurt old Rube Mamerock when he’s alive an’ they won’t dare touch Sam Trago when I’m gone! I’d been dead long ago if I didn’t know I had to hang on till Sam got hardened to man’s work. Now I can die.”
He got to the porch and sat down, letting his eyes roam away into the southern distances he knew and loved so well. Over a half century Rube Mamerock had watched the horizon in all its rounding moods. It was as much a part of him as his right hand. “Heaven,” he murmured, “may be a fair country, but I’ll sorter miss this.” He struggled with his pipe and looked at his trembling fingers with mild disapproval. “Just fallin’ to pieces. Worse the last three weeks. A heap worse. Well, one more chore done and I’ll sleep well. I want Sam should wed Ray Casteen in my place right sudden now. I misdoubt I’ll last a week after that event. Nothin’ to keep me goin’ then. Rube, you been a tough one. I’m sorter proud of what you did. Anxious to see what Gabriel’s got tallied ag’in me on the book. Sam an’ Ray—they’ll do well. Yeah, right well. The buzzards will sure go hungry.”
So he pondered, smoking his pipe, feeling the cold tide of dissolution creep inexorably along his body, knowing that for him the race was all but run and that in just a little while all there would be of Rube Mamerock was a scar on the earth and a pine board with his name and a single date.
Snipe drove briskly east in the direction of Terese town, gloomy and cheerful by turns. Snipe was a simple soul and worshipped his outfit and his boss with a single-tracked devotion. So he was cast down when he thought of the boss passing away, and he whistled the Cowboy’s Lament until he remembered he hadn’t had a drink for going on two months and he hadn’t bucked roulette for even longer than that. “Gosh, but I’m scandalous thirsty. I’ll go get me a drink. Just one little drink. Then I’ll spurn the redeye an’ be on my way. What was that system I doped out for buckin’ roulette, anyhow? Shore was a hummer. Got to remember that.”
He held the reins between his knees and with a stub of a pencil and a fragment of wrapping paper, plunged into an intricate system of gambling. The team put the miles behind, the land rose and fell with its endless sweeping billows. They passed a shanty, they galloped over a bridge. A horseman, unseen by the preoccupied Snipe, raced parallel on a remote bridge and drew gradually inward, arriving at the road some little distance ahead of Snipe. As the rig passed, the horseman had a clear look of the canvas bags and since he was an old hand in the country, he knew what Snipe’s mission was. He galloped in pursuit.
“Hey there, Snipe!”
Snipe bobbed in the seat and looked around with a half guilty air. The horseman waved a hand. “Pull down, kid, pull down. What’s the idee o’ snubbin’ a friend thataway?”
“Oh, hello there, Al,” muttered Snipe weakly. He stopped the rig. “Say, I wasn’t snubbin’ nobody. Jus’ a-doin’ some personal bookkeepin’. Yeah.”
Al grinned; and that grin made his slack and cynical face even more unlovely. He had a mouth the size and shape of an Indian’s and it sat unbalanced between a hatchet chin and a grotesque Roman nose. Snipe shifted his weight uneasily under Al’s long and knowing stare. “Listen, Al,” he protested, “yo’re allus makin’ fun o’ me. Cut it out. Ain’t I got a right to bookkeep?”
“Where yuh goin’, Snipe?”
“Town,” mumbled Snipe and fiddled with the reins. He wanted to be on his way, but he was too mild a soul to achieve bluntness with a man like Al.
Al looked at the canvas bags and winked. “Peddlin’ invites to old Rube’s party, uh?”
“Yeah,” said Snipe and stared absently at his feet.
“Well, that’s shore fine. I never did have drag enough to get an invite from him yet. But seein’ yo’re a friend o’ mine, why gimme one, Snipe.”
Snipe colored a little. “Now look here, Al, you an’ me is friends. I know we used to ride together. But I got strict orders about these invites. It ain’t my place to pass ’em promiscuous. I don’t believe I better do it.”
“So I ain’t good enough for yuh, huh?” snorted Al, manufacturing a presentable show of anger. “I never figgered a friend would ever toss me like that.”
“Aw, hell, Al, you know better,” protested Snipe, feeling pretty miserable. “Ain’t I said I got orders?”
“What’s the matter with me?” demanded Al.
Snipe fidgeted. Diplomacy was no part of his training, yet he had need of careful words here. “Well, I ain’t got the slightest doubt o’ yore character, Al. Say, I’d lend yuh ten bucks—if I had ten bucks. I ain’t forgettin’ we got drunk many a time, side by side. But yo’re trailin’ with Praygood Nuggins. My old man shore has got a canker against Praygood. Yuh know it same’s me. Well, how would it look if I give yuh an invite? Nossir, I don’t dast.”
“Nuggins,” was Al’s severe retort, “is a man o’ integrity.”
“Shore, shore,” Snipe hastened to state. “I ain’t castin’ no aspersions on his character, am I?” Privately, Snipe thought Nuggins to be a thorough scoundrel, but he skipped and slid nimbly around his inner convictions. He was afraid of rousing Al’s wrath. He stood in fear of Al, as a matter of fact. In other days, this grinning chap always had managed to bully or cajole or trick Snipe into meek obedience. Snipe was no warrior, when sober.
“Well, I’m shore glad to hear yuh ain’t,” Al muttered, with an ominous note. “Goin’ to town? Yeah, well move over and I’ll ride on the seat with yuh an’ lead my hoss.”
Snipe disliked this but he gave room and clucked his tongue. The team went on. Al made a gesture toward his pocket and brought out a flask. “Have a drink, Snipe.”
Snipe gave birth to a feeble groan. “Al, I oughtn’t do it. Honest, I oughtn’t. Yuh know me. Either I keep offen it total or else I get so drunk I’m filthy. An’ considerin’ what I got to do yet—”
Al raked him with a shrewd sidewise glance and appeared tremendously outraged. “Listen, Snipe, yuh wasn’t too good for me once. I take that personal. I shore take it personal. By gravy, I got a good notion to resent it!”
“Well, Al,” mumbled Snipe, “yuh got me wrong complete. An’ jus’ to show yuh I’m the same big-hearted fella I allus was I’ll take a nip. Gimme the bottle.”
“Fine. I knowed yuh was a friend. Let it trickle down.”
Snipe seized the bottle, tipped it to the gray afternoon’s sky and made a bow. He drank and looked around to Al, a different man. There was a quality in corn liquor that had the power of transforming Snipe almost instantly. At heart, this small and meek puncher felt unequal with the world. His very stature, contrasted with those robust riders continually around him, put a handicap on his pride. But once he resorted to the bo
ttle all barriers of size, distance and time fell. Snipe, when sober, had his dreams of making a lion of himself. When drunk this remote and well-buried ambition flamed up like a crusading torch. His voice changed, his glance became more severe, he spoke gruffer.
“Listen, Al, is this the only bottle yuh got?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s too bad,” stated Snipe. “It shore is too bad. I aim to drink it here an’ now.”
“Save a mite for me,” protested Al, though the protest was half-hearted.
“I’ll save the bottle, that’s all. Here’s mud in yore eyes.” Half of that flask’s contents vanished. Snipe’s cheeks took on color. His eyes glittered; he tipped his small chin upward and gave Al a hard, hard look. “Al, move over in this seat. I don’t like to be crowded.”
“You an’ me used to be friends,” mourned Al, giving room.
“We still is,” declared Snipe crisply. “But as for that sheep-stealin’, wolf-hearted, stone-eyed Praygood Nuggins you is chummin’ with—I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. He’s the biggest skunk in Terese. He’s skulkin’ around Ox Bow like a yaller mongrel, waitin’ for old Rube to kick the beam. Well, he shore has got some astonishment comin’ to him.”
Al’s interest focussed. “What’s that?”
“Don’t spit at me thataway or I’ll kick yuh offen this vehicle.”
“All right, don’t get sore. But what’s on Rube’s chest?”
“None o’ yore business. Yuh’ll discover in proper time. Al, I ain’t goin’ to tell yuh but once more to move over in this seat an’ gimme room.”
“Hell!” exploded Al. “I’m sittin’ clear off in space now! Well, I never figgered a day like this to come. You an’ me was friends once.”
“We still is,” asserted Snipe irately. He leaned back and ripped open the top of a canvas bag. Quite impressively he brought forth a single leaden slug. “I tell yuh—I’m goin’ to give yuh this invite. It’s an act o’ pure kindness on my part which yuh ain’t sensible enough to appreciate. Sometimes I like yuh—sometimes I don’t. Yore good instincks is good—but yore bad instincks is manifold and plumb putrid.”
Al accepted the slug with patent eagerness. He grinned broadly at Snipe and relaxed. “I won’t ever tell who give it to me.”
“That’s right—keep it dark.” Snipe drained the remaining half of the bottle and threw it into the sagebrush with great violence. There had been only a pint in it to begin with, but Snipe’s last drink had been a month previous and moreover he was of that unfortunate breed to whom a swallow was as deadly as a gallon. He clutched the reins and shouted a shrill “Eeeeyip!” He threw his hat after the now distant bottle and swayed in the rocketing buggy. He seized the brake handle and seemed about to tear it away from the vehicle. “Say, what makes us go so doggone’ slow? Al, quit draggin’ yore feet on the ground or I’ll kick yuh offen the stage!”
“Yo’re goin’ faster’n the law allows right now,” said Al. “Better slow down a little.”
Snipe stood up, thus imperiling his life; he lashed the rumps of the horses with the rein ends and cried weirdly into the deepening dusk of the afternoon. Al pulled him into the seat, at which Snipe launched into a long and detailed account of Al’s ancestors. All of whom turned out to be extraordinarily depraved in the narrative. Al bided his time, seeming to weigh the quality of Snipe’s drunkenness. Now and again he stole a look at the open bag of slugs within easy arm’s reach and once he dropped a casual fist in that direction. But Snipe saw the move and challenged his friend with unmistakable sharpness. “Cut that out!” Al desisted, knowing from experience just how far it was safe to trespass with an inebriated Snipe. Presently he tried another tack.
“Say, Snipe, ain’t yuh goin’ to give me an invite?”
Snipe gravely debated this. “Didn’t I give yuh one jus’ now?”
“Nope. Yuh only said yuh was goin’ to give me one. I ain’t got it yet. Yo’re drunk.”
“I ain’t drunk.” He fell into a profound study, emerging with this definite conviction. “About that invite—I figger I give yuh an invite. If I did give yuh one, that’s all right, though I oughtn’t to have done it. But if I didn’t give yuh an invite, that’s all right, too, because yuh ain’t got one comin’. Both ways don’t make no difference. I ain’t goin’ to do neither. Is that Terese up in the distance? Shore enough. Pile out and ride yore hoss into town. I got a reppitation to maintain and I don’t allow no Nuggins hirelin’s to be seen with me.”
Al departed from the vehicle, mounted his pony and galloped headlong into the prairie, skirting Terese and continuing toward the high and colorful ramparts some two miles or more ahead. Snipe entered Terese with the team at a dead run. He stabled his team, filled his pockets with the unique invitations, hid the rest in the hay, and sallied forth to do his chore. He did it with commendable exactness, too, for an hour or better. But around dusk an unquenched thirst drew him to the saloon. Al appeared out of the shadows and the two of them entered together. The hot air made Snipe’s head very woolly and from that moment onward he lost his bearings. He marked the sheriff with a glad heart. He saw the partners and gave to each a slug, thinking them to be somebody else. He delivered his oration and proceeded to the bar, glowing with pride of achievement. Thenceforth he was a lost soul and the buzzards—lying in wait—began to close in. Al kept at a discreet distance, supplying Snipe with whisky.
Chapter III: The Weaving of a Tangled Web
Praygood Nuggins stood inside the saloon only a moment; but in that moment Joe Breedlove knew that he had accomplished some definite purpose, sent out a clear warning to somebody. He turned toward the full light of the room and Joe’s eyes, half-closed, caught an unforgettable picture. Nuggins had the body of a veteran cavalryman; he carried himself like one. A silver-yellow mustache guarded a thin and grimly-set mouth—the mouth of a man who first had conquered himself before setting out upon a hard career. Above the mustache was a thin and swooping nose. His cheekbones were high, on a line with a pair of almond-shaped eyes that, catching the lights of the room, threw back an immensely cold gleam. Joe, who loved to draw figures out of the past and compare them with present actors, found no face in the long gallery of his memory to match that of Praygood Nuggins. It was flinty and dominant and with no single spark of compassion upon it. A hush fell across the saloon. Indigo, instinctively hostile on sight of such a man, muttered a sour phrase. Praygood Nuggins made a precise half-circle on his heels and was gone. It were as if a heavy hand had been lifted from the crowd. Voices rose.
“Let’s go,” grumbled Indigo. “How many times have I got to tell yuh I’m slowly passin’ away with hunger. I got to have nutriment. Joe, they is somethin’ almighty big smokin’ up hereabouts an’ somehow I don’t feel equal to the occasion. I feel sorter like a two-bit ante in a thousand-dollar pot.”
“You spoke words of wisdom,” murmured Joe, filing away in his mind the fact that the cynical-cheeked Al was making his exit with a leisured and apparently aimless manner. The partners sauntered toward the door. Joe pulled toward the counter and signaled for another drink. It was not entirely accident that he slid into a space beside the saloon proprietor. That gentleman dropped his head a scant half-inch in recognition of the maneuver. “The gent was Praygood Nuggins. I don’t talk politics much.”
“I reckon we’ve seen pro and con hereabouts in the last ten minutes,” drawled Joe.
“A fact,” assented the saloon man. He studied Joe with a closer interest. “I could stand to see more of you, friend. Drop in for a quiet drink some mornin’.”
“Who was Sam Trago?” asked Joe, hoisting his glass.
“Rube Mamerock’s right-hand man,” grunted the saloon proprietor. “That’s the Ox Bow, for which I note you received an invite. Figger to be some present tomorrow night?”
“Yeah.”
The saloon man shrugged his ample shoulders. “I’m goin’ also. It’s the fifty-first year o’ Rube’s rule in these parts. And”—w
ith a gentle slurring of the words—“his last.”
Joe drank and turned the glass between his fingers. “A tough old duck, huh?”
“A square old duck,” added the saloonkeeper with emphasis. He frowned and looked around him. “It’s been said, friend, that Rube ain’t got no heirs. I have also heard it passed he might pass the outfit on to Sam Trago.” Then, as if he had gone beyond the limit of discretion, he covered the statement with a quick phrase. “You know how them things is speculated. Judge for yourself. You know cattle country.”
“Yeah,” drawled Joe and looked the saloon man directly in the face. “What might be that fine girl’s name?”
“Ray Chasteen. She was to’ve married Sam Trago nex’ week.” The saloon man’s anger swelled out of him. “Damn that clumsy Crowheart!”
“A pretty name,” mused Joe, shoving the glass away from him. “I shore like yore layout here, friend. Reminds me of Abilene a long time back. When I was a kid once in Abilene—” He nodded at the proprietor and moved away with Indigo.
The partners stepped into the deep night. It had begun to rain and the gentle patter sounded on the shingles and in the dirt soothingly. There was a fog sifting through Terese. Lights made round crystal sprays in the gloom. A restaurant’s door was wide-open across the street and the partners entered and slouched by the counter. Joe seemed drowsy.
The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories Page 41