The Man From Bar-20, Clarence E. Mulford [distant reading TXT] 📗

you think yo’re doin’?” inquired a calm voice behind him.

He wheeled and saw a man regarding him with level gaze, and across the street was a second, who sat on one horse and held fast to another.

“Tryin’ to get in for a treat,” grinned Johnny, full of laughter. “Had a spat with Pop an’ Charley, an’ cussed if they ain’t locked me out!”

The stranger showed no answering smile. “That so?” he sneered. “Reckon you better come along with me, ‘round front, till I hears what Hayes has to say about it. I don’t believe he’s home.”

Johnny’s expression changed from a careless grin to an ominous frown. “If you do any walkin’ you’ll do it alone.”

Several people had been drawn to the scene and took in the proceedings with eager eyes and ears, but were careful to keep to one side. Jim Ackerman had a reputation which made such a location very much a part of discretion; and the two-gun man had been well discussed by Pop.

“I finds you tryin’ a man’s window,” said Ackerman. “So I stopped to ask about it. As long as I’ve took this much trouble I’ll go through with it. You comin’ peaceful, or must I drag you around?”

“Mebby that’s a job you’d like to tackle?” replied Johnny.

“I’m aimin’ to be peaceful,” rejoined Ackerman, his voice as smooth as oil; “but I allus aim to do what I say. You comin’ with me?”

“If yo’re aimin’ to be peaceful, yo’re plumb crosseyed,” retorted Johnny, slouching away from the wall.

Quick steps sounded within the building and a frightened, high-pitched voice could be heard. “Couple of bobcats lookin’ for holts,” it said. “That feller Nelson is pickin’ on somebody else.”

The window raised and Pop stuck his angry face out to see what was going on; and his wrinkled countenance paled suddenly when he saw Ackerman, and the look in his eyes. He had a trout in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, and both fell to the ground

“Jumpin’ mavericks!” he whispered. “It’s Ackerman! What’s wrong, Jim?” he quavered.

“You saved us a walk,” replied Ackerman, not taking his eyes from the flushed face of his enemy. “I caught him tryin’ to open that window.”

Charley thrust his head out as Pop replied. “We was playin’ a joke on him. It’s all right, Jim. Much obliged for yore unusual interest.”

“Well, I’m glad of that,” smiled Ackerman; “but he looked suspicious an’ I reckoned I ought to drag him around an’ show you what I found tryin’ to bust in. But if you say it’s all right, why I reckon it is!”

“I reckon it ain’t!’: snapped Johnny, enraged at his humiliating position and at the way Ackerman accented his words. “An’ if that itchin’ m^^r-finger of yourn wants to get busy it has my permission,” he mimicked. “Pop,” he said, sharply, “who is this buzzard?”

“No need to get riled over a thing like that,” faltered Pop.

“Shut yore trap!” snapped Charley, battle in his eyes. “That’s Ackerman, relative of Quigley’s; th’ best six-gun man in th’ country.”

“Thanks,” growled Johnny, staring through narrowed lids at Ackerman, who stood alert, his lips twitching with contempt. “When a dog pesters me I kick him; if he snaps at me I shoot him. I’m goin I to kick you to yore cayuse an’ yore friend.” He had been sliding forward while he spoke and now they stood face to face, an arm’s length apart.

Ackerman suddenly made two lightning-like movements. His left hand leaped out to block his enemy’s right in its draw, while his own right flashed down to his gun. As his fingers closed on the butt, Johnny’s heavy Colt by some miracle of speed jabbed savagely into the pit of the scheming man’s stomach with plenty of strength behind it, and Ackerman doubled up like a jackknife, his breath jolted out of him with a loud grunt. Johnny’s right hand smacked sharply on his enemy’s cheek, left vivid finger marks, which flashed white and then crimson, and continued on down; and when it stopped a plain, Frontier Colt peeked coyly from his hip at the surprised and chagrined gentleman across the street, who had been instructed to remain a noncombatant; and had no intention, whatsoever, of disobeying Ackerman’s emphatic order. To reveal his status he quickly raised his hands and clasped them on the top of his hat, which is a more comfortable position than holding them stiffly aloft.

Ackerman was dazed and sick, for the solar plexus is a peculiarly sensitive spot, and his hands instinctively had forsaken offense and spasmodically leaped to the agonized nerve center.

“Turn around!” snapped Johnny viciously. “Pronto! There’s dust on th’ seat of yore pants.”

Ackerman groaned and obeyed, and the hurtling impact of a boot drove him to his hands and knees.

“Get agoin’!” ordered Johnny, aflame with anger, slipping the right hand gun back into its holster and motioning with the other.

Ackerman, his eyes blazing, started on his humble journey, assisted frequently by the boot; and having crossed the street, he paused.

“Get up on that cayuse!” crisply ordered Johnny, making motions which increased the mounted man’s uneasiness.

The further Ackerman had crawled the angrier he had become, and tears of rage streaked the dust on his face. At Johnny’s last command and the kick which accompanied it, his good sense and all thought of safety left him. He arose with a spring, a berserker, trembling with rage, and reached for his gun with convulsive speed while looking into his enemy’s weapon with unseeing eyes. There was a flash, a roar, and a cloud of smoke at Johnny’s hip, and a glittering sixshooter sprang into the air, spinning rapidly. Ackerman did not feel the shock which numbed his hand, but leaped forward straight at his enemy’s throat. Johnny swerved quickly and his right hand swung up in a short, vicious arc. Ackerman, too crazed to avoid it, took the blow on the point of his jaw and dropped like a stone.

Johnny stepped back and looked evilly at the man on the horse.

“Gimme yore gun, butt first. Thanks. You work for Quigley?”

The other nodded slowly.

“Friend of this hombre?”

“Yes; sort of.”

“Then why didn’t you cut in?”

“Why, I—I—” the other hesitated, and stopped.

“Spit it!—”

“Well, I wasn’t supposed to,” coldly replied the horseman.

“Then it was talked over?”

“Not particular. Jim does his own fightin’, hisself.”

I “Good thing for Jim, an’ you, too,” retorted Johnny. “When it’s crowded I can’t allus be polite. Who put that sign on my door?”

“What sign?”

“I’m askin’ you questions!” snapped Johnny, his eyes blazing anew.

“Dunno nothin’ about it,” answered the other.

“I reckon yo’re a practiced liar,” retorted Johnny. “But it don’t make no difference. I’m leavin’ th’ valley, for I can’t fight pot-shooters an’ do any work at th’ same time. Quigley don’t own this country, an’ you tell him that while he’s boss of that little valley, I’m boss in this town. If him or any of his men come to town while I’m here I’ll shoot ‘em down like I would a snake. That means one at a time or all together; an’ if he don’t believe me, you tell him I’ll be here all day tomorrow. There ain’t no bushes in town, an’ none of yore gang can fight without ‘em. Now you say to him that I don’t want no remarks made about what I was doin’ up there you savvy that? If I hear of any I’ll slip up there some night an’ blow him all over his shirt. An’ d—n you, I mean it!”

Ackerman stirred and sat up, looking around in a dazed way. When his eyes fell on Johnny they lost their puzzled look and blazed again with rage. He reached swiftly to his holster, found it empty, and shrugged his shoulders.

Johnny regarded him coldly. “Get on that cayuse, an’ start goin’. This town ain’t big enough for both of us at once.”

Ackerman silently obeyed, but his face was distorted with passion. When he had clawed himself into the saddle he looked down on the grim master of the situation.

“Words are foolish,” he whispered. “We’ll meet again! “

Johnny nodded. “I reckon so. Everybody plays their cards accordin’ to their own judgment. Just now I got a high straight flush, so you hit th’ trail, pronto!”

He stepped aside to get out of the dust-cloud which suddenly swirled around him, and watched it roll northward until the dim figures in it were lost to sight around a bend. The slouch went out of his bearing as he straightened up and slid his gun into its holster, and walking over to Ackerman’s glittering sixshooter he picked it up and sneered at it.

“I ain’t surprised,” he laughed, eying the ivory handle and the ornate engraving. Wheeling abruptly he glanced carelessly at the grinning audience and strode to the door of Pop’s saloon.

“I’ll be d–-d!” sputtered Pop, his eyes still bulging.

“Reckon you will,” laughed Johnny, “unless you mends yore sinful ways.”

“What you been doin’ to make Jim Ackerman pick a fight with you?” demanded Pop, recovering his faculties and his curiosity at the same instant.

“Here’s his gun; an’ here’s his friend’s,” said Johnny. “Keep ‘em for ‘em. They plumb went off without ‘em.”

Pop openly admired Ackerman’s weapon. “Bet that cost a heap,” he remarked. “Ain’t she a beauty?” He rubbed energetically at a leaden splotch on the cylinder.

“It was in good company,” replied Johnny.

“You got to look out for him,” Pop warned. “He’s a bad Injun.” Then he grinned suddenly. “But he come d–-d near bein’ a good Injun!”

“Hey!” called a peeved voice from within. “If you reckon I’m goin’ to clean all these fish myself, you better copper yore bets.” Footsteps approached the door and Charley roughly elbowed Pop aside. “That means you, too, Nelson,” he growled. “What you mean, hangin’ back at th’ ford? Figger we’d have ‘em all cleaned before you arrove? Well, if you aim to eat any of ‘em, you grab holt of a knife an’ get busy!” He shuffled back into the room again, muttering: “Gripes! I’m fish from my head to my heels, an I bloody as a massacre. An’ what’s more, I ain’t goin’ to clean another d–-d one, not nohow!”