The Hair-Trigger Kid, Max Brand [best classic literature TXT] 📗

Chapter 21 - Watching

The reputation of Tom Slocum was very high among those who knew. It was

increased now by his bearing toward the Kid. For he seemed interested in

only one thing, and that was the hard, square angle of the end of the

Kid’s chin.

 

“Tell me, Kid,” said Slocum. “You’re anxious for a pair of us to come up

here and have it out with you—with guns?”

 

“I’m not anxious, Tom,” the Kid hastened to inform him. “But you boys are

on one side of the fence, and I’m on the other. If you want a little

action to stir up the game, come along and have it. That’s all that I

mean.”

 

“Come on down with me,” suggested Tom Slocum, “and pick out the fellow

you want to make number two with me.”

 

“I won’t come down, Tom,” replied the Kid. “You’ve given me enough names.

Plenty enough to suit me. Any one of them will do. I wouldn’t cramp your

style, Tom, by telling you who was to play partners with you.”

 

Slocum turned burning eyes from the Kid to Bud Trainor.

 

“You’re number two in this party, are you?” asked Slocum.

 

And Bud, with a nod, waved his hand toward the Kid, as much as to say

that he had been elected by that formidable youth for whatever work lay

ahead.

 

“I’ll go down and find out what the boys say,” declared Slocum. “Just

wait up here, will you?”

 

“We’ll be here,” said the Kid, and Slocum, turning his horse, jogged

quietly off down the slope.

 

But Trainor kept an anxious eye fixed on his companion. Nervously Bud

passed his hand under his coat to the new spring holster which was

attached under the pit of his left arm. He had adopted this contrivance

at the suggestion of the Kid, but still it seemed strange to him. He had

practiced until the Kid declared that his time on a draw was less than it

had been when pulling from the hip. Still, he was uncertain. Next, he

slipped his hand down along the stock of the Winchester which, in its

long holster, ran down between his right leg and the saddle. But the Kid

did not seem to see these uneasy movements of his companion.

 

He was too busy, it appeared, in watching the motions of the crowd of

cattle which milled on the slope. Some of them lay down, their heads

sinking low as though they were already far spent. These, doubtless, were

the ones which had come in from a great distance, half dead with thirst

and on fire with eagerness for water. Every hour they spent was bringing

them closer to death. Others, again, were mixing in swirls and tangles.

Some of them ran with their heads high. Others swung their horns right

and left, redeyed with the burning famine, eager to fight. And brigades

of these, from time to time, surged ahead toward the fence line, where

they crowded close, lifting their heads above the top strand and pressing

their throats and breasts against the cruel barbs. There they hung, until

the riders swept down the line and flogged them away with whips. Even

whips were not enough, now and again. They had to fire blank cartridges

into the faces of the poor beasts, which then milled slowly away to a

short distance. The same scene was duplicated on the farther side of

Hurry Creek by equal numbers of the animals.

 

Over the fence, a little away from the spot where “Dolly”

 

Smith had jumped his horse across, another rider now sprinted his mount

toward Dolly.

 

The latter turned in his saddle, reining in to meet this danger from

behind.

 

“Now watch Champ Dixon work,” said the Kid, laughing softly. “It’ll be

worth while. He is a champ, when it comes to a job like this.”

 

“Smith oughta break him in two,” said Bud Trainor, “if Dixon means

fighting. Smith has got twenty pounds on him!”

 

“Twenty pounds of man, and Champ is all wild cat. You see?”

 

Champ Dixon leaped out of his saddle like a panther, and plunging through

the air, he tackled Smith and hurled him to the ground like a stone. They

rolled over and over, raising a dust, but then Dixon stood up, and Dolly

Smith remained in a heap on the ground.

 

“He’s broken his neck!” said Bud Trainor, in horror. “I saw his head bend

back as he hit—he’s busted his neck—”

 

“That won’t bother Champ Dixon any,” said the Kid. “He’s broken necks

before this. Look at the strength in his hands.”

 

For Champ Dixon, leaning, picked up the fallen man like a child and

literally threw him across the empty saddle of Dolly’s horse, which had

come back to sniff at its fallen master.

 

A shout went up from the Dixon men. It roared dimly up the slope, mingled

with the continual voices of Hurry Creek.

 

“Gents like to see a thing like that,” said Bud Trainor. “They’ll eat out

of the hollow of Dixon’s hand, after this, but how could you of knowed

how all of this would happen, Kid?”

 

“Oh, I know Dixon. He’s a fox, as well as a panther. Do you think that

he’d let any pair of the boys come up here to fight it out? Not at all!

If they were dropped, you and I could grab one of them and ride him back

to the ranch house in a rush. Then we could claim that he and his partner

had come out and attacked us. Malice prepense!”

 

“What’s that?” asked Trainor.

 

“Trouble that’s been planned ahead. On the strength of that, we probably

could get the sheriff out here from Dry Creek to slap an injunction on

Dixon and Shay, and spoil their whole show. That’s what I wanted—to get

that crook Dixon to offer to take a first hold. Then we could have thrown

him hard enough to snap his back. No, no, Bud. He’s taking Dolly back to

camp, but Dolly won’t ever forgive him, and a lot of other boys will feel

the same way. We’ve split that crowd into two sections. We’ve cracked the

solid formation, anyway! If Dixon could only gather us in and make sure

of our scalps, he’d strike soon enough. But he’ll take no chances!”

 

Dixon, with his reclaimed puncher, now entered the fenced enclosure along

the creek through the narrow gate which had been left there, and another

shout went up from the mob.

 

“Those are the ones who are willing to lick his boots,” said the Kid.

“The others will hate them for it. Slow poison will work as sure as a

quick one, sometimes. I’m going to start hoping!”

 

A group of twenty or thirty cows, which had begun to mill aimlessly,

suddenly broke and headed straight for the two of them. The Kid shouted a

warning, and the Duck Hawk, as if with a sudden stroke of wings, floated

well to the side of the charge. But Bud Trainor’s less electric animal

barely got aside, switching its tail across the savage horns of the

flanking cow.

 

This mad charge went thundering on over the hill and wasted itself on

nothingness. But all the animals on the slope began to toss their heads,

and their eyes were red with anger.

 

“They’ll settle down, pretty soon,” said the Kid. “They’ll settle down

and get groggy. Before long, they’ll be too weak to stand. Oh, thirst

kills ‘em almost like bullets.”

 

“Aye,” said Bud Trainor. “I remember once when I was making a drive with

Ned Powell and Pete Lawlor, up the old Santa Fe, we found two water holes

dry, one after another, and there were nine hundred head beginning to sag

at the knees—”

 

“Let it go!” groaned the Kid. “I don’t want to hear about it. It makes me

sick, Bud. It makes my heart grip and turn over. Child murder—that’s

what it is!”

 

“It’s a low business,” agreed Bud.

 

But he looked at his companion with wonder.

 

“After all, Kid,” he could not help saying, “they ain’t your cows!”

 

“What difference does that make?” asked the Kid, turning on him almost

fiercely. “They’re helpless, aren’t they? And the curs who’ll take

advantage of a helpless cow, or a helpless woman, or a helpless man, for

that matter—”

 

He stopped in the midst of his tirade, and seemed ashamed of himself. But

he was so worked up by his emotion that the Duck Hawk partook of the

excitement, and began to prance lightly up and down, her fetlock joints

almost touching the ground, so supple was their play.

 

“Hold on, Kid,” said Bud Trainor. “What’s the meaning of the three of

‘em, over yonder?”

 

He pointed out three riders who had left the gate and headed to the

right, northward, pointing toward the rim of the hills.

 

The Kid took keen note of them. Then he turned sharply about in the

saddle.

 

“I thought so—the old fox!” said he. And he chuckled. “What is it?”

asked Bud.

 

“See those four who are sneaking off through that gap where the fence

isn’t finished? They’re heading south, but they aim to swing around and

join hands with that bunch which is moving north, and then they’ll have

us in a net!”

 

He laughed, and calling to Bud not to press his horse too much, they

cantered back across the hills toward the ranch house. They had barely

topped the second rise of the hills, when they could see the two groups

of riders, both to the right and the left, spurring their horses wildly

forward, jockeying them and leaning into the wind of the gallop like so

many Indians.