The Long Shadow, B. M. Bower [best books to read fiction .txt] 📗

that Other. And as he rode, the face of him was worn and the blue eyes of him sombre and dull; and his mouth, that had lost utterly the humorous, care-free quirk at the corners, was bitter, and straight, and hard.

He had started out with such naïve assurance to succeed, and—he had failed so utterly, so hopelessly, with not even a spectacular crash to make the failing picturesque. He had done the best that was in him, and even now that it was over he could not quite understand how everything, everything could go like that; how the Double-Crank and Flora—how the range, even, had slipped from him. And now Dill was gone, too, and he did not even know where, or if he would ever come back.

He would pay the men; he had, with a surprising thrift, saved nearly a thousand dollars in the bank at Tower. That, to be sure, was when he had Flora to save for; since then he had not had time or opportunity to spend it foolishly. It would take nearly every dollar; the way he had figured it, he would have just twenty-three dollars left for himself—and he would have the little bunch of horses he had in his prosperity acquired for the pure love of owning a good horse. He would sell the horses, except Barney and one to pack his bed, and he would drift—drift just as do the range-cattle when a blizzard strikes them in the open. Billy felt like a stray. His range was gone—gone utterly. He would roll his bed and drift; and perhaps, somewhere, he could find a stretch of earth as God had left it, unscarred by fence and plow, undefiled by cabbages and sugar-beets (Brown's new settlers were going strong on sugar-beets).

"Well, it's all over but the shouting," he summed up grimly when Hardup came in sight. "I'll pay off the men and turn 'em loose—all but Jim. Somebody's got to stay with the Bridger place till Dilly shows up, seeing that's all he's got left after the clean-up. The rest uh the debts can wait. Brown's mortgage ain't due yet" (Billy had his own way of looking at financial matters) "and the old Siwash ain't got any kick comin' if he never gets another cent out uh Dilly. The bank ain't got the cards to call Dilly now, for his note ain't due till near Christmas. So I reckon all I got to do after I pay the boys is take m' little old twenty-three plunks, and my hosses—if I can't sell 'em right off—and pull out for God-knows-where-and-I-don't-care-a-damn!"

Charming Billy Boyle had done all that he had planned to do, except that he had not yet pulled out for the place he had named picturesquely for himself. Much as at the beginning, he was leaning heavily upon the bar in the Hardup Saloon, and his hat was pushed back on his head; but he was not hilarious to the point of singing about "the young thing," and he was not, to any appreciable extent, enjoying himself. He was merely adding what he considered the proper finishing touch to his calamities. He was spinning silver dollars, one by one, across the bar to the man with the near-white apron, and he was endeavoring to get the worth of them down his throat. To be sure, he was being assisted, now and then, by several acquaintances; but considering the fact that a man's stomach has certain well-defined limitations, he was doing very well, indeed.

When he had spun the twenty-third dollar to the bartender, Billy meant to quit drinking for the present; after that, he was not quite clear as to his intentions, farther than "forking his hoss and pulling out" when there was no more to be done. He felt uneasily that between his present occupation and the pulling-out process lay a duty unperformed, but until the door swung open just as he was crying, "Come on, fellows," he had not been able to name it.

The Pilgrim it was who entered jauntily; the Pilgrim, who had not chanced to meet Billy once during the summer, and so was not aware that the truce between them was ended for good and all. He knew that Billy had not at any time been what one might call cordial, but that last stare of displeasure when they met in the creek at the Double-Crank, he had set down to a peevish mood. Under the circumstances, it was natural that he should walk up to the bar with the rest. Under the circumstances, it was also natural that Billy should object to this unexpected and unwelcome guest, and that the vague, unperformed duty should suddenly flash into his mind clear, and well-defined, and urgent.

"Back up, Pilgrim," was his quiet way of making known his purpose. "Yuh can't drink on my money, old-timer, nor use a room that I'm honoring with my presence. Just right now, I'm here. It's up to you to back out—away out—clean outside and across the street."

The Pilgrim did not move.

Billy had been drinking, but his brain was not of the stuff that fuddles easily, and he was not, as the Pilgrim believed, drunk. His eyes when he stared hard at the Pilgrim were sober eyes, sane eyes—and something besides.

"I said it," he reminded softly, when men had quit shuffling their feet and the room was very still.

"I don't reckon yuh know what yuh said," the Pilgrim retorted, laughing uneasily and shifting his gaze a bit. "What they been doping yuh with, Bill? There ain't any quarrel between you and me no more." His tone was abominably, condescendingly tolerant, and his look was the look which a mastiff turns wearily upon a hysterical toy-terrier yapping foolishly at his knees. For the Pilgrim had changed much in the past year and more during which men had respected him because he was not considered quite safe to trifle with. According to the reputation they gave him, he had killed a man who had tried to kill him, and he could therefore afford to be pacific upon occasion.

Billy stared at him while he drew a long breath; a breath which seemed to press back a tangible weight of hatred and utter contempt for the Pilgrim; a breath while it seemed that he must kill him there and stamp out the very semblance of humanity from his mocking face.

"Yuh don't know of any quarrel between you and me? Yuh say yuh don't?" Billy's voice trembled a little, because of the murder-lust that gripped him. "Well, pretty soon, I'll start in and tell yuh all about it—maybe. Right now, I'm going t' give a new one—one that yuh can easy name and do what yuh damn' please about." Whereupon he did as he had done once before when the offender had been a sheepherder. He stepped quickly to one side of the Pilgrim, emptied a glass down inside his collar, struck him sharply across his grinning mouth, and stepped back—back until there were eight or ten feet between them.

"That's the only way my whisky can go down your neck!" he said.

Men gasped and moved hastily out of range, never doubting what would happen next. Billy himself knew—or thought he knew—and his hand was on his gun, ready to pull it and shoot; hungry—waiting for an excuse to fire.

The Pilgrim had given a bellow that was no word at all, and whirled to come at Billy; met his eyes, wavered and hesitated, his gun in his hand and half-raised to fire.

Billy, bent on giving the Pilgrim a fair chance, waited another second; waited and saw fear creep into the bold eyes of the Pilgrim; waited and saw the inward cringing of the man. It was like striking a dog and waiting for the spring at your throat promised by his snarling defiance, and then seeing the fire go from his eyes as he grovels, cringingly confessing you his master, himself a cur.

What had been hate in the eyes of Billy changed slowly to incredulous contempt. "Ain't that enough?" he cried disgustedly. "My God, ain't yuh man enough—Have I got to take yuh by the ear and slit your gullet like they stick pigs—or else let yuh go? What are yuh, anyhow? Shall I give my gun to the bar-keep and go out where it's dark? Will yuh be scared to tackle me then?" He laughed and watched the yellow terror creep over the face of the Pilgrim at the taunt. "What's wrong with your gun? Ain't it working good to-night? Ain't it loaded?

"Heavens and earth! What else have I got to do before you'll come alive? You've been living on your rep as a bad man to monkey with, and pushing out your wishbone over it for quite a spell, now—why don't yuh get busy and collect another bunch uh admiration from these fellows? I ain't no lightning-shot man! Papa Death don't roost on the end uh my six-gun—or I never suspicioned before that he did; but from the save-me-quick look on yuh, I believe yuh'd faint plumb away if I let yuh take a look at the end uh my gun, with the butt-end toward yuh!

"Honest t' God, Pilgrim, I won't try to get in ahead uh yuh! I couldn't if I tried, because mine's at m' belt yet and I ain't so swift. Come on! Please—purty please!" Billy looked around the room and laughed. He pointed his finger mockingly "Ain't he a peach of a Bad Man, boys? Ain't yuh proud uh his acquaintance? I reckon I'll have to turn my back before he'll cut loose. Yuh know, he's just aching t' kill me—only he don't want me to know it when he does! He's afraid he might hurt m' feelings!"

He swung back to the Pilgrim, went close, and looked at him impertinently, his head on one side. He reached out deliberately with his hand, and the Pilgrim ducked and cringed away. "Aw, look here!" he whined. "I ain't done nothing to yuh, Bill!"

Billy's hand dropped slowly and hung at his side. "Yuh—damned—coward!" he gritted. "Yuh know yuh wouldn't get any more than an even break with me, and that ain't enough for yuh. You're afraid to take a chance. You're afraid—God!" he cried suddenly, swept out of his mockery by the rage within. "And I can't kill yuh! Yuh won't show nerve enough to give me a chance! Yuh won't even fight, will yuh?"

He leaned and struck the Pilgrim savagely. "Get out uh my sight, then! Get out uh town! Get clean out uh the country! Get out among the coyotes—they're nearer your breed than men!" For every sentence there was a stinging blow—a blow with the flat of his hand, driving the Pilgrim back, step by step, to the door. The Pilgrim, shielding his head with an uplifted arm, turned then and bolted out into the night.