Red Saunders Part 16

Then Miss Mattie broached the question she had been hovering around ever since her guests had taken their leave.

"Do you think you'll really go into business with that young man who was here to dinner?" she asked.

"Why, I think it's kinder likely," said Red.

"But you don't know anything about him, Will," she continued, putting the weak side of her desire forward, in order to rest more securely if that stood the test.

"No, I don't," agreed Red. "But here's the way I feel about that: I want to be doing something according to my size; besides that, it would be a good thing for this place if some kind of a live doings was to start here. All right, that's my side of it. Now, as far as not knowing that young feller's concerned, I might think I knew him from cyclone-cellar to roof-tree, and he might do me to a crowded house. My idea is that life's a good deal like faro--you know how that is."

"I remember about his not letting the people go, but I'm afraid I don't know my Bible as well as I ought to, Will," apologised Miss Mattie, rather astonished at his allusion.

"Let the people go? Bible?" cried Red, laying down his knife and fork, still more astonished at her allusion. "Will you kindly tell me what that has to do with faro-bank? Girl, one of us is full of ghost songs, and far, far off the reservation. What in the name of Brigham Young's off-ox are you talking about?"

"Why, you spoke of Pharaoh, Will, and I can remember about his holding the children of Israel captive, and the plagues, but I really don't see just how it applies."

"Oh!" said Red, as a great light broke upon him. "Oh, I see what you're thinking about. The old boy who corralled the Jews, and made 'em work for the first and last time in their history, and they filled him full of fleas, and darkness, and all kinds of unpleasant experiences to break even? Well, I was not talking about him at all. My faro is a game played with a lay-out and a pack of cards and a little tin box that you ought to look at carefully before you put any money on the board, to see that it ain't arranged for dealing seconds; and there's a lookout and a case keeper and--well, I don't believe I could tell you just how it works, but some day I'll make a layout and we'll have some fun.

It's a bully game, but I say, it's a great deal like life--the splits go to the dealer; that is to say, that if the king comes out to win and lose at the same time, you lose anyhow, see?"

"No," said Miss Mattie, truthfully.

Red thrust his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I'm afraid I know too much about it to explain it clearly," he replied. "But what I mean is this: some people try to play system at faro, and they last about as quick as those that don't. I always put the limit on the card that's handiest, and the game don't owe me a cent; as a matter of fact, some of the tin-horns used to wear a pained expression when they saw me coming across the room. I've split 'cm from stem to keelson more than once, and never used a copper in my life--played 'em wide open, all the time. Now," and he brought his fist down on the table, "I'm going to play that young man wide open, and I'll bet you I don't lose by him neither.

He looks as honest as a mastiff pup, for all he dresses kind of nice. I might just as well try him on the fly, as to go lunk-heading around and get stuck anyhow, with the unsatisfactory addition of feeling that I was a fool, as well as confiding."

Most of the argument had been ancient Aryan to Miss Mattie, but the ring of the voice and the little she understood made the tenor plain. A sudden moisture gathered in her eyes as she said, "You're too good and honest and generous a man to distrust anybody: that's what I think, Will."

"Mattie, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said he, in an injured voice. "It ain't hardly respectable."

After which there was a silence for a short time. Then said Miss Mattie, "Do you think you could content yourself here, Will, after all the things you've seen?"

Red brightened at the change of topic. "I'll tell you how that is: if I hadn't any capital, and had to work here as a poor man, I don't believe I'd take the trouble to try and live--I'd smother; but having that pleasant little crop of long greens securely planted in the bank where the wild time doesn't grow, and thusly being able to cavort around as it sweetly pleases me, why, I like the country. It's sport to take hold of a place like this, that's only held together by its suspenders, and try to make a real live man's town out of it."

Miss Mattie drew a deep breath of relief. "You came like the hero in a fairy story, Will, and I was afraid you'd go away like one,"

she said.

He reached across the table and patted her hand. "You'd have had to gone, too," said he. "The family'll stick together."

She thanked him in a soft little voice. "Dear me!" she murmured.

"It does seem that you've been here a year, Will."

"Never was told that I was such slow company before."

"You know perfectly well that that isn't what I mean."

"Well, you'll have to put up with me for a while, whatever I am; insomuch as I'm to be a manufacturer and the Lord knows what. Then some day I'm going to have an awful hankering for the land where the breeze blows, and then we'll take a shute for open prairie.

It's cruelty to animals for me to straddle a horse now, yet there's where I'm at home, and I'm going to buy me a cayuse of some kind--say, I ought to get at that; if I'm going around with Lettis I want to ride a horse--know anybody that's got a real live horse for sale, Mattie? No? Well, I'll stop in and see the lady that deals the mail--I'll bet you what that woman doesn't know about what's going on in this camp will never get into history--be back right away."

Said he to the post-mistress, "My name's Saunders, ma'am--cousin to Miss Mattie. I just stopped in to find out if you knew anyone that had a riding horse for sale; horse with four good legs that'll carry me all day, and about the rest I don't care a frolicsome cuss."

The post-mistress replied at such length, and with such velocity that Red was amazed. He gathered from her remarks that a certain Mr. Upton had an animal, purchased of a chance horse dealer, which it was altogether likely he would dispose of, as the first time he had tried the brute it went up into the air all sorts of ways, and caused the owner to perform such tricks before high Heaven as made the angels weep.

"Where does this man live?" asked Red, with a kindling eye.

"He lives about three miles out on the Peterville road, but he's in town to-night visitin' Miss Alders--Johnny!" to a small boy who had been following the conversation, his wide-open eyes bent on Red, and his mouth and wiggling bare toes expressing their delight in vigorous contortions, "Johnny, you run tell Mr. Upton there's a gentleman in here wants to see him about buying a horse."

"Don't disturb him if he's visiting," remonstrated Red.

"He won't call that disturbing him," replied the post-mistress, with a shrill laugh. "He'll be here in no time."

She was a true prophet. It seemed as if the boy had barely left the store when he returned with a stoop-shouldered, solemn-faced man, who had a brush-heap of chin-whisker decorating the lower part of his face. After greetings and the explanation of the errand, Mr. Upton stroked his chin-whisker regretfully. "Young man," said he, "I'm in a pecooliar and onpleasant position; there's mighty feyew things I wouldn't do in a hawse trade, but I draw the line on murder. That there hawse'll kill you, just's sure as you're fool enough to put yerself on his back. I'll sell you a real hawse mighty reasonable--"

"I'll risk him," cut in Red. "Could you lead him down here in the morning?"

"Yes, indeedy--he's a perfect lady of a horse to lead---you can pick up airy foot--climb all over him in fac', s'long's you don't try to ride him or hitch him up. If you do that--well, young man, you'll get a pretty fair idee of what is meant by one of the demons of h.e.l.l."

"What kind of saddle have you got?"

"One of them outlandish Western affairs that the scamp threw in with the animal--you see, I thought I'd take up horse-back riding for my health; I was in bed three weeks after my fust try."

"I'll go you seventy-five dollars for the outfit, just as you got it--chaps, taps, and latigo straps, if you'll have it in front of my house at nine o'clock to-morrow."

"All right, young man--all right sir--now don't blame me if you air took home shoes fust."

"Nary," said Red. "Come and see the fun."

"I sh.o.r.ely will," replied the old gentleman.

IV

At nine the next morning there was a crowd in front of the house.

"What have you been doing now, Will?" asked Miss Mattie with prescience.

"Only buying a horse, Mattie," returned Red soberly. "Seems to be quite an event here."

"Is that all?"

"That's all, so help me Bob!" Red had a suspicion that there would be objections if she knew what kind of a horse it was.

Lettis, who had roomed with Red overnight, was in the secret.

The horse arrived, leading very quietly, as Mr. Upton had said. It was a buckskin, fat and hearty from long resting. Nothing could be more docile than the pensive lower lip, and the meek curve of the neck; nothing could be more contradictory than the light of its eye; a brooding, baleful fire, quietly biding its time.

"Scatter, friends!" cried Red, as he put his foot in the stirrup.

"Don't be too proud to take to timber!"

He swung over as lightly as a trapeze performer, deftly catching his other stirrup. The horse groaned and s.h.i.+vered.