The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories Part 21

Now, where'd yuh get off at?"

To this argument they offered several explanations--at all of which Happy grunted in great disdain.

They clattered nonchalantly into Dry Lake, still unconvinced and still jeering at Happy Jack. The town was very quiet, even for Dry Lake. As they rounded the blacksmith shop, from where they could see the whole length of the one street which the place boasted, a yell, shrill, exultant, familiar, greeted them. A long-legged figure they knew well dashed down the street to them, a waving six-shooter in one hand, the reins held aloft in the other. His horse gave evidence of hard usage, and it was a horse none of them had ever seen before.

"It's him, all right," Jack Bates admitted reluctantly.

"_Yip! Cowboys in town_!" rang the slogan of the range land. "Come on and--_wake 'em up_! _OO-oop-ee_!" He pulled up so suddenly that his horse almost sat down in the dust, and reined in beside Pink.

They eyed him in amaze, and avoided meeting one another's eyes. Truly, he was a strange-looking Weary. His head was bare and disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and glaring, his cheeks flushed hotly. His neck-kerchief covered his chest like a bib and he wore no coat; one s.h.i.+rtsleeve was rent from shoulder to cuff, telling eloquently that violent hands had sought to lay hold on him. His long legs, clad in Angora chaps, swung limp to the stirrup. By all these signs and tokens, they knew that he was drunk---joyously, unequivocally, vociferously drunk!

Joe Meeker peered cautiously out of the window of Rusty Brown's place when they rode up, and Cal Emmett swore aloud at sight of him. Joe Meeker was the most indefatigable male gossip for fifty miles around, and the story of Weary's spree would spread far and fast. Worse, it would reach first of all the ears of Weary's School-ma'am, who lived at Meeker's.

Cal started to get down; he wanted to go in and reason with Joe Meeker.

At all events, Ruby Satterlee must not hear of Weary's defection. It was all right, maybe, for some men to make fools of themselves in this fas.h.i.+on; some women would look upon it with lenience. But this was different; Weary was different, and so was Ruby Satterlee. Cal meditated upon just what would the most effectually close the mouth of Joe Meeker.

But Weary spied him as his foot touched the ground. "Oh, yuh can't sneak off like that, old-timer. Yuh stay right outside and help wake 'em up!" he shouted hoa.r.s.ely.

Cal turned and looked at him keenly; looked also at the erratic movements of the gun, and reconsidered his decision. Joe Meeker could wait.

"Better come on out to camp, Weary," he said persuasively. "We're all of us going, right away. Yuh can ride out with us."

Weary had not yet extracted all the joy there was in the situation. He did not want to ride out to camp; more, he had no intention of doing so. He stood up in the stirrups and declaimed loudly his views upon the subject, and his opinion of any man who proposed such a move, and punctuated his remarks freely with profanity and bullets.

Under cover of Weary's elocution Pink did a bit of jockeying and got his horse sidling up against Cal. He leaned carelessly upon the saddle-horn and fixed his big, innocent eyes upon Weary's flushed face.

"He's pretty cute, if he is full," he murmured discreetly to Cal. "He won't let his gun get empty--see? Loads after every third shot, regular. We've got to get him so excited he forgets that little ceremony. Once his gun's empty, he's all to the bad--we can take him into camp. We'll try and rush him out uh town anyway, and shoot as we go. It's our only show--unless we can get him inside and lay him out."

"Yeah, that's what we'll have to do," Cal a.s.sented guardedly. "He's sure tearing it off in large chunks, ain't he? I never knew--"

"Here! What you two gazabos making medicine about?" cried Weary suspiciously. "Break away, there. I won't stand for no side-talks--"

"We're just wondering if we hadn't all better adjourn and have something to drink," said Pink musically, straightening up in the saddle. "Come on--I'm almighty dry."

"Same here," said Jack Bates promptly taking the cue, and threw one leg over the cantle. He got no further than that.

"You stay right up on your old bench!" Weary commanded threateningly.

"We're the kings uh the prairie, and we'll drink on our thrones. That so-many-kinds-of-bar-slave can pack out the dope to us. It's what he's there for."

That settled Pink's little plan to get him inside where, lined up to the bar, they might--if they were quick enough--get his gun away from him; or, failing that, the warm room and another drink or two would "lay him out" and render him harmless.

Weary, shoving three cartridges dexterously into the chambers in place of those just emptied, shouted to Rusty to bring out the "sheepdip."

The four drew together and attempted further consultation, separated hastily when his eye fell upon them, and waited meekly his further pleasure. They knew better than to rouse his anger against them.

Weary, displeased because Rusty did not immediately respond to his call, sent a shot or two through the window by way of hurrying him.

Whereupon Rusty cautiously opened the door, shoved a tray with bottle and gla.s.ses ostentatiously out into the sunlight for a peace offering, and finding that hostilities ceased, came forth in much fear and served them.

They drank solemnly.

"Take another one, darn yuh," commanded Weary.

They drank again, more solemnly.

The sun beat harshly down upon the deserted street, and upon the bare, tousled, brown head of Weary. The four stared at him uneasily; they had never seen him like this before, and it gave him an odd, unfamiliar air that worried them more than they would have cared to own.

Only Pink refused to lose heart. "Well, come on--let's wake up these dead ones," he shouted, drawing his gun and firing into the air. "Get busy, you sleepers! _Yip_! _Cowboys in town_!" He wheeled and darted off down the street, shooting and yelling, and the others, with Weary in their midst, followed. At the blacksmith shop, Pink, tacitly the leader of the rescuers, would have gone straight on out of town. But Weary whirled and galloped back, firing merrily into the air. A bit chagrined, Pink wheeled and galloped at his heels, fuming inwardly at the methodical reloading after every third shot. Cal, on the other side, glanced across at Pink, shook his head ruefully and shoved more sh.e.l.ls into his smoking gun.

Back and forth from the store at one end of the street to the blacksmith shop at the other they rode, yelling till their throats ached and shooting till their gun-barrels were hot; and Weary kept pace with them and out-yelled and out-shot the most energetic, and never once forgot the little ceremony of shoving in fresh sh.e.l.ls after the third shot. Drunk, Weary appeared much more cautious than when sober.

Pink grew hot and hoa.r.s.e, and counted the shots, one, two, three, over and over till his brain grew sick.

On the seventh trip down the street, a sleek, black head appeared for an instant over the top of the board-pile in the hotel yard. A pair of frightened, slant eyes peered out at them. Weary, just about to reload, caught sight of him and gave a whoop of pure joy.

"Lord, how I do hate a c.h.i.n.k!" he cried, and dropped to the ground the three sh.e.l.ls in his hand that he might fire the two in his gun.

Pink yelled also. "Nab him, Cal!" and caught his gun arm the instant Weary's last bullet left the barrel.

Cal leaned and caught Weary round the neck in a close hug. Jack Bates and Happy Jack crowded close, eager to help but finding no place to take hold.

"Now, you blame fool, come along home and quit disgracing the whole community!" cried Cal, half angrily. "Ain't yuh got any sense at all?"

Weary protested; he swore; he threatened. He was not in the least like his old, sweet-tempered self. He mourned openly because he had no longer a gun that he might slay and spare not. He insisted that he would take much pleasure in killing them all off--especially Pink. He felt that Pink was the greatest traitor in the lot, and said that it would be a special joy to him to see Pink expire slowly and in great pain. He remarked that they would be sorry, before they were through with him, and repeated, many times, the hint that he never forgot a friend or forgave an enemy--and looked darkly at Pink.

"You're batty," Pink told him sorrowfully, the while they led him out through the lane. "We're the best friends yuh got--only yuh don't appreciate us."

Weary glared at him through a tangle of brown hair, and remarked further, in tones that one could hear a mile, upon the subject of Pink's treachery and the particular kind of death he deserved to die.

Pink shrugged his shoulder and grew sulky; then, old friends.h.i.+p growing strong within him, he sought to soothe him.

But Weary absolutely declined to be soothed. Cal, serene in his fancied favoritism, attempted the impossible, and was greeted with language which no man living had ever before heard from the lips of Weary the sunny. Jack Bates and Happy Jack, profiting by his experience, wisely kept silence.

For this, the homeward ride was not the companionable gallop it usually was. They tried to learn from Weary what he had done with Glory, and whence came the mud-colored cayuse with the dim, blotched brand, that he bestrode. They asked also where were the horses he had been sent to bring.

In return, Weary began viciously to dissect their pedigree and general moral characters.

After that, they gave over trying to question or to reason, and the last two miles they rode in utter silence. Weary, tiring of venom that brought no results, subsided gradually into mutterings, and then into sullen silence, so that, save for his personal appearance, they reached camp quite decorously.

Chip met them at the bed wagon, where they slipped dispiritedly off their horses and began to unsaddle--all save Weary; he stared around him, got cautiously to the ground and walked, with that painfully circ.u.mspect stride sometimes affected by the intoxicated, over to the cook-tent.

"Well," snapped Chip to the others, "For once in his life, Happy was right."

Weary, still planting his feet primly upon the trampled gra.s.s, went smiling up to the stupefied Patsy.

"Lord, how I do love a big, fat, s.h.i.+ny Dutch cook!" he murmured, and flung his long arms around him in a hug that caused Patsy to grunt.

"How yuh was, already, Dutchy? Got any pie in this man's cow-camp?"

Patsy scowled and drew haughtily away from his embrace; there was one thing he would not endure, even from Weary: it was having his nationality too lightly mentioned. To call him Dutchy was a direct insult, and the Happy Family never did it to his face--unless the provocation was very great. To call him Dutchy and in the same breath to ask for pie--that, indeed, went far beyond the limits of decency.

"Py cosh, you not ged any pie, Weary Davidson. Py cosh, I learns you not to call names py sober peoples. You not get no grub whiles you iss too drunk to be decend mit folks."