The Forfeit (7 page)

For answer the gun was abruptly withdrawn. Then Bud saw the stricken man's hand dash across his eyes, and, as it passed, he realized the moisture of tears upon the back of it.

* * *

Ju Penrose was a mild sort of sun-worshipper. But he confined his regard to the single blessings of light and warmth. Some of his deity's idiosyncrasies were by no means blessings in his estimation. He blamed the sun for the flies. He blamed it that it made necessary the adoption of light cotton shirts, which required frequent washing. He, furthermore, blamed it for the temperature of drinks in summer time, in a place where no ice was procurable. This he regarded as wholly unfair. Then, too, possessing something of an artistic eye, he failed to appreciate the necessity for changing the delicate hues of nature in spring to a monotonous summer tone by the overbearing process of continuing its spring blessingad nauseam . And as for winter, it was perfectly ridiculous to turn off its "hot" tap when it was most needed. Yes, there were moments when he certainly felt that he could order matters far more pleasantly if he were given a free hand.

Still, just now winter was a long way off. So that did not trouble him greatly as he lounged in his doorway, and reposefully contemplated the ruddy noonday light which was endeavoring to lend picturesqueness to a scene which, he assured himself, was an "everlastin' disgrace an' stain on the lousy pretensions of a museum of bum human intellec's." He was referring to the rest of the buildings which comprised the township, as apart from his own "hotel." The word "saloon" had been struck out of his vocabulary, except for use in scornful depreciation of all other enterprises of a character similar to his own.

Just now he was chewing the cud, and, incidentally, a wad of tobacco, of a partial peace. He felt that the recent break up of the Lightfoot gang, so successfully achieved through the agency of hangings and shootings, should certainly contribute to his advantage. He argued that the long-endured threat against Orrville removed, money should automatically become easier, and, consequently, a considerable vista of his own personal prosperity opened out before his practical imagination.

Yes, Ju was undoubtedly experiencing a certain mild satisfaction. But somehow his ointment was not without taint. He detected a fly in it. And he hated flies-even in ointment.

To understand Ju's feelings clearly one must appreciate the fact that he loved dollars better than anything else in the world. And something he hated with equal fervor was to see their flow diverted into any other channel than that of his own pocket. Ten thousand of these delectable pieces of highly engraved treasure had definitely flowed into some pocket unknown, as a result of the Lightfoot gang episode. The whole transaction he felt was wicked, absolutely wicked. What right had any ten thousand dollars to drift into any unknown pocket? Known, yes. That was legitimate. It always left an enterprising individual the sporting chance of dipping a hand into it. But the other was an outrage against commercialism. Why, if that sort of thing became the general practice, "how," he asked himself, "was an honest trader to live?"

The enquiry was the result of extreme nervous irritation, and he scratched at the roots of his beard in a genuine physical trouble of that nature.

He was so engrossed upon his meditations that he entirely failed to observe some mounted strangers debouch upon the market-place from the western end of the township. Nor was it until they obstructed his view that he awoke to their presence. Then he became aware of two men on two horses, leading two pack ponies.

He scrutinized them narrowly without shifting his position, and, long before they reached him, he decided they were strangers.

They dismounted in silence and without haste. They went round their horses and loosened cinchas. Then they tied the four beasts to the tie-posts in front of the saloon.

They approached the saloon-keeper. The larger of the two surveyed the unmoved Ju with steady eyes. Then he greeted him in deep, easy tones.

"Howdy," he said. "You run this shanty?"

The reflection upon his business house was not lost upon its proprietor.

"Guess I'm boss of this-hotel."

"Ah-hotel." Bud's gaze wandered over the simple structure. It settled for a moment upon a certain display of debris, bottles, cases, kegs, lying tumbled at an angle of the building. Then it came back to Ju's hard face, and, in passing, it swept over the weather-boarding of the structure which was plastered thick with paint to rescue it from the ravages of drip from the shingle roof to which there was no guttering. "Then I guess we'll get a drink."

By a curious movement Ju seemed to fall back from his position and become swallowed up by the cavity behind him. And Bud and his companion moved forward in his wake.

The place was entirely empty of all but the reek of stale tobacco, and the curious, pungent odor of alcohol. The two customers lounged against the shabby bar in that attitude which bespoke saddle weariness. Ju stood ready to carry out their orders, his busy, enquiring mind searching for an indication of the strangers' identity.

"Rye?" he suggested amiably, testing, in his own fashion, their quality.

But these men displayed no enthusiasm.

"Got any lager?" demanded Bud. "A long lager, right off the ice."

"Ice?" There was every sort of emotion in the echo of the word as the saloon-keeper glanced vengefully across at a window through which the sun was pouring. "Guess we don't grow ice around these parts, 'cep' when we don't need it, an' I don't guess the railroad's discovered they hatched Orrville out yet. We got lager in soak, an' lager by the keg, down in a cool celler. Ef these things ain't to your notion I don't guess you need the lager I kep."

"We'll have the bottled stuff in soak. Long."

"Ther's jest one size. Ef that don't suit, guess you best duplicate."

There was no offense in Ju's manner. It was just his cold way of placing facts before his customers, when they were strangers.

He uncorked the bottles and set them beside the long glasses, and waited while Bud poured his out. Then he accepted the price and made change. Jeff silently poured out his and raised it to his lips.

"How, Bud."

"How."

The two men drank and set down their half-emptied glasses.

The sharp ears of the saloon-keeper had caught the name "Bud," and he now stood racking his fertile brains to place it. But the stranger's identity entirely escaped him.

"Been times around here, ain't ther'?" Bud remarked casually.

And Ju promptly seized the opportunity.

"Times? Sure. Say, I guess you don't belong around. Jest passin' thro'?"

Bud nodded. Jeff had moved off toward the window, where he stood gazing out. The saloon-keeper's gaze followed him.

"Why, yes. We're passin' through," returned Bud, without hesitation. "You see, we belong down south in the 'T.T.' an' 'O--' country."

"That so?" Ju reached a box of cigars and thrust them at the new customer. "Smoke?" he enquired. His generosity was by no means uncalculated.

Bud helped himself, and in response to Ju's "Your friend?" he called across to Jeff at the window. But Jeff shook his head, and the saloon-keeper was given an opportunity of studying his set features, and the premature lines he saw graven upon them. He withdrew the box and turned his attention to the more amenable Bud.

"It's a swell country down your ways," he observed cordially. Then he added, "You ain't been cussed with a gang o' toughs raidin' stock, neither, same as we have fer the last fi' years. But they're out. Oh, yes, they're sure out. Yes, siree, you guessed right. Ther's sure been some play around here. As neat a hangin' as I've see in thirty-five year tryin' to figger out the sort o' sense stewin' in the think tanks o' the crazy guys who live in cities an' make up po'try about grass. Mebbe you've heard all the play?"

Bud shook his head. He drank up his lager, and took the opportunity of glancing over his glass at Jeff's back. Then he set his glass down and ordered another bottle for both of them.

"No," he observed. "I ain't heard much. I heard there's been some hangin'. The Lightfoot gang, eh? Seems to me I've heard talk of 'em down our way. So you boys here got in on 'em?"

Ju set the two fresh bottles on the counter while Bud lit his cigar.

"That's so," he said with appreciation, and propped his folded arms upon the bar. "It sort o' come sudden, too." He smiled faintly. "It come as I said it would right here in this bar. The boys was settin' around sousing, an' pushin' round the cyards, an' the Vigilante Committee was settin' on a pow-wow. I was tellin' 'em ef the folks had the sense of a blind louse they'd dope out a reward, an' make it big. I guessed they'd get the gang quick that way. Y'see, it don't matter who it is, folks is all after dollars-if there's only enough of 'em. Life's jest made up of two sorts o' guys, the fellers with dollars an' them without. Wal, I guess it's a sort o' play goes right on all the time. You just raise hell around till you get 'em, the other fellers raise hell till you ain't. It's a sort o' give and take, though I reckon the taking seems to be the general scheme adopted. That's how it comes Lightfoot an' his gang got a nasty kink in most o' their necks. It's them dollars. Some wise guy around here jest took himself by the neck and squeezed out a present of ten thousand dollars to the feller who'd sell up Lightfoot's good-will an' business. What happened? Why, it took jest about twenty-four hours for the transaction to be put through. Say, ever hear tell of a time when ther' wa'an't some feller waiting ready to grab on to ten thousand dollars? No, sir. You never did. No, nor no one else, 'cep' he spent the whole of his life in the foolish house."

"Some one betrayed 'em-for ten thousand dollars?"

Bud's question came with a sharp edge to it.

"Don't guess 'betray's' the word, mister. It was jest a commercial transaction. You jest need to get a right understanding of them things. When I got something to sell, an' you're yearnin' to dope out the dollars for it-say ten thousand of 'em-why, I don't guess there's anything else to it but a straight business proposition."

"So you netted the ten thousand?" enquired Bud, in his simplest fashion.

"Me? Gee! Say, if them ten thousand dollars had wafted my way I'd have set this city crazy drunk fer a week. No, sir," he added, with a coldly gloomy shake of the head. "That's jest about the pain I'm sufferin' right now. Some mighty slick aleck's helped hisself to them dollars, an' I don't know who-nor does anybody else, 'cep' him who paid 'em."

Bud realized the man's shameless earnestness, but passed it by. He was seeking information. It was what he and Jeff had come for. The manner of this man was coldly callous, and he knew that every word he uttered was a lash applied to the bruised soul of the man by the window. Irresistible sympathy made him turn about.

"Here's your lager, Jeff," he said, in his easiest fashion. He had no desire that Ju should be made aware of the trouble that Jeff was laboring under.

Jeff replied at once. His readiness and even cheerfulness of manner surprised Bud. But it relieved him as well.

"Bully!" he cried, as he came back to the bar. "I was just gettin' a look around at the-city." He turned to Ju with his shadowy smile which almost broke Bud's heart. "Quite a place, eh?"

"Place? Wal, it's got points I allow. So's hell ef you kin look at it right." Ju lit a cigar and hid nearly half of it in his capacious mouth. "I'd say," he went on, with a certain satisfaction, "ther's more mush-headed souses in this lay out to the square yard than I've ever heard tell of in any other city. Ef it wa'an't that way I couldn't see myself wastin' a valuable life lookin' at grass, hearin' talk of grass, smellin' grass, an' durned nigh eatin' grass. I tell you right here it takes me countin' my legs twice a day to keep me from the delusion I got four, an' every time I got to shake my head at some haf soused bum who's needin' credit I'm scared to death my blamed ears'll start right in flappin'. Why, yes, I guess it's some place-if you don't know no other."

Bud was eager to get to the end of the task he had assumed for his friend. He wanted the facts, all the facts as far as they were available, of the terrible enactments in that valley of his early youth.

"An' who antied the price?" he demanded.

"Who? Why, the President of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' Association-Dug McFarlane."

"And you don't know who-accepted it?"

It was Jeff who put the question, and Bud, looking on, saw the steely gleam that lit the man's eyes as he spoke.

But Ju's amiability was passing. He was getting tired of a subject which dealt with another man's profit. He rolled his cigar across his mouth.

"Here. Guess I best tell you the yarn as we know it. Y'see," he added regretfully, "we ain't learned a heap 'cep' jest the racket of it. Dug set up the reward overnight. Next night twenty-five of the boys rode out with him to the hills. Ther' was some guy with 'em leadin'. But none of the boys come up with him. He rode with Dug. We've all guessed, but I don't reckon we know, or'll ever know. You see, he got shot up they say by Lightfoot himself. However, it don't signify. I got my notions 'bout it, an' anyway I guess they're jest my own. The boys guess it was one of the gang itself. Mebbe it was. Can't rightly say. After they'd located the camp they set out to surround it. It was in a bluff. The scrap started right away, an' there was a deal o' shootin'. One or two o' the boys got shot up bad. Then some one fired the bluff, an' burned 'em right out like a crowd of gophers. After that the scrap came good an' plenty, an' it seems to've lasted nigh an hour. Anyways, they got three of 'em. They shot up several others, an' not more than three got clear away."