II
THE DIFFICULTY WITH WINDY WALKER
The sun was hot upon the land and Double Mountain danced in the haze, while Double Mountain Fork, which empties itself into the Brazos miles to the northward, steamed between its banks. The sheep lay in their camps about the scanty mesquite and the cut banks of the creek, and under a couple of cottonwoods rooting in the slow waters. It was the time of day to do nothing, to say nothing, and to take, lying down, all the hammering that the sun and wind could give. Jeff said so, and he lay down under his cottonwood near which the sheep panted, while he played lazily upon a rickety old mouth-organ. And he knew just about as much of his tunes as the old man of Arkansaw did. Like him, Jeff broke off in the middle; and, unlike him, no stranger rode by to eke out the tale-end of the music. His father came along instead, for the old man roused himself from his bed in the old shack by the creek, and stared into the radiance of the day with one shaking hand over his eyes—
"Jeff!"
"Yep, Paw," said Jeff, as he scrambled to his feet. He was a long, lean, and lank son of the prairie, sandy, freckled, hard, and fifteen years of age.
"Get up the pinto," said old Jefferson Dexter. "I'm aimin' to go into the City."
Young Jeff was respectful because he had been so all his life. It never occurred to him to be anything else, for the old man had a heavy hand, a fierce eye, and the temper which gives his cutting edge to an American. But now he 'reared' a little, and according to his own notion there was reason for jibbing. He scratched his shock head, and put his mouth-organ away inside his shirt before he spoke. When he did speak he uttered a fact without the least sense of reproach behind it.
"You was full las' night when you come home, Paw," he said.
"I was," said his father.
"And mebbe you don't reklec' what you told me?"
Dexter shook his head.
"My son, I don't reklec' one word. Did I speak? I'd a sort of kinkle I was speechless."
Young Jeff shook his head in turn.
"Far from it, Paw, for you sat on the table a good while, and you yanked me outer bed to hear."
"What did I discourse of?" asked his father. "I do hope I said nothin' unbecomin' your father, Jeff. But sence your poor mother payssed away into the eternal beyond I've had less sense than I should hev. Did I blaspheme any?"
Jeff nodded.
"Oh my, Paw, you said offul things, most offul."
"Can you repeat any of 'em, Jeff?" asked his father anxiously.
"A whole lot I can," replied Jeff promptly. But old Dexter raised his hand.
"My curiosity ez sinful," he said, "and I'll curb it. I'll offer up a general repentance scheme when the stiffness goes outer my knee. And you forget what I said mighty quick, or I'll flay you some, I will. Get up the pinto, Jeff."
Jeff showed reluctance to move.
"Paw, you mostly cussed one pusson."
Dexter, who had turned to go back into the shanty, faced his son again swiftly.
"I done so?"
"You did, Paw. As far ez I could gather up the tale in the confusion of your shoutin', you appeared to hev hed some sort of a difficulty agin with Mr. Walker."
Dexter's face was as black as a thundercloud when he heard what Jeff said. He nodded, and stared at the boy from under his heavy eyebrows, which drooped like bent thatch over his burning eyes.
"I do reklec'," he said at last, "him and me had words I know,—bad words, and I've a notion the boys pulled me down and held me. I knew, Jeff, I hed business in town, and I couldn't prop'ly locate in my mind what it was. That man sure insulted me in some way, havin' done it before, sayin' I'd brand mavericks as soon as eat pie. And he went on to throw out hints as to brand-burning. Jeff, my son, a maverick ain't nothing; there's no reason a man shouldn't brand any beast as his owner ain't keerful to put a mark on. But brand-burning is a hoss of another colour, and the insult bit into me. I feel in my bones he up and said things. Get up the pinto, Jeff."
There was visible distress in the boy's eyes, and he followed the old man into the house.
"Paw, don't you reckon it would be wiser to wait a day? After your jamboree your hand will shake some, and they do say that Mr. Walker shoots like death. There's many he's killed, and you don't use your gun oncet a year."
"Get up the pinto, boy," said Dexter. "I cayn't wait a day to learn what he said to me in the American House last night."
When Jeff opened his mouth again, the old man bent his brows on him till his eyes were almost invisible.
"Get up the pinto, Jefferson," he said, and poor Jeff ran out of the shack into the burning sun as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
"There's no one but me, and Sis she's in Ole Virginny, and Mr. Walker will kill him for sure if they tell the trewth of him. But now Paw's mad. He's mad, and mebbe his hand won't shake."
He brought up the "pinto," and hitched the skewbald into the rattling old Studebaker wagon which was the carry-all for everything on Double Mountain Fork. And when it was ready old Dexter was ready too.
"I'll be back by midnight maybe," said Dexter. "Git up thar!" and he struck the horse over the flank with the doubled lines, and so far as Jeff could see the old man never turned his head after the pinto once got started. But the boy stared down the track across the prairie which Texans call a road, till he could see nothing but the brown grasses of summer and the dancing haze of noonday heat.
"Like enough," said Jeff, "I'll never see the ole man no more. He's stiff and rheumaticky, and he cayn't get no gun out fast enough for Walker. I dew wish that Walker would run up agin someone like Ben Thompson. Ben Thompson would hev made him look like a Mexican's blanket, more holes than wool. But Walker don't take no chances thataway. He's no more than a poor fool-killer, and Paw's a fool."
Jeff wiped away a tear, and made himself some coffee by heating up the remains of his Dad's breakfast. It was a hard life that he led, and he never knew it. The world was big, so he had heard, but West Virginia was the end of it towards the East. A remote California was in the far West. The round and broken prairie was his world; and the slow creek his river. He wondered how much bigger the Mississippi was. For his mother, now in the cemetery at the 'City' toward which the old pinto was going, had come from Memphis.
"I'd like to go to Sis in Ole Virginny," said Jeff, as he took his mouth-organ out of his shirt and went to look at the sheep. "I reckon they don't care much for boregas in Virginny. I dew wonder some why Paw hankers after sheep when he has cattle. A sheep is sheer muck to a steer."
He sat by the bank of the 'crick' and played his poor bits of tunes, and presently, as the sun westered and the thin shadows of the mesquites stretched two hours' journey on the grass, the sheep rose from their camp and started browsing. Jeff whistled for his dog, a lean mongrel with a big head and wistful eyes, and started to loaf the way the herd of sheep went. He played as he walked. Once more young Pan piped, and the haze at least danced. But his heart was heavy.
"I cayn't play wuth a darn," said Jeff. "I'm mighty anxious about Paw."
He put away his instrument and played no more. He spoke to his dog.
"Bob, old son, if that Walker puts lead into the ole man I'll—I'll blow a hole threw him a rat ked crawl threw."
Now, though he piped no more, the whole world danced through his tears.
"I'm derned sorry for the ole man," whimpered his son; "he ain't had no circus of a life. Things was tough back East, so Maw used to let on, and here they was tough, and then she died. He ain't bin the same sence, but more fierce and contrairy; and he gets full three to one for what he done when Maw was alive. I dew wish I'd hed the savvy to go in with him. But he'd never ha' let me."
At sundown he corralled the sheep and their lambs in a straggling mesquite corral against the raids of coyotes, and went back to the shanty. He cooked a mess of flour and a bit of bacon, and ate his supper very soberly, washing it down with a drink from the creek. Then he sat outside on an upturned keg which had once held nails, and played a little more as the night came on. The stars broke out in the east and then they shone over him, and the west was blue at last as the moon rose in the east. The solace of the time was upon him, and for a little while his heart was easier.
"The boys won't let Walker shoot him up any," he said hopefully. "They're a fine lot o' boys to the City, and I reckon some day they'll make Walker like a sieve."
But when he went into the house he took down his father's old shot-gun and looked at it.
"I'll be the only one left," said Jeff as he put it back in its place. "The only one but Sis."
But nevertheless he slept soundly when he was once in the blankets, and he never woke till it was past midnight and the high moon made the prairie almost as light as day. When he woke he sat up suddenly.
"Paw!" he called; "Paw, ez that you?"
But there was no answer, and he came to himself.
"I thot I heard the ole man," he said. And even as he spoke he heard the sound of a horse coming across the prairie at a lope. He sprang out of bed and ran to the door.
"That ain't Paw, onless he's left the wagon to the City," he said. "There's times he will when he ain't sober and ain't rightly full."
Yet he knew how unlikely it was that the old man should do so now. There was seldom a time that poor old Dexter wasn't "rightly full" when he came back home. And the sound came nearer, nearer yet. In another minute the horseman pulled up outside the shack.
"Ez that you, Jeff?" he asked.
"Why, certainly, Bill Davies," said Jeff, with a sinking heart. "What's brot you this way? Hev you come from the City, and hev you seen my Dad?"
Bill Davies got off his pony, and leaving it with the bridle reins on the ground came up to Jeff. He was a cowboy from Ennis Creek, and was not often that way.
"I've rode out to tell about him," said Bill quietly.
"Oh," said Jeff, "I know. He's dead, Bill?"
"He's gone, Jeff."
"And Walker shot him?"
"He's the third Windy Walker has shot and killed in two years," said Davies. "And 'twill be self-defence, Jeff. Your old man started to pull on him, and was as slow gettin' out his gun as a mud-turtle on dry land. And Walker pulled down on him and shot him threw three times before he teched the ground. The poor old man is dead, Jeff. Don't grieve, Jeff."
But Jeff swallowed his tears.
"I ain't grievin' now, Bill Davies. I'll find time to mourn for the ole man when Walker's dead," he said in a choking voice.
But Bill Davies shook his head.
"’Twas self-defence, Jeff; it was, sure. For las' night they had a sort of difficulty, and we held yur old man down, and he said he'd shoot Walker on sight. And Walker laffed. And we got yur Dad out o' town fightin' somethin' awful. And he pulled his gun first. There's four to take the stand and say so. There won't be no trouble for Walker. He says he'll do the thing handsome and bury the old man in style."
Jeff threw up his head.
"You ain't defendin' Walker none, are you, Bill Davies?"
The cowboy shrugged his shoulders.
"Me defend him, Jeff! He's the meanest sort of murderer. He don't take chances with any but old men and tender-feet. He ain't the man to kill when it ain't self-defence. He looks for self-defence, and is greedy for it. I'd like to see him laid out cold, and before I buried him in style I'd see the dogs eat him."
"I'll kill him," said Jeff. "Will you sleep here, Bill, and lend me your pony so's I can go into town and see Paw? I'll send the pony back early."
"You kin ride," said Bill; "I'll stay here. Do you mean what you say, Jeff?"
"Sure's death," said Jeff. "Ain't he killed Paw? Who else is there?"
Bill Davies took him by the hand.
"You're a man, Jeff, and I'll be proud of you. But reklec' he's quick on the trigger. Don't take no chances. He won't give none."
"I'll give him none," said Jeff.
"You're a boy after all," mused the cowboy, "and if you kill him there will be those that'll sympathise with you, Jeff. But p'raps you'd better go back to Virginia to your sister."
To say so was to ease his mind of a hard duty. Bill Davies felt much easier after it.
"I'm goin' back soon," said Jeff.
And he rode through the moonlight to the town. He sent the pony back as soon as he found his father's body, which lay in the back store of the man they usually dealt with. And the funeral was next day. Walker did not pay for it, for Jeff sent him a message.
"He looked tolerable wicked," said the man who took it to the slayer.
"Did he?" sneered Walker. "You can tell him to keep out of my way. See?"
Walker felt an injured man.
"Good God!" said Walker, "shall I have to kill a boy?"
But Jeff went back to his place on Double Mountain Creek, and, the memories of men in the West being short, the death of old Jefferson Dexter was a thing forgotten in a week. But the young one didn't forget. And perhaps Walker did not, for the pride of a man who kills and is not tried, or who is tried and acquitted, is something strange to see. He gloried in his strength and in his quickness, and took up attitudes before the little world in which he shone. And quiet men said to themselves that Windy Walker would not die in bed. But the trouble is that quiet men do not kill unless they are obliged to, and some men who looked Walker in the eyes with a savage challenge found him loath to take offence.
"I put up with a mighty lot now," said Walker; "a man with my record should. I want peace."
He still held his own at the American House, where the trouble with old Dexter had begun, and he lost a few dollars regularly to the gamblers who ran the faro and keno tables. They sneered at him, but found him a paying streak in bad times. If he gassed a little they let him gas. And the citizens of the 'City' endured him. There were some (quiet men who did not talk) who wondered when his end would come. For Bill Davies said a thing or two to friends of his.
"The boy hez a right to kill him," said Bill, "and the right to get the drop unseen. He's a boy!"
Jeff sometimes came into town, but he came in mostly by night, and no one knew of his being there at all. He used to tie up the old pinto outside the town and come in quietly. He mostly lay about the empty town lots that were at the back of the American House and the Green Front, the chief saloons in Colorado Street. The gambling saloons of both houses were at the back, and the windows looked upon a waste of old boots, old kerosene-cans, and empty tomato-cans. But the blinds were usually drawn. In such a 'City,' even though law and order were gradually and with great difficulty establishing themselves, there were many who had a deeply-rooted objection to standing in a bright light visible to those who were in darkness. There was never any knowing who might be outside.
And very often Jeff was outside. Sometimes he heard the voices of men he knew. Bill Davies was in there at least once a week. He heard Simon Keats, to whose store his father's body had been taken. For Simon, though a respectable store-keeper by day, had a passion for faro which bloomed after sundown. And sometimes he heard Walker. But the window was shut and the blind was down.
That year, as it happened, September opened with a blaze of heat that the most hardened old-timer felt. The sky was brass, and the winds that came up out of the Gulf, growing hotter on the fat corn-lands of lower Texas, might have come from the pit. The high plateaux across which the Texas Pacific Railroad runs were burning; stock died of drought; the prairie was fired by the cinders of locomotives. In the 'City,' sunk between sandhills, the heat was intense, and the nerves of men gave way. They only came out at night, and then the saloons filled.
"By gosh, it's hot!" said Davies, who had been taking three days in town; "by gosh, it's hot! Sam, don't you reckon it might be a trifle cooler if that window was open?"
The bar-tender, down whose face the moisture ran in streams, admitted that the experiment might be worth trying. "Though whether it's hotter here, or outside, or in hell, I cayn't say," he answered.
"Who's afraid of hell in this weather?" asked Windy Walker crossly. "Open the window, Sam, and let me have a John Collins. I've a thirst on me as if a prairie fire was ragin' down my throat. I dunno what foolishness brought men to Texas."
Sam went to the window and pulled up the blind. By a curious instinct, for it was hardly conscious, Walker and two or three others moved out of the direct line between it and the big lamp that lighted the room. But Bill Davies moved farther than anyone. Then Sam opened the window top and bottom, and pulled the blind down again. But it had been up long enough to show some outside that the window was open.
"That's better," said Walker. And he went to the faro-table and laid down a dollar.
"I don't get between him and the window," said Davies; "not much I don't. Three times this month I've seen young Jeff ridin' along to town at sundown, and if he gives Walker a chance he's a fool. If I was a boy and had the same against Walker I'd say 'Look out, Windy,' when he was dead."
But the room was crowded and the play went on. Davies didn't play; his nerves were on the stretch. Something seemed to tell him that Walker's time was coming; he felt as some do when thunder is brewing in a great and heavy calm. And suddenly he went curiously white.
"That blind's higher than it was," he said. But no one else saw it. They faced the tables; the talk of the faro-dealer went on; a lucky man cried "Keno!" They swore and cursed and drank. And then Davies saw fingers at the blind cord, only fingers. The blind went up three inches. He drew back still farther and stood against the wall, with an extinguished cigar between his teeth and his cow-hat over his eyes. He looked at Walker, who was in a crowd.
"Dern my luck," said Walker, "that's five dollars."
He made a motion to get out of those who stood with him, and Bill Davies almost called to him.
"It's not my funeral," he said grimly as he restrained himself. And he looked again at the window. On the sill, close to the corner, he saw something move a little.
"That lets me out," said Walker, cursing as he stepped back clear of his companions. And as he did so there was a deafening report. Bill saw flame leap from the muzzle of a gun, and Walker threw up his hands and gasped horribly. Then he pitched upon the floor and lay there. A dozen men had their "guns" in their hands at the sound.
"By God!" said one of them, "that was from the winder."
One man, quicker than the rest, put up his hand, pulled the string of the lamp, and the room was in darkness. Bill Davies jumped to the window and through it, and came upon Jeff Dexter with his shot-gun in his hand. The boy was crying dreadfully. Before they could speak, other men followed Davies, and some came round the house from the front.
"It's Jeff Dexter as done it," said Bill.
There was a curious gasp of relief from those who stood by him and Jeff. Old Simon Keats was the first to speak.
"Boys, he had a right to," he said. "Walker killed his Dad, and he's a boy. He had no call to speak to Windy first, under the circumstances."
But Jeff still sobbed.
"What'll we do, boys?" asked Bill Davies.
"We'll save the boy trouble," said Keats. "It's allowed young Jeff ain't done no harm in killing Windy?"
"That's so," said the bystanders.
"Then send him back to Virginia to his sister," said Keats. "There's the East-bound express due in less'n twenty minutes. Will you go, bud?"
"Of course he'll go," said Davies. "Hev you any money, Jeff?"
Jeff had none on him. A dozen men offered him bills and silver.
"And I'll buy you out, stock and all, Jeff," said old Keats, "at a price that all here will say is fair."
"Hear, hear!" said the crowd.
"And, what's more, I'll go with you to Fort Worth," said Keats. "Come along, sonny. There's no time to lose."
They walked towards the railroad depôt.
"One of us'll go to the City Marshal and say Windy's gone up the flume," said Sam the bar-tender. "And we'll drop a hint the boy had rode back to his ranch."
And as they walked, Jeff held Bill Davies' hand and trembled violently.
"Mr. Keats, I'd like to give Bill my dog Bob, and my old pinto pony," he said. "Will you take them, Bill?"
"To bee sure," said Bill.
"The pinto's tied to a mesquite t'other side of the Wolf Crick," said Jeff. "He's a mighty good pony for slow work."
"I'll not hurry him," said Bill. And they reached the depôt just as the East-bound express came in.
"Buck up," said Bill. "You done right, Jeff."
"Did I?" asked Jeff.
"Sure 'nuff," said Bill. "Windy's dead."