The Hair-Trigger Kid by Max Brand (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) đź“•
"The curtain ain't up," said the sheriff, "but I reckon that the stage is set and that they's gunna be an entrance pretty pronto."
"Here's somebody coming," said Georgia, gesturing toward the farther end of the street.
"Yeah," said the sheriff, "but he's comin' too slow to mean anything."
"Slow and earnest wins the race," said another.
They were growing impatient; like a crowd at a bullfight, when the entrance of the matador is delayed too long.
"We're wasting the day," said Milman to his family. "That's a long ride ahead of us."
"Don't go now," said Georgia. "I've got a tingle in my finger tips that says something is going to happen."
Other voices were rising, jesting, laughing, when some one called out something at the farther end of the veranda, and instantly there was a wave of silence that spread upon them all.
"What is it?" whispered Milman to the sheriff.
"Shut up!" said the sheriff. "They say th
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“Why didn’t you stay in Dry Creek?”
“Would you like to go to sleep inside the den of a wild cat?”
The other nodded.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve missed a fine chance, Kid. If I was you, I’d go
back to Dry Creek and see Shay under a white flag and make friends.
Nobody is gunna get on in this part of the world unless he’s a friend of
Shay’s.”
“There’s only that question,” said the Kid. “When you see him, you ask
him, will you? I’d give a lot to find out.”
“You think that Shay double-crossed him?”
“Double-crossed him?” said the Kid, gently. “Why, man, Coleman was sixty
years old. Who would double-cross a man that old?”
The other watched his face cautiously, and seemed to perceive a tone of
iron in that last remark.
“I dunno anything about it,” he said shortly. “Was Coleman a great friend
of yours?”
“Coleman? Oh, not particularly. I just barely knew him. He took me in
when I was hungry, once, and again he showed me the way out when I was in
a tight hole, and another time he saved my life when I was cornered by a
gang. Outside of that, he didn’t have any claim on me.”
Dixon frowned, and then stood up.
“I guess I know what you mean,” said he. “If I should find out about
Coleman—I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” said the Kid, showing his teeth as he smiled. “I take that
kindly from you, Champ.”
“I’ll tell you one other thing, Kid,” burst out Dixon. “If you want to
wear your scalp long, don’t stay in this country unless you’ve made it up
with Shay.”
“He has everything under his thumb, has he?”
“He has everything under his thumb, and that’s a fact”
“I’m glad to know that,” said the Kid, “and I hope that we’ll be
friendly. You tell him something from me, will you?”
“Of course I will, when I see him.”
The Kid looked up at him with the same smile.
“Tell him that unless I hear from him soon I’m going to have to drop in
on him in a hurry and open him up to learn the truth about Coleman.”
“Open him up?” asked Dixon, starting.
“Yes,” said the Kid. “If I can’t hear it from his mouth, I might find it
in his heart, or his liver. And if I fail—he’ll make good dog food,
anyway. That’s all I’d like to have you tell him from me, old-timer.”
Dixon, during the last part of this speech, had been backing away from
the Kid, frowning. Now, without a word, he turned to his horses, saddled
one, and was about to climb into the saddle, when he paused, fumbling at
the saddle straps.
The Kid was watching closely, though from the corner of his eye, while he
saddled the mare. Then, glancing in the direction in which his companion
was looking, he saw from the top of a distant hill the flicker of a
light, as though the sun were glittering upon the face of a moving glass.
Suddenly he found that Dixon was staring at him closely, critically.
“Yes,” said the Kid, still smiling, “it looks as though your friend Shay
had the country by the throat. There he is, winking at you across all
those miles, old-timer. Wink back, when you get a chance, and tell him
that I’m waiting for my answer.”
Dixon, without answering, flung himself on the back of his horse. He
seemed about to ride straight off, but changing his mind at the last
moment, he returned to the Kid and leaned a little from the saddle.
“I’ll tell you something,” said he, “and it don’t cost you nothin’ to
hear it. You’re gunna be marked down in a pretty short while. Get out of
this neck of the woods. I ain’t got nothin’ agin’ you. I like you fine.
But—I tell you to start movin’, Kid!”
The latter watched him carefully.
“I believe you, old son,” said he. “I’d better get moving, before you
have to start on my trail. Is that it?”
“Put it any way you want to. You think that you know a lot, Kid. You
don’t know nothin’. You give Shay the run today and think you’re the top
dog. Why, that don’t mean nothin’. He don’t fight because he’s proud. He
fights because he wants your blood. And he’d sooner use hired hands than
his own. Kid, watch yourself. So long. I’ve said a pile too much,
already!”
He jerked his horse around and made off at once along the trail toward
Dry Creek, while the Kid looked after him with a certain combination of
pity, contempt and kindness. Then he mounted and went in the opposite
direction, riding slowly, with a thoughtful cant to his head.
For not more than a half mile did the Kid keep along the trail, and then,
so seriously did he take the friendly warning of Champ Dixon, that he
turned aside and cut through the open country, winding up and down
through the ravines and over the hills patiently. There was a great deal
to occupy his mind during this ride, and chiefly the figure of Champ
Dixon.
That man had been famous in story and legend and fact for many a day. But
now, like many another legend of the Far West, the Kid had met it,
mastered it, put it behind him. It did not seem to him a thing entirely
of rags and tatters. It was merely the boiling down of a great, great
giant into a quite ordinary man.
And yet he could see the other side of the chance, as well.
As, for instance, if the mare had not spotted the approach of Dixon in
the distance, and that red Indian of a man had found the Kid before the
Kid found him. Then, there was a little doubt. Dixon would have increased
his fame endlessly by a good, well-aimed bull’s-eye, the center of the
target being the forehead of the Kid. That was the sort of a man Dixon
was. He lived for glory. And, beyond question, he had needed nothing but
an audience, this day, to force him to take the most hopeless chances and
fight out the battle against the Kid and all the odds of circumstance.
A comfortable warmth was in the heart of the Kid, as he thought of this.
The next instant the mare limped, and he dropped down from the saddle
instantly to see what was wrong.
He found the trouble in a moment. She had cast a shoe.
This made him shake his head. For the terrain over which they were
traveling was very bad, constant outcroppings of rock making the way
dangerous for a shoeless horse. Even the regular trail was bad enough,
but the cross-country work much worse.
From his saddlebag, with a buckskin string and a flat, thick piece of
leather, he improvised rapidly, a sort of moccasin, and mounting again,
he rode on through the broken sea of hills.
He went more carefully now, however, and studying the landmarks before
him, he presently turned down a ravine that pointed to the left of his
way. He wound the bend of this in the dusk of the day, while the sun was
still rosy on the upper mountains, but here in the heart of the narrow
valley the twilight was already so deep that he could see the faint
shining of a light before him, dull as the evening star just after the
sun is down.
Toward this he went, the mare picking her way adroitly. She seemed to
realize as well as her master that that naked foot might be a cause of
trouble in the future.
As he came near the house, he heard a clattering of hoofbeats, and
looking up the hill, he saw a couple of riders coming over the crest,
horses and men outlined like black, strangely moving cardboard figures
against the red of the western sky.
This made him rein up, but, as he studied the horsemen, he made out that
only one was a man. The other form was certainly no more than a small
boy.
The Kid went on, more at ease, and now he could see the flat shine of the
pool beside the cabin, the dim image of the tree at its verge, the
straggling march of the shrubbery up the slope, and the little squat
cabin itself, looking too small for human habitation.
It grew a little on nearer approach. He saw the woodshed, and the little
corral. But the whole place had an air not of habitation so much as an
accidental touch of human life in the midst of the wilderness. Men who
lived here remained not for what they won from the soil, but for the
freedom which they breathed in from the ground. They might be either
thoroughly fine fellows, beyond price, or rascals not worth their salt.
When the Kid was close he called out: “Trainor! Trainor!”
A loud voice whooped instantly in answer: “Who’s there?”
“A friend!”
“Come on in, friend!”
The swinging light of a lantern appeared outside of the door of the
shack, and into the uncertain circle of this light rode the Kid.
He found that the lantern was held by a big bearded fellow with shoulders
wide enough to have lifted the whole house behind him, it seemed. He was
not more than thirty, but he looked older. Frost in winter and burning
sun in summer put their mark on the skin of a man, and all the beards in
the world cannot mask the pain of labor which appears in the eyes.
“I nearly forgot where your place was, Bud,” said the Kid.
At his voice, Trainor lifted the lantern high—and then almost dropped
it.
“It’s the Kid!” he exclaimed.
“Shut up!” cautioned the latter, swinging down from the saddle,
nevertheless, and grasping the hand of the other.
“It’s all right,” said Trainor. “There ain’t nobody here but pa and ma
and my kid cousin, that I’ve just fetched out from Dry Creek. Davey’s
been talkin’ about nothin’ but you. He’s the kid that you give the ride
to in Dry Creek. Here, Davey. Here’s a surprise for you!”
Davey came, hurrying. And as he rushed into the lantern light, and
blinked at the face and form of the Kid, his eyes opened and his mouth
also.
“By golly,” said Davey. “It’s the Kid. Hello, Kid. You ain’t forgot me,
have you?”
“I haven’t forgotten you,” said the Kid. “I don’t forget your kind,
old-timer, to the end of my days. Bud, I’ve lost a shoe off this mare
somewhere on the way across.”
“On the trail?”
“No. I would have gone back for it, if I had. Have you anything in the
way of shoes around here?”
“I’ve got some that the rust has been gnawin’ at for a long time. You
take a look. Hey, Davey. You fetch out that bunch of shoes that’s hangin’
agin’ the wall of the shed. I got a kind of a forge, Kid, besides. You
come to the right place.”
“Aye,” said the Kid. “I remembered that forge when I was five or six
miles away. It’s a forewitted fellow who has a forge on his place, Bud.”
The latter accepted the compliment with a grunt.
“The old man done the thinkin’ about that. He got it in the
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