Fightin' Fool Page 11

  “There are different kinds of reputation,” said the judge.

  “Yes,” said Jingo, “I was afraid that you’d bring that up.”

  “And you’ve known my daughter for about twenty-four hours?” suggested the judge.

  “I’ve spent years planning her,” said Jingo. “You ought to take that into consideration.”

  “Young man,” said the judge, “I don’t know why I’m not more offended.”

  “Well,” said Jingo, “I counted on a sense of humor, sir.”

  Eugenia came up to them, and the judge said to her with a sudden and almost brutal brusqueness: “Gene, this is a romantic evening. I’d like to know how dizzy you are about Jingo at this moment. Say it out loud.”

  There was more than the glow of the fire in her face. “I am a little dizzy,” she said.

  “Very well,” said the judge. “You two sit down and have your talk. Whatever you decide on, now or in the future, I’m not the sort of an old fool who’d disinherit you because of your choices in life. Wheeler, we’ll go watch the stars come out.”

  He turned abruptly away from the two and, picking up a reluctant Wheeler Bent on the way, moved out through the open door and disappeared.

  The girl sat by the fire with her chin in her hand and watched the leap and fall of the flames. Jingo stood opposite her.

  “My head is full of things I want to say to you,” said Jingo. “They’ve been running in my brain like wild horses.”

  “Well,” said the girl, “you have a right to talk—to-night.”

  “Your father has caught all the wild horses and haltered ’em and put ’em on a lead,” said Jingo. “I can’t say a word to you now.”

  “What has he done?” she asked.

  “Put me on my silly sense of honor,” said Jingo.

  She looked up at him suddenly. “Have you come all this way to be tongue-tied?” she said. “Aren’t you going to tell me how you managed to get here, even?”

  “I was just delivered in a load of hay,” said Jingo.

  She began to laugh, more with her eyes than her voice. After all, a great many important things can be said without using the tongue.

  CHAPTER 19

  Bent’s Desperation

  As Wheeler Bent and the judge went through the doorway, the judge was saying: “Now, Wheeler, I’m growing old and perhaps pretty much of a fogy. I’d like to know what a young man, a man of his own generation, frankly thinks about a fellow like Jingo.”

  Wheeler Bent hastily caressed his little golden mustache. He was so pleased by this invitation to speak that he could hardly see the dim glory of the scene before him, or the lift of the dark mountains against the stars. He said: “To a fellow of Jingo’s own generation, Judge Tyrrel, it seems that he’s just a cheap rascal!”

  “Ah,” said the judge. “A cheap rascal, Wheeler?”

  He kept his voice low and caressing. He turned his head a little and seemed to be considering, profoundly, what the young man was saying.

  Wheeler Bent was inspired to continue, as they paced up and down under the stars: “A gambler, a notorious gunman, a vagabond! And it shocks me, Judge Tyrrel, to see a man like that received with such great familiarity in your home!”

  “Ah, does it, Wheeler?” asked the gentle voice of the judge.

  “A creature,” exclaimed Bent, “capable of taking every advantage. No one knows what rot he’s pouring into the ears of Eugenia, just now. A young girl—romantic—passionate—almost unbalanced in her desire to extract from the world the perfume of its pleasures—”

  “My dear Wheeler,” said the judge. “You talk like a poet!”

  “When I think of Eugenia—of what she is—of how she could be wasted if she were allowed to follow the bent of every desire—why, it would make any one poetic, sir!”

  “Humph!” said Judge Tyrrel, still thoughtful.

  “But to have a creature like Jingo in the house—” exclaimed Bent.

  “After all,” said the judge, “he must be a young man with a good many friends.”

  “Of course the world is always the same,” said Wheeler Bent, “and there are bound to be many people who are amused by people who are burning up themselves to make a little, cheap light.”

  “And yet,” said the judge, “he seems to be a fellow of adroitness, good-looking, upstanding, with a good deal of courage.”

  Wheeler Bent laughed—a hollow sound. “Rogues, gunmen, thieves, blackguards—they all have what appears to be courage,” said Wheeler Bent. “But the steady moral courage of a good man—that’s what they lack.”

  “Well, well, well,” said the judge. “What a thoughtful fellow you seem to be, Wheeler.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Wheeler Bent.

  And just then, as they passed a bush, he was aware of something that rose behind it, a dark silhouette that seemed to wave toward him. And the guilty blood ran cold through his veins.

  He was glad when the judge said, a moment later: “Well, I’ll turn back inside the house and see how the pair of them are getting on.”

  “I’ll stay out for another moment,” said Wheeler Bent. “I—er—I never saw a more beautiful evening.”

  “Humph!” muttered the judge, and went rapidly back inside the house.

  As he came through the big, open doors again, he saw the adventurer, Jingo, rolling a cigarette in the midst of a silence which seemed to have lasted for some moments, at least.

  The judge was usually as direct as the attack of a bull terrier. He walked straight up to the pair and said: “Well, Gene. What’s the silence all about?”

  “Jingo came here full of talk, and you choked it out of him,” said the girl gloomily.

  “Come, come,” said Judge Tyrrel. “Here’s the fiery young gallant, the Don Quixote, jousting at windmills or the moon, and do you mean to tell me that he hasn’t said a word to you? Hasn’t he done a thing to make his trip worth while?”

  “No,” said the girl. “He seems to think that just because you’ve gone out of the room, he has to act like a stump of wood.”

  The judge whistled softly. “Jingo,” he demanded, “are you one of the boys who are never bad except when the teacher is in the room to watch?” And Judge Tyrrel began to laugh heartily. “Sit down, Jingo, and we’ll have a talk all together.”

  Wheeler Bent, in the meantime, had turned back toward the big shrub from behind which the stranger had appeared. As he came near, the form stepped out again, and the voice of Jake Rankin said: “Hello, partner. I just dropped by to report. We got one half of the procession, but the band had already gone by when we arrived.”

  “Rankin,” said Wheeler Bent, “are you out of your mind to show yourself so close to the house of Judge Tyrrel? Suppose that some one saw the two of us together, what would be thought?”

  “Maybe they’d think that you’d growed-up and started talking to real men,” suggested Jake Rankin sourly.

  “This way—let’s get back farther into the brush,” whispered Wheeler Bent. “Here—this is better. No one can see us now. Quick, man! Tell me what’s happened!”

  Rankin drawled: “Well, we come up with—”

  “Not so loud!” pleaded Wheeler Bent. “Go on!”

  “We come up with the big walloper they call the Parson, and we snagged him, and we got him tied hand and foot, out yonder. One of my partners has a set of irons in his saddlebag, but we saved them up for Jingo. Understand? Only we don’t know where he is.”

  “He’s there—he’s there!” exclaimed Wheeler Bent. “He’s right there inside the house! You’ve missed him, and let him come through. Heaven knows what will happen now.”

  “What are you in such a stew about?” asked Jake Rankin.

  “I tell you,” said Wheeler Bent, “that Jingo is in there! He broke through. In spite of all the men of Judge Tyrrel—in spite of you! I’ve thrown away the money I paid you—and Jingo’s inside the house. He’ll probably run away with the girl now!”

  “What girl?”
asked Jake Rankin.

  “What girl? Judge Tyrrel’s daughter! That’s the girl! What do you think—”

  Wheeler Bent checked himself, for he found his tongue running away. But Jake Rankin seemed to have looked a bit into the future.

  He said: “Poaching on you, is he? Dog-gone his young hide, that’s what he’d do, too. There ain’t anything that he’d overlook in the way of a bet. If he’s got a fair chance to talk to that girl, you’d better cash in your checks and get out of the game. About the Parson, yonder—you don’t want him?”

  “Of course not,” said Wheeler Bent. “What do I care about him?”

  “That’s what he kind of wondered,” said Rankin.

  “He wondered? Great heavens, did you mention my name to him?” demanded Wheeler Bent.

  “Well, and why not? If you was out after those two hombres, we thought that they’d know that you was after them,” explained Rankin.

  “And you used my name?” groaned Wheeler Bent. He beat his hands together above his head.

  “What of it?” asked Rankin, growling out the words.

  “What of it? Simply that his tongue has to be stopped then! Suppose that he ever got to Judge Tyrrel and talked about me? I’d be ruined!”

  “When you talk about his tongue being stopped,” said Rankin, “just what do you mean by that, partner?”

  “Stopped? He’s got to be kept from speaking!” exclaimed Bent.

  “Ah, hum!” muttered Rankin. “That’s it, is it? Murder is the thing you want, eh?”

  “Murder? Who used that word?”

  “I did. There ain’t any other way of stopping a gent from talking and you know it.”

  “What do I care how you stop him?” said Wheeler Bent desperately. “I only know that you’ve balled everything up and confused everything and missed the man I wanted to get—and revealed my name—” He began to groan, making wordless sounds.

  “All right,” said Jake Rankin. “I’m kind of sorry about it, because he acts and he talks like a real man. But I’m your hired man, just now, and what you say has to go for me. I’ll go back and tap the Parson over the head, if you want. I’ll bash in his skull for him, and then likely he’s going to be silent enough to please even you.”

  “Bash in his head?” gasped Wheeler Bent.

  “If you know a better way, talk it up big and loud,” suggested Rankin. “I’m ready enough to listen to it. It ain’t what I wanta do—butcher a man like a beef. It’s up to you to talk right out and say what you want.”

  “I have to leave it in your hands,” muttered Wheeler Bent. “I only know that—that he mustn’t be allowed to talk.”

  “Yeah, and you could cut his tongue out,” suggested Rankin. “But he’d still have his hands to write with. If you know a better way, you tell me about it!”

  Wheeler Bent was silent. But the noise of his rapid breathing could be heard.

  After a moment Rankin went on: “Now, I’m willing to go ahead and try to do the other half of the job. There’s Jingo—and you want him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” gasped Bent.

  “Well, if he’s inside the house, you show me the way to him. He’s the meat for me, partner. I gotta get at him some time or other, and why not tonight?”

  “Are you out of your wits?” demanded Wheeler Bent. “Don’t you know that that house is full of armed men?”

  “Well, that’s all right, too,” said Rankin. “There can be a lot of guns in a crowd—and only a few of ’em will go off at the right time.”

  “You can’t take him out of the house,” said Wheeler Bent. “There’s no use thinking of that!”

  “Then you go and bring him out to me,” suggested Rankin. “How would that suit you?”

  “I’ve got to think,” muttered Wheeler Bent, “and my brain’s spinning too fast. I can’t make it work!”

  “When a gent can’t make his brain work, he’d better start his feet moving,” remarked Rankin. “You go along ahead and do what you can on the job. I’ll wait out here.”

  “Don’t wait so near the house!” breathed Wheeler Bent. “Stay farther away.”

  “All right then. That flat-topped hill over yonder. That’s where I’m going with the other two. And if you come out there, you can say a last good-by to the Parson—poor sucker!—before we bump him off!”

  CHAPTER 20

  On the Hilltop

  Wheeler Bent, out of breath, staggered, and more or less desperate, got back inside the huge central room of the house and found before his eyes the last picture in the world that he expected or desired to see. For there he saw that Judge Tyrrel was in the midst of hearty laughter and had actually, at that moment, clapped his hand on the shoulder of the detestable vagabond, Jingo. He saw, worse than this if possible, that the girl was looking up at the two with a sheen in her eyes such as Wheeler Bent never had seen in them before.

  Young Bent’s entire hopes, which had seemed, only the day before, to be based as upon strong granite, now dissolved into vapor. He could hardly see the features of his own settled intentions! All was adrift and at a loss, with him.

  And he heard Judge Tyrrel say: “But you say that another man came out with you, Jingo?”

  “Yes, another man,” said Jingo. “The Parson is big enough to make two.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “Out behind a flat-topped hill just near the house. He and I camped there this afternoon and listened to the derricks groaning and watched the loads of hay come in.”

  “Then he’s out there growing hungry. Call him inside!” insisted the judge. “I want to see the sort of a fellow you would team with, Jingo.”

  “Oh, he’ll fill your eye, all right,” said Jingo.

  “Hello, Wheeler,” called the judge. “Jingo is going out to ask in his friend. You go along to make the Parson sure that he’ll be welcome in here with us. Hurry along, my lad. Step right along with Jingo!”

  It was the last invitation that Wheeler Bent wished to accept, but he had to turn, against his will, and walk through the door beside Jingo. He was never to forget that walk up the hill and what awaited them at the top of the rise.

  In the first place, as they stepped out under the bright heavens, Jingo said: “You seem to hate me, Bent. I don’t blame you, in a way, but I want to tell you this. If I handed you one on the chin, the other evening, I’m willing to let you have your try at getting even whenever you say so. Right now might be the time to please you. If you can put me down—well, I won’t be hurrying back inside the house. And if I don’t reappear—well, your own way might be considerably cleared up for you, old son!”

  Wheeler Bent looked askance at his companion.

  He was the same height. There was hardly a pound of difference in their weight. And Wheeler Bent had been trained in wrestling and boxing since he was a boy. Yet he knew that if there were a fight, he would have no more chance than a fifty-pound dog has against a fifty-pound lynx, or a hundred-pound dog against a fifty-pound panther. He knew that while he was fighting his honest best, there would be a sudden explosion in Jingo, a savage outbursting of energy, an electrical flare of force that would magnify him many times, for a few effective instants.

  Wheeler Bent, then, eyed the man beside him as a dog might eye a wolf. Afterward he looked forward to that flat-topped hill toward which Jingo was stepping, for there would be found Jake Rankin and his two assistants with the Parson in their hands. When Bent saw how perfectly his means were matching his ends, he even smiled at the idea of fighting Jingo. He therefore answered, rather lightly: “Fighting wouldn’t be a great help to me or to you. A black eye or a bleeding nose wouldn’t decorate the scene any. Besides, I’ve been bumped on the chin before.”

  He added carelessly: “Just what sort of a fellow is the Parson?”

  “The Parson,” said Jingo, “is what you might call slow poison. He doesn’t start fast, but he keeps on finishing for a long time. He’s something. When he wants to, he can be a friend.”
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  “Well, how would you define a friend?” asked Wheeler Bent, glad of the ground they were covering to that flat-topped hill.

  “A friend?” asked Jingo. “Why, that’s the one thing that a man can’t get along without.”

  “A man can’t get along without meat and beer,” answered Wheeler Bent, more lightly than ever.

  “He can, though,” insisted Jingo. “He can chew leather and eat roots and live on hope. A man can get along without a home or a wife or a child, but he has to have a friend. And the Parson could be that sort of a friend.”

  “I thought,” said Wheeler Bent, “that he was just a big oaf with a face like a horse. I remember seeing him at the dance. Of course, I didn’t talk to him.”

  “Well,” said Jingo, “a lot of people can see him without knowing him.”

  Wheeler Bent looked up at the sky with such a sudden jerk of the head that the stars whirled before his eyes. He thought of himself and how few people in all the world knew him rightly. No one, certainly, knew him well enough to suspect the things which he was planning for this night. This, he determined, would be the one occasion when he would step off the straight and narrow path. But if he could once brush Jingo from his path, he told himself that the rest of his life would flow surely and safely forward to a happy sea. Eugenia would forget the romantic, nameless fellow very shortly. And Wheeler Bent’s part in the disappearance of Jingo would never be known.

  On the whole, Bent felt satisfied with himself, and he had a sense of extra power; he could understand what was meant in old legends when it was said that a man had sold his soul to the devil. In fact, it seemed to Wheeler Bent that evil walked beside him as an ally, through the dark of this night. They had come up to the top of the hill, very nearly, when he said in a loud voice: “Well, Jingo, I hope the whole deal will turn out—”

  They were stepping through the brush at that moment, and there was a sudden exclamation in a deep voice, that seemed to rise out of the ground: “Jingo! Look out!”

  Jingo leaped to the side as he heard the exclamation, and as he sprang, there was the instant sheen of a gun in his hand. But behind the brush, several dim forms were rising. Something cut the air with a hissing whisper, and Wheeler Bent saw the noose of a rope—a movement rather than an image of the eye—fall over Jingo. The rope was drawn taut with a jerk that tumbled Jingo on the ground. The gun slithered away out of his hand among the leaves, and the dark forms hurled themselves on him.