Sour Creek Valley Page 13

  “Curse him and his plans too,” Shorty snapped. “All that I want is just a minute alone with him … to sort of explain my views of what I think about him. Would you let me do that, please?”

  “No,” said Pepillo. “Not for an instant. Promise me that you won’t harm him.”

  Yes, sir, I tell you that Pepillo stood in front of Shorty and raised his hand a little, like he was the king or something, and if Shorty didn’t act like a good subject and back right up. Yes, he put away that revolver as meek as a lamb, saying, “I got no right to touch him if you don’t want me to.”

  “I want your promise,” Pepillo said, a little impatient.

  Shorty sort of gagged and swallowed. “I promise,” he whispered.

  “Thank you,” said Pepillo, smiling on Shorty like that smile was enough reward for him or for any man.

  “I would like it,” said Shorty, “if you could explain how I might be of any use to you. Actin’ the way that I’ve done, most likely you write me down for a swine … which maybe I am, mostly. But I ain’t forgot that I was born into a decent family in old England. And I would like to do a decent thing now, if you would tell me how. If you was planning to leave this here place and this here rat … this Big Boy …”

  Pepillo shook his head and frowned a little. “You mustn’t speak that way of him.”

  Doggone me, if Shorty didn’t even swallow that.

  “All right,” he said, “only what I meant to offer was that if you might want a horse for leaving on, I would be plumb tickled if you was to take my pinto horse.”

  It staggered me! That pinto was nearer to the heart of Shorty than any child to the heart of his pa. But here he was, offering that horse to a kid that didn’t stand knee-high to a grasshopper.

  “I can’t take it from you, Shorty,” said the kid. “Because … well, because I think that I’ll go back to him, after all.”

  “To Big Boy?” Shorty asked, naming me with a lot of effort, like I was a kind of a poison or a snake or something.

  “Yes,” said the Blue Jay.

  Shorty threw out his arms and groaned, “Don’t you do it. If I could stand to see you standing around … like a servant … and him … letting you …” He choked and couldn’t say any more. But his fingers worked, and it wasn’t hard for me to guess that where he wanted to plant those hands of his was around my throat.

  “It’s no use,” said Pepillo. “I think that I shall have to stay.”

  At that, Shorty didn’t argue anymore, but his head dropped forward, and he looked as if he’d just heard about the death of his whole family by shipwreck or something.

  “I got no right to say nothing,” Shorty said, very sober. “You are the boss.”

  Now, by this time I had had enough for sure, and I backed away from the place where I had been seeing and hearing all of the funny things that had been happening, and I went off and walked by myself.

  A little while earlier, it had seemed to me that nothing in the world mattered really, except that I had lost my first good chance to squelch the rustlers in the Sour Creek Valley. Then here I was forgetting all about Mauricio and that Pablo Almadares and my deal with Randal and my hope of the ranch and all of that. All that I was thinking of now was that this here kid had hypnotized Shorty.

  Aye, and he had sort of hypnotized me, too, as you’ve had a chance to see. But that was different. It was plain that when Shorty scooped the kid off of the ground, Pepillo must’ve said one word that stopped Shorty, mighty darned quick.

  What that one word or phrase must’ve been, I dunno. But there was a clue for me to follow up, as they say about the detectives. I’ll tell you what the clue was. I had always figured that this here Shorty was the sort of a gent that was raised and grown altogether on the range, but here I had listened in on him saying that he had been born in England. Now, why should he have thrown that in—and that remark about “good old England,” if it hadn’t had some relation to Pepillo?

  The idea busted in my brain like a shooting star going to pieces in the middle of the air. This here Pepillo, that I had ordered and thrown and kicked and whipped around, was really somebody terrible, terrible high up in the world over yonder in England, somebody very near to the top, in fact. The more that I pondered on that there thing, the clearer it was that I saw the truth about it.

  He was so high that the thought that I had laid a whip onto the kid made Shorty want to murder me—so high that the knowing that he, Shorty, had laid hands on the kid made Shorty almost want to take poison himself. And he offered to give away his best cutting horse!

  Well, what would do that? It was easy to see a good reason. Those Englishmen are a pretty good lot, you take them for fighting or playing square or doing anything that comes right and natural amongst men. But they got their funny places. Like who would be bothered, these days, with saying “my lord” to somebody? No, you wouldn’t, nor would I. These here Englishmen would, and they sort of like it, too, strange though that may seem to you and me.

  I have had it from gents that have been there that an Englishman doesn’t think anything of taking off his hat, not only to his king, but even to some duke or other, or even to an earl, maybe. And earls and such are terrible thick over there, like millionaires with us, you know. But an Englishman doesn’t care. You would think that he didn’t have any pride at all, were you to see him standing in the rain to let some earl that never did anything go by him.

  Here was the secret with Shorty, right enough. This kid, he was high, mighty high. And here was me, an ornery, low-down cowpuncher that had been ordering him around right and left—and actually laying a whip on his shoulders.

  Well, I didn’t like it much. I liked it lots less than you would maybe guess. I went back toward the house feeling blue and low and meaner than nails in your shoe.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  Sitting and thinking doesn’t ever do any good at a time like that. But I was bothered by a lot of little things, such as how could Pepillo have the kind of skin and eyes and lingo that he had and be a noble of England? Still, that could be explained pretty easy and logical, because you know how those highfalutin earls and princes will marry around into foreign countries, simply disgusting. You take a young count or something. Would he be contented to marry Sally Smith, pretty as a picture, straight as a string, and living right in the same block with him, that he went to school with?

  No, he would not. Which he would sooner go across to France or somewhere, and he would pick up with some skinny French girl that didn’t have any home training at all, and he would marry her and think that he was doggone smart to bring home a package of trouble like that.

  You folks know all of these things pretty near as good as I do. You could read ’em in the papers almost any day. So it was pretty plain that the pa of Pepillo—you couldn’t write him down much smaller than a duke, at the least—he must’ve married out into another country, and maybe that marriage wasn’t none too happy. He married some Spanisher, say. And that was how come that Pepillo knew so much Spanish lingo as well as English so good. Well, most likely there was a good deal of trouble around the house. Because you never could tell when a foreigner woman like that would start carrying on. Maybe it made the old duke pretty mean, and he might’ve started to take some of his meanness out on Pepillo. You can see that, being what he was, Pepillo wouldn’t take nothing from nobody. So he up and left the old man and the wife flat and started out on his own. That was how I found him.

  You can see that this reasoning is pretty straight. If you go back over it, it would be pretty hard for you to pick out any flaw in it, I suppose. Anyway, by the time that I had worked out these here things satisfactory, the door of my room opened soft, and there was Pepillo.

  He said, “Well, I’m over my mad. I’m taking my licking and coming back, if it’s the same to you, old-timer.”

  Well, how would you fe
el, if you were to have a young duke come along like that and step into your room? I jumped up quick and got a little red.

  “Sit down, and welcome, your honor,” I said.

  “How do you get that way,” asked Pepillo, “and what do you mean by ‘your honor’? Are you kidding me?”

  I saw that he didn’t want to bust through his incognito none. Was it up to me to force his hand? I should say not. I said, “All right, Pepillo. If you want it that way, I suppose it’s your right. I’ll treat you any way that you say, because you sure got a lot coming from me.”

  Pepillo sat down, cross-legged, on a chair and dropped his chin on his fist. “What’s biting you?” he asked. “You act like a fish out of water.”

  “Why, as a matter of fact, there’s nothing wrong with me, only …”

  I could feel myself getting hotter and hotter.

  “Go on,” said Pepillo, scowling at me. “What’s under your hat?”

  I just stammered and stared.

  “You’re blushing,” Pepillo said. Then all at once he jumped up, pretty red himself. “Big Boy,” he said, pointing his finger at me. “You were behind the corner of that shed.”

  I couldn’t lie out of it, though I would’ve liked to. But I said, “Son, I don’t want to embarrass you none. You got your own reasons, but, if I was you, I would go back to your family.”

  Pepillo gave me a long, long look that had me shifting from one foot to the other. “Just what d’you know?” he asked.

  “That Shorty wants to murder me.”

  “And why?”

  “Why … you know, Pepillo.”

  “Maybe I do,” he said, “but I want you to say it.”

  “I didn’t hear everything. Only, it’s plain to make out that you must’ve come from some pretty high-up family, Pepillo. I ain’t pressing you for any more information than you feel like handing out. Your business is your own. I know that. What your old man is, I dunno, or why you left him. But these here earls and dukes and things, they got troubles of their own, I know.”

  “Earls and dukes?” muttered Pepillo, frowning at me. Then he grinned. He sat down again and he took a long breath and watched me with sparkling eyes.

  “Look here,” I said, “if maybe you’re lacking for the funds to take you back to him …”

  Pepillo shook his head. “I’m never going back,” he said. “So, stop worrying about that. As for the rest, so far as you’re concerned, I’m Pepillo or the Blue Jay or any other silly name that you choose to call me. Does that go, Big Boy?”

  “Sure. Only I feel sort of foolish about …”

  Pepillo began to laugh to himself, with his eyes dancing.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “‘Your honor!’” Pepillo repeated, and then he began to laugh again, and he laughed so hard that he had to wrap his arms around himself and rock back and forth in the chair and fair shout. I had to start grinning myself.

  “Look here, you monkey,” I said, “I’m standing a good deal. Don’t you forget …”

  “The whip?”

  It brought me up with a start, I can tell you, like there was a curb bit in my teeth.

  Pepillo slipped out of his chair and came over to me. “I’m not going to explain about myself. But I’ll tell you this … I’m no better than you used to think me. I’m worse, a lot! Will you shake hands with me?”

  He stuck out his hand, and I took it like it was gingerbread.

  “As for the whipping … now that it’s over, I have to admit that I deserved it. Maybe it will do me good. I don’t bear you any malice, Big Boy. We’re quits all around, if you balance that against me turning Sammy Dance loose …”

  “Sammy Dance?” I yelled at him. “Why, how did you come to know that name?”

  “Why, you told me. Was it a slip?”

  But his eyes had wobbled a little bit to the side from mine, and I knew that he was lying.

  “Pepillo, that’s a lie and a loud one! Excuse me for saying so.”

  “It’s a fact,” said Pepillo.

  Well, I let it go at that. But I knew that I hadn’t used the name of Sammy Dance to anybody. Then how did it come that the kid knew his name? The more that I thought about it, the more it beat me. I could see that there were oceans more to this kid than I had been able to guess, and I made up my mind that I would simply lie low and keep my eyes and my ears open for a while. Then, maybe, I would get on the right track, after all.

  Pepillo went to the other side of the room, and he begun to do some of his chores, because the sun was near rising and the day was beginning. He fetched out a pair of my old boots, and he began to oil them up.

  “What are you laughing at?” I asked.

  “Nothing, your honor,” he replied.

  Well, I fetched a lick at him, but he dodged me, and I went on down to see how the air was below. I bumped into Randal pretty soon. He had heard the news. He asked, “What’re you gonna do to that brat, Big Boy?”

  “Leave him be,” I said—it seemed a million years ago that I had been planning to ride against Almadares and the rest. “Tell me, Randal, how would folks speak to a duke?”

  “Why, they would call him ‘your grace’, I suppose,” said Randal.

  That explained it. I cussed myself pretty good. I knew that it was “your something or other,” but I had missed my guess pretty far, as you can see for yourself. Anyway, I was glad that Pepillo and me was partly back on the old footing, and I went out for a walk while breakfast was getting ready.

  When I went out, up the drive comes an old, withered-up gent on a mustang that was covered with sweat and dirt. Looked like he had been riding the whole night through. He jumped down, very spry.

  “Look here, young man,” he said, “just fetch my horse around to the stable and give it a good feed of grain, will you?”

  It took me back a little. I never cuss an old man. I just said to this gent, “What hinders you from fetching your own horse, stranger? I’m busy.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “What are you busy at?”

  “Watching the sunrise,” I said, turning my back on him.

  Just then the front door slammed, and there was Randal, singing out: “Why, Grandfather, where did you drop from?”

  “I dropped from that saddle,” said the old man. “Why don’t you hire men who’ll obey orders, Harry? This fellow says that he won’t feed my horse.”

  I turned around in a trance. Yes, sir, it was old Henry Randal. And it was plain that I hadn’t boosted the stock of his grandson none. I took that horse and went away, kicking the stones out of my path and cussing the world at large.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  Out in the barn I met up with Shorty and big Rusty McArdle. Rusty, he looked pretty sad, but he grinned and waved at me. Shorty only glared when I said, “Good morning, Shorty.”

  “Hey, Shorty, what’s eating you?” asked Rusty. “Don’t you see Big Boy?”

  “Damn Big Boy, and you too,” said Shorty, and he went off to catch a horse for the day’s work.

  “What’s up?” asked Rusty.

  “Rusty,” I said, “there is so much in the air around this here ranch that’s wrong, that I can’t tell where to begin to talk about it. Besides, what I feel is mostly guesswork, and not many facts. But I’ll tell you one thing to put in your pipe and smoke … old Henry Randal has just blown in, and he’ll start counting cows, today. And he’s gonna find that the count is short.”

  I was right, too. When I got back to the house, I found that old man Randal was as chipper as you please. He chattered away all through the breakfast.

  “Your men were running all over the house the last time that I was here, Harry,” he said. “How does it happen that they’ve stopped?”

  “I got tired of it,” said Harry, “and I put an end to it.”


  “You put a stop to it?” repeated the old man, and he looked up and blinked his eyes at his grandson like a hawk that sees a mouse under its pounce. “You put a stop to it?”

  “Aye,” Harry said, giving me a look, as much as to say: Don’t give me away.

  Of course, I wouldn’t’ve said a word, because Harry’s game was my game. Harry’s winning meant my winning, in the end.

  Old Henry Randal went on with his breakfast and his talking at the same time. He was eating enough to keep any strong hired man going and he was talking enough for two. He wore his eighty years like they were thirty, and I couldn’t help thinking what a power of a man he must have been when he was younger. I was wrong there, though. When he was a youngster, I found out later, he’d been a good deal of an invalid, but as he got older, all the sickness had died out of him, leaving him just a sound, well-weathered old stick of a man.

  He told us that he hadn’t intended coming over for some days, but that he hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, so he got up, dressed, and went for a ride. For lack of any better place to ride to, he had come to the Sour Creek Ranch. That was the last place that he was wanted, of course. But that didn’t make any difference to him.

  This was a snappy, cold morning, with the wind blowing straight down from the snows on the mountains, and pretty soon, old Randal said, “Let’s have some fire here, Harry. Let’s have some fire here, man. D’you want to freeze my old blood in my body?”

  Harry was eager to please the old hawk. He jumped up and touched a match to the fire that was laid on the hearth. In a moment, the flames were rising in sheets and columns, and roaring up the chimney.

  It was a whale of a fireplace, that. When Stephen Randal set himself to build a house, he began at the ground and dug out a cellar that would have served for a castle foundation. Then he went ahead and he built the rest of the old house to match it. The dining room was a place where you could have put fifty men down at the long table. Even with all of the center boards out, that table couldn’t be shrunk up to a handy size. The three of us—the old man, Randal, and me—were sitting around it with yards of space between. The fireplace was made to match the room. Even me, I could stand right up straight in it. It was like another room; the andirons were like bronze frames for a ten-ton truck. There was wood to fit with irons and a fireplace like that. If you were to throw in an armful of ordinary firewood, it would burn up like so much kindling and not send out so much as a glow across the rest of the room. What you needed were sections of a tree, just split across once or twice, and heaved into the fireplace.