Fightin' Fool Read online

  “I meet a lot of people—in crowds,” said the big man.

  “It’s your eyes and your smile, I guess,” said Jingo. “They’ve been haunting me.”

  The big man halted, put his hand on a hitch rack, and stared.

  “All that I can’t remember is your name,” said Jingo.

  “I haven’t got a name,” said the stranger.

  “Your parents never able to make up their minds?” asked Jingo with sympathy.

  “No. Up in my part of the country they never give names to the kids. They just say ‘You.’ ”

  “You’re just a sort of a roustabout up there?” asked Jingo.

  “That’s all. I help out in the kitchen, too, and dry the dishes after dinner, and get the mail, and run the errands. What’s your name, mister?”

  “Jingo is my name.”

  “That’s a good name. Jingle is a good name for a gent that rattles such a lot. Your folks have got you all dressed up in long pants, I see.”

  “I dress up like a man once a week,” said Jingo. “It’d surprise you what a lot of people I fool.”

  “I’ll bet it would,” said the big fellow. “If you’re through remembering me, I’ll go along.”

  “I’m sorry you’re not going my way,” said Jingo. “I thought maybe you were a neighbor of Jake Rankin on Hell Street.”

  “Are you going to see Jake on that street?”

  “I hear he intends looking me up, so I thought I’d just call on him and save his time.”

  “What you intend to peddle on Hell Street?” asked the big man.

  “Lead,” said Jingo.

  “That’s heavy stuff for a kid in his first pair of long pants.”

  “It’s easy to sell, though,” said Jingo.

  “Yeah, if you can make the right kind of a talk. Maybe I’ll walk along with you, after all. We’ll go this way.” He turned and went up the street with Jingo. “What part of the world d’you come from?”

  “Jingoville,” said Jingo. “Maybe you’ve heard about that town?”

  “Where the pastures is all covered with blue forget-me-nots? Is that the place?”

  “That’s the place. They graze herds of suckers.”

  “There’s always a market for that sort of meat,” said the big man. His sour, long, heavy-featured face relaxed in something that approximated a smile.

  “Still,” said Jingo, “I can’t place the right name for you.”

  “Some people call me the Parson. But I never studied for the church, neither.”

  “It all comes back to me,” said Jingo. “Of course, you’re the Parson.”

  “And how long might you ’a’ known Jake Rankin?” asked the Parson.

  “I never met him,” said Jingo. “But I met his brother a little while back.”

  “You know Wally? He ain’t lucky, I’d say. He’s kind of a mongrel.”

  “What’s the cross?” asked Jingo.

  “Fast brains and slow hands. They never come to no good,” said the Parson.

  “I hope,” said Jingo, “that Jake Rankin is a purebred one, though.”

  “He’s all right,” answered the Parson. “If you don’t believe me, go and knock at the door of that house and ask for Jake. He only stands about five feet two, but he can win a lot of races with two guns up in the saddle.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Jake Rankin

  Jingo saw a little unpainted shack that had for a front yard a hitch rack with plenty of hoof holes pawed into the bare dirt. Boards from apple boxes had been nailed up to take the place of several missing lights in the windows, and the stovepipe leaned awry above the roof.

  “Nobody’s wasted any time keeping up the face of that house,” said Jingo.

  “It ain’t the stable that counts, but the horse inside it,” said the Parson.

  “So long,” said Jingo.

  “I’ll wait here. If you get throwed, I might haul you to a piece of soft ground to lie on,” answered the Parson.

  So Jingo crossed the street, singing softly to himself. As he came toward the front door of the shack he heard, distinctly, groans that welled heavily through the interior of the little house. He knocked at the door.

  “Who the devil?” asked a harsh voice.

  “Flowers for Wally,” said Jingo.

  A rapid footfall approached the front door. It was jerked open, and Jingo found himself looking at a small edition of Wally Rankin. A smaller edition and a harder one. The iron of Wally had been hammered down to the rigid, compacted steel of a smaller frame. The stern mind of Wally had been concentrated to a burning point that glinted out of the eyes of his older brother.

  “What kind of funny business you got in your head, drunk?” asked Jake Rankin. “And who are you, anyway?”

  “My name is Jingo,” he answered, and smiled.

  Jake Rankin grew calm. “So you’re the gent, are you?” said he.

  “Thank you,” said Jingo, “I heard that you might be looking for me. So I thought I’d save your shoe leather.”

  “Who told you that I’d be looking for you?” asked Jake.

  “The sheriff.”

  “The sheriff’s a thoughtful sort of an hombre,” remarked Jake. “One of these days he’s going to think himself right into a grave of some kind or other. Listen to me, kid.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jingo.

  “And none of your lip,” said Jake Rankin.

  “No, sir,” said Jingo.

  Jake Rankin licked his lips and ran his hungry eyes over the lithe body of Jingo. He was a judge of men, was Jake, and he could appreciate the way the parts of Jingo were fitted together. He handled him with his eyes the way a horse dealer handles a horse, judging bone and sinew, and the quality of the long muscles that make for speed, or the bulging muscles that make lifting strength. The muscles of Jingo were all long and cunningly worked together. He looked as capable of speed, say, as a well-braided whiplash of new leather. Jake Rankin missed not a single point.

  “Jingo,” he said, “it ain’t hard to see that you been well raised, and you know when to go and pay your respects to your elders. Now, I’m going to explain something to you. Walk down the hall and look into the back room without letting yourself be seen, will you?”

  Jingo hesitated as long as a running horse pauses at a jump. “Sure,” he said, and walked right in through the open door and past the grim face of Jake Rankin, so that his back was presently turned on that famous warrior.

  Down the hallway, with a very careful, soundless step, moved Jingo, and paused at the door of the back room. That door was half-ajar, and through the crack at the back of it he could see a widening slice of the room. He could see the head and the heavily bandaged shoulders of Wally Rankin, and he could see an old, gray-headed woman sitting by the bed, her shoulders hunched up as she leaned toward the invalid. The head of Wally kept turning uneasily from side to side as the agony burned him deeper and deeper. Then a great groan came shuddering out of his throat again.

  The old woman said: “Shame on you, Wally. Shame on a man actin’ like a dog that’s been run over. Shame on the throat that’ll go mournin’ for pain, like a lovesick wolf. Shame on a man that’ll bray like a fool of a donkey in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t own you. I wouldn’t have you if I thought you didn’t have nothing better inside of you!”

  Wally was silent.

  The agony struck him again with a heavy hand, but though his lips furled back over the glistening white of his teeth, he uttered not a sound. The bright sweat ran down his face as he endured in silence.

  Jingo came slowly back down the hallway and confronted Jake Rankin. “Thanks, Jake,” he said. “I understand.”

  He stepped outside the doorway and paused a moment politely. “I’ll have to be going along,” he said.

  “Wait a minute and have a drink with me,” suggested Jake.

  “Any liquor you gave me would suit me fine,” answered Jingo. “But I’ve got a friend waiting for me across the street.”


  “Ask him in, too,” said Jake Rankin. “I ain’t seen the Parson for a long spell.” He stepped out and waved. The Parson, with enormous, slow strides, crossed the street and came up to them.

  “We’re having a drink, Parson,” said Jake. “Come along in and join us.”

  There was no handshaking between the pair. The Parson said: “Sure. I guess your whisky ain’t spoiled.”

  The three of them went into the front room. It was the ghost of a “parlor.” There was a faded round rug on the floor, and a round center table on the middle of the rug, with a brass-bound Bible on the table, and “Robinson Crusoe,” and a picture album. Some striped wall paper was beginning to come off the wall in tatters.

  Jake disappeared and came back again, carrying three heavy glasses and a stone jug. He tilted the weight of the large drinks of the whisky. “It’s thirty years old, and it’s lost all its teeth,” said Jake.

  “There was never anything cheap about a Rankin,” said the Parson thoughtfully. “That was a good doctor you sent me, Jake.”

  “Yeah, he was good,” said Jake, “He fixed you up pretty good, I see.”

  “I limp a little in cold weather,” said the Parson. “Otherwise you wouldn’t know nothing. A funny thing how clean your bullets went through me.”

  “They seemed to kind of dodge the bones, I guess,” said Jake. “Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.”

  “Yeah,” said the Parson. “I’m getting ready for the next time.”

  “I’m always ready,” said Jake. “Which I mean I gotta kind of apologize to the kid here.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Jingo.

  “I mean,” went on Jake Rankin, “him walking all the way here on his feet and tiring himself out and getting all dusty to give me a fair chance at him. But the old woman has had kind of a shock, seeing Wally brought home on a door to-day. She’s kind of partial to Wally, even if he’s a bum with a gun. She kind of likes him. He’s the baby of the family, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sure,” said the Parson.

  “It might put her back a lot,” said Jake, “if she was to hear of a second gun fight in the family in one day. It might be kind of rough on her.” He set his jaws at the end of this speech. The muscles stood out in great ridges. The fore part of his face seemed to sharpen; his eyes narrowed. He looked like a wolf about to leap into a fight. Only then was Jingo able to appreciate the frightful effort of self-control which Jake Rankin was using.

  “You take a woman,” said the Parson, “and hitting them twice in the same place is what breaks them up. You gotta be careful.”

  “That’s what I thought about ma,” said Jake Rankin. “Just the same, I’m mighty sorry to disappoint you, Jingo. You coming up here to see me was mighty handsome, is all I gotta say.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Jingo. “We’ll meet again. How’s Wally coming along?”

  “He’ll never use his left hand again,” said Jake.

  “That’s too bad,” remarked Jingo. “Because he was twice as fast with his left hand as he was with his right.”

  “You got the eye to see with,” remarked Jake, nodding. “He was straighter with his left, too. Well, here’s to you, boy. Here’s to you, Parson. I hope I get a chance to put some lead through you before long.”

  “All right,” said the Parson. “Here’s hoping that we meet head on along a one-way trail. And Heaven help the one that’s gotta go over the edge.”

  “Here’s to you, Jingo,” went on Jake Rankin. “I dunno when a young gent has pleased me much more’n you pleased me to-day. Walking down the hall with your back to me—that was pretty good. Believe me, I’m going to really enjoy cutting the heart out of you, Jingo.”

  “Thanks,” said Jingo. “Here’s in your eye, Jake. The next thing you get from me will be a lot heavier than good wishes.”

  They tilted their glasses at their lips, and Jingo, after tasting the excellent old whisky, let it roll very slowly down his throat. He put down the glass with a sigh of pleasure. “That,” he said, “is the pure quill.”

  “Have another, Jingo,” urged Jake Rankin.

  “I’d like to,” said Jingo. “But I’ve had one drink to-day already. And more than two is more than my rule. What with all the sport that a fellow can find if he looks around in this town.”

  Jake Rankin smiled.

  He accompanied them through the front door and stood there, resting his elbow on the hitch rack. “Glad to ’a’ seen you boys,” said Jake.

  “You’ll be seeing us again,” said the Parson.

  “But one at a time,” added Jingo.

  Jake held up a hand in protest. “I know a gentleman when I see one,” said he seriously. “It’s going to be a pleasure. It’s going to be a real pleasure. I’m going to look forward to it. Shall I give your regards to Wally, Jingo?”

  “Give him my best regards,” said Jingo. “I’ll try to find something he likes and send it to him. Does he take to venison?”

  “Venison is his favorite fruit.”

  “I’ll have a deer here by tonight,” said Jingo, “if I have to go out and get it myself. So long, Jake.”

  “So long, Jingo.”

  So Jingo walked back downtown with the Parson, and they said not a word to one another all the way. Speech was not needed between them just then.

  CHAPTER 4

  Lizzie

  As they went down the street through the warmth of the late afternoon, Jingo said: “Parson, it sort of appeared to me that you were a little off your feed when I first met you. Or does your face always look like that when you haven’t got a feed bag tied to it?”

  “Jingo,” said the Parson, slowing his step a little, “it kind of comes over me that I gotta do something about you one of these days, and maybe this is the day.”

  “You don’t follow my drift,” answered Jingo. “The fact is, I’m making friendly motions.”

  “You are?” said the Parson. “Because if you ain’t—”

  “I am,” said Jingo, “and I don’t want any part of the bad time that you could give a man.”

  At this the Parson relented. “You son of a double-jointed lightning flash,” he murmured, “it sure does me good to hear you talk soft. Which I wouldn’t mind saying that I was a trifle peeved some time ago, and I’m still peeved. And I wouldn’t mind telling you the reason, neither; which I’ve gone and lost Lizzie!”

  “You’ve lost her?” said Jingo, regarding with a side glance the long and frightfully ugly face of his new friend.

  “I’ve lost Lizzie,” said the Parson, shaking his head sadly.

  “How?”

  “I got drunk,” said the Parson. “I got boileder than an owl, and I lost Lizzie.”

  “Sometimes they act up when a fellow puts on the paint,” agreed Jingo. “How boiled did you get?”

  “Faro, and a lot of noise.”

  “Cleaned out?”

  “Clean as a whistle.”

  “Tell me about Lizzie, will you?” asked Jingo.

  “That’s a thing that I don’t like to talk about much. It kind of gripes me when I think about losing Lizzie.”

  “What’s she like, though?”

  “There ain’t anything like her. She’s all by herself.”

  “Pretty?”

  “To me she’s beautiful,” said the Parson. “There’s some that differ. There’s some that say she’s too big in the head and too lean in the neck. There’s some that say her legs ain’t all that they should be. She’s kind of humped in the back, too. But to me she’s beautiful. Lizzie is the kind,” said the Parson, looking into the distance in the pale sky, “Lizzie is the kind that will stay with you. She’ll never let you down, and she’ll never say no.”

  “The kind you can depend upon, eh?” said Jingo sympathetically.

  “Exactly. Day or night, Lizzie is ready for the fun. She’s ready to step out and travel.”

  “Just for you, or for any of the boys?”

  “For any of the
boys?” exclaimed the Parson. “What would I be mournin’ about if Lizzie was one that anybody could take in hand? No, sir, I’m the only man in the world that can handle her. And I’m the only man in the world that puts the full worth on her. It’s going to practically break her heart when she finds that I’m gone for good. And she’s going to maybe never forgive me for selling her out.”

  “Hold on,” protested Jingo soberly. “You sold her out?”

  “I sold her out and let her go. I was drunk,” said the Parson sadly.

  “That’s bad,” murmured Jingo, frowning at the ground. And he drew away from his companion.

  “The night,” sighed the Parson, “was the time when Lizzie sort of shone. You couldn’t see her so good-by night, and she sort of shone. She got a second wind, and she could go all night till the morning. I never seen anything like it! We’ve traveled some long hikes together.”

  “She’s traveled with you a lot, has she?” said Jingo, with a growing distaste showing in his face.

  “Her? Traveled a lot with me?”

  The Parson laughed scornfully. “Nobody ever traveled any farther with a man than Lizzie traveled with me. We’ve gone tramping a hundred and twenty miles between water holes in the desert, the two of us have. Is that traveling?”

  “Great thunder!” said Jingo. “Yes, that’s traveling. It’s hard to believe.”

  “That’s what other folks say. But I know. I measured them miles by the hours we staggered along together. Them hours was days long. But we pulled through to water together.”

  He added, after a moment: “And now she’s gone! Maybe I’ll never see her again. There’s a one-eyed hound of a Mex half-breed that had his eye on her, and he’ll get her, sure.”

  “Great thunder!” said Jingo. “Something has to be done.”

  “There ain’t nothing can be done,” declared the Parson.

  “But will she go with the greaser?” asked Jingo.

  “How can she help it? I sold her out, didn’t I?”