Legend of the Golden Coyote Read online

  Well, sir, I begun to see what he meant.

  “Wait a minute, Soapy, are you talking about Clarges?”

  “The rat-eyed, sneaking coyote!” Soapy snapped.

  “Hold on, Soapy, tell me what he’s done to you?”

  “He took my girl,” Soapy said. “Look at him over there now, grinning and gaping at her. He took her away from me. He sneaked in and grabbed her away from me, just because I’d told her some kind things about him, or otherwise she never would have wasted a second look on such a cow of a man. He ain’t a man. He’s an ox. No, he ain’t an ox. An ox is too stupid to be mean. He’s a….”

  I got more and more scared.

  “Look here, old-timer,” I said, “will you please listen to me?”

  “Kid,” he said, “you’re the only one in the world that I would listen to. The rest of them are crooks and sneaks, but you, I’d listen to. Tell me what I can do to him, outside of just wringing his head off his shoulders for him?”

  “Soapy, you’re all wrong.”

  “I’m what?”

  “You’re wrong. Will you let me tell you what really happened?”

  “Go on … go on.”

  “It was this way. When you started in to dance with Miss Alvarado, Jimmy Clarges, he just took it for granted that he should be able to dance with her, too. Like two brothers would go and dance with the same girl. And I’ll bet that he ain’t been doing a thing but telling her yarns about what a wonderful gent you are.”

  “Wait a minute,” Soapy said. “That idea never came into my head.”

  He wasn’t a fool, by any means, old Almayer. He was just pretty slow in the head.

  “It’s the straight of it, though,” I told him. “Absolutely the straight of it.”

  “I believe you, dog-gone if I don’t,” he said. Then he gives a wriggle. “Look at him, though. Like a grinning baboon, and not like no man whatever.”

  Matter of fact, that was just about what Jimmy Clarges looked to be.

  “Don’t you worry none,” I said. “He’s tickled to death that you got him to know such a fine girl, but the last thing in the world that he would want would be to offend you, old-timer. I know him too well to expect that, and so do you, if you’d sober down and think it over for a minute. Why, old man, he loves you better than a brother. He’s always looking up to you.”

  Soapy let out a few more breaths, and then gave a sigh. “I thought that I would have to break him up,” he said. “And I been keeping myself from that all of these years.”

  “He’s just a simple old chap,” I said. “He don’t think so fast and straight as you do, Soapy. You got to have patience with him. Otherwise, he would’ve asked your permission before he danced with her. She looked like she liked you a lot, Soapy.”

  “Would you say that?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes. She was smiling all the time.”

  “Smiling, was she?” Soapy said, pretty contented. “Yes, I suppose she was.” He waited for a minute, and then he added: “I got an invite out to her father’s place.”

  “Go on, Soapy.”

  “I did, though.”

  “Old man, you’re a fast worker,” I told him. “The fact about her and Jimmy Clarges must be just that she took pity on him, him being a friend of yours, as she knew.”

  “Sure. I couldn’t help mentioning his name a couple of times to her.”

  “It’s all as clear as day. He don’t mean any harm.”

  “I’ll take it up with him,” Soapy said. That scared me.

  “Don’t you do it,” I told him. “You just let the matter drop. I wouldn’t say a word about it, if I was you. But I wonder at you, Soapy, the way that you get on with the girls.”

  “You seem to find yourself at home, kid,” he said. “And she’s a fine looker, too.”

  “Not in a class with your girl,” I commented. “Hurry up and get another dance, big boy. We got to be starting back, pretty soon.”

  And away he went, with his head in the air, all smoothed out and happy again.

  IX

  It wouldn’t have been hard for me to have laughed at the idea of those two big boobs that was wasting their time on nonsense, and in getting jealous of each other, while there was a hundred percent, sure-fire gunfighter waiting to murder ‘em both.

  What good would it have done to have warned them? No good at all. There wasn’t any fear in them. And a fight against a gun would just be an old game for them. Many a time gents had yanked out Colts while arguing with Thunder or Lightning, and many a time the guns had been taken away and shoved down the throat of the gunfighter.

  But there is men and men, and chiefly there is nothing much more different than an ordinary ‘puncher, say, and a real gun-fighting fool.

  I didn’t need nobody to tell me that Jack Thomas was one of the last kind. He had the steady eye. And I’d seen him show his nerve. He wasn’t the man to hold his fire until the last minute— and then miss the mark. Killing a man—if it came to that— would be no more to him than shooting a jack rabbit; he’d just be careful to pick his mark right. And what chance would the pair of the giants have against him?

  Well, the rest of that evening went off in a dark haze, for me, with only a streak of light, now and then, where I seen the face of my girl. She was fine and kind and said I’d better go home and not stay here to be made miserable by something, she didn’t know what. But I had to stay!

  And a mighty good thing that I did stay, I can tell you, because in the finish there was a fine, large chance for a fight between that pair of hams. About 1:00 A.M., Rosita got up to leave, and who, I might ask you, was the gent that took her home?

  No, you wouldn’t really guess. But I’ll tell you. It was Jimmy Clarges, with the floor grinding and screeching under his tread, as he went out with his head in the air.

  Big Soapy leaned against the wall for a minute, pretty faint, and I hurried over to him. When he recovered, he made a wild lunge to follow them, but I hung onto him.

  “Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?” I kept asking him.

  “I’m just gonna murder that sawed-off cartoon of a man,” he told me.

  “Wait, Soapy, and tell me what’s the matter?”

  He stopped dragging me toward the door, all at once. “No,” he said, grave and sober as you please, “I ain’t gonna spoil her clothes and her good time by splashing blood all over her. He ain’t worth that much notice.”

  “You’re right, Soapy,” I told him.

  “Sneaking in on me like that, the hound!”

  “He’s just doing it out of compliment to you, Soapy. I swear that’s what he means by it.”

  Soapy gave me a queer look, with his forehead all wrinkling up, as much as to ask himself, was I mixed up in this here plot against his happiness?

  But, in the meantime, what stuck in my crop, as they say, was the way that the girl had sashayed out of the room on the arm of Clarges, seeming as contented as could be, and smiling and chattering with Clarges.

  Then I remembered she was a Mexican girl, and I thought to myself that there sure is something in the way of trouble in the air. There couldn’t be any mistake about that! Something crooked was starting. Because, no matter what might be said about Clarges amusing her, she wouldn’t let a big cartoon like him take her home! It wasn’t possible.

  Well, I was thinking things out like that while I hung onto the sleeve of Soapy and guided him, gradual, out of the dance hall. I told myself that if I could ever just get him safely back to the lumber camp without a fight, I would be thankful. How much he fought didn’t make no difference to me, so long as he would just fight with the right man.

  I got Soapy out of the hall and into the open. There was plenty of lights flashing, particularly the ones that come winking through the swinging doors of the saloons, where gents was filing in and out. And up in the hall, the orchestra was getting on its last legs and tearing off the roof with its closing pieces of the evening.

  Soapy was sort of falling
off and filling again, like a sail. Partly he wanted to get right on the trail of Clarges, and partly he wanted to get into one of the nearest saloons and pour down a gallon of firewater.

  I knew what that would do. He would start in brooding over his wrongs and smash up half of the town. And how could I find a way for him to vent his feelings?

  I thought of one, pretty soon. We walked by a sour-faced gent with a pair of shoulders almost as broad as Clarges’s, and a nose squashed about flat with his cheek bones, and his eyes protected by a great, high ring of bone. He was a prize fighter, or had been one, and it was easy to see that there was still fight in him. He had a wicked light in his eye, for one thing, and he wasn’t all bulged out of shape with fat the way that most of them get when they’re out of the ring. I should have said that he weighed within ten or fifteen pounds of big Soapy Almayer, and all at once it come over me that the best thing in the world by way of preventing a tragedy was to get Soapy well beat up by that same ex-pug.

  So I got away from Almayer and went back to the other gent.

  “You’re the Denver Kid, ain’t you?” I asked.

  “Me? Lord no,” he replied. “I ain’t that canvas-kissing sucker. Who says that I was? I’m Cyclone Charley.”

  And his eyes glinted at me. It was fine. He rose right up to my game like a trout flicking up to sock a fly on the surface of the water, not guessing that you got a hook in the fly. It was a pretty sight, I can tell you.

  “Anyway,” I continued, “I dropped back here to tell you that the big gent up there has got it in for you, Charley.”

  “Wait a minute while I catch my breath,” Charley said with a sneer. “You pretty near scare me. What big gent? You don’t mean that sap up yonder, do you?”

  “Look here, Charley, I’m only warning you,” I said. “The big guy says that you’re a yellow hound, and that he dropped a lot of money betting on you, and that you quit, and that he’s got a mind to run you out of town.”

  I thought that Cyclone Charley was gonna pass out. He wobbled a little, and then he lit out after Soapy, saying: “I’m gonna murder that poor stiff!”

  I couldn’t keep up with him. I didn’t want to keep up with him. I just loafed along in the rear and laughed to myself. I’d played a sneaking part, sure enough, but just the same, though it was a shame to get Soapy beat up by a professional prize fighter, it would save him from doing worse harm before the night was over. Yes, I couldn’t really blame myself.

  I saw the prize fighter come up with Soapy, saw him tap Soapy’s shoulder, and the next minute something was said between them, and I saw the big right arm of Almayer smash out like the lunge of a log in a jam.

  Why, it was a pretty thing, I tell you, to see the pug duck that punch, and, coming up in close, he hit Soapy four times, with all his might, right in the stomach. It sounded sort of like the thudding of a drumstick on a great, big muffled drum.

  I held my breath and waited for Soapy to go down, but he didn’t go down. I seen his face by the light of a lamp that sent a streak out through a nearby window, and Almayer was just laughing and stepping in for more.

  As he stepped, he punched, and the pug danced away before him, bobbing in and out among the driving fists, until he saw his chance, planted himself, and let Soapy have a straight right drive full on the button. Have you heard a cleaver go through a bone and chug down into the chopping block? That was the way it sounded. But Soapy didn’t go down. Instead, he leaned in and reached the pug with an uppercut. It was just a half-arm punch. It lost part of its force by glancing off the chest of the prize fighter, but what was left of it hit Cyclone Charley on the chin, lifted him off his feet, and put him on the back of his head on the street.

  He lay there without a quiver, completely done, and I came up and peered at him.

  Soapy was saying: “You’re a fine fighter, old-timer. Dog-gone me if you ain’t a bang-up, real good one. Just stand up, and we’ll have another round for the fun of it.”

  Cyclone Charley leaned up on his elbows. His eyes were pretty sick-looking.

  “What happened?” he said, in a mumble. “Who hit me from behind?”

  I dragged Soapy away. I was a good deal amazed. Mind you, I had heard a great deal about him and what he could do, but I never dreamed that any common man could stand up to a prize fighter. Well, neither could anyone. But Soapy simply wasn’t common at all. He was about as uncommon as they come. He was plumb different. I couldn’t understand how he had been able to weather those whacking punches to the stomach. But he had weathered them, and no mistake. He didn’t seem to feel no aftereffect.

  And it hadn’t disabled him, that fight, but only it had cheered him up a great deal. He was smiling now and whistling as he went down the street with me.

  “I feel pretty good, kid,” he said to me. “I don’t mean,” he said apologetically, “about the fight, because it wasn’t a real fight. But it was fun, y’understand? Because he wasn’t too small to fight, was he?”

  “No,” I confirmed, “he wasn’t.”

  “And he was fast, and a good, hard hitter,” Soapy said, arguing with himself. “You got no idea how real hard he could hit. He almost staggered me when he hit me on the jaw. And I think that he may’ve made a couple of marks on my stomach where he punched me. If only he could have taken it, we might’e had a real, fine, upstanding fight, kid, and there ain’t anything that does the heart much more good than that, is there?”

  I said that perhaps there wasn’t. And, while he was in that fine humor, I steered him past the last of the saloons and got him into the first buckboard that was starting back for the camp.

  I felt that I had done a real good job. I was pretty pleased with myself. And, when the morning came, I figured that both Soapy and Jimmy Clarges would have forgot all about Rosita Alvarado.

  That shows what a fool I am.

  X

  When I told the big boss about what had happened, he didn’t seem excited none. You take most men, when they get along into middle age and when they’ve got their hands filled with power and with money and all that, they’re so contented with their work and their own world that they don’t care about the outside. And what’s it to them if there’s a man or two killed?

  “There’s maybe gonna be a dozen or so dead men around these diggings,” I said to him.

  “Let ‘em drop, kid,” he said. “Let ‘em drop. I’m getting kind of tired of the dull life around here. In the old days, I used to be working with men!”

  That irritated me a mite.

  “You get off that old riot gun of yours, then,” I said. “Because you’re going to need it.”

  He looked at me a little more serious. That riot gun was an old-fashioned shotgun with two barrels, each like a separate cannon, and each barrel of it could hold a whole handful of loose shot. I had seen it, and I had heard a good deal about it and the way that the old man, several times, had downed a mob by turning loose on them with that terrible gun. His shoulder was layered with two inches of fat. That was the reason why he was the only man in the world that dared to fire the shotgun. It was sawed-off shot, so that the kick wasn’t quite so great, now, and it was sure to dose about a hundred square yards of air with enough ammunition to blow a company of men to Kingdom Come.

  “You think that there’ll be a riot?” he said, pretty thoughtful.

  “I dunno?” I responded. “If there is, I know that you’ll enjoy it.”

  Of course, I didn’t think that there was going to be any riot. To tell the truth, I was just leading up to something else. I was gonna tell about how the two big men was about to smash into each other, and then I was going to tell about the way that I had pried them apart from one another. I was just going to fix things up so that I would be admired a little. And maybe you understand what I mean—which is that after that job that I had worked on the evening before, I needed admiration. Maybe you’ve sometimes felt that way yourself. Admiring yourself ain’t the same satisfaction at all.

  However, I
got away on the wrong foot with the chief, and so I went off in a huff and left him staring after me. And a little later in the morning, when I had a glimpse of him, dog-gone me if he wasn’t working away and cleaning and oiling up the old riot gun and making her ready for action.

  It sort of scared me. The gent who begins to holler—“Wolf! Wolf!”—out in a lumber camp is pretty apt to get all the wolf that he wants, and then some. Jostling lumberjacks is a lot more dangerous than jostling tins of soup.

  Well, I had a man-size job lined up for me that morning, and, as I started away on it, I thought to myself that it would be a good thing if I should take one of the pair along with me. Because that would keep them from any danger of mischief while I was away.

  I got to Jimmy Clarges, therefore, and asked him to come along. “All right,” he said, “as soon as Soapy is ready. He’s down taking a plunge just now.”

  It gave me the shudders. A plunge, with the surface of the river along the banks all skimmed over with a glaze of thin ice! But that Almayer, he wouldn’t hardly care for such a thing as that. He was like a buffalo. He would just smash through and take a frolic in the freezing water, and then come striding out and throw in somebody else that was standing and shivering on the bank. That was his idea of a joke!

  Yes, sir, that very minute, there was a wild scream from down on the river, and Jimmy Clarges grinned, broad and slow.

  “They’re having their fun,” he said. “And some more of it.”

  There was another sharp whoop, and somebody else must have been sent spinning into the water.

  “Look here, Clarges,” I said, “you better come along with me, because Soapy, he ain’t ready to go, and I have to start off right now, and you’re the only man in camp that’s really got the strength to help me through with this here job.”

  “Not even Soapy?” he said, pricking up his ears.