The Winged Horse Page 5

  “And they’re friends?” asked the colonel. “They’re friends now?”

  “Ain’t you ever seen grizzly and elk go runnin’ side by side, when the forest fire was makin’ the trees smoke all around them?” asked Shorty.

  Muldoon, returning, placed the tin cup on the table and stared at it with awful eyes. It was quite full. “He wouldn’t have nothing,” said Muldoon. Suddenly he smashed his fist upon the table and bellowed, “Gimme some more of that tar bucket that you call coffee!”

  The cook without a word swallowed that insult and refilled Muldoon’s own cup. The colonel did not object to this language; neither did the ranch foreman at the farther end of the table. As for the cup that he had offered to the Lamb, and that was still untouched, Muldoon turned it thoughtfully about, like a mysterious vessel.

  So deep a silence came upon the table that the men were all aware of the renewed shouting of the wind through the woods, and its shrill breathing through the cracks in the log walls. They became aware of uncomfortable things, like their own aches and pains, and the burden of winter, and the spider webs in the corners of the ceiling, and the grease hardening white upon the tin plates.

  Muldoon burst out, “He says to me … ‘Who done it?’ I told him it was Jimmy Montague.

  “‘I seemed to go down before him like nothing,’ says the Lamb. ‘Like I was a kid, and he was a grown-up man. I went over that easy. She’s dead,’ says the Kid. ‘Her that never said no. She’s dead.’”

  “I shouldn’t’ve offered him another horse,” the colonel said. “I didn’t know how close she was fitted to his saddle.”

  “You might’ve offered a man a new wife,” Muldoon said bitterly. He pressed a handkerchief against a wound beneath one eye, and, removing the handkerchief, he looked at the red upon it. He shook his head. He seemed in a trance of grief. “He was took horrible hard on the way in,” Muldoon said. “He wanted me and him to ride after all the Montagues. ‘Two men and two guns can do something,’ he said. I allowed that it was a good game idea, but that nothing much could come of it.

  “‘No,’ says the Lamb, ‘he rode me down like a kid. He rode me down like I was only a picture of a man on a horse.’ I told him that Jimmy Montague was the best man in the mountains, with all due respect to everybody. That seemed to please him a little. At least, he could breathe without strangling. But he’s still pretty sick. Every minute a shudder runs through him, and he gets green around the gills. He looks like a gent down with fever.”

  “He will have a fever,” the colonel said, “unless we can find something to do for him. I’ve never seen such fool pride, even in a six-year-old stallion that never had a strap on it before. What can we do for him?”

  “I dunno,” said Muldoon. “If we could give him a hope of meeting up with Jimmy Montague pretty soon, that would be a comfort.”

  “He could write out a challenge,” the colonel said with a little glitter in his eye.

  “Challenge?” Muldoon hooted. “What attention will an Apache like Jimmy Montague pay to a challenge?”

  “Will the Kid know that?” asked the colonel.

  Muldoon paused, choked with excitement, and then started up with a violence that made every dish on the table crash. He hurried into the bunk room, the floor shuddering beneath his heavy stride.

  “He loves the Kid,” the foreman said. “If you poisoned Muldoon or whanged him with a fourteen-pound double jack, maybe he’d clean go out of his head with affection for the gent that done it.”

  “I was over on the Little Muddy,” said one cowpuncher, “and we had a pair of ornery dogs on the place. They was a cross between mastiffs and chained lightnin’. They ate the other dogs that was already there, and they spent the rest of their time tryin’ to break their chains and get at each other. They’d pretty near go mad when they seen each other, y’understand. The only time there was any peace between ’em was when they was turned loose at a wolf. They was faster than a wolf, and they had better wind, except in the roughest kind of goin’. Most generally they’d come up to a wolf and take him at the same time. One would grab the flank of the wolf and the other would take him by the throat. Then they’d pull him apart in no time.

  “But one day those two dogs met up with a hundred-and-twenty-pound double-action fool of a wolf, and it appeared like they was runnin’ right into a whole wall of teeth that they couldn’t climb and that they couldn’t scratch their way under. We got up in time to drive the wolf off. Then we swept up the remains of them dogs and carried them home in gunny sacks. It took hours to fit ’em together, because they was like jigsaw puzzles … and it took more hours to sew ’em back in place. They would’ve died, except they was so full of meanness that it took the place of blood, y’understand? But while they lay there getting well, they took care of each other like a pair of brothers, and licked each other’s wounds … and ever after that, if one laid down, the other would stand to keep the sun off him. And you could hardly feed ’em, because each one would want to hold off and let the other get his share first. You would’ve thought they was raised in France the way those fool dogs carried on.”

  “You didn’t stretch that much, Pete?”

  “There’s no use shrinkin’ cloth before sellin’ to you gents,” Pete said, “because you’re that sharp.”

  “Shut up,” said the foreman. “Here comes Muldoon ag’in.”

  Chapter Nine

  It was well known that Muldoon would have risen higher in the employ of the colonel had it not been for one great defect. He was thoroughly honest, famous for courage, a bulldog in his persistent battling against difficulties, and, above all, familiar with every wrinkle of the cattle business. But, unfortunately, he could neither read nor write.

  He brought the letter into the room with an important air, and he declared with a great deal of enthusiasm, “The Kid is a scholar, by gravy. He just laid back and wrote out that letter as slick as you please. He wants to give twenty bucks right out of his own pocket to the gent that’ll take this here letter, this here night, right across the hills to the Montagues’ place.”

  “I’ll take the letter,” Shorty volunteered, “but I’d certainly like to know what sort of poison is so carefully wrapped up inside of it.”

  “Colonel,” said Muldoon, “you forgot to get me them reading glasses again?”

  “I have, Muldoon,” the colonel said.

  “You keep me under a handicap continually,” said Muldoon. “I wish that you’d remember them reading glasses the next time that you come out.”

  “I’ll try to remember,” the colonel said seriously.

  Muldoon rolled his eyes about the table, but no one dared appear to doubt, therefore, he handed the letter over to the colonel, and the latter cleared his throat, and read it aloud impressively. It was addressed to James Montague, Esquire. And it ran:

  Dear Jimmy Montague,

  The last time we met, you seemed to think more of my horse than you did of me. In the part of the country where I was raised, it was mostly thought that the rider came first, and that only skunks played for horses because horses made a bigger target.

  These here ideas maybe don’t sound to you. I’d like a chance to explain them to you in public where other gents could hear them, too. Suppose we meet up some day in town, any place you name, and any day. Right in front of the hotel would be a good idea, it seems to me.

  A friend of mine is taking over this letter for me.

  So long,

  Alfred P. Lamb

  This letter made a great impression upon everyone. The colonel himself was highly pleased with it. As he pointed out with admiration, it did not say what would happen when they met, and it did not promise to cut the throat of Mr. Montague, or to drill him full of holes of .45 caliber. But the meaning of the writer could not very well be missed by anyone who dwelt on the range and lived among the range ideas.

  Short
y declared that it would be an honor to carry such an epistle. He knew the road to the Montague headquarters like a section out of a book, and he could ride it blindfolded through a worse wind than this.

  The Montague house was ten miles away. It was now 8:00 p.m., and Shorty promised to be back with some sort of an answer by 10:00.

  “Look lively,” said one of his companions. “Suppose Jimmy Montague was to get riled by that letter, he might take it out on you, eh?”

  Shorty grinned. “He might on the next gent, but I’m a foot below his size.”

  So Shorty departed, and the hoofs of his horse rang loudly upon the rocks, then were suddenly muffled as he passed over the rim of the high land and into the valley beyond. The others sat up for his return, though they were deadbeat by the work of the day.

  The colonel and his foreman, sitting in a corner of the kitchen, put their heads together and talked earnestly, discreetly. No matter how cheerfully the colonel had borne with this loss, yet he was hard hit. More than once the Montagues had scored heavily over him, but never so heavily as this. And even if he were cheerful, his bankers were not apt to be. There were credits to arrange, and the prolonging of borrowed sums of money.

  Such talk kept the poor colonel awake. While the men pried their eyes open by smoking many cigarettes, until they sat in dense pools of brown and silver, and played pedro and poker—for matches, since it was long past the first of the month.

  When struck 10:00, and there was no Shorty, there was no worry because it well might be that it had required some time for the Montagues to decide what notice they should take of the epistle. It was even conceivable that Jimmy Montague would actually accept the challenge, though he was not the man to give away a trick.

  Until 11:00 it was still conceivable that Shorty’s horse had gone lame and thereby delayed his return—for the way was covered with just those small stones that are liable to cripple a horse. But, from this hour, general anxiety pervaded the ranch house. The colonel and the foreman came in from the kitchen.

  At 11:30 the colonel conferred briefly with his foreman. Then he turned to the dark faces of the men and made a little speech. He said he feared that foul play had come the way of Shorty, and that he would wait until midnight, and at that hour, if the cowpuncher did not return, he and the foreman intended to saddle their horses, take their rifles, and descend upon the Montagues. All who wished were welcome to follow that example.

  It did not seem necessary to return any answer to this, but straightway cards were put aside and every man betook himself to the examination of his arms. Rifles were cleaned, revolvers loaded, ammunition belts repaired, but even so the time went slowly and all hands were sitting grimly, like so many wolves on their haunches, waiting for the wounded moose to fall, when a weight lurched against the door.

  The cook, with an odd look over his shoulder, unbarred the door, and pulled it wide. Then Shorty pitched into the room, tried vainly to steady himself, and lurched upon his face.

  They carried him to a blanket, which was laid beside the stove. There they examined his hurts. He was naked to the waist and his hands were tied behind him. Across his shoulders and his back were great wales, swollen and turned purple by the cold through which he had walked, and in a dozen places the whip strokes had slashed through the skin. Blackened blood was caked and crusted around the edges of these wounds. They washed Shorty clean, but it was not until the liniment stung him that he opened his eyes, cursing in a feeble voice. The cook had prepared hot coffee in haste, and a long draft of that cure-all enabled the cowhand to speak, though brokenly, a phrase at a time.

  He had gone straight down the road, meeting with no mishap, and had gone to the Montague house even more quickly than he had expected. He dismounted. Off in the distant woods he heard the bellowing of young cattle and saw the glimmering of fires. It was no puzzle for him to guess what was being done there, or from what source those beeves had come, or what brand was now being worked upon them. It had angered him a good deal. It also had made him wonder what would have been the effect if the advice of the Lamb had been followed, and the forces of the colonel had delivered a smashing counterattack.

  But he went up to the door of the big house—there was not a larger or more imposing house in the mountains than this one of the Montagues—and when he knocked and was told to come in, he found the two heads of the clan seated side-by-side before the great open fire on the hearth. Monty Montague, the father and grandfather of them all, was there smoking his long-stemmed Indian pipe. Opposite him was the bitter, handsome face of big Jimmy Montague, his tallest and his favorite grandson.

  To Jimmy, Shorty offered the letter, but the young Montague had pointed to his grandfather. “All news comes to Monty first,” he said.

  So the letter went to Monty Montague, and that old and evil man opened the envelope and peered with his bright, wicked eyes at the contents. He folded it, crumpled it, cast it into the fire. Then he turned in his chair and looked at Shorty.

  “That letter,” he said, “was from the colonel’s latest hired gunfighter … the young feller you rode down today, Jimmy. You said you’d flattened him for good, but it seems that you only flattened his horse. Instead of bein’ grateful for his life, the rat asks you to come down and have it out with him in town. What about it?” This speech he delivered with his face turned steadily toward the messenger.

  With his usual sneer, Jimmy answered that he saw no reason why he should give every fool and hired gunfighter a chance to shoot his head off, from around a corner or through a window.

  “You’re right,” said his grandfather. “And what about this gent that comes in here bringin’ this sort of message to us … while we’re sittin’ here and enjoyin’ a little rest after a damn long day of honest toil?”

  They both laughed at this. An instant later Jimmy had brought out two Colts and covered Shorty. They secured him while he still was reaching for the ceiling in fear of his life. They stripped him to the waist, and with a blacksnake the younger man flogged him until Monty, in a fury, snatched the whip away and applied it with redoubled force. It was his shower of blows that had slashed the skin open. After that, they turned him out of doors, and he had struggled back toward the ranch house on foot, for Jimmy had led away the horse.

  “Where’s Lonesome?” Muldoon asked hoarsely. “Where’s the Lamb? He’d oughta hear this.”

  They looked hastily about them. The Lamb was gone into the night.

  Chapter Ten

  There had been no sentimental outpouring from the Lonesome Kid, otherwise the Lamb, when he saw the condition of Shorty. Instead, he rose from his bunk, drew up his belt a few notches, and slipped from the house while the others were still milling about the injured man.

  The wind, as he stepped through the door, cuffed him back flat against the wall, tore the hat from his head, and seared his eyes. Nevertheless, he let the hat go and started for the corral.

  He was halfway to it, when he remembered that the mare was gone, and gone forever. He hesitated, paused, and then turned his face toward the trail with a grim resolve that he never would sit upon a horse again until he had satisfaction for the mare. He had started with the intention of getting to Jimmy Montague. But now he had another incentive. Big and formidable as Montague had loomed, it was the stallion he rode that had impressed the Lamb most. The powerful beast, sleek as a seal with the rain, had borne him down as though he were nothing, and the mare beneath him nothing. And though it might well be that the horsemanship of Jimmy Montague had something to do with the result, yet the Lamb had faith that the stallion was the conqueror. He had in his mind invincibly the ragged, flying forelock, and the head made ugly with ferocity. Having lost the mare, it was only a poetic and a human stroke of justice that he should first fit himself with one of the enemy’s string, and, inspired by this hope, he leaned strongly against the wind and made rapid headway.

  The trail was clear
and open; it was not greatly broken with rocks, and, in fact, a buckboard could have been driven across it with no difficulty. He had a lantern hung before him, moreover. For the moon was up and washing through the tumbling, whirling clouds like a ship through a storm-tossed ocean. Sometimes the pale face of the moon glided through the branches of a pine tree, or sat like a signal fire on the top of an eastern pine, but always it gave him some guidance through the night.

  He put that road behind him at six miles an hour, for he was not one of those workers of the range who cannot live out of the saddle, and who walk half a mile to catch a horse and ride half that distance. It was short of 2:00 a.m. when he came in sight of that ranch house of the Montagues. He had heard something about it before. It was as big as a castle for it had to house an entire clan. Old Monty Montague headed the outfit and gave law and order to it, and supplied wicked wisdom in all of its councils. Beneath him had gathered his sons, and their sons, and all their families. There had been no question of their moving away to find work, for old Monty Montague was always able to use every hand he could secure. Instead of letting them go, he built, entirely at his own expense, ponderous wings and additions to his original house, and then added stories on top, and dug out cellars beneath. Very few of the Montagues left him. The sons brought home their wives; the daughters brought home their husbands. There began, in this manner, to be a great mixture of names and blood, but the thought was always the same, and that was the thought of Monty Montague.

  Even if he had never heard a description of the place, the Lamb felt that he would have known it by its confused outline and its bulk as for a moment it was solemnly crossed by the face of the rising moon. Then it was deeply gathered in shadows again, and all the forest seemed to be drawing together and closing up around it. The moonlight gleamed on the tenderer green of the tips of the pines as upon the surface of the sea, and in the black heart of that sea the house was sunk.