The Rangeland Avenger, Above the Law & Alcatraz (3 Wild West Adventures in One Edition). Max Brand
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handled for the little grey gelding swayed in rhythm with his panting; from his belly sweat dripped steadily into the dust and the reins had chafed his neck to a lather. Marianne flashed into indignation and that, of course, made her scrutinize the rider more narrowly. He was perfect of that type of cowboy which she detested most: handsome, lithe, childishly vain in his dress. About his sombrero ran a heavy width of gold-braid; his shirt was blue silk; his bandana was red; his boots were shop-made beauties, soft and flexible; and on his heels glittered —gilded spurs!
“And I’ll wager,” thought the indignant Marianne, “that he hasn’t ten dollars in the world!”
He unknotted the cinches and drew off the saddle, propping it against one hip while he surveyed his mount. In spite of all his vainglory he was human enough to show some concern, it appeared. He called for a bucket of water and offered it to the dripping pony. Marianne repressed a cry of warning: a drink might ruin a horse as hot as that. But the gay rider permitted only a swallow and then removed the bucket from the reaching nose.
The old man who apparently sat all day and every day beside the door of the stable, only shifting from time to time to keep in shadow, passed his beard through his fist and spoke. Every sound, even of the panting horse, came clearly to her through the open window.
“Kind of small but kind of trim, that hoss.”
“Not so small,” said the rider. “About fifteen two, I guess.”
“Measured him?”
“Never.”
“I’d say nigher onto fifteen one.”
“Bet my spurs to ten dollars that he’s fifteen two; and that’s good odds for you.”
The old man hesitated; but the stable boy was watching him with a grin.
“I’ll take that bet if—” he began.
The rider snapped him up so quickly that Marianne was angered again. Of course he knew the height of his own horse and it would be criminal to take the old loafer’s money, but that was his determination.
“Get a tape, son. We’ll see.”
The stable boy disappeared in the shadow of the door and came back at once with the measure. The grey gelding, in the meantime, had smelled the sweetness of hay and was growing restive but a sharp word from the rider jerked him up like a tug on his bit. He tossed his head and waited, his ears flat.
“Look out, Dad,” called the rider, as he arranged the tape to fall from the withers of the horse, “this little devil’ll kick your head off quicker than a wink if he gets a chance.”
“He don’t look mean,” said the greybeard, stepping back in haste.
“I like ‘em mean and I keep ‘em mean,” said the other. “A tame hoss is like a tame man and I don’t give a damn for a gent who won’t fight.”
Marianne covertly stamped. It was so easy to convert her worries into anger at another that she was beginning to hate this brutal-minded Beau Brummel of the ranges. Besides, she had had bitter experience with these noisy, careless fellows when they worked on her ranch. Her foreman was such a type grown to middle-age. Indeed her anger at the whole species called “cowpuncher” now focused to a burning-point on him of the gilded spurs.
The measuring was finished; he stepped back.
“Fifteen one and a quarter,” he announced. “You win, Dad!”
Marianne wanted to cheer.
“You win, confound it! And where’ll I get the mates of this pair? You win and I’m the underdog.”
“A poor loser, too,” thought Marianne. She was beginning to round her conception of the man; and everything she added to the picture made her dislike him the more cordially.
He had dropped on one knee in the dust and was busily loosening the spurs, paying no attention to the faint protests of the winner that he “didn’t have no use for the darned things no ways.” And finally he drowned the protests by breaking into song in a wide-ringing baritone and tossing the spurs at the feet of the others. He rose—laughing—and Marianne, with a mental wrest, rearranged one part of her preconception, yet this carelessness was only another form of the curse of the West and Westerners— extravagance.
He turned now to a tousle-headed three-year-old boy who was wandering near, drawn by the brilliance of the stranger.
“Keep away from those heels, kiddie. Look out, now!”
The yellow-haired boy, however, dazed by this sudden centering of attention on him, stared up at the speaker with his thumb in his mouth; and with great, frightened eyes—he headed straight for the heels of the grey!
“Take the hoss—” began the rider to the stable-boy. But the stable- boy’s sudden reaching for the reins made the grey toss its head and lurch back towards the child. Marianne caught her breath as the stranger, with mouth drawn to a thin, grim line, leaped for the youngster. The grey lashed out with vicious haste, but that very haste spoiled his aim. His heels whipped over the shoulder of his master as the latter scooped up the child and sprang away. Marianne, grown sick, steadied herself against the side of the window; she had seen the brightness of steel on the driving hoofs.
A hasty group formed. The stable boy was guiltily leading the horse through the door and around the gaudy rider came the old man, and a woman who had run from a neighboring porch, and a long-moustached giant. But all that Marianne distinctly saw was the white, set face of the rescuer as he soothed the child in his arms; in a moment it had stopped crying and the woman received it. It was the old man who uttered the thought of Marianne.
“That was cool, young feller, and darned quick, and a nervy thing as I ever seen.”
“Tut!” said the other, but the girl thought that his smile was a little forced. He must have heard those metal-armed hoofs as they whirred past his head.
“There is distinctly something worth while about these Westerners, after all,” thought Marianne.
Something else was happening now. The big man with the sandy, long moustaches was lecturing him of the gay attire.
“Nervy enough,” he began, “but you’d oughtn’t to take a hoss around where kids are, a hoss that ain’t learned to stop kicking. It’s a fool thing to do, I say. I seen once where—”
He stopped, agape on his next word, for the lectured had turned on the lecturer, dropped his hands on his hips, and broke into loud laughter.
“Excuse me for laughing,” he said when he could speak, “but I didn’t see you before and—those whiskers, partner—those whiskers are —”
The laughter came again, a gale of it, and Marianne found herself smiling in sympathy. For they were odd whiskers, to be sure. They hung straight past the corners of the mouth and then curved sabre-like out from the chin. The sabre parts now wagged back and forth, as their owner moved his lips over words that would not come. When speech did break out it was a raging torrent that made Marianne stop her ears with a shiver.
Looking down the street away from the storming giant and the laughing cowpuncher, she saw that other folk had come out to watch, Westernlike. An Eastern crowd would swiftly hem the enemies in a close circle and cheer them on to battle; but these Westerners would as soon see far off as close at hand. The most violent expression she saw was the broad grin of the blacksmith. He was a fine specimen of laboring manhood, that blacksmith, with the sun glistening on his sweaty bald head and over his ample, soot-darkened arms. Beside his daily work of molding iron with heat and hammer-blows, a fight between men was play; and now, with his hands on his hips, his manner was that of one relaxed in mood and ready for entertainment.
Presently he cast up his right arm and swayed to the left; then back; then rocked forward on his toes presenting two huge fists red with iron-rust and oil. It seemed that he was engaging in battle with some airy figure before him.
That was enough of a