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Read Ebook: Tales of Two Countries by Gorky Maksim
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Ebook has 1471 lines and 42369 words, and 30 pages
"Yellow!" he snarled, looking at me with his bulging eyes full of meanness and confidence.
My shoulders got tight, and it ran down along my gun arm. I never took that from a man before.
"I won't draw," I said. "Reckon I'll move on instead, if you'll let me."
And I picked up my reins, moving my hands real careful-like, and turned my horse around and started down the slope. I could feel his eyes on me, and I was half-waiting for a bullet in the back. But it didn't come. Instead Buck Tarrant called, "Doolin!"
I turned my head. "Yeah?"
He was standing there in the same position. Somehow he reminded me of a crazy, runt wolf--his eyes were almost yellowish, and when he talked he moved his lips too much, mouthing his words, and his big crooked teeth flashed in the sun. I guess all the hankering for toughness in him was coming out--he was acting now like he'd always wanted to--cocky, unafraid, mean--because now he wore a bigger gun than anybody. It showed all over him, like poison coming out of his skin.
"Doolin," he called. "I'll be in town around three this afternoon. Tell Ben Randolph for me that he's a son of a bitch. Tell him he's a dunghead sheriff. Tell him he'd better look me up when I get there, or else get outa town and stay out. You got that?"
"I got it, Buck."
"Call me Mr. Tarrant, you Irish bastard."
"Okay ... Mr. Tarrant," I said, and reached the bottom of the slope and turned my horse along the road through the Pass. About a hundred yards farther on, I hipped around in the saddle and looked back. He was practising again--the crouch, the fantastic draw, the shot.
I rode on toward town, to tell Ben Randolph he'd either have to run or die.
Ben was a lanky, slab-sided Texan who'd come up north on a drive ten years before and liked the Arizona climate and stayed. He was a good sheriff--tough enough to handle most men, and smart enough to handle the rest. Fourteen years of it had kept him lean and fast.
When I told him about Buck, I could see he didn't know whether he was tough or smart or fast enough to get out of this one.
He leaned back in his chair and started to light his pipe, and then stared at the match until it burned his fingers without touching it to the tobacco.
"You sure, Joe?" he said.
"Ben, I saw it four times. At first I just couldn't believe my eyes--but I tell you, he's fast. He's faster'n you or me or Hickock or anybody. God knows where he got it, but he's got the speed."
"But," Ben Randolph said, lighting another match, "it just don't happen that way." His voice was almost mildly complaining. "Not overnight. Gunspeed's something you work on--it comes slow, mighty slow. You know that. How in hell could Buck Tarrant turn into a fire-eating gunslinger in a few days?" He paused and puffed. "You sure, Joe?" he asked again, through a cloud of smoke.
"Yes."
"And he wants me."
"That's what he said."
Ben Randolph sighed. "He's a bad kid, Joe--just a bad kid. If his father hadn't died, I reckon he might have turned out better. But his mother ain't big enough to wallop his butt the way it needs."
"You took his gun away from him a couple times, didn't you, Ben?"
"Yeah. And ran him outa town too, when he got too pestiferous. Told him to get the hell home and help his ma."
"Guess that's why he wants you."
"That. And because I'm sheriff. I'm the biggest gun around here, and he don't want to start at the bottom, not him. He's gonna show the world right away."
"He can do it, Ben."
I looked at his hand lying on his leg--the fingers were trembling. He curled them into a fist, and the fist trembled.
"You ought to, Ben," I said.
"Of course I ought to," he said, a little savagely. "But I can't. Why, what'd happen to this town if I was to cut and run? Is there anyone else who could handle him? Hell, no."
"A crazy galoot like that," I said slowly, "if he gets too damn nasty, is bound to get kilt." I hesitated. "Even in the back, if he's too good to take from the front."
He let out another mouthful of smoke. "You got any idea what he meant about thinking his gun into his hand?"
"Not the slightest. Some crazy explanation he made up to account for his sudden speed, I reckon."
Another puff. "You figure I'm a dead man, Joe, huh?"
"It looks kind of that way."
"Yeah, it kind of does, don't it?"
Only a few men sat in chairs along the boardwalks under the porches, or leaned against the porchposts, and they just sort of stared around, looking at Buck for a second and then looking off again if he turned toward them.
I was standing near to where Buck hitched up. He swaggered up the steps of the saloon, his right hand poised, his bulging eyes full of hell.
"You tell him?" he asked.
I nodded. "He'll look you up, like you said."
Buck laughed shortly. "I'll be waiting. I don't like that lanky bastard. I reckon I got some scores to settle with him." He looked at me, and his face twisted into what he thought was a tough snarl. Funny--you could see he really wasn't tough down inside. There wasn't any hard core of confidence and strength. His toughness was in his holster, and all the rest of him was acting to match up to it.
"You know," he said, "I don't like you either, Irish. Maybe I oughta kill you. Hell, why not?"
Now, though, I wished to hell I hadn't stayed outside. I wished I was behind one of them windows, looking out at somebody else get told by Buck Tarrant that maybe he oughta kill him.
"But I won't," Buck said, grinning nastily. "Because you done me a favor. You run off and told the sheriff just like I told you--just like the goddam white-livered Irish sheepherder you are. Ain't that so?"
I nodded, my jaw set so hard with anger that the flesh felt stretched.
He waited for me to move against him. When I didn't, he laughed and swaggered to the door of the saloon. "Come on, Irish," he said over his shoulder. "I'll buy you a drink of the best."
I followed him in, and he went over to the bar, walking heavy, and looked old Menner right in the eye and said, "Give me a bottle of the best stuff you got in the house."
Menner looked at the kid he'd kicked out of his place a dozen times, and his face was white. He reached behind him and got a bottle and put it on the bar.
"Two glasses," said Buck Tarrant.
Menner carefully put two glasses on the bar.
Menner polished two other glasses on his apron and set them down.
"You don't want no money for this likker, do you, Menner?" Buck asked.
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