CHAPTER XIV. Happy Jack
Big Medicine, Irish and Pink, racing almost abreast, heard a screambehind them and pulled up their horses with short, stiff-legged plunges.A brown horse overtook them; a brown horse, with Happy Jack clinging tothe saddle-horn, his body swaying far over to one side. Even as he wenthurtling past them his hold grew slack and he slumped, head foremost, tothe ground. The brown horse gave a startled leap away from him and wenton with empty stirrups flapping.
They sprang down and lifted him to a less awkward position, and BigMedicine pillowed the sweat-dampened, carroty head in the hollow of hisarm. Those who had been in the lead looked back startled when the brownhorse tore past them with that empty saddle; saw what had happened,wheeled and galloped back. They dismounted and stood silently groupedabout poor, ungainly Happy Jack, lying there limp and motionless in BigMedicine's arms. Not one of them remembered then that there was a manwith a rifle not more than two hundred yards away; or, if they did, theyquite forgot that the rifle might be dangerous to themselves. They werethinking of Happy Jack.
Happy Jack, butt of all their jokes and jibes; Happy the croaker,the lugubrious forecaster of trouble; Happy Jack, the ugliest, thestupidest, the softest-hearted man of them all. He had "betched" therewould be someone killed, over these Dot sheep; he had predicted troubleof every conceivable kind; and they had laughed at him, swore at him,lied to him, "joshed" him unmercifully, and kept him in a state ofchronic indignation, never dreaming that the memory of it would chokethem and strike them dumb with that horrible, dull weight in theirchests with which men suffer when a woman would find the relief ofweeping.
"Where's he hurt?" asked Weary, in the repressed tone which only tragedycan bring into a man's voice, and knelt beside Big Medicine.
"I dunno--through the lungs, I guess; my sleeve's gitting soppy rightunder his shoulder." Big Medicine did not bellow; his voice was as quietas Weary's.
Weary looked up briefly at the circle of staring faces. "Pink, you pileonto Glory and go wire for a doctor. Try Havre first; you may get oneup on the nine o' clock train. If you can't, get one down on the'leven-twenty, from Great Falls. Or there's Benton--anyway, git one. Ifyou could catch MacPherson, do it. Try him first, and never mind a Havredoctor unless you can't get MacPherson. I'd rather wait a couple ofhours longer, for him. I'll have a rig--no, you better get a team fromJim. They'll be fresh, and you can put 'em through. If you kill 'em," headded grimly, "we can pay for 'em." He had his jack-knife out, andwas already slashing carefully the shirt of Happy Jack, that he mightinspect the wound.
Pink gave a last, wistful look at Happy Jack's face, which seemedunfamiliar with all the color and all the expression wiped out of itlike that, and turned away. "Come and help me change saddles, Cal,"he said shortly. "Weary's stirrups are too darned long." Even with thedelay, he was mounted on Glory and galloping toward Flying U couleebefore Weary was through uncovering the wound; and that does not meanthat Weary was slow.
The rifle cracked again, and a bullet plucked into the sod twenty feetbeyond the circle of men and horses. But no one looked up or gave anyother sign of realization that they were still the target; they werestaring, with that frowning painfully intent look men have at suchmoments, at a purplish hole not much bigger than if punched by a leadpencil, just under the point of Happy Jack's shoulder blade; and at theblood oozing sluggishly from it in a tiny stream across the girlishlywhite flesh and dripping upon Big Medicine's arm.
"Hadn't we better get a rig to take him home with?" Irish suggested.
Weary, exploring farther, had just disclosed a ragged wound under thearm where the bullet had passed out; he made no immediate reply.
"Well, he ain't got it stuck inside of 'im, anyway," Big Medicinecommented relievedly. "Don't look to me like it's so awful bad--wentthrough kinda anglin', and maybe missed his lungs. I've saw men shot upbefore--"
"Aw--I betche you'd--think it was bad--if you had it--" murmured HappyJack peevishly, lifting his eyelids heavily for a resentful glance whenthey moved him a little. But even as Big Medicine grinned joyfully downat him he went off again into mental darkness, and the grin faded intosolicitude.
"You'd kick, by golly, if you was goin' to be hung," Slim banteredtritely and belatedly, and gulped remorsefully when he saw that he was"joshing" an unconscious man.
"We better get him home. Irish, you--" Weary looked up and discoveredthat Irish and jack Bates were already headed for home and a conveyance.He gave a sigh of approval and turned his attention toward wiping thesweat and grime from Happy's face with his handkerchief.
"Somebody else is goin' to git hit, by golly, if we stay here," Slimblurted suddenly, when another bullet dug up the dirt in that vicinity.
"That gol-darned fool'll keep on till he kills somebody. I wisht Ihad m' thirty-thirty here--I'd make him wisht his mother was a man, bygolly!"
Big Medicine looked toward the coulee rim. "I ain't got a shell left,"he growled regretfully. "I wisht we'd thought to tell the boys to bringthem rifles. Say, Slim, you crawl onto your hoss and go git 'em. Itwon't take more'n a minute. There'll likely be some shells in themagazines."
"Go on, Slim," urged Weary grimly. "We've got to do something. Theycan't do a thing like this--" he glanced down at Happy Jack-- "and getaway with it."
"I got half a box uh shells for my thirty-thirty, I'll bring that." Slimturned to go, stopped short and stared at the coulee rim. "By golly,they're comm' over here!" he exclaimed.
Big Medicine glanced up, took off his hat, crumpled it for a pillowand eased Happy Jack down upon it. He got up stiffly, wiped his fingersmechanically upon his trouser legs, broke his gun open just to make surethat it was indeed empty, put it back and picked up a handful of rocks.
"Let 'em come," he said viciously. "I c'n kill every damn' one with m'bare hands!"