*CHAPTER XIII*
_*In Which Apache Kid Behaves in His Wonted Way*_
What with the pains upon my forehead, caused by the blow I had come bywhen my unfortunate horse put his foot in that unchancy burrow and sentme flying; what with that pain and the ache of my legs, and somethingelse that was not a pain, but worse than a pain, I had scarcely theheart, I fear, to give Mr. Pinkerton as kindly a smile of welcome as hehad in store for me on seeing me again alive.
That other thing I speak of as worse than a pain was a horriblenervousness with which my hour of torture with the snake had endowed me.Yes, it can only have lasted about an hour, I think, that hideousexperience, though then it seemed an eternity. But so had it affectedme that when we gathered together on the plateau I paid little heed tothe council of my companions,--had lost interest in their affairs.Instead, I kept jerking my head into my shoulders, and caught myselfeven gasping suddenly and dodging a snake that leaped at me in theair,--a snake that, even as I sought to evade, I knew was not there atall,--a mere creature of my harassed and frayed nerves. Mere fancy Iknew it to be, but still I must needs dodge it and blurt out a gasp ofterror again and again.
It was while I was still busied on this absurd performance,--stillstanding in the talking group and heedless of the talking,--that I sawApache Kid knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in contempt;and that caused me to pull myself together and square myself, as asoldier may do under the eye of an officer. When I did so, I rememberthat I seemed to go to the other extreme; in my attempt to master thisnervousness, I caught myself grinning.
It was then that Mr. Pinkerton, who was holding back a little way,looking on, but not party to our doings, remarked to me, as he caught myeye again:
"I took a long shot at that horse of yours, sir, and put it out of itsagony when it got its leg broke; but things have been levelling up sincethen, and I think men and horses are just on a par again--one horse, oneman."
I laughed hilariously at this saying, as though it were something hugelyamusing. But between you and me, I do not think that Mr. Pinkertonspoke it from his own kind heart but spoke thus more as some sensitivemen wear a cloak of pride or shyness or a false bombast to protect themfrom other men less finely tuned. It was, I believe, only to show ahard front before these new partners of ours, as villainous a trio asyou ever clapped eyes on, that he spoke in this light way of the doingsof death; because at my laugh I saw him frown as though he regrettedthat I could enjoy his bitter jest so fully.
In a dazed way I saw the party mounting; but so great difficulty had Iin gaining the saddle of a horse--whose horse I do not know; I think itwas the mount of the man called Cockeye--that Donoghue came to my sideand held the stirrup and gave me a "leg up" and, "Are you scared, orwhat?" he said in my ear, low and angry and with something of contempt."You 've made a hash of to-day for us as it is, with goin' and gettin'that accident. Are you scared o' them fellers?"
"Scared!" said I. "Man! I 've been tortured."
"Been what?" said he, and he got on to that vicious mount of his withsuch a viciousness himself, in his pull of the rein and lunge of hisspurs, that I saw Mr. Pinkerton give him a look as who should say: "He'sa devil of a man, that."
But Donoghue crowded his beast to my side and asked me what I meant bymy remark of being tortured, and I told him the whole matter of it as werode across the plateau, all lit now with the thin last glow of day.
He listened with his head to one side and his loose jaw tightening andthrusting out.
"I take back what I said to you," said he. "I take it back right now;and as for hindering our journey--why that could n't be helped. Betterthat we met these fellows right here, face to face, instead of goin' onunknowing and getting shot by 'em round the fire to-morrow night orplugged through the windows of the Lost Cabin three nights hence."
This might have given me an idea of how far we had still to go--orrather should I say, in a country such as this, of vast distance, of hownigh we already were to our journey's end, had I been much heeding thatevening.
He held out his hand to me across his saddle (I was riding on his left),and as we shook hands I saw the man Pete look at us with a doubtful eye.
And for a surety there was every reason why these fellows should besuspicious of us and be wary and watchful of our movements.
That they were three unscrupulous scoundrels--"The toughest greazersthat ever stole stock," as Mr. Pinkerton had phrased it when speaking ofthem and their cronies (using the word "greazer" in its loose, slangsense, not necessarily implying thereby that they were actuallyMexicans, which is the meaning of the name)--that they were capable ofany treachery and cruelty themselves, there was no doubt. And as theywere, so they would be very prone to judge others and were, doubtless,already thinking to themselves that we three had after all--for thepresent at least--the best of the bargain; for had they set upon us anddone away with us, where would have been their chance of coming to theLost Cabin? As far away as ever; the Lost Cabin would still have been aneedle in a haystack.
On the other hand, I guessed them already arguing, we would be glad andeven eager to kill them, though they desired to keep us alive--for atime.
I suppose they took our handshake--Larry's and mine--for a sign of someunderstanding between us and scented in it a treacherous design uponthem, for they kept upon our flanks hereafter, at sight of whichDonoghue laughed his ugly laugh and shook his horse forward a step,sneering at them over his shoulder.
O! We were a fine company to go into camp together, as we did withinhalf an hour, before the last grasshoppers had ceased their chirring, onthe side of the knoll where was a spring of water, a little pooloverhung by a rock with strange amphibious insects darting away from itscentre to the sheltering banks as we dipped our cans for water to makethe flapjacks.
To any chance observers, happening into our camp at twilight, we wouldhave seemed nothing more dire than a round-up camp of cow-boys, I fancy,for after the meal, when pipes and cigarettes were lit and belts let outa hole or two and boots slackened, there was an air of out-door peacearound the fire.
Yet I need not tell you that the peace was on the surface--fanciful,unreal. As for me, the snake was leaping in my eyes out of the fire,when Apache Kid, as calm as you please, struck up a song.
Heads jerked up and eyes glanced on him at the first stave. It seemedas though everything that any man there could do or say was to bestudied for an underlying and furtive motive.
It was "The Spanish Cavalier" he sang, with a very fine feeling, too,softly and richly. There is a deal of the sentimentalist about me, andthe air, apart from the words, was ringing in my heart like a regret.
"The bright, sunny day," he sang, "it soon fades away," and after heceased the plain had fallen silent. The chirring of insects had gone andleft the valley empty of sound. During all the journey I never heard somuch as the twitter of any bird (except one of which you shall hearlater), so I think that the gripping silence at the end of day must havebeen due only to the stopping of the insect life. By day one was notaware of any sound; but at the close of day, when the air chilled, thesilence was suddenly manifest.
Sure enough, the bright, sunny day was fading and in the silence, whenthe voice of the singer ceased, I must needs be away back in thehomeland, counting the hours in my mind, reckoning them up and judgingof what might probably be afoot in the homeland then--and there issomething laughable in the thought now, but I counted the difference intime the wrong way about and sat sentimentalising to myself that mymother perhaps was just gone out to walk in the Botanic Gardens, andpicturing my little sister prattling by her side with her short whitestockings slipping down on her brown legs, and looking back, draggingfrom my mother's hand, to watch the blue-coated policeman at the cornertwirling his whistle around his finger. Had I not been so wearied andworn, I would not have made this error in the reckoning. As likely asnot my mother was then waking out of her first sleep, and thinking, aswomen do, of my
material and spiritual welfare, all at the one time;perhaps wondering if my socks were properly darned and putting up aloving prayer for my welfare.
Then the singing ceased, and the cry that I now knew well, the dusk cryof the coyotes, rose in a howl, with three or four yelps in the middleof it and the doleful melancholy baying at the close.
I looked round the group at the fire again.
"Well," said Apache Kid, the first to speak, "who's to night-herd thehorses?"
The man Dan rose up at that. It was he who alone of all my tormentorson the cliff had spoken a word with anything of kindness in it.
"I 'll take the first guard, if you like," said he.
Farrell looked across at Apache Kid.
"One of your side, then," said he, "can take the next guard--share andshare--time about, I guess; eh?"
Apache Kid threw the end of his cigarette into the fire and, drawing outhis pouch, rolled another and moistened it before he replied.
"Why do you talk about sides at all?" he asked. "I thought we were ajoint stock company now?"
"Well, well," snapped Farrell, "I mean one of you three--you or one ofyour partners."
"Quite so; I know what you mean. I understand your meaning perfectly."
There was a pause and then said he, taking a brand from the fire andlighting his cigarette, so that I saw his full, healthy eye shinebright: "If you are going to talk about sides in this expedition--thenso be it. But I don't think our side, as you call it, will bother withany night-herding; indeed, I think we need hardly trouble about saddlingup or unpacking or cooking or anything--if you make it a matter ofsides." And he blew a feather of smoke. "I think my side will livelike gentlemen between now and the arrival at the Lost Cabin Mine."
Every eye was fixed anxiously on him.
"You see," he explained, "the fact is, you need us and we don't needyou. It's a case of supply and demand and--seeing you talk of sides,"he said, with what must have been, to Farrell, an aggravatinginsistence, "our side at present is wanted. It's almost a sort ofexample of the workings of capital and labour. No!" he ended, with asatisfied grunt, "I don't think there's any need for me to tend horsesat all, thanks. I 'm quite comfy by the fire."
There was a shrewd, calculating look on Farrell's face as he lookedApache Kid cunningly in the eye a space. I could wager that he wasmaking himself certain from this speech that Apache Kid was theprincipal in our expedition. I think he really believed that I couldsay nothing of the Lost Cabin, even had I desired to, and from the wayhe looked then to Donoghue and looked back again to Apache Kid it struckme forcibly that he was wondering if it were possible that LarryDonoghue was not "in the know" to the full, but merely of the company ina similar way with myself.
Then he rolled an eye back again to Apache Kid, and I remembered thesheriff of Baker City then, for Farrell's words were the very words Ihad heard the sheriff use: "You 're a deep man," he said.
"And I 'm quite comfy, too," broke in Donoghue. "Thanks," he added."And as for this young man beside me, I think he wants a rest to-night.A man that's had a snake wriggling at his nose for half of an afternoonis liable to want a little sleep and forgetting."
Everybody cocked an ear, so to speak, on this speech; but no one ofthose who did not understand asked an explanation.
Farrell looked with meaning at Mr. Pinkerton, who sat out of the affair,but neither he nor the half-breed spoke a syllable, Pinkerton pulling onhis corn-cob pipe, and the half-breed rubbing the silver buckle of hisbelt with the palm of his hand, and studying the reflection offire-light in it.
"No, no," suddenly remarked Apache Kid, "you could n't ask Mr. Pinkertonto do that, nor Charlie either. We can't be so inhospitable as to askour guests of this evening to night-tend our horses."
"What the hell are you getting on about?" said Farrell, and then, asthough thinking better, and considering that a milder tone was morefitting, he said: "I never asked them to."
"No, no; you did not ask them to," said Apache, in a mock-conciliatorytone, and then, with a smile on his lips, he said gently: "But you werethinking that, and I--know--every--thought--that passes through yourmind, Mr. Farrell."
You should have seen the man Pete at these soft-spoken words.
I must give you an idea of what this fellow looked like. To begin with,I think I may safely say he looked like a villain, but more of the wolforder of the villain than the panther; he had what you would call anignorant face,--a heavy brow, high cheek-bones, very glassy andconstantly wandering eyes, far too many teeth for his mouth, and theyvery large and animal like. And if ever I saw superstitious fear on aman's face, it was on the face of that cut-throat.
He looked at Apache Kid, who sat with his hat tilted back and his open,cheery, and devil-may-care face radiant to the leapingfirelight,--looked at him so that the firelight made on his faceshadows, instead of lighting it; for he held his chin low and the mouthopen. His hat was off and only his forehead was lit up. The rest waswhat I say--loose shadows. Then he looked at Farrell, as though to seeif Farrell were not at all fearful, and, "Say!" he said, "I 'll take'herd' to-night."
Farrell turned on him with a leer and laughed.
"I guess you 'd better go first then," said he, "before midnight comes,and let Dan go second, after a three hours' tend. You 're the sort ofman that is all very good robbing a train, but when you get in among themountains with the boodle you get scared. And what for? For nothing!That's the worst of you Cat'licks."
So Farrell pronounced the word, and the man flung up his head at thatwith an angry and defiant air, so that one only saw there the bravo now,and not the ignorant and superstitious savage. He was on the point ofspeech, but Apache Kid said:
"Sir, sir! it is very rude, to say the least of it, to malign anygentleman's religion. I presume from your remark that you are of theProtestant persuasion, but my own personal opinion is that you are bothequally certain of winning into hell. If our Roman Catholic friend iskind enough to offer to relieve us of the monotony of night-herdingduty, we can only thank him."
So Pete rose and tightened his belt, and went his ways; and that in noless than time, for the horses were already restive, as though theloneliness of the place had taken possession of them. Of all beasts Iknow, I think horses the most influenced by their environment.
"Well, if this don't beat cock-fightin'!" I heard Mr. Pinkerton's voicebehind me, where he lay now, leaning on an elbow; and then he said aword or two to the half-breed, who rose and departed out of the circleof the fire-shine.
In a little space he returned, leading his own mount and Pinkerton's bythe lariats which were around their necks, and as he made fast theselariats to a stone Farrell looked at Mr. Pinkerton across the glow, andasked him, suspicious as ever, "What's that for?"
"Oh! Just so as not to be indebted to you," replied Pinkerton, andcoming closer to the fire he rolled his one grey blanket round him and,knocking out the ashes of his pipe, lay down to rest, the half-breedfollowing suit. But after they had lain down, and when I, a littlelater, at a word from Donoghue, suggesting I should "turn in," unpackedmy blankets, which I had found among the pile of our mixed belongings, Isaw the half-breed's eyes still open and with no sign of sleep in them."So," said I to myself, "Pinkerton and the half-breed, I expect, havearranged to share watch and watch, without having the appearance ofdoing so."
And indeed one could scarcely wonder at any such protective arrangementin such a camp as this. Donoghue and Apache Kid, indeed, were the onlytwo there who could close their eyes in sleep that night with anythinglike a reasonable belief that the chances of their awakening to lifeagain were greater than their chances of never breathing again thesage-scented air of morning.