The Man from Bar-20/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
FLEMING IS SHOWN
JOHNNY got up at noon, and when he saw the sign on his door its single word "Vamose" told him that the valley and the cabin were of no further use to him; that the time for subterfuge and acting a part was past. That the rustlers were not certain of his intentions was plain, for otherwise there would have been a bullet instead of a warning; and he was mildly surprised that they had not ambushed him to be on the safe side.
It now remained for him to open the war, and warn them further; or to pretend to obey the mandate and seek new fields of observation. Pride and anger urged the former; common sense and craftiness, the latter; and since he had not accomplished his task he decided to swallow his anger and move. Had he been only what he pretended to be, Nelson's creek would have seen some stirring times. As a sop to his pride he printed a notice on a piece of Charley's wrapping paper and fastened it on the door. Its three, short words made a concise, blunt direction as to a certain journey, popularly supposed to be the more heavily traveled trail through the spirit world. Packing part of his belongings on Pepper, he found room to sit in the saddle, and started off for an afternoon in Hastings, after which he would return to the cabin to spend the night and to get the rest of his effects.
When he rode into town he laughed outright at the sign on Pop's door, and he laughed harder when he saw another on Charley's door; and leaving his things behind Pop's saloon, he pushed on to Devil's Gap. At the ford he met the two happy anglers returning and they paused in mid-stream to hold up their catch.
"You come back with us," grinned Pop. "We'll pool th' fish an' have a three-corner meal. Where was you goin'?"
"To find you," chuckled Johnny. "I'm surprised at th' way you both neglects business."
"Comin' from you that makes me laugh," snorted Pop.
Charley grinned. "Did you see that whoppin' big feller I got? Bet it'll go three pounds."
"Lucky if it's half that," grunted Pop. "If I'd 'a' got that one I had hold of, we'd 'a' had a three-pounder, or mebby a four-pounder."
Charley snorted. "Who ever heard of a four-pound brook trout? Been a brown, now, it might 'a' been that big."
"Why, I caught 'em up to eight pounds, back East, when I was a kid!" retorted Pop.
"Yo're a squaw's dog liar!" snapped Charley. "Eight-pound brook trout! You must 'a' snagged a turtle, or an old boot full of mud!"
"Bet you five dollars!" retorted Pop, bristling.
"How you goin' to prove it?" jeered Charley. "Call th' dead back to life to lie for you?"
"Reckon I can't prove it," regretted Pop. "But when a man hangs around with a liar he shore gets th' name, too."
"Nobody never called me a liar an' got off without a hidin'!" snapped Charley. "I may be sixty years old, but I can lick you an' yore whole fambly if you gets too smart!"
Pop drew rein, his chin whiskers bobbing up and down. "I'm older'n that myself; but I don't need no relations to help me lick you! Get off that hoss, if you dares!"
"Here! Here!" interposed Johnny. "What's th' use of you two old friends mussin' each other up? Come on! I'm in a hurry! I'm hungry!"
"I won't go a step till he says I ain't no liar!" snapped Charley.
"I won't go till he says I caught a eight-pound brook trout!"
"Mebby he did—how do I know what he did when he was a boy?" growled Charley, full of fight. "But I ain't no liar, an' that's flat!"
"Who said you was, you old fool?" asked Pop heatedly.
"You did!"
"I didn't!"
"You did!"
"Yo're a liar!"
"Yo're another!"
"Get off that hoss!"
"You ain't off yore own yet!"
Johnny was holding his sides and Pop wheeled on him savagely. "What th' h—l you laughin' at?"
"That's what I want to know!" blazed Charley.
"Come on, Charley!" shouted Pop. "We'll eat them fish ourselves. It's a fine how-dy-do when age ain't respected no more. An' th' next time you goes around callin' folks liars," he said, shaking a trembling fist under Johnny's nose, "you needn't foller us to do it on!"
Down the trail they rode, angrily discussing Johnny, the times, and the manners of the younger generation.
When Johnny arrived at the saloon and tried the door he found it locked. He could hear footsteps inside and he stepped back, chuckling, to wait until Pop had forgiven him; but after a few minutes he gave it up and went around to try the window of a side room.
"What you think yo're doin'?" inquired a calm voice behind him.
He wheeled and saw a man regarding him with level gaze, and across the street was a second, who sat on one horse and held fast to another.
"Tryin' to get in for a treat," grinned Johnny, full of laughter. "Had a spat with Pop an' Charley, an' cussed if they ain't locked me out!"
The stranger showed no answering smile. "That so?" he sneered. "Reckon you better come along with me, 'round front, till I hears what Hayes has to say about it. I don't believe he's home."
Johnny's expression changed from a careless grin to an ominous frown. "If you do any walkin' you'll do it alone."
Several people had been drawn to the scene and took in the proceedings with eager eyes and ears, but were careful to keep to one side. Jim Ackerman had a reputation which made such a location very much a part of discretion; and the two-gun man had been well discussed by Pop.
"I finds you tryin' a man's window," said Ackerman. "So I stopped to ask about it. As long as I've took this much trouble I'll go through with it. You comin' peaceful, or must I drag you around?"
"Mebby that's a job you'd like to tackle?" replied Johnny.
"I'm aimin' to be peaceful," rejoined Ackerman, his voice as smooth as oil; "but I allus aim to do what I say. You comin' with me?"
"If yo're aimin' to be peaceful, yo're plumb cross-eyed," retorted Johnny, slouching away from the wall.
Quick steps sounded within the building and a frightened, high-pitched voice could be heard. "Couple of bobcats lookin' for holts," it said. "That feller Nelson is pickin' on somebody else."
The window raised and Pop stuck his angry face out to see what was going on; and his wrinkled countenance paled suddenly when he saw Ackerman, and the look in his eyes. He had a trout in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, and both fell to the ground.
"Jumpin' mavericks!" he whispered. "It's Ackerman! What's wrong, Jim?" he quavered.
"You saved us a walk," replied Ackerman, not taking his eyes from the flushed face of his enemy. "I caught him tryin' to open that window."
Charley thrust his head out as Pop replied. "We was playin' a joke on him. It's all right, Jim. Much obliged for yore unusual interest."
"Well, I'm glad of that," smiled Ackerman; "but he looked suspicious an' I reckoned I ought to drag him around an' show you what I found tryin' to bust in. But if you say it's all right, why I reckon it is!"
"I reckon it ain't!" snapped Johnny, enraged at his humiliating position and at the way Ackerman accented his words. "An' if that itchin' trigger-finger of yourn wants to get busy it has my permission," he mimicked. "Pop," he said, sharply, "who is this buzzard?"
"No need to get riled over a thing like that," faltered Pop.
"Shut yore trap!" snapped Charley, battle in his eyes. "That's Ackerman, relative of Quigley's; th' best six-gun man in th' country."
"Thanks," growled Johnny, staring through narrowed lids at Ackerman, who stood alert, his lips twitching with contempt. "When a dog pesters me I kick him; if he snaps at me I shoot him. I'm goin' to kick you to yore cayuse an' yore friend." He had been sliding forward while he spoke and now they stood face to face, an arm's length apart.
Ackerman suddenly made two lightning-like movements. His left hand leaped out to block his enemy's right in its draw, while his own right flashed down to his gun. As his fingers closed on the butt, Johnny's heavy Colt by some miracle of speed jabbed savagely into the pit of the scheming man's stomach with plenty of strength behind it, and Ackerman doubled up like a jackknife, his breath jolted out of him with a loud grunt. Johnny's right hand smacked sharply on his enemy's cheek, left vivid finger marks, which flashed white and then crimson, and continued on down; and when it stopped a plain, Frontier Colt peeked coyly from his hip at the surprised and chagrined gentleman across the street, who had been instructed to remain a noncombatant; and had no intention, whatsoever, of disobeying Ackerman's emphatic order. To reveal his status he quickly raised his hands and clasped them on the top of his hat, which is a more comfortable position than holding them stiffly aloft.
Ackerman was dazed and sick, for the solar plexus is a peculiarly sensitive spot, and his hands instinctively had forsaken offense and spasmodically leaped to the agonized nerve center.
"Turn around!" snapped Johnny viciously. "Pronto! There's dust on th' seat of yore pants."
Ackerman groaned and obeyed, and the hurtling impact of a boot drove him to his hands and knees.
"Get agoin'!" ordered Johnny, aflame with anger, slipping the right hand gun back into its holster and motioning with the other.
Ackerman, his eyes blazing, started on his humble journey, assisted frequently by the boot; and having crossed the street, he paused.
"Get up on that cayuse!" crisply ordered Johnny, making motions which increased the mounted man's uneasiness.
The further Ackerman had crawled the angrier he had become, and tears of rage streaked the dust on his face. At Johnny's last command and the kick which accompanied it, his good sense and all thought of safety left him. He arose with a spring, a berserker, trembling with rage, and reached for his gun with convulsive speed while looking into his enemy's weapon with unseeing eyes. There was a flash, a roar, and a cloud of smoke at Johnny's hip, and a glittering six-shooter sprang into the air, spinning rapidly. Ackerman did not feel the shock which numbed his hand, but leaped forward straight at his enemy's throat. Johnny swerved quickly and his right hand swung up in a short, vicious arc. Ackerman, too crazed to avoid it, took the blow on the point of his jaw and dropped like a stone.
Johnny stepped back and looked evilly at the man on the horse.
"Gimme yore gun, butt first. Thanks. You work for Quigley?"
The other nodded slowly.
"Friend of this hombre?"
"Yes; sort of."
"Then why didn't you cut in?"
"Why, I—I—" the other hesitated, and stopped.
"Spit it!"
"Well, I wasn't supposed to," coldly replied the horseman.
"Then it was talked over?"
"Not particular. Jim does his own fightin', hisself."
"Good thing for Jim, an' you, too," retorted Johnny. "When it's crowded I can't allus be polite. Who put that sign on my door?"
"What sign?"
"I'm askin' you questions!" snapped Johnny, his eyes blazing anew.
"Dunno nothin' about it," answered the other.
"I reckon yo're a practiced liar," retorted Johnny. "But it don't make no difference. I'm leavin' th' valley, for I can't fight pot-shooters an' do any work at th' same time. Quigley don't own this country, an' you tell him that while he's boss of that little valley, I'm boss in this town. If him or any of his men come to town while I'm here I'll shoot 'em down like I would a snake. That means one at a time or all together; an' if he don't believe me, you tell him I'll be here all day tomorrow. There ain't no bushes in town, an' none of yore gang can fight without 'em. Now you say to him that I don't want no remarks made about what I was doin' up there—you savvy that? If I hear of any I'll slip up there some night an' blow him all over his shirt. An' d—n you, I mean it!"
Ackerman stirred and sat up, looking around in a dazed way. When his eyes fell on Johnny they lost their puzzled look and blazed again with rage. He reached swiftly to his holster, found it empty, and shrugged his shoulders.
Johnny regarded him coldly. "Get on that cayuse, an' start goin'. This town ain't big enough for both of us at once."
Ackerman silently obeyed, but his face was distorted with passion. When he had clawed himself into the saddle he looked down on the grim master of the situation.
"Words are foolish," he whispered. "We'll meet again!"
Johnny nodded. "I reckon so. Everybody plays their cards accordin' to their own judgment. Just now I got a high straight flush, so you hit th' trail, pronto!"
He stepped aside to get out of the dust-cloud which suddenly swirled around him, and watched it roll northward until the dim figures in it were lost to sight around a bend. The slouch went out of his bearing as he straightened up and slid his gun into its holster, and walking over to Ackerman's glittering six-shooter he picked it up and sneered at it.
"I ain't surprised," he laughed, eying the ivory handle and the ornate engraving. Wheeling abruptly he glanced carelessly at the grinning audience and strode to the door of Pop's saloon.
"I'll be d—d!" sputtered Pop, his eyes still bulging.
"Reckon you will," laughed Johnny, "unless you mends yore sinful ways."
"What you been doin' to make Jim Ackerman pick a fight with you?" demanded Pop, recovering his faculties and his curiosity at the same instant.
"Here's his gun; an' here's his friend's," said Johnny. "Keep 'em for 'em. They plumb went off without 'em."
Pop openly admired Ackerman's weapon. "Bet that cost a heap," he remarked. "Ain't she a beauty?" He rubbed energetically at a leaden splotch on the cylinder.
"It was in good company," replied Johnny.
"You got to look out for him," Pop warned. "He's a bad Injun." Then he grinned suddenly. "But he come d—d near bein' a good Injun!"
"Hey!" called a peeved voice from within. "If you reckon I'm goin' to clean all these fish myself, you better copper yore bets." Footsteps approached the door and Charley roughly elbowed Pop aside. "That means you, too, Nelson," he growled. "What you mean, hangin' back at th' ford? Figger we'd have 'em all cleaned before you arrove? Well, if you aim to eat any of 'em, you grab holt of a knife an' get busy!" He shuffled back into the room again, muttering "Cripes! I'm fish from my head to my heels, an' bloody as a massacre. An' what's more, I ain't goin' to clean another d—d one, not nohow!"