The Hair-Trigger Kid by Max Brand (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📖
- Author: Max Brand
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most of them ain’t got none at ‘all. And that old Milman, he sure made a
grand mistake, and I’ll tell you why.
“Little Crow, he was a great chief, and all that, and he had cut off
enough hair to plant a forty-acre field, but the trouble was that he
wasn’t the main chief of that tribe, and that he had no more right to
sell off a part of the land than I have to sell Broadway and Beekman
Street. No, sir, he didn’t have no right at all. And before there was a
sale, there should of been a grand palaver, and all the chiefs there, and
specially New Monday, which was really the head of the tribe, though he
hadn’t taken a scalp for thirty years he was that old.
“When we heard that, we went around and we found out that the Injuns
still had a right to this land, if the sale by Little Crow was wrong and
we find out that the real head of the tribe today is Happy Monday—he’s a
descendant of New Monday. So we go to see Happy Monday, and he’s sick in
one eye and can’t see very good out of the other, and we get Happy Monday
to sell us this here bit of land for three hosses and three hogsheads of
alcohol, which is dirt cheap. But it’s hard to educate redskins up to
high prices. And we get that sale made, and we come down here and move
onto the land that’s rightfully ours. And if Milman, he don’t believe
that we got the right, he can go to the law and get licked—or he can try
gunpowder—and get licked.”
Spot Gregory bit his lip.
“That’s a mighty movin’ story,” said he. “Maybe you’ll tell me what you’d
sell out this bit of land for?”
Champ Dixon looked around him with an obvious complacency.
“They’s a thing that you might of noted,” said he. “That we got the water
rights of this here ranch in our pants pockets.”
“I’ve noted that the cows is stickin’ out their tongues and bawlin’ for
somethin’ more than air,” said he.
“Well, sir,” said Champ Dixon, licking his lips, “it occurs to me and
Billy Shay that it would be a dog-gone outright shame to sell this here
crop of water, that never needs to be planted and that comes to hundreds
of millions of tons a year—it would be a dog-gone shame to sell it for
less’n a coupla hundred dollars”
Spot Gregory. looked blandly around him at the flowing thousand stream
and at the running water.
“You want two hundred thousand?” said he.
“That’s the price, old son.”
“And how much you charge for all of the fine sunshine and the air that
the cows will be breathin’?”
“Billy and me is downright generous,” said the other, “and we throw that
in as a kind of bounty to sweeten the deal.”
“Yeah, it sweetens it, all right,” said Spot Gregory. “Now, just
supposin’ that we wanted a time to think this deal over—that Milman
wanted time, I mean?”
“Take all the time that you want,” said the other. “Only I hope that your
cows won’t be dyin’ like flies in the meantime.”
“And suppose that we wanted to water ‘em while we was thinkin’?”
“I never heard of a cow needin’ water to think on,” said Dixon grimly.
“And you can tell Milman that for me, too.”
“I’ll tell him,” agreed the other. “Now, then, suppose that we wanted to
water them cows, how much would you charge a head?”
“We’re reasonable,” said Champ Dixon. “It sure does grieve us a lot to
think of cows goin’ thirsty. So we’re willin’ to let you water them cows
for two dollars a head.”
“Two dollars?” shouted the foreman. “We might as well haul beer up here
and water ‘em with that!”
“Well,” said the other thoughtfully, “I never figgered on that. But maybe
it would do as good!”
“Gregory hastily pulled out his plug of tobacco and bit off a liberal
corner.
“Is that a go?” said he.
“‘Yeah, that’s a go.”
“No changin’?”
“No.”
“Tell me, Champ—ain’t that Two-gun Porter, and Missouri Slim, and the
Haley brothers, over yonder?”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“And the rest of your bunch match up? Well,” said Gregory, “I got an idea
that more’n money is gonna be paid for this land. And the color of it is
gonna be red.”
He did not pause to say adieu, but turned the head of his horse and rode
away.
When the foreman was over the ridge, he turned loose that stubborn
broncho, and made him run for his life, with a jab of the spurs or a cut
of the quirt every fifty yards or so.
He made that poor mustang hold to the one gait until it had reached the
ranch house, and then Spot Gregory threw the reins and jumped from a
horse that did not need to be tied. It stood like a lamb, while Spot ran
on into the house.
It was just such a house as a thousand other ranchers in the West had
built before Milman, and would build after him. It was a long strung-out
place in the midst of what had once been a flourishing grove, but the
nearest trees had been cut away for firewood, regardless of shady comfort
in the middle of the summer. All the ground around the house was stamped
bare by the horses which were often tied up in great lines to the
hitching racks. Through the naked dust, a dozen or so of chickens
scratched and went about thrusting their heads before them at every step.
A heavy wind of a few years before had threatened to knock down the
kitchen wing like a stack of cards, and this had been secured with a
great pair of plough chains, taken up taut with a tourniquet. This chain
was the only ornament that appeared on that unpainted barn of a house. It
leaned all askew. It was plainly no more than a shelter, with little
pretension of being a comfortable house. Yet the Milman hospitality was
famous for two hundred miles.
Into this house ran Spot, entering through the kitchen door, which he
kicked open in the face of the Chinese cook. The latter sat down
violently upon the floor and the armful of baking tins which he was
carrying went clattering to the farthest corners. He looked surprised,
but not offended. He was prepared for anything up to murder from these
wild white men.
“Where’s the boss?” shouted Spot.
“No savvy,” said the cook, blinking.
“I’m in here, Spot,” said Milman from the dining room.
Gregory strode to the door. He was too excited and angry to remember to
take off his hat. He stood there towering in the doorway, scowling as
though it was Milman whom he hated.
It was still fairly early in the morning, though late for a ranch
breakfast, but Milman had adopted easier ways of living, since his
fortune had become so secure in the past few years. The ranch was a gold
mine, and the vein of it promised to last forever.
Opposite the rancher sat his daughter, and Mrs. Milman who looked small
and frail at the end of the table. She was one of those delicate and
thin-faced women who seem to be half with the angels all the time; as a
matter of fact, she always knew the price of beef on the hoof to an
eighth of a cent.
“What’s loose, Spot?” asked Milman.
“Hell’s loose,” said Gregory shortly. “Plumb hell, is what is loose!”
Then he remembered the ladies and by way of apology, he took off his hat.
“Go on,” said Milman.
Gregory pointed with a long arm.
“Champ Dixon, he’s jumped the water rights. He’s camped with about twenty
men and he’s runnin’ a fence on both sides of Hurry Creek.”
Georgia Milman jumped to her feet.
“The scoundrel!” said she.
Her father pushed back his chair with an exclamation at the same moment,
but Mrs. Milman looked up to the ceiling with narrowed eyes, and did not
stir.
“They’re keeping the cows away from the water?” demanded Milman.
“That’s what they’re doin’.”
“I’ll get—I’ll send to Dry Creek, and we’ll have the law out here to
take their scalps. That murdering Dixon, is it?”
“Champ Dixon.”
“Did you see him?”
“I talked to him.”
“Does he know that we can have the sheriff—”
“He says that it’s all legal. That your title from Little Crow ain’t
worth a scrap and that he’s got the real title, now, from another buck in
the tribe.”
“They’re going to use the law. Is that what you mean?” asked Milman
shortly.
“That’s what they say. Billy Shay is behind the deal. Him and his crooked
lawyers, I suppose.”
“Shay, too!” exclaimed Milman. “I’ll—I’ll—”
He stopped.
Perspiration began to pour down his face, though the morning was cold
enough.
“Oh, Dad,” said Georgia, “what can we do?”
“We gotta pay two dollars a head for water rights,” said the foreman,
writhing in mighty rage at the mere thought.
Milman turned purple, but still his expression was that of a dazed man.
Said Mrs. Milman suddenly: “There’s only one thing to do, my dear.”
“What can we do?” said her husband.
“We can drive them from the water by force.”
“Not that crowd,” declared the foreman. “I know ‘em too dog-gone well. I
saw the face of a lot of ‘em, and I knew ‘em out of the old days. They’re
a hand-picked bunch of yeggs. Every one of them is a gunman with a
record. And there’s Champ Dixon at the head of ‘em! You know Dixon.”
“I know all about Dixon,” said Mrs. Milman. “But—we’ve got to get the
cows to the water. We have neighbors. We’ll have to send to them all. The
Wagners and the Peters and the Birch families will never in the world say
no to us.”
“They’ll never budge agin’ a fellow like Dixon,” prohpesied the foreman.
“They all know his record. We need State troops. Besides, Dixon is
claimin’ the law. The Peters and the rest would ride with us agin’ plain
rustlers, or such. But not agin’ Dixon and the chance of the law,
besides.”
“He’s right,” said Milman, dropping his head a little.
He looked like a beaten man. Silence came into the room like a fifth
person and laid a cold hand on every heart.
Then Mrs. Milman went on in her gentle voice: “The cows will soon be
dying, my dear.”
Her husband looked wildly up at her and then away through the window. At
that very moment a calf began to bawl from the feeding corral where the
weaklings were kept.
“We can run the pump night and day—” he began.
“That well runs dry with very little pumping at this time of year,” said
his wife.
“We could dig—”
“You know how deep we have to dig in order to get water, and through what
rock. The cows will be dead, my dear. Every animal on the place, except
the few that we can water from the mill—and precious few that will be.”
“You’ve heard Spot Gregory talk,” said her husband. “He knows these
people
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