The Long Shadow Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  _Charming Billy Has a Fight._

  If Billy Boyle had any ideals he did not recognize them as such, andhe would not have known just how to answer you if you had asked himwhat was his philosophy of life. He was range-bred--as purely Westernas were the cattle he tended--but he was not altogether ignorant ofthe ways of the world, past or present. He had that smattering ofeducation which country schools and those of "the county seat" maygive a boy who loves a horse better than books, and who, sittinghunched behind his geography, dreams of riding afar, of shooting wildthings and of sleeping under the stars.

  From the time he was sixteen he had lived chiefly in tents andline-camp cabins, his world the land of far horizons, of big sins, andvirtues bigger. One creed he owned: to live "square," fight square,and to be loyal to his friends and his "outfit." Little things didnot count much with him, and for that reason he was the more enragedagainst the Pilgrim, because he did not quite know what it was allabout. So far as he had heard or seen, the Pilgrim had offered noinsult to Miss Bridger--"the girl," as he called her simply inhis mind. Still, he had felt all along that the mere presence of thePilgrim was an offense to her, no less real because it was intangibleand not to be put into words; and for that offense the Pilgrim mustpay.

  But for the presence of the Pilgrim, he told himself ill-temperedly,they might have waited for breakfast; but he had been so anxious toget her away from under the man's leering gaze that he had not thoughtof eating. And if the Pilgrim had been a _man_, he might have sent himover to Bridger's for her father and a horse. But the Pilgrim wouldhave lost himself, or have refused to go, and the latter possibilitywould have caused a scene unfit for the eyes of a young woman.

  So he rode slowly and thought of many things he might have done whichwould have been better than what he did do; and wondered what thegirl thought about it and if she blamed him for not doing somethingdifferent. And for every mile of the way he cursed the Pilgrim anew.

  In that unfriendly mood he opened the door of the cabin, stood aminute just inside, then closed it after him with a slam. The cabin,in contrast with the bright light of sun shining on new-fallen snow,was dark and so utterly cheerless and chill that he shrugged shouldersimpatiently at its atmosphere, which was as intangibly offensive ashad been the conduct of the Pilgrim.

  The Pilgrim was sprawled upon the bunk with his face in his arms,snoring in a peculiarly rasping way that Billy, heavy-eyed as he was,resented most unreasonably. Also, the untidy table showed that thePilgrim had eaten unstintedly--and Billy was exceedingly hungry.He went over and lifted a snowy boot to the ribs of the sleeper andcommanded him bluntly to "Come alive."

  "What-yuh-want?" mumbled the Pilgrim thickly, making one word of thethree and lifting his red-rimmed eyes to the other. He raised to anelbow with a lazy doubling of his body and stared dully for a spacebefore he grinned unpleasantly. "Took 'er home all right, did yuh?" heleered, as if they two were in possession of a huge joke of the kindwhich may not be told in mixed company.

  If Charming Billy Boyle had needed anything more to stir him to thefighting point, that one sentence admirably supplied the lack. "Yuhlow-down skunk!" he cried, and struck him full upon the insulting,smiling mouth. "If I was as rotten-minded as you are, I'd go drownmyself in the stalest alkali hole I could find. I dunno why I'mdirtying my hands on yuh--yuh ain't fit to be clubbed to death with atent pole!" He was, however, using his hands freely and to very goodpurpose, probably feeling that, since the Pilgrim was much bigger thanhe, there was need of getting a good start.

  But the Pilgrim was not the sort to lie on his bunk and take athrashing. He came up after the second blow, pushing Billy back withthe very weight of his body, and they were fighting all over thelittle cabin, surging against the walls and the table and knocking thecoffee-pot off the stove as they lurched this way and that. Not muchwas said after the first outburst of Billy's, save a panting curse nowand then between blows, a threat gasped while they wrestled.

  It was the dog, sneaking panther-like behind Billy and settingtreacherous teeth viciously into his leathern chaps, that brought thecrisis. Billy tore loose and snatched his gun from the scabbard at hiship, held the Pilgrim momentarily at bay with one hand while he took ashot at the dog, missed, kicked him back from another rush, and turnedagain on the Pilgrim.

  "Get that dawg outdoors, then," he panted, "or I'll kill him sure."The Pilgrim, for answer, struck a blow that staggered Billy, and triedto grab the gun. Billy, hooking a foot around a table-leg, threw itbetween them, swept the blood from his eyes and turned his gun oncemore on the dog that was watching treacherously for another chance.

  "That's the time I got him," he gritted through the smoke, holdingthe Pilgrim quiet before him with the gun. "But I've got a heap morerespect for him than I have for you, yuh damn', low-down brute. I'dought to kill yuh like I would a coyote. Yuh throw your traps togetherand light out uh here, before I forget and shoot yuh up. There ain'troom in this camp for you and me no more."

  The Pilgrim backed, eying Billy malevolently. "I never done nothing,"he defended sullenly. "The boss'll have something to say aboutthis--and I'll kill you first chance I get, for shooting my dog."

  "It ain't what yuh done, it's what yuh woulda done if you'd had thechance," answered Billy, for the first time finding words for what wassurging bitterly in the heart of him. "And I'm willing to take a whirlwith yuh any old time; any dawg that'll lick the boots of a man likeyou had ought to be shot for not having more sense. I ain't sayinganything about him biting me--which I'd kill him for, anyhow. Now,git! I want my breakfast, and I can't eat with any relish whilstyou're spoiling the air in here for me."

  At heart the Pilgrim was a coward as well as a beast, and he packedhis few belongings hurriedly and started for the door.

  "Come back here, and drag your dawg outside," commanded Billy, and thePilgrim obeyed.

  "You'll hear about this later on," he snarled. "The boss won't standfor anything like this. I never done a thing, and I'm going to tellhim so."

  "Aw, go on and tell him, yuh--!" snapped Billy. "Only yuh don't wantto get absent-minded enough to come back--not whilst I'm here; thingsunpleasant might happen." He stood in the doorway and watched whilethe Pilgrim saddled his horse and rode away. When not even thepluckety-pluck of his horse's feet came back to offend the ears ofhim, Charming Billy put away his gun and went in and hoisted theoverturned table upon its legs again. A coarse, earthenware plate,which the Pilgrim had used for his breakfast, lay unbroken at the feetof him. Billy picked it up, went to the door and cast it violentlyforth, watching with grim satisfaction the pieces when they scatteredover the frozen ground. "No white man'll ever have to eat after_him_," he muttered. To ease his outraged feelings still farther,he picked up the Pilgrim's knife and fork, and sent them after theplate--and knives and forks were not numerous in that particularcamp, either. After that he felt better and picked up the coffee-pot,lighted a fire and cooked himself some breakfast, which he atehungrily, his wrath cooling a bit with the cheer of warm food andstrong coffee.

  The routine work of the line-camp was performed in a hurried,perfunctory manner that day. Charming Billy, riding the high-linesto make sure the cattle had not drifted where they should not, wasvaguely ill at ease. He told himself it was the want of a smoke thatmade him uncomfortable, and he planned a hurried trip to Hardup, ifthe weather held good for another day, when he would lay in a supplyof tobacco and papers that would last till roundup. This running outevery two or three weeks, and living in hell till you got more, wasplumb wearisome and unnecessary.

  On the way back, his trail crossed that of a breed wolfer on his wayinto the Bad Lands. Billy immediately asked for tobacco, and the breedsomewhat reluctantly opened his pack and exchanged two small sacks fora two-bit piece. Billy, rolling a cigarette with eager fingers,felt for the moment a deep satisfaction with life. He even felt somecompunction about killing the Pilgrim's dog, when he passed the bodystiffening on the snow. "Poor devil! Yuh hadn't ought to expect mu
chfrom a dawg--and he was a heap more white-acting than what his ownerwas," was his tribute to the dead.

  It seemed as though, when he closed the cabin door behind him, hesomehow shut out his newborn satisfaction. "A shack with one window issure unpleasant when the sun is shining outside," he said fretfullyto himself. "This joint looks a heap like a cellar. I wonder what thegirl thought of it; I reckon it looked pretty sousy, to her--and themwith everything shining. Oh, hell!" He took off his chaps and hisspurs, rolled another cigarette and smoked it meditatively. When ithad burned down so that it came near scorching his lips, he lighted afire, carried water from the creek, filled the dishpan and set iton the stove to heat. "Darn a dirty shack!" he muttered, halfapologetically, while he was taking the accumulation of ashes out ofthe hearth.

  For the rest of that day he was exceedingly busy, and he did notattempt further explanations to himself. He overhauled the bunkand spread the blankets out on the wild rose bushes to sun whilehe cleaned the floor. Billy's way of cleaning the floor wascharacteristic of the man, and calculated to be effectual in the mainwithout descending to petty details. All superfluous objects thatwere small enough, he merely pushed as far as possible under the bunk.Boxes and benches he piled on top; then he brought buckets of waterand sloshed it upon the worst places, sweeping and spreading it witha broom. When the water grew quite black, he opened the door, sweptit outside and sloshed fresh water upon the grimy boards. Whilehe worked, his mind swung slowly back to normal, so that he sangcrooningly in an undertone; and the song was what he had sung formonths and years, until it was a part of him and had earned him hisnickname.

  "Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy? Oh, where have you been, charming Billy? I've been to see my wife, She's the joy of my life, She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother."

  Certainly it was neither musical nor inspiring, but Billy had somehowadopted the ditty and made it his own, so far as eternally singingit could do so, and his comrades had found it not unpleasant; forthe voice of Billy was youthful, and had a melodious smoothness thatatoned for much in the way of imbecile words and monotonous tune.

  He had washed all the dishes and had repeated the ditty fifteen times,and was for the sixteenth time tunefully inquiring:

  Can she make a punkin pie, charming Billy?

  when he opened the door to throw out the dishwater, and narrowly escapedlanding it full upon the fur-coated form of his foreman.