The Night Horseman

FINESSE

“A man talks because he’s drunk or lonesome; a girl talks because that’s her way of takin’ exercise.”

This was a maxim of Buck Daniels, and Buck Daniels knew a great deal about women, as many a school marm and many a rancher’s daughter of the mountain-desert could testify.

Also Buck Daniels said of women:  “It ain’t what you say to ’em so much as the tune you put it to.”

Now he sat this day in O’Brien’s hotel dining-room.  It was the lazy and idle hour between three and four in the afternoon, and since the men of the mountain-desert eat promptly at six, twelve, and six, there was not a soul in the room when he entered.  Nor was there a hint of eating utensils on the tables.  Nevertheless Buck Daniels was not dismayed.  He selected a corner-table by instinct and smote upon the surface with the flat of his hand.  It made a report like the spat of a forty-five; heavy footsteps approached, a door flung open, and a cross-eyed slattern stood in the opening.  At the sight of Buck Daniels sitting with his hands on his hips and his sombrero pushed back to a good-natured distance on his head the lady puffed with rage.

“What in hell d’you think this is?” bellowed this gentle creature, and the tone echoed heavily back from all four walls.  “You’re three hours late and you get no chuck here.  On your way, stranger!”

Buck Daniels elevated himself slowly from the chair and stood at his full height.  With a motion fully as deliberate he removed his sombrero and bowed to such a depth that the brim of the hat brushed the floor.

“Lady,” he said humbly, “I was thinkin’ that some gent run this here eatin’ place.  Which if you’ll excuse me half a minute I’ll ramble outside and sluice off some of the dust.  If I’d known you was here I wouldn’t of thought of comin’ in here like this.”

The lady with the defective eyes glared fiercely at him.  Her judgment wavered two ways.  Her first inclination was to hold that the fellow was jibing at her covertly, and she followed her original impulse far enough to clasp a neighboring sugar-bowl in a large, capable hand.  A second and more merciful thought entered her brain and stole slowly through it, like a faint echo in a great cave.

“You don’t have to make yourself pretty to talk to me,” she said thoughtfully.  “But if you’re here for chow you’re too late.”

“Ma’am,” said Buck Daniels instantly, “when I come in here I was hungry enough to eat nails; but I’ll forget about chuck if you’ll sit down an’ chin with me a while.”

The large hand of the cross-eyed lady stole out once more and rested upon the sugar-bowl.

“D’you mind sayin’ that over agin?” she queried.

“Lonesomeness is worse’n hunger,” said Buck Daniels, and he met her gaze steadily with his black eyes.

The hand released the sugar-bowl once more; something resembling colour stole into the brown cheeks of the maiden.

She said, relentingly:  “Maybe you been off by yourse’f mining, stranger?”

Buck Daniels drew a long breath.

“Mines?” he said, and then laughed bitterly.  “If that was all I been doin’—­” he began darkly—­and then stopped.

The waitress started.

“Maybe this here is my last chance to get chuck for days an’ days.  Well, let it go.  If I stayed here with you I’d be talkin’ too much!”

He turned slowly towards the door.  His step was very slow indeed.

“Wait a minute,” called the maiden.  “There ain’t any call for that play.  If you’re in wrong somewhere—­well, stranger, just take that chair and I’ll have some ham-and in front of you inside of a minute.”

She had slammed through the door before Buck turned, and he sat down, smiling pleasantly to himself.  Half of a mirror decorated the wall beside his table, and into this Buck peered.  His black locks were sadly disarrayed, and he combed them into some semblance of order with his fingers.  He had hardly finished this task when the door was kicked open with such force that it whacked against the wall, and the waitress appeared with an armful of steaming food.  Before Buck’s widening eyes she swiftly set forth an array of bread, butter in chunks, crisp French-fried potatoes, a large slab of ham on one plate and several fried eggs on another, and above all there was a mighty pewter cup of coffee blacker than the heart of night.  Yearning seized upon Buck Daniels, but policy was stronger than hunger in his subtle mind.  He rose again; he drew forth the chair opposite his own.

“Ma’am,” said Buck Daniels, “ain’t you going to favor me by sittin’ down?”

The lady blinked her unfocused eyes.

“Ain’t I what?” she was finally able to ask.

“I know,” said Buck Daniels swiftly, “that you’re terrible busy; which you ain’t got time to waste on a stranger like me.”

She turned upon Buck those uncertain and wistful eyes.  It was a generous face.  Mouth, cheekbones, and jaw were of vast proportions, while the forehead, eyes, and nose were as remarkably diminutive.  Her glance lowered to the floor; she shrugged her wide shoulders and began to wipe the vestiges of dishwater from her freckled hands.

“You men are terrible foolish,” she said.  “There ain’t no tellin’ what you mean by what you say.”

And she sank slowly into the chair.  It gave voice in sharp protest at her weight.  Buck Daniels retreated to the opposite side of the table and took his place.

“Ma’am,” he began, “don’t I look honest?” So saying, he slid half a dozen eggs and a section of bacon from the platter to his plate.

“I dunno,” said the maiden, with one eye upon him and the other plunging into the future.  “There ain’t no trusting men.  Take ’em by the lot and they’re awful forgetful.”

“If you knowed me better,” said Buck sadly, disposing of a slab of bread spread thick with the pale butter and following this with a pile of fried potatoes astutely balanced on his knife.  “If you knowed me better, ma’am, you wouldn’t have no suspicions.”

“What might it be that you been doin’?” asked the girl.

Buck Daniels paused in his attack on the food and stared at her.

He quoted deftly from a magazine which had once fallen in his way:  “Some day maybe I can tell you.  There’s something about your eyes that tells me you’d understand.”

At the mention of her eyes the waitress blinked and stiffened in her chair, while a huge, red fist balled itself in readiness for action.  But the expression of Buck Daniels was as blandly open as the smile of infancy.  The lady relaxed and an unmistakable blush tinged even her nose with colour.

“It ain’t after my nature to be askin’ questions,” she announced.  “You don’t have to tell me no more’n you want to.”

“Thanks,” said Buck instantly.  “I knew you was that kind.  It ain’t hard,” he went on smoothly, “to tell a lady when you see one.  I can tell you this much to start with.  I’m lookin’ for a quiet town where I can settle down permanent.  And as far as I can see, Brownsville looks sort of quiet to me.”

So saying, he disposed of the rest of his food by an act akin to legerdemain, and then fastened a keen eye upon the lady.  She was in the midst of a struggle of some sort.  But she could not keep the truth from her tongue.

“Take it by and large,” she said at length, “Brownsville is as peaceable as most; but just now, stranger, it’s all set for a big bust.”  She turned heavily in her chair and glanced about the room.  Then she faced Daniels once more and cupped her hands about her mouth.  “Stranger,” she said in a stage whisper, “Mac Strann is in town!”

The eyes of Buck Daniels wandered.

“Don’t you know him?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Never heard of him?”

“Nope.”

“Well,” sighed the waitress, “you’ve had some luck in your life.  Take a cross between a bulldog and a mustang and a mountain-lion—­that’s Mac Strann.  He’s in town, and he’s here for killin’.”

“You don’t say, ma’am.  And why don’t they lock him up?”

“Because he ain’t done nothin’ yet to be locked up about.  That’s the way with him.  And when he does a thing he always makes the man he’s after pull his gun first.  Smart?  I’ll say he’s just like an Indian, that Mac Strann!”

“But who’s he after?”

“The feller that plugged his brother, Jerry.”

“Kind of looks like he had reason for a killing, then.”

“Nope.  Jerry had it comin’ to him.  He was always raising trouble, Jerry was.  And this time, he pulled his gun first.  Everybody seen him.”

“He run into a gunman?”

“Gunman?” she laughed heartily.  “Partner, if it wasn’t for something funny about his eyes, I wouldn’t be no more afraid of that gunman than I am of a tabby-cat.  And me a weak woman.  The quietest lookin’ sort that ever come to Brownsville.  But there’s something queer about him.  He knows that Mac Strann is here in town.  He knows that Mac Strann is waiting for Jerry to die.  He knows that when Jerry dies Mac will be out for a killin’.  And this here stranger is just sittin’ around and waitin’ to be killed!  Can you beat that?”

But Buck Daniels had grown strangely excited.

“What did you say there was about his eyes?” he asked sharply.

She grew suddenly suspicious.

“D’ you know him?”

“No.  But you was talkin’ about his eyes?”

“I dunno what it is.  I ain’t the only one that’s seen it.  There ain’t no word you can put to it.  It’s just there.  That’s all.”

The voice of Buck Daniels fell to a whisper.

“It’s sort of fire,” he suggested.  “Ain’t it a kind of light behind his eyes?”

But the waitress stared at him in amazement.

“Fire?” she gasped.  “A light behind his eyes?  M’frien’, are you tryin’ to string me?”

“What’s his name?”

“I dunno.”

“Ma’am,” said Daniels, rising hastily.  “Here’s a dollar if you’ll take me to him.”

“You don’t need no guide,” she replied.  “Listen to that, will you?”

And as he hearkened obediently Buck Daniels heard a strain of whistling, needle-sharp with distance.

“That’s him,” nodded the woman.  “He’s always goin’ about whistling to himself.  Kind of a nut, he is.”

“It’s him!” cried Buck Daniels.  “It’s him!”

And with this ungrammatical burst of joy he bolted from the room.