United States or Saint Lucia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I went up to the store and borrowed a razor from that fresh guy and had a shave. But that ain't all a man needs. Say can't you loosen up for about three fingers more of that booze? I never asked you to bring me to your d d farm." "Stand up out here in the light," said Ranse, looking at him closely. Curly got up sullenly and took a step or two. His face, now shaven smooth, seemed transformed.
Curly was sitting on his blankets in the San Gabriel camp cursing talentedly when Ranse Truesdell rode up and dismounted on the next afternoon. The cowpunchers were ignoring the stray. He was grimy with dust and black dirt. His clothes were making their last stand in favour of the conventions. Ranse went up to Buck Rabb, the camp boss, and spoke briefly. "He's a plumb buzzard," said Buck.
Say, sport, have you got a coffin nail on you?" Fifty miles had Ransom Truesdell driven that day. And yet this is what he did. Old "Kiowa" Truesdell sat in his great wicker chair reading by the light of an immense oil lamp. Ranse laid a bundle of newspapers fresh from town at his elbow. "Back, Ranse?" said the old man, looking up.
"Damn all family feuds and inherited scraps," muttered Ranse vindictively to the breeze as he rode back to the Cibolo. Ranse turned his horse into the small pasture and went to his own room. He opened the lowest drawer of an old bureau to get out the packet of letters that Yenna had written him one summer when she had gone to Mississippi for a visit.
Three nights after that Curly rolled himself in his blanket and went to sleep. Then the other punchers rose up softly and began to make preparations. Ranse saw Long Collins tie a rope to the horn of a saddle. Others were getting out their six-shooters. "Boys," said Ranse, "I'm much obliged. I was hoping you would. But I didn't like to ask."
"Where's the tick-tock?" he asked, absent-mindedly. "The clock," cried old "Kiowa" loudly. "The eight-day clock used to stand there. Why " He turned to Ranse, but Ranse was not there. Already a hundred yards away, Vaminos, the good flea-bitten dun, was bearing him eastward like a racer through dust and chaparral towards the Rancho de los Olmos.
Ranse Truesdell, driving, threw the reins to the ground and laughed. "It's under the wagon sheet, boys," he said. "I know what you're waiting for. If Sam lets it run out again we'll use those yellow shoes of his for a target. There's two cases. Pull 'em out and light up. I know you all want a smoke."
The drawer stuck, and he yanked at it savagely as a man will. It came out of the bureau, and bruised both his shins as a drawer will. An old, folded yellow letter without an envelope fell from somewhere probably from where it had lodged in one of the upper drawers. Ranse took it to the lamp and read it curiously. Then he took his hat and walked to one of the Mexican jacals.
"Good boy," said old "Kiowa." "You'd better go get some supper." Ranse went to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Pedro, the Mexican cook, sprang up to bring the food he was keeping warm in the stove. "Just a cup of coffee, Pedro," he said, and drank it standing. And then: "There's a tramp on a cot in the wagon-shed. Take him something to eat. Better make it enough for two."
He caught something harder than a blanket and pulled out a fearful thing a shapeless, muddy bunch of leather tied together with wire and twine. From its ragged end, like the head and claws of a disturbed turtle, protruded human toes. "Who-ee!" yelled Long Collins. "Ranse, are you a-packin' around of corpuses? Here's a howlin' grasshoppers!"
Word Of The Day