HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1931-04-09, Page 3ft THE EXETER TIMES-AGVOCATE
TUGEIF?
..„EYE ,
The hid was running away, but
Re was taking his time about it, and
lie enjoyed every foot of Iris flight.
He was running away from sever-
al things that had begun ’to harry
him, even at twenty: his father’s
enemies—such as had -outlived
straight-shooting old Killer Reeves;
l>ut lie was not running away from
the enemies so much as from the
impending necessity of shooting
them.. The kid had no ambition for
carrying on the- feud and getting the
name of being a killer, like Pap, Fie
did not want to kill; he had seen
too much of that and it carried
neither novelty nor the glamour of
adventure. Then, too’, he was run
ning away from asgirl who had call
ed him Tiger Eye to his face. The
Itid felt a streak of fire shoot up liis
spine ‘ when he thought of the way
she had pronounced the name men
called him, Always before lie had
accepted it just as he would have
accepted any other nickname sug
gested by something in his 'charac
ter or appearance, but she had made
it a taunt.
He couldn’t change the yellow
stare of his right eye, any more than
ihe could remember not to squint his
blue left eye nearly shut when lie
■really meant something. His mother
always told him he got that' tiger
eye at circus she had visited before
lie was born. The kid didn’t know
about that, but he knew’ lie had it,
and that it was the eye that looked
down a gun barrel when .he practis
ed shooting; the eye that stared
back when somebody tried to give
him some 'of their lip. They didn’t
very often; they .seemed to expect
him to ride with liis right glove off
and his gun loose in. its .holster, the
way Pap always did.
But the kid never wanted to slioct
any one. That was the main reason
why he had left home.
That was nearly six weeks ago.
The add had pointed his pony’s nose
to the north and never once had lie
spread his blankets twice in the
same camp. He’d be in Canada, if
he didn’t stop pretty soon, lie
thought. He didn't want anything
of Canada; too cold up there. He’d
stay down in Montana., Lots of the
hoys went up .into Montana with the
"big trail herds and didn’t come back;
seen!ell to like the “country fine*.
It was nice country, all right, and
the kid. decided that he had about
reached the end of his journey. From
where the trail approached the edge
of a high, wide pleateau, he had a
splendid view of the country spread
out below him.
He could look right down into
the wide mouth of that coulee and
see corrals, the squatty stable and
the .small house backed up against
the red .sand-stone wall. Maybe ■ he
could 'get a job and stop right there,
without looking any farther.
The kid .swung his. slim body
around in the saddle to see if his
pack horse was comrng right along
as he should, and as he did.so his
buckskin horse squatted and shied
violently away from something white
fluttering in the top of a soapweed
alongside the road.
He spurred Pecos toward the
white.flutter, talking to him softly;
leaned over and plucked the paper
■off the bush and examined the thing
as he rode. It seemed to b,e crude
map of the .country lying down be
low him, between the ben'ch and the
river.
The kid spread the paper flat on
Ids saddle horn and got it lined up
with .the country. Yds, here was
the place he was coming to. Accord
ing to the paper, the rapch was ow
ed by a-man named Nate Wheeler
and. h,is brand was the Cross O. He
was in luck. He could ride right
up and call the man. by name, just
as if he’d heard all about him, It
would make a difference, all right.
jNate AVheeler wouldn’t think he was
lust $o.m& fly-by-night .stranger rid
ing through. He’d probably give
Slim work; he would, if he had any.
A man was Tiding toward him,
coming out oE the wide-armed cou
lee to the left—the one w’hich the
map had identified as Nate Wheel
er’s place. The kid saw him the
minute he came around the bold
rock ledge that marked that end of
the coulee and he wondered if- this
might not be Nate Wheeler himself.
He’d ask him, anyway, as soon as
they met. ,
The two solitary horsemen rode
Up into sight of eabli other sudden
ly, fifty yards apart ahd ‘ the\slope
■dropping away on either side. The
rancher jerked <jh:is horse up as if
About to. wheel and ride back whence
he came. The kid kept straight on.
Then the rancher did a most amaz
ing thing. He yanked his gun from
its. holster, drove the spurs' against
liis horse and came lunging straight
At the kid.
"Draw, you coyote! I’m cornin’ a-
Ahootifi’!’’ he yelled as he rode,
The kid was. caught completely off
bis guard, but lie had ibeeh trained
in g hard school that accepted no
excuse for fumbling. The pow-w of
liis Corty’-five was pot A split second
slower than the other, He felt a
vicious jerk- at.liis hat as his finger
tightened around the trigger of his
gun. Then he was riding forward
to where the man had toppled from
his horse, The little pinto slijed
away and would have started run
ning, but the kid caught it with one
sweep of his long' arm that gatlieied
in the trailing reins,
He was sitting there on liis horse
staring inicredulously down at the
dead man, when another horseman
came galloping, down a grassy ridge,
no more than a stone’s throw away.
The kid turned and looked at him
hardly along the 'barrel of his gun.
“Yo’alj stop where yo’re at,” lie
commanded in his soft -drawling
voice, and the stranger stopped,
throwing up both hands laughingly
as he did so. The kid surveyed him
critically witli his peculiar, tigerish
■eye, the other squinted ’half-shut,
It gave him a. deadly look in spite
of his boyishness, but he did not
know that.
"That’s all right—I’m a friend,
Think I’d rode out of sight if I was
n’t?” the stranger remarked easily,
"I’m ridin’ for the Poole.”
Without moving liis gaze, the kid
tilted his head slightly toward the
twisted figure on the ground.
“Yo’all heahd' what he said?”
"Yeah, I heard ’im. He had it
cornin’, Kid.”
"I aimed to shoot his gun ahm
down. I didn’t aim to kill him."
"You'd been outa look, Kid, if you
hadn’t. He’d a' got you.”
"Plumb crazy,” said the kid,
"Cornin’ at me thataway.”
".Sure- was You from the South?’
“Brazos,” the kid answered suc
cinctly.
“Yeah. My name’s Garner, Babe
Garner. How come you’re, ridin’ to
Wheeler’s?”
The kid gave one- further look at
Garner., decided that he was all right
and bolstered his. gun.
“This place over lieah was the
closest,” the kid explained. “This
Wheelah?”
"Yeah,” Babe Garner looked
from the paper up into the kid’s
face. His own steely eyes.were ques
tioning, impressed. "You sure as
hell don’t waste any time. Mind tell-
in’ me your name?”
"Bob Reeves.” The’kid looked full
at Garner, • a defiant expression
around his mouth. “Folks call me
Tiger Eye batek home. They gotta
be friends to do it, though.”
Babe Garner glanced obliquely at
the heap on the ground, nodded and
looked away, up the road and down.
■ “Say, you better fog along to
my camp with me,’J he- said uneasily
“These _ damn nesters are shore
mean. Let the pinto go. Anybody
come along and catch you here, it’s
fare ye well. What kinda gun you
got?”
“Colt forty-five.”
“Good. That won’t tell nothin’
if the nesters get snoopy. Come on,
Tiger Eye. I’ll see yuli through
this.”
He wheeled his horse, and led
the way back up the hill, and the
kid followed without a word.
The damned, dirty luck of it! Hav
ing to shoot the first man he saw in
the country, the one he was going
to strike for a job! Another thing
bothered him; how had he happened
to miss, like that? He had aimed
at Wheeler’s gun arm. How had he
shot so far wide that the bullet went
through Wheeler’s head?
It never occurred to him that his
father or any one else would disap
prove of the shooting. That would
be called a case of "have to.” And
as he meditated gravely on the neces
sity of defending himself; he remem
bered the jerk of liis big hat and
took1 it off to see just whatliad hap
pened.
There it was—a smudged hole
right in the middle of the crown.
"Damn close,” Babe commented.
"You want to keep your eye peeled
hereafter. These nesters’Il shoot a
man on sight.”
“What foil?”
“’Cause they’re damn’ 'cow thieves
and the P-oole has called the turn,”
Babe said savagely. You heard
what he,hollered.”
"Yeah, I heahd.”
"That’s, the nestcr’s war whoop,
these days. The Poole has had four
lhen fanned with bullets in th4 last
month. We’re needin’ riders that
can shoot. You Come in time.
"How1 many men has the nestahs
lost?”
Babe hesitated, gave his head a
shako, laughed one hard chuckle.
"You know ’of one, anyway,” he
said meaningly.
The kid questioned iiO further but
followed silently Babe’s lead. Over
a lava bed they went, where the
horses must pick their way carefully
but where they left no- track. Down
along the rim of the benchlaud, past
the head of the coulee marked, on
the map as wheeler’s. Once, the
kid looked down almost upon the
roof of the cabin, A woman came
out and began pulling the clothes
oiff the line, her back to the bluff.
A baby in a pink' dress toddled out
on the doorstep, sat down violently
and began to .squirm backward off
the step. Wheeler’s baby. Only
there wasn’t any Wheeler, any more,
Just a heap of dressed-up bones and
meat, back, there in the trail.
What devil's lu'ek was it that had
.made the kid shoot wide, like that?
Used to shoot the pips out of cards
somebody held out for him—3is
would hold cards out for him to
shoot, any time. Never had missed
that-a-way before. The kid could
not understand it. It worried him
almost as much as the killing.
Babe Garner had a snug cabin,
not to be approached save irom one
direction, up a bare steep little ridge
to a walled-in basin where two
springs bubbled out from the rock
wall and oozed away through ferns
and tall grass with little blue flow
ers tilting on the tops. . .
When they had eaten, Babe took
a paper-bound novel down off a high
shelf where many more were piled.
He glanced at the kid inquiringly.
“Lots to read if<you want it,” he
offered. "Make yourself at home,
Bob.”
“Reckon I’ll take a ride,” the kid
said quietly. “Aim to get the lay
of the land.”
“Oh, sure,” Babe studied the kid
from beneath his lashes. “Want any
help? We're pardners from now bn
—Tiger Eye.”
“Don’t need lie’p right now,
thanks,” .said the kid. “Yo’all lay
still and read \yoah book, Babe. I’ll
come back.”
"Give this signal when you come
up the trail, Tiger Eye,” he directed,
and whistled a strain like, the cry of;
some night, bird. “Us Poole boys
hail each other tjiat way at nigh.t.-
Safer. You hear that call, you know
it’s a friend.”
"Thanks,” said the kid, and re
peated the signal accurately. “Shoali
will remember it, Babe.”
Babe went back to his. .bed and his
book, but though he stared at the
open page he did not read a line for'
five nii'inutes. He was wondiering
about the kifj;. . . . ,.j
The kid was wondering too, >but
not about Babe. He was wonder
ing who would do Nate Wheeler’s
chores, and he was wondering who
would take ' in the body and who
would bury Wheeler. He kept won
dering who would tell that woman
down there in the coulee that her
husband was dead, and who would
meet that baby when it toddled out
in its pink dress, and give it a ride
on a horse.
The kid did not ride back the way
Babe had brought him. . He circled
around another, way, and so came
into the trail from the north instead
of the south. He hoped the body of
Wheeler ha;d been discovered before
now, but it had not.
He rode at a sharp lope down the
lower slope and around the point
of rocks, across the wide mouth of
the coulee and up to a gate not far
from the house.
’A woman’s face -t the window’
peered out at him. The kid felt that
hot streak of shyness shoot up his
spine as her steps came toward the
door, But the chill of the message
he carried steadied him as the door
pulled open three inches—no more—
and her thin, worried face showed
there in the ’crack.
“Evenin’, Ma’am. Tlieah’s a man
layin’ back1’ up there a piece in the
road, I—is. yoali husband—home?’
“No, Nate’s gone,” She opened
the door another three inches and
looked at him unafraid. “He ought
to be 'back any time now. It is—is
the man—”
"Dead, I reckon.”
"Oh! Is he—do you know Who it
is?”
"No’m, neyali did see him befoah,
A—he was ridin’ a black pinto
hawse.”
"Nate! They’ve got Nate! They
said they would—they nailed a. warn
ing on the gate—-they’ve killed him!
Where is lie? Is it far? I’ll go
with you. The murdering devils!
How far is it?”
"No’m, yo’all bettali stay Tight
healb I’ll go tote him in, Mis’
Wheelah. I’ll tote him on his
hawse.”
The mother stood upon the step
and watched him go, per hand shield
ing her eyes from the last direct sun
rays. Her face was white and her
mouth was grim.
He knew there was murder in her
heart; not for him who brought the
message—for the man who, had shot
her husband.
A bleak Sense of being Somehow
tricked by circumstance ’swept over
the kid. It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t
a killer, he hadn’t wanted to kill,
but a man lay dead because of the
kid’s bungling shot.
'Shoah funny* Babe Garner being
right there close where he could see
and hear the whole thing. Never
needed any explaining-—just took it
for granted the kid only did what he
had to .do,- Never said a word, either.,
•about that poor shooting.
Getting Wheeler on the pinto, ty
ing him on with his own rope—like
Noting a deer out of the hills along
the Brazos, The kid worked calmly
enough but he worked fast and he
did not look straight at Nate Wheel*
er’s face; not once. Damn* shame.
Shooting Wheeler’s arm down would
have done just as well, Better, A
damn sight better for the woman
and the baby,
IShe was down by the gate, wait
ing in the dusk, 'when the kid kame
riding up, leading the -pinto with its
grisly pack. The little woman un
fastened the gate, her fingers cling
ing to the- weathered, strap worn
slick in hex- husband’s hands,
-She did not speak as the grim bur
den went through. Just reached
out and cauglit a swaying, inert hand
and laid it swiftly against her cheek
•and let it go, The kid swallowed
hard and turned liis tiger stare
straight ahead, up the trail toward
the darkened cabin.
. "I’ll go fix the bed. for him,” she
said dully, coming up as the kid halt
ed at the. doorstep and swung lim-
berly down from thd saddle.
The kid was unfastening the rope
where the last hitch had been taken
in the middle of Nate Wheeler’s
back. The body had sagged to one
side, and the kid lifted it by one
arm,—the gun arm, the one he
meant to “shoot down.” The arm
gave limply in liis .grasp, the bone
shattered above the elbow; and the
kid froze to an amazed immobility
for ten seconds, his mind blank, his
fingers groping and testing.
(To be Continued)
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