Hawks and Eagles by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2017-04-12T22:00:00+00:00

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IX. — READY FOR FLIGHT

MANY marvels had been seen in the short and stirring history of Fort Willow, from early Mexican and Indian wars, through a gold rush and the wild days of the cattle drives. There was still excitement enough in its dusty streets, from time to time, but nothing had ever occurred to rank, as a marvel, with the spectacle of Zeke Stevens ordering an entire bottle of whiskey and paying for it.

Mort Pemberton was actually pale with excitement; his eyes were large as he carried in the bottle. He looked earnestly at the money he received in exchange, as though doubting its real value. Then he withdrew, backward, so that he could be sure of seeing everything as long as possible.

“Close the door,” said Zeke.

Mort Pemberton slammed it with a muttered oath. He would have given his very teeth to hear the conversation to which this miracle was the prelude.

Zeke Stevens filled the glasses. The boy left his untouched, but the old man, staring down into his own glass, turned it about, again and again, with zealous fingers, admiring the film of oil that collected along the sides of the glass.

Strange words came from his lips.

“Skunks and starved coyotes and mangy dogs and molting hens that smell of the sage,” he said. “That’s what they are. Tomlinson, he’s one. The Altons, they’re some more. But they’ve got a front to ‘em. A fine front. They dress fine and they talk big, and they been to school, all of ‘em. But they ain’t real. They ain’t real men. They ain’t the kind that I seen out here. They ain’t got the men, and they ain’t got the women.

“I seen men out here that burned themselves up like candles. No, they didn’t last long. But they made a light, is what they made. They made a light that even I could see by. They used to make me wanna be different. They came and they went. They went fast. Rich miner today, dead drunk tomorrow. Cattle king this year, cleaning spittoons the next… cattle king again, the next… dead in a gunfight, the next. Them was men. They burned themselves up, and they made a light that even I could see by.

“And today, when I stood there under the window of the judge, and heard you lay out the Altons, I begun to see by the old light ag’in. It made me wanna shine. And when you laid out old Tomlinson himself, the fat faker, I says to myself… ‘Zeke, you can’t never shine yourself, but maybe you could help somebody else to shine.’ When I say that, I mean you.”

He lifted his head. He looked into the eyes of the boy, and Joe Good saw terrible, hungry inquiry, doubt, criticism, and, finally, relief and belief. For he answered that stare with another, equally profound, into the dark soul of the moneylender. He could not have done it the day before. But now this was a sort of gunfire to which he was accustomed.

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