The Winged Horse by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2017-06-19T15:03:51+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Lamb sighed with relief.

“This is a good deal easier than I thought it would be,” he admitted. “When I saw you going by with a frosty eye, I thought I’d be up against trouble, talking to you. But here you are, pretty good-natured. I’ve noticed that before,” breezed the Lamb. “When a person has done a good turn for another, it’s hard for him to get hard-hearted. Him that does the favor is the one that’s bound by doing it, the same as you seem to be now.”

“What favor have I done for you?” she asked.

“Only showing me the way out, to the saving of my neck.”

She nodded. “I suppose you can call that a favor,” she said.

“Even a thing like me can’t afford to chuck himself away, ma’am,” he said.

At this, a slight flush appeared in her cheek. “Are you proud of leaving your friends?” she asked.

“What friends? Loring’s lot?”

“Yes.”

“What friends were they of mine? They hired me for pretty good pay. Along comes some other folks and offer me a raise. What’s wrong with taking it?”

“Is that the way you reason?” she asked, and her eyes wandered upon his face, like one who reads a strange book.

“I’m on the make,” declared the Lamb. “I need cash and I intend to get it.”

“You came here to find Jimmy and kill him,” she said. “Now you’re here to take his orders.”

“Between the evening I came to find him and tonight, there’s the difference between a dead mare and a living horse. And there’s four thousand dollars to boot thrown in.”

“Did you come here for Jimmy because he’d killed your horse?”

“I wanted trouble,” he admitted. “But I suppose that we’ve talked enough about me. Everybody knows that I’m a hired man. But why are you here?”

“For board and lodging,” she said. “And so many dollars a month. I like my work, too.”

“Teaching?”

“Teaching, yes.”

“You can’t teach ’em nothing but reading and writing,” he said. “And what’s that worth?”

Here she looked up at him suddenly with a brightness in all her face. “I think I know what you mean,” she said.

“Of course you do. But what nails me to the mast more than anything else is why nobody pays any attention to you, here.”

“Who?”

“The young gents. Even these here Comanches want squaws. But they don’t seem to bother you none.”

She seemed a little angered, at first, by this excessive frankness, but suddenly she laughed. And the Lamb smiled in his turn.

“Well, that clears the air,” she said. “They don’t pay any attention to me because they don’t want me, of course.”

“Does a trout rise to flies?” asked the Lamb. “Sure, except when the shadow of the rod is floating on the surface. Does a horse try to stand on his nose in his feed box? Sure, except when he smells a snake in the oats. But why don’t these gents make a rush for you? I dunno. They walk by like they were blind in the eye that was next to you.

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