“How much?”
“How much what?” asks Hashknife, looking up from rolling a smoke.
“Every man has a price.”
“Yeah? Suppose you go ahead and talk a little.”
“Don’t say too much,” advises Spooner.
“Of course we know who shot Sam Peele.”
“Sure we do,” nods Spooner.
“You can’t pay me for it,” grins Hashknife. “I sell no scalps.”
“Who in ---- wants to pay you for it?” grunts the sheriff. “My ----, you
two get on my nerves! What’s it worth to you fellers to get out and stay
out?”
“Oh,” says Hashknife, glancing at me. “What’s it worth to you?”
“I’m buying--not selling,” says the sheriff. “Of course if the price is
too high----”
“Wait a minute,” says Spooner, getting to his feet as the sheriff starts
to finish. “There ain’t no use of anybody going off half-cocked. Now the
question is this: How much is Crosby paying you? Or does your pay come
from somebody else?”
“Whatcha want to know for?” asks Hashknife.
“If you don’t know the ante you can’t raise it, can you?”
“Got any certain price in mind?” I asks.
“No,” says the sheriff. “We didn’t figure on----”
“Talk it over,” advises Hashknife. “We’ll stable our broncs and maybe by
that time you’ll be able to talk without swallering all the time.”
We walks out of there and strolls up the sidewalk.
“I hope your romantic soul is getting satisfaction, cowboy,” says
Hashknife. “I’d sure hate to sell out to them two, but if the price
is right I reckon we better.”
“Sell out what, Hashknife?”
“Nothing. We ain’t got nothing, have we? Well, if the price is right
we’ll sell out--tha’s all.”
Just then a girl comes out of a store ahead of us and starts up the
street. She’s got a lot of bundles in her arms and seems in a hurry.
The puncher who had been trying to make his dog do tricks is just tying
his bronc to a rack, but when he sees her he steps up on the walk in
front of her. She sort of draws away and tries to walk around him, but
he seems to want to talk to her.
“Wait a minute, can’t you?” he asks, taking hold of her arm.
Man, she let one hand loose from her packages and slapped him a dandy.
She started to run, but he grabbed her again and she lost her packages.
Somebody across the street laughs out loud, and I sort of estimate how
high to hold to cut off his belt-buckle when Hashknife collides with
Mister Puncher. I know that said puncher went to the Land of Nod in one
blaze of glory, ’cause Hashknife hit me once by mistake.
Then Hashknife proceeds to pick him up by the heels and drags him over
to a hitch-rack, where he takes the feller’s rope and hangs him upside
down. There he hangs, sleeping sweetly, with his soles pointing at the
sky. The population seems to sort of gather around wondering-like, and
gazes upon this painless lynching.
One feller--a gambler by his raiment--steps up and says:
“What has Ben done now?”
Hashknife ignores the question and takes off his hat to the girl.
“Ma’am, may I walk home with you?” he asks.
“No, I hardly think so,” says she. “I live about five miles out.”
Somebody sort of snickers and then shuts up sudden-like when Hashknife
turns. Then he turns back to the girl and picks up her bundles.
“I thank you just the same,” says she. “You are very kind.”
“Tha’s all right,” grins Hashknife. “I don’t reckon anybody’s going to
bother you again.”
“Just the same I thank you,” says she, and we stood there and watched
her climb into a buggy and pull out of town.
Then we turns back to the crowd. Bennie has woke up and is protesting
considerable. The sheriff and Spooner are there, acting like they wished
an explanation.
“Mind telling what you done that to Bennie for?” asks the sheriff.
“If that upside-down drunken pup is Bennie I’ll say this much: He got
too fresh with a lady,” answers Hashknife.
“Who was the lady?” asks the sheriff.
“Crosby’s girl,” says somebody, “Molly Crosby.”
“I never done a danged thing!” wails Bennie. “Ain’t somebody going to
let me loose?”
“I will,” says the sheriff, but Hashknife steps right into him.
“Better reflect,” says Hashknife. “I ain’t never heard of angels with
flowing mustaches like yours, but so help me ----, if you let him loose
until I tell you to there will be something new for Saint Peter to pass
upon.”
A lot of the folks seem shocked, but they don’t lose their presence of
mind enough to not get out of the line of possible fire. Hashknife has
got more lines on his face than an ancient Siwash when he sets his poker
face to work, and the sheriff steps back.
“You running this town?” he asks, sort of twitching his fingers.
“No-o-o-o-o. No, I ain’t running nothing--not even my legs. I tied that
_hombre_ upside down because I figured he had more brains in his feet
than in his head and some of ’em might trickle down. _Sabe?_”
Hashknife is a clever sort of a person, but plumb lax about small
details. For instance, he forgot to take Bennie’s gun away from him.
I ain’t clever. I don’t look ahead and get all worried to ---- over what
might happen, but I sure do appear to be animated in the immediate
present. I hated to shoot at a man when he is standing on his shoulders,
but what was there to do? A sidewinder ain’t no object of pity just
because somebody is standing on its tail, is it? Answer--no. That is why
I shot right at the spot between Bennie’s eyes.
I’m a rotten shot. Yeah, I missed. That bullet hit into the dust right
at Bennie’s ear, and the spray of dust and gravel spoiled him for
anything except the sense of touch for twenty minutes.
Bennie dropped his gun and grabbed his eyes, and I turned just as
Hashknife’s derringer explodes. I saw a puncher sort of leaning over,
rubbing his wrist and staring down at his gun on the ground.
“Hoss liniment is good for it,” says Hashknife. “I’ve done that to so
many persons that I know the remedy. I really don’t want anybody to
fool with Bennie. _Sabe?_”
“You’re going a little too far,” says the sheriff. “That man you tied to
the rack is Ben Lober, foreman of the JHE outfit.”
“Pshaw,” says Hashknife contrite-like. “I apologize--to the rack.”
“Why don’t you arrest him?” asks the gambler person.
“None of your danged business! I’ll run my own office.”
“Sure you will,” admits Hashknife. “Just like a coyote running a poultry
business.”
The sheriff stares at Hashknife and Hashknife stares right back at him
while the crowd sort of slides back and waits for the killing. I reckon
that Ells ain’t noways used to Hashknife’s kind.
* * * * *
“The party is over,” says Hashknife sweet-like, “and I’ll let anybody
cut Bennie down.”
“Leave him there!” snaps Ells, turning on his heel. “He’s been getting
too danged smart lately, anyway.”
The crowd sort of melts away, talking to themselves, and then we sort of
takes notice of the puncher with the bum wrist.
“Pick it up,” grins Hashknife, pointing at the gun. “It won’t bite yuh.”
“Much obliged,” says he. “I don’t know how in ---- you done it,
stranger, but I sure knows how she feels. You slammed that bullet right
in between the cylinder and the barrel, and danged near busted my wrist.
Betcha you drove my wrist-bones back an inch. Some shooting.”
“Glad you appreciates it,” grins Hashknife. “You a friend of Bennie’s?”
“Well, I reckon I thought I was. I ain’t now.”
“Working for the JHE?”
“Got fired yesterday.”
“Know anything about old man Crosby?”
“Uh-huh. Runs the Lazy U. Sort of a religious old coot. Trusts his
daughter and the Lord. Wonder why Spooner didn’t have nothing to say,
being as he’s sort of shining around Molly Crosby.”
“Know anything about Shorty Blewett?”
“Little. Hear he was going with Molly, but they sent him up for
rustling.”
“Much obliged. Now, about that Lazy U brand: Is she sort of a little
stirrup-looking U, laying on her side, with the points sticking north
on a cow going south?”
“Well----” the puncher scratches his head and grins--“well, I reckon
she just about answers that description. Yes, sir, she’s that kind of
a mark.”
“Thanks,” nods Hashknife, and I follers him off down the street,
listening to Bennie’s gentle voice raised in spasmodic profanity.
“Hashknife,” says I, “was you kidding that poor devil?”
“She wasn’t such a bad-looking lady, Sleepy,” says he, looking
straight ahead. “Kinda nice, I’d say. Lot of sense, y’ betcha. Slapped
Bennie right in the egg-chute. Yeah, I’d say she ain’t no frail little
blossom.”
“All right,” says I; “don’t answer my questions. You ignore my questions
all the time in spite of the fact that I saves your life. You didn’t
show a lick of sense, Hashknife, when you forgot Bennie’s gun thataway.”
“Great men all make mistakes, Sleepy. Didja just aim to dust him?”
“Did you shoot at that feller’s gun, Hashknife?”
“Think I’m crazy?”
“No,” says I, “and I don’t care to have you wish insanity on me either.”
I sees Spooner come angling across the street toward the sheriff’s
office and we sort of catches a signal to foller him in.
“You ---- fool, are you going in there?” I asks. “Ain’cha got no sense?”
“Sure have and am, Sleepy. Come on.”
They was waiting for us, and we places our chairs against the wall,
facing the door.
“Thought it over?” asks Ells soft-like.
“Kinda,” admits Hashknife. “You’re talking.”