Part 29 (1/2)
”Howdy, Pencie?” he drawled, crooking his leg about his saddle horn as his black horse stopped to rub noses with the bay that the other rode.
”Where you headin' for?” asked Obed Pence.
”Down toward Lime Rock. There's some cows o' mine and a bunch o' calves down there. That breechy old roan devil steered 'em up thataway. She's always wanderin' off with a bunch like that. Come on down with me--I want to move 'em up with the rest o' the bunch. Soil's thin down thataway, an' gra.s.s's already gettin' brown.”
”Any o' mine in that bunch?”
”I dunno. Like's not. Come on--you ain't got nothin' to do.”
”Maybe I have and maybe I ain't,” retorted Pence half truculently.
”What you doin', then?”
”Watchin' out for that fella Drew.”
”Who told you to? Old Man?”
Pence spat a stream of tobacco juice. ”Not a-tall,” he replied. ”I guess you ain't heard what's new.”
”I ain't heard nothin' new. Spring it!”
”Foss is the one told me to keep my eye on Drew. Said for me to keep to this ridge over here and try to get a line on what he's up to if he come up this way. Digger's over in the hills on the other side o' the canon, watchin'. He's got gla.s.ses.”
”What's the good o' watchin' this guy? Why don't we get in and fire 'im out o' the country, like we said we was goin' to do?”
Obed Pence's irregular teeth twisted off another chew of tobacco.
”That's the funny part of it,” he observed. ”Digger's workin' alone, it seems. Old Man tells him not to bother Drew at all. Says he'll tend to 'im 'imself, when he gets 'round to it. First time I ever saw Old Man Selden hang back on puttin' a bur under anybody's tail when he wanted to get rid of 'im. An' now he pa.s.ses the word for n.o.body to bother Drew till he says to. Digger don't like it. He's sore on the old man.”
”What'd Digger say?”
”I just know mostly by the way he acts. There's somethin' funny goin'
on. Ever since that day we all rode down to Drew's cabin and heard the shot inside, Old Man's been actin' funny. Digger an' me was wonderin'
what them two was talkin' about in the cabin, that made the old man change the way he done. Why, say, he went down there to scare the ticks outa Drew that day. And after that, you know, we had it all made up to turn cows in on Drew's garden when he was away, an' let 'em get at his spring. Then Jay Muenster was goin' to slip in sometime and put a live rattlesnake in Drew's bed. And if all that didn't start 'im, we was gonta begin plunkin' at him from the chaparral, you know--just drop a few bullets at his feet when he was workin' in his garden. Wasn't that right?”
”Sure was, Pencie.”
”An' we rode down there to start things goin',” Pence continued. ”And when Old Man come outa the cabin he was bowin' and sc.r.a.pin', and this and that and the other, like him and Drew had been pals all their lives.
There's somethin' funny. Digger don't like it a-tall!”
”Does Ed know anything?” asked Chuck after a pause.
”No, he don't,” answered Obed Pence. ”It was Ed told Old Man 'bout Digger takin' a crack at Drew when he was monkeyin' 'round Sulphur Spring. And Old Man told Ed to tell Digger to cut it out, and that he was runnin' the gang and would tell anybody when he wanted 'em to throw down on Drew.”
”I know.”
”And Digger asks 'im when he sees 'im did he want Drew monkeyin' about the spring and gettin' onto the pipe that took water to the still. And Old Man says to h.e.l.l with the still; he was gonta cut out makin' booze, anyway.”
”Cut it out?”
”That's what he told Digger Foss.”