Part 6 (2/2)

In dress, speech, and demeanour Jimmie seems to be of the West, Western--of the old, bad West of informal vendetta, when a man's increase of years might lie squarely on his quickness in the ”draw”; when he went abundantly armed by day and slept lightly at night--trigger fingers instinctively crooked. Of course such days have very definitely pa.s.sed; wherefore the engaging puzzle of certain survivals in Jimmie Time--for I found him still a two-gun man. He wore them rather consciously sagging from his lean hips--almost pompously, it seemed. Nor did he appear properly unconscious of his remaining attire--of the broad-brimmed hat, its band of rattlesnake skin; of the fringed buckskin s.h.i.+rt, opening gallantly across his pinched throat; of his corduroy trousers, fitting bedraggled; of his beautiful beaded moccasins.

He was perfect in detail--and yet he at once struck me as being too acutely aware of himself. Could this suspicion ensue, I wondered, from the circ.u.mstance that the light duties he discharged in and about the Arrowhead Ranch house were of a semidomestic character; from a marked incongruity in the sight of him, full panoplied for homicide, bearing armfuls of wood to the house; or, with his wicked hat pulled desperately over a scowling brow, and still with his flaunt of weapons, engaging a sinkful of soiled dishes in the kitchen under the eyes of a mere unarmed Chinaman who sat by and smoked an easy cigarette at him, scornful of firearms?

There were times, to be sure, when Jimmie's behaviour was in nice accord with his dreadful appearance--as when I chanced to observe him late the second afternoon of my arrival. Solitary in front of the bunk house, he rapidly drew and snapped his side arms at an imaginary foe some paces in front of him. They would be simultaneously withdrawn from their holsters, fired from the hip and replaced, the performer snarling viciously the while. The weapons were unloaded, but I inferred that the foe crumpled each time.

Then the old man varied the drama, vastly increasing the advantage of the foe and the peril of his own emergency by turning a careless back on the scene. The carelessness was only seeming. Swiftly he wheeled, and even as he did so twin volleys came from the hip. It was spirited--the weapons seemed to smoke; the smile of the marksman was evil and masterly. Beyond all question the foe had crumpled again, despite his tremendous advantage of approach.

I drew gently near before the arms were again holstered and permitted the full exposure of my admiration for this readiness of retort under difficulties. The puissant one looked up at me with suspicion, hostile yet embarra.s.sed. I stood admiring ingenuously, stubborn in my fascination. Slowly I won him. The coldness in his bright little eyes warmed to awkward but friendly apology.

”A gun fighter lets hisself git stiff,” he winningly began; ”then, first thing he knows, some fine day--crack! Like that! All his own fault, too, 'cause he ain't kep' in trim.” He jauntily twirled one of the heavy revolvers on a forefinger. ”Not me, though, pard! Keep m'self up and comin', you bet! Ketch me not ready to fan the old forty-four! I guess not! Some has thought they could. Oh, yes; plenty has thought they could. Crack! Like that!” He wheeled, this time fatally intercepting the foe as he treacherously crept round a corner of the bunk house. ”Buryin'

ground for you, mister! That's all--bury-in' ground!”

The desperado replaced one of the weapons and patted the other with grisly affection. In the excess of my admiration I made bold to reach for it. He relinquished it to me with a mother's yearning. And all too legible in the polished b.u.t.t of the thing were notches! Nine sinister notches I counted--not fresh notches, but emphatic, eloquent, chilling.

I thrust the b.l.o.o.d.y record back on its gladdened owner.

”Never think it to look at me?” said he as our eyes hung above that grim bit of bookkeeping.

”Never!” I warmly admitted.

”Me--I always been one of them quiet, mild-mannered ones that you wouldn't think b.u.t.ter would melt in their mouth--jest up to a certain point. Lots of 'em fooled that way about me--jest up to a certain point, mind you--then, crack! Buryin' ground--that's all! Never go huntin'

trouble--understand? But when it's put on me--say!”

He lovingly replaced the weapon--with its mortuary statistics--doffed the broad-brimmed hat with its snake-skin garniture, and placed a forefinger athwart an area of his s.h.i.+ning scalp which is said by a certain pseudoscience to s.h.i.+eld several of man's more spiritual attributes. The finger traced an ancient but still evil looking scar.

”One creased me there,” he confessed--”a depity marshal--that time they had a reward out for me, dead or alive.”

I was for details.

”What did you do?”

Jimmie Time stayed laconic.

”Left him there--that's all!”

It was arid, yet somehow informing. It conveyed to me that a marshal had been cleverly put to needing a new deputy.

”Burying ground?” I guessed.

”That's all!” He laughed venomously--a short, dry, restrained laugh.

”They give me a nickname,” said he. ”They called me Little Sure Shot. No wonder they did! Ho! I should think they would of called me something like that.” He lifted his voice. ”Hey! Boogles!”

I had been conscious of a stooping figure in the adjacent vegetable garden. It now became erect, a figure of no distinction--short, rounded, decked in carelessly worn garments of no elegance. It slouched inquiringly toward us between rows of sprouted corn. Then I saw that the head surmounting it was a n.o.ble head. It was uncovered, burnished to a half circle of grayish fringe; but it was shaped in the grand manner and well borne, and the full face of it was beautified by features of a very Roman perfection. It was the face of a judge of the Supreme Court or the face of an ideal senator. His large grave eyes bathed us in a friendly regard; his full lips of an orator parted with leisurely and promising unction. I awaited courtly phrases, richly rounded periods.

”A regular h.e.l.l-cat--what he is!”

Thus vocalized the able lips. Jimmie Time glowed modestly.

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