Max Brand (4 page)

He splashed through a hasty bath, dressed, and ran down the stairs,
humming. Jack Townsend stood on a box in the corner of the room, probing
at a spider web in the corner.

"Too late for breakfast?" asked Connor.

The fat shoulders of the proprietor quivered, but he did not turn.

"Too late," he snapped. "Breakfast over at nine. No favorites up here."

Connor waited for the wave of irritation to rise in him, but to his own
surprise he found himself saying:

"All right; you can't throw a good horse off his feed by cutting out one
meal."

Jack Townsend faced his guest, rubbing his many-folded chin.

"Don't take long for this mountain air to brace up a gent, does it?" he
asked rather pointedly.

"I'll tell you what," said Connor. "It isn't the air so much; it's the
people that do a fellow good."

"Well," admitted the proprietor modestly, "they may be something in
that. Kind of heartier out here, ain't they? More than in the city, I
guess. I'll tell you what," he added. "I'll go out and speak to the
missus about a snack for you. It's late, but we like to be obligin'."

He climbed carefully down from the box and started away.

"That girl again," thought Connor, and snapped his fingers. His spirits
continued to rise, if that were possible, during the breakfast of ham
and eggs, and coffee of a taste so metallic that only a copious use of
cream made it drinkable. Jack Townsend, recovering to the full his
customary good nature, joined his guest in a huge piece of toast with a
layer of ham on it—simply to keep a stranger from eating alone, he
said—and while he ate he talked about the race. Connor had noticed that
the lobby was almost empty.

"They're over lookin' at the hosses," said Townsend, "and gettin' their
bets down."

Connor laid down knife and fork, and resumed them hastily, but
thereafter his interest in his food was entirely perfunctory. From the
corner of his eye a gleam kept steadily upon the face of Townsend, who
continued:

"Speaking personal, Mr. Connor, I'd like to have you look over them
hosses yourself."

Connor, on the verge of speech, checked himself with a quick effort.

"Because," continued Townsend, "if I had your advice I might get down a
little stake on one of 'em. You see?"

Ben Connor paused with a morsel of ham halfway toward his lips.

"Who told you I know anything about horses?" he asked.

"You told me yourself," grinned the proprietor, "and I'd like to figure
how you knew the mare come from the Ballor Valley."

"From which?"

"From the Ballor Valley. You even named the irrigation and sand and all
that. But you'd seen her brand before, I s'pose?"

"Hoofs like hers never came out of these mountains," smiled Ben Connor.
"See the way she throws them and how flat they are."

"Well, that's true," nodded Jack Townsend. "It seems simple, now you say
what it was, but it had me beat up to now. That is the way with most
things. Take a fine hand with a rope. He daubs it on a cow so dead easy
any fool thinks he can do the same. No, Mr. Connor, I'd still like to
have you come out and take a look at them hosses. Besides"—he lowered
his voice—"you might pick up a bit of loose change yourself. They's a
plenty rolling round to-day."

Connor laughed, but there was excitement behind his mirth.

"The fact is, Townsend," he said, "I'm not interested in racing now. I'm
up here for the air."

"Sure—sure," said the hotel man. "I know all that. Well, if you're dead
set it ain't hardly Christian to lure you into betting on a hoss race, I
suppose."

He munched at his sandwich in savage silence, while Connor looked out
the window and began to whistle.

"They race very often up here?" he asked carelessly.

"Once in a while."

"A pleasant sport," sighed Connor.

"Ain't it, now?" argued Townsend. "But these gents around here take it
so serious that it don't last long."

"That so?"

"Yep. They bet every last dollar they can rake up, and about the second
or third race in the year the money's all pooled in two or three
pockets. Then the rest go gunnin' for trouble, and most generally find a
plenty. Any six races that's got up around here is good for three
shooting scrapes, and each shooting's equal to one corpse and half a
dozen put away for repairs." He touched his forehead, marked with a
white line. "I used to be considerable," he said.

"H-m," murmured Connor, grown absentminded again.

"Yes, sir," went on the other. "I've seen the boys come in from the
mines with enough dust to choke a mule, and slap it all down on the
hoss. I've seen twenty thousand cold bucks lost and won on a dinky
little pinto that wasn't worth twenty dollars hardly. That's how crazy
they get."

Connor wiped his forehead.

"Where do they race?" he asked.

"Right down Washington Avenue. That is the main street, y'see. Gives 'em
about half a mile of runnin'."

A cigarette appeared with magic speed between the fingers of Connor, and
he began to smoke, with deep inhalations, expelling his breath so
strongly that the mist shot almost to the ceiling before it flattened
into a leisurely spreading cloud. Townsend, fascinated, seemed to have
forgotten all about the horse race, but there was in Connor a suggestion
of new interest, a certain businesslike coldness.

"Suppose we step over and give the ponies a glance?" he queried.

"That's the talk!" exclaimed Townsend. "And I'll take any tip you have!"

This made Connor look at his host narrowly, but, dismissing a suspicion
from his mind, he shrugged his shoulders, and they went out together.

The conclave of riders and the betting public had gathered at the
farther end of the street, and it included the majority of Lukin. Only
the center of the street was left religiously clear, and in this space
half a dozen men led horses up and down with ostentatious indifference,
stopping often to look after cinches which they had already tested many
times. As Connor came up he saw a group of boys place their wagers with
a stakeholder—knives, watches, nickels and dimes. That was a fair token
of the spirit of the crowd. Wherever Connor looked he saw hands raised,
brandishing greenbacks, and for every raised hand there were half a
dozen clamorous voices.

"Quite a bit of sporting blood in Lukin, eh?" suggested Townsend.

"Sure," sighed Connor. He looked at the brandished money. "A field of
wheat," he murmured, "waiting for the reaper. That's me."

He turned to see his companion pull out a fat wallet.

"Which one?" gasped Townsend. "We ain't got hardly any time."

Connor observed him with a smile that tucked up the corners of his
mouth.

"Wait a while, friend. Plenty of time to get stung where the ponies are
concerned. We'll look them over."

Townsend began to chatter in his ear: "It's between Charlie Haig's roan
and Cliff Jones's Lightning—You see that bay? Man, he can surely get
across the ground. But the roan ain't so bad. Oh, no!"

"Sure they are."

The gambler frowned. "I was about to say that there was only one horse
in the race, but—" He shook his head despairingly as he looked over the
riders. He was hunting automatically for the fleshless face and angular
body of a jockey; among them all Charlie Haig came the closest to this
light ideal. He was a sun-dried fellow, but even Charlie must have
weighed well over a hundred and forty pounds; the others made no
pretensions toward small poundage, and Cliff Jones must have scaled two
hundred.

"Which was the one hoss in your eyes?" asked the hotel man eagerly.

"The gray. But with that weight up the little fellow will be anchored."

He pointed to a gray gelding which nosed confidently at the back hip
pockets of his master.

"Less than fifteen hands," continued Connor, "and a hundred and eighty
pounds to break his back. It isn't a race; it's murder to enter a horse
handicapped like that."

"The gray?" repeated Jack Townsend, and he glanced from the corner of
his eyes at his companion, as though he suspected mockery. "I never seen
the gray before," he went on. "Looks sort of underfed, eh?"

Connor apparently did not hear. He had raised his head and his nostrils
trembled, so that Townsend did not know whether the queer fellow was
about to break into laughter or a trade.

"Yet," muttered Connor, "he might carry it. God, what a horse!"

He still looked at the gelding, and Townsend rubbed his eyes and stared
to make sure that he had not overlooked some possibilities in the
gelding. But he saw again only a lean-ribbed pony with a long neck and a
high croup. The horse wheeled, stepping as clumsily as a gangling
yearling. Townsend's amazement changed to suspicion and then to
indifference.

"Well," he said, smiling covertly, "are you going to bet on that?"

Connor made no answer. He stepped up to the owner of the gray, a swarthy
man of Indian blood. His half sleepy, half sullen expression cleared
when Connor shook hands and introduced himself as a lover of fast
horse-flesh.

He even congratulated the Indian on owning so fine a specimen, at which
apparently subtle mockery Townsend, in the rear, set his teeth to keep
from smiling; and the big Indian also frowned, to see if there were any
hidden insult. But Connor had stepped back and was looking at the
forelegs of the gelding.

"There's bone for you," he said exultantly. "More than eight inches,
eh—that Cannon?"

"Huh," grunted the owner, "I dunno."

But his last shred of suspicion disappeared as Connor, working his
fingers along the shoulder muscles of the animal, smiled with pleasure
and admiration.

"My name's Bert Sims," said the Indian, "and I'm glad to know you. Most
of the boys in Lukin think my hoss ain't got a chance in this race."

"I think they're right," answered Connor without hesitation.

The eyes of the Indian flashed.

"I think you're putting fifty pounds too much weight on him," explained
Connor.

"Yeh?"

"Can't another man ride your horse?"

"Anybody can ride him."

"Then let that fellow yonder—that youngster—have the mount. I'll back
the gray to the bottom of my pocket if you do."

"I wouldn't feel hardly natural seeing another man on him," said the
Indian. "If he's rode I'll do the riding. I've done it for fifteen
years."

"What?"

"Fifteen years."

"Is that horse fifteen years old?" asked Connor, prepared to smile.

"He is eighteen," answered Bert Sims quietly.

The gambler cast a quick glance at Sims and a longer one at the gray. He
parted the lips of the horse, and then cursed softly.

"You're right," said Connor. "He is eighteen."

He was frowning in deadly earnestness now.

"Accident, I suppose?"

The Indian merely stared at him.

"Is the horse a strain of blood or an accident? What's his breed?"

"He's an Eden gray."

"Are there more like him?"

"The valley's full of 'em, they say," answered Bert Sims.

"What valley?" snapped the gambler.

"I ain't been in it. If I was I wouldn't talk."

"Why not?"

In reply Sims rolled the yellow-stained whites of his eyes slowly toward
his interlocutor. He did not turn his head, but a smile gradually began
on his lips and spread to a sinister hint at mirth. It put a grim end to
the conversation, and Connor turned reluctantly to Townsend. The latter
was clamoring.

"They're getting ready for the start. Are you betting on that runt of a
gray?"

Conner shook his head almost sadly. "A horse that stands not a hair more
than fourteen-three, eighteen years old, with a hundred and eighty
pounds up—No, I'm not a fool."

"Which is it—the roan or the bay?" gasped Townsend. "Which d'you say?
I'll tell you about the valley after the race. Which hoss, Mr. Connor?"

Thus appealed to, the gambler straightened and clasped his hands behind
his back. He looked coldly at the horses.

"How old is that brown yonder—the one the boy is just mounting?"

"Three. But what's he got to do with the race?"

"He's a shade too young, or he'd win it. That's what he has to do with
it. Back Haig's horse, then. The roan is the best bet."

"Have you had a good look at Lightnin'?"

"He won't last in this going with that weight up."

"You're right," panted Townsend. "And I'm going to risk a hundred on
him. Hey, Joe, how d'you bet on Charlie Haig?"

"Two to one."

"Take you for a hundred. Joe, meet Mr. Connor."

"A hundred it is, Jack. Can I do anything for you, Mr. Connor?"

"I'll go a hundred on the roan, sir."

"Have I done it right?" asked Townsend fiercely, a little later. "I
wonder do you know?"

"Ask that after the race is over," smiled Connor. "After all, you have
only one horse to be afraid of."

"Sure; Lightnin'—but he's enough."

"Not Lightning, I tell you. The gray is the only horse to be afraid of
though the brown stallion might do if he has enough seasoning."

For a moment panic brightened the eyes of Townsend, and then he shook
the fear away.

"I've done it now," he said huskily, "and they's no use talking. Let's
get down to the finish."

The crowd was streaming away from the start, and headed toward the
finish half a mile down the street beyond the farther end of Lukin. Most
of this distance Townsend kept his companion close to a run; then he
suddenly appealed for a slower pace.

"It's my heart," he explained. "Nothin' else bothers it, but during a
hoss race it sure stands on end. I get to thinkin' of what my wife will
say if I lose; and that always plumb upsets me."

He was, in fact, spotted white and purple when they joined the mob which
packed both sides of the street at the finish posts; already the choice
positions were taken.