Fightin' Fool

by Max Brand

  “I don’t understand,” said Jingo. “My brain is sort of whirling a little. But—maybe she’ll get used to the new life, eh?” He looked on his companion with a nameless disgust as he spoke.

  “She’s too old,” said the Parson huskily.

  Said Jingo, through his teeth: “Well, how old is she?”

  “Twelve years,” answered the Parson.

  “Twelve years!” gasped Jingo.

  “And fit as a fiddle. A little bit over at the knees, maybe, but nothin’ to speak of. I like ’em over at the knees a little, don’t you? It kind of eases their gait a little.”

  “You mean to say that a twelve-year-old girl—” cried Jingo.

  “Girl? Mare, you fool!” broke in the Parson.

  Jingo leaned against a wall and laughed and groaned and laughed again. “I thought Lizzie was your girl,” he said. “I was getting ready to slam you for a hound, Parson.”

  “I wish that she was only a girl,” said the Parson. “There’s plenty more of females in the world, but there’s only one Lizzie.”

  “What did you get for her?”

  “Only a hundred and fifty. I was drunk,” sighed the Parson.

  “What did you pay for her?”

  “Two hundred in hard cash, and five years of constant fightin’,” answered the Parson. “There was times when I thought that Lizzie had me licked. But finally I won out. She’s a tough mare, Jingo.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Down at Morgan’s, the horse dealer’s. Why?”

  “We’ll go down there and look at her,” said Jingo.

  “I wouldn’t want to,” remarked the Parson. “It would just kind of wring me, if you foller that. It would just sort of stir me all up, and I wouldn’t settle down for a coupla days, maybe.”

  “Well,” said Jingo, “I’ll buy her back for you.”

  “You’ll which?”

  “I’ll buy her back,” said Jingo. “Come on to Morgan’s with me.”

  The Parson was too deeply moved for words. He was so deeply moved that he silently took from his rear pocket a great cut of plug tobacco, well compressed, and time-hardened. Through a corner of the plug his powerful teeth sheared with a snap. He offered the plug to Jingo who shook his head. The Parson shook his in turn, but from another reason. He walked on with Jingo, still silently.

  They reached Morgan’s. There was a long shed, a shack with living quarters at one end of it, and a tangle of corral fences, with a continual swirl of dust going up like smoke into the air. Morgan himself was a withered little man, with only two prominent features, his nose and his Adam’s apple. But the Parson paid little attention to the little horse dealer. Instead, he went to the fence and leaned his huge, gaunt elbows on it. “There’s Lizzie,” he said softly to Jingo.

  “Which one?” asked Jingo.

  “Which one?” snapped the Parson. “There ain’t more than one in that corral to anybody with an eye for hoss-flesh.”

  Jingo followed the direction of the Parson’s glance. “You mean that brindle plow horse over there?” asked Jingo. “The one with a head like a moose and a neck like a blue crane?”

  The Parson said nothing. He did not so much as turn his head. But his great shoulders gradually hunched up toward his ears, and his ears turned red, and his enormous hands slowly contracted into fists.

  Jingo said: “Well, that brindle roan, or whatever you call the color, has some points, after all. She’s all points, in a manner of speaking. Withers and knees and hock and ribs, and the top of her head and her chin—and her hips sticking out like a pair of sharp elbows under a kimono—matter of fact, I never saw a horse with so many points.”

  The huge body of the Parson began to straighten. He reached back slowly, took a firm grip on the belt of Jingo and the back of his trousers and, with that one mighty hand, hoisted him up so that his feet came to rest on the second bar of the fence.

  “Now you’re up where you can look better,” said the Parson. “How does she look to you now?”

  “Now that I look again,” said Jingo, squirming a little because the hand of the Parson was gripping a good deal more than cloth and leather, “now that I look again, I’d say that Lizzie is one of the most extraordinary horses that I ever saw.”

  “There is things about your vocabulary, son,” said the Parson, “that had oughta be straightened out, and maybe one of these here days I’ll take time off and do the straightening.”

  Suddenly he relaxed his hold and sighed. “Look!” said the Parson. “She sees me, and she knows me! Dog-gone her heart, look at that! She knows me, Jingo!”

  Lizzie had suddenly twitched back her long, mulish ears. She stared straight at her old master with red danger in her eyes.

  “Yeah, it seems as though she knows you,” said Jingo, grinning. “She certainly knows you.”

  “She could pick me right out of a crowd,” sighed the Parson. “See that? She knows me, all right. Good old girl!”

  Lizzie had actually turned about, and looking back with a twist of her head, she lifted a tentative hind hoof, as though prepared to kick.

  “She knows me!” mourned the Parson. “No matter what happens, nobody else is ever going to mean to Lizzie what I meant to her!”

  “Morgan,” broke in Jingo as the horse dealer came near them, “what’s the price on that brindle roan over there? I need a plow horse for slow work.”

  Morgan smiled faintly. “Two hundred and fifty,” said he.

  “Cents?” asked Jingo. “Well, I’ll take her, then, if you’ll throw in a saddle and a bridle and a lead rope.”

  “Two hundred and fifty or three hundred dollars,” said Morgan. “I dunno that I’d let her go at that, except that I need the coin just now.”

  “I thought you’d pay somebody to lead her out of the corral,” said Jingo, climbing down from the fence. “What’s she good for?”

  “She’s good,” said Morgan, “for carrying two hundred and thirty pounds a hundred miles in a day.”

  “What?” cried Jingo. “She doesn’t look as though she could get herself into a lope!”

  “She can’t, but she can trot,” said Morgan. “And she can trot all day. I’ve tried her, and I know. She kind of mixes up a gent’s floatin’ ribs with his inmost wishes, but she never stops goin’.”

  “Morgan,” broke out the Parson, “as long as I had to sell her, I’m glad that I sold her to a gent with brains.”

  “I’ll give you two hundred flat for her,” said Jingo. “Here’s the money.”

  “Two hundred and fifty, and I’m robbing myself, at that,” insisted Morgan.

  “She’s not worth bargaining,” answered Jingo. “Here’s the rest of the cash. Fellows like you, Morgan, are what keep young men out of business. They take to bank robbing instead, because they see that it’s all the same idea, except that bank robbing doesn’t hurt the feelings of the banker so much. Lead out that chunk of a wooden horse, will you? And we’ll see if she can move.”

  Lizzie was led forth, therefore. The saddle and bridle that had been stripped off her were replaced, and Jingo said to the Parson: “There’s your beautiful Lizzie. Take her, Parson. And I hope faro never puts you asunder again.”

  “You mean I’m to take her like that?” said the Parson. He jerked his hat down over his eyes and approached Lizzie. It was not an easy thing to do. At the sight of her old master, she made a desperate effort to buck off her saddle, squealing like a hurt pig.

  The Parson paused and remarked: “She’s got spirit, Jingo. You can see that for yourself. A whole lot of spirit. And if—” He broke off his speech to seize an interval of comparative quiet in the evolutions of Lizzie, and, running in, he flung himself into the saddle.

  Lizzie, at the same time, pointed her nose at the sky and followed it as far as her long legs would hurl her into the air. She landed on springs, apparently, and for five full minutes she fought like a great rawboned tiger. Suddenly she was still, and stood with her head down, and her long ears fla
ttened against her neck.

  “She knows me again,” said the Parson proudly. “There ain’t anybody in the world that she acts up for like that.”

  “Anybody else would be dead,” said Jingo. “Come on along with me and we’ll feed our faces.”

  They went down the street to a restaurant, where the Parson declared that he was capable of eating a light lunch. Jingo dined heartily enough, but when he had finished, the long procession of steaks, fried eggs, potatoes in heaps, sections of white loaf smeared thick with butter, and then wedge after monstrous wedge of apple pie, continued to drift down the throat of the Parson, borne along on a river of steaming black coffee. When he had finished, he rolled a cigarette and burned up half of it with one vast inhalation. After that single breath, smoke poured from his mouth and nose for a fall minute as he made a speech.

  He said: “Jingo, you got faults. You ain’t got an eye for a good horse when you see one, and you’re fresh. You’re mighty fresh. But horses you can be taught about, and you can study Lizzie every day; and I can salt you down a bit, too, from time to time. Besides all this, you got a few good points, and I reckon that I could get along with you. I reckon that maybe I’ll go to work for you.”

  “I haven’t got enough for you to work on,” said Jingo. “I don’t own a ranch, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I never said you did,” said the Parson. “But you own a lot of spare time. I’ll go to work on that.”

  “What would you do with it?” asked Jingo.

  “I’d build fence and ride range on your spare time,” said the Parson. “I’d keep trouble away from it and the whole range free and easy. When you fall on your nose, I’ll pick you up, and every time you’re kicked out the door of a saloon, I’ll be standing in the street, ready to catch you and ease the drop.”

  Jingo grinned. “What pay would you want for that sort of work?” he asked.

  “Three dollars a day—and board,” said the Parson.

  “Suppose I pay you ten dollars a day and you board yourself,” suggested Jingo, looking at the great heaps of emptied dishes.

  “No,” said the Parson, grinning in turn, “I wouldn’t want to put myself on a diet.”

  “Maybe you know,” said Jingo, “that any rancher around here can get all the cow-punchers he wants, experienced hands, at forty dollars a month?”

  “Sure, I know it,” answered the Parson. “But what one of ’em would take the job rounding up the spare time of Jingo?”

  “Well,” said Jingo, “I’m going to hire you out of curiosity. Here’s your first job. There’s a dance in this town tonight. All day I’ve been seeing Tower Creek, and it’s only fair that Tower Creek should have a chance to see me. Find out about that dance. Get the name of the prettiest girl in town. Then come back to the hotel. I’ll be there in my room, sleeping a couple of hours. So long, Parson.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The Best Girl

  Jingo was very tired. He had not closed his eyes for thirty-six hours. Therefore, when he reached the hotel, he picked out a room, locked the door of it, shoved two Colts under the pillow, and then fell face down on the bed and went to sleep.

  When a knock came at the door, he dragged himself to it, turned the key in the lock, and saw the towering bulk of the Parson standing before him. Then he staggered back to the bed, fell once more on his face, and was instantly and profoundly asleep.

  It was twilight. Therefore the Parson lighted the lamp, trimmed the wick, settled the chimney down, and went to look at his new friend and employer. He slid his hands under the pillow, found the two guns, and laid them on the table, smiling a little. Then he went to the water pitcher, dipped a towel into it, and returning to the bed, he jerked the sleeper over on his back and dropped the sopping towel in his face.

  The towel hit the opposite wall as Jingo landed on his feet in the middle of the room. The monstrous form of the Parson was leaning beside the window, his long, sour face distorted by a twisting smile.

  “I’ve got a mind,” said Jingo, “to paste you on the nose.”

  “Don’t you do it,” said the giant. “You whang me on the chin or slam me in the stomach, and I won’t mind it none. You’ll get plenty of exercise, and my feelings won’t be hurt. But this here nose of mine is kind of delicate, ever since Lizzie kicked it sideways, one day. It was the first day that I ever met Lizzie, and dog-gone me if she ain’t been in my thoughts ever since. Leave my nose alone, son, or I might get all excited.”

  “I’ve got a good idea,” said Jingo, “that I can lick you, or two like you, Parson!”

  “It’s an idea, but it ain’t any good,” said the Parson. “I’ll tell you why it ain’t any good. Nobody licks me, without a gun. If we was out on a thousand-acre lot, maybe you’d play tag with me a while and get away with it, but these here four walls are too dog-gone close together. You wouldn’t have no room to think, in here, Jingo.”

  Jingo got a second towel and dried his face. He sat on the edge of the table and smoked a cigarette. “Maybe you’re right,” he observed, “but one of these days we’ll have to have it out. I couldn’t stay friends with a man I didn’t fight.”

  “Sure you couldn’t,” answered the Parson. “I can understand that. I feel the same way, and that’s why I ain’t got any friends. When I get through fighting a gent, he has to go to a hospital and stay there so long that he forgets what happened to him in the first place. All that I remind him of afterwards is doctor bills.”

  “Sit down,” said Jingo. “And tell me about the dance.”

  “The dance,” said the Parson, “is going to be a humdinger. They got an orchestra with two slide trombones in it. I heard one of them slide trombones practicing, and it sounded like Lizzie snoring. It made me feel dog-gone homesick.”

  “Who goes to the dance?” asked Jingo.

  “The whole of Tower Creek,” answered the giant

  “And who’s the best girl in the town?” asked Jingo.

  “The best girl in the town comes from out of the town,” said the Parson. “Clean all the way down from Blue Water.”

  “She’s come a long way to meet me,” said Jingo, “but I’ll make it worth her while.”

  The Parson shook his vast head and made a cigarette with care, the wisp of paper turning slowly in his enormous finger tips. “She ain’t for you, boy,” he declared. “She’s a special preserve.”

  “It’s the kind I like,” said Jingo.

  “She ain’t for you,” said the Parson. “She’s got some slick Easterners along with her, and they’re going to fill up her whole landscape.”

  “I’ve been East myself,” said Jingo.

  “So have I,” said the Parson. “I been all the way East to Denver, but you and me never been as East as she’s been—her and her young men.”

  “I’ve got an idea that she’s going to like me a whole lot,” said Jingo.

  “You wouldn’t have the right idea at all,” said the Parson. “She’s nice.”

  “So am I,” said Jingo. “I can be so nice you never saw anything like it. Have you seen her?”

  “I seen her go down the street,” said the Parson. “She’s got a nice brown face and a nice pair of blue eyes, and her clothes is made so that you know where she is inside them.”

  “What is her moniker?” asked Jingo.

  “By name of Tyrrel,” answered the Parson. “She’s old Judge Tyrrel’s gal, is what she is.”

  “Tyrrel?” said Jingo. “I think I’ve heard the name somewhere.”

  “Well, maybe you have, at that,” remarked the Parson. “You might ’a’ seen it on twenty or thirty buildings in some of the big towns. Or you might ’a’ seen it over some oil wells. Or maybe it was chalked up over any one of half a dozen gold mines. And half the cows in Texas bawl ‘Tyrrel’ when they’re on the road.”

  “No, I think I found the name in a book,” said Jingo.

  “Yeah. And there’s been books wrote about him, too. He’s one of these here empire builders, if y
ou know what I mean. He’s a Maker of the West, and a Big Man, and one of the Most Remarkable Men in the Country. He lays cornerstones with a gold trowel and he’s the head of the committee of Big Birds that gives the bouquet of cactus to the visiting Queen of Egypt. He calls the president by his nickname, and the train makes a special stop for folks that want to get off and see the front face of Judge Tyrrel’s house.”

  “I must have met him somewhere,” said Jingo, “and it’s a cinch that I’m going to meet his daughter in Tower Creek.”

  “What makes you feel so good?” asked the Parson.

  “I don’t feel so good,” said Jingo. “No honest, earnest worker feels very good when he thinks about retiring. But it seems to me that I’d better retire to the Tyrrel millions, brother.”

  “You take an imagination like you got,” commented the Parson, “and you waste yourself, son. You oughta write books and things. What’s the hard and honest work that you been doing all your long life?”

  “Ah, Parson,” said Jingo, “time is not alone what counts. The number of years may be short, but responsibility is what ages us, young or old. Many a man, Parson, is still young-hearted at seventy; and many a man of twenty-five is already bowing his head toward the earth.”

  “That’s great!” said the Parson. “You could put the boys to sleep in church just as good as if you was a salaried minister and was paid for the work.”

  “A trifle, a trifle,” said Jingo. “You’ve never heard my line really working, Parson. When I start, the guinea hens stop sounding off in the barnyard, and the wild geese come down out of the sky to listen. You’ve never really heard me honk.”

  The Parson looked at him with an indulgent eye. “What I mean,” said he, “is this. If you try to crowd that Tyrell girl to-night, there’s going to be trouble popping. Understand?”

  “It sort of saddens me, Parson,” answered Jingo. “What grieves me is that a fellow like you, with a head your size, shouldn’t have more brains behind the eyes. I’ve told you that I’m going to give the girl a dizzy rush to-night. I’ve told you that I intend to retire on the Tyrrel millions; if I can stand the girl’s face. And still you don’t seem to believe me.”