Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  * * *

  13. WHEN BEAR CREEK CAME TO CHAWED EAR

  I DUNNO how far I rode that night before the red haze cleared out from around me so’s I could even see where I was. I knowed I was follering the trail to War Paint, but that was about all. I knowed Miss Margaret and J. Pembroke would head for War Paint, and I knowed Cap’n Kidd would run ’em down before they could get there, no matter how much start they had. And I must of rode for hours before I come to my senses.

  It was like waking up from a bad dream. I pulled up on the crest of a rise and looked ahead of me where the trail dipped down into the holler and up over the next ridge. It was jest getting daylight and everything looked kinda grey and still. I looked down in the trail and seen the hoof prints of J. Pembroke’s hoss fresh in the dust, and knowed they couldn’t be more’n three or four miles ahead of me. I could run’ em down within the next hour.

  But thinks I, what the hell? Am I plumb locoed? The gal’s got a right to marry whoever she wants to, and if she’s idjit enough to choose him instead of me, why, ‘tain’t for me to stand in her way. I wouldn’t hurt a hair onto her head; yet here I been aiming to hurt her the wust way I could, by shooting down her man right before her eyes. I felt so ashamed of myself I wanted to cuss — and so sorry for myself I wanted to bawl.

  “Go with my blessin’,” I said bitterly, shaking my fist in the direction where they’d went, and then reined Cap’n Kidd around and headed for Bear Creek. I warn’t aiming to stay there and endure Glory McGraw’s rawhiding, but I had to get me some clothes. Mine was burnt to rags, and I didn’t have no hat, and the buckshot in my shoulder was stinging me now and then.

  A mile or so on the back-trail I crossed the road that runs from Cougar Paw to Grizzly Run, and I was hungry and thirsty so I turnt up it to the tavern which had been built recent on the crossing at Mustang Creek.

  The sun warn’t up when I pulled at the hitch-rack and clumb off and went in. The bartender give a holler and fell backwards into a tub of water and empty beer bottles, and started yelling for help, and I seen a man come to one of the doors which opened into the bar, and look at me. They was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t place him for the instant.

  “Shet up and git outa that tub,” I told the bar-keep petulantly. “It’s me, and I want a drink.”

  “Excuse me, Breckinridge,” says he, hauling hisself onto his feet. “I rekernize you now, but I’m a nervous man, and you got no idee what a start you gimme when you come through that door jest now, with yore hair and eye-lashes all burnt off, and most of yore clothes, and yore hide all black with soot. What the hell—”

  “Cease them personal remarks and gimme some whisky,” I snarled, being in no mood for airy repartee. “Likewise wake up the cook and tell him to fry me some ham and aigs.”

  So he sot the bottle onto the bar and stuck his head into the kitchen and hollered: “Break out a fresh ham and start bustin’ aigs. Breckinridge Elkins craves fodder!”

  When he come back I said: “Who was that lookin’ through that door there while ago?”

  “Oh, that?” says he. “Why, that was a man nigh as famous as what you be — Wild Bill Donovan. You-all ever met?”

  “I’ll say we has,” I grunted, pouring me a drink. “He tried to take Cap’n Kidd away from me when I was a ignorant kid. I was forced to whup him with my bare fists before he’d listen to reason.”

  “He’s the only man I ever seen which was as big as you,” said the bar- keep. “And at that he ain’t quite as thick in the chest and arms as you be. I’ll call him in and you-all can chin about old times.”

  “Save yore breath,” I growled. “The thing I craves to do about chins with that coyote is to bust his’n with a pistol butt.”

  This seemed to kinda intimidate the bartender. He got behind the bar and started shining beer mugs whilst I et my breakfast in gloomy grandeur, halting only long enough to yell for somebody to feed Cap’n Kidd. Three or four menials went out to do it, and being afeared to try to lead Cap’n Kidd to the trough, they filled it and carried it to him, so only one of them got kicked in the belly. It’s awful hard for the average man to dodge Cap’n Kidd.

  Well, I finished my breakfast whilst they was dipping the stable-hand in a hoss-trough to bring him to, and I said to the bar-keep, “I ain’t got no money to pay for what me and Cap’n Kidd et, but I’ll be headin’ for War Paint late this evenin’ or tonight, and when I git the money I’ll send it to you. I’m broke right now, but I ain’t goin’ to be broke long.”

  “All right,” he said, eyeing my scorched skull in morbid fascination. “You got no idee how pecoolier you look, Breckinridge, with that there bald dome—”

  “Shet up!” I roared wrathfully. A Elkins is sensitive about his personal appearance. “This here is merely a temporary inconvenience which I cain’t help. Lemme hear no more about it. I’ll shoot the next son of a polecat which calls attention to my singed condition!”

  I then tied a bandanner around my head and got on Cap’n Kidd and pulled for home.

  I arriv at pap’s cabin about the middle of the afternoon and my family rallied around to remove the buckshot from my hide and repair other damages which had been did.

  Maw made each one of my brothers lend me a garment, and she let ’em out to fit me.

  “Though how much good it’ll do you,” said she, “I don’t know. I never seen any man so hard on his clothes as you be, in my life. If it ain’t fire it’s bowie knives, and if it ain’t bowie knives, it’s buckshot.”

  “Boys will be boys, maw,” soothed pap. “Breckinridge is jest full of life and high spirits, ain’t you, Breckinridge?”

  “From the whiff I got of his breath,” snorted Elinor, “I’d say they is no doubt about the spirits.”

  “Right now I’m full of gloom and vain regrets,” I says bitterly. “Culture is a flop on Bear Creek, and my confidence has been betrayed. I have tooken a sarpent with a British accent to my bosom and been bit. I stands knee-deep in the rooins of education and romance. Bear Creek lapses back into ignorance and barbarism and corn-licker, and I licks the wounds of unrequited love like a old wolf after a tussle with a pack of hound dawgs!”

  “What you goin’ to do?” ast pap, impressed.

  “I’m headin’ for War Paint,” I said gloomily. “I ain’t goin’ to stay here and have the life rawhided outa me by Glory McGraw. It’s a wonder to me she ain’t been over already to gloat over my misery.”

  “You ain’t got no money,” says pap.

  “I’ll git me some,” I said. “And I ain’t particular how. I’m going now. I ain’t goin’ to wait for Glory McGraw to descend onto me with her derned sourcasm.”

  So I headed for War Paint as soon as I could wash the soot off of me. I had a Stetson I borrowed from Garfield and I jammed it down around my ears so my bald condition warn’t evident, because I was awful sensitive about it.

  Sundown found me some miles from the place where the trail crossed the Cougar Paw-Grizzly Run road, and jest before the sun dipped I was hailed by a pecooliar-looking gent.

  He was tall and gangling — tall as me, but didn’t weigh within a hundred pounds as much. His hands hung about three foot out of his sleeves, and his neck with a big adam’s apple riz out of his collar like a crane’s, and he had on a plug hat instead of a Stetson, and a long-tailed coat. He moreover sot his hoss like it was a see-saw, and his stirrups was so short his bony knees come up almost level with his shoulders. He wore his pants laigs down over his boots, and altogether he was the funniest-looking human I ever seen. Cap’n Kidd give a disgusted snort when he seen him and wanted to kick his bony old sorrel nag in the belly, but I wouldn’t let him.

  “Air you,” said this apparition, p’inting a accusing finger at me, “air you Breckinridge Elkins, the bearcat of the Humbolts?”

  “I’m Breckinridge Elkins,” I replied suspiciously.

  “I dedooced as much,” he says ominously. “I have come a long ways to meet you, Elkins. They can
be only one sun in the sky, my roarin’ grizzly from the high ranges. They can be only one champeen in the State of Nevada. I’m him!”

  “Oh, be you?” I says, scenting battle afar. “Well, I feels the same way about one sun and one champeen. You look a mite skinny and gantlin’ to be makin’ sech big talk, but far be it from me to deny you a tussle after you’ve come so far to git it. Light down from yore hoss whilst I mangles yore frame with a free and joyful spirit! They is nothin’ I’ll enjoy more’n uprootin’ a few acres of junipers with yore carcass and festoonin’ the crags with yore innards.”

  “You mistakes my meanin’, my bloodthirsty friend,” says he. “I warn’t referrin’ to mortal combat. Far as I’m consarned, yo’re supreme in that line. Nay, nay, B. Elkins, esquire! Reserve yore personal ferocity for the b’ars and knife-fighters of yore native mountains. I challenges you in another department entirely.

  “Look well, my bowie-wieldin’ orang-outang of the high peaks. Fame is shakin’ her mane. I am Jugbelly Judkins, and my talent is guzzlin’. From the live-oak grown coasts of the Gulf to the sun-baked buttes of Montana,” says he oratorical, “I ain’t yet met the gent I couldn’t drink under the table betwixt sundown and sunup. I have met the most celebrated topers of plain and mountain, and they have all went down in inglorious and rum-soaked defeat. Afar off I heard men speak of you, praisin’ not only yore genius in alterin’ the features of yore feller man, but also laudin’ yore capacity for corn-licker. So I have come to cast the ga’ntlet at yore feet, as it were.”

  “Oh,” I says, “you wants a drinkin’ match.”

  “‘Wants’ is a weak word, my murderous friend,” says he. “I demands it.”

  “Well, come on,” I said. “Le’s head for War Paint then. They’ll be plenty of gents there willin’ to lay heavy bets—”

  “To hell with filthy lucre!” snorted Jugbelly. “My mountainous friend, I am an artist. I cares nothin’ for money. My reputation is what I upholds.”

  “Well, then,” I said, “they’s a tavern on Mustang Creek—”

  “Let it rot,” says he. “I scorns these vulgar displays in low inns and cheap taverns, my enormous friend. I supplies the sinews of war myself. Foller me!”

  So he turnt his hoss off the trail, and I follered him through the bresh for maybe a mile, till he come to a small cave in a bluff with dense thickets all around. He reched into the cave and hauled out a gallon jug of licker.

  “I hid a goodly supply of the cup that cheers in that cave,” says he. “This is a good secluded spot where nobody never comes. We won’t be interrupted here, my brawny but feeble-minded gorilla of the high ridges!”

  “But what’re we bettin’?” I demanded. “I ain’t got no money. I was goin’ down to War Paint and git me a job workin’ somebody’s claim for day-wages till I got me a stake and built it up playin’ poker, but—”

  “You wouldn’t consider wagerin’ that there gigantic hoss you rides?” says he, eyeing me very sharp.

  “Never in the world,” I says with a oath.

  “Very well,” says he. “Let the bets go. We battles for honor and glory alone! Let the carnage commence!”

  So we started. First he’d take a gulp, and then me, and the jug was empty about the fourth gulp I taken, so he dragged out another’n, and we emptied it, and he hauled out another. They didn’t seem to be no limit to his supply. He must of brought it there on a whole train of pack mules. I never seen a man drink like that skinny cuss. I watched the liquor careful, but he lowered it every time he taken a swig, so I knowed he warn’t jest pertending. His belly expanded enormous as we went along and he looked very funny, with his skinny frame, and that there enormous belly bulging out his shirt till the buttons flew off of his coat.

  I ain’t goin’ to tell you how much we drunk, because you wouldn’t believe me. But by midnight the glade was covered with empty jugs and Jugbelly’s arms was so tired lifting ’em he couldn’t hardly move. But the moon and the glade and everything was dancing around and around to me, and he warn’t even staggerring. He looked kind of pale and wan, and onst he says, in a awed voice: “I wouldn’t of believed it if I hadn’t saw it myself!” But he kept on drinking and so did I, because I couldn’t believe a skinny maverick like that could lick me, and his belly kept getting bigger and bigger till I was scairt it was going to bust, and things kept spinning around me faster than ever.

  After awhile I heard him muttering to hisself, away off: “This is the last jug, and if it don’t fix him, nothin’ will. By God, he ain’t human.”

  That didn’t make no sense to me, but he passed me the jug and said: “Air you capable, my gulf-bellied friend?”

  “Gimme that jug!” I muttered, bracing my laigs and getting a firm hold of myself. I taken a big gulp — and then I didn’t know nothing.

  When I woke up the sun was high above the trees. Cap’n Kidd was cropping grass nearby, but Jugbelly was gone. So was his hoss and all the empty jugs. There warn’t no sign to show he’d ever been there, only the taste in my mouth which I cain’t describe because I am a gent and there is words no gent will stoop to use. I felt like kicking myself in the pants. I was ashamed something terrible at being beat by that skinny mutt. It was the first time I’d ever drunk enough to lay me out. I don’t believe in a man making a hawg out of hisself, even in a good cause.

  I saddled Cap’n Kidd and pulled out for War Paint, and stopped a few rods away and drunk five or six gallons of water at a spring, and felt a lot better. I started on again, but before I come to the trail, I heard somebody bawling and pulled up, and there sot a feller on a stump, crying like his heart would bust.

  “What’s the trouble?” I ast, and he blinked the tears out of his eyes and looked up mournful and melancholy. He was a scrawny cuss with over-sized whiskers.

  “You beholds in me,” says he sobfully, “a critter tossed on the crooel tides of fate. Destiny has dealt my hand from the bottom of the deck. Whoa is me!” says he, and wept bitterly.

  “Buck up,” I said. “Things might well be wuss. Dammit,” I said, waxing irritable, “stop that blubberin’ and tell me what’s the matter. I’m Breckinridge Elkins. Maybe I can help you.”

  He swallered some sobs, and said: “You air a man of kind impulses and a noble heart. My name is Japhet Jalatin. In my youth I made a enemy of a wealthy, powerful and unscrupulous man. He framed me and sent me to the pen for somethin’ I never done. I busted free and under a assumed name, I come West. By hard workin’ I accumulated a tidy sum which I aimed to send to my sorrowin’ wife and baby datters. But jest last night I learnt that I had been rekernized and the bloodhounds of the law was on my trail. I have got to skip to Mexico. My loved ones won’t never git the dough.

  “Oh,” says he, “if they was only some one I could trust to leave it with till I could write ’em a letter and tell ’em where it was so they could send a trusted man after it! But I trust nobody. The man I left it with might tell where he got it, and then the bloodhounds of the law would be onto my trail again, houndin’ me day and night.”

  He looked at me desperate, and says: “Young man, you got a kind and honest face. Won’t you take this here money and hold it for my wife, till she can come after it?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” I said. He jumped up and run to his hoss which was tied nearby, and hauled out a buckskin poke, and shoved it into my hands.

  “Keep it till my wife comes for it,” says he. “And promise me you won’t never breathe a word of how you got it, except to her!”

  “A Elkins never broke his word in his life,” I said. “Wild hosses couldn’t drag it outa me.”

  “Bless you, young man!” he cries, and grabbed my hand with both of his’n and pumped it up and down like a pump-handle, and then jumped on his hoss and fogged. I thought they is some curious people in the world, as I stuffed the poke in my saddle-bags and headed for War Paint again.

  I thought I’d turn off to the Mustang Creek tavern and eat me some breakfast, but I hadn’t much mo
re’n hit the trail I’d been follerin’ when I met Jugbelly, than I heard hosses behind me, and somebody hollered: “Stop, in the name of the law!”

  I turnt around and seen a gang of men riding towards me, from the direction of Bear Creek, and there was the sheriff leading ‘em, and right beside him was pap and Uncle John Garfield and Uncle Bill Buckner and Uncle Bearfield Gordon. A tenderfoot onst called them four men the patriarchs of Bear Creek. I dunno what he meant, but they generally decides argyments which has got beyond the public control, as you might say. Behind them and the sheriff come about thirty more men, most of which I rekernized as citizens of Chawed Ear, and therefore definitely not my friends. Also, to my surprise, I rekernized Wild Bill Donovan amongst ‘em, with his thick black hair falling down to his shoulders. They was four other hard-looking strangers which rode clost beside him.

  All the Chawed Ear men had sawed-off shotguns and that surprised me, because that made it look like maybe they was coming to arrest me, and I hadn’t done nothing, except steal their schoolteacher, several weeks before, and if they’d meant to arrest me for that, they’d of tried it before now.

  “There he is!” yelped the sheriff, p’inting at me. “Han’s up!”

  “Don’t be a damn’ fool!” roared pap, knocking his shotgun out of his hands as he started to raise it. “You want to git you and yore cussed posse slaughtered? Come here, Breckinridge,” he said, and I rode up to them, some bewildered. I could see pap was worried. He scowled and tugged at his beard. My uncles didn’t have no more expression onto their faces than so many red Injuns.

  “What the hell’s all this about?” I ast.

  “Take off yore hat,” ordered the sheriff.

  “Look here, you long-legged son of a mangy skunk,” I said heatedly, “if yo’re tryin’ to rawhide me, lemme tell you right now—”