“I … I …” Merchant choked in his distress. “The fact is, in a business like this, I like to feel that my money is invested as safely as possible, and I think …”
“I want you to think this,” said Lefty, and he shook a swiftly vibrating forefinger under the nose of his companion. “You’re talking to a white man. I never shot a gent while he had his back turned. I never shot him when he was took by surprise. I never shot him when he was drunk. I never shot him when he was sick. I’ve fought every man face to face. They flopped, because they didn’t have the nerve or the dope on gunfighting. That’s my way. If a bird is good enough to flop me, then he collects, and I don’t. That’s all. If I didn’t work for my coin, d’you think I could enjoy making it? No! I ain’t a man killer, I’m a sportsman, mister, and you want to write it down in red. Gimme a good, sporting chance, and I take it. Give me a sure thing, and I tell you to go hang. I’ve never took up a sure thing, and I never will. But I’m after game, big game! Some gents like to go out into the jungle and hunt for tigers. I have more fun than that, because I hunt things a thousand times worse’n tigers. I hunt men. It ain’t the money alone that I work for. I got enough salted away to do for me. But I like the fun, bo. It’s in my nature.”
He sat back again, contented, flushed after having expounded his creed, defying Merchant to argue further in the matter. It bewildered Charles, this singular profession of faith.
“This Lanning guy … ?” went on Lefty more gently. “You stop worrying. I’ll plant him. I’ll salt him away with lead so’s you never have to worry about him none no more. That what you want?”
When Charles Merchant nodded, the gunman continued easily. “You just jot down the directions to the place. That’s all I want.”
V
From the roof to the bellows, there had been hardly a thing about the old blacksmith shop that did not need repairing. The anvil alone was intact. Even the sledgehammers were sadly rusted. He spent the first few days putting things in order and making repairs. But this was about the only work that came his way. To be sure, now and then, someone of the more curious dropped into his shop and had a horse shod in order to see the celebrated desperado at work. It would be something to ride home and point to the iron on the feet of a horse and say: “Andrew Lanning put those shoes on. I seen him do it.”
But this made up a mere dribble of work, although Hal Dozier had sent in a few small commissions from his ranch. He had even offered to set up a shop for Andy on his ranch and said that he had ample ironwork to remunerate both himself and Andrew, but the ex-outlaw had other plans. He was determined to fight out the battle in Martindale itself.
There was something dreamlike about the whole thing. It had not been so many years ago since the men of Martindale looked down on the Lanning kid as being “yaller clear through.” In those days they had greeted any mention of his name with a smile and a shrug. Then came the unlucky day when he knocked down a man and fled in fear of his life, leaving an unconscious victim who appeared to be dead. Feeling that he was outlawed by his crime, Andy had become an outlaw in fact. That was the small, the accidental, beginning that, it seemed, was to determine the whole course of his life. He had plenty of chances to think about himself, past and future, as he sat idly in the little shop, day after day, waiting for work.
His funds were dwindling meanwhile. An angle of the affair, at which he had not looked before, now presented itself. He might be actually starved out of the town. He might be starved into submission.
All day, every day, he could hear the cheery clangor of hammer on anvil in the new and rival blacksmith shop down the street. There was plenty of business there, plenty of it. His competitor had tried to placate this terrible rival soon after his arrival. He came to visit the latter in his shop at the beginning of the working day.
“I’m Sloan,” he said, “Bill Sloan. Maybe you don’t know me?”
“Sure,” said Andy. “I know you.”
“You and me being sort of business rivals, as you might say,” said Sloan, “I got this to say for a start. I ain’t going to use no crooked ways of getting customers away from you, Lanning.”
“I guess you won’t,” said Andrew gently.
“Matter of fact, now and then, I get an overflow of trade. I might send some of it down to your shop, Lanning.”
It touched Andrew, the embarrassment of this huge, sturdy-hearted fellow. He went to him and touched his shoulder.
“Sloan,” he said, “I know what’s on your mind. You think I’m getting mad at you, because you get the work. I’m not. Get everything you can, and don’t send me any overflow. You’re married, and you have kids. Get all the work you can. As for me, I’m not going to try to rustle trade with a gun.”
On the afternoon of the next day Hal Dozier stopped before the shop with a suggestion.
“Andy,” he said, “Si Hulan is in town. Staying up at the hotel right now. He’s looking for hands. Why don’t you trot up to see him? He’d be glad to take you on if he has any sense. Got a big ranch. Soon as he learns that he can trust you, he’d be apt to make you foreman. You’re the man to handle that rough gang of his.”
Andy Lanning was not at all enthusiastic.
“You see,” he replied, “I’d be glad to do that, but Sally isn’t much good at working cows. She’s never had much experience.”
“You could teach her.”
“I could teach her, but that dodging and hustling around in a bunch isn’t very good for a horse’s legs.”
“I know. Then ride another horse, Andy. Keep Sally for Sundays and holidays, eh?”
“Ride another horse?” asked Andrew. “Man alive, Hal, you don’t mean that!”
“Why not?” asked the marshal.
Andrew was breathless. “Sally and me,” he attempted to explain. “Why … Sally and me are pals, you might say, Dozier.” He whistled softly, and at once the lovely head of Sally came around the corner of the shop. There she stood with her head raised, then canted to one side, her ears pricked, while she examined her master curiously.
“She plays out there all day,” said Andrew, smiling at the mare. “I turn her loose in the morning when I come down to work, and she follows down here and plays around in the lot. Sometimes old Missus Calkin’s dog, old Fanny, you know, comes over and plays a game with Sally. Game seems to be for Fanny to set her teeth in Sally’s nose, and for Sally to let her come as close to it as she can without doing it. Hear Sally snorting and Fanny snarling, and you’d think they was a real battle on. Well, you see how it is. I couldn’t very well get on with Sally if I rode another horse. Besides, the minute I got off another horse, Sally would kick the daylights out of the nag. That’s Sally’s way … jealous as a cat and ready to fight for attention. She’ll come over here and nose in between us pretty soon if I talk to you and don’t pay no attention to her.” He rose as he spoke and winked at the marshal. “Watch her now.”
He turned his back on Sally, and the marshal looked from one to the other of them. He thought them very much alike, these two. There was the same touch of wildness in both, the same high-headed pride, the same finely tempered muscles, the same stout spirit. Only one man had ever succeeded in riding Sally with a saddle, and that man was her present master. For the rest she was as wild as ever. And it came to the marshal that the same was true of the boy. One person in the world could tame him, and that was Anne Withero.
Sally had stood her exclusion from the conversation as long as possible. She now snorted and stamped with a dainty forehoof. It caused Andy to wink at the marshal, but he gave her no direct attention, and presently she came hesitantly forward and, in reach of Andy, she laid her short ears back on her neck and bared her teeth. The marshal stifled an exclamation, so wicked was the look of Sally at that moment, so snake like she was with her long, graceful neck and glittering eyes. The teeth closed on a fold of Andy’s shirt at the shoulder, and she tugged him rudely around.