[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Three contained dead cats."What about the rest?" he asked.The man called Syke, shorter and stouter than the horse-faced Boots, returned from the wagon, mopping the back of his neck with a red bandanna."Six in the wagon and one don't look too good.And a kitten, though I wouldn't count on it lasting.The mother's dead.""Dutch Bill's got him a goat, " Boots said."He might could get it to suck goat's milk from a neckerchief.Don't know what your plans was, hoss, but we sure can use cats in these here parts.We got more rats than prospectors."Chickenwire made a decision."Take them."Boots's eyes rolled white in a face stained with silver clay."This here's a problem.It ain't nothing to josh about.""I'm not joshing.You saved my life.I'll need a horse, too, and water and provisions to get me to town.Divide them up how you want.If I never see another cat it will be too soon."The miners moved swiftly, as if afraid he'd change his mind.Within the hour a gentle dun mare was produced, complete with a worn saddle and pouches filled with tins of beef and tomatoes.Boots helped Chickenwire straddle the mare and hung a canteen on the horn.One of the other miners, an honest lot, had found the merchant's poke and brought it to him.From his high seat Chickenwire surveyed the wreckage of the wagon and its contents."Help yourself to whatever you can salvage.I've had my life's portion of sardines, as well."Good luck to you, hoss, " Boots said."My chewed fingers and toes sure do thank you."That night, thawing the evening chill from his bones before a fire and trying not to think about his throbbing wrist in its makeshift sling, Chickenwire pondered his future.The remainder of the money the elder had paid him for his store in Salt Lake City, while not enough to buy into a good claim, might net him a partnership in a store in Tombstone.In a year or two he might set a sufficient amount aside to invest in pay dirt.The enterprise would be a success after all, and it would not depend on cats.After all those weeks in their company he could still hear them meowing.Meowing.He caught himself looking for the source of the fancied sound and smiled.The tinkling of the pianos in the all-night saloons would drown out the echoes soon enough.He would find the cure for his rash in the arms of a sporting lady.Chickenwire was picturing the enameled women in their bright dresses when a specter came into the firelight and slunk toward him, meowing.He sneezed, and the fresh pain in his arm made him curse.The cat—for it was the one-eyed, vile-tempered tiger he had despised for a thousand miles—shrank from the oath, hissing and flattening its single undamaged ear; then started forward again.Obviously, the beast had been among those that had escaped when the wagon overturned.How or why it had trailed him to this spot didn't concern him.The species filled him with rage.With his good hand he reached for the Walker Colt under the saddle he was using for a backrest, cocked it, and rested the barrel atop his raised knee, sighting in on the tiger's chest."Cat, you just went and spent the last of your nine lives." Ignoring the weapon, the animal came forward the rest of the way.At his knee it paused and ducked its head, rubbing its body against his leg.As it did so, a velvety rumble issued from deep inside its throat.The sound caught a little from a lifetime of disuse.Chickenwire said, "Well, I'm damned, " and let down the Colt's hammer gently.Early Tombstone cherished its characters nearly as much as it did its heroes and villains.Well into a new century, when old-timers weaÂried of recounting the exploits of the Earps and Clantons and Johnny Ringo, they would wet their whistles and launch into the story of how Itchy McDonough, part proprietor of the Golden Gate Mercantile on Fremont Street, came to town with nothing to his name but an old mare and his one-man cat, Elder Evilsizer
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]