Blue Kingdom by Max Brand Page A

bright, suspicious eyes about him. He had not seen anything, but, like a wild young animal, he seemed to suspect that eyes were fixed upon him from the covert. Tankerton rejoiced in the sight of him. He was as ragged, as rough, as unkempt as a bear cub, but he had a bear’s keen senses, a bear’s courage, and one day he would have almost equal strength. Such boys as this would grow into the men who would assure him a long reign, for Tankerton knew very well that the permanence of his power did not depend upon the crew of lock breakers, yeggs, thieves, confidence men, and plain gunfighters and murderers who brought him in his immediate revenue. It was the mountain militia that enabled him to keep his standing army from being broken up by the arm of the law.
    â€œI’m here,” he said suddenly.
    The boy whirled and jumped the butt of his shotgun into the hollow of his shoulder, before he saw who it was that sat the horse half shrouded among the brush. “Hey!” he said then, and the gun almost dropped from his hands. “Jiminy! Look what I nearly done.”
    Tankerton rode out into the trail. “Do you know me?” he asked.
    â€œSure I do,” said the boy.
    â€œWho am I, then?”
    â€œYou’re Jack Timberline,” said the boy.
    â€œI’m Jack Timberline?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œAnd what else do you know beside my name?”
    â€œYou got a bad pair of lungs,” said the boy. “That’s one of the things I know about you.”
    â€œWhat makes you think that I have a bad pair of lungs?”
    â€œIf you wasn’t a lunger,” argued the boy, “why would you be hangin’ around here in the mountains, except it was for your health. Maybe you’re one of these here scientists that studies bugs, though, or flowers. I dunno. But I’d say that Jack Timberline was something special.”
    Tankerton could not help smiling. “I know your father,” he said.
    â€œNo, you don’t,” said the boy.
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œHe’s been dead for ten years. You might know Cousin Bill, though.”
    â€œDo you look like him?”
    â€œDo I look like a dog that’s run wild?” said the boy. He sneered with disgust. “I’d tell a man that I hope I don’t look like him,” he said.
    â€œHow old are you, sonny?”
    â€œI’m old enough to shoot a buck,” said the boy.
    â€œAnd skin him?” asked Tankerton.
    â€œAye, and skin him, and cut him up. No butcher could do it better!”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œAin’t Bill the butcher at Harpersville?”
    Suddenly Tankerton remembered the humped shoulders and the long, bestial face of Bill, the butcher at Harpersville.
    â€œThat’s Bill Ogden. He taught me how to cut meat. He always sets in the sun and swaps lies with Chuck Harper.”
    â€œYour name is Ogden, then?”
    â€œMe? I hope it ain’t! My name is James McVey Alderwood Larren.”
    â€œIt’s a good long name.”
    â€œMy pop was a good man, and he figgered it that the Larrens oughta have at least one name for every couple of foot of ’em!”
    â€œAnd Bill Ogden was related and took you in. . . .”
    â€œHe took me in proper, he did! He ain’t hardly done a stroke since I arrived.”
    A big mountain partridge, hiding beneath a bush, thought that it had crawled far enough from the sound of the voices and now rose on whirring wings. Instantly James McVey Alderwood Larren wheeled and discharged his shotgun. It was a quick shot, but it went home, for the partridge staggered in its flight, thumped against a tree trunk, and then fell to the ground.
    The boy marked the spot and then let the bird lie. He turned back to Tankerton again, and assumed a careless air.
    â€œThat was a bully good shot,” said Tankerton. “You’d better pick it up.”
    â€œI guess I’d better,” said the boy.