Freddy Rides Again (13 page)

Chapter 12

The animals around in the neighborhood had heard what a good effect being laughed at had on Billy Margarine, and as he rode around the countryside they certainly gave him the full treatment. Cows and horses grazing in the fields lifted up their heads and haw-haw'd when he went by, and every tree seemed to be full of giggling birds and chuckling squirrels, and if he stopped beside a stone wall, from inside it came snickers and squeaks of amusement. Even in his bed at night he couldn't get away from it, for Uncle Solomon, the screech owl, had got in the habit of sitting in the woodbine outside Billy's window, and his crazy laughter ran through the boy's troubled dreams.

At first Billy had been pretty mad. He threw stones at the animals, but he realized that that didn't get him anywhere. Even being mad didn't get him anywhere, for they never got mad back—they just laughed harder. He lived in a bigger house and had more expensive clothes than any of the neighboring farmers, who went around in patched overalls and muddy boots. But the animals didn't laugh at them. He couldn't understand it.

Lots of boys who had been brought up like Billy, to have everything he asked for, and to look down on people who didn't have much money, would have left it at that. But Billy thought about it. And pretty soon he began to see that his money and his thoroughbred horse and his fine clothes didn't mean a thing to the animals, or to Mr. and Mrs. Bean either. And when he wondered why they didn't, it came to him that it was because they liked people for what they were, not for what they had.

This was a surprising thought to Billy. He had always pretended that he didn't care whether people liked him or not. Of course he did care, because everybody does. But he had believed that to make people like him he must impress them with how rich and important he was. Now he began to wonder. And he was wondering that morning as he rode up across lots after breakfast, when at the edge of the woods he ran into Freddy, who that morning, of course, was the Comanche Kid.

They both pulled up and looked at each other, and then Freddy said: “If you and your pa hadn't been so scairt we'd have had that pig in the jailhouse this morning.”

“All right, so we were scared,” said Billy. “What of it?” He looked at the guitar which Freddy had slung across his back. “You play that thing?”

“Sure.” Freddy started to unsling the guitar, then stopped. If he took off his gauntlets to pluck the strings, Billy would see that he had trotters instead of hands, and would know he was a pig. “When we're ridin' herd, we play and sing to the cattle. Specially when it's building up for a storm. Keeps 'em from stampeding.”

Something giggled in a tree overhead, and a voice said: “They must be deaf. I've heard you sing and it
made
me stampede.”

“They laugh at you, too, don't they?” said Billy.

“Squirrels!” said Freddy contemptuously. “They ain't got no manners.” He pulled out his pistol. “Where is he?”

“Oh, don't shoot him!” Billy exclaimed. And as Freddy stared: “Well, I mean, he didn't do anything but laugh.”

Freddy shot the gun back into the holster. Maybe, he thought, Billy wasn't so bad after all. “O.K.,” he said. “But it ain't healthy to laugh at the Comanche Kid. There's a hospital out where I come from, just built special to take care of folks that laugh at me.”

Billy looked at him doubtfully. “Well,” he said, “they laugh at me too. All the animals, they just roar whenever they see me. I guess they don't like me.” He gave a laugh which he tried to make sound careless. “As if I cared!”

“If you didn't care you wouldn't talk about it,” said Freddy. “But why should they like you? The way I heerd it, you come pushin' in here, snootin' at the Beans because they ain't got much money, pointing your finger and laughing at the animals. They just give you the same treatment. And so you don't like it!” He gave a snort of contempt. “You're a fool, boy!”

To Freddy's surprise, Billy didn't flare up. “Maybe I hadn't ought to have laughed at that pig,” he said. “He's sort of the boss animal on the farm, I guess.”

“Oh, I wouldn't say he was the boss,” said Freddy modestly. “He's smarter than some of the others, I suppose. Quite a poet, too; he swings a mean rhyme.”

Billy looked at him in surprise. “I thought you came up here to shoot him?” he said.

Freddy had forgotten for the moment that, as the Comanche Kid, he was out after his own scalp. “That's what I'm aimin' to do, pardner,” he said. “But effen he was just an ordinary pig, wouldn't be no glory in shootin' him. Folks the Comanche Kid plugs has got to be important folks—cattle rustlers or bank presidents or such. This here pig now—he's a poet and a bank president and a detective and I don't know what all. He'll rate a good deep notch on this old six-gun.”

“My father's a bank president,” said Billy proudly.

“Is that right?” said Freddy. “Better scalp than, the pig's,” he added thoughtfully. “Twould mount nice. Maybe after I get the pig I could pick a fight with him.”

Billy looked at him doubtfully. “You wouldn't do that! Aw, you're kidding me. I don't believe you'll even shoot that Freddy. Anyway, my father doesn't want you to; he just wants to capture him.”

Freddy shook his head. “Like to oblige him, but I'm getting out of practise—ain't shot anybody in a week. Last feller was Snake Peters; he jumped my minin' claim in Grisly Gulch—him and Snaggle-tooth Charlie, and a greaser they called Old Nasty. Well, sir, they was holed up in my cabin by the mine shaft …”

He continued the story as they rode along. Billy listened eagerly, and when Freddy reached the point where, with one cartridge left in his gun, he had had to get the three claim jumpers in a line so as to drill them all with the single bullet, the boy nearly fell out of the saddle with excitement. “Golly, that's a good story!” he exclaimed.

So Freddy started another one, about the time he was captured by the Pawnees.

At noon they were sitting in the grass up by the edge of the woods, and Freddy was just finishing the tenth chapter of the personal reminiscences of the Comanche Kid, which had to do with a duel he had fought with Geronimo, the Apache chief, when he saw Rabbit No. 23 sitting on a rock a little way off and trying to attract his attention by waving his ears.

Freddy motioned him to approach. “If you got something to say to the Comanche Kid, stranger,” he said, “don't stand there wagglin' your ears; come and say it. Message from that pig, I suppose. Offer of surrender, hey?”

No. 23 was a smart rabbit. He gave a quick glance at Billy; then he said: “No, sir. I was just to tell you—you know Mr. Margarine has warned all the Bean animals off his place. Well, this morning he caught one of the cows. He
claims
she was on his side of the fence. Anyway, he caught her and tied her up in his stable, and he says that if you—that is, if that pig, doesn't give himself up within twenty-four hours, he's going to shoot her.”

Freddy got up. “Which cow did he catch? And does Mr. Bean know about this?”

“Mrs. Wiggins. No sir, Mr. Margarine said he'd leave Mr. Bean out of it; it was up to Mrs. Wiggins' friends to turn Freddy in. Or if Freddy was such a good friend of hers he'd give himself up.”

“I see,” said Freddy thoughtfully. “I don't think he'd shoot Mrs. Wiggins—”

“Oh, but he would!” Billy interrupted. “You don't know my dad. He's awful mad at those animals. Wanted to shoot some of them the other day—he said old Bean would probably sue him, but he's got plenty of money to pay if the judge fined him.” He paused and frowned unhappily. “I wish he wouldn't,” he said. “I don't like those animals any better than he does, and I'd like to get even with them, but not shoot them.”

“Kind of a mean man, your pa, ain't he?” said Freddy.

“It isn't that so much,” Billy said. “But he gets mad and says he's going to do something, and then he has to do it. He says a bank president, if he gives his word, he has to keep it right to the letter. So even if he knows, when he gets over being mad, that he hadn't ought to carry out some threat he made, he has to do it just the same. He says sometimes he regrets he has such an awful temper.”

“He's going to regret it more and more as time goes on,” said Freddy, getting to his feet. “Attention, No. 23!” he said to the rabbit.

No. 23 saluted. “Yes, sir.”

“Go down and tell the animals not to say anything to Mr. Bean about this. I'll take care of Mrs. Wiggins. And ask everybody to come up to the Grimby house this afternoon; we may have to stand a siege.”

Billy had been looking more and more alarmed as Freddy talked, and all at once he jumped up and ran to his horse. But as he put his foot into the stirrup, Freddy's gun snapped out and was leveled at him. “Hold it!” the pig commanded.

“Ah, you wouldn't shoot!” Billy said, and swung into the saddle. “Comanche Kid, hey?” And he yelled with laughter. “The Comanche Pig! Boy, will Dad be sore when he hears how you fooled him!” He galloped off towards home.

Freddy didn't bother to shoot one of his blanks; he just stood staring after the boy until Cy ranged up alongside him. “Well, come on, pig, come on!” the horse said. “Get after him.”

“We can't catch him,” said Freddy.

“We can have a darned good try,” Cy said. “You've got that rope on the saddle horn, haven't you? Get on!”

So Freddy unslung his guitar, dropped it on the grass and jumped into the saddle. He took his rope from the horn, and as Cy stretched out at full speed he began whirling the loop around his head. “Yippeee!” he yelled.

Billy's horse was a tall, rangy hunter, and there seemed little chance that Cy could overtake him. But to get down to the Margarine place they had to cross several very rough and rocky pastures, and the hunter was taking no chances of breaking a leg. He ran, but he didn't run as fast as Cy, who tore recklessly along, leaping boulders and crashing through bushes. And halfway across the second field Freddy caught up. The rope circled and the loop fell neatly over Billy's head.

“Stop!” Freddy yelled. “Or I'll yank you out of the saddle!” And Billy pulled up, as the noose was drawn gently tight just above his elbows.

“O.K.,” said Billy. O.K., I give in. What do we do now?”

Chapter 13

Mrs. Wiggins wasn't much of a worrier. After her capture by Mr. Margarine and his stable man, Thomas, she was locked into one of a row of box stalls where the horses lived. She munched on the forkful of hay that Thomas had thrown into the stall. “If they're going to shoot me,” she said to herself, “they're going to shoot me, and I might as well get all I can out of them.” And she thought with pleasure of the kick she had got home on Mr. Margarine's shin, after they had sneaked up and slipped a rope around her neck, and were dragging her down to the barn.