The wrath1 of the Lord seems less terrible when it is localised, and the world at large gave thanks daily that the range of Jerry Strann was limited to the Three B's. As everyone in the mountain-desert knows, the Three B's are Bender, Buckskin, and Brownsville; they make the points of a loose triangle that is cut with canyons2 and tumbled with mountains, and that triangle was the chosen stamping ground of Jerry Strann. Jerry was not born in the region of the Three B's and why it should have been chosen specially3 by him was matter which the inhabitants could not puzzle out; but they felt that for their sins the Lord had probably put his wrath among them in the form of Jerry Strann.
He was only twenty-four, this Jerry, but he was already grown into a proverb. Men of the Three B's reckoned their conversational4 dates by the visits of the youth; if a storm hung over the mountains someone might remark: "It looks like Jerry Strann is coming," and such a remark was always received in gloomy silence; mothers had been known to hush5 their children by chanting: "Jerry Strann will get you if you don't watch out." Yet he was not an ogre with a red knife between his teeth. He stood at exactly the perfect romantic height; he was just six feet tall; he was as graceful6 as a young cotton-wood in a windstorm and he was as strong and tough as the roots of the mesquite. He was one of those rare men who are beautiful without being unmanly. His face was modelled with the care a Praxiteles would lavish7 on a Phoebus. His brown hair was thick and dark and every touch of wind stirred it, and his hazel eyes were brilliant with an enduring light—the inextinguishable joy of life.
Consider that there was no malice8 in Jerry Strann. But he loved strife9 as the young Apollo loved strife—or a pure-blooded bull terrier. He fought with distinction and grace and abandon and was perfectly10 willing to use fists or knives or guns at the pleasure of the other contracting party. In another age, with armour11 and a golden chain and spurs, Jerry Strann would have been—but why think of that? Swords are not forty-fives, and the Twentieth Century is not the Thirteenth. He was, in fact, born just six hundred years too late. From his childhood he had thirsted for battle as other children thirst for milk: and now he rode anything on hoofs12 and threw a knife like a Mexican—with either hand—and at short range he did snap shooting with two revolvers that made rifle experts sick at heart.
However, the men of the Three B's, as everyone understands, are not gentle or long-enduring, and you will wonder why this young destroyer was allowed to range at large so long. There was a vital reason. Up in the mountains lived Mac Strann, the hermit-trapper, who hated everything in the wide world except his young brother, the beautiful, wild, and sunny Jerry Strann. And Mac Strann loved his brother as much as he hated everything else; it is impossible to state it more strongly. It was not long before the men of the Three B's discovered how Mac Strann felt about his brother. After Jerry's famous Hallowe'en party in Buckskin, for instance, Williamson, McKenna, and Rath started out to rid the country of the disturber. They went out to hunt him as men go out to hunt a wild mustang. And they caught him and bent13 him down—those three stark14 men—and he lay in bed for a month; but before the month was over Mac Strann came down from his mountain and went to Buckskin and gathered Williamson and McKenna and Rath in one public place. And when the morning came Williamson and McKenna and Rath had left this vale of tears and Mac Strann was back on his mountain. He was not even arrested. For there was a devilish cunning about the fellow and he made his victims, without exception, attack him first; then he destroyed them, suddenly and surely, and retreated to his lair15. Things like this happened once or twice and then the men of the Three B's understood that it was not wise to lay plots for Jerry Strann. They accepted him, as I have said before, as men accept the wrath of God.
Let it not be thought that Jerry Strann was a solitary16 like his brother. When he went out for a frolic the young men of the community gathered around him, for Jerry paid all scores and the red-eye flowed in his path like wine before the coming of Bacchus; where Jerry went there was never a dull moment, and young men love action. So it happened that when he rode into Brownsville this day he was the leader of a cavalcade17. Rumour18 rode before them, and doors were locked and windows were darkened, and men sat in the darkness within with their guns across their knees. For Brownsville lay at the extreme northern tip of the triangle and it was rarely visited by Jerry; and it is well established that men fear the unfamiliar19 more than the known.
As has been said, Jerry headed the train of revellers, partially20 because it was most unwise to cut in ahead of Jerry and partially because there was not a piece of horseflesh in the Three B's which could outfoot his chestnut21. It was a gelding out of the loins of the north wind and sired by the devil himself, and its spirit was one with the spirit of Jerry Strann; perhaps because they both served one master. The cavalcade came with a crash of racing22 hoofs in a cloud of dust. But in the middle of the street Jerry raised his right arm stiffly overhead with a whoop23 and brought his chestnut to a sliding stop; the cloud of dust rolled lazily on ahead. The young men gathered quickly around the leader, and there was silence as they waited for him to speak—a silence broken only by the wheezing24 of the horses, and the stench of sweating horseflesh was in every man's nostrils25.
He had stopped just opposite O'Brien's hotel, store, blacksmith shop, and saloon, and by the hitching27 rack was a black stallion. Now, there are some men who carry tidings of their inward strength stamped on their foreheads and written in their eyes. In times of crises crowds will turn to such men and follow them as soldiers follow a captain; for it is patent at a glance that this is a man of men. It is likewise true that there are horses which stand out among their fellows, and this was such a horse. He was such a creature that, if he had been led to a barrier, the entire crowd at the race track would rise as one man and say: "What is that horse?" There were points in which some critics would find fault; most of the men of the mountain-desert, for instance, would have said that the animal was too lightly and delicately limbed for long endurance; but as the man of men bears the stamp of his greatness in his forehead and his eyes, so it was with the black stallion. When the thunder of the cavalcade had rushed upon him down the street he had turned with catlike grace and raised his head to see; and his forehead and his eyes arrested Jerry Strann like a levelled rifle. Looking at that proud head one forgot the body of the horse, the symmetry of curves exquisite28 beyond the sculptor's dream, the arching neck and the steel muscles; one was only conscious of the great spirit. In Human beings we refer to it as "personality."
After a little pause, seeing that no one offered a suggestion as to the identity of the owner, Strann said, softly: "That hoss is mine."
It caused a stir in the crowd of his followers29. In the mountain-desert one may deal lightly with a man's wife and lift a random30 cow or two and settle the score, at need, with a snug31 "forty-five" chunk32 of lead. But with horses it is different. A horse in the mountain-desert lies outside of all laws—and above all laws. It is greater than honour and dearer than love, and when a man's horse is taken from him the men of the desert gather together and hunt the thief whether it be a day or whether it be a month, and when they have reached him they shoot him like a dog and leave his flesh to the buzzards and his bones to the merciless stars. For all of this there is a reason. But Jerry Strann swung from his mount, tossed the reins33 over the head of the chestnut, and walked towards the black with hungry eyes. He was careless, also, and venturing too close—the black whirled with his sudden, catlike agility34, and two black hoofs lashed35 within a hair's breadth of the man's shoulder. There was a shout from the crowd, but Jerry Strann stepped back and smiled so that his teeth showed.
"Boys," he said, but he was really speaking to himself, "there's nothing in the world I want as bad as I want that hoss. Nothing! I'm going to buy him; where's the owner?"
"Don't look like a hoss a man would want to sell, Jerry," came a suggestion from the cavalcade, who had dismounted and now pressed behind their leader.
Jerry favoured the speaker with another of his enigmatic smiles: "Oh," he chuckled37, "he'll sell, all right! Maybe he's inside. You gents stick out here and watch for him; I'll step inside."
And he strode through the swinging doors of the saloon.
It was a dull time of day for O'Brien, so he sat with his feet on the edge of the bar and sipped38 a tall glass of beer; he looked up at the welcome click of the doors, however, and then was instantly on his feet. The good red went out of his face and the freckles39 over his nose stood out like ink marks.
"There's a black hoss outside," said Jerry, "that I'm going to buy.
Where's the owner?"
"I got business on my hands, not drinking," said Jerry Strann.
"The chestnut was all right until I seen the black. And now he ain't a hoss at all. Where's the gent I want?"
The bartender had fenced for time as long as possible.
"Over there," he said, and pointed.
It was a slender fellow sitting at a table in a corner of the long room, his sombrero pushed back on his head. He was playing solitaire and his back was towards Jerry Strann, who now made a brief survey, hitched42 his cartridge43 belt, and approached the stranger with a grin. The man did not turn; he continued to lay down his cards with monotonous44 regularity45, and while he was doing it he said in the gentlest voice that had ever reached the ear of Jerry Strann: "Better stay where you are, stranger. My dog don't like you."
And Jerry Strann perceived, under the shadow of the table, a blacker shadow, huge and formless in the gloom, and two spots of incandescent46 green twinkling towards him. He stopped; he even made a step back; and then he heard a stifled47 chuckle36 from the bartender.
If it had not been for that untimely mirth of O'Brien's probably nothing of what followed would have passed into the history of the Three B's.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
canyons
|
|
| n.峡谷( canyon的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
specially
|
|
| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
conversational
|
|
| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
lavish
|
|
| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
malice
|
|
| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
strife
|
|
| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
armour
|
|
| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
hoofs
|
|
| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
stark
|
|
| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
lair
|
|
| n.野兽的巢穴；躲藏处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
cavalcade
|
|
| n.车队等的行列 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
rumour
|
|
| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
unfamiliar
|
|
| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
partially
|
|
| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
chestnut
|
|
| n.栗树，栗子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
racing
|
|
| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
whoop
|
|
| n.大叫，呐喊，喘息声；v.叫喊，喘息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
wheezing
|
|
| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 )；哮鸣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
nostrils
|
|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
hitching
|
|
| 搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
followers
|
|
| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
random
|
|
| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
snug
|
|
| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
chunk
|
|
| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
reins
|
|
| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
agility
|
|
| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
lashed
|
|
| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
chuckle
|
|
| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
chuckled
|
|
| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
sipped
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
freckles
|
|
| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
amiable
|
|
| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
queried
|
|
| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
hitched
|
|
| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
cartridge
|
|
| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
monotonous
|
|
| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
regularity
|
|
| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
incandescent
|
|
| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
stifled
|
|
| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |