Amos staggered out of the fog of powder smoke and groped his way to
the door. He took the center of the street reeling as he went, and
made his way to his home. The scenes at the Bucket of Blood were
magnified in his whisky-crazed brain. He raved in wild delirium,
fighting the demons that gathered around his bedside. The doctor came
and shook his head. "He has been drinking so long that my medicine
will not act," he said. Amos glared wildly from his bloodshot eyes
when a monkey seemed to leap on the footboard. He held a glass in his
hand. "Have a cocktail, Amos," said the monkey, as he tossed the
liquid into the air and caught it in another glass. Amos' throat was
parched and he wanted the cocktail, but the monkey did not give it to
him. A rhinoceros came creeping through the wall and looked at him
with its leaden eyes. The monkey tossed the cocktail into the wide
open mouth of the rhinoceros, who smacked his lips and said to the
monkey, "Let's play ante over."
"All right," replied the monkey, "what with?"
"Get his eye, get his eye," exclaimed the rhinoceros.
The monkey crept forward and plucked out one of Amos' eyes, as he
groaned and yelled. For awhile the rhinoceros was on one side of the
dresser and the monkey on the other, tossing his eye to and fro
between them. The scene changed. He was on a white horse, plunging
down a steep rocky road lined with trees on either side; pythons and
rattlesnakes reached out from among the branches striking their fangs
at his head. There was the form of a dead woman behind him on the
horse. Her cold arms clung about his neck as little devils came out
from behind the trees and shouted: "You did it; you did it." The horse
was now plunging over a snow-covered country. He felt the icy winds
chill his heart. He was trying to shake off the dead arms that clung
to his neck, when the horse stopped in a wild spot among the rocks. A
grave digger, with the flesh of face and arms dried to the bone,
appeared. "We will bury her here," he said as he sunk his spade into
the earth. As the grave digger threw up the clods they turned to
little devils, the size of frogs and yelped, "We are the sins of Amos
come out of the grave." The vision passed and another appeared. Three
Sisters of Charity stood at the footboard of his bed. They were
looking down on him with sorrowful eyes. One of them lifted her hand
and all was a livid flame. Amos raised his head and gave one prolonged
shriek. A shriek of death.
When Amos returned to Saguache after his spree with Rayder his first
act was to purchase a ranch in the San Luis valley and deed it to his
wife. He then went to his assay office and drew down the blinds and
sat in the shadows like a cunning old spider in hiding waiting for
the unwary fly for which he had wove his web. His life had been that
of the iconoclast who creates nothing to adorn the world's great
gallery of gods. But he was not philosophical enough to evolve an idea
that would disrupt existing beliefs.
It was some weeks after his arrival home, when he espied Rayder one
morning coming down the street towards his office. He cautiously
turned the key in his office and slipped over to the Bucket of Blood
and returned with some beer and two quart bottles of whisky. When
Rayder returned an hour later he was maudlin drunk.
Rayder was still pale from the effects of his recent debauch and when
he found Amos in an intoxicated condition he went away, not caring to
stay and talk with him on important business matters lest he should
get drawn into another spree. Meanwhile, Carson had arrived and spread
the news of the imprisoned miners under the snow slide. Rayder learned
that this was the mine he had come to purchase through the connivance
of Amos and concluded to wait and see what time would develop.
Day after day he sought Amos, but the latter was too drunk to talk
with any sense. He then sought Carson and offered financial assistance
in the rescue work, but the men spurned the offer. They felt they were
doing a God-given duty and to receive money for an act of that kind
would be debasing their manhood. Such was it then and such is now the
spirit of the West. He called at the Amos home, and while he was
received by the matron and failed to see Annie, he thought he detected
an air of distress in the surroundings, and attributed it to Amos'
condition. Feeling that he was at their home at an inopportune time,
he went away and started out to find Amos and if possible persuade him
to quit drinking. Not finding him at his office he took a nearer route
and entered the Bucket of Blood by the back door. He passed two or
three hoboes sitting on beer kegs on the outside. "Say, old timer,
can't I dig into ye for two bits?" asked one. The man was trembly and
his lips quivered as he spoke. Remembering his own recent condition
Rayder handed the fellow a dollar and motioning to the others, said:
"Divide up." The men jumped to their feet with alacrity and followed
the first man to the bar.
Rayder walked to the faro table where Amos sat with his back to him
putting down twenty dollar gold pieces on the money. "I never squeal,"
Amos was saying to another man who was drawing out the cards from the
box. "Bet yer life, man wins my money I never squeal," Amos was saying
to the dealer. "Got skads of it anyhow, and when that's gone I know
where to get a mine worth more an' a million." Rayder stood watching
the player tossing twenty after twenty in gold and tapping a tiny bell
now and then when a waiter came and took the orders from those seated
around the table watching the game. They all called for whisky except
the dealer, he took a cigar. It requires a clear head to deal faro.
Rayder grew tired of watching and sat down. He was thinking where did
Amos get so much money? He had not attended to the business of his
office since his recovery and had had no occasion to look into his
check book. After a certain period of the night with Amos in his back
office, everything was a blank. He remembered the conversation about
Annie and the mine but had no recollection about signing the check. To
see Amos sitting at that table losing money like a prince at Monte
Carlo, almost took his breath. He began to feel certain now as to the
fabulous riches of the mine, for he could conceive of no other way by
which Amos could get possession of so much money. He had learned of
Mrs. Amos purchasing the ranch and paying for it in gold, and wondered
at the time. Then he thought that perhaps Amos was trying to throw him
off the purchase of the mine in order to secure the property himself.
There was a mystery somewhere he could not fathom.
The board partition against which he sat was thin, and while he was
not playing eavesdropper, he could not help hearing: "The secret of
that mine has been known to me since I was a child," a woman was
saying, "but I never supposed Carson would locate it when I gave him
the papers." And then she recounted the story of the hidden Spanish
treasure in the Grand river hills and continued: "The two men they are
trying to rescue from under the snow slide are dead long ago and the
only one left that is interested is Carson. I will get him out of the
way, and you must file on the claim, I cannot, for I am an Indian, but
you can. Besides, I could never sing my death song in peace if he
lives."
"Tonight, then," her companion said. "You had better act before
matters go any farther."
Here was another revelation to Rayder, he saw coming through one
archway an Indian woman, and through the other, Coyote Jim who slowly
walked toward the faro table. Rayder's first and best impulse was to
see Carson and warn him of impending danger. His second thought was
that such a course would be bad financial policy. No, he would let the
woman kill him if she could and he would jump the claim himself. He
was certain now of its fabulous value and determined to have it at any
price.
And so the old black crow sat and waited and plotted, while the other
old black crow gambled away his money, and when the shooting was over,
and the coal oil lamps flickered their sickly flame through the
curling powder smoke, Rayder was raised from the floor where he had
flattened himself against the baseboard, trembling like a frightened
sheep about to be led to the slaughter.