It is much to be doubted if violence and scenes of violence are as
abhorrent to the so-called gentler sex as it is popular to pretend.
There lurks in a corner of the mind an impish suggestion that a woman,
underneath a pretense of dismay or horror, enjoys the spectacle of a
fight as much as a man. This polite supposition regarding women has
barred them from much pleasure in watching the antagonist sex batter
itself about. Next to dogs and line fences, women have caused more
fights than any other item of creation--they should be permitted to
enjoy the fruits of their activities.... Women are more quarrelsome
than men. This is because they know words will not merge into fists--or
at worst into the vicarious fists of husbands or brothers. It is not
unthinkable that the attribute of the ably acrimonious tongue would
atrophy and disappear from the feminine part of the human race within
a generation or two if it were permitted to resolve into action rather
than barbed innuendo. A field for some rising reformer!
Consequently Carmel was not shocked at being involved in such
proceedings. She was angry, apprehensive. Her overshadowing sensation
was one of impotence. If men were coming to wreck her newspaper, what
could she do about it? It was humiliating to be so ineffective in a
crisis like this. A man, _any_ man, would be more efficient than she.
The streets were deserted. A quick glance showed her the attacking
force--if attacking force existed save in Simmy’s dime-novel-tainted
imagination--had not yet made itself visible.... With the boy at her
heels she ran in most undignified manner to the _Free Press’s_ door,
admitted herself quickly, and lighted a light.
“Well,” she said, breathlessly, “here we are, Simmy.”
“Yes, ’m,” said Simmy with singular helpfulness.
“I shall call the police,” Carmel said, taking refuge in that expedient
of the law-abiding. She turned the handle of the old-fashioned
telephone with which Gibeon is afflicted and gave the number of the
Sheriff’s office. A drowsy voice answered presently.
“This is the _Free Press_,” said Carmel. “Send some deputies at once.
Men are coming to wreck this place with sledge hammers.”
“Aw, go on!” said the voice. “Ye can’t play no jokes on me.”
“This is not a joke. It is Miss Lee speaking. I want police protection.”
“Jest a minute,” said the voice, and then another, heavier voice took
its place.
“Dep’ty Jenney speakin’. What’s wanted?”
“This is Miss Lee. A crowd of drunken men are coming to mob this
office. Send men here instantly.”
“Um!... Somebody’s jokin’ ye, Miss Lee. This here’s a peaceful,
law-abidin’ community. Better go back to bed and fergit it.”
“Will you send men here at once?”
“Now, ma’am, that hain’t possible. Can’t roust men out of bed and send
’em traipsin’ all over jest on account of a woman gittin’ upset. You
go back to bed. Nothin’ hain’t goin’ to happen. Nothin’ ever does.” He
hung up the receiver.
It was obvious. Carmel _knew_. There was collusion between the
sheriff’s office and whoever had set a party of drunken irresponsibles
upon her. No evidence was needed to demonstrate this to her. It was,
and she stored the fact away in her mind vengefully.
“Where’s Tubal? Where’s Mr. Pell?” she asked Simmy.
“Dunno. Hain’t seen nuther of ’em. Nobody never sees nobody when they
need them.... Oh, what we goin’ to do? What we goin’ to do?”
He ran into the back room--the composing room--as if he hoped to find
some workable course of action lying there ready to be picked up. He
was frightened. Carmel could not remember ever having seen a boy quite
so terrified. Perhaps the ink blotches on his face made him seem paler
than he actually was! But he stayed. The way was open for him to desert
her, but the thought did not seem to occur to him. Ignorant, not overly
bright, there nevertheless glowed in Simmy a spark of loyalty, and
Carmel perceived it and, even in that anxious moment, treasured it.
Presently he came out of the press room, eyes gleaming with terror,
shock head bristling, dragging after him, by its barrel, Tubal’s
automatic shotgun.
“By gum! The’ shan’t nobody tetch you, Lady, ’less ’n it’s over my dead
body.” His voice quavered as he spoke, but Carmel knew her one defender
would remain stanch so long as the breath of life remained in him.
“Simmy,” she said, “come here.”
He came and stood beside her chair. His head was scarcely higher than
Carmel’s, seated in her chair.
“Simmy,” she said, “you do like me, don’t you?”
“Gosh!” Simmy said, worship in his eyes and voice.
She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed his smudgy cheek. “There,
I think you’d better run along now, Simmy. They--they might hurt you.”
“I’m a-goin’ to stay right straight here,” he said. “Oh, Lady! What’s
that? Listen to that! They’re a-comin’. Sure’s shootin’, they’re
a-comin’.”
“Put out the lights,” said Carmel.
They stood in darkness. Carmel stretched out her hand and took the
shotgun from Simmy’s grip. The feel of the cold barrel was distasteful
to her. She felt a sense of outrage that she should be compelled to
come in contact with an event such as this, an event of sordidness
and violence. This was a reaction. For the moment she conceived of
herself as doing something which, in the words of her grandmother,
was unladylike. Even then she smiled at it. This was succeeded by
determination. Doubtless her great-grandmothers had defended their
homes from the raids of savage Indians. They had not been too delicate
to handle firearms in the defense of their lives and their homes. Why
should she be less resolute than they.... There was the story of the
great-great-aunt who had killed an intruding savage with an ax!... If
those things were heroic in pioneer days, why were they so unthinkable
to-day? If women could display resolution, high courage, and perform
awful acts of fortitude in 1771, why was not the woman of 1921 capable
of conduct as praiseworthy?
Then, too, there was a specious unreality about the affair, something
of play-acting. Carmel could not dispel the reflection that it was not
_so_. She was making believe. No drunken men were actually approaching
with sledge hammers. Her plant and her person were in no danger. It was
playing with other toys substituted for dolls. She drew closer to her
the cold barrel of the toy she clutched in her fingers.
“The safety’s on,” said Simmy, practically.
“The safety?”
“Yes, ’m, so’s nobody kin shoot himself. You have to take off the
safety before the trigger’ll pull.”
“How do you do it?”
“You push this here dingus,” said Simmy.
Carmel promptly pushed it.
Far down the street she heard a single shout, a few maudlin words of
a lumber-camp song. She stepped to the door and peered up the shadowy
thoroughfare. Across the Square and perhaps two blocks away she made
out a number of dark figures, straggling toward her in midstreet. She
could not count accurately, but estimated there were ten or a dozen of
them. She crouched in the recess of the doorway and waited. Unreality
was dispelled now. She was cognizant of fact--literal, visible, potent
fact.
Her sensation was not fear, but it was unpleasant. It resembled
nothing in her experience so much as the feeling one has in the pit
of his stomach when descending rapidly in an elevator. She could feel
her knees tremble. Always she had heard this spoken of as a symbol
of cowardice, and she tried to restrain their shaking.... The men
approached noisily.
“Light the lights,” she said to Simmy when the men were some fifty
yards distant. This was instinct--the instinct for surprise. It was
excellent strategy. The men had their directions how to proceed,
but in these directions no account was taken of lights turning on
unexpectedly. They had been led to expect a deserted office and no
resistance. They stopped abruptly and gathered in a knot to inquire the
meaning of this phenomenon.
Carmel did some calculation for the first time. To reach the office the
men would have to cross the area of light passing through its windows.
She, herself, was in the darkness beyond. This, she thought, was as it
should be.... Presently the men surged forward again, keeping closely
together. Carmel stepped out of the shadows into the light, where she
and her weapon must be plainly visible, and paused.
“Stop,” she called, sharply.
They stopped, then somebody laughed. The laugh touched the fuse leading
to the magazine of Carmel’s anger. She blazed with the explosion of it.
The laugh was a slight thing, but it caused the difference between a
mere young woman holding a gun in her hands, and a young woman holding
a gun in her hands which she would shoot. She stepped backward into the
shadows where she could not be seen.
“Go away,” she said.
“Li’l’ girl with li’l’ shotgun,” somebody said, in a tone of interest.
“I’m going to count ten,” said Carmel. “If you haven’t gone then I’ll
shoot.”
“Li’l’ girl kin count to ten,” said the same voice. “Hain’t eddication
hell!”
“One,” she began, “two, three, four----”
There was a forward movement, raucous laughter, inebriated comments.
She hastened her counting--“five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten....”
They were still moving forward slowly, evidently viewing the situation
as humorous. She lifted the heavy gun and pointed its muzzle at the
mass of approaching legs.... Her acquaintance with twelve-gauge
automatic shotguns, and with the dispositions thereof, was rudimentary.
She did not know what to expect, nevertheless she tugged at the
trigger. There was a tremendous report which frightened her as nothing
had frightened her that night. She felt as if one of those men had
thrown his sledge and struck her shoulder. Dazed, bewildered, she all
but lost her balance.
But, steadying herself, keeping her finger on the trigger, she
maintained a readiness for what might come next. Howls of agony
emanated from the men. Two of them were rolling on the sidewalk
clutching shins and cursing. But for this there was silence. Humor
had departed from the situation, for even the smallest bird shot,
discharged from a shotgun at less than a hundred feet, are not to be
disregarded by those who shun pain.
“She’s shot my leg off.... My Gawd!...”
This exclamation of agony trailed off into curses and incoherent
ejaculations.
“Now go away,” Carmel called. “Next time I’ll shoot higher.”
The shot, the suddenness, the unexpectedness of it, had cleared tipsy
brains. It had created angry, dangerous men.
“’Tain’t nothin’ but bird shot. All rush her to wunst,” shouted a
voice. But before they could resolve into action Carmel fired again,
and then again.... It was rather more than such a collection of
humanity could endure. With shouts and cries of pain they broke and
ran. Carmel advanced, ready for another discharge, when, suddenly,
there was a diversion. The attackers were taken in the rear, by whom
Carmel could not determine. She saw at least two men, arms swinging
clubs right and left with rare indiscrimination. The retreat became a
rout. These unexpected reserve forces definitely turned the tide of
battle, and in a time so brief as to make its recording difficult, the
street was again deserted save for Carmel--and the reserves.
They ran to her, Tubal and Evan Bartholomew Pell. It was the professor
who reached her first, and stood inarticulate, trembling, his face
working. His eyes searched her face and in them was such an expression
as she had never seen turned upon her by human eyes before....
Nevertheless she recognized it.
“Carmel,” he said--“Carmel--are you--all right?”
“Perfectly,” she said, endeavoring to maintain an attitude of aloofness
toward the whole episode.
“If anything had happened to you--if one of those beasts had touched
you--even with the tip of his finger....”
He stopped suddenly, stared at her. It was as if his scholarly mind had
once more come into its own, had seen, classified, cross-referenced
his actions and sensations. His face mirrored astonishment, then
apprehension, embarrassment. It completed the series by becoming that
of a man utterly nonplused.
“My goodness!” he said, breathlessly, “I believe I’ve fallen in love
with you.”
She made no reply, such was her own astonishment at the manner of this
announcement. He glared at her now, angry reproach in his eyes.
“It’s absurd,” he said. “You had no business permitting me to do so.”
With that he turned on his heel and stalked into the office. Carmel
gasped....
“Lady,” said Tubal, “you better pass me that gun. You ’n’ a shotgun
fits each other about as suitable as a plug hat.... If you was to
ask me I’d say right out in meetin’ that you ’n’ a gun is doggone
incongruous.”
“I shot it, anyhow,” she said.
“Dummed if you didn’t,” he exclaimed, admiringly. “Dummed if you
didn’t. Them fellers’ll be pickin’ bird shot out of the bosoms of their
pants fer a month to come.” Then he paused to give rhetorical effect to
the moral he was about to draw.
“If you hadn’t went off half cocked with that whisky piece of your’n,”
he said, “this here ol’ gun wouldn’t have had to go off at all.”
But she was not thinking of Tubal nor of pointed morals. She was
considering the case of Evan Bartholomew Pell and what she would do
with him.