around in his tracks when he had felt the gun leaving its holster, and
had made a lightning movement with his hand to prevent such a
disgraceful occurrence. But he might just as well have reached for a
rainbow. As he had faced about, rage-flushed and impotent, he saw his
gun swinging loosely in Webster's left hand, while in Webster's right
hand another big six-shooter had reached a foreboding level.
The distance between the two men approximated ten feet; for Webster had
wisely stepped back, knowing Rankin's reluctance toward submission.
And now, over the ten feet of space, captive and captor surveyed one
another with that narrowing of the eyes which denotes tension and warns
of danger.
"I reckon I was too quick for you, Texas," said Webster, with a
gentleness that fell too softly to be genuine.
Rankin gazed dolefully at his empty holster. The skin tensed over his
teeth in a grinning sneer.
"I ain't sayin' that you took a mean advantage," he said, raising his
eyes and allowing them an expression of mild innocence that contrasted
strangely with his drawn lips, "but you might have given me a chance to
fight it out square. I wouldn't have took your gun, Jim."
Knowing Texas less intimately, the sheriff might have been misled by
this crude sentiment; but the sheriff's fingers only drew more closely
around the ivory handle of his .45. And there came a glint of humor into
his eyes.
"I ain't sayin' you would, Texas. But as sheriff of Socorro County I
ain't takin' any chances. I wanted to talk to you, an' I knew if I had
your gun I'd feel easier."
"Which means that you didn't want me to have a chance," complained Texas
glumly. "Socorro's always been meaner'n ----"
"'T ain't Socorro's fault," interrupted the sheriff with a sudden
coldness; "you've been cuttin' didoes in Socorro for so long a time that
you've disgraced yourself. You've gambled an' shot yourself into
disfavor with the _elite_. You've been as ornery an' as compromisin' as
it's possible for any human maverick to get without havin' to
requisition the unwillin' mourners."
"Not that I'm sayin' you're naturally bad, Texas. It's that you've got
an overdose of what them modern brain specialists call exaggerated ego;
which us common critters would call plain swell head. That there
disease is listed an' catalogued in the text books of the New York
Medical Institoot as bearin' a close relationship to the geni Loco;
which is a scientific way of sayin' that you've got buzzers in your
attic."
Texas smiled, showing his teeth in wan sarcasm.
"You wouldn't say that if I had my gun, Jim. It ain't like you to pour
out your blackguardisms on a man what ain't armed."
"I ain't blackguardin' you none," said Webster easily. "It's the naked
truth, an' you know it. Takin' your gun was part of my official duty.
Personally I could have talked to you without trampling down any of the
niceties of etiquette, but officially I had to have your gun."
Rankin's face lengthened with a deep melancholy. With this expression he
intended to convey the impression that he was suffering a martyrdom. But
the sheriff's acquaintance with Texas was not recent.
"An' now that you've got the gun," said Texas, after an embarrassed
silence, "what's the next thing on the programme?"
"Takin' your gun," said the sheriff heavily, "was a preliminary; like
they say in the sporting papers. The big event is that you're goin' to
say your adoos to Socorro without bein' allowed to make any farewell
announcement. The reason is that you an' Socorro is incongruous--like a
side-saddle on a razor-back hog. Socorro won't stand for you a minute
longer. You're a Public Favorite which has lost its popularity an' which
has become heterogeneous to the established order of things. In other
words, you're an outlaw; a soft-spoken, lazy, good-for-nothin'
road-agent. An' though Socorro ain't never had anything on you before,
it knows you had a hand in robbin' the express office last night. An'
it's----"
"You're a damn ----"
"----like playin' a king-full against three deuces that you done the
trick. You was seen goin' toward the station about an hour before Budd
Tucker found Ridgely, the agent, stretched out on the floor of the
office, a bullet from a .45 clean through him. An' there's five thousand
dollars in gold gone, an' no trace of it. An' there's been no strangers
in town. An' here's your gun, showin' plain that it's been shot off
lately, for there's the powder smudge on the cylinder an' the barrel.
That's a pay streak of circumstantial evidence or I ain't sheriff of
Socorro!"
Rankin's eyes had flashed with an unusual brilliancy as the sheriff had
spoken of him being seen going toward the station previous to the
finding of the agent's body, but they glazed over with unconcern during
the rest of the recital. And as the sheriff concluded, Rankin gazed
scornfully at him, sneering mildly:
"I couldn't add nothin' to what you've just said." He idly kicked the
gray dust that was mounded at his feet, standing loose and inert, as
though he cared little what might be the outcome of this impromptu
interview. And then, suddenly, his blue eyes twinkled humorously as he
raised them to meet the sheriff's.
"Give you time you might tell me where I spent the money," he said
drily. "There's no tellin' where your theorizin' might end."
The sheriff ignored this, but he eyed his prisoner meditatively.
"There's been a rumor," he said coldly, "that you've got cracked on my
daughter, Mary Jane. But I ain't never been able to properly confirm it.
I meant to tell you some time ago that while I ain't had no objection to
livin' in the same town with you, I'm some opposed to havin' you for a
son-in-law. But now, since the express robbery, it won't be necessary
for me to tell you not to nose around my house, for you're goin' to ride
straight out of Socorro County, an' you ain't comin' back any more. If
you do, I reckon you'll discover that Socorro's present leniency ain't
elastic enough to be stretched to cover your home-comin'."
"I ain't sayin' nothin'," said Texas, glancing with pensive eyes to a
point far up the sun-baked street where his gaze rested upon a
pretentious house in a neatly-fenced yard where there were green things
that gave a restful impression. "Circumstantial evidence is sure
convincin'." he sighed deeply. "I reckon you knowed all along that I
thought a heap of Mary Jane. That's the reason you picked me out for the
express job."
He scowled as his eyes took in the meagre details of Socorro's one
street. Because of long association these details had become mental
fixtures. Socorro had been his home for ten years, and in ten years
things grow into a man's heart. And civic pride had been his one great
virtue. If in the summer the alkali dust of the street formed into
miniature hills of grayish white which sifted into surrounding hollows
under the whipping tread of the cow-pony's hoofs, Texas likened it unto
ruffled waters that seek a level. The same condition in another town
would have drawn a curse from him. If in the winter the huge windrows of
caked mud stretched across the street in unlovely phalanx, Texas was
reminded of itinerant mountain ranges. The stranger who would be so
unwary as to take issue with him on this point would regret--if he
lived. The unpainted shanties, the huddled, tottering dives, the
tumble-down express station--all, even the maudlin masquerade of the
High Card Saloon--were institutions inseparable from his thoughts,
inviolable and sacred in the measure of his love for them.
And now! Something caught in his throat and gave forth a choking sound.
"But I reckon it's just as well," he said resignedly. "I sure ain't of
much account." He hesitated and smiled weakly at the sheriff. "I ain't
croakin'," he said apologetically; "there's the circumstantial
evidence." He hesitated again, evidently battling a ponderous question.
"You didn't happen to hear Mary Jane say anything about the express
job?" he questioned with an expression of dog-like hopefulness.
"Anything that would lead you to believe she knowed about it?"
"I don't see what----"
"No, of course!" He shuffled his feet awkwardly. "An' so she don't know
anything. Didn't mention me at all?" The hopefulness was gone from his
eyes, and in its place was the dull glaze of puzzled wonder. "Not that
it makes any difference," he added quickly, as he caught a sudden sharp
glance from the sheriff's eyes.
"An' so I'm to leave Socorro." He looked dully at the sheriff. "Why, of
course, there's the circumstantial evidence." His eyes swept the
shanties, the street, the timber-dotted sides of the mountains that rose
above the town--familiar landmarks of his long sojourn; landmarks that
brought pleasant memories.
"I've lived here a long time," he said, with abrupt melancholy, his
voice grating with suppressed regret. "I won't forget soon."
There ensued a silence which lasted long. It brought a suspicious lump
into the sheriff's throat.
"I wouldn't take it so hard, Texas," he said gently. "Mebbe it'll be the
best for you in the long run. If you get away from here mebbe you make a
man----"
"Quit your damn croakin'!" flashed back Texas. "I ain't askin' for none
of your mushy sentiment!" He straightened up suddenly and smiled with
set lips. "I guess I've been a fool. If you'll hand over that
six-shooter I'll be goin'. I've got business in San Marcial."
"I'll walk up to the station platform an' lay the gun there," said the
sheriff coldly; for Texas was less dangerous at a distance; "an' when
you see me start away from the platform you can start for the gun. I'm
takin' your word that you'll leave peaceable."
And so, with his gun again in its holster, Texas threw himself astride
his Pinto pony and loped down toward the sloping banks of the Rio Grande
del Norte.
A quarter of a mile from town he halted on the bare knob of a low hill
and took a lingering look at the pretentious house amid the green
surroundings.
Near the house was something he had not seen when he had looked
before--the flutter of a white dress against the background of green. As
he looked the white figure moved rapidly through the garden and
disappeared behind the house.
"She didn't say a word," said Texas chokingly.
* * * * *
Ten hours out of Socorro Texas Rankin rode morosely into San Marcial.
Into San Marcial the unbeautiful, with its vista of unpainted shanties
and lurid dives. For in San Marcial foregathered the men of the mines
and the ranges; men of forgotten morals, but of brawn and muscle, whose
hearts beat not with a yearning for high ideals, but with a lust for
wealth and gain--white, Indian, Mexican, half-breed; predatory spirits
of many nations, opposed in the struggle for existence.
For ten hours Texas had ridden the river trail, and for ten hours his
ears had been burdened with the dull beat of his pony's hoofs on the
matted mesquite grass, and the rattle of his wooden stirrups against the
chaparral growth. And for ten hours his mind had been confused with a
multitude of perplexities and resentments.
But all mental confusions reach a culminating point when the mind
finally throws aside the useless chaff of thought and considers only the
questions that have to do with the heart. Wherefore, Texas Rankin's mind
dwelt on Mary Jane. Subconsciously his mind harbored rebellion against
her father, who had judged him; against Socorro, which had misunderstood
him; against Fate, which had been unjust. All these atoms of personal
interest were elements of a primitive emotion that finally evolved into
one great concrete determination that he would show Jim Webster,
Socorro, Mary Jane--the world, that he was not the creature they had
thought him. Tearing aside all mental superfluities, there was revealed
a new structure of thought:
"I am goin' to be a man again!"
And so Texas rode his tired pony in the gathering dusk; down the wide
street that was beginning to flicker with the shafts of light from grimy
windows; down to the hitching rail in front of the Top Notch
Saloon--where he dismounted and stood stiffly beside his beast while he
planned his regeneration.
* * * * *
Half an hour later Texas sat opposite a man at a card table in the rear
of the Top Notch Saloon.
The man conversed easily, but it was noticeable that he watched Texas
with cat-like vigilance, and that he poured his whiskey with his left
hand.
Ordinarily Texas would have noticed this departure from the polite
rules, but laboring under the excitement that his new determination
brought him he was careless. For he had planned his regeneration, and
his talk with the man was the beginning.
"You lifted the express box at Socorro, Buck!" said Texas, so earnestly
that the table trembled.
Buck Reible, gambler, outlaw, murderer, pushed back his broad-brimmed
hat with his hand--always he used his left--and gazed with level,
menacing eyes at Texas. His lips parted with a half-sneer.
"If a man does a job nowadays, there's always some one wants in on it!"
he declared, voicing his suspicion of Rankin's motive in bringing up the
subject. "Because you was lucky in bein' close when the game come off is
the reason you want a share of the cash," he added satirically. "How
much----"
"Go easy, Buck," said Texas. "I ain't no angel, but I never played your
style. I ain't askin' for a share."
"Then what in----"
"It's a new deal," declared Texas heavily. "A square deal. You took five
thousand dollars out of Socorro, an' you salivated the agent doin' it.
Jim Webster thought it was me, an' I was invited to a farewell
performance in which I done the starrin'. Some night-prowler saw me
down near the station just before you made your grand entree, an'----"
"Serves you right for spoonin' with a female so close to where gentlemen
has business," said Buck. "I saw her when you come toward me shootin'."
"An' what makes it more aggravatin'," continued Texas, unmoved by the
interruption; "is that the lady was Jim Webster's daughter, an' we was
thinkin' of gettin' married. But we didn't want Jim to know just then,
an' she told me to keep mum, seein' that Jim was opposed. She said we'd
keep it secret until----"
"I admire the lady's choice," said Buck, sneering ironically.
"----until I braced up an' was a man again," went on Texas, with
bull-dog persistency.
"Then you wasn't thinkin' of gettin' married soon," slurred Buck.
"I reckon we was," returned Texas coldly; "that's why I came here. I'm
goin' to take that five thousand back to Socorro with me!"
And now Buck used his right hand. But quick as he was, he was late.
Rankin's gun gaped at him across the table the while his own weapon
lagged tardily half-way in its holster.
"I'm goin' to be a man again," said Texas. There was a positiveness in
his voice that awoke thoughts of death and violence.
"You damn----" began Buck.
"I'll count ten," said Texas frigidly. "If the money ain't on the table
then I reckon you won't care what becomes of it!"
"One!--Two!"
With a snarl of rage and hate Buck rose from his chair and sprang clear,
his gun flashing to a level with the movement, its savage roar
shattering the silence.
Texas did not wince as the heavy bullet struck him, but his face went
white. He had been a principal in more than one shooting affray, and
experience had taught him the value of instantaneous action. And so,
even with the stinging pain in his left shoulder, his hand swept his gun
lightly upward, and before it had reached a level he had begun to pull
the trigger. But to his astonishment only the metallic click, click of
the hammer striking the steel of the cylinder rewarded his efforts.
Once, twice, thrice; so rapidly that the metallic clicks blended.
And now he saw why he was to meet his death at the muzzle of Buck's gun.
Fearing him, Jim Webster had removed the cartridges from his weapon
before returning it to him that morning. He had committed a fatal error
in not examining it after he had received it from Webster's hand. The
Law, in judging him, had removed his chance of life.
But he smiled with bitter irony into Buck's eyes as the latter, still
snarling and relentless, deliberately shot again; once, twice.
* * * * *
According to the ancient custom--which has many champions--and to the
conventions--which are not to be violated with impunity--Texas should
have recovered from his wounds to return to Mary Jane and Socorro. No
narrative is complete without the entire vindication of the brave and
the triumph of the honorable. But to the chronicler belongs only the
simple task of true and conscientious record.
Therefore is the end written thus:
Came to Jim Webster's home in Socorro a week later a babbler from San
Marcial, who told a tale:
"There was a man by the name of Texas Rankin came down to San Marcial
last week an' went gunnin' for Buck Reible. Quickest thing you ever saw.
Buck peppered him so fast you couldn't count; an' I'm told Texas wasn't
no slouch with a gun, either."
"Dead?" questioned Webster.
"As a door nail," returned the babbler.
"Socorro's bad man," said Webster, sententiously. "Wasn't a bit of good
in him. Gamblin', shootin', outlaw. Best job Buck ever done."
He found Mary Jane in the kitchen, singing over the supper dishes.
"Texas Rankin is dead over at San Marcial," he said, with the importance
of one communicating delectable news.
Mary Jane continued with her dishes, looking at her father over her
shoulder with a mild unconcern.
"At San Marcial?" she said wonderingly. "I didn't know he had left
Socorro!"
"A week now," returned Webster with much complacence. "Fired him from
Socorro for doin' that express job. Socorro's bad enough without
Texas----"
His mouth opened with dumb astonishment as Mary Jane whirled around on
him with a laugh on her lips.
"Why, dad! Texas Rankin didn't do that job! It was Buck Reible. Texas
told me the night it happened. We were walking down near the station and
we heard some shooting. I wasn't close enough to see plainly, but Texas
said he could recognize Buck by the flash of his gun. And so Texas is
dead!"
"I thought," said Webster feebly, "that you was pretty sweet on Texas."
"Sweet!" said Mary Jane, blushing with maidenly modesty. "Socorro is so
dull. A young lady must have some diversion."
"Then you don't care----"
"Why, dad! You old sobersides. To think--why I was only fooling with
him. It was fun to see how serious----"
"In that case----" began Webster. And then he went out and sat on the
front stoop.
Far into the night he sat, and always he stared in the direction of San
Marcial.
VII
BETWEEN FRIENDS
A Story of the Italian Quarter
By ADRIANA SPADONI
VINCENZA looked from the three crisp dollar bills to her husband, and
back again, wonderingly and with fear in her eyes.
"I understand nothing, Gino, and I am afraid. Perhaps it will bring the
sickness, the money--it is of the devil, maybe----"
Luigi laughed, but a little uneasily. "It is time, then, that the devil
went to paradise; he makes better for us than the saints, to whom you
pray so----"
"S-sh!" Vincenza crossed herself quickly. "That is a great wickedness."
Luigi picked up the bills, examining them closely. Apparently they were
good. Nevertheless he put them down again, and went on carving a wooden
cow for the little Carolina, with a puzzled look in his black eyes.
"Gino," Vincenza stopped undressing the baby suddenly when the thought
came to her. "Go thou and ask Biaggio. He has been many years in this
country, and, besides, he is also a Genovese. He will tell thee."
Luigi's eyes cleared, but he condescended to make no reply. It is not
for a man to take the advice of a woman. But when it was dark, and
Vincenza had gone to lie down with the Little One, Luigi took his hat
and went over to the shop of Biaggio Franchini.
Biaggio listened attentively; his pudgy hands, crossed on his stomach,
rose and fell with the undulations of the rolls of flesh beneath. From
time to time he ceased for a moment the contemplation of the strings of
garlic and sausage that hung from the fly-specked ceiling of his
diminutive shop, and turned his little black eyes sharply on Luigi.
"So," he said at last, "to-day a lady came to thy house, and after to
ask many questions left these three dollars. It was in this way?"
"Just so," replied Luigi, "and questions the most marvelous I have ever
heard. And in this country, where everyone asks the questions. How long
that I do not work, and if we have to eat?" Luigi laughed; "of a surety,
Biaggio, she asked that. She sees that we live--and she asks if we
eat--_ma! che!_ And then, if we have every day the meat? When I said
once, sometimes twice in the week--thou knowest it is not possible to
have more often, when one waits to buy the house--then it was she put on
the table the three dollars, and gave me a paper to sign----"
"Thou didst sign nothing?" Biaggio spoke eagerly.
"No. Once I signed the paper in English and it cost me two dollars; not
again. I said I could not write, and she wrote for me."
"_Bene_," Biaggio nodded approval. "It is not thy writing. It can do
nothing."
"Perhaps it is because I voted twice at the election last week? But
already I have taken the money for that. It was one only dollar. I----"
"Non, non, it is not that. Listen!" Slowly Biaggio shut both eyes, as if
to keep out the tremendous light that had dawned upon him, and nodded
his head knowingly. Then he opened them, shifted his huge bulk upright,
and clapped Luigi on the knee.
"Thou art in great luck friend," he cried, "and it is well that thou
hast asked me. If thou hadst gone to another, to a man not honest, who
knows? Listen. In our country when a rich man dies, he leaves always
something for the poor, but he leaves it to the church and it is the
fathers who give away the money. Corpo di Bacco! what that means thou
knowest well. Sometimes a little gets to the poor. Sometimes---- But in
this country it is not so. He leaves to a society. There are many. And
they pay the women, and sometimes the men, to give away the money----"
"Santo Cristo," gasped Luigi, "they pay to give away the money?"
"For them it is a job like any other. Didst think it was for love of
thee or the red curls of thy Vincenza?"
"Marvelous, most marvelous," murmured Luigi, "and it is possible then
for all people to get----"
"Ma, that no one can explain," and Biaggio shrugged his shoulders; in a
gesture of absolute inability to solve the problem.
"She will come then again, this lady?" Luigi leaned forward eagerly. He
was beginning to grasp it.
"It is for thee to say stop, my son, if thou hast in thy head anything
but fat. But thou art a Genovese. Only I say," Biaggio laid a grimy
thumb across his lips and winked knowingly--"Tell to none."
"Thanks, many thanks friend," Luigi's voice was deeply grateful,
"perhaps some day I can do for thee----?"
"It is nothing--nothing," insisted Biaggio, patting the air with his
pudgy hands in a gesture of denial, "a little kindness between friends."
At great inconvenience to himself, Biaggio held the door open to give
Luigi more light in crossing the street. As he closed it and turned out
the gas, he smiled to himself. "And each bottle of oil will cost thee
ten cents more, friend. Business is business, and yesterday thy Vincenza
returned the carrots because they were not fresh. Ecco!"
Back in his own room, Luigi folded the three notes neatly, while
Vincenza watched him, her gray eyes wide with wonder.
"Marvelous, marvelous," she whispered just as Luigi had done, "to-night
I thank the Virgin."
As Biaggio had foretold, the Lady in Fur came every day. Luigi did not
understand all that she said, but he always listened politely and
smiled, with his dark eyes and his lips and his glistening white teeth.
It made her feel very old to see Luigi smile like that, when he had to
live in one room with a leaking water pipe and a garbage can outside the
door. Sometimes she was almost ashamed to offer the three dollars, and
she was grateful for the gentle, sweet way Luigi accepted it.