GARRISON HIMSELF AGAIN.
That night Garrison left for New York; left with the memory of Sue
standing there on the moonlit pike, that look in her eyes; that look of
dazed horror which he strove blindly to shut out. He did not return
to Calvert House; not because he remembered the girl's advice and was
acting upon it. His mind had no room for the past. Every blood-vessel
was striving to grapple with the present. He was numb with agony. It
seemed as if his brain had been beaten with sticks; beaten to a pulp.
That last scene with Sue had uprooted every fiber of his being. He
writhed when he thought of it. But one thought possessed him. To get
away, get away, get away; out of it all; anyhow, anywhere.
He was like a raw recruit who has been lying on the firing-line,
suffering the agonies of apprehension, of imagination; experiencing the
proximity of death in cold blood, without the heat of action to render
him oblivious.
Garrison had been on the firing-line for so long that his nerve was
frayed to ribbons. Now the blow had fallen at last. The exposure had
come, and a fierce frenzy possessed him to complete the work begun.
He craved physical combat. And when he thought of Sue he felt like a
murderer fleeing from the scene of his crime; striving, with distance,
to blot out the memory of his victim. That was all he thought of. That,
and to get away--to flee from himself. Afterward, analysis of actions
would come. At present, only action; only action.
It was five miles to the Cottonton depot, reached by a road that
branched off from the Logan Pike about half a mile above the spot where
Waterbury had been thrown. He remembered that there was a through train
at ten-fifteen. He would have time if he rode hard. With head bowed,
shoulders hunched, he bent over the gelding. He had no recollection of
that ride.
But the long, weary journey North was one he had full recollection of.
He was forced to remain partially inactive, though he paced from smoking
to observation-car time and time again. He could not remain still. The
first great fury of the storm had passed. It had swept him up, weak and
nerveless, on the beach of retrospect; among the wreck of past hopes;
the flotsam and jetsam of what might have been.
He had time for self-analysis, for remorse, for the fierce probings
of conscience. One minute he regretted that he had run away without
confessing to the major; the next, remembering Sue's advice, he
was glad. He tried to shut out the girl's picture from his heart.
Impossible. She was the picture; all else was but frame. He knew that
he had lost her irrevocably. What must she think of him? How she must
utterly despise him!
On the second day doubt came to Garrison, and with it a ray of hope. For
the first time the possibility suggested itself that Dan Crimmins,
from the deep well of his lively imagination, might have concocted Mrs.
Garrison and offspring. Crimmins had said he had always hated him. And
he had acted like a villain. He looked like one; like a felon, but newly
jail-freed. Might he not have invented the statement through sheer ill
will? Realizing that Garrison's memory was a blank, might he not have
sought to rivet the blackmailing fetters upon him by this new bolt?
Thus Garrison reasoned, and outlined two schemes. First, he would find
his wife if wife there were. He could not love her, for love must have
a beginning, and it feeds on the past. He had neither. But he would be
loyal to her; loyal as Crimmins said she had been loyal to him. Then he
would face whatever charges were against him, and seek restoration from
the jockey club, though it took his lifetime. And he would seek some way
of wiping out, or at least diminishing, the stain he had left behind him
in Virginia.
On the other hand, if Crimmins had lied--Garrison's jaw came out and his
eyes snapped. Then he would scrape himself morally clean, and fight and
fight for honorable recognition from the world. He would prove that
a “has-been” can come back. He would brand the negative as a lie. And
then--Sue. Perhaps--perhaps.
Those were the two roads. Which would he traverse? Whichever it was,
though his heart, his entire being, lay with the latter, he would follow
the pointing finger of honor; follow it to the end, no matter what
it might cost, or where it might lead. Love had restored to him the
appreciation of man's birthright; the birthright without which nothing
is won in this world or the next. He had gained self-respect. At present
it was but the thought. He would fight to make it reality; fight to keep
it.
And that night as the train was leaping out of the darkness toward
the lights of the great city, racing toward its haven, rushing like a
falling comet, some one blundered. The world called it a disaster; the
official statement, an accident, an open switch; the press called it
an outrage. Pessimism called it fate--stern mother of the unsavory.
Optimism called it Providence. At all events, the train jammed shut
like a closing telescope. Undiluted Hades was very prevalent for over an
hour. There were groans, screams, prayers--all the jargon of those about
to precipitately return from whence they came. It was not a pleasant
scene. Ghouls were there. But mercy, charity, and great courage were
also there. And Garrison was there.
Fate, the unsavory, had been with him. He had been thrown clear at the
first crash; thrown through his sleeping-berth window. Physically he was
not very presentable. But he fought a good fight against the flames and
the general chaos.
One of the forward cars was a caldron of flame. A baby's cry swung out
from among the roar and smart of the living hell. There was a frantic
father and a demented mother. Both had to be thrown and pounded into
submission; held by sheer weight and muscle.
There were brave men there that night, but there was no sense in giving
two lives for one. Death was reaping more than enough. They would try to
save the “kid,” but it looked hopeless. Was it a girl? Yes, and an only
child? She must be pinned under a seat. The fire would be about opening
up on her. Sure--sure they would see what could be done. Anyway, the
roof was due to smash down. But they'd see. But there were lots of
others who needed a hand; others who were not pinned under seats with
the flames hungry for them.
But Garrison had swung on to a near-by horse-cart, jammed into rubber
boots, coats, and helmet, tying a wet towel over nose and mouth. And as
some stared, some cursed, and some cheered feebly, he smashed his way
through the smother of flame to the choking screams of the child.
The roof fell in. A great crash and a spouting fire of flame. An
eternity, and then he emerged like one of the three prophets from the
fiery furnace. Only he was not a Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego. He
was not fashioned from providential asbestos. He was vulnerable. They
carried him to a near-by house. His head had been wonderfully smashed by
the falling roof. His eyebrows and hair were left behind in the smother
of flame. He was fire-licked from toe to heel. He was raving. But the
child was safe. And that wreck and that rescue went down in history.
For weeks Garrison was in the hospital. It was very like the rehearsal
of a past performance. He was completely out of his head. It was all
very like the months he put in at Bellevue in the long ago, before he
had experienced the hunger-cancer and compromised with honesty.
And again there came nights when doctors shook their heads and nurses
looked grave; nights when it was understood that before another dawn
had come creeping through the windows little Billy Garrison would have
crossed the Big Divide; nights when the shibboleths of a dead-and-gone
life were even fluttering on his lips; nights when names but not
identities fought with one another for existence; fought for birth, for
supremacy, and “Sue” always won; nights when he sat up in bed as he
had sat up in Bellevue long ago, and with tense hands and blazing eyes
fought out victory on the stretch. Horrible, horrible nights; surcharged
with the frenzy and unreality of a nightmare.
And one of his audience who seldom left the narrow cot was a man who had
come to look for a friend among the wreck victims; come and found him
not. He had chanced to pass Garrison's cot. And he had remained.
Came a night at last when stamina and hope and grit won the long,
long fight. The crisis was turned. The demons, defeated, who had
been fighting among themselves for the possession of Garrison's
mind, reluctantly gave it back to him. And, moreover, they gave it
back--intact. The part they had stolen that night in the Hoffman House
was replaced.
This restoration the doctors subsequently called by a very learned and
mysterious name. They gave an esoteric explanation redounding greatly to
the credit of the general medical and surgical world. It was something
to the effect that the initial blow Garrison had received had forced a
piece of bone against the brain in such a manner as to defy mere man's
surgery. This had caused the lapse of memory.
Then had come the second blow that night of the wreck. Where man had
failed, nature had stepped in and operated successfully. Her methods
had been crude, but effective. The unscientific blow on the head had
restored the dislodged bone to its proper place. The medical world was
highly pleased over this manifestation of nature's surgical skill, and
appeared to think that she had operated under its direction. And nature
never denied it.
As Garrison opened his eyes, dazed, weak as water, memory, full,
complete, rushed into action. His brain recalled everything--everything
from the period it is given man to remember down to the present. It
was all so clear, so perfect, so workmanlike. The long-halted clock of
memory was ticking away merrily, perfectly, and not one hour was missing
from its dial. The thread of his severed life was joined--joined in such
a manner that no hitch or knot was apparent.
To use a third simile, the former blank, utterly fearsome space, was
filled--filled with clear writing, without blotch or blemish. And on
the space was not recorded one deed he had dreaded to see. There were
mistakes, weaknesses--but not dishonor. For a moment he could not grasp
the full meaning of the blessing. He could only sense that he had indeed
been blessed above his deserts.
And then as Garrison understood what it all meant to him; understood the
chief fact that he had not deserted wife and children; that Sue might
be won, he crushed his face to the pillow and cried--cried like a little
child.
And a big man, sitting in the shelter of a screen, hitched his chair
nearer the cot, and laid both hands on Garrison's. He did not speak, but
there was a wonderful light in his eyes--steady, clear gray eyes.
“Kid,” he said. “Kid.”
Garrison turned swiftly. His hand gripped the other's.
“Jimmie Drake,” he whispered. For the first time the blood came to his
face.