SOME MEN
Ann Lytton ate alone--ate alone, but did not sit alone. She was the last
patron of the dining room that evening, and, after Nora Brewster, the
waitress, had surrounded her plate with an odd assortment of heavy
side-dishes, she drew out a chair at the end of the table, seated
herself, elbows on the limp, light linen, and, black eyes fast on the
face of the other woman, pushed conversation.
"From the East, ain't you?" she began, and Ann smiled assent.
"New York?"
"No, not New York," and the blue eyes met the black ones, running
quickly over the pretty, dark-skinned face, the thick coils of chestnut
hair, noting the big, kindly mouth, the peculiarly weak chin. Obviously,
the girl was striving to pump the newcomer and on the realization some
of the trouble retreated far into the blue eyes and Ann smiled in
kindliness at Nora, as she parried the girl's direct questions.
In another mood a part of her might have resented this blunt curiosity,
but just now it came as a relief from a line of thought which had been
too long sustained. And, after they had talked a few moments, the
eastern woman found herself interested in the simplicity, the patent
sincerity, of the other. The conversation flourished throughout the meal
and by the time Ann had tasted and put aside the canned plums she had
discovered much about Nora Brewster, while Nora, returning to the
kitchen to tell the cook and the boy from the office all she had
learned, awakened to the fact that she had found out nothing at all!
Ann walked slowly from the dining room into the office to leave
instructions about her trunk, but the room was empty and she went back
to the door which stood open and looked out into the street. From across
the way the mechanical piano continued its racket, and an occasional
voice was lifted in song or laughter. She thought again of the shot, the
running horse. She watched the shadowy figures passing to and fro behind
the glazed windows of the saloon and between her brows came a frown. She
drew a deep breath, held it a long instant, then let it slip quickly
out, ending in a little catch of a cough. She closed one hand and let it
fall into the other palm.
"To-morrow at this time, I may know," she muttered.
She would have turned away and climbed the stairs, then, but on her last
glance into the street a moving blotch attracted her attention. She
looked at it again, closer; it was approaching the hotel and, after a
moment she discerned the outlines of a man walking, leading a horse. A
peculiar quality about his movements, an undistinguished part of the
picture, held her in the doorway an instant longer.
Then, she saw that the man was carrying the limp figure of another and
that he was coming directly toward her, striding into the circle of
feeble light cast from the lamp on the post, growing more and more
distinct with each step. A thrill ran through the woman, making her
shudder as she drew back; the arms and legs of the figure that was being
borne toward her swung so helplessly, as though they were boneless; the
head, too, swayed from side to side. Yet these appearances, suggestive
as they were of tragedy, did not form the influence which caused Ann's
throat to tighten and her pulse to speed. She heard voices and footsteps
as other men ran up. She drew back into the shadows of the hall.
"What you got, Bruce?" one asked, in a tone of concern.
"O, a small parcel of man meat," she heard the tall one explain
casually, with something like amusement in his voice.
"Who is it?"
An answer was made, but the woman could not understand.
"Oh, _him_!" Disdain was in the voice, as though there were no longer
cause for apprehension, as if the potential consequence of the situation
had been dissipated by identification of the unconscious figure.
Other arrivals, fresh voices; out under the light a dozen men were
clustered about the tall fellow and his burden.
"Where'd you find him?" one asked.
"Out at th' edge of town--in th' ditch. Abe, here,"--with a jerk of his
head to indicate the sleek sorrel horse he led--"found him. He acted so
damned funny he made me get off to see what it was, an', sure enough,
here was Yavapai's most enthusiastic drinker, sleepin' in th' ditch!
"Here, let me put him down on th' porch, there,"--elbowing his way
through the knot about him. "He ain't much more man in pounds than he is
in principle, but he weighs up considerable after packin' him all this
way."
The watching woman saw that his burden was a slight figure, short and
slender, dressed roughly, with his clothing worn and torn and stained.
"Why didn't you let Abe pack him?" a man asked, as the big cowboy,
stooping gently, put the inert head and shoulders to the boards and
slowly lowered the limp legs. He straightened, and, with a red
handkerchief, whipped the dust from his shirt. Then, he hitched up his
white goatskin chaps and looked into the face of his questioner and
smiled.
"Well, Tommy, Abe here ain't never had to carry a souse yet, an' I guess
he won't have to so long as I'm around an' healthy. That right, Abe?"
He reached out a hand and the sorrel, intelligent ears forward in
inquiry, moved closer by a step to smell the fingers; then, allowed them
to scratch the white patch on his nose.
A chuckle of surprise greeted the man's remark.
"Why, Bruce, to hear you talk anybody'd think that you close-herded your
morals continual; that you was a 'Aid S'city' wagon boss; that lips that
touch liquor should never--"
"I ain't said nothin' to make you think that, Tommy Clary," the other
replied, laughing at the upturned face of his challenger, who was short
and pug-nosed and possessed of a mouth that refused to do anything but
smile; who was completely over-shadowed and rendered top-heavy by a hat
of astonishing proportions. "I drink," he went on, "like th' rest of us
damn fools, but I don't think it's smart to do it. I think it is pretty
much all nonsense, an' I think that when you drink you ought to
associate with drinkin' folks an' let th' ones who have better sense
alone.
"That's why I never ride Abe to town when I figure I'm goin' to be doin'
any hellin' around; that's why, if I have got drunk by mistake when I
had him here, I've slept in town instead of goin' home. Abe, you see,
Tommy, has got a good deal of white man in him for a horse. He'd carry
me all right if I was drunk, if I asked him to; but I won't, because
he's such a _good_ horse that he ought to always have a mighty good man
on his middle. When a man's drunk, he ain't good ... for nothin'. Like
this here"--with a contemptuous movement of one booted foot to indicate
the huddle of a figure which lay in the lamplight.
"No, I don't make no claim to bein' a saint, Tommy. Good Lord, _hombre_,
do you think, if I thought I was right decent all th' time, all through,
I'd ever be seen swapping lies with any such ugly outcast as you are?"
The others laughed again at that, and the tall man removed his hat to
wipe the moisture from his forehead.
Ann, watching from the shadows, lips pressed together, heart on a
rampage from a fear that was at once groundless and natural, saw his
fine profile against the lamp, as he laughed good-naturedly at the man
he had jibed. His head was flung back boyishly, but about its poise, its
lines, the way it was set on his sturdy neck, was an indication of
superb strength, a fine mettle. His hair fell backward from the brow. It
tended toward waviness and was dry and light in texture as well as in
color, for the rays of the light were scattered and diffused as they
shot through it. He was incredibly tall in his high-heeled riding boots,
but his breadth was in proportion. The movements of his long arms, his
finely moulded shoulders, his whole lithe torso were well measured,
splendidly balanced, of that natural grace and assurance which marks the
inherent leadership born in individuals. His voice went well with the
rest of him, for it was smooth and deep and filled with capabilities of
expression.
"Well, if you think all us drunkards are such buzzard fodder, what are
you packin' this around with you for?" Clary asked, after the laughter
had subsided.
The cowman looked down thoughtfully a moment and his face grew serious.
He shook his head soberly.
"This fellow's a cripple, boys; that's all. Just a cripple," he
explained.
"Cripple! He's about th' liveliest, most cantankerous, trouble-maker
this country has had to watch since Bill Williams named his mountain!" a
man in the group scoffed.
"Yes, I know. His legs ain't broke or deformed; he can use both arms;
his fool tongue has made us all pretty hot since we've knowed him. But
he ain't right up here, in his head, boys. He's crippled there. There
ain't no reason for a human bein' gettin' to be so nasty as he's got to
be. It ain't natural. It's th' booze, Tommy, th' booze that's crippled
him. He ought to be kept away from it until he's had a chance, but
nobody's took enough interest in him or th' good of th' town to tend to
that. We've just locked him up when he got too drunk an' turned him
loose to hell some more when he was halfway sober. He ain't had nobody
to look out for him, when he's needed it more 'n anything else.
"I ain't blamin' nobody. Don't know as I'd looked out for him myself, if
he hadn't looked so helpless, there 'n th' ditch, Gosh, any one of you'd
take in a dog with a busted leg an' try to fix him up; if he bit at you
an' scratched and tried to fight, you'd only feel sorrier for him. This
feller ... he's kind of a dog, too. Maybe it'd be a good investment for
us to look after him a little an' see if we can't set him on his feet.
We've tried makin' an example of him; now let's try to treat him like
any of you'd treat me, if I was down an' out."
He looked down upon the figure on the porch; in his voice had been a
fine humane quality that set the muscles of the listening woman's throat
contracting.
"Say, Bruce, he's bleedin'!"
On the man's announced discovery the group outside again became compact
about the unconscious man and the tall cowboy squatted beside him
quickly.
"Get back out of th' light, boys," he said, quietly, and the curious men
moved. "Hum ... I'm a sheepherder, if somebody ain't nicked him in th'
arm, boys! I'll be--
"Say, he must of laid on that arm an' stopped th' blood. It's
clotted.... Oh, damn! It's bleedin' worse. Say, I'll have to get him
inside where we can have him fixed up before that breaks open again.
Wonder how much he's bled--"
He rose and moved to the door, pulled open the screen quickly. He made
one step across the threshold and then paused between strides, for
before him in the darkness of the hallway a woman's face stood out like
a cameo. It was white, made whiter by the few feeble rays of the light
outside that struggled into the entry; the eyes were great, dark
splotches, the lips were parted; one hand was at the chin and about the
whole suggested posture of her body was a tensity, an anxiety, a
helplessness that startled the man ... that, and her beauty. For a
moment they stood so, face to face, the one in silhouette, the other in
black and white; the one surprised, only, but the other shrinking in
terror.
"I ... he ..."
Then, giving no articulate coherence to the idea that was in his mind,
Bruce Bayard stepped through the doorway to his left and entered the
office, as though he had not seen the woman at all. He looked about,
returned to the hallway, gazed almost absently at the stairway where he
had seen that troubled countenance and which was now a blank, hesitated
a moment and stepped out to join the others.
"I heard somebody shoot, when we was comin' up from th' depot," someone
was saying when Bayard broke in:
"Nobody here. Anybody seen Charley?"
"Here's his dad," Clary said, as a fat, wheezing man made his way
importantly into the group.
"Uncle, I want to get a room," Bayard said, "to take this here man to so
I can wash him up an' look after his arm. He's been shot. I passed Doc
on th' road goin' out when I come in, so I'll just try my hand as a
veterinary myself. Can you fix me up?"
"All right! Right here! Bring him in. I've got a room; a nice dollar
room," the man wheezed as he stumped into the building. "No disturbance,
mind, but I've got a room ... dollar room ..."--and the screen door
slapped shut behind him.
"He won't die on you, Bruce," the man with a moustache said,
straightening, after inspecting the ragged, dirt-filled wound, and
laughing lightly. "It just stung him a little. There's a lot of
disorderly conduct left in him yet, an' it's a wonder he ain't been
ventilated before."
"Yeah.... Well, we'll take him up and look him over," Bayard said, his
face serious, and stooped to gather the burden in his arms.
"Want any help, Bruce?" Tommy asked.
"Not on this trip, thanks. A good sleep and a stiff cussin' out'll help
a little I guess. Mebbe he's learnt a lesson an' he may go back home an'
behave himself."
He shouldered open the screen door and, led by the wheezing landlord who
carried a lamp at a reckless angle in his trembling hand, started
clumping up the resounding stairway, while the group that had been about
the lamp-post drifted off into the darkness. Only the sorrel horse, Abe,
remained, bridle-reins down, one hip slumped, great, intelligent eyes
watching occasional figures that passed, ears moving to catch the
scattered sounds that went up toward the Arizona stars.