A Bunch of Humanity
It was the day of celebration at the Speedway. It was the
anniversary of its first opening and Max Lepende had ordained that
once a year high revel should hold sway in commemoration of the
foundation of his fortunes. The Speedway was to Beacon Glory what
the Casino is to Monte Carlo. It was perhaps a good deal more. But
then, Monte Carlo is in the eyes of society and Beacon Glory had
somehow contrived a position on the map more or less unrecorded. On
the whole the “Glory” citizens, as they loved to call themselves,
were well enough satisfied with their position. It was convenient
for many reasons, not the least of which was the feeling of
security it gave to most of them, and the general immunity they
enjoyed from the legitimate consequences of offences committed
against society in earlier life.
Max, being of Italian extraction and flamboyant in temperament, had
built and designed it in the manner that most appealed to him. The
place was literally a Bacchanalian temple, lavish with white and
gold and brilliant lights. It was gaudy with red furnishings and
glittering glass, and, generally speaking, was as good an example
of a whited sepulchre as the riot of debased human passions, and
the lavish brush of the decorator could make of otherwise perfectly
innocent woodwork.
The place stared out on the city’s main thoroughfare two blocks
below the Plaza Hotel, a wide-fronted, be-pillared edifice of two
stories. In the brilliant summer sunlight its whitened walls looked
dispiritedly grey and shabby, but in the dark months of winter its
blaze of electric light transformed it into a lure which the people
of Beacon Glory found impossible to resist.
Max had named it “The Palace of Pleasure.” But then Max wore a
pointed beard which concealed a pair of full, red, something
sensuous lips. Furthermore, he wore the rest of his hair long,
and a large, flowing black cravat adorned the evening clothes he
always appeared in when presiding over the nightly orgy obtaining
in his establishment. Beacon Glory, being frank, apt and unashamed
in its downrightness of phraseology, had promptly dubbed it “The
Speedway,” and, in the end, the ultra-artistic mind of its founder
had to yield, and as the “Speedway” it was known throughout the
length and breadth of southern Alaska.
Max’s annual celebration was not lightly to be missed, and,
generally speaking, Beacon Glory was not given to missing anything
at other people’s expense. Besides, Max would be offended if his
available customers absented themselves on this his especial
night. Then, too, why should it be missed? There would be a dinner
of exceptional quality in the grand dining-hall--free to invited
guests. There would be a flood of wine of the best quality.
The company, for once, would smoke the best cigars and lap up
expensive, sticky cordials. And it would all be free. Oh, no. There
was no missing it by those men favoured with an invitation.
There would be no women at the dinner; that was where Max
displayed his fineness of discrimination. He knew his men. And
perhaps his women--some of them. The women would be there for
the dance afterwards--they would be given a good time, but Max
sternly demanded that this, his evening of evenings, should
start--fair. Whatever the later developments, the night should at
least start with such dignity and decorum as an assorted line in
evening clothes could impress upon the manhood of a more or less
disreputable out-world city.
The Plaza was unusually full in the late afternoon on this day
of celebration. The weather was hot and windless, and the spring
mosquitoes were merciless. But the open verandah, overlooking
the main avenue, was liberally patronised. Mosquitoes were part
of the daily life of Beacon Glory, and their worst torture was
insufficient to disturb its citizens out of their routine.
Jubilee Hurst and his partner, Burt Riddell, were amongst those
foregathered. They were nominally gold men of the type which is
drawn from the big cities of civilisation. They come at the call
of adventure and easy money, and in the end, generally seek the
latter by means of an active application of wit rather than of
muscle. Then there was the well-liked, amiable and indifferent
Doctor Finch, Beacon’s leading man of medicine. He was reposing
his rotund figure in a chair of doubtful stability, tilted at a
perilous angle, while his heavily-booted feet decorated the rail
of the verandah. Abe Cranfield, the Plaza’s esteemed proprietor,
short, stout, and with a thrusting chin whisker, was squatting on a
low stool many sizes too small for him. And, reposing comfortably
in a prolonged cane deck chair, with a Rye highball on an adjacent
table easily within reach, reclined Victor Burns of the Occidental
Bank.
None of them had as yet disguised themselves under the uniform
required for the evening’s entertainment to which they were all
invited. That was an evil they preferred to postpone till the last
minute. They one and all preferred to remain the plain examples of
Beacon’s citizenship they really were as long as possible.
The irrepressible Jubilee Hurst made no pretence of his reluctance,
and he was airing his views with that simple freedom which he
claimed as his right at all times.
“You know, boys,” he said, smashing a bunch of mosquitoes on the
back of his bull-like neck, “Max is mostly a decent citizen for all
he’s a Dago. But his craze for patent shoes and hair oil gets me
all the time. You know, there’s no sort of reason in a guy acting
the way he does behind a bow-tie fit for a Dago revolutionary, and
wearing a sheath-knife on his hip fit to carve up whale blubber.
Maybe, with an elegant souse in prospect he fancies us boys fixed
the way he gets us because most of our party suits were invented
before the possibilities of the hip-pocket were guessed about.
I’d say the Speeedway’s no sort of joint to fall into without
a whole darn arsenal of weapons lying around to your hand most
all the time, and, I’ll sure be feeling like a lamb at slaughter
time settin’ around disguised like a first-class waiter, while he
belches up his annual hash of the pleasure it hands him having us
suckers around, and how grieved he is the cemetery’s added to its
stock of fancy mausoleums by way of advertising the amenities of
his darn booth.”
He smiled amiably round upon the company, and took half a highball
at a gulp. And his black, twinkling eyes finally settled on his
partner’s long and grievously unsmiling face.
“It’s all right, boy,” he said, grinning genially. “You needn’t to
feel the way you’re lookin’. I got two boiled shirts, and seein’
you’re a partner of mine, I’ll share ’em with you for haf a dollar.”
Burt raked at the calf of one hairy leg exposed about his sock
suspender to the attacking mosquitoes.
“Oh, beat it,” he cried irritably. “You wouldn’t miss a thing the
Speedway could hand you, if Max reckoned to have you around in your
underpants. You make me tired.” He turned to the banker. “I got
around the ‘Glory Hole’ this morning. It’s burnt out stark.”
The banker sipped his highball and gazed thoughtfully out at the
far hills.
“I’m glad,” he said quietly, after a moment’s deliberation.
It was coldly said and Abe Cranfield looked round at the speaker
quickly.
“I can’t say I’m glad for any feller to get burnt out,” he
exclaimed warmly. “The Aurora bunch are acting mighty gay. Wher’s
it goin’ to stop? Is it the Plaza or the Speedway next? How am I
to know when I’m offending their notions? Clancy Roscoe had been
runnin’ his saloon since ever Beacon started. I can’t see----”
“It was a brothel,” Burns spoke sharply. Then he laughed quietly.
“See here, Abe,” he said in a conciliatory fashion, “I guess you
hold a brief for Clancy and his Glory Hole because he’s in your
line of business--as far as liquor’s concerned. You sort of feel
it’s interference with lawful liberty, and maybe, that way you’re
right. But there’s no right-minded boy to this city’ll feel that
the Clan has done anything but a service to the credit of our burg.
Clancy was warned. He showed me his written warning two weeks back
and he was right up in the air. And his warning was straight and
right. It said, ‘Clear out your women and run your liquor joint
straight.’ It gave him two weeks. Well, he refused. And I got my
notions of the feller who makes his pay out of that sort of thing.
He banks with me and I can’t help it. But I’m glad his shanty’s
gone, and there are some more I’d like to see treated the same.”
“Sounds like he was the Chief Light of the Aurora,” laughed Jubilee.
Burns nodded.
“Maybe it does, boy. But think back to the days when you were your
mother’s kid and you’ll think like me. No, I guess there’s a worry
back of that Clan, but not when they burn up joints like the ‘Glory
Hole.’”
Doc Finch nodded over his cigar stump.
“I’m with you, Victor,” he said seriously.
“I’m sure you are, Doc.”
“Well, what of Max’s show?” Abe was still considering possibilities
from a personal point of view. “What of the women there? Are things
better there when you get right down to bedrock? Say, I want to
laff. Ther’s vice to the square inch right around that dance hall
’ud pave hell a furlong a minute. But then, Max could buy half the
city,” he finished up bitterly.
“I can’t stand for that,” the unsmiling face of Burt was suddenly
transformed. He was grinning but in real earnest. “The Speedway’s
the thing folks make it,” he said hotly. “It’s the only real joy
spot in a city that’s forgot how to laff. You can help yourself to
a portion of life there without a meal ticket. Ther’s light and
laughter there if you don’t get around with a grouch. You can burn
money there, or make a bunch, if you’re bright enough to beat the
other feller. Ther’s women who’re foolish, and women who ain’t,
and ther’s boys who’re a real imitation of men, and hogs disguised
under a bank roll. If the Clan was to get after Max’s joint it ’ud
be me for the coast and the first barge for the south. No, Abe, if
ther’s any sort of method back of those guys in their white shirts
and pointed sky-pieces you and Max can sit around without a worry.
An’, anyway, this bum hotel couldn’t have claim to vice, even in
the dreams of a bughouse inmate.”
Jubilee chuckled as a preliminary to one of his characteristic
outbursts. Then he took in the whole company in his expansive,
headlong way.
“Burt’s got a hell of a hunch, an’ I won’t have to charge him
haf-a-dollar for that shirt,” he laughed delightedly. “My, Abe, but
he got you plumb in the pit of the stomach. And he was right, sure.
I guess you can throw all the dirt you fancy in Beacon without ever
a chance of missin’ things. But the Speedway ain’t available for
that playing without hurtin’ folks who’re mostly your friends. What
’ud we do without the Speedway? Why, die plumb to death setting
around your verandah, smashin’ skitters. I can’t think of dying
worse.”
The grin died out of his eyes, and a curious sort of earnestness
replaced it as he went on:
“No, Abe,” he said, sitting up abruptly and spreading out his lean,
tenacious hands, which were carefully manicured. “Get a grip on
yourself and think of the women-folk who get glad there at night.
Do you grudge ’em? No, sir, you don’t. You couldn’t. It’s not in
you. You know a woman hasn’t a swell time in life when you think
about her. And in Beacon she wouldn’t get any time at all.” He
laughed again. “We’re told the first woman was made out of man’s
‘scrap.’ Maybe that’s how it comes she’s had to put up with man’s
‘left-over’ ever since.” He shook his head. “To my thinking,
woman’s never had a better time than a yaller pup ever since she
disappointed her folk with her sex. It seems to me a poor sort of
life fixing a man’s hash so he don’t take too big a chance on his
life policy. Think how she needs to smile every time a feller hands
her out five cents to make vacation on, same as if she was pleased.
Chores seem to be the limit of woman’s joy in life, and I guess
she’ll go right on chasing kids’ noses with a swab till she jerks
up at the graveyard. She’ll keep on trying to feed her whole bunch
on the change out of a dollar, and the promises her man hands out
to her like dead leaves in the fall. She’s got a hell of a life,
even if it’s only she’s expected to swallow a man’s lies whole and
sit around foolish waiting for ’em to come true. No, Abe, don’t you
ever go for to rob her of a moment’s pleasure. She’ll mother you
sick, and mother you well. She’ll lie for you and fight for you.
And when she’s broke her heart keepin’ folks from lynching you,
she’ll tidy you all she knows and pass you into the crematorium
in the hope of making you a real sanitary proposition for the
first time in your darn life. Ther’s all sorts of ’em find joy in
the Speedway. Some are foolish, but,” he finished up, turning his
perfectly serious eyes in the direction of the great dance hall,
“ther’s those who--aren’t.”
At that instant a raucous honk! honk! echoed down the wide,
dust-laden, unkempt thoroughfare, and every eye was turned in the
direction.
Out of a dust cloud a high-powered automobile raced down towards
them, rolling and bumping over the perilous unevennesses of the
road, regardless of every consequence. It was painted a curious
rich red, a big saloon body with black running gear and black
roof. It contained only two women, both expensively clad, one of
whom had a wealth of red hair that seemed to match the colour of
the vehicle. Every man on the verandah was craning. Every eye was
watching the car’s reckless progress. And as it passed, leaving
them almost lost under a fog of dust, it was Doc Finch who,
returning his feet to their resting-place on the verandah rail,
voiced something of the thought that occurred to the mind of each.
“No,” he said, smiling amiably round on the company, “there’s no
gang, or clan, or bunch of disorderly toughs in Beacon Glory that
’ud dare to do harm to the Speedway so long as St. Claire Carver is
its patron saint.”
The banker nodded prompt agreement.
“That’s a cinch, Doc,” he said. “She’s got every man in Beacon just
where any good woman could want him.”
Abe concurred promptly, if grudgingly.
“She’s a real dandy an’ a good spender,” he admitted, “and she’s
got the whole fancy of Beacon as well as its luck----”
“Luck?” Victor Burns drained the remains of his highball to wash
the dust of the automobile from his throat. “She’s made a pile
that would set some of the Wall Street guys screaming. Say!” He
laughed. Then he became serious. “And talking of gold and things,”
he went on, “there’s colour coming in just now from outside. A boy
bought himself a credit at my place this afternoon for eighty
thousand odd, and it was the sort of dust they used to collect on
‘Eighty-Mile’ years back.”
The banker watched the almost electrical effect of his words on
a company to whom gold was the beginning and end of everything.
Discussion of the Speedway and its morals, and even of its
beautiful patron saint, was forgotten. Every man at once sat agog.
And even Jubilee Hurst, who was mainly a sheer gambler, who had
been gazing down the avenue after the now-vanished automobile,
eagerly sought information.
“Where did it come from?” he asked, without hesitation or scruple.
Burns shook his head.
“Search me,” he said with a laugh.
“Who’s the guy?” demanded Burt.
“Guess I’m a banker.”
“Can’t you hand us a thing?” inquired Abe.
“Not a thing but just that,” Burns said quietly. “It’s the third
big bunch of dust come in from the same place, by the same boy, in
six months. And there’s more coming. I wanted you fellows to know
about it because it’s my job to collect the stuff, and the more
folks know about it the more they’ll worry to get after it. There’s
big gold coming into Beacon, and I guess that’s the best news
you----”
He broke off. Ivor McLagan had appeared in the open glass doorway
leading on to the verandah.
“Say,” he cried, after a moment’s pause, “I hadn’t a notion you
were in town, Ivor.”
Jubilee laughed.
“You ain’t much of a guesser, Burns,” he interjected. “Why wouldn’t
McLagan be along in? Is he missing Max’s show any more than you and
me? But say, Mac, tell us about oil. We just been hearing gold
from Burns and now we want oil. The oil king is right with us,
folk. He’s right in our midst,” he cried, with his ready laugh.
“The soft yellow stuff gets us all the time, but nice, black,
sticky oil’s only a short cut to it. You’re the guy to grease the
wheels of Beacon right. Gold won’t be a circumstance when you open
out one of your gushers. Sit around, man, and hand us news that’ll
help us digest Max’s Dago feast right. Talk to us of options and
borings and coal mountains, and all that sort of truck you can’t
eat and I’ll buy you a highball right now, and swear to set up a
swell piece by way of epitaph on your mausoleum when you’ve got
mired to death in the juice you’re going to flood Beacon with.
You’re our only hope of----”
“And a darnation poor one, Jubilee,” McLagan interrupted, “that
is, right up to now.” He pulled up a chair and leaned his great
body over it, while his plain face smiled indulgently on the
irrepressible man who never failed to amuse him. “But we’re right
on oil. We’ve hit a--trickle. A hell of a fine--trickle.”
Abe sat up.
“Is that right?” he demanded, his eyes lighting.
Ivor nodded.
“It surely is, Abe. You’ll be re-building this hogpen in a year’s
time and you’ll need to add a hundred rooms.”
Burns leant forward in his chair.
“Is it going to be big?”
“A real flood--if I’m not foolish.”
“Will you talk to-night at Max’s feed?” inquired Doc Finch, a
staunch believer in publicity.
“Not a whisper.”
“Why not?” inquired Burt Riddell.
“Because I got a deal too much that’s worth saying,” McLagan
laughed. “The only time it’s safe to talk is when you haven’t.”
Jubilee chuckled appreciatively.
“I’m buying that highball right away, Abe,” he cried. “And make it
for the whole darn house, if it’s my last buck. McLagan’s right.
Don’t shout till you want. Then shout like hell. Folk’ll hand it
you if it’s only to keep you quiet while they shout. Oil? And it’s
coming? Are there any options lying around? Are we to be in on the
ground floor, Mac, or is the darn door bolted and locked?”
McLagan shook his head.
“Sure it’s locked and I’ve hidden up the key,” he said quietly.
“My prospect’s a tight one. You see, it’s been a long trail and
I’m taking no chances. Easy money’s fine for those who make it.
But I’m not passing easy money to a soul. Guess I’ll go and clean
up for Max’s party.” He laughed pleasantly. “And I’ll collect your
highball on the way, boy. So long.”