least, he thought it was, and that come to the same thing. He was so
dizzied up when Kerosene stopped dancing him--she was doing the most
of it, she said, he keeping his little fat legs going 'cause she
swung him round and he had to--all he wanted was to be let to set
down. So Kerosene set him--and then the next act was put through.
Bill Hart and Shorty Smith come up to Kerosene right together, and
both of 'em asked her polite if she'd dance. She said polite she'd be
happy to; but she said, seeing both gentlemen had spoke at once for
her, they must fix it between 'em which one had the call. All the
same, she put her hand on Hart's arm, like as if he was the one she
wanted--and of course that pleased Hart and made Shorty mad. Then
the two of 'em begun talking to each other, Hart speaking sarcastic
and Shorty real ugly, and so things went on getting hotter and
hotter--till Kerosene, doing it like she meant to break up the rumpus,
shoved Hart's arm round her and started to swing away. Just as they
got a-going, Shorty out with his gun and loosed off at Hart with
it--and down Hart went in a heap on the floor.
[Illustration: "AND DOWN HART WENT IN A HEAP ON THE FLOOR"]
The whole place, of course, right away broke into yells and cusses,
and everybody come a-crowding into a heap--some of the boys picking up
Hart and carrying him, kicking feeble real natural, out into the
kitchen; and some more grabbing a-hold of Shorty and taking away his
gun. Kerosene let off howls fit to blow the roof off--only quieting
down long enough to say she'd just agreed to take Hart for her second,
and it was hard luck to be made a widow of twice in one day. Then she
howled more. Really, things did go with a hum!
Santa Fé and the rest come a-trooping back from the kitchen--leaving
the door just a crack open, so Hart could peep through and see the
fun--and Santa Fé jumped up on a bench and sung out "Order!" as loud
as he could yell. Knowing what was expected of 'em, the boys quieted
down sudden; and the Hen got a-hold of Kerosene and snuggled her up to
her, and told her to weep on her fond breast--and Kerosene started in
weeping on the Hen's fond breast all right, and left off her howls.
The room was that quiet you could a-heard a cat purr.
"My brethren," says Charley, talking sad-sounding and digging away at
his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief, "Brother Hart has left
us"--Hart being in the kitchen that was dead true--"and for the third
time to-day our Sunshine Club has suffered a fatal loss. Still more
lamentable is the case of our doubly stricken sister Rebecca--only
just recovered, by time's healing touch, from the despair of her
tragic widowhood, and at the threshold of a new glad life of wedded
happiness--who again is desolately bereaved." (Kerosene give a
dreadful groan--seeming to feel something was expected of her--and
then jammed back to the Hen's fond breast again and kept on a-weeping
like a pump.) "Our hearts are with Sister Rebecca in her woe," says
Charley. "She has all our sympathy, and the full help of our
sustaining love."
"If I know anything about the sense of this meeting," Hill chipped in,
"it's going to do a damn sight more'n sling around sympathy." (Hill
had a way of speaking careless, but he didn't mean no harm by it.)
"That shooting wasn't a square one," says Hill; "and it's likely
there'll be another member missing from the Sunshine Club for doing
it. There's telegraph-poles," says Hill, "right across the way!"
"Brother Hill is right," Santa Fé went on, "though I am pained that
his unhappy disposition to profanity remains uncurbed. The shot that
has laid low Brother Hart was a foul one. Justice, my friends,
exemplary justice, must be meted out to the one who laid and lowered
him; and I reckon the quicker we get Brother Smith over to the deepo,
and up on the usual telegraph-pole--as Brother Hill has suggested--the
better it'll be for the moral record of our town. All in favor of such
action will please signify it by saying 'Ay.'" And the whole
crowd--except Shorty, who voted against it--yelled out "Ay" so loud it
shook all the bottles in the bar.
"The ayes have it," says Santa Fé, "and we will proceed. Brother Wood,
as chairman of the Friendly Aid Society, I beg that you will go on
ahead to the deepo and get ready the rope that on these occasions you
so obligingly lend us from the Company's stores. Brother Jones and
Brother Hill, you will kindly bring along the prisoner. The remaining
Friendly Aiders present will have the goodness, at the appropriate
moment, to render the assistance that they usually supply." And off
Charley went, right after Wood, with the rest of us following on: Hill
and Denver yanking along Shorty and flourishing their guns savage; the
girls in a pack around the Hen holding on to Kerosene; and Kerosene
doing her share of what was wanted by letting out yells.
The little man was left to himself a-purpose; and he was so shook up,
while he was coming along with the crowd over to the deepo, he
couldn't say a word. But he managed to get his stamps going, though
they didn't work well, when we was all on the platform--waiting while
Wood rigged up the rope on the telegraph-pole--and he asked Santa Fé,
speaking husky, what the boys meant to do.
"Justice!" says Charley, talking as dignified as a just-swore-in
sheriff. "As I explained to you this morning, sir, nobody in Palomitas
ever stands in the way of a fair fight--like the one you happened to
come in on at the finish a few hours ago--any more than good citizens,
elsewhere and under different conditions, interfere with the processes
of the courts. But when the fight is not fair, as in the present
instance--the gravamen of the charge against Brother Smith being that
he loosed off into Brother Hart's back when the latter did not know it
was coming and hadn't his gun out--then the moral sense of our
community crystallizes promptly into the punitive action that the case
demands: as you will see for yourself, inside of the next ten minutes,
when you see Brother Smith run up on that second telegraph-pole to the
left and kicking his legs in the air until he kicks himself into
Kingdom Come!"
"Good Heavens!" says the little man. "You're not going to--to hang
him?"
"We just rather are!" says Santa Fé. And then he says, talking kind of
cutting: "May I ask, sir, what you do in England with murderers? Do
you pay 'em salaries, and ask 'em out to tea-parties, and hire
somebody to see they have all the drinks they want?"
The little man begun telling how English folks manage such matters,
and was real excited. But nobody but the Hen paid no attention to him.
The Hen--she and Kerosene was standing close aside of him--turned
round to him and said pleasant she always enjoyed most the hangings
they had by moonlight (the moon was at the full, and shining
beautiful) because the moonlight, she said, cast over them such a
glamour of romance. And her looking at moonlight hangings that way
seemed to give him such a jolt he stopped talking and give a kind of a
gasp. There wasn't no more time for talking, anyway--for just then the
train backed in to the platform and the conductor sung out the
Friendly Aiders had got to get a move on 'em, if them going by it was
to see the doings, and put Shorty through.
Being moonlight, and the shadows thick, helped considerable--keeping
from showing how the boys had fixed Shorty up so his hanging wouldn't
come hard: with a lariat run round under his arms, his shirt over it,
and a loop just inside his collar where they could hitch the rope
fast. When they did hitch to it, things looked just as natural as you
please.
Shorty got right into the hanging spirit--he always was a comical
little cuss, Shorty was--pleading pitiful with the boys to let up on
him; and, when they wouldn't, getting a halt on 'em--same as he'd seen
done at real hangings--by beginning to send messages to all the folks
he ever had. Santa Fé let him go on till he'd got to his uncles and
cousins--and then he said he guessed the rest of the family could make
out to do with second-hand messages from them that had them; and as it
was past train-time, and the distinguished stranger in their
midst--who was going on it--would enjoy seeing the show through, the
hanging had got to be shoved right along. When Charley'd give his
order, Carver come up--he was the Pullman conductor, Carver was, and
he had his points how to manage--and steered the little man onto the
back platform of the Pullman, where he could see well; and so had
things all ready for the train to pull out as soon as Shorty was swung
off.
Wood, who'd had experience, had the rope rigged up in good shape over
the cross-bar of the telegraph-pole; and Hill and Denver fetched old
Shorty along--with Shorty letting on he was scared stiff, and yowling
like he'd been ashamed to if it hadn't been a bunco game he was
playing--and hitched him to it, with the boys standing close round in
a clump so they hid the way it was done.
The little man was so worked up by that time--it likely being he
hadn't seen much of hangings--he was just a-hopping: with his plug hat
off, and sousing the sweat off his face with his pocket-handkerchief,
and singing out what was going on wasn't any better than murder, and
begging all hands not to do what he said was such a dreadful deed.
But nobody paid no attention to him (except Carver, he was a friendly
feller, Carver was, kept a lookout he didn't tumble himself off the
platform) and when Denver sung out things was ready, and Santa Fé
sung out back for the Friendly Aiders to haul away, the boys all
grabbed onto the rope together--and up Shorty went a-kicking into the
air.
Shorty really did do his act wonderful: kicking every which way at
first, and then only sort of squirming, and then quieting down gradual
till he just hung limp--with the kick all kicked out of him--turning
round and round slow!
When he'd quieted, the train conductor swung his lantern to start her,
and off she went--the little man standing there on the back platform
of the Pullman, a-grabbing at the railing like he was dizzy, looking
back with all his eyes. And old Shorty up on the telegraph-pole,
making a black splotch twisting about in the moonlight, was the last
bit of Palomitas he seen!
* * * * *
Next day but one Carver come down again on his regular run, and he
told the boys the little man kept a-hanging onto the platform railing
and a-looking back hard till the train got clean round the curve.
Then he give a kind of a coughing groan, Carver said, and come inside
the Pullman--there wasn't no other passengers that night in the
Pullman--and plumped himself down on a seat anyways, a-looking as
white as a clean paper collar; and for a while he just set there, like
he had a pain.
At last he roused up and reached for his grip and got his flask out
and had a good one; and when he'd had it he says to Carver, as savage
as if Carver--who hadn't had no hand in the doings--was the whole
business: "Sir, this America of yours is a continent of chaos--and you
Americans are no better than so many wild beasts!" Then he had
another; and after that he went on, like he was talking to himself:
"All I ask is to get out of this nightmare of a country in a
hurry--and safe back to my own home in the Avenue Road!" And from then
on, Carver said, till it was bedtime--except now and then he took
another--he just set still and glared.
Carver said it wasn't any funeral of his, and so he didn't see no
need to argue with him. And he allowed, he said, maybe he had some
call to feel the way he did about America, and to want to get quick
out of it, after being up against Palomitas for what he guessed you
might say was a full day.
VII
THE PURIFICATION OF PALOMITAS
In the long run, same as I said to start with, all tough towns gets to
where it's needed to have a clean-up. Shooting-scrapes is a habit that
grows; and after a while decent folks begins to be sort of sick of
such doings--and of having things all upside-downey generally--and
then something a little extry happens, bringing matters to a head, and
the white men take hold and the toughs is fired. Just to draw a card
anywheres from the pack--there was Durango. What made a clean town of
Durango was that woman getting killed in bed in her tent--the boys
being rumpussing around, same as usual, and a shot just happening her
way and taking her. It was felt that outsiders--and 'specially
ladies--oughtn't to get no such treatment; and so they had a spring
house-cleaning--after what I reckon was the worst winter a town ever
went through--and Durango was sobered right down.
Palomitas went along the same trail, and took the same pass over the
divide. All through that year, while the end of the track hung there,
things kept getting more and more uncomfortabler. When construction
started up again--the little Englishman, in spite of the dose we give
him, reported favorable on construction and the English stockholders
put up the stake they was asked to--things got to be worse still.
Right away, as soon as work begun, the place was jammed full of
Greasers getting paid off every Saturday night, and all day Sunday
being crazy drunk and knifing each other, and in between scrappings
having their pay sucked out of 'em at the banks and dance-halls--and
most of the boys going along about the same rate, except they used
guns instead of knives to settle matters--so the town really was just
about what you might call a quarter-section of hell's front yard.
Being that way, it come to be seen there'd got to be a clean-up; and
what was wanted for a starter was give by Santa Fé Charley shooting
Bill Hart. There was no real use for the shooting. The two of 'em
just got to jawing in Hart's store about which was the best of two
brands of plug tobacco--Hart being behind the counter, and Charley,
who had a bad jag on, setting out in the middle of the store on a
nail-kag--and the first thing anybody knowed, Charley'd let go
with his derringer through his pants-pocket and Hart was done for.
If Santa Fé hadn't been on one of his tears at the time, the thing
wouldn't a-happened--him and Hart always having been friendly, and
'specially so after the trouble they'd had together over Hart's
aunt. But when it did happen--being so sort of needless, and Hart
popular--most of us made our minds up something had got to be done.
* * * * *
Joe Cherry headed the reform movement. He had a bunch of sheep up in
the Sangre de Cristo mountains, Cherry had, but was in town frequent
and always bunked at Hart's store--him and Hart having knowed each
other back East and being great friends. That made him take a 'special
interest in the matter; and when he come a-riding in about an hour
after things was over--likely he'd a-fixed Santa Fé himself if he'd
been there when it happened--he got right up on his ear. He said he
meant to square accounts for Bill's shooting, and he reckoned
telegraph-poling Charley was about what was needed to square 'em; and
he said it was a good time, with that for a starter, for rounding-up
and firing all the toughs there was in town. The rest of us allowed
Cherry's notions was reasonable, and it was seen there'd better be no
fooling over 'em; and so we went straight on and had a meeting, with
Cherry chairman, and fixed up a Committee--and the Committee begun
business by corralling Santa Fé, and then set to work and made out a
list of them that was to be fired.
There was about a dozen of 'em in the list; and they was told--the
notice being posted at the deepo--they had twenty-four hours to get
out in; and it was added that them that wasn't out in twenty-four
hours would find 'emselves landed on the dumps for keeps. A few of 'em
kicked a little--saying it was a free country, and they guessed they'd
a right to be where they'd a mind to. But when the Committee said back
it just was a free country, and one of the freest things in it was
telegraph-poles--as Santa Fé Charley was going to find out for
certain, and as them that was ordered to get up and get and didn't
would find out along with him--even the kickingest of 'em seen they'd
better just shut their heads and andy along.
It wasn't till the Committee come to tackle the Sage-Brush Hen there
was any trouble--and then they found their drills was against quartz!
Two or three of Charley's worst shootings was charged to the Hen, she
being 'special friends with him; and just because she was such a
good-natured obliging sort of a woman, always wanting to please
everybody, she was at the roots of half the fights that started
in--so there'd come to be what was called the Hen's Lot out in the
cemetery on the mesa, as I've mentioned before. The Committee put her
in their list because they knowed for a fact there was bound to be
ructions in Palomitas as long as she stayed there; and so they found
'emselves in a deepish hole when she said plump Palomitas suited her,
and she didn't mean to be fired. The Hen knowed as well as they did
she had a cinch on 'em. If they didn't like her staying, she said,
they could yank her up to the next telegraph-pole to Charley's--and
then she asked 'em, kind of cool and cutting, if they didn't think
hanging a lady would give a nice name to the town!
The Committee was in session in the waiting-room at the deepo while
the Hen was doing her talking, and Santa Fé--with handcuffs on, and
tied to the express messenger's safe--was in the express office, with
the door open between. Everybody seen the Hen was right, and hanging
her would be ungentlemanly, and nobody seemed to know what they'd
better do. While they was all setting still and thinking, Santa Fé
spoke up from the express office--saying he had the reputation of the
town at heart as much as anybody, and to make a real clean-up the Hen
ought to quit along with the others, and if they'd let him have five
minutes private talk with her he'd fix things so she'd go.
The Committee didn't much believe Santa Fé could deliver the goods;
but they seen it would be a way out for 'em if he did--and so they
agreed him and the Hen should have their talk. To make it private, he
was took out and hitched fast to a freight-car laying on the siding
back of the deepo--the Committee standing around in easy shooting
distance, but far enough off not to hear nothing, with their
Winchesters handy in case the Hen took it into her head to cut the
rope and give him a chance to get away. She didn't--and she and Santa
Fé talked to each other mighty serious for a while; and then they
begun to snicker a little; and they ended up in a rousing laugh.
Charley sung out they'd finished, and the Committee closed in and
unhitched him, and took him back to the express office and hitched him
to the safe again--where he was to stay till hanging-time, with
members of the Committee taking turns keeping him quiet with their
guns. He said he was much obliged to 'em, and the Hen had agreed to
quit--and everybody was pleased all round.
"I don't like not being here when Charley gets his medicine," the Hen
said, "him and me being such good friends; but he says it would only
worry him having me in the audience, and so I've promised him I'll
light out"--and she kept her word, and got away for Denver by that
night's train. Her going took a real load off the Committee's mind.
Some of the other fired ones went off on the same train. The rest took
Hill's coach across to Santa Fé--and made no trouble, Hill said,
except they held the coach for two hours at Pojuaque while all
hands got drunk at old man Bouquet's. Hill said all the rest of the
way they was yelling, and firing off their guns, and raising hell
generally--that was the way Hill put it--but they didn't do no real
harm.
It was Joe Cherry's notion that Santa Fé should be took along to
Hart's funeral, and not hung till everybody got back to town again.
Joe was a serious-minded man, and he said the moral effect of running
things that way would pan out a lot richer than if they just had a
plain hanging before the funeral got under way.
Santa Fé kicked at that, at first; and a good many of the boys
felt he had a right to. Santa Fé said it was all in the game to run
him up to the telegraph-pole in front of the deepo, the same as
other folks; but no committee had no right, he said, to make a
circus of him by packing him all round the place after poor old
Bill--who always had been plain in his tastes, and would have been
the last man in Palomitas to want that kind of a fuss made over
him--and he didn't mean to take a hand in no such fool carryings-on.
He didn't want anybody to think he was squirming, he said, for he
wasn't. Some men got up against telegraph-poles, and others got up
against guns or pneumonia or whatever happened to come along--and it
was all in the day's work. But when they did get up against
it--whatever it turned out to be--that was the one time in their
lives when it wasn't fair to worry 'em more'n was needed. Nobody
but chumps, he said, would want to hurt his feelings by making him
do trick-mule acts at poor old Bill's funeral--'specially as him and
Bill always had been friendly, and nobody was sorrier than he was
about the accident that had occurred.
Santa Fé was a first-rate talker, and everybody but Cherry allowed
what he was letting out had a good deal of sense in it. He ended up by
saying that if they did make any such fool show of him he'd like 'em
to put it through quick and get him back to the deepo and telegraph
him off to Kingdom Come in a hurry--as he'd be glad at any price to be
shut of a crowd that would play it on anybody that low down!
Cherry stuck it out, though, to have things his way. Palomitas was
going in for purification, Cherry said, and the moral effect of having
Santa Fé along at Bill's funeral was part of the purifying. The very
fact that Santa Fé was kicking so hard against it, he said, showed it
was a good thing. There was sense in that, too; and so the upshot of
it was the boys come round to Cherry's plan. The only serious thing
against it was it meant waiting over another day, till the funeral
outfit got down from Denver--all hands having chipped in to give Hart
a good send-off, and telegraphed his size to a first-class Denver
undertaker, with orders to do him up in style. Making him wait around
so long, sort of idle, was what Santa Fé kicked hardest against at
first. But after his talk with the Hen, as was remembered afterwards,
he didn't do any more kicking; and some of the boys noticed he was a
little nervous, and kept asking, off and on, if they still meant to
run the show that way.
The boys did what they could to make the time go for him--setting
around sociable in the express office telling stories about other
hangings they'd happened to get up against, and trying all they knowed
how to amuse him, and giving him more seegars and drinks than he
really cared to have. But as he was kept hitched to both handles of
the safe right enough, and handcuffed, and as the two members of the
Committee watching him--while they was as pleasant with him as
anybody--never had their hands far off their guns, it's likely there'd
been other times when he'd enjoyed himself more.
* * * * *
Things was spirited at the deepo when the Denver train got in. All
there was of Palomitas was on deck, and Becker'd come over from Santa
Cruz de la Cañada, and old man Bouquet from Pojuaque, and Sam and
Marcus Elbogen had driven across on their buck-board from San
Juan--and Mexicans had come in from all around in droves.