usted_."
"Don't mention it," says I. "I understand a little Spanish, but I speak
English. I wouldn't have cut in if they hadn't played it crooked on
you--here's your boy, not damaged much, if you want to have it out."
"I spike Anglish veree splendidlee," says he, "I th-thank ju. Eef you
weel so kindly han' me dthat man, I keel heem."
"Holy Christmas!" says I--he asked as cool as he would a light for his
cigar--"What do you mean? Just _stick_ him?"
"_Certamente_," says he, "he ees no good."
I chucked my victim as far as I could throw him. "Run, you fool!" I
says, and he scuttled out of that like a jack-rabbit.
He was gone before my friend could start after him. I got the full blast
of the disappointment.
"I do not quite understand, Senor," says he, with his hand on his knife.
"Hold!" says I, "you've no call to jump me--I can't stand for a man
being slit in cold blood--no offense meant."
"I forget your service," says he. "Pardon--here ees my han'." We shook
hands. "But you have made the foolish thing," he says. "There ees a man
who ees to be keeled dead, and you let heem go--that ees more foolish as
to let the Fer-de-lance free."
"Well, I know," says I, "I suppose you're right, but my ideas ain't
quite foreign enough yet."
He smiled. "Your largeness made me mistake," says he. "I see you are a
gentleman not of so many years, but of the heart strong and the arm
stronger--you play with that man--chuckee--chuckee--chuckee--like hees
mother. Eet was lovelee. May I ask the name?"
"William De La Tour Saunders," says I, "commonly called Bill."
"Ah, Beel!" says he, "I r-r-remember. Here is Antonio Orinez--your
frien' when you wish."
"Well, Mr. Orinez," says I, "hadn't we better be walking along? You're
bleeding pretty free."
"_Ta!_" says he, shrugging his shoulders. "I am used to eet--still, I
go. Thees ees not a healthy land for me."
"What was the row about?" I asked, my kid curiosity coming up.
"I cannot tell even my best frien'," he answers, smiling so pleasant
there was no injury. "_Quiere poqnito de aguardiente?_"
"No," I says, "I'm not drinking at present--it's a promise I made." (Oh,
the vanity of a boy!) "But I'll trot along with you."
He shook his head. "Do not," he says, "believe me, I have reason--can I
do you any service, now?"
I was a little anxious to get on my own business. The lull from the
fight had come in the shape of a seasick feeling.
"Do you know a man by the name of Saxton?" I inquired.
He gave me a quick look--a friendly look, "Arthur
Saxton--tall--grande--play the violeen like the davil?"
"That's him."
"Around that corner, not far, on thees side," waving his left hand, "you
see the name--eet ees a es-store for food."
I was surprised enough to find that Sax had opened a grocery store.
"Thanks," says I, and swung in the saddle.
Orinez raised a hand, playful.
"Geeve me some other ho-r-r-r-se!" says he. "Bin' opp my wounds!" he
laughed. "By-by, Beel, r-remember me, as I shall remember ju!"
"Good-by, Mr. Orinez," says I. He called after me, "Eef you need a
frien', there is Orinez!"
"Same to you, old man!" I says, and swings around the corner.
Saxton was working outside the store, overseeing the unloading of some
wagons. It was a large store, with a big stock, and Sax was busy as a
hound-pup at a rabbit-hole. I rubbed my eyes. Somehow the last thing I
expected to see Sax was a storekeeper. I slipped up and put my hands on
his shoulders to surprise him. It surprised him all right. I felt the
muscles jump under the coat, although he stood still enough, and he
whirled on me with an ugly look in his eye.
I think, perhaps, of all the unpleasant positions a man can get himself
into, that of a playful friendly fit gone wrong will bring the sweat out
the quickest--you do feel such a fool!
"Beg your pardon, Arthur," says I, fairly cool, as really I hadn't done
anything for him to get so wrathy about.
But he got the best of himself at once, and the old, kind smile came,
taking out the lines that changed his face so.
"What are you talking about?" says he, playful in his turn--forced
playful, painful to see. He gave me a slap on the back and I let her
flicker at that--always willing to take a friend's intentions rather
than the results. I never went into friendship as a money-making
business.
"I thought I startled you," I said. He laughed loud, so loud that I
looked at him and backed away a little. "Startled me!" he says. "What
nonsense! When did you come in? How do you like your job? Going to stay
long?"
He fired these questions at me as fast as he could talk. I, dumb-struck,
answered somehow, while I felt around for something to think with.
He was here and there and all over, doing everything with the same
fever-hurry. Popping a string of questions at me and away before I could
answer the half of them, as if he couldn't hold his mind to one thing
more than a minute--and this was Arthur Saxton!
Part of my mind talked to him, part wrastled with Mary's hints and the
other part kept up a wondering why and what, for I felt for that man a
whole-hearted kid's worship.
A sack of flour fell from the wagon and split. Instantly Sax broke out
into a fit of cursing. I never heard anything like it. He cursed the
flour, the man that dropped it, Panama, the business, and everything
above and below, his eyes two balls of wild-fire.
The man jumped back scared. Sax's jaws worked hard; he got back an
outside appearance of humanity.
"This heat makes me irritable, Bill," he said. "Besides, there's lots of
annoyance in a new business."
"Sure," says I. I saw the flour sack was only an excuse--a little hole
to let out the strain. A person's wits will outfoot his judgment
sometimes. I had no experience to guide me, yet I knew Saxton needed
humoring.
I've heard people say that things--like liquor, for instance--couldn't
get the best of such and such a man, because he was strong-willed. What
kind of argument is that? Suppose he _wants_ to drink. Ain't his strong
will going to make him drink just that much harder, and be that much
harder to turn back, than a man with a putty spine? The only backbone
some men has is what their neighbors think. Them you can handle. But the
man that rules himself generally finds it quite different from being the
lady boss of an old woman's home. Just because he's fit to rule, he'll
rebel, and he'll scrap with himself till they put a stone up, marking
the place of a drawn battle. But the neighbors won't know it. They'll
envy him the dead easy time he had, or get mad when he does something
foolish--loses one heat out of many that the neighbors didn't even dare
to run--and gossip over him. "Who'd think a man that's lived as good a
life as Mr. Smith would," and so forth. But you can't blame the
neighbors neither. Most people reasonably prefer peace to war, and with
a man like Sax it's war most of the time. You have to care a heap to
stay with him.
Well, he was in a bad way for sure. He talked fast--often not finishing
what he had to say. He laughed a great deal, too, and when the laugh
passed and the dreary look came on his face again, it was enough to make
you shiver.
Presently a nice little man came up--a Spaniard and a gentleman.
From the time I took hold of his hand I felt more cheerful. You knew by
his eye he understood things.
Sax introduced him as an old friend and as his partner in the business.
"Perez puts up the money and the experience," says he, "and I put up a
bold front."
"After I've begged you not to speak in that way?" says Perez, smiling,
but reproachful.
"I'm not sailing under false colors," says Sax, sharp. "You've made an
asylum for an empty head--you'll have to listen to it."
Perez dropped the subject at once.
The Spaniard turned to me and asked me most courteously about my aims in
the country. We were talking along when Saxton interrupted us. "We'll
never get enough to drink this way," says he; "come into the office."
We went back into the little room where they entertained the big
customers. Saxton called a boy and ordered brandy. When it came he
grabbed the bottle feverishly. As he did so, Perez glanced at me. We
understood each other.
Sax couldn't drink until we joined him--habit again--how she pulls! He
wanted that drink. It was the one thing he did want in the world, yet
there he waited while we fooled away as much time as we could.
"Well, here's regards!" he said at last, and his lower jaw trembled with
eagerness. Perez drank and I made the motions.
"That's the stuff!" says Sax, with a cheap swagger that knocked me
harder than anything I'd seen so far. "The good old truck that you
Spaniards mollify under the name of aguardiente is the solution of all
problems, Perez."
"_Si, si_, Senor?" says Perez. "It is a great solvent." He stirred the
red sugar in the bottom of his glass. "I have seen it dissolve many a
good manhood--like that."
"None of your friends, I hope?" sneers Sax.
"I hope not."
Saxton looked at him a minute; a hundred different fits showed in his
eye, but the hurry of his mind let none stay long enough for action.
The shadow settled on him again. I never in my life saw more misery in a
human face, and to save me I couldn't tell you where the expression came
from, because the man kept his muscles in an iron grip. There wasn't a
droop of the mouth, nor a line in the forehead, nor a twitch of the
eye--it was just powerful enough to make itself felt, without signs.
He came back again with a snap.
"Why, you're not drinking, Bill!" says he, noticing my glass. It was not
Arthur Saxton, to urge a boy to drink.
"No," I says, easy, "I'm not used to tropical beverages--I expect to
find it full of red peppers. Lord, what a dose I got in my first _chile
con carne_--"
He cut into my attempt at a diversion.
"Why don't you drink?" he asked.
"Because I promised Mary not to."
The mention of the name was too much. He took a quick breath.
"Oh, I wouldn't mind that," he says, light enough on the outside, but
beginning to heat up inside again.
"I mind my word," I answered.
Perez looked quickly across at me and smiled.
"She makes mistakes like the rest of us," says Saxton.
"She makes mistakes," says I, "but _not_ like the rest of us."
Perez stretched out his hand. "I am again glad to have met Mr.
Saunders," he said.
Sax looked from one to the other of us. Suddenly he sprang up, giving
the table such a push it landed on its back against the wall. "I hate to
be the _only_ blackguard in the party," he said, and stood furious,
panting.
Perez slipped to me and whispered, "Mind him not--for two weeks, day and
night, brandy, brandy, brandy--it has not drunken him--but the man is
mad."
"What are you whispering about?" demanded Sax, so savagely I got ready
for action. "If you've anything to say about me, let me hear it--I yearn
for interesting news." He had his fist drawn back as he came up to
Perez.
The little man's face went white. "Arthur," he said, "would you strike
me?"
"I'd strike any one--any dirty sneak who'd talk about me behind my
back."
"Arthur," said Perez, slowly, "when I was a poor, sickly, sad little boy
at a Northern school I had a friend who protected me, who took many a
blow for my sake; when I was a young man, sick with _la viruela_, I had
a friend who risked his life to save mine; as an older man, I have a
friend who can take my life if he wishes--strike."
And so help me! He would have struck! Never tell me a man is this and
that. A man is everything. In his right mind, nothing an Apache invented
would have forced Arthur Saxton to do such a thing--no fear on earth,
nor no profit on earth would have tempted him for an instant. But now he
would have struck.
I grabbed his wrist.
"You fool!" I cried, "what are you doing?" He clipped me bang in the
eye. Saxton was a strong man, weakened by whisky. I was twice as strong
and braced with rage.
I whirled him around and slammed him on the floor.
Something cold pressed against my temple. It was a revolver in the hands
of Perez. "Your life for it, if you hurt him," said he.
For a second, I meant to quit that place in disgust. Then the size of it
took hold of me. It doesn't matter whether a thing is wise or not--in
fact, you never can tell whether a thing is wise or not--but if it has a
size to it, it suits me.
I thought for a minute. There we stood, me holding Saxton, Perez holding
me--just that little, cold touch, you'd think might be pleasant on a hot
day.
"I hope you ain't nervous, Mr. Perez?" says I, to gain time.
"What?" says he, kind of befuzzled. "No, I am not nervous."
"That's right," says I, hearty. "Don't try to see how hard that trigger
pulls, or you'll disturb my thoughts." Then I made up my mind.
"Saxton," says I, "if there's a remnant in you of the man you once was,
get your friend to leave, and take the licking you deserve."
I looked down at him--the man was back again! Talk about your moral
suasion, I tell you there's a time when only one thing counts. I'd done
more for Arthur Saxton by slamming him down on the floor than the
doctors and preachers could have brought about in ten years. He went
down _hard_, mind you. Yes, sir, there was the old Saxton, with his
forehead frowned up because his head hurt, but the old, kindly, funny
little smile on his lips.
"Perez," he said, "run away and let the bad little boy get his
spanking--although, Bill," he went on, "if it's reformation you're
after, I don't need it." He laughed up at me. "You think I'm trying to
dodge payment, but, so help me, I'm not, Billy boy."
To see him like that, his laughing self again, after the nightmare we'd
just been through, set me to sniveling--darn it, I was excited and only
a kid, but I cried--yes, I cried. And Perez, he cried.
"N-nice way for you to act," says I, "and s-spoil all a poor boy's got
to respect."
The awful slush of that struck us all, and we broke out into a laugh
together--a wibbly kind of laugh, but it served.
Arthur got up and dusted his clothes. He shook fearfully. I never saw a
man in worse shape and still be able to stand. Two weeks of a steady
diet of French brandy on top of trouble will put a man outside the
ordinary run, or inside his long home.
It was fine, the way he gathered himself. He brought something like what
he ought to be out of the wreck in two minutes.
"Now," he says steady, "I owe you fellows something--I owe you a great
deal, Perez--I'd started to finish on the alcohol route. I don't like
the company I keep. If I'm going to die I'll die with a better man than
you stopped, Bill. In fact, I think my kid fit is over. I reckon I'll
try to live like a man, and as a start I'm going to tell you both what
ails me--to have it out for once. So help me, it isn't for myself--it's
for you, Henry. You've invested time and money in me, and you sha'n't
lose it. If you know what you're up against, you may be able to help me
help myself. I'm sick of myself. All my life I have kept my mouth shut,
out of a foolish pride. The little sacrifice will be something on the
altar of friendship, Henry, old man. Come along to my room."
XI
SAXTON'S STORY
We seated ourselves around the table in Saxton's bedroom.
"Perez," said Saxton, "you know from the beginning the boy and girl love
affair between me and Mary Smith. It was no small thing for me. I cared
then and I care now. I think the one thing which stood between Mary and
myself as the greatest point of difference was my trick of stripping
things to the bare facts. She liked romance, whether fact or not; I
liked the romance that lay in fact. She cared for me--that is certain,
but some reports when I was about nineteen to the effect that I was
raising the devil, and had led a weak-headed fellow astray with me,
seemed to give the girl a permanent twist against me. Now here's the
truth. In our little town we had a number of men who earned comfortable
fortunes and then laid back. Their boys, with nothing to do and nothing
in their heads, acted as one might suppose. They took to drinking and
gambling, not because they were bad but simply to pass the time; the
town was dull enough, God knows. Pretty soon the wilder crowd became an
open scandal. Among them were some of my best friends, and I went with
'em, with as sincere a desire to line 'em up with decency again as any
long-faced deacon in the town; but instead of spouting piety, I thought
I would play their game until I could get 'em to play mine, that is, I
took a drink with 'em, and I played some poker with 'em, all the while
trying to show the strongest head and the most checks when it came to
'cash-up' in the poker game. I felt that if I could beat 'em, what I
said would go.
"There was one mean scoundrel in the bunch--a hypocrite to the marrow.
He really was to blame for the worst outbreaks, but he pulled the long
face when among respectable people. I wanted to get the best of that
lad. If you're going to lead drinking men and gamblers, you've got to be
the best drinker and the best card player in the bunch. The rest were
empty-headed boys, who'd have taken up religion as quickly as faro bank,
if some one led 'em to it. Well, I think I'd won out, if my friend the
hypocrite, who was foxy enough in his way, hadn't back-capped me, by
telling the town the evil of my ways. The first break was with my
father. The news came to him carefully prepared. When I tried to explain
my side, the disgusted incredulity of his face stopped me almost before
I began. Father gave me my choice: to leave his house or to leave the
company I kept. I cannot bear to be doubted. I made a choice. I left
both the house and the company I kept. Father had been good to me;
knowing how he felt, I would not disgrace him. Then I made my living
with my fiddle.
"Mary at first believed in me, but they talked her out of it. If she'd
doubted of her own mind, I wouldn't have cared so much, but to know me
as she did, and then prefer the word of outsiders--well, I roared at her
like a maniac; it was much like now, as sweetly reasonable and all. No
wonder the girl was frightened. I haven't a doubt she felt that
entertaining an interest for me was little better than criminal. At the
same time the interest was there, and, like myself, she took a middle
course by plunging with what heart she could into a dreary and
hide-bound church. I drove her to it, and I paid the bill. If I could
bring one half the sense into my own affairs that I can into some
outside thing, I suppose I should sometime succeed. A little coaxing, an
appeal for sympathy,--any show of gentleness on my part might have
brought her round.--As we are, we are. I demanded, and here am I.
"I made it up with father afterwards; he didn't understand, but he
believed. You see I wouldn't take a cent from him. He offered me money,
but I said flat that as I didn't please him, I wouldn't take it. Father
had been a business man all his days, and money had become his measure.
If I refused money I meant business. That's no sneer--a good old man was
my father. But Mary stood me off. When I'm not despairing, I know she
cares. I have learned how much conventions mean to a woman--well, I
don't blame 'em. I wish I had a few conventions against which I could
lean and rest this minute. Then comes a man named Belknap--"
"Why, I have just met him, Saxton," said I.
"Did you, Bill? I am thankful for it. I have gotten so my heart aches
for facts to back me. What is your judgment on the gentleman?"
"Smooth as a sausage skin," says I.
"All of that," says Saxton; "he is one subtle scoundrel."
"But he isn't so hard to get on to, neither!"
"For a man, no," says Saxton; "but Belknap has information that you, nor
Perez, nor I, nor any man who is a man has, and that is the difference
between a woman's thinking and a man's thinking. We know a man will
swallow all manner of guff in politics; he'll buy a gold brick from a
cheap blatherskite. That sort of thing is man's folly. I don't pretend
to understand women's follies, but Belknap does. He can talk such
nonsense to a seemingly sensible woman that you fancy she's laughing at
him, and behold! when you look to see the smile, you find the lady in
tears.
"When he came into the game he was young. He took an instant interest in
Mary, and at once used his smooth tongue, and his perfect knowledge of a
woman's character, to win her. He worked through her vanity, through her
virtues, and through all the avenues his peculiar intelligence opened to
him. He gained her attention from the first, and now his power over her
is something horrible to me. Again, had it not been my own affair, how
easily I could have beaten him! If only my head and not my heart were in
it--yet, I do not care for the game when my heart isn't in it, so where
I don't care, I don't even try. This makes a jolly life.
"Our friend, Belknap, has a great work to do, converting these heathen
Catholics to the Protestant faith, for which he has schools and
missions, and for which also he needs teachers, and later, a wife, so
Mary leaves home for here. Of course, he hasn't breathed a word of
anything but the Great Work, and his lonely struggle, and queer as it
is, and scoundrel that he is, I know he partly believes in himself.
Sentimental advances would frighten her off. He bides his time, does Mr.
Spider, and lets habit of mind crush out all the girl's natural
instincts until she has no resource but him."
"I thought you said he was of a deep understanding in regard to the
women?" said Perez.
"He is."
"And he will suppress the natural feelings?"
"Yes."
"Mine has been a lonely life, Arthur, of reality," said Perez; "_you_
are my affection--but when the Senor Belknap has suppressed the natural
feelings of any woman, he has but to ask, and my store, and my ranches,
and my cattle are his."
Saxton shook his head wearily. "You don't know him, Enrique."
"I have interrupt," said Perez; "pardon!"
"There is this much more," said Saxton. "On the trip across I saw I had
regained some of my standing in Mary's eyes, enough, at least, to send
me up into cloudland. My heart went out to every creature I saw, and I
certainly was a fool not to know I'd do something idiotic. I did it. One
night, walking from the store, a woman stopped and spoke to me.
Ordinarily I would have pushed on as easily as might be, but in this
woman a hint of delicacy still lingered. There was something in her face
that shone like the last of day, in the way she carried herself, in the
way she held her head, there was still womanly pride; in short, she was
the one out of a thousand for whom there is hope. She came straight to
me out of the crowd, with the same faith a dog has often shown me. That
is the kind of thing against which I am defenseless, and I am glad of
it. Her story was short, plain, honest. She excused nothing, she made no
attempt to put herself in a better light. No man could have talked
squarer or more to the point; she was tired of the life she led, she had
an impulse to change, she did not know whether the impulse would last or
not, she had not a cent, but if I would help her she would make an
effort. No man with a heart in his body is going to refuse an appeal
like that. You know I am not quite a boy to be fooled by whining. I
realized the chances against her lasting out, and so did she. The thing
was genuine, whatever the result. It appeared to me that to hand her
money as you'd throw a plate of cold fodder to a tramp, was not just the
proper course of a man who thought of himself as a gentleman. Also I
admit that I fancied myself standing as somewhat of a hero in Mary's
eyes. So I treated my poor new friend as though she were a decent woman.
I never preached at her,--I had had enough of preaching,--but simply
gave her a 'good day,' and if a kind word once in a while had any
weight, she got it. There was nothing in all this I could not have
explained to Mary to my own credit. I did not like the kind of thing
that woman stood for. She had no attraction for me in any way, shape, or
manner, but Mr. Belknap saw his opportunity. He has this town plastered
with spies; your house is no safeguard against his meddling. When he
found out, he gave Mary a revised edition of my conduct. I can imagine
him doing it--his sorrowfully deploring my fall; the insinuations more
damaging than any bald statement; the sighs and half-finished sentences.
He had the start and he used it well. When I next went to see Mary I got
a queer reception; among other pleasant things, she said my coming was
an insult, and for the soft answer that turneth away wrath she replied
that I had degraded myself beyond hope, when I asked her what in the
world was the matter. Of course, I went crazy on the instant; the
surprise of it took away what little sense I had. A minute's time and I
might have gathered wits to present my case--"