TO THE RED, DANCING DEVIL
Jim Thorpe dashed the vicious rowels of his Mexican spurs into the
flanks of his horse. Such unaccustomed treatment sent the willing
beast racing headlong across the market-place, while the guiding hand
mechanically directed toward the saloon.
A storm of bitterness wrung the man's heart. A murky pall of
depression hung over his brain, deadening his sense of proportion for
all those things that matter. For the time, at least, it crushed down
in his heart that spirit of striving, which was one of his best
characteristics, and utterly quenched the warm fires of his better
nature. All thought was buried in a fog of wrath, which left him a
prey to instincts utterly foreign to his normal condition. He had left
Eve Marsham's presence in a furious state from which no effort seemed
able to clear him. Nothing gripped his understanding--nothing save the
knowledge of what he had lost, and the conviction of the low-down
trick that had been played upon him by one whom he regarded as a dear,
younger brother.
He drew rein at the saloon and flung out of the saddle. He mechanically
hitched his horse to the tie-post. Then, with unconscious aggressiveness,
he strode up to the building and pushed his way through the swing doors.
The bar was empty, an unusual enough circumstance at that time of the
day to draw comment from any one who knew the habits of the men of
Barnriff; but Thorpe did not notice it. His eyes were on the man
behind the counter standing ready to serve him. He strode over to him
and flung down a ten-dollar bill, ordering a drink of whiskey, and a
bottle of the spirit to take away with him. He was promptly served,
and Silas Rocket, the proprietor, civilly passed the time of day. It
elicited no responsive greeting, for Jim gulped down his drink, and
helped himself to another. The second glass of the fiery spirit he
swallowed greedily, while Rocket looked on in amazement. As he
proceeded to pour out another the man's astonishment found vent.
"A third?" he said stupidly.
Jim deigned no answer, but drank the liquor down, and set the glass
forcefully upon the counter.
The saloon-keeper quickly recovered himself. Nor was he slow to
comment.
"Feelin' mean, some?" he observed, with a sympathetic wink. He cared
little how his visitor took his remark. He was used to the vagaries of
his customers, and cared not a snap of the fingers for them.
Jim's reply came swiftly.
"Yes, mean enough to need your hogwash," he said shortly.
Silas Rocket's eyes snapped. He was never a man to take things sitting
down.
"Hogwash it is when a feller o' your manners swills it. Mebbe it'll
clear some o' the filth off'n your measly chest. Have one on me; I'd
be real glad to help in the cleanin' process."
There was a subtle threat underlying his last words. But Jim cared
nothing for what he said.
"I'll pay for all I need," he retorted, turning from the counter, and
bearing his bottle away over to the window.
Rocket shrugged and turned to his work of setting some sort of order
among his bottles. But, as Jim stood at the window with his back
turned, his narrow eyes frequently regarded him and his busy brain
speculated as to his humor. The ranchman was well liked in Barnriff,
but his present attitude puzzled the worthy host.
However, the object of all this attention was wholly unaware of it.
Even if it had been otherwise, it is doubtful if Thorpe would have
cared in the least. He was lost in a rushing train of thought. His
brain had cleared under the stimulating potions of raw whiskey, and,
just as before his chaotic state had made him unable to grasp things
fully, now it was equally chaotic in an opposite direction. His brain
was running riot with a clearness and rapidity that showed only too
plainly the nervous tension under which he was laboring. He was
piecing this latest trick of fortune with the ill-luck which seemed to
be ever pursuing him. Under the influence of the burning spirit he
seemed to have lost the sting of the actual wrong to himself, and in
its place a morbid train of thought had been set working.
It was a persecution that was steadily dogging him. When his early
misfortunes had come he had accepted them stoically, believing them to
be part of the balance of things, beginning on the wrong side, no
doubt, but which would be leveled up later on. Time and again he had
received these buffets, and he had merely smiled, a little grimly
perhaps, and started to "buck the game" afresh.
Then, when things eventually turned slightly in his favor, very
slightly, out here on the prairie amongst the derelicts, the flotsam
of the grassy ocean, he had found a brief breathing space. He had
begun to think the balance had really turned. Hope dawned, and life
offered fresh possibilities. And now--now he had been let down afresh.
Before, the attack had been directed against the worldly hopes of a
man, such as all see crushed at some time in life, but now it was his
spirit that was aimed at. It was that strong, living soul which was
the mainspring of his moral existence.
He had lost the woman he loved; that was something he could face,
something he could live down. But it was the manner of it. It was the
fact of Will's treachery that had opened the vital wound.
The thought chilled his heart, it crushed him. Yet his anger was not
all for the man who had so rankly betrayed his trust, his bitterness
was not all for the fact itself. It was the evidence it afforded of
the merciless hand of an invisible foe at work against him, and with
which he was powerless to contend. The subtlety of it--to his
exaggerated thought--was stupendous.
Slowly his bitterness resolved itself to an unutterable pessimism; the
acuteness of the stimulant was wearing off. There was an unhealthy
streak in his mind somewhere, a streak that was growing under these
blows which had been so liberally dealt him. Where was the use in
struggling? he began to ask himself. And the poison of the thought
acted like a sedative. He grew strangely calm; he almost experienced
pleasure and comfort under its influence. Why struggle? Nothing could
go right with him. Nothing. He was cursed--cursed with an ill-starred
fortune. This sort of thing was his fate. Fate. That was it. Why
struggle against it?
He had but this one short life to live. He would live it. He would
live it in the way he chose, without regard to the ethics of
civilization. What mattered if he shortened it by years, or if he
lived to what might be looked upon as an honored old age? And what
was there afterward? He even began to doubt if there was anything
before--if there was any just---- He paused and shivered as the
thought came to him. And he was glad he paused. To question the Deity
was to rank himself at once with a sect he had always despised as
self-centred fools, and pitied them as purblind creatures who were
in some degree mentally deficient.
He pulled himself together and returned to the bar.
"Give me another whiskey," he demanded.
But Silas Rocket had not forgotten; he rarely ever did forget things
in the nature of rudeness.
"I'd hate to," he said quickly; "but I guess I'll sell you 'most
anything."
Jim accepted the snub silently, drank his whiskey, paid for it, and
went out.
Rocket looked after him. His eyes were unfriendly, but then they were
generally unfriendly. As the doors swung to behind his customer he
turned and looked in through the doorway behind him.
"Ma!" he cried, "Jim Thorpe's been in. He's had four drinks o'
whiskey, and took a bottle with him. He's been thinkin' a whole heap,
too. Guess he's goin' on a sky-high drunk."
And a shrewish voice called back to him in a tone of feminine spleen.
"Guess it's that Marsham gal," it said conclusively.
A woman's instinct is a wonderful thing.
Meanwhile Jim was riding across the market-place. Half-way across he
saw Smallbones. He hailed him, and the little man promptly hurried up
to his horse's side.
Jim knew that Smallbones disliked him. But just now he was only
seeking ordinary information.
"Where'll I find Restless?" he inquired. "Where's he working?"
"Guess I see him over by Peter Blunt's shack. Him an' Peter wus
gassin' together, while you wus up ther' seein' Eve Marsham,"
Smallbones replied meaningly. "I 'lows Peter's mostly nosin' around
when----"
"Thanks, I'll ride over."
Jim made as though to ride off. He understood the spiteful nature of
this little busybody, and was in no mood to listen to him now. But
Smallbones was something of a leech when he chose. He had seen the
whiskey bottle sticking out of Jim's coat pocket, and his Barnriff
thirst and curiosity were agog, for Jim was at no time a man to waste
money in drink.
"Say, givin' a party?" he sneered, pointing at the bottle.
"Yes, a party to a dead friend," replied Jim, with a wintry smile.
"It's inexpensive, less trouble, and there's more for myself. So
long."
A minute or two later Smallbones was serving Angel Gay in his store.
He had just sold him a butcher's knife of inferior quality at double
New York prices.
"Say," he observed, in the intimate manner of fellow villagers. "Who's
dead? I ain't heard nuthin'. Mebbe you'll know, your bizness kind o'
runnin' in that line."
"Ain't heerd tell," the butcher replied, with a solemn shake of his
large head. "An' most o' them come my way, too," he added, with
thoughtful pride. "Here, wait." He drew out a greasy note-book. "Y'see
I kind o' keep re-cords o' likely folks. Mebbe some o' the names'll
prompt you. Now ther's M. Wilkes, she's got a swellin', I don't
rightly know wher'--ther's folk talks of it bein' toomer--deadly
toomer. You ain't heerd if she's gone?" he inquired hopefully, while
he thumbed the pages of his book over.
"Nope. I ain't heerd," said Smallbones. "But I don't guess it's a
woman. Friend o' Jim Thorpe's."
"Ah," murmured the happy butcher, lifting his eyes to the ceiling for
inspiration. "That kind o' simplifies things. Jim Thorpe," he
pondered. "He ain't got a heap o' friends, as you might say. Ther's
Will Henderson," he turned over the pages of his book. "Um, healthy,
drinks a bit. Hasty temper, but good for fifty year 'less he gits into
a shootin' racket. 'Tain't him now?" he inquired looking up.
"No, 'tain't him. I see him this mornin'. He was soused some. Kind o'
had a heavy night. Wot about McLagan of the 'AZ's'?"
Again the butcher turned over the pages of his note-book. But finished
by shaking his head mournfully.
"No luck," he said. "McLagan's 'bout forty, never sick. Only chance
'accident on ranch.'"
The two men looked blankly at each other.
"Wot set you thinkin'?" inquired the butcher at last.
"Jest nuthin' o' consequence. Thorpe sed as he was givin' a party to a
dead friend. He'd got a bottle o' whiskey."
"Ah!" murmured Gay, with an air of relief, returning his note-book to
his pocket. "That clears things. He's speakin' metaphoric. I'll git
goin', kind o' busy. I ain't sent out the day's meat yet, an' I got to
design a grave fixin' fer Restless's last kid. Y'see it's a gratis
job, I guess, Restless bein' my pardner, as you might say. So long."
Jim reached Peter Blunt's hut as the carpenter was leaving it. Peter
was at the door, and smiled a genial welcome. He and Jim were
excellent friends. They were both men who thought. They both possessed
a wide knowledge of things which were beyond the focus of the Barnriff
people, and consequently they interested each other.
"Howdy, Jim," the giant called to him, as he drew up beside the
carpenter.
Jim returned his greeting.
"I'll come along, Peter," he said. "Guess I need a word with Restless
first."
"Right-ho."
Jim turned to the man at his side.
"I won't need those buildings," he said briefly.
"But I ordered----"
Jim cut him short.
"I'll pay you anything I owe you. You can let me know how much."
He passed on to the hut without waiting for a reply. He had no
intention of arguing anything concerning his future plans with Restless.
If the carpenter stood to lose he would see him right--well, there
was nothing more about it that concerned him.
Peter was inside his hut examining a litter of auriferous soil on his
table when Jim entered. This man's home possessed an unique interior.
It was such as one would hardly have expected in a bachelor in
Barnriff. There were none of the usual impedimenta of a prairie man's
abode, there was no untidiness, no dirt, no makeshift. Yet like the
man himself the place was simple and unpretentious.
There were other signs of the man in it, too. There was a large plain
wooden bookcase filled to overflowing with a choice collection of
reading matter. There were rows of classics in several languages,
there was modern fiction of the better kind, there were many volumes
of classical verse. In short it was the collection of a student, and
might well have been a worthy addition to many a more elaborate
library.
There were, besides this, several excellent pictures in water-color on
the walls, and the absence of all tawdry decoration was conspicuous.
Even the bed, the chair, and the table, plain enough, goodness knows,
had an air of belonging to a man of unusual personality.
It would be impossible to describe adequately the manner in which the
character of Peter Blunt peeped out at one from every corner of his
home, nevertheless it did impress itself upon his every visitor. And
its peculiar quality affected all alike. There was a strangely gentle
strength about the man that had a way of silencing the most
boisterously inclined. He had a quiet humor, too, that was often far
too subtle for the cruder minds of Barnriff. But most of all his
sympathy was a thing that left no room for self in his thoughts. No
one attempted undue familiarity with him; not that he would have been
likely to actively resent it, but simply, in his presence nobody had
any inclination that way. Nobody could have been more a part of the
Barnriff community than Peter Blunt, and yet nobody could have been
more apart from it.
Peter did not even look up from his labors when his visitor flung
himself into the vacant chair. He silently went on with his
examination of first one fragment of quartz and then another. And the
man in the chair watched him with moody, introspective eyes. It was a
long time before either spoke, and when, at last, the silence was
broken, it was by Peter's deep mellow voice.
"I'm looking for gold in a heap of dirt, Jim," he said, without
lifting his eyes. "It's hard to find, there's such a pile of
the--dirt."
"Why don't you wash it?"
"Yes, I s'pose I ought to," Peter allowed.
Then he glanced over, and his mild eyes focused themselves on the
bottle protruding from Jim's pocket. For some moments he contemplated
it, and then he looked up into his friend's face.
"How's the 'AZ's'?" he inquired casually.
"Oh, all right."
"In for a--vacation?"
Jim stirred uneasily. There was a directness about the other's manner
that was disconcerting. He laughed mirthlessly, and shifted his
position so that his bottle of whiskey was concealed.
"No," he said. "I'm getting back--sometime to-night."
"Ah." Then Peter went on after a pause: "I'm glad things are going
well for you. Restless told me he'd got an order from you for some
buildings on your _own_ land."
Jim turned his eyes in the direction of the doorway and found them
gazing upon Eve Marsham's little home beyond it. As Peter offered no
further comment he was finally forced to reply.
"I've--I've just canceled that order."
"Eh?"
Jim turned on him irritably.
"Confound it, Peter, you heard what I said. I've canceled that order.
Do you get it now?"
The large man nodded. The brains behind his mild eyes were working
swiftly, shrewdly.
"Will's in town. Been in since yesterday morning," he said after a
while. "Seen him?"
Jim suddenly sprang from his seat, the moody fire of his dark eyes
blazing furiously.
"Seen him! Seen him!" he cried, with a sudden letting loose of all the
bitterness and smouldering passion which had been so long pent up.
"Seen him? I should say I have. I've seen him as he really is. I've
seen----"
He broke off and began to pace the room. Peter was still at the table.
His hands were still raking at the pile of dirt. His face was quite
unmoved at the other's evident passion; only his eyes displayed his
interest.
"God! but the thought of him sets me crazy," Jim went on furiously.
Then he paused, and stood confronting the other. "Peter, I came in
here without knowing why on earth I came. I came because something
forced me, I s'pose. Now I know what made me come. I've got to get it
off my chest, and you've got to listen to it."
Peter's smile was the gentlest thing imaginable.
"Guess that's easy," he said. "I knew there was something you'd got
that wasn't good for you to hold. Sort of fancied you'd like to get
rid of it--here."
The calm sincerity of the man was convincing. Jim felt its effect
without appreciation, for the hot blood of bitterness still drove him.
His wrongs were still heavy upon him, water-logging his better sense,
and leaving it rudderless.
He hesitated. It was not that he did not know how to begin. It was not
that he had any doubts in his mind. Just for a second he wondered at
the strange influence which was forcing his story from him. It puzzled
him--it almost angered him. And something of this anger appeared in
his manner and tone when he spoke.
"Will Henderson's a damned traitor," he finally burst out.
Peter nodded.
"We're all that," he said gently: "if it's only to ourselves."
"Oh, I don't want your moralizing," the other cried roughly. "Listen,
this is the low, mean story of it. You'll have little enough
moralizing to do when you've heard it."
Then he told Peter of their meeting the day before, and of the
friendly honesty of his purpose in the shooting match. How Will had
accepted, shot, and lost. This part he told with a grim setting of his
teeth, and it was not until he came to the story of the man's
treachery that his manner became intemperate. Then he spoke with all
the color of a strongly passionate temperament, when the heart is
stirred beyond all reason. And the giant listened to it, silent and
attentive. What thoughts the story inspired in the listener it would
have been impossible to say. His face was calm. There was no sign of
any enthralled attention. There was no light in his eyes beyond the
kindliness that ever seemed to shine there. And at its conclusion
Jim's underlying feeling, that almost subconscious thought which
hitherto had found expression only in bitter feeling and the uncertain
activities of his mind, broke out into raving.
"It's a curse that's on me, Peter!" he cried. "I tell you it's a
curse! I've never had a chance. Everything from the start has been
broken just when its completion was almost achieved. When I look
back I can see it written all along the path I've trodden, in the
ruins I've left behind me. Why, why, I ask, am I chosen for such
persecution? What have I done to deserve it? I've played the game.
I've worked. God knows how I've worked. And everything I've done has
come to nothing, and not because I've always made mistakes, or
committed foolishnesses. Every smash has been brought about by
influences that could not have been humanly foreseen. I'm cursed.
Cursed by an evil fate it is beyond my power to fight. God? It
almost makes one question. Is there a God? A good God who permits
such a fate to pursue a man? Is there an all-powerful God, ruling and
guiding every human action? Is there? Is there a God, a merciful,
loving God watching over us, such as kiddies are taught to believe
in? Is there?"
"Yes."
Peter's answer so readily, so firmly spoken was arresting.
"Yes, Jim. There's a God," he went on, without any display. "There's a
great big God--just such a God as you and I have knelt to when we were
bits of kiddies. Maybe He's so big that our poor, weak brains can't
understand Him. But He's there, right up above us, and for every poor
mean atom we call 'man' He's set out a trail to walk on. It's called
the One-way Trail. And the One-way Trail is just the trail of Life.
It's chock full of pitfalls and stumbling-blocks, that make us cuss
like mad. But it's good for us to walk over it. There are no turnings
or by-paths, and no turning back. And, maybe, when we get to the end
something will have been achieved in His scheme of things that our
silly brains can't grasp. Yes, there is a God, Jim, and you're just
hitting the trail He's set for you."
But Jim was in no reasonable mood.
"Then where's the cursed justice----" he began heatedly. But broke off
as the other shrugged his great shoulders.
He waited for Peter to speak. He waited, stirred to a mad contentiousness,
to tear his friend's arguments to ribbons, and fling their broken
remains back in his face. But no arguments were forthcoming. Peter
understood his temper, and saw the uselessness of argument. Besides,
he could smell the reek of whiskey.
He thought swiftly with all the wisdom of a great understanding and
experience. And finally his manner changed utterly. He suddenly became
cordially sympathetic with the other's angry mood. He even agreed with
him.
"Maybe you're right, though, Jim," he said. "Things have been mighty
hard for you. You've had a heap of trouble. I can't say I wonder at
you taking it bad, and thinking things. But--but what are you going to
do now? Buck the game afresh?"
Jim did not pause to think. He jumped speedily at the bait held out to
him so subtly.
"Yes," he cried, with a bitter laugh. "But it'll be a different game.
A game most folks out here sure know how to play. We're most of us
life's derelicts. I'll buck it, Peter, and set the devil dancing."
The other nodded.
"I know. I know. He's always ready to dance if we pay for the tune."
But Jim was lost in his own wild thoughts.
"Yes, and he's good company, too, Peter," he cried. "Devilish good."
He laughed at his own humor. "The harder you play the harder and more
merrily he'll dance. We've got one life. The trail's marked out for
us. And, by gum, we'll live while we can. Why should we sweat and
toil, and have it squeezed out of us whenever--they think fit? I'll
spend every dollar I make. I'll have all that life can give me. I'll
pick the fruit within my reach. I'll do as the devil, or my stomach,
guides me. I'll have my time----"
"And then?"
Jim sat down. He was smiling, but the smile was unreal.
"Then? Why, I'll go right down and out, and they can kick my carcase
out to the town 'dumps.'"
Peter nodded again.
"Let's begin now," he said, with staggering abruptness. And he pointed
at the bottle in Jim's pocket.
"Eh?" the other was startled.
"Let's begin now," Peter said, with his calm smile. "You're good
company, Jim. Where you go, I'll travel, too--if it's to hell."
The smile had vanished from Jim's eyes. For a moment he wondered
stupidly, and during that moment, as Peter's hand was outstretched for
the bottle, he passed it across to him.
The other took it, and looked at the label. It was a well-known
brand of rye whiskey. And as he looked he seemed to gather warmth
and enthusiasm. It was as though the sight of the whiskey were
irresistible to him.
"Rye," he cried. "The juice for oiling the devil's joints." And his
lips seemed to smack over the words.
Jim was watching. He didn't understand. Peter's offer to go with him
to hell was staggering, and---- But the other went on in his own mildly
enthusiastic way.
"We'll start right here. I'll get two glasses. We'll drink this up,
and then we'll get some more at the saloon, and--we'll paint the town
red." He rose and fetched two glasses from a cupboard and set them on
the table. Then he took his sheath knife from his belt, and, with a
skilful tap, knocked the neck off the bottle.
"No water," he said. "The stuff'll act quicker. We want it to get
right up into our heads quick. We want the mad whirl of the devil's
dance; we----"
"But why should you----!"
"Tut, man! Your gait's good enough for me. There's room for more fools
than one in hell. Here! Here's your medicine."
He rose and passed a glass across to Jim, while the other he held
aloft.
"Here, boy," he cried, smiling down into Jim's face "Here, I'll give
you a toast." The stormy light in the ranchman's eyes had died out,
and in them there lurked a question that had something like fear in
it. But his glass was not raised, and Peter urged him. "A toast, lad
huyk your glass right up, and we'll drink it standing."
Jim rose obediently but slowly to his feet, and his glass was lifted
half-heartedly. There was no responsive enthusiasm in him now; it had
gone utterly. Peter's voice suddenly filled the room with a mocking
laugh, and his toast rang out in tones of sarcasm the more biting for
their very mildness.
"The devil's abroad. Here's to the devil, because there's no God and
the devil reigns. Nothing we see in the world is the work of anybody
but the devil. The soil that yields us the good grain, the grass that
feeds our stock, the warm, beneficent sun that ripens all the world,
the beautiful flowers, the magnificent forests, the great hills, the
seas, the rivers, the rain; everything in life. All the beautiful
world, that thrills with a perfect life, that rolls its way through
æons of time held in space by a power that nothing can shake. All the
myriads of worlds and universes we see shining in the limitless
billions of miles of space at night, everything, everything. It is the
arch-fiend's work, for there is no God. Here's to the mad, red,
dancing devil, to whom we go!"
Jim's glass crashed to the floor. He seized the bottle of whiskey and
served that in the same way.
"Stop it, you mad fool!" he cried in horror. And Peter slowly put his
whiskey down untasted.
Then the dark, horror-stricken eyes looked into the smiling blue ones,
and in a flash to Jim's troubled mind came inspiration. There was a
long, long pause, during which eye met eye unflinchingly. Then Jim
reached out a hand.
"Thanks, Peter," he said.
Peter shook his grizzled head as he gripped the outstretched hand.
"I'm glad," he said with a quaint smile, "real glad you came
along--and stopped me drinking that toast. Going?"
Jim nodded. He, too, was smiling now, as he moved to the door.
"Well, I suppose you must," Peter went on. "I've got work, too." He
pointed at his pile of dirt on the table. "You see, there's gold in
all that muck, and--I've got to find it."