STORM GATHERING
It's a whole lot interesting to see how different sorts of people put up
a fight. Cat, she spits, and proceeds with claws; dog, he says no
remarks, but opens up with teeth; horse, he's mighty swift to paw; bull,
he hooks; bear, he hugs affectionate while he eats your face; Frenchman,
he pokes with a sword; German, he slashes; Spaniard, he throws his
knife; nigger, he barbers around with a razor: and all of us have the
same feelings to express in some heartfelt sudden way. If you're looking
for trouble with Mr. Cowboy, you want to tame yourself and get pretty
near absent before he shoots. But at present my mind is set on
Britishers, which is a complicated tribe, and they sure fight most
various.
When Mr. Britisher is merely feeling good and wants to loose out his joy
with a little wholesome scrap, he naturally hates to kill his man first
lick--that would spoil future sport. So if he's Irish he turns himself
loose with a club, or if he's Scotch or English he feels for the other
man with a hard paw. That relieves him, and does no harm. But sometimes
he feels real warlike. There's nobody special he wants to kill, his
small home tribe has nothing to spare for burial, and yet he must have
war. That's why his government keeps proper hunting preserves, well
stocked with assorted barbarians over seas. Some of these savages are
sure to be wanting a fight, so Mr. Britisher obliges, and comes along
hot with rifles and Maxim guns. Savages are plenty, so that if a few get
spoilt they'll never be missed. "It's good for them," says Mr.
Britisher, "and it saves the crockery from being smashed at home."
So you see how Mr. Britisher may have his peaceful scrapping with
another boy, or go play with his savages when they want a licking; but
he's serious none--just laughs and shakes hands afterwards. But what
does he do when he feels real awful and dangerous? Civilised folk like
us Americans, feeling as bad as that, turn loose the guns, and wipe each
other out to a finish. Other people may prefer swords or battering-rams,
or a tilt with locomotive engines, or cannon loaded with buffalo horns,
or dynamite at ten paces; but all that would feel too tame for Mr.
Britisher. No, he puts on his war paint--black suit and top hat most
hideous--calls on his lawyer in a frantic passion, and goes to law!
Now look, see how these two families, the du Chesnays and the Ryans,
went to law. They came of the best fighting-stock on earth; they were
whole-blooded Irish, but they went to law. The du Chesnays turned the
Ryans out of their home and country, which was bad. Then the Ryans did
worse: lay low and waited bitter years, gathered their strength, and
struck from behind--the cowards! Old Ryan got his enemy corrupted with
drink and gambling, stole all his cattle, left him helpless to fight,
then seized the home to try and turn a dying lady into the desert. He
kept within the law, but there was not an honest card in his whole game.
It was foul play, and I for one don't blame poor Jim for wanting no more
law in the fight with Ryan.
And yet I reckon that after the first fifty miles of his trail that day
Jim's main thoughts were about the dinner he didn't have, and by sundown
he quit caring who was dead and who was ruined, as he racked on, with
aching bones and a played horse. It was nigh dark when he raised the
Toughnut Mine at Grave City against the red of dusk. Around him lay the
rolling yellow swell of the hot grass, clumps of scorched cactus,
blistered hills of rock; before him the mine-heads and the roofs with
sparkling streaks of blue electric lamps. He jockeyed his worn horse
past the Jim Crow Mine, and the house where my cousins lived, the Misses
Jameson, then on through scattered suburbs, till swinging round the
corner into the main street he rolled at a canter for the stable-yard.
Abreast of the Sepulchre saloon he heard his name called, and reined up
sharp to speak with the small stable-boy from Ryan's "livery," who came
limping out to meet him through the dust.
"Say, kid"--he leaned over in the saddle, well-nigh falling--"where
shall I find the Duke?"
The little one-eyed cripple jerked his thumb back at the Sepulchre
saloon. "The Dook's in thar," he answered.
Jim rolled from the saddle, dropped his rein to the ground, quit his
horse, brushed past the cripple, and went on without a word. He was so
stiff he could hardly walk, so dead weary that he reeled against the
swing-doors trying to get them open. The cripple helped him, and he
staggered in. The place was crowded, but the clash of his spurs along
the floor made several punchers turn round lazy, asking him to drink,
because he belonged to their tribe. Two of the cowboys grabbed him, but
he broke away, and went on.
Beyond the bar on the right were the gambling-tables, each with its
crowd of players, and at the third Jim saw Louisiana on a high seat
watching for Low-Lived Joe, his partner, who dealt the game. Opposite
them he found his father, then pushed his way through the crowd to
Balshannon's side. The ivory chips were piled breast high in front of
him, for play had been high, and the Dook had had a run of luck.
The boy watched his father's face flushed high with excitement, his
feverish eyes, his twitching lips, and restless fingers at play with the
round ivory counters which stood for five thousand dollars won since
supper-time. Opposite he looked up at Louisiana on the high seat, all
bald-faced shirt and diamonds, guarding his stacks of gold coin with a
revolver. Low-Lived Joe faced up a card on the deck, and passed some
chips to Balshannon. The rest of the players had quit to watch the big
game through.
"Father, I want you," says he.
"Well, Jim," says Balshannon, "what's the trouble?" He never looked up.
But the boy was shaking all over. "Father, come, I want you."
The Dook staked, then rolled a cigarette. "Don't bother me, Jim," says
he, "you'll spoil the run. We can't do anything, boy, for we've lost
those cattle."
"Ryan has seized the ranche, the sheriff's there! Come out!"
Balshannon quivered, but Joe shoved him a pile of blue chips.
"So Santa Cruz is gone?" Balshannon drawled, and doubled his stake.
"Well, how's your mother?"
"Dead!"
Balshannon went grey, the cigarette dropped from his fingers. "Dead,"
he muttered, "dead." Then he looked up with a sort of queer smile.
"Anything else?" he asked quite cheerfully.
"Say, Dook," said Louisiana, "I'd hate to see you struck from not
watching yo' game."
"Thanks, Pete." Balshannon staked out the whole of his winnings, then
picked up the cigarette, struck a match, and lighted it slowly.
"Come home!" the boy was whispering. "Come home!"
Jim saw the tears rolling down his father's face, and splashing on the
chips. "What's the use, my boy?" he said very softly. "Would that bring
your mother back?"
"Come home! Come home!"
"I'm winning back our home!"
Then Low-Lived Joe drew a card, and as the boy went staggering away a
great yell went up. Balshannon was winning back his home.
Jim says he felt sick when he quit his father, cold down the back, and
the floor was all aslant and spinning round. Then everything went black,
and he dropped.
When he woke up he felt much better, lying flat on the floor with iced
water trickling over his face. That little one-eyed cripple was feeding
brandy to him.
"Here's luck!" he gulped, "that's all right--where's my hat?"
"Come out," says little Crook, "you need fresh air."
Jim got up, and wriggled loose, because he hated being pawed, then led
the way out past the three fiddlers and the wheezing old harmonium to
the door. Outside there was clear blue moonlight. "Where's my horse?"
says he.
Crook was lighting a cigarette. "Yo' hawss," says he, "is in the stable.
He's unsaddled, rubbed down, watered and fed, befo' now. I reckon you
want to be watered and fed yo'self."
"No, kid, I'm not feeling proud enough for that."
"Come on, then," says Crook, "and watch me eat. I'm just a lil' wolf
inside, and if I cayn't feed I'll howl."
They went to the pie foundry round the corner, and when Jim saw Crook
eat he surely got ravenous. They both fed tree and severe, then strayed
back heavy to the street in front of the Sepulchre saloon.
"Sit on yo' tail," says Crook, "and I'll feed you a cigarette." So they
sat down on the sidewalk, and Jim yawned two yards and a quarter at one
stretch.
"I cal'late," says Crook, "that yo' goin' to be riding to-night, so I
had yo' saddle thrown on my buckskin mare."
"I'll be riding my bed on the sleep-trail."
"Riding a hawss, I reckon"--Crook bent forward, pulling up his boot legs
by the tags--"and me too and the Dook. Our hawsses are waiting for us
at the back door of this saloon. You understand?"
"I don't," says Jim. "Do you know, youngster, that only this morning I
buried my mother, then I rode a hundred miles, and if Arizona freezes
over to-night we'll go skating for all I care."
"Say, if the Dook gets shot up to-night will you be a lord?"
Jim laughed sort of patronising because he liked the youngster's cheek.
"My father isn't pining for any such thing to-night."
"But suppose he went daid, would you be a lord?"
"I'd be Jim du Chesnay, riding for whatever wages I'm worth. A lord!
what's the use of that?"
"But it must be fine!"
"It may be good enough for my father, but he's Irish, and he doesn't
know any better. I'm an American."
"But still you'd be a lord."
"Would my lordship keep my pony from stumbling in front of a stampede of
cattle? Would it save my scalp from Apaches, or help my little calves
when the mountain lions want meat? Does my blood protect me from
rattlesnakes, or Ryans, or skunks?"
"But there's the big land grant yo' people owns over in Ireland."
"It's tied up with entail, whatever that means, and there's no money in
it, anyway. My tail in the old country doesn't save me from being galled
in the saddle here, and I'm awfully tired."
"Same here, seh. I'm weary some myself. Yo' gun is loaded?"
Jim pawed his revolver. "Yes."
"Take some more," said Crook, and passed over a handful of cartridges to
fill Jim's belt. Jim saw that the cripple was armed.
"Why do you talk," says he, "about horses waiting for us, and the need
of guns, and father getting killed? What's the trouble, my lad?"
"The trouble is that Ryan has hired that gambling outfit to skin the
Dook to-night. There's men standing round to see he don't leave that
house alive. Now, look along the street here to the left, across at the
Mortuary Hotel. You see old Ryan settin' there?"
"I do."
"He's waiting for his son, the millionaire, young Michael. He's due with
his private cyar at ten o'clock. If Michael comes--if he comes, I
say--his father reckons to bring him over to call on yo' father here at
the 'Sepulchre.' That's why the Dook is bein' skinned, and that's why
Ryan's men are watching to see he don't escape alive."
"But what does Ryan want? He's got our breeding cattle, he's taken
Holy Cross, my mother's gone--we've nothing left to take."
"You have yo' lives, you and the Dook. Ryan and his outfit allow they'll
wipe you out when Michael comes."
"Is that all?" Jim laughed. "They're thoughtful and painstaking, anyway.
By the way, I don't know that my father and I have been shrieking for
help as yet."
"If you were the kind of people to make a big song when yo're hurt, I
reckon that we-all would jest leave you squeal."
"And who is we-all? You've acted like a white man to-night, looking
after my poor roan and me like a little brother. But why should you
care, young chap? I've never seen you before in my life; I don't even
know your name."
"My name is Crook; I works at the stable."
"But why should you interfere? You may get hurt. I wouldn't like that,
youngster."
"Wall, partner"--Crook shuffled a whole lot nervous--"I got a message
for you from the boys. The Dook's had nothing but greasers working for
him, and that's rough on us white men, but still he's surely good. He's
dead straight, he don't wear no frills, and many a po' puncher, broke,
hungry, half daid of thirst, has been treated like a son at Holy Crawss.
We don't amount to much--'cept when you want an enemy or a friend--but
our tribe is right into this fight a whole heap, for them Ryans is
dirt; and if they comes up agin you to-night I expaict there'll be
gun-play first."
"Well, kid," said Jim, yawning with a big mouth, "I wish they'd put it
off until to-morrow."
"Yo' eyes is like boiled aigs. Try a cigarette to keep you awake."
"Can't we get my father away from this house?"
"Not till the train comes in."
"What's that got to do with me?"
"Ask no more questions--wait."
"You say that Michael Ryan's due at ten?"
"If they lets him come."
"Suppose he comes?"
"Then nothing can save yo' father, nothing on airth."
As he spoke the sharp screech of the engine rang out from behind the
curve, and with all its lights aflash the train rolled in.