FIRST BLOOD
Judge Thayer had completed the round of Ascalon's business section with
the town's new peace officer, introducing him in due form. They stood
now in front of the hotel, the plank awning of which extended over the
sidewalk breaking the sun, Judge Thayer about to go his way.
"We've got to change this condition of things, Seth," he said, sweeping
his hand around the quiet square, where nothing seemed awake but a few
loafers along the shady fronts: "we've got to make it a day town instead
of a night roost for the buzzards that wake up after sundown."
Seth did not answer. He stood turning his red eyes up and down the
street, as if calculating distances and advantages for future
emergencies. And as he looked there came driving into the somnolent
square two men on a wagonload of bones.
"Old Joe Lynch; he's loadin' another car of bones," Judge Thayer said.
"He used to pick up meat for me," said Seth in his sententious way,
neither surprised nor pleased on finding this associate of his
adventurous days here in this place of his new beginning.
Joe Lynch drove across the farther side of the square, a block away from
the two officials of Ascalon. There he stopped only long enough to allow
his passenger to alight, and continued on to the railroad siding where
his car stood.
Judge Thayer lingered under the hotel awning, where the breeze struck
refreshingly, perhaps making a pretense of being cooled that was greater
than his necessity, curious to see who it was Lynch had brought to town
on his melancholy load. The passenger, carrying his flat bag, came on
toward the hotel.
"He's a stranger to me," said the judge. His interest ending there, he
went his way to take up again the preparation of his case in defense of
the cattle thief whom he knew to be a thief, and nothing but a thief.
Seth Craddock, the new marshal, glanced sharply at the stranger as he
approached the hotel. It was nothing more severe than Seth's ordinary
scrutiny, but it appeared to the traveler to be at once hostile and
inhospitable, the look of a man who sneered out of his heart and carried
a challenge in his eyes. The stranger made the mental observation that
this citizen was a sour-looking customer, who apparently resented the
coming of one more to the mills of Ascalon's obscene gods.
There was a cluster of flies on the open page of the hotel register,
where somebody had put down a sticky piece of chocolate candy and left
it. This choice confection covered three or four lines immediately below
the last arrival's name, its little trickling rivulets, which the flies
were licking up, spreading like a spider's legs. There was nobody in the
office to receive the traveler's application for quarters, but evidence
of somebody in the remote parts of the house, whence came the sound of a
voice more penetrating than musical, raised in song.
With her apurn pinned round her,
He took her for a swan,
But oh and a-las, it was poor Pol-ly Bawn.
So she sang, the words of the ancient ballad cutting through the
partition like a saw. There was a nasal quality in them, as if the
singer were moved to tears by the pathos of Poor Polly's end. The
traveler laid a finger on the little bell that stood on the cigar case,
sending his alarm through the house.
The song ceased, the blue door with DINING-ROOM in pink across its
panels, shut against the flies, opened with sudden jerk, as if by a
petulant hand. There appeared one who might have been Polly Bawn
herself, taken by the white apron that shrouded her figure from
shoulders to floor. She stood a moment in the door, seeing that it was a
stranger, half closing that gay portal to step behind it and give her
hair that swift little adjustment which, with women the world over, is
the most essential part of the toilet. She appeared smiling then,
somewhat abashed and coy, a fair short girl with a nice figure and
pretty, sophisticated face, auburn curls dangling long at her ears, a
precise row of bangs coming down to her eyebrows. She was a pink and
white little lady, quick on foot, quicker of the blue eyes which
measured the waiting guest from dusty feet to dusty hat in the glance
that flashed over him in business-like brevity.
"Was you wishin' a room?" she inquired.
"If you can accommodate me."
"Register," she said, in voice of command, whirling the book about. At
the same time she discovered the forgotten confection, which she removed
to the top of the cigar case with an annoyed ejaculation under her
breath that sounded rather strong. She applied her apron to the page,
not helping it much, spreading the brown paste rather than removing it.
"You'll have to skip three or four lines, mister, unless you've got a
'delible pencil."
"No, I haven't. I'll write down here where it's dry."
And there the traveler wrote, the girl looking on sharply, spelling the
letters with silently moving lips as the pen trailed them:
Calvin Morgan, Des Moines, Ia.
"In and out, or regular?" the girl asked, twisting the book around to
verify the upside-down spelling of his name.
"I expect it will be only for a few days," Morgan replied, smiling a
little at the pert sufficiency of the clerk.
"It's a dollar a day for board and room--in advance in this man's town."
"Why in this man's town, any more than any other man's town?" the guest
inquired, amused.
"What would you think of a man that would run up a three weeks' bill and
then walk out there and let somebody put a bullet through him?" she
returned by way of answer.
"I think it would be a mean way to beat a board bill," he told her,
seriously. "Do they do that right along here?"
"One smarty from Texas done it three or four months ago. Since then it's
cash in advance."
Morgan thought it was a very wise regulation for a town where perils
were said to be so thick, all in keeping with the notoriety of Ascalon.
He made inquiry about something to eat. The girl's face set in
disfavoring cast as she tossed her head haughtily.
"Dinner's over long ago," she said.
Morgan made amends for this unwitting breach of the rules, wondering
what there was in the air of Ascalon that made people combative. Even
this fresh-faced girl, not twenty, he was sure, was resentful, snappish
without cause, inclined to quarrel if a word got crosswise in a man's
mouth. As he turned these things in mind, casting about for some place
to stow his bag, the girl smiled across at him, the mockery going out of
her bright eyes. Perhaps it was because she felt that she had defended
the ancient right of hostelers to rise in dignified front when a
traveler spoke of a meal out of the regular hour, perhaps because there
was a gentleness and sincerity in the tall, honest-looking man before
her that reached her with an appeal lacking in those who commonly came
and went before her counter.
"Put your grip over there," she nodded, "and I'll see what I can find.
If you don't mind a snack--" she hesitated.
"Anything--a slab of cold meat and a cup of coffee."
"I'll call you," she said, starting for the blue door.
The girl had reached the dining-room door when there entered from the
street a man, lurching when he walked as if the earth tipped under him
like the deck of a ship. He was a young and slender man, dressed rather
loudly in black sateen shirt and scarlet necktie, with broad blue,
tassel-ornamented sleeve holders about his arms. He wore neither coat
nor vest, but was belted with a pistol and booted and spurred, his
calling of cowboy impressed in every line.
The girl paused, hand on the door, waiting to see what he wanted, and
turned back when he rested his arms on the cigar case, clicking the
glass with a coin. While she was making change for him, the cowboy stood
with his newly bought cigar in his mouth, scanning the register. He
seemed sober enough when standing still, save for the vacant,
liquor-dead look of his eyes.
"Who wrote that?" he asked, pointing to Morgan's name.
"That gentleman," the girl replied, placing his change before him.
The cowboy picked up his money with numb fingers, fumbled to put it in
his pocket, dropping it on the floor. He kicked at it with a curse and
let it lie, scowling meantime at Morgan with angry eyes.
"Too good to write your name next to mine, are you?" he sneered. "Afraid
it'd touch your fancy little handwritin', was you?"
"I didn't know it was your name, pardner," Morgan returned, conciliating
him as he would an irresponsible child. "Why, I'd walk a mile to write
my name next to yours any day. There was something on the book----"
"You spit on it! You spit on my name!" the foolish fellow charged,
laying hand to his pistol. "A man that's too good to write his name next
to mine's too good to stay in the same house with me. You'll hit the
breeze out of here, pardner, or you'll swaller lead!"
The girl came swiftly from behind the counter, and ran lightly to the
door. Morgan put up his hand to silence the young man, knowing well that
he could catch his slow arm before he could drag his gun two inches from
the holster.
"Keep your gun where it is, old feller," he suggested, rather than
warned, in good-natured tone. "I didn't mean any insult, but I'll take
my hat off and apologize to you if you want me to. There was a piece of
candy on the book right----"
"I'll put a piece of hot iron in your guts!" the cowboy threatened. He
leaned over the register, hand still on his pistol, and tore out the
offending page, crumpling it into a ball. "You'll eat this, then you'll
hit the road back where you come from!"
The girl was beckoning to somebody from the door. Morgan was more
annoyed and shamed by his part in this foolish scene than he was
disturbed by any feeling of danger. He stood watching the young man's
shooting arm. There was not more than five feet between them; a step, a
sharp clip on the jaw, and the young fool would be helpless. Morgan was
setting himself to act, for the cowboy, whose face was warrant that he
was a simple, harmless fellow when sober, was dragging on his gun, when
one came hastening in past the girl.
This was a no less important person than the new city marshal, whom
Morgan had seen without knowing his official standing, as he arrived at
the hotel.
"This man's raisin' a fuss here--he's tore the register--look what he's
done--tore the register!" the indignant girl charged.
"You're arrested," said the marshal. "Come on."
The cowboy stood mouthing his cigar, a weak look of scorn and derision
in his flushed face. His right hand was still on his pistol, the wadded
page of the register in the other.
"You'd better take his gun," Morgan suggested to the marshal, "he's so
drunk he might hurt himself with it."
Seth Craddock fixed Morgan a moment with his sullen red eyes, in which
the sneer of his heart seemed to speak. But his lips added nothing to
the insult of that disdainful look. He jerked his head toward the door
in command to his prisoner to march.
"Come out! I'll fight both of you!" the cowboy challenged, making for
the door. He was squarely in it, one foot lifted in his drunken
balancing to step down, when Seth Craddock jerked out his pistol between
the lifting and the falling of that unsteady foot, and shot the
retreating man in the back. The cowboy pitched forward into the street,
where he lay stretched and motionless, one spurred foot still in the
door.
Morgan sprang forward with an exclamation of shocked protest at this
unjustified slaughter, while the girl, her blue eyes wide in horror,
shrunk against the counter, hands pressed to her cheeks, a cry of
outraged pity ringing from her lips.
"Resist an officer, will you?" said the city marshal, as he strode
forward and looked down on the first victim in Ascalon of the woeful
harvest his pistol was to reap. So saying, as if publishing his
justification, he sheathed his weapon and walked out, as little moved as
if he had shot the bottom out of a tomato can in practice among friends.
A woman came hastening from the back of the house with dough on her
hands, a worn-faced woman, whose eyes were harried and afraid as if they
had looked on violence until horror had set its seal upon them. She
exclaimed and questioned, panting, frantic, holding her dough-clogged
fingers wide as she bent to look at the slain man in her door.
"It was the new marshal Judge Thayer was in here with just after
dinner," the girl explained, the pink gone out of her pretty face, the
reflection of her mother's horror in her eyes.
"My God!" said the woman, clutching her breast, looking with a wilder
terror into Morgan's face.
"Oh, I wish they'd take him away! I wish they'd take him away!" the girl
moaned, cringing against the counter, covering her face with her hands.
Outside a crowd collected around the fallen man, for common as death by
violence was in the streets of Ascalon, the awe of its swift descent,
the hushing mystery of its silence, fell as coldly over the hearts of
men there as in the walks of peace. Presently the busy undertaker came
with his black wagon to gather up this broken shape of what had been a
man but a few minutes past.
The marshal did not trouble himself in the case further. Up the street
Morgan saw him sauntering along, unmoved and unconcerned, from all
outward show, as if this might have been just one incidental task in a
busy day. Resentment rose in Morgan as he watched the undertaker and his
helper load the body into the wagon with unfeeling roughness; as he saw
the marshal go into a saloon with a crowd of noisy fellows from the
stock pens who appeared to be applauding his deed.
This appeared to Morgan simply murder in the name of the law. That
bragging, simple, whisky-numbed cowboy could not have hurt a cat. All
desire for dinner was gone out of Morgan's stomach, all thought of
preparing it from the girl's mind. She stood in the door with her
mother, watching the black wagon away with this latest victim to be
crushed in Ascalon's infernal mill, twisting her fingers in her apron,
her face as white as the flour on her mother's hands. The undertaker's
man came hurrying back with a bucket of water and broom. The women
turned away out of the door then, while he briskly went to work washing
up the dark little puddle that spread on the boards of the sidewalk.
"Dora, where's your pa?" the elder woman asked, stopping suddenly as she
crossed the room, her face drawn in a quick stroke of fear, her hands
lifted to ease the smothering in her breast again.
"I don't know, Ma. He ain't been around since dinner."
The woman went to the door again, to lean and peer up and down the
street with that great anxiety and trouble in her face that made it old,
and distorted the faint trace of lingering prettiness out of it as if
it had been covered with ashes.
"He's comin'," she said presently, in voice of immeasurable relief. She
turned away from the door without allowing her glance to fall directly
on the wet spot left by the undertaker's man.
Mother and daughter talked together in low words, only a few of which
now and then reached Morgan as he stood near the counter where the
mutilated register lay, turning this melancholy event in his thoughts.
He recovered the torn crumpled page from the floor, smoothed and
replaced it in the book. A man came in, the woman turning with a quick
glad lighting of the face to meet him.
"O Tommy! I was worried to death!" she said.
Tom Conboy, proprietor of the Elkhorn, as the hotel was called, grunted
in discount of this anxiety as he turned his shifty eyes to the
stranger, flicking them on and off like a fly. He saw the coins dropped
by the cowboy, picked them up, put them in his pocket, face red from
what evidently was unaccustomed effort as he straightened his back.
"You seem to be gettin' mighty flush with money around this joint," he
said, severe censure in his tone.
"He dropped it--the man the marshal shot dropped it--it was his," the
girl explained. "I wouldn't touch it!" she shuddered, "not for anything
in the world!"
"Huh!" said Conboy, easily, entirely undisturbed by the dead man's money
in his pocket.
"My God! I wish he hadn't done it here!" the woman moaned.
"I didn't think he'd shoot him or I wouldn't 'a' called him," the girl
pleaded, pity for the deed in her shocked voice. "He didn't need to do
it--he didn't have to do it, at all!"
"Sh-h-h! No niggers in Ireland, now--no-o-o niggers in Ireland!"
Conboy shook his head at her as he spoke, pronouncing this rather
amazing and altogether irrelevant declaration with the utmost gravity,
an admonitory, cautioning inflection in his naturally grave and resonant
voice. The girl said no more on the needless sacrifice of the young
man's life.
"I was goin' to get this gentleman some dinner," she said.
"You'd better go on and do it, then," her father directed, gently enough
for a man of his stamp, rather surprisingly gentle, indeed, Morgan
thought.
Tom Conboy was a short-statured man, slight; his carefully trimmed gray
beard lending a look of serious wisdom to his face which the shiftiness
of his insincere eyes at once seemed to controvert. He wore neither coat
nor vest, but a white shirt with broad starched bosom, a large gold
button in its collarless neckband. A diamond stud flashed in the middle
of his bosom; red elastic bands an inch broad, with silver buckles, held
up the slack of the sleeves which otherwise would have enveloped his
hands.
"Are you goin' to stay in the office a while now, Tommy, and look after
things while Dora and I do the work?" the woman asked.
"I've got to get the jury together for the inquest," Conboy returned,
with the briskness of a man of importance.
"Will I be wanted to give my testimony at the inquest, do you suppose?"
Morgan inquired. "I was here when it happened; I saw the whole thing."
He spoke in the hope that he might be given the opportunity of relieving
the indignation, so strong in him that it was almost oppressive, before
the coroner's jury. Tom Conboy shook his head.
"No, the marshal's testimony is all we'll need," Conboy replied.
"Resistin' arrest and tryin' to escape after arrest. That's all there
was to it. These fellers'll have to learn better than that with this new
man. I know him of old--he's a man that always brings in the meat."
"But he didn't try to escape," Morgan protested. "He was so drunk he
didn't know whether he was coming or going."
Conboy looked at him disfavoringly, as if to warn him to be discreet in
matters of such remote concern to him as this.
"Tut, tut! no niggers in Ireland," said he, shaking his head with an
expression between a caution and a threat.