Chapter II
"Cold feet?"
"Horrible!" said Anastacio.
Matthew Lisner, sheriff of Dona Ana, bent a hard eye on his subordinate.
"It's got to be done," he urged. "To elect our ticket we must have all the respectable and responsible people of the valley. If we can provoke Foy into an outbreak——"
"Not we—you," corrected Anastacio. "Myself, I do not feel provoking."
"Are you going to lay down on me?"
"If you care to put it that way—yes. Kit Foy is just the man to leave alone."
"Now, listen!" said the sheriff impatiently. "Half the valley is owned by newcomers, men of substance, who, with the votes they influence or control, will decide the election. Foy is half a hero with them, because of these vague old stories. But let him be stirred up to violence now and you'll see! They won't see any romance in it—just an open outrage; they will flock to us to the last man. Ours is the party of law and order—"
"Law to order, some say."
The veins swelled in the sheriff's heavy face and thick neck; he regarded his deputy darkly.
"That comes well from you, Barela! Don't you see, with the law on our side all these men of substance will be with us unconditionally? I tell you, Christopher Foy is the brains of his party. Once he is discredited—"
"And I tell you that I am the brains of your party and I'll have nothing to do with your fine plan. 'Tis an old stratagem to call oppression, law, and resistance to oppression, lawlessness. You tried just that in ninety-six, didn't you? And I never could hear that our side had any the best of it or that the good name of Dona Ana was in any way bettered by our wars. Come, Mr. Lisner—the Kingdom of Lady Ann has been quiet now for nearly eight years. Let us leave it so. For myself, the last row brought me reputation and place, made me chief deputy under two sheriffs—so I need have the less hesitation in setting forth my passionate preference for peace."
"You have as much to gain as I have," growled the sheriff. "Besides your own cinch, you have one of your gente for deputy in every precinct in the county."
"Exactly! And if we have wars again, who but the Barelas would bear the brunt? No, no, Mr. Matt Lisner; while I may be a merely ornamental chief deputy, it will never be denied that I am a very careful chief to my gente. Be sure that I shall think more than once or twice before I set a man of my men at a useless hazard to pleasure you—or to reëlect you."
"You speak plainly."
"I intend to. I speak for three hundred—and we vote solid. Make no mistake, Mr. Lisner. You need me in your business, but I can do nicely without you."
"Perhaps you'd like to be sheriff yourself."
"I might like it—except that I am not as young and foolish as I was," said Anastacio, smiling. "Now that I am so old, and so wise and all, it is clear to see that neither myself nor any of the fighting men of the mad old days—on either side—should be sheriff."
"You were not always so thoughtful of the best interests of the dear pee-pul," sneered the sheriff.
"That I wasn't. I was as silly and hot-brained a fool as either side could boast. But you, Sheriff, are neither silly nor hot-headed. In cold blood you are planning that men shall die; that other men shall rot in prison. Why? For hate and revenge? Not even that. Oh, a little spice of revenge, perhaps; Foy and his friends made you something of a laughing stock. But your main motive is—money. And I don't see why. You've got all the money any one man needs now."
"I notice you get your share."
"I hope so. But, even as a money-making proposition, your troubled-voters policy is a mistake. All the mountain men want is to be let alone, and you might be sheriff for life for all they care. But you fan up every little bicker into a lawsuit—don't I know? Just for the mileage—ten cents a mile each way in a county that's jam full of miles from one edge to the other; ten cents a mile each way for each and every arrest and subpoena. You drag them to court twice a year—the farmer at seed time and harvest, the cowman from the spring and fall round-ups. It hurts, it cripples them, they ride thirty miles to vote against you; it costs you all the extra mileage money to offset their votes. As a final folly, you purpose deliberately to stir up the old factions. What was it Napoleon said? 'It is worse than a crime: it is a blunder.' I'll tell you now, not a Barela nor an Ascarate shall stir a foot in such a quarrel. If you want to bait Kit Foy, do it yourself—or set your city police on him."
"I will."
A faint tinge of color came to the clear olive of Anastacio's cheek as he rose.
"But don't promise my place to any of them, sheriff. I might hear of it."
"Stranger," said Ben Creagan, "you can't play pool! I can't—and I beat you four straight games. You better toddle your little trotters off to bed." The words alone might have been mere playfulness; glance and tone made plain the purposed offense.
The after-supper crowd in the hotel barroom had suddenly slipped away, leaving Max Barkeep, three others, and John Wesley Pringle—the last not unnoting of nudge and whisper attending the exodus. Since that, Pringle had suffered, unprotesting, more gratuitous insults than he had met in all the rest of his stormy years. His curiosity was aroused; he played the stupid, unseeing, patient, and timid person he was so eminently not. Plainly these people desired his absence; and Pringle highly resolved to know why. He now blinked mildly.
"But I'm not sleepy a-tall," he objected.
He tried and missed an easy shot; he chalked his cue with assiduous care.
"Here, you! Quit knockin' those balls round!" bawled Max, the bartender. "What you think this is—a kindergarten?"
"Why, I paid for all the games I lost, didn't I?" asked Pringle, much abashed.
He mopped his face. It was warm, though the windows and doors were open.
"Well, nobody's going to play any more with you," snapped Max. "You bore 'em."
He pyramided the balls and covered the table. With a sad and lingering backward look Pringle slouched abjectly through the wide-arched doorway to the bar.
"Come on, fellers—have something."
"Naw!" snarled José Espalin. "I'm a-tryin' to theenk. Shut up, won't you?"
Pringle sighed patiently at the rebuff and stole a timid glance at the thinker. Espalin was a lean little, dried-up manikin, with legs, arms, and mustaches disproportionately long for his dwarfish body. His black, wiry hair hung in ragged witchlocks; his black pin-point eyes were glittering, cold, and venomous. He looked, thought Pringle, very much like a spider.
"I'm steerin' you right, old man," said Creagan. "You'd better drag it for bed."
"I ain't sleepy, I tell you."
Espalin leaped up, snarling.
"Say! You lukeing for troubles, maybe? Bell, I theenk thees hombre got a gun. Shall we freesk him?"
As he flung the query over his shoulder his beady little eyes did not leave Pringle's.
Bell Applegate got leisurely to his feet—a tall man, well set up, with a smooth-shaved, florid face and red hair.
"If he has we'll jack him in the jug." He threw back the lapel of his coat, displaying a silver star.
"But I ain't got no gun," protested John Wesley meekly. "You-all can see for yourself."
"We will—don't worry! Don't you make one wrong move or I'll put out your light!"
"Be you the sheriff?"
"Police. Go to him, Ben!"
"No gun," reported Ben after a swift search of the shrinking captive.
"I done told you so, didn't I?"
"Mighty good thing for you, old rooster. Gun-toting is strictly barred in Las Uvas. You got to take your gun off fifteen minutes after you get in from the road and you can't put it on till fifteen minutes before you take the road again."
"Is that—er—police regulations or state law?"
"State law—and has been any time these twenty-five years. Say, you doddering old fool, what do you think this is—a night school?"
"I—I guess I'll go to bed," said Pringle miserably.
"I—I guess if you come back I'll throw you out," mimicked Ben with a guffaw.
Pringle made no answer. He shuffled into the hall and up the stairway to his bedroom. He unlocked the door noisily; he opened it noisily; he took his sixshooter and belt from the wall quietly and closed the door, noisily again; he locked it—from the outside. Then he did a curious thing; he sat down very gently and removed his boots.
* * * * *
The four in the barroom listened, grinning. When they heard Pringle's door slam shut Bell Applegate nodded and Creagan went out on the street. Behind him, at a table near the pool-room door, the law planned ways and means in a slinking undertone. "You keep in the background, Joe. Let us do the talking. Foy just naturally despises you—we might not get him to stay the fifteen minutes out. You stay back there. Remember now, don't shoot till Ben lets him get his arm loose. Sabe?"
"Maybe Meester Ben don't find heem."
"Oh, yes, he will. Ditch meeting to-night. Ought to be out about now. Setting the time to use the water and assessing fatiga work. Every last man with a water right will be there, sure, and Foy's got a dozen. Max, you are to be a witness, remember, and you mustn't be mixed up in it. Got your story straight?"
"Foy he comes in and makes a war-talk about Dick Marr," recited Max. "After we powwow awhile you see his gun. You tell him he's under arrest for carryin' concealed weapons. You and Ben grabbed his arm; he jerked loose and went after his gun. And then Joe shot him."
"That's it. We'll all stick to that. S-st! Here they come!"
There are men whose faces stand out in a crowd, men you turn to look after on the street. Such—quite apart from his sprightly past—was Christopher Foy, who now entered with Creagan. He was about thirty, above middle height, every mold and line of him slender and fine and strong. His face was resolute, vivacious, intelligent; his eyes were large and brown, pleasant and fearless. A wide black hat, pushed back now, showed a broad forehead white against crisp coal-black hair and the pleasant tan of neck and cheek. But it was not his dark, forceful face alone that lent him such distinction. Rather it was the perfect poise and balance of the man, the ease and unconscious grace of every swift and sure motion. He wore a working garb now—blue overalls and a blue rowdy. But he wore them with an air that made him well dressed.
Foy paused for a second; Applegate rose.
"Well, Chris!" he laughed. "There has been a time when you might not have fancied this particular bunch—hey? All over now, please the pigs. Come in and give it a name. Beer for mine."
"I'll smoke," said Foy.
"Me too," said Espalin.
He lit a cigar and returned to his chair. Ben Creagan passed behind the bar and handed over a sixshooter and a cartridge belt.
"Here, Chris—here's the gun I borrowed of you when I broke mine. Much obliged."
Foy twirled the cylinder to make sure the hammer was on an empty chamber and buckled the belt under his rowdy.
"My hardware is mostly plows and scrappers and irrigating hoes nowadays," he remarked. "Good thing too."
"All the same, Foy, I'd keep a gun with me if I were you. Dick Marr is drinking again—and when he soaks it up he gets discontented over old times, you know." Applegate lowered his voice, with a significant glance at Espalin. "He threatened your life to-day. I thought you ought to know it."
Foy considered his cigar.
"That's awkward," he replied briefly.
"Chris," said Ben, "this isn't the first time. Dick's heart is bad to you. I'm sorry. He was my friend and you were not. But you're not looking for any trouble now. Dick is. And I'm afraid he'll keep on till he gets it. Me and the sheriff we managed to get him off to bed, but he says he's going to shoot you on sight—and I believe he means it. You ought to have him bound over to keep the peace."
Foy smiled and shook his head.
"I can't do that—and it would only make him madder than ever. But
I'll get out of his way and keep out of his way. I'll go up to the
Jornado to-night and stay with the Bar Cross boys awhile. He won't
come up there."
"You'll enjoy having people tellin' how you run away to keep from meeting Dick Marr?" said Applegate incredulously.
"Why shouldn't they say it? It will be exactly true," responded Foy quietly, "and you're authorized to say so. I'm learning some sense now; I'm getting to own quite a mess of property; I'm going to be married soon; and I don't want to fight anyone. Besides, quite apart from my own interests, other men will be drawn into it if I shoot it out with Marr. No knowing where it will stop. No, sir; I'll go punch cows till Marr quiets down. Maybe it's just the whisky talking. Dick isn't such a bad fellow when he's not fighting booze. Or maybe he'll go away. He hasn't much to keep him here."
"Say, I could get a job offered to him out in San Simon," said
Applegate, brightening.
His eye rested on the clock over the long mirror. He stepped over to the show case, clipped the end from a cigar and obtained a light from a shapely bronze lady with a torch. When he came back he fell in on Foy's left; at Foy's right Creagan leaned his elbows on the bar.
"Well, I'm obliged to you, boys," said Foy. "This one's on me. Come on, Joe—have a hoot."
"Thanks, no," said Espalin. "I not dreenkin' none thees times. Eef I dreenk some I get full, and loose my job maybe."
"Vichy," said Foy. "Take something yourself, Max."
As Mr. Max poured the drinks an odd experience befell Mr. José Espalin. His tilted chair leaned against the casing of the billiard-room door. As Max filled the first glass Espalin became suddenly aware of something round and hard and cold pressed against his right temple. Mr. Espalin felt some curiosity, but he sat perfectly still. The object shifted a few inches; Mr. Espalin perceived from the tail of his eye the large, unfeeling muzzle of a sixshooter; beyond it, a glimpse of the forgotten elderly stranger, Mr. Pringle.
Only Mr. Pringle's fighting face appeared, and that but for a moment; he laid a finger to lip and crouched, hidden by the partition and by Espalin's body. Mr. Espalin gathered that Pringle desired no outcry and shunned observation; he sat motionless accordingly; he felt a hand at his belt, which removed his gun.
"Happy days!" said Foy, and raised his glass to his lips.
Creagan seized the uplifted wrist with both hands, Applegate pounced on the other arm. Pringle leaped through the doorway. But something happened swifter than Pringle's swift rush. Foy's knee shot up to Applegate's stomach. Applegate fell, sprawling. Foy hurled himself on Creagan and bore him crashing to the floor. Foy whirled over; he rose on one hand and knee, gun drawn, visibly annoyed; also considerably astonished at the unexpected advent of Mr. Pringle. Applegate lay groaning on the floor. Pringle kicked his gun from the holster and set foot upon it; one of his own guns covered the bartender and the other kept watch on Espalin, silent on his still-tilted chair.
"Who're you!" challenged Foy.
"Friend with the countersign. Don't shoot! Don't shoot me, anyhow."
Foy rose from hand and knee to knee and foot. This rescuer, so opportunely arrived from nowhere, seemed to be an ally. But to avoid mistakes, Foy's gun followed Pringle's motions, at the same time willing and able to blow out Creagan's brains if advisable. He also acquired Creagan's gun quite subconsciously.
"Let me introduce myself, gentlemen," said Pringle. "I'm Jack-in-a-Pinch, Little Friend of the Under Dog—see Who's This? page two-thirteen. My German friend, come out from behind that bar—hands up—step lively! Spot yourself! My Mexican friend, join Mr. Max. Move, you poisonous little spider—jump! That's better! Gentlemen—be seated! Right there—smack, slapdab on the floor. Sit down and think. Say! I'm serious. Am I going to have to kill some few of you just because you don't know who I am? I'll count three! One! two!—That's it. Very good—hold that—register anticipation! I am a worldly man," said Pringle with emotion, "but this spectacle touches me—it does indeed!"
"I'll get square with you!" gurgled Applegate, as fiercely as his breathless condition would permit.
"George—may I call you George? I don't know your name. You may get square with me, George—but you'll never be square with anyone. You are a rhomboidinaltitudinous isosohedronal catawampus, George!"
George raved unprintably. He made a motion to rise, but reconsidered it as he noted the tension of Pringle's trigger finger.
"Don't be an old fuss-budget, George," said Pringle reprovingly. "Because I forgot to tell you—I've got my gun now—and yours. You won't need to arrest me, though, for I'm hitting the trail in fifteen minutes. But if I wasn't going—and if you had your gun—you couldn't arrest one side of me. You couldn't arrest one of my old boots! Listen, George! You heard this Chris-gentleman give his reasons for wanting peace? Yes? Well, it's oh-so-different here. I hate peace! I loathe, detest, abhor, and abominate peace! My very soul with strong disgust is stirred—by peace! I'm growing younger every year, I don't own any property here, I'm not going to be married; I ain't feeling pretty well anyhow; and if you don't think I'll shoot, try to get up! Just look as if you thought you wanted to wish to try to make an effort to get up."
"How—who——" began Creagan; but Pringle cut him short.
"Ask me no more, sweet! You have no speaking part here. We'll do the talking. I just love to talk. I am the original tongue-tied man; I ebb and flow. Don't let me hear a word from any of you! Well, pardner?"
Foy, still kneeling in fascinated amaze, now rose. Creagan's nose was bleeding profusely.
"That was one awful wallop you handed our gimlet-eyed friend," said Pringle admiringly. "Neatest bit of work I ever saw. Sir, to you! My compliments!" He placed a chair near the front door and sat down. "I feel like a lion in a den of Daniels," he sighed.
"But how did you happen to be here so handy?" inquired Foy.
"Didn't happen—I did it on purpose," said John Wesley. "You see, these four birds tipped their hand. All evening they been instructing me where I got off. They would-ed I had the wings of a dove, so I might fly far, far away and be at rest. Now, I put it to you, do I look like a dove?"
"Not at present," laughed Foy.
"Well, I didn't like it—nobody would. I see there was a hen on, I knew the lay of the ground from looking after my horse. So I clomped off to bed, got my good old Excalibur gun—full name X.L.V. Caliber—slipped off my boots, tippytoed down the back stairs like a Barred Rock cat, oozed in by the side door—and here I be! I overheard their pleasant little plan to do you. I meant to do the big rescue act, but you mobilize too quick for me. All the same, maybe it's as well I chipped in, because—take a look at them cartridges in your gun, will you? Your own gun—the one they borrowed from you."
Foy twisted a bullet from a cartridge. There was no powder. The four men on the floor looked unhappy under his thoughtful eye.
"Nice little plant—what? Do we kill 'em?" said Pringle cheerfully. "I don't know the rules well enough to break them. What was the big idea? Was they vexed at you, son?"
"It would seem so," said Foy, smiling. "We had a little war here a spell back. I suspect they wanted to stir it up again for political effect. Election this fall."
"And you were not in their party? I see!" said Pringle, nodding intelligently, "Well, they sure had it fixed to make your side lose one vote—fixed good and proper. The Ben-boy was to let your right hand loose and the Joe-boy was to shoot you as you pulled your gun. Why, if you had lived to make a statement your own story woulda mighty near let them out."
"I believe that I am greatly obliged to you, sir."
"I believe you are," said Pringle. "And—but, also, I know the two gentlemen you were drinking with should be very grateful to you. They had just half a second more to live—and you beat me to it. Too bad! Well, what next?"
Foy pondered a little.
"I guess I'll go up to the Bar Cross wagon, as I intended, till things simmer down. The Las Uvas warriors seldom ever bother the Bar Cross Range. My horse is hitched up the street. How'd you like to go along with me, stranger? You and me would make a fair-sized crowd."
"I'd like it fine and dandy," said Pringle. "But I got a little visit to make to-morrow. Maybe I'll join you later. I like Las Uvas," stated John Wesley, beaming. "Nice, lively little place! I think I'll settle down here after a bit. Some of the young fellows are shy on good manners. But I can teach 'em. I'd enjoy it…. Now, let's see: If you'll hold these lads a few minutes I'll get my boots and saddle up and bring my horse to the door; then I'll pay Max my hotel bill and talk to them while you get your horse; and we'll ride together till we get out in the open. How's that for a lay?"
That was a good lay, it seemed; and it was carried out—with one addition: After Foy brought his horse he rang Central and called up the sheriff.
"Hello! That you, Mr. Lisner? This is Kitty Foy," he said sweetly. "Sheriff, I hate to bother you, but old Nueces River, your chief of police, is out of town. And I thought you ought to know that the police force is all balled up. They're here at the Gadsden Purchase. Bell Applegate is sick—seems to be indigestion; Espalin is having a nervous spell; and Ben Creagan is bleeding from his happiest vein. You'd better come see to 'em. Good-by!"
Pringle smiled benevolently from the door.
"There! I almost forgot to tell you boys. We disapprove of your actions oh-very-much! You know you were doing what was very, very wrong—like three little mice that were playing in the barn though the old mouse said: 'Little mice, beware! When the owl comes singing "Too-whoo" take care!' If you do it again we shall consider it deliberately unfriendly of you…. Well, I'll toddle my decrepit old bones out of this. Eleven o'clock! How time has flown, to be sure! Thank you for a pleasant evening. Good-by, George. Good-by, all! Be good little boys—go nighty-nighty!"
They raced to the corner, scurried down the first side street, turned again, and slowed to a gallop. Pringle was in high feather; he caroled blithesome as he rode:
"So those three little owls flew back up in the barn—
Inky, dinky, doodum, day!
And they said, 'Those little mice make us feel so nice and warm!'
Inky, dinky, doodum, day!
Then they all began to sing, 'Too-whit! Too-who!'
I don't think much of this song, do you?
But there's one thing about it—'tis certainly true—
Inky, dinky, doodum, day!"
They reached the open; the gallop became a trot.
"I go north here," said Foy at the cross-roads above the town. "Which way for you?"
"North too," said Pringle. "I don't know just where, but you can tell me. I go to a railroad station first—Aden. Then to the Vorhis place?"
"Vorhis? I'm going there myself?" said Foy. "You didn't tell me your name yet."
"Pringle."
"What? Not John Wesley Pringle? Great Scott, man! I've heard Stella talk about you a thousand times. Say, I'm sure glad to meet you! My name's Foy—Christopher Foy."
"Why, yes," said Pringle. "I think I've heard Stella speak of you, too."