“THEN I WAS NOT HONEST.”
Garrison eyed him coldly, and was about to pass when Crimmins barred his way.
“I suppose when you gets up in the world, it ain't your way to know folks you knew before, is it?” he asked gently. “But Dan Crimmins has a heart, an' it ain't his way to shake friends, even if they has money. It ain't Crimmins' way.”
“Take your hand off my shoulder,” said Garrison steadily.
The other's black brows met, but he smiled genially.
“It don't go, Bud. No, no.” He shook his head. “Try that on those who don't know you. I know you. You're Billy Garrison; I'm Dan Crimmins. Now, if you want me to blow in an' tell the major who you are, just say so. I'm obligin'. It's Crimmins' way. But if you want to help an old friend who's down an' out, just say so. I'm waitin'.”
Garrison eyed him. Crimmins? Crimmins? The name was part of his dream. What had he been to this man? What did this man know?
“Take a walk down the pike,” suggested the other easily. “It ain't often you have the pleasure of seein' an old friend, an' the excitement is a little too much for you. I know how it is,” he added sympathetically. He was closely watching Garrison's face.
Garrison mechanically agreed, wondering.
“It's this way,” began Crimmins, once the shelter of the pike was gained. “I'm Billy Crimmins' brother—the chap who trains for Major Calvert. Now, I was down an' out—I guess you know why—an' so I wrote him askin' for a little help. An' he wouldn't give it. He's what you might call a lovin', confidin', tender young brother. But he mentioned in his letter that Bob Waterbury was here, and he asked why I had left his service. Some things don't get into the papers down here, an' it's just as well. You know why I left Waterbury. Waterbury——!”
Here Crimmins carefully selected a variety of adjectives with which to decorate the turfman. He also spoke freely about the other's ancestors, and concluded with voicing certain dark convictions regarding Mr. Waterbury's future.
Garrison listened blankly. “What's all this to me?” he asked sharply. “I don't know you nor Mr. Waterbury.”
“Hell you don't!” rapped out Crimmins. “Quit that game. I may have done things against you, but I've paid for them. You can't touch me on that count, but I can touch you, for I know you ain't the major's nephew—no more than the Sheik of Umpooba. I'm ashamed of you. Tryin' on a game like that with your old trainer, who knows you—”
Garrison caught him fiercely by the arm. His old trainer! Then he was Billy Garrison. Memory was fighting furiously. He was on fire. “Billy Garrison, Billy Garrison, Billy Garrison,” he repeated over and over, shaking Crimmins like a reed. “Go on, go on, go on,” he panted. “Tell me what you know about me. Go on, go on. Am I Garrison? Am I? Am I?”
Then, holding the other as in a vise, the thoughts that had been writhing in his mind for so long came hurtling forth. At last here was some one who knew him. His old trainer. What better friend could he need?
He panted in his frenzy. The words came tripping over one another, smothering, choking. And Crimmins with set face listened; listened as Garrison went over past events; events since that memorable morning he had awakened in the hospital with the world a blank and the past a blur. He told all—all; like a little child babbling at his mother's knee.
“Why did I leave the track? Why? Why?” he finished in a whirlwind of passion. “What happened? Tell me. Say I'm honest. Say it, Crimmins; say it. Help me to get back. I can ride—ride like glory. I'll win for you—anything. Anything to get me out of this hell of deceit, nonentity namelessness. Help me to square myself. I'll make a name nobody'll be ashamed of—” His words faded away. Passion left him weak and quivering.
Crimmins judicially cleared his throat. There was a queer light in his eyes.
“It ain't Dan Crimmins' way to go back on a friend,” he began, laying a hand on Garrison's shoulder. “You don't remember nothing, all on account of that bingle you got on the head. But it was Crimmins that made you, Bud. Sweated over you like a father. It was Crimmins who got you out of many a tight place, when you wouldn't listen to his advice. I ain't saying it wasn't right to skip out after you'd thrown every race and the Carter; after poisoning Sis—”
“Then—I—was—not—honest?” asked Garrison. He was horribly quiet.
“Emphatic'ly no,” said Crimmins sadly. He shook his head. “And you don't remember how you came to Dan Crimmins the night you skipped out and you says: 'Dan, Dan, my only friend, tried and true, I'm broke.' Just like that you says it. And Dan says, without waitin' for you to ask; he says: 'Billy, you and me have been pals for fifteen years; pals man and boy. A friend is a friend, and a man who's broke don't want sympathy—he needs money. Here's three thousand dollars—all I've got. I was going to buy a home for the old mother, but friendship in need comes before all. It's yours. Take it. Don't say a word. Crimmins has a heart, and it's Dan Crimmins' way. He may suffer for it, but it's his way.' That's what he says.”
“Go on,” whispered Garrison. His eyes were very wide and vacant.
Crimmins spat carefully, as if to stimulate his imagination.
“No, no, you don't remember,” he mused sadly. “Now you're tooting along with the high rollers. But I ain't kickin'. It's Crimmins' way never to give his hand in the dark, but when he does give it—for life, my boy, for life. But I was thinkin' of the wife and kids you left up in Long Island; left to face the music. Of course I stood their friend as best I could—”
“Then—I'm married?” asked Garrison slowly. He laughed—a laugh that caused the righteous Crimmins to wince. The latter carefully wiped his eyes with a handkerchief that had once been white.
“Boy, boy!” he said, in great agony of mind. “To think you've gone and forgot the sacred bond of matrimony! I thought at least you would have remembered that. But I says to your wife, I says: 'Billy will come back. He ain't the kind to leave you an' the kids go to the poorhouse, all for the want of a little gumption. He'll come back and face the charges—”
“What charges?” Garrison did not recognize his own voice.
“Why, poisoning Sis. It's a jail offense,” exclaimed Crimmins.
“Indeed,” commented Garrison.
Again he laughed and again the righteous Crimmins winced. Garrison's gray eyes had the glint of sun shining on ice. His mouth looked as it had many a time when he fought neck-and-neck down the stretch, snatching victory by sheer, condensed, bulldog grit. Crimmins knew of old what that mouth portended, and he spoke hurriedly.
“Don't do anything rash, Bud. Bygones is bygones, and, as the Bible says: 'Circumstances alters cases,' and—”
“Then this is how I stand,” cut in Garrison steadily, unheeding the advice. He counted the dishonorable tally on his fingers. “I'm a horse-poisoner, a thief, a welcher. I've deserted my wife and family. I owe you—how much?”
“Five thousand,” said Crimmins deprecatingly, adding on the two just to show he had no hard feelings.
“Good,” said Garrison. He bit his knuckles; bit until the blood came. “Good,” he said again. He was silent.
“I ain't in a hurry,” put in Crimmins magnanimously. “But you can pay it easy. The major—”
“Is a gentleman,” finished Garrison, eyes narrowed. “A gentleman whom I've wronged—treated like—” He clenched his hands. Words were of no avail.
“That's all right,” argued the other persuasively. “What's the use of gettin' flossy over it now? Ain't you known all along, when you put the game up on him, that you wasn't his nephew; that you were doin' him dirt?”
“Shut up,” blazed Garrison savagely. “I know—what I've done. Fouled those I'm not fit to grovel to. I thought I was honest—in a way. Now I know I'm the scum I am—”
“You don't mean to say you're goin' to welch again?” asked the horrified Crimmins. “Goin' to tell the major—”
“Just that, Crimmins. Tell them what I am. Tell Waterbury, and face that charge for poisoning his horse. I may have been what you say, but I'm not that now. I'm not,” he reiterated passionately, daring contradiction. “I've sneaked long enough. Now I'm done with it—”
“See here,” inserted Crimmins, dangerously reasonable, “your little white-washing game may be all right to you, but where does Dan Crimmins come in and sit down? It ain't his way to be left standing. You splittin' to the major and Waterbury? They'll mash your face off! And where's my five thousand, eh? Where is it if you throw over the bank?”
“Damn your five thousand!” shrilled Garrison, passion throwing him. “What's your debt to what I owe? What's money? You say you're my friend. You say you have been. Yet you come here to blackmail me—yes, that's the word I used, and the one I mean. Blackmail. You want me to continue living a lie so that I may stop your mouth with money. You say I'm married. But do you wish me to go back to my wife and children, to try to square myself before God and them? Do you wish me to face Waterbury, and take what's coming to me? No, you don't, you don't. You lie if you say you do. It's yourself—yourself you're thinking of. I'm to be your jackal. That's your friendship, but I say if that's friendship, Crimmins, then to the devil with it, and may God send me hatred instead!” He choked with the sheer smother of his passion.
Crimmins was breathing heavily. Then passion marked him for the thing he was. Garrison saw confronting him not the unctuous, plausible friend, but a hunted animal, with fear and venom showing in his narrowed eyes. And, curiously enough, he noticed for the first time that the prison pallor was strong on Crimmins' face, and that the hair above his outstanding ears was clipped to the roots.
Then Crimmins spoke; through his teeth, and very slowly: “So you'll go to Waterbury, eh?” And he nodded the words home. “You—little cur, you—you little misbegotten bottle of bile! What are you and your hypocrisies to me? You don't know me, you don't know me.” He laughed, and Garrison felt repulsion fingering his heart. Then the former trainer shot out a clawing, ravenous hand. “I want that money—want it quick!” he spat, taking a step forward. “You want hatred, eh? Well, hatred you'll have, boy. Hatred that I've always given you, you miserable, puling, lily-livered spawn of a—”
Garrison blotted out the insult to his mother's memory with his knuckles. “And that's for your friendship,” he said, smashing home a right cross.
Crimmins arose very slowly from the white road, and even thought of flicking some of the fine dust from his coat. He was smiling. The moon was very bright. Crimmins glanced up and down the deserted pike. From the distant town a bell chimed the hour of eight. He had twenty pounds the better of the weights, but he was taking no chances. For Garrison, all his wealth of hard-earned fistic education roused, was waiting; waiting with the infinite patience of the wounded cougar.
Crimmins looked up and down the road again. Then he came in, a black-jack clenched until the veins in his hand ridged out purple and taut as did those in his neck. A muscle was beating in his wooden cheek. He struck savagely. Garrison side-stepped, and his fist clacked under Crimmins' chin. Neither spoke. Again Crimmins came in.
A great splatter of hoof-beats came from down the pike, sounding like the vomitings of a Gatling gun. A horse streaked its way toward them. Crimmins darted into the underbrush bordering the pike. The horse came fast. It flashed past Garrison. Its rider was swaying in the saddle; swaying with white, tense face and sawing hands. The eyes were fixed straight ahead, vacant. A broken saddle-girth flapped raggedly. Garrison recognized the fact that it was a runaway, with Sue Desha up.
Another horse followed, throwing space furiously. It was a big bay gelding. As it drew abreast of Garrison, standing motionless in the white road, it shied. Its rider rocketed over its head, thudded on the ground, heaved once or twice, and then lay very still. The horse swept on. As it passed, Garrison swung beside it, caught its pace for an instant, and then eased himself into the saddle. Then he bent over and rode as only he could ride. It was a runaway handicap. Sue's life was the stake, and the odds were against him.