It was old Jake of the Bar T who spoke out then, and spoke straight.
"My boy," says he, "put up your gun. That's right. This here tenderfoot is bleedin' by spurts, arterial. Bull, see if Doc Stuart is sober." Bull ran for the doctor. "Only a tenderfoot," says Jake, "insults a cow-boy's wife—which is death from natural causes. Ma'am," he wagged his finger at Polly, "'tain't long since you come among us. 'Tain't more'n a day since you told me and others present that you was marryin' for fun. You laughed at warnings, and this here Jesse would have shot the man who warned him. You are a lady, and this boy you married for fun, is goin' to see you treated as a lady. I own he got rattled first shot, missing this tenderfoot's heart, which ain't up to average practise; but it's time you began to see the point of the joke."
They took the tenderfoot away, and we were alone, me watching the pool of red blood turning brown. Polly sat drumming tunes on the table, her face turned white, staring out through the window at the noon heat of the plains. I remember I took a bottle of champagne wine, filled a big goblet, and drank it off. The flies were buzzing still agin the window. It made me laugh to think she'd taught me drinking, so I had another, watching the flies hold congress on the floor. "I see," says Polly, "I understand now." At that she began to scream.
I should have told you, that after our boys of the Flying Zee quit Abilene, I pitched a little A tent on the prairie back of Polly's house. Thar I could see my ponies at grass, and snuff the air clear of that stinking town.
But from the time I moved into the house, thar was something disturbing my nose—something uneasy—oh, I don't know what it was, back of all house smells, which give me a sense of evil, so I could hardly bear to stay indoors.
And there were signs. I'd come back from some errand into town, to find a man's track leading into the door, when Polly claimed she had no visitors. Why should she say she'd been alone all morning, when there's pipe ashes on the parlor table, or I'd catch the wet smell from a chewed cigar? She only laughed.
Comin' from town one night—she'd sent me there—I seen a man's shadow cross the parlor blind. I fired, missing, a fool's act, for it warned him, and gave him time. The lamp was out before I reached the house, and Polly with some hysterics getting in my way.
It wouldn't be sense to show a match guiding the stranger's aim, or to stand against a window, or make sounds. Rather I stood right still, and after a while Polly surprised herself into dead silence. I couldn't hear that man, or feel, or see him. I could smell him, but that don't supply his bearings. I could taste the air from him, but that flickered. I sensed him. Can't explain that—no. You just feel if a man stares hard. I fired at that. Then Polly, of course, went off into all sorts of fits.
Next morning I tracked blood sign to the hospital. Seems a young person from the bank had took to conjuring and swallowed lead.
It was still before breakfast that I told Polly to pack her dunnage, 'cause we was moving out from Abilene. I claimed I could earn enough to keep my wife without her needing to go out into society.