“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.