“And not give the child a chance?”
“That’s yore hidebound English croppin’ out, Hawkworth. If the child was worth a damn, it would make its own chance. Suppose you had done that with Wanna. Would she be any better off?”
“No white man would marry her, Hartley.”
“No? Then let her pick a man to suit herself. If a white man won’t marry her, what’s the odds? You talk like there wasn’t any good men in the world except white men. I’m sorry to say that I’ve done battle with a lot of thieves, crooks, and murderers; many of them are lookin’ up at the grass-roots right now—and they were all white men, Hawkworth.”
“I get your viewpoint, Hartley. Perhaps you are right. It is only a theory, at best. Living here for twenty-five years, I have had plenty of time for theorizing. It has been a long time, my friend, longer than you can realize. Men say that Big Medicine Hawkworth is a queer person, and that he is unfriendly. Some of them hate me because I own Hawk Hole, and hold it.
“Since the town of Pinnacle was built, Hawk Hole’s morals have not improved. The Greenhorn Mines have brought the riffraff of the Southwest into this place, until it seems to be a happy hunting ground for high-graders, cattle-thieves, smugglers. Is it any wonder that I do not welcome a stranger to my home?”
“I figure we were lucky to get in,” smiled Hashknife.
Big Medicine’s eyes twinkled.
“Do you know what did it? When I asked you what you wanted, you said, ‘Not what he got,’ referring to Jim Reed, whom I had thrown out of my house. It struck me that your sense of humor was too keen to be owned by less than a gentleman.”
Hashknife laughed softly.