‘I won’t take part in it,’ Bob thought. ‘I ain’t marshal to say what’s what, but I won’t take no part.’
Bart was looking his way, but Bob didn’t turn to meet his son’s eyes. ‘I ain’t a man of law,’ he was thinking. At the same time he felt Bart’s eyes turning to him persistently, but he couldn’t look. ‘I ain’t a man of law.’
The marshal was managing it alone....
Bob had been famished riding into town, but the stuff left in his saddle-bags tasted like worms to his tongue, and the water, as if running out of a sore. Though he was half dead for it, there was no sleep—with that racket from the blacksmith shop down the dirt road of Red Ante. He didn’t meet Bart’s eyes again. It was as if he had said good-bye to his son for life.
Bob had dragged his blankets away from the empty huts, far out on the sand to get beyond the cries, but they were already in his soul—no getting away. Long afterward, lying out there, he heard the sound of a single shot from the direction of the blacksmith shop—the end of all cries. Welton was there before him, Mort Cotton appearing from the side. Palto’s troubles were over—Bart missing. It was not until daybreak that the father found a note pinned to his saddle—written by Bart before the shot had been fired.
I guess I don’t belong here, Dad. I’ll take Palto with me, if I can get him loose. Otherwise—well, you’ll know. So long for good, Bart.
I
THIRTY YEARS LATE
Arriving when the present century was well started, Elbert Sartwell had now concluded that his was a most untimely birth. For instance, all that war amounted to in his case, was the matter of wearing puttees to school. The magic of his youth was moreover smothered in a houseful of sisters—imprisoned in a sorority-house, he found himself—all his aching and persistent dreams unexpressed.
But the end had come. Elbert had reached decision; so had his father on the same point. They were at odds. It was a matter of grief to the son that for once there could be no compromise.
Fall darkness had closed about him, as these things appeared before Elbert’s mind with finality. He left his room, followed the long wide hall to the door of his father’s dressing-room and knocked. It was the last quarter of an hour before dinner, and the tone of the ‘Come in’ was not encouraging, but it didn’t occur to Elbert to wait until dinner and tobacco had combed down his father’s tag-ends of the day.