CHAPTER XV
IN DENVER
The warden handed him a ticket back to Denver, and with it a stereotypedlittle lecture of platitudes.
"Your future lies before you to be made or marred by yourself, Sanders.You owe it to the Governor who has granted this parole and to the goodfriends who have worked so hard for it that you be honest and industriousand temperate. If you do this the world will in time forget your pastmistakes and give you the right hand of fellowship, as I do now."
The paroled man took the fat hand proffered him because he knew thewarden was a sincere humanitarian. He meant exactly what he said. Perhapshe could not help the touch of condescension. But patronage, no matterhow kindly meant, was one thing this tall, straight convict would notstand. He was quite civil, but the hard, cynical eyes made the wardenuncomfortable. Once or twice before he had known prisoners like this,quiet, silent men who were never insolent, but whose eyes told him thatthe iron had seared their souls.
The voice of the warden dropped briskly to business. "Seen thebookkeeper? Everything all right, I suppose."
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Well, wish you luck."
"Thanks."
The convict turned away, grave, unsmiling.
The prison officer's eyes followed him a little wistfully. His function,as he understood it, was to win these men back to fitness for service tothe society which had shut them up for their misdeeds. They were notwild beasts. They were human beings who had made a misstep. Sometimes hehad been able to influence men strongly, but he felt that it had not beentrue of this puncher from the cow country.
Sanders walked slowly out of the office and through the door in the wallthat led back to life. He was free. To-morrow was his. All the to-morrowsof all the years of his life were waiting for him. But the fact stirredin him no emotion. As he stood in the dry Colorado sunshine his heart wasquite dead.
In the earlier days of his imprisonment it had not been so. He haddreamed often of this hour. At night, in the darkness of his cell,imagination had projected picture after picture of it, vivid, colorful,set to music. But his parole had come too late. The years had takentheir toll of him. The shadow of the prison had left its chill, had donesomething to him that had made him a different David Sanders from the boywho had entered. He wondered if he would ever learn to laugh again, if hewould ever run to meet life eagerly as that other David Sanders had athousand years ago.
He followed the road down to the little station and took a through trainthat came puffing out of the Royal Gorge on its way to the plains.Through the crowd at the Denver depot he passed into the city, movingup Seventeenth Street without definite aim or purpose. His parole hadcome unexpectedly, so that none of his friends could meet him even ifthey had wanted to do so. He was glad of this. He preferred to be alone,especially during these first days of freedom. It was his intention to goback to Malapi, to the country he knew and loved, but he wished to pickup a job in the city for a month or two until he had settled into a frameof mind in which liberty had become a habit.
Early next morning he began his search for work. It carried him to alumber yard adjoining the railroad yards.
"We need a night watchman," the superintendent said. "Where'd you worklast?"
"At Canon City."
The lumberman looked at him quickly, a question in his glance.
"Yes," Dave went on doggedly. "In the penitentiary."
A moment's awkward embarrassment ensued.
"What were you in for?"
"Killing a man."
"Too bad. I'm afraid--"
"He had stolen my horse and I was trying to get it back. I had nointention of hitting him when I fired."
"I'd take you in a minute so far as I'm concerned personally, but ourboard of directors--afraid they wouldn't like it. That's one trouble inworking for a corporation."
Sanders turned away. The superintendent hesitated, then called after him.
"If you're up against it and need a dollar--"
"Thanks. I don't. I'm looking for work, not charity," the applicant saidstiffly.
Wherever he went it was the same. As soon as he mentioned the prison,doors of opportunity closed to him. Nobody wanted to employ a mantarred with that pitch. It did not matter why he had gone, under whatprovocation he had erred. The thing that damned him was that he had beenthere. It was a taint, a corrosion.
He could have picked up a job easily enough if he had been willing to lieabout his past. But he had made up his mind to tell the truth. In thelong run he could not conceal it. Better start with the slate clean.
When he got a job it was to unload cars of fruit for a commission house.A man was wanted in a hurry and the employer did not ask any questions.At the end of an hour he was satisfied.
"Fellow hustles peaches like he'd been at it all his life," thecommission man told his partner.
A few days later came the question that Sanders had been expecting."Where'd you work before you came to us?"
"At the penitentiary."
"A guard?" asked the merchant, taken aback.
"No. I was a convict." The big lithe man in overalls spoke quietly, hiseyes meeting those of the Market Street man with unwavering steadiness.
"What was the trouble?"
Dave explained. The merchant made no comment, but when he paid off themen Saturday night he said with careful casualness, "Sorry, Sanders. Thework will be slack next week. I'll have to lay you off."
The man from Canon City understood. He looked for another place, wasrebuffed a dozen times, and at last was given work by an employer who hadvision enough to know the truth that the bad men do not all go to prisonand that some who go may be better than those who do not.
In this place Sanders lasted three weeks. He was doing concrete work on aviaduct job for a contractor employed by the city.
This time it was a fellow-workman who learned of the Arizonan's record.A letter from Emerson Crawford, forwarded by the warden of thepenitentiary, dropped out of Dave's coat pocket where it hung acrossa plank.
The man who picked it up read the letter before returning it to thepocket. He began at once to whisper the news. The subject was discussedback and forth among the men on the quiet. Sanders guessed they haddiscovered who he was, but he waited for them to move. His years inprison had given him at least the strength of patience. He could bidehis time.
They went to the contractor. He reasoned with them.
"Does his work all right, doesn't he? Treats you all civilly. Doesn'tforce himself on you. I don't see any harm in him."
"We ain't workin' with no jail bird," announced the spokesman.
"He told me the story and I've looked it up since. Talked with the lawyerthat defended him. He says the man Sanders killed was a bad lot and hadstolen his horse from him. Sanders was trying to get it back. He claimedself-defense, but couldn't prove it."
"Don't make no difference. The jury said he was guilty, didn't it?"
"Suppose he was. We've got to give him a chance when he comes out,haven't we?"
Some of the men began to weaken. They were not cruel, but they werechildren of impulse, easily led by those who had force enough to pushto the front.
"I won't mix cement with no convict," the self-appointed leader announcedflatly. "That goes."
The contractor met him eye to eye. "You don't have to, Reynolds. You canget your time."
"Meanin' that you keep him on the job and let me go?"
"That's it exactly. Long as he does his work well I'll not ask him toquit."
A shadow darkened the doorway of the temporary office. The Arizonanstepped in with his easy, swinging stride, a lithe, straight-backedHermes showing strength of character back of every movement.
"I'm leaving to-day, Mr. Shields." His voice carried the quiet power ofreserve force.
"Not because I want you to, Sanders."
"Because I'm not going to stay and make you trouble."
"I don't think it will come to that. I'm talking it over with the boysnow.
Your work stands up. I've no criticism."
"I'll not stay now, Mr. Shields. Since they've complained to you I'dbetter go."
The ex-convict looked around, the eyes in his sardonic face hard andbitter. If he could have read the thoughts of the men it would have beendifferent. Most of them were ashamed of their protest. They would haveliked to have drawn back, but they did not know how to say so. Thereforethey stood awkwardly silent. Afterward, when it was too late, they talkedit over freely enough and blamed each other.
From one job to another Dave drifted. His stubborn pride, due in part toa native honesty that would not let him live under false pretenses, inpart to a bitterness that had become dogged defiance, kept him out ofgood places and forced him to do heavy, unskilled labor that brought thepoorest pay.
Yet he saved money, bought himself good, cheap clothes, and found energyto attend night school where he studied stationary and mechanicalengineering. He lived wholly within himself, his mental reactions tingedwith morose scorn. He found little comfort either in himself or in theexternal world, in spite of the fact that he had determined with all hisstubborn will to get ahead.
The library he patronized a good deal, but he gave no time to generalliterature. His reading was of a highly specialized nature. He studiedeverything that he could find about the oil fields of America.
The stigma of his disgrace continued to raise its head. One of theconcrete workers was married to the sister of the woman from whom herented his room. The quiet, upstanding man who never complained or askedany privileges had been a favorite of hers, but she was a timid,conventional soul. Visions of her roomers departing in a flock when theyfound out about the man in the second floor back began to haunt herdreams. Perhaps he might rob them all at night. In a moment of nervetension, summoning all her courage, she asked the killer from the cattlecountry if he would mind leaving.
He smiled grimly and began to pack. For several days he had seen itcoming. When he left, the expressman took his trunk to the station. Theticket which Sanders bought showed Malapi as his destination.
Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West Page 15