The Sagebrusher: A Story of the West

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XX

  MAJOR ALLEN BARNES, M.D., PH.D.--AND SIM GAGE

  Sim Gage's reflections kept him wandering about for the space of anhour or two in the open air.

  "I'll tell you," said he, after a time to Mrs. Jensen, who once morehad cared for their household needs, "I reckon I'll go on down to thedam, on the mail coach this evening. You go in and tell her, won'tyou? Say I can't noways get back before to-morrow. I got to see aboutone thing and another. She'll understand."

  Therefore, when the mail wagon came down the valley an hour later, SimGage was waiting for it at the end of his own lane. He had meantimearrayed himself cap-a-pie in all the new apparel he recently hadpurchased, so that he stood now reeking of discomfort, in his new hat,his new shoes, his tight collar. Evidently something of formalcharacter was in his plans.

  It was well toward midnight when the leisurely mail wagon arrived atthe end of its semi-weekly round and put up at the Company works. Atthat hour the company doctor was not visible, so Sim found quarterselsewhere. It was a due time after breakfast on the following morningbefore he ventured to the doctor's office.

  Doctor Barnes himself was engaged in bringing up his correspondence.He was his own typist, and at the time was engaged in picking outletter after letter upon a small typewriter with which he had not yetacquired familiarity. He was occupied with two letters of importance.One was going to a certain medical authority of the University fromwhich he himself had received his degree. It contained a certainhypothetical question regarding diseases of the eye, upon which hehimself at the time did not feel competent to pass.

  The second letter was one to his new Chief, an officer of thereclamation engineers, at Washington. He wore again to-day the uniformof a Major of the Army. The wheels of officialdom were revolving. Thepublic quality of this enterprise was well understood. That lawlesselements were afoot in that region was a fact also well recognized. Tohave this dam go out now would be an injury to the peace measures ofthe country. Soldiers were coming to protect it, and the soldiers musthave a commander. In the hurried times of war, when there was notopportunity always for exactness, majors were made overnight whenneedful out of such material as the Government found at hand. It mighthave used worse than that of Allen Barnes to-day and here.

  "Oh, there _you_ are," said he at length, turning around and findingSim Gage standing in the door. "What brought you down here? Anythinggone wrong?"

  "Well, I ain't sure, Doc," said Sim Gage, "but like enough. One thing,my knee hurts me considerable." In reality he was sparring for time."But you're dressed up for a soldier?"

  "Yes. Sit down there on the operating chair," said Doctor Barnes,tersely. "We'll look it over. Anything happen to it?"

  "Why, nothing much," said Sim. "I hurt it a little when I was gettingin the mail wagon yesterday evening--busted her open. So last night,when I was going to bed, I took a needle and thread and sewed her upagain."

  "What's that? Sewed it up?"

  "Yes, I got a needle and some black patent thread. Do you reckonshe'll hold all right now, Doctor?"

  Doctor Barnes was standing, scissors in hand, about to rip open thetrouser leg.

  "No, you don't!" said Sim. "Them's my best pants. You just go easynow, and don't you cut them none a-tall. Wait till I take 'em off."

  The doctor bent over the wounded member. "You put in a regularbutton-hole stitch," said he, grinning, "didn't you? About threestitches would have been plenty. You put in about two dozen--and withblack thread! Like enough poisoned again."

  "Well," said Sim, "I didn't want to take no chances of her breakingopen again."

  The doctor was busy, removing the stitches, and with no gentle handthis time made the proper surgical suture. "Leave it alone this way,"said he, "and mind what I tell you. Seems like you can't kill a manout in this country. You can do things in surgery out here that youwouldn't dare tackle back in France, or in the States. I suppose,maybe, I could cut your head off, for instance."

  "I wish't you would," said Sim Gage. "She bothers me sometimes."

  After a pause he continued, "I been thinking over a heap of things.You see, I'm busted about flat. If I could go on and put up some hay,way prices is, I could make some money this fall, but them damn robbershas cleaned me, and I can't start with nothing. And I ain't gotnothing. So there I am."

  He vouchsafed nothing more, but had already said so much that DoctorBarnes sat regarding him quietly.

  "Gage," said he after a time, "things might be better in this valley.I know that you'll stick with the Government. Now, listen. I'm goingto have practical command here from this time on. This is under Armycontrol. I'm going to run a telephone wire up the valley as far asyour settlement. I'll appoint you a government special scout, to watchthat road. If these ruffians are in this valley again we want to catchthem."

  "You think I could be any use that way, Doc?" said Sim.

  "Yes, I've got to have some of the settlers with me that I can dependon, besides the regular detail ordered in here."

  "Would I be some sort of soldier, too, like?" demanded Sim Gage. "Itried to get in. They wouldn't take me. I'm--I'm past forty-five."

  "You'd be under orders just like a soldier."

  "Would I have any sort of uniform, like, now?"

  Doctor Barnes sat thinking for some time. "No," said he. "You have topass an examination before you really get into the Army; and you'reover age, you and Wid, both of you. But I'll tell you--I'll give you ahat--you shall have a hat with a cord on it, so you'll be like asoldier. We'll have a green service cord on it,--say green with alittle white in it, Sim Gage? Don't that make you feel as if you werein a uniform?"

  "Now that'd sure be fine, Doc, a hat like that," said Sim. "I surewould like that. And I certainly would try to do what was right."

  Doctor Barnes, still sitting before the little white operating tablewhere his surgical instruments lay, was looking thoughtful. "In alllikelihood I shall have to put a corporal and four men up at yourplace. That means they'll have to have a house. I can commandeer someof the teams down here, and some men, and they'll all throw in togetherand help you build an extra cabin. You and they can live in that, Isuppose?"

  "I reckon we could," said Sim Gage. "That'd be fine, wouldn't it?"

  "And as those men would need horses for their own transport, they'dneed hay. We'd pay you for hay. I don't see why we couldn't leave onewagon and a team at least up there, to get in supplies. That wouldhelp you in getting things started around on your place again, wouldn'tit?"

  "Would it, Doc?" said Sim Gage, brightening immensely. "It would raisea _load_ offen me, that's what it would! Right now, especial." Hecleared his throat.

  "That there brings me right around to what I come down here to talkabout," said he with sudden resolution. "For instance, there was aletter come to her up there--from back where she lived--from AnnieSquires. So her and me got to talking over that letter, you see."

  "What did Annie Squires say, if it's any of my business?" said theDoctor, looking at him steadily.

  "Well, I was just talking things over, that way, and we allowed thatmaybe Annie Squires could come out here--after--well, after the_wedding_, you see."

  It was out! Sim Gage wiped off his brow.

  "The wedding?"

  "Why, one thing and other, her and me got to talking things over.Things couldn't run on; so we--we fixed it up."

  "Gage," said Doctor Barnes suddenly, "I've got to talk to you."

  "Well, all right, all right, Doc. That'll be all right. I wish't youwould."

  "See here, man. Don't you realize what that woman is? She's too goodfor men like you and me."

  "Yes, Doc. But I wouldn't never raise hand nor voice to her, the leastway in the world. I allowed she could live along as my housekeeper,but seems not. You can shoot me, Doc, if you don't think I'm a-doingthe right thing by her in every way, shape and manner."

  "She's too _good_--it's an impossib
le thing."

  Sim Gage's face was lifted, seriously. "Doc, you know mighty wellthat's true, and so do I--she's plumb too good for me. But it ain't medone all the thinking."

  "Didn't you ask her about it?"

  "It kind of come around."

  Doctor Barnes rose and paced rapidly up and down within the narrowconfines of his office. "You _do_ love her, don't you?"

  Sim Gage for the first time in his life felt the secret quick of hissimple, sensitive soul cut open and exposed to gaze. Not even themedical man before him could fail of sudden pity at witnessing what waswritten on his face---all the dignity, the simplicity, the reticence,all the bashfulness of a man brought up helplessly against the knife.He could not--or perhaps would not--answer such a question even fromthe man before him, whom he suddenly had come to trust and respect as abeing superior to himself.

  But Allen Barnes was the pitiless surgeon now. "I don't care a damnabout you, of course, Gage. You're not fit for her to wipe her shoeson, and you know it. But _she_ can't see it and doesn't know it. Ifshe could see you--what do you suppose she'd think? Gage--_she mustn'tever know_!"

  Sim Gage looked at him quietly. "Every one of them words you said tome, Doc, is plumb true, and it ain't enough. I told her my own self,that first day, and since then, it was a blessing she was blind. Butlook-a-here, I reckon you don't understand how things is. You sayyou're going to build a house up there, and help me get a start.That's fine. Because hers is the other one, my old house. I wish't Icould get some sheets and pillow cases down here while I'm right herenow--I'd like to fix her up in there better'n what she is. I'd evenlike to have a tablecloth, like. But you understand, that's for _her_,not me. That's _her_ house, and not mine. She can't see. It's aGod's blessing she can't. And what you said is so--she mustn't _ever_know, not now ner no time, what--Sim Gage really is."

  Doctor Barnes' voice was out of control. He turned once more to thisnewly revealed Sim Gage, a man whom he had not hitherto understood.

  "Marriage means all sorts of things. It covers up things, beginsthings, ends things. That's true."

  "It ends things for her, Doc--it don't begin nothing fer me, youunderstand. It is, but it isn't. I'd never step a foot across thatdoor sill, night or day--you understand that, don't you? You didn'tthink _that_ for one minute, did you? You didn't think I was solow-down I couldn't understand a thing like _that_, did you? It'sbecause she's blind and don't know the truth; and because she's plumbup against it. That's why."

  "Oh, damn you!" said Doctor Barnes savagely. "You understand me betterthan I did you. Yes--it's the only way."

  "It sure is funny how funny things get mixed up sometimes, ain't it,Doc?" remarked Sim Gage. "But now, part of my coming down here wasabout a minister."

  "Well," said Doctor Barnes, desperately, feeling that he was party to acrime, "it's priest day next Sunday. We have five or six differentsorts of priests and ministers that come in here once a month, and theyall come the same Sunday, so they can watch each other--every fellow isafraid the other fellow will get some souls saved the wrong way if heisn't there on the job too. Listen, Gage--I'll bring one of thesechaps--Church of England man, I reckon, for he hasn't got much to dodown here--up to your ranch next Sunday morning. We've got to get thisover with, or we'll all be crazy--I will, anyhow. When I show up, youtwo be ready to be married.

  "Does that go, Sim Gage?" he concluded, looking into the haggard andstubbly face of the squalid-figured man before him.

  "It goes," said Sim Gage.