by Rex Beach
VIII
BLAZE JONES'S NEMESIS
Blaze Jones rode up to his front gate and dismounted in the shade ofthe big ebony-tree. He stepped back and ran an approving eye overanother animal tethered there. It was a thoroughbred bay mare he hadnever seen, and as he scanned her good points he reflected that thetime had come when he would have to accustom himself to the sight ofstrange horses along his fence and strange automobiles beside the road,for Paloma was a woman now, and the young men of the neighborhood hadmade the discovery. Yes, and Paloma was a pretty woman; therefore thehole under the ebony-tree would probably be worn deep by impatienthoofs. He was glad that most of the boys preferred saddles to softupholstery, for it argued that some vigor still remained in Texasmanhood, and that the country had not been entirely ruined by motors,picture-shows, low shoes, and high collars. Of course the youths ofthis day were nothing like the youths of his own, and yet--Blaze lethis gaze linger fondly on the high-bred mare and her equipment--here atleast was a person who knew a good horse, a good saddle, and a good gun.
As he came up the walk he heard Paloma laugh, and his own facelightened, for Paloma's merriment was contagious. Then as he mountedthe steps and turned the corner of the "gallery" he uttered a heartygreeting.
"Dave Law! Where in the world did you drop from?"
Law uncoiled himself and took the ranchman's hand. "Hello, Blaze! Ibeen ordered down here to keep you straight."
"Pshaw! Now who's giving you orders, Dave?"
"Why, I'm with the Rangers."
"Never knew a word of it. Last I heard you was filibustering aroundwith the Maderistas."
Blaze seated himself with a grateful sigh where the breeze played overhim. He was a big, bearlike, swarthy man with the square-hewn,deep-lined face of a tragedian, and a head of long, curly hair which hewore parted in a line over his left ear. Jones was a character, a locallandmark. This part of Texas had grown up with Blaze, and, inasmuch ashe had sprung from a free race of pioneers, he possessed a splendidindifference to the artificial fads of dress and manners. It was onlysince Paloma had attained her womanhood that he had been forced tofight down his deep-seated distrust of neckwear and store clothes andthe like; but now that his daughter had definitely asserted her rights,he had acquired numerous unwelcome graces, and no longer ventured amongstrangers without the stamp of her approval upon his appearance. Onlyat home did he maintain what he considered a manly independence ofspeech and habit. To-day, therefore, found him in a favorite suit ofbaggy, wrinkled linen and with a week's stubble of beard upon his chin.He was so plainly an outdoor man that the air of erudition lent him bythe pair of gold-rimmed spectacles owlishly perched upon his sunburnednose was strangely incongruous.
"So you're a Ranger, and got notches on your gun." Blaze rolled and lita tiny cigarette, scarcely larger than a wheat straw. "Well, you'dought to make a right able thief-catcher, Dave, only for yoursize--you're too long for a man and you ain't long enough for a snake.Still, I reckon a thief would have trouble getting out of your reach,and once you got close to him--How many men have you killed?"
"Counting Mexicans?" Law inquired, with a smile.
"Hell! Nobody counts them."
"Not many."
"That's good." Blaze nodded and relit his cigarette, which he hadpermitted promptly to smolder out. "The Force ain't what it was. Mostof the boys nowadays join so they can ride a horse cross-lots, pack apair of guns, and give rein to the predilections of a vicious ancestry.They're bad rams, most of 'em."
"There aren't many," said Paloma. "Dave tells me the whole Force hasbeen cut down to sixteen."
"That's plenty," her father averred. "It's like when Cap'n BillMcDonald was sent to stop a riot in Dallas. He came to town alone, andwhen the citizens asked him where his men was, he said, 'Hell! 'Ain't Ienough? There's only one riot.' Are you workin' up a case, Dave?"
"Um-m--yes! People are missing a lot of stock hereabouts."
"It's these blamed refugees from the war! A Mexican has to stealsomething or he gets run down and pore. If it ain't stock, it'ssomething else. Why, one morning I rode into Jonesville in time to seefour Greasers walkin' down the main street with feed-sacks over theirshoulders. Each one of those gunnie's had something long and flat andheavy in it, and I growed curious. When I investigated, what d'yousuppose I found? Tombstones! That's right; four marble beauties freshfrom the cemetery. Well, it made me right sore, for I'd helped to startJonesville. I was its city father. I'd made the place fit to live in,and I aimed to keep it safe to die in, and so, bein' a sort ofleft-handed, self-appointed deppity-sheriff, I rounded up those ghoulsand drove 'em to the county-seat in my spring wagon. I had the evidencepropped up against the front of our real-estate office--'Sacred to theMemory' of four of our leading citizens--so I jailed 'em. But that'sall the good it did."
"Couldn't convict, eh?"
Blaze lit his cigarette for the third time. "The prosecuting attorneyand I wasn't very good friends, seeing as how I'd had to kill hisdaddy, so he turned 'em loose. I'm damned if those four Greasers didn'tbeat me back to Jonesville." Blaze shook his head ruminatively. "Thiswas a hard country, those days. There wasn't but two honest men in thiswhole valley--and the other one was a nigger."
Dave Law's duties as a Ranger rested lightly upon him; his instructionswere vague, and he had a leisurely method of "working up" his evidence.Since he knew that Blaze possessed a thorough knowledge of this sectionand its people, it was partly business which had brought him to theJones home this afternoon.
Strictly speaking, Blaze was not a rancher, although many of his acreswere under cultivation and he employed a sizable army of field-hands.His disposition was too adventurous, his life had been too swift andvaried, for him to remain interested in slow agricultural pursuits;therefore, he had speculated heavily in raw lands, and for severalyears past he had devoted his energies to a gigantic colonizationscheme. Originally Blaze had come to the Rio Grande valley as astock-raiser, but the natural advantages of the country had appealed tohis gambling instinct, and he had "gone broke" buying land.
He had located, some fifteen miles below the borders of Las Palmas, andthere he had sunk a large fortune; then as a first step in hiscolonization project he had founded the town of Jonesville. Next he hadcaused the branch line of the Frisco railroad to be extended until itlinked his holdings with the main system, after which he had floated abig irrigation company; and now the feat of paying interest on itsbonds and selling farms under the ditch to Northern people kept himfully occupied. It was by no means a small operation in which he wasengaged. The venture had taken foresight, courage, infinite hard work;and Blaze was burdened with responsibilities that would have brokendown a man of weaker fiber.
But his pet relaxation was reminiscence. His own experience had beenwide, he knew everybody in his part of the state, and although eventsin his telling were sometimes colored by his rich imagination, theinformation he could give was often of the greatest value--as Dave Lawknew.
After a time the latter said, casually, "Tell me something about TadLewis."
Blaze looked up quickly. "What d'you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything."
"Tad owns a right nice ranch between here and Las Palmas," Blaze said,cautiously.
Paloma broke out, impatiently: "Why don't you say what you think?" Thento Dave: "Tad Lewis is a bad neighbor, and always has been. There's aford on his place, and we think he knows more about 'wet' cattle thanhe cares to tell."
"It's a good place to cross stock at low water," her father agreed,"and Lewis's land runs back from the Rio Grande in its old Spanishform. It's a natural outlet for those brush-country ranchos. But Ihaven't anything against Tad except a natural dislike. He stands wellwith some of our best people, so I'm probably wrong. I usually am."
"You can't call Ed Austin one of our best people," sharply objectedPaloma. "They claim that arms are being smuggled across to the Rebels,Dave, and, if it's true, Ed Austin--"
"Now, Paloma," her father remonstrated mildly
. "The Regulars and theRiver Guards watched Lewis's ranch till the embargo was lifted, andthey never saw anything."
"I believe Austin is a strong Rebel sympathizer," Law ventured.
"Sure! And him and the Lewis outfit are amigos. If you go pirootin'around Tad's place you're more'n apt to make yourself unpopular, Dave.I'd grieve some to see you in a wooden kimono. Tad's too well fixed tosteal cattle, and if he runs arms it's because of his sympathy forthose noble, dark-skinned patriots we hear so much about in Washington.Tad's a 'galvanized Gringo' himself--married a Mexican, you know."
"Nobody pays much attention to the embargo," Law agreed. "I ran armsmyself, before I joined the Force."
When meal-time drew near, both Jones and his daughter urged their guestto stay and dine with them, and Dave was glad to accept.
"After supper I'm going to show you our town," Blaze declared. "It'sthe finest city in South Texas, and growing like a weed. All we need isgood farmers. Those we've got are mostly back-to-nature students wholeaped a drug-counter expecting to 'light in the lap of luxury. In thelast outfit we sold there wasn't three men that knew which end of amule to put the collar on. But they'll learn. Nature's with 'em, and soam I. God supplies 'em with all the fresh air and sunshine they need,and when they want anything else they come to Old Blaze. Ain't thatright, Paloma?"
"Yes, father."
Paloma Jones had developed wonderfully since Dave Law had last seenher. She had grown into a most wholesome and attractive young woman,with an unusually capable manner, and an honest, humorous pair of browneyes. During dinner she did her part with a grace that made watchingher a pleasure, and the Ranger found it a great treat to sit at hertable after his strenuous scouting days in the mesquite.
"I'm glad to hear Jonesville is prosperous," he told his host. "Andthey say you're in everything."
"That's right; and prosperity's no name for it. Every-body wants Blazeto have a finger in the pie. I'm interested in the bank, thesugar-mill, the hardware-store, the ice-plant--Say, that ice-plant's aluxury for a town this size. D'you know what I made out of it lastyear?"
"I've no idea."
"Twenty-seven thousand dollars!" The father of Jonesville spokeproudly, impressively, and then through habit called upon his daughterfor verification. "Didn't I, Paloma?"
Miss Paloma's answer was unexpected, and came with equal emphasis: "No,you didn't, father. The miserable thing lost money."
Blaze was only momentarily dismayed. Then he joined in his visitor'slaughter. "How can a man get along without the co-operation of his ownhousehold?" he inquired, naively. "Maybe it was next year I wasthinking about." Thereafter he confined himself to statements whichrequired no corroboration.
Dave had long since learned that to hold Blaze Jones to a strictaccountability with fact was to rob his society of its greatest charm.A slavish accuracy in figures, an arid lack of imagination, reducesconversation to the insipidness of flat wine, and Blaze's talk wasnever dull. He was a keen, shrewd, practical man, but somewhere in hisbeing there was concealed a tremendous, lop-sided sense of humor whichtook the form of a bewildering imagery. An attentive audience wasenough for him, and, once his fancy was in full swing, there was nolimit to his outrageous exaggerations. A light of credulity in ahearer's eye filled him with prodigious mirth, and it is doubtful ifhis listeners ever derived a fraction of the amusement from hisfabrications that he himself enjoyed. Paloma's spirit of contradictionwas the only fly in his ointment; now that his daughter was old enoughto "keep books" on him, much of the story-teller's joy was denied him.
Of course his proclivities occasionally led to misapprehensions; chanceacquaintances who recognized him as an artful romancer were liable toconsider him generally untruthful. But even in this misconception Blazetook a quiet delight, secure in the knowledge that all who knew himwell regarded him as a rock of integrity. As a matter of fact, hisgenuine exploits were quite as sensational as those of his manufacture.
When, after supper, Blaze had hitched a pair of driving-mules to hisbuckboard, preparatory to showing his guest the glories of Jonesville,Dave said:
"Paloma's getting mighty pretty."
"She's as pretty as a blue-bonnet flower," her father agreed. "And sheruns me around something scandalous. I 'ain't got the freedom of apeon." Blaze sighed and shook his shaggy head. "You know me, Dave; Inever used to be scared of nobody. Well, it's different now. She ridesme with a Spanish bit, and my soul ain't my own." With a suddenlightening of his gloom, he added: "Say, you're going to stay righthere with us as long as you're in town; I want you to see how Icringe." In spite of Blaze's plaintive tone it was patent that he wasinordinately proud of Paloma and well content with his serfdom.
Jonesville proved to be a typical Texas town of the modern variety, andaltogether different to the pictured frontier village. There were noone-storied square fronts, no rows of saloons with well-gnawedhitching-rails, no rioting cowboys. On the contrary, the largerbuildings were of artificial stone, the sidewalks of concrete, and thestore fronts of plate-glass. Arc-lights shed a bluish-white glare overthe wide street-crossings, and all in all the effect was much like thatof a prosperous, orderly Northern farming town.
Not that Jonesville would have filled an eye for beauty. It was too newand crude and awkward for that. It fitted loosely into its clothes, forits citizens had patterned it with regard for the future, and itsprawled over twice its legitimate area. But to its happy founder itseemed well-nigh perfect, and its destiny roused his maddestenthusiasm. He showed Dave the little red frame railroad station,distinguished in some mysterious way above the hundred thousand otherlittle red frame railroad stations of the identical size and style; hepointed out the Odd Fellows Hall, the Palace Picture Theater, with itsglaring orange lights and discordant electric piano; he conducted Lawto the First National Bank, of which Blaze was a proud but somewhatornamental director; then to the sugar-mill, the ice-plant, and otherpoints of equally novel interest.
Everywhere he went, Jones was hailed by friends, for everybody seemedto know him and to want to shake his hand.
"SOME town and SOME body of men, eh?" he inquired, finally, and Daveagreed:
"Yes. She's got a grand framework, Blaze. She'll be most as big as FortWorth when you fatten her up."
Jones waved his buggy-whip in a wide circle that took in the miles oflevel prairie on all sides. "We've got the whole blamed state to growin. And, Dave, I haven't got an enemy in the place! It wasn't manyyears ago that certain people allowed I'd never live to raise thistown. Why, it used to be that nobody dared to ride with me--exceptPaloma, and she used to sleep with a shot-gun at her bedside."
"You sure have been a responsibility to her."
"But I'm as safe now as if I was in church."
Law ventured to remark that none of Blaze's enemies had grown fat inprosecuting their feuds, but this was a subject which the elder maninvariably found embarrassing, and now he said:
"Pshaw! I never was the blood-letter people think. I'm as gentle as asheep." Then to escape further curiosity on that point he suggestedthat they round out their riotous evening with a game of pool.
Law boasted a liberal education, but he was no match for the father ofJonesville, who wielded a cue with a dexterity born of years ofdevotion to the game. In consequence, Blaze's enjoyment was in a fairway to languish when the proprietor of the Elite Billiard Parlorreturned from supper to say:
"Mr. Jones, there's a real good pool-player in town, and he wants tomeet you."
Blaze uttered a triumphant cry. "Get him, quick! Send the brass-band tobring him. Dave, you hook your spurs over the rung of a chair and watchyour uncle clean this tenderfoot. If he's got class, I'll make himmayor of the town, for a good pool-shooter is all this metropolislacks. Why, sometimes I go plumb to San Antone for a game." Hewhispered in his friend's ear, "Paloma don't let me gamble, but ifyou've got any dinero, get it down on me." Then, addressing thebystanders, he proclaimed, "Boys, if this pilgrim is good enough tostretch me out we'll marry him off and settle him
down."
"No chance, Uncle Blaze; he's the most married person in town," someone volunteered. "His wife is the new dressmaker--and she's got amustache." For some reason this remark excited general mirth.
"That's too bad. I never saw but one woman with a mustache, and shelicked me good. If he's yoked up to that kind of a lady, I allow hisnerves will be wrecked before he gets here. I hope to God he ain'tentirely done for." Blaze ran the last three balls from a well-nighimpossible position, then racked up the whole fifteen with tremblingeagerness and eyed the door expectantly. He was wiping his spectacleswhen the proprietor returned with a slim, sallow man whom he introducedas Mr. Strange.
"Welcome to our city!" Blaze cried, with a flourish of his glasses."Get a prod, Mr. Strange, and bust 'em, while I clean my wind-shields.These fellow-townsmen of mine handle a cue like it was an ox-gad."
Mr. Strange selected a cue, studied the pyramid for an instant, thencalled the three ball for the upper left-hand corner, and pocketed it,following which he ran the remaining fourteen. Blaze watched thisprocedure near-sightedly, and when the table was bare he thumped hiscue loudly upon the floor. He beamed upon his opponent; he appearedready to embrace him.
"Bueno! There's art, science, and natural aptitude! Fly at 'em again,Mr. Strange, and take your fill." He finished polishing his spectacles,and readjusted them. "I aim to make you so comfortable in Jonesvillethat---" Blaze paused, he started, and a peculiar expression crept overhis face.
It seemed to Law that his friend actually turned pale; at any rate, hismouth dropped open and his gaze was no longer hypnotically followingthe pool-balls, but was fixed upon his opponent.
Now there were chapters in the life of Blaze Jones that had never beenfully written, and it occurred to Dave that such a one had beensuddenly reopened; therefore he prepared himself for some kind of anoutburst. But Blaze appeared to be numbed; he even jumped nervouslywhen Mr. Strange missed a shot and advised him that his chance had come.
As water escapes from a leaky pail, so had Jones's fondness for pooloozed away, and with it had gone his accustomed skill. He shot blindly,and, much to the general surprise, missed an easy attempt.
"Can't expect to get 'em all," comfortingly observed Mr. Strange as heexecuted a combination that netted him two balls and broke the bunch.After that he proved the insincerity of his statement by clearing thecloth for a second time. The succeeding frames went much the same, andfinally Blaze put up his cue, mumbling:
"I reckon I must have another chill coming on. My feet are plumb dead."
"Cold feet are sure bad." Strange favored the crowd with a wink.
"I'm sort of sick."
"That's tough!" the victor exclaimed, regretfully. "But I'll tell youwhat we'll do--we'll take a little look into the future."
"What d'you mean?"
"Simply this: Nature has favored me with second sight and the abilityto read fortunes. I foretell good an' evil, questions of love andmattermony by means of numbers, cards, dice, dominoes, apple-parings,egg-shells, tea-leaves, an' coffee-grounds." The speaker's voice hadtaken on the brazen tones of a circus barker. "I pro'nosticate bycharms, ceremonies, omens, and moles; by the features of the face,lines of the hand, spots an' blemishes of the skin. I speak thelanguage of flowers. I know one hundred and eighty-seven weather signs,and I interpet dreams. Now, ladies and gents, this is no idle boast.Triflin' incidents, little marks on the cuticle, although they appearto be the effect of chance, are nevertheless of the utmost consequence,an' to the skilled interpeter they foretell the temper of, an' theevents that will happen to, the person bearin' 'em. Now let us takethis little deck of common playing-cards---"
The monologist, suiting the action to the word, conjured a deck ofcards from somewhere, and extended them to Blaze. "Select one; anyone---"
"Hell!" snorted Jones, slipping into his coat.
"You are a skeptic! Very well. I convince nobody against his will. Butwait! You have a strong face. Stand where you are." Extracting fromanother pocket a tiny pair of scissors and a sheet of carbon paper, Mr.Strange, with the undivided attention of the audience upon him, beganto cut Blaze's silhouette. He was extraordinarily adept, and despitehis subject's restlessness he completed the likeness in a few moments;then, fixing it upon a plain white cardboard, he presented it with aflourish.
Blaze accepted the thing and plunged for the open air.