by Lauran Paine
Jack remembered the heavy-jawed man. “Was he in the other room with the doctor and that old man?”
“Yes. The old man was a crony of Rob’s grandfather. They were buffalo hunters many years ago. The people around Herd call him Uncle Ned.”
Jack was thinking of Josh Logan’s cold and hostile look. “This uncle,” he said slowly. “Are you sure he’ll want the boy?”
The girl was long enough in answering for Jack to know her thoughts. “Josh is Rob’s only living relative...but I don’t know. Rob’s father and Josh Logan hadn’t spoken in years before Rob’s father was killed. And...Josh despised Rob’s mother.”
Jack made a cigarette, sucked life into it from the lamp, and studied the girl’s face. The house was as still as the night. The storm had passed, finally, and only the drip of water beyond the window and an infrequent soughing of wind through the sycamore tree outside remained.
The girl squared herself in the chair. “What did he mean about Johnny Reb?” she asked.
“An old horse by that name that belonged to Buck. He died of distemper a few weeks ago.”
“Oh.”
Lamplight limned the rounded fullness of her figure and it also deepened the dark shadows under her eyes. The world dissolved from the room until only she was left in the big man’s gaze, solemn and still.
“Are you a relative?” he inquired.
She shook her head. “No, I live next door.” The dark lashes swept up to reveal an intense gaze. “Would you take him?”
It caught him totally unprepared. He stared at her as though he wasn’t sure he had heard right. Then he looked down at the cigarette in his hand.
“I’m no kin, ma’am. Besides, I haven’t anything to offer a kid.”
She arose, still watching him, then she looked away, toward the thin sleeping figure on the cot. “No, of course not,” she said. There was a long interval of silence before she swung to face him. “He didn’t ask for his uncle when the doctor told him his grandfather had died...he asked for you.”
Jack crushed out the cigarette, turned, and looked out the window. “He’s not an orphan, ma’am.”
“I don’t believe Josh Logan will care.”
He faced around. “No, why not?”
“For one thing he’s a bachelor. For another, he’s superintendent of the railroad company’s right of way department and track crews. He’s not home very much.” She looked down at the cot again. “I just can’t picture him making a home for a little boy.”
There was another interval of silence. Then the girl spoke again.
“I suppose I’ll have to make funeral arrangements.”
Jack said: “You? Why not Logan...at least he’s kin.”
“I doubt that he’ll do it.”
Jack’s gaze clouded. He moved closer to the girl. “Maybe you’d better tell me the whole story,” he said.
She answered him without looking away from the cot. “It’s an old story around Herd. Josh Logan wanted to marry Rob’s mother. She married his brother instead. Josh is not a forgiving man. That’s all I know, really. There’s a lot of gossip of course, but those are the facts.”
Recalling Josh Logan’s face, Jack said: “They’re probably enough.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you take him? You could give him so much more than Josh could.”
He looked into her eyes, wondering if there would be any point in saying that vengeful men, like lost little boys, had hatred living in them that needed only an image to fasten upon to become deadly? He decided from the look of her face she would not understand, and moved away from her touch. Then, to gain time for thought, he said: “Did you know Rob’s mother?”
A dark shadow crossed her face when she answered. “Yes. I knew his father, too, but I wasn’t much older than Rob when he was killed. I knew them all. I knew his grandfather was dying.”
“How did you know that?”
“He told me. I don’t see how he held on as long as he did. He was very old and he was ill.” Her gaze grew introspective. “I don’t see how they faced the things that happened to them. There wasn’t anything but suffering...for years.” She shook off the mood and raised her eyes. “If Josh Logan has no objection to you raising Rob, you could live here. It belongs to Rob now.”
Jack went to the chair and dropped down. He stared at the meager figure under the quilts on the cot. “I don’t know anything about kids,” he said. “I’ve always been a drifter....”
“I can tell you this...you will both be good for each other.”
He got up, thoughts weaving in and out of his mind, distorted by the emotional draining he had experienced. “I’ve got to think about this,” he said, and went to the door. “You’ll take care of him tonight, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
He cast a final look at the sleeping boy, nodded to the girl, and left them.
IV
Josh Logan was standing behind his desk. When Jack passed through the office doorway and saw him there, he thought Logan was as withdrawn and distant as the moon.
Jack closed the door and waited. Logan made no motion toward a chair, offered no hand, or indicated in any way that his visitor was welcome.
Jack moved through the coldness in the room. “You may remember me,” he said. “I was at Logan’s the night the old man died.”
“I remember,” Logan said, coldly impersonal eyes like agate. “What do you want?”
“I came to talk about the boy...Rob.”
“Yes.”
Logan didn’t make it easy. Jack had trouble making the words come out right.
“Well, I’ve been told you travel a lot and maybe you wouldn’t want to be bothered with a kid. I could take him, teach him a little, sort of help him along. We get along fine.”
“At Buck’s barn?” Logan’s lips scarcely parted. “He never should have been allowed down there in the first place.”
Jack reacted to Logan’s obvious antagonism. They were of a height and now their eyes met in silent struggle.
“There are worse places than livery barns, Mister Logan,” the big man said. “And he could learn the saddler’s trade there...and other things, too.”
“You’d teach him, Swift?” The cold eyes flicked up and down and back to Jack’s face. “What else would you teach him?”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean you don’t wear a gun.”
“What of it?”
Logan moved up, sat down behind the desk, and raised his eyes. “It’s against the law for ex-felons to wear guns. In my work with railroad track gangs I meet a lot of men, Swift. I can spot an ex-convict a mile off. That’s what I mean.”
Jack was silent. Logan touched some papers on his desk, then leaned back. “If the boy’s to learn something, better teachers can be found,” he said. “For example, he could study telegraphy under one of my men.”
“Even if he’d much rather work around horses and saddles?”
“What would a boy like that know about what’s good for him? He’s immature.” Logan’s eyes glowed. “So were his parents.”
Jack struggled to hold his temper, and lost. He leaned forward from the hips when next he spoke. “Immature?” he said. “I can think of something that’s a lot worse than immaturity...hating a kid’s parents even after they’re dead and keeping that hatred alive against the kid...that’s worse than immaturity, Logan.”
Logan sprang up and for a moment Jack thought he would attack him. His face went white and his hands clenched into fists. When he spoke, his voice was sharp-honed and harsh.
“Swift, I’m going to give you some advice. You’ve gone out of your way to meddle in my affairs. I won’t forget that. You’d better learn your place. It wouldn’t be hard to send you back where you came from...Yuma. Now get out of here.”
Seeing the wh
ite and deadly heat of Logan’s anger, Jack knew his chances of ever moving Logan were forever ruined. He left the office and walked aimlessly through the hot afternoon. Walked without heeding direction and ultimately found himself farther south than he had intended to go. Across the road was the sheriff’s office, a small, plain building, sturdily doored and barred at the windows. The sight raised ghosts in his mind. He turned back, went as far as the barn, and saw Buck watching him from the doorway.
When he turned in, the old man jerked his head backward in a conspiratorial manner and gestured toward the harness room. Jack frowned. Buck then puckered up his face and hissed: “Amy Southard’s back there, waiting for you.”
Jack went to the harness room doorway and stopped, filling the opening. The girl’s soft, anxious eyes leaped to his face.
“What did he say?”
“He said no.” Jack moved into the room and leaned against a harness rack. “He also said some other things, too. I gathered he’s figuring on putting Rob with a telegrapher...or someone like that.”
“With whom?”
“He didn’t say.”
Amy sat down in the barrel chair and looked at her hands. As though from a distance she said: “Rob’s at our house. When I left, my mother was getting his breakfast.”
“That’s fine,” the big man said hollowly, not looking at her.
“Jack, what will you do now?”
“Do?” he said, looking at her with exasperation. “Nothing. What can I do?”
She arose, looked him straight in the face, then started for the door. As she brushed past, he caught her arm.
“Wait.”
She stopped. Her beauty was clear even in the dingy atmosphere of the harness room. He let go of her arm.
“I did some thinking while I was walking back here. Maybe it’d be better if Rob did learn a trade like that. Telegraphers sit down. And another thing....”
“Didn’t you tell Rob there would always be a demand for good saddle makers? Isn’t that largely a sitting-down job, too? But even if it wasn’t...should he surrender to his limp...plan his life so he’s defeated before he even starts to live? A lot of people limp, Jack. We’ve had Presidents who limped. Andrew Jackson did.”
He didn’t look at her, but her eyes never left his face. Then she went on speaking. “There are some other things you’ve forgotten, too. He wants to be a saddle maker. But the most tragic thing is that there’s something he needs even more than a trade...love. Every time he’s loved something it’s been taken away from him.”
“I know all those things,” he said.
She took another step through the doorway before saying: “Yes, I suppose you do. You just don’t want to do anything about them.”
“That’s not true,” he answered quickly. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll tell you, Jack...fight. Fight for his happiness.”
He looked at her. Fight Logan, the man who knew why he didn’t wear a gun? It wasn’t that simple. “Listen, Miss Southard,” he said tightly, “Logan’s legal kin...I’m just a drifter.”
“You are the only person left on this earth that Rob loves. You’re the only person he doesn’t believe will let him down.”
“That’s putting it pretty strongly,” he said.
“No, Jack, that’s stating the simple truth. If you went into court for the boy and he was asked to make a choice between you and Logan, he’d pick you without a moment’s hesitation.”
The big man’s eyes widened. “No,” he said in a sudden, sharp tone. “It can’t come to that.”
“Why not?”
“It just can’t, that’s all.”
As she stared at him, her eyes widened, her lips parted slightly, and for a moment they were close, looking into each other’s eyes. Then she turned away from the doorway and passed from his sight.
Moments later old Buck came up. He took a squinted long look at Jack’s face and let the words lying upon his lips die. Instead, he said: “I expect we’d better grease axles today.”
Jack greased axles that day. The following day he hauled meadow hay in a wagon. The third day he worked on the seal-brown mare’s contracted hoof with sweat pouring off him and heel flies exploring his ears when both his hands were occupied. He spoke little and could not shake off the self-reproach that failed to atrophy as the days passed.
Time ran on, the days of late summer flowed one after another, like gold, and gradually the ranchers, freighters, and even the townsmen came to bring their saddles and harness to Buck’s barn for repairing, even though Herd had a saddler, old Charley Schmidt. This work kept Jack occupied far into the night nearly every day. It also made Buck grow pensive. Finally he went to Jack with an idea.
“Folks are getting to know you better as a saddler than as a liveryman,” he said. “Now I got this notion. Charley Schmidt’s old and I’ve heard a rumor that he wants to quit business. You could buy him out some way and set yourself up as a saddle maker. Take over Charley’s shop. How’s it sound to you?”
“Sounds fine, Buck, only I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Pshaw, I’ll loan it to you.”
They went to see Schmidt. The old man was glad to sell. He was even gladder to spend several weeks at the shop until Jack was established. They complemented one another; Charley was talkative and Jack Swift rarely spoke at all.
Summer finally came to its prolonged, dusty close and Jack belonged as he had never imagined that he could. He had customers, friends, acceptance and respect, even though he wore no gun in a land where a gun on the hip was as common as the trousers under it. But in the secret place of his mind he never forgot Amy Southard or crippled Rob Logan.
He didn’t see either of them. Hadn’t seen them in fact in many weeks. Twice he had thought he’d glimpsed Amy but he wasn’t sure.
He worked in the shop and prospered, and, when the sheriff came by to visit one day, only a little of the old uneasiness returned.
He made living quarters behind the shop in a lean-to. They were tight for a man of his size but they were comfortable and private. There was only one drawback to them — at night they were peopled with faces from the past.
He walked for exercise. He neither owned a horse nor had any use for one. He walked nearly every night and came to know every byway, every footpath, and most of the little meandering roadways for several miles around Herd. He also followed the creek by moonlight, listening to the splash of trout, and knew where the best fishing holes were without fishing any of them.
He grew into the warp of Herd without becoming a part of its social life. He was a reserved person, a big and powerful man whose integrity was beyond the expectation of those who brought him work, but a loner, a person who preferred his own company to the company of others — or so it seemed to the people who came to know him.
Then, one late afternoon in early fall, he looked up from the cutting table as a thin shadow hovered in the doorway, and a sequence of events began that Herd would remember for many years.
“Hello, Jack.”
The small face was thinner and the limp seemed more pronounced. The boy appeared old and wizened. The change held Jack motionless for a second, before he smiled.
“Howdy, Rob. Haven’t seen you in a ’coon’s age.”
The boy’s blue eyes ranged over the shop. Over racks of leather and hanging saddles, rows of bridles, reins, bits, chaps, harness, a world of rich fragrance and craftsmanship.
The boy said: “Gosh, you sure have a swell shop.”
Jack wiped his hands on the apron he wore and reached for his tobacco sack. “Come on in,” he said, and heard the soft drag of foot leather across the floor.
“This is swell, Jack. Do you make new saddles, too?”
“On order, Rob. Now and then. Right now there’s a big rush for harness.” Jack lit up and exhaled. �
�The cowmen’re getting ready for roundup.” He looked into the wistful blue eyes. “How’ve you been, anyway. Learning to be a telegrapher?”
“Telegrapher?” the boy said, touching a new saddle reverently. “No, I guess I didn’t have the touch for that. Anyway Mister Cavin said I didn’t.”
“Who’s he, the telegrapher?”
“No, he’s the man I live with.”
“Oh. Well, what are you learning?”
“Nothing much, I guess. How to milk goats, cook a little, maybe.”
The blue eyes lifted to his face and the man saw something hard there. Hard and secretive.
“Do you ever see Amelia?”
“Who?”
“Amy Southard. That girl who lived next door to my grandfather’s place. Do you ever see her?”
“No. Do you?”
Rob shook his head. “No. I’m not supposed to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know exactly. My uncle told Mister Cavin not to let me see her...or you, either.”
The cigarette was dead between the big man’s fingers. He put it aside and said: “Oh.”
“I sneaked down here today, though.”
The man’s eyes followed the boy’s hand as it went out to rest lightly on a new pair of shotgun chaps lying across a saddle. The boy’s voice came softly.
“Jack. Maybe if you asked Mister Cavin if I could come down here, he’d let me.”
Through the ensuing silence traffic sounds from the roadway came in past the door with distinct clarity. Dogs barked, men called to one another, and horses at the tie racks blew their noses. People stumped past on the plank walk and a little autumnal zephyr groped along under the eaves making a sad sound.
“Jack...I got a gun.”
The man’s gray eyes, cloudy with indecision, grew still. “What kind of a gun?”
“A Colt six-shooter. It’s sort of rusty but it shoots.”
“How do you know it shoots?”
The blue eyes wavered. “Well, Mister Cavin keeps bullets in a tin can. I took some and tried it.” The boy half turned away. “But I’m not very good with it yet.”
“Yet? Lord, all it takes to be good with a gun is the will. Shoot and shoot and shoot until you never miss, then draw and draw and draw until you’re a blur of speed.” Jack’s hands felt damp. He wiped them on the apron again and straightened up. “Rob, we’ve been pardners sort of for a long time, haven’t we?”