The Way Of The West

by Elmer Kelton

  He looked down at his round stomach as he spoke, and laughed comfortably, until he shook from head to foot.

  ‘I should think that you could settle down here’ said Ingram with enthusiasm. ‘There are scores of Mexicans here. The number of their knife fights, you know—I beg your pardon,’ he added, ‘I don’t want to appear to give advice.’

  ‘Ah, but do it! Do it!’ said Pedrillo. ‘As we grow older we find little advice to take; and a great many occasions for giving. So say what is in your mind.’

  Ingram looked at the other a little more closely, for he feared that he was being mocked; but he met an eye so transparent and a smile so genuine and childlike that he could not help laughing in return.

  ‘There is nothing I can say’ he declared at last. ‘Except that it seemed to me that there was enough in Billman to keep you busy every moment of your time.’

  ‘In this little town’ said Pedrillo, ‘my people shift so fast—up to the mines and back again, in and out—that I can do little except marry or bury them as they pass. If it were a settled place, then I could take a house here and live among them until I became really a brother to them. But as it is, the mines fill their pockets with money. They have plenty to spend on food and tequila, and something left over to gamble and fight for. Their minds and their hands are so filled that they have no need of me except when they are about to marry or to die. If I were to settle among them now they would forget that I am here. I would be a shadow to them. But since I come from a distance, at rare intervals, I am something more. They listen to me now and then. That is all I can expect. I am not ambitious, Mr. Ingram. But you have your own people, and they are not mine. All of mine will hear me—at least two or three times in their lives. Some of yours will never hear you at all. But a great many of them may take you into their everyday lives. That is the greater good. Unquestionably, the greater good. Ah, well, I must accept my destiny’

  His words were a good deal more serious than his manner, for he smiled as he spoke.

  ‘But’ he added, ‘I have never had gifts. Unless it is a gift to listen to people’s sorrows. You, however, can mix with your kind and command admiration among them.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Ingram, frowning a little, as one who did not like to receive idle compliments.

  ‘You are big,’ said the Mexican, ‘you are young, and you are strong. The men here are rough; but they cannot afford to scorn you.’

  He pointed, as he spoke, to a little silver vase which stood on top of the bookshelf, a pair of boxing gloves chased on its side.

  Young Ingram smiled faintly and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘That was before I had any serious purpose in life,’ said he. ‘That was before I found myself. Now I’m a man.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-five, almost,’ said Ingram.

  Brother Pedrillo did not smile. ‘And how did you come to find yourself?’ he asked gently.

  Ingram found it strangely easy to talk about himself to this brown, fat face, these inactive but knowing eyes. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked into the past.

  ‘I was smashed in a football game, and played too long afterward. It put me in the hospital. I had the germs of a fever in me at the time, and that gave the sickness a galloping start. It was a long struggle. But in the intervals, when I was not delirious and when I realized how close to death I lay, I wondered what I had been doing with myself for twenty years. Twenty long years, and nothing done, nothing worthwhile! A few goals kicked. A few touchdowns. Some boxing. Well, I determined that if God spared me I would give something to the world that was worthwhile. And when I could call my life my own, I began studying for the church.’

  He checked himself and looked rather suspiciously at the Brother.

  ‘I seem to be chattering a good deal,’ he suggested.

  ‘Talk is good,’ said the older man with conviction. All at once he began to whistle a thin, small note. Ingram turned and saw a little yellow-backed lizard lying in the burning sun upon the threshold. It lifted its head and listened to the music. ‘Talk is good,’ added the friar, with a nod of surety.

  He stood up.

  ‘We begin to know each other,’ he said.

  ‘I want to ask you the same question that you asked me,’ said Ingram. ‘How did you happen to select your vocation?’

  ‘But I had nothing to do with it’ answered the friar. ‘My mother gave me to the church. And here I am’ he added, and smiled again. ‘Whatever I can do, ask of me. I have little power. I have little knowledge. But I know something of the strong men who live here.’

  ‘These ruffians!’ cried Ingram rather fiercely.

  Brother Pedrillo raised a brown hand.

  ‘Don’t call them that. Yes, call them that if you will. It is always better to put it into words than to leave it buried in the mind. But except for a rough man’s act, would there be a church here now? Would you yourself be here in the desert, my brother?’

  Ingram bit his lip thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean’ he replied frankly.

  ‘You don’t know?’ asked Pedrillo, his smile fading. And for a single instant his eyes were keen and cold as they searched the face of his companion. ‘Perhaps you don’t’ he decided. ‘You have not heard how your own church was built?’

  ‘By a man named William Luger. I’ve been here only four days, you understand.’

  ‘Do you not know how he came to leave the money for it?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘So, so!’ murmured the friar.

  He sat down again and rolled a cigarette, whistling the small note to the enchanted lizard at the door. He made the cigarette like a little cornucopia, for such is the Mexican fashion. And Ingram saw, with a little disgust, that the fingers of the holy man were literally painted orange-yellow by the stain of nicotine.

  ‘Let me tell you’ said the friar, beginning to blow smoke toward the rough beams of the ceiling. ‘Billy Luger was a man typical of this part of the world.’

  ‘A little better than that, I hope’ said Ingram, turning stiff.

  ‘No’ replied the Dominican. ‘He was just that. He had spent thirty years branding cattle—his own or ones he borrowed for the occasion. Finally he dipped into mining, when the rush started toward the San Joaquín silver and the Sierra Negra gold. He made a few thousand and was celebrating a trip to town one evening, when he got into a card game with “Red Jim” Moffet. Moffet shot him, and it was while Billy lay dying that he made up his mind to leave his money for the founding of a church. That’s the story. And that’s what brought you here.’

  ‘And the murderer?’ asked Mr. Ingram hotly. ‘He was hanged, I trust?’

  ‘You are a sanguinary young man’ smiled the Dominican. ‘But these people are fond of killing with guns; they rarely kill with a rope. No, Moffet was not hanged. He’s still alive, prosperous and well. You’ll meet him around the town.’

  ‘A most extraordinary tale,’ said Ingram, breathing hard. ‘Was no attempt made to bring his killer to justice?’

  ‘The fact is,’ said the friar sympathetically, ‘that Moffet accused Billy of having a card up his sleeve during the game. And I believe that the bystanders agreed with Red, after the smoke blew away’

  Brother Pedrillo rose again.

  ‘You are going to exercise much influence from the start, I know,’ said he.

  ‘And on what do you base that?’ asked Ingram, again antagonistic.

  ‘Where the ladies of the town go, the men are sure to follow—though sometimes at a little distance,’ said Pedrillo, and he stepped out into the blast of the sun.

  It glistened on his bald head as upon brown glass.

  Once more the friar waved adieu, and trudged down the dusty street, leaving Ingram of two minds as he stood in the doorway. He could not quite make out the import of that last remark. It sounded suspiciously like a touch of sarcasm, but he could not be sure. At length he turned to comple
te his sermon. It was not easy. He had to set his teeth and force his pencil on. Because from time to time across his mind came the vision of a card game—and one man with cards up the sleeve!

  III

  With Tears in Her Eyes

  Women? He had not guessed that there were so many in the entire town, aside from the Mexican section across the creek. They filled more than half the front part of the church, whispering, buzzing, and then settling down to watch his face with a curious insistence, until he began to feel that they were hearing not a word.

  He lifted his eyes from them and directed the strength of his little oration toward a dozen men who remained as far back as possible on the benches, huddling themselves into the shadowy corners.

  They were listening, and they did not seem convinced by this talk about peace. Now and then they looked gravely at one another. Once or twice the Reverend Reginald Ingram thought he saw a faint smile. But he could not be sure. Only he knew that the church now began to seem extremely small; and that the sun beat upon it with a terrific force. It was hot, very hot; and he wanted a cooling wind to pour in and bring him relief.

  Well, that small miracle was denied for his gratification, and Ingram centered his attention fiercely on his sermon—bulldogging it through, as he often had done on the football field. Yardage on a football field, however, is chalked off with convenient white lines. Yardage in a church is a different matter. One may be under the goal posts one instant, and fighting to keep from being scored on the next.

  However, he drew his parallels. The yellow beetle and the gay little wren were called upon to furnish a metaphor apiece. The cruel hawk was not mentioned at all. And gradually he established his own conviction in the picture he was drawing of peace on earth, and good will among all of the men living upon it. He felt that he was drawing his audience together a little more. As for the hulking men in the rear—let them rise and sidle with creaking boots toward the exit. Not one of the feminine heads before him turned to watch them go. No, all were feverishly concentrated upon him. They were brown faces, indubitably Anglo-Saxon in spite of their color. And the eyes seemed strangely blue and bright by contrast. He began to feel that never before had he seen so many intelligent women gathered together. For, if the truth must be known, Mr. Ingram looked down upon the other sex. They rarely bothered him. No woman can talk football, and few can talk of religion with much conviction.

  The minister ended his sermon, and the organ responded in squawks of protest to the organist who was trying to furnish music to close the service. However, the little crowd did not depart, and Ingram, descending from his throne, was softly enveloped in a wave of organdies and lawns that brought a fresh, wholesome laundry smell about him.

  The ladies introduced themselves, and he listened gravely and earnestly to their names. If he was to work with such material as this, then it behooved him, by all means, to come quickly to the knowledge of it.

  They had enjoyed his sermon, it appeared. They had enjoyed it, oh, so much! Everything he said was so true. If one only stopped to think! How well he understood the desert, and their problems! Someone was asking him to come home to lunch. And then another, and another.

  A girl with very pale, blonde hair and very blue, blue eyes seemed to brush all the others aside with her gesture—though she was a little thing—and stood directly before him, smiling up.

  ‘They have no right to you’ said she. ‘My poor mother couldn’t come, and she wanted me to remember every word you said. As if I could do that, in my silly head! So you have to come home to lunch with me. Go away, Charlotte! Don’t be foolish! Of course Mr. Ingram is coming with me!’

  Even among the others it seemed to be taken for granted that Mr. Ingram would, of course, go with her of the pale hair and the extraordinarily blue eyes. They gave up. And she carried him off from the church.

  Indeed, he had a distinct impression that he was being carried. He could remember her name by a little effort; in fact, it was a very odd one. She was called Astrid Vasa.

  As they came from the church, a tall man, who looked compressed by his store clothes and nearly strangled by his necktie, approached them, with a red-faced grin for the girl.

  ‘Come along, Red,’ said she. ‘This is Red Moffet, Mr. Ingram. Red, this is Mr. Ingram. You know. He runs the church, and everything. Don’t you, Mr. Ingram?’

  She looked up at Mr. Ingram at the conclusion of this infantile question, and shut out the view of Red Moffet with a parasol which slanted over one shoulder, and which she was spinning with a very delicately made little hand. Ingram wanted to frown, but he couldn’t help smiling, which made him more determined than ever to frown. And so his smile grew broad!

  ‘Red works in a mine, or something,’ explained Astrid Vasa, shrugging a shoulder in the direction of Mr. Moffet.

  ‘I own a mine,’ said Red. ‘It’s kind of different.’

  He was offended, of course. It occurred vaguely to Ingram that Mr. Moffet seemed very offended. For his own part, he wondered what his attitude should be toward the man who had killed the founder of the church over which he now presided. But after all, it was said that the other cheek must be turned. Ingram, concentrating on the thought, set his teeth.

  They reached a picket fence in front of a little unpainted house. Few of the houses in Billman were painted, for that matter. ‘I dunno that I’ll be comin’ in,’ said Red Moffet gloomily.

  ‘You better come along,’ said Astrid. ‘We gotta couple of the best-looking roosters that you ever saw for dinner.’

  ‘I’m kind of busy’ said Red, more darkly than ever. ‘So long!’

  And he rambled down the street with a peculiarly awkward leg action. It reminded Ingram of the stride of a certain tackle of his college team, a fellow uncannily skillful in getting down the field under a kick, and marvelous in providing interference. He was more interested in Red Moffet from that instant.

  ‘He’s got a grouch on,’ confided Astrid. ‘He always wants to be the whole show since he got his silly old mine. C’mon in!’

  The screen door screeched as it was kicked open from within. A burly gentleman in shirtsleeves stood before them.

  ‘Hello; where’s Red?’ asked he in a pleasant voice.

  ‘Dad, this is Mr. Ingram, the minister, and he’s just been persuaded to—’

  ‘Hullo, Ingram! Glad to see you. Where’s Red, sis?’

  ‘I dunno. He got a grouch on and beat it. I can’t be bothered—all his notions.’

  ‘You little simp,’ said the inelegant Mr. Vasa, ‘you’ll be havin’ him slide through your fingers one of these days.’

  ‘Dad, what are you talkin’ about?’ exclaimed Astrid, very pink.

  Her sire looked from her to her companion and grunted.

  ‘Humph’ said he. ‘Is that it, eh?’

  ‘Is that what?’ asked Astrid, furious.

  ‘Aw, nothin’. C ‘min and sit down and rest your feet, Ingram. Lookit—ain’t it like a fool girl, though? Shufflin’ a boy like Red around? Know Red, I guess?’

  ‘I’ve barely met him,’ said Ingram, with reserve.

  ‘Have, eh? Well, he’s all right. Kind of mean, sometimes. Yep, mean as hell. But straight. Awful straight. Why, that kid’s got a half million dollars’ worth of mine up in the San Joaquín. Wouldn’t think it, would you, to look at him? But I’ve seen it. Make your mouth water. Lord knows how deep the vein runs. Maybe take out a hundred thousand a year for a hundred years. Can’t tell. And here’s our Astie with a gent like that in her pocket, and chucking him away over her shoulder. Finders, keepers! Sis, you’re a simp. That’s all!’

  ‘Father!’ cried Astrid, dividing the word into two distinct parts, each concealing a world of meaning. ‘D’you know that you’re talkin’ to a minister, with all your profanity, and—and talking foolishness about Red Moffet? Who said I had him in my pocket? Who wants to have him there? I’m sure I don’t. And—what do you mean by talking like this to a perfect stranger?’

  Aw, d
on’t step on your own toes to spite me, sis,’ suggested her father, grinning. ‘Besides, maybe Ingram ain’t going to be a stranger for very long. How about it?’

  This extreme directness embarrassed Ingram. He searched his mind—and found nothing with which to respond except a smile which might have received varying interpretations. Astrid retreated to regain her composure and let her blushes settle down to a normal pink.

  ‘She’s a good kid,’ pronounced Mr. Vasa, ‘but careless. Doggone careless. Far as that goes, though, this here is a land of carelessness and accidents. Billman’s an accident, you know.’

  An accident?’ said the polite Ingram.

  ‘Sure. You know how it started?’

  ‘No. Started?’

  ‘Sure. A town has to start, don’t it? Aw, you’re fresh out of the old States, where a town put down roots so long ago that there ain’t any story left about it except a legend that’s a lie. Well, things ain’t that way out here. We ain’t scratched many wrinkles on the desert yet, and the only ones we’ve made are all new. Take Bill man. Old Ike Billman was started for the San Joaquín range when the mines opened up there. Had a string of wagons loaded with stuff to sell for ten prices, the old hound! But he busted down here. Broke a wagon wheel. Before he got it fixed the boys were rushing through on the way for the San Joaquín on one side and for the Sierra Negra on the other. They wanted supplies, and wanted’em so bad that price was no object. So Ike, he piled out his stuff and sold it out here just as good as he could have done if he’d marched all the way into the mountains. Then he put up a shack, and began freighting more stuff—not to the mines, but here. Other folks followed the good example. Then some of us have got interests in both places—San Joaquín and Sierra Negra—so we live in this halfway station. Y’understand? That’s how Billman started growing. Just plain accident.’

  ‘You’re a mine owner also, then?’ said Ingram in a polite attempt to discover the interests of his host.