by Elmer Kelton
Astrid returned. She had studied her smile before the mirror and felt that it would do.
‘Sure, I’m a mine owner. I mean, I got shares in a couple of mines. I was a blacksmith when I come out here to—’
‘Dad,’ put in Astrid, ‘I don’t see why you have to rake up all the old family history. I’m sure Mr. Ingram isn’t interested.’
‘Why not?’ asked Vasa. ‘Ain’t it honest to be a blacksmith? I never was in jail—except overnight. I got nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a darn good trade, Ingram—blacksmithing. The money that I made out of it was honest. But this mining game—just luck! I took a couple of flyers at it. And they both connected with the bull’s-eye. There you are. I’m gunna be pretty well off. I could sell out now for a hundred thousand. Maybe more. Not so bad, eh? But I guess I was just as happy hammering iron, hot or cold. It’s the thing that you’re cut out for that counts. Luck ain’t apt to make you happy, Ingram. I’ll never be worth shucks as a miner. But I could lay a shoe on the hoof of a horse so fine it would make you stare. You come and watch me some day. I still put in a few hours in the old shop now and then, just to keep my hand in.’
Mrs. Vasa, as small as her husband was large, rather withered but still good-looking, stood in the doorway. She was flushed from her work in the kitchen, and wiped her hands on her apron before she greeted the minister.
‘Astie says that the sermon was just wonderful. I’ll bet it was,’ said Mrs. Vasa. ‘Now you come along in and have a bite of lunch with us, will you? I’m mighty glad to have you here, Mr. Ingram. I was just too busy to get to church this morning. Church is kind of new in Billman, you know. And it takes a body a time to get into the run of going again. But my folks were mighty regular; they never missed a Sunday hardly. I always think it does you sort of good to go to church. Cools you off, you know, and it’s restful. D’you think that you’re gunna like Billman, Mr. Ingram?’
This was poured out effortlessly, rapidly, as they got to the table and sat down. Mr. Ingram could have made a quick answer to the final question, but it was not necessary to answer questions in this house. Between the head of the house and his wife there was no room left for silent spots.
Afterward they had music. Ingram sat down to supper, and remained to listen in amazement.
Astie, she sings like a bird; doggone me if she don’t!’ said her father.
And that was exactly what she did. She accompanied herself on the piano. As smoothly as speech flowed from the lips of Mrs. Vasa, so song poured from the throat of her daughter, and the accompaniment bubbled delightfully in between.
‘Dragged that doggone piano clean out from Comanche Crossing,’ declared Vasa. ‘And I never regretted what it cost, derned if I have. Now ain’t it a treat to have a girl that can sing like that? She ought to be on the stage, where thousands could enjoy her. Honest, she should. But she’ll never get there.’
‘Why do you say that, Dad?’ asked Mrs. Vasa.
‘Because she’s got her career all mapped and laid out for her right here in Billman,’ said the head of the house.
‘Career?’ asked Astrid. ‘What sort of career?’
‘Humph!’ said the ex-blacksmith. ‘Breakin’ hearts, or tryin ‘to!’
‘Dad, you’re just—’ cried Astrid.
‘You might let the poor girl—’ began Mrs. Vasa.
Aw, be still!’ said Vasa. ‘Ingram’s gunna know about you pretty quick, if he don’t already. I tell you what, Ingram. If that girl hadn’t been born with a pretty face, she would have amounted to something. But she’s got just enough good looks to spoil her. Her heart’s all right. But her mirror keeps tellin’ her that she’s Cleopatra.’
‘I hope you don’t pay no attention, the way that he keeps on about his own flesh and blood,’ said Mrs. Vasa to her guest.
Ingram smiled. But it was with an effort.
‘Tune up, sis,’ commanded Vasa. ‘Go on and tune up, will you, and stop shaking your head at me. It ain’t gunna change me. I’m too old to change. Take me or leave me. That’s my motto. Maybe there’s rough hammer marks on me, but the stuff I’m made of is the right iron, I think. Go on and sing, will you? Gimme some of the old ones, where you don’t have to listen too hard. “Annie Laurie,” that’s about my speed. Somethin’ nice and sad. Or “Ben Bolt.” Doggone me, if that ain’t a swell song, Mr. Ingram. What you say? “Ben Bolt,” sis. And make her nice and sobby!’
They had’Ben Bolt ‘and’Annie Laurie,’ also.
And afterward Mr. Vasa went to sleep in his chair and snored. And Mrs. Vasa announced that she would go and close her eyes for a minute. Such a warm afternoon! Mr. Ingram was glad to excuse her. He sat in the shade of the house with Astrid.
‘I guess you think we’re terrible people,’ said Astrid sadly, ‘the way that Dad carries on.’
‘No,’ said Ingram earnestly. ‘I don’t think so at all. I like him. He doesn’t pretend. He’s honest. I like him a great deal, you know.’
It was pleasant to see her face light. Her smile was like her singing, charming beyond words. And Ingram wondered how such a flower could have grown in such rocky soil. It made him feel, too, the value of that background of culture which enables one to appreciate the great and the simple, the complex and the homely.
‘He thinks I ought to go on the stage,’ said Astrid. ‘But I’ll never get there. No, I’ll have to stay here in the desert.’
‘Do you want to go?’
‘I don’t know,’ said she. ‘Only—I’m so lonely here.’
She looked up at him with sad eyes.
‘Poor child!’ said Ingram, melting. ‘Lonely?’
He leaned a little toward her. Charitable kindness is commanded directly.
‘Oh, lonely, lonely!’ sighed Astrid, still looking into his face with suffering eyes. ‘Do you know—but you wouldn’t want me to tell you—’
‘I think I would,’ said the gentle minister.
‘You know such a lot, and you’re so wise and clever,’ said Astrid, ‘you would laugh at me!’
‘I’m none of those things. And I won’t laugh.’
‘Really you won’t?’
‘No.’
‘Well, of course I know a lot of people here. But though there are lots of them to chatter to—well, perhaps you won’t understand—there’s really not a soul for me to talk to.’
‘Poor child!’ said Mr. Ingram. He felt that he had said that before, but it was so true that he could not help repeating it. ‘Poor child, of course I can understand!’
‘Until you came, Mr. Ingram. And I really think that I could talk to you.’
‘You shall, my dear. Of course you shall, whenever you please.’
‘And you won’t laugh at me?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘And when I tire you, you’ll just send me away?’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said he, tolerantly.
‘Ah, you could understand!’ said Astrid. ‘The others—they just think that I’m always gay. They never guess, Mr. Ingram, how close the tears are sometimes!’
Yes, yes! But he could guess! He could see the tears now, just welling into her eyes. And he dropped a large, strong hand over her little one.
They sat in silence. He felt prepared to face the world. He felt the ability to endure, to suffer. And some day, when he had children, he was sure that he would be able to raise them tenderly, and well.
IV
Around the Corner
from Now here
There followed for Ingram several days of severe labor, for he was establishing his parish, enlisting the interests of various people, and accepting sundry contributions which poured in with amazing speed for the first public work which he attempted. This was the establishment of a little hospital.
Sick men came down constantly from the mines in the San Joaquín, or in the Sierra Negra, and from Billman they were in the habit of taking the long stage journey overland to Comanche Crossing, where they could get medical attention of a k
ind. Ingram saw the possibility of putting up something which would be more than a way-station for the sick. And his idea was taken up enthusiastically. Mexican labor made the adobe bricks rapidly on the banks of the creek, and the terrible sun dried them to the proper strength; after that, skilled Mexican workers raised the walls of the hospital. There were three main rooms, and they were built of generous size, with lofty ceilings and thick walls, so that the sun’s heat would not turn the place into an oven. For bed equipment there were various improvisations, and many donations were made after Ingram set the example by giving up his own cot. If he were willing to sleep on the floor, others would be equally brave in facing uncomfortable nights on the boards. For doctors there was no want; for several of them were among the men who had tried their luck in the gold rush and had run out of funds. They returned to their professional work and supplied the hospital with a competent staff. The Mexicans made excellent nurses, assisted from time to time by volunteers from among the ladies of Ingram’s congregation. As for the funds to pay for all this necessary labor and expenses of various kinds, the inhabitants of Billman willingly dug deep into their purses, and in addition came contributions from all the mines.
The work of the hospital filled Ingram’s hands for some time, and won for him a great deal of friendly recognition. In the meantime, a building of another kind went on to completion; a sure sign that the old days of Billman were drawing to a close, and that civilization was gathering the wild little town into its arms. For one day a thin, small man came to Ingram, a being so withered and lean that he seemed like a special product of the desert environment, equipped by nature to live for a long time without moisture of any kind. His skinny neck projected from a collar that would have girt in comfort the throat of a giant. His footwear was not neat. And when he fixed his melancholy eyes upon the minister, the latter was sure that this was another one of the race of hobos who pestered him from time to time.
Said the little man: ‘I’m Sheriff Ted Connors. I came over to fix up a jail in this town, because it looks to me like this would be a handy place for a jail to stand. It wouldn’t never have to be empty. And I’d like to know from you, how you get the folks in this town to fork over the money for a good cause?’
The two spent a long hour going over ways and means. And the very next day the foundations of the jail were established by the running of a shallow trench through the surface sands. The jail was completed in very few days. And the withered little Sheriff jogged out of town, leaving his work to be carried on by a younger, bigger, and much more formidable-looking deputy, Dick Binney
‘Now that there’s a church and a jail,’ said big Vasa, ‘it looks like Billman was pretty well-collared, eh?’
Ingram agreed. It was, he felt, only a matter of waiting a few weeks for the lawlessness and roughness of the town to subside. He had had a taste of that lawlessness before the town was very old. For one night—the hospital had been opened that day and the first patients, the wrecked victims of a mine explosion, installed—masked men entered Ingram’s shack and bade him come with them.
They led him down the main street, which was singularly deserted, and out from the town to a point where a crowd was gathered under one of the few trees of the neighborhood. Beneath that tree stood a man whose hands were tied behind him; around his neck was the noose of a rope which had been flung over a limb above his head. Ingram realized that he was in the presence of a crew of vigilantes.
A gruff voice said to him: ‘Here’s Chuck Lane, that wants to talk to you, kid, before he swings. Hop to it and finish the job pronto. We’re sleepy!’
‘Do you intend to hang this man’ asked Ingram, ‘without the process of law?’
‘Ah!’ said the leader of the crowd, ‘is that your line? Now look here, kid, if there’s gunna be any arguin’ about that out of you, you can turn around and go home. Chuck swiped a horse, the skunk, and he’s gunna swing for it. There’s been too much borrowin ‘of horses around these parts lately. And he goes up as example number one. If you got any talkin’ to do, do it on Chuck, will you?’
Ingram considered briefly. After all, he was quite helpless before these armed fellows. A protest would accomplish no good; it would merely deprive the victim of whatever spiritual comfort he might desire.
As he stepped up to the man who wore the noose, the others, with an unexpected sense of decency, made a wider circle around them.
‘It’s all right, boys,’ said Chuck Lane cheerfully, noticing this backward movement. ‘All I got to say can be heard by you gents.’
‘Chuck,’ said the minister, ‘are you guilty of the crime of which they accuse you?’
‘Crime?’ echoed Chuck. ‘If borrowin’ a horse when a man’s in a hurry is a crime—sure, I’m guilty! Well, kid, that ain’t why they sent for you. Fact is, I want to know something from you.’
‘Very well,’ said Ingram, ‘if you are a member of any church—’
‘I was took to church once when I was a kid,’ said the thief. ‘Otherwise I ain’t been bothered about them. But now when I come to stand here, around the corner from nowhere, it seems to me a pretty good time to find out what’s on the other side. What do you say, Ingram?’
‘Do you mean that you have doubts?’ asked Ingram.
‘Sure! Doubts about everything. Is this the finish—like going to sleep and never waking up? You’re a smart young feller. No matter what lingo you’re paid to sling in the church, you give me the low-down out here, man to man. I won’t tell nobody what you’ve said.’
‘There is a life to come, surely’ said Ingram.
‘Will you gimme a proof, then?’
‘Yes. The beasts have flesh and sense. Man has something more. He is born with flesh, mind, and spirit. Mind and flesh die, but the spirit is imperishable.’
‘You say it pretty slick and sure,’ remarked Chuck Lane. ‘You really mean that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, then, the next thing is: What chance have I to slip through without—without—’
‘What chance have you of happiness?’ asked the minister gently. ‘That I cannot tell. You know your own mind and life.’
‘What difference does the life make, really?’ asked the horse thief. ‘Ain’t it what’s in the head that counts most?’
‘Yes’ said Ingram. ‘Sin is more in the mind than in the body. Have you anything on your conscience?’
‘Me? Well, not much. I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it, as somebody has said before me. I knifed a gent in Chihuahua, once. But that was a fair fight. He’d taken a pass at me with a chair. I shot a fellow up in Butte, too. But the hound had told everybody that he was going to get me. So that don’t count, either. Otherwise, there ain’t been nothing important. This little job about the horse—that’s nothing. I was just in a hurry. Now, kid, the cards are on the table. Where do I go?’
‘You are young’ said Ingram. ‘You’re not much more than thirty—’
‘I’m twenty-two.’
The minister stared, aghast. Much, much of life had been scored on the face of this young man in his few short years.
Chuck seemed to understand, for he went on: ‘But the wrinkles don’t set till you’re forty’ he remarked, ‘and you can change your face up to that time. Y’understand?’
‘Did you intend to take up some other way of—’
‘I was always aiming to be a farmer, if I could get a stake together. Nothin’ wrong with my intentions, but the money was lackin”.
‘And how did you try to earn it?’
‘Cards was my chief line.’
‘Gambling?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were honest, Chuck?’
‘I never had the fingers for real crookedness’ admitted Chuck frankly. ‘I could palm a couple of cards. That was all. And I generally met up with somebody a good deal slicker than I was. So my winnings went out the window.’
Ingram was silent.
‘Does that make it bad for me?’ asked C
huck ingenuously.
It was a grim moment in which to play the judge, but Ingram answered slowly: ‘You’ve been a man-killer, a thief, and a crooked gambler. And perhaps there have been other things.’
‘Well,’ said Chuck, ‘I suppose that closes the door on me?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ingram. ‘It depends, in the first place, upon your repentance.’
‘Repentance?’ echoed the other. ‘Well, I dunno that I feel bad about th’ way I’ve lived. I’ve never shot a man in the back, and I’ve never cheated a drunk or a fool at the cards. I tried to trim the sharks, and the sharks always trimmed me.’
‘Is that all?’ said Ingram.
‘That’s about all. Except that I’d sure like to get with the right crowd of boys on the other side. I never had no real use for the tinhorns, thugs, and short sports that must be crowded into hell, Ingram. But you think I got a mighty slim chance, eh?’
Wistfulness and manly courage struggled in his voice.
‘No man can judge you,’ said the young minister. ‘If you believe in the goodness of God, and fix your mind on that belief, you may be saved, Chuck. I shall pray for you.’
‘Do it, old-timer,’ said Chuck. ‘A prayer or two wouldn’t do me any harm, and it might do me a lot of good. And—look here—hey, boys!’
‘Well?’ asked someone, coming closer.
‘I’d like Ingram to have my guns. It’s all that I’ve got to leave the world.’
‘Are there no messages that I can take for you?’ asked Ingram.
‘I don’t want to think about the folks that I leave behind me,’ said the thief. ‘I got a girl down in—well, let it go. It’s better for her never to hear than it is for her to start grievin’ about me. Better to think that I run off and forgot to come back to her. So long, Ingram!’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Ingram, turning on the crowd, ‘I protest against this unwarranted—’
‘Rustle the kid out of the way’ said someone, and half a dozen strong pairs of hands hurried Chuck suddenly away.
Behind him Ingram heard a groan, as of strong friction, and, glancing back, saw something swinging pendulous beneath the tree, and writhing against the golden surface of the rising moon.