by O. Henry
“The engine bell was ringing, and the train starting off slow. I goes up to the kid and places him under arrest, and takes away his gun. But the first thing I knew that caballard of capitalists makes a break for the train. One of ‘em hesitates in front of me for a second, and kind of smiles and shoves his hand up against my chin, and I sort of laid down on the platform and took a nap. I never was afraid of guns; but I don’t want any person except a barber to take liberties like that with my face again. When I woke up, the whole outfit — train, boy, and all — was gone. I asked about Pedro, and they told me the doctor said he would recover provided his wounds didn’t turn out to be fatal.
“When Luke got back three days later, and I told him about it, he was mad all over.
“‘Why’n’t you telegraph to San Antone,’ he asks, ‘and have the bunch arrested there?’
“‘Oh, well,’ says I, ‘I always did admire telegraphy; but astronomy was what I had took up just then.’ That capitalist sure knew how to gesticulate with his hands.
“Luke got madder and madder. He investigates and finds in the depot a card one of the men had dropped that gives the address of some hombre called Scudder in New York City.
“‘Bud,’ says Luke, ‘I’m going after that bunch. I’m going there and get the man or boy, as you say he was, and bring him back. I’m sheriff of Mojada County, and I shall keep law and order in its precincts while I’m able to draw a gun. And I want you to go with me. No Eastern Yankee can shoot up a respectable and well-known citizen of Bildad, ‘specially with a thirty-two calibre, and escape the law. Pedro Johnson,’ says Luke, ‘is one of our most prominent citizens and business men. I’ll appoint Sam Bell acting sheriff with penitentiary powers while I’m away, and you and me will take the six forty-five northbound to-morrow evening and follow up this trail.’
“‘I’m your company,’ says I. ‘I never see this New York, but I’d like to. But, Luke,’ says I, ‘don’t you have to have a dispensation or a habeas corpus or something from the state, when you reach out that far for rich men and malefactors?’
“‘Did I have a requisition,’ says Luke, ‘when I went over into the Brazos bottoms and brought back Bill Grimes and two more for holding up the International? Did me and you have a search warrant or a posse comitatus when we rounded up them six Mexican cow thieves down in Hidalgo? It’s my business to keep order in Mojada County.’
“‘And it’s my business as office deputy,’ says I, ‘to see that business is carried on according to law. Between us both we ought to keep things pretty well cleaned up.’
“So, the next day, Luke packs a blanket and some collars and his mileage book in a haversack, and him and me hits the breeze for New York. It was a powerful long ride. The seats in the cars was too short for six-footers like us to sleep comfortable on; and the conductor had to keep us from getting off at every town that had five-story houses in it. But we got there finally; and we seemed to see right away that he was right about it.
“‘Luke,’ says I, ‘as office deputy and from a law standpoint, it don’t look to me like this place is properly and legally in the jurisdiction of Mojada County, Texas.’
“‘From the standpoint of order,’ says he, ‘it’s amenable to answer for its sins to the properly appointed authorities from Bildad to Jerusalem.’
“‘Amen,’ says I. ‘But let’s turn our trick sudden, and ride. I don’t like the looks of this place.’
“‘Think of Pedro Johnson,’ says Luke, ‘a friend of mine and yours shot down by one of these gilded abolitionists at his very door!’
“‘It was at the door of the freight depot,’ says I. ‘But the law will not be balked at a quibble like that.’
“We put up at one of them big hotels on Broadway. The next morning I goes down about two miles of stairsteps to the bottom and hunts for Luke. It ain’t no use. It looks like San Jacinto day in San Antone. There’s a thousand folks milling around in a kind of a roofed-over plaza with marble pavements and trees growing right out of ‘em, and I see no more chance of finding Luke than if we was hunting each other in the big pear flat down below Old Fort Ewell. But soon Luke and me runs together in one of the turns of them marble alleys.
“‘It ain’t no use, Bud,’ says he. ‘I can’t find no place to eat at. I’ve been looking for restaurant signs and smelling for ham all over the camp. But I’m used to going hungry when I have to. Now,’ says he, ‘I’m going out and get a hack and ride down to the address on this Scudder card. You stay here and try to hustle some grub. But I doubt if you’ll find it. I wish we’d brought along some cornmeal and bacon and beans. I’ll be back when I see this Scudder, if the trail ain’t wiped out.’
“So I starts foraging for breakfast. For the honour of old Mojada County I didn’t want to seem green to them abolitionists, so every time I turned a corner in them marble halls I went up to the first desk or counter I see and looks around for grub. If I didn’t see what I wanted I asked for something else. In about half an hour I had a dozen cigars, five story magazines, and seven or eight railroad time-tables in my pockets, and never a smell of coffee or bacon to point out the trail.
“Once a lady sitting at a table and playing a game kind of like pushpin told me to go into a closet that she called Number 3. I went in and shut the door, and the blamed thing lit itself up. I set down on a stool before a shelf and waited. Thinks I, ‘This is a private dining-room.’ But no waiter never came. When I got to sweating good and hard, I goes out again.
“‘Did you get what you wanted?’ says she.
“‘No, ma’am,’ says I. ‘Not a bite.’
“‘Then there’s no charge,’ says she.
“‘Thanky, ma’am,’ says I, and I takes up the trail again.
“By and by I thinks I’ll shed etiquette; and I picks up one of them boys with blue clothes and yellow buttons in front, and he leads me to what he calls the caffay breakfast room. And the first thing I lays my eyes on when I go in is that boy that had shot Pedro Johnson. He was setting all alone at a little table, hitting a egg with a spoon like he was afraid he’d break it.
“I takes the chair across the table from him; and he looks insulted and makes a move like he was going to get up.
“‘Keep still, son,’ says I. ‘You’re apprehended, arrested, and in charge of the Texas authorities. Go on and hammer that egg some more if it’s the inside of it you want. Now, what did you shoot Mr. Johnson, of Bildad, for?’
“And may I ask who you are?’ says he.
“‘You may,’ says I. ‘Go ahead.’
“‘I suppose you’re on,’ says this kid, without batting his eyes. ‘But what are you eating? Here, waiter!’ he calls out, raising his finger. ‘Take this gentleman’s order.
“‘A beefsteak,’ says I, ‘and some fried eggs and a can of peaches and a quart of coffee will about suffice.’
“We talk awhile about the sundries of life and then he says:
“‘What are you going to do about that shooting? I had a right to shoot that man,’ says he. ‘He called me names that I couldn’t overlook, and then he struck me. He carried a gun, too. What else could I do?’
“‘We’ll have to take you back to Texas,’ says I.
“‘I’d like to go back,’ says the boy, with a kind of a grin— ‘if it wasn’t on an occasion of this kind. It’s the life I like. I’ve always wanted to ride and shoot and live in the open air ever since I can remember.’
“‘Who was this gang of stout parties you took this trip with?’ I asks.
“‘My stepfather,’ says he, ‘and some business partners of his in some Mexican mining and land schemes.’
“‘I saw you shoot Pedro Johnson,’ says I, ‘and I took that little popgun away from you that you did it with. And when I did so I noticed three or four little scars in a row over your right eyebrow. You’ve been in rookus before, haven’t you?’
“‘I’ve had these scars ever since I can remember,’ says he. ‘I don’t know how they came there.’
/> “‘Was you ever in Texas before?’ says I.
“‘Not that I remember of,’ says he. ‘But I thought I had when we struck the prairie country. But I guess I hadn’t.’
“‘Have you got a mother?’ I asks.
“‘She died five years ago,’ says he.
“Skipping over the most of what followed — when Luke came back I turned the kid over to him. He had seen Scudder and told him what he wanted; and it seems that Scudder got active with one of these telephones as soon as he left. For in about an hour afterward there comes to our hotel some of these city rangers in everyday clothes that they call detectives, and marches the whole outfit of us to what they call a magistrate’s court. They accuse Luke of attempted kidnapping, and ask him what he has to say.
“‘This snipe,’ says Luke to the judge, ‘shot and wilfully punctured with malice and forethought one of the most respected and prominent citizens of the town of Bildad, Texas, Your Honor. And in so doing laid himself liable to the penitence of law and order. And I hereby make claim and demand restitution of the State of New York City for the said alleged criminal; and I know he done it.’
“‘Have you the usual and necessary requisition papers from the governor of your state?’ asks the judge.
“‘My usual papers,’ says Luke, ‘was taken away from me at the hotel by these gentlemen who represent law and order in your city. They was two Colt’s .45’s that I’ve packed for nine years; and if I don’t get ‘em back, there’ll be more trouble. You can ask anybody in Mojada County about Luke Summers. I don’t usually need any other kind of papers for what I do.’
“I see the judge looks mad, so I steps up and says:
“‘Your Honor, the aforesaid defendant, Mr. Luke Summers, sheriff of Mojada County, Texas, is as fine a man as ever threw a rope or upheld the statutes and codicils of the greatest state in the Union. But he— ‘
“The judge hits his table with a wooden hammer and asks who I am.
“Bud Oakley,’ says I. ‘Office deputy of the sheriff’s office of Mojada County, Texas. Representing,’ says I, ‘the Law. Luke Summers,’ I goes on, ‘represents Order. And if Your Honor will give me about ten minutes in private talk, I’ll explain the whole thing to you, and show you the equitable and legal requisition papers which I carry in my pocket.’
“The judge kind of half smiles and says he will talk with me in his private room. In there I put the whole thing up to him in such language as I had, and when we goes outside, he announces the verdict that the young man is delivered into the hands of the Texas authorities; and calls the next case.
“Skipping over much of what happened on the way back, I’ll tell you how the thing wound up in Bildad.
“When we got the prisoner in the sheriff’s office, I says to Luke:
“‘You, remember that kid of yours — that two-year old that they stole away from you when the bust-up come?’
“Luke looks black and angry. He’d never let anybody talk to him about that business, and he never mentioned it himself.
“‘Toe the mark,’ says I. ‘Do you remember when he was toddling around on the porch and fell down on a pair of Mexican spurs and cut four little holes over his right eye? Look at the prisoner,’ says I, ‘look at his nose and the shape of his head and — why, you old fool, don’t you know your own son? — I knew him,’ says I, ‘when he perforated Mr. Johnson at the depot.’
“Luke comes over to me shaking all over. I never saw him lose his nerve before.
“‘Bud,’ says he. ‘I’ve never had that boy out of my mind one day or one night since he was took away. But I never let on. But can we hold him? — Can we make him stay? — I’ll make the best man of him that ever put his foot in a stirrup. Wait a minute,’ says he, all excited and out of his mind— ‘I’ve got some-thing here in my desk — I reckon it’ll hold legal yet — I’ve looked at it a thousand times— “Cus-to-dy of the child,”’ says Luke— ‘“Cus-to-dy of the child.” We can hold him on that, can’t we? Le’me see if I can find that decree.’
“Luke begins to tear his desk to pieces.
“‘Hold on,’ says I. ‘You are Order and I’m Law. You needn’t look for that paper, Luke. It ain’t a decree any more. It’s requisition papers. It’s on file in that Magistrate’s office in New York. I took it along when we went, because I was office deputy and knew the law.’
“‘I’ve got him back,’ says Luke. ‘He’s mine again. I never thought— ‘
“‘Wait a minute,’ says I. ‘We’ve got to have law and order. You and me have got to preserve ‘em both in Mojada County according to our oath and conscience. The kid shot Pedro Johnson, one of Bildad’s most prominent and— ‘
“‘Oh, hell!’ says Luke. ‘That don’t amount to anything. That fellow was half Mexican, anyhow.’”
TRANSFORMATION OF MARTIN BURNEY
In behalf of Sir Walter’s soothing plant let us look into the case of Martin Burney.
They were constructing the Speedway along the west bank of the Harlem River. The grub-boat of Dennis Corrigan, sub-contractor, was moored to a tree on the bank. Twenty-two men belonging to the little green island toiled there at the sinew-cracking labour. One among them, who wrought in the kitchen of the grub-boat was of the race of the Goths. Over them all stood the exorbitant Corrigan, harrying them like the captain of a galley crew. He paid them so little that most of the gang, work as they might, earned little more than food and tobacco; many of them were in debt to him. Corrigan boarded them all in the grub-boat, and gave them good grub, for he got it back in work.
Martin Burney was furthest behind of all. He was a little man, all muscles and hands and feet, with a gray-red, stubbly beard. He was too light for the work, which would have glutted the capacity of a steam shovel.
The work was hard. Besides that, the banks of the river were humming with mosquitoes. As a child in a dark room fixes his regard on the pale light of a comforting window, these toilers watched the sun that brought around the one hour of the day that tasted less bitter. After the sundown supper they would huddle together on the river bank, and send the mosquitoes whining and eddying back from the malignant puffs of twenty-three reeking pipes. Thus socially banded against the foe, they wrenched out of the hour a few well-smoked drops from the cup of joy.
Each week Burney grew deeper in debt. Corrigan kept a small stock of goods on the boat, which he sold to the men at prices that brought him no loss. Burney was a good customer at the tobacco counter. One sack when he went to work in the morning and one when he came in at night, so much was his account swelled daily. Burney was something of a smoker. Yet it was not true that he ate his meals with a pipe in his mouth, which had been said of him. The little man was not discontented. He had plenty to eat, plenty of tobacco, and a tyrant to curse; so why should not he, an Irishman, be well satisfied?
One morning as he was starting with the others for work he stopped at the pine counter for his usual sack of tobacco.
“There’s no more for ye,” said Corrigan. “Your account’s closed. Ye are a losing investment. No, not even tobaccy, my son. No more tobaccy on account. If ye want to work on and eat, do so, but the smoke of ye has all ascended. ’Tis my advice that ye hunt a new job.”
“I have no tobaccy to smoke in my pipe this day, Mr. Corrigan,” said Burney, not quite understanding that such a thing could happen to him.
“Earn it,” said Corrigan, “and then buy it.”
Burney stayed on. He knew of no other job. At first he did not realize that tobacco had got to be his father and mother, his confessor and sweetheart, and wife and child.
For three days he managed to fill his pipe from the other men’s sacks, and then they shut him off, one and all. They told him, rough but friendly, that of all things in the world tobacco must be quickest forthcoming to a fellow-man desiring it, but that beyond the immediate temporary need requisition upon the store of a comrade is pressed with great danger to friendship.
Then the blackness of the pit ar
ose and filled the heart of Burney. Sucking the corpse of his deceased dudheen, he staggered through his duties with his barrowful of stones and dirt, feeling for the first time that the curse of Adam was upon him. Other men bereft of a pleasure might have recourse to other delights, but Burney had only two comforts in life. One was his pipe, the other was an ecstatic hope that there would be no Speedways to build on the other side of Jordan.
At meal times he would let the other men go first into the grub-boat, and then he would go down on his hands and knees, grovelling fiercely upon the ground where they had been sitting, trying to find some stray crumbs of tobacco. Once he sneaked down the river bank and filled his pipe with dead willow leaves. At the first whiff of the smoke he spat in the direction of the boat and put the finest curse he knew on Corrigan — one that began with the first Corrigans born on earth and ended with the Corrigans that shall hear the trumpet of Gabriel blow. He began to hate Corrigan with all his shaking nerves and soul. Even murder occurred to him in a vague sort of way. Five days he went without the taste of tobacco — he who had smoked all day and thought the night misspent in which he had not awakened for a pipeful or two under the bedclothes.
One day a man stopped at the boat to say that there was work to be had in the Bronx Park, where a large number of labourers were required in making some improvements.
After dinner Burney walked thirty yards down the river bank away from the maddening smell of the others’ pipes. He sat down upon a stone. He was thinking he would set out for the Bronx. At least he could earn tobacco there. What if the books did say he owed Corrigan? Any man’s work was worth his keep. But then he hated to go without getting even with the hard-hearted screw who had put his pipe out. Was there any way to do it?
Softly stepping among the clods came Tony, he of the race of Goths, who worked in the kitchen. He grinned at Burney’s elbow, and that unhappy man, full of race animosity and holding urbanity in contempt, growled at him: “What d’ye want, ye — Dago?”