by Rex Beach
THE SHYNESS OF SHORTY
Bailey smoked morosely as he scanned the dusty trail leading downacross the "bottom" and away over the dry grey prairie toward thehazy mountains in the west.
From his back-tilted chair on the veranda, the road was visible formiles, as well as the river trail from the south, sneaking up throughthe cottonwoods and leprous sycamores.
He called gruffly into the silence of the house, and his speech heldthe surliness of his attitude.
"Hot Joy! Bar X outfit comin'. Git supper."
A Chinaman appeared in the door and gazed at the six-mule teamdescending the distant gully to the ford.
"Jesse one man, hey? All light," and slid quietly back to thekitchen.
Whatever might be said, or, rather, whatever might be suspected, ofBailey's road-house--for people did not run to wordy conjecture inthis country--it was known that it boasted a good cook, and thisatoned for a catalogue of shortcomings. So it waxed popular amongthe hands of the big cattle ranges near-bye. Those given to idletalk held that Bailey acted strangely at times, and rumour paintedoccasional black doings at the hacienda, squatting vulture-like abovethe ford, but it was nobody's business, and he kept a good cook.
Bailey did not recall the face that greeted him from above the threespan as they swung in front of his corral, but the brand on theirflanks was the Bar X, so he nodded with as near an approach tohospitality as he permitted.
It was a large face, strong-featured and rugged, balanced on wide,square shoulders, yet some oddness of posture held the gaze of theother till the stranger clambered over the wheel to the ground. ThenBailey removed his brier and heaved tempestuously in the throes ofgreat and silent mirth.
It was a dwarf. The head of a Titan, the body of a whisky barrel,rolling ludicrously on the tiny limbs of a bug, presented sostartling a sight that even Hot Joy, appearing around the corner,cackled shrilly. His laughter rose to a shriek of dismay, however,as the little man made at him with the rush and roar of a cannonball. In Bailey's amazed eyes he seemed to bounce galvanically,landing on Joy's back with such vicious suddenness that the breathfled from him in a squawk of terror; then, seizing his cue, he kickedand belaboured the prostrate Celestial in feverish silence. Hedesisted and rolled across the porch to Bailey. Staring truculentlyup et the landlord, he spoke for the first time.
"Was I right in supposin' that something amused you?"
Bailey gasped incredulously, for the voice rumbled heavily an octavebelow his own bass. Either the look of the stocky catapult, as helaunched himself on the fleeing servant, or the invidious servilityof the innkeeper, sobered the landlord, and he answered gravely:
"No, sir; I reckon you're mistaken. I ain't observed anythingfrivolous yet."
"Glad of it," said the little man. "I don't like a feller to hog ajoke all by himself. Some of the Bar X boys took to absorbin' humourout of my shape when I first went to work, but they're sort ofeducated out of it now. I got an eye from one and a finger off ofanother; the last one donated a ear."
Bailey readily conceived this man as a bad antagonist, for the heavycorded neck had split buttons from the blue shirt, and he glimpsed achest hairy, and round as a drum, while the brown arms showed knottyand hardened.
"Let's liquor," he said, and led the way into the big, low room,serving as bar, dining- and living-room. From the rear came viciousclatterings and slammings of pots, mingled with Orientallamentations, indicating an aching body rather than a chastenedspirit.
"Don't see you often," he continued, with a touch of impliedcuriosity, which grew as his guest, with lingering fondness, up-endeda glass brimful of the raw, fiery spirits.
"No, the old man don't lemme get away much. He knows that dwellin'close to the ground, as I do, I pine for spiritual elevation," with amelting glance at the bottles behind the bar, doing much to explainthe size of his first drink.
"Like it, do ye?" questioned Bailey indicating the shelf.
"Well, not exactly! Booze is like air--I need it. It makes a newman out of me--and usually ends by gettin' both me and the new onelaid off."
"Didn't hear nothing of the weddin' over at Los Huecos, did ye?"
"No! Whose weddin'?"
"Ross Turney, the new sheriff."
"Ye don't say! Him that's been elected on purpose to round up theTremper gang, hey? Who's his antagonist?"
"Old man Miller's gal. He's celebratin' his election by gettin'spliced. I been expectin' of 'em across this way to-night, but Iguess they took the Black Butte trail. You heard what he said,didn't ye? Claims that inside of ninety days he'll rid the county ofthe Trempers and give the reward to his wife for a bridal present.Five thousand dollars on 'em, you know." Bailey grinned evilly andcontinued: "Say! Marsh Tremper'll ride up to his house some nightand make him eat his own gun in front of his bride, see if he don't.Then there'll be cause for an inquest and an election." He spokewith what struck the teamster as unnecessary heat.
"Dunno," said the other; "Turney's a brash young feller, I hear, buthe's game. 'Tain't any of my business, though, and I don't want noneof his contrac'. I'm violently addicted to peace and quiet, I am.Guess I'll unhitch," and he toddled out into the gathering dusk tohis mules, while the landlord peered uneasily down the darkeningtrail.
As the saddened Joy lit candles in the front room there came therattle of wheels without, and a buckboard stopped in the bar of lightfrom the door. Bailey's anxiety was replaced by a mask of listlesssurprise as the voice of Ross Turney called to him.
"Hello there, Bailey! Are we in time for supper? If not, I'll startan insurrection with that Boxer of yours. He's got to turn out thesnortingest supper of the season to-night. It isn't every day yourshack is honoured by a bride. Mr. Bailey, this is my wife, since teno'clock A. M." He introduced a blushing, happy girl, evidently inthe grasp of many emotions. "We'll stay all night, I guess,"
"Sure," said Bailey. "I'll show ye a room," and he led them upbeneath the low roof where an unusual cleanliness betrayed theindustry of Joy.
The two men returned and drank to the bride, Turney with the recklesslightness that distinguished him, Bailey sullen and watchful.
"Got another outfit here, haven't you?" questioned the bridegroom."Who is it?"
Before answer could be made, from the kitchen arose a tortured howland the smashing of dishes, mingled with stormy rumblings. The doorburst inward, and an agonized Joy fled, flapping out into the night,while behind him rolled the caricature from Bar X.
"I just stopped for a drink of water," boomed the dwarf, then pausedat the twitching face of the sheriff.
He swelled ominously, like a great pigeon, purple and congested withrage. Strutting to the new-comer, he glared insolently up into hissmiling face,
"What are ye laughin' at, ye shavetail?" His hands were clenched,till his arms showed tense and rigid, and the cords in his neck werethickly swollen.
"Lemme in on it, I'm strong on humour. What in ---- ails ye?" heyelled, in a fury, as the tall young man gazed fixedly, and theglasses rattled at the bellow from the barreled-up lungs.
"I'm not laughing at you," said the sheriff.
"Oh, ain't ye?" mocked the man of peace. "Well, take care that yedon't, ye big wart, or I'll trample them new clothes and browsearound on some of your features. I'll take ye apart till ye looklike cut feed. Guess ye don't know who I am, do ye? I'm--"
"Who is this man, Ross?" came the anxious voice of the bride,descending the stairs.
The little man spun like a dancer, and, spying the girl, blushed tothe colour of a prickly pear, then stammered painfully, while thesweat stood out under the labour of his discomfort:
"Just 'Shorty,' Miss," he finally quavered. "Plain 'Shorty' of theBar X--er--a miserable, crawlin' worm for disturbin' of you." Herolled his eyes helplessly at Bailey, while he sopped with hiscrumpled sombrero at the glistening perspiration.
"Why didn't ye tell me?" he whispered ferociously at the host, andthe volume of his query carried to Joy, hi
ding out in the night.
"Mr. Shorty," said the sheriff gravely; "let me introduce my wife,Mrs. Turney."
The bride smiled sweetly at the tremulous little man, who broke andfled to a high bench in the darkest corner, where he dangled hisshort legs in a silent ecstasy of bashfulness.
"I reckon I'll have to rope that Chink, then blindfold and back himinto the kitchen, if we git any supper," said Bailey, disappearing.
Later the Chinaman stole in to set the table, but he worked withhectic and fitful energy, a fearful eye always upon the dim bulk inthe corner, and at a fancied move he shook with an ague ofapprehension. Backing and sidling, he finally announced the meal,prepared to stampede madly at notice.
During the supper Shorty ate ravenously of whatever lay to his hand,but asked no favours. The agony of his shyness paralysed his hugevocal muscles till speech became a labour quite impossible.
To a pleasant remark of the bride he responded, but no sound issued,then breathing heavily into his larynx, the reply roared upon themlike a burst of thunder, seriously threatening the gravity of themeal. He retired abruptly into moist and self-conscious silence,fearful of feasting his eyes on this disturbing loveliness.
As soon as compatible with decency, he slipped back to his bunk inthe shed behind, and lay staring into the darkness, picturing theamazing occurrences of the evening. At the memory of her levelglances he fell a-tremble and sighed ecstatically, prickling with anew, strange emotion. He lay till far into the night, wakeful andabsorbed. He was able, to grasp the fact but dimly that all thisdazzling perfection was for one man. Were it not manifestlyimpossible he supposed other men in other lands knew other ladies asbeautiful, and it furthermore grew upon him blackly, in the thickgloom, that in all this world of womanly sweetness and beauty, nomodicum of it was for the misshapen dwarf of the Bar X outfit. Allhis life he had fought furiously to uphold the empty shell of hisdignity in the eyes of his comrades, yet always morbidly conscious ofthe difference in his body. Whisky had been his solace, hissweetheart. It changed him, raised and beatified him into thelikeness of other men, and now, as he pondered, he was aware of aconsuming thirst engendered by the heat of his earlier emotions.Undoubtedly it must be quenched.
He rose and stole quietly out into the big front room. Perhaps theyears of free life in the open had bred a suspicion of walls, perhapshe felt his conduct would not brook discovery, perhaps habit,prompted him to take the two heavy Colts from their holsters andthrust them inside his trousers band.
He slipped across the room, silent and cavern-like, its blacknessbroken by the window squares of starry sky, till he felt the paucityof glassware behind the bar.
"Here's to Her," It burned delightfully.
"Here's to the groom." It tingled more alluringly.
"I'll drink what I can, and get back to the bunk before it works," hethought, and the darkness veiled the measure of his potations.
He started at a noise on the stairway. His senses not yet dulled,detected a stealthy tread. Not the careless step of a man unafraid,but the cautious rustle and halt of a marauder. Every nerve bristledto keenest alertness as the faint occasional sounds approached,passed the open end of the bar where he crouched, leading on to thewindow. Then a match flared, and the darkness rushed out as a candlewick sputtered.
Shorty stretched on tiptoe, brought his eye to the level of the bar,and gazed upon the horrent head of Bailey. He sighed thankfully, butwatched with interest his strange behaviour.
Bailey moved the light across the window from left to right threetimes, paused, then wigwagged some code out into the night.
"He's signalling," mused Shorty. "Hope he gets through quick. I'mgetting full." The fumes of the liquor were beating at his senses,and he knew that soon he would move with difficulty.
The man, however, showed no intention of leaving, for, his signalscompleted, he blew out the light, first listening for any sound fromabove, then his figure loomed black and immobile against the dimstarlight of the window.
"Oh, Lord! I got to set down," and the watcher squatted upon thefloor, bracing against the wall. His dulling perceptions weresufficiently acute to detect shuffling footsteps on the porch and thecautious unbarring of the door.
"Gettin' late for visitors," he thought, as he entered a blissfuldoze. "When they're abed, I'll turn in."
It seemed much later that a shot startled him. To his dizzy hearingcame the sound of curses overhead, the stamp and shift of feet, thecrashing fall of struggling men, and, what brought him unsteadily tohis legs, the agonized scream of a woman. It echoed through thehouse, chilling him, and dwindled to an aching moan.
Something was wrong, he knew that, but it was hard to tell just what.He must think. What hard work it was to think, too; he'd nevernoticed before what a laborious process it was. Probably thatsheriff had got into trouble; he was a fresh guy, anyhow; and he'dlaughed when he first saw Shorty. That settled it. He could get outof it himself. Evidently it was nothing serious, for there was nomore disturbance above, only confused murmurings. Then a lightshowed in the stairs, and again the shuffling of feet came, as fourstrange men descended. They were lighted by the sardonic Bailey, andthey dragged a sixth between them, bound and helpless. It was thesheriff.
Now, what had he been doing to get into such a fix?
The prisoner stood against the wall, white and defiant. He strainedat his bonds silently, while his captors watched his futilestruggles. There was something terrible and menacing in thequietness with which they gloated--a suggestion of some horror tocome. At last he desisted, and burst forth.
"You've got me all right. You did this, Bailey, you ---- traitor."
"He's never been a traitor, as far as we know," sneered one of thefour. "In fact, I might say he's been strictly on the square withus."
"I didn't think you made war on women, either, Marsh Tremper, but itseems you're everything from a dog-thief down. Why couldn't youfight me alone, in the daylight, like a man?"
"You don't wait till a rattler's coiled before you stamp his headoff," said the former speaker. "It's either you or us, and I reckonit's you."
So these were the Tremper boys, eh? The worst desperadoes in theSouthwest; and Bailey was their ally. The watcher eyed them, mildlycurious, and it seemed to him that they were as bad a quartette asrumour had painted--bad, even, for this country of bad men. Thesheriff was a fool for getting mixed up with such people. Shortyknew enough to mind his own business, anyway, if others didn't. Hewas a peaceful man, and didn't intend to get mixed up with outlaws.His mellow meditations were interrupted by the hoarse speech of thesheriff, who had broken down into his rage again, and struggled madlywhile words ran from him.
"Let me go! ---- you, let me free. I want to fight the coward thatstruck my wife. You've killed her. Who was it? Let me get at him."
Shorty stiffened as though a douche of ice-water had struck him."Killed her! Struck his wife!" My God! Not that sweet creature ofhis dreams who had talked and smiled at him without noting hisdeformity--
An awful anger rose in him and he moved out into the light.
"Han'sup!"
Whatever of weakness may have dragged at his legs, none sounded inthe great bellowing command that flooded the room. At the compellingvolume of the sound every man whirled and eight empty hands shotskyward. Their startled eyes beheld a man's squat body weavinguncertainly on the limbs of an insect, while in each hand shone ablue-black Colt that waved and circled in maddening, erratic orbits.
At the command, Marsh Tremper's mind had leaped to the fact thatbehind him was one man; one against five, and he took a gambler'schance.
As he whirled, he drew and fired. None but the dwarf of Bar X couldhave lived, for he was the deadliest hip shot in the territory. Hisbullet crashed into the wall, a hand's breadth over Shorty's"cow-lick." It was a clean heart shot; the practised whirl and flipof the finished gun fighter; but the roar of his explosion was echoedby another, and the elder Tremper spun unstead
ily against the tablewith a broken shoulder.
"Too high," moaned the big voice. "--The liquor."
He swayed drunkenly, but at the slightest shift of his quarry, theaimless wanderings of a black muzzle stopped on the spot and the bodybehind the guns was congested with deadly menace.
"Face the wall," he cried. "Quick! Keep 'em up higher!" Theysullenly obeyed; their wounded leader reaching with his uninjuredmember.
To the complacent Shorty, it seemed that things were working nicely,though he was disturbingly conscious of his alcoholic lack ofbalance, and tortured by the fear that he might suddenly lose theiron grip of his faculties.
Then, for the second time that night, from the stairs came the voicethat threw him into the dreadful confusion of his modesty.
"O Ross!" it cried, "I've brought your gun," and there on the steps,dishevelled, pallid and quivering, was the bride, and grasped in onetrembling hand was her husband's weapon.
"Ah--h!" sighed Shorty, seraphically, as the vision beat in upon hismisty conceptions. "_She ain't hurt_!"
In his mind there was no room for desperadoes contemporaneously withHer. Then he became conscious of the lady's raiment, and his browncheeks flamed brick-red, while he dropped his eyes. In hisshrinking, grovelling modesty, he made for his dark corner.
One of those at bay, familiar with this strange abashment, seized themoment, but at his motion the sheriff screamed: "Look out!"
The quick danger in the cry brought back with a surge the men againstthe wall and Shorty swung instantly, firing at the outstretched handof Bailey as it reached for Tremper's weapon.
The landlord straightened, gazing affrightedly at his finger tips.
"Too low!" and Shorty's voice held aching tears. "I'll never touchanother drop; it's plumb ruined my aim."
"Cut these strings, girlie," said the sheriff, as the little man'sgaze again wavered, threatening to leave his prisoners.
"Quick. He's blushing again.".
When they were manacled, Shorty stood in moist exudation, tremblingand speechless, under the incoherent thanks of the bride and thesilent admiration of her handsome husband. She fluttered about himin a tremor of anxiety, lest he be wounded, caressing him here andthere with solicitous pats till he felt his shamed and happy spiritwould surely burst from its misshapen prison.
"You've made a good thing to-night," said Turney, clapping himheartily on his massive back. "You get the five thousand all right.We were going to Mexico City on that for a bridal trip when I roundedup the gang, but I'll see you get every cent of it, old man. If itwasn't for you I'd have been a heap farther south than that by now."
The open camaraderie and good-fellowship that rang in the man's voiceaffected Shorty strangely, accustomed as he was to the veiledcontempt or open compassion of his fellows. Here was one whorecognized him as a man, an equal.
He spread his lips, but the big voice squeaked dismally, then,inflating deeply, he spoke so that the prisoners chained in thecorral outside heard him plainly.
"I'd rather she took it anyhow," blushing violently.
"No, no," they cried. "It's yours."
"Well, then, half of it"--and for once Shorty betrayed the strengthof Gibraltar, even in the face of the lady, and so it stood.
As the dawn spread over the dusty prairie, tipping the westwardmountains with silver caps, and sucking the mist out of thecotton-wood bottoms, he bade them adieu.
"No, I got to get back to the Bar X, or the old man'll swear I beendrinking again, and I don't want to dissipate no wrong impressionsaround." He winked gravely. Then, as the sheriff and his surlyprisoners drove off, he called:
"Mr. Turney, take good care of them Trempers. I think a heap of 'em,for, outside of your wife, they're the only ones in this outfit thatdidn't laugh at me."