The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack

by Charles Alden Seltzer

  And then, at about three o’clock, in the barroom of the Plaza, he heard a discordant voice at his elbow. He saw men crowding, jostling one another to get away from the spot where he stood—crouching, pale of face, their eyes on him. It made him feel that he was the center of interest, and he wheeled, staggering a little—for he had drunk much more than he had intended—to see what had happened. He saw Clay Levins standing close to him, his thin lips in a cruel curve, his eyes narrowed and glittering, his body in a suggestive crouch. The silence that had suddenly descended smote Marchmont’s ears like a momentary deafness, and he looked foolishly around him, uncertain, puzzled. Levins’ voice shocked him, sobered him, whitened his face:

  “Fork over that coin you lifted from me in the Elk, you light-fingered hound!” said Levins.

  Marchmont divined the truth now. He made his second mistake of the day. He allowed a flash of rage to trick him into reaching for his pistol. He got it into his hand and almost out of the pocket before Levins’ first bullet struck him, and before he could draw it entirely out the second savage bark of the gun in Levins’ hand shattered the stillness of the room. Soundlessly, his face wreathed in a grin of hideous satire, Marchmont sank to the floor and stretched out on his back.

  Before his body was still, Levins had drawn out the bills that had reposed in his victim’s pocket. Crumpling them in his hand he walked to the bar and tossed them to the barkeeper.

  “Look at ’em,” he directed. “I’m provin’ they’re mine. Good thing I got the numbers on ’em.” While the crowd jostled and crushed about him he read the numbers from the paper Corrigan had given him, grinning coldly as the barkeeper confirmed them. A deputy sheriff elbowed his way through the press to Levins’ side, and the gun-man spoke to him, lightly: “I reckon everybody saw him reach for his gun when I told him to fork the coin over,” he said, indicating his victim. “So you ain’t got nothin’ on me. But if you’re figgerin’ that the coin ain’t mine, why I reckon a guy named Corrigan will back up my play.”

  The deputy took him at his word. They found Corrigan at his desk in the bank building.

  “Sure,” he said when the deputy had told his story; “I paid Levins the money this morning. Is it necessary for you to know what for? No? Well, it seems that the pickpocket got just what he deserved.” He offered the deputy a cigar, and the latter went out, satisfied.

  Later, Corrigan looked appraisingly at Levins, who still graced the office.

  “That was rather an easy job,” he said. “Marchmont was slow with a gun. With a faster man—a man, say—” he appeared to meditate “—like Trevison, for instance. You’d have to be pretty careful—”

  “Trevison’s my friend,” grinned Levins coldly as he got to his feet. “There’s nothin’ doin’ there—understand? Get it out of your brain-box, for if anything happens to ‘Firebrand,’ I’ll perforate you sure as hell!”

  He stalked out of the office, leaving Corrigan looking after him, frowningly.

  CHAPTER IX

  STRAIGHT TALK

  Ten years of lonesomeness, of separation from all the things he held dear, with nothing for his soul to feed upon except the bitterness he got from a contemplation of the past; with nothing but his pride and his determination to keep him from becoming what he had seen many men in this country become—dissolute irresponsibles, drifting like ships without rudders—had brought into Trevison’s heart a great longing. He was like a man who for a long time has been deprived of the solace of good tobacco, and—to use a simile that he himself manufactured—he yearned to capture someone from the East, sit beside him and fill his lungs, his brain, his heart, his soul, with the breath, the aroma, the spirit of the land of his youth. The appearance of Miss Benham at Manti had thrilled him. For ten years he had seen no eastern woman, and at sight of her the old hunger of the soul became acute in him, aroused in him a passionate worship that made his blood run riot. It was the call of sex to sex, made doubly stirring by the girl’s beauty, her breeziness, her virile, alluring womanhood—by the appeal she made to the love of the good and the true in his character. His affection for Hester Keyes, he had long known, had been merely the vanity-tickling regard of the callow youth—the sex attraction of adolescence, the “puppy” love that smites all youth alike. For Rosalind Benham a deeper note had been struck. Its force rocked him, intoxicated him; his head rang with the music it made.

  During the three weeks of her stay at Blakeley’s they had been much together. Rosalind had accepted his companionship as a matter of course. He had told her many things about his past, and was telling her many more things, as they sat today on an isolated excrescence of sand and rock and bunch grass surrounded by a sea of sage. From where they sat they could see Manti—Manti, alive, athrob, its newly-come hundreds busy as ants with their different pursuits.

  The intoxication of the girl’s presence had never been so great as it was today. A dozen times, drunken with the nearness of her, with the delicate odor from her hair, as a stray wisp fluttered into his face, he had come very near to catching her in his arms. But he had grimly mastered the feeling, telling himself that he was not a savage, and that such an action would be suicidal to his hopes. It cost him an effort, though, to restrain himself, as his flushed face, his burning eyes and his labored breath, told.

  His broken wrist had healed. His hatred of Corrigan had been kept alive by a recollection of the fight, by a memory of the big man’s quickness to take advantage of the banker’s foul trick, and by the passion for revenge that had seized him, that held him in a burning clutch. Jealousy of the big man he would not have admitted; but something swelled his chest when he thought of Corrigan coming West in the same car with the girl—a vague, gnawing something that made his teeth clench and his facial muscles cord.

  Rosalind had not told him that she had recognized him, that during the ten years of his exile he had been her ideal, but she could close her eyes at this minute and imagine herself on the stair-landing at Hester Keyes’ party, could feel the identical wave of thrilling admiration that had passed over her when her gaze had first rested on him. Yes, it had survived, that girlhood passion, but she had grown much older and experienced, and she could not let him see what she felt. But her curiosity was keener than ever; in no other man of her acquaintance had she felt this intense interest.

  “I remember you telling me the other day that your men would have used their rifles, had the railroad company attempted to set men to work in the cut. I presume you must have given them orders to shoot. I can’t understand you. You were raised in the East, your parents are wealthy; it is presumed they gave you advantages—in fact, you told me they had sent you to college. You must have learned respect for the law while there. And yet you would have had your men resist forcibly.”

  “I told you before that I respected the law—so long as the law is just and the fellow I’m fighting is governed by it. But I refuse to fight under a rule that binds one of my hands, while my opponent sails into me with both hands free. I’ve never been a believer in the doctrine of ‘turn the other cheek.’ We are made with a capacity for feeling, and it boils, unrestrained, in me. I never could play the hypocrite; I couldn’t say ‘no’ when I thought ‘yes’ and make anybody believe it. I couldn’t lie and evade and side-step, even to keep from getting licked. I always told the truth and expressed my feelings in language as straight, simple, and direct as I could. It wasn’t always the discreet way. Perhaps it wasn’t always the wise way. I won’t argue that. But it was the only way I knew. It caused me a lot of trouble—I was always in trouble. My record in college would make a prize fighter turn green with envy. I’m not proud of what I’ve made of my life. But I haven’t changed. I do what my heart prompts me to do, and I say what I think, regardless of consequences.”

  “That would be a very good method—if everybody followed it,” said the girl. “Unfortunately, it invites enmity. Subtlety will take you farther in the world.” She was smitten with an impulse, unwise, unconventional. But the co
nventions! The East seemed effete and far. Besides, she spoke lightly:

  “Let us be perfectly frank, then. I think that perhaps you take yourself too seriously. Life is a tragedy to the tragic, a joke to the humorous, a drab canvas to the unimaginative. It all depends upon what temperament one sees it through. I dare say that I see you differently than you see yourself. ’O wad some power the giftie gi’e us to see oursel’s as ithers see us’,” she quoted, and laughed at the queer look in his eyes, for his admiration for her had leaped like a living thing at her bubbling spirits, and he was, figuratively, forced to place his heel upon it. “I confess it seems to me that you take a too tragic view of things,” she went on. “You are like D’Artagnan, always eager to fly at somebody’s throat. Possibly, you don’t give other people credit for unselfish motives; you are too suspicious; and what you call plain talk may seem impertinence to others—don’t you think? In any event, people don’t like to hear the truth told about themselves—especially by a big, earnest, sober-faced man who seems to speak with conviction, and, perhaps, authority. I think you look for trouble, instead of trying to evade it. I think, too,” she said, looking straight at him, “that you face the world in a too physical fashion; that you place too much dependence upon brawn and fire. That, following your own method of speaking your mind, is what I think of you. I tremble to imagine what you think of me for speaking so plainly.”

  He laughed, his voice vibrating, and bold passion gleamed in his eyes. He looked fairly at her, holding her gaze, compelling it with the intensity of his own, and she drew a deep, tremulous breath of understanding. There followed a tense, breathless silence. And then—

  “You’ve brought it on yourself,” he said. “I love you. You are going to marry me—someday. That’s what I think of you!”

  She got to her feet, her cheeks flaming, confused, half-frightened, though a fierce exultation surged within her. She had half expected this, half dreaded it, and now that it had burst upon her in such volcanic fashion she realized that she had not been entirely prepared. She sought refuge in banter, facing him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dancing.

  “‘Firebrand,’” she said. “The name fits you—Mr. Carson was right. I warned you—if you remember—that you placed too much dependence on brawn and fire. You are making it very hard for me to see you again.”

  He had risen too, and stood before her, and he now laughed frankly.

  “I told you I couldn’t play the hypocrite. I have said what I think. I want you. But that doesn’t mean that I am going to carry you away to the mountains. I’ve got it off my mind, and I promise not to mention it again—until you wish it. But don’t forget that some day you are going to love me.”

  “How marvelous,” said she, tauntingly, though in her confusion she could not meet his gaze, looking downward. “How do you purpose to bring it about?”

  “By loving you so strongly that you can’t help yourself.”

  “With your confidence—” she began. But he interrupted, laughing:

  “We’re going to forget it, now,” he said. “I promised to show you that Pueblo, and we’ll have just about time enough to make it and back to the Bar B before dark.”

  And they rode away presently, chatting on indifferent subjects. And, keeping his promise, he said not another word about his declaration. But the girl, stealing glances at him, wondered much—and reached no decision.

  When they reached the abandoned Indian village, many of its houses still standing, he laughed. “That would make a dandy fort.”

  “Always thinking of fighting,” she mocked. But her eyes flashed as she looked at him.

  CHAPTER X

  THE SPIRIT OF MANTI

  The Benham private car had clacked eastward over the rails three weeks before, bearing with it as a passenger only the negro autocrat. At the last moment, discovering that she could not dissuade Rosalind from her mad decision to stay at Blakeley’s ranch, Agatha had accompanied her. The private car was now returning, bearing the man who had poetically declared to his fawning Board of Directors: “Our railroad is the magic wand that will make the desert bloom like the rose. We are embarked upon a project, gentlemen, so big, so vast, that it makes even your president feel a pulse of pride. This project is nothing more nor less than the opening of a region of waste country which an all-wise Creator has permitted to slumber for ages, for no less purpose than to reserve it to the horny-handed son of toil of our glorious country. It will awaken to the clarion call of our wealth, our brains, and our genius.” He then mentioned Corrigan and the Midland grant—another reservation of Providence, which a credulous and asinine Congress had bestowed, in fee-simple, upon a certain suave gentleman, named Marchmont—and disseminated such other details as a servile board of directors need know; and then he concluded with a flowery peroration that left his hearers smirking fatuously.

  And today J. Chalfant Benham was come to look upon the first fruits of his efforts.

  As he stepped down from the private car he was greeted by vociferous cheers from a jostling and enthusiastic populace—for J. C. had very carefully wired the time of his arrival and Corrigan had acted accordingly, knowing J. C. well. J. C. was charmed—he said so, later, in a speech from a flimsy, temporary stand erected in the middle of the street in front of the Plaza—and in saying so he merely told the truth. For, next to money-making, adulation pleased him most. He would have been an able man had he ignored the latter passion. It seared his intellect as a pernicious habit blasts the character. It sat on his shoulders—extravagantly squared; it shone in his eyes—inviting inspection; his lips, curved with smug complacence, betrayed it as, sitting in Corrigan’s office after the conclusion of the festivities, he smiled at the big man.

  “Manti is a wonderful town—a wonderful town!” he declared. “It may be said that success is lurking just ahead. And much of the credit is due to your efforts,” he added, generously.

  Corrigan murmured a polite disclaimer, and plunged into dry details. J. C. had a passion for dry details. For many hours they sat in the office, their heads close together. Braman was occasionally called in. Judge Lindman was summoned after a time. J. C. shook the Judge’s hand warmly and then resumed his chair, folding his chubby hands over his corpulent stomach.

  “Judge Lindman,” he said; “you thoroughly understand our position in this Midland affair.”

  The Judge glanced at Corrigan. “Thoroughly.”

  “No doubt there will be some contests. But the present claimants have no legal status. Mr. — (here J. C. mentioned a name that made the Judge’s eyes brighten) tells me there will be no hitch. There could not be, of course. In the absence of any court record of possible transfers, the title to the land, of course, reverts to the Midland Company. As Mr. Corrigan has explained to me, he is entirely within his rights, having secured the title to the land from Mr. Marchmont, representing the Midland. You have no record of any transfers from the Midland to the present claimants or their predecessors, have you? There is no such record?”

  The Judge saw Corrigan’s amused grin, and surmised that J. C. was merely playing with him.

  “No,” he said, with some bitterness.

  “Then of course you are going to stand with Mr. Corrigan against the present claimants?”

  “I presume so.”

  “H’m,” said J. C. “If there is any doubt about it, perhaps I had better remind you—”

  The Judge groaned in agony of spirit. “It won’t be necessary to remind me.”

  “So I thought. Well, gentlemen—” J. C. arose “—that will be all for this evening.”

  Thus he dismissed the Judge, who went to his cot behind a partition in the courthouse, while Corrigan and J. C. stepped outside and walked slowly toward the private car. They lingered at the steps, and presently J. C. called and a negro came out with two chairs. J. C. and Corrigan draped themselves in the chairs and smoked. Dusk was settling over Manti; lights appeared in the windows of the buildings; a medley of noises reached the ears of the
two men. By day Manti was lively enough, by night it was a maelstrom of frenzied action. A hundred cow-ponies were hitched to rails that skirted the street in front of store and saloon; cowboys from ranches, distant and near, rollicked from building to building, touching elbows with men less picturesquely garbed; the strains of crude music smote the flat, dead desert air; yells, shouts, laughter filtered through the bedlam; an engine, attached to a train of cars on the main track near the private car, wheezed steam in preparation for its eastward trip, soon to begin.

  Benham had solemn thoughts, sitting there, watching.

  “That crowd wouldn’t have much respect for law. They’re living at such a pitch that they’d lose their senses entirely if any sudden crisis should arise. I’d feel my way carefully, Corrigan—if I were you.”

  Corrigan laughed deeply. “Don’t lose any sleep over it. There are fifty deputy marshals in that crowd—and they’re heeled. The rear room in the bank building is a young arsenal.”

  Benham started. “How on earth—” he began.

  “Law and order,” smiled Corrigan. “A telegram did it. The territory wants a reputation for safety.”

  “By the way,” said Benham, after a silence; “I had to take that Trevison affair out of your hands. We don’t want to antagonize the man. He will be valuable to us—later.”