Bruce of the Circle A

by Harold Titus

  CHAPTER IX

  LYTTON'S NEMESIS

  That which followed was a hard night for both Bayard and Lytton. Thewounded arm was doing nicely, but the shattered nervous system could notbe repaired so simply. Since the incident of the ransacked house and thepilfered whiskey, Lytton had not had so much as one drink of stimulantand, because of that indulgence of his appetite, his suffering was mademanifold. Denial of further liquor was the penalty Ned was forced to payfor the abuse of Bayard's trust. Much of the time the sick man kepthimself well in hand, was able to cover up outward evidence of thetorture which he underwent, and in that fact rested some indication ofthe determination that had once been in him. But this night the effectsof his excesses were tearing at his will persistently and sleep wouldnot come.

  He walked the floor of the room into which his bed had been moved fromthe kitchen after the first few days at the ranch; his strength gave outand for a time he lay on the bed, muttering wildly,--then walked againwith trembling stride.

  Bayard heard. He, too, was suffering; sleep would not come to ease him.He did not talk, did not yearn for action; just lay very quiet andthought and thought until his mind refused to function further withcoherence. After that, he forced himself to give heed to other mattersfor the sake of distraction and became conscious of the sounds from thenext room. When they increased with the hours rather than subsiding, hegot up, partly dressed, made a light and went to Lytton.

  Quarrelling followed. The sick man raved and cursed. He blamed Bayardfor all his suffering, denounced him as a meddler, whining and stormingin turn. He declared that to fight against his weakness was futile; thenext moment vowed that he would return to town, and face temptationthere and beat it; and within a breath was explaining that he couldeasily cure himself, if he could only be allowed to taper off, to takeone less drink each day. Before it all, Bayard remained quietly firm andthe incident ended by Lytton screaming that at daylight he would leavethe ranch and die on the Yavapai road before he would submit to anotherday of life there.

  But when dawn came he was sleeping and the rancher, after covering himcarefully, retired to his room for two hours' rest before rousing for amorning's ride through the hills.

  He was back at noon and found Lytton white faced, contrite. Togetherthey prepared a meal.

  "I was pretty much of an ass last night," Lytton said after they hadeaten a few moments in silence. It was one of those rare intervals inwhich a bearing of normal civility struggled through his despicabilityand Bayard looked up quickly to meet his indecisive gaze, feelingsomehow that with every flash of this strength he was rewarded for allthe work he had done, the unpleasantness he had undergone. Rewarded,though it only made Lytton a stronger, more enduring obstacle betweenhim and a consummation of his love.

  "I'm sorry," the man confessed. "It wasn't I. It was the booze that'sstill in me."

  "I understand," the cowman said, with a nod. A moment of silencefollowed.

  "There's something else, I'm sorry about," Lytton continued. "The otherday I tried to get nasty about a girl, the girl Nora at the ManzanitaHouse, didn't I?"

  "Oh, you didn't know what you said."

  "Well, if I didn't, that's no excuse." He was growing clearer, obtaininga better poise, assuming a more decided personality. "I apologize to youfor what I said, and, if you think best, I'll go see her and apologizefor the advances I made to her."

  "No, no,"--with a quick gesture. "That wouldn't do any good; she'llnever know."

  "As you say, then. I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry; that's all. Iknow how a fellow feels when his girl's name is dragged into a brawlthat way. I've noticed you sort of dolling up lately when you've startedfor town,"--with a faint twinkle in his eyes and a smile thatapproximated good nature. "I know how it is with you fellows who stillhave the woman bug,"--a hint of bitterness. "I know how touchy you'llall get. You ... you seem to be rather interested in that Nora girl."

  Bayard made no answer. He was uneasy, apprehensive.

  "I've heard 'em talk about it in town. Funny that she's the only womanyou've fallen for, Bayard. They tell me you won't look at another, thatyou brought her to Yavapai yourself several years ago. You're soparticular that you have to import one; is that it?"

  He laughed aloud and a hint of nastiness was again in the tone. Theother man did not answer with more than a quickly passing smile.

  "Well, you fellows have all got to have your whirl at it, I suppose,"Lytton went on, the good nature entirely gone. "You'll never learnexcept from your own experience. Rush around with the girls, have a gaytime; then, it's some one girl, next, it's marriage and she's gotyou,"--holding up his gripped fist for emphasis. "She's got you hard andfast!"

  He stirred in his chair and broke another biscuit in half.

  "Believe me, I know, Bayard! I've been there. I.... Hell, I married agirl with a conscience,"--drawling the words, "That's the kind thathangs on when they get you ... that _good_ kind! She's too damn fine forhuman use, she and her kind. You know," ... laughing bitterly--"shestarted out to reform me. One of that kind; get me? A damnedstraight-laced Puritan! She snivelled and prayed and, instead of helpingme, she just drove me on and on. She's got me. See? I can't get awayfrom her and the only good thing about being here is that there aremiles between us and I don't hear her cant and prating!"

  "Seems to me that a woman who sticks by a man when he goes clean to hellmust amount to something," observed Bayard, gazing at him pointedly.

  Lytton shrugged his shoulders.

  "Maybe ... in some ways, but who the devil wants that kind hangingaround his neck?" He pushed his plate away and stared surlily outthrough the door. Bayard tilted back in his chair and looked theEasterner in the face critically.

  "Suppose somebody was to come along an' tell you they was goin' to takeher off your hands. What'd you say then?"

  "What do you mean?" disgruntled at the challenge in Bayard's query.

  "Just what I say. You've been tellin' me what a bad mess mixin' withwomen is. I'm askin' you what you'd do if somebody tried to take yourwoman. You say it's bad, bein' tied up. How about it, if somebody was tostep in an' relieve you?"

  The other moved in his chair.

  "That's different," he said. "To want to be away from a woman until shegot some common sense, and to have another man _take_ your wife are twodifferent things. To have a man take your wife would make anybody wantto kill, no matter what trouble you might have had with her. Breaking upmarriages, taking something that belongs to another man, has nothing todo with what I was talking about."

  "You don't want her yourself. You don't want anybody else to have her.Is that it?"

  "Didn't I say that those were two different--"

  "You want to look out, Neighbor!" Bayard said, with a smile, droppingthe forelegs of his chair to the floor and leaning his elbows on thetable. "You're talking one thing and meaning another. You want to keepyour head, if you want to keep your wife. Don't make out you want to letgo when you really want to hang on. Women are funny things. They'llstick to men like a burr, they'll take abuse an' suffer and give no signof quittin', because they want love, gentleness, and they hate to giveup thinkin' they'll get it from the man they'd planned would give it to'em.

  "But some day, while they're stickin' to a man who don't appreciate 'em,they'll see happiness goin' by ... then, they're likely to get it. Andsometime that's goin' to happen to your wife; she'll see happinesssomewhere else an' she'll go after it; then, she won't be around yourneck, but somebody else'll have her!

  "Oh, they're queer things ... funny things! You can't tell where th'man's comin' from that'll meet 'em an' take their heart an' their head.He may be right near 'em all th' time an' they never wake up to it foryears; he may come along casual-like, not lookin' for anything, an' see'em just by chance an' open his heart an' take 'em....

  "Once I was in th' Club in Prescott an' I heard a mining engineer fromth' East sing a song about some man who lived on th' desert.

  "'From th' desert I come to thee
,'

  "it went,

  "'On a stallion shod with fire....'

  "An' then he goes on with th' finest love song you ever heard, endin'up:

  "... 'a love that shall not die Till th' sun grows cold, An' th' stars are old, An' th' leaves of th' Judgment Book unfold!'

  "... That's the sort of guy that upsets a woman who's hungry forhappiness. It's that kind of love they want. They'll stand most anythinga long, long time; seems like some of 'em loved abuse. But if a real_hombre_ ever comes along ... Look out!

  "You can't tell, Lytton. This thing love comes like a storm sometimes. Aman's interest in a woman may be easy an' not amount to much at first.It's like this breeze comin' in here now; warm an' soft an' gentle, th'mildest, meekest little breeze you've ever felt, ain't it? Well, youcan't tell what it'll be by night!

  "I've seen it just like this, without a dust devil on th' valley or acloud in th' sky. Then she'd get puffy an' dust would commence to riseup, an' th' sky off there south an' west would begin to look dirty,rusty. Then, away off, you'd hear a whisper, a kind of mutter, growin'louder every minute, an' you'd see trees bend down to one another likethey was hidin' their faces from somethin' that scared 'em. Dust wouldcome before it like a wall an' then th' grass would flatten out an' looka funny white under that black and then ... Zwoop! She'd be on you,blowin' an' howlin' an' thunderin' and lightnin' like hell itself....When an hour before it'd been a breeze just like this."

  He paused an instant.

  "So you want to look out ... if you want to keep her. Some man on a'stallion shod with fire' may ride past an' look into your house an' seeher an' crawl down an' commence to sing a love song that'll make herforget all about tryin' to straighten you up.... Some feller who's nevercounted with her may wake up and go after her as strong as a summerstorm.

  "She's young; she's sweet; she's beau ..."

  "Say, who told you about my wife?" Lytton demanded, drawing himself up.

  Bayard stopped with a show of surprise. His earnestness had swept hiscaution, his sense of the necessity for deception, quite away, but herallied himself as he answered:

  "Why, I judge she is. She's stickin' by you like a sweet woman would."

  "Well, what if she is?" Lytton countered, the surprise in his facegiving way to sullenness. "We've discussed me and my wife enough for oneday. You're inexperienced. You don't know her kind. You don't knowwomen, Bayard. Why, damn their dirty skins, they--"

  "You drop that!" Bruce cried, rising and leaning across the table. "Youkeep your lying, dirty mouth shut or I'll..."

  He drew his great fists upward slowly as though they lifted their limitin weight. Then suddenly went limp and smiled down at the face of theother man. He turned away slowly and Lytton drawled.

  "Well, what's got into you?"

  "Excuse me," said the rancher, with a short laugh. "I'm ... I'm onlyworked up about a woman myself," reaching out a hand for the casing ofthe doorway to steady himself. "I'm only wondering what th' best thingto do is.... You said yourself that ... experience was th' only way tolearn...."

  * * * * *

  That afternoon Lytton slept deeply. Of this fact Bayard made sure when,from his work in the little blacksmith shop, he saw a horseman ridingtoward the ranch from a wash that gouged down into Manzanita Valley.When he saw the man slumbering heavily on his bed, worn from thestruggle and the sleeplessness of last night, he closed the door softlyand returned to resume the shoeing of the pinto horse that stood dozingin the sunlight.

  "Oh, you is it, Benny Lynch?" Bayard called, as the horseman leaned lowto open the gate and rode in.

  "Right again, Bruce. How's things?"

  "Fine, Benny. Ain't saw you in a long time. Get down. Feed your horse?"

  "No, thanks, we've both et."

  The newcomer dismounted and, undoing his tie rope, made his pony fast toa post. He was a short, thick set young chap, dressed in rough clothing,wearing hobnailed shoes. His clothes, his saddle, the horse itselfbelied the impression of a stock man and his shoes gave conclusiveevidence that he was a miner. He turned to face Bayard and pushed hishat far back on his head, letting the sun beat down on his honest,bronzed face, peculiarly boyish, yet lined as that of a man who hasknown the rough edges of life.

  "Mind if I talk to you a while, Bruce?" he asked, serious, preoccupiedin his manner.

  "Tickled to death, Benny; your conversation generally is enlightenin'an' interestin'."

  This provoked only a faint flash of a smile from the other. Bayardkicked a wooden box along beside the building and both seated themselveson it. An interval of silence, which the miner broke by saying abruptly:

  "I've done somethin', Bruce, that I don't like to keep to myself. I'mplanning on doin' somethin' more that I want somebody to know so that ifanything happens, folks'll understand.

  "I come to you,"--marking the ground with the edge of his shoe sole,"because you're th' only man I know in this country--an' I know most of'em--I'd trust."

  "Them bouquets are elegant, Benny." Bayard laughed, trying to relievethe tension of the other. "Go ahead, I love 'em!"

  "You know what I mean, Bruce. You've always played square with everybody'round here, not mindin' a great deal about what other folks done solong as they was open an' honest about it. You've never stole calves,you've never been in trouble with your neighbors--"

  "Hold on, Benny! You don't know how many calves I've stole."

  The other smiled and put aside Bayard's attempt at levity with a gestureof one hand.

  "You understand how it is, when a fellar's just got to talk?"

  "I understand," said Bayard. "I've been in that fix myself, recent."

  "I knew you would; that's why I come."

  He shifted on the box and pulled his hat down over his eyes and said:

  "I tried to kill a feller th' other night. I didn't make good. I'mlikely to make another try some time, an' go through with it."

  Bayard waited for more, with a queer thrill of realization.

  "You know this pup Lytton, don't you, Bruce? Yes, everybody does,th' ----! I tried to get him th' other night in Yavapai. I thought I'ddone it an' lit out, but I heard later I only nicked his arm. That meansI've got to do it later."

  "It's that necessary to kill him, is it, Benny?" Bayard asked. "I knowhe was hit.... Fact is, I found him an' took him into th' Hotel an'fixed him up."

  Their gazes met. Benny Lynch's was peculiarly devoid of anger, steadyand frank.

  "That was like you, Bruce. You'd take care of a sick wolf, I guess. Nexttime, though, I'll give somebody a job as a gravedigger, 'stead of agood Samaritan....

  "But what I stopped in to-day for was to tell you th' whole story, soyou'd know it all."

  "Let her fly, Benny!"

  "Prob'ly you know, Bruce, that I come out here from Tennessee, when Iwas only a spindly kid, with th' old man an' my mammy. We was th' lastof our family. They'd feuded our folks down to 'n old man 'n old womanand a kid--me. We come 'cause th' old man got religion and moved west sohe wouldn't have to kill nobody. I s'pose some back there claims to havedruv him out, but they either didn't know him or they're lyin'. He'dnever be druv out by fear, Bruce; he wasn't that kind.

  "Well, we drifted through Colorado an' New Mex an' finally over here. Welanded out yonder on th' Sunset group which th' old man located an'commenced to work. I growed up there, Bruce. I helped my mammy an' mypap cut down trees an' pick up stone to make our house. I built mymammy's coffin myself when I was seventeen. Me an' pap buried her; meshovelin' in dirt an' rocks, him prayin' an' readin' out of th' Bible."

  He paused to overcome the shaking of his voice.

  "We hung on there an' was doin' right well with th' mine, workin' out aspell now an' then, goin' back an' developin' as long as our grub an'powder lasted. We got her right to where we thought she was ready toboom, when hard times come along, an' made us slow up. I started out,leavin' th' old man home, 'cause he was gettin' so old he wasn't muchuse anywhere an' i
t ain't right that old folks should work that wayanyhow.

  "I landed over in California and was in an' 'round th' Funeral Range forover two years, writin' to pap occasional an' hearin' from him every fewmonths. I didn't make it very well an' our mine just had to wait on myluck, let alone th' hard times. We wouldn't sell out, then, 'cause we'dhad to take little or nothin' for th' property. It worried me; my oldman was gettin' old fast, he'd never had nothin' but hard knocks, if hewas ever goin' to have any rest an' any fun it'd have to come out ofthat mine....

  "Well, while I was away along come this here Eastern outfit, promised todo all sorts of things, formed a corporation, roped th' old man in withtheir slick lies, an' give him 'bout a quarter value for what we had.They beat him out of all he'd ever earnt, when he was past workin' formore! Now, Bruce, a gang of skunks that'd do that to as fine an old manas my dad was, ought to be burnt, hadn't they?"

  "They had. Everybody sure loved your daddy, Ben."

  "Well, the' was nothin' we could do. Them Eastern pups just set down an'waited for us to get tired an' let 'em have a clear field. So we movedout, left our house an' all, went to Prescott an' went to work, both ofus, keepin' an eye on th' mine to see they didn't commence to operate onth' sly. After a while I got what looked like a good thing down on th'desert in a new town an' I went there.

  "While I was gone, along comes this here Lytton an' finishes th' job.His dad had owned most of th' stock, an' he'd come here to startsomethin'. He begun with my pappy. He lied to him, took advantage of anold man who was trustful an' an easy mark. He crooked it every way hecould, he got everythin' we had; all th' work of my hands,"--holdingtheir honest, calloused palms out--"all th' hopes of a good old man. Itdone him no good; he couldn't get enough backin' to do business.... Butit killed my dad."

  He stared vacantly ahead before saying:

  "You know th' rest. Dad died. That killed him, Bruce, an' Lytton was toblame. Ain't that murder? Ain't it?"

  "It's murder, Benny, but they won't call it that."

  "No, but what they call it don't make no difference in th' right or th'wrong of it, does it? An' it don't matter to me. I've got a law all myown, Bruce, an' it's a damn sight more just 'n theirs!" He had becomesuddenly alert, intent. "Th' last thing that my old man said was thatth' wickedest of th' world had killed him. He wouldn't blame no one manbut I will ... I do!"

  He moved quickly on the box, bringing himself to face Bayard.

  "I come back to this country an' waited. I've been thinkin' it over mosttwo years, Bruce, an' I don't see no way out but to fix my old man'scase myself. Maybe if things was different, I'd feel some other wayabout it, but this here Lytton is worse 'n scum, Bruce. You know an'everybody knows what he is. He's a drunken, lyin' ----! That's what heis!

  "I've been watchin' him close for weeks, seein' him drink every cent ofmy dad's money, seein' him get to be less 'n less of a man.

  "One day I was in town. I'd been drinkin' myself to keep from goin'crazy thinkin' 'bout this thing. Just at dusk, just when th' train comein an' everybody was down to th' station, I walked down th' streettoward Nate's corral to get my horse. I seen him comin' towards me,Bruce. He was drunk, he could just about make it. He didn't know me,never has knowed who I was, but he looks up at me an' commences to cuss,an' I ... Well, I draws an' fires."

  He leaned back against the building.

  "He dropped an' I thought things was squared, so I lit out. But I foundout I shot too quick ... or maybe I was drunker 'n I thought.

  "Where was he hit, Bruce?"

  "Left forearm, Benny ... right there."

  "Hum ... I thought so. I had a notion that gun was shootin' to th'right."

  They sat silent a moment, then he resumed:

  "When I got to thinkin' it over I was glad I hadn't killed him. I madeup my mind that wasn't the best way. That's a little too much likekillin' just 'cause you're mad, so I made up my mind I'd go on about mybusiness until I was meddled with.

  "I'm livin' at my home, now, Bruce. I'm back at th' Sunset, livin' inth' cabin me an' my folks built with our hands, workin' alone in ourmine, waitin' for good times to come again. I'm goin' to stay there ...right along. It's goin' to be my mine 'cause it rightfully belongs tome, no matter what Lytton's damn corporation papers may say.

  "Some day, when he sobers up, he'll start back there, Bruce. I'll bewaitin' for him. I won't harm a hair, I won't say a word until he stepson to them claims. Then, by God, I'll shoot him down like he was acoyote tryin' to get my chickens!"

  Bayard got up and thoughtfully stroked the hip of the pinto horse.

  "I guess I understand, Benny," he said, after a moment. "I'm pretty sureI do."

  "He's ... He's as low as a snake's belly, ain't he, Bruce?"--as if forreassurance.

  "Yes, an' he'd be lower, Benny, if there was anythin' lower," heremarked, grimly.

  "He can shoot though; watch him, Benny! I've seen him beat th' best ofus at a turkey shootin'."

  "That's what makes me feel easy about it. I wouldn't want to kill a manthat couldn't shoot as good as I can, anyhow."

  Benny Lynch departed, still unsmiling, very serious, and, as Bayardwatched him ride away, he shook his head in perplexity.

  "I wish I was as free to act as you are," he thought. "But I ain't; an'your tellin' me has dug my hole just that much deeper!"

  He looked out over the valley a long moment. It was bright under theafternoon sun but somehow it seemed, for him, to be queerly shadowed.