by Owen Wister
PART III
To-day, Drybone has altogether returned to the dust. Even in that dayits hour could have been heard beginning to sound, but its inhabitantswere rather deaf. Gamblers, saloon-keepers, murderers, outlaws maleand female, all were so busy with their cards, their lovers, and theirbottles as to make the place seem young and vigorous; but it was secondchildhood which had set in.
Drybone had known a wholesome adventurous youth, where manly lives anddeaths were plenty. It had been an army post. It had seen horse andfoot, and heard the trumpet. Brave wives had kept house for theircaptains upon its bluffs. Winter and summer they had made the best ofit. When the War Department ordered the captains to catch Indians,the wives bade them Godspeed. When the Interior Department ordered thecaptains to let the Indians go again, still they made the best of it.You must not waste Indians. Indians were a source of revenue to so manypeople in Washington and elsewhere. But the process of catching Indians,armed with weapons sold them by friends of the Interior Department, wasnot entirely harmless. Therefore there came to be graves in the Drybonegraveyard. The pale weather-washed head-boards told all about it:"Sacred to the memory of Private So-and-So, killed on the Dry Cheyenne,May 6, 1875." Or it would be, "Mrs. So-and-So, found scalped on SageCreek." But even the financiers at Washington could not wholly preservethe Indian in Drybone's neighborhood. As the cattle by ten thousandscame treading with the next step of civilization into this huge domain,the soldiers were taken away. Some of them went West to fight moreIndians in Idaho, Oregon, or Arizona. The battles of the others beingdone, they went East in better coffins to sleep where their mothers ortheir comrades wanted them. Though wind and rain wrought changes uponthe hill, the ready-made graves and boxes which these soldiers leftbehind proved heirlooms as serviceable in their way as were thetenements that the living had bequeathed to Drybone. Into theseempty barracks came to dwell and do business every joy that made thecow-puncher's holiday, and every hunted person who was baffling thesheriff. For the sheriff must stop outside the line of Drybone, asshall presently be made clear. The captain's quarters were a saloon now;professional cards were going in the adjutant's office night and day;and the commissary building made a good dance-hall and hotel. Insteadof guard-mounting, you would see a horse-race on the parade-ground, andthere was no provost-sergeant to gather up the broken bottles and oldboots. Heaps of these choked the rusty fountain. In the tufts of yellow,ragged grass that dotted the place plentifully were lodged many acesand queens and ten-spots, which the Drybone wind had blown wide from thedoors out of which they had been thrown when a new pack was called forinside. Among the grass tufts would lie visitors who had applied forbeds too late at the dance-hall, frankly sleeping their whiskey off inthe morning air.
Above, on the hill, the graveyard quietly chronicled this new epoch ofDrybone. So-and-so was seldom killed very far out of town, and of coursescalping had disappeared. "Sacred to the memory of Four-ace Johnston,accidently shot, Sep. 4, 1885." Perhaps one is still there unaltered:"Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Ryan's babe. Aged two months." This uniquecorpse had succeeded in dying with its boots off.
But a succession of graves was not always needed to read the changingtale of the place, and how people died there; one grave would often beenough. The soldiers, of course, had kept treeless Drybone supplied withwood. But in these latter days wood was very scarce. None grew nearerthan twenty or thirty miles--none, that is, to make boards of asufficient width for epitaphs. And twenty miles was naturally far to goto hew a board for a man of whom you knew perhaps nothing but what hesaid his name was, and to whom you owed nothing, perhaps, but a triflingpoker debt. Hence it came to pass that headboards grew into a sort ofdirectory. They were light to lift from one place to another. A singlecoat of white paint would wipe out the first tenant's name sufficientlyto paint over it the next comer's. By this thrifty habit the originalboards belonging to the soldiers could go round, keeping pace with thenew civilian population; and though at first sight you might be puzzledby the layers of names still visible beneath the white paint, you couldbe sure that the clearest and blackest was the one to which the presenttenant had answered.
So there on the hill lay the graveyard, steadily writing Drybone'shistory, and making that history lay the town at the bottom--one thinline of houses framing three sides of the old parade ground. In theseslowly rotting shells people rioted, believing the golden age was here,the age when everybody should have money and nobody should be arrested.For Drybone soil, you see, was still government soil, not yet handedover to Wyoming; and only government could arrest there, and only forgovernment crimes. But government had gone, and seldom worried Drybone!The spot was a postage-stamp of sanctuary pasted in the middle ofWyoming's big map, a paradise for the Four-ace Johnstons. Only, you mustnot steal a horse. That was really wicked, and brought you instantly tothe notice of Drybone's one official--the coroner! For they did keep acoroner--Judge Slaghammer. He was perfectly illegal, and lived next doorin Albany County. But that county paid fees and mileage to keep tally ofDrybone's casualties. His wife owned the dance-hall, and between theirindustries they made out a living. And all the citizens made out aliving. The happy cow-punchers on ranches far and near still earned andinstantly spent the high wages still paid them. With their bodiesfull of youth and their pockets full of gold, they rode into town bytwenties, by fifties, and out again next morning, penniless always andhappy. And then the Four-ace Johnstons would sit card-playing with eachother till the innocents should come to town again.
To-night the innocents had certainly come to town, and Drybone wasfurnishing to them all its joys. Their many horses stood tied at everypost and corner--patient, experienced cow-ponies, well knowing it wasan all-night affair. The talk and laughter of the riders was in thesaloons; they leaned joking over the bars, they sat behind their cardsat the tables, they strolled to the post-trader's to buy presents fortheir easy sweethearts their boots were keeping audible time with thefiddle at Mrs. Slaghammer's. From the multitude and vigor of the soundsthere, the dance was being done regularly. "Regularly" meant that uponthe conclusion of each set the gentleman led his lady to the bar andinvited her to choose and it was also regular that the lady shouldchoose. Beer and whiskey were the alternatives.
Lin McLean's horse took him across the square without guiding from thecow-puncher, who sat absently with his hands folded upon the horn of hissaddle. This horse, too, was patient and experienced, and could not knowwhat remote thoughts filled his master's mind. He looked around to seewhy his master did not get off lightly, as he had done during somany gallant years, and hasten in to the conviviality. But the lonelycow-puncher sat mechanically identifying the horses of acquaintances.
"Toothpick Kid is here," said he, "and Limber Jim, and the Doughie.You'd think he'd stay away after the trouble he--I expect that pinto isJerky Bill's."
"Go home!" said a hearty voice.
McLean eagerly turned. For the moment his face lighted from itssombreness. "I'd forgot you'd be here," said he. And he sprang to theground. "It's fine to see you."
"Go home!" repeated the Governor of Wyoming, shaking his ancientfriend's hand. "You in Drybone to-night, and claim you're reformed?
"Yu' seem to be on hand yourself," said the cow-puncher, bracing to bejocular, if he could.
"Me! I've gone fishing. Don't you read the papers? If we poor governorscan't lock up the State House and take a whirl now and then--"
"Doc," interrupted Lin, "it's plumb fine to see yu'!" Again he shookhands.
"Why, yes! we've met here before, you and I." His Excellency the Hon.Amory W. Barker, M.D., stood laughing, familiar and genial, his soundwhite teeth shining. But behind his round spectacles he scrutinizedMcLean. For in this second hand-shaking was a fervor that seemed agrasp, a reaching out, for comfort. Barker had passed through Separ.Though an older acquaintance than Billy, he had asked Jessamine fewerand different questions. But he knew what he knew. "Well, Drybone's thesame old Drybone," said he. "Sweet-scented hole of iniquity! Let's seehow you wal
k nowadays."
Lin took a few steps.
"Pooh! I said you'd never get over it." And his Excellency beamed withprofessional pride. In his doctor days Barker had set the boy McLean'sleg; and before it was properly knit the boy had escaped from thehospital to revel loose in Drybone on such another night as this. Soonhe had been carried back, with the fracture split open again.
"It shows, does it?" said Lin. "Well, it don't usually. Not except whenI'm--when I'm--"
"Down?" suggested his Excellency.
"Yes, Doc. Down," the cow-puncher confessed.
Barker looked into his friend's clear hazel eyes.
Beneath their dauntless sparkle was something that touched theGovernor's good heart. "I've got some whiskey along on the trip--Easternwhiskey," said he. "Come over to my room awhile."
"I used to sleep all night onced," said McLean, as they went. "Then Icome to know different. But I'd never have believed just mere thoughtscould make yu'--make yu' feel like the steam was only half on. I eat,yu' know!" he stated, suddenly. "And I expect one or two in camp latelyhave not found my muscle lacking. Feel me, Doc."
Barker dutifully obeyed, and praised the excellent sinews.
Across from the dance-hall the whining of the fiddle came, high and gay;feet blurred the talk of voices, and voices rose above the trampling offeet. Here and there some lurking form stumbled through the dark amongthe rubbish; and clearest sound of all, the light crack of billiardballs reached dry and far into the night Barker contemplated the starsand calm splendid dimness of the plain. "'Though every prospect pleases,and only man is vile,'" he quoted. "But don't tell the Republican partyI said so."
"It's awful true, though, Doc. I'm vile myself. Yu' don't know. Why, Ididn't know!"
And then they sat down to confidences and whiskey; for so long as theworld goes round a man must talk to a man sometimes, and both must drinkover it. The cow-puncher unburdened himself to the Governor; and theGovernor filled up his friend's glass with the Eastern whiskey, andnodded his spectacles, and listened, and advised, and said he shouldhave done the same, and like the good Governor that he was, neverremembered he was Governor at all with political friends here whohad begged a word or two. He became just Dr. Barker again, the younghospital surgeon (the hospital that now stood a ruin), and Lin was againhis patient----Lin, the sun-burnt free-lance of nineteen, reckless,engaging, disobedient, his leg broken and his heart light, with noJessamine or conscience to rob his salt of its savor. While he now toldhis troubles, the quadrilles fiddled away careless as ever, and thecrack of the billiard balls sounded as of old.
"Nobody has told you about this, I expect," said the lover. He broughtforth the little pistol, "Neighbor." He did not hand it across toBarker, but walked over to Barker's chair, and stood holding it for thedoctor to see. When Barker reached for it to see better, since it washalf hidden in the cow-puncher's big hand, Lin yielded it to him, butstill stood and soon drew it back. "I take it around," he said, "andwhen one of those stories comes along, like there's plenty of, that shewants to get rid of me, I just kind o' take a look at 'Neighbor' whenI'm off where it's handy, and it busts the story right out of my mind. Ihave to tell you what a fool I am."
"The whiskey's your side," said Barker. "Go on."
"But, Doc, my courage has quit me. They see what I'm thinking about justlike I was a tenderfoot trying his first bluff. I can't stick it out nomore, and I'm going to see her, come what will.
"I've got to. I'm going to ride right up to her window and shoot off'Neighbor,' and if she don't come out I'll know--"
A knocking came at the Governor's room, and Judge Slaghammer entered."Not been to our dance, Governor?" said he.
The Governor thought that perhaps he was tired, that perhaps thisevening he must forego the pleasure.
"It may be wiser. In your position it may be advisable," said thecoroner. "They're getting on rollers over there. We do not like troublein Drybone, but trouble comes to us--as everywhere."
"Shooting," suggested his Excellency, recalling his hospital practice.
"Well, Governor, you know how it is. Our boys are as big-hearted as anyin this big-hearted Western country. You know, Governor. Those generous,warm-blooded spirits are ever ready for anything."
"Especially after Mrs. Slaghammer's whiskey," remarked the Governor.
The coroner shot a shrewd eye at Wyoming's chief executive. It was notpolitically harmonious to be reminded that but for his wife's liquor anumber of fine young men, with nothing save youth untrained and healththe matter with them, would to-day be riding their horses insteadof sleeping on the hill. But the coroner wanted support in the nextcampaign. "Boys will be boys," said he. "They ain't pulled any gunsto-night. But I come away, though. Some of 'em's making up pretty freeto Mrs. Lusk. It ain't suitable for me to see too much. Lusk says he'safter you," he mentioned incidentally to Lin. "He's fillin' up, and sayshe's after you." McLean nodded placidly, and with scant politeness.He wished this visitor would go. But Judge Slaghammer had noticed thewhiskey. He filled himself a glass. "Governor, it has my compliments,"said he. "Ambrosier. Honey-doo."
"Mrs. Slaghammer seems to have a large gathering," said Barker.
"Good boys, good boys!" The judge blew importantly, and waved his arm."Bull-whackers, cow-punchers, mule-skinners, tin-horns. All spendinggenerous. Governor, once more! Ambrosier. Honey-doo." He settled himselfdeep in a chair, and closed his eyes.
McLean rose abruptly. "Good-night," said he. "I'm going to Separ."
"Separ!" exclaimed Slaghammer, rousing slightly. "Oh, stay with us, staywith us." He closed his eyes again, but sustained his smile of office.
"You know how well I wish you," said Barker to Lin. "I'll just see youstart."
Forthwith the friends left the coroner quiet beside his glass, andwalked toward the horses through Drybone's gaping quadrangle. The deadruins loomed among the lights of the card-halls, and always the keenjockey cadences of the fiddle sang across the night. But a calling andconfusion were set up, and the tune broke off.
"Just like old times!" said his Excellency. "Where's the dump-pile!" Itwas where it should be, close by, and the two stepped behind it tobe screened from wandering bullets. "A man don't forget his habits,"declared the Governor. "Makes me feel young again."
"Makes me feel old," said McLean. "Hark!"
"Sounds like my name," said Barker. They listened. "Oh yes. Of course.That's it. They're shouting for the doctor. But we'll just spare them aminute or so to finish their excitement."
"I didn't hear any shooting," said McLean. "It's something, though."
As they waited, no shots came; but still the fiddle was silent, andthe murmur of many voices grew in the dance-hall, while single voiceswandered outside, calling the doctor's name.
"I'm the Governor on a fishing-trip," said he. "But it's to be done, Isuppose."
They left their dump-hill and proceeded over to the dance. The musiciansat high and solitary upon two starch-boxes, fiddle on knee, staring andwaiting. Half the floor was bare; on the other half the revellers weredensely clotted. At the crowd's outer rim the young horsemen, flushedand swaying, retained their gaudy dance partners strongly by the waist,to be ready when the music should resume. "What is it?" they asked. "Whois it?" And they looked in across heads and shoulders, inattentive tothe caresses which the partners gave them.
Mrs. Lusk was who it was, and she had taken poison here in their midst,after many dances and drinks.
"Here's Doc!" cried an older one.
"Here's Doc!" chorused the young blood that had come into this countrysince his day. And the throng caught up the words: "Here's Doc! here'sDoc!"
In a moment McLean and Barker were sundered from each other in thisflood. Barker, sucked in toward the centre but often eddied back bythose who meant to help him, heard the mixed explanations pass his earunfinished--versions, contradictions, a score of facts. It had beenwolf-poison. It had been "Rough on Rats." It had been something in abottle. There was little steering in this clamorous
sea; but Barkerreached his patient, where she sat in her new dress, hailing him withwild inebriate gayety.
"I must get her to her room, friends," said he.
"He must get her to her room," went the word. "Leave Doc get her to herroom." And they tangled in their eagerness around him and his patient.
"Give us 'Buffalo Girls!'" shouted Mrs. Lusk.... "'Buffalo Girls,' youfiddler!"
"We'll come back," said Barker to her.
"'Buffalo Girls,' I tell yus. Ho! There's no sense looking at thatbottle, Doc. Take yer dance while there's time!" She was holding thechair.
"Help him!" said the crowd. "Help Doc."
They took her from her chair, and she fought, a big pink mass ofribbons, fluttering and wrenching itself among them.
"She has six ounces of laudanum in her," Barker told them at the top ofhis voice. "It won't wait all night."
"I'm a whirlwind!" said Mrs. Lusk. "That's my game! And you done yourshare," she cried to the fiddler. "Here's my regards, old man! 'BuffaloGirls' once more!"
She flung out her hand, and from it fell notes and coins, rollingand ringing around the starch boxes. Some dragged her on, while somefiercely forbade the musician to touch the money, because it was hers,and she would want it when she came to. Thus they gathered it up forher. But now she had sunk down, asking in a new voice where was LinMcLean. And when one grinning intimate reminded her that Lusk had goneto shoot him, she laughed out richly, and the crowd joined her mirth.But even in the midst of the joke she asked again in the same voicewhere was Lin McLean. He came beside her among more jokes. He had kepthimself near, and now at sight of him she reached out and held him."Tell them to leave me go to sleep, Lin," said she.
Barker saw a chance. "Persuade her to come along," said he to McLean."Minutes are counting now."
"Oh, I'll come," she said, with a laugh, overhearing him, and holdingstill to Lin.
The rest of the old friends nudged each other. "Back seats for us," theysaid. "But we've had our turn in front ones." Then, thinking they wouldbe useful in encouraging her to walk, they clustered again, renderingBarker and McLean once more well-nigh helpless. Clumsily the escort madeits slow way across the quadrangle, cautioning itself about stones andholes. Thus, presently, she was brought into the room. The escort sether down, crowding the little place as thick as it would hold; the restgathered thick at the door, and all of them had no thought of departing.The notion to stay was plain on their faces.
Barker surveyed them. "Give the doctor a show now, boys," said he."You've done it all so far. Don't crowd my elbows. I'll want you," hewhispered to McLean.
At the argument of fair-play, obedience swept over them like a veeringof wind. "Don't crowd his elbows," they began to say at once, and toldeach other to come away. "We'll sure give the Doc room. You don't wantto be shovin' your auger in, Chalkeye. You want to get yourself prettynear absent." The room thinned of them forthwith. "Fix her up good,Doc," they said, over their shoulders. They shuffled across thethreshold and porch with roundabout schemes to tread quietly. When oneor other stumbled on the steps and fell, he was jerked to his feet."You want to tame yourself," was the word. Then, suddenly, Chalkeyeand Toothpick Kid came precipitately back. "Her cash," they said. Andleaving the notes and coins, they hastened to catch their comrades onthe way back to the dance.
"I want you," repeated Barker to McLean.
"Him!" cried Mrs. Lusk, flashing alert again. "Jessamine wants him aboutnow, I guess. Don't keep him from his girl!" And she laughed her hard,rich laugh, looking from one to the other. "Not the two of yus can'tsave me," she stated, defiantly. But even in these last words a sort ofthickness sounded.
"Walk her up and down," said Barker. "Keep her moving. I'll look whatI can find. Keep her moving brisk." At once he was out of the door; andbefore his running steps had died away, the fiddle had taken up its tuneacross the quadrangle.
"'Buffalo Girls!'" exclaimed the woman. "Old times! Old times!"
"Come," said McLean. "Walk." And he took her.
Her head was full of the music. Forgetting all but that, she went withhim easily, and the two made their first turns around the room. Wheneverhe brought her near the entrance, she leaned away from him toward theopen door, where the old fiddle tune was coming in from the dark.But presently she noticed that she was being led, and her face turnedsullen.
"Walk," said McLean.
"Do you think so?" said she, laughing. But she found that she must gowith him. Thus they took a few more turns.
"You're hurting me," she said next. Then a look of drowsy cunning filledher eyes, and she fixed them upon McLean's dogged face. "He's gone,Lin," she murmured, raising her hand where Barker had disappeared.
She knew McLean had heard her, and she held back on the quickened pacethat he had set.
"Leave me down. You hurt," she pleaded, hanging on him.
The cow-puncher put forth more strength.
"Just the floor," she pleaded again. "Just one minute on the floor.He'll think you could not keep me lifted."
Still McLean made no answer, but steadily led her round and round, as hehad undertaken.
"He's playing out!" she exclaimed. "You'll be played out soon." Shelaughed herself half-awake. The man drew a breath, and she laughed moreto feel his hand and arm strain to surmount her increasing resistance."Jessamine!" she whispered to him. "Jessamine! Doc'll never suspicionyou, Lin."
"Talk sense," said he.
"It's sense I'm talking. Leave me go to sleep. Ah, ah, I'm going! I'llgo; you can't--"
"Walk, walk!" he repeated. He looked at the door. An ache was numbinghis arms.
"Oh yes, walk! What can you and all your muscle--Ah, walk me to glory,then, craziness! I'm going; I'll go. I'm quitting this outfit for keeps.Lin, you're awful handsome to-night! I'll bet--I'll bet she has neverseen you look so. Let me--let me watch yus. Anyway, she knows I camefirst!"
He grasped her savagely. "First! You and twenty of yu' don't--God!! whatdo I talk to her for?"
"Because--because--I'm going; I'll go. He slung me off--but he had tosling--you can't--stop--"
Her head was rolling, while the lips smiled. Her words came throughdeeper and deeper veils, fearless, defiant, a challenge inarticulate, acontinuous mutter. Again he looked at the door as he struggled to movewith her dragging weight. The drops rolled on his forehead and neck, hisshirt was wet, his hands slipped upon her ribbons. Suddenly the druggedbody folded and sank with him, pulling him to his knees. While he tookbreath so, the mutter went on, and through the door came the jiggingfiddle. A fire of desperation lighted in his eyes. "Buffalo Girls!" heshouted, hoarsely, in her ear, and got once more on his feet with heras though they were two partners in a quadrille. Still shouting her towake, he struck a tottering sort of step, and so, with the bending loadin his grip, strove feebly to dance the laudanum away.
Feet stumbled across the porch, and Lusk was in the room. "So I've gotyou!" he said. He had no weapon, but made a dive under the bed and cameup with a carbine. The two men locked, wrenching impotently, and felltogether. The carbine's loud shot rang in the room, but did no harm; andMcLean lay sick and panting upon Lusk as Barker rushed in.
"Thank God!" said he, and flung Lusk's pistol down. The man, derangedand encouraged by drink, had come across the doctor, delayed him,threatened him with his pistol, and when he had torn it away, had lefthim suddenly and vanished. But Barker had feared, and come after himhere. He glanced at the woman slumbering motionless beside the two men.The husband's brief courage had gone, and he lay beneath McLean, whohimself could not rise. Barker pulled them apart.
"Lin, boy, you're not hurt?" he asked, affectionately, and lifted thecow-puncher.
McLean sat passive, with dazed eyes, letting himself be supported.
"You're not hurt?" repeated Barker.
"No," answered the cow-puncher, slowly. "I guess not." He looked aboutthe room and at the door. "I got interrupted," he said.
"You'll be all right soon," said Barker.
"Nobody care
s for me!" cried Lusk, suddenly, and took to querulousweeping.
"Get up," ordered Barker, sternly.
"Don't accuse me, Governor," screamed Lusk. "I'm innocent." And he rose.
Barker looked at the woman and then at the husband. "I'll not say therewas much chance for her," he said. "But any she had is gone through you.She'll die."
"Nobody cares for me!" repeated the man. "He has learned my boy to scornme." He ran out aimlessly, and away into the night, leaving peace in theroom.
"Stay sitting," said Barker to McLean, and went to Mrs. Lusk.
But the cow-puncher, seeing him begin to lift her toward the bed withouthelp, tried to rise. His strength was not sufficiently come back, and hesank as he had been. "I guess I don't amount to much," said he. "I feellike I was nothing."
"Well, I'm something," said Barker, coming back to his friend, out ofbreath. "And I know what she weighs." He stared admiringly through hisspectacles at the seated man.
The cow-puncher's eyes slowly travelled over his body, and then soughtBarker's face. "Doc," said he, "ain't I young to have my nerve quit methis way?"
His Excellency broke into his broad smile.
"I know I've racketed some, but ain't it ruther early?" pursued McLean,wistfully.
"You six-foot infant!" said Barker. "Look at your hand."
Lin stared at it--the fingers quivering and bloody, and the skin groovedraw between them. That was the buckle of her belt, which in the strugglehad worked round and been held by him unknowingly. Both his wrists andhis shirt were ribbed with the pink of her sashes. He looked over at thebed where lay the woman heavily breathing. It was a something, a sound,not like the breath of life; and Barker saw the cow-puncher shudder.
"She is strong," he said. "Her system will fight to the end. Two hoursyet, maybe. Queer world!" he moralized. "People half killing themselvesto keep one in it who wanted to go--and one that nobody wanted to stay!"
McLean did not hear. He was musing, his eyes fixed absently in front ofhim. "I would not want," he said, with hesitating utterance--"I'dnot wish for even my enemy to have a thing like what I've had to doto-night."
Barker touched him on the arm. "If there had been another man I couldtrust--"
"Trust!" broke in the cow-puncher. "Why, Doc, it is the best turn yu'ever done me. I know I am a man now--if my nerve ain't gone."
"I've known you were a man since I knew you!" said the hearty Governor.And he helped the still unsteady six-foot to a chair. "As for yournerve, I'll bring you some whiskey now. And after"--he glanced atthe bed--"and tomorrow you'll go try if Miss Jessamine won't put thenerve--"
"Yes, Doc, I'll go there, I know. But don't yu'--don't let's whileshe's--I'm going to be glad about this, Doc, after awhile, but--"
At the sight of a new-comer in the door, he stopped in what his soul wasstammering to say. "What do you want, Judge?" he inquired, coldly.
"I understand," began Slaghammer to Barker--"I am informed--"
"Speak quieter, Judge," said the cow-puncher.
"I understand," repeated Slaghammer, more official than ever, "thatthere was a case for the coroner."
"You'll be notified," put in McLean again. "Meanwhile you'll talk quietin this room."
Slaghammer turned, and saw the breathing mass on the bed.
"You are a little early, Judge," said Barker, "but--"
"But your ten dollars are safe," said McLean.
The coroner shot one of his shrewd glances at the cow-puncher, and satdown with an amiable countenance. His fee was, indeed, ten dollars; andhe was desirous of a second term.
"Under the apprehension that it had already occurred--themisapprehension--I took steps to impanel a jury," said he, addressingboth Barker and McLean. "They are--ah--waiting outside. Responsible men,Governor, and have sat before. Drybone has few responsible men to-night,but I procured these at a little game where they were--ah--losing. Youmay go back, gentlemen," said he, going to the door. "I will summonyou in proper time." He looked in the room again. "Is the husband notintending--"
"That's enough, Judge," said McLean. "There's too many here withoutadding him."
"Judge," spoke a voice at the door, "ain't she ready yet?"
"She is still passing away," observed Slaghammer, piously.
"Because I was thinking," said the man--"I was just--You see, us jury isdry and dead broke. Doggonedest cards I've held this year, and--Judge,would there be anything out of the way in me touching my fee in advance,if it's a sure thing?"
"I see none, my friend," said Slaghammer, benevolently, "since it mustbe." He shook his head and nodded it by turns. Then, with full-blownimportance, he sat again, and wrote a paper, his coroner's certificate.Next door, in Albany County, these vouchers brought their face value offive dollars to the holder; but on Drybone's neutral soil the saloonswould always pay four for them, and it was rare that any jury-man couldwithstand the temptation of four immediate dollars. This one gratefullyreceived his paper, and, cherishing it like a bird in the hand, he withhis colleagues bore it where they might wait for duty and slake theirthirst.
In the silent room sat Lin McLean, his body coming to life more readilythan his shaken spirit. Barker, seeing that the cow-puncher meantto watch until the end, brought the whiskey to him. Slaghammer drewdocuments from his pocket to fill the time, but was soon in slumber overthem. In all precincts of the quadrangle Drybone was keeping it up late.The fiddle, the occasional shouts, and the crack of the billiard-ballstravelled clear and far through the vast darkness outside. Presentlysteps unsteadily drew near, and round the corner of the door a voice,plaintive and diffident, said, "Judge, ain't she most pretty nearready?"
"Wake up, Judge!" said Barker. "Your jury has gone dry again."
The man appeared round the door--a handsome, dishevelled fellow--withhat in hand, balancing himself with respectful anxiety. Thus was asecond voucher made out, and the messenger strayed back happy to hisfriends. Barker and McLean sat wakeful, and Slaghammer fell at onceto napping. From time to time he was roused by new messengers, eacharriving more unsteady than the last, until every juryman had got hisfee and no more messengers came. The coroner slept undisturbed inhis chair. McLean and Barker sat. On the bed the mass, with its pinkribbons, breathed and breathed, while moths flew round the lamp, tappingand falling with light sounds. So did the heart of the darkness wearitself away, and through the stone-cold air the dawn began to filter andexpand.
Barker rose, bent over the bed, and then stood. Seeing him, McLean stoodalso.
"Judge," said Barker, quietly, "you may call them now." And with carefulsteps the judge got himself out of the room to summon his jury.
For a short while the cow-puncher stood looking down upon the woman. Shelay lumped in her gaudiness, the ribbons darkly stained by the laudanum;but into the stolid, bold features death had called up the faint-coloredghost of youth, and McLean remembered all his Bear Creek days. "Hindsight is a turruble clear way o' seein' things," said he. "I think I'lltake a walk."
"Go," said Barker. "The jury only need me, and I'll join you."
But the jury needed no witness. Their long waiting and the advance payhad been too much for these responsible men. Like brothers they hadshared each others' vouchers until responsibility had melted from theirbrains and the whiskey was finished. Then, no longer entertained andgrowing weary of Drybone, they had remembered nothing but their distantbeds. Each had mounted his pony, holding trustingly to the saddle, andthus, unguided, the experienced ponies had taken them right. Across thewide sagebrush and up and down the river they were now asleep or riding,dispersed irrevocably. But the coroner was here. He duly receivedBarker's testimony, brought his verdict in, and signed it, and evenwhile he was issuing to himself his own proper voucher for ten dollarscame Chalkeye and Toothpick Kid on their ponies, galloping, eager intheir hopes and good wishes for Mrs. Lusk. Life ran strong in them both.The night had gone well with them. Here was the new day going to befine. It must be well with everybody.
"You don't say!" t
hey exclaimed, taken aback. "Too bad."
They sat still in their saddles, and upon their reckless, kindly facesthought paused for a moment. "Her gone!" they murmured. "Hard to getused to the idea. What's anybody doing about the coffin?"
"Mr. Lusk," answered Slaghammer, "doubtless--"
"Lusk! He'll not know anything this forenoon. He's out there in thegrass. She didn't think nothing of him. Tell Bill--not Dollar Bill,Jerky Bill, yu' know; he's over the bridge--to fix up a hearse, andwe'll be back." The two drove their spurs in with vigorous heels, andinstantly were gone rushing up the road to the graveyard.
The fiddle had lately ceased, and no dancers stayed any longer in thehall. Eastward the rose and gold began to flow down upon the plain overthe tops of the distant hills. Of the revellers, many had never gone tobed, and many now were already risen from their excesses to revive inthe cool glory of the morning. Some were drinking to stay their hungeruntil breakfast; some splashed and sported in the river, calling andjoking; and across the river some were holding horse-races upon thelevel beyond the hog-ranch. Drybone air rang with them. Their lusty,wandering shouts broke out in gusts of hilarity. Their pistols, aimedat cans or prairie dogs or anything, cracked as they galloped at large.Their speeding, clear-cut forms would shine upon the bluffs, and,descending, merge in the dust their horses had raised. Yet all this wasnothing in the vastness of the growing day.
Beyond their voices the rim of the sun moved above the violet hills, andDrybone, amid the quiet, long, new fields of radiance, stood august andstrange.
Down along the tall, bare slant from the graveyard the two horsemen wereriding back. They could be seen across the river, and the horse-racersgrew curious. As more and more watched, the crowd began to speak. It wasa calf the two were bringing. It was too small for a calf. It was dead.It was a coyote they had roped. See it swing! See it fall on the road!
"It's a coffin, boys!" said one, shrewd at guessing.
At that the event of last night drifted across their memories, and theywheeled and spurred their ponies. Their crowding hoofs on the bridgebrought the swimmers from the waters below and, dressing, they climbedquickly to the plain and followed the gathering. By the door alreadywere Jerky Bill and Limber Jim and the Doughie and always more, dashingup with their ponies; halting with a sharp scatter of gravel to hear andcomment. Barker was gone, but the important coroner told his news. Andit amazed each comer, and set him speaking and remembering past thingswith the others. "Dead!" each one began. "Her, does he say?"
"Why, pshaw!"
"Why, Frenchy said Doc had her cured!"
Jack Saunders claimed she had rode to Box Elder with Lin McLean. "Dead?Why, pshaw!"
"Seems Doc couldn't swim her out."
"Couldn't swim her out?"
"That's it. Doc couldn't swim her out."
"Well--there's one less of us."
"Sure! She was one of the boys."
"She grub-staked me when I went broke in '84."
"She gave me fifty dollars onced at Lander, to buy a saddle."
"I run agin her when she was a biscuit-shooter."
"Sidney, Nebraska. I run again her there, too."
"I knowed her at Laramie."
"Where's Lin? He knowed her all the way from Bear Creek to Cheyenne."
They laughed loudly at this.
"That's a lonesome coffin," said the Doughie. "That the best you coulddo?"
"You'd say so!" said Toothpick Kid.
"Choices are getting scarce up there," said Chalkeye. "We looked the lotover."
They were arriving from their search among the old dug-up graves onthe hill. Now they descended from their ponies, with the box roped andrattling between them. "Where's your hearse, Jerky?" asked Chalkeye.
"Have her round in a minute," said the cowboy, and galloped away withthree or four others.
"Turruble lonesome coffin, all the same," repeated the Doughie. And theysurveyed the box that had once held some soldier.
"She did like fixin's," said Limber Jim.
"Fixin's!" said Toothpick Kid. "That's easy."
While some six of them, with Chalkeye, bore the light, half-rottedcoffin into the room, many followed Toothpick Kid to the post-trader'sstore. Breaking in here, they found men sleeping on the counters. Thesehad been able to find no other beds in Drybone, and lay as they hadstretched themselves on entering. They sprawled in heavy slumber, somewith not even their hats taken off and some with their boots againstthe rough hair of the next one. They were quickly pushed together, fewwaking, and so there was space for spreading cloth and chintz. Stuffswere unrolled and flung aside till many folds and colors draped themotionless sleepers, and at length a choice was made. Unmeasured yardsof this drab chintz were ripped off, money treble its worth was thumpedupon the counter, and they returned, bearing it like a streamer to thecoffin. While the noise of their hammers filled the room, the hearsecame tottering to the door, pulled and pushed by twenty men. It was anambulance left behind by the soldiers, and of the old-fashioned shape,concave in body, its top blown away in winds of long ago; and as theyrevolved, its wheels dished in and out like hoops about to fall. Whilesome made a harness from ropes, and throwing the saddles off two poniesbacked them to the vehicle, the body was put in the coffin, now coveredby the chintz. But the laudanum upon the front of her dress revoltedthose who remembered their holidays with her, and turning the woman uponher face, they looked their last upon her flashing, colored ribbons, andnailed the lid down. So they carried her out, but the concave body ofthe hearse was too short for the coffin; the end reached out, and itmight have fallen. But Limber Jim, taking the reins, sat upon the otherend, waiting and smoking. For all Drybone was making ready to follow insome way. They had sought the husband, the chief mourner. He, however,still lay in the grass of the quadrangle, and despising him as she haddone, they left him to wake when he should choose. Those men who couldsit in their saddles rode escort, the old friends nearest, and four heldthe heads of the frightened cow-ponies who were to draw the hearse. Theyhad never known harness before, and they plunged with the men who heldthem. Behind the hearse the women followed in a large ranch-wagon, thismoment arrived in town. Two mares drew this, and their foals gambolledaround them. The great flat-topped dray for hauling poles came last,with its four government mules. The cow-boys had caught sight of it andcaptured it. Rushing to the post-trader's, they carried the sleepingmen from the counter and laid them on the dray. Then, searching Dryboneoutside and in for any more incapable of following, they brought them,and the dray was piled.
Limber Jim called for another drink and, with his cigar between histeeth, cracked his long bull-whacker whip. The ponies, terrified, sprangaway, scattering the men that held them, and the swaying hearse leapedpast the husband, over the stones and the many playing-cards in thegrass. Masterfully steered, it came safe to an open level, while thethrong cheered the unmoved driver on his coffin, his cigar between histeeth.
"Stay with it, Jim!" they shouted. "You're a king!"
A steep ditch lay across the flat where he was veering, abrupt andnearly hidden; but his eye caught the danger in time, and swinging fromit leftward so that two wheels of the leaning coach were in the air,he faced the open again, safe, as the rescue swooped down upon him. Thehorsemen came at the ditch, a body of daring, a sultry blast of youth.Wheeling at the brink, they turned, whirling their long ropes. Theskilful nooses flew, and the ponies, caught by the neck and foot, weredragged back to the quadrangle and held in line. So the pageant startedthe wild ponies quivering but subdued by the tightened ropes, and thecoffin steady in the ambulance beneath the driver. The escort, in theirfringed leather and broad hats, moved slowly beside and behind it, manyof them swaying, their faces full of health, and the sun and the strongdrink. The women followed, whispering a little; and behind them theslow dray jolted, with its heaps of men waking from the depths of theirwhiskey and asking what this was. So they went up the hill. When theriders reached the tilted gate of the graveyard, they sprang off andscattered am
ong the hillocks, stumbling and eager. They nodded to Barkerand McLean, quietly waiting there, and began choosing among the open,weather-drifted graves from which the soldiers had been taken. Theirfigures went up and down the uneven ridges, calling and comparing.
"Here," said the Doughie, "here's a good hole."
"Here's a deep one," said another.
"We've struck a well here," said some more. "Put her in here."
The sand-hills became clamorous with voices until they arrived at achoice, when some one with a spade quickly squared the rain-washedopening. With lariats looping the coffin round, they brought it and wereabout to lower it, when Chalkeye, too near the edge, fell in, and oneend of the box rested upon him. He could not rise by himself, and theypulled the ropes helplessly above.
McLean spoke to Barker. "I'd like to stop this," said he, "but a manmight as well--"
"Might as well stop a cloud-burst," said Barker.
"Yes, Doc. But it feels--it feels like I was looking at ten dozen LinMcLeans." And seeing them still helpless with Chalkeye, he joined themand lifted the cow-boy out.
"I think," said Slaghammer, stepping forward, "this should proceed nofurther without some--perhaps some friend would recite 'Now I lay me?"'
"They don't use that on funerals," said the Doughie.
"Will some gentleman give the Lord's Prayer?" inquired the coroner.
Foreheads were knotted; triad mutterings ran among them; but some oneremembered a prayer book in one of the rooms in Drybone, and the notionwas hailed. Four mounted, and raced to bring it. They went down thehill in a flowing knot, shirts ballooning and elbows flapping, and soreturned. But the book was beyond them. "Take it, you; you take it,"each one said. False beginnings were made, big thumbs pushed the pagesback and forth, until impatience conquered them. They left the bookand lowered the coffin, helped again by McLean. The weight sank slowly,decently, steadily, down between the banks. The sound that it struck thebottom with was a slight sound, the grating of the load upon the solidsand; and a little sand strewed from the edge and fell on the box at thesame moment. The rattle came up from below, compact and brief, a singlejar, quietly smiting through the crowd, smiting it to silence. Oneremoved his hat, and then another, and then all. They stood eying eachhis neighbor, and shifting their eyes, looked away at the great valley.Then they filled in the grave, brought a head-board from a grave nearby, and wrote the name and date upon it by scratching with a stone.
"She was sure one of us," said Chalkeye. "Let's give her the Lament."
And they followed his lead:
"Once in the saddle, I used to go dashing, Once in the saddle, I used to go gay; First took to drinking, and then to card-playing; Got shot in the body, and now here I lay.
"Beat the drum slowly, Play the fife lowly, Sound the dead march as you bear me along. Take me to Boot-hill, and throw the sod over me-- I'm but a poor cow-boy, I know I done wrong."
When the song was ended, they left the graveyard quietly and went downthe hill. The morning was growing warm. Their work waited them acrossmany sunny miles of range and plain. Soon their voices and themselveshad emptied away into the splendid vastness and silence, and they weregone--ready with all their might to live or to die, to be animals orheroes, as the hours might bring them opportunity. In Drybone's desertedquadrangle the sun shone down upon Lusk still sleeping, and the windshook the aces and kings in the grass.
PART IV
Over at Separ, Jessamine Buckner had no more stockings of Billy's tomend, and much time for thinking and a change of mind. The day afterthat strange visit, when she had been told that she had hurt a goodman's heart without reason, she took up her work; and while her handsdespatched it her thoughts already accused her. Could she have seen thatvisitor now, she would have thanked her. She looked at the photograph onher table. "Why did he go away so quickly?" she sighed. But when youngBilly returned to his questions she was buoyant again, and more than amatch for him. He reached the forbidden twelfth time of asking why LinMcLean did not come back and marry her. Nor did she punish him as shehad threatened. She looked at him confidentially, and he drew near, fullof hope.
"Billy, I'll tell you just why it is," said she. "Lin thinks I'm not areal girl."
"A--ah," drawled Billy, backing from her with suspicion.
"Indeed that's what it is, Billy. If he knew I was a real girl--"
"A--ah," went the boy, entirely angry. "Anybody can tell you're a girl."And he marched out, mystified, and nursing a sense of wrong. Nor did hisdignity allow him to reopen the subject.
To-day, two miles out in the sage-brush by himself, he was shootingjack-rabbits, but began suddenly to run in toward Separ. A horseman hadpassed him, and he had loudly called; but the rider rode on, intent uponthe little distant station. Man and horse were soon far ahead of theboy, and the man came into town galloping.
No need to fire the little pistol by her window, as he had once thoughtto do! She was outside before he could leap to the ground. And as heheld her, she could only laugh, and cry, and say "Forgive me! Oh, whyhave you been so long?" She took him back to the room where his picturewas, and made him sit, and sat herself close. "What is it?" she askedhim. For through the love she read something else in his serious face.So then he told her how nothing was wrong; and as she listened to allthat he had to tell, she, too, grew serious, and held very close to him."Dear, dear neighbor!" she said.
As they sat so, happy with deepening happiness, but not gay yet, youngBilly burst open the door. "There!" he cried. "I knowed Lin knowed youwere a girl!"
Thus did Billy also have his wish. For had he not told Jessamine that heliked her, and urged her to come and live with him and Lin? That cabinon Box Elder became a home in truth, with a woman inside taking theonly care of Mr. McLean that he had known since his childhood: thoughsingularly enough he has an impression that it is he who takes care ofJessamine!
IN THE AFTER-DAYS
The black pines stand high up the hills, The white snow sifts their columns deep, While through the canyon's riven cleft From there, beyond, the rose clouds sweep.
Serene above their paling shapes One star hath wakened in the sky. And here in the gray world below Over the sage the wind blows by;
Rides through the cotton-woods' ghost-ranks, And hums aloft a sturdy tune Among the river's tawny bluffs, Untenanted as is the moon.
Far 'neath the huge invading dusk Comes Silence awful through the plain; But yonder horseman's heart is gay, And he goes singing might and main.