by Gwen Bristow
Texas closed his eyes again. But though he looked so tired he looked peaceful too.
After a while Stephen woke up. As he was rested now and wanted to play, Garnet played with him, keeping him as quiet as she could. Texas opened his eyes and lay watching them, smiling tenderly. At length when Stephen was content to sit on the floor with his straw animals, Garnet came back to the wall-bench.
“That’s a fine little boy,” Texas said. “Miss Garnet, you don’t mind if I pretended he was part mine, do you?”
“I’m proud that you like him so much, Texas,” she said. “I’ll tell him when he’s old enough to understand.”
Stephen made his way to her and she held out her hand. He pulled himself up, and she put an arm around him. Leaning against her knee he prattled a lot of nonsense syllables, while Texas watched him lovingly.
Suddenly the door opened. There was so much noise outside that Garnet had not heard anybody come into the house. Her arm still around Stephen, she looked up, thinking this was Silky here to take her home and feeling some surprise that Silky, with all his fine manners, should have burst in without knocking. The door was near the foot of Texas’ bed, facing the bench, so that as she raised her head she looked straight at the man who stood in the doorway. The man was not Silky. He was Charles.
Charles was speaking over his shoulder to someone Garnet could not see. “I was right,” he was saying. “This is the room. He’s in here.”
“Looking for me?” Texas murmured.
Garnet had sprung to her feet, indignant that Charles should have come to annoy Texas now. She moved along the bedside to stand between them. “Texas is very ill, Charles,” she said urgently. “Please don’t disturb him.”
Stephen was peeking out from behind her skirts. Charles said nothing. He bent as though to pick up the baby, and Stephen started back with a little cry. Garnet stroked his head, saying,
“Don’t try to take him, Charles. He’s not used to being handled by strangers.” As she spoke Stephen held up his arms to her and she started to take him up herself. But as her hands touched the two sides of his body Charles snatched at him. Stephen cried out in fright. With an instinctive movement of defense Garnet grabbed him in both arms and stood holding him to her breast as tightly as her muscles would clamp on him, but as she took a step back from Charles she heard him say,
“It’s no use, Garnet. You may as well give him to me. I’ve given you every chance and now I have done with you.”
Garnet became aware of a lot of details at once—doors opening and feet scampering, and girls’ voices shrill with fright, and a man’s voice curtly ordering, “Stand back, sisters, and be quiet! This is serious.”
Charles was saying, “I had hopes of changing you. But when you were found to be in this house, it was obvious that you were no fit guardian for a child.”
Garnet gave a gasp of rage. Stephen was crying, half in fear and half in pain, for she was clutching him with such force that she was nearly breaking his bones. Behind her on the bed she heard Texas say, his voice full of fury in spite of his weakness, “You Goddamned yellow-livered scoundrel.”
Charles was cold and sure. Two points of light were reflected in his eyes. When he spoke again his voice was not loud but she heard him clearly, though Stephen was crying and Texas was swearing, his wrath made even more violent by his sense of helplessness, and in the hall Estelle’s voice was shouting in Spanish to the girls. Charles was saying,
“The brig Lydia Belle is sailing shortly for Boston. My wife and I will go to Boston to wind up the affairs of Mrs. Hale’s first husband. We are going to take my brother’s son with us—”
“Are you out of your mind?” Garnet cried. Her whole body had begun to tremble with anger. Charles went right on past her words.
“—and leave him there to be sent to school, so he will grow up under good moral influences instead of the environment you prefer.”
Garnet could hear Stephen and Texas and Estelle; from beyond the house she could hear the creak of carts and the lowing of oxen. But she heard Charles’ words as though he were speaking against a background of silence. Rage was sharpening her eyes and ears, and giving a sense of rare strength to her muscles. Charles went on without a pause.
“We have no power to change you. But we can and will take that boy away from you.”
“Oh no you will not,” said Garnet. She was so angry that she had no sense of being afraid. She wondered how he had known she was here, but at the moment it did not matter. She was clutching her baby to her and speaking through clenched teeth. “You won’t take him. Not if I have to tear your nasty little body to pieces. If you put your hands on my child—”
With a smile of contempt, Charles interrupted her. “Your temper is not pretty, Garnet. Nor will it do you any good. I am not acting on my own responsibility. I have an order from the colonel in command of Los Angeles, giving that child to me. Here it is. Do you see?”
He was holding out a paper. His eyes were fixed on her. They were like two hot needles boring into her forehead. She could almost feel the sizzling sensation. She could not move any farther back from him, for the backs of her legs were already pressing against the bed where Texas lay, and she could not get out of the room because Charles himself stood in the doorway. Behind her she heard Texas say something, she did not know what. A wave of heat started at the back of her neck and went up into her head and swept down through her body. In her arms Stephen was still crying. Scared and half smothered by the fierce grip she was giving him, he began to kick at her, trying to get free. Garnet pushed her hand down to hold his surprisingly strong little legs. Her fingers touched the holster at her belt, and she felt the handle of her Colt revolver.
Instantly she knew what she was going to do. It was as simple as walking down a straight road in the sunlight. She saw Charles: the paper in his hand, his smile of sneering triumph, his eyebrows like two caterpillars above his terrible piercing eyes. She saw him take a step toward her and put his hands on Stephen to pull him away from her; she felt her own arm tighten savagely to hold Stephen to herself, she heard Stephen yell with fright and she felt his hard angry little kicks, and then, it seemed quite without any deliberate effort of her own, the pistol fired twice in her hand. There was an acrid smell in her nostrils, and in front of her Charles was crumpling up, slowly, and crumpling up with him were all his dreams of greatness. She stood staring at what she had done, and all she could think of in that first instant was that she was sorry she had made such a mess.
FORTY-THREE
TERRIFIED BY THE NOISE, Stephen was fighting her with all his might. Garnet stood half stunned, her left arm holding him and her right arm at her side, the revolver still in her hand. It seemed like a long time, though she knew later that it was only a fraction of a second before she felt Texas’ hand take her wrist from behind and his other hand take the pistol out of her hand. At the moment she was only vaguely aware that he was doing it. She was watching, with fascinated horror, the thick slow stream of blood that was creeping toward her from the huddle on the floor.
At the same time the girls were screaming, and the men who had been keeping them quiet were exclaiming in loud shocked voices. There were sounds of feet hurrying this way. Garnet heard them, but she did not know she had heard them until the voices of two men burst out together, one saying, “Look, it’s Mr. Hale!” and the other, “Who did this? Who did it, I say?”
She looked up. In front of her were two boys in the uniforms of army privates, one of them standing in the doorway and the other bent over the body of Charles. They were very young; the thought flashed through her head that they were too young to see things like this. Before she could pull her senses together she heard Texas say, more loudly than he had spoken all day, “I did it, boys.”
That roused her. She wheeled around. “Texas!” she cried. “What are you saying?”
“Wish you’d—get her out of here, boys,” Texas murmured. One of the privates was taking the pistol from h
im, and as Garnet started to protest again Texas added shakily, “She’s about to—have hysterics. Make her—shut up.”
“Shut up, lady,” one of the boys said obediently. They both turned to keep out the people who were crowding around the door. There were girls in dingy wrappers, and Estelle with a shawl around her and her hair in crimping-pins, and half a dozen idlers who had been loafing in the neighborhood and had come running at the sound of the shots. Evidently the door had not been locked after Charles came in. They were all screeching and gasping and asking questions. The door opened inward, and the boys could not have closed it without dragging Charles’ body aside, so they planted themselves on the threshold and locked their arms, shouting to the others to stay out of here. Under cover of the noise Garnet knelt by the bed and spoke to Texas.
“Don’t try to say you did it!” she exclaimed. “I’ll tell them—”
“No, please! Miss Garnet—” Texas’ weak voice shook with eagerness—“Miss Garnet, let me do this.”
“I can’t, Texas!”
“I would have done it if I’d had the Colt,” said Texas. “They can’t—do anything to me. I won’t—last long enough.” He reached to fumble with Stephen’s hair. “You—you take care of the little fellow.”
From beyond the doorway Garnet heard Estelle giving orders. In her coarse rasping voice, changing from bad Spanish to bad English and back again, she was telling them to get out of the way of somebody who was coming in. Later Garnet was to remember Estelle’s self-possession and admire it. Now she was hardly conscious of anything but what Texas was saying.
“When they ask you, tell them I did it,” he whispered. He saw her clamp her teeth hard on her lip, still not wanting to obey him, and he added, “It would mean a lot to me. Miss Garnet, won’t you please?”
“Yes,” she whispered back. She pressed the baby’s head down on her shoulder so he could not see the dreadful motionless thing that used to be Charles. “God reward you for this, Texas.”
“Thank you, Miss Garnet,” he said softly.
Garnet could not answer. She had killed Charles, and when she did it she had felt steady and unafraid; but now that she had done it she was feeling a wild reaction made of a hundred emotions all at war with one another. The only idea she could think of clearly was that if Texas was wrong, if he was not dying, she would not let him suffer for her sake. But if he was going to die he could take the blame, because the colonel had already issued an order giving Stephen to Charles, and if he found she had added murder to the list of her other sins he would never let her see Stephen again. She got up from the floor, her arms aching with the weight of the baby. Estelle’s commands had been effective. The girls and the street-loafers alike were slinking back from the door, clearing the way for another man in a blue uniform. As he reached the doorway the two privates parted to let him into the room. The lines of light from the window fell on him, and Garnet gave a sob of thankfulness when she recognized Captain Brown.
She heard one of the privates say, “Yes sir, it’s Mr. Hale. Yes sir, he’s dead. Shot twice. He told us to wait by the front door and we didn’t see nothing. But that sick man in the bed there, he says he did it. Here’s his gun, sir.”
Captain Brown came in. He did not seem surprised to see Garnet. Bowing to her as courteously as ever, he said, “How do you do, Mrs. Hale. If you will excuse me, I think I had better speak first to—this man.” She felt a flash of gratitude to him for still pretending not to know Texas’ name.
She had to step aside to make room for Captain Brown to get to the bedside. Her skirt brushed Charles’ body. With a shudder she looked at it again. The body lay sprawled on the floor, face down. One hand was flung out toward her, and under the fingers was a paper still half folded. Garnet felt a spasm in her throat. That was the paper Charles had been holding out to her when she fired the gun, the colonel’s order that she was to give Stephen up. Charles was dead, but the order might still be in force.
She looked around. Captain Brown had bent over Texas to hear what he was saying. The privates at the door were facing outward so they could keep back anybody who might want to come in. Nobody was noticing her. She stooped quickly and got the paper, crumpling it in her hand as she stood up. Before anybody had looked her way she slipped it inside her chemise. Stephen was crying miserably and her arms were nearly numb with holding him. Sinking down on the bench she tried to pet him so he would stop crying. Nearly as tired as she was, Stephen finally got quiet and let his head drop against her shoulder. Garnet heard Texas’ voice. He was so weak now that he had to stop between every few words to rest.
“Should be—hanged no doubt. But if you want to—hang me—you’d better be—damn quick about it—see why—pull down the blanket.”
Captain Brown drew down the blanket. As he did so he gave a start, and Garnet gasped in horror. The effort Texas had been making had caused one of his injuries to break open, and he lay in a splotch of blood that was slowly spreading over the mattress. “Get him a doctor!” Garnet burst out.
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Captain Brown. “But first I need something to stop the bleeding.” He looked around. There was no sheet on the bed. “Give me one of your petticoats,” he said. “Quick—this is no time to be modest.”
Garnet put Stephen on the floor. “All right. Stand in front of the baby so he won’t see—that thing over there.”
She drew up the skirt of her dress, took off her top petticoat, and handed it to Captain Brown. He bent over Texas again. She heard the cloth tearing.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“No, I think this will hold till our doctor can get here from the barracks. I’ll have one of the men go for him.” He added, “And as soon as I give some necessary orders, Mrs. Hale, I will see you home.” He went to the door and began speaking to the men.
Drawing Stephen close to her, Garnet knelt by the bed again and put her hand on Texas’ forehead. His skin was clammy. As he felt the touch of her hand his eyelids fluttered, but he said nothing. It was as though he had used all his strength and now had none left. “I’ll remember you, Texas,” she said softly, “and love you, as long as I live. And I’ll never, never let Stephen forget you.”
Texas smiled a little, but he did not try to answer. She stroked his damp hair back from his forehead.
She could hear Captain Brown giving orders. To her surprise, there were now a dozen soldiers instead of only two. News of the shooting had got around quickly, and they had been sent to keep order. Captain Brown told them no one was to enter the building except the army doctor who had been sent for. Anything the sick man said was to be written down, and he appointed one soldier to sit by the bed for that purpose. He gave instructions to two others about disposal of Charles’ body. Then at length he turned back to the room.
“I will see you home now, Mrs. Hale,” he said.
“All right,” said Garnet. He gave her his hand and she stood up, with Stephen in her arms.
He glanced around the room and took up the Bible from where it lay on the wall-bench. “Is this yours, Mrs. Hale?”
“Yes. But leave it for Texas if he wants it.”
He glanced compassionately at the bed. Texas was lying with his eyes closed, his chest barely moving as he breathed. Captain Brown said in a low voice, “I don’t think he’s able to read. Shall we go now?”
Garnet agreed. She paused by the bed. “Goodby, Texas. Thank you for being such a good man.”
He made no movement of response. She never knew whether he heard her or not.
His hand on her elbow, Captain Brown guided her through the doorway, along the hall where half a dozen girls with wide scared eyes watched her as she passed, and out by the door where she had entered this morning. Groups of stragglers stood around, staring at the house. On seeing Captain Brown’s uniform they moved aside to let him and Garnet go by.
They walked side by side among the scattered adobe houses. Garnet’s legs felt heavy. There was a bloodstain on the hem of he
r skirt where it had brushed Charles’ body, and she was revoltingly conscious of it. Stephen felt as if he weighed a ton. The sun was beating on her head. She was panting as she walked, and she could feel the sweat trickling down her face and neck and legs. Clouds of dust blew up and settled stickily on her. Captain Brown asked, “Don’t you want me to carry the baby, Mrs. Hale?”
Garnet shook her head. “Thank you, no. He’s been frightened so much already—and he’s—not used to you.” Her breaths were so short that the words jerked out of her.
It seemed like a long walk through the heat, though actually it took them hardly ten minutes to reach the saloon. Captain Brown led her around to the side, and finding the kitchen door bolted he knocked and called out who he was. The door was opened by Mickey, smiling as engagingly as usual. Garnet heard Isabel’s voice thanking heaven that the dear baby was safe. She rushed up to take him. Since he knew her, Stephen went to her willingly, and Garnet dropped her aching arms.
As Isabel took the baby, the door from the bar opened and Florinda rushed in. She held out her hand to shake the hand of Captain Brown.
“Captain,” she said heartily, “you’re a real gent. I always said so, ask Garnet if I didn’t. Will you have a drink of whiskey on the house?”
This was the rarest compliment Florinda ever paid anybody, but Captain Brown said no. He had to go back to Estelle’s and complete his inquiry into what had happened there.
Garnet only half heard them. Dazed with fatigue and reaction, she had sunk down on the wall-bench. Isabel was hugging Stephen and kissing him, to his great discomfort, but as long as he was safe Garnet was to tired to care whether he was comfortable or not. She thought she had never felt so used up.
After a brief conversation with Florinda, Captain Brown came over to where she sat.
“I shall come back later to get a statement from you, Mrs. Hale,” he said.
