by Max Brand
But he was not dead. The scurrying crowd of half-dressed cowpunchers, coming in answer to those alarms of guns and shouts, lifted Happy Jack and carried him toward the house—carried him tenderly, in obedience to the frantic directions of John Neilan, freely interspersed with terrific curses directed at those who stumbled under the burden.
Halfway to the house they were met by a flying figure. It was Mary Thomas, and at her coming, John Neilan ran a pace or two to meet her and turned her back.
“It’s all right,” he kept saying. “There’s nothing wrong. Just an accident. He’s going to get well. He sure has got to get well.”
And so they brought him eventually back into the ranch house and into Neilan’s own bedroom, where his wife was cowering against the walls with her face sheltered behind her hands.
But when she saw what they had brought to her, she rose nobly to the occasion. Not even Mary Thomas could share in the direction of what was to be done. With quick, quietly delivered orders, in five minutes she had every man busy with a different task, one kindling a fire, another running for bandages, a third washing the wound, and a fourth standing by in reserve.
Hardly a word other than orders was spoken until well on into the night. In fact the dawn of the Christmas Day was beginning to appear when the doctor, who had been summoned, arrived.
His examination was quickly ended.
“It’s not fatal,” he said. “The bullet traveled almost the whole length of the side of the skull. He may not waken for two hours more. That’s all.”
A faint cry from Mary Thomas made him turn.
“Is this his wife?” he said kindly, as she dropped on her knees beside the bed.
“You’re speaking sort of previous, Doc,” said John Neilan. “But I dunno how it’ll turn out.”
“How did it happen?” asked the doctor.
“That’s a long story. The main thing is the ending. My boy is going to get well.”
“John,” whispered Mrs. Neilan, “what do you mean?”
“Why,” John Neilan said, scratching his head, “ain’t it all pretty clear. Why, you yourself said that there was Providence in it. And I guess there is. This is Christmas Day, ain’t it? And ain’t Happy Jack sure meant to be our gift? Besides, he’s lacking a last name, and I figure that he’ll take kindly to the name of Neilan.”
“Heaven be praised,” Mrs. Neilan whispered, “for making you see the light.”
And as she spoke a red radiance fell across the room. The Christmas sun was rising through a clear, clear sky.
Jerico’s
Garrison Finish
I
When Sue Hampton looked down to the pale, lithe hands that were folded in her lap, Jim Orchard had his first opportunity to examine her face. He thought her whiter than ever, and thinner, and he disliked the heavy shadows around her eyes. But when she looked up to him, the thick lashes lifting slowly, he forgot the pallor.
That slow trick with the eyes had first won him—that, and a certain wistfulness in her smile. There was nothing direct and commanding about Sue. Most girls a tithe as pretty as she were in the habit of demanding things. They accepted applause and admiration, as a barbarian king accepts tribute from the conquered. It was no more than their due. But it seemed to Jim that Sue Hampton was never quite sure of herself.
She turned her engagement ring absently and waited for Jim to go on.
“Let’s see,” he said, going back with difficulty to the thread of his story. “I left off where …?”
“You and Chalmers had started for the claim.”
“Sue, you don’t seem half glad to see me.”
He went to her, half angry and half impatient, and took her hands. They were limp under his touch, and the limpness baffled him. The absence of resistance in her was always the stone wall which stopped him. Sometimes he grew furious. Sometimes it made him feel like a brute.
“I am glad to see you,” she said in her gentle voice.
“But … confound it … pardon me, Sue. Look up … smile, can’t you?”
She obeyed to the letter, and he at once felt that he had struck a child. He went gloomily back to his chair. “All right,” he said, “go ahead and talk.”
“If you wish me to, Jim.”
“Confound it, Sue, are you ever going to stop being so … so …”
“Well?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Well, I’ll tell you why I came back ahead of time.”
“Ahead of time?”
“In a way. Someone drifted up where I was and told me that Garry Munn was hanging around and getting pretty thick with you.”
There was no answer. That was one of the maddening things about her. She never went out of her way to show her innocence of blame, or to win over the hostile.
“Well …” went on Jim Orchard, growing less and less sure of himself and more and more inclined to bully his way out of the scene, in spite of the fact that he loved her. “Well, Sue, is it straight? Has Garry Munn been around a lot?”
“Yes.”
He had come some two hundred miles for the pleasure of seeing her, but chiefly for the joy of a denial of this tale.
“You mean to say that Garry is getting sort of … sort of …?”
She did not help him out either by an indignant denial or laughter. Accordingly his sentence stumbled away to obscurity.
“Well,” he said finally, “what do you think of him?”
“I like him a great deal.”
He became seriously alarmed. “You don’t mean to say that he’s turned your head with his fine riding and all that?”
Tomorrow would be the last day of the great rodeo that had packed the little town of Martinville with visitors, and in that rodeo the spectacular name, from first to last, had been that of Garry Munn. In the bucking and roping and shooting contests he had carried away the first prize. The concern of Jim Orchard had some foundation. When he reached Martinville that day, the first thing of which he was told had been the exploits of Garry.
“Sue,” he said suddenly, “what they told me is true.”
She merely watched him in her unemotional way. In her gentleness there was a force that tied his hands. It had always been so. In another moment he was on his knees beside her chair, leaning close to her.
“Honey, have you stopped loving me?”
“No.”
The beat of his heart returned to the normal. “Then say it.”
“I love you, Jim.” She turned on him those calm eyes that never winced, and which from the first had always looked straight into his heart.
“Just for a minute …” he said, stammering, and then finished by touching her hands with his lips and returning to his chair. Another girl would have gloried in her triumph, but in the smile of Sue Hampton he saw no pride. How she did it he was never able to learn, but she was continually holding him at arm’s length and wooing him toward her.
“I know you’re the straightest of the straight,” confessed Jim Orchard. “If you changed your mind about me, I’d be the first one to hear of it. Well … where was I?”
“You were telling me about the trip to the mines.”
“Chalmers had the main idea. I staked the party, and we hit it rich!” He paused. The slight brightening of her face meant more to him than tears or laughter in another woman.
“I didn’t want to see how things would pan out. The second day after we’d made the strike I asked Chalmers if he’d buy my share for five thousand. I didn’t care much about having more than that. Five thousand was the figure you named, wasn’t it? Five thousand before we could safely get married?”
“Yes.”
“Chalmers jumped at the chance, and I beat it with the coin. Five thousand iron boys!”
“That was nearly five months ago?”
His jubilation departed. “You see, honey,
on the way back I ran into McGuire. You know Mac?”
“I’ve heard you talk about him.”
“Well, Mac was down and out. Doctor told him he’d have to take a long rest, and he needed a thousand to rest on. Lung trouble, you see? So, what could I do? There was a dying man, you might say, and I had five thousand in my wallet. What would you have done?”
“You gave him the money?” she countered, adroitly enough.
“I had to. And then, instead of going away for his rest, he blew it in one big drunk. Can you beat that, Sue?”
She was looking down at her hands again, and Jim began to show signs of distress.
“Well, I looked at my coin and saw that I was a thousand short. Four thousand was short of the mark, anyway, so I thought I might as well spend a little of it getting over my disappointment about Mac. I started out on a quiet little party. Well, when I woke up the next day, what do you think?”
“The money was gone, I think,” said the girl.
“All except about a hundred,” replied Jim. “But I took that hundred and started to play with it. I’m a pretty good hand at the cards, you know. For three months I played steadily, stopping when I’d won my percentage. The hundred grew like a weed. When I landed six thousand, I thought it was safe to quit. Just about then I met Ferguson. Fergie had a fine claim going. Just finished timbering the shaft and laying in a bunch of machinery. Mortgaged his soul to get the stuff sometime before, and they were pinching in on him. He needed four thousand to save forty. There wasn’t any doubt that he was right. What could I do? What would you have done?”
“You gave him the money?” murmured Sue Hampton.
“I sure did. And then what do you think?”
“He lost it?”
“The mine burned, the shafts caved, and there was Ferguson flat busted, and my four thousand gone. But I took what I had left … and here I am with two thousand, Sue. I would have tried to get a bigger stake, and I would have made it, sure, but this news about Garry had me bothered a lot. I came back to find out how things stood and … Sue … I want you to take the chance. It’s a small start, but with you to manage things we’ll get on fine. Isn’t two thousand enough in a pinch for a marriage?”
He had grown enthusiastic as he talked, but when she did not raise her eyes again the flush went out of his face.
“Jim, how old are you?”
“Thirty-two … thirty-three … never did know exactly which.”
“Twelve years ago you had a whole ranch.”
“Loaded to the head with debts.”
“Not your debts. You came into the ranch without a cent against it. They were your brother’s debts, and you took them over.”
“What would you have done, Sue? Good heavens, there’s such a thing as the family honor, you know. Billy didn’t have any money, I did. What could I do? I had to make his word good, didn’t I?”
“And the debts kept piling up until finally the ranch had to be sold.”
“Ah,” sighed Jim Orchard, remembering.
“For eight years you fought against it. Finally you were beaten. Then you became a manager for another rancher. You had a big salary and a part interest, but the rancher had a younger brother who couldn’t fit into life. You stepped out and let the younger brother buy your interest for a song.”
“What would you have done? It was his own brother. I couldn’t very well break up a family, could I?”
“After that,” went on the gentle voice, “you did a number of things. Among others, you asked me to marry you. How long ago was that?”
“Three years ago last April 5.”
She smiled at this instant accuracy—the small, wistful smile that always made the heart of Jim Orchard ache.
“And for three years we’ve been waiting to be married. Three years is a long time, Jim.”
This brought him out of his chair. “Yes,” he admitted huskily, “it’s a long time.”
“Don’t stand there like … like a man about to be shot, Jim,” she whispered.
He attempted to laugh. “Go on.”
“I’ve kept on teaching school … and waiting.”
“It’s been hard, and you’re a trump, Sue.”
“But I think it’s no use. You’ll never have enough money. Not that I want money. But, if we marry, I want children … right away … and that means money.”
“You know I’d slave for you and them.”
“I know you would, and after you’d made a lot of money, somebody would come along who needed it more than we did.”
“Never in the world, Sue!”
“You can’t help it.”
“You’d keep me from being a fool.”
“I couldn’t, because I believe in every gift you’ve ever made. What could I do?”
“Then … I’m simply a failure?”
“A glorious failure … yes.”
“And that means?”
“That I’d better give back your ring.”
“Is that final, Sue?”
“Yes.”
“Then I was right. Mind you, I don’t blame you a bit. I know you’re tired out, waiting and hoping. And finally, you’ve stopped loving me.”
She went to him with a smile that he was never to forget. “Don’t you see,” she said, “that every failure, which has made it a little more impossible for me to marry you, has made me love you a little more? But when we marry, we put our lives in trust for the children.”
“And you couldn’t trust me like that, of course.”
“No.” She held out the ring.
“Sue,” he cried in agony, “when a man’s sentenced to die, he isn’t killed right away. Give me a chance … a time limit … a week … two days. I’ll get that five thousand.”
“If you wish it, Jim.”
“First … put that ring back on.”
“Yes.”
He caught her in his arms in an anguish of love, of despair. “I’ll get it somehow.”
“But no violence, Jim?” All at once she clung to him. “Promise!”
In the past of Jim Orchard there had been certain scenes of violence never dwelt upon by his friends. There was a battered look about his face that time alone did not account for, or mere mental strain. In cold weather he limped a little with his right leg, and on his body there was a telltale story of scars.
Not that his worst enemies would accuse him of cruelty or malignancy, but when Jim was wronged a fiendish temper possessed him. Some of those tales of Jim Orchard in action with fist, knife, or gun came back to the girl, and now she pleaded with him.
“All right,” he said at length. “I promise. It’s two days, Sue?”
“Yes. One last thing … if any man …”
“All right. I’ve promised … and I won’t harm him.”
II
He went out and stood with his hat in his hand, heedless of the blinding sunshine. In the distance, from the field of the rodeo, there was a chorus of shouting, and Jim Orchard glared in that direction. In all the ups and downs of his life, this was the first time that the happiness of others had roused in him something akin to hatred.
They’ve given me a rotten deal. They’ve stacked the cards, thought Jim. And certainly he was right. The history of his hard work, all undone by fits of blind generosity which Susan Hampton had outlined to him, was only a small portion of the truth.
They said of Jim Orchard: “He’s got a heart too big for his own good.” And again: “An easy mark.”
There was just a touch of contempt in these judgments. Generosity is a virtue admired nowhere more ardently than in the West, but reckless generosity never wins respect. Because of the speed of his hand and the accuracy of his eye, no one was apt to taunt Jim with his failings in this respect, but there was a good deal of talk behind his back. He knew it and despised th
e talkers.
But now his weakness had been driven home as never before. Jim felt that the world owed him something. He could be even more exact. He needed $5,000, and he had $2,000. In terms of cold cash he felt that the world owed him exactly $3,000, and he was determined to get it. Sue had not judged him wrongly. For a moment, a grim determination to take by force what he needed had formed in his mind, but now his hands were tied, and that possibility was closed to him.
However, there were always the gaming tables, and his luck was proverbial. He turned in that direction to see a little procession coming slowly up the street. Four men were carrying another on a stretcher, and a small crowd was following them. They stopped near Jim Orchard to rest a moment.
“Jerico’s got another man,” he was told briefly.
He went to the side of the litter. It was Bud Castor, his face white with pain, the freckles standing out on his forehead. The heavy splints and bandages around his right leg and the swathing of his body were eloquent. Jerico had done a “brown” job of Bud. He had never seen the horse, but everyone had heard of Sam Jordan’s great black stallion. As a rule he pitched off those who attempted to ride him. Again he might submit with scarcely a struggle, only to bide his time and attack his would-be master at an opportune moment with tigerish ferocity.
“Jim,” pleaded the injured man, “do me a favor. Get your gat and plug that black devil, will you?”
But Jim Orchard turned and went on his way. After all, he felt a poetic justice in the deviltry of Jerico. They had run that black mustang for a whole season and, when they could not wear him down, had captured him by a trick. This was part of his revenge—a trick for a trick. Who could blame him?
Savagery of any kind was easily understandable by Jim Orchard on this day. In the meantime, he headed straight for the big gaming house of Fitzpatrick. He entered and walked straight to that last resort of the desperate—the roulette wheel. Fitzpatrick welcomed him with both a sigh and a smile; if he was a royal spender, he was also a lucky winner.
But the little buzz of pleasure and recognition that met Jim Orchard was not music to his ears today. He nodded to the greetings and took his place in the crowded semicircle before the wheel. He began playing tentatively, a five here, a ten there, losing steadily. And then, as all gamblers who play on sheer chance will do, he got his hunch and began betting in chunks of fifty and a hundred on the odd.
