Prairie Folks

by Garland, Hamlin

  When they drew up at the brewery by the river the other fellows had all entered and the door was shut. There were two or three other teams hitched about under the trees. The men sprang out and Bill danced a jig in anticipation of the fun to follow. "If Steve starts to lam Lime there'll be a circus."

  As they stood for a moment before the door Al spoke to Lime about Steve's probable attack. "I ain't goin' to hunt around for no row," replied Lime, placidly, "and I don't believe Steve is. You lads," he said to the boys, "watch the team for a little while; cuddle down under the blankets if you git cold. It ain't no place for you in the inside. We won't stop long," he ended, cheerily.

  The door opened and let out a dull red light, closed again, and all was still except an occasional burst of laughter and noise of heavy feet within. The scene made an indelible impress upon John, child though he was. Fifty feet away the river sang over its shallows, broad and whitened with foam which gleamed like frosted silver in the brilliant moonlight. The trees were dark and tall about him and loomed overhead against the starlit sky, and the broad high moon threw a thick tracery of shadows on the dusty white road where the horses stood. Only the rhythmic flow of the broad, swift river, with the occasional uneasy movement of the horses under their creaking harnesses or the dull noise of the shouting men within the shanty, was to be heard.

  John nestled down into the robes and took to dreaming of the lovely lady he had seen, and wondered if, when he became a man, he should have a wife like her. He was awakened by Frank, who was rousing him to serve a purpose of his own. John was ten and Frank fifteen; he rubbed his sleepy eyes and rose under orders.

  "Say, Johnny, what d'yeh s'pose them fellers are doen' in there? You said Steve was goin' to lick Lime, you did. It don't sound much like it in there. Hear 'um laugh," he said viciously and regretfully. "Say, John, you sly along and peek in and see what they're up to, an' come an' tell me, while I hold the horses," he said, to hide the fact that John was doing a good deal for his benefit.

  John got slowly off the wagon and hobbled on toward the saloon, stiff with the cold. As he neared the door he could hear some one talking in a loud voice, while the rest laughed at intervals in the manner of those who are listening to the good points in a story. Not daring to open the door, Johnny stood around the front trying to find a crevice to look in at. The speaker inside had finished his joke and some one had begun singing.

  The building was a lean-to attached to the brewery, and was a rude and hastily constructed affair. It had only two windows; one was on the side and the other on the back. The window on the side was out of John's reach, so he went to the back of the shanty. It was built partly into the hill, and the window was at the top of the bank. John found that by lying down on the ground on the outside he had a good view of the interior. The window, while level with the ground on the outside, was about as high as the face of a man on the inside. He was extremely wide-awake now and peered in at the scene with round, unblinking eyes.

  Steve was making sport for the rest and stood leaning his elbow on the bar. He was in rare good humor, for him. His hat was lying beside him and he was in his shirt-sleeves, and his cruel gray eyes, pockmarked face and broken nose were lighted up with a frightful smile. He was good-natured now, but the next drink might set him wild. Hank stood behind the high pine bar, a broad but nervous grin on his round, red face. Two big kerosene lamps, through a couple of smoky chimneys, sent a dull red glare upon the company, which half filled the room.

  If Steve's face was unpleasant to look upon, the nonchalant, tiger-like poise and flex of his body was not. He had been dancing, it seemed, and had thrown off his coat, and as he talked he repeatedly rolled his blue shirt-sleeves up and down as though the motion were habitual to him. Most of the men were sitting around the room looking on and laughing at Steve's antics, and the antics of one or two others who were just drunk enough to make fools of themselves. Two or three sat on an old billiard table under the window through which John was peering.

  Lime sat in his characteristic attitude, his elbows upon his knees and his thumbs under his chin. His eyes were lazily raised now and then with a lion-like action of the muscles of his forehead. But he seemed to take little interest in the ribaldry of the other fellows. John measured both champions critically, and exulted in the feeling that Steve was not so ready for the row with Lime as he thought he was.

  After Steve had finished his story there was a chorus of roars: "Bully for you, Steve!" "Give us another," etc. Steve, much flattered, nodded to the alert saloon-keeper, and said: "Give us another, Hank." As the rest all sprang up he added: "Pull out that brandy kaig this time, Hank. Trot her out, you white-livered Dutchman," he roared, as Swartz hesitated.

  The brewer fetched it up from beneath the bar, but he did it reluctantly. In the midst of the hubbub thus produced, an abnormally tall and lanky fellow known as "High" Bedloe pushed up to the bar and made an effort to speak, and finally did say solemnly:

  "Gen'lmun, Steve, say, gen'lmun, do'n' less mix our drinks!"

  This was received with boisterous delight, in which Bedloe could not see the joke, and looked feebly astonished.

  Just at this point John received such a fright as entirely took away his powers of moving or breathing, for something laid hold of his heels with deadly grip. He was getting his breath to yell when a familiar voice at his ear said, in a tone somewhere between a whisper and a groan:

  "Say, what they up to all this while? I'm sick o' wait'n' out there."

  Frank had become impatient; as for John, he had been so absorbed by the scenes within, he had not noticed how the frosty ground was slowly stiffening his limbs and setting his teeth chattering. They were both now looking in at the window. John had simply pointed with his mittened, stubby thumb toward the interior, and Frank had crawled along to a place beside him.

  Mixing the drinks had produced the disastrous effect which Hank and Bedloe had anticipated. The fun became uproarious. There were songs and dances by various members of the Nagle gang, but Lime's crowd, being in the minority, kept quiet, occasionally standing treat as was the proper thing to do.

  But Steve grew wilder and more irritable every moment. He seemed to have drunk just enough to let loose the terrible force that slept in his muscles. He had tugged at his throat until the strings of his woolen shirt loosened, displaying the great, sloping muscles of his neck and shoulders, white as milk and hard as iron. His eyes rolled restlessly to and fro as he paced the floor. His panther-like step was full of a terrible suggestiveness. The breath of the boys at the window came quicker and quicker. They saw he was working himself into a rage that threatened momentarily to break forth into a violence. He realized that this was a crisis in his career; his reputation was at stake.

  Young as John was, he understood the whole matter as he studied the restless Steve, and compared him with his impassive hero, sitting immovable.

  "You see Lime can't go away," he explained, breathlessly, to Frank, in a whisper, "'cause they'd tell it all over the country that he backed down for Steve. He daresn't leave."

  "Steve ain't no durn fool," returned the superior wisdom of Frank, in the same cautious whisper, keeping his eyes on the bar-room. "See Lime there, cool as a cucumber. He's from the pineries, he is." He ended in a tone of voice intended to convey that fighting was the principal study of the pineries, and that Lime had graduated with the highest honors. "Steve ain't a-go'n' to pitch into him yet awhile, you bet y'r bottom dollar; he ain't drunk enough for that."

  Each time the invitation for another drink was given, they noticed that Lime kept on the outside of the crowd, and some one helped him to his glass. "Don't you see he ain't drinkin'. He's throwin' it away," said Frank; "there, see! He's foolun' 'em; he ain't a-go'n' to be drunk when Steve tackles him. Oh, there'll be music in a minute or two."

  Steve now walked the floor, pouring forth a flood of profanity and challenges against men who were not present. He had not brought himself to the point of attacking the unmoved and silen
t giant. Some of the younger men, and especially the pleader against mixed drinks, had succumbed, and were sleeping heavily on the back end of the bar and on the billiard table. Hank was getting anxious, and the forced smile on his face was painful to see. Over the whole group there was a singular air of waiting. No one was enjoying himself, and all wished that they were on the road home, but there was no way out of it now. It was evident that Lime purposed forcing the beginning of the battle on Steve. He sat in statuesque repose.

  Steve had got his hat in his hand and held it doubled up like a club, and every time that he turned in his restless walk he struck the bar a resounding blow. His eyes seemed to see nothing, although they moved wildly from side to side.

  He lifted up his voice in a raucous snarl. "I'm the man that struck Billy Patterson! I'm the man that bunted the bull off the bridge! Anybody got anything to say, now's his time. I'm here. Bring on your champion."

  Foam came into the corners of his mouth, and the veins stood out on his neck. His red face shone with its swollen veins. He smashed his fists together, threw his hat on the floor, tramped on it, snarling out curses. Nothing kept him in check save the imperturbability of the seated figure. Everybody expected him to clear the saloon to prove his power.

  Bedloe, who was asleep on the table, precipitated matters by rolling off with a prodigious noise amid a pandemonium of howls and laughter. In his anxiety to see what was going on, Frank thrust his head violently against the window, and it crashed in, sending the glass rattling down on the table.

  Steve looked up, a red sheen in his eyes like that of a wild beast. Instantly his fury burst out against this new object of attention—a wild, unreasoning rage.

  "What you doen' there? Who air ye, ye mangy little dog?"

  Both boys sank back in tumultuous, shuddering haste, and rolled down the embankment, while they heard the voice of Steve thundering: "Fetch the little whelp here!"

  There was a rush from the inside, a sudden outpouring, and the next moment John felt a hand touch his shoulder. Steve dragged him around to the front of the saloon before he could draw his breath or utter a sound. The rest crowded around.

  "What are y' doen' there?" said Steve, shaking him with insane vindictiveness.

  "Drop that boy!" said the voice of Lime, and voice never sounded sweeter. "Drop that boy!" he repeated, and his voice had a peculiar sound, as if it came through his teeth.

  Steve dropped him, and turned with a grating snarl upon Lime, who opened his way through the excited crowd while Johnny stumbled, leaped and crawled out of the ring and joined Frank. "Oh, it's you, is it? You white-livered"——He did not finish, for the arm of the blond giant shot out against his face like a beetle, and down he rolled on the grass. The sound of the blow made Johnny give an involuntary, quick cry.

  "No human bein' could have stood up agin that blow," Crandall said afterwards. "It was like a mule a-kickin'."

  As Steve slowly gained his feet, the silence was so great that Johnny could hear the thumping of his heart and the fierce, almost articulate breathing of Steve. The chatter and roar of the drunken crowd had been silenced by this encounter of the giants. The open door, where Hank stood, sent a reddish bar of light upon the two men as they faced each other with a sort of terrific calm. In his swift gaze in search of his brother, John noticed the dark wood, the river murmuring drowsily over its foam-wreathed pebbles, and saw his brother's face white with excitement, but not fear.

  Lime's blow had dazed Steve for a moment, but at the same time it had sobered him. He came to his feet with a rising mutter that sounded like the swelling snarl of a tiger. He had been taken by surprise before, and he now came forward with his hands in position, to vindicate his terrible reputation. The two men met in a frightful struggle. Blows that meant murder were dealt by each. Each slapping thud seemed to carry the cracking of bones in it. Steve was the more agile of the two and circled rapidly around, striking like a boxer.

  Every time his face came into view, with set teeth and ferocious scowl, the boys' spirits fell. But when they saw the calm, determined eyes of Lime, his watchful, confident look, they grew assured. All depended upon him. The Nagle gang were like wolves in their growing ferocity, and as they outnumbered the other party two to one, it was a critical quarter of an hour. In a swift retrospect they remembered the frightful tales told of this very spot—of the killing of Lars Peterson and his brother Nels, and the brutal hammering a crowd of drunken men had given to Big Ole, of the Wapsy.

  The blood was trickling down Lime's face from a cut on his cheek, but Steve's face was swollen and ghastly from the three blows which he had received. Lime was saving himself for a supreme effort. The Nagle party, encouraged by the sound of the blows which Steve struck, began to yell and to show that they were ready to take a hand in the contest.

  "Go it, Steve, we'll back yeh! Give it to 'im. We're with yeh! We'll tend to the rest." They began to pull off their coats.

  Rice also threw off his coat. "Never mind these cowards, Lime. Hold on! Fair play!" he yelled, as he saw young Nagle about to strike Lime from behind.

  His cry startled Lime, and with a sudden leap he dealt Steve a terrible blow full in the face, and as he went reeling back made another leaping lunge and struck him to the ground—a motion that seemed impossible to one of his bulk. But as he did so one of the crowd tripped him and sent him rolling upon the prostrate Steve, whose friends leaped like a pack of snarling wolves upon Lime's back. There came into the giant's heart a terrible, blind, desperate resolution. With a hoarse, inarticulate cry he gathered himself for one supreme effort and rose from the heap like a bear shaking off a pack of dogs; and holding the stunned and nerveless Steve in his great hands, with one swift, incredible effort literally swept his opponent's body in the faces of the infuriated men rushing down upon him.

  "Come on, you red hellions!" he shouted, in a voice like a lion at bay. The light streamed on his bared head, his hands were clinched, his chest heaved in great gasps. There was no movement. The crowd waited with their hands lowered; before such a man they could not stand for a moment. They could not meet the blaze of his eyes. For a moment it seemed as if no one breathed.

  In the silence that followed, Bill, who had kept gut of sight up to this moment, piped out in a high, weak falsetto, with a comically questioning accent: "All quiet along the Potomac, boys?"

  Lime unbraced, wiped his face and laughed. The others joined in cautiously. "No, thank yez, none in mine," said Sheehan, in answer to the challenge of Lime. "Whan Oi take to fightin' stame-ingins Oi'll lit you knaw."

  "Well, I should say so," said another. "Lime, you're the best man that walks this State."

  "Git out of the way, you white-livered hound, or I'll blow hell out o' yeh," said Steve, who had recovered himself sufficiently to know what it all meant. He lay upon the grass behind the rest and was weakly trying to get his revolver sighted upon Lime. One of the men caught him by the shoulder and the rest yelled:

  "Hyare, Steve, no shootin'. It was a fair go, and you're whipped."

  Steve only repeated his warnings to get out of the way. Lime turned upon him and kicked the weapon from his outstretched hand, breaking his arm at the wrist. The bullet went flying harmlessly into the air, and the revolver hurtled away into the shadows.

  Walking through the ring, Lime took John by the hand and said: "Come, boy, this is no place for you. Let's go home. Fellers," he drawled in his customary lazy way, "when y' want me you know where to find me. Come, boys, the circus is over, the last dog is hung."

  For the first mile or two there was a good deal of talk, and Bill said he knew that Lime could whip the whole crowd.

  "But where was you, Bill, about the time they had me down? I don't remember hearin' anything of you 'long about that time, Bill."

  Bill had nothing to say.

  "Made me think somehow of Daniel in the lions' den," said Johnny.

  "What do you mean by that, Johnny?" said Bill. "It made me think of a circus. The circus there'll be
when Lime's woman finds out what he's been a-doin'."

  "Great Scott, boys, you mustn't tell on me," said Lime, in genuine alarm.

  As for John, he lay with his head in Lime's lap, looking up at the glory of the starlit night, and with a confused mingling of the play, of the voice of the lovely woman, of the shouts and blows at the brewery in his mind, and with the murmur of the river and the roll and rumble of the wagon blending in his ears, he fell into a sleep which the rhythmic beat of the horses' hoofs did not interrupt.

  * * *

  Part VI.

  VILLAGE CRONIES:

  A GAME OF CHECKERS AT THE GROCERY

  The village life abounds with jokers,

  Shiftless, conscienceless and shrewd.

  * * *

  SOME VILLAGE CRONIES.

  Colonel Peavy had just begun the rubber with Squire Gordon, of Cerro Gordo County. They were seated in Robie's grocery, behind the rusty old cannon stove, the checkerboard spread out on their knees. The Colonel was grinning in great glee, wringing his bony yellow hands in nervous excitement, in strong contrast to the stolid calm of the fat Squire.

  The Colonel had won the last game by a large margin, and was sure he had his opponent's dodges well in hand. It was early in the evening, and the grocery was comparatively empty. Robie was figuring at a desk, and old Judge Brown stood in legal gravity warming his legs at the red-hot stove, and swaying gently back and forth in speechless content. It was a tough night outside, one of the toughest for years. The frost had completely shut the window panes as with thick blankets of snow. The streets were silent.