20
Neale took up lodgings with his friend Larry. He did not at first tellthe cowboy about his recovery of Allie Lee and then her loss for thesecond time; and when finally he could not delay the revelation anylonger he regretted that he had been compelled to tell.
Larry took the news hard. He inclined to the idea that she had fallenagain into the hands of the Indians. Nevertheless, he showed himselfterribly bitter against men of the Fresno stamp, and in fact against allthe outlaw, ruffianly, desperado class so numerous in Benton.
Neale begged Larry to be cautious, to go slow, to ferret out things,and so help him, instead of making it harder to locate Allie through hisimpetuosity.
"Pard, I reckon Allie's done for," said Larry, gloomily.
"No--no! Larry, I feel she's alive--well. If she were dead or--or--well,wouldn't I know?" protested Neale.
But Larry was not convinced. He had seen the hard side of border life;he knew the odds against Allie.
"Reckon I'll look fer that Fresno," he said.
And deeper than before he plunged into Benton's wild life.
One evening Neale, on returning from work to his lodgings, found thecowboy there. In the dim light Larry looked strange. He had his gun-beltin his hands. Neale turned up the lamp.
"Hello, Red! What's the matter? You look pale and sick," said Neale.
"They wanted to throw me out of thet dance ball," said Larry.
"Which one?"
"Stanton's."
"Well, DID they?" inquired Neale.
"Wal, I reckon not. I walked. An' some night I'll shore clean out thethall."
Neale did not know what to make of Larry's appearance. The cowboy seemedto be relaxing. His lips, that had been tight, began to quiver, and hishands shook. Then he swung the heavy gun-belt with somber and seriousair, as if he were undecided about leaving it off even when about to goto bed.
"Red, you've thrown a gun!" exclaimed Neale.
Larry glanced at him, and Neale sustained a shock.
"Shore," drawled Larry.
"By Heaven! I knew you would," declared Neale, excitedly, and heclenched his fist. "Did you--you kill some one?"
"Pard, I reckon he's daid," mused the cowboy. "I didn't look to see....Fust gun I've throwed fer long.... It 'll come back now, shorer 'nhell!"
"What 'll come back?" queried Neale.
Larry did not answer this.
"Who'd you shoot?" Neale went on.
"Pard, I reckon it ain't my way to gab a lot," replied Larry.
"But you'll tell ME," insisted Neale, passionately. He jerked the gunand belt from Larry, and threw them on the bed. "All right," drawledLarry, taking a deep breath. "I went into Stanton's hall the othernight, an' a pretty girl made eyes at me. Wal, I shore asked her todance. I reckon we'd been good pards if we'd been let alone. But there'sa heap of fellers runnin' her an' some of them didn't cotton to me. Onethey called Cordy--he shore did get offensive. He's the four-flush, loudkind. I didn't want to make any trouble for the girl Ruby--thet's hername--so I was mighty good-natured.... I dropped in Stanton's to-day.Ruby spotted me fust off, an' SHE asked me to dance. Shore I'm no dandydancer, but I tried to learn. We was gettin' along powerful nice whenin comes Cordy, hoppin' mad. He had a feller with him. An' both had beentriflin' with red liquor. You oughter seen the crowd get back. Made methink Cordy an' his pard had blowed a lot round heah an' got a rep.Wal, I knowed they was bluff. Jest mean, ugly four-flushers. Shorethey didn't an' couldn't know nothin' of me. I reckon I was onlythet long-legged, red-headed galoot from Texas. Anyhow, I was made tounderstand it might get hot sudden-like if I didn't clear out. I leftit to the girl. An' some of them girls is full of hell. Ruby jest stoodthere scornful an' sassy, with her haid leanin' to one side, her eyeshalf-shut, an' a little smile on her face. I'd call her more 'n hell.A nice girl gone wrong. Them kind shore is the dangerest.... Wal,she says: 'Reddy, are you goin' to let them run you out of heah? Theyhaven't any strings on me.' So I slapped Cordy's face an' told himto shut up. He let out a roar an' got wild with his hands, like themfour-flush fellers do who wants to look real bad. I says, prettysharplike, 'Don't make any moves now!' An' the darned fool went fer hisgun!... Wal, I caught his hand, twisted the gun away from him, poked himin the ribs with it, an' then shoved it back in his belt. He was crazy,but pretty pale an' surprised. Shore I acted sudden-like. Then I says,'My festive gent, if you THINK of thet move again you'll be stiff beforeyou start it.'... Guess he believed me."
Larry paused in his narrative, wiped his face, and moistened his lips.Evidently he was considerably shaken.
"Well, go on," said Neale, impatiently.
"Thet was all right so far as it went," resumed Larry. "But the pard ofCordy's--he was half-drunk an' a big brag, anyhow. He took up Cordy'squarrel. He hollered so he stopped the music an' drove 'most everybodyout of the hall. They was peepin' in at the door. But Ruby stayed.There's a game kid, an' I'm goin' to see her to-morrow."
"You are not," declared Neale. "Hurry up. Finish your story."
"Wal, the big bloke swaggered all over me, an' I seen right off thet hedidn't have sense enough to be turned. Then I got cold. I always usedto.... He says, 'Are you goin' to keep away from Ruby?'
"An' I says, very polite, 'I reckon not.'
"Then he throws hisself in shape, like he meant to leap over a hoss, an'hollers, 'Pull yer gun!'
"I asks, very innocent, 'What for, mister?'
"An' he bawls fer the crowd. ''Cause I'm a-goin' to bore you, an' Inever kill a man till he goes fer his gun.'
"To thet I replies, more considerate: 'But it ain't fair. You'd betterget the fust shot.'
"Then the fool hollers, 'Redhead!'
"Thet settled him. I leaps over QUICK, slugged him one--lefthanded. Hestaggered, but he didn't fall.... Then he straightens an' goes fer hisgun."
Larry halted again. He looked as if he had been insulted, and a bitterirony sat upon his lips.
"I seen, when he dropped, thet he never got his hand to his gun atall.... Jest as I'd reckoned.... Wal, what made me sick was that mybullet went through him an' then some of them thin walls--an' hit a girlin another house. She's bad hurt.... They ought to have walls thet'dstop a bullet."
Neale heard the same narrative from the lips of Ancliffe, and itdiffered only in the essential details of the cowboy's consummatecoolness. Ancliffe, who was an eye-witness of the encounter, declaredthat drink or passion or bravado had no part in determining Larry'sconduct. Ancliffe talked at length about the cowboy. Evidently he hadbeen struck with Larry's singular manner and look and action. Ancliffehad all an Englishman's intelligent observing powers, and the conclusionhe drew was that Larry had reacted to a situation familiar to him.
Neale took more credence in what Slingerland had told him at MedicineBow. That night Hough and then many other acquaintances halted Neale togossip about Larry Reel King.
The cowboy had been recognized by Texans visiting Benton. They werecattle barons and they did not speak freely of King until ready todepart from the town. Larry's right name was Fisher. He had a brother--afamous Texas outlaw called King Fisher. Larry had always been RedFisher, and when he left Texas he was on the way to become as famousas his brother. Texas had never been too hot for Red until he killeda sheriff. He was a born gun-fighter, and was well known on all theranches from the Pan Handle to the Rio Grande. He had many friends, hewas a great horseman, a fine cowman. He had never been notorious forbad habits or ugly temper. Only he had an itch to throw a gun and he wasunlucky in always running into trouble. Trouble gravitated to him. Hisred head was a target for abuse, and he was sensitive and dangerousbecause of that very thing. Texas, the land of gunfighters, had seen fewwho were equal to him in cool nerve and keen eye and swift hand.
Neale did not tell Larry what he had heard. The cowboy changed subtly,but not in his attitude toward Neale. Benton and its wildness might havebeen his proper setting. So many rough and bad men, inspired by the timeand place, essayed to be equal to Benton. But they lasted a
day and wereforgotten. The great compliment paid to Larry King was the change in theattitude of this wild camp. He had been one among many--a stranger.In time when the dance-halls grew quiet as he entered and thegambling-hells suspended their games. His fame increased as from lip tolip his story passed, always gaining something. Jealousy, hatred, andfear grew with his fame. It was hinted that he was always seeking someman or men from California. He had been known to question new arrivals:"Might you-all happen to be from California? Have you ever heard of anoutfit that made off with a girl out heah in the hills?"
Neale, not altogether in the interest of his search for Allie, became afriend and companion of Place Hough. Ancliffe sought him, also, and hewas often in the haunts of these men. They did not take so readilyto Larry King. The cowboy had become a sort of nervous factor in anycommunity; his presence was not conducive to a comfortable hour. ForLarry, though he still drawled his talk and sauntered around, looked thename the Texan visitors had left him. His flashing blue eyes, coldand intent and hard in his naming red face, his blazing red hair, hisstalking form, and his gun swinging low--these characteristics were sostriking as to make his presence always felt. Beauty Stanton insistedthe cowboy had ruined her business and that she had a terror of him. ButNeale doubted the former statement. All business, good and bad, grewin Benton. It was strange that as this attractive and notorious womanconceived a terror of Larry, she formed an infatuation for Neale. Hewould have been blind to it but for the dry humor of Place Hough, andthe amiable indifference of Ancliffe, who had anticipated a rival inNeale. Their talk, like most talk, drifted through Neale's ears. Whatdid he care? Both Hough and Ancliffe began to loom large to Neale.They wasted every day, every hour; and yet, underneath the one's cold,passionless pursuit of gold, and the other's serene and gentle questfor effacement there was something finer left of other years. Benton wasfull of gamblers and broken men who had once been gentlemen. Neale metthem often--gambled with them, watched them. He measured them all. Theyhad given life up, but within him there was a continual struggle. Heswore to himself, as he had to Larry, that life was hopeless withoutAllie Lee--yet there was never a sleeping or a waking hour that he gaveup hope. The excitement and allurement of the dance-halls, though headmitted their power, were impossible for him; and he frequented them,as he went everywhere else, only in search of a possible clue.
Gambling, then, seemed the only excuse open to him for his presence inBenton's sordid halls. And he had to bear as best he could the basenessof his associates; of course, women had free run of all the places inBenton.
At first Neale was flirted with and importuned. Then he was scorned.Then he was let alone. Finally, as time went on, always courteous, evenconsiderate of the women who happened in his way, but blind and coldto the meaning of their looks and words, he was at last respected andadmired.
There was always a game in the big gambling-place, and in fact thegreatest stakes were played for by gamblers like Hough, pitted againsteach other. But most of the time was reserved for the fleecing of thebuilders of the U. P. R., the wage-earners whose gold was the universallure and the magnet. Neale won money in those games in which he playedwith Place Hough. His winnings he scattered or lost in games where hewas outpointed or cheated.
One day a number of Eastern capitalists visited Benton. The fame of thetown drew crowds of the curious and greedy. And many of thesetransient visitors wanted to have their fling at the gambling-hells anddancing-halls. There was a contagion in the wildness that affected eventhe selfish. It would be something to remember and boast of when Bentonwith its wild life should be a thing of the past.
Place Hough met old acquaintances among some St. Louis visitors, whowere out to see the road and Benton, and perhaps to find investments;and he assured them blandly that their visit would not be memorableunless he relieved them of their surplus cash. So a game with big stakeswas begun. Neale, with Hough and five of the visitors, made up thetable.
Eastern visitors worked upon Neale's mood, but he did not betray it. Hewas always afraid he would come face to face with some of the directors,whom he did not care to meet in such surroundings. And so, whilegambling, he seldom looked up from his cards. The crowd came and went,but he never saw it.
This big game attracted watchers. The visitors were noisy; they drank agood deal; they lost with an equanimity that excited interest, evenin Benton. The luck for Neale seesawed back and forth. Then he loststeadily until he had to borrow from Hough.
About this time Beauty Stanton, with Ruby and another woman, entered theroom, and were at once attracted by the game, to the evident pleasureof the visitors. And then, unexpectedly, Larry Red King stalked in andlounged forward, cool, easy, careless, his cigarette half smoked, hisblue eyes keen.
"Hey! is that him?" whispered one of the visitors, indicating Larry.
"That's Red," replied Hough. "I hope he's not looking for one of yougentlemen."
They laughed, but not spontaneously.
"I've seen his like in Dodge City," said one.
"Ask him to sit in the game," said another.
"No. Red's a card-sharp," replied Hough. "And I'd hate to see him catchone of you pulling a crooked deal."
They lapsed back into the intricacies and fascination of poker.
Neale, however, found the game unable to hold his undivided attention.Larry was there, looking and watching, and he made Neale's blood runcold. The girl Ruby stood close at hand, with her half-closed eyes,mysterious and sweet, upon him, and Beauty Stanton came up behind him.
"Neale, I'll bring you luck," she said, and put her hand on hisshoulder.
Neale's luck did change. Fortune faced about abruptly, with its fickleinconsistency, and Neale had a run of cards that piled the gold andbills before him and brought a crowd ten deep around the table. When thegame broke up Neale had won three thousand dollars.
"See! I brought you luck," whispered Beauty Stanton in his ear. Andacross the table Ruby smiled hauntingly and mockingly.
Neale waved the crowd toward the bar. Only the women and Larry refusedthe invitation. Ruby gravitated irresistibly toward the cowboy.
"Aren't you connected with the road?" inquired one of the visitors,drinking next to Neale.
"Yes," replied Neale.
"Saw you in Omaha at the office of the company. My name's Blair. I sellsupplies to Commissioner Lee. He has growing interests along the road."
Neale's lips closed and he set down his empty glass. Excusing himself,he went back to the group he had left. Larry sat on the edge of thetable; Ruby stood close to him and she was talking; Stanton and theother woman had taken chairs.
"Wal, I reckon you made a rake-off," drawled Larry, as Neale came up."Lend me some money, pard."
Neale glanced at Larry and from him to the girl. She dropped her eyes.
"Ruby, do you like Larry?" he queried.
"Sure do," replied the girl.
"Reddy, do you like Ruby?" went on Neale.
Beauty Stanton smiled her interest. The other woman came back fromnowhere to watch Neale. Larry regarded his friend in mild surprise.
"I reckon it was a turrible case of love at fust sight," he drawled.
"I'll call your bluff!" flashed Neale. "I've just won three thousanddollars. I'll give it to you. Will you take it and leave Benton--goback--no! go west--begin life over again?"
"Together, you mean!" exclaimed Beauty Stanton, as she rose with a glowon her faded face. No need to wonder why she had been named Beauty.
"Yes, together," replied Neale, in swift steadiness. "You've startedbad. But you're young. It's never too late. With this money you can buya ranch--begin all over again."
"Pard, haven't you seen too much red liquor?" drawled Larry.
The girl shook her head. "Too late!" she said, softly.
"Why?"
"Larry is bad, but he's honest. I'm both bad and dishonest."
"Ruby, I wouldn't call you dishonest," returned Neale, bluntly."Bad--yes. And wild! But if you had a chance?"
"No,"
she said.
"You're both slated for hell. What's the sense of it?"
"I don't see that you're slated for heaven," retorted Ruby.
"Wal, I shore say echo," drawled Larry, as he rolled a cigarette. "Pard,you're drunk this heah minnit."
"I'm not drunk. I appeal to you, Miss Stanton," protested Neale.
"You certainly are not drunk," she replied. "You're just--"
"Crazy," interrupted Ruby.
They laughed.
"Maybe I do have queer impulses," replied Neale, as he felt his facegrow white. "Every once in a while I see a flash--of--of I don't knowwhat. _I_ could do something big--even--now--if my heart wasn't dead."
"Mine's in its grave," said Ruby, bitterly. "Come, Stanton, let's getout of this. Find me men who talk of drink and women."
Neale deliberately reached out and stopped her as she turned away. Hefaced her.
"You're no four-flush," he said. "You're game. You mean to play this outto a finish.... But you're no--no maggot like the most. You can think.You're afraid to talk to me."
"I'm afraid of no man. But you--you're a fool--a sky-pilot. You're--"
"The thing is--it's not too late."
"It is too late!" she cried, with trembling lips.
Neale saw and felt his dominance over her.
"It is NEVER too late!" he responded, with all his force. "I can provethat."
She looked at him mutely. The ghost of another girl stood there insteadof the wild Ruby of Benton.
"Pard, you're drunk shore!" ejaculated Larry, as he towered over themand gave his belt a hitch. The cowboy sensed events.
"I've annoyed you more than once," said Neale. "This's the last.... Sotell me the truth.... Could _I_ take you away from this life?"
"Take me?... How--man?"
"I--I don't know. But somehow.... I'd hold it--as worthy--to save a girllike you--ANY girl--from hell."
"But--how?" she faltered. The bitterness, the irony, the wrong done byher life, was not manifest now.
"You refused my plan with Larry.... Come, let me find a home foryou--with good people."
"My God--he's not in earnest!" gasped the girl to her women friends.
"I am in earnest," said Neale.
Then the tension of the girl relaxed. Her face showed a rebirth of soul.
"I can't accept," she replied. If she thanked him it was with a look.Assuredly her eyes had never before held that gaze for Neale. Thenshe left the room, and presently Stanton's companion followed her. ButBeauty Stanton remained. She appeared amazed, even dismayed.
Larry lighted his cigarette. "Shore I'd call thet a square kid," hesaid. "Neale, if you get any drunker you'll lose all thet money."
"I'll lose it anyhow," replied Neale, absent-mindedly.
"Wal, stake me right heah an' now."
At that Neale generously and still absent-mindedly delivered to Larry ahandful of gold and notes that he did not count.
"Hell! I ain't no bank," protested the cowboy.
Hough and Ancliffe joined them and with amusement watched Larry try tofind pockets enough for his small fortune.
"Easy come, easy go in Benton," said the gambler, with a smile. Thenhis glance, alighting upon the quiet Stanton, grew a little puzzled."Beauty, what ails you?" he asked.
She was pale and her expressive eyes were fixed upon Neale. Hough'swords startled her.
"What ails me?... Place, I've had a forgetful moment--a happy one--andI'm deathly sick!"
Ancliffe stared in surprise. He took her literally.
Beauty Stanton looked at Neale again. "Will you come to see me?" sheasked, with sweet directness.
"Thank you--no," replied Neale. He was annoyed. She had asked him thatbefore, and he had coldly but courteously repelled what he thought wereher advances. This time he was scarcely courteous.
The woman flushed. She appeared about to make a quick and passionatereply, in anger and wounded pride, but she controlled the impulse. Sheleft the room with Ancliffe.
"Neale, do you know Stanton is infatuated with you?" asked Hough,thoughtfully.
"Nonsense!" replied Neale.
"She is, though. These women can't fool me. I told you days ago Isuspected that. Now I'll gamble on it. And you know how I play mycards."
"She saw me win a pile of money," said Neale, with scorn.
"I'll bet you can't make her take a dollar of it. Any amount you wantand any odds."
Neale would not accept the wager. What was he talking about, anyway?What was this drift of things? His mind did not seem clear. Perhaps hehad drunk too much. The eyes of both Ruby and Beauty Stanton troubledhim. What had he done to these women?
"Neale, you're more than usually excited to-day," observed Hough."Probably was the run of luck. And then you spouted to the women." Nealeconfessed his offer to Ruby and Larry, and then his own impulse.
"Ruby called me a fool--crazy--a sky-pilot. Maybe I am."
"Sky-pilot! Well, the little devil!" laughed Hough. "I'll gamble shecalled you that before you declared yourself."
"Before, yes. I tell you, Hough, I have crazy impulses. They've grown onme out here. They burst like lightning out of a clear sky. I would havedone just that thing for Ruby.... Mad, you say?... Why, man, she's nothopeless! There was something deep behind that impulse. Strange--notunderstandable! I'm at the mercy of every hour I spend here. Bentonhas got into my blood. And I see how Benton is a product of this greatadvance of progress--of civilization--the U. P. R. We're only atoms ina force no one can understand.... Look at Reddy King. That cowboy wasset--fixed like stone in his character. But Benton has called to theworst and wildest in him. He'll do something terrible. Mark what I say.We'll all do something terrible. You, too, Place Hough, with allyour cold, implacable control. The moment will come, born out of thisabnormal time. I can't explain, but I feel. There's a work-shop in thishell of Benton. Invisible, monstrous, and nameless!... Nameless likethe new graves dug every day out here on the desert.... How few ofthe honest toilers dream of the spirit that is working on them. ThatIrishman, Shane, think of him. He fought while his brains oozed from ahole in his head; I saw, but I didn't know then. I wanted to take hisplace. He said, no, he wasn't hurt, and Casey would laugh at him. Aye,Casey would have laughed!.... They are men. There are thousands of them.The U. P. R. goes on. It can't be stopped. It has the momentum of agreat nation pushing it on from behind.... And I, who have lost all Icared for, and you, who are a drone among the bees, and Ruby and Stantonwith their kind, poor creatures sucked into the vortex; yes, and thatmob of leeches, why we all are so stung by that nameless spirit thatwe are stirred beyond ourselves and dare both height and depth ofimpossible things."
"You must be drunk," said Place, gravely, "and yet what you say hits mehard. I'm a gambler. But sometimes--there are moments when I might beless or more. There's mystery in the air. This Benton is a chaos. Thosehairy toilers of the rails! I've watched them hammer and lift and digand fight. By day they sweat and they bleed, they sing and joke andquarrel--and go on with the work. By night they are seized by thefuries. They fight among themselves while being plundered and murderedby Benton's wolves. Heroic by day--hellish by night.... And so, spiritor what--they set the pace."
Next afternoon, when parasitic Benton awoke, it found the girl Ruby deadin her bed.
Her door had to be forced. She had not been murdered. She had destroyedmuch of the contents of a trunk. She had dressed herself in simplegarments that no one in Benton had ever seen. It did not appear whatmeans she had employed to take her life. She was only one of many. Morethan one girl of Benton's throng had sought the same short road andcheated life of further pain.
When Neale heard about it, upon his return to Benton, late thatafternoon, Ruby was in her grave. It suited him to walk out in thetwilight and stand awhile in the silence beside the bare sandy mound. Nostone--no mark. Another nameless grave! She had been a child once, withdancing eyes and smiles, loved by some one, surely, and perhaps mournedby some one living. The low hum of Benton's awaken
ing night life wasborne faintly on the wind. The sand seeped; the coyotes wailed; andyet there was silence. Twilight lingered. Out on the desert the shadowsdeepened.
By some chance the grave of the scarlet woman adjoined that of a laborerwho had been killed by a blast. Neale remembered the spot. He had walkedout there before. A morbid fascination often drew him to view thatever-increasing row of nameless graves. As the workman had given hislife to the road, so had the woman. Neale saw a significance in theparallel.
Neale returned to the town troubled in mind. He remembered the last lookRuby had given him. Had he awakened conscience in her? Upon questioningHough, he learned that Ruby had absented herself from the dancing-halland had denied herself to all on that last night of her life.
There was to be one more incident relating to this poor girl beforeBenton in its mad rush should forget her.
Neale divined the tragedy before it came to pass, but he was aspowerless to prevent it as any other spectator in Beauty Stanton's hall.
Larry King reacted in his own peculiar way to the news of Ruby'ssuicide, and the rumored cause. He stalked into that dancing-hall, wherehis voice stopped the music and the dancers.
"Come out heah!" he shouted to the pale Cordy.
And King spun the man into the center of the hall, where he called himevery vile name known to the camp, scorned and slapped and insultedhim, shamed him before that breathless crowd, goaded him at last into adesperate reaching for his gun, and killed him as he drew it.