There was no offer of fight; no offer of fight. The man called to the sky. There were no attractions. He bellowed and fumed and swayed his revolvers here and everywhere.
The dog of the barkeeper of the ‘Weary Gentleman’ saloon had not appreciated the advance of events. He yet lay dozing in front of his master’s door. At sight of the dog, the man paused and raised his revolver humorously. At sight of the man, the dog sprang up and walked diagonally away, with a sullen head, and growling. The man yelled, and the dog broke into a gallop. As it was about to enter an alley, there was a loud noise, a whistling, and something spat the ground directly before it. The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction. Again there was a noise, a whistling, and sand was kicked viciously before it. Fear-stricken, the dog turned and flurried like an animal in a pen. The man stood laughing, his weapons at his hips.
Ultimately the man was attracted by the closed door of the ‘Weary Gentleman’ saloon. He went to it, and hammering with a revolver, demanded drink.
The door remaining imperturbable, he picked a bit of paper from the walk and nailed it to the framework with a knife. He then turned his back contemptuously upon this popular resort, and walking to the opposite side of the street, and spinning there on his heel quickly and lithely, fired at the bit of paper. He missed it by a half inch. He swore at himself, and went away. Later, he comfortably fusilladed the windows of his most intimate friend. The man was playing with this town. It was a toy for him.
But still there was no offer of fight. The name of Jack Potter, his ancient antagonist, entered his mind, and he concluded that it would be a glad thing if he should go to Potter’s house and by bombardment induce him to come out and fight. He moved in the direction of his desire, chanting Apache[47] scalp-music[48].
When he arrived at it, Potter’s house presented the same still front as had the other adobes. Taking up a strategic position, the man howled a challenge. But this house regarded him as might a great stone god. It gave no sign. After a decent wait, the man howled further challenges, mingling with them wonderful epithets.
Presently there came the spectacle of a man churning himself into deepest rage over the immobility of a house. He fumed at it as the winter wind attacks a prairie cabin in the North. To the distance there should have gone the sound of a tumult like the fighting of 200 Mexicans. As necessity bade him, he paused for breath or to reload his revolvers.
IV
Potter and his bride walked sheepishly and with speed. Sometimes they laughed together shamefacedly and low.
‘Next corner, dear,’ he said finally.
They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed against a strong wind. Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance of the new home when, as they circled the corner, they came face to face with a man in a maroon-colored shirt who was feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom’s chest.
There was silence. Potter’s mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the woman’s grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites gazing at the apparitional snake.
The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces. He of the revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity.
‘Tried to sneak up on me,’ he said. ‘Tried to sneak up on me!’ His eyes grew more baleful. As Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously forward. ‘No, don’t you do it, Jack Potter. Don’t you move a finger toward a gun just yet. Don’t you move an eyelash. The time has come for me to settle with you, and I’m goin’ to do it my own way and loaf along with no interferin’. So if you don’t want a gun bent on you, just mind what I tell you.’
Potter looked at his enemy. ‘I ain’t got a gun on me, Scratchy,’ he said. ‘Honest, I ain’t.’ He was stiffening and steadying, but yet somewhere at the back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated, the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil – all the glory of the marriage, the environment of the new estate. ‘You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I ain’t got a gun on me. You’ll have to do all the shootin’ yourself.’
His enemy’s face went livid. He stepped forward and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potter’s chest. ‘Don’t you tell me you ain’t got no gun on you, you whelp. Don’t tell me no lie like that. There ain’t a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun. Don’t take me for no kid.’ His eyes blazed with light, and his throat worked like a pump.
‘I ain’t takin’ you for no kid,’ answered Potter. His heels had not moved an inch backward. ‘I’m takin’ you for a – fool. I tell you I ain’t got a gun, and I ain’t. If you’re goin’ to shoot me up, you better begin now. You’ll never get a chance like this again.’
So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson’s rage. He was calmer. ‘If you ain’t got a gun, why ain’t you got a gun?’ he sneered. ‘Been to Sunday-school?’
‘I ain’t got a gun because I’ve just come from San Anton’ with my wife. I’m married,’ said Potter. ‘And if I’d thought there was going to be any galoots like you prowling around when I brought my wife home, I’d had a gun, and don’t you forget it.’
‘Married!’ said Scratchy, not at all comprehending.
‘Yes, married. I’m married,’ said Potter distinctly.
‘Married?’ said Scratchy. Seemingly for the first time he saw the drooping, drowning woman at the other man’s side. ‘No!’ he said. He was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side. ‘Is this the lady?’ he asked.
‘Yes, this is the lady,’ answered Potter.
There was another period of silence.
‘Well,’ said Wilson at last, slowly, ‘I s’pose it’s all off now.’
‘It’s all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didn’t make the trouble.’ Potter lifted his valise.
‘Well, I ’low it’s off, Jack,’ said Wilson. He was looking at the ground. ‘Married!’ He was not a student of chivalry; it was merely that in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand.
Francis Marion Crawford
The Upper Berth
Chapter I
Somebody asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation as beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, he wine had got into those brains which were liable to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did something to rouse our oppressed spirits, the meeting would soon come to its natural conclusion, and we, the guests, would speedily go home to bed, and most certainly to sleep.
No one had said anything very remarkable; it may be that no one had anything very remarkable to say. Jones had given us every particular of his last hunting adventure in Yorkshire. Mr. Tompkins, of Boston, had explained at elaborate length those working principles, by the due and careful maintenance of which the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad[49] not only extended its territory, increased its departmental influence, and transported live stock without starving them to death before the day of actual delivery, but, also, had for years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the corporation aforesaid was really able to transport human life without destroying it.
47
Apache – North American Indians who used to live in what is now southeastern Arizona and Colorado, southwestern New Mexico and western Texas.
49
Atchison, Topeka and Santana Fé Railroad – one of the largest railway companies in the United States, founded in 1859.