--ll night Ghost Man did magic, callin'tmy ghost back from spirit-land. I remember that flight, a little. It was dark, and gray-like, and I drifted through gray mists and heard the dead wailin'tpast me in the mist. But Ghost Man brought me back.
--e took out what was left of my mortal heart, and put the heart of the god in my bosom. But it's his, and when I-- through with it, he'sl come for it. It-- kept me alive and strong for the lifetime of a man. Age can't touch me. What do I care if these fools around here call me an old liar? What I know, I know. But hark--e!-- His fingers became claws, clamping fiercely on Doc Blaine-- wrist. His old eyes, old yet strangely young, burned fierce as those of an eagle under his bushy brows.
--f by some mischance I should die, now or later, promise me this! Cut into my bosom and take out the heart Ghost Man lent me so long ago! It-- his. And as long as it beats in my body, my spirit'sl be tied to that body, though my head be crushed like an egg underfoot! A livin'tthing in a rottin'tbody! Promise!----ll right, I promise,--replied Doc Blaine, to humor him, and old Jim Garfield sank back with a whistling sigh of relief.
He did not die that night, nor the next, nor the next. I well remember the next day, because it was that day that I had the fight with Jack Kirby.
People will take a good deal from a bully, rather than to spill blood. Because nobody had gone to the trouble of killing him, Kirby thought the whole countryside was afraid of him.
He had bought a steer from my father, and when my father went to collect for it, Kirby told him that he had paid the money to me--which was a lie. I went looking for Kirby, and came upon him in a bootleg joint, boasting of his toughness, and telling the crowd that he was going to beat me up and make me say that he had paid me the money, and that I had stuck it into my own pocket. When I heard him say that, I saw red, and ran in on him with a stockman't knife, and cut him across the face, and in the neck, side, breast and belly, and the only thing that saved his life was the fact that the crowd pulled me off.
There was a preliminary hearing, and I was indicted on a charge of assault, and my trial was set for the following term of court. Kirby was as tough-fibered as a post-oak country bully ought to be, and he recovered, swearing vengeance, for he was vain of his looks, though God knows why, and I had permanently impaired them.
And while Jack Kirby was recovering, old man Garfield recovered too, to the amazement of everybody, especially Doc Blaine.
I well remember the night Doc Blaine took me again out to old Jim Garfield-- farm. I was in Shifty Corlan't joint, trying to drink enough of the slop he called beer to get a kick out of it, when Doc Blaine came in and persuaded me to go with him.
As we drove along the winding old road in Doc-- car, I asked:--hy are you insistent that I go with you this particular night? This isn't a professional call, is it?----o,--he said.--ou couldn't kill old Jim with a post-oak maul. He-- completely recovered from injuries that ought to have killed an ox. To tell the truth, Jack Kirby is in Lost Knob, swearing he'sl shoot you on sight.----ell, for God-- sake!--I exclaimed angrily.--ow everybody--l think I left town because I was afraid of him. Turn around and take me back, damn it!----e reasonable,--said Doc.--verybody knows you--e not afraid of Kirby. Nobody-- afraid of him now. His bluff--broken, and that-- why he's so wild against you. But you can't afford to have any more trouble with him now, and your trial only a short time off.-- I laughed and said:--ell, if he's looking for me hard enough, he can find me as easily at old Garfield-- as in town, because Shifty Corlan heard you say where we were going. And Shifty-- hated me ever since I skinned him in that horse-swap last fall. He--l tell Kirby where I went.----never thought of that,--said Doc Blaine, worried.
--ell, forget it,--I advised.--irby hasn't got guts enough to do anything but blow.-- But I was mistaken. Puncture a bully-- vanity and you touch his one vital spot.
Old Jim had not gone to bed when we got there. He was sitting in the room opening on to his sagging porch, the room which was at once living-room and bedroom, smoking his old cob pipe and trying to read a newspaper by the light of his coal-oil lamp. All the windows and doors were wide open for the coolness, and the insects which swarmed in and fluttered around the lamp didn't seem to bother him.
We sat down and discussed the weather--which isn't so inane as one might suppose, in a country where men't livelihood depends on sun and rain, and is at the mercy of wind and drouth. The talk drifted into other kindred channels, and after some time, Doc Blaine bluntly spoke of something that hung in his mind.
--im,--he said,--hat night I thought you were dying, you babbled a lot of stuff about your heart, and an Indian who lent you his. How much of that was delirium?----one, Doc,--said Garfield, pulling at his pipe.--t was gospel truth. Ghost Man, the Lipan priest of the Gods of Night, replaced my dead, torn heart with one from somethin'the worshipped. I ain't sure myself just what that somethin'tis--somethin'tfrom away back and a long way off, he said. But bein'ta god, it can do without its heart for awhile. But when I die--if I ever get my head smashed so my consciousness is destroyed--the heart must be given back to Ghost Man.----ou mean you were in earnest about cutting out your heart?--demanded Doc Blaine.
--t has to be,--answered old Garfield.--livin'tthing in a dead thing is opposed to nat--r. That-- what Ghost Man said.----ho the devil was Ghost Man?----told you. A witch-doctor of the Lipans, who dwelt in this country before the Comanches came down from the Staked Plains and drove--m south across the Rio Grande. I was a friend to--m. I reckon Ghost Man is the only one left alive.----live? Now?----dunno,--confessed old Jim.--dunno whether he's alive or dead. I dunno whether he was alive when he came to me after the fight on Locust Creek, or even if he was alive when I knowed him in the southern country. Alive as we understand life, I mean.----hat balderdash is this?--demanded Doc Blaine uneasily, and I felt a slight stirring in my hair. Outside was stillness, and the stars, and the black shadows of the post-oak woods. The lamp cast old Garfield-- shadow grotesquely on the wall, so that it did not at all resemble that of a human, and his words were strange as words heard in a nightmare.
-- knowed you wouldn't understand,--said old Jim.--don't understand myself, and I ain't got the words to explain them things I feel and know without understandin't The Lipans were kin to the Apaches, and the Apaches learnt curious things from the Pueblos. Ghost Man was--that-- all I can say--alive or dead, I don't know, but he was. What-- more, he is.----s it you or me that-- crazy?--asked Doc Blaine.
--ell,--said old Jim,----l tell you this much--Ghost Man knew Coronado.----razy as a loon!--murmured Doc Blaine. Then he lifted his head.--hat-- that?----orse turning in from the road,--I said.--ounds like it stopped.--
I stepped to the door, like a fool, and stood etched in the light behind me. I got a glimpse of a shadowy bulk I knew to be a man on a horse; then Doc Blaine yelled:--ook out!--and threw himself against me, knocking us both sprawling. At the same instant I heard the smashing report of a rifle, and old Garfield grunted and fell heavily.
--ack Kirby!--screamed Doc Blaine.--e-- killed Jim!-- I scrambled up, hearing the clatter of retreating hoofs, snatched old Jim-- shotgun from the wall, rushed recklessly out on to the sagging porch and let go both barrels at the fleeing shape, dim in the starlight. The charge was too light to kill at that range, but the bird-shot stung the horse and maddened him. He swerved, crashed headlong through a rail fence and charged across the orchard, and a peach tree limb knocked his rider out of the saddle. He never moved after he hit the ground. I ran out there and looked down at him. It was Jack Kirby, right enough, and his neck was broken like a rotten branch.