CHAPTER VIII
Casey looked battered and sad when the show people were through with him.He had expected bandages wound picturesquely around his person, but theBarrymores were more artistic than that. Casey's right leg was drawn up atthe knee so that he could not put his foot on the ground when he tried,and he did not know how the straps were fastened. His left shoulder washigher than his right shoulder, and his eyes were sunken in his head and ascar ran down along his temple to his left cheek bone. When he looked inthe glass which Bill brought him, Casey actually felt ill. They told himthat he must not wash his face, and that his week's growth of beard was ablessing from heaven. The show lady begged him, with dew on her lashes, toplay the part faithfully, and they departed, very happy over theirprospects.
Casey did not know whether he was happy or not. With Bill to encourage himand give him a lift over the gutters, he crossed the street to arestaurant and ordered largely of sirloin steak and French fried potatoes.After supper there was a long evening to spend quietly on crutches, andThe Club was just next door. A man can always spend an evening veryquickly at The Club--or he could in the wet days--if his money held out.Casey had money enough, and within an hour he didn't care whether he wascrippled or not. There were five besides himself at that table, and theyhad unanimously agreed to remove the lid. Moreover, there was a crowd tendeep around that particular table. For the news had gone out that here wasCasey Ryan back again, a hopeless cripple, playing poker like a drunkenRockefeller and losing as if he liked to lose.
At eight o'clock the next morning Bill came in to tell Casey that the showpeople had brought up their car to be fixed, and was the pay good? Caseyreplied Without looking up from his hand, which held a pair of queenswhich interested him. He'd stand good, he said, and Bill gave a grunt andwent off.
At noon Casey meant to eat something. But another man had come into thegame with a roll of money and a boastful manner. Casey rubbed his crampedleg and hunched down in his chair again and called for a stack of blues.Casey, I may as well confess, had been calling for stacks of blues andreds and whites rather often since midnight.
At four in the afternoon Casey hobbled into the restaurant and ate anothersteak and drank three cups of black coffee. He meant to go across to thegarage and have Bill hunt up the Barrymores and get them to unstrap himfor awhile, but just as he was lifting his left crutch around the edge ofthe restaurant door, two women of Lund came up and began to pity him andask him how it ever happened. Casey could not remember, just at themoment, what story he had already told of his accident. He stuttered--astrange thing for an Irishman to do, by the way--and retreated into TheClub, where they dared not follow.
"H'lo, Casey! Give yuh a chance to win back some of your losin's, ifyou're game to try it again," called a man from the far end of the room.
Casey swore and hobbled back to him, let himself stiffly down into a chairand dropped his crutches with a rattle of hard wood. Being a cripple wasgrowing painful, besides being very inconvenient. The male half of Lundhad practically suspended business that day to hover around him andexchange comments upon his looks. Casey had received a lot of sympathythat day, and only the fact that he had remained sequestered behind thecurtained arch that cut across the rear of The Club saved him fromreceiving a lot more. But of course there were mitigations. Since walkingwas slow and awkward, Casey sat. And since he was not a man to sit andtwiddle thumbs to pass the time, Casey played poker. That is how heexplained it afterwards. He had not intended to play poker for twenty-fourhours, but tie up a man's leg so he can't walk, and he's got to do_something_.
Wherefore Casey played,--and did not win back what he had lost earlier inthe day. Daylight grew dim, and some one came over and lighted a hanginggasoline lamp that threw into tragic relief the painted hollows underCasey's eyes, which were beginning to look very bloodshot around the blueof them.
Once, while the bartender was bringing drinks--you are not to infer thatCasey was drunk; he was merely a bit hazy over details--Casey pulled outhis dollar watch and looked at it. Eight-thirty--the show must be prettywell started, by now. He thought he might venture to hobble over to Bill'sand have those dog-gone straps taken off before he was crippled for sure.But he did not want to do anything to embarrass the show lady. Besides, hehad lost a great deal of money, and he wanted to win some of it back. Hestill had time to make that train, he remembered. It was reported an hourlate, some one said.
So Casey rubbed his strapped leg, twisting his face at the cramp in hisknee and letting his companions believe that his accident had given him aheritage of pain. He hitched his lifted shoulder into an easier positionand picked up another unfortunate assortment of five cards.
At ten o'clock Bill, the garage man, came and whispered something toCasey, who growled an oath and reached almost unconsciously for hiscrutches before trying to get up; so soon is a habit born in a man.
"What they raisin' thunder about?" he asked apathetically, when Bill hadhelped him across the gutter and into the street. "Didn't the crowd turnout like they expected?" Casey's tone was dismal. You simply cannot be acripple for twenty-four hours, and sit up playing unlucky poker all nightand all day and well into another night, without losing some of youranimation; not even if you are Casey Ryan. "Hell, I missed that trainagain," he added heavily, when he heard it whistle into the railroad yard.
"Too bad. You oughta be on it, Casey," Bill said ominously.
At the garage the Barrymores were waiting for him in their stage clothesand make-up. The show lady had wept seams down through her rouge, and thebeads on her lashes had clotted unbecomingly.
"Mister, you certainly have wished a sorry deal on to us," she exclaimed,when Casey came hobbling through the doorway. "Fifteen years on the stageand _this_ never happened to us before. We've took our bad luck with ourgood luck and lived honest and respectable and self-respecting, and here,at last, ill fortune has tied the can on to us. I know you meant well andall that, Mister, but we certainly have had a raw deal handed out to us inthis town. We--certainly--have!"
"We got till noon to-morrow to be outa the county," croaked Jack dear,shifting his Adam's apple rapidly. "And that's real comedy, ain't it, whenyour damn county runs clean over to the Utah line, and we can't go backthe way we come, or--and we can't go anywhere till this big slob here putsour car together. He's got pieces of it strung from here around the block.Say, what kinda town is this you wished on to us, anyway? Holding nightcourt, mind you, so they could can us quicker!"
The show lady must have seen how dazed Casey looked. "Maybe you ain'theard the horrible deal they handed us, Mister. They stopped our showbefore we'd raised the curtain,--and it was a seventy-five dollar house ifit was a cent!" she wailed. "They had a bill as long as my arm forlicense--we couldn't get by with the five-dollar one--and for lights andhall rent and what-all. There wasn't enough money in the house to pay it!And they was going to send us to jail! The sheriff acted anything but agentleman, Mister, and if you ever lived in this town and liked it, I mustsay I question your taste!"
"We wouldn't use a town like this for a garbage dump, back home," cut inJack with all the contempt he could master.
"And they hauled us over to their dirty old Justice of the Peace, and hetold us he'd give us thirty days in jail if we was in the county to-morrownoon, and we don't know how far this county goes, either way!"
"Fifty miles to St. Simon," Bill told them comfortingly. "You can make it,all right--"
"We can make it, hey? How're we going to make it, with our car layin'around all over your garage?" Jack's tone was arrogant past belief.
Casey was fumbling for strap buckles which he could not reach. He was alsogroping through his colorful, stage-driver's vocabulary for words whichmight be pronounced in the presence of a lady, and finding mighty few thatwere of any use to him. The combined effort was turning him a fine purplewhen the lady was seized with another brilliant idea.
"Jack dear, don't be harsh. The gentleman meant well--and I'll tell you,Mister, what let's do
! Let's trade cars till the man has our car repaired.Your car goes just fine, and we can load our stuff in and get away fromthis horrible town. Why, the preacher was there and made a speech and saidthe meanest things about you, because you was having a benefit and at thesame identical time you was setting in a saloon gambling. He said it wasan outrage on civilization, Mister, and an insult to the honest,hard-working people in Lund. Them was his very words."
"Well, hell!" Casey exploded abruptly. "I'm honest and hard-workin' as anydamn preacher. You can ask anybody!"
"Well, that's what he said, anyhow. We certainly didn't know you was agambler when we offered to give you a benefit. We certainly never dreamedyou'd queer us like that. But you'll do us the favor to lend us your car,won't you? You wouldn't refuse that, and see me and little Juniorlanguishin' in jail when you know in your heart--"
"Aw, take the darn car!" muttered Casey distractedly, and hobbled into thegarage office where he knew Bill kept liniment.
Five minutes, perhaps, after that, Casey opened the office door wideenough to fling out an assortment of straps and two crutches.
The show lady turned and made a motion which Casey mentally called apounce. "Oh, thank you, Mister! We certainly wouldn't want to go off andforget these props. Jack dear has to use them in a comedy sketch we put onsometimes when we got a good house."
Casey banged the door and said something exceedingly stage-driverish whicha lady should by no means overhear.
Sounds from the rear of the garage indicated that Casey's Ford was r'arin'to go, as Casey frequently expressed it. Voices were jumbled in the tonesof suggestions, commands, protest. Casey heard the show lady's cleartreble berating Jack dear with thin politeness. Then the car came snortingforward, paused in the wide doorway, and the show lady's voice called outclearly, untroubled as the voice of a child after it has received thatwhich it cried for.
"Well, good-by, Mister! You certainly are a godsend to give us the loan ofyour car!" There was a buzz and a splutter, and they were gone--gone cleanout of Casey's life into the unknown whence they had come.
Bill opened the door gently and eased into the office, sniffing liniment.The painted hollows under Casey's eyes gave him a ghastly look in thelamp-light when he lifted his face from examining a chafed and angry knee.Bill opened his mouth for speech, caught a certain look in Casey's eyesand did not say what he had intended to say. Instead:
"You better sleep here in the office, Casey. I've got another bed back ofthe machine shop. I'll lock up, and if any one comes and rings the nightbell--well, never mind. I'll plug her so they can't ring her." The worldneeds more men like Bill.
* * * * *
Even after an avalanche, human nature cannot resist digging in themelancholy hope of turning up grewsome remains. I know that you are allitching to put shovel into the debris of Casey's dreams, and to see justwhat was left of them.
There was mighty little, let me tell you. I said in the beginning thattwenty-five thousand dollars was like a wildcat in Casey's pocket. Youcan't give a man that much money all in a lump and suddenly, after he hasbeen content with dollars enough to pay for the food he eats, withoutseeing him lose his sense of proportion. Twenty-five dollars heunderstands and can spend more prudently than you, perhaps. Twenty-fivethousand he simply cannot gauge. It seems exhaustless. It is as if youplucked from the night all the stars you can see, knowing that the MilkyWay is still there and unnumbered other stars invisible, even in theaggregate.
Casey played poker with an appreciative audience and the lid off. Now andthen he took a drink stronger than root beer. He kept that up for a nightand a day and well into another night. Very well, gather round and look atthe remains, and if there's a moral, you are welcome, I am sure.
Casey awoke just before noon, and went out and held his head under Bill'sgarage hydrant, with the water running full stream. He looked up and foundBill standing there with his hands in his pockets, gazing at Caseysorrowfully. Casey grinned. You can't down the Irish for very long.
"How's she comin', Bill?"
Bill grunted and spat. "She ain't. Not if you mean that car them folkswished on to you. Well, the tail light's pretty fair, too. And in theirhurry the lady went off and left a pink silk stockin' in the back seat.The toe's out of it though. Casey, if you wait till you overhaul 'em withthat thing they wheeled in here under the name of a car--"
"Oh, that's all right, Bill," Casey grunted gamely. "I was goin' to git mea new car, anyway. Mine wasn't so much. They're welcome."
Bill grunted and spat again, but he did not say anything.
"I'll go see Dwyer and see how much I got left," Casey said presently, andhis voice, whether you believe it or not, was cheerful. "I'm going toketch that evenin' train to Los." And he added kindly, "C'm on and eatwith me, Bill. I'm hungry."
Bill shook his head and gave another grunt, and Casey went off withouthim.
After awhile Casey returned. He was grinning, but the grin was, to acareful observer, a bit sickish. "Say, Bill, talk about poker--I'm off itfer life. Now look what it done to me, Bill! I puts twenty-five thousanddollars into the bank--minus two hundred I took in money--and I takes acheck book, and I goes over to The Club and gits into a game. I wears thecheck book down to the stubs. I goes back and asks Dwyer how much I got inthe bank, and he looks me over like I was a sick horse he had doubts aboutbeing worth doctorin', and as if he thought he mebby might better take meout an' shoot me an' put me outa my misery.
"'Jest one dollar an' sixty-seven cents, Casey,' he says to me, 'if thechecks is all in, which I trust they air!'" Casey got out his plug ofchewing tobacco and pried off a blunted corner. "An' hell Bill! I had thatmuch in the bank when I started," he finished plaintively.
"Hell!" repeated Bill in brief, eloquent sympathy.
Casey set his teeth together and extracted comfort from the tobacco. Heexpectorated ruminatively.
"Well, anyway, I got me some bran' new socks, an' they're paid for, thankGod!" He tilted his old Stetson down over his right eye at his favorite,Caseyish angle, stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled out into thesunshine.