Trail's End
CHAPTER XV
WILL HIS LUCK HOLD?
Dora escorted Morgan to a table apart from the few heavy feeders whowere already engaged, indicating to the other two girls who served withher in the dining-room that this was her special customer and guest ofhonor. She whirled the merry-go-round caster to bring the salt andpepper to his hand; just so she placed his knife and fork, and plateoverturned to keep the flies off the business side of it. Then shehurried away for his breakfast, asking no questions bearing on hispreferences or desires.
A plain breakfast in those vigorous times was unvarying--beefsteak, hamor bacon to give it a savor, eggs, fried potatoes, hot biscuits, coffee.It was the same as dinner, which came on the stroke of twelve, and noneof your six-o'clock pretenses about _that_ meal, except there was nopie; identical with supper, save for the boiled potatoes and ricepudding. A man of proper proportions never wanted any more; he could notthrive on any less. And the only kind of a liver they ever worried aboutin that time on the plains of Kansas was a white one. That was the onlydisease of that organ known.
Dora was troubled; her face reflected her unrest as glass reflectsfirelight, her blue eyes were clouded by its gloom. She made a pretenseof brushing crumbs from the cloth where there were no crumbs, in orderto furnish an excuse to stoop and bring her lips nearer Morgan's ear.
"He's comin' on the one-twenty this afternoon--I got it straight he'scomin'. I thought maybe you'd like to know," she said.
Morgan lifted his eyes in feigned surprise at this news, not having itin his heart to cloud her generous act by the revelation of a suspicionthat it was no news to him.
"You mean----?"
"I got it straight," Dora nodded.
"Thank you, Miss Dora."
"I hope to God," she said, for it was their manner to speak ardently inAscalon in those days, "you'll beat him to it when he gets off of thetrain!"
"A man can only do his best, Dora," he said gently, moved by her honestfriendship, simple wild thing though she was.
"If I was a man I'd take my gun and go with you to meet him," shedeclared.
"I know you would. But maybe there'll not be any fuss at all."
"There'll be fuss enough, all right!" Dora protested. "If he comesalone--but maybe he'll not _come_ alone."
A man who rose from a near-by table came over to shake hands withMorgan, and express his appreciation for the good beginning he had madeas peace officer of the town. Dora snatched Morgan's cup and hastenedaway for more coffee. When she returned the citizen was on his way tothe door.
"Craddock used to come in here and wolf his meals down," she said,picking up her theme in the same troubled key, "just like it didn'tamount to nothing to kill a man a day. I looked to see blood on thetablecloth every time his hand touched it."
"It's a shame you girls had to wait on the brute," Morgan said.
"Girls! he wouldn't let anybody but me wait on him." Dora frowned, herface coloring. She bent a little, lowering her voice. "Why, Mr. Morgan,what do you suppose? He wanted me to _marry_ him!"
"That old buffalo wrangler? Well, he _is_ kind of previous!"
"He's too fresh to keep, I told him. Marry _him_! He used to come inhere, Mr. Morgan, and put his hat down by his foot so he could grab itand run out and kill another man without losin' time. He never used totake his guns off and hang 'em up like other gentlemen when they eat. Hejust set there watchin' and turnin' his mean old eyes all the time. He'safraid of them, I know by the way he always tried to look behind himwithout turnin' his head, never sayin' a word to anybody, he's afraid."
"Afraid of whom, Dora?"
"The ghosts of them murdered men!"
Morgan shook his head after seeming to think it over a little while. "Idon't believe they'd trouble him much, Dora."
"I'd rather wait on a dog!" she said, scorn and rebellion in her prettyeyes.
"You can marry somebody else and beat him on that game, anyhow. I'llbet there are plenty of them standing around waiting."
"O Mr. Morgan!" Dora was drowned in blushes, greatly pleased. "Not somany as you might think," turning her eyes upon him with coquettishchallenge, "only Mr. Gray and Riley Caldwell, the printer on the_Headlight_."
"Mr. Gray, the druggist?"
"Yes, but he's too old for me!" Dora sighed, "forty if he's a day. He'sgot money, though, and he's perfec'ly _grand_ on the pieanno. You oughtto hear him play _The Maiden's Prayer_!"
"I'll listen out for him. I saw him washing his window a while ago--atall man with a big white shirt."
"Yes," abstractedly, "that was him. He's an elegant fine man, but Idon't give a snap for none of 'em. I wish I could leave this town andnever come back. You'll be in for dinner, won't you?" as Morgan pushedback from the repletion of that standard meal.
"And for supper, too, I hope," he said, turning it off as a joke.
"I hope to God!" said Dora fervently, seeing no joke in the uncertaintyat all.
Excitement was laying hold of Ascalon even at that early hour. WhenMorgan went on the street after breakfast he found many people goingabout, gathering in groups along the shady fronts, or hastening singlyin the manner of men bound upon the confirmation of unusual news. Thepale fish of the night were out in considerable numbers, leakingcigarette smoke through all the apertures of their faces as theygrouped according to their kind to discuss the probabilities of theday. Seth Craddock was coming back with fire in his red eyes; theirdeliverer was on his way.
There was no secret of Seth's coming any longer. Even Peden leered intriumph when he met Morgan as he sauntered outside his closed door inthe peculiar distinction of his black coat, which the strong sun of thatsummer morning was not powerful enough to strip from his broad back.
None of the saloons or resorts made an attempt to open their doors tobusiness. The proprietors appeared to have, on the other hand, a secretpleasure in keeping them closed, perhaps counting on the gain that wouldbe theirs when this brief prohibition should come to its end.
Opposed to this pleasurable expectancy of the proscribed was theuneasiness and doubt of the respectable. True, this man Morgan had takenSeth Craddock's gun away from him once, but luck must have had much todo with his preservation in that perilous adventure. Morgan had roundedup the Texas men quartered on the town under Craddock's patronage, also,but they were sluggish from their debauch, and he had approached themwith the caution of a man coming up on the blind side of a horse.Yesterday that had looked like a big, heroic thing for one man toaccomplish, but in the light of reflection today it must be admittedthat it was mainly luck.
Yes, Morgan had closed up the town last night, defying even Peden in hisown hall, where defiance as a rule meant business for the undertaker.But the glamour of his morning's success was still over him at thattime; Peden and his bouncers were a little cautious, a little cowed. Hecould not close the town up another night; murmurs of defiance werebeginning to rise already.
And so the people who had applauded his drastic enforcement of the lawlast night, became of no more support to Morgan today than a furrow ofsand. Luck was a great thing if a man could play it forever, they said,but it was too much to believe that luck would hold even twice withMorgan when he confronted Seth Craddock that afternoon.
Morgan walked about the square that morning like a stranger. Few spoketo him, many turned inward from their doors when they saw him coming,afraid that a little friendship publicly displayed might be laid upagainst them for a terrible reckoning of interest by and by. Morgan wasneither offended nor downcast by this public coldness in the quarterwhere he had a right to expect commendation and support. He understoodtoo well the lengths that animosities ran in such a town as Ascalon. Aliving coward was more comfortable than a dead reformer, according totheir philosophy.
It was when passing the post-office, about nine o'clock in the morning,that Morgan met Rhetta Thayer. She saw him coming, and waited. Her facewas flushed; indignation disturbed the placidity of her eyes.
"They don't deserve it, the cowards!" she burst o
ut, after a greetingtoo serious to admit a smile.
"Deserve what?" he inquired, looking about in mystification, wonderingif something had happened in the post-office to fire this indignation.
"The help and protection of a brave man!" she said.
Morgan was so suddenly confused by this frank, impetuous appreciation ofhis efforts, for there was no mistaking the application, that he couldnot find a word. Rhetta did not give him much time, to be sure, but ranon with her denunciation of the citizenry of the town.
"I wouldn't turn a hand for them again, Mr. Morgan--I'd throw up thewhole thing and let them cringe like dogs before that murderer when hecomes back! It's good enough for them, it's all they deserve."
"You can't expect them to be very warm toward a stranger," he said,excusing them according to what he knew to be their due.
"They're afraid you can't do it, they're telling one another your luckwill fail this time. Luck! that's all the sense there is in _that_ bunchof cowards."
"They may be right," he said, thoughtfully.
"You know they're not right!" she flashed back, defending him againsthimself as though he were another.
"I don't expect any generosity from them," he said, gentle in his toneand undisturbed. "They're afraid if my luck should happen to turnagainst me they'd have to pay for any friendship shown me here thismorning. Business is business, even in Ascalon."
"Luck!" she scoffed. "It's funny you're the only lucky man that's struckthis town in a long time, then. If it's all luck, why don't some of themtry their hands at rounding up the crooks and killers of this town andshowing them the road the way you did that gang yesterday? Yes, I knowall about that kind of luck."
Morgan walked with her toward Judge Thayer's office, whither she wasbound with the mail. Behind them the loafers snickered and passed quipsof doubtful humor and undoubted obscenity, but careful to present theface of decorum until Morgan was well beyond their voices. No matterwhat doubt they had of his luck holding with Seth Craddock, they werenot of a mind to make a trial of it on themselves.
"I think the best thing to do with this town is just let it go till itdries up and blows away," she said, with the vindictive impatience ofyouth. "What little good there is in it isn't worth the trouble ofcleaning up to save."
"Your father's got everything centered here, he told me. There must be agood many honest people in the same boat."
"Maybe we could sell out for something, enough to take us away fromhere. Of course we expected Ascalon to turn out a different town when wecame here, the railroad promised to do so much. But there's nothing tomake a town when the cattle are gone. We might as well let it begin todie right now."
"You're gloomy this morning, Miss Thayer. You remember the Mennonitesthat wanted to settle here and were afraid?"
"There's no use for you to throw your life away making the country safefor them."
"Of course not. I hadn't thought of them."
"Nor any of these cold-nosed cowards that turn their backs on you forfear your luck's going to change. Luck! the fools!"
"They don't figure in the case at all, Miss Thayer."
"If it's on account of your own future, if you're trampling down a placein the briars to make your bed, as pa called it, then I think you canfind a nicer place to camp than Ascalon. It never will repay the perilyou'll run and the blood you'll lose--have lost already."
"I'm further out of the calculation than anybody, Miss Thayer."
"I don't see what other motive there can be, then," she reflected, eyesbent to the ground as she walked slowly by his side.
"A lady asked me to undertake it. I'm doing it for her," he replied.
"She was a thoughtless, selfish person!" Rhetta said, her deep feelingstressed in the flush of her face, her accusation as vehement as if shelaid charges against another. "Last night she thought it over; she hadtime to realize the danger she'd asked a generous stranger to assume.She wants to withdraw the request today--she asks you to give it up andlet Ascalon go on its wicked way."
"Tell her," said he gently, holding her pleading, pained eyes a momentwith his assuring gaze, "that a man can't drop a piece of work like thisand turn his back on it and walk away. They'd say in Ascalon that he wasa coward, and they'd be telling the truth."
"Oh! I oughtn't have argued you into it!" she regretted, bitter in herself-blame. "But the thought of that terrible, cruel man, of all he'skilled, all he will kill if he comes back--made a selfish coward of me.We had gone through a week of terror--you can't understand a woman'sterror of that kind of men, storming the streets at night uncurbed!"
"A man can only guess."
"I was so grateful to you for driving them away from here, for purifyingthe air after them like a rain, that I urged you to go ahead and finishthe job, just as if we were conferring a great favor! I didn't think atthe time, but I've thought it all over since."
"You mustn't worry about it any more. It is a great favor, a greathonor, to be asked to serve you at all."
"You're too generous, Mr. Morgan. There are only a few of us here whocare about order and peace--you can see that for yourself thismorning--no matter what assurance they gave you yesterday. Let it go. Ifyou don't want to get your horse and ride away, you can at least resign.You've got justification enough for that, you've seen the men thatpromised to support you yesterday turn their backs on you when you cameup the street today. They don't want the town shut up, they don't wantit changed--not when it hits their pocketbooks. You can tell pa that,and resign--or I'll tell him--it was my fault, I got you into it."
"You couldn't expect me to do that--you don't expect it," he chided, hisvoice grave and low.
"I can want you to do it--I don't expect it."
"Of course not. We'll not talk about it any more."
They continued toward her father's office in silence, crossing thestretch of barren in which the little catalpa tree stood. Rhetta lookedup into his face.
"You've never killed a man, Mr. Morgan," she said, more as a positivestatement than as a question.
"No, I never have, Miss Thayer," Morgan answered her, as ingenuouslysincere as she had asked it.
"I think I know it by the touch of a man's hand," she said, her facegrowing pale from her deep revulsion. "I shudder at the touch of blood.If you could be spared that in the ordeal ahead of you!"
"There's no backing out of it. The challenge has passed," he said.
"No, there's no way. He's coming--he knows you're waiting for him. But Ihope you'll not have to--I hope you'll come out of it _clean_! A curseof blood falls on every man that takes this office. I wish--I hope, youcan keep clear of that."