The Fugitive (13 page)

Certain it was that he handled his cigars with the greatest delicacy, that he kept his eyes constantly on the length and condition of the ash, and that he never knocked them away. He waited until the ash fell of its own weight, or was pried away by a draft of the wind.

Into the presence of this soiled, ash-streaked figure, then, walked Willie Merchant. And, oh, thought he, for another name than this name Willie. Cursed be the day when that name was applied to him. But for that matter, it was not the fault of the world in general. It was the fault of his dear mother, who had insisted upon calling him Willie long after all the rest seemed united that it was time to call him Bill. Bill was a good name, a good, manly derivative from William. But Willie? The soul of the young fellow shrank within him. He talked like a frightened pupil reciting a lesson when old Chris, in his quiet voice, asked him what brought him there.

It was Jennie who brought him there, he explained. They'd agreed that it would be a good idea to marry.

“You've both agreed that?” asked old Chris.

“Yes,” said Willie. He would have added a sir, but his breath was too short to admit of that.

“Go back home and think it all over for a week,” said old Chris. “Then come back a week from today and talk it over with me again.”

Willie Merchant went out, and the rich odor of the Havana followed him down the stairs and to the street. He found himself in the open air at last, and he made a fierce resolution never to smoke another cigar so long as he should live. That decision, for some reason, made him feel more at ease. He started, but not for his home. Instead, he drove out to the Martin ranch house, and there he found Jennie under the mulberry tree and told her what had happened.

“It don't mean anything,” Jennie assured him. “He's just taking his time about it. That's his way. It'll all turn out all right in the end. Besides, Will dear, how can he stop us from marrying if we really want to?”

It was an angel voice to Willie. He went back to his place, and, because he could not sleep at night nor remain quiet during the day on account of the tumult and the hope in his brain, he worked like a madman during that next week. So that it was a weak and haggard fellow who stood before Martin at the end of the week. Old Chris was smoking with a concentrated frown of attention, for he had actually succeeded in smoking two-thirds of a cigar without having the long ash drop off. This miracle of skill and good luck seemed to mean far more to him than the interview with the young man who had come to talk to him about marrying his niece. He kept watching the ash.

“Well, son,” he said as kindly as ever, “you been thinking all week?”

“All week, sir.”

“Well?”

“I've made up my mind. I'd rather die than not to marry Jennie.”

“You would, hey?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I've talked with Jennie,” said old Chris. “She says that she'd die rather than not to marry you.”

He considered his own statement for a time while the heart of Willie Merchant beat with triumph. Then, from the street beneath the window, there arose a nasal, droning, drawling voice—a cracked and ruined tenor of an old man that began to sing the old ballad, so appropriate to this very moment:

Of all the girls that are so smart
There's none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart.
And she lives in our alley.

Here old Chris started from his chair so violently that the long ash tumbled from the cigar and struck his knee and, still remaining solid with a wonderful firmness, rolled off and struck the floor before it cracked apart. Old Chris looked down on that small ruin with a black face. Then he strode to the window and peered down into the street.

“It's that darned old fool, Ballon . . . old Hank Ballon, I see,” said Chris. He jerked the window up wider and leaned out. “Hey, Hank!”

“Aye?” called the nasal voice of Hank.

“Stop that damned noise!” He slammed down the window and turned on Willie Merchant. “Look here, Willie, what have you got to marry on?”

“I got a bit of land . . . I got some cows that are doing fine . . . I got a house that Jennie says is good enough to live in.” He gave this recital proudly, and added: “I went over to the auction at the Sterne place last month and bought in some plows and harrows and old harness for doggone near nothing. But they'll still work. I bought a few mules off some Mexicans that run out of fodder and money and sold mighty cheap. And now I'm all ready to start working that bit of loamy land down in the draw. I figure that they's some good crops in that land.”

“It's a hot country, Willie. I've always sent Jennie away through the heat of the summer.”

“I could manage it, too.”

“Not if she had children.”

“Well, that's a little different. But in a year or two, we'd be better fixed.”

“Unless you hit a bad season.”

“There's chances to be took in everything.”

“Maybe.”

For the first time, Willie began to fear. This continued opposition might become a stone wall before him. What could he do to climb it? The silence during which he pondered these thoughts lasted for some instants. Then he looked to the older man with a sigh. “If Jennie will take the chance and gamble with me, I thought you wouldn't mind, Mister Martin.”

“Did you? Well, Willie, I dunno that I quite agree with you. I've invested quite a little coin in Jennie. I got to think about that. I've fed her and clothed her all these years. I've give her everything she asked for. I've fixed her so's she needn't be afraid to look at anybody in the world. She gets everything I got . . . and what I got, when I die, is worth having. I don't suppose that you thought about that, Willie, when you picked on Jennie and decided to marry her?”

Willie grew crimson. In fact, that she would be the heir to Chris Martin had actually never come into his mind before. He had thought of nothing but Jennie herself, and never had troubled to think of her background. When Chris Martin figured in his thoughts, it was not as a rich father-in-law, but as a possible obstacle to their union, and in no other wise.

Old Hank Ballon, in the meantime, had forgotten the recent injunction of the terrible Chris. His wailing voice now arose again, taking up the burden of the second stanza of “Sally”:

Her father, he makes cabbage nets,
And through the streets does cry 'em;
Her mother she sells laces long,
To such as please to buy 'em;
But sure such folks could ne'er beget
So sweet a girl as Sally!
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

Chris rolled his eyes at the window, but he did not stir from his chair, and his voice, which had now become a sort of a low thunder, was directed at Willie Merchant only.

“Old Hank, he's a type of what comes to men that marry on nothing. Old Hank, his girl was one of the prettiest you ever see. What happened? She worked herself ugly having three babies in three years, scrubbing their clothes, tending the house, doing the sewing, and cooking for Hank. But their shack was so small that there wasn't no room in it for three babies and Hank. There wasn't no peace there for him. He went out and started drinking. He's done it ever since. He's full of moonshine right now. More booze, less work. His blacksmith shop started running downhill. Then along come a bad winter. The kids got colds . . . Hank didn't have money to buy 'em the right sort of food. Doggone me if they didn't all die. And that busted their mother's heart and she died right after 'em. And that's all what come from a poor marriage.”

From the street the tenor voice of the old man rose again, and now he had sung himself into tune, it might be said, and there was the resonance, or the ghost of it, that had once made him sought for at all youthful parties.

Of all the days that's in the week,
I dearly love but one day,
And that's the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I'm dressed in all my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

Both Chris and young Merchant now remained for a time staring at one another.

“You ain't favoring this here marriage,” Willie said stiffly at the last.

“I ain't.”

“Then, Mister Martin, with all respect to you, I guess that me and Sally had better go ahead and do the best we can in spite of what you say. We figure that we can't get along without one another.”

The voice of Hank Ballon, reinforced by a long swig of colorless moonshine whiskey in between stanzas, now thrilled through the air, young and filled with the music of joyousness.

When Christmas comes about again,
Oh, then I shall have money;
I'll hoard it up and box it all
I'll give it to my honey;
I would it were ten thousand pound,
I'd give it all to Sally.

Chris Martin was at the window again. His voice was not raised; it was murderously low. “Hank,” he called, “go home and wait for me there! I'm coming to see you, pronto.”

There was a chorus of shrill protest from the little children who had gathered to hear the old toper sing, but Chris slammed down the window and shut out the noise. He had the fuming stub of the cigar between his teeth. It was so short that it burned his lips. But he spoke around it, grinding his teeth into the tobacco, and his clear blue eyes under their wrinkled lids were devilish in their intensity.

“You two'll go on without me, eh? Not by a damned sight, Willie. No, sir, you ain't going on without me. You ain't going at all. You're going back to your work or wherever else you want to go. Understand? You're going to see Jennie, and you're going to tell her that you've changed your mind, after all . . . you ain't ready to marry her yet.”

“But I am . . .”

“You lie!” shouted the tyrant. “You young fool, you lie! What'll you marry on? Your scrap of land and your dozen or two cattle? I say, what's that land worth and what's them cattle worth without water? And where d'you get water except from me? D'you think I'll let you have it if you start bucking me? Nope . . . I'll smash you flatter'n the devil, Willie! That's me. I smash men. I got hands made for smashing them. I grind 'em up to dust. You'll marry her whether I want you to or not, will you? Why, I'll turn you and your cattle into skeletons. You'll marry on thin air, that's what you'll do.”

It was too true. For water, his cattle went to the great water hole on the Martin lands, that huge spring that never failed to run. Cut off from that supply, he was ruined indeed. His three years' work evaporated. Perhaps a hero would have thrown defiance in the teeth of Chris. Willie was not a hero. He was brave as the next man. No one had seen him show the white feather. But now he was crushed. For, as Chris said, he could not live on thin air—not with a wife to support. He swallowed hard and admitted defeat.

“Mister Martin,” he said slowly, “you got me beat. I can't move.”

There was a change instantly in the cruel eyes of Martin. He dropped the cigar butt on the floor and ground the tobacco under his heel. “That's sense, Willie. You and me will get along. I knew you had sense. But that fool, Hank Ballon, got me mad with his damned singing. This is what you do. You tell Jennie that you and she got to wait. Don't tell her that you've talked to me. You hear? I ain't going to have any trouble made between me and her. Not a bit. You go tell her that you thought it up out of your own head. Another year and then, maybe . . . we'll see.”

But Willie, as he left the room, knew in his heart of hearts that the barrier that Chris had raised to their wedding would never be lowered. Martin had other plans for his niece. And, as Willie had frankly confessed to Chris, he was beaten.

He went obediently to Jennie and told her, not the truth, but what Chris had told him to say. They had to wait for another year.

“When we marry, we want children. They cost money. Another year everything will be hunkydory. You see, Jennie?”

She looked up to him and nodded, but there was a wrinkle of wistful sadness and surprise in her forehead. “I guess you know what's best, Will,” she said.

Willie rode home with dust of ashes in his heart. He unsaddled the roan and had barely the energy to dodge the heels that the vicious brute flung at his head. He went back to his shack. He dropped the saddle in the middle of the kitchen floor, and he went on to the sealed room, dragged open the door, and looked within. Then he dropped upon his knees beside the big rocking chair, and the tears ran fast down his face.

 

Old Chris had conquered, but he was far from contented with his day's work. On the whole, he did not believe in the use of brute force when the other side had any weapon with which they could strike back at him. In this case, the weapon that Willie Merchant had was the love of Jennie for him. Martin was sensible that love is a dangerous adversary at all times, that it is full of tricks and wiles, that it is as remorseless as a poisonous serpent, and that it has a strength that is never spent. And although he did not see exactly how Willie could strike back at him, yet he had been willing to be cautious, and he had planned to be most diplomatic in that last interview. He had planned to put the situation to Willie with advice and insinuation without any overt threat. If he hinted at the use he might make of his control of the water to enforce his decisions, he had intended that it should be no more that a hint. He had wished, in a word, to handle Willie with gloves.

And he had failed in that effort. He had shown his bare, clenched fist, ready to strike. He had roared and bellowed at Willie as if the latter were no more than a tenant of his. He had revealed himself as a brute, and that knowledge made him wretched. In the first place, he did not like enemies. He was too wise to tread deliberately on the toes of others. He preferred diplomacy, always, to the mailed fist, although the single blow was all his instinct.