VIII
AN EXILE FROM "GOD'S COUNTRY"
About —85, if I remember rightly, there was an almighty frost in Florida, almost as bad as the one of —94, when the orange trees were killed as far south as Indian River, and that was why Ben Habersham shifted stakes and came into Painted Rock. It was also the reason why I knew him, and it was the reason that Susy Habersham became acquainted with Samuel J. Weekes, who owned a cattle ranch on the upper waters of Wolf Creek, a saloon at Big Springs, and a store in Painted Rock itself. Habersham was a big, loose- jointed, slop-built Simple Simon, who took to erecting windmills for irrigation as he had raked up an agency for some new kind of wind fakement, on the strength of which he came West. He worked for himself at first, and then became a partner, so far as windmills were concerned, with Weekes. He fitted up a number of them in the town. One he put up for Ginger Gillett, who had a great notion for flowers and fruit, both hard things to raise in the neighbourhood of Painted Rock. He fixed another for my friend Gedge, the gambler from Georgia, who had a shack outside the City limits with what he delighted to call a "park." It was four acres of dust, sand and alkali and prairie dogs, and his "vines" were a measly lot of creepers that died at the first south wind, if any survived the March northers. Habersham called Florida "God's country." When a man out West does that you may reckon him a failure. The man who doesn't fail is he who takes enough root for the time to forget the State he came from. That is what Ginger Gillett said and did.
"I don't reckon to palaver none about where I come from," said Ginger with decision, "nor do I reckon to wail any about what I left behind. There's a complete and finished set of plumb rank failures howling in Painted Rock about this and that State being 'God's Kentry,' They make me sick and tired. 'God's Kentry' is finished, and the State of Texas is still in our hands to work up and put the polish on. But the women is the worst at it. They don't remind me none of the women of forty-nine that old-timers tells about. They had grit, and could stand off Injuns. These ladies cayn't stand off a mosquito, and they weep sadly at a centipede. Mis' Habersham's that kind, and cayn't cut a steak without makin' faces at the j'int she hacks it off of with averted face. The women from 'God's Kentry' ain't fit to raise Texans. They raise too much riot over trifles."
But she was a pretty little woman, and even the fastidious Ginger Gillett lowered his bull voice in her presence, and was exceedingly polite when he met her on Main Street. The cowboys said she was "a daisy" when they swaggered past her with cropped heads, a tooth-brush in their waistcoat pockets, and a very high opinion of themselves in their little minds.
"There'll be trouble over Mis' Habersham yet," said Keno Gedge, who knew the world, and had a wife who had been pretty enough to bring one man to the grave and two into a hospital before she quietened down in double harness. "She's a danger to this lonely society of bachelors, my son, and you can lay what you like on it. If I was Habersham I'd see she had no sort of conversation with Sam Weekes. Weekes ain't to be trusted with women, you can see that in his eye, if his record didn't prove it."
They said his record did prove it.
"Does Habersham know it?" I asked.
"Habersham don't know nothin'," said Gedge bitterly. "He knows enough about oranges to be froze out of Florida, and enough about windmills to set one up in my park that won't draw water."
Keno Gedge, according to Habersham, believed that a windmill created water in a dry well.
"We ain't on good terms over that dry windmill," said Gedge, "or I'd get Mis' Gedge to drop him a hint that Weekes is after Mis' Habersham. He's the only man in Painted Rock that don't see it."
That was true enough, as I found out after a month or so. There was an extraordinary reluctance among the quieter inhabitants of the town to say anything about the matter. It was no one's business but Habersham's, and Habersham was just the man to kill the fool who warned him there and then. Nevertheless there was talk, and the baser-minded sort soon averred that the talk had a sound basis to go on. There was a strange row about this in the American Saloon which was very characteristic of the place and its people, and, for the matter of that, of the West likewise. It was started by Sibley Ranger from Double Mountain Fork, who used to come into town and fill up beyond any limit of discretion once a fortnight.
"Haow's George Weekes' huntin' progressin'?" he asked Gedge, who was sitting on a bench with Pillsbury.
"Did you speak to me?" asked Gedge, with a danger signal in his voice.
"To you, Keno Gedge," said Ranger, "to bee sure I did. I asked how's Weekes' hunt after the Floridy lady goin' on? Is she caught yet?"
Gedge rose from his seat and walked up to him. He was little but was as hard as wire, and now he was in a dangerous rage.
"Mr. Ranger," he said, in a voice that had a rasp in it, "do you know that it's admitted on all hands that you're the biggest fool that ever showed up in Painted Rock?"
Ranger's hand was lying on the bar, and Gedge put his on it. Ranger found that iron grip immovable.
"You ain't for startin' a difficulty with me for sayin' what everyone says?" he asked quietly enough.
"If you say it again there will be trouble," said Gedge. "Do you understand me? There'll be serious trouble, and I don't want to hev my business interrupted by being obliged to leave the town till your funeral is forgotten."
Not a soul spoke a word. The bar-tender wiped a glass, put a bottle straight, and stood quietly expectant.
"You talk high," said Ranger.
"I talk down to you," said Gedge.
Ranger showed for once an adequate sense of the situation.
"Well, if you put it that way," he said, "I reckon I take it back. I'm not in your class as a shot, I own it; and if I was to follow my unreasonable desires and bash you with this tumbler I know I'd be dead, and no use to my dependent relatives. I take it back, Gedge. I'll say no more about it. Set up the drinks, Tom."
And Habersham walked into the saloon just as we all made a move for the bar. No one thought any the worse of Ranger for "taking water." There are ways of doing it, and, fool or none, he did it right.
"Habersham, drink with me and these gents," said Ranger. "Me and Gedge has been arguin', and Gedge hez won. I own it."
"What's the trouble?" asked Habersham, laughing.
"Gedge let on he reckoned me a fool," replied Ranger, "and a leetle discussion ensued. I am a fool, and I'll stand nose-paint to prove it. How's windmills going? Is the wind sufficient to send 'em round? I'm thinkin' of havin' one fixed over to my ranch, and I'll grow roses agin' Keno at his park."
That was the end of the trouble. But when talk had got so far it was bound to go further. And it did. The élite of Painted Rock looked shy at poor Mrs. Habersham, who apparently never got as much as a hint upon the scandal. At any rate she never wilted under the public gaze, and went about as gaily as ever. Gedge talked to me about her, and talked a little gloomily.
"One woman is all I care to understand," he said, "and I own freely after twenty-five years of matrimony that Mrs. Gedge is frequent as hard to fathom as Ginger Gillett when he starts bluffin' at poker. He's the best amatoor at kyards in the county, and Pillsbury owns it, as I do. For all I know Mis' Habersham may be bad down to bed-rock, or she may be no more than a pretty fool. There's times I put up one hypotheesis, and there's times I argue from the other. Women are shorely sad enigmas, and apt to cause woe. If Habersham hears any hint of what is spoke of I've a notion he'll go plumb mad and bring Mr. Weekes' career to a prematoor close,—whether with justice or without I ain't just now inclined to state. There are times when the worst views of human natur' come natural, and therefore I'll wander over to the drug store and get Bailey to quote me a price in pills."
The next day I rode to Snyder, Scurry County, and stayed a week with Chapman, who kept the Snyder Saloon, and I missed the newer developments of the Habersham story. But I came in for the conclusion at any rate, for I met Sibley Ranger riding out when I came within ten miles of Painted Rock on my way back.
"Howdy?" said Sibley, and I replied "Howdy?" with all the cordiality of the prairie. He pulled up close to me, and our horses put their noses together.
"There's goin' to be trouble over to Painted Rock," said Sibley Ranger.
"What trouble?" I asked.
"About Mis' Habersham and Sam Weekes. Some galoot hez bin fillin' up Ben's mind with suspicions about her, and they say he ain't spoke to a soul this three days. I met him by the court-house, and he was ez white as raw cotton, and was talkin' to himself. When a man does that it's real dangerous; there's trouble afoot, to bee sure. I hankered some to stay and see it out, but I'd fixed to see old Mackenzie over to my place about them steers, and if I missed him he'd be worse to deal with than a rattler. I never did see sech a man, plumb locoed he is at times. Gedge is very sore about the Habershams: he's stuck on Mis' Habersham himself, eh?"
I thought Mr. Sibley Ranger was safer at Double Mountain Fork than in town, and said so.
"Waal, I dessay," he drawled; "my tongue's my cross, and it'll get me into trouble shore. I own it. But if you hurry up you may see the crisis. The crisis is comin' along or I ain't a jedge of crisises. There was that look about Ben Habersham which nat'rally eventuates in the deadly exhibition of a double-pronged scatter-gun, or I'm the closest example of high discretion in north-west Texas. So-long!"
I reached town by way of Wolf Creek at sundown, and the first man I saw on the street was Ginger Gillett. The City Marshal looked worried.
"Mr. Gillett, I fear your responsibilities are weighing on you," I said. "You are wearing a sad expression this moment. Who's been shot and killed since I saw you?"
"Peace reigns so far," said Ginger, "and there's no such demand for coffins as to raise the price yet awhile."
"I met Sibley Ranger as I came in, Gillett, and he let on there was trouble sticking out a foot in town."
"Dam-fool Ranger's right," said Gillett. "It's about Habersham. Some woman hez bin raisin' hell in my town by speakin' to him, and if I could locate her I'd do some talkin'. Poor Ben's mad: he ain't spoke to Mis' Habersham for three days, and he caymps out on the verandy. She kem to me weepin' some, and she let on there'd be killin' if he warn't calmed down. She vows she don't know what's wrong with him, and I jest couldn't tell her; I couldn't!"
"Then you think there's nothing in it?" I asked. I got off my horse and walked towards the busiest part of the town with him.
"Not on her side," said Ginger, scratching his red head. "She's only silly. But Weekes ain't no innocent. Barrin' that I'm reesponsible for the peace of this locality, I'd jest as soon as not attend his funeral. I never had no weakness for him; there's a deal too much of the hundred per cent. usurer about him."
"Does he know he's liable to die suddenly?"
"I told him so," said Gillett. "And so did Smith, my deputy. He ain't put foot outside his store since the day before yesterday. Otherwise he shows grit, and is tolerable easy, to jedge by appearances."
We came by Weekes' store.
"There he is now," said Gillett. "But the store isn't lighted up. He knows better than to do that."
I touched him on the arm.
"You're thinking more how to save Habersham than Weekes, Ginger."
"To bee sure," said Ginger. "I ain't stuck on Weekes, and I like Ben all right, and I reckon I like Mis' Habersham enough not to want to see her a widow. For the truth is she loves Ben well."
"I think you'd better find an excuse for locking one of them in the calaboose," I said. "Or you might pick a quarrel with Weekes and lay him out for a spell."
Ginger Gillett stopped suddenly.
"I say, old man, that's a notion! Derned if I don't think it over. I want peace in Painted Rock. I've my own reputation to think of. Painted Rock says to me, 'Ginger Gillett, give me peace, put down riots, and let peaceful citizens live till their time comes.' And I say, 'Right, that's my idea when I took the position of Marshal.' After supper I shall interview Mr. Weekes, for so far Habersham ain't committed any open act of rebellion agin me, and I cayn't arrest him on suspish, not much."
And then we parted, I to go to Hamilton's for my supper and he to consider how to save his reputation for peace and law and order. It came very nearly being wounded badly in less than two hours.
After supper and a smoke at Hamilton's I walked across the plaza, and to and fro there for a while, and then strolled into Main Street. Habersham's house was in the outskirts of the town to the north-west, and to get to Weekes' from his place he had to go through Main Street to get to South Street, where the store was. My luck happened to make me the very first man to see Habersham that night, and when I saw him I was shaken up. He was white and fevered, haggard and strained, and his eyes were like live coals. That might have passed, perhaps, but he carried a shotgun, and it was notorious that he was one of the few men in the town who never carried a weapon of any kind. He never saw me as I passed, and for a moment I was paralysed. I knew that he was going to Weekes' store, and that if he got there he or Weekes would not survive the meeting. There were men in town who would have said it was none of their business. There were others who would have been glad to see Weekes filled up with lead. I had no liking for him, but I had for Habersham. I called to him suddenly—
"Mr. Habersham!"
He stopped dead, and I walked back to him. If I could only hold him in talk for a minute I might see Ginger Gillett or his deputy on the street. At the worst it would give me a minute or two to think. And in a minute anything might happen.
"What is it?" said Habersham.
"Oh, by the way," I said, "I've just come down from Snyder, where I was staying with Chapman. He told me he wanted you to put him up a windmill."
This was a lie on the spur of the moment. Chapman cared about nothing but horses and poker, and Ennis Creek gave him all the water he wanted.
"I'm not on windmills any more," said Habersham thickly. "Oh, God! windmills. Oh, go to hell!"
He tore his coat away from my hand and went fast, all the faster perhaps from my hindering him. There was only one thing to do, and I did it. I had not the least desire to get myself into a difficulty, and if he saw me run ahead of him he was in the mood to kill me first and Weekes afterwards. Nevertheless I meant getting to the store before he did. There was only one way to do it. I ran into the American Saloon, calling to Gedge. It is never advisable to run into any gambling saloon in a hurry and without warning. The place was tolerably full, and Gedge was dealing faro.
"Hallo!" said Keno, "what's the trouble?"
"Tell Gillett to come to Weekes' place now," I cried, and with that I pulled aside the window-blind at the end of the room and jumped through the open window, and left the crowd buzzing.
Habersham had to walk two hundred yards down Main Street before he got to South Street. By going through the window I had one side of a triangle to his two, and though the open space was dark, and littered with empty kerosene- and fruit-cans, I made good time across the big barren lot. I felt sure I was a minute or two ahead of Ben when I came to the store. I thought as I ran.
"I'll make Weekes lock the door and lie low," I said. "If he won't, and kills Ben Habersham, it will be against him."
But I prayed that Ginger Gillett would come quick. This was his business, and he was in his element in dealing with such things. Perhaps I was a fool, and yet I saw poor Mrs. Habersham's face, and remembered her as she was when she sat talking of the fruit and flowers of "God's country."
I ran into the store. Ginger Gillett and Smith were there before me! It seemed a miracle at the time, but I knew aftewards that my words to Keno Gedge had nothing to do with it.
The store was long and deep, and one dim lamp only lighted it. On one side were dry goods on shelves and stacked on the counter. The other side was filled with hardware, with shining tins, with lamps, and all kinds of household gear. The back part of the store was in deep shadow. It was full of casks and bales of all sorts. From the tie-beams hung clothes of various sorts, slickers or oilskins, long boots, and some big cow-hats.
And I knew that Gillett and Weekes were having trouble. Weekes was tall and dark, and wore a beard. Some women said he was a handsome man. Men as a rule did not like him. Gillett had owned to having no love for him.
"You've brought it on yourself," said Gillett angrily, "and I'll have you know I'm City Marshal."
"Go to hell!" replied Weekes. "You can't drive me, and you bein' Marshal don't faze me worth a cent. If Habersham shows his nose here I'll kill him."
I heard that as I came in.
"Habersham's coming here with a shotgun," I cried. We heard steps even then, and I saw Weekes pull a six-shooter from his hip-pocket. With his left hand he made a motion to knock the lamp over. What happened then was so sudden and so amazing that I fell back. Before the lamp fell I saw Smith, Gillett's deputy, shift his "gun" so that he held the barrel, and he struck Weekes a heavy blow with the stock upon the head. He fell heavily, and at that moment there was a shot, by whom fired I could not tell. And then Habersham appeared at the entrance. The lamp had had little oil in it, but it blazed upon the floor, and by its flames, before Gillett thew a slicker on them and trod them out, I saw Weekes lying on his back with a great red splash upon his face. Then there was darkness.
"My God!" said Habersham. He too had seen what I saw.
"You're too late, Habersham," said Gillett coolly. I saw Habersham's figure waver against the outer light of the stars.
"I—I meant to kill him," he said in a dreadful whisper. "And who's done it?"
"I have," said Gillett.
I sat down on a keg by the hardware counter, and as I did so Gillett lighted a match and another lamp. Then I heard quick, light footsteps outside, and Mrs. Habersham came running. She saw no one but Gillett, and he had his back turned. She thought he was Weekes. I knew she thought so, and was in dread what she would say. She did not see Habersham. If she spoke a word that would have tallied with the slanders of the town he would kill her. But she cried—
"Mr. Weekes, oh, sir"
And then she fainted dead away in her husband's arms. These words had saved her and saved him, and in his state of madness they came, I felt, like cooling waters. For they expressed the truth of her innocence, if they said nothing as to the blamelessness of the man whose body lay stretched upon the floor.
"Good God!" said Ben Habersham,—"good God!"
He dropped his gun and held the poor woman in his arms.
"Take her away before she comes to, Ben," said Gillett. And Habersham carried her outside. I followed him, and helped him with her. But suddenly he said—
"Don't touch her."
He picked her up in his arms like a baby, and almost ran up the solitary road. I wondered that there was no one about. They must have come to the conclusion at the American Saloon that I was crazy and not to be taken notice of. I walked back into the store. I couldn't understand how it was that Weekes was dead. I had seen Smith strike him with the butt of his "gun." Who had fired the shot?
Gillett was sitting on the dry goods counter, swinging his heels and whistling.
"That was well played," said Gillett coolly. "There will be peace in Painted Rock this night."
Smith annexed a quarter cigar from a box and salved his conscience by dropping in a nickel.
"Who killed Weekes?" I asked.
"Nobody killed him," said Gillett scornfully. " I thought you tumbled to the racket. He ain't dead. Smith downed him with the butt, and I pulled off to give it reality."
Weekes groaned.
"Call that dead, eh?" asked Gillett callously.
"But I saw a thundering lot of blood," I said; "I'm sure I did."
"Tomayto ketchup only," said Ginger Gillett. "I like finish. Tomayto ketchup, nothing more!"
Weekes sat up. He looked horrid.