The Man of Last Resort/The Governor's Machine/Chapter 1
THE
GOVERNOR'S MACHINE
I
THERE was something on the Governor's mind, and when this condition obtained, interesting events had usually followed in the far Southwest. This highly mystic mental status had preceded the efforts of a Federal Court to compel him to act under a mandamus, and the result was history. It had preceded a memorable conflict between the legislature at large and His Excellency, the Governor, also at large, and immediately thereafter a certain statute had sprung into existence prohibiting the massing of State troops within one hundred miles of the Capitol during the sitting of the Solons of the Commonwealth; but it was a law after the fact. It had preceded also the mercurial efforts of the so-called patriotic orders to impeach the Executive for malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance,—an effort that had brought to its instigators only a lurid and inglorious rout.
The Governor was standing at the eastern window of his private office looking out at the monotonous brown tablelands stretching away to the foothills of the blue mountains that marked the outer limits of his jurisdiction. He was a young man, this Governor, with the firm, straight figure of a soldier and the gracious bearing of important ancestry. His eyes were brown, and his hair and Van Dyke beard were brown also—all indicative, say the sages, of precisely what the Governor was not. He was perfectly groomed. Every morning when he walked down to the State-house he was the marvel and the fastidious spotless idol of the far Southwest.
One would have imagined that this handsome fellow had just stepped out from a smart New York club, could he have forgotten that such an institution was almost a continent to eastward. The Governor had maintained that it was quite possible to live as a gentleman should wherever Providence had provided Chinamen and water, and that the matter was not entirely hopeless if the Chinamen were not to be had, so the water remained.
It was true indeed that the Executive had maintained his customs with no little pain against the divers protests of gods and men, ofttimes wrought in silence, but not infrequently urged fiercely in the open. But the Governor was not one with whom meddling folk could trifle and preserve the peace. This fact certain bad men had learned to their hurt west of the Gila, and divers evil-disposed persons regretted and were buried, and regretted and remembered south of the Pecos. So that in time this matter came to be regarded as a peculiarity, and passed into common respect as is the way with the peculiarities of those expeditious spirits who shoot first and explain afterwards.
The Governor was aroused from his reverie by his private secretary who came in at this moment from the outer office.
“Governor,” said the young man, “there is a strike at the Big Injin.”
“Well,” replied the Executive, “telegraph the sheriff.”
“But,” said the Secretary, “the sheriff has just telegraphed us.”
“Then,” continued the Executive, “send a courier to Colonel Shiraf.”
“But Colonel Shiraf is out on the Ten Mile.” “In that case,” said the Governor, “you must go up to the mines, and if the dignity of the Commonwealth needs to be maintained, you will maintain it, Dave. You should find some troops at the post, some herders at the cattle ranch, and a very large proportion of the State Guards, by this time quite drunk, at a horse fair in Garfield County. If they are required, notify me.”
As the secretary turned to leave the room, the Governor called him back. “Dave, my boy,” he said, “peace in this Commonwealth is a sacred thing—a superlatively sacred thing, so sacred that we are going to have it if thereby the word 'census' becomes a meaningless term; and remember, my boy, that the State is very expeditious.”
The secretary went out and closed the door behind him, while His Excellency, Alfred Capland Randal, forgetting the report, turned back to the window. The air from the great brown plain came up dry and hot; above the blue mountains the sun looked like a splotch of bloody red, and over it all brooded the monotonous—the almost hopeless silence of the far Southwest.
The something on the Governor's mind was a something of grave import, for which he could evidently find no solution, and presently he began to pace the length of his private office with long strides, and with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
Suddenly the door opened and a Chinaman entered with a telegram. The Governor looked up sharply, and taking the envelope tore it open with evident unconcern. When his eyes ran over the message he drew in a deep breath, and, seating himself at a table, spread out the paper before him. This was the advent of the unexpected, for which Mr. Randal was not quite prepared, and this his manner exhibited to such a degree that the stolid Celestial wondered vaguely what was up with the big foreign devil.
“Our train stops at El Paso,” ran the telegram, “you will come up, won't you?—M. L.”
The Governor stroked his Van Dyke beard, and the fine lines came out on his face. “Of all times,” he muttered. Then he turned to the Chinaman. “Have my overcoat at the depot at six. I am going to El Paso, and shall not return until late.”
The Chinaman vanished, and the Executive crushed the telegram in his hands, thrust it into his pocket, and resumed his march up and down the private office.
This Governor was the crowning achievement of a machine. He was the elder son of an ancient family in Massachusetts, and had been reared and educated in an atmosphere of culture. It had been the intention of his family to have him succeed his father with the practice of the law, but the plans of men are subject to innumerable perils, and it soon developed that young Mr. Randal was not at all adapted to the duties of a barrister. Indeed it was very early apparent that nature had intended this man for the precarious vagaries of a public life. He was magnetic, generous, with a splendid presence, and the careless, speculative spirit of a gambler. In truth, Alfred Capland Randal was a politician per se. While in college he had been a restless element, injecting the principles of practical policy into everything he touched, from the Greek-letter fraternities to the examinations in Tacitus, and all with such reckless, jovial abandon that divers sage members of the faculty speculated with much wonder as to which particular penal institution would be his ultimate domicile.
At times the elder Randal had been summoned to attend these grave sittings of the faculty, and straightway thereafter the rigid New England lawyer had lectured his son at great length and with bitter invective, to which the young man attended in a fashion that was amiable, and immediately disregarded in a fashion that was equally amiable. Thus in the Puritanic bosom of the father the conclusion grew and fattened and matured that the eldest scion of his house was an entirely worthless scapegrace, while the son was quite as certain that his father was a very sincere, but an entirely misguided old gentleman.
The result of these divergent opinions was that on a certain June evening young Randal sat down upon a bench in the park of his father's country place with the express purpose of planning his career. Out of the confidence of youth he determined upon two ultimate results. One was, of course, wealth, and the other was an elaborate and entirely proper wedding ceremony with a certain Miss Marion Lanmar. This young lady, Randal had met at a football game at Harvard, and afterward in New York, where she resided with her aunt, Mrs. Hester Beaufort.
The gigantic confidence of youth is certainly a matter of sublime wonder to the gods. One at all familiar with the ways of things would have at once pronounced both results quite impossible to the improvident young man. But from the standpoint of exuberant youth there seemed to be no important obstacles except the possible delay, and this was not very material, as the world was young and these were things to be had in the farther future.
For the present, Randal determined to organize a political machine and transport it into one of the remote Western States. The East offered no theatre for his talents; it was closely organized; its political machinery was too strong for him to hope to oppose it. He would be crushed out in the first skirmish.
Nor could he hope for early recognition by allying himself to any one of the established organizations. These were crowded with deserving men, and besides, he had no intention of serving as a political apprentice. He had ability, he believed, as a political strategist, and he proposed to operate free and untrammelled in a big, breezy arena.
Having determined upon a course, young Randal at once proceeded to put it into operation. He held a council of war at the Plaza on Fifth Avenue with two of his college associates, a stranded gambler, called for convenience “Billy the Plunger,” and an old Virginia gentleman named Major Culverson. The council sat in secret session for three days, and the result was that the machine moved out into the Commonwealth of Idaho, and began to operate. But the manners and customs of the West were varied and mystic, and with the following summer the machine, badly shaken, moved over into Nevada. Here, at Tulasco, on the Central Pacific Railroad, the first college man deserted and, helped by his father, returned with great penitence to the civilized East.
The machine passed on across the Humbolt River and proceeded to attempt to shape the political destinies of Nevada. But disaster was following in its wake, and, after an active and turbulent but quite unprofitable career of a few months, it moved southward, battered and beaten, but unconquered.
On the night of the third of October, the machine tramped into Hackberry, on the Southern Pacific, and while men slept, the second college man, concealing himself in a freight car, set out for the Atlantic coast, cursing with lurid language all that part of the continent lying west of the Mississippi.
On the following morning the machine held its second great council, but this time it sat in desperate conclave above the Cow-Punchers' Saloon in the town of Hackberry, facing a condition and not a theory. But three members remained—Randal, the dauntiess Culverson, and Billy the Plunger.
The gambler was for organizing a faro bank, and working the towns down the Gila, but as the bank had no funds, and the death rate usually attendant upon such ventures in this primitive country was enormous, his plan was held impracticable, and at four o'clock in the afternoon he ceased to urge the wisdom of his scheme, and after having announced with great solemnity that he was game to any limit the gang wanted, he lapsed into the capacity of a spectator.
The Major advised moving south into Mexico, but as he seemed to have no definite idea of what should be done when Mexico was reached, and it finally appearing that moving south was simply a fad with Culverson, the plan was likewise abandoned.
Young Randal, fired by his unabated purpose, urged the wisdom of trying a round with the political fortunes of Arizona, but it was demonstrated that he was considering a major venture, having for its object huge honor, while at present there was crying need for some minor venture that would probably result in the necessaries of life and a few hundred dollars. Accordingly, at three o'clock in the morning, the machine decided to assume, for a time, the vocation of the cattle herder, and accept employment with a certain stock king of New Mexico.
It was understood, however, that this digression should be temporary, and should be abandoned just as soon as the machine should feel able to resume its original purpose. It was at this point in the deliberations of the conclave that Major Culverson made his famous statement, to wit, that the gates of hell could not ultimately prevail against a political machine composed of a Massachusetts Yankee, a dead game sport, and an old Virginia gentleman.
From this time forth the career of Randal's machine was a concatenation of fortunes and misfortunes, principally the latter, quite incredible. But the three men clung together, and a single enthusiastic purpose is a marvellous motor power, so that when Fate finally lent a helping hand, the machine became a something of importance in the affairs of a Southwestern Commonwealth. Once on the upward way, the ability of Randal and the daring energies of his associates carried it forward with great strides, so great that on the evening of the day with which this history has to do, the Massachusetts Yankee was the Governor of a State, the Major was Auditor, and Billy the Plunger, now known by his signature as Ambercrombie Hergan, was Secretary of State.
The sun had gone downward from sight behind the far mountains, now changed from blue to a murky gray. The Governor, recalled to a sense of the hour, closed his mahogany desk, locked the door of his private office, and walked leisurely out through the State-house. As he passed down the steps of the Capitol he met the Auditor coming up.
“How are you, Al?” said the Auditor.
“Charmed,” replied the Governor.
“Ah,” said the Major, with great ceremony, “you may be charmed, sir, but to me, sir, yuur face wears the haunted look of one who holds three nines against what he strongly suspects to be a pat hand.”
“Sage,” said the Governor, bowing, “I tremble for my hidden thoughts.”
“You 're a fool,” said the Major, stepping up beside the Executive. “I want to know where you are going.”
“I!” said the Governor, “I am going to the southeast. Do you see that little railroad? I am even now about to commit myself to its irresponsible mercies.”
“You must not go, Al,” continued the Auditor. “Attend, I will nominate the reasons. First, there is a julep party at my palatial residence.”
“Insufficient,” said the Governor.
“Second, there is a strike at the Big Injin.”
“Insufficient,” said the Governor.
“And third,” continued the Auditor, lowering his voice, “Honorable Ambercrombie Hergan is at this very hour in the second room of Crawley's Emporium, playing the taxes of Bolas County, and losing them, sir, losing them.”
The Governor's face grew hard, and his remarks for a moment were quite unprintable. Then he turned to the Auditor.
“Ned,” he continued, “you must get him out, and take him up to my residence. I will be here by ten o'clock. I am compelled to go to El Paso. I can't get out of it. I am compelled to go.”
“Compelled?” ejaculated the Major, “who, in the name of all the living gods, is compelling you? He must be greater than the railroads, greater than the legislature, greater than the Federal Court. Compelling the Honorable Alfred Capland Randal? Shade of the blooming Witch of Endor!”
“Ned,” said the Governor slowly, “I will explain it all just as soon as I can. In the meantime you must help me. You must get him out. Won't you, Ned?”
The Governor put his hand on the Auditor's shoulder, just as he had done a thousand times before when he needed the help of this unusual man. And, just as he had done a thousand times before, the Major declared that the Executive was a “damned rascal” and a “no account youngster,” and that he would not do it, when all the time he knew deep down in his heart that he loved this straight young fellow better than any other thing in the world, and that presently he was going to do exactly what he said he would not do.
The Governor knew this also, for he ran down the steps without stopping to interrupt the amiable flow of the Auditor's depreciatory remarks.
At the depot he found the Chinaman, Bumgarner, waiting with his coat.
That such a primitive Celestial should be saddled with such a name arose entirely from the pious instincts of the Major. It happened that the Virginian was standing in a crowd at the corner near Crawley's Emporium when the Chinaman first appeared, having tramped from the coast. The Major, who was slightly in his cups, called the Chinaman over to the corner, and inquired by what appellation he was known, to which the foreigner responded that he was called Fu Lun. “Fu Lun!” shouted the Major, fiercely, “a name smacking of the devil, and not to be tolerated in a Christian State.” And then turning to the crowd, “Gentlemen,” he continued, “behold! I do a goodly missionary work. I rebuke the evil spirit dwelling in the bosom of this heathen. I give it a Christian name. I name it Bumgarner.”
Thus the first evidence of civilization fastened upon the Celestial, and, as the Major's mandate was not to be disregarded, as “Bumgarner” the Chinaman had gone.
The journey to El Paso was not an idle one for the Governor. In a very short time he should be in the presence of Miss Marion Lanmar and her aunt Mrs. Beaufort, and, of all times since their first eventful meeting, this was the very time he was not prepared for an interview. Prior to the notable exodus of the machine to Idaho, Randal had called upon Miss Lanmar, who was at that time a very young woman in college. The two were quite important, quite enthusiastic, and pitiably ignorant of the world's ways.
This last meeting to them seemed big with fate, and was dramatic to the limit of a play-actor's rehearsal. Youth lent to it all the glamour of romance. To Miss Lanmar young Randal was her chivalrous knight-errant, on the eve of his departure into a wild and unknown land full of mysterious peril, in quest of wealth and fair fame, all for her. To Randal she was the Lily Maid of Astolat, whom it was fate that he should worship with noble deeds until he won. It was all in strict accord with romantic custom in such cases made and provided, and terminated quite in keeping with the ideal conventions.
When the door had closed upon the handsome young fellow whom Miss Marion Lanmar had promised to love for ever more, that young lady remained standing motionless by the mantel shelf, her face very white, and her heart very desperate and very true. To the dainty Miss Lanmar it was all very real, and by no means the pretty little comedy which the world out of its practical wisdom would have known it to be.
To Mr. Alfred Randal, as he passed down the steps of Mrs. Beaufort's residence on the avenue, the world was now a vast arena, into which he was going, armed and knighted with his lady's colors on his helm. His heart beat high in his bosom. He would be a factor in great affairs; the hour would come when he would return, famous, wealthy past belief, announced by the heralds. He could not know that he was but another character in that sweet old fairy story which men and women have striven to act over and over again before they learn with dumb horror how pitiless and how practical are the ways of Providence.
Yet the wise man who accompanies the youth to the gateway of the arena will not say: “To-morrow Circumstance will beat you from your horse and tramp you under, and instead of returning victor, you will return a cripple.” Although the wise man knows full well that of all results this latter is most probable, yet he will not say it, because the enthusiasm of youth is a marvellous power, difficult to estimate, and what it may accomplish no man can tell.
The Governor had not seen this young woman after that night, but he had clung to his intention with the determination of a man who has a single object in life. An intermittent correspondence had been maintained, but after years this intention to wed Miss Lanmar had become rather an ideal something, and in this there was peril. But a few weeks before, he had intimated vaguely, that he was now a person of some local importance, and with no inconsiderable prospects of wealth, and to this Miss Lanmar had intimated quite as vaguely that she was waiting. But in it all there, seemed to be a powerful, albeit somewhat indistinct doubt. Years had passed, and years had a way of working frightful changes in people. The Miss Lanmar of to-day could not be the school-girl whom he had known.
The Executive leaned back in a seat of the stuffy little coach and speculated with grave concern At any rate, this alliance was now quite impossible. Complications had been thrust in; a duty, or what he conceived to be a duty, had sprung up, and this duty it was not his intention to evade.