Golden Stories Part 11

The mate heaved a deep sigh and sorrowfully went below. In the effort to ram music into his superior officer he had to admit himself defeated.

VI

MARY JANE'S DIVERSION

A Western Tale

By CHARLES ALDEN SELTZER

TEXAS RANKIN stood in the street in front of the High Card Saloon, his lank body trembling with surprise, indecision, and indignation; his face alight with the fire of outraged dignity. Three long paces from him stood Sheriff Webster, indifferently fondling an ivory-handled .45.

The sheriff was nonchalantly deliberative in his actions, betraying only a negative interest in Rankin's movements--for Rankin's holster yawned with eloquent emptiness. With his empty holster dragging on his desires, it seemed to Rankin that to await the sheriff's pleasure was his most logical course.

And so he waited.

The sheriff had come upon him, when, in an incautious moment, he had emerged from the High Card Saloon, having forgotten the very important fact that the sheriff was looking for him. This forgetfulness had been the cause of his undoing, for at the instant he had turned to go down the street the sheriff had reached for his gun. The empty holster was evidence of his success.

After that there was no use in getting excited. True, Texas had flashed around in his tracks when he had felt the gun leaving its holster, and had made a lightning movement with his hand to prevent such a disgraceful occurrence. But he might just as well have reached for a rainbow. As he had faced about, rage-flushed and impotent, he saw his gun swinging loosely in Webster's left hand, while in Webster's right hand another big six-shooter had reached a foreboding level.

The distance between the two men approximated ten feet; for Webster had wisely stepped back, knowing Rankin's reluctance toward submission.

And now, over the ten feet of s.p.a.ce, captive and captor surveyed one another with that narrowing of the eyes which denotes tension and warns of danger.

"I reckon I was too quick for you, Texas," said Webster, with a gentleness that fell too softly to be genuine.

Rankin gazed dolefully at his empty holster. The skin tensed over his teeth in a grinning sneer.

"I ain't sayin' that you took a mean advantage," he said, raising his eyes and allowing them an expression of mild innocence that contrasted strangely with his drawn lips, "but you might have given me a chance to fight it out square. I wouldn't have took your gun, Jim."

Knowing Texas less intimately, the sheriff might have been misled by this crude sentiment; but the sheriff's fingers only drew more closely around the ivory handle of his .45. And there came a glint of humor into his eyes.

"I ain't sayin' you would, Texas. But as sheriff of Socorro County I ain't takin' any chances. I wanted to talk to you, an' I knew if I had your gun I'd feel easier."

"Which means that you didn't want me to have a chance," complained Texas glumly. "Socorro's always been meaner'n ----"

"'T ain't Socorro's fault," interrupted the sheriff with a sudden coldness; "you've been cuttin' didoes in Socorro for so long a time that you've disgraced yourself. You've gambled an' shot yourself into disfavor with the _elite_. You've been as ornery an' as compromisin' as it's possible for any human maverick to get without havin' to requisition the unwillin' mourners."

"Not that I'm sayin' you're naturally bad, Texas. It's that you've got an overdose of what them modern brain specialists call exaggerated ego; which us common critters would call plain swell head. That there disease is listed an' catalogued in the text books of the New York Medical Inst.i.toot as bearin' a close relationship to the geni Loco; which is a scientific way of sayin' that you've got buzzers in your attic."

Texas smiled, showing his teeth in wan sarcasm.

"You wouldn't say that if I had my gun, Jim. It ain't like you to pour out your blackguardisms on a man what ain't armed."

"I ain't blackguardin' you none," said Webster easily. "It's the naked truth, an' you know it. Takin' your gun was part of my official duty.

Personally I could have talked to you without trampling down any of the niceties of etiquette, but officially I had to have your gun."

Rankin's face lengthened with a deep melancholy. With this expression he intended to convey the impression that he was suffering a martyrdom. But the sheriff's acquaintance with Texas was not recent.

"An' now that you've got the gun," said Texas, after an embarra.s.sed silence, "what's the next thing on the programme?"

"Takin' your gun," said the sheriff heavily, "was a preliminary; like they say in the sporting papers. The big event is that you're goin' to say your adoos to Socorro without bein' allowed to make any farewell announcement. The reason is that you an' Socorro is incongruous--like a side-saddle on a razor-back hog. Socorro won't stand for you a minute longer. You're a Public Favorite which has lost its popularity an' which has become heterogeneous to the established order of things. In other words, you're an outlaw; a soft-spoken, lazy, good-for-nothin'

road-agent. An' though Socorro ain't never had anything on you before, it knows you had a hand in robbin' the express office last night. An'

it's----"

"You're a d.a.m.n ----"

"----like playin' a king-full against three deuces that you done the trick. You was seen goin' toward the station about an hour before Budd Tucker found Ridgely, the agent, stretched out on the floor of the office, a bullet from a .45 clean through him. An' there's five thousand dollars in gold gone, an' no trace of it. An' there's been no strangers in town. An' here's your gun, showin' plain that it's been shot off lately, for there's the powder smudge on the cylinder an' the barrel.

That's a pay streak of circ.u.mstantial evidence or I ain't sheriff of Socorro!"

Rankin's eyes had flashed with an unusual brilliancy as the sheriff had spoken of him being seen going toward the station previous to the finding of the agent's body, but they glazed over with unconcern during the rest of the recital. And as the sheriff concluded, Rankin gazed scornfully at him, sneering mildly:

"I couldn't add nothin' to what you've just said." He idly kicked the gray dust that was mounded at his feet, standing loose and inert, as though he cared little what might be the outcome of this impromptu interview. And then, suddenly, his blue eyes twinkled humorously as he raised them to meet the sheriff's.

"Give you time you might tell me where I spent the money," he said drily. "There's no tellin' where your theorizin' might end."

The sheriff ignored this, but he eyed his prisoner meditatively.

"There's been a rumor," he said coldly, "that you've got cracked on my daughter, Mary Jane. But I ain't never been able to properly confirm it.

I meant to tell you some time ago that while I ain't had no objection to livin' in the same town with you, I'm some opposed to havin' you for a son-in-law. But now, since the express robbery, it won't be necessary for me to tell you not to nose around my house, for you're goin' to ride straight out of Socorro County, an' you ain't comin' back any more. If you do, I reckon you'll discover that Socorro's present leniency ain't elastic enough to be stretched to cover your home-comin'."

"I ain't sayin' nothin'," said Texas, glancing with pensive eyes to a point far up the sun-baked street where his gaze rested upon a pretentious house in a neatly-fenced yard where there were green things that gave a restful impression. "Circ.u.mstantial evidence is sure convincin'." he sighed deeply. "I reckon you knowed all along that I thought a heap of Mary Jane. That's the reason you picked me out for the express job."

He scowled as his eyes took in the meagre details of Socorro's one street. Because of long a.s.sociation these details had become mental fixtures. Socorro had been his home for ten years, and in ten years things grow into a man's heart. And civic pride had been his one great virtue. If in the summer the alkali dust of the street formed into miniature hills of grayish white which sifted into surrounding hollows under the whipping tread of the cow-pony's hoofs, Texas likened it unto ruffled waters that seek a level. The same condition in another town would have drawn a curse from him. If in the winter the huge windrows of caked mud stretched across the street in unlovely phalanx, Texas was reminded of itinerant mountain ranges. The stranger who would be so unwary as to take issue with him on this point would regret--if he lived. The unpainted shanties, the huddled, tottering dives, the tumble-down express station--all, even the maudlin masquerade of the High Card Saloon--were inst.i.tutions inseparable from his thoughts, inviolable and sacred in the measure of his love for them.

And now! Something caught in his throat and gave forth a choking sound.

"But I reckon it's just as well," he said resignedly. "I sure ain't of much account." He hesitated and smiled weakly at the sheriff. "I ain't croakin'," he said apologetically; "there's the circ.u.mstantial evidence." He hesitated again, evidently battling a ponderous question.

"You didn't happen to hear Mary Jane say anything about the express job?" he questioned with an expression of dog-like hopefulness.

"Anything that would lead you to believe she knowed about it?"

"I don't see what----"

"No, of course!" He shuffled his feet awkwardly. "An' so she don't know anything. Didn't mention me at all?" The hopefulness was gone from his eyes, and in its place was the dull glaze of puzzled wonder. "Not that it makes any difference," he added quickly, as he caught a sudden sharp glance from the sheriff's eyes.

"An' so I'm to leave Socorro." He looked dully at the sheriff. "Why, of course, there's the circ.u.mstantial evidence." His eyes swept the shanties, the street, the timber-dotted sides of the mountains that rose above the town--familiar landmarks of his long sojourn; landmarks that brought pleasant memories.

"I've lived here a long time," he said, with abrupt melancholy, his voice grating with suppressed regret. "I won't forget soon."

There ensued a silence which lasted long. It brought a suspicious lump into the sheriff's throat.

"I wouldn't take it so hard, Texas," he said gently. "Mebbe it'll be the best for you in the long run. If you get away from here mebbe you make a man----"

"Quit your d.a.m.n croakin'!" flashed back Texas. "I ain't askin' for none of your mushy sentiment!" He straightened up suddenly and smiled with set lips. "I guess I've been a fool. If you'll hand over that six-shooter I'll be goin'. I've got business in San Marcial."

"I'll walk up to the station platform an' lay the gun there," said the sheriff coldly; for Texas was less dangerous at a distance; "an' when you see me start away from the platform you can start for the gun. I'm takin' your word that you'll leave peaceable."