Alfred Henry Lewis

“ Count Banti himself never thought of so hideous a possibility; his jealous petulance arose solely from her calm neglect of himself. Ruth Pemberton asked Mr. Masterson how old he was, and it pleased her to hear that he was several months her superior.
Civilisation is a disguise, and in travel one loses one’s mask. One’s nature comes out and basks openly in new suns. This is so true that the West, when a compliment is intended, says of a man: “He’ll do to cross the plains with.” What the West means is that on such an expedition, what is treacherous or selfish or cowardly in a man will appear. ”

“ The taunt about being in Dodge when he ought to be over on the Cimarron, harvesting a vengeance, had stirred him deeply. To have it intimated that his courage was slow, and his friendship cool, wore sorely on the soul of Mr. Masterson. It was the harder to bear when flung from the tongue of a woman; for his hands were tied, and his mouth was closed against resentment. “One thing,” thought Mr. Masterson, by way of self-consolation, “the man never made a moccasin track in Dodge who could have said as much and got away. Aunt Nettie’s right though; I ought to be evening up for Billy right now.” ”

“ Not to run the trail too far, Mr. Hickok was ruminating the loss of his final dollar, which had fled across a faro layout in the Marble Hall. As he strolled dejectedly in Battle Row, he couldn’t have told where his next week’s board was coming from, not counting his next week’s drinks. It was the dismal present, promising a dismal future, which exhaled those mists to take the curl from Mr. Hickok’s moustache and teach his hair to hide beneath his hat. Short-haired men may be penniless and still command respect; a long-haired man without a dollar is a creature laughed at. ”

“ Masterson waited deep beneath the cottonwoods, a splash from the river’s brink would now and again show where the bank was caving, or the crackling of branches, and the profound flapping of great wings overhead, mark how some wild turkey—a heavy old gobbler, probably—had broken down a bough with sheer stress of fat, and was saving himself from a fall. Far away could be heard the faltering cry of a coyote, bewailing a jackrabbit which he had not caught. ”

“ If time hung heavy Mr. Wright or Mr. Masterson would cinch a small saddle-tree onto Inez. Thereat, our peevish one arched her small spine, dropped her velvet muzzle between her fetlocks—as slender as a woman’s wrists—and sunfished about the scene. Inez did not have to be trained to this trick; it was in her blood and she “bucked” by instinct.
The ’Dobe Walls consisted of Mr. Wright’s store, Mr. Kimball’s blacksmith shop, and Mr. Hanrahan’s saloon. This latter mart, of course. The West without a barroom would be London without a club. ”

“ They would paw the grass and toss a threatening horn; at times one would throw up his nose and sniff the air. The wind being from the buffaloes to Mr. Masterson, these nose experiments went without reward.
Yielding to the restless timidity of the perturbed ones, who if set running would infallibly stampede the herd, Mr. Masterson threw himself on his face and began to creep. His brown right hand gripped the stock of his rifle, and he dragged it over the grass, muzzle to the rear. Also, he was careful to keep his face hidden from the buffaloes behind the wide brim of his sombrero. ”

“ On the guileless other hand, he holds that the long-haired man is a warrior bold, flaunting defiance with every toss of his mane. That long-haired one may rob and cheat and swindle and cuff and kick your savage; the latter will neither murmur nor lift hand against him. For is not he who robs and cheats and swindles and cuffs and kicks a chief? And is not his flowing hair a franchise so to do? There lurks a dividend in hair for any who traffics with your savage. Wherefore, in an hour of aboriginal commerce Mr. Hickok encouraged a hirsute luxuriance in the name of trade. ”

“ Masterson had located the band of ponies, which made up the riches of Bear Shield, late in the dull gray afternoon, while he lay hidden in a dry arroyo. As it grew darker, he had crept nearer, keeping ever the location of the ponies which, in a rambling, ragged herd, were grazing up the wind. Mr. Masterson, on the south bank of the Cimarron, was heedfully to leeward of the herd; a proper piece of caution, for an Indian pony, at the earliest paleface taint to alarm the breeze, will scream like a wronged panther. ”

“ Masterson, “it’ll take the soreness out. You needn’t shout about it,” he concluded, as the sorely battered horse gave a squeal of pain; “a hailstone isn’t a bullet, and it might have been worse, you know.”
Again Mr. Masterson stretched southward, and again the moon and stars came out to light the way. The storm had drawn forth the acrid earth-smells that sleep in the grass-roots on the plains. To mix with these, it brought a breath from the pine-sown Rockies four hundred miles away. These are the odours which soak into a man and make him forever of the West. ”

“ Masterson to Mobeetie; the more since he was not, speaking strictly, a resident of that hamlet, having his roofless habitat on the buffalo range, with a home-camp at the ’Dobe Walls.
All folk, whether they be white or black or red or wheat-hued, are idolators in their hearts, and those of Mobeetie worshipped Mollie Brennan. The women worshipped her because her little feet took hold on innocence, the men for the beauty of her face—for brown of cheek, and red of lip, and with eyes as softly, gently deep as are those of an antelope, Mollie Brennan was beautiful. ”

“ It is good to shut one’s eyes and ruminate upon a past. The old days are ever golden, and for those of Dodge this should be their portrait. What might the heart of the stranger desire that they do not offer him? If he be a-weary, there is the Wright House whereat he may repose himself. Does he crave relaxation, there is Mr. Peacock’s Dance Hall, called sometimes the Bird Cage, where to the lively observations of the fiddle he shall loosen the boards of the floor until refreshed. ”

“ Dodge was a volcano; an eruption might occur at any time! The air to-day was wholesome; to-morrow it might be as full of lead as the Ozarks! In this fashion vibrated the hair-hung fears of the Ground Owl, and with a cheek of chalk he sought out Mr. Masterson to canvass ways and means to best conserve his safety. Mr. Masterson, who could hardly grasp the notion of personal cowardice on the part of any man, was shocked. However, he made no comment, evinced not the least surprise, but asked:
“You’re afraid some of the boys’ll shoot you up?” ”

“ He would be placed in the deadly foreground with such worthies as Doc Holiday, Shotgun Collins, Curly Bill and Soapy Smith. Poets would make verses about him as they had about the sainted Samuel Bass, dance-hall maidens would sing his glory in quavering quatrains. Thus dreamed the Tomcat on the banks of the Canadian as he lay by a Turkey Track campfire, while his comrades declaimed of Mr. Masterson and the sorrowful taking off of Messrs. Wagner and Walker, aforesaid. It was the Tomcat’s vision of fame; rude, bloody, criminal, but natural for the man and the day and the land it grew among. ”

“ Cimarron Bill, a six-shooter in each faithful hand, was in the midst of the hubbub, blazing like a piece of fireworks, whooping like a Comanche.
The night breeze carried the stirring story of riot and uproar to the waiting multitude in the Dance Hall. Those waiting ones looked first their amazement, then their delight. As by one impulse they tore through the door and made, hotfoot, for the Long Branch. By conservative estimates, founded upon the whole number of shots, there should be at least five dead and fifteen wounded. ”

“ Mr. Masterson slipped another cartridge into the buffalo gun. Then he warily approached the Tomcat, muzzle to the fore, finger on the trigger. A dying man will sometimes pull a six-shooter with the last flicker of his failing strength, and snatch a vengeance as he quits the earth.
Mr. Masterson seized the Tomcat by the shoulders and dragged him from under Shylock—still heaving and plunging to regain his feet. There was no call for a second look; the experienced Mr. Masterson could tell by the ash-colour struggling through the brown that the death-draw was on the Tomcat at the very moment. ”

“ Masterson, if he nursed opinions on the point at all, held by a theory that love ought to be confined to the East as a region endowed of what leisure was demanded by its pursuit. When the Wild Rose swept him softly, and then let fall those lids in fear lest the modest hazel depths give up their blissful secret, his mind was on Cheyennes, and how far his raid on Bear Shield’s ponies one Christmas Eve might have been a source of the recent uprising of that peevish people. ”

“ Mr. Kelly had come more nearly home with injuries personal to the limping Tomcat himself. All men prefer a private to a public interest. It was but nature moving when the wronged Tomcat, forgetting Mr. Masterson, for whose hair he had come so far, now gave himself heart and soul to how he might best spill the life of Mr. Kelly.
After mature study, when now he was again abroad, the Tomcat could devise nothing better than to pull up his pony in front of the Alhambra at the hour of eight in the evening and attempt, from the saddle, to pot Mr. Kelly with the Ballard. ”

“ If mere trade be the stranger’s purpose, where is that emporium superior to Mr. Wright’s? Should the appetite of speculation seize him, is there not the Alamo, the Alhambra and the Long Branch? From those latter clapboard palaces of chance, where Fortune holds unflagging court, comes the inviting soft flutter of chips, punctuated by such terse announcements from roulette wheel and faro table as “All’s set an’ th’ ball’s rollin’!” ”

“ It would be a vacation—he hadn’t had one since the Black Kettle campaign—and doubtless serve to wear away the edge of those regrets which preyed upon him when now he no longer conserved the peace of Dodge with a Colt’s-45. There comes a joy with office holding, even when the office is one attractive of invidious lead, and in the newness of laying down that post of Sheriff, Mr. Masterson should not be criticised because the ghost of an ache shot now and then across his soul. ”

“ Masterson’s face, each the work of a Panhandle summer. A moment was all he required to solve the mystery of that move beneath the cottonwoods.
“Indians!” shouted Mr. Masterson.
Then Mr. Masterson closed and barred the door. The door closed, he blazed away from a window with a six-shooter by way of general notice.
Every man jack of the twenty-one in store and bar-room was on his feet like magic. In that Western day, rather from habit than apprehension, one would as soon think of going to bed without his blankets as without his guns. Once aroused, the ’Dobe Walls was instantly an armed fort. ”

“ Mr. Holiday was vastly repaired by a long night’s sleep. The morning found Mr. Holiday and Wyatt Earp in the saddle, their belts heavy with cartridges, war-bags bulging with provant. They rode out of Tucson, and their desperate campaign of revenge commenced. They invaded the San Simon and blotted out the Mexican Florentine. This was slight work, like the killing of a jack-rabbit. There should be braver game in the San Simon. ”

“ Thus was it with the ebullient folk of Dodge on the dry occasion of Prohibition. The paper adverted to gained many signatures, and promised a fortune to those mourning ones it so feelingly described.
When Mr. Masterson laid down his regalia as Sheriff and the public realised that he had pulled his six-shooters, officially, for the last time, a sense of loss filled the bosoms of those who liked a peaceful life. There was another brood which felt the better pleased. Certain dissolute ones, who arrive at ruddiest blossom in a half-baked Western camp, made no secret of their satisfaction. ”

“ In those old golden days Dodge is a democracy. Caste does not occur; no hill, no hollow of human inequality ruffles the bland surface of the body politic. There is but one aristocracy and that is the aristocracy of courage, but one title of nobility and that the name of “a square man.”
And Dodge can exercise forbearance. Your cowboy, uplifted of Old Jordan, may ride his pony through the streets and spur it to the pace of meteors. ”

“ Then, despair standing in the stead of courage, he tossed the Ballard into his left hand and fired, point-blank, at Mr. Masterson’s face where it showed above the bank. The bullet tossed the dust a yard to the left. Mixed bloods and Indians at their best are but poor hands with a rifle, and the Tomcat was at his worst.
With the crack of the Ballard came the bellow of the Sharp’s. The great bullet, which would have torn its way through the vitals of a buffalo-bull at eight hundred yards, brought the Tomcat whirling from the saddle like a stricken wild duck. ”