Jackson Gregory

“ Though but half the length of a room lay between them, as yet, neither man was hurt. For no longer were they in the rich light of the swinging coal-oil lamp; the room was gathered in pitch darkness; their guns spat long tongues of vivid flame. For, just as Kid Ricard was falling, while Jim Galloway's finger was crooked to the trigger, while Antone was whipping up his gun behind the bar, there had come a shot from the card-room door shattering the lamp. Neither Norton nor Galloway, Rickard nor Vidal Nuñez, nor Antone nor any of the other men in the room saw who had fired the shot. ”

“ Virginia Page found time passing swiftly in San Juan. Within two weeks she came almost to forget how she had heard a rattle of pistol-shots, how the slow sobbing of a bell in the Mission garden had bemoaned a life gone and a fresh crime upon a man's soul; at the end of a month it seemed to her that she had dreamed that ride through the night with Roderick Norton, climbing the cliffs, ministering to a stricken man in the forsaken abode of ancient cliff-dwellers. ”

“ Social lines are none too clearly drawn in towns like San Juan; often enough they have long ago failed to exist. A John Engle, though six days of the seven he sat behind his desk in a bank, was only a man, his daughter only the daughter of a mere man; a Jim Galloway, though he owned the Casa Blanca and upon occasion stood behind his own bar, might be a man and look with level eyes upon all other men, their wives, and their daughters. Here, with conditions what they always had been, there could stand but one barrier between Galloway and Florrie Engle, the barrier of character. ”

“ Out on the desert a man might stop and listen, forming his surmise as the sounds surged to meet him through the heat and silence. He might smile, if he knew San Juan, as he caught the jubilant message tapped swiftly out of the bronze bell which had come, men said, with Coronado; he might sigh at the lugubrious, slow-swelling voice of the big bell which had come hitherward long ago with the retinue of Marco de Niza, wondering what old friend or enemy, perchance, had at last closed his ears to all of Ignacio Chavez's music. ”

“ It swept into Norton's mind suddenly that thus, in utter and unexpected darkness, he had the upper hand. He could shoot, the law riding upon each flying pellet of lead, and be it Jim Galloway or Antone or Vidal, or any other of Galloway's crowd who fell, it would be a man who richly deserved what his fate was bringing him. They, on the other hand, being many against one, must be careful which way they shot. ”

“ Barren mountains that are blistering hot, sucked dry long ago of their last vestige of moisture; endless drifts of sand where the silent animal life is scanty, where fanged cactus and stubborn mesquite fight their eternal battles for life; mesas and lomas little known, shunned by humanity. True, men have been here, some few poking into the dust of ancient ruins, more seeking minerals, and now and then one, fleeing the law, to be followed relentlessly by such as Roderick Norton. ”

“ I am placing a confidence in you, the greatest confidence a man can place in a girl. Or in a woman, Florence. I am trusting that what I say will remain just between you and me for the present. . . . When I come back I will be no longer just Jim Galloway of the Casa Blanca, but Galloway of one of the biggest grants in Mexico, with mile after mile of fertile lands, with a small army of servants, vaqueros, and retainers, a sort of ruler of my own State! It sounds like a fairy-tale, Florence, but it is the sober truth made possible by conditions below the border. ”

“ As he passed Struve's hotel he lifted his hat; upon the veranda at the cooler, shaded end, Virginia was entertaining Florence Engle. Florrie nodded brightly to Galloway, turning quickly to Virginia as the big man went on.
"Do you actually believe, Virginia dear," she whispered, "that that man is as wicked as they say he is? Did you watch him going by? Did you see the way he took off his hat? Did you ever know a man to smile quite as he does?" ”

“ Even Florrie, though so much other life had been passed in San Juan, had never before visited the King's Palace. Clattering through the street while most folk were asleep, they took advantage of the cool of the dawn and rode swiftly. Elmer and Florrie racing on ahead laid aside their accustomed weapons and were, for the once, utterly flattering to each other. Each wishing to be admired, admired the other, and was paid back in the coveted coin. Norton and Virginia, at first a little inclined toward silence, soon grew as noisily merry as the others, drawing deep enjoyment from the moment. ”

“ San Juan, in the languid philosophy of Ignacio Chavez, was what you will. It epitomized the universe. You had everything here which the soul of man might covet. Never having dwelt elsewhere since his mother bore him here upon the rim of the desert and with the San Juan mountains so near that, Ignacio Chavez pridefully knew, a man standing upon the Mesa Alta might hear the ringing of his bells, he experienced a pitying contempt for all those other spots in the world which were so plainly less favored. ”

“ So prolific and involved were his medical phrases that men like John Engle and Struve began to ask themselves if Patten understood his case. When, after twelve hours, the wounded man awoke to a troubled consciousness Patten's relief was scarcely less visible than that of Norton's friends. Patten felt his prestige taking unto itself new wings and immediately grew more wisely verbose than ever. It was a rare privilege to have the most talked of and generally liked man of the community under his hands; it was wine to Patten's soul to have that man show signs of recovering under his skill. ”

“ From within came a man's voice, the Kid's, in his ugly snarl of a laugh, evil and reckless and defiant, that and the clink of a bottle-neck against a glass. Norton, his body pressed against the wall, stood still, waiting for other voices, for Galloway's, for Vidal Nuñez's. But after Kid Rickard's jarring mirth it was strangely still in the Casa Blanca; no noise of clicking chips bespeaking a poker game, no loud-voiced babble, no sound of a man walking across the bare floor. ”

“ A wild shout of cheering broke from the arroyo; rifle-barrels grew hot in hot hands. On through the bright moonlight came the sheriff's posse, some of them firing as they rode, others saving their lead. To be seen from afar now, they drew many a shot toward themselves. And yet the target of a man riding swiftly over uneven ground and in the moonlight is not to be found overreadily by questing lead. When Norton called to his men to stop and dismount, taking advantage of a row of scattered boulders, not a saddle was empty. ”

“ Nowhere are there eyes like the eyes of old Mexico. Deep and soft and soulful, though the man himself may have a soul like a bit of charred leather; velvety and tender, though they may belong to an out-and-out cutthroat; expressive, eloquent even, though they are the eyes of a peon with no mind to speak of; night-black, and like the night filled with mystery. Ignacio Chavez lifted such eyes to the eyes of the girl who had been watching him and spontaneously gave her the last iota of his ready admiration. ”

“ So close to the edge of the rock ledge did the walls of the ruin stand that there was barely room to edge along it to come to the narrow doorway. Holding hands, Norton in the lead, Elmer in the rear, they made their breathless way. And then they were in the hushed, shaded anteroom.
The dust of untroubled ages lay upon the surprisingly smooth floor. Walls of cemented rock rose intact on two sides, broken here and there on a third, while the cliff itself made the fourth at the rear. ”

“ The man who had done the shooting was sullen and self-contained. The dead man . . . it was the sheepman from Las Palmas . . . lay in an adjoining card-room, stark under the blanket which the large hands of Jim Galloway had drawn over him.
When the clatter of hoofs rang out in the street a couple of men went to the door. Coming back, "It is the sheriff," they said.
Roderick Norton, entering swiftly, his spurs dragging and jangling, swept the faces in the room with eyes which had in them none of that human glint of good-will which the girl at the arroyo had glimpsed in them. ”

“ I am going home."
"No," said Galloway steadily. "You are not going home, Florence. You must listen to me. I love you more than anything else In the world, my dear. I want you, want you all for mine."
She saw a sudden light flare up in his eyes and it seemed to her that her heart would beat through the walls of her breast. "I am not a boy, but a man. A strong man, a man who, when he wants a thing, wants it with his whole heart and body and soul, a man who takes what he wants. ”

“ In Norton's eyes was blazing hatred, in Galloway's mere steady, unwinking boldness.
"You saw the killing?" the sheriff asked curtly.
"Yes," said Galloway.
"The Kid there did it?"
For the first time the man slouching forward in the chair lifted his head. Had a stranger looked in at that moment, curious to see him who had just committed homicide . . . or murder . . . he must have experienced a positive shock. Sullen-eyed, sullen-lipped, the man-killer could not yet have seen the last of his teens. ”

“ At last he knew where Vidal Nuñez was and it was his business to make an arrest and not to wait upon further chance. The man who is not ready to go into a crowd to get his law-breaker is not the man to stand for sheriff in the southwest country.
"Coming, Galloway!" Norton's ringing shout came back in answer. Suddenly the steady pulse of his blood had been stirred, the hot hope stood high in his heart again that he and Jim Galloway were going to look into each other's eyes with guns talking and an end of a long devious trail in sight. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII THE STRONG HAND OF GALLOWAY
"Oh, you will all dance and shout together very soon," said Ignacio wisely to his six bells in the old Mission garden. "You will see! Captain and the Dancer and Lolita, the Little One, La Golondrina, and Ignacio Chavez, all of you together until far out across the desert men hear. For it is in the air that things will happen. And then, when it is all done . . . Why then, amigos, who but me is going to build a little roof over you that runs down both ways, to save you from the hot sun and the rains? ”

“ Perhaps there was; there is in most men. And Florrie Engle was beginning to wonder the same thing. For Rod Norton, recovered and about his duties, was not quite the same touchingly heroic figure he had been while lying unconscious and in danger of his life. Nor was it any part of Florrie Engle's nature to remain long either upon the heights or in the depths of an emotion. The night of the shooting she had cried out passionately against Galloway; as days went their placid way and she saw Galloway upon each one of them . ”

“ Look, Virgie; there is the most terrible creature in the world. It is Kid Rickard; he killed the Las Palmas man, you know. I am not going even to look at him; I hate him worse that Caleb Patten . . . and that's like saying I hate strychnine worse than arsenic, isn't it? But who in the name of all that is wonderful is the man with him? Isn't he the handsome thing? I never saw him before. He is from the outside, Virgie; you can tell by the fashionable cut of his clothes and by the way he walks and . . . Isn't he distinguished!"
"It is Elmer!" ”

“ Action was stripped down to essentials, bared to its component elements. True vision must necessarily result, since no side issues cluttered the view.
She sat upon a saddle-blanket upon the rock floor of the main chamber of the series of ancient dwelling-rooms, staring at the fire which Norton had builded against a wall where it might not be seen from without. The horses were in the meadow down by the stream; she and Norton had tethered them among the trees where they were fairly free from the chance of being seen. Norton was coming up, mounting the deep-worn steps in the cliff side. ”

“ Florrie ran on. "Oh, I know what papa thinks and what Rod thinks about him; but I just don't believe it! How could a man be the sort they say he is and still be as pleasant and agreeable and downright good-looking as Mr. Galloway? Why," and she achieved a quick little shudder, "if I had done all the terrible deeds they accuse him of I'd go around looking as black as a cloud all the time, savage and glum and remembering every minute how wicked I was."
Virginia laughed, failing to picture Florrie grown murderous. But Florrie merely pursed her lips as her eyes followed Galloway down the street. ”

“ As other days came and slipped by and the weeks grew out of them, Galloway's was a pleasant, untroubled face to be seen on the street, at the post-office, behind his own bar, on the country roads. He ignored any animosity which San Juan might feel for him. If a man looked at him stonily, Galloway did not care to let it be seen that he saw; if a woman turned out to avoid him, no evidence that he understood darkened his eyes. He had a good-humored word to speak always; he lifted his hat to the banker's wife, as he had always done ”

“ She did not blame him for the crimes which she knew he had committed because she was so confident that the chief crime of all had been the act resulting from Caleb Patten's abysmal ignorance. Nor now could she blame Norton that, embarked upon this flood of his life, he saw himself forced to make her his prisoner for a few hours. It was a man's birthright to protect himself, to guard his freedom. ”

“ Then he shrugged, went to the table for a cigar and returned smiling to inform Virginia of life on the desert and in the valleys beyond the mountains, of scattering attempts at reclamation and irrigation, of how one made towns of sun-dried mud, of where the adobe soil itself was found, drifted over with sand in the shade of the cottonwoods. ”