The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (143 page)

Jake removed his big hat and nervously mopped his brow.

The young cowboy with the shrill voice again spoke from the skirts of the crowd. “Jake, is ther’ sure ‘nough a bird in that thing?”

“Yes. Didn’t I tell you once?”

“Then,” said the shrill-voiced man, in a tone of conviction, “it ain’t a clock at all. It’s a bird cage.”

“I tell you it’s a clock,” cried the maddened Jake, but his retort could hardly be heard above the howls of glee and derision which greeted the words of him of the shrill voice.

Old Man Crumford was again rampant. “Wooden bird a-tellin’ ye th’ time! Haw-haw!”

Amid the confusion Jake went again to Placer. He spoke almost in supplication. “Say, mister, what time does this here thing go off ag’in?”

Placer lifted his head, looked at the clock, and said, “Noon.”

There was a stir near the door, and Big Watson of the Square-X outfit, at this time very drunk indeed, came shouldering his way through the crowd and cursing everybody. The men gave him much room, for he was notorious as a quarrelsome person when drunk. He paused in front of Jake, and spoke as through a wet blanket. “What’s all this Goddamn monkeyin’ about?”

Jake was already wild at being made a butt for everybody, and he did not give backward. “None a’ your damn business, Watson.”

“Huh?” growled Watson, with the surprise of a challenged bull.

“I said,” repeated Jake, distinctly, “it’s none a’ your damn business.”

Watson whipped his revolver half out of its holster. “I’ll make it m’ business, then, you — —”

But Jake had backed a step away, and was holding his left hand palm outward toward Watson, while in his right he held his six-shooter, its muzzle pointing at the floor. He was shouting in a frenzy, “No — don’t you try it, Watson! Don’t you dare try it, or, by Gawd, I’ll kill you, sure —
sure!
”

He was aware of a torment of cries about him from fearful men; from men who protested, from men who cried out because they cried out. But he kept his eyes on Watson, and those two glared murder at each other, neither seeming to breathe, fixed like two statues.

A loud new voice suddenly rang out: “Hol’ on a minute!” All spectators who had not stampeded turned quickly, and saw Placer standing behind his bright pink counter, with an aimed revolver in each hand.

“Cheese it!” he said. “I won’t have no fightin’ here. If you want to fight, git out in the street.”

Big Watson laughed, and speeding up his six-shooter like a flash of blue light, he shot Placer through the throat — shot the man as he stood behind his absurd pink counter with his two aimed revolvers in his incompetent hands. With a yell of rage and despair, Jake smote Watson on the pate with his heavy weapon, and knocked him sprawling and bloody. Somewhere a woman shrieked like windy, midnight death. Placer fell behind the counter, and down upon him came his ledger and his inkstand, so that one could not have told blood from ink.

The cowboys did not seem to hear, see, nor feel, until they saw numbers of citizens with Winchesters running wildly upon them. Old Man Crumford threw high a passionate hand. “Don’t shoot! We’ll not fight ye fer ‘im.”

Nevertheless two or three shots rang, and a cowboy who had been about to gallop off suddenly slumped over on his pony’s neck, where he held for a moment like an old sack, and then slid to the ground, while his pony, with flapping rein, fled to the prairie.

“In God’s name, don’t shoot!” trumpeted Old Man Crumford. “We’ll not fight ye fer ‘im!”

“It’s murder,” bawled Ben Roddle.

In the chaotic street it seemed for a moment as if everybody would kill everybody. “Where’s the man what done it?” These hot cries seemed to declare a war which would result in an absolute annihilation of one side. But the cowboys were singing out against it. They would fight for nothing — yes — they often fought for nothing — but they would not fight for this dark something.

At last, when a flimsy truce had been made between the inflamed men, all parties went to the hotel. Placer, in some dying whim, had made his way out from behind the pink counter, and, leaving a horrible trail, had traveled to the center of the room, where he had pitched headlong over the body of Big Watson.

The men lifted the corpse and laid it at the side.

“Who done it?” asked a white, stern man.

A cowboy pointed at Big Watson. “That’s him,” he said huskily.

There was a curious grim silence, and then suddenly, in the death chamber, there sounded the loud whirring of the clock’s works, little doors flew open, a tiny wooden bird appeared and cried “Cuckoo” — twelve times.

I

The town of Warpost had an evil name for three hundred miles in every direction. It radiated like the shine from some stupendous light. The citizens of the place had been for years grotesquely proud of their fame as a collection of hard-shooting gentlemen who invariably “got” the men who came up against them. When a citizen went abroad in the land, he said, “I’m f’m Warpost.” And it was as if he had said, “I am the devil himself.”

But ultimately it became known to Warpost that the serene-browed angel of peace was in the vicinity. The angel was full of projects for taking comparatively useless bits of prairie, and sawing them up into town lots, and making chaste and beautiful maps of his handiwork, which shook the souls of people who had never been in the West. He commonly traveled here and there in a light wagon, from the tailboard of which he made orations which soared into the empyrean regions of true hydrogen gas. Towns far and near listened to his voice, and followed him singing, until in all that territory you could not throw a stone at a jackrabbit without hitting the site of a projected mammoth hotel, estimated cost fifteen thousand dollars. The stern and lonely buttes were given titles like grim veterans awarded tawdry patents of nobility: Cedar Mountain, Red Cliffs, Lookout Peak. And from the East came both the sane and the insane with hope, with courage, with hoarded savings, with cold decks, with Bibles, with knives in boots, with humility and fear, with bland impudence. Most came with their own money; some came with money gained during a moment of inattention on the part of somebody in the East. And high in the air was the serene-browed angel of peace, with his endless gabble and his pretty maps. It was curious to walk out of an evening to the edge of a vast silent sea of prairie, and to reflect that the angel had parceled this infinity into building lots.

But no change had come to Warpost. Warpost sat with her reputation for bloodshed pressed proudly to her bosom, and saw her mean neighbors leap into being as cities. She saw drunken old reprobates selling acres of red-hot dust, and becoming wealthy men of affairs who congratulated themselves on their shrewdness in holding land which, before the boom, they would have sold for enough to buy a treat all round in the Straight Flush Saloon — only nobody would have given it.

Warpost saw dollars rolling into the coffers of a lot of contemptible men who couldn’t shoot straight. She was amazed and indignant. She saw her standard of excellence, her creed, her reason for being great, all tumbling about her ears, and after the preliminary gasps she sat down to think it out.

The first man to voice a conclusion was Bob Hether, the popular barkeeper in Stevenson’s Crystal Palace.

“It’s this here gunfighter business,” he said, leaning on his bar and, with the gentle, serious eyes of a child, surveying a group of prominent citizens who had come in to drink at the expense of Tom Larpent, a gambler. They solemnly nodded assent. They stood in silence, holding their glasses and thinking.

Larpent was chief factor in the life of the town. His gambling house was the biggest institution in Warpost. Moreover, he had been educated somewhere, and his slow speech had a certain mordant quality which was apt to puzzle Warpost, and men heeded him for the reason that they were not always certain as to what he was saying.

“Yes, Bob,” he drawled, “I think you are right. The value of human life has to be established before there can be theaters, waterworks, streetcars, women, and babies.”

The other men were rather aghast at this cryptic speech, but somebody managed to snigger appreciatively, and the tension was eased.

Smith Hanham, who whirled roulette for Larpent, then gave his opinion.

“Well, when all this here coin is floatin’ ‘round, it ‘Pears to me we orter git our hooks on some of it. Them little tin horns over at Crowdger’s Corner are up to their necks in it, an’ we ain’t yit seen a centavo — not a centavetto. That ain’t right. It’s all well enough to sit ‘round takin’ money away from innercent cowpunchers s’long’s ther’s nothin’ better; but when these here speculators come ‘long flashin’ rolls as big as waterbuckets, it’s up to us to whirl in an’ git some of it.”

This became the view of the town, and, since the main stipulation was virtue, Warpost resolved to be virtuous. A great meeting was held, at which it was decreed that no man should kill another man, under penalty of being at once hanged by the populace. All the influential citizens were present, and asserted their determination to deal out a swift punishment which would take no note of an acquaintance or friendship with the guilty man. Bob Hether made a loud, long speech, in which he declared that he, for one, would help hang his “own brother,” if his “own brother” transgressed this law which now, for the good of the community, must be for ever held sacred. Everybody was enthusiastic, save a few Mexicans, who did not quite understand; but as they were more than likely to be the victims of any affray in which they engaged, their silence was not considered ominous.

At half-past ten on the next morning Larpent shot and killed a man who had accused him of cheating at a game. Larpent had then taken a chair by the window.

II

Larpent grew tired of sitting in the chair by the window. He went to his bedroom, which opened off the gambling hall. On the table was a bottle of rye whiskey, of a brand which he specially and secretly imported from the East. He took a long drink; he changed his coat, after laving his hands and brushing his hair. He sat down to read, his hand falling familiarly upon an old copy of Scott’s
Fair Maid of Perth.

In time, he heard the slow trample of many men coming up the stairs. The sound certainly did not indicate haste; in fact, it declared all kinds of hesitation. The crowd poured into the gambling hall; there was low talk; a silence; more low talk. Ultimately somebody rapped diffidently on the door of the bedroom.

“Come in,” said Larpent. The door swung back and disclosed Warpost, with a delegation of its best men in the front, and at the rear men who stood on their toes and craned their necks. There was no noise. Larpent looked up casually into the eyes of Bob Hether. “So you’ve come up to the scratch all right, eh, Bobbie?” he asked kindly. “I was wondering if you would weaken on the bloodcurdling speech you made yesterday.”

Hether first turned deadly pale, and then flushed beet-red. His six-shooter was in his hand, and it appeared for a moment as if his weak fingers would drop it to the floor.

“Oh, never mind,” said Larpent in the same tone of kindly patronage. “The community must and shall hold this law for ever sacred, and your own brother lives in Connecticut, doesn’t he?” He laid down his book and arose. He unbuckled his revolver belt and tossed it on the bed. A look of impatience had come suddenly upon his face. “Well, you don’t want me to be master of ceremonies at my own hanging, do you? Why don’t somebody say something or do something? You stand around like a lot of bottles. Where’s your tree, for instance? You know there isn’t a tree between here and the river. Damned little jack-rabbit town hasn’t even got a tree for its hanging. Hello, Coats, you live in Crowdger’s Corner, don’t you? Well, you keep out of this thing, then. The Corner has had its boom, and this is a speculation in real estate which is the business solely of the citizens of Warpost.”

The behavior of the crowd became extraordinary. Men began to back away; eye did not meet eye; they were victims of an inexplicable influence; it was as if they had heard sinister laughter from a gloom.

“I know,” said Larpent considerately, “that this isn’t as if you were going to hang a comparative stranger. In a sense, this is an intimate affair. I know full well you could go out and jerk a comparative stranger into kingdom-come and make a sort of festal occasion of it. But when it comes to performing the same office for an old friend, even the ferocious Bobbie Hether stands around on one leg like a damned white-livered coward. In short, my milk-fed patriots, you seem fat-headed enough to believe that I am going to hang myself if you wait long enough; but unfortunately I am going to allow you to conduct your own real estate speculations. It seems to me there should be enough men here who understand the value of corner lots in a safe and godly town, and hence should be anxious to hurry this business.”

The icy tones had ceased, and the crowd breathed a great sigh, as if it had been freed of a physical pain. But still no one seemed to know where to reach for the scruff of this weird situation. Finally there was some jostling on the outskirts of the crowd, and some men were seen to be pushing old Billie Simpson forward amid some protests. Simpson was on state occasions the voice of the town. Somewhere in his past he had been a Baptist preacher. He had fallen far, very far, and the only remnant of his former dignity was a fatal facility of speech when half drunk. Warpost used him on those state occasions when it became bitten with a desire to “do the thing up in style.” So the citizens pushed the blear-eyed old ruffian forward until he stood hemming and hawing in front of Larpent. It was evident at once that he was brutally sober, and hence wholly unfitted for whatever task had been planned for him. A dozen times he croaked like a frog, meanwhile wiping the back of his hand rapidly across his mouth. At last he managed to stammer:

“Mister Larpent—”

In some indescribable manner, Larpent made his attitude of respectful attention to be grossly contemptuous and insulting.

“Yes, Mister Simpson?”

“Er — now — Mister Larpent,” began the old man hoarsely, “we wanted to know — —” Then, obviously feeling that there was a detail which he had forgotten, he turned to the crowd and whispered, “Where is it?” Many men precipitately cleared themselves out of the way, and down this lane Larpent had an unobstructed view of the body of the man he had slain. Old Simpson again began to croak like a frog.

“Mister Larpent.”

“Yes, Mister Simpson.”

“Do you — er — do you — admit — —”

“Oh, certainly,” said the gambler, good-humoredly. “There can be no doubt of it, Mister Simpson, although, with your well-known ability to fog things, you may later possibly prove that you did it yourself. I shot him because he was too officious. Not quite enough men are shot on that account, Mister Simpson. As one fitted by nature to be consummately officious, I hope you will agree with me, Mister Simpson.”

Men were plucking old Simpson by the sleeve, and giving him directions. One could hear him say, “What? Yes. All right. What? All right.” In the end he turned hurriedly upon Larpent and blurted out:

“Well, I guess we’re goin’ to hang you.”

Larpent bowed. “I had a suspicion that you would,” he said, in a pleasant voice. “There has been an air of determination about the entire proceeding, Mister Simpson.”

There was an awkward moment.

“Well — well — well, come ahead — —”

Larpent courteously relieved a general embarrassment. “Why, of course. We must be moving. Clergy first, Mister Simpson. I’ll take my old friend, Bobbie Hether, on my right hand, and we’ll march soberly to the business, thus lending a certain dignity to this outing of real estate speculators.”

“Tom,” quavered Bob Hether, “for Gawd sake, keep your mouth shut.”

“He invokes the deity,” remarked Larpent, placidly. “But no; my last few minutes I am resolved to devote to inquiries as to the welfare of my friends. Now, you, for instance, my dear Bobbie, present today the lamentable appearance of a rattlesnake that has been four times killed and then left in the sun to rot. It is the effect of friendship upon a highly delicate system. You suffer? It is cruel. Never mind; you will feel better presently.”