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Title: Stubborn people
Author: Ernest Haycox
Release date: September 27, 2025 [eBook #76938]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Street & Smith Corporation, 1924
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUBBORN PEOPLE ***
Stubborn People
By Ernest Haycox
Author of “A Burnt Creek Yuletide,” etc.
Old man Bud sat on the porch of his Burnt Creek store, watching the
shimmering heat waves that rose out of the jack-pine forest and trailed
across the small sand-floored clearing. A lazy drone pervaded the air,
broken by the snapping of myriad insects and the impalpable, shutterlike
beat of the blazing atmosphere.
He had a habit of reflecting on life. Every act in a man’s life, he
reflected now, was affected by every other act. There was no beginning
and no end. Just an everlasting onward march. Take Jim Hunter for
example.
Bud’s impassive face lightened. “Think of the devil an’ he’s sure to pop
up.” From the north leg of the Bend Klamath Highway rode Jim Hunter, a
tall and supple fellow who, even in the saddle, seemed unable to bend
his shoulders.
“Stubborn as a mule,” reflected Bud in admiration. He waited until
Hunter had reached the porch and led the horse into an ineffectual
patch of shade before vouchsafing welcome. “You’d save a lot of
energy, young fella, if you’d just slouch in the saddle when you’re
ridin’. That’s advice from a broken-down cow-puncher. This ain’t no
parade.”
Hunter stepped up on the porch. The effect of his stature was heightened
by the way he carried himself and the seasoned leanness of his body. The
struggle on homestead land had definitely left its impression. With some
men the abrasion of weather and work affects only a general hardening of
features. In Jim Hunter it brought out the original tenacity of his
nature and left decisive lines on the berry-colored face. A flash of
humor widened his eyes.
“There’s no use trying to save me trouble, Bud. Takes fire to burn a
fool. I need some coffee and beans.”
“Huh.” The storekeeper hoisted himself from the chair and ambled into
the dark building. “There’s a letter. Mebbe you’ll want it afore the
beans.”
Hunter took it with unrestrained eagerness. The gravity dropped from
him like a mantle. It seemed he could not tear away the envelope quick
enough. Bud, sharply watching, saw the young man’s eyes race down the
written page with actual avidity. But, as quickly did the face turn
expressionless again and presently he crumpled the page in his fist,
scowling--so bitter and unforgiving a scowl that the storekeeper
clucked his tongue and dumped the provisions on the counter softly.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“No! There wasn’t anything else,” muttered Hunter. “There never is.” He
stared out of the door upon the sun-scorched clearing. His mind was far
from Burnt Creek.
“I mean in the line o’ grub,” added Bud dryly.
That brought the young man back. “You old goat, quit reading my mind.”
“I been called a lot of things in my time, but I pause at the term
goat,” grumbled the storekeeper. “I figger some day I’m agoin’ to
quit tendin’ store fer a bunch of sassy homesteaders. Take your grub
and git.”
Hunter stalked to the porch, dumped the grub in his saddlebags, and
climbed to the saddle.
“If a man was in his right mind, he’d never come to this God-forsaken
land.”
“Road’s plumb open. You ain’t tied to that land. If you don’t admire it,
why’n’t you just sashay out?”
“Same reason you’ve stuck to this dump for fifteen years,” retorted
Hunter.
The two traded sober glances. Bud nodded. “Guess you’re right, son.
We’re sort of spellbound. Gets in the blood, I reckon.”
Hunter turned his horse to the road. In a moment he had disappeared
through the jack pines. Bud settled in his chair after securing a fresh
cigar and reverted to his original lines of thought. Jim Hunter now had
been a homesteader three years and wore the same hard-bitten look that
they all carried. It was partly the result of fighting the land. But
that wasn’t wholly so. Jim had come from Portland with the same tight
lips and the same stubborn carriage of body. Three years had done a
great deal in seasoning and tempering the body and wearing away all
softness. The essentials remained untouched. Regularly he came to Burnt
Creek for supplies and mail. Regularly he received a letter in the same
feminine handwriting, which he opened always with a brightening of face
and crumpled later with a scowl which seemed to cover hurt pride and
forlorn hope. Those letters, evidently, demanded something he would not
give, for he never sent an answer through Bud’s little post office.
The storekeeper reluctantly left the chair and wandered back to his
kitchen. The sun blazed up in the sky, intolerably scorching. Bud viewed
an empty pitcher and set to work at making a supply of lemonade against
the greater heat of the long afternoon. A few beans, some hard bread,
and a dish of canned peaches served for dinner. Then, with a fresh cigar
and the lemonade at hand, he settled himself in the sultry shade. All
things, in Bud’s philosophy, came to those who waited--provided the
waiting was mixed with a little judicious helping.
But the afternoon was not to be lonely. He had just started on the
lemonade when the sputter of the Bend Klamath stage motor reached him.
The vehicle swayed out of the forest, climbed the ruts of the road,
skidded perilously amid a shower of sand, and brought a boiling radiator
nose and nose with the porch. The driver had a passenger this trip. A
woman it was, veiled against the dirt and sun. Teddy Hanson climbed away
from his wheel and helped her to the porch.
“Aw,” he said, “now what’s the good of stoppin’ at a horrible hole like
this, ma’am? Gosh, think how lonely I’ll be all the way to Klamath.”
“Flattery,” said the girl. She drew back the veil and Bud, greatly
puzzled by this visit, found himself looking at an extremely pretty
mouth and a pair of hazel eyes that could, when they pleased, be very
friendly. Some shade of dark hair strayed pleasantly down a white
temple. “Is this Mr. Bud?” she asked.
“That’s him,” growled out the driver. “There’s a lot of circum-feerance,
you see. He gets it sittin’ on the porch of this so-called store.”
“I wouldn’t listen to such slander,” replied Bud. “It’s the heat makes
him that way. But I mistrust you’ve got to the wrong place. Ain’t hardly
anything here you could stop off for. It must be Klamath you mean.” He
could not help noting that it was not the friendly eyes nor the pretty
mouth which most attracted him as it was a firm little chin with the dab
of a freckle on it, and an Irish nose. “She’ll be wantin’ her own way,”
he silently prophesied.
“No,” she answered. “It’s Burnt Creek.”
Teddy Hanson boosted the girl’s trunk on the porch, obviously
disinclined to go. She settled the matter by paying him. “Thank you.”
The inflection was as much as a dismissal. Teddy shot a glance of envy
toward Bud, and climbed into his seat.
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t fix the road in front of your shack,” he
shouted above the clatter of the engine.
“That sand flea c’n burrow where it won’t climb,” retorted Bud. A cloud
of sand shot from the wheels; when the dust settled, the stage was gone.
“I dunno how that thing sticks together,” he said. “It drinks sand an’
runs on grasshoppers. They’s a hundred dollars’ worth of bailin’ wire
in it.” He saw that she had lost spirit and was staring wistfully at
the road. “What’d you say you were after, ma’am?”
“They told me in Bend that you’d help me. I--I’m looking for a homestead
here.”
“A homestead, ma’am?”
“Never mind how I look!” she cried. “And don’t try to argue me out of
it! I’ve argued all the way from Portland, and it’s settled. If you
won’t help me, I’ll have to get some one else. I want a homestead near
Burnt Creek.”
“Why near Burnt Creek, ma’am?”
“For--for reasons.”
There was metal in her. She wore clothes that stamped her as a refined
city woman, and her hands and clear skin were plain enough witnesses
that she had never trafficked much with spade and bucket. Still, Bud
did not make the mistake of arguing. He saw her determined little chin
with the dab of a freckle on it. She was another of those stubborn
people--such kind as made good in this country. They never knew when
they were licked.
“Why, sure, I’ll help you, ma’am,” he agreed affably. “Most everybody
comes to me sooner or later, around here, leastwise. But it’s powerful
hot here. Come in an’ have some lemonade.”
It was a great deal later, when the courtesies were dispensed with and
the subject of land well talked over, that Bud thought of the Hazen
place. “I been thinkin’,” said he, spoiling a new cigar, “that you’ll
be all by yourself. It’s a hard life any way you take it, an’ if you
c’d get near other folks it’d be a great boost. I’ve located durn near
every other family in these parts, an’ it strikes me there’s a nice
section about an hour’s ride from here, adjoinin’ Jim Hunter’s place.”
Her head came up of a sudden and a sparkle of triumph set her blue eyes
to shining. “That’s the place I want!” she cried.
It staggered Bud. “Why, ma’am, how do you know? Mebbe you wouldn’t like
it at all. Better wait till you see it.”
“I do know! Is there a house on it?”
“Ordinarily the go’ment don’t furnish houses,” said Bud with the
suggestion of dryness. “But it so happens ol’ man Hazen took this up an’
got plumb discouraged. He went to Bend. You c’n take up the rights fer
next to nothin’. I’ll see about that. There’s a house, well, an’ barn on
it.”
She sprang from the chair. “Mr. Bud, can’t we go right over and move in
now? I want to get started.”
Her face was tinted with a pink excitement and her mouth, which Bud
decided was about as kissable a one as he had ever seen, was puckered
in determination. She was finding a great satisfaction in something.
The puzzled storekeeper watched her. “Why, I reckon you could,
but----”
“_But!_” she exclaimed. “That’s the only word I’ve heard lately! I
don’t want to hear any more of it. I want you to help me file the
necessary things and help me move. Whatever it’s worth I’ll pay you.
But you’ve got to help. Can’t we start right now?”
The storekeeper found things moving too fast, and he promptly vetoed the
suggestion.
“We ain’t goin’ no place at two o’clock in the afternoon. Why, ma’am,
people don’t travel through them jack pines this time o’ day, unless
it’s powerful necessary. Terrible hot. ’Bout four thirty we’ll start.
Meanwhile, we’ll be collectin’ some grub an’ tools.”
She seemed to acquire more and more energy. The delay fretted her and
she moved restlessly around the store, choosing what she needed from the
shelves. There were sundry implements of which she knew nothing at all,
and Bud explained them. She listened quite carefully, a wry expression
now and then tempering the determination. Bud was compelled to admire
the way in which she accepted his picture of homestead life. None too
rosy did he paint that picture, either. He wanted recruits for the land,
but he wanted them to be disillusioned before they started residence.
Once she stopped him.
“You’re trying to discourage me,” she said.
“Huh. I been here in this country twenty-five years, an’ I’m tellin’
you as straight as I can. The land grows on them as can stand it. For
the rest it kills or drives out.”
“It won’t scare me. What others do I can do.”
He silently applauded. “You can go out an’ live on the place without
hindrance while I sort of fix up things with Hazen an’ the land office.
You can go to Bend later.”
The sun blazed downward and after four o’clock. Bud ventured from the
store, hitched his buggy, loaded on the trunk and duffle, and began
the journey through the jack pines with his passenger. He watched her
from his heavy-lidded eyes, waiting for some sign of weakness. For,
in the dwarf forest the heat scorched them and the sand rose out of
the road and cascaded from the branches. It was a dismal entrance to
a hard land. However, if the girl felt any discouragement, she kept
it well to herself, hands folded in her lap and sitting erect in the
swaying seat. So Bud turned to casual topics, directing her attention
in his kindly way to the things she must do and expect.
“Ma’am,” he said finally, “if I ain’t too personal, just what makes you
do this?”
It struck tinder. He saw a spark flash. “Because I want to show
him--people--that I’m no butterfly! That’s why! And I _will_ do it!”
There was, then, a man involved. Bud, seeing partial light, moved from
the subject. They drove in silence while the rutted highway wound slowly
through the heart of the pines, passed sundry trails, and came at last
to a vast open plain over which the sun shed a blood glow.
“Purty, ain’t it?” asked Bud, wistful pride in his voice. “See yonder
house? That’ll be your nearest neighbor, Jim Hunter. A mighty fine boy.
You’ll do well to know Jim.”
“H’m.”
“Yes, sir. Jim’s the stubborn kind. Hard as nails an’ never says much,
but that’s the only breed who’ll survive this country. He’ll help you.”
The buggy turned off the road and went bumping over the flat land. They
passed a corner fence and in time drew up at the door of Hunter’s house.
Bud called out: “Hey, Jim.”
The girl seemed to become very still, and the storekeeper, turning,
found a flutter of excitement again in her eyes. Jim walked from his
place, stooping slightly to pass the upper sill.
“You’re goin’ to have a neighbor, Jim. I’m locatin’ her on the next
place. You’ll kinda watch----”
But he got no further and found himself thrust completely out of the
picture. Hunter strode toward the buggy, the soberness quite gone from
his face.
“Why, Mary, what on earth----”
“Don’t make any mistake,” she broke in. “I’ve come for that apology.”
Bud raised a hand to a sorely puzzled head. The girl was sitting like
a statue, her fingers interlaced in her lap, her chin held a little
higher than usual, the delicate pink spreading slowly. The excitement
was gone. Bud had the idea that it was suppressed only by an effort.
Hunter stopped dead. “What?”
“I said I’ve come for that apology, Jim.”
“Now why,” he said angrily, “did you come all the way out in this hot
and dusty place. Bud, you ought to have more sense.”
“I asked him to bring me.” She stamped a foot against the buggy floor.
“Jim Hunter, don’t you boss me. The time’s past for that. I’m going to
make you take back what you said that time if it takes me ten years! If
writing letters won’t do it, then I’ll try farming. You might at least
have answered my letters out of courtesy.”
“What’s all this foolishness about her living on the next place?”
demanded Hunter, turning on Bud with a scowl. “Have you lost your mind?
Great Scott, a woman can’t fight this desert, and you ought to know it,
of all men!”
Bud made an ineffectual gesture with his hand. There had been no
preliminary warning to all this. The girl’s mouth was puckered together,
and she seemed on the point of crying from sheer anger.
“Oh, if I were a man I’d make you apologize right now! You can’t bully
me, Jim Hunter! I’ll not stand for it, you hear? And I’ll show you if
I’m a butterfly! Go on, Mr. Bud.”
The storekeeper was only too glad to escape. The end of the reins
smartly thwacked the horse’s rump, and they bumped over the uneven
ground toward the Hazen place, a quarter mile on. Bud threw a quick
glance behind him and saw Jim Hunter rooted in the same spot, arms
akimbo, face furrowed. If he knew anything about it, Bud reflected,
there was a young man who would soon wish a strong interview.
But he discreetly held his peace and, when they reached the house,
began the job of packing the trunk and the various tools and utensils
inside. When he had finished he found the girl seated on the trunk,
surveying the walls with a plain dismay. Truly, it was a sight to
discourage mortal woman. A bachelor originally had lived here, a
bachelor who had found the job of keeping up externals too great, let
alone the niceties of housekeeping. The floor was littered with dirt,
the walls and ceilings were bare and unpleasant. A stove stood half
dismantled. A chair and table were overturned and partly broken. A
bunk once stood against a wall, but now had parted company from
itself.
“Well,” said the girl, taking off her jacket, “the first thing’s to
sweep.”
The storekeeper was ready to shout. Spunk! She had more of it than a
dozen men. Heretofore he had nourished misgivings, but now he moved
solidly to her support. Those nice clothes and white hands didn’t
mean anything.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed. “We need a new deal. You just take a bucket and
go out back fer some water in the well. Meanwhile I’ll tackle the broom,
it bein’ a dirty job.”
Broom and water, hammer and nails, elbow grease and much talk--by these
means and two or three hours’ time Bud and the girl transformed the
place into a passable shelter. There had been some wood left. Bud built
a fire and cooked a meal while the girl added a touch here and there to
the bare walls. It was after dark when Bud climbed into his buggy and
started for home.
“Well, I reckon you’re dog tired. It’s easy to sleep out here. An’ that
gun I give you will scare away most anything that walks or crawls.
Ain’t nothin’ to be afeerd of, anyhow. In case anything should happen,
you----”
“I’m not asking him for any favors!”
He suppressed a grin and continued as if there had been no interruption.
“In a few days I’ll bring you a collie dog an’ a hoss. Then you’ll be
fixed. Meanwhile you just set tight an’ git organized. I’ll see Hazen
an’ the land office. G’night.”
He drove away, bent for the pines and Burnt Creek. But if he thought
to avoid Jim Hunter, he was mistaken. The young man was camped outside
the house and Bud saw him move through the dark toward the buggy. The
storekeeper sighed a little and came to a halt.
“All right,” he acquiesced wearily. “Go on now an’ say what’s been
burnin’ you.”
“Of all the old fools!” rasped out Jim Hunter. “You know very well she
can’t stay out here! It’s impossible. What can a woman do? Here I work
my head off and just break even. How do you expect her to get by? Just
because she’s bent on----”
“What should I have done?” asked Bud gently.
“Told her to go home, of course. Discourage her from such a crazy idea.”
“Huh. No wonder you’n she quarreled. Don’t you s’pose I did some
arguin’? Huh; it was like talkin’ to myself. If I hadn’t brought her
she’d up an’ walked out on the darn desert by herself. Got to handle
her another way. She’s as stubborn as you.”
Hunter groaned. “I know it. She’s always been like that. If she gets
her mind set, nothing short of an act of God can change it. But she
can’t stay!”
“I wouldn’t be so durned certain,” snapped out Bud. The late hour and
the prior excitement had put him a little out of humor. “She seems plumb
able to take care of herself. I’ve seen women get by on this desert. She
can beat a man all hollow fer endurin’ things.”
“It’s not only that,” broke in Hunter. “It’s not safe. All sorts of
queer ducks roam these places. A lone woman just invites trouble.
There’s ‘Bottle-nose’ Henderson, for example. Great Scott----”
Bud scratched his stubbled chin. He, too, had thought of Bottle-nose. It
was a prickling thought that remained in the rear of his head, vaguely
disturbing. Yet here was Jim within a short distance of her. If she
called for help, he’d be over in a jiffy. “Ain’t nothin’ to worry about.
G’ap, Toby. You people fight it out atween you.”
“There’s not going to be any fight--or anything else!” bellowed Jim.
Bud had no answer for that. But a mile later, when the pines
swallowed him, one small phrase came out of all the wonderment. “Son
of a gun, just look what’s happened to us to-day!” The peace--and the
monotony--which had enfolded him during the last hot summer month was
gone. Life was just one dog-goned problem after another. That’s what
made living endurable. “G’ap, Toby. We got to figger around this
summow. There’s a couple plumb in love with each other an’ wantin’ to
make up. But they’d die afore they’d admit it. Got to fix that.”
He found as the week went along that all ordinary conciliatory means
had no effect. The quarrel had gone too far, endured too long. The
battle had arrived at a stage of siege. It worried him, for the robust
storekeeper was not a man to stand by and watch the tide carry “his
people” downstream. Faith had made him the prophet and leader of the
homesteaders. He loved them and fought for them, took an unreasoning
interest in their small affairs, argued with them, cursed them, and,
at the last word when it seemed they could no longer struggle against
the eternal hardships, gave his own time and money to keep the small
flame of courage in their hearts. They were all, Bud believed, in a
common brotherhood, striving for a common happiness and every sorrow
and discouragement they suffered was sure to find its way eventually
to his own big heart.
He had no means of knowing the nature of the quarrel, but still he
worked shrewdly to dispel it. The day after the girl had settled on
the homestead, Bud saddled the gentlest horse of his lot and sent it
over to her by “Slivers” Gilstrap, a passing cow hand.
“You tell her, Slivers, that I’ll be over after a while with the
necessary filin’ doodads, an’ that she’d better ask Jim Hunter to fix
that lock on the door.”
Late that night Slivers came back with blood in his eye. “Say, you
ol’ galoot, what’d you go an’ tell me to tell her that for? Minute I
says it she flies off’n the handle an’ says she ain’t askin’ Jim fer
nuthin’. I thought mebbe he’d insulted her an’, bein’ a gentleman,
offers to shoot him er hog tie him, er anything. Dog-goned if she
didn’t larrup me, then.”
Thereupon Bud went to Bend and rode back to the girl’s place with filing
papers, another sage move up his sleeve. But he had no chance to act
upon it. Mary, dressed in some kind of old clothes and already freckled
by the sun, met him with fire in her eyes.
“Mr. Bud, I wish you’d go over and tell Jim Hunter I forbid him coming
on my land! He’s been here twice trying to browbeat me! You tell him I
don’t want but one thing from him, and that’s an apology. Otherwise
I’ll use this pistol. I will!”
She flourished the heavy weapon in her hand and the storekeeper,
suppressing a chuckle, noted that she used both hands to raise it. It
would have been disastrous to offer advice then.
“Mebbe,” he gravely offered, “I’d better notify the sher’ff to arrest
him fer trespassin’.”
“No, oh no! I wouldn’t do that. But you tell him what I said, will you?”
So Bud, inwardly chuckling, went to Hunter’s place, only to be motioned
away. “Get out of here, you old goat. I won’t listen to any more of your
ideas. You’re the cause of all this.”
“The most ungrateful thing in the world,” opined the storekeeper,
returning to Burnt Creek, “is mixin’ in family troubles. Men’ve been
killed fer less. But if I’m to be hung I might as well be hung fer
somethin’ good. Patch that up summow.”
Man and girl were crowded from his mind in the succeeding weeks. Events
in the sparse Central Oregon country move with the same irregular
frequency as elsewhere. Out of a serene sky broke seven kinds of
trouble into which Bud was directly or indirectly drawn. For one thing,
threshing season was on full blast, and every able-bodied man gave his
services; this was communal law. Then the road commissioners in a
frenzy of economy--just before election--decided to leave unimproved a
more or less impassable stretch of the Bend Klamath Highway. The
storekeeper, being apprised of it, rode to town in a fury and shocked
those commissioners out of their economic resolutions. He fought for
his people and his land ruthlessly, and, being a power in his own
right, won. Hardly had this subsided when the shadow of Bottle-nose
Henderson fell across the land.
Bottle-nose was one of those derelicts for whom society has no honored
place. In a more highly organized community he would have been sent to
an asylum. Cascade county tolerated him because he stuck to the open
spaces and left people alone. But somewhere on his lone trail the last
restraining fiber of reason snapped, and he reverted to the law of the
jungle. He ran amuck, terrorized the edges of the county, and sent
unprotected families into gusts of fear. No one seemed safe from his
swift attack. The sheriff set out a posse, and they traced his course
southward toward the Burnt Creek region by three pilfered houses and
several frightened women. This trail was all the posse found.
Bottle-nose had become illusive as well as a highly dangerous
character.
It was from him that the storekeeper conceived what seemed to be a sound
idea one late summer evening as he jogged homeward. Toby, plodding along
in dignified weariness, was startled to feel his master shake as if from
ague; something that passed as a chuckle issued from Bud’s barrellike
chest.
“If I got caught I’d sure be hamstrung,” mused the storekeeper. “Would
lose all my reputation if I got caught an’ mebbe git a dose of lead
poisonin’. But it cert’nly oughta bring results.”
And results were all that Bud cared about. At any rate, the idea took
possession of him. His chin fell forward and Toby, unchecked, picked
a faster pace toward Burnt Creek, viewing, doubtless, the measure of
oats in the stall. A wise horse was Toby, but this time sentenced to
a grievous disappointment. On reaching the store, Bud went in and
returned with his revolver.
“G’ap, Toby; we’ve got to hustle. Dog-gone it, quit your balkin’! I feed
an’ pamper you too much, that’s what. Git now! Ain’t to be fooled with.”
After short argument the sad Toby walked into the jack pines, bound for
the desert. Leaving his horse to find the way, Bud relapsed to that
reverie which years of solitude had acquainted him. Nor did he raise
his head until the last dwarf pine was passed, and he stood against the
gloom of the open land.
It was near nine o’clock. The moon displayed a thin, lifeless rind in
the sky; the countless stars blinked down without dispelling the
shadows. Across the open ground winked two lights, one from Jim Hunter’s
kitchen and the other from the girl’s house, both cheerfully beckoning.
Bud clucked his tongue and struck across the open, passed Hunter’s place
at a good distance, and, on arriving within a few hundred yards of the
Hazen house, dismounted.
“Now, you goldurned animal,” he whispered, “stay put. When I come back
it’ll be a-foggin’.”
He took the revolver from the holster and, under the impulse of an
unusual kind of excitement, drew the hammer part way back and turned
the cylinder with a thumb. Ten feet away Tony dissolved into an
indistinguishable blur. Bud took a mental line from his horse to both
lights.
“Got to place that dog-goned critter,” he murmured, advancing.
A heavy boot toe struck a projecting rock and he balanced wildly,
failed to right himself, and fell to the ground. The impact seemed to
shake him loose in a dozen vital spots. An immense grunt escaped him.
Seemed as if it exploded in the air, but that was only imagination.
He crawled painfully to his feet and went on until the light from the
girl’s kitchen window was quite clear. He could see inside the small
room, but failed to locate her.
“Gosh, I got to see where she is afore I shoot.”
He angled aside to get a better sweep of the room. It occurred to him
then that he was more or less in the position of a Peeping Tom, and a
rod of ice smote his back. “Fer a nickel I’d quit this fool stunt,” he
said to himself. Then the light was eclipsed for a moment as the girl
moved to the front of the room. “That’d be the corner the stove’s in.
She’s safe.” He raised the revolver and aimed at the window.
It was not the best idea in the world. Bud began to suspect that earlier
in the evening. But his self-defense was adequate enough. Both the girl
and the man were too obstinate to listen to reason and summary methods
had to be employed for their own good. They were just like two fighters
who struggled long after the original injury had been dead and buried.
Now the only thing a man could do with stubborn pride was blast it. What
he meant to do was put a bullet through that window and shatter a pane
of glass. That would give the girl a much-needed scare, sort of shake
her confidence in her own strength. If, on hearing that shot, Jim Hunter
didn’t rush over to her house he, Dave Bud, would be greatly mistaken in
his man. And if that threat of danger, always a welding influence,
didn’t change their relations, he’d be mighty disappointed. He brought
the gun down on the bright window, taking care that the shot would break
a pane and bury itself in the sill.
There was, of a sudden, a pad-pad of feet on the ground, an alarming
rush of a body that went past him, wheeled like a football player,
and bore down. Bud’s revolver arm fell; a low figure hurtled from the
shadows, struck him amidships, closed about him, and knocked him over
with the savageness of a hungry cinnamon bear. The storekeeper’s
teeth rattled, he bit his chin and choked in the sand. A rock struck
his head and nearly put him to sleep. Quite instinctively he put up
both huge arms--he had dropped the gun--and pushed his assailant off;
but before he could take advantage the man had thrown himself back
again. A fist smacked against his temple and a familiar voice reached
his half-buried ears.
“You sneaking coyote! Thought you’d raise the devil in another lonely
house, eh? Thought you’d scare another woman half to death! I’ve been
laying for you. Next time maybe you’ll cache your horse where a man
won’t stumble across it. I’m just about going to kill you, you
Bottle-nose skunk!”
It was Jim Hunter on the warpath! And mistaking him for Bottle-nose
Henderson! Bud’s mind worked in circles, amid a confusion of blows, a
ton of sand, and smarting eyes. He had to get out of here in a hurry,
no mistake. It wouldn’t do for Jim to discover his identity. Jim
wouldn’t consider him in any better light, wouldn’t understand. He
had overlooked the fact that the young man would patrol the girl’s
home after dark and in patrolling run across Toby. The thing now was
to make an exit and call it a bad venture.
He stifled a groan of protest. It was a darned good thing Jim had never
seen Bottle-nose and noted the man’s skinny shape. The storekeeper
raised hands and feet, throwing Hunter back like a blanket, got up, and
dashed toward Toby. By golly, but this was a mess. Look where he’d got
himself in trying to do a good deed!
Hunter was on him like a wild cat and down to earth they went, rolling,
clawing, fighting, with no words at all to waste. Bud flung the lighter
man off, got up again, ran a yard, and was pulled down. Somehow Jim’s
fists found their mark. Bud felt his nose ache with resentment. In turn
he traded blows and heard them land solidly. There was a burly strength
in the storekeeper’s shoulder, a power which once in the older days had
made him top hand of the county. Right now he spared none of it to get
clear. But it didn’t matter how many times he threw Hunter away, the
man was back again, pinning him to earth like a clothes dummy; and each
fall hurt the corpulent Bud more than he cared to admit.
“I got to quit smokin’,” he said to himself. “Wind ain’t no good.”
Toby, nearby, snorted. They rolled beneath his very feet and he moved
uneasily. Bud dragged himself and Hunter upward toward the saddle. “No
you don’t!” panted Jim. “Come back here.” Bud, falling, had his face
turned toward the girl’s house, and he saw a shaft of light spring out
of the opening doorway. Somebody stood on the threshold. He wondered
if this was actually so or whether the little skyrockets in his head
caused the illusion. He was soon enough put to rest about it; for a
shrill, terrified scream shattered the air. Hunter’s aggressiveness
instantly ebbed, and a gasp broke from his hard-pressed lungs.
“What’s that?”
Bud’s mind attained an unprecedented nimbleness. Somebody had come
across the desert from an opposite direction and gone into the house
while they were fighting the silent battle. Bottle-nose Henderson,
then! The man was somewhere in the Burnt Creek region.
“Huh,” he grunted. “I thought you were tryin’ to put somethin’ over on
me. Thought you was Bottle-nose. Been trailin’ him all day. Leggo, you
darned scorpion! This dog-goned darkness! I thought I had him pinned
down.”
Together they ran across the prairie and reached the open door. Hunter
was the faster, and he made a single stride to the far corner where
the girl, back to the wall, faced a thin, nondescript creature whose
crimson, bulbous nose and slack mouth gave him a particularly vicious
expression.
Hunter flung himself upon the man and threw him against the wall so
hard as to make the small place shake from rafter to floor. Bud, near
done up, was content to watch them fight. Hunter was a veritable wild
cat. He beat down the invader’s defense and, like a boy who has found
pleasure in throwing things, swept his man across the room and slammed
him against another wall, overturning a chair and table on the way.
It was soon over. Bottle-nose collapsed with a sigh of defeat, slid to
the floor, and whined for mercy. Jim Hunter strode over to the girl,
looking as one just emerged from a mob attack. His shirt hung in
ribbons about his gangling arms. There were sundry cuts over his face,
and his hair was ground with sand. But nothing could conceal the flare
in his eyes.
“Honey!” he cried. “I’ll kill that skunk if he’s hurt you!”
“Jimmy, what _has_ happened?”
Bud turned his broad back and wryly moved his nose. There was more or
less incoherent explanation and questioning from both and out of it,
unexpectedly:
“Jimmy--I won’t ask that apology if you don’t want to give it.”
“I’m a bum. I give it, Mary. I’m just a stubborn bum.”
“You give it! Jimmy! I’ll never ask another. And I take back
everything.”
A great and ponderous silence ensued, broken by the impatient Bud.
“Here I trail this fella all day long and then you dog-gone wild
cat--look what you done to me.”
It was not a very strong story, but Jim Hunter was too preoccupied to
pick flaws.
“I’ll take Bottle-nose back with me,” continued Bud. “Say, just what
was this quarrel about, anyway? Seein’s I got so durned involved in
it, might as well tell me.”
“He called me a useless butterfly, and I had to show him I wasn’t.”
“Which was after she told me I couldn’t do anything worth while.”
“For gosh sake,” stuttered the storekeeper. “Was _that_ all?” It was
certainly queer what small things set people at a tangent. Stubborn
people, chiefly. But what great fighters they made. Just the kind to
populate this sturdy, harsh land. He fell gloomily to another thought.
“Suppose now you’ll make up an’ go back to town.”
“Not on your life,” declared Jim. “It’s the only place I’m worth
anything. Why, I’m happy here!”
“So’m I,” added the girl. “That settles it.”
Bud was forced to a rare smile and looked like the cat who had swallowed
the canary.
“Well, I’m sure sorry my little peace efforts didn’t work. Took
Bottle-nose to turn the trick. So long, folks.”
It was later, entering the dark forest with his prisoner, that he lifted
his face to the dim, star-scattered sky and gave thanks. Some day this
country would blossom under the hands of these vigorous and clean-chosen
people. Some day!
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December 27, 1924
issue of _Western Story Magazine_.]
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