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Title: Back home
Author: J. Frank Davis
Release date: May 8, 2024 [eBook #73567]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Street & Smith Corporation, 1923
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BACK HOME ***
BACK HOME
By J. Frank Davis
Author of “A Rule of the Service,” “Too Much Golden Fleas,” Etc.
Captain Carmichael of the Texas Rangers does his duty and a little more.
Captain James Carmichael of the Texas Rangers, home-bound after a week
in Mexico City on official secret business for the governor, let his
gaze rove idly through the window of his Pullman as the train paused in
the late afternoon at an unimportant Mexican hill village.
He saw a dingy station, around which stood and squatted expressionless,
stolid, serape-draped Indian men. Behind it two or three square, flat
adobe buildings, each a mean rabbit warren whose many doors were now
crowded with staring women and babies. Beyond, in a disorder that made
no reckoning of streets or avenues, fifty low _jacals_, barely higher
than dog kennels, before which Indian women tended toy cooking fires or
ground corn for tortillas. On a hill, a church. Far back beyond the
hill’s shoulder a glimpse of the handsome hacienda whose master was
feudal lord of this narrow corner of the republic--or had been, before
the revolutions.
The village children of ages from five to a dozen--a swarm of
them--were not with the men whose backs rested against the station
walls or the women in their doorways or about the fires, but were
strung along the track for the length of the train, trotting beside the
Pullmans as they slowed. One could see them if he pressed his face to
the screen and looked down. One could hear them whether he looked or
not. They were all softly whining, their eyes upcast to the car
windows, their high-pitched voices almost a chorus in unison.
“_Centavita! Centavita! Por gracias Dios, centavita!_”
Captain Carmichael was not thinking of the things his eyes saw or his
ears heard. They were not unique. At least a half dozen times since
noon the train had stopped where the passengers’ eyes rested upon a
dingy station, many-doored adobe rabbit warrens, _jacals_ with women
tending toy fires before them, lounging men and swarming children who
trotted beside the cars and begged, in the name of God, a little penny.
The Ranger had noted the name of the station on its sign and it had
brought his mind back to the errand that had taken him to the Mexican
capital and the report that he should make to the governor at Austin,
for it was not many miles back of this hill village that the Tarbox
Exploration and Mining Company had one of its greatest concessions and
what the Ranger captain would have to say to the governor would of
necessity contain many a mention of the Tarbox Exploration and Mining
Company.
And then, suddenly, as the car brakes jammed tight and the train came
to its full stop, he saw a white man standing beside the track, a
traveling bag on the ground by his feet, plainly an American or an
Englishman and the first the captain had seen at any station that
afternoon. He wondered if, perchance, this man was one of the Tarbox
outfit. It was not necessarily so, for there were other mining outfits
in these hills, but it was possible.
A moment later the porter came bustling into Carmichael’s car, bearing
the white man’s bag, which he put in a section almost opposite the
captain, and the white man followed him. Presently, when the train was
again in motion and the conductors came through, the Ranger overheard
sufficient of their conversation to learn that the new passenger was
bound for San Antonio.
The man was at least as old as Carmichael, who was fifty-three, and he
looked rather more like an American than an Englishman, but the big bag
that contained his belongings had never been made anywhere but in the
British Isles. His dress was rough and worn, as would be expected of
any Anglo-Saxon coming aboard there in the mountains, but Captain
Carmichael’s experience was of a section where one gauges a man by
everything but his clothes and there was something in this stranger’s
bearing that gave an impression of success and prosperity.
He was tall and at first glance seemed thin, but his movements
indicated a lean wiriness that bespoke an active life in the open, as
did the sun-browned skin of his face and hands. His hair, short-trimmed
by a barber not more than three weeks since, was wholly white, and his
face, smooth shaven, might have been sternly handsome but for a scar,
old and faded but deep and puckering, that crossed his upper lip almost
from corner to corner and drew the lip upward into an expression of
perpetual disdain.
Carmichael’s first thought, as he observed the scar, was that if it
were on his face he would conceal it with a mustache; his second that
hair, in all probability, would not grow on that lip.
The man settled into his seat and stared out of the window and it
seemed to Captain Carmichael that there was something vaguely familiar
about his profile. More than twenty-five years in the Ranger service
had cultivated his memory for faces, yet if he had ever seen the man
before the recollection of when and where evaded him. He felt positive
he had never seen that unusual scar, and it obviously was an ancient
one, which would mean that if he had ever seen the man it must have
been long ago.
Until dusk fell the stranger sat quietly in his seat, seldom moving,
his eyes on the passing landcape, his face stern and brooding.
Carmichael might have tried to open a conversation with him but another
passenger who did so was politely but firmly discouraged. And after
having got a good full-face study of him in the dining car, Captain
Carmichael became convinced that he did not know the man, that his
impression of having met him somewhere was due merely to the stranger’s
slight resemblance to somebody else.
The correctness of this judgment was borne out at the Rio Grande, when
the train stopped in the middle of the International Bridge the next
morning and he heard the conversation between the stranger and the
American customs and immigration officers.
The man’s papers were in perfect order and he bore in his big British
bag or on his person nothing dutiable and no firearms. His name was
Andrew Miller, and he was a citizen of Argentina, of English birth.
This was his first visit to the United States. He had had business in
Mexico and wished to see a portion of the big northern republic. He
expected to return to South America within a month or two.
The train rolled on to San Antonio, where the scar-lipped Argentinian
left it. Captain Carmichael continued on to Austin.
There the governor gave him an hour of earnest conference the following
forenoon, as an outcome of which it was decided his next investigations
had best be made in San Antonio. He took an afternoon train and that
evening found him registered at the Hotel Bonham, in whose wide lobby
and its overlooking mezzanine, if he but waits long enough, one may see
practically every refugee, revolutionary and plotter against the peace
of Mexico that visits the Texas metropolis. And there in the Bonham
lobby, after dinner, he again saw Andrew Miller.
The man was in different clothing--new clothing of a smoother weave and
more fashionable cut than he had worn on the train--and he sat in an
armchair that gave him a view of the desk and the passing crowds. The
Ranger thought he might be waiting for some acquaintance. But when an
hour had passed and Carmichael had finished his evening paper, always
with his eyes over the top of it for a sight of the Mexicans he had
come there to watch, if they should drop in, Miller still sat idle,
unspeaking and unspoken to.
And then at a moment when the Ranger’s gaze chanced to be upon him he
saw something or some one near the main entrance that so affected his
emotions that he could not wholly conceal them.
He did not start. He did not move so much as a finger. But his features
stiffened ever so slightly and into his eyes came an expression such as
comes into the eyes of the hunter when, after stealthily stalking, he
comes into view of his quarry.
Carmichael looked quickly in the direction in which Miller was staring.
He saw a score of men and half as many women entering and leaving the
hotel. Discarding those who were going out as unlikely to have
attracted Miller’s attention, since he had had opportunity to see them
before, the Ranger swiftly appraised the new arrivals.
One or two were traveling men, just alighted from a depot street car,
hustling with their bags toward the desk. The remainder were women in
filmy dresses and their well-groomed escorts, who passed laughing and
chattering toward the corridor that led to the big ballroom from which
a crash of drums and saxophones some time since had signaled the
opening of a dance. It was quite evidently to be a big dance, for a
hundred or more festively dressed couples had already passed in to it
and more were constantly arriving.
Miller’s eyes followed a group of these newly arrived dance patrons. He
might be observing any one of the twenty or more. Captain Carmichael
studied the group.
They were for the most part young people and Carmichael recognized
several as sons and daughters of well-to-do business men of the city.
Two of them were already successful in their own right--Morton Perry
the real-estate operator and Wallace Locke the oil man. Each of these
had inherited money and skillfully increased it, although there the
comparison ended, because Perry’s initial stake had been not more than
fifty thousand, while Locke’s father, an old cattleman, had left him
close to half a million. Each of them although barely past thirty had
at least doubled his original capital.
A pretty girl moved beside each as he passed on into the ballroom.
Perry’s companion was his wife, a slight, bobbed-haired bunch of
vivacity. With Locke was Edith Alsbury, a merry girl of twenty-three
with a creamy complexion and flaming hair, whom Captain Carmichael had
known slightly all her life, being an acquaintance of her aunt who had
reared her since she was orphaned in infancy. He recalled that he had
heard she was engaged to Locke; that they were to be married in a month
or two.
The captain’s eyes, as the group disappeared and others coming from the
entrance took their places, returned to the chair where the Argentinian
had sat, to find it vacant. Miller now stood at the desk, talking to a
clerk. Presently, nodding as though in thanks for some information, he
left the desk and went to a chair, not the one he had vacated with its
full view of the entrance, but another in a far corner. Seated in it he
paid no more attention to the throng but fell into deep thought.
Captain Carmichael frowned as he studied the situation that had
suddenly developed. Certain facts which aligned themselves in his mind
seemed to have a bearing on one another and on the very assignment from
the governor on which he was engaged.
Texas, as the next-door neighbor to Mexico, has many business
relationships with the southern republic and Texans believe they
understand Mexico and Mexicans better than do the residents of most
other States. There was a period, during the early revolutions, the
insane Plan of San Diago which set the border aflame, and the
aftermaths of the Columbus raid, when the administration at Washington
did not satisfy Texans because it watched and waited. Following the
establishment of relative order below the Rio Grande certain of the
Texas business citizenry became dissatisfied because watchfulness and
waiting still continued and the Mexican government was not officially
recognized.
With whether these were right or wrong Captain Carmichael was not
concerned. His duty was to the State administration and that
administration was doing what it might to bring about more perfect
peace and understanding between the two countries. And it was convinced
that more perfect peace and understanding was being hindered by certain
American corporations which had financial interests below the Rio
Grande.
Such a corporation was the Tarbox Exploration and Mining Company--whose
biggest concession was there in the mountains back of where Miller had
boarded the train.
Fighting the political ambitions and desires of the combination of
which the Tarbox outfit was a member was another combination. Wallace
Locke was a member of it. Notwithstanding his youth, because of
connections with the governor and other strong men of Texas, he was
powerful.
Miller was an Argentinian. He might not have come from the Tarbox camp.
But on the other hand----
Carmichael lounged to the hotel desk and asked the clerk, who knew him
well:
“What did that old feller with the scar--Miller--ask you a few minutes
ago?”
“Who the young man was with the young lady in white with the red hair,”
the clerk told him promptly. “With Miss Alsbury--although he didn’t
know her name.”
“You told him, of course.”
“Yes. He said he had thought Locke’s face looked familiar, but must
have been mistaken. Anything the matter with Miller, captain?”
“No,” the Ranger smiled. “I was just curious.”
So Miller, who might be with the Tarbox crowd, was seeking to identify
the Tarboxes’ strongest enemy in Texas. It came to the Ranger that
there had been attempts to buy Locke off, which had failed, and that
there had been courteous words that were veiled threats.
Miller looked like a resolute man, a hard man. In all the hours the
Ranger had observed him he had not once smiled.
Captain Carmichael went and stood not far from the news stand, facing
the lobby, and absently rearranged his necktie, after which he left the
hotel by the side entrance. A young man who had been within sight all
the evening but had not spoken to him rose from his seat, drifted out
aimlessly through the other door and went around the corner to where
his captain stood in a shadowed doorway.
“There’s an old fellow sitting not far from the manager’s office,”
Carmichael said without preliminary. “White haired, smooth face, new
clothes, bad scar on his upper lip.”
“I saw him. Noticed the scar.”
“His name is Andrew Miller. Born an Englishman; now says he lives in
Buenos Aires--and I reckon he does; he has the papers to prove it.
Tourist. First trip to the States, he says. Came in on the train with
me yesterday. We didn’t get acquainted but after seeing me there on the
train he’d be bound to notice me, of course, if I stuck too close to
him. I want him followed tonight and to-morrow. Get McCampbell to help
you and split up the work so he won’t see too much of either one of
you. I want to know what he does, who he sees, what he talks about.”
“Yes, suh.”
“That’s all.” The young man turned away. “Oh, Burnham! You know that
crowd I’m watching. If he gets in touch with any of them get me word as
soon as you can--and try to fix it so you and McCampbell can split up
and keep tabs on both him and the people he sees.”
“All right, cap’n.”
Ranger Burnham returned to the hotel. So, after a little, did Captain
Carmichael, who observed as he entered that Andrew Miller was still
sitting quietly in the same place, still deep in thought and unsmiling,
and that Burnham was seemingly engrossed in a magazine at the other
side of the lobby.
The captain did not take further notice of the Argentinian. Indeed,
there presently developed something else for him to do, when two
well-dressed, Spanish-featured men, typical Mexican refugees of the
wealthy class, entered together and met, apparently by accident and to
the mutual surprise of all the trio, a big, gray-mustached man who
looked like a retired cattleman, was a lawyer of sorts and really made
the bulk of his excellent income as a lobbyist.
These were some of the people--none of them directly connected with the
Tarbox Company, but all interested, for various reasons, in keeping
alive friction between Mexico and the United States--on whom he had
hoped to get his eyes this evening, and he was too busy observing them
until they separated for the night to think again more than casually of
the man with the disdainful scar.
Nor did he see Miller during all the following day. At six o’clock,
while he was washing up for dinner in his hotel room, Ranger Burnham
knocked at his door and came in briskly.
“Wallace Locke!” he exclaimed, the moment he had closed the door behind
him. “If there is anything about Locke that this Miller hasn’t found
out, I don’t know what it could be. He’s asked questions about him from
the cradle to this good day. And--didn’t you tell me he is a stranger?
Never been in the States before?”
“That’s what he claims,” Carmichael said.
“Bunk!” ejaculated Burnham. “This isn’t the easiest city in the world
for a stranger to find his way about in--and Miller got around it like
it was his own dooryard. Without asking, usually. When he did ask it
was about some part of the town that has changed the last few years. If
he never was in San ’Ntonio before, I never saw a tarantula.”
“And he wanted information regarding Locke, eh? What sort? And where
did he go for it? Did he see any of the gang we are watching?”
Ranger Burnham answered the last question first.
“No, not one. His inquiries were made in exactly the places you would
expect them to be made if he is exactly who he says he is--a business
man, a stranger, who has a proposition that he is half thinking of
putting up to Locke if the replies to his inquiries are satisfactory.
He has been to banks, to the chamber of commerce, to a big business man
or two. He has good business credentials--from Buenos Aires. The
questions he asked, however, had very little to do with Locke’s
business standing. They were mostly personal.”
“In what way?”
“As to his character and habits. What sort of a man is he? Does he
drink? Does he gamble? Does he run around nights? If so, where?”
“H’m!” grunted Carmichael. “Wants to know where to find him after dark,
eh?”
“It looks that way. And right in that connection comes a thing that
could be mighty significant. Less than half an hour ago he got him a
gun--a .45--and a box of cartridges.”
“Where?”
Burnham named the store. “Tucked it down into his pants--he’s handled a
.45 before, I’d say, from the way he did it--and then came here to the
hotel. He has just gone up to his room.”
Captain Carmichael considered briefly.
“If he’s come here on some errand with Locke for that Tarbox
outfit--and those questions look like he wants to know when and where
to find him at bed hours,” he said, “he isn’t likely to lose any time.
And with a gun hung on him----”
The captain crossed to where his own holstered pistol had been laid on
the bed while he made his toilet, strapped it on, and reached for his
coat.
“I reckon the time has come to ask Mister Miller what his game is,” he
said. “Him toting a pistol that-a-way without any permit to do so gives
me a good excuse. I’ll make him a little unannounced call. Go get your
supper; I’ll see you downstairs afterward.”
He already knew the location of Miller’s room. Three minutes later he
tapped on the door. A deep voice called, “Come!” and Carmichael
entered. The Argentinian stood facing him from near the bathroom
entrance, not a dozen feet away, and instantly, without a word, when he
saw the Ranger he went after his gun.
It was not a fight; it was too one-sided and over too quickly to be
called that.
Miller’s right hand went back to the weapon high on his hip with what
might have seemed fair speed to the eyes of some Easterner unversed in
the technique of pistol drawing, but a fatal slowness by the standards
of the Southwest. Captain Carmichael covered the distance between them
in two flying steps and his own pistol leaped into his hand while he
was taking the first of them; he easily could have killed the
Argentinian where he stood but he did not find it necessary. Miller had
not got the new gun clear of his waistband when the Ranger came within
arm’s reach. It was just coming free when the barrel of Carmichael’s
.45 crashed against the side of his head. He went down limp, his hand
slipping from the half-drawn weapon.
The captain had it safely out of reach and had satisfied himself that
Miller bore no other arms when the man opened his eyes, groaned,
touched his head gently with his fingers and made a dizzy effort to sit
up.
“Steady, hombre!” Carmichael warned him gruffly. “I’ve got your gun.
Take it easy. When your brain gets cleared a little we’ll talk.”
Miller did not groan again, although his head must have ached terribly.
Once he had gained full control of his faculties he did not even wince,
and Carmichael noted this with approval; he admired men who could take
what punishment came to them without whining. Two or three minutes
elapsed before Miller asked:
“Do you mind if I sit in a chair, cap’n?”
Carmichael succeeded in concealing his surprise that Miller knew him.
“Go to it,” he said. He, too, took a seat, his pistol resting on his
knee. “You won’t be fool enough to start anything more,” he said,
moving it significantly. “If you do, you won’t get away with it. All
right. Suppose you tell me----”
Miller interrupted him. He was staring at his own wrists, as though
puzzled.
“I thought there’d be handcuffs on them,” he said. “Much obliged. I’d
hate to go out through that lobby handcuffed.”
“What did you go to pull a gun on me for, that a way?” the Ranger
demanded. “You’re a pretty darn lucky feller not to be dead this
minute. You would be, if I couldn’t see, first look, that you hadn’t
any speed.”
“It’s been twenty-two years since I pulled a gun, or even wore one,”
Miller said. “But I wasn’t pulling it on you.”
“Of course not.”
“No, I wasn’t, really. It was for myself.” He leaned forward and looked
into the Ranger’s eyes earnestly. “See here, Carmichael! Couldn’t the
thing be fixed that way? I’ll give you my word of honor I don’t want to
hurt anybody else. Couldn’t you let me have that pistol of mine back
and go out of the room for a minute? That would make the least trouble.
For all concerned. Couldn’t it be fixed?”
He seemed to think instantly of an amendment to this, and added:
“And you could let it stand that I’m a stranger named Andrew Miller--my
papers prove it. Couldn’t that be done, too? So that the old business
never came out at all? Couldn’t it?”
There was sincerity in the man’s eyes. He meant what he said.
And he was not Andrew Miller, but somebody else. Who? He obviously
thought the Ranger knew. Until he himself gave some clew to his
identity the thing must be handled with tact.
“Why?” Carmichael asked.
“Why?” the man repeated. “Why? Great heavens! After all these years, to
have it come out right now---- You’ve got a family yourself, haven’t
you? You used to have, anyway. If you were in my place----”
“What did you buy that gun for?”
“I saw the game was up. You were closing in. When I saw you there in
that Pullman I wondered if you’d recognize me--and I thought sure you
didn’t. I’ve changed more than you have. My hair, last time you saw me,
was thick, and its natural color. And this”--he touched the long ragged
scar on his upper lip--“you never saw that. Nobody in Texas did. Nobody
in Texas ever saw me without a mustache; I had it all raised when I
came here. Not a living soul in the State knew I had this mark under it
except my wife--and she never saw it. I got it falling off a shed onto
a harrow back there in Kentucky when I wasn’t twelve years old. Just as
soon as I was able to raise hair over it, I hid it. Then I raised
whiskers, too. I was twenty when I came to Texas, you know.”
“So you thought I didn’t recognize you there on the train?”
“If I’d believed you did, I’d have left it the other side of the
border. But when it seemed I’d got by you, I thought I could get by
anybody, so I came on. Then there you were in the lobby last night but
you didn’t seem to notice me much. So I still thought I was all right
until your man followed me to-day.”
“How did you know him?”
“I didn’t, of course. He doesn’t date back to my time. But I ran into
him three or four times this afternoon, and finally I asked a man,
while he was in sight, who he was. And the man didn’t remember his name
but said he was a Ranger.”
The man spread his hands.
“So then I knew it was all up,” he said, “and that I’d been a fool to
come back into this country. And there was no getting away--so I
decided to take the only way out. I got the gun. If you hadn’t come in
here about when you did----”
Who _was_ the man? Even with a mustache and beard imagined on his face,
Carmichael could not reconstruct a face he knew. He said, groping for a
clew:
“Twenty-two years. Time goes, doesn’t it?”
“Twenty-two years. And in all that time I have never asked a question
about Texas that would show any knowledge of it, never admitted I ever
was in Texas, never more than three or four times seen a Texas paper. I
went to England on a cattle boat right after my escape--with the
whiskers and mustache shaved off, of course, so they never spotted
me--and then, after a while, to the Argentine. I’ve been there ever
since.”
“Prospered some, I take it.”
“Yes, I’ve prospered. I’m worth a good deal of money. It was one of my
interests brought me to Mexico; I own more than half of the Buena
Ventura Mine, there in the hills back of where you saw me get on the
train. I had to come up to look it over and when I thought that I was
only a few hundred miles from San Antonio--well, the thing pulled me. I
just had to come. Why, I didn’t even know whether my girl was alive or
dead. And I wanted to know. For one thing, if she was living I wanted
to fix it so she’d get my property when I pass out. And I couldn’t
write to anybody, of course, not without making talk.”
“Been going straight all this time, eh?” Carmichael was still groping.
“I never was anything else,” the man protested. “You never heard
anything against me outside of that last killing, did you? And you
never heard the truth of that. Nobody did.”
“I don’t remember all the details,” the Ranger said. “It’s a long
time.”
“I was railroaded,” the man declared earnestly. “You may not believe
it--convicts always say they were railroaded. But I was. The evidence
was all against me. I didn’t have a chance. But as true as there’s a
God in heaven I never killed a man that wasn’t trying to kill me. Not
one of them. Everybody had to admit that until the last one. They got
me that time without a friendly witness.
“Of course anything I say isn’t going to have any weight, after all
this time. The records of the court show for themselves. But it’s a
relief, somehow, to talk about it. The biggest thing in a man’s life
and I’ve had to be dumb for twenty-two years! Twenty-two years without
a word from home--although after a while it stopped seeming like home.
Buenos Aires is my home now. People down there don’t think badly of me
at all. If it wasn’t for the girl--and yet, until I got into Mexico
there, so close to Texas, I never really intended to look her up in
person. You see, I didn’t even know whether or not she’d lived.”
“So you said. Tell me about that killing. The straight of it.”
The man had quite recovered from the effects of his blow, except that
an ugly lump was raising itself above his ear, which from time to time
he patted softly.
“That feud between John Gater and me,” he said, “dated back a long
time. He was the boss of Huevaca County in those days, of course, and I
was a sort of leader of the faction that was trying to pull him off his
throne and get halfway decent government. Sheriff Aristo Coyne was his
man, and all Coyne’s deputies. And he was in with the Sarran gang.”
“A fine bunch of desperadoes and horse thieves,” Carmichael murmured.
“And Dick Sarran, the head of them, was a dirty killer, but nobody
could do anything to him because Gater stood behind him. And Gater was
above all the law there was in Huevaca County.”
“He was a powerful boss.”
“And I fought him, like a young fool. I was about twenty-five. I’m only
forty-nine now. This white hair----
“Larry Beeson was governor and Gater was his man--and that meant that
he had the State backing for anything he chose to do, murder included,
provided he delivered the votes of the county. The first killing was on
an election day, when ‘Buck’ Hamilton, one of Sarran’s gang, tried to
vote a bunch of Mexicans solid that he’d brought across the river only
that morning. He and I had words and he went after his gun. I was some
fast in those days and I killed him. They couldn’t do a thing to me. It
was self-defense and there were a lot of witnesses. But they had it in
for me from that minute. I was a fool not to leave the county. But I
was too stuffy.”
“It took more than stuffiness to stay in Huevaca County after John
Gater and Dick Sarran wanted a man out of it,” the Ranger said
sympathetically.
“So they laid for me, and inside of a year I had to kill two more of
them.” Even the thought of it brought a harassed, haunted look into the
man’s eyes. “I slept, those days, with a gun, not under my pillow, but
actually in bed with me, under my hand. Sometimes, looking back on it,
it seems as though I didn’t really sleep during that whole year. It was
along in the early part of that time that the baby was born, and my
wife died when it was four days old. And it seemed to me I didn’t much
care whether they killed me or not. My wife’s sister here in San
Antonio took the baby.
“Then that gubernatorial campaign came along where Jeff Rich was
running against Larry Beeson, and you remember there never was bloodier
politics in Texas. I was for Jeff Rice, to the limit. And when he was
licked, after a close election, it looked as if word went out that it
was an open season on the fellows that had fought Beeson the hardest.
Anyway, a lot of them got killed pretty soon, one way and another.
Well, I wouldn’t leave the county, and my turn came.
“That man Bristow, of Sarran’s gang, had a good reputation compared to
most of the rest of them. He hadn’t ever killed a man--at least it
never had been proved that he had--and maybe Gater and Sarran had that
in their minds when they set him to get me. I suppose the scheme had
been all worked out for some time, waiting for the cards to fall just
right. Anyway, he and I met one evening along about dusk near the post
office--and there wasn’t one single man in sight that didn’t belong
body and soul to Gater. And Bristow said fighting words to me and went
after his pistol and I beat him to it. Seems funny that I could beat
fast gunmen to the draw in those days, when you think how slow I went
after that pistol of mine just now, doesn’t it? But after twenty-two
years without practice----
“If another man, that they couldn’t manage, hadn’t come into sight just
as I shot him, they’d probably have finished me right then and there,
although perhaps I could have taken two or three of them along with me.
But there was a preacher--one of these circuit riders--came around the
corner just as Bristow fell. They didn’t know, I suppose, whether he
saw Bristow go after his gun first or not, although it turned out at
the trial that he didn’t. So they didn’t keep the fight going--but one
of them sneaked Bristow’s pistol from where it lay beside him before
the parson could get near enough to see what he was doing and everybody
swore I’d deliberately killed an unarmed man that had always had a
reputation of being peaceable.”
For three seconds the speaker stared gloomily before him, his eyes on
that tragic past. Then:
“That’s all,” he said, simply. “Gater had the jury and why they didn’t
hang me I don’t know. Perhaps he thought it would be a bigger
punishment to send me to the pen. The sentence was life. And Deputy
Sheriff Dominguez started with me for Huntsville.”
“And you jumped off the train, handcuffed, while he was asleep.”
“I jumped off the train, but he wasn’t asleep--and I had the handcuffs
loose in my hand when I jumped, because they’d just been unlocked. And
there was a thousand dollars in Miguel Dominguez’s pocket the next day
that hadn’t been there before. It was pretty nearly all the money I had
in the world and Dominguez was willing to double cross his own gang if
the temptation was strong enough. He knew I’d never come back, and if I
did, and told it, I’d be just an escaped lifer trying to make trouble
for an officer.”
“I’ve been trying to think of your first name, Alsbury,” said
Carmichael. “It is ‘Martin,’ isn’t it? You were always called ‘Red.’”
“Martin Alsbury,” the other agreed. “‘Red’ Alsbury to everybody, in
those days. The color’s been gone out of my hair a good many years. The
girl’s got it. That exact shade. She’s a fine-looking young woman,
Carmichael. Just to think that until day before yesterday I didn’t even
know whether she had lived or died! A man doesn’t have much affection
for a little bit of a baby, less than a year old--especially if its
mother died when it came. I never thought much about Edith till lately.
But as a man gets older----”
Suddenly the grim stoicism with which he had been speaking departed.
His face distorted and his voice broke, as he implored:
“Carmichael! Can’t I have that gun and settle it the easiest way? Is it
necessary she should ever know? She’s going to marry that young Locke,
and all day I’ve been checking him up, and he’s a regular man, just the
kind I’d want her to marry, but if he and she knew that her
father---- She’s never dreamed that I was alive. Is there any need for
her to know? If you won’t give me a gun, can’t you slip me into
Huntsville for the rest of my sentence without any of it ever getting
into the papers, Cap’n? For those young folks’ sakes!”
And now there was huskiness in the Ranger’s throat, too, as he cried,
harshly, to conceal his own emotion:
“Why, you darned old fool, you’ll be at the wedding to give her away!
Jeff Rich ran again for governor and was elected, two years after you
escaped. They never could get track of you to let you know, and
finally, when it was in all the papers and you didn’t show up,
everybody natchully supposed you were dead. One of the first things
Jeff Rich did as governor was to sign your unconditional pardon.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the January 7, 1923 issue
of The Popular Magazine.]
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