Chapter 10

Ed first makes sure no one can overhear, then tells Ben about this conspiracy, showing him the false report that has been smuggled into the files in place of the real one Ben had sent in. It takes Ben a couple of minutes to get the idea of what Ed is so worked up over. But he finally does get it. He then sweeps all ideas of a conspiracy out of Ed's mind forever. He says his talk is all nonsense; that this here is the very report he made, every word of it; and, as to that, if he had it to write over again he could shorten it by at least six words, but he must of been excited at the time. He says he has already told Ed that the Old Man complimented him on it because he hadn't lost his head and got hysterical, showing he had the makings of a good railroad man in him. And what had Ed expected, anyway? Didn't he know that your superiors want the simple facts in cases of this kind and no fancy work, wanting chiefly to know about damage to the rolling stock and how long before the main line will be open? Ed must be crazy, making him get a lay-off just for this! Had he looked for some verses of poetry about his accident, or a novel? Ben wasn't any novelist and wouldn't be one if you give him a chance. He was just a brakeman, with a bright future before him.

Ben was quite indignant himself by this time thinking of two days' pay lost, and Ed could hardly believe his own ears. He just set there, swelling up like a toad in a very feverish way. "But 'some distance,'" says Ed in low tones of awe. "You say I was thrown 'some distance,' like it was a casual remark. Is that any way to talk about a man hurled two hundred and thirty-five feet from start to finish?--which I can prove by the man that taped it. Why, any one would think them two cheap box cars was the real heroes of this accident. No one would dream that a precious human life was at stake. And 'Not serious!' And 'Head cut some!' Great suffering cats! Was that any way to talk about a fellowman--not to say a first cousin?"

Ben was pretty mad himself now and swore right out--at least the only oath he ever swears, which is "By doggie!" He says, by doggie, it ain't his fault that Ed was so brittle! And, by doggie, he wasn't going to let family affection interfere none with his career, because it wouldn't be right by the children he hopes some day to be the father of! Then he got his temper back and tried patiently to explain once more to Ed that what a railroad company wants in such cases is facts and figures, and not poetry--chiefly about the rolling stock. He says Ed can't expect a great corporation, with heavy freight and passenger traffic, to take any deep personal interest in the bone troubles of a mere brakeman.

It was about here, I guess, that Ed's feelings must of overcome him. He saw it was no use bandying words any more; so he started to do foul murder. He committed several acts of frightfulness on Ben with his crutch, seeming quite active for a cripple. Ben finally got out of range and went and had some stitches took in his own scalp. He swore, by doggie, he was through with that maniac forever! But he wasn't through. Not by no means!

Ed was now well enough to stand shipping; so he come down to Red Gap and started to work. He couldn't get round with his machines yet; so he got a new Home Queen and parked himself in the doorway of a vacant store and made embroidered hat marks for the multitude at one dollar a throw. Yes, sir; he congested traffic there on Fourth Street for about two weeks, taking a strip of satin ribbon and embroidering people's initials on it, so they could sew it in their hats and know whose hat it was. Hardly a hat in town that didn't have one, with thrilled crowds looking on while he done it.

I begged him to take it easy and stay at my house till he was strong again; but he wouldn't. He said he had to do something just to keep from thinking. Of course the poor lollop had never been able to think under any circumstances; but it sounded good. And, of course, he told me his trouble. I don't believe he held back the least little thing from the beginning of the accident down to the time he lammed Ben with his crutch. He now blamed everything on Ben. He said neither the company nor any one else could take his accident seriously after that lying report Ben put in. No wonder there hadn't been any real excitement about it. He was right bitter.

"'Some distance' Ben says I was thrown. I should think it was some distance! I'll bet it's farther than any other man was ever thrown on their whole rotten system. And 'Not serious'! Great Jeeminetty! What would have to happen to a person before he'd call it serious? Oh, I'll make him take that back if ever I get to be the man I once was! The only trouble with Ben is, he hasn't anything here and he hasn't anything here"--Ed put his hand first on his head and next on his heart, to show me where Ben hadn't got anything--"and that kind of trash may make fine railroad men, but they hadn't ought to be classed with human beings. Just wait till I get firmly knitted together again! You'll see! I'll certainly interfere with that man's career a-plenty. 'Not serious!' He won't make any such report about himself when I get through fussing with him. He certainly does need handling--that Ben Steptoe."

And so on for half an hour at a time, while he might be stitching G. W. G. in purple letters on a strip of yellow satin ribbon. I used to stop on purpose to hear some more about what he was going to do to Ben when he got to be the man he once was.

Pretty soon he had identified all the hats in Red Gap; so he moved over to Colfax with his Home Queen, and then on to other towns. It was spring again before he seemed to be the man he once was. He wrote me from Tekoa that if I read in the papers about something sad happening to Ben I wasn't to be alarmed, because, though it would be serious enough, it would probably not prove fatal if he had skilled nursing. So I watched the papers, but couldn't find any crime of interest. And a few days later Ed come over to Red Gap again. He looked pretty good, except for an overripe spot round his left eye.

"Well, did you lick Ben?" I says.

"No; Ben licked me," he says.

I'd never heard such a simple and astounding speech from any man on earth before. I started to find out what his excuse was--whether he wasn't in good shape yet, or his foot slipped, or Ben took a coupling pin to him, or something. But he didn't have a single word of excuse. He ought to of been locked up in a glass case in a museum right there. He said he was in fine shape and it had been a fair fight, and Ben had nearly knocked his head off.

I says what is he going to do now; and he says oh, he'll wait a while and give Cousin Ben another go.

I says: "Mebbe you can't lick Ben."

He says: "Possibly so; but I can keep on trying. I have to protect my honour, don't I?"

That's how it seemed to the poor fish by this time--his honour! And I knew he was going to keep on trying, like he had said. If he had made the usual excuses that men put up when they've had the worst of it I'd of known he'd been well licked, and once would be a-plenty. But, seeing that he was probably the only man who had been honest under such conditions since the world began, I had a feeling he would keep on. He was sure going to annoy Ben from time to time, even if he didn't panic him much. He was just as turbulent as ever. Now he went off and joined a circus, being engaged to lecture in front of the side show about the world's smallest midget, and Lulu the snake empress, and the sheep-headed twins from Ecuador. And Ben could devote the whole summer to his career without worry. I saw him over at Colfax one day.

"Mark my words; that lad was never cut out for a railroad man," says Ben. "He lets his emotions excite his head too much. Oh, I give him a good talking to, by doggie! I says to him: 'Why, you poor little hopeless, slant-headed, weak-minded idiot, you'--you know I always talk to Ed like he was my own brother--'what did you expect?' I says. 'I'm quite sorry for your injuries; but that was the first chance I'd ever had to make a report and I couldn't write one of these continuous stories about you. You ought to see that.' And what does he do but revile me for this commonsense talk! Tightminded--that's what he is; self-headed, not to say mulish, by doggie! And then pestering round me to have a fist altercation till I had to give in to keep him quiet, though I'm not a fighting character. I settled him, all right. I don't know where he is now; but I hope he has three doctors at his bedside, all looking doubtful. That little cuss always did contrary me."

I told him Ed had gone with this circus side show. "Side show!" he says. "That's just where he belongs. He ought to be setting right up with the other freaks, because he's a worse freak than the living skeleton or a lady with a full beard--that's what he is. And yet he's sane on every subject but that. Sometimes he'll talk along for ten minutes as rational as you or me; but let him hear the word accident and off he goes. But, by doggie, he won't bother me again after what I give him back of the Wallace freight shed." "He solemnly promised he would," I says, "when I saw him last. He was still some turbulent."

And he did bother Ben again, late that fall. When the circus closed he travelled back a thousand miles in a check suit and a red necktie, just to get another good licking. Ben must of been quite aggravated by that time, for he wound up by throwing Ed into the crick in all his proud clothes.

Ed was just as honest about it as before. He says Ben licked him fair. But it hadn't changed his mind. He felt that Ben's report had knocked his just celebrity and he was still hostile.

"Mebbe you can't lick Ben," I says to him again. "I can keep on doing my endeavours," he says. "I had to come off in a friend of mine's coat because my own was practically destroyed; but I'll be back again before Ben has clumb very high on that ladder of his career."

The adventurer was interned at my house for ten days, till his bruises lost their purple glow and he looked a little less like a bad case of erysipelas. Then he started out again, crazy as a loon! I didn't hear from him for nearly two years. Then I got a letter telling about his life of adventure down on the Border. It seems he'd got in with a good capable stockman down there and they was engaged in the cattle business. The business was to go over into Mexico, attracting as little notice as possible, cut out a bunch of cattle, and drive 'em across into the land of the free. Naturally what they sold for was clear profit.

Ed said he was out for adventure and this had a-plenty. He said I wouldn't believe how exciting it could be at times. He wanted to know what Ben was promoted to by this time, and was he looking as hearty as ever? Some day he was coming back and force Ben to set him right before the world.

About a year later he writes that the cattle business is getting too tame. He's done it so much that all the excitement has gone. He says I wouldn't believe how tame it can be, with hardly any risk of getting shot. He says he wouldn't keep on running off these Mexican cattle if it wasn't for the money in it; and, furthermore, it sometimes seems to him when he's riding along in the beautiful still night, with only God's stars for companions, that there's something about it that ain't right.

But it's another year before he writes that he has disposed of his stock interests and is coming North to lick Ben proper. He does come North. He was correct to that extent. He outfitted at the Chicago Store in Tucson, getting the best all-wool ready-made suit in Arizona, with fine fruit and flower and vegetable effects, shading from mustard yellow to beet colour; and patent-leather ties, with plaid socks--and so on. He stopped off at Red Gap on his way up to do this outrage. His face was baked a rich red brown; so I saw it wouldn't show up marks as legibly as when he was pale.

He said Ben wasn't a right bad fellow and he had no personal grudge against him, except he needed to have his head beat off on account of his inhumanity.

I told him Ben had worked up from yardmaster at Wallace to assistant division superintendent at Tekoa, where he would probably find him; and I wished him God-speed.

He said he rejoiced to know of Ben's promotion, because he had probably softened some, setting round an office. He promised to let me know the result at once. He did. It was the same old result. The fight had gone a few more rounds, I gathered, but Ed still gave the decision against himself in the same conscientious way. He said Ben had licked him fair. It was uncanny the way he took these defeats. No other human being but would of made some little excuse. He came back in another suit and a bit blemished in the face, and said Ben seemed to be getting a fair amount of exercise in spite of his confining office duties; but--mark his words--that indoor work would get him in time. He'd never seen a man yet that could set at a desk all day and keep in shape to resent fighting talk, even from a lighter man by twenty pounds. He said he might have to wait till Ben was general manager, or something; but his day was coming, and it would be nothing for Ben to cheer about when it got here. He now once more drifted out over the high horizon, only one eye being much help to him in seeing the way.

Then Ben come down and had a wholehearted session with me. He said I ought to have a talk with Ed and reason him out of his folly. I said Ed would listen to a number of things, but not to reason. He said he knew it; that the poor coot should be in some good institution right now, where the state could look after him. He said he couldn't answer for the consequences if Ed kept on in this mad way. He said here he was, climbing up in his profession, and yet with this scandal in his private life that might crop out any time and blast his career; and, by doggie, it was a shame! He said it was hanging over him like a doom and sometimes he even woke up in the night and wished he had made a different report about the accident--one with a little hysterics or description in it, like this maniac had seemed to crave.

"It ain't that I can't lick him," says Ben--"I've proved that three times; but having to do it every so often, which is beneath the dignity of a high railroad official. I might as well be a common rowdy and be done with it, by doggie! And no telling what will happen if he don't get his mind back. The little devil is an awful scrapper. I noticed it more than ever this last time. One of these times he might get me. He might get me good."

"You better let him, then," I says, "and have it over. That's the only thing which will ever stop him. You take a man that says he was licked fair, but still keeps at it, and he's deadly. Next time he comes along you lay down after making a decent resistance. Then he'll probably be your friend for life, especially if you tell him you been thinking about his accident and it now seems like the most horrible accident that ever happened to man."

It was the most encouragement I could give and he went off gloomy. Ben was certainly one conscientious objector.

Nothing come from Ed for over a year. Then he writes that he has give up the cattle business for good, because Mexico is in a state of downright anarchy and he has been shot through the shoulder. He put it well. He said he had been shot from ambush by a cowardly Mexican and I wouldn't believe how lawless that country was. So now he was going to take up mining in God's own country, where a man could get a square deal if he kept out of railroading. And was Ben keeping up his exercise?

He stayed under the surface for about three years. Neither Ben nor I heard a word from him. I told Ben it was many chances to one that he had gone under at the hands of someone that wanted to keep his cattle or his mine or something. Ben looked solemn and relieved at this suggestion. He said if the Grim Reaper had done its work, well and good! Life was full of danger for the best of us, with people dropping off every day or so; and why should Ed have hoped to be above the common lot?

But the very next week comes a letter from the deceased wanting to know whether Ben has been promoted some more and how he is looking by this time. Is he vigorous and hearty, or does office work seem to be sapping his vitality? It was the same old Ed. He goes on to say that the reason he writes is that the other night in Globe, Arizona, he licked a man in the Miners' Rest saloon that looked enough like Ben to be his twin; not only looked the image of him but had his style of infighting. And he had licked him right and made him quit. He said the gent finally fled, going through the little swinging doors with such force that they kept swinging for three minutes afterward. So now is the time for him to come up and have another go at Ben.

Of course he ain't superstitious, but it does seem like Providence has taken this means of pointing out the time to him. But he is in reduced circumstances at this moment, owing to complications it would take too long to explain; so will I lend him about two hundred and fifty dollars to make the trip on? And he will have Ben off his mind forever and be able to settle down to some life work. Just as sane as ever--Ed was.

I sent the letter to Ben, not wishing him to rest in false security. But I wrote Ed firmly that I couldn't see my money's worth in his proposition. I told him Ben was keeping in splendid condition, having the glow of health in his cheeks and a grip like an osteopath, and I'd be darned if I was going to back a three-time loser in the same old fight. I said he wasn't the only sensitive person in the world. I was a little fussy myself about what people might think of my judgment. And I gave him some good advice which was to forget his nonsense and settle down to something permanent before he died of penury.

He wrote a kind, forgiving answer. He said he couldn't blame me for turning against him after his repeated failures to lick Ben, but his nature was one I should never understand. He said he would amass the money by slow grinding toil, and when he next come North and got through handling Ben I would be the very first to grasp him by the hand and confess that I had wronged him. It was as nutty a letter as Ed ever wrote; which is some tribute. I sent it on to Ben and I believe it was right after that he ordered one of these exercising machines put up in his bedroom, with a book showing how to become a Greek god by pulling the weights five minutes, morning and evening.

But this time come silence so long that I guess even Ben forgot he had a doom hanging above his head by a single hair. I know I did. Let's see. It must of been a good five years before I hear from Ed again. It was another hard-luck letter. He had just worked a whole season for a contractor that blew up and left him with one span of mules in place of his summer's wages; which was a great disappointment, because he had been looking forward to an active reunion with Ben. How was Ben, anyway? And did he show the ravages of time?

And no one had wanted these mules, because they was inferior mules; but when he was on the point of shooting them to stop their feed bill along come two men that had a prospect over in the Bradshaw Mountains and offered him a one third interest in it for his span. So he had sawed the mules off onto these poor dubs and told 'em all right about the third interest in their claim, and forget it; but they insisted on his taking it. So he did, and was now working in the B.&.B. store at Prescott, selling saddles and jewellery and molasses and canned fruit and lumber, and such things. He didn't care much for the life, but it was neck-meat or nothing with him now.

No wonder these men that cheated him out of his mules had made him take a third interest in their claim. It was now taking all his salary to pay assessments and other expenses on it. But he was trying to trade this third interest off for something that wouldn't be a burden to him; then he should have a chance to put his money by and come up to give Ben what he was sooner or later bound to get if there was a just God in Heaven. He spoke as freshly about Ben as if his trouble had begun the day before. You wouldn't think twelve years had gone by. He was now saying Ben had put a stigma on him. It had got to be a stigma by this time, though he probably hadn't any idea what a stigma really is. He'd read it somewhere.

Then the waves closed over the injured man for about three years more. This time it looked as if he'd gone down for good, stigma and all. Ben thought the same. He said it was a great relief not to be looking forward any more to these brutal affrays that Ed insisted on perpetrating. And high time, too, because he was now in line for general manager, and how would it look for him to be mixed up in brawls?

And everything was serene till the papers broke out into headlines about a big strike made in the Bradshaw Mountains of Arizona by three partners, of whom one was named Steptoe. They seemed to have found all the valuable minerals in that claim of theirs except platinum. Ben tried first to believe it was someone else named Steptoe; but no such luck. We read that a half interest in the property had been sold to an Eastern syndicate for three million dollars and a company organized of which Edward J. Steptoe was president.

"It may be all for the best, anyway," Ben says to me. "Now that he's a big mining man he'll probably have other aims in life than being a thug."

You could see he was hoping to make a separate peace with the new millionaire, who would forget the grudge of his old days when he had to work for what he got, or at least run the risk of getting shot for it. But I wasn't so sure. I reminded Ben that Ed had never yet done anything you'd think a human being would do, so why expect him to begin now, when he had abundant leisure? I advised him to give deep thought to the matter of his defense, and if the battle went against him to withdraw to a position previously prepared, like the war reports say. Ben said a few warm things about Ed, by doggie, that no cousin ought to say of another cousin, and went off, hoping against hope.

And, sure enough, Ed came promptly to the front. It seems he waited only long enough to get a new suit and an assorted lot of the snappiest diamond jewellery he could find. Then he wired me he was coming to right the wrongs of a lifetime. Reaching San Francisco, it occurred to him that he could put it all over Ben in another way that would cut him to the heart; so he there chartered the largest, goldest, and most expensive private car on the market, having boudoirs and shower baths and conservatories and ballrooms, and so on; something that would make Ben's dinky little private car look like a nester's shack or a place for a construction gang to bunk in. And in this rolling palace Ed invaded our peaceful country, getting lots of notice. The papers said this new mining millionaire was looking us over with an eye to investment in our rich lands. Little they knew he merely meant to pull off a brutal fist altercation with a prominent railroad official that was somewhat out of condition.