Chapter 14

"Damn you all!" says he, and his eyes was like coals now. "What have I done to any of you? What have I done wrong to anybody that I should deserve this? Can't you remember when you was a man, Curly? Can't you remember when you and me set on the gate of the big pasture, with our rifles acrost our knees, and waited for them sheepmen to come up and try to get them sheep through us? Did they get through? No; no one had us buffaloed. That was when you and me was men, Curly.

"What have we done now? We let this damn hypocrite, Dave Wisner, get the best of us all the way down the line. He's married his hired man to my girl; and he's set up that hired man out on the old home ranch, where her ma and me made our first start. Could anything be harder for me to bear than that? You was on the gate, Curly; and you let 'em through."

"He said they was plumb happy--them two, Colonel," says I. "What in hell could I do, Colonel? It all come over me. I could see the sun shining; I could feel the wind blowing again, like it was in the old days."

"Happy!" says he. He was half whispering now and his voice was like that of a right old man. "Happy! So was I--so was her ma--out there in the old log house, with the mountains, and the sun shining, and the wind blowing. Curly," says he, "what made her throw her life away? What made us come here at all?"

"I wish you'd stake me to some ham and aigs, Colonel," says I, "before I go. I met a fellow a while back that was broke; so I haven't et much."

"Go eat, man," says he, "And don't talk to me about going away."

"What's that?" says I.

"You're a damn, worthless, trifling cowhand and you'll never be anything different. I ought to fire you--ought to of done it long ago; but I fire my own men--they don't fire theirselfs. Go eat."

"Can't you eat none now, too, Colonel?" I ast him.

"Not yet," says he. "Maybe after a while."

I went out and got the first square meal I'd had for two days. When I couldn't eat no more right then, I sort of taken a pasear around the house, which was looking like hell by now. When I come back I seen a electric brougham out at our front yard. Tom Kimberly was just coming in. Out in the brougham I seen two girls. One was Katherine and the other seemed like it was Sally Henderson.

"I shan't try to say anything, Mr. Wright," says Tom Kimberly after a while to the old man--"only, whatever Bonnie Bell's done, she's done because she's thought it was best. She's tried to do what was honest and fair. If she didn't love me it wouldn't have been fair to marry me. She never said she'd marry me; she said she'd tell me sometime. It was her right to decide for herself. I wish her well, hard as that is for me to say."

"Yes; I know," says the old man. "She was a fine girl, Tom. But she ain't the only one in the world at that; and she had freckles, some--they get worse when they get old. There's plenty girls in the world handsomer'n her--always is plenty. If I hadn't happened to marry her ma, Tom, I'd of married any other of half a dozen more girls, like, just as they come along. They're all alike, anyways, you see; so don't take it hard."

He was a damn old liar! He never would of married no other woman in the world but the one he did marry, and he knew it; but he was trying to make Tom feel more comfortable. So Tom he set there and lit a cigarette. His trousers was right short, and when he hitched 'em up I seen he wore garters--blue ones. I was reconciled then.

After a time he got up and said good-by to us. Then he went out to where the brougham was standing in the street. One of the girls inside opened the door for him to get in--maybe Sally Henderson.

XXVIII

THE HOLE IN THE WALL

A paper come out, with a picture of the Wisner fence, showing the place where the hole had been broke through. It was marked with a star to show where it was at. The man that wrote the story said here was a modern case of Pyramus and Thisbe. Who they was I don't know; but like enough they lived on the South Side. There was pictures this time of our William and their Emmy. I didn't read any more about the thing, for I was sore on the whole business, and considerable worried about Old Man Wright, what he was going to do. But at part of the piece it said something I happened to see.

Evidently [it says] though it may be difficult for a young man to kiss a girl through a four-foot wall, this aperture, opening or orifice, without doubt or question originally was intended as an avenue for Mr. Pyramus to achieve access occasionally, if not to the lips, at least to the ears of little Miss Thisbe. Which leaves it only a question of who was Mr. Pyramus and who Miss Thisbe. As to this, Alderman Wright has steadily denied himself to the press, while Mrs. Wisner, the only member of the family at home on the north side of the wall, also refuses to talk. It is well known that Mr. Wisner has been absent in Europe on important business connected with the war loan--

I read that far to Old Man Wright and then he broke out.

"War loan!" says he. "It's a loan for his own self that he's looking for. He's lost four million dollars on that irrigation scheme of his when he bought our ranch. Now I'm going to foreclose and he knows it. He's got his funds tied up in cargoes of meat and grain that ain't cashed in. He's short, and damn short! And I know it; and these are times when banks ain't loosening much. War--yes; I'll show him war! There can't nobody get title to a foot of that land till Old Man Wisner gets his title from me--and he ain't never going to get it. If it's my last act I'll ruin him. I trusted you, and you turned me down. I trusted her, and she threw me down. I won't trust nobody no more, except myself.

"What's it come to?" says he to hisself after a while, looking around at the big rooms. "What did it all come to, what I done for her? And I give up the ranch for her and give up the life I loved!"

"The sun was on the hills when I was out there, Colonel," says I to him, sudden, happening to think of something, "and the sky was blue as it ever was; and the wind was just carrying the smell of the sage, like it used to; and the river was running white on the riffles, same as it did before. And the cows----"

"Don't, Curly!" says he. "Don't!"

"I won't no more, Colonel," says I. "I won't be on your pay roll much longer; but them old days----"

"Don't!" says he. "I can't think about the old days no more. I'm closing the books now, Curly."

"So'm I," says I.

"What do you mean?" says he. "I ain't right clear about some things."

"No; you ain't," says I. "So long as it's fair war I'm in with you; but when it comes to making war on women and children--I ain't in."

"Children! Curly, what do you mean?"

"Children," says I, "is all there is to things. Buck the game the way you want to, Colonel," says I; "but when you buck the child game you're bucking God Almighty His own self. He's got it framed up so He can't lose. Them two couldn't help theirselfs. I've got to finish some day, same as you. All right; I'll finish with them."

Then I shooked hands with him and he done so with me. He looks me keen in the eyes and I looks him keen back. We didn't neither of us weaken. This was a heap the hardest thing we'd ever faced together, but we didn't neither of us flicker. We'd both decided what we thought was right.

"Son," says he after a while, "you're some man after all." And he puts his hand on my shoulder; like he used to.

"She ain't got no ma," says I to him the last thing. "I'm half her pa, the only half she's got left; and I'll stick if her father don't. But she ain't got no ma. That's what makes me so sorry for the kid," says I.

He looks at me, with his eyes wide open, but he don't talk none.

"I seen her setting right there, Colonel," says I, "in this room, on our old hide lounge--her wringing her hands like she'd tear 'em apart. She was bucking a hard game then, and doing her best to play it fair--her just a kid, with no special chance to be so very wise, and not having no ma. She didn't have a soul to go to, and all that was worrying her was which side of the game she really was on. For she knowed, even if we didn't, like I told you just now--she must of knowed it somehow--there's one particular game that God Almighty plays so He can't lose."

He groaned like I hated to hear. But he didn't weaken. I knowed he couldn't quit.

XXIX

HOW THE GAME BROKE

Today was the day Old Man Wisner was to get home; and that evening me and Old Man Wright laid out to go over there and have a talk with him. So a lot of things had to be done that day.

Old Man Wright he got up at sunup, and almost all day he was busy in the room he used for a office at the house; he hadn't hardly went downtown at all since Bonnie Bell run away. He had a desk full of papers here, and now he sent for his lawyer and his barber to come over early in the day.

"Why, Alderman," says the lawyer man, "you act like you was making your last will and testament, and getting ready to close up business."

He laughs then; but Old Man Wright don't laugh.

"I am," says he. "It's time; I've been dead more'n a week now."

They made out some papers about houses and lots and stocks and things, how they was to be distributed in case of the deemise of the said John William Wright. Then after a while they come around to the papers in the big case we had against Old Man Wisner for the last deferred payment on the Circle Arrow trade that hadn't been paid yet and wouldn't be. Old Man Wright sets back and looks at them papers right ca'm.

"I know what Old Man Wisner's been East for," says he. "He couldn't raise that much money--nigh on a million dollars--on anything as wildcat as strawberries and cream in Wyoming; not these times. Even the banks is wise onto that now. Stenographers and clerks and ministers and doctors don't bite like they used to no more; it's harder to find people that's willing to pay in so much a month for a bungalow in Florida or Wyoming while they set home engaged in light and genteel employment. Every oncet in a while the American people gets took with a spasum of a little horse sense. There's places for peaches and cream, and there's places for cows, but you don't want to get your wires crossed.

"So," says he, "I know I've got Old Man Wisner broke right now. He's been over to Holland to see if he couldn't form a Dutch syndicate for to unload on. The Dutch is the last resort of the American landboomer. When you can't sell out a bunch of greasewood land for a pineapple colony to no one else, go over and sell it to them Dutch; they're easy. I seen a man one time sell almost all the north end of New Mexico to a Dutch syndicate for a coffee plantation. It was good for cows; but he had pictures of steamboats and canals and things out there in the sagebrush--you've got to have a canal on your blueprint if you sell anything to them Holland people. Like enough Old Man Wisner had pictures of canals. But he couldn't sell this property none, following on the war over there; they're busy with other things.

"The result is he's come back here broke. He knows the banks has got wise and they ain't going to back him no further than they have. They're too busy lending a billion dollars or so to the folks over in Europe to help blow up some steamboats for us.

"Therefore," says he, jarring the paper weight on the table when he brings down his fist, "if times gets any harder, as like enough they will, Dave Wisner's got to let that property go on the market for what it'll bring inside his one year of grace after foreclosure. I know what that means; it'll mean I got a few thousand acres of land more to distribute among my heirs and assigns, my executors, friends, faithful servitors, villagers and others--however you got that figured out in them papers.

"Let me see them papers," says he after a while. "Are you shore you got my girl's name spelled Katherine? And that she gets this city residence here?"

Then they went over it again. But after a while the lawyer got done, and so did the barber, and they both went away; and the old man turns to me.

"Curly," says he, "I'm rich. I'm awful rich. I didn't know how rich I was till I begun to figure it up with Fanstead, Maclay & Horn, my lawyers here. I reckon, taking fair values, I'm worth ten or twelve million dollars--maybe twenty or forty--most of it made in this here town in a couple of years or so, and all out of the Wisner money we got for the ranch, which we're going to get back pretty nigh clean of cost, you might say. I didn't mean to; but I'm rich--awful rich!

"And so, seeing I ain't got no heirs of my own blood and kin, I been looking around for a few others. There's that Katherine; she's a good girl. She kissed me right here once." And the old man put his hand on the top of his head. "I'm going to give her a little something after I'm dead; for instance, this house and the things here--half a million dollars maybe. Likewise, I've fixed up a few things for my faithful servitor aforesaid, Henry Absalom Wilson--which is you, Curly. I give you only enough for cigarette money," says he; "never mind how much. And as for them two," says he--"her and the Wisners' hired man--not a cent! Not a damned cent! I'll show him!

"The old ranch," says he, "is going to be fixed up sometime--some of my heirs and executors'll get a hold of that. It's easy to get plenty of heirs if you have twelve or fifty million dollars. I've left instructions to make improvements out there. It'll sort of be the best apology I can make to the woman that's buried out there--Gawd bless her!--as good a woman as ever lived on earth. I can't see how she could have such a girl like she done. Well," he finishes, sort of sighing. "I done my best. I may not live more'n thirty or forty years more.

"So, now then, Curly," says he after a while, "since we've finished all our day's work and have a little time left, we can now engage in some simple pastime, such as mumblety-peg, or maybe marbles, till later in the evening. I'm through cutting her off, Curly, and I'm happy. I've left it as clean as I know how. Now I'll bet you a thousand dollars I can beat you three games out of five at mumblety-peg. My executor, without bond," says he, going right on, "is Old Man Kimberly."

"You're on, Colonel," says I; "though I don't know where I'll get a thousand till after your will is probated."

So we went outdoors and set down on the grass and played mumblety-peg--me losing that thousand, natural. Then we sort of fussed around outdoors one way or another till it come towards dark. He left me after a while and went into the house alone.

When I went in I seen him standing by hisself in our ranch room, looking at some things he'd picked up. They was a white silk scarf and a pair of long white gloves--he'd like enough found 'em back of the sofa, where Bonnie Bell probably dropped 'em the night when I seen her setting there wringing her hands because she didn't know what to do. We never let no one clean up the ranch room. He put 'em down soft on the sofa and smoothed out the scarf and folded the gloves; it was like he was laying 'em away in a drawer.

We didn't enjoy nothing much to eat, not even ham and aigs. It begun to get dark right soon after that and I sort of wandered out on the front walk to look around. Old Man Wright was in the house by hisself.

Right then I seen a car come in right fast and pull up at the sidewalk about halfway between our house and the Wisners'. Someone got out of the car and come running up our walk. I could see it was a woman. Not wishing no one to be bothered then, I went down to meet her.

It was Bonnie Bell! She'd come home then.

I run down the walk to meet her and pushed her away. I knew it wouldn't do for them two to meet now. But she run up and put her arms around my neck. She was alone, though there was someone in the car that hadn't got out.

"Curly!" says she, "Curly! I saw you standing there and I came in. Where is he, Curly?"

I nods behind me.

"In there," says I. "Don't go in--you mustn't."

"I must, sometime. Let me go now."

"No you don't," says I. "You can't. It's too late."

"Too late? Too late? Why, what do you mean, Curly? I've--I've come back! I want to see my dad! I've got to see my dad. There's lots I must tell him. He don't know--I didn't know."

"You can't see your dad no more, kid," says I. "That time has went by. I'm foreman here till midnight of today; and while I am there ain't nobody going to bother him. He's had trouble enough already."

She stood sort of shaking. I had her wrists in my hands now.

"When it's all over," says I--"meaning a few things we're going to settle tonight--I'll come out to you in Wyoming. I won't be foreman here no more. I'm going to go and throw in with you, even against the old man."

She begun to cry now.

"What are you talking about? I want him!" says she. "I want to see my dad. I need him--and he needs me!"

"Yes; he does need you," says I. "He's needed you for a long time. But you wouldn't like to see him now; he's changed a heap. He ain't got a friend left on earth except me, and that ends at midnight. He's had it pretty rough, when you come to think it all over," says I.

"I must go in, Curly," says she.

"No; you can't," says I. "I'm foreman and I won't let you. He wouldn't want it; he's marked you off his books--we just been doing that today, with a lawyer and a barber."

"But, Curly, he doesn't know----"

"Huh!" says I. "Well, he thinks he does. He figures you're the same as if you was dead."

"Curly!" she cries now hard. "Curly, it mustn't be! It's all a mistake; it's all been a mistake. I've come back----"

"Yes," says I; "it was a mistake. It ain't been nothing but a mistake all down the line. But, as far as it can be squared, the old man and me we've set out to square it tonight. Him and me is going to call on Old Man Wisner this evening," says I. "We're going over as soon as Old Man Wisner gets home. I'm going with your pa, Bonnie. You know me and I reckon you know him too. I reckon there may be some plain conversation."

"I've got to see him!" says she over and over again.

"Well, if you want to see him," says I, "you go on over there and, like enough, you will see him before long. You belong that side the wall now. Tonight is when Old Man Wright and me settles with Old Man Wisner, and settles permanent. We live on this side."

She turns now and runs away so fast I couldn't catch her.

I seen someone get out of the car now--a man; and she taken his arm and they both went out of sight around the end of the wall. I allowed they'd went up to the door. Right soon I seen a light in their higher windows above the wall--you could just see that much from where I was standing. If I'd wanted to go upstairs I might of seen more from our windows; but I wouldn't do that now.

I went back in the house and stood near our door, watching the street. In about half or three-quarters of a hour I seen Old Man Wisner's car coming in; there was lights in the car and I could see him plain. He was setting with his head kind of bent down. I suppose, like enough, he'd already been served with them papers of ours down town. He'd got into town early that morning and been busy all day at his office. He was just getting home now. He must of knowed he was busted.

I waited for half a hour more, so things could get right settled down over there, and then I went in and found Old Man Wright. He was setting still as a dead man, looking into the fireplace in our ranch room, though there wasn't no fire. He was all dressed up in his evening clothes; and now I seen why he'd had the barber come. There wasn't a finer-looking gentleman in all the town than Old Man Wright was right then--though him pale and sad. Lord, how sad he was! But not can-nye--none whatever, him, even if Old Lady Wisner had called us all that.

"He's come, Colonel," says I, quiet, turning from one sad old man to another sad old man.

I didn't say nothing to him about who else I'd seen in our front yard; I didn't want to stir him all up, for I knowed he'd marked Bonnie Bell off'n his books and closed the books for keeps. When I spoke to him he turns around and stands up, quiet.

"Very well," says he; "we'll go on over now."

So us two walk together out of our front door. He shuts the door then behind him and we go on down the walk together. He only turns once and looks back at the house.

The whole street laid there in front of us when we walked out from our yard to go over into theirs. The lights was all lit now, miles and miles of 'em; and below us was the hundreds of thousands more of the lights of the big city--the city that hadn't made us as happy as we thought it was going to. I heard a boat whistle deep somewheres out on the lake--it sort of made my stomach tremble.

Over west, beyond our part of the city, you could hear a low sort of sound like maybe of street cars; but on our side there wasn't anything but automobiles--thousands of 'em--going along as swift and smooth as birds. Most of them was going north still; but on the other side of the street some was going down, maybe with people going to the theaters. It was about the time when people in the city eat what they call dinner. The moon was coming up back of our house, which lay there all black--not a light in it now. I could see the flower beds in our yard, and the white naked statutes standing there. It looked right pretty, but cold like a graveyard.

The front door was shut and, the moon being up over east, the part of the house toward us was black-like. I remembered what the lawyer man had said about things being signed, sealed and delivered. Well, we'd closed the books. It was to hell with them Better Things!

I didn't tell Old Man Wright that Bonnie Bell had been there, because he had things hard enough the way it was and I was working for him yet a little while. He was ca'm as a summer day now.

I'd been his deputy once or twice when we had to go and arrest a bad man. He was now just like he was then. He walks, his thumbs, on both sides, just resting on the waistband of his pants. I don't know what he had in his mind; but you couldn't of saw the sign of a gun on him and I'd throwed my gun away. His coat tails hung straight down. Outside he was plumb civilized. His face was white and he looked right gentle--just gentle. He wasn't. As for changing him, it would of been as easy to change one of them marble statutes over in our garden.

Them Wisners wasn't watching their own gate like they'd ought to of. We walked on up their stairs and the old man rung the bell and stood there, his face without no expression now.

We heard some noises inside there--their dog begun to bark and it seemed like people was talking. Their William opened the door and we all stood there.

Old Man Wright reaches out his arm and pushes him to one side, and him and me go on in, walking fast toward the middle of the house.

XXX

HOW IT COME OUT AFTER ALL

There was a curtain acrost the door between the hall and the room beyond. Old Man Wright made one sweep and throwed open the whole room before us. We stood there in the door, neither of us making any move. Everything stopped then. There wasn't nobody talking no more. What we seen before us was something you couldn't hardly of figured on seeing at all.

They was all setting at the dinner table and they was all dressed up. There was Old Man Wisner and the old lady, and Bonnie Bell--she was setting next to the old lady. Just beyond, and square acrost the table from us, facing us, was the hired man--the man on whose account we'd come to square things now and leave them signed, sealed and delivered.