The rest followed on after: with the Hen holding fast to Kerosene, and Kerosene yelling for all she was worth; and behind come some of the boys toting Blister"s corpse--with Blister swearing at "em for the way they had his legs twisted, and ending by kicking loose and making a break by the shortcut back of the freight-house for home.
The other corpse--seeing the way Blister was monkeyed with--stood off the ones that wanted to carry him, allowing he"d be more comfortable if he walked.
When the buck-board got down to the deepo the little man said he felt sickish--not being used to such goings-on--and didn"t care much for eating his supper; and he said he thought likely he"d be better if he had a brandy-and-soda to settle his insides. So him and Santa Fe went across to the Forest Queen to get it--and the first thing they struck was Blister, come to life again, behind the bar!
Santa Fe hadn"t counted on that card coming out--but he shook one to meet it down his sleeve, and played it as quick as he knowed how. "Ah, Patrick," says he, "so you have taken your poor brother"s place." And to the little man, who was staring at Blister like a stuck pig, he says: "They were twin brothers, sir, this gentleman and the deceased--and, as you see, so alike that few of their closest friends could tell them apart."
"It was worse than that," says Blister, following right along with the same suit. "Only when one of us was drunk and the other sober, and that way there being a difference betwane us, could we tell our own selves apart--and indade I"m half for thinking that maybe it"s meself, and not poor Mike, that"s been killed by Nosey Green this day. But whichever of us it is that"s dead, it"s a domn good job--if your Reverence will excuse me saying so--the other one of us has made of Nosey: bad luck to the heart and lights of him, that are cooking this blessed minute in the hottest corner of h.e.l.l!"
"Tut! Tut! Brother Patrick," says Santa Fe, speaking friendly but serious. "You know how strongly I feel about profanity--even when, as in the present instance, justly aroused resentment lends to it a colorable excuse. And also, my dear brother, I beg you to temper with charity your views as to Brother Green"s present whereabouts. It is sufficient for all purposes of human justice that he has pa.s.sed away.
And now, if you please, you will supply our visitor, here--whose nerves not unnaturally are shaken by the tragic events of the past hour--with the brandy-and-soda that I am satisfied he really needs. In that need, my own nerves being badly disordered, I myself share; and as the agonizing loss that you have suffered has put a still more severe strain upon your nerves, Brother Patrick, I beg that you will join us. The drinks are on me."
"Sure your Reverence has a kind heart in you, and that"s the holy truth," says Blister. "It"s to me poor dead brother"s health I"ll be drinking, and with all the good-will in the world!"
They had another after that; and then Blister said there was luck in odd numbers, and he wanted to show Palomitas knowed how to be hospitable to strangers, and they must have one on the bar. They had it all right, and by that time--having the three of "em in him--the little man said he was feeling better; but, even with his drinks to help him, when he come to eating his supper he didn"t make out much of a meal. He seemed to be all sort of dreamy, and was like he didn"t know where he was.
Santa Fe kept a-talking away to him cheerful while they was hashing; and when they"d finished off he told him he hoped what he"d see of the bright side of Palomitas--before his train started--would make him forget the cruelly sorrowful shadows of that melancholy afternoon. He was a daisy at word-slinging, Charley was--better"n most auctioneers.
Then they come along together back to the bar-room--where the cloth was off the table, and the cards and chips out, ready for business to begin. All the boys was jammed in there--Nosey Green with his face tied up like he had a toothache, so it didn"t show who he was--waiting to see what more was coming; and they was about busting with the laughs they had inside "em, and ready to play close up to Santa Fe"s hand.
Charley set down to deal, same as usual, and asked the little man to set down aside of him--telling him he"d likely be interested in knowing that what come to the bank that night would go to getting the melodeon the Sunday-school needed bad. And then he shoved the cards round the table, and things begun. The little man took it all dreamy--saying kind of to himself he"d never in all his born days expected to see a minister making money for Sunday-school melodeons by running a faro-bank. But he wasn"t so dreamy but he had sense enough to keep out of the game. Santa Fe kept a-asking him polite to come in; but he kept answering back polite he wouldn"t--saying he was no sort of a hand at cards.
About the size of it was, in all the matters he could see his way to that little man had as good a load of sand as anybody--and more"n most. Like enough at home he"d read a lot of them fool Wild West stories--the kind young fellers from the East, who swallow all that"s told "em, write up in books with scare pictures--and that was why in some ways he was so easy fooled. But I guess it would a-been a mistake to pick him up for a fool all round. Anyhow, Santa Fe got a set-back from him on his melodeon-faro racket--and set-backs didn"t often come Santa Fe"s way.
It wasn"t a real game the little man was up against, and like enough he had the savey to ketch on to what was being give him. For the look of the thing they"d fixed to start with a baby limit, and not raise it till he got warmed up and asked to; and it was fixed only what he dropped--the rest going back to the boys--should stay with the bank.
But as he didn"t warm up any worth speaking of, and wasn"t giving himself no chances at all to do any dropping, Santa Fe pretty soon found out they might as well hang up the melodeon fund and go on to the next turn.
The Sage-Brush Hen managed most of what come next, and she done it well. She"d dressed herself up in them white clothes of hers with a little blue bow tied on at the neck--looking that quiet and tidy and real lady-like you"d never a-notioned what a mixed lot she was truly--and she"d helped the other girls rig out as near the same way as they could come. Some of "em didn"t come far; but they all done as well as they knowed how to, and so they wasn"t to be blamed. Old Tenderfoot Sal--she was the limit, Sal was--wasn"t to be managed no way; so they just kept her out of the show.
When Santa Fe come to see faro-banking for melodeons wasn"t money-making, he pa.s.sed out word to the Hen to start up her part of the circus--and in the Hen come, looking real pretty in her white frock, and put her hand on his shoulder married-like and says: "Now, my dear, it isn"t fair for you gentlemen to keep us ladies waiting another minute longer. We want our share in the evening"s amus.e.m.e.nt.
Do put the cards away and let us have our dance." And then she says to the little man, nice and friendly: "My husband is so eager to get our melodeon--and we really do need it badly, of course--that I have trouble with him every night to make him stop the game and give us ladies the dance that we do so enjoy." And then she says on to Charley again: "How has the melodeon fund come out to-night, my dear?"
"Very well indeed. Very well indeed, my angel," Charley says back to her. "Eleven dollars and a half have been added to that sacred deposit; and the contributions have been so equally distributed that no one of us will feel the trifling loss. But in interrupting our game, my dear, you are quite right--as you always are. Our guest is not taking part in it; and--as he cannot be expected to feel, as we do, a pleasurable excitement in the augmentation of our cherished little h.o.a.rd--we owe it to him to pa.s.s to a form of harmless diversion in which he can have a share." And then he says to the little man: "I am sure, sir, that Mrs. Charles will be charmed to have you for her partner in the opening dance of what we playfully term our ball."
"The pleasure will be mine," says the little man--he was a real friendly polite little old feller--and up he gets and bows to the Hen handsome and gives her his arm: and then in he went with her to the dance-hall, with Santa Fe and the rest of us following on. It give us a first-cla.s.s jolt to find all the girls so quiet-looking; and they being that way braced up the whole crowd to be like a dancing-party back East. To see the boys a-bowing away to their partners, while Jose--he was the fiddler, Jose was--was a tuning up, you wouldn"t a-knowed where you was!
It was a square dance to start in with: with the little man and the Hen, and Charley and Kerosene Kate, a-facing each other; and Denver Jones with Carrots--that was the only name she ever had in Palomitas--and Shorty Smith and Juanita, at the sides. Them three was the girls the Hen had done best with; and she"d fixed "em off so well they most might have pa.s.sed for back-East school-ma"ams--at least, in a thickish crowd. Everybody else just stood around and looked on--and that time, with all the Forest Queen ways of managing dancing upset, it was the turn of the Palomitas folks to think they"d struck a dream! The little man, of course, didn"t know he"d struck anything but what went on always--and the way he kicked around spirited on them short little fat legs of his was just a sight to see!
Like as not he hadn"t got a good sight of Kerosene Kate while she was doing her killed husband act before supper; or, maybe, it was her being dressed up so tidy made a difference. Anyways, he didn"t at first ketch on to her being about the freshest-made widow he"d ever tumbled to in a dancing-party. But he got there all right when the square dance was over, and Jose flourished his fiddle and sung out for the Senores and Senoritas to take partners for a _valsa_, and the Hen brought up Kerosene to foot it with him--telling him she was the organist who was going to play the melodeon when they got it, and he"d find her a nice partner as she was about the best dancer they had.
When he did size her up he was that took aback he couldn"t talk straight. "But--but," says he, "isn"t this the lady whose husband was--was--" and he stuck fast.
"Whose husband met with an accident this afternoon," says the Hen, helping him out with it. "Yes, this is our poor sister Rebecca--but the accident happened, you know, so many hours ago that the pang of it has pa.s.sed; and--as Mr. Green, the gentleman who shot her husband, was shot right off himself--she feels, as we all do, that the incident is closed."
And then Kerosene put in: "Great Scott, mister, you don"t know Palomitas! Widows in these parts don"t set round moping their heads off all the rest of their lives. They wait long enough for politeness--same as I"ve done--and then they start in on a new deal."
The little man likely was too mixed up to notice Kerosene didn"t talk pretty, like Santa Fe and the Hen knowed how to; and he was so all-round jolted that before he knew it--Kerosene getting a-hold of his hand with one of hers, and putting the other on his shoulder--he had his arm round her waist kind of by instinct and was footing it away with her the best he knowed how. But while he was a-circling about with her he was the dreamiest looking one you ever seen.
Kerosene said afterwards she heard him saying to himself over and over: "This can"t be real! This can"t be real!"
What happened along right away after was real enough for him--at least, he thought it was, and that come to the same thing. He was so dizzied up when Kerosene stopped dancing him--she was doing the most of it, she said, he keeping his little fat legs going "cause she swung him round and he had to--all he wanted was to be let to set down. So Kerosene set him--and then the next act was put through.
Bill Hart and Shorty Smith come up to Kerosene right together, and both of "em asked her polite if she"d dance. She said polite she"d be happy to; but she said, seeing both gentlemen had spoke at once for her, they must fix it between "em which one had the call. All the same, she put her hand on Hart"s arm, like as if he was the one she wanted--and of course that pleased Hart and made Shorty mad. Then the two of "em begun talking to each other, Hart speaking sarcastic and Shorty real ugly, and so things went on getting hotter and hotter--till Kerosene, doing it like she meant to break up the rumpus, shoved Hart"s arm round her and started to swing away. Just as they got a-going, Shorty out with his gun and loosed off at Hart with it--and down Hart went in a heap on the floor.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND DOWN HART WENT IN A HEAP ON THE FLOOR"]
The whole place, of course, right away broke into yells and cusses, and everybody come a-crowding into a heap--some of the boys picking up Hart and carrying him, kicking feeble real natural, out into the kitchen; and some more grabbing a-hold of Shorty and taking away his gun. Kerosene let off howls fit to blow the roof off--only quieting down long enough to say she"d just agreed to take Hart for her second, and it was hard luck to be made a widow of twice in one day. Then she howled more. Really, things did go with a hum!
Santa Fe and the rest come a-trooping back from the kitchen--leaving the door just a crack open, so Hart could peep through and see the fun--and Santa Fe jumped up on a bench and sung out "Order!" as loud as he could yell. Knowing what was expected of "em, the boys quieted down sudden; and the Hen got a-hold of Kerosene and snuggled her up to her, and told her to weep on her fond breast--and Kerosene started in weeping on the Hen"s fond breast all right, and left off her howls.
The room was that quiet you could a-heard a cat purr.
"My brethren," says Charley, talking sad-sounding and digging away at his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief, "Brother Hart has left us"--Hart being in the kitchen that was dead true--"and for the third time to-day our Sunshine Club has suffered a fatal loss. Still more lamentable is the case of our doubly stricken sister Rebecca--only just recovered, by time"s healing touch, from the despair of her tragic widowhood, and at the threshold of a new glad life of wedded happiness--who again is desolately bereaved." (Kerosene give a dreadful groan--seeming to feel something was expected of her--and then jammed back to the Hen"s fond breast again and kept on a-weeping like a pump.) "Our hearts are with Sister Rebecca in her woe," says Charley. "She has all our sympathy, and the full help of our sustaining love."
"If I know anything about the sense of this meeting," Hill chipped in, "it"s going to do a d.a.m.n sight more"n sling around sympathy." (Hill had a way of speaking careless, but he didn"t mean no harm by it.) "That shooting wasn"t a square one," says Hill; "and it"s likely there"ll be another member missing from the Sunshine Club for doing it. There"s telegraph-poles," says Hill, "right across the way!"
"Brother Hill is right," Santa Fe went on, "though I am pained that his unhappy disposition to profanity remains uncurbed. The shot that has laid low Brother Hart was a foul one. Justice, my friends, exemplary justice, must be meted out to the one who laid and lowered him; and I reckon the quicker we get Brother Smith over to the deepo, and up on the usual telegraph-pole--as Brother Hill has suggested--the better it"ll be for the moral record of our town. All in favor of such action will please signify it by saying "Ay."" And the whole crowd--except Shorty, who voted against it--yelled out "Ay" so loud it shook all the bottles in the bar.
"The ayes have it," says Santa Fe, "and we will proceed. Brother Wood, as chairman of the Friendly Aid Society, I beg that you will go on ahead to the deepo and get ready the rope that on these occasions you so obligingly lend us from the Company"s stores. Brother Jones and Brother Hill, you will kindly bring along the prisoner. The remaining Friendly Aiders present will have the goodness, at the appropriate moment, to render the a.s.sistance that they usually supply." And off Charley went, right after Wood, with the rest of us following on: Hill and Denver yanking along Shorty and flourishing their guns savage; the girls in a pack around the Hen holding on to Kerosene; and Kerosene doing her share of what was wanted by letting out yells.
The little man was left to himself a-purpose; and he was so shook up, while he was coming along with the crowd over to the deepo, he couldn"t say a word. But he managed to get his stamps going, though they didn"t work well, when we was all on the platform--waiting while Wood rigged up the rope on the telegraph-pole--and he asked Santa Fe, speaking husky, what the boys meant to do.
"Justice!" says Charley, talking as dignified as a just-swore-in sheriff. "As I explained to you this morning, sir, n.o.body in Palomitas ever stands in the way of a fair fight--like the one you happened to come in on at the finish a few hours ago--any more than good citizens, elsewhere and under different conditions, interfere with the processes of the courts. But when the fight is not fair, as in the present instance--the gravamen of the charge against Brother Smith being that he loosed off into Brother Hart"s back when the latter did not know it was coming and hadn"t his gun out--then the moral sense of our community crystallizes promptly into the punitive action that the case demands: as you will see for yourself, inside of the next ten minutes, when you see Brother Smith run up on that second telegraph-pole to the left and kicking his legs in the air until he kicks himself into Kingdom Come!"
"Good Heavens!" says the little man. "You"re not going to--to hang him?"
"We just rather are!" says Santa Fe. And then he says, talking kind of cutting: "May I ask, sir, what you do in England with murderers? Do you pay "em salaries, and ask "em out to tea-parties, and hire somebody to see they have all the drinks they want?"
The little man begun telling how English folks manage such matters, and was real excited. But n.o.body but the Hen paid no attention to him.
The Hen--she and Kerosene was standing close aside of him--turned round to him and said pleasant she always enjoyed most the hangings they had by moonlight (the moon was at the full, and shining beautiful) because the moonlight, she said, cast over them such a glamour of romance. And her looking at moonlight hangings that way seemed to give him such a jolt he stopped talking and give a kind of a gasp. There wasn"t no more time for talking, anyway--for just then the train backed in to the platform and the conductor sung out the Friendly Aiders had got to get a move on "em, if them going by it was to see the doings, and put Shorty through.
Being moonlight, and the shadows thick, helped considerable--keeping from showing how the boys had fixed Shorty up so his hanging wouldn"t come hard: with a lariat run round under his arms, his shirt over it, and a loop just inside his collar where they could hitch the rope fast. When they did hitch to it, things looked just as natural as you please.
Shorty got right into the hanging spirit--he always was a comical little cuss, Shorty was--pleading pitiful with the boys to let up on him; and, when they wouldn"t, getting a halt on "em--same as he"d seen done at real hangings--by beginning to send messages to all the folks he ever had. Santa Fe let him go on till he"d got to his uncles and cousins--and then he said he guessed the rest of the family could make out to do with second-hand messages from them that had them; and as it was past train-time, and the distinguished stranger in their midst--who was going on it--would enjoy seeing the show through, the hanging had got to be shoved right along. When Charley"d give his order, Carver come up--he was the Pullman conductor, Carver was, and he had his points how to manage--and steered the little man onto the back platform of the Pullman, where he could see well; and so had things all ready for the train to pull out as soon as Shorty was swung off.
Wood, who"d had experience, had the rope rigged up in good shape over the cross-bar of the telegraph-pole; and Hill and Denver fetched old Shorty along--with Shorty letting on he was scared stiff, and yowling like he"d been ashamed to if it hadn"t been a bunco game he was playing--and hitched him to it, with the boys standing close round in a clump so they hid the way it was done.
The little man was so worked up by that time--it likely being he hadn"t seen much of hangings--he was just a-hopping: with his plug hat off, and sousing the sweat off his face with his pocket-handkerchief, and singing out what was going on wasn"t any better than murder, and begging all hands not to do what he said was such a dreadful deed.
But n.o.body paid no attention to him (except Carver, he was a friendly feller, Carver was, kept a lookout he didn"t tumble himself off the platform) and when Denver sung out things was ready, and Santa Fe sung out back for the Friendly Aiders to haul away, the boys all grabbed onto the rope together--and up Shorty went a-kicking into the air.
Shorty really did do his act wonderful: kicking every which way at first, and then only sort of squirming, and then quieting down gradual till he just hung limp--with the kick all kicked out of him--turning round and round slow!
When he"d quieted, the train conductor swung his lantern to start her, and off she went--the little man standing there on the back platform of the Pullman, a-grabbing at the railing like he was dizzy, looking back with all his eyes. And old Shorty up on the telegraph-pole, making a black splotch twisting about in the moonlight, was the last bit of Palomitas he seen!
Next day but one Carver come down again on his regular run, and he told the boys the little man kept a-hanging onto the platform railing and a-looking back hard till the train got clean round the curve.
Then he give a kind of a coughing groan, Carver said, and come inside the Pullman--there wasn"t no other pa.s.sengers that night in the Pullman--and plumped himself down on a seat anyways, a-looking as white as a clean paper collar; and for a while he just set there, like he had a pain.