Chapter 19

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_ CHAPTER XIX

Newton's eating places were not appetizing at best, but a meal could be endured with less discomfort by night than by day, for at such times most of the flies were on the ceilings. The restaurant Gray entered was about what he had expected; along one side ran a quick-order counter at which were seated several customers; across from it was an oilcloth-covered table, perfectly bare except for a revolving centerpiece--one of those silver-plated whirligigs fitted with a glass salt-and-pepper shaker, a toothpick holder, an unpleasant oil bottle, and a cruet intended for vinegar, but now filled with some mysterious embalming fluid acting as a preservative of numerous lifelike insect remains. Here, facing an elderly man in a wide gray-felt hat, Gray seated himself.

Gray's neighbor was in no pleasant mood, for he whacked impatiently at such buzzing pests as were still on the wing, and when a perspiring Greek set a plate of soup before him he took umbrage at the presence of the fellow's thumb in the liquid. The argument that followed angered the old man still further, for it arrived nowhere except to prove that the offending thumb was the property of the proprietor of the restaurant, and by inference, therefore, a privileged digit.

When a departing customer left the door open, the elderly diner grumbled bitterly at the draught and draped his overcoat over his bent shoulders.

"Dam' Eskimos!" he muttered. "----raised in a chicken coop--Windy as a derrick!"

Gray liked old people, and he was tolerant of their crotchets. Irascibility indicates force of character, at least so he believed, and old folks are apt to accept too meekly the approach of decay. Here was a spirit that time had not dulled--it was like wine soured in an old cask. At any rate, wine it had been, not water, and that was something.

Most of the counter customers had drifted out when, without warning, the screen door banged loudly open and Gray looked up from his plate to see his recent acquaintance of the gambling table approaching. This time purpose was stamped upon the man's face, but whether it was deliberate or merely the result of more drinking there was no telling. He lurched directly up to the table and stared across at Gray.

"Slapped my face, didn't you?" he cried, after a menacing moment.

"I did, indeed," the speaker nodded, pleasantly.

"You ain't going to slap it again. You ain't going to slap anybody's--"

"What makes you think I won't?" Gray became aware as he spoke that his elderly neighbor had raised to the intruder a countenance stamped with a peculiar expression of incredulity, almost of anger, at the interruption, and that the two remaining counter customers had turned startled faces over their shoulders, while the proprietor, his arms full of dishes, had paused beside the swinging door to the kitchen.

That which occurred next came unexpectedly. The stranger whipped out from under his coat a revolver, at the same time voicing a profane answer to the challenge. The proprietor uttered a bleat of terror; he dropped his dishes and dived out of the room; the men on the stools scrambled down and plunged after him.

As Calvin Gray rose to his feet it was with a flash of mingled anger and impatience. This quarrel was so utterly senseless, it served so little purpose.

"My friend," he cried, sharply, "if you don't put up that gun, one of us will go to a hospital."

In spite of the intruder's haste in drawing his weapon, he appeared now to lack the will promptly to use it--his laggard spirit required a further scourge, so it seemed; something more to goad it into final fury. It was a phenomenon by no means uncommon, for it is not easy to shoot down an unarmed victim.

By way of rousing his savagery, the fellow uttered a bellow, then, like a warrior smiting his shield with his spear before the charge, he swung his heavy weapon, smashing at one blow that silver-plated merry-go-round with its cluster of bottles.

A shower of toothpicks, fragments of glass, a spatter of oil and vinegar covered the old man in the end chair, and he rose with a cry that drew a swift glance from the desperado.

Gray was upon the point of launching himself over the table when he witnessed a peculiar transformation in his assailant. The man's expression altered with almost comic suddenness, he lowered his weapon and took a backward step. Gray, too, had cause for astonishment, for the elderly man was moving slowly toward the disturber, his overcoat, meanwhile, hanging loosely from his left shoulder, like a mantle. His gray face had grown white, malignant, threatening; he advanced with a queer, sidling gait, edging forward behind the shelter of his garment as if behind a barricade. But what challenged Gray's instant attention was the certainty of purpose, the cold, confident menace behind the old fellow's demeanor. There was something appalling about him; he had suddenly become huge and dominant.

That he had been recognized was plain, for the armed man cried, agitatedly: "Look out, Tom! I don't want any truck with _you_."

The deliberate advance continued; in a harsh voice Tom answered: "I don't allow anybody to interfere with me when I'm eating!" For every step he shuffled forward the man before him fell back a corresponding distance.

Again the newcomer rasped out his warning, and Gray, too, added his voice, saying: "Leave him to me, old man. This is my quarrel." As he spoke he moved around the end of the table, but the mantled figure halted him with an imperious jerk of the head. Without in the slightest diverting his steady gaze, Tom snapped:

"Hands off, stranger! I won't have you buttin' in, either. I don't allow anybody to interfere with me when I'm eating."

Gray was checked less by the exasperation, by the authority in the speaker's tone, than by the fact that the entire complexion of the affair had changed. The ruffian, who had entered so confidently, was no longer the aggressor; a mere look, a word, a gesture from this aged, unknown person had put him upon the defensive. More extraordinary still was the fact that his power of initiative was for the moment completely paralyzed, and that he was tortured by a deplorable indecision. He was furious, that was plain, nevertheless his anger had been halted in mid-flight, as it were; desperation battled with an inexplicable dread. He raised his hands now, but more in a gesture of surrender than of threat.

"Don't come any closer," he cried, hoarsely. "Don't do it, I tell you! _Don't--do it!_'" There was no longer any thickness to his tongue; he spoke as one quite sober.

When for the third time that malevolent voice repeated, "I don't allow anybody to interfere with me when I'm eating," the solitary onlooker felt an absurd desire to laugh. During intensely dramatic moments nervous laughter is near the surface, and there was something rigidly dramatic about the methodical, sidling advance of that man half crouched behind his overcoat. Tom, as he had been called, gave Gray the impression of Death itself marching slowly forward to drape that black shroud upon his cowering victim.

Brief as had been the whole episode, already passers-by had halted, staring faces were glued to the front windows of the cafe. Well they might stare at those two tense figures, one advancing, the other retreating, as if to the measures of some slow dance.

[Illustration: "DON'T COME ANY CLOSER. DON'T DO IT, I TELL YOU!"]

But the tempo changed abruptly. The desperado's back brought up against the swinging kitchen door; it gave to his weight and decision was born of that instant. With a cry he flung himself backward, the spring door snapped to and swallowed him up with the speed of a camera shutter; then followed the sound of his heavy rushing footsteps.

"Hell!" exclaimed the old man. "I had his buttons counted!" With the words he let fall his overcoat, and there, beneath it, Gray beheld what he had more than half suspected, what indeed was ample cause for the quarrelsome stranger's apprehension. Held close to the owner's body was what in the inelegant jargon of the West is known as a "dog leg." The weapon, a frontier Colt's of heavy caliber, was full cocked under the old man's thumb; the hand holding it was as steady as the blazing eyes above.

With a smile Gray said, "Allow me to congratulate you, sir, upon a most impressive demonstration of the power of mind over matter."

"A little killin' helps those scoun'rels," breathed the white- haired warrior. "Surgin' around, wreakin' vengeance on vinegar bottles! And me with a bad indigestion!"

"I don't often permit others to do my fighting. But you wouldn't let--"

"I don't allow anybody--" doggedly began the former speaker, but the street door burst open, a noisy crowd poured into the room, a volley of excited questions was raised. Amid the confusion Gray heard his own name shouted, and found himself set upon by two agitated friends, Mallow and Stoner. They had been combing Newtown for him, so they declared, and were near by when attracted by the excitement on the sidewalk. What was the trouble? Was Gray hurt?

He assured them that he was not, and explained in a few words the origin of the encounter. But other concerns, it seemed, occupied the minds of the pair, and before he had finished Mallow was dragging him towards the door, crying, breathlessly: "Gee, Governor! You gave us a run. We've been coming since noon."

"It was only by the grace of God," Stoner declared, "that we heard you were out here and why you'd come. We managed to get a phone call through to Jackson, but it was--"

"Jackson? I've been looking for him all the afternoon."

"Sure! Mallow swore he was all right, but Mac and I don't know him, and we figured he might turn a trick. Anyhow, Mallow and I jumped the Lizzie and looped it. Boy! I tramped on her some, until we hit bottom the other side of Burk. Mallow went clean through the top. I guess I smashed the whole rear end, but we couldn't wait to see. They'll have her stripped naked, tires, cushions, and all, before we get back. Motor, too, probably. We've been hitting it afoot, on wagons and pipe trucks--managed to get a service car finally, but it fell open like a book. Just one of those dam' unlucky trips."

"Jackson didn't get to you, did he?" Mallow inquired, anxiously.

"Get to me? No. Nor I to him." Gray spoke impatiently. "What is this all about?"

"Simply this, Governor: Jackson's well is a 'set-up'! For Nelson! We nearly dropped dead when we found out that Parker kid had laid _you_ against it. Why didn't you _tell us_--?"

"What are you saying? I don't--"

"The well's phony. Dry as a pretzel."

"In what way? I saw the oil--"

"Never mind. Lay off!"

"I think I'm entitled to an explanation."

"Well, then, it's salted!"

"Impossible! I saw it pumping."

"I'll say you did." Mallow chuckled. "Live oil, too; right out of old Mamma Earth. Cheap lease at seventy-five thousand, eh? It's like this: the pipe line of the Atlantic runs across Jackson's lease, and one dark and stormy night he tapped it. It wasn't a hard thing to do; just took a little care and some digging. Now he runs the oil in, pumps it out and sells it back to them. He's a regular subsidiary of the great and only Atlantic Petroleum Company. It can't last long, of course, but--oh, what a well to hand Nelson! What a laugh it would have been!"

"Outrageous!" Gray exclaimed. "I can't believe you are in earnest."

"It _is_ shocking, isn't it? Such dishonesty is incredible. And what an unhappy surprise for the company when they finally locate the leak!"

Gray clamped a heavy hand upon the speaker's shoulder; harshly he inquired, "Do you mean to say that Miss Parker deliberately--"

"She don't know anything about it."

"You said she 'laid me' against it."

"No, no! I merely tipped her to it because she's one of Nelson's brokers."

"She's his sweetie," Stoner added. "He's going to marry her, so Mallow thought he'd surely fall for it, coming from her."

"You--you're not fit to mention that girl's name, either of you." Gray's tone was one of quivering anger. "If you involve her in your crooked dealings, even indirectly, I'll--God! What a dirty trick." He flung Mallow aside in disgust. "You ought to be shot."

"Why, Governor! We wouldn't hurt that kid. She's aces."

"I told you my fight with Nelson was to be fair and square."

There followed a moment of silence. Mallow and Stoner exchanged glances. "What percentage of that goes?" the former finally inquired.

"One hundred."

"So? Then it's lucky Nelson didn't fall. But there's no harm done --nobody's hurt."

"It is lucky, indeed-for me. I'd have felt bound to make good his loss, if you had hooked him. I presume I ought to expose this swindle."

"Expose Jackson?" Stoner inquired, quickly. When Gray nodded, there was another brief silence before the speaker ventured to say: "I know this bird Nelson, and, take it from me, you're giving him the best of it. If I hadn't known him as well as I do, I wouldn't of put in with you to break him. It's all right to trim a sucker once; it's like letting the blood of a sick man--he's better for it. But to ride a square guy to death, to keep his veins open--well, I ain't in that kind of business. Now about this Jackson; you can land him, I s'pose, if you try, but it would be lower than a frog's foot, after him playing square with you."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He could have stung you, easy, couldn't he? You surged out here on purpose to buy the lease, but he hid out all afternoon to avoid you."

"He is a thief. He is stealing hundreds of dollars a day."

"Sure! From the Atlantic, that has stolen hundreds of thousands from the likes of him--yes, millions. It was the Atlantic that broke the market to sixty-five cents, filled their storage tanks and contracted a million barrels more than they had tankage for, then gypped the price to three dollars. I can't shed any tears over that outfit."

"Let's not argue the ethics of big business. The law of supply and demand--"

"Supply and demand, eh? Ever strike you as queer that crude never breaks as long as the big companies have got their tanks full? The price always toboggans when they're empty, and comes back when they're filled up. That's supply and demand with the reverse English, ain't it? Say, the Atlantic and those others play with us outsiders like we was mice. When their bellies get empty they eat as many of us as they want, then they let the rest of us scurry around and hunt up new fields. We run all the risks; we spend our coin, and when we strike a new pool they burgle us over again." Stoner was speaking with a good deal of heat. "Big business, eh? Well, here's some little business--dam' little. The Atlantic leased a lot of scattered acreage I know about and drilled it. Pulled off their crews at the top of the sand and drilled in with men they could trust. It turned out good, but they capped their wells, wrecked their rigs, and, of course, that condemned the whole territory. Then they set about buying it all in, cheap-- through dummies. Double-crossed the farmers, see? Friend of mine took a chance; put down a well on his own. The usual thing happened; they broke him. It took a lot of doing, but they broke him. One little trick they did was to cock a bit and drop it in the hole. That prank cost him sixteen thousand dollars before he could 'side track' the tool. He quit, finally, less 'n a hundred feet from big pay. Then, having bought up solid for near nothing they came back and started business, laughing merrily. That's the Atlantic."

"A splendid lecture on commercial honesty. I am inspired by it, and I reverence your scruples, but--I grope for the moral of the story."

"The moral is, mind your own business and--and give a guy a chance."

"Um-m! Suppose we leave it at that for the present."

Mallow, who had remained silent during his friend's argument, greeted this suggestion with relief. He was glad to change the subject. "Good!" he cried, heartily. "I'd about as soon face Old Tom Parker, like that fellow in the restaurant did, as to face Jackson. He'd sink a stillson in my head, sure, if--"

"Parker? Was that old man Miss Parker's father?"

"Certainly! What d'you think ailed that gunman? D'you think he got the flu or something, all of a sudden? There ain't anybody left tough enough to hanker for Tom's scalp. He's pinned a rose on all of those old-timers, and he's deadly poison to the new crop."

For the first time Calvin Gray understood clearly the reason for the unexpected outcome of that encounter in the cafe. No wonder the stranger's trigger finger had been paralyzed. Barbara's father, indeed! How stupid of him not to guess. On the heels of his first surprise came another thought; suppose that old Paladin should consider that he, Gray, had shown weakness in allowing another to assume the burden of his quarrel? And suppose he should tell his daughter about it! That would be a situation, indeed.

"I must find him, quickly," Gray declared. "Perhaps he'll ride back to town with us."

It was not a difficult task to locate the veteran officer, and Tom was delighted at the chance to ride home with his new acquaintance.

That journey back to civilization was doubly pleasant, for Mr. Parker cherished no such feelings as Gray had feared, and, moreover, he responded quickly to the younger man's efforts to engage his liking. They got along famously from the start, and Tom positively blossomed under the attentions he received. It had been a trying day for him, but his ill humor quickly disappeared in the warmth of a new-found friendship, and he talked more than was his custom. He was even led to speak of old days, old combats, of which the bloodless encounter that evening was but a tame reminder. The pictures he conjured up were colorful.

A unique and an engaging person he proved to be; an odd compound of gentleness and acerbity, of kindliness and rancor; a quiet, guileless, stubborn, violent old man-at-arms, who would not be interrupted while he was eating. He was both scornful and contemptuous of evildoers. All needed killing.

"Hard luck, I call it, for a budding desperado to wreck a career of promise the way that wretched fellow did," Gray told him with a laugh. "Out of all the men in Texas, to pick you--"

"Oh, he ain't a bud! He's quite a killer."

"Indeed?"

"He kills Mexicans and niggers and folks without guns, mostly. Low-down stuff! He's got three or four, I believe. I never could see why the Nelsons kep' him."

There was a brief silence. "I beg pardon?" said Gray.

"He's been on the Nelson pay roll for years--doing odd jobs that wasn't fit to be done. But I guess they got tired of him, anyhow he's been hanging around Wichita for the last two or three weeks. He's been in an out of our office quite a bit."

"Your office? What for?"

"I dunno, unless he took a shine to 'Bob.'"

"Not--really?"

Mr. Parker uttered an unpleasant sound. "She never said anything about it, but I suspicioned she had to order him out, finally. I'd of split his third shirt button if he'd stood his ground. He knew I had something on him, but he couldn't figure just what it was." Old Tom's teeth shone through the gloom. "A man will 'most always act like that when he don't know just where he's at. I knew where _I_ was at, all the time, only I wanted to see that button plain. I allus know where _I'm_ at."

Later, when the journey was over and Tom Parker had been dropped at his gate, Gray spoke to his two companions.

"Did you hear what he said?"

"We did."

"Do you believe I was framed?"

Both Mallow and Stoner nodded. "Don't you?" the former inquired. When no answer was forthcoming, he said: "Better give us the flag, Governor. We're rar'ing to go."

"You mean--?"

"You know what I mean. Nelson's so crooked his bedclothes fall off. We pulled a boner this time, but Brick has got another window dressed for him."

"I'll think it over," said Gray. _

Read next: Chapter 20

Read previous: Chapter 18

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