Ma Pettengill Part 10

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 G.o.d'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 a.s.sistant division superintendent at Tekoa, where he would probably find him; and I wished him G.o.d-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 inst.i.tution 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 sc.r.a.pper. 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 G.o.d'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 superst.i.tious, but it does seem like Providence has taken this means of pointing out the time to him. But he is in reduced circ.u.mstances 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 ama.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 mola.s.ses 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 a.s.sessments 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sorted 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 d.i.n.ky 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.

Ben was one worried man, especially after he heard of Ed's private car.

It was one thing to lick an exbrakeman, but entirely different to have an affray with a prominent capitalist that come after you regardless of expense. Furthermore, this was the time for the annual tour of inspection by the officers of the road, and they was now on the way to Ben's division, with him hoping to create a fine impression by showing his miracles of management. And here was Ed, meaning to start something scandalous at sight! No wonder Ben lost his nerve and tried to run out on his antagonist. He was trying to put it off at least till after his officials had come and gone.

So for six days he kept about thirty miles of standard-gauge track between his car and Ed's. Ed would get word that he was at such a station and have his car dropped there, only to find that Ben had gone on. Ed would follow on the next train, or mebbe hire a special engine; and Ben would hide off on some blind spur track. They covered the whole division about three times without clas.h.i.+ng, thanks to Ben's superior information bureau; it being no trick at all to keep track of this wheeled apartment house of Ed's.

Ed couldn't understand it at first. Here he'd come up to lick Ben, and Ben was acting queer about it. Ed would send messages every day wanting to know when and where he could have a nice quiet chat with Ben that would not be interfered with by bystanders; and Ben would wire back that his time wasn't his own and company business was keeping him on the jump, but as soon as this rush was over he would arrange an interview; and kind regards, and so on. Or he might say he would be at some station all the following day; which would be a clumsy falsehood, because he was at that moment pulling out, as Ed would find when he got there. The operating department must of thought them a couple of very busy men, wanting so much to meet, yet never seeming able to get together.

Ed got peeved at last by the way Ben was putting him off. It wasn't square and it wasn't businesslike. He had large mining interests in charge and here was Ben acting like he had all summer to devote just to this one little matter. He called Ben's attention to this by telegraph, but Ben continued to be somewhere else from where he said he was going to be.

After a week of this p.u.s.s.y-wants-a-corner stuff Ed got wise that the thing had come to be a mere vulgar chase, and that his private car was hampering him by being so easy to keep track of. So he disguised himself by taking off his diamond ornaments and leaving his private car at Colfax, and started out to stalk Ben as a common private citizen in a day coach. He got results that way, Ben supposing he was still with his car. After a couple of scouting trips up and down the line he gets reliable word that Ben, with his bunch of high officials, is over at Wallace.

So much the better, thinks Ed. It will be fine to have this next disturbance right on the spot where a great wrong was done him fifteen years before. So he starts for Wallace, wiring for his car to follow him there. He'd found this car poor for the bloodhound stuff, but he wanted Ben to have a good look at it and eat his heart out with envy, either before or after what was going to happen to him.

He gets to Wallace on the noon train and finds that Ben with his officials has gone up the canon, past Burke, on the president's private car, to return in about an hour. After Ed's inquiries the agent kindly wires up to Ben that his cousin from Arizona is waiting for him. Ed spends the time walking round Ben's shabby little private car and sneering at it. He has his plans all made, now that he has run his man to earth. He won't pull anything rough before the officials, but about twenty miles out on the line is a siding with a s.h.i.+pping corral beside it and nothing else in sight but vistas. They'll get an engine to run the two cars out there that night and leave 'em, and everything can be done decently and in order. No hurry and no worry and no scandal.

Ed is just playing the coming fight over in his mind for the fifth time, correcting some of his blows here and there, when he hears a whistle up the canon and in comes the special. The officials pile off and Ben comes rus.h.i.+ng up to Ed with a glad smile and effusive greetings and hearty slaps on the back; and how is everything, old man?--and so on--with a highly worried look lurking just back of it all; and says what rare good luck to find Ed here, because he's the very man they been talking about all the way down from Burke.

Ed says if they come down as fast as he did one time they didn't get a chance to say much about him; but Ben is introducing him to the president of the road and the general manager and the chief engineer and three or four directors, and they all shake hands with him till it seems like quite a reception. The president says is this really the gentleman who has made that last big strike in Arizona! And if it is he knows something still more interesting about him, because he has just listened to a most remarkable tale of his early days as a brakeman on this very line. Their division superintendent has been telling of his terrific drop down the canon and his incredible flight through the air of three hundred and thirty-five feet.

"How far did he say I was hurled?" says Ed, and the president again says three hundred and thirty-five feet, which was a hundred more than Ed had ever claimed; so he looks over at Ben pretty sharp.

Ben is still talking hurriedly about the historic accident, saying that in all his years of railroad experience he never heard of anything approaching it, and if they will step up the track a piece he will show them just where the cars left the rails. Ben must of done a lot of quick thinking that day. He had the bunch over to see the exact spot, and they all stood and looked over to the ice house and said it was incredible; and a director from Boston said it was perfectly preposterous; really now! And Ben kept on reciting rapidly about the details. He said Ed had come down the seven miles in less than three minutes, which was lopping a minute and a half off the official time; and that when picked up he hadn't a whole bone left in his body, which was also a lie; and that his cousin never could of survived if he hadn't probably had the most marvellous const.i.tution a man was ever endowed with. He then made the bunch go over to the ice house to see the other exact spot, and they looked back to where he started from, and again said it was incredible and preposterous.

I don't know. Mebbe they wouldn't of thought it preposterous that a mere brakeman was hurled that far, but Ed was a capitalist now. Anyway, the president had him into his car for lunch with the party, and they might possibly of got to talking about other things of less importance, but Ben wouldn't have any thing else. He made 'em insist that Ed should tell his version of the whole thing; how he felt when the cars started, and how the scenery was blurred, and how his whole past life flashed before him, and the last thing he remembered before he hit the sawdust. And Ben set there looking so proud of Ed, like a mother having her little tot recite something. And when Ed had finally lit, Ben made him tell about his slow recovery. And after Ed got himself well again Ben would go back to the start and ask for more details, such as whether he hadn't wanted to jump off on the way down, or whether he had been conscious while going through the air for nearly four hundred feet.

Ed got little food; but much he cared! He'd come into his own at last.

And suddenly he was surprised by finding a warm glow in his heart for Ben, especially after Ben had said for about the third time: "I was certainly a green hand in those days; so green that I didn't begin to realize what a whale of an occurrence this was." Ed was getting a new light on Ben.

After lunch Ed's own car got in from Colfax and he had the party over there for cigars and more talk about himself, which was skillfully led by Ben. Then the president invited Ed to hitch his car on and come along with them for a little trip, and talk over mining and investments, and so on, and what the outlook was in the Southwest. So Ed went with 'em and continued to hear talk of his accident. Ben would bring it up and harp back to it, and bring it forward and sandwich it in whenever the conversation had an open moment. It was either the wild thoughts Ed must of had sliding down the canon, or the preposterous const.i.tution he had been endowed with, or the greenness of himself for not recognizing it as the prize accident of the ages. And I don't wonder Ben went on that way for the next two days. He knew what a tenacious idiot Ed was, and that he had come miles out of his way to try something he had often tried before.

The most he could hope for was to stave off the collision till his officials got away.

And it looked, the second night, like he wasn't going to be able to do even this much. He'd been detecting cold looks from Ed all day, in spite of his putting on another record about the accident every ten minutes or so. They was laid out at some little station, and just before dinner Ed give Ben the office that he wanted a word private with him. Ben thinks to himself it's coming now in spite of all his efforts to smooth it over.

But he leaves the car with Ed and they walk a piece up the track, Ben hoping they can make the lee of a freight car before Ed starts his crime of violence. He makes up his mind quick. If Ed jumps him there in the open he will certainly do his best to win the contest. But if he waits till they get this freight car between them and the public, then he will let Ed win the fight and get the scandal out of his life forever.