The Desire of the Moth; and the Come On Part 2

The veins swelled in the sheriff's heavy face and thick neck; he regarded his deputy darkly.

"That comes well from you, Barela! Don't you see, with the law on our side all these men of substance will be with us unconditionally?

I tell you, Christopher Foy is the brains of his party. Once he is discredited--"

"And I tell you that I am the brains of your party and I'll have nothing to do with your fine plan. 'Tis an old stratagem to call oppression, law, and resistance to oppression, lawlessness. You tried just that in ninety-six, didn't you? And I never could hear that our side had any the best of it or that the good name of Dona Ana was in any way bettered by our wars. Come, Mr. Lisner--the Kingdom of Lady Ann has been quiet now for nearly eight years. Let us leave it so. For myself, the last row brought me reputation and place, made me chief deputy under two sheriffs--so I need have the less hesitation in setting forth my pa.s.sionate preference for peace."

"You have as much to gain as I have," growled the sheriff. "Besides your own cinch, you have one of your _gente_ for deputy in every precinct in the county."

"Exactly! And if we have wars again, who but the Barelas would bear the brunt? No, no, Mr. Matt Lisner; while I may be a merely ornamental chief deputy, it will never be denied that I am a very careful chief to my _gente_. Be sure that I shall think more than once or twice before I set a man of my men at a useless hazard to pleasure you--or to reelect you."

"You speak plainly."

"I intend to. I speak for three hundred--and we vote solid. Make no mistake, Mr. Lisner. You need me in your business, but I can do nicely without you."

"Perhaps you'd like to be sheriff yourself."

"I might like it--except that I am not as young and foolish as I was,"

said Anastacio, smiling. "Now that I am so old, and so wise and all, it is clear to see that neither myself nor any of the fighting men of the mad old days--on either side--should be sheriff."

"You were not always so thoughtful of the best interests of the dear pee-pul," sneered the sheriff.

"That I wasn't. I was as silly and hot-brained a fool as either side could boast. But you, Sheriff, are neither silly nor hot-headed. In cold blood you are planning that men shall die; that other men shall rot in prison. Why? For hate and revenge? Not even that. Oh, a little spice of revenge, perhaps; Foy and his friends made you something of a laughing stock. But your main motive is--money. And I don't see why.

You've got all the money any one man needs now."

"I notice you get your share."

"I hope so. But, even as a money-making proposition, your troubled-voters policy is a mistake. All the mountain men want is to be let alone, and you might be sheriff for life for all they care. But you fan up every little bicker into a lawsuit--don't I know? Just for the mileage--ten cents a mile each way in a county that's jam full of miles from one edge to the other; ten cents a mile each way for each and every arrest and subpoena. You drag them to court twice a year--the farmer at seed time and harvest, the cowman from the spring and fall round-ups. It hurts, it cripples them, they ride thirty miles to vote against you; it costs you all the extra mileage money to offset their votes. As a final folly, you purpose deliberately to stir up the old factions. What was it Napoleon said? 'It is worse than a crime: it is a blunder.' I'll tell you now, not a Barela nor an Ascarate shall stir a foot in such a quarrel. If you want to bait Kit Foy, do it yourself--or set your city police on him."

"I will."

A faint tinge of color came to the clear olive of Anastacio's cheek as he rose.

"But don't promise my place to any of them, sheriff. I might hear of it."

"Stranger," said Ben Creagan, "you can't play pool! I can't--and I beat you four straight games. You better toddle your little trotters off to bed." The words alone might have been mere playfulness; glance and tone made plain the purposed offense.

The after-supper crowd in the hotel barroom had suddenly slipped away, leaving Max Barkeep, three others, and John Wesley Pringle--the last not unnoting of nudge and whisper attending the exodus. Since that, Pringle had suffered, unprotesting, more gratuitous insults than he had met in all the rest of his stormy years. His curiosity was aroused; he played the stupid, unseeing, patient, and timid person he was so eminently not. Plainly these people desired his absence; and Pringle highly resolved to know why. He now blinked mildly.

"But I'm not sleepy a-tall," he objected.

He tried and missed an easy shot; he chalked his cue with a.s.siduous care.

"Here, you! Quit knockin' those b.a.l.l.s round!" bawled Max, the bartender. "What you think this is--a kindergarten?"

"Why, I paid for all the games I lost, didn't I?" asked Pringle, much abashed.

He mopped his face. It was warm, though the windows and doors were open.

"Well, n.o.body's going to play any more with you," snapped Max. "You bore 'em."

He pyramided the b.a.l.l.s and covered the table. With a sad and lingering backward look Pringle slouched abjectly through the wide-arched doorway to the bar.

"Come on, fellers--have something."

"Naw!" snarled Jose Espalin. "I'm a-tryin' to theenk. Shut up, won't you?"

Pringle sighed patiently at the rebuff and stole a timid glance at the thinker. Espalin was a lean little, dried-up manikin, with legs, arms, and mustaches disproportionately long for his dwarfish body. His black, wiry hair hung in ragged witchlocks; his black pin-point eyes were glittering, cold, and venomous. He looked, thought Pringle, very much like a spider.

"I'm steerin' you right, old man," said Creagan. "You'd better drag it for bed."

"I ain't sleepy, I tell you."

Espalin leaped up, snarling.

"Say! You lukeing for troubles, maybe? Bell, I theenk thees _hombre_ got a gun. Shall we freesk him?"

As he flung the query over his shoulder his beady little eyes did not leave Pringle's.

Bell Applegate got leisurely to his feet--a tall man, well set up, with a smooth-shaved, florid face and red hair.

"If he has we'll jack him in the jug." He threw back the lapel of his coat, displaying a silver star.

"But I ain't got no gun," protested John Wesley meekly. "You-all can see for yourself."

"We will--don't worry! Don't you make one wrong move or I'll put out your light!"

"Be you the sheriff?"

"Police. Go to him, Ben!"

"No gun," reported Ben after a swift search of the shrinking captive.

"I done told you so, didn't I?"

"Mighty good thing for you, old rooster. Gun-toting is strictly barred in Las Uvas. You got to take your gun off fifteen minutes after you get in from the road and you can't put it on till fifteen minutes before you take the road again."

"Is that--er--police regulations or state law?"

"State law--and has been any time these twenty-five years. Say, you doddering old fool, what do you think this is--a night school?"

"I--I guess I'll go to bed," said Pringle miserably.

"I--I guess if you come back I'll throw you out," mimicked Ben with a guffaw.

Pringle made no answer. He shuffled into the hall and up the stairway to his bedroom. He unlocked the door noisily; he opened it noisily; he took his sixshooter and belt from the wall quietly and closed the door, noisily again; he locked it--from the outside. Then he did a curious thing; he sat down very gently and removed his boots.

The four in the barroom listened, grinning. When they heard Pringle's door slam shut Bell Applegate nodded and Creagan went out on the street. Behind him, at a table near the pool-room door, the law planned ways and means in a slinking undertone. "You keep in the background, Joe. Let us do the talking. Foy just naturally despises you--we might not get him to stay the fifteen minutes out. You stay back there. Remember now, don't shoot till Ben lets him get his arm loose. _Sabe_?"