There was silence. Potters mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the womans grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites gazing at the apparitional snake.
The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces. He of the revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity.
Tried to sneak up on me, he said. Tried to sneak up on me! His eyes grew more baleful. As Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously forward. No, dont you do it, Jack Potter. Dont you move a finger toward a gun just yet. Dont you move an eyelash. The time has come for me to settle with you, and Im goin to do it my own way and loaf along with no interferin. So if you dont want a gun bent on you, just mind what I tell you.
Potter looked at his enemy. I aint got a gun on me, Scratchy, he said. Honest, I aint. He was stiffening and steadying, but yet somewhere at the back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated, the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil all the glory of the marriage, the environment of the new estate. You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I aint got a gun on me. Youll have to do all the shootin yourself.
His enemys face went livid. He stepped forward and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potters chest. Dont you tell me you aint got no gun on you, you whelp. Dont tell me no lie like that. There aint a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun. Dont take me for no kid. His eyes blazed with light, and his throat worked like a pump.
I aint takin you for no kid, answered Potter. His heels had not moved an inch backward. Im takin you for a fool. I tell you I aint got a gun, and I aint. If youre goin to shoot me up, you better begin now. Youll never get a chance like this again.
So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilsons rage. He was calmer. If you aint got a gun, why aint you got a gun? he sneered. Been to Sunday-school?
I aint got a gun because Ive just come from San Anton with my wife. Im married, said Potter. And if Id thought there was going to be any galoots like you prowling around when I brought my wife home, Id had a gun, and dont you forget it.
Married! said Scratchy, not at all comprehending.
Yes, married. Im married, said Potter distinctly.
Married? said Scratchy. Seemingly for the first time he saw the drooping, drowning woman at the other mans side. No! he said. He was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side. Is this the lady? he asked.
Yes, this is the lady, answered Potter.
There was another period of silence.
Well, said Wilson at last, slowly, I spose its all off now.
Its all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didnt make the trouble. Potter lifted his valise.
Well, I low its off, Jack, said Wilson. He was looking at the ground. Married! He was not a student of chivalry; it was merely that in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand.
Francis Marion Crawford
The Upper Berth
Chapter I
Somebody asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation as beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, he wine had got into those brains which were liable to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did something to rouse our oppressed spirits, the meeting would soon come to its natural conclusion, and we, the guests, would speedily go home to bed, and most certainly to sleep.
No one had said anything very remarkable; it may be that no one had anything very remarkable to say. Jones had given us every particular of his last hunting adventure in Yorkshire. Mr. Tompkins, of Boston, had explained at elaborate length those working principles, by the due and careful maintenance of which the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad[49] not only extended its territory, increased its departmental influence, and transported live stock without starving them to death before the day of actual delivery, but, also, had for years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the corporation aforesaid was really able to transport human life without destroying it.
Signor Tombola had endeavoured to persuade us, by arguments which we took no trouble to oppose, that the unity of his country in no way resembled the average modern torpedo, carefully planned, constructed with all the skill of the greatest European arsenals, but, when constructed, destined to be directed by feeble hands into a region where it must undoubtedly explode, unseen, unfeared, and unheard, into the illimitable wastes of political chaos.