Roxy

Home

43. Jim's Rifle



Making one's: fortune in political life is gambling upon a series of ifs. If Henry Clav or some other Whiff should be elected president, reasoned Lathers, and if there should be a Whig Congressman from the district, he would have great influence in distributing the patronage for Luzerne County. If the Congressman should be from one of the other counties in the district, and if Lathers could stand his chief friend in Luzerne County, the major felt sure that his political importance would be greatly increased. But if Bonaray should go to Congress Lathers would be second or third instead of first in his own county.

Lathers knew well that a scandal of the sort to which Bonamy was liable might not of itself be sufficient to defeat a candidate for Congress. The moral standard of voters away back in the Forties was lower than it is now in the Seventies, and there is even yet room for it to advance by the time we come to the Nineties. But if the Kirtley matter could be kept carefully suppressed until about the time of the session of the nominating caucus, he could then let loose Nancy's suit for seduction and turn the close contest against Mark by criminal proceedings and the scandal of an arrest. In the whole matter he would play the role of Mark's friend and defender, and in the confusion of defeat he would be able to stampede enough votes to Bonamy's chief competitor, Paddock of Florence County, to nominate him. He had already made interest with Paddock. But the whole thing; must be kept secret lest the Luzerne County men should have time to bring forward some other man and so defeat the plan. For the " geographical argument " was in favor of Luzerne County. It was the "turn " of the south-western portion of the district to name the man. And the geographical argument is a very weighty one if it happens to be on your side. If it is in favor of the other man you can insist that fitness is the only thing.

If Lathers could have been sure of Bonamy's election, he would not have proposed this desertion. But in such a contest as the one now raging over the nomination for Congress, the weaker candidates are prone to make common cause against the foremost one, so that by the time the convention meets to nominate, the bitter combined opposition renders his defeat certain. Mark, as the leading man, had to run this risk. Then, too, he was barely within legal age, and his youth was likely to be urged against him. And even if he should secure the nomination, the Kirtley scandal and the consequent domestic difficulties could not be kept secret until the election should be over, and it might defeat Bonamy by turning his own county against him. At the same time, Major Lathers kept his eyes open for anything that might turn up, and the like, and made all sorts of mental reservations in taking his resolution to go for Paddock. For himself, he said, he was like Jacob's coat of many colors all things to all men that he might win the game, and the like.

In order to keep Mark's political strength up to its full measure for the present, Lathers kept Nancy quiet by holding out the most delush s hopes. He represented himself as her friend in the case. He told her that he had extorted from Mark solemn promises to elope with her as soon as he could get his affairs arranged. Bonamy was even now selling off property secretly, so that he could start for Texas with Nancy in June. It is the evil of evil affairs that agents bad enough for bad business are too bad to be trustworthy.

Lathers had impressed on Nancy the necessity for secrecy. But there is a limit to the capacity for secrecy. Nancy could not long forego her love of tormenting Jim McGowan. Whenever the poor follow lifted his head in a faint hope of winning her regard, she pounced upon him as a cat does upon a shaken mouse that dares to move but feebly again. Seeing that Nancy had married nobody else, Jim reasoned that, since in the nature of things she must needs marry somebody, he would be the one. " She'll git done foolin' some day," he said. Having expressed himself to this effect to Nancy, as she sat frowning at him one day, it was now the last of April, she came out with :

" Thunder an' blazes, Jim ! I'm a-goin' to do a heap Bight better'n that."

" Where? How?" exclaimed Jim, startled.

" You'll know afore long. When you come to Texas some day, you'll find me in a tine house, somebody. I wont look at you then, dogged ef I will."

" W'y, Nance, how you talk ! Sence Bonamy got marvied they haint no rich feller about that your'e like to git. You wouldn't run off weth another women's husband, I 'low," and Jim laughed a rude laugh at the improbability of the thing The laugh stung Nancy.

" Wouldn't I? Confound you, Jim, d'you think I'm a fool to be fooled with ? I'll show girls how they kin take a beau from me, and I'll larn folks to fool weth me. You'll know more'n you do now when you're a leetle older, maj be."

This speech and the dare-devil tone set McGowan wild, as it was meant to. Puzzling himself to guess out what was behind the threat, there came into his mind a jealous suspicion of the true state of the case. He went to Luzerne the next day, and, by dint of pretending to know the facts, he wormed them out of Haz Kirtley. That very night, with the borderer's disregard for law and life, he loaded his rifle with a heavy charge of powder, cut his patching with extreme care, selected a bullet of good form and rammed it down solidly, smote the stock of the gun with his hand to bring the powder well down into the tube, and selected a good cap. He 'lowed that air would fetch things, he said.

With this well-loaded rifle he waited that night for Mark's late return to his home. He crept along in the shadows of the houses in Luzerne, intending to shoot Bonamy in the street. His horse was saddled and tied to the hitching-rail at the public square. There was not a light anywhere to be seen, except one from an upper window on the opposite side of the square. A conference with Lathers detained Mark very late. Even McGowan grew nervous with his long, murderous watch for his victim. At last he heard steps coming in the darkness under the locusts on the other side of the street. He leaned back close to the fence, slowly cocked his gun, and waited for Mark to come out of the shadow of the young foliage of the trees into the light, so that his unerring aim might bring him down. But when the figure emerged into the starlight, it proved to be that of a white-haired, welldressed old man, walking uneasily and peering to the right and left. When the old man caught sight of McGowan and his gun on the other side, he crossed the street to him, and said sternly :

" What's this ? What are you standing here for at this time o' night with that rifle for?"

" You'd 'a' found out, may be, ef I hadn't 'a' seed jest in time that you wuzn't the man." Here McGowan slowly lowered the hammer of his rifle. " I'm after a man that's ruined my girl, and that's goin' off to Texas weth her. Leastwise, he means to ; but I mean to send him somewheres else. Stand out of the way ! I'm looking fer him every minute. And when I see him they'll be a case fer the coroner."

" Young man," the old man's voice was quivering, " thirty years ago I killed a man right out there close to where the pump stands. He struck me with a whip, and I was young and proud. I shot him. O God ! if I'd only thought what I was doing ! "

" Is your name White? " asked McGowan with a shudder.

" Yes, everybody knows about me, I suppose. I am like Cain. That's my candle there in the window. I can't sleep in the dark. Sometimes I can't sleep at all. I can see Bob Anderson as I saw the poor fellow lying there thirty years ago. If you want to be in hell all the rest of your life, just shoot a man tonight."

This staggered Jim a little, but a moment later, swear ing under his breath, he raised his gun to shoot. Mark, attracted by the sound of voices, was crossing the street to the two men. The old man pushed up the gun and kept on warning Jim.

" What's this ? " asked Mark.

" It's me. Come to settle up with you about that matter of Nancy Kirtley. I'm goin' to blow your infernal brains out."

The old man kept putting himself in the way of McGowan and urging Mark to run away. But Bonamy had always been a man of almost reckless physical courage, to flee was not possible to him, and now, tired and worn with the struggle of good and bad in himself, he had a desperate feeling that it would be a service to him if somebody would relieve him of his life.

" Take care, Mr. White," he said. ' ; Get out of the way and let him shoot. I wish to God he would. Shoot, Jim, shoot. I deserve it. I would like to die right here, and get done with this whole infernal business and this infernal old world."

" You wont shoot an unresisting man," urged the old man. " fou'll be a coward and a murderer if you do. You'll be worse than I am and you'll have more hell than I've got."

" I -- I--" said Jim, letting his gun down and turning away, " I can't quite shoot a feller down in cold blood that acts that away. He's in my power." Then he stopped. " But just looky here, Mark Bonamy, you infernal scoundrel, you'd ort to die like a dog, an' you jest dare to run off with Nancy and I will kill you both, so help me God." And Jim proceeded to fire off all the curses which the Bocky Fork dialect could afford.

" I never had any notion of running off with her."

" You lie. She says you told Lathers so. I've got a mind to shoot you fer lyin' to me."

" I didn't lie. Shoot, if you want to. It would be a dreadful waste of powder though. I'm net worth the charge in your gun."

Irresolutely McGowan moved off, stopping now and then to look back while he felt of his gun ominously. At Last he mounted his horse and slowly rode away.



"Don't say anything about this matter, Mr. White," said Mark as he saw the last of his enemy. " I'm 'most sorry he didn't shoot."

The old man moved off without reply, only saying to himself, " I sha'n't sleep a wink tonight."

It is commonly said that only a virtuous man is at peace with himself. In truth there are two ways to a quiet conscience, that of entire goodness ar.d that of utter badness. As the first is never quite achieved, it is only the wholly bad man who has no trouble with the moralities. If peace of conscience were the main end of life, the dead conscience capable of telling no tales were best. The trouble with Bonamy, who now went home wretched enough, was that he was not bad enough. Many a man of fair outward seeming would have taken Mark's guilty consciousness easily. Bonamy 's moral sense was not dominant, nor was it steady enough to be an available guide. Like all his impulses, it was subject to the law of his temperament and auted intensely but intermittently. But all the more for its very lack of continuity was it a tormentor when aroused by an outward circumstance, like Roxy's sufferins: face or an encounter such as this with McGowan.

Mark could face the muzzle of a rifle, but not exposure. And now the dread of disgrace and of Roxy's execration haunted him and made his wrongdoing seem blacker than ever. There came to him the desperate temptation to 6eek relief by the road to utter badness. Why not run off either with or without Nancy, and let the world of Luzerne drop away from his life? The illusive notion that he could beo-in life over ao-ain and do better seized him. But here again the contradictions of his nature held him back. He was neither bad enough nor good enough to take either way out.