Читать книгу Colorado Jim - George Goodchild - Страница 6

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New York brought Jim Conlan up with a start. Everything was amazing; everything was bewildering. He felt like a lost soul, stunned with the noise, dazed by the sights. In the fastnesses of his beloved West he had never imagined that such a place existed on the face of the earth. He felt stifled and ill at ease. His clothes were different to those worn in this city. People gave him a quick passing glance, knowing him at once for a Westerner. Feeling a trifle embarrassed under their glances, he reflected upon the advisability of buying new and more appropriate garb. A tailor was requisitioned and, finding his client to be indifferent in the matter of costs, fixed him up with a fine wardrobe—and a fine bill.

Jim spent the best part of two hours trying on the new things. The long mirror in his bedroom 15 did its best, but it wasn’t good enough for Jim. He groaned as he saw this stranger staring at him from the mirror. He wasn’t built for that sort of garb. The hard hat looked perfectly idiotic and the starched collars nearly choked him. Eventually he tore the offending article from his sunscorched neck and flung it across the room. The other things followed. He stood once more in the rough gray clothes that served for “best” out West, and jammed the comfortable Stetson hat on his head.

“I’m darned if I’ll wear ’em!” he growled.

A few days of shopping and theaters, and he began to grow homesick. Thoughts of Colorado and the boys constantly flickered in his brain. Here he was an outcast—a nonentity. He was not good at making friends, and the New Yorkers were not falling head over heels to shake hands with him, though more than one pair of eyes looked admiringly at his magnificent physique.

The loneliness of big cities! How terrible a thing it was. Never at any time had Jim felt so lonely. The rolling wind-swept prairie had at least something to offer. In every manifestation 16 of nature he had found a friend. The wind, and the hills, and the wild animals seemed in some queer way sterling comrades; but here—— He began to hate it. It was one huge problem to him. How did it live? What did all the millions do for a subsistence? It was the first time he had seen the poor—the real, hopeless, inevitable poor. He had seen men “broke,” down to their last cent; men on the trail, starving, and lost to all sense of decency. But that was merely transitory. These people were different; they were born poor, and would be poor until their bones were laid in some miserable congested cemetery. He found them actually reconciled to it—unquestioningly accepting their fate and fighting to postpone the end for as long as possible. It sickened him.

Oh, Colorado! With your wide prairie and your eternal peaks, your carpeted valleys and your crystalline streams, your fragrant winds and your gift of God—good men!

He was sitting in the lounge of his hotel one evening, feeling more than usually homesick, when he noticed a beautiful woman sitting near him. Her evening dress was cut well away at 17 the shoulders, displaying a white neck around which a pearl necklace glowed in the light. A mass of auburn hair was coiled up neatly round her head, with a rebellious little curl streaming down one ear.

The curl fascinated Jim. He thought it ought to be put back in its proper place, but a second’s reflection revealed to him the fact that it was intended to trickle thus alluringly. It was there for effect. It enhanced her considerable charm. In the midst of his interested survey she turned and caught his eye. He began to study his boots with an embarrassed blush. When he ultimately stole another glance at this wealth of feminine beauty he found she was busily engaged in similar scrutiny—of himself. They both smiled. Then she stood up, languidly, and came across to him.

“Pardon me, but you are from the West, aren’t you?”

“Right first time.”

“Ah, I thought so. You Westerners can’t disguise yourselves. I love the West. I was born in Wyoming.” 18

Here at last was a sympathetic soul. Jim edged along a little. She sat down.

“You don’t like New York?” she queried.

“I don’t,” he replied emphatically. “It leaves me gasping for breath.”

She nodded.

“I felt like that when first I came down. I wish I were you to be going back again.”

Jim laughed.

“But I’m not going back.”

She opened her brilliant eyes and then laughed.

“I know. You’ve made a pile and are now seeing life. Is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“I knew it.”

Jim was getting his nerve back. It was the first time he had been in close proximity to a powdered back and rouged lips, and the sensation was curious. No man with blood in his veins could help admiring the soft lines of her neck and arms—and Jim had plenty of blood about him.

“Where’d you say you hailed from?” he queried.

“Rock Springs, Wyoming. D’you know it?” 19

“Know it? I should say! Wal, if that ain’t the pink limit!”

“We ran a ranch there,” she went on in a rich musical voice. “I wish I was there now, but there’s a spell about cities. You’ll find that out soon enough.”

“I ain’t seen much spell about this one,” retorted Jim. “Gee! I’ve never seen such a bunch of blank-mangy-looking men. The wimmen ain’t so bad.”

She laughed.

“Thank you!”

“And cyards! Suffering Moses! I seen a guy deal a straight flush to himself and no one savvied he’d got the pack sandpapered. Out in Medicine Bow he’d hev’ bin filled up with lead to his shoulder-blades. I guess this is a darn bad place.”

“You’re lovely!” she said merrily. “But when in Rome, do as Rome does. Do you go to dinner in that rig-out?”

Jim felt nervously at his throat.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. It suits you admirably. But the hotel won’t like it.” 20

“See here,” he retorted, “I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what the hotel likes. Anyway, it’s decent, which is considerably more’n some of the dresses I’ve seen. There’s a gal with nothin’ more’n a bit of muslin she could fold up and put in her mouth. She’s got Mother Eve beaten to a frazzle.”

They gossiped for half an hour, and then Edith (he heard a friend call her by that name) left him and went to dinner. The next meeting happened on the following day. Edith’s company appealed to him. She certainly used a lot of “make-up,” and creams that smelt like a chemist’s shop; but all New York smelt vile to Jim, so he didn’t complain.

Taking his courage in both hands, he invited her to dine with him. She accepted with as much eagerness as maidenly modesty would permit, and Jim went off to lunch in the best hotel in town, to take careful note of the proper procedure of a gentleman “standing treat” to a lady. He got it off fairly well, making notes on a sheet of paper. Then he went to his room and rehearsed it all. He started dressing himself about five o’clock, and had nearly got his clothes 21 to his satisfaction by the appointed time—seven-thirty.

The dinner was a roaring success. Conversation was feeble because all his time was taken up in observing correct decorum. Edith sat and regarded him with curious eyes. She wondered, for good reasons, what the emotions of such a man might be. Behind those quiet, simple eyes of his there occasionally flashed something that made her afraid—dreadfully afraid. She had not wasted time that day. She knew this big, uncultured fellow was James Conlan, late of Topeka Mine—a millionaire.

Jim breathed a huge sigh of relief when they left the dining-hall and walked through the lounge into the wide balcony. He was standing looking out over the street when he noticed her totter and clutch a chair.

“What’s wrong?” he gasped.

“I—I feel faint. I——”

She closed her eyes. Here was a situation that had not been rehearsed by Jim. He wondered whether he ought to ring the fire alarm or call the police. Edith solved the problem.

“If—you will assist me—to the elevator——” 22

He had never thought of that. He grabbed her arm and helped her to the elevator. She still looked pale and distressed.

“Fourteenth floor. No. 633!” she murmured.

They left the elevator at the fourteenth floor. No sooner had the lift disappeared than Edith collapsed on the floor. He looked round for a friend in need, but the corridor was deserted. The door near at hand was numbered 630. So 633 must be near by! He stooped and picked up the still figure as though she were a child. In half a dozen strides he was at 633. The door was unlocked, so he pushed it open and entered. He found the electric-light switch, and then placed his burden gently on the bed. He was drawing his arm from under her when she opened her eyes.

“Water!”

He searched and found a water decanter and a glass. She seemed too weak to sit up, so he helped her by placing one arm under her head. She sipped the liquid and looked into his eyes. Then to his utter amazement she clasped both her arms round his neck and pulled his face close to hers. 23

“Hell!” he muttered.

“I love you!” she said. “Don’t you see I——”

“Say, you’re bad!” he said. “Drink some more water——”

He strove to free himself, but finding he could only do so by hurting her, refrained, and tried to bring her to her senses. Undoubtedly she had suddenly gone mad! The ingenuous Jim could find no other solution. He was telling her to “be a good kid” and not “to get fresh,” when the door opened and slammed. He looked round to find a tall dark man, in evening dress, surveying him fiercely.

“Good-evening,” said the stranger cuttingly. Jim broke away and faced the latter.

“Who in hell are you?”

“Ask her.”

Jim turned to Edith. She seemed strangely perturbed.

“My—my husband!”

“Wal, I’m glad to meet you,” said Jim coolly. “Your wife had a fit or something, so I jest brought her along. I guess I’ll be mushing.”

To his amazement the man barred his path.

“A nice story,” he said. 24

The eyes of Colorado Jim narrowed to the merest slits. He turned to the woman.

“Tell him!” he growled.

She shrunk before those terrible eyes of his, and gripped the pillow with nerveless hands. Her lips opened but she said nothing. Jim started, and then caught her by the shoulder.

“Did you git me? He’s wanting to know why I’m here. Tell him.”

“How can I tell him?” she wailed.

The man laughed.

“You needn’t waste breath. So this is how Mr. James Conlan spends his time. It’ll make a fine story. …”

Jim’s brain was working fast; but he was slow in the uptake in such circumstances as this. The woman had seemed so genuine. Why did she maintain silence? It was a novel experience in his life. All the ways of this strange city were foreign to him.

The man’s voice broke in:

“A fine story it will make in the press.”

“Eh——!”

“The morals of a millionaire.”

“Eh!” growled Jim again. 25

“Maybe you wouldn’t like this to appear in print? …”

And then Jim saw it all. It was like a story from a magazine. He had never believed those things could be true. But here it was in real life. A frame-up—a dirty piece of blackmail.

“Can’t we come to terms, Mr. Conlan. …”

The suave voice got no farther than that. He saw six-feet-odd of bone and muscle rear up like a piece of steel and descend on him. A great hard hand caught him by the neck and bounced him up and down the room.

“You swab! You tinhorn! I’ve manured a potato patch with better stuff, by Gawd! And she’s your wife, you dirty trash! She ain’t your wife—no, sir. I savvy what she is. Suffering rattlesnakes! I’m waitin’ to hear about it. When did you frame to put this over me? Talk up or I’ll yank you outer the window into the street.”

“Damn you—let me go!”

“I’ll ’damn you,’ you muck! Take that!”

A resounding slap sounded as a hand like leather met the man’s face. Edith screamed.

“Talk up!” 26

“We—arranged—it—this afternoon,” gasped the man.

Jim flung him to the floor and advanced on the pallid Edith. She retreated before him. He was about to clasp her when a voice rang out.

“Hands up!”

He swung round to find his late victim brandishing a revolver. An ugly leer crossed his face. He evidently meant business. Jim stared at the revolver.

“Put ’em up or I’ll drill you. I can plead the unwritten law. I’ve got you now, my buck-jumping desperado.”

Jim coolly blew his nose.

“Put ’em up!”

He put up his hands and dropped the handkerchief. He stooped to pick up the latter and, with a lightning movement, caught the edge of the mat and pulled with all his strength. The man, standing on the end of it, came to earth with a crash. Jim flew at him and made for the hand that held the gun. Over and over they went like cats. Then it was that Edith lent a hand—to her confederate. She ran to the dressing-table and took up a small penknife. Jim was leaning over 27 his victim, wresting the gun from his hand, when she reached him. The knife came down twice in his shoulder. The intense pain caused him to drop the gun, but he picked it up again, hurled his inert opponent across the room, and went to Edith. The knife dropped from her fingers as she saw the blood streaming down his white shirtfront.

“I don’t fight wimmen,” he growled. “There ain’t nothing I can do to you, ’cept this.”

He suddenly caught her and, holding both her wrists in one hand, with the other tore every shred of clothing from her. … Then without a word he strode out of the room.

“I’m through with this place,” he muttered. “Bright lights! Gosh, I’m looking for where they don’t shine so strong.”

Somewhere in England were the graves of his ancestors. He didn’t want to see the graves of his forefathers, even if he could find them, but the desire to give London the “once over” was now stronger than ever. The next day he booked a steamer berth and packed his bags.

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