Читать книгу Sixteen in Nome - Max Brand - Страница 8

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I was so amazed that I hunched lower in my chair and gaped like a fish while Cliff Anson, the red-headed chief bartender of The Joint, assisted a girl to climb to the top of the bar.

I was so dazzled by the lights, and by the idea of this transaction, that I could hardly make her out, except that she was dressed in ordinary clothes, without any touch of color to set her off, and her hat was a little toward the back of her head. But I heard a gasp of excitement from the men in that big room, and by this I knew that there was something extraordinary about her.

I rubbed my eyes, looked again, and, by Heaven, it was the red-headed girl whom I had seen crying that same morning in my lodging house! That fairly knocked the breath out of me. It seemed to me that I saw her lighted by the golden glow of the money which she had offered me in her hand not so many hours before. Now she was here, reduced to this. I stared at her with all my heart and soul.

She was trying to smile, but the smile hardly came, and then went again. There was not a speck of rouge on her face, and the result was that she was burning red one minute and white as a ghost the next. I thought she was going to faint, and I was close to it myself, there was something so horrible in this idea. For she was mighty pretty. Even with the tears and all that morning, and the dirty, dusky light of the room against her, she had seemed pretty. But here she shone through the smoke of The Joint by her own light, as it were. She had one hand against her breast, drawing her coat together, and that hand was white enough to have touched the heart of a savage. But the heart of Nome was more savage than a wilderness.

A voice was shouting in me, straining at my throat. I wanted to leap onto my chair and yell at them that this was no girl to treat roughly, that if they had half an eye they could see for themselves that only some terrible need had forced her to do a thing like this.

Well, just then a Canuck shouted out—he was as lean as a greyhound and as soiled as a wolverine: "I'll start it off. I'll offer fifty dollars!"

There was a little, bald-headed man right in front of the Canuck. He turned, flashed his hand into the Canuck's face, and, in a moment, down went that fellow — whack!—against the floor.

"A good thing," said somebody near me. "Even if the girl's a rattlehead and foolish, she don't need to be insulted like that!"

The whole crowd seemed to agree with that remark, and the Canuck was helped toward the door at the end of fifty heavy boots, at least. He went out with a crash, and the door swung shut, letting in a good gulp of sweet cold air into the room.

Then I saw the ugly face, and the tall hat, and the bedraggled long hair of the Doctor—who owned The Joint—rising near the bar.

He said: "There ain't gunna be no ruction about this auctioning, boys. The first low crack that I hear, the gent that makes it gets the run, and the auction is off. They's gunna be order. You can make as much noise as you like, but it's gotta be decent noise. The lady' 11 be respected in The Joint, I say. Massey, are you back there?"

Every head flashed around. I did not see Massey, but the mention of that name was enough to insure law and order in any Nome crowd, no matter how big or how wild.

"Now, gents," said the announcer, "we'll listen to a real offer. How much am I bid?"

There was a general movement closer to the bar but, when the people came to a certain distance from it, they paused abruptly. Massey was in there, leaning on the back of a chair, and facing them, showing no disposition to budge. And near him was Doctor Borg, himself. They kept the people at a respectful distance.

And that poor girl, her eyes getting bigger and bluer every moment, looked desperately across the sea of rough faces, and gripped her hands suddenly together. But she did not climb down from the bar. Whatever was driving her, it kept her in her place there, on show before them all.

Someone I could not see offered fifteen hundred dollars. That was really the opening bid, and in two minutes the price was up to five thousand! It kept right on, but at this price the bidding settled down suddenly to two bidders.

One was a huge man—one of the biggest I ever saw. He must have been seven or eight inches over six feet, and he was built in proportion. He had a huge head, and a great, dark, inexpressive block of a face to crown the pile. His voice was like the rest of him, a deep, husky bass that boomed and echoed through that room in an amazing way.

He was the first man to go above five thousand.

The other bidder, who went to six at once, was an opposite type. He was young, clean-shaven, with a blond head of hair and a really handsome face.

The first glance at him made me pray that he would win out in the contest. He stood near the central stove, with his fine head thrown back a little, and his eyes never for an instant, until the end, wavered from the face of the girl.

I watched her, too, begin to look back at him. It was pretty plain to see where her preference lay, but that towering big man kept right on. The way he bid made me think that I could see the fashion he would have of marching through the snow, with long, regular, stride, never faltering, holding on like grim death.

They went up to eight thousand dollars in a very short time.

The bidding went like this:

"Eight thousand!" from "Blondy."

"And fifty," says the big man in his deep, sullen, bell-like voice.

"Eight thousand five hundred!"

"And fifty!"

"Nine thousand!" said the blond lad.

"And fifty," said the big man.

Blondy dropped his head and struck his hand across his face.

It was not a great deal. But it was plenty, in such a crowd as that, to show that he had completely forgotten himself, and that his heart was all wrapped up in the girl who stood on the bar there.

"Going at nine thousand and fifty!" says the announcer. "Going at nine thousand and fifty!"

Blondy looked up again, and even through the smoke, and in the distance, I could see the desperation in his face.

As for the girl, actually she smiled at him, and such a wistful smile that it drew tears into my eyes.

"Nine thousand five hundred!" sings out Blondy, choking on the words a little.

You could see that it was about all he could afford, or beg, borrow, or steal, in this world.

And the crowd, which had been standing as still as so many mice when the cat is by, let go of themselves and their emotions in one wild whoop that must have budged the solid rafters overhead. I would have mortgaged ten years of my life, just then, to help Blondy win that contest.

"Redhead," forgetting the crowd and the eyes on her, made the smallest little gesture toward Blondy and smiled at him.

Yes, it is strange how that gesture and that smile strike back at me across the years, vividly, and sadly.

"Nine thousand five hundred offered," said the announcer. "Only nine thousand five hundred for the finest bit of auburn hair that I ever—"

Massey turned his head and said quietly: "Stop that."

The room was so still that I could hear him perfectly.

The announcer, staggered in his speech, gulped as though he had seen a leveled gun, and then went on rather shakily: "Going at nine thousand five hundred dollars—"

"And fifty!" said the giant.

There was a groan from the crowd. I groaned with them, as a matter of course.

The girl stood up straight and looked at Blondy as though the light of salvation were shining from him.

"Ten thousand dollars!" shouted Blondy wildly.

There was another yell that shook the walls of The Joint!

"And fifty!" said the imperturbable giant.

Blondy suddenly turned on his heel and waded through the crowd, head down, toward the door. He was finished, and I could see men slap him on the back and shoulders.

"Going at ten thousand and fifty," said the announcer. "Two times going at ten thousand and fifty. Going three times, and—"

He took it for granted that the bidding was over. So did we all, when a voice cut in quietly—though with a growl in the tone: "Eleven thousand."

The giant's imperturbability was gone. He jerked around. So did every one, and we saw in the corner of the room a big man with an almost inhuman look of strength about his jaw and throat and his thick, smooth shoulders. He had a face like a wolf, heavy at the base of the jaws and rather sharp in front.

The giant, after one look, followed the example of Blondy, and waded for the door.

"By gravy!" said a man near me. "It's Calmont! He gets her!"