Through the Shadows with O'Henry

CHAPTER X. In the Panhandle; a starving hostess; theft and chivalry; $35,000 clear; dawning of romance; two plucky girls; the escape in the tramp.

We had been in the game nearly two years. Two hundred and some odd thousands had passed through our hands. It had passed quickly.

Our partnership was capitalized at $10,000 one particular evening when we struck across the panhandle of Texas after a hurried departure from New Mexico.

We had gone there on the trail of Houston and Love. We had never given up the hope of evening up our score with them. But by that time our business connections had become generally known. It became increasingly difficult to gain an entree into any law-abiding city. Marshals in New Mexico fogged us a cargo of lead in the streets as a sort of salvo of welcome. We let it go as a farewell tribute and made a quick getaway.

The panhandle of Texas was forgotten of God Himself in those days. It was the bleakest, poorest, loneliest tongue of mesquite grass in all the South-west. Deserted dugouts with their dingy chimneys sticking above the ground marked the spots where men had settled, struggled and failed.

The lobo wolves hid in the abandoned adobe holes. At the sound of the horses they would leap to the grass, their eyes, timid and frightened as a coyote's one lope and they were gone. There was a breath of fear and desertion and unbearable quiet about those miles of prairie. It seemed isolated like an outlaw.

Perhaps that ride had something to do with quickening Frank's susceptibilities. For when we saw a ripple of smoke coming from a chimney about half a mile distant it seemed like a flag of life waving us back from a graveyard. Both of us laughed and spurred our horses to the dugout.

As we rode up a girl and a little fellow about five came out to meet us, as though they had expected our arrival. She was a tall, slender, bright-eyed bit of calico, with a kind of pathetic smile that went straight to Frank's heart. Her husband had gone to town a week before to buy the dinner, she said. He had forgotten to return.

Frank and I had not eaten for two days. Neither had the lady nor her little son. It was 12 miles to the nearest neighbor. I made the trip and brought back grub for the family. Frank and the girl were talking like old chums, the kid sitting on that train-robber's lap and running his small fingers over Frank's face in a trusting way that made my brother foolish with pride and happiness.

The lady cooked up the tastiest meal we had eaten in many months. She served with the grace of a duchess. Frank sat back and watched her, his eyes lighting with pleasure at every trifling word she said. This glimpse of home life was the first real adventure we had known in two years.

"The banker down there skinned that poor little mite out of $5,000," Frank whispered to me. "Tricked her into signing some papers and then foreclosed on the mortgage. I'm going after the damn' thief and bring the boodle back to her."

The bank was in the little desert town in West Texas, where the husband had gone for provisions.

We arrived there just before closing time the next day. With the help of our six-shooters in lieu of a checkbook we induced the cashier to turn over the lady's $5,000 and about $35,000 additional.

Idlers standing in the street, marshals and the sheriff made our exit difficult. They sent a hail of lead after us to coax the money back.

It would have been a brilliant getaway but for the lady's husband. He had been in town when the robbery was pulled off. As soon as he came to the dug-out he sized us up and tipped off the posse. In the shooting that followed he was killed. We escaped, returned later and took the lady and her little fellow with us.

It was a long trip across Oklahoma and the Indian Territory into Arkansas. When it was over Frank was finished as far as our former business was concerned. He was in love with the girl. He could think of nothing else. For the first time he sat down to figure out the reasons that had made him turn bandit. He could not find any. He was full of self-reproach. He kept wondering why he had ever gone

into the game and figuring out how long it would take him to get back.

"I'm going to quit." It did not surprise me.

"They won't let you quit," I warned him.

"Bunk," he answered; "nothing can stop me."

He was full of plans. We would go to New Orleans and then to the South Sea Islands. We had $35,000. It seemed enough to help us in jarring loose. I was ready for the adventure.

We did not know that at that very moment we had been tracked from West Texas on the bank-robbery almost to Fort Smith.

As soon as we stepped off the Mississippi packet to the levee in New Orleans a new life seemed to open for us. I felt free and cheerful as a good cow that has peacefully followed the herd and chewed in peace her daily cud. Our resolution to quit acted as a sort of absolution. We felt that we had cut loose from our past and that was the end of it.

Every incident in those first days enhanced this false sense of security. A few hours after we arrived I was browsing about the French quarter. A man passed, turned abruptly, came back and grabbed my arm. I thought I was caught. I jerked my six shooter and jammed it into his stomach, full cocked.

"God, Forney, don't you know me?"

When I saw little Ed---, my old pal at the Virginia Military Academy, shaking my hand, I'd have given the soul out of my body to have kept that forty- five out of sight. It was like a screaming voice telling him my brand, but it didn't seem to daunt him.

Ed was a sort of hero-worshiper. He liked me at college because I had been a cowpuncher. For much the same reason, outlawry seemed to him unusual and daring. With all the hospitality of the South, he invited me to visit his people.

They were wealthy. His father was a high official in Louisiana. While in his home we were almost certain of escape from detection. We went, Frank and I, and for weeks we lived in a fool's paradise. Life seemed an everlasting picture. We were home-hungry, and this visit was in the nature of a glorious new kind of spree—a sort of social intoxication.

Ed had a sister, Margaret. She was small and whimsical and black-eyed. I began to understand Frank's symptoms.

Summer in the South has many enchantments. I wanted to make this garden party perennial. Frank and I leased a steam yacht for a prolonged cruise in the gulf. Margaret, her mother, two cousins, Frank, Ed and I made up the party. There was a fine old family at Galveston, friends of Ed's family. We dropped anchor for a little visit with them.

And straightway they returned the compliment with a ball at the Beach Hotel. Of all my life that night was the happiest. Whatever Margaret saw in me I don't know. We were sitting in an alcove. Cape jasmines are fragrant in Galveston and the moon hung out like a big pearl. Music, soft and gentle, twined in with our thoughts. That kind of a night.

I hadn't heard any one come. A finger tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up.

"Step outside a moment," the man said.

"Take a look at me! Now, do you remember who I am? Well, I haven't forgotten what you did for me in El Reno. I'm going to square the debt."

The man had not taken his eyes from my face. I knew him at once. I had saved him from the penitentiary when I was county attorney at El Reno. He was charged with the embezzlement of Wells Fargo funds.* I was prosecutor. The man probably was guilty, but the evidence was entirely insufficient. The jury was prejudiced. I asked for a dismissal because it was the only square thing to do.

That was one loaf of bread on the waters that came back as cake.

"I'm with Wells Fargo," he whispered. "We have a bunch of dicks on the job. They know Al Jennings is in this hotel. The place is surrounded. I'm the only one who knows you by sight. Do the best you can."

I had not said a word. My heart was pounding like a triphammer. If I ever felt like pitying myself it was at that moment. The ignominy of it the disgrace before these friends who honored us. I felt weak and limp all over. I went back to the alcove.

"What did he want, Al?" Margaret asked, her lips white and drawn. Before I could protest, she hurried on. "I know you are Al Jennings. I knew it all along. I knew you from the picture Ed has. What are you going to do?"

"Nothing. They won't get a chance."

The blunt way seemed best. I told her that Williams (that was the name Frank had taken; I was Edwards) was my brother; that we were wanted for a bank-robbery in West Texas ; that our only chance was the Gulf of Mexico. She took it quiet and shrewd, without a whimper.

Frank was dancing with Margaret's cousin. We waltzed over to them. I bumped against Frank.

"Look out," I warned. It was an old signal.

He followed us into the alcove.

"We're surrounded."

"Here? Oh, hell!"

Gardens that blossomed to the water's edge ran in terraces about the hotel. We made our plan. Together, the four of us sauntered into a rose arbor, laughing and talking as though our hearts were as light as our tongues. The girls were as game as veterans. They challenged us to a race. One lightning sprint and we were at the beach, the girls lagging far behind.

Somebody's first-class dory helped our escape. It was lying there with the oars set. Muscles of iron sent that little yawl shooting across the water. The gods of chance, $32,000 and our six-shooters were with us. We didn't pause for breath until we chopped against an old tramp banana steamer. We clambered up the sides like aboriginal monkeys.

The captain was a smuggler of Three Star Hennessey brandy. When he saw two dudes in full-dress suits, silk hats and white kid gloves tumbling over his railing, he thought we were drunker than himself. He wabbled up to us, his blowsy cheeks puffed out like balloons, his pig eyes squinting and his addled voice making a valiant attempt to order us off.

"Put out tonight? No, sirs; Be damned and a whole lot more if he would. He didn't have his papers. He grew weepy over it. The government wouldn't permit it.

When we slipped him $1,500, he changed his tune.