The Showing-Up of Blanco Posnet
A number of women are sitting working together in a big room not unlike an old English tithe barn in its timbered construction, but with windows high up next the roof. It is furnished as a courthouse, with the floor raised next the walls, and on this raised flooring a seat for the Sheriff, a rough jury box on his right, and a bar to put prisoners to on his left. In the well in the middle is a table with benches round it. A few other benches are in disorder round the room. The autumn sun is shining warmly through the windows and the open door. The women, whose dress and speech are those of pioneers of civilisation in a territory of the United States of America, are seated round the table and on the benches, shucking nuts. The conversation is at its height.
Babsy
A bumptious young slattern, with some good looks. I say that a man that would steal a horse would do anything.
Lottie
A sentimental girl, neat and clean. Well, I never should look at it in that way. I do think killing a man is worse any day than stealing a horse.
Hannah
Elderly and wise. I don’t say it’s right to kill a man. In a place like this, where every man has to have a revolver, and where there’s so much to try people’s tempers, the men get to be a deal too free with one another in the way of shooting. God knows it’s hard enough to have to bring a boy into the world and nurse him up to be a man only to have him brought home to you on a shutter, perhaps for nothing, or only just to show that the man that killed him wasn’t afraid of him. But men are like children when they get a gun in their hands: they’re not content till they’ve used it on somebody.
Jessie
A good-natured but sharp-tongued, hoity-toity young woman; Babsy’s rival in good looks and her superior in tidiness. They shoot for the love of it. Look at them at a lynching. They’re not content to hang the man; but directly the poor creature is swung up they all shoot him full of holes, wasting their cartridges that cost solid money, and pretending they do it in horror of his wickedness, though half of them would have a rope round their own necks if all they did was known—let alone the mess it makes.
Lottie
I wish we could get more civilized. I don’t like all this lynching and shooting. I don’t believe any of us like it, if the truth were known.
Babsy
Our Sheriff is a real strong man. You want a strong man for a rough lot like our people here. He ain’t afraid to shoot and he ain’t afraid to hang. Lucky for us quiet ones, too.
Jessie
Oh, don’t talk to me. I know what men are. Of course he ain’t afraid to shoot and he ain’t afraid to hang. Where’s the risk in that with the law on his side and the whole crowd at his back longing for the lynching as if it was a spree? Would one of them own to it or let him own to it if they lynched the wrong man? Not them. What they call justice in this place is nothing but a breaking out of the devil that’s in all of us. What I want to see is a Sheriff that ain’t afraid not to shoot and not to hang.
Emma
A sneak who sides with Babsy or Jessie, according to the fortune of war. Well, I must say it does sicken me to see Sheriff Kemp putting down his foot, as he calls it. Why don’t he put it down on his wife? She wants it worse than half the men he lynches. He and his Vigilance Committee, indeed!
Babsy
Incensed. Oh, well! if people are going to take the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff—!
Jessie
Who’s taking the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff?
Babsy
You are. Wait’ll your own horse is stolen, and you’ll know better. I had an uncle that died of thirst in the sagebrush because a Negro stole his horse. But they caught him and burned him; and serve him right, too.
Emma
I have known a child that was born crooked because its mother had to do a horse’s work that was stolen.
Babsy
There! You hear that? I say stealing a horse is ten times worse than killing a man. And if the Vigilance Committee ever gets hold of you, you’d better have killed twenty men than as much as stole a saddle or bridle, much less a horse.
Elder Daniels comes in.
Elder Daniels
Sorry to disturb you, ladies; but the Vigilance Committee has taken a prisoner; and they want the room to try him in.
Jessie
But they can’t try him till Sheriff Kemp comes back from the wharf.
Elder Daniels
Yes; but we have to keep the prisoner here till he comes.
Babsy
What do you want to put him here for? Can’t you tie him up in the Sheriff’s stable?
Elder Daniels
He has a soul to be saved, almost like the rest of us. I am bound to try to put some religion into him before he goes into his Maker’s presence after the trial.
Hannah
What has he done, Mr. Daniels?
Elder Daniels
Stole a horse.
Babsy
And are we to be turned out of the town hall for a horse-thief? Ain’t a stable good enough for his religion?
Elder Daniels
It may be good enough for his, Babsy; but, by your leave, it is not good enough for mine. While I am Elder here, I shall umbly endeavor to keep up the dignity of Him I serve to the best of my small ability. So I must ask you to be good enough to clear out. Allow me. He takes the sack of husks and puts it out of the way against the panels of the jury box.
The Women
Murmuring. That’s always the way. Just as we’d settled down to work. What harm are we doing? Well, it is tiresome. Let them finish the job themselves. Oh dear, oh dear! We can’t have a minute to ourselves. Shoving us out like that!
Hannah
Whose horse was it, Mr. Daniels?
Elder Daniels
Returning to move the other sack. I am sorry to say that it was the Sheriff’s horse—the one he loaned to young Strapper. Strapper loaned it to me; and the thief stole it, thinking it was mine. If it had been mine, I’d have forgiven him cheerfully. I’m sure I hoped he would get away; for he had two hours start of the Vigilance Committee. But they caught him. He disposes of the other sack also.
Jessie
It can’t have been much of a horse if they caught him with two hours start.
Elder Daniels
Coming back to the centre of the group. The strange thing is that he wasn’t on the horse when they took him. He was walking; and of course he denies that he ever had the horse. The Sheriff’s brother wanted to tie him up and lash him till he confessed what he’d done with it; but I couldn’t allow that: it’s not the law.
Babsy
Law! What right has a horse-thief to any law? Law is thrown away on a brute like that.
Elder Daniels
Don’t say that, Babsy. No man should be made to confess by cruelty until religion has been tried and failed. Please God I’ll get the whereabouts of the horse from him if you’ll be so good as to clear out from this. Disturbance outside. They are bringing him in. Now ladies! please, please.
They rise reluctantly. Hannah, Jessie, and Lottie retreat to the Sheriff’s bench, shepherded by Daniels; but the other women crowd forward behind Babsy and Emma to see the prisoner.
Blanco Posnet is brought in by Strapper Kemp, the Sheriff’s brother, and a cross-eyed man called Squinty. Others follow. Blanco is evidently a blackguard. It would be necessary to clean him to make a close guess at his age; but he is under forty, and an upturned, red moustache, and the arrangement of his hair in a crest on his brow, proclaim the dandy in spite of his intense disreputableness. He carries his head high, and has a fairly resolute mouth, though the fire of incipient delirium tremens is in his eye.
His arms are bound with a rope with a long end, which Squinty holds. They release him when he enters; and he stretches himself and lounges across the courthouse in front of the women. Strapper and the men remain between him and the door.
Babsy
Spitting at him as he passes her. Horse-thief! horse-thief!
Others
You will hang for it; do you hear? And serve you right. Serve you right. That will teach you. I wouldn’t wait to try you. Lynch him straight off, the varmint. Yes, yes. Tell the boys. Lynch him.
Blanco
Mocking. “Angels ever bright and fair—”
Babsy
You call me an angel, and I’ll smack your dirty face for you.
Blanco
“Take, oh take me to your care.”
Emma
There won’t be any angels where you’re going to.
Others
Aha! Devils, more likely. And too good company for a horse-thief.
All
Horse-thief! Horse-thief! Horse-thief!
Blanco
Do women make the law here, or men? Drive these heifers out.
The Women
Oh! They rush at him, vituperating, screaming passionately, tearing at him. Lottie puts her fingers in her ears and runs out. Hannah follows, shaking her head. Blanco is thrown down. Oh, did you hear what he called us? You foul-mouthed brute! You liar! How dare you put such a name to a decent woman? Let me get at him. You coward! Oh, he struck me: did you see that? Lynch him! Pete, will you stand by and hear me called names by a skunk like that? Burn him: burn him! That’s what I’d do with him. Aye, burn him!
The Men
Pulling the women away from Blanco, and getting them out partly by violence and partly by coaxing. Here! come out of this. Let him alone. Clear the courthouse. Come on now. Out with you. Now, Sally: out you go. Let go my hair, or I’ll twist your arm out. Ah, would you? Now, then: get along. You know you must go. What’s the use of scratching like that? Now, ladies, ladies, ladies. How would you like it if you were going to be hanged?
At last the women are pushed out, leaving Elder Daniels, the Sheriff’s brother Strapper Kemp, and a few others with Blanco. Strapper is a lad just turning into a man: strong, selfish, sulky, and determined.
Blanco
Sitting up and tidying himself.
Oh woman, in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please—
Is my face scratched? I can feel their damned claws all over me still. Am I bleeding? He sits on the nearest bench.
Elder Daniels
Nothing to hurt. They’ve drawn a drop or two under your left eye.
Strapper
Lucky for you to have an eye left in your head.
Blanco
Wiping the blood off.
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou.
Go out to them, Strapper Kemp; and tell them about your big brother’s little horse that some wicked man stole. Go and cry in your mammy’s lap.
Strapper
Furious. You jounce me any more about that horse, Blanco Posnet; and I’ll—I’ll—
Blanco
You’ll scratch my face, won’t you? Yah! Your brother’s the Sheriff, ain’t he?
Strapper
Yes, he is. He hangs horse-thieves.
Blanco
With calm conviction. He’s a rotten Sheriff. Oh, a rotten Sheriff. If he did his first duty he’d hang himself. This is a rotten town. Your fathers came here on a false alarm of gold-digging; and when the gold didn’t pan out, they lived by licking their young into habits of honest industry.
Strapper
If I hadn’t promised Elder Daniels here to give him a chance to keep you out of Hell, I’d take the job of twisting your neck off the hands of the Vigilance Committee.
Blanco
With infinite scorn. You and your rotten Elder, and your rotten Vigilance Committee!
Strapper
They’re sound enough to hang a horse-thief, anyhow.
Blanco
Any fool can hang the wisest man in the country. Nothing he likes better. But you can’t hang me.
Strapper
Can’t we?
Blanco
No, you can’t. I left the town this morning before sunrise, because it’s a rotten town, and I couldn’t bear to see it in the light. Your brother’s horse did the same, as any sensible horse would. Instead of going to look for the horse, you went looking for me. That was a rotten thing to do, because the horse belonged to your brother—or to the man he stole it from—and I don’t belong to him. Well, you found me; but you didn’t find the horse. If I had took the horse, I’d have been on the horse. Would I have taken all that time to get to where I did if I’d a horse to carry me?
Strapper
I don’t believe you started not for two hours after you say you did.
Blanco
Who cares what you believe or don’t believe? Is a man worth six of you to be hanged because you’ve lost your big brother’s horse, and you’ll want to kill somebody to relieve your rotten feelings when he licks you for it? Not likely. Till you can find a witness that saw me with that horse you can’t touch me; and you know it.
Strapper
Is that the law, Elder?
Elder Daniels
The Sheriff knows the law. I wouldn’t say for sure; but I think it would be more seemly to have a witness. Go and round one up, Strapper; and leave me here alone to wrestle with his poor blinded soul.
Strapper
I’ll get a witness all right enough. I know the road he took; and I’ll ask at every house within sight of it for a mile out. Come, boys.
Strapper goes out with the others, leaving Blanco and Elder Daniels together. Blanco rises and strolls over to the Elder, surveying him with extreme disparagement.
Blanco
Well, brother? Well, Boozy Posnet, alias Elder Daniels? Well, thief? Well, drunkard?
Elder Daniels
It’s no good, Blanco. They’ll never believe we’re brothers.
Blanco
Never fear. Do you suppose I want to claim you? Do you suppose I’m proud of you? You’re a rotten brother, Boozy Posnet. All you ever did when I owned you was to borrow money from me to get drunk with. Now you lend money and sell drink to other people. I was ashamed of you before; and I’m worse ashamed of you now. I won’t have you for a brother. Heaven gave you to me; but I return the blessing without thanks. So be easy: I shan’t blab. He turns his back on him and sits down.
Elder Daniels
I tell you they wouldn’t believe you; so what does it matter to me whether you blab or not? Talk sense, Blanco: there’s no time for your foolery now; for you’ll be a dead man an hour after the Sheriff comes back. What possessed you to steal that horse?
Blanco
I didn’t steal it. I distrained on it for what you owed me. I thought it was yours. I was a fool to think that you owned anything but other people’s property. You laid your hands on everything father and mother had when they died. I never asked you for a fair share. I never asked you for all the money I’d lent you from time to time. I asked you for mother’s old necklace with the hair locket in it. You wouldn’t give me that: you wouldn’t give me anything. So as you refused me my due I took it, just to give you a lesson.
Elder Daniels
Why didn’t you take the necklace if you must steal something? They wouldn’t have hanged you for that.
Blanco
Perhaps I’d rather be hanged for stealing a horse than let off for a damned piece of sentimentality.
Elder Daniels
Oh, Blanco, Blanco: spiritual pride has been your ruin. If you’d only done like me, you’d be a free and respectable man this day instead of laying there with a rope round your neck.
Blanco
Turning on him. Done like you! What do you mean? Drink like you, eh? Well, I’ve done some of that lately. I see things.
Elder Daniels
Too late, Blanco: too late. Convulsively. Oh, why didn’t you drink as I used to? Why didn’t you drink as I was led to by the Lord for my good, until the time came for me to give it up? It was drink that saved my character when I was a young man; and it was the want of it that spoiled yours. Tell me this. Did I ever get drunk when I was working?
Blanco
No; but then you never worked when you had money enough to get drunk.
Elder Daniels
That just shows the wisdom of Providence and the Lord’s mercy. God fulfils himself in many ways: ways we little think of when we try to set up our own shortsighted laws against his Word. When does the Devil catch hold of a man? Not when he’s working and not when he’s drunk; but when he’s idle and sober. Our own natures tell us to drink when we have nothing else to do. Look at you and me! When we’d both earned a pocketful of money, what did we do? Went on the spree, naturally. But I was humble minded. I did as the rest did. I gave my money in at the drink-shop; and I said, “Fire me out when I have drunk it all up.” Did you ever see me sober while it lasted?
Blanco
No; and you looked so disgusting that I wonder it didn’t set me against drink for the rest of my life.
Elder Daniels
That was your spiritual pride, Blanco. You never reflected that when I was drunk I was in a state of innocence. Temptations and bad company and evil thoughts passed by me like the summer wind as you might say: I was too drunk to notice them. When the money was gone, and they fired me out, I was fired out like gold out of the furnace, with my character unspoiled and unspotted; and when I went back to work, the work kept me steady. Can you say as much, Blanco? Did your holidays leave your character unspoiled? Oh, no, no. It was theatres: it was gambling: it was evil company: it was reading in vain romances: it was women, Blanco, women: it was wrong thoughts and gnawing discontent. It ended in your becoming a rambler and a gambler: it is going to end this evening on the gallows tree. Oh, what a lesson against spiritual pride! Oh, what a—Blanco throws his hat at him.
Blanco
Stow it, Boozy. Sling it. Cut it. Cheese it. Shut up. “Shake not the dying sinner’s hand.”
Elder Daniels
Aye: there you go, with your scraps of lustful poetry. But you can’t deny what I tell you. Why, do you think I would put my soul in peril by selling drink if I thought it did no good, as them silly temperance reformers make out, flying in the face of the natural tastes implanted in us all for a good purpose? Not if I was to starve for it tomorrow. But I know better. I tell you, Blanco, what keeps America today the purest of the nations is that when she’s not working she’s too drunk to hear the voice of the tempter.
Blanco
Don’t deceive yourself, Boozy. You sell drink because you make a bigger profit out of it than you can by selling tea. And you gave up drink yourself because when you got that fit at Edwardstown the doctor told you you’d die the next time; and that frightened you off it.
Elder Daniels
Fervently. Oh thank God selling drink pays me! And thank God He sent me that fit as a warning that my drinking time was past and gone, and that He needed me for another service!
Blanco
Take care, Boozy. He hasn’t finished with you yet. He always has a trick up His sleeve—
Elder Daniels
Oh, is that the way to speak of the ruler of the universe—the great and almighty God?
Blanco
He’s a sly one. He’s a mean one. He lies low for you. He plays cat and mouse with you. He lets you run loose until you think you’re shut of him; and then, when you least expect it, he’s got you.
Elder Daniels
Speak more respectful, Blanco—more reverent.
Blanco
Springing up and coming at him. Reverent! Who taught you your reverent cant? Not your Bible. It says He cometh like a thief in the night—aye, like a thief—a horse-thief—
Elder Daniels
Shocked. Oh!
Blanco
Overbearing him. And it’s true. That’s how He caught me and put my neck into the halter. To spite me because I had no use for Him—because I lived my own life in my own way, and would have no truck with His “Don’t do this,” and “You mustn’t do that,” and “You’ll go to Hell if you do the other.” I gave Him the go-bye and did without Him all these years. But He caught me out at last. The laugh is with Him as far as hanging me goes. He thrusts his hands into his pockets and lounges moodily away from Daniels, to the table, where he sits facing the jury box.
Elder Daniels
Don’t dare to put your theft on Him, man. It was the Devil tempted you to steal the horse.
Blanco
Not a bit of it. Neither God nor Devil tempted me to take the horse: I took it on my own. He had a cleverer trick than that ready for me. He takes his hands out of his pockets and clenches his fists. Gosh! When I think that I might have been safe and fifty miles away by now with that horse; and here I am waiting to be hung up and filled with lead! What came to me? What made me such a fool? That’s what I want to know. That’s the great secret.
Elder Daniels
At the opposite side of the table. Blanco: the great secret now is, what did you do with the horse?
Blanco
Striking the table with his fist. May my lips be blighted like my soul if ever I tell that to you or any mortal man! They may roast me alive or cut me to ribbons; but Strapper Kemp shall never have the laugh on me over that job. Let them hang me. Let them shoot. So long as they are shooting a man and not a sniveling skunk and softy, I can stand up to them and take all they can give me—game.
Elder Daniels
Don’t be headstrong, Blanco. What’s the use? Slyly. They might let up on you if you put Strapper in the way of getting his brother’s horse back.
Blanco
Not they. Hanging’s too big a treat for them to give up a fair chance. I’ve done it myself. I’ve yelled with the dirtiest of them when a man no worse than myself was swung up. I’ve emptied my revolver into him, and persuaded myself that he deserved it and that I was doing justice with strong stern men. Well, my turn’s come now. Let the men I yelled at and shot at look up out of Hell and see the boys yelling and shooting at me as I swing up.
Elder Daniels
Well, even if you want to be hanged, is that any reason why Strapper shouldn’t have his horse? I tell you I’m responsible to him for it. Bending over the table and coaxing him. Act like a brother, Blanco: tell me what you done with it.
Blanco
Shortly, getting up and leaving the table. Never you mind what I done with it. I was done out of it. Let that be enough for you.
Elder Daniels
Following him. Then why don’t you put us on to the man that done you out of it?
Blanco
Because he’d be too clever for you, just as he was too clever for me.
Elder Daniels
Make your mind easy about that, Blanco. He won’t be too clever for the boys and Sheriff Kemp if you put them on his trail.
Blanco
Yes, he will. It wasn’t a man.
Elder Daniels
Then what was it?
Blanco
Pointing upward. Him.
Elder Daniels
Oh what a way to utter His holy name!
Blanco
He done me out of it. He meant to pay off old scores by bringing me here. He means to win the deal and you can’t stop Him. Well, He’s made a fool of me; but He can’t frighten me. I’m not going to beg off. I’ll fight off if I get a chance. I’ll lie off if they can’t get a witness against me. But back down I never will, not if all the hosts of heaven come to snivel at me in white surplices and offer me my life in exchange for an umble and a contrite heart.
Elder Daniels
You’re not in your right mind, Blanco. I’ll tell em you’re mad. I believe they’ll let you off on that. He makes for the door.
Blanco
Seizing him, with horror in his eyes. Don’t go: don’t leave me alone: do you hear?
Elder Daniels
Has your conscience brought you to this that you’re afraid to be left alone in broad daylight, like a child in the dark.
Blanco
I’m afraid of Him and His tricks. When I have you to raise the devil in me—when I have people to show off before and keep me game, I’m all right; but I’ve lost my nerve for being alone since this morning. It’s when you’re alone that He takes His advantage. He might turn my head again. He might send people to me—not real people perhaps. Shivering. By God, I don’t believe that woman and the child were real. I don’t. I never noticed them till they were at my elbow.
Elder Daniels
What woman and what child? What are you talking about? Have you been drinking too hard?
Blanco
Never you mind. You’ve got to stay with me: thats all; or else send someone else—someone rottener than yourself to keep the devil in me. Strapper Kemp will do. Or a few of those scratching devils of women.
Strapper Kemp comes back.
Elder Daniels
To Strapper. He’s gone off his head.
Strapper
Foxing, more likely. Going past Daniels and talking to Blanco nose to nose. It’s no good: we hang madmen here; and a good job too!
Blanco
I feel safe with you, Strapper. You’re one of the rottenest.
Strapper
You know you’re done, and that you may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. So talk away. I’ve got my witness; and I’ll trouble you not to make a move towards her when she comes in to identify you.
Blanco
Retreating in terror. A woman? She ain’t real: neither is the child.
Elder Daniels
He’s raving about a woman and a child. I tell you he’s gone off his chump.
Strapper
Calling to those without. Show the lady in there.
Feemy Evans comes in. She is a young woman of twenty-three or twenty-four, with impudent manners, battered good looks, and dirty-fine dress.
Elder Daniels
Morning, Feemy.
Feemy
Morning, Elder. She passes on and slips her arm familiarly through Strapper’s.
Strapper
Ever see him before, Feemy?
Feemy
That’s the little lot that was on your horse this morning, Strapper. Not a doubt of it.
Blanco
Implacably contemptuous. Go home and wash yourself, you slut.
Feemy
Reddening, and disengaging her arm from Strapper’s. I’m clean enough to hang you, anyway. Going over to him threateningly. You’re no true American man, to insult a woman like that.
Blanco
A woman! Oh Lord! You saw me on a horse, did you?
Feemy
Yes, I did.
Blanco
Got up early on purpose to do it, didn’t you?
Feemy
No I didn’t: I stayed up late on a spree.
Blanco
I was on a horse, was I?
Feemy
Yes you were; and if you deny it you’re a liar.
Blanco
To Strapper. She saw a man on a horse when she was too drunk to tell which was the man and which was the horse—
Feemy
Breaking in. You lie. I wasn’t drunk—at least not as drunk as that.
Blanco
Ignoring the interruption.—and you found a man without a horse. Is a man on a horse the same as a man on foot? Yah! Take your witness away. Who’s going to believe her? Shove her into the dustbin. You’ve got to find that horse before you get a rope round my neck. He turns away from her contemptuously, and sits at the table with his back to the jury box.
Feemy
Following him. I’ll hang you, you dirty horse-thief; or not a man in this camp will ever get a word or a look from me again. You’re just trash: that’s what you are. White trash.
Blanco
And what are you, darling? What are you? You’re a worse danger to a town like this than ten horse-thieves.
Feemy
Mr. Kemp: will you stand by and hear me insulted in that low way? To Blanco, spitefully. I’ll see you swung up and I’ll see you cut down: I’ll see you high and I’ll see you low, as dangerous as I am. He laughs. Oh you needn’t try to brazen it out. You’ll look white enough before the boys are done with you.
Blanco
You do me good. Feemy. Stay by me to the end, won’t you? Hold my hand to the last; and I’ll die game. He puts out his hand: she strikes savagely at it; but he withdraws it in time and laughs at her discomfiture.
Feemy
You—
Elder Daniels
Never mind him, Feemy: he’s not right in his head today. She receives the assurance with contemptuous credulity, and sits down on the step of the Sheriff’s dais.
Sheriff Kemp comes in: a stout man, with large flat ears, and a neck thicker than his head.
Elder Daniels
Morning, Sheriff.
The Sheriff
Morning, Elder. Passing on. Morning, Strapper. Passing on. Morning, Miss Evans. Stopping between Strapper and Blanco. Is this the prisoner?
Blanco
Rising. That’s so. Morning, Sheriff.
The Sheriff
Morning. You know, I suppose, that if you’ve stole a horse and the jury find against you, you won’t have any time to settle your affairs. Consequently, if you feel guilty, you’d better settle em now.
Blanco
Affairs be damned! I’ve got none.
The Sheriff
Well, are you in a proper state of mind? Has the Elder talked to you?
Blanco
He has. And I say it’s against the law. It’s torture: that’s what it is.
Elder Daniels
He’s not accountable. He’s out of his mind, Sheriff. He’s not fit to go into the presence of his Maker.
The Sheriff
You are a merciful man, Elder; but you won’t take the boys with you there. To Blanco. If it comes to hanging you, you’d better for your own sake be hanged in a proper state of mind than in an improper one. But it won’t make any difference to us: make no mistake about that.
Blanco
Lord keep me wicked till I die! Now I’ve said my little prayer. I’m ready. Not that I’m guilty, mind you; but this is a rotten town, dead certain to do the wrong thing.
The Sheriff
You won’t be asked to live long in it, I guess. To Strapper. Got the witness all right, Strapper?
Strapper
Yes, got everything.
Blanco
Except the horse.
The Sheriff
What’s that? Ain’t you got the horse?
Strapper
No. He traded it before we overtook him, I guess. But Feemy saw him on it.
Feemy
She did.
Strapper
Shall I call in the boys?
Blanco
Just a moment, Sheriff. A good appearance is everything in a low-class place like this. He takes out a pocket comb and mirror, and retires towards the dais to arrange his hair.
Elder Daniels
Oh, think of your immortal soul, man, not of your foolish face.
Blanco
I can’t change my soul, Elder: it changes me—sometimes. Feemy: I’m too pale. Let me rub my cheek against yours, darling.
Feemy
You lie: my color’s my own, such as it is. And a pretty color you’ll be when you’re hung white and shot red.
Blanco
Ain’t she spiteful, Sheriff?
The Sheriff
Time’s wasted on you. To Strapper. Go and see if the boys are ready. Some of them were short of cartridges, and went down to the store to buy them. They may as well have their fun; and it’ll be shorter for him.
Strapper
Young Jack has brought a boxful up. They’re all ready.
The Sheriff
Going to the dais and addressing Blanco. Your place is at the bar there. Take it. Blanco bows ironically and goes to the bar. Miss Evans: you’d best sit at the table. She does so, at the corner nearest the bar. The Elder takes the opposite corner. The Sheriff takes his chair. All ready, Strapper.
Strapper
At the door. All in to begin.
The crowd comes in and fills the court. Babsy, Jessie, and Emma come to the Sheriff’s right; Hannah and Lottie to his left.
The Sheriff
Silence there. The jury will take their places as usual. They do so.
Blanco
I challenge this jury, Sheriff.
The Foreman
Do you, by Gosh?
The Sheriff
On what ground?
Blanco
On the general ground that it’s a rotten jury. Laughter.
The Sheriff
That’s not a lawful ground of challenge.
The Foreman
It’s a lawful ground for me to shoot yonder skunk at sight, first time I meet him, if he survives this trial.
Blanco
I challenge the Foreman because he’s prejudiced.
The Foreman
I say you lie. We mean to hang you, Blanco Posnet; but you will be hanged fair.
The Jury
Hear, hear!
Strapper
To the Sheriff. George: this is rot. How can you get an unprejudiced jury if the prisoner starts by telling them they’re all rotten? If there’s any prejudice against him he has himself to thank for it.
The Boys
That’s so. Of course he has. Insulting the court! Challenge be jiggered! Gag him.
Nestor
A juryman with a long white beard, drunk, the oldest man present. Besides, Sheriff, I go so far as to say that the man that is not prejudiced against a horse-thief is not fit to sit on a jury in this town.
The Boys
Right. Bully for you, Nestor! That’s the straight truth. Of course he ain’t. Hear, hear!
The Sheriff
That is no doubt true, old man. Still, you must get as unprejudiced as you can. The critter has a right to his chance, such as he is. So now go right ahead. If the prisoner don’t like this jury, he should have stole a horse in another town; for this is all the jury he’ll get here.
The Foreman
That’s so, Blanco Posnet.
The Sheriff
To Blanco. Don’t you be uneasy. You will get justice here. It may be rough justice; but it is justice.
Blanco
What is justice?
The Sheriff
Hanging horse-thieves is justice; so now you know. Now then: we’ve wasted enough time. Hustle with your witness there, will you?
Blanco
Indignantly bringing down his fist on the bar. Swear the jury. A rotten Sheriff you are not to know that the jury’s got to be sworn.
The Foreman
Galled. Be swore for you! Not likely. What do you say, old son?
Nestor
Deliberately and solemnly. I say: Guilty!!!
The Boys
Tumultuously rushing at Blanco. That’s it. Guilty, guilty. Take him out and hang him. He’s found guilty. Fetch a rope. Up with him. They are about to drag him from the bar.
The Sheriff
Rising, pistol in hand. Hands off that man. Hands off him, I say, Squinty, or I drop you, and would if you were my own son. Dead silence. I’m Sheriff here; and it’s for me to say when he may lawfully be hanged. They release him.
Blanco
As the actor says in the play, “a Daniel come to judgment.” Rotten actor he was, too.
The Sheriff
Elder Daniel is come to judgment all right, my lad. Elder: the floor is yours. The Elder rises. Give your evidence. The truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
Elder Daniels
Sheriff: let me off this. I didn’t ought to swear away this man’s life. He and I are, in a manner of speaking, brothers.
The Sheriff
It does you credit, Elder: every man here will acknowledge it. But religion is one thing: law is another. In religion we’re all brothers. In law we cut our brother off when he steals horses.
The Foreman
Besides, you needn’t hang him, you know. There’s plenty of willing hands to take that job off your conscience. So rip ahead, old son.
Strapper
You’re accountable to me for the horse until you clear yourself, Elder: remember that.
Blanco
Out with it, you fool.
Elder Daniels
You might own up, Blanco, as far as my evidence goes. Everybody knows I borrowed one of the Sheriff’s horses from Strapper because my own’s gone lame. Everybody knows you arrived in the town yesterday and put up in my house. Everybody knows that in the morning the horse was gone and you were gone.
Blanco
In a forensic manner. Sheriff: the Elder, though known to you and to all here as no brother of mine and the rottenest liar in this town, is speaking the truth for the first time in his life as far as what he says about me is concerned. As to the horse, I say nothing; except that it was the rottenest horse you ever tried to sell.
The Sheriff
How do you know it was a rotten horse if you didn’t steal it?
Blanco
I don’t know of my own knowledge. I only argue that if the horse had been worth its keep, you wouldn’t have lent it to Strapper, and Strapper wouldn’t have lent it to this eloquent and venerable ram. Suppressed laughter. And now I ask him this. To the Elder. Did we or did we not have a quarrel last evening about a certain article that was left by my mother, and that I considered I had a right to more than you? And did you say one word to me about the horse not belonging to you?
Elder Daniels
Why should I? We never said a word about the horse at all. How was I to know what it was in your mind to do?
Blanco
Bear witness all that I had a right to take a horse from him without stealing to make up for what he denied me. I am no thief. But you haven’t proved yet that I took the horse. Strapper Kemp: had I the horse when you took me, or had I not?
Strapper
No, nor you hadn’t a railway train neither. But Feemy Evans saw you pass on the horse at four o’clock twenty-five miles from the spot where I took you at seven on the road to Pony Harbor. Did you walk twenty-five miles in three hours? That so, Feemy? eh?
Feemy
That’s so. At four I saw him. To Blanco. That’s done for you.
The Sheriff
You say you saw him on my horse?
Feemy
I did.
Blanco
And I ate it, I suppose, before Strapper fetched up with me. Suddenly and dramatically. Sheriff: I accuse Feemy of immoral relations with Strapper.
Feemy
Oh you liar!
Blanco
I accuse the fair Euphemia of immoral relations with every man in this town, including yourself, Sheriff. I say this is a conspiracy to kill me between Feemy and Strapper because I wouldn’t touch Feemy with a pair of tongs. I say you daren’t hang any white man on the word of a woman of bad character. I stand on the honor and virtue of my American manhood. I say that she’s not had the oath, and that you daren’t for the honor of the town give her the oath because her lips would blaspheme the holy Bible if they touched it. I say that’s the law; and if you are a proper United States Sheriff and not a low-down lyncher, you’ll hold up the law and not let it be dragged in the mud by your brother’s kept woman.
Great excitement among the women. The men much puzzled.
Jessie
That’s right. She didn’t ought to be let kiss the Book.
Emma
How could the like of her tell the truth?
Babsy
It would be an insult to every respectable woman here to believe her.
Feemy
It’s easy to be respectable with nobody ever offering you a chance to be anything else.
The Women
Clamoring all together. Shut up, you hussy. You’re a disgrace. How dare you open your lips to answer your betters? Hold your tongue and learn your place, miss. You painted slut! Whip her out of the town!
The Sheriff
Silence. Do you hear? Silence. The clamor ceases. Did anyone else see the prisoner with the horse?
Feemy
Passionately. Ain’t I good enough?
Babsy
No. You’re dirt: that’s what you are.
Feemy
And you—
The Sheriff
Silence. This trial is a man’s job; and if the women forget their sex they can go out or be put out. Strapper and Miss Evans: you can’t have it two ways. You can run straight, or you can run gay, so to speak; but you can’t run both ways together. There is also a strong feeling among the men of this town that a line should be drawn between those that are straight wives and mothers and those that are, in the words of the Book of Books, taking the primrose path. We don’t wish to be hard on any woman; and most of us have a personal regard for Miss Evans for the sake of old times; but there’s no getting out of the fact that she has private reasons for wishing to oblige Strapper, and that—if she will excuse my saying so—she is not what I might call morally particular as to what she does to oblige him. Therefore I ask the prisoner not to drive us to give Miss Evans the oath. I ask him to tell us fair and square, as a man who has but a few minutes between him and eternity, what he done with my horse.
The Boys
Hear, hear! That’s right. That’s fair. That does it. Now, Blanco. Own up.
Blanco
Sheriff: you touch me home. This is a rotten world; but there is still one thing in it that remains sacred even to the rottenest of us, and that is a horse.
The Boys
Good. Well said, Blanco. That’s straight.
Blanco
You have a right to your horse, Sheriff; and if I could put you in the way of getting it back, I would. But if I had that horse I shouldn’t be here. As I hope to be saved, Sheriff—or rather as I hope to be damned; for I have no taste for pious company and no talent for playing the harp—I know no more of that horse’s whereabouts than you do yourself.
Strapper
Who did you trade him to?
Blanco
I did not trade him. I got nothing for him or by him. I stand here with a rope round my neck for the want of him. When you took me, did I fight like a thief or run like a thief; and was there any sign of a horse on me or near me?
Strapper
You were looking at a rainbow, like a damned silly fool instead of keeping your wits about you; and we stole up on you and had you tight before you could draw a bead on us.
The Sheriff
That don’t sound like good sense. What would he look at a rainbow for?
Blanco
I’ll tell you, Sheriff. I was looking at it because there was something written on it.
The Sheriff
How do you mean written on it?
Blanco
The words were, “I’ve got the cinch on you this time, Blanco Posnet.” Yes, Sheriff, I saw those words in green on the red streak of the rainbow; and as I saw them I felt Strapper’s grab on my arm and Squinty’s on my pistol.
The Foreman
He’s shammin mad: that’s what he is. Ain’t it about time to give a verdict and have a bit of fun, Sheriff?
The Boys
Yes, let’s have a verdict. We’re wasting the whole afternoon. Cut it short.
The Sheriff
Making up his mind. Swear Feemy Evans, Elder. She don’t need to touch the Book. Let her say the words.
Feemy
Worse people than me has kissed that Book. What wrong I’ve done, most of you went shares in. I’ve to live, haven’t I? same as the rest of you. However, it makes no odds to me. I guess the truth is the truth and a lie is a lie, on the Book or off it.
Babsy
Do as you’re told. Who are you, to be let talk about it?
The Sheriff
Silence there, I tell you. Sail ahead, Elder.
Elder Daniels
Feemy Evans: do you swear to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
Feemy
I do, so help me—
The Sheriff
That’s enough. Now, on your oath, did you see the prisoner on my horse this morning on the road to Pony Harbor?
Feemy
On my oath—Disturbance and crowding at the door.
At the Door
Now then, now then! Where are you shovin to? What’s up? Order in court. Chuck him out. Silence. You can’t come in here. Keep back.
Strapper rushes to the door and forces his way out.
The Sheriff
Savagely. What’s this noise? Can’t you keep quiet there? Is this a Sheriff’s court or is it a saloon?
Blanco
Don’t interrupt a lady in the act of hanging a gentleman. Where’s your manners?
Feemy
I’ll hang you, Blanco Posnet. I will. I wouldn’t for fifty dollars hadn’t seen you this morning. I’ll teach you to be civil to me next time, for all I’m not good enough to kiss the Book.
Blanco
Lord keep me wicked till I die! I’m game for anything while you’re spitting dirt at me, Feemy.
Renewed Tumult at the Door
Here, what’s this? Fire them out. Not me. Who are you that I should get out of your way? Oh, stow it. Well, she can’t come in. What woman? What horse? What’s the good of shoving like that? Who says? No! you don’t say!
The Sheriff
Gentlemen of the Vigilance Committee: clear that doorway. Out with them in the name of the law.
Strapper
Without. Hold hard, George. At the door. They’ve got the horse. He comes in, followed by Wagoner Jo, an elderly carter, who crosses the court to the jury side. Strapper pushes his way to the Sheriff and speaks privately to him.
The Boys
What! No! Got the horse! Sheriff’s horse! Who took it, then? Where? Get out. Yes it is, sure. I tell you it is. It’s the horse all right enough. Rot. Go and look. By Gum!
The Sheriff
To Strapper. You don’t say!
Strapper
It’s here, I tell you.
Wagoner Jo
It’s here all right enough, Sheriff.
Strapper
And they’ve got the thief too.
Elder Daniels
Then it ain’t Blanco.
Strapper
No: it’s a woman. Blanco yells and covers his eyes with his hands.
The Whole Crowd
A woman!
The Sheriff
Well, fetch her in. Strapper goes out. The Sheriff continues, to Feemy. And what do you mean, you lying jade, by putting up this story on us about Blanco?
Feemy
I ain’t put up no story on you. This is a plant: you see if it isn’t.
Strapper returns with a Woman. Her expression of intense grief silences them as they crane over one another’s heads to see her. Strapper takes her to the corner of the table. The Elder moves up to make room for her.
Blanco
Terrified. Sheriff: that woman ain’t real. You take care. That woman will make you do what you never intended. That’s the rainbow woman. That’s the woman that brought me to this.
The Sheriff
Shut your mouth, will you. You’ve got the horrors. To the Woman. Now you. Who are you? and what are you doing with a horse that doesn’t belong to you?
The Woman
I took it to save my child’s life. I thought it would get me to a doctor in time. The child was choking with croup.
Blanco
Strangling, and trying to laugh. A little choker: that’s the word for him. His choking wasn’t real: wait and see mine. He feels his neck with a sob.
The Sheriff
Where’s the child?
Strapper
On Pug Jackson’s bench in his shed. He’s makin’ a coffin for it.
Blanco
With a horrible convulsion of the throat—frantically. Dead! The little Judas kid! The child I gave my life for! He breaks into hideous laughter.
The Sheriff
Jarred beyond endurance by the sound. Hold you noise, will you. Shove his neckerchief into his mouth if he don’t stop. To the Woman. Don’t you mind him, ma’am: he’s mad with drink and devilment. I suppose there’s no fake about this, Strapper. Who found her?
Wagoner Jo
I did, Sheriff. There’s no fake about it. I came on her on the track round by Red Mountain. She was settin on the ground with the dead body on her lap, stupid-like. The horse was grazin’ on the other side of the road.
The Sheriff
Puzzled. Well, this is blamed queer. To the Woman. What call had you to take the horse from Elder Daniels’ stable to find a doctor? There’s a doctor in the very next house.
Blanco
Mopping his dabbled red crest and trying to be ironically gay. Story simply won’t wash, my angel. You got it from the man that stole the horse. He gave it to you because he was a softy and went to bits when you played off the sick kid on him. Well, I guess that clears me. I’m not that sort. Catch me putting my neck in a noose for anybody’s kid!
The Foreman
Don’t you go putting her up to what to say. She said she took it.
The Woman
Yes: I took it from a man that met me. I thought God sent him to me. I rode here joyfully thinking so all the time to myself. Then I noticed that the child was like lead in my arms. God would never have been so cruel as to send me the horse to disappoint me like that.
Blanco
Just what He would do.
Strapper
We ain’t got nothin’ to do with that. This is the man, ain’t he? Pointing to Blanco.
The Woman
Pulling herself together after looking scaredly at Blanco, and then at the Sheriff and at the jury. No.
The Foreman
You lie.
The Sheriff
You’ve got to tell us the truth. That’s the law, you know.
The Woman
The man looked a bad man. He cursed me; and he cursed the child: God forgive him! But something came over him. I was desperate. I put the child in his arms; and it got its little fingers down his neck and called him Daddy and tried to kiss him; for it was not right in its head with the fever. He said it was a little Judas kid, and that it was betraying him with a kiss, and that he’d swing for it. And then he gave me the horse, and went away crying and laughing and singing dreadful dirty wicked words to hymn tunes like as if he had seven devils in him.
Strapper
She’s lying. Give her the oath, George.
The Sheriff
Go easy there. You’re a smart boy, Strapper; but you’re not Sheriff yet. This is my job. You just wait. I submit that we’re in a difficulty here. If Blanco was the man, the lady can’t, as a white woman, give him away. She oughtn’t to be put in the position of having either to give him away or commit perjury. On the other hand, we don’t want a horse-thief to get off through a lady’s delicacy.
The Foreman
No we don’t; and we don’t intend he shall. Not while I am foreman of this jury.
Blanco
With intense expression. A rotten foreman! Oh, what a rotten foreman!
The Sheriff
Shut up, will you. Providence shows us a way out here. Two women saw Blanco with a horse. One has a delicacy about saying so. The other will excuse me saying that delicacy is not her strongest holt. She can give the necessary witness. Feemy Evans: you’ve taken the oath. You saw the man that took the horse.
Feemy
I did. And he was a low-down rotten drunken lying hound that would go further to hurt a woman any day than to help her. And if he ever did a good action it was because he was too drunk to know what he was doing. So it’s no harm to hang him. She said he cursed her and went away blaspheming and singing things that were not fit for the child to hear.
Blanco
Troubled. I didn’t mean them for the child to hear, you venomous devil.
The Sheriff
All that’s got nothing to do with us. The question you have to answer is, was that man Blanco Posnet?
The Woman
No. I say no. I swear it. Sheriff: don’t hang that man: oh don’t. You may hang me instead if you like: I’ve nothing to live for now. You daren’t take her word against mine. She never had a child: I can see it in her face.
Feemy
Stung to the quick. I can hang him in spite of you, anyhow. Much good your child is to you now, lying there on Pug Jackson’s bench!
Blanco
Rushing at her with a shriek. I’ll twist your heart out of you for that. They seize him before he can reach her.
Feemy
Mocking at him as he struggles to get at her. Ha, ha, Blanco Posnet. You can’t touch me; and I can hang you. Ha, ha! Oh, I’ll do for you. I’ll twist your heart and I’ll twist your neck. He is dragged back to the bar and leans on it, gasping and exhausted. Give me the oath again, Elder. I’ll settle him. And do you to the Woman take your sickly face away from in front of me.
Strapper
Just turn your back on her there, will you?
The Woman
God knows I don’t want to see her commit murder. She folds her shawl over her head.
The Sheriff
Now, Miss Evans: cut it short. Was the prisoner the man you saw this morning or was he not? Yes or no?
Feemy
A little hysterically. I’ll tell you fast enough. Don’t think I’m a softy.
The Sheriff
Losing patience. Here: we’ve had enough of this. You tell the truth, Feemy Evans; and let us have no more of your lip. Was the prisoner the man or was he not? On your oath?
Feemy
On my oath and as I’m a living woman—Flinching. Oh God! he felt the little child’s hands on his neck—I can’t—Bursting into a flood of tears and scolding at the other woman. It’s you with your snivelling face that has put me off it. Desperately. No: it wasn’t him. I only said it out of spite because he insulted me. May I be struck dead if I ever saw him with the horse!
Everybody draws a long breath. Dead silence.
Blanco
Whispering at her. Softy! Crybaby! Landed like me! Doing what you never intended! Taking up his hat and speaking in his ordinary tone. I presume I may go now, Sheriff.
Strapper
Here, hold hard.
The Foreman
Not if we know it, you don’t.
The Boys
Barring the way to the door. You stay where you are. Stop a bit, stop a bit. Don’t you be in such a hurry. Don’t let him go. Not much.
Blanco stands motionless, his eye fixed, thinking hard, and apparently deaf to what is going on.
The Sheriff
Rising solemnly. Silence there. Wait a bit. I take it that if the Sheriff is satisfied and the owner of the horse is satisfied, there’s no more to be said. I have had to remark on former occasions that what is wrong with this court is that there’s too many Sheriffs in it. Today there is going to be one, and only one; and that one is your humble servant. I call that to the notice of the Foreman of the jury, and also to the notice of young Strapper. I am also the owner of the horse. Does any man say that I am not? Silence. Very well, then. In my opinion, to commandeer a horse for the purpose of getting a dying child to a doctor is not stealing, provided, as in the present case, that the horse is returned safe and sound. I rule that there has been no theft.
Nestor
That ain’t the law.
The Sheriff
I fine you a dollar for contempt of court, and will collect it myself off you as you leave the building. And as the boys have been disappointed of their natural sport, I shall give them a little fun by standing outside the door and taking up a collection for the bereaved mother of the late kid that showed up Blanco Posnet.
The Boys
A collection. Oh, I say! Calls that sport? Is this a mothers’ meeting? Well, I’ll be jiggered! Where does the sport come in?
The Sheriff
Continuing. The sport comes in, my friends, not so much in contributing as in seeing others fork out. Thus each contributes to the general enjoyment; and all contribute to his. Blanco Posnet: you go free under the protection of the Vigilance Committee for just long enough to get you out of this town, which is not a healthy place for you. As you are in a hurry, I’ll sell you the horse at a reasonable figure. Now, boys, let nobody go out till I get to the door. The court is adjourned. He goes out.
Strapper
To Feemy, as he goes to the door. I’m done with you. Do you hear? I’m done with you. He goes out sulkily.
Feemy
Calling after him. As if I cared about a stingy brat like you! Go back to the freckled maypole you left for me: you’ve been fretting for her long enough.
The Foreman
To Blanco, on his way out. A man like you makes me sick. Just sick. Blanco makes no sign. The Foreman spits disgustedly, and follows Strapper out. The Jurymen leave the box, except Nestor, who collapses in a drunken sleep.
Blanco
Suddenly rushing from the bar to the table and jumping up on it. Boys, I’m going to preach you a sermon on the moral of this day’s proceedings.
The Boys
Crowding round him. Yes: let’s have a sermon. Go ahead, Blanco. Silence for Elder Blanco. Tune the organ. Let us pray.
Nestor
Staggering out of his sleep. Never hold up your head in this town again. I’m done with you.
Blanco
Pointing inexorably to Nestor. Drunk in church. Disturbing the preacher. Hand him out.
The Boys
Chivying Nestor out. Now, Nestor, outside. Outside, Nestor. Out you go. Get your subscription ready for the Sheriff. Skiddoo, Nestor.
Nestor
Afraid to be hanged! Afraid to be hanged! At the door. Coward! He is thrown out.
Blanco
Dearly beloved brethren—
A Boy
Same to you, Blanco. Laughter.
Blanco
And many of them. Boys: this is a rotten world.
Another Boy
Lord have mercy on us, miserable sinners. More laughter.
Blanco
Forcibly. No: that’s where you’re wrong. Don’t flatter yourselves that you’re miserable sinners. Am I a miserable sinner? No: I’m a fraud and a failure. I started in to be a bad man like the rest of you. You all started in to be bad men or you wouldn’t be in this jumped-up, jerked-off, hospital-turned-out camp that calls itself a town. I took the broad path because I thought I was a man and not a snivelling canting turning-the-other-cheek apprentice angel serving his time in a vale of tears. They talked Christianity to us on Sundays; but when they really meant business they told us never to take a blow without giving it back, and to get dollars. When they talked the golden rule to me, I just looked at them as if they weren’t there, and spat. But when they told me to try to live my life so that I could always look my fellowman straight in the eye and tell him to go to hell, that fetched me.
The Boys
Quite right. Good. Bully for you, Blanco, old son. Right good sense too. Aha‑a‑ah!
Blanco
Yes; but what’s come of it all? Am I a real bad man? a man of game and grit? a man that does what he likes and goes over or through other people to his own gain? or am I a snivelling crybaby that let a horse his life depended on be took from him by a woman, and then sat on the grass looking at the rainbow and let himself be took like a hare in a trap by Strapper Kemp: a lad whose back I or any grown man here could break against his knee? I’m a rottener fraud and failure than the Elder here. And you’re all as rotten as me, or you’d have lynched me.
A Boy
Anything to oblige you, Blanco.
Another
We can do it yet if you feel really bad about it.
Blanco
No: the devil’s gone out of you. We’re all frauds. There’s none of us real good and none of us real bad.
Elder Daniels
There is One above, Blanco.
Blanco
What do you know about Him? you that always talk as if He never did anything without asking your rotten leave first? Why did the child die? Tell me that if you can. He can’t have wanted to kill the child. Why did He make me go soft on the child if He was going hard on it Himself? Why should He go hard on the innocent kid and go soft on a rotten thing like me? Why did I go soft myself? Why did the Sheriff go soft? Why did Feemy go soft? What’s this game that upsets our game? For seems to me there’s two games bein’ played. Our game is a rotten game that makes me feel I’m dirt and that you’re all as rotten dirt as me. T’other game may be a silly game; but it ain’t rotten. When the Sheriff played it he stopped being rotten. When Feemy played it the paint nearly dropped off her face. When I played it I cursed myself for a fool; but I lost the rotten feel all the same.
Elder Daniels
It was the Lord speaking to your soul, Blanco.
Blanco
Oh yes: you know all about the Lord, don’t you? You’re in the Lord’s confidence. He wouldn’t for the world do anything to shock you, would He, Boozy dear? Yah! What about the croup? It was early days when He made the croup, I guess. It was the best He could think of then; but when it turned out wrong on His hands He made you and me to fight the croup for him. You bet He didn’t make us for nothing; and He wouldn’t have made us at all if He could have done His work without us. By Gum, that must be what we’re for! He’d never have made us to be rotten drunken blackguards like me, and good-for-nothing rips like Feemy. He made me because He had a job for me. He let me run loose till the job was ready; and then I had to come along and do it, hanging or no hanging. And I tell you it didn’t feel rotten: it felt bully, just bully. Anyhow, I got the rotten feel off me for a minute of my life; and I’ll go through fire to get it off me again. Look here! which of you will marry Feemy Evans?
The Boys
Uproariously. Who speaks first? Who’ll marry Feemy? Come along, Jack. Now’s your chance, Peter. Pass along a husband for Feemy. Oh my! Feemy!
Feemy
Shortly. Keep your tongue off me, will you?
Blanco
Feemy was a rose of the broad path, wasn’t she? You all thought her the champion bad woman of this district. Well, she’s a failure as a bad woman; and I’m a failure as a bad man. So let Brother Daniels marry us to keep all the rottenness in the family. What do you say, Feemy?
Feemy
Thank you; but when I marry I’ll marry a man that could do a decent action without surprising himself out of his senses. You’re like a child with a new toy: you and your bit of human kindness!
The Woman
How many would have done it with their life at stake?
Feemy
Oh well, if you’re so much taken with him, marry him yourself. You’d be what people call a good wife to him, wouldn’t you?
The Woman
I was a good wife to the child’s father. I don’t think any woman wants to be a good wife twice in her life. I want somebody to be a good husband to me now.
Blanco
Any offer, gentlemen, on that understanding? The boys shake their heads. Oh, it’s a rotten game, our game. Here’s a real good woman; and she’s had enough of it, finding that it only led to being put upon.
Hannah
Well, if there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn’t be anything left for us to do, would there?
Elder Daniels
Be of good cheer, brothers. Fight on. Seek the path.
Blanco
No. No more paths. No more broad and narrow. No more good and bad. There’s no good and bad; but by Jiminy, gents, there’s a rotten game, and there’s a great game. I played the rotten game; but the great game was played on me; and now I’m for the great game every time. Amen. Gentlemen: let us adjourn to the saloon. I stand the drinks. He jumps down from the table.
The Boys
Right you are, Blanco. Drinks round. Come along, boys. Blanco’s standing. Right along to the Elder’s. Hurrah! They rush out, dragging the Elder with them.
Blanco
To Feemy, offering his hand. Shake, Feemy.
Feemy
Get along, you blackguard.
Blanco
It’s come over me again, same as when the kid touched me, same as when you swore a lie to save my neck.
Feemy
Oh well, here. They shake hands.