CHAPTER XIII
IT is much to be doubted if violence and scenes of violence are as abhorrent to the so-called gentler sex as it is popular to pretend. There lurks in a corner of the mind an impish suggestion that a woman, underneath a pretense of dismay or horror, enjoys the spectacle of a fight as much as a man. This polite supposition regarding women has barred them from much pleasure in watching the antagonist sex batter itself about. Next to dogs and line fences, women have caused more fights than any other item of creation—they should be permitted to enjoy the fruits of their activities.... Women are more quarrelsome than men. This is because they know words will not merge into fists—or at worst into the vicarious fists of husbands or brothers. It is not unthinkable that the attribute of the ably acrimonious tongue would atrophy and disappear from the feminine part of the human race within a generation or two if it were permitted to resolve into action rather than barbed innuendo. A field for some rising reformer!
Consequently Carmel was not shocked at being involved in such proceedings. She was angry, apprehensive. Her overshadowing sensation was one of impotence. If men were coming to wreck her newspaper,what could she do about it? It was humiliating to be so ineffective in a crisis like this. A man,anyman, would be more efficient than she.
The streets were deserted. A quick glance showed her the attacking force—if attacking force existed save in Simmy’s dime-novel-tainted imagination—had not yet made itself visible.... With the boy at her heels she ran in most undignified manner to theFree Press’sdoor, admitted herself quickly, and lighted a light.
“Well,” she said, breathlessly, “here we are, Simmy.”
“Yes, ’m,” said Simmy with singular helpfulness.
“I shall call the police,” Carmel said, taking refuge in that expedient of the law-abiding. She turned the handle of the old-fashioned telephone with which Gibeon is afflicted and gave the number of the Sheriff’s office. A drowsy voice answered presently.
“This is theFree Press,” said Carmel. “Send some deputies at once. Men are coming to wreck this place with sledge hammers.”
“Aw, go on!” said the voice. “Ye can’t play no jokes on me.”
“This is not a joke. It is Miss Lee speaking. I want police protection.”
“Jest a minute,” said the voice, and then another, heavier voice took its place.
“Dep’ty Jenney speakin’. What’s wanted?”
“This is Miss Lee. A crowd of drunken men are coming to mob this office. Send men here instantly.”
“Um!... Somebody’s jokin’ ye, Miss Lee. Thishere’s a peaceful, law-abidin’ community. Better go back to bed and fergit it.”
“Will you send men here at once?”
“Now, ma’am, that hain’t possible. Can’t roust men out of bed and send ’em traipsin’ all over jest on account of a woman gittin’ upset. You go back to bed. Nothin’ hain’t goin’ to happen. Nothin’ ever does.” He hung up the receiver.
It was obvious. Carmelknew. There was collusion between the sheriff’s office and whoever had set a party of drunken irresponsibles upon her. No evidence was needed to demonstrate this to her. It was, and she stored the fact away in her mind vengefully.
“Where’s Tubal? Where’s Mr. Pell?” she asked Simmy.
“Dunno. Hain’t seen nuther of ’em. Nobody never sees nobody when they need them.... Oh, what we goin’ to do? What we goin’ to do?”
He ran into the back room—the composing room—as if he hoped to find some workable course of action lying there ready to be picked up. He was frightened. Carmel could not remember ever having seen a boy quite so terrified. Perhaps the ink blotches on his face made him seem paler than he actually was! But he stayed. The way was open for him to desert her, but the thought did not seem to occur to him. Ignorant, not overly bright, there nevertheless glowed in Simmy a spark of loyalty, and Carmel perceived it and, even in that anxious moment, treasured it.
Presently he came out of the press room, eyesgleaming with terror, shock head bristling, dragging after him, by its barrel, Tubal’s automatic shotgun.
“By gum! The’ shan’t nobody tetch you, Lady, ’less ’n it’s over my dead body.” His voice quavered as he spoke, but Carmel knew her one defender would remain stanch so long as the breath of life remained in him.
“Simmy,” she said, “come here.”
He came and stood beside her chair. His head was scarcely higher than Carmel’s, seated in her chair.
“Simmy,” she said, “you do like me, don’t you?”
“Gosh!” Simmy said, worship in his eyes and voice.
She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed his smudgy cheek. “There, I think you’d better run along now, Simmy. They—they might hurt you.”
“I’m a-goin’ to stay right straight here,” he said. “Oh, Lady! What’s that? Listen to that! They’re a-comin’. Sure’s shootin’, they’re a-comin’.”
“Put out the lights,” said Carmel.
They stood in darkness. Carmel stretched out her hand and took the shotgun from Simmy’s grip. The feel of the cold barrel was distasteful to her. She felt a sense of outrage that she should be compelled to come in contact with an event such as this, an event of sordidness and violence. This was a reaction. For the moment she conceived of herself as doing something which, in the words of her grandmother, was unladylike. Even then she smiled at it. This was succeeded by determination. Doubtless hergreat-grandmothers had defended their homes from the raids of savage Indians. They had not been too delicate to handle firearms in the defense of their lives and their homes. Why should she be less resolute than they.... There was the story of the great-great-aunt who had killed an intruding savage with an ax!... If those things were heroic in pioneer days, why were they so unthinkable to-day? If women could display resolution, high courage, and perform awful acts of fortitude in 1771, why was not the woman of 1921 capable of conduct as praiseworthy?
Then, too, there was a specious unreality about the affair, something of play-acting. Carmel could not dispel the reflection that it was notso. She was making believe. No drunken men were actually approaching with sledge hammers. Her plant and her person were in no danger. It was playing with other toys substituted for dolls. She drew closer to her the cold barrel of the toy she clutched in her fingers.
“The safety’s on,” said Simmy, practically.
“The safety?”
“Yes, ’m, so’s nobody kin shoot himself. You have to take off the safety before the trigger’ll pull.”
“How do you do it?”
“You push this here dingus,” said Simmy.
Carmel promptly pushed it.
Far down the street she heard a single shout, a few maudlin words of a lumber-camp song. She stepped to the door and peered up the shadowy thoroughfare.Across the Square and perhaps two blocks away she made out a number of dark figures, straggling toward her in midstreet. She could not count accurately, but estimated there were ten or a dozen of them. She crouched in the recess of the doorway and waited. Unreality was dispelled now. She was cognizant of fact—literal, visible, potent fact.
Her sensation was not fear, but it was unpleasant. It resembled nothing in her experience so much as the feeling one has in the pit of his stomach when descending rapidly in an elevator. She could feel her knees tremble. Always she had heard this spoken of as a symbol of cowardice, and she tried to restrain their shaking.... The men approached noisily.
“Light the lights,” she said to Simmy when the men were some fifty yards distant. This was instinct—the instinct for surprise. It was excellent strategy. The men had their directions how to proceed, but in these directions no account was taken of lights turning on unexpectedly. They had been led to expect a deserted office and no resistance. They stopped abruptly and gathered in a knot to inquire the meaning of this phenomenon.
Carmel did some calculation for the first time. To reach the office the men would have to cross the area of light passing through its windows. She, herself, was in the darkness beyond. This, she thought, was as it should be.... Presently the men surged forward again, keeping closely together. Carmel stepped out of the shadows into the light, where she and her weapon must be plainly visible, and paused.
“Stop,” she called, sharply.
They stopped, then somebody laughed. The laugh touched the fuse leading to the magazine of Carmel’s anger. She blazed with the explosion of it. The laugh was a slight thing, but it caused the difference between a mere young woman holding a gun in her hands, and a young woman holding a gun in her hands which she would shoot. She stepped backward into the shadows where she could not be seen.
“Go away,” she said.
“Li’l’ girl with li’l’ shotgun,” somebody said, in a tone of interest.
“I’m going to count ten,” said Carmel. “If you haven’t gone then I’ll shoot.”
“Li’l’ girl kin count to ten,” said the same voice. “Hain’t eddication hell!”
“One,” she began, “two, three, four——”
There was a forward movement, raucous laughter, inebriated comments. She hastened her counting—“five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten....” They were still moving forward slowly, evidently viewing the situation as humorous. She lifted the heavy gun and pointed its muzzle at the mass of approaching legs.... Her acquaintance with twelve-gauge automatic shotguns, and with the dispositions thereof, was rudimentary. She did not know what to expect, nevertheless she tugged at the trigger. There was a tremendous report which frightened her as nothing had frightened her that night. She felt as if one of those men had thrown his sledge and struckher shoulder. Dazed, bewildered, she all but lost her balance.
But, steadying herself, keeping her finger on the trigger, she maintained a readiness for what might come next. Howls of agony emanated from the men. Two of them were rolling on the sidewalk clutching shins and cursing. But for this there was silence. Humor had departed from the situation, for even the smallest bird shot, discharged from a shotgun at less than a hundred feet, are not to be disregarded by those who shun pain.
“She’s shot my leg off.... My Gawd!...”
This exclamation of agony trailed off into curses and incoherent ejaculations.
“Now go away,” Carmel called. “Next time I’ll shoot higher.”
The shot, the suddenness, the unexpectedness of it, had cleared tipsy brains. It had created angry, dangerous men.
“’Tain’t nothin’ but bird shot. All rush her to wunst,” shouted a voice. But before they could resolve into action Carmel fired again, and then again.... It was rather more than such a collection of humanity could endure. With shouts and cries of pain they broke and ran. Carmel advanced, ready for another discharge, when, suddenly, there was a diversion. The attackers were taken in the rear, by whom Carmel could not determine. She saw at least two men, arms swinging clubs right and left with rare indiscrimination. The retreat became a rout. These unexpected reserve forcesdefinitely turned the tide of battle, and in a time so brief as to make its recording difficult, the street was again deserted save for Carmel—and the reserves.
They ran to her, Tubal and Evan Bartholomew Pell. It was the professor who reached her first, and stood inarticulate, trembling, his face working. His eyes searched her face and in them was such an expression as she had never seen turned upon her by human eyes before.... Nevertheless she recognized it.
“Carmel,” he said—“Carmel—are you—all right?”
“Perfectly,” she said, endeavoring to maintain an attitude of aloofness toward the whole episode.
“If anything had happened to you—if one of those beasts had touched you—even with the tip of his finger....”
He stopped suddenly, stared at her. It was as if his scholarly mind had once more come into its own, had seen, classified, cross-referenced his actions and sensations. His face mirrored astonishment, then apprehension, embarrassment. It completed the series by becoming that of a man utterly nonplused.
“My goodness!” he said, breathlessly, “I believe I’ve fallen in love with you.”
She made no reply, such was her own astonishment at the manner of this announcement. He glared at her now, angry reproach in his eyes.
“It’s absurd,” he said. “You had no business permitting me to do so.”
With that he turned on his heel and stalked into the office. Carmel gasped....
“Lady,” said Tubal, “you better pass me that gun. You ’n’ a shotgun fits each other about as suitable as a plug hat.... If you was to ask me I’d say right out in meetin’ that you ’n’ a gun is doggone incongruous.”
“I shot it, anyhow,” she said.
“Dummed if you didn’t,” he exclaimed, admiringly. “Dummed if you didn’t. Them fellers’ll be pickin’ bird shot out of the bosoms of their pants fer a month to come.” Then he paused to give rhetorical effect to the moral he was about to draw.
“If you hadn’t went off half cocked with that whisky piece of your’n,” he said, “this here ol’ gun wouldn’t have had to go off at all.”
But she was not thinking of Tubal nor of pointed morals. She was considering the case of Evan Bartholomew Pell and what she would do with him.