Ironheart

Among the lost legion are two kinds of men. There are those who have killed or buried so deep the divine fire of their manhood that for them there seems no chance of recovery in this world. There are those in whom still burns somewhere a faint candle that may yet flame to a dynamic glow of self-respect.

The young tramp slouching along the bank of Willow Creek drank deep of the waters of despair. The rancher had called him a slacker, rotten to the core. It was a true bill. He was a man spoiled and ruined. He had thrown away his life in handfuls. Down and dragging, that’s what he was, with this damned vice a ball and chain on his feet.

There was in him some strain of ignoble weakness. There must be, he reasoned. Otherwise he would have fought and conquered the cursed thing. Instead, he had fought and lost. He could make excuses. Oh, plenty of them. The pain—the horrible, intolerable pain! The way the craving had fastened on him before he knew it while he was still in the hospital! But that was piffling twaddle, rank self-deception. A man had to fight, to stand the gaff, to flog his evil yearnings back to kennel like yelping dogs.

His declension had been swift. It was in his temperament to go fast, to be heady. Once he let go of himself, it had been a matter of months rather than of years. Of late he had dulled the edge of his despair. The opiates were doing their work. He had found it easier to live in the squalid present, to forget the pleasant past and the purposeful future he had planned.

But now this girl, slim, clean, high-headed, with that searing contempt for him in her clear eyes, had stirred up again the devils of remorse. What business had he to companion with these offscourings of the earth? Why had he given up like a quitter the effort to beat back?

In the cold waters of the creek he washed his swollen and bloodstained face. The cold water, fresh from the mountain snows, was soothing to the hot bruised flesh even though it made the wounds smart. He looked down into the pool and saw reflected there the image of himself. Beneath the eyes pouches were beginning to form. Soon now he would be a typical dope fiend.

He was still weak from the manhandling that had been given him. Into an inside coat pocket his fingers groped. They brought out with them a small package wrapped in cotton cloth. With trembling hands he made his preparations, bared an arm, and plunged the hypodermic needle into the flesh.

When he took the trail again after his companions, Tug’s eyes were large and luminous. He walked with a firmer step. New life seemed to be flowing into his arteries.

Where the dusty road cut the creek he found the other tramps waiting for him. Their heads had been together in whispered talk. They drew apart as he approached.

Taking note of Cig’s purple eye and bruised face, Tug asked a question. “Was it the big foreman beat you up?”

“You done said it, ’bo,” the crook answered out of the side of his mouth.

“I reckon you got off easy at that,” Tug said bitterly. “The boss bully didn’t do a thing to me but chew me up and spit me out.”

“Wotcha gonna do about it?” Cig growled significantly.

The young fellow’s glance was as much a question as his words. “What can I do but take it?” he asked sullenly.

Cig’s eyes narrowed venomously. He lifted his upper lip in an ugly sneer. “Watch my smoke. No roughneck can abuse me an’ get away with it. I’ll say he can’t.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m gonna fix him.”

Tug’s laughter barked. “Did you fix him when you had a chance?” he asked ironically.

“Call that a chance? An’ the big stiff wide as a door. ’F I’d had a gun I’d ’a’ croaked him.”

“Oh, if!”

“De bulls frisked me gun in Denver. But I’ll get me a gat somewheres. An’ when I do—” The sentence choked out in a snarl more threatening than words.

“Sounds reasonable,” Tug jeered.

“Listen, ’bo.” Cig laid a hand on the sleeve of the young fellow’s coat. “Listen. Are youse game to take a chance?”

Eyes filled with an expression of sullen distaste of Cig looked at him from a bruised and livid face. “Maybe I am. Maybe I ain’t. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m gonna get that bird. See?”

“How?”

“Stick around an’ gun him. Then hop a freight for ’Frisco.”

There was in the lopsided face a certain dreadful eagerness that was appalling. Was this mere idle boasting? Or would the gangster go as far as murder for his revenge? Tug did not know. But his gorge rose at the fellow’s assumption that he would join him as a partner in crime.

“Kill him without giving him a chance?” he asked.

Again there was a sound like the growl of a wild beast in the throat of the Bowery tough. “Wotcha givin’ me! A heluva chance them guys give us when they jumped us. I’ll learn ’em to keep their hands off Cig.” He added, with a crackle of oaths, “The big stiffs!”

“No!” exploded Tug with a surge of anger. “I’ll have nothing to do with it—or with you. I’m through. You go one way. I’ll go another. Right here I quit.”

The former convict’s eyes narrowed. “I getcha. Streak of yellow a foot wide. No more nerve than a rabbit. All right. Beat it. I can’t lose you none too soon to suit me.”

The two glared at each other angrily.

York the peacemaker threw oil on the ruffled waters. “’S all right, ’boes. No use gettin’ sore. Tug he goes one way, we hit the grit another. Ev’rybody satisfied.”

Tug swung his roll of blankets across a shoulder and turned away.