The Friendly Call
When I used to sell hardware in the West, I often "made" a little towncalled Saltillo, in Colorado. I was always certain of securing a smallor a large order from Simon Bell, who kept a general store there. Bellwas one of those six-foot, low-voiced products, formed from a union ofthe West and the South. I liked him. To look at him you would think heshould be robbing stage coaches or juggling gold mines with both hands;but he would sell you a paper of tacks or a spool of thread, with tentimes more patience and courtesy than any saleslady in a city departmentstore.
I had a twofold object in my last visit to Saltillo. One was to sell abill of goods; the other to advise Bell of a chance that I knew of bywhich I was certain he could make a small fortune.
In Mountain City, a town on the Union Pacific, five times larger thanSaltillo, a mercantile firm was about to go to the wall. It had a livelyand growing custom, but was on the edge of dissolution and ruin.Mismanagement and the gambling habits of one of the partners explainedit. The condition of the firm was not yet public property. I had myknowledge of it from a private source. I knew that, if the ready cashwere offered, the stock and good will could be bought for about onefourth their value.
On arriving in Saltillo I went to Bell's store. He nodded to me, smiledhis broad, lingering smile, went on leisurely selling some candy to alittle girl, then came around the counter and shook hands.
"Well," he said (his invariably preliminary jocosity fit every call Imade), "I suppose you are out here making kodak pictures of themountains. It's the wrong time of the year to buy any hardware, ofcourse."
I told Bell about the bargain in Mountain City. If he wanted to takeadvantage of it, I would rather have missed a sale than have himoverstocked in Saltillo.
"It sounds good," he said, with enthusiasm. "I'd like to branch out anddo a bigger business, and I'm obliged to you for mentioning it.But--well, you come and stay at my house to-night and I'll think aboutit."
It was then after sundown and time for the larger stores in Saltillo toclose. The clerks in Bell's put away their books, whirled thecombination of the safe, put on their coats and hats and left for theirhomes. Bell padlocked the big, double wooden front doors, and we stood,for a moment, breathing the keen, fresh mountain air coming across thefoothills.
A big man walked down the street and stopped in front of the high porchof the store. His long, black moustache, black eyebrows, and curly blackhair contrasted queerly with his light, pink complexion, which belonged,by rights, to a blonde. He was about forty, and wore a white vest, awhite hat, a watch chain made of five-dollar gold pieces linkedtogether, and a rather well-fitting two-piece gray suit of the cut thatcollege boys of eighteen are wont to affect. He glanced at medistrustfully, and then at Bell with coldness and, I thought, somethingof enmity in his expression.
"Well," asked Bell, as if he were addressing a stranger, "did you fix upthat matter?"
"Did I!" the man answered, in a resentful tone. "What do you supposeI've been here two weeks for? The business is to be settled to-night.Does that suit you, or have you got something to kick about?"
"It's all right," said Bell. "I knew you'd do it."
"Of course, you did," said the magnificent stranger. "Haven't I done itbefore?"
"You have," admitted Bell. "And so have I. How do you find it at thehotel?"
"Rocky grub. But I ain't kicking. Say--can you give me any pointersabout managing that--affair? It's my first deal in that line ofbusiness, you know."
"No, I can't," answered Bell, after some thought. "I've tried all kindsof ways. You'll have to try some of your own."
"Tried soft soap?"
"Barrels of it."
"Tried a saddle girth with a buckle on the end of it?"
"Never none. Started to once; and here's what I got."
Bill held out his right hand. Even in the deepening twilight, I couldsee on the back of it a long, white scar that might have been made by aclaw or a knife or some sharp-edged tool.
"Oh, well," said the florid man, carelessly, "I'll know what to do lateron."
He walked away without another word. When he had gone ten steps heturned and called to Bell:
"You keep well out of the way when the goods are delivered, so therewon't be any hitch in the business."
"All right," answered Bell, "I'll attend to my end of the line."
This talk was scarcely clear in its meaning to me; but as it did notconcern me, I did not let it weigh upon my mind. But the singularity ofthe other man's appearance lingered with me for a while; and as wewalked toward Bell's house I remarked to him:
"Your customer seems to be a surly kind of fellow--not one that you'dlike to be snowed in with in a camp on a hunting trip."
"He is that," assented Bell, heartily. "He reminds me of a rattlesnakethat's been poisoned by the bite of a tarantula."
"He doesn't look like a citizen of Saltillo," I went on.
"No," said Bell, "he lives in Sacramento. He's down here on a littlebusiness trip. His name is George Ringo, and he's been my bestfriend--in fact the only friend I ever had--for twenty years."
I was too surprised to make any further comment.
Bell lived in a comfortable, plain, square, two-story white house on theedge of the little town. I waited in the parlor--a room depressinglygenteel--furnished with red plush, straw matting, looped-up lacecurtains, and a glass case large enough to contain a mummy, full ofmineral specimens.
While I waited, I heard, upstairs, that unmistakable sound instantlyrecognized the world over--a bickering woman's voice, rising as heranger and fury grew. I could hear, between the gusts, the temperaterumble of Bell's tones, striving to oil the troubled waters.
The storm subsided soon; but not before I had heard the woman say, in alower, concentrated tone, rather more carrying than her high-pitchedrailings: "This is the last time. I tell you--the last time. Oh, youWILL understand."
The household seemed to consist of only Bell and his wife and a servantor two. I was introduced to Mrs. Bell at supper.
At first sight she seemed to be a handsome woman, but I soon perceivedthat her charm had been spoiled. An uncontrolled petulance, I thought,and emotional egotism, an absence of poise and a habitualdissatisfaction had marred her womanhood. During the meal, she showedthat false gayety, spurious kindliness and reactionary softness thatmark the woman addicted to tantrums. Withal, she was a woman who mightbe attractive to many men.
After supper, Bell and I took our chairs outside, set them on the grassin the moonlight and smoked. The full moon is a witch. In her light,truthful men dig up for you nuggets of purer gold; while liars squeezeout brighter colors from the tubes of their invention. I saw Bell'sbroad, slow smile come out upon his face and linger there.
"I reckon you think George and me are a funny kind of friends," he said."The fact is we never did take much interest in each other's company.But his idea and mine, of what a friend should be, was always synonymousand we lived up to it, strict, all these years. Now, I'll give you anidea of what our idea is.
"A man don't need but one friend. The fellow who drinks your liquor andhangs around you, slapping you on the back and taking up your time,telling you how much he likes you, ain't a friend, even if you did playmarbles at school and fish in the same creek with him. As long as youdon't need a friend one of that kind may answer. But a friend, to mymind, is one you can deal with on a strict reciprocity basis like me andGeorge have always done.
"A good many years ago, him and me was connected in a number of ways. Weput our capital together and run a line of freight wagons in New Mexico,and we mined some and gambled a few. And then, we got into trouble ofone or two kinds; and I reckon that got us on a better understandablebasis than anything else did, unless it was the fact that we never hadmuch personal use for each other's ways. George is the vainest man Iever see, and the biggest brag. He could blow the biggest geyser in theYosemite valley back into its hole with one whisper. I am a quiet man,and fond of studiousness and thought. The more we used to see eachother, personally, the less we seemed to like to be together. If he everhad slapped me on the back and snivelled over me like I've seen men doto what they called their friends, I know I'd have had arough-and-tumble with him on the spot. Same way with George. He hated myways as bad as I did his. When we were mining, we lived in separatetents, so as not to intrude our obnoxiousness on each other.
"But after a long time, we begun to know each of us could depend on theother when we were in a pinch, up to his last dollar, word of honor orperjury, bullet, or drop of blood we had in the world. We never evenspoke of it to each other, because that would have spoiled it. But wetried it out, time after time, until we came to know. I've grabbed myhat and jumped a freight and rode 200 miles to identify him when he wasabout to be hung by mistake, in Idaho, for a train robber. Once, I laidsick of typhoid in a tent in Texas, without a dollar or a change ofclothes, and sent for George in Boise City. He came on the next train.The first thing he did before speaking to me, was to hang up a littlelooking glass on the side of the tent and curl his moustache and rubsome hair dye on his head. His hair is naturally a light reddish. Thenhe gave me the most scientific cussing I ever had, and took off hiscoat.
"'If you wasn't a Moses-meek little Mary's lamb, you wouldn't have beentook down this way,' says he. 'Haven't you got gumption enough not todrink swamp water or fall down and scream whenever you have a littlecolic or feel a mosquito bite you?' He made me a little mad.
"'You've got the bedside manners of a Piute medicine man,' says I. 'AndI wish you'd go away and let me die a natural death. I'm sorry I sentfor you.'
"'I've a mind to,' says George, 'for nobody cares whether you live ordie. But now I've been tricked into coming, I might as well stay untilthis little attack of indigestion or nettle rash or whatever it is,passes away.'
"Two weeks afterward, when I was beginning to get around again, thedoctor laughed and said he was sure that my friend's keeping me mad allthe time did more than his drugs to cure me.
"So that's the way George and me was friends. There wasn't any sentimentabout it--it was just give and take, and each of us knew that the otherwas ready for the call at any time.
"I remember, once, I played a sort of joke on George, just to try him. Ifelt a little mean about it afterward, because I never ought to havedoubted he'd do it.
"We was both living in a little town in the San Luis valley, runningsome flocks of sheep and a few cattle. We were partners, but, as usual,we didn't live together. I had an old aunt, out from the East, visitingfor the summer, so I rented a little cottage. She soon had a couple ofcows and some pigs and chickens to make the place look like home. Georgelived alone in a little cabin half a mile out of town.
"One day a calf that we had, died. That night I broke its bones, dumpedit into a coarse sack and tied it up with wire. I put on an old shirt,tore a sleeve 'most out of it, and the collar half off, tangled up myhair, put some red ink on my hands and spashed some of it over my shirtand face. I must have looked like I'd been having the fight of my life.I put the sack in a wagon and drove out to George's cabin. When Ihalloed, he came out in a yellow dressing-gown, a Turkish cap and patentleather shoes. George always was a great dresser.
"I dumped the bundle to the ground.
"Sh-sh!' says I, kind of wild in my way. 'Take that and bury it, George,out somewhere behind your house--bury it just like it is. And don--'
"'Don't get excited,' says George. 'And for the Lord's sake go and washyour hands and face and put on a clean shirt.'
"And he lights his pipe, while I drive away at a gallop. The nextmorning he drops around to our cottage, where my aunt was fiddling withher flowers and truck in the front yard. He bends himself and bows andmakes compliments as be could do, when so disposed, and begs a rose bushfrom her, saying he had turned up a little land back of his cabin, andwanted to plant something on it by way of usefulness and ornament. So myaunt, flattered, pulls up one of her biggest by the roots and gives itto him. Afterward I see it growing where he planted it, in a place wherethe grass had been cleared off and the dirt levelled. But neither Georgenor me ever spoke of it to each other again."
The moon rose higher, possibly drawing water from the sea, pixies fromtheir dells and certainly more confidences from Simms Bell, the friendof a friend.
"There come a time, not long afterward," he went on, "when I was able todo a good turn for George Ringo. George had made a little pile of moneyin beeves and he was up in Denver, and he showed up when I saw him,wearing deer-skin vests, yellow shoes, clothes like the awnings in frontof drug stores, and his hair dyed so blue that it looked black in thedark. He wrote me to come up there, quick--that he needed me, and tobring the best outfit of clothes I had. I had 'em on when I got theletter, so I left on the next train. George was--"
Bell stopped for half a minute, listening intently. "I thought I heard ateam coming down the road," he explained. "George was at a summer resorton a lake near Denver and was putting on as many airs as he knew how. Hehad rented a little two-room cottage, and had a Chihauhau dog and ahammock and eight different kinds of walking sticks.
"'Simms,' he says to me, 'there's a widow woman here that's pesteringthe soul out of me with her intentions. I can't get out of her way. Itain't that she ain't handsome and agreeable, in a sort of style, but herattentions is serious, and I ain't ready for to marry nobody and settledown. I can't go to no festivity nor sit on the hotel piazza or mix inany of the society round-ups, but what she cuts me out of the herd andputs her daily brand on me. I like this here place,' goes on George,'and I'm making a hit here in the most censorious circles, so I don'twant to have to run away from it. So I sent for you.'
"'What do you want me to do?' I asks George.
"'Why,' says he, 'I want you to head her off. I want you to cut me out.I want you to come to the rescue. Suppose you seen a wildcat about forto eat me, what would you do?'
"Go for it,' says I.
"'Correct,' says George. 'Then go for this Mrs. De Clinton the same.'
"'How am I to do it?' I asks. 'By force and awfulness or in some gentlerand less lurid manner?'
"Court her,' George says, 'get her off my trail. Feed her. Take her outin boats. Hang around her and stick to her. Get her mashed on you if youcan. Some women are pretty big fools. Who knows but what she might takea fancy to you.'
"'Had you ever thought,' I asks, 'of repressing your fatal fascinationsin her presence; of squeezing a harsh note in the melody of your sirenvoice, of veiling your beauty--in other words, of giving her the bounceyourself?'
"George sees no essence of sarcasm in my remark. He twists his moustacheand looks at the points of his shoes.
"'Well, Simms,' he said, 'you know how I am about the ladies. I can'thurt none of their feelings. I'm, by nature, polite and esteemful oftheir intents and purposes. This Mrs. De Clinton don't appear to be thesuitable sort for me. Besides, I ain't a marrying man by all means.'
"'All right,' said I, 'I'll do the best I can in the case.'
"So I bought a new outfit of clothes and a book on etiquette and made adead set for Mrs. De Clinton. She was a fine-looking woman, cheerful andgay. At first, I almost had to hobble her to keep her from loping aroundat George's heels; but finally I got her so she seemed glad to go ridingwith me and sailing on the lake; and she seemed real hurt on themornings when I forgot to send her a bunch of flowers. Still, I didn'tlike the way she looked at George, sometimes, out of the corner of hereye. George was having a fine time now, going with the whole bunch justas he pleased. Yes'm," continued Bell, "she certainly was a fine-lookingwoman at that time. She's changed some since, as you might have noticedat the supper table."
"What!" I exclaimed.
"I married Mrs. De Clinton," went on Bell. "One evening while we were upat the lake. When I told George about it, he opened his mouth and Ithought be was going to break our traditions and say something grateful,but he swallowed it back.
"'All right,' says he, playing with his dog. 'I hope you won't have toomuch trouble. Myself, I'm not never going to marry.'
"That was three years ago," said Bell. "We came here to live. For a yearwe got along medium fine. And then everything changed. For two yearsI've been having something that rhymes first-class with my name. Youheard the row upstairs this evening? That was a merry welcome comparedto the usual average. She's tired of me and of this little town life andshe rages all day, like a panther in a cage. I stood it until two weeksago and then I had to send out The Call. I located George in Sacramento.He started the day he got my wire."
Mrs. Bell came out of the house swiftly toward us. Some strongexcitement or anxiety seemed to possess her, but she smiled a fainthostess smile, and tried to keep her voice calm.
"The dew is falling," she said, "and it's growing rather late. Wouldn'tyou gentlemen rather come into the house?"
Bell took some cigars from his pocket and answered: "It's most too finea night to turn in yet. I think Mr. Ames and I will walk out along theroad a mile or so and have another smoke. I want to talk with him aboutsome goods that I want to buy."
"Up the road or down the road?" asked Mrs. Bell.
"Down," said Bell.
I thought she breathed a sigh of relief.
When we had gone a hundred yards and the house became concealed bytrees, Bell guided me into the thick grove that lined the road and backthrough them toward the house again. We stopped within twenty yards ofthe house, concealed by the dark shadows. I wondered at this maneuver.And then I heard in the distance coming down the road beyond the house,the regular hoofbeats of a team of horses. Bell held his watch in a rayof moonlight.
"On time, within a minute," he said. "That's George's way."
The team slowed up as it drew near the house and stopped in a patch ofblack shadows. We saw the figure of a woman carrying a heavy valise moveswiftly from the other side of the house, and hurry to the waitingvehicle. Then it rolled away briskly in the direction from which it hadcome.
I looked at Bell inquiringly, I suppose. I certainly asked him noquestion.
"She's running away with George," said Bell, simply. "He's kept meposted about the progress of the scheme all along. She'll get a divorcein six months and then George will marry her. He never helps anybodyhalfway. It's all arranged between them."
I began to wonder what friendship was, after all.
When we went into the house, Bell began to talk easily on othersubjects; and I took his cue. By and by the big chance to buy out thebusiness in Mountain City came back to my mind and I began to urge itupon him. Now that he was free, it would be easier for him to make themove; and he was sure of a splendid bargain.
Bell was silent for some minutes, but when I looked at him I fanciedthat he was thinking of something else--that he was not considering theproject.
"Why, no, Mr. Ames," he said, after a while, "I can't make that deal.I'm awful thankful to you, though, for telling me about it. But I've gotto stay here. I can't go to Mountain City."
"Why?" I asked.
"Missis Bell," he replied, "won't live in Mountain City, She hates theplace and wouldn't go there. I've got to keep right on here inSaltillo."
"Mrs. Bell!" I exclaimed, too puzzled to conjecture what he meant.
"I ought to explain," said Bell. "I know George and I know Mrs. Bell.He's impatient in his ways. He can't stand things that fret him, long,like I can. Six months, I give them--six months of married life, andthere'll be another disunion. Mrs. Bell will come back to me. There's noother place for her to go. I've got to stay here and wait. At the end ofsix months, I'll have to grab a satchel and catch the first train. ForGeorge will be sending out The Call."
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