12 What Happened

The next was a strenuous day in the House, devoted chiefly to the great measure, the Reapportionment Bill which now occupied most of our attention. It happened, too, that the lobbies were crowded, many ladies being present, their bright faces and dresses forming a background of color.

Bucks at last obtained the floor and began a harangue of extraordinary virulence. His language was lacking in grammar, but not in force, and he attacked the Peden Bill in a manner that was not devoid of a rude but specious logic. From denunciation of the bill itself he passed to its supporters, and then singling me out, he made a bitter personal assault. It was all wild, irrelevant and full of malice—the Speaker called him to order again and again—but it made a sensation. I felt the eyes of all the House and lobbies turned upon me, and despite myself I was uncomfortable. No man likes to be abused, even though the abuse is false and the source unworthy. I wondered, too, at the venom of Bucks, but affecting carelessness I opened a newspaper and began to read it. Once when I looked up I caught the ironic smile of Harrison, and another time I met the nasty, mean look of Connor, affecting to hold me cheaply.

Bucks grew more and more violent, and the Speaker beat heavily with his gavel for order. I distinctly heard the rustle of dresses in the lobbies as the ladies moved to get a better view of me, and I knew the sensation that Bucks was creating.

I felt my face burning under the gaze of so many eyes, and I did not know what to do. Bucks was but an ignorant mountaineer and a demagogue to boot. It was not putting a high valuation upon myself to put a small one on him and consider him unworthy of notice, but on the other hand our State still believes that a man should publicly resent personal abuse.

Bucks was at last ruled down, but he had delivered himself of his venom—why he showed such malice toward me I did not understand—and when he took his seat there was a dead silence in the House. I knew well what it meant, all were looking at me and all expected me to reply. I was party to a quarrel, which I had not chosen, and in which I had no concern.

Under the pressure of an emergency one usually thinks fast, and while all were looking at me I made up my mind. I would take a leaf from Harrison’s book. I rose slowly and with an air of great indifference. I spoke of the gentleman who had just attacked me and purposely I miscalled the county from which he came. I said that I was glad to know him and to hear his voice, intimating thereby that I had not been previously aware of his existence.

I knew in a moment that I had taken the right line with Bucks, as I saw a smile pass over the faces of the members near me, and I heard a low laugh from the lobbies behind me—I never looked at Bucks. Then I defended myself from the charge of being an aristocrat, an enemy to the real people. I said I was a farmer, and I challenged the gentleman, who had attacked me to enter into a competition with me, whether in reading weather signs, ploughing or telling the age of a horse or a mule at a single glance.

All this, I will admit, was very light and trivial, but I knew no better way and the House fortunately fell into the mood that I wished. I was able to excite frequent bursts of laughter, and when Bucks fiercely tried to interrupt, the Speaker ruled him down. I spoke for about half an hour in the same vein and when I took my seat I felt sure that I had suffered no loss of prestige.

Bucks sought to speak again, but Jimmy Warfield would not let him. The gentleman had already made the debate a personal one said Jimmy, and the rules of the House could not permit it to be carried farther. Bucks, black with anger, was forced to subside, and I turned my attention again to my letters, wishing to forget such an unpleasant incident. But when I looked up a minute or two later, Bucks was glowering at me from his seat, and when my eyes passed on to the gallery I saw Grey sitting there, his red face also turned toward me. He, too, seemed to be angry, and he gave me a look which certainly was not that of good will.

A sudden thought came to me—I was blind not to have seen it all before. Bucks was set upon me by some one, whose interest it was to have me suppressed, either Grey, or an agent acting in his interest. I was to be harried by a man with whom I could not engage in a contest without lowering myself, and I saw a certain cleverness in the scheme. But I resolved to defeat it, I would not be forced into strife with Bucks, I would speak to him as one man to another, like a friend, and show to him that he had no cause to attack me.

I stayed at my desk throughout the session, and even through the luncheon hour, as I had a mass of documents that must be read and of correspondence that had to be written. I did not know until afterward that I was attentively watched by many in the lobbies and on the floor, that I was discussed in a new connection, and that one man would express one opinion and one another.

The session lasted late, and the short winter day was already yielding to the early twilight when it adjourned and the House and the lobbies were slowly emptied. Nor did I know until afterward that I was the cause of this slow departure, many lingering to look at me and again, to express divergent opinions.

I glanced up from my last letter and from my mental absorption. I was surprised to see that the windows were dusky with the twilight and that not more than a half-dozen men were left on the floor. I hastily put on my overcoat, walked down the aisle and passed out of the House into the ante-room. Jimmy Warfield and Peden were there just outside the door.

“Going our way, Harry?” said Jimmy. “We’ll go along with you.”

“No,” I replied, “I’m not for the hotel now. I want to run over to the post office and mail these letters. I’m in a hurry about them.”

“All right,” said Jimmy. “Peden and I were thinking of going to the post office, too, and the three of us can go together. Come along.”

In reality I did not wish any company just then and their change of mind seemed rather sudden, hut they were such good fellows and such friends of mine that I could not turn them off.

“Come on then,” I said, and the three of us, one on either side of me, passed out of the Capitol, down the steps and upon the wintry lawn. I remember stopping a moment and looking at the brown grass and the bare trees. Shelley’s beautiful line, “If winter come can spring be far behind?” recurred to me, and it may have been because I was in a hopeful mood. I am naturally cheerful and optimistic, and God is very good to a man when He gives him such a temperament.

Unthinking then as I was, I did not notice that Warfield and Peden still kept very close to me, one on either hand, so close that they almost touched my shoulder.

“It’s nearly night,” I said abstractedly.

“Yes,” said Jimmy, and he said nothing more.

The darkness in fact had come down rapidly. The roofs of the town before us were a blur in the dusk, and below them the electric lights had begun to twinkle.

“I did not know how late it was,” I said. “I think I’ll go to the hotel and mail my letters there.”

“All right,” said Jimmy. “We can mail ours there, too. So come along.”

Certainly they were an obliging pair, but I made no comment, and we crossed the lawn and, passing through the gate, entered the street. Several men were standing at the corner, and I remember that they looked curiously at me, but said nothing. Warfield and Peden were also wordless. They seemed to be abstracted, and I respected their silence, but this abstraction so far as Peden was concerned was broken when we reached the next corner.

“Clarke,” he said, “you’ve got a pistol, of course?”

I stopped and stared at him in amazement.

“A pistol!” I exclaimed. “Why on earth should I have a pistol? I’m not a ruffian, I don’t carry such things.”

He gave me back my amazed stare, and with interest too.

“Well, of all the natural born idiots!” he exclaimed. “I thought of course you had one. I’ve got one, and I’m no ruffian either. Here, you take it.”

I saw the cold glitter of something for a moment in his hand, and before I could offer any resistance a weapon was shoved into my overcoat pocket. I would have given it back to him then and there, but the open street was no place for a struggle with a friend over a revolver, and with an impatient, “What’s all this about?” I walked on.

About a hundred yards ahead, and on the way to my own hotel, was another and cheaper hotel, at which some of the members, particularly those from the mountains, stayed, and I was conscious as I approached it that several dark figures stood on the sidewalk in front of it, apparently in an attitude of waiting. But I paid little heed to them until I came very near and in the foremost recognized Bucks and Connor, the mountain man a little in advance of the other. Still I should have paid no heed to him then, but Bucks stepped directly across my path and raised his hand in the manner of one who threatens.

“See here, Clarke,” he said, “I want an apology from you.”

I recognized instantly the tone and bearing of a man who seeks a quarrel, and I stiffened at once. It had been my previous intention to make friends with Bucks, even at the cost of a little self-respect, but there are certain things which no one who is really a man can stand. Moreover, I saw over his shoulder the cheap, sneering face of Connor, who would like to think me a coward, and who would like better to make me appear one to the public.

“If an apology is made it should come from you to me,” I said coldly, and then I took a step forward, as if I would pass on and ignore him.

But again he was in my way, the bully and brute in him rising still farther because I sought to avoid him. I wish to say here that I do not blame Bucks for what happened as much as I do others. He had been bred in the doctrine of personal revenge, and throughout his life he had known no restraining or refining influence.

“You’ve made fun of me! You’ve had me laughed at by the whole Legislature!” he exclaimed, thrusting a huge arm before me. “An’, by God, you’ve got to eat dirt for it right here, an’ right now!”

“Bucks, you’re crazy!” I said.

“No, I ain’t!” he cried, his voice rising to a savage pitch. “I mean just what I say!”

“Call him what he is, Bucks. Call him a coward,” came the nasty, malicious voice of Connor.

I saw that I could not make peace, and I saw other dark figures coming, drawn by the sound of voices raised in anger, but I paused a moment, not knowing what to do. Bucks, his swarthy face inflamed with anger and self-created rage, suddenly struck at me, and though I sprang to one side his heavy fist grazed my face and landed on my shoulder. I staggered, but I recovered my balance in a moment, and then I thought no longer of peace.

All the restraint of years was swept away by Bucks’ sudden and causeless blow, and it was my impulse to kill this man who had put such an affront upon me. I struck back with all my might, and I felt the hard bones of my knuckles sink into his face. He went down like a log, but he was a powerful man, of immense vitality, and in a moment he was on his feet, the blood streaming from his face and reddening his dark overcoat below. He took one quick step backward, thrust his right hand into his overcoat pocket, and when it came forth again there was the deadly gleam of steel in the twilight! He whirled his hand aloft and levelled the pistol.

I owed my life to my muscular training in the blacksmith shop, behind those sombre walls not so far away. When I saw the gleam of steel and the levelled revolver I sprang straight at him, taking no thought of the weapon in my own pocket, and struck the pistol to one side, just as he pulled the trigger.

There was a sharp report and the bullet whistled over the roofs. Then I was upon him. In that moment, I fear, I, too, was a wild animal, because I felt a savage joy when I seized him by the throat with both hands, and felt my fingers sink into his flesh.

Not in vain had I learned to swing the great sledge; not in vain had nature and practice together given me a grasp that had led men in the penitentiary sometimes to call me the iron-handed. Bucks weighed two hundred pounds, but when my fingers closed upon his throat he seemed to relax and fall like a paralytic. His head flew back and a horrible gurgling sound came from his throat for a few moments, then nothing. I threw him prone upon the ground and dropped upon my knees beside him, my fingers still closing upon his throat, always tighter.

What followed is only a sort of blur to me. I heard cries, and then Warfield and Peden threw themselves upon me.

“Loose him! Loose him, for God’s sake, Harry! You’re killing him!” cried Jimmy.

I was tempted to reply in a kind of savage joy, “Yes, I am! and I know it!” But at the cry of my friend and the sight of the drawn, convulsed face under my hands the anger passed out of me. I was seized with a sudden shivering fit at the thought of what I had so nearly done, and, releasing him, I sprang to my feet. I saw that he still lay prone and motionless, and then the spectators crowded between us.

Warfield and Peden were by me, as before, one on one side and one on the other.

“He had been making threats, Harry,” said Jimmy quietly. “He fired the first shot, too, and you could have killed him had you wished to do so. Come away.”

“Yes, I could have killed him,” I repeated. “But I thank God that I didn’t.”

I allowed them to lead me away, as they wished, and we went toward my hotel, the crowd opening to let us pass. I heard some one say: “Clarke and Bucks have had it out,” and I knew that the speaker believed Bucks to be dead. I had a horrible fear that he might really be dead, and I shivered again.

A policeman appeared, but I was a member of the Legislature, and under the law I had privileges.

“You’ll find us at the hotel,” said Warfield to the officer. “This affair was forced upon Mr. Clarke, and he will not seek to escape responsibility.”

I have been thankful often that fate has given to me true friends. The love of man for woman is a fine thing, but the friendship of man for man is a fine thing too, and that evening Warfield and Peden were like a wall around me.

Reports of the affair, colored and exaggerated as usual, had spread before. When we reached the hotel we found the lobbies densely packed, and there was a buzz of excited comment as we appeared. But I noticed with secret joy that it was not hostile—that is, the majority of it. On the contrary, it inclined distinctly to my side. It must be remembered that in our State we are only three generations from a condition of incessant warfare, when a man’s life depended on his quickness, strength and courage, and these qualities are still highly respected by Kentuckians.

But we made our way as quickly as possible through the crowd and passed up the stairway to my room.

“Jimmy,” I said, when we were in the upper hall, “won’t you send back, for God’s sake, and find out that he is not really dead?”

Peden himself turned back, and returned presently with the news that Buck had revived, though terribly shaken.

“It will be some time before he can wear a tight collar,” said Peden grimly.

I felt as if my feet rested on solid ground again. I did not want the death of any man on my hands, even if the deed were done in self defence. I neither wished the death of Bucks nor that I should be the cause of it.

“I think it just as well that this affair has come to a head so soon,” said Jimmy Warfield. “There was more in it than shows on the surface.”

“The attacks of Bucks upon me were wholly unprovoked,” I said.

“So I know,” said Warfield, frowning. “I’m afraid we’ve had a sort of thing here that I’ve never heard of in Frankfort before.”

He walked to the window and looked out thoughtfully. Peden sat in a chair beside my writing-table, and he, too, was preoccupied, drawing his long whiskers between his thumb and forefinger. The door was partly open, and I stood by the mantel facing it.

I was not looking into the hall—my thoughts were on that dark scene in the street—but suddenly I saw Alicia’s face appear there, and at the same time she saw mine. I think she must have been on her way to the parlor below, or perhaps to the lobby, when she caught sight of me standing by the mantel. She stopped short, as if one risen from the dead had appeared before her, and uttered a little, strangled cry. I stepped forward toward the door, and at the same time she, too, took a step toward it.

“Harry!” she cried. “You! You! Alive!”

“Yes, alive, of course,” I responded wonderingly.

She took another step toward me and the blood poured back into her face. I read something there that gave me the keenest joy, and pain too, because this joy should not be mine.

“Harry,” she said, “they told me that you were dead! Killed by that terrible man, Bucks!”

I heard a light noise behind me. Peden ceased combing his beard between his thumb and forefinger, and going to the window stood beside Warfield. Both were looking out and their backs remained turned toward us.

“There was a fight,” I said. “He attacked me without cause—I could not help it—he got the worst of it.”

“Thank God!” she said, and then she added, “Is he dead?”

Her voice as she asked the question expressed no regret, no fear, but I answered:

“No, nor do I believe that he is much hurt.”

“He will attack you again?” she said.

“I do not think it. He has missed his purpose wholly, and he would scarcely risk it a second time.”

“It was a wicked attempt upon you, Harry,” she said. “And when I heard that it had succeeded I felt as if my own life had come to an end. I do not hesitate to tell you that.”

She turned and went back up the hall. A lucky chance kept any except those two who would not see from seeing us together, and I heard the next day that her mother was mounting special guard over her. I knew that Mrs. Warren would neglect no opportunity to malign me, and to prove, if she could, that I, and not Bucks, had caused the quarrel.

While I had told Alicia that Bucks would not renew the trouble, I was not so sure, and after a short talk with Warfield and Peden I went to Harrison’s room. I found Harrison there alone smoking a meditative cigar, and he politely asked me to take a seat.

“To tell you the truth, you are a rather formidable guest, Mr. Clarke,” he said. “I did not see your encounter with Mr. Bucks, but I hear remarkable stories of the manner in which you handled him. They say you have a grip like that of Samson. How did you get so much strength into your hands and arms?”

His eyes roved about the room, and then rested upon me, full of curiosity and inquiry. I shivered a little; it seemed to me that his question contained a hidden meaning, a suggestion, an insinuation, and I remembered my foolish exploit with the great hammer in his presence. Yet it might be my fears that gave to his words a meaning he did not intend, and I replied with an assumption of carelessness:

“Nature and exercise. But I want you, Mr. Harrison, to do something for me.”

“Anything in reason,” he replied, still looking at me curiously.

“Call off this man, Bucks,” I said.

He laughed with apparent lightness.

“It seems to me, from what I hear,” he replied, “that you are the one who needs calling. I hear that you shook him in your hands as if he had been a rag doll instead of two hundred pounds of bone and muscle.”

Again he looked at my hands, and as he looked, despite all the efforts of my will, I felt the red slowly creeping into my cheeks.

“It is not anything of which I am particularly proud,” I said. “But I am in earnest about the request that I have just made of you. Bucks has been set upon me by the Grey crowd—it is not the sort of thing we like in Kentucky, and I ask you to stop it.”

He opened his cigar case.

“Won’t you have one?” he asked. “I like your direct manner.”

I imitated his coolness and took a good cigar, lighting it slowly.

“Granting that the Grey crowd, as you call it, has set Bucks on you,” he said, “why do you assume that I am one of the Grey crowd and that I can call them off?”

“I don’t assume that you have had a part in this,” I said, “but I do assume that you can put a stop to it. I know that you can put a stop to it. I know that you can make Grey do almost anything you wish.”

I was sure that I detected away down in his eye a spark of satisfaction at my words, but he replied:

“You credit me with too much power and influence, but so far as I am personally concerned I am sorry this incident has occurred. If Grey has really had such a plan, it is a clumsy and dangerous thing to carry out.”

“Then you will not interfere? I want to tell you that I am not at all afraid of Bucks. I could have killed him to-day, but I do not wish to have any man’s blood on my hands. Yet if he attacks me again I may be forced to do it.”

“That, would be unpleasant,” he said. “And it would also be unpleasant if he killed you. The latter result certainly would benefit no one. If there is any basis for your suspicion it is certainly a clumsy and dangerous thing, as you say. I know this man Bucks, and I shall have a talk with him.”

I felt easier at his promise. I repeat that I was not at all afraid of Bucks, but to be involved in a common street encounter smacked of barbarism, and was repugnant to me in the last degree.

“Then I owe you thanks,” I said. “I was quite sure I should not make this request of you in vain.”

He took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at me.

“It’s a funny world, isn’t it, Mr. Clarke?” he said. “I’ve seen strange things, and I am likely to see others equally or more strange happen, too.”

To a third person his remark might have seemed irrelevant or enigmatic, but my fears were aroused again, and that little shiver passed over me once more. Yet I pretended not to notice their seeming inconsequence.

“So it is,” I replied. “I quote to you that very ancient saying, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction.’”

He laughed not unpleasantly, and repeating my assurance of gratitude I left him, still smoking his cigar, and looking with expressionless eyes at the wall on the other side of the room.

I will admit that I was troubled after I left Harrison, far more by his apparent shot in the dark than by anything that Bucks might do. Yet he could not really know anything about that blank chapter in my life, and if he guessed something he could never prove it. Alicia and I alone held that secret, and neither fire nor steel could make either tell. My courage came back, and even if Harrison guessed anything I should challenge his power to make others believe it.

The Bucks affair brought me great notoriety, which I did not like. Bucks himself was compelled to remain in bed several days—his vocal cords were strained the doctors said, and I could well believe it. Meanwhile the newspapers came in from all parts of the State with lurid accounts of the affair, and I did not wholly blame them, as an encounter between two members of the Legislature in the street, with a pistol ball flying, is certainly legitimate food for sensation. Yet the accounts were highly colored, and, in many instances, exaggerated beyond recognition.

I secretly feared the wrath of Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul. I had built up a new character with them, and now it was to be shattered by a miserable street fight. The letter from them quickly came, and it was written by Aunt Jane. I take from it the trend of what she wrote:

My Dear Nephew:
Your Uncle Paul and I have carefully considered what you did in the matter of the man Bucks. We have read many accounts in the newspapers, and we have also had reports from friends. Now we have come to the conclusion that being a man you could not have acted otherwise than as a man.
We believe in soft speech and a long-suffering temper, but when one is put upon too hardly he must rise up and smite. It was thus that the children of Israel did under the guidance of God.
Therefore we are glad you did demolish the man Bucks for the time being, and we remain without alarm, feeling assured that if the necessity should arise you can do the same to him again.

I smiled when I read it, and yet moisture came into my eyes. Truly my character was re-established with them, and in the most solid manner, when they sustained me in an affair that might well bear a false interpretation with such Puritans. But I felt a great relief.

The matter was quickly settled so far as the law went. Bucks, as soon as he was able, appeared in the police court and paid a fine, it having been proved that he had provoked the quarrel and had fired the shot. There was talk of having him expelled from the House, but it never came to a head, and in about ten days he took his seat again.

I was at my desk when Bucks arrived, reading the morning paper from Louisville, but the stir that his coming created caused me to look up, and I met his eyes. I saw there no sign of any future treaty of friendship between us. The mountain man had been ignominiously beaten and disgraced in a contest of physical prowess, and his pride had been hurt, where it could be hurt most. His county would be filled with the tale of his defeat, and half his prestige, if not all, would be gone.

I met his lowering glance with a fixed gaze, and presently he turned his eyes away. He had only brute strength and courage and I believed him to be cowed. Moreover, I felt sure that he would not trouble me again, because I had faith both in Harrison’s words and Harrison’s power. The early signs confirmed my belief. Bucks was very quiet throughout the session, and left promptly at adjournment. Nor did he renew his attacks upon me. Yet I felt that the atmosphere all around me was surcharged.

In this situation, already tense and strained in many ways, a new factor suddenly appeared, introducing an ominous complication. One winter afternoon during an idle and apathetic session I felt a sudden stir in the House, one of those movements aroused by an unexpected interest, but I was absorbed just then in a letter from Aunt Jane and I did not raise my head. As I read on Harrison strolled from his desk across the House and sat down beside me in Peden’s vacant seat.

“Why don’t you look up?” he asked, in his usual careless, half-bantering tone. “Something of interest and importance to both of us has happened.”

I glanced at him inquiringly, not sure that he was in earnest.

“I don’t understand you,” I said.

“Pauline Harmon is in the balcony.”

I wheeled around at once at this startling news and beheld her. “Behold,” not “see,” is the word, because Pauline Harmon was a gorgeous creature who jumped at the eye. She sat in the lobby now, the target of many glances, but calm and at ease, conscious that she was beautiful and observed. Her dress was lighter than that worn by most women at this period of the year. I do not describe it because I knew neither its materials nor its cut, but it became her rather flamboyant beauty, and she showed at her best, a large, full-blown woman, having charms and knowing how to use them.

Harrison laughed softly, and his laugh had the ring, not of affectation or cynicism, but of truth.

“This is a vivid addition to our little world,” he said, “and I think I see an increase of its picturesqueness and color.”

I could not doubt his words, and I felt alarm, too; alarm on account of Alicia, upon whom this arrival would put shame.

I watched Pauline Harmon, and I saw well how potent her charms could be with a man in whom the intellectual element was lacking. The outlines of her figure were graceful and fine, her color was delicate, and she showed at all times the supple and velvety ease and strength of a tigress. Physically she was a splendid woman, and I sighed for Alicia’s sake, because another could draw from her the husband whom I despised, and of whom I wished that she was rid forever. Such curious creatures we are!

Her eyes passing over the floor of the House, perhaps with the cool examining gaze of the tigress seeking possible victims, alighted at last upon me, and my look met hers. She smiled—it was a warm, ingratiating smile, giving her face the look of an innocent woman—and she made me a little bow, which I returned. Smile and bow together said: “Come out and talk to me,” but I pretended not to understand, and turned back to the letter of that very prim and precise person, Aunt Jane. What a world of difference between her and Pauline Harmon!

But Pauline Harmon did not lack attention. Harrison himself went into the lobby to see her, and, one by one, fully a dozen members of the House drifted to the same place, where she formed a little court, in the center of which she sparkled and shone. It seemed to me, giving her occasional glances, that she was somewhat modified in manner since I had last seen her in Louisville, that is to say, subdued and restrained; her voice was not so loud, her gestures not so extreme, and I fancied that I saw about her, despite her bright dress, a certain primness ridiculously suggestive of Aunt Jane. But I smiled at the thought and reflected that it could not be.

A half hour later my glance met hers again, but her eyes no longer contained any hint of another invitation to join her circle. I had declined once which was enough, and they passed coldly on. After the session I met Harrison on the Capitol steps.

“What is she doing here?” I asked.

“A new enemy for you. She has come to fight you.”

“Don’t joke,” I said.

“I am in earnest. She tells me that she has come to Frankfort to lobby against the Peden Bill. I think you’d better be on your guard. She’s perhaps more formidable than you suppose.”

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