Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/270

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

shaker, and the half of lemon in the tall flaring glass.

He thought of it with such intense longing, such fiery, tortured longing, that Charley Mallon and the cool barroom seemed only a step away. What kind of a man was he to lie there and suffer when Charley Mallon was only a step away, waiting to shake him a lemonade?

What did it matter who was out there, or what they wanted, or how many stood in the way? What a fool he had been not to think of old Charley Mallon before! He scrambled up dizzily, the floor of the car rocking under him as if somebody had hitched it to a train.

A frenzy of insane rage was on him. He jerked out his gun, kicked the bale of hay out of the door, and slid out after it, staggering weakly as he struck the ground. But he struck shooting, and the mob that had swarmed around the depot at the report that he was breaking away scattered like leaves in the wind.

Look at them go! Look at them go! They were flickering and flitting like butterflies in his sick fevered vision, dim and wavering, dancing and floating and waving their long skinny arms, like nothing in the world but butterflies over cabbage plants on a hot, white day.

Dunham went on toward the depot platform, walking slowly, shooting as he advanced, heedless of any danger, unconscious of any peril, driven by the rage of thirst and the delirium of pain. Five or six men made a dash for the door of the freight-room, and from that shelter they began to shoot.

Dunham's gun was empty, but he went on, ploddingly, heavily, sickly on. The agent's wife, with heroic