There's the end of him, that ain't any human use, and when he's finished
after a while maybe Kate will get to know that they's other men in the
world besides Dan.' I says that to myself, deep and still inside me. And
then I looked at Kate standin' in that white thing with her yaller hair
all blowin' about her face--and I wanted her like a dyin' man wants
heaven! But then I says to myself again: 'No matter what's happened,
he's been my friend. He's been my pal. He's been my bunkie.'
"Doc, you ain't got a way of knowin' what a partner is out here. Maybe
you sit in the desert about a thousand miles from nowhere, and across
the little mesquite fire, there's your pal, the only human thing in
sight. Maybe you go months seein' only him. If you're sick he takes care
of you. If you're blue he cheers you up. And that's what Dan Barry was
to me. So I stands sayin' these things to myself, and I says: 'If I keep
that wall from fallin' Dan'll know about it, and they won't be no more
of that yaller light in his eyes when he looks at me. That's what I says
to myself, poor fool!
"And I went into the fire and I fought to keep that wall from fallin'.
You know what happened. When I come out, staggerin' and blind and three
parts dead, Dan Barry looks up to me and touches his face where I'd hit
him, and the yaller comes up glimmerin' and blazin' in his eyes. Then I
went back to my room and I fought it out.
"And here's where I stand now.
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