Lightnin Part 21

"h.e.l.lo, John!" Lightnin' drawled, grinning. "How's tricks? You look kinder legal this morning?"

CHAPTER XVI

As Bill made his way through the swinging gates, Blodgett put out a detaining arm, asking, with a scowl, "Here, what do _you_ want?"

"Been arrestin' any one in California lately?" Bill slid past Blodgett, ignoring his attempt to stop him, the old twinkle in his eye as he touched what he knew to be the sheriff's sensitive spot.

"Well, Lightnin'," Marvin exclaimed, "how did you get here and what in the world have you come for?"

"Yer case ain't over yet, is it?"

Marvin shook his head, repeating his first question.

Bill did not reply at once. Not wanting Marvin to know that he and Zeb had been nearly two weeks getting there, and that they had come in much the same way they had gone, riding when they could get a lift on a train or a wagon, walking when they could not, he pretended to forget the young man's questions, asking one himself instead, "What time your case comin' up?"

"Two o'clock."

The sheriff sauntered up to them. Bill knew the purpose of his approach was to catch the drift of their conversation, so he turned abruptly, his hands in his back pockets, and grinned at Blodgett. Nodding toward Marvin, he drawled, "I'm a witness for him. I got to testify how you served a warrant on him."

The sheriff glared and slouched over to his chair, throwing himself into it as he pulled his black sombrero down over his eyes.

Marvin, his arm about Bill's shoulders, leaned over him, guiding him gently to the attorneys' table. "Well, Lightnin'," he questioned, in an indulgent voice, "how did you happen to show up here?"

"I promised you, didn't I?"

"But that was a long time ago. I supposed you'd forgotten all about it."

Bill glanced quickly at him and smiled. "I ain't never forgotten nothin'

since I was four years old."

Marvin, happy to see the old Lightnin' behind the boast, smiled, asking him, "How did you know the trial was to-day?"

"That's easy," Bill replied, as he sat against the edge of the table, steadying himself with his hands. "I seen it in a Reno paper at the Home."

"But I told you the time I came to see you that you needn't bother about coming. I wouldn't have had you come all this long way for the world if I had known it." There was concern in Marvin's voice as he slowly dropped into a chair in front of Bill.

"That's why I didn't say nothin'."

"Where did the money come from?"

"I saved my pension." Bill glanced slyly at him. Catching his questioning eye, he stopped and looked through the window into the distance.

"You told me you sent your pension money to your wife!"

"I did--some of it. I sent mother six dollars, but I didn't get no answer." The laughter went from Bill and he leaned over, looking toward the far hills, strange, unreal purple against the clear, cold blue of the April sky.

Marvin watched him, asking, "Did you tell her you were in the Soldiers'

Home?"

"No." Bill's voice was devoid of inflection.

"Then she probably didn't know where you were."

"Where else could I be?" His lips were puckered into a whistle, although they were quivering and no tune came. It was always this way when he thought of mother, so he straightened himself and stood by Marvin's chair, forcing a smile to his lips and jerking out, "And six dollars is six dollars."

The court-room was filling again, five minutes having elapsed since recess was declared. A side door opened and Townsend came into court.

Blodgett stood up, pounded the desk with his gavel and announced the opening of the session. Bill and Marvin, rising to order, started and looked at each other as Thomas entered the room just behind the judge.

Following him was Everett Hammond, who, when he saw Bill and Marvin together at the attorneys' table, began vigorous and anxious whispering in Thomas's ear as he took his place next to him on the other side of the table.

Margaret Davis entered from the judge's chambers. She was accompanied by Mrs. Jones and Millie.

Bill did not see them. His eyes were fastened on Hammond and Thomas in close conference.

But suddenly, as he turned to take in the rest of the people in the room, his eyes alighted on his wife. He arose and wandered toward her, exclaiming, as she came to meet him, "Why, mother, what are you doing here?" He stared at her and held out his hand.

Mrs. Jones was so surprised to see him that she could not speak and stood still, her hands in the air half-way between her waist and shoulder.

Millie was the first to answer him. "Oh, daddy--" She was going to put her arms around him, when Blodgett rapped upon the table for order.

Tears sprang to Mrs. Jones's eyes and Margaret Davis arose and led her to a chair next to hers and just at the foot of the platform, from which Townsend smiled happily upon them.

"Come along, Mr. Clerk!" There was cheer in Townsend's voice as he directed another saccharine shaft toward Margaret. "I've got an important engagement and I want to get through. Call the next case."

Bill, his eyes still on his wife, walked slowly to the table and sat down just behind Marvin.

"Jones _versus_ Jones," read the clerk, standing at one side of the platform and unfolding the doc.u.ment he held in his hand.

Bill did not hear him. He was gazing at Mrs. Jones, an old tenderness in his eyes, a bitter longing in his heart. Drifting, living only for the hour, as was his nature, but one scar had remained un.o.bliterated upon his memory, one hope alone flickered in the lonely sanctuary of a soul that had known no conflicts. His affection for his wife had been something deeper than emotion, something lighter than pa.s.sion. It had been the lasting quant.i.ty in a life of fleeting concepts, and his six months at the Home had subdued it into a dull ache which found relief only when a faint optimism brought vague dreams of a remote reunion.

Her presence in court puzzled him. He felt that it must have something to do with the sale of the place, or, perhaps, with Marvin's case. And yet he was sure she knew nothing of the transaction between Mrs. Marvin and Thomas, or between Rodney Harper and Marvin. Whatever it was, it had brought a ray of expectancy to Bill, and he jumped as he was brought out of his reverie by Marvin's perplexed whisper: "Jones _versus_ Jones. By Jove, Lightnin', I believe that's you!"

"Me?" Bill glanced around as if he were half awake and leaned far forward in his chair, putting his hand to his ear and straining to catch every word as the clerk read the complaint:

"To the people of the State of Nevada, Mary Jones, Plaintiff _versus_ William Jones, Defendant. A civil action wherein the said plaintiff deposes and says she was lawfully married to the said defendant on the 14th day of June, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, in the state of Nevada. The said plaintiff prays this court for a permanent annulment of her marriage vows, the defendant, William Jones, having disregarded and broken all obligations of the marriage contract, thereby causing the plaintiff great suffering and mental agony and the said Mary Jones claims a final separation and divorce from the said William Jones on the grounds of failure to provide, habitual intoxication, and intolerable cruelty. Subscribed and sworn to me on the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and seventeen. Alexander Bradshaw, Notary: Raymond Thomas, Attorney for the plaintiff."

When the clerk had finished Bill sent a beseeching glance toward his wife. Each word of the doc.u.ment had entered far into a mind little given to taking account. One by one he had tolled off the record against him, placing the accusations in two files--the true and the false. That his wife had cause for anger against him he now, for the first time, fully realized. But he was bewildered, and when Bill was bewildered it was his habit to seek enlightenment.

After a moment, in which Mrs. Jones darted swift glances from beneath a brow bowed with regret, he turned to Marvin, who had arisen and was standing back of his chair, bending over him, and asked, simply, "Is that all about me?"

Blodgett tapped his sheriff's gavel.

Townsend caught Bill's question and asked, "What did you say?"

Marvin, knowing that Bill was inadequate to the test placed upon him, came quickly to the rescue. Standing in front of the judge, he explained: "Your Honor, Mr. Jones is the unconscious defendant in this case. It just happened that he came to court to-day to be a witness in another case. He has had no previous knowledge of this action."