His brother's keeper

Joe was tall, thin, harsh-faced, burned to the color of a dark Indian. Joe Mills was as hard as the lava beds, but he had found a man harder than he. Jim Deming, known as “Duty” Deming, was so hard that he rather appalled even Joe Mills.

“Yeah, he’ll fire me,” agreed Joe slowly. “But that’s fine, ma’am. I’m kinda sour on this county, anyway. Seems to me that I’d kinda like to go somewhere else, where there’s green grass and lakes. I’ve allus lived here, yuh see. Don’t you worry about me, ma’am; you’ve got a-plenty to worry about for yourself.”

“Thank you, Joe. I’m glad you don’t blame me. It had to come. He--he wasn’t so bad until they elected him sheriff. We got along, yuh know. Goin’ onto three years now. I--I hoped they’d defeat him last election.”

“Shore. Prob’ly been better if they had. But they say he’s the best sheriff they ever had--I dunno.”

“Because he sent my son to prison,” she said painfully.

“Yeah. It was his son, too.”

“Joe, you know Harry wasn’t a thief, don’t yuh?”

“I don’t reckon he was. The JB outfit started out to git Harry--and they got him.”

“His own father got him, you mean!” exclaimed Mrs. Deming. “Jim was alone when he found that evidence at Harry’s place. It was nothing but a JB hide. Jim could have buried it and warned Harry. That hide was planted there by the JB. But Jim took the evidence and arrested Harry. Ten years! It was Jim’s evidence that sent my boy to the penitentiary.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And he sent Al Seymour up for stealing a horse, which he didn’t steal. Al was drunk that night and got the wrong one. It was wrong for him to get drunk, I know; but he didn’t intend to take the wrong horse. Jim knew it. Oh, yes, he did. But he went straight out and arrested Al, instead of bringing the horse back. He could have explained it all. Al was no thief.”

“He was going to marry Jane, wasn’t he, Mrs. Deming?”

“Yes. It broke her heart, Joe. I’m going to her now. Oh, I’ve pleaded with Jim; talked and pleaded until my throat was raw. But what’s the use? He defends himself by saying that he swore to uphold the law, and both Harry and Al broke the law. His duty to the law! He sits in judgment on this whole desert; brags about his iron hand. Oh, it’s iron, all right. It smashed his home; it will smash him, too.”

“I dunno; he’s pretty hard, ma’am. I never knowed a man as hard as Jim, and I’ve knowed a lot of hard ones. His job is a religion with him.”

“And some day it will raise up and kill him.”

“His star is his god,” said the deputy slowly.

“And don’t the Bible say something about thou shalt have no other gods before me?”

“Mebbe. I dunno much about the Bible. I don’t reckon that God operates much around here--it’s too hot.”

“I’ve wondered about it,” she said, wearily. “I’ve prayed a lot, Joe; but nothing came of it.”

“Too hot, Mrs. Deming. I don’t reckon a fried prayer ever got any further than a fried aig. Mebbe not as far, because yuh can eat the aig. Well, there’s the town. Yuh’ve got plenty time, ’cause the train ain’t never on time. Lotsa folks would miss the train if it ever came on time.”

The train was of the mixed variety, half passenger, half freight; a branch line train, using something like seven hours to complete the sixty mile run from Santa Leone to Levering, which was twenty miles south of Calor.

Calor was the usual desert type of town. Perhaps a little larger, due to the fact that it was a county seat, but the buildings were unpainted, scourged by wind and sand, until they blended nicely with the gray of the desert. Two huge water tanks, thrusting their ungainly bulk upward on their scaffolding, like huge, rotund giants, with spindling legs, supplied the town with water, which was always warm.

The depot had once been painted a bright red, but time had dimmed its luster until it was a sickly pink, where any color yet remained.

The team came up to the depot platform, guided in close to the high platform. The deputy helped the woman down, and unloaded the trunk. He tied both horses securely to the platform, because they were unused to trains, and then began twisting the trunk around to the front, the woman following him.

The telegraph wires hummed in the hot wind, and there was a strong odor of pitch frying up from the planks of the platform. A man stood near the doorway to the waiting room; a tall, lean figure of a man, harsh of feature, his gray eyes deep set under beetling brows, and separated with a high-arched nose. His mouth was wide and thin lipped.

In raiment he was practically the same as ninety-nine per cent of the desert men; well-worn sombrero, colorless shirt, stringy vest, overalls, from which the color had long since fled, tucked in the tops of high-heeled boots. Around his lean waist hung a belt and holstered gun, and on the lapel of his vest gleamed the insignia of office. Such was Duty Deming, sheriff of Calor.

He shot one sharp glance at his deputy, who handled the trunk awkwardly as he rolled it out near the edge of the platform. The woman stopped short and studied the face of her husband.

“You didn’t think I’d come, did you?” she asked.

“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be up here,” he said slowly.

The deputy walked from the trunk to the waiting room. He had Mrs. Deming’s ticket, and was going to check the trunk. The sheriff’s eyes followed him.

“You don’t need to blame Joe,” she said.