The Samaritan
Love goes by haps; some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. ~ (William Shakespeare).
It made Heyes feel important, at least at first. When Big John Overton started giving him letters to deliver to the McLaren girl, it was a sign that he was more than just a swamper in Big John's Trail's End saloon in Wichita. It was an indication of better things to come, maybe promotion to tending bar or even working one of the tables. He was proud of Big John's confidence in him.
The first time he slipped an envelope into her hand, coming up behind her in a bookstore on Front Street while her aunt's back was turned, he winked at her boldly. And then felt a hot rush of shame at her startled, shy look. She was so sweet, and so young and pretty. Heyes pondered that sometimes, in the grey pre-dawn hours as he lay on his pallet in one of the saloon outbuildings
He couldn't think of any reason why a girl from a nice family, living in a swell house on the right side of town, would be getting herself involved in a love affair with a man like Big John Overton. Big John was handsome, that is as far as Heyes could tell from the way the dance hall girls gave him the eye. Then, too, he dressed pretty fancy, got his suits sent all the way from Chicago, and was a well-spoken sort of man, at least when he wasn't riled.
But he was a hardcase who owned a saloon and, according to rumor, had an interest in several less savory enterprises in town. His name was spoken with respect by the pimps and the gunmen, the sharpers and the fancy women. Big John was a man of parts and all of them bad.
After a while it made Heyes uneasy, lying in wait for the girl and carrying her letters back to Big John. Once or twice he almost made up his mind to tell her father, somehow, but that would get her into trouble, and probably make her fall more in love than ever, what with girls being such contrary creatures. So he let matters slide and told himself that this way he could keep an eye on things.
The girl always gave him a tip whenever he passed along one of Big John's letters, along with a timid smile and a quick press of his hand. He liked it, that she trusted him; he wondered, sometimes, if she ever thought of him as more than a messenger from her lover. He wanted to think so but he knew that a skinny sixteen year old with ragged trousers and holes in his boots was no competition for a man like Big John.
One day the saloonkeeper sent for him and had Heyes wait while he wrote a letter. He wrote with great care and re-read it several times before he sealed it and handed it over.
"Take this to Miss McLaren. If she asks, you fetch her here and don't bring her around the front, see?"
Heyes nodded. There were empty bottles on the tables, and the air stank of cigar smoke and sweat. Moreover, to Heyes' experienced eye, Big John showed all the signs of a man who was still recuperating from the night before. It was, he told himself fiercely, none of his business.
He hung around the alley behind the McLaren place until she saw him and came hurrying stealthily out to the fence. It was a pleasant place to linger, shaded by trees and with hollyhocks and other summer flowers making the fence a bower, not like the alleys in his part of town.
She read the note and gasped. Heyes started to edge away. Her eyes met his and she blushed. "Will you…will you wait for me?"
He thought that he would have rather been asked to give up cards for a whole month. It was too late for that, though. The girl ran back into her house and came out with her bonnet on and a bag hung over her wrist. He heard her calling to her mother that she was going downtown to do some shopping and then she joined him.
They went to a flower shop, first, and she bought a big bunch of roses and orange blossom that she carried herself. Heyes wondered if Big John had made some kind of promise in the note and he desperately wished that he could grab her and haul her back to her folks' house. He thought of Big John, and he didn't dare.
Then she went to a grocer's and bought some delicacies, grapes and wine jelly and beef tea. He was puzzled and then it dawned on him - these were the kind of dainties you'd buy for a sick man.
His temples began to pound and he wanted to swear. Big John was pretending to be sick in order to get this girl to come to him, and she had fallen into the trap with the unthinking confidence of an innocent girl in love. Heyes wanted to warn her, or maybe threaten her, but he didn't know how.
He guided her through the back ways, with her clinging to his arm and glancing fearfully around at the drunks and the harlots and all the other trash that piles up behind buildings on the wrong side of the line in a roaring cow town. He finally found his voice.
"I guess he's sick?" It was the first time he'd ever said anything to her except in the way of business.
She flushed prettily and answered him. "Yes, very sick. I'm afraid he…he may die."
She said it very softly and Heyes realized that she believed it with her whole heart. They were in sight of the stairs that led to Big John's private quarters when she spoke again.
"Do you suppose any one…any one will try to keep me from visiting him?"
And with sudden flash of insight, he knew what he had to say.
"Shoot, no, miss. I bring women to see him all the time."
He pretended to be interested in a scrawny cat that was investigating the contents of a barrel across the alley. At his side a heart was breaking and he couldn't look at her. He added, casually, as though it was of no importance, "I took a real looker up there last night. She had a couple bottles of champagne with her."
"So…he's not…he's not sick?" She whispered.
"Hunh. Wish I could be that kind of sick," he said crudely.
After he escorted Miss McLaren home he ate the jelly and the grapes, and tossed the flowers over a fence into somebody's backyard. He wondered what Big John was going to do him when he found out and shivered a little at the thought.
Maybe it was time to leave Wichita.