15 Western Short Stories — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

56 WESTERN SHORT STORIES engine of the fleetest and most expert volunteer fire crew in the city. It stood for many things that Sam Mor- rey was ignorant of on the evening he first beheld it. The manner of his seeing it is im- portant. There had been nothing in Flood and O’Brien’s saloon during the course of an hour’s time which had done more than slack his thirst tastefully. And it was pure coincid- ence that he should step outside at the precise moment when the great clang of the firebell sounded at the City Hall. He simply happened to be standing there innocently—in the way-—when the torch boys came down the street on his like hideously screaming shadows. Sam knew about the torch boys. When there was a night fire, they rushed to their favorite stations and grabbed torches and lighted the way so the men pulling engine could keep their feet and skirt the murderous chuckholes. Sam Morrey knew, all right, but on this evening when the pack sud- denly was upon him he was befuddled, tripped and sprawled ingloriously in the mud. He heard an angry howl and saw the boy who had struck him bounce up and retrieve his torch and speed on. Sam scrambled to the side of the street as the firemen came, straining at rope and engine tongue. Even from his spread-eagled seat in the mud, Sam thrilled to the spec- tacle. He saw the long spanners flopping at the belts of the elite pipe men—the heavy-duty men who would battle other crews at the cis- tern to couple blunderbuss to hose and draw water first. There were that close to Sam they had to slow down and veer off and curse him. And in all the foolish scramble Sam, being a hunting man, spotted the wondrous fur piece flopping wildly on the engine. It was there briefly and barely gone in the flickering light when Sam heard a girl’s voice berating him. “I wish they had run over you! I wish they had trampled you in the muck where your kind belong!” Sam Morrey climbed slowly to his full six feet. He could just see the tense outline of the girl. “They most trampled me, all right,” he said test- ily, “and you're talking like no prop- er lady.” “Wallowing in the mud in the path of the finest fire crew this city has!” She was small and fierce and her words fairly scorched him. “Ff was not wallowing,” retorted Sam with some dignity. “I was struck down by a young fiend waving a torch in my face.” “They'll lose it—for your drunken clumsiness! They’ll lose the thing that’s worth a dozen lives like yours!” “And what might they lose?” said Sam, interested. “The Foxtail!’” The girl packed the power of sacred fury into the word. Sam felt it touch him like a mighty unseen finger. He still felt it after the girl vanished in the night and he was surrounded by her voice and tantalizing scent. AMUEL MORREY retraced his steps the next morning as cunning- ly as if he were tracking game. The night before had been a bewildering one, A word, spoken fiercely by a fierce young woman, still rang in his ears. On Washington Street, Sam asked his way to the nearest fire house. “Third block up and around the corner.” The storekeeper eyed Sam shrewdly. “If you've got the strength to go with your size, they can use you. They lost it last night, you know.” “Lost it?” said Sam. “The Foxtail. Some slob fell in their path in front of Flood and O’Brien’s saloon. They were third crew at the cistern. It’s enough to make a man cry and get drunk.” Sam Morrey walked on. The sun fumbled at the fog like a fisherman gathering his nets. The sight was weird and beautiful to him and track- ing the Foxtail—_symbol of the city’s finest fire crew—stirred him strange- ly. At the two-story frame firehouse a dozen sour-visaged men ringed a massive table. As Sam entered, Luci- fer Halloran, foreman of the crew, looked up. His face had the bold cut and heft of cliff rock Sam had seen along the southern coast. His voice came like a command. oO cCoMmicboOoks.€©