Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

DESERT Hayden turned to the proprietor, Noah Doxey, who had been watching with obvious suspicion this peculiar exhibition of city life. Fred looked up at the glum, sour face; a bent man with thin, colorless hair and venomous little eyes. “T regret to see, Mr. Doxey,” the sales- man said pompously, ‘“‘ that the town has passed into a new life. Who is to blame?” ‘““T am!” Noah Doxey snapped out. ‘“ And you aren’t ashamed?” ‘“ Ashamed, hell!’”? Doxey put his thumbs in his vest. Although not past fifty the backs of his hands shone with that scaly, dry sheen on the skin of very old men. ‘“T’m proud. I’m prouder of what I’ve been able to do in keeping peace in this country than of anything else in my life. As you know, I own practically this whole town. In a manner of speaking it’s like I was its keeper.” “You own the town, Mr. Doxey, but do you own the minds of its citizens? Can you own the thoughts of these stock men here who used to be renegades, gunmen, gamblers? I might suggest, respectfully of course, that you can’t own what they think.” Mr. Doxey, biting off the end of his toothpick and spitting thoughtfully, re- marked: “I ain’t so sure.” Hayden fell to carving his broiled chick- en, a duty which he performed with much ceremony. ‘Look here,” Noah Doxey went on. ‘“You remember Sun-up five years ago. I take it that was the first time you was here —selling freckle lotions to the dance gals at the Golden Cloud Saloon? ”’ “TI remember it well,” Hayden said. ‘Arizona could boast of something then. Can I forget Six-Gun Patterson? Can I for- get the kick of jackass brandy? Can I for- get Frisco Lou? Those were blossoms in the desert! ”’ ‘Fire and brimstone you mean!” Doxey shot back. “ And you can thank me for corralling all them thieves, hussies and - gunmen and shippin’ ’em out of the coun- try! Blossoms, aye! Fire and brimstone!” “Fire and brimstone have their merits. Volcanoes are responsible for a good deal of Arizona’s superb scenery. What you have VOICES. 803 done, Mr. Doxey, in suppressing this town is like putting a cement dam—tlike the one up at Salt River—on a volcano! ” Fred Hayden was evidently pleased with his elaborate but somewhat inaccurate fig- ure of speech. He raised his voice: “ But you can’t keep it corked up. No man can put a lid on a crater! ” “They can’t, eh?” little Noah Doxey laughed, rubbing his chin with his thick turtle-shell thumbnail. “ Well that’s what I done! ” “Well and good,” Hayden agreed. ‘“‘ Now get my point: I’ve read that when a volcano is pent up, it’s worse than one that smokes. All the heat and fire and energy gather fury and suddenly, bingo! the place blows up; a town’s wiped out, hu- man beings are scattered to bits, the earth shakes for miles around. You’ve pent up the desires—the steam—that simmered off in those old barroom nights. ‘“* Do you think the desires are gone now? They’re gathering. In the old days the hates didn’t last. There was a little love affair, a little jealousy, a game of cards, a knife, a gunshot or two, and the town drifted along free and easy. You don’t understand, Mr. Doxey, what power there is in a hate that Jasts—in a desire to kill that’s suppressed, or for that matter—in a passionate love!” ‘* It’s law and order anyways, Mr. Drum- mer.” “fT grant you that. As the most active political figure in this county, Mr. Doxey, you are to be congratulated. But when this town has a match touched to it there’ll be an explosion that ’ll be heard as far as Phoenix and Tucson. What the match will be I don’t know. “Maybe the town will wake up to its rights and go on a spree. Wow! That would be some sight! An orgy! Rome! A bac- chanal! With old Sam Quiggley shooting again—and Doc Winkler drunk—and—”’ “It ‘Il never be so long as I’m here. There’ll be no drinkin’ in this county! I’ve got the law—the marshal and the sheriff on my side now. This town stays peaceable!” ‘“* Maybe it won’t be drink.” “* What else can it be? ” “With a bunch of characters such as I find upon riding into this burg, a riot can COMmiclooe (©