Lonesome Land by B. M. Bower

Author:B. M. Bower [Bower, B. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781411438316
Publisher: Barnes & Noble

“I wish I had that poem now—I think I could understand it. I think—”

“I think you’ve got talking hysterics, if there is such a thing,” Kent interrupted harshly. “You don’t know half what you’re saying. You’ve had a hard day, and you’re all tired out, and everything looks outa focus. I know—I’ve seen men like that sometimes when some trouble hit ’em hard and unexpected. What you want is sleep; not poetry about killing people. A man, in the shape you are in, takes to whisky. You’re taking to graveyard poetry—and, if you ask me, that’s worse than whisky. You ain’t normal. What you want to do is go straight to bed. When you wake up in the morning you won’t feel so bad. You won’t have half as many troubles as you’ve got now.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand it,” Val remarked coldly, still staring at him with her chin on her hands.

“You won’t yourself, tomorrow morning,” Kent declared unsympathetically, and called Mrs. Hawley from the kitchen. “You better put Mrs. Fleetwood to bed,” he advised gruffly. “And if you’ve got anything that’ll make her sleep, give her a dose of it. She’s so tired she can’t see straight.” He was nearly to the outside door when Val recovered her speech.

“You men are all alike,” she said contemptuously. “You give orders and you consider yourselves above all the laws of morality or decency; in reality you are beneath them. We shouldn’t expect anything of the lower animals! How I despise men!”

“Now you’re talking,” grinned Kent, quite unmoved. “Whack us in a bunch all you like—but don’t make one poor devil take it all. Men as a class are used to it and can stand it.” He was laughing as he left the room, but his amusement lasted only until the door was closed behind him. “Lord!” he exclaimed, and drew a deep breath. “I’d sure hate to have that little woman say all them things about me!” and glanced involuntarily over his shoulder to where a crack of light showed under the faded green shade of one of the parlor windows.

He crossed the street and entered the saloon where Manley was still drinking heavily, his face crimson and blear-eyed and brutalized, his speech thickened disgustingly. He was sprawled in an armchair, waving an empty glass in an erratic attempt to mark the time of a college ditty six or seven years out of date, which he was trying to sing. He leered up at Kent.

“Wife ’sall righ’,” he informed him solemnly. “Knew she would be—fine guards’ got out there. ’Sall righ’—somebody shaid sho. Have a drink.”

Kent glowered down at him, made a swift, mental decision, and gripped him by the shoulder. “You come with me,” he commanded. “I’ve got something important I want to tell you. Come on—if you can walk.”

“’Course I c’n walk all righ’. Shertainly I can walk. Wha’s makes you think I can’t walk? Want to inshult me? ’Sall my friends here—no secrets from my friends. Wha’s want tell me? Shay it here.

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