Short Plays · The Showing-Up of Blanco Posnet (8/8) (2/2) (1/4)
Babsy A bumptious young slattern, with some good looks. I say that a man that would steal a horse would do anything.
Lottie A sentimental girl, neat and clean. Well, I never should look at it in that way. I do think killing a man is worse any day than stealing a horse.
Hannah Elderly and wise. I don’t say it’s right to kill a man. In a place like this, where every man has to have a revolver, and where there’s so much to try people’s tempers, the men get to be a deal too free with one another in the way of shooting. God knows it’s hard enough to have to bring a boy into the world and nurse him up to be a man only to have him brought home to you on a shutter, perhaps for nothing, or only just to show that the man that killed him wasn’t afraid of him. But men are like children when they get a gun in their hands: they’re not content till they’ve used it on somebody.
Jessie A good-natured but sharp-tongued, hoity-toity young woman; Babsy’s rival in good looks and her superior in tidiness. They shoot for the love of it. Look at them at a lynching. They’re not content to hang the man; but directly the poor creature is swung up they all shoot him full of holes, wasting their cartridges that cost solid money, and pretending they do it in horror of his wickedness, though half of them would have a rope round their own necks if all they did was known⁠—let alone the mess it makes.
Lottie I wish we could get more civilized. I don’t like all this lynching and shooting. I don’t believe any of us like it, if the truth were known.
Babsy Our Sheriff is a real strong man. You want a strong man for a rough lot like our people here. He ain’t afraid to shoot and he ain’t afraid to hang. Lucky for us quiet ones, too.
Jessie Oh, don’t talk to me. I know what men are. Of course he ain’t afraid to shoot and he ain’t afraid to hang. Where’s the risk in that with the law on his side and the whole crowd at his back longing for the lynching as if it was a spree? Would one of them own to it or let him own to it if they lynched the wrong man? Not them. What they call justice in this place is nothing but a breaking out of the devil that’s in all of us. What I want to see is a Sheriff that ain’t afraid not to shoot and not to hang.
Emma A sneak who sides with Babsy or Jessie, according to the fortune of war. Well, I must say it does sicken me to see Sheriff Kemp putting down his foot, as he calls it. Why don’t he put it down on his wife? She wants it worse than half the men he lynches. He and his Vigilance Committee, indeed!
Babsy Incensed. Oh, well! if people are going to take the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff⁠—!
Jessie Who’s taking the part of horse-thieves against the Sheriff?
Babsy You are. Wait’ll your own horse is stolen, and you’ll know better. I had an uncle that died of thirst in the sagebrush because a Negro stole his horse. But they caught him and burned him; and serve him right, too.
Emma I have known a child that was born crooked because its mother had to do a horse’s work that was stolen.
Babsy There! You hear that? I say stealing a horse is ten times worse than killing a man. And if the Vigilance Committee ever gets hold of you, you’d better have killed twenty men than as much as stole a saddle or bridle, much less a horse.
Elder Daniels comes in.
Elder Daniels Sorry to disturb you, ladies; but the Vigilance Committee has taken a prisoner; and they want the room to try him in.
Jessie But they can’t try him till Sheriff Kemp comes back from the wharf.
Elder Daniels Yes; but we have to keep the prisoner here till he comes.
Babsy What do you want to put him here for? Can’t you tie him up in the Sheriff’s stable?
Elder Daniels He has a soul to be saved, almost like the rest of us. I am bound to try to put some religion into him before he goes into his Maker’s presence after the trial.
Hannah What has he done, Mr. Daniels?
Elder Daniels Stole a horse.
Babsy And are we to be turned out of the town hall for a horse-thief? Ain’t a stable good enough for his religion?
Elder Daniels It may be good enough for his, Babsy; but, by your leave, it is not good enough for mine. While I am Elder here, I shall umbly endeavor to keep up the dignity of Him I serve to the best of my small ability. So I must ask you to be good enough to clear out. Allow me. He takes the sack of husks and puts it out of the way against the panels of the jury box.
The Women Murmuring. That’s always the way. Just as we’d settled down to work. What harm are we doing? Well, it is tiresome. Let them finish the job themselves. Oh dear, oh dear! We can’t have a minute to ourselves. Shoving us out like that!
Hannah Whose horse was it, Mr. Daniels?
Elder Daniels Returning to move the other sack. I am sorry to say that it was the Sheriff’s horse⁠—the one he loaned to young Strapper. Strapper loaned it to me; and the thief stole it, thinking it was mine. If it had been mine, I’d have forgiven him cheerfully. I’m sure I hoped he would get away; for he had two hours start of the Vigilance Committee. But they caught him. He disposes of the other sack also.
Jessie It can’t have been much of a horse if they caught him with two hours start.
Elder Daniels Coming back to the centre of the group. The strange thing is that he wasn’t on the horse when they took him. He was walking; and of course he denies that he ever had the horse. The Sheriff’s brother wanted to tie him up and lash him till he confessed what he’d done with it; but I couldn’t allow that: it’s not the law.
Babsy Law! What right has a horse-thief to any law? Law is thrown away on a brute like that.
Elder Daniels Don’t say that, Babsy. No man should be made to confess by cruelty until religion has been tried and failed. Please God I’ll get the whereabouts of the horse from him if you’ll be so good as to clear out from this. Disturbance outside. They are bringing him in. Now ladies! please, please.
They rise reluctantly. Hannah, Jessie, and Lottie retreat to the Sheriff’s bench, shepherded by Daniels; but the other women crowd forward behind Babsy and Emma to see the prisoner.
Blanco Posnet* is brought in by Strapper Kemp, the Sheriff’s brother, and a cross-eyed man called Squinty. Others follow. Blanco* is evidently a blackguard. It would be necessary to clean him to make a close guess at his age; but he is under forty, and an upturned, red moustache, and the arrangement of his hair in a crest on his brow, proclaim the dandy in spite of his intense disreputableness. He carries his head high, and has a fairly resolute mouth, though the fire of incipient delirium tremens is in his eye.
His arms are bound with a rope with a long end, which Squinty holds. They release him when he enters; and he stretches himself and lounges across the courthouse in front of the women. Strapper and the men remain between him and the door.
Babsy Spitting at him as he passes her. Horse-thief! horse-thief!
Others You will hang for it; do you hear? And serve you right. Serve you right. That will teach you. I wouldn’t wait to try you. Lynch him straight off, the varmint. Yes, yes. Tell the boys. Lynch him.
Blanco Mocking. “Angels ever bright and fair⁠—”
Babsy You call me an angel, and I’ll smack your dirty face for you.
Blanco “Take, oh take me to your care.”
Emma There won’t be any angels where you’re going to.
Others Aha! Devils, more likely. And too good company for a horse-thief.
All Horse-thief! Horse-thief! Horse-thief!
Blanco Do women make the law here, or men? Drive these heifers out.
The Women Oh! They rush at him, vituperating, screaming passionately, tearing at him. Lottie puts her fingers in her ears and runs out. Hannah follows, shaking her head. Blanco is thrown down. Oh, did you hear what he called us? You foul-mouthed brute! You liar! How dare you put such a name to a decent woman? Let me get at him. You coward! Oh, he struck me: did you see that? Lynch him! Pete, will you stand by and hear me called names by a skunk like that? Burn him: burn him! That’s what I’d do with him. Aye, burn him!
The Men Pulling the women away from Blanco, and getting them out partly by violence and partly by coaxing. Here! come out of this. Let him alone. Clear the courthouse. Come on now. Out with you. Now, Sally: out you go. Let go my hair, or I’ll twist your arm out. Ah, would you? Now, then: get along. You know you must go. What’s the use of scratching like that? Now, ladies, ladies, ladies. How would you like it if you were going to be hanged?
At last the women are pushed out, leaving Elder Daniels, the Sheriff’s brother Strapper Kemp, and a few others with Blanco. Strapper is a lad just turning into a man: strong, selfish, sulky, and determined.
Blanco Sitting up and tidying himself. Oh woman, in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please⁠— Is my face scratched? I can feel their damned claws all over me still. Am I bleeding? He sits on the nearest bench.
Elder Daniels Nothing to hurt. They’ve drawn a drop or two under your left eye.
Strapper Lucky for you to have an eye left in your head.
Blanco Wiping the blood off. When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou. Go out to them, Strapper Kemp; and tell them about your big brother’s little horse that some wicked man stole. Go and cry in your mammy’s lap.
Strapper Furious. You jounce me any more about that horse, Blanco Posnet; and I’ll⁠—I’ll⁠—
Blanco You’ll scratch my face, won’t you? Yah! Your brother’s the Sheriff, ain’t he?
Strapper Yes, he is. He hangs horse-thieves.
Blanco With calm conviction. He’s a rotten Sheriff. Oh, a rotten Sheriff. If he did his first duty he’d hang himself. This is a rotten town. Your fathers came here on a false alarm of gold-digging; and when the gold didn’t pan out, they lived by licking their young into habits of honest industry.
Strapper If I hadn’t promised Elder Daniels here to give him a chance to keep you out of Hell, I’d take the job of twisting your neck off the hands of the Vigilance Committee.
Blanco With infinite scorn. You and your rotten Elder, and your rotten Vigilance Committee!
Strapper They’re sound enough to hang a horse-thief, anyhow.
Blanco Any fool can hang the wisest man in the country. Nothing he likes better. But you can’t hang me.
Strapper Can’t we?
Blanco No, you can’t. I left the town this morning before sunrise, because it’s a rotten town, and I couldn’t bear to see it in the light. Your brother’s horse did the same, as any sensible horse would. Instead of going to look for the horse, you went looking for me. That was a rotten thing to do, because the horse belonged to your brother⁠—or to the man he stole it from⁠—and I don’t belong to him. Well, you found me; but you didn’t find the horse. If I had took the horse, I’d have been on the horse. Would I have taken all that time to get to where I did if I’d a horse to carry me?
Strapper I don’t believe you started not for two hours after you say you did.
Blanco Who cares what you believe or don’t believe? Is a man worth six of you to be hanged because you’ve lost your big brother’s horse, and you’ll want to kill somebody to relieve your rotten feelings when he licks you for it? Not likely. Till you can find a witness that saw me with that horse you can’t touch me; and you know it.
Strapper Is that the law, Elder?
Elder Daniels The Sheriff knows the law. I wouldn’t say for sure; but I think it would be more seemly to have a witness. Go and round one up, Strapper; and leave me here alone to wrestle with his poor blinded soul.
Strapper I’ll get a witness all right enough. I know the road he took; and I’ll ask at every house within sight of it for a mile out. Come, boys.
Strapper* goes out with the others, leaving Blanco and Elder Daniels together. Blanco rises and strolls over to the Elder*, surveying him with extreme disparagement.
Blanco Well, brother? Well, Boozy Posnet, alias Elder Daniels? Well, thief? Well, drunkard?
Elder Daniels It’s no good, Blanco. They’ll never believe we’re brothers.
Blanco Never fear. Do you suppose I want to claim you? Do you suppose I’m proud of you? You’re a rotten brother, Boozy Posnet. All you ever did when I owned you was to borrow money from me to get drunk with. Now you lend money and sell drink to other people. I was ashamed of you before; and I’m worse ashamed of you now. I won’t have you for a brother. Heaven gave you to me; but I return the blessing without thanks. So be easy: I shan’t blab. He turns his back on him and sits down.
Elder Daniels I tell you they wouldn’t believe you; so what does it matter to me whether you blab or not? Talk sense, Blanco: there’s no time for your foolery now; for you’ll be a dead man an hour after the Sheriff comes back. What possessed you to steal that horse?
Blanco I didn’t steal it. I distrained on it for what you owed me. I thought it was yours. I was a fool to think that you owned anything but other people’s property. You laid your hands on everything father and mother had when they died. I never asked you for a fair share. I never asked you for all the money I’d lent you from time to time. I asked you for mother’s old necklace with the hair locket in it. You wouldn’t give me that: you wouldn’t give me anything. So as you refused me my due I took it, just to give you a lesson.
Elder Daniels Why didn’t you take the necklace if you must steal something? They wouldn’t have hanged you for that.
Blanco Perhaps I’d rather be hanged for stealing a horse than let off for a damned piece of sentimentality.
Elder Daniels Oh, Blanco, Blanco: spiritual pride has been your ruin. If you’d only done like me, you’d be a free and respectable man this day instead of laying there with a rope round your neck.
Blanco Turning on him. Done like you! What do you mean? Drink like you, eh? Well, I’ve done some of that lately. I see things.
Elder Daniels Too late, Blanco: too late. Convulsively. Oh, why didn’t you drink as I used to? Why didn’t you drink as I was led to by the Lord for my good, until the time came for me to give it up? It was drink that saved my character when I was a young man; and it was the want of it that spoiled yours. Tell me this. Did I ever get drunk when I was working?
Blanco No; but then you never worked when you had money enough to get drunk.
Elder Daniels That just shows the wisdom of Providence and the Lord’s mercy. God fulfils himself in many ways: ways we little think of when we try to set up our own shortsighted laws against his Word. When does the Devil catch hold of a man? Not when he’s working and not when he’s drunk; but when he’s idle and sober. Our own natures tell us to drink when we have nothing else to do. Look at you and me! When we’d both earned a pocketful of money, what did we do? Went on the spree, naturally. But I was humble minded. I did as the rest did. I gave my money in at the drink-shop; and I said, “Fire me out when I have drunk it all up.” Did you ever see me sober while it lasted?
Blanco No; and you looked so disgusting that I wonder it didn’t set me against drink for the rest of my life.