Summary
Gila Junction’s kerosene haze clings to Harley P. Hennage like a second skin; cards slide beneath his nicotine-stained fingers while the Red Dog’s piano bleeds ragtime into the desert night. Marie, all calico and comet-bright laughter, keeps him orbiting at a chaste distance—until a sun-scorched prospector named Corblay drifts in, panning for quartz and stealing the only jackpot Harley ever wanted. Pride swells, collapses, re-forms into a grim gift: Harley boots himself out of town so the woman he loves can love another. Months later the Silver Dollar Saloon in San Pasqual swallows him whole; whiskey calcifies longing, and rumor christens him “the worst man in the territory,” a title he earns by never drawing first yet never missing. Out in the arroyo Corblay’s partner, the silk-gloved Carey from Boston, bashes his employer’s skull, commandeers the burros and the glittering dust that will become Marie’s curse. A canteen with a dying man’s plea drifts downstream toward oblivion. Years scab over: Marie, widowed and penniless, lands in San Pasqual with adolescent Donna in tow; Harley, gray now but still lightning-lean, installs her behind the lunch-counter till, his heart a closed roulette wheel spinning on zero. Donna blossoms into arrow-straight independence; water-rights dreamer Bob McGraw crosses her path just as Borax O’Rourke’s oily gaze slithers too close. Harley, out prospecting the claim map Marie pressed into his palm at death’s door, unearths Corblay’s canteen, the sandstone epitaph, and the truth that Carey—now masquerading as respectable—has thrived on stolen ore. A blackmail plot against McGraw detonates; Harley strides back into town carrying both evidence and destiny. Bullets solve what courts never reach: O’Rourke falls, Carey meets an Indian blade, and Harley dies with the satisfied half-smile of a gambler who finally beat the house, even if the payout is a grave under the creosote.
Synopsis
Harley P. Hennage, at the opening of the story, is a gambler about 35 years of age, who spends much of his time at the Red Dog Retreat at Gila Junction. Marie, the town belle, respects Harley as the best friend she has. Harley, on the other hand, has never declared his love, and it is not until Marie falls in love with a strange prospector that she has an intimation that Harley loves her, too. Harley resents Corblay's intrusion, and tells him to get out of town. When he learns of Marie's love for Corblay, he relents and leaves himself. As a newcomer of the Silver Dollar Retreat in distant San Pasqual, Hennage turns to business and forgetfulness, and in time comes to be known as the worst man in town. Marie's husband, meanwhile, has gone out into the desert accompanied by his faithful Indian and Carey, of Boston. Carey assaults Corblay and escapes with the burros and the gold which was discovered on the way to the claim. Corblay dies in the desert, leaving a note in his canteen and an inscription on a sandstone ledge, reading: "Stranger, look in my canteen and see that I get justice." Later, Hennage, hearing of Marie's poverty and the arrival of a child, arranges to have Marie come to San Pasqual, where he secures her a position as cashier in the eating house. For the moment Hennage's hopes have revived, but when he sees that the girl remains true to the memory of her lost husband, he holds himself aloof. Eighteen years elapse. Hennage has attached himself like a father to the now-grown child, Donna. One afternoon Marie is taken sick and is carried to her hut. Hennage is sent for and is with her when she dies. Marie gives him the location map of her husband's claim, telling him that while she has hated it because it stood for the desert and her tragedy, yet she would like him to search for the claim on the chance that perhaps there may be something there and that Donna will now need it. Donna, about this time, meets and falls in love with Bob McGraw, a young man who has just filed on certain water rights in the Sierras on the hunch that the surrounding land is to be open to entry. Borax O'Rourke is infatuated with Donna and attempts to force his attention upon her. She is shielded by Hennage and later by McGraw. Hennage, in searching for the lost claim, runs across the canteen that belonged to Corblay and sees the inscription on the ledge. He starts back for civilization. About this time Carey shows up in San Pasqual in search of one Bob McGraw. He is anxious to buy the rights which McGraw has filed on. A hold-up has been committed and the evidence points to young McGraw. Carey discovers where McGraw is located and attempts to use his information to force the young man to sell. Hennage, returning with the story of Corblay's death and the canteen, meets Carey, and with the Indian's aid, learns that Carey is the man who killed Corblay years before. Hennage forces restitution to the child, Donna. He meets death in a gun duel with O'Rourke, whom he had previously told to get out of town for his insult against Donna. The Indian, left to guard Carey, stabs him to death.
