The Uphill Climb | Page 7

pulled his
moleskin cap well down, and went out into the storm without a word to
Sandy, which was also unusual; it was Ford's custom to wash the dishes,

because he objected to Sandy's economy of clean, hot water. Sandy
flattened his nose against the window, saw that Ford, leaning well
forward against the drive of the wind, was battling his way toward the
hotel, and guessed shrewdly that he would see him no more that day.
"He better keep sober till his knuckles git well, anyway," he mumbled
disapprovingly. "If he goes to fighting, the shape he's in now--"
Ford had no intention of fighting. He went straight up to the bar, it is
true, but that was because he saw that Sam was at that moment
unoccupied, save with a large lump of gum. Being at the bar, he drank a
glass of whisky; not of deliberate intent, but merely from force of habit.
Once down, however, the familiar glow of it through his being was
exceedingly grateful, and he took another for good measure.
"H'lo, Ford," Sam bethought him to say, after he had gravely taken
mental note of each separate scar of battle, and had shifted his cud to
the other side of his mouth, and had squeezed it meditatively between
his teeth. "Feel as rocky as you look?"
"Possibly." Ford's eyes forbade further personalities. "I'm out after
information, Sam, and if you've got any you aren't using, I'd advise you
to pass it over; I can use a lot, this morning. Were you sober, night
before last?"
Sam chewed solemnly while he considered. "Tolerable sober, yes," he
decided at last. "Sober enough to tend to business; why?"
With his empty glass Ford wrote invisible scrolls upon the bar. "I--did
you happen to see--my--the lady I married?" He had been embarrassed
at first, but when he finished he was glaring a challenge which shifted
the disquiet to Sam's manner.
"No. I was tendin' bar all evenin'--and she didn't come in here."
Ford glanced behind him at the sound of the door opening, saw that it
was only Bill, and leaned over the bar for greater secrecy, lowering his
voice as well.

"Did you happen to hear who she was?"
Sam stared and shook his head.
"Don't you know anything about her at all--where she came from--and
why, and where she went?"
Sam backed involuntarily. Ford's tone made it a crime either to know
these things or to be guilty of ignorance; which, Sam could not
determine. Sam was of the sleek, oily-haired type of young men, with
pimples and pale eyes and a predilection for gum and gossip. He was
afraid of Ford and he showed it.
"That's just what (no offense, Ford--I ain't responsible) that's what
everybody's wondering. Nobody seems to know. They kinda hoped
you'd explain--"
"Sure!" Ford's tone was growing extremely ominous. "I'll explain a lot
of things--if I hear any gabbling going on about my affairs." He was
seized then with an uncomfortable feeling that the words were mere
puerile blustering and turned away from the bar in disgust.
In disgust he pulled open the door, flinched before the blast of wind
and snow which smote him full in the face and blinded him, and went
out again into the storm. The hotel porch was a bleak place, with snow
six inches deep and icy boards upon which a man might easily slip and
break a bone or two, and with a whine overhead as the wind sucked
under the roof. Ford stood there so long that his feet began to tingle. He
was not thinking; he was merely feeling the feeble struggles of a
newborn desire to be something and do something worth while--a
desire which manifested itself chiefly in bitterness against himself as he
was, and in a mental nausea against the life he had been content to live.
The mystery of his marriage was growing from a mere untoward
incident of a night's carouse into a baffling thing which hung over him
like an impending doom. He was not the sort of man who marries
easily. It seemed incredible that he could really have done it; more
incredible that he could have done it and then have wiped the slate of

his memory clean; with the crowning impossibility that a strange young
woman could come into town, marry him, and afterward depart and no
man know who she was, whence she had come, or where she had gone.
Ford stepped suddenly off the porch and bored his way through the
blizzard toward the depot. The station agent would be able to answer
the last question, at any rate.
The agent, however, proved disappointingly ignorant of the matter. He
reminded Ford that there had not been time to buy a ticket, and that