On the other hand, why did he choose a spree as a relief from his
particular bunch of ghosts? Trading one misery for another was all
you could call it. Doing exactly the things that Marie's mother had
predicted he would do, committing the very sins that Marie was always
a little afraid he would commit--there must be some sort of twisted
revenge in that, he thought, but for the life of him he could not quite
see any real, permanent satisfaction in it--especially since Marie and
her mother would never get to hear of it.
For that matter, he was not so sure that they would not get to hear.
He remembered meeting, just on the first edge of his spree, one Joe De
Barr, a cigar salesman whom he had known in San Jose. Joe knew Marie--in
fact, Joe had paid her a little attention before Bud came into her life.
Joe had been in Alpine between trains, taking orders for goods from the
two saloons and the hotel. He had seen Bud drinking. Bud knew perfectly
well how much Joe had seen him drinking, and he knew perfectly well
that Joe was surprised to the point of amazement--and, Bud suspected,
secretly gratified as well. Wherefore Bud had deliberately done what
he could do to stimulate and emphasize both the surprise and the
gratification. Why is it that most human beings feel a sneaking
satisfaction in the downfall of another? Especially another who is, or
has been at sometime, a rival in love or in business?
Bud had no delusions concerning Joe De Barr. If Joe should happen to
meet Marie, he would manage somehow to let her know that Bud was going
to the dogs--on the toboggan--down and out--whatever it suited Joe to
declare him. It made Bud sore now to think of Joe standing so smug and
so well dressed and so immaculate beside the bar, smiling and twisting
the ends of his little brown mustache while he watched Bud make such
a consummate fool of himself. At the time, though, Bud had taken a
perverse delight in making himself appear more soddenly drunken, more
boisterous and reckless than he really was.
Oh, well, what was the odds? Marie couldn't think any worse of him than
she already thought. And whatever she thought, their trails had parted,
and they would never cross again--not if Bud could help it. Probably
Marie would say amen to that. He would like to know how she was getting
along--and the baby, too. Though the baby had never seemed quite real
to Bud, or as if it were a permanent member of the household. It was a
leather-lunged, red-faced, squirming little mite, and in his heart of
hearts Bud had not felt as though it belonged to him at all. He had
never rocked it, for instance, or carried it in his arms. He had been
afraid he might drop it, or squeeze it too hard, or break it somehow
with his man's strength. When he thought of Marie he did not necessarily
think of the baby, though sometimes he did, wondering vaguely how much
it had grown, and if it still hollered for its bottle, all hours of the
day and night.