Judith of the Plains

by Marie Manning

  XIX

  "Rocked By A Hempen String"

  Alida heard the mingled sounds of footsteps and hoofs grow fainter on thetrail. The children looked at her to tell them why this night wasdifferent from all others--what was happening. But she could only coweramong them, more terrified than they. She seemed to be shrunken from thehappenings of that day. They hardly knew the little, shrivelled, graywoman who looked at them with unfamiliar eyes. Alida gazed at the littleJudith, and there was something in her mother's glance that made thelittle one hide her face in her sister's shoulder. Young Judith it was whoall unwittingly had told the lynchers that her father was at home, and inAlida's heart there was towards this child a blind, unreasoning hate.Better had she never been born than live to do this thing!

  It was the wee man, Jim, who first began to reflect resentfully on thisintrusion on his slumbers. He had been sleeping well and comfortably whensome grown-ups came with a lot of noise, and his father had gone away withthem. It had frightened him, but his mother was here, and why should shenot put him to sleep again?

  "Muvvy, sing 'Dway Wolf.'" And as she paid no heed, but looked at him,white-faced and strange, he again repeated, with his most insinuating andbeguiling tricks of eye and smile:

  "Muvvy, sing 'Dway Wolf' for Dimmy."

  The child put his head in his mother's lap, and Alida began, scarceknowing what she did:

  "'The gray wolves are coming fast over the hill, Run fast, little lamb, do not baa, do not bleat, For the gray wolves are hungry, they come here to kill, And the lambs shall be scattered--'

  "No, no, Jimmy, muvvy cannot sing. Oh, can't you feel, child? Judith,Judith, why were you ever born?"

  It was still in the valley. Had they come to the dead cotton-woods yet?Had they begun it? The children shrank from this gray-faced woman whomthey did not know and but yet a little while had been their mother. Anawful silence had fallen on the night. The range-cattle no longer bellowedin their thirst; the hot wind no longer blew from the desert. A hush notof earth nor air nor the things that were of her ken seemed to have fallenabout them, muffing the dark loneliness as by invisible flakes. Thechildren had crouched close together for comfort. They feared the little,gray-faced woman who seemed to have stolen into their mother's place andlooked at them with strange eyes.

  Jimmy looked at the woman who held him, hoping his mother would come, andhe could see them both. And while he waited he dropped off to sleep; andlittle Judith, hiding her head on Topeka's shoulder, that she might notsee the look in those accusing eyes, presently dreamed that all was wellwith her again; and Topeka reflected that if her mother should ask her inthe morning whether she had dreamed last night, she would have a fine taleto tell of men riding up, and loud voices, and trying of the door, andfather going away with them. Her mother had questioned her this morningwhen nothing had happened to warrant it. Surely she would ask againto-morrow, and Topeka could tell--she could tell--all.

  Alida looked at her three sleeping children--his children, and yet theycould sleep. Into her mind came that cry of utter desolation, "Could yenot watch with me one hour?" And God had been deaf to Him, His son, evenas He was deaf to her.

  The children were sleeping easily. The hush that had hung like a pall overthe valley had not lifted. Had they done it? Was it over yet? She went tothe door and listened. Surely the silence that wrapped the valley was athing apart. It was as no other silence that she could remember. It wasstill, still, and yet there was vibration to it, like the muffled roarwithin a shell. She strained her ears--was that the sound of horsemen goingdown the trail? No, no, it was only the beating of her foolish heart thatwould not be still, but beat and fluttered and would not let her hear.Yes, surely, that was the sound of hoofs. It was over then--they weregoing.

  She would go and look for him. Perhaps it would not be too late--she hadheard of such things. A dynamic force consumed her. She had noconsciousness of her body. Her feet and hands did things with incredibleswiftness--lighted a lantern, selected a knife, ran to the corral for anold ladder that had been there when they took possession of the desertedhouse; and through all her frantic haste she could feel this new force, asit were, lick up the red blood in her veins, burn her body to ashes as itgave her new power. She felt that never again would she have need of meatand drink and sleep. This force would abide with her till all was over,then leave her, like the whitened bones of the desert.

  It was dark in the valley, but the menacing stillness seemed to belifting. The range-cattle had again taken up their plaint, the sounds ofthe desert night swept across the stony walls of the canon. Alida knewthat it must have happened at the dead cotton-woods. There were no otherhigh trees about for miles. Again she listened before advancing. There wasno sound of hoof or champing bit or men moving quickly. They had gonetheir way into the valley. She ran swiftly, her lantern throwing its beamacross the scrubby inequalities of ground, but for her there was no needof its beacon. To-night she was beyond the halting, stumblinguncertainties of tread to which man is subject. There was magic in herfeet and in her hands and brain. Like the wind she ran, the wind on thegreat plain where there are no foot-hills to hinder its course. The black,dead trees stood out distinctly against the starry sky, and from across-limb of one of them dangled something with head awry, like a brokenjumping-jack, something that had once been a man--and her husband. Shecould touch the feet of this frightful thing and feel its human warmth. Awind came up from the desert and blew across the canon's rocky walls intothe valley, and the parody of a man swayed to it.

  She had been expecting this thing. For weeks the image of it had beengraven on her heart. Sleeping or waking, she had seen nothing but hisdangling body from the cross-limb. Yet with the actual consummation beforeher, she felt its hideous novelty as though it were unexpected. At sightof it the force that had borne her up through the happenings of that daywent out of her, and as she stood with the knife and the rope, that shehad brought in the hope of cheating the lynchers, dangling from hernerveless hand her helplessness overcame her. Again and again she calledto the dead man for help, called to him as she had been accustomed to callwhen her woman's strength had been unequal to some heavy household task.

  Far down the trail she could hear the gallop of a horse coming closer, andmingled with the sounds of its flying feet was a voice urging the horse togreater speed in the shrill cabalistic "Hi-hi-hi-ki!" of the plains-man.What was it--one of them returning to see that she did not cheat the ropeof its due?--to hang her beside him, as an after-thought, as they hangedKate Watson beside her man? Let them. She was standing near the swayingthing when horse and rider gained the ground beside her, and what was leftto her of consciousness made out that the rider was Judith. She pointed toit, and stood helpless with the dangling rope in her hand.

  "Are we too late?" Judith almost whispered, as she caught Alida's cold,inert hands. "I dreamed it all and came. If I could have dreamed itsooner!"

  Alida did not seem to hear, neither could she speak. She only pointedagain to the thing beside her.

  Judith understood. The women had a task to share, and in silence theybegan it. The lynchers had done their work all too well. Again and againthe women strove with all their strength to take down the dangling parodyof a man, which in its dead-weight resistance seemed in league with theforces against them. At last the thing was done. Down to a pale world,that in the haggard gray of morning seemed to bear in its countenancesomething of the pinch of death, Judith lowered the thing that had solately been a man. She cut the rope away from the neck, she straightenedthe wry neck that seemed to wag in pantomimic representation of the lastword to the lynchers. They'd have to reckon with him on dark nights, andwhen the wind wailed like a famished wolf and when things not to beexplained lurked in the shadows of the desert.

  The morning stillness came flooding into the cup-shaped valley like asoft, resistless wave. Something had come to the gray, old earth--anotherday, with all its human gift of joy and woe, and the earth welcomed itthough it
had known so many. The sun burst through the gold-tipped aureoleof cloud, scattering far and wide lavish promises of a perfect day. Theearth seemed to respond with a thrill. No longer was the pinch of death inher countenance. The valley, the mountains, the invisible wind, even thedead cotton-woods, seemed endowed with throbbing life that contrastedfearsomely with the terrible nullity of this thing that once had been JimRodney.

  Alida had ceased to take any part in the hideous drama. She sat on theground, a crouching thing with glittering eyes. It was past comprehensionthat the sun could shine and the world go on with her man dead before her.Judith had become the force that planned and did to save the family pride.While her hands were busy with preparations for the dead, she rehearsedwhat she would say to this and that one to account for Jim's absence. Thesilence of the men who had done this thing would be as steadfast as theirown.

  And there were the children. Through all her frantic search for things inthe house, Judith remembered that she must step softly and not waken thechildren. With each turn of the screw, as her numbed consciousness ralliedand responded afresh to the hideous realization of this thing, there cameno release from the tyrannous hold of petty detail. She remembered thatshe must be back at noon to hold post-office, and there would be theendless comedy to be played once more with her cavaliers. They must neversuspect from word or look of hers. And there was the dance to-night at theBenton ranch--she hid her face in her hands. Ah, no, she could not do thisthing! And yet they must not suspect. She must contrive to give theimpression that Jim had cheated the rope. Yes, she must go and dance, and,if need be, dance with his very murderers. Jim's children were to have the"clean start" that he intended, and they would have to get it here. Therewas no money for an exodus and a beginning elsewhere.

  Alida still crouched beside the long, even tarpaulin roll that Judith hadprepared with hands that knew not what they did. But now Judith gentlyroused her and put in her hand a spade; already she herself had begun. ButAlida stared at it dully, as if she did not understand. Then Judithpointed to something black that had begun to wheel in the sky, wheel, andwith each circular swoop come closer to the roll of tarpaulin. Then Alidaknew, and, taking the spade, she and Judith began to dig the grave.