Wild Western Tales 2: 101 Classic Western Stories Vol. 2 (Civitas Library Classics)

by Various

  He asked his question in no impertinent tone, but in the low voice of one who "shall whisper out of the dust." He had not yet recovered from the first impression of his awakening, that the world in which he now stood was not a real world.

  She understood, and half in pity and half in conquered repugnance said:

  "I come from a camp beyond"--she indicated the direction by a gesture. "I had been fishing"--she took up the basket--"and chanced on you--then." She glanced at the snake significantly.

  "You killed it in the nick of time," he said, in a voice that still spoke of the ground, but with a note of half-shamed gratitude. "I want to thank you," he added. "You were brave. It would have turned on you if you had missed. I know them. I've killed five." He spoke very slowly, huskily.

  "Well, you are safe--that is the chief thing," she rejoined, making as though to depart. But presently she turned back. "Why are you so dreadfully poor--and everything?" she asked, gently.

  His eye wandered over the lake and back again before he answered her, in a dull, heavy tone, "I've had bad luck, and, when you get down, there are plenty to kick you farther."

  "You weren't always poor as you are now--I mean long ago, when you were young."

  "I'm not so old," he rejoined, sluggishly--"only thirty-four."

  She could not suppress her astonishment. She looked at the hair already gray, the hard, pinched face, the lustreless eyes.

  "Yet it must seem long to you," she said, with meaning.

  Now he laughed--a laugh sodden and mirthless. He was thinking of his boyhood. Everything, save one or two spots all fire or all darkness, was dim in his debilitated mind.

  "Too far to go back," he said, with a gleam of the intelligence which had been strong in him once.

  She caught the gleam. She had wisdom beyond her years. It was the greater because her mother was dead, and she had had so much wealth to dispense, for her father was rich beyond counting, and she controlled his household and helped to regulate his charities. She saw that he was not of the laboring classes, that he had known better days; his speech, if abrupt and cheerless, was grammatical.

  "If you cannot go back, you can go forward," she said, firmly. "Why should you be the only man in this beautiful land who lives like this, who is idle when there is so much to do, who sleeps in the daytime when there is so much time to sleep at night?"

  A faint flush came on the grayish, colorless face. "I don't sleep at night," he returned, moodily.

  "Why don't you sleep?" she asked.

  He did not answer, but stirred the body of the snake with his foot. The tail moved; he stamped upon the head with almost frenzied violence, out of keeping with his sluggishness.

  She turned away, yet looked back once more--she felt tragedy around her. "It is never too late to mend," she said, and moved on, but stopped, for a young man came running from the woods toward her.

  "I've had a hunt--such a hunt for you!" the young man said, eagerly, then stopped short when he saw to whom she had been talking. A look of disgust came upon his face as he drew her away, his hand on her arm.

  "In Heaven's name, why did you talk to that man?" he said. "You ought not to have trusted yourself near him."

  "What has he done?" she asked. "Is he so bad?"

  "I've heard about him. I inquired the other day. He was once in a better position as a ranchman--ten years ago; but he came into some money one day, and he changed at once. He never had a good character; even before he got his money he used to gamble, and was getting a bad name. Afterward he began drinking, and he took to gambling harder than ever. Presently his money all went and he had to work; but his bad habits had fastened on him, and now he lives from hand to mouth, sometimes working for a month, sometimes idle for months. There's something sinister about him, there's some mystery; for poverty, or drink even--and he doesn't drink much now--couldn't make him what he is. He doesn't seek company, and he walks sometimes endless miles talking to himself, going as hard as he can. How did you come to speak to him, Grace?"

  She told him all, with a curious abstraction in her voice, for she was thinking of the man from a standpoint which her companion could not realize. She was also trying to verify something in her memory. Ten years ago, so her lover had just said, the poor wretch behind them had been a different man; and there had shot into her mind the face of a ranchman she had seen with her father, the railway king, one evening when his "special" had stopped at a railway station on his tour through Montana--ten years ago. Why did the face of the ranchman which had fixed itself on her memory then, because he had come on the evening of her birthday and had spoiled it for her, having taken her father away from her for an hour--why did his face come to her now? What had it to do with the face of this outcast she had just left?

  "What is his name?" she asked at last.

  "Roger Lygon," he answered.

  "Roger Lygon," she repeated, mechanically. Something in the man chained her thought--his face that moment when her hand saved him and the awful fear left him and a glimmer of light came into his eyes.

  But her lover beside her broke into song. He was happy with her. Everything was before him, her beauty, her wealth, herself. He could not dwell upon dismal things; his voice rang out on the sharp, sweet, evening air:

  "Oh, where did you get them, the bonny, bonny roses That blossom in your cheeks, and the morning in your eyes?' 'I got them on the North Trail, the road that never closes, That widens to the seven gold gates of paradise.' 'Oh, come, let us camp in the North Trail together, With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.'"

  Left alone, the man by the reedy lake stood watching them until they were out of view. The song came back to him, echoing across the waters:

  "'Oh, come, let us camp on the North Trail together, With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.'"

  The sunset glow, the girl's presence, had given him a moment's illusion, had absorbed him for a moment, acting on his deadened nature like a narcotic at once soothing and stimulating. As some wild animal in a forgotten land, coming upon ruins of a vast civilization, towers, temples and palaces, in the golden glow of an Eastern evening, stands abashed and vaguely wondering, having neither reason to understand nor feeling to enjoy, yet is arrested and abashed, so he stood. He had lived the last three years so much alone, had been cut off so completely from his kind--had lived so much alone. Yet to-night, at last, he would not be alone.

  Some one was coming to-night, some one whom he had not seen for a long time. Letters had passed, the object of the visit had been defined, and he had spent the intervening days since the last letter had arrived, now agitated, now apathetic and sullen, now struggling with some invisible being that kept whispering in his ear, saying to him: "It was the price of fire and blood and shame. You did it--you--you--you! You are down, and you will never get up. You can only go lower still--fire and blood and shame!"

  Criminal as he was, he had never become hardened, he had only become degraded. Crime was not his vocation. He had no gift for it; still, the crime he had committed had never been discovered--the crime that he did with others. There were himself and Dupont and another. Dupont was coming to-night--Dupont, who had profited by the crime, and had not spent his profits, but had built upon them to further profit; for Dupont was avaricious and prudent, and a born criminal. Dupont had never had any compunctions or remorse, had never lost a night's sleep because of what they two had done, instigated thereto by the other, who had paid them so well for the dark thing.

  The other was Henderley, the financier. He was worse perhaps than Dupont, for he was in a different sphere of life, was rich beyond counting, and had been early nurtured in quiet Christian surroundings. The spirit of ambition, rivalry, and the methods of a degenerate and cruel finance had seized him, mastered him; so that, under the cloak of power--as a toreador hides the blade under the red cloth before his enemy the toro--he held a sword of capital which did cruel and vicious things, at last becoming criminal also. Henderley had incited and paid; the oth
ers, Dupont and Lygon, had acted and received. Henderley had had no remorse, none at any rate that weighed upon him, for he had got used to ruining rivals and seeing strong men go down, and those who had fought him come to beg or borrow of him in the end. He had seen more than one commit suicide, and those they loved go down and farther down, and he had helped these up a little, but not near enough to put them near his own plane again; and he could not see--it never occurred to him--that he had done any evil to them. Dupont thought upon his crimes now and then, and his heart hardened, for he had no moral feeling; Henderley did not think at all. It was left to the man of the reedy lake to pay the penalty of apprehension, to suffer the effects of crime upon a nature not naturally criminal.

  Again and again, how many hundreds of times, had Roger Lygon seen in his sleep--had even seen awake, so did hallucination possess him--the new cattle trail he had fired for scores of miles. The fire had destroyed the grass over millions of acres, two houses had been burned and three people had lost their lives; all to satisfy the savage desire of one man, to destroy the chance of a cattle trade over a great section of country for the railway which was to compete with his own--an act which, in the end, was futile, failed of its purpose. Dupont and Lygon had been paid their price, and had disappeared and been forgotten--they were but pawns in his game--and there was no proof against Henderley. Henderley had forgotten. Lygon wished to forget, but Dupont remembered, and meant now to reap fresh profit by the remembrance.

  Dupont was coming to-night, and the hatchet of crime was to be dug up again. So it had been planned.

  As the shadows fell, Lygon roused himself from his trance with a shiver. It was not cold, but in him there was a nervous agitation, making him cold from head to foot; his body seemed as impoverished as his mind. Looking with heavy-lidded eyes across the prairie, he saw in the distance the barracks of the Riders of the Plains and the jail near by, and his shuddering ceased. There was where he belonged, within four stone walls; yet here he was free to go where he willed, to live as he willed, with no eye upon him. With no eye upon him? There was no eye, but there was the Whisperer whom he could never drive away. Morning and night he heard the words: "You--you--you! Fire and blood and shame!" He had snatched sleep when he could find it, after long, long hours of tramping over the plains, ostensibly to shoot wild fowl, but in truth to bring on a great bodily fatigue--and sleep. His sleep only came then in the first watches of the night. As the night wore on the Whisperer began again, as the cloud of weariness lifted a little from him and the senses were released from the heavy sedative of unnatural exertion.

  The dusk deepened. The moon slowly rose. He cooked his scanty meal and took a deep draught from a horn of whiskey from beneath a board in the flooring. He had not the courage to face Dupont without it, nor yet to forget what he must forget if he was to do the work Dupont came to arrange--he must forget the girl who had saved his life and the influence of those strange moments in which she had spoken down to him, in the abyss where he had been lying.

  He sat in the doorway, a fire gleaming behind him; he drank in the good air as though his lungs were thirsty for it, and saw the silver glitter of the moon upon the water. Not a breath of wind stirred, and the shining path the moon made upon the reedy lake fascinated his eye. Everything was so still except that whisper, louder in his ear than it had ever been before.

  Suddenly, upon the silver path upon the lake there shot a silent canoe, with a figure as silently paddling toward him. He gazed for a moment dismayed, and then got to his feet with a jerk.

  "Dupont," he said, mechanically.

  The canoe swished among the reeds and rushes, scraped on the shore, and a tall, burly figure sprang from it and stood still, looking at the house.

  "Qui reste là--Lygon?" he asked.

  "Dupont," was the nervous, hesitating reply.

  Dupont came forward quickly. "Ah, ben, here we are again--so," he grunted, cheerily.

  Entering the house, they sat before the fire, holding their hands to the warmth from force of habit, though the night was not cold.

  "Ben, you will do it to-night--then?" Dupont said. "Sacré, it is time!"

  "Do what?" rejoined the other, heavily.

  An angry light leaped into Dupont's eyes. "You not unnerstan' my letters--bah! You know it all right, so queeck."

  The other remained silent, staring into the fire with wide, searching eyes.

  Dupont put a hand on him. "You ketch my idee queeck. We mus' have more money from that Henderley--certainlee. It is ten years, and he t'ink it is all right. He t'ink we come no more becos' he give five t'ousand dollars to us each. That was to do the t'ing, to fire the country. Now we want another ten t'ousan' to us each, to forget we do it for him--hein?"

  Still there was no reply. Dupont went on, watching the other furtively, for he did not like this silence. But he would not resent it till he was sure there was good cause.

  "It comes to suit us. He is over there at the Old Man Lak', where you can get at him easy, not like in the city where he lif'. Over in the States, he laugh mebbe, becos' he is at home, an' can buy off the law. But here--it is Canadaw, an' they not care eef he have hunder' meellion dollar. He know that--sure. Eef you say you not care a dam to go to jail, so you can put him there, too, becos' you have not'ing, an' so dam seeck of everyt'ing, he will t'ink ten t'ousan' dollar same as one cent to Nic Dupont--ben sûr!"

  Lygon nodded his head, still holding his hands to the blaze. With ten thousand dollars he could get away into--into another world somewhere, some world where he could forget, as he forgot for a moment this afternoon when the girl said to him, "It is never too late to mend."

  Now, as he thought of her, he pulled his coat together and arranged the rough scarf at his neck involuntarily. Ten thousand dollars--but ten thousand dollars by blackmail, hush-money, the reward of fire and blood and shame! Was it to go on? Was he to commit a new crime?

  He stirred, as though to shake off the net that he felt twisting round him, in the hands of the robust and powerful Dupont, on whom crime sat so lightly, who had flourished while he, Lygon, had gone lower and lower. Ten years ago he had been the better man, had taken the lead, was the master, Dupont the obedient confederate, the tool. Now, Dupont, once the rough river-driver, grown prosperous in a large way for him--who might yet be mayor of his town in Quebec--he held the rod of rule. Lygon was conscious that the fifty dollars sent him every New Year for five years by Dupont had been sent with a purpose, and that he was now Dupont's tool. Debilitated, demoralized, how could he, even if he wished, struggle against this powerful confederate, as powerful in will as in body? Yet if he had his own way he would not go to Henderley. He had lived with a "familiar spirit" so long, he feared the issue of this next excursion into the fens of crime.

  Dupont was on his feet now. "He will be here only three days more--I haf find it so. To-night it mus' be done. As we go I will tell you what to say. I will wait at the Forks, an' we will come back togedder. His check will do. Eef he gif at all, the check is all right. He will not stop it. Eef he have the money, it is better--sacré--yes. Eef he not gif--well, I will tell you, there is the other railway man he try to hurt, how would he like--But I will tell you on the river. Maint'nant--queeck, we go."

  Without a word Lygon took down another coat and put it on. Doing so he concealed a weapon quickly, as Dupont stooped to pick a coal for his pipe from the blaze. Lygon had no fixed purpose in taking a weapon with him; it was only a vague instinct of caution that moved him.

  In the canoe on the river, in an almost speechless apathy, he heard Dupont's voice giving him instructions.

  Henderley, the financier, had just finished his game of whist and dismissed his friends--it was equivalent to dismissal, rough yet genial as he seemed to be, so did immense wealth and its accompanying power affect his relations with those about him. In everything he was "considered." He was in good-humor, for he had won all the evening, and with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes--three thousand dollars it was. It
was like a man with a pocketful of money chuckling over a coin he had found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from the reedy lake.

  Instinctively he glanced round for a weapon, mechanically his hands firmly grasped the chair in front of him. He had been in danger of his life many times, and he had no fear. He had been threatened with assassination more than once, and he had got used to the idea of danger; life to him was only a game.

  He kept his nerve; he did not call out; he looked his visitor in the eyes.

  "What are you doing here? Who are you?" he said.

  "Don't you know me?" answered Lygon, gazing intently at him.

  Face to face with the man who had tempted him to crime, Lygon had a new sense of boldness, a sudden feeling of reprisal, a rushing desire to put the screw upon him. At sight of this millionaire with the pile of notes before him there vanished the sickening hesitation of the afternoon, of the journey with Dupont. The look of the robust, healthy financier was like acid in a wound; it maddened him.

  "You will know me better soon," Lygon added, his head twitching with excitement.

  Henderley recognized him now. He gripped the armchair spasmodically, but presently regained a complete composure. He knew the game that was forward here, and he also thought that if once he yielded to blackmail there would never be an end to it. He made no pretence, but came straight to the point.

  "You can do nothing; there is no proof," he said, with firm assurance.

  "There is Dupont," answered Lygon, doggedly.

  "Who is Dupont?"

  "The French Canadian who helped me--I divided with him."

  "You said the man who helped you died. You wrote that to me. I suppose you are lying now."

  Henderley coolly straightened the notes on the table, smoothing out the wrinkles, arranging them according to their denominations with an apparently interested eye; yet he was vigilantly watching the outcast before him. To yield to blackmail would be fatal; not to yield to it--he could not see his way. He had long ago forgotten the fire and blood and shame. No Whisperer reminded him of that black page in the history of his life; he had been immune of conscience. He could not understand this man before him. It was as bad a case of human degradation as ever he had seen--he remembered the stalwart, if dissipated, ranchman who had acted on his instigation. He knew now that he had made a foolish blunder then, that the scheme had been one of his failures; but he had never looked on it as with eyes reproving crime. As a hundred thoughts tending toward the solution of the problem by which he was faced flashed through his mind, and he rejected them all, he repeated mechanically the phrase "I suppose you are lying now."