CHAPTER XIII
CONFESSION
By Monday evening there were only two people in all the small town of Leauvite who had not heard of the tragedy, and these were Hester Craigmile and Betty Ballard. Mary doubted if it was wise to keep Hester thus in ignorance, but it was the Elder’s wish, and at his request she went to spend the evening and if necessary the night with his wife, to fend off any officious neighbor, while he personally directed the search.
It was the Elder’s firm belief that his son had been murdered, yet he thought if no traces should be found of Peter Junior, he might be able to spare Hester the agony of that belief. He preferred her to think her son had gone off in anger and would sometime return. He felt himself justified in this concealment, fearing that if she knew the truth, she might grieve herself into her grave, and his request to Mary to help him had been made so pitifully and humbly that her heart melted at the sight of the old man’s sorrow, and she went to spend those weary hours with his wife.
As the Elder sometimes had meetings of importance to take him away of an evening, Hester did not feel surprise at his absence, and she accepted Mary’s visit as one of sweet friendliness and courtesy because of Peter’s engagement to Betty. Nor did she wonder that the visit was made without Bertrand, as Mary said he and the Elder had business together, and she thought she would spend the time with her friend until their return.
That was all quite as it should be and very pleasant, and Hester filled the moments with cheerful chat, showing Mary certain pieces of cloth from which she proposed to make dainty garments for Betty, to help Mary with the girl’s wedding outfit. To Mary it all seemed like a dream as she locked the sad secret in her heart and listened. Her friend’s sorrow over Peter Junior’s disagreement with his father and his sudden departure from the home was tempered by the glad hope that after all the years of anxiety, she was some time to have a daughter to love, and that her boy and his wife would live near them, and her home might again know the sound of happy children’s voices. The sweet thoughts brought her gladness and peace of mind, and Mary’s visit made the dream more sure of ultimate fulfillment.
Mary felt the Elder’s wish lie upon her with the imperative force of a law, and she did not dare disregard his request that on no account was Hester to be told the truth. So she gathered all her fortitude and courage to carry her through this ordeal. She examined the fine linen that had been brought to Hester years ago from Scotland by Richard’s mother, and while she praised it she listened for steps without; the heavy tread of men bringing a sorrowful and terrible burden. But the minutes wore on, and no such sounds came, and the hour grew late.
“They may have gone out of town. Bertrand said something about it, and told me to stay until he called for me, if I stayed all night.” Mary tried to laugh over it, and Hester seized the thought gayly.
“We’ll go to bed, anyway, and your husband may just go home without you when he comes.”
And after a little longer wait they went to bed, and Hester slept, but Mary lay wakeful and fearing, until in the early morning, while it was yet dark, she heard the Elder slowly climb the stairs and go to his room. Then she also slept, hoping against hope, that they had found nothing.
Betty’s pride and shame had caused her to keep her trouble to herself. She knew Richard had gone forever, and she dreaded Peter Junior’s next visit. What should she do! Oh, what should she do! Should she tell Peter she did not love him, and that all had been a mistake? She must humble herself before him, and what excuse had she to make for all the hours she had given him, and the caresses she had accepted? Ah! If only she could make the last week as if it had never been! She was shamed before her mother, who had seen him kiss her. She was ashamed even in her own room in the darkness to think of all Peter Junior had said to her, and the love he had lavished on her. Ought she to break her word to him and beg him to forget? Ah! Neither he nor she could ever forget.
Her brothers had been forbidden to tell her a word of the reports that were already abroad in the town, and now they were both in bed and asleep, and little Janey was cuddled in Betty’s bed, also in dreamland. At last, when neither her father nor her mother returned and she could bear her own thoughts no longer, she brought drawing materials down from the studio and spread them out on the dining room table.
She had decided she would never marry any one–never. How could she! But she would study in earnest and be an illustrator. If women could never become great artists, as Peter Junior said, at least they might illustrate books; and sometime–maybe–when her heart was not so sad, she might write books, and she could illustrate them herself. Ah, that would almost make up for what she must go without all her life.
For a while she worked painstakingly, but all the time it seemed as though she could hear Richard’s voice, and the words he had said to her Sunday morning kept repeating themselves over and over in her mind. Then the tears fell one by one and blurred her work, until at last she put her head down on her arms and wept. Then the door opened very softly and Richard entered. Swiftly he came to her and knelt at her side. He put his head on her knee, and his whole body shook with tearless sobs he could not restrain. He was faint and weak. She could not know the whole cause of his grief, and thought he suffered because of her. She must comfort him–but alas! What could she say? How could she comfort him?
She put her trembling hand on his head and found the hair matted and stiff. Then she saw a wound above his temple, and knew he was hurt, and cried out: “You are hurt–you are hurt! Oh, Richard! Let me do something for you.”
He clasped her in his arms, but still did not look up at her, and Betty forgot all her shame, and her lessons in propriety. She lifted his head to her bosom and laid her cheek upon his and said all the comforting things that came into her heart. She begged him to let her wash his wound and to tell her how he came by it. She forgot everything, except that she loved him and told him over and over the sweet confession.
At last he found strength to speak to her brokenly. “Never love me any more, Betty. I’ve committed a terrible crime–Oh, my God! And you will hear of it Give me a little milk. I’ve eaten nothing since yesterday morning, when I saw you. Then I’ll try to tell you what you must know–what all the world will tell you soon.”
He rose and staggered to a chair and she brought him milk and bread and meat, but she would not let him talk to her until he had allowed her to wash the wound on his head and bind it up. As she worked the touch of her hands seemed to bring him sane thoughts in spite of the horror of himself that possessed him, and he was enabled to speak more coherently.
“If I had not been crazed when I looked through the window and saw you crying, Betty, I would never have let you see me or touch me again. It’s only adding one crime to another to come near you. I meant just to look in and see if I could catch one glimpse of you, and then was going to lose myself to all the world, or else give myself up to be hung.” Then he was silent, and she began to question him.
“Don’t! Richard. Hung? What have you done? What do you mean? When was it?”
“Sunday night.”
“But you had to start for Cheyenne early this morning. Where have you been all day? I thought you were gone forever, dear.”
“I hid myself down by the river. I lay there all day, and heard them talking, but I couldn’t see them nor they me. It was a hiding place we knew of when our camp was there–Peter Junior and I. He’s gone. I did it–I did it with murder in my heart–Oh, my God!”
“Don’t, Richard. You must tell me nothing except as I ask you. It is not as if we did not love each other. What you have done I must help you bear–as–as wives help their husbands–for I will never marry; but all my life my heart will be married to yours.” He reached for her hands and covered them with kisses and moaned. “No, Richard, don’t. Eat the bread and meat I have brought you. You’ve eaten nothing for two days, and everything may seem worse to you than it is.”
“No, no!”
“Richard, I’ll go away from you and leave you here alone if you don’t eat.”
“Yes, I must eat–not only now–but all the rest of my life, I must eat to live and repent. He was my dearest friend. I taunted him and said bitter things. I goaded him. I was insane with rage and at last so was he. He struck me–and–and I–I was trying to push him over the bluff–”
Slowly it dawned on Betty what Richard’s talk really meant.
“Not Peter? Oh, Richard–not Peter!” She shrank from him, wide-eyed in terror.
“He would have killed me–for I know what was in his heart as well as I knew what was in my own–and we were both seeing red. I’ve felt it sometimes in battle, and the feeling makes a man drunken. A man will do anything then. We’d been always friends–and yet we were drunken with hate; and now–he–he is better off than I. I must live. Unless for the disgrace to my relatives, I would give myself up to be hanged. It would be better to take the punishment than to live in such torture as this.”
The tears coursed fast down Betty’s cheeks. Slowly she drew nearer him, and bent down to him as he sat, until she could look into his eyes. “What were you quarreling about, Richard?”
“Don’t ask me, darling Betty.”
“What was it, Richard?”
“All my life you will be the sweet help to me–the help that may keep me from death in life. To carry in my soul the remembrance of last night will need all the help God will let me have. If I had gone away quietly, you and Peter Junior would have been married and have been happy–but–”
“No, no. Oh, Richard, no. I knew in a moment when you came–”
“Yes, Betty, dear, Peter Junior was good and faithful; and he might have been able to undo all the harm I had done. He could have taught you to love him. I have done the devil’s work–and then I killed him–Oh, my God! My God!”
“How do you know you pushed him over? He may have fallen over. You don’t know it. He may have–”
“Hush, dearest. I did it. When I came to myself, it was in the night; and it must have been late, for the moon was set. I could only see faintly that something white lay near me. I felt of it, and it was Peter Junior’s hat. Then I felt all about for him–and he was gone and I crawled to the edge of the bluff–but although I knew he was gone over there and washed by the terrible current far down the river by that time, I couldn’t follow him, whether from cowardice or weakness. I tried to get on my feet and could not. Then I must have fainted again, for all the world faded away, and I thought maybe the blow had done for me and I might not have to leap over there, after all. I could feel myself slipping away.
“When I awoke, the sun was shining and a bird was singing just as if nothing had happened, and I thought I had been dreaming an awful dream–but there was the wound on my head and I was alive. Then I went farther down the river and came back to the hiding place and crept in there to wait and think. Then, after a long while, the boys came, and I was terrified for fear they were searching for me. That is the shameful truth, Betty. I feared. I never knew what fear was before. Betty, fear is shameful. There I have been all day–waiting–for what, I do not know; but it seemed that if I could only have one little glimpse of you I could go bravely and give myself up. I will now–”
“No, Richard; it would do no good for you to die such a death. It would undo nothing, and change nothing. Peter was angry, too, and he struck you, and if he could have his way he would not want you to die. I say maybe he is living now. He may not have gone over.”
“It’s no use, Betty. He went down. I pushed him into that terrible river. I did it. I–I–I!” Richard only moaned the words in a whisper of despair, and the horror of it all began to deepen and crush down upon Betty. She retreated, step by step, until she backed against the door leading to her chamber, and there she stood gazing at him with her hand pressed over her lips to keep herself from crying out. Then she saw him rise and turn toward the door without looking at her again, his head bowed in grief, and the sight roused her. As the door closed between them she ran and threw it open and followed him out into the darkness.
“I can’t, Richard. I can’t let you go like this!” She clung to him, sobbing her heart out on his bosom, and he clasped her and held her warm little body close.
“I’m like a drowning man pulling you under with me. Your tears drown me. I would not have entered the house if I had not seen you crying. Never cry again for me, Betty, never.”
“I will cry. I tell you I will cry. I will. I don’t believe you are a murderer.”
“You must believe it. I am.”
“I loved Peter Junior and you loved him. You did not mean to do it.”
“I did it.”
“If you did it, it is as if I did it, too. We both killed him–and I am a murderer, too. It was because of me you did it, and if you give yourself up to be hung, I will give myself up. Poor Peter–Oh, Richard–I don’t believe he fell over.” For a long moment she sobbed thus. “Where are you going, Richard?” she asked, lifting her head.
“I don’t know, Betty. I may be taken and can go nowhere.”
“Yes, you must go–quick–quick–now. Some one may come and find you here.”
“No one will find me. Cain was a wanderer over the face of the earth.”
“Will you let me know where you are, after you are gone?”
“No, Betty. You must never think of me, nor let me darken your life.”
“Then must I live all the rest of the years without even knowing where you are?”
“Yes, love. Put me out of your life from now on, and it will be enough for me that you loved me once.”
“I will help you atone, Richard. I will try to be brave–and help Peter’s mother to bear it. I will love her for Peter and for you.”
“God’s blessing on you forever, Betty.” He was gone, striding away in the darkness, and Betty, with trembling steps, entered the house.
Carefully she removed every sign of his having been there. The bowl of water, and the cloth from which she had torn strips to bind his head she carried away, and the glass from which he had taken his milk, she washed, and even the crumbs of bread which had fallen to the floor she picked up one by one, so that not a trace remained. Then she took her drawing materials back to the studio, and after kneeling long at her bedside, and only saying: “God, help Richard, help him,” over and over, she crept in beside her little sister, and still weeping and praying chokingly clasped the sleeping child in her arms.
From that time, it seemed to Bertrand and Mary that a strange and subtle change had taken place in their beloved little daughter; for which they tried to account as the result of the mysterious disappearance of Peter Junior. He was not found, and Richard also was gone, and the matter after being for a long time the wonder of the village, became a thing of the past. Only the Elder cherished the thought that his son had been murdered, and quietly set a detective at work to find the guilty man–whom he would bring back to vengeance.
Her parents were forced to acquaint Betty with the suspicious nature of Peter’s disappearance, knowing she might hear of it soon and be more shocked than if told by themselves. Mary wondered not a little at her dry-eyed and silent reception of it, but that was a part of the change in Betty.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER XIV
OUT OF THE DESERT
“Good horse. Good horse. Good boy. Goldbug–go it! I know you’re dying, but so am I. Keep it up a little while longer–Good boy.”
The young man encouraged his horse, while half asleep from utter weariness and faint with hunger and thirst. The poor beast scrambled over the rocks up a steep trail that seemed to have been long unused, or indeed it might be no trail at all, but only a channel worn by fierce, narrow torrents during the rainy season, now sun-baked and dry.
The fall rains were late this year, and the yellow plains below furnished neither food nor drink for either man or beast. The herds of buffalo had long since wandered to fresher spaces nearer the river beds. The young man’s flask was empty, and it was twenty-seven hours since either he or his horse had tasted anything. Now they had reached the mountains he hoped to find water and game if he could only hold out a little longer. Up and still up the lean horse scrambled with nose to earth and quivering flanks, and the young man, leaning forward and clinging to his seat as he reeled like one drunken, still murmured words of encouragement. “Good boy–Goldbug, go it. Good horse, keep it up.”
All at once the way opened out on a jutting crest and made a sharp turn to the right, and the horse paused on the verge so suddenly that his rider lost his hold and fell headlong over into a scrub oak that caught him and held him suspended in its tough and twisted branches above a chasm so deep that the buzzards sailed on widespread wings round and round in the blue air beneath him.
He lay there still and white as death, mercifully unconscious, while an eagle with a wild scream circled about and perched on a lightning-blasted tree far above and looked down on him.
For a moment the yellow horse swayed weakly on the brink, then feeling himself relieved of his burden, he stiffened himself to a last great effort and held on along the path which turned abruptly away from the edge of the cliff and broadened out among low bushes and stunted trees. Here again the horse paused and stretched his neck and bit off the tips of the dry twigs near him, then turned his head and whinnied to call his master, and pricked his ears to listen; but he only heard the scream of the eagle overhead, and again he walked on, guided by an instinct as mysterious and unerring as the call of conscience to a human soul.
Good old beast! He had not much farther to go. Soon there was a sound of water in the air–a continuous roar, muffled and deep. The path wound upward, then descended gradually until it led him to an open, grassy space, bordered by green trees. Again he turned his head and gave his intelligent call. Why did not his master respond? Why did he linger behind when here was grass and water–surely water, for the smell of it was fresh and sweet. But it was well he called, for his friendly nicker fell on human ears.
A man of stalwart frame, well built and spare, hairy and grizzled, but ruddy with health, sat in a cabin hidden among the trees not forty paces away, and prepared his meal of roasting quail suspended over the fire in his chimney and potatoes baking in the ashes.
He lifted his head with a jerk, and swung the quail away from the heat, leaving it still suspended, and taking his rifle from its pegs stood for a moment in his door listening. For months he had not heard the sound of a human voice, nor the nicker of any horse other than his own. He called a word of greeting, “Hello, stranger!” but receiving no response he ventured farther from his door.
Goldbug was eagerly grazing–too eagerly for his own good. The man recognized the signs of starvation and led him to a tree, where he brought him a little water in his own great tin dipper. Then he relieved him of saddle and bridle and left him tied while he hastily stowed a few hard-tack and a flask of whisky in his pocket, and taking a lasso over his arm, started up the trail on his own horse.
“Some poor guy has lost his way and gone over the cliff,” he muttered.
The young man still lay as he had fallen, but now his eyes were open and staring at the sky. Had he not been too weak to move he would have gone down; as it was, he waited, not knowing if he were dead or in a dream, seeing only the blue above him, and hearing only the scream of the eagle.
“Lie still. Don’t ye move. Don’t ye stir a hair. I’ll get ye. Still now–still.”
The big man’s voice came to him as out of a great chasm, scarcely heard for the roaring in his head, although he was quite near. His arms hung down and one leg swung free, but his body rested easily balanced in the branches. Presently he felt something fall lightly across his chest, slip down to his hand, and then crawl slowly up his arm to the shoulder, where it tightened and gripped. A vague hope awoke in him.
“Now, wait. I’ll get ye; don’t move. I’ll have a noose around ye’r leg next,–so.” The voice had grown clearer, and seemed nearer, but the young man could make no response with his parched throat.
“Now if I hurt ye a bit, try to stand it.” The man carried the long loop of his lasso around the cliff and wound it securely around another scrub oak, and then began slowly and steadily to pull, until the young man moaned with pain,–to cry out was impossible.
“I’ll have ye in a minute–I’ll have ye–there! Catch at my hand. Poor boy, poor boy, ye can’t. Hold on–just a little more–there!” Strong arms reached for him. Strong hands gripped his clothing and lifted him from the terrible chasm’s edge.
“He’s more dead than alive,” said the big man, as he strove to pour a little whisky between the stranger’s set teeth. “Well, I’ll pack him home and do for him there.”
He lifted his weight easily, and placing him on his horse, led the animal to the cabin where he laid him in his own bunk. There, with cool water, and whisky carefully administered, the big man restored him enough to know that he was conscious.
“There now, you’ll come out of this all right. You’ve got a good body and a good head, young man,–lie by a little and I’ll give ye some broth.”
The man took a small stone jar from a shelf and putting in a little water, took the half-cooked quail from the fire, and putting it in the jar set it on the coals among the ashes, and covered it. From time to time he lifted the cover and stirred it about, sprinkling in a little corn meal, and when the steam began to rise with savory odor, he did not wait for it to be wholly done, but taking a very little of the broth in a tin cup, he cooled it and fed it to his patient drop by drop until the young man’s eyes looked gratefully into his.
Then, while the young man dozed, he returned to his own uneaten meal, and dined on dried venison and roasted potatoes and salt. The big man was a good housekeeper. He washed his few utensils and swept the hearth with a broom worn almost to the handle. Then he removed the jar containing the quail and broth from the embers, and set it aside in reserve for his guest. Whenever the young man stirred he fed him again with the broth, until at last he seemed to sleep naturally.
Seeing his patient quietly sleeping, the big man went out to the starving horse and gave him another taste of water, and allowed him to graze a few minutes, then tied him again, and returned to the cabin. He stood for a while looking down at the pallid face of the sleeping stranger, then he lighted his pipe and busied himself about the cabin, returning from time to time to study the young man’s countenance. His pipe went out. He lighted it again and then sat down with his back to the stranger and smoked and gazed in the embers.
The expression of his face was peculiarly gentle as he gazed. Perhaps the thought of having rescued a human being worked on his spirit kindly, or what not, but something brought him a vision of a pale face with soft, dark hair waving back from the temples, and large gray eyes looking up into his. It came and was gone, and came again, even as he summoned it, and he smoked on. One watching him might have thought that it was his custom to smoke and gaze and dream thus.
At last he became aware that the stranger was trying to speak to him in husky whispers. He turned quickly.
“Feeling more fit, are you? Well, take another sup of broth. Can’t let you eat anything solid for a bit, but you can have all of the broth now if you want it.”
As he stooped over him the young man’s fingers caught at his shirt sleeve and pulled him down to listen to his whispered words.
“Pull me out of this–quickly–quickly–there’s a–party–down the–mountain–dying of thirst. Is this Higgins’ Camp? I–I–tried to get there for–for help.” He panted and could say no more.
The big man whistled softly. “Thought you’d get to Higgins’ Camp? You’re sixty miles out of the way–or more,–twice that, way you’ve come. You took the wrong trail and you’ve gone forty miles one way when you should have gone as far on the other. I did it myself once, and never undid it.”
The patient looked hungrily at the tin cup from which he had been taking the broth. “Can you give me a little more?”
“Yes, drink it all. It won’t hurt ye.”
“I’ve got to get up. They’ll die.” He struggled and succeeded in lifting himself to his elbow and with the effort he spoke more strongly. “May I have another taste of the whisky? I’m coming stronger now. I left them yesterday with all the food–only a bit–and a little water–not enough to keep them alive much longer. Yesterday–God help them–was it yesterday–or days ago?”
The older man had a slow, meditative manner of speech as if he had long been in the way of speaking only to himself, unhurried, and at peace. “It’s no use your trying to think that out, young man, and I can’t tell you. Nor you won’t be able to go for them in a while. No.”
“I must. I must if I die. I don’t care if I die–but they–I must go.” He tried again to raise himself, but fell back. Great drops stood out on his forehead and into his eyes crept a look of horror. “It’s there!” he said, and pointed with his finger.
“What’s there, man?”
“The eye. See! It’s gone. Never mind, it’s gone.” He relaxed, and his face turned gray and his eyes closed for a moment, then he said again, “I must go to them.”
“You can’t go. You’re delirious, man.”
Then the stranger’s lips twitched and he almost smiled. “Because I saw it? I saw it watching me. It often is, and it’s not delirium. I can go. I am quite myself.”
That half smile on the young man’s face was reassuring and appealing. The big man could not resist it.
“See here, are you enough yourself to take care of yourself, if I leave you and go after them–whoever they are?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
“Will you be prudent–stay right here, eat very sparingly? Are they back on the plain? If so, there is a long ride ahead of me, but my horse is fresh. If they are not off the trail by which you came, I can reach them.”
“I did not once leave the trail after–there was no other way I could take.”
“Would they likely stay right where you left them?”
“They couldn’t move if they tried. Oh, my God–if I were only myself again!”
“Never waste words wishing, young man. I’ll get them. But you must give me your promise to wait here. Will you be prudent and wait?”
“Yes, yes.”
“You’ll be stronger before you know it, and then you’ll want to leave, you know, and go for them yourself. Don’t do that. I’ll give your horse a bit more to eat and drink, and tie him again, then there’ll be no need for you to leave this bunk until to-morrow. I’m to follow the trail you came up by, and not leave it until I come to–whoever it is? Right. Do you give me your word, no matter how long gone I may be, not to leave my place here until I return, or send?”
“Oh, yes, yes.”
“Good. I’ll trust you. There’s a better reason than I care to give you for this promise, young man. It’s not a bad one.”
The big man then made his preparations rapidly, pausing now and then to give the stranger instructions as to where to find provisions and how to manage there by himself, and inquiring carefully as to the party he was to find. He packed saddlebags with supplies, and water flasks, and, as he moved about, continued to question and admonish.
“By the time I get back you’ll be as well as ever you were. A couple of days–and you’ll be fuming round instead of waiting in patience–that’s what I tell you. I’ll fetch them–do you hear? I’ll do it. Now what’s your name? Harry King? Harry King–very well, I have it. And the party? Father and mother and daughter. Family party. I see. Big fools, no doubt. No description needed, I guess. Bird? Name Bird? No. McBride,–very good. Any name with a Mac to it goes on this mountain–that means me. I’m the mountain. Any one I don’t want here I pack off down the trail, and vice versa.”
Harry King lay still and heard the big man ride away. He heard his own horse stamping and nickering, and heaving a great sigh of relief his muscles relaxed, and he slept soundly on his hard bed. For hours he had fought off this terrible languor with a desperation born of terror for those he had left behind him, who looked to him as their only hope. Now he resigned their fate to the big man whose eyes had looked so kindly into his, with a childlike feeling of rest and content. He lay thus until the sun rose high in the heavens the next morning, when he was awakened by the insistent neighing of his horse which had risen almost to a cry of fear.
“Poor beast. Poor beast,” he muttered. His vocal chords seemed to have stiffened and dried, and his attempt to call out to reassure the animal resulted only in a hoarse croak. He devoured the meat of the little quail left in the jar and drank the few remaining drops of broth, then crawled out to look after the needs of his horse before making further search for food for himself. He gathered all his little strength to hold the frantic creature, maddened with hunger, and tethered him where he could graze for half an hour, then fetched him water as the big man had done, a little at a time in the great dipper.
After these efforts he rested, sitting in the doorway in the sun, and then searched out a meal for himself. The big man’s larder was well stocked, and although Harry King did not appear to be a western man, he was a good camper, and could bake a corn dodger or toss a flapjack with a fair amount of skill. As he worked, everything seemed like a dream to him. The murmuring of the trees far up the mountain side, the distant roar of falling water that made him feel as if a little way off he might find the sea, filled his senses with an impression of unseen forces at work all about him, and the peculiar clearness and lightness of the atmosphere made him feel as if he were swaying over the ground and barely touching his feet to the earth, instead of walking. He might indeed be in an enchanted land, were it not for his hunger and the reality of his still hungry horse.