Kitabı oku: «Told in the Hills: A Novel», sayfa 14

All that evening there was scarcely question or answer to be had from Stuart. He sat by the fire, with Miss Margaret in his arms – her usual place of an evening; and through the story-telling and jollity he sat silent, looking, Jim said, as if he was "workin' hard at thinkin'."

"To-morrow night you must tell us a story," said Miss Fred, turning to him. "You have escaped now for – oh, ever so many nights."

"I am afraid my stock is about exhausted."

"Out of the question! The flimsiest of excuses," she decided. "Just imagine a new one, and tell it us instead of writing it; or tell us the one you are writing at now."

"Well, we will see when to-morrow comes;" and with that vague proposal Miss Fred had to be content.

When the morrow came Stuart looked as if there had been no night for him – at least no sleep; and Rachel, or even MacDougall himself, would not think of calling him Prince Charlie, as of old.

She was no longer so curious about him and that other man who was antagonistic to him. She had been fearful, but whatever knowledge they had of each other she had decided would not mean harm; the quiet days that had passed were a sort of guarantee of that.

Yet they seemed to have nerved Stuart up to some purpose, for the morning after the burning of the letter he appeared suddenly at the door of Genesee's shack, or the one Major Dreyer had turned over to him during his own absence.

From the inside Kalitan appeared, as if by enchantment, at the sound of a hand on the latch. Stuart, with a gesture, motioned him aside, and evidently to Kalitan's own surprise, he found himself stepping out while the stranger stepped in. For perhaps a minute the Indian stood still, listening, and then, no sounds of hostilities coming to his ears, an expressive gutteral testified to his final acquiescence, and he moved away. His hesitation showed that Rachel had not been the only one to note the bearing of those two toward each other.

Had he listened a minute longer, he might have heard the peace within broken by the voices that, at first suppressed and intense, rose with growing earnestness.

The serious tones of Stuart sounded through the thin board walls in expostulation, and again as if urging some point that was granted little patience; for above it the voice of Genesee broke in, all the mellowness gone from it, killed by the brutal harshness, the contemptuous derision, with which he answered some plea or proposition.

"Oh, you come to me now, do you?" he said, walking back and forth across the room like some animal fighting to keep back rage with motion, if one can imagine an animal trying to put restraint on itself; and at every turn his smoldering, sullen gaze flashed over the still figure inside the door, and its manner, with a certain calm steadfastness of purpose, not to be upset by anger, seemed to irritate him all the more.

"So you come this time to lay out proposals to me, eh? And think, after all these years, that I'm to be talked over to what you want by a few soft words? Well, I'll see you damned first; so you can strike the back trail as soon as you've a mind to."

"I shan't go back," said Stuart deliberately, "until I get what I came for."

The other answered with a short, mirthless laugh.

"Then you're located till doomsday," he retorted, "and doomsday in the afternoon; though I reckon that won't be much punishment, considering the attractions you manage to find up here, and the advantages you carry with you – a handsome face, a gentleman's manners and an honest name. Why, you are begging on a full hand, Mister; and what are you begging to? A man that's been about as good as dead for years – a man without any claim to a name, or to recognition by decent people – an outlaw from civilization."

"Not so bad as that, Jack," broke in Stuart, who was watching in a sort of misery the harsh self-condemnation in the restless face and eyes of Genesee. "Don't be so bitter as that on yourself. You are unjust – don't I know?"

"The hell you say!" was the withering response to this appeal, as if with the aid of profanity to destroy the implied compliment to himself. "Your opinion may go for a big pile among your fine friends, but it doesn't amount to much right here. And you'd better beat a retreat, sir. The reputation of the highly respected Charles Stuart, the talented writer, the honorable gentleman, might get some dirty marks across it if folks knew he paid strictly private visits to Genesee Jack, a renegade squaw man; and more still if they guessed that he came for a favor – that's what you called it when you struck the shack, I believe. A favor! It has taken you a good while to find that name for it."

"No, it has not, Jack," and the younger man's earnestness of purpose seemed to rise superior to the taunts and sarcasm of the other. "It was so from the first, when I realized – after I knew – I didn't seem to have thoughts for anything else. It was a sort of justice, I suppose, that made me want them when I had put it out of my power to reach them. You don't seem to know what it means, Jack, but I – I am homesick for them; I have been for years, and now that things have changed so for me, I – Jack, for God's sake, have some feeling! and realize that other men can have!"

Jack turned on him like a flash.

"You – you say that to me!" he muttered fiercely.

"You, who took no count of anybody's feelings but your own, and thought God Almighty had put the best things on this earth for you to use and destroy! Killing lives as sure as if they'd never drawn another breath, and forgetting all about it with the next pretty face you saw! If that is what having a stock of feeling leads a man to, I reckon we're as well off without any such extras."

Stuart had sat down on a camp-stool, his face buried in his hands, and there was a long silence after Genesee's bitter words, as he stood looking at the bent head with an inexplicable look in his stormy eyes. Then his visitor arose.

"Jack," he said with the same patience – not a word of retort had come from him – "Jack, I've been punished every day since. I have tried to forget it – to kill all memory by every indulgence and distraction in my reach – pursued forgetfulness so eagerly that people have thought me still chasing pleasure. I turned to work, and worked hard, but the practice brought to my knowledge so many lives made wretched as – as – well, I could not stand it. The heart-sickness it brought me almost drove me melancholy mad. The only bright thing in life was – the children – "

An oath broke from Genesee's lips.

"And then," continued Stuart, without any notice save a quick closing of the eyes as if from a blow, "and then they died – both of them. That was justice, too, no doubt, for they stayed just long enough to make themselves a necessity to me – a solace – and to make me want what I have lost. I am telling you this because I want you to know that I have had things to try me since I saw you last, and that I've come through them with the conviction that there is to be no content in life to me until I make what amends I can for the folly of the boy you knew. The thought has become a monomania with me. I hunted for months for you, and never found a trace. Then I wrote – there."

"You did!"

"Yes, I did – say what you please, do what you please. It was my only hope, and I took it. I told her I was hunting for you – and my purpose. In return I got only this," and he handed toward Genesee a sheet of paper with one line written across it. "You see – your address, nothing more. But, Jack, can't you see it would not have been sent if she had not wished – "

"That's enough!" broke in the other. "I reckon I've given you all the time I have to spare this morning, Mister. You're likely to strike better luck in some different direction than talking sentiment and the state of your feelings to me. I've been acquainted with them before – pretty much – and don't recollect that the effect was healthy."

"Jack, you will do what I ask?"

"Not this morning, sonny," answered the other, still with that altogether aggressive taunt in his tone. "I would go back to the ranch if I was you, and by this time to-morrow some of them may make you forget the favor you want this morning. So long!"

And with this suggestion to his guest to vacate, he turned his back, sat down by the fire, and began filling a pipe.

"All right; I'll go, and in spite of your stubbornness, with a lighter heart than I carried here, for I've made you understand that I want to make amends, and that I have not been all a liar; that I want to win back the old faith you all had in me; and, Jack, if my head has gone wrong, something in my heart forbade me to have content, and that has been my only hope for myself. For I have a hope, and a determination, Jack, and as for anyone helping me to forget – well, you are wrong there; one woman might do it – for a while – I acknowledge that, but I am safe in knowing she would rather help me to remember."

Genesee wheeled about quickly.

"Have you dared – "

"No, I have not told her, if that is what you mean; why – why should I?"

His denial weakened a little as he remembered how closely his impulse had led him to it, and how strong, though reasonless, that impulse had been.

The stem of the pipe snapped in Genesee's fingers as he arose, pushing the camp-stool aside with his foot, as if clearing space for action.

"Since you own up that there's someone about here that you – you've taken a fancy to – damn you! – I'm going to tell you right now that you've got to stop that! You're no more fit than I am to speak to her, or ask for a kind word from her, and I give you a pointer that if you try playing fast and loose with her, there'll be a committee of one to straighten out the case, and do it more completely than that man did who was a fool ten years ago. Now, hearken to that – will you?"

And then, without waiting for an answer, he strode out of the shack, slamming the door after him, and leaving his visitor in possession.

"I've got to show him, by staying right in these hills, that I am in earnest," Stuart decided, taking the seat his host had kicked aside, and stretching his feet out to the fire. "No use in arguing or pleading with him – there never was. But give him his own lead, and he will come around to the right point of view, though he may curse me up hill and down dale while he is doing it; a queer, queer fellow – God bless him! And how furious he was about that girl! Those two are a sort of David and Jonathan in their defense of each other, and yet never exchange words if they can help it – that's queer, too – it would be hard telling which of them is the more so. Little need to warn any man away from her, however; she is capable of taking very good care of herself."

There was certainly more than one woman at the ranch; but to hear the speech of those two men, one would have doubted it; for neither had thought it necessary even to mention her name.

CHAPTER X.
THE TELLING OF A STORY

"But you promised! Yes, you did, Mr. Stuart – didn't he, Mrs. Hardy? There, that settles it; so you see this is your evening to tell a story."

The protracted twilight, with its cool grays and purples, had finally faded away over the snow, long after the stars took up their watch for the night. The air was so still and so chill that the bugle-call at sunset had sounded clearly along the little valley from camp, and Fred thought the nearness of sound made a house seem so much more home-like. After the bugle notes and the long northern twilight, had come the grouping of the young folks about the fire, and Fred's reminder that this was to be a "story" night.

"But," declared Stuart, "I can think of none, except a very wonderful one of an old lady who lived in a shoe, and another of a house marvelously constructed by a gentleman called Jack – "

Here a clamor arose from the rebels in the audience, and from Fred the proposal that he should read or tell them of what he was working on at present, and gaining at last his consent.

"But I must bring down some notes in manuscript," he added, "as part of it is only mapped out, and my memory is treacherous."

"I will go and get them," offered Fred. "No, don't you go! I'm afraid to let you out of the room, lest you may remember some late business at camp and take French leave. Is the manuscript on the table in your room? I'll bring it."

And scarcely waiting either assent or remonstrance, she ran up the stairs, returning immediately with hands full of loose sheets and two rolls of manuscript.

"I confiscated all there was in reach," she laughed. "Here they are; you pay no money, and you take your choice."

She was such a petite, pretty little creature, her witchy face alight with the confidence of pleasure to come; and looking down at her, he remarked:

"You look so much a spirit of inspiration, Miss Fred, that you had better not make such a sweeping offer, lest I might be tempted to choose you."

"And have a civil war on your hands," warned Rachel, "with the whole camp in rebellion."

"Not much; they don't value me so highly," confessed Fred. "They would all be willing to give me away."

"A willingness only seconded by your own." This from the gallant Lieutenant on the settee. "My child, this is not leap-year, and in the absence of your parent I – "

"Yes, I know. But as Captain Holt commands in papa's absence, I don't see what extra responsibility rests on your shoulders. Now, Mr. Stuart, all quiet along the Kootenai; go ahead."

"Not an easy thing to do," he answered ruefully, trying to sort the jumbled lot of papers she had brought him, and beginning by laying the rolls of manuscript on the table back of him, as if disposing of them. "You have seized on several things that we could not possibly wade through in one evening, but here is the sketch I spoke of. It is of camp-life, by the way, and so open to criticism from you two veterans. It was suggested by a story I heard told at the Fort."

Just then a wild screech of terror sounded from the yard, and then an equally wild scramble across the porch. Everyone jumped to their feet, but Rachel reached the door first, just as Aunty Luce, almost gray from terror, floundered in.

"They's come!" she panted, in a sort of paralysis of fright and triumph of prophecy. "I done tole all you chillen! Injuns! right here – I seed 'em!"

Hardy reached for his gun, the others doing the same; but the girl at the door had darted out into the darkness.

"Rachel!" screamed Tillie, but no Rachel answered. Even Hardy's call was not heeded; and he followed her with something like an oath on his lips, and Stuart at his elbow.

Outside, it seemed very dark after the brightness within, and they stopped on the porch an instant to guide themselves by sound, if there was any movement.

There was – the least ominous of sounds – a laugh. The warlike attitude of all relaxed somewhat, for it was so high and clear that it reached even those within doors; and then, outlined against the background of snow, Stuart and Hardy could see two forms near the gate – a tall and a short one, and the shorter one was holding to the sleeve of the other and laughing.

"You and Aunty Luce are a fine pair of soldiers," she was saying; "both beat a retreat at the first glimpse of each other. And you can't leave after upsetting everyone like this; you must come in the house and reassure them. Come on!"

Some remonstrance was heard, and at the sound of the voice Hardy stepped out.

"Hello, Genesee!" he said, with a good deal of relief in his manner; "were you the scarecrow? Come in to the light, till we make sure we're not to be scalped."

After a few words with the girl that the others could not hear, he walked beside her to the porch.

"I'm mighty sorry, Hardy," he said as they met. "I was a little shaky about Mowitza to-day, and reckoned I'd better make an extra trip over; but I didn't count on kicking up a racket like this – didn't even spot the woman till she screeched and run."

"That's all right," said Hardy reassuringly. "I'm glad you came, whether intentionally or by accident. You know I told you the other day – "

"Yes – I know."

Rachel and Stuart had entered the house ahead of them, and all had dropped back into their chosen points of vantage for the evening when assurance was given that the Indians belonged to Aunty's imagination; but for those short seconds of indecision Tillie had realized, as never before, that they were really within the lines of the Indian country.

Aunty Luce settled herself sulkily in the corner, a grotesque figure, with an injured air, eyeing Genesee with a suspicion not a whit allayed when she recognized the man who had brought the first customs of war to them – taking nocturnal possession of the best room.

"No need tell me he's a friend o' you all!" she grunted. "Nice sort o' friend you's comin' to, I say – lives with Injuns; reckon I heard – umph!"

This was an aside to Tillie, who was trying to keep her quiet, and not succeeding very well, much to the amusement of the others within hearing, especially Fred.

Genesee had stopped in the outer room, speaking with Hardy; and, standing together on the hearth, in the light of the fire, it occurred to the group in the other room what a fine pair they made – each a piece of physical perfection in his way.

"A pair of typical frontiersmen," said Murray, and Miss Fred was pleased to agree, and add some praise on her own account.

"Why, that man Genesee is really handsome," she whispered; "he isn't scowling like sin, as he was when I saw him before. Ask him in here, Mrs. Tillie; I like to look at him."

Mrs. Tillie had already made a movement toward him. Perhaps the steady, questioning gaze of Rachel had impelled her to follow what was really her desire, only – why need the man be so flagrantly improper? Tillie had a great deal of charity for black sheep, but she believed in their having a corral to themselves, and not allowing them the chance of smutching the spotless flocks that have had good luck and escaped the mire. She was a good little woman, a warm-hearted one; and despite her cool condemnation of his wickedness when he was absent, she always found herself, in his presence, forgetting all but their comradeship of that autumn, and greeting him with the cordiality that belonged to it.

"I shall pinch myself for this in the morning," she prophesied, even while she held out her hand and reminded him that he had been a long time deciding about making them a visit.

Her greeting was much warmer than her farewell had been the morning he left – possibly because of the relief in finding it was not a "hostile" at their gate. And he seemed more at ease, less as if he need to put himself on the defensive – an attitude that had grown habitual to him, as it does to many who live against the rulings of the world.

She walked ahead of him into the other room, thus giving him no chance to object had he wanted to; and after a moment's hesitation he followed her, and noticed, without seeming to look at any of them, that Rachel stood back of Stuart's chair, and that Stuart was looking at him intently, as if for recognition. On the other side, he saw the Lieutenant quietly lay his hand on Miss Fred's wrist that was in shadow, just as she arose impulsively to offer her hand to the man whom she found was handsome when he had the aid of a razor. A beard of several weeks' growth had covered his face at their first meeting; now there was only a heavy mustache left. But she heeded that silent pressure of the wrist more than she would a spoken word, and instead of the proffered hand there was a little constrained smile of recognition, and a hope given that Aunty Luce had not upset his nerves with her war-cries.

He saw it all the moment he was inside the door – the refined face of Stuart, with the graciousness of manner so evidently acceptable to all, the sheets of manuscript still in his fingers, looking as he stood there like the ruling spirit of the cheery circle; and just outside that circle, though inside the door, he – Genesee – stood alone, the fact sharply accented by Miss Fred's significant movement; and with the remembrance of the fact came the quick, ever-ready spirit of bravado, and his head was held a trifle higher as he smiled down at her in apparent unconcern.

"If it is going to make Aunty Luce feel more comfortable to have company, I'm ready to own up that my hair raised the hat off my head at first sight of her – isn't quite settled into place yet;" and he ran his fingers through the mass of thick, dark hair. "How's that, Aunty?"

"Umph!" she grunted, crouching closer to the wall, and watching him distrustfully from the extreme corner of her eye.

"Have you ever been scared so badly you couldn't yell, Aunty?" he asked, with a bland disregard of the fact that she was just then in danger of roasting herself on the hearth for the purpose of evading him. "No? That's the way you fixed me a little while back, sure enough. I was scared too badly to run, or they never would have caught me."

The only intelligible answer heard from her was: "Go 'long, you!"

He did not "go 'long." On the contrary, he wheeled about in Tillie's chair, and settled himself as if that corner was especially attractive, and he intended spending the evening in it – a suggestion that was a decided surprise to all, even to Rachel, remembering his late conservatism.

Stuart was the only one who realized that it was perhaps a method of proving by practical demonstration the truth of his statement that he was a Pariah among the class who received the more refined character with every welcome. It was a queer thing for a man to court slights, but once inside the door, his total unconcern of that which had been a galling mortification to him was a pretty fair proof of Stuart's theory. He talked Indian wars to Hardy, and Indian love-songs to Hardy's wife. He coolly turned his attention to Lieutenant Murray, with whom his acquaintance was the slightest, and from the Lieutenant to Miss Fred, who was amused and interested in what was, to her, a new phase of a "squaw man;" and her delight was none the less keen because of the ineffectual attempts in any way to suppress this very irregular specimen, whose easy familiarity was as silencing as his gruff curtness had been the day they met him first.

Beyond an occasional remark, his notice was in no way directed to Rachel – in fact, he seemed to avoid looking at her. He was much more interested in the other two ladies, who by degrees dropped into a cordiality on a par with that of Aunty Luce; and he promptly took advantage of it by inviting Miss Fred to go riding with him in the morning.

The man's impudence and really handsome face gave Fred a wicked desire to accept, and horrify the Lieutenant and Tillie; but one glance at that little matron told her it would not do.

"I have an engagement to ride to-morrow," she said rather hurriedly, "else – "

"Else I should be your cavalier," he laughed. "Ah, well, there are more days coming. I can wait."

A dead silence followed, in which Rachel caught the glance Genesee turned on Stuart – a smile so mirthless and with so much of bitter irony in it that it told her plainly as words that the farce they had sat through was understood by those two men, if no others; and, puzzled and eager to break the awkward silence, she tried to end it by stepping into the breach.

"You have totally forgotten the story you were to tell us," she said, pointing to the sheets of manuscript in Stuart's hand; "if we are to have it to-night, why not begin?"

"Certainly; the story, by all means," echoed Fred. "We had it scared out of our heads, I guess, but our nerves are equal to it now. Are you fond of stories, Mr. – Mr. Genesee?"

"Uncommonly."

"Well, Mr. Stuart was about to read us one just as you came in: one he wrote since he came up in these wilds – at the Fort, didn't you say, Mr. Stuart? You know," she added, turning again to Genesee – "you know Mr. Stuart is a writer – a romancer."

"Yes," he answered slowly, looking at the subject of their discourse as if examining something rare and curious; "I should reckon – he – might be."

The contempt in the tone sent the hot blood to Stuart's face, his eyes glittering as ominously as Genesee's own would in anger. An instant their gaze met in challenge and retort, and then the sheets of paper were laid deliberately aside.

"I believe, after all, I will read you something else," he said, reaching for one of the rolls of manuscript on the table; "that is, with your permission. It is not a finished story, only the prologue. I wrote it in the South, and thought I might find material for the completion of it up here; perhaps I may."

"Let us have that, by all means," urged Tillie.

"What do you call it?"

"I had not thought of a title, as the story was scarcely written with the idea of publication. The theme, however, which is pretty fairly expressed in the quotation at the beginning, may suggest a title. I will leave that to my audience."

"And we will all put on our thinking-caps and study up a title while you tell the story, and when it is ended, see which has the best one to offer. It will be a new sort of game with which to test our imaginations. Go on. What is the quotation, to begin with?"

To the surprise of the listeners, he read that old command from Deuteronomy, written of brother to brother:

"Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray; thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.

"And with all lost things of thy brother's, which he hath lost and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise.

"In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down."

Stuart ceased after those lines, and looked for comment. He saw enough in the man's face opposite him.

"Oh, go on," said Rachel. "Never mind about the suggestions in that heading – it is full of them; give us the story."

"It is only the prologue to a story," he reminded her; and with no further comment began the manuscript.

Its opening was that saddest of all things to the living – a death-bed – and that most binding of all vows – a promise given to the dying.

There was drawn the picture of a fragile, fair little lady, holding in her chilling fingers the destiny of the lives she was about to leave behind – young lives – one a sobbing, wondering girl of ten, and two boys; the older perhaps eighteen, an uncouth, strong-faced youth, who clasped hands with another boy several years younger, but so fair that few would think them brothers, and only the more youthful would ever have been credited as the child of the little woman who looked so like a white lily.

The other was the elder son – an Esau, however, who was favorite with neither father nor mother; with no one, in fact, who had ever known the sunny face and nature of the more youthful – an impulsive, loving disposition that only shone the brighter by contrast with the darker-faced, undemonstrative one whom even his mother never understood.

And the shadow of that misunderstanding was with them even at the death-bed, where the Jacob sobbed out his grief in passionate protests against the power that would rob him, and the Esau stood like a statue to receive her commands. Back of them was the father, smothering his own grief and consoling his favorite, when he could, and the one witness to the seal that was set on the three young lives.

Her words were not many – she was so weak – but she motioned to the girl beside the bed. "I leave her to you," she said, looking at them both, but the eyes, true to the feeling back of them, wandered to the fairer face and rested there. "The old place will belong to you two ere many years – your father will perhaps come after me;" and she glanced lovingly toward the man whom all the world but herself had found cold and hard in nature. "I promised long ago – when her mother died – that she should always have a home, and now I have to leave the trust to you, my sons."

"We will keep it," said the steady voice of Esau, as he sat like an automaton watching her slowly drifting from them; while Jacob, on his knees, with his arms about her, was murmuring tenderly, as to a child, that all should be as she wished – her trust was to be theirs always.

"And if either of you should fail or forget, the other must take the care on his own shoulders. Promise me that too, because – "

The words died away in a whisper, but her eyes turned toward the Esau. He knew too bitterly what it meant. Though only a boy, he was a wild one – people said a bad one. His father had pronounced him the only one of their name who was not a gentleman. He gambled and he drank; his home seemed the stables, his companions, fast horses and their fast masters; and in the eyes of his mother he read, as never before, the effect that life had produced. His own mother did not dare trust the black sheep of the family, even though he promised at her death-bed.

A wild, half-murderous hate arose in him at the knowledge – a hate against his elegant, correctly mannered father, whose cold condemnation had long ago barred him out from his mother's sympathy, until even at her death-bed he felt himself a stranger – his little mother – and he had worshiped her as the faithful do their saints, and like them, afar off.

But even the hate for his father was driven back at the sight of the wistful face, and the look that comes to eyes but once.

"We promise – I promise that, so help me God!" he said earnestly, and then bent forward for the first time, his voice breaking as he spoke. "Mother! mother! say just once that you trust – that you believe in me!"

Her gaze was still on his face; it was growing difficult to move the eyes at will, and the very intensity of his own feelings may have held her there. Her eyes widened ever so little, as if at some revelation born to her by that magnetism, and then – "My boy, I trust – "

The words again died in a whisper; and raising his head with a long breath of relief, he saw his father drop on his knees by the younger son. Their arms were about each other and about her. A few broken, disjointed whispers; a last smile upward, beyond them, a soft, sighing little breath, after which there was no other, and then the voice of the boy, irrepressible in his grief, as his love, broke forth in passionate despair, and was soothed by his father, who led him sobbing and rebellious from the bedside – both in their sorrow forgetting that third member of the family who sat so stoically through it all, until the little girl, their joint trust, half-blind with her own tears, saw him there so still and as pathetically alone as the chilling clay beside him. Trying to say some comforting words, she spoke to him, but received no answer. She had always been rather afraid of this black sheep – he was so morose about the house, and made no one love him except the horses; but the scene just past drew her to him for once without dread.