Kitabı oku: «The Ranchman», sayfa 15
But Carrington had not gone more than half a mile when he realized that the race was to be a short one. Twice after leaving the edge of the slope Carrington looked back. The first time Spotted Tail seemed to be far away; and the next time the big, black animal was so close that Carrington cried out hoarsely.
And then as Carrington felt the distance being shortened – as he felt the presence of the black horse almost at the withers of his own animal – heard the breathing of the big pursuing beast, he knew that he was not to be shot.
Before he could swing his own horse to escape, the big, black horse was beside his own, and one of Taylor’s arms shot out, the fingers gripping the collar of the big man’s coat. Then with a vicious pull, swinging the black horse wide, Taylor jerked Carrington out of the saddle, so that he fell sidewise into the deep grass – while the black horse, eager for a run, and not immediately responding to Taylor’s pull on the reins, ran some feet before he halted and wheeled.
And when he did finally face toward the spot where the big man had been jerked from the saddle, it was to face a succession of flame-streaks that shot from the spot where Carrington stood trying his best to send into Taylor a bullet that would put an end to the horrible presentiment of death that now filled the big man’s heart.
He emptied his pistol and saw the black horse coming steadily toward him, its rider erect in the saddle, seeming not to heed the savagely barking weapon. And when the gun was empty, Carrington threw it from him and began to run. He ran, and with grim mockery, Taylor followed him a little distance – followed him until Carrington, exhausted, his breath coming in great coughing gasps, could run no farther. And then Taylor brought the big black to a halt near him, slid easily out of the saddle, and stepped forward to look into Carrington’s face, his own stiff and set, his eyes gleaming with a passion that made the other man groan hopelessly.
“Now, you miserable whelp!” said Taylor.
He lunged forward and the bodies of the two men made a swaying blot out of which came the sounds of blows, bitter and savage.
The little broken-nosed man laughed a little in recollection of Carrington’s words about Martha. The big man had let him off easily, and he was properly grateful. And yet his gratitude did not prevent him from betraying curiosity; and he watched the front of the house for Carrington’s reappearance, wondering what he meant to do with the white girl, now that he had her.
Still watching the front porch, he saw Carrington run for his horse, leap upon it and sink down the side of the slope.
The little man then ran to the front of the house and, concealed among the trees, watched the duel that was waged in the moonlight. He saw Carrington break from the thicket, mount his horse and race out into the plain; he saw Taylor – for he had recognized him – send Spotted Tail after Carrington. But he did not see the finish of the race, nor did he see what followed. But some minutes later he saw a big, black horse tearing toward him from the spot where the race had ended. He muttered gutturally and profanely, leaped on his horse and sent it plunging down the trail toward Dawes, his face ghastly with fear.
CHAPTER XXXIV – THE WILL OF THE MOB
Parsons had always been an unemotional man. His own character being immune to the little twinging impulses of humanness that grow to generous and unselfish deeds, he had looked with derision upon all persons who betrayed concern for their fellow-men. And so Parsons had lived apart from his fellows; he had watched them from across the gulf of disinterest, where emotion was foreign.
But tonight Parsons was learning what emotion is. Not from others, but from himself. Emotions – thousands of them seethed in his brain and heart. He was in an advanced state of hysteria when he rode down the Dawes trail with Marion Harlan. For there was the huge, implacable, ruthless, and murderous Carrington, whom he had just passed on the trail, to menace his very life – and he knew that just as soon as Carrington returned to the big house and found Marion gone and the guard dead, he would ride back to Dawes, seeking vengeance. And Carrington would know it was Parsons who had robbed him of the girl; for Carrington would inquire, and would discover that he had ridden into town with Marion. And when Parsons and Marion rode into Dawes fear, stark, abject, and naked, was in the man’s soul.
Dawes was aflame with light as the two passed down the street; and Parsons left the girl to sit on her horse in front of a darkened store, while he rode down the street, peering into other stores, alight and inviting. He hardly knew what he did want. He knew, however, that there was little time, for at any minute now Carrington might come thundering into town on his errand of vengeance; and whatever Parsons did must be done quickly.
He chose the second store he came to. He thought the place was a billiard-room until he entered and stood just inside the door blinking at the lights; and then he knew it was a saloon, for he saw the bar, the back-bar behind it, littered with bottles, and many tables scattered around. More, there were perhaps a hundred men in the place – some of them drinking; and at the sight of them all, realizing the mightiness of their number, Parsons raised his hands aloft and screamed frenziedly:
“Men! There’s been a crime committed tonight! At the Huggins house! Carrington did it! He abducted my niece! I want you men to help me! Carrington is going to kill me! And I want you to protect my niece!”
For an instant after Parsons’ voice died in a breathless gasp, for he blurted his story, the words coming in a stream, with hardly a pause between them; there was an odd, strained silence. Then a man far back in the room guffawed loudly:
“Plumb loco. Too much forty-rod!”
There was a half-hearted gale of laughter at the man’s taunt; and then many men were around Parsons, ready to laugh and jeer. And while some of the men peered at Parsons, cynically inspecting him for signs of drunkenness, several others ran to the open door and looked out into the street.
“There’s somethin’ in his yappin’, boys,” stated a man who returned from the door; “there’s a gal out here, sure enough, setting on a hoss, waitin’.”
There was a concerted rush outside to see the girl, and Parsons was shoved and jostled until he, too, was forced to go out. And by the time Parsons reached Marion’s side she had been questioned by the men. And wrathful curses arose from the lips of men around her.
“Didn’t I know he was that kind of a skunk!” shouted a man near Parsons. “I knowed it as soon as he beat Taylor out of the election!”
“I’m for stringin’ the scum up!” yelled another man. “This town can git along without guys that go around abductin’ wimmen!”
There were still other lurid and threatening comments. And many profane epithets rose, burdened with menace, for Carrington. But the girl, humiliated, weak, and trembling, did not hear all of them. She saw other men emerging from doorways – all of them running toward her to join those who had come out of the saloon. And then she saw a woman coming toward her, the men making a pathway for her – a motherly looking woman who, when she came near the girl, smiled up at her sympathetically and reached up her hands to help the girl out of the saddle.
Marion slipped down, and the woman’s arms went around her. And with many grimly pitying glances from the men in the crowd about her, which parted to permit her to pass, she was led into a private dwelling at a little distance down the street, into a cozy room where there were signs of decency and refinement. The woman placed the girl in a chair, and stood beside her, smoothing her hair and talking to her in low, comforting tones; while outside a clamor rose and a confused mutter of many voices out of which she began to catch sentences, such as:
“Let’s fan it to the big house an’ git him!”
“There’s too many crooks in this town – let’s run ’em out!”
“What in hell did he come here for?”
“Judge Littlefield is just as bad – he cheated Taylor out of the election!” “That’s right,” answered another voice. “Taylor’s our man!”
“They are all wrought up over this, my dear,” said the woman. “For a long time there has been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction over the way they cheated Quinton Taylor out of the mayoralty. I don’t think it was a bit fair. And,” she continued, “there are other things. They have found out that Carrington is behind a scheme to steal the water rights from the town – something he did to the board of directors of the irrigation company, I believe. And he has had his councilmen pass laws to widen some streets and open new ones. And the well-informed call it a steal, too. Mr. Norton has stirred up a lot of sentiment against Carrington and Danforth, and all the rest of them. Secretly, that is. And there is that murder charge against Quinton Taylor,” went on the woman. “That is preposterous! Taylor was the best friend Larry Harlan ever had!”
But the girl turned her head, and her lips quivered, for the mention of Taylor had brought back to her the poignant sense of loss that she had felt when she had learned of the charge against Taylor. She bowed her head and wept silently, the woman trying again to comfort her, while outside the noise and tumult grew in volume – threatening violence.
By the time Marion Harlan had dropped into the chair in the room of the house into which the woman had taken her, the crowd that had collected in the street was packed and jammed against the buildings on each side of it.
Those who had come late demanded to be told what had happened; and some men lifted Parsons to the back of his horse, and with their hands on his legs, bracing him, Parsons repeated the story of what had occurred. More – yielding to the frenzy that had now taken possession of his senses, he told of Carrington’s plotting against the town; of the man’s determination to loot and steal everything he could get his hands on. He told them of his own culpability; he assured them he had been as guilty as Carrington and Danforth – who was a mere tool, though as unscrupulous as Carrington. He gave them an account of Carrington’s stewardship of his own money; and he related the story of Carrington’s friendship with the governor, connecting Carrington’s trip to the capital with the stealing of the election from Taylor.
It is the psychology of the mob that it responds in some measure to the frenzy of the man who agitates it. So it was with the great crowd that now swarmed the wide street of Dawes. Partisan feeling – all differences of opinion that in other times would have barred concerted action – was swept away by the fervent appeal Parsons made, and by his complete and scathing revelation of the iniquitous scheme to rob the town.
A great sigh arose as Parsons finished and was drawn down, his hat off, his hair ruffled, his eyes gleaming with the strength of the terrible frenzy he was laboring under. The crowd muttered; voices rose sharply; there was an impatient movement; a concerted stiffening of bodies and a long pause, as of preparation.
Aroused, seething with passion, with a vindictive desire for action, swift and ruthless, the crowd waited – waited for a leader. And while the pause and the mutterings continued, the leader came.
It was the big, grim-faced Bothwell, at the head of the Arrow outfit. With his horse in a dead run, the other horses of the outfit crowding him close, Bothwell brought his horse to a sliding halt at the edge of the crowd.
Bothwell’s eyes were ablaze with the light of battle; and he stood in his stirrups, looming high above the heads of the men around him, and shouted:
“Where’s my boss – Squint Taylor?” And before anyone could answer – “Where’s that damned coyote Carrington? Where’s Danforth? What’s wrong here?”
It was Parsons who answered him. Parsons, again clambering into the saddle from which he had spoken, now shrieking shrilly:
“It’s Carrington’s work! He abducted Marion Harlan, my niece. He’s a scoundrel and a thief, and he is trying to ruin this town!”
There was a short silence as Parsons slid again to the ground, and then the man growled profanely:
“Let’s run the whole bunch out of town! Start somethin’, Bothwell!”
Bothwell laughed, a booming bellow of grim mirth that stirred the crowd to movement. “We’ve been startin’ somethin’! This outfit is out for a clean-up! There’s been too much sneakin’ an’ murderin’; an’ too many fake warrants flyin’ around, with a bunch like them Keats guys sent out to kill innocent men. Damn their hides! Let’s get ’em – all of ’em!”
He flung his horse around and leaped it between the other horses of the Arrow outfit, sending it straight to the doors of the city hall. Closing in behind him, the other members of the Arrow outfit followed; and behind them the crowd, now able to center its passion upon something definite, rushed forward – a yelling, muttering, turbulent mass of men intent to destroy the things which the common conscience loathes.
It seemed a lashing sea of retribution to Danforth and Judge Littlefield, who were in the mayor’s office, a little group of their political adherents around them. At the first sign of a disturbance, Danforth had attempted to gather his official forces with the intention of preserving order. But only these few had responded, and they, white-faced, feeling their utter impotence, were standing in the room, terror-stricken, when Bothwell and the men of the Arrow outfit, with the crowd yelling behind them, entered the door of the office.
The little, broken-nosed man had done well to leave the vicinity of the big house before Taylor arrived there. For when Taylor emerged from the front room, in which the light still burned, his soul was still in the grip of a lust to slay.
He was breathing fast when he emerged from the house, for what he saw there had puzzled him – the guard lying on the floor and Marion gone – and he stood for an instant on the porch, scanning the clearing and the woods around the house with blazing eyes, his guns in hand.
The silence around the house was deep and solemn now, and over Taylor stole a conviction that Carrington had sent Marion to Dawes in charge of some of his men; having divined that he would come for her. But Taylor did not act upon the conviction instantly. He ran to the stable, stormed through it – and the other buildings in the cluster around the ranchhouse; and finding no trace of men or girl, he at last leaped on Spotted Tail and sent him thundering over the trail toward Dawes.
When he arrived in town a swaying, shouting, shooting mob jammed the streets. He brought his horse to a halt on the edge of the crowd that packed the street in front of the city hall, and demanded to know what was wrong.
The man shouted at him:
“Hell’s to pay! Carrington abducted Marion Harlan, an’ that little guy – Parsons – rescued her. An’ Parsons made a speech, tellin’ folks what Carrington an’ Danforth an’ all the rest of the sneakin’ coyotes have done, an’ we’re runnin’ the scum out of town!” And then, before Taylor could ask about the girl, the man raised his voice to a shrill yell:
“It’s Squint Taylor, boys! Squint Taylor! Stand back an’ let ol’ Squint take a hand in this here deal!”
There was a wild, concerted screech of joy. It rose like the shrieking of a gale; it broke against the buildings that fringed the street; it echoed and reechoed with terrific resonance back and forth over the heads of the men in the crowd. It penetrated into the cozy room of a private dwelling, where sat a girl who started at the sound and sat erect, her face paling, her eyes, glowing with a light that made the motherly looking woman say to her, softly:
“Ah, then you do believe in him, my dear!”
It was when the noise and the tumult had subsided that Taylor went to her. For he had been told where he might find her by men who smiled sympathetically at his back as he walked down the street toward the private dwelling.
She was at the door as soon as he, for she had been watching from one of the front windows, and had seen him come toward the house.
And when the motherly looking woman saw them in each other’s arms, the moon and the light from within the house revealing them to her, and to the men in the crowd who watched from the street, she smiled gently. What the two said to each other will never be known, for their words were drowned in the cheer that rose from hoarse-voiced men who knew that words are sometimes futile and unnecessary.
CHAPTER XXXV – TRIUMPH AT LAST
A month later, Taylor walked to the front door of the Arrow ranchhouse and stood on the threshold looking out over the great sweep of green-brown plain that reached eastward to Dawes.
A change had come over Taylor. His eyes had a gentler light in them – as though they had seen things that had taken the edge off his sterner side; and there was an atmosphere about him that created the impression that his thoughts were at this moment far from violence.
“Mr. Taylor!” said a voice behind him – from the front room. There had been an undoubted accent on the “Mr.” And the voice was one that Taylor knew well; the sound of it deepened the gentle gleam in his eyes.
“Mrs. Taylor,” he answered, imparting to the “Mrs.” exactly the emphasis the voice had placed on the other.
There was a laugh behind him, and then the voice again, slightly reproachful: “Oh, that sounds so awfully formal, Squint!”
“Well,” he said, “you started it.”
“I like ‘Squint’ better,” said the voice.
“I’m hoping you keep on liking Squint all the days of your life,” he returned.
“I was speaking of names,” declared the voice.
“Doan’ yo’ let her fool yo’, Mr. Squint!” came another voice, “fo’ she think a heap mo’ of you than she think of yo’ name!”
“Martha!” said the first voice in laughing reproof, “I vow I shall send you away some day!”
And then there was a clumping step on the floor, and Martha’s voice reached the door as she went out of the house through the kitchen:
“I’s goin’ to the bunkhouse to expostulate wif that lazy Bud Hemmingway. He tole me this mawnin’ he’s gwine feed them hawgs – an’ he ain’t done it!”
And then Mrs. Taylor appeared at the door and placed an arm around her husband’s neck, drawing his head over to her and kissing him.
She looked much like the Marion Harlan who had left the Arrow on a night about a month before, though there was a more eloquent light in her eyes, and a tenderness had come over her that made her whole being radiate.
“Don’t you think you had better get ready to go to Dawes, dear?” she suggested.
“I like that better than ‘Squint’ even,” he grinned.
For a long time they stood in the doorway very close together. And then Mrs. Taylor looked up with grave eyes at her husband.
“Won’t you please let me look at all of father’s note to you, Squint?” she asked.
“That can’t be done,” he grinned at her. “For,” he added, “that day after I let you read part of it I burnt it. It’s gone – like a lot of other things that are not needed now!”
“But what did it say – that part that you wouldn’t let me read?” she insisted.
“It said,” he quoted, “‘I want you to marry her, Squint.’ And I have done so – haven’t I?”
“Was that all?” she persisted.
“I’d call that plenty!” he laughed.
“Well,” she sighed, “I suppose that will have to be sufficient. But get ready, dear; they will be waiting for you!” She left him and went into a room, from where she called back to him: “It won’t take me long to dress.” And then, after an interval: “Where do you suppose Uncle Elam went?”
He scowled out of the doorway; then turned and smiled. “He didn’t say. And he lost no time saying farewell to Dawes, once he got his hands on the money Carrington left.” Taylor’s smile became a laugh, low and full of amusement.
Shortly Mrs. Taylor appeared, attired in a neat riding-habit, and Taylor donned coat and hat, and they went arm in arm to the corral gate, where their horses were standing, having been roped, saddled, and bridled by the “lazy” Bud Hemmingway, who stood outside the bunkhouse grinning at them.
“Well, good luck!” Bud called after them as they rode toward Dawes.
Lingering much on the way, and stopping at the Mullarky cabin, they finally reached the edge of town and were met by Neil Norton, who grinned widely when he greeted them.
Norton waved a hand at Dawes. As in another time, Dawes was arrayed in holiday attire, swathed in a riot of color – starry bunting, flags, and streamers, with hundreds of Japanese lanterns suspended festoonlike across the streets. And now, as Taylor and the blushing, moist-eyed woman at his side rode down the street, a band on a platform near the station burst into music, its brazen-tongued instruments drowning the sound of cheering.
“We got that from Lazette,” grinned Norton. “We had to have some noise! As I told you the other day,” he went on, speaking loudly, so that Taylor could hear him above the tumult, “it is all fixed up. Judge Littlefield stayed on the job here, because he promised to be good. He hadn’t really done anything, you know. And after we made Danforth and the five councilmen resign that night, and saw them aboard the east-bound the next morning, we made Littlefield wire the governor about what had happened. Littlefield went to the capital shortly afterward and told the governor some things that astonished him. And the governor appointed you to fill Danforth’s unexpired term. But, of course, that was only an easy way for the governor to surrender. So everything is lovely.”
Norton paused, out of breath.
And Taylor smiled at his wife. “Yes,” he said, as he took her arm, “this is a mighty good little old world – if you treat it right.”
“And if you stay faithful,” added the moist-eyed woman.
“And if you fall in love,” supplemented Taylor.
“And when the people of a town want to honor you,” added Norton significantly.
And then, arm in arm, followed by Norton, Taylor and his wife rode forward, their horses close together, toward the great crowd of people that jammed the street around the band-stand, their voices now raised above the music that blared forth from the brazen instruments.
