THE SHADE WHO STALLED
Mr. Wagg did not hurry. He used several days for his trip to Egypt.
He drove leisurely along roads which led through small towns and
out-of-the-way places. That plan afforded him opportunity and excuse for
pitching a tent to serve as shelter during the night stops. And after
the tent was pitched and the dusk descended, Vaniman was able to come
thankfully from the hateful restraint of the van and stroll along the
woodland aisles and get the kinks out of his anatomy.
But, although he eased his body, he was unable to ease his mind. He had
not expected to enjoy his questionable freedom, anyway. Liberty was of
value to him only as he might be able to use it in his fight for his
rights as an innocent man. He could not freely use his liberty until he
had cleared his name and thereby justified his escape from the prison.
Now he was wondering whether he would have allowed Wagg to proceed as
he did had the guard apprised him of the full details of the plan. The
sweat of anguish stood out on him as he pondered in the jolting van; he
found no pleasure in the respite of the peaceful woods.
By the plot of Wagg he had dealt his loved ones the cruel blow that
sudden death inflicts on the affections. In spite of what he hoped to
gain from his freedom, Vaniman was accusing himself, realizing what his
mother, his sister, and Vona were suffering. It was his nature to draw
fine distinctions in points of honor; he was ashamed in the presence of
Wagg; and in the consideration of the interests of self, he felt that
his liberty was exacting too great a price from others. To all intents
and purposes, outside the knowledge of one man to the contrary, he was
dead, and he had deprived his best beloved of hope and peace of mind.
The one man in the secret profanely declared that if Vaniman made
an attempt to communicate with any person in the world until their
particular business had been settled, the whole project was in danger.
“I don't care how much dependence you put in your mother's good sense.
She's a woman, and women slop over when they're all wowed up! She'd have
to tell your sister, wouldn't she? She couldn't let your sister go
on suffering. And your sister's too young to be trusted. Vaniman, the
toughest part is over for 'em. That's a cinch! They'll go on sorrowing,
of course, but they'll be feeling more reconciled every day. Mourners
always do. Mourners can't help seeing the bright side, after a time.
Think of that and quit your foolishness. You have made a trade with me.
Till your part of that trade is carried out you ain't a free agent to do
what you want to do in your own affairs.”
The worry over his inability to carry out that trade was mingled with
the young man's general bitterness of regret because he had challenged
Fate so boldly.
“There's one thing about it,” Mr. Wagg pursued, “the quicker you come
across with me the sooner you can do what you darnation want to on your
own hook. I have worked a thing that could be worked only once. You're
out--and you're out right. Nobody is chasing you. Take another name,
show up in some other part of the country, and you'll live happy ever
after.”
He dwelt on that theme whenever the two talked, and he played all the
variations. Furthermore, he complained because Vaniman was not showing
his gratitude in more hearty fashion. “I catch you looking at me like
a youngster would look at a bumblebee crawling across his bare foot.
I don't ask to be taken into your bosom as your main and particular
chum--understand that! But while there's business on between us I expect
pleasant looks, even if you don't feel like handing me conversation.”
Mr. Wagg was doing practically all the talking on that trip. He had
emerged from his cocoon of taciturnity. He explained that naturally he
was a great talker, but that prison rules had pretty nigh paralyzed his
tongue and he was trying to get it back into good working order once
more.
He made an especial point of vaunting himself upon the success of his
scheme of deliverance. He tackled the thing from all angles. He played
it up as the greatest achievement that ever had been worked in behalf of
a convict. Mr. Wagg, serving as board of appraisal of his own feat, kept
boosting the value. It was evident that he was suspecting that Vaniman,
out and free, was in the mood that is characteristic of the common run
of humanity: urgent desire is reckless about price; possession proceeds
to haggle and demur.
“And there's one thing about it,” insisted Wagg, “we've got to keep on
going ahead. We can't back up. We can't dissolve partnership. And the
trade has got to stand as it was made--fifty-fifty.”
“I'm not going back on the trade.”
They were sitting close to each other on a tussock behind their little
tent. Mr. Wagg leaned close and bored Vaniman with earnest gaze. “We'll
fetch Egypt on to-morrow's hitch. Of course, you're going to stick close
to me, and you can bet that I'm going to stick close to you till the
whack-up has been made. No shenanigan! Now, seeing how far I have
gone in doing my part, don't you think it's about time for you to come
across?”
Vaniman spread his hands. “How can I? Wait till we get to Egypt.” Right
then he had no notion of what he was going to do when he arrived in
Egypt. He had not dared to look the proposition squarely in the face.
He did not even analyze his feelings. He was dimly conscious that he
was pitying Wagg. That ambitious person was in for a grievous
disappointment. To be sure, Wagg had insisted on following a current
belief and persisted in building his hopes on a fallacy and had forced
human nature until weak human nature had snapped under the strain. Wagg
had refused to believe the truth; he had preferred to indulge his
own delusion in regard to the treasure of the Egypt Trust company.
Nevertheless, Vaniman was ashamed--and he was afraid.
Britt was the crux of the situation--that was evident enough! Britt
knew where the coin was. Vaniman was sure on that point. Britt had so
maneuvered that wild-goose errand to Levant that he had made the affair
furnish opportunity to himself and fix the odium on Vaniman. In spite of
what the young man knew of Britt's lust for money, he believed that the
usurer had worked a scheme to ruin a rival instead of merely operating
to add to his riches. But Vaniman knew Britt well enough to reach the
conclusion that, once having the hard cash in his possession, and the
blame fastened on another man, Britt was allowing avarice to stand pat
on the play.
But if, now being on the job in person, he could rig a scheme to make
Britt disclose, what could be done for coadjutor Wagg? There was a
reward posted for information leading to the recovery of the money.
Britt had offered that reward. He had made quite a show of the thing
in the public prints. He pledged himself to pay the sum of two thousand
five hundred dollars from his own pocket, and Vaniman bitterly realized
just why Britt had adopted that pose. Would Wagg be content with the sop
of the reward?
The man who had been declared dead knew that he must play for time. He
ran over various plans in his head. He did not feel like blurting out
the truth to Mr. Wagg and asking what that effectually compromised
gentleman was going to do about it. He needed Mr. Wagg. He thought of
pleading that the summer landscape was so much different from the winter
lay of the land, when the snow was heaped in the gullies and on the
hills, that he was bothered in remembering just where he had planted the
treasure that night; he reflected that he might show Mr. Wagg a hole in
the rocks and assert that some of the persistent Egyptian gold hunters
had undoubtedly located the money and taken it for themselves; being
moved to more desperate projects, he meditated on the plan of coming
across to Wagg with the whole story, showing him that Britt must be
guilty, and thereby turning a blackmailer loose on the magnate with
plenty of material to use in extorting what Wagg might consider fair pay
for the work he had put in.
But Vaniman was freshly free from prison walls. Just then he was
psychologically incapable of standing up for himself as a real man
ought. His sense of innocence had not been able to withstand that
feeling of intimidation with which a prisoner becomes obsessed. Right
along with him was the man who had been persistently his guard in the
prison. Wagg's narrow rut of occupation had had its full effect on his
nature. His striated eyeballs had a vitreous look; they were as hard as
marbles. Vaniman knew that he could not look at those eyes and tell a
convincing lie. In view of Wagg's settled convictions in the matter of
the treasure, the real truth might be harder to support than a lie.
Vaniman went into the van like a whipped dog into a kennel and lay awake
and wrestled with his difficulties.
During the progress of the pilgrimage the next day Wagg halted
frequently. Vaniman could hear the conversations between his charioteer
and the natives of the section. Mr. Wagg was seeking information and at
the same time he gave out a modest amount of revelation about himself
and his need of a retired spot where he might recuperate. He explained
that he wanted to find a camp in some place so remote that nobody would
be coming around jarring his nerves.
Eventually he got on track of what he wanted. A native told him about an
abandoned log house on the top of a mountain called “Devilbrow.”
“They used it for a fire-warden station in the days when Egypt had
enough timber to make it an object to protect it,” said the man. “You'll
be plenty lonesome up there. You can get your wagon within half a mile.
Pack your truck on your hoss's back and lead him the rest of the way.
That's what I used to do. I was warden till I found myself trying to
carry on conversations with tumblebugs and whippoorwills.”
When Wagg had driven along far enough so that the native could not
overhear, he hailed Vaniman through the trap in the top of the van.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes.”
“Is that Devilbrow within grabbing distance of what we're after?”
Vaniman returned a hearty affirmative. He had been able to see those
craggy heights from his window in Britt Block. The thought that what he
wanted to grab and what Mr. Wagg wanted to grab were not exactly mated
as desired objects did not shade his candor when he asserted that
Devilbrow was just the place from which to operate.
“All right!” chirruped Wagg. “Us for it!” He displayed the first
cheeriness he had shown on the trip. He whistled for a time. Then he
sang, over and over, to a tune of his own, “Up above the world so high,
like a di'mond in the sky.” This display of Wagg's hopeful belief that
the fifty-fifty settlement was near at hand served to increase Vaniman's
despondency.
Obeying the native's instructions as to the route, Wagg soon turned off
the highway and drove along a rutted lane which whiplashed a slope that
continually became steeper. Soon he pulled up and told Vaniman to get
out and walk and ease the load on the horse. Wagg got down and walked,
too.
The trail up Devilbrow was on the side away from the village of Egypt.
The way was through hard growth. There were no houses--no sign of a
human being. Wagg's cheerfulness increased. And he said something which
put a glimmer of cheer into Vaniman's dark ponderings.
“There's no call to hurry the thing overmuch. If I recuperate too sudden
and show up back home it might look funny, after the way I bellowed
about my condition. There's plenty of flour, bacon, and canned stuff in
that van. I reckon we'd better get our feet well settled here and make
sure that nobody is watching us; the money is safer in the hole than
with us, for the time being. My pay is going on and the future looks
rosy.”
A cock partridge rose from the side of the lane and whirred away through
the beech leaves that the first frost of early autumn had yellowed.
“And I've got a shotgun and plenty of shells! Son, let's forget that
we have ever been in state prison. In the course of time that place is
about as wearing on a guard as it is on a convict.”
The log camp was behind a spur of the rocky summit and was hidden from
the village below. Wagg commented with satisfaction on the location when
they had reached the place. The van had been concealed in a ravine
which led from the lane. The work of loading the horse with the sacked
supplies, and the ascent of the mountain, had consumed hours. Twilight
was sifting into the valleys by the time they had unloaded the stuff and
stabled the horse in a lean-to.
There was a stove in the camp, and the place was furnished after a
fashion with chairs and a table fashioned from birch saplings. The
blankets of Wagg's camp equipment made the bunks comfortable.
Wagg had been the cook as well as the captain of the expedition. He did
better that evening with the wood-burning stove than he had done with
the oil stove of his kit.
After supper, before he turned in, Vaniman went out on a spur of
Devilbrow and gazed down on the scattered lights of the village of
Egypt. As best he could he determined the location of the Harnden house.
He felt as helplessly aloof as if he were a shade revisiting the scene
of his mortal experiences.