JANET HOSMER
A silvery brightness shone in the east as they came out of Martinez'
office, that increased as they went forward until all at once the moon
arose into view, lighting the street, disclosing the flanking lines of
squat buildings, revealing the tall cottonwoods about the court house
and elsewhere thrust up in the town.
Janet Hosmer breathed a sigh of relief. The darkness had seemed potent
for further evil, but now it was as if the latter retreated with the
shadows. She felt a desire to go on alone, to separate herself from
this companion with whom chance had brought her in contact at a
dramatic moment, to get away from the whole terrible affair.
Involuntarily her spirit shrank at the nearness of the man, for though
he had struck back in self-defense he nevertheless had killed another
and the act somehow appeared to set him apart from ordinary men,
isolate him, give him the character of an Ishmael.
Yet her feelings were confused. Against this inclination was an avid
curiosity, or rather a wonderment, as to what must now be occurring in
his soul. Her eyes sought his face as he walked beside her. Neither
had spoken; and his countenance wore the same stern contained aspect,
calm, forceful, as the first time she had ever observed it. But what
was below the surface? What were the thoughts now revolving in his
mind and the emotions flowing in his breast? She could read nothing
on that composed mask of a face. Was it possible for a man to slay
another human being, even justifiably, without suffering a hurricane
of the spirit?
But perhaps he had killed men before. The fact of his carrying a
weapon and his swift deadly fire pointed ominously to previous
experience.
"Did you ever shoot any one before?" popped from between her lips.
Then she stopped, clapping her hand over her mouth in consternation
and staring at him palely.
Weir had halted too. He regarded her in silence for a little, a slight
smile resting on his face. They stood before the cattle company's
office and his look went past her once to embrace the small darkened
building.
"I'm not a murderer by trade, if that's what you mean," said he, at
last. "But I've killed a man or two before, yes." Then at the white
anguish of her lips and cheeks, his tone softened a degree as he went
on. "Unfortunately since becoming of age I've had to fight. If not
men, then the earth. If not the earth, then men. Sometimes both
together. You saw what happened to-night; that fellow was unknown to
me. He was not a workman who had been discharged and felt he had a
grievance----"
"Oh, no!" she interjected. "The Mexicans here wouldn't attempt to
murder you, however angry they might feel."
"I'm not so sure of that," he answered.
"But I am; I know them, I've lived among them!"
"Well, let that go. The man tried to kill me, at any rate. However, he
was merely a tool, hired for the business by some one else. Ordinarily
I don't discuss my affairs with any one, but since you've raised the
matter I'll just say that I've enemies in San Mateo who are anxious
to dispose of me."
"Such enemies here!"
"Yes. Who would be delighted to see me lie where that dead man lies
and who are apparently determined to effect it." He touched her sleeve
warningly. "But you will speak of this to no one."
"No, oh, no! Not a word!"
Steele gazed at her steadily. He already repented disclosing even so
little of his private concerns, an impulse altogether at variance with
his close-mouthed habit, but he had, for some vague reason, felt it
necessary to explain his course, to justify himself to this
clear-eyed, fine-spirited girl. He could not let her rest under a
misapprehension that he was a brute who reveled in blood-spilling. And
as he regarded her a conviction that she was absolutely to be trusted
settled firmly into his mind.
She would be staunch; oxen and ropes could not drag information from
her once she had determined not to speak. Yes, she would be loyal to
her given word--and to her friends. Weir's eyes glanced at the diamond
on her finger. It would be a girl like her with whom he would have
chosen to mate if fate had not directed his feet on a road which
seemingly left him no choice but incessant and solitary struggle.
"I hate it all; I have nothing but crusts and nettles!" he exclaimed,
with sudden fierce passion. And with a quick movement of his hand he
beckoned her on.
Submissively she accompanied him, her bosom rising and falling with a
quickened rhythm. Too much had happened, one thing piling on another,
for her to sort her thoughts or to attempt to understand things yet;
and in her tossing state of mind she went at his gesture as one
follows a guide, or as a simple matter of course.
In her mental turmoil that last passionate utterance of the man played
like a lambent flame. Tense, violent, spontaneous, it had come from
the heart. What harsh lot he had lived and sufferings borne she could
not even guess; but no man spoke with such unconscious bitterness who
had not undergone pain and travail of spirit. His head was now turned
a little towards her as they walked: she perceived him staring at the
moonlit street, his lips compressed, his brows knit.
Then he glanced about at her, his face clearing. "Pay no attention to
what I said," he remarked. "I shouldn't have let loose that way.
Hello, what's on now?"
Before them, and in front of the court house, was a packed crowd,
people who had run forth at the sound of shots, augmented by those who
had since arrived upon the scene. It was motionless.
"Stand back, stand back; don't trample the body!" came Sheriff
Madden's voice in an angry order.
The crowd surged a little apart in the center.
"How do you know this dead man fired the first shot?" asked some one,
vehemently.
The voices went lower so that Steele Weir and Janet Hosmer, who had
paused at the edge of the throng, were able only to catch the tones.
"Who was that who questioned the sheriff?" Weir whispered.
"Mr. Burkhardt, I think. Sounded like him."
So intent were the Mexicans upon the occurrence in their midst that
those close by remained with backs towards the pair, failing to
notice their presence. All craned eagerly to miss nothing of the
controversy.
"How do you know this engineer didn't start it?" came Burkhardt's
voice again.
"Don't be a fool; there were witnesses."
"I'd like to talk to those witnesses. I doubt if they really saw
anything. It looks to me as if there's another side to this
shooting."
"Well, of course you know--you, sitting there in Sorenson's office, as
you say," was the ironical retort.
At this juncture another voice interposed.
"Madden, we want no mistake here. This Weir doesn't bear a very good
reputation for peacefulness, from what I've learned. If this Mexican
has simply been shot down----"
"Who is that?" Steele demanded of the girl. "I can't see him."
"That"--Janet Hosmer's speech faltered--"that is Mr. Sorenson. Oh,
they misunderstand! Let me push in there and tell them how it
happened."
The engineer's hand closed about her arm.
"You'll do nothing of the kind," he commanded, low.
"But----"
"No. Remain quiet and listen."
Her eyes flew up to his at this extraordinary course, so injurious to
his own interests. She was anxious to press to the front and declare
his innocence in the affair of everything but defending his life from
an assassin. She could not understand why he also was not eager to
spring forward, why he restrained her. Then she saw the implacable
hatred on his face.
A thrill quivered through her body. The feeling she had at that
instant was one of being on the point of seeing behind the curtain of
a mystery, of making a discovery so sinister that she would gasp. Her
very finger almost rested upon it. Why were Mr. Sorenson and Mr.
Burkhardt talking as they were? Trying by innuendo to make it seem her
companion might have been guilty of a crime? Could it be---- Her blood
slowly congealed to ice at the horror of where her reasoning led.
_Could it be they were the enemies he meant!_
Such a thing was too dreadful, too absurd. They, the respected leaders
of the community, could never put a pistol in the dead wretch's hand
to slay this man beside her. Mr. Sorenson! The father of Ed, whom----
She stared blankly at her left hand.
Yet the banker's heavy, smooth words continued to assail her ears
steadily. She grasped their import once more.
"--for the story is too thin. No man could hit another across the
street in the dark as this engineer claims, not only once but twice
put a bullet where it would kill. Probably the dead man had something
on this Weir, and the latter knew it. It's not impossible he found the
fellow in his path, drew and murdered him at once, quickly put a hole
in his own hat and then carried the body across the way, running back
to Martinez' office. The thing could have been done in a minute.
Martinez' himself wouldn't have seen how it was worked. I'm not saying
that was exactly how it was done, or that this Weir did actually
murder him, but--investigate, Madden, investigate."
Steele Weir felt an angry tug at his sleeve. He looked around and
beheld Janet Hosmer's eyes distended with incredulity.
"Come away, come away," she whispered. "I should never have believed
it if I hadn't heard with my own ears!"
Keeping close to the line of buildings, they skirted the crowd, still
unnoticed, and left it behind. She walked with quick nervous steps;
her hand yet unconsciously grasped his coat sleeve. All the way to her
home, which they found dark since a messenger had called the doctor to
the court house and the Mexican girl servant also was gone, she said
nothing.
"Come up on the veranda; I want to talk," she announced when he opened
the gate.
"Wouldn't it be best if you took your mind off the whole thing, by a
book or something else? I'll go."
"As if I could take my mind off! There are matters in this I must
know. You may wonder when I say it, Mr. Weir, but this happening
concerns me more than you dream." Her dark glowing gaze brooded on him
with a sort of intense determination. Then she went on, "It--it
involves my whole future as well as your own, though in a different
way. So come inside, if you please."
Weir in silence accompanied her upon the dark, broad, vine-clad porch.
In the half-gloom he found chairs for them.
"I'm going to the point at once," she declared. "Why did Mr. Sorenson
talk in such a fashion?" And he could feel her bending forward as if
hanging on his answer.
"That's the one thing I can't discuss," said he.
"I must know, I must know."
"And unhappily I must refuse."
"Oh, Mr. Weir, if you could but understand what this involves for me,
you wouldn't hesitate! I was shocked at the shooting, but I saw its
necessity on your part; you're not one to run from a foe, a cowardly
foe least of all. But what I heard there in the street horrified me. I
couldn't believe it; I can scarcely credit my ears yet. Mr. Sorenson
and Mr. Burkhardt were not near when you were attacked; they are not
acquainted with the circumstances or facts as you, Mr. Martinez and I
know them; they apparently didn't appear until the crowd started away
with the dead man. Yet at once----"
"Ay, at once," Steele Weir let slip.
"At once, immediately, when they had barely heard the story, they
began to tear it to pieces and suggest another, making you out a
villain. You're only an acquaintance, sir, scarcely more than a
stranger, but as I listened it outraged all my sense of justice. Mr.
Sorenson, of all men! My brain was in a whirl. But it's steady now."
The engineer failed to open his lips at her pause.
"I'm no fool, Mr. Weir; I think of other things besides dressing my
hair and using a powder puff. I can sometimes put two and two
together--when I see the 'twos' clearly. Now, tell me why Mr. Sorenson
talked as he did, for I must have my eyes clear."
"Ask me anything but that, Miss Hosmer."
He sat distressed and uneasy at her prolonged muteness. Suddenly she
questioned quietly:
"Are those two men the enemies you spoke of?"
"It will save me embarrassment if I go," he remarked, starting to
rise. "I don't want you to hate me, you know, and still I can't say
anything."
Her grasp pulled him imperatively back.
"You shall not go yet."
"Then I can only continue to decline making answers. I frankly say
that I regret having uttered a word of explanation."
"I don't regret it. And I intend to keep questioning you, however rude
you may think me. I must know," she cried impetuously, "and I shall
know! Mr. Sorenson is one of the men you referred to, or he would
never seek to direct suspicion at you. I saw the look on your face,
sir, as he spoke. But why should you two be enemies! You come here a
stranger to San Mateo, or have you been here before sometime? Did you
know him before?"
Again he could feel her eyes straining at him.
"It seems mad to think of him and Mr. Burkhardt, and perhaps others,
hiring some one to shoot you down from a dark doorway. It is utterly
mad--crazy. But why should they want to convict you, in the crowd's
opinion at least, of murdering the man. It would not be just trouble
about the dam--oh, no. But I can't see through it at all. Why won't
you tell me? You can trust me--and I want to help you as well as help
myself. You certainly don't hold against me my silly nonsense and
unkind words of the day you brought me home from the ford."
"I didn't think them silly; they delighted me," he responded. "I
hadn't had anything happen to me so refreshing in years."
"We must be friends. Something tells me they're going to make you
trouble over this shooting, and you'll need friends."
"Something tells me you're right in both respects," he laughed.
"And friends must stick together."
"That's what they should do."
In the dusk of the vine-clad, flower-scented place where they sat he
experienced the subtle power of this intimacy. Not a soul stirred in
the empty moonlit street before the house. No sounds disturbed the
warm peace of the night. In this secluded spot only there ran the
murmur of their voices.
"I could never stand by and see any man unjustly accused and defamed
if I knew he was innocent, without lifting up my word in defense," she
proceeded. "But let me ask if on your side you're treating me
fairly?"
Weir could have groaned.
"You have a noble spirit, Miss Hosmer. You're more courageous and kind
than any girl I've ever known. Would you have me reveal what my best
judgment tells me should remain untold?"
"But what of me? Would you keep it to yourself if my future happiness
might turn on it?"
The appeal in her words shook Steele's heart.
"How does this business affect your happiness? How?" he asked, in
perplexity.
Now it was her turn to hesitate. Why should she pause, indeed, before
telling to this man what every one else knew. Yet hesitate she did,
from a feeling she could but partly analyze. Of her fiancé she had
already had disturbing secret doubts that had increased of late:
doubts of his habits, his character and the genuineness of his love;
so that it was with a little eddy of dissatisfaction and shame that
she admitted the relationship. More she questioned her own love as an
actual thing. In a startling way, too, this silent, forceful man, so
deadly in earnest and so earnestly deadly, so terrible in some
aspects, seemed at the instant to dwarf the other in stature and power
as if the latter were a plump manikin.
Perhaps at the last minute she had a shiver of dread at what might
issue from the engineer's lips in the way of facts if he took her at
her word and told her what she had demanded to know. Did she want to
know? Suppose she let the affair rest where it was and went forward
to the future in the comfortable assurance of ignorance.
In that case, it might be wooing later revelations that then could not
be escaped, revelations like consuming lightnings. She would settle it
now once for all.
"It does concern my future and my happiness vitally," she declared,
earnestly. "For this reason----"
"Yes?"
"I'm engaged to marry Ed Sorenson, son of Mr. Sorenson."
Weir leaped to his feet.
"Good God! That fellow!" he exclaimed, astounded.
Without another word he sprang down the steps and strode away. Janet
Hosmer, grasping the arms of her chair and staring after him, saw him
once bring down his clenched fist on nothing. Then he passed rapidly
along the street and out of sight.