Among the men who danced at that party were Sim Squires and Pete Doane,
but when they saddled and mounted at sunset, they rode divergent ways.
Each of the two was acting under orders that day, and each was spreading
an infection whose virus sought to stir into rebirth the war which the
truce had so long held in merciful abeyance.
Aaron Capper, who was as narrow yet as religious as an Inquisition
priest, had always believed the Thorntons to be God's chosen and the
Doanes to be children of Satan. The bonds of enforced peace had galled
him heavily. Three sons had been killed in the battle at Claytown and he
felt that any truce made before he had evened his score left him wronged
and abandoned by his kinsmen.
Now Sim Squires, mounted on a swift pacing mare, fell in beside Aaron,
his knee rubbing the knee of the grizzled wayfarer, and Sim said
impressively:
"Hit looks right bodaciously like es ef ther war's goin' ter bust loose
ergin, Aaron."
The other turned level eyes upon his informant and swept him up and down
with a searching gaze.
"Who give ye them tidin's, son? I hain't heered nothin' of hit, an' I
reckon ef ther Harpers war holdin' any council they wouldn't skeercely
pass me by."
"I don't reckon they would, Aaron." Sim now spoke with a flattery
intended to placate ruffled pride. "Ther boys thet's gittin' restive air
kinderly lookin' ter _you_ ter call thet council. Caleb Harper hain't
long fer this life--an' who's goin' ter take up his leadership--onless
hit be you?"
Aaron laughed, but there was a grim complaisance in the tone that argued
secret receptiveness for the idea.
"'Peared like hit war give out ter us terday thet this hyar young
stranger war denoted ter heir thet job."
"Cal Maggard!" Sim Squires spat out the name contemptuously and laughed
with a short hyena bark of derision. "Thet woods-colt from
God-knows-whar? Him thet goes hand in glove with Bas Rowlett an' leans
on his arm ter git married? Hell!"
Aaron took refuge in studied silence, but into his eyes had come a new
and dangerously smouldering darkness.
"I'll ponder hit," he made guarded answer--then added with humourless
sincerity, "I'll ponder--an' pray fer God's guidin'."
And as Sim talked with Aaron that afternoon, so he talked to others,
even less conservative of tendency, and Pete Doane carried a like gospel
of disquiet to those whose allegiance lay on the other side of the
feud's cleavage--yet both talked much alike. In houses remote and widely
scattered the security of the longstanding peace was being insidiously
undermined and shaken and guns were taken furtively out and oiled.
But in a deserted cabin where once two shadowy figures had met to
arrange the assassination of Cal Maggard three figures came separately
now on a night when the moon was dark, and having assured themselves
that they had not been seen gathering there, they indulged themselves in
the pallid light of a single lantern for their deliberations.
Bas Rowlett was the first to arrive, and he sat for a time alone smoking
his pipe, with a face impatiently scowling yet not altogether indicative
of despair.
Soon he heard and answered a triple rap on the barred door, and though
it seemed a designated signal he maintained the caution of a hand on his
revolver until a figure entered and he recognized the features of young
Peter Doane.
"Come in, Pete," he accosted. "I reckon ther other feller'll git hyar
d'reck'ly."
The two sat smoking and talking in low tones, yet pausing constantly to
listen until again they heard the triple rap and admitted a third member
to their caucus.
Here any one not an initiate to the mysteries of this inner shrine would
have wondered to the degree of amazement, for this newcomer was an
ostensible enemy of Bas Rowlett's whom in other company he refused to
recognize.
But Sim Squires entered unhesitatingly and now between himself and the
man with whom he did not speak in public passed a nod and glance of
complete harmony and understanding.
When certain subsidiary affairs had been adjusted--all matters of
upbuilding for Rowlett's influence and repute--Bas turned to Sim
Squires.
"Sim," he said, genially, "I reckon we're ready ter heer what ye've got
on _yore_ mind now," and the other grinned.
"Ther Thorntons an' Harpers--them thet dwells furthest back in ther
sticks--air a doin' a heap of buzzin' an' talkin'. They're right sim'lar
ter bees gittin' ready ter swarm. I've done seed ter that. I reckon when
this hyar stranger starts in ter rob ther honey outen thet hive he's
goin' ter find a tol'able nasty lot of stingers on his hands."
"Ye've done cautioned 'em not ter make no move afore they gits ther
word, hain't ye--an' ye've done persuaded 'em ye plum hates me, hain't
ye?"
Again Sim grinned.
"Satan hisself would git rightfully insulted ef anybody cussed an'
damned him like I've done _you_, Bas."
"All right then. I reckon when ther time comes both ther Doanes and
Harpers'll be right sick of Mr. Cal Maggard or Mr. Parish Thornton or
Mr. Who-ever-he-is."
They talked well into the night, and Peter Doane was the first to leave,
but after his departure Sim Squires permitted a glint of deep anxiety to
show in his narrow and shifty eyes.
"Hit's yore own business ef ye confidences Pete Doane in yore own
behalf, Bas," he suggested, "but ye hain't told him nuthin' erbout _me_,
hes ye?"
Bas Rowlett smiled.
"I hain't no damn fool, Sim," he reassured. "Thar don't nobody but jest
me an' you know thet ye shot Cal Maggard--but ye war sich a damn disable
feller on ther job thet rightly I ought ter tell yore name ter ther
circuit-rider."
"What fer?" growled the hireling, sulkily, and the master laughed.
"So's he could put hit in his give-out at meetin' an shame ye afore all
mankind," he made urbane explanation.
* * * * *
July, which began fresh and cool, burned, that year, into a scorching
heat, until the torrid skies bent in a blue arch of arid cruelty and the
ridges stood starkly stripped of their moisture.
Forests were rusted and freckled and roads gave off a choke of dust to
catch the breath of travellers as the heat waves trembled feverishly
across the clear, hot distances.
Like a barometer of that scorched torpor, before the eyes of the slowly
convalescing Thornton stood the walnut tree in the dooryard. A little
while ago it had spread its fresh and youthful canopy of green overhead
in unstinted abundance of vigour.
Now it stood desolate, with its leaves drooping in fever-hot inertia.
The squirrel sat gloomily silent on the branches, panting under its fur,
and the oriole's splendour of orange and jet had turned dusty and
bedraggled.
When a dispirited wisp of breeze stirred in its head-growth its branches
gave out only the flat hoarseness of rattling leaves.
One morning before full daylight old Caleb left the house to cross the
low creek bed valley and join a working party in a new field which was
being cleared of timber. He had been away two hours when without warning
the hot air became insufferably close and the light ghost of breeze died
to a breathless stillness. The drought had lasted almost four weeks, and
now at last, though the skies were still clear, that heat-vacuum seemed
to augur its breaking.
An hour later over the ridge came a black and lowering pall of cloud
moving slowly and bellying out from its inky centre with huge masses of
dirty fleece at its margin--and in the little time that Dorothy stood in
the door watching, it spread until the high sun was obscured.
The distant but incessant rumbling of thunder was a chorussed growling
of storm voices against a background of muffled drum-beat, and the girl
said, a shade anxiously, "Gran'pap's goin' ter git drenched ter ther
skin."
While the inky pall spread and lowered until it held the visible world
in a gray-green corrosion of gloom the stillness became more pulseless.
Then with a crashing salvo of suddenness the tempest broke--and it was
as though all the belated storms of the summer had merged into one
armageddon of the elements.
A rending and splintering of timber sounded with the shriek of the
tornado that whipped its lash of destruction through the woods. The
girl, buffeted and almost swept from her feet, struggled with her weight
thrown against the door that she could scarcely close. Then the darkness
blotted midday into night, and through the unnatural thickness clashed a
frenzy of detonations.
Out of the window she and her husband seemed looking through dark and
confused waters which leaped constantly into the brief and blinding
glare of such blue-white instants of lightning as hurt the eyes. The
walnut tree appeared and disappeared--waving arms like a high-priest in
transports of frenzy, and adding its wind-song to the mighty chorus.
The sturdily built old house trembled under that assaulting, and when
the first cyclonic sweep of wind had rushed by the pelting of hail and
rain was a roar as of small-arms after artillery.
"Gran'pap," gasped Dorothy. "I don't see how a livin' soul kin
endure--out thar!"
Then came a concussion as though the earth had broken like a bursted
emery wheel, and a hall of white fire seemed to pass through the walls
of the place. Dorothy pitched forward, stunned, to the floor and at the
pit of his stomach Cal Maggard felt a sudden sickness of shock that
passed as instantly as it had come. He found himself electrically
tingling through every nerve as the woman rose slowly and dazedly,
staring about her.
"Did hit strike ... ther house?" she asked, faintly, and then with the
same abruptness as that with which darkness had come, the sky began to
turn yellowish again and they could see off across the road through the
amber thickness of returning daylight.
"No," her husband said, hesitantly, "hit warn't ther house--but hit was
right nigh!"
The girl followed his startled gaze, and there about the base of the
walnut tree lay shaggy strips of rent bark.
Running down the trunk in the glaring spiral of a fresh scar two
hand-breadths wide went the swath along which the bolt had plunged
groundward.
For a few moments, though with a single thought between them, neither
spoke. In the mind of Dorothy words from a faded page seemed to rewrite
themselves: "Whilst that tree stands ... and weathers the thunder and
wind ... our family also will wax strong and robust ... but when it
falls----!"
Cal rose slowly to his feet, and the girl asked dully, "Where be ye
goin'?"
"I'm goin'," he said as their eyes met in a flash of understanding, "ter
seek fer yore gran'pap."
"I fears me hit's too late...." Her gaze went outward and as she looked
the man needed no explanation.
"Ef he's--still alive," she added, resolutely, with a return of
self-control, "ther danger's done passed now. Hit would kill ye ter go
out in this storm, weak as ye be. Let's strive ter be patient."
Ten minutes later they heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a
man drenched with rain standing there, whose face anticipated their
questions.
"Me and old Caleb," he began, "was comin' home tergither ... we'd got es
fur as ther aidge of ther woods ..." he paused, then forced out the
words, "a limb blew down on him."
"Is he ... is he...?" The girl's question got no further, and the
messenger shook his head. "He's dead," came the simple reply. "The other
boys air fotchin' him in now."