Parish Thornton and Aaron Capper stood for a few moments watching the
departure of the two other horsemen, one of whom was a spy and a
traitor--for Aaron himself meant to wait here until he could ride home
with some knowledge of the outcome of his new ally's mad project.
But Parish could not wait long, for the summer afternoon was already
half spent and his depleted strength would make travelling slow.
The thought that now oppressed him with the poignancy of an immediate
ordeal was the need of saying good-bye to Dorothy, and neither of them
would fail to understand that it might be a last good-bye. There was no
room for equivocation in this crisis, and as he gazed up into the full
and peaceful shade over his head, a flood of little memories, bound
tendril-like by sounds, sights, and fragrances to his heart, swept him
with disconcerting violence.
He steadied himself against that assaulting and went resolutely into the
room where Dorothy was standing with her back half turned so that she
did not at once see him.
She stood deep in thought--artlessly posed in lance-like straightness,
and on the smooth whiteness of her neck a breath of breeze stirred wisps
of bronzed and crisply curling hair. The swing of her shoulders was
gallant and the man thanked God for that. She would want her courage
now.
"Dorothy," he said, softly, standing close at her side, "I've got ter do
somethin' thet ye're goin' ter hate ter hev me ter ondertake--an' yet I
knows ye'll want me ter do hit, too."
She wheeled at the tenseness of his voice and he wondered whether some
premonition had already foreshadowed his announcement, for her cheeks
were pale as she raised her hands and locked her fingers behind his
head, standing off at arms' length so that she might look into his face.
He felt the hands tighten and tremble as he explained his mission, and
saw the lids close over the eyes as if to shut out pictures of
terror-stricken foreboding, while the lips parted stiffly in the pain of
repressed and tidal emotions. Dorothy swayed uncertainly on her feet,
then recovered self-command.
With a passionate impulse of holding him for herself, her arms closed
more rigidly about him and her soft body clung against his own, but no
sound of sobbing came from her lips and after a little she threw back
her head and spoke rapidly, tensely, with the molten fierceness of one
mountain-bred:
"I hain't seekin' ter dissuade ye ... I reckon I kinderly egged ye on
out thar under ther tree ... but ef any harm comes ter ye, Cal ... over
yon ... then afore God, even ef I'm only a woman ... I'll kill ther man
thet causes hit!"
It was Dorothy who saddled and bridled the easy-paced mule for the man
with the bandaged arm to mount, and who gave him directions for reaching
his destination. As he turned in his saddle he summoned the spirit to
flash upon her his old smile in farewell and she waved as though she
were speeding him on some errand of festival. Then while old Aaron paced
the dooryard with a grim face of pessimism bowed low over his chest, she
turned into the house and, beside the bed where her lover had so long
lain, dropped to her knees and clasped her hands in prayer.
Parish Thornton had told Aaron that he meant to go unarmed to that
meeting, but so many thoughts had crowded upon him that only when he
settled back against the high cantle of his saddle was he reminded, by
its angular hardness, of the pistol which bulged in his pocket.
He drew rein to take it back, then shook his head and rode on again.
"Goin' over an' comin' back," he told himself, "I'd jest as lieve be
armed, anyhow. Afore I gits thar I'll climb down an' hide ther thing in
some holler log."
* * * * *
Hump Doane's house was larger than many of those lying scattered about
it, but between its long walls hung that smoky air of the rudely
mediaeval that made a fit setting for so grim a conclave as that of
to-day. About the empty hearth of its main room men, uncouthly dressed
and unbarbered, sat, and the smoke from their pipes hung stale and
heavy. A door at the back and one at the front stood wide, but there
were no windows and along the blackened rafters went strings of peppers
and "hands" of home-grown tobacco. A dull glint here and there against
the walls proclaimed leaning rifles.
On the threshold of the back door sat Bas Rowlett gazing outward, and
his physical position, beyond the margin of the group proper, seemed to
typify a mental attitude of detachment from those mounting tides of
passion that held sway within.
"I'm ther feller thet got shot at, men," declared old Jim, rising
unsteadily from his chair and sweeping them all with his keen and
sagacious old eyes, "an' until terday ye've all stud willin' ter hearken
ter my counsel. Now ef ye disregards me an' casts loose afresh all them
old hates an' passions, I'd a heap ruther be dead then alive."
"Afore God, what fer do we waste good time hyar cavillin' an' backbitin'
like a passel of old granny-women?" demanded Sam Opdyke whose face was
already liquor-flushed, as he came tumultuously to his feet, overturning
his chair and lifting clenched fists above his head.
"When this hyar unknowed man come from Virginny ter start things up whar
old Burrell Thornton left 'em off at, he brung ther war with him. Thet
troublemaker's got ter die--an' when he's dead hit's time ter parley
erbout a new truce."
A low growl of approval ran in the throats of the hearers, but Hump
Doane rose and spoke with his great head and misshapen shoulders
reaching only a little way above the table top, and his thin voice
cutting sharp and stridently.
"I've always stood staunch by Jim Rowlett's counsel," he announced,
soberly, "but we kain't handily refuse ter see what our own eyes shows
us. Ef ther Harpers hed any survigrous leader thet hed come out strong
fer peace, I'd still sanction givin' him a chanst, but who hev they got?
I talked solemn with this new man, Parish Thornton, an' I didn't git no
satisfaction outen hem."
From the door Bas Rowlett raised an even voice of hypocrisy:
"I knows ther new man better then any of ye, I reckon ... an' I believes
him when he says he wants a quiet life ... but I don't skeercely deem
ther Harpers hev any notion of heedin' him."
"Men," old Jim, who felt his power slipping from him, and who was too
old to seize it back with the vigour of twenty years ago, rose again and
in his attitude was the pathos of decayed influence and bitter failure
at life's end.
"Men," he implored, "I beseeches ye ter hearken ter me one time more. A
man thet's got ter be kilt kin always be kilt, but one thet's dead
kain't be fotched back ter life. Hold off this bloodshed fer a spell
yit.... Suffer me ter counsel with two or three Harpers an' Thorntons
afore ye goes too fur!"
So long had this man's voice held a wizardry of influence that even now,
though the spirit of reconciliation had faint life in that meeting, a
silence of respect and veneration followed on his words, and while it
endured he gazed beseechingly around the group to meet eyes that were
all obdurately grim and adverse.
It was Hump Doane who broke the pause.
"Save fer a miracle of luck, Jim, ye'd be a dead man now--an' whilst we
tarries fer ye ter parley, you an' me an' others besides us air like ter
die. Over-hastiness is a sorry fault--but dilitariness is oftentimes
sorrier."
* * * * *
Back in the house that had grown around the nucleus of a revolutionary
cabin sat the woman who had been for such a short time a wife--and who
might so soon be a widow.
She had risen from her knees at last after agonized praying, but even
through her prayers came horrible and persistent pictures of what might
be happening to the man who had smiled as he rode away.
The insupportable dread chilled and tortured her that the brief
happiness of her marriage had been only a scrap and sample, which would
leave all the rest of life and widowhood bleaker for its memory and
loss.
Dorothy sat by the window with a face ghost-pallid and fingers that
wound in and out of spasmodic clutchings.
She closed her eyes in an effort to forget her nightmare imaginings and
saw only more fantastic visions of a body sliding from its saddle and
lying still in the creek bed trail.
She rose at last and paced the room, but outside in the road her gaze
fell on old Aaron who was uneasily pacing, too, and in his drooping
shoulders and grimly set face she read no encouragement to hope. That
morose and pessimistic figure held her gaze with a fascination of terror
and she watched it until its pacing finally carried it around a twist of
the road. Then she went out and stood under the tree which in its
wordlessness was still a more sympathetic confidant than human beings.
She dropped on her knees there in the long grass at the roots of the
straight-stemmed walnut and for the first time some spark of hope crept
into her bruised soul. She began catching at straws of solace and had
she known it, placing faith and reliance in the source of all the
danger, yet she found a vestige of comfort in the process--and that was
something.
"I'd done fergot," she exclaimed as she rose from her knees. "Most like
Bas Rowlett's thar--so he'll hev one friend thet men won't skeercely
das't ter defy. Bas'll stand by him--like he done afore."