As though to mask a picture of such violence the tree's heavy canopy
made that spot one of Stygian murk, and even the moon hid its face just
then, so that the world went black, and the stars seemed more brilliant
against their inky velvet. But the light had held until the grim
preparations were finished, and then when Bas Rowlett had taken his
appointed place, tethered and wearing the hempen loop, when the other
end of the long line had been passed through the broken slat of the
closed window shutters, where it would be held by many hands in
assurance against escape, Sim Squires kept his promise.
His followers trooped callously back into the house and he himself
remained there, on watch, only until with the stiffness of a sleep
walker Dorothy Thornton appeared for a moment in the open door and came
slowly to the foot of the tree.
She could scarcely see the two men shrouded there in the profundity of
shadow, and she had almost walked into the one who was to die before she
realized his nearness and drew back shuddering.
Then Sim, who was holding the loose end of the rope so that it would not
slacken too freely, put it in her hand and, as their fingers touched,
found it icy.
"Ye'll hev ter take hold of this," he directed, "we've got t'other end
indoors. When ye're ready for us--or should he seek ter git away--jest
give hit a tight jerk or two. We won't interfere with ye ner come out
till we gits thet signal--but don't suffer him ter parley overlong."
Then the man left her, and the woman found herself standing there in the
darkness with a terrible sense of Death hovering at her shoulder.
For a moment neither spoke, and Dorothy Thornton lifted her eyes to the
tree from which had always emanated an influence of peace. She needed
that message of peace now. She looked at the dark human figure, robbed
of its menace, robbed of all its own paltry arrogance, and the furies
that had torn her ebbed and subsided into a sickness of contemptuous
pity.
Then the cloud drifted away from the moon and the world stood again out
of darkness into silvery light; the breeze that had brought that
brightening brought, too, a low wailing voice from high overhead, where
the walnut tree seemed to sob with some poignant suffering; seemed to
strive for the articulate voice that nature had denied it.
That monument to honoured dead could never shed its hallowed spirit of
peace again if once it had been outraged with the indignities of a
gibbet! If once it bore, instead of its own sweetly wholesome produce,
that debased fruit of the gallows tree, its dignity would be forever
broken! There in the flooding moonlight of the white-and-blue night it
was protesting with a moan of uneasy rustling. The thing could not be
tolerated--and suddenly, but clearly, Dorothy knew it. This man deserved
death. No false pity could blind her to that truth, and death must ride
at the saddle cantle of such as he; must some day overtake him. It might
overtake him to-night--but it must not be here.
"Bas," she broke out in a low and trembling voice of abrupt decision, "I
kain't suffer hit ter happen--I kain't do hit."
The varied strains and terrors of that day and night had made her voice
a thing of gasps and catching breath, but while the man stood silent she
gathered her scattered powers and went on, ignoring him and talking to
the tree.
"He needs killin', God knows," she declared, "but he mustn't die on yore
branches, old Roof Tree--hit was love thet planted ye--an' love thet
planted ye back ergin when hate hed tore ye up by ther roots--I kain't
suffer ye ter be defiled!"
She broke off, and somehow the voice that stirred up there seemed to
alter from its note of suffering to the long-drawn sigh of relief; the
calm of a tranquilized spirit.
The young woman stood for a moment straight and slim, but with such an
eased heart as might come from answered prayer in the cloistered dimness
of a cathedral.
It was, to her, a cathedral that towered there above her, with its
single column; a place hallowed by mercy, a zone of sanctuary; a spot
where vengeance had always been thwarted; where malevolence had
failed--and her voice came in a rapt whisper.
"Ye stands ternight fer ther same things ye've always stud fer," she
said, "ye stands fer home an' decency--fer ther restin' place of dead
foreparents--an' ther bornin' of new gin'rations--fer green leaves an'
happiness--an' ther only death ye gives countenance to is thet of folks
thet goes straight ter God, an' not them thet's destined fer torment."
Inside the room the conclave maintained a grim silence. The shuttered
window screened from their sight the interview to which they were
submitting with a rude sense of affording the man they had condemned
some substitute for extreme unction: an interval to shrive his soul with
penitence and prayer.
But through the opening of the broken slat, high up in the shutter which
gave sliding room, passed the rope, and at its other end stood the man
upon whose neck it was fixed: the man whose hands and feet were tethered
and whose movements were being watched by the woman.
They shifted uneasily and impatiently on their feet in there. Sim
Squires and Rick Joyce standing shoulder to shoulder held the free end
of the rope in their hands. The others breathed heavily and their faces
were implacable, restive of this time being vouchsafed to an idea, yet
steadfast in their resolve to keep the word given their victim.
"She's lettin' him talk too long," growled a voice, and in monosyllables
Rick Joyce growled back, "Shet up--he'll be dead a long time."
But outside Dorothy had turned again to the man.
"You an' yore foreparents hev plotted an' worked evil since ther fust
days ther white man come hyar, Bas," she declared. "Thar hain't no death
too shameful fer ye--an' ther hain't no hate deeper then thet I feels
fer ye. Ye've betrayed an' wronged me an' everybody I ever loved, an' I
swore I'd kill ye myself ef need be. I'm half sorrowful I didn't do
hit--but from them fust days this hyar tree hes spread peace an' safety
over this house an' them thet dwelt in hit. Hit's been holy like some
church thet God hed blessed, an' I aims ter keep hit holy. Ef they hangs
ye somewhars else, I reckon they'll do simple jestice--but hit hain't
goin' ter be on this tree. My child hain't ergoin' ter look up in them
branches an' see no shadow of evil thar. I hain't goin' ter lay buried
in hits shade some day with yore black sperit hoverin' nigh. Sin ner
shame hain't nuver teched hit yit. They hain't nuver ergoin' ter. Ther
bright sun an' ther clean wind air goin' ter come ter hit an' find hit
like hit's always been. God's breath is goin' ter stir in hit ther same
es hit's always done."
Just then a heavier cloud shut off the moonlight, and still holding the
rope steadily enough to prevent its sudden jerking in premature signal,
she came close to Bas Rowlett and ordered in clipped syllables of
contempt, "Turn round! I aims ter sot ye free."
She handed the loose rope to the man, and knowing full well the vital
need of keeping it undisturbed, he held it gingerly.
The other end of that line still rested in the hands of his
executioners, who waited with no suspicion of any confederacy between
their victim and the woman.
Dorothy loosened the noose and slipped it from his neck, and her fingers
busied themselves nervously with his wrist-knots.
She worked fast and anxiously, for she had promised to set frugal limits
on the duration of that interview and the interval of clouded darkness
was precious, but while she freed the cords, she talked:
"I hain't doin' this fer yore sake, Bas. Ye richly merits ter die--an' I
misdoubts ef ye escapes fur--but I hain't ergoin' ter suffer ye ter
contam'nate this tree--an' I aims ter give ye a few minutes' start, ef I
kin."
Now she rose from the ankle fetters and the man took a step, to find
himself free.
"Begone," ordered the woman, tensely. "Don't tarry--an' don't nuver let
me see ye ergin'!"
She saw him cross the fence in the heavy shadow, hardly discernible even
to her straining eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark. She heard
the light clatter of his feet and knew that he was running, with the
speed and desperation of a hounded deer, then she straightened and
lifted her eyes to the rustling masses of cool serenity overhead.
Across the ranges came a warm, damp scent that promised rain, and the
clouds once more parted bringing the tranquil magic of a silver-toned
nocturne. The tree stood with its loftiest plumes moving lightly, as
though brushing the heavens, where the clouds were flakes of opal
fleece. Then the breeze stiffened a little and the branches swayed with
an enhancement of movement and sound--and the murmur was that of a
benediction.
Dorothy waited as long as she dared, and her soul was quiet despite the
anger which she knew would shortly burst in an eruption over the
threshold of her house. When she had stretched her allotted interval to
its limit she gave the rope its designated signal of jerk, and saw the
door swing to disgorge its impatient humanity. She saw them coming with
lanterns held high, saw them halt halfway, and heard their outbursts of
angry dismay when the yellow light revealed to them the absence of the
victim they had left in her keeping.
But Dorothy turned and stood with her back against the great trunk and
her fingers clutching at its seamed bark, and there she felt the
confidence of sanctuary.
"I couldn't suffer hit--ter happen hyar," she told them in a steady
voice. "Us two was married under this old tree--hit's like a church ter
me--I couldn't let no man hang on hit--I turned him loose."
For an instant she thought that Sim Squires would leap upon her with all
the transferred rage that she had thwarted on the eve of its glutting.
The others, too, seemed to crouch, poised, waiting for their cue and
signal from Sim, but Parish Thornton came over and took her in his arms.
Then with an abrupt transition of mood Sim Squires wheeled to his
waiting cohorts.
"Men," he shouted, "we kain't handily blame her--she's a woman, an' I
honours her fer bein' tenderhearted, but any other tree'll do jest as
well! He kain't hev got fur off yit. Scatter out an' rake ther woods."
She saw them piling over the fence like a pack of human hounds, and she
shuddered. The last man carried the rope, which he had paused to pull
from the limb. They had already forgotten her and the man they had come
to kill. They were running on a fresh scent, and were animated with
renewed eagerness.
For a few minutes the two stood silent, then to their ears came a shout,
and though he said nothing, the husband thought he recognized the
piercing shrillness of the hunchback's voice and the resonant tones of
the sheriff. He wondered if Hump Doane had belatedly received an inkling
of that night's work and gathered a posse at his back.
There followed a shot--then a fusilade.
But Parish Thornton closed Dorothy in his arms and they stood alone.
"Ther old tree's done worked hits magic ergin, honey," he whispered,
"an' this time I reckon ther spell will last so long es we lives."
THE END
[Illustration]
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS,
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
THE
ROOF TREE
_by_ Charles Neville Buck
_Author of "The Tempering," "The Call of the Cumberlands," "The Clan
Call," etc._
The very breath of the Kentucky Hills is in Charles Neville Buck's
novels. In interpreting its elemental life, and its big-boned and
big-hearted people, he takes his place beside John Fox, Jr.
Here he tells a tale, the beginnings of which are laid several
generations in the past. Then the roof tree was planted, a token of love
to celebrate the wedding of Thornton and the first Dorothy Parrish. But
the same soil held the blood-watered seed of feud war, and now it was
bringing forth bitter fruit again, in the romance of the new Dorothy
Parrish and Thornton's descendant.
Under the name of Cal Maggard he had fled from Virginia, where, with the
juries packed against him, justice would have been a travesty. In
self-defense his sister had killed her husband, and he had taken the
guilt.
He sought only a refuge. Returning from a friendly visit to his
neighbor's where he met Dorothy, he found nailed to his door, a threat
of death if he repeated the visit.
What follows; the strange reopening of an ancient feud, the treachery
and hatred--and the conquering loyalty and love; and how in its course,
war ends forever in these mountains, makes a story of compelling power
and tensity.