A PECULIAR POSITION
"Well, young man, we find ourselves in what I call a peculiar
position."
A smile that would have been sardonic, were it not for a few lines
around the corners of his eyes which belied any sinister suspicion,
spread grimly across the big man's face as he stood looking down on
Harry King in the dusk of the unlighted shed. The younger man rose
quickly from the fodder where he had slept heavily after the fatigues
of the past day and night, and stood respectfully looking into the big
man's face.
"I--I--realize the situation. I thought about it after I turned in
here--before you came down--or up--to this--ahem--bedroom. I can take
myself off, sir. And if there were any way--of relieving you
of--the--whole--embarrassment,--I--I--would do so."
"Everything's quiet down at the cabin. I've been there and looked
about a bit. They had need of sleep. You go back to your bunk, and
I'll take mine, and we'll talk the thing over before we see them
again. As for your taking yourself off, that remains to be seen. I'm
not crabbed, that's not the secret of my life alone,--though you might
think it. I--ahem--ahem." The big man cleared his throat and stretched
his spare frame full length on the fodder where he had slept. With his
elbow on the bed of corn stalks he lifted his head on his hand and
gazed at Harry King, not dreamily as when he first saw him, but with
covert keenness.
"Lie down in your place--a bit--lie down. We'll talk until we've
arrived at a conclusion, and it may be a long talk, so we may as well
be comfortable."
Harry King went back to his own bunk and lay prone, his forehead
resting on his folded arms and his face hidden. "Very well, sir; I'll
do my best. We have to accept each other for the best there is in us,
I take it. You've saved my life and the life of those two women, and
we all owe you our grat--"
"Go to, go to. It's not of that I'm wishing to speak. Let's begin at
the beginning, or, as near the beginning as we can. I've been standing
here looking at you while you were sleeping,--and last night--I mean
early this morning when I came up here, I--with a torch I studied your
face well and long. A man betrays his true nature when he is sleeping.
The lines of what he has been thinking and feeling show then when he
cannot disguise them by smiles or words. I'm old enough to be your
father--yes--so it might have been--and with your permission I'll talk
to you straight."
Harry King lifted his head and looked at the other, then resumed his
former position. "Thank you," was all he said.
"You've been well bred. You're in trouble. I ask you what is your true
name and what you have done?"
The young man did not speak. He lay still as if he had heard nothing,
but the other saw his hands clinch into knotted fists and the muscles
of his arms grow rigid. His heart beat heavily and the blood roared
in his ears. At last he lifted his head and looked back at the big man
and spoke monotonously.
"I gave you my name--all the name I have." His face was white in the
dim light and the lids drew close over his gray eyes.
"You prefer to lie to me? I ask in good faith."
"All the name I have is the one I gave you, Harry King."
"And you will hold to the lie?" They looked steadily into each other's
eyes. The young man nodded. "And there was more I asked of you."
Then the young man turned away from the keen eyes that had held him
and sat up in the fodder and clasped his knees with his hands and
looked straight out before him, regarding nothing--nothing but his own
thoughts. A strange expression crept over his face,--was it fear--or
was it an inward terror? Suddenly he put out his hand with a frantic
gesture toward the darkest corner of the place, "It's there," he cried
in a voice scarcely above a whisper, then hid his eyes and moaned. At
the sight, the big man's face softened.
"Lad, lad, ye're in trouble. I saved your body as it hung over the
cliff--and the Lord only knows how ye were saved. I took ye home and
laid ye in my own bunk,--and looked on your face--and there my heart
cried on the Lord for the first time in many years. I had forsworn the
company of men, and of all women,--and the faith of my fathers had
died in me,--but there, as I looked on your face--the lost years came
back. And now--ye're only Harry King. Only Harry King."
"That's all." The young man's lips set tightly and the cords of his
neck stood out. Nothing was lost to the eyes that watched him so
intently.
"I had a son--once. I held him in my arms--for an hour--and then left
him forever. You have a face that reminds me of one--one I hated--and
it minds me of one I--I--loved,--of one I loved better than I loved
life."
Then Harry King turned and gazed in the big man's eyes, and as he
gazed, the withdrawn, inward look left his own. He still sat clasping
his knees. "I can more easily tell you what I have done than I can
tell you my name. I have sworn never to utter it again." He was
weeping, but he hid his tears for very shame of them.
The older man shook his head. "I've known sorrow, boy, but the lesson
of it, never. Men say there is a thing to be learned from sorrow, but
to me it has brought only rebellion and bitterness. So I've missed
the good of it because it came upon me through arrogance and
injustice--not my own. So now I say to you--if it was at the
expense of your soul I saved your life, it were better I had let
you go down. Lad,--you've brought me a softness,--it's like what a
man feels for a woman. I'm glad it's come back to me. It is good to
feel. I'd make a son of you,--but--for the truth's sake tell me a bit
more."
"I had a friend and I killed him. I was angry and killed him. I have
left my name in his grave." Harry King rose and walked away and stood
shivering in the entrance of the shed. Then he came back and spoke
humbly. "Do with me what you will, but call me Harry King. I have
nothing on earth but the clothes on my body, and they are in rags. If
you have work for me to do, let me do it, in mercy. If not, let me go
back to the plains and die there."
"How long ago was this?"
"More--more than two years ago--yes, three--perhaps."
"And where have you been?"
"Knocking about--hiding. For a while I had work on the road they are
building--"
"Road? What road?"
"The new railroad across the continent."
"Where, young man, where?"
"From Chicago on. They got it as far as Cheyenne, but that was the
very place of all others where they would be apt to hunt for me. I got
news of a detective hanging about the camp, and I was sure he had come
there to track me. I had my wages and my clothes, and when I found
they had traced me there, I spent all I had for my horse and took my
pack and struck out over the plains." He paused and wiped the cold
drops from his forehead, then lifted his head with gathered courage.
"One day,--I found these people, nigh starving for both water and
food, and without strength to go where they could be provided for.
They, too, were refugees, I learned, and so I cast my lot with theirs,
and served them as best I could."
"And now they have fallen to the two of us to provide for. You say,
give you work? I've lived here these twenty years and found work for
no man but myself. I've found plenty of that--just to keep alive, part
of the time. It's bad here in the winter--if the stores give out. Tell
me what you know of these women."
"Where is the man?"
"Dead. I found him dead before I reached them. I left him lying where
I found him, and pushed on--got there just in time. He wasn't three
hours away from them as a man walks. I made them as comfortable as I
could and saw that no Indians were about, nor had been, they said; so
I ventured back and made a grave for him as best I could, and told the
daughter only, for the old lady seemed out of her head. I don't know
what we can do with her if she gets worse. I don't know." As the big
man talked he noticed the younger one growing calmer and listening
intently.
"Before I buried him I searched him and found a few papers--just
letters in a strange language, and from the feeling of his coat I
judged others were hid--sewed in it, so I fetched it back to her--the
young one. You thought I was long gone, and there was where you made
the blunder. How did you suppose I came by the pack mule and the other
horse?"
"When I saw them, I knew you must have gone to Higgins' Camp and back,
but how could I know it before? You might have been in need of me, and
of food."
"We'll say no more of it. Those men at the camp are beasts. I bought
those animals and paid gold for them. They wanted to know where I got
the gold. I told them where they'd never get it. They asked me ten
prices for those beasts, and then tried to keep me there until they
could clean me out and get hold of my knowledge. But I skipped away in
the night when they were all drunk and asleep. Then I had to make a
long detour to put them off the track if they should try to follow me,
and all that took time."
The big man paused to fill and light his pipe. "And what next?" asked
Harry King.
"Except for enough food and water to last us up the trail you came, I
packed nothing back to the wagon, and so had room to bring a few of
their things up here, and there may be some of your own among
them--they said something about it. We hauled the wagon as far as a
good place to hide it, in a wash, could be found, and we covered
it--and our tracks. But there was nothing left in it but a few of
their utensils, unless the box they did not open contained something.
It was left in the wagon. That was the best I could do with only the
help of the young woman, and she was too weak to do much. It may lie
there untouched for ten years unless a rain scoops it out, and that's
not likely.
"I showed the young woman as we came along where her father lay, and
as we came to a halt a bit farther on, she went back, while her mother
slept, and knelt there praying for an hour. I doubt any good it did
him, but it comforted her heart. It's a good religion for a woman,
where she does not have to think things out for herself, but takes a
priest's word for it all. And now they're here, and you're here, and
my home is invaded, and my peace is gone, and may the Lord help me--I
can't."
Harry King looked at him a moment in silence. "Nor can I--help--but to
take myself off."
"Take yourself off! And leave me alone with two women? I who have
foresworn them forever! How do you know but that they may each be
possessed by seven devils? But there! It isn't so bad. As long as they
stay you'll stay. It was through you they are here, and close on to
winter,--and if it was summer, it would be as bad to send them away
where they would have no place to stay and no way to live. Lad, the
world's hard on women. I've seen much."
Harry King went again and stood in the open entrance of the shed and
waited. The big man saw that he had succeeded in taking the other's
mind off himself, and had led him to think of others, and now he
followed up the advantage toward confidence that he had thus gained.
He also came to the entrance and laid his kindly hand on the younger
man's shoulder, and there in the pale light of that cloudy fall
morning, standing in the cool, invigorating air, with the sound of
falling water in their ears, the two men made a compact, and the end
was this.
"Harry King, if you'll be my son, I'll be your father. My boy would be
about your age--if he lives,--but if he does, he has been taught to
look down on me--on the very thought of me." He cast a wistful glance
at the young man's face as he spoke. "From the time I held him in my
arms, a day-old baby, I've never seen him, and it may be he has never
heard of me. He was in good hands and was given over for good reasons,
to one who hated my name and my race--and me. For love of his mother I
did this. It was all I could do for her; I would have gone down into
the grave for her.
"I, too, have been a wanderer over the face of the earth. At first I
lived in India--in China--anywhere to be as far on the other side of
the earth from her grave and my boy, as I vowed I would, but I've kept
the memory of her sweet in my heart. You need not fear I'll ask again
for your name. Until you choose to give it I will respect your
wish,--and for the rest--speak of it when you must--but not before. I
have no more to ask. You've been well bred, as I said, and that's
enough for me. You're more than of age--I can see that--but it's my
opinion you need a father. Will you take me?"
The young man drew in his breath sharply through quivering lips, and
made answer with averted head: "Cain! Cain and the curse of Cain! Can
I allow another to share it?"
"Another shares it and you have no choice."
"I will be more than a son. Sons hurt their fathers and accept all
from them and give little. You lifted me out of the abyss and brought
me back to life. You took on yourself the burden laid on me, to save
those who trusted me, knowing nothing of my crime,--and now you drag
my very soul from hell. I will do more than be your son--I will give
you the life you saved. Who are you?"
Then the big man gave his name, making no reciprocal demand. What
mattered a name? It was the man, by whatever name, he wanted.
"I am an Irishman by birth, and my name is Larry Kildene. If you'll go
to a little county not so far from Dublin, but to the north, you'll
find my people."
He was looking away toward the top of the mountain as he spoke, and
was seeing his grandfather's house as he had seen it when a boy, and
so he did not see the countenance of the young man at his side. Had he
done so, he would not have missed knowing what the young man from that
moment knew, and from that moment, out of the love now awakened in his
heart for the big man, carefully concealed, giving thanks that he had
not told his name.
For a long minute they stood thus looking away from each other, while
Harry King, by a mighty effort, gained control of his features, and
his voice. Then although white to the lips, he spoke quietly: "Harry
King--the murderer--be the son of Larry Kildene--Larry Kildene--I--to
slink away in the hills--forever to hide--"
"No more of that. I'll show you a new life. Give me your hand, Harry
King." And the young man extended both hands in a silence through
which no words could have been heard.