THE RED THROAT OF POGEY
"Though it ain't for me nor for any one
To say how the awful thing was done,
We know that the hand of a grief-crazed man
Is set to many a desperate plan."
--On _Isle au Haut._
It was a saffron dawn. It was a dawn diffuse and weird. A smear of
copper in the east marked the presence of the sun. For the rest, the sky
was a sickly monochrome, a dirty yellow, a boding yellow. It was not a
wind that blew; a wind has somewhat of freshness in it. It was simply
smoky air--air that rolled sullenly--choking, heavy, bitter, acrid air
that was to the nostrils what the sky was to the eye.
After they had toiled around the base of the mountain and were well into
Pogey Notch, the man ahead, stumbling doggedly and stubbornly, found
water. It was only a little puddle, cowering from the drouth. The trees
had helped it to hide away. They had scattered their autumn foliage upon
it, beeches and birches which were grateful, for the pool had humbly
cooled their feet in the hot summer.
The man ahead, thirst giving him almost a canine scent, fell rather than
kneeled beside the pool, thrust his face through the leaves, and guffled
the stale water. Then he plunged his smarting eyes, wide open, into the
shallow depths.
When he faced once more the smother of the smoke and the man who stood
over him, he seemed to have a flash of new courage. His eyes blazed
again, his rumpled gray hair seemed to bristle.
But his defiance was only the desperation of the coward at bay.
"You've teamed me all night, Lane--from Withee's camp to here. I have
asked questions, and you haven't answered me; but now, by ----, say what
you want of me, and let's have this thing over!"
It was an air that would have cowed an inferior in John Barrett's office
in the city, where tyranny swelled the folds of a frock-coat and was
framed in the door of a money vault.
But this weary man in knickerbockers, his puffy face mottled by the hues
of self-indulgence and haggard after a night of ceaseless tramping along
a woods trail, was not an object of awe as he squatted beside the pool
like a giant frog.
The woodsman who stood over him, his gaunt face seamed and brown, his
bony frame erect to the height that had won him the sobriquet of
"Ladder" Lane, seemed now the man of dignity and authority. He was of
the woods. He was in the woods. Two nights without sleep, miles of
bitter struggle through the forest to report that conflagration roaring
north to Misery township, and now puffing its stifling breath upon them,
and the agony of recollection that John Barrett's crossing his path had
dragged out--all these gave no sign in "Ladder" Lane's features and
mien. Even his voice was steady with a repression almost humble.
What John Barrett did not know was that this humbleness was that of one
who stood in the presence of a mighty problem, awed by it. In the long
hours of self-communion, as he had plodded on, driving the timber baron
before him, he had pondered that problem until his weary brain reeled.
Introspection had always made his simple nature dizzy.
Now the tumult and torment in his soul frightened him. Over and over
again in the darkness of the night, as he had followed at the heels of
Barrett, he had whispered, in a half-frightened manner, to himself: "I
told him to keep away! And now he's here!"
He had looked at the back of the man, stumbling ahead of him in the
lantern-light, and had pitied him in a sort of dull, wondering fashion.
He had pitied him because he knew that Barrett, despoiler of his home,
seducer of his wife, was helpless in his hands. And because "Ladder"
Lane realized that grief and isolation had made him over into such a one
as sane men flout or fear, he was afraid of himself.
"This here is as good a place as any, Mr. Barrett," he said.
By striving to be calm, even to the point of being humble, Lane tried to
tame the dreadful beast that he knew his inner being had become. But
Barrett, pricking his ears at this humbleness, was too foolish to
understand. In the mystery of the night he had feared cruelly. With day
to reinforce his prestige, it occurred to him that the man was cowed by
his presence and by the reflection that a person of influence cannot be
kidnapped with impunity.
"I can make it hot for you, Lane, for dragging me out of camp and
running me all over creation," he blustered, grasping at what he
considered his opportunity to regain mastery. "But I'm willing to settle
and call quits. I've always been ready to settle. Now, out with it,
man-fashion! How much will it take?"
Another of those red flashes from the sullen coals of many and long
years' hatred roared up in Lane like the torching of a pitch-tree. He
had been trying for hours to beat those flashes down, for they made him
afraid.
He trembled, blinking hard to see past the red. His hands fumbled
nervously at his sides, as though seeking something that they could
seize upon for steadiness. If the wind would only blow upon his face--a
wind of the woods, clear, cool, and hale--he felt that he might get his
grip on manhood once more.
But the woods sent up to him only the fire-breath. It whispered
destruction.
If he only could look up to a bit of blue sky he felt that it might
charm the red flare from his eyes.
But the yellow pall that masked the sky was the hue of combat, not
peace.
All out-doors seemed full of menace. The nostrils found only bitter air.
The smarting eyes saw only the sickly yellow. A normal man would have
cursed at the oppression of it all, without exactly knowing why every
nerve was on the rack. The recluse of Jerusalem Mountain, out of gear
with all the world, with mind diseased by the chronic obsession of
bitter injury, stood there under the glowering sky of that day of ravage
and ruin, and felt himself becoming a madman. And yet he set a single
idea before him for realization, and tried to keep his gaze on that
alone, and to be calm. And the idea was an idea of forcing an atonement.
How crudely conceived, Lane could not realize, for his mind was passing
the stage of clear comprehension.
"I probably haven't got enough money with me," went on the timber baron,
sullenly. "But my word is good in a matter like this. I don't want it
talked about--you don't want it talked about. I'll overlook--you'll
overlook! Give me your figures, and you'll get every dollar."
And still Lane was calm, and replied in a voice that quavered from an
emotion that Barrett failed to understand.
"When you stole my wife away, Mr. Barrett, there were men that came to
me and advised me what they would do if a rich man came along and took a
woman from them, just to amuse himself for a little."
"There are people trying to stick their noses into business that doesn't
concern them, Lane," snorted the baron, regardless that one edge of this
apothegm threatened himself.
"I've been alone a good deal since it happened," went on Lane, in a
curious, dull monotone, "and I've spent most of my time thinking what
I'd say to you and do to you if you stood before me. I hoped it never
would happen that you'd stand before me, man to man. I didn't hunt you
up to find out what I'd do or say, for I was afraid."
He shivered, and Barrett, in his fool's blindness, stiffened his
shoulders with a sudden air of importance, and allowed himself to scowl
with a suggestion that perhaps Lane was wise to avoid him.
"You see, I was always making it end up in my mind that I should kill
you. There didn't seem to be any other natural end to it. I had to kill
you to square it. And that's why I was afraid. It was always one way in
my thoughts. I never could--never can plan out any other way to end it;
and murder is an awful thing, sir."
Barrett, who had been straightening, crouched farther back on his
haunches and lost his important air.
"In my thoughts I always gave you half an hour to think it over, and
stayed looking at you, and then killed you." There was a sudden
convulsion of Lane's features, a smoulder in his eyes, that thrilled
Barrett as though some one had whispered in his ear--"Lunatic."
The warden's groping hands had clutched the heavy lineman's climbers
dangling from his belt, and were now set about them so tightly that
muscles were ridged on the bony surface. Barrett became gray with fear.
But Lane's ferocity disappeared as suddenly as it had flared.
"It all goes to show that in this world most men don't do what they
think they'll do, when it comes to a big matter. I don't want to kill
you, now that I have you where I want you." He looked down on the
frightened man with a sort of pitying scorn. "It would be like batting a
sheep to death. I don't want even to talk about your taking her away.
It--it chokes in my throat! She's dead--and I guess she wanted to go
away with you that time or she wouldn't have gone. That's just the way
it seems to me now! And that's why I don't want to talk about it. It
seems funny to feel that way, after all the thinking I've done about
what I would do to you."
"The idea is, you're taking the sensible, business man's view of it,"
stammered Barrett. "I was young then, and up here in the woods, and--oh,
as you say, it is better not to talk it over. We all make mistakes." He
was pulling his wallet out of his corduroy coat. He evidently felt that
the sight of money would prolong this "sensible, business man's view" of
the situation. He did not want to take any more chances that the other
and vengeful view would return, which had shown its flame in Lane's
contorted face. "Now, I've got here--"
"To hell with your dirty money!" shrieked the warden, in a frenzy that
was a veritable explosion out of his calmness. He kicked the wallet from
the hands of the amazed timber baron. And when Barrett tried to stammer
something, Lane leaned down and yelled, cracking his fists in the
other's shrinking face:
"That's the way you and your kind want to cure everything--a dollar
bill greased with a grin and stuck onto the sore place! Put that kind of
a plaster on your city sneaks if you want to. But do you think I want
it--here?" He swung his arm in a huge gesture and embraced the woods.
"Your money is no good, John Barrett--here!" Another sweep of the long
arm. Then he stooped and scrabbled up a handful of dry leaves. He pushed
them into Barrett's face. "Here, sell me your soul and your decency for
that! You won't? Why not? You get your handfuls of greasy money just as
easy! You only grab out and take! I don't sell for any stuff that's come
at as easy as that."
"Say what you want, Lane," stuttered the timber baron, huddling back
from this madman.
"You'll pay in the way I'll tell you to pay," raged the creditor,
thrusting his fierce face close. "You'll pay out of your pride and your
heart instead of your pocket. That's the kind of coin you've stripped me
of! You stole my wife. She's dead. Settle your accounts with her in hell
when you meet her there. But the girl--your young one--yours and
hers--that you threw into the woods like you'd leave a blind kitten--"
"She was left with people who were paid well--" Barrett broke in, but
Lane slapped him across the mouth.
"I know where she was left--left with a nest of skunks, so that you
could hide your disgrace in the woods. I've watched her all these years.
I've been waiting for the right time to come. It's here. Your girl is up
there on the top of Jerusalem Mountain in my camp, Barrett. An idiot--a
dog on two legs--is guarding her. He's the only friend she's got. That's
your daughter. Now, you're going to take her!"
"Take her?" echoed the cringing millionaire.
"Take her--that's what I said. It belongs to her. Now give it to her."
Barrett misinterpreted Lane's interest. His face lighted with a sudden
thought that to him seemed a happy one.
"Look here, Lane," he said, eagerly, "I didn't realize but what the girl
was getting on all right. I ought to have inquired. But I didn't dare
to. A man in my position has to be careful. Now she needs some one to
take care of her. I'll admit it. I'm sorry it hasn't been attended to
before. Let this matter rest between us two without any stir. I'll give
you ten thousand dollars to act as the girl's guardian. Take her out of
these woods. And I'll put ten thousand more at interest for her."
"I take that spawn--_I_ take her?" demanded Lane, beating his thin hand
on his breast. "I'd as soon pick up a wood adder! Take _her_--the living
reminder of what's made me what I am? Do you suppose I hate you any
worse than I hate her for being what she is?" But he checked himself; a
sudden emotion--a strange emotion--mastered him, and he sobbed as he
muttered, "Poor little girl!" Then his anger flamed again. "By ----,
Barrett, I ought to kill you now, anyway!" He clutched the irons at his
belt. But after a moment, with a wrench of his shoulders, he pulled
himself out of his frenzy.
"You are going to take that girl to your home. You are going to
acknowledge her as your daughter. You are going to give her what belongs
to her." He was grim now, not frenetic.
Barrett's whole body quivered. His voice was husky with appeal.
"I want to talk to you, man to man. I'm going to show you that I have
confidence in you, Lane. I'm not saying this to any one else--only to
you. It's a big matter, Lane. It will prove that I want to be square
with you."
"You're going to take her, I say!"
"For ten years, Lane, the big lumber interests in this State have been
trying to get the right man into the governor's chair. You are
interested in timber. You are a State employe. We all need certain
things, and now we are in a way to get them. I'm going to be the next
governor of this State, Lane. I've got the pledges, from the State
committee down through the ranks. I'm going to be nominated in the next
State convention. I've spent fifty thousand already. Now, you see, I'm
being frank and honest with you." His voice had a quaver. He was
explaining as he would explain to a child. "All the timber interests are
behind me. See what it means if I am turned down? A scandal would do it.
It's the petty scandal that kills a man in this State quicker than
anything else--scandal or a laugh! I can't carry that girl out of the
woods and declare her to be my daughter. It would kill all my chances
for nomination. The papers would be full of it. And think of my family!"
Lane's crude idea of an atonement was not so vague now. His brain
whirled more dizzily, for the problem was bigger--and so was the
revenge. He chuckled. It was the spirit of revenge, after all, that was
driving him, and his madman's soul now realized it and relished it. He
looked up at the saffron sky and snuffed the scorching air. He felt the
impulse seething up from the ruin of the forest, and with almost a sense
of relief loosed the grip that had been holding him above the tide of
his soul's fire and blood.
He ran and recovered Barrett's wallet from among the leaves, and
searched it hastily. He found among the papers a few folded blank sheets
bearing John Barrett's name and monogram. There was a fountain-pen
stuck in a loop. The paper and the pen he shoved into Barrett's hands.
"Write it!" he screamed. "Write it that she is your daughter, and agree
to take her and do right by her. Write it! I wouldn't take your word. I
want a paper. You've got to take her."
Barrett went pale, but his thick lips pinched themselves in desperate
resolve. With the aspiration of his life close to realization he knew
all that such a document could do to him. He stood up and tossed the
paper away.
"I'm willing to do right by the girl in the best way I can," he said,
firmly; "but as to cutting my throat for her, I won't do it. You've got
my word. That's all I'll do for you."
"It's all?" asked Lane, with bitter menace. "All, after what you've done
to me?"
"I won't do it," he repeated, stiffly.
The next instant, and so quickly that a cat could not have dodged, Lane
struck forward with one of the irons. Barrett saw the flash and felt the
impact; his brain clanged once like a great bell, and he crumbled
together rather than fell.
He was standing when he revived. But his hands were lashed by strips of
his torn corduroy coat--drawn behind him around the trunk of a birch and
tied securely. Other strips of the cloth bound legs and body close to
the tree. Lane mouthed and leaped in front of him--a maniac.
"Enjoy it!" he screamed. "There's a thousand-acre fire out in that
level. Here's its chimney-flue. It's going through here on its way to
Enchanted. It's going fast when it comes along, and it will be your
first taste of what's laid up for you in eternity. Burn! And when you're
burning just remember that your daughter set it--set it because you
left her to grow up a hyena instead of a woman."
He whirled and started away at Barrett's first wild appeal.
"I wouldn't take your word! You wouldn't write it! You didn't intend to
keep it!"