THE CROOKED TRAIL
Life may be given in many ways,
And loyalty to truth be sealed
As bravely in the closet as the field.
--Lowell.
"Here's yo' letter from the Fillippians, Mis' Virginia; Mr. Champers done
bring hit for you all." Boanerges Peeperville fairly danced into the
living room of the Sunflower Inn. "They ain't no black mournin' aidge
bindin' it round nuthah, thank the good Lawd foh that."
Virginia Aydelot opened the letter with trembling fingers. It was only a
brief page, but the message on it was big with comfort for her.
"It is from Horace," she said, as her eyes followed the lines. "He was
with Thaine when he wrote it. Thaine is perfectly well again and busy as
ever. He and Horace seem to be needed over there yet awhile. Isn't it
wonderful how Thaine ever lived through that dreadful bullet wound and
fever?"
"I jus' wondeh how you all stand up undeh such 'flictions. Seems to me a
motheh done wilt down, but they don't. Mothehs is the bravest things they
is," Bo Peep declared with a broad grin of admiration.
"Oh, we get schooled to it. Asher's mother waited through six years while
he was in army service; and remember how long I waited in Virginia for him
to come back to me! I wondered at the test of my endurance then. I know
now it was to prepare me for Thaine's time of service for his country."
"I done remember, all right, 'bout that time in ol' Virginia, an' the day
I taken you the letteh up in the little glen behind the ol' mansion house
whah hit wah so cool and the watah's so cleah. Misteh Horace wah home that
day, too. Say, Mis' Virginia, did--did he done mention my name anywhar in
that letteh?"
The pathos of the dark face was pitiful.
"'My best love to Bo Peep.'" Virginia pointed to the line as she read.
"Kin I please have this huh envelope?" Bo Peep pleaded, and, clutching it
as a sacred treasure, he said: "Mis' Virginia, didn't I done tellen you
Misteh Thaine would come back?"
"How did you know?" Virginia asked with shining eyes.
"Becuz of what Doctoh Horace lef for me to tell you. It cain't do no hahm
to tell hit thus fah."
Bo Peep hesitated, and Virginia looked curiously at him.
"Doctor Horace won't never come back. I tol' you that sufficiency times.
When he lef, he say, 'Tel Mis' Virginia, if I don't come back, I'se done
goin' to be with Misteh Thaine an' take care of him, 'cause I love the
boy,--hit cain't do no hahm to tell you that while Misteh Horace still
writen to us. An' didn't he tak' care of Misteh Thaine? Didn't he lef his
place an' go down to that Rigrand Riveh, an' didn't he see Misteh Thaine
fall back with a bullet pushin' him right into the watah? Yes, an' be
drownded if Doctoh Horace hadn't done swum right then and fish him out.
An' didn't he stay night time an' day time right by the blessed boy, till
he's pullin' him out of dangeh of death's wing? Oh, yo' son done comin'
back 'cause Misteh Horace say he sho' goin' jus' tak' care of him."
"But, Bo Peep, why do you not believe we'll have Horace here again?"
Virginia asked.
The black man only shook his head mournfully as he answered determinedly,
"Ef yo' saves a life, you has to give one for hit, mos' eveh time, an' mo'
specially in the Fillippians whah they's so murderful and slaughterous."
"Oh, you ought not think that way," Virginia urged. "Run quick, now, and
take the news to Asher. I don't know where he is this morning."
"He's talkin' to Mr. Dabley Champehs out to the barn," Bo Peep said as he
hurried away.
Asher Aydelot was standing before the big barn doors when Darley Champers
turned from the main road and drove into the barnyard. It was a delicious
April morning, with all the level prairie lands smiling back at the skies
above them, and every breath of the morning breeze bearing new vigor and
inspiration in its caressing touch.
"Good morning, Champers; fine morning to live," Asher called out
cheerily.
"Mornin', Aydelot; fine day, fine! Miss Shirley told me last fall she got
her first inspiration for buyin' a quarter of land with nothin' and faith,
and makin' it pay for itself, out of one of Coburn's Agricultural Reports.
I reckon if a book like that could inspire a woman, they's plenty in a
mornin' like this to inspire old Satan to a more uprighteous line of goods
than he generally carries. I never see the country look better. Your wheat
is tremendous. How's the country look to you?" Champers responded.
"I can remember when it looked a good deal worse," Asher replied. "The
Coburn Reports must have helped to turn bare prairie and weedy boom lots
into harvest fields."
The two men had seated themselves on the sloping driveway before the barn
doors. Asher was chewing the tender joint of a spear of foxtail grass, and
Champers had lighted a heavy cigar.
"You don't smoke, I believe," he said cordially, "or I'd insist on
offering the mate."
"No, I just chew," Asher replied, as he bent the foxtail thoughtfully in
his fingers and looked out toward the wheat fields already rippling like
waves under the morning breeze.
"Say, Aydelot, do you remember the day I come down this valley and tried
my danged best to get you to sell out for a song? I've done some pretty
scaly things, all inside the letter of the law, since then, but never
anything that's stuck in my craw like that. I guess you ain't forgot it,
neither?"
"I remember more of those first years than of these later ones, and I
haven't forgotten when you came to the Grass River schoolhouse one hot
Sunday about grasshopper time, but I don't believe anybody holds it
against you. You were out for business just as we were," Asher replied
with a genial smile.
"Say! D'recollect what you said to me when I invited you to cast your
glims over this very country, a burnt-up old prairie that day, so scorched
it was too dry and hot to cut up into town lots for an addition to Hades?"
Asher laughed now.
"No, I don't remember anything about that. It was just the general line of
events that stayed with me," he said.
"Well, I do; and I'll never forget the look in your eyes when you said it,
neither. I'd told you, as I say, just to look at this God-forsaken old
plain and tell me what you see. And you looked, like you was glimpsin'
heaven a'most, and just said sorter solemn like an' prophetic: 'I see a
land fair as the Garden of Eden, with grazing herds on broad meadows, and
fields on fields of wheat, and groves and little lakes and rivers--a land
of comfortable homes and schoolhouses and churches, and no saloons nor
breweries.' And then I broke in and told you I see a danged fool, and you
says, 'Come down here in twenty-five year and make a hunt for me then.'
And, by golly, Aydelot, here I am. You've everlastingly conquered the
prairies for sure, and you are a young man, not fifty-five yet."
"Well, you can see most of those things that I saw that day out yonder,
can't you?"
Asher's eyes followed the waving young wheat and the blossoming orchards,
the grove, full of birds' songs, and the line of Grass River running
deeper year by year. Then he looked at his hard, brown hands and thought
of the toil and faith and hope that had gone into the conquest.
"Yes, I'm still among the middle-aged," he said, straightening with his
habitual military dignity of bearing. "But I don't know about this
everlasting conquest of the prairies. There's still some of it waiting
over beyond those headlands in the open range where John Jacobs has a big
holding. I'll never feel that I have conquered until my boy proves himself
in civil life as well as on the battlefield. If I can bring him back when
he is through with the Orient, then, Darley Champers, I will have done
something beside subdue the soil. Through him, I'll keep the wilderness
from ever getting hold again. If we live so narrowly that our children
hate the lines we follow and will not go on and do still bigger things
than we have done, do we really make a success of life?"
At that moment Bo Peep appeared with Doctor Carey's letter, and the
subject shifted to the problems of the far East.
"We aren't the only people who are having trouble," Asher said. "I read in
the papers that the Boxer uprising that began in southern China last year
is spreading northward and making no end of disturbance."
"What's them Boxers wantin'? Are they a band of prize ring fellers?"
Darley Champers asked.
"Pryor Gaines writes Jim Shirley that they are a secret order of fanatics
bent on stamping out all Christianity and all western ideas of advancement
in the Orient. Things begin to look ugly in China, even from this
distance. When a band of religious fanatics like the Boxers go on the
warpath, their atrocities make a Cheyenne raid or a Kiowa massacre look
like a football game. I hope Pryor will not be in their line of march."
"Pryor Gaines'd better stayed right here. It's what's likely to happen to
a man who goes missionarying too far, and we could 'a used him here."
It was an unusual concession for Darley Champers to make regarding the
church, and Asher looked keenly at him.
"Say, Aydelot," Champers said suddenly, "you have more influence with John
Jacobs 'n anybody else, I know. If you see the Jew, pass it on to him
that Wyker's at his old cut-ups again over in Wykerton, and he's danged
bitter against Jacobs. I can help him on the side like I did before, but
the Jew's got hold of enough over there now to run things, with ownin'
land all round and holdin' mortgages on town property just to keep joints
out of 'em. I do no end of business for Jacobs now. Never had dealin's
with a straighter man. But he'd better look out for Wyker. The Dutchman's
insides is all green with poison, he's hated Jacobs so many years."
"I guess John will make it hard on him if they come to blows again. The
jail sentence and fine Jacobs fastened on him let Wyker down easy. John
Jacobs is one of the state's big men," Asher responded.
"We lost another big man when we let Doc Carey go," Champers went on. "I
used to set up nights and rest myself hatin' him. He done the biggest
missionary work in me the two weeks I stayed at his house ever was done
for a benighted heathen. I hated to see him go." The sadness of the tone
was genuine. "But I mustn't be hangin' round here all the mornin'; I've
got other things to do. Hope your boy'll keep a-goin' till his term's out.
Goodday!" And Champers was gone.
"Till his term's out!" Asher repeated with a smile. "Wouldn't that
six-footer of a soldier boy, whose patriotism burns like a furnace, see
the joke to that! Till he gets his stripes off and forgets the lock-step!
My Thaine, who is giving a young man's strength of body and inspiration of
soul to his country's service! But Carey did do a missionary work in
Champers. The fellow was crooked enough 'inside the law always,' as he
said, but no more out of line than scores of reputable business men are
today. And the fact that he's Jacobs' agent now measures the degree of
trustworthiness Carey has helped to waken in him."
Darley Champers' business took him down the river to the Cloverdale Ranch,
where he found Leigh Shirley training the young vines up the trellis by
the west porch.
"You got a mighty pretty place here; just looks like Jim Shirley,"
Champers declared as he greeted the young gardener.
"Yes, Uncle Jim is never so happy as when he is puttering about the lawn
and garden," Leigh answered.
"How's your alfalfa doin'?" Champers asked as he turned toward the level
stretch of rich green alfalfa fields. "Danged money-maker for you," he
added jovially.
"We'll clear the place with the first cutting this year. It's just the
thing for Uncle Jim," Leigh asserted.
"Yep, Jim's in clover--alfalfa, ruther. You had a good business head when
you run your bluff some years ago, an' you wan't only nineteen then. You
walked into my place an' jest bought that land on sheer bluff." Champers
laughed uproariously, but he grew sober in the next minute.
"Miss Shirley," he said gravely, "I ain't got much style nor sentiment in
my makin's, but I've honestly tried to be humane by widders an' orphans.
I've done men to keep 'em from doin' me, or jest 'cause they was danged
easy, but I never wronged no woman, not even my wife, who divorced me
years ago back East 'cause I wouldn't turn my old mother out o' doors, but
kep' her and provided for her long as she lived."
Nobody in Kansas had ever heard Darley Champers mention his home relations
before. Leigh looked at him gravely, and the sympathy in her deep blue
eyes was grateful to the uncultured man before her.
"Miss Shirley, I ain't wantin' to meddle none, but I come down here to ask
you if you know anything about your father?"
Leigh gave a start and stared at her questioner, but her woman's instinct
told her that only kindly purpose lay back of his question.
He had sat down on the edge of the porch and Leigh stood leaning against
the trellis, clutching the narrow slats, as she looked at him.
"I think he is dead," she answered slowly. "Uncle Jim says he must be. He
was a bad man, made bad not by blood but by selfishness. The Shirleys are
a fine family."
"Excuse me for sayin' it, Miss, but you took every good trait of that
family, an' Nature jest shied every bad trait as far from you as it took
the sins of our old savage Anglo-Saxon ancestors off of our heads; them
that used to kill an' eat their neighborin' tribes, like the Filipinos,
they was. Don't never forget that you're a Shirley an' not a Tank. Your
grandma's name was Tank, I've been told."
Leigh made no response, but something in her face and in the poise of her
figure bespoke the truth of Darley Champers' words.
"I jest come down to tell you," he continued, "that the man I represented
when I sold you this quarter, he represented your father, Tank Shirley,
and Tank got it through this man away from Jim out of pure hate. I sold
it back to you out of pure spite to Tank's agent, who was naggin' me. If
your father is dead, there'd ought to be somethin' comin' back, as the
money you paid for the land would help you some if we could get it back. I
come as a friend. I'm kinder in Doc Carey's shoes while he's gone, you
see. You've got the land as good as paid for. It will be clear, you say,
by June. Buyin' it of your own father, if there's any estate left of him,
you'd ought to have it. Money's always a handy commodity, an' I'd like to
see you git what's your'n after your plucky bluff and winnin'. You could
use it, I reckon?"
"We need it very much," Leigh assured him.
"Say, would you mind tellin' me if you find out anything about your
father's whereabouts or anything?" Champers queried.
"Yes, I will," Leigh replied, "but will you tell me what you know about
him; you must know something?"
It was Champers' turn to start now. "N-not much; not as much as I'm goin'
to know, and it's not for my profit, neither. I don't make money out of
women's needs. I never made a cent on this sale to you, but it was worth
it to get to do that agent once," Champers declared.
Leigh waited quietly.
"I'll be in better shape inside of two days to tell you something
definite. I wish Carey was here. Do you know where he got the money he
loaned you?"
"I never asked him," Leigh answered.
"He borrowed it of Miss Jane Aydelot of Cloverdale, Ohio."
Champers did not mean to be brutal, but the sharp cry of pain and the
look of anguish on Leigh Shirley's face told how grievous was the wound
his words had made.
"Why, you paid it all back; she ain't lost nothin'. Besides, I heard with
my own ears folks sayin' she'd always loved you and it was a pity Jim ever
took you away from her. She might 'a done well by you, they said. You got
no wrong due. Lord knows you've paid it conscientiously enough," Darley
Champers insisted.
"Mr. Champers, will you be sure to tell me all you know as soon as
possible? Meantime, I'll try to find out something to tell you."
"I sure will. Goodday to you."
When Champers rose to leave, Leigh put out her hand to him, and the
winning smile that made all Grass River folk love her as they loved her
uncle Jim now touched the best spot in the heart of the man before her.
"God knows it's a lot better to do for folks than to do 'em, and in the
end I believe you prosper more at it. My business, except the infernal
boom days, never was so good as it's been since I had that time with
Carey, and it's all clean business, too, not a smirch on it. Wish I could
forget a few things I've did, though." So Darley Champers thought, as he
drove up the old Grass River trail in the glory of the April morning.
That morning, Leigh Shirley wrote a long letter to Jane Aydelot of
Cloverdale, Ohio. Leigh had written many letters to her before, but never
one with a plea like this. Miss Jane had mentally grown up with Leigh and
had built many a romance about her, which was only hinted at in the
letters she received.
In the letter of this morning, Leigh begged for all the information Miss
Jane could give concerning her father, and further, she pleaded boldly for
the reconciliation of the Aydelot family, a thing she had never written of
before. Five days later her letter came back "unclaimed" with a brief
statement from the Cloverdale postmaster that Miss Jane Aydelot had passed
away on the day the letter was written, much beloved, etc.
John Jacobs had no need to be warned by Asher Aydelot of Hans Wyker's
doings. He knew all of Wyker's movements through Rosie Gimpke. Jacobs had
been kind to Rosie, whose bare, loveless life knew few kindnesses, and she
harbored the memory of a good deed as her grandfather harbored his hatred.
Moreover, the Wyker joint had played havoc with the Gimpke family. Her
father had died from a fall received in a drunken brawl there. Two
brothers, too drunk to know better, had driven into Little Wolf in a
spring flood and been drowned. A sister had married a drinking man who
regularly beat her in his regular sprees. For a heavy-footed,
heavy-brained, fat German girl, Rosie Gimpke could get into action with
surprising alacrity for the safety of one who had shown her a kindness.
And it was Rosie Gimpke, whom John Jacobs called the Wykerton W. C. T. U.,
who swiftly put the word to him that her grandfather was again defying the
law and menacing the public welfare.
Unfortunately, the messenger who served Rosie in this emergency was
overtaken by Hans and forced to divulge his mission, threatened with dire
evils if he said a word to Rosie about Hans having halted him, and urged
to go with all haste on his errand, and to be sure of the reward, a
ticket to the coming circus and two dishes of ice cream from the Wyker
eating house, as per Rosie's promise.
The boy hastened from the grinning Hans and did his errand, and afterward
held his peace, so far as Rosie was concerned. But he stupidly unloaded
his message and Hans' interference and threats to John Jacobs as an
outsider whom the Wyker family rows could not touch, and had another dish
of ice cream at Jacobs' expense.
This messenger was able, for he brought the word to Rosie that John Jacobs
would come to his Little Wolf ranch the next day, and late in the evening
drop into Wykerton unexpectedly, where he knew Rosie would give him easy
access to the "blind tiger" of the Wyker House. The boy carried a message
also to Darley Champers to meet Jacobs at the top of the hill above Little
Wolf where the trail with the scary little twist wound down by the opening
to the creek, beyond which the Gimpke home was hidden. Then Hans Wyker,
with threats of withholding the circus ticket and the ice cream, was told
both messages just as they had been given to him for Rosie and Champers.
Hans, for reasons of his own, hurried out of Wykerton and took the first
train to Kansas City.
All this happened on the day that Darley Champers had made his trip to the
Cloverdale Ranch. The fine spring weather of the morning leaped to summer
heat in the afternoon, as often happens in the plains country. On the next
day the heat continued, till late in the afternoon a vicious black storm
cloud swirled suddenly up over the edge of the horizon, defying the
restraining call of the three headlands to sheer off to the south, as
storms usually sheered, and burst in fury on the Grass River Valley,
extending east and north until the whole basin drained by Big Wolf was
threshed with a cyclone's anger.
Darley Champers sat half asleep in his office on the afternoon of this
day. His coat and vest were flung on a chair, his collar was on the floor
under the desk, his sleeves were rolled above his elbows. The heat
affected his big bulky frame grievously. The front door was closed to keep
out the afternoon glare, but the rear door, showing the roomy back yard,
was wide open, letting in whatever cool air might wander that way.
Darley was half conscious of somebody's presence as he dozed. He dreamed a
minute or two, then suddenly his eyes snapped open just in time to see
Thomas Smith entering through the rear doorway.
"How do you do?" The voice was between a whine and a snarl.
Champers stared and said nothing.
"It's too hot to be comfortable," Smith said, seating himself opposite
Champers, "but you're looking well."
"You're not," Champers thought.
Thomas Smith was not looking well. Every mark of the down-hill road was on
him, to the last and surest mark of poverty. The hang-dog expression of
the face with its close-set eyes and crooked scar above them showed how
far the evil life had robbed the man of power.
"I got in here yesterday morning, and you went out of town right away,"
Smith began.
"Yes, I seen you, and left immediately," Champers replied.
"Why do you dodge me? Is it because you know I can throw you? Or is it
because I got full here once and beat you up a bit over in Wyker's
place?" Smith asked smoothly, but with something cruel leaping up in his
eyes.
"I didn't dodge you. I had business to see to and I hurried to it, so I
wouldn't miss you this afternoon," Champers declared. "What do you want
now?"
"Money, and I'm going to have it," Smith declared.
"Go get it, then!" Champers said coolly.
"You go get it for me, and go quick," Smith responded. "I'm in a bad fix,
I needn't tell you. I've got to have money; it's what I live for."
"I believe you. It's all you ever did live for, and it's brought you where
it'll bring any man danged soon enough who lives for it that way,"
Champers asserted.
"Since when did you join the Young Men's Christian Association?" Smith
asked blandly.
"Since day before yesterday."
In spite of himself, Darley Champers felt his face flush deeply. He had
just responded to a solicitation from that organization, assuring the
solicitors that he "done it as a business man and not that he was any
prayer meetin' exhorter, but the dollars was all cleaner'n a
millionaire's, anyhow."
"I thought so," Smith went on. "Well, briefly, you have a good many things
to keep covered, you know, and, likewise, so have your friends, the
Shirleys. The girl paid about all the mortgage on that ranch, I find."
Darley Champers threw up his big hand.
"Don't bring her name in here," he demanded savagely.
"Oh, are you soft that way?" The sneer in the allusion was contemptible.
"All the better; you will get me some money right away. Why, I haven't let
you favor me in a long time. You'll be glad to do it now. Let me show you
exactly how."
He paused a moment and the two looked steadily at each other, each seeming
sure of his ground.
"You will go to these Shirleys," Smith continued, all the hate of years
making the name bitter to him, "and you'll arrange that they mortgage up
again right away, and you bring me the money. They can easy get three
thousand on that ranch now, it's so well set to alfalfa. Nothing else will
do but just that."
"And if I don't go?" Darley Champers asked.
"Oh, you'll go. You don't want this Y. M. C. A. crowd to know all I can
tell. No, you don't. And Jim Shirley and that girl Leigh don't want me to
publish all I know about the father and brother, Tank. It might be hard on
both of 'em. Oh, I've got you all there. You can't get away from me and
think because I'm hard up I have lost my grip on you. _I'll never do
that._ I can disgrace you all so Grass River wouldn't wash your names
clean again. So run along. You and the Shirleys will do as I say. You
don't _dare_ not to. And this pretty Leigh, such a gross old creature as
you are fond of, she can work herself to skin and bone to pay off another
mortgage to help Jim. Poor fellow can't work like most men, big as he is.
I remember when he got started wrong in his lungs back in Ohio when he was
a boy. He blamed Tank for shutting him out in the cold one night, or
something like it. That give him his start. He always blamed Tank for
everything. Why, he and Tank had a fight the last time they were together,
and he nearly broke his brother's arm off--"
"Oh, shut up," Champers snapped out.
"Well, be active. I'll give you till tomorrow night; that's ample," Smith
snapped back. "Hans and you are all the people in town who know I'm here
now except the fat woman who waits on the table at Wyker's. I'm lying low
right now, but I won't stay hid long; Wyker'll keep me over one more day,
I reckon. Even he's turned against me when I've got no money to loan him,
but I'll be on my feet again."
"Say, Smith, come in tomorrow night, but don't hurry away now." The big
man's tone was too level to show which way his meaning ran. "I'd like to
go into matters a little with you."
Smith settled back in his chair and waited with the air of one not to be
coaxed.
"You are right in sayin' I'd like to hide some transactions. Not many real
estate men went through the boom days here who don't need to feel that
way. We was all property mad, and you and me and Wyker run our bluff same
as any of 'em, an' we busted the spirit of the law to flinders. And our
givin' and gettin' deeds and our buyin' tax titles an' forty things we
done, was so irregular it might or mightn't stand in court now, dependin'
altogether on how good a lawyer for technicalities we was able to employ.
We know'd the game we was playin', too, and excused ourselves, thinkin'
the Lord wouldn't find us special among so many qualified for the same
game. Smith, I know danged well I'm not so 'shamed of that as I should be.
The thing that hurts me wouldn't be cards for you at all. It's the brutal,
inhumane things no law can touch me for; it's trying to do honest men
out'n their freeholds; it's holdin' back them grasshopper sufferer
supplies, an' havin' the very men I robbed treatin' me like a gentleman
now, that's cutting my rhinoceros hide into strips and hangin' it on the
fence. But you can't capitalize a thing like that in your business."
"Well, I know what I can do."
"As to what you can do to me, you've run that bluff till it's slick on the
track. And I've know'd it just as long as you have, anyhow. Here's my
particular stunt with you. I had business East in '96, time of the big May
flood, and I run down to Cloverdale, Ohio, for a day. The waters was up
higher'n they'd been know'd for some years."
Thomas Smith had stiffened in his chair and sat rigidly gripping the arms.
But Champers seemed not to notice this as he continued:
"The fill where the railroad cuts acrost the old Aydelot farm was washed
out and kep' down the back water from floodin' the low ground. But
naturally it washed out considerable right there."
Smith's face was deadly pale now, with the crooked scar a livid streak
across his forehead. Champers deliberated before he went on. All his
blustering method disappeared and he kept to the even tone and unruffled
demeanor.
"The danged little crick t'other side of town got rampageous late in the
afternoon, and the whole crowd that had watched Clover Crick all day went
pellmellin' off to see new sights, leavin' me entirely alone by the
washout. I remember what you said about pretendin' to commit yourself to
your Maker there in an agreement between you as cashier an' Tank Shirley,
an' the place interested me a lot."
A finer-fibred man could hardly have resisted the agonized face of Thomas
Smith. A cowardly nature would have feared the anger back of it.
"It was gettin' late and pretty cloudy still, and nobody by, an' I staid
round, an' staid round, when just at the right place the bank broke away
and I see the body of a man--just the skeleton mainly, right where you
didn't commit your pretended suicide. Somebody committed it there for you
evidently. There was only a few marks of identification, a big set ring
with a jagged break in the set that swiped too swift acrost a man's face
might leave a ugly scar for life, and if the fellow tried too hard to
drown hisself he might wrench a man's right arm so out o' plum he couldn't
never do much signin' his name again. I disposed of the remains decent as
I could, for Doc Carey was leisurely coming down National pike from Jane
Aydelot's, an' it was gettin' late, an' no cheerful plate nor job in a
crowd in sunshiny weather, let alone there in the dusk of the evening.
Wow! I dreamt of that there gruesome thing two weeks. I throwed the shovel
in the crick. Would you like me to show you where to go to dig, so's you
can be sure your plan with Tank Shirley worked and you didn't drown, after
all? And are you sure you ain't been misrepresenting things to me a little
as agent for Tank Shirley? Are you right sure you ain't Tank Shirley
himself? I've kep' still for four years, not to save you nor myself, but
to keep Leigh Shirley's name from bein' dragged into court 'longside a
name like yours or mine. I never misuse the women, no matter how tricky I
am with men."
Then, as an afterthought, Champers added:
"It's so danged hot this afternoon I can't get over to Grass River; and I
got word to meet Jacobs over at the Little Wolf Ranch later, so I think
I'll take the crooked trail up to that place; it's a lot the coolest road,
and I'll wait till the sun's most down. I guess that three thousand dollar
mortgage can wait over a day now, less you feel too cramped."
Thomas Smith rose from his chair. His face was ashy and his small black
eyes burned with a wicked fire. He gave one long, steady look into
Champers' face and slipped from the rear door like a shadow.
Darley Champers knew he had won the day, and no sense of personal danger
had ever troubled him. He settled back in his chair, drew a long sigh of
relief, and soon snored comfortably through his afternoon's nap.
When he awoke it was quite dark, for the storm cloud covered the sky and
the hot breath from the west was like the air from a furnace mouth.
"It's not late, but it's danged hot. I wonder why that Jew wanted me to
meet him over there. Couldn't he have come here? I'm wet with sweat now.
How'll I be by the time I get out to that ranch?" Champers stretched his
limbs and mopped his hot neck with his handkerchief. "I reckon I'd better
go, though. Jacobs always knows why he wants a thing. And he's the finest
man ever came out of Jewey. With him in town and Asher Aydelot on a farm,
no city nor rural communities could be more blessed."
Then he remembered Thomas Smith and a cold shiver seized his big,
perspiring body.
"I wonder why I dread to go," he said, half aloud. "The creek trail will
be cool, but, golly, I'm danged cold right now."
Again his mind ran to Smith's face as he had seen it last. He put on his
hat and started to take his long raincoat off the hook behind the rear
door.
"Reckon I'd better take it. It looks like storming," he muttered. "Hello!
What the devil!"
For Rosie Gimpke, with blazing cheeks and hair dripping with perspiration,
was hidden behind the coat.
"Oh, Mr. Champers, go queek and find Yon Yacob, but don't go the creek
roat. I coom slippin' to tell you to go sure, and I hit when that strange
man coom slippin' in. I hear all you say, an' I see him troo der crack
here, an' he stant out there a long time looking back in here. So I half
to wait an' you go nappin' an' I still wait. I wait to say, hurry, but
don't go oop nor down der creek trail. I do anything for Miss Shirley, an'
I like you for takin' care off her goot name; goot names iss hardt to get
back if dey gets avay. Hurry."
"Heaven bless your good soul!" Champers said heartily. "But why not take
the cool road? I've overslept and I've got to hurry and the storm's
hustling in."
"Don't, please don't take it," Rosie begged.
The next minute she was gone and as Champers closed and locked his doors
he said to himself, "She does her work like a hero and never will have any
credit for it, 'cause she's not a pioneer nor a soldier. But she has saved
more than one poor fellow snared into that joint I winked at for years."
Then, obedient to her urging, he followed the longer, hotter road toward
the Jacobs' stock ranch bordering on Little Wolf Creek.
Meantime, John Jacobs inspected his property, forgetful of the intense
heat and the coming storm, his mind full of a strange foreboding. At the
top of the hill above where the road wound down through deep shadows he
sat a long while on his horse. "I wonder what makes me so lonely this
evening," he mused. "I'm not of a lonely nature, nor morose, thank the
Lord! There's no telling why we do or don't want to do things. I wonder
where Champers is. He ought to be coming up pretty soon. I wonder if I
hadn't had that dream two nights ago about that picture I saw in a book,
when I was a little chap, if I'd had this fool's cowardice about being out
here alone today. And what was it that made me look over all those papers
in my vault box last night? I have helped Careyville some, and the library
I built will have a good endowment when I'm gone, and so will the
children's park, and the Temperance Societies. Maybe I've not lived in
vain, if I have been an exacting Jew. I never asked for the blood in my
pound of flesh, anyhow. I wonder where Champers can be."
He listened intently and thought he heard someone coming around the bend
down the darkening way.
"That's he, I guess, now," he said.
Then he turned his face toward the wide prairie unrolling to the westward.
Overhanging it were writhing clouds, hurled hither and thither, twisted,
frayed, and burst asunder by the titanic forces of the upper air, and all
converging with centripetal violence toward one vast maelstrom. Its long,
funnel-shaped form dipped and lifted, trailing back and forth like some
sensate thing. With it came an increasing roar from the clashing of timber
up the valley. The vivid shafts of lightning and the blackness that
followed them made the scene terrific with Nature's majestic madness.
"I must get shelter somewhere," Jacobs said. "I am sorry Champers failed
me. I wanted his counsel before I slipped up on Wyker tonight. I thought I
heard him coming just now. Maybe he's waiting for me under cover. I'll go
down and see."
The roar of the cyclone grew louder and the long swinging funnel lifted
and dipped and lifted again, as the awful forces of the air hurled it
onward.
Down at the sharp bend in the road Thomas Smith was crouching, just where
the rift in the bank opened to the creek, and the face of the man was not
good to look upon nor to remember.
"I'll show Darley Champers how well my left hand works. There'll be no
telltale scar left on his face when I'm through, and he can tumble right
straight down to the water from here and on to hell, and Wyker's joint may
bear the blame. Damned old Dutchman, to turn me out now. I set him up in
business when I had money. Here comes Champers now."
The storm-cloud burst upon the hill at that moment. John Jacobs' horse
leaped forward on the steep slope, slid, and fell to its knees. As it
sprang up again the two men could not see each other, for a flash of
lightning blinded them and in the crash of thunder that burst at the same
instant, filling the valley with deafening roar, the sharp report of a
double pistol-shot was swallowed up.
* * * * *
An hour later Darley Champers, drenched with rain, stumbled down the
crooked trail in the semi-darkness. The cool air came fanning out of the
west and a faint rift along the horizon line gave promise of a glorious
April sunset.
As Darley reached the twist in the trail which John Jacobs always
dreaded, the place Thaine Aydelot and Leigh Shirley had invested with
sweet memories, he suddenly drew his rein and stared in horror.
Lying in the rift with his head toward the deep waters of Little Wolf
Creek lay Thomas Smith, scowling with unseeing eyes at the fast clearing
sky. While on the farther side of the road lay the still form of John
Jacobs, rain-beaten and smeared with mud, as if he had struggled backward
in his death-throes.
As Champers bent tenderly over him, the smile on his lips took away the
awfulness of the sight, and the serenity of the rain-drenched face rested
as visible token of an abundant entrance into eternal peace.
Grass River and Big Wolf settlements had never before known a tragedy so
appalling as the assassination of John Jacobs at the hands of an "unknown"
man. Hans Wyker had gone to Kansas City on the day before the event and
Wykerton never saw his face again. Rosie Gimpke, who did not know the
stranger's name, and Darley Champers, who thought he did, believed nothing
could be gained by talking, so they held their peace. And Thomas Smith
went "unknown" back to the dust of the prairie in the Grass River
graveyard.
The coroner tried faithfully to locate the blame. But as Jacobs was
unarmed and was shot from the front, and the stranger had only one bullet
in his revolver and was shot from behind, and as nobody lost nor gained by
not untangling the mystery, the affair after a nine days' complete
threshing, went into local history, the place of sepulchre.