|HOAG rode into the village the next morning, and as his horse bore him
along through the balmy air he ruminated over the object he had in view.
He had determined to see Sid Trawley and have a straight talk with him
about certain private matters. He no longer doubted that the liveryman
was persistently avoiding him. Sid had not answered to his name at the
last roll-call of the “klan,” and vague rumors were afloat. One of the
younger members had jocularly remarked that Sid had simply “got cold
feet, an' was tryin' to shirk the entire thing.” At any rate, Hoag was
sure that Trawley was not deporting himself as an aide-decamp should,
and Hoag was determined to have a distinct understanding about it. It
was not Hoag's way to beat about the bush, and Trawley knew too much
regarding matters more or less confidential to be allowed to act as he
was acting without good and sufficient reasons. As his horse cantered
along the street near the livery-stable, Hoag was quite sure that he saw
Trawley in the doorway and that he had purposely withdrawn from view.
“Huh, that's cheeky!” Hoag muttered, as he reined in at the stable,
dismounted, and threw his bridle-rein to a negro attendant.
“Which way did Sid go?” he asked the man, suddenly.
The negro's eyelashes flickered hesitatingly, and he avoided the white
man's stare.
“I dunno, boss, I hain't seed 'im,” the man said. “He was heer dis
mawnin', but I don't know whar he is now.”
“You are a liar, you black imp!” Hoag growled. “I saw 'im right here a
minute ago.”
The negro made no response; he shrugged his shoulders doggedly, and his
bead-like eyes were full of cautious concern as he led the horse to a
stall.
Hoag stared after him, a sullen, thwarted expression on his face. “Don't
take the saddle off,” he yelled. “I'm goin' back right away.” And with
that he suddenly turned into the little office on the right, finding
Trawley at his desk, a queer look, half of fear, half of sheepishness,
in his shifting eyes. Hoag was now positive that the man was trying to
avoid him, and a fierce demand for explanation was on his tongue, but he
managed to restrain himself. Indeed, he felt that this was a case that
required diplomatic handling, for Trawley had a temper, and at present
had the look of a man driven into a corner.
“Hello, Sid,” Hoag said. “How goes it?”
“Oh, so so,” Trawley answered, awkwardly. “How's things out your way?”
“Oh, about as common.” Hoag was wondering over Trawley's sallow
complexion, once so ruddy, and the nervousness of a frame which surely
had lost weight and poise. The two did not shake hands. Hoag idly tapped
the green cloth of the desk, beating little ridges of dust into view,
and fixed his purposeful eyes on the dingy, small-paned window which was
hung over with cobwebs.
“You hain't answered at roll-call lately,” he suddenly plunged.
“I couldn't find the time.” Trawley was opening a canvas-backed ledger
with thin, quivering fingers. “I've been powerful busy, Cap. Lots an'
lots o' rigs an' hosses goin' out an' comin' in--can't trust my shebang
with these coons. They don't feed an' water my stock--or rub 'em down
when they come in tired. They git things all balled up--send out hosses
on long trips that hain't had no rest; one o' my best mules dropped dead
t'other day an'--”
“I understand all that.” Hoag's eyes bore down on him impatiently. “But
you didn't _use_ to be so all-fired anxious about this dang stable. It's
a new twist altogether. Say, has anything gone crooked with you?”
“What makes you ax that?” Trawley's words crept slowly from his stiff
lips, and his glance rose, only to fall precipitately.
“I don't know,” Hoag replied. “Some o' the boys said they didn't know
but what you'd took to doctorin' yorese'f--got a fool notion in yore
head that you was about to git down sick.”
“Well, I _am_ sick--if you want to know,” Trawley suddenly declared.
“I'm not a sound man, by a long shot.”
“Oh, come off!” Hoag laughed. “You've been eatin' too much or smokin'
more'n you ought. Maybe yore liquor ain't o' the right brand. There's
a lot o' poison in the truck shoved over bar-counters these days. You
oughtn't to touch any but straight moonshine corn. Some o' our boys make
the best that ever slid down a gullet.”
“'Tain't nothin' o' that sort,” Trawley sighed, despondently. “Dr. Lynn
examined me an' wasn't a bit satisfied. He said my stomach had clean
gone back on me. Nothin' I eat won't stay down. I roll an' tumble at
night an' shake all over durin' the day. Doc said it was serious.”
“Oh, now I understand.” Hoag seemed slightly relieved. “But you hain't
a-goin' to let _that_ scare the socks off you. Besides, Lynn may be
mistaken.”
Trawley's chin dropped despondently. “He knows as much as any doctor, I
reckon. Looked to me like he considered my case hopeless. He shook his
head all the time he was talkin'. He--he hinted purty strong that I
ought to be prepared, that I might--might have to go any day.” Trawley's
scant blood had left his face and his lip hung limply.
Hoag shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “So you've let that scare you
plumb off from old habits. You set here an' mope instead o' bein' up an'
about with the rest of us. We all got to die some time or other.”
Trawley glared fiercely out from his labyrinth of fears. “You wait till
it gits _you_ down!” he blurted out. “_You_ kin talk, standin' thar with
that solid pouch on you--an' a meal in it that you can hold down. Don't
talk to me; I know when I'm in trouble!”
“I know when you will be, shore enough, if you don't mark my words.”
Hoag was now employing his favorite browbeating method, and his eyes
flashed threateningly. “You have been shootin' off your mouth to
outsiders. You are like a scared old hag with fits. I heard that
hobgoblin tale you told about seein' the ghost o' Pete Watson. The
tale's goin' the rounds, gittin' bigger an' bigger, like a cake o'
beeswax that everybody adds a chunk to, an' thar wasn't a thing in it
but your fool jim-jams.”
“I know what I _know!_” Trawley said, a shadow of superstition in his
eyes. “I was in my right senses--I was seein' as plain as I am now. The
fust time he appeared I was wide awake, settin' up in a chair in the
kitchen. The next time I was in my corn-crib a little after dark. Pete
put his hand to his neck; I heard 'im groan an' gurgle. He comes to my
bed sometimes when I'm asleepin' an' pulls the covers off an' then darts
right through the wall. The last time he told me that me nor none o' the
klan would ever have peace--that black folks was the same as white
whar he was at, an' that accordin' to the book o' judgment to kill the
innocent was the unpardonable sin alluded to in Scripture.”
“Poof, Sid, you are gone clean daffy!” Hoag sneered, though a serious
expression had captured his features, for he was wondering how far this
indiscreet babbler could be trusted to recount such imaginings.
“He got _you_ in it all right,” Trawley said, vindictively. “I ain't the
only one. The last time he come to me I was drivin' the cow home from
the pasture after dark. At fust I thought it was a calf or a stray hog;
but he come on till he was close by my side, limpin' along like he used
to do, with his old flipflap feet. He talked as plain as ever he did in
this life. He said I was to die a slow death an' a terrible one--that my
folks would think I was dead an' put me in the ground, but that I'd lie
thar an' wait till him an' some more come an' twisted my sperit out an'
tuck it on to torment. Then he fetched you in.”
“Me?” Hoag sniffed. “Well, I'm glad he hain't forgot me. I hope he
remembers the time I lambasted 'im for breakin' that new plow o' mine.”
“Yes; he said yore time was comin', too; he said you was the prime mover
an' power in the organization--that you was a rank coward at heart, an'
that you jest loved the fun o' scarin' niggers because you was afraid o'
brave white men. I dunno, I'm jest tellin' you what he told me. He said
your luck was goin' to turn flat ag'in' you--that your present support
would sluff away, an' you'd find yourself alone with nothin' 'twixt you
an' the Almighty but the niggers you'd sent on ahead, an' that you'd git
on your knees to 'em an' beg 'em to speak a kind word for you, but that
they'd turn a deef ear. He may have missed it in yore case, but was
right about _me_. Jim Hoag, I'm a dyin' man, an' I'm in hell already.”
Hoag was becoming angry. Had he dared he would have spoken more sharply.
He told himself that Trawley had lost his reason, and that he was a very
unsafe man in his present condition, holding the knowledge he held.
“You'll have to git out o' this,” he said, sternly. “You need a change.”
“I need more'n that,” Trawley groaned, and he beat the top of his desk
with a limp, splaying hand. “I need medicine that ain't in no bottle or
doctor's saddle-bags. I know what I need, but I don't know whar to
git it. I need what my good old mammy had when she died, shoutin' an'
talkin' about her folks that had gone on, who she declared was right
thar over the bed holdin' out their hands to her.”
“Take it from me, Sid,” Hoag said, carelessly, “all that stuff is pure
poppycock. When a man's time comes the jig is up--that's all; he's done
for; he's put in the ground an' rots. As for me, that's all I want or
expect.”
“I know you've always said that,” Trawley answered, “an' I used to
think maybe you was right, bein' sech a big man in your way; but I know
different now. Say, Jim Hoag, what do you make o' Paul Rundel?”
“Make o' 'im--what do you mean?”
“I want to know what could 'a' fetched 'imback here to give up to the
halter like he did unless--unless he was led by some'n in 'im bigger,
wider, an' higher than jest his mortal body?”
Hoag smiled significantly, and idly tapped the leg of his trousers with
his whip. “Just betwixt us two, Sid, I never have knowed just _what_
Paul's game was. I saw he was a good man for the job I had open, an' I
tuck 'im in. I never have bothered about the tale he told. That was
his lookout. He's got a clear head for business. He understands human
nature, an' he was sharp enough, I reckon, to know that nine juries out
o' ten would be lenient in a case like his'n. He was homesick for these
old mountains, an' was willin' to serve a year or two an' be done with
it.”
“That won't do at all--_not at all_,” Trawley protested, with firmness.
“I've never seed an eye like his'n in a human head. He heard I was
ailin', an' come in here last week friendly like to talk to me.
Well”--Trawley averted his face and sat linking his fingers like wooden
prongs--“I just don't know how to tell you about it, Cap. He said--Paul
said some o' the quarest, most comfortin' things that ever a sick man
heard. I want to see 'im ag'in--I just _must_. I've been to preachers,
an' to old Christian men like Tye over thar, an' they all gave me the
same stale song-and-dance; but this young fellow, with his shinin'
face an' happy way, had some'n fresh. Why, he said that the Lord just
couldn't be hard on any repentant soul He'd ever created. I wish I
could tell you how Paul fixed it, but I can't remember. He said the ugly
sights I'd seed was just in _me_--just in my own mind--an' that as soon
as I seed that I was part an' parcel of God Hisse'f all them gloomy
shadows would pass away an' I'd see visions o' true light. He cited the
thief on the cross--you remember about that feller? He was dyin' thar by
the Saviour, you know, an' the Lord said to him, 'This day shalt thou be
with me in Paradise.' As Paul fixed it up nothin' the thief had done in
days gone by was to be helt ag'in' 'im--_nothin'!_ He says it is all a
matter of wrong thought or right thought. He told a purty tale that was
sorter like a new-fashioned parable. He said, take two brothers, for
instance. A lawyer comes away across the ocean from the old country an'
tells 'em, on his word an' honor, that a kinsman has died over thar an'
left 'em a million apiece, but that they will have to be patient an'
wait a year before the money will be paid into the'r hands. Now, Paul
said one of 'em, for example, would believe the lawyer an' spend his
year full o' happy expectations, but t'other wouldn't trust the lawyer's
statement, an' in his doubt an' uncertainty his year would be the most
miserable he ever spent. Both come in at the end on the same actual
level, you see, Cap, but the trustin' fellow got in twelve months
quicker--that's all. Paul says that illustrates what is called havin'
the kingdom of heaven within you--it's our'n if we'll just believe it's
our'n an' move in an' take possession.”
Hoag's countenance was full of shadow. For a moment he seemed undecided
as to what to say. He whipped his leg steadily and cleared his throat.
One of the negro attendants leaned in at the door and asked Trawley a
question, and the liveryman replied sharply:
“Give 'im any pair he wants, an' don't disturb me ag'in while I'm
talkin'.” He uttered a low groan as the negro withdrew and looked up
at his frowning companion. “I tell you, Jim Hoag, when a man gits in
trouble like I am in, a puny thing like whether he rents a turnout, or a
hub is split, or a tire off, amounts to so little that it makes 'im mad
to think about it.”
“Looky' here, Sid!” Hoag's beetling brows ran together, and his tone was
fierce and direct. “I want to git at this thing right now, so as to know
what to depend on. Like the rest of us, you are under oath of secrecy
to the klan. Did you say anything to Paul Rundel to lead him to suspect
that--”
“No, I didn't,” Trawley groaned. “I kept it all back, an' thar's right
whar I think my chief trouble lies. I've taken an oath that binds me to
the devil an' his imps. Paul says, to git the real thing you've got to
go at it with a clean breast, an' I can't be that way with you fellows
tellin' me to come to your secret meetin's an' layin' claim to me. I
hain't give you all away, an' I ain't goin' to, but I'm in a bad fix. I
want to clean up an' git right, but I don't know how. It seems wrong to
break my oath, an' wuss to keep it.”
“I can say to you right here, Sid”--Hoag moved toward the door, a dark,
red flush on his face--“if you do betray our body you'll regret it, an'
you know well enough why.”
So speaking, and without another glance at the man he was leaving, Hoag
strode away. Aflame with fury, he mounted his horse and rode homeward.