|THE following night was dark and sultry. A slight, brief rain had
pattered upon the hot and dusty earth, leaving a warm, thick moisture
in the air. The clouds, shifting, dissolving, and massing overhead,
alternately revealed and hid the stars. The moon's white disk hung
behind a filmy veil above the mountain-top. Hoag had retired to his
room in anything but a pleasant mood. He could count on browbeating the
average man under him, the man who was afraid of the good or ill opinion
of his fellows; but the man who was afraid of the Infinite, as in
Trawley's case, was different.
Hoag had removed his coat and his shirt was open in front. He sat in a
chair at a window overlooking his tannery. He was smoking, as usual. In
fact, the habit had grown upon him to such an extent that he was afraid
of what he called “a tobacco-heart.” There were occasional warnings,
in certain muscular flutterings and lapses into drowsiness that had not
belonged to his more buoyant period. He told himself that he was taking
on flesh too rapidly. He was sure he was eating more than he should;
that his toddies were acting as an unnatural stimulant to an appetite
which had always been too vigorous.
On a table behind him a lamp was dimly burning, and the bed in its
billowy warmth looked uninviting. The old clock in the hall below had
struck eleven when he rose to disrobe. Suddenly he heard Rover, the
watch-dog, bark loudly and scamper down the lawn toward the tannery.
Then there was silence, broken by a subdued muttering under the dark
sheds. Hoag was sure that the dog had been silenced by some one, and the
circumstance was suspicious, to say the least, and must be looked into.
So, taking his revolver from the table, and in order that he might not
wake Jack or Mrs. Tilton in the next room, he opened his door softly,
then crept noiselessly out at the side-entrance and went across the damp
lawn down the slope, avoiding this or that obstacle in his progress--a
beehive, a lawn-mower, or a dismantled cider-press left at the mercy
of the weather. He was soon under the sheds groping his way, most
cautiously now, for it was quite dark, between the open vats, and
stumbling over heaps of used and unused tan-bark, his eyes and ears
alert. He asked himself, in growing wonder, what had become of Rover,
for surely the dog was somewhere near. At this juncture he heard a dull,
thumping sound in the warehouse a hundred yards to the left, and
cocking his revolver he strode quickly in that direction. Reaching the
warehouse, and turning the corner, he saw at the door of the building
a horse and open road-wagon, at the side of which Rover sat on his
haunches idly beating the ground with his tail. Wholly nonplussed,
Hoag stepped noiselessly on to the long platform, and peered in at the
sliding door. At the farthest end of the room, in the dim light of a
lantern, he saw a man half pushing, half rolling a heavy bale of leather
toward the door. Crouched down, as the intruder was over his work, Hoag
could not see his face, but presently it appeared quite clearly in the
light. It was Henry. It was his son. He was a thief caught in the act.
Volcanic fury swept over Hoag. The would-be thief was of his own blood,
of his own loins. Revolver in hand, and indignantly quivering in every
inch of his fat body, Hoag glided from the dark into the light.
“What the hell does this mean?” he demanded, in a loud and yet guttural
tone.
The young man at the bale of leather, without hat or coat, his brow
red and streaming with perspiration, started and, looking up, faced his
father. For an instant his glance wavered, but as Hoag thundered out a
repetition of his question, Henry drew himself up defiantly and glared
straight at him.
“You see well enough,” he answered, doggedly.
“So you are a thief--a low, sneaking, prowling night-robber?” Hoag
gasped, taken aback by his son's unexpected attitude. “You--you!”
“Call it what you like!” Henry hurled at him. “I don't care. You are
rollin' in money, makin' it hand over fist--goin' to your grave rich,
and I haven't any way of living. Other fellows' daddies help them along,
but you never give me a cent. I used to ask you, and you'd curse me and
threaten to kick me out. I'm your son, and you are stinkin' rich. You
can't bluff me. I'm reckless. I don't care a tinker's damn what I do. I
need money--that's all--I need it.”
Hoag stood puffing. He was conscious of a fluttering about his heart,
and he had the sudden fear that an outburst might mean his undoing on
the spot, but he was too angry to control himself.
“So you are a thief!” he panted. “You eat at my table, sleep under my
roof, an' come here with a wagon to steal my stuff. Do you know what I'm
goin' to do with you?”
“Not knowing, I can't say,” Henry answered, with colloquial quotation.
“I've known you to get weak-kneed, as you did the day Jeff Warren called
you to taw at the Court House. Jeff saw through it and told how you ate
the crow he shoved at you on the point of his gun.”
This angry taunt was the worst missile the desperate young man could
have thrown. It drove splotches of pallor into the crimson of his
father's face.
“You mean you think I'm a coward?” Hoag cried. “You--you dare--”
“I don't mean nothing about it; I _know_ it,” Henry retorted, still with
the furious smile on his lips, a reckless flare in his eyes.
“Well, I'll show you what I'm goin' to do to _you_, anyway,” Hoag said,
fiercely. “I'm goin' to give you the best lickin' you ever had in all
your bom days.”
“You say you are!” Henry laughed, almost with actual spontaneity.
“Yes, I am, an' right here an' now.”
“'Right here an' now,'” Henry repeated, grimly. “Well, that is a good
joke; 'right here an' now'--poof! You'd better set in. It will be
breakfast time before long.”
“You wait a minute,” Hoag growled, as he took up the lantern and placed
it on a bale of cotton; then he turned back to the door, closed the
shutter and fastened the metal latch with fingers that fumbled and
evoked an audible clatter in the silent room. Then, with his revolver
in his hip-pocket, he stalked back to his son, who sat on the bale of
leather sullenly picking his teeth with a splinter. Their eyes met
like those of two infuriated beasts driven into contact by the goads of
spectators. Beyond the lantern's flare the darkness hung like a curtain.
Hoag picked up a piece of hard-twisted hemp rope about a yard in length,
and with furious jerks proceeded to tie a knot in one end of it.
“You not only try to rob me, but you dare to insult me!” he cried,
frothy saliva trickling from the corners of his big, weak mouth. “I'm
goin' to give you a lickin' that you won't forget till you die.”
Henry stood up. A smile dawned on his face and died; he locked his hands
behind him; his lips were as firm as if cut in granite; his eyelids
drew close together, and the balls gleamed with the fire of invincible
purpose.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You are an older man than I am, an' you are
my daddy, but if you lay the weight of your hand on me I'll kill you as
sure as you've got a live hair on your head.”
“You mean to threaten me--you damned midnight prowler!” And Hoag,
brandishing his rope, sprang at his son like a tiger on its prey. But
Henry quickly and deftly caught the descending rope, jerked it from the
fat fingers, and threw it against the wall. Then, while Hoag stood for
an instant bewildered, Henry clutched him round his big, bare neck and
began to push him backward over the bale of leather. From side to side
the two swung, grunting, panting, swearing. A mist was before Hoag's
eyes; ten prongs of steel were piercing and separating the bones and
muscles of his neck. He was gasping for breath when, by an extra effort,
he tore his son's hands away. For a second they stood warily shifting
from side to side, and then they locked in the embrace of madmen, and
the struggle for supremacy was renewed. Over the rough floor, here and
there among boxes, bundles, and bales, they slid and pounded. Suddenly
Henry became conscious that his father was trying to get his hand into
his hip-pocket.
“Oh, that's your game, eh?” he said, between his teeth. “Two can work at
it.” And the younger suddenly slid his hand over the back of the older
man and grasped the hilt of the revolver. Then he ducked downward
suddenly and stood aside, the weapon in his hand.
“Stand back!” he ordered, calmly, and Hoag, with eyes of despair on
the revolver, fell away. Visions of death flashed and flared before
him--visions of the monster Trawley was fearing. He held up his hands;
their shadows on the wall quivered like the moving branches of a tree in
a storm.
“Don't, for God's sake, don't!” he pleaded. “I'm--I'm your father.”
Henry stared for a moment, and then an expression of sheer horror crept
over his face. Suddenly he threw the revolver against the wall and bowed
his head to a cotton bale.
“My God, oh, my God!” he cried, his hands pressed into the sockets of
his eyes, his breast heaving.
Slowly Hoag lowered his uplifted hands. Silence ensued--silence broken
only by the audible panting of the two men. Presently Hoag spoke.
“You started to kill me,” he gasped. “Why didn't you do it? You had the
chance.”
“Oh, my God--oh, my God!” Henry exclaimed, in muffled tones. “Yes, yes,
I came near it. I didn't know what I was about. You got me in a corner.
You started at me. You made me mad. But I am not a murderer--bad as I
am, I am not that. I saw you trying to pull the gun and forgot what I
was doing.”
“Huh, you say you did?” Hoag seemed unable to formulate anything else.
“You say you did?” Suddenly stepping aside, Henry picked up the rope
his father had held a moment before. Hoag stared helplessly as he came
toward him with it extended in his hands.
“Take it!” Henry gulped.
“What for?” Hoag asked, wonderingly.
“I want you to whip me,” Henry replied, huskily. “I'll stand here and
let you lay it on till you are tired. You'll never give me enough to
satisfy me. I need it and I want it. You have every right to give it to
me, and I want it done.”
Unconscious of what he was doing, Hoag accepted the rope, allowing it
to hang loosely from his inert fingers. There was another silence. Henry
had turned his back and bent his shoulders over the cotton bale.
Hoag twisted the rope awkwardly in his hands for a moment, then threw it
down.
“What did you need money for?” he suddenly inquired. “Tell me; you might
as well.”
“I borrowed a hundred dollars from Sam Pitman last year,” came from
Henry's averted lips. “He's in hard luck. They are about to sell his
farm for debt. His family is suffering. He told me that my hundred would
tide him over.”
“I see, I see,” Hoag muttered.
“I didn't know how else to get it,” Henry went on. “I tried a number
of ways, but failed. I want you to know that I've never stole before.
Somehow I made myself believe it wouldn't be wrong in such a case to
take from my own father. Of course I was wrong, but I tried to see
it that way. I knew where I could raise the money on the leather,
and--well, that's all. I want you to whip me. Nothing else will satisfy
me. After that I'll go away for good and all.”
“Thar ain't no use to talk that way,” Hoag said, falteringly. “I didn't
know you needed money as bad as that. Pitman _is_ in a hard fix, an'
I'll tell you what I'll do. It's plumb foolish for you to--to talk about
goin' off an' all that. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay that debt
off in the momin'. I reckon you think I'm purty hard on you. Well, I
suppose I am. I was fetched up hard, an' I've got hard. Now, go put up
the hoss an' wagon. I feel bad about this. I don't know why, but I feel
bad.”
“Father, I can't--”
“Now, go on an' do as I tell you. I know when I want to do a thing, an'
I want to pay Pitman that money, an'--an' I want you to stay on here at
home. Now, go put up the hoss an' wagon. If I'm satisfied you ought to
be, an' me'n you will have to rub out an' begin over ag'in in some sort
o' fashion. You was mad an' I was mad. You've got my temper an' I can't
blame you. Now, go on. I'll lock the door.”
“Very well,” Henry said, and he picked up his coat and hat and moved
away into the darkness, leaving his father with the lighted lantern in
his hand.
Hoag stood still for a moment. He heard his son clucking to the horse,
then came the sound of the wagon-wheels scraping against the edge of the
platform, and the grinding of the horse's hoofs on the stony road, as it
was driven toward the stables. Hoag extinguished the lantern by lowering
it suddenly, and, going out, he closed the sliding door and locked it
with fingers which quivered as with palsy.
He sat down on the platform, his heavy feet and legs hanging limply, and
stared out into space.