|THERE was a galvanized sheet-iron mail-box near the gate of the
tannery, and in it once a day a carrier passing on horseback placed the
letters and papers which came for the family. Little Jack loved to take
the key and open the box after the carrier had passed and bring the
contents to the house and distribute it to the various recipients. Hoag
sat on the veranda one afternoon waiting for Jack, who had just gone to
the box, having heard the carrier's whistle. Presently the boy came in
at the gate holding several letters in his hands, and he brought them to
his father.
“Here's one without a stamp,” Jack smiled. “That's funny; I thought all
U. S. letters had to have stamps on them.”
Hoag saw only that particular envelope in the lot which was laid on his
knee.
“It must have been an accident,” he muttered. “The stamp may have
dropped off.”
“More likely that somebody passed along, and put the letter into the
box,” Jack's inventive mind suggested.
Hoag made no reply. He had already surmised that this might be the case.
There was a title prefixed to his name which he had never seen written
before, and it held his eyes like the charm of a deadly reptile.
“Captain Jimmy Hoag,” was the superscription in its entirety, and
the recipient remembered having seen the scrawling script before.
Automatically he singled out the letters for Paul and for Ethel and her
mother, and sent Jack to deliver them.
When his son had disappeared Hoag rose and crept stealthily back to
his room. Why he did so he could not have explained, but he even locked
himself in, turning the key as noiselessly as a burglar might have done
in the stillness of night. He laid the envelope on the bed and for a
moment stood over it, staring down on it with desperate eyes. Then, with
quivering, inert fingers he opened it and spread out the inclosed sheet.
It bore the same skull and crossbones as the former warning, and beneath
was written:
_The day and the hour is close at hand. Keep your eye on the clock. We
will do the rest._
_his (Blak X Buck) mark_.
That was all. Hoag took it to the fireplace, struck a match, and was
about to ignite the paper, but refrained. Extinguishing the match, he
rested a quivering elbow on the mantelpiece, and reflected. What ought
he to do with the paper? If it were found on his dead body it would
explain things not now generally known. Dead body! How could he think
of his dead body? _His_ body, white, cold, and lifeless, perhaps with a
stare of terror in the eyes! Why, he had never even thought of himself
as being like that, and yet what could prevent it now? What?
Some one--Ethel or her mother--was playing the piano in the parlor. Aunt
Dilly was heard singing while at work behind the house. Jack ran through
the hall, making a healthy boy's usual clatter, and his father heard him
merrily calling across the lawn to Paul Rundel that he had left a letter
for him on his table.
All this was maddening. It represented life in its full swing and ardor,
while here was something as grim and pitilessly exultant as hell itself
could devise. Hoag folded the paper in his bloodless hands and sank
upon the edge of his bed. He had used his brain shrewdly and skilfully
hitherto, and in what way could he make it serve him now? Something must
be done, but what? He could not appeal to the law, for he had made
his own laws, and they were inadequate. He could not evoke the aid
of friends, for they--such as they were--had left him like stampeded
cattle, hoping that by his death the wrath of the hidden avenger might
be appeased. He could flee and leave all his possessions to others, but
something told him that he would be pursued.
When the dusk was falling he went out on the lawn. Ethel and Paul were
seated on a rustic bench near the summer-house, and he avoided them.
Seeing Mrs. Mayfield at the gate, he turned round behind the house to
keep from meeting and exchanging platitudes with her. In the back
yard he pottered about mechanically, inspecting his beehives, his
chicken-house and dog-kennel, receptive of only one thought. He wondered
if he were really losing his mental balance, else why should he be so
devoid of resources? He now realized the terrible power embodied in
the gruesome warnings his brain had fashioned and circulated among a
simple-minded, superstitious people. What he was now facing they had
long cowered under. The thought of prayer, as a last resort, flashed
into his mind, but he promptly told himself that only fools prayed.
Biblical quotations flocked about him as if from his far-off childhood.
And such quotations as they were!
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” and “What is a man profited, if he
shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” These things seemed
to be borne to him on the breeze that swept down from the beetling rocks
of the mountains which leaned against the star-studded sky.
After an all but sleepless night, Hoag ate breakfast with the family the
next morning, and announced his intention of running down to Atlanta for
a day or so on business. Paul wanted to ask some questions pertaining to
his work, but Hoag swept them aside with a turgid wave of the hand.
“Run it yourself; it will be all right,” he said. “Your judgment is as
good as mine. I don't feel exactly well here lately. I have headaches
that I didn't use to have, an' I think I'll talk to a doctor down thar.
I don't know; I say _maybe_ I will.”
Riding to town, he left his horse at Trawley's stable, and going to the
railway station below the Square he strolled about on the platform.
A locomotive's whistle several miles up the valley announced that the
train was on time. Approaching the window of the ticket-office, which
was within the little waiting-room, he found the opening quite filled by
a broad-brimmed farmer's hat, a pair of heavy shoulders on a long body,
supported by a pair of gaunt jeans-clothed legs.
“Yes, I'm off for Texas.” He recognized Purvynes's voice in cheerful
conversation with the agent. “My brother says I ought to come. He's got
a good thing for me out thar--land's as black as a hat, an' as rich as
a stable-lot a hundred year old. He was so set on havin' me that he lent
me the money to go on. So long! Good luck to you!”
The head was withdrawn from the window; a pair of brown hands were
awkwardly folding a long green emigrant's ticket, and Purvynes suddenly
saw the man behind him.
“Hello, you off?” Hoag hastily summoned a casual tone.
The start, the dogged lowering of the head, the vanishing of Purvynes's
smile, were successive blows to the shrinking consciousness of the
inquirer.
“Yes, I'm off.” Purvynes's eyes were now shifting restlessly. Then he
lowered his voice, and a touch of malice crept into it as he added: “You
see, I didn't have to do it on your money, nuther, an' you bet I'm
glad. It's tainted if ever cash was, an' I want to shake every grain o'
Georgia dust off my feet, anyway.”
“I'm goin' as far as Atlanta,” Hoag said, tentatively. “I may see you on
the train.”
“My ticket's _second class_.” Purvynes shrugged his shoulders. “I'll
have to ride in the emigrant-car, next to the engine. I reckon we--we'd
better stay apart, Jim, anyhow. I want it that way,” he added, in a low,
firm tone, and with smoldering fires in his eyes which seemed about to
burst into flame.
“All right, all right!” Hoag hastily acquiesced. “You know best,” and he
turned to the window and bought his ticket. The agent made a courteous
remark about the weather and the crops, and in some fashion Hoag
responded, but his thoughts were far away.
He found himself almost alone, in the smoking-car. He took a cigar from
his pocket, lighted it, and, raising the window, blew the smoke outside.
A baggage-truck was being trundled by. He could have put out his hand
and touched the heap of trunks and bags with which it was laden. A burly
negro was pushing it along. Raising his eyes suddenly, he saw Hoag,
and there was no mistaking the startled look beneath the lines of his
swarthy face. Another blow had been received. Hoag turned from the
window. The train started on, slowly at first, and, going faster and
faster, soon was passing through Hoag's property. Never on any other
occasion had he failed to survey these possessions with pride and
interest. The feeling had died within him. A drab disenchantment seemed
to have fallen upon every visible object. All he owned--the things which
had once been as his life's blood--had dwindled till they amounted to no
more than the broken toys of babyhood.
Beyond his fertile lands and the roofs of his buildings rose a
red-soiled hill which was the property of the village. Hoag turned his
head to look at it. He shuddered. Tall white shafts shone in the full
yellow light. One, distinctly visible, marked the grave of his wife, on
which Hoag had spared no expense. There was room for another shaft close
beside it. Under it a murdered man would lie. That was inevitable unless
something was done--and what could be done? “Death, death, death!” The
smooth, flanged wheels seemed to grind the words into the steel rails.
They were written on the blue sky along the earth-rimmed horizon. They
were whispered from the lowest depths of himself. His blood crept, cold
and sluggish, through his veins. A chill seemed to have attacked his
feet and ankles and was gradually creeping upward. He remembered that
this was said to be the sensation of dying, and he stood up and stamped
his feet in vigorous, rebellious terror.