JOURNEY'S END
The snow, that morning, lay in drifts from five to eight inches across
the trail, and to the height of several feet up against those rock
walls raising, as on vast artificial tables, the higher stretches of
the Kiowa country. But by noon the plain was scarcely streaked with
white and when the sun set there was nothing to suggest that a
snowflake had ever fallen in that sand-strewn world. The interminable
reaches, broken only by the level uplands marked from the plain by
their perpendicular walls, and the Wichita Mountains, as faint and
unsubstantial to the eye as curved images of smoke against the
sky--these dreary monotonies and remotenesses naturally oppress the
traveler with a sense of his insignificance. The vast silences, too, of
brooding, treeless wastes, sun-baked river-beds, shadowless brown
squares standing for miles at a brief height above the shadowless brown
floor of the plain--silences amidst which only the wind finds a
voice--these, too, insist drearily on the nothingness of man.
But Wilfred and Lahoma were not thus affected. The somethingness of
man had never to them been so thrillingly evident. They saw and heard
that which was not, except for those having eyes and ears to
apprehend--roses in the sand, bird-song in the desert. And when the
rude cabins and hasty tents of the last stage-station in Greer County
showed dark and white against the horizon of a spring-like morning,
Wilfred cried exultantly:
"The end of the journey!"
And Lahoma, suddenly showing in her cheeks all the roses that had
opened in her dreams, repeated gaily, yet a little brokenly:
"The end of the journey!"
The end of the journey meant a wedding. The plains blossom with
endless flower-gardens and the mountains sing together when the end of
the journey means a wedding.
Leaving Lahoma at the small new hotel from whose boards the sun began
boiling out resin as soon as it was well aloft, Wilfred hurried after a
fresh horse to carry him at once to the cove, ten miles away. Warning
must be given to Brick Willock first of all. Lahoma even had a wild
hope that Brick might devise some means whereby he could attend the
wedding without danger of arrest, but to Wilfred this seemed impossible.
He had gone but a few steps from the hotel when he came face to face
with the sheriff of Greer County. Cutting short his old friend's
outburst of pleasure:
"Look here, Mizzoo," said Wilfred, drawing him aside from the curious
throng on the sidewalk, "have you got a warrant against Brick Willock?"
Mizzoo tapped his breast. "Here!", he said; "know where he is?"
Wilfred sighed with relief: "At any rate, YOU don't!" he cried.
"No--'rat him! Where're you going, Bill?"
"I want a horse..."
"No use riding over to the cove," remarked his friend, with a grin.
"That is, unless you want to call on some friends of mine--deputies;
they're living in the dugout, just laying for Brick to show himself."
"But, MIZZOO!" expostulated Wilfred, "why are you taking so much
trouble against my best friend? The warrant ought to be enough; and if
you can't get a chance to serve it on him, that's not your fault. Your
deputies haven't any right in that cove, and I'm going to smoke 'em
out."
Mizzoo chewed, with a deprecatory shake of his head. "See here, old
tap," he murmured, "don't you say nothing about being Brick Willock's
friend. The whole country is roused against him. Heard of them three
bodies?"
Wilfred explained that he had just come to town.
"Well, good lord, then, the pleasure I'm going to have in telling you
something you don't know, and something that's full of meat! Let's go
wheres we can sit down--this ain't no standing news." The lank
red-faced sheriff started across the street without looking to see if
he were followed.
He did not stop till he was in his room at the hotel. "Now," he said,
locking the door, "sit down. Yes, you BET. I got a warrant against
Brick Willock! It was sworn out by a fellow named Jeremiah
Kimball--you know him as 'Red.' The form's regular, charges weighty.
Brick Willock was once a member of Red Kimball's gang; he's the only
one that didn't come in to get his amnesty. See? Well, he killed Red's
brother--shot 'im. Gledware's coming on to witness to it. Willock
will claim he done the deed to save Gledware's life--his and his little
gal's. But Gledware will show it was otherwise. Red told me all about
it. Brick's a murderer, and worst of all, he's a murderer without an
amnesty--that's the only difference between him and Red. Well, old
tap, I took my oath to do my duty. You know what that signifies."
"But there's no truth in all this rot. Brick HAD to shoot Kansas
Kimball--"
"Well, let him show that in court. My business is to take him alive.
That ain't all, that's just the preface. Listen! If you'll believe
me, the stage that Red and his pards was in--coming here to swear out
the warrant, they was--that there stage was set on by this friend of
yours--yes, Brick has gathered together some of his old pards and is a
highwayman--why, he shot one of Red's witnesses, and he shot the
driver!"
"I know something about that holdup," cried Wilfred scornfully. "It
must have been done by Indians."
"Red SAW Brick amongst the gang. He RECOGNIZED him. Well, Red and his
other pard gets on horses they cuts loose, and comes like lightning,
and gets here, and tells the story--and maybe you think this community
ain't a-rearing and a-charging and a-sniffing for blood! There'd be
more excitement against Brick Willock if there was more community, but
such as they is, is concentrated."
"Mizzoo, listen to reason. Don't you understand that Red wants
revenge, and has misrepresented this Indian attack to tally with his
other lies?"
"I wouldn't say nothing against Red, old tap. It ain't gentlemanly to
call dead folk liars."
"Dead folk!" echoed Wilfred, starting up.
"I KNOWED you didn't understand that Red's off the trail forever,"
Mizzoo rejoined gently. "I knowed you wouldn't be accusing him so
rancid, had you been posted on his funeral."
Wilfred felt a great relief, then a great wonder.
"He's dead. I don't say he's better off, I don't know; but I guess the
world is. I don't like to censure them that's departed. Brick Willock
is still with us, and him the county can't say enough against. His
life wouldn't be worth two bits if anybody laid eyes on 'im. Consider
his high-handed doings. Wasn't it enough in the past to kill Red's
brother, but what he must needs collect his pals, stop the stage-coach,
shoot two men trying to get Red, and one of 'em the innocent driver?
You say, yes. But hold on, that ain't all he done. No, sir. The very
next day after Red swore out that warrant--and it was yesterday, if you
ask ME--what is saw, when we men of Mangum comes out of our doors?
Three corpses lying on the sidewalk, side by side. You say, what
corpses? Wait. I'm coming to that. One was that driver; one was the
pard that got shot with the driver. The other was Red Kimball his own
self."
"I knew the bodies had been carried away from the trail," exclaimed
Wilfred in perplexity. He related his discoveries of the stormy night.
"But you didn't know they had been brung to town all this distance to
be laid beside Red. You didn't know Red had been stabbed so he could
be added, too. You didn't know the three of them had been left on the
street to rile up every man with blood in his veins. Why, Wilfred, it's
an insult to the whole state of Texas, Such high-handed doings ain't
to be bore. If Brick Willock don't want to be tried in court, is that
an excuse for killing off all that might witness against him? It might
of been ONCE. But we're determined to have a county of law-abiding
citizens. Such free living has got to be nipped in the bud, or we'll
have another No-Man's Land. We're determined to live under the laws.
This is civilization. The cattle business is dead, land is getting
tied up by title-deeds, the deer's gone, and there's nothing left but
civilization. And I am the--er--as sheriff of Greer County I am a--I
am the angel of civilization, you may say."
Mizzoo started up, too excited to notice Wilfred's suddenly distorted
face. It was no time to display a sense of the ludicrous; the young
man hotly burst into passionate argument and reasonable hypothesis.
"We've got civilization," Mizzoo declared doggedly, "and we aim to hold
on to her, you bet! There's going to be no such doings as three
corpses stretched out on the sidewalk for breakfast, not while I'm at
the helm. How'd that look, if wrote up for the New York papers? That
ain't all--remember that ghost I used to worry my life out over, trying
to meet up with on the trail? Him, or her or it, that haunted every
step of the way from Abilene to the Gulf of Mexico? It's a flitting,
that ghost is! Well, I don't claim that no ghost is in my
jurisdiction. Brick's flesh and blood, there's bone to him. As my
aunt (Miss Sue of Missouri) used to say, 'he's some MAN.'"
Waving aside Mizzoo's ghost, Wilfred elaborated his theory of an Indian
attack, described Brick's peaceable disposition, his gentleness to
Lahoma--then dwelt on the friendship between himself and Brick, and the
relations between himself and Brick's ward.
"It all comes to this," Mizzoo declared: "if you could make me think
Willock a harmless lamb and as innocent, it wouldn't change conditions.
This neighborhood calls for his life and'd take it if in reach; and my
warrant calls for his arrest. All I can promise is to get him, if
possible, behind the bars before the mob gets him in a rope. As my
aunt, whom I have oft-times quoted my aunt (Miss Sue of Missouri, a
woman of elegant sense)--'that's the word,' she used to say, 'with the
bark on it!'"
Wilfred permitted himself the pleasure of taunting Mizzoo with the very
evident truth that before Willock was hanged or imprisoned, he must
first be caught.
Mizzoo grinned good-naturedly. "Yap. Well, we've got a clew locked up
in jail right now that could tell us something, I judge, and will tell
us something before set free; its name is Bill Atkins. He's a wise old
coon, but as sour as a boiled owl,--nothing as yet to be negotiated
with him than if he was a bobcat catched in a trap. We're hoping
time'll mellow him--time and the prospect of being took out and swung
from the nearest limb--speaking literary, not by nature, as you know
trees is as scarce about here as Brick Willock himself."
Wilfred insisted on an immediate visit to Bill. "Brick declared he
wouldn't tell Bill his hiding-place," he said, "for he didn't want to
get him into trouble. He'll tell me if he knows anything--and if he
doesn't, it's an outrage to shut him up, old as he is, and as rheumatic
as he's old."
On the way to the rudely improvised prison, Mizzoo defended himself.
"He wasn't too old and rheumatic to fight like a wildcat--why, he had
to be lifted up bodily and carried into his cell. Not a word can we
get out of him, or a bite of grub into him. I believe that old
codger's just too obstinate to die!"
When they reached the prison door, the crowd gathered about them, eager
for news, watching Mizzoo unfasten the door as if he were unlocking the
secret to Willock's whereabouts. There were loud imprecations on the
head of the murderer, and fierce prophecies as to what would happen to
Bill if he preserved his incriminating silence. It seemed but a moment
before hurrying forms from many directions packed themselves into a
mass before the jail.
The cells were in the basement. The only entrance to the building was
by means of a flight of six steps leading to an unroofed platform
before the door of the story proper. Mizzoo and Wilfred, standing on
this platform, were lifted above the heads of perhaps a hundred men who
watched eagerly the dangling bunch of keys. Mizzoo had stationed three
deputies at the foot of the steps to keep back the mob, for if the
excited men once rushed into the jail nothing could check their course.
The deputies, tall broad-shouldered fellows, pushed back the
threatening tide, always with good-natured protests,--words half
bantering, half appealing, repulsive thrusts of the arms, rough but
inflicting no hurt. So peaceful a minute before had been the Square,
it was difficult to comprehend the sudden spirit of danger.
Mizzoo whispered to Wilfred, "We'd better get in as quick as possible."
The words were lost in the increasing roar of voices. He spoke again:
"When I swing open the door, that bunch will try to make a run for it.
You jump inside and I'll be after you like a shot.... We'll lock
ourselves in--"
"Hey, Mizzoo!" shouted a voice from the crowd, "bring out that old
cuss. Drag him to the platform, we want to hear what he's got to say.
"Say, Mr. Sheriff! Tell him if he won't come to us, we'll go to him.
We've got to know where Brick Willock's hiding, and that's all about
it."
"Sure!" growled a third. "What kind of a town is this, anyway? A
refuge for highwaymen and murderers?"
A struggle took place at the foot of the stairs, not so good-naturedly
as heretofore. A reasoning voice was heard: "Just let me say a word
to the boys."
"Yes!" called others, "let's hear HIM!"
There was a surging forward, and a man was lifted literally over the
heads of the three deputies; he reached the platform breathless,
disheveled, but triumphant. It was the survivor of Red Kimball's band.
Mizzoo, mistaking his coming for a general rush, had hastily relocked
the door, and he and Wilfred defended themselves with drawn revolvers.
"I ain't up here to do no harm," called the ex-highwayman. "I ain't
got the spirit for warfare. My chief is killed, my pards is dead. Even
that innocent stage-driver what knew nothing of us, is killed in the
attack that Brick Willock made on us in the dark and behind our backs.
How're you going to grow when the whole world knows you ain't nothing
but a den of snakes? You may claim it's all Brick Willock. I say if
he's bigger than the town, if he murders and stabs and you can't help
it, then the town ain't as good as him. My life's in danger. I don't
know if I'll draw another breath. What kind of a reputation is that for
you to send abroad? There's a man in this jail can tell you where
Willock's hiding. Good day!"
The speaker was down the steps in two leaps, and the deputies drew
aside to let him pass out. Civic pride, above all, civic ambition, had
been touched to the quick. A hoarse roar followed the speech, and
cries for Bill grew frantic. Mizzoo, afraid to unlock the door, stared
at Wilfred in perplexity.
"I told you they had civilization on the brain," he muttered. "The old
times are past. I daresn't make a move toward that lock."
"Drop the keys behind you--I'll get 'em," Wilfred murmured. "Step a
little forward. Say something to 'em."
"Ain't got nothing to say," growled Mizzoo, glaring at the mob. "These
boys are in the right of it, that's how I feel--cuss that obstinate old
bobcat! it's his own fault if they string him up."
"Here they come!" Wilfred exclaimed.
"Steady now, old Mizzoo--we've whipped packs of wolves before
today--coyotes crazy with hunger--big gray loafers in the rocks--eh,
Mizzoo?" He shouted to the deputies who had been pushed against the
railing: "Give it to 'em, boys!"
But the deputies did not fire, and the mob, though chafing with mad
impatience, did not advance. It was a single figure that swept up the
steps, unobstructed, aided, indeed, by the mass of packed men in the
street--a figure slight and erect, tingling with the necessity of
action to which every vein and muscle responded, tingling so vitally,
so electrically, that the crowd also tingled, not understanding, but
none the less thrilled.
"Lahoma!" Wilfred was at her side. "You here!"
"Yes, I'm here," she returned breathlessly, her face flaming with
excitement. "I'm going to talk to these people--let me have that--"
She took the revolver from his unresisting hand, uncocked it, and
slipped it into her bosom. Then she faced the mob and held up her
empty hand.