THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
The darkness that precedes morning had the prairie country in its grip
when Howard, the gaunt foreman of the B.B. ranch, drew rein before the
silent tent, and with the butt end of his quirt tapped on the heavy
canvas.
"Wake up," he called laconically. "You're wanted at the ranch house."
Echo-like, startling in its suddenness, an inverted V opened in the
white wall and in it, fully dressed, vigilant, appeared the figure of
its owner.
"What is it?" asked a voice insistently.
The Texan stared in unconcealed surprise.
"In Heaven's name, man, don't you ever sleep?" he drawled. "The boss is
dead," he added baldly at second thought.
The black V closed again, and distinct in outline against the white
background appeared the silhouette of the listener. His arms were folded
across his chest in a way that was characteristic, and his moccasined
feet were set close together. He spoke no word of surprise, asked no
question; merely stood there in the silence and the semi-darkness
waiting.
The foreman was by no means a responsive soul, yet, watching, there
instinctively crept over him a feeling akin to awe of this other silent
human. There was the mystery of death itself in that motionless,
listening shadow.
"It was just before I came over to tell you that Mrs. Landor raised the
house," he explained. "She woke up in the night and found the boss
so--and cold already." Unconsciously his voice had lowered. "She
screamed like a mad woman, and ran down-stairs in her nightdress,
chattering so we could hardly understand her." He slapped at his baggy
chaperajos with his quirt absently. "That's all I know, except there's
no particular use to hurry. It's all over now, and he never knew what
took him."
Silently as before the aperture in the tent opened and closed and the
listener disappeared; to reappear a moment later with a curled-up woolly
bundle in his arms. Without a word of explanation he strode toward the
barn, leaving Howard staring after him uncertainly. Listening, the
latter heard a suppressed little puppyish protest, as though its maker
were very sleepy, a moment later the soft, recognising whinny of a
broncho, and then, startlingly sudden as the figure had first emerged
from the tent, it appeared again, mounted, by his side.
For half the distance to the ranch house not a word was said; then of a
sudden Howard drew his horse to a walk meaningly.
"I suppose it's none of my business," he commented without preface, "but
unless I'm badly mistaken there'll be hell to pay around the Buffalo
Butte now."
Again, as at the tent door, his companion made no answer; merely waited
for the something he knew was on the other's mind. The east was
beginning to lighten now, and against the reddening sky his dark face
appeared almost pale.
Howard shifted in his saddle seat and inspected the ground at his right
as intently as though there might be jewels scattered about.
"The boss's relative--Craig," he added, "has taken possession there as
completely as if he'd owned the place a lifetime instead of been a
visitor two days." The long moustaches that gave the man's face an
unmeritedly ferocious expression lifted characteristically. "I like you,
How, or I wouldn't stick my bill into your affairs. That boy is going to
make you trouble, take my word for it."
Even then there was no response; but the overseer did not seem surprised
or offended. Instead, the load he had to impart off his mind, his manner
indicated distinct relief. But one thing more was necessary to his
material comfort--and that solace was at hand. Taking a great bite of
plug tobacco, a chew that swelled one of his thin cheeks like a wen, he
lapsed into his normal attitude of disinterested reverie.
The ranch house was lighted from top to bottom, abnormally brilliant,
and as the Indian entered the odour of kerosene was strong in his
nostrils. In the kitchen as he passed through were the other two
herders. They sat side by side in uncomfortable inaction, their big
sombreros in their hands; and with the suppression of those unused to
death nodded him silent recognition. The dining-room was empty, likewise
the living-room; but as he mounted the stairs, he could hear the muffled
catch of a woman's sobs, and above them, intermittent, authoritative,
the voice of a man speaking. His moccasined feet gave no warning, and
even after he had entered the room where the dead man lay none of the
three who were already present knew that he was there.
Just within the doorway he paused and looked about him. In one corner of
the room, well away from the bed, sat Mary Landor. She did not look up
as he entered, apparently did not see him, did not see anything. The
first wild passion of grief past, she had lapsed into a sort of passive
lethargy. Her fingers kept picking at the edge of the loose dressing
sack she had put on, and now and then her thin lips trembled; but that
was all.
Only a glance the newcomer gave her, then his eyes shifted to the bed;
shifted and halted and, unconsciously as he had done when Howard first
broke the news, his feet came close together and his arms folded across
his chest in characteristic, all-observing attention. Not a muscle
moved, he scarcely seemed to breathe. He merely watched.
And this was what he saw: The shape of a dead man lying as at first
beneath the covers; only now the sheet had been raised until the face
was hid. Beside it, stretched out in abandon as she had thrown herself
down, her head all but buried from view, was the girl Bess. She was
sobbing as though her heart would break: sobbing as though unconscious
of another human being in the world. Above her, leaning over her, was
the form of a man: Craig. His uncle had brought his belongings from the
tiny town the day before, and even at this time his linen and cravat
were immaculate. He was looking down at the little woman before him,
looking and hesitating as one choosing between good and evil.
"Bess," he was saying, "you must not. You'll make yourself sick.
Besides, it's nearly morning and people will be coming. Don't do so;
please!"
No answer, no indication that he had been heard; only the muffled,
racking, piteous sobs.
"Bess," insistently, "Bess! Listen to me. I can't have you do so. Uncle
Landor wouldn't like it, I know he wouldn't. He'd be sorry if he knew.
Be brave, girlie. You're not alone yet."
Still no response of word or of action. Still the dainty, curved
shoulders trembled and were quiet and trembled again.
The man's hand dropped to the coverlet beside him. His face went very
close.
"Cousin Bess," he repeated for the last time tensely, "I can't let you
cry so. I won't. I care for you too much, little girl; infinitely too
much. It hurts me to have you feel so terribly, hurts me more than I
can tell." Just for a moment he hesitated, and like an inexperienced
gambler his face went tense and white. "You must listen to me,
Elizabeth, Uncle has gone, but there are others who will take care of
you. I myself will take care of you, girlie. Listen, Bess, for there's
something I must tell you, something you make me tell you now." Swiftly,
unhesitatingly, he leaned still nearer; with one motion his arm passed
about her and he clasped her close, so close she could not struggle,
could not prevent. "I love you, little girl. Though I've only known you
two days, I love you. That is what you compel me to tell you. This is
why it hurts me to have you cry so. I love you, Bess; I love you!"
This is what, there in that tiny unplastered bed-room next the roof,
came to pass that October morning. Just so the four living actors
remained for a second while the first light of day sifted in through the
tiny-paned windows; the elderly woman unconscious of the drama enacting
before her eyes, unconscious of anything, her thin fingers still picking
at the edge of her sack; the motionless watcher rigid as a casting in
bronze: the passionate gambling stranger man holding the girl to him
tightly, so tightly she could not but remain so, passive; then came the
climax. Of a sudden the image that had been lifeless resolved itself
into a man. Muscles played here and there visibly beneath the
close-fitting flannel shirt he wore. Swiftly, yet still without a sound,
one moccasined foot moved forward, and its mate--and again the first.
Unexpected as death itself would have been at that instant, Craig felt
two mighty irresistible hands close on his shoulders; close with a grip
that all but paralysed. Irresistibly again he felt himself turned about,
put upon his feet; realised of a sudden, too suddenly and unexpectedly
even to admit of a cry, that the girl was free, that, not a foot
distant, he was staring into the face of the one being on earth from
whom he had most to fear. All this in seconds; then, mercifully
intervening, a Providence itself, the tense wet face of the girl came
between. The first sound that had been spoken came to his ears.
"How! In God's name don't! He didn't mean any harm; I know he didn't.
Forgive him, How; please, please," and repeated: "Forgive him--for my
sake."
* * * * *
The lamps had long been out, but the odour of low-test kerosene still
hung about the closed living-room where the same four people sat in
council. No effort had as yet been made to put the place to rights, and
in consequence it was stuffy and disordered and proportionately
depressing. The mound of cigarette stumps which Craig had builded the
night before lay unsightly and evil of odour on the table. The faded rag
carpet was littered with the tobacco he had scattered. His gaudy riding
blouse and cap reposed on a lounge in one corner. His ulster and hat,
which he had unpacked the last thing before retiring, lay across a
chair. Look where one might about the place, there were evidences of
his presence, of his dominant inhabitance. Already after two days'
residence, as Howard had said, he had taken complete possession.
Whosoever may have possessed the voice of authority in the past,
concerning the future there was to be no doubt. That voice was speaking
now.
"To be sure I shall take him East," it said. "His father is buried in
Boston, and his grandfather, and his grandfather's father." The voice
halted, lowered. "Besides, my mother and his other sister, who died
years and years ago, are both there." Obviously, too obviously, he
turned away until his face was hid. Into the voice there crept a throb
that was almost convincing. "They'd all want him with them, I'm sure,
even though he wouldn't have cared; and I think he would. He mentioned
it the first night I came, but of course I didn't realise--then--" The
voice was silent.
As hours before in the room above, Mary Landor showed no emotion, did
not speak. Not even yet had her sorrow-numbed brain awakened, had she
grasped the full meaning of the thing which had happened to her. Later,
indefinitely later, the knowledge would come, and with it the hour of
reckoning; but for the present she was a mere puppet in the play. Craig,
the dominant, had told her to dress, and she had dressed. He had
summoned her to the council, and she had obeyed. But it was not to her
now that he had spoken, nor to the other man who, silent as he had
entered, stood erect, his arms folded, listening. To yet another he had
spoken. She it was, Elizabeth, who answered.
"But to take him clear back there, away from everyone who cares for him
or ever has cared for him." The soft lower lip was becoming unmanageable
and the girl halted, winking hard. "It seems cruel."
"Not if he would have wished it, Bess."
"But if he hadn't wished it--"
"I repeat I think he would." Craig shifted until his back was toward the
other man. "I think that his mentioning the possibility at all, the
first night I came, proves that he wished it."
"Perhaps.... I don't know." ... A long pause; then of a sudden the girl
arose and walked to the window. But subterfuge was from her a thing
apart, and she merely leaned her face against the casement. "I can't
bear to think of it," she trembled.
Craig moved half way toward her; then remembered, and halted.
"Yes, let's decide, and not talk about it," he returned swiftly. "You
agree with me after all, don't you, Bess?"
The girl did not look up.
"Don't ask me. You and How and Aunt Mary decide." With an effort she
resumed her former place; but even yet she did not glance at him.
"Wherever you take him I shall go along, is all."
Swiftly, exuberantly swiftly, Craig took her up.
"Yes, I think he would have liked that. I ... You agree with me too,
don't you, Aunt Mary?"
The older woman started at sound of her name, looked up vacantly.
"What?" she queried absently.
Craig repeated the question perfunctorily.
"Yes, he was always good to me, very good to me," she returned
monotonously.
In sympathy, the girl's brown eyes moistened anew; but Craig turned away
almost impatiently. "Let's consider it settled then," he said.
For the first time the girl glanced up; but it was not at Craig that she
looked. It was at that other figure in the background, the figure that
not once through it all had stirred or made a sound. "What shall we do,
How? what ought we to do?" she asked.
For ten seconds there was silence; but not even then did Craig recognise
the other's presence by so much as a glance. Only the look of exultation
left his face, and over his blue eyes the lids tightened perceptibly.
"Don't consider what I think, Bess," said a low voice at last. "Do what
you feel is right."
It was the white man who had decided, but it was another who brought the
decision to pass. How Landor, the Indian, it was who, alone in the
dreary chamber beneath the roof, laid the dead man out decently, and for
five dragging minutes thereafter, before the others had come, stood like
a statue gazing down at the kindly, heavy face, with a look on his own
that no living human had ever seen or would ever see. How Landor, the
Indian, it was who, again alone in the surrey, with the closely drawn
canvas curtains, drove all that day and half the night to the nearest
undertaker at the railroad terminus beyond the river, seventy-five miles
away. How Landor, the Indian, again it was who, with a change of horses,
but barely a pause to eat, started straight back on the return trail,
and ere it was again light was within the limits of Coyote Centre,
knocking at the door of Mattie Burton, the one woman friend of Mary
Landor he knew. How Landor it was once more who, before twenty-four
hours from the time he had left, had passed, with the unwilling visitor
by his side, re-entered the Buffalo Butte ranch yard. Last of all, How
Landor, the Indian, it was who faced the old surrey once more to the
east, and with still another team before him and a cold lunch in his
pocket, sat waiting within the hour to take the departing ones away.
Through it all he scarcely spoke a word, not one that was superfluous.
What he was thinking of no one but he himself knew. That he had expected
what had taken place in his absence, his bringing Mrs. Burton proved. At
last realisation had come, and Mary Landor was paying the price of the
brief lethargic respite; paying it with usury, paying it with the
helpless abandon of the dependent. The dreary weather-coloured ranch
house was not a pleasant place to be in that day. Craig left it
thankfully, with a shrug of the shoulders beneath the box-fitting
topcoat, as the door closed behind him. The other passenger, the one who
should have left also and did not, the girl Elizabeth--.
How Landor it was again who, when minutes of waiting had passed, minutes
wherein Craig consumed cigarettes successively, tied the team and
disappeared within doors. What he said none save the girl herself knew;
but when he returned he was not alone, and though the eyes of his
companion were red, there was in her manner no longer a trace of
hesitation.
The two passengers comfortably muffled in the robes of the rear seat,
the driver buttoned the curtains tight about them methodically. The day
was very still, not a sound came to them from over the prairie, and of a
sudden, startlingly clear, from the house itself there came an
interruption: the piteous, hopeless wail of a woman in a paroxysm of
grief, and a moment later the voice of another woman in unemotional,
comforting monotone.
"How," said a choking, answering voice, "I can't go after all, I can't!"
Within the carriage, safe from observation, her companion took her hand
authoritatively, pressed it within his own.
"Yes, you can, Bess," he said low. "Aunt Mary will have to fight it out
for herself. You couldn't help her any by staying."
But already the Indian was gone. Within the house as before, even
keen-eared Mattie Burton failed to catch what he said. Had she done so,
she would have been no wiser, for apparently that moment a miracle took
place. Of a sudden, the hysterical voice was silent. The man spoke again
and--the watcher stared in pure unbelief--her own hand in her
companion's hand, Mary Landor followed him obediently out to the surrey.
"We haven't any time to lose," he said evenly, as he drew back the flap
of the curtain. "You'd better say good-bye now."
"Mother!"
"Bessie, girl. Bessie!"
Again within the ranch house, Mary Landor sank into a seat with the
utter weariness of a somnambulist awakened. Fully a half minute the
Indian stood looking down at her. For one of the few times in his life
his manner indicated indecision. His long arms hung loose from his
shoulders. His wide-brimmed hat hid his eyes. The watcher thought he
looked very, very weary. Then of a sudden he roused. Bending over--did
he foresee what was to come, that moment?--he did something he had never
done before.
"Good-bye, mother," he said, and kissed her on the lips.
The door closed behind him noiselessly, and a half minute later the
loose-wheeled old surrey went rumbling past the door. Mrs. Burton was
feminine and curious, and she went to the window to watch it from sight.
The Indian, alone on the front seat, sat looking straight ahead. The
bronchos, fresh from the stall, and but a few weeks before wild on the
prairie, tugged at the bit wickedly, tried to bolt; but the driver did
not stir in his place. The left hand, that held the reins, rose and fell
with their motion, as an angler takes up slack in his line; that was
all. The woman had lived long on the frontier. She was appreciative and
pressed her face against the pane the better to see. They were through
the gate now, well out on the prairie. The clatter of the waggon had
ceased, the figure of the driver was concealed by the curtains; but the
bronchos were still tugging at the bit, still--.
"Mary! In heaven's name!" The sound of a falling body had caught her ear
and she had turned. "Mary Landor!" The dishes in the cupboard against
the wall shook as something heavy met the floor. "Mary!" A pause and a
tongue-tied examination. "My God! The woman is dead!"
* * * * *
It was ten minutes before starting time. The old-fashioned engine,
contemptuously relegated to the frontier before going to the junk heap,
was puffing at the side of the low sanded station platform. The rough
cottonwood box was already in the baggage car. How himself had assisted
in putting it there, had previously settled for its transportation.
Likewise he had bought the girl's ticket, and checked her scanty
baggage. The usual crowd of loafers was about the place, and his every
action was observed with the deepest interest. Wherever he moved the
spectators followed. Urchins near at hand fought horrible mimic duels
for his benefit; duels which invariably ended in the scalping of the
vanquished--and with expressions of demoniacal exultation playing upon
the face of the conqueror. From far in the rear a war whoop sounded; and
when the effort was to all evidence ignored, was repeated intrepidly
near at hand. They put themselves elaborately in his way, to move at his
approach with grunts of guttural protestation. Already, even here on the
frontier, the Sioux and his kind were becoming a novelty. Verily they
were rare sportsmen, those mimicking loafers; and for Indians it was
ever the open season. All about sounded the popping of their artillery;
to be, when exhausted, as often reloaded and fired again.
But through it all, apparently unseeing, unconscious, the man had gone
about his business. Now as he left the ticket window and approached the
single coach, it was nearly starting time. The girl had already entered
and sat motionless in her seat watching him through the dusty window
glass. Craig, his feet wide apart, stood on the platform smoking a last
cigarette. He shrugged in silence as the other passed him and mounted
the steps.
Save for the girl, the coach was empty; but, destitute of courtesy, the
spectators without stared with redoubled interest. Without a word the
man handed over the ticket and checks. Still in silence he slipped a
roll of bills into her passive hand. Until that moment the girl had not
thought of money; but even now as she accepted it, there never occurred
the wonder from whence it had come. Had she known how those few dollars
had been stored up, bit by bit, month by month--But she did not know.
Unbelievably unsophisticated, unbelievably innocent and helpless, was
Elizabeth Landor at this time. Sitting there that morning on the
threshold, she had no more comprehension of the world she was entering,
she had entered, than of eternity itself. She was merely passive,
trusting, waiting to be led. Like a bit of down from the prairie
milkweed plant, she was to be the sport of every breath of wind that
blew. And already that wind was blowing. She had watched the scene on
the platform, had understood the intent of the mimicry, had seen the
winks and nudges, had heard the mocking war whoop. All this she had
seen, all this had been stored away in her consciousness to recur again
and again in the future. Even now her cheeks had burned at the
knowledge, and at last she had watched the man's coming with a feeling
of repression she had never known before, whose significance she did not
try to analyse, did not in the least understand. She did not thank him
for the money. To do so never occurred to her. It was the moment for
parting, but she did not throw her arms about his neck in abandon, as
she would have done a week before. Something, she knew not what,
prevented. She merely sat there, repressed, passive, waiting. A moment,
by her side, the Indian paused. He did not speak, he did not move. He
merely looked at her; and in his dark eyes there was mirrored a
reflection of the look there had been in the eyes of the wild thing he
had stalked and captured that day alone on the prairie. But the girl was
not looking at him, did not see. A moment he stood so, unconsciously as
so many, many times before, in pose; then deliberately, gently, ignoring
the row of curious observant eyes, he took her hand and raised it to his
lips.
"Good-bye, Bess," he said low. "Come back as soon as you can; and don't
worry. Everything will come right." Gently as he had lifted the hand, he
released it. A smile--who but he could have smiled at that
moment?--played for an instant over his face. Then, almost before the
girl realised the fact, before the repressive something that held her in
its grip gave release, he was gone.
As he left the coach, Craig, who was waiting, started without a word or
a hint of recognition to enter. His foot was already on the step, when
he felt a hand upon his arm; a hand with a grip whose meaning there was
no misinterpreting. Against his will he drew back. Against his will he
met the other, face to face, eye to eye. For what seemed to him minutes,
but which in reality was only a second, they stood so. Not a word was
spoken, of warning or of commonplace. There was no polite farce for the
benefit of the spectators. The Indian merely looked at him; but as once
before, alone under the stars, that look was to remain burned on the
white man's memory until he went to his grave.
"A'board," bawled the conductor, and as though worked by the same wire,
the engineer's waiting head disappeared within the cab window.
Side by side, Clayton Craig and Elizabeth Landor sat watching the
weather-stained station and the curious assembled group, as apparently
they slowly receded. The last thing they saw was the alien figure of an
Indian in rancher's garb, gazing motionless after them; and by his side,
in baiting pantomime, one gawky urchin engaged in the labour of scalping
a mate. The last sound that reached their ears was the ironic note of a
war whoop repeated again and again.