He paused, and Benson made haste to assure him of his entire sympathy. In spite of his coarseness the lawyer realized that Young spoke as one who had suffered oppression; or else he joined with an aggressive, quarrelsome disposition, the happy faculty of believing always in the justice of his cause, and that he was as firmly fixed in the right, as his enemies were hopelessly involved in the wrong.
A pause succeeded, and the governor came back to the matter in hand.
“When I think of our wrongs, Mr. Benson, I lose my temper; but they are nothing to you; what do you think, Hickman? What would you advise?”
Hickman turned to Benson and said:
“We can look about here, and try and learn if the party got this far.”
“Would it be possible to continue my investigation among the Indian tribes?” asked Benson.
“Oh, it ain't them,” said Hickman. “They'll steal an ox to eat, maybe; but they wouldn't attack a well-armed party of whites. If it was the Indians, it was them back on the plains, you may be certain of that.”
“If it was the Indians—” broke in Young, “it's my business to know it. I'm Indian agent here; and if they are up to any such deviltries I'll sweat repentance out of them!” and he looked ugly.
Benson rose from his chair.
“Thank you,” he said to Young gratefully. “With your help I may be able to learn something. At any rate you shall hear from me in a day or so.”
A week elapsed, and Benson sorrowfully confessed that so far as his purpose was concerned, he was not one whit wiser than when he arrived at Salt Lake City.
Each day, Mr. Hickman, at the handsome figure he had fixed upon as a reasonable remuneration for the benefits he would confer, bore him company in his search; at first displaying a sardonic humour which his employer wholly failed to enjoy; later this changed to a sneering petulance, for the lawyer's persistency was of a kind he had scarcely bargained on. Yet, in the end, Benson's determination provoked him to a grudging admiration to which he gave expression in characteristic speech.
“You certainly ain't much of a quitter, sir,” he said. “What's your next move going to be? For I reckon there's a next move coming.”
“Several next moves,” said Benson, slightly nettled by the man's manner.
“Well, we'll take 'em one at a time. What comes first?” Hickman asked grinning.
“The Indian tribes in the mountains,” answered Benson with quiet determination.
“That will be just like chasing thistle down,” and Hickman's grin widened.
“Then I'll chase it!” said Benson shortly.
“And never come up with it.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Even if you manage to locate the different camps, you don't suppose, do you, that any redskin will own up he's had a hand in doing away with your friends? And if you venture in among them, what's to hinder them from serving you some trick?”
“That's a risk I shall have to take.”
“I guess you'll find it's more than a risk—”
“Of course, if you prefer not to accompany me—” began Benson.
“Oh, I ain't afraid. It would take right smart to scare Bill Hickman, and Brigham's appointed me to see that no harm comes to you.”
“Has he? That's very kind of him.”
“Oh, I reckon he's got his reasons,” said Hickman coolly,
“And you carry out his wishes?”
“I take counsel.”
“What's that?” inquired Benson.
“It's principally doing what I'm told. That's why you can count on me, young man, no matter what you do.”
“I suppose it will be necessary to secure the services of an interpreter and guides; do you know where I can find a man who is acquainted among the various tribes?”
“I'll have to think that over for a spell.”
But the very next day Hickman arrived early at the hotel and informed Benson that Young wished to see him.
They found him in his office, but not alone. With him was a tall, gaunt fellow, whose deeply-lined face, in spite of its sunburn, showed an unwholesome pallor.
The president shook hands cordially with Benson, and motioned him to a chair.
“As the result of a curious set of circumstances, I have news of your friends at last, Mr. Benson; but you must prepare to hear the worst,” said he, and he turned to the stranger. “Come here, Raymond, and tell your story,” and Raymond, who had been standing apart, now joined the little group by the president's desk, and dropped into the chair Young indicated.
“How do you do, sir.” He addressed himself to Benson, and his manner suggested a kindly sympathy that was not lost on the lawyer.
“Brother Brigham tells me you're looking for Stephen Landray and his brother? I guess I can tell you as much as any man alive about them, for I was with 'em—”
“They are dead, then?” said Benson abruptly. He was very white of face, and his voice was almost a whisper.
Raymond nodded a single emphatic inclination of the head. He cleared his throat, and went on in his soft, slow speech:
“I was with 'em when the redskins put 'em out of business. It was a snug clean up, and it was only by God Almighty's mercy that I fetched myself off.” He turned back the collar of his shirt as he spoke, and Benson saw an ugly scar. Raymond laid his finger on this. “You can see how near they came to fixing me.” he said.
“But how is it that you were with them?” asked Benson.
“I joined the party this side of Fort Laramie. You see, I was a friend of Basil Landray's. I'd known him a right smart while. I was coming in toward the valley and I knew a cut off round by way of the Chugwater that they was keen to try. That was their mistake. If they'd stuck to the emigrant road, this wouldn't have happened.”
“Yes?” said Benson.
“They was mighty agreeable men,” said Raymond, in accents of sincere sorrow. He gave Benson a shy, furtive glance. “And you've come all the way out here to learn what happened to 'em? Well, I reckon their friends was real distressed, not hearing from 'em.”
“But tell me the particulars,” said Benson breathlessly.
“It was a war party of Indians from the plains.”
“What did I tell you? I knew it wa'n'. diggers,” said Hickman. “Diggers? No, I guess not. It was a regular war party; and they showed up when we was within five days of the valley here, but I reckon they'd been following us for right smart of a spell, just waiting for a chance to take us when we wa'n'. looking for it. We stood 'em off for two days and a night; but by then they'd pretty well used us up. Rogers and the kid was dead; Basil was wounded so he couldn't use his rifle; not counting me, and Steve, and Bush, they was about the best we had back of the wagons; the others didn't count for much; well, the morning of the third day we just couldn't hold the redskins off. I reckon there was close on to two hundred in that war party. Two hours after sun-up there was just me, and Steve, and Bush left. Walsh was dead, and Bingham was dead, and Dunlevy had been shot through the hips, and was out of it, along with Basil. Our three guns couldn't keep 'em off, and they swarmed in through the wagons. I saw 'em kill Bush, and then they made an end of Steve, but I hadn't as much as a scratch on me yet, and I threw down my gun thinking I'd take chances; and that's where I was smart. At first some of 'em wanted to kill me then and there; but others was in the notion to take me back with the tribe, which was what I'd counted on. And this was what they decided to do with me. Those who'd been so keen to kill me, found Basil, and Dunlevy, and killed them instead; and that comforted 'em some. Anyhow, after they had robbed the wagons of what they wanted and burnt what they didn't want, we started back into the hills, I watching for a chance to give 'em the slip. Well, the chance come. I got off with a good hoss and a good gun, and this hole in my neck.”
“And how long ago was this?” asked Benson.
“The fight? A year ago, just. I was with the Indians for pretty near a month, and I was almost two months in getting home. I was fixed so bad I daren't travel and this here wound kept opening on me; she opened three times and I had to lay by and let her heal up. And when I did get home I was sick; I am only getting round now,” he added with plaintive pity for himself. “I'm that weak, if you was to shake your finger at me I'd be ready to set down and cry. I been back there, though—I went back this spring. You see I only knowed their names, I'd never heard any of 'em say where they'd come from, except Rogers; I remembered to have heard him say he'd lived in Texas where he'd fit the Mexicans, but I knowed the others wa'n'. from Texas.”
“And what did you find?” asked Benson.
“Well, as far as I could see, everything was as the Indians had left it; but there was nothing to tell me what I wanted to know.”
He had told this monumental lie of his without the flicker of an eyelid; and with a touch of sorrow and gentle melancholy that had endeared him to the lawyer. Now Young joined in the conversation.
“You see, Mr. Benson, I had heard of this fight of Brother Raymond's, at least I'd heard he'd been attacked by a party of Indians; but yesterday Brother Raymond's father, who is an elder in the church, was here to get his instructions, as I was sending him into the southern part of the state to establish a settlement, and we got to talking of Brother Thomas; and he told me the particulars of the fight.”
At this Brother Thomas favoured the governor with a shy smile.
“Father hated powerful to go,” he said, “but he reckoned it was the Lord's business you was sending him on, Brother Brigham; and he knuckled under.”
Benson felt stupefied and crushed by what he had just heard; he thought of Virginia with infinite pity. He turned to Young.
“I want to see where this massacre took place,” he said. “I think my clients would expect this of me. Now, how many days will it take.”
“Raymond will be better able to tell you that than I,” said Young.
“How many days will it take, Mr. Raymond?” asked Benson.
“Five days to go there, and you'll have to come back to Salt Lake if you want to catch up with a party going East.”
“Can I secure your services as a guide?” asked the lawyer.
“Me? No, I guess not—” said Raymond quickly; but Young interrupted him.
“Certainly, Raymond will go with you, Mr Benson,” he said.
“Look here, Brother Brigham, you never said I'd have to go,” objected Raymond. “I got business of my own to attend to.”
“If Mr. Raymond is unwilling—” began Benson.
“Oh, he's willing enough,” said Young, rather grimly. “You'd better take Hickman, too.”
“He won't need me if he's got Bill,” said Raymond doggedly.
“Yes he will. Understand you'll be paid, well paid. Mr. Benson expects to be fair and liberal with you.”
“I don't want his money,” muttered Raymond sullenly.
Hickman, who had seemed vastly amused by something in the situation that was not patent to Benson, now slapped Raymond on the back.
“Oh, come!” he cried. “You want anybody's money; that's your kind, Tom Raymond. You needn't be scared about the Indians, they're all in my contract.”
And in spite of Raymond's reluctance to take part in Benson's quest, he led his pack-mule when Hickman and the lawyer rode out of the city at dawn the next morning.
“I am sorry that he seems to be going with us against his inclination,” said Benson. He was disposed to have a greater liking for Raymond than Hickman had been able to inspire him with, and he thought he understood the former's objection to being of the party, and liked him none the less for it.
For two days they followed the emigrant trail eastward; but on the third they left it and struck off into the mountains. Raymond led them unerringly, but his sullen temper endured.
The fifth day they made their longest march, and it was dark when they went into camp.
“To-morrow I'll show you what you've come to see,” said Raymond, as he drew his blankets about him, and stretched himself on the ground preparatory to sleep. Yet the following morning, after they had eaten their breakfast, he still lingered by the camp-fire, and it was only after much urging on the part of Hickman that he took himself off to bring up the horses, but he returned with only two of them.
“Where's your horse and the pack-mule?” demanded Hickman angrily.
“I shan't need 'em to-day,” answered Raymond.
“Why not?”
“This is the place, do you see that hill off yonder? I reckon you'll find what you're looking for there.”
“We'll go there then—at once,” said Benson, drawing in his breath quickly.
Raymond fell back a step at his words.
“You and Bill go. I been there before. I'm not going again. You'll see where I buried 'em, where the banks of a wash are heaved in. You and Bill go look.”
Hickman exploded in a burst of laughter at this.
“Well, now,” he said, and repeated, “well, now—why damn your soul to hell, I got chickens at home with more heart. What are you afraid of, Tom Raymond?”
“I ain't saying I'm afraid,” but his face was ghastly.
“No, by thunder! you ain't saying it, you don't need to. What do you expect to see anyhow? Ghosts?”
“Shut up, Bill.”
The hill Raymond had indicated was, perhaps two miles distant from their camp, and in a little less than half an hour they had reached its summit.
“It's easy to see what happened here,” said Hickman, glancing about him. He moved away, circling the top of the hill, while Benson examined the charred wood and rusted iron work that littered the ground. He was thus engaged when Hickman called to him.
“Come here; I've found the spot,” he said, and the lawyer hastened to his side.
He was standing on the edge of a gully the rains had cut in one of the slopes of the hill.
“See,” he said, “there's where Tom Raymond heaved in the bank. The Indians are keen to kill, but they're damn slow to bury. I wa'n'. none too sure that Raymond had been back here, but this settles it.”
Near-by was a broken and rusted shovel, and a pick with a charred handle. Benson examined the shovel narrowly, and on the iron that secured the wooden handle he found a name stamped on the metal; scraping off the rust with the blade of his knife he was able to decipher the name, “Bendy.” It had been made at the Bendy shops in Benson.
Hickman pointed to the ditch.
“Are you going to see what Tom's covered up there?”
“No, God forbid!” cried Benson.
“We'd better ride back to camp then, if you're ready. I wouldn't put it past Tom to quit us.”
“Then suppose you go and make sure that he doesn't,” said Benson. “I'm not ready to go yet, but I'll join you there presently.”
“What's going to keep you?” asked Hickman curiously.
“I wish to mark the spot,” Benson explained, and for an hour or more after the Mormon left him he toiled at this task, and by the end of that time had raised a rude pyramid of loose stones; then he mounted his horse and gazed about him for the last time.
He looked at the bleaching animal bones; at the circle on the bare earth where the fire had been; then his glance wandered over the plain; level, solitary, devoid of life. Miles distant on either hand the barren sands yielded to the barren rocks, and the rocks rose to the eternal snows. Off to the west, in the full glory of the August sun, was their camp of the night before. It was hidden by a strip of timber, and out of this timber a single thin ribbon of blue smoke ascended from the wasting embers of their fire.
And here the end had come to Stephen Landray and his companions; on this hill, in this solitude. Here, in the shelter of their wagons they had fought and fallen. He almost saw the savages on their galloping ponies, as they swept nearer and nearer, and then the end—swift, brutal, sufficient.
Suddenly there came to him a quick, shocking sense of joy.
“God forgive me!” he muttered, aghast at the feeling. “God forgive me! I mustn't think of it—yet; I'm only sorry for him; only sorry for her. I must keep myself out of this!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ON his return to Salt Lake, Benson wrote to Virginia. This letter he intended to carry to St. Louis to post, where he expected to wait for a few days; but his pen faltered, and more than once he left his chair to pace his dimly-lighted room. He wished to spare her, but he wished her to know that Stephen Landray was dead. Yet, when he had finished his letter he felt the result to be pitiful enough, with its poor attempt at consolation; and his face showed pale and haggard in the faint light of the sputtering candle on the table before him. At last, impressed by the utter inadequacy of his commonplaces, he abandoned the idea of writing Virginia then, and wrote Judge Bradly instead.
From St. Louis Benson went to Portsmouth by boat; at Portsmouth he stowed himself away inside the coach in which he was to complete his journey. He found himself seated opposite a tall, dark man of unmistakably clerical aspect who was swathed in shawls and travelling blankets beyond any need that the weather occasioned. The other occupant of the coach, there were but the two beside himself, was a little brown man, with shrewd, squinting eyes, a grizzled beard, and closely-cropped bullet-head. He wore wide, bell-mouthed trousers, and a short jacket with large bone buttons; at his neck was carelessly knotted a flaming kerchief; while perched upon his head was a small canvas cap of strange pattern.
Benson regarded this person with frank wonder; a wonder the man himself seemed both to understand and enjoy, for his shrewd eyes twinkled with amusement.
“Hullo, young fellow!” he said chuckling. “I bet you never seen anything like me before; now did you? It worries you some, don't it?” Benson drew back with a muttered apology.
“No offence!” cried the man good-naturedly. “You're welcome to guess my breed, but you'll never hit it. I'm a sailor.”
“So I imagined,” said Benson.
“Hold on, not so fast!” interposed the man quickly. “That's only part of it; I'm an uncommon kind of sailor; I reckon the only sailor Styles Cross Roads way up beyond Marietta ever turned out, or ever will. None of your lake or river lunk-heads, but a true sea-faring man, Ohio born and Ohio bred, and from Styles Cross Roads, which it's a combination that's hard to beat.”
“It must be,” and Benson smiled indulgently.
“The other gentleman knowed me the minute he clapped eyes on me. He flirted me a look that told me that plain as words.”
But the third occupant of the coach was not to be drawn into the conversation. He neither smiled nor spoke, nor showed that he heard what was said.
“Kick him in the shins,” advised the sea-faring man from Styles Cross Roads in a hoarse whisper. “Maybe he's hard of hearing.”
Benson shook his head in dissuasion of such a course; however, the sailor appeared to abandon the idea with so much reluctance, that the lawyer said pleasantly, wishing to change the current of his thought:
“So you're from Styles Cross Roads?”
“Have you ever heard of the place before?” demanded the sailor.
“I think I have,” said Benson, not quite truthfully.
“Well, I guess it ain't much of a place, it warn't when I left it. This is how it happened,” he continued, squinting hard at Benson. “A good while back, I guess long enough before you was born, young man, old Captain Whipple built a schooner at Marietta, and took her down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. I shipped with him as cook's boy. At New Orleans he picked up a cargo of cotton for England, all but me of the crew going home by up river flat boats. In England we got a cargo for St. Petersburg, Russia; but when we reached there, the port officers seized the schooner; they said the papers were forged, that there warn't no such port as Marietta. The captain swore his papers were legal, and that Marietta was a port of clearance. 'You're a most awful liar,' said the Russian officer, with his tongue in his cheek. 'You're a benighted foreigner,' said the captain, 'or else you'd have heard of Marietta, which it's in the State of Ohio.' 'Where's that?' said the Russian. 'Well, I'm damned,' said the captain, 'never heard of Ohio? Never heard of Marietta, Ohio?' 'Never,' said the Russian. 'Extraordinary!' says the captain. 'And I pity you, for that's where I come from. Fetch me a map of the United States of America, and you can tell your grandchildren when you get to having them, that you've looked on the finest country God Almighty ever dared leave out of doors over night!' So they fetched him a map of America, and he found the mouth of the Mississippi, and Coursed up it with his thumb to the mouth of the Ohio, and up that to the mouth of the Muskingum. 'And there you have it!' said the captain. 'That's Marietta—Marietta, Ohio, and my Port of clearance.'.rdquo; The seafaring man from Styles Cross Roads chuckled softly. “That was my first voyage; and there's thirty years between my leaving and my going back; but when I came ashore at New Orleans off my last voyage, I made up my mind I'd make a clean run home.”
Thus happily launched on what might be termed a flood of narrative, he imparted to Benson a variety of information touching the countries and places he had visited. From time to time he even attempted conversation with the dark man opposite; but the latter's manner rebuked such advances, and he ended by confining his remarks to the lawyer, whose courtesy was unfailing.
The miles grew up behind them, the stage stopping now and again to change horses. There was dinner and supper; and they came to a stand at last in front of the tavern where they were to pass the night.
Drawn up in the dusty road before it, were a score or more of great freight wagons. From strange pens came the lowing of cattle; the bleat of sheep. Indoors the bar was thronged with teamsters and drovers, Some of these men Benson knew, and they had known Stephen and Bushrod Landray, and he stopped to shake hands with them, and to answer their eager questions.
He was up betimes the next day, and was soon swinging forward again on the last stage of his journey. His two companions of the day before still kept him company; the sea-faring man from Styles Cross Roads, as communicative as ever, the other reserved and silent. But about midmorning the latter turned abruptly to Benson to say:
“I observe, sir,” and his manner was precise and formal, “I observe, sir, that you appear to have come some distance. If I mistake not I saw you on the boat up from Cincinnati? May I be so bold as to ask if you are going much further?”
“No, fortunately; I am almost at my journey's end. Benson is my destination,” answered the lawyer.
“Oh, indeed? That is my destination, also.”
Benson inclined his head. There was a long silence. The coach stopped at a wayside tavern; and the sailor, after shaking Benson warmly by the hand, left it, to finish his journey across the State by other means.
The dark man watched the rolling figure of the sea-faring man, as he disappeared through the tavern door, then he cleared his throat.
“I understood you to say you were going on to Benson?” said he, resuming the conversation where he had previously abandoned it.
“Yes, it is my home.”
“Perhaps you are acquainted with my brother, Mr. Stillman, the Baptist clergyman?”
“Oh, very well, and you are Dr. Stillman?”
As he spoke, the lawyer glanced curiously at his companion, for Dr. Stillman was famous.
“May I ask your name?” said the doctor.
“Benson; you probably knew my father.”
The doctor gave him a wintry smile. He felt that his purposes separated him from the busy bustling world; its trafficking laity he had found, rarely paused that it might understand his motives, and he had long since ceased to look for sympathy from men occupied with their own concerns. It was the emotional sex which seemed to understand him best.
“You have been engaged in missionary work in India?” said Benson.
“In Burmah, yes; I have only recently returned to America, and have spent the summer lecturing. Now I am going to my brother's for a short stay.”
Benson was aware that the man had a certain curious distinction. His eyes, dark and deep set under narrow brows, were piercing and compelling; they could burn, too, with a wonderful light, just as his reserve could drop before the wealth of his own emotions, emotions that he could make others feel poignantly, while they yet seemed oddly foreign to the man himself.
“Do you expect to return to Burmah?” asked Benson.
“My absence is only temporary. My labours are not finished there yet; indeed they are only just begun.” With an absorbed air, he continued. “Events made it seem advisable for me to temporarily abandon my work, for only recently I suffered a most serious bereavement in the death of my wife.”
“I regret exceedingly to hear it,” said Benson civilly.