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THE CROSS-CUT
by
COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER
With Frontispiece by George W. Gage
[Frontispiece: Carbide pointing the way, he turned back, pushing the
tram before him.]
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1921
Copyright, 1921,
by Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published May, 1921
TO
G. F. C.
I'VE THREATENED YOU WITH A DEDICATION
FOR A LONG TIME AND HERE IT IS!
THE CROSS-CUT
CHAPTER I
It was over. The rambling house, with its rickety, old-fashioned
furniture--and its memories--was now deserted, except for Robert
Fairchild, and he was deserted within it, wandering from room to room,
staring at familiar objects with the unfamiliar gaze of one whose
vision suddenly has been warned by the visitation of death and the
sense of loneliness that it brings.
Loneliness, rather than grief, for it had been Robert Fairchild's
promise that he would not suffer in heart for one who had longed to go
into a peace for which he had waited, seemingly in vain. Year after
year, Thornton Fairchild had sat in the big armchair by the windows,
watching the days grow old and fade into night, studying sunset after
sunset, voicing the vain hope that the gloaming might bring the
twilight of his own existence,--a silent man except for this, rarely
speaking of the past, never giving to the son who worked for him, cared
for him, worshiped him, the slightest inkling of what might have
happened in the dim days of the long ago to transform him into a beaten
thing, longing for the final surcease. And when the end came, it found
him in readiness, waiting in the big armchair by the windows. Even
now, a book lay on the frayed carpeting of the old room, where it had
fallen from relaxing fingers. Robert Fairchild picked it up, and with
a sigh restored it to the grim, fumed oak case. His days of petty
sacrifices that his father might while away the weary hours with
reading were over.
Memories! They were all about him, in the grate with its blackened
coals, the old-fashioned pictures on the walls, the almost gloomy
rooms, the big chair by the window, and yet they told him nothing
except that a white-haired, patient, lovable old man was gone,--a man
whom he was wont to call "father." And in that going, the slow
procedure of an unnatural existence had snapped for Robert Fairchild.
As he roamed about in his loneliness, he wondered what he would do now,
where he could go; to whom he could talk. He had worked since sixteen,
and since sixteen there had been few times when he had not come home
regularly each night, to wait upon the white-haired man in the big
chair, to discern his wants instinctively, and to sit with him, often
in silence, until the old onyx clock on the mantel had clanged eleven;
it had been the same program, day, week, month and year. And now
Robert Fairchild was as a person lost. The ordinary pleasures of youth
had never been his; he could not turn to them with any sort of grace.
The years of servitude to a beloved master had inculcated within him
the feeling of self-impelled sacrifice; he had forgotten all thought of
personal pleasures for their sake alone. The big chair by the window
was vacant, and it created a void which Robert Fairchild could neither
combat nor overcome.
What had been the past? Why the silence? Why the patient, yet
impatient wait for death? The son did not know. In all his memories
was only one faint picture, painted years before in babyhood: the
return of his father from some place, he knew not where, a long
conference with his mother behind closed doors, while he, in childlike
curiosity, waited without, seeking in vain to catch some explanation.
Then a sad-faced woman who cried at night when the house was still, who
faded and who died. That was all. The picture carried no explanation.
And now Robert Fairchild stood on the threshold of something he almost
feared to learn. Once, on a black, stormy night, they had sat
together, father and son before the fire, silent for hours. Then the
hand of the white-haired man had reached outward and rested for a
moment on the young man's knee.
"I wrote something to you, Boy, a day or so ago," he had said. "That
little illness I had prompted me to do it. I--I thought it was only
fair to you. After I 'm gone, look in the safe. You 'll find the
combination on a piece of paper hidden in a hole cut in that old
European history in the bookcase. I have your promise, I know--that
you 'll not do it until after I 'm gone."
Now Thornton Fairchild was gone. But a message had remained behind;
one which the patient lips evidently had feared to utter during life.
The heart of the son began to pound, slow and hard, as, with the memory
of that conversation, he turned toward the bookcase and unlatched the
paneled door. A moment more and the hollowed history had given up its
trust, a bit of paper scratched with numbers. Robert Fairchild turned
toward the stairs and the small room on the second floor which had
served as his father's bedroom.
There he hesitated before the little iron safe in the corner, summoning
the courage to unlock the doors of a dead man's past. At last he
forced himself to his knees and to the numerals of the combination.
The safe had not been opened in years; that was evident from the
creaking of the plungers as they fell, the gummy resistance of the knob
as Fairchild turned it in accordance with the directions on the paper.
Finally, a great wrench, and the bolt was drawn grudgingly back; a
strong pull, and the safe opened.
A few old books; ledgers in sheepskin binding. Fairchild disregarded
these for the more important things that might lie behind the little
inner door of the cabinet. His hand went forward, and he noticed, in a
hazy sort of way, that it was trembling. The door was unlocked; he
drew it open and crouched a moment, staring, before he reached for the
thinner of two envelopes which lay before him. A moment later he
straightened and turned toward the light. A crinkling of paper, a
quick-drawn sigh between clenched teeth; it was a letter; his strange,
quiet, hunted-appearing father was talking to him through the medium of
ink and paper, after death.
Closely written, hurriedly, as though to finish an irksome task in as
short a space as possible, the missive was one of several pages,--pages
which Robert Fairchild hesitated to read. The secret--and he knew full
well that there was a secret--had been in the atmosphere about him ever
since he could remember. Whether or not this was the solution of it,
Robert Fairchild did not know, and the natural reticence with which he
had always approached anything regarding his father's life gave him an
instinctive fear, a sense of cringing retreat from anything that might
now open the doors of mystery. But it was before him, waiting in his
father's writing, and at last his gaze centered; he read:
My son:
Before I begin this letter to you I must ask that you take no action
whatever until you have seen my attorney--he will be yours from now on.
I have never mentioned him to you before; it was not necessary and
would only have brought you curiosity which I could not have satisfied.
But now, I am afraid, the doors must be unlocked. I am gone. You are
young, you have been a faithful son and you are deserving of every good
fortune that may possibly come to you. I am praying that the years
have made a difference, and that Fortune may smile upon you as she
frowned on me. Certainly, she can injure me no longer. My race is
run; I am beyond earthly fortunes.
Therefore, when you have finished with this, take the deeds inclosed in
the larger envelope and go to St. Louis. There, look up Henry F.
Beamish, attorney-at-law, in the Princess Building. He will explain
them to you.
Beyond this, I fear, there is little that can aid you. I cannot find
the strength, now that I face it, to tell you what you may find if you
follow the lure that the other envelope holds forth to you.
There is always the hope that Fortune may be kind to me at last, and
smile upon my memory by never letting you know why I have been the sort
of man you have known, and not the jovial, genial companion that a
father should be. But there are certain things, my son, which defeat a
man. It killed your mother--every day since her death I have been
haunted by that fact; my prayer is that it may not kill you,
spiritually, if not physically. Therefore is it not better that it
remain behind a cloud until such time as Fortune may reveal it--and
hope that such a time will never come? I think so--not for myself, for
when you read this, I shall be gone; but for you, that you may not be
handicapped by the knowledge of the thing which whitened my hair and
aged me, long before my time.
If he lives, and I am sure he does, there is one who will hurry to your
aid as soon as he knows you need him. Accept his counsels, laugh at
his little eccentricities if you will, but follow his judgment
implicitly. Above all, ask him no questions that he does not care to
answer--there are things that he may not deem wise to tell. It is only
fair that he be given the right to choose his disclosures.
There is little more to say. Beamish will attend to everything for
you--if you care to go. Sell everything that is here; the house, the
furniture, the belongings. It is my wish, and you will need the
capital--if you go. The ledgers in the safe are only old accounts
which would be so much Chinese to you now. Burn them. There is
nothing else to be afraid of--I hope you will never find anything to
fear. And if circumstances should arise to bring before you the story
of that which has caused me so much darkness, I have nothing to say in
self-extenuation. I made one mistake--that of fear--and in committing
one error, I shouldered every blame. It makes little difference now.
I am dead--and free.
My love to you, my son. I hope that wealth and happiness await you.
Blood of my blood flows in your veins--and strange though it may sound
to you--it is the blood of an adventurer. I can almost see you smile
at that! An old man who sat by the window, staring out; afraid of
every knock at the door--and yet an adventurer! But they say, once in
the blood, it never dies. My wish is that you succeed where I
failed--and God be with you!
Your father.
For a long moment Robert Fairchild stood staring at the letter, his
heart pounding with excitement, his hands grasping the foolscap paper
as though with a desire to tear through the shield which the written
words had formed about a mysterious past and disclose that which was so
effectively hidden. So much had the letter told--and yet so little!
Dark had been the hints of some mysterious, intangible thing, great
enough in its horror and its far-reaching consequences to cause death
for one who had known of it and a living panic for him who had
perpetrated it. As for the man who stood now with the letter clenched
before him, there was promise of wealth, and the threat of sorrow, the
hope of happiness, yet the foreboding omen of discoveries which might
ruin the life of the reader as the existence of the writer had been
blasted,--until death had brought relief. Of all this had the letter
told, but when Robert Fairchild read it again in the hope of something
tangible, something that might give even a clue to the reason for it
all, there was nothing. In that super-calmness which accompanies great
agitation, Fairchild folded the paper, placed it in its envelope, then
slipped it into an inside pocket. A few steps and he was before the
safe once more and reaching for the second envelope.
Heavy and bulky was this, filled with tax receipts, with plats and
blueprints and the reports of surveyors. Here was an assay slip,
bearing figures and notations which Robert Fairchild could not
understand. Here a receipt for money received, here a vari-colored map
with lines and figures and conglomerate designs which Fairchild
believed must relate in some manner to the location of a mining camp;
all were aged and worn at the edges, giving evidence of having been
carried, at some far time of the past, in a wallet. More receipts,
more blueprints, then a legal document, sealed and stamped, and bearing
the words:
County of Clear Creek, ) ss.
State of Colorado. )
DEED PATENT.
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS: That on this day of our Lord, February
22, 1892, Thornton W. Fairchild, having presented the necessary
affidavits and statements of assessments accomplished in accordance
with--
On it trailed in endless legal phraseology, telling in muddled,
attorney-like language, the fact that the law had been fulfilled in its
requirements, and that the claim for which Thornton Fairchild had
worked was rightfully his, forever. A longer statement full of
figures, of diagrams and surveyor's calculations which Fairchild could
neither decipher nor understand, gave the location, the town site and
the property included within the granted rights. It was something for
an attorney, such as Beamish, to interpret, and Fairchild reached for
the age-yellowed envelope to return the papers to their resting place.
But he checked his motion involuntarily and for a moment held the
envelope before him, staring at it with wide eyes. Then, as though to
free by the stronger light of the window the haunting thing which faced
him, he rose and hurried across the room, to better light, only to find
it had not been imagination; the words still were before him, a
sentence written in faint, faded ink proclaiming the contents to be
"Papers relating to the Blue Poppy Mine", and written across this a
word in the bolder, harsher strokes of a man under stress of emotion, a
word which held the eyes of Robert Fairchild fixed and staring, a word
which spelled books of the past and evil threats of the future, the
single, ominous word:
"Accursed!"