long and anxiously for the stroke of Omemee’s revenge. The white man’s
law now gave him a coveted advantage. He broke cover and pursued the
fast retreating figure. He would offer to conduct her to a place of
safety, protect her and declare his love.
Omemee ran with the speed of a deer in the direction of the home of
her childhood. She fled out over the dunes to the shore of the lake.
For miles along the wild wave-washed coast the two dim figures sped in
the darkness. Omemee finally dropped from exhaustion. The half-breed
carried her in his arms to the foot of the bluff where he built a small
fire behind a mass of drift-wood, and sat beside her until the gray of
the morning came over the sand-hills. They were now about twelve miles
from the settlement. They walked along the beach together for several
hours and turned into the dunes.
After the April rains tender leaves unfolded in the trees around the
bark wigwam where Omemee was born. The old chief had died two years
before, but a faint wreath of smoke ascended softly to the overhanging
branches. Fastened above the door was a grisly and uncanny thing that
moved fitfully to and fro when the winds blew from the lake. It was the
scalp of Pierre Chenault.
With the failure to obtain a government appropriation for a harbor at
City West, the name of the new settlement, the embryo town vanished
utterly and became a dream of the past. Its ambitions and crushed
hopes are entombed in obscure history. No vestiges of its buildings
remain. There are traces of a crude mill race near the place where the
now obliterated trail crossed the creek. Around the site of the old
fort the trees, whose tops were cut away to clear the range for the
six-pounders, have covered their wounds with new limbs that have grown
from the mutilated trunks.
Near the roots of a gnarled oak at a bend in the stream Peg Leg’s dust
has mingled with the black loam, where his spirit may be lulled by the
passing waters. When we seem to hear the tapping of the woodpecker on
a hidden hollow tree in the depths of the dark ravine, it may be the
echoes through the mists of the years of the strokes of the poor old
trapper on the timbers of the bridge.
The red man has gone. The currents of human passion that rose and fell
along the banks of the little stream have passed into silence. The
bistre-colored waters still flow out on the wide expanse of sand and
spread their web of romance in the moon-light.
V
THE MOON IN THE MARSH
[Illustration: THE MOON IN THE MARSH
(_From the Author’s Etching_)]
V
THE MOON IN THE MARSH
There is a hazy mist on the horizon where the red rim of the October
sun left the sky-line. The twilight of Indian Summer is stealing over
the marsh. There is a hush of vibrant voices and a muffled movement of
tiny life in the darkened places. Sorrow rests upon the world, for the
time of the requiem of the leaves has come. The red arrows are abroad;
a flush of crimson is creeping through the forest. An elusive fragrance
of fruition is in the air, and a drowsy languor droops the stems and
branches.
Royal robes rustle faintly on the hills and in the shadows of the
woods. From among the living trees a mighty presence has vanished. A
queen who came in green has departed as a nun in gray, and the color
fairies have entered the bereaved realm with offerings of red and gold.
A vague unrest troubles the trembling aspens and the little sassafras
trees that flock like timid children beyond the sturdy sycamores. The
gnarled oaks mutely await the winds of winter on their castanets of
cold dead leaves--music of our Mother Earth to which we all must listen
until our slumber hour comes.
Through darkening masses of tangled thickets, and over bogs concealed
by matted grasses, some soggy and decayed logs, covered with moss and
slime, lead out over the wet margin of the tarn to the edge of the
clear water. A startled bittern rises clumsily out of the rushes. A
pair of wild ducks tower out and glide away over the tree-tops. There
are stifled rustlings in the ferns and sedges, and little wings are
fluttering furtively among unseen branches. There is a soft splash
near the edge of the woods. From out the shadow the curling wake of a
muskrat stretches across an open space. A mottled water-snake drops
stealthily into a wet labyrinth--the muffled movements cease--and muted
echoes of vesper choirs sweeten the solitude that broods over the tarn.
After a period of silence another whir of pinions overhead heralds the
return of the ducks. They circle swiftly and invisibly in the deep
shadows--their silhouettes dart across the sky openings, and, with a
loud swish, they strike the water and settle comfortably for the night
behind some weedy bogs close to the opposite shore.
In the gathering gloom tiny beams creep into the depths of the water.
One by one the starry host begins to twinkle in the inverted canopy of
the heavens. The full-orbed silver moon rides into the sky through the
delicate lacery of the trees with a flood of soft light. Another disk
sinks majestically into the abyss.
The asterisms of the astronomer are in the firmament above, rolling in
mighty cycles to the ordered destinies of the spheres, but the stars
of Arcady are in the quiet pools, the placid bosoms of gently flowing
rivers, and far out in seas that are beyond our ken. They sparkle in
the smooth curves of heavy swells on distant deeps, and shine far
below coral worlds in ocean depths. These stars are measureless. They
gleam in awful profundities and illumine a world of dreams. We may
look down to them from the windows of a fair castle in which a noble
spirit dwells, but beyond its walls we may not go. There are travellers
in that dimly lighted vault, for dark wings blur the points of pallid
radiance in swift and silent flight. Eternity is not there, for its
constellations will tremble and vanish with a passing zephyr on the
surface of the pool.
A white web of mist gathers on the water. A phosphorescent trunk in the
distance glows with ghostly light. The fluffy movement of the wings
of a small owl is visible against a patch of sky, and a moment later
the dusky form whisks by in the gloom. Agile bats wheel and plunge
noiselessly in pursuit of invisible prey. A few bulrushes in a near-by
clump are slightly disturbed. The night life has begun to move in the
slough, for it is nature’s law that it must kill to live.
The veil of mist thickens--the stars in the depths disappear--the
moon’s reflection becomes a nebula of pale effulgence, and is finally
lost in vaporous obscurity. Like the soft fabric of forgetfulness that
time weaves over sorrow, the mist envelopes the tarn. Like wraiths of
dead years, filmy wreaths trail tenderly and delicately through the
solemn woods. The purple darkness has become gray. A clammy wetness
clings to the tall grasses. Beads of crystal on their bending points
mirror feeble beams of light, and the heaviness of humidity is upon the
boughs and fallen leaves.
The moods of Nature are manifold in expression and power. In her
infinite alchemy she reflects a different ray into every facet of the
human soul. She echoes its exaltation, has sweet unguents for its
weariness, and leads it upon lofty paths of promise when hope has died.
The music of her strings brings forth hidden melodies, and it is with
her that we must go if we would reach the heights.
The dark morass becomes a dreamland. Through it stately legions go.
Ethereal aisles wind through the trees. Cloudy walls rise along its
borders, and beyond them are kingdoms in elf-land where fancy may spin
fabrics of gossamer and build mansions remote from earthly being.
There is a life of the soul as well as of the body. We may ponder as to
its immortality, but undeniably it is in the present, if not in a state
to come. Hope grasps at a shadowy vision of the future that dissolves
at our touch. Reason gives only the substance of the present, elusive
though it be. We live in a world of illusion, where seeming realities
may be but phantoms. We wander in a maze of speculative thought. The
paths are intricate and only lead to narrow cells. The Forest Gods that
dwell in the high and hidden places speak a language that is without
words. The fallen leaf is as eloquent as established dogma or voice
of hoary seer. In our own hearts must we find our shrines, for the
obscurity beyond the borderland of philosophy is as deep as the mould
below the leaves. The multitudes that have come upon the earth and
vanished have left no clue.
The key lies at the bottom of the tarn, and the story is in the marsh.
VI
HOLY ZEKE
[Illustration: “HOLY ZEKE”]
VI
HOLY ZEKE
“_And mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; I will
recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that
are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that
smiteth._”--EZEKIEL 7:9
After an industrious day with my sketch book among the dunes, I walked
over to the lake shore and looked up the beach toward Sipes’s shanty.
In the gathering twilight a faint gleam came through the small window.
Not having seen my old friend for nearly a year, I decided to pay him
a visit. My acquaintance with him had brought me many happy hours as
I listened to his reminiscences, some of which are recorded in former
stories.
He had been a salt water sailor, and, with his shipmate Bill Saunders,
had met with many thrilling adventures. He had finally drifted to the
sand-hills, where he had found a quiet refuge after a stormy life.
Fishing and hunting small game yielded him a scanty but comparatively
happy livelihood. He was a queer, bewhiskered little man, somewhere in
the seventies, with many idiosyncrasies, a fund of unconscious humor,
much profanity, a great deal of homely philosophy, and with many ideas
that were peculiarly his own.
He wore what he called a “hatch” over the place which his right eye
formerly occupied, and explained the absence of the eye by telling me
that it had been blown out in a gale somewhere off the coast of Japan.
He said that “it was glass anyway” and he “never thought much of it.”
Saunders figured more or less in all of his stories of the sea.
On approaching the nondescript driftwood structure, I heard a
stentorian voice, the tones of which the little shanty was too frail
to confine, and which seemed to be pitched for the solemn pines that
fringed the brink of the dark ravine beyond.
“Now all ye hell-destined sinners that are in this holy edifice,
listen to me! Ye who are steeped in sin shall frizzle in the fires o’
damnation. The seethin’ cauldrons yawn. Ye have deserved the fiery pit
an’ yer already sentenced to it. Hell is gaping fer this whole outfit.
The flames gather an’ flash. The fury o’ the wrath to come is almost
’ere. Yer souls are damned an’ you may all be in hell ’fore tomorrer
mornin’. The red clouds o’ comin’ vengeance are over yer miserable
heads. You’ll be enveloped in fiery floods fer all eternity--fer
millions of ages will ye sizzle. Ye hang by a slender thread. The
flames may singe it any minute an’ in ye go. Ye have reason to wonder
that yer not already in hell! Yer accursed bodies shall be laid on
live coals, an’ with red-hot pitch-forks shall ye be sorted into
writhin’ piles an’ hurled into bottomless pits of endless torment. I’m
the scourge o’ the Almighty. I’m Ezekiel-seven-nine. This is yer last
chance to quit, an’ you’ve got to git in line, an’ do it quick if ye
want to keep from bein’ soused in torrents o’ burnin’ brimstone, an’
have melted metal poured into yer blasphemous throats!”
At this point the door partially opened and a furtive figure slipped
out. “Let all them that has hard hearts an’ soft heads git out!” roared
the voice. The figure moved swiftly toward me and I recognized Sipes.
“Gosh! Is that you? You keep away from that place,” he sputtered, as he
came up.
“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked.
“It’s Holy Zeke an’ he’s cussin’ the bunch. It looks like we’d all have
a gloomy finish. He was up ’ere this mornin’ an’ ast me if ’e could
’ave a reevival in my place tonight. He’s ’ad pretty much ev’rythin’
else that was loose ’round ’ere, an’ like a damn fool I told ’im O. K.,
an’ this is wot I git. I thought it was sump’n else. You c’n go an’
listen to ’is roar if you want to, but I got some business to ’tend to
’bout ten miles from ’ere, an’ I wont be back ’till tomorrer, an’ w’en
I come back it’ll be by water. I’m goin’ to lay fer that ol’ skeet with
my scatter gun, an’ he’ll think he’s got hot cinders under ’is skin
w’en I git to ’im. I’ll give ’im all the hell I can without murderin’
’im.” Sipes then disappeared into the gloom, muttering to himself.
His “scatter gun” was a sinister weapon. It had once been a smooth-bore
army musket. The barrel had been sawed off to within a foot of the
breach. It was kept loaded with about six ounces of black powder, and,
wadded on top of this, was a handful of pellets which the old man had
made of flour dough, mixed with red pepper, and hardened in the sun.
He claimed that, at three rods, such a charge would go just under the
skin. “It wouldn’t kill nothin’, but it ’ud be hot stuff.”
I sat on a pile of driftwood for some time and waited for the turmoil
in the shanty to subside. Finally the door opened and four more
figures emerged. I was glad to recognize my old friend “Happy Cal,”
whom I had not seen since his mysterious departure from the sand-hills
several years ago, after his dispute with Sipes over some tangled
set-lines. Evidently the two old derelicts had amicably adjusted
their differences, and Cal had rejoined the widely scattered colony.
Another old acquaintance, “Catfish John,” was also in the party. After
greetings were exchanged, John introduced me to a short stocky man with
gray whiskers.
“Shake hands with Bill Saunders,” said he.
This I did with pleasure, as Sipes’s yarns of the many exploits of this
supposedly mythical individual invested him with much interest.
“This ’ere’s Ezekiel-seven-nine,” continued John, indicating the
remaining member of the quartette.
I offered “Ezekiel-seven-nine” my hand, but it was ignored. He looked
at me sternly. “Yer smokin’ a vile an’ filthy weed,” said he. “It
defiles yer soul an’ yer body. It’s an abomination in the sight o’ the
Lord. Yer unclean to my touch.” With that he turned away.
I glanced at his hands and if anything could be “unclean” to them its
condition must be quite serious. I quite agreed with him, but from a
different standpoint, that the cigar was “an abomination,” and, after
a few more doubtful whiffs, I threw it away, as I had been tempted to
do several times after lighting it. Its purchase had proved an error of
judgment.
Zeke’s impressions of me were evidently not very favorable. He walked
away a short distance and stopped. In the dim light I could see that he
was regarding us with disapproval. He took no part in the conversation.
He finally seated himself on the sand and gazed moodily toward the lake
for some time, probably reflecting upon the unutterable depravity of
his present associates, and calculating their proximity to eternal fire.
“Holy Zeke,” as Sipes had called him, was about six feet two. His
clothes indicated that they had been worn uninterruptedly for a long
time. The mass of bushy red whiskers would have offered a tempting
refuge for wild mice, and from under his shaggy brows the piercing eyes
glowed with fanatic light.
Calvinism had placed its dark and heavy seal upon his soul, and the
image of an angry and pitiless Creator enthralled his mind--a God who
paves infernal regions with tender infants who neglect theology, who
marks the fall of a sparrow, but sends war, pestilence and famine to
annihilate the meek and pure in heart.
The wonderful drama of the creation, and the beautiful story of
Omnipotent love carried no message for him. Lakes of brimstone and fire
awaited all of earth’s blindly groping children who failed to find the
creed of the self-elect. Notwithstanding the fact that the national
governing board of an orthodox church, with plenary powers, convened a
few years ago, officially abolished infant damnation, and exonerated
and redeemed all infants, who up to that time had been subjected to the
fury of Divine wrath, Zeke’s doctrine was unaltered. It glowed with
undiminished fervor. He was a restless exponent of a vicious and cruel
man-made dogma, which was as evil as the punishments it prescribed,
and as futile as the rewards it promised.
To me Holy Zeke was an incarnation. His eyes and whiskers bespoke the
flames of his theology, and his personality was suggestive of its place
in modern thought. His battered plug hat was also Calvinistic. It
looked like hades. It was indescribable. One edge of the rim had been
scorched, and a rent in the side of the crown suggested the possibility
of the escape of volcanic thought in that direction. Like his theology,
he had picturesque quality.
If he had been a Mohammedan, his eyes would have had the same gleam,
and he would have called the faithful to prayer from a minaret with
the same fierce fervor as that with which he conjured up the eternal
fires in Sipes’s shanty. Had not Calvinism obsessed him, his type of
mind might have made him a murderous criminal and outlaw, who, with
submarines and poison gas, would deny mercy to mankind, for there was
no quality of mercy in those cruel orbs. They were the baleful eyes of
the jungle, that coldly regard the chances of the kill. In Holy Zeke’s
case the kill was the forcible snatching of the quarry from hell, not
that he desired its salvation, but was anxious to deprive the devil of
it. He had no idea of pointing a way to righteousness. There was no
spiritual interest in the individual to be rescued. He was the devil’s
implacable enemy, and it was purely a matter of successful attack upon
the property of his foe. Predestination or preordination did not bother
him. He made no distinctions. There was no escape for any human being
whose belief differed from his; even the slightest variation from his
infallible creed meant the bottomless pit.
Zeke had one redeeming quality. He was not a mercenary. No board of
trustees paid him the wages of hypocrisy. He did not arch his brows
and fingers and deliver carefully prepared eloquent addresses to the
Creator, designed more for the ears of his listeners than for the
throne above. He did not beseech the Almighty for private favors, or
for money to pay a church debt. He regarded himself as a messenger of
wrath, and considered that he was authorized to go forth and smite and
curse anything and everything within his radius of action. This radius
was restricted to the old derelicts who lived in the little driftwood
shanties along the beach and among the sand-hills. There were but
few of them, but the limited scope of Zeke’s labors enabled him to
concentrate his power instead of diffusing and losing it in larger
fields.
Zeke soon left our little party and followed a path up into the ravine.
After his departure we built a fire of driftwood, sat around it on the
sand, and discussed the “scourge.”
“I hate to see anythin’ that looks like a fire, after wot we’ve been
up ag’inst tonight,” remarked Cal, as he threw on some more sticks,
“but as ’e ain’t ’ere to chuck us in, I guess we’ll be safe if we don’t
put on too much wood. Where d’ye s’pose ’e gits all that dope? I had
a Bible once’t, but I didn’t see nothin’ like that in it. There was
a place in it where some fellers got throwed in a fiery furnace an’
nothin’ happened to ’em at all, an’ there was another place where it
said that the wicked ’ud have their part in hell fire, but I didn’t
read all o’ the book an’ mebbe there’s a lot o’ hot stuff in it I
missed. W’en did you fust see that ol’ cuss, John?”
Catfish John contemplated the fire for a while, shifted his quid
of “natural leaf,” and relighted his pipe. He always said that he
“couldn’t git no enjoyment out o’ tobacco without usin’ it both ways.”
“He come ’long by my place one day ’bout three years ago,” said the
old man. “It was Sunday an’ ’e stopped an’ read some verses out of ’is
Bible while I was workin’ on my boat. He said the Lord rested on the
seventh day, an’ I’d go to hell if I didn’t stop work on the Sabbath.
I told ’im that my boat would go to hell if I didn’t fix it, an’ they
wasn’t no other day to do it. Then ’e gave me wot ’e called ‘tracks’
fer me to read an’ went on. The Almighty’s got some funny fellers
workin’ fer ’im. This one’s got hell on the brain an’ ’e ought to stay
out in the lake where it’s cool. Ev’ry little while ’e comes ’round an’
talks ’bout loaves an’ fishes, an’ sometimes I give ’im a fish, w’en
I have a lot of ’em. He does the loaf part ’imself, fer sometimes ’e
sticks ’round fer an hour or two. Then ’e tells me some more ’bout hell
an’ goes off some’r’s, prob’ly to cook ’is fish.”
“Sipes must ’a’ come back. Let’s go over there,” suggested Saunders, as
he called our attention to the glimmer of a light in the shanty.
As we approached the place the light was extinguished, and a voice
called out, “Who’s there?”
After the identity of the party had been established, and the assurance
given that Holy Zeke was not in it, the light reappeared and we were
hospitably received.
“Wot did you fellers do with that hell-fire cuss?” demanded Sipes when
we were all seated in the shanty. “Look wot’s ’ere!” and he picked
up a small, greasy hymn book which the orator had forgotten in the
excitement. Sipes handed me the book. I opened it at random and read:
“_Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain,_
_Can give the guilty conscience peace, or wash away the stain._”
“Gimme that!” yelled Sipes, and I heard the little volume strike the
sand somewhere out in the dark near the water. “Wot d’ye s’pose I got
this place fer if it ain’t to have peace an’ quiet ’ere, an’ wot’s
this red-headed devil comin’ ’round ’ere fer an’ fussin’ me all up
tell’n’ me where I’m goin’ w’en I die, w’en I don’t give a whoop where
I go when I die. That feller’s bunk an’ don’t you fergit it, an’ ’e’s
worse’n that, fer look ’ere wot I found in that basket where I had
about two pounds o’ salt pork!”
He produced a piece of soiled and crumpled paper, on which were
scrawled the following quotations: “Of their flesh shall ye not
eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch. They are unclean to
you” (Leviticus 11:8). “Curséd shall be thy basket and thy store”
(Deuteronomy 28:17).
“It’s all right fer ’im to cuss my basket if ’e wants to, but I ain’t
got no store. I’ll bet ’e frisked that hunk o’ pork an’ chucked in them
texts ’fore you fellers got ’ere an’ I got in off’n the lake. It was
in ’is big coat pocket all the time he was makin’ that hot spiel, an’
that’s w’y ’e didn’t ’ave no room fer ’is hymn book. He’s swiped my
food an’ I can’t fry them texts, an’ you fellers are all in on it fer I
was goin’ to cook the pork an’ we’d all have sump’n to eat. He cert’nly
spread hell ’round ’ere thick tonight. Some day he’ll be yellin’ fer
ice all right. Who are them Leviticus an’ Deuteronomy fellers anyhow?
They ain’t no friends o’ mine!
“I’m weary o’ that name o’ Zekiel-seven-nine he’s carryin’ ’round. ’E
ought to have an eight spot in it, an’ with a six an’ a ten ’e’d ’ave
a straight an’ it ’ud take a flush er a full house to beat ’im. I bet
’e’s a poker sharp, an’ ’e’s hidin’ from sump’n over ’ere, an’ ’e
ain’t the fust one that’s done it. I seen ’im stewed once’t an’ ’e had
a lovely still. He’d oozed in the juice over to the county seat an’
come over ’ere an’ felt bad about it in my shanty. He come up to the
window w’en I was fixin’ my pipe an yelled, ‘Bow ye not down ’afore
idols!’ I went out an’ hustled ’im in out o’ the wet. It was rainin’
pretty bad an’ ’e was soaked, but ’e said ’e didn’t care so long’s none
of it didn’t git in ’is stummick. I dassent light a match near ’is
breath.
“I had ’im ’ere two days, an’ ’e said he’d took sump’n by mistake,
an’ ’e had. I had to keep givin’ ’im more air all the time. He drunk
enough water the next mornin’ to put out a big fire an’ I guess ’e had
one in ’im all right. After that ’e ast me if I had any whiskey, an’
w’en I told ’im I didn’t, ’e said ’e was glad of it, fer it was devil’s
lure. He’d ’a’ stowed it if he’d got to it. I did ’ave a little an’ I
guess now’s a good time to git it out, an’ I hope I don’t find no texts
stuck in the jug. We all need bracin’ up, so ’ere goes! That feller’s a
blankety-blankety-blank--blank-blank, an’ besides that ’e’s got other
faults!”