"He'll swing just the same to-morrow. Exit Malachi!" said Freddy
Tarlton gravely.
The door suddenly opened on the group of gossips, and a man stepped
inside and took the only vacant seat near the fire. He glanced at none,
but stretched out his hands to the heat, looking at the coals with
drooping introspective eyes.
"Exit Malachi," he said presently in a soft ironical voice, but did not
look up.
"By the holy poker, Pierre, where did you spring from?" asked Tarlton
genially.
"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and--" Pierre responded, with a
little turn of his fingers.
"And the wind doesn't tell where it's been, but that's no reason Pierre
shouldn't," urged the other.
Pierre shrugged his shoulders, but made no answer. "He was a tough,"
said a voice from the crowd. "To-morrow he'll get the breakfast he's
paid for." Pierre turned and looked at the speaker with a cold
inquisitive stare. "Mon Dieu!" he said presently, "here's this Gohawk
playing preacher. What do you know of Malachi, Gohawk? What do any of
you know about Malachi? A little of this, a little of that, a drink
here, a game of euchre there, a ride after cattle, a hunt behind Guidon
Hill!--But what is that? You have heard the cry of the eagle, you have
seen him carry off a lamb, you have had a pot-shot at him, but what do
you know of the eagle's nest? Mais non.
"The lamb is one thing, the nest is another. You don't know the eagle
till you've been there. And you, Gohawk, would not understand, if you
saw the nest. Such cancan!"
"Shut your mouth!" broke out Gohawk. "D'ye think I'm going to stand
your--"
Freddy Tarlton laid a hand on his arm. "Keep quiet, Gohawk. What good
will it do?" Then he said, "Tell us about the nest, Pierre; they're
hanging him for the lamb in the morning."
"Who spoke for him at the trial?" Pierre asked.
"I did," said Tarlton. "I spoke as well as I could, but the game was
dead against him from the start. The sheriff was popular, and young;
young--that was the thing; handsome too, and the women, of course! It
was sure from the start; besides, Malachi would say nothing--didn't seem
to care."
"No, not to care," mused Pierre. "What did you say for him to the jury
--I mean the devil of a thing to make them sit up and think, 'Poor
Malachi!'--like that."
"Best speech y'ever heard," Gohawk interjected; "just emptied the words
out, split 'em like peas, by gol! till he got to one place right before
the end. Then he pulled up sudden, and it got so quiet you could 'a
heard a pin drop. 'Gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton here--
gen'lemen, by gol! all that lot--Lagan and the rest! 'Gen'lemen of the
jury,' he says, 'be you danged well sure that you're at one with God
A'mighty in this; that you've got at the core of justice here; that
you've got evidence to satisfy Him who you've all got to satisfy some
day, or git out. Not evidence as to shootin', but evidence as to what
that shootin' meant, an' whether it was meant to kill, an' what for.
The case is like this, gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton here.
'Two men are in a street alone. There's a shot, out comes everybody, and
sees Fargo the sheriff laid along the ground, his mouth in the dust, and
a full-up gun in his fingers. Not forty feet away stands Malachi with a
gun smokin' in his fist. It seems to be the opinion that it was
cussedness--just cussedness--that made Malachi turn the sheriff's boots
to the sun. For Malachi was quarrelsome. I'll give you a quarter on
that. And the sheriff was mettlesome, used to have high spirits, like as
if he's lift himself over the fence with his bootstraps. So when Malachi
come and saw the sheriff steppin' round in his paten' leathers, it give
him the needle, and he got a bead on him--and away went Sheriff Fargo--
right away! That seems to be the sense of the public.' And he stops
again, soft and quick, and looks the twelve in the eyes at once. 'But,'
says Freddy Tarlton here, 'are you goin' to hang a man on the little you
know? Or are you goin' to credit him with somethin' of what you don't
know? You haint got the inside of this thing, and Malachi doesn't let
you know it, and God keeps quiet. But be danged well sure that you've
got the bulge on iniquity here; for gen'lemen with pistols out in the
street is one thing, and sittin' weavin' a rope in a court-room for a
man's neck is another thing,' says Freddy Tarlton here. 'My client has
refused to say one word this or that way, but don't be sure that Some One
that knows the inside of things won't speak for him in the end.' Then he
turns and looks at Malachi, and Malachi was standin' still and steady
like a tree, but his face was white, and sweat poured on his forehead.
'If God has no voice to be heard for my client in this court-room to-day,
is there no one on earth--no man or woman--who can speak for one who
won't speak for himself?' says Freddy Tarlton here. Then, by gol! for
the first time Malachi opened. 'There's no one,' he says. 'The speakin'
is all for the sheriff. But I spoke once, and the sheriff didn't
answer.' Not a bit of beg-yer-pardon in it. It struck cold. 'I leave
his case in the hands of twelve true men,' says Freddy Tarlton here, and
he sits down."
"So they said he must walk the air?" suggested Pierre.
"Without leavin' their seats," someone added instantly.
"So. But that speech of 'Freddy Tarlton here'?" "It was worth twelve
drinks to me, no more, and nothing at all to Malachi," said Tarlton.
"When I said I'd come to him to-night to cheer him up, he said he'd
rather sleep. The missionary, too, he can make nothing of him. 'I don't
need anyone here,' he says. 'I eat this off my own plate.' And that's
the end of Malachi."
"Because there was no one to speak for him--eh? Well, well."
"If he'd said anything that'd justify the thing--make it a manslaughter
business or a quarrel--then! But no, not a word, up or down, high or
low. Exit Malachi!" rejoined Freddy Tarlton sorrowfully. "I wish he'd
given me half a chance."
"I wish I'd been there," said Pierre, taking a match from Gohawk, and
lighting his cigarette.
"To hear his speech?" asked Gohawk, nodding towards Tarlton.
"To tell the truth about it all. T'sh, you bats, you sheep, what have
you in your skulls? When a man will not speak, will not lie to gain a
case for his lawyer--or save himself, there is something! Now, listen to
me, and I will tell you the story of Malachi. Then you shall judge.
"I never saw such a face as that girl had down there at Lachine in
Quebec. I knew her when she was a child, and I knew Malachi when he was
on the river with the rafts, the foreman of a gang. He had a look all
open then as the sun--yes. Happy? Yes, as happy as a man ought to be.
Well, the mother of the child died, and Malachi alone was left to take
care of the little Norice. He left the river and went to work in the
mills, so that he might be with the child; and when he got to be foreman
there he used to bring her to the mill. He had a basket swung for her
just inside the mill not far from him, right where she was in the shade;
but if she stretched out her hand it would be in the sun. I've seen a
hundred men turn to look at her where she swung, singing to herself, and
then chuckle to themselves afterwards as they worked.
"When Trevoor, the owner, come one day, and saw her, he swore, and was
going to sack Malachi, but the child--that little Norice--leaned over the
basket, and offered him an apple. He looked for a minute, then he
reached up, took the apple, turned round, and went out of the mill
without a word--so. Next month when he come he walked straight to her,
and handed up to her a box of toys and a silver whistle. 'That's to call
me when you want me,' he said, as he put the whistle to her lips, and
then he put the gold string of it round her neck. She was a wise little
thing, that Norice, and noticed things. I don't believe that Trevoor or
Malachi ever knew how sweet was the smell of the fresh sawdust till she
held it to their noses; and it was she that had the saws--all sizes--
start one after the other, making so strange a tune. She made up a
little song about fairies and others to sing to that tune. And no one
ever thought much about Indian Island, off beyond the sweating, baking
piles of lumber, and the blistering logs and timbers in the bay, till she
told stories about it. Sure enough, when you saw the shut doors and open
windows of those empty houses, all white without in the sun and dark
within, and not a human to be seen, you could believe almost anything.
You can think how proud Malachi was. She used to get plenty of presents
from the men who had no wives or children to care for--little silver and
gold things as well as others. She was fond of them, but no, not vain.
She loved the gold and silver for their own sake."