THE AFFAIR AT HAWK'S CABIN
It wanted half an hour of daybreak when a slow-riding, silent
group of men came to a halt and dismounted in the narrow lane some
distance from the ramshackle abode of Martin Hawk, squatting unseen
among the trees that lined the steep bank of the Wabash. A three
hours' ride through dark, muddy roads lay behind them. There were
a dozen men in all,--and one woman, at whose side rode the hunter,
Stain. They had stopped at the latter's cabin on the way down, and
she had conversed apart with him through a window. Then they rode
off, leaving him to follow.
There were no lights, and no man spoke above a whisper. The work of
tethering the horses progressed swiftly but with infinite caution.
Eyes made sharp by long hours of darkness served their owners well
in this stealthy enterprise.
The half-hour passed and the night began to lift. Vague unusual
objects slowly took shape, like gloomy spectres emerging from
impenetrable fastnesses. Blackness gave way to a faint drab pall;
then the cold, unearthly grey of the still remote dawn came stealing
across the fields.
At last it was light enough to see, and the advance upon the cabin
began. Silently through the dense, shadowy wood crept the sheriff
and his men,--followed by the tall woman in black and a lank,
bearded man whose rifle-stock bore seven tiny but significant
notches,--sinister epitaphs for as many by-gone men.
A dog barked,--the first alarm. Then another, and still a third
joined in a fierce outcry against the invaders. Suddenly the door
of the hut was thrown open and a half-dressed man stooped in the
low aperture, peering out across the dawn-shrouded clearing. The
three coon-dogs, slinking out of the shadows, crowded up to the
door, their snarling muzzles pointed toward the encircling trees.
Two men stepped out of the underbrush and advanced. Even in the dim,
uncertain light, Martin Hawk could see that they carried rifles.
His eyes were like those of the bird whose name he bore. They swept
the clearing in a flash. As if by magic, men appeared to right of
him, to left of him, in front of him. He counted them. Seven,--no,
there was another,--eight. And he knew there were more of them,
back of the house, cutting off retreat to the river.
"Don't move, Martin," called out a voice.
"What do you want?" demanded Hawk, in a sharp, querulous voice.
"I am the sheriff. Got a warrant for your arrest. No use makin' a
fight for it, Hawk. You are completely surrounded. You can't get
away."
"I ain't done nothin' to be arrested fer," cried the man in the
doorway. "I'm an honest man,--I hain't ever done--"
"Well, that's not for me to decide," interrupted the sheriff, now
not more than a dozen feet away. "I've got a warrant charging you
with sheep-stealing and so on, and that's all there is to it. I'm
not the judge and jury. You come along quiet now and no foolishness."
"Who says I stole sheep?"
"Step outside here and I'll read the affidavit to you. And say, if
you don't want your dogs massacreed, you'd better call 'em off."
Martin Hawk looked over his shoulder into the dark interior of the
hut, spoke to some one under his breath, and then began cursing
his dogs.
"I might have knowed you'd git me into trouble, you lop-eared,
sheep-killin' whelps!" he whined. "I'd ought to shot the hull
pack of ye when you was pups. Git out'n my sight! There's yer
sheep-stealers, sheriff,--them ornery, white-livered, blood-suckin'--"
"I don't know anything about that, Martin," snapped the sheriff.
"All I know is, you got to come along with me,--peaceable or
otherwise,--and I guess if you're half as smart as I think you are,
you won't come otherwise. Here! Don't go back in that house, Hawk."
"Well, I got to tell my daughter--"
"We'll tell her. There's another man or two in there. Just tell
'em to step outside,--and leave their weapons behind 'em."
"There ain't a livin' soul in thar, 'cept my daughter,--so he'p
me God, sheriff," cried Hawk, his teeth beginning to chatter. The
sheriff was close enough to see the look of terror and desperation
in his eyes.
"No use lyin', Hawk. You've got a man named Suggs stayin' with you.
He ain't accused of anything, so he needn't be afraid to come out.
Same applies to your daughter Moll. But I don't want anybody in
there to take a shot at us the minute we turn our backs. Shake 'em
out, Hawk."
"I tell ye there ain't nobody here but me an' Moll,--an' she's sick.
She can't come out. An'--an' you can't go in,--not unless you got
a warrant to search my house. That's what the law sez,--an' you
know it. I'll go along with you peaceable,--an' stand my trial
fer sheep-stealin' like a man. Lemme get my hat an' coat, an' I'll
come--"
"I guess there's something queer about all this," interrupted the
sheriff. The man beside him had just whispered something in his
ear. "We'll take a look inside that cabin, law or no law, Hawk.
Move up, boys!" he called out to the scattered men. "Keep your
eyes skinned. If you ketch sight of a rifle ball comin' to'ards
you,--dodge. And you, Martin, step outside here, where you won't
be in the way. I'm going in there."
Martin Hawk looked wildly about him. On all sides were men with
rifles. There was no escape. His craven heart failed him, his knees
gave way beneath him and an instant later he was grovelling in the
mud at the sheriff's feet.
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I swear to God I didn't. It was
her. She done it,--Moll done it!" he squealed in abject terror.
He was grabbed by strong hands and jerked to his feet. While others
held him, the sheriff and several of the men rushed into the cabin.
Off at the edge of the clearing stood Rachel Carter and Isaac Stain,
watching the scene at the door.
"One look will be enough," the woman had said tersely. "Twenty
years will not have changed Simon Braley much. I will know him at
sight."
"You got to be sure, Mrs. Gwyn," muttered the hunter. "Ef you got
the slightest doubt, say so."
"I will, Isaac."
"And ef you say it's him, fer sure an' no mistake, I'll foller him
to the end of the world but what I git him."
"If it is Simon Braley he will make a break for cover. He is not
like that whimpering coward over yonder. And the sheriff will make
no attempt to bring him down. There is no complaint against him.
No one knows that he is Simon Braley."
"Well, I'll be on his heels," was the grim promise of Isaac Stain,
thinking of the sister who had been slain by Braley's Indians down
on the River White.
One of the men rushed out of the cabin. He was vastly excited.
"Don't let go of him," he shouted to the men who were holding
Martin. "There's hell to pay in there. Where is Mrs. Gwyn?"
"I never done it!" wailed Martin, livid with terror. "I swear to
God--"
"Shut up!"
"She's over there, Sam,--with Ike Stain."
Ignoring the question that followed him, the man called Sam hurried
up to the couple at the edge of the bush.
"Better clear out, Mrs. Gwyn," he said soberly. "I mean, don't stay
around. Something in there you oughtn't to see."
"What is it?" she inquired sharply.
"Well, you see,--there's a dead man in there,--knifed. Blood all
over everything and--"
"The man called Suggs?"
"I reckon so. Leastwise it must be him. 'Pears to be a stranger to
all of us. Deader'n a door nail. He's--"
"I am not chicken-hearted, Mr. Corbin," she announced. "I have
seen a good many dead men in my time. The sight of blood does not
affect me. I will go in and see him. No! Please do not stay me."
Despite his protestations, she strode resolutely across the lot.
As she passed Martin Hawk that cowering rascal stared at her,
first without comprehension, then with a suddenly awakened, acute
understanding.
It was she who had brought the authorities down upon him. She had
made "affidavy" against him,--she had got him into this horrible
mess by swearing that he stole her sheep and calves. True, he
had stolen from her,--there was, no doubt about that,--but he had
covered his tracks perfectly. Any one of a half-dozen men along the
river might have stolen her stock,--they were stealing right and
left. How then did she come to fix upon him as the one to accuse?
In a flash he leaped to a startling conclusion. Barry Lapelle! The
man who knew all about his thievish transactions and who for months
had profited by them. Hides, wool, fresh meats from the secret lairs
and slaughter pens back in the trackless wilds, all these had gone
down the river on Barry's boats, products of a far-reaching system
of outlawry, with Barry and his captains sharing in the proceeds.
Now he understood. Lapelle had gone back on him, had betrayed him
to his future mother-in-law. The fine gentleman had no further use
for him; Mrs. Gwyn had given her consent to the marriage and in
return for that he had betrayed a loyal friend! And now look at
the position he was in, all through Barry Lapelle. Sheep stealing
was nothing to what he might have to face. Even though Moll had done
the killing, he would have a devil of a time convincing a jury of
the fact. More than likely, Moll would up and deny that she had
anything to do with it,--and then what? It would be like the ornery
slut to lie out of it and let 'em hang her own father, just to pay
him back for the lickings he had given her.
All this raced through the fast-steadying brain of Martin Hawk as he
watched his accuser pass him by without a look and stop irresolutely
on his threshold to stare aghast at what lay beyond. It became a
conviction, rather than a conjecture. Barry had set the dogs upon
him! Snake! Well,--just let him get loose from these plagued
hounds for half an hour or so and, by glory, they'd have something
to hang him for or his name wasn't Martin Hawk.
Isaac Stain did not move from the spot where she had left him, over
at the edge of the clearing. His rifle was ready, his keen eyes
alert. Rachel Carter entered the hut. Many minutes passed. Then
she came to the door and beckoned to him.
"It is Simon Braley," she said quietly. "He is dead. The girl killed
him, Isaac. Will you ride over to my farm and have Allen come over
here with a wagon? They're going to take the body up to town,--and
the girl, too."
Stain stood his rifle against the wall of the hut. "I guess I won't
need this," was all he said as he turned and strode away.
The man called Jasper Suggs lay in front of the tumble-down fireplace,
his long body twisted grotesquely by the final spasm of pain that
carried him off. The lower part of his body was covered by a filthy
strip of rag carpet which some one had hastily thrown over him as
Rachel Carter was on the point of entering the house. His coarse
linsey shirt was soaked with blood, now dry and almost black. The
harsh light from the open door struck full upon his bearded face
and its staring eyes.
In a corner, at the foot of a straw pallet, ordinarily screened
from the rest of the cabin by a couple of suspended quilts, stood
Moll Hawk, leaning against the wall, her dark sullen eyes following
the men as they moved about the room. The quilts, ruthlessly torn
from their fastenings on the pole, lay scattered and trampled on
the floor, sinister evidence of the struggle that had taken place
between woman and beast. At the other end of the room were two
similar pallets, unscreened, and beside one of these lay Jasper
Suggs' rawhide boots.
From her place in the shadows Moll Hawk watched the other woman
stoop over and gaze intently at the face of the slain man. She was
a tall, well-developed girl of twenty or thereabouts. Her long,
straight hair, the colour of the raven's wing, swung loose about
her shoulders, an occasional strand trailing across her face, giving
her a singularly witchlike appearance. Her body from the waist up
was stripped almost bare; there were several long streaks of blood
across her breast, where the fingers of a gory hand had slid in
relaxing their grip on her shoulder. With one hand she clutched
what was left of a tattered garment, vainly seeking to hide her
naked breasts. The stout, coarse dress had been almost torn from
her body.
Mrs. Gwyn left the hut but soon returned. After a few earnest words
with the sheriff, she came slowly over to the girl. Moll shrank
back against the wall, a strange glitter leaping into her sullen,
lifeless eyes.
"I don't want nobody prayin' over me," she said huskily. "I jest
want to be let alone."
"I am not going to pray over you, my girl. I want you to come out
in the back yard with me, where I can wash the blood off of you
and put something around you."
"What's the use'n that? They're goin' to take me to jail, ain't
they?"
"Have you another frock to put on, Moll?"
The girl looked down at her torn, disordered dress, a sneering
smile on her lips.
"This is all I got,--an' now look at it. I ain't had a new dress in
God knows how long. Pap ain't much on dressin' me up. Mr. Lapelle
he promised me a new dress but--say, who air you?"
"I am Mrs. Gwyn, Moll."
"I might ha' knowed it. You're her ma, huh? Well, I guess you'd better
go on away an' let me alone. I ain't axin' no favours off'n--" "I
am not trying to do you a favour. I am only trying to make you a
little more presentable. You are going up to town, Moll."
"Yes,--I guess that's so. Can't they hang me here an' have it over?"
A look of terror gleamed in her eyes, but there was no flinching
of the body, no tremor in her voice.
The sheriff came over. "Better let Mrs. Gwyn fix you up a little,
Moll. She's a good, kind lady and she'll--"
"I don't want to go to town," whimpered the girl, covering her face
with her hands. "I don't want to be hung. I jest had to do it,--I
jest had to. There wuz no other way,--'cept to--'cept to--an' I
jest couldn't do that. Now I wish I had,--oh, Lordy, how I wish I
had! That wuz bad enough, but hangin's wuss. He wuz goin' away in
a day or two, anyhow, so--"
"You're not going to be hung, Moll," broke in the sheriff. "Don't
you worry about that. We don't hang women for killing men like
that feller over there. Like as not you'll be set free in no time
at all. All you've got to do is to tell the truth about how it
happened and that'll be all there is to it."
"You're lyin' to me, jest to git me to go along quiet," she quavered,
but there was a new light in her eyes.
"I'm not lying. You will have to stand trial, of course,--you
understand that, don't you?--but there isn't a jury on earth that
would hang you. We don't do that kind of thing to women. Now you
go along with Mrs. Gwyn and do what she says,--and you can tell me
all about this after a while."
"I'll wash, but I hain't got no more clothes," muttered the girl.
"We will manage somehow," said Mrs. Gwyn. "One of the men will give
you a coat,--or you may have my cape to wear, Moll."
Moll looked at her in surprise. Again she said the unexpected thing.
"Why, ever'body says you air a mighty onfeelin' woman, Mis' Gwyn.
I can't believe you'd let me take your cape."
"You will see, my girl. Come! Show me where to find water and a
comb and--"
"Wait a minute," said Moll abruptly. "Somehow I ain't as skeert
as I wuz. You're shore they won't hang me? 'Ca'se I'd hate to be
hung,--I'd hate to die that-away, Mister."
"They won't hang you, Moll,--take my word for it."
"Well, then," said she, bringing forward the hand she had been
holding behind her back all the time; "here's the knife I done it
with. It's his'n. He was braggin' last night about how many gullets
he had slit with it,--I mean men's gullets. I wuz jest sort o'
hangin' onto it in case I--but I don't believe I ever could a' done
it. 'Tain't 'ca'se I'm afeared to die but they say a person that
takes his own life is shore to go to hell--'ca'se he don't git no
chance fer to repent. Take it, Mister."
She handed the big sheath-knife to the sheriff. Then she followed
Rachel Carter out of the hut, apparently unconscious of the curious
eyes that followed her. She passed close by the corpse. She looked
down at the ghastly face and twisted body without the slightest
trace of emotion,--neither dread nor repugnance nor interest beyond a
curious narrowing of the eyes as of one searching for some sign of
trickery on the part of a wily adversary. On the way out she stopped
to pick up a wretched, almost toothless comb and some dishrags.
"I guess we better go down to the river," she said as they stepped
out into the open. "'Tain't very fer, Mrs. Gwyn,--an' the water's
cleaner. Hain't no danger of me tryin' to git away," she went on,
with a feeble grin as her eyes swept the little clearing, revealing
armed men in all directions. Her gaze rested for a moment on Martin
Hawk, who was staring at her from his seat on a stump hard by.
"There's my pap over yonder," she said, with a scowl. "He's the one
that ort to be strung up fer all this. He didn't do it,--but he's
to blame, just the same. They ain't got him 'rested fer doin' it,
have they? 'Ca'se he didn't. He'll tell you he's as innocent as
a unborn child,--he allus does,--an' he is as fer as the killin'
goes. But ef he'd done what wuz right hit never would 'a' happened.
Thet's whut I got ag'inst him."
Rachel Carter was looking at the strange creature with an interest
not far removed from pity. Despite the sullen, hang-dog expression
she was a rather handsome girl; wild, untutored, almost untamed she
was, and yet not without a certain diffidence that bespoke better
qualities than appeared on the surface. She was tall and strongly
built, with the long, swinging stride of the unhampered woods-woman.
Her young shoulders and back were bent with the toil and drudgery
of the life she led. Her eyes, in which lurked a never-absent gleam
of pain, were dark, smouldering, deep set and so restless that one
could not think of them as ever being closed in sleep.
The girl led the way down a narrow path to a little sand-bar.
"I go in swimmin' here every day, 'cept when it's froze over," she
volunteered dully. "Hain't you skeert at the sight o' blood, ma'am?
Some people air. We wuz figgerin' on whuther we'd dig a grave fer
him or jest pull out yonder into the current an' drop him over.
Pap said we had to git rid of him 'fore anybody come around. 'Nen
the dogs begin to bark an' he thought mebby it wuz Mr. Lapelle, so
he--say, you mustn't get Mr. Lapelle mixed up in this. He--"
"I know all about Mr. Lapelle, Moll," interrupted the older woman.
The girl gave her a sharp, almost hostile look. "Then you hain't
goin' to let him have your girl, air you?"
Mrs. Gwyn shook her head. "No, Moll,--I am not," she said.
"You set here on this log," ordered the girl as they came down to
the water's edge. "I'll do my own washin'. I'm kind o' 'shamed to
have any one see me as naked as this. There ain't much left of my
dress, is they? We fit fer I don't know how long, like a couple
o' dogs. You c'n see the black an' blue places on my arms out here
in the daylight,-an' I guess his finger marks must be on my neck,
where he wuz chokin' me. I wuz tryin' to wrassle around till I
could git nigh to the table, where his knife wuz stickin'. My eyes
wuz poppin' right out'n my head when I--"
"For heaven's sake, girl!" cried Rachel Carter. "Don't! Don't tell
me any more! I can't bear to hear you talk about it."
Moll stared at her for a moment as if bewildered, and then suddenly
turned away, her chin quivering with mortification. She had been
reprimanded!
For several minutes Rachel stood in silence, watching her as she
washed the blood from her naked breast and shoulders. Presently
the girl turned toward her, as if for inspection.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, if I talked too much," she mumbled awkwardly.
"I'd ort to have knowed better. Is--is it all off?"
"I think so," said Rachel, pulling herself together with an effort.
"Let me--"
"No, I'll finish it," said the girl stubbornly. She dried her
brown, muscular arms, rubbed her body vigorously with one of the
rags and then began to comb out her long, tangled hair,--not gently
but with a sort of relentless energy. Swiftly, deftly she plaited
it into two long braids, which she left hanging down in front of
her shoulders, squaw fashion.
"How long had you known this man Suggs, Moll?" suddenly inquired
the other woman.
"Off an' on ever sence I kin remember," replied the girl. "Pap
knowed him down south. We hain't seed much of him fer quite a spell.
Four--five year, I guess mebby. He come here last week one day."
The eyes of the two women met. Moll broke the short silence that
ensued. She glanced over her shoulder. The nearest man was well
out of earshot. Still she lowered her voice.
"He claims he use ter know you a long time ago," she said.
"Yes?"
"Mebby you'd recollect him ef I tole you his right name."
"His name was Simon Braley," said Rachel Carter calmly.
Moll's eyes narrowed. "Then what he sez wuz true?"
"I don't know what he said to you, Moll."
"He sez you run off with some other woman's husband," replied Moll
bluntly.
"Did he tell this to any one except you and your father?"
"He didn't tell no one but me, fer as I know. He didn't tell Pap."
"When did he tell you?"
"Las' night," said Moll, suddenly dropping her eyes. "He wuz
drinkin',--an' I thought mebby he wuz lyin'."
"You are sure he did not tell your father?"
"I'm purty shore he didn't."
"Why did he tell you?"
The girl raised her eyes. There was a deeper look of pain in them
now. "I'd ruther not tell," she muttered.
"You need not be afraid."
"Well, he wuz arguin' with me. He said there wuzn't any good women
in the world. 'Why,' sez he, 'I seen a woman this very day that
everybody thinks is as good as the angels up in heaven, but when
I tell you whut I know about her you'll--'"
"You need not go on," interrupted Rachel Carter, drawing her brows
together. "Would you believe me if I told you the man lied, Moll
Hawk?"
"Yes, ma'am,--I would," said the girl promptly. "Fer as that goes,
I TOLE him he lied."
Rachel started to say something, then closed her lips tightly and
fell to staring out over the river. The girl eyed her for a moment
and then went on:
"You needn't be skeert of me ever tellin' anybody whut he said to
me. Hit wouldn't be right to spread a lie like thet, Mis' Gwyn.
You--"
"I think they are waiting for us, Moll," interrupted Rachel,
suddenly holding out her hand to the girl. "Thank you. Come, give
me your hand. We will go back to them, hand in hand, my girl."
Moll stared at her in sheer astonishment.
"You--you don't want to hold my hand in yours, do you?" she murmured
slowly, incredulously.
"I do. You will find me a good friend,--and you will need good
friends, Moll."
Dumbly the girl held out her hand. It was clasped firmly by Rachel
Carter. They were half-way up the bank when Moll held back and
tried to withdraw her hand.
"I--I can't let you,--why, ma'am, that's the hand I--I held the
knife in," she cried, agitatedly.
Rachel gripped the hand more firmly. "I know it is, Moll," she said
calmly.