Five years later the _Monarch_ was drawn up to the east bank of the Erie
Canal at Syracuse. It was past midnight, and with the exception of those
on Lem Crabbe's scow the occupants of all the long line of boats were
sleeping. Three men sat silently working in the living-room of the boat.
Lem Crabbe, Silent Lon Cronk, and his brother Eli, Cayuga Lake
squatters, were the workers. At one end of the room hung a broken iron
kettle. Into this Eli Cronk was dropping bits of gold which he cut from
baubles taken from a basket. Crabbe, his short legs drawn up under his
body, held a pair of pliers in his left hand, while caught firmly in the
hook was a child's tiny pin. From this he tore the small jewels, threw
them into a tin cup, and passed the setting on to Eli. The other man,
taciturn and fierce, was flattening out by means of strong pressers
several gold rings and bracelets. The three had worked for many hours
with scarcely a word spoken, with scarcely a recognition of one another.
Of a sudden Eli Cronk raised his head and said, "Lem, Scraggy was to
Mammy's t'other day."
"I didn't know ye'd been to Ithacy?" Lem made the statement a question.
"Yep, I went to see Mammy, and she says as how Scraggy's pappy were
dead, and as how the gal's teched in here." His words were low, and he
raised his forefinger to his head significantly.
"She ain't allers a stayin' in the squatter country nuther," he pursued.
"She takes that damn ugly cat of her'n and scoots away for a time. And
none of 'em up there don't know where she goes. Hones' Injun, don't she
never come about this here scow, Lem?"
"Hones' Injun," replied Lem laconically, without looking up from his
work.
Presently Eli continued:
"Mammy says as how the winter's comin', and some 'un ought to look out
for Scraggy. She goes 'bout the lake doin' nothin' but hollerin' like a
hoot-owl, and she don't have enough to eat. But she's been gone now
goin' on two weeks, disappearin' like she's been doin' for a few years
back. Scraggy allers says she has bats in her head."
"So she has bats," muttered Lem, "and she allers had 'em, and that's why
I made her beat it. I didn't want no woman 'bout me for good and all."
Lem Crabbe lifted his head and glanced toward the small window
overlooking the dark canal. He had always feared the crazy
squatter-woman whom he had wrecked by his brutality.
"I says that I don't want no woman round me for all time," he repeated.
The third man raised his right shoulder at that; but sank into a heap
again, working more assiduously. The slight trembling of his body was
the only evidence he gave that he had heard Crabbe's words. Snip, snip,
snip! went the bits of gold into the kettle, until Eli spoke again.
"Ye can't tell me that ye ain't goin' never to get married, Lem?"
Crabbe lifted his hooked arm viciously. "I ain't said nothin' like that.
I says as how Scraggy can keep away from my scow."
"Don't she never come here no more?" asked Eli in disbelief.
"Nope, not after them three beatin's I give her. She kept a comin', and
I had to wallop her. I'd do it again if she snoops 'bout here."
"Ye beat her up well, didn't ye, Lem? And she telled Mammy that yer brat
were drowned one night in the river. Were it, Lem?"
There was an expectant pause between his first and last questions, and
Lem waited almost as long before he grunted:
"Yep."
"Did ye throw it in when ye was drunk?"
"Nope, he jest fell in--that's all."
"I guess that last beatin' ye give Scraggy made her batty. Mam says that
she ain't no more sense than her cat."
"Let her keep to hum then, and she won't get beat. I don't do no runnin'
after her!"
Again there came a space of time during which Eli and Lem worked in
silence. From far away in the city there came the sound of the fire
whistle, followed by the ringing of bells. But not one of the men ceased
his clipping to satisfy any curiosity he might have had.
Suddenly Lem Crabbe spoke louder than he had before that evening.
"Women ain't no good, nohow! They don't love no men, and men don't love
them. What's the good of havin' 'em round to feed and to bother a feller
'bout drinkin' an' things? Less a man sees of 'em the better!"
The third man, Silent Lon Cronk, sunk lower at his work, even more
fiercely flattening the gemless rings under the pressers. After a few
moments he laid down his tools and began to stretch his long legs,
scraping into a cup the bits of gold from his lap.
"I've been goin' to ask ye fellers somethin' for a long time. Might as
well now as any other night, eh?"
"Yep," replied Eli eagerly.
"'Tain't nothin' that will take any money out yer pockets; 'twill put it
in, more likely. We've been stealin' together for how long, Lem? How
long we been pals?"
"Nigh onto ten years, I'm thinkin'. It were that year that Tilly
Jacobson got burned, weren't it?"
"Yep, for ten years," replied Lon, ignoring Lem's last query, "and we've
allers been hones' with each other. I've been hones' with both of ye,
and ye've been hones' with me. Eh?"
"Yep."
"Lem, do ye want all the swag in this here room, only a sharin' up with
Eli, without havin' to share and share alike with me?"
A small jewel bounded from the steel hook, and the pliers fell from
Lem's fingers. Eli dropped back upon his bare feet.
"What's in the wind?" demanded Lem.
"Only want ye to help me with a job some night that won't be nothin' to
nuther of ye. But it's all to me. Will ye?"
Lem wriggled nearer on the floor. "Ye mean stealin', Lon?" he demanded.
"Yep."
"And we ain't to share up with it?"
"Nope; but ye're to have all that's in this here room. If I tell ye,
will ye help?"
Crabbe looked at Eli, and a furtive look was shot back. Each was afraid
of the other; but for the big, gloomy man before them they had vast
respect.
"What be ye goin' to steal, Lon? Tell us before we say we'll help."
"Kids," muttered Lon moodily.
"Live kids?" asked Eli, in great surprise.
"Yep, live ones. What do I want with dead ones? Will ye help?"
"Can't see no good a swipin' kids. What do ye want with 'em?"
"I'll tell ye if ye sit up and listen to me."
Crabbe dropped his hooked arm and leaned against the wall. Eli lighted a
pipe. A mysterious change had passed over Silent Lon's face. The blue
eyes glowed out from under a massive brow, and a mouth cruel and
vindictive set firm-jawed over decayed teeth.
"I'll tell ye this much for all time, Lem Crabbe: that ye lied when ye
said that no woman could love no man--ye lied, I say!"
So fierce had he become that the man with the hook drew back into the
corner and sat staring sullenly. Eli puffed more vigorously on his pipe.
Lon went on:
"I had a woman oncet," said he, "and she were every bit mine. And she
were little--like this."
The big fellow measured off a space with his hand and, straightening
again, stood against the wall of the scow, his head reaching almost to
the ceiling.
"She were mine, I say, and any man what says she weren't--"
"Where be she?" interrupted Lem curiously.
"Dead," replied Lon, "as dead as if she'd never been alive, as dead as
if she'd never laid ag'in' my heart when I wanted her! God! how I wanted
her!"
"But were she a woman?" asked Lem meditatively.
"Yep, she were a woman, and I married her square, I did!"
Lon stirred his dank black hair ferociously, standing it on end with
horny fingers. "I loved her, Lem Crabbe," he continued hoarsely. "I
loved her, that I know! And ye can let that devilish grin ride on yer
lips when I say it and I don't give a hell; but--but if ye say that she
didn't love me, if ye so much as smile when I say that she died a
callin' me, that she went away lovin' me every minute, I--I'll rip
offen yer hooked arm and tear out yer in'ards with it!"
He was leaning against the wall no longer. As he spoke, he came closer
to the crouching canalman, his eyes straining from their sockets in
livid hate. But he halted, and presently began to speak in a voice more
subdued.
"But she's dead, and I'm goin' to get even. He killed her, he did,
'cause he wouldn't let me see her, and he's got to go the same way I
went! He's got to tear his hair and call God to curse some 'un he won't
know who! He's got to want his kids like as how I've been wantin'
mine--"
"Ye ain't had no kids, Lon," his brother broke in scoffingly.
"I would a had if he'd a kept his hands to hum and let me see her. But
she were so little an' young-like an' afeard, and I telled her that
night--I telled her when she whispered that she were a goin' to have a
baby, and said as how she couldn't stand bein' hurt--I says, 'Midge
darlin', do it hurt the grass to grow jest 'cause the winds bend it
double? Do it hurt the little birds to bust out of their shells in the
springtime?' And she knowed what I meant, that not even what she were a
thinkin' of could hurt her if I was there close by."
His deep voice sank almost to a whisper, a hard, heavy sob closing his
throat. He shook himself fiercely and continued:
"I took her up close--God! how close I tooked her up! And I telled her
that there wasn't no pain big 'nough to hurt her when I were there--that
even God's finger couldn't tech her afore it went through me. And she
fell to sleep like a bird, a trustin' me, 'cause I said as how there
wasn't goin' to be no hurt. And all the time I knowed I were a lyin'--I
knowed that she'd suffer--"
His voice trailed into silence, the muscles of his dark face twitching
under the gnawing heart-pain; but after a time he conquered his feelings
and went on:
"Then they comed and took me away for stealin' jest that there week and
sent me up to Auburn prison, and they wouldn't let me stay with her. And
I telled the state's lawyer, Floyd Vandecar, this; I says, 'Vandecar, ye
be a good man, I be a thief, and ye caught me square, ye did. My little
Midge be sick like women is sick sometimes, and she wants me, like every
woman wants her man jest then, an' if ye'll let me see her, to stay a
bit, I'll go up for twice my time.' But he jest laughed till--"
Lon stopped speaking, and neither listener moved. For a moment he
lowered his head to the small boat window and gazed out into the vapors
hanging low over the opposite bank.
Turning again, he backed up to the scow's side and proceeded in a lower
voice:
"When they telled me she were dead, they had to set me in the jacket,
buckled so tight ye could hear my bones crack. The warden ain't got no
blame comin' from me, 'cause I smashed his face afore he'd done tellin'
me. And I felled the keeper like that!" He raised a knotty fist and
thrust it forth. "But it were all 'cause I wanted to be with her so,
'cause I couldn't stand the knowin' that she'd gone a callin' and a
callin' me!"
He was quiet so long that Eli Cronk drew his sleeve across his face to
break the oppressive stillness. Here, in the dead of night, his somber
brother had been transformed into another creature,--a passionate
creature, responding to the call of a dead woman, a man whose hatred
would carry him to fearful lengths.
The hoarse voice broke forth again:
"Midge darlin', dead baby, and all that ye had belongin' to me, I do it
for you! I'll steal his'n, and they'll suffer and suffer--"
He tossed up his great head with a jerk, crushing the sentiment from his
voice.
"But that don't make no matter now," he muttered. "I'm goin' to take his
kids! He's got two, an' he's prouder'n a turkey cock of 'em. I'll take
'em and I'll make of 'em what I be--I'll make 'em so damn bad that he
won't want 'em no more after I get done with 'em! I'll see what his
woman does when she finds 'em gone! Will ye help, Lem--Eli?"
"Yep, by God, you bet!" burst from both men at once.
"I'll take 'em to the squatter country, up to Mammy's," Lon proceeded,
"and, Eli, if ye'll take one of 'em on the train up to McKinneys Point,
I'll take t'other one up the west side of the lake. I'll pay all the
way, Eli; it won't be nothin' out o' yer pocket. We'll tell Mammy the
kids be mine--see? And ye can have all there be in this here room. Be it
a bargain?"
"Yep," assured Eli, and Lena's consent followed only an instant later.
After that there were no sounds save the snip, snip, snip of the pliers
and the occasional low grating from a jeweled trinket as the steel hook
gouged into the metal.