One day in the first week of September, a day when there was a touch of
frost in the air, and a hurrying and scurrying of the clouds overhead as
though they would escape the grip of coming winter, Evered took down his
double-bitted ax from its place in the woodshed and went to the
grindstone and worked the two blades to razor edge. John was in the
orchard picking those apples which were already fit for harvesting. Ruth
was helping him.
There was not much of the fruit, and Evered had said to them, “I’ll go
down into the woodlot and get out some wood.”
When he was gone Ruth and John looked at each other; and John asked,
“Does he know Darrin is there, I wonder? Know where he is?”
Ruth said, “I don’t know. He sees more than you think. Anyway, it won’t
hurt him to know.”
Evered shaped the ax to his liking, slung it across his shoulder, and
walked down the wood road till he came to a growth of birch which was
ready for the ax. The trees would be felled and cut into lengths where
they lay, then hauled to the farm and piled in the shed to season under
cover for a full twelve months before it was time to use the wood.
Evered’s purpose now was simply to cut down the trees, leaving the later
processes for another day.
He had chosen the task in response to some inner uneasiness which
demanded an outlet. The man’s overflowing energy had always been his
master; it drove him now, drove him with a new spur--the spur of his own
thoughts. He could never escape from them; he scarce wished to escape,
for he was never one to dodge an issue. But if he had wished to forget,
Fraternity would not have permitted it. The men of the town, he saw,
were watching him with furtive eyes; the women looked upon him
spitefully. He knew that most people thought he should have killed the
red bull before this; but Evered would not kill the bull, partly from
native stubbornness, partly from an unformed feeling that he, not the
bull, was actually responsible. He was growing old through much thought
upon the matter; and it is probable that only his own honest certainty
of his wife’s misdoing kept him from going mad. He slept little. His
nerves tortured him.
He struck the ax into the first tree with a hot energy that made him
breathe deep with satisfaction. He sank the blade on one side of the
tree, and then on the other, and the four-inch birch swayed and toppled
and fell. The man went furiously to the next, and to the next
thereafter. The sweat began to bead his forehead and his pulses began to
pound.
He worked at a relentless pace for perhaps half an hour, drunk with his
own labors. At the end of that time, pausing to draw breath, he knew
that he was thirsty. It was this which first brought the spring to his
mind, the spring where his wife had died.
He had not been near the spot since the day he found her there. The
avoidance had been instinctive rather than conscious. He hated the place
and in some measure he feared it, as much as it was in the man to fear
anything. He could see it all too vividly without bringing the actual
surroundings before his eyes. The thought of it tormented him. And when
his thirst made him remember the spring now his first impulse was to
avoid it. His second--because it was ever the nature of the man to meet
danger or misfortune or unpleasantness face to face--was to go to the
place and drink his fill. He stuck his ax into a stump and started down
the hill. This was not like that other day when he had gone along this
way. That day his wife had been killed was sultry and lowering and
oppressive; there was death in the very air. To-day was bright, crisp,
cool; the air like wine, the earth a vivid panorama of brilliant
coloring, the sky a vast blue canvas with white clouds limned lightly
here and there. A day when life quickened in the veins; a day to make a
man sing if there was song in him.
There was no song in Evered; nevertheless, he felt the influence of the
glory all about him. It made him, somehow, lonely; and this was strange
in a man so used to loneliness. It made him unhappy and a little sorry
for himself, a little wistful. He wanted, without knowing it, someone to
give him comradeship and sympathy and friendliness. He had never
realized before how terribly alone he was.
His feet took unconsciously the way they had taken on that other day;
but his thoughts were not on the matter, and so he came at last to the
knoll above the spring with something like a shock of surprise, for he
saw a man sitting below; and for a moment it seemed to him this man was
Semler, that Mary sat beside him. He brushed a rough hand across his
eyes, and saw that what he had taken for his wife’s figure was just a
roll of blanket laid across a rock; and he saw that the man was not
Semler but Darrin.
He had never thought of the possibility that Darrin might have camped
beside the spring. Yet it was natural enough. This was the best water
anywhere along the swamp’s edge. A man might drink from the brook, but
not with satisfaction in a summer of such drought as this had seen. But
the spring had a steady flow of cool clear water in the driest seasons.
This was the best place for a camp. Darrin was here.
Evered stood still, looking down on Darrin’s camp, until the other man
felt his eyes and looked up and saw him.
When he saw Evered, Darrin got to his feet and laid aside his book and
called cheerfully, “Come aboard, sir. Time you paid me a call.”
Evered hesitated; then he went, stumbling a little, down to where Darrin
was. “I’m getting out some wood,” he said. “I just came down for a
drink.”
“Sit down,” said Darrin in a friendly way. “Fill your pipe.”
The old Evered, the normal Evered even now would have shaken his head,
bent for his drink from the spring and gone back to his work. But Evered
was in want of company this day; and Darrin had a cheerful voice, a
comradely eye. Darrin seemed glad to see him. Also the little hollow
about the spring had a fascination for Evered. Having come to the spot
he was unwilling to leave it, not because he wished to stay, but because
he wished to go. He stayed because he dreaded to stay. He took Darrin’s
cup and dipped it in the spring and drank; and then at Darrin’s
insistence he sat down against the bowlder and whittled a fill for his
pipe and set it going.
Darrin during this time had been talking with the nimble wit which was
characteristic of the man. He made Evered feel more assured, more
comfortable than he had felt for a long time. And while Darrin talked
Evered’s slow eyes were moving all about, marking each spot in the
tragedy that was forever engraved upon his mind--there had sat his wife,
there Semler, yonder stood the bull--terribly vivid, terribly real, so
that the sweat burst out upon his forehead again.
Darrin, watching, asked, “What’s wrong? You look troubled.”
And Evered hesitated, then said huskily, “It’s the first time I’ve been
here.”
He did not explain; but Darrin understood. “Since your wife was killed?”
“Yes.”
Darrin nodded. “It was here by the spring, wasn’t it?”
Evered answered slowly, “Yes. She was--lying over there when I found
her.” He pointed to the spot.
Darrin looked that way; and after a moment, eyes upon the curling smoke
of his pipe, he asked casually, “Where was Semler?”
His tone was easy, mildly interested and that was all; nevertheless, his
word came to Evered with an abrupt and startling force. Semler? He had
told no one save John that Semler was here that day; he knew John would
never have told. Ruth knew; but she too was close-mouthed. Fraternity
did not know. Yet Darrin knew.
“Where was Semler?” Darrin had asked, so casually.
And Evered cried, “Semler? Who said he was here?”
Darrin looked surprised. “Why, I did not know it was a secret. He told
me--himself.”
Evered was tense and still where he sat. “He--you know him?”
Darrin laughed a little. “I wouldn’t say that. I don’t care for the man.
I met him a little before I came up here, and told him where I was
coming; and he advised me not to come. Told me of this--tragedy.”
“Told you he was here?”
Darrin nodded. “Yes; how he tried to fight off the bull.”
Evered came to his feet, half crouching. “The black liar and coward ran
like a rabbit,” he said under his breath; and his face was an ugly thing
to see.
Darrin cried, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to--waken old sorrows. It
doesn’t matter. Forget it.” He sought, palpably, to change to another
topic. “Are you getting in your apples yet?”
Evered would not be put off. “See here,” he said. “What did Dane Semler
tell you?”
“I’ve forgotten,” said Darrin. He smiled cheerfully. “That is to say, I
mean to forget. It’s not my affair. Let’s not talk about it.”
Over Evered swept then one of those impulses to speech, akin to the
impulses of confession. He exclaimed with a tragic and miserable note in
his voice. “By God, if I don’t talk about it sometime it’ll kill me.”
Darrin looked up at him, gently offered; “I’ll listen, then. It may ease
you to--tell the story over. Go ahead, Mr. Evered. Sit down.”
Evered did not sit down. But the story burst from him. Something,
Darrin’s sympathy or the anger Darrin’s reference to Semler had roused,
touched hidden springs within the man. He spoke swiftly, eagerly, as
though with a pathetic desire to justify himself. He moved to and fro,
pointing, illustrating.
He told how Zeke Pitkin had brought word that the red bull was loose in
the woodlot. “I stopped at the house,” he said. “There was no one there;
and that scared me. When I came down this way I thought of this spring.
My wife used to like to come here. And I was scared, Darrin. I loved
Mary Evered, Darrin.”
He caught himself, as though his words sounded strangely even in his own
ears. When he went on his voice was harsh and hard.
“I came to the knoll up there”--he pointed to the spot--“and saw Mary
and Semler here, sitting together, talking together. Damn him! Like
sweethearts!” The red floods swept across the man’s face as the tide of
that old rage overwhelmed him. “Damn Semler!” he cried. “Let him come
hereabouts again!”
He went on after a moment: “I was too late to do anything but shout to
them. The bull was coming at them from over there, head down. When I
shouted they heard me, and forgot each other; and then they saw the red
bull. Semler could have stopped him or turned him if he’d been a man. If
I had been nearer I could have killed the beast with my hands, in time.
But I was too far away; and Semler ran. I tell you, Darrin, he ran! He
turned tail, and squawked, and ran along the hillside there. But Mary
did not run. She could not; or she wouldn’t. And the red bull hit her
here; and tossed her there. One blow and toss. He has no horns, you’ll
mind. Semler running, all the time. Tell him, when you go back--tell him
he lied.”
He was abruptly silent, his old habit of reticence upon him. And he was
instantly sorry that he had spoken at all. To speak had been relief, had
somehow eased him. Yet who was Darrin? Why should he tell this man?
Darrin said gently, “The bull did not trample her?”
Evered answered curtly, “No. I reached him.”
Darrin nodded. “You could handle him?”
“The beast knows me,” said Evered.
And even while he spoke he remembered how the great bull, as though
regretting that which he had done, had stood quietly by until he was led
away. He did not tell Darrin this; there were no more words in him. He
had spoken too much already. Darrin was watching him now, he saw; and it
seemed to Evered that there was a hard and hostile light of calculation
in the other’s eye.
He turned away his head, and Darrin asked, “How came she here with
Semler?”
Evered swung toward the man so hotly that for a moment Darrin was
afraid; and then the older man’s eyes misted and his lips twisted weakly
and he brushed them with the back of his hand.
He did not answer Darrin at all; and after a moment Darrin said,
“Forgive me. It must hurt you to remember; to look round here. You must
see the whole thing over again.”
Evered stood still for a moment; then he said abruptly: “I’ve sat too
long. I’ll be back at work.”
He went stiffly up the knoll. Darrin called after him, “Come down again.
You know the way.”
Evered did not turn, he made no reply. When he was beyond the other’s
sight he stopped once and looked back, and his eyes were faintly
furtive. He muttered something under his breath. He was cursing his
folly in having talked with Darrin.
Back at his work Evered was uneasy; but his disquiet would have been
increased if he could have seen how Darrin busied himself when he was
left alone. The man sat still where he was till Evered had passed out of
sight above the knoll; sat still with thoughtful eyes, studying the
ground about him and considering the things which Evered had said. And
once while he sat with his eyes straight before him, thinking on
Evered’s words, he said to himself: “The man did love his wife.” And
again: “There’s something hurting him.”
After a little he got up and climbed the knoll cautiously, till he could
look in the direction Evered had taken. Evered was not in sight; and
when he could be sure of this Darrin went along the shelf above the
spring, toward the wood road that came down from the farm. At the road
he turned round and retraced his steps, trying to guess the path Evered
would have taken to come in sight of the spring itself.
When he came to the edge of the knoll he noted the spot, and cast back
and tried again, and still again. He seemed to seek the farthest spot
from which the spring was visible. When he had chosen this spot he stood
still, surveying the land below, picturing to himself the tragedy that
had been enacted there.
He seemed to come to some conclusion in the end, for he paced with
careful steps the distance from where he stood to the rock where Mary
Evered had been sitting. From that spot again he paced the distance to
the alder growth through which the bull had come. Returning, eyes
thoughtful, he took pencil and paper and plotted the scene round him,
and set dots upon it to mark where Evered must have stood, and where
Mary and Semler had sat, and the way by which the bull had come.
The man sat for a long hour that afternoon with this rude map before
him, considering it; and he set down distances upon it, and marked the
trees. Once he took pebbles and moved them upon his map as the bull and
Semler and Evered must have moved upon this ground.
In the end, indecision in his eyes, he folded the paper and put it
carefully into his pocket. Then he made a little cooking fire and
prepared his supper and ate it. When he had cleaned up his camp he put
on coat and cap and started along the hillside below the bull pasture to
the road that led toward Fraternity.
This was not unusual with Darrin. He was accustomed to go to the village
three or four times a week for his mail or to sit round the stove in
Will Bissel’s store and listen to the talk of the country. He had got
some profit from this: Jim Saladine, for example, told him one night of
a fox den, and took him next day to the spot; and by a week’s patience
Darrin had been able to get good pictures of the little foxes at their
play. And Jean Bubier had taken him up to the head of the pond to see a
cow moose pasturing with Jean’s own cows. Besides these tangible pieces
of fortune he had acquired a fund of tales of the woods. He liked the
talk about the stove, and took his own share in it so modestly that the
men liked him.
Once or twice during his stay in the town there had been talk of Evered;
and Darrin had led them to tell the man’s deeds. Great store of these
tales, for Evered’s daily life had an epic quality about it. From the
murdering red bull the stories went back and back to that old matter of
the knife and Dave Riggs, now years agone. Telling this story Lee Motley
told Darrin one night that it had made a change in Evered.
Darrin had asked, “What did he do?”
And Motley said: “First off, he didn’t seem bothered much. But it
changed him. He’d been wild and strong and hard before, but there was
some laughing in him. I’ve always figured he took the thing hard. I’ve
not seen the man laugh, right out, since then.”
Darrin said, “You can’t blame him. It’s no joke to kill a man.”
Motley nodded his agreement. “It made a big change in Evered,” he
repeated.
Darrin’s interest in Evered had not been sufficiently marked to attract
attention, for Evered was a figure of interest to all the countryside.
Furthermore, there was talk that Darrin and Ruth MacLure liked each
other well; and the town thought it natural that Darrin should be
curious as to the man who might be his brother-in-law. Everyone knew
that Ruth and John Evered had been more than friends. There was a
friendly and curious interest in what looked like a contest between
Darrin and John.
This night at Will’s store Darrin had little to say. He bought paper and
envelopes from Will and wrote two letters at the desk in Will’s office;
and he mailed them, with a special-delivery stamp upon each one. That
was a thing not often done in Fraternity; and Will noticed the addresses
upon the letters. To Boston men, both of them.
Afterward, Darrin sat about the store for a while, and then set off
along the road toward Evered’s farm. Zeke Pitkin gave him a lift for a
way; and Darrin remembered that Evered had named this man, and he said
to Zeke: “You saw Evered’s bull break out, that day the beast killed
Mary Evered, didn’t you?”
Zeke said yes; and he told the tale, coloring it with the glamor of
tragedy which it would always have in his eyes. And he told
Darrin--though Darrin had heard this more than once before--how Evered
had killed his, Zeke’s, bull with a knife thrust in the neck, a day or
two before the tragedy. “That same heavy knife of his,” he said. “The
one he killed Dave Riggs with.”
Darrin asked, “Still uses it--to butcher with?”
“Yes, sir,” said Zeke. “I’ve seen him stick more’n one pig with that old
knife in the last ten year.”
Darrin laughed a little harshly. “Not very sentimental, is he?”
“There ain’t a human feeling in the man,” Pitkin declared.
When Zeke stopped to let Darrin down at the fork of the road Darrin
asked another question. “Funny that Semler should skip out so sudden
that day, wasn’t it?”
“You bet it uz funny,” Zeke agreed. “I’ve allus said it was.”
“Did you see him the day he left?”
Pitkin shook his head. “Huh-uh. I was busy all day, and over in North
Fraternity in the aft’noon. Got to the store right after he lit out.”
Darrin walked to his camp, lighting his steps with an electric torch,
and made a little fire for cheerfulness’ sake, and wrapped in his
blankets for sleep. He had set a camera in the swamp that day, with a
string attached to the shutter in a fashion that should give results if
a moose came by. He wondered whether luck would be with him. His
thoughts as sleep crept on him shifted back to Evered again. A puzzle
there--a question of character, of reaction to emotional stimulus. He
asked himself: “Now if I were an emotional, hot-tempered man and came
upon my wife with another man, and saw her in swift peril of her
life--what would I do?”
He was still wondering, still questioning, still trying to put himself
in Evered’s shoes when at last he dropped asleep.