THE WAGES OF SIN
The knowledge of why Mary had returned so suddenly came first to
Justin through Sloan Jasper himself. Jasper met Justin as he rode
along the trail the next day, and told him all about it, without
veiled words, and with many fierce oaths.
“He’s killed my girl, damn him; broke her heart! She’s home, cryin’
her eyes out day and night, and all on account of him. She’s a fool; I
wouldn’t look at the skunk ag’in, if’t was me; but she’s a woman and
that accounts fer it, and it’s killin’ her.”
Justin hastened to convey the news to Curtis Clayton, whom he found at
home, in the front yard, engaged in freeing a butterfly from the
spoke-like web of a geometric spider. A flush of indignation swept
through Justin, as the thought came to him that perhaps Clayton had
known all along and had kept silent. Clayton took the butterfly in his
hands and began to remove the clinging mesh from its golden wings.
When he had done so his fingers were smeared with its gold dust and it
crawled along unable to fly. He regarded it thoughtfully.
“I’ve done the best I could; I released it, but I can’t put the gold
back on its wings, nor mend them. The rest of its life it will be a
draggled wreck, but luckily its life will be short.”
Then Justin told him what he had learned from Sloan Jasper.
Clayton cast the draggled butterfly away and sank to a seat on the
door-step. His face filled with a troubled look. For a little while he
said nothing.
“I suppose that I am partly to blame for that,” he confessed, humbly.
“I have never talked to you about Mrs. Dudley, but I will tell you now
that she was once my wife.”
Justin showed no surprise.
“I knew it.”
“You knew it! How? I never mentioned it to you.”
“No, but I have seen that photograph of her you have treasured, and I
saw her that day of the rabbit hunt. Putting those two things
together, with something that Mary told Lucy, made me sure that she
had once been your wife.”
Clayton was bewildered.
“Something Mary told Lucy?”
“Yes, about your arm; Mrs. Dudley told Mary how you came to have a
stiff arm, and though she did not admit that she was the woman who
caused it, and Mary did not suspect it then, Lucy did; and she told me
about it.”
Clayton stared at the butterfly crawling away through the grass.
“When I heard that Mary had gone with Mrs. Dudley to Denver, I rode
over to Sloan Jasper’s to tell him that I feared it was not wise. But,
really, I had nothing on which to base a charge, except my suspicions.
I knew why I had left her, but nothing more. And my courage failed. I
said nothing, and I should have said something. But,” he leaned back
wearily against the door, “when you come to love a woman as I loved
her, Justin, you will perhaps know how I felt, and why I hesitated. I
was weak, because of that love; that is all I can say about it.”
The contempt growing for Clayton in Justin’s heart was swept away. He
knew what love, true love, is; the love which believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things; which changes never, though
all the world is changed.
“I loved her,” Clayton went on, his deep voice trembling, “and rather
than say anything that might not be true I said nothing. I did wrong.
And I am punished, for this thing hurts me more than you can know.”
Justin had come close to Clayton’s heart many times, but never closer
than now. He looked at the suffering man with much sympathy. Clayton
swung his stiff arm toward the crawling butterfly.
“It can never be the same again; I was never the same again, nor can
Ben be. It has been in the web, and its wings are broken and the gold
gone. We think that under given circumstances we would not do certain
things, but we don’t know. Environment, heredity, passions of various
kinds, selfishness, pull us this way and that; and when we declare, as
so many do, that if we were this person or that we should not do as he
or she does, we simply proclaim our ignorance. There is not a man
alive who knows himself to the innermost core of his being. I am a
dozen men rolled into one, and the whole dozen are contemptible. I
despise myself more than you can.”
“Why should you say that?”
“You did despise me, or came near it, a moment ago; I saw it in your
manner.”
“Was my manner different? I didn’t know it, and didn’t intend that it
should be. But I couldn’t understand how you could keep still so long,
if you knew.”
“I kept still because I am a coward, and because I loved that woman.
That explains everything; explains why I am here in Paradise Valley,
living like a hermit. I wanted to get away, and I wanted to forget. I
got away, but if one could take the wings of the morning he could
never out-fly memory. I could never live happily with that woman, and
I have never been able to live happily without her. When she came into
my life she wrecked it. Some women are born to that fate, I suppose;
and if that is so, perhaps they ought not to be blamed too severely.
But I am sorry for Mary Jasper, and I am more than sorry for Ben. He
was already going to the devil at a lively gait. Sibyl is one of those
women whose feet take hold on hell, and she will drag him down with
her, if he does not get out of her web, or is not helped out. And I’m
afraid he can’t be helped out.”
Clayton set out to see Davison, and have a talk with him on this
disagreeable subject; but, as before when he desired to speak to Sloan
Jasper, he turned back without saying anything.
Davison seemed not to know what had occurred. He and Fogg went often
to and from Denver, as they continued their work of exploiting
Paradise Valley for the benefit of their pockets. From Denver they had
brought an engineer, who had made a survey and report on the available
sources of water. Behind a granite ridge, at the head of the valley,
flowed Warrior River, a swift stream that wasted itself uselessly in
the deep gorges that lay to the southwest. The engineer’s report
showed that a tunnel cut through that ridge would pour Warrior River
into Paradise Creek and water many thousands of acres of land which
could not now be touched.
“We’ll do it later,” Fogg had said to Davison, when they examined the
plans and estimates. “It’s going to take too much money right now.
We’ll try to get those thousands of acres into our own hands first.
Then we’ll cut that tunnel and build that dam, and we’ll squeeze a
fortune out of the business. We may have to float irrigating bonds,
and put blanket mortgages on the land, but it will pay big in the
end.”
Davison was subservient to the man who had the Midas touch. It was
still for Ben, all for Ben; to gain wealth for Ben he was permitting
himself to be led by one who in matters of business never had a
straight thought.
As they returned from Denver one night by a late train, a lantern was
swung across the track at the cut near the head of Paradise Valley, a
mile above the town. The whistle screamed, and the air-brakes being
applied, the train came to a stop so suddenly that the passengers were
almost thrown from their seats. Before the grinding of the wheels had
ceased shots were heard outside.
Fogg clutched the big wallet tucked in the inner pocket of his coat.
“By George, it’s a hold-up,” he cried, his fat body trembling, “and
I’ve got a thousand dollars in cash here to give to those fool farmers
who wouldn’t accept our checks in payment for their land!”
He sank back into the seat, quivering like a bag of jelly. Fear of the
loss of that money unnerved him. Davison was of different mold. As the
shots continued, and he heard voices, and saw men jumping from their
seats, he sprang into the aisle, tugging at the revolver he carried in
his hip pocket. Fogg sought to restrain him.
“Sit down! Don’t be a fool! Let the other fellows do the fighting.
That’s always my rule, and it’s a good one. If I’m not troubled here,
I’ll promise not to trouble anybody.”
But Davison was gone, following close after a man he saw hurrying to
the platform. He and Fogg were in the smoking car, which was next to
the combination baggage-and-express car. Other men dropped from the
platform steps to the ground as he did, and some of them began to fire
off their revolvers, shooting apparently into the air.
Davison was not a man to waste his ammunition in a mere effort to
frighten the robbers by the rattle of a harmless fusillade. He saw a
masked figure moving near the forward car, and he let drive, with aim
so true that the masked figure pitched forward on its face. The other
robbers, disconcerted by the resistance, were already in retreat.
With a grim feeling of satisfaction Davison called loudly for a
lantern. One was brought hurriedly; and a train man, whipping out his
knife, severed the strings that held the mask in place over the face
of the slain robber. Fogg was still in the smoker, his fat body
shaking with fear.
As the mask dropped aside, the light of the lantern revealed to the
startled gaze of Philip Davison Ben’s pallid, dissipated face. He was
bending forward to look, and with a hoarse and inarticulate cry he
fell headlong across the body of his son.
One of the robbers was captured that night, as he attempted to escape
into the hills. The town and the valley had been aroused. Steve
Harkness led the capturing party, and short work was made of this
robber. When morning dawned a rope and a telegraph pole alone upheld
him from the earth. As the body swung at the sport of the wind, the
blackened face was turned now and then toward the flat-topped
mountain. On the breast was displayed this scrawl:
“SO’S HE CAN LOOK AT THE SCENERY.”
The body was that of Clem Arkwright.