THE BRIDGING OF YEARS
It was nearly a week later that Joan paid her visit to the fur fort.
The Padre moved about the room a little uncertainly. Its plainness
troubled him, but its cleanliness was unquestionable. Both he and Buck
had spent over two hours, earlier in the day, setting the place to
rights and preparing for their visitor.
He shook his head as he viewed the primitive condition of the
furniture. It was all very, very home-made. There was not one seat he
felt to be suitable to offer to a lady. He was very dissatisfied.
Dissatisfied with it all, and particularly with Buck for bringing Joan
to this wretched mountain abode. It would have been far better had he
called at the farm. It even occurred to him now as curious that he had
never done so before.
Yet perhaps it was not so curious after all. He had been attached to
the home which had sheltered him all those years, the home his own two
hands had built. Yes, it was different making a place, building it,
driving every nail oneself, setting up every fence post, turning every
clod of soil. It was different to purchasing it, ready-made, or hiring
labor. He had no desire to go near the farm again. That, like other
things, had passed out of his life forever.
Three times he rearranged the room in the vain hope of giving it an
added appearance of comfort, but the task was hopeless. Finally, he
sat down and lit his pipe, smiling at his almost childish desire that
his home should find favor in the eyes of the girl Buck was bringing
to see him.
Buck had told him very little. He had spoken of the visit, and hinted
at Joan's desire for advice. He had been very vague. But then that was
Buck's way in some things. It was not often that he had need to go
into reasons in his intercourse with his friend. Such a perfect
understanding had always existed between them that they were rarely
discoursive. He had told the Padre of the shooting, and explained the
apparent cause. He had also told him of the reception of the news in
the camp, and how a small section of the older inhabitants had adopted
an attitude of resentment against the innocent cause of it. He had
shown him that there was plainly no sympathy, or very little, for Joan
when the story was told. And to the elder man this was disquieting.
Buck had treated it with the contempt of youth, but the Padre had
detected in it a food for graver thought than he let the boy
understand.
It would be time enough to break up Buck's confidence should any
trouble develop. In the meantime he had understood that there was
something like real necessity for him to see this girl. If she needed
any help then it was plainly his duty to give it her. And, besides,
there was another reason. Buck desired this interview.
He smiled to himself as he thought of the turn events had taken with
Buck. He must have been blind indeed if he had not seen from the very
first the way things were going. The boy had fallen hopelessly in love
with the first girl with whom he had definitely been brought into
contact. And why not? Yes, he was rather anxious to see and talk with
this girl who had set the boy's heart on fire.
Yet it seemed strange. Buck had never been anything but a boy to him.
He had never really grown up. He was still the small, pathetic figure
he had first encountered on the trail-side. And now here he was
hopelessly, madly in love with a girl. He would never forget the fire
of jealousy that had lain behind his words when Buck had told him that
Ike had forcibly kissed her.
His thought lost its more sympathetic note, and he became grave. Love
had come into this youngster's life, and he wondered in what direction
it would influence it. He knew well enough, no one better, how much
damage love could do. He knew well enough the other, and right side of
the picture. But Buck was an unusual experiment. Even to him, who knew
the boy so well, he was still something of a problem in many ways. One
thing was certain. He would get the trouble badly, and time alone
could show what ravages and complications might be forthcoming.
He rose from his chair and knocked out his pipe. Then, in smiling
dismay, he sniffed the air. He had done the very thing he had meant to
avoid. He shook his white head, and opened wide both the window and
the door in the hope that the fresh mountain air would sweeten the
atmosphere before the girl's arrival.
But his hopes were quickly dashed. As he took up his position in the
doorway, prepared to extend her the heartiest greeting, he heard the
clatter of hoofs on the trail, and the man and the girl rode into the
stockade.
Buck had departed to perform his usual evening tasks. He had gone to
water and feed the horses, to "buck" cord-wood for the stove, and to
draw the water for their household purposes. He was full early with
his work, but he was anxious that the Padre and Joan should remain
undisturbed. Such was his faith in the Padre that he felt that on this
visit depended much of the girl's future peace of mind.
Now the white-haired man and the girl were alone--alone with the ruddy
westering sun pouring in through window and door, in an almost
horizontal shaft of gracious light. Joan was sitting bending over the
cook-stove, her feet resting on the rack at the foot of the oven, her
hands outstretched to the warming glow of the fire. The evenings in
the hills, even in the height of summer, were never without a nip of
cold which drifted down from the dour, ages-old glaciers crowning the
distant peaks. She was talking, gazing into the glowing coals. She was
piecing out her story as it had been told her by her Aunt Mercy,
feeling that only with a full knowledge of it could this wise old
white-haired friend of Buck's understand and help her.
The Padre was sitting close under the window. His back was turned to
it, so that his face was almost lost in the shadow. And it was as
well. As the story proceeded, as incident after incident was unfolded,
the man's face became gray with unspeakable emotion, and from robust
middle age he jumped to an old, old man.
But Joan saw none of this. Never once did she turn her eyes in his
direction. She was lost in painful recollections of the hideous things
with which she seemed to be surrounded. She told him of her birth,
those strange circumstances which her aunt had told her of, and which
now, in her own cold words, sounded so like a fairy tale. She told him
of her father and her father's friend, the man who had always been his
evil genius. She told him of her father's sudden good fortune, and of
the swift-following disaster. She told him of his dreadful death at
the hands of his friend. Then she went on, mechanically reciting the
extraordinary events which had occurred to her--how, in each case
where men sought her regard and love, disaster had followed hard upon
their heels; how she had finally fled before the disaster which dogged
her; how she had come here, here where she thought she might be free
from associations so painful, only to find that escape was impossible.
"I need not tell you what has happened since I came," she finished up
dully. "You know it all. They say I brought them their luck. Luck? Was
there ever such luck? First my coming cost a man's life, and now--now
Ike and Pete. What is to follow?"
The Padre had not once interrupted her in her long story, and, even
now, as the last sound of her voice died out, it was some moments
before he spoke.
The fire in the grate rustled and the cinders shook down.
It was then that the girl stirred as though suddenly made aware of the
silence. Immediately the man's voice, cold--almost harsh, in contrast
to his usual tone, startled her.
"'Rest' is not your name," he said. "You have changed your name--to
further aid your escape from----"
"How do you know that?" Then the girl went on, wondering at the man's
quickness of understanding. "I had not intended telling you. But it
doesn't matter. Nothing seems to matter. Evidently my disguise is
useless with you. No, my name is not Rest. My father was Charles
Stanmore."
The man made no reply. He did not move. His keen eyes were on the
red-gold hair so neatly coiled about the girl's head. His lips were
compressed, and a deep frown had disturbed the usual serenity of his
broad brow.
For a moment Joan bowed her head, and her hands clasped tightly as
they were held toward the fire. Presently her voice sounded again. It
began low, held under a forced calm.
"Is there no hope?" she implored him. "Buck said you could help me.
What have I done that these things should curse my life? I only want
peace--just a little peace. I am content to live and die just as I am.
I desire nothing more than to be left--alone."
"Who told you--all this?" The Padre's voice had no sympathy.
"My aunt. Aunt Mercy."
"You were--happy before she told you?"
"Yes."
"Why did she tell you?"
"I don't know. At least--yes, she told me so as to warn me. So that I
might avoid bringing disaster upon those whom I had no desire to
hurt."
The Padre rose from his seat and crossed to where the girl was
sitting. He stood for a moment just behind her chair. Then, very
gently, he laid one sunburnt hand upon her shoulder.
"Little girl," he said, with a wonderful kindliness that started the
long-threatened tears to the girl's eyes, "you've got a peck of
trouble inside that golden head of yours. But it's all in there.
There's none of it outside. Look back over all those things you've
told me. Every one of them. Just show me where your hand in them lies.
There is not a disaster that you have mentioned but what possesses its
perfectly logical, natural cause. There is not one that has not been
duplicated, triplicated, ah! dozens and dozens of times since this
quaint old world of ours began. You believe it is due to your
influence because a silly old woman catches you in an overwrought
moment and tells you so. She has implanted a parasite in your little
head that has stuck there and grown out of all proportion. Believe me,
child, you cannot influence the destinies of men. You have no say in
the matter. As we are made, so we must work out our own salvation. It
has been your lot to witness many disasters, but had these things
occurred with other girls as the central figure, would you have
attributed this hideous curse to their lives? Would you? Never. But
you readily attribute it to your own. I am an old man my dear; older
to-day, perhaps, by far than my years call for. I have seen so much of
misery and trouble that sometimes I have thought that all life is just
one long sea of disaster. But it isn't--unless we choose to make it
so. You are rapidly making yours such. You are naturally generous, and
kind, and sympathetic. These things you have allowed to develop in you
until they have become something approaching disease. Vampires sucking
out all your nervous strength. Abandon these things for a while. Live
the life the good God gave you. Enjoy your living moments as you were
intended to enjoy them. And be thankful that the sun rises each
morning, and that you can rise up from your bed refreshed and ready
for the full play of heart, and mind, and limbs. Disasters will go on
about you as they go on about me, and about us all. But they do not
belong to us. That is just life. That is just the world and its
scheme. There are lessons in all these things for us to learn--lessons
for the purification of our hearts, and not diseases for our silly,
weak brains. Now, little girl, I want you to promise that you will
endeavor to do as I say. Live a wholesome, healthy life. Enjoy all
that it is given you to enjoy. Where good can be done, do it. Where
evil lies, shun it. Forget all this that lies behind you, and--Live!
Evil is merely the absence of Good. Life is all Good. If we deny that
good, then there is Evil. Live your life with all its blessings, and
your God will bless _you_. This is your duty to yourself; to your
fellows; to life; to your God."
Joan had risen from her seat. Her face was alight with a hope that had
not been there for many days. The man's words had taken hold of her.
Her troubled mind could not withstand them. He had inspired her with a
feeling of security she had not known for weeks. Her tears were no
longer tears of despair. They were tears of thankfulness and hope. But
when she spoke her words seemed utterly bald and meaningless to
express the wave of gratitude that flooded her heart.
"I will; I will," she cried with glistening eyes. "Oh, Padre!" she
went on, with happy impulse, "you don't know what you've done for
me--you don't know----"
"Then, child, do something for me." The man was smiling gravely down
into the bright, upturned face. "You must not live alone down there at
the farm. It is not good in a child so young as you. Get some
relative to come and share your home with you."
"But I have no one--except my Aunt Mercy."
"Ah!"
"You see she is my only relative. But--but I think she would come if I
asked her."
"Then ask her."
* * * * *
The Padre was sitting in the chair that Joan had occupied. He too was
bending over the stove with his hands outstretched to the warming
blaze. Perhaps he too was feeling the nip of the mountain air. Feeling
it more than usual to-night. Buck was sitting on the edge of the table
close by. He had just returned from taking Joan back to the farm.
The young man's journey home had been made in a condition of mental
exhilaration which left him quite unconscious of all time and
distance. The change wrought in Joan had been magical, and Caesar, for
once in his life, felt the sharp spur of impatience in the man's eager
desire to reach his friend and speak something of the gratitude he
felt.
But habit was strong upon Buck, and his gratitude found no outlet in
words when the moment came. Far from it. On his arrival he found the
Padre sitting at their fireside without even the most ordinary welcome
on his lips. A matter so unusual that it found Buck dumb, waiting for
the lead to come, as he knew it inevitably would, in the Padre's own
good time.
It took longer than he expected, however, and it was not until he had
prepared their frugal supper that the elder man stirred from his moody
contemplation of the fire.
He looked up, and a smile struggled painfully into his eyes.
"Hungry, Buck?" he inquired.
"So!"
"Ah! then sit right down here, boy, an' light your pipe. There's
things I want to say--first."
"Get right ahead." Buck drew up a chair, and obediently filled and lit
his pipe.
"Life's pretty twisted," the Padre began, his steady gray eyes smiling
contemplatively. "So twisted, it makes you wonder some. That girl's
happier now, because I told her there were no such things as cusses.
Yes, it's all queer."
He reached out and helped himself from Buck's tobacco pouch. Then he,
too, filled and lit his pipe.
"You've never asked me why I live out here," he went on presently.
"Never since I've known you. Once or twice I've seen the question in
your eyes, but--it never stayed there long. You don't ask many
questions, do you, Buck?"
The Padre puffed slowly at his pipe. His manner was that of a man
looking back upon matters which had suddenly acquired an added
interest for him. Yet the talk he desired to have with this youngster
inspired an ill-flavor.
"If folks want to answer questions ther' ain't no need to ask 'em."
Buck's philosophy interested the other, and he nodded.
"Just so. That's how it is with me--now. I want to tell you--what
you've never asked. You'll see the reason presently."
Buck waited. His whole manner suggested indifference. Yet there was a
thoughtful look in his dark eyes.
"That girl," the Padre went on, his gaze returning to a contemplation
of the fire. "She's put me in mind of something. She's reminded me how
full of twists and cranks life is. She's full of good. Full of good
thoughts and ideals. Yet life seems to take a delight in impressing
her with a burden so unwholesome as to come very nearly undoing all
the good it has endowed her with. It seems queer. It seems devilish
hard. But I generally notice the harder folk try in this world the
heavier the cross they have to carry. Maybe it's the law of fitness.
Maybe folks must bear a burden at their full capacity so that the
result may be a greater refining. I've thought a lot lately. Sometimes
I've thought it's better to sit around and--well, don't worry with
anything outside three meals a day. That's been in weak moments. You
see, we can't help our natures. If it's in us to do the best we
know--well, we're just going to do it, and--and hang the result."
"H'm." Buck grunted and waited.
"I was thinking of things around here," the other went on. "I was
wondering about the camp. It's a stinking hole now. It's full of
everything--rotten. Yet they think it's one huge success, and they
reckon we helped them to it."
"How?"
"Why, by feeding them when they were starving, and so making it
possible for them to hang on until Nature opened her treasure-house."
Buck nodded.
"I see."
"All I see is--perhaps through our efforts--we've turned loose a hell
of drunkenness and debauchery upon earth. These people--perhaps
through our efforts--have been driven along the very path we would
rather have saved them from. The majority will end in disaster. Some
have already done so. But for our help this would not have been."
"They'd jest have starved."
"We should not have sold our farm, and Ike and Pete would have been
alive now."
"In Ike's case it would have been a pity."
The Padre smiled. He took Buck's protest for what it was worth.
"Yes, life's pretty twisted. It's always been the same with me.
Wherever I've got busy trying to help those I had regard for I
generally managed to find my efforts working out with a result I never
reckoned on. That's why I am here."
The Padre smoked on for some moments in silence.
"I was hot-headed once," he went on presently. "I was so hot-headed
that I--I insulted the woman I loved. I insulted her beyond
forgiveness. You see, she didn't love me. She loved my greatest
friend. Still, that's another story. It's the friend I want to talk
about. He was a splendid fellow. A bright, impetuous gambler on the
New York Stock Exchange. We were both on Wall Street. I was a gambler
too. I was a lucky gambler, and he was an unlucky one. In spite of my
love for the woman, who loved him, it was my one great desire to help
him. My luck was such that I believed I could do it--my luck and my
conceit. You see, next to the woman I loved he was everything in the
world to me. Do you get that?"
Buck nodded.
"Well, in spite of all I could and did do, after a nice run of luck
which made me think his affairs had turned for the better, a spell of
the most terrible ill-luck set in. There was no checking it. He rode
headlong for a smash. I financed him time and again, nearly ruining
myself in my effort to save him. He took to drink badly. He grew
desperate in his gambling. In short, I saw he had given up all hope.
Again I did the best I could. I was always with him. My object was to
endeavor to keep him in check. In his drinking bouts I was with him,
and when he insisted on poker and other gambling I was there to take a
hand. If I hadn't done these things--well, others would have, but with
a different object. By a hundred devices I managed to minimize the bad
results of his wild, headstrong career.
"Then the end came. Had I been less young, had I been less hopeful for
him, less wrapped up in him, I must have foreseen it. We were playing
cards in his apartments. His housekeeper and his baby girl were in a
distant room. They were in bed. You see, it was late at night. It was
the last hand. His luck had been diabolical, but the stakes were
comparatively low. I shall never forget the scene. His nerves were
completely shattered. He picked up his hand, glanced at it--we were
playing poker--jack pots--and flung it down. 'I'm done,' he cried,
and, kicking back his chair, rose from the table. He moved a pace away
as though to go to the side-table where the whisky and soda stood. I
thought he meant having a drink. His back was turned to me. The next
moment I heard shots. He seemed to stumble, swung round with a sort of
jerk, and fell face downward across the table.
"I jumped to his assistance. But--he was dead. He had shot himself
through the heart and in the stomach. My horror? Well, it doesn't
matter now. I was utterly and completely unnerved. If I hadn't been
perhaps I should have acted differently. I should have called
his--housekeeper. I should have summoned the police--a doctor. But I
did none of these. My horror and grief were such that I--fled; fled
like the coward I was. Nor did I simply flee from the house. I left
everything, and fled from the city that night. It was not until some
days afterward that I realized what my going meant to me. You see, I
had left behind me, in his housekeeper, the woman I loved--and had
insulted past forgiveness. I was branded as his murderer. Do you see?
She loved him, and was his housekeeper. Oh, there was nothing wrong in
it! I knew that. His baby girl was the child of his dead wife. Several
times I thought of returning to establish my innocence, but somehow my
conduct and my story wouldn't have fitted in the eyes of a jury.
Besides, there was that insulted woman. She had accused me of the
murder. It was quite useless to go back. It meant throwing away my
life. It was not worth it. So I came here."
Buck offered no comment for a long time. Comment seemed unnecessary.
The Padre watched him with eyes striving to conceal their anxiety.
Finally, Buck put a question that seemed unnecessary.
"Why d'you tell me now?" he asked. His pipe had gone out and he pushed
it into his hip-pocket.
The Padre's smile was rather drawn.
"Because of you. Because of my friend's--baby girl."
"How?"
"The child's name was Joan. Joan Rest is the daughter of Charles
Stanmore--the man I am accused of murdering. This afternoon I advised
her to have some one to live with her--a relative. She is sending for
the only one she has. It is her aunt, Stanmore's housekeeper--the
woman I insulted past forgiveness."
Not for an instant did Buck's expression change.
"Why did you advise--that?" he asked.
The Padre's eyes suddenly lit with a subdued fire, and his answer came
with a passion such as Buck had never witnessed in him before.
"Why? Why? Because you love this little Joan, daughter of my greatest
friend. Because I owe it to you--to her--to face my accusers and prove
my innocence."
The two men looked long and earnestly into each other's eyes. Then the
Padre's voice, sharp and strident, sounded through the little room.
"Well?"
Buck rose from his seat.
"Let's eat, Padre," he said calmly. "I'm mighty hungry." Then he came
a step nearer and gripped the elder man's hand. "I'm right with you,
when things--get busy."