Читать книгу: «The Eye of Dread», страница 12

“I have coffee on the hearth, hot, and corn dodgers–such as we used to make in the army. I’ve made them often before.”

“Turn the beasts free; there isn’t room for them all in the shed, and I’ll go get a bite and join you soon.”

So Harry King did not return to the cabin that night, much as he desired to see Amalia again, but lay down on the fodder and tried to sleep. His heart throbbed gladly at the thought of her safety. He had not dared to inquire after her father. Although he had seen so little of the big man he understood his mood, and having received such great kindness at his hands, he was truly sorry at the invasion of his peace. Undoubtedly he did not like to have a family, gathered from the Lord only knew where, suddenly quartered on him for none knew how long.

The cabin was only meant for a hermit of a man, and little suited to women and their needs. A mixed household required more rooms. He tried to think the matter through and to plan, but the effort brought drowsiness, and before the big man returned he was asleep.

CHAPTER XVI
A PECULIAR POSITION

“Well, young man, we find ourselves in what I call a peculiar position.”

A smile that would have been sardonic, were it not for a few lines around the corners of his eyes which belied any sinister suspicion, spread grimly across the big man’s face as he stood looking down on Harry King in the dusk of the unlighted shed. The younger man rose quickly from the fodder where he had slept heavily after the fatigues of the past day and night, and stood respectfully looking into the big man’s face.

“I–I–realize the situation. I thought about it after I turned in here–before you came down–or up–to this–ahem–bedroom. I can take myself off, sir. And if there were any way–of relieving you of–the–whole–embarrassment,–I–I–would do so.”

“Everything’s quiet down at the cabin. I’ve been there and looked about a bit. They had need of sleep. You go back to your bunk, and I’ll take mine, and we’ll talk the thing over before we see them again. As for your taking yourself off, that remains to be seen. I’m not crabbed, that’s not the secret of my life alone,–though you might think it. I–ahem–ahem.” The big man cleared his throat and stretched his spare frame full length on the fodder where he had slept. With his elbow on the bed of corn stalks he lifted his head on his hand and gazed at Harry King, not dreamily as when he first saw him, but with covert keenness.

“Lie down in your place–a bit–lie down. We’ll talk until we’ve arrived at a conclusion, and it may be a long talk, so we may as well be comfortable.”

Harry King went back to his own bunk and lay prone, his forehead resting on his folded arms and his face hidden. “Very well, sir; I’ll do my best. We have to accept each other for the best there is in us, I take it. You’ve saved my life and the life of those two women, and we all owe you our grat–”

“Go to, go to. It’s not of that I’m wishing to speak. Let’s begin at the beginning, or, as near the beginning as we can. I’ve been standing here looking at you while you were sleeping,–and last night–I mean early this morning when I came up here, I–with a torch I studied your face well and long. A man betrays his true nature when he is sleeping. The lines of what he has been thinking and feeling show then when he cannot disguise them by smiles or words. I’m old enough to be your father–yes–so it might have been–and with your permission I’ll talk to you straight.”

Harry King lifted his head and looked at the other, then resumed his former position. “Thank you,” was all he said.

“You’ve been well bred. You’re in trouble. I ask you what is your true name and what you have done?”

The young man did not speak. He lay still as if he had heard nothing, but the other saw his hands clinch into knotted fists and the muscles of his arms grow rigid. His heart beat heavily and the blood roared in his ears. At last he lifted his head and looked back at the big man and spoke monotonously.

“I gave you my name–all the name I have.” His face was white in the dim light and the lids drew close over his gray eyes.

“You prefer to lie to me? I ask in good faith.”

“All the name I have is the one I gave you, Harry King.”

“And you will hold to the lie?” They looked steadily into each other’s eyes. The young man nodded. “And there was more I asked of you.”

Then the young man turned away from the keen eyes that had held him and sat up in the fodder and clasped his knees with his hands and looked straight out before him, regarding nothing–nothing but his own thoughts. A strange expression crept over his face,–was it fear–or was it an inward terror? Suddenly he put out his hand with a frantic gesture toward the darkest corner of the place, “It’s there,” he cried in a voice scarcely above a whisper, then hid his eyes and moaned. At the sight, the big man’s face softened.

“Lad, lad, ye’re in trouble. I saved your body as it hung over the cliff–and the Lord only knows how ye were saved. I took ye home and laid ye in my own bunk,–and looked on your face–and there my heart cried on the Lord for the first time in many years. I had forsworn the company of men, and of all women,–and the faith of my fathers had died in me,–but there, as I looked on your face–the lost years came back. And now–ye’re only Harry King. Only Harry King.”

“That’s all.” The young man’s lips set tightly and the cords of his neck stood out. Nothing was lost to the eyes that watched him so intently.

“I had a son–once. I held him in my arms–for an hour–and then left him forever. You have a face that reminds me of one–one I hated–and it minds me of one I–I–loved,–of one I loved better than I loved life.”

Then Harry King turned and gazed in the big man’s eyes, and as he gazed, the withdrawn, inward look left his own. He still sat clasping his knees. “I can more easily tell you what I have done than I can tell you my name. I have sworn never to utter it again.” He was weeping, but he hid his tears for very shame of them.

The older man shook his head. “I’ve known sorrow, boy, but the lesson of it, never. Men say there is a thing to be learned from sorrow, but to me it has brought only rebellion and bitterness. So I’ve missed the good of it because it came upon me through arrogance and injustice–not my own. So now I say to you–if it was at the expense of your soul I saved your life, it were better I had let you go down. Lad,–you’ve brought me a softness,–it’s like what a man feels for a woman. I’m glad it’s come back to me. It is good to feel. I’d make a son of you,–but–for the truth’s sake tell me a bit more.”

“I had a friend and I killed him. I was angry and killed him. I have left my name in his grave.” Harry King rose and walked away and stood shivering in the entrance of the shed. Then he came back and spoke humbly. “Do with me what you will, but call me Harry King. I have nothing on earth but the clothes on my body, and they are in rags. If you have work for me to do, let me do it, in mercy. If not, let me go back to the plains and die there.”

“How long ago was this?”

“More–more than two years ago–yes, three–perhaps.”

“And where have you been?”

“Knocking about–hiding. For a while I had work on the road they are building–”

“Road? What road?”

“The new railroad across the continent.”

“Where, young man, where?”

“From Chicago on. They got it as far as Cheyenne, but that was the very place of all others where they would be apt to hunt for me. I got news of a detective hanging about the camp, and I was sure he had come there to track me. I had my wages and my clothes, and when I found they had traced me there, I spent all I had for my horse and took my pack and struck out over the plains.” He paused and wiped the cold drops from his forehead, then lifted his head with gathered courage. “One day,–I found these people, nigh starving for both water and food, and without strength to go where they could be provided for. They, too, were refugees, I learned, and so I cast my lot with theirs, and served them as best I could.”

“And now they have fallen to the two of us to provide for. You say, give you work? I’ve lived here these twenty years and found work for no man but myself. I’ve found plenty of that–just to keep alive, part of the time. It’s bad here in the winter–if the stores give out. Tell me what you know of these women.”

“Where is the man?”

“Dead. I found him dead before I reached them. I left him lying where I found him, and pushed on–got there just in time. He wasn’t three hours away from them as a man walks. I made them as comfortable as I could and saw that no Indians were about, nor had been, they said; so I ventured back and made a grave for him as best I could, and told the daughter only, for the old lady seemed out of her head. I don’t know what we can do with her if she gets worse. I don’t know.” As the big man talked he noticed the younger one growing calmer and listening intently.

“Before I buried him I searched him and found a few papers–just letters in a strange language, and from the feeling of his coat I judged others were hid–sewed in it, so I fetched it back to her–the young one. You thought I was long gone, and there was where you made the blunder. How did you suppose I came by the pack mule and the other horse?”

“When I saw them, I knew you must have gone to Higgins’ Camp and back, but how could I know it before? You might have been in need of me, and of food.”

“We’ll say no more of it. Those men at the camp are beasts. I bought those animals and paid gold for them. They wanted to know where I got the gold. I told them where they’d never get it. They asked me ten prices for those beasts, and then tried to keep me there until they could clean me out and get hold of my knowledge. But I skipped away in the night when they were all drunk and asleep. Then I had to make a long detour to put them off the track if they should try to follow me, and all that took time.”

The big man paused to fill and light his pipe. “And what next?” asked Harry King.

“Except for enough food and water to last us up the trail you came, I packed nothing back to the wagon, and so had room to bring a few of their things up here, and there may be some of your own among them–they said something about it. We hauled the wagon as far as a good place to hide it, in a wash, could be found, and we covered it–and our tracks. But there was nothing left in it but a few of their utensils, unless the box they did not open contained something. It was left in the wagon. That was the best I could do with only the help of the young woman, and she was too weak to do much. It may lie there untouched for ten years unless a rain scoops it out, and that’s not likely.

“I showed the young woman as we came along where her father lay, and as we came to a halt a bit farther on, she went back, while her mother slept, and knelt there praying for an hour. I doubt any good it did him, but it comforted her heart. It’s a good religion for a woman, where she does not have to think things out for herself, but takes a priest’s word for it all. And now they’re here, and you’re here, and my home is invaded, and my peace is gone, and may the Lord help me–I can’t.”

Harry King looked at him a moment in silence. “Nor can I–help–but to take myself off.”

“Take yourself off! And leave me alone with two women? I who have foresworn them forever! How do you know but that they may each be possessed by seven devils? But there! It isn’t so bad. As long as they stay you’ll stay. It was through you they are here, and close on to winter,–and if it was summer, it would be as bad to send them away where they would have no place to stay and no way to live. Lad, the world’s hard on women. I’ve seen much.”

Harry King went again and stood in the open entrance of the shed and waited. The big man saw that he had succeeded in taking the other’s mind off himself, and had led him to think of others, and now he followed up the advantage toward confidence that he had thus gained. He also came to the entrance and laid his kindly hand on the younger man’s shoulder, and there in the pale light of that cloudy fall morning, standing in the cool, invigorating air, with the sound of falling water in their ears, the two men made a compact, and the end was this.

“Harry King, if you’ll be my son, I’ll be your father. My boy would be about your age–if he lives,–but if he does, he has been taught to look down on me–on the very thought of me.” He cast a wistful glance at the young man’s face as he spoke. “From the time I held him in my arms, a day-old baby, I’ve never seen him, and it may be he has never heard of me. He was in good hands and was given over for good reasons, to one who hated my name and my race–and me. For love of his mother I did this. It was all I could do for her; I would have gone down into the grave for her.

“I, too, have been a wanderer over the face of the earth. At first I lived in India–in China–anywhere to be as far on the other side of the earth from her grave and my boy, as I vowed I would, but I’ve kept the memory of her sweet in my heart. You need not fear I’ll ask again for your name. Until you choose to give it I will respect your wish,–and for the rest–speak of it when you must–but not before. I have no more to ask. You’ve been well bred, as I said, and that’s enough for me. You’re more than of age–I can see that–but it’s my opinion you need a father. Will you take me?”

The young man drew in his breath sharply through quivering lips, and made answer with averted head: “Cain! Cain and the curse of Cain! Can I allow another to share it?”

“Another shares it and you have no choice.”

“I will be more than a son. Sons hurt their fathers and accept all from them and give little. You lifted me out of the abyss and brought me back to life. You took on yourself the burden laid on me, to save those who trusted me, knowing nothing of my crime,–and now you drag my very soul from hell. I will do more than be your son–I will give you the life you saved. Who are you?”

Then the big man gave his name, making no reciprocal demand. What mattered a name? It was the man, by whatever name, he wanted.

“I am an Irishman by birth, and my name is Larry Kildene. If you’ll go to a little county not so far from Dublin, but to the north, you’ll find my people.”

He was looking away toward the top of the mountain as he spoke, and was seeing his grandfather’s house as he had seen it when a boy, and so he did not see the countenance of the young man at his side. Had he done so, he would not have missed knowing what the young man from that moment knew, and from that moment, out of the love now awakened in his heart for the big man, carefully concealed, giving thanks that he had not told his name.

For a long minute they stood thus looking away from each other, while Harry King, by a mighty effort, gained control of his features, and his voice. Then although white to the lips, he spoke quietly: “Harry King–the murderer–be the son of Larry Kildene–Larry Kildene–I–to slink away in the hills–forever to hide–”

“No more of that. I’ll show you a new life. Give me your hand, Harry King.” And the young man extended both hands in a silence through which no words could have been heard.

CHAPTER XVII
ADOPTING A FAMILY

As the two men walked down toward the cabin they saw Amalia standing beside the door in the sunlight which now streamed through a rift in the clouds, gazing up at the towering mountain and listening to the falling water. She spied them and came swiftly to them, extending both hands in a sweet, gracious impulsiveness, and began speaking rapidly even before she reached them.

“Ah! So beautiful is your home! It is so much that I would say to you of gratitude in my heart–it is like a river flowing swiftly to tell you–Ah! I cannot say it all–and we come and intrude ourselves upon you thus that you have no place where to go for your own sleeping–Is not? Yes, I know it. So must we think quickly how we may unburden you of us–my mother and myself–only that she yet is sleeping that strange sleep that seems still not like sleep. Let me that I serve you, sir?”

Larry Kildene looked on her glowing, upturned face, gathering his slower wits for some response to her swift speech, while she turned to the younger man, grasping his hands in the same manner and not ceasing the flow of her utterance.

“And you, at such severe labor and great danger, have found this noble man, and have sent him to us–to you do we owe what never can we pay–it is thus while we live must we always thank you in our hearts. And to this place–so won-n-der-ful– Ah! Beautiful like heaven–Is not? Yes, and the sweet sound always in the air–like heaven and the sound of wings–to stop here even for this night is to make those sorrowful thoughts lie still and for a while speak nothing.”

As she turned from one to the other, addressing each in turn, warm lights flashed in her eyes through tears, like stars in a deep pool. Her dark hair rolled back from her smooth oval forehead in heavy coils, and over her head and knotted under her perfect chin, outlining its curve, was a silken peasant handkerchief with a crimson border of the richest hue, while about the neck of her colorless, closely fitted gown was a piece of exquisite hand-wrought lace. She stood before them, a vision from the old world, full of innate ladyhood, simple as a peasant, at once appealing and dominating, impulsive, yet shy. Her beautiful enunciation, her inverted and quaintly turned English, alive with poetry, was typical of her whole personality, a sweet and strange mixture of the high-bred aristocrat and the simple directness and strength of the peasant.

The two men made stumbling and embarrassed replies. That tender and beautiful quality of chivalry toward women, belonging by nature to undefiled manhood, was awakened in them, and as one being, not two, they would have laid their all at her feet. This, indeed, they literally did. The small, one-room cabin, which had so long served for Larry Kildene’s palace, was given over entirely to the two women, and the men made their own abode in the shed where they had slept.

This they accomplished by creating a new room, by extending the roof-covered space Larry had used for his stable and the storing of fodder, far enough along under the great overhanging rock to allow of comfortable bunks, a place to walk about, and a fireplace also. The labor involved in the making of this room was a boon to Harry King.

Upon the old stone boat which Larry had used for a similar purpose he hauled stones gathered from the rock ledge and built therewith a chimney, and with the few tools in the big man’s store he made seats out of hewn logs, and a rude table. This work was left to him by the older man purposely, while he occupied himself with the gathering in of the garden stuff for themselves and for the animals. A matter that troubled his good heart not a little was that of providing for the coming winter enough food supply for his suddenly acquired family. Of grain and fodder he thought he had enough for animals kept in idleness, as he still had stores gathered in previous years for his own horse. But for these women, he must not allow them to suffer the least privation.

It was not the question of food alone that disturbed him. At last he laid his troubles before Harry King.

“You know, lad, it won’t be so long before the snow will be down on us, and I’m thinking what shall we do with them when the long winter days set in.” He nodded his head toward the cabin. “It’s already getting too cold for them to sit out of doors as they do. I should have windows in my cabin–if I could get the glass up here. They can’t live there in the darkness, with the snow banked around them, with nothing to use their fingers on as women like to do. Now, if they had cloth or thread–but what use had I for such things? They’re not among my stores. I did not lay out to make it a home for women. The mother will get farther and farther astray with her dreams if she has nothing to do such as women like.”

“I think we should ask them–or ask Amalia, she is wise. Have you enough to keep them on–of food?”

“Of food, yes. Such as it is. No flour, but plenty of good wheat and corn. I always pound it up and bake it, but it is coarse fare for women. There’s plenty of game for the hunting, and easy got, but it’s something to think about we’ll need, else we’ll all go loony.”

“You have lived long here alone and seem sound of mind,–except for–” Harry King smiled, “except for a certain unworldliness that would pass for lunacy in the world below these heights.”

“Let alone, son. I’ve usually had my own way for these years and have formed the habit, but I’ve had my times. At the best it’s a sort of lunacy that takes a man away from his fellows, especially an Irishman. Maybe you’ll discover for yourself before we part–but it’s not to the point now. I’m asking you how we can keep the mother from brooding and the daughter happy? She’s asking to be sent away to earn money for her mother. She thinks she can take her mother with her to the nearest place on that new railroad you tell me of, and so on to some town. I tell her, no. And if she goes, and leaves her mother here–bless you–what would we do with her? Why, the woman would go yonder and jump over the cliff.”

“Oh, it would never do to listen to her. It would never do for her to try living in a city earning her bread–not while–” Harry King paused and turned a white, drawn face toward the mountain. Larry watched him. “I can do nothing.” He threw out his hands with a sudden downward movement. “I, a criminal in hiding! My manhood is of no avail! My God!”

“Remember, lad, the women have need of you right here. I’m keeping you on this mountain at my valuation, not yours. I have need of you, and your past is not to intrude in this place, and when you go out in the world again, as you will, when the right time comes, you’ll know how to meet–and face–your life–or death, as a man should.

“Hold yourself with a firm hand, and do the work of the days as they come. It’s all the Lord gives us to do at any time. If I only had books–now,–they would help us,–but where to get them–or how? We’ll even go and ask the women, as you advise.”

They all ate together in the little cabin, as was their habit, a meal prepared by Amalia, and carefully set out with all the dishes the cabin afforded: so few that there were not enough to serve all at once, but eked out by wooden blocks, and small lace serviettes taken from Amalia’s store of linen. At noon one day Larry Kildene spoke his anxieties for their welfare, and cleverly managed to make the theme a gay one.

“Where’s the use in adopting a family if you don’t get society out of them? The question I ask is, when the winter shuts us in, what are we going to do for sport–work–what you will? It’s indoor sport I’m meaning, for Harry and I have the hunting and providing in the daytime. No, never you ask me what I was doing before you came. I was my own master then–”

“And now you are ours? That is good, Sir Kildene. You have to say what to do, and me, I accept to do what you advise. Is not?”

Amalia turned to Larry and smiled, and whenever Amalia smiled, her mother would smile also, and nod her head as if to approve, although she usually sat in silence.

“Yours to command,” said Larry, bowing.

“He’s master of us all, but it’s yours to direct, Lady Amalia.”

“Oh, me, Mr. ’Arry. It is better for me I make for you both sufficient to eat, so all goes well. I think I have heard men are always pleased of much that is excellent to eat and drink.”

“Now, listen. We have only a short time before the heavy snows will come down on us, and then there will be no chance whatever to get supplies of any sort before spring. How far is the road completed now, Harry?”

“It should be well past Cheyenne by now. They must be working toward Laramie rapidly. If–if–you think best, I will go down and get supplies–whatever can be found there.”

“No. I have a plan. There’s enough for one man to do here finishing the jobs I have laid out, but one of us can very well be spared, and as you have wakened me from my long sleep, and stirred my old bones to life, and as I know best how to travel in this region, I’ll take the mule along, and go myself. I have a fancy for traveling by rail again. You ladies make out a list of all you need, and I’ll fill the order, in so far as the stations have the articles. If I can’t find the right things at one station, I may at another, even if I go back East for them.”

“Ah, but, Sir Kildene, it is that we have no money. If but we could get from the wagon the great box, there have we enough of things to give us labor for all the winter. It is the lovely lace I make. A little of the thread I have here, but not sufficient for long. So, too, there is my father’s violin. It made me much heart pain to leave it–for me, I play a little,–and there is also of cloth such as men wear–not of great quantity–but enough that I can make for you–something–a little–maybe, Mr. ’Arry he like well some good shirt of wool–as we make for our peasant–Is not?” Harry looked down on his worn gray shirt sleeves, then into her eyes, and on the instant his own fell. She took it for simple embarrassment, and spoke on.

“Yes. To go with us and help us so long and terrible a way, it has made very torn your apparel.”

“It makes that we improve him, could we obtain the box,” said the mother, speaking for the first time that day. Her voice was so deep and full that it was almost masculine, but her modulations were refined and most agreeable.

Amalia laughed for very gladness that her mother at last showed enough interest in what was being said to speak.

“Ah, mamma, to improve–it is to make better the mind–the heart–but of this has Mr. ’Arry no need. Is not, Sir Kildene? I call you always Sir as title to nobleness of character. We have, in our country, to inherit title, but here to make it of such character. It is well, I think so.”

Poor Larry Kildene had his own moment of embarrassment, but with her swift appreciation of their moods she talked rapidly on, leaving the compliment to fall as it would, and turning their thoughts to the subject in hand. “But the box, mamma, it is heavy, and it is far down on the terrible plain. If that you should try to obtain it, Sir Kildene: Ah, I cannot!–Even to think of the peril is a hurt in my heart. It must even lie there.”

“And the men ‘rouge’–”

“Yes. Of the red men–those Indian–of them I have great fear.”

“The danger from them is past, now. If the road is beyond Cheyenne, it must have reached Laramie or nearly so, and they would hang around the stations, picking up what they can, but the government has them in hand as never before. They would not dare interfere with white men anywhere near the road. I’ve dreamed of a railroad to connect the two oceans, but never expected to see it in my lifetime. I’ve taken a notion to go and see it–just to look at it,–to try to be reconciled to it.”

“Reconciled? It is to like it, you mean–Sir Kildene? Is it not won-n-derful– the achievement?”

“Oh, yes, the achievement, as you say. But other things will follow, and the plains will no longer keep men at bay. The money grabbers will pour in, and all the scum of creation will flock toward the setting sun. Then, too, I shall hate to see the wild animals that have their own rights killed in unsportsmanlike manner, and annihilated, as they are wherever men can easily reach them. Men are wasteful and bad. I’ve seen things in the wild places of the earth–and in the places where men flock together in hoards–and where they think they are most civilized, and the result has been what you see here,–a man living alone with a horse for companionship, and the voice of the winds and the falling water to fill his soul. Go to. Go to.”

Larry Kildene rose and stood a moment in the cabin door, then sauntered out in the sun, and off toward the fall. He had need to think a while alone. His companions knew this necessity was on him, and said nothing–only looked at each other, and took up the question of their needs for the winter.

“Mr. ’Arry, is it possible to reach with safety a station? I mean is time yet to go and return before the snows? Here are no deadly wolves as in my own country–but is much else to make dangerous the way.”

“There must be time or he would not propose it. I don’t know about the snows here.”

“I have seen that Sir Kildene drinks with most pleasure the coffee, but is little left–or not enough for all–to drink it. My mother and I we drink with more pleasure the tea, and of tea we ourselves have a little. It is possible also I make of things more palatable if I have the sugar, but is very little here. I have searched well, the foods placed here. Is it that Sir Kildene has other places where are such articles?”

“All he has is in the bins against the wall yonder.”

“Here is the key he gave me, and I have look well, but is not enough to last but for one through all the months of winter. Ah, poor man! We have come and eat his food like the wolves of the wild country at home, is not? I have make each day of the coffee for him, yes, a good drink, and for you not so good–forgive,–but for me and my mother, only to pretend, that it might last for him. It is right so. We have gone without more than to have no coffee, and this is not privation. To have too much is bad for the soul.”

Amalia’s mother seemed to have withdrawn herself from them and sat gazing into the smoking logs, apparently not hearing their conversation. Harry King for the second time that day looked in Amalia’s eyes. It was a moment of forgetfulness. He had forbidden himself this privilege except when courtesy demanded.

“You forgive–that I put–little coffee in your drink?”

“Forgive? Forgive?”

He murmured questioningly as if he hardly comprehended her meaning, as indeed he did not. His mind was going over the days since first he saw her, toiling to gather enough sagebrush to cook a drop of tea for her father, and striving to conceal from him that she, herself, was taking none, and barely tasting her hard biscuit that there might be enough to keep life in her parents. As she sat before him now, in her worn, mended, dark dress with the wonderful lace at the throat, and her thin hands lying on the crimson-bordered kerchief in her lap,–her fingers playing with the fringe, he still looked in her eyes and murmured, “Forgive?”