Part 8

Ruth came to the door; he asked her abstractedly, as though she were a stranger, where Evered was. She said he was in the shed; and Darrin went there and found Evered grinding an ax. The man looked up at his coming with sober eyes. Ruth had stayed in the kitchen.

Darrin said quietly, “Evered, I want to talk to you.”

Evered hesitated, studying the other. He asked, “What about?”

“A good many things,” Darrin told him.

Evered laid aside the ax. “All right,” he said.

“Come away from the house,” Darrin suggested.

There was a certain dominant note in his voice. The old Evered would have stayed where he was; but the old Evered was dead. “Come,” said Darrin; and he stepped out into the yard and Evered followed him. Darrin crossed to the bars and let them down. He and Evered passed silently through.

The men went, Darrin a little in the lead, down the hill toward the spring.

XVI

The day was cold and damp and chill, with a promise of snow in the air; one of those ugly October days when coming winter seems to sulk upon the northern hills, awaiting summer’s tardy going. Clouds obscured the sky, though now and then during the morning the sun had broken through, laying a patch of light upon the earth and bringing out the nearer hills in bold relief against those that were farthest off. The wind was northeasterly, always a storm sign hereabouts. There was haste in it, and haste in the air, and haste in all the wild things that were abroad. The crows overhead flew swiftly, tumbling headlong in the racking air currents. A flock of geese passed once, high in the murk, their honking drifting faintly down to earth. The few ground birds darted from cover to cover; the late-pasturing cows had gone early to the barn. Night was coming early; an ominous blackness seemed about to shut down upon the world. The very air held threats and whispers of harm.

Evered and Darrin walked in silence down along the old wood road, through a birch clump, past some dwarfed oaks, and out into the open on the shelf above the spring.

Halfway across this shelf Darrin said “I’ve got some questions to ask you, Evered.”

Evered did not answer. Darrin had not stopped and Evered kept pace with him.

The younger man said, “This was the way you came that day your wife was killed, wasn’t it?”

Evered turned his head as though to speak, hesitated. Darrin stopped and caught his eye.

“Look here,” he demanded. “You’ve nothing to hide in that business, have you?”

“No,” said Evered mildly. He wondered why he answered the other at all; yet there was something in the younger man’s bearing which he did not care to meet, something dominant and commanding, as though Darrin had a right to ask, and knew that he had this right. “No,” said Evered; “nothing to hide.”

And Darrin repeated his question: “Was this the way you came?”

Evered nodded. As they went on nearer the spring Darrin touched his arm. “I want you to show me where you were when you first saw them--your wife, and Semler, and the bull.”

Evered made no response; but a moment later he stopped. “Here,” he said. Darrin looked down toward the spring and all about them. And Evered repeated, “Here, by this rock.”

The younger man nodded and passed down to the spring, with Evered beside him. Darrin sat down and motioned Evered to sit.

“What did you think, when you saw them?” he asked.

Evered’s cheeks colored slowly; they turned from bronze to red, from red to purple.

Darrin prompted him: “When you saw your wife and Semler here together.”

“What would you have thought?” Evered asked, his voice held steady.

Darrin nodded understanding. “You were angry?” he suggested.

Evered flung his head on one side with a fierce gesture, as though to shut out some unwelcome sight that assaulted his eyes.

Darrin, watching him acutely, waited for a little before he asked: “Where was the bull, when you saw him first?”

Evered jerked his hand toward the right. “There,” he said.

Darrin got up and went in that direction, and moved to and fro, asking directions, till Evered told him he was near the spot. Darrin came back then and sat down.

“You thought she loved him?” he asked under his breath.

Evered shook his head, not in negation but as though to brush the question aside. Darrin filled his pipe and lighted it, and puffed at it in silence for a while.

“Pitkin told you the bull was loose, didn’t he?” he asked at last.

“Yes.”

“So you came down to get the beast?”

“Yes, I came for that.”

“Expect any trouble?”

“You can always look for trouble with the red bull.”

“How did you plan to handle him?”

“Brad, and nose ring.”

Darrin eyed the other sharply. “Wouldn’t have had much time to get hold of his nose ring if he’d charged, would you?”

“I had a gun,” said Evered. “A forty-five.”

“Oh,” said Darrin. “You had a gun?”

Evered, a little restive, cried, “Yes, damn it, I had a gun!”

“You must have felt like shooting Semler,” Darrin suggested; and Evered looked at him sidewise, a little alarmed. He seemed to put himself on guard.

Darrin got to his feet. “They were sitting by these rocks, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

The younger man bent above the other. “Evered,” he said, “why didn’t you turn the bull from its charge?”

He saw Evered’s face go white, his eyes flickering to and fro. The man came to his feet.

“There was no time!” he exclaimed.

His voice was husky and unsteady; Darrin dominated him, seemed to tower above him. There was about Evered the air of a broken man.

Darrin pointed to the knoll. “You were within half a dozen strides of them. The bull was full thirty yards away.”

Evered cried, “Damn you!”

He turned abruptly, climbed the knoll. Darrin stood still till Evered was almost gone from his sight, then he shouted, “Evered!” Evered went on; and Darrin with a low exclamation leaped after him. Evered must have heard his pounding steps, but he did not turn. Darrin came up with him; he tugged his pistol from its holster and jammed it against Evered’s side.

“Turn round,” he said, “or I’ll blow you in two.”

Evered did not turn; he did not stop. Dusk had fallen upon them before this; their figures were black in the growing darkness. A pelting spray of rain swept over them, the drops like ice. Above them the hill was black against the gray western sky. Behind them and below the swamp brooded, dark and still. Surrounded by gloom and wind and rain the two moved thus a dozen paces--Evered looking straight ahead, Darrin pressing the pistol against the other’s ribs.

Then Darrin leaped past the other, into Evered’s path, his weapon leveled. “Stop!” he said, harshly. “You wife killer, stop, and listen to me!”

Evered came on; and Darrin in a voice that was like a scream warned him: “I’ll shoot!”

Evered did not stop. There was a certain dignity about the man, a certain strength. Against it Darrin seemed to rebound helplessly. Their rôles were reversed. Where Darrin had been dominant he was now weak; where Evered had been weak he was strong. The older man came on; he was within two paces. Darrin’s finger pressed the trigger--indecisively. Then Evered’s great fist whipped round like light and struck Darrin’s hand, and the pistol flew from his grip, end over end, and struck against a bowlder with a flash of sparks in the darkness. Darrin’s hand and wrist and arm were numbed by the blow; he hugged them against his body. Evered watched him, still as still. And Darrin screamed at him in a hoarse unsteady voice his black accusation.

“You killed her!” he cried. “In that black temper of yours you let the bull have her. You’re a devil on earth. Evered! You’re a devil among men!”

Evered lifted his hand, silencing the man. Darrin wished to speak and dared not. There was something terrible in the other’s demeanor, something terrible in his calm strength and purpose.

He said at last in set tones: “It was my right. She was guilty as hell!”

Darrin found courage to laugh. “You lie,” he said. “And that’s what I’m here to tell you, man. I ought to take you and give you to other men, to hang by the thick neck that holds up your evil head. But this is better, Evered. This is better. I tell you your wife, whom you killed, was as clean as snow.”

When he had spoken he was afraid, for the light in Evered’s eyes was the father of fear. He began to fumble in his coat in a desperate haste, not daring to look away, not daring to take his eyes from Evered’s. He fumbled there, and found the letter he had read beside his fire so carefully; found it and drew it, crumpled, forth. He held it toward Evered.

“Read,” he cried. “Read that, and see.”

Evered took the letter quietly; and before Darrin’s eyes the fury died in the other man. Over his face there crept a mask of sorrow irrevocable and profound. He said no word, but took the letter and opened it. The light was dim; he could not read till Darrin flashed his electric torch upon the page. A strange picture, in that moment, these two--Evered, the old and breaking man; Darrin, young and vigorous; Evered dominant, Darrin tremulously exultant; Evered, his great head bent, his unaccustomed eyes scanning the written lines; Darrin holding the light beside him.

Evered was slow in reading the letter, for in the first place it was written in his wife’s hand, and he had loved her; so that his eyes were dimmed. He was not conscious of the words he read, though they were not important. It was the message of the lines that came home to him; the unmistakable truth that lay behind them. The letter of an unhappy woman to a man whom she had found friendly and kind. She told Semler that she loved Evered; told him this so simply there could be no questioning. Would always love Evered. Bade Semler forget her, be gone, never return. Nothing but friendliness for him. Bade him not make her unhappy. And at the end, again, she wrote that she loved Evered.

The man who had killed her did not so much read this letter as absorb it, let it sink home into his heart and carry its own conviction there.

It was not curiosity that moved him, not doubt that made him ask Darrin quietly: “How got you this?”

“From Semler,” Darrin told him. “I found him--followed him half across the country--told him what I guessed. That was the only letter he ever had from her. Written the day you killed her. Damn you, do you see!”

“How came they together?”

“He knew she liked to come to the spring; he found her there, argued with her. She told him she loved you; there was no moving her. She loved you, who killed her. You devil of a man!”

Evered folded the letter carefully and put it into his coat. “Why do you tell me?” he asked.

“Because I know you cared for her!” Darrin cried. “Because I know this will hurt you worse than death itself.”

Evered standing very still shook his head slowly. “That was not my meaning,” he explained patiently. “That is my concern. Why did you tell me? Why so much trouble for this? How did the matter touch you, Darrin?”

The younger man had waited for this moment, waited for it through the years of his manhood. He had planned toward it for months past, shaping it to his fancy. He had looked forward to it as a moment of triumph; he had seen himself towering in just condemnation above one who trembled before him. He had been drunk with this anticipation.

But the reality was not like his dreams. He knew that Evered was broken; that his soul must be shattered. Yet he could not exult. There was such a strength of honest sorrow in the old man before him, there was so much dignity and power that Darrin in spite of himself was shamed and shaken. He felt something that was like regret. He felt himself mean and small; like a malicious, mud-slinging, inconsiderable fragment of a man. His voice was low, it was almost apologetic when he answered the other’s question.

“How did the matter touch you, Darrin?” Evered asked; and the rain swept over them in a more tempestuous fusilade.

Darrin said in a husky choking voice: “I’m Dave Riggs’ son. You killed my father.”

Evered, silent a moment, slowly nodded as though not greatly surprised. “Dave Riggs’ boy,” he echoed. “Aye, I might have known.” And he added: “I lost you, years agone. I tried to make matters easier for you, for Dave’s sake. I was sorry for that matter, Darrin.”

Darrin tried to flog his anger to white heat again. “You killed my father,” he exclaimed. “When I was still a boy I swore that I’d pay you for that. And when I grew up I planned and planned. And when I heard about your wife, I came up here, to watch you--find out. I felt there was something. I told you I’d seen Semler, trapped you. You told me more than you meant to tell. And then I got trace of him, followed him. I did it to blast you, Evered; pay you for what you did to me. That’s why.”

He ended lamely; his anger was dead; his voice was like a plea.

Evered said gently and without anger. “It was your right.” And a moment later he turned slowly and went away, up the hill and toward his home.

Darrin, left behind, labored again to wake the exultation he had counted on; but he could not. He had hungered for this revenge of his, but there is no substance in raw and naked vengeance. You cannot set your teeth in it. Darrin found that it left him empty, that he was sick of himself and of his own deeds.

“It was coming to him,” he cried half aloud.

But he could not put away from his thoughts the memory of Evered’s proud dignity of sorrow; he was abashed before the man.

He stumbled back to his rain-swept camp like one who has done a crime.

XVII

When Evered reached the farm, dark had fully fallen; and the cold rain was splattering against the buildings, driven by fierce little gusts of wind from the northwest as the direction of the storm shifted. The man walked steadily enough, his head held high. What torment was hidden behind his proud bearing no man could guess. He went to the kitchen, and Ruth told him that John must be near done with the milking. Evered nodded, as though he were tired. Ruth saw that he was wet, and when he took off his coat and hat she brought him a cup of steaming tea and made him drink it. He said, “Thanks, Ruthie!” And he took the cup from her hands and sipped it slowly, the hot liquid bringing back his strength.

His trousers were soaked through at the knees. She bade him go in and change them; and he went to his room. When John came from the barn Evered had not yet come out into the kitchen again. Supper was ready and Ruth went to his door and called to him.

He came out; and both Ruth and John saw the strange light in the man’s eyes. He did not speak and they did not speak to him. There was that about him which held them silent. He ate a little, then went to his room again and shut the door. They could hear him for a little while, walking to and fro. Then the sound of his footsteps ceased.

Only one door lay between his room and the kitchen; and unconsciously the two hushed their voices, so that they might not disturb him. John got into dry clothes, then helped Ruth with the dishes, brought fresh water from the pump to fill the tank at the end of the stove, brought wood for the morning, turned the separator, and finally sat smoking while she cleaned the parts of that instrument. They spoke now and then; but there was some constraint between them. Both of them were thinking of Evered.

Ruth, her work finished, came and sat down by the stove with a basket of socks to be darned, and her needle began to move carefully to and fro in the gaping holes she stretched across her darning egg.

John asked her in a low voice, “Did you mark trouble in my father this night?”

She looked at him, concern in her eyes. “Yes. There was something. He seemed happier, somehow; yet very sad too.”

He said, “His eyes were shining, like.”

“I saw,” she agreed.

John smoked for a little while. Then: “I’m wondering what it is,” he murmured. “Something has happened to him.”

Ruth, head bent above her work, remembered Darrin’s coming, his summons. But she said nothing till John asked: “Do you know what it was?”

“He was talking with Fred,” she said; and slowly, cheeks rosy, amended herself: “With Mr. Darrin.”

John nodded. “I knew they were away together.”

“Mr. Darrin came for him,” said Ruth. “He took your father away.”

They said no more of the matter, for there was nothing more to say; but they thought a great deal. Now and then they spoke of other things. Outside the house the wind was whistling and lashing the weatherboards with rain; and after a while the sharp sound of the raindrops was intensified to a clatter and John said, “It’s turned to hail. There’ll be snow by morning.”

The girl thought of Darrin. “He’ll be wet and cold out in this. He ought to come up to the barn.”

John smiled. “He can care for himself. His shelter will turn this, easy. He’d come if he wanted to come.”

His tone was friendly and Ruth asked, watching him, “You like Mr. Darrin, don’t you?”

“Yes,” John told her. “Yes,” he said slowly; “I like the man.”

What pain the words cost him he hid from her eyes altogether. She was, vaguely, a little disappointed. She had not wanted John to like Darrin; and yet she--loved the man. She must love him; she had longed for him so. Thinking of him as she sat here with her mending in her lap she felt again that unaccountable pang of loneliness. And the girl looked sidewise at John. John was watching the little flames that showed through the grate in the front of the stove. He seemed to pay no heed to her.

After a while Ruth said she would go to bed; and she put away her basket of mending, set her chair in place by the table and went to the door that led toward her own room. John, still sitting by the stove, had not turned. She stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him. There was a curious yearning in her eyes.

By and by she said softly, “Good night, John.”

He got up from his chair, and turned toward her and stood there. “Good night, Ruth,” he answered.

She did not close the door between them; and after a moment, as though without his own volition, his feet moved. He came toward her, came nearer where she stood.

She did not know whether to stay or to go. The girl was shaken, unsure of herself, afraid of her own impulses. And then she remembered that she loved Darrin, must love him. And she stepped back and shut the door slowly between them. Even with the door shut she stood still, listening; and she heard John turn and go back to his chair and sit down.

She was swept by an unaccountable wave of angry disappointment. And the girl turned into her room and with quick sharp movements loosed her garments and put them aside and made herself ready for bed. She blew out the light and lay down. But her eyes were wide, and she was wholly without desire to sleep. And by and by she began to cry, for no reason she could name. She was oppressed by a terrible weight of sorrow, indefinable. It was as though this great sorrow were in the very air about her. It was, she thought once gropingly, as though someone near her were dying in the night. Once before she slept she heard Evered moving to and fro in his room, adjoining hers.

John had no heart for sleep that night. He sat in the kitchen alone for a long time; and he went to bed at last, not because he was sleepy, but because there was nothing else to do. He put wood in the stove and shut it tightly; there would be some fire there in the morning. He put the cats into the shed and locked the outer door, and so went at last to his room. The man undressed slowly and blew out his light. When once he was abed the healthy habit of his lusty youth put him quickly to sleep. He slept with scarce a dream till an hour before dawn, and woke then, and rose to dress for the morning’s chores.

From his window, even before the light came, he saw that some wet snow had fallen during the night. When he had made the fire in the kitchen and filled the kettle he put on his boots and went to the barn. There were inches of snow and half-frozen mud in the barnyard. It was cold and dreary in the open. A little snow fell fitfully now and then.

Within the barn the sweet odors that he loved greeted him. The place steamed pleasantly with the body warmth of the cattle and the horse stabled there; and he heard the pigs squealing softly, as though in their sleep, in their winter pen at the farther end of the barn floor. He lighted his lantern and hung it to a peg and fed the stock--a little grain to the horse, hay to the cows, some cut-up squash and a basketful of beets to the pigs. As an afterthought he gave beets to the cows as well. John worked swiftly, cleaned up the horse’s stall and the tie-up where the line of cows was secured. After he was done here he fed the bull, the red bull in its strong stall; and while the creature ate he cleaned the place and put fresh bedding in upon the floor. The bull seemed undisturbed by his presence; it turned its great head now and then to look at him with steady eyes, but there was no ugliness in its movements. When he had finished his work John stroked the great creature’s flank and shoulder and neck for a moment.

He said under his breath, “You’re all right, old boy. You’re all right. You’re clever, by golly. Clever as a cow.”

When Fraternity says a beast is clever it means gentle and kind rather than shrewd. The bull seemed to understand what John said; or what lay in his tone. The great head turned and pressed against him, not roughly. John stroked it a minute more, then left the stall and took a last look round to be sure he had forgotten nothing, and then went to the house. Day was coming now; there was a ghostly gray light in the farmyard. And the snow had turned, for the time, to a drizzling, sleeting sprinkle of rain.

In the kitchen he found Ruth moving about; and she gave him the milk pails and he went out to milk. There were only three cows giving milk at that time. Two would come in in December; but for the present milking was a small chore. John was not long about it, but by the time he had finished and returned to the kitchen breakfast was almost ready. Evered had not yet come from his room.

Ruth half whispered: “He was up in the night. I think he’s asleep. I’m going to let him sleep a while.”

John nodded. “All right,” he agreed.

“He’s so tired,” said Ruth; and there was a gentleness in her tone which made John look at her with some surprise. She had not spoken gently of Evered for months past.

They separated the milk and gave the cats their morning ration and then they sat themselves down and breakfasted. When they were half done Ruth saw that day was fully come, and blew out the lamp upon the table between them. It left the kitchen so bleak and cheerless, however, that she lighted it again.

“I don’t like a day like this,” she said. “It’s ugly. Everything is ugly. It makes me nervous, somehow.”

She shivered a little and looked about her as though she felt some fearful thing at her very shoulder. John, more phlegmatic, watched her in some bewilderment. Ruth was not usually nervous.

They had not heard Evered stirring; and all that morning they moved on tiptoe about their work. John forebore to split wood in the shed, his usual task on stormy days, lest he waken his father. Ruth handled the dishes gently, careful not to rattle them; she swept the floor with easy strokes that made but little sound. When Evered came into the kitchen, a little before noon, she and John looked at the man with quick curiosity, not knowing what they would see.

They saw only that Evered’s head was held a little higher than was his custom of late; they saw that his eyes were sober and clear and thoughtful; they marked that his voice was gentle. He had dinner with them, speaking little, then went back to his room.

Soon after dinner Darrin came to the door. Ruth asked him in, but the man would not come. John was in the barn; and Ruth, a little uneasy and afraid before this man, wished John were here.

She asked Darrin, “Were you all right, last night?”