Chapter 23
Marshal Stone and Brant were to return together to North Wilkesboro' where the latter would take the train for home. Uncle Dick had offered them horses for the ride. The two men, somewhat in advance of the remainder of the party after the descent of Stone Mountain, had come near the Higgins' cabin, when the marshal spoke with a display of embarrassment:
"I've got to go a little out of our way. It's a chore I oughtn't ever to have put off for a minute, but I plumb forgot it."
"What is it?" Brant asked indifferently.
But his interest was aroused as the marshal hesitated before answering, and exhibited an increasing confusion.
"I'm right ashamed to tell of it," Stone said, finally. "There's no excuse for such carelessness. Plutina got into all this mess because she was afraid something dreadful might happen, and it might have--on account of my forgetfulness."
"What's it all about?" Brant demanded, now distinctly curious.
"It's bear-traps!" was the morose answer.
"Bear-traps?"
The marshal nodded.
"Those infernal traps Hodges set along Thunder Branch--that made Plutina turn informer.... Well, I just naturally forgot all about 'em."
Brant uttered an ejaculation of dismay.
"You mean, they're still there, and set?"
Stone nodded.
"Just that. I took Hodges and York down another way. I've never thought of the traps since, till to-day."
"Risky, of course," Brant admitted. "But nobody got caught, or they'd have been missed," he added comfortingly. "Nobody in the neighborhood's disappeared, has there?"
"Not that I've heard of," Stone replied. "But it's luck, not my deserts, if no harm's been done."
"I'll go along with you," Brant offered. "We'll have that trouble off your mind in a jiffy."
So, the two men turned, and took the trail past the Higgins' clearing and on until they came to Thunder Branch, where Plutina had made her discovery. They followed the course of the stream upward, the marshal in the lead. As he came to the bend, where the rocky cliffs began, Stone turned and called over his shoulder:
"They're just beyond." Then, he went forward, with quick, nervous strides, and disappeared beyond the bend. A moment later, a great cry brought Brant running.
It was, in truth, a ghastly scene that showed there, lighted brilliantly by the noontide sun. In the midst of the little space of dry ground bordering the stream, where the lush grass grew thick and high, the body of a man was lying. It was contorted grotesquely, sprawling at length on its face, in absolute stillness--the stillness of death. Brant, himself horrified, looked pityingly at the white, stricken face of the marshal, and turned away, helplessly. He could find no words to lessen the hideousness of this discovery for the man through whose fault the tragedy had come.
Then, presently, as Stone seemed paralyzed by the disaster, Brant went closer to examine the gruesome thing.
The victim had been caught by both traps. Evidently, he had stepped fairly into the first. Then, as the great jaws snapped shut on his leg, he had lurched forward and fallen. His arms were outspread wide. But his head was within the second trap. The jaws of it had clamped on the neck. The steel fangs were sunk deep into the flesh. Blood from the wounds was caked black on the skin.
"He didn't suffer any to speak of," Brant remarked, at last. He observed, with some surprise, that his voice was very thin. He was not a squeamish man, and he had seen many evil sights. But this--
With repugnance, he set himself to the task of releasing the trap that held the dead man's head. He had the delicacy not to call on his distressed companion for aid. The task was very difficult, and very gruesome, for it required harsh handling of the head, which was in the way. Finally, however, the thing was accomplished. The savage jaws were freed from the flesh they had mangled, and were locked open. Then, Brant turned the body over, and gazed curiously, with strong repulsion, into the ugly, distorted dead face.
"Providence picked out somebody who could be spared," he mused grimly.
There came another cry from Stone. In it were wonder, incredulity, relief.
Brant regarded the marshal in amazement. The man was transformed. The motionless figure of desolation was become one of wild, quivering excitement. The face was suffused with blood, the eyes shining fiercely.
"What the devil!" Brant demanded, aghast.
Stone looked toward his questioner gravely, and nodded with great emphasis. His voice was low, tense with emotion.
"It is the devil!" he answered solemnly. He paused, clearing his throat, and stared again at the dead man. Then, his eyes went back to Brant, as he added:
"It's Hodges."
There was a little silence. Brant could not understand, could not believe this startling assertion flung in his face.
"But Hodges was thrown over the precipice," he said, at last.
The marshal shook his head. There was defiance now in his aspect--defiance, and a mighty joy.
"It doesn't make any difference about that," he announced. "This is Hodges!"
Then, his exultation burst in words:
"Hodges caught in his own traps! His neck broken, as it should have been broken by the rope for the murders he's done! It was my carelessness did it, yes. But I don't care now, so long as it's Hodges who's got caught. Hodges set those traps, and--there he is!... I read about something like that once in a story. They called it 'poetic justice.'"
"He don't look like a poem," Brant remarked. He turned from the gory corpse with a shudder of disgust.
"Thank God, it was Hodges!" the marshal said, reverently. "Anybody else would have haunted me for life. But Hodges! Why, I'm glad!"
* * * * *
The affair was easily explicable in the light of what Plutina had to tell. Hodges, undoubtedly, had knowledge of some secret, hazardous path down the face of the precipice past the Devil's Cauldron, and on to the valley. He had meant to flee by it with Plutina, thus to escape the hound. By it, he had fled alone. Perhaps, he had had a hiding-place for money somewhere about the raided still. Or, perhaps, he had merely chosen this route along Thunder Branch on his way to an asylum beyond Bull Head Mountain. What was certain was that he had blundered into his own pitiless snares. Naturally, he would have had no suspicion that the traps remained. In his mad haste, he had rushed heedlessly upon destruction. The remorseless engines of his own devising had taken full toll of him. By his own act, he paid with his life the penalty for crime. There was propriety in the marshal's reference to poetic justice.
A certain vindictiveness showed in Plutina's comment concerning the death of the man at whose hands she had so suffered.
"His bein' so afeared o' thet-thar thing kep' 'im from hurtin' me," she said, reflectively. "He was shorely sot ag'inst havin' 'is neck bruk, an', arter all, thet's jest what he got." She smiled, contentedly. For Plutina was a primitive woman, strong in her love, and strong in her hate.
* * * * *
It was a day of early autumn. The timber rights had been secured to the satisfaction of Sutton. The tree-nail factory was being built. Zeke was become a man of importance in the region.
The lover's wedding-day was less than a month distant. To-day, Plutina had been for a visit to the Widow Higgins, and now Zeke was walking home with her. They paused at the place where had been their meeting on the morning of the lad's first adventuring into the world. Memories flooded them, as they looked across the valley to the bleak cliffs of Stone Mountain, which rose in aged, rugged grandeur, softened in this hour by the veils of haze, warmed with the lambent hues of sunset.
In answer to Plutina, Zeke shook his head perplexedly.
"I kain't quite stomach thet-thar yarn o' Seth Jones's," he said. "As I remember, Dan Hodges threw me--hard!" He grinned wryly at the recollection. "I don't see how I could have thrown him off the Slide."
"But of course you did!" Plutina asserted, with great spirit. "Pooh! Ye could lick Dan Hodges any day in the week. An' Seth saw ye--that settles hit!"
"I suppose so," Zeke conceded. "But Dan Hodges was a powerful fighter. After all, I didn't do anything much for ye, Tiny," he added, with regret in his voice.
The girl was all indignation.
"Why, Zeke!" she cried. "The idea! Ye did hit all. Ye banged the love o' ye into thet-thar dawg, what hung on to me an' brung up the fairy cross fer a message." Chubbie, as if understanding, leaped to lick her hand. "An' ye give me the cross, Zeke. Mebby, thet's what saved me, all the time--thar on the precipice, an'--an' back thar--in the cave--with him. An' then ye threw Dan Hodges right offen the mounting. Seth Jones seen ye do hit!"
It seemed to Zeke that he must perforce accept the heroism thrust upon him, though a doubt still lingered. Still, his memory of the fight was confused. Perhaps, after all, he had--.
Zeke broke off, and drew the girl close. Their lips met gently, tenderly, with the clinging of passion. What mattered the history of evil days? They were past. Before them lay the future, radiant with rosy promise. In this blessed present, they were together. Love thrilled exquisitely on their lips; more exquisitely in their souls. That love was, and it would remain, a noble and precious thing, great and very beautiful, as mighty and firm as the mountain looming yonder in immutable serenity and strength, as loyal, as enduring.... They walked on together, infinitely content.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Heart of the Blue Ridge, by Waldron Baily