Читать книгу Where the Trail Divides - Will Lillibridge - Страница 3

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The man was short and fat, and greasy above the dark beard line. In addition, he was bowlegged as a greyhound, and just now he moved with a limp as though very footsore. His coarse blue flannel shirt, open at the throat, exposed a broad hairy chest that rose and fell mightily with the effort he was making. And therein lay the mystery. The sun was hot—with the heat of a cloudless August sun at one o'clock of the afternoon. The country he was traversing was wild, unbroken—uninhabited apparently of man or of beast. Far to his left, just visible through the dancing heat rays, indistinct as a mirage, was a curling fringe of green trees. To his right, behind him, ahead of him was not a tree nor a shrub nor a rock the height of a man's head; only ungrazed, yellowish-green sun-dried prairie grass. The silence was complete. Not even a breath of wind rustled the grass; yet ever and anon the man paused glanced back the way he had come, listened, his throat throbbing with the effort of repressed breathing, in obvious expectation of a sound he did not hear; then, for the time relieved, forged ahead afresh, one hand gripping the butt of an old Springfield rifle slung over his shoulder, the other, big, unclean, sunbrowned, swinging like a pendulum at his side.

Ludicrous, unqualifiedly, the figure would have been in civilisation, humorous as a clown in a circus; but seeing it here, solitary, exotic, no observer would have laughed. Fear, mortal dogging fear, impersonate, supreme, was in every look, every action. Somewhere back of that curved line where met the earth and sky, lurked death. Nothing else would have been adequate to arouse this phlegmatic human as he was now aroused. The sweat oozed from his thick neck in streams and dripped drop by drop from the month-old stubble which covered his chin, but apparently he never noticed it. Now and then he attempted to moisten his lips; but his tongue was dry as powder, and they closed again, parched as before.

No road nor trail, nor the semblance of a trail, marked the way he was going; the hazy green fringe far to the east was his only landmark; yet as hour after hour went by and the sun sank lower and lower he never halted, never seemed in doubt as to his destination. The country was growing more rolling now, almost hilly, and he approached each rise cautiously, vigilantly. Once, almost at his feet a covey of frightened prairie chickens sprang a-wing, and at the unexpected sound he dropped like a stone in his tracks, all but concealing himself in the tall grass; then, reassured, he was up again, plodding doggedly, ceaselessly on.

It was after sundown when he paused; and then only from absolute physical inability to go farther. Outraged nature had at last rebelled, and not even fear could suffice longer to stimulate him. The grass was wet with dew, and prone on his knees he moistened his lips therefrom as drinks many another of the fauna of the prairie. Then, flat on his back, not sleeping, but very wide awake, very watchful, he lay awaiting the return of strength. Upon the fringe of hair beneath the brim of his hat the sweat slowly dried; then, as the dew gathered thicker and thicker, dampened afresh. Far to the east, where during the day had appeared the fringe of green, the sky lightened, almost brightened; until at last, like a curious face, the full moon, peeping above the horizon, lit up the surface of prairie.

At last—and ere this the moon was well in the sky—the man arose, stretched his stiffened muscles profanely—before he had not spoken a syllable—listened a moment almost involuntarily, sent a swift, searching glance all about; then moved ahead, straight south, at the old relentless pace.

The lone ambassador from the tiny settlement of Sioux Falls vacillated between vexation and solicitude.

"For the last time I tell you; we're going whether you do or not," he announced in ultimatum.

Samuel Rowland, large, double-chinned, distinctly florid, folded his arms across his chest with an air of finality.

"And I repeat, I'm not going. I'm much obliged to you for the warning. I know your intentions are good, but you people are afraid of your own shadows. I know as well as you do that there are Indians in this part of the world, some odd thousands of them between here and the Hills, but they were here when I came and when you came, and we knew they were here. You expect to hear from a Dane when you buy tickets to 'Hamlet,' don't you?"

The other made a motion of annoyance.

"If you imagine this is a time for juggling similes," he returned swiftly, "you're making the mistake of your life. If you were alone, Rowland, I'd leave you here to take your medicine without another word; but I've a wife, too, and I thank the Lord she's down in Sioux City where Mrs. Rowland and the kid should be, and for her sake—"

"I beg your pardon."

The visitor started swiftly to leave, then as suddenly turned back.

"Good God, man!" he blazed; "are you plumb daft to stickle for little niceties now? I tell you I just helped to pick up Judge Amidon and his son, murdered in their own hayfield not three miles from here, the boy as full of arrows as a cushion of pins. This isn't ancient history, man, but took place this very day. It's Indian massacre, and at our own throats. The boys are down below the falls getting ready to go right now. By night there won't be another white man or woman within twenty-five miles of you. It's deliberate suicide to stand here arguing. If you will stay yourself, at least send away Mrs. Rowland and the girl. I'll take care of them myself and bring them back when the government sends some soldiers here, as it's bound to do soon. Listen to reason, man. Your claim won't run away; and if someone should jump it there's another just as good alongside. Pack up and come on."

Of a sudden, rough pioneer as he was, his hat came off and the tone of vexation left his voice. Another actor, a woman, had appeared upon the scene.

"You know what I'm talking about, Mrs. Rowland," he digressed. "Take my advice and come along. I'll never forgive myself if we leave you behind."

"You really think there's danger, Mr. Brown?" she asked unemotionally.

"Danger!" In pure impotence of language the other stared. "Danger, with Heaven knows how many hostile Sioux on the trail! Is it possible you two don't realise things as they are?"

"Yes, I think we realise all right," tolerantly. "I know the Tetons are hostile; they couldn't well be otherwise. Any of us would rebel if we were hustled away into a corner like naughty little boys, as they are; but actual danger—" The woman threw a comprehensive, almost amused glance at the big man, her husband. "We've been here almost two years now; long before you and the others came. Half the hunters who pass this way stop here. It wasn't a month ago that a party of Yanktons left a whole antelope. You ought to see Baby Bess shake hands with some of those wrinkled old bucks. Danger! We're safer here than we would be in Sioux City."

"But there's been massacre already, I tell you," exploded the other. "I don't merely surmise it. I saw it with my own eyes."

"There must have been some personal reason then." Mrs. Rowland glanced at the restless, excited speaker analytically, almost superciliously. "Indians are like white people. They have their loves and hates the same as all the rest of us. Sam and I ran once before when everyone was going, and when we got back not a thing had been touched; but the weeds had choked our corn and the rabbits eaten up our garden. We've been good to the Indians, and they appreciate it."

A moment Brown hesitated impotently; then of a sudden he came forward swiftly and extended his hand, first to one and then to the other.

"Good-bye, then," he halted. "I can't take you by force, and it's pure madness to stay here longer." Baby Elizabeth, a big-eyed, solemn-faced mite of humanity, had come up now and stood staring the stranger silently from the side of her mother's skirts. "I hope for the best, but before God I never expect to see any of you again."

"Oh, we'll see you in the fall all right—when you return," commented Rowland easily; but the other made no reply, and without a backward glance started at a rapid jog trot for the tiny settlement on the river two miles away.

Behind him, impassive-faced Rowland stood watching the departing frontiersman steadily, the pouches beneath his eyes accentuated by the tightened lids.

"I don't believe there's a bit more danger here now than there ever was," he commented; "but there's certainly an unusual disturbance somewhere. I don't take any stock in the people down at the settlement leaving—they'd go if they heard a coyote whistle; but Brown tells me there've been three different trappers from Big Stone gone through south in the last week, and when they leave it means something. If you say the word we'll leave everything and go yet." "If we do we'll never come back."

"Not necessarily."

"Yes. I'm either afraid of these red people or else I'm not. We went before because the others went. If we left now it would be different. We'd be tortured day and night if we really feared—what happens now and then to some. We came here with our eyes wide open. We can't start again in civilisation. We're too old, and there's the past—"

"You still blame me?"

"No; but we've chosen. Whatever comes, we'll stay." She turned toward the rough log shanty unemotionally.

"Come, let's forget it. Dinner's waiting and baby's hungry."

A moment Rowland hesitated, then he, too, followed.

"Yes, let's forget it," he echoed slowly.

"Well, in Heaven's name!" Rowland's great bulk was upon its feet, one hand upon the ever-ready revolver at his hip, the dishes on the rough pine dining table clattering with the suddenness of his withdrawal. "Who are you, man, and what's the trouble? Speak up—"

The dishevelled intruder within the narrow doorway glanced about the interior of the single room with bloodshot eyes.

His great mouth was a bit open and his swollen tongue all but protruded.

"Water!" The word was scarce above a whisper.

"But who are you?"

"Water!" fiercely, insistently.

Of a sudden he spied a wooden pail upon a shelf in the corner, and without invitation, almost as a wild beast springs, he made for it,

grasped the big tin dipper in both hands; drank measure after measure, the overflow trickling down his bare throat and dripping onto the sanded floor.

"God, that's good!" he voiced. "Good, good!"

After that first involuntary movement Rowland did not stir; but at his side the woman had risen, and behind her, peering around the fortress of her skirts as when before she had argued with Frontiersman Brown, stood the little wide-eyed girl, type of the repressed frontier child.

Back to them came the stranger, his great jowl working unconsciously.

"You are Sam Rowland?" he enunciated thickly,

"Yes."

"The settlement hasn't broken up then?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Is it possible that you don't know, that they don't know?" Involuntarily he seized his host by the arm. "I've heard of you; you live two miles out. We've no time to lose. Come, don't stop to save anything."

Rowland straightened. The other smelled evilly of perspiration.

"Come where? Who are you anyway, and what's the matter? Talk so I can understand you."

"You don't know that the Santees are on the 'big trail'? of the massacre along the Minnesota River?"

"I know nothing. Once more, who are you?"

"Who am I? What does it matter? My name is Hans Mueller. I'm a trapper." Of a sudden he drew back, inspecting his impassive questioner doubtfully, almost unbelievingly. "But come. I'll tell you along the way. You mustn't be here an hour longer. I saw their signal smokes this very morning. They're murdering everyone—men, women, and children. It's Little Crow who started it, and God knows how many settlers they've killed. They chased me for hours, but I had a good horse. It only gave out yesterday; and since then—But come. It's suicide to chatter like this." He turned insistently toward the door. "They may be here any minute."

Rowland and his wife looked at each other. Neither spoke a word; but at last the woman shook her head slowly.

Hans Mueller shifted restlessly.

"Hurry, I tell you," he insisted.

Rowland sat down again deliberately, his heavy double chin folding over his soft flannel shirt.

"Where are you going?" he temporised with almost a shade of amusement.

"Going!" In his unbelief the German's protruding eyes seemed almost to roll from his face. "To the settlement, of course."

"There is no settlement."

"What?"

Rowland repeated his statement impassively.

"They've—gone?" The tongue had grown suddenly thick again.

"I said so." The look of pity had altered, become almost of scorn.

For a half minute there was silence, inactivity, while despite tan and dirt and perspiration the cheeks of Hans Mueller whitened. The same expression of terror, hopeless, dominant, all but insane, that had been with him alone out on the prairie returned, augmented. Heedless of appearances, all but unconscious of the presence of spectators, he glanced about the single room like a beaten rabbit with the hounds close on its trail. No avenue of hiding suggested itself, no possible hope of protection. The cold perspiration broke out afresh on his forehead, at the roots of his hair, and in absent impotency he mopped it away with the back of a fat, grimy hand.

In pity motherly Mrs. Rowland returned to her seat, indicated another vacant beside the board.

"You'd best sit down and eat a bit," she invited. "You must be hungry as a coyote."

"Eat, now?" Swiftly, almost fiercely, the old terror-restless mood returned. "God Almighty couldn't keep me here longer." He started shuffling for the door. "Stay here and be scalped, if you think I lie. We're corpses, all of us, but I'll not be caught like a beaver in a trap." Again he halted jerkily. "Which way did they go!"

Lower and lower sank Rowland's great chin onto his breast.

"They separated," impassively. "Part went south to Sioux City; part west toward Yankton." Involuntarily his lips pursed in the inevitable contempt of a strong man for one hopelessly weak. "You'd better take a lunch along. It's something of a journey to either place."

Swift as the suggestion, Mrs. Rowland, with the spontaneous hospitality of the frontier, was upon her feet. Into a quaint Indian basket of coloured rushes went a roast grouse, barely touched, from the table. A loaf of bread followed: a bottle of water from the wooden pail in the corner. "You're welcome, friend," she proffered.

Hans Mueller hesitated, accepted. A swift moisture dimmed his eyes.

"Thanks, lady," he halted. "You're good people, anyway. I'm sorry—" He lifted his battered hat, shuffled anew toward the doorway. "Good-bye."

Impassive as before, Rowland returned to his neglected dinner.

"No wonder the Sioux play us whites for cowards, and think we'll run at sight of them," he commented.

Mrs. Rowland, standing motionless in the single exit through which Mueller had gone, did not answer.

"Better come and finish, Margaret," suggested her husband.

Again there was no answer, and Rowland, after eating a few mouthfuls, pushed back his chair. Even then she did not speak, and, rising, the man made his way across the room to put an arm with rough affection around his wife's waist.

"Are you, too, scared at last?" he voiced gently.

The woman turned swiftly and, in action almost unbelievable after her former unemotional certainty, dropped her head to his shoulder.

"Yes, I think I am a bit, Sam. For baby's sake I wish we'd gone too; but now,"—her arms crept around his neck, closed,—"but now—now it's too late!"

For a long minute, and another, the man did not stir but involuntarily his arms had tightened until, had she wished, the woman could not have turned. He had been looking absently out the door, south over the rolling country leading to the deserted settlement.

In the distance, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, Hans Mueller was still in sight, skirting the base of a sharp incline. Through the trembling heat waves he seemed a mere moving dark spot; like an ant or a spider on its zigzag journey. The grass at the base of the rise was rank and heavy, reaching almost to the waist of the moving figure. Rowland watched it all absently, meditatively; as he would have watched the movement of a coyote or a prairie owl, for the simple reason that it was the only visible object endowed with life, and instinctively life responds to life. The words of his wife just spoken, "It is too late," with the revelation they bore, were echoing in his brain. For the first time, to his mind came a vague unformed suggestion, not of fear, but near akin, as to this lonely prairie wilderness, and the red man its child. In a hazy way came the question whether after all it were not foolhardy to remain here now, to dare that invisible, intangible something before which, almost in panic, the others had fled. To be sure, precedent was with him, logic; but—of a sudden—but a minute had passed—his arms tightened; involuntarily he held his breath. Hans Mueller had been moving on and on; another half minute and he would have been behind the base of the hill out of sight; when, as from the turf at one's feet there springs a-wing a covey of prairie grouse, from the tall grass about the retreating figure there leaped forth a swarm of other similar dark figures: a dozen, a score—in front, behind, all about. Apparently from mother earth herself they had come, autochthonous. Almost unbelieving, the spectator blinked his eyes; then, as came swift understanding, instinctively he shielded the woman in his arms from the sight, from the knowledge. Not a sound came to his ears from over the prairie: not a single call for help. That black swarm simply arose, there was a brief, sharp struggle, almost fantastic through the curling heat waves; then one and all, the original dark figure, the score of others, disappeare d—as suddenly as though the earth from which they came had swallowed them up. Look as he might, the spectator could catch no glimpse of a moving object, except the green-brown grass carpet glistening under the afternoon sun.

Yet a moment longer the man stood so; then, his own face as pale as had been that of coward Hans Mueller, he leaned against the lintel of the door.

"Yes, we're too late now, Margaret," he echoed.