Trail's End
CHAPTER XIII
THE HAND OF THE LAW
The stars came out over a strange, silent, astonished, confounded,stupefied Ascalon that night. The wolf-howling of its revelry wasstilled, the clamor of its obscene diversions was hushed. It was as ifthe sparkling tent of the heavens were a great bowl turned over theplace, hushing its stridulous merriment, stifling its wild laughter anddry-throated feminine screams.
The windows of Peden's hall were dark, the black covers were drawn overthe gambling tables, the great bar stood in the gloom without one priestof alcohol to administer the hilarious rites across its glistening altarboards.
As usual, even more than usual, the streets around the public squarewere lively with people, coming and passing through the beams of lightfrom windows, smoking and talking and idling in groups, but there was nomovement of festivity abroad in the night, no yelping of departingrangers. It was as if the town had died suddenly, so suddenly that allwithin it were struck dumb by the event.
For the new city marshal, the interloper as many held him to be, thetall, solemn, long-stepping stranger who carried a rifle always readylike a man looking for a coyote, had put the lock of his prohibition oneverything within the town. Everything that counted, that is, in thevaluation of the proscribed, and the victims who came like ephemera onthe night wind to scorch and shrivel and be drained in their bright,illusive fires. The law long flouted, made a joke of, despised, had cometo Ascalon and laid hold of its alluring institutions with stern andparalyzing might.
Early in the first hours of his authority the new city marshal, ordeputy marshal, to be exact, had received from unimpeachable source, noless than a thick volume of the statutes, that the laws of the state ofKansas, which he had sworn to enforce, prohibited the sale ofintoxicating liquors; prohibited gambling and games of chance;interdicted the operation of immoral resorts--put a lock and key in hishand, in short, that would shut up the ribald pleasures of Ascalon likea tomb. As for the ordinances of the city, which he also had obligatedhimself to apply, Morgan had not found time to work down to them. Thereappeared to be authority in the thick volume Judge Thayer had lent himto last Ascalon a long time. If he should find himself running shortfrom that source, then the city ordinances could be drawn upon in theirtime and place.
Exclusive of the mighty Peden, the other traffickers in vice wereinconsequential, mere retailers, hucksters, peddlers in their way. Theywere as vicious as unquenchable fire, certainly, and numerous, butsmall, and largely under the patronage of the king of the proscribed,Peden of the hundred-foot bar.
And this Peden was a big, broad-chested, muscular man, whose neck roselike a mortised beam out of his shoulders, straight with the back of hishead. His face was handsome in a bold, shrewd mold, but dark as if hisblood carried the taint of a baser race. He went about always dressed ina long frock coat, with no vest to obscure the spread of his white shirtfront; low collar, with narrow black tie done in exact bow;broad-brimmed white sombrero tilted back from his forehead, a cigar thatalways seemed fresh under his great mustache.
This mustache, heavy, black, was the one sinister feature of the man'sotherwise rather open and confidence-winning face. It was a cloud thatmore than half obscured the nature of the man, an ambush where hispassions and dark subterfuges lay concealed.
Peden had met the order to close his doors with smiling loftiness, easyunderstanding of what he read it to mean. Astonished to find his offerof money silently and sternly ignored, Peden had grown contemptuouslydefiant. If it was a bid for him to raise the ante, Morgan was startingoff on a lame leg, he said. Ten dollars a night was as much as thefriendship of any man that ever wore the collar of the law was worth tohim. Take it or leave it, and be cursed to him, with embellishments ofprofanity and debasement of language which were new and astonishing evento Morgan's sophisticated ears. Peden turned his back to the new officerafter drenching him down with this deluge of abuse, setting his faceabout the business of the night.
And there self-confident defiance, fattened a long time on the beliefthat law was a thing to be sneered down, met inflexible resolution. Thesubstitute city marshal had a gift of making a few words go a long way;Peden put out his lights and locked his doors. In the train of hisdarkness others were swallowed. Within two hours after nightfall thetown was submerged in gloom.
Threats, maledictions, followed Morgan as he walked the round of thepublic square, rifle ready for instant use, pistol on his thigh. And theblessing of many a mother whose sons and daughters stood at the perilouscrater of that infernal pit went out through the dark after him, also;and the prayers of honest folk that no skulking coward might shoot himdown out of the shelter of the night.
Even as they cursed him behind his back, the outlawed sneered at Morganand the new order that seemed to threaten the world-wide fame ofAscalon. It was only the brief oppression of transient authority, theysaid; wait till Seth Craddock came back and you would see this rangewolf throw dust for the timber.
They spoke with great confidence and kindling pleasure of Seth's return,and the amusing show that would attend his resumption of authority. Forit was understood that Seth would not come alone. Peden, it was said,had attended to that already by telegraph. Certain handy gun-slingerswould come with him from Kansas City and Abilene, friends of Peden whohad made reputations and had no scruples about maintaining them.
As the night lengthened this feeling of security, of pleasurableanticipation, increased. This little break in its life would do the towngood; things would whirl away with recharged energy when the doors wereopened again. Money would simply accumulate in the period of stagnationto be thrown into the mill with greater abandon than before by thefools who stood around waiting for the show to resume.
And the spectacle of seeing Seth Craddock drive this simpleton clearover the edge of the earth would be a diversion that would compensatefor many empty days. That alone would be a thing worth waiting for, theysaid.
Time began to walk in slack traces, the heavy wain of night at its slowheels, for the dealers and sharpers, mackerels and frail, spangled womento whom the open air was as strange as sunlight to an earthworm. Theypassed from malediction and muttered threat against the man who hadbrought this sudden change in their accustomed lives, to a state ofindignant rebellion as they milled round the square and watched himtramp his unending beat.
A little way inside the line of hitching racks Morgan walked, away fromthe thronged sidewalk, in the clear where all could see him and a shotfrom some dark window would not imperil the life of another. Around andaround the square he tramped in the dusty, hoof-cut street, keeping hisown counsel, unspeaking and unspoken to, the living spirit of the mightylaw.
It was a high-handed piece of business, the bleached men and kalsominedwomen declared, as they passed from the humor of contemplating SethCraddock's return to fretful chafing against the restraint of thepresent hour. How did it come that one man could lord it over a wholetown of free and independent Americans that way? Why didn't somebodytake a shot at him? Why didn't they defy him, go and open the doors andlet this thirsty, money-padded throng up to the gambling tables andbars?
They asked to be told what had become of the manhood of Ascalon, andasked it with contempt. What was the fame of the town based upon but abluff when one man was able to shut it up as tight as a trunk, and strutaround that way adding the insult of his tyrannical presence to the actof his oppressive hand. There were plenty of questions and suggestions,but nobody went beyond them.
The moon was in mid-heaven, untroubled by a veil of cloud; the day windwas resting under the edge of the world, asleep. Around and around thepublic square this sentinel of the new moral force that had laid itshand over Ascalon tramped the white road. Rangers from far cow camps,disappointed of their night's debauch, began to mount and ride away,turning in their saddles as they went for one more look at the lonesentry who was a regiment in himself, indeed.
The bleached men began to yawn, the medicated women to slip away. Goodcitizens who had watched in
anxiety, fearful that this rash champion ofthe new order would find a bullet between his shoulders before midnight,began to breathe easier and seek their beds in a strange state ofsecurity. Ascalon was shut up; the howling of its wastrels was stilled.It was incredible, but true.
By midnight the last cowboy had gone galloping on his long ride to carrythe news of Ascalon's eclipse over the desolate gray prairie; an hourlater the only sign of life in the town was the greasy light of theSanta Fe cafe, where a few lingering nondescripts were supping on coveoyster stew. These came out at last, to stand a little while likestranded mariners on a lonesome beach watching for a rescuing sail, thenparted and went clumping their various ways over the rattling boardwalks.
Morgan stopped at the pump in the square to refresh himself with adrink. A dog came and lapped out of the trough, stood a little whilewhen its thirst was satisfied, turning its head listening, as though itmissed something out of the night. It trotted off presently, in anglinggait like a ferry boat making a crossing against an outrunning tide. Itwas the last living thing on the streets of the town but the weary citymarshal, who stood with hat off at the pump to feel the cool wind thatcame across the sleeping prairie before the dawn.
At that same hour another watcher turned from her open window, where shehad sat a long time straining into the silence that blessed the town.She had been clutching her heart in the dread of hearing a shot, full ofupbraidings for the peril she had thrust upon this chivalrous man. Forhe would not have assumed the office but for her solicitation, she knewwell. She stretched out her hand into the moonlight as if she wafted himher benediction for the peace he had brought, a great, glad surge ofsomething more tender than gratitude in her warm young bosom.
In a little while she came to the window again, when the moonlight wasslanting into it, and stood leaning her hands on the sill, her dark haircoming down in a cloud over her white night dress. She strained againinto the quiet night, listening, and listening, smiled. Then she stoodstraight, touched finger tips to her lips and waved away a kiss into themoonlight and the little timid awakening wind that came out of the eastlike a young hare before the dawn.