Trail's End

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE MEAT HUNTER COMES

  The few courageous and hopeful ones who remained loyal to Morgan weresomewhat assured, the doubtful ones agitated a bit more in theirindecision, when he appeared on horseback a little past the turn of day.These latter people, whose courage had leaked out overnight, now beganto weigh again their business interests and personal safety in thebalance of their wavering judgment.

  Morgan, on horseback, looked like a lucky man; they admitted that. Muchmore lucky, indeed, than he had appeared that morning when he wentlimping around the square. It was a question whether to come over to hisside again, openly and warmly, or to hold back until he proved himselfto be as lucky as he looked. A man might as well nail up his door andleave town as fall under the disfavor of Seth Craddock. So, while theywavered, they were still not quite convinced.

  Prominent among the business men who had revised their attitude onreform as the shadow of Seth Craddock approached Ascalon was Earl Gray,the druggist, one of the notables on Dora Conboy's waiting list.Druggist Gray was a man who wore bell-bottomed trousers and a moleskinvest without a coat. His hair had a fetching crinkle to it, which heprized above all things in bottles and out, and wore long, like the manon the label.

  There was so much hair about Mr. Gray, counting mustache and all, thathis face and body seemed drained and attenuated by the contribution ofsustenance to keep the adornment flourishing in its brown abundance. ForGray was a tall, thin, bony-kneed man, with long flat feet like wedgesof cheese. His eyes were hollow and melancholy, as if he bore a sorrow;his nose was high and bony, and bleak in his sharp, thin-cheeked face.

  Gray expressed himself openly to the undertaker, in whom he found acautious, but warm supporter of his views. There would be fevers andills with Ascalon closed up, Gray said he knew very well, just as therewould be deaths and burials in the natural course of events under thesame conditions. But there would be neither patches for the broken,stitches for the cut nor powders for the headaches of debauchery calledfor then as now; and all the burying there would be an undertaker mightdo under his thumb nail.

  They'd go to drugging themselves with boneset tea, and mullein tea, andbitter-root powders and wahoo bark, said Gray. Likewise, they'd turn toburying one another, after the ways of pioneers, who were as resourcefulin deaths and funerals as in drugs and fomentations. Pioneers, such aswould be left in that country after Morgan had shut Ascalon up anddriven away those who were dependent on one another for their skinningand fleecing, filching and plundering, did not lean on any man. Such ascame there to plow up the prairies would be of the same stuff,rough-barked men and women who called in neither doctor to be born norundertaker to be buried.

  It was a gloomy outlook, the town closed up and everybody gone, saidGray. What would a man do with his building, what would a man do withhis stock?

  "Maybe Craddock ain't no saint and angel, but he makes business in thistown," said Gray.

  "Makes business!" the undertaker echoed, with abstraction and lookingfar away as if he already saw the train of oncoming, independent,self-burying pioneers over against the horizon.

  "If this feller's luck don't go ag'in' him, you might as well ship allyour coffins away but one--they'll need one to bury the town in. What doyou think of him ridin' around the depot down there, drawin' a deadlinethat no man ain't goin' to be allowed to cross till the one-twenty pullsout? Kind of high-handed deal, I call it!"

  "I've got a case of shrouds comin' in by express on that train, twocases layin' in my place waitin' on 'em," the undertaker said,resentfully, waking out of his abstraction and apparent apathy.

  "_You_ have!" said Gray, eying him suddenly.

  "He stopped me as I was goin' over to wait around till the train comein, drove me back like I was a cow. He said it didn't make no differencehow much business I had at the depot, it would have to wait till thetrain was gone. When a citizen and a taxpayer of this town can't evencross the road like a shanghai rooster, things is comin' to a hell of apass!"

  "Well, I ain't got no business at the depot this afternoon, or I bet youa cracker I'd be over there," Gray boasted. "I think I'll close up awhile and go down to the hotel where I can see better--it's only fortyminutes till she's due."

  "Might as well, everybody's down there. You won't sell as much as a packof gum till the train's gone and this thing's off of people's minds."

  Gray went in for his hat, to spend a good deal of time at the glassbehind his prescription case setting it at the most seductive slant uponhis luxuriant brown curls. This was an extremely enticing small hat,just a shade lighter brown than the druggist's wavy hair. It looked likea cork in a bottle placed by a tipsy hand as Druggist Gray passed downthe street toward the hotel, to post himself where he might see how wellMorgan's luck was going to hold in this encounter with the meat hunterof the Cimarron.

  As the undertaker had said, nearly everybody in Ascalon was alreadycollected in front and in the near vicinity of the hotel, fringing thesquare in gay-splotched crowds. Beneath the canopy of the Elkhorn hotelmany were assembled, as many indeed, as could conveniently stand, forthat bit of shade was a blessing on the sun-parched front of Ascalon'sbleak street.

  Business was generally suspended in this hour of uncertainty, publicfeeling was drawn as tight as a banjo head in the sun. In the courthousethe few officials and clerks necessary to the county's business were atthe windows looking upon the station, all expecting a tragedy of suchstirring dimensions as Ascalon never had witnessed.

  The stage was set, the audience was in waiting, one of the principalactors stood visible in the wings. With the rush of the passenger trainfrom the east Seth Craddock would make his dramatic entry, in true colorwith his violent notoriety and prominence in the cast.

  Unless friends came with Craddock, these two men would hold the stagefor the enactment of that swift drama alone. Morgan, silent, determined,inflexible, had drawn his line around the depot, across which no mandared to pass. No friend of Craddock should meet him for support ofwarning word or armed hand; no innocent one should be jeopardized by acuriosity that might lead to death.

  The moving question now was, had Peden's gun-notable friends joinedCraddock? If so, it would call for a vast amount of luck to overcometheir combined numbers and dexterity.

  Morgan was troubled by this same question as he waited in the saddlewhere the sun bore hot upon him at the side of the station platform.About there, at that point, the station agent had told him, thesmoking-car would stand when the train came to a stop, the engine at thewater tank. When Craddock came down out of the train, would he comealone?

  Morgan was mounted on the horse borrowed from Stilwell, an agile younganimal, tractable and intelligent. A yellow slicker was rolled and tiedat the cantle of the saddle; at the horn a coil of brown rope hung,pliant and smooth from much use upon the range among cattle. Morgan'srifle was slung on the saddle in its worn scabbard, its battered stock,from which the varnish had gone long ago in the hard usage of manyyears, close to the rider's hand.

  It needed no announcement of wailing whistle or clanging bell to tellAscalon of the approach of a train from the east. In that direction thefall of the land toward the Arkansas River began many miles distant fromthe town, seeming to blend downward from a great height which dimmed outin blue haze against the horizon. A little way along this high pitch ofland, before it turned down the grade that led into the river valley,the railroad ran transversely.

  The moment a train mounted this land's edge and swept along the straighttransverse section of track, it was in full sight of Ascalon, day ornight, except in stormy weather, although many miles away. A man stillhad ample time to shine his shoes, pack his valise, put on his collarand coat--if he wore them--walk to the depot and buy his ticket, afterthe train came in sight on top of this distant hill.

  Once the train headed straight for Ascalon it dropped out of sight, andone unused to the trend of things might wonder if it had gone off onanother line. Presently it would appear again, laboring up
out of a dip,rise the intervening billow of land, small as a toy that one could holdin the hand, and sink out of sight again. This way it approachedAscalon, now promising, now denying, drawing into plainer sight withevery rise.

  On this particular afternoon when the sun-baked people of Ascalon stoodwaiting in such tensity of expectation that their minds were ready tocrack like the dry, contracting earth beneath their feet, it seemed thatnature had laid off that land across which the railroad ran with thesole view of adding to the dramatic value of Seth Craddock's entry inthis historic hour. Certainly art could not have devised a moreeffective means of whetting the anxiety, straining the suspense, thanthis.

  When the train first came in sight over the hill there was a murmur, amovement of feet as people shifted to points believed to be moreadvantageous for seeing the coming drama; watches clicked, commentspassed on the exactness to the schedule; breaths were drawn with freshtingling of hope, or falling of doubt and despair.

  Morgan was watching that far skyline for the first smoke, for the firstgleam of windows in the sun as the train swept round the curve headingfor a little while into the north. He noted the murmur and movement ofthe watchers as it came in sight; wondered if any breast but one wasagitated by a pang of friendly concern, wondered if any hand loosedweapon in its sheath to strike in his support if necessity should callfor such intervention. He knew that Rhetta Thayer stood in the shade ofthe bank with her father and others; he was cheered by the support ofher presence to witness his triumph or fall.

  Now, as the train swept into the first obscuring swale, Morgan rodearound the depot again to see that none had slipped through either inmalice or curiosity. Only the station agent was in sight, pulling atruck with three trunks on it to the spot where he estimated thebaggage-car would stop. Morgan rode back again to take his stand at thepoint where arrivals by train crossed from depot into town. His lefthand was toward the waiting crowd, kept back by his injunction fiftyyards or more from the station; his right toward the track on which thetrain would come.

  Conversation in the crowd fell away. Peden, garbed in his long coat, wasseen shouldering through in front of the hotel, the nearest point to theset and waiting stage. As always, Peden wore a pistol strapped about himon ornate belt, the holster carrying the weapon under the skirt of hiscoat. His presence on the forward fringe of the crowd seemed to many asan upraised hand to strike the waiting horseman in the back.

  Morgan saw Peden when he came and took his stand there, and saw othersin his employ stationed along the front of the line. He believed theywere there to throw their weight on Craddock's beam of the balance themoment they should see him outmastered and outweighed.

  Because he mistrusted these men, because he did not know, indeed,whether there was a man among all those who had pledged their moralsupport who would lift a hand to aid him even if summoned to do so,Morgan kept his attention divided, one eye on the signs and portents ofthe crowd, one on keeping the depot platform clear.

  Morgan did not know whether even Judge Thayer and the men who hadguarded the bank with him would risk one shot in his defense if theoutlawed forces should sweep forward and overwhelm him. He doubted itvery much. It was well enough to delegate this business to a stranger,one impartial between the lines, but they could not be expected to turntheir weapons on their fellow-townsmen and depositors in the bank, nomatter how their money came, no matter how much the law might lack anupholding hand.

  The train came clattering over the switch, safety valve roaring, bellringing as gaily as if arriving in Ascalon were a joyous event in itsday. Conductor and brakeman stood on the steps ready to swing to theplatform; the express messenger lolled with bored weariness in the doorof his car, scorning the dangerous notoriety of the town by exposing tothe eye all the boxed treasure that it contained. Passengers crowdedplatforms, leaning and looking, ready to alight for a minute, so theymight be able to relate the remainder of their lives how they braved theperils of Ascalon one time and came out unsinged.

  A movement went over the watching people of the town, assembled alongits business front, as wind ripples suddenly a field of grain. Nobodyhad breath for a word; dry lips were pressed tightly in the varyingemotions of hope, fear, expectancy, desire. Morgan was seen to be busyfor a moment with something about his saddle; it was thought he wasdrawing his rifle out of its case.

  Nearly opposite where Morgan waited, the first coach of the trainstopped. Instantly, like children freed from school, the eagerpassengers poured off for their adventurous breath of this most wickedtown's intoxicating air. Morgan's whole attention was now fixed on themovement around the train. He shifted his horse to face that way,risking what might develop behind him, one hand engaged with the bridlerein, the other seemingly dropped carelessly on his thigh.

  And in that squaring of expectation, that pause of breathless waiting,Seth Craddock descended from the smoking-car, his alpaca coat carried inthe crook of his left elbow, his right hand lingering a moment on theguard of the car step. The hasty ones who had waited on the car platformwere down ahead of him, standing a little way from the steps; others whowanted to get off came pressing behind him, in their ignorance that theywere handling a bit of Ascalon's most infernal furnishing, pushing himout into the timid crowd of their fellows.

  A moment Craddock stood, taller than the tallest there, sweeping hisquick glance about for signs of the expected hostility, the trinkets ofsilver on the band of his costly new sombrero shining in the sun. Thenhe came striding among the gaping passengers, like a man stalking amongtall weeds, something unmistakably expressive of disdain in hiscarriage.

  There he paused again, and put on his coat, plainly mystified andtroubled by the absence of townspeople from the depot, and the sight ofthem lined up across the square as if they waited a circus parade. Allthat he saw between himself and that fringe of puzzling, silent peoplewas a cowboy sitting astraddle of his bay horse at the end of thestation platform.

  And as Craddock started away from the crowd of curious passengers whowere whispering and speculating behind him, pointing him out to eachother, wondering what notable he might be; as Craddock started down theplatform away from there, the voice of the conductor warning all toclamber aboard, the waiting cowboy tightened the reins a little, causinghis horse to prick up its ears and start with a thrill of expectancywhich the rider could feel ripple over its smooth hide under thepressure of his knees.

  Craddock came on down the platform, turning his head on his long neck inthe way of a man entirely mystified and suspicious, alone, unsupportedby even as much as the shadow of a strange gun-slinger or local friend.

  What was passing through the fellow's head Morgan could pretty wellguess. There was a little break of humor in it, for all the tight-drawnnerves, for all the chance, for all the desperation of the gatheringmoment. The grim old killer couldn't make out whether it was throughadmiration of him the people had gathered to welcome him home, or inexpectation of something connected with the arrival of the train. Tworods or so from where Morgan waited him, Craddock stopped to look backat the train, now gathering slow headway, and around the desertedplatform, down which the station agent came dragging a mail sack.

  It was when he turned again from this suspicious questioning into thingswhich gave him back no reply, that Craddock recognized the hithertounsuspected cowboy. In a start he stiffened to action, flinging hand tohis pistol. But a heartbeat quicker, like a flash of sunbeam from amirror, the coiled rope flew out from Morgan's high-flung arm.

  As the swift-running noose settled over Craddock's body, the horseleaped at the pressure of its rider's knees. Craddock fired as theflying rope snatched him from his feet, the noose binding his armsimpotently to his sides; in his rage he fired again and again as hedragged in ludicrous tangle of long, thrashing legs from the platforminto the dust.

  There, in a cloud of obscuring dust from the trampled road, the horseholding the line taut, Morgan flung from the saddle in the nimble way ofa range man, bent over the fallen slayer of men a little while
. When thefirst of the crowd came breaking across the broad space intervening anddrew up panting and breathless in admiration of the bold thing they hadwitnessed, Seth Craddock lay hog-tied and harmless on the ground, onepistol a few feet from where he struggled in his ropes, the other in theholster at his side.

  And there came Judge Thayer, in his capacity as mayor, officious andradiant, proud and filled with a new feeling of safety and importance,and took the badge of office from Craddock's breast, in all haste, as ifit were the most important act in this spectacular triumph, thisbloodless victory over a bloody man.