Trail's End

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE CURSE OF BLOOD

  Sensitive as a barometer to every variation, every shading, in publicsentiment and sympathy, Morgan patroled the town nightly until thestreets were deserted. Night by night he felt, rather than saw, thegrowing insolence of the pale feeders on the profits of vice, theconfidence in some approaching triumph gleaming in their furtive eyes.

  None of the principals, few of the attendant vultures, had left Ascalon.The sheriff had returned from his excursion after cattle thieves, and,contrary to the expectation of anybody, had brought one lean and hungry,hound-faced man with him and locked him up in jail.

  But the sheriff was taking no part in the new city marshal's campaign inthe town, certainly not to help him. If he worked against him in the wayhis fat, big-jowled face proclaimed that it was his habit to work, noevidence of it was in his manner when he met Morgan. He was a friendly,puffy-handed man, loud in his hail and farewell to the riders who camein from the far-off cow camps to see for themselves this wide-heraldedreformation of the godless town of Ascalon.

  These visitors, lately food for the mills of the place, walked about ascuriously as fowls liberated in a strange yard after long confinement ina coop. They looked with uncomprehending eyes on the closed doors ofPeden's famous temple of excesses; they turned respectful eyes on Morganas he passed them in his silent, determined rounds. And presently, aftermeeting the white-shirted, coatless dealers, lookout men, _macquereaux_,they began to have a knowing look, an air of expectant hilarity. After alittle they usually mounted and rode away, laughing among themselveslike men who carried cheerful tidings to sow upon the way.

  In that manner Ascalon remained closed five nights, nobody contestingthe authority of the new marshal, not a shot fired in the streets. Onthe afternoon of the sixth day an unusual tide of visitors began to setin to this railroad port of Ascalon. By sundown the hitching rack aroundthe square was packed with horses; Dora Conboy told Morgan she never hadwaited on so many people before in her hotel experience.

  At dusk Morgan brought his horse from the livery stable, mounted withhis rifle under the crook of his knee. At nine o'clock Peden threw openhis doors, the small luminaries which led a dim existence in hiseffulgence following suit, all according to their preconcerted plan.

  There was a shout and a break of wild laughter, a scramble for the longbar with its five attendants working with both hands; a scrape offiddles and a squall of brass; a squeaking of painted and bedizeneddrabs, who capered and frisked like mice after their long inactivity.And on the inflow of custom and the uprising of jubilant mirth, Pedenturned his quick, crafty eyes as he stood at the head of the bar towelcome back to his doors this golden stream.

  Close within Peden's wide door, one on either hand, two vigilantstrangers stood, each belted with two revolvers, each keeping a handnear his weapons. One of these was a small, thin-faced white rat of aman; the other tall, lean, leathery; burned by sun, roughened byweather. A shoot from the tree that produced Seth Craddock he might havebeen, solemn like him, and grim.

  Dell Hutton, county treasurer, cigar planted so far to one corner of hiswide thin mouth that wrinkles gathered about it like the leathery foldsof an old man's skin, came to Peden where he stood at the bar.

  "All's set for him," he said, drawing his eyes small as he peered aroundthrough the fast-thickening smoke.

  "Let him come!" said Peden, watching the door with expectant, vindictiveeyes.

  The news of Peden's defiance swept over the town like a taint on thewind. Not only that Peden had opened his doors to the long-thirstingcrowd gathered by the advertised news of a big show for that night, butthat he had posted two imported gun-fighters inside his hall withinstructions to shoot the city marshal if he attempted to interfere.With the spread of this news men began to gather in front of Peden's tosee what the city marshal was going to do, how he would accept thisdefiance, if he meant to accept it, and what the result to him would be.

  Judge Thayer came down to the square without his alpaca coat, hisperturbation was so great, looking for Morgan, talking of swearing in alarge number of deputies to uphold the law.

  This was received coldly by the men of Ascalon. Upholding the law wasthe city marshal's business, they said. If he couldn't do it alone, letthe law drag; let it fall underfoot, where it seemed the best place forit in that town, anyhow. So Judge Thayer went on, looking around thesquare for Morgan, not finding him, nor anybody who had seen him withinthe last half hour.

  Rhetta was working late in the _Headlight_ office, preparing for theweekly issue of the paper. This disquieting news had come in at her doorlike the wave of a flood. She had no thought of work from that moment,only to stand at the door listening for the dreaded sound of shootingfrom the direction of Peden's hall.

  Judge Thayer found her standing in the door when he completed his searcharound the square, his heart falling lower at every step.

  "He's gone! Morgan's deserted us!" he said.

  "Gone!" she repeated in high scorn. "He'll be the last to go."

  "I can't find him anywhere--I've hunted all over town. Nobody has seenhim. I tell you, Rhetta, he's gone."

  "I wish to heaven he would go! What right have we got to ask him to givehis life to stop the mean, miserable squabbles of this suburb of hell!"

  "I think you'd better run along home now--Riley will go with you. Why,child, you're cold!"

  He drew her into the office, urging her to put on her bonnet and go.

  "I'll stay here and see it out," she said. "Oh, if he would go, if hewould go! But he'll never go."

  She threw herself into the chair beside her littered desk, handsclenched, face white as if she bore a mortal pain, only to leap up againin a moment, run to the door, and listen as if she sought a voice out ofthe riotous sound.

  Judge Thayer had none of this poignant concern for Morgan's welfare. Hewas not a little nettled over his failure to find the marshal, and thatofficer's apparent shunning of duty in face of this mocking challenge tohis authority.

  "Why, Rhetta, you wanted him to take the office, you urged him to," hereminded her. "I don't understand this sudden concern for the man'ssafety in disregard of his oath and duty, this--this--unaccountable----"

  "I didn't know him then--I didn't _know_ him!" she said, in piteous lowmoan.

  Judge Thayer looked at her with a sudden sharp turning of the head, asif her words had expressed something beyond their apparent meaning. Hecame slowly to the door, where he stood beside her a little while insilence, hand upon her shoulder tenderly.

  "I'll look around again," he said, "and come back in a little while."

  Meanwhile, in Peden's place the celebrants at the altar of alcohol wererejoicing in this triumph of personal liberty. Where was this man-eatingcity marshal? What had become of that knock-kneed horse wrangler fromBitter Creek they had heard so much about? They drank fiery toasts tohis confusion, they challenged him in the profane emphasis of scorn.Upon what was his fame based? they wanted to be told. The merecorraling of certain stupid drunk men; the lucky throw of a rope. _He_never had killed a man!

  With the mounting of their hastily swilled liquor the hilarious patronsof Peden's hall became more contemptuous of the city marshal. Hisapparent avoidance of trouble, his unaccountable absence, his failure tostep up and meet this challenge from Peden, became a grievance againsthim in their inflamed heads.

  They had counted on him to make some kind of a bluff, to add somethingeither of tragedy or comedy to this big show. Now he was hiding out, andthey resented it in the proper spirit of men deprived of their rights.They began to talk of going out to find him, of dragging him from hishole and starting a noise behind him that would scare him out of thecountry.

  Peden encouraged this growing notion. If Morgan wouldn't bring his showthere, go after him and make him stand on his hind legs like a dog.After a few more drinks, after a dance, after another stake on theall-devouring tables of chance. They turned to these diversions in thezest of long abstinence, in the redu
ndant vitality of youth, mocking allrestraint, insolent of any reckoning of circumstance or time.

  Peden distended with satisfaction to see the free spending, the freeflinging of money into his games. A little virtuous recess seemed to beprofitable; it was like giving a horse a rest. His two guards waited atthe door, his lookout at the faro table swept the hall from his highchair with eyes keen to mark any hostile invasion. Morgan never couldcome six feet inside his door.

  Well satisfied with himself and the beginning of that night's business,exceedingly comfortable in the thought that this defiance of the lawwould bring a newer and wider notoriety to himself and the town of whichhe was the spirit, Peden sauntered among the boisterous merrymakers onhis floor.

  Dancers were worming and shuffling in close embrace, couples breakingout of the whirl now and then to rush to the bar; players stood deeparound the tables; men reached over each other's shoulders to take theirdrinks from the bar. All was haste and hilarity, all a crowding ofpleasure with hard-pursuing feet, a snatching at the elusive thing withrough boisterous hands, with loud laughter, with wild yells.

  Pleasure, indeed, seemed on the flight before these coarse revelers, whopursued it blindfold down the steeps of destruction unaware.

  Peden shouldered his way through the throng toward the farther end ofthe long bar, nodding here with a friendly smile, stopping now and thento shake hands with some specially favored patron, throwing commandsamong his female entertainers from his cold, hard, soulless eyes as hepassed along.

  And in that sociable progression down his thronging hall, ten feet fromthe farther end of his famous bar, Peden came face to face with Morgan,as grim as judgment among the crowd of wastrels and women of poisonedlips, who fell back in breathless silence to let him pass.

  Morgan was carrying his rifle; his pistol hung at his side. The bigshield of office once worn by Seth Craddock was pinned on the pocket ofhis shirt; his broad-brimmed hat threw a shadow over his stern face.

  Peden stopped with a little start of withdrawal at sight of Morgan,surprised out of his poise, chilled, perhaps, at the thought of the longpistol shot between this unexpected visitor and the hired killers at hisfront door, the way between them blocked by a hundred revelers.

  So, this was the cunning of this range wolf, to come in at his back doorand fall upon him in surprise! Peden's resentment rose in that second ofreflection with the dull fire that spread in his dark face. He flung hishand to his revolver, throwing aside the skirt of his long coat.

  "Let your gun stay where it is," Morgan quietly advised him. "Get thesepeople out of here, and close this place."

  "Show me your authority!" Peden demanded, scouting for a moment ofprecious time.

  The musicians in the little orchestra pit behind Morgan ceased playingon a broken note, the shuffle of dancing feet stopped short. Up the longbar the loud hilarity quieted; across the hall the clash of pool ballscut sharply into the sudden stillness. As quickly as wind makes a riftin smoke the revelers fell away from Morgan and Peden, leaving a fairwayfor the shooting they expected to begin at the door. Peden stood as hehad stopped, hand upon his gun.

  Morgan stepped up to him in one long, quick stride, rifle muzzle closeagainst Peden's broad white shirt front. In that second of hesitantdelay, that breath of portentous bluff, Morgan had read Peden to theroots. A man who had it in him to shoot did not stop at anybody's wordwhen he was that far along the way.

  "Clear this place and lock it up!" Morgan repeated.

  The temperature of the crowded hall seemed to fall forty degrees in thesecond or two Morgan stood pushing his rifle against Peden's breastbone.Those who had talked with loud boasts, picturesque threats, high-pitchedlaughter, of going out to find this man but a little while before, weresilent now and cold around the gills as fish.

  Morgan was watching the two men at the front door while he held Peden upthose few seconds. He knew there was no use in disarming Peden, to turnhim loose where he could get fifty guns in the next two seconds if hewanted them. He believed, in truth, there was not much to fear from thisfellow, who depended on his hired retainers to do his killing for him.So, when Peden, watching Morgan calculatively, shifted a little to gethimself out of line so he would not stand a barrier between hisgun-slingers and their target and longer block the opening of operationsto clear the hall of this upstart, Morgan let him go. Then, with asudden bound, Peden leaped across into the crowd.

  A moment of strained waiting, quiet as the empty night, Morgan standingout a fair target for any man who had the nerve to pull a gun. Then astampede in more of sudden fear than caution by those lined up alongthe bar, and the two hired killers at the front of the house began toshoot.

  Morgan pitched back on his heels as if mortally hit, staggered, thrustone foot out to stay his fall. He stood bracing himself in that mannerwith out-thrust foot, shooting from the hip.

  Three shots he fired, the roar of his rifle loud above the lighter soundof the revolvers. With the third shot Morgan raised his gun. In thesmoke that was settling to the floor the taller of the gunmen laystretched upon his face. The other, arms rigidly at his sides, held alittle way from his body, head drooping to his chest, turned dizzily twoor three times, spinning swiftly in his dance of death, gave at theknees, settled down gently in a strange, huddled heap.

  Dead. Both of them dead. The work of one swift moment when the bloodcurse fell on this new, quick-handed marshal of Ascalon.

  There was a choking scream, and a woman's cry. "Look out! look out!"

  Peden, on the fringe of a crowd of shrinking, great-eyed women, ghastlyin the painted mockery of their fear, fired as Morgan turned. Morganblessed the poor creature who was woman enough in her debauched heart tocry out that warning, as the breath of Peden's bullet brushed his face.Morgan could not defend himself against this assault, for the cowardstood with one shoulder still in the huddling knot of women, and firedagain. Morgan dropped to the floor, prone on his face as the dead manbehind him.

  Peden came one cautious step from his shelter, leaning far over to see,a smile of triumph baring his gleaming teeth; another step, while thecrowd broke the stifling quiet with shifted feet. Morgan, quick as aserpent strikes, raised to his elbow and fired.

  Morgan had one clear look at Peden's face as he threw his arms high andfell. Surprise, which death, swift in its coming had not yet overtaken,bulged out of his eyes. Surprise: no other emotion expressed in thatlast look upon this life. And Peden lay dead upon his own floor, his hatfallen aside, his arms stretched far beyond his head, his white cuffspulled out from his black coat sleeves, as if he appealed for the mercythat was not ever for man or woman in his own cold heart.