Trail's End

  CHAPTER XXI

  AS ONE THAT IS DEAD

  "I feel like I share his guilt," said Rhetta, voice sad as if she hadsuffered an irreparable loss.

  "He's not guilty," said Violet, stoutly, standing in his defense.

  Rhetta had fled from Ascalon that morning, following the terrible nightof Morgan's sanguinary baptism. Racked by an agony of mingled remorsefor her part in this tragedy and the loss of some valued thing which shewould not bring her heart to acknowledge, only moan over and weep, andbend her head to her pillow through that fevered night, she had takenhorse at sunrise and ridden to Stilwell's ranch, for the comfort ofViolet, whose sympathy was like balm to a bruise. Rhetta had comethrough the night strained almost to breaking. All day she had hiddenlike one crushed and shamed, in Stilwell's house, pouring out to Violetthe misery of her soul.

  Now, at night, she was calmer, the haunting terror of the scene whichrose up before her eyes was drawing off, like some frightful thing thathad stood a menace to her life. But she felt that it never would dimentirely from her recollection, that it must endure, a hideous picture,to sadden her days until the end.

  The two girls had gone to the river, where the moonlight softened thedesert-like scene of barren bars, and twinkled in the ripples of shallowwater which still ran over against the farther shore. They were sittingnear the spot where Morgan had laved his bruised feet in the river notmany nights past. A whippoorwill was calling in the tangle ofcottonwoods and grapevines that grew cool and dark on a little islandbelow them, its plaint as sad as the mourner's own stricken heart.

  "I begged him to give up the office and let things go," said Rhetta,pleading to mitigate her own blame, against whom no blame was laid.

  "You'd have despised him for it if he had," said Violet.

  "But he wouldn't do it, and now this has happened, and he's a man-killerlike the rest of them. Oh it's terrible to think about!"

  "Not like the rest of them," Violet corrected, in her firm, gentle way."He had to stand up like a man for what he was sworn to do, or run likea dog. Mr. Morgan wouldn't run. Right or wrong, he wouldn't run from anyman!"

  "No," said Rhetta, sadly, "he wouldn't run."

  "You talk like you wanted him to!"

  "I don't think I would," said Rhetta.

  "Then what _do_ you expect of a man?" impatiently. "If he stands up andfights he's either got to kill or be killed."

  "Don't--don't, Violet! It seems like killing is all I hear--the sound ofthose guns--I hear them all the time, I can't get them out of my ears!"

  "Suppose," said Violet, looking off across the runlet sparkling,gurgling like an infant across the bar, "it was him you saw when youlooked in there, instead of the others. You'd have been satisfied then,I suppose?"

  "Violet! how can you say such awful things!"

  "Well, somebody had to be killed. Do you suppose Mr. Morgan killed themjust for fun?"

  "They say, they were talking all over town that night--last night--andsaying the same thing this morning, that he didn't give them a show,that he just turned his rifle on them and killed them before he knewwhether they were going to shoot or not!"

  "Well, they lie," said Violet, with the calmness of conviction.

  "I suppose he had a right to do what he did, but he doesn't seem likethe same man to me now. I feel like I'd lost something--some friendshipthat I valued, I mean, Violet--you know what I mean."

  "I know as well as anything," said Violet, smiling to herself, headturned away, the moonlight on her good, kind face.

  "I feel like somebody had died, and that he--they--that he----"

  "And you ought to be thankful it isn't so!" said Violet, sharply, "but Idon't believe you are."

  "I never want to see him again, I'll always think of him standing therewith that terrible gun in his hands, those dead men around him on thefloor!"

  "You may have to go to him on your knees yet, and I hope to God you willRhetta Thayer!" Violet said.

  "If you'd seen somebody--somebody that you--that was--if you'd seen himlike I saw him, you wouldn't blame me so," Rhetta defended, beginningagain to cry, and bend her head upon her hands and moan like a motherwho had lost a child.

  Violet was moved out of her harshness at once. She put her arm aroundthe weeping girl, whose sorrow was too genuine to admit a doubt of itsgreat depth, and consoled her with soft words.

  "And he looked so big to me, and he was so _clean_, before that," Rhettawailed.

  "He's bigger than ever, he's as blameless as a lamb," said Violet."After a little while you'll see it different, he'll be the same toyou."

  "I couldn't touch his hand!" said Rhetta, shuddering at the thought.

  "Never mind," said Violet, soothingly; "never mind."

  Violet said no more, but took Rhetta by the hand, and it was wet withtears from her streaming cheeks. There was peace in the night aroundthem, for all the turmoil there might be in human hearts, for night hadeased the throbbing, drouth-cursed earth of its burning, and called thetrumpeters of the greenery out along the riverside.

  "I'm afraid he'll come," said Rhetta by and by.

  "Why should he come?" asked Violet, stroking back the other's hair.

  "He's got one of your horses--I'm afraid he'll come to bring it home."

  "You only hope he will," said Violet, in her assured, calm way.

  "Violet!" But there was not so much chiding in the word as a cry ofpain, a confession of despair. He would not come; and she knew he wouldnot come.