Trail's End
CHAPTER XXV
A SUMMONS AT SUNRISE
Three horses were standing in Stilwell's yard, bridle reins on theground, as three horses had stood on the morning that Morgan first foundhis tortured way to that hospitable door. In the house the Stilwellfamily and Morgan were at breakfast, attended by Violet, who bore onbiscuits and ham to go with the coffee that sent its cheer out throughthe open door as if to find a traveler and lead him to refreshment.Behind the cottonwoods along the river, sunrise was about to break.
"I'm gittin' so I can't wake up of a morning when I sleep in a house,"Stilwell complained, his broad face radiating humor. "I guess I'll haveto take the blankets ag'in, old lady."
"I guess you can afford to sleep till half-past three in the morningonce in a while," Mrs. Stilwell said complacently. "Why, Mr. Morgan,that man didn't sleep under a roof once a month the first five or sixyears we were on this range! He just laid out like a coyote anywherenight overtook him, watchin' them cattle like they were children. Now,what's come of it!"
This last bitter note, ranging back to their recent loss from Texasfever, took the cheer out of Stilwell's face. A brooding cloud came overit; his merry chaff was stilled.
"Yes, and Drumm'll pay for them eight hundred head of stock he killedfor us, if I have to trail him to his hole in Texas!" Fred declared."Suit or no suit, that man's goin' to pay."
"I don't like to hear you talk that way, honey," his mother chided.
"Suit!" Fred scoffed; "what does that man care about a suit? He'll nevershow his head in this country any more, the next drive he makes he'llload west of here and we'll never know anything about it. There's justone way to fix a man like him, and I know the receipt that'll cure _his_hide!"
"If he ever drives another head of stock into this state I'll hear ofit, and I'll attach him. It'll be four or five years before therailroad's built down into that country, he'll have to drive here ornowheres. I'll set right here on this range till he comes."
"Did the rain strike any of your range?" Morgan inquired, eager to turnthem away from this gloomy matter of loss and revenge.
"Yes, we got a good soakin' over the biggest part of it. Plenty of waternow, grass jumpin' up like spring. It's the purtiest country, Cal, a manever set eyes on after a rain."
"And in the spring," said Mrs. Stilwell, wistfully.
"And when the wild roses bloom along in May," said Violet. "There's noplace in the world as pretty as this country then."
"I believe you," Morgan told them, nodding his head in undivided assent."Even dry as it is around Ascalon and that country north, it gets holdof a man."
"You buy along on the river here somewhere, Cal, and put in a nicelittle herd. It won't take you long to make a start, and a good start.This country ain't begun to see the cattle it will----"
"Somebody comin'," said Violet, running to the door to see, a plate ofhot biscuits in her hand.
"Seems to be in a hurry for this early in the day," Stilwell commented,listening to the approach of a galloping horse. He was not muchinterested; horsemen came and went past that door at all hours of theday and night, generally in a gallop.
"It's Rhetta!" Violet announced from the door, turning hurriedly to putthe plate of biscuits on the table, where it stood before unheedingeyes.
"Rhetta?" Mrs. Stilwell repeated, getting up in excitement. "I wonderwhat----"
Rhetta was at the door, the dust of her arrival making her indistinct tothose who hurried from the unfinished breakfast to learn the cause ofthis precipitous visit. Morgan saw her leaning from the saddle, herloosely confined hair half falling down.
"Is Mr. Morgan here?" she inquired.
The girl's voice trembled, her breath came so hard Morgan could hear itssuspiration where he stood. It was evident that she labored under atremendous strain of anxiety, arising out of a trouble that Morgan wasat no loss to understand. Yet he remained in the background as Stilwelland Fred crowded to the door.
"Why, Rhetty! what's happened?" Stilwell inquired, hurrying out,followed by his wife and son. Violet was already beside her perturbedvisitor, looking up into her terror-blanched face.
"Oh, they've come, they've come!" Rhetta gasped.
"Who?" Stilwell asked, mystified, laying hold of her bridle, shaking itas if to set her senses right. "Who's come, Rhetty?"
"I came for Mr. Morgan!" she panted, as weak, it seemed, as a woundedbird. "I thought he came here--he had your horse."
"He's here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell told her, consoling her like a hurtchild.
Morgan did not come forward. He stood as he had risen from his chair atthe table, one hand on the cloth, his head bent as if in a travail ofdeepest thought. The shaft of tender new sunlight reaching in throughthe open door struck his shoulders and breast, leaving his face in theshadow that well suited the mood darkening over his soul like a storm. Athousand thoughts rose up and swirled within him, a thousand harshcharges, a thousand seeds of bitterness. Rhetta, leaning to peer underthe lintel of the low door, could see him there, and she reached out herhand, appealing without a word.
"He is here, honey," Mrs. Stilwell repeated, assuringly, comfortingly.
"Tell him--tell him--Craddock's come!" Rhetta said.
"Craddock?" said Stilwell, pronouncing the name with inflection ofsurprise. "Oh, I thought something awful had happened to somebody." Heturned with the ease of indifference in his manner, to go back andfinish his meal. "Well, didn't you look for him to come back? I knew allthe time he'd come."
Morgan lifted his head. The sun, broken by Rhetta's shadow, brightenedon the floor at his feet, and spread its beam upon his breast like agolden stole. The old wound on his check bone was a scar now, irregular,broad from the crude surgery that had bound it but illy. Its darkdisfigurement increased the somber gravity of his face, sunburned andwind-hardened as any ranger's who rode that prairie waste. From where hestood Morgan could not see the girl's face, only her restless hand onthe bridle rein, the brown of her riding skirt, the beginning of whiteat her waist.
"There ought to be men enough in Ascalon to take care of Craddock,"Violet said.
"He's not alone, some of those Texas cowboys are with him," Rhettaexplained, her voice firmer, her words quicker. "Mr. Morgan is stillmarshal--he gave me his badge, but please tell him I didn't--I forgot toturn it in with his resignation."
"I don't see that it's Cal's fight this time, Rhetty," Stilwell said."He's done enough for them yellow pups over in Ascalon, to be yelped atand cussed for savin' their dirty hides."
"They're looking for him, they think he's hiding!"
"Well, let 'em look. If they come over here they'll find him--Cal ain'tmakin' no secret of where he's at. And they'll find somebody standin'back to back with him, any time they want to come." Stilwell'sresentment of Ascalon's ingratitude toward his friend was plainer in hismouth than print.
"They're going to burn the town to drive him out!" Rhetta said, gaspingin the terror that shook her heart.
"I guess it'll be big enough to hold all the people that's in it whenthey're through," said Stilwell, unfeelingly.
"Here's his badge," said Rhetta, offering it frantically. "Tell him he'sstill marshal!"
"Yes, you can come for him--now!" said Violet, accusingly. "I toldyou--you remember now what I told you!"
"O Violet, Violet! If you knew what I've paid for that--if you knew!"
"Not as much as you owe him, if it was the last drop of blood in yourheart!" said Violet. And she turned away, and went and stood by thedoor.
"They'll burn the town!" Rhetta moaned. "Oh, isn't anybody going to helpme--won't you call him, Violet?"
"No," said Violet. "He can hear you--he'll come if he wants to--if he'sfool enough to do it again!"
"Violet!" her mother cautioned.
"How many are with him?" Fred inquired.
"Seven or eight--I didn't see them all. Pa's collecting a posse to guardthe bank--they're going to rob it!"
"They're welcome to all I've got in it," Stilwell said. "Yo
u better comein and have a cup of coffee, Rhetty, before----"
"The one they call the Dutchman's there, and Drumm----"
"Drumm?" Fred and his father spoke like a chorus, both of them jumpingto alertness.
"And some others of that gang Mr. Morgan drove out of town. They weresetting the hotel afire when I left!"
Stilwell did not wait for all of it. He was in the house at a jump,reaching down his guns which hung beside the door. Close after him Fredcame rushing in, snatching his weapons from the buffalo horns on thewall.
"I'm goin' to git service on that man!" Stilwell said. "Are you goin'with us, Cal?"
But Cal Morgan did not reply. He went to the bedroom where he had slept,took up his gun, stood looking at it a moment as if consideringsomething, snatched his hat from the bedpost and turned back, bucklinghis belt. Mrs. Stilwell and Violet were struggling with husband andbrother to restrain them from rushing off to this battle, raising aturmoil of pleading and protesting at the door.
As Morgan passed Stilwell, who was greatly impeded in his efforts tobuckle on his guns by his wife's clinging arms and passionate pleadingsto remain at home, Fred broke away from his sister and ran for thekitchen door.
"Let Drumm go--let all of them go--let the cattle go, let everything go!none of it's worth riskin' your life for!" Stilwell's affectionate goodwife pleaded with him.
"Now, Mother, I'm not goin' to git killed," Morgan heard Stilwell say,his very assurance calming. But the poor woman, who perhaps hadrecollections of past battles and perils which he had gone through,burst out again, weeping, and clung to him as if she could not let himgo.
Morgan paused a moment at the threshold, as if reconsidering something.Violet, who had stood leaning her head on her bent arm, weeping thatFred was rushing to throw his life away, lifted her tearful face,reached out and touched his arm.
"Must you go?" she asked.
For reply Morgan put out his hand as if to say farewell. She took it,pressed it a moment to her breast, and ran away, choked on the grief shecould not utter. Morgan stepped out into the sun.
Rhetta Thayer stood at the door, a little aside, as if waiting for him,as if knowing he would come. She was agitated by the anxious hope thatspoke out of her white face, but restrained by a fear that could nothide in her wide-straining eyes. She moved almost imperceptibly towardhim, her lips parted as if to speak, but said nothing.
As Morgan lifted his hand to his hat in grave salute, passing on, sheoffered him the badge of his office which she had held gripped in herhand. He took it, inclining his head as in acknowledgment of its safekeeping through the night, and hastened on to one of the horses thatstood dozing on three legs in the early sun.
As he left her, Rhetta followed a few quick steps, a cry rising in herheart for him to stay a moment, to spare her one word of forgiveness outof his grim, sealed lips. But the cry faltered away to a great, stiflingsob, while tears rose hot in her eyes, making him dim in her sight as hethrew the rein over the horse's head, starting the animal out of itssleep with a little squatting jump. She stood so, stretching out herhands to him, while he, unbending in his stern answer to the challengeof duty, unseeing in the hard bitterness of his heart, swung into thesaddle and rode away.
Rhetta groped for her saddle, blind in her tears. Morgan was hidden bythe dust that hung in the quiet morning behind him as she mounted andfollowed.
Half a mile or so along the road, Fred passed her, bending low as herode, as if his desire left the saddle and carried him ahead of hishorse; a little while, and Stilwell thundered by, leaving her last andalone on that road leading to what adventures her heart shrunk in herbosom to contemplate.
Ahead of her the smoke of Ascalon's destruction rose high.