CHAPTER XXVII
ABSOLUTION
Morgan stood looking down on the man whom he had overcome in the climaxof that desperate hour, wondering if he were dead. He did not stoop toinvestigate; from where he stood no sign of life disturbed Craddock'slimp body. Morgan was thinking now that they would say of him in Ascalonthat luck had been with him to the last.
Not prowess, at any rate; he did not claim to that. Perhaps luck was asgood a name as any for it, but it was something that upheld his hand andstimulated his wit in crises such as he had passed in Ascalon thateventful fortnight.
A band of men came around the corner past Peden's hall, now only avanishing skeleton of beams, bringing with them the two raiders who hadattempted to escape by that avenue to the open prairie. The two werestill mounted, the crowd that surrounded them was silent and ominous.Morgan waited until they came up, when, with a sign toward Craddock,which relinquished all interest in and responsibility for him to theposse comitatus, he turned away to hasten to Fred Stilwell's side.
Tom Conboy had reached the fallen youth--he was little more than aboy--and was kneeling beside him, lifting his head.
"God! they killed a woman over there--and a man!" Conboy said.
"Is he dead?" Morgan inquired, his voice hoarse and strange.
"He's shot through the lung, he's breathin' through his back," Conboyreplied, shaking his head sadly. "But I've seen men live shot up worsethan Fred is," he added. "It takes a big lot of lead to kill a mansometimes."
"We must carry him out of this heat," Morgan said.
They carried him across the square to that part of the business frontthe fire had not yet leaped over to and taken, and laid him in a littlestrip of shade in front of the harness store. Conboy hurried off to seeif he could find the doctor.
Morgan wadded a handkerchief against the wound in Fred's back, whencethe blood bubbled in frothy stream at every weak inspiration, and lethim down gently upon that insufficient pad to wait the doctor, nothaving it in his power to do more. He believed the poor fellow would diewith the next breath, and looked about to see if Stilwell were in sight.Stilwell was nowhere to be seen, his pursuit of Drumm having led himfar. But approaching Morgan were five or six men carrying guns, theirfaces clouded with what seemed an unfriendly severity.
"We want to have a word or two with you over in the square," one of themsaid.
Morgan recognized all of them as townsmen. He looked at them inundisguised surprise, completely lost for the meaning of the bluntrequest.
"All right," he said.
"The doctor will be here in a minute, he's gone for his case," one ofthem volunteered.
Relieved by the word, Morgan thanked him, and returned with them to theplace where a growing crowd of men stood about Seth Craddock and the twoprisoners who had been taken in their attempt to escape. Craddock wassitting on the ground, head drooping forward, a man's knee at his back.And Earl Gray, a revolver in his hand, no hat on, his hair flying fortyways, was talking.
"If he'd 'a' been here tendin' to duty under his oath, in place ofskulkin' out and leavin' the town wide open to anybody that wanted toset a match to it, this thing wouldn't 'a' happened, I tell you,gentlemen. Look at it! look at my store, look at the _ho_-tel, look ateverything on that side of the square! Gone to hell, every stick of it!And that's the man to blame!"
Gray indicated Morgan with a thrust of his gun, waving one handdramatically toward the ruin. A sound, more a growl than a groan, ranthrough the crowd, which now numbered not fewer than thirty or fortymen.
The sight of the destruction was enough, indeed, to make them growl, oreven groan. Everything on that side of the square was leveled but a fewupstanding beams, the fire was rioting among the fallen rafters, eatingup the floors that had borne the trod of so many adventurous feet. Thehotel was a ruin, Gray's store only a recollection, the little shopsbetween it and Peden's long, hollow skeleton of a barn already coals.
Men, women, and children were on the roofs of buildings across thestreet from Peden's, pouring precious water over the fires which sprangfrom falling brands. It seemed that this shower of fire must overwhelmthem very soon, and engulf the rest of the business houses, making aclean sweep of everything but the courthouse and the bank. Thecalaboose, in its isolation, was still safe.
"Where was you last night?" Gray demanded, insolence in his narrow faceas he turned again to Morgan, poking out with his gun as if to vex theanswer from him as one prods a growl from a dog.
"None of your ---- business!" Morgan replied, rising into a rage assudden as it was unwise, the unworthiness of the object considered. Hemade a quick movement toward Gray as he spoke, which brought upon himthe instant restraint of many hands.
"You don't grab no gun from nobody here!" one said.
"Why wasn't you here attendin' to business when that gang rode in thismorning?" one at Morgan's side demanded. It was the barber; his shop wasgone, his razors were fused among the ashes.
Morgan ignored him, regretting at once the flash of passion that hadbetrayed him into their hands. For they were madmen--mad with thetorture of hot winds and straining hopes that withered and fell; madwith their losses of that day, mad with the glare of sun of many days,and the stricken earth under their bound and sodden feet; mad with thevery bareness of their inconsequential lives.
Seth Craddock heaved up to his knees, struggled to his feet with quick,frantic lumbering, like a horse clambering out of the mire. He stoodweaving, his red eyes watching those around him, perhaps readingsomething of the crowd's threat in the growl that ran through it,beginning in the center as it died on the edge, quieting not at all. Hishat was off, dust was in his hair, a great welted wound was black on histemple, the blood of it caked with dust on his face.
The two prisoners on horseback, one of them wounded so badly his lifedid not seem worth a minute's reprieve, were pulled down; all werebunched with Morgan in the middle of the mob. Gray began again with hisdenunciation, Morgan hearing him only as the wind, for his attention wasfixed on the activities of Dell Hutton, working with insidious swiftnessand apparent success among the mob.
Hutton did not look at Morgan as he passed with low word from man toman, sowing the poison of his vindictive hate against this man who hadcompelled him to be honest once against his bent. A moment Hutton pausedin conference with the blacksmith, and that man came forward now,silenced Gray with a word and pushed him aside.
The blacksmith was a knotty short man of Slavic features, a croppedmustache under his stubby nose. His shop was burning in the ruin of thattragic morning; the blame of it was Morgan's. Others whose businessplaces had been erased in the fire were recognized by Morgan in thecrowd. The proprietor of the Santa Fe cafe, the cobbler, the Mexican whosold tamales and chili--none of them of any consequence ordinarily, butpotent of the extreme of evil now, merged as they were into thatunreasoning thing, the mob.
There were murmured suggestions, rejections; talk of the cross-arms onthe telegraph poles, which at once became determined, decisive. Menpushed through the press with ropes. Seth Craddock looked across atMorgan, and cursed him. One of the prisoners, the unwounded man, a youthno older than Fred Stilwell, began to beg and cry.
Morgan had not been alarmed up to the moment of his seeing Huttoninflaming the crowd against him, for the mob was composed of men whosefaces were for the greater part familiar, mild men in their way, whomthe violence in which they had lived had passed and left untouched. Butthey held him with strong hands; they were making ready a noose to throwover his head and strangle his life out in the shame that belongs tomurderers and thieves.
This had become a matter beyond his calculation; this should not be.There were guns in men's hands all about him where guns did not belong.Morgan threw his determination and strength into a fling that clearedhis right arm, and began a battle that marked for life some of them whoclung to him and tried to drag him down.
They were crushing him, they were overwhelming him. Only a sudden jerkof the head, a dozen determined, sile
nt men hanging to him, savedMorgan's neck from the flung rope. The man who cast it cursed; wasdrawing it back with eager haste to throw again, when Rhetta Thayercame.
She came pushing through the mad throng about Morgan, he heard hercommand to clear the way; she was beside him, the mystery of her swiftpassage through the mob made plain. Seth Craddock's guns, given her as atrophy of that day when Morgan lassoed the meat hunter, were in herhands, and in her eyes there was a death warrant for any wretch thatstood in her way. She gave the weapons to Morgan, her breathing audibleover the hush that fell in the failing of their cowed hearts.
"Drop your guns!" Morgan commanded.
There was a panic to comply. Steel and nickel, ivory handle, old navyand new Colt's, flashed in the sun as they were dropped in the littleopen space at Morgan's feet.
"Clear out of here!"
Morgan's sharp order was almost unnecessary. Those on the edge of thecrowd were beginning already to sneak off; a little way, looking backover shoulders, and they began to run. They dispersed like dust on thewind, leaving behind them their weapons which would identify them forthe revenge this terrible, invincible, miraculously lucky man might cometo their doors and exact.
The thought was terrifying. They did not stop at the margin of thesquare to look back to see if he pressed his vengeance at their heels.Only the shelter of cyclone cellar, sequestered patches of corn, thewillows along the distant river, would give them the respite from theterror of this outreaching hand necessary to a full, free breath.
The sheriff had released himself from jail, with Judge Thayer and thevalorous Riley Caldwell, and twenty or more others who had been lockedup with them. The sheriff, humiliated, resentful, red with the angerthat choked him--for it was safe now to be as angry as he could lashhimself--came stalking up to where Morgan held Craddock and theunwounded raider off from the tempting heap of weapons thrown down bythe mob. The sheriff began to abuse Craddock, laying to him all thevillainy of ancestry and life that his well-schooled tongue could shape.Morgan cut him off with a sharp word.
"Take these men and lock them up!"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Morgan, you bet your life I'll lock 'em up!" the sheriffagreed.
"Hold them for a charge of arson and murder," Judge Thayer commandedsternly. "And see that you _do_ hold them!"
Judge Thayer came on to where Morgan stood, the surrendered weapons athis feet, Rhetta beside him, pride higher than the heavens in her eyes.
"I can't apologize for them, I can't even try," said the judge, with ahumility in his word and manner quite new and strange, indicating themembers of the fast-scattering mob. He made himself as small as he feltby his way of approaching this man who had pitched his life like a coinof little value into the gamble of that tragic day.
"Never mind trying--it's only an incident," Morgan told him, full ofanother thought.
"I'll see that he locks Craddock and the other two up safe, then I'llhave these guns picked up for evidence. I'm going to lay an informationagainst every man of them in that mob with the prosecuting attorney!"
"Let them go, Judge Thayer--I'd never appear against them," Morgan said.
Judge Thayer appeared to be dazed by the events of that day, crowded totheir fearful climax of destruction of property and life. He was lackingin his ready words, older, it seemed, by many years, crushed under theweight of this terrible calamity that had fallen on his town. He wentaway after the sheriff, leaving Morgan and Rhetta, the last actors onthe stage in the drama of Ascalon's downfall, alone.
Beyond them the fire raged in the completion of the havoc that was farbeyond any human labor to stay. The heat of it was scorching even wherethey stood; coals, blazing fragments, were blown about their feet on theturbulent wind. The black-green smoke still rose in great volume,through which the sun was red. On the flank of the fire those wholabored to confine its spread shouted in the voice of dismay. It was anhour of desolation; it was the day of doom.
"Thank you for my life," said Morgan. "I've put a new valuation on itsince you've gone to so much trouble to save it."
"Don't speak cynically about it, Mr. Morgan!" she said, hurt by histone.
"I'm not cynical," he gravely assured her. "My life wasn't worth much tome this morning when I left Stilwell's. It has acquired a new valuenow."
All this time Morgan had stood holding Seth Craddock's big revolvers inhis hands, as if he distrusted the desolation of the fire-sown square.Now he sheathed one of them in his holster, and thrust the other underhis belt. His right hand was bleeding, from wounds of the bullet thathad struck his rifle-barrel and sprayed hot lead into his flesh, andfrom the blows he had dealt in his fury amongst the mob.
Rhetta put out her hand and took his, bleeding and torn andbattle-maimed as it was, and lifted it tenderly, and nestled it againsther cheek.
"Dear, brave hand!" she said.
"You're not afraid of it now!" he wondered, putting out his free hand asif he offered it also for the absolution of her touch.
"It was only the madness of the wind," she told him, the sorrow of herpenance in her simple words.
CHAPTER XXVIII
SUNSET
Evening saw the fires of Ascalon subdued and confined. With the fallingof the wind the danger of the disaster spreading to embrace the entiretown decreased almost to safety, although the wary, scorched townsmenstood watch over the smoldering coals which lay deep where the principalpart of Ascalon lately stood.
Fred Stilwell had been taken to Judge Thayer's house, where his motherand Violet attended him. The doctor said youth and a clean body wouldcarry him through. As for Drumm, whose bullet had brought the young mandown, his horse with the black saddle-roll had stood hitched to JudgeThayer's fence until evening, when the sheriff came with a writ ofattachment in Stilwell's favor and took it away. Drumm's body was lyingon a board in the calaboose, diverted for that dark day in Ascalon'shistory into a morgue.
The sheriff reported that the Texas cattleman had carried more thanfifty thousand dollars in currency behind his saddle. That was accordingto the custom of the times, and usage of the range, where many a man'sword was as good as his bond, but no man's check was as good as money.
Tom Conboy was already hiring carpenters to rebuild the hotel, his eyefull of the business that would come to his doors when the railroadshops were running, and the trainmen of the division point were thereto be housed and fed. Dora and Riley had been wandering around town allafternoon, very much like two pigeons looking for a place to nest.
And so evening found peace in Ascalon, after all its tragedy and pain.
Calvin Morgan and Rhetta Thayer stood at the bank corner at sunset,looking down the square where the great gap in its front made the sceneunfamiliar. Morgan's disabled hand was bandaged; there was a cross ofsurgical tape on his chin, closing a deep cut where some citizen hadtapped him with a revolver in the last fight of that tumultuous day.
Little groups of desolate, disheartened people stood along the line ofhitching racks; dead coals, which the wind had sown as living fire overthe square, littered the white dust. Morgan had taken off his badge ofoffice, having made a formal resignation to Judge Thayer, mayor of thetown. Nobody had been sworn in to take his place, for, as Judge Thayerhad said, it did not appear as if any further calamity could be left instore among the misfortunes for that town, except it might be anearthquake or a cyclone, and a city marshal, even Morgan, could not fendagainst them if they were to come.
"You have trampled your place among the thorns," said Rhetta.
"It looks like I've pulled a good deal down with me," he returned,viewing the seat of fire with a softening of pity in his grave face.
"All that deserves to rise will rise again," she said in confidence."It's a good thing it burned--it's purged of its old shame and oldmonuments of corruption. I'm glad it's gone."
There was a quiet over the place, as if the heart of turbulence had beenbroken and its spirit had taken flight. In the southwest, in the facesof the two watchers at the margin of this ruin, a v
ast dark cloud stoodlike a landfall rising in the mariner's eye out of the sea. It had beenvisible since four o'clock, seeming to hesitate as if nature intendedagain to deny this parched and suffering land the consolation of rain.Now it was rising, already it had overspread the sunset glow, casting acool shadow full of promise over the thirsting prairie wastes.
"It will rain this time," Rhetta prophesied. "It always comes up slowlythat way when it rains a long time."
"A rain will work wonders in this country," he said, his face lifted tothe promise of the cloud.
"And wisdom and faith will do more," she told him, her voice tender andlow.
"And love," said he, voice solemn as a prophet's, yet gentle as adove's.
"And love," she whispered, the wind, springing like an inspirationbefore the rain, lifting her shadowy hair.
Joe Lynch came driving into the stricken square down the road besidethem, bringing a load of bones.
"Had to burn the town to fetch a rain, huh?" said Joe, his ghostly dryold face tilted to catch the savor of the wind. So saying, he drove on,and paused not in his labor of off-bearing the waste of failure thatmust be cleared for the new labor of wisdom, faith, and love.
* * * * *
Thirty years will do for a cottonwood what two centuries will do for anoak. Thirty years had built the cottonwoods of great girth, and liftedthem in dignity high above the roof of Calvin Morgan's white farmhouse,his great barns and granaries. Elm trees, bringing their blessings ofwide-spreading branch more slowly, led down a broad avenue to the whitemanse with its Ionian portico. Over the acres of smooth, luxuriant greenlawn, the long shadows of closing day reached like the yearning of men'sunfinished dreams.
Before the house a broad roadway, smooth as a city boulevard, ranstraight to the bright, clean, populous city where Ascalon, with itsforgotten shame and tragedies, once stood. And far and away, over theswell of gentle ridge, into the dip of gracious valley, spread thebenediction of growing wheat. Wisdom and faith and love had worked theirmiracle. This land had become the nation's granary; it was a landredeemed.
* * * * *
Under the giant cottonwoods, gray-green of leaf as the desert grasseswere gray-green in the old cattle days, the brown walls, the low roof,of a sod house stood, the lawn clipped smooth around its humble door,lilac clumps green beside its walls, sweet honeysuckle clambering overits little porch. And there came, in the tender last beams of thesetting sun, a man and woman to its door.
Not old, not bent, not gnarled by the rack of blind-groping, undirectedtoil, for such of the chosen out of nature's nobility are never old.Hair once dark as woodland shadows was shot with the sunlight of manyyears; hair once bright as the mica tossed by joyous waves upon a sunnybeach was whitened now by the unmelting snows of winters numberedswiftly in the brief calendar of man. But shoulders were unbent by theburdens which they had borne joyously, and their feet went quickly aslovers' to a tryst.
This little sod house stood with all its old-time furnishings, like ashrine, and on this day, which seemed to be an anniversary, it had beenbrightened with vases of flowers. This man and this woman, not old,indeed, entered and stood within its door, where the light was dimmingthrough the little window high in the thick wall. The man crossed theroom, and stood where a belt with holsters hung upon the wall. She drewnear him, and lifted his great hand, and nestled it against her cheek.
"Old Seth Craddock's guns," he said, musing as on a recurring memory.
"His guns!" she murmured, drawing closer into the shadow of hisstrength.
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Transcriber's Notes:
1. The author's consistent use of a lower-case letter following an exclamation point or a question mark inside quoted dialect has been retained.
2. Punctuation has been changed to contemporary standards.
3. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
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