CHAPTER XIII. THE CHAIN OF THE PAST
For once in its career, Lebanon was absolutely united. The blow that hadbrought down the Master Man had also struck the town between the eyes,and there was no one--friend or foe of Ingolby--who did not regard it asan insult and a challenge. It was now known that the roughs of Manitou,led by the big river-driver, were about to start on a raid upon Lebanonand upon Ingolby at the very moment the horseshoe did its work. Allnight there were groups of men waiting outside Ingolby's house. Theywere of all classes-carters, railway workers, bartenders, lawyers,engineers, bankers, accountants, merchants, ranchmen, carpenters,insurance agents, manufacturers, millers, horse-dealers, and so on.
Some prayed for Ingolby's life, others swore viciously; and those whoswore had no contempt for those who prayed, while those who prayed weretolerant of those who swore. It was a union of incongruous elements.Men who had nothing in common were one in the spirit of faction; andall were determined that the Orangeman, whose funeral was fixed for thismemorable Saturday, should be carried safely to his grave. Civic pridehad almost become civic fanaticism in Lebanon. One of the men beaten byIngolby in the recent struggle for control of the railways said to theothers shivering in the grey dawn: "They were bound to get him in theback. They're dagos, the lot of 'em. Skunks are skunks, even when youskin 'em."
When, just before dawn, old Gabriel Druse issued from the house intowhich he had carried Ingolby the night before, they questioned himeagerly. He had been a figure apart from both Lebanon and Manitou, andthey did not regard him as a dago, particularly as it was more thanwhispered that Ingolby "had a lien" on his daughter. In the grey light,with his long grizzled beard and iron-grey, shaggy hair, Druse lookedlike a mystic figure of the days when the gods moved among men likemortals. His great height, vast proportions, and silent ways gave hima place apart, and added to the superstitious feeling by which he wassurrounded.
"How is he?" they asked whisperingly, as they crowded round him.
"The danger is over," was the slow, heavy reply. "He will live, but hehas bad days to face."
"What was the danger?" they asked. "Fever--maybe brain fever," hereplied. "We'll see him through," someone said.
"Well, he cannot see himself through," rejoined the old man solemnly.The enigmatical words made them feel there was something behind.
"Why can't he see himself through?" asked Osterhaut the universal, whohad just arrived from the City Hall.
"He can't see himself through because he is blind," was the heavyanswer.
There was a moment of shock, of hushed surprise, and then a voice burstforth: "Blind--they've blinded him, boys! The dagos have killed hissight. He's blind, boys!"
A profane and angry muttering ran through the crowd, who were thirsty,hungry, and weary with watching.
Osterhaut held up the horseshoe which had brought Ingolby down. "Here itis, the thing that done it. It's tied with a blue ribbon-for luck,"he added ironically. "It's got his blood on it. I'm keeping it tillManitou's paid the price of it. Then I'll give it to Lebanon for keeps."
"That's the thing that did it, but where's the man behind the thing?"snarled a voice.
Again there was a moment's silence, and then Billy Kyle, the veteranstage-driver, said: "He's in the jug, but a gaol has doors, and doors'llopen with or without keys. I'm for opening the door, boys."
"What for?" asked a man who knew the answer, but who wanted the thingsaid.
"I spent four years in Arizona, same as Jowett," Billy Kyle answered,"and I got in the way of thinking as they do there, and acting just asquick as you think. I drove stage down in the Verde Valley. Sometimesthere wasn't time to bring a prisoner all the way to a judge and jury,and people was busy, and hadn't time to wait for the wagon; so they donewhat was right, and there was always a tree that would carry that kindo' fruit for the sake of humanity. It's the best way, boys."
"This isn't Arizona or any other lyncher's country," said Halliday,the lawyer, making his way to the front. "It isn't the law, and in thiscountry it's the law that counts. It's the Gover'ment's right to attendto that drunken dago that threw the horseshoe, and we've got to let theGover'ment do it. No lynching on my plate, thank you. If Ingolby couldspeak to us, you can bet your boots it's what he'd say."
"What's your opinion, boss?" asked Billy Kyle of Gabriel Druse, who hadstood listening, his chin on his breast, his sombre eyes fixed on themabstractedly.
At Kyle's question his eyes lighted up with a fire that was struck froma flint in other spheres, and he answered: "It is for the ruler to takelife, not the subject. If it is a man that rules, it is for him; if itis the law that rules, it is for the law. Here, it is the law. Then itis not for the subject, and it is not for you."
"If he was your son?" asked Billy Kyle.
"If he was my son, I should be the ruler, not the law," was the grim,enigmatic reply, and the old man stalked away from them towards thebridge.
"I'd bet he'd settle the dago's hash that done to his son what theManitou dagos done to Ingolby--and settle it quick," remarked LickFarrelly, the tinsmith.
"I bet he's been a ruler or something somewhere," remarked Billy Kyle.
"I bet I'm going home to breakfast," interposed Halliday, the lawyer."There's a straight day's work before us, gentlemen," he added, "and wecan't do anything here. Orangemen, let's hoof it."
Twenty Orangemen stepped out from the crowd. Halliday was a past masterof their lodge, and they all meant what he meant. They marched away inprocession--to breakfast and to a meeting of the lodge. Others straggledafter, but a few waited for the appearance of the doctor. When the suncame up and Rockwell, pale and downcast, issued forth, they gatheredround him, and walked with him through the town, questioning, listeningand threatening.
A few still remained behind at Ingolby's house. They were of the devotedslaves of Ingolby who would follow him to the gates of Hades and backagain, or not back if need be.
The nigger barber, Berry, was one; another was the Jack-of-all-trades,Osterhaut, a kind of municipal odd-man, with the well-known red hair,the face that constantly needed shaving, the blue serge shirt with ascarf for a collar, the suit of canvas in the summer and of Irish friezein the winter; the pair of hands which were always in his own pocket,never in any one else's; the grey eye, doglike in its mildness, and thelong nose which gave him the name of Snorty. Of the same devoted classalso was Jowett who, on a higher plane, was as wise and discerning ascout as any leader ever had.
While old Berry and Osterhaut and all the others were waiting atIngolby's house, Jowett was scouting among the Manitou roughs for theChief Constable of Lebanon, to find out what was forward. What he hadfound was not reassuring, because Manitou, conscious of being in thewrong, realized that Lebanon would try to make her understand herwrong-doing; and that was intolerable. It was clear to Jowett that, inspite of all, there would be trouble at the Orange funeral, and thatthe threatened strike would take place at the same time in spite ofIngolby's catastrophe. Already in the early morning revengeful spiritsfrom Lebanon had invaded the outer portions of Manitou and had takensatisfaction out of an equal number of "Dogans," as they called theRoman Catholic labourers, one of whom was carried to the hospital withan elbow out of joint and a badly injured back.
With as much information as he needed, Jowett made his way back toLebanon, when, at the approach to the bridge, he met Fleda hurrying withbent head and pale, distressed face in his own direction. Of all Westernmen none had a better appreciation of the sex that takes its toll ofevery traveller after his kind than Aaron Jowett. He had been a realbuck in his day among those of his own class, and though the storm ofhis romances had become but a faint stirring of leaves which had tingesof days that are sear, he still had an eye unmatched for female beauty.The sun which makes that northern land a paradise in summer caughtthe gold-brown hair of Gabriel Druse's daughter, and made it glint andshine. It coquetted with the umber of her eyes and they grew luminous asa jewel; it struck lightly across the pale russet of her cheek and madeit
like an apple that one's lips touch lovingly, when one calls it "toogood to eat." It made an atmosphere of half-silver and half-gold with atouch of sunrise crimson for her to walk in, translating her form intomelting lines of grace.
Jowett knew that Druse's daughter was on her way to the man who hadlooked once, looked twice, looked thrice into her eyes and had seenthere his own image; and that she had done the same; and that the man,it might be, would never look into their dark depths again. He mightspeak once, he might speak twice, he might speak thrice, but would itever be the same as the look that needed no words?
When he crossed Fleda Druse's pathway she stopped short. She knew thatJowett was Ingolby's true friend. She had seen him often, and he wasintimately associated with that day when she had run the Carillon Rapidsand had lain (for how long she never dared to think) in Ingolby's armsin the sight of all the world. First among those who crowded round herat Carillon that day were Jowett and Osterhaut, who had tried to warnher.
"You are going to him?" she said now with confidence in her eyes, and bythe intimacy of the phrase (as though she could speak of Ingolby only ashim) their own understanding was complete.
"To see how he is and then to do other things," Jowett answered.
There was silence for a moment in which they moved slowly forward, andthen she said: "You were at Barbazon's last night?"
"When that Gipsy son of a dog gave him away!" he assented. "I neverheard anything like the speech Ingolby made. He had them in the throat.The Gipsy would have had nothing out of it, if it hadn't been for thehorseshoe. But in spite of the giveaway, Ingolby was getting them wherethey were soft-fairly drugging them with good news. You never heard suchdope. My, he was smooth! The golden, velvet truth it was, too. That'sthe only kind he has in stock; and they were sort of stupefied andlocoed as they chewed his word-plant. Cicero must have been a saucysinger of the dictionary, and Paul the Apostle had a dope of his own youcouldn't buy, but the gay gamut that Ingolby run gives them all the coldgood-bye."
She held herself very still as he spoke. There was, however, a strange,lonely look in her eyes. The man lying asleep in the darkness of bodyand mind yonder was not really her lover, for he had said no word directof love to her, and she knew him so little, how could she love him?Yet there was something between them which had its authority over theirlives, overcoming even that maiden modesty which was in contrast to thebold, physical thing she had done in running the Carillon Rapids thosecenturies ago when she was young and glad-wistfully glad. So much hadcome since that day, she had travelled so far on the highway of Fate,that she looked back from peak to peak of happening to an almostinvisible horizon. So much had occurred and she felt so old thismorning; and yet there was in her heart the undefined feeling that shemust keep her radiant Spring of life for the blind Gorgio if he neededit-if he needed it. Would he need it, robbed of sight and with hislife-work murdered?
She shuddered as she thought of what it meant to him. If a man is towork, he must have eyes to see. Yet what had she to do with it, afterall? She had no right to go to him even as she was going. Yet had shenot the right of common humanity? This Gorgio was her friend. Did notthe world know that he had saved her life?
As they came to the Lebanon end of the bridge, Fleda turned to Jowettand, commenting on his description of the scene at Barbazon, said: "Heis a great man, but he trusts too much and risks too much. That was noplace for him."
"Big men like him think they can do anything," Jowett replied, a littleironically, subtly trying to force a confession of her preference forIngolby.
He succeeded. Her eye lighted with indignation. She herself mightchallenge him, but she would not allow another to do so.
"It is not the truth," she rejoined sharply. "He does not measurehimself against the world so. He is like--like a child," she added.
"It seems to me all big men are like that," Jowett rejoined; "and he'sthe biggest man the West has seen. He knows about every man's businessas though it was his own. I can get a margin off most any man in theWest on a horse-trade, but I'd look shy about doing a trade with him.You can't dope a horse so he won't know. He's on to it, sees it-seesit like as if it was in glass. Sees anything and everything, and--" Hestopped short. The Master Gorgio could no longer see, and his henchmanflushed like a girl at his "break"; though, as a horse-dealer, he had inhis time listened without shame to wilder, angrier reproaches than mostmen living.
She glanced at him, saw his confusion, forgave and understood him.
"It was not the horseshoe, it was not the Gipsy," she returned. "Theydid not set it going. It would not have happened but for one man."
"Yes, it's Marchand, right enough," answered Jowett, "but we'll get himyet. We'll get him with the branding-iron hot."
"That will not put things right if--" she paused, then with a greateffort she added: "Does the doctor think he will get it back and that--"
She stopped suddenly in an agitation he did not care to see and heturned away his head.
"Doctor doesn't know," he answered. "There's got to be an expert. It'lltake time before he gets here, but--" he could not help but say it,seeing how great her distress was--"but it's going to come back. I'veseen cases--I saw one down on the Border"--how easily he lied!--"justlike his. It was blasting that done it--the shock. But the sight comeback all right, and quick too--like as I've seen a paralizite get upall at once and walk as though he'd never been locoed. Why, GodAlmighty don't let men like Ingolby be done like that by reptiles same'sMarchand."
"You believe in God Almighty?" she said half-wonderingly, yet withgratitude in her tone. "You understand about God?"
"I've seen too many things not to try and deal fair with Him and not tryto cheat Him," he answered. "I see things lots of times that wasn't everborn on the prairie or in any house. I've seen--I've seen enough," hesaid abruptly, and stopped.
"What have you seen?" she asked eagerly. "Was it good or bad?"
"Both," he answered quickly. "I was stalked once--stalked I was by nightand often in the open day, by some sickly, loathsome thing, that evenmade me fight it with my hands--a thing I couldn't see. I used to firebuckshot at it, enough to kill an army, till I near went mad. I wasreally and truly getting loony. Then I took to prayin' to the best womanI ever knowed. I never had a mother, but she looked after me--my sister,Sara, it was. She brought me up, and then died and left me withoutanything to hang on to. I didn't know all I'd lost till she was gone.But I guess she knew what I thought of her; for she come back--after I'dprayed till I couldn't see. She come back into my room one night whenthe cursed 'haunt' was prowling round me, and as plain as I see you,I saw her. 'Be at peace,' she said, and I spoke to her, and said,'Sara-why, Sara' and she smiled, and went away into nothing--like a bito' cloud in the sun."
He stopped, and was looking straight before him as though he saw avision.
"It went?" she asked breathlessly.
"It went like that--" He made a swift, outward gesture. "It went and itnever came back; and she didn't either--not ever. My idee is," he added,"that there's evil things that mebbe are the ghost-shapes of living menthat want to do us harm; though, mebbe, too, they're the ghost-shapesof men that's dead, but that can't get on Over There. So they try to getback to us here; and they can make life Hell while they're stalking us."
"I am sure you are right," she said.
She was thinking of the loathsome thing which haunted her room lastnight. Was it the embodied second self of Jethro Fawe, doing theevil that Jethro Fawe, the visible corporeal man, wished to do? Sheshuddered, then bent her head and fixed her mind on Ingolby, whose housewas not far away. She felt strangely, miserably alone this morning. Shewas in that fluttering state which follows a girl's discovery that sheis a woman, and the feeling dawns that she must complete herself byjoining her own life with the life of another.
She showed no agitation, but her repression gave an almost statuesquecharacter to her face and figure. The adventurous nature of her earlylife had given her a power to meet shock and danger with c
oolness, andthough the news of Ingolby's tragedy had seemed to freeze the vitalforces in her, and all the world became blank for a moment, she hadcontrolled herself and had set forth to go to him, come what might.
As she entered the street where Ingolby lived, she suddenly realized thedifficulty before her. She might go to him, but by only one right couldshe stay and nurse him, and that right she did not possess. He would,she knew, understand her, no matter how the world babbled. Why shouldthe world babble? What woman could have designs upon a blind man? Wasnot humanity alone sufficient warrant for staying by his side? Yet wouldhe wish it? Suddenly her heart sank; but again she remembered their lastparting, and once more she was sure he would be glad to have her withhim.
It flashed upon her how different it would have been, if he and she hadbeen Romanys, and this thing had happened over there in the far landsshe knew so well. Who would have hinted at shame, if she had taken himto her father's tan or gone to his tan and tended him as a man mighttend a man? Humanity would have been the only convention; there wouldhave been no sex, no false modesty, no babble, no reproach. If it hadbeen a man as old as the oldest or as young as Jethro Fawe it would havemade no difference.
As young as Jethro Fawe! Why was it that now she could never think ofthe lost and abandoned Romany life without thinking also of Jethro Fawe?Why should she hate him, despise him, revolt against him, and yet feelthat, as it were by invisible cords, he drew her back to that which shehad forsworn, to the Past which dragged at her feet? The Romany wasnot dead in her; her real struggle was yet to come; and in a vague butprophetic way she realized it. She was not yet one with the settledwestern world.
As they came close to Ingolby's house she heard marching footsteps, andin the near distance she saw fourscore or more men tramping in militaryorder. "Who are they?" she asked of Jowett.
"Men that are going to see law and order kept in Lebanon," he answered.