The Flockmaster of Poison Creek

  CHAPTER II

  SWAN CARLSON

  Mackenzie found it hard to bend the woman from this plan of summaryvengeance. She had suffered and brooded in her loneliness so long, thecruel hand of Swan Carlson over her, that her thoughts had beaten apath to this desire. This self-administration of justice seemed nowher life's sole aim. She approached it with glowing eyes and flushedcheeks; she had lived for that hour.

  Harshly she met Mackenzie's efforts at first to dissuade her from thislong-planned deed, yielding a little at length, not quite promising towithhold her hand when the step of her savage husband should soundoutside the door.

  "If you are here when he comes, then it will do for another night; ifyou are gone, then I will not say."

  That was the compromise she made with him at last, turning with nomore argument to prepare his supper, carrying the ax with her as shewent about the work. Often she stood in rigid concentration, listeningfor the sound of Swan's coming, such animation in her eyes as abride's might show in a happier hour than hers. She sat opposite hervisitor as he made his supper on the simple food she gave him, andtold him the story of her adventure into that heartless land, theax-handle against her knee.

  A minister's daughter, educated to fit herself for a minister's wife.She had learned English in the schools of her native land, as thecustom is, and could speak it fairly when family reverses carried herlike a far-blown seed to America. She had no business training, forwhat should a minister's wife know of business beyond the affairs ofthe parish and the economy of her own home? She found, therefore,nothing open to her hands in America save menial work in thehouseholds of others.

  Not being bred to it, nor the intention or thought of it as a futurecontingency, she suffered in humbling herself to the services ofpeople who were at once her intellectual and social inferiors. The oneadvantage in it was the improvement of her English speech, throughwhich she hoped for better things in time.

  It was while she was still new to America, its customs and socialadjustments, and the shame of her menial situation burned in her soullike a corrosive acid, that she saw the advertisement of Swan Carlsonin a Swedish newspaper. Swan Carlson was advertising for a wife.Beneath a handsome picture of himself he stated his desires, frankly,with evident honesty in all his representations. He told of hisholdings in sheep and land, of his money in the bank.

  A dream of new consequence in this strange land came to HerthaJacobsen as she read the advertisement, as she studied the features ofSwan Carlson, his bold face looking at her from the page. She had seenmen, and the women of such men sharing their honors, who had risenfrom peasants to governors and senators, to positions of wealth andconsequence in this strange land with all the romance of a tale out ofa book. Perhaps fate had urged her on to this unfriendly shore onlyto feed her on the bitter herbs for her purification for a betterlife.

  The minister of her church investigated Swan Carlson and his claims,finding him all that he professed to be. Hertha wrote to him; in timeSwan came to visit her, a tall, long-striding man, handsomer than hispicture in the paper, handsome as a Viking lord with his proud foot onthe neck of a fallen foe.

  So she married him, and came away with him to the sheeplands, andSwan's hand was as tender of her as a summer wind. It was shearingtime when they reached home; Swan was with her every day for a littlewhile, gathering his flocks from the range into the shearing sheds. Hewas master of more than fifteen thousand sheep.

  When the shearing was done, and Swan had gone with his wagons to shipthe clip, returning with his bankbook showing thousands in addedwealth, a change came into her life, so radiant with the blossoms of anew happiness. Swan's big laugh was not so ready in his throat anymore; his great hand seemed forgetful of its caress. He told her thatthe time of idling now was over; she must go with him in a sheep-wagonto the range and care for her band of sheep, sharing the labors of hislife as she shared its rewards.

  No; that was not to her liking. The wife of a rich man should not liveas a peasant woman, dew in her draggled skirts to her knees, the sunbrowning her skin and bleaching her hair. It was not for his woman togive him _no_, said Swan. Be ready at a certain hour in the morning;they must make an early start, for the way was long.

  But no; she refused to take the burden of a peasant woman on her back.That was the first time Swan knocked her senseless. When sherecovered, the sheep-wagon was rocking her in its uneasy journey tothe distant range. Swan's cruelties multiplied with his impatience ather slowness to master the shepherd's art. The dogs were sullencreatures, unused to a woman's voice, unfriendly to a woman'spresence. Swan insisted that she lay aside her woman's attire anddress as a man to gain the good-will of the dogs.

  Again she defied his authority, all her refinement rising against thedegradation of her sex; again Swan laid her senseless with a blow.When she woke her limbs were clad in overalls, a greasy jumper wasbuttoned over her breast. But the dogs were wiser than their master;no disguise of man's could cover her from the contempt of their shrewdsenses. They would not obey her shrilled commands.

  Very well, said Swan; if she did not have it in her to win even therespect of a dog, let her do a dog's work. So he took the colliesaway, leaving her to range her band of sheep in terrible labor,mind-wrenching loneliness, over the sage-gray hills. Wolves grew bold;the lambs suffered. When Swan came again to number her flock, hecursed her for her carelessness, giving her blows which were kinderthan his words.

  With the first snow she abandoned her flock and fled. Disgraceful asit was for a woman to leave her man, the frenzy of loneliness droveher on. With his companionship she could have endured Swan's cruelty,but alone her heart was dead. Three days she wandered. Swan found herafter she had fallen in the snow.

  His great laugh woke her, and she was home in this house, the light ofday in her eyes. Swan was sitting beside her, merry in the thought ofhow he had cheated her out of her intention to die like an old eweamong the mountain drifts.

  She was good for nothing, he said, but to sit at home like a cat. Buthe would make sure that she sat at home, to be there at his coming,and not running away from the bounty of a man who had taken a beggarto his bosom. Then he brought the chain and the anvil, and welded thered-hot iron upon her limb. He laughed when the smoke of her burningflesh rose hissing; laughed when he mounted his horse and rode away,leaving her in agony too great to let her die.

  This summer now beginning was the fourth since that melancholy day. Inthe time that had passed, Swan had come into the ways of trouble,suffering a great drain upon his hoarded money, growing as aconsequence sullen and somber in his moods. No more he laughed; eventhe distress of his chained wife, the sight of her wasting face andbody, the pleading of her tortured eyes, could not move his loud galesof merriment again.

  Swan had killed two of his sheepherders, as she had mentioned before.It grew out of a dispute over wages, in which the men were right. Thatwas the winter following her attempt to run away, Swan being alonewith them upon the stormy range. He declared both of them set upon himat once like wolves, and that he fought only to defend his life. Hestrangled them, the throat of each grasped in his broad, thick hand,and held them from him so, stiff arms against their desperatestruggles, until they sank down in the snow and died.

  Only a little while ago the lawyers had got him off from the charge ofmurder, after long delays. The case had been tried in another county,for Swan Carlson's neighbors all believed him guilty of a horriblecrime; no man among them could have listened to his story under oathwith unprejudiced ear. The lawyers had brought Swan off, for at theend it had been his living word against the mute accusations of twodead men. There was nobody to speak for the herders; so the lawyershad set him free. But it had cost him thousands of dollars, and Swan'sevil humor had deepened with the drain.

  Crazy, he said of his wife; a poor mad thing bent on self-destructionin wild and mournful ways. In that Swan was believed, at least. Nobodycame to inquire of her, none ever stopped to speak a word. The nearestneighbor was twelve or fifteen
miles distant, a morose man with sourface, master of a sea of sheep.

  All of this Swan himself had told her in the days when he laughed. Hetold her also of the lawyers' drain upon his wealth, starving her daystogether to make a pebble of saving to fill the ruthless breach.

  "Tonight Swan will come," she said. "After what I have told you, areyou not afraid?"

  "I suppose I ought to be," Mackenzie returned, leaving her to form herown conclusion.

  She searched his face with steady eyes, her hand on the ax-helve, inearnest effort to read his heart.

  "No, you are not afraid," she said. "But wait; when you hear himspeak, then you will be afraid."

  "How do you know he is coming home tonight?"

  She did not speak at once. Her eyes were fixed on the open door atMackenzie's side, her face was set in the tensity of her mentalconcentration as she listened. Mackenzie bent all his faculties tohear if any foot approached. There was no sound.

  "The fishermen of my country can feel the chill of an iceberg throughthe fog and the night," she said at last. "Swan Carlson is an icebergto my heart."

  She listened again, bending forward, her lips open. Mackenzie fanciedhe heard the swing of a galloping hoof-beat, and turned toward thedoor.

  "Have you a pistol?" she inquired.

  "No."

  "He is coming; in a little while he will be at the door. There is timeyet for you to leave."

  "I want to have a word with your man; I'll wait."

  Mrs. Carlson got up, keeping the ax in hand, moved her chair to theother side of the door, where she stationed herself in such positionas Swan must see her first when he looked within. She disposed the axto conceal it entirely beneath her long apron, her hand under thegarment grasping the helve.

  "For your own sake, not his, I ask you not to strike him," Mackenziepleaded, in all the earnestness he could command.

  "I have given you the hour of my vengeance," she replied. "But if hecurses me, if he lifts his hand!"

  Mackenzie was more than a little uneasy on the probable outcome ofhis meeting with the tempestuous Swan. He got out his pipe and lit it,considering the situation with fast-running thoughts. Still, a mancould not go on and leave that beaten, enslaved woman to the merciesof her tyrant; Swan Carlson must be given to understand that he wouldbe held to answer to the law for his future behavior toward her.

  "If I were you I'd put the ax behind the door and get his supperready," said he.

  Mrs. Carlson got up at the suggestion, with such readiness thatsurprised Mackenzie, put the ax back of the open door, stood a momentwinding up her fallen hair.

  "Yes, he is my man," she said.

  Swan was turning his horse into the barn; Mackenzie could hear himtalking to the animal, not unkindly. Mrs. Carlson put fresh fuel inthe stove, making a rattling of the lids which must have soundedcheerful to the ears of a hungry man. As she began breaking eggs intoa bowl she took up her song again, with an unconscious air ofdetachment from it, as one unwittingly follows the habit that has beenfor years the accompaniment to a task.

  As before, the refinement of accent was wanting in her words, but thesweet melancholy of her voice thrilled her listener like the richnotes of an ancient violin.

  _Na-a-fer a-lo-o-one, na-a-fer a-lone, He promise na-fer to leafe me, Na-fer to leafe me a-lone!_

  Mackenzie sat with his elbow on the table, his chair partly turnedtoward the door, just within the threshold and a little to one side,where the flockmaster would see him the moment he stepped into thelight. The traveler's pack lay on the floor at the door jamb; thesmoke from his pipe drifted out to tell of his presence in the honestannouncement of a man who had nothing to hide.

  So Swan Carlson found him as he came home to his door.

  Swan stopped, one foot in the door, the light on his face. Mrs.Carlson did not turn from the stove to greet him by word or look, butstood bending a little over the pan of sputtering eggs, which sheshook gently from side to side with a rhythmic, slow movement incadence with her song. Swan turned his eyes from one to the other, hisface clouding for a moment as for a burst of storm, clearing again atonce as Mackenzie rose and gave him good evening in cheerful andunshaken voice.

  Mrs. Carlson had spoken a true word when she described Swan as ahandsome man. Almost seven feet tall, Mackenzie took him to be, sotall that he must stoop to enter the door; lithe and sinewy of limbs,a lightness in them as of an athlete bred; broad in the shoulders,long of arms. His face was stern, his red hair long about the ears,his Viking mustache long-drooping at the corners of his mouth.

  "I thought a man was here, or my woman had begun to smoke," said Swan,coming in, flinging his hat down on the floor. "What do you want,loafin' around here?"

  Mackenzie explained his business in that country in direct words, andhis presence in the house in the same breath. Mollified, Swan gruntedthat he understood and accepted the explanation, turning up hissleeves, unfastening the collar of his flannel shirt, to wash. Hiswoman stood at the stove, her song dead on her lips, sliding the eggsfrom the pan onto a platter in one piece. Swan gave her no heed, noteven a curious or questioning look, but as he crossed the room to thewash bench he saw the broken chain lying free upon the floor.

  A breath he paused over it, his eyes fastened on it in a gloweringstare. Mackenzie braced himself for the storm of wrath which seemedbursting the doors of Swan Carlson's gloomy heart. But Swan did notspeak. He picked up the chain, examined the cut link, threw it downwith a clatter. At the sound of its fall Mackenzie saw Mrs. Carlsonstart. She turned her head, terror in her eyes, her face blanched.Swan bent over the basin, snorting water like a strangling horse.

  There were eight eggs on the platter that Swan Carlson's woman putbefore him when he sat down to his supper. One end of the greattrencher was heaped with brown bacon; a stack of bread stood at Swan'sleft hand, a cup of coffee at his right. Before this provender theflockmaster squared himself, the unwelcome guest across the table fromhim, the smoke of his pipe drifting languidly out into the tranquilsummer night.

  Swan had said no word since his first inquiry. Mackenzie had venturednothing more. Mrs. Carlson sat down in the chair that she had placednear the door before Swan's arrival, only that she moved it a littleto bring her hand within reach of the hidden ax.

  Swan had brushed his long, dark-red hair back from his broad, deepforehead, bringing it down across the tips of his ears in a savagefashion admirably suited to his grave, harsh, handsome face. Hedevoured his food noisily, bending low over his plate.

  "You want to learn the sheep business, huh?" said he, throwing up hiseyes in quick challenge, pausing a moment in his champing and clatter.Mackenzie nodded, pipe raised toward his lips. "Well, you come to theright country. You ever had any work around a ranch?"

  "No."

  "No, I didn't think you had; you look too soft. How much can youlift?"

  "What's that got to do with sheep?" Mackenzie inquired, frowning inhis habitual manner of showing displeasure with frivolous and triflingthings.

  "I can shoulder a steel rail off of the railroad that weighs sevenhundred and fifty pounds," said Swan. "You couldn't lift one end."

  "Maybe I couldn't," Mackenzie allowed, pretending to gaze out afterhis drifting smoke, but watching the sheepman, as he mopped the lastof the eggs up with a piece of bread, with a furtive turning of hiseye. He was considering how to approach the matter which he hadremained there to take up with this great, boasting, savage man, andhow he could make him understand that it was any of society's businesswhether he chained his wife or let her go free, fed her or starvedher, caressed her, or knocked her down.

  Swan pushed back from the table, wringing the coffee from hismustache.

  "Did you cut that chain?" he asked.

  "Yes, I cut it. You've got no right to keep your wife, or anybodyelse, chained up. You could be put in jail for it; it's against thelaw."

  "A man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own woman; she'shis proper
ty, the same as a horse."

  "Not exactly the same as a horse, either. But you could be put in jailfor beating your horse. I've waited here to tell you about this, in afriendly way, and warn you to treat this woman right. Maybe you didn'tknow you were breaking the law, but I'm telling you it's so."

  Swan stood, his head within six inches of the ceiling. His wife musthave read an intention of violence in his face, although Mackenziecould mark no change in his features, always as immobile as bronze.She sprang to her feet, her bosom agitated, arms lifted, shouldersraised, as if to shrink from the force of a blow. She made no effortto reach the ax behind the door; the thought of it had gone,apparently, out of her mind.

  Swan stood within four feet of her, but he gave her no attention.

  "When a man comes to my house and monkeys with my woman, him and mewe've got to have a fight," he said.