CHAPTER X
O'MIE'S CHOICE
And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods?
--MACAULAY.
There was only one church bell in Springvale for many years. It calledto prayers, or other public service. It sounded the alarm of fire, andtolled for the dead. It was our school-bell and wedding-bell. It clangedin terror when the Cheyennes raided eastward in '67, and it pealed outsolemnly for the death of Abraham Lincoln. It chimed on Christmas Eveand rang in each New Year. Its two sad notes that were tolled for theyears of the little Judson baby had hardly ceased their vibrations whenit broke forth into a ringing, joyous resonance for the finding of O'miealive.
O'mie was taken to our home. No other woman's hands were so strong andgentle as the hands of Candace Baronet. Everybody felt that O'mie couldbe trusted nowhere else. It was hard for Cam and Dollie at first, butwhen Dollie found she might cook every meal and send it up to my aunt,she was more reconciled; while Cam came and went, doing a multitude ofkindly acts. This was long before the days of telephones, and a hundredsteps were needed for every one taken to-day.
In the weeks that followed, O'mie hung between life and death. With allthe care and love given him, his strength wasted away. He had beencruelly beaten, and cuts and bruises showed how terrible had been hisfight for freedom.
At first he talked deliriously, but in the weakness that followed he laymotionless hour on hour. And with the fever burning out his candle oflife, we waited the end. How heavy-hearted we were in those days! Itseemed as though all Springvale claimed the orphan boy. And daily,morning and evening, a messenger from Red Range came for word of him,bearing always offers of whatever help we would accept from thekind-hearted neighborhood.
Father Le Claire had come into our home with the bringing of O'mie, andgentle as a woman's were his ministrations. One evening, when the end ofearthly life seemed near for O'mie, the priest took me by the arm, andwe went down to the "Rockport" point together. The bushes were growingvery rank about my old playground and trysting place. I saw Marjiedaily, for she came and went about our house with quiet usefulness. Butour hands and hearts were full of the day's sad burden, and we hardlyspoke to each other. Marjie's nights were spent mostly with poor Mrs.Judson, whose grief was wearing deep grooves into the young mother face.
To-night Le Claire and I sat down on the rock and breathed deeply of thefresh June air. Below us, for many a mile, the Neosho lay like a broadbelt of silver in the deepening shadows of the valley, while all theWest Prairie was aflame with the sunset lights. The world was never morebeautiful, and the spirit of the Plains seemed reaching out glad handsto us who were so strong and full of life. All day we had watched besidethe Irish boy. His weakened pulse-beat showed how steadily his strengthwas ebbing. He had fallen asleep now, and we dared not think what thewaking might be for us.
"Philip, when O'mie is gone, I shall leave Springvale," the priestbegan. "I think that Jean Pahusca has at last decided to go to theOsages. He probably will never be here again. But if he should come--"Le Claire paused as if the words pained him--"remember you cannot trusthim. I have no tie that binds me to you. I shall go to the West. I feelsure the Plains Indians need me now more than the Osages and the Kaws."
I listened silently, not caring to question why either O'mie or Jeanshould bind him anywhere. The former was all but lost to me already. Ofthe latter I did not care to think.
"And before I go, I want to tell you something I know of O'mie," LeClaire went on.
I had wondered often at the strange sort of understanding I knew existedbetween himself and O'mie. I began to listen more intently now, and forthe first time since leaving the Hermit's Cave I thought of the knifewith the script lettering. I shrank from questioning him or showing himthe thing. I had something of my father's patience in letting eventstell me what I wanted to know. So I asked no questions, but let himspeak.
"O'mie comes by natural right into a dislike, even hatred, of the redrace. It may be I know something more of him than anyone else inSpringvale knows. His story is a romance and a tragedy, stranger thanfiction. In the years to come, when hate shall give place to love in ournation, when the world is won to the church, a younger generation willfind it hard to picture the life their forefathers lived."
The priest's brow darkened and his lips were compressed, as if he foundit hard to speak what he would say.
"I come to you, Philip, because your experience here has made you a manwho were only a boy yesterday; because you love O'mie; because you havebeen able to keep a quiet tongue; and most of all, because you are JohnBaronet's son, and heir, I believe, to his wisdom. Most of O'mie's storyis known to your father. He found it out just before he went to the war.It is a tragical one. The boy was stolen by a band of Indians when hewas hardly more than a baby. It was a common trick of the savages then;it may be again as our frontier creeps westward."
The priest paused and looked steadily out over the Neosho Valley,darkening in the twilight.
"You know how you felt when O'mie was lost. Can you imagine what hismother felt when she found her boy was stolen? Her husband was away on atrapping tour, had been away for a long time, and she was alone. In avery frenzy, she started out on the prairie to follow the Indians. Shesuffered terrible hardship, but Providence brought her at last to theOsage Mission, whose doors are always open to the distressed. And hereshe found a refuge. A strange thing happened then. While PatrickO'Meara, O'mie's father, was far from home, word had reached him thathis wife was dead. Coming down the Arkansas River, O'Meara chanced tofall in with some Mexicans who had a battle with a band of Indians atPawnee Rock. With these Indians was a little white boy, whom O'Meararescued. It was his own son, although he did not know it, and he broughtthe little one to the Mission on the Neosho.
"Philip, it is vouchsafed to some of us to know a bit of heaven here onearth. Such a thing came to Patrick O'Meara when he found his wifealive, and the baby boy was restored to her. They were happy togetherfor a little while. But Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from her hardshipson the prairie, and her husband was killed by the Comanches a monthafter her death. Little O'mie, dying up there now, was left an orphan atthe Mission. You have heard Mrs. Gentry tell of his coming here. Yourfather is the only one here who knows anything of O'mie's history. If henever comes back, you must take his place."
The purple shadows of twilight were folding down upon the landscape. Inthe soft light the priest's face looked dark and set.
"Why not tell me now what father knows?" I asked.
"I cannot tell you that now, Philip. Some day I may tell you anotherstory. But it does not concern you or O'mie. What I want you to do iswhat your father will do if he comes home. If he should not come, he haswritten in his will what you must do. I need not tell you to keep thisto yourself."
"Father Le Claire, can you tell me anything about Jean Pahusca, andwhere he is now?"
He rose hastily.
"We must not stay here." Then, kindly, he took my hand. "Yes, some day,but not now, not to-night." There was a choking in his voice, and Ithought of O'mie.
We stood up and let the cool evening air ripple against our faces. TheNeosho Valley was black now. Only here and there did we catch theglitter of the river. The twilight afterglow was still pink, but thesweep of the prairie was only a purple blur swathed in gray mist. Out ofthis purple softness, as we parted the bushes, we saw Marjie hurryingtoward us.
"Phil, Phil!" she cried, "O'mie's taken a change for the better. He'sbeen asleep for three hours, and now he is awake. He knew Aunt Candaceand he asked for you. The doctor says he has a chance to live. Oh,Phil!" and Marjie burst into tears.
Le Claire took her hand and, putting it through my arm, he said, gentlyas my father might have done, "You are both too young for such a strainas this. Oh, this civil war! It robs you of your childhood. Too soon,too soon, you are men and women. Philip, take Marjory home. Don'thurry." He smiled as he spoke. "It will do you good to lea
ve O'mie outof mind for a little while."
Then he hurried off to the sick room, leaving us together. It seemedyears since that quiet April sunset when we gathered the pink flowersout in the draw, and I crowned Marjie my queen. It was now late June,and the first little yellow leaves were on the cottonwoods, telling thatmidsummer was near.
"Marjie," I said, putting the hand she had withdrawn through my armagain, "the moon is just coming up. Let's go out on the prairie a littlewhile. Those black shadows down there distress me. I must have some restfrom darkness."
We walked slowly out on Cliff Street and into the open prairie, whichthe great summer moon was flooding with its soft radiance. No otherlight is ever so regal as the full moon above the prairie, where noblack shadows can checker and blot out and hem in its limitless glory.Marjie and I were young and full of vigor, but the steady drain on mindand heart, and the days and nights of broken rest, were not withouteffect. And yet to-night, with hope once more for O'mie's life, with asense of lifted care, and with the high tide of the year pouring out itsriches round about us, the peace of the prairies fell like a benedictionon us, as we loitered about the grassy spaces, quiet and very happy.
Then the care for others turned our feet homeward. I must relieve AuntCandace to-night by O'mie's side, and Marjie must be with her mother.The moonlight tempted us to linger a little longer as we passed by"Rockport," and we parted the bushes and stood on our old playgroundrock.
"Marjie, the moonlight makes a picture of you always," I said gently.
She did not answer, but gazed out across the valley, above whose darkgreenery the silvery mists lay fold on fold. When she turned her face tomine, something in her eyes called up in me that inspiration that hadcome to be a part of my thought of her, that sense of a woman's worthand of her right to tenderest guardianship.
"Marjie"--I put both arms around her and drew her to me--"the best thingin the world is a good girl, and you are the best girl in the world." Iheld her close. It was no longer a boy's admiration, but a man's lovethat filled my soul that night. Marjie drew gently away.
"We must go now, Phil, indeed we must. Mother needs me."
Oh, I could wait her time. I took her arm and led her out to the street.The bushes closed behind us, and we went our way together. It was wellwe could not look back upon the rock. We had hardly left it when twofigures climbed up from the ledge below and stood where we had been--twofor whom the night had no charm and the prairie and valley had nobeauty, a low-browed, black-eyed girl with a heart full of jealousy, anda tall, graceful, picturesquely handsome young Indian. They had joinedforces, just as I had once felt they would sometime do. As I camewhistling up the street on my way home I paused by the bushes, halfinclined to go beyond them again. I was happy in every fiber of mybeing. But duty prodded me sharply to move on. I believe now that JeanPahusca would have choked the life out of me had I met him face to facethat moonlit night. Heaven turns our paths away from many an unknownperil, and we credit it all to our own choice of ways.
* * * * *
Slowly but steadily O'mie came back to us. So far had he gone down thevalley of the shadow, he groped with difficulty up toward the lightagain. He slept much, but it was life-giving sleep, and he was notovercome by delirium after that turning point in his illness. I think Inever fully knew my father's sister till in those weeks beside thesickbed. It was not the medicine, nor the careful touch, it washerself--her wholesome, hopeful, trustful spirit--that seemed to enterinto the very life of the sick one, and build him to health. I hadrarely known illness, I who had muscles like iron, and the frame of agiant. My father was a man of wonderful vigor. It was not until O'miewas brought to our house that I understood why he should have beentrusted to no one else.
We longed to know his story. The town had settled into its old groove.The victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had thrilled us, as the lossat Chancellorsville had depressed our spirits; and the war was ourconstant theme. And then the coming and going of traders and strangerson the old trail, the undercurrent of anxiety lest another conspiracyshould gather, the Quantrill raid at Lawrence, all helped to keep usfrom lethargy. We had had our surprise, however. Strangers had to givean account of themselves to the home guard now. But we were softenedtoward our own townspeople. They were very discreet, and we must meetand do business with them daily. For the sake of young Tell and Jim, wewho knew would say nothing. Jean came into town at rare intervals,meeting the priest down in the chapel. Attending to his own affairs,walking always like a very king, or riding as only a Plains Indian canride, he came and went unmolested. I never could understand that strangepower he had of commanding our respect. He seldom saw Marjie, and herface blanched at the mention of his name. I do not know when he lastappeared in our town that summer. Nobody could keep track of hismovements. But I do know that after the priest's departure, hisdisappearance was noted, and the daylight never saw him in Springvaleagain. What the dark hours of the night could have told is anotherstory.
With O'mie out of danger, Le Claire left us. His duties, he told us, layfar to the west. He might go to the Kiowas or the Cheyennes. In anyevent, it would be long before he came again.
"I need not ask you, Philip, to take good care of O'mie. He could nothave better care. You will guard his interests. Until you know more thanyou do now, you will say nothing to him or any one else of what I havetold you."
He looked steadily into my eyes, and I understood him.
"I think Jean Pahusca will never trouble you, nor even come here now. Ihave my reasons for thinking so. But, Philip, if you should know of hisbeing here, keep on your guard. He is a man of more than savage nature.What he loves, he will die for. What he hates, he will kill. Cam Gentryis right. The worst blood of the Kiowas and of the French nationalityfills his veins. Be careful."
Brave little O'mie struggled valiantly for health again. He was patientand uncomplaining, but the days ran into weeks before his strengthbegan to increase. Only one want was not supplied: he longed for thepriest.
"You're all so good, it's mighty little in me to say it, an' Dr.Hemingway's gold, twenty-four karat gold; but me hair's red, an' me ralename's O'Meara, an' naturally I long for the praist, although I'm aproper Presbyterian."
"How about Brother Dodd?" I inquired.
"All the love in his heart fur me put in the shell of a mustard seedwould rattle round loike a walnut in a tin bushel box, begorra," thesick boy declared.
It was long before he could talk much and we did not ask a question wecould avoid, but waited his own time to know how he had been taken fromus and how he had found himself a prisoner in that cavern whence we hadbarely cheated Death of its pitiful victim. As he could bear it he toldus, at length, of his part in the night the town was marked for doom.Propped up on his pillows, his face to the open east window, his thin,white hands folded, he talked quietly as of a thing in which he had hadlittle part.
"Ye see, Phil, the Almighty made us all different, so He could know us,an' use us when He wanted some partic'lar thing that some partic'lar onecould do. When folks puts on a uniform in their dress or their thinkin',they belong to one av two classes--them as is goin' to the devil likeconvicts an' narrow churchmen, or them as is goin' after 'em hard tobring 'em into line again, like soldiers an' sisters av charity; an'they just have to act as one man. But mainly we're singular number. TheLord didn't give me size."
He looked up at my broad shoulders. I had carried him in my arms fromhis bed to the east window day after day.
"I must do me own stunt in me own way. You know mebby, how I taggedthim strangers till, if they'd had the chance at me they'd have fixedme. Specially that Dick Yeager, the biggest av the two who come to thetavern."
"The chance! Didn't they have their full swing at you?"
"Well, no, not regular an' proper," he replied.
I wondered if the cruelty he had suffered might not have injured hisbrain and impaired his memory.
"You know I peeked through that hole up in the sh
op that Conlow seems tohave left fur such as me. Honorable business, av coorse. But Tell andJim, they was hid behind the stack av wagon wheels in the darkcorner--just as honorable an' high-spirited as meself, on their sociallevel. I was a high-grader up on that ladder. Well, annyhow, I peekedan' eavesdropped, as near as I could get to the eaves av the shop, an' Itould Father Le Claire all I could foind out. An' then he put it on meto do my work. 'You can be spared,' he says. 'If it's life and death,ye'll choose the better part.' Phil, it was laid on all av us to choosethat night."
His thin, blue-veined hand sought mine where he lay reclining againstthe pillows. I took it in my big right hand, the hand that could holdJean Pahusca with a grip of iron.
"There was only one big enough an' brainy enough an' brave enough tolead the crowd to save this town an' that was Philip Baronet. There wasonly one who could advise him well an' that was Cam Gentry. Poor oldCam, too near-sighted to tell a cow from a catfish tin feet away. Withoutyou, Cam and the boys couldn't have done a thing.
"Can ye picture what would be down there now? I guess not, fur you'd notbe making pictures now, You'd be a picture yourself, the kind they puton the carbolic acid bottle an' mark 'pizen.'"
O'mie paused and looked out dreamily across the valley to the eastplains beyond them.
"I can't tell how fast things wint through me moind that night. You didsome thinkin' yourself, an' you know. 'I can't do Phil's part if I stayhere,' I raisoned, 'an' bedad, I don't belave he can do my part. Bein'little counts sometimes. It's laid on me to be the sacrifice, an' I'llkape me promise an' choose the better part. I'll cut an' run.'"
He looked up at my questioning face with a twinkle in his eye.
"'There's only one to save this town. That's Phil's stunt,' I says; 'an'there's only one to save Marjie. That's my stunt.'"
I caught my breath, for my heart stood still, and I felt I muststrangle.
"Do you mean to say, Thomas O'Meara--?" I could get no fuither.
"I mane, either you or me's got to tell this. If you know it better'n Ido, go ahead." And then more gently he went on: "Yes, I mane to say,kape still, dear; I'm not very strong yet. If I'd gone up to CliffStreet afther you to come to her, she'd be gone. If Jean got hands onher an' she struggled or screamed, as she'd be like to do, bein' asensible girl, he had that murderous little short knife, an' he'd sworesolemn he'd have her or her scalp. He's not got her, nor her scalp, northat knife nather now. I kept that much from doin' harm. I dunno wherethe cruel thing wint to, but it wint, all right.
"And do ye mane to say, Philip Baronet, that ye thought I'd lost menerve an' was crude enough to fall in wid a nest av thim Copperheadsan' let 'em do me to me ruin? Or did you think His Excellency, theReverend Dodd was right, an' I'd cut for cover till the fuss was over?Well, honestly now, I'm not that kind av an Irishman."
My mind was in a tumult as I listened. I wondered how O'mie could be socalm when I durst not trust myself to speak.
"So I run home, thinkin' ivery jump, an' I grabbed the little girl'swaterproof cloak. Your lady friends' wraps comes in handy sometimes.Don't niver despise 'em, Phil, nor the ladies nather. You woman-hater!"O'mie's laugh was like old times and very good to hear.
"I flung that thing round me, hood on me brown curls, an' all, an' thenI flew. I made the ground just three times in thim four blocks and ahalf to Judson's. You know how the kangaroo looks in the geographypicture av Australia, illustratin' the fauna an' flora, with a tall,thin tree beyont, showin' lack of vegetation in that tropic, an' alittle quilly cus they call a ornithorynchus, its mouth like JimConlow's? Well, no kangaroo'd had enough self-respect to follow me thatnight. I caught Marjie just in time, an' I puts off before her towardher home. At the corner I quit kangarooin' an' walks quick an' a littletimid-like, just Marjie to a dimple. If you'd been there, you'd wantedto put some more pink flowers round where they'd do the most good."
I squeezed his hand.
"Quit that, you ugly bear. That's a lady's hand yet a whoile an' can'tstand too much pressure.
"It was to save her loife, Phil." O'mie spoke solemnly now. "You couldsave the town. I couldn't. I could save her. You couldn't. In a minute,there in the dark by the gate, Jean Pahusca grabs me round me daintywaist. His horse was ready by him an' he swung me into the saddle, notharsh, but graceful like, an' gintle. I never said a word, but gave aawful gasp like I hadn't no words, appreciative enough. 'I'm saving'you, Star-face,' he says. 'The Copperheads will burn your mother's housean' the Kiowas will come and steal Star-face--' an' he held me close asif he would protect me--he got over that later--an' I properly fainted.That's the only way the abducted princess can do in the novel--justfaint. It saves hearin' what you don't want to know. An' me size justsuited the case. Don't never take on airs, you big hulkin' fellow. Nograceful prince is iver goin' to haul you over the saddle-bow thinkin'you're the choice av his heart. It saved Marjie, an' it got Jean clearav town before he found his mistake, which wa'n't bad for Springvale.Down by Fingal's Creek I come to, an' we had a rumpus. Bein' a daintygirl, I naturally objected to goin' into that swirlin' water, though Ididn't object to Jean's goin'--to eternity. In the muss I lost mecloak--the badge av me business there. I never could do nothin' wid thimcussed hooks an' eyes on a collar an' the thing wasn't anchoredsecurely at me throat. It was awful then. I can't remember it all. Butit was dark, and Jean had found me out, and the waters was deep andswift. The horse got away on the bank an' slid back, I think. It musthave been then it galloped up to town; but findin' Jean didn't follow,it came back to him. I didn't know annything fur some toime. I'd gottoo much av Fingal's Creek mixed into me constitution an' by-laws tokape my thoughts from floatin' too. I'll never know rightly whin I rodean' whin I was dragged, an' whin I walked. It was a runnin' fight avinfantry and cavalry, such as the Neosho may never see again, betwixtthe two av us."
Blind, trustful fool that I had been, thinking after all Le Claire'swarnings that Jean had been a good, loyal, chivalrous Indian, protectingMarjie from harm.
"And to think we have thought all this time there were a dozen Rebelsmaking away with you, and never dreamed you had deliberately putyourself into the hands of the strongest and worst enemy you couldhave!"
"It was to save a woman, Phil," O'mie said simply. "He could only killme. He wouldn't have been that good to her. You'd done the same yoursilfto save anny woman, aven a stranger to you. Wait an' see."
How easily forgotten things come back when we least expect them. Therecame to me, as O'mie spoke, the memory of my dream the night after Jeanhad sought Marjie's life out on the Red Range prairie. The night after Italked with my father of love and of my mother. That night two womenwhom I had never seen before were in my dreams, and I had struggled tosave them from peril as though they were of my own flesh and blood.
"You will do it," O'mie went on. "You were doing more. Who was it wintdown along the creek side av town where the very worst pro-slaveryfellows is always coiled and ready to spring, wint in the dark to wakeup folks that lived betwixt them on either side, who was ready to lighton 'em at a minute's notice? Who wint upstairs above thim as was gettin'ready to burn 'em in their beds, an' walked quiet and cool where onewrong step meant to be throttled in the dark? Don't talk to me avcourage."
"But, O'mie, it was all chance with us. You went where danger wascertain."
"It was my part, Phil, an' I ain't no shirker just because I'm not tinfeet tall an' don't have to be weighed on Judson's stock scales." O'mierested awhile on the pillows. Then he continued his story.
"They was more or less border raidin' betwixt Jean an' me till we gotbeyont the high cliff above the Hermit's Cave. When I came to after oneof his fists had bumped me head he was urgin' his pony to what it didn'twant. The river was roarin' below somewhere an' it was black as thegrave's insides. It was way up there that in a minute's lull in thehostilities, I caught the faint refrain:
'Does the star-spangled banner yit wave, O'er the land av the free and the home av the brave?'
"I didn't see your ligh
ts. They was tin thousand star-spangled bannerswavin' before me eyes ivery second. But that strain av song put newcourage into me soul though I had no notion what it really meant. I washalf dead an' wantin' to go the other half quick, an' it was like adrame, till that song sent a sort of life-givin' pulse through me. Thenext minute we were goin' over an' over an' over, betwane rocks, an'hanging to trees, down, down, down, wid that murderous river roarin'hungry below us. Jean jumpin' from place to place an' me clingin' tohim an' hittin' iverything that could be hit at ivery jump. An' thencome darkness over me again. There was a light somewhere when Icome to. I was free an' I made a quick spring. I got that knife,an' like a flash I slid the blade down a crack somewhere. An'then he tied me solid, an' standin' over me he says slow an'cruel: 'You--may--stay--here--till--you--starve--to--death.Nobody--can--get--to--you--but--me--an'--I'm--niver--comin'--back. Ihate you.' An' his eyes were just loike that noight whin I found himwith thim faded pink flowers out on the prairie."
"O'mie, dear, you are the greatest hero I ever heard of. You poor,beaten, tortured sacrifice."
I put my arm around his shoulder and my tears fell on his red hair.
"I didn't do no more than ivery true American will do--fight an' die toprotect his home; or if not his'n, some other man's. Whin the day avchoosin' comes we can't do no more 'n to take our places. We all do it.Whin Jean put it on me to lay there helpless an' die o' thirst, I know'dI could do it. Same as you know'd you'd outwit that gang ready to burnan' kill, that I'd run from. I just looked straight up at Jean--thelight was gettin' dim--an' I says, 'You--may--go--plum--to--the--divil,--but--you--can't--hurt--that--part--av--me--that's--never--hungry--nor--thirsty.' When you git face to face wid a thing like that," O'mie spokereverently, "somehow the everlastin' arms, Dr. Hemingway's preaches of,is strong underneath you. The light wint out, an' Jean in his still wayhad slid off, an' I was alone. Alone wid me achin' and me bonds, an' wida burnin' longin' fur water, wid a wish to go quick if I must go; butmost av all--don't never furgit it, Phil, whin the thing overtakes youaven in your strength--most av all, above all sufferin' and naturallongin' to live--there comes the reality av the words your Aunt Candacetaught us years ago in the little school:
"'Though I walk through the valley av the shadow av death, I will fearno evil.'
"I called for you, Phil, in my misery, as' I know'd somehow you'd hearme. An' you did come."
His thin hand closed over mine, and we sat long in silence--two boyswhom the hand of Providence was leading into strange, hard lines,shaping us each for the work the years of our manhood were waiting tobring to us.