From the Valley of the Missing Part 68

Cronk made no response; only stooped over and gathered a few slender whittlings, and stacked them up among the others. There was an intense, biting silence, until the governor spoke again.

"Nineteen years ago, when I lived in Syracuse, there came to me an opportunity to convict a man of theft. Then I was young and happy; I knew nothing of deep misery, or of--deep love." The hesitation on his last words brought a shake from the squatter's shoulders. "This man, as I have said, was a thief, admitted his crime to me; but, at the time of his conviction, he pleaded with me that he might go home for a little while to see his wife, who was ill. But of course I had no authority to do that."

A dark shade flashed over Cronk's face, followed by one of awful suffering.

"Yep, ye had," he repeated parrot-like; "ye might have let him go."

"But I couldn't," proceeded the governor, "and the man was taken away to prison without one glance at the woman who was praying to see him. For she loved him more--than he did her."

"That's a lie!" burst from Cronk's dry puckered lips.

"I repeat, she loved him well," insisted Vandecar; "for every breath she took was one of love for him."

In the hush that followed his broken sentence, Lon moved one big foot outward, then drew it back.

"Afterward--I mean a few hours after the man was taken away--I began to think of him and his agony--over the woman, and I went out to find her.

She was in a little hut down by the ca.n.a.l,--an ill-furnished, one-room shanty,--but the woman was so sweet, so little, yet so ill, that I thought only of her."

A dripping sweat broke from every pore in Lon's body, and drops of water rolled down his dark face. He groped about for another stick of wood, as if blind.

"She was too young, too small, Lon Cronk, for the cross she had to bear."

Lon threw up his head.

"Jesus! what a blisterin' memory!" he said.

His throat almost smothered the words. Ann began to sob; but Katherine stood like a stone image, staring at the squatter.

The governor's low voice went on again:

"She was sicker than any woman I'd ever seen before, and when I was there her little baby was born. I held her hands until she died. I remember every message she sent you, Cronk. She told me to tell you how much she loved you, and how the thought of your goodness to her and your love would go down with her to the grave. If I could have saved her for you, I should have done so; but she had to go. Then I wrote and asked you if I should care for her body."

An evil look overspread the squatter's face. The misty tears cleared, and he began to sc.r.a.pe again at the wood. He flashed a murderous look upward.

"Ye could have left her dead in the hut, as long as yer killed her!"

said he.

Not heeding the interruption, Vandecar went on:

"But you sent me no word, and, because I was sorry, and because--"

The knife slipped from Lon's stiffened fingers, and a long groan fell from his lips.

"I didn't get no word from ye!" he burst out. "I didn't know nothin'

till they told me she were dead." The man's head dropped down on his chest.

Relentlessly Vandecar spoke again:

"Because I could not give you to her when she wanted you, and because she had suffered so, I took her body and placed it in our family plot. I went to the prison to tell you this, so that you could go to her grave whenever you wished; but you had escaped the night before I arrived there, and I never a.s.sociated you with my great loss."

The revenge Cronk had planned upon this man suddenly lost its savor before the vividly drawn picture. He did not remember that Vandecar had come for his girl; he had in mind only the wee, sweet squatter woman so long dead.

"Didn't the warden tell ye that I hit him, Mister," he groaned, "and that I smashed the keeper when they telled me about her, and--and that the strait-jacket busted my collarbone when I was tryin' to get out to her?"

Vandecar shuddered and shook his head; but before he could speak Cronk wailed dazedly:

"Ye might have come and telled me yerself, ye might a knowed how I wanted ye to!"

"I told you that I did come and you were gone," Vandecar answered emphatically.

"Ye didn't think how I loved her, how I'd a dreamed of huggin' my own little brat!"

Vandecar interrupted again:

"I took the baby with me, Lon Cronk." At the word "baby," Lon dragged his heavy hand backward across his eyes. "The baby," continued the governor, "was no bigger than this,--a wee bit of a girl, such as all big men love to father."

The squatter stood rigidly up against the wall, until his head almost reached the ceiling. His fierce eyes centered themselves upon Vandecar.

"If I'd a knowed, Mister," he mumbled, "that ye'd took my little Midge's hand in yer'n, that ye soothed her when she was a howlin' fer me, I wouldn't have cribbed yer kids--I'll be d.a.m.ned if I would 'ave! But I hated ye--Christ! how I hated ye! I could only think how ye wouldn't help me." He shuddered, wiped his wet lips, and went on, "After that I went plumb to h.e.l.l. There weren't no living with me in prison, lessen I were strapped in the jacket till my meat were scorched. It seemed as how it made my hurt less for her to have my own skin blistered. Then, when I got out of prison, I never once took my eyes offen ye, and when yer woman gived ye Flea and Flukey--"

A cry from Fledra brought all eyes upon her save Lon's.

"When yer woman gived ye the two kids," he went on, "I let 'em stay long enough for ye to love 'em; then I stole 'em away. But, if I'd a knowed that ye tooked mine--" He moved forward restlessly and almost whispered, "Mister, will ye tell me how the little 'un looked? And were it warm and snuggly? Did ye let it lay ag'in' ye--and sleep?" The miserable, questioning voice rose in demand, but lowered again. "Did ye let it grab hold of yer fingers--oh, that were what I wanted more'n anythin' else!

And that's why I stealed yours; so ye'd know what sufferin' was. If ye'd only telled me, Mister--if ye'd only telled me!"

Vandecar groaned--groaned for them all, no more for himself and for his gentle wife than for the great hulk of a man wrestling in agony. Tears rose slowly to his lids; but he dashed them away.

"Cronk," he cried, "Cronk, for G.o.d's sake, don't--don't! I've borne an awful burden all these years, and every time I've thought of her I've thought of you and wondered where you were."

"I were with my little woman in spirit," the squatter interrupted, "when I weren't tryin' to get even with you. Mister, will ye swear by G.o.d that ye telled me the truth about the baby?"

"I swear by G.o.d!" repeated Vandecar solemnly.

"And I believe ye. I could a been good, if I'd a had the little kid awhile. It were a bit of her, a little, livin' bit. I could a been, but I wasn't, a good man. I loved to lash Flukey and Flea. I loved to make the marks stand out on their legs and backs. And I tried to l'arn Flukey to be a thief, and Flea were a goin' to Lem tomorry. It were the only way I lived--the only way!" Cronk trailed on as if to himself. "The woman camed and camed and haunted me, till my mind were almost gone, and I allers seed the little kid's dead face ag'in' her, and allers she seemed to tell me to haggle the life outen yer kids; and haggle I did, till they runned away, and then I went after 'em, and Flea--"

Vandecar stopped the speaker with a wave of the hand.

"Then you brought her back here, and I discovered that she was mine, and I came for her. Lon Cronk, you give me back my girl, and I'll," he whitened to the very lips, and repeated,--"and I'll give you back yours!"

With a sweep of the arm Vandecar pushed Katherine forward. The very air grew dense with anxiety. Ann clutched Katherine by the arm as if to stay her movement, as if to keep her from the dazed squatter. His confession of the kidnapping and his uncouth appearance forced Miss Sh.e.l.lington to try and protect her gentle friend from his contact. But Katherine loosened Ann's fingers in stony silence. Only a choking sound from Fledra broke the quietude. She was staring into Lon's face, and he was flashing from her to Katherine glances that changed and rechanged like dark clouds pa.s.sing over the heaven's blue. He saw Katherine, so like his dead wife, bow her fair head before him. He noted her trembling fingers pressed into pink palms, her slender body grow tense again and again, relaxing only with spontaneous sobs. That he could touch the fragile young creature, that he might listen to the call of his heart and take her as his own, had not yet been fully forced upon him. The meaning of Governor Vandecar's words seemed to leave his mind at intervals; then his expression showed that he realized the truth of them. He swayed forward; but crouched back once more against the wall.

Fledra rose silently to her feet, her ready intelligence grasping the great fact that she was free, that the magnificent stranger had come for her, that he claimed her as his. She was free from Lem, from Lon, free to go back to Flukey. Lem's menacing shadow had lifted slowly from her life, cast away by her own blood. For an instant there rose rampant in her breast the desire to turn and fly, before another chance should be given Lon to exert his authority over her. Then something snapped in her head, and, unconscious, she sank noiselessly to the floor. No one noticed her. She was like a small prey over which two great forces ruthlessly fought and tore at human flesh and human hearts.

Vandecar gently touched Katherine's arm; but her feet were powerless to move.

"Katherine," the governor groaned, "don't you remember that you cried over him and your mother, and that--"

"Yes, yes!" Katherine breathed. She was trying to still the beating of her heart, trying to thrust aside a great, revolting fear; yet she knew intuitively that the squatter was her father, and remembered how the recounting of her mother's death had touched her. In one flashing thought, she recalled how she had longed for a mother, and how she had turned away when other girls were being caressed and loved. But never had it entered her mind to imagine that her parents were like this. The picture of the hut in which the wee woman had died rose within her--the death agony had been so plainly described. The tall, shrinking, sobbing man against the wall was her father! Even that afternoon, when Governor Vandecar had told her of her birth and her mother's death, and of her father in the lake hut, she had not imagined him like this man. Yet something pleaded for him, some subtle, gentle spirit hovering near seemed to drag her forward. She shuddered, slipped from Vandecar's arms, and crouched down before the squatter. She turned a livid, twitching face up to his, her eyes beseeching his with infinite compa.s.sion. All that was beautiful in the gentle, soulful girl broke over Ann like a surging sea. This girl, who had been brought up in a beautiful home, always attended with loving kindness, was casting her lot with a man so low and vile that another person would have turned away in disgust. Miss Sh.e.l.lington's mind recalled her girlhood days, in which Katherine had been an intimate part. She could not bear it. She took an impulsive forward step; but Vandecar gripped her.