The High Calling Part 32

"I think you had better have a word with me first."

Van Shaw looked at him uncertainly and then turned and walked out of the chapel. Bauer followed him immediately.

The only light out on the rock was starlight. Darkness covered the blurred outline of Oraibi's houses, with only an occasional point of light here and there, or the sudden glow from some kiva as the opening reflected the fire at the bottom.

Van Shaw walked slowly as if by appointment out to the edge of the rock.

When he stopped, Bauer was close by him. In the mist far below a red glow marked the camp by the Oraibi Wash. The night was very still and they were almost near enough to the chapel to distinguish the sound of voices within.

CHAPTER XVI

"NOW that we are here," said Van Shaw, "I simply want to repeat what I said. You don't b.u.t.t into my affairs. Keep out. Coleman overheard a part of what you told Mrs. Douglas to-day while you were near the cemetery rock. He was on the other side of it. What you said may be true, but I consider it a sneaking thing and I won't stand for it."

Bauer was still. In the first place he had never faced such a situation and in the darkness there he swiftly recurred to his talk with Mrs.

Douglas. He had found her already prepared for a part of what he had to say. Esther, sensitively intelligent in anything relating to Helen's welfare, had not seen Van Shaw a moment before she felt a repulsion for him amounting to horror. What Bauer told her from his own knowledge of Van Shaw's immoral life in Burrton roused all her mother instincts to protect her child from a fate worse than death if she should marry a man who had already fallen. She shared in the fullest degree with Bauer's deep fear that Helen might, in her desire for the soft and beautiful things of wealth, risk her very life itself, not because she knew she was doing it, but partly through ignorance of the real character of the man who had the unblushing selfishness to ask a pure girl like Helen to accept him as a husband, knowing himself to be what he was.

And Bauer, measuring in his slow but not stupid fashion all the consequences of his action in warning Mrs. Douglas, knowing clearly the code of morals governing men like Van Shaw and the wicked and unchristian standard of even so-called Christian society in condemning what it called "telling on others," nevertheless went forward to do what seemed to him to be only necessary in the name of common honour and decency.

The fact that Van Shaw had found out what he had done did not disturb him greatly. The only thing that troubled him now was to hold himself sufficiently in hand. He had never hated anyone in his life except this rich man's son and he had been slow to entertain that feeling for him.

But it had grown like a tropical plant within the last three days. And all the old Teutonic rage latent in him was at the boiling point whenever he thought of Van Shaw and Helen together. He said to himself there in the darkness that if there had been light enough to see Van Shaw's sneering face he would have struck it. He remembered hearing his own father say once that one of his ancestors at Lausbrachen had choked the life out of a family enemy, using only one hand around the man's throat. He was so afraid of himself now that he involuntarily stepped back away from Van Shaw and Van Shaw noted it and put the action down to cowardice or fear.

"Well, are you going to keep out of my affairs? Is it any business of yours whether I try to make friends with the Douglases? Or perhaps------" he suddenly changed his tone as if a new thought had broken in on his mind. "Look here, Bauer. Perhaps--well, maybe you don't understand------I am going to marry Miss Douglas!"

"What!" Bauer cried out. He stepped nearer Van Shaw and Van Shaw stepped back, nearer the edge of the rock.

"Well," Van Shaw laughed. "That is, as soon as she says yes, I am. My intentions are all right. But--" and his accustomed mood quickly rea.s.serted itself, "I warn you to keep out. Leave my affairs alone. A fellow whose father and mother have done what yours have, isn't in the best position to throw stones at other people."

Felix Bauer long years afterwards confessed to the dearest friend he had, that in that moment he had the nearest approach to the thought of murder and hate he ever knew. But before he could reply to Van Shaw's brutality he saw him stagger and reel and throw up his arms on the edge of the rock. He heard him cry out, "For G.o.d's sake, Bauer!" and then he fell backward and disappeared over the cliff.

For a second Bauer stood in his place smitten with horror. He was totally ignorant of the character of the ground where Van Shaw had been standing and of what lay below. Evidently a shelving piece of the rotten sandstone had broken off. How much of the edge was dangerous it was impossible to tell there in the dark. He uttered one loud cry of "Help!"

and then flung himself down full length and dragged himself up to the place where Van Shaw had disappeared.

Just as he reached the edge, he heard fragments of the rock go rattling down and a sound as of a heavy body falling somewhere. He peered over fearfully. He shouted again. He looked, straining down, and it seemed to him that about twenty feet below he could see a huddled-up body lying on a projecting ledge.

And then Felix Bauer did as brave or as foolhardy a thing as anyone ever did. It was partly to punish himself for the murderous feeling he had entertained a moment before that he now said, "Good G.o.d! I must save him now. Help me, G.o.d! Help me!"

He swung about on the edge of the ragged rock and let his feet down. He felt a projecting k.n.o.b of something, and then for a sickening second he paused and shouted again and then he let go, hugging the face of the cliff. As he went down, he began to realise thankfully that the cliff was rough and irregular. His hands were running blood, but he did not know it. As he felt resting places for his feet, or anything for his hands to clutch, he sobbed, "G.o.d help me! G.o.d help me!"

He was down at last near enough to see that Van Shaw had fallen in a bent-over position on a shelf of rock, a little more than wide enough to hold his body. He called to him but received no answer. At last he was near enough to drop down on the ledge but as he was about to do so, Van Shaw, with a groan of pain, turned over, and began to roll towards the edge.

Bauer desperately let go of everything, fell in a lump and s.n.a.t.c.hed at Van Shaw. He caught one arm and, panting, held onto it. The rest of Van Shaw's body was hanging over the side of the ledge, and even in that critical moment Bauer recalled his first view of Oraibi rock as the wagons had come up from the Oraibi Wash and the Tolchaco party had scanned through the field gla.s.s the inaccessible sides. But he was on the opposite side now and how far it was below the place where he now was he could not tell. Only he knew it must be a killing distance down there in the dark that seemed to be reaching up black, heavy hands pulling at Van Shaw's unconscious body, pulling at it harder and harder every second. He could feel himself slipping down across the smooth ledge which offered no place for his sliding feet. He was using his last strength, but every second it seemed impossible. His lungs were bursting. The red taste of hot blood was in his mouth; he had a confused thought that he could let go of Van Shaw's arm any time, but he did not let go. He was slipping, slipping down, pulled inch by inch by those strong black hands of the dark down there, but still he clung and sobbed "G.o.d, save us!"

And then Elijah Clifford's voice called to him.

"I'm coming, Bauer, I'm coming."

The voice gave Felix one more ounce of strength. He exerted it, was conscious that someone was down there with him farther off at the side of the ledge, then his hold loosened, everything turned black and he did not know any more.

When he came to himself he was lying on one of the seats of the little chapel. Anxious white, frightened faces were all about him. He was dimly aware of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas and Mr. and Mrs. Masters and Elijah Clifford and Miss Gray and Helen and a group of tourists, one of whom he heard Mr. Douglas call "doctor." He seemed to feel conscious of another body that was lying on a bench near him, the body of Van Shaw, and as it stirred and groaned, he had an undefined feeling of thankfulness that he was still alive and that no murder had been committed. And then the hot taste of blood came into his mouth and he knew his hemorrhage had come on again.

He was too weak to talk and felt irritated at the hubbub about him. But cots were soon provided and he and Van Shaw and Helen were carried down the trail to their tents, where a curious and interested group soon gathered. Van Shaw had broken his shoulder and one leg. The doctor was not certain about other and internal injuries. But Van Shaw was conscious and unless something unforeseen took place, he was in a fair way to recover.

Everyone was excited and sleep was out of the question. So when everything possible had been done for Bauer and Van Shaw, Elijah Clifford told what he knew of the accident and in his own way related his share in the evening's adventures.

"You see, I had just lighted our lantern and had stepped out of the chapel to light our folks down the trail when I heard Bauer's cry for help. I hadn't seen him go out and I didn't know what he was doing out there, but it's always been a rule of the Mission when anyone yells 'help,' to run in that direction. I fell over an old standard oil can and broke my lantern and my shins. And I guess while I was down, Bauer was just getting over the edge of the rock.

"Say! Talk about recklessness, I take it Herr Felix Bauer has us all beat to a-run-down-the-trail-and-back. You strangers from New York, how would you like to back off the top of the Flat Iron Building, hang onto the coping with your fingers for a second and then let go, trusting to strike a window ledge or something between the soles of your shoes and Madison Square? Well, that's just what this tuberculosis son of Germany did, and if it doesn't knock all the snake traditions of this old rock into piki bread crumbs then I have lost my way and forgotten where I started from."

"How about yourself?" asked one of the New York tourists. "Didn't you go down the same place?"

In the light of the camp fire it was not easy to see that Elijah Clifford actually blushed. But he did, and Miss Gray sat near enough to note it. If Elijah Clifford had not been so embarra.s.sed by the New York man's question he might possibly, if he had been looking in Miss Gray's direction, have seen a new look on her face. A look of shy Admiration that belongs to the border land of another county called Affection, which is a near by state to another called Love. But Clifford hastened to say:

"Oh, I had a light to go down with. When I fell, I broke the gla.s.s, but lucky the light did not go out, so I could see where I was going. And when I got down, there was Bauer hanging on to Van Shaw's arm in the most affectionate manner, as if he didn't want to have him leave before his visit was over. I hadn't more than time to get my foot braced on the lantern or something, when Bauer turned his friend over to me and for a minute or two he was on my hands, but by that time the folks up on top had let down some ropes and we soon got everybody up all right."

"Elijah," said Mr. Masters reproachfully, "why don't you go into the details? You know that when Mr. Douglas and I climbed down on the ropes, you were almost over the edge with Van Shaw's body."

"Well, that's the most slippery piece of rock I ever felt," said Clifford, and again he failed to note a movement on the part of Miss Gray. When Masters had said that Clifford had almost gone over the edge of the ledge with Van Shaw's body, she had put out the hand nearest Clifford, as if to hold him back.

"Yes," said Clifford, "that ledge is smooth and no mistake. If any more folks are going to fall over onto it, I think the Commissioners in Oraibi ought to drive some nails into it, or else build a neat little concrete wall around it. There were times while I was down there thinking it over, that I would have given considerable for a good, high English garden wall on the other side of Van Shaw's body and me. A lantern is a poor thing to brace your feet on. It lacks staying powers."

"Gentlemen," said Masters, turning to the group around the fire, "we have had a most wonderful deliverance from a tragedy and it is due to the heroism of two of the bravest men that ever lived. Elijah, don't interrupt me. The only way we can express our thanks is to go to the Heavenly Father with them," and without a moment's pause as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as it was with him, Masters broke into a prayer of thanksgiving so tender and eloquent that Helen, whose cot had been placed in one of the tents with its front opening near the fire where she could hear everything, bent her head over on her arms and cried.

She had been under a great nervous tension all day. And this last scene, coming as a most astonishing climax to it all, affected her quick imagination. Another thing had added to all the rest, at the memory of which she blushed as she hid her face in her hands during the quiet that followed that prayer by Masters.

When the three cots, her own, Bauer's and Van Shaw's, had been brought down the trail, at one place in a turn of the pa.s.sage, while the bearers had to set the cots down to make some changes in the way of carrying them, her cot had stood a moment by the side of Van Shaw's. And in that moment, in the pale darkness, softened by the light of two or three lanterns, she had felt her hand seized. She almost screamed. It was Van Shaw's hand that had reached out from his blanket and for a moment he had almost crushed her fingers. She was not certain even now that he had known what he was doing, or that it was more than a convulsive movement in his semi-conscious condition. But the memory of it burned her cheeks like fire, and long after the last embers of the camp fire had died into grey ashes, she lay there in the tent wide awake and sleepless.

After awhile she grew aware that her mother was sitting close by her.

Esther had determined, after what she had heard from Bauer, to have a talk with Helen at the first opportunity. The accident to Van Shaw had changed her purpose somewhat, but she said to herself it had not changed the facts in the case of Van Shaw's character, and the matter was still in the same condition as before the accident happened. With that in mind, mother and daughter began to talk together almost in a whisper, mindful of the thin tent walls and the nearness of the other members of the party. Their precaution was, however, almost needless, for everyone in both camps was sound asleep, and Van Shaw's own wagon and tent were at the farthest bounds of the camp, removed from the rest so he would not be disturbed.

"I can't sleep, mother, it has been such an exciting day. Was there ever such a day; in my life? And I think this last thing has shaken me. I never knew before what it meant to have nerves. But I can't shut out the picture of that snake dance and that terrible cliff and------"

She hesitated and then feeling her mother's hand enfolding hers, she said, with the frankness that had always been true of her confidences with her mother.

"There is another thing that has made the day different from any other day for me. I ought to tell you, mother."

"Don't tell anything that belongs to you as your own."

"No. But this belongs to you. I cannot rest without telling."

Helen was glad the darkness hid her face. She told her mother plainly what Van Shaw had said to her up there on the rock during the brief time they had been alone.

When Helen had apparently told all, Esther was silent. Helen began to feel frightened.

"Well, mother, you don't blame me, do you? Did I, have I--at any time given him any--any--encouragement to think------"

"No, no, dear, I am sure you have not been unmaidenly. But you do not know all--as I do, as others do, of this young man. I think you ought to know before you let your feeling, whatever it is, go farther."