The Roof Tree Part 36

But Sim, who had never served for love, found the collar of his slavery, just then, galling almost beyond endurance, and his eyes were sombrely resentful.

"I reckon, Bas, ye'd better hire ye another man," he made churlish response. "I don't relish this hyar job overly much nohow.... Ye fo'ced me ter layway ther man ... but when ye comes ter makin' a common thief outen me, I'm ready ter quit."

At this hint of insubordination Rowlett's anger came back upon him, but now instead of frothy self-betrayal it was cold and domineering.

He leaned forward, gazing into the face upon which the lantern showed spots of high-light and traceries of deep shadow, and his voice was one of deliberate warning:

"I counsels ye ter take sober thought, Sim, afore ye contraries me too fur. Ye says I compelled ye ter layway Parish Thornton--but ye kain't nuver prove thet--an' ef I hed ther power ter fo'ce ye then hit war because I knowed things erbout ye thet ye wouldn't love ter hev told. I knows them things still!" He paused to let that sink in, and Sim Squires stood breathing heavily. Every sense and fibre of his nature was in that revolt out of which servile rebellions are born. Every element of hate centred about his wish to see this arrogant master dead at his feet--but he acknowledged that the collar he wore was locked on his neck.

So he schooled his face into something like composure and even nodded his head.

"You got mad unduly, Bas," he said, "an' I reckon I done ther same. I says ergin ef ye hain't satisfied with ther way I've acted, I'm ready ter quit. If ye _air_ satisfied, all well an' good."

Bas Rowlett picked up the diary of the revolutionary Dorothy Thornton and twisted it carelessly into a roll which he thrust out of sight between a plate-girder of the low cabin and its eaves.

Jerry Black came one Sat.u.r.day night about that time to the wretched cabin where he and his wife, a brood of half-clothed children, two hound-dogs, three cats, and a pig dwelt together--and beat his wife.

For years Jerry had been accustomed to doing precisely the same thing, not with such monotonous regularity as would have seemed to him excessive, but with periodical moderation. Between times he was a shiftless, indulgent, and somewhat henpecked little man of watery eyes, a mouth with several missing teeth, and a limp in one "sprung leg." But on semi-annual or quarterly occasions his lordliness of nature a.s.serted itself in a drunken orgy. Then he went on a "high-lonesome" and whooped home with all the corked-up effervescence of weeks and months bubbling in his soul for expression. Then he proved his latent powers by knocking about the woman and the brattish crew, and if the whole truth must be told, none of those who felt the weight of his hand were totally undeserving of what they got.

But on this occasion Jerry was all unwittingly permitting himself to become a p.a.w.n in a larger game of whose rules and etiquette he had no knowledge, and his domestic methods were no longer to pa.s.s uncensored in the privacy and sanct.i.ty of the home.

His woman, seizing up the smallest and dirtiest of her offspring, fled shrieking b.l.o.o.d.y murder to the house of the nearest neighbour, followed by a procession of other urchins who added their shrill chorus to her predominant solo. When they found asylum and exhibited their bruises, they presented a summary of accusation which kindled resentment and while Jerry slept off his spree in uninterrupted calm this indignation spread and impaired his reputation.

For just such a tangible call to arms the "riders," as they had come to be termed in the bated breath of terror, had been waiting. It was necessary that this organization should a.s.sert itself in the community in such vigorous fashion as would demonstrate its existence and seriousness of purpose.

No offence save arson could make a more legitimate call upon a body of citizen regulators than that of wife-beating and the abuse of small children. So it came about that after the wife had forgiven her indignities and returned to her ascendency of henpecking, which was a more chronic if a less acute cruelty than that which she had suffered, a congregation of masked men knocked at the door and ordered the quaking Jerry to come forth and face civic indignation.

He came because he had no choice, limping piteously on his sprung leg with his jaw hanging so that the missing teeth were abnormally conspicuous. Outside his door a single torch flared and back of its waver stood a semicircle of unrecognized avengers, coated in black slickers with hats turned low and masks upon their faces. They led him away into the darkness while more l.u.s.tily than before, though for an opposite reason, the woman and the children shrieked and howled.

Jerry trembled, but he bit into his lower lip and let himself be martyred without much whimpering. They stripped him in a lonely gorge two miles from his abode and tied him, face inward, to a sapling. They cow-hided him, then treated him to a light coat of tar and feathers and sent him home with most moral and solemn admonitions against future brutalities. There the victims of that harshness for which he had been "regulated" wept over him and swore that a better husband and father had never lived.

But Jerry had suffered for an abstract idea rather than a concrete offence, and both Parish Thornton and Hump Doane recognized this fact when with sternly set faces they rode over and demanded that he give them such evidence as would lead to apprehension and conviction of the mob leaders.

Black shivered afresh. He swore that he had recognized no face and no voice. They knew he lied yet blamed him little. To have given any information of real value would have been to serve the public and the law at too great a cost of danger to himself.

But Parish Thornton rode back, later and alone, and by diplomatic suasion sought to sift the matter to its solution.

"I didn't dast say nuthin' whilst Hump war hyar," faltered the first victim of the newly organized "riders," "an' hit's plum heedless ter tell ye anything now, but yit I did recognize one feller--because his mask drapped off."

"I hain't seekin' ter fo'ce no co'te evidence outen ye now, Jerry," the young leader of the Thorntons a.s.sured him. "I'm only strivin' ter fethom this matter so's I'll know whar ter start work myself. Ye needn't be afeared ter trust me."

"Wa'al, then, I'll tell ye." They were talking in the woods, where autumnal colour splashed its gorgeousness in a riot that intoxicated the eye, and no one was near them, but the man who had been tarred and feathered lowered his voice and spoke with a terrorized whine.

"Thet feller I reecognized ... hit war old Hump Doane's own boy ... Pete Doane."

Parish Thornton straightened up as though an electric current had been switched through his body. His face stiffened in amazement and the pain of sore perplexity.

"Air ye plum onmistakably sh.o.r.e, Jerry?" he demanded and the little man nodded his head with energetic positiveness.

"I reckon ye're wise not ter tell n.o.body else," commented Parish. "Hit would nigh kill old Hump ter larn hit. Jest leave ther matter ter me."

CHAPTER XXVI

The window panes were frost-rimed one night when Parish Thornton and Dorothy sat before the hearth of the main room. There was a l.u.s.ty roar in the great chimney from a walnut backlog, for during these frosty days the husband and his hired man, Sim Squires, had climbed high into the mighty tree and sawed out the dead wood left there by years of stress and storm.

As it comforted them in summer heat with the grateful cool of its broad shadowing and the moisture gathered in its reservoirs of green, so it broke the lash and whip of stinging winds in winter, and even its stricken limbs sang a chimney song of cheer and warmth upon the hearth that pioneer hands had built in the long ago.

Through the warp and woof of life in this house went the influence of that living tree; not as a blind thing of inanimate existence but as a sentient spirit and a warder whose voices and moods they loved and reverenced--as a link that bound them to the past of the overland argonauts.

It stood as a monument to their dead and as the kindly patron over their lovemaking and their marriage. It had been stricken by the same storm that killed old Caleb and had served as the council hall where enmities had been resolved and peace proclaimed. Under its canopy the man had been hailed as a leader, and there the effort of an a.s.sa.s.sin had failed, because of the warning it had given.

And now these two were thinking of something else as well--of the new life which would come to that house in the spring, with its binding touch of home and unity. They were glad that their child would have its awakening there when the great branches were in bud or tenderly young of leaf--and that its eyes would open upon that broad spreading of filagreed canopy above the bedroom window, as upon the first of earthly sights.

"Ef hit's a man-child, he's goin' ter be named Ken," said the young woman in a low voice.

"But be hit boy or gal, one thing's sh.o.r.e. Hits middle name's a-goin'

ter be T-R-E-E, tree. Dorothy Tree Thornton," mused Parish as his laugh rang low and clear and she echoed after him with amendment, "Kenneth Tree Thornton."

They sat silent together for a while seeing pictures in flame and coals.

Then Dorothy broke the revery:

"Ye've done wore a face of brown study hyar of late, Cal," she said as her hand stole out and closed over his, "an' I knows full well what sober things ye've got ter ponder over--but air hit anything partic'lar or new?"

Parish Thornton shook his head with gravity and answered with candour:

"Hump and old Jim an' me've been spendin' a heap of thought on this matter of ther riders," he told her. "Hit's got ter be broke up afore hit gits too strong a holt--an' hit hain't no facile matter ter trace down a secret thing like thet."

After a little he went on: "An' we hain't made no master progress yit to'rds diskiverin' who shot at old Jim, nuther. Thet's been frettin' me consid'rable, too."

"War thet why ye rid over ter Jim's house yestidday?" she inquired, and Parish nodded his head.

"Me an' Sim Squires an' old Jim hisself war a-seekin' ter figger hit out--but we didn't git no light on ther matter." He paused so long after that and sat with so sober a face that Dorothy pressed him for the inwardness of his thoughts and the man spoke with embarra.s.sment and haltingly.

"I lowed when we was married, honey, that all ther world I keered fer war made up of you an' me an' what hopes we've got. I was right sensibly affronted when men sought ter fo'ce me inter other matters then my own private business, but now----"

"Yes," she prompted softly. "An' now what?"

"Hit hain't thet ye're any less dear ter me, Dorothy. Hit's ruther thet ye're dearer ... but I kain't stand aside no more.... I kain't think of myself no more es a man thet jist b'longs ter hisself." Again he fell silent then laughed self-deprecatingly. "I sometimes 'lows thet what ye read me outen ther old book kinderly kindled some fret inside me....

Hit's es ef ther blood of ther old-timers was callin' out an' warnin' me thet I kain't suffer myself ter shirk ... or mebby hit's ther way old Hump and old Aaron talked."

"What is. .h.i.t ye feels?" she urged, still softly, and the man came to his feet on the hearth.

"Hit's like es ef I b'longs ter these people. Not jist ter ther Harpers an' Thorntons but ter them an' ther Doanes alike.... 'Pears like them of both lots thet wants right-livin' hes a call on me ... that when old Caleb giv me his consent ter wed with ye, he give me a duty, too--a duty ter try an' weld things tergither thet's kep' breakin' apart heretofore."