Trail's End Part 23

On this particular afternoon when the sun-baked people of Ascalon stood waiting in such tensity of expectation that their minds were ready to crack like the dry, contracting earth beneath their feet, it seemed that nature had laid off that land across which the railroad ran with the sole view of adding to the dramatic value of Seth Craddock's entry in this historic hour. Certainly art could not have devised a more effective means of whetting the anxiety, straining the suspense, than this.

When the train first came in sight over the hill there was a murmur, a movement of feet as people shifted to points believed to be more advantageous for seeing the coming drama; watches clicked, comments pa.s.sed on the exactness to the schedule; breaths were drawn with fresh tingling of hope, or falling of doubt and despair.

Morgan was watching that far skyline for the first smoke, for the first gleam of windows in the sun as the train swept round the curve heading for a little while into the north. He noted the murmur and movement of the watchers as it came in sight; wondered if any breast but one was agitated by a pang of friendly concern, wondered if any hand loosed weapon in its sheath to strike in his support if necessity should call for such intervention. He knew that Rhetta Thayer stood in the shade of the bank with her father and others; he was cheered by the support of her presence to witness his triumph or fall.

Now, as the train swept into the first obscuring swale, Morgan rode around the depot again to see that none had slipped through either in malice or curiosity. Only the station agent was in sight, pulling a truck with three trunks on it to the spot where he estimated the baggage-car would stop. Morgan rode back again to take his stand at the point where arrivals by train crossed from depot into town. His left hand was toward the waiting crowd, kept back by his injunction fifty yards or more from the station; his right toward the track on which the train would come.

Conversation in the crowd fell away. Peden, garbed in his long coat, was seen shouldering through in front of the hotel, the nearest point to the set and waiting stage. As always, Peden wore a pistol strapped about him on ornate belt, the holster carrying the weapon under the skirt of his coat. His presence on the forward fringe of the crowd seemed to many as an upraised hand to strike the waiting horseman in the back.

Morgan saw Peden when he came and took his stand there, and saw others in his employ stationed along the front of the line. He believed they were there to throw their weight on Craddock's beam of the balance the moment they should see him outmastered and outweighed.

Because he mistrusted these men, because he did not know, indeed, whether there was a man among all those who had pledged their moral support who would lift a hand to aid him even if summoned to do so, Morgan kept his attention divided, one eye on the signs and portents of the crowd, one on keeping the depot platform clear.

Morgan did not know whether even Judge Thayer and the men who had guarded the bank with him would risk one shot in his defense if the outlawed forces should sweep forward and overwhelm him. He doubted it very much. It was well enough to delegate this business to a stranger, one impartial between the lines, but they could not be expected to turn their weapons on their fellow-townsmen and depositors in the bank, no matter how their money came, no matter how much the law might lack an upholding hand.

The train came clattering over the switch, safety valve roaring, bell ringing as gaily as if arriving in Ascalon were a joyous event in its day. Conductor and brakeman stood on the steps ready to swing to the platform; the express messenger lolled with bored weariness in the door of his car, scorning the dangerous notoriety of the town by exposing to the eye all the boxed treasure that it contained. Pa.s.sengers crowded platforms, leaning and looking, ready to alight for a minute, so they might be able to relate the remainder of their lives how they braved the perils of Ascalon one time and came out unsinged.

A movement went over the watching people of the town, a.s.sembled along its business front, as wind ripples suddenly a field of grain. n.o.body had breath for a word; dry lips were pressed tightly in the varying emotions of hope, fear, expectancy, desire. Morgan was seen to be busy for a moment with something about his saddle; it was thought he was drawing his rifle out of its case.

Nearly opposite where Morgan waited, the first coach of the train stopped. Instantly, like children freed from school, the eager pa.s.sengers poured off for their adventurous breath of this most wicked town's intoxicating air. Morgan's whole attention was now fixed on the movement around the train. He shifted his horse to face that way, risking what might develop behind him, one hand engaged with the bridle rein, the other seemingly dropped carelessly on his thigh.

And in that squaring of expectation, that pause of breathless waiting, Seth Craddock descended from the smoking-car, his alpaca coat carried in the crook of his left elbow, his right hand lingering a moment on the guard of the car step. The hasty ones who had waited on the car platform were down ahead of him, standing a little way from the steps; others who wanted to get off came pressing behind him, in their ignorance that they were handling a bit of Ascalon's most infernal furnishing, pushing him out into the timid crowd of their fellows.

A moment Craddock stood, taller than the tallest there, sweeping his quick glance about for signs of the expected hostility, the trinkets of silver on the band of his costly new sombrero shining in the sun. Then he came striding among the gaping pa.s.sengers, like a man stalking among tall weeds, something unmistakably expressive of disdain in his carriage.

There he paused again, and put on his coat, plainly mystified and troubled by the absence of townspeople from the depot, and the sight of them lined up across the square as if they waited a circus parade. All that he saw between himself and that fringe of puzzling, silent people was a cowboy sitting astraddle of his bay horse at the end of the station platform.

And as Craddock started away from the crowd of curious pa.s.sengers who were whispering and speculating behind him, pointing him out to each other, wondering what notable he might be; as Craddock started down the platform away from there, the voice of the conductor warning all to clamber aboard, the waiting cowboy tightened the reins a little, causing his horse to p.r.i.c.k up its ears and start with a thrill of expectancy which the rider could feel ripple over its smooth hide under the pressure of his knees.

Craddock came on down the platform, turning his head on his long neck in the way of a man entirely mystified and suspicious, alone, unsupported by even as much as the shadow of a strange gun-slinger or local friend.

What was pa.s.sing through the fellow's head Morgan could pretty well guess. There was a little break of humor in it, for all the tight-drawn nerves, for all the chance, for all the desperation of the gathering moment. The grim old killer couldn't make out whether it was through admiration of him the people had gathered to welcome him home, or in expectation of something connected with the arrival of the train. Two rods or so from where Morgan waited him, Craddock stopped to look back at the train, now gathering slow headway, and around the deserted platform, down which the station agent came dragging a mail sack.

It was when he turned again from this suspicious questioning into things which gave him back no reply, that Craddock recognized the hitherto unsuspected cowboy. In a start he stiffened to action, flinging hand to his pistol. But a heartbeat quicker, like a flash of sunbeam from a mirror, the coiled rope flew out from Morgan's high-flung arm.

As the swift-running noose settled over Craddock's body, the horse leaped at the pressure of its rider's knees. Craddock fired as the flying rope s.n.a.t.c.hed him from his feet, the noose binding his arms impotently to his sides; in his rage he fired again and again as he dragged in ludicrous tangle of long, thrashing legs from the platform into the dust.

There, in a cloud of obscuring dust from the trampled road, the horse holding the line taut, Morgan flung from the saddle in the nimble way of a range man, bent over the fallen slayer of men a little while. When the first of the crowd came breaking across the broad s.p.a.ce intervening and drew up panting and breathless in admiration of the bold thing they had witnessed, Seth Craddock lay hog-tied and harmless on the ground, one pistol a few feet from where he struggled in his ropes, the other in the holster at his side.

And there came Judge Thayer, in his capacity as mayor, officious and radiant, proud and filled with a new feeling of safety and importance, and took the badge of office from Craddock's breast, in all haste, as if it were the most important act in this spectacular triumph, this bloodless victory over a b.l.o.o.d.y man.

CHAPTER XVII

WITH CLEAN HANDS

Seth Craddock was a defiant, although a fallen man. He refused to resign the office of marshal of the third-cla.s.s city of Ascalon when Morgan released his feet at Judge Thayer's direction, allowing him to stand.

Somebody brought his hat and put it down harshly on his small, turtle-like head, flaring out his big red ears. There he stood, glowering, dusty, blood on his face from an abrasion he had got in the rough handling at the end of Morgan's rope.

Judge Thayer said it made no difference whether he gave up the office willingly, he was without a voice in the matter, anyhow. He was fired, and that's all there was to it. But no, said Seth; not at all. The statutes upheld him, the const.i.tution supported him, and h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation and many other forces which he enumerated in his red-tongued defiance, could not move him out of that office. He demanded to be allowed to consult his lawyer, he glared around and cursed the curious and unawed public which laughed at his plight and the figure he cut, ordering somebody to go and fetch the county attorney, on pain of death when he should come again into the freedom of his hands.

But n.o.body moved, except to shift from one foot to the other and laugh.

The terror seemed to have departed out of Seth Craddock's name and presence; a terrible man is no longer fearful when he has been dragged publicly at the end of a cow rope and tied up in the public place like a calf for the branding iron.

The county attorney was discreet enough to keep his distance. He did not come forward with advice on habeas corpus and const.i.tutional rights.

Only Earl Gray, the druggist, with seven kinds of perfumery on his hair, came out of the crowd with smirking face, ingratiating, servile, offering Morgan a cigar. The look that Morgan gave him would have wilted the tobacco in its green leaf. It wilted Druggist Gray. He turned back into the crowd and eliminated himself from the day's adventure like smoke on the evening wind.

Peden was seen, soon after Craddock's dusty downfall, making his way back to the shelter of his hall, a cloud on his dark face, a sneer of contempt in his eyes. His bearing was proclamation that he had expected a great deal more of Seth Craddock, and that the support of his influence was from that moment withdrawn. But there was nothing in his manner of a disturbed or defeated man. Those who knew him best, indeed, felt that he had played only a preliminary hand and, finding it weak, had taken up the deck for a stronger deal.

Seth Craddock stood with his back to the station platform, hands bound behind him, his authority gone. A little way to one side Morgan waited beside his horse, his pistol under his hand, rifle on the saddle, not so confident that all was won as to lay himself open to a surprise. Judge Thayer was holding a session with Craddock, the town, good and bad, looking on with varying emotions of mirth, disappointment, and disgust.

Judge Thayer unbuckled Craddock's belt and remaining pistol, picked up the empty weapon from the ground, sheathed it in the holster opposite its once terrifying mate, and gave them to Morgan. Morgan hung them on his saddle horn, and the wives and mothers of Ascalon who had trembled for their husbands and sons when they heard the roar of those guns in days past, drew great breaths of relief, and looked into each other's faces and smiled.

"We can't hold you for any of the killings you've done here, Seth, though some of them were unjustified, we know," Judge Thayer said.

"You've been cleared by the coroner's jury in each case, there's no use for us to open them again. But you'll have to leave this town. Your friends went yesterday, escorted by Mr. Morgan across the Arkansas River. You can follow them if you want to--you might overtake 'em somewhere down in the Nation--you'll have to go in the same direction, in peace if you will, otherwise if you won't."

"I'm marshal of this town," Seth still persisted, in the belief that forces were gathering to his rescue, one could see. "The only way I'll ever leave till I'm ready to go'll be in a box!"

Certainly, Seth did not end the defiance and the declaration that way, nor issue it from his mouth in such pale and commonplace hues. Judge Thayer argued with him, after his kindly disposition, perhaps not a little sorry for the man who had outgrown his office and abused the friend who had elevated him to it.

Seth remained as obdurate as a trapped wolf. He roved his eyes around, craned his long, wrinkled neck, looking for the succor that was so long in coming. He repeated, with blasting enlargement, that the only way they could send him out of Ascalon would be in a box.

Judge Thayer drew apart to consult Morgan, in low tones. Morgan was undisturbed by Craddock's unbending opinion that he had plenty of law behind him to sustain his contention that he could not be removed from office. It did not matter how much ammunition a man had if he couldn't shoot it. It was Morgan's opinion, given with the light of humor quickening in his eyes, that they ought to take Craddock at his word.

"Ship him out?" said Judge Thayer.

"In a box," Morgan nodded, face as sober as judgment, the humor growing in his eyes.

"But we can't butcher the fellow like a hog!" Judge Thayer protested.

"Live hogs are shipped in boxes, right along," Morgan explained.

Judge Thayer saw the light; his pepper-and-salt whiskers twinkled and spread around his mouth, and rose so high in their bristling over his silent laughter that they threatened his eyes. He turned to Craddock, forcing a sober front.

"All right, Seth, we'll take you up on it. You're going out of town in a box," he said.

Judge Thayer ordered the undertaker to bring over a coffin box, the longest one he had. The word ran like a prairie fire from those who heard the order given, that they were going to shoot Craddock for his crimes and bury him on the spot.

There was not a little disappointment, but more relief, in the public mind when it became understood that Craddock was not to be shot. As a mockery of his past oppression and terrible name, he was to be nailed up in a box and shipped out like a snake. And so it turned out again in Ascalon that comedy came in to end the play where tragedy had begun it.

Morgan bore no part in this unexpected climax to his hard-straining and doubt-clouded day. He stood by watchful and alert, a great peace in his mind, a great lightness. He had come through it according to Rhetta Thayer's wish, according to his own desire, with no man's blood upon his hands.

There were many willing ones who came forward to make light the labor of Seth Craddock's packing. They unbound his hands with derision and bundled him into the capacious long box against his strivings and curses with scorn. Morgan suggested the enclosure of a jug of water. Let him frizzle and fry, they said. They'd bore an auger hole or two in the box to give him air, and that was greater humanity than he deserved. Morgan insisted on at least a bottle of water, and had his way, against grumbling.

The undertaker officiated, as if it were a regular funeral, putting the long screws in the stout lid while citizens sat on it to hold the explosive old villain down. They fastened him in as securely as if he were a dead man, in all sobriety, boxed up againt the worms of the grave.