Trail's End Part 28

Because he had taken Seth Craddock's pistol away from him on that first day, she had believed him capable of the superhuman task of enforcing order in Ascalon without bloodshed. Sincere as she had been in her desire to have him a.s.sume the duties of peace officer, she had acted unconsciously as a lure to entangle him to his undoing.

Very well; he would clean up the town for her as she had looked to him to do, sweep it clear of the last iniquitous gun-slinger, the last slinking gambler, the last drab. He would turn it over to her clean, safe for her day or night, no element in it to disturb her repose. At what further cost of life he must do this, he could not then foresee, but he resolved that it should be done. Then he would go his way, leaving his new hopes behind him with his old.

Although it was a melancholy resolution, owing to its closing provision, it brought him the quiet that a perturbed mind often enjoys after the formation of a definite plan, no matter for its desperation. Morgan went to the hotel, where Tom Conboy was still on duty smoking his cob pipe in a chair tilted back against a post of his portico.

"Well, the light's out up at Peden's," said Conboy, feeling a new and vast respect for this man who had proved his luck to the satisfaction of all beholders in Ascalon that night.

"Yes," said Morgan, wearily, pausing at the door.

"They'll never be lit again in this man's town," Conboy went on, "and I'm one that's glad to see 'em go. Some of these fellers around town was sayin' tonight that Ascalon will be dead in the sh.e.l.l inside of three weeks, but I can't see it that way. Settlers'll begin to come now, that hall of Peden's'll make a good implement store, plenty of room for thrashin' machines and harvesters. I may have to put up my rates a little to make up for loss in business till things brighten up, but I'd have to do it in time, anyhow."

"Yes," said Morgan, as listlessly as before.

"They say you made a stand with that gun of yours tonight that beat anything a man ever saw--three of 'em down quicker than you could strike a match! I heard one feller say--man! look at that badge of yours!"

Conboy got up, gaping in amazement. Morgan had stepped into the light that fell through the open door, pa.s.sing on his way to bed. The metal shield that proclaimed his office was cupped as if it had been held edgewise on an anvil and struck with a hammer. Morgan hastily detached the badge and put it in his pocket, plainly displeased by the discovery Conboy had made.

"Bullet hit it, square in the center!" Conboy said. "It was square over your heart!"

"Keep it under your hat!" Morgan warned, speaking crossly, glowering darkly on Conboy as he pa.s.sed.

"No n.i.g.g.e.rs in Ireland," said Conboy, knowingly; "no-o-o n.i.g.g.e.rs in Ireland!"

Morgan regretted his oversight in leaving the badge in place. He had intended to remove it, long before. As he went up the complaining stairs he pressed his hand to the sore spot over his heart where the bullet almost had driven the badge into his flesh. Pretty sore, but not as sore as it was deeper within his breast from another wound, not as sore as that other hurt would be tomorrow, and the heavy years to come.

CHAPTER XXI

AS ONE THAT IS DEAD

"I feel like I share his guilt," said Rhetta, voice sad as if she had suffered an irreparable loss.

"He's not guilty," said Violet, stoutly, standing in his defense.

Rhetta had fled from Ascalon that morning, following the terrible night of Morgan's sanguinary baptism. Racked by an agony of mingled remorse for her part in this tragedy and the loss of some valued thing which she would not bring her heart to acknowledge, only moan over and weep, and bend her head to her pillow through that fevered night, she had taken horse at sunrise and ridden to Stilwell's ranch, for the comfort of Violet, whose sympathy was like balm to a bruise. Rhetta had come through the night strained almost to breaking. All day she had hidden like one crushed and shamed, in Stilwell's house, pouring out to Violet the misery of her soul.

Now, at night, she was calmer, the haunting terror of the scene which rose up before her eyes was drawing off, like some frightful thing that had stood a menace to her life. But she felt that it never would dim entirely from her recollection, that it must endure, a hideous picture, to sadden her days until the end.

The two girls had gone to the river, where the moonlight softened the desert-like scene of barren bars, and twinkled in the ripples of shallow water which still ran over against the farther sh.o.r.e. They were sitting near the spot where Morgan had laved his bruised feet in the river not many nights past. A whippoorwill was calling in the tangle of cottonwoods and grapevines that grew cool and dark on a little island below them, its plaint as sad as the mourner's own stricken heart.

"I begged him to give up the office and let things go," said Rhetta, pleading to mitigate her own blame, against whom no blame was laid.

"You'd have despised him for it if he had," said Violet.

"But he wouldn't do it, and now this has happened, and he's a man-killer like the rest of them. Oh it's terrible to think about!"

"Not like the rest of them," Violet corrected, in her firm, gentle way.

"He had to stand up like a man for what he was sworn to do, or run like a dog. Mr. Morgan wouldn't run. Right or wrong, he wouldn't run from any man!"

"No," said Rhetta, sadly, "he wouldn't run."

"You talk like you wanted him to!"

"I don't think I would," said Rhetta.

"Then what _do_ you expect of a man?" impatiently. "If he stands up and fights he's either got to kill or be killed."

"Don't--don't, Violet! It seems like killing is all I hear--the sound of those guns--I hear them all the time, I can't get them out of my ears!"

"Suppose," said Violet, looking off across the runlet sparkling, gurgling like an infant across the bar, "it was him you saw when you looked in there, instead of the others. You'd have been satisfied then, I suppose?"

"Violet! how can you say such awful things!"

"Well, somebody had to be killed. Do you suppose Mr. Morgan killed them just for fun?"

"They say, they were talking all over town that night--last night--and saying the same thing this morning, that he didn't give them a show, that he just turned his rifle on them and killed them before he knew whether they were going to shoot or not!"

"Well, they lie," said Violet, with the calmness of conviction.

"I suppose he had a right to do what he did, but he doesn't seem like the same man to me now. I feel like I'd lost something--some friendship that I valued, I mean, Violet--you know what I mean."

"I know as well as anything," said Violet, smiling to herself, head turned away, the moonlight on her good, kind face.

"I feel like somebody had died, and that he--they--that he----"

"And you ought to be thankful it isn't so!" said Violet, sharply, "but I don't believe you are."

"I never want to see him again, I'll always think of him standing there with that terrible gun in his hands, those dead men around him on the floor!"

"You may have to go to him on your knees yet, and I hope to G.o.d you will Rhetta Thayer!" Violet said.

"If you'd seen somebody--somebody that you--that was--if you'd seen him like I saw him, you wouldn't blame me so," Rhetta defended, beginning again to cry, and bend her head upon her hands and moan like a mother who had lost a child.

Violet was moved out of her harshness at once. She put her arm around the weeping girl, whose sorrow was too genuine to admit a doubt of its great depth, and consoled her with soft words.

"And he looked so big to me, and he was so _clean_, before that," Rhetta wailed.

"He's bigger than ever, he's as blameless as a lamb," said Violet.

"After a little while you'll see it different, he'll be the same to you."

"I couldn't touch his hand!" said Rhetta, shuddering at the thought.

"Never mind," said Violet, soothingly; "never mind."

Violet said no more, but took Rhetta by the hand, and it was wet with tears from her streaming cheeks. There was peace in the night around them, for all the turmoil there might be in human hearts, for night had eased the throbbing, drouth-cursed earth of its burning, and called the trumpeters of the greenery out along the riverside.