Trail's End Part 33

"That's what the business men are saying," he told her, sarcasm in his dry tone.

"I don't mean it that way," she hastened to amend. "You've done us a great service--we'll never be able to pay you----"

"There isn't any pay involved," he interposed, almost roughly. "That's what's worrying those nits around the square, they say they can't carry a marshal's pay with business going to the devil since the town's closed. Somebody ought to tell them. There never will be any bill."

"You're too generous," she said, a little spontaneous warmth in her voice.

"Maybe I can live it down," he returned.

"It's such a lovely cool night I couldn't stay in," she chatted on, still laboring to be natural and at ease, not deceiving him by her constraint at all, "after such a hard day fussing with that old paper.

We missed an issue the week--last week--we're getting out two in one this time. Why haven't you been in? you seem to be in such a hurry always."

"I wanted to spare you what you can't see in the dark," he said, the vindictive spirit of Ascalon's insanity upon him.

"What I can't see in the dark?" she repeated, as if perplexed.

"My face."

"You shouldn't say that," she chided, but not with the hearty sincerity that a friend would like to hear. "Are you going back to town?"

"I'll ride with you," he granted, feeling that for all her friendly advances the shadow of his taint lay between them.

They were three miles or more from town, the road running as straight as a plumbline before them. A little way they jogged on slowly, nothing said. Rhetta was the first to speak.

"What made you run away from me that day I wanted to speak to you, Mr.

Morgan?"

"Did you want to, or were you just--_did_ you want to speak to me that day, Miss Thayer?" Morgan's heart began to labor, his forehead to sweat, so hard was the rebirth of hope.

"And you turned right around and walked off!"

"You can tell me now," he suggested, half choking on the commonplace words, the tremor of his springing hope was so great.

"I don't remember--oh, nothing in particular. But it looks so strange for us--for you--to be dodging me--each other--that way, after we'd _started_ being friends before everybody."

"Only for the sake of appearances," he said sadly. "I hoped--but you ran away and hid for a week, you thought I was a monster."

Foolish, perhaps, to cut down the little shoot of hope again, when a gentle breath, a soft word, might have encouraged and supported it. But it was out of his mouth, the fruit of his brooding days, in his resentfulness of her injustice, her ingrat.i.tude for his sacrifice, as he believed. He saw her turn from him, as if a revulsion of the old feeling swept her.

"Don't judge me too harshly, Mr. Morgan," she appealed, still looking away.

Morgan was melted by her gentle word; the severity of the moment was dissolved in a breath.

"If we could go on as we began," he suggested, almost pleading in his great desire.

"Why, aren't we?" she asked, succeeding well, as a woman always can in such a situation, in giving it a discouraging artlessness.

"You know how they're kicking and complaining all around the square because I've shut up the town, ruined business, brought calamity to their doors as they see it?"

"Yes, I know."

"They forget that they came to me with their hats in their hands and asked me to do it. Joe Lynch says the hot wind has dried their reason up like these prairie springs. I believe he's right. But I didn't shut the town up for them, I didn't go out there with my gun like a savage and shoot men down for them, Miss Thayer. If you knew how much you were----"

"Don't--don't--Mr. Morgan, please!"

"I think there's something in what Joe Lynch says about the wind," he told her, leaning toward her, hand on the horn of her saddle. "It warps men, it opens cracks in their minds like the shrunk lumber in the houses of Ascalon. I think sometimes it's getting its work in on me, when I'm lonesome and disappointed."

"You ought to come in and talk with me and Riley sometimes."

"I've often felt like going to them, whining around about the town being killed," he went on, pursuing his theme as if she had not spoken, "and telling them they didn't figure in my calculations at the beginning nor come in for any of my consideration at the end--if this is the end.

There was only one person in my thoughts, that one person was Ascalon, and all there was in it, and that was you. When I took the job that day, I took it for you."

"Not for me alone!" she hastened to disclaim, as one putting off an unwelcome responsibility, unfriendly denial in her voice.

"For you, and only you," he told her, earnestly. "If you knew how much you were to me----"

"Not for me alone--I was only one among all of them," she said, spurring her horse in the vehemence of her disclaimer, causing it to start away from Morgan with quick bound. She checked it, waiting for him to draw up beside her again. "I'd hate to think, Mr. Morgan--oh, you can't want me alone to take the responsibility for the killing of those men!"

Morgan rode on in silence, head bent in humiliation, in the sad disappointment that fell on him like a blow.

"If it could have been done, if I could have brought peace and safety to the women of Ascalon without bloodshed, I'd have done it. I wanted to tell you, I tried to tell you----"

"Don't--don't tell me any more, Mr. Morgan--please!"

She drew across the road, widening the s.p.a.ce between them as she spoke.

Perhaps this was due to the unconscious pressure on the rein following her shrinking from his side, from the thought of his touch upon her hand, but it wounded Morgan's humiliated soul deeper than a thousand unkind words.

"No, I'll never tell you," he said sadly, but with dignity that made the renunciation n.o.ble.

Rhetta seemed touched. She drew near him again, reaching out her hand as if to ease his hurt.

"It was different before--before _that night_! you were different, all of us, everything. I can't help it, ungrateful as I seem. You'll forgive me, you'll understand. But you were _different_ to me before then."

"Yes, I was different," Morgan returned, not without bitterness in his slow, deep, gentle voice. "I never killed a man for--I never had killed a man; there was no curse of blood on my soul."

"Why is it always necessary to kill in Ascalon?" she asked, wildly, rebelliously. "Why can't anything be done without that horrible ending!"

"If I knew; if I had known," he answered her, sadly.

"Forgive me, Mr. Morgan. You know how I feel about it all."

"I know how you feel," he said, offering no word of forgiveness, as he had spoken no word of reminder where a less generous soul might have spoken, nor raised a word of blame. If he had a thought that she must have known when she urged him to the defense of the defenseless in Ascalon, what the price of such guardianship must be, he kept it sealed in his heart.

They rode on. The lights of Ascalon came up out of the night to meet their eyes as they raised the last ridge. There Morgan stopped, so abruptly that she rode on a little way. When he came up to her where she waited, he was holding out his hand.

"Here is my badge--the city marshal's badge," he said. "If you can bear the thought of touching it, or touch it without a thought, I wish you would return it to Judge Thayer for me. I'm not needed in Ascalon any longer, I'm quitting the job tonight. Good-bye."

Morgan laid the badge in her hand as he spoke the last word, turned his horse quickly, rode back upon their trail. Rhetta wheeled her horse about, a protest on her lips, a sudden pang in her heart that clamored to call him back. But no cry rose to summon him to her side, and Morgan, gloomy as the night around him, went on his way.