The Benevolent Liar/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI.
None of the party ever forgot that homeward ride. The prospector rode with his head down, like one disgraced, declining to converse. Neither Barnes, his daughter, nor Tom ventured questions after the first rebuff. Behind them, gloating to himself, came Specimen Jones. The strain and anxiety were over for some of them; for others merely in abeyance. It was not until they came to the turn of the Lady Edith Trail that the prospector pulled his horse to a halt and handed Barnes the folded paper he took from his pocket.
“Frank,” he said, “I wish you'd have that recorded for me. Come out to-morrer mornin', We've got to put Tommy in the saddle. You will, won't you?”
“Yes, I shall be out here by noon. And I'll bring Specimen with me.”
“Good! Adios. Buenos noches!” he reverted to the old border tongue, and rode away, forgetting until after he had started to wave his hand to Edith and to call to Tom that it was late.
On the following day, after they had taken formal possession of the mine, he relented somewhat and gave Vance an additional twelve hours' grace to clear away accumulations of years of theft. Vance, sullen and beaten, was still there, destroying letters exposing his past, when they left to return to the Lady Edith, where they had planned a supper celebration. And then, across the table in the cabin, the prospector told them of his conquest, cautiously distorting now and then to preserve Tom's secret; while Tom, grateful, troubled, bewildered, sat silent. This was the end of a great injustice. He was prospectively rich, and yet could take no advantage of his changed circumstances until all was cleared. His happiness was but an alloy. His greatest hope, without whose fulfillment all seemed worthless, was yet in the balance. The kindly eyes of the prospector, watching him, checking him, could not take from him the remembrance of his situation. He wished for more time to think. He wished to talk with his partner alone, and confide to him his hesitancy. He was glad when the ordeal was over, and they walked, Barnes, the prospector, and Specimen Jones leading the horses, up to the place where the trail debouched into the road, while Edith traveled by his side. He was absorbed in his problem, and bewildered by all that had so rapidly arrived at culmination. His partner's voice with its quiet drawl, the occasional interjections of Specimen Jones, and the steady comments of Frank Barnes, all walking ahead, did no more than deflect him from his train of thought. And then suddenly he was aware that they had come to the main road, that Barnes had exclaimed, “Hold on! What's this?” and that the leaders had stopped.
They had fallen apart and were bending over something that lay in the dust. Before he and his companion could overtake them, they heard the prospecter's voice, clear and urgent, shouting: “Specimen! Ride to Shingle and get that doctor. Hurry, now!” And in a cloud of dust that swept upward in tiny swirls into the light of the night, Specimen Jones galloped away.
Tom and Edith quickened their pace and joined the others.
Josh was on his knees, and in the flare of a match Tom could see that his hand was thrust into the shirt of a supine figure on the ground. The match went out, and the mine owner struck another, holding it higher. Josh looked up and said: “It's Pete. Karluk Pete. Going out! Almost gone!”
They lifted Pete's head higher. It seemed to ease him, and after a strangling cough he succeeded in clearing his throat. He spoke in broken gasps.
“Off with me, ain't it?” he asked.
“I'm afraid it is,” the prospector admitted. “We've sent for a doctor.”
Pete started at the sound of the voice and said: “That you, Price?”
“Yes.”
The dying man lay still an instant, coughed again, and said: “I'm glad. Got something to tell you. I'm sorry I shot you that night—farther down this trail.”
He felt Josh start with surprise. He spoke rapidly, as if realizing the shortness of his time, while all his auditors bent closer to catch his words:
“Vance was afraid—that affidavit. Afraid to tackle you himself. Said he'd get me to the pen if I didn't get it back. Offered me five thousand if I'd croak you and bring affidavit. I was two-thirds drunk, but was afraid my trail would give me away. Vance gave me his boots to wear. He kept some one with him all evening so could prove alibi. He tried to back out of paying me when he heard you were alive. But I got most of it out of him—curse him!—in the long run. Got him scared! Had to! Knew he'd try to croak me some time, and”
His voice lowered until it was but a monotone, and now he coughed long and desperately, with the short, hacking bark that foretold the end. The prospector lifted him higher. The cough subsided, and for a moment they thought he was dead.
“Was on my way there to-night—met Vance—he said I'd squealed—he shot. I fell—rolled over—got my gun—shot him. Crawled here, and”
They waited for the whisper to continue.
“Pete! Pete! Do you hear me? Where is Vance now? Where is he?” Josh shouted into the dying ears.
Pete's reply was so low that it was but a faint whisper:
“In the road—in the road—over there—over”
His head fell back with the limp surrender of life. Josh tried to arouse him, and Barnes thrust his hand into the open shirt and felt for a heartbeat.
“That is all. He is dead,” he said, straightening himself on his knees.
The prospector lowered the head he held, and got to his feet. He looked up to where the moon had cleared the mountain silhouette, as if hastening to peer at them.
“Let's see if we can find Vance,” he said, moving toward the road.
The horses fell to nibbling the grass beside the trail, unconcerned by the still figure near them. The seekers had not far to go, for almost immediately they came to all that was left of Cash Vance. He was lying flat on his back. They struck matches and looked down at him and straightened up.
“Just one shot, and—a good one!” Josh announced. “Straight through the center of his forehead. Probably saved me the trouble of doin' it myself some time.”
He stopped for a moment and stood looking down at his vanquished enemy.
“When Tom sends that conscience money he talks about, the money he stuck Vance's wagon up for—we'll all have done all we can ever do. The slate's clean as far as it ever can be in this world.”
He stopped, aroused from his meditation by a cry of anguish behind him:
“Tom! Tom, you”
The prospector turned, not aware until then that Edith Barnes had followed them. He opened his lips to denounce himself for his blundering speech, choked, and then declared boldly: “You didn't get me right, Edie. It was me that stuck that gold wagon up. I was comin' along the road up there by the Pinnacle, and I heard a rumblin' noise, and”
“Stop!”
It was the first time Tom had ever spoken to him in that voice. He stood with his lips open to continue, but had no further chance.
“Josh, let's have done with lies! I'll not sail under false colors any more.” Tom turned on his heels and took two or three strides that brought him face to face with the girl he loved. “Edith,” he said firmly, “I wished to tell you long ago, but—but when I got to know you better I—I couldn't. I was a coward!”
His humility and self-reproach lent a heartbreak to his tone. He struggled desperately to continue, determined to make his confession complete, and to strip himself bare, there in the place that had become solemn and somber through the presence of death. He looked at the dead man at his feet, and then back to where she stood with hands clasped tightly in front of her bosom, and saw that in the moonlight her face was pale and distressed.
“It was I who robbed him!” he declared. “I was made desperate by his injustice. And only God knows what would have been the end of me had not Josh Price found me, and had not your father encouraged me!”
She turned her face away from him, and, misconstruing her movement into one of aversion, he stopped and looked around despairingly. The prospector, with sudden concession and forgiveness, was bending above the dead man, laying his handkerchief over the staring face. Frank Barnes was looking at his daughter, and with unusual impetuosity abruptly moved toward her.
“Edith,” he said quietly, “Tom told me of his bad slip, months ago. And since then—well, we have been friends. If your father could forgive him and accept him as a friend, and like and admire him, it seems to me you might at least be charitable.”
The words had cost him much more than she or Tom might ever know; but where he believed her happiness involved, Frank Barnes never made a half sacrifice. He yielded all or nothing. As abruptly as he had intervened, he now turned and walked down the road. Josh slowly followed him. Tom lifted his head, and, broken by what Barnes had said, forgot all his resolutions in the stress of the moment. He flung his hands toward her and leaned forward, his eyes beseeching her to condone.
“Edith! Edith!” he exclaimed, all his yearning and distress rising unpent. “I couldn't tell you, because I love you! Love you so much! I was afraid to tell you. Afraid that, after you knew, you would never speak to me again. That you would have nothing to do with—a thief. Yes, just that! A thief! And I don't expect your friendship now. I haven't the right, now that you know; but I want you to remember, sometimes, if you think of me at all, that, no matter how contemptibly low I went—that time only—I love you! And that I shall keep on loving you—always—because I can do nothing else. Nothing else! Your father forgave. Can't you?”
His hands were again adding their mute but eloquent appeal, stretching toward her with open fingers and bared palms, as if all his soul had been opened for her inspection in this vital moment when she must decide upon his worthiness. Still she stood with averted head and nervously twisting fingers that twined and intertwined in the stress of this great shock when her love was put to a final test, and when the ideal of love, slowly but beautifully erected in her mind, lay crumbled and marred at her feet. She was fighting the battle that other women have fought since life and love began, the battle between social laws and the cry of the heart. She was astounded by revelation. She was bruised and hurt by knowledge.
For a long time they stood thus, while her senses reeled, and disappointment thrust savagely into her mind. Slowly, despairingly, in sickening relinquishment, his hands trembled and fell heavily to his sides. Life had beaten him, after all. Prospective riches became tawdry, an embellishment of tinsel upon a field of mud; his long, patient hours of study but useless labor; his fight against dreary loneliness and unprotected boyhood but a forerunner of dreary loneliness and unaccompanied old age. Wealth might come to him and respect, but he would know always, in his self-estimation, that he was one proscribed, an outcast among decent men, because of that one false step. With dragging feet and hopeless spirit he turned to stumble away from her, defeated and vanquished.
“Tom! Oh, Tom! Don't go!”
He turned, with all his being in an immense rebound from the utmost despair. She had yielded, as other women have yielded since life and love began, and rushed to his arms; but in her clasp was something beyond relinquishment. It conveyed pity, protection, and a great desire to share and shield.
A few minutes later, two gray-haired men who had walked silently down the road, stopped and faced each other.
“Frank,” said the prospector, staring gravely at his friend, “it's been a mighty heavy night for us. But I suppose we'll have to stand it, because we're gettin' old and comin' toward the discards. You've lost a daughter, and I a pardner; but I want to thank you for one big thing—bein' my Tommy's friend! And” He gulped a little as if his happiness threatened to impel him too far in speech, and added callously: “By gee whiz! That doctor'll charge four dollars for comin' out here to look at Karluk Pete, and it sure is a waste of good, hard money!”
And then he laughed in a high, boisterous key.