I ALWAYS THOUGHT my father took a long chance, but somebody had to take it and certainly I was the one least likely to be suspected. It was a wild country. There were no banks. We had to pay for the cattle, and somebody had to carry the money. My father and my uncle were always being watched. My father was right, I think.
“Abner,” he said, “I’m going to send Martin. No one will ever suppose that we would trust this money to a child.”
My uncle drummed on the table and rapped his heels on the floor. He was a bachelor, stern and silent. But he could talk…and when he did, he began at the beginning and you heard him through; and what he said-well, he stood behind it.
“To stop Martin,” my father went on, “would be only to lose the money; but to stop you would be to get somebody killed.”
I knew what my father meant. He meant that no one would undertake to rob Abner until after he had shot him to death.
I ought to say a word about my Uncle Abner. He was one of those austere, deeply religious men who were the product of the Reformation. He always carried a Bible in his pocket and he read it where he pleased. Once the crowd at Roy’s Tavern tried to make sport of him when he got his book out by the fire; but they never tried it again. When the fight was over Abner paid Roy eighteen silver dollars for the broken chairs and the table-and he was the only man in the tavern who could ride a horse. Abner belonged to the church militant and his God was a war lord.
So that is how they came to send me. The money was in greenbacks in packages. They wrapped it up in newspaper and put it into a pair of saddle-bags, and I set out. I was about nine years old. No, it was not as bad as you think. I could ride a horse all day when I was nine years old-most any kind of a horse. I was tough as whit’-leather, and I knew the country I was going into. You must not picture a little boy rolling a hoop in the park.
It was an afternoon in early autumn. The clay roads froze in the night; they thawed out in the day and they were a bit sticky. I was to stop at Roy’s Tavern, south of the river, and go on in the morning. Now and then I passed some cattle driver, but no one overtook me on the road until almost sundown; then I heard a horse behind me and a man came up. I knew him. He was a cattleman named Dix. He had once been a shipper, but he had come in for a good deal of bad luck. His partner, Alkire, had absconded with a big sum of money due the grazers. This had ruined Dix; he had given up his land, which wasn’t very much, to the grazers. After that he had gone over the mountain to his people, got together a pretty big sum of money and bought a large tract of grazing land. Foreign claimants had sued him in the courts on some old title and he had lost the whole tract and the money that he had paid for it. He had married a remote cousin of ours and he had always lived on her lands, adjoining those of my Uncle Abner.
Dix seemed surprised to see me on the road.
“So it’s you, Martin,” he said; “I thought Abner would be going into the upcountry.”
One gets to be a pretty cunning youngster, even at this age, and I told no one what I was about.
“Father wants the cattle over the river to run a month,” I returned easily, “and I’m going up there to give his orders to the grazers.”
He looked me over, then he rapped the saddlebags with his knuckles. “You carry a good deal of baggage, my lad.”
I laughed. “Horse feed,” I said. “You know my father! A horse must be fed at dinner time, but a man can go till he gets it.”
One was always glad of any company on the road, and we fell into an idle talk. Dix said he was going out into the Ten Mile country; and I have always thought that was, in fact, his intention. The road turned south about a mile our side of the tavern. I never liked Dix; he was of an apologetic manner, with a cunning, irresolute face.
A little later a man passed us at a gallop. He was a drover named Marks, who lived beyond my Uncle Abner, and he was riding hard to get in before night. He hailed us, but he did not stop; we got a shower of mud and Dix cursed him. I have never seen a more evil face. I suppose it was because Dix usually had a grin about his mouth, and when that sort of face gets twisted there’s nothing like it.
After that he was silent. He rode with his head down and his fingers plucking at his jaw, like a man in some perplexity. At the crossroads he stopped and sat for some time in the saddle, looking before him. I left him there, but at the bridge he overtook me. He said he had concluded to get some supper and go on after that.
Roy’s Tavern consisted of a single big room, with a loft above it for sleeping quarters. A narrow covered way connected this room with the house in which Roy and his family lived. We used to hang our saddles on wooden pegs in this covered way. I have seen that wall so hung with saddles that you could not find a place for another stirrup. But tonight Dix and I were alone in the tavern. He looked cunningly at me when I took the saddle-bags with me into the big room and when I went with them up the ladder into the loft. But he said nothing-in fact, he had scarcely spoken. It was cold; the road had begun to freeze when we got in. Roy had lighted a big fire. I left Dix before it. I did not take off my clothes, because Roy’s beds were mattresses of wheat straw covered with heifer skins-good enough for summer but pretty cold on such a night, even with the heavy, hand-woven coverlet in big white and black checks.
I put the saddle-bags under my head and lay down. I went at once to sleep, but I suddenly awaked. I thought there was a candle in the loft, but it was a gleam of light from the fire below, shining through a crack in the floor. I lay and watched it, the coverlet pulled up to my chin. Then I began to wonder why the fire burned so brightly. Dix ought to be on his way some time and it was a custom for the last man to rake out the fire. There was not a sound. The light streamed steadily through the crack.
Presently it occurred to me that Dix had forgotten the fire and that I ought to go down and rake it out. Roy always warned us about the fire when he went to bed. I got up, wrapped the great coverlet around me, went over to the gleam of light and looked down through the crack in the floor. I had to lie out at full length to get my eye against the board. The hickory logs had turned to great embers and glowed like a furnace of red coals.
Before this fire stood Dix. He was holding out his hands and turning himself about as though he were cold to the marrow; but with all that chill upon him, when the man’s face came into the light I saw it covered with a sprinkling of sweat.
I shall carry the memory of that face. The grin was there at the mouth, but it was pulled about; the eyelids were drawn in; the teeth were clamped together. I have seen a dog poisoned with strychnine look like that.
I lay there and watched the thing. It was as though something potent and evil dwelling within the man were in travail to re-form his face upon its image. You cannot realize how that devilish labor held me-the face worked as though it were some plastic stuff, and the sweat oozed through. And all the time the man was cold; and he was crowding into the fire and turning himself about and putting out his hands. And it was as though the heat would no more enter in and warm him than it will enter in and warm the ice.
It seemed to scorch him and leave him cold-and he was fearfully and desperately cold! I could smell the singe of the fire on him, but it had no power against this diabolic chill. I began myself to shiver, although I had the heavy coverlet wrapped around me.
The thing was a fascinating horror; I seemed to be looking down into the chamber of some abominable maternity. The room was filled with the steady red light of the fire. Not a shadow moved in it. And there was silence. The man had taken off his boots and he twisted before the fire without a sound. It was like the shuddering tales of possession or transformation by a drug. I thought the man would burn himself to death. His clothes smoked. How could he be so cold?
Then, finally, the thing was over! I did not see it for his face was in the fire. But suddenly he grew composed and stepped back into the room. I tell you I was afraid to look! I do not know what thing I expected to see there, but I did not think it would be Dix.
Well, it was Dix; but not the Dix that any of us knew. There was a certain apology, a certain indecision, a certain servility in that other Dix, and these things showed about his face. But there was none of these weaknesses in this man.
His face had been pulled into planes of firmness and decision; the slack in his features had been taken up; the furtive moving of the eye was gone. He stood now squarely on his feet and he was full of courage. But I was afraid of him as I have never been afraid of any human creature in this world! Something that had been servile in him, that had skulked behind disguises, that had worn the habiliments of subterfuge, had now come forth; and it had molded the features of the man to its abominable courage.
Presently he began to move swiftly about the room. He looked out at the window and he listened at the door; then he went softly into the covered way. I thought he was going on his journey; but then he could not be going with his boots there beside the fire. In a moment he returned with a saddle blanket in his hand and came softly across the room to the ladder.
Then I understood the thing that he intended, and I was motionless with fear. I tried to get up, but I could not. I could only lie there with my eye strained to the crack in the floor. His foot was on the ladder, and I could already feel his hand on my throat and that blanket on my face, and the suffocation of death in me, when far away on the hard road I heard a horse!
He heard it, too, for he stopped on the ladder and turned his evil face about toward the door. The horse was on the long hill beyond the bridge, and he was coming as though the devil rode in his saddle. It was a hard, dark night. The frozen road was like flint; I could hear the iron of the shoes ring. Whoever rode that horse rode for his life or for something more than his life, or he was mad. I heard the horse strike the bridge and thunder across it. And all the while Dix hung there on the ladder by his hands and listened. Now he sprang softly down, pulled on his boots and stood up before the fire, his face-this new face-gleaming with its evil courage. The next moment the horse stopped.
I could hear him plunge under the bit, his iron shoes ripping the frozen road; then the door leaped back and my Uncle Abner was in the room. I was so glad that my heart almost choked me and for a moment I could hardly see-everything was in a sort of mist.
Abner swept the room in a glance, then he stopped. “Thank God!” he said; “I’m in time.” And he drew his hand down over his face with the fingers hard and close as though he pulled something away. “In time for what?” said Dix.
Abner looked him over. And I could see the muscles of his big shoulders stiffen as he looked. And again he looked him over. Then he spoke and his voice was strange. “Dix,” he said, “is it you?” “Who would it be but me?” said Dix. “It might be the devil,” said Abner. “Do you know what your face looks like?”
“No matter what it looks like!” said Dix. “And so,” said Abner, “we have got courage with this new face.”
Dix threw up his head.
“Now, look here, Abner,” he said, “I’ve had about enough of your big manner. You ride a horse to death and you come plunging in here; what the devil’s wrong with you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” replied Abner, and his voice was low. “But there’s something damnably wrong with you, Dix.”
“The devil take you,” said Dix, and I saw him measure Abner with his eye. It was not fear that held him back; fear was gone out of the creature; I think it was a kind of prudence.
Abner’s eyes kindled, but his voice remained low and steady.
“Those are big words,” he said.
“Well,” cried Dix, “get out of the door then and let me pass!”
“Not just yet,” said Abner; “I have something to say to you.”
“Say it then,” cried Dix, “and get out of the door.”
“Why hurry?” said Abner. “It’s a long time until daylight, and I have a good deal to say.”
“You’ll not say it to me,” said Dix. “I’ve got a trip to make tonight; get out of the door.”
Abner did not move. “You’ve got a longer trip to make tonight than you think, Dix,” he said; “but you’re going to hear what I have to say before you set out on it.”
I saw Dix rise on his toes and I knew what he wished for. He wished for a weapon; and he wished for the bulk of bone and muscle that would have a chance against Abner. But he had neither the one nor the other. And he stood there on his toes and began to curse-low, vicious, withering oaths, that were like the swish of a knife.
Abner was looking at the man with a curious interest.
“It is strange,” he said, as though speaking to himself, “but it explains the thing. While one is the servant of neither, one has the courage of neither; but when he finally makes his choice he gets what his master has to give him.”
Then he spoke to Dix.
“Sit down!” he said; and it was in that deep, level voice that Abner used when he was standing close behind his words. Every man in the hills knew that voice; one had only a moment to decide after he heard it. Dix knew that, and yet for one instant he hung there on his toes, his eyes shimmering like a weasel’s, his mouth twisting. He was not afraid! If he had had the ghost of a chance against Abner he would have taken it. But he knew he had not, and with an oath he threw the saddle blanket into a corner and sat down by the fire.
Abner came away from the door then. He took off his great coat. He put a log on the fire and he sat down across the hearth from Dix. The new hickory sprang crackling into flames. For a good while there was silence; the two men sat at either end of the hearth without a word. Abner seemed to have fallen into a study of the man before him. Finally he spoke:
“Dix,” he said, “do you believe in the providence of God?”
Dix flung up his head.
“Abner,” he cried, “if you are going to talk nonsense I promise you upon my oath that I will not stay to listen.”
Abner did not at once reply. He seemed to begin now at another point.
“Dix,” he said, “you’ve had a good deal of bad luck…Perhaps you wish it put that way.”
“Now, Abner,” he cried, “you speak the truth; I have had hell’s luck.”
“Hell’s luck you have had,” replied Abner. “It is a good word. I accept it. Your partner disappeared with all the money of the grazers on the other side of the river; you lost the land in your lawsuit; and you are tonight without a dollar. That was a big tract of land to lose. Where did you get so great a sum of money?”
“I have told you a hundred times,” replied Dix. “I got it from my people over the mountains. You know where I got it.”
“Yes,” said Abner. “I know where you got it, Dix. And I know another thing. But first I want to show you this,” and he took a little penknife out of his pocket. “And I want to tell you that I believe in the providence of God, Dix.”
“I don’t care a fiddler’s damn what you believe in,” said Dix.
“But you do care what I know,” replied Abner.
“What do you know?” said Dix.
“I know where your partner is,” replied Abner.
I was uncertain about what Dix was going to do, but finally he answered with a sneer.
“Then you know something that nobody else knows.”
“Yes,” replied Abner, “there is another man who knows.”
“Who?” said Dix.
“You,” said Abner.
Dix leaned over in his chair and looked at Abner closely.
“Abner,” he cried, “you are talking nonsense. Nobody knows where Alkire is. If I knew I’d go after him.”
“Dix,” Abner answered, and it was again in that deep, level voice, “if I had got here five minutes later you would have gone after him. I can promise you that, Dix.
“Now, listen! I was in the upcountry when I got your word about the partnership; and I was on my way back when at Big Run I broke a stirrup-leather. I had no knife and I went into the store and bought this one; then the storekeeper told me that Alkire had gone to see you. I didn’t want to interfere with him and I turned back…So I did not become your partner. And so I did not disappear…What was it that prevented? The broken stirrup-leather? The knife? In old times, Dix, men were so blind that God had to open their eyes before they could see His angel in the way before them…They are still blind, but they ought not to be that blind…Well, on the night that Alkire disappeared I met him on his way to your house. It was out there at the bridge. He had broken a stirrup-leather and he was trying to fasten it with a nail. He asked me if I had a knife, and I gave him this one. It was beginning to rain and I went on, leaving him there in the road with the knife in his hand.”
Abner paused; the muscles of his great iron jaw contracted.
“God forgive me,” he said; “it was His angel again! I never saw Alkire after that.”
“Nobody ever saw him after that,” said Dix. “He got out of the hills that night.”
“No,” replied Abner; “it was not in the night when Alkire started on his journey; it was in the day.”
“Abner,” said Dix, “you talk like a fool. If Alkire had traveled the road in the day somebody would have seen him.”
“Nobody could see him on the road he traveled,” replied Abner.
“What road?” said Dix.
“Dix,” replied Abner, “you will learn that soon enough.”
Abner looked hard at the man.
“You saw Alkire when he started on his journey,” he continued; “but did you see who it was that went with him?”
“Nobody went with him,” replied Dix; “Alkire rode alone.”
“Not alone,” said Abner; “there was another.”
“I didn’t see him,” said Dix.
“And yet,” continued Abner, “you made Alkire go with him.”
I saw cunning enter Dix’s face. He was puzzled, but he thought Abner off the scent.
“And I made Alkire go with somebody, did I? Well, who was it? Did you see him?”
“Nobody ever saw him.”
“He must be a stranger.”
“No,” replied Abner, “he rode the hills before we came into them.”
“Indeed!” said Dix. “And what kind of a horse did he ride?”
“White!” said Abner.
Dix got some inkling of what Abner meant now, and his face grew livid.
“What are you driving at?” he cried. “You sit here beating around the bush. If you know anything, say it out; let’s hear it. What is it?”
Abner put out his big sinewy hand as though to thrust Dix back into his chair.
“Listen!” he said. “Two days after that I wanted to get out into the Ten Mile country and I went through your lands; I rode a path through the narrow valley west of your house. At a point on the path where there is an apple tree something caught my eye and I stopped. Five minutes later I knew exactly what had happened under that apple tree…Someone had ridden there; he had stopped under that tree; then something happened and the horse had run away-I knew that by the tracks of a horse on this path. I knew that the horse had a rider and that it had stopped under this tree, because there was a limb cut from the tree at a certain height. I knew the horse had remained there, because the small twigs of the apple limb had been pared o&, and they lay in a heap on the path. I knew that something had frightened the horse and that it had run away, because the sod was torn up where it had jumped…Ten minutes later I knew that the rider had not been in the saddle when the horse jumped; I knew what it was that had frightened the horse; and I knew that the thing had occurred the day before. Now, how did I know that?
“Listen! I put my horse into the tracks of that other horse under the tree and studied the ground. Immediately I saw where the weeds beside the path had been crushed, as though some animal had been lying down there, and in the very center of that bed I saw a little heap of fresh earth. That was strange, Dix, that fresh earth where the animal had been lying down! It had come there after the animal had got up, or else it would have been pressed flat. But where had it come from?
“I got off and walked around the apple tree, moving out from it in an ever-widening circle. Finally I found an ant heap, the top of which had been scraped away as though one had taken up the loose earth in his hands. Then I went back and plucked up some of the earth. The under clods of it were colored as with red paint…No, it wasn’t paint.
“There was a brush fence some fifty yards away. I went over to it and followed it down.
“Opposite the apple tree the weeds were again crushed as though some animal had lain there. I sat down in that place and drew a line with my eye across a log of the fence to a limb of the apple tree. Then I got on my horse and again put him in the tracks of that other horse under the tree; the imaginary line passed through the pit of my stomach!…I am four inches taller than Alkire.”
It was then that Dix began to curse. I had seen his face work while Abner was speaking and that spray of sweat had reappeared. But he kept the courage he had got.
“Lord Almighty, man!” he cried. “How prettily you sum it up! We shall presently have Lawyer Abner with his brief. Because my renters have killed a calf; because one of their horses frightened at the blood has bolted, and because they cover the blood with earth so the other horses traveling the path may not do the like; straightway I have shot Alkire out of his saddle…Man! What a mare’s nest! And now, Lawyer Abner, with your neat little conclusions, what did I do with Alkire after I had killed him? Did I cause him to vanish into the air with a smell of sulphur or did I cause the earth to yawn and Alkire to descend into its bowels?”
“Dix,” replied Abner, “your words move somewhat near the truth.”
“Upon my soul,” cried Dix, “you compliment me. If I had that trick of magic, believe me, you would be already some distance down.”
Abner remained a moment silent.
“Dix,” he said, “what does it mean when one finds a plot of earth resodded?”
“Is that a riddle?” cried Dix. “Well, confound me, if I don’t answer it! You charge me with murder and then you fling in this neat conundrum. Now, what could be the answer to that riddle, Abner? If one had done a murder this sod would overlie a grave and Alkire would be in it in his bloody shirt. Do I give the answer?”
“You do not,” replied Abner.
“No!” cried Dix. “Your sodded plot no grave, and Alkire not within it waiting for the trump of Gabriel! Why, man, where are your little damned conclusions?”
“Dix,” said Abner, “you do not deceive me in the least; Alkire is not sleeping in a grave.”
“Then in the air,” sneered Dix, “with the smell of sulphur?”
“Nor in the air,” said Abner.
‘Then consumed with fire, like the priests of Baal?”
“Nor with fire,” said Abner.
Dix had got back the quiet of his face; this banter had put him where he was when Abner entered. “This is all fools’ talk,” he said; “if I had killed Alkire, what could I have done with the body? And the horse! What could I have done with the horse? Remember, no man has ever seen Alkire’s horse any more than he has seen Alkire-and for the reason that Alkire rode him out of the hills that night. Now, look here, Abner, you have asked me a good many questions. I will ask you one. Among your little conclusions do you find that I did this thing alone or with the aid of others?”
“Dix,” replied Abner, “I will answer that upon my own belief you had no accomplice.”
“Then,” said Dix, “how could I have carried off the horse? Alkire I might carry; but his horse weighed thirteen hundred pounds!”
“Dix,” said Abner, “no man helped you do this thing; but there were men who helped you to conceal it.”
“And now,” cried Dix, “the man is going mad! Who could I trust with such work, I ask you? Have I a renter that would not tell it when he moved on to another’s land, or when he got a quart of cider in him? Where are the men who helped me?”
“Dix,” said Abner, “they have been dead these fifty years.” I heard Dix laugh then, and his evil face lighted as though a candle were behind it. And, in truth, I thought he had got Abner silenced.
“In the name of Heaven!” he cried. “With such proofs it is a wonder that you did not have me hanged.”
“And hanged you should have been,” said Abner.
“Well,” cried Dix, “go and tell the sheriff, and mind you lay before him those little, neat conclusions: How from a horse track and the place where a calf was butchered you have reasoned on Alkire’s murder, and to conceal the body and the horse you have reasoned on the aid of men who were rotting in their graves when I was born; and see how he will receive you!”
Abner gave no attention to the man’s flippant speech. He got his great silver watch out of his pocket, pressed the stem and looked. Then he spoke in his deep, even voice.
“Dix,” he said, “it is nearly midnight; in an hour you must be on your journey, and I have something more to say. Listen! I knew this thing had been done the previous day because it had rained on the night that I met Alkire, and the earth of this ant heap had been disturbed after that. Moreover, this earth had been frozen, and that showed a night had passed since it had been placed there. And I knew the rider of that horse was Alkire because, beside the path near the severed twigs lay my knife, where it had fallen from his hand. This much I learned in some fifteen minutes; the rest took somewhat longer.
“I followed the track of the horse until it stopped in the little valley below. It was easy to follow while the horse ran, because the sod was torn; but when it ceased to run there was no track that I could follow. There was a little stream threading the valley, and I began at the wood and came slowly up to see if I could find where the horse had crossed. Finally I found a horse track and there was also a man’s track, which meant that you had caught the horse and were leading it away. But where?
“On the rising ground above there was an old orchard where there had once been a house. The work about that house had been done a hundred years. It was rotted down now. You had opened this orchard into the pasture. I rode all over the face of this hill and finally I entered this orchard. There was a great, flat, moss-covered stone lying a few steps from where the house had stood. As I looked I noticed that the moss growing from it into the earth had been broken along the edges of the stone, and then I noticed that for a few feet about the stone the ground had been resodded. I got down and lifted up some of this new sod. Under it the earth had been soaked with that…red paint.
“It was clever of you, Dix, to resod the ground; that took only a little time and it effectually concealed the place where you had killed the horse; but it was foolish of you to forget that the broken moss around the edges of the great flat stone could not be mended.”
“Abner!” cried Dix. “Stop!” And I saw that spray of sweat, and his face working like kneaded bread, and the shiver of that abominable chill on him.
Abner was silent for a moment and then he went on, but from another quarter.
“Twice,” said Abner, “the Angel of the Lord stood before me and I did not know it; but the third time I knew it. It is not in the cry of the wind, nor in the voice of many waters that His presence is made known to us. That man in Israel had only the sign that the beast under him would not go on. Twice I had as good a sign, and tonight, when Marks broke a stirrup-leather before my house and called me to the door and asked me for a knife to mend it, I saw and I came!”
The log that Abner had thrown on was burned down, and the fire was again a mass of embers; the room was filled with that dull red light. Dix had got on to his feet, and he stood now twisting before the fire, his hands reaching out to it, and that cold creeping in his bones, and the smell of the fire on him.
Abner rose. And when he spoke his voice was like a thing that has dimensions and weight.
“Dix,” he said, “you robbed the grazers; you shot Alkire out of his saddle; and a child you would have murdered!”
And I saw the sleeve of Abner’s coat begin to move, then it stopped. He stood staring at something against the wall. I looked to see what the thing was, but I did not see it. Abner was looking beyond the wall, as though it had been moved away.
And all the time Dix had been shaking with that hellish cold, and twisting on the hearth and crowding into the fire. Then he fell back, and he was the Dix I knew-his face was slack; his eye was furtive; and he was full of terror.
It was his weak whine that awakened Abner. He put up his hand and brought the fingers hard down over his face, and then he looked at this new creature, cringing and beset with fears.
“Dix,” he said, “Alkire was a just man; he sleeps as peacefully in that abandoned well under his horse as he would sleep in the churchyard. My hand has been held back; you may go. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”
“But where shall I go, Abner?” the creature wailed; “I have no money and I am cold.”
Abner took out his leather wallet and flung it toward the door.
“There is money,” he said-“a hundred dollars-and there is my coat. Go! But if I find you in the hills tomorrow, or if I ever find you, I warn you in the name of the living God that I will stamp you out of life!”
I saw the loathsome thing writhe into Abner’s coat and seize the wallet and slip out through the door; and a moment later I heard a horse. And I crept back on to Roy’s heifer skin.
When I came down at daylight my Uncle Abner was reading by the fire.