Trail's End Read online

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE AVATISM OF A MAN

  Morgan knew that the cogs of the slow machinery by which he had beenhoisted from the saddle to the professorial chair had slipped. As he laythere on his back in the shallow ripple of the Arkansas River, the longcentipede railroad bridge dark-lined across the broad stream, he turnedit in his mind and knew that it was so.

  He had gone back in that brief time of terrific torture to the planefrom which he had risen by hard and determined effort to make of himselfa man in the world of consequence and achievement; back to the savageryof the old days when he rode the range in summer glare and winter storm.For it was his life's one aim and intention now to rise from that coolbed in the river presently and go back to Ascalon, try by sound of voicethose who had subjected him to this torture, separating by that test hisheroic friend from the guilty. The others he intended to kill, man byman, down to the last unfeeling brute.

  The water was not more than two or three inches deep where he lay, but alittle way beyond he could hear it passing with greater volume among thespiles of the bridge. Fortune had spared him a fall into the deeperchannel, where even a foot of water might have drowned him, strengthlessand fettered as he was. Fate had reserved him for this hour ofvengeance. He turned, wallowing in the shallow water to soak therawhide rope, which was already growing soft, the pressure and pain ofit considerably eased on his arms.

  He drank, and buried his face in the tepid water, grateful for life,exulting in the fierce fire that rose in him, triumphing already in theswift atonement he would call on those wretches to make. Back again tothe ethical standard of those old, hard-riding, hard-drinking,hard-swearing days on the range, the refinements of his educationsubmerged, and not one regret for the slip.

  Morgan did not realize in that moment of surrender to the primitivedesires which clamored within him how badly he was wrenched and mauled.He tried the rawhide, swelling his bound arms in the hope that theslipknot would give a little, but was unable to bring pressure enough onthe rope to ease it in the least.

  Eager to begin his harvest of revenge before the men from the Nuecesstruck south again over the long trail, Morgan determined to start atonce in search of somebody to free him from his bonds. He could notreturn to Ascalon in this shameful plight, his ignominy upon him, anobject of derision. There must be somebody living along the river closeat hand who would cut his bonds and give him a plaster to stick over thewound he could feel drawing and gaping in his cheek.

  When it came to getting to his feet, Morgan learned that his desire hadoutgrown his strength. A sickness swept him as he struggled to hisknees; blood burst from his nostrils, the taste of blood was on histongue. Dizzy, sick to the core of his heart, sore with a thousandbruises, shot with a thousand pains which set up with every movementlike the clamor of harassing wolves, he dragged himself on his knees tothe edge of the water, where he lay on his face in the warm sand.

  He waited there a long time for the gathering of strength enough tocarry him on his quest of a friendly hand. Only the savage determinationto strike his enemies down, head by head, kept him from perishing as helay there sore and bruised, chilled to the marrow in his welling agonyeven that hot summer night.

  Dawn was breaking when he at last found strength to mount the low bankthrough the encumbering brush and vines. His arms were senseless belowthe elbows, swollen almost to bursting of veins and skin by the gorgedblood. There was no choice in directions, only to avoid the town. Hefaced up the river and trudged on, the cottonwood leaves beginning theireverlasting symphony, that is like the murmur of rain, as the wakeningwind moved them overhead.

  Morgan stumbled over tin cans at the edge of the tall grass when therising sun was shining across his unprotected eyes. He stood for alittle while, wondering at first sight if this were only another mirageof the plagued imagination, such as had risen like ephemera while he layon the sand bar at the river's edge. He stood with weak legs braced wideapart to fix his reeling senses on the sight--the amazing, comfortingsight, of a field of growing corn. Only a little field, more properly apatch, but it was tall and green, in full tassel, the delicate sweet ofits blossoms strong on the dew-damp morning.

  Beyond the field he could see the roof of a sod house, and a little ofthe brown wall that rose not much higher than the corn. Grass had grownon the roof, for it was made of strips of sod, also, and turned sere andbrown in the sun. A wire fence stood a prickly barrier between roamingcattle and this little field of succulent fodder. Morgan directed hiscourse to skirt the field, and came at last to the cabin door.

  In front of the house there was no fence, but a dooryard that seemed toembrace the rest of the earth. Around the door the ground was trampledand bare; in front of the house three horses stood, saddled and waiting,bridle reins on the ground. It looked like a cow camp to Morgan; itseemed as if he had come back home. A dog rose slowly from where it layacross the door, bristles rising, foot lifted as if the creature pausedbetween flight and attack, setting up such an alarm that the horsesbolted a little way and stood wondering.

  A woman came to the door, lifted her hands in silent astonishment,leaning a little to see.

  "Heavens above! look at that man!" she cried, her words sounding as froma great distance in Morgan's dulling ears.

  Morgan saw her start toward him, running. He tried to step forward tomeet her, but only his body moved in accord with his will. The earthseemed to rise and embrace him, letting him down softly, as the arms ofa friend.

  It was a new pain that brought Morgan to his senses, the pain ofreturning life to his half-dead arms. Somebody was standing beside himholding these members raised to let the blood drain out of them, chafingthem, and there was a smell of camphor and strong spirits in the place.

  "The rope wouldn't 'a' slipped _down_, if they was tryin' to hang him,anyhow," somebody said with conclusive finality.

  "Looks like they lassoed him and drug him," another said, full of theawe that hushes the human voice when one stands beside the dead.

  "Whoever done it ought to be skinned alive!" a woman declared, andMorgan thanked her in his heart for her sympathy, although there was aweight of such absolute weakness on his eyes that he could not open themto see her face.

  There was a dim sound of something being stirred in a glass, and thenerve-waking scent of more ardent spirits.

  "If this don't fetch him to," said the voice of the first speaker, thedeep pectoral tone of a seasoned man, "you jump your horse and go forthe doctor, Fred."

  Morgan shook his head to throw that obstinate weight from his eyes, orthought he shook it, but it was only the shadow of a movement. Slight asit was it brought an exclamation of relief in another voice, a woman'svoice, also, tuned in the music of youth.

  "Oh! he moved!" she said. And she was the one who stood beside him,holding aloft and chafing his blood-gorged arm.

  "Blamed if he didn't! Here--try a little of this, son."

  Morgan was gathering headway out of the fog so rapidly now that he beganto feel ashamed of this helpless situation in which so many kind handswere ministering to him as if he were a sick horse. He made a moredetermined effort to open his eyes, succeeding this time, although itseemed to call for as much strength to lift his lids as to shoulder asack of wheat. He saw a large hand holding a spoon hovering near hismouth, and the outline of big shoulders in a red shirt. Morgan swallowedwhat was offered him, to feel it go tingling through his nerves withvivifying warmth, like a message of cheer over a telegraph wire. Thelarge man who administered the dose was delighted. He spokeencouragingly, working the spoon faster, as a man blows eagerly when hesees a flame start weakly in a doubtful fire. The woman with the voiceof youth, who stood on Morgan's left hand, gently put his arm down, asif modesty would no longer countenance this office of tenderness to aconscious man.

  "Any feelin' in your hands?" the man inquired, bending a whiskered facedown near Morgan's.

  "Plenty of it, thank you," Morgan replied, his voice stubborn as a rustyhinge.

&nbs
p; "You'll be all right then, there's no bones broken as far as I canlocate 'em. You just stretch out and take it easy, you'll be all right."

  "I gave up--I gave up--too easy," Morgan said, slowly, like a very tiredman.

  "Lands alive! gave up!" said the matron of the household, who still heldMorgan's arm up to drain off the congested blood. "Look at your face,look at your feet! Gave up--lands alive!"

  "You're busted up purty bad, old feller," said a young man who seemed toappear suddenly at Morgan's feet, where he stood looking down with themost friendly and feeling expression imaginable in his wholesome brownface.

  "That cut on your face ain't deep, it could be closed up and stuck withstrips of plaster and only leave a shallow scar, but it ought to be donewhile it's fresh," the boss of the ranch said.

  "I'd be greatly obliged to you," Morgan told him, by way of agreement tothe dressing of his wound.

  By the time the pioneer of the Arkansas had treated his mysteriouslyinjured patient's hurts, Morgan had come to himself completely. He wasrelieved to know that his collapse at the threshold of that hospitablehome was due to the suffering of his bound arms, rather than anyinternal rupture or concussion as he at first feared.

  Already his thoughts were running forward, his blood was pounding in hisarteries, in vengeful eagerness to take up the trail of the men who hadsubjected him to this inhuman ordeal. He could not hope to repay themcruelty for cruelty, for he was not a man who did much crippling when itcame to handling a gun, but if he had to follow them to the Nueces, evento the Rio Grande, for his toll, then he would follow.

  The business that had brought him into the Kansas plains could wait;there was but one big purpose in his life now. He was eager to be up,with the weight of a certain dependable pistol in his holster, the feelof a certain rifle in its scabbard on the saddle under his knee.

  Sore and bruised as he was, sorer that he would be tomorrow, Morganwanted to get up as soon as the long rough cut on his cheek had beencomfortably patched with adhesive tape. He asked the rancher if he wouldoblige him with a horse to go to Ascalon, where his trunk containing hismuch-needed wardrobe was still in the baggage-room at the depot.

  "You couldn't ride to Ascalon this morning, son," the rancher told him,severely kind.

  "You'll do if you can make it in a week," the young man added hisopinion cheerfully.

  "Yes, and then some, the way it looks to me," the elder declared.

  Morgan started as if to spring from the low couch where they had laidhim when they carried him in, dusty and bloody, fearful and repulsivesight of maimed flesh and torn clothing that he was.

  "I can't stay a week--I can't wait a day! They'll be gone, man!" hesaid.

  "Maybe they will, son," the rancher agreed, gently pushing him back;"maybe. But they'll leave tracks."

  "Yes, by God! they'll leave tracks!" Morgan muttered.

  "Don't you think I'd better send my boy over to town for the doctor?"the rancher asked.

  "Not unless you're uneasy about me."

  "No, your head's all right and your bones are whole. You'll heal up, butit'll take some time."

  Morgan said he felt that more had been done for him already than anynumber of doctors could have accomplished, for the service had been oneof humanity, with no thought of reward. They would let the doctor stayin Ascalon, and Morgan would go to him if he felt the need coming on.The rancher disclaimed credit for a service such as one man owed anotherthe world over, he said. But it was plain that he was touched by theoutspoken gratitude of this wreckage of humanity that had come haltingin bonds to his door.

  "I'm a stranger to this country," Morgan explained, "I arrived inAscalon yesterday--" pausing to ponder it, thinking it must have beenlonger than a day ago--"yesterday"--with conviction, "a little afternoon. Morgan is my name. I came here to settle on land."

  "You're the man that took the new marshal's gun away from him," therancher said, nodding slowly. "My daughter knew you the minute she sawyou--she was over there yesterday after the mail."

  Morgan's heart jumped. He looked about the room for her, but she and hermother had withdrawn.

  "I guess I made a mistake when I mixed up with him," Morgan said, as ifhe excused himself to the absent girl.

  "The only mistake you made was when you handed him back his gun. Youought to 'a' handed it back to a corpse," the rancher said.

  "We knew that feller he killed," the younger man explained, with a worldof significance in his voice.

  "He used to live up here in this country before he went to Abilene; he'dcome back to blow his money in Ascalon, I guess," the rancher said. "Hewas one of them harmless bluffin' boys you could take by the ear andlead around like he had a ring in his nose."

  "That's what I told them," Morgan commented, in thoughtful, distractedway.

  "You sized him up right. He wouldn't 'a' pulled his gun, quick as he wasto slap his hand on it and run a sandy. I guess it was just as well ithappened to him then as some other time. Somebody was bound to kill himwhen he got away among strangers."

  The rancher, who introduced himself as Stilwell, asked for the detailsof the killing, which Morgan gave, together with the trivial thing thatled up to it. The big rancher sighed, shaking his head sadly.

  "You ought to took his gun away from him and bent it around his foolhead," he said.

  "It would have been better for him, and for me, I guess," Morgan agreed.

  "Yes, that marshal was purty sore on you for takin' his gun away fromhim right out in public, it looks like," the rancher suggested, a bid inhis manner for the details of his misfortune which Morgan felt were hisby right of hospitality.

  "I ran into some of his friends later on. He'd turned the town over tothem, a bunch of cowpunchers just up from the Nueces."

  The rancher started at the word, exchanging a startled, meaning lookwith his son.

  "That outfit that loaded over at Ascalon yesterday?" he inquired.

  "Yes; seven or eight of them stayed behind to look after thehorses--eight with the marshal, he's one of the outfit."

  "Did them fellers rope you and drag you away out here?" Stilwellinquired, leaning over in the tensity of his feeling, his tanned facegrowing pale, as if the thought of such atrocity turned his blood cold.

  "They hitched me to a freight train. The rope broke at the river."

  The rancher turned to his son again, making a motion with open handoutflung as if displaying evidence in some controversy between them thatclinched it on his side without another word. The younger man came astep nearer Morgan's couch, where he stood with grave face, hesitant, asif something came forward in his mind to speak. The elder strode to thedoor and looked out into the sun of early morning, and the cool shadowsof the cottonwood trees at the riverside which reached almost to hiswalls.

  "To a train! God A'mighty--to a train!" Morgan heard him say.

  "How far is it from Ascalon to the river?" Morgan asked.

  "Over two miles! And your hands tied--God A'mighty!"

  "You take it easy, they'll not leave Ascalon till Sol Drumm, their boss,comes back from Kansas City," the young man said. "We're layin' for himourselves, we've got a bill against him."

  "And we've got about as much show to collect it as we have to dip ahatful of stars out of the river," Stilwell said, turning gloomily fromthe door.

  "We'll see about that!" the younger one returned, in high and defiantstubbornness.

  "We've already lost upwards of five hundred head of stock from thatfeller's trespass on our range," Stilwell explained. "That gang drove inhere three weeks ago to rest and feed up for market, payin' no attentionto anybody's range or anybody's warning to keep off. They had the menwith them to go where they pleased. Them Texas cattle come up hereloaded with fever ticks, and the bite of them little bugs means death toa northern herd. They sowed ticks all over my range. I'm still a losin'cattle, and Lord knows where it will stop."

  "You've been working to get a quarantine law passed, I remember," Morgansaid, feeling this outrage as
if the cattle were his own.

  "Yes, but Congress is asleep, and them fellers down in Texas never shuttheir eyes. I warned Drumm to keep off my range, asked him first like agentleman, but he drove in one night between my pickets and mixed hispoison cattle with mine out of pure cussidness. He claimed they gotaway, and him with fifteen or twenty men to ride herd! It's cost me tenthousand dollars, at the lowest figure, already, and more goin'. Itlooks like it would clean me out."

  "You ought to have some recourse against him in law," Morgan said.

  "Yes, I thought so, too. I went to the county attorney and wanted tobring an attachment on Drumm's herd, but he told me there wasn't any lawhe could act under, it was anybody's range as much as mine, Texas feveror no Texas fever. I could sue him, he said, but it was a slim chance.Well, I'm goin' to see another lawyer--I'll take it up with JudgeThayer, and see what he can do."

  "Drumm'll pay it, down to the last dime!" the young man declared.

  "We can't hold him up and take it away from him, Fred," the older manreproved. "That would be as big a crime as his."

  "He'll pay it!" Fred repeated, with what Morgan thought to be admirabletenacity, even though his means to the desired end might be hard tojustify.

  They helped Morgan to another room, where they outfitted him withclothing to replace his own shredded garments. Stilwell insisted that heremain as his guest until his hurts were mended, although, he explained,he could not stay at home to keep him company. His wife and daughterwould talk his arm off without help from the rest of the family. Hewould call them in and introduce them.

  "My girl's got a new piano--lucky I sent for it before that Texas outfitstruck this range--she can try it out on you," Stilwell said, a laughstill left in him for an amusing situation in spite of the ruin hefaced.

  Morgan could hear the girl and her mother talking in the kitchen, theirvoices quite distinct at times as they passed an open door that he couldnot see. Lame and aching, hands swollen and purple, he sat in arocking-chair by the open window, not so broken by his experiences norso depressed by his pains but he yet had the pleasure of anticipation inmeeting this girl. He had determined only a few hours ago that thecountry was not big enough to hide her from him. Now Fate had jerkedhim with rough hand to the end of his quest before it was fairly begun.

  As he thought this, Stilwell came back, convoying his ample red-facedwife, and almost as ample, and quite as red-faced, daughter. So, theremust have been more than one young lady after mail in Ascalon yesterdayafternoon, thought Morgan, as he got up ruefully, with much pain in hisfeet and ankles, rather shamed and taken back, and bowed the best way hecould to this girl who was not _his_ girl, after all his eageranticipation.