The Cross-Cut by Courtney Ryley Cooper (best short novels .txt) 📗

"Harry," he said, and there was determination in his voice, "if it's there—we 've got to face it. I 'll be the one who will suffer. My father is gone. There are no accusations where he rests now; I 'm sure of that. If—if he ever did anything in his life that wasn't right, he paid for it. We don't know what happened, Harry—all we are sure of is that if it's what we 're—we 're afraid of, we 've gone too far now to turn back. Don't you think that certain people would make an investigation if we should happen to quit the mine now?"

"The Rodaines!"

"Exactly. They would scent something, and within an hour they 'd be down in here, snooping around. And how much worse would it be for them to tell the news—than for us!"

"Nobody 'as to tell it—" Harry was staring at his carbide flare—"there 's a wye."

"But we can't take it, Harry. In my father's letter was the statement that he made only one mistake—that of fear. I 'm going to believe him—and in spite of what I find here, I 'm going to hold him innocent, and I 'm going to be fair and square and aboveboard about it all. The world can think what it pleases—about him and about me. There 's nothing on my conscience—and I know that if my father had not made the mistake of running away when he did, there would have been nothing on his."

Harry shook his head.

"'E could n't do much else, Boy. Rodaine was stronger in some ways then than he is now. That was in different days. That was in times when Squint Rodaine could 'ave gotten a 'undred men together quicker 'n a cat's wink and lynched a man without 'im 'aving a trial or anything. And if I 'd been your father, I 'd 'ave done the same as 'e did. I 'd 'ave run too—'e 'd 'ave paid for it with 'is life if 'e didn't, guilty or not guilty. And—" he looked sharply toward the younger man—"you say to go on?"

"Go on," said Fairchild, and he spoke the words between tightly clenched teeth. Harry turned his light before him, and once more shielded it with his big hand. A step—two, then:

"Look—there—over by the footwall!"

Fairchild forced his eyes in the direction designated and stared intently. At first it appeared only like a succession of disjointed, broken stones, lying in straggly fashion along the footwall of the drift where it widened into the stope, or upward slant on the vein. Then, it came forth clearer, the thin outlines of something which clutched at the heart of Robert Fairchild, which sickened him, which caused him to fight down a sudden, panicky desire to shield his eyes and to run,—a heap of age-denuded bones, the scraps of a miner's costume still clinging to them, the heavy shoes protruding in comically tragic fashion over bony feet; a huddled, cramped skeleton of a human being!

They could only stand and stare at it,—this reminder of a tragedy of a quarter of a century agone. Their lips refused to utter the words that strove to travel past them; they were two men dumb, dumb through a discovery which they had forced themselves to face, through a fact which they had hoped against, each more or less silently, yet felt sure must, sooner or later, come before them. And now it was here.

And this was the reason that twenty years before Thornton Fairchild, white, grim, had sought the aid of Harry and of Mother Howard. This was the reason that a woman had played the part of a man, singing in maudlin fashion as they traveled down the center of the street at night, to all appearances only three disappointed miners seeking a new field. And yet—

"I know what you 're thinking." It was Harry's voice, strangely hoarse and weak. "I 'm thinking the same thing. But it must n't be. Dead men don't alwyes mean they 've died—in a wye to cast reflections on the man that was with 'em. Do you get what I mean? You've said—" and he looked hard into the cramped, suffering face of Robert Fairchild—"that you were going to 'old your father innocent. So 'm I. We don't know, Boy, what went on 'ere. And we 've got to 'ope for the best."

Then, while Fairchild stood motionless and silent, the big Cornishman forced himself forward, to stoop by the side of the heap of bones which once had represented a man, to touch gingerly the clothing, and then to bend nearer and hold his carbide close to some object which Fairchild could not see. At last he rose and with old, white features, approached his partner.

"The appearances are against us," came quietly. "There 's a 'ole in 'is skull that a jury 'll say was made by a single jack. It 'll seem like some one 'ad killed 'im, and then caved in the mine with a box of powder. But 'e 's gone, Boy—your father—I mean. 'E can't defend 'imself. We 've got to take 'is part."

"Maybe—" Fairchild was grasping at the final straw—"maybe it's not the person we believe it to be at all. It might be somebody else—who had come in here and set off a charge of powder by accident and—"

But the shaking of Harry's head stifled the momentary ray of hope.

"No. I looked. There was a watch—all covered with mold and mildewed. I pried it open. It's got Larsen's name inside!"

Again there was a long moment of silence, while Harry stood pawing at his mustache and while Robert Fairchild sought to summon the strength to do the thing which was before him. It had been comparatively easy to make resolutions while there still was hope. It was a far different matter now. All the soddenness of the old days had come back to him, ghosts which would not be driven away; memories of a time when he was the grubbing, though willing slave of a victim of fear,—of a man whose life had been wrecked through terror of the day when intruders would break their way through the debris, and when the discovery would be made. And it had remained for Robert Fairchild, the son, to find the hidden secret, for him to come upon the thing which had caused the agony of nearly thirty years of suffering, for him to face the alternative of again placing that gruesome find into hiding, or to square his shoulders before the world and take the consequences. Murder is not an easy word to hear, whether it rests upon one's own shoulders, or upon the memory of a person beloved. And right now Robert Fairchild felt himself sagging beneath the weight of the accusation.

But there was no time to lose in making his decision. Beside him stood Harry, silent, morose. Before him,—Fairchild closed his eyes in an attempt to shut out the sight of it. But still it was there, the crumpled heap of tattered clothing and human remains, the awry, heavy shoes still shielding the fleshless bones of the feet. He turned blindly, his hands groping before him.

"Harry," he called, "Harry! Get me out of here—I—can't stand it!"

Wordlessly the big man came to his side. Wordlessly they made the trip back to the hole in the cave-in and then followed the trail of new-laid track to the shaft. Up—up—the trip seemed endless as they jerked and pulled on the weighted rope, that their shaft bucket might travel to the surface. Then, at the mouth of the tunnel, Robert Fairchild stood for a long time staring out over the soft hills and the radiance of the snowy range, far away. It gave him a new strength, a new determination. The light, the sunshine, the soft outlines of the scrub pines in the distance, the freedom and openness of the mountains seemed to instill into him a courage he could not feel down there in the dampness and darkness of the tunnel. His shoulders surged, as though to shake off a great weight. His eyes brightened with resolution. Then he turned to the faithful Harry, waiting in the background.

"There's no use trying to evade anything, Harry. We 've got to face the music. Will you go with me to notify the coroner—or would you rather stay here?"

"I 'll go."

Silently they trudged into town and to the little undertaking shop which also served as the office of the coroner. They made their report, then accompanied the officer, together with the sheriff, back to the mine and into the drift. There once more they clambered through the hole in the cave-in and on toward the beginning of the stope. And there they pointed out their discovery.

A wait for the remainder of that day,—a day that seemed ages long, a day in which Robert Fairchild found himself facing the editor of the Bugle, and telling his story, Harry beside him. But he told only what he had found, nothing of the past, nothing of the white-haired man who had waited by the window, cringing at the slightest sound on the old, vine-clad veranda, nothing of the letter which he had found in the dusty safe. Nothing was asked regarding that; nothing could be gained by telling it. In the heart of Robert Fairchild was the conviction that somehow, some way, his father was innocent, and in his brain was a determination to fight for that innocence as long as it was humanly possible. But gossip told what he did not.

There were those who remembered the departure of Thornton Fairchild from Ohadi. There were others who recollected perfectly that in the center of the rig was a singing, maudlin man, apparently "Sissie" Larsen. And they asked questions. They cornered Harry, they shot their queries at him one after another. But Harry was adamant.

"I ain't got anything to sye! And there's an end to it!"

Then, forcing his way past them, he crossed the street and went up the worn steps to the little office of Randolph P. Farrell, with his grinning smile and his horn-rimmed glasses, there to tell what he knew,—and to ask advice. And with the information the happy-go-lucky look faded, while Fairchild, entering behind Harry, heard a verdict which momentarily seemed to stop his heart.

"It means, Harry, that you were accessory to a crime—if this was a murder. You knew that something had happened. You helped without asking questions. And if it can be proved a murder—well," and he drummed on his desk with the end of his pencil—"there 's no statute of limitations when the end of a human life is concerned!"

Only a moment Harry hesitated. Then:

"I 'll tell the truth—if they ask me."

"When?" The lawyer was bending forward.

"At the inquest. Ain't that what you call it?"

"You'll tell nothing. Understand? You'll tell nothing, other than that you, with Robert Fairchild, found that skeleton. An inquest is n't a trial. And that can't come without knowledge and evidence that this man was murdered. So, remember—you tell the coroner's jury that you found this body and nothing more!"

"But—"

"It's a case for the grand jury after that, to study the findings of the coroner's jury and to sift out what evidence comes to it."

"You mean—" This time it was Fairchild cutting in—"that if the coroner's jury cannot find evidence that this man was murdered, or something more than mere supposition to base a charge on—there 'll be no trouble for Harry?"

"It's very improbable. So tell what happened on this day of this year of our Lord and nothing more! You people almost had me scared myself for a minute. Now, get out of here and let a legal light shine without any more clouds for a few minutes."

They departed then and traveled down the stairs with far more spring in their step than when they had entered. Late that night, as they were engaged at their usual occupation of relating the varied happenings of the day to Mother Howard, there came a knock at the door. Instinctively, Fairchild bent toward her:

"Your name 's out of this—as long as possible."

She smiled in her mothering, knowing way. Then she opened the door, there to find a deputy from the sheriff's office.

"They 've impaneled a jury up at the courthouse," he