The Orphan - Clarence E. Mulford (that summer book .TXT) 📗
- Author: Clarence E. Mulford
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Book online «The Orphan - Clarence E. Mulford (that summer book .TXT) 📗». Author Clarence E. Mulford
Tex did not reply, and The Orphan continued, a flicker of contempt about his lips.
“You were never cast for an outlaw, Tex. If I do say it myself, it takes a clever man to live at that game, and I know, for I’ve been all through it. As you see, Sneed and I didn’t shoot each other, for the play was too plain, too transparent. You should have ambushed one of his men, burned his corrals and slaughtered his cattle, for then he might have shot and talked later. And he might have gotten me, too, for I was unsuspecting. I don’t say that I would kill an innocent man to arouse his anger if I had been in your place, I’m only showing you where you made the mistake, where you blundered. Had you killed one of his men it is very probable that his rage would have known no bounds, but as it was the provocation was not great enough.”
Tex remained silent and unconsciously toyed at his ear. The Orphan looked keenly at the movement and wondered where he had seen it before, for it was familiar. His face darkened as memory urged something forward to him out of the dark catacombs of the past, and he stilled his breathing to catch a clue to it. He saw the little ranch his father had worked so hard over to improve, and had fought hard to save, and then the picture of his dying mother came vividly before him; but still something avoided his searching thoughts, something barely eluded him, trembling on the edge of the Then and Now. He saw his father’s body slowly swinging and turning in the light breeze of a perfect day, and he quivered at the nearness of what he was seeking, its proximity was tantalizing. The rope!–the rope about his father’s neck had been of manila fiber; he could never forget the soiled, bleached-yellow streak which had led upward to Eternity. And manila ropes were, at that time, a rarity in that part of the country, for rawhide and braided-hair lariats had been the rule. And on the day when he had given Tex his life in the defile he had noticed the faded yellow rope which had swung at the puncher’s saddle horn. As he strained with renewed hope to catch the elusive impression another scene came before him. It was of three men bent over a cow, engaged in blotting out his father’s brand, and instantly the face of one of them sprang into sharp definition on his mental canvas.
“D––n you!” he cried, his finger tightening on the trigger of the Colt which for so many years had been his best friend. “I know you now, changed as you are! Now I know why you have been so determined for my death. On the day that I cut my father down I swore that I would kill the man who had lynched him if kind fate let me find him, and I have found him. You have just five minutes to live, so make the most of it, you cowardly murderer!”
Tex’s face went suddenly white again and his nerve deserted him. His Colt was in his hand, but oh, so useless! Should he fight to the end? A shudder ran through him at the thought, for life was so good, so precious; far too precious to waste a minute of it by dying before his time was up. Perhaps the foreman would relent, perhaps he would become so wrapped up in the memories of the years gone by as to forget, just for half a second, where he was. The watch in The Orphan’s hand gave him hope, for he would wait until the other glanced at it–that would be his only hope of life.
The foreman’s watch ticked loudly in the palm of his left hand and the Colt in his right never quivered. The first minute passed in terrifying silence, then the second, then the third, but all the time The Orphan’s eyes stared steadily at the man before him, gray, cruel, unblinking.
“They told me to do it! They told me to do it!” shrieked the pitiful, unnerved wreck of a man as he convulsively opened and shut his hand. “I didn’t want to do it! I swear I didn’t want to do it! As God is above, I didn’t want to! They made me, they made me!” he cried, his words swiftly becoming an unintelligible jumble of meaningless sounds. He stared at the black muzzle of the Colt, frozen by terror, fascinated by horror and deadened by despair. The watch ticked on in maddening noise, for his every sense was now most acute, beating in upon his brain like the strokes of a hammer. Then the foreman glanced quickly at it. The gun in Tex’s hand leaped up, but not quickly enough, and a spurt of smoke enveloped his face as he fell. The Orphan stepped back, dropping the Colt into its holster.
“The Orphan stepped back a pace and dropped
the Colt into its holster.” (See page 390.)
“The courage of despair!” he whispered. “But I’m glad he died game,” he slowly added. Then he suddenly buried his face in his hands: “Helen!” he cried. “Helen–forgive me!”
CHAPTER XXIIITHE GREAT HAPPINESS
THE town was rapidly losing sharpness of detail, for the straggling buildings were becoming more and more blurred and were growing into sharp silhouettes in the increasing dusk, and the sickly yellow lights were growing more numerous in the scattered windows.
Helen moved about the dining-room engaged in setting the table and she had just placed fresh flowers in the vase, when she suddenly stopped and listened. Faintly to her ears came the pounding hoofbeats of a galloping horse on the well-packed street, growing rapidly nearer with portentous speed. It could not be Miss Ritchie, for there was a vast difference between the comparatively lazy gallop of her horse and the pulse-stirring tattoo which she now heard. The hoofbeats passed the corner without slackening pace, and whirled up the street, stopping in front of the house with a suddenness which she had long since learned to attribute to cowboys. She stood still, afraid to go to the door, numbed with a nameless fear–something terrible must have happened, perhaps to The Orphan. The rider ran up the path, his spurs jingling sharply, leaped to the porch, and the door was dashed open to show him standing before her, sombrero in hand, his quirt dangling from his left wrist. He was dusty and tired, but the expression on his face terrified her, held her speechless.
“Helen!” he cried hoarsely, driving her fear deeper into her heart by his altered voice. “Helen!” She trembled, and he made a gesture of hopelessness and involuntarily stepped toward her, letting the door swing shut behind him. He stood just within the room, rigidly erect, his eyes meeting hers in the silence of strong emotion. Breathlessly she retreated as he advanced, as if instinct warned her of what he had to tell her, until the table was between them; and a spasm of pain flickered across his face as he noticed it, leaving him hard and stern again, but in his eyes was a look of despair, a keen misery which softened her and drew her toward him even while she feared him.
The silence became unbearable and at last she could endure it no longer. “What is it?” she breathed, tensely. “What have you to tell me?”
His eyes never wavered from her face, fascinated in despair of what he must read there, much as he dreaded it, and he answered her from between set lips, much as a man would pronounce his own death sentence. “I have broken my word,” he said, harshly.
“Broken your word–to me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Her face brightened and was softened by a child-like wonder, for she felt relieved in a degree, and unconsciously she moved nearer to him. “What is it–what have you done?”
He regarded her without appraising the change in her expression and his reply was as harsh and stern as his first statement, accompanied by no excuses nor words of extenuation. “I have killed a man,” he said.
A shiver passed over her and her eyes went closed for a moment. The great choice was at hand now, and in her heart a fierce, short battle raged; on one side was arrayed her early training, all her teachings, all regard for the ideas of law and order which she had absorbed in the East, where human life was safeguarded as the first necessity; and on the other was the Unwritten Law of the range as exemplified by The Orphan. Blood, and human blood, was precious, and her early environment fought bitterly against this regime of direct justice, so startlingly driven into her mind by his bold, cold admission. And then, he had sinned in this way again after he had promised her not to do so. The last thought dominated her and she opened her eyes and looked at him hopefully.
“Perhaps,” she said, eagerly, “perhaps you could not avoid it–perhaps you were forced to do it.”
“No.”
“Oh!” she cried. “You did not–you did not shoot him down without warning! I know you didn’t!”
“No, not that,” he said slowly. “And, besides, this was his third offense. Twice I have given him his life, and I would have done so again but for what I discovered after I faced him.” He paused for a moment and then continued, with more feeling in his voice, a ring of victory and an irrepressible elation. “I found that he was the man for whom I have been looking for fifteen years, and whom I had sworn to kill. He killed my father, killed him like a dog and without a chance for life, hung him to a tree on his own land. And when I learned that, when he had confessed to me, I forgot the new game, I forgot everything but the watch in my hand slowly ticking away his life, the time I had given him to make his peace with God–and I hated the slow seconds, I begrudged him every movement of the hands. Then I shot him, and I was glad, so glad–but oh, dear! If you–if you––”
His voice wavered and broke and he dropped to his knees before her with bowed head as she came slowly toward him and seized the hem of her gown in both hands, kissing it passionately, burying his face in its folds like a tired boy at his mother’s knee.
Her eyes were filled with tears and they rimmed her lashes as she looked down on the man at her feet. Bending, she touched him and then placed her hands on his head, tenderly kissing the tangled hair in loving forgiveness.
“Dear, dear boy,” she murmured softly. “Don’t, dear heart. Don’t, you must not–oh, you must not! Please–come with me; get up, dear, and sit with me over here in the corner; then you shall tell me all about it. I am sure you have not done wrong–and if you have–don’t you know I love you, boy? Don’t you know I love you?”
He stirred slightly, as if awakening from a troubled sleep, and slowly raised his head and looked at her with doubt in his eyes, for it was so much like a dream–perhaps it was one. But he saw a light on her face, a light which a man sees only on the face of one woman and which blinds him against all other lights forever. Then it was true, all true–he had heard aright! “Helen!” he cried, “Helen!” and the ring in his voice brought new tears to her eyes. He sprang to his feet,
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