CHAPTER XLII.
_The Little Bent Man at the Foot of the Cross_
It was dusk when they rode down the hill together. They followed thecanon road to its meeting with the main highway at the northern edge ofAmalon. Where the roads joined they passed Bishop Wright, who, with hishat off, turned to stare at them, and to pull at his fringe of whiskerin seeming perplexity.
"He must have been on his way to our house," Prudence called.
"With that hair and whiskers," answered Follett, with some irrelevance,"he looks like an old buffalo-bull just before shedding-time."
They rode fast until the night fell, scanning the road ahead for afigure on horseback. When it was quite dark they halted.
"We might pass him," suggested Follett. "He was fairly tuckered out, andhe might fall off any minute."
"Shall we go on slowly?" she asked.
"We might miss him in the dark. But the moon will be up in an hour, andthen we can go at full speed. We better wait."
"Poor little sorry father! I wish we had gone home sooner."
"He certainly's got more spunk in him than I gave him credit for! He hadold Brigham and the rest of them plumb buffaloed for a minute. Oh, hedid crack the old bull-whip over them good!"
"Poor little father! Where could he have gone at this hour?"
"I've got an idea he's set out for that cross he's talked so muchabout--that one up here in the Meadows."
"I've seen it,--where the Indians killed those poor people years ago.But what did he mean by the crime of his Church there?"
"We'll ask him when we find him. And I reckon we'll find him right thereif he holds out to ride that far."
He tied her pony to an oak-bush a little off the road, threw Dandy'sbridle-rein to the ground to make him stand, and on a shelving rock nearby he found her a seat.
"It won't be long, and the horses need a chance to breathe. We've comealong at a right smart clip, and Dandy's been getting a regulargrass-stomach on him back there."
Side by side they sat, and in the dark and stillness their own greathappiness came back to them.
"The first time I liked you very much," she said, after he had kissedher, "was when I saw you were so kind to your horse."
"That's the only way to treat stock. I can gentle any horse I ever saw.Are you sure you care enough for me?"
"Oh, yes, yes, _yes_! It must be enough. It's so much I'm frightenednow."
"Will you go away with me?"
"Yes, I want to go away with you."
"Well, you just come out with me,--out of this hole. There's a fine bigcountry out there you don't know anything about. Our home will reachfrom Corpus Christi to Deadwood, and from the Missouri clear over toMister Pacific Ocean. We'll have the prairies for our garden, and thehigh plains will be our front yard, with the buffalo-grass thicker thanhair on a dog's back. And, say, I don't know about it, but I believethey have a bigger God out there than you've got in this Salt LakeBasin. Anyway, He acts more like you'd think God ought to act. He isn'tso particular about your knowing a lot of signs and grips and passwordsand winks. Going to your heaven must be like going into one of thoseFree Mason lodges,--a little peek-hole in the door, and God shoving thecover back to see if you know the signs. I guess God isn't so triflingas all that,--having, you know, a lot of signs and getting ducked underwater three times and all that business. I don't exactly know what Hisway is, but I'll bet it isn't any way that you'd have to laugh at if yousaw it--like as if, now, you saw old man Wright and God making signs toeach other through the door, and Wright saying:--
_'Eeny meeny miny mo! Cracky feeny finy fo!'_
and God looking in a little book to see if he got all the words right."
"Anyway, I'm glad you weren't baptised, after what Father said to-day."
"You'll be gladder still when you get out there where they got afull-grown man's God."
They talked on of many things, chiefly of the wonder of their love--thateach should actually be each and the two have come together--until afull yellow moon came up, seemingly from the farther side of the hill infront of them. When at last its light flooded the road so that it layoff to the north like a broad, gray ribbon flung over the black land,they set out again, galloping side by side mile after mile, scanningsharply the road ahead and its near sides.
Down out of Pine Valley they went, and over more miles of gray alkalidesert toward a line of hills low and black in the north.
They came to these, followed the road out of the desert through a narrowgap, and passed into the Mountain Meadows, reining in their horses asthey did so.
Before them the Meadows stretched between two ranges of low, rockyhills, narrow at first but widening gradually from the gap throughwhich they had come. But the ground where the long, rich grass had oncegrown was now barren, gray and ugly in the moonlight, cut into deepgullies and naked of all but a scant growth of sage-brush which the moonwas silvering, and a few clumps of shadowy scrub-oak along the base ofthe hills on either side.
Instinctively they stopped, speaking in low tones. And then there cameto them out of the night's silence a strange, weird beating; hollow,muffled, slow, and rhythmic, but penetrating and curiously exciting,like another pulse cunningly playing upon their own to make them beatmore rapidly. The girl pulled her horse close in by his, but hereassured her.
"It's Indians--they must be holding the funeral of some chief. But nomatter--these Indians aren't any more account than prairie-dogs."
They rode on slowly, the funeral-drum sounding nearer as they went.
Then far up the meadow by the roadside they could see the hard, squarelines of the cross in the moonlight. Slower still they went, while thedrumbeats became louder, until they seemed to fall upon their ownear-drums.
"Could he have come to this dreadful place?" she asked, almost in awhisper.
"We haven't passed him, that's sure; and I've got a notion he did. I'veheard him talk about this cross off and on--it's been a good deal in hismind--and maybe he was a little out of his head. But we'll soon see."
They walked their horses up a little ascent, and the cross stood outmore clearly against the sky. They approached it slowly, leaning forwardto peer all about it; but the shadows lay heavy at its base, and from alittle distance they could distinguish no outline.
But at last they were close by and could pierce the gloom, and there atthe foot of the cross, beside the cairn of stones that helped to supportit, was a little huddled bit of blackness. It moved as they looked, andthey knew the voice that came from it.
"O God, I am tired and ready! Take me and burn me!"
She was off her horse and quickly at his side. Follett, to let them bealone, led the horses to the spring below. It was almost gone now, onlythe feeblest trickle of a rivulet remaining. The once green meadows hadbehaved, indeed, as if a curse were put upon them. Hardly had grassgrown or water run through it since the day that Israel wrought there.When he had tied the horses he heard Prudence calling him.
"I'm afraid he's delirous," she said, when he reached her side. "Hekeeps hearing cries and shots, and sees a woman's hair waving beforehim, and he's afraid of something back of him. What can we do?"
At the foot of the cross the little man was again sounding his endlessprayer.
"Bow me, bend me, break me, for I have been soul-proud. Burn me out--"
She knelt by his side, trying to soothe him.
"Father--it's all right--it's Prudence--"
But at her name he uttered a cry with such terror in it that sheshuddered and was still. Then he began to mutter incoherently, and sheheard her own name repeated many times.
"If that awful beating would only stop," she said to Follett, who hadnow brought water in the curled brim of his hat. She tried to have thelittle man drink. He swallowed some of the water from the hat-brim,shivering as he did so.
"We ought to have a fire," she said. Follett began to gather twigs andsage-brush, and presently had a blaze in front of them.
In the light of t
he fire the little man could see their faces, and hebecame suddenly coherent, smiling at them in the old way.
"Why have you come so far in the night?" he asked Prudence, taking oneof her cool hands between his own that burned.
"But, you poor little father! Why have _you_ come, when you should behome in bed? You are burning with fever."
"Yes, yes, dear, but it's over now. This is the end. I came here--to behere--I came to say my last prayer in the body. And they will come tofind me here. You must go before they come."
"Who will find you?"
"They from the Church. I didn't mean to do it, but when I was on my feetsomething forced it out of me. I knew what they would do, but I wasready to die, and I hoped I could awaken some of them."
"But no one shall hurt you."
"Don't tempt me to stay any longer, dear, even if they would let me. Oh,you don't know, you don't know--and that Devil's drumming over there tomadden me as on that other night. But it's just--my God, how just!"
"Come away, then. Ruel will find your horse, and we'll ride home."
"It's too late--don't ask me to leave my hell now. It would only followme. It was this way that night--the night before--the beating got intomy blood and hammered on my brain till I didn't know. Prudence, I musttell you--everything--"
He glanced at Follett appealingly, as he had looked at the others whenhe left the platform that day, beseeching some expression offriendliness.
"Yes, I must tell you--everything." But his face lighted as Follettinterrupted him.
"You tell her," said Follett, doggedly, "how you saved her that day andkept her like your own and brought her up to be a good woman--that'swhat you tell her." The gratitude in the little man's eyes had grownwith each word.
"Yes, yes, dear, I have loved you like my own little child, but yourfather and mother were killed here that day--and I found you and lovedyou--such a dear, forlorn little girl--will you hate me now?" he brokeoff anxiously. She had both his hands in her own.
"But why, how _could_ I hate you? You are my dear little sorryfather--all I've known. I shall always love you."
"That will be good to take with me," he said, smiling again. "It's allI've got to take--it's all I've had since the day I found you. You aregood," he said, turning to Follett.
"Oh, shucks!" answered Follett.
A smile of rare contentment played over the little man's face.
In the silence that followed, the funeral-drum came booming in upon themover the ridge, and once they saw an Indian from the encampment standingon top of the hill to look down at their fire. Then the little man spokeagain.
"You will go with him," he said to Prudence. "He will take you out ofhere and back to your mother's people."
"She's going to marry me," said Follett. The little man smiled at this.
"It is right--the Gentile has come to take you away. The Lord is cunningin His vengeance. I felt it must be so when I saw you together."
After this he was so quiet for a time that they thought he was sleeping.But presently he grew restless again, and said to Follett:--
"I want you to have me buried here. Up there to the north, threehundred yards from here on the right, is a dwarf cedar standing alone.Straight over the ridge from that and half-way down the other side isanother cedar growing at the foot of a ledge. Below that ledge is agrave. There are stones piled flat, and a cross cut in the one towardthe cedar. Make a grave beside that one, and put me in it--just as I am.Remember that--_uncoffined_. It must be that way, remember. There's alittle book here in this pocket. Let it stay with me--but surelyuncoffined, remember, as--as the rest of them were."
"But, father, why talk so? You are going home with us."
"There, dear, it's all right, and you'll feel kind about me always whenyou remember me?"
"Don't,--don't talk so."
"If that beating would only stay out of my brain--the thing is crawlingbehind me again! Oh, no, not yet--not yet! Say this with me, dear:--
"_'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside thestill waters.'_"
She said the psalm with him, and he grew quiet again.
"You will go away with your husband, and go at once--" He sat upsuddenly from where he had been lying, the light of a new design in hiseyes.
"Come,--you will need protection now--I must marry you at once. Surelythat will be an office acceptable in the sight of God. And you willremember me better for it--and kinder. Come, Prudence; come, Ruel!"
"But, father, you are sick, and so weak--let us wait."
"It will give me such joy to do it--and this is the last."
She looked at Follett questioningly, but gave him her hand silently whenhe arose from the ground where he had been sitting.
"He'd like it, and it's what we want,--all simple," he said.
In the light of the fire they stood with hands joined, and the littleman, too, got to his feet, helping himself up by the cairn against whichhe had been leaning.
Then, with the unceasing beats of the funeral-drum in their ears, hemade them man and wife.
"Do you, Ruel, take Prudence by the right hand to receive her untoyourself to be your lawful and wedded wife, and you to be her lawful andwedded husband for time and eternity--"
Thus far he had followed the formula of his Church, but now he departedfrom it with something like defiance coming up in his voice.
"--with a covenant and promise on your part that you will cleave to herand to none other, so help you God, taking never another wife in spiteof promise or threat of any priesthood whatsoever, cleaving unto herand her alone with singleness of heart?"
When they had made their responses, and while the drum was beating uponhis heart, he pronounced them man and wife, sealing upon them "theblessings of the holy resurrection, with power to come forth in themorning clothed with glory and immortality."
When he had spoken the final words of the ceremony, he seemed to losehimself from weakness, reaching out his hands for support. They helpedhim down on to the saddle-blanket that Follett had brought, and thelatter now went for more wood.
When he came back they were again reciting the psalm that had seemed toquiet the sufferer.
"_'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I willfear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfortme.'_"
Follett spread the other saddle-blanket over him. He lay on his side,his face to the fire, one moment saying over the words of the psalm, butthe next listening in abject terror to something the others could nothear.
"I wonder you don't hear their screams," he said, in one of thesemoments; "but their blood is not upon you." Then, after a little:--
"See, it is growing light over there. Now they will soon be here. Theywill know where I had to come, and they will have a spade." He seemed tobe fainting in his last weakness.
Another hour they sat silently beside him. Slowly the dark over theeastern hill lightened to a gray. Then the gray paled until a flush ofpink was there, and they could see about them in the chill of themorning.
Then came a silence that startled them all. The drum had stopped, andthe night-long vibrations ceased from their ears.
They looked toward the little man with relief, for the drumming hadtortured him. But his breathing was shallow and irregular now, and fromtime to time they could hear a rattle in his throat. His eyes, when heopened them, were looking far off. He was turning restlessly andmuttering again. She took his hands and found them cold and moist.
"His fever must have broken," she said, hopefully. The little man openedhis eyes to look up at her, and spoke, though absently, and not as if hesaw her.
"They will have a spade with them when they come, never fear. And thespot must not be forgotten--three hundred yards north to the dwarfcedar, then straight over the ridge and half-way down, to the othercedar below the sandstone--and uncoffined, with the book here in thispocket where I have it. 'Thou preparest a table be
fore me in thepresence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cuprunneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days ofmy life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.'"
He started up in terror of something that seemed to be behind him, butfell back, and a moment later was rambling off through some sermon ofthe bygone year.
"Sometimes, brethren, it has seemed to my inner soul that Christ camenot alone to reveal God to man, but to reveal man to God; taking on thathuman form to reconcile the Father to our sins. Sometimes I have thoughtHe might so well have done this that God would view our sins as we viewthe faults of our well-loved little children--loving us throughall--perhaps touched--even more amused than offended, at our childishstumblings in these blind, twisted paths of right and wrong; knowing atthe last He should save the least of us who have been most awkward. But,oh, brethren! beware of the sin for which you cannot win forgivenessfrom that other God, that spirit of the true Father, fixed forever inthe breast of each of you."
The light was coming swiftly. Already their fire had paled, and theembers, but a little before glowing red, seemed now to be only whiteashes.
From over the ridge back of them, whence had come the notes of thefuneral-drum, an Indian now slouched toward them, drawn by curiosity;stopping to look, then advancing, to stop again.
At length he stood close by them, silent, gazing. Then, as ifunderstanding, he spoke to Follett.
"Big sick--go get big medicine! Then you give chitcup!"
He ran swiftly back, disappearing over the ridge.
The sick man was now delirious again, muttering disjointed texts andbits of old sermons with which the Lute of the Holy Ghost, young andardent, had once thrilled the Saints.
"'For without shedding of blood there shall be no remission'--'but whereare now your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying the King ofBabylon shall not come against you nor against this land'--'But I sayunto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully useyou.' That is where the stain was,--the bloody stain that held theleaves together--but I tore them apart and read,--"
The Indian who had come to them first now appeared again over the ridge,and with him another. The second was accoutered lavishly with a girdleof brilliant feathers, anklets of shell, and bracelets of silver, hisface barred by alternating streaks of vermilion and yellow, a lank braidof his black hair hanging either side of his face, and on his head thehorns and painted skull of a buffalo. In one hand was a wand of red-dyedwood with a beaded and quilled amulet at the end. The other down by hisside held something they did not at first notice.
The little man was growing weaker each moment, but still muttered as heturned restlessly on the blanket.
"'And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to themlikewise.'" His quick ear detecting the light step of the approachingIndians, he sat up and grasped Follett's arm.
"What do they want? Let no one come now. Death is here and I am goingout to meet it--I am glad to go--so tired!"
Follett, looking up at the two Indians now standing awkwardly by them,said, in a low tone, with a wave of his free arm:
"_Vamose_!"
"Big medicine!" grunted the Indian who had first come to them, pointingto his companion. In an instant this other was before the sick man,chanting and making passes with his wand.
Then, before Follett could rise, the Indian's other hand came up, andthey saw, slowly waved before the staring eyes of the little man, a longmass of yellow hair that writhed and ran in little gleaming waves as ifit lived. It was tied about the wrist of the Indian with strips ofscarlet flannel--tied below a broad silver bracelet that glittered fromthe bronzed arm.
The face of the sick man had a moment before been tranquil, almostsmiling; but now his eyes followed the hair with something offascination in them. Then a shade of terror darkened the peaceful look,like the shadow of a cloud hurried by the wind over a fair green garden.
But with its passing there came again into his eyes the light of sanity.He gazed at the hair, breathless, still in wonder; and then very slowlythere grew over his face the look of an unearthly peace, so that theywho were by him deferred the putting aside of the Indian. With eyes wideopen, full of a calm they could not understand, he looked and smiled,his wan face flushing again in that last time. Then, reaching suddenlyout, his long white fingers tangled themselves feebly in the goldenskein, and with a little loving uplift of the eyes he drew it to hisbreast. A few seconds he held it so, with an eagerness that told of somesweet and mighty relief come to his soul,--some illumination of gracethat had seemed to be struck by the first sunrays from that hair intohis wondering eyes.
Slowly, then, the little smile faded,--the wistful light of it dying forthe last time. The tired head fell suddenly back and the wan lids closedover lifeless eyes.
Still the hand clutched the hair to the quiet heart, the yellow strandscurling peacefully through the dead fingers as if in forgiveness. Fromthe look of rest on the still face it was as if, in his years of serviceand sacrifice, the little man had learned how to forgive his own sin inthe flash of those last heart-beats when his soul had rushed out towelcome Death.
Prudence had arisen before the end came and was standing in front of theIndian to motion him away. Follett was glad she did not see the eyesglaze nor the head drop. He leaned forward and gently loosed the limpfingers from the yellow tangle. Then he sprang quickly up and put hisarm about Prudence. The two Indians backed off in some dismay. The onewho had first come to them spoke again.
"Big medicine! You give some chitcup?"
"No--no! Got no chitcup! _Vamose_!"
They turned silently and trotted back over the ridge.
"Come, sit here close by the fire, dear--no, around this side. It's allover now."
"Oh! Oh! My poor, sorry little father--he was so good to me!" She threwherself on the ground, sobbing.
Follett spread a saddle-blanket over the huddled figure at the foot ofthe cross. Then he went back to take her in his arms and give her suchcomfort as he could.
The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West Page 44