The Land of Strong Men

by A. M. Chisholm

  CHAPTER II

  A DEATH BED

  Deciding that it was too late to go back after the deer, Angus headedfor home. The sun was down when he struck into a wagon trail a couple ofmiles from the ranch, and he had followed it but a few hundred yardswhen he heard the sound of hoofs behind him. Turning in his saddle herecognized horse and rider which were overhauling him rapidly.

  "What's the rush, Dave?" he asked as they drew level.

  Whatever the rush had been it seemed to be over. The rider slowed to awalk. He was a small man, apparently in the forties, wiry and sun-dried.His name was Rennie, and he was nominally a homesteader, though he didlittle more than comply with the statutory requirements. In winter hetrapped and in summer he turned his hand to almost anything. He was awizard with horses, he knew the habits of most wild animals thoroughlyand he had seen a great deal of the old West. He and young Mackay werefriends, and he had taught the boy many things from his own store ofexperience. As he pulled up, the boy noted that Blaze's bright coat wasdark with sweat and that his head hung wearily.

  "You've been combing some speed out of that cayuse," he commented.

  "He's been on grass and lathers easy," Rennie returned. "But I was--Iwas sorter lookin' for you, kid."

  "Why?"

  "Well, you see--your daddy he wants you."

  "He knew I was hunting. I got a two-year old buck, but it was too lateto pack him in. What does he want me for?"

  The question seemed to embarrass Rennie exceedingly. He gulped and wentinto a fit of coughing which left him red in the face.

  "He wants to talk to you," he replied at last. "He--he wants to tell yousomething, I guess. He--he ain't right well, your daddy ain't."

  "Not well!" the boy cried in amazement. "Why, what's the matter withhim, Dave?"

  "A little accident--just a little accident, kid. He--he--now you don'twant to go worryin' about it; not yet, anyway."

  But Rennie's effort to break bad news gently was too obvious. The boy'svoice took on a sharp note of alarm.

  "What sort of an accident?" he demanded. "Is he hurt? Talk up, can'tyou?"

  "Well, now, durn it, kid, I'd ruther break a leg than tell you--but yourdaddy, he's been shot up some."

  "Do you mean he's dead?" the boy cried in wide-eyed horror.

  "No, he ain't dead--or he wasn't when I started out to find you.But--but he's plugged plumb center, and--and--Oh, hell, I guess youknow what I'm tryin' to say!"

  The boy stared at him dumbly while the slow thudding pad of the horses'feet on the soft trail smote on his ears like the sound of muffleddrums. He failed at first, as the young must ever fail, to comprehendthe full meaning of the message. His father dead or dying! His father,Adam Mackay, that living tower of muscle and sinew who could lift withhis hands logs with which other men struggled with cant-hook and peavie,who could throw a steel-beamed breaking plow aboard a wagon as anotherman would handle a wheel-hoe? It was unbelievable.

  But slowly the realization was forced upon him. His father had beenshot, and with the knowledge came the flame of bitter anger and desirefor revenge that was his in right of the blood in his veins. And thedesire momentarily overwhelmed sorrow.

  "Who did it?" he asked, his young voice a fierce, croaking whisper.

  "I dunno. He won't tell anybody. Maybe he'll tell you."

  "Come on!" Angus Mackay cried, and dug heels into his pony.

  The pony was blown and gasping as they rode up to the ranch and Angusleaped from his back. Rennie's hand fell on his shoulder.

  "Kid," he said earnestly, "you want to brace up and keep braced. If it'sa show-down for your daddy he'll like to know you're takin' it like aman. Then there's Jean and Turkey. This here happens to everybody, andwhile it's tough it's a part of the game. And just one more thing: Ifyou find out who done the shootin', let me know!"

  The boy nodded, because he could not trust himself to speak, and raninto the house. It was hushed in the twilight. Already it seemed to holda little of the strange stillness which comes with the departure of afamiliar presence. As the boy paused, from a corner came a little,sniffling sob, and in the semi-darkness he saw his young brother,Torquil, curled miserably upon a skin-covered couch. Paying no attentionto him he crossed the living room and as he did so his sister Jeanentered. In some mysterious way she seemed years older than thegirl-child who had come running after him in the gray mists of thatmorning. Dry-eyed, slender, quiet-moving, like the shadow of a girl inthe gloom, she led him back and closed the door. He obeyed her touchwithout question, without a trace of his superiority of the morning. Inface of sickness and death, like most of his sex he felt helpless,impotent. He put his long arm around his sister and suddenly she clungto him, her slender body shaking.

  "He's not--dead--Jean?"

  "Not--not yet, Angus. Dr. Wilkes is with him now. He says he won't livelong. He didn't want to tell me, but I made him."

  She told him all she knew. Adam Mackay had ridden away by himself thatmorning, no one knew whither. In the afternoon he had come home swayingin his saddle, shot through the body. Then young Turkey has climbed intothe blood-soaked saddle and ridden for the doctor. As to how he had metwith his hurt Adam Mackay had said no word.

  The inner door opened to admit a burly, thick-bodied man with reddishhair sprinkled with gray and grizzled, bushy eyebrows. This was Dr.Wilkes. He nodded to Angus.

  "You're in time. Your father wants you. Go to him, and call me ifanything happens."

  "He's going to--going to--"

  The boy was unable to complete the sentence. The doctor put his armover his shoulder for a moment in a kindly, elder-brotherly touch.

  "I'm afraid so, my boy. In fact, I know so. Keep a stiff upper lip, oldman. He'll like that."

  Adam Mackay stared at his eldest son hungrily from the pillows. Abovehis great black beard his face was gray. He was a great frame of a man,long, lean and sinewy. The likeness of father and son was marked. Heheld out his hand feebly and the boy took it and choked. Then AdamMackay spoke in a little whisper so unlike his usual deep voice that theboy was startled, and because it was near the end with him his wordscarried the sharp twist and hiss of the Gaelic which was the tongue ofhis youth; for though Adam Mackay had never seen Scotland, he had beenborn in a settlement which, fifty years before, was more Gaelic than theHighlands themselves.

  "It cannot be helped, son, and it is little I care for myself. When youcome to face death, many years from now, please the God, you'll find itno' sic' a fearful thing. But it is you and the children that worries menow, Angus."

  "Never mind us, father," the boy said. "I can look after Jean andTurkey."

  The stricken giant smiled at him with a quiet pride of which therecollection years after warmed the boy's heart.

  "I had hoped for twenty years of life yet, by which time you would havebeen settled, with children of your own. Eh, well, the young birds mustfledge and fly alone, and your wings are well sprouted, Angus-lad. Youhave in you the makings of a man, though yet headstrong and dour bynature. And now listen, son, for my time is short: I look to you totake the place I can no longer fill. You are the Mackay, the head of thefamily. Remember that, and cease before your time to be a boy."

  "I will, father," the boy promised.

  "There is little or no money, worse luck," the man went on. "All I havehad I have put into land and timber, and the fire burnt the timber: Butin time the land will make you rich, though not yet awhile, maybe. Buttill it does, the ranch will give you a living. Sell nothing now--not anacre. Promise me, boy!"

  "I promise, father," the boy replied.

  "A promise to a dying father is an oath," the man went on. "But noMackay of our Mackays ever broke his word passed for good or ill.Remember that, too. I have made a will, and all I have is left to you asthe eldest son. That has ever been our custom. When the time comes, andthey are older, deal generously with your sister and brother. That isour custom, too. Of this will, the man Braden is named as executor. Ihad intended--but it is too late now. He is
a man of business and hasthe name of an upright man. But if you need advice, son, go to JudgeRiley, drunkard and all as he is. But for that he should have been inBraden's place. That is all, I think. I feel more content now." And heclosed his eyes with a sigh.

  "I will remember, father," the boy said. "But who did this? Who shotyou?"

  The eyes opened and searched his deeply for many seconds.

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "I ought to know," the boy replied.

  "You want to know," his father said, "so that if the law should fail,you would take the old law of the old days into your young hands. Isthat it, my son?"

  "Yes," the boy admitted, "that is it. And why for no, father?"

  For a moment the graying face of the dying man lighted with a swiftgleam of pride and satisfaction. Then he lifted his great hand feebly.

  "You have bred true, lad. Ever were the Mackays good haters, bitter ofheart and heavy of hand. So I have been all my days, and no man did mewrong that I did not repay it. But listen, son o' mine: Lying here withmy man's strength gone from me and the shadows on my soul I see moreclearly, as clearly as old Murdoch McGillivray, who is dead, and as youknow had the gift while he lived. And I tell you now that hate andrevenge are the things worth least in life; and, moreover, that thethings worth most in life and much more in death, are love, and workwell done, and a heart clean of bitterness. And so I will tell younothing at all."

  "Please, father!" the boy pleaded, for as his father had said he hadbred true.

  "No and no, I tell you, no!" Adam Mackay refused. "No killing will bringme back. I will not lay a feud upon you. Blood and blood, and yet moreblood I have seen come of such things. I know you, Angus, bone o' mybone and flesh o' my flesh as I know my own youth, and of the knowledgein that one thing I will not trust you. I die, and that is the end ofit, for me and for all of me. Your duty is to the living. And now callyou Jean and Torquil, that I may bid them farewell. And take you myblessing such as it is; for I feel the darkness closing upon me."

  An hour later Adam Mackay was dead. And that day was the last of AngusMackay's careless boyhood.