King Spruce, A Novel

by Holman Day

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE TORCH, AND THE LIGHTING OF IT

  "We know how to riffle a log jam apart, Though it's tangled and twisted and turned; But the love of a woman and ways of the heart Are things that we never learned."

  --Leeboomook Song.

  The sheriff and his men tramped into the little clearing and gave theusual greeting of woods wayfarers--the nod and the almost voicelessgrunt. The Honorable Pulaski was a little more talkative. He was also inexcellent humor.

  "Hear you and Rod Ide have hitched hosses, Wade!" he cried. "Sheriffhere was tellin' me. I'm mighty glad of it. That lets me out of thinkin'I got you up here on a wild-goose chase. I was sorry to dump you, but itwould take nine time-keepers to make a foreman like Colin MacLeod, andwhen he put it up to me you had to go. It was business, and businessbeats fun up this way."

  The young man did not reply. Words seemed useless just then.

  The Honorable Pulaski turned from him briskly and ran an appraising eyeover the miserable huddle of huts. With the true scent of primitivenatures for impending trouble, the population of Misery edged aroundthis group of new arrivals--the men in advance and wistful, the womenbehind and sullen.

  "Well, boys," said the Honorable Pulaski, "it's just this way about it,and we can all be reasonable and do business like business men." His airwas that of a man dealing with children or savages. "As far as I'mpersonally concerned, I hate to bother you. But I represent the otherowners of this township, and the other owners aren't as reasonable aboutsome things as I am."

  He paused to light a long cigar. No one spoke. He proffered one to Wade,who shook his head with a little unnecessary vigor.

  Britt talked as he puffed.

  "Now--pup--pup--now, boys--pup--you know as well as I do that you'vesquatted right in the middle of a lot of slash that we had to leave, andit lays in a bad way for fire. You ain't so careful about fire as youought to be." He held up his cigar. "Here's my style. I don't smoke tillI'm out of the trail. I--pup--pup--own land, and that makes adifference. You don't own land. I don't want to bring up old stories,but you know and I know that the prospects of six cents a quart forblueberries makes you forgetful about what's been said to you. You'vestarted some devilish big fires. Here's the September big winds aboutdue--and this one that's just springing up to-day is a fair sample--andall is, the owners can't afford to run chances of a fire that will stopGod knows where if it gets running in this five thousand acres of drytops and slash.

  "Here's Mr. Ide's representative," he continued, flapping a hand towardsWade. "They've got black growth to the north, and he'll tell you justthe same thing."

  "Well, Mister Mealy-mouth," sneered young Jule, over the heads of theothers, "git to where you're goin' to. We don't want no sermons. It'smove ag'in, hey?"

  "It's move," snapped the Honorable Pulaski, his ready temper starting atthe woman's insolent tone, "and it's move damn sudden."

  Whether it was a groan or growl that came from the wretched huddle,Wade, looking on them with infinite pity, could not determine.

  "I could put ye plumb square out of the county," roared Britt; "I've gotland jurisdiction enough to do it. But you be reasonable and I'll bereasonable. I won't drive ye too far. I'll have four horses over from mycedar operation to tote what duds you want to take and haul the oldwomen. Sheriff Rodliff and his men here will go along, and see that youhave grub and don't have to light fires. In fact, everything will bearranged nice for you, and you'll like it when you get there."

  "Where?" asked young Jed.

  "On Little Lobster--the old Drake farm," said the Honorable Pulaski,trying to speak enthusiastically and signally failing.

  "O my Gawd!" moaned young Jed; "most twenty miles to hoof it, and whenye git there no wood bigger'n alder-withes, and all the stones the devillet drop when his puckerin'-string bruk! Hain't a berry. Hain't northin'to earn a livin'."

  "You never earned your living, and you don't want to earn your living,"retorted Britt. "You just want to stay up here in the big timber andstart fires."

  "No, Mr. Britt, we just want the chance to be human beings!" cried atense and piercing voice. The girl had reappeared in the door of thehut. Above the meek lamentations of those about her, her voice was asthe scream of a young hawk above the baaing of sheep. She pushed her waythrough them and stood before the Honorable Pulaski, palpitating,glowing, splendid in her fury. But she propped her brown hands on herhips--a woman of the mob--and Wade noted the attitude, and flushed atthe shamed thought of the likeness to Elva Barrett.

  In this crisis, by right of her intelligence, her daring, hersuperiority, the girl seemed to take her place at the head of thepathetic herd.

  "That's what we want, Mr. Britt. You're driving us down to thesettlements again. And then some bow-legged old farmer will lose a sheepby bears or a hen by hawks, and we'll be set upon and driven back oncemore to the woods. And then you'll come and huff and puff and blow ourhouse down and chase us away to the settlement. 'The law! The law!' youkeep braying like a mule. You kick us one way; the settlements kick usanother. Mr. Britt, I didn't ask to be put on this earth! But now thatI'm here I've a right to ground enough to set my feet on, and so havethese people. We are using no more of your stolen ground here than we'dbe using in another place, and here we stay!" She stamped her foot.

  "You young whippet," snorted the Honorable Pulaski, "don't sneer to meabout the law when I've got eviction-papers in my pocket and the highsheriff of this county at my back."

  "How about the law that makes wild-land owners pay squatters forimprovements to land?" demanded the girl. "I know some law, too."

  "Do you call those hog-pens improvements?" He swept his fat hand at thehuts.

  "You may pay some one a dollar an acre for that blue sky above us andclaim that, too. You may claim all of God's open country here in the bigwoods. But I know that you can't shut even paupers out from the lakesand the streams any more than you can take away the sunlight from us."

  "I don't know where you got your law, young woman, but I'd advise you toget better posted on the difference between right of way to Statewaters and squatting on private land. Now, I ain't got time to--"

  "We'll not go back to the settlement--not one of us." She set her feetapart and bent a fiery gaze on him.

  Britt looked away from her to his circle of supporters. The deputiesstooped over their gun-barrels to hide furtive grins at sight of thetimber baron thus baited by a girl on his preserves. Even the broad faceof the sheriff was crinkled suspiciously. The tyrant flamed with thequick passion for which he was noted in the north country.

  "Look here, Rodliff!" His voice was like cracking twigs. "Pile thedunnage out of those huts. If any one gets in your way drive a stake andtie 'em to it." He thrust his bulgy nose into the air to sniff thedirection of the wind. "Then set fire to every d--n crib. The wind's allright to carry it towards the bog."

  "I don't believe you've got law enough in your pocket to do a thing likethat, Mr. Britt," broke in Wade, with heat.

  "You don't, hey?"

  "Not to throw old men and women and children out of their houses andleave them shelterless a dozen miles from a building. There must beanother way of getting at this eviction matter, Mr. Britt--one that'sdifferent from burning a hornet's nest."

  "This don't happen to be any of your special business!" roared thetyrant. "If it was, you'd stand by property interests instead of backingState paupers."

  "Mr. Sheriff, are you going to do that thing?"

  "I'm here by order of the court, to do what Mr. Britt wants done toprotect his property," replied the officer. "I'm to execute, not to plannor ask questions."

  "King Spruce runs this country up here, not human feelin's," mutteredold Christopher in Wade's ear. "You won't get any satisfaction bybuttin' in. I'm ready to move. I don't like to see such things done,and I don't believe you do. Come on!" He swung his meal-bag upon hisshoulders.

  But the young man lingered doggedly, his eyes on the face o
f the girl.

  "Buckin' a high sheriff and his posse ain't ever been reckoned as aprofitable business speculation in these parts," mumbled the guide. "Itwouldn't amount to a hoorah in tophet, and you'd probably wind up in thecounty jail."

  The girl was gazing shrewdly at this sudden champion. There was no shadeof coquetry in her glance. It was the frank gaze of man to man.

  "I protest, Mr. Britt!" cried Wade.

  "And that's all the good it will do," snorted that angry master of thesituation. "Rodliff, you've got my orders!"

  Young Jed, sidling near Britt, with the mien of a Judas and withmanifest intent to curry favor, whimpered:

  "We don't back her up in all she says, Mr. Britt. We ain't got rightsand we know it, but we've got feelin's. Be ye goin' to do the us'althing about damages, Mr. Britt?"

  "Why," roared the tyrant, bluffly, "ain't the land-owners always made itworth your while to move? It's all business, boys! Don't let fools bustin. We don't want fire here. Get to Little Lobster as quick as theLord'll let ye. We'll have six months' supply of pork, flour, and plugtobacco there waitin' for ye--all with the land-owners' compliments.We've always believed that the easiest way is the best way, but youdon't buy that way by buckin'. Buck, and the trade is all off--and youget thrown into another county. Close your girl's mouth and keep itshut."

  "There!" grunted old Christopher, "if ye haven't got any more sympathyto waste on critters like that"--a jab of his thumb at young Jed--"you'dbetter come along."

  But at sight of woe on the faces of the women, and mute entreaty in theeyes of the girl, Wade still lingered.

  "She's speakin' for herself," whispered young Jed, hoarsely. "She don'twant to leave the woods because your boss, Colin MacLeod, is courtin'her, and she's waitin' to see him, now that he's back fromdown-country."

  Riotous laughter "guffled" in the throat of Pulaski Britt as he staredfrom the scarlet face of the girl to Wade's confusion.

  "Courtin' her, hey? Another case of it? I say, Rodliff, pretty soonthere won't be a whole arm or leg left on my boss if this young man herekeeps chasin' him round the country and breaks a bone on him for ev'rygirl the two of 'em get against together."

  He laughed to the full content of his soul, and then turned on the girl.

  "Why, you ragged little fool, Colin MacLeod is crazier than a hornet ina thrashin'-machine over Rod Ide's girl. He's up in camp now with an armin a sling to make him remember a fight he and this young dude here gotinto over her. And he's up there beyond Pogey Notch sitting on a stumpswearing at the choppers and bragging with every other breath that he'llkill the dude and marry the girl--and I don't reckon he's changed hismind in two days since I saw him last."

  "You lie!" screamed the girl.

  "Hold on, there, Miss Spitfire," broke in the sheriff, himself highlyamused by the humor of the situation as it appeared to him, "there isn'ta man between Castonia and Blunder Lake but what is talking about it.A hundred men saw the fight. I reckon five hundred have heard MacLeodravin' about how much he loves the Ide girl. So if he ever courted youit must have been just for the sake of getting used to the game." Eventhe fawning male citizens of Misery Gore cackled their little chorus inthe laughter that followed the high sheriff's jest.

  She drew back slowly and gazed on them all, her lips rolled away fromher white teeth. Those jeering faces from "outside" representedproperty, law, the smug self-satisfaction of all who despised MiseryGore's squalid breed.

  They stood there in the midst of the land they so arrogantlyclaimed, ready to toss her away once more in the everlasting gameof battledore and shuttlecock. They were afraid for the dollarsthat made them different from the wretches of Misery. They gloriedin their dollars--they mocked her in that moment, the bitterness ofwhich only her heart understood. Let them look out for their dollars,then!

  Up there where the blue hills divided was sitting Colin MacLeod callingon the name of another woman and nursing a wound received for thatwoman's sake. Let him look out for himself!

  "We can make the Blake-cutting camps with you to-night," said Britt, hismind on business once again. "We'll take good care of you, and you mightas well start one time as another. Out with the stuff and down with thehouses, Rodliff."

  At the orders the men began to busy themselves, paying no furtherattention to Misery's inhabitants.

  The girl ran into the hut, lifted one of the cedar splints that made thefloor, and took out a section of iron gas-pipe--the most prizedpossession of the tribe. It was their wand of plenty. It was MotherNature's crutch. Out of it flowed bounty.

  Into the unplugged end she poured all the kerosene there was in abattered can. Then she stuffed into the tube a mass of wicking.

  It was a torch--the torch for the blueberry barrens. Dragged after one,it left a blazing trail such as no other form of fire could produce.

  There was a flicker of fire in the rusty stove. She thrust the wickinginto the coals, and on the iron stalk a flame-flower sprang into hugeblossom.

  She burst through the hut's rear window and ran straight for the edge ofthe clearing, towards the fuel piled high in the forest aisles.

  In that moment of blind and desperate fury she realized that the windwas swinging into the north. It was there that MacLeod was sitting atthe foot of Pogey Notch. Ah, what a furnace-flue that would make!

  She did not pause to reason. Her single wild desire was to send the fireleaping towards him.

  The roar of voices behind--voices entreating, voices ofmalediction--made her smile. Above all was the Honorable Pulaski'sbull roar. She began to drag the torch.

  "Catch her! Damnation, catch that girl!" howled Britt.

  She reached the edge of the distant woodland.

  Immediately his cry changed to "Shoot her!" He did not mean it the firsttime he cried it. He did mean it the second time. The deputies staredafter her and joggled their weapons on their arms.

  "Shoot her, or fifty thousand acres of timber are gone!"

  But that was quarry before which official guns quailed.

  In his fury and his panic and his desperate fear for his fortune, Brittseized a gun from the nearest deputy and aimed it.

  Wade struck it up, muttering an indignant oath. Britt made as though toclub him out of the way. The young man clutched the gun and twisted itfrom Britt's quivering clutch. When Britt lunged forward to seizeanother rifle Wade struck him under the jaw, and he went down like afelled ox.

  The girl was out of sight in the woods, but yellow smoke shot withbright flame marked her course.

  "I could have told him," mused old Christopher, looking on the HonorablePulaski, struggling dizzily to his feet, "havin' watched her more orless since I named her, that she wa'n't a real sociable kind of a girlto joke with on matters that's as serious to women as love is."

  Sheriff Bennett Rodliff spoke the prologue to that conflagration:

  "There is h--l in the core of that fire," he said.

  Sometimes a little mischief, started by chance down the slopes ofevents, gathers like a rolling snowball into a vast bulk of evil. Butmore often in matters of evil it is the intent of the impulse thatgoverns. It seems at such times as though inanimate nature wereresponding to human malevolence.

  The fire that started that day on Misery leaped to its grim businesswith a spontaneity as fierce as the mad hate behind it.

  One man acts in a crisis with more directness and efficiency than manymen, each of whom waits on the other. They had stood and stared afterthe girl when she ran into the woods with the hissing fire streamingbehind her. The pursuers that finally did start stopped promptly towitness the fight between the young man and the baron of the Umcolcus.Human fists in play afford more of a spectacle than even an incipientconflagration. When the man who goes down is a man who in the past hasalways been aggressor and victor, interest is more acute.

  Dwight Wade did not linger to prolong the conflict to which the furiousBritt invited him. Christopher Straight had started for the woods onthe track of the fugitive girl, and Wade ran af
ter him, his knucklestingling gloriously. The thrill of that one moment, when his fist metthe flesh of the man who had insulted him, made him realize that whenone searches the depths of human nature hate, as well as love, has itsdelights.

  Pressing closely on the heels of Christopher, who had waited for him, hedove into the yellow smoke.

  "We've got to find that young she-devil!" gasped the old man. "It'sbetter for us to find her than for Britt to get hold of her."

  But by that time the quest was an uncertain one.

  There is craftiness in a woods fire when it is seeking to establishitself.

  The fire sent up first from the crackling slash thick, rolling, bitterclouds of smoke to veil its beginnings. Running to the left, where thefresher clouds seemed to be springing, the two men caught sight of thegirl. But she was already far to the right, running and leaping like adeer, her hideous torch still flaming. Then the smoke shut down and shewas hidden.

  A blazing mass of tops, twisted in a blowdown, fronted them, and theywere forced to make a long detour. They saw the wind wrench torches outof the mass, torches that whirled aloft and went scaling away to thenorth. Puffs of smoke showed where they had alighted. Here and there thetops of little spruces and firs set a net for the torches, affordedroosting-places for the flame birds that winged their red flight acrossthe sky. The flame did not merely burn these trees; the trees fairlyexploded; their resinous fronds and tassels were like powder grains.

  A wind gust rent the smoke for an instant and showed the pursuers thespread of the growing destruction. It already was sprinkled over acres.

  "She's started fair, and the devil's helpin' her!" mourned the old man.

  At that moment the huge bulk of a man went lurching past them. It wasAbe, the foolish giant of the Skeets. In the glimpse they caught beforethe smoke swallowed him, in his hairy nakedness, he seemed a giganticsatyr; he leaped here and there to avoid the blazing patches in the leaflitter and humus, and his movements seemed like a grotesque dance.

  "The old woman has sent him after the girl," explained Christopher, withquick comprehension. "Come on!"

  Dodging, choking, crouching for air, they followed him. At last theyovertook the author of all the mischief. She threw away her torch whenthey came upon her, and faced them without shame. She was panting inutter exhaustion, and clung to a tree for support.

  "Bring her, Abe!" commanded Christopher, in a tone that the giantunderstood, and he took her up in his brawny arms despite her angrystruggles. "No, not that way!" shouted the old man, when Abe whirled tomake his way back through the fire zone. "It's spread too far," heexplained to Wade; "we've got to keep ahead of it." With a blow toemphasize his order, he drove Abe ahead of him, and they hurried towardsthe north, the conflagration at their heels.

  Far ahead of them Jerusalem Mountain lifted the poll of its gray ledge.It blocked the broad valley to the north. For those in the van of thatfire it was the rock of refuge. The tote road led that way. Thefugitives crashed through the undergrowth into the road. The fire hadalready crossed it to the south of them. They took their way to thenorth, their eyes on Jerusalem Mountain.