King Spruce, A Novel

by Holman Day

  CHAPTER XV

  BETWEEN TWO ON JERUSALEM

  "So he didn't have no doctor but a bowl o' ginger tea, And it didn't seem to help him, not so far as we could see."

  --Gettin' Larry Home.

  When they came out upon the bare granite, long after mid-day, they fellupon their faces, and lay there without speaking or the desire to speak.They did not open their smarting eyes.

  Over and over again Wade heard a dull rumble which his stricken sensesfailed to understand. But when a hollow boom reverberated among thehills and jarred the granite under his face he sat up. He saw the purpleflash shiver across the swaying smoke, heard the splitting crack of thebolt, and felt a raindrop on his face.

  "Thank God, Mr. Barrett, it has come at last! The rain!" he shouted. Andthe timber baron staggered to his feet, and turned a bloodshot gaze onthe panorama of blazing forest and sheeting heavens. Then he looked atWade, blinking stupidly and searching his soul for words.

  "I haven't got the language, Mr. Wade--" he began. But the young manbroke upon his stammering speech.

  "There's no need of saying anything," he said, looking away. "I don'twant to hear any thanks."

  "I was left there to die--tied up there and left to die by a crazy foolthat tried to blackmail me--that's it, tried to blackmail me. And I'llput him where he belongs. It was the most infernal plot ever put up on aman. Blackmail and murder!" He gabbled his charges hysterically. Theshock of his experience had unmanned him. "You can't blackmail a manlike me without suffering for it. I'll put him into the deepest hole inthe insane asylum--with a gag in his mouth." He was going on to relatehis experience, but Wade again interrupted him.

  "I won't bother you to tell it, Mr. Barrett," he said, coldly. "I knowhow it happened. Mr. Withee told me this morning."

  "It's all lies and blackmail!" screamed Barrett, his fury rising atthought of this gossip. "Withee is against me, too. I told him I'd takehis stumpage contract away, and this is how he is getting back. I'llhave him and his whole crew in jail for blackmail if he doesn't shut hisyawp."

  A roar of thunder drowned his voice, and he stood, with the rain peltingon him, shaking his fists above his head. But by the twist of his mouthWade saw that he was still cursing "blackmail."

  The sight angered him. In as insulting a passion had John Barrett railedat him, Dwight Wade, when he had asked for the hand of John Barrett'sdaughter. The man had tossed his arms in the same way when he calledWade "a beggar of a school-master."

  "Don't call it blackmail and murder--not to me, Mr. Barrett," he said,harshly.

  "Don't you know it's blackmail and a put-up job to ruin me?" roared thetimber baron.

  Wade stood up now and faced him. Torrents of rain beat upon them, andthey took no heed; for the face of the young man was working with amighty emotion and the features of the other man showed that sudden fearhad come upon him.

  "Have you ever seen that daughter of yours that you left to wallow withhuman swine?" demanded Wade, with a fury he could not restrain. "Well, Ihave!" Into those words he put all the bitter resentment of months ofremembrance of John Barrett's insults.

  "And I have seen the daughter you cherish in your home. I don't need anyman's say-so to prove to me that they're both your children, Mr.Barrett. You stand convicted in the eyes of every man who has eyes andwho sees Elva Barrett and then looks on poor Kate Arden--even her name acruel jest! I don't want to hear a man like you lie, Mr. Barrett. Don'ttalk any more to me about blackmail." He shook his fist at the roof ofthe Jerusalem fire station, just showing above the ledges. "I know thatgirl over there is your daughter. Now go slow, Mr. Barrett, with yourthreats of what you will do to Lane. If there is any unwritten law, hedeserves to have the forfeit of the life that I've helped to save.That's still a matter between you two. But as to that girl yonder, Ipropose to ask something. What are you going to do with her?"

  Barrett muttered incoherently, dazed by the new light of Wade's words.

  "Your blackmail story may go with woodsmen, Mr. Barrett. But if Laneshould go out of these woods with his story and that girl to back it hecan hold you up to execration by every decent person in the State. Thegirl proves it in every feature of her face."

  "The lunatic tried to make me take her home, own her publicly, and treather as a daughter--and he demanded that to ruin me. It would ruin me inmy political prospects, Wade. You know it. I'm willing to do what'sright. But I can't do that." His courage revived a little. "I'd rathergo down fighting."

  The young man pondered awhile.

  "I don't want you to think that I'm persecuting you for any of thetrouble between us, Mr. Barrett," he said, at last. "That is all overand done with. But as a man who knows what that poor girl has beencondemned to, and like others here who can tell by their own eyes thatLane is speaking the truth, I'm going to see that she gets a fair show."

  Barrett concealed his private doubts as to the young man's animus. Butsudden dread of this new weapon in his foe's hand mastered him.

  "In the name of God, help me out, Wade!" he pleaded, dropping all hisobstinacy. "I couldn't argue with that crazy man. I'll put the girl toschool. I'll give her money. She shall have everything heart canwish--except my home. Think of my family, Mr. Wade! Think of mydaughter! I want to have the respect of my family, Mr. Wade, for the fewyears that are left to me. Help me, and you won't be sorry for it.I'll--"

  "I want no pay and no promises," broke in the young man. "You have beenfree with your cry of blackmail. You can never taunt me with that. I'msimply appealing to your manhood. But I'm going to see that yourdaughter gets her rights, and that is no threat--it is justice."

  "Aren't those rights enough--what I have said?" urged Barrett.

  "Perhaps they are. They are probably all she can expect. People hardlyever get all they deserve in this world--either in blessings orpunishments." His tone was bitter. And he stood apart and gazed out overthe broad expanse to the south, his brow wrinkling. He was trying toanalyze the emotions that made him champion the outcast.

  The thunder-heads had rolled on, but like mighty and noisy engines theyhad dragged behind them masses of clouds that covered the skies with aslaty expanse, and a storm, settled and steady, poured down itsgrateful floods.

  Already the fire was dying. Only here and there scattered flames foughtthe streaming skies from the tops of resinous trees.

  "Mr. Barrett," said Wade, at length, "the girl is at Lane's. You can'tmeet her now. It is not the time and place. Probably Lane has returnedthere. I don't think his mind is right--and after knowing the wrong youdid him, I can understand why. You've time to reach Britt's camp beforenight. It is in the clearing to the north. You are an old woodsman. Youcan find your way there."

  Barrett nodded relieved assent.

  "You have asked me to help you. As that includes helping this poor girlmost of all, I am going to do what I can, for the sake of you and yourfamily." Barrett gave a quick glance at him, but the young man's facewas impassive. Perhaps the timber baron had hoped, for his own temporaryguarantee, to see a flash of the old love in Wade's eyes. "I'm going torequest you to leave this matter in my hands for the present. I will seeWithee, and try to stop gossip in that quarter. Will you give me theright to--well, to modify some of your threats? And as to Withee--Ibelieve you spoke of a contract!"

  John Barrett stood straighter now. The sneer of conscious authority, thefrown of tyranny, had gone from his face. There was a frankness in hisface and a sincerity in his tones that few persons had seen or heardbefore. But the new inspiration was logical and real. The young man whostood before him had just waived a mean vengeance so nobly that hisheart swelled. His doubts were quieted.

  "My boy," he said, softly, pulling off his cap and standing bareheadedin the rain, "I'm alive now, after the experience of looking straightinto the eyes of death and giving up every hope. And, I tell you, itseemed hard to die--just now, when the best hopes of my life are comingtrue. I had time to think. I thought. I know I talked hard just a bitago. But
I wasn't myself then. I was too near the smoke and fire." Hestopped and put his hand to watering eyes. "I can see clear now. AndI've got over my bitterness, and I guess now I can understand the GoldenRule. That's my word, and there's my hand on it. Now talk for me tothose I've hurt."

  They clasped hands. But it was Barrett who made that overture.

  "I'll wait for you at Britt's camp--until you come and tell me what I'mto do," said the timber baron. And then he turned and trudged awayacross the wet ledges.

  Wade gazed after him until he disappeared in the stunted growth. Hegazed sourly into the palm of the hand that the millionaire hadsqueezed, and reflected that perhaps Barrett's precipitate repentancewas off the same piece as his own forgiveness of the bitter matter thatlay between them. Being a young man inclined to be honest with himself,Dwight Wade confessed that the fabric of his forgiveness had a selvagethat already showed signs of ravelling. He was a little angry at hisstate of mind.

  "And yet it sounded like a campaign speech to catch votes," he muttered.

  He was still angrier at himself then, for, put into words, his doubtseemed an unjust suspicion.

  "I must have got more of a jolt than I thought when I dropped fromideals to the real," he pondered, gazing out through the slanting linesof rain. "I seem to have about as many grudges against humanity as oldLane himself."

  When he looked towards the roof of the little fire station he awoketo the consciousness that the rain was wet and the wind searching. Tohimself, in a sudden flash of introspection, he seemed to be as unkemptwithin as without. There on the granite of the bare mountain, with theforces of nature conquering the last embers of the mighty conflagration,the narrower things of life and living--the amenities, the trammelsthat man patiently puts upon himself for the sake of the socialfabric--appeared vain and delusive ideals. It was not thus that thestrong battled and won.

  "Considering what sort of a man they're making of me up here, wherecast-iron is better than velvet, I think it's likely, John Barrett, thatit has been lucky for you that you have a daughter away down there."

  He set his face in long gaze to the southern hills, bulked dimly behindthe mists.

  "As for Kate Arden--" He shook his head despondently, and walked awayacross the glistening granite towards "Ladder" Lane's house.