Trails End

by Ogden, George W

  Morgan stabled his horse and went to the square, where many of the town's inhabitants were gathered, all faces tilted to watch the storm. Judge Thayer was there, glorifying in the success of his undertaking, sparing none of those who had mocked him for a sucker and a fool. A cool breath of reviving wind was moving, fresh, sweet, rain-scented; as hopeful, as life-giving, as a reprieve to one chained among faggots at the stake of intolerance.

  "It looks like you're going to win, Judge," Morgan said.

  "Win? I've won! Look at it, pourin' rain over at Glenmore, the advance of it not three miles from here! It'll be here inside of five minutes, rainin' pitchforks."

  But it did not happen so. The rain appeared to have taken to dallying on the way, in spite of the thickening of clouds over Ascalon. Straining faces, green-tinted in the gloomy shadow of the overhanging cloud, waited uplifted for the first drops of rain; the dark outriders of the storm wheeled and mingled, turned and rolled, low over the dusty roofs; lightning rived the rain curtain that swept the famished earth, so near at hand that the sensitive could feel it in their hair; deep thunder sent its tremor through the ground, jarring the windows of Ascalon that had looked in their day upon storms of human passion which were but insect strife to this.

  Yet not a drop of rain fell on roof, on trampled way, on waiting face, on outstretched hand, in all of Ascalon.

  Judge Thayer was seen hurrying from the square, making for home and the weather doctor, who was about to let the rain escape.

  "He's goin' to head it off," said one of the scoffers to Morgan, beginning to feel a return of his exultation.

  "It's goin' to miss us," said Druggist Gray, his head thrown back, his Adam's apple like an elbow of stovepipe in his thin neck.

  "We may get a good shower out of one end of it," Conboy still hoped, pulling for the rain as he might have boosted for a losing horse.

  "Nothing more than a sprinkle, if that much," said the station agent, shaking his head, which he had bared to the cool wind.

  "He's got him firin' up like he was tryin' to hive a swarm of bees," one reported, coming from the seat of scientific labors.

  "It's breakin', it's passin' by us—we'll not get a drop of it!"

  So it appeared. Overhead the swirling clouds were passing on; in the distance the thunder was fainter. The wind began to freshen from the track of the rain, the pigeons came out of the courthouse tower for a look around, light broke through the thinning clouds.

  Not more than a mile or two southward of Ascalon the rain was falling in a torrent, the roar of it still quite plain in the ears of those whose thirst for its cooling balm was to be denied. The rain was going on, after soaking and reviving Glenmore, which place Judge Thayer would have given a quarter of his possessions to have had it miss.

  A mockery, it seemed, a rebuke, a chastisement, the way nature conducted that rain storm. Judge Thayer urged the rainmaker to his greatest efforts to stop it, turn it, bring it back; smoke green and black went up in volumes, to stream away on the cool, refreshing wind. Sulphur and rosin and pitch were identified in that smoke as surely as the spectrum reveals the composition of the sun. But the wind was against the rainmaker; nature conspired to mock him before men as the quack that he was.

  The gloom of storm cleared from the streets of Ascalon, the worn and tired look came back into faces that had been illumined for a little while with hope. Farther away, fainter, the thunder sounded, dimmer the murmur of the withdrawing rain.

  The cool wind still blew like whispered consolation for a great, a pangful loss, but it could not soften the hard hearts of those who had stood with lips to the fountain of life and been denied. The people turned again to their pursuits, their planning, their gathering of courage to hold them up against the blaze of sun which soon must break upon them for a parching season again. The dust lay deep under their feet, gray on their roofs where shingles curled like autumn leaves in the sun. The rainmaker sent up his vain, his fatuous, foolish, infinitesimal breath of smoke. The rain went on its way.

  "Aw, hell!" said Ascalon, in its derisive, impious way; "Aw, hell!"

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXIV

  MADNESS OF THE WINDS

  Ascalon's temper was not improved by the close passing of the rain, which had refreshed but a small strip of that almost limitless land. The sun came out as hot as before, the withering wind blew from the southwest plaguing and distorting the fancy of men. Everybody in town seemed sulky and surly, ready to snap at a word. The blight of contention and strife seemed to be its heritage, the seed of violence and destruction to be sown in the drouth-cursed soil.

  The judgment of men warped in that ceaseless wind, untempered by green of bough overhead or refreshing turf under foot. There was no justice in their hearts, and no mercy. Morgan himself did not escape this infection of ill humor that rose out of the hard-burned earth, streamed on the hot wind, struck into men's brains with the rays of the penetrating sun. Not conscious of it, certainly, any more than the rest of them in Ascalon were aware of their red-eyed resentment of every other man's foot upon the earth. Yet Morgan was drilled by the boring sun until his view upon life was aslant. Resentment, a stranger to him in his normal state, grew in him, hard as a disintegrated stone; scorn for the ingratitude of these people for whom he had imperiled his life rose in his eyes like a flame.

  More than that, Morgan brooded a great deal on the defilement of blood he had suffered there, and the alienation, real or fancied, that it had brought of such friends as he valued in that town. By an avoidance now unmistakably mutual, Morgan and Rhetta Thayer had not met since the night of Peden's fall.

  One thing only kept Morgan there in the position that had become thankless in the eyes of those who had urged it upon him in the beginning. That was the threatened vengeance of Peden's friends. He was giving them time to come for their settlement; he felt that he could not afford to be placed in the light of one who had fled before a threat. But it seemed to him, on the evening of the second day after the rain storm's passing, that he had waited long enough. The time had come for him to go.

  There were a few cowboys in town that evening, and these as quiet as buzzards on a fence as they sat along the sidewalk near the hotel smoking their cigarettes. The wind had fallen, leaving a peace in the ears like the cessation of a hateful turmoil. There was the promise of a cool night in the unusual clearness of the stars. Morgan rode away into the moonless night, leaving the town to take care of its own dignity and peace.

  Morgan's thought was, as he rode away into the early night, to return Stilwell's horse, come back to Ascalon next day, resign his office and leave the country. Not that his faith in its resources, its future greatness and productivity when men should have learned how to subdue it, was broken or changed. His mind was of the same bent, but circumstances had revised his plans. There was with him always, even in his dreams, a white, horror-stricken face looking at him in the pain of accusation, repulsion, complete abhorrence, where he stood in that place of blood.

  This was driving him away from the hopes he had warmed in his heart for a day. Without the sweet flower he had hoped to fend and enjoy, that land would be a waste to him. He could not forget in going away, but distance and time might exorcise the spirit that attended him, and dim away the accusing pain of that terrified face.

  Ascalon's curse of blood had descended to him; it was no mitigation in her eyes that he had slain for her. But he had brought her security. Although he had paid the tremendous price, he had given her nights of peace.

  Even as this thought returned to him with its comfort, as it came always like a cool breath to preserve his balance in the heat and turmoil of his regret and pain, Rhetta Thayer came riding up the dim road.

  Her presence on that road at night was a greater testimonial to her confidence in the security he had brought to Ascalon and its borders than her tongue might have owned. She was riding unattended where, ten days ago, she would not have ventured with a guard. It gave Morgan a thrill of comfort to
know how completely she trusted in the security he had given her.

  "Mr. Morgan!" she said, recognizing him with evident relief. Then, quickly, in lively concern. "Who's looking after things in town tonight?"

  "I left things to run themselves," he told her quietly, but with something in his voice that said things might go right or wrong for any further concern he had of them.

  "Well," she said, after a little silence, "I don't suppose you're needed very much."

  "That's what the business men are saying," he told her, sarcasm in his dry tone.

  "I don't mean it that way," she hastened to amend. "You've done us a great service—we'll never be able to pay you——"

  "There isn't any pay involved," he interposed, almost roughly. "That's what's worrying those nits around the square, they say they can't carry a marshal's pay with business going to the devil since the town's closed. Somebody ought to tell them. There never will be any bill."

  "You're too generous," she said, a little spontaneous warmth in her voice.

  "Maybe I can live it down," he returned.

  "It's such a lovely cool night I couldn't stay in," she chatted on, still laboring to be natural and at ease, not deceiving him by her constraint at all, "after such a hard day fussing with that old paper. We missed an issue the week—last week—we're getting out two in one this time. Why haven't you been in? you seem to be in such a hurry always."

  "I wanted to spare you what you can't see in the dark," he said, the vindictive spirit of Ascalon's insanity upon him.

  "What I can't see in the dark?" she repeated, as if perplexed.

  "My face."

  "You shouldn't say that," she chided, but not with the hearty sincerity that a friend would like to hear. "Are you going back to town?"

  "I'll ride with you," he granted, feeling that for all her friendly advances the shadow of his taint lay between them.

  They were three miles or more from town, the road running as straight as a plumbline before them. A little way they jogged on slowly, nothing said. Rhetta was the first to speak.

  "What made you run away from me that day I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Morgan?"

  "Did you want to, or were you just—did you want to speak to me that day, Miss Thayer?" Morgan's heart began to labor, his forehead to sweat, so hard was the rebirth of hope.

  "And you turned right around and walked off!"

  "You can tell me now," he suggested, half choking on the commonplace words, the tremor of his springing hope was so great.

  "I don't remember—oh, nothing in particular. But it looks so strange for us—for you—to be dodging me—each other—that way, after we'd started being friends before everybody."

  "Only for the sake of appearances," he said sadly. "I hoped—but you ran away and hid for a week, you thought I was a monster."

  Foolish, perhaps, to cut down the little shoot of hope again, when a gentle breath, a soft word, might have encouraged and supported it. But it was out of his mouth, the fruit of his brooding days, in his resentfulness of her injustice, her ingratitude for his sacrifice, as he believed. He saw her turn from him, as if a revulsion of the old feeling swept her.

  "Don't judge me too harshly, Mr. Morgan," she appealed, still looking away.

  Morgan was melted by her gentle word; the severity of the moment was dissolved in a breath.

  "If we could go on as we began," he suggested, almost pleading in his great desire.

  "Why, aren't we?" she asked, succeeding well, as a woman always can in such a situation, in giving it a discouraging artlessness.

  "You know how they're kicking and complaining all around the square because I've shut up the town, ruined business, brought calamity to their doors as they see it?"

  "Yes, I know."

  "They forget that they came to me with their hats in their hands and asked me to do it. Joe Lynch says the hot wind has dried their reason up like these prairie springs. I believe he's right. But I didn't shut the town up for them, I didn't go out there with my gun like a savage and shoot men down for them, Miss Thayer. If you knew how much you were——"

  "Don't—don't—Mr. Morgan, please!"

  "I think there's something in what Joe Lynch says about the wind," he told her, leaning toward her, hand on the horn of her saddle. "It warps men, it opens cracks in their minds like the shrunk lumber in the houses of Ascalon. I think sometimes it's getting its work in on me, when I'm lonesome and disappointed."

  "You ought to come in and talk with me and Riley sometimes."

  "I've often felt like going to them, whining around about the town being killed," he went on, pursuing his theme as if she had not spoken, "and telling them they didn't figure in my calculations at the beginning nor come in for any of my consideration at the end—if this is the end. There was only one person in my thoughts, that one person was Ascalon, and all there was in it, and that was you. When I took the job that day, I took it for you."

  "Not for me alone!" she hastened to disclaim, as one putting off an unwelcome responsibility, unfriendly denial in her voice.

  "For you, and only you," he told her, earnestly. "If you knew how much you were to me——"

  "Not for me alone—I was only one among all of them," she said, spurring her horse in the vehemence of her disclaimer, causing it to start away from Morgan with quick bound. She checked it, waiting for him to draw up beside her again. "I'd hate to think, Mr. Morgan—oh, you can't want me alone to take the responsibility for the killing of those men!"

  Morgan rode on in silence, head bent in humiliation, in the sad disappointment that fell on him like a blow.

  "If it could have been done, if I could have brought peace and safety to the women of Ascalon without bloodshed, I'd have done it. I wanted to tell you, I tried to tell you——"

  "Don't—don't tell me any more, Mr. Morgan—please!"

  She drew across the road, widening the space between them as she spoke. Perhaps this was due to the unconscious pressure on the rein following her shrinking from his side, from the thought of his touch upon her hand, but it wounded Morgan's humiliated soul deeper than a thousand unkind words.

  "No, I'll never tell you," he said sadly, but with dignity that made the renunciation noble.

  Rhetta seemed touched. She drew near him again, reaching out her hand as if to ease his hurt.

  "It was different before—before that night! you were different, all of us, everything. I can't help it, ungrateful as I seem. You'll forgive me, you'll understand. But you were different to me before then."

  "Yes, I was different," Morgan returned, not without bitterness in his slow, deep, gentle voice. "I never killed a man for—I never had killed a man; there was no curse of blood on my soul."

  "Why is it always necessary to kill in Ascalon?" she asked, wildly, rebelliously. "Why can't anything be done without that horrible ending!"

  "If I knew; if I had known," he answered her, sadly.

  "Forgive me, Mr. Morgan. You know how I feel about it all."

  "I know how you feel," he said, offering no word of forgiveness, as he had spoken no word of reminder where a less generous soul might have spoken, nor raised a word of blame. If he had a thought that she must have known when she urged him to the defense of the defenseless in Ascalon, what the price of such guardianship must be, he kept it sealed in his heart.

  They rode on. The lights of Ascalon came up out of the night to meet their eyes as they raised the last ridge. There Morgan stopped, so abruptly that she rode on a little way. When he came up to her where she waited, he was holding out his hand.

  "Here is my badge—the city marshal's badge," he said. "If you can bear the thought of touching it, or touch it without a thought, I wish you would return it to Judge Thayer for me. I'm not needed in Ascalon any longer, I'm quitting the job tonight. Good-bye."

  Morgan laid the badge in her hand as he spoke the last word, turned his horse quickly, rode back upon their trail. Rhetta wheeled her horse about, a protest on her lips, a sudden pang
in her heart that clamored to call him back. But no cry rose to summon him to her side, and Morgan, gloomy as the night around him, went on his way.

  But the lights of Ascalon were blurred as if she looked on them through a rain-drenched pane when Rhetta faced again to go her way alone, the marshal's badge clutched in her hand. Remorse was roiling in her breast; the corrosive poison of regret for too much said, depressed her generous heart.

  If he had known how to accomplish what he had wrought without blood, he had said; if he had known. Neither had she known, but she had expected it of him, she had set him to the task with an unreasonable condition. Blood was the price. Ascalon exacted blood, always blood.

  The curse of blood, he had said, was on his soul, his voice trembling with the deep, sad vibration that might have risen from a broken heart. Yes, there was madness in the wind, in the warping sun, in the hard earth that denied and mocked the dearest desires of men. It had struck her, this madness that hollowed out the heart of a man like a worm, leaving it an unfeeling shell.

  Rhetta had time for reflection when she reached home, and deeper reflection than had troubled the well of her remorse as she rode. For there in the light of her room she saw the bullet-mark on the dented badge, which never had come quite straight for all Morgan's pains to hammer out its battle scars. A little lead from the bullet still clung in the grooves of letters, unmistakable evidence of what had marred its nickled front.

  Conboy had regarded Morgan's warning to keep that matter under his hat, for he had learned the value of silence at the right time in his long experience in that town. Nobody else knew of the city marshal's close escape the night of his great fight. The discovery now came to Rhetta Thayer with a cold shudder, a constriction of the heart. She stared with newly awakened eyes at the badge where it lay in her palm, her pale cheeks cold, her lips apart, shocked by the sudden realization of his past peril as no word could have expressed.