Part 13 (1/2)

Both knew that this answer was an evasion. By forcing the tie they had merely marked the want of ease and confidence between them. As ”Packer John” Paul could have enjoyed, nay, loved this man; as his father, the sum and finality of his filial dreams, the supplanter of that imaginary husband of his mother's youth, the thing was impossible. And the father knew it and did not resent it in the least, only pitied the boy for his needless struggle. He was curious about him, too. He wanted to understand him and the life he had come out of: his roundabout way of reaching the simplest conclusions; his courage in argument, and his personal shying away from the truth when found. More than all he longed for a little plain talk, the exile's hunger for news from home. It pleased him when Paul, rousing at this deliberate challenge, spoke up with animation, as if he had come to some conclusion in his own mind. It could not be expected he would express it simply. The packer had become used to his oddly elaborate way of putting things.

”If we had food enough and time, we might afford to waste them discussing each other's personal appearance. _I_ propose we talk to some purpose.”

”Talking sure burns up the food.” The packer waited.

”I wish I knew what my father was doing with himself, all those years when his family were giving him the honors of the dead.”

”I warned ye about this pumping out old shafts. You can't tell what you'll find in the bottom. I suppose you know there are things in this world, Boy, a good deal worse than death?”

”Desertion is worse. It is not my father's death I want explained, it is his life, your life, in secret, these twenty years! Can you explain that?”

The packer doubled his bony fist and brought it down on the bunk-side.

”Now you talk like a man! I been waiting to hear you say that. Yes, I can answer that question, if you ain't afeard of the answer!”

”I am keeping alive to hear it!” said Paul in a guarded voice.

”You might say you're keeping me alive to tell it. It's a good thing to git off of one's mind; but it's a poor thing to hand over to a son. All I've got to leave ye, though: the truth if you can stand it! Where do you want I should begin?”

”At the night when you came back to One Man Station.”

”How'd you know I come back?”

”You were back there in your fever, living over something that happened in that place. There was a wind blowing and the door wouldn't shut. And something had to be lifted,”--the old man's eyes, fixed upon his son, took a look of awful comprehensions,--”something heavy.”

”Yes; great Lord, it was heavy! And I been carrying it ever since!” His chest rose as if the weight of that load lay on it still, and his breath expired with a hoa.r.s.e ”haugh.” ”I got out of the way because it was _my_ load. I didn't want no help from them.” He paused and sat picking at his hands. ”It's a dreadful ugly story. I'd most as soon live it over again as have to tell it in cold blood. I feel sometimes it _can't be!_”

”You need not go back beyond that night. I know how my mother was left, and what sort of a man you were forced to leave her with. Was it--the keeper?”

”That's what it was. That was the hard knot in my thread. Nothing wouldn't go past that. Some, when they git things in a tangle, they just reach for the shears an' cut the thread. I wa'n't brought up that way.

I was taught to leave the shears alone. So I went on stringin' one year after another. But they wouldn't join on to them that went before. There was the knot.”

”It was between you and him--and the law?” said Paul.

”You've got it! I was there alone with it,--witness an' judge an' jury; I worked up my own case. Manslaughter with extenuatin' circ.u.mstances, I made it--though he was more beast than man. I give myself the outside penalty,--imprisonment for life. And I been working out my sentence ever since. The Western country wa'n't home to me then--more like a big prison. It's been my prison these twenty-odd years, while your mother was enjoying what belonged to her, and making a splendid job of your education. If I had let things alone I might have finished my time out: but I didn't, and now the rest of it's commuted--for the life of my son!”

”Don't put it that way! I am no lamb of sacrifice. Why, how can we let things alone in this world! Should I have stood off from this secret and never asked my father for his defense?”

”Do you mean to say a boy like you can take hold of this thing and understand it?”

”I can,” said Paul. ”I could almost tell the story myself.”

”Put it up then!” said the packer. The fascination of confession was strong upon him.

”You had been out in the mountains--how long?”

”Two days and three nights, just as I left camp.”

”You were crazed with anxiety for us. You came back to find your camp empty, the wife and baby gone. You had reason to distrust the keeper.

Not for what he did--for what you knew he meant to do.”