Part 46 (2/2)
”Hump,” he said, ”hit would be a turrible pity fer us ter quarrel--but I don't aim ter be robbed, even by _you_! Thet man belongs ter _me_ ...
an' I aims ter claim him now. When my blood war bi'lin' like a mortal fever ... right hyar in this room ... didn't ye fo'ce me ter lay aside my grudge till sich day es ye give me license ter take hit up ergin?...
an' hain't thet day come now?... From thet time till this I've kep' my word ... but h.e.l.l hitself couldn't hold me back no longer.... Ye kain't hev him, Hump. He's _mine_!”
He paused, then with something like a sob he repeated in a dazed voice, ”An' ye says he aimed ter fo'ce Dorothy with his love-makin'. G.o.d!”
Hump Doane was still clinging to the rifle upon which Thornton had laid his hands, and they stood there, two claimants, neither of whom was willing to surrender his t.i.tle to a disputed prize--the prize of Bas Rowlett's life.
But at length the older fingers loosened their hold and the older man took a stumbling step and knelt by his dead. Then the younger, with the gun cradled in his elbow, and a light of release in his eyes--a light that seemed almost one of contentment--went out through the door and crossed the yard to the fence where his mount was. .h.i.tched.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
Sim, standing at the barn door, had watched Parish Thornton ride away that morning with a troubled heart, as he wondered what sequel these events would bring for himself. Then he went to the house and called softly to Dorothy. She was crooning a lullaby, behind the closed door of her room, to the small mite of humanity that had come, in healthy pinkness, to the comparatively mature age of one month.
”Thar hain't nuthin' ter be done right now,” the hired man told her, ”an' I've got ter fare over ter my own place fer a spell. A man's comin'
ter haggle with me over a cattle deal.”
But Sim was not going to his own house. He was acting under standing orders which might in no wise be disobeyed.
The organization that had been born in secret and nurtured to malignant vigour had never held a daylight session before. No call had gone out for one now, but an understanding existed and an obligation, acknowledged by its members.h.i.+p in the oath of allegiance.
If ever at any time, day or night, s.h.i.+ne or storm, such an occasion developed as carried the urge of emergency, each rider must forthwith repair to his designated post, armed and ready for instant action.
This prearranged mobilization must follow automatically upon the event that brought the need, and it involved squad meetings at various points.
In its support a system of signalling and communication had been devised, whereby separated units might establish and hold unbroken touch, and might flow together like shattered beads of quicksilver.
Unless Sim Squires was profoundly mistaken, such a time had come.
But Sim went with a heavy heart of divided allegiance. He dared not absent himself, and he knew that after last night's happening the s.p.a.ce of twenty-four hours could scarcely pa.s.s without bringing the issue of decisive battle between the occult and the open powers that were warring for domination in that community.
He realized that somehow a hideous blunder had been committed and he guessed with what a frenzy of rage Bas Rowlett had learned that the organization into which he had infused the breath of life had murdered one of his two confidential va.s.sals.
At the gorge that men called a ”master shut-in”, which was Sim's rendezvous for such an emergency meeting, he found that others had arrived before him, and among the faces into which he looked was that of Rick Joyce, black with a wrath as yet held in abeyance, but promising speedy and stormy eruption.
The spot was wild beyond description, lying in the lap of mountains that had in some day of world infancy been riven into a mighty boulder-strewn fissure between walls of sheer and gloomy precipices.
It was a place to which men would come for no legitimate purpose; a place which the hounded bear and deer had avoided even when hard driven, and inviting only to copperhead, skunk, and fox. About it lay ”laurel-h.e.l.ls” thick-matted and gnarled, briars that were like entanglements of barbed wire, and woods so black of recess that bats flew through their corridors of pine at midday. But these men had cut, and used familiarly, tortuous and hidden zig-zags of entry and exit, and they came separately from divergent directions.
When Sim arrived they were waiting for their informal quorum, but at last a dozen had a.s.sembled and in other places there were other dozens.
Each group had a commander freshly come from a sort of staff meeting, which had already decided the larger questions of policy. There would be little debate here, only the sharp giving of orders which none would venture to disobey.
Rick Joyce took inventory of the faces and mentally called his roll.
Then he nodded his head and said brusquely, ”We're ready ter go ahead now.”
The men lounged about him with a pretence of stoical composure, but under that guise was a mighty disquiet, for even in an organization of his own upbuilding the mountaineer frets against the despotic power that says ”thou shall” and ”thou shalt not.”
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