Part 26 (1/2)
”I gave you my name--all the name I have.” His face was white in the dim light and the lids drew close over his gray eyes.
”You prefer to lie to me? I ask in good faith.”
”All the name I have is the one I gave you, Harry King.”
”And you will hold to the lie?” They looked steadily into each other's eyes. The young man nodded. ”And there was more I asked of you.”
Then the young man turned away from the keen eyes that had held him and sat up in the fodder and clasped his knees with his hands and looked straight out before him, regarding nothing--nothing but his own thoughts. A strange expression crept over his face,--was it fear--or was it an inward terror? Suddenly he put out his hand with a frantic gesture toward the darkest corner of the place, ”It's there,” he cried in a voice scarcely above a whisper, then hid his eyes and moaned. At the sight, the big man's face softened.
”Lad, lad, ye're in trouble. I saved your body as it hung over the cliff--and the Lord only knows how ye were saved. I took ye home and laid ye in my own bunk,--and looked on your face--and there my heart cried on the Lord for the first time in many years. I had forsworn the company of men, and of all women,--and the faith of my fathers had died in me,--but there, as I looked on your face--the lost years came back. And now--ye're only Harry King. Only Harry King.”
”That's all.” The young man's lips set tightly and the cords of his neck stood out. Nothing was lost to the eyes that watched him so intently.
”I had a son--once. I held him in my arms--for an hour--and then left him forever. You have a face that reminds me of one--one I hated--and it minds me of one I--I--loved,--of one I loved better than I loved life.”
Then Harry King turned and gazed in the big man's eyes, and as he gazed, the withdrawn, inward look left his own. He still sat clasping his knees. ”I can more easily tell you what I have done than I can tell you my name. I have sworn never to utter it again.” He was weeping, but he hid his tears for very shame of them.
The older man shook his head. ”I've known sorrow, boy, but the lesson of it, never. Men say there is a thing to be learned from sorrow, but to me it has brought only rebellion and bitterness. So I've missed the good of it because it came upon me through arrogance and injustice--not my own. So now I say to you--if it was at the expense of your soul I saved your life, it were better I had let you go down. Lad,--you've brought me a softness,--it's like what a man feels for a woman. I'm glad it's come back to me. It is good to feel. I'd make a son of you,--but--for the truth's sake tell me a bit more.”
”I had a friend and I killed him. I was angry and killed him. I have left my name in his grave.” Harry King rose and walked away and stood s.h.i.+vering in the entrance of the shed. Then he came back and spoke humbly. ”Do with me what you will, but call me Harry King. I have nothing on earth but the clothes on my body, and they are in rags. If you have work for me to do, let me do it, in mercy. If not, let me go back to the plains and die there.”
”How long ago was this?”
”More--more than two years ago--yes, three--perhaps.”
”And where have you been?”
”Knocking about--hiding. For a while I had work on the road they are building--”
”Road? What road?”
”The new railroad across the continent.”
”Where, young man, where?”
”From Chicago on. They got it as far as Cheyenne, but that was the very place of all others where they would be apt to hunt for me. I got news of a detective hanging about the camp, and I was sure he had come there to track me. I had my wages and my clothes, and when I found they had traced me there, I spent all I had for my horse and took my pack and struck out over the plains.” He paused and wiped the cold drops from his forehead, then lifted his head with gathered courage.
”One day,--I found these people, nigh starving for both water and food, and without strength to go where they could be provided for.
They, too, were refugees, I learned, and so I cast my lot with theirs, and served them as best I could.”
”And now they have fallen to the two of us to provide for. You say, give you work? I've lived here these twenty years and found work for no man but myself. I've found plenty of that--just to keep alive, part of the time. It's bad here in the winter--if the stores give out. Tell me what you know of these women.”
”Where is the man?”
”Dead. I found him dead before I reached them. I left him lying where I found him, and pushed on--got there just in time. He wasn't three hours away from them as a man walks. I made them as comfortable as I could and saw that no Indians were about, nor had been, they said; so I ventured back and made a grave for him as best I could, and told the daughter only, for the old lady seemed out of her head. I don't know what we can do with her if she gets worse. I don't know.” As the big man talked he noticed the younger one growing calmer and listening intently.
”Before I buried him I searched him and found a few papers--just letters in a strange language, and from the feeling of his coat I judged others were hid--sewed in it, so I fetched it back to her--the young one. You thought I was long gone, and there was where you made the blunder. How did you suppose I came by the pack mule and the other horse?”
”When I saw them, I knew you must have gone to Higgins' Camp and back, but how could I know it before? You might have been in need of me, and of food.”