CHAPTER XXI
FATE’S FINAL JAVELIN
THAT night in my lonely cabin I fell ill, and burned with fever, and shook with ague so that I was unable to drag myself about the cabin, but lay all the next day and the next in my bunk. The following day my fever left me magically; and late in the afternoon I arose, fed and curried my half-starved cayuse and, mounting, rode away beneath the berry-reddened yews to the trail that led to Haidee.
I dismounted at the rustic pergola at the rear of the cabin, tethered my cayuse and walked around to the front door. The door was closed, and a silence that was almost oppressive brooded over the place. I ran up the steps, and a curious premonition that Haidee had gone away sickened me as I rapped on the panel. Terrified at receiving no response, I turned the handle, pressed forward, and caught at the casement for support in my weakness. I peered in, and at the sight I saw my knees all but gave way so that I swung about like a loose sail in a sudden breeze.
On the floor lay Randall Batterly in a ghastly pool of blood. His face was upturned to the cold October sunlight. His lips were opened in a half snarl, his full lids were wide apart over his rolled back, terrible eyes. He was bleeding from a wound in his chest. And Haidee stood above him, gazing down upon him, gray horror painted on her face.
She heard my step and turned, and I caught the metallic thud as the revolver she had been holding dropped to the bare floor. She stared at me, put out her hand as if to thrust me back. I saw fear in her face.
“It is you! It is you!” she breathed.
She continued to stare at me with big gaunt eyes.
“Yes,” I replied, trying to keep the horror out of my tones. “It is I.”
She shuddered and collapsed to her knees, clinging to the door frame as a drowning man clutches and grips a bulwark. The pupils of her eyes were dilated with terror and despair until the purple iris was eclipsed, and they stared black and empty as burnt-out worlds.
“He is dead—dead,” she whispered. “He can’t speak, or move.”
I picked up the revolver and laid it on the table, and then I crossed to the rigid form on the floor. I knelt and pressed my ear to his heart. I lifted his hand; it fell back inertly. Yes, it was true. Randall Batterly was gone past recall, facing the great tribunal above, with who knew what black secret in his heart.
“We must get a physician,” I murmured dully.
Haidee crept to my side. Her poor face was blanched and twisted till she looked like a half-dead thing.
“Who could have done this—” I stammered, in a voice that sounded driveling and uncertain in my own ears.
Again that dumb look of distress in her eyes, and she stood as if carved in granite.
“My dear—my dear, you must come away—this is too much for you,” I continued hoarsely. I took her poor cold hands in mine. And then I turned and faced the door with a curious certainty that some one was looking at me, and I saw old Lundquist’s rat eyes peering in on us from the doorway.
He said not one word—only stared and stared at the dead man on the floor, and at the abject living creatures standing over him; and then he crept away like a sliding shadow, and the sunlight brightened the place again. But in that grim room Haidee had fallen face downward, stark and stiff, and her wild scream as she sank echoed and re-echoed in my ears for days.
I brought water, I bathed her face, I chafed her hands; but the moments passed and she did not revive, and twilight fell, as alone, in the presence of death I wrestled with the stupor that held her. And there they found me—the sheriff and old Lundquist.
“For God’s sake, lend a hand here,” I cried imploringly. And then I stood up. “Gentlemen,” I said, “this—dead man is Mrs. Batterly’s husband. I believe this to be a suicide—I found him lying just as you see him a short while ago. Mrs. Batterly had just discovered him, I believe. She is—as you see—in no condition to be questioned.”
The sheriff hesitated. I had known the man for years, and I saw a swift scepticism darken his keen eyes as they searched my face. He glanced at Haidee and then at the revolver lying on the table. He reached over, picked up the weapon and examined it.
“This revolver is loaded in only four of its chambers. The fifth has a discharged cartridge. Was this lying on the table when you came in, Dale?”
I spoke hoarsely. “I put it there. It had fallen to the floor.”
Old Lundquist crawled closer. “That ban Mrs. Batterly’s revolver,” he mumbled, “I see her have it—it ban on the table most o’ the time. Thar be a letter on it—to mark it like.”
The sheriff’s finger traced the outline of the shining letter on the polished surface of the weapon. He stood irresolutely, ruminating.
“Come!” I ordered brusquely. “This lady must be seen to.” And as neither man made a move to assist me, I lifted Haidee in my arms. I felt her stir. Her eyes opened suddenly. She looked at old Lundquist and the sheriff, then up at me affrightedly. Her hand clutched my arm. She cowered, and a tremor shook her from head to foot.
“These men—why are they here?” she asked faintly.
“Gentlemen—” I was beginning, when the sheriff stopped me.
“Mrs. Batterly,” he said, clearing his throat, and speaking raspingly, “this is your revolver?”
“Why, yes—” Haidee drew in her breath sharply—“why, yes,” she admitted.
I felt her hand tighten its hold on my arm.
“It is mine, surely,” she continued, as no one spoke. She looked from one to the other appealingly. “I am fond of shooting at a mark. I used it only this noon. I left it on the table after lunch when I went into the woods to sketch. I heard a shot fired soon after I left—but I thought nothing of it—rabbit hunters pass the cabin daily. When I came back to the cabin after a time I—I found my—husband on the floor, as you see him—” She halted, something in the eyes she saw fixed upon her caused her face to whiten. “Why,” she stammered—“why—you don’t think—think I—”
“Mrs. Batterly,” the sheriff broke in quickly, “I arrest you for the murder of your husband, Randall Batterly.”
I shall never forget the groping look she turned on me; the dumb appeal that struck to the center of my heart and set it quivering—the question in the big deep eyes, clear and pure as a rillet in the sun.
I don’t know how I gave her into the sheriff’s custody. I recall that my fists were doubled and that I mouthed useless imprecations, and that old Lundquist strove to reason with me, his lank arms wrapped about me restrainingly, as the sheriff bore Haidee away in his gig. I recall climbing into my saddle and riding away, the echo of Haidee’s parting injunction in my ears: “Find Wanza for me, please. She may be able to help me.”
And I recall that old Lundquist stood shaking his fist after me in the pergola.
Little I cared for old Lundquist or the pummeling I gave him. I dug my heels into Buttons’ sides. His hoofs fell with soft thuds on the fallen leaves that, imbedded in the damp soil, made a brown mosaic of my path. The bracing air was in my face, but I rode limp and flaccid, with cold beads of sweat upon my brow. “Oh, God,” I groaned, “Oh, God! Oh, God!” But I could not pray. I only raised my eyes. Overhead the afterglow shot the sky with rose and silver, and an apricot moon was rising over the mountains hooded in white mist. I kept my eyes lifted as I rode on through the soft dusk to Roselake in quest of Wanza.
But Wanza was not at her father’s house. When questioned Captain Grif said she had not been home since noon. He had supposed she was with Mrs. Batterly at Hidden Lake. I left a note for the girl to be given her as soon as she came in, saying nothing to old Grif of the tragedy at Hidden Lake, and then, thoroughly disheartened, I took the road for Cedar Dale.
I made short work of reaching home. I put Buttons into a gallop, and rode like Tam o’ Shanter through the night, whipped on by the witches of adversity. I reached the meadow. I rode through the stubble. The unlighted cabin seemed to exhale an almost inexorable malevolency as I came upon it. It greeted me—empty and pitiless. Even my cupboard was bare.
Toward midnight, unable to breathe the atmosphere of the cabin, racked with despair, and agog with restlessness, I stole out, clumsy footed, to the willows on the river bank. Here I found my canoe. I slid it into the water, stepped in and paddled away, seeking surcease from my thoughts beneath the tent of night.
The friendly current bore me on. Soon I came opposite the old cottonwood stump, gleaming white among the shadows. I laid aside my paddle and drifted along close to the high willow-bordered banks, the cold, clear stars above me. The silence and the motion of the canoe were soporific. I was weak and worn from my recent illness. My head kept nodding. I closed my eyes. After a time I slept.
The hoot-hoot of an owl awakened me. I raised my head and looked about me. The darkness had deepened. The stars had a redder glow and the mountains stood up like invincible agate gates against the black sky, shutting in this little bit of the great world. The night air was cold. I shivered and jerked my arms mightily to induce circulation. And then hunger assailed me and I began to think of food.
I took my paddle and swung my canoe about. Suddenly, as one remembers a feast when hard pressed for sustenance, I recalled the doughnuts and goodies that Haidee had been wont to place in the hollow stump for Joey. Well, I knew the cache was empty now.
I reached the stump. I thrust my hand gropingly within the recess, smiling whimsically at my fatuous impulse. My fingers encountered a small object, smooth and heavy to the touch. I drew it forth. It was a six-chambered revolver, loaded in five of its chambers. The sixth chamber contained a discharged cartridge.
A tremor ran over me. Slow horror chilled my veins. I sickened as my fingers passed over the cold polished surface, recalling the livid face of the dead man in the cabin. Mechanically, at last, I slipped the weapon into my pocket and took up the paddle.
I slept no more that night. The next morning with an attorney I visited Haidee in her cell in the village jail. My poor friend was stricken. Her pallor was marked, and her great soft eyes held the pitiful appeal of a hunted deer. She told the attorney her story straight. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she faced me with the question, barely voiced:
“You believe in my innocence?”
And I, shaken and undone, could only cry: “Believe in you? Oh, my child—do I believe in myself? I know you are innocent.”
I produced the revolver I had found in the hollow stump, and the attorney pounced on it eagerly. “Here is the evidence, indeed,” he said, thoughtfully. “I think we shall prove that the bullet that killed Randall Batterly was fired from this very weapon. Mrs. Batterly’s revolver is of a different caliber.”
As I left the jail I met Captain Grif. He plucked at my sleeve. His face worked. “Wanza ain’t come home yet, Mr. Dale,” he quavered.
I was startled. “That is strange,” I said.
“She’s always stayed to Hidden Lake nights. I warn’t surprised when she didn’t s-show up last night thinkin’ she’d gone peddlin’ in the afternoon, and then gone on to Hidden Lake about the time you was askin’ for her, may be. But I jest heard about Mrs. Batterly bein’ arrested yesterday.” His voice broke. “For God’s sake, Mr. Dale, w-where can Wanza be?”
“Where can she be?” I echoed to myself.
Two days passed. Wanza did not return. To find her became my chief object in life, but all my inquiries were fruitless. And then on the third day, Captain Grif came to Cedar Dale.
“I been thinkin’ that Wanza may be with Sister Veronica at the old Mission near De Smet,” he quavered, tears standing in his poor dim eyes.
“Have you seen Father O’Shan?” I asked quickly.
He shook his head. “Not for days, Mr. Dale, for God’s sake f-find my gal! F-find her, my boy, find her! The Mission’s the place to look for her. Why, when Wanza was a little girl, and we l-lived at Blue Lake, she used to run to Sister Veronica with everything, jest l-like a child to its mother.”
Acting on this information I set out post-haste that very morning for the old Mission. The stage had passed an hour before, Buttons had fallen lame, but I was in a desperate mood and would brook no delay. The current was with me, and I slid down the river seven miles and made a portage to Blue Lake before noon. A creek flows into Blue Lake, and I followed the creek to its head. It was well past the noon hour by then, and I secreted my craft in a tangle of birches and struck across country on foot. I had a map in my pocket and a compass, and I went forward hopefully.
The old Mission stands on an elevation overlooking a pastoral valley. Gray and solitary it looms, a gilded cross shining on its blue dome. But the way to it, unless one follows the main traveled road, I found to be as hard as the narrow path that leads to righteousness. Ever and anon I glimpsed the gilded cross between the pine tops, but I floundered on through thickets, waded streams, and beat about in bosky jungles, without striking the road I sought.
Toward evening when I lifted my eyes, the shining cross had eluded me. It had comforted me to have it set like a sign against the sky. But I kept on doggedly. The thoughts that went with me were long, hard thoughts. It seemed to me that through all my unfortunate life I had been faring on to meet this final javelin of fate—to have the woman I adored held in the leash of the law—to realize my helplessness—to suffer a thousand deaths a day in my impotency—this was the denouement prepared for me—awaiting me—when, as a lad of twenty-four, I had accepted the stigma of a crime of which I was not guilty and hidden away as a guilty man may hide! The only green oasis in the arid waste of my life had been Joey, and suddenly my heart cried out for the lad who had been my solace and delight. I dropped down on a log, and lay supine through long moments. I thought of Wanza and hoped and prayed I might find her. Haidee’s face came before me with its look of pure white courage. I opened the book of my life still wider and turned to earlier pages. I grew bitter and morose. But, gradually, as I lay there, the searing hurts and perplexities and injustices sank back into the hush of my soul’s twilight, and I tore out the blurred pages and treasured only the white ones on which the names of Joey and Wanza and Haidee were written. Hope stirred in my heart.
It was sunset when I roused at last, crawled to a nearby stream that came slipping along with endless song, and drank thirstily, and laved my face. As I knelt, I saw what seemed to be a deserted cabin, half hidden among scrub pines in the draw below me. I hailed it, stumbled down the overgrown trail, and approached it.
The door was closed, the solitary window boarded over. I tried the door, found it fast, and rattled it tentatively. A voice cried: “Who is there?”
My heart gave a violent leap.
I pressed against the door, and swallowed hard before I could control my tones.
“It is a—a man who is in need of food and shelter,” I answered.
“It is Mr. David! Mr. David!” the voice shrieked. And such a lusty shout arose that the rafters of the old shack fairly trembled.
As for me I leaned in dazed suspense against the door, impatiently waiting for my lad to open to me.
“Mr. David—dear, dear Mr. David—I can’t open the door! He’s taken the key.” I heard then.
“Who has taken the key, Joey?”
“The big man. He locked me in. Mr. David—can’t you get me out?”
I placed my shoulder against the door. With all my strength I gave heave after heave until the rotten old boards gave way. They splintered into fragments, and through the jagged opening crept Joey, my lad—to throw himself into my arms and cling and cling about my neck, biting his lips to keep the tears from falling. But my tears wet the boyish head I pressed against my breast. I sank to my knees and gathered him into my arms, and rocked back and forth, crooning over him, womanishly:
“Joey—Joey! Little lad—dear little lad!”
Soon after I lay in the bunk in the interior of the one-room shack and Joey cooked a substantial meal for me; and when it was ready, I ate ravenously while he hung over me, his hand stealing up to close about my hand from time to time.
When I had finished I dropped back into the bunk. “Now then, lad,” I said.
And Joey began his tale by asking: “Mr. David, am I the big man’s boy?”
“What do you mean, Joey?”
“He says I’m his boy. He says I was lost in a shipwreck—when I was a teenty baby.”
I covered my face with my hand. “Go on,” I bade him, hoarsely.
“One day he saw the mark on my chest. I’d been fightin’ at school, Mr. David—and coming home I was crying and sorry, and Wanza, she came along, in her cart, and she washed my face and neck and tidied me. The big man came up—and said: ‘Good day, young man?’ And when he saw the funny red mark on my chest he asked Wanza, ‘Who is this boy?’ And Wanza, she told him how you took me just a three year old when a woman a few miles down river died, and how the woman got me over on the Sound of her brother who was a fisherman and had picked me up on the beach one time after a storm. The big man kept asking questions and questions, and Wanza told him the woman’s brother was dead, too. And, at last, Wanza got tired of talking and she just said: ‘Good day, Mr. Batterly,’ and told me to get in the cart, and we drove off.”
Joey paused and his soft eyes flashed. I was too greatly overcome to make any comment, and I lay back, feeling that my world was crashing in chaos about my head. After awhile the lad continued:
“That day when he—he stole me, Mr. David, I was coming home from school along the river road. He stopped me and he said he was my father and I must go with him. ‘Get off your horse,’ he said. I got off Buttons, but I said: ‘No, I’ll not go with you. I’ll ask Mr. David, first!’ The big man laughed and said you’d find out soon enough. I kicked and kicked, Mr. David, when he grabbed me by the arm. And then another big man came out of the bushes, and they tied up my mouth and they carried me to a boat and locked me up in a funny little cupboard. By and by I went to sleep. Then one morning I woke up and I was here. I heard the big man say to the other man: ‘I’ve got him, Bill. My wife’ll have to come to terms now.’”
Again Joey paused, and I writhed and was silent. Joey looked at me commiseratingly and went on:
“’Most a week ago he told me he was going to fetch Bell Brandon. ‘You be a good boy,’ he said, ‘and I’ll bring her.’ And he went away; but he locked the door, ’cause he said he couldn’t trust me. I ’most knew you’d come, Mr. David! The minute you knocked I knew you’d come for me. And I’m going away with you—and you’ll punish the big man, won’t you? And I’m not his boy, am I, Mr. David?”
“If you are his boy,” I said huskily, “you belong to Bell Brandon, too.” And with my words a terrible blinding despair swept over me. I was too steeped in lassitude and despondency to reason, too greatly fatigued to wonder. I closed my eyes and turned my face to the wall.
After awhile a blanket was drawn carefully over me. I felt a warm breath on my face. My eyes opened straight into Joey’s, and I reached out and took his hand in mine. “Joey,” I whispered, seeing shining drops on his cheeks, “Joey, I’m in trouble. I must think, lad! The big man won’t be back, lad—he’ll not return at all—I know that—you will never see him again. But after awhile you and Bell Brandon will be very happy together—after awhile.”
“What do you mean, Mr. David? Ain’t I going to live at Cedar Dale again, with you, and Jingles and Buttons, same as ever? Oh, ain’t I, Mr. David?” my little lad cried out, and his tears fell fast.
I slept that night with Joey at my side in the narrow bunk, and I awoke at intervals, and stared out through the glimmering casement at the moon-silvered trees. Weary as I was, my cogitations kept me from repose. I promised myself that I would push on to the Mission in the morning. Joey should go with me, and the stage should bear us back to Roselake, although this would necessitate a delay. I moved, and Joey’s hand fluttered out toward me in his sleep. He whispered my name.
I slept again, waking to see the curtain at the window I had opened, pushed aside, and a face peering in at me in the cold gray light of morning. It was withdrawn and a hand fell on the door. I looked down at Joey’s tousled head pillowed on my arm. Laying him gently down on the pillow, I arose and took my revolver from my pocket.
“What do you want?” I demanded, throwing open the door.
The man standing there put out his hand quickly. It was Father O’Shan.
“You have come from the Mission?” I gasped.
“Yes.”
“Can you give me news of Wanza, then? Is she at the Mission?”
He took the revolver from my grasp, looked at me curiously, and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Yesterday, when I passed here, I thought I heard a child sobbing. I was too greatly overwrought at the time to attach importance to it. In the night I recalled the boarded over window and I could not rest. I came to investigate.”
He hesitated. I waited, and he came a step closer.
“David Dale,” he said, with evident reluctance, “Wanza Lyttle has confessed to being implicated in the murder of Randall Batterly. I took her to Roselake myself yesterday. She has given herself up. Mrs. Batterly was set at liberty a few hours later.”
I reeled, and sat down weakly on the steps. “Not Wanza! Not Wanza!” I kept repeating over and over.
Something gripped me by the throat, tears in my eyes smarted them. I clasped my head with my arms, hiding my face. I felt drowning in deep currents. That brave girl—insouciant, cheery, helpful Wanza! What had she to do with the murder of Randall Batterly?