CHAPTER XXI
THE AFFAIR AT HAWK'S CABIN
It wanted half an hour of daybreak when a slow-riding, silent group of men came to a halt and dismounted in the narrow lane some distance from the ramshackle abode of Martin Hawk, squatting unseen among the trees that lined the steep bank of the Wabash. A three hours' ride through dark, muddy roads lay behind them. There were a dozen men in all,--and one woman, at whose side rode the hunter, Stain. They had stopped at the latter's cabin on the way down, and she had conversed apart with him through a window. Then they rode off, leaving him to follow.
There were no lights, and no man spoke above a whisper. The work of tethering the horses progressed swiftly but with infinite caution. Eyes made sharp by long hours of darkness served their owners well in this stealthy enterprise.
The half-hour passed and the night began to lift. Vague unusual objects slowly took shape, like gloomy spectres emerging from impenetrable fastnesses. Blackness gave way to a faint drab pall; then the cold, unearthly grey of the still remote dawn came stealing across the fields.
At last it was light enough to see, and the advance upon the cabin began. Silently through the dense, shadowy wood crept the sheriff and his men,--followed by the tall woman in black and a lank, bearded man whose rifle-stock bore seven tiny but significant notches,--sinister epitaphs for as many by-gone men.
A dog barked,--the first alarm. Then another, and still a third joined in a fierce outcry against the invaders. Suddenly the door of the hut was thrown open and a half-dressed man stooped in the low aperture, peering out across the dawn-shrouded clearing. The three coon-dogs, slinking out of the shadows, crowded up to the door, their snarling muzzles pointed toward the encircling trees.
Two men stepped out of the underbrush and advanced. Even in the dim, uncertain light, Martin Hawk could see that they carried rifles. His eyes were like those of the bird whose name he bore. They swept the clearing in a flash. As if by magic, men appeared to right of him, to left of him, in front of him. He counted them. Seven,--no, there was another,--eight. And he knew there were more of them, back of the house, cutting off retreat to the river.
"Don't move, Martin," called out a voice.
"What do you want?" demanded Hawk, in a sharp, querulous voice.
"I am the sheriff. Got a warrant for your arrest. No use makin' a fight for it, Hawk. You are completely surrounded. You can't get away."
"I ain't done nothin' to be arrested fer," cried the man in the doorway. "I'm an honest man,--I hain't ever done--"
"Well, that's not for me to decide," interrupted the sheriff, now not more than a dozen feet away. "I've got a warrant charging you with sheep-stealing and so on, and that's all there is to it. I'm not the judge and jury. You come along quiet now and no foolishness."
"Who says I stole sheep?"
"Step outside here and I'll read the affidavit to you. And say, if you don't want your dogs massacreed, you'd better call 'em off."
Martin Hawk looked over his shoulder into the dark interior of the hut, spoke to some one under his breath, and then began cursing his dogs.
"I might have knowed you'd git me into trouble, you lop-eared, sheep-killin' whelps!" he whined. "I'd ought to shot the hull pack of ye when you was pups. Git out'n my sight! There's yer sheep-stealers, sheriff,--them ornery, white-livered, blood-suckin'--"
"I don't know anything about that, Martin," snapped the sheriff. "All I know is, you got to come along with me,--peaceable or otherwise,--and I guess if you're half as smart as I think you are, you won't come otherwise. Here! Don't go back in that house, Hawk."
"Well, I got to tell my daughter--"
"We'll tell her. There's another man or two in there. Just tell 'em to step outside,--and leave their weapons behind 'em."
"There ain't a livin' soul in thar, 'cept my daughter,--so he'p me God, sheriff," cried Hawk, his teeth beginning to chatter. The sheriff was close enough to see the look of terror and desperation in his eyes.
"No use lyin', Hawk. You've got a man named Suggs stayin' with you. He ain't accused of anything, so he needn't be afraid to come out. Same applies to your daughter Moll. But I don't want anybody in there to take a shot at us the minute we turn our backs. Shake 'em out, Hawk."
"I tell ye there ain't nobody here but me an' Moll,--an' she's sick. She can't come out. An'--an' you can't go in,--not unless you got a warrant to search my house. That's what the law sez,--an' you know it. I'll go along with you peaceable,--an' stand my trial fer sheep-stealin' like a man. Lemme get my hat an' coat, an' I'll come--"
"I guess there's something queer about all this," interrupted the sheriff. The man beside him had just whispered something in his ear. "We'll take a look inside that cabin, law or no law, Hawk. Move up, boys!" he called out to the scattered men. "Keep your eyes skinned. If you ketch sight of a rifle ball comin' to'ards you,--dodge. And you, Martin, step outside here, where you won't be in the way. I'm going in there."
Martin Hawk looked wildly about him. On all sides were men with rifles. There was no escape. His craven heart failed him, his knees gave way beneath him and an instant later he was grovelling in the mud at the sheriff's feet.
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I swear to God I didn't. It was her. She done it,--Moll done it!" he squealed in abject terror.
He was grabbed by strong hands and jerked to his feet. While others held him, the sheriff and several of the men rushed into the cabin.
Off at the edge of the clearing stood Rachel Carter and Isaac Stain, watching the scene at the door.
"One look will be enough," the woman had said tersely. "Twenty years will not have changed Simon Braley much. I will know him at sight."
"You got to be sure, Mrs. Gwyn," muttered the hunter. "Ef you got the slightest doubt, say so."
"I will, Isaac."
"And ef you say it's him, fer sure an' no mistake, I'll foller him to the end of the world but what I git him."
"If it is Simon Braley he will make a break for cover. He is not like that whimpering coward over yonder. And the sheriff will make no attempt to bring him down. There is no complaint against him. No one knows that he is Simon Braley."
"Well, I'll be on his heels," was the grim promise of Isaac Stain, thinking of the sister who had been slain by Braley's Indians down on the River White.
One of the men rushed out of the cabin. He was vastly excited.
"Don't let go of him," he shouted to the men who were holding Martin. "There's hell to pay in there. Where is Mrs. Gwyn?"
"I never done it!" wailed Martin, livid with terror. "I swear to God--"
"Shut up!"
"She's over there, Sam,--with Ike Stain."
Ignoring the question that followed him, the man called Sam hurried up to the couple at the edge of the bush.
"Better clear out, Mrs. Gwyn," he said soberly. "I mean, don't stay around. Something in there you oughtn't to see."
"What is it?" she inquired sharply.
"Well, you see,--there's a dead man in there,--knifed. Blood all over everything and--"
"The man called Suggs?"
"I reckon so. Leastwise it must be him. 'Pears to be a stranger to all of us. Deader'n a door nail. He's--"
"I am not chicken-hearted, Mr. Corbin," she announced. "I have seen a good many dead men in my time. The sight of blood does not affect me. I will go in and see him. No! Please do not stay me."
Despite his protestations, she strode resolutely across the lot. As she passed Martin Hawk that cowering rascal stared at her, first without comprehension, then with a suddenly awakened, acute understanding.
It was she who had brought the authorities down upon him. She had made "affidavy" against him,--she had got him into this horrible mess by swearing that he stole her sheep and calves. True, he had stolen from her,--there was, no doubt about that,--but he had covered his tracks perfectly. Any one of a half-dozen men along the river might have stolen her stock,--they were stealing right and left. How then did she come to fix upon him as the one to accuse? In a flash he leaped to a startling conclusion. Barry Lapelle! The man who knew all about his thievish transactions and who for months had profited by them. Hides, wool, fresh meats from the secret lairs and slaughter pens back in the trackless wilds, all these had gone down the river on Barry's boats, products of a far-reaching system of outlawry, with Barry and his captains sharing in the proceeds.
Now he understood. Lapelle had gone back on him, had betrayed him to his future mother-in-law. The fine gentleman had no further use for him; Mrs. Gwyn had given her consent to the marriage and in return for that he had betrayed a loyal friend! And now look at the position he was in, all through Barry Lapelle. Sheep stealing was nothing to what he might have to face. Even though Moll had done the killing, he would have a devil of a time convincing a jury of the fact. More than likely, Moll would up and deny that she had anything to do with it,--and then what? It would be like the ornery slut to lie out of it and let 'em hang her own father, just to pay him back for the lickings he had given her.
All this raced through the fast-steadying brain of Martin Hawk as he watched his accuser pass him by without a look and stop irresolutely on his threshold to stare aghast at what lay beyond. It became a conviction, rather than a conjecture. Barry had set the dogs upon him! Snake! Well,--just let him get loose from these plagued hounds for half an hour or so and, by glory, they'd have something to hang him for or his name wasn't Martin Hawk.
Isaac Stain did not move from the spot where she had left him, over at the edge of the clearing. His rifle was ready, his keen eyes alert. Rachel Carter entered the hut. Many minutes passed. Then she came to the door and beckoned to him.
"It is Simon Braley," she said quietly. "He is dead. The girl killed him, Isaac. Will you ride over to my farm and have Allen come over here with a wagon? They're going to take the body up to town,--and the girl, too."
Stain stood his rifle against the wall of the hut. "I guess I won't need this," was all he said as he turned and strode away.
The man called Jasper Suggs lay in front of the tumble-down fireplace, his long body twisted grotesquely by the final spasm of pain that carried him off. The lower part of his body was covered by a filthy strip of rag carpet which some one had hastily thrown over him as Rachel Carter was on the point of entering the house. His coarse linsey shirt was soaked with blood, now dry and almost black. The harsh light from the open door struck full upon his bearded face and its staring eyes.
In a corner, at the foot of a straw pallet, ordinarily screened from the rest of the cabin by a couple of suspended quilts, stood Moll Hawk, leaning against the wall, her dark sullen eyes following the men as they moved about the room. The quilts, ruthlessly torn from their fastenings on the pole, lay scattered and trampled on the floor, sinister evidence of the struggle that had taken place between woman and beast. At the other end of the room were two similar pallets, unscreened, and beside one of these lay Jasper Suggs' rawhide boots.
From her place in the shadows Moll Hawk watched the other woman stoop over and gaze intently at the face of the slain man. She was a tall, well-developed girl of twenty or thereabouts. Her long, straight hair, the colour of the raven's wing, swung loose about her shoulders, an occasional strand trailing across her face, giving her a singularly witchlike appearance. Her body from the waist up was stripped almost bare; there were several long streaks of blood across her breast, where the fingers of a gory hand had slid in relaxing their grip on her shoulder. With one hand she clutched what was left of a tattered garment, vainly seeking to hide her naked breasts. The stout, coarse dress had been almost torn from her body.
Mrs. Gwyn left the hut but soon returned. After a few earnest words with the sheriff, she came slowly over to the girl. Moll shrank back against the wall, a strange glitter leaping into her sullen, lifeless eyes.
"I don't want nobody prayin' over me," she said huskily. "I jest want to be let alone."
"I am not going to pray over you, my girl. I want you to come out in the back yard with me, where I can wash the blood off of you and put something around you."
"What's the use'n that? They're goin' to take me to jail, ain't they?"
"Have you another frock to put on, Moll?"
The girl looked down at her torn, disordered dress, a sneering smile on her lips.
"This is all I got,--an' now look at it. I ain't had a new dress in God knows how long. Pap ain't much on dressin' me up. Mr. Lapelle he promised me a new dress but--say, who air you?"
"I am Mrs. Gwyn, Moll."
"I might ha' knowed it. You're her ma, huh? Well, I guess you'd better go on away an' let me alone. I ain't axin' no favours off'n--" "I am not trying to do you a favour. I am only trying to make you a little more presentable. You are going up to town, Moll."
"Yes,--I guess that's so. Can't they hang me here an' have it over?" A look of terror gleamed in her eyes, but there was no flinching of the body, no tremor in her voice.
The sheriff came over. "Better let Mrs. Gwyn fix you up a little, Moll. She's a good, kind lady and she'll--"
"I don't want to go to town," whimpered the girl, covering her face with her hands. "I don't want to be hung. I jest had to do it,--I jest had to. There wuz no other way,--'cept to--'cept to--an' I jest couldn't do that. Now I wish I had,--oh, Lordy, how I wish I had! That wuz bad enough, but hangin's wuss. He wuz goin' away in a day or two, anyhow, so--"
"You're not going to be hung, Moll," broke in the sheriff. "Don't you worry about that. We don't hang women for killing men like that feller over there. Like as not you'll be set free in no time at all. All you've got to do is to tell the truth about how it happened and that'll be all there is to it."
"You're lyin' to me, jest to git me to go along quiet," she quavered, but there was a new light in her eyes.
"I'm not lying. You will have to stand trial, of course,--you understand that, don't you?--but there isn't a jury on earth that would hang you. We don't do that kind of thing to women. Now you go along with Mrs. Gwyn and do what she says,--and you can tell me all about this after a while."
"I'll wash, but I hain't got no more clothes," muttered the girl.
"We will manage somehow," said Mrs. Gwyn. "One of the men will give you a coat,--or you may have my cape to wear, Moll."
Moll looked at her in surprise. Again she said the unexpected thing. "Why, ever'body says you air a mighty onfeelin' woman, Mis' Gwyn. I can't believe you'd let me take your cape."
"You will see, my girl. Come! Show me where to find water and a comb and--"
"Wait a minute," said Moll abruptly. "Somehow I ain't as skeert as I wuz. You're shore they won't hang me? 'Ca'se I'd hate to be hung,--I'd hate to die that-away, Mister."
"They won't hang you, Moll,--take my word for it."
"Well, then," said she, bringing forward the hand she had been holding behind her back all the time; "here's the knife I done it with. It's his'n. He was braggin' last night about how many gullets he had slit with it,--I mean men's gullets. I wuz jest sort o' hangin' onto it in case I--but I don't believe I ever could a' done it. 'Tain't 'ca'se I'm afeared to die but they say a person that takes his own life is shore to go to hell--'ca'se he don't git no chance fer to repent. Take it, Mister."
She handed the big sheath-knife to the sheriff. Then she followed Rachel Carter out of the hut, apparently unconscious of the curious eyes that followed her. She passed close by the corpse. She looked down at the ghastly face and twisted body without the slightest trace of emotion,--neither dread nor repugnance nor interest beyond a curious narrowing of the eyes as of one searching for some sign of trickery on the part of a wily adversary. On the way out she stopped to pick up a wretched, almost toothless comb and some dishrags.
"I guess we better go down to the river," she said as they stepped out into the open. "'Tain't very fer, Mrs. Gwyn,--an' the water's cleaner. Hain't no danger of me tryin' to git away," she went on, with a feeble grin as her eyes swept the little clearing, revealing armed men in all directions. Her gaze rested for a moment on Martin Hawk, who was staring at her from his seat on a stump hard by.
"There's my pap over yonder," she said, with a scowl. "He's the one that ort to be strung up fer all this. He didn't do it,--but he's to blame, just the same. They ain't got him 'rested fer doin' it, have they? 'Ca'se he didn't. He'll tell you he's as innocent as a unborn child,--he allus does,--an' he is as fer as the killin' goes. But ef he'd done what wuz right hit never would 'a' happened. Thet's whut I got ag'inst him."
Rachel Carter was looking at the strange creature with an interest not far removed from pity. Despite the sullen, hang-dog expression she was a rather handsome girl; wild, untutored, almost untamed she was, and yet not without a certain diffidence that bespoke better qualities than appeared on the surface. She was tall and strongly built, with the long, swinging stride of the unhampered woods-woman. Her young shoulders and back were bent with the toil and drudgery of the life she led. Her eyes, in which lurked a never-absent gleam of pain, were dark, smouldering, deep set and so restless that one could not think of them as ever being closed in sleep.
The girl led the way down a narrow path to a little sand-bar.
"I go in swimmin' here every day, 'cept when it's froze over," she volunteered dully. "Hain't you skeert at the sight o' blood, ma'am? Some people air. We wuz figgerin' on whuther we'd dig a grave fer him or jest pull out yonder into the current an' drop him over. Pap said we had to git rid of him 'fore anybody come around. 'Nen the dogs begin to bark an' he thought mebby it wuz Mr. Lapelle, so he--say, you mustn't get Mr. Lapelle mixed up in this. He--"
"I know all about Mr. Lapelle, Moll," interrupted the older woman.
The girl gave her a sharp, almost hostile look. "Then you hain't goin' to let him have your girl, air you?"
Mrs. Gwyn shook her head. "No, Moll,--I am not," she said. "You set here on this log," ordered the girl as they came down to the water's edge. "I'll do my own washin'. I'm kind o' 'shamed to have any one see me as naked as this. There ain't much left of my dress, is they? We fit fer I don't know how long, like a couple o' dogs. You c'n see the black an' blue places on my arms out here in the daylight,-an' I guess his finger marks must be on my neck, where he wuz chokin' me. I wuz tryin' to wrassle around till I could git nigh to the table, where his knife wuz stickin'. My eyes wuz poppin' right out'n my head when I--"
"For heaven's sake, girl!" cried Rachel Carter. "Don't! Don't tell me any more! I can't bear to hear you talk about it."
Moll stared at her for a moment as if bewildered, and then suddenly turned away, her chin quivering with mortification. She had been reprimanded!
For several minutes Rachel stood in silence, watching her as she washed the blood from her naked breast and shoulders. Presently the girl turned toward her, as if for inspection.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, if I talked too much," she mumbled awkwardly. "I'd ort to have knowed better. Is--is it all off?"
"I think so," said Rachel, pulling herself together with an effort. "Let me--"
"No, I'll finish it," said the girl stubbornly. She dried her brown, muscular arms, rubbed her body vigorously with one of the rags and then began to comb out her long, tangled hair,--not gently but with a sort of relentless energy. Swiftly, deftly she plaited it into two long braids, which she left hanging down in front of her shoulders, squaw fashion.
"How long had you known this man Suggs, Moll?" suddenly inquired the other woman.
"Off an' on ever sence I kin remember," replied the girl. "Pap knowed him down south. We hain't seed much of him fer quite a spell. Four--five year, I guess mebby. He come here last week one day."
The eyes of the two women met. Moll broke the short silence that ensued. She glanced over her shoulder. The nearest man was well out of earshot. Still she lowered her voice.
"He claims he use ter know you a long time ago," she said.
"Yes?"
"Mebby you'd recollect him ef I tole you his right name."
"His name was Simon Braley," said Rachel Carter calmly.
Moll's eyes narrowed. "Then what he sez wuz true?"
"I don't know what he said to you, Moll."
"He sez you run off with some other woman's husband," replied Moll bluntly.
"Did he tell this to any one except you and your father?"
"He didn't tell no one but me, fer as I know. He didn't tell Pap."
"When did he tell you?"
"Las' night," said Moll, suddenly dropping her eyes. "He wuz drinkin',--an' I thought mebby he wuz lyin'."
"You are sure he did not tell your father?"
"I'm purty shore he didn't."
"Why did he tell you?"
The girl raised her eyes. There was a deeper look of pain in them now. "I'd ruther not tell," she muttered.
"You need not be afraid."
"Well, he wuz arguin' with me. He said there wuzn't any good women in the world. 'Why,' sez he, 'I seen a woman this very day that everybody thinks is as good as the angels up in heaven, but when I tell you whut I know about her you'll--'"
"You need not go on," interrupted Rachel Carter, drawing her brows together. "Would you believe me if I told you the man lied, Moll Hawk?"
"Yes, ma'am,--I would," said the girl promptly. "Fer as that goes, I TOLE him he lied."
Rachel started to say something, then closed her lips tightly and fell to staring out over the river. The girl eyed her for a moment and then went on:
"You needn't be skeert of me ever tellin' anybody whut he said to me. Hit wouldn't be right to spread a lie like thet, Mis' Gwyn. You--"
"I think they are waiting for us, Moll," interrupted Rachel, suddenly holding out her hand to the girl. "Thank you. Come, give me your hand. We will go back to them, hand in hand, my girl."
Moll stared at her in sheer astonishment.
"You--you don't want to hold my hand in yours, do you?" she murmured slowly, incredulously.
"I do. You will find me a good friend,--and you will need good friends, Moll."
Dumbly the girl held out her hand. It was clasped firmly by Rachel Carter. They were half-way up the bank when Moll held back and tried to withdraw her hand.
"I--I can't let you,--why, ma'am, that's the hand I--I held the knife in," she cried, agitatedly.
Rachel gripped the hand more firmly. "I know it is, Moll," she said calmly.