The Roof Tree

CHAPTER XXXV

Sim Squires knew that when the brief farce of the trial took place he would be called forward to testify with a few prearranged lies. In his mouth was a pebble, put there to change his voice – but in his mutinous heart was an obsession of craving to see Bas Rowlett in such a debased position as that which Parish Thornton occupied – for, of all men, he feared and hated Bas most.

This unrelished participation in the mob spirit was more abhorrent than it had been before. The scorn of Dorothy's eyes had a scorpion sting that he could not escape – and this woman had given his life an atmosphere of friendliness and kindliness which it had not known before.

"Now," announced the masked spokesman, "we're well-nigh ready, an' thar hain't no virtue in bein' dilitary – albeit we don't aim ter hang him untried. Witness Number One, come forward."

Witness Number One was Sim Squires, and as though his tongue had been stricken with sudden dumbness and his limbs with paralysis, he hung back when he had been called. Slowly he looked at Parish Thornton, whose face was pale, but set once more to the calm of resoluteness – and at the ghost-terror and the lingering contempt in the deep and suffering eyes of the wife.

"Thar's a man hyar in this room," began Sim Squires, "thet's done been seekin' evidence erginst ther riders, an' he's done secured a lavish of hit, too." So far, his words were running in expected grooves, and as the voice went on a little indistinct because of the pebble under the tongue, his impatient audience accorded him only a perfunctory attention.

"He's done hed spies amongst ye an' he's got evidence thet no co'te kain't fail ter convict on," proceeded the witness, slowly. "He aims ter penitenshery you," his finger rose and settled, pointing toward the man who had acted as spokesman, and who was Rick Joyce. Then it rose again and fell on others, as Sim added, "an' you– an' you!"

"We don't aim ter give him no chanst," interrupted Joyce, and it was then that Sim Squires branched into unanticipated ways.

Suddenly this amazing witness ripped off his mask and threw aside his hat. Then he spat out the pebble that interfered with his enunciation and annoyed him, and like the epilepsy victim who slides abruptly from sane normality into his madness, the man became transformed. The timidities that had fettered him and held him a slave to cowardice were swept away like unconsidered drift on the tide of a passion that was willing to court death, if vengeance could come first. He had definitely crossed the line of allegiance and meant to swing the fatal fury of that mob from one victim to another, or die in his effort to that end. His eyes were the ember pupils of the madman or the martyr, his face was the frenzied face of a man to whom ordinary considerations no longer count; whose idea as fixed and single, and to whom personal consequences have become unimportant. His body was rigid yet vibrant, and his voice rang through the room as his finger rose and pointed into the face of Bas Rowlett.

"Thet man," he shouted, "hes bore ther semblance of yore friend, but he aims ter deestroy ye… I knows because I've done been his slave an' he's told me so … he aims ter hev ye murder Parish Thornton fer him fust … an' then ter penitenshery ye fer doin' his dirty work. Ye hain't nothin' on God's green y'arth but only his dupes!"

Squires paused for breath, and instead of the clamour and outcry for which he had braced himself he encountered a hushed stillness through which he could hear the hammering of his own heart.

Rowlett had started to bellow out an enraged denial, but he had swiftly reconsidered and chosen instead to treat the accusation with a quieter and more telling contempt. Now he laughed derisively as he turned toward Joyce.

"I reckon," he suggested, "I don't even need ter gainsay no sich damn lie es thet, does I?"

But of late there had been so much traitorousness that no man knew whom he could trust. Now to Rowlett's astonished discomfiture he recognized the stern and ominous note of doubt in Joyce's response.

"Ef I was you, I wouldn't only gainsay hit, but I'd strive master hard ter prove my denial."

"I hain't done yit," shouted Sim with a new vigour of aggressiveness, and at the sight of this human hurricane which had developed out of a man heretofore regarded as unimportant, the tempest violence of the mob hung suspended, inquisitive, astonished.

The tanned face of the witness had become pallid, but out of it his eyes shot jets of fire, hysterical to madness, yet convincing in an earnestness that transcended the fear of death and carried indubitable conviction. His body shook with a palsy as he confronted the man whom, next to Bas Rowlett, he had feared above all others; and now in evidence of his impassioned sincerity he blurted out his own confession.

"I kilt Joe Joyce," announced Sim Squires, "an' I sought ter kill Parish Thornton, too, when he fust come hyar, but I done both them deeds because I didn't dast gainsay ther man thet bade me do 'em. His bull-dozin' terrified me … his power over me made me a craven, an' his dollars in my pocket paid me fer them dasterdly jobs. Thet man war Bas Rowlett thar!"

The leader of the mob stood for an instant with the stunned senses of an ox struck by a cleaver, and after that first dumfounded moment he wanted the truth, as a starving man wants food. Joe Joyce had been his nephew, and if this witness were telling the truth it would not appease him to take vengeance on the servant only. A more summary punishment was owing to the master.

Now he gulped down the tight constriction of his throat and ordered, "Go on! Tell hit all!"

Rowlett again thrust himself forward, but Rick Joyce, scarcely looking at him, sent him reeling backward with an open-handed blow against his chest.

With torrential and cascading onrush came the capitulation of the long and black record against the master plotter from its beginning in jealousy to its end in betrayal of the Ku Klux.

"He come over hyar when this man Thornton lay in jail an' sought ter make love ter thet woman," shouted the frenzied witness, but Dorothy, who had been leaning unnerved and dazed against the wall, raised a warning hand and interrupted.

"Stop!" she shouted. "I've done told Parish all thet! Whatever he heers erbout this man, he heers from me. We don't need no other testimony!"

Then it was that the room began to waver and spin about Dorothy Thornton, until with the drone of the hired man's voice diminishing in her ears she fell swooning, and was lifted to a chair.

When her eyes opened – even before they opened – she was conscious again of that voice, but now it was one of dominating confidence, stinging with invective; scourging with accusations that could be verified; ripping away to its unbelievable nakedness all the falsity of Bas Rowlett's record – a voice of triumph.

In the altered attitudes of the attentive figures the woman could read that the accuser was no longer talking to a hostile audience, but to one capriciously grown receptive, and educated to the deceits of the accused. They knew now how Bas had craftily set the Harpers and the Doanes at one another's throats, and how Thornton had tranquilized them; they knew how their own grievances against the man they had come to hang had been trumped up from carefully nourished misconceptions. But above all that, they saw how they themselves had been dupes and tools, encouraged to organize and jeopardize their necks only that they might act as executioners of Rowlett's private enemy, and then be thrown to the wolves of the law.

"I come inter this house," declared Sim Squires, "at Bas Rowlett's behest, ter spy on Parish Thornton – an' I j'ined ther riders fer ther same reason – but I'm done with lyin' now! Hit's Bas Rowlett thet made a fool of me an' seeks ter make convicts outen you."

He paused; then wheeling once more he walked slowly, step by step, to where Bas Rowlett stood cowering.

"Ye come hyar ter hang ther wrong man, boys," he shouted, "but ther right man's hyar – ther rope's hyar, an' ther tree's hyar! Hang Bas Rowlett!"

There was a silence of grim tension over the room when the accuser's voice fell quiet after its staccato peroration of incitement. The masked men gave no betrayal of final sentiment yet, and the woman rose unsteadily from her chair and pressed her hands against the tumultuous pounding of her heart. She could not still it while she waited for the verdict, and scarcely dared yet to hope.

Rowlett had been long trusted, and had there been left in him the audacity for ten adroitly used minutes of boldness, he might have been heard that night in his own defence. But Bas had, back of all his brutal aggressions, a soul-fibre of baseness and it had wilted.

Now, with every eye turned on him, with the scales of his fate still trembling, the accused wretch cast furtive glances toward the door, weighing and considering the chances of escape. He abandoned that as hopeless, opened his lips and let his jaw sag, then crouched back as though in the shadow of the room's corner he hoped to find concealment.

"Look at him, men!" shouted Sim Squires, following up the wreck of arrogance who through years had brow-beaten him, and becoming in turn himself the bully. "Look at him huddlin' thar like a whipped cur-dawg! Hain't he done es good es made confession by ther guilty meanness in his face?"

He paused, and then with a brutal laugh he struck the cowering Rowlett across his mouth – a blow that he had dreamed of in his sleep but never dared to think of when awake – and Rowlett condemned himself to death when he flinched and failed to strike back.

"Jest now, men," rushed on the exhorter, "ye seed Thornton thar facin' death – an' he showed ye how a man kin demean himself when he thinks his time hes come. Take yore choice between them two – an' decide which one needs hangin'!"

Then feeding on the meat of new authority, Sim Squires, who had always been an underling before, seized up from the hearth, where the ashes were dead, a charred stick – and it happened to be a bit of black walnut that had grown and died on the tree which was about to become a gallows.

With its blackened end Sim drew a line across the planks of the floor between himself and Rick Joyce.

"Thar, now," he passionately importuned his hearers. "Thar hain't room in this country fer a lot of warrin' enemies thet would all be friends save fer mischief makers. Parish Thornton hes done admitted thar's good men amongst ye, an' we've agreed ter punish them briggatty fellers thet kilt Pete Doane, so thar hain't rightfully no grudge left outstandin'. I takes up my stand on this side of thet line, along with Parish Thornton, an' I summonses every man thet's decent amongst ye all ter come over hyar an' stand with us. We aims ter hev our hangin' without no deefault, but with a diff'rent man swingin' on ther rope!"

For the space of forty seconds that seemed as many minutes a thunder-brooding tension hung in the stillness of the room – then without haste or excitement Rick Joyce took off his hat and dropped it to the floor. After it he flung his mask, and when he had crossed the line, he turned.

"Come on, men," he gave brusque and half-peremptory invitation, "this hyar's whar we b'longs at."

At first they responded singly and hesitantly, but soon it was a small stampede – save for those who kept guard at the doors – and ten minutes later Parish Thornton stood free of limb and Bas Rowlett trembled, putty pale, in the centre of the room with bound wrists and a noose draped across his shoulders.

"I only asks one thing of ye," faltered Bas, from whose soul had oozed the last drop of manly resistance, "I come hyar ter crave this woman's pardon – I still wants ter do thet – without nobody else ter heer what I says."

"Ef she's willin' ter listen, we'll let ye talk," acceded Squires, who found himself unchallenged spokesman now. "But we won't take no chances with ye. When ther rope's over ther limb an' everything's ready, then ye kin hev yore say."

Outside the night was as gracious as had been the last, when Old Hump Doane had sat waiting vainly for the return of his son; but across the moonlit sky drifted squadrons of fleecy cloud sails, and through the plumed head of the mighty walnut sounded the restive whisper of a breeze.

The house stood squarely blocked with cobalt shadows about it, and the hills were brooding in blue-black immensities – but over the valley was a flooding wash of platinum and silver.

Fragrances and quiet cadences stole along the warm current, but the song of the whippoorwill was genuine now, and plaintive with a saddened sweetness.

The walnut tree itself, a child of the forest that had, through generations, been the friend of man, stood like a monument in the silence and majesty of its own long memories.

Under its base, where the roots sank deep into the foundations of the enduring hills, slept the dead who had loved it long ago. Perhaps in its pungent and aromatic sap ran something of the converted life and essence that had been their blood. Its bole, five feet of stalwart diameter, rose straight and tapering to the first right-angle limbs, each in itself almost a tree. Its multitude of lance-head leaves swept outward and upward in countless succession to the feathery crests that stirred seventy feet overhead – seeming to brush the large, low-hanging stars that the moon had dimmed.

All was tranquil and idyllic there – until the house door opened and a line of men filed out, bringing to his shameful end a human creature who shambled with the wretchedness of broken nerves.

Over the lowest branch, with business-like precision, Sim Squires pitched a stone on the end of a long cord, and to the cord he fastened the rope's end. All that was needed now was the weight which the rope was to lift, and in the blue-ink shadow that mercifully cloaked it and made it vague they placed the bound figure of their man.

CHAPTER XXXVI

As though to mask a picture of such violence the tree's heavy canopy made that spot one of Stygian murk, and even the moon hid its face just then, so that the world went black, and the stars seemed more brilliant against their inky velvet. But the light had held until the grim preparations were finished, and then when Bas Rowlett had taken his appointed place, tethered and wearing the hempen loop, when the other end of the long line had been passed through the broken slat of the closed window shutters, where it would be held by many hands in assurance against escape, Sim Squires kept his promise.

His followers trooped callously back into the house and he himself remained there, on watch, only until with the stiffness of a sleep walker Dorothy Thornton appeared for a moment in the open door and came slowly to the foot of the tree.

She could scarcely see the two men shrouded there in the profundity of shadow, and she had almost walked into the one who was to die before she realized his nearness and drew back shuddering.

Then Sim, who was holding the loose end of the rope so that it would not slacken too freely, put it in her hand and, as their fingers touched, found it icy.

"Ye'll hev ter take hold of this," he directed, "we've got t'other end indoors. When ye're ready for us – or should he seek ter git away – jest give hit a tight jerk or two. We won't interfere with ye ner come out till we gits thet signal – but don't suffer him ter parley overlong."

Then the man left her, and the woman found herself standing there in the darkness with a terrible sense of Death hovering at her shoulder.

For a moment neither spoke, and Dorothy Thornton lifted her eyes to the tree from which had always emanated an influence of peace. She needed that message of peace now. She looked at the dark human figure, robbed of its menace, robbed of all its own paltry arrogance, and the furies that had torn her ebbed and subsided into a sickness of contemptuous pity.

Then the cloud drifted away from the moon and the world stood again out of darkness into silvery light; the breeze that had brought that brightening brought, too, a low wailing voice from high overhead, where the walnut tree seemed to sob with some poignant suffering; seemed to strive for the articulate voice that nature had denied it.

That monument to honoured dead could never shed its hallowed spirit of peace again if once it had been outraged with the indignities of a gibbet! If once it bore, instead of its own sweetly wholesome produce, that debased fruit of the gallows tree, its dignity would be forever broken! There in the flooding moonlight of the white-and-blue night it was protesting with a moan of uneasy rustling. The thing could not be tolerated – and suddenly, but clearly, Dorothy knew it. This man deserved death. No false pity could blind her to that truth, and death must ride at the saddle cantle of such as he; must some day overtake him. It might overtake him to-night – but it must not be here.

"Bas," she broke out in a low and trembling voice of abrupt decision, "I kain't suffer hit ter happen – I kain't do hit."

The varied strains and terrors of that day and night had made her voice a thing of gasps and catching breath, but while the man stood silent she gathered her scattered powers and went on, ignoring him and talking to the tree.

"He needs killin', God knows," she declared, "but he mustn't die on yore branches, old Roof Tree – hit was love thet planted ye – an' love thet planted ye back ergin when hate hed tore ye up by ther roots – I kain't suffer ye ter be defiled!"

She broke off, and somehow the voice that stirred up there seemed to alter from its note of suffering to the long-drawn sigh of relief; the calm of a tranquilized spirit.

The young woman stood for a moment straight and slim, but with such an eased heart as might come from answered prayer in the cloistered dimness of a cathedral.

It was, to her, a cathedral that towered there above her, with its single column; a place hallowed by mercy, a zone of sanctuary; a spot where vengeance had always been thwarted; where malevolence had failed – and her voice came in a rapt whisper.

"Ye stands ternight fer ther same things ye've always stud fer," she said, "ye stands fer home an' decency – fer ther restin' place of dead foreparents – an' ther bornin' of new gin'rations – fer green leaves an' happiness – an' ther only death ye gives countenance to is thet of folks thet goes straight ter God, an' not them thet's destined fer torment."

Inside the room the conclave maintained a grim silence. The shuttered window screened from their sight the interview to which they were submitting with a rude sense of affording the man they had condemned some substitute for extreme unction: an interval to shrive his soul with penitence and prayer.

But through the opening of the broken slat, high up in the shutter which gave sliding room, passed the rope, and at its other end stood the man upon whose neck it was fixed: the man whose hands and feet were tethered and whose movements were being watched by the woman.

They shifted uneasily and impatiently on their feet in there. Sim Squires and Rick Joyce standing shoulder to shoulder held the free end of the rope in their hands. The others breathed heavily and their faces were implacable, restive of this time being vouchsafed to an idea, yet steadfast in their resolve to keep the word given their victim.

"She's lettin' him talk too long," growled a voice, and in monosyllables Rick Joyce growled back, "Shet up – he'll be dead a long time."

But outside Dorothy had turned again to the man.

"You an' yore foreparents hev plotted an' worked evil since ther fust days ther white man come hyar, Bas," she declared. "Thar hain't no death too shameful fer ye – an' ther hain't no hate deeper then thet I feels fer ye. Ye've betrayed an' wronged me an' everybody I ever loved, an' I swore I'd kill ye myself ef need be. I'm half sorrowful I didn't do hit – but from them fust days this hyar tree hes spread peace an' safety over this house an' them thet dwelt in hit. Hit's been holy like some church thet God hed blessed, an' I aims ter keep hit holy. Ef they hangs ye somewhars else, I reckon they'll do simple jestice – but hit hain't goin' ter be on this tree. My child hain't ergoin' ter look up in them branches an' see no shadow of evil thar. I hain't goin' ter lay buried in hits shade some day with yore black sperit hoverin' nigh. Sin ner shame hain't nuver teched hit yit. They hain't nuver ergoin' ter. Ther bright sun an' ther clean wind air goin' ter come ter hit an' find hit like hit's always been. God's breath is goin' ter stir in hit ther same es hit's always done."

Just then a heavier cloud shut off the moonlight, and still holding the rope steadily enough to prevent its sudden jerking in premature signal, she came close to Bas Rowlett and ordered in clipped syllables of contempt, "Turn round! I aims ter sot ye free."

She handed the loose rope to the man, and knowing full well the vital need of keeping it undisturbed, he held it gingerly.

The other end of that line still rested in the hands of his executioners, who waited with no suspicion of any confederacy between their victim and the woman.

Dorothy loosened the noose and slipped it from his neck, and her fingers busied themselves nervously with his wrist-knots.

She worked fast and anxiously, for she had promised to set frugal limits on the duration of that interview and the interval of clouded darkness was precious, but while she freed the cords, she talked:

"I hain't doin' this fer yore sake, Bas. Ye richly merits ter die – an' I misdoubts ef ye escapes fur – but I hain't ergoin' ter suffer ye ter contam'nate this tree – an' I aims ter give ye a few minutes' start, ef I kin."

Now she rose from the ankle fetters and the man took a step, to find himself free.

"Begone," ordered the woman, tensely. "Don't tarry – an' don't nuver let me see ye ergin'!"

She saw him cross the fence in the heavy shadow, hardly discernible even to her straining eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark. She heard the light clatter of his feet and knew that he was running, with the speed and desperation of a hounded deer, then she straightened and lifted her eyes to the rustling masses of cool serenity overhead.

Across the ranges came a warm, damp scent that promised rain, and the clouds once more parted bringing the tranquil magic of a silver-toned nocturne. The tree stood with its loftiest plumes moving lightly, as though brushing the heavens, where the clouds were flakes of opal fleece. Then the breeze stiffened a little and the branches swayed with an enhancement of movement and sound – and the murmur was that of a benediction.