'Firebrand' Trevison

CHAPTER XV

A MUTUAL BENEFIT ASSOCIATION

Unheeding the drama that was rapidly and invisibly (except for the incident of Braman and the window) working itself out in its midst, Manti lunged forward on the path of progress, each day growing larger, busier, more noisy and more important. Perhaps Manti did not heed, because Manti was itself a drama – the drama of creation. Each resident, each newcomer, settled quickly and firmly into the place that desire or ambition or greed urged him; put forth whatever energy nature had endowed him with, and pushed on toward the goal toward which the town was striving – success; collectively winning, unrecking of individual failure or tragedy – those things were to be expected, and they fell into the limbo of forgotten things, easily and unnoticed. Wrecks, disasters, were certain. They came – turmoil engulfed them.

Which is to say that during the two weeks that had elapsed since the departure of Judge Graney for Washington, Manti had paid very little attention to “Brand” Trevison while he haunted the telegraph station and the post-office for news. He was pointed out, it is true, as the man who had hurled banker Braman through the window of his bank building; there was a hazy understanding that he was having some sort of trouble with Corrigan over some land titles, but in the main Manti buzzed along, busy with its visions and its troubles, leaving Trevison with his.

The inaction, with the imminence of failure after ten years of effort, had its effect on Trevison. It fretted him; he looked years older; he looked worried and harassed; he longed for a chance to come to grips in an encounter that would ease the strain. Physical action it must be, for his brain was a muddle of passion and hatred in which clear thoughts, schemes, plans, plots, were swallowed and lost. He wanted to come into physical contact with the men and things that were thwarting him; he wanted to feel the thud and jar of blows; to catch the hot breath of open antagonism; he yearned to feel the strain of muscles – this fighting in the dark with courts and laws and lawyers, according to rules and customs, filled him with a raging impotence that hurt him. And then, at the end of two weeks came a telegram from Judge Graney, saying merely: “Be patient. It’s a long trail.”

Trevison got on Nigger and returned to the Diamond K.

The six o’clock train arrived in Manti that evening with many passengers, among whom was a woman of twenty-eight at whom men turned to look the second time. Her traveling suit spoke eloquently of that personal quality which a language, seeking new and expressive phrases describes as “class.” It fitted her smoothly, tightly, revealing certain lines of her graceful figure that made various citizens of Manti gasp. “Looks like she’d been poured into it,” remarked an interested lounger. She lingered on the station platform until she saw her trunks safely deposited, and then, drawing her skirts as though fearful of contamination, she walked, self-possessed and cool, through the doorway of the Castle hotel – Manti’s aristocrat of hostelries.

Shortly afterwards she admitted Corrigan to her room. She had changed from her traveling suit to a gown of some soft, glossy material that accentuated the lines revealed by the discarded habit. The worldly-wise would have viewed the lady with a certain expressive smile that might have meant much or nothing. And the lady would have looked upon that smile as she now looked at Corrigan, with a faint defiance that had quite a little daring in it. But in the present case there was an added expression – two, in fact – pleasure and expectancy.

“Well – I’m here.” She bowed, mockingly, laughingly, compressing her lips as she noted the quick fire that flamed in her visitor’s eyes.

“That’s all over, Jeff; I won’t go back to it. If that’s why – ”

“That’s all right,” he said, smiling as he took the chair she waved him to; “I’ve erased a page or two from the past, myself. But I can’t help admiring you; you certainly are looking fine! What have you been doing to yourself?”

She draped herself in a chair where she could look straight at him, and his compliment made her mouth harden at the corners.

“Well,” she said; “in your letter you promised you’d take me into your confidence. I’m ready.”

“It’s purely a business proposition. Each realizes on his effort. You help me to get Rosalind Benham through the simple process of fascinating Trevison; I help you to get Trevison by getting Miss Benham. It’s a sort of mutual benefit association, as it were.”

“What does Trevison look like, Jeff – tell me?” The woman leaned forward in her chair, her eyes glowing.

“Oh, you women!” said Corrigan, with a gesture of disgust. “He’s a handsome fool,” he added; “if that’s what you want to know. But I haven’t any compliments to hand him regarding his manners – he’s a wild man!”

“I’d love to see him!” breathed the woman.

“Well, keep your hair on; you’ll see him soon enough. But you’ve got to understand this: He’s on my land, and he gets off without further fighting – if you can hold him. That’s understood, eh? You win him back and get him away from here. If you double-cross me, he finds out what you are!” He flung the words at her, roughly.

She spoke quietly, though color stained her cheeks. “Not ‘are,’ Jeff – what I was. That would be bad enough. But have no fear – I shall do as you ask. For I want him – I have wanted him all the time – even during the time I was chained to that little beast, Harvey. I wouldn’t have been what I am – if – if – ”

“Cut it out!” he advised brutally; “the man always gets the blame, anyway – so it’s no novelty to hear that sort of stuff. So you understand, eh? You choose your own method – but get results – quick! I want to get that damned fool away from here!” He got up and paced back and forth in the room. “If he takes Rosalind Benham away from me I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him, anyway!”

“Has it gone very far between them?” The concern in her voice brought a harsh laugh from Corrigan.

“Far enough, I guess. He’s been riding with her; every day for three weeks, her aunt told me. He’s a fiery, impetuous devil!”

“Don’t worry,” she consoled. “And now,” she directed; “get out of here. I’ve been on the go for days and days, and I want to sleep. I shall go out to see Rosalind tomorrow – to surprise her, Jeff – to surprise her. Ha, ha!”

“I’ll have a rig here for you at nine o’clock,” said Corrigan. “Take your trunks – she won’t order you away. Tell her that Trevison sent for you – don’t mention my name; and stick to it! Well, pleasant dreams,” he added as he went out.

As the door closed the woman stood looking at it, a sneer curving her lips.

CHAPTER XVI

WHEREIN A WOMAN LIES

“Aren’t you going to welcome me, dearie?”

From the porch of the Bar B ranchhouse Rosalind had watched the rapid approach of the buckboard, and she now stood at the edge of the step leading to the porch, not more than ten or fifteen feet distant from the vehicle, shocked into dumb amazement.

“Why, yes – of course. That is – Why, what on earth brought you out here?”

“A perfectly good train – as far as your awfully crude town of Manti; and this – er – spring-legged thing, the rest of the way,” laughed Hester Harvey. She had stepped down, a trifle flushed, inwardly amused, outwardly embarrassed – which was very good acting; but looking very attractive and girlish in the simple dress she had donned for the occasion – and for the purpose of making a good impression. So attractive was she that the contemplation of her brought a sinking sensation to Rosalind that drooped her shoulders, and caused her to look around, involuntarily, for something to lean upon. For there flashed into her mind at this instant the conviction that she had herself to blame for this visitation – she had written to Ruth Gresham, and Ruth very likely had disseminated the news, after the manner of all secrets, and Hester had heard it. And of course the attraction was “Brand” Trevison! A new emotion surged through Rosalind at this thought, an emotion so strong that it made her gasp – jealousy!

She got through the ordeal somehow – with an appearance of pleasure – though it was hard for her to play the hypocrite! But so soon as she decently could, without cutting short the inevitable inconsequential chatter which fills the first moments of renewed friendships, she hurried Hester to a room and during her absence sat immovable in her chair on the porch staring stonily out at the plains.

It was not until half an hour later, when they were sitting on the porch, that Hester delivered the stroke that caused Rosalind’s hands to fall nervelessly into her lap, her lips to quiver and her eyes to fill with a reflection of a pain that gripped her hard, somewhere inside. For Hester had devised her method, as suggested by Corrigan.

“It may seem odd to you – if you know anything of the manner of my breaking off with Trevison Brandon – but he wrote me about a month ago, asking me to come out here. I didn’t accept the invitation at once – because I didn’t want him to be too sure, you know, dearie. Men are always presuming and pursuing, dearie.”

“Then you didn’t hear of Trevison’s whereabouts from Ruth Gresham?”

“Why, no, dearie! He wrote directly to me.”

Rosalind hadn’t that to reproach herself with, at any rate!

“Of course, I couldn’t go to his ranch – the Diamond K, isn’t it? – so, noting from one of the newspapers that you had come here, I decided to take advantage of your hospitality. I’m just wild to see the dear boy! Is his ranch far? For you know,” she added, with a malicious look at the girl’s pale face; “I must not keep him waiting, now that I am here.”

“You won’t find him prosperous.” It hurt Rosalind to say that, but the hurt was slightly offset by a savage resentment that gripped her when she thought of how quickly Hester had thrown Trevison over when she had discovered that he was penniless. And she had a desperate hope that the dismal aspect of Trevison’s future would appall Hester – as it would were the woman still the mercenary creature she had been ten years before. But Hester looked at her with grave imperturbability.

“I heard something about his trouble. About some land, isn’t it? I didn’t learn the particulars. Tell me about it – won’t you, dearie?”

Rosalind’s story of Trevison’s difficulties did not have the effect that she anticipated.

“The poor, dear boy!” said Hester – and she seemed genuinely moved. Rosalind gulped hard over the shattered ruins of this last hope and got up, fighting against an inhospitable impulse to order Hester away. She made some slight excuse and slipped to her room, where she stayed long, elemental passions battling riotously within her.

She realized now how completely she had yielded to the spell that the magnetic and impetuous exile had woven about her; she knew now that had he pressed her that day when he had told her of his love for her she must have surrendered. She thought, darkly, of his fiery manner that day, of his burning looks, his hot, impulsive words, of his confidences. Hypocrisy all! For while they had been together he must have been thinking of sending for Hester! He had been trifling with her! Faith in an ideal is a sacred thing, and shattered, it lights the fires of hate and scorn, and the emotions that seethed through Rosalind’s veins as in her room she considered Trevison’s unworthiness, finally developed into a furious vindictiveness. She wished dire, frightful calamities upon him, and then, swiftly reacting, her sympathetical womanliness forced the dark passions back, and she threw herself on the bed, sobbing, murmuring: “Forgive me!”

Later, when she had made herself presentable, she went downstairs again, concealing her misery behind a steady courtesy and a smile that sometimes was a little forced and bitter, to entertain her guest. It was a long, tiresome day, made almost unbearable by Hester’s small talk. But she got through it. And when, rather late in the afternoon, Hester inquired the way to the Diamond K, announcing her intention of visiting Trevison immediately, she gave no evidence of the shocked surprise that seized her. She coolly helped Hester prepare for the trip, and when she drove away in the buckboard, stood on the ground at the edge of the porch, watching as the buckboard and its occupant faded into the shimmering haze of the plains.

CHAPTER XVII

JUSTICE VS. LAW

Impatience, intolerable and vicious, gripped Trevison as he rode homeward after his haunting vigil at Manti. The law seemed to him to be like a house with many doors, around and through which one could play hide and seek indefinitely, with no possibility of finding one of the doors locked. Judge Graney had warned him to be cautious, but as he rode into the dusk of the plains the spirit of rebellion seized him. Twice he halted Nigger and wheeled him, facing Manti, already agleam and tumultuous, almost yielding to his yearning to return and force his enemy to some sort of physical action, but each time he urged the horse on, for he could think of no definite plan. He was half way to the Diamond K when he suddenly started and sat rigid and erect in the saddle, drawing a deep breath, his nerves tingling from excitement. He laughed lowly, exultingly, as men laugh when under the stress of adversity they devise sudden, bold plans of action, and responding to the slight knee press Nigger turned, reared, and then shot like a black bolt across the plains at an angle that would not take him anywhere near the Diamond K.

Half an hour later, in a darkness which equaled that of the night on which he had carried the limp and drink-saturated Clay Levins to his wife, Trevison was dismounting at the door of the gun-man’s cabin. A little later, standing in the glare of lamplight that shone through the open doorway, he was reassuring Mrs. Levins and asking for her husband. Shortly afterward, he was talking lowly to Levins as the latter saddled his pony out at the stable.

“I’ll do it – for you,” Levins told him. And then he chuckled. “It’ll seem like old times.”

“It’s Justice versus Law, tonight,” laughed Trevison; “it’s a case of ‘the end justifying the means.’”

Manti never slept. At two o’clock in the morning the lights in the gambling rooms of the Belmont and the Plaza were still flickering streams out into the desert night; weak strains of discord were being drummed out of a piano in a dance hall; the shuffling of feet smote the dead, flat silence of the night with an odd, weird resonance. Here and there a light burned in a dwelling or store, or shone through the wall of a tent-house. But Manti’s one street was deserted – the only peace that Manti ever knew, had descended.

Two men who had dismounted at the edge of town had hitched their horses in the shadow of a wagon shed in the rear of a store building, and were making their way cautiously down the railroad tracks toward the center of town. They kept in the shadows of the buildings as much as possible – for space was valuable now and many buildings nuzzled the railroad tracks; but when once they were forced to pass through a light from a window their faces were revealed in it for an instant – set, grim and determined.

“We’ve got to move quickly,” said one of the men as they neared the courthouse; “it will be daylight soon. Damn a town that never sleeps!”

The other laughed lowly. “I’ve said the same thing, often,” he whispered. “Easy now – here we are!”

They paused in the shadow of the building and whispered together briefly. A sound reached their ears as they stood. Peering around the corner nearest them they saw the bulk of a man appear. He walked almost to the corner of the building where they crouched, and they held their breath, tensing their muscles. Just when it seemed they must be discovered, the man wheeled, walked away, and vanished into the darkness toward the other side of the building. Presently he returned, and repeated the maneuver. As he vanished the second time, the larger man of the two in wait, whispered to the other:

“He’s the sentry! Stand where you are – I’ll show Corrigan – ”

The words were cut short by the reappearance of the sentry. He came close to the corner, and wheeled, to return. A lithe black shape leaped like a huge cat, and landed heavily on the sentry’s shoulders, bringing a pained grunt from him. The grunt died in a gurgle as iron fingers closed on his throat; he was jammed, face down, into the dust and held there, smothering, until his body slacked and his muscles ceased rippling. Then a handkerchief was slipped around his mouth and drawn tightly. He was rolled over, still unconscious, his hands tied behind him. Then he was borne away into the darkness by the big man, who carried him as though he were a child.

“Locked in a box-car,” whispered the big man, returning: “They’ll get him; they’re half unloaded.”

Without further words they returned to the shadow of the building.

Judge Lindman had not been able to sleep until long after his usual hour for retiring. The noise, and certain thoughts, troubled him. It was after midnight when he finally sought his cot, and he was in a heavy doze until shortly after two, when a breath of air, chilled by its clean sweep over the plains, searched him out and brought him up, sitting on the edge of the cot, shivering.

The rear door of the courthouse was open. In front of the iron safe at the rear of the room he saw a man, faintly but unmistakably outlined in the cross light from two windows. He was about to cry out when his throat was seized from behind and he was borne back on the cot resistlessly. Held thus, a voice which made him strain his eyes in an effort to see the owner’s face, hissed in his ear:

“I don’t want to kill you, but I’ll do it if you cry out! I mean business! Do you promise not to betray us?”

The Judge wagged his head weakly, and the grip on his throat relaxed. He sat up, aware that the fingers were ready to grip his throat again, for he could feel the big shape lingering beside him.