The Terms of Surrender

CHAPTER XII

AFTER DARKNESS, LIGHT

Death brings peace. Having accomplished its dread mission, it atones to the body from which the soul is snatched by smoothing away the lines of agony from the face; it seems even to relent for awhile, and restore to worn and aged features the semblance of long-vanished youth.

When Power looked at his dead mother, he saw her as she might have looked in placid sleep when he was a boy in San Francisco. But a discovery that is often soothing to those who are bereft of their nearest and dearest brought him no consolation. His stupor of grief and misery was denied the relief of tears. Rather did his brooding thought run to the other extreme. The mother he loved was at rest – why should he not join her? He believed, like many another man who has passed through the furnace of a soul-destroying passion, that he had drunk the flame-wreathed cup of life to the dregs. The fiery potion had swept through his veins and reduced him to ashes. He was no longer even the recluse of the Dolores Ranch, finding in books solace for a lost love, but the burnt-out husk of his former self. What was there left, that he should wish to live? Why should he not end it all, and seek the kindly oblivion of the grave?

Ever stronger and more insistently did this idea take root in his mind, and some evil monitor seemed to bellow it at him when he stood next day in the cemetery, and saw the coffin lowered into the earth. The beautiful words of the burial service give sorely needed help to stricken hearts; but this man’s ears were closed to their solemn promise.

“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

The minister’s voice, hitherto broken and tremulous, for he held the dead woman in much esteem, and her loss was grievous to him, rang out with a new confidence when it declaimed that splendid passage; yet Power was conscious only of a desire to cry aloud in frenzied protest. Then that phase passed; the tumult died down; he shrank into a lethargy which was infinitely more dangerous than a state of wild revolt.

In that black mood he was watched unceasingly by faithful friends. MacGonigal and Jake were never far from his side. Though he did not know of, and would have angrily resented, their quiet guardianship, he could not have taken his own life just then, and the time was yet far distant when he would ask himself in wonder and thankfulness how he had escaped death by his own hand during the first dreary hours following his return to Bison.

But there were other influences at work, and one of these made its presence felt speedily. After the funeral he was sitting alone in the room which he had converted into a library. His unseeing eyes were fixed on the smiling landscape into which irrigation had converted the once arid ranch. A troop of brood mares, with foals at heel, were emulating mankind by neglecting the lush pastures at their feet and craning their graceful necks over a palisade to nibble the thorn hedge it protected. This double barrier shut off the lawn and garden from the meadow lands. Here and there the green of apple orchards, planted with artistic regard to open vistas, was already flecked with golden fruit. Soon the reapers would be busy on the sections where maize and oats and wheat were ripening. The lowing of cattle announced that milking-time was near; for, among her other activities, Mrs. Power had established a model dairy, and it was her gentle boast that she had made it pay; thus bringing out in the mother the money-coining instincts which the son had developed so unexpectedly.

Such a scene might well lull the beholder to rest; but Power was blind to its charms. He was reviewing, in an aimless way, the associations which that very apartment held for him. Changed though it was out of all semblance to the poverty-stricken living-room of the ranch, Nancy’s spirit had never been wholly exorcised. He pictured her slim and lissome figure as she had stood with him at the window many an evening, and watched the purple shadows stealing over the hills. In that room she had married Marten. From a bamboo stand near one of the windows she had taken the spray of white heather which formed her wedding bouquet. Why had she never mentioned it to him? Or were the last five weeks nothing but some disordered vision of the imagination, a delusion akin to those glimpses of palm-laden oases and flashing waters which come to thirst-maddened wanderers in deserts?

But another shadow intervened. His mother, in turn, had loved the gorgeous sunsets of Colorado; she, too, was wont to gaze at the far-flung panorama which once delighted Nancy’s eyes. And she, alas! had become a dream which would never again wake into reality. At that moment the relief of tears was imminent – and tears are intolerable to a strong man. He sprang upright in a spasm of pain, and bitter words escaped him brokenly.

The movement, no less than the few disconnected sentences, seemed to arouse Jake, who happened to be lounging against one of the pillars of the veranda – out of sight, perhaps, but certainly not out of hearing.

“Would yer keer ter hev an easy stroll around, Mistah Power?” he said instantly.

“No, thanks – why are you waiting there? Do you want to speak to me?”

This questioning might bear interpretation as the outburst of one who resented the overseer’s presence; but Jake was ready with the soft answer which turneth away wrath:

“No, sir. Not exactly, that is. I was jest waitin’ fur Mac. He allowed he’d be back about this time. Gosh! Here he is, crossin’ the divide, an’ totin’ along some tony galoot I hain’t seen afore.”

“Tell MacGonigal, and every other person in the place, that I am not to be disturbed.”

Power withdrew from the French window, and Jake nodded to the group of horses.

“You’re feelin’ pretty bad, I guess,” he said to himself. “But thar ain’t a gun in the outfit outside my locked grip, an’ you cahn’t find enough rope ter hang a cat, an’ the only pisen in the ranch is on a sideboard, an’ a skinful of that would do you good, an’ this yer son of a gun can stand a lot o’ black looks from you, Derry.”

He heard Power sink into a chair on the inner side of the room, and sheer curiosity led him to steal along the veranda to the porch, where MacGonigal and a stranger were alighting from a two-wheeled buggy.

“Derry’s jest tole me ter quit,” he said in a stage whisper, jerking his left hand, as though it still possessed a thumb, in the direction of the library.

The newcomer, a tall, well-built man of middle age, smiled involuntarily at the queer gesture. As it happened, he had never before seen a veritable cowboy outside the bounds of one or other of the American circus shows which visit Europe occasionally, and Jake had donned his costliest rig for the funeral.

“Shall I find Mr. Power in that room with the open window?” he inquired.

“Yes, sir,” said Jake.

“I think he will be glad to see me,” said the unknown, and, without further comment, he ran up the steps and entered the veranda. The two men watched him in silence. They saw him halt in front of the window, and heard him say, “Power, may I come in?” They heard the scraping of a chair on the parquet floor as it was thrust aside; then the stranger vanished.

“Who’s the dook?” demanded Jake, vastly surprised by the turn of events.

“Friend o’ Derry’s,” said MacGonigal, sotto voce. “He wired me from Newport, an’ his messages struck me as comin’ from a white man; so I gev’ him the fax, an’ the nex’ thing I hear is that he’s on the rail, but I’m to keep mum, as he thought it ’ud help Derry some if he kem on him suddint. An’ here he is.”

During a full minute neither man spoke. At last, Jake, who appeared to have something on his mind, brought it out.

“Thar was a piece ’bout Derry and Mrs. Marten in the Rocky Mountain News a week sence,” he began.

“Thar was,” agreed MacGonigal, who looked vastly uncomfortable in a suit of heavy black cloth.

“Not anything ter make a song of,” went on Jake. “An or’nary kind o’ yarn, ’bout a point-ter-point steeplechase, whatever that sort o’ flam may be, an’ Bison won, in course.”

“Jest so,” said the other.

“Guess you spotted it, too?”

“Guess I did.”

“Marten’s in Baku. Whar’s Baku?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a damn long way from Newport, anyhow, or Derry an’ Nancy wouldn’t be cavortin’ round together on plugs from one p’int to any other p’int.”

“You an’ me sized up that proposition same like.”

“We’re a slick pair,” grunted MacGonigal sarcastically.

“That’s as may be – I’ve heerd folk say wuss ner that ’bout you,” said Jake. “But what I want ter know is this: S’pose some other low-down cuss gits busy, and stirs his gray matter thinkin’ hard on things he saw in the newspaper, what’s ter be done?”

MacGonigal brought his big red face very near Jake’s olive-skinned one. “If he’s on the ranch, bounce him; if he’s in Bison, let me know,” he growled.

Meanwhile, the man whose interests they were planning to safeguard had looked up in anger when a shadow darkened the open window; but he started to his feet in sheer amazement when he saw Dacre and heard his voice.

“You?” he cried. “How in God’s name did you get here?”

“You were in trouble, Power, and I count it a poor friendship that shirks a few days’ journey when a chum is in distress.”

Their hands met, and Power’s white face showed a wave of color. He was deeply stirred. For the moment he was an ordinary man, and subject to ordinary emotions.

“I had better be outspoken,” continued Dacre. “I got in touch with Mr. MacGonigal, and he informed me of your mother’s death; so I have hurried across America to be with you. Being rather afraid you might stop me en route, I requested MacGonigal not to tell you I was coming.”

“But I regard your action as a most kindly one.”

“Yes, now that I am here. For all that, old man, you might have wired very emphatic instructions on the point to Omaha yesterday.”

“My dear fellow, you find me in a house of mourning. Won’t you sit down? You must be tired. Can I get you anything?”

“My bones are stiff for want of exercise – that is all. Now, if you want to be a perfect host, have my traps sent to my room… Don’t say you haven’t a spare bedroom!.. Good! I’ll just open a bag, and get some tea – of course, you can’t possibly produce any decent tea – and your cook will boil a kettle, and after we have refreshed on the beverage that cheers while it does not inebriate, you will take me for a walk around this delightful ranch of yours. You see, I don’t mean to let you mope here by yourself. That is the last thing the dear lady who has been taken from you would wish. You will regard me as a beastly nuisance, but that cannot be helped.”

The ghost of a smile twinkled in Power’s eyes. He was quite alive to his friend’s object in rattling along in this fashion; but it was an undeniable relief that he should be compelled to follow the lead given so cheerfully.

“To show that you are welcome I’ll even drink your strong tea,” he said. “Nor am I alone here, as you seem to imagine. There are three ladies in the house – Mrs. Moore and her daughters, Minnie and Margaret. Hand over your bohea to Mrs. Moore – she’ll dispense it properly, and appreciate it, too, I have little doubt.”

In such wise was the black dog care partly lifted off Power’s shoulders. He had yet to learn that the human vessel cannot contain more than its due measure of sorrow. When it is filled to the brim no additional grief can find lodgment. Misfortune carried to excess has made cowards brave and given fools wisdom, and Derry Power was neither coward nor fool.

Mrs. Moore was naturally surprised when the visitor was introduced; but she hailed his presence with obvious relief. MacGonigal and Jake were invited to join the tea-party – and, at any other time, the cowboy’s struggles with a tiny cup and saucer of delicate china, a microscopic teaspoon, and a roll of thin bread and butter would have caused a good deal of merriment. Mac, thanks to his training in the store, juggled easily with these implements, and there was an air almost of light-heartedness about the company before it broke up at Power’s suggestion that he and Dacre might smoke while surveying some part of the ranch.

Dacre showed his knowledge of human nature by leading his friend on to talk of his mother. That way, he was sure, lay the waters of healing. While deploring the unhappy circumstances which attended Mrs. Power’s death, which Dr. Stearn put down to failure of the heart’s action, he swept aside her son’s bitter self-condemnation.

“Death,” he said, “is the one element in human affairs which may not be estimated in that general way. If your mother’s heart was affected, she was far more likely to die of some sudden excitement than because of a not very poignant anxiety as to your prolonged absence from home. I suppose, in a sense, she knew where you were?”

“Yes. I – I deceived her with sufficient skill,” came the morbid retort.

“Then you must school yourself to dwell on those long years of pleasant companionship in the past rather than this final parting, which you attribute to a cause that exists only in your imagination. I think Tennyson’s philosophy is at fault in the line:

I hold that Cowper peered more closely into the fiber and essence of humanity when he wrote:

You were utterly unnerved and wretched when the news of your mother’s illness reached you. You magnified your personal responsibility out of all reasonable proportion. I can see no proof of other influence than the fixed course and final outcome of a disease difficult to detect and incapable of cure.”

They were nearing the Gulch, Power having chosen that direction because of the uninterrupted view of the surrounding country they would secure from the top of the rising ground.

“I wish I might accept your comforting theory,” he said, more composedly. “Somehow, I feel that I am to blame, or, if that is a crude expression, that I was made the instrument of some devilish act of retribution. However, I do not profess myself able to regard such a problem in a critical light today. You won’t think me heartless if I inquire into the conditions which led up to the telegram you sent me in New York? I was too dazed that morning to understand clearly what had happened. Did you actually speak to Nancy herself over the telephone?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Are you really feeling up to the strain of hearing what took place?”

Power stopped suddenly, caught his friend’s arm, and pointed to a small wooden structure erected in a singular position on the western side of the canyon.

“You have not forgotten the story I told you that last night in Newport?” he cried.

“No. I remember every word of it.”

“Well, that little shack up there stands on the ledge where I rediscovered the lode after being nearly crushed to death. I crawled to within a few yards of this very spot; so resolved was I that no one should rob me of the price I was paid for Nancy. I am the same man now that I was then, Dacre – and in a very similar mood. Strain! I have been strained to the limit. I have thought of taking my own life; not from lack of capacity to endure further ills, but from sheer disgust at the crassness of things. At least, then, let me inquire into their meaning. What did she say to you?”

Despite his unwillingness to add to the heavy load Power had to bear, Dacre was not altogether sorry to get an unpleasing task over and done with. But he felt his way carefully; since he, too, was groping in the dark to a certain extent.

“Your telegram did not take me wholly by surprise,” he said. “I knew that Nancy – you don’t mind if I use her name in that way, do you? Well, then, I had heard of her return. Mrs. Van Ralten rang me up to say that Mr. Willard and his daughter had arrived by the steamer in the early morning. I think I took such astounding news calmly enough; but I have a suspicion that the good lady herself was a trifle worried, and was only too glad to have the chance of announcing the fact of her friend’s reappearance. She added that Nancy was ill, having been overcome by the terrific heat in New York, and I chimed in with the proper sentiments; though I have seldom been more bewildered than at that moment. Soon afterward your message came, and I began dimly to grasp the position. I seized the pretext of Mrs. Van Ralten’s statement to call up Nancy’s residence, and, by some sort of fortune, whether good or bad I can’t determine, she herself answered. I concocted a suitable excuse; but she solved the difficulty at once by saying that, as your friend, I ought to know the facts. She had resolved to leave you, ‘to put an end to a mad dream’ was a phrase she used, and asked me to tell you that she adhered resolutely to the decision she had announced in a letter the previous day. She added that she was sailing in a steamer from Boston with her father that night, and hoped I would spread the impression that she had been ill, and needed a sea voyage. I can assure you, old chap, I was completely flabbergasted. Admiring her as I do, I would never have believed that she would act in that extraordinary manner had I not received the story from her own lips, if one may so describe a conversation by telephone. I was so horribly afraid lest some outsider in the hotel might overhear me that I dared not question her. The talk was studiously formal on her part, and I was so thoroughly cut up that I could not attempt to convey my impressions in your telegram. Moreover, as a diligent student of Shakespeare, was I not warned that

Certainly, I was not quite in the position of Cleopatra’s messenger, since I could only confirm a disaster already known to you; but I literally shrank from the obvious inferences. Then came MacGonigal’s revelation of events here. I simply couldn’t rest. After a miserable twenty-four hours of vacillation, I started for New York, calling at your hotel to make sure you had gone west. One thing more. A Chicago newspaper gave a list of passengers sailing from Boston in a Red Star liner. In it were the names of Nancy and her father.”

For an appreciable time after Dacre had concluded neither man spoke. Then Power said quietly:

“Thus endeth the second lesson.”

His companion was not one who indulged in platitudes. Some men, kind-hearted and pitying, would have reminded him that he was still young, that life was rich in promise, that time would heal, or, at any rate, sear, the ugliest wounds. But Dacre said none of these things. He merely asked if Power meant to tell him what really happened in the Adirondacks. A good talker, he was also a good listener. Power would recover, he was convinced. He was not the first man, nor would he be the last, to clasp a phantom and find it air. Meanwhile, outspoken confidence should provide an efficient safety-valve for emotions contained at too high a pressure.

Power yielded to this friendly urging, but not instantly. Indeed, he astonished the Englishman by his next utterance.

“Nearly four years ago,” he said, looking back at the ranch “in that room where you found me today, I was reading ‘The Autocrat’ to Nancy one night, and a certain passage caught our attention. It ran somewhat like this: ‘I would have a woman as true as death. At the first lie which works from the heart outward, she should be tenderly chloroformed into a better world.’ Both of us laughed then, and now I know why we laughed. We were ignorant. Holmes, genial cynic that he was, understood women; he wrote a vital thing when he described the sort of lie that comes from the heart. I put trust in two women, and one of them has betrayed it. If I live another fifty years, I shall never understand why Nancy left me – never, never! I would as soon have thought of suspecting an angel from heaven of disloyalty as Nancy.”