Part 44 (1/2)
The river itself was no longer a clear ribbon but a turgid flood-tide that swept along uprooted trees and snags of foam-lathered drift.
There was as yet neither bud nor leaf, and the air was raw and bone-chilling, but everywhere was the restless stirring of dormant life impulses and uneasy hints of labour-pains.
While the river sucked at its mud bank and lapped its inundated lowlands, the walnut tree in the yard above the high-water mark sang sagas of rebirth through the night as the wind gave tongue in its naked branches.
But in the breast of Sim Squires this spirit of restlessness was more than an uneasy stirring. It was an obsession.
He knew that when spring, or at the latest early summer, brought firmness to the mired highways and deeper cover to the woods, the organization of which he was a prominent member would strike, and stake its success or failure upon decisive issue. Then Parish Thornton, and a handful of lesser designates, would die--or else the ”riders” would encounter defeat and see their leaders go to the penitentiary.
Bas Rowlett, himself a traitor to the Ku Klux, had promised Sim safety, but Sim had never known Bas to keep faith, and he did not trust him now.
Yet, should he break with the evil forces to which he stood allied, Sim's peril became only the greater. So he lay awake through these gusty nights cudgelling his brain for a solution, and at the end, when spring had come with her first gracious touches of Judas-tree and wild plum blossoming, he made up his mind.
Sim Squires came to his decision one balmy afternoon and went, with a caution that could not have been greater had he contemplated murder, to the house of Hump Doane, when he knew the old man to be alone.
His design, after all, was a simple one for a man versed in the art of double-crossing and triple-crossing.
If the riders prevailed he was safe enough, by reason of his charter members.h.i.+p, and none of his brother vigilantes suspected that his partic.i.p.ation had been unwilling. But they might not prevail, and, in that event, it was well to have a friend among the victors.
He meant, therefore, to tell Hump Doane some things that Hump Doane wished very much to know, but he would go to the confessional under such oath of secrecy as could not recoil upon him. Then whoever triumphed, be it Bas, the white-caps, or the forces of law and order, he would have a protector on the winning side.
The hunchback met his furtive visitor at the stile and walked with him back into the chill woods where they were safe from observation. The drawn face and the frightened eyes told him in advance that this would be no ordinary interview, yet he was unprepared for what he heard.
When Squires had hinted that he came heavy with tidings of gravest import, but must be given guarantees of protection before he spoke, Hump Doane sat reflecting dubiously upon the matter, then he shook his head.
”I don't jest see whar hit profits me ter know things thet I kain't make no use of,” he demurred, and Sim Squires bent forward with haunted eyes.
”They're _facts_,” he protested. ”Ye kin use them facts, only ye mustn't tell no man whar ye got 'em from.”
”Go ahead, then,” decided Hump Doane after weighing the proposition even further. ”I'm hearkenin', an' I stands pledged ter hold my counsel es ter yore part in tellin' me.”
The sun was sinking toward the horizon and the woods were cold. The informer rose and walked back and forth on the soggy carpet of rotted leaves with hands that clasped and unclasped themselves at his back. He was under a stress of feeling that bordered on collapse.
The dog that has been kicked and knocked about from puppyhood has in it the acc.u.mulated viciousness of his long injuries. Such a beast is ready to run amuck, frothing at the mouth, and Sim Squires was not unlike that dog. He had debated this step through days and nights of hate and terror. He had faltered and vacillated. Now he had come, and the long-repressed pa.s.sions had broken all his dams of reserve, transforming him, as if with an epilepsy. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks were putty-yellow and, had he been a dog instead of a man, his fangs would have been slathered with foam.
Heretofore he had spoken hesitantly and cautiously. Now like the epileptic or the mad dog, he burst into a volcanic outpouring in which wild words tumbled upon themselves in a cataract of boiling abandon. His fists were clenched and veins stood out on his face.
”I'm ther man thet shot Parish Thornton when he fust come hyar,” was his sensational beginning, ”but albeit my hand sighted ther gun an' pulled ther trigger hit was another man's d.a.m.n dirty heart that contrived ther act an' another man's dollars thet paid fer hit. I was plum fo'ced ter do hit by a low-lived feller thet hed done got me whar he wanted me--a feller thet bull-dozed an' dogged me an' didn't suffer me ter call my soul my own--a feller thet I hates an' dreads like I don't nuver expect ter hate Satan in h.e.l.l!”
The informer broke off there and stood a pitiable picture of rage and cowardice, shaken with tearless sobs of unwonted emotion.
”Some men ruins women,” he rushed on, ”an' some ruins other men. _He_ done thet ter me--an' whenever I boggled or balked he cracked his whip anew--an' I wasn't nuthin' but his pore white n.i.g.g.e.r thet obeyed him. I ached ter kill him an' I didn't even dast ter contrary him. His name's Bas Rowlett!”
The recital broke off and the speaker stood trembling from head to foot.
Then the hearer who had listened paled to the roots of his s.h.a.ggy hair and his gargoyle face became a mask of tragic fury.
At first Hump Doane did not trust himself to speak and when he did, there was a moment in which the other feared him almost more than he feared Bas Rowlett.