The Roof Tree

It was Hump Doane who broke the pause.

"Save fer a miracle of luck, Jim, ye'd be a dead man now – an' whilst we tarries fer ye ter parley, you an' me an' others besides us air like ter die. Over-hastiness is a sorry fault – but dilitariness is oftentimes sorrier."

* * *

Back in the house that had grown around the nucleus of a revolutionary cabin sat the woman who had been for such a short time a wife – and who might so soon be a widow.

She had risen from her knees at last after agonized praying, but even through her prayers came horrible and persistent pictures of what might be happening to the man who had smiled as he rode away.

The insupportable dread chilled and tortured her that the brief happiness of her marriage had been only a scrap and sample, which would leave all the rest of life and widowhood bleaker for its memory and loss.

Dorothy sat by the window with a face ghost-pallid and fingers that wound in and out of spasmodic clutchings.

She closed her eyes in an effort to forget her nightmare imaginings and saw only more fantastic visions of a body sliding from its saddle and lying still in the creek bed trail.

She rose at last and paced the room, but outside in the road her gaze fell on old Aaron who was uneasily pacing, too, and in his drooping shoulders and grimly set face she read no encouragement to hope. That morose and pessimistic figure held her gaze with a fascination of terror and she watched it until its pacing finally carried it around a twist of the road. Then she went out and stood under the tree which in its wordlessness was still a more sympathetic confidant than human beings.

She dropped on her knees there in the long grass at the roots of the straight-stemmed walnut and for the first time some spark of hope crept into her bruised soul. She began catching at straws of solace and had she known it, placing faith and reliance in the source of all the danger, yet she found a vestige of comfort in the process – and that was something.

"I'd done fergot," she exclaimed as she rose from her knees. "Most like Bas Rowlett's thar – so he'll hev one friend thet men won't skeercely das't ter defy. Bas'll stand by him – like he done afore."

CHAPTER XVIII

Riding with the weariness of a long convalescence, Parish Thornton passed the house where for two days only he had made his abode, and turned into an upward-climbing trail, gloomily forested, where the tangle brushed his stirrups as he rode. On a "bald-knob" the capriciousness of nature had left the lookout of an untimbered summit, and there he drew rein and gazed down into the basin of a narrow creek-valley a mile distant, where, in a cleared square of farm land, a lazy thread of smoke rose from a low roof.

That house was his objective, and from here on he must drop downward through woods which the eye could penetrate for only a few paces in any direction; where the poison ivy and sumac grew rank and the laurel and rhododendron made entanglements that would have disconcerted a bear. He realized that it was a zone picketed with unseen riflemen, and advisers, who were by no means alarmists, had told him that he could not pass through it alive. Yet he believed there was the possibility, and upon it he was staking everything, that so long as he rode openly and with the audacity of seemingly nickel-plated self-confidence, these watchers by the way would, in sheer curiosity, pass him on to those superiors within the house from whom they took their orders.

His life hung on the correctness of that assumption, but the hazard was a part of the game. He thrust his pistol into a broken oak where a woodpecker had nested, then flapped his reins and clucked to his mule. For the sake of a bold appearance he raised his voice in a spirited and cheerful ballad, but from time to time he broke off since he had stern need for acute listening.

The mule carried him into – and through – a gorge where day-long a shadowy gloom hung among the fern-fringed rocks, and where the austere wildness of dripping cliffs and forbidding woods seemed a stage set for dark and tragic happenings.

He passed not one but several rifles as he went – he even caught the glint of one muzzle among the waxen rhododendron leaves but pretended not to see it, and though on him every barrel was trained, not a trigger was pressed.

The coming of a Harper clansman whom some men called a leader to the conclave of the Doane chieftains was so astounding a phenomenon that it would be a pity to cut it short until its intent was made manifest. So the sentinels along the way held their breath – and their fire.

But Thornton came at last to the place where the forest ran out into more open woods and the "trace" widened to a sledge-trail. He drew his horse to a standstill and hallooed loudly, for he knew that at this point all policy of experiment must end. The showdown could no longer be delayed. From near by in the laurel came a prompt voice of response though the speaker remained unseen.

"Halt whar ye're at," it commanded, gruffly. "What does ye want over hyar?"

"I aimed ter hev speech with Hump Doane," answered Thornton, unruffled, counterfeiting a tranquil ease, and from the thicket drifted the unintelligible mingling of two low voices in consultation. Then a second voice spoke:

"Wait right whar ye stands at an' don't aim ter move till I tells ye ye kin."

Punctiliously, Parish Thornton obeyed that injunction, sitting quietly in his saddle with a meditative gaze fixed on the twitching of his mule's ears, until after so long a time a stir in the thicket announced the return of the messenger and a command came succinctly from an invisible speaker.

"Hitch yore critter an' light down. Hump 'lows he'll see ye."

The door at the front of the house was closed now but when Thornton had dismounted and knocked, it opened, and straining his eyes at the darkness of the interior he found himself in a room cloudy with tobacco smoke and crowded with unoccupied chairs – yet empty of any humanity save for himself and the hunchback who stood inhospitably bulking just beyond the threshold.

The trap to the cock-loft was open, though, and the ladder was drawn up so Thornton knew that this seeming of vacancy was specious and that in all likelihood gun barrels were trained from above.

"I've done come," he said, steadily, and he raised his voice so that it would also carry to those unseen individuals whom he believed to be concealed near by, "ter see kin us two carcumvent bloodshed. I bears due authority from ther Thorntons and ther Harpers. We seeks ter aid ye in diskiverin' an' punishin' ther man thet sought ter kill Jim Rowlett – if so be ye'll meet us halfway."

For a moment there was silence in the room, then with a skeptical note of ridicule and challenge the hunchback demanded: "Why didn't ye go ter Jim Rowlett hisself?"

Though he had not been invited to enter Parish Thornton took a forward step into the room, and a bold effrontery proclaimed itself in both the words and the manner of his response.

"I've done come ter both of ye. I knows full well I'm speakin' right now in ther hearin' of numerous men hyar – albeit they're hidin' out from me."

Again there was silence, then Parish Thornton turned his eyes, following the cripple's gaze, toward the open door and found himself gazing into the muzzles of two rifles presented toward his breast. He laughed shortly and commented, "I thought so," then glancing at the cock-loft he saw other muzzles and in the back door which swung silently open at the same moment yet others gave back a dull glint of iron from the sunlight, so that he stood ringed about with levelled guns.

Hump Doane's piercing eyes bored into the face of the intruder during a long and uneasy silence. Then when his scrutiny had satisfied itself he asserted with a blunt directness:

"Ye hain't skeercely got no means of knowin' who's inside my house without ye come by thet knowledge through spyin' on me."

From the darkness of the cock-loft came a passionate voice of such rabid truculence as sounds in the throat of a dog straining at its leash.

"Jest say one word, Hump … jest say one word an' he won't know nothin' a minute hence!.. My trigger finger's itchin' right now!"

"Hold yore cacklin' tongue, Sam Opdyke, an' lay aside thet gun," the cripple barked back with the crack of a mule whip in his voice, and silence again prevailed up there and fell upon the room below.

Again the householder paused and after that he decided to throw aside futile pretence.

"Come on back in hyar, men," he gave curt order. "Thar hain't no need of our askin' no man's lieve ter meet an' talk nohow."

Slowly and somewhat shamefacedly, if the truth must be told, the room refilled itself and the men who trooped heavily back through the two doors, or slid down the lowered ladder, came rifle and pistol armed.

Parish Thornton had no trouble in identifying, by the malevolence on one face, the man who had pleaded for permission to kill him, but the last to saunter in – and he still stood apart at the far threshold with an air of casual detachment – was Bas Rowlett.

"Now," began Hump Doane in the overbearing tone of an inquisitor, "we don't owe ye no explanations as ter which ner whether. We've gathered tergether, as we hev full right ter do, because you Harpers seems hell bent on forcin' warfare down our throats – an' we aims ter carcumvent ye." He paused, and a murmur of general approbation gave force to his announcement, then he added, "But hit's right p'intedly seemly fer you ter give us a reason why ye comes oninvited ter my house – at sich a time as this."

It was to old Jim Rowlett that Parish Thornton turned now, ignoring the spokesman who had addressed him, and his voice was clear and even:

"When I come hyar from Virginny," he declared, "I didn't never seek no leadership – an' ther Thorntons in gin'ral didn't never press me ter take over none – but thar was men hyar thet wouldn't look on me in no other guise, an them men war you Doanes."

"Us Doanes," broke out the red-eyed Opdyke, explosively, "what hev we got ter do with yore feisty lot?"'

"Yes, you Doanes," Thornton shot back at him with a stiffening jaw. "When ther Harpers didn't want me, and I didn't want them, you men plum fo'ced me on 'em by seekin' ter hold me accountable fer all thar doin's. Ef I'm goin' ter be accountable, I'm likewise goin' ter be accounted to! Now we've done got tergither over thar an' they've despatched me hyar ter give ye our message an' take back yore answer."

"Thet is ter say," amended the firebrand with significant irony, "providin' we concludes ter let ye take back any message atall."

Thornton did not turn his head but held with his eyes the faces of old Jim and Hump Doane and it was still to them that he addressed himself.

"I'm licensed ter bind ther Harpers an' Thorntons by my words – an' my words air plain ones. We proffers ye peace or war, whichever ye chooses: full peace or war ter ther hinges of hell! But peace air what we wants with all our hearts an' cravin's, an' peace hit'll be onlessen ye denies us." He paused for a moment only, then in altered voice he reminded them: "Ef I don't go back, my death'll be all the answer they'll need over thar – but ther guilt fer bloodshed an' what follers hit will rest on ther Doanes henceforth. We've done our damnedest."

"We're wastin' time an' breath. Kill ther damn moon-calf an' eend hit," clamoured the noisy agitator with the bloodshot eyes. "They only seeks ter beguile us with a passel of fair-seemin' lies."

"No, we hain't wastin' breath, men!" Old Jim Rowlett was on his feet again with the faded misery of defeat gone out of his eyes and a new light of contest kindled in them.

"Every man hyar, save a couple of clamorous fools, hes declared hisself thet ef ther Thorntons hed a trustworthy leader, he favoured dealin' with him. This man says they've got tergither. Let's hear him out."

A muttering chorus of dissent sounded inarticulate protest that needed only a spokesman and Hump Doane raised his hand.

"I've done already hed speech with Mr. Thornton – who come over hyar by another name – an' he refused ter give me any enjoyment. I misdoubts ef he kin do much better now. Nonetheless" – he stepped forward and turned as he spoke, swinging his glance with compelling vigour about the rough circle of humanity – "Nonetheless he's done come, an' claims he's been sent. Stand over thar, Mr. Thornton, in front of the chimbley – an' I aims ter see thet ye gits yore say!"

So Parish Thornton took his place before the hearth and began an argument that he knew to be adversely prejudged.

"Thar's grievances festerin' amongst ther men of yore crowd an' mine alike, but warfare won't ease 'em none," he said at the end; "I've got a grievance myself thet calls fer avengin' – but hit hain't no Harper-Doane matter. I hadn't dwelt hyar amongst ye three days afore I was laywayed – an' I hadn't give just offence ter no man so fur es I knows of."

"But sence ye've done tuck up preachin' a gospel of peace," came the sneering suggestion from the fringe of the crowd, "I reckon ye're willin' ter lay thet grudge by like a good Christian an' turn t'other cheek, hain't ye?"

Thornton wheeled, and his eyes flamed.

"No," he exclaimed in a voice that filled the room. "I'd be a damn hypocrite ef I claimed thet. I swore thet night, whilst I lay thar, thet thet man belonged ter me ter kill, an' I hain't altered thet resolve no fashion, degree ner whipstitch. But thet's a thing thet's separate an' apart from ther war…"

He paused, realizing the difficulty of making clear so complicated and paradoxical a position, while an outburst of derisive laughter fell on the pause as he reached his period. Then someone made ironic comment: "Hit's all beginnin' ter come out now. Ye aims ter hev everybody else fergive thar enemies an' lay down like lambs tergither – atter ye gits teetotally done with yore own shootin' an avengin'."

But Hump Doane seized the hickory staff that leaned against old Jim's chair and pounded with it on the table.

"Silence!" he roared; "suffer ther feller ter git through!"

"I don't aim ter bushwack ner layway nobody," went on Thornton, obdurately. "Hit wouldn't content me ef I wasn't facin' my enemy when I sottled with him – an' hit's a private business – but this other matter te'ches everybody. Hit denotes y'ars of blood-spillin' an' murder – of women an' children sufferin' fer causes thet hain't no wise th'ar fault ner doin'."

The cripple still stood regarding the man by the hearth with a brow knit in absorption, and so tense was his expression that it seemed to bind the others to a brief, waiting silence until Hump himself slowly broke the tension.

"I said I aimed ter give ye a chanst ter hev yore say out… Hev ye got fur enough ter let me ask ye a question?"

The nodded head of assent gave permission and Doane inquired briefly:

"Does I onderstand ye ter plead fer ther Harpers an' ther Doanes ter 'bide by ther old truce – an' yit ter seek ter stand free yore own self an' kill yore own enemy?"

Old Jim Rowlett leaned forward gripping his staff head with eyes of incredulity, and from the chest of the others sounded long-drawn breaths, inarticulate yet eloquent of scorn and sneering repudiation.

But Parish Thornton retained the earnest and resolute poise with which he had spoken before as he made his answer.

"I means thet I don't aim ter suffer no craven betrayal an' not hit back. I means thet ther feller thet sought my murder is my man ter kill, but I aims ter kill him in f'ar combat. Hit jest lays between him an' me an' hit hain't no Harper-Doane affair, nohow."

Hump Doane shook his head and there was in the gesture both decisiveness and disappointment.

"What commenced ter look like a mighty hopeful chanst falls flat right hyar an' now," he announced. "I'd begun ter hope thet atter all a leader hed done riz up amongst us, but I sees when ye talks erbout peace ye means a peace fer other folks thet don't bind ner hamper yoreself. Thar hain't nuthin' but folly in seekin' ter build on a quicksand like thet."

"I told ye fust-off thet we war a-wastin' time an' breath," broke out Opdyke, furiously. "A man only courts trouble when he seeks ter gentle a rattlesnake – ther seemly thing ter do air ter kill hit."

Parish Thornton turned his eyes and studiously appraised the hare-brained advocate of violence, then he said, again addressing Hump Doane:

"An' yit hit's a pity, Mr. Doane, ef you an' me kain't some fashion git tergither in accord. We've got ther same cravin's in our hearts, us two."

"I come ter ye onc't afore, Mr. Thornton," the cripple reminded him, "an' I asked ye a question thet ye didn't see fit ter answer. Now I asks ye ter lay by one grudge, when ye calls on us ter lay by many – an' hit happens ergin thet ye don't see fit ter yield no p'int. Mebby me an' you have got cravin's fer betterment in common betwixt us – but hit 'pears like thar's always one diff'rence risin' up thet balks everything else."

CHAPTER XIX

Even the peppery Opdyke did not venture to break heatedly in on the pause that followed those regretful words. Into the minds of the majority stole a sense, vague and indefinable it is true, that a tragic impasse was closing on a situation over which had flashed a rainbow gleam of possible solution. Ahead lay the future with its sinister shadows – darker because of the alternative they had glimpsed in its passing.

Old Jim Rowlett came to his feet, and drew his thin shoulders back – shoulders that had been broad and strong enough to support heavy burdens through trying years.

"Mr. Thornton," he said, and the aged voice held a quaver of emotion which men were not accustomed to hearing it carry, "I wants ter talk with ye with ther severe freedom of an' old man counsellin' a young 'un – an' hit hain't ergoin' ter be in ther manner of a Doane argyfyin' with a Harper so much es of a father advisin' with a son."

The young Thornton met those eyes so full of eagle boldness yet so tempered with kindness, and to his own expression came a responsive flash of that winning boyishness which these men had not seen on his face before.

"Mr. Rowlett," he made answer in a low and reverent voice, "I hain't got no remembrance of my pappy, but I'd love ter think he favoured ye right smart."

Slowly the low-pitched voice of the Nestor began to dominate the place, cloudy with its pipe-smoke and redolent with the stale fumes of fires long dead. Like some Hogarth picture against a sombre background the ungainly figures of men stood out of shadow and melted into it: men unkempt and tribal in their fierceness of aspect.

Old Jim made to blaze again before their eyes, with a rude and vigorous eloquence, all the ruthless bane of the toll-taking years before the truce. He stripped naked every specious claim of honour and courage with which its votaries sought to hallow the vicious system of the vendetta. He told in words of simple force how he and Caleb Harper had striven to set up and maintain a sounder substitute, and how for the permanence of that life-work they had prayed.

"Caleb an' me," he said at last, "we didn't never succeed without we put by what we asked others ter forego. Yore wife's father was kilt most foully – an' Caleb looked over hit. My own boy fell in like fashion, an' my blood wasn't no tamer then thet in other veins – but yit I held my hand. Ye comes ter us now, frettin' under ther sting of a wrong done ter ye – an' I don't say yore wrath hain't righteous, but ye've done been vouchsafed sich a chanst as God don't proffer ter many, an' God calls fer sacrifices from them elected ter sarve him."

He paused there for a moment and passed his knotted hand over the parchment-like skin of his gaunt temples, then he went on: "Isaac offered up Jacob – or leastways he stud ready ter do hit. Ye calls on us ter trust ye an' stand with ye, an' we calls on you in turn fer a pledge of faith. Fer God's sake, boy, be big enough ter bide yore time twell ther Harpers an' Doanes hev done come outen this distemper of passion. I tells ye ye kain't do no less an' hold yore self-esteem."

He paused, then came forward with his old hand extended and trembling in a palsy of eagerness, and despite the turmoil of a few minutes before, such a taut silence prevailed that the asthmatic rustiness of the old man's breath was an audible wheezing through the room.

The young messenger had only to lift his hand then and grasp that outheld one – and peace would have been established – yet his one free arm seemed to him more difficult to lift in a gesture of compliance than that which was bandaged down.

His own voice broke and he answered with difficulty: "Give me a leetle spell ter ponder – I kain't answer ye off-hand."

Thornton's eyes went over, and in the lighted doorway fell upon Bas Rowlett sitting with his features schooled to a masked and unctuous hypocrisy, but back of that disguise the wounded man fancied he could read the satisfaction of one whose plans march toward success. His own teeth clicked together and the sweat started on his temples. He had to look away – or forget every consideration other than his own sense of outrage and the oath he had sworn to avenge it.

But the features of old Jim were like the solace of a reef-light in a tempest; old Jim whose son had fallen and who had forgiven without weakness.

If what Parish knew to be duty prevailed over the passionate tide that ran high in temptation, what then? Would he live to serve as shepherd when his undertaking under the private compact had been waived and the other man stood free to indulge his perfidy?

Finally he laid his hand on the shoulder of the veteran.

"Mr. Rowlett," he declared, steadily, "I've got ter ask ye ter give me full twenty-four hours afore I kin answer ye fer sartain. Will yore men agree ter hold matters es they stands twell this time termorrer?"

Jim Rowlett glanced at Hump Doane and the cripple nodded an energetic affirmation. He was hard to convince but when convinced he was done with doubt.

"I'd ruther heer Mr. Thornton talk thetaway," he declared, crisply, "then ter hev him answer up heedless an' over-hasty."

With his knee brushing against that of old Jim Rowlett, Parish Thornton rode away from that meeting, and from the sentinels in the laurel he heard no hint of sound.

When he had come to the place where his pistol lay hidden he withdrew it and replaced it in his pocket, and a little farther on where the creek wound its way through a shimmering glade and two trails branched, the veteran drew rein.

"I reckon we parts company hyar," he said, "but I feels like we've done accomplished a right good day's work. Termorrow Hump an' me'll fare over ter yore house and git yore answer."

"I'm obleeged," responded the new chief of the Thorntons, but when he was left alone he did not ride on to the house in the river bend. Instead he went to the other house upon whose door his first letter of threat had been posted, and hitching his horse in its dilapidated shed he set out on foot for the near-by place where Bas Rowlett dwelt alone.

Twenty-four hours had been all he could ask in reaching a decision on such an issue, yet before he could make answer much remained to be determined, and in that determination he must rely largely on chances which he could not hope to regulate or force into a pattern of success.

He had, for example, no way of guessing how long it would be before Bas returned to his farm or whether, when he came, he would be alone – and to-morrow's answer depended upon an unwitnessed interview between them.

But he had arrived on foot and taken up his place of concealment at the back of the log structure with only a half-hour of waiting when the other man appeared, riding in leisurely unconcern and unaccompanied.

Thornton loosed his pistol and drew back into the lee of the square stone chimney where he remained safe from discovery until the other had passed into the stable and begun to ungirth his saddle.

The house stood remote from any neighbouring habitation, and the road at its front was an infrequently used sledge trail. The stable was at its side, while back of the buildings themselves, angling off behind the screening shoulder of a steep spur of hillside, stretched a small orchard where only gnarled apple trees and a few "bee-gums" broke a small and level amphitheatre into which the possible passerby could not see.