The Roof Tree

The lord of this manor stood bent, his fingers wrestling with the stubbornness of a rusted buckle, when he heard at his back, low of tone but startlingly staccato in its quality of imperativeness, the single syllable, "Bas!"

Rowlett wheeled, leaping back with a hand sweeping instinctively to his holster – but he arrested that belligerent gesture with a sudden paralysis of caution because of the look in the eyes of the surprise visitor who stood poised with forward-bending readiness of body, and a revolver levelled in a hand of bronze steadiness.

"I'm on my feet now, Bas," came a quiet voice that chilled the hearer with an inexplicable rigour, "I reckon ye hain't fergot my promise."

Rowlett gave way backward until the wall obstructed his retreat, and in obedience to the unspoken command in the eyes of his visitor, he extended both arms high above his head, but while he stood unmoving, his adroit mind was racing.

He knew what he would do if the situation were reversed, and he believed that the other was waiting only to punish him with a castigation of vengeful words before he shot him down and left him lying in the trampled straw and manure of that unclean stable.

Now he had to brace himself against the tortures of a physical fear from which he had believed himself immune. So he stood breathing unevenly and waiting, and while he waited the temper of his nerves was being drawn as it is drawn from over-heated steel.

"Come on with me," commanded Thornton.

The surprised man obeyed sullenly, casting an anxious eye about in the slender hope of interruption, and when they reached the orchard where even that chance ended Parish Thornton spoke again:

"When us two tuck oath ter sottle matters betwixt ourselves – I didn't skeercely foresee what was comin' ter pass. Now I kain't seek ter make ther compact hold over till a fairer time, ner seek ter change hit's terms, nuther, without ye're willin'."

"Suppose I hain't willin'?"

For answer Parish Thornton sheathed his weapon.

"Now," he said with a deadly quiet, "we're on even terms. Either you an' me draws our pistols an' fights twell one of us draps dead or else – "

He paused, and saw the face of his enemy go green and pasty as Rowlett licked his lips yet left his hands hanging at his sides. At length the intriguer demanded, "Or else – what?"

Thornton knew then beyond doubt what he already believed. This man was quailing and had no stomach for the fair combat of duel yet he would never relinquish his determination to glut his hatred by subterfuge.

"Or else ye've got ter enter inter a new compact."

"What's thet?" A ring of hope sounded in the question, since in any fresh deal lies the possibility of better fortune.

"Ter go on holdin' yore hand twell this feud business blows over – an' I sarves notice on ye thet our own private war's opened up ergin."

"I reckon," said Rowlett, seeking to masquerade his relief under the semblance of responsible self-effacement, "common decency ter other folks lays thet need on both of us alike."

"I'm offerin' ye a free choice," warned Thornton, "but onless ye're ready ter fight hyar an' now ye've p'int-blank got ter walk in thar an' set down in handwrite, with yore name signed at ther bottom, a full confession thet ye hired me shot thet night."

"Like hell I will!" Bas roared out his rejection of that alternative with his swarthy cheekbones flaming redly, and into his rapidly and shiftily working mind came the comfort of a realization which in that first surprise and terror had escaped him. It was not to his enemy's first interest to goad him into a mortal clash, since that would make it impossible to give a favourable answer to the leaders to-morrow – and incidentally it would be almost certain to mean Thornton's own death.

Now he straightened up with a ghost of renewed bravado and shook his head while an enigmatical grin twisted his lips.

"S'posin'," he made insolent suggestion, "I don't see fit ter do nuther one ner t'other? S'posin' I jest tells ye ter go ter hell?"

Parish had anticipated that question and was prepared, if he were forced so far, to back threat with execution.

"I aims ter make ye fight – or agree – either one," he answered, evenly, and when Bas laughed at him he stepped forward and, with lightning quickness, struck the other squarely across the face.

Though the blow fell open-handed it brought blood from the nose and spurts of insane fury from the eyes.

Rowlett still kept his arms down, but he lunged and sought to drive his knee to his adversary's groin, meaning to draw and fire during the moment of paralyzing pain that must ensue.

As it happened, though, Parish had also anticipated some such manœuvre of foul fighting, and he sprung aside in time to let the unbalanced Rowlett pitch stumblingly forward. When he straightened he was again looking into the muzzle of a drawn pistol.

Rowlett had been drawing his own weapon as he lunged, but now he dropped it as if it had scalded his fingers, and once more hastily raised his hands above his head.

The whole byplay was swift to such timing as belongs to sleight-of-hand, but the split-second quickness of the left-hander was as conclusively victorious as if the matter had been deliberate, and now he had margin to realize that he need not fire – for the present.

"Ef ye'd been jest a mite quicker in drawin', Bas," he declared, ironically, "or jest a mite tardier in throwin' down thet gun – I'd hev hed ter kill ye. Now we kin talk some more."

The conflict of wills was over and Rowlett's voice changed to a whine as he asked beseechingly: "What proof hev I got ye won't show ther paper ter some outsider afore we fights hit out?"

"Ye've got my pledge," answered Thornton, disdainfully, "an' albeit ye knows ye don't keep 'em yoreself, ye knows thet I don't nuver break 'em. Ye've got ther knowledge, moreover, thet I hain't a-goin' ter be content save ter sottle this business with ye fust handed – man ter man." He paused there, and his tone altered when he continued: "Thet paper'll lay whar no man won't nuver see hit save myself – unless ye breaks yore word. Ef I gits murdered, one man'll know whar thet paper's at – but not what's in hit. He'll give hit over ter ther Harpers an' they'll straightway hunt ye down an' kill ye like a mad dog. What does ye say?"

The other stood with face demoniacally impassioned, yet fading into the pasty gray of fear – the fear that was the more unmanageable because it was a new emotion which had never risen to confront him before.

"I knows when I've got ter knock under," he made sullen admission, at last, "an' thet time's done come now. But I hain't ther only enemy ye've got. S'pose atter all ther war breaks out afresh an' ye gits slain in battle – or in some fray with other men. Then I'd hev ter die jest ther same, albeit I didn't hev no hand in ther matter."

Thornton laughed.

"I hain't seekin' ter make ye gorryntee my long life, Bas. Ef I falls in any pitch-battle or gits kilt in a fashion thet's p'intedly an outside matter, ye hain't a-goin' ter suffer fer hit."

As the long-drawn breath went out between the parted lips of Bas Rowlett he wilted into a spectacle of abject surrender, then turning he led the way to the house, found pencil and paper, and wrote laboriously as the other dictated. At the end he signed his name.

Then Parish Thornton said, "Now I aims ter hev ye walk along with me till I gits my horse an' starts home. I don't 'low ter trust ye till this paper's put in a safe place, an' should we meet up with anybody don't forgit – I won't fail ter shoot ef ye boggles!"

CHAPTER XX

The sun, dropping into a western sea of amber and opal, seemed to grow in diameter. Then it dipped until only a naming segment showed and the barriers darkened against the afterglow.

Still Parish Thornton had not come home and Dorothy standing back of the open window pressed both hands over eyes that burned ember hot in their sockets.

Old Aaron Capper had mounted his horse a half-hour ago and ridden away somewhere – and she knew that he, too, had begun to fret against this insupportable waiting, and had set out on the unpromising mission of searching for the ambassador – who might already be dead.

A nervous chill shook the girl and she started up from the seat into which she had collapsed; frightened at the incoherent lack of sanity that sounded from her own throat.

She went again to the door and looked out into a world that the shadows had taken, save where the horizon glowed with a pallid green at the edge of darkness. Leaning limply against the uprights of the frame and clasping her hands to her bosom, she distrusted her senses when she fancied she heard voices and saw two horsemen draw up at the stile and swing down from their saddles. Then she crumpled slowly down, and when Aaron and Parish Thornton reached the house they found her lying there insensible.

They carried her to the four-poster bed and chafed her wrists and poured white whiskey between her pale lips until she opened her eyes in the glow of the lighted lamp.

"Did they hearken ter ye?" she whispered, and the man nodded his head.

"I compassed what I aimed at," he told her, brokenly, "but when I seed ye layin' thar, I feared me hit hed done cost too dear."

"I'm all right now," she declared five minutes later; "I war jest terrified about ye. I had nervous treemors."

The stars were hanging low and softly magnified when Aaron Capper mounted to ride away, and at the stile he leaned in his saddle and spoke in a melancholy vein.

"I seeks ter be a true Christian," he said, "an' I ought ter be down on my marrow-bones right now givin' praise an' thanksgivin' ter ther Blessed Lord, who's done held back ther tormints of tribulation, but – " he broke off there and his voice trailed off into something like an internal sob – "but yit hit seems ter me like es ef my three boys air sleepin' res'less an' oneasy-like in th'ar graves ternight."

Parish Thornton laid a hand on the horseman's knee.

"Aaron," he admitted, "I was called on ter give a pledge of faith over yon – an' I promised ter bide my time, too. I reckon I kin feel fer ye."

Informal and seemingly loose of organization was that meeting of the next afternoon when three Harpers and three Doanes met where the shade of the walnut tree fell across dooryard and roadway. The sun burned scorchingly down, and waves of heat trembled vaporously along the valley, while over the dusty highway small flocks of white and lemon butterflies hung drifting on lazy wings. From the deep stillness of the forest came the plaintive mourning of a dove.

Jim Rowlett, Hump Doane, and another came as representatives of the Doanes, and Parish Thornton, Aaron Capper, and Lincoln Thornton met them as plenipotentiaries of the Harpers.

When commonplaces of greeting had ended, Jim Rowlett turned to Aaron Capper as the senior of his group:

"Aaron," he said, "this land's hurtin' fer peace an' human charity. We craves hit, an' Mr. Thornton hyar says you wants hit no less. We've come ter git yore answer now."

"Jim," responded Aaron, gravely, "from now on, I reckon when ye comes ter ther Harpers on any sich matter as thet Parish Thornton's ther man ter see. He stands in Caleb Harper's shoes."

That was the simple coronation ceremony which raised the young man from Virginia to the position of responsibility for which he had had no wish and from which he now had no escape. It was his acknowledgment by both clans, and to him again turned Jim Rowlett, with an inexpressible anxiety of questioning in his aged eyes.

Then Parish Thornton held out his hand.

"I'm ready," he said, "ter give ye my pledge an' ter take your'n."

The two palms met and the fingers clasped, and into six unemotional faces flashed an unaccustomed fire.

"Thar's jest one thing more yit," suggested the practical minded hunchback. "Some few wild fellers on both sides of ther line air apt ter try out how strong we be ter enfo'ce our compact. Hit's kinderly like young colts plungin' ergainst a new hand on ther bridle-rein – we've got ter keep cool-headed an' patient an' ack tergether when a feller like thet shows up."

Parish Thornton nodded, and Hump Doane took off his hat and ran his hand through his bristling hair.

"An' now," he announced, "we'll ride on home an' pass ther word along thet matters stands es they stud in old Caleb's day an' time." He paused then, noting the weariness on the face of Jim Rowlett, added tentatively: "All of us, thet is ter say, save Old Jim. He's sorely tuckered out, an' I reckon ef ye invited him ter stay ther night with ye, Mr. Thornton, hit would be a kinderly charitable act."

"He's mighty welcome," declared the host, heartily.

"Dorothy'll look atter him like his own daughter an' see that he gits enjoyed."

* * *

At Jake Crabbott's store the loungers were in full attendance on the morning after Parish Thornton's ride to Hump Doane's house, and the rumours that found currency there were varied and for the most part inaccurate. But the fact that Parish Thornton had ridden through picketed woods, promulgated some sort of ultimatum and come away unharmed, had leaked through and endowed him with a fabulous sort of interest.

Young Pete Doane was there, and since he was the son of the man under whose roof the stirring drama had been staged, he assumed a magnified importance and affected a sphinx-like silence of discretion to mask his actual ignorance. Hump Doane did not confide everything he knew to this son whom he at once loved and disdained.

Young Doane stood indulging in rustic repartee with bright-eyed Elviry Prooner, a deep-bosomed Diana, who, next to Dorothy Thornton, was accounted the "comeliest gal along siv'ral creeks."

When Bas Rowlett joined the group, however, interest fell promptly away from Pete and centred around this more legitimate pole. But Bas turned on them all a sullenly uncommunicative face, and the idlers were quick to recognize and respect his unapproachable mood and to stand wide of his temper.

After he had bought twist tobacco and lard and salt and chocolate drops, Bas summoned Pete away from his temporary inamorata with an imperative jerk of his head and the youthful hillsman responded with the promptness of a lieutenant receiving instructions from his colonel. When the two were mounted, the son of the hunchback gained a more intimate knowledge of actual conditions than he had been able to glean at home.

"Ther upshot of ther matter's this, Pete," declared Bas, earnestly. "Sam Opdyke lef' thet meetin' yestidday with his mind made up ter slay this man Thornton – an' ther way things hev shaped up now, hit won't no fashion do. He's got ter be halted – an' I kain't afford ter be knowd in ther matter one way ner t'other. Go see him an' tell him he'll incense everybody an' bring on hell's own mischief ef he don't hold his hand. Tell him his chanst'll come afore long but right now, I say he's got ter quit hit."

An hour later the fiery-tempered fellow, still smarting because his advice had been spurned yesterday, straightened up from the place outside his stable door where he was mending a saddle girth and listened while the envoy from Bas Rowlett preached patience.

But it was Bas himself who had coached Sam Opdyke with the incitement and inflammatory counsel which he had voiced the day before. Now the man had taken fire from the flames of his own kindling – and that fire was not easy to quench. He had been, at first, a disciple but he had converted himself and had been contemptuously treated into the bargain. The grievance he paraded had become his own, and the nature Bas had picked for such a purpose was not an April spirit to smile in sunlight twenty-four hours after it had fulminated in storm.

Opdyke gazed glumly at his visitor, as he listened, then he lied fluently in response.

"All right. I had my say yestidday an' now I'm done. Next time ther circuit-rider holds big meetin' I'm comin' through ter ther mourners' bench an' howl out sanctimony so loud I'll bust everybody's eardrums," and the big man laughed sneeringly.

Yet an hour later Opdyke was greasing and loading his squirrel gun.

* * *

When the supper dishes had been cleared away that night, Old Jim and Parish Thornton sat for a long while in the front room, and because it was a sultry night and peace had been pledged, both door and window stood open.

Dorothy sat listening while they talked, and the theme which occupied them was the joint effort that must be made on either side the old feud line for the firm enforcement of the new treaty. They discussed plans for catching in time and throttling by joint action any sporadic insurgencies by which the experimentally minded might endeavour to test their strength of leadership.

"Now thet we stands in accord," mused Old Jim, "jestice kin come back ter ther cote-house ergin – an' ther jedge won't be terrified ter dispense hit, with me sittin' on one side of him an' you on t'other. Men hev mistrusted ther law so long es one crowd held all hits power."

Outside along the roadside margin of deep shadow crept the figure of a man with a rifle in his hand. It was a starlit night with a sickle of new moon, neither bright nor yet densely dark, so that shapes were opaquely visible but not clear-cut or shadow-casting.

The man with the long-barrelled rifle none the less avoided the open road and edged along the protecting growth of heavy weed stalk and wild rose thicket until he came to a point where the heavier shadow of the big walnut tree blotted all shapes into blackness. There he cautiously climbed the fence, taking due account of the possible creaking-of unsteady rails.

"I'd love ter see men enabled ter confidence ther co'te ergin," said Parish Thornton, answering his old guest after a long and meditative silence. "Hit would ease a heap of torment. Up ter now they've hed ter trust tha'r rifle-guns."

As he spoke his eyes went to the wall by the door where during these weeks of disuse his own rifle had stood leaning, and his wife smiled as her glance followed his. She was thinking that soon both his arms would be strong enough to use it again, and she was happy that he would need it only for hunting.

The man outside had by this time gained the dooryard and stood beside the tree trunk where the shadow was deepest. He raised his long barrel and steadied it against the bark, not knowing that as coincidence would have it the metal rested against those initials which had been carved there generations before, making of the tree itself a monument to the dead.

Through the raised window he could see two heads in the lamplight; those of Parish Thornton and his wife, and it was easy to draw his sights upon the point just below the left shoulder blade of the man's back. Old Man Rowlett sat too far to one side to be visible.

High in the top of the walnut a shattered branch had hung in a hair balance since the great storm had stricken it. High winds had more than once threatened to bring this dead wood down, yet it had remained there, out of reach and almost out of sight but still precariously lodged.

The wind to-night was light and capricious, yet it was just as the man, who was using that tree as an ambush, established touch between finger and trigger, that the splintered piece of timber broke away from its support and ripped its way noisily downward until a crotch caught and held it. Startled by that unexpected alarm from above, given as though the tree had been a living sentinel, the rifleman jerked his gun upward as he fired.

The bullet passed through the window to bury itself with a spiteful thud in the wall above the hearth. Both men and the woman came to their feet with astonished faces turned toward the window.

Parish Thornton reached for the pistol which he had laid on the mantel, but before he had gained the door he saw Dorothy flash past him, seizing his rifle as she went, and a few seconds later he heard the clean-lipped snap of its voice in a double report.

"I got him," panted the young woman, as her husband reached her side. "Git down low on ther ground!" She did likewise as she added in a guarded whisper, "I shot at his legs, so he's still got his rifle an' both hands. He drapped right thar by ther fence."

They went back into the house and old Jim Rowlett said grimly: "Now let me give an order or two. Thornton, you fotch yore pistol. Gal, you bring thet rifle-gun an' give me a lantern. Then come out ther back door an' do what I tells ye."

A few minutes later the voice of the old Doane was raised from the darkness:

"Whoever ye be over yon," it challenged, "lift up both yore hands. I'm a-goin' ter light a lantern now an' come straight to'rds ye – but thar's a rifle-gun ter ther right of ye an' a pistol ter ther left of ye – an' ef ye makes a false move both of 'em'll begin shootin'."

Out there by the fence a voice answered sullenly in recognition of the speaker – and realization of failure: "I hain't ergoin' ter shoot no more. I gives up."

CHAPTER XXI

They helped Opdyke into the house and bandaged a wound in his leg, but old Jim sat looking on with a stony face, and when the first aid had been administered he said shortly: "Parish Thornton an' me hev jest been a-studyin' erbout how ter handle ther likes of you. Ye come in good season – an' so fur as kin be jedged from ther place whar thet ball hit, no man kin say which one of us ye shot at. We aims ter make a sample of ye, fer others ter regulate theirselves by, an' I reckon ye're goin' ter sulter in ther penitenshery fer a spell of y'ars."

And when County Court day came there rode into town men of both factions, led by Hump Doane and Parish Thornton, and the courtroom benches were crowded with sightseers eager to hear that examining trial. It had been excitedly rumoured that Opdyke would have something of defiant insurgency to say and that perhaps a force would be found at his back sufficiently strong to give grim effect to his words.

The defendant himself had not been "hampered in the jail-house" but had walked free on his own recognizance, and, if report were true, he had been utilizing his freedom to organize his sympathizers for resistance. All in all, it promised to be a court day worth attending, with a measuring of neighbourhood influences, open and hidden.

Now the judge ascended the bench and rapped with his gavel, and when the name of Sam Opdyke was called, heads craned, feet shuffled, and an oppressive silence fell.

Then down the centre aisle, from rear door to crescent-shaped counsel table, stalked Opdyke himself with a truculent glitter in his eyes and a defiant swing to his shoulders, though he still limped from his recent wounding. A pace behind him walked two black-visaged intimates.

He looked neither to right nor left, but held the eyes of the man on the bench, and the judge, who was slight of stature, with straw-coloured hair and a face by no means imposing or majestic, returned his glance unwaveringly.

Then at the bar Opdyke halted, with nothing of the suppliant in his bearing. He thrust a hand into each coat pocket, and with an eloquent ringing of ironmongery, slammed a brace of heavy revolvers on the table before him. The two henchmen stood silent, each with right hand in right pocket.

"I heered my name called," announced the defendant in a deep-rumbling voice of challenge, "an' hyar I be – but, afore God on high, I aims ter git me jestice in this co'te!"

Had the man on the bench permitted the slightest ripple of anxiety to disconcert his steadfastness of gaze just then pandemonium was ripe for breaking in his courtroom. But the judge looked down with imperturbable calm as though this were the accustomed procedure of his court, and when a margin of pause had intervened to give his words greater effect he spoke in a level voice that went over the room and filled it, and he spoke, not to the defendant, but to Joe Bratton the "high-sheriff" of that county.

"Mr. Sheriff," he said, slowly and impressively, "the co'te instructs you to disarm Sam Opdyke an' put him under arrest fer contempt. An', Mr. Sheriff, when I says ter arrest him … I mean to put him in ther jail … an' I don't only mean to put him in ther jail but in a cell and leave him there till this co'te gets ready for him. When this co'te is ready, it will let you know." He paused there in the dead hush of an amazed audience, then continued on an even key: "An', Mr. Sheriff, if there's any disquiet in your mind about your ability to take this prisoner into custody, an' hold him securely in such custody, the co'te instructs you that you are empowered by law to call into service as your posse every able-bodied man in the jurisdiction of this county… Moreover, Mr. Sheriff, the co'te suggests that when you get ready to summons this posse – an' it had ought to be right here an' now – you call me fer the fust man to serve on it, an' that you call Hump Doane and Parish Thornton fer ther second an' third men on it…"