Viola Gwyn Part 41

"Well, you see,--there's a dead man in there,--knifed. Blood all over everything and--"

"The man called Suggs?"

"I reckon so. Leastwise it must be him. 'Pears to be a stranger to all of us. Deader'n a door nail. He's--"

"I am not chicken-hearted, Mr. Corbin," she announced. "I have seen a good many dead men in my time. The sight of blood does not affect me. I will go in and see him. No! Please do not stay me."

Despite his protestations, she strode resolutely across the lot.

As she pa.s.sed Martin Hawk that cowering rascal stared at her, first without comprehension, then with a suddenly awakened, acute understanding.

It was she who had brought the authorities down upon him. She had made "affidavy" against him,--she had got him into this horrible mess by swearing that he stole her sheep and calves. True, he had stolen from her,--there was, no doubt about that,--but he had covered his tracks perfectly. Any one of a half-dozen men along the river might have stolen her stock,--they were stealing right and left. How then did she come to fix upon him as the one to accuse?

In a flash he leaped to a startling conclusion. Barry Lapelle! The man who knew all about his thievish transactions and who for months had profited by them. Hides, wool, fresh meats from the secret lairs and slaughter pens back in the trackless wilds, all these had gone down the river on Barry's boats, products of a far-reaching system of outlawry, with Barry and his captains sharing in the proceeds.

Now he understood. Lapelle had gone back on him, had betrayed him to his future mother-in-law. The fine gentleman had no further use for him; Mrs. Gwyn had given her consent to the marriage and in return for that he had betrayed a loyal friend! And now look at the position he was in, all through Barry Lapelle. Sheep stealing was nothing to what he might have to face. Even though Moll had done the killing, he would have a devil of a time convincing a jury of the fact. More than likely, Moll would up and deny that she had anything to do with it,--and then what? It would be like the ornery s.l.u.t to lie out of it and let 'em hang her own father, just to pay him back for the lickings he had given her.

All this raced through the fast-steadying brain of Martin Hawk as he watched his accuser pa.s.s him by without a look and stop irresolutely on his threshold to stare aghast at what lay beyond. It became a conviction, rather than a conjecture. Barry had set the dogs upon him! Snake! Well,--just let him get loose from these plagued hounds for half an hour or so and, by glory, they'd have something to hang him for or his name wasn't Martin Hawk.

Isaac Stain did not move from the spot where she had left him, over at the edge of the clearing. His rifle was ready, his keen eyes alert. Rachel Carter entered the hut. Many minutes pa.s.sed. Then she came to the door and beckoned to him.

"It is Simon Braley," she said quietly. "He is dead. The girl killed him, Isaac. Will you ride over to my farm and have Allen come over here with a wagon? They're going to take the body up to town,--and the girl, too."

Stain stood his rifle against the wall of the hut. "I guess I won't need this," was all he said as he turned and strode away.

The man called Jasper Suggs lay in front of the tumble-down fireplace, his long body twisted grotesquely by the final spasm of pain that carried him off. The lower part of his body was covered by a filthy strip of rag carpet which some one had hastily thrown over him as Rachel Carter was on the point of entering the house. His coa.r.s.e linsey s.h.i.+rt was soaked with blood, now dry and almost black. The harsh light from the open door struck full upon his bearded face and its staring eyes.

In a corner, at the foot of a straw pallet, ordinarily screened from the rest of the cabin by a couple of suspended quilts, stood Moll Hawk, leaning against the wall, her dark sullen eyes following the men as they moved about the room. The quilts, ruthlessly torn from their fastenings on the pole, lay scattered and trampled on the floor, sinister evidence of the struggle that had taken place between woman and beast. At the other end of the room were two similar pallets, unscreened, and beside one of these lay Jasper Suggs' rawhide boots.

From her place in the shadows Moll Hawk watched the other woman stoop over and gaze intently at the face of the slain man. She was a tall, well-developed girl of twenty or thereabouts. Her long, straight hair, the colour of the raven's wing, swung loose about her shoulders, an occasional strand trailing across her face, giving her a singularly witchlike appearance. Her body from the waist up was stripped almost bare; there were several long streaks of blood across her breast, where the fingers of a gory hand had slid in relaxing their grip on her shoulder. With one hand she clutched what was left of a tattered garment, vainly seeking to hide her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The stout, coa.r.s.e dress had been almost torn from her body.

Mrs. Gwyn left the hut but soon returned. After a few earnest words with the sheriff, she came slowly over to the girl. Moll shrank back against the wall, a strange glitter leaping into her sullen, lifeless eyes.

"I don't want n.o.body prayin' over me," she said huskily. "I jest want to be let alone."

"I am not going to pray over you, my girl. I want you to come out in the back yard with me, where I can wash the blood off of you and put something around you."

"What's the use'n that? They're goin' to take me to jail, ain't they?"

"Have you another frock to put on, Moll?"

The girl looked down at her torn, disordered dress, a sneering smile on her lips.

"This is all I got,--an' now look at it. I ain't had a new dress in G.o.d knows how long. Pap ain't much on dressin' me up. Mr. Lapelle he promised me a new dress but--say, who air you?"

"I am Mrs. Gwyn, Moll."

"I might ha' knowed it. You're her ma, huh? Well, I guess you'd better go on away an' let me alone. I ain't axin' no favours off'n--" "I am not trying to do you a favour. I am only trying to make you a little more presentable. You are going up to town, Moll."

"Yes,--I guess that's so. Can't they hang me here an' have it over?"

A look of terror gleamed in her eyes, but there was no flinching of the body, no tremor in her voice.

The sheriff came over. "Better let Mrs. Gwyn fix you up a little, Moll. She's a good, kind lady and she'll--"

"I don't want to go to town," whimpered the girl, covering her face with her hands. "I don't want to be hung. I jest had to do it,--I jest had to. There wuz no other way,--'cept to--'cept to--an' I jest couldn't do that. Now I wish I had,--oh, Lordy, how I wish I had! That wuz bad enough, but hangin's wuss. He wuz goin' away in a day or two, anyhow, so--"

"You're not going to be hung, Moll," broke in the sheriff. "Don't you worry about that. We don't hang women for killing men like that feller over there. Like as not you'll be set free in no time at all. All you've got to do is to tell the truth about how it happened and that'll be all there is to it."

"You're lyin' to me, jest to git me to go along quiet," she quavered, but there was a new light in her eyes.

"I'm not lying. You will have to stand trial, of course,--you understand that, don't you?--but there isn't a jury on earth that would hang you. We don't do that kind of thing to women. Now you go along with Mrs. Gwyn and do what she says,--and you can tell me all about this after a while."

"I'll wash, but I hain't got no more clothes," muttered the girl.

"We will manage somehow," said Mrs. Gwyn. "One of the men will give you a coat,--or you may have my cape to wear, Moll."

Moll looked at her in surprise. Again she said the unexpected thing.

"Why, ever'body says you air a mighty onfeelin' woman, Mis' Gwyn.

I can't believe you'd let me take your cape."

"You will see, my girl. Come! Show me where to find water and a comb and--"

"Wait a minute," said Moll abruptly. "Somehow I ain't as skeert as I wuz. You're sh.o.r.e they won't hang me? 'Ca'se I'd hate to be hung,--I'd hate to die that-away, Mister."

"They won't hang you, Moll,--take my word for it."

"Well, then," said she, bringing forward the hand she had been holding behind her back all the time; "here's the knife I done it with. It's his'n. He was braggin' last night about how many gullets he had slit with it,--I mean men's gullets. I wuz jest sort o'

hangin' onto it in case I--but I don't believe I ever could a' done it. 'Tain't 'ca'se I'm afeared to die but they say a person that takes his own life is sh.o.r.e to go to h.e.l.l--'ca'se he don't git no chance fer to repent. Take it, Mister."

She handed the big sheath-knife to the sheriff. Then she followed Rachel Carter out of the hut, apparently unconscious of the curious eyes that followed her. She pa.s.sed close by the corpse. She looked down at the ghastly face and twisted body without the slightest trace of emotion,--neither dread nor repugnance nor interest beyond a curious narrowing of the eyes as of one searching for some sign of trickery on the part of a wily adversary. On the way out she stopped to pick up a wretched, almost toothless comb and some dishrags.

"I guess we better go down to the river," she said as they stepped out into the open. "'Tain't very fer, Mrs. Gwyn,--an' the water's cleaner. Hain't no danger of me tryin' to git away," she went on, with a feeble grin as her eyes swept the little clearing, revealing armed men in all directions. Her gaze rested for a moment on Martin Hawk, who was staring at her from his seat on a stump hard by.

"There's my pap over yonder," she said, with a scowl. "He's the one that ort to be strung up fer all this. He didn't do it,--but he's to blame, just the same. They ain't got him 'rested fer doin' it, have they? 'Ca'se he didn't. He'll tell you he's as innocent as a unborn child,--he allus does,--an' he is as fer as the killin'

goes. But ef he'd done what wuz right hit never would 'a' happened.

Thet's whut I got ag'inst him."

Rachel Carter was looking at the strange creature with an interest not far removed from pity. Despite the sullen, hang-dog expression she was a rather handsome girl; wild, untutored, almost untamed she was, and yet not without a certain diffidence that bespoke better qualities than appeared on the surface. She was tall and strongly built, with the long, swinging stride of the unhampered woods-woman.

Her young shoulders and back were bent with the toil and drudgery of the life she led. Her eyes, in which lurked a never-absent gleam of pain, were dark, smouldering, deep set and so restless that one could not think of them as ever being closed in sleep.

The girl led the way down a narrow path to a little sand-bar.

"I go in swimmin' here every day, 'cept when it's froze over," she volunteered dully. "Hain't you skeert at the sight o' blood, ma'am?

Some people air. We wuz figgerin' on whuther we'd dig a grave fer him or jest pull out yonder into the current an' drop him over.

Pap said we had to git rid of him 'fore anybody come around. 'Nen the dogs begin to bark an' he thought mebby it wuz Mr. Lapelle, so he--say, you mustn't get Mr. Lapelle mixed up in this. He--"

"I know all about Mr. Lapelle, Moll," interrupted the older woman.

The girl gave her a sharp, almost hostile look. "Then you hain't goin' to let him have your girl, air you?"

Mrs. Gwyn shook her head. "No, Moll,--I am not," she said.