'Firebrand' Trevison Part 33

Civilization and outlawry were strangely mingled here. She would not have been surprised to see the lean-faced man begin to shoot at the others.

Filled with sudden trepidation she took a step away from the shed, intending to return to the station and wait for her answer.

As she moved she heard a low moan. She started, paling, and then stood stock still, trembling with dread, but determined not to run. The sound came again, seeming to issue from the interior of the shed, and she retraced her step and leaned again against the wall of the building, listening.

There was no mistaking the sound--someone was in trouble. But she wanted to be certain before calling for help and she listened again to hear an unmistakable pounding on the wall near her, and a voice, calling frenziedly: "Help, help--for G.o.d's sake!"

Her fears fled and she sprang to the door, finding it locked. She rattled it, impotently, and then left it and ran across the street to where the window-washer stood. He wheeled and spat copiously, almost in her face, as she rapidly told him her news, and then deliberately dropped his brush and cloth into the dust and mud at his feet and jumped after her, across the street.

"Who's in here?" demanded the man, hammering on the door.

"It's I--Judge Lindman! Open the door! Hurry! I'm smothering--and hurt!"

In what transpired within the next few minutes--and indeed during the hours following--the girl felt like an outsider. No one paid any attention to her; she was shoved, jostled, buffeted, by the crowd that gathered, swarming from all directions. But she was intensely interested.

It seemed to her that every person in Manti gathered in front of the shed--that all had heard of the abduction of the Judge. Some one secured an iron bar and battered the lock off the door; a half-dozen men dragged the Judge out, and he stood in front of the building, swaying in the hands of his supporters, his white hair disheveled, his lips blood-stained and smashed, where Corrigan had hit him. The frenzy of terror held him, and he looked wildly around at the tiers of faces confronting him, the cords of his neck standing out and writhing spasmodically. Twice he opened his lips to speak, but each time his words died in a dry gasp. At the third effort he shrieked:

"I--I want protection! Don't let him touch me again, men! He means to kill me! Don't let him touch me! I--I've been attacked--choked--knocked insensible! I appeal to you as American citizens for protection!"

It was fear, stark, naked, cringing, that the crowd saw. Faces blanched, bodies stiffened; a concerted breath, like a sigh, rose into the flat, desert air. Rosalind clenched her hands and stood rigid, thrilling with pity.

"Who done it?" A dozen voices asked the question.

"Corrigan!" The Judge screamed this, hysterically. "He is a thief and a scoundrel, men! He has plundered this county! He has prost.i.tuted your court. Your judge, too! I admit it. But I ask your mercy, men! I was forced into it! He threatened me! He falsified the land records! He wanted me to destroy the original record, but I didn't--I told Trevison where it was--I hid it! And because I wouldn't help Corrigan to rob you, he tried to kill me!"

A murmur, low, guttural, vindictive, rippled over the crowd, which had now swelled to such proportions that the street could not hold it. It fringed the railroad track; men were packed against the buildings surrounding the shed; they shoved, jostled and squirmed in an effort to get closer to the Judge. The windows of the _Castle_ hotel were filled with faces, among which Rosalind saw Hester Harvey's, ashen, her eyes aglow.

The Judge's words had stabbed Rosalind--each like a separate knife-thrust; they had plunged her into a mental vacuum in which her brain, atrophied, reeled, paralyzed. She staggered--a man caught her, muttered something about there being too much excitement for a lady, and gruffly ordered others to clear the way that he might lead her out of the jam. She resisted, for she was determined to stay to hear the Judge to the end, and the man grinned hugely at her; and to escape the glances that she could feel were directed at her she slipped through the crowd and sought the front of the shed, leaning against it, weakly.

A silence had followed the murmur that had run over the crowd. There was a breathless period, during which every man seemed to be waiting for his neighbor to take the initiative. They wanted a leader. And he appeared, presently--a big, broad-shouldered man forced his way through the crowd and halted in front of the Judge.

"I reckon we'll protect you, Judge. Just spit out what you got to say.

We'll stand by you. Where's Trevison?"

"He came to the courthouse last night to get the record. I told him where it was. He forced me to go with him to an Indian pueblo, and he kept me there yesterday. He left me there last night with Clay Levins, while he came here to get the record."

"Do you reckon he got it?"

"I don't know. But from the way Corrigan acted last night--"

"Yes, yes; he got it!"

The words s.h.i.+fted the crowd's gaze to Rosalind, swiftly. The girl had hardly realized that she had spoken. Her senses, paralyzed a minute before, had received the electric shock of sympathy from a continued study of the Judge's face. She saw remorse on it, regret, shame, and the birth of a resolution to make whatever reparation that was within his power, at whatever cost. It was a weak face, but it was not vicious, and while she had been standing there she had noted the lines of suffering. It was not until the girl felt the gaze of many curious eyes on her that she realized she had committed herself, and her cheeks flamed. She set herself to face the stares; she must go on now.

"It's Benham's girl!" she heard a man standing near her whisper hoa.r.s.ely, and she faced them, her chin held high, a queer joy leaping in her heart.

She knew at this minute that her sympathies had been with Trevison all along; that she had always suspected Corrigan, but had fought against the suspicion because of the thought that in some way her father might be dragged into the affair. It had been a cowardly att.i.tude, and she was glad that she had shaken it off. As her brain, under the spur of the sudden excitement, resumed its function, her thoughts flitted to the agent's babble during the time she had been sending the telegram to her father.

She talked rapidly, her voice carrying far:

"Trevison got the record last night. He stopped at my ranch and showed it to me. I suppose he was going to the pueblo, expecting to meet Levins and Lindman there--"

"By G.o.d!" The big, broad-shouldered man standing at Judge Lindman's side interrupted her. He turned and faced the crowd. "We're d.a.m.ned fools, boys--lettin' this thing go on like we have! Corrigan's took his deputies out, trailin' Trevison, chargin' him with murderin' Braman, when his real purpose is to get his claws on that record! Trevison's been fightin' our fight for us, an' we've stood around like a lot of gillies, lettin' him do it! It's likely that a man who'd cook up a deal like the Judge, here, says Corrigan has, would cook up another, chargin' Trevison with guzzlin' the banker. I've knowed Trevison a long time, boys, an' I don't believe he'd _guzzle_ anybody--he's too square a man for that!" He stood on his toes, raising his clenched hands, and bringing them down with a sweep of furious emphasis.

The crowd swayed restlessly. Rosalind saw it split apart, men fighting to open a pathway for a woman. There were shouts of: "Open up, there!" "Let the lady through!" "Gangway!" "She's got somethin' to say!" And the girl caught her breath sharply, for she recognized the woman as Hester Harvey.

It was some time before Hester reached the broad-shouldered man's side.

There was a stain in each of her cheeks, but outwardly, at least, she showed none of the excitement that had seized the crowd; her movements were deliberate and there was a resolute set to her lips. She got through, finally, and halted beside the big man, the crowd closing up behind her.

She was swallowed in it, lost to sight.

"Lift her up, Lefingwell!" suggested a man on the outer fringe. "If she's got anything to say, let us all hear it!" The suggestion was caught up, insistently.

"If you ain't got no objections, ma'am," said the big man. He stooped at her cold smile and swung her to his shoulder. She spoke slowly and distinctly, though there was a tremor in her voice:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU MEN ARE BLIND. CORRIGAN IS A CROOK WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING."]

"Trevison did not kill Braman--it was Corrigan. Corrigan was in my room in the _Castle_ last night just after dark. When he left, I watched him from my window, after putting out the light. He had threatened to kill Braman.

I watched him cross the street and go around to the rear of the bank building. There was a light in the rear room of the bank. After a while Braman and Corrigan entered the banking room. The light from the rear room shone on them for an instant and I recognized them. They were at the safe.

When they went out they left the safe door open. After a while the light went out and I saw Corrigan come from around the rear of the building, recross the street and come into the _Castle_. You men are blind. Corrigan is a crook who will stop at nothing. If you let him injure Trevison for a crime that Trevison did not commit you deserve to be robbed!"

Lefingwell swung her down from his shoulder.

"I reckon that cinches it, boys!" he bellowed over the heads of the men nearest him. "There ain't nothin' plainer! If we stand for this we're a bunch of cowardly coyotes that ain't fit to look Trevison in the face! I'm goin' to help him! Who's comin' along?"

A chorus of shouts drowned his last words; the crowd was in motion, swift, with definite purpose. It melted, streaming off in all directions, like the sweep of water from a bursted dam. It broke at the doors of the buildings; it sought the stables. Men bearing rifles appeared in the street, mounting horses and congregating in front of the _Belmont_, where Lefingwell had gone. Other men, on the board sidewalk and in the dust of the street, were running, shouting, gesticulating. In an instant the town had become a bedlam of portentous force; it was the first time in its history that the people of Manti had looked with collective vision, and the girl reeled against the iron wall of the shed, appalled at the resistless power that had been set in motion. On a night when she sat on the porch of the Bar B ranchhouse she had looked toward Manti, thrilled over a pretty mental fancy. She had thought it all a game--wondrous, joyous, progressive. She had neglected to a.s.sociate justice with it then--the inexorable rule of fairness under which every player of the game must bow. She brought it into use now, felt the spirit of it, saw the dire tragedy that its perversion portended, groaned, and covered her face with her hands.

She looked around after a while. She saw Judge Lindman walking across the street toward the _Castle_, supported by two other men. A third followed; she did not know him, but Corrigan would have recognized him as the hotel clerk who had grown confidential upon a certain day. The girl heard his voice as he followed after the Judge and the others--raucous, vindictive:

"We need men like Trevison in this town. We can get along without any Corrigans."

She heard a voice behind her and she turned, swiftly, to see Hester Harvey walking toward her. She would have avoided the meeting, but she saw that Hester was intent on speaking and she drew herself erect, bowing to her with cold courtesy as the woman stopped within a step of her and smiled.

"You look ready to flop into hysterics, dearie! Won't you come over to my room with me and have something to brace you up? A cup of tea?" she added with a laugh as Rosalind looked quickly at her. She did not seem to notice the stiffening of the girl's body, but linked her arm within her own and began to walk across the street. The girl was racked with emotion over the excitement of the morning, the dread of impending violence, and half frantic with anxiety over Trevison's safety. Hester's offense against her seemed vague and far, and very insignificant, relatively. She yearned to exchange confidences with somebody--anybody, and this woman, even though she were what she thought her, had a capacity for feeling, for sympathy.

And she was very, very tired of it all.

"It was fierce, wasn't it?" said Hester a few minutes later in the privacy of her room, as she balanced her cup and watched Rosalind as the girl ate, hungrily. "These sagebrush rough-necks out here will make Corrigan hump himself to keep out of their way. But he deserves it, the crook!"

The girl looked curiously at the other, trying hard to reconcile the vindictiveness of these words and the woman's previous action in giving damaging testimony against Corrigan, with the significant fact that Corrigan had been in her room the night before, presumably as a guest.

Hester caught the look and laughed. "Yes, dearie, he deserves it. How much do you know of what has been going on here?"

"Very little, I am afraid."

"Less than that, I suspect. I happen to know considerable, and I am going to tell you about it. My trip out here has been a sort of a wild-goose chase. I thought I wanted Trevison, but I've discovered I'm not badly hurt by his refusal to resume our old relations."

The girl gasped and almost dropped her cup, setting it down slowly afterward and staring at her hostess with doubting, fearing, incredulous eyes.

"Yes, dearie," laughed the other, with a trace of embarra.s.sment; "you can trust your ears on that statement. To make certain, I'll repeat it: I am not very badly hurt by his refusal to resume our old relations. Do you know what that means? It means that he turned me down cold, dearie."

"Do you mean--" began the girl, gripping the table edge.

"I mean that I lied to you. The night I went over to Trevison's ranch he told me plainly that he didn't like me one teenie, weenie bit any more. He wouldn't kiss me, shake my hand, or welcome me in any way. He told me he'd got over it, the same as he'd got over his measles days--he'd outgrown it and was going to throw himself at the feet of another G.o.ddess. Oh, yes, he meant you!" she laughed, her voice a little too high, perhaps, with an odd note of bitterness in it. "Then, determined to blot my rival out, I lied about you. I told him that you loved Corrigan and that you were in the game to rob him of his land. Oh, I blackened you, dearie! It hurt him, too. For when a man like Trevison loves a woman--"