Ewing only stared at him. The other came a step nearer in his eagerness.
"You"ll be sorry if you don"t listen to me. You"re a fool, I tell you."
Ewing smiled confidently, bitterly, not relaxing his hold of the little man"s throat.
"I"m not doing it for myself."
"All the more fool!"
"For some one who couldn"t do it--who has reason to do it."
The other came nearer, clutching Ewing"s sleeve with gentle persuasion and speaking with quick intensity.
"Ah, so that"s it--she never told you! But you"re a fool. She had no reason--she was merely trying to save you from the truth about your mother, and she has let you believe his lies about herself. What a rotten fool you were to think that contemptible little mucker could ever have been anything to her. He lied to you, do you hear me? Lied to you about her, and she let you believe it--a fool herself for doing that--so you wouldn"t know the truth about your own mother."
Slowly Ewing unclasped his hands from the throat of Teevan and stood facing the son. Two phrases rang in his ears: "He lied to you about her--the truth about your mother." He put up a hand to loosen his collar. It seemed now as if he himself were being choked.
"The truth about my mother--_what_ truth about my mother?"
"Sit down there."
"_What_ truth about my mother?"
"Come--get hold of yourself. The truth that your mother happened to be my mother."
Ewing pa.s.sed a hand over his face, as if to awaken himself from some trance in which he had moved.
"Sit down there."
He felt for a chair now and sank awkwardly into it, repeating dazedly:
"My mother was your mother--" He could get no meaning from the words.
The other answered sharply:
"Your mother married my father. She left him for your father when I was a baby. Do you understand that? Mrs. Laithe knew it. He knew it--" He pointed toward the limp but breathing figure in the chair--"and she was afraid he would tell you."
He tried to take it in.
"My mother--his wife? Ah--you--you are my brother."
"That"s beside the point; but if it means anything to you, listen to me--try to understand."
Again and again he told the thing point by point, as simply as he could, while his listener stared curiously at him. The figure in the chair stirred, the head rolled, the breathing became quieter and more even, but neither gave any heed to this.
At last the incredible thing began to shape itself in Ewing"s mind, but it was not until the very last, and then it came as a sudden blinding illumination. The man in the chair drew a long, shuddering breath and opened his eyes on them. Ewing at the same moment caught the full force of the little man"s deceit. He had felt no anger toward Teevan before, but now rage grew within him as he remembered what the woman had suffered. He sprang toward Teevan, feeling no longer a specific desire to kill, but only a mad impulse to beat down and blindly destroy.
"You lied about her!" he cried, towering above the little man with clenched, threatening fists. If Teevan had retorted, had raised a hand, or betrayed anything but abject fear, shrinking in his chair, turning eyes of appeal to his son, Ewing would have vented his rage. But this died into mere loathing as he looked. Teevan was near to whimpering, in his fear. Ewing turned away with a gesture of repulsion.
"That"s best, after all," remarked the son coolly.
"Doubtless he deserves kicking more than any unkicked man alive, but you"ll be glad you didn"t do it."
Ewing shot another look at Teevan, and then said, almost as if to himself.
"How wise my mother was!" He turned again to the little man with a sudden blaze of scorn.
"And you believed I could think less of her for leaving you--leaving you for a _man_!" Teevan merely closed his eyes and cautiously raised a hand to his neck.
"You"ll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, "and so will she.
She wouldn"t have you----"
"Ah--she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why--she"s--" He broke off, glowing with a strange illumination. "Why, I left her----"
A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, then rushed from the room.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
THE TURNING OF c.o.o.nEY
When she again felt sure of her strength she began to unsaddle c.o.o.ney.
The cinches bothered her stiffened fingers, but she had them worked loose at last, and lifted the heavy saddle off, smiling grimly at her own strength. When she took off the blanket she warmed her hands a moment in its heat. Then she stripped off the bridle, and the little horse, after a moment"s mouthing to rest his jaws from the bit, fell to grazing. As he seemed inclined to stay by her, she broke a switch from one of the nearby bushes and cut him sharply. Even after this he galloped off but a little way, with astonished, resentful shakings of his head. She had wanted him to be on his way back over the miles he had come before the thing was done.
She glanced shrewdly about her. She was far away from the cabin, a night"s ride at c.o.o.ney"s best trail pace, and in a region rough and untraveled, except as an occasional way to the lower valleys. There were no trails about her, no dead camp fires, no trees rimmed by the axe or scarred by a "blaze." There was life enough of a sort; jays called harshly, and squirrels barked their alarm; and half a dozen grouse eyed her from a few yards" distance, with a sort of half-timid stupidity. But there was no life to touch hers. She walked about the chosen thicket, admiring its denseness, not notable in any way, but casual, improbable to the searching eye.
"The hardest thing!" It was satire now, and she murmured it as such, done with all fighting. It was good to antic.i.p.ate the thing, the restfulness of extinction--or not, as that might be. That was no matter.
She was beaten in this life. It was good to know that in a moment she would feel as little as Randall Teevan--or as much. She unconsciously drew herself up at the thought of facing that withered fop.
She rejoiced in the warming air. She would take a long breath of it, and then the triumphant exit. She stepped a few paces forward to peer about a low-growing spruce that had shaded her. She had a last fancy for following the echo of her shot to the farther valley wall.
As she lifted the curtain boughs the sun dazzled her. She would see its golden points, she thought, when she shut her eyes in the thicket. She shut them quickly now, to prove this, and saw the myriad dancing lights.
As she opened her eyes again and turned to draw back into the wood there was imprinted curiously on her recovering vision a silhouette of the lake cabin. She shut them quickly again, dreading memories she was forever done with, and laughing in the certainty that the cabin was miles away. Then she looked again, blinking dazedly in the sunlight, and the cabin loomed before her across the clearing.
As she stared desperately, her mind roused to frantic denials, her eyes straining to banish this monstrous figment, the door of the cabin opened and Ewing came out. She sprang forward with an impulse to shatter the illusion by some quick movement. But her eyes still beheld him, bareheaded, turning his face up to the sun. He stretched his arms and drew deep breaths. He had never seemed so tall. His look had a kind of triumph in it.
She swayed under the shock of the thing, feeling herself grow faint.
c.o.o.ney had betrayed her. Some time in the night, at one of those confusing bends in the trail, he had turned. He had brought her home.
Ewing"s head had turned as she moved; his eyes were on her. She saw the rapt gladness in his face and beheld him approach her across the clearing. She managed another step or two and gained the support of a felled tree. As Ewing came up she essayed a little smile of nonchalance.
"c.o.o.ney--" she begun. The word came itself, but she felt easier under the sound of her own voice and went on--"c.o.o.ney came with me. I didn"t go at all. I rode--but you see--" She beamed on him with explanatory embarra.s.sment--"I took an early morning ride--it was so pleasant--and I thought I was lost--indeed I did, and I took off his saddle. I left it right there--" She pointed with the literal exactness of a child in its narrative of adventure--"right there behind that tree, and then I found I was--found I was closer to home than I thought."
He had not seemed to hear her, but stood looking narrowly, as if she were still far away. Gradually his eyes widened, as if he were drawing her close to him. He took a step toward her, with arms half raised.
"I"m so ashamed--" he muttered; "but you--you let me think that."