"Think, man!"
"Joe, I can hit the trail and let you tell them I killed him," burst out Shefford in panting excitement.
"Reckon I can."
"So help me G.o.d I"ll do it!"
The Mormon turned a dark and austere glance upon Shefford.
"You mustn"t leave her. She killed him for your sake.... You must fight for her now--save her--take her away."
"But the law!"
"Law!" scoffed Joe. "In these wilds men get killed and there"s no law.
But if she"s taken back to Stonebridge those iron-jawed old Mormons will make law enough to--to... Shefford, the thing is--get her away. Once out of the country, she"s safe. Mormons keep their secrets."
"I"ll take her. Joe, will you help me?"
Shefford, even in his agitation, felt the Mormon"s silence to be a consent that need not have been asked. And Shefford had a pa.s.sionate gratefulness toward his comrade. That stultifying and blinding prejudice which had always seemed to remove a Mormon outside the pale of certain virtue suffered final eclipse; and Joe Lake stood out a man, strange and crude, but with a heart and a soul.
"Joe, tell me what to do," said Shefford, with a simplicity that meant he needed only to be directed.
"Pull yourself together. Get your nerve back," replied Joe. "Reckon you"d better show yourself over there. No one saw you come in this morning--your absence from camp isn"t known. It"s better you seem curious and shocked like the rest of us. Come on. We"ll go over. And afterward we"ll get the Indian, and plan."
They left camp and, crossing the brook, took the shaded path toward the village. Hope of saving Fay, the need of all his strength and nerve and cunning to effect that end, gave Shefford the supreme courage to overcome his horror and fear. On that short walk under the pinyons to Fay"s cabin he had suffered many changes of emotion, but never anything like this change which made him fierce and strong to fight, deep and crafty to plan, hard as iron to endure.
The village appeared very quiet, though groups of women stood at the doors of cabins. If they talked, it was very low. Henninger and Smith, two of the three Mormon men living in the village, were standing before the closed door of the school-house. A tigerish feeling thrilled Shefford when he saw them on guard there. Shefford purposely avoided looking at Fay"s cabin as long as he could keep from it. When he had to look he saw several hooded, whispering women in the yard, and Beal, the other Mormon man, standing in the cabin door. Upon the porch lay the long shape of a man, covered with blankets.
Shefford experienced a horrible curiosity.
"Say, Beal, I"ve fetched Shefford over," said Lake. "He"s pretty much cut up."
Beal wagged a solemn head, but said nothing. His mind seemed absent or steeped in gloom, and he looked up as one silently praying.
Joe Lake strode upon the little porch and, reaching down, he stripped the blanket from the shrouded form.
Shefford saw a sharp, cold, ghastly face. "WAGGONER!" he whispered.
"Yes," replied Lake.
Waggoner! Shefford remembered the strange power in his face, and, now that life had gone, that power was stripped of all disguise. Death, in Shefford"s years of ministry, had lain under his gaze many times and in a multiplicity of aspects, but never before had he seen it stamped so strangely. Shefford did not need to be told that here was a man who believed he had conversed with G.o.d on earth, who believed he had a divine right to rule women, who had a will that would not yield itself to death utterly. Waggoner, then, was the devil who had come masked to Surprise Valley, had forced a martyrdom upon Fay Larkin. And this was the Mormon who had made Fay Larkin a murderess. Shefford had hated him living, and now he hated him dead. Death here was robbed of all n.o.bility, of pathos, of majesty. It was only retribution. Wild justice!
But alas! that it had to be meted out by a white-soled girl whose innocence was as great as the unconscious savagery which she had a.s.similated from her lonely and wild environment. Shefford laid a despairing curse upon his own head, and a terrible remorse knocked at his heart. He had left her alone, this girl in whom love had made the great change--like a coward he had left her alone. That curse he visited upon himself because he had been the spirit and the motive of this wild justice, and his should have been the deed.
Joe Lake touched Shefford"s arm and pointed at the haft of a knife protruding from Waggoner"s breast. It was a wooden haft. Shefford had seen it before somewhere.
Then he was struck with what perhaps Joe meant him to see--the singular impression the haft gave of one sweeping, accurate, powerful stroke. A strong arm had driven that blade home. The haft was sunk deep; there was a little depression in the cloth; no blood showed; and the weapon looked as if it could not be pulled out. Shefford"s thought went fatally and irresistibly to Fay Larkin"s strong arm. He saw her flash that white arm and lift the heavy bucket from the spring with an ease he wondered at.
He felt the strong clasp of her hand as she had given it to him in a flying leap across a crevice upon the walls. Yes, her fine hand and the round, strong arm possessed the strength to have given that blade its singular directness and force. The marvel was not in the physical action. It hid inscrutably in the mystery of deadly pa.s.sion rising out of a gentle and sad heart.
Joe Lake drew up the blanket and shut from Shefford"s fascinated gaze that spare form, that accusing knife, that face of strange, cruel power.
"Anybody been sent for?" asked Lake of Beal.
"Yes. An Indian boy went for the Piute. We"ll send him to Stonebridge,"
replied the Mormon.
"How soon do you expect any one here from Stonebridge?"
"To-morrow, mebbe by noon."
"Meantime what"s to be done with--this?"
"Elder Smith thinks the body should stay right here where it fell till they come from Stonebridge."
"Waggoner was found here, then?"
"Right here."
"Who found him?"
"Mother Smith. She came over early. An" the sight made her scream. The women all came runnin". Mother Smith had to be put to bed."
"Who found--Mary?"
"See here, Joe, I told you all I knowed once before," replied the Mormon, testily.
"I"ve forgotten. Was sort of bewildered. Tell me again.... Who found--her?"
"The women folks. She laid right inside the door, in a dead faint. She hadn"t undressed. There was blood on her hands an" a cut or scratch. The women fetched her to. But she wouldn"t talk. Then Elder Smith come an"
took her. They"ve got her locked up."
Then Joe led Shefford away from the cabin farther on into the village.
When they were halted by the somber, grieving women it was Joe who did the talking. They pa.s.sed the school-house, and here Shefford quickened his step. He could scarcely bear the feeling that rushed over him. And the Mormon gripped his arm as if he understood.
"Shefford, which one of these younger women do you reckon your best friend? Ruth?" asked Lake, earnestly.
"Ruth, by all means. Just lately I haven"t seen her often. But we"ve been close friends. I think she"d do much for me."
"Maybe there"ll be a chance to find out. Maybe we"ll need Ruth. Let"s have a word with her. I haven"t seen her out among the women."
They stopped at the door of Ruth"s cabin. It was closed. When Joe knocked there came a sound of footsteps inside, a hand drew aside the window-blind, and presently the door opened. Ruth stood there, dressed in somber hue. She was a pretty, slender, blue-eyed, brown-haired young woman.
Shefford imagined from her pallor and the set look of shock upon her face, that the tragedy had affected her more powerfully than it had the other women. When he remembered that she had been more friendly with Fay Larkin than any other neighbor, he made sure he was right in his conjecture.
"Come in," was Ruth"s greeting.
"No. We just wanted to say a word. I noticed you"ve not been out. Do you know--all about it?"
She gave them a strange glance.