Chapter 36

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_ CHAPTER XXXVI

As though to mask a picture of such violence the tree's heavy canopy made that spot one of Stygian murk, and even the moon hid its face just then, so that the world went black, and the stars seemed more brilliant against their inky velvet. But the light had held until the grim preparations were finished, and then when Bas Rowlett had taken his appointed place, tethered and wearing the hempen loop, when the other end of the long line had been passed through the broken slat of the closed window shutters, where it would be held by many hands in assurance against escape, Sim Squires kept his promise.

His followers trooped callously back into the house and he himself remained there, on watch, only until with the stiffness of a sleep walker Dorothy Thornton appeared for a moment in the open door and came slowly to the foot of the tree.

She could scarcely see the two men shrouded there in the profundity of shadow, and she had almost walked into the one who was to die before she realized his nearness and drew back shuddering.

Then Sim, who was holding the loose end of the rope so that it would not slacken too freely, put it in her hand and, as their fingers touched, found it icy.

"Ye'll hev ter take hold of this," he directed, "we've got t'other end indoors. When ye're ready for us--or should he seek ter git away--jest give hit a tight jerk or two. We won't interfere with ye ner come out till we gits thet signal--but don't suffer him ter parley overlong."

Then the man left her, and the woman found herself standing there in the darkness with a terrible sense of Death hovering at her shoulder.

For a moment neither spoke, and Dorothy Thornton lifted her eyes to the tree from which had always emanated an influence of peace. She needed that message of peace now. She looked at the dark human figure, robbed of its menace, robbed of all its own paltry arrogance, and the furies that had torn her ebbed and subsided into a sickness of contemptuous pity.

Then the cloud drifted away from the moon and the world stood again out of darkness into silvery light; the breeze that had brought that brightening brought, too, a low wailing voice from high overhead, where the walnut tree seemed to sob with some poignant suffering; seemed to strive for the articulate voice that nature had denied it.

That monument to honoured dead could never shed its hallowed spirit of peace again if once it had been outraged with the indignities of a gibbet! If once it bore, instead of its own sweetly wholesome produce, that debased fruit of the gallows tree, its dignity would be forever broken! There in the flooding moonlight of the white-and-blue night it was protesting with a moan of uneasy rustling. The thing could not be tolerated--and suddenly, but clearly, Dorothy knew it. This man deserved death. No false pity could blind her to that truth, and death must ride at the saddle cantle of such as he; must some day overtake him. It might overtake him to-night--but it must not be here.

"Bas," she broke out in a low and trembling voice of abrupt decision, "I kain't suffer hit ter happen--I kain't do hit."

The varied strains and terrors of that day and night had made her voice a thing of gasps and catching breath, but while the man stood silent she gathered her scattered powers and went on, ignoring him and talking to the tree.

"He needs killin', God knows," she declared, "but he mustn't die on yore branches, old Roof Tree--hit was love thet planted ye--an' love thet planted ye back ergin when hate hed tore ye up by ther roots--I kain't suffer ye ter be defiled!"

She broke off, and somehow the voice that stirred up there seemed to alter from its note of suffering to the long-drawn sigh of relief; the calm of a tranquilized spirit.

The young woman stood for a moment straight and slim, but with such an eased heart as might come from answered prayer in the cloistered dimness of a cathedral.

It was, to her, a cathedral that towered there above her, with its single column; a place hallowed by mercy, a zone of sanctuary; a spot where vengeance had always been thwarted; where malevolence had failed--and her voice came in a rapt whisper.

"Ye stands ternight fer ther same things ye've always stud fer," she said, "ye stands fer home an' decency--fer ther restin' place of dead foreparents--an' ther bornin' of new gin'rations--fer green leaves an' happiness--an' ther only death ye gives countenance to is thet of folks thet goes straight ter God, an' not them thet's destined fer torment."

Inside the room the conclave maintained a grim silence. The shuttered window screened from their sight the interview to which they were submitting with a rude sense of affording the man they had condemned some substitute for extreme unction: an interval to shrive his soul with penitence and prayer.

But through the opening of the broken slat, high up in the shutter which gave sliding room, passed the rope, and at its other end stood the man upon whose neck it was fixed: the man whose hands and feet were tethered and whose movements were being watched by the woman.

They shifted uneasily and impatiently on their feet in there. Sim Squires and Rick Joyce standing shoulder to shoulder held the free end of the rope in their hands. The others breathed heavily and their faces were implacable, restive of this time being vouchsafed to an idea, yet steadfast in their resolve to keep the word given their victim.

"She's lettin' him talk too long," growled a voice, and in monosyllables Rick Joyce growled back, "Shet up--he'll be dead a long time."

But outside Dorothy had turned again to the man.

"You an' yore foreparents hev plotted an' worked evil since ther fust days ther white man come hyar, Bas," she declared. "Thar hain't no death too shameful fer ye--an' ther hain't no hate deeper then thet I feels fer ye. Ye've betrayed an' wronged me an' everybody I ever loved, an' I swore I'd kill ye myself ef need be. I'm half sorrowful I didn't do hit--but from them fust days this hyar tree hes spread peace an' safety over this house an' them thet dwelt in hit. Hit's been holy like some church thet God hed blessed, an' I aims ter keep hit holy. Ef they hangs ye somewhars else, I reckon they'll do simple jestice--but hit hain't goin' ter be on this tree. My child hain't ergoin' ter look up in them branches an' see no shadow of evil thar. I hain't goin' ter lay buried in hits shade some day with yore black sperit hoverin' nigh. Sin ner shame hain't nuver teched hit yit. They hain't nuver ergoin' ter. Ther bright sun an' ther clean wind air goin' ter come ter hit an' find hit like hit's always been. God's breath is goin' ter stir in hit ther same es hit's always done."

Just then a heavier cloud shut off the moonlight, and still holding the rope steadily enough to prevent its sudden jerking in premature signal, she came close to Bas Rowlett and ordered in clipped syllables of contempt, "Turn round! I aims ter sot ye free."

She handed the loose rope to the man, and knowing full well the vital need of keeping it undisturbed, he held it gingerly.

The other end of that line still rested in the hands of his executioners, who waited with no suspicion of any confederacy between their victim and the woman.

Dorothy loosened the noose and slipped it from his neck, and her fingers busied themselves nervously with his wrist-knots.

She worked fast and anxiously, for she had promised to set frugal limits on the duration of that interview and the interval of clouded darkness was precious, but while she freed the cords, she talked:

"I hain't doin' this fer yore sake, Bas. Ye richly merits ter die--an' I misdoubts ef ye escapes fur--but I hain't ergoin' ter suffer ye ter contam'nate this tree--an' I aims ter give ye a few minutes' start, ef I kin."

Now she rose from the ankle fetters and the man took a step, to find himself free.

"Begone," ordered the woman, tensely. "Don't tarry--an' don't nuver let me see ye ergin'!"

She saw him cross the fence in the heavy shadow, hardly discernible even to her straining eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark. She heard the light clatter of his feet and knew that he was running, with the speed and desperation of a hounded deer, then she straightened and lifted her eyes to the rustling masses of cool serenity overhead.

Across the ranges came a warm, damp scent that promised rain, and the clouds once more parted bringing the tranquil magic of a silver-toned nocturne. The tree stood with its loftiest plumes moving lightly, as though brushing the heavens, where the clouds were flakes of opal fleece. Then the breeze stiffened a little and the branches swayed with an enhancement of movement and sound--and the murmur was that of a benediction.

Dorothy waited as long as she dared, and her soul was quiet despite the anger which she knew would shortly burst in an eruption over the threshold of her house. When she had stretched her allotted interval to its limit she gave the rope its designated signal of jerk, and saw the door swing to disgorge its impatient humanity. She saw them coming with lanterns held high, saw them halt halfway, and heard their outbursts of angry dismay when the yellow light revealed to them the absence of the victim they had left in her keeping.

But Dorothy turned and stood with her back against the great trunk and her fingers clutching at its seamed bark, and there she felt the confidence of sanctuary.

"I couldn't suffer hit--ter happen hyar," she told them in a steady voice. "Us two was married under this old tree--hit's like a church ter me--I couldn't let no man hang on hit--I turned him loose."

For an instant she thought that Sim Squires would leap upon her with all the transferred rage that she had thwarted on the eve of its glutting. The others, too, seemed to crouch, poised, waiting for their cue and signal from Sim, but Parish Thornton came over and took her in his arms.

Then with an abrupt transition of mood Sim Squires wheeled to his waiting cohorts.

"Men," he shouted, "we kain't handily blame her--she's a woman, an' I honours her fer bein' tenderhearted, but any other tree'll do jest as well! He kain't hev got fur off yit. Scatter out an' rake ther woods."

She saw them piling over the fence like a pack of human hounds, and she shuddered. The last man carried the rope, which he had paused to pull from the limb. They had already forgotten her and the man they had come to kill. They were running on a fresh scent, and were animated with renewed eagerness.

For a few minutes the two stood silent, then to their ears came a shout, and though he said nothing, the husband thought he recognized the piercing shrillness of the hunchback's voice and the resonant tones of the sheriff. He wondered if Hump Doane had belatedly received an inkling of that night's work and gathered a posse at his back.

There followed a shot--then a fusilade.

But Parish Thornton closed Dorothy in his arms and they stood alone. "Ther old tree's done worked hits magic ergin, honey," he whispered, "an' this time I reckon ther spell will last so long es we lives."

[THE END]
Charles Neville Buck's Book: Roof Tree

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