The One-Way Trail: A story of the cattle country. Cullum Ridgwell
time before either spoke, and when, at last, the silence was broken, it was by Peter’s deep mellow voice.
“I’m looking for gold in a heap of dirt, Jim,” he said, without lifting his eyes. “It’s hard to find, there’s such a pile of the–dirt.”
“Why don’t you wash it?”
“Yes, I s’pose I ought to,” Peter allowed.
Then he glanced over, and his mild eyes focused themselves on the bottle protruding from Jim’s pocket. For some moments he contemplated it, and then he looked up into his friend’s face.
“How’s the ‘AZ’s’?” he inquired casually.
“Oh, all right.”
“In for a–vacation?”
Jim stirred uneasily. There was a directness about the other’s manner that was disconcerting. He laughed mirthlessly, and shifted his position so that his bottle of whiskey was concealed.
“No,” he said. “I’m getting back–sometime to-night.”
“Ah.” Then Peter went on after a pause: “I’m glad things are going well for you. Restless told me he’d got an order from you for some buildings on your own land.”
Jim turned his eyes in the direction of the doorway and found them gazing upon Eve Marsham’s little home beyond it. As Peter offered no further comment he was finally forced to reply.
“I’ve–I’ve just canceled that order.”
“Eh?”
Jim turned on him irritably.
“Confound it, Peter, you heard what I said. I’ve canceled that order. Do you get it now?”
The large man nodded. The brains behind his mild eyes were working swiftly, shrewdly.
“Will’s in town. Been in since yesterday morning,” he said after a while. “Seen him?”
Jim suddenly sprang from his seat, the moody fire of his dark eyes blazing furiously.
“Seen him! Seen him!” he cried, with a sudden letting loose of all the bitterness and smouldering passion which had been so long pent up. “Seen him? I should say I have. I’ve seen him as he really is. I’ve seen–”
He broke off and began to pace the room. Peter was still at the table. His hands were still raking at the pile of dirt. His face was quite unmoved at the other’s evident passion; only his eyes displayed his interest.
“God! but the thought of him sets me crazy,” Jim went on furiously. Then he paused, and stood confronting the other. “Peter, I came in here without knowing why on earth I came. I came because something forced me, I s’pose. Now I know what made me come. I’ve got to get it off my chest, and you’ve got to listen to it.”
Peter’s smile was the gentlest thing imaginable.
“Guess that’s easy,” he said. “I knew there was something you’d got that wasn’t good for you to hold. Sort of fancied you’d like to get rid of it–here.”
The calm sincerity of the man was convincing. Jim felt its effect without appreciation, for the hot blood of bitterness still drove him. His wrongs were still heavy upon him, water-logging his better sense, and leaving it rudderless.
He hesitated. It was not that he did not know how to begin. It was not that he had any doubts in his mind. Just for a second he wondered at the strange influence which was forcing his story from him. It puzzled him–it almost angered him. And something of this anger appeared in his manner and tone when he spoke.
“Will Henderson’s a damned traitor,” he finally burst out.
Peter nodded.
“We’re all that,” he said gently: “if it’s only to ourselves.”
“Oh, I don’t want your moralizing,” the other cried roughly. “Listen, this is the low, mean story of it. You’ll have little enough moralizing to do when you’ve heard it.”
Then he told Peter of their meeting the day before, and of the friendly honesty of his purpose in the shooting match. How Will had accepted, shot, and lost. This part he told with a grim setting of his teeth, and it was not until he came to the story of the man’s treachery that his manner became intemperate. Then he spoke with all the color of a strongly passionate temperament, when the heart is stirred beyond all reason. And the giant listened to it, silent and attentive. What thoughts the story inspired in the listener it would have been impossible to say. His face was calm. There was no sign of any enthralled attention. There was no light in his eyes beyond the kindliness that ever seemed to shine there. And at its conclusion Jim’s underlying feeling, that almost subconscious thought which hitherto had found expression only in bitter feeling and the uncertain activities of his mind, broke out into raving.
“It’s a curse that’s on me, Peter!” he cried. “I tell you it’s a curse! I’ve never had a chance. Everything from the start has been broken just when its completion was almost achieved. When I look back I can see it written all along the path I’ve trodden, in the ruins I’ve left behind me. Why, why, I ask, am I chosen for such persecution? What have I done to deserve it? I’ve played the game. I’ve worked. God knows how I’ve worked. And everything I’ve done has come to nothing, and not because I’ve always made mistakes, or committed foolishnesses. Every smash has been brought about by influences that could not have been humanly foreseen. I’m cursed. Cursed by an evil fate it is beyond my power to fight. God? It almost makes one question. Is there a God? A good God who permits such a fate to pursue a man? Is there an all-powerful God, ruling and guiding every human action? Is there? Is there a God, a merciful, loving God watching over us, such as kiddies are taught to believe in? Is there?”
“Yes.”
Peter’s answer so readily, so firmly spoken was arresting.
“Yes, Jim. There’s a God,” he went on, without any display. “There’s a great big God–just such a God as you and I have knelt to when we were bits of kiddies. Maybe He’s so big that our poor, weak brains can’t understand Him. But He’s there, right up above us, and for every poor mean atom we call ‘man’ He’s set out a trail to walk on. It’s called the One-way Trail. And the One-way Trail is just the trail of Life. It’s chock full of pitfalls and stumbling-blocks, that make us cuss like mad. But it’s good for us to walk over it. There are no turnings or by-paths, and no turning back. And, maybe, when we get to the end something will have been achieved in His scheme of things that our silly brains can’t grasp. Yes, there is a God, Jim, and you’re just hitting the trail He’s set for you.”
But Jim was in no reasonable mood.
“Then where’s the cursed justice–” he began heatedly. But broke off as the other shrugged his great shoulders.
He waited for Peter to speak. He waited, stirred to a mad contentiousness, to tear his friend’s arguments to ribbons, and fling their broken remains back in his face. But no arguments were forthcoming. Peter understood his temper, and saw the uselessness of argument. Besides, he could smell the reek of whiskey.
He thought swiftly with all the wisdom of a great understanding and experience. And finally his manner changed utterly. He suddenly became cordially sympathetic with the other’s angry mood. He even agreed with him.
“Maybe you’re right, though, Jim,” he said. “Things have been mighty hard for you. You’ve had a heap of trouble. I can’t say I wonder at you taking it bad, and thinking things. But–but what are you going to do now? Buck the game afresh?”
Jim did not pause to think. He jumped speedily at the bait held out to him so subtly.
“Yes,” he cried, with a bitter laugh. “But it’ll be a different game. A game most folks out here sure know how to play. We’re most of us life’s derelicts. I’ll buck it, Peter, and set the devil dancing.”
The other nodded.
“I know. I know. He’s always ready to dance if we pay for the tune.”
But