Told in the Hills: A Novel

He saw it all the moment he was inside the door – the refined face of Stuart, with the graciousness of manner so evidently acceptable to all, the sheets of manuscript still in his fingers, looking as he stood there like the ruling spirit of the cheery circle; and just outside that circle, though inside the door, he – Genesee – stood alone, the fact sharply accented by Miss Fred's significant movement; and with the remembrance of the fact came the quick, ever-ready spirit of bravado, and his head was held a trifle higher as he smiled down at her in apparent unconcern.

"If it is going to make Aunty Luce feel more comfortable to have company, I'm ready to own up that my hair raised the hat off my head at first sight of her – isn't quite settled into place yet;" and he ran his fingers through the mass of thick, dark hair. "How's that, Aunty?"

"Umph!" she grunted, crouching closer to the wall, and watching him distrustfully from the extreme corner of her eye.

"Have you ever been scared so badly you couldn't yell, Aunty?" he asked, with a bland disregard of the fact that she was just then in danger of roasting herself on the hearth for the purpose of evading him. "No? That's the way you fixed me a little while back, sure enough. I was scared too badly to run, or they never would have caught me."

The only intelligible answer heard from her was: "Go 'long, you!"

He did not "go 'long." On the contrary, he wheeled about in Tillie's chair, and settled himself as if that corner was especially attractive, and he intended spending the evening in it – a suggestion that was a decided surprise to all, even to Rachel, remembering his late conservatism.

Stuart was the only one who realized that it was perhaps a method of proving by practical demonstration the truth of his statement that he was a Pariah among the class who received the more refined character with every welcome. It was a queer thing for a man to court slights, but once inside the door, his total unconcern of that which had been a galling mortification to him was a pretty fair proof of Stuart's theory. He talked Indian wars to Hardy, and Indian love-songs to Hardy's wife. He coolly turned his attention to Lieutenant Murray, with whom his acquaintance was the slightest, and from the Lieutenant to Miss Fred, who was amused and interested in what was, to her, a new phase of a "squaw man;" and her delight was none the less keen because of the ineffectual attempts in any way to suppress this very irregular specimen, whose easy familiarity was as silencing as his gruff curtness had been the day they met him first.

Beyond an occasional remark, his notice was in no way directed to Rachel – in fact, he seemed to avoid looking at her. He was much more interested in the other two ladies, who by degrees dropped into a cordiality on a par with that of Aunty Luce; and he promptly took advantage of it by inviting Miss Fred to go riding with him in the morning.

The man's impudence and really handsome face gave Fred a wicked desire to accept, and horrify the Lieutenant and Tillie; but one glance at that little matron told her it would not do.

"I have an engagement to ride to-morrow," she said rather hurriedly, "else – "

"Else I should be your cavalier," he laughed. "Ah, well, there are more days coming. I can wait."

A dead silence followed, in which Rachel caught the glance Genesee turned on Stuart – a smile so mirthless and with so much of bitter irony in it that it told her plainly as words that the farce they had sat through was understood by those two men, if no others; and, puzzled and eager to break the awkward silence, she tried to end it by stepping into the breach.

"You have totally forgotten the story you were to tell us," she said, pointing to the sheets of manuscript in Stuart's hand; "if we are to have it to-night, why not begin?"

"Certainly; the story, by all means," echoed Fred. "We had it scared out of our heads, I guess, but our nerves are equal to it now. Are you fond of stories, Mr. – Mr. Genesee?"

"Uncommonly."

"Well, Mr. Stuart was about to read us one just as you came in: one he wrote since he came up in these wilds – at the Fort, didn't you say, Mr. Stuart? You know," she added, turning again to Genesee – "you know Mr. Stuart is a writer – a romancer."

"Yes," he answered slowly, looking at the subject of their discourse as if examining something rare and curious; "I should reckon – he – might be."

The contempt in the tone sent the hot blood to Stuart's face, his eyes glittering as ominously as Genesee's own would in anger. An instant their gaze met in challenge and retort, and then the sheets of paper were laid deliberately aside.

"I believe, after all, I will read you something else," he said, reaching for one of the rolls of manuscript on the table; "that is, with your permission. It is not a finished story, only the prologue. I wrote it in the South, and thought I might find material for the completion of it up here; perhaps I may."

"Let us have that, by all means," urged Tillie.

"What do you call it?"

"I had not thought of a title, as the story was scarcely written with the idea of publication. The theme, however, which is pretty fairly expressed in the quotation at the beginning, may suggest a title. I will leave that to my audience."

"And we will all put on our thinking-caps and study up a title while you tell the story, and when it is ended, see which has the best one to offer. It will be a new sort of game with which to test our imaginations. Go on. What is the quotation, to begin with?"

To the surprise of the listeners, he read that old command from Deuteronomy, written of brother to brother:

"Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray; thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.

"And with all lost things of thy brother's, which he hath lost and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise.

"In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down."

Stuart ceased after those lines, and looked for comment. He saw enough in the man's face opposite him.

"Oh, go on," said Rachel. "Never mind about the suggestions in that heading – it is full of them; give us the story."

"It is only the prologue to a story," he reminded her; and with no further comment began the manuscript.

Its opening was that saddest of all things to the living – a death-bed – and that most binding of all vows – a promise given to the dying.

There was drawn the picture of a fragile, fair little lady, holding in her chilling fingers the destiny of the lives she was about to leave behind – young lives – one a sobbing, wondering girl of ten, and two boys; the older perhaps eighteen, an uncouth, strong-faced youth, who clasped hands with another boy several years younger, but so fair that few would think them brothers, and only the more youthful would ever have been credited as the child of the little woman who looked so like a white lily.

The other was the elder son – an Esau, however, who was favorite with neither father nor mother; with no one, in fact, who had ever known the sunny face and nature of the more youthful – an impulsive, loving disposition that only shone the brighter by contrast with the darker-faced, undemonstrative one whom even his mother never understood.

And the shadow of that misunderstanding was with them even at the death-bed, where the Jacob sobbed out his grief in passionate protests against the power that would rob him, and the Esau stood like a statue to receive her commands. Back of them was the father, smothering his own grief and consoling his favorite, when he could, and the one witness to the seal that was set on the three young lives.

Her words were not many – she was so weak – but she motioned to the girl beside the bed. "I leave her to you," she said, looking at them both, but the eyes, true to the feeling back of them, wandered to the fairer face and rested there. "The old place will belong to you two ere many years – your father will perhaps come after me;" and she glanced lovingly toward the man whom all the world but herself had found cold and hard in nature. "I promised long ago – when her mother died – that she should always have a home, and now I have to leave the trust to you, my sons."

"We will keep it," said the steady voice of Esau, as he sat like an automaton watching her slowly drifting from them; while Jacob, on his knees, with his arms about her, was murmuring tenderly, as to a child, that all should be as she wished – her trust was to be theirs always.

"And if either of you should fail or forget, the other must take the care on his own shoulders. Promise me that too, because – "

The words died away in a whisper, but her eyes turned toward the Esau. He knew too bitterly what it meant. Though only a boy, he was a wild one – people said a bad one. His father had pronounced him the only one of their name who was not a gentleman. He gambled and he drank; his home seemed the stables, his companions, fast horses and their fast masters; and in the eyes of his mother he read, as never before, the effect that life had produced. His own mother did not dare trust the black sheep of the family, even though he promised at her death-bed.

A wild, half-murderous hate arose in him at the knowledge – a hate against his elegant, correctly mannered father, whose cold condemnation had long ago barred him out from his mother's sympathy, until even at her death-bed he felt himself a stranger – his little mother – and he had worshiped her as the faithful do their saints, and like them, afar off.

But even the hate for his father was driven back at the sight of the wistful face, and the look that comes to eyes but once.

"We promise – I promise that, so help me God!" he said earnestly, and then bent forward for the first time, his voice breaking as he spoke. "Mother! mother! say just once that you trust – that you believe in me!"

Her gaze was still on his face; it was growing difficult to move the eyes at will, and the very intensity of his own feelings may have held her there. Her eyes widened ever so little, as if at some revelation born to her by that magnetism, and then – "My boy, I trust – "

The words again died in a whisper; and raising his head with a long breath of relief, he saw his father drop on his knees by the younger son. Their arms were about each other and about her. A few broken, disjointed whispers; a last smile upward, beyond them, a soft, sighing little breath, after which there was no other, and then the voice of the boy, irrepressible in his grief, as his love, broke forth in passionate despair, and was soothed by his father, who led him sobbing and rebellious from the bedside – both in their sorrow forgetting that third member of the family who sat so stoically through it all, until the little girl, their joint trust, half-blind with her own tears, saw him there so still and as pathetically alone as the chilling clay beside him. Trying to say some comforting words, she spoke to him, but received no answer. She had always been rather afraid of this black sheep – he was so morose about the house, and made no one love him except the horses; but the scene just past drew her to him for once without dread.

"Brother," she whispered, calling him by the name his mother had left her; "dear brother, don't you sit there like that;" and a vague terror came to her as he made no sign. "You – you frighten me."

She slipped her hand about his neck with a child's caressing sympathy, and then a wild scream brought the people hurrying into the room.

"He is dead!" she cried, as she dropped beside him; "sitting there cold as stone, and we thought he didn't care! And he is dead – dead!"

But he was not dead – the physician soon assured them of that. It was only a cataleptic fit. The emotion that had melted the one brother to tears had frozen the other into the closest semblance to stone that life can reach, and still be life.

The silence was thrilling as Stuart's voice ceased, and he stooped for the other pages laid by his chair.

A feeling that the story on paper could never convey was brought to every listener by the something in his voice that was not tears, but suggested the emotion back of tears. They had always acknowledged the magnetism of the man, but felt that he was excelling himself in this instance. Tillie and Fred were silently crying. Rachel was staring very steadily ahead of her, too steadily to notice that the hand laid on Genesee's revolver at the commencement of the story had gradually relaxed and dropped listless beside him. All the strength in his body seemed to creep into his eyes as he watched Stuart, trusting as much to his eyes as his ears for the complete comprehension of the object in or back of that story. In the short pause the author, with one sweeping glance, read his advantage – that he was holding in the bonds of sympathy this man whom he could never conquer through an impersonal influence. The knowledge was a ten-fold inspiration – the point to be gained was so great to him; and with his voice thrilling them all with its intensity, he read on and on.

The story? Its finish was the beginning of this one; but it was told with a spirit that can not be transmitted by ink and paper, for the teller depended little on his written copy. He knew it by heart – knew all the tenderness of a love-story in it that was careless of the future as the butterflies that coquette on a summer's day, passing and repassing with a mere touch of wings, a challenge to a kiss, and then darting hither and yon in the chase that grows laughing and eager, until each flash of white wings in the sun bears them high above the heads of their comrades, as the divine passion raises all its votaries above the commonplace. Close and closer they are drawn by the spirit that lifts them into a new life; high and higher, until against the blue sky there is a final flash of white wings. It is the wedding by a kiss, and the coquettings are over – the sky closes in. They are a world of their own.

Such a love story of summer was told by him in the allegory of the butterflies; but the young heart throbbing through it was that of the woman-child who had wept while the two brothers had clasped hands and accepted her as the trust of the dying; and her joyous teacher of love had been the fair-haired, fine-faced boy whose grief had been so great and whose promises so fervent. It is a very old story, but an ever-pathetic one – that tragedy of life; and likewise this one, without thought of sin, with only a fatal fondness on her part, a fatal desire for being loved on his, and a season's farewell to be uttered, of which they could speak no word – the emotions that have led to more than one tragedy of soul. And one of the butterflies in this one flitted for many days through the flowers of her garden, shy, yet happy, whispering over and over, "His wife, his wife!" while traveling southward, the other felt a passion of remorse in his heart, and resolved on multitudinous plans for the following of a perfection of life in the future.

All this he told – too delicately to give offense, yet too unsparingly not to show that the evil wrought in a moment of idle pastime, of joyous carelessness, is as fatal in its results as the most deliberate act of preconceived wickedness.

And back of the lives and loves of those two, with their emotional impulses and joyous union of untutored hearts, there arose, unloved and seemingly unloving, the quiet, watchful figure of the Esau.

Looking at his life from a distance, and perhaps through eyes of remorse, the writer had idealized that one character, while he had only photographed the others; had studied out the deeds back of every decided action, and discovered, or thought he had, that it was the lack of sympathy in his home-life had made a sort of human porcupine of him, and none had guessed that, back of the keen darts, there beat a pulse hungry for words such as he begged from his mother at the last – and receiving, was ready to sacrifice every hope of his, present or future, that he might prove himself worthy of the trust she had granted him, though so late.

Something in the final ignoring of self and the taking on his own shoulders the responsibilities of those two whom his mother had loved – something in all that, made him appear a character of heroic proportions, viewed from Stuart's point of view. He walked through those pages as a live thing, the feeling in the author's voice testifying to his own earnestness in the portrayal – an earnestness that seemed to gain strength as he went along, and held his listeners with convincing power until the abrupt close of the scene between those two men in the old New Orleans house.

Everyone felt vaguely surprised and disturbed when he finished – it was all so totally unlike Stuart's stories with which he had entertained them before. They were unprepared for the emotions provoked; and there was in it, and in the reading, a suggestion of something beyond all that was told.

The silence was so long that Stuart himself was the first to lift his eyes to those opposite, and tried to say carelessly:

"Well?"

His face was pale, but not more so than that of Genesee, who, surprised in that intent gaze, tried to meet his eyes steadily, but failed, faltered, wavered, and finally turned to Rachel, as if seeking in some way his former assurance. And what he saw there was the reaching out of her hand until it touched Stuart's shoulder with a gesture of approving comradeship.

"Good!" she said tersely; "don't ever again talk of writing for pastime – the character of that one man is enough to be proud of."

"But there are two men," said Fred, finding her voice again, with a sense of relief; "which one do you mean?"

"No," contradicted Rachel, with sharp decision; "I can see only one – the Esau."

Stuart shrank a little under her hand, not even thanking her for the words of praise; and, to her surprise, it was Genesee who answered her, his eyes steady enough, except when looking at the author of the story.

"Don't be too quick about playing judge," he suggested; and the words took her back like a flash to that other time when he had given her the same curt advice. "May be that boy had some good points that are not put down there. Maybe he might have had plans about doing the square thing, and something upset them; or – or he might have got tangled up in a lariat he wasn't looking for. It's just natural bad luck some men have of getting tangled up like that; and may be he – this fellow – "

Fred broke out laughing at his reasoning for the defense.

"Why, Mr. Genesee," she said gleefully, "an audience of you would be an inspiration to an author or actor; you are talking about the man as if he was a flesh and blood specimen, instead of belonging to Mr. Stuart's imagination."

"Yes, I reckon you're right, Miss," he said, rising to his feet, with a queer, half-apologetic smile; "you see, I'm not used to hearing folks read – romances." But the insolent sarcasm with which he had spoken of the word at first was gone.

The others had all regained their tongues, or the use of them, and comment and praise were given the author – not much notice taken of Genesee's opinion and protest. His theories of the character might be natural ones; but his own likelihood for entanglements, to judge by his reputation, was apt to prejudice him, rendering him unduly charitable toward any other fellow who was unlucky.

"My only objection to it," said Tillie, "is that there is not enough of it. It seems unfinished."

"Well, he warned us in the beginning that it was only a prologue," reminded her husband; "but there is a good deal in it, too, for only a prologue – a good deal."

"For my part," remarked the Lieutenant, "I don't think I should want anything added to it. Just as it stands, it proves the characters of the two men. If it was carried further, it might gain nothing, and leave nothing for one's imagination."

"I had not thought of that," said Stuart; "in fact, it was only written to help myself in analyzing two characters I had in my head, and could not get rid of until I put them on paper. Authors are haunted by such ghosts sometimes. It is Miss Fred's fault that I resurrected this one to-night – she thrust on me the accidental remembrance."

"There are mighty few accidents in the world," was Genesee's concise statement, as he pulled on his heavy buckskin gloves. "I'm about to cut for camp. Going?" This to the Lieutenant.

After that laconic remark on accidents, no further word or notice was exchanged between Stuart and Genesee; but it was easily seen that the story read had smoothed out several wrinkles of threatened discord and discontent. It had at least tamed the spirit of the scout, and left him more the man Rachel knew in him. Her impatience at his manner early in the evening disappeared as he showed improvement; and just before they left, she crossed over to him, asking something of the snows on the Scot Mountain trail, his eyes warming at the directness of her speech and movement, showing to any who cared to notice that she spoke to him as to a friend; but his glance turned instinctively from her to Stuart. He remembered watching them that day as they rode from camp.

"But what of Davy?" she repeated; "have you heard any word of him?"

"No, and I'm ashamed to say it," he acknowledged; "I haven't been to see him at all since I got back. I've had a lot of things in my head to keep track of, and didn't even send. I'll do it, though, in a day or so – or else go myself."

"I'm afraid he may be sick. If the snow is not bad, it's a wonder he has not been down. I believe I will go."

"I don't like you to go over those trails alone," he said in a lower tone; "not just now, at any rate."

"Why not now?"

"Well, you know these Indian troubles may bring queer cattle into the country. The Kootenai tribe would rather take care of you than do you harm; but – well, I reckon you had better keep to the ranch."

"And you don't reckon you can trust me to tell me why?" she said in a challenging way.

"It mightn't do any good. I don't know, you see, that it is really dangerous, only I'd rather you'd keep on the safe side; and – and – don't say I can't trust you. I'd trust you with my life – yes, more than that, if I had it!"

His voice was not heard by the others, who were laughing and chatting, it was so low; but its intensity made her step back, looking up at him.

"Don't look as if I frighten you," he said quickly; "I didn't come in here for that. You shouldn't have made me come, anyway – I belong to the outside; coming in only helps me remember it."

"So that was what put you in such a humor. I thought it was Stuart."

"You did?"

"Yes; I know you don't like him – but, I think you are prejudiced."

"Oh, you do?" And she saw the same inscrutable smile on his face that she had noticed when he looked at Stuart.

"There – there," she laughed, throwing up her hand as if to check him, "don't tell me again that I am too anxious to judge people; but he is a good fellow."

"And you are a good girl," he said warmly, looking down at her with so much feeling in his face that Stuart, glancing toward them, was startled into strange conjectures at the revelation in it. It was the first time he had ever seen them talking together.

"And you're a plucky girl, too," added Genesee, "else you wouldn't stand here talking to me before everyone. I'll remember it always of you. Tillikum, good-night."

PART FOURTH

ONE SQUAW MAN

CHAPTER I.

LAMONTI

The next morning awoke with the balmy air of spring following the sunrise over the snow – a fair, soft day, with treachery back of its smiles; for along in the afternoon the sky gathered in gray drifts, and the weather-wise prophesied a big snow-fall.

All the morning Genesee wrote. One page after another was torn up, and it was the middle of the afternoon before he finally finished the work to his satisfaction, did it up in a flat, square package, and having sealed it securely, called Kalitan.

"You take this to the express office at the station," he said; "get a paper for it – receipt; then go to Holland's – to the bank store; give them this," and he handed a slip of written paper. "If they give you letter, keep it carefully – so," and he took from his shirt-pocket a rubber case the size of an ordinary envelope. Evidently Kalitan had carried it before, for he opened a rather intricate clasp and slipped the bit of paper into it.