Hours of Grace by Herman Struck Read online

  All-Story Cavalier Weekly, May 2, 1914

  N Ukiah, the new-born county seat, they

  that whatever the home-title lacked in

  were favorably known as “the vigilance

  collective dignity, it more than balanced in I committee.”

  personal fitness.

  The mothers of that village upheld

  Of all men who had justly or unjustly

  them before their growing sons as the felt the power of Stringer’s Band, perhaps no protectors of California’s frontier, and as one could speak from greater experience of its being worthy of zealous imitation.

  thoroughness and despatch in forcing a

  With less sentiment, the new court desired end than Jack Keel, a young supported that estimation to the extent that it adventurer and stockman of southern Trinity.

  neglected to investigate several cases which When he fell for the second time into their

  the vigilance committee had tried and settled hands he soberly permitted himself to weigh

  in its own informal way.

  the chances against him.

  When at home, in northern

  Pete Martin, deeply impressed with the

  Mendocino, the official title of these range-importance of his official act, had brought

  lords was ignored by a number of small Keel to the Martin cabin, and, as befitted a

  “nesters” and changed to “Stringer’s Band.”

  dangerous criminal, tied him, hands to back, The ridicule was lost upon the good

  to a post of the heavy hewn-oak bedstead.

  people of Ukiah. The committee in general

  There he left him in charge of Mrs. Martin,

  helplessly adopted the view of its leaders—old while he, himself, rode off to round up his

  Joseph Stringer and his son “Red”—who held

  fellow-members of the committee that they

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  2

  might sit in judgement—if, indeed, Pete “Anybody married?”

  reflected, they would consider the murderer of

  “No.”

  one of the elect deserving a sitting!

  He looked out through the open

  This question was one of the chances

  window and his gaze rested vacantly on the

  Keel weighed as he sat with his back to the

  distant blue of the Coast Range. When he

  bed-post studying the reserve of Mrs. Martin, turned to her his voice was apologetic.

  who calmly went about her work in the “Is

  Louise—Miss

  Summers—still

  kitchen.

  here?”

  She was middle-aged, with thin gray

  “Louise came home to her father’s

  hair drawn back tightly to a knot, accentuating ranch some weeks ago. She’s been studying

  the prominence of cheek-bones and ears, music in the East while you were away.”

  giving the head an angularity in keeping with

  “Do you think she would be at home

  her five feet eleven inches of unloveliness. His to-night?”

  slight acquaintance with her in the past had

  “I think so.”

  not taught him to penetrate her habitual

  Mrs. Martin regarded him curiously

  reserve.

  and intently. Her wide, thin lips were sensitive As he speculated as to what sentiments

  at the corners. He was grateful for the scarcely might be beneath it, he half felt that, in her perceptible twitching of those mouth-corners, assumed indifference, she did judge him, but and, altogether, he felt somewhat encouraged only so far as he judged himself. With an

  to continue.

  unconcern, betraying no recognition of her

  “I’m going to ask you to do a pretty

  prisoner, he watched her take the rifle which hard thing for me,” he said. “It’ll bring you her husband had significantly leaned within

  into trouble for a few hours—but only for a

  her reach, throw out the cartridge, and hang few hours. I give you my word. By the way—

  the gun on its pegs upon the neat log wall.

  ” he exclaimed as a conflicting thought rose, The plan upon which he had been “do you put any value on my word? Tell me, focusing his observations seemed quite do you think I was guilty of the charges Red hopeless, but with an effort that cost him

  Stringer and his father’s gang used to run me many drops of sweat—it was a warm June

  to San Quentin?”

  evening—he came to the point of addressing

  “You’re not here to answer those

  her, and he cleared his throat suggestively.

  charges. Did you kill Red Stringer this

  “Mrs. Martin,” he began with afternoon?”

  deference, “when you have a few minutes’

  “I did. I’m sorry it happened. But that

  spare time, could I speak with you?”

  isn’t what I am getting at. Killing a man is one Without replying, the woman stepped

  thing, having one’s character questioned is

  leisurely to the stone-walled oven, rearranged another; the distinction touches me pretty keen some pots, and then came to him.

  just now. You know the statements I made

  “I wish you would tell me first,” he

  during my trial. If you think with Pete and the said, “has anything of importance happened in others that I’m a liar, be frank about it, and in the neighborhood while I was in prison?”

  that case I’d rather not ask of you what I

  She searched his drawn, eager face.

  intended.”

  “Speak plain, Keel,” she said not

  He sank his head and saw a drop of

  unkindly. “What do you want to know?”

  sweat roll from his nose to spatter on his dust-

  “Has anybody died?”

  coated boot; and he moistened his lips with his

  “The Mitchell baby—last winter.”

  tongue.

  Hours of Grace

  3

  Mrs. Martin, in spite of her seeming

  hours to wait, if you could arrange, I should disregard for trifles, was an observer of like to see her, Mrs. Martin. I’ll be back at details. She went to the kitchen, returned with twelve. I’ll meet the men here at midnight.”

  a tin dipper full of cold water, and, to

  Mrs. Martin went to the window. It

  overcome his inability to use his hands, held it seemed to Keel hours that she stood there

  carefully to his lips until he drained it.

  motionless with her back turned to him. His

  “I’m in a position to judge your eyes did not leave her head and yet he did not character,” he said thankfully.

  see it; his mind, his whole being, was straining She ignored the remark and the tone.

  to penetrate that calm exterior, to read her

  “It’s no secret that Pete Martin has

  thoughts.

  worked with young Stringer against you,” she When she turned again and walked

  said. “I’ve never defended you because I had thoughtfully past him to tend the kitchen fire no proof. But for all that, I’ve never doubted he looked in vain for an answer in her

  your honesty.”

  sensitive mouth-corners.

  “I don’t suppose you know,” he asked

  He felt his pulses pounding under the

  apprehensively, “if Miss Summers has ever

  rawhide cords. The throbbing echoed in his

  expressed h
erself on this matter?”

  temples and set his head burning with rage.

  “So far’s I know, she has never For a moment he was sure that leather and mentioned your name.”

  wood could not hold him, and for that brief

  “I didn’t expect it,” he said with a

  moment, which seemed, in its demand upon

  wince of disappointment. “She scarcely knows last resources, the critical one for which his me. Shortly before they got me, I rode home

  past life had prepared him, he experienced a with her from Wilson’s social. Red thought

  certain fierce joy in the fond exaggeration of that was his right.

  his long, muscular limbs.

  “That was the first time I met her, and

  He threw himself forward from the

  Red had it figured out that it should be my

  stool on which he sat. There was a crash of

  last, so he concocted that horse-stealing breaking wood, and he fell headlong to the scheme, and brought up the sheriff to trap me floor, taking half the bedstead with him. He in circumstantial evidence. I was discharged wrenched again at the cords as he lay, but they last Tuesday.

  cut to the wrist-bones and held fast.

  “At noon I was riding down the Eel

  As he rose limp and dazed to his feet

  River grade on my way to Summer’s ranch. At

  he faced Mrs. Martin. Her hard eyes read

  the ford I met Red Stringer. I asked him a

  defeat in his whole figure, and he knew it, so question about Miss Summers, and when he

  he turned slowly from her and sat down on his answered me as he did, I told him what I

  overturned stool.

  calculated would drive him to his gun.

  Ìt was as if Mrs. Martin called him out of a

  “It’s useless to talk. It’s all over and

  trance when she spoke.

  I’ll pay the bill. But before I pay—it’ll be

  “I have your word,” she said, “that

  several hours before old Stringer and his you’ll be back here at twelve o’clock?”

  bunch get here—I want a last favor.

  He rose, lifting the broken bedstead

  “I was on my way to see her—Louise.

  with him.

  For those five prison years I’ve had my mind

  “I’ll be here at twelve.”

  set upon seeing her when I would be free—

  She brought a knife and cut the straps

  every day of the five years. At night I slept that held him. Then she led him to the kitchen with that hope. And now, while I have a few

  to bathe his lacerated wrists. But that

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  operation he soon escaped as a trifle; it was his flying shuttle in the prison jute-mill—

  his unutterable gratitude that pained him. She sweating in his stripes amid the deafening roar read his thoughts as, hat in hand, he finally of machinery—he had been, in fancy, where

  stood before her.

  he now was—in the cool, green quiet where

  “Run along,” she said. “You have wounded spirits heal.

  nothing to thank me for.”

  With the abruptness of these northern

  He started to go, but turned California ranges, the trail led him up a steep, impulsively back, seized one of her bony bald ridge and then lost itself in a gradual hands and pressed it to his lips. Then he

  descent over fairly open sweeps to the Eel

  walked out to his mare.

  Canon. Beyond, where the Eel River crept like As he covered the first few miles to the

  a broken silver thread, the mountains rose, a Summers ranch his mind played upon the blue jagged wall behind which the sun was approaching meeting with Louise. Some inner

  half hidden.

  voice—or was it but a vain echo of his

  It had been one of his prison dreams to

  hopes?—told him that she would judge him as

  ride his horse upon a lone rock-group rising Mrs. Martin had done.

  before him like the ruins of an ancient turret He dared not expect that she would

  some thirty feet above the bald hilltop. He had meet him as a friend. But of this he was

  no time now to carry out this wish, and he was certain, and to this point he always returned about to pass the rock when he jerked in his for firm footing when besieged by dark mare and drove her in a few leaps to the apprehensions—she would respect his summit.

  mission. Although he had been but a few

  As he sat there, feeling in the

  hours in her company, he understood her.

  surrounding vastness the key-note of his

  It required no extraordinary intuition to

  nature, the thought that came to him was not detect her inherent refinement. Being a young an accidental one. Since Mrs. Martin had

  woman of ideals, rising from an appreciation paroled him that thought had lain suppressed of all that is beautiful and gentle, he reasoned, in his mind; and now, with a taste for self-she could not love one who had squandered

  torture, he deliberately dwelt upon it.

  his inheritance of culture and had become

  He drew a parallel between his

  calloused in the range game with no other

  remaining life and the segment of fire slipping standard than the survival of the fittest.

  behind the blue wall into the Pacific beyond.

  But her gentleness, he thought, that

  He did not care to escape the course of the

  would shrink at his hardness, might pity him

  “eye for eye” law to which he had gladly

  for the failing. Even to be pitied by her—to bound himself when he shot Stringer; he did

  see it in her eyes—would be a privilege a

  not upbraid himself for his consistency. Still, more deserving man could envy.

  he could not but feel a poignant self-pity; the With these thoughts he entered a wish to live was crying strong within him. He thickly wooded stretch where the evening had come to his haunts like a wild thing already settled in the more sheltered ravines, untamed by confinement, eager to experience

  and where, on the exposed ridges, the filtered the merited joys of freedom. But he was not

  rays of the low sun splashed vividly on the

  sure that another sun would shine upon his

  great red arms of the madronas.

  experiences.

  He remembered other times when he

  He had a mental glimpse of Joseph

  had ridden through this patch of forest, and he Stringer, the dead man’s father, forcing his remembered countless times when, watching

  lathered horse in the lead of his retainers,

  Hours of Grace

  5

  bound for Martin’s cabin. The old man’s discharged last Tuesday from San Quentin,”

  trembling lips, drawn to a snarl, mumbled

  he added with a regard for fundamentals.

  something that Keel could not misunderstand

  “Since you speak of it,” she said,

  nor wholly disrespect.

  “won’t you tell me that you were not guilty of At midnight they would meet!

  trying to steal Red Stringer’s horses?”

  He descended from the rock,

  “Did you think I was innocent?”

  impressed with the value of the fleeting

  “I thought—yes, I was sure you were

  minutes which were his only until twelve.

  innocent. I know it now without your telling Their value was but for one purpose—to see

  me.”

  Louise! To the rhythm of the mare’s

  “I often wondered what you thought of

  downward leaps the phrase ran through his

  me.”

  mind—“to see Louise—to
see Louise.”

  She had no comment upon this. After a

  It was growing dark when he reached

  pause she stepped back to turn her chair.

  Summers’s gate. He closed it behind him and

  “If you will sit here,” she said, “I’ll

  walked his sorrel to the hitching-rack by the bring another.”

  barn. For no apparent reason he hoped no one

  “Before I sit I must tell you what may

  had seen his coming, and he felt a choking

  cause you to regret the invitation. It’s easier to sensation which increased when he be scorned standing. This noon I shot Red dismounted.

  Stringer dead.”

  Looking neither to right nor left, he

  She sank to her chair and looked at

  walked with studied ease to avoid the clink of him with horror and doubt struggling

  spurs, taking grateful advantage of a poplar confusedly in her eyes. He met her gaze

  row which led him unobserved to the vine-

  evenly until she bowed her head and buried

  enclosed porch of the ranch house.

  her face in her hands.

  It was just a glance through the foliage

  “It was an accident,” she said weakly,

  in passing, but in that one glance he saw her.

  as if fearing to be contradicted.

  She was sitting in a low armchair with

  “It was no accident.”

  a book in her lap, looking dreamily out into

  “I can’t believe it! You—I never

  the night as if continuing in fancy the thread thought of you—like that.”

  of a romance which the darkness had

  She looked to him for a reply. But he

  interrupted. He had an impression of cool,