Chapter XII

One day in the first week of September, a day when there was a touch of frost in the air, and a hurrying and scurrying of the clouds overhead as though they would escape the grip of coming winter, Evered took down his double-bitted ax from its place in the woodshed and went to the grindstone and worked the two blades to razor edge. John was in the orchard picking those apples which were already fit for harvesting. Ruth was helping him.

There was not much of the fruit, and Evered had said to them, “I’ll go down into the woodlot and get out some wood.”

When he was gone Ruth and John looked at each other; and John asked, “Does he know Darrin is there, I wonder? Know where he is?”

Ruth said, “I don’t know. He sees more than you think. Anyway, it won’t hurt him to know.”

Evered shaped the ax to his liking, slung it across his shoulder, and walked down the wood road till he came to a growth of birch which was ready for the ax. The trees would be felled and cut into lengths where they lay, then hauled to the farm and piled in the shed to season under cover for a full twelve months before it was time to use the wood. Evered’s purpose now was simply to cut down the trees, leaving the later processes for another day.

He had chosen the task in response to some inner uneasiness which demanded an outlet. The man’s overflowing energy had always been his master; it drove him now, drove him with a new spur--the spur of his own thoughts. He could never escape from them; he scarce wished to escape, for he was never one to dodge an issue. But if he had wished to forget, Fraternity would not have permitted it. The men of the town, he saw, were watching him with furtive eyes; the women looked upon him spitefully. He knew that most people thought he should have killed the red bull before this; but Evered would not kill the bull, partly from native stubbornness, partly from an unformed feeling that he, not the bull, was actually responsible. He was growing old through much thought upon the matter; and it is probable that only his own honest certainty of his wife’s misdoing kept him from going mad. He slept little. His nerves tortured him.

He struck the ax into the first tree with a hot energy that made him breathe deep with satisfaction. He sank the blade on one side of the tree, and then on the other, and the four-inch birch swayed and toppled and fell. The man went furiously to the next, and to the next thereafter. The sweat began to bead his forehead and his pulses began to pound.

He worked at a relentless pace for perhaps half an hour, drunk with his own labors. At the end of that time, pausing to draw breath, he knew that he was thirsty. It was this which first brought the spring to his mind, the spring where his wife had died.

He had not been near the spot since the day he found her there. The avoidance had been instinctive rather than conscious. He hated the place and in some measure he feared it, as much as it was in the man to fear anything. He could see it all too vividly without bringing the actual surroundings before his eyes. The thought of it tormented him. And when his thirst made him remember the spring now his first impulse was to avoid it. His second--because it was ever the nature of the man to meet danger or misfortune or unpleasantness face to face--was to go to the place and drink his fill. He stuck his ax into a stump and started down the hill. This was not like that other day when he had gone along this way. That day his wife had been killed was sultry and lowering and oppressive; there was death in the very air. To-day was bright, crisp, cool; the air like wine, the earth a vivid panorama of brilliant coloring, the sky a vast blue canvas with white clouds limned lightly here and there. A day when life quickened in the veins; a day to make a man sing if there was song in him.

There was no song in Evered; nevertheless, he felt the influence of the glory all about him. It made him, somehow, lonely; and this was strange in a man so used to loneliness. It made him unhappy and a little sorry for himself, a little wistful. He wanted, without knowing it, someone to give him comradeship and sympathy and friendliness. He had never realized before how terribly alone he was.

His feet took unconsciously the way they had taken on that other day; but his thoughts were not on the matter, and so he came at last to the knoll above the spring with something like a shock of surprise, for he saw a man sitting below; and for a moment it seemed to him this man was Semler, that Mary sat beside him. He brushed a rough hand across his eyes, and saw that what he had taken for his wife’s figure was just a roll of blanket laid across a rock; and he saw that the man was not Semler but Darrin.

He had never thought of the possibility that Darrin might have camped beside the spring. Yet it was natural enough. This was the best water anywhere along the swamp’s edge. A man might drink from the brook, but not with satisfaction in a summer of such drought as this had seen. But the spring had a steady flow of cool clear water in the driest seasons. This was the best place for a camp. Darrin was here.

Evered stood still, looking down on Darrin’s camp, until the other man felt his eyes and looked up and saw him.

When he saw Evered, Darrin got to his feet and laid aside his book and called cheerfully, “Come aboard, sir. Time you paid me a call.”

Evered hesitated; then he went, stumbling a little, down to where Darrin was. “I’m getting out some wood,” he said. “I just came down for a drink.”

“Sit down,” said Darrin in a friendly way. “Fill your pipe.”

The old Evered, the normal Evered even now would have shaken his head, bent for his drink from the spring and gone back to his work. But Evered was in want of company this day; and Darrin had a cheerful voice, a comradely eye. Darrin seemed glad to see him. Also the little hollow about the spring had a fascination for Evered. Having come to the spot he was unwilling to leave it, not because he wished to stay, but because he wished to go. He stayed because he dreaded to stay. He took Darrin’s cup and dipped it in the spring and drank; and then at Darrin’s insistence he sat down against the bowlder and whittled a fill for his pipe and set it going.

Darrin during this time had been talking with the nimble wit which was characteristic of the man. He made Evered feel more assured, more comfortable than he had felt for a long time. And while Darrin talked Evered’s slow eyes were moving all about, marking each spot in the tragedy that was forever engraved upon his mind--there had sat his wife, there Semler, yonder stood the bull--terribly vivid, terribly real, so that the sweat burst out upon his forehead again.

Darrin, watching, asked, “What’s wrong? You look troubled.”

And Evered hesitated, then said huskily, “It’s the first time I’ve been here.”

He did not explain; but Darrin understood. “Since your wife was killed?”

“Yes.”

Darrin nodded. “It was here by the spring, wasn’t it?”

Evered answered slowly, “Yes. She was--lying over there when I found her.” He pointed to the spot.

Darrin looked that way; and after a moment, eyes upon the curling smoke of his pipe, he asked casually, “Where was Semler?”

His tone was easy, mildly interested and that was all; nevertheless, his word came to Evered with an abrupt and startling force. Semler? He had told no one save John that Semler was here that day; he knew John would never have told. Ruth knew; but she too was close-mouthed. Fraternity did not know. Yet Darrin knew.

“Where was Semler?” Darrin had asked, so casually.

And Evered cried, “Semler? Who said he was here?”

Darrin looked surprised. “Why, I did not know it was a secret. He told me--himself.”

Evered was tense and still where he sat. “He--you know him?”

Darrin laughed a little. “I wouldn’t say that. I don’t care for the man. I met him a little before I came up here, and told him where I was coming; and he advised me not to come. Told me of this--tragedy.”

“Told you he was here?”

Darrin nodded. “Yes; how he tried to fight off the bull.”

Evered came to his feet, half crouching. “The black liar and coward ran like a rabbit,” he said under his breath; and his face was an ugly thing to see.

Darrin cried, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to--waken old sorrows. It doesn’t matter. Forget it.” He sought, palpably, to change to another topic. “Are you getting in your apples yet?”

Evered would not be put off. “See here,” he said. “What did Dane Semler tell you?”

“I’ve forgotten,” said Darrin. He smiled cheerfully. “That is to say, I mean to forget. It’s not my affair. Let’s not talk about it.”

Over Evered swept then one of those impulses to speech, akin to the impulses of confession. He exclaimed with a tragic and miserable note in his voice. “By God, if I don’t talk about it sometime it’ll kill me.”

Darrin looked up at him, gently offered; “I’ll listen, then. It may ease you to--tell the story over. Go ahead, Mr. Evered. Sit down.”

Evered did not sit down. But the story burst from him. Something, Darrin’s sympathy or the anger Darrin’s reference to Semler had roused, touched hidden springs within the man. He spoke swiftly, eagerly, as though with a pathetic desire to justify himself. He moved to and fro, pointing, illustrating.

He told how Zeke Pitkin had brought word that the red bull was loose in the woodlot. “I stopped at the house,” he said. “There was no one there; and that scared me. When I came down this way I thought of this spring. My wife used to like to come here. And I was scared, Darrin. I loved Mary Evered, Darrin.”

He caught himself, as though his words sounded strangely even in his own ears. When he went on his voice was harsh and hard.

“I came to the knoll up there”--he pointed to the spot--“and saw Mary and Semler here, sitting together, talking together. Damn him! Like sweethearts!” The red floods swept across the man’s face as the tide of that old rage overwhelmed him. “Damn Semler!” he cried. “Let him come hereabouts again!”

He went on after a moment: “I was too late to do anything but shout to them. The bull was coming at them from over there, head down. When I shouted they heard me, and forgot each other; and then they saw the red bull. Semler could have stopped him or turned him if he’d been a man. If I had been nearer I could have killed the beast with my hands, in time. But I was too far away; and Semler ran. I tell you, Darrin, he ran! He turned tail, and squawked, and ran along the hillside there. But Mary did not run. She could not; or she wouldn’t. And the red bull hit her here; and tossed her there. One blow and toss. He has no horns, you’ll mind. Semler running, all the time. Tell him, when you go back--tell him he lied.”

He was abruptly silent, his old habit of reticence upon him. And he was instantly sorry that he had spoken at all. To speak had been relief, had somehow eased him. Yet who was Darrin? Why should he tell this man?

Darrin said gently, “The bull did not trample her?”

Evered answered curtly, “No. I reached him.”

Darrin nodded. “You could handle him?”

“The beast knows me,” said Evered.

And even while he spoke he remembered how the great bull, as though regretting that which he had done, had stood quietly by until he was led away. He did not tell Darrin this; there were no more words in him. He had spoken too much already. Darrin was watching him now, he saw; and it seemed to Evered that there was a hard and hostile light of calculation in the other’s eye.

He turned away his head, and Darrin asked, “How came she here with Semler?”

Evered swung toward the man so hotly that for a moment Darrin was afraid; and then the older man’s eyes misted and his lips twisted weakly and he brushed them with the back of his hand.

He did not answer Darrin at all; and after a moment Darrin said, “Forgive me. It must hurt you to remember; to look round here. You must see the whole thing over again.”

Evered stood still for a moment; then he said abruptly: “I’ve sat too long. I’ll be back at work.”

He went stiffly up the knoll. Darrin called after him, “Come down again. You know the way.”

Evered did not turn, he made no reply. When he was beyond the other’s sight he stopped once and looked back, and his eyes were faintly furtive. He muttered something under his breath. He was cursing his folly in having talked with Darrin.

Back at his work Evered was uneasy; but his disquiet would have been increased if he could have seen how Darrin busied himself when he was left alone. The man sat still where he was till Evered had passed out of sight above the knoll; sat still with thoughtful eyes, studying the ground about him and considering the things which Evered had said. And once while he sat with his eyes straight before him, thinking on Evered’s words, he said to himself: “The man did love his wife.” And again: “There’s something hurting him.”

After a little he got up and climbed the knoll cautiously, till he could look in the direction Evered had taken. Evered was not in sight; and when he could be sure of this Darrin went along the shelf above the spring, toward the wood road that came down from the farm. At the road he turned round and retraced his steps, trying to guess the path Evered would have taken to come in sight of the spring itself.

When he came to the edge of the knoll he noted the spot, and cast back and tried again, and still again. He seemed to seek the farthest spot from which the spring was visible. When he had chosen this spot he stood still, surveying the land below, picturing to himself the tragedy that had been enacted there.

He seemed to come to some conclusion in the end, for he paced with careful steps the distance from where he stood to the rock where Mary Evered had been sitting. From that spot again he paced the distance to the alder growth through which the bull had come. Returning, eyes thoughtful, he took pencil and paper and plotted the scene round him, and set dots upon it to mark where Evered must have stood, and where Mary and Semler had sat, and the way by which the bull had come.

The man sat for a long hour that afternoon with this rude map before him, considering it; and he set down distances upon it, and marked the trees. Once he took pebbles and moved them upon his map as the bull and Semler and Evered must have moved upon this ground.

In the end, indecision in his eyes, he folded the paper and put it carefully into his pocket. Then he made a little cooking fire and prepared his supper and ate it. When he had cleaned up his camp he put on coat and cap and started along the hillside below the bull pasture to the road that led toward Fraternity.

This was not unusual with Darrin. He was accustomed to go to the village three or four times a week for his mail or to sit round the stove in Will Bissel’s store and listen to the talk of the country. He had got some profit from this: Jim Saladine, for example, told him one night of a fox den, and took him next day to the spot; and by a week’s patience Darrin had been able to get good pictures of the little foxes at their play. And Jean Bubier had taken him up to the head of the pond to see a cow moose pasturing with Jean’s own cows. Besides these tangible pieces of fortune he had acquired a fund of tales of the woods. He liked the talk about the stove, and took his own share in it so modestly that the men liked him.

Once or twice during his stay in the town there had been talk of Evered; and Darrin had led them to tell the man’s deeds. Great store of these tales, for Evered’s daily life had an epic quality about it. From the murdering red bull the stories went back and back to that old matter of the knife and Dave Riggs, now years agone. Telling this story Lee Motley told Darrin one night that it had made a change in Evered.

Darrin had asked, “What did he do?”

And Motley said: “First off, he didn’t seem bothered much. But it changed him. He’d been wild and strong and hard before, but there was some laughing in him. I’ve always figured he took the thing hard. I’ve not seen the man laugh, right out, since then.”

Darrin said, “You can’t blame him. It’s no joke to kill a man.”

Motley nodded his agreement. “It made a big change in Evered,” he repeated.

Darrin’s interest in Evered had not been sufficiently marked to attract attention, for Evered was a figure of interest to all the countryside. Furthermore, there was talk that Darrin and Ruth MacLure liked each other well; and the town thought it natural that Darrin should be curious as to the man who might be his brother-in-law. Everyone knew that Ruth and John Evered had been more than friends. There was a friendly and curious interest in what looked like a contest between Darrin and John.

This night at Will’s store Darrin had little to say. He bought paper and envelopes from Will and wrote two letters at the desk in Will’s office; and he mailed them, with a special-delivery stamp upon each one. That was a thing not often done in Fraternity; and Will noticed the addresses upon the letters. To Boston men, both of them.

Afterward, Darrin sat about the store for a while, and then set off along the road toward Evered’s farm. Zeke Pitkin gave him a lift for a way; and Darrin remembered that Evered had named this man, and he said to Zeke: “You saw Evered’s bull break out, that day the beast killed Mary Evered, didn’t you?”

Zeke said yes; and he told the tale, coloring it with the glamor of tragedy which it would always have in his eyes. And he told Darrin--though Darrin had heard this more than once before--how Evered had killed his, Zeke’s, bull with a knife thrust in the neck, a day or two before the tragedy. “That same heavy knife of his,” he said. “The one he killed Dave Riggs with.”

Darrin asked, “Still uses it--to butcher with?”

“Yes, sir,” said Zeke. “I’ve seen him stick more’n one pig with that old knife in the last ten year.”

Darrin laughed a little harshly. “Not very sentimental, is he?”

“There ain’t a human feeling in the man,” Pitkin declared.

When Zeke stopped to let Darrin down at the fork of the road Darrin asked another question. “Funny that Semler should skip out so sudden that day, wasn’t it?”

“You bet it uz funny,” Zeke agreed. “I’ve allus said it was.”

“Did you see him the day he left?”

Pitkin shook his head. “Huh-uh. I was busy all day, and over in North Fraternity in the aft’noon. Got to the store right after he lit out.”

Darrin walked to his camp, lighting his steps with an electric torch, and made a little fire for cheerfulness’ sake, and wrapped in his blankets for sleep. He had set a camera in the swamp that day, with a string attached to the shutter in a fashion that should give results if a moose came by. He wondered whether luck would be with him. His thoughts as sleep crept on him shifted back to Evered again. A puzzle there--a question of character, of reaction to emotional stimulus. He asked himself: “Now if I were an emotional, hot-tempered man and came upon my wife with another man, and saw her in swift peril of her life--what would I do?”

He was still wondering, still questioning, still trying to put himself in Evered’s shoes when at last he dropped asleep.