The Busted Ex-Texan, and Other Stories Page 10

  THE LEAF OF RED ROSE:

  THE OLD TRAPPER'S STORY.

  A story? Why, yes. If Henry, there, will translate it And put it in verse and print as he promised To do when it happened. Will he do it? I doubt. He dislikes to dabble with rhyme and with measure. Says that good honest prose is the best and the sweetest If the words be well chosen, short, Saxon, and pithy. And that making of verse is the business of women, Of green boys at school, and of lovers when spooning. But try him. It may be he will. For a lesson Is in it, and that makes it worth telling. The woods have their secrets and sorrows and struggles As well as the cities. You can find in the woods Many things, if you look, beside trees, rocks, and mountains.

  Jack Whitcomb he said his name was, though I doubted. For the name on his bosom, tattooed in purple, Didn't point quite that way. But that doesn't matter. One name in the woods is as good as another If a man answers to it and it's easily spoken. So we called him Jack Whitcomb and asked nothing further. Brave? Why, of course he was brave. Men are not cowards. Cowards don't come to the woods. They stay in the cities, Where policemen are thick and the streets are all lighted. In the woods men trail with their ears and eyes open, And sleep when they sleep with their hands on their rifles. Why? Well, panthers are plenty and cunning and quiet, And a man is a fool that goes carelessly stumbling Under trees where they crouch, under crags where they gather. Furthermore, with the saints, now and then there are sinners That live in the woods; and some half-breeds are wicked, And know nothing of law unless taught by a bullet. I've done what I could to teach knaves the commandments. Yes. Jack Whitcomb was brave. Brave as the bravest. His glance was as keen and his mouth was as silent As a trailer's should be who looks and who listens By day and by night, having no one to talk to. His finger was quick when it handled the trigger, And his eye loved the sights as lightning loves rivers. I've seen him stand up when the odds were against him. Stand up like a man who takes coolly the chances. That proves he was brave as I understand it.

  One day we were boating on far Mistassinni. We were fetching the portage above the great rapids, Where they whirled, roaring down, freshet full, at their whitest, When we saw from a rock that stretched outward and over The wild hissing water as it swept on in thunder, A canoe coming down, rolling over and over, With a little papoose clinging tight to the lashings; And as it lanced by Jack went in like an otter. How he did it God knows, but at the foot of the rapids, Half a mile farther down racing onward, I found him High and dry on the beach in a faint like a woman, With the little papoose pulling away at his jacket. And when he came to, he put child to his shoulder, Nor stopped till it lay in the arms of its mother.

  We were trailing, Henry and I, trailing and trapping In the land to the north, where fur was the thickest, And knaves were as plenty as mink or as otter. We took turns at sleeping, and trailed our line double To keep our own skins, if we didn't get others. It was folly to stay where we were, and we knew it, For the knaves they got thicker, and soon there was shooting Going on pretty lively. But we held to the business And scouted the line once a week like true trappers. And no accident happened save some holes in our jackets, And my powder-horn emptied by a vagabond's bullet. So we mended our clothing and felt pretty lively. But the signs pointed one way. Our enemies thickened Around us each day, and we weren't quite decided To stand in for a fight and settle the matter, Or pull up our traps and get out of the country, When it settled itself. And in this way it happened.

  We were scouting the lake on the west shore one morning, To find the knaves' camp and how many were in it, When a short space ahead there came of a sudden A crash as of thunder, and we knew that a dozen Or twenty placed rifles had burst an ambushment. And then in an instant there sounded another. Two sharp, twin reports and the death yells that followed Told us as we listened where the lead had been driven. Knew who he was? Of course. The man was Jack Whitcomb. Do you think men who live by trapping and shooting Don't learn to distinguish the voice of their rifles? Jack was trailing the lake to find our encampment, For far away in the south there had come to his cabin A rumor that we in the north land were holding Our line and our furs with a good deal of shooting. So he left his own traps and came by swift trailing To give us the help of another good rifle. That was just like Jack Whitcomb. If you were in trouble He was there by your side. You could always count on him, With finger on trigger and both barrels loaded.

  So Henry and I both took to our covers Right and left of the trail Jack must take in retreating. We didn't wait long, for the boy knew his business, And soon he came backward, loading and running, Like a man who was busy but wouldn't be hurried Beyond his own gait, if he stopped there forever. As he passed our two covers I piped him a whistle; And he stopped in his tracks, and with low, pleasant laughter, Stood there in full view coolly capping the nipples. I have shot on each Gulf, both Southern and Northern. I have trailed the long trail between either ocean. Brave men I have seen, both in good and in evil, But never a braver than the man called Jack Whitcomb. Well, why describe it? Call it scrimmage or battle, It was done in a minute, or it may be a dozen. It came like a whirlwind, and we three were in it As men are in whirlwinds. It came like the thunder, With a crash and a roar and a long running rumble Dying down into silence. There were dead and some wounded, And a few lucky knaves that fled wildly backward; And Henry and I, when it passed, were left standing By the body of him whose name was Jack Whitcomb, Who lay as he fell, when headlong he tumbled, His rifle still clinched and both barrels smoking. I have seen in my life many wounds made by bullets, And a good many gashes by spear-points and arrows. I have learned in my trailing a good many simples Which have power to keep men from crossing the river Before the Lord calls with voice that is certain. And the wound that we found on Jack Whitcomb's body, Though ugly and deep, was not beyond curing.

  We cleansed and we stanched it and fought a brave battle With death, for his life, and we won. For Jack mended. We made a canoe and we bore him far southward. A hundred good miles down the river we boated, Till we came to his house of huge logs, strongly builded, Beneath the big pines on the bank of a rapid, Which under it flowed its soft rush of brown water. 'Twas a place to bring peace to a heart that was troubled, If peace might be found this side of the silence Which brings peace to all that know sorrow in living.

  Yes, we boated him down to his home by the rapids. His home? No, rather his house let us call it. For how can a house be a home with naught in it? In house that is home must be love, warm and human, A voice that is sweet, a heart that is gentle, A soul that is true, and beside these a cradle That prattles and coos; and the quick-falling patter Of little white feet that run hither and thither. To his house, and not to his home, then, we brought him, For certainly nothing and no one was in it, Save himself and a dog, a bed and a table, Some chairs, a few books, and a--Picture. And this was the story that he told us in dying. The man might have lived, beyond doubt, had he cared to. But he didn't. No motive, he said. And he had none, As we felt later on, when he told us his story. So he died without word or sign. And in silence We stood and saw him go forth on his journey Without speaking a word, without a hand lifted To hold or to stop him, for we did not feel certain What was wisdom for one who went forth in such fashion. Perhaps it was best he should go and be over With pain, loss and trouble for ever and ever. Henry says, it were well we should all of us go When life has no aim and no hope; and no doing Remains to be done; and days are but eating And drinking and breathing, only these and no more.

  But before he went forth he gave me a
message. "I loved her," so his story began. Henry, You remember the look on his face as he said it, As he lay with his eyes fixed fast on the Picture? "She was strong, and she drew me as life draws the young And as death draws the old. I could not resist her. She was vital with force, to attract and to hold. She raced me a race for my life, and she won it. I was man, not a boy, and I loved as man loves When the forces of life are in him full-flooded As rivers in meadows, when they flow to the sedges. Did she love me? Perhaps. Who can tell? She was woman, And hence she was dark as the night, and as hidden! Who could find her? Who the depth of her nature Might measure? I tried but could not. Then boldly I spake--spake as man speaks but once unto woman. True and straight did I say it man fashion. But she drew back offended; she shrank from my praying, And with coldness of tone and suspicion dismissed me.