'Firebrand' Trevison by Charles Alden Seltzer (ebook reader for manga .TXT) 📕

In spite of her aunt’s assurances the girl’s heart was heavy as she began her ride to Manti. Trevison might love her,—she had read that it was possible for a man to love two women—but she could never return his love, knowing of his affair with Hester. He should have justice, however, if they were trying to defraud him of his rights!

Long before she reached Manti she saw the train from Dry Bottom, due at Manti at six o’clock, gliding over the plains toward the town, and when she arrived at the station its passengers had been swallowed by Manti’s buildings and the station agent and an assistant were dragging and bumping trunks and boxes over the station platform.

The agent bowed deferentially to her and followed her into the telegraph room, clicking her message over the wires as soon as she had written it. When he had finished he wheeled his chair and grinned at her.

“See the courthouse and the bank?”

She had—all that was left of them—black, charred ruins with two iron safes, red from their baptism of fire, standing among them. Also two other buildings, one on each side of the two that had been destroyed, scorched and warped, but otherwise undamaged.

“Come pretty near burning the whole town. It took some work to confine that fire—coal oil. Trevison did a clean job. Robbed the safe in the bank. Killed Braman—guzzled him. An awful complete job, from Trevison’s viewpoint. The town’s riled, and I wouldn’t give a plugged cent for Trevison’s chances. He’s sloped. Desperate character—I always thought he’d rip things loose—give him time. It was him blowed up Corrigan’s mine. I ain’t seen Corrigan since last night, but I heard him and twenty or thirty deputies are on Trevison’s trail. I hope they get him.” He squinted at her. “There’s trouble brewing in this town, Miss Benham. I wouldn’t advise you to stay here any longer than is absolutely necessary. There’s two factions—looks like. It’s about that land deal. Lefingwell and some more of them think they’ve been given a raw decision by the court and Corrigan. Excitement! Oh, Lord! This town is fierce. I ain’t had any sleep in—Your answer? I can’t tell. Mebbe right away. Mebbe in an hour.”

Rosalind went out upon the platform. The agent’s words had revived a horror that she had almost forgotten—that she wanted to forget—the murder of Braman.

She walked to the edge of the station platform, tortured by thoughts in which she could find no excuse for Trevison. Murderer and robber! A fugitive from justice—the very justice he had been demanding! Her thoughts made her weak and sick, and she stepped down from the platform and walked up the track, halting beside a shed and leaning against it. Across the street from her was the Castle hotel. A man in boots, corduroy trousers, and a flannel shirt and dirty white apron, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, was washing the front windows and spitting streams of tobacco juice on the board walk. She shivered. A grocer next to the hotel was adjusting a swinging shelf affixed to the store-front, preparatory to piling his wares upon it; a lean-faced man standing in a doorway in the building adjoining the grocery was inspecting a six-shooter that he had removed from the holster at his side. Rosalind shivered again. Civilization and outlawry were strangely mingled here. She would not have been surprised to see the lean-faced man begin to shoot at the others. Filled with sudden trepidation she took a step away from the shed, intending to return to the station and wait for her answer.

As she moved she heard a low moan. She started, paling, and then stood stock still, trembling with dread, but determined not to run. The sound came again, seeming to issue from the interior of the shed, and she retraced her step and leaned again against the wall of the building, listening.

There was no mistaking the sound—someone was in trouble. But she wanted to be certain before calling for help and she listened again to hear an unmistakable pounding on the wall near her, and a voice, calling frenziedly: “Help, help—for God’s sake!”

Her fears fled and she sprang to the door, finding it locked. She rattled it, impotently, and then left it and ran across the street to where the window-washer stood. He wheeled and spat copiously, almost in her face, as she rapidly told him her news, and then deliberately dropped his brush and cloth into the dust and mud at his feet and jumped after her, across the street.

“Who’s in here?” demanded the man, hammering on the door.

“It’s I—Judge Lindman! Open the door! Hurry! I’m smothering—and hurt!”

In what transpired within the next few minutes—and indeed during the hours following—the girl felt like an outsider. No one paid any attention to her; she was shoved, jostled, buffeted, by the crowd that gathered, swarming from all directions. But she was intensely interested.

It seemed to her that every person in Manti gathered in front of the shed—that all had heard of the abduction of the Judge. Some one secured an iron bar and battered the lock off the door; a half-dozen men dragged the Judge out, and he stood in front of the building, swaying in the hands of his supporters, his white hair disheveled, his lips blood-stained and smashed, where Corrigan had hit him. The frenzy of terror held him, and he looked wildly around at the tiers of faces confronting him, the cords of his neck standing out and writhing spasmodically. Twice he opened his lips to speak, but each time his words died in a dry gasp. At the third effort he shrieked:

“I—I want protection! Don’t let him touch me again, men! He means to kill me! Don’t let him touch me! I—I’ve been attacked—choked—knocked insensible! I appeal to you as American citizens for protection!”

It was fear, stark, naked, cringing, that the crowd saw. Faces blanched, bodies stiffened; a concerted breath, like a sigh, rose into the flat, desert air. Rosalind clenched her hands and stood rigid, thrilling with pity.

“Who done it?” A dozen voices asked the question.

“Corrigan!” The Judge screamed this, hysterically. “He is a thief and a scoundrel, men! He has plundered this county! He has prostituted your court. Your judge, too! I admit it. But I ask your mercy, men! I was forced into it! He threatened me! He falsified the land records! He wanted me to destroy the original record, but I didn’t—I told Trevison where it was—I hid it! And because I wouldn’t help Corrigan to rob you, he tried to kill me!”

A murmur, low, guttural, vindictive, rippled over the crowd, which had now swelled to such proportions that the street could not hold it. It fringed the railroad track; men were packed against the buildings surrounding the shed; they shoved, jostled and squirmed in an effort to get closer to the Judge. The windows of the Castle hotel were filled with faces, among which Rosalind saw Hester Harvey’s, ashen, her eyes aglow.

The Judge’s words had stabbed Rosalind—each like a separate knife-thrust; they had plunged her into a mental vacuum in which her brain, atrophied, reeled, paralyzed. She staggered—a man caught her, muttered something about there being too much excitement for a lady, and gruffly ordered others to clear the way that he might lead her out of the jam. She resisted, for she was determined to stay to hear the Judge to the end, and the man grinned hugely at her; and to escape the glances that she could feel were directed at her she slipped through the crowd and sought the front of the shed, leaning against it, weakly.

A silence had followed the murmur that had run over the crowd. There was a breathless period, during which every man seemed to be waiting for his neighbor to take the initiative. They wanted a leader. And he appeared, presently—a big, broad-shouldered man forced his way through the crowd and halted in front of the Judge.

“I reckon we’ll protect you, Judge. Just spit out what you got to say. We’ll stand by you. Where’s Trevison?”

“He came to the courthouse last night to get the record. I told him where it was. He forced me to go with him to an Indian pueblo, and he kept me there yesterday. He left me there last night with Clay Levins, while he came here to get the record.”

“Do you reckon he got it?”

“I don’t know. But from the way Corrigan acted last night—”

“Yes, yes; he got it!”

The words shifted the crowd’s gaze to Rosalind, swiftly. The girl had hardly realized that she had spoken. Her senses, paralyzed a minute before, had received the electric shock of sympathy from a continued study of the Judge’s face. She saw remorse on it, regret, shame, and the birth of a resolution to make whatever reparation that was within his power, at whatever cost. It was a weak face, but it was not vicious, and while she had been standing there she had noted the lines of suffering. It was not until the girl felt the gaze of many curious eyes on her that she realized she had committed herself, and her cheeks flamed. She set herself to face the stares; she must go on now.

“It’s Benham’s girl!” she heard a man standing near her whisper hoarsely, and she faced them, her chin held high, a queer joy leaping in her heart. She knew at this minute that her sympathies had been with Trevison all along; that she had always suspected Corrigan, but had fought against the suspicion because of the thought that in some way her father might be dragged into the affair. It had been a cowardly attitude, and she was glad that she had shaken it off. As her brain, under the spur of the sudden excitement, resumed its function, her thoughts flitted to the agent’s babble during the time she had been sending the telegram to her father. She talked rapidly, her voice carrying far:

“Trevison got the record last night. He stopped at my ranch and showed it to me. I suppose he was going to the pueblo, expecting to meet Levins and Lindman there—”

“By God!” The big, broad-shouldered man standing at Judge Lindman’s side interrupted her. He turned and faced the crowd. “We’re damned fools, boys—lettin’ this thing go on like we have! Corrigan’s took his deputies out, trailin’ Trevison, chargin’ him with murderin’ Braman, when his real purpose is to get his claws on that record! Trevison’s been fightin’ our fight for us, an’ we’ve stood around like a lot of gillies, lettin’ him do it! It’s likely that a man who’d cook up a deal like the Judge, here, says Corrigan has, would cook up another, chargin’ Trevison with guzzlin’ the banker. I’ve knowed Trevison a long time, boys, an’ I don’t believe he’d guzzle anybody—he’s too square a man for that!” He stood on his toes, raising his clenched hands, and bringing them down with a sweep of furious emphasis.

The crowd swayed restlessly. Rosalind saw it split apart, men fighting to open a pathway for a woman. There were shouts of: “Open up, there!” “Let the lady through!” “Gangway!” “She’s got somethin’ to say!” And the girl caught her breath sharply, for she recognized the woman as Hester Harvey.

It was some time before Hester reached the broad-shouldered man’s side. There was a stain in each of her cheeks, but outwardly, at least, she showed none of the excitement that had seized the crowd; her movements were deliberate and there was a resolute set to her lips. She got