Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries Read online

  A little later a man passed us at a gallop. He was a drover named Marks, who lived beyond my Uncle Abner, and he was riding hard to get in before night. He hailed us, but he did not stop; we got a shower of mud and Dix cursed him. I have never seen a more evil face. I suppose it was because Dix usually had a grin about his mouth, and when that sort of face gets twisted there’s nothing like it.

  After that he was silent. He rode with his head down and his fingers plucking at his jaw, like a man in some perplexity. At the crossroads he stopped and sat for some time in the saddle, looking before him. I left him there, but at the bridge he overtook me. He said he had concluded to get some supper and go on after that.

  Roy’s Tavern consisted of a single big room, with a loft above it for sleeping quarters. A narrow covered way connected this room with the house in which Roy and his family lived. We used to hang our saddles on wooden pegs in this covered way. I have seen that wall so hung with saddles that you could not find a place for another stirrup. But tonight Dix and I were alone in the tavern. He looked cunningly at me when I took the saddle-bags with me into the big room and when I went with them up the ladder into the loft. But he said nothing—in fact, he had scarcely spoken. It was cold; the road had begun to freeze when we got in. Roy had lighted a big fire. I left Dix before it. I did not take off my clothes, because Roy’s beds were mattresses of wheat straw covered with heifer skins—good enough for summer but pretty cold on such a night, even with the heavy, hand-woven coverlet in big white and black checks.

  I put the saddle-bags under my head and lay down. I went at once to sleep, but I suddenly awaked. I thought there was a candle in the loft, but it was a gleam of light from the fire below, shining through a crack in the floor. I lay and watched it, the coverlet pulled up to my chin. Then I began to wonder why the fire burned so brightly. Dix ought to be on his way some time and it was a custom for the last man to rake out the fire. There was not a sound. The light streamed steadily through the crack.

  Presently it occurred to me that Dix had forgotten the fire and that I ought to go down and rake it out. Roy always warned us about the fire when he went to bed. I got up, wrapped the great coverlet around me, went over to the gleam of light and looked down through the crack in the floor. I had to lie out at full length to get my eye against the board. The hickory logs had turned to great embers and glowed like a furnace of red coals.

  Before this fire stood Dix. He was holding out his hands and turning himself about as though he were cold to the marrow; but with all that chill upon him, when the man’s face came into the light I saw it covered with a sprinkling of sweat.

  I shall carry the memory of that face. The grin was there at the mouth, but it was pulled about; the eyelids were drawn in; the teeth were clamped together. I have seen a dog poisoned with strychnine look like that.

  I lay there and watched the thing. It was as though something potent and evil dwelling within the man were in travail to re-form his face upon its image. You cannot realize how that devilish labor held me—the face worked as though it were some plastic stuff, and the sweat oozed through. And all the time the man was cold; and he was crowding into the fire and turning himself about and putting out his hands. And it was as though the heat would no more enter in and warm him than it will enter in and warm the ice.

  It seemed to scorch him and leave him cold—and he was fearfully and desperately cold! I could smell the singe of the fire on him, but it had no power against this diabolic chill. I began myself to shiver, although I had the heavy coverlet wrapped around me.

  The thing was a fascinating horror; I seemed to be looking down into the chamber of some abominable maternity. The room was filled with the steady red light of the fire. Not a shadow moved in it. And there was silence. The man had taken off his boots and he twisted before the fire without a sound. It was like the shuddering tales of possession or transformation by a drug. I thought the man would burn himself to death. His clothes smoked. How could he be so cold?

  Then, finally, the thing was over! I did not see it for his face was in the fire. But suddenly he grew composed and stepped back into the room. I tell you I was afraid to look! I do not know what thing I expected to see there, but I did not think it would be Dix.

  Well, it was Dix; but not the Dix that any of us knew. There was a certain apology, a certain indecision, a certain servility in that other Dix, and these things showed about his face. But there was none of these weaknesses in this man.

  His face had been pulled into planes of firmness and decision; the slack in his features had been taken up; the furtive moving of the eye was gone. He stood now squarely on his feet and he was full of courage. But I was afraid of him as I have never been afraid of any human creature in this world! Something that had been servile in him, that had skulked behind disguises, that had worn the habiliments of subterfuge, had now come forth; and it had molded the features of the man to its abominable courage.

  Presently he began to move swiftly about the room. He looked out at the window and he listened at the door; then he went softly into the covered way. I thought he was going on his journey; but then he could not be going with his boots there beside the fire. In a moment he returned with a saddle blanket in his hand and came softly across the room to the ladder.

  Then I understood the thing that he intended, and I was motionless with fear. I tried to get up, but I could not. I could only lie there with my eye strained to the crack in the floor. His foot was on the ladder, and I could already feel his hand on my throat and that blanket on my face, and the suffocation of death in me, when far away on the hard road I heard a horse!

  He heard it, too, for he stopped on the ladder and turned his evil face about toward the door. The horse was on the long hill beyond the bridge, and he was coming as though the devil rode in his saddle. It was a hard, dark night. The frozen road was like flint; I could hear the iron of the shoes ring. Whoever rode that horse rode for his life or for something more than his life, or he was mad. I heard the horse strike the bridge and thunder across it. And all the while Dix hung there on the ladder by his hands and listened. Now he sprang softly down, pulled on his boots and stood up before the fire, his face—this new face—gleaming with its evil courage. The next moment the horse stopped.

  I could hear him plunge under the bit, his iron shoes ripping the frozen road; then the door leaped back and my Uncle Abner was in the room. I was so glad that my heart almost choked me and for a moment I could hardly see—everything was in a sort of mist.

  Abner swept the room in a glance, then he stopped. “Thank God!” he said; “I’m in time.” And he drew his hand down over his face with the fingers hard and close as though he pulled something away. “In time for what?” said Dix.

  Abner looked him over. And I could see the muscles of his big shoulders stiffen as he looked. And again he looked him over. Then he spoke and his voice was strange. “Dix,” he said, “is it you?” “Who would it be but me?” said Dix. “It might be the devil,” said Abner. “Do you know what your face looks like?”

  “No matter what it looks like!” said Dix. “And so,” said Abner, “we have got courage with this new face.”

  Dix threw up his head.

  “Now, look here, Abner,” he said, “I’ve had about enough of your big manner. You ride a horse to death and you come plunging in here; what the devil’s wrong with you?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” replied Abner, and his voice was low. “But there’s something damnably wrong with you, Dix.”

  “The devil take you,” said Dix, and I saw him measure Abner with his eye. It was not fear that held him back; fear was gone out of the creature; I think it was a kind of prudence.

  Abner’s eyes kindled, but his voice remained low and steady.

  “Those are big words,” he said.

  “Well,” cried Dix, “get out of the door then and let me pass!”

  “Not just yet,” said Abner; “I have something to say to you.”

&n
bsp; “Say it then,” cried Dix, “and get out of the door.”

  “Why hurry?” said Abner. “It’s a long time until daylight, and I have a good deal to say.”

  “You’ll not say it to me,” said Dix. “I’ve got a trip to make tonight; get out of the door.”

  Abner did not move. “You’ve got a longer trip to make tonight than you think, Dix,” he said; “but you’re going to hear what I have to say before you set out on it.”

  I saw Dix rise on his toes and I knew what he wished for. He wished for a weapon; and he wished for the bulk of bone and muscle that would have a chance against Abner. But he had neither the one nor the other. And he stood there on his toes and began to curse—low, vicious, withering oaths, that were like the swish of a knife.

  Abner was looking at the man with a curious interest.

  “It is strange,” he said, as though speaking to himself, “but it explains the thing. While one is the servant of neither, one has the courage of neither; but when he finally makes his choice he gets what his master has to give him.”

  Then he spoke to Dix.

  “Sit down!” he said; and it was in that deep, level voice that Abner used when he was standing close behind his words. Every man in the hills knew that voice; one had only a moment to decide after he heard it. Dix knew that, and yet for one instant he hung there on his toes, his eyes shimmering like a weasel’s, his mouth twisting. He was not afraid! If he had had the ghost of a chance against Abner he would have taken it. But he knew he had not, and with an oath he threw the saddle blanket into a corner and sat down by the fire.

  Abner came away from the door then. He took off his great coat. He put a log on the fire and he sat down across the hearth from Dix. The new hickory sprang crackling into flames. For a good while there was silence; the two men sat at either end of the hearth without a word. Abner seemed to have fallen into a study of the man before him. Finally he spoke:

  “Dix,” he said, “do you believe in the providence of God?”

  Dix flung up his head.

  “Abner,” he cried, “if you are going to talk nonsense I promise you upon my oath that I will not stay to listen.”

  Abner did not at once reply. He seemed to begin now at another point.

  “Dix,” he said, “you’ve had a good deal of bad luck… Perhaps you wish it put that way.”

  “Now, Abner,” he cried, “you speak the truth; I have had hell’s luck.”

  “Hell’s luck you have had,” replied Abner. “It is a good word. I accept it. Your partner disappeared with all the money of the grazers on the other side of the river; you lost the land in your lawsuit; and you are tonight without a dollar. That was a big tract of land to lose. Where did you get so great a sum of money?”

  “I have told you a hundred times,” replied Dix. “I got it from my people over the mountains. You know where I got it.”

  “Yes,” said Abner. “I know where you got it, Dix. And I know another thing. But first I want to show you this,” and he took a little penknife out of his pocket. “And I want to tell you that I believe in the providence of God, Dix.”

  “I don’t care a fiddler’s damn what you believe in,” said Dix.

  “But you do care what I know,” replied Abner.

  “What do you know?” said Dix.

  “I know where your partner is,” replied Abner.

  I was uncertain about what Dix was going to do, but finally he answered with a sneer.

  “Then you know something that nobody else knows.”

  “Yes,” replied Abner, “there is another man who knows.”

  “Who?” said Dix.

  “You,” said Abner.

  Dix leaned over in his chair and looked at Abner closely.

  “Abner,” he cried, “you are talking nonsense. Nobody knows where Alkire is. If I knew I’d go after him.”

  “Dix,” Abner answered, and it was again in that deep, level voice, “if I had got here five minutes later you would have gone after him. I can promise you that, Dix.

  “Now, listen! I was in the upcountry when I got your word about the partnership; and I was on my way back when at Big Run I broke a stirrup-leather. I had no knife and I went into the store and bought this one; then the storekeeper told me that Alkire had gone to see you. I didn’t want to interfere with him and I turned back… So I did not become your partner. And so I did not disappear… What was it that prevented? The broken stirrup-leather? The knife? In old times, Dix, men were so blind that God had to open their eyes before they could see His angel in the way before them… They are still blind, but they ought not to be that blind… Well, on the night that Alkire disappeared I met him on his way to your house. It was out there at the bridge. He had broken a stirrup-leather and he was trying to fasten it with a nail. He asked me if I had a knife, and I gave him this one. It was beginning to rain and I went on, leaving him there in the road with the knife in his hand.”

  Abner paused; the muscles of his great iron jaw contracted.

  “God forgive me,” he said; “it was His angel again! I never saw Alkire after that.”

  “Nobody ever saw him after that,” said Dix. “He got out of the hills that night.”

  “No,” replied Abner; “it was not in the night when Alkire started on his journey; it was in the day.”

  “Abner,” said Dix, “you talk like a fool. If Alkire had traveled the road in the day somebody would have seen him.”

  “Nobody could see him on the road he traveled,” replied Abner.

  “What road?” said Dix.

  “Dix,” replied Abner, “you will learn that soon enough.”

  Abner looked hard at the man.

  “You saw Alkire when he started on his journey,” he continued; “but did you see who it was that went with him?”

  “Nobody went with him,” replied Dix; “Alkire rode alone.”

  “Not alone,” said Abner; “there was another.”

  “I didn’t see him,” said Dix.

  “And yet,” continued Abner, “you made Alkire go with him.”

  I saw cunning enter Dix’s face. He was puzzled, but he thought Abner off the scent.

  “And I made Alkire go with somebody, did I? Well, who was it? Did you see him?”

  “Nobody ever saw him.”

  “He must be a stranger.”

  “No,” replied Abner, “he rode the hills before we came into them.”

  “Indeed!” said Dix. “And what kind of a horse did he ride?”

  “White!” said Abner.

  Dix got some inkling of what Abner meant now, and his face grew livid.

  “What are you driving at?” he cried. “You sit here beating around the bush. If you know anything, say it out; let’s hear it. What is it?”

  Abner put out his big sinewy hand as though to thrust Dix back into his chair.

  “Listen!” he said. “Two days after that I wanted to get out into the Ten Mile country and I went through your lands; I rode a path through the narrow valley west of your house. At a point on the path where there is an apple tree something caught my eye and I stopped. Five minutes later I knew exactly what had happened under that apple tree… Someone had ridden there; he had stopped under that tree; then something happened and the horse had run away—I knew that by the tracks of a horse on this path. I knew that the horse had a rider and that it had stopped under this tree, because there was a limb cut from the tree at a certain height. I knew the horse had remained there, because the small twigs of the apple limb had been pared o&, and they lay in a heap on the path. I knew that something had frightened the horse and that it had run away, because the sod was torn up where it had jumped… Ten minutes later I knew that the rider had not been in the saddle when the horse jumped; I knew what it was that had frightened the horse; and I knew that the thing had occurred the day before. Now, how did I know that?

  “Listen! I put my horse into the tracks of that other horse under the tree and studied the ground. Immediately I saw where the wee
ds beside the path had been crushed, as though some animal had been lying down there, and in the very center of that bed I saw a little heap of fresh earth. That was strange, Dix, that fresh earth where the animal had been lying down! It had come there after the animal had got up, or else it would have been pressed flat. But where had it come from?

  “I got off and walked around the apple tree, moving out from it in an ever-widening circle. Finally I found an ant heap, the top of which had been scraped away as though one had taken up the loose earth in his hands. Then I went back and plucked up some of the earth. The under clods of it were colored as with red paint… No, it wasn’t paint.

  “There was a brush fence some fifty yards away. I went over to it and followed it down.

  “Opposite the apple tree the weeds were again crushed as though some animal had lain there. I sat down in that place and drew a line with my eye across a log of the fence to a limb of the apple tree. Then I got on my horse and again put him in the tracks of that other horse under the tree; the imaginary line passed through the pit of my stomach!… I am four inches taller than Alkire.”

  It was then that Dix began to curse. I had seen his face work while Abner was speaking and that spray of sweat had reappeared. But he kept the courage he had got.

  “Lord Almighty, man!” he cried. “How prettily you sum it up! We shall presently have Lawyer Abner with his brief. Because my renters have killed a calf; because one of their horses frightened at the blood has bolted, and because they cover the blood with earth so the other horses traveling the path may not do the like; straightway I have shot Alkire out of his saddle… Man! What a mare’s nest! And now, Lawyer Abner, with your neat little conclusions, what did I do with Alkire after I had killed him? Did I cause him to vanish into the air with a smell of sulphur or did I cause the earth to yawn and Alkire to descend into its bowels?”