It was Christmas Eve on Lonesome. But nobody on Lonesome knew that it
was Christmas Eve, although a child of the outer world could have
guessed it, even out in those wilds where Lonesome slipped from one lone
log cabin high up the steeps, down through a stretch of jungled darkness
to another lone cabin at the mouth of the stream.
There was the holy hush in the gray twilight that comes only on
Christmas Eve. There were the big flakes of snow that fell as they never
fall except on Christmas Eve. There was a snowy man on horseback in a
big coat, and with saddle-pockets that might have been bursting with
toys for children in the little cabin at the head of the stream.
But not even he knew that it was Christmas Eve. He was thinking of
Christmas Eve, but it was of the Christmas Eve of the year before, when
he sat in prison with a hundred other men in stripes, and listened to
the chaplain talk of peace and good will to all men upon earth, when he
had forgotten all men upon earth but one, and had only hatred in his
heart for him.
"Vengeance is mine! saith the Lord."
That was what the chaplain had thundered at him. And then, as now, he
thought of the enemy who had betrayed him to the law, and had sworn away
his liberty, and had robbed him of everything in life except a fierce
longing for the day when he could strike back and strike to kill. And
then, while he looked back hard into the chaplain's eyes, and now, while
he splashed through the yellow mud thinking of that Christmas Eve, Buck
shook his head; and then, as now, his sullen heart answered:
"Mine!"
The big flakes drifted to crotch and twig and limb. They gathered on the
brim of Buck's slouch hat, filled out the wrinkles in his big coat,
whitened his hair and his long mustache, and sifted into the yellow,
twisting path that guided his horse's feet.
High above he could see through the whirling snow now and then the gleam
of a red star. He knew it was the light from his enemy's window; but
somehow the chaplain's voice kept ringing in his ears, and every time he
saw the light he couldn't help thinking of the story of the Star that
the chaplain told that Christmas Eve, and he dropped his eyes by and by,
so as not to see it again, and rode on until the light shone in his
face.
Then he led his horse up a little ravine and hitched it among the snowy
holly and rhododendrons, and slipped toward the light. There was a dog
somewhere, of course; and like a thief he climbed over the low
rail-fence and stole through the tall snow-wet grass until he leaned
against an apple-tree with the sill of the window two feet above the
level of his eyes.
Reaching above him, he caught a stout limb and dragged himself up to a
crotch of the tree. A mass of snow slipped softly to the earth. The
branch creaked above the light wind; around the corner of the house a
dog growled and he sat still.
He had waited three long years and he had ridden two hard nights and
lain out two cold days in the woods for this.
And presently he reached out very carefully, and noiselessly broke leaf
and branch and twig until a passage was cleared for his eye and for the
point of the pistol that was gripped in his right hand.
A woman was just disappearing through the kitchen door, and he peered
cautiously and saw nothing but darting shadows. From one corner a shadow
loomed suddenly out in human shape. Buck saw the shadowed gesture of an
arm, and he cocked his pistol. That shadow was his man, and in a moment
he would be in a chair in the chimney corner to smoke his pipe,
maybe--his last pipe.
Buck smiled--pure hatred made him smile--but it was mean, a mean and
sorry thing to shoot this man in the back, dog though he was; and now
that the moment had come a wave of sickening shame ran through Buck. No
one of his name had ever done that before; but this man and his people
had, and with their own lips they had framed palliation for him. What
was fair for one was fair for the other they always said. A poor man
couldn't fight money in the courts; and so they had shot from the brush,
and that was why they were rich now and Buck was poor--why his enemy was
safe at home, and he was out here, homeless, in the apple-tree.
Buck thought of all this, but it was no use. The shadow slouched
suddenly and disappeared; and Buck was glad. With a gritting oath
between his chattering teeth he pulled his pistol in and thrust one leg
down to swing from the tree--he would meet him face to face next day and
kill him like a man--and there he hung as rigid as though the cold had
suddenly turned him, blood, bones, and marrow, into ice.
The door had opened, and full in the firelight stood the girl who he had
heard was dead. He knew now how and why that word was sent him. And now
she who had been his sweetheart stood before him--the wife of the man he
meant to kill.
Her lips moved--he thought he could tell what she said: "Git up, Jim,
git up!" Then she went back.
A flame flared up within him now that must have come straight from the
devil's forge. Again the shadows played over the ceiling. His teeth
grated as he cocked his pistol, and pointed it down the beam of light
that shot into the heart of the apple-tree, and waited.
The shadow of a head shot along the rafters and over the fireplace. It
was a madman clutching the butt of the pistol now, and as his eye caught
the glinting sight and his heart thumped, there stepped into the square
light of the window--a child!
It was a boy with yellow tumbled hair, and he had a puppy in his arms.
In front of the fire the little fellow dropped the dog, and they began
to play.
"Yap! yap! yap!"
Buck could hear the shrill barking of the fat little dog, and the joyous
shrieks of the child as he made his playfellow chase his tail round and
round or tumbled him head over heels on the floor. It was the first
child Buck had seen for three years; it was _his_ child and _hers_;
and, in the apple-tree, Buck watched fixedly.
They were down on the floor now, rolling over and over together; and he
watched them until the child grew tired and turned his face to the fire
and lay still--looking into it. Buck could see his eyes close presently,
and then the puppy crept closer, put his head on his playmate's chest,
and the two lay thus asleep.
And still Buck looked--his clasp loosening on his pistol and his lips
loosening under his stiff mustache--and kept looking until the door
opened again and the woman crossed the floor. A flood of light flashed
suddenly on the snow, barely touching the snow-hung tips of the
apple-tree, and he saw her in the doorway--saw her look anxiously into
the darkness--look and listen a long while.
Buck dropped noiselessly to the snow when she closed the door. He
wondered what they would think when they saw his tracks in the snow next
morning; and then he realized that they would be covered before morning.
As he started up the ravine where his horse was he heard the clink of
metal down the road and the splash of a horse's hoofs in the soft mud,
and he sank down behind a holly-bush.
Again the light from the cabin flashed out on the snow.
"That you, Jim?"
"Yep!"
And then the child's voice: "Has oo dot thum tandy?"
"Yep!"
The cheery answer rang out almost at Buck's ear, and Jim passed death
waiting for him behind the bush which his left foot brushed, shaking the
snow from the red berries down on the crouching figure beneath.
Once only, far down the dark jungled way, with the underlying streak of
yellow that was leading him whither, God only knew--once only Buck
looked back. There was the red light gleaming faintly through the
moonlit flakes of snow. Once more he thought of the Star, and once more
the chaplain's voice came back to him.
"Mine!" saith the Lord.
Just how, Buck could not see with himself in the snow and _him_ back
there for life with her and the child, but some strange impulse made him
bare his head.
"Yourn," said Buck grimly.
But nobody on Lonesome--not even Buck--knew that it was Christmas Eve.
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