A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade
TextCHAPTER XIX
AGAIN THE SALOON
For a man of philosophic temperament, one who seldom worried other people or himself, Colonel Stone had been having a nerve-racking time of it. He was troubled in the first place about the condition of affairs military in his big command, which the general himself had referred to as "a sad falling off," and which Stone saw no way under the law to correct. The number of men absent without leave, absent unaccounted for, probably in desertion, or absent "in the hands of the civil authorities," had increased alarmingly since the closing of the Canteen. "Skid" and his abominable community across the fords had been doing a thriving business, and were vastly enjoying the situation. Men by dozens who had been content, after their sharp drills or when the day's work was done, with mild and palatable beer, now sat sullenly about their barrack steps in the summer evenings, or, out of sheer disgust, wandered off by twos and threes (and a new footbridge erected by Skidmore), to spend their leisure hours and scanty cash over the reeking counters of the saloon, deeming themselves robbed of a right accorded every other wageworker throughout Christendom, and saying things of their Congress it wasn't safe for their officers even to think. They did not so much blame the women who had started the movement that spoiled their soldier homelife – how could women of the Fold be expected to know anything about the conditions on the frontier? – but, said our sergeants and corporals and sturdy men-at-arms, the soldier had a right to expect that Congress would look before it voted. Possibly had the soldiers, too, been voters their side of the case might have met some consideration; but, being politically on the same plane with "Indians not taxed," it was safe, at least, to similarly fix their social status and restrictions. Forbidden by the people he was sworn to serve, to take his temperate drink at home, but permitted by the same people to drink his fill of fiery stuff abroad, abroad the thirsty soldier went, and with him went many a man who had been content with mighty little, but resented it that he should be discriminated against, denied the right of the humblest citizen, and declared the only white man in America fit only to be ruled as is the red.
The morning list of prisoners at Minneconjou was something over which Stone was nearly breaking his heart. Every night now, in numbers, the men were sneaking off across the stream, lured by the dance music, the sound of clinking glass and soldier chorus and siren laughter. However well the colonel might know his own profession, he was powerless under the law to deal with this question. Here "Skid" had him and the garrison by the throat. With the knowledge that his men were drinking, dicing, and going generally to the devil within those ramshackle walls across the stream, he could neither remove the victims nor dislodge their tempters. Patrols he could send to search the roads, the open prairie, the river bottom, but Skidmore had declared that no armed party could legally cross his threshold, and the courts had backed him. Soldiers roistering in the roadway in front of the dive would dart within doors at sight of the patrol, and the officer, sergeant, or private that entered there left hope behind of fair treatment in the civil courts. Stone tried sending a big sergeant and six stalwart men unarmed, and they came back eventually without coats, collars, or character, none of them without bruises, some of them not without aid. Stone marveled that so many of his men turned up in town drunk, helpless, and in the hands of the local police, with fines imposed by the local magistrates, but that, too, was presently explained. Skid kept a big, twelve-seated "bus" that on busy nights, as the soldiers got well fuddled and completely strapped, he would load up with the drugged and drowsy victims and, instead of driving them over to the fort, would trundle them to town, dump them in front of some saloon, there to be run in by a ready police, and locked up until sober and abject. Then would come their arraignment and the invariable "Five dollars or thirty days." Then their officers would be notified. The fines at first were paid, until it dawned upon Stone that Skid and Silver Hill, both, were in the swindling combination, that after Skidmore had got the last cent of the men there was still a way of squeezing more from the officers. As soon as the fort realized the fact the town ceased to realize the funds, and Skidmore was told to send no more castaways to Silver Hill, so he simply turned them out to take their medicine where once they took their comfort – at the post.
But Skid's was a menace in yet another way, and, so long as his "ranch" was far over to the southeast, the fort had not felt it. The noble redman likes liquor, and the low-caste and half-breed crave it. There were always a shabby lot of hang-dog, prowling, ill-favored off-scourings of the Sioux lurking about Skid's premises day and night, bartering when they had anything to barter, but generally begging or stealing. A drunken soldier, sleeping off his whisky in the willow patches, was ever fair game, and sometimes now soldiers were found throttled, and robbed of their very boots and shirts. Serious clashes had occurred, and were of almost daily happening, to the end that officers, out fishing or shooting, had been insulted and threatened by Indians who had sworn vengeance against the soldier, and knew no discrimination. "We'll have trouble from that yet," Stone had told his general, and the grave, lined face of the latter showed how seriously he regarded the possibility. Sandy Ray, riding far out to the southwest one summer day, had met a brace of young braves who insolently ordered him to turn back or fight, and this when he had not so much as a pocket pistol or an inkling that trouble was brewing. Knowing a little of their "lingo," and something of the sign language, he demanded an explanation, and got for answer that two of their brothers had been worsted in conflict with him and his party. Sandy protested he had had no trouble with any of their people, and got a prompt answer, "Fork tongue!" "Liar!" and other expletives not printable, and he turned back before their revolvers, wrathful, helpless, and wondering. He told his tale to the colonel, and Stone looked solemn:
"Sandy," said he, "you – take chances riding out that way. I – I've been getting anxious about you – have been on the point of speaking – before." Whereat Ray suddenly went crimson, through his coat of sun tan, and bit his lip to control its quiver. "There's mischief brewing with those people, I fear. Their agent has written me twice. One drunken brawl at Skid's has led to clashes where whisky wasn't the inciting cause. He says two of his young men were set upon by some of our troopers here, and it isn't safe to meet them alone. Indeed, Sandy, I wish you'd ride in – some other direction."
It was what his mother had very gently said to him but yester morning, before he had heard of any sign of Indian trouble. How was he to hear, since he seemed to avoid the society of his kind and to prefer to live alone? Ray left the colonel's presence with his nerves a-tingle. Had it come to this then, that his father's old friend should say to his father's son that – he was riding the wrong way?
Yes. This was another matter that was giving Stone sore trouble. Mrs. Stone was a woman who paid, ordinarily, little heed to garrison talk. She and her colonel were the best of chums, and one reason was that, even when she heard she would never carry to him the little spiteful rumors often set astir by the envious or malicious. When, therefore, Mrs. Stone came to him with a story at the expense of man or woman, the colonel knew there was something behind it. Now, though Mrs. Dwight's pretty phaeton usually started eastward, it speedily "changed direction." The country about Minneconjou was very open, almost all rolling, treeless prairie, and its hard, winding roads could be seen criss-crossing the gray-green surface in many a mile. It seemed wicked that Mrs. Dwight should care to stay out so long when her husband had been so very seriously ill and was still confined to his room. Even though he did not desire her presence, and was sore angered at and presumably estranged from her, Minneconjou said she ought not to be abroad, especially if it involved her meeting a young officer once thought to have been deeply smitten with her charms. True, no one had seen them together except from a long distance, and then it appeared that the horseman rode for a few moments only by the side of the pretty equipage. But, for what else could she go thither, and why, if bent on going thither, should she thrice start by way of the east gate and then make long, wide circuit of the prairie roads?
Mrs. Stone had heard enough to convince her she ought to speak to Mrs. Dwight, but first she must consult her husband. Stone had heard just enough to convince him he ought to speak to Sandy, when they had their conference, this admirable couple, and that day he spoke.
And that day, as it happened, Sandy Ray had ridden home, saying to himself "this must be the last."
One morning, the first meeting since that of the runaway, she had surprised him mooning at the cottonwoods, his horse tethered and cropping the bunch grass, he himself stretched at length at the edge of the stream lost in deep and somber reflection. Just where she expected, there she found him, but not as she expected. In spite of her effusiveness the day of the drive, he was grave, distant, unresponsive, though she sat beaming on him from the phaeton, Félicie beside her, an unhearing, unheeding, uncomprehending dummy. The next time Inez took the air in that direction she saw him afar off, and he her, and rode away. That evening she promenaded quite an hour on her veranda, and later he got a little missive:
Will Mr. Ray, if not too busy, come to me one moment? There is a matter on which I much desire his aid.
(Signed) Inez Dwight.
Ray was slowly crossing the parade, after an hour at the sergeants' school. He could not stay home, where mother might possibly ask the questions she sometimes looked, but he need not have feared. Dwight's one soldier groom came speeding with the note and the word, "Mrs. Dwight's at the gate now, sor" And at the gate she was, in diaphanous muslin or piña or justi– how should a man know? Ray neither knew nor cared. His head was set against her, though his heart was throbbing hard. He had listened just one day to her soft speeches, quivered under her melting glance, and thrilled under her touch. Then he saw his danger and swore he would shun it, coward or no coward. On that following day, afar up the valley, he had set his face against her when she came in search of him. Now he could not so affront her, though she had tricked and affronted him. Again he was civil or coldly courteous, but he held aloof and would not see her extended hand, whereat her underlip began to tremble, and she laid her hand upon his arm.
"Am I never to have a kind word, Sandy?" she pleaded, and there was intoxication in the glance, the touch, and trembling lip. "Will you never listen to my story, and know how I was tricked – how – how I lost you?"
And bluntly he had answered, "I do not care to know. If that is all you wish to see me about, good-night," then turned and left her. He was raging at the thought of her flirtation with Foster. He could not forgive that, though for a few hours, in the amaze, bewilderment, and vague delight with which he had heard her waking words, and read the alluring message in her eyes, and felt the warm throb of her heart, almost against his, as they homeward drove, with Priscilla stern and silent at the reins, he had forgotten. He had been carried back, in spite of all, to the thrill and glamour of those wondrous days and almost deliriously blissful nights, sailing over moonlit summer seas, wandering under starry summer skies, with the soft breeze laden with the perfume of the cherry blossoms stirring her dusky hair and blowing it upon his warm young lips. But that was far, far in the past now. He could have listened, might have listened, but between her pleading eyes – those beautiful, uplifted eyes – and him there stalked the effigy of Stanley Foster, with that sneering, smiling, insolent, triumphant, possessive look upon his evil face; and, though Ray hated it, it was what he needed. Let it be remembered of him, then, that in the stillness of the summer night when they two stood almost face to face and utterly alone, despite her restraining hand, her beseeching touch and tone, he turned sturdily away.
But alas for human frailty, that was not the last appeal! The summer night was young, there was a soft wind blowing from the wrong direction, the southeast, and the strains of music, mellowed and tempered by distance, had been wafted fortwards from beyond the stream, soon to give way to louder, harsher strains, and be punctuated by jeering laugh or drunken yell. It was barely ten o'clock, yet the broad walk and many a veranda along the row seemed deserted. Walking stiffly homeward, Ray met only one couple, and never heeded a hail or two from vine-screened porches. He was in no mood for chat or confidence. He wished to reach his own room, and reach it unmolested. He breathed a sigh of relief that there was no one to detain him as he neared his own doorway. The little parlor, too, was deserted. Mother and Priscilla had apparently gone to some one of the neighbors. The lights were turned down on the lower floor and all was darkness above. Doors and windows, army-fashion, stood wide open, and, as he struck a match on reaching his little room, the white curtains were fluttering outward under the stir of the gentle air that swept through from the hall. He had no thought of staying. He meant to leave his books and papers, to bathe his face and hands, for they seemed burning, and then – he had no definite plan; he only wished to be alone.
At the foot of the stairs, as he reached the lower hall, he heard his mother's voice. She was at the gate, Priscilla and Captain Washburn, too, and Sandy turned, tiptoed through the hall, the dining-room, the deserted kitchen, for the domestics had gone gossiping about the neighborhood. Back of the kitchen, in the narrow yard, ran the one-storied shed, divided by partitions into laundry, storeroom, coal and woodshed, and Hogan's sleeping-room and sanctuary, and a dark form issued from Hogan's doorway at the instant that Sandy, tiptoeing still, came forth from the kitchen. "Hogan!" he hailed, but it was not Hogan. It was someone of his own size and build, someone who started, then stopped short and faced him with punctilious salute.
"It is Blenke, sir."
"And what the devil are you doing – there?" demanded Ray, suspicious, irritated, nervously angered against everything, everybody; never, moreover, approving of Blenke, and knowing well how Hogan disapproved of him.
But Blenke's voice was gentle melancholy, mingled with profound respect.
"Looking for Hogan, sir. I had promised Miss Sanford to return some books. I didn't presume to enter the house, and thought to leave a message with him. I desired, too, to see the lieutenant, sir. My application for transfer to the cavalry has been disapproved, and – I hoped that he might say just a word to help me."
"After that exploit of yours – last month?" And Ray's eyes grew angrier yet. "We have too many questionable characters as it is."
"Lieutenant," spoke the soldier, almost imploringly, "I am doing my best to live down that – most deplorable affair. I was drugged, sir. There can be no other explanation, but my captain still holds it against me, and at the very time I most needed to be here, he has picked me out for detached duty – to go to the wood camp in the Sagamore to-morrow."
And at the instant Priscilla's crisp, even tones were heard at the rear door. "Oh, Blenke? I thought I knew the voice. One moment and I'll strike a light!"
And in that moment Sandy made his escape.
His mother was sitting up waiting for him when, an hour later, he came in. Tenderly, fondly, she kissed him, and for a moment he clung to her. Then, looking in her face, he saw impending question.
"Not – not to-night, mother, darling," he hurriedly spoke. "I do want to talk with you – to tell you, but not to-night. Bear with me just a day or two, and" – then again his arms enfolded her – "trust me."
Her silent kiss, her murmured blessing, was his good-night. Then she went slowly to her room, leaving him to extinguish the lights and close their little army home to await the coming of another day.
But, somewhere about twelve there was trouble down toward the fords, and Sandy, in no mood for sleep, went forth to inquire. The sentry on No. 3 was standing listening to the distant jumble of excited voices. "I don't know what it was, sir. They took some fellow up to the guard-house, and they're hunting the willows for more." Then No. 4, behind them, set up a shout for the corporal, which No. 3 echoed, and Sandy, not knowing what to expect or why he should go, trudged westward up the sentry post and found No. 4 fifty paces beyond the last quarters, the major's, and wrathful because "some fellers," he said, had sneaked in across his post. The corporal came panting on the run, and Ray scouted on along the bluff, saw nothing, found nobody, turned to his right at the west gate, glanced upward where the night light burned dimly in the patient's room, at the closed blinds and shades of the room he knew to be hers, and all was hushed and still within the sleeping garrison as a second time he walked slowly homeward along the row, unseen of anybody, probably, from the moment he left the corporal and No. 4, who had some words over the sentry's report, and parted in ill humor. "Don't you yell for me again until it's business, d'ye hear?" was the corporal's last injunction.
Less than fifteen minutes later No. 4 was startled by a sudden sound – a woman's half-stifled scream, followed by commotion at Major Dwight's.
CHAPTER XX
A MOTHER'S DREAD
Little Jim came over somewhat earlier than usual in the morning. He had returned to his own room adjoining his father's as soon as the physicians deemed it wise to permit, and the permission was given earlier than others might have deemed wise because the doctors, both senior and junior, agreed that Dwight's recovery would be retarded if the boy were not close at hand, with his fond smile and caressing touch, eager to answer the faintest call. There was something more than pathetic in the way the somber deep-set eyes of the weak and broken man, so infinitely humbled in his own sight, now followed Jimmy's every movement about the room, and as soon as Dwight was strong enough to leave his bed for a moment at a time he would be up again and again during the night hours to gaze into Jimmy's sleeping face, to softly touch his hand or forehead. Stratton, of the hospital force, detailed for duty with the major, told later how the big tears would gather in the major's eyes as he bent over the unconscious sleeper; how, many a time he would find the major kneeling by the bedside, his lips moving in prayer. Marion's eyes welled over when this was told her, though it could hardly have been news. She and all who knew him in the old days must have known how, with clearing faculties, the strong and resolute man would suffer in the consciousness of the cruel wrong he had done his boy, must have realized the depth of his contrition, and probably guessed with fair accuracy the intensity of his grieving and of his thoughts of her – the wife he had so utterly loved, so sadly lost – Margaret, the devoted mother of his only son.
And realizing this, there had come a vital question to the mind of Marion Ray. What was to be now the father's attitude toward this girl-wife – she who had been set in Margaret's place, never for a moment to fill it? All Minneconjou was asking itself what would be her status, this beautiful young creature, when reason fully resumed its sway and Dwight was once more able to assume the reins of domestic authority? Thus far all that was known was that estrangement existed. She, herself, had sobbingly told her story to eager if not always sympathetic souls. "He turns from me almost in loathing – he for whom I would gladly die!" was her melodramatic utterance to one of her hearers, and it was quite enough to start the story that there would certainly be a separation just so soon as Dwight could effect it. Meantime, Inez had ever her faithful Félicie, her phaeton, her flowers from town, her lovely gowns and fluffy wraps, her long hours abed after sun-up, her late hours and suppers, concerning which kitchen cabinets of officers' row had superabundant information, and a certain firm in Silver Hill a swift-growing account, on the face of which the item, "Case Pommery Sec, Pints," appeared with a frequency suggestive of supper parties of several people instead of only one or two. The domestics at the Dwights' were a disloyal lot, if Félicie's views were accepted, but as members of the establishment they resented it that the "frog-eating Feelissy" should dare to give them orders. "Madame much objected to their late hours." "It was Madame's wish they should be in their rooms by eleven o'clock, and that even when there was a dance they should be home by twelve." Their rooms were under the low mansard, on what might be called the third floor, and a back staircase led from the kitchen to the upper regions; therefore, there was no need of their entering the dining-room late at night. Still, they saw no reason why a bolt should have been placed on the door. They said improper things at the advent of that obstruction during Foster's brief visit, and, after his unlamented departure, the spare bedroom on the lower floor, assigned to that distinguished officer, had been most ostentatiously aired. Foster's consumption of cigarettes was something abnormal, two receivers being sometimes left in the dining-room over night, both well burdened with ashes and discolored ends – the only tips, by the way, the parting guest, apparently, had time to leave.
No, those servitors had rebelled at heart against both mistress and maid, but the master's dictum had for a time enforced obedience. Now, however, they were in almost open revolt. "It was her that drove him crazy or he'd never have beaten Master Jimmy!" was the comprehensive verdict. Yet housewives who heard their tales and reported them to their lords met sometimes with rebuff. "Growl because they're sent to bed at eleven o'clock, do they? They'd growl the harder if ordered to sit up till then," was one way the unresponsive husband had of settling the story. But wives, who are wiser in the ways of the domestic world, felt sure there was something coming to explain it all, and something came – though, so far from explaining, it seemed to make matters all the more thrillingly inexplicable.
Jimmy, as has been said, came earlier. Daddy had been up quite a while during the night and the doctor had come over before sick call. Mamma wasn't quite well, and Doctor Wallen had directed that daddy be undisturbed and left to sleep, if possible, during the morning. Mamma, of course, never came to breakfast at all now. She had her chocolate in her room, prepared by Félicie, and seldom appeared until long after Jimmy was out of the house. Indeed, he seldom now met mamma at all, this in spite of the fact that, since the major's seizure, mamma had declined all invitations to dine or sup elsewhere, and such invitations had ceased coming, when now with entire propriety she might accept, if with entire propriety invitations could be extended. Minneconjou society was nearly unanimous in the view that, so long as her husband saw no impropriety in the lady's conduct, she must be bidden. Now that he only saw her in the presence of the doctor or the nurse, and she had for two weeks declined to attend, there was warrant for the omission of her name from social functions. Jimmy lunched either at Aunt Marion's, with some of his friends, or had a chosen chum to lunch with him at home. Anything Master Jim desired the kitchen cabinet accorded without demur. He dined for the present with Aunt Marion, or "had his rations," as he said, when daddy was served at seven.
Mamma, attended by Félicie, dined later, in her accustomed state. Mamma's appetite was very delicate and had to be stimulated, he said with unconscious truth, and this morning, this particular morning, he had had to wait for his breakfast. There was some kind of a squabble between Félicie and the folks in the kitchen. He couldn't understand it. They didn't like her having beaux around late at night – swore they'd seen a fellow prowling about there two or three times, and only just missed nabbing him at the foot of the back stairs last night, and Félicie was white with rage. She said Butts, the groom, was a cocaine (though he never kept any, and Félicie did) and she called the cook coshon, and scolded both for having disturbed daddy. Daddy got as far as the back stairs with his revolver, they said, before the nurse could get him back, and they swore it wasn't their doing, but hers – her scream that woke him, and even the sentry heard it out on No. 4 and yelled for the corporal, and they nearly caught somebody that hid in the woodshed, and "wasn't it funny, I never heard a thing!" and then Jimmy stopped short, for Priscilla had stepped to Aunt Marion's side at the little desk, and Aunt Marion was very pale. Priscilla had thrown him one warning glance, as though to say "Hush." But Aunt Marion asked a question.
"What time did this happen, Jimmy?"
"Why, after twelve, the nurse told the doctor. But, wasn't it funny that I didn't hear a thing of it?"
"Hear what, Jimmy?" said a voice, and Sandy, an hour late for breakfast, stood at the open door.
"Go fetch some water, quick!" said Priscilla, and Jim went like a shot, for Sandy Ray stood just one moment, pallid and uncomprehending, then, with a cry, sprang to his mother's side, for her eyes had closed, her head was drooping on Priscilla's arm. "Don't touch her, Sandy! Let me – It's – it'll be over in a minute! She has had one or two little turns like this!" And then Jim came running with a brimming glass. Mrs. Ray sipped slowly, lifted her head, put forth a feeble, wavering hand toward Sandy and faintly smiled. "How – foolish!" she muttered. "You shall have your coffee in a moment, Sandy," but Priscilla, with determined face, stood her ground and retained her hold. "Don't let her rise yet," said she warningly, her eyes on his face, "and – don't ask questions of anybody. Wait!"
For reasons of his own, Dr. Wallen, after hearing from the attendant of the stifled scream downstairs at 12:25, gave instructions to speak of it to nobody but the post surgeon when he came. He did not see, he did not ask to see, Madame. He did not wish to see Félicie, but that ubiquitous young person was on the landing and the verge of tears. Madame's rest also had been cruelly disturbed by this disturbance the most disreputable made by these miserables, the domestiques of Monsieur le Commandant. Madame not until after dawn had been able to repose herself, and as for Félicie, "me who you speak," nothing but the pathetic condition of Madame could persuade her to remain another day in a such establishment, wherein she, the experienced, the most-recommended, the companion of high nobility, the all-devoted, had been subject to insolence the most frightful – at which point the rear door to the landing opened, and in came cook, all bristling for combat, and the wordy battle would have reopened then and there but for Wallen's stern, "Silence, both of you! Pull each other's hair to your heart's content in the cellar, but not one word here." Then hied him homeward.
When the senior surgeon came over later, the patient was sleeping, and, after hearing that Wallen had been there, he left without interrogating the nurse. All seemed going well, so Waring had nothing of especial consequence to tell the colonel when dropping in at the office later.
Even the officer of the day, in response to the question, "Anything special to report, sir?" failed to make the faintest mention of the excitement reported by No. 4 as occurring soon after twelve. But it was no fault of the officer of the day. He had other and, presumably, far more important matters to mention first, and by the time he had told that two sergeants, three corporals and a dozen men had been run in by the patrols, many of them battered, most of them drunk, and all of them out of quarters, out of the post and in the thick of a row over at Skid's; that one of the guard had been slashed with a knife in the hands of a half-breed; that the patrol had been pelted with bottles, glasses and bar-room bric-a-brac; that Lieutenant Stowe had been felled by a missile that flattened the bridge of his nose, and that the prison room was filled to the limit, the colonel would hear no more. He ordered his horse and a mounted orderly, strode to the guard-house to personally look over the prisoners, then set forth to town in search of the sheriff.
So the old officer of the day and the old guard were relieved and went about their business, and while the colonel was closeted with civilian officials in town a new story started the rounds at Minneconjou – a story that only slowly found its way to the officers' club or quarters, for, if the commanding officer didn't care to hear it, Captain Rollis, the old officer of the day, cared not to refer to it, but there was one set of quarters besides that of Major Dwight's in which some portion of the story, at least, had been anticipated.
Unable to sleep, filled with anxiety about her firstborn, Marion Ray after midnight had left her room and stolen over to his, hoping vainly that he might have made his way thither. But the bed was undisturbed, the room was empty. Then she thought perhaps he might have fallen asleep in an easy-chair in the parlor; but the parlor, too, was empty, the lights turned low. The front door was closed for the night and bolted, so she went to the kitchen and found the back door ajar. Somewhere out on sentry post there was for a moment a murmur of voices, then silence fell again, except for distant sounds at the ford – sounds to which they were becoming accustomed, though still unreconciled.