Broken to the Plow written by Charles Caldwell Dobie

C >> Charles Caldwell Dobie >> Broken to the Plow

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

"She developed a whim to attend the launching... Naturally she wished
her _dearest_ friend with her."

Fred Starratt sat down. He was trembling inwardly, but he knew
instinctively that he must appear nonchalant and calm. He guessed at
once that it would not do for him to betray the fact that suddenly he
realized how completely he had been snared. Yet his trepidation must
have communicated itself, for Storch leaned forward with the
diabolical air of an inquisitor and said:

"Does it matter in the least whether there is one victim or six?"

Fred managed to reply, coolly, "Not the slightest ... but I have been
thinking in terms of one."

Storch smiled evilly. "That would have been absurd in any case. There
are always a score or so of bystanders who ..."

"Yes, of course, of course. Just so!" Fred interrupted.

Storch laid his pipe aside and drained a half-filled glass of red wine
standing beside his plate.

"I think I've turned a very neat trick," he said, smacking his lips in
satisfaction. "It's almost like a Greek tragedy--Hilmer, his wife, and
yours in one fell swoop, and at your hand. There is an artistic unity
about this affair that has been lacking in some of my other triumphs."

Fred rose again, and this time he turned squarely on Storch as he
asked:

"How long have you and Mrs. Hilmer been plotting this together?"

Storch's eyes widened in surprise. "You're getting keener every
moment... Well, you've asked a fair question. I planted that maid in
the house soon after I knew the story."

"After the fever set me to prattling?"

"Precisely."

Fred Starratt stood motionless for a moment, but presently he began to
laugh.

Storch looked annoyed, then rather puzzled. Fred took the hint and
fell silent. For the first time since his escape from Fairview he was
experiencing the joy of alert and sharpened senses. He had ceased to
drift. From this moment on he would be struggling. And a scarcely
repressed joy rose within him.

That night Fred Starratt did not sleep. His mind was too clear, his
senses too alert. He was like a man coming suddenly out of a mist into
the blinding sunshine of some valley sheltered from the sea.

"Does it matter in the least whether there is one victim or six?"

He repeated Storch's question over and over again. Yes, it did
matter--why, he could not have said. But even in a vague way there had
been a certain point in winging Hilmer. Hilmer had grown to be more
and more an impersonal effigy upon which one could spew forth malice
and be forever at peace. He had fancied, too, that Hilmer was his
enemy. Yet, Hilmer had done nothing more than harry him. It was Storch
who had captured him completely.

It was not that Storch was unable to discover a score of men ready and
willing to murder Hilmer, but he was finding an ironic diversion in
shoving a weary soul to the brink. He liked to confirm his faith in
the power of sorrow and misery and bitterness ... he liked to triumph
over that healing curse of indifference which time accomplished with
such subtlety. He took a delight in cutting the heart and soul out of
his victims and reducing them to puppets stuffed with sawdust,
answering the slightest pressure of his hands. How completely Fred
Starratt understood all this now! And in the blinding flash of this
realization he saw also the hidden spring that had answered Storch's
pressure. Storch may have been prodding for rancor, but he really had
touched the mainspring of all false and empty achievement--vanity.

"Losing a wife isn't of such moment ... but to be laughed at--that is
another matter!"

The words with which Storch had held him up to the scorn of the crowd
swept him now with their real significance. He had been afraid to seem
uncourageous.

Thus also had Mrs. Hilmer prodded him with her sly "What do men do in
such cases?"

Thus, also, had the terrible realization of his love for Sylvia
Molineaux been turned to false account with a wish to still the
stinging wounds of pride forever.

He had made just such empty gestures when he had battled for an
increase in salary, using Hilmer's weapons instead of his own, and
again when he had committed himself to Fairview with such a theatrical
flourish. He had performed then, he was performing now, with an eye to
his audience. And his audience had done then, and was doing now, what
it always did--treated him with the scorn men feel for any and all who
play down to them.

Already Storch was sneering with the contempt of a man too sure of his
power. He would not have risked the details of his plan otherwise. And
deep down Fred Starratt knew that the first duty to his soul was to be
rid of Storch at any cost--after that, perhaps, it would not matter
whether he had one or six or a hundred victims marked for destruction.
He was afraid of Storch and he had now to prove his courage to
himself.

It was at the blackest hour before dawn that this realization grew to
full stature. He raised himself upon his elbow, listening to the heavy
breathing of Storch. He rose cautiously. Now was his chance. He would
escape while his conviction was still glistening with the freshness of
crystallization. Moving with a catlike tread toward the door, he put
his hand upon the knob. It turned noisily. He heard Storch leap to his
feet. He stood quite still until Storch came up to him.

"Go back to bed ... where you belong!" Storch was commanding, coolly,
with a shade of menace in his voice.

He shuffled back to his couch. He was no longer afraid of Storch, but
a certain craftiness suddenly possessed him.

Presently he heard a key turn and he felt himself to be completely in
the hands of his jailer. Yet the locked door became at once the symbol
of both Storch's strength and weakness. Storch was determined to have
either his body or his soul. And, at that moment, Fred Starratt made
his choice.

Next morning Storch was up early and bustling about with unusual
clatter.

"Get up!" he cried, gayly, to Fred. "Do you realize this is Friday?...
There are a thousand details to attend to."

Fred pretended to find Storch's manner infectious. He had never seen
anyone so eager, so thrilling with anticipation.

"I've got to buy you a new outfit complete," Storch went on, filling
the coffeepot with water. "And you must be shaved and shorn and made
human-looking again. Rags are well enough to wrap discontent in ...
but one should have a different make-up for achievement... What was
the matter last night?"

"Oh, a bit of panic, I guess," Fred returned, nonchalantly. "But I'm
all right this morning."

Storch rubbed his hands in satisfaction, and he smiled continually.

They went out shortly after nine o'clock and in San Francisco's embryo
ghetto at McAllister and Fillmore streets they bought a decent-looking
misfit suit and a pair of second-hand shoes, to say nothing of a
bargain in shirts. A visit to a neighboring barber followed. Storch
permitted Fred to enter the shop alone, but he stood upon the corner
and waited.

When the barber finished, Fred was startled. Standing before the
mirror he gazed at his smooth-shaven cheek again and trembled. It was
like a resurrection. Even Storch was startled. Fred caught a
suggestion of doubt in the gaze his jailer threw at him. It was almost
as if Storch said:

"You are not the man I thought you."

After that Fred had a sense that Storch watched him more narrowly.
Impulses toward forcing the issue at once assailed Fred, but he was
too uncertain as to the outcome. He decided that the safest thing was
to wait until the very last moment, trying to prolong the issue until
it would be too late for Storch to lay other plans.

They went back to the shack for a bite of lunch. After they had eaten,
Fred put on his new clothes. He felt now completely cut off from the
cankerous life which had been so deliberately eating its way into his
philosophy. Could it be possible that clothes did in some mysterious
way make the man? Would his unkempt beard and gaping shoes and
tattered clothing have kept him nearer the path of violence?

A little after three o'clock in the afternoon a man came to the door
and handed Storch a carefully wrapped package. They did not exchange a
word. Storch took the package and stowed it away in a corner, covering
it with a ragged quilt.

"That is the bomb!" flashed through Fred's mind.

From that moment on this suggestive corner of the room was filled with
a mysterious fascination. It was like living on the edge of a volcano.

Later in the day he said to Storch:

"Are you sure the maker of that bomb was skillful?"

Storch bared his green teeth.

"One is sure of nothing!" he snapped back.

Fred tried to appear nonchalant. "Aren't you rather bold, having this
thing delivered in broad daylight?"

"What have we to fear?"

"I thought we were being watched."

Storch threw back his head and roared with laughter. "_You_ have been
watched ... if that's what you mean. I never believe in taking any
unnecessary chances."

Fred made no reply. But a certain contempt for Storch that hitherto
had been lacking rose within him. He had always fancied certain
elements of bigness in this man in spite of his fanaticism. Suddenly
he was conscious that his silence had evoked a subtle uneasiness in
Storch. At this moment he laughed heartily himself as he rose from his
seat, slapping Storch violently on the back as he cried:

"Upon my word, Storch, you're a master hand! No matter what happens
now, at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I was
perfectly stage-managed."

They kept close to the house until nearly midnight. At a few moments
to twelve Storch drew a flask of smuggled brandy from his hip pocket.

"Here, take a good drink!" he said, passing the bottle to Fred.

Fred did as he was bidden. Storch followed suit.

"Would you like a turn in the open?" Storch inquired, not unkindly.

"Yes," Fred assented.

They put on their hats. When they were outside Storch made a little
gesture of surrender. "You lead ... I'll follow," he said,
indulgently.

The night was breathless--still touched with the vagrant warmth of an
opulent April day. The spring of blossoming acacias was over, but an
even fuller harvest of seasonal unfolding was sweeping the town. A
fragrant east wind was flooding in from the blossom-starred valleys,
and vacant lots yielded up a scent of cool, green grass. A
soul-healing quality released itself from the heavily scented
air--hidden and mysterious beauties of both body and spirit that sent
little thrills through Fred Starratt. He had never been wrapped in a
more exquisite melancholy--not even during the rain-raked days at
Fairview. He knew that Storch was by his side, but, for the moment,
this sinister personality seemed to lose its power and he felt Monet
near him. It was as it had been during those days upon Storch's couch
with death beckoning--the nearer he approached the dead line, the more
distinctly he saw Monet. To-night his vision was clouded, but a keener
intuition gave him the sense of Monet's presence. He knew that he was
standing close to another brink.

For a time he surrendered completely to this luxury of feeling, as if
it strengthened him to find stark reality threaded with so much
haunting beauty. But he discovered himself suddenly yearning for the
poetry of life rather than the poetry of death. He wanted to live,
realizing completely that to-morrow might seal everything. He was not
afraid, but he was alive, very much alive--so alive that he found
himself rising triumphant from sorrow and shame and disillusionment.

He came out of his musings with a realization that Storch was
regarding him with that puzzled air which his moods were beginning to
evoke. And almost at the same time he was conscious that their feet
were planted upon that selfsame corner past which Ginger walked at
midnight. He put a hand on Storch's shoulder.

"Let us wait here a few moments," he said. "I am feeling a little
tired."

A newsboy bellowing the latest edition of the paper broke an unusual
and almost profound stillness.

"There doesn't seem to be many people about to-night," Fred observed,
casually.

Storch sneered. "To-day is Good Friday, I believe... Everyone has
grown suddenly pious."

Fred turned his attention to the windows of a tawdry candy shop,
filled with unhealthy-looking chocolates and chromatic sweets. He was
wondering whether Ginger would pass again to-night. His musings were
answered by the suggestive pressure of Storch's hand on his.

"There's a skirt on the Rialto, anyway," Storch was saying, with
disdain.

Fred kept his gaze fixed upon the candy-shop window. He was afraid to
look up. Could it be that Ginger was passing before him, perhaps for
the last time? He caught the vague reflection of a feminine form in
the plate-glass window. A surge of relief swept him--at least she was
alone!

"She's looking back!" Storch volunteered.

Fred turned. The woman had gained the doorway of the place where she
lodged and she was standing with an air of inconsequence as if she had
nothing of any purpose on her mind except an appreciation of the
night's dark beauty. He looked at her steadily ... It _was_ Ginger!

She continued to stand, immobile, wrapped in the sinister patience of
her calling. Fred could not take his eyes from her.

"She's waiting for you," Storch said.

Fred smiled wanly.

"Do you want to go? ... If you do I'll wait--here!"

Fred tried to conceal his conflicting emotions. He did not want to
betray his surprise at Storch's sudden and irrational indiscretion.

"Well, if you don't mind," he began to flounder, "I'll--"

Storch gave him a contemptuous shove. "Go on ... go on!" he cried,
almost impatiently, and the next moment Fred Starratt found himself at
Ginger's side... For an instant she stood transfixed as she lifted her
eyes to his.

"Don't scream!" he commanded between his locked lips. "I don't want
that man to know that--"

She released her breath sharply. "Shall we go in?" she whispered.

He nodded. Storch was pretending to be otherwise absorbed, but Fred
knew that he had been intent on their pantomime.

Her room was bare, pitifully bare, swept clean of all the tawdry
fripperies that one might expect from such an environment and
circumstance. She motioned him wearily to an uncompromising chair,
standing herself with an air of profound resignation as she leaned
against the cheaply varnished bureau.

"Is this the first time--" she began, and stopped short.

"No ... I've watched you every night for nearly two weeks."

"What was the idea?" she threw out, with an air of banter.

He stood up suddenly. "I wanted to see how much I _could_ stand," he
answered.

She closed her eyes for a moment ... her immobility was full of
tremulous fear and hope.

"Ah!" she said, finally. "So you did care, after all!"

"Yes ... when it was too late."

She crossed over to him, putting one wan finger on his trembling lips
in protest. She did not speak, but he read the thrilling simplicity of
her silence completely. "Love is never too late!" was what her
eloquent gesture implied.

He thrust her forward at arm's length, searching her eyes. "You are
right," he said, slowly. "And yet it can be bitter!"

She released herself gently. "You shouldn't have watched me like that
... it wasn't fair."

"I didn't think you would ever know... And that first night I didn't
intend to watch ... not really. After that it got to be habit...
You've no idea the capacity for suffering an unhappy man can acquire."

She took off her hat and flung it on the bed. "What made you follow me
to-night?"

"You came out of a clear sky ... when I needed you most ... as you
have always done... I didn't think I could ever escape that man
waiting for me below--not even for an instant... To-morrow, at this
time, I may be dead ... or worse."

"Dead?"

"To-morrow, at noon, I'm scheduled to blow up Axel Hilmer... There
will be five others in the party ... my wife and his among them."

Her body was rigid ... only her lips moved. "You are going to do it?"

"No."

She passed a fluttering hand over her forehead. "But you spoke of
death..."

He smiled bitterly. "Either I shall be dead--or the man waiting for me
on the street corner... I shall not tell him my decision until the
last moment. I don't want to give him the chance to work in an
understudy or complete the job himself... Will you go to Hilmer
to-morrow and warn him?... He arrives from the south at the Third and
Townsend depot somewhere around eleven o'clock. Advise him to postpone
the launching. And have the approaches to the shipyards combed for
radicals... Let them watch particularly for a man with a kodak on the
roof of the stores opposite the north gate."

She picked up her hat quickly. "I'll go out now and warn the police
... indirectly. I have ways, you know."

He put out a restraining hand. "No ... that's risky. My friend Storch
has spies everywhere. He's giving me a little rope here ... he may be
waiting just to see how foolishly I use it. If you lie low until
to-morrow there will be less of a chance of things going wrong...
Besides, I owe this man something. He's fed and sheltered me. I'm
going to give him an even break. You would do that much, I'm sure."

She threw her arms suddenly about him. "Let me go down to him," she
whispered. "Perhaps I can persuade him. Maybe he'll go away, then, and
leave you in peace."

He stroked her hair. "No, I can't escape him now. Sooner or later he
would get me. You don't understand his power. All my life I've dodged
issues. But now I've run up against a stone wall. Either I scale it or
I break my neck in the attempt."

She shivered as if his touch filled her with an exquisite fear as she
drew away.

"I'm wondering if you are quite real," she said, wistfully. "Sometimes
I've thought of you as dead, and, again, it didn't seem possible...
Always at night upon the street I've really looked for you. In every
face that stared at me I had a hope that your eyes would answer
mine... I think I've looked for you all my life... It isn't always
necessity that drives a woman to the streets... Sometimes it is the
search for happiness... I suppose you can't understand that..."

"I understand anything you tell me _now_!"

She went over to him again and took his hand. "You _are_ real, aren't
you?... Because I couldn't bear it ... if I were to wake up and find
this all a dream... Nothing else matters ... nothing in my whole life
... but this moment. And when it is over nothing will ever matter ...
again."

He sat there stroking her hand foolishly. There were no words with
which to answer her... Presently she put her lips close to his and he
kissed her, and he knew then that only a woman who had tasted the
bitter wormwood of infamy could put such purity into a kiss. How many
times she must have hungered for this moment! How many times must she
have felt her soul rising to her lips only to find it betrayed!

He loved her for her words and he loved her for her silence. Once he
would have sat waiting passionately for her to defend herself. He
would have been tricked into believing that any course of action
_could_ be justified. But she brought no charges, she placed no blame,
she offered no excuse. "It isn't always necessity that drives a woman
to the streets!" It took a great soul to be that honest. She might
have reproached him, too, for his neglect of her--for his fear to take
his happiness on any terms. But all she had said was, "You shouldn't
have watched me like that ... it wasn't fair."

He rose, finally, shaking himself into the world of reality again.

"I must be going now," he said, quietly. "Storch will begin to be
impatient."

She picked a gilt hairpin from the floor. "Let me see if I've got
everything straight. To-morrow at eleven o'clock I am to see Hilmer
and tell him to postpone the launching. And to watch at the north gate
for a man with a kodak... And then?"

He reached for his hat. "If you do not hear from me you might come and
look me up. I'll be at Storch cottage on Rincon Hill ... at the foot
of Second Street. Anyone about can tell you which house is his."

Her lips were an ashen gray. "You mean you'll be there ... _dead?_"

"If you are afraid ..."

"_Afraid!_" She drew herself up proudly.

"Well ... there is danger for you, too... I should have thought of
that!"

"You do not understand even now." She went and stood close to him. "I
_love_ you ... can't you realize that?"

He felt suddenly abashed, as if he stood convicted of being a cup too
shallow to hold her outpouring.

"Good-by," he whispered.

She closed her eyes, lifting her brow for his waiting kiss. The heavy
perfume of her hair seemed to draw his soul to a prodigal outpouring.
He found her lips again, clasping her close.

"Good-by," he heard her answer.

And at that moment he felt the mysterious Presence that had swept so
close to him on that heartbreaking Christmas Eve at Fairview.

CHAPTER XXII

Storch was standing at the lodging-house door when Fred stepped into
the street.

"Well, what now?" Storch inquired, with mock politeness.

"Let's go home!" Fred returned, emphatically.

Almost as soon as the phrase had escaped him he had a sense of its
grotesqueness. Home! Yes, he had to admit that he felt a certain
affection for that huddled room which had witnessed so much spiritual
travail. Somehow its dusty rafters seemed saturated with a human
quality, as if they had imprisoned all the perverse longings and
bitter griefs of the company that once sat in the dim lamplight and
chanted their litany of hate. He never really had been a part of this
company ... he never really had been a part of any company. At the
office of Ford, Wetherbee & Co., at Fairview, at Storch's gatherings,
he had mingled with his fellow-men amiably or tolerantly or
contemptuously, as the case might be, but never with sympathy or
understanding. He knew now the reason--he always had judged them, even
to the last moment, using the uncompromising foot rule of prejudice,
inherent or acquired. In the old days he had thought of these
prejudices as standards, mistaking aversions for principles. He had
tricked his loves, his hates, his preferences in a masquerade of
pretenses ... he had labels for everybody and he pigeonholed them with
the utmost promptitude. A man was a murderer or a saint or a
bricklayer, and he was nothing else. But at this moment, standing in
the light-flooded entrance to Ginger's lodgings, waiting for Storch to
lead him back to his figurative cell, he knew that a man could be a
murderer and a saint and a bricklayer and a thousand other things
besides. And if he were to sit again about that round table of
violence and despair he felt that, while he might find much to stir
hatred, he would never again give scope to contempt.

"You want to go home, eh?" Storch was repeating, almost with a note of
obscene mirth. "Well, our walk has been quieting, at all events."

Fred Starratt said nothing. He was not in a mood for talk. But when
they were inside the house again, with the cracked lamp shade spilling
a tempered light about the room, he turned to Storch and said,
quietly:

"I sha'n't go to sleep to-night, Storch... You throw yourself on the
couch; I've kept you from it long enough."

Storch made a movement toward the door.

"Don't bother to lock it ... I'm not going to run away. I'm not quite
a fool! I know that if I did try anything like that I wouldn't get
farther than the edge of the cliff."

Storch gave him a puzzled glance. Fred could see that he was
uncertain, baffled... But in the end he turned away from the unlocked
door with a shrug.

Fred Starratt smiled with inner satisfaction. He was glad that he had
come back to give Storch that "even break." It was something of an
achievement to have compelled Storch's faith in so slight a thing as a
literal honesty.

But Storch didn't take the couch. He threw his coat aside and crept
into his wretched pile of quilts on the floor, as he said:

"You may want to snatch forty winks or so before the night is over."

There was a warm note in his voice, a bit of truant fatherliness that
added an element of grotesqueness to the situation. He might have used
the same words and tone to a son about to take the highroad to fortune
on the morrow. Or to a lad determined to start upon a sunrise fishing
trip, and impatient of the first flush of dawn. After all, it took
great simplicity to approach the calamitous moments of life through
the channels of the commonplace.

Presently Storch was snoring with the zest which he always brought to
sleep. The night air had chilled the room past the point of comfort
and the lamp seemed to make little headway with its thin volume of
ascending warmth. Fred wrapped himself in a blanket and sat half
shivering in the gloom. At first, detached and unrelated thoughts ran
through his brain, but gradually his musing assumed a coherence.
To-morrow, at this time, he might be either a hunted murderer or a
victim himself of Storch's desperation. In any case, he would be
furnishing the text for many a newspaper sermon. How eagerly they
would trace his downfall, sniffing out the salacious bits for the
furtive enjoyment of the chemically pure! For there would be salacious
bits. Had he not spent the preceding night in the company of a fallen
woman? One by one the facts would be brought out, added to and
subtracted from, until the whole affair was a triumph of the transient
story-teller art, unrelieved by the remotest flash of understanding.
They would interview his former employers first. Mr. Ford would say:

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17