The Short Cut Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THE SHADOW

  The girl drooped her head a little, while Gypsy walked very slowly.Then she looked up again, swiftly, saw that the man was coming on tomeet her, saw the great, tall, gaunt form, marked the free swingingcarriage which she had noted so many times before, noticed the way hecarried his head, well back, saw the sunlight splashing like fire inthe red, red hair that in some fashion seemed to proclaim red blood andrecklessness. A young man he was with mighty hands and iron body, withlife leaping high in his laughing eyes, a man who might have been somepagan god of youth and joy and heedlessness.

  His big boots brought him on swiftly until he came to her horse and shestopped, her eyes dropping before his. He twined his fingers inGypsy's mane and looked up into her face, he laughing softly.

  "So you've ridden back to us, at last." His voice was in tune with therest of him, suggesting the wildness and recklessness that were part ofthe man's nature. He ran on, half bantering, half softly wondering atthe loveliness of her. "Are you pagan nymph or Christian maiden,Wanda?" he asked a little seriously, as nearly serious, one might havesaid, as it was this man's nature to be.

  She raised her lowered eyes, looking at him searchingly. Then he sawthe tears that at last were spilling over, the face from which thecolour was going again, the traces of horror of that thing which layfar back there under the pines.

  "Wanda!" he cried sharply. "You . . . There's something the matter!I've been running on like an inspired idiot and . . . What is it,Wanda?"

  "Oh," she said desperately, "it is terrible! I can't . . ." Shechoked over her words. But they were burning the soul within her, andshe ran on hastily. "I found him back there by Echo Creek crossing.He . . . he is dead."

  "Dead?" repeated the man. "Dead? Who, Wanda?"

  "Arthur!" she whispered.

  "Arthur, dead?" he muttered, his voice oddly low and quiet. "Arthur,dead? I don't understand."

  "He is dead," she said again heavily. "Some one shot him."

  She broke off and began to sob. He looked first at her, then along thetrail she had ridden, and finally, taking his hand from her horse'smane he turned abruptly and strode off toward the house. He mountedthe steps swiftly, passed her father and mother without a word inanswer to the questioning faces they turned toward him, entered thedoor and returned almost immediately, carrying his hat in his hand. Ashe came down the steps, he put on his hat and bent his head a little sothat she could not see his face. He passed her without a sign and wentdown to the stable. Then she rode up to the house and slipped from hersaddle at the foot of the steps. Her father and mother hurried to meether.

  "It is Arthur. It is Wayne's brother," cried Wanda brokenly from hermother's arms. "He is dead!"

  She told them briefly, hurriedly. Her father, his eyes strangely hardand inscrutable swore softly and turning without a word to either ofthe women went back to the house as Wayne had done, got his hat andhurried to the stable. His voice, hard and expressionless like hiseyes, floated up to them as he gave his brief orders to Jim to drivestraight back to the spot Wanda had described. The girl saw him enterthe stable and in a little while come out, riding a saddled horse.Already Wayne Shandon had ridden off along the trail, travelling with afury of speed that took no heed of the miles ahead of him.

  Mother and daughter turned and went slowly up the steps, their armsabout each other, their cheeks wet.

  "Who killed him, mamma?" whispered the girl, her moist eyes lifted."Who could have killed him?"

  The silent tale that a pearl handled revolver had told her was a lie, ahideous lie. She did not believe it, she was never going to believeit. For an instant there had been a horrible suspicion in her breast,then her loyalty had risen and crushed it and killed it and cast itout. But now she sought some new explanation to take its place, soughtit with intense eagerness.

  "Who killed him?" Mother's and daughter's eyes met furtively for aquick second. And then the mother's answer was no answer at all, but abroken, tremulous prayer: "Dear God, may they never know who did thisthing!"

  They did not look at each other again as they crossed the length of theveranda, on the north exposure of the great square house and turnedinto the spacious living room.

  "I am going to my room, mamma," said the girl faintly. "I want to bealone just a little."

  She knew that her mother was watching her as she passed through theliving room and out through the double doors to the veranda at theeast. But she did not turn. She did not ask what her mother hadmeant, she did not wish to know. She wanted just now more thananything in the world, to be alone in her own room, to take from herbosom the thing which she felt every one would know she had there, tohide it where it would be safe.

  To the east of the house in a little sheltered hollow her father,twenty years ago, had planted an orchard. She could see the white anddelicate pink of the blossoms, could catch the hint of perfume that alittle frolicking breeze brought to her.

  She heard voices out there and saw two men coming toward the house.There came to her ears, too, the sound of cool, contemptuous laughter.She knew who it was insolently jeering at the other, knew before shesaw them that it was the big, splendidly big fellow, as tall as RedReckless and heavier, who was known to her only as "Sledge" Hume. Shehad heard her father say last night that both Hume and Arthur Shandonwere coming to-day upon some matter of business in which the three menwere interested.

  "You're a little fool, anyway, Conway," the deep voice said with thatfrank impudence which was a part of Hume.

  Garth Conway, not a small man by two inches or fifty pounds, althoughhe appeared so beside his companion, made a reply which Wanda did nothear in full, but which reached her sufficiently to tell her that thetwo men were talking about some trifling matter of range management andthat his theory had provoked Sledge Hume's blunt comment. The two mencame on, Hume striding a couple of paces in front of Conway, until theycaught sight of her. Conway lifted his hat, his sullen eyesbrightening. Hume, staring at her with the keen eye of appraisal, didnot trouble himself to touch his hat and gave her no greeting beyondone of his curt nods.

  "They have not heard," Wanda thought with a little thrill of pity forGarth Conway who was so soon to learn of the death of the man who hadbeen more like a brother than cousin to him. "Mamma will tell them."

  She hurried down the veranda to her room which was at the far end, atthe southeast corner of the house. But she paused at the door as sheheard her mother's voice, shaken and tearful, and the reply that one ofthe men made.

  It was Garth Conway. As though the utterance were drawn from him bythe shock of the surprise, jerked from him involuntarily, he cried:

  "Dead? Murdered? My God! And he and Wayne quarrelled. . . ."

  "Go on!" It was Sledge Hume's heavy, colourless voice. "Just becausetwo men quarrel it doesn't mean that one kills the other, does it?"

  "Garth!" cried Mrs. Leland. "You mustn't . . ."

  "I didn't say that," cried Conway. "I didn't mean . . ."

  Wanda waited to hear no more. She hurried into her room, to standthere trembling behind the closed door, her face as white as that otherface she had looked upon earlier in the day.

  "He didn't do it!" she whispered. "He didn't. I know he didn't."

  But the thing which she carried in her bosom seemed to be demandingrudely: "Must you shut your eyes to believe with your heart?" And ifother eyes than her own saw it?

  There was her closet, the open door showing the party dresses she hadbrought back from school. She shook her head. Her room was so plainlyfurnished with just a little dressing table, her bed, a chair, a standwith some wild flowers on it, a smaller table with half a dozen booksscattered about. Then her eyes rested on the big trunk which had notyet been carried down into the basement.

  Running to it she flung up the lid and jerked out the tray. The bottomwas half filled with odds and ends, stockings, slippers, linen. Shetook the revolver from her bosom, dropped it t
o the bottom of thetrunk, covered it hastily with loose clothing, replaced the tray andclosed the lid. But she could not feel that her secret was safe untilshe had found the key on her dressing table. The lock was troublesome,it was always troublesome. She was down on her knees, had just heardthe little click which told her that the lock was fast, and was tryingto work the key out again when the door opened softly and her mothercame in.

  For a moment the two women, motionless, looked at each other fixedly.Then Wanda rose slowly to her feet, a little red flush colouring herbrow, a fear which she knew absurd and yet which she could not crushdown, rising into her fluttering breast. Then Mrs. Leland closed thedoor behind her, and stood with her back to it.

  "Will you tell me about it, Wanda, dear?"

  Her voice was troubled; her frank eyes, so like her daughter's, were atonce sad and anxious.

  "It is too horrible, mamma." Wanda closed her eyes tightly for amoment, trying to shut out the picture which burned so in her brain.Every little detail stood out in her memory clear cut and vivid, thegrass trampled into a rude circle, the hand that clung in death to whatit had last grasped in life, the grotesquely crumpled, huddled body.

  "Tell me about it, Wanda." Her mother was looking into the franklydistressed face, curiously. Wanda had again the uneasy idea that hermother was wondering about the trunk which she had just locked, andagain a quick fear leaped up within her that she might guess the secretit concealed.

  "How did you happen to find him?"

  "Shep was with me, running ahead. Shep found him."

  "And some one had killed him?"

  Wanda nodded, her lips tight pressed together, her hands twisting abouteach other in her lap. For a moment there was silence in the littleroom.

  "Wanda, look at me, dear."

  Her eyes turned, wondering, from the window and the orchard beyond, andwent swiftly to her mother. The words were very clearly a command now.The voice was lowered a little but had grown more insistent. And itseemed to her that Mrs. Leland's eyes had in them now something morethan sadness and anxiety, that they were suspicious. Again Wanda feltthe hot blood in her temples.

  "What is it, mamma?"

  "Who killed Arthur? Do you know?"

  "Mamma!" she cried, startled. "Why do you ask that? What do you mean?"

  "I want to know, dear. Do you know who killed him?"

  "No." It was plain that she was troubled, it was equally as plain thatshe spoke truthfully. "What makes you think . . . Why do you askthat?"

  "I thought," replied Mrs. Leland, a little uneasily, "that you mighthave seen something, found something. . . ."

  "No, no!" cried the girl impulsively. "I know what you mean. I haveno vaguest idea who could have done it!"

  The older woman came across the room and sat down at her daughter'sside, putting her arm about the slender form.

  "Wanda, dear," she said softly. "I am going to tell you somethingwhich you don't know yet. Wayne quarrelled with Arthur last night!"

  The girl's body stiffened convulsively. She wanted to spring up andrun out of the house to some hiding place in the old orchard and bealone. But she answered, her eyes clear and truthful.

  "I'm sorry. Oh, so sorry! Poor Wayne. That will make it so muchharder for him."

  "Yes. It is going to make it hard for him, Wanda. Harder than youhave imagined." She paused as if considering the advisability of whatshe had started to say, and then ended simply, hopelessly, "They aregoing to think that Wayne shot him!"

  "They mustn't!" cried Wanda hotly. "They haven't the right. It wouldbe thinking a lie, a wicked, hideous lie!"

  Mrs. Leland shook her head sadly.

  "Wanda," she went on quietly, "the first thing Garth said when I toldhim was that Wayne had quarrelled with Arthur last night. I don't mindso much what Garth says and does, but . . . I think that Martin isgoing to suspect Wayne of this, if he doesn't already suspect him."

  "But, surely father isn't so unjust, just because he doesn't like Wayne. . ."

  "If it were nothing more than just not liking him! Your father isn'tcapable of a feeling that is merely negative about people, child. Hehated the boys' father; Wayne I think he hates as bitterly."

  "But why, mamma? Surely there is no reason . . ."

  "Men, strong men like your father, don't always wait for reasons,Wanda," said Mrs. Leland gently. "He has never forgotten that hadcircumstances been a very, very little different I might have marriedthe other Wayne Shandon. When we were married and the other WayneShandon bought land so close to us your father was the angriest man Iever saw. That was before your time, dear. He rode across the valleythe next day; he has never told me what happened but his face was stillwhite when he came home. There are only a few things which can stirMartin into a passion like that."

  "But, surely, mamma . . ."

  "When the other Wayne Shandon married and the boys were born it made nodifference with Martin. When the other Wayne Shandon died and his wifedied and the boys were left the hatred in your father's breast did notdie with them. He transferred it to Arthur and the Wayne you know.Toward Wayne especially it has grown strong and bitter."

  "But why to him more than to Arthur?"

  "Because, my dear, Wayne is his father over and over again! Because hehas the same red hair and the same eyes with the same way of laughing.Because his voice is the same, his carriage is the same, his mad,reckless heart the same. Because everytime that Martin sees the WayneShandon that you know he sees the old Wayne Shandon I knew . . . and hehated."

  "But it can't be that if a man hates another, and he dies, the man willgo on hating his son just for being his son! Father is not so unjustas that, mamma! He will not suspect Wayne of murder, of murdering hisown brother, just because of his father!"

  Mrs. Leland's hands were interlocked tensely. "There are otherreasons, there will be other things remembered about the boy which willmake suspicion so easy."

  "I know what you mean," the girl cried, breathing deeply. "He isreckless, he is wild, I know. He gambles, he has quarrels with manymen. He does things that we would not do, but then we are women! Hedoes things that father would not do, but then father is not young anylonger! He is wild because his nature is inherited from his father;it's in his blood, he's young and he has grown up with the far outplaces. But he is not bad! He is not the kind of man to do a thinglike this. What do men call him, men who know him and what he is?They don't call him Coward, they don't call him Cheat, they don't callhim mean or dishonest or ungenerous! They call him Reckless, RedReckless, and they love him! Oh, mamma, can't you see that it isimpossible . . ."

  Mrs. Leland rose to her feet, her face grown suddenly pinched and white.

  "I don't know," she said with a sigh.

  "You believe it too!" cried the girl. "You think that Wayne Shandonkilled his own brother!"

  A delicate flush stained her mother's cheeks.

  "Wanda, child, you mustn't say that," she almost whispered. "I don'tbelieve it. I won't believe it. And if I did . . . Wanda, I'dremember the man his father was, the gentleman, the true-heartedgentleman, and I should say that I did not believe."

  Then, turning quickly so that her wondering daughter could not see theeyes that were blurred with a mist of tears, she left the room.

  When she had gone Wanda snatched up the trunk key from her table andthrust it quickly into her bosom. Then she sat down again on the edgeof her bed and stared out toward the orchard where the sunlight laybright and warm upon the apple blossoms . . . and saw only the quietbody by Echo Creek, that and the face of the man people called RedReckless.