The Robber Bridegroom Page 9

  "So far, so good/' said the Little Harp. "Now turn the sum over to me." And he lifted the bag of gold out of Goat's hand.

  "But it is my brain's money!" cried Goat.

  "It is my brother's head!" cried the Little Harp.

  "But I am Jamie Lockhart, the bandit of the woods!" cried Jamie, "This is all a madness!"

  "Let it be untangled at once," said the Little Harp, sitting down between them and putting his great hand to his tiny head. "Now, first—I take back my words of yesterday—rash, headstrong words. And so you, sir, my good stranger, are not Jamie Lockhart, the bandit of the woods. And second, that is not your own head you are wearing, and third, I don't want it, and fourth, I won't have it."

  "But I am Jamie Lockhart, the bandit of the

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 157 woods!" cried Jamie. "Not a man in the world can say I am not who I am and what I am, and live!"

  "Yes they can!" said the Little Harp. "I tell you you are not and never will be. I stand here and say Jamie Lockhart, the bandit of the woods, is dead, and his head rides a stick-horse in Rodney square, and here hot in my hand is the money that his life was worth."

  "Now the time has come to fight!" cried Jamie.

  There was a shy little smile on the Little Harp's face at that, and he said, "What's more, there is no more Big Harp any more, for his head is gone, and the Little Harp rules now. And for the proof of everything, I'm killing you now with my own two hands." With this, he rushed upon Jamie in full confidence. But Jamie leaped up and burst his ropes with one great strong breath, and caught him in the middle of the air.

  And this time Jamie had no hesitations about what to do, but went for the Little Harp with all his might, and that was needed.

  Goat, seeing that the fight had started at last,

  158 THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM butted out through the door and sat on the roof of the hut like an owl. In the next moment out rolled the two men through the door after him, and they tore the turf and leveled whatever tree they fought under, until now and again an Indian woke up and quivered in his bed.

  They fought the whole night through, till the sun came up. At last, just as the Little Harp had his knife point in Jamie's throat, and a drop of blood stood on it, Jamie pulled out his own little dirk and stopped the deed then and there.

  The Little Harp, with a wound in his heart, heaved a deep sigh and a tear came out of his eye, for he hated to give up his life as badly as the deer in the woods.

  So Jamie left him dead on the ground, tied in his own belt the reward that had been offered for his life, and started off a free man.

  When the Indians gathered round and found themselves cheated of trying the two bandit leaders in court—one being already dead, and one being free—their fury was without bounds.

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 159 So they rushed upon the rest of the robber band, the lazy ones who were still snoring in their places, and scalped them every one.

  Then the drums began to beat, and to avenge the death of the Indian maiden, they sent for the beautiful girl they had captured to appear before their circle.

  But Salome, in her hut, heard them coming for Rosamond, and she cried out and said, "What beautiful girl are you looking for? I am the most beautiful!" For she was jealous even of not being chosen the victim.

  "What of the young girl with the golden hair?" said the Indians.

  "She is dead!" cried Salome. Her voice rose to a great shout. "She is dead! I saw her die!"

  Then a great groan went up from Clement, who heard her from where he was bound in his hut. For like Rosamond, he believed her at last, when the day came.

  "Alas!" said the Indians, sad and cheated once more. "How did the beautiful girl meet this early death?"

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  "She ran from the hut, escaping in the night/' said Salome. "And a great spotted leopard came and carried her off between his teeth!"

  So they went and looked, and sure enough, Rosamond was gone and there was no sign of her at all. "It must have been a leopard/* they said.

  "Now, will you choose me?" Salome asked.

  So the Indians led her out into their circle and stood her up before them.

  But before they could say anything at all to her, Salome opened her mouth and gave them a terrible, long harangue that made them put their fingers in their ears. She told them all she knew.

  "It is the command of our Chief," they told her, "that you be still."

  "I won't be still!" said she, and told them everything over.

  "It is the command of the sun itself," they told her, "that you be still." But though they approached her, they did not lay their hands upon her, for she seemed dangerous to them.

  "No one is to have power over me!" Salome cried, shaking both her fists in the smoky air.

  ''No man, and none of the elements! I am by myself in the world/'

  Then they looked at one another. And Clement, from where he was bound, saw the sad faces of the Indians, like the faces of feverish children, and said to himself, "The savages have only come the sooner to their end; we will come to ours too. Why have I built my house, and added to it? The planter will go after the hunter, and the merchant after the planter, all having their day."

  "The sun will lay his hand upon you/' said the Indian Chief himself to Salome, speaking from the center of the circle. "The sun asks worship."

  "The sun cannot punish me," cried Salome. "Punishment is always the proof. Why, I could punish the sun if I wished! For I have seen your sun with a shadow eating it, and I know it for a weak thing in the Winter, like all the rest of life!"

  "She would throw mud on the face of the sun," said the Indians, drawing their circle in

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  upon Salome and their hands lifting with their

  tomahawks, but not touching her.

  Salome only laughed the more. "I can punish your sun if I wish!" she cried. "I will tell the sun now to stand still, and it will stand still!" And she threw back her head and called, "Sun! Stand where you are!"

  Then anger came over all the faces of the Indians and dissolved the weariness that was there, and up sprang the young son of the Chief, bounding forward to the center of the circle. His hand went up for the first time above his father's, and he gave a command in a voice as strong as a buffalo's.

  "You dared to command the sun!" he cried. "And you must dance for it."

  Then his father raised his arms too, and all the other savages spread their arms high like the branches of trees, and moved inward.

  "Dance!" they said. "If you dare to command the sun, dance!"

  So Salome began to dance, whether she wanted to or whether she didn't, and the Indian

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 163 Chief said, "If you stand still before the sun obeys you and stands still likewise, it is death for you."

  So Salome danced and shouted, "Sun, retire! Go back, Sun! Sun, stand still!"

  But it went on as it always had, and the Indian Chief said, "One like you cannot force him, for his home is above the clouds, in a tranquil place. He is the source of our tribe and of every thing, and therefore he does not and will not stand still, but continues forever/*

  So Salome danced. Out went her arms, hop went her bony feet, in and out went her head on her neck, like a hen that flies before the hawk. Around the fire they drummed her, and she danced till her limbs seemed all red-hot. One by one she cast off her petticoats, until at the end she danced as naked as a plucked goose, and faster and faster, until the dance was raveled out and she could dance no more. And still the sur went on as well as ever.

  There she stood, blue as a thistle, and over she fell, stone dead.

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  "What man/' said the Indian Chief, "owns the body of this woman?"

  "I do/' said Clement. "I own her body." "Then take it and go free/' said the Chief. Pity ran through all the grooves of his brown face.

  So for the second time in his life, Clement was not held for a prisoner b
y the Indian savages, or put to death. The body of Salome was tied to a bony pony, and Clement was given the rope to lead it away.

  Now Jamie all this time had been hiding in a gully, biding his time, and, by felling Indians, making his way through the woods to the rear of the huts. Then there was Goat beside him.

  "Where are you going?" said Goat. "For I thought you were free and away."

  "I am going where my wife is a prisoner, and get her and take her home if I lose my life for doing it," said Jamie. "For when I went off and left her, I had no idea what a big thing would come of it."

  "Ah, but you are too late now/' said Goat. ''She believes you are dead, and is untied already and gone, and now she has promised tc marry another husband. For seeing that you would be a dead man and I a live one, she has chosen me/'

  At that, Jamie half pulled out his little dirk again, but then he showed his teeth in a laugh. "It is too bad/' said he, "that she did not tell you that she burns every piece of meat she sticks over the fire, and cannot sew a straight seam, and that her feet are cold in the bed at night/'

  "She did not/' cried Goat. "It is a pity the cheating that goes on in a bargain/'

  "She is a noted liar/' said Jamie, "that is known as far as the Bayou Pierre. And I only keep her because I stole her in the first place and have a soft sentiment about it."

  "Still/' said Goat, "I have something to expect for the work I have done. My tongue is hanging out from all rny efforts/*

  "So it is," said Jamie.

  "And it is not as if both my employers were

  166 THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM not freshly dead and I will not have any more work/' said Goat, "unless I scratch up something for myself/'

  "That is true," said Jamie.

  "If there were such a thing as any reward money to be had/' said Goat, "I should almost rather have that than either work or a wife/'

  "Hold out your hand, then," said Jamie, and he put the bag of gold into it. "That is the reward for a bandit's life, for the bandit's life is done with, though I must say I think it was worth more/'

  "Well and good/' said Goat. "And know that this will be used to allow me to rest for a while, and then to buy a black cook, give all my sisters in marriage, and to enrich my mother in every way."

  Then Jamie went on alone, and on foot, for his horse had been taken away from him and he had not found him yet. He went on and on and at last he came to the lane of the cedars.

  But when he reached the place where the robbers' house had been, there was only a heap

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 167 of cinders, with the long smoke cloud hanging over it. Then he searched and found the small bones lying in the embers, that had been the Indian maiden's. So he thought a trick had been played upon him after all, and that Rosamond was dead. And he ran wild through the woods.

  LOSAMOND, in the meanwhile, was as lost as she could be in the woods, and making her way along the Old Natchez Trace. And of everybody she met she would ask the same question: "Have you seen Jamie Lockhart?" And they all said, "No indeed."

  She was sadly tattered and torn, and tired

  from sleeping in hollow trees and keeping awake

  168

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 169 in the woods, so that she would not have been recognized by her own father, who, indeed, thought she was dead, carried off by a panther and eaten up.

  So on one of the days she saw a man sleeping in the woods, and heard the sound of his horse near-by. And when she got up to the man, he had such a stature, though lying on the ground, she thought it would certainly be Jamie Lock-hart having a nap. So she went up and touched him. But when he turned over he was the wrong man.

  "You may wonder why I am taking a nap here in the middle of the day/' the man said at once, sitting up and pulling the straws out of his hair. "Well, I can soon satisfy you as to that/'

  "Then do/' said Rosamond, sitting down beside him, for she had had curiosity before and would have it again, and she thought, "Who knows? He may have seen my husband, since something knocked his wind out/'

  "I am a mail rider, an anonymous mail rider/' said the tall man, "and over yonder is the mail to

  1 7 o THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM prove it, tied to the saddle and as safe as a church, for everybody gets out of the way when I come past. But I have just come from an adventure with the grandfather of all alligators, which you may or may not have met as you came along/*

  "Never an alligator did I see," said Rosamond, "though I saw a monstrous big fish look out of the lake as I passed by, which bared his fangs and whistled at me."

  "Oh, but the alligator was worse than the fish," said the mail rider. "I have seen the fish. There he came, the alligator, waltzing as pretty as you please down between the sides of the Old Natchez Trace, and as long as anything you have ever seen come out of the water, ships and all. The first thing he did when he saw me coming was open his mouth, and I was riding so fast, so very fast, bent on my duty, that there was nothing to do but ride on, straight in the front door. And he clicked the latch and shot the bolt behind me."

  "That was bad luck for Sunday," said Rosamond.

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 171

  "And there were two other travelers in there already/* said the mail rider.

  "Did one have yellow hair?" asked Rosamond, for she thought that this was where Jamie Lock-hart might have been, the victim of this fate.

  "No, they were both too old for that/' said the mail rider. "They never said a word. Luckily, I had just the moment before felt a desire for some persimmons, and not wishing to stop long enough to pick them one by one, I stuck out my hand as I rode by and pulled up the next persimmon tree by the roots. So I took it with me and ate from that as I went along. So, I propped the old alligator's mouth open with the persimmon tree/'

  "Were the persimmons ripe yet?" asked Rosamond.

  "Hold back, madame/' said the mail rider. "For this is what happened to me and not to you, and it is my business whether the persimmons were ripe or not. So the old grandfather said, 'Aaaaarh!' and gave such a horrid switch to his tail that his back teeth were rolling like thunder, but I didn't change my tune just because he

  172 THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM didn't like it. First I took a good look around by the light of day, it being my first sight of an alligator's mouth from that direction. But teeth, teeth, nothing but teeth! I have never ridden my horse by so many teeth before. But when I said 'Gidyap!' and started back to civilization, do you know what happened?"

  "Did he swallow you?" asked Rosamond.

  "No indeed. How would he dare?" asked the mail rider. "But the persimmons on the persimmon tree were green, it being not quite late enough in the year to prop up an alligator with that kind of tree. And there, the way they draw up a mouth, they had drawn up the creature's mouth like a moneybag before I could ride as far as from me to you. So I couldn't get out and there I was."

  "Did you make a noise?" asked Rosamond. "I have often thought that would discourage an alligator who was swallowing people down."

  "Noise was not the practical thing in that predicament," said the mail rider. "There was still

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 173 left the tiniest, smallest hole you can imagine where I could see out into the world, and so dark it was inside that I saw the stars in the daytime. So I steered him around by the Big Dipper, with the other two fellows helping, all the way from East to West, and made him face full on the hot sun. And down it shone and ripened the persimmons on one side of the tree, while I built a little fire and ripened them on the other, though I had to use the merest bit of mail for the kindling, the other two fellows having nothing of use on them. So as soon as the persimmons were ripe, the alligator's mouth undrew, and I whipped up my horse and took my departure. And I suppose the others followed, though I never looked back to see. But the adventure has tired me, and I was lying down for a moment when you discovered me here/'

  "I am sorry to have disturbed your rest," said Rosamond. "But I wanted only to ask you a question. Have you seen Jamie Lockhart?"


  At this, the mail rider jumped white to his

  feet and sat down whiter still. "Jamie Lockhart

  the ghost?" he said.

  "God in Heaven, is he a ghost now?" cried Rosamond.

  "I should say he is," said the rider. "And has been."

  "Ah, how do you know?" cried Rosamond. "Tell me quickly what has happened."

  "First, take a bite to eat," said he, and brought out a little napkin of meat and biscuit. And Rosamond, who had never been hungrier, accepted with thanks.

  "To begin at the beginning," said the rider, "I won't say who I am. For that is a secret."

  "Too much of this secrecy goes on in the world for my happiness," said Rosamond. "But skip over the dark spot and get on to the light."

  "Where was I?" said he.

  "You were saying that Jamie Lockhart is a ghost!" cried Rosamond. "How do you know?"

  "That is easy to answer," said the mail rider. "I know he is a ghost because I made him one myself, with these very hands you see here hold-

  THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 175 ing the biscuit/' Then he sighed and said, "But that was in the old days, and I dare say you don't believe that I was ever that big a figure in the world/'

  "Tell me the story straight/' said Rosamond, ''and leave yourself out/'

  "Oh, we had a terrible battle, Jamie Lockhart and I," said he. "It lasted through three nights running, and when we were through they had to get the floor and the roof switched back to their places, for we had turned the house inside out. Dozens and dozens of seagulls were dead, that had flown in off the river and got caught in the whirlwind of the fight. Hundreds of people were watching, and got their noses sliced off too, for standing too close."

  "It's a wonder Jamie Lockhart did not kill you," said Rosamond.

  "Do you know the reason?" said the mail rider. "It's because I killed him first. I beat him to a pulp—there was nothing left but the juice."

  "I can hardly believe he would have let you/' said PiOsamond.

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  "The very next morning I saw his ghost/' said the mail rider, "for it came in and said good morning to me, and not a scratch on it."