The Man in the Twilight by Ridgwell Cullum

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Idepski had no intention of being drawn. He replied without turning.

"You think that?" he said easily. "Say, don't worry a thing; I'm
satisfied. Just as sure as the sun'll rise to-morrow, Hellbeam'll get
Leslie Martin, or Standing as he chooses to call himself now, just where
he needs him. And if I know Hellbeam that'll be in the worst
penitentiary the United States can produce. Guess you're going to wish
you hadn't, Mister--Standing."

Perhaps Idepski knew his man, and understood the weakness of which Bat
was so painfully aware. Perhaps he was just fencing, or even putting up
a bluff in view of his own position. Whatever his purpose the effect of
his added threat was instant.

Standing's luminous eyes hardened. The muscles of his jaws gripped. He
sat up, and his whole attitude expressed again that fighting mood in
which Bat rejoiced.

"That's all right," he said sharply. "That's just talk. You've come a
hell of a long way with those boys of yours down at the _Lizzie_ to
worry out some body-snatching. That's all right. I don't just see how
you've figgered to do it. But that's your affair. The point is, I'm
going to do the body-snatching instead of you. And it's quite clear to
me how I intend doing it. You're going a trip--right off. And it's a
trip from which you won't get a chance of getting back to Quebec under
this time next year. You see, winter's closing down in a month, and
Labrador and Northern Quebec aren't wholesome territory for any man to
set out to beat the trail in winter, especially with folks around
anxious to stop him. You reckon I'm to pass a while in a States
penitentiary. Well, meanwhile you're going to try what this country can
show you in the way of a--prison ground. And you're going to try it for
at least a year. You'll be treated white. But you'll need to work for
your grub like other folks, and if you don't feel like working you won't
eat. We're fifty-three degrees north here, and our ways are the tough
ways of the tough country we live in. There's no sort of mercy in this
country. Bat, here, is going to see you on your trip, and, if you take
my advice, you won't rile Bat. He's got it in him, and in his hands, to
make things darn unpleasant for you. You've a goodish nerve, and maybe
you've goodish sense. You'll need 'em both for the next twelve months.
After that it's up to you. But if you try kicking between now and then,
why--God help you."

Standing beckoned Bat from his seat at the window. He held up the door
key.

"You best take this," he said. "No. 10. And he starts out right away. He
needs to be well on the road before the _Lizzie_ puts to sea."

Bat took the key. He moved away and unlocked the door, and remained
beside it grimly regarding the man who had listened without comment to
the sentence passed on him, without the smallest display of emotion.
Idepski was smoking his second cigarette.

"No. 10. I s'pose that's one of your lumber camps." Idepski looked up
from his contemplation of the cigarette. His dark eyes were levelled at
the man across the writing table. "A tough place, eh? or you wouldn't be
sending me there." He laughed in a fashion that left his eyes coldly
enquiring.

Standing inclined his head. He was without mercy, without pity.

"It's a tough camp in a tough country," he said deliberately. "It's a
camp where you'll get just as good a time as you choose to earn. The boy
who runs it learnt his job in the forests of Quebec, and you'll likely
understand what that means. Well, you're going right off now. But
there's this I want to tell you before I see the last of you--for a
year. I know you, Idepski. I know you for all you are, and all you're
ever likely to be. You're an unscrupulous blackmailer and crook. You're
a parasite battening yourself on the weakness of human nature, taking
your toll from whichever side of a dispute will pay you best. You're
taking Hellbeam's money in the dispute between him and me, and you'll go
on taking it till you pull off the play he's asking, or get broken in
the work of it. That's all right as far as I'm concerned. You've nerve,
you've courage, or you wouldn't be the crook you are. I guess you'll go
on because I've no intention of competing with Hellbeam for your
services. But I want you to understand clearly you've jumped into a
mighty big fight. This is a country where a fight can go on without the
prying eyes of the laws of civilisation peeking into things. And by that
I take it you'll understand I reckon to make war to the knife. You came
here prepared to use force. That's all right. We shan't hesitate to use
force on our side. And we're going to use it to the limit. If peace is
only to be gained at the cost of your life you're going to pay that
cost--if it suits me. That's all I've to say at the moment. For the
present, for a year, you'll be safely muzzled. You see, I don't need to
worry with those boys you brought with you. You best go along with Bat
now. He'll fix things ready for your trip."

The dismissal was complete, and Bat was prompt to accept his cue. He
moved towards the man smoking at the table, much in the fashion of a
warder advancing to take possession of his prisoner after sentence of
the court.

It was at that moment that the cold mask of indifference fell from the
agent. Hardy as he was, the contemplation of his momentary failure,
which was about to cost him twelve months of hardship in one of the
roughest lumber camps in Labrador, robbed him of something of that nerve
which was his chief asset. He glanced for the first time at the burly
figure of Bat. He contemplated the rugged features of the man whose
battling instinct was his strongest characteristic. He read the purpose
in the grim set of the square jaws, and in the unyielding light of the
grey eyes peering out from under shaggy brows. And that which he read
reduced him to a feeling of impotence. He flung a look of fury and hate
at the man behind the desk.

"Maybe that's all you've to say," he cried, his jaws snapping viciously
over his words, his eyes fiercely alight. "You think you've won when
you've only gained a moment's respite. You can't win. You don't know.
Oh, yes. I guess you can send me along out of the way. You can do just
all you reckon. And if it suits you, you can shoot me up or any other
old thing. You forget Hellbeam. You tell me I'm a crook and a
blackmailer, you give me credit for nerve and courage. That's all right.
You think these things, and I don't have to worry. But you've robbed
Hellbeam. You've robbed him like any common 'hold-up'--of millions. It's
not for you to talk of crooks and blackmailers. The laws of the States
are going to find you the crook, and Hellbeam'll see they don't err for
leniency. Hellbeam'll get you as sure as God. You've got months to think
it over, and when you've done I reckon you won't fancy shouting. Well,
I'm ready for this joy spot you call No. 10. I'm not going to kick. I've
sense enough to know when the drop's on me. But you'll see me again. Oh,
yes, you'll see me again because you're not going to shoot me up. For
all your talk you haven't the nerve. You'll see me again, and when you
do--well, don't forget Hellbeam's at the other end of this business.
Guess I'm ready."

The man stood up. And as he stood his eyes looked squarely into those of
Bat.

"Get on with it," he cried, and flung the remains of his lighted
cigarette on the pile of the carpet, and trod it viciously underfoot
with his heavy sea boot.

* * * * *

Standing was alone. He was alone with the thoughts his encounter with
Idepski had inspired. Judging by the expression of his reflective eyes
they were scarcely those of a man confident of victory. Had Bat been
there to witness, the task he was at that moment engaged upon would
surely have been robbed of half its satisfaction.

But Bat had gone. And with him had gone the man who was to learn the
rigours of a Labrador winter under conditions of hardship he had not yet
realised. Meanwhile Standing was free to think as his emotions guided
him, with no watchful eyes to observe.

"You'll see me again, and when you do--well, don't forget Hellbeam's at
the other end of this business."

The words haunted. The threat of them appealed to an imagination that
was a-riot.

After a time Standing stirred restlessly. He sat up and brushed the
litter of paper aside. Then he leant back in his chair and his fine eyes
were lit with an agony of doubt and disquiet. The poisonous seed of the
agent's retort had fallen upon fruitful soil.

But after awhile the tension seemed to relax, and his gaze wandered from
the grey daylight beyond the window and was suddenly caught and held by
the mail bag, still lying where the man had flung it. It was like the
swift passing of a summer storm. The man's whole expression underwent a
complete transformation. The mail! The mail from Quebec--unopened!

He sprang to his feet. For the moment Idepski, Hellbeam, everything was
forgotten. His thought had bridged the miles between Farewell Cove and
the ancient city of the early French, Nancy! That woman--that devoted
wife who was striving with all the power of a frail body to serve him.
There would be a letter in that mail from Nisson, telling him--Yes.
There might even be a letter from Nancy herself.

The sack was in his hands. He had broken the seals. He shook out the
contents upon the floor. A packet of less than half a hundred letters,
and the rest was an assortment of parcels of all shapes and sizes. It
was the letter packet that interested him, and he untied the string that
held it.

A swift search produced the expected. Standing looked for the
handwriting of Charles Nisson, the shrewd, obscure lawyer in the country
town of Abercrombie. He had never yet failed him. He would not be likely
to. A bulky letter remained in his hand. The others lay scattered
broadcast upon the desk.

For some moments he held the letter unopened. The lean fingers felt the
bulk of the envelope, while feverish eyes surveyed, and read over and
over the address in the familiar small, cramped handwriting. The impulse
of the moment was to tear open the letter forthwith, to snatch at the
tidings he felt it to contain. But something deterred. Something left
him doubting, hesitating. It was what Bat had called his "yellow
streak." Suppose--suppose--But with all his might he thrust his fears
aside. He tore off the outer cover and unfolded the closely written
pages.

Long, silent moments passed, broken only by the shuffling of the sheets
of the letter as he turned them. Not once did he look up from his
reading. Right through to the end, the dreadful, bitter end, he read the
hideous news his loyal friend had to impart. Twice, during the reading,
the sharp intake of breath, that almost whistled in the silence of the
room, told of an emotion he had no power to repress, and at the finish
of it all the mechanically re-folded page's fell from shaking, nerveless
fingers upon the littered desk.

His eyes remained lowered gazing at the fallen letter. His hands
remained poised where the letter had fallen from them. His face had lost
its healthful hue. It was grey, and drawn, and the lips that parted as
he muttered had completely blanched.

"Dead!" he whispered without consciousness of articulation. "Dead!
Nancy! My boy! Both! Oh, God!"

CHAPTER IV

THE "YELLOW STREAK"

The grey, evening light was significant of the passing season. A chilly
breeze whipped about the faces of the men at the fringe of the woods.
They were resting after a long tramp of inspection through the virgin
forests. It was on a ledge, high up on the hillside of the northern
shore of the cove, where the ground dropped away in front of them
several hundreds of feet to the waters below. Behind them was a backing
of standing timber which sheltered them from the full force of the
biting wind.

It was nearly a week since Bat Harker had returned from his mission to
No. 10 Camp. He had returned full of satisfaction at the completion of
his task, and comforted by the knowledge that the horizon of the mill
had been cleared of threatening clouds for at least the period of a
year. Then he encountered the ricochet of the blow which Fate had dealt
his friend and employer.

It had been within half an hour of his return, while yet the stains and
dust of his journey remained upon him, while yet he was yearning for
that rest for his body to which it was entitled.

Bat had concluded the report of his journey, and the two men were
closeted together in the office on the hillside. The lumberman had had
no suspicion of the thing that had happened in his absence, and Standing
had given no indication. Standing seemed unchanged. There had been the
customary smile of welcome in his eyes. There had been the cordial
handshake of friendship. Maybe Standing had talked less, and the
searching questions usual in him had not been forthcoming. Maybe there
was a curiously tired, strained look in his eyes. But that was all.

At the conclusion of his report Bat had bent eagerly forward over the
desk which stood between them. His hard eyes were smiling. His whole
manner was that of a man anticipating something pleasant.

"Say, Les," he cried, "guess you've maybe some news for me, too. It's
more than a month since--and you were expecting--Things all right?"

Standing reached towards the drawer beside him, and as he did so there
was a sound. It was a curious, inarticulate sound that Bat interpreted
into a laugh. The other opened the drawer and drew out the folded pages
of a letter. These he passed across the table, and his eyes were without
a shadow of the laugh which Bat thought he had heard.

"Best read it," he said. "Take your time. I'll just finish these figures
I'm working on."

It was the curious, cold tone that stirred Bat to his first misgiving.

He took the letter. There were pages of it. He set them in order and
commenced to read. And meanwhile Standing remained apparently engrossed
in his figures.

He read the letter through. He read it slowly, carefully. Then, like
the other had done, the man to whom it was addressed, he read it a
second time. And as he read every vestige of his previous satisfaction
passed from him. A cold constriction seemed to fasten upon his strong
heart. And a terrible realisation of the tragedy of it all took
possession of him. At the end of his second reading he handed the letter
back to its owner without comment of any sort, without a word, but with
a hand that, for once in his life, was unsteady.

"That was in the mail Idepski brought," Standing said, as he returned
the letter to its place, and shut and locked the drawer.

"You remember?" he went on, pointing. "He flung it down there. Just by
the door. Yes, it was just there, because I stood against the door, and
was only just clear of it."

He paused and his hand remained pointing at the spot where the mail bag
had lain. It was as if the spot held him fascinated. Then his arm
lowered slowly, and his hand came to rest on the edge of the table,
gripping it with unnecessary force.

"Seems queer," he went on, after a while. Then he shook his head. "Think
of it. Nancy--my Nancy. Dead! She died giving birth to my boy. And
he--he was stillborn. Why? I--I can't seem to realize it. I--don't--" He
paused, and a strained, hunted look grew in his eyes. "No. It's easy.
It's just Fate. That's it. There's no escape."

He drew a deep breath and one lean hand smoothed back his shining black
hair. Then his eyes came back to the face of the man opposite, and the
agony in them was beyond words. After a moment their terrible expression
became lost as he bent over his work. "I'm glad you're back, Bat," he
said, without looking up.

"There's a hell of a lot of orders to get out. We're running close up
to winter."

The lumberman understood. At a single blow this man's every hope had
been smashed and ground under the heel of an iron fate. The wife, the
woman he had worshipped, had given her life to serve him, and with her
had gone the man-child, about whom had been woven the entire network of
a father's hopes and desires.

A week had passed since Bat had witnessed the voiceless agony of his
friend. A week of endless labour and unspoken fears. He knew Standing as
it is given to few to know the heart of another. His sympathy was real.
It was of that quality which made him desire above all things to render
the heartbroken man real physical and moral help. But no opening had
been given him, and he feared to probe the wound that had been
inflicted. During those first seven days Standing seemed to be obsessed
with a desire to work, to work all day and every night, as though he
dared not pause lest his disaster should overwhelm him.

Now it was Sunday. Night and day the work had gone on. No less than ten
freighters had been loaded and dispatched since Bat's return, and only
that morning two vessels had cast off, laden to the water-line, and
passed down on the tide for the mouth of the cove. At the finish of the
midday meal Standing had announced his intentions for the afternoon.

"We need to get a look into the lumber on the north side, Bat," he said.
"You'd best come along with me. How do you think?"

And Bat had agreed on the instant.

"Sure," he said. "There's a heap to be done that way if we're to start
layin' the penstocks down on that side next year."

So they had spent the hours before dusk in a prolonged tramp through
the forests of the Northern shore. And never for one moment was their
talk and apparent interest allowed to drift from the wealth of
long-fibred timber they were inspecting.

But somehow to Bat the whole thing was unreal. It meant nothing. It
could mean nothing. He felt like a man walking towards a precipice he
could not avoid. He felt disaster, added disaster, was in the air and
was closing in upon them. He knew in his heart that this long, weary
inspection, all the stuff they talked, all the future plans they were
making for the mill was the merest excuse. And he wondered when Standing
would abandon it and reveal his actual purpose. The man, he knew, was
consumed by a voiceless grief. His soul was tortured beyond endurance.
And there was that "yellow streak," which Bat so feared. When, when
would it reveal itself? How?

Now, at last, as they rested on the ledge overlooking the mill and the
waters of the cove, he felt the moment of its revelation had arrived. He
was propped against the stump of a storm-thrown tamarack. Standing was
stretched prone upon the fallen trunk itself. Neither had spoken for
some minutes. But the trend of thought was apparent in each. Bat's
deep-set, troubled eyes were regarding the life and movement going on
down at the mill, whose future was the greatest concern of his life.
Standing, too, was gazing out over the waters. But his darkly brooding
eyes were on the splendid house he had set up on the opposite hillside.
It was the home about which his every earthly hope had centred. And even
now, in his despair, it remained a magnet for his hopeless gaze.

Winter was already in the bite of the air and in the absence of the
legions of flies and mosquitoes as well as in the chilly grey of the
lapping waters below them. It was doubtless, too, searching the heart of
these men whose faces gave no indication of the sunlight of summer
shining within.

"Bat!"

The lumberman turned sharply. He spat out a stream of tobacco juice and
waited.

"Bat, old friend, it's no use." Standing had swung himself into a
sitting posture. He was leaning forward on the tree-trunk with his
forearms folded across his knees. "We've done a lot of talk, and we've
searched these forests good. And it's all no use. None at all. There's
going to be no penstocks set up this side of the water next year--as far
as I'm concerned. I've done. Finished. Plumb finished. I'm quitting.
Quitting it all."

The lumberman ejected a masticated chew and took a fresh one.

"You see, old friend, I'll go crazy if I stop around," Standing went on.
"I've been hit a pretty desperate punch, and I haven't the guts to stand
up to it. When it came I set my teeth. I wanted to keep sane. I reminded
myself of all I owed to the folks working for us. I thought of you. And
I tried to bolster myself with the schemes we had for beating the
Skandinavians out of this country's pulp-wood trade. Yes, I tried. God,
how I tried! But my guts are weak, and I know what lies ahead. For
nearly six weeks I've been working things out, and for a week I've been
wondering how I should tell you. I brought you here to tell you.

"I want you to understand it good," he went on, after the briefest
pause. "I can't stand to live on in the house that Nancy and I built up.
Every room is haunted by her. By her happy laugh, and by memories of the
hours we sat and talked of the boy-child we'd both set our hearts on. I
just can't do it without going stark, staring, raving mad. I can't."

"That's how I figgered. I've watched it in you, Les. Tell me the rest."

Bat chewed steadily. It was a safety-valve for his feelings.

"The rest?" Standing turned to gaze out at the house across the water.
"If it weren't for you, Bat, I'd close right down. I'd leave everything
standing and--get out," he went on slowly. "The whole thing's a
nightmare. Look at it. Look around. The forests of soft wood. The
township we've set up. The harnessed water power. That--that house of
mine. It's all nightmare, and I don't want it. I'm afraid. I'm scared to
death of it."

Bat moved away from the stump he had been propped against. He passed
across to the edge of the ledge and stood gazing down on the scenes
below.

"You needn't worry for me," he said. "It don't matter a cuss where or
how I hustle my dry hash. I was born that way. Fix things the way you
feel. Cut me right out."

The man's generosity was a simple expression of his rugged nature. His
love of that great work below him, in the creation of which he had taken
so great a part, was nothing to him at that moment. He was concerned
only for the man, who had held out a succouring hand, and led him, in
his darkest moments, to safety and prosperity.

Standing shook his head at the broad back squared against the grey,
wintry sky.

"I didn't mean it that way, old friend," he said.

Bat swung around. His grey eyes were wide. His face seemed to have
softened out of its usual harsh cast.

"But I do, Les," he cried. "You don't need to figger a thing about me.
You're hurt, boy. You're hurt mighty sore. Cut me right out of your
figgers, and do the things that's goin' to heal that sore. If there's a
thing I can do to help you, why, I guess I'd be glad to know it."

For a few moments Standing remained silent. Perhaps he was pondering
upon what he had to say. Perhaps he was simply gaining time to suppress
the emotions which the selflessness of the other had inspired.

"Here," he cried at last, "I best tell you the whole story that's in my
mind. I told you I've been figuring it out. Well, it's figured to the
last decimal. You think you know me. Maybe you do. Maybe you know only
part of the things I know about myself. If you knew them all I'd hate to
think of the contempt you'd have to hand me. You see, Bat, I'm a coward,
a terrible moral coward. Oh, I'm not scared of any man living when it
comes to a fight. But my mind's full of ghosts and nightmares ready to
jump at me with every doubt, every new effort where I can't figure the
end. Years ago, when I was a youngster, I yearned for fortune. And I
realised that I had it in me to get it quick by means of that crazy
talent for figures you reckon is so wonderful. I got the chance and
jumped, for it. But every step I took left me scared to the verge of
craziness. When I hit up against Hellbeam I got a desire to beat him
that was irresistible, and I jumped into the fight with my heart in my
mouth. It was easy--so easy. Hellbeam was a babe in my hands. I could
play with him as a spider plays with its victim, and when, like a
spider, I'd bound him with my figures, hand and foot, I was free to suck
his blood till I was satiated. I did all that, and then my nightmare
descended upon me again. You know how I fled with Hellbeam's hounds on
my heels. I was terrified at the enormity of the thing I'd done. I could
have stood my ground and beaten him--and them. But moral cowardice
overwhelmed me and drove me to these outlands. God, what I suffered! And
after all I haven't the certainty that I deserved it."

Bat came back to his stump and stood against it while Standing passed a
weary hand across his forehead.

"The happenings since then you know as well as I do. I don't need to
talk of them. I mean, how I met and married Nancy, when she was widow of
that no-account McDonald feller, the editor of _The Abercrombie
Herald!_"

Bat nodded.

"Yes, sure, I know, Les. When you married Nancy an' made her
thirteen-year-old daughter--your daughter."

"Yes. I'd almost forgotten. Yes, there's her girl, Nancy. She's still at
school. Well, anyway, you know, these things, all of 'em. But what you
don't know is that you--you Bat, old friend, are solely responsible for
all the work that's being done here. You, old friend, are responsible
that I've enjoyed seven years of something approaching peace of mind.
You, you with your bulldog fighting spirit, you with your hell-may-care
manner of shouldering responsibility, and facing every threat, have been
the staunch pillar on which I have always leant. Without you I'd have
gone under years ago, a victim of my own mental ghosts. No, no, Bat," he
went on quickly, as the lumberman shook his head in sharp denial, "it's
useless. I know. Leaning on you I've built up around me the reality of
that original dream, with the other things I've now lost, and with every
ounce in me I've worked for its fulfilment.

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