The Just and the Unjust by Vaughan Kester

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He had gained the railroad tracks and was running toward the bridge, the
very seconds seemed of infinite value to him, for suppose he should have
difficulty in finding Moxlow? And if he found the prosecuting attorney,
would he believe his story? A shudder passed through him. He was quite
near the bridge when suddenly he paused and a whispered curse slipped
from between his parted lips. A man was standing at the entrance to the
bridge and though it was impossible to distinguish more than the shadowy
outline of his figure, Montgomery was certain that it was Marshall
Langham. His first impulse was to turn back and go into town by the
wagon road and the wooden bridge, but as he hesitated the figure came
toward him, and Langham spoke.

"Is that you, Joe?" he asked.

"Damn him, he knows I won't stand for hangin' North!" the handy-man told
himself under his breath. He added aloud as he shuffled forward, "Yes,
it's me, boss!"

"Couldn't you make it right with Nellie?" asked Langham.

"Oh, it isn't that--the old woman's all right--but the baby's sick and
I'm out huntin' a doctor."

He did not expect Langham to believe him, but on the spur of the moment
he could think of nothing better.

"I am sorry to hear that!" said Langham.

An evil wolfish light stole into his eyes and the lines of his weak
debauched face hardened.

"What's the matter with you, boss; couldn't you get across?" asked Joe.

"No, the bridge is too much for me. Like a fool I stopped here to smoke
a cigar after you left me; I hoped it would clear off a bit so I could
see the ties, but it's worse now that I can. I had about made up my mind
to come and get you to help me back into town."

"Come along, boss, I'm in a terrible hurry!" said Joe eagerly.

But Langham was a pace or two in advance of him when they stepped out
on the bridge. Never once did he glance in the handy-man's direction.
Had he done so, Montgomery must have been aware that his face showed
bloodless in the moonlight, while his sunken eyes blazed with an
unaccustomed fire.

"I can't walk these ties, Joe--give me your hand--" he managed to say.

Joe did as he desired, and as the lawyer's slim fingers closed about his
great fist he was conscious that a cold moisture covered them. He could
only think of a dead man's hand.

"What's wrong with the baby, Joe?" Langham asked.

"Seems like it's got a croup," said Joe promptly.

"That's too bad--"

"Yes, it's a hell of a pity," agreed Montgomery.

He was furtively watching Langham out of the corners of his beady blue
eyes; his inner sense of things told him it was well to do this. They
took half a dozen steps and Langham released Joe's hand.

"I wonder if I can manage this alone!" he said. But apparently the
attempt was a failure, for he quickly rested his hand on his companion's
massive shoulder.

They had reached the second of the bridge's three spans. Below them in
the darkness the yellow flood poured in noisy volume. As Langham knew,
here the stream was at its deepest and its current the swiftest. He knew
also that his chance had come; but he dared not make use of it. The
breath whistled from his lips and the moisture came from every pore. He
sought frantically to nerve himself for the supreme moment; but suppose
he slipped, or suppose Joe became aware of his purpose one second too
soon!

"Keep over a bit, boss!" said the handy-man suddenly. "You are crowding
me off the bridge!"

"Oh, all right; is that better?"

And Langham moved a step aside.

"A whole lot," responded Joe gruffly. But his little blue eyes, alert
with cunning, were never withdrawn from the lawyer for an instant.

They walked forward in silence for a moment or two, and were approaching
the end of the center span, when the lawyer glanced about him wildly; he
realized that he was letting slip his one great opportunity. Again Joe
spoke:

"Keep over, boss!" And then all in the same breath, "What the hell are
you up to, anyway?"

It must be now or it would be never; and Langham, turning swiftly,
hurled himself on his companion, and his slim fingers with their
death-like chill gripped Joe's hairy throat. In the suddenness of the
attack he was forced toward the edge of the bridge. The rush of the
noisy waters sounded with fearful distinctness in his ears.

"Here, damn you, let go!" panted Montgomery.

[Illustration: "Here, let go!" panted Montgomery.]

He felt Langham's hot breath on his cheek, he read murder by the wolfish
light in his eyes. He wrenched himself free of the other's desperate
clutch, but as he did so his foot caught against one of the rails and he
slipped and fell to his knees. In the intervals of his own labored
breathing, he heard the flow of the river, a dull ceaseless roar, and
saw the flashing silver of the moon's rays as they touched the water's
turgid surface. Langham no longer sought to force him from the bridge,
but bent every effort to thrust him down between the ties to a swift and
certain death.

"You want to kill me, too!" panted Montgomery, as by a mighty effort
that brought the veins on neck and forehead to the point of bursting, he
regained his footing on the ties.

But his antagonist was grimly silent, and Joe, roused to action by fear,
and by a sullen rage at what he deemed the lawyer's perfidy, turned and
grappled with him. Once he smashed his great fist full into Langham's
face, and though the blow sent the lawyer staggering across the bridge,
he recovered himself quickly and rushed back to renew the fight.
Montgomery greeted him with an oath, and they grappled again.

Langham had known in his calmer moments when he planned Joe's death,
that his only hope of success lay in the suddenness of his attack. Now
as they swayed on the very edge of the bridge the handy-man put forth
all his strength and lifted the lawyer clear of the ties, then with a
mighty heave of his great shoulders he tossed him out into space.

There was a scarcely audible splash and Joe, looking fearfully down, saw
the muddy drops turn limpid in the soft white light. A moment later some
dark object came to the surface and a white face seemed to look up into
his, but only for a second, and then the restless flood bore it swiftly
away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CUSTER'S IDOL FALLS

Early that same night Mr. Shrimplin, taking Custer with him, had driven
out into the country. Their destination was a spot far down the river
where catfish were supposed to abound, for Izaak Walton's gentle art was
the little lamplighter's favorite recreation. After leaving Mount Hope
they jogged along the dusty country road for some two miles, then
turning from it into a little-traveled lane they soon came out upon a
great sweeping bend of the stream.

"I don't know about this, Custer," said Mr. Shrimplin, with a doubtful
shake of the head, as he drew rein. "She's way up. I had no idea she was
way up like this; I guess though we can't do no better than to chance
it, catfish is a muddy-water fish, anyhow."

He tied wild Bill to a blasted sycamore, and then, while he cut poles
from the willow bushes that grew along the bank, Custer built a huge
bonfire, by the light of which they presently angled with varying
fortunes.

"I reckon not many people but me knows about this fishing-hole!" said
Shrimplin, as he cast his baited hook into the water.

"Where did you learn to fish?" asked Custer, thirsting for that wisdom
his father was so ready to impart.

"I guess you'd call it a natural gift in my case, son," said the little
lamplighter modestly. "I don't know as I deserve no credit; it's like
playing the organ or walking on a tight rope, the instinct's got to be
there or you'll only lay yourself open to ridicule."

But truth to tell, fishing was no very subtle art as practised by Mr.
Shrimplin, he merely spat on his bait before he dropped it into the
water. Even Custer knew that every intelligent fisherman did this, you
couldn't reasonably hope to catch anything unless you did; yet there
seemed to him, when he now thought of it, such a gap between cause and
effect that he asked as he warily watched his cork:

"What good does it do to spit on your hook?"

"I've forgot the science of it, Custer," admitted his father after a
moment's thought. "But I've always heard old fishermen say you couldn't
catch nothing unless you did."

"Did you ever try to?"

"I can't say as I ever did. What would be the use when you know better?"
said Mr. Shrimplin, who was strictly orthodox. His cork went under and
he landed a flopping shiner on the bank; this he took from his hook and
tossed back into the water. "It's a funny thing about shiners!" he
said.

"What is?" inquired Custer.

"Why, you always catch 'em when you ain't fishing for 'em. You fish for
catfish or sun-dabs, or bass even, if you're using worms, and you catch
shiners; mainly, I suppose, because they are no manner of use to you. I
reckon if you fished for shiners you wouldn't catch anything,--you
couldn't--because there is no more worthless fish that swims! That's why
fishing is like life; in fact, you can't do nothing that ain't like
life; but I don't know but what catching shiners ain't just a little bit
more like life than anything else! You think you're going to make a lot
of money out of some job you've got, but it shaves itself down to half
by the time it reaches you; or you've got to cough up double what you
counted on when it's the other way about; so it works out the same
always; you get soaked whether you buy or sell, from the cradle to the
grave you're always catching shiners!" While Mr. Shrimplin was still
philosophizing big drops of warm spring rain began to splash and patter
on the long reach of still water before them. He scrambled to his feet.
"We are going to have some weather, Custer!" he said, and they had
scarcely time in which to drive Bill under the shelter of a disused hay
barracks in an adjacent field, when the storm broke with all its fury.
Here they spent the better part of an hour, and when at last the rain
ceased they climbed into the cart and turned Bill's head in the
direction of home.

"I hope, Custer, that your ma won't be scared; it's getting mighty
late," said the senior Shrimplin, and he shook his head as if in pity of
a human weakness which his mind grasped, though he could not share in
it. "Seems to be that people give way more and more to their fear than
they used to; or maybe it is that I ask too much, being naturally nervy
myself and not having no nerves, as I may say."

Half an hour later, off in the distance, the lights of Mount Hope became
visible to Custer and his father.

"I'd give a good deal for a glass of suds and a cracker right now!" said
Mr. Shrimplin, speaking after a long silence. He tilted his head and
took a comprehensive survey of the heavens. "Well, we're going to have a
fine day for the hanging," he observed, with the manner of a
connoisseur.

"Why won't they let no one see it?" demanded Custer.

"It's to be strictly private. I don't know but what that's best; it's
some different though from the hangings I'm used to." And Mr. Shrimplin
shook his head dubiously as if he wished Custer to understand that after
all perhaps he was not so sure it was for the best.

"How were they different?" inquired Custer, sensible that his parent was
falling into a reminiscent mood.

"Well, they were more gay for one thing; folks drove in from miles about
and brought their lunches and et fried chicken. Sometimes there was
hoss racing in the morning, and maybe a shooting scrape or two; fact is,
we usually knowed who was to be the next to stretch hemp before the day
was over,--it gave you something to look forward to! But pshaw! What can
you expect here? Mount Hope ain't educated up to the sort of thing I'm
used to! A feller gets his face punched down at Mike Lonigan's or out at
the Dutchman's by the tracks, and the whole town talks of it, but no one
ever draws a gun; the feller that gets his face punched spits out his
teeth and goes on about his business, and that's the end of it except
for the talk; but where I've been there'd be murder in about the time it
takes to shift a quid!"

And Mr. Shrimplin shifted his own quid to illustrate the uncertainty of
human life in those highly favored regions.

"Don't you suppose they'd let you into the jail yard to-morrow if you
asked?" said Custer, to whom the hanging on the morrow was a matter of
vital and very present interest.

"Well, son, I ain't _asked!_" rejoined the little lamplighter in a
rather startled tone.

"Well, don't you think they'd ought to, seeing that you was one of the
witnesses, and found old Mr. McBride before anybody else did?" persisted
the boy.

"I won't say but what you might think they'd want me present; but
Conklin ain't even suggested it, and if he don't think of it I can't say
as I'll have any hard feelings," concluded Mr. Shrimplin magnanimously.

They were about to enter Mount Hope now; to their right they could
distinguish the brick slaughter-house which stood on the river bank, and
which served conveniently to mark the town's corporate limits on the
east. The little lamplighter spoke persuasively to Bill, and the
lateness of the hour together with the nearness to his own stable,
conspired to make that sagacious beast shuffle forward over the stony
road at a very respectable rate of speed. They were fairly abreast of
the slaughter-house when Custer suddenly placed his hand on his father's
arm.

"Hark!" said the boy.

Mr. Shrimplin drew rein.

"Well, what is it, Custer?" he asked, with all that bland indulgence of
manner which was habitual to him in his intercourse with his son.

"Didn't you hear, it sounded like a cry!" said Custer, in an excited
whisper.

And instantly a shiver traversed the region of Mr. Shrimplin's spine.

"I guess you was mistaken, son!" he answered rather nervously.

"No, don't you hear it--from down by the crick bank?" cried the boy in
the same excited whisper. His father was conscious of the wish that he
would select a more normal tone.

"There!" cried Custer.

As he spoke, a cry, faint and wavering, reached Mr. Shrimplin's ears.

"I do seem to hear something--" he admitted.

"What do you suppose it is?" asked the boy, peering off into the gloom.

"I don't know, Custer, and not wishing to be short with you, I don't
care a damn!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin, endeavoring to meet the situation
with an air of pleasant raillery.

He gathered up his lines as he spoke.

"Why, what are you thinking of?" demanded Custer.

"I was thinking of your ma, Custer!" faltered Mr. Shrimplin weakly. "We
been gone longer than we said, it must be after eleven o'clock."

"There!" cried Custer again, as a feeble call for help floated up to
them. "It's from down on the crick bank back of the slaughter-house!"

Mr. Shrimplin was knowing a terrible moment of doubt, especially
terrible because the doubt was of himself. He was aware that Custer
would expect much of him in the present crisis, and he was equally
certain that he would not rise to the occasion. If somebody would only
come that way! And he listened desperately for the sound of wheels on
the road, but all he heard was that oft-repeated call for help that came
wailing from the black shadows beyond the slaughter-house. Suddenly
Custer answered the call with a reassuring cry.

"Perhaps it's another murder!" he said.

"Oh, my God!" gasped Shrimplin, and there flashed through his mind the
horror of that other night.

Custer slipped out of the cart.

"Come on!" he cried.

He was vaguely conscious that his father was not seizing the present
opportunity to distinguish himself with any noticeable avidity. He had
expected to see that conqueror of bad men and cow-towns, the somewhat
ruthless but always manful slayer of one-eye Murphy, descend from his
cart with astonishing alacrity, and heedless in his tried courage stride
down into the darkness beyond the slaughter-house. But Mr. Shrimplin did
nothing of the sort, he made no move to quit his seat. Surely something
had gone very wrong with the William Shrimplin of Custer's fancy, the
young Bill Shrimplin of Texarcana and similar centers of crime and
hardihood.

"Custer--" began Mr. Shrimplin, in a shaking voice. "I am wondering if
it wouldn't be best to drive on into town and get a cop--Oh, my God, why
don't you quit hollering!"

"Maybe they're killing him now!" cried Custer breathlessly.

He could not yet comprehend his father's attitude in the matter, he
could only realize that for some wholly inexplicable reason he was
falling far short of his ideal of him; he seemed utterly to have lost
his eye for the spectacular possibilities of the moment. Why share the
credit with a cop, why ask help of any one!

"You don't need no help, pa!" he said.

"Well, I don't know as I do," replied the little man, but he made no
move to leave his cart, his fears glued him to the seat.

"Come on, then!" insisted Custer impatiently.

"Don't you feel afraid, son?" inquired Mr. Shrimplin, with marked
solicitude.

"Not with you!"

"Well, I don't know as you need to!" admitted Shrimplin. "But I don't
feel quite right--I reckon I feel sort of sick, Custer--sort of--"

"Oh, come on--hurry up!"

"I don't know but I ought to see a doctor first--" faltered Mr.
Shrimplin in a hollow tone.

Misery of soul twisted his weak face pathetically.

"Why you act like you was _afraid!_" said Custer, with withering
contempt.

His words cut the elder Shrimplin like a knife; but they did not move
him from his seat in the cart.

"You bet I ain't afraid, Custer,--and that's no way for you to speak to
your pa, anyhow!"

But what he had intended should be the note of authority was no more
than a whine of injury.

"Then why don't you come if you ain't afraid?" insisted the boy angrily.

"I don't know as I rightly know _why_ I don't!" faltered Mr. Shrimplin.
"I feel rotten bad all at once."

"You're a coward!" cried the boy in fierce scorn.

Sobs choked his further utterance while the hot tears blinded him on the
instant. His idol had turned to clay in his very presence, and in the
desolation of that moment he wished that he might be stricken with
death, since life held nothing for him longer.

"Custer--" began Shrimplin.

"Why don't you be a man and go down there?" sobbed the boy.

"It's dangerous!" said Mr. Shrimplin.

"Then I'll go!" declared Custer resolutely.

"What--and leave me here alone?" cried the little lamplighter.

For answer Custer ran to the fence; his tears still blinded him and sobs
wrenched his little body. Twice he slipped back as he essayed to climb,
but a third attempt took him to the topmost rail of the rickety
structure.

"Custer!" called his father.

But Custer persisted in the crime of disobedience. He slid down from the
top rail and stood among the young pokeberry bushes and ragweed that
luxuriated in the foulness of the slaughter-house yard. It was not an
especially inviting spot even in broad day, as he knew. Now the
moonlight showed him bleached animal bones and grinning animal skulls,
while the damp weeds that clung about his bare legs suggested snakes.

"_Custer!_" cried Mr. Shrimplin again.

But it gained him no response from the boy, who disappeared from before
his eyes without a single backward glance; whereat the little
lamplighter cursed querulously in the fear-haunted solitude of the road.

Custer descended the steep bank that sloped down to the water's edge.
His eyes were fixed on a dense growth of willows and sycamores that
lined the shore; it was from a spot within their black shadows that the
cries for help seemed to come. Presently he paused.

"Hullo!" he called, peering into the darkness ahead of him.

He listened intently, but this time his cry was unanswered; all he heard
was the grunting of some pigs that fed among the offal. The boy shivered
and his heart seemed to stop beating.

"Hullo!" he called once more.

"Help!" came the answer.

And Custer stumbled forward. As he neared the black shadows of the
willows he could feel his heart sink like lead through all the reaches
of his shaking anatomy. He had passed quite beyond the hearing of his
father's commands and reproaches, and the wash and rush of the river
came up to him out of the silence.

"Hullo!" cried the boy, pausing irresolutely.

Then seemingly from the earth at his very feet came a faint answer to
his call, and Custer, forcing his way through a rank growth of weeds and
briers, stood on the brink of a deep gully that a small brook had worn
for itself on its way to the river below. In the bed of this brook was a
dark object that Custer could barely distinguish to be the figure of a
man. A bruised and bleeding face was upturned.

"Give me your hand--" gasped the man.

Custer knelt on the bank and grasping a tuft of grass to steady himself
extended his free hand.

"Are you hurt bad?" he asked.

"I don't know--" gasped the man, as he endeavored to draw himself up out
of the bed of the brook.

But after a moment of fruitless exertion he sank back groaning.

"Go for help!" he said, in a painful whisper. "You are not strong enough
for this."

"How did you get here?" asked Custer.

"I fell off the railroad bridge, the current landed me here; where am I,
anyhow?"

"At the brick slaughter-house," said Custer.

"I thought so; can't you get some one to help you?"

But Custer, his reasonable curiosity satisfied, was already on his way
back to the road. "If only pa has not driven off!" But the senior
Shrimplin had not moved from the spot where Custer had left him five
minutes before.

"Is that you, son?" he asked, as Custer appeared at the fence.

"Come here, quick!" commanded the boy.

"For what?" inquired Mr. Shrimplin.

"You needn't be afraid, it's only a man who's fallen off the iron
bridge. He's down in the bed of the slaughter-house run. I can't get him
out alone!"

"I'll bet he's good and drunk!" said the little lamplighter.

"No, he ain't, and he's mighty badly hurt!" said the boy hotly.

"Of course, of course, Custer!" said Mr. Shrimplin. "He'd a been killed
though if he hadn't been drunk."

He climbed out of his cart, and clambered over the fence. Something in
Custer's manner warned him that any allusions of a jocular nature would
prove highly distasteful to his son, and he followed silently as Custer
led the way down to the brook.

"Here's where he is!" said the boy halting. "You get down beside
him--you're strongest, and I'll stay here and help pull him up while you
lift!"

"That's the idea, son!" agreed Mr. Shrimplin genially.

And he slid down into the bed of the brook where he struggled to get the
injured man to his feet. The first and immediate result of his effort
was that the latter swore fiercely at him, though in a whisper.

"We got to get you out of this, mister!" said the little lamplighter
apologetically.

A second attempt was made in which they were aided by Custer from above,
and this time the injured man was drawn to the top of the bank, where
he collapsed in a heap.

"He's fainted!" said Custer. "Strike a match and see who it is!"

Mr. Shrimplin obeyed, bringing the light close to the bloody and
disfigured face.

"Why, it's Marsh Langham!" he cried.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FAITH IS RESTORED

"Custer--" began Mr. Shrimplin, and paused to clear his throat. He was
walking beside wild Bill's head while Custer in the cart tried to
support Langham, for the latter had not regained consciousness. "Custer,
I'm mighty well satisfied with you; I may say that while I always been
proud of you, I am prouder this moment than I ever hoped to be! How many
boys in Mount Hope, do you think, would have the nerve to do what you
just done? I love nerve," concluded Mr. Shrimplin with generous
enthusiasm.

But Custer was silent, a sense of bitter shame kept him mute.

"Custer," said his father, in a timidly propitiatory tone, "I hope you
ain't feeling stuck-up about this!"

"I wish it had never happened!" The boy spoke in an angry whisper.

"You wish what had never happened, Custer?"

"About you--I mean!"

Shrimplin gave a hollow little laugh.

"Well, and what about me, son--if I may be allowed to ask?"

"I wish you'd gone down to the crick bank like I wanted you to!"
rejoined the boy.

Again he felt the hot tears gather, and drew the back of his hand across
his eyes. The little lamplighter had been wishing this, too; indeed, it
would for ever remain one of the griefs of his life that he had not done
so. He wondered miserably if the old faith would ever renew itself. His
portion in life was the deadly commonplace, but Custer's belief had
given him hours of high fellowship with heroes and warriors; it had also
ministered to the bloody-mindedness which lay somewhere back of that
quaking fear constitutional with him, and which he could no more control
than he could control his hunger or thirst. His blinking eyelids loosed
a solitary drop of moisture that slid out to the tip of his hooked nose.
But though Mr. Shrimplin's physical equipment was of the slightest for
the role in life he would have essayed, nature, which gives the hunted
bird and beast feather and fur to blend with the russets and browns of
the forest and plain, had not dealt ungenerously with him, since he
could believe that a lie long persisted in gathered to itself the very
soul and substance of truth. Another hollow little laugh escaped him.

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