FullReads

In Keeley’s Gulch was the man who could tell him, the man who had ruined his home and his life. Dead or alive, he was in Keeley’s Gulch, the man who knew where Marcile was; and if he knew where Marcile was, and if she was alive, and he was outside these prison walls, what would he do to her? And if he was outside these prison walls, and in the Gulch, and the man was there alive before him, what would he do?

Outside these prison walls–to be out there in the sun, where life would be easier to give up, if it had to be given up! An hour ago he had been drifting on a sea of apathy, and had had his fill of life. An hour ago he had had but one desire, and that was to die fighting, and he had even pictured to himself a struggle in this narrow cell where he would compel them to kill him, and so in any case let him escape the rope. Now he was suddenly brought face to face with the great central issue of his life, and the end, whatever that end might be, could not be the same in meaning, though it might be the same concretely. If he elected to let things be, then Bignold would die out there in the Gulch, starved, anguished, and alone. If he went, he could save his own life by saving Bignold, if Bignold was alive; or he could go–and not save Bignold’s life or his own! What would he do?

The Governor watched him with a face controlled to quietness, but with an anxiety which made him pale in spite of himself.

“What will you do, Grassette?” he said, at last, in a low voice and with a step forward to him. “Will you not help to clear your conscience by doing this thing? You don’t want to try and spite the world by not doing it. You can make a lot of your life yet, if you are set free. Give yourself and give the world a chance. You haven’t used it right. Try again.”

Grassette imagined that the Governor did not remember who Bignold was, and that this was an appeal against his despair, and against revenging himself on the community which had applauded his sentence. If he went to the Gulch, no one would know or could suspect the true situation, every one would be unprepared for that moment when Bignold and he would face each other–and all that would happen then.

Where was Marcile? Only Bignold knew. Alive or dead? Only Bignold knew.

“Bien, I will do it, m’sieu’,” he said to the Governor. “I am to go alone–eh?”

The Sheriff shook his head. “No; two warders will go with you–and myself.”

A strange look passed over Grassette’s face. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he said again: “Bon, I will go.”

“Then there is, of course, the doctor,” said the Sheriff.

“Bon!” said Grassette. “What time is it?”

“Twelve o’clock,” answered the Sheriff, and made a motion to the warder to open the door of the cell.

“By sundown!” Grassette said, and he turned with a determined gesture to leave the cell.

At the gate of the prison a fresh, sweet air caught his face. Involuntarily he drew in a great draught of it, and his eyes seemed to gaze out, almost wonderingly, over the grass and the trees to the boundless horizon. Then he became aware of the shouts of the crowd–shouts of welcome. This same crowd had greeted him with shouts of execration when he had left the court-house after his sentence. He stood still for a moment and looked at them, as it were only half comprehending that they were cheering him now, and that voices were saying, “Bravo, Grassette! Save him, and we’ll save you.”

Cheer upon cheer, but he took no notice. He walked like one in a dream–a long, strong step. He turned neither to left nor right, not even when the friendly voice of one who had worked with him bade him “Cheer up and do the trick.” He was busy working out a problem which no one but himself could solve. He was only half conscious of his surroundings; he was moving in a kind of detached world of his own, where the warders and the Sheriff and those who followed were almost abstract and unreal figures. He was living with a past which had been everlastingly distant, and had now become a vivid and buffeting present. He returned no answers to the questions addressed to him, and would not talk, save when for a little while they dismounted from their horses and sat under the shade of a great ash-tree for a few moments and snatched a mouthful of luncheon. Then he spoke a little and asked some questions, but lapsed into a moody silence afterward. His life and nature were being passed through a fiery crucible. In all the years that had gone he had had an ungovernable desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met them–a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His fingers had ached for Marcile’s neck, that neck in which he had lain his face so often in the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. If she was alive now!–if she was still alive!