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The Last Stetson
by
“He had mighty leetle call to prove it to me. Think o’ his takin’ ole Brayton all by hisself!” he said, with a look at the yellow, heaving Cumberland. “‘N’, Lord! think o’ his swimmin’ that river in the dark!”
Old Gabe asked a question fiercely then and demanded the truth, and Steve told him about the hand-to-hand fight on the mountain-side, about young Jasper’s treachery, and how the boy, who was watching the fight, fired just in time to save Rome. It made all plain at last–Rome’s and Steve’s denials, Isom’s dinning on that one theme,’ and why the boy could not go to Rome and face Martha, with her own blood on his hands. Isom’s true motive, too, was plain, and the miller told it brokenly to Steve, who rode away with a low whistle to tell it broadcast, and left the old man rocking his body like a woman.
An hour later he rode back at a gallop to tell old Gabe to search the river bank below the mill. He did not believe Isom dead. It was just his feelin’, he said, and one fact, that nobody else thought important–the Brayton canoe was gone.
“Ef he was jus’ scamped by a ball,” said Steve, “you kin bet he tuk the boat, ‘n’ he’s down thar in the bushes somewhar now waitin’ fer dark.”
And about dusk, sure enough, old Gabe, wandering hopefully through the thicket below the mill, stumbled over the canoe stranded in the bushes. In the new mud were the tracks of a boy’s bare feet leading into the thicket, and the miller made straight for home. When he opened his door he began to shake as if with palsy. A figure was seated on the hearth against the chimney, and the firelight was playing over the face and hair. The lips were parted, and the head hung limply to the breast. The clothes were torn to rags, and one shoulder was bare. Through the upper flesh of it and close to the neck was an ugly burrow clotted with blood. The boy was asleep.
Three nights later, in Hazlan, Sherd Raines told the people of Isom’s flight down the mountain, across the river, and up the steep to save his life by losing it. Before he was done, one gray-headed figure pressed from the darkness on one side and stood trembling under the dips. It was old Steve Brayton, who had fired from the cabin at Isom, and dropping his Winchester, he stumbled forward with the butt of his pistol held out to Raines. A Marcum appeared on the other side with the muzzle of his Winchester down. Raines raised both hands then and imperiously called on every man who had a weapon to come forward and give it up. Like children they came, Marcums and Braytons, piling their arms on the rock before him, shaking hands right and left, and sitting together on the mourner’s bench.
Old Brayton was humbled thereafter. He wanted to shake hands with Steve Marcum and make friends. But Steve grinned, and said, “Not yit,” and went off into the bushes. A few days later he went to Hazlan of his own accord and gave up his gun to Raines. He wouldn’t shake hands with old Brayton, he said, nor with any other man who would hire another man to do his “killin’;” but he promised to fight no more, and he kept his word.
A flood followed on New Year’s day. Old Gabe’s canoe–his second canoe–was gone, and a Marcum and a Brayton worked side by side at the mill hollowing out another. The miller sat at the door whittling.
“‘Pears like folks is havin’ bad luck with thar dugouts.” said Brayton. “Some trifin’ cuss took old Steve Brayton’s jes to cross the river, without the grace to tie it to the bank, let ‘lone takin’ it back. I’ve heard ez how Aunt Sally Day’s boy Ben, who was a-fishin’ that evenin, says ez how he seed Isom’s harnt a-floatin’ across the river in it, without techin’ a paddle.”