CHAPTER XXII
For a time Jim Maxwell stood there without movement, blinking confusedly, while his body drank in the steaming warmth. The men in the room regarded the newcomer with frank stares of curiosity. He was unknown to any of them. They guessed him to be a miner just in from the creeks, dog-tired from his fight with the storm. Without being told, one of the hangers-on of the saloon hurried out to care for the dogs, since their owner seemed almost helpless. Very soon, in fact, a suspicion grew in the minds of the observers that something more than the cold had affected this stranger.
"Full of hooch!" was the verdict.
Presently, Jim's vision cleared. He cast one piercing glance about the room. He saw Dangerous Dan McGrew sitting at a table along the wall, a little way to his left. He had schooled himself for the sight. There was no betrayal of the emotion that shook his soul at first sight of the man who had robbed him of wife and child and happiness. He even noted with a savage satisfaction something constrained in the pose of his enemy, who sat half-turned toward him, a card suspended in mid-air. Dan McGrew had seen him—that was certain. And it was certain, too, that Dan McGrew would not make the opening move. Jim Maxwell was content. His foe hesitated—and hesitation is weakness. He had no doubt as to his own strength. He believed it adequate for every demand upon it.
He vaunted himself too soon. His eyes passed beyond the man he hated to the one who sat on the opposite side of the table. A darkness fell upon his spirit. He gazed steadily enough, for he had no power even to shift the direction of his eyes. There was no outward sign of the convulsion in his soul. He remained looking steadfastly at the woman who had been his wife, at the woman whom he had loved and lost. None of the onlookers dreamed that the sight of her meant anything to this stranger. It was natural that he should consider her attentively—she was a handsome woman, in a place where women were rare.
Jim Maxwell's heart died within him. He had tried so often throughout the years to believe that the wife, who had been tricked into deserting him, had at least never been beguiled into aught unfitting her womanhood. Now, he saw before him the damning proof that she had given herself to vileness, to Dangerous Dan McGrew, whom presently he would kill....
But the sight of her dear face! Notwithstanding all the horror, to see her once again in the flesh before his eyes was a rapture exquisite, yet torturing. Her face was the loved symbol of all his happiness. It was, as well, the symbol of all hideousness, which had swallowed up happiness. As he beheld her thus, ravening emotion devoured his strength. Suddenly he felt his knees sag. His eyelids fell of their own weight, so that sight of her was shut out. The shock of darkness, after the glory of her face, startled him to realization of his surroundings and steadied him. He asserted his will once again. He straightened and shuffled toward the bar. But he did not open his eyes until he had fairly turned his back on the pair at the table by the wall. Those observing him sniggered and mumbled again of hooch, when he lurched against the bar, and clung to it for support as a drunken man might.... Jim Maxwell was drunken—drunken with grief and hate and love.
After a little he recovered some measure of composure. He drew from his pocket a buckskin bag, and poured some gold-pieces on the bar.
"Drinks for the house!" he commanded.
The bartender busied himself in dispensing this hospitality to the crowd, which surged forward thirstily at the welcome summons. The Rag-time Kid, a wan-faced youth with a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, who performed noisily on the piano which stood against one wall, left his instrument and came forward hastily. Jim saw that drinks were served to Dangerous Dan McGrew and the woman opposite him, as well as the few others that were seated at the tables. He nodded curtly when the company raised their glasses toward him before drinking. His manner, however, was so singular and so remote that none ventured to address him directly. They eyed him askance. They speculated among themselves concerning who the man might be; for now, in some mysterious fashion, they had come to perceive that this was not one of the ordinary miners from the creeks, with the mud of the bottoms still matted in his beard. But they could make no definite surmise to account for him. In some vague way, they felt the portentousness of his presence among them. It was as if he stood enveloped in an atmosphere of tragedy. They looked at him furtively, confused, wondering, half-fearful, at his aspect. They no longer deemed him merely a drunken man. But what he was, they could by no means understand. They drank again, for his money still lay on the bar. They raised their glasses toward him. But the mystery of his coming remained unsolved, and it grew more burdensome as minutes passed, pressing heavily upon their spirits. Jim Maxwell drank with the others the first time and the second. He might, perhaps, have drained a third glass, but, while he delayed, his eyes chanced to fall on the piano, for the wan-faced youth with the cigarette dangling from his lower lip, was still enjoying his respite and was making merry at the bar. It had been a long time since Jim had touched the keys, but now, in the travail of his soul, it seemed to him that in music he might find surcease for the warring emotions within his breast. He went toward the piano, striding firmly. When he was come to it, he threw off parka and cap and seated himself and laid his hands noiselessly on the keys in a touch gentle and fond as a caress.
As the first soft chord sounded, the pallid youth at the bar started as if struck. He wheeled, and thereafter gazed unfalteringly toward the man at the piano.
It had been long since Jim Maxwell had played. At the outset, his hands moved slowly, almost hesitatingly, for the muscles were still a little numb from the cold of outdoors. But they grew elastic quickly, and a great series of clanging harmonies echoed through the squalid room. The others looked now with the wan-faced youth, whose cigarette had fallen unheeded. There came the dainty scamper of cadenzas, a crashing chord, and silence. The youth, who played himself, though not like this, understood that the stranger had made ready. He waited, tremulous with eagerness; for he loved his art, although he debased it. He muttered to himself:
"God! how that man can play!"
Jim Maxwell's fingers sought the keys again, weaving strange harmonies. And through them ran a thread of melody. The listeners could not understand, though the spell of it held them. Only, they knew somehow that the one who played was a man, full of a man's passions—the primitive passions of love and hate. There was a harshness in the dissonances that told of bitter sorrows; there was a charm in the thread of melody that was all truth and tenderness.
JIM MAXWELL'S FINGERS SOUGHT THE KEYS AGAIN, WEAVING STRANGE HARMONIES.
Those who heard saw visions, each according to his kind. In this improvisation, Jim interpreted his thronging emotions. The coldness and the desolation of the North were made audible. Through sound itself, he made these dwellers in the lonely places realize again the silence of solitary wastes. The music cried out in sudden anguished longing, then broke in discords, like shrieks for vengeance. Some of the listeners stirred uneasily, uncomprehendingly, yet thrilled—for the soul is more intelligent than the brain. The Rag-time Kid shivered.
Dan McGrew, the cards of his solo-game unheeded on the table before him, watched the man at the piano with steady gaze. His face was expressionless. He had recognized Jim Maxwell at first sight, and he knew that the time of reckoning was at hand. He was dismayed, for he had come in the course of years to believe that they two would never meet. Now that they were met, he was ready for whatever might befall. But he dared do nothing to precipitate the crisis. He must wait to be accused or attacked. If he could have followed his desire, he would have shot down the man he had wronged—would have shot him in the back, remorselessly, in cold blood. That he could not do. The code of the frontier forbids such murder. At such an act, these men about him would show no mercy beyond the short shrift of a rope. He could only await the issue with what patience he might, cursing inaudibly, so poised that he could draw at a second's warning.
Lou had not recognized Jim Maxwell on his entrance. She had given only a glance at this bearded stranger. She was infinitely weary of life. She hated this vulgar place, reeking with rank tobacco-smoke and the fumes of liquors. She felt, even through an apathy that had become habitual with her, shame from the leering glances of these men, who took her for the gambler's light-o'-love. She felt herself degraded more and more at her manner of life and by the associations thrust upon her. She knew the evil spirit of the man she had married, which daily and hourly she was compelled to tolerate. The life was become almost unendurable. Yet, she continued the sordid existence, partly because she lacked the courage to break away from him, partly because she could condone the wickedness of Dan McGrew to some extent in appreciation of his loyalty to her. She could not doubt the reality of his love for her. That his love was utterly selfish, she knew. But he gave her all that he could. The woman's instinct toward martyrdom made her feel it a duty not to desert him. Now, after the coming of the stranger, she felt, rather than saw, the change in Dan McGrew, and she wondered over it dully. Not for a moment did she suspect that her husband's emotion was connected with the advent of the bearded man, toward whom she glanced so idly.... Love, often, is not so shrewd as hate.
Her eyes followed Jim Maxwell as he went to the piano. She was still listless, wholly unsuspecting that aught impended. Even the first softly sounded notes did not arouse her. It was not until her ears caught the delicate thread of melody that her heart heard it, and answered, and she knew that this was the man she loved. Her hands clutched at her bosom in a spasmodic gesture. She swayed in her chair for a moment, then relaxed limply, and sat huddled in the corner between the table and the wall, her face ghastly beneath the rouge. But, lifeless as she seemed, she was listening through every atom of her being. In the varying phases of the music, she lived again the blisses and the torments. And, too, it was borne in upon her that, as she had suffered in the years since their parting, even so had he, who thus wove in sound the fabric of their lives. Yet, she could not believe that this man still loved her, though the music that grew under his fingers was like the talking together of their souls. A great wonder dawned in her, a greater fear, still greater hope. Could it be that the scales had fallen from his eyes, that he had freed himself from a degrading passion, that he had returned to his allegiance, that he loved her—her! Her body shook as with a palsy from the riot in her heart.
Abruptly, the music ceased. Then, in another instant, there came a series of noble chords, sonorous and serene. Followed the tripping dance of arpeggios, which deftly hinted of a melody to come. The Rag-time Kid quivered in ecstatic anticipation of something splendid, nor was he disappointed.
There sounded a lilting melody, a-throb with the joy of life. The notes rang with the calls of passion; they trembled into the sighings of exquisite tenderness. There was rapture in the magnificent harmonies that marched with this melody. It was like a song of two hearts glorious in the fulfillment of their love, with all the universe chanting praise of their happiness. It was the lyric of love triumphant.
The man at the piano raised his arms high, and brought his hands down on the keys in a great swoop. The flames in the smoking-oil lamps leaped and quivered at the devil's din of the discord. The nerves of those that heard leaped and quivered. The player got up from the stool. His eyes swept the staring faces, and he smiled—a smile like a curse.
"You don't know who I am, boys," he said. His voice, resonant, yet softly modulated, was very gentle—dangerously gentle the listeners might have thought, had they known him well.
Dan McGrew knew him well. He understood that the crisis was upon him. He shifted very slightly in his chair, that he might have greater freedom of movement when the need came. He darted a single glance at his wife, and saw her sitting erect again, gazing at the player with dilated eyes in which showed the hunger of a soul. Dan McGrew cursed beneath his breath, and did not look again. Instead, he held his whole attention on the man who had spoken, and who now spoke once more:
"I haven't anything to say to you, except that"—the voice deepened and roughened savagely—"one of you is a hound of hell! His name is—Dan McGrew!"
Two shots rang out, which almost blent as one—almost, not quite. The crowd scattered and dropped to the floor. The lights went out.
TWO SHOTS RANG OUT, WHICH ALMOST BLENT AS ONE.