Justice

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14, 2 October 1912, Page 52

Justice

Ely

ADRIANA SPADONI

<il Y NDY FORMAN stood listening to / I the light patter of the rain on r~l the pines. “It’s -the first rain. It’s come early and looks like it’s going to be heavy.” die spoke aloud to himself, but softly, as men do who are much alone in the forest. He stood for some moments longer, fliis head bent to 'the left, listening. He seemed to be registering the stillness on Iris brain. Then he began walking south, slowly, without looking back. As he left the spot where he had stood listening, his step quickened as if lie had decided suddenly to get Bomewhere as quickly as possible. But there was no eagerness in his face. Only faintly, from time to time, a passing* thought shadowed his still, gray eyes, as far-away clouds, floating, shadow the surface of a field. The rain came heavier. Soon all the open space between the pines was cut by long, thin lines of falling rain. It gurgled happily as it trickled into the thick carpet of needles that glistened Hinder the we't like fine splinters of polished bronze. Suddenly th« silence was snapped in two by the deep baying of a hound. One of the faint, cloud-like expressions crossed the man’s eyes. Again the dog bayed, much nearer. In a moment the big body came loping 'through the shadow. Behind it a girl hurried calling to the dog to lie still. The dog came straight to the man and rubbed its head Against ‘him. But Andy Forman did not Stoop. He stood perfectly still looking through the Tain -to the girl who was running now, holding a eoaked shawl about flier head. Under it flier face had the same deep stillness as the man’s, only, her eyes looked out sharp with pain. They -were like two lamps burning In tli6 -windows of a closed house. Without a sound the girl came to him and bls arms closed about (her. They stood close without speaking. At last the girl raised flier faice, red And roughened by contact with the damp coat. “How long—yer goin*—to stay away, (Andy?” “I don’t know, Bena. Till it blows over. I don’t see nothin’ else to do.” The girl nodded ‘heavily. ‘’But don’ Stay too long, Andy. Not —no longer—than you hev to. I ” She clung to (him again. Little choking sol>s broke from flier, as if they (had first do break through something hard and brittle to reach the surface. It iwas like thin ice cracking under pressure. The hound stood tip and moved uneasily. The shawl had fallen back, and the man began quietly stroking the girl’s ‘hair, his big 'hand moving down along her fliair and throat. When the eobs stopped he bent and kissed her. “I’ll walk—a piece with—yer.” The girl drew the shawl over flier head and they won't on fliaud in hand, walled in by a tense silence that spared no room tfor little things; with no power left for big things. Wflien they came to the edge of the belt, of pines they stopped. To the west, at the bottom of the canon, between the pine stretch and the bare hill opposite, the ocean broke on the rocks with 'the wailing sob that ‘recognises the coming of winter, The ocean greets the coming of Tain with little shivers and low moaning cries like a passion-spent woman who feels a. new love breaking the still peace ehe Jias at last achieved through pain. Jt remembers and dreads the rending passions that will tear it in the months •••head. “You’ll write, Andy.” ■‘•Sure. I'll write—a bit every day — and I*ll send -it once —a week. It won't be so long—sweetheart. It’s only one or two that's agin me —I'll be back before ” “Oh, it's ail along of me, Andy." The girl did not cry again, but rocked back and forth where she stood. “It’s my fault. 11 yer—didn't luv me like—yer do— they'd never 'pick on ” “Stop.* “It is. They all know how mean he •was to me an' Jiow yer flia'led him. Yer never made no secret itv ithat, Andy—•nd —and ” “Lena." He spoke so quietly that the words seemed to slip in between the rustle of the rain. “Don’t you never •ay that. It ain’t true that J killed him,

ibut it might ’ttv been. I eame near it often enough in my heart—seein’ the ■way he treated you. But if I had done it an’ they was goin' to kill me for it I’d rather die than never ’uv loved you at all.” In the deepening darkness the girl’s eyes burned. "Andy,” she whispered, “Andy.” The man drew her to him roughly and kissed her eyes and hair and mouth and bare throat, and she answered his hot. lips with little inarticulate cries. So they stood, silent, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, in the straight, quiet rain. Then he let her go. “You'd better run. You’ll git soaked.” He looked up at the heavy clouds, scudding from hilltop to hilltop and out (through the gate of the tumbling cliffs to the sea. “It's goin’ to be a storm for sure.” Without touching tier again he stepped beyond her. For an instant the girl swayed to him as if his body drew hers. Then, without a word, she turned and ran stumbling back through the pines. With ibis head bent the man listened until the dull pad of her step on the thick needles 'had passed beyond the beating of the rain. Then lie shook his fist into the gathering night. “D —— you,” lie cried, “whoever you are that’s spreadin' them lies. You know light well I never killed the old man, an’ if I had it ain't my way to skulk like this —like a coyote in the daylight. If it wasn't for her you couldn’t make me do it. B you—whoever you are.” He began walking again, on into the hilts, where the wago-n road south skirted fihe top of the ridge. 11. Lena Carlton smoothed out the letter and read it again. When she had read it. she folded it slowly, deliberately, and put it ‘back in the front of 'her dress. She had been smoothing, reading, and re-folding it for two days. Each time that she read it the words, like Hinge hammers beat on her brain. But the blows seemed always outside. The sense did not penetrate. The letter was from Andy. He had been arrested in San Francisco, just as he was leaving the city, for the murder of old Nicholas Carlton, Lena's uncle. After each reading Lena sat staring into the floor, until some outside power broke the numbness of iher brain. Now it was the hound who rose and went sniffing to the door. Lena looked up. Jim Alitehell was coming through the clean greenness of the pines. He reached the door and stopped. Lena did not move. “ I—l guess—you know.” Jim Mitchell's big, kind faee was red with the effort of finding the words. Lena nodded slowly. “ Did—he—write —himself?” She touched the paper in her dress. “When did you git it?” “ Wednesday.” “They brought him—up—to the courthouse—last night.” Lena looked at him stupidly. “The trial’ll be here ” The girl shivered a® a tree shivers before a storm. “ I—must ” —she got up. “ I come over to take you. He—he—It’s a - shame —” Jim Mitchell's voice broke, and lie caught his breath in a sob. “ Andy Forman's the t ruest man Gcal ever made. It's a low-down, stinkin’ t rick of somebody's. 1 always told him they'd soak it to him some day for standin' out agin the lumber fraud. They didn't dare git him on that. They—come. 1 got a rig up back a bit, anil we'll go round by the road." Late that afternoon Lena stood looking at Andy in dumb pain. She could cry no more. Her brain was frozen. Only in one spot the tide of her thought moved wearyingly back and forth in one idea. It was her fault. If she had not sought the comfort of Andy's love against the meanness, the petty tyrannies, the cruelty of old Nicholas Carlton, Andy would never have hated the old man as he had done: he would never have threatened him as every mtn in the district had lieard him do: they would never have settled on Andy <is the murderer when they found old Nicholas dead by liis own 'Well. “ it’s—all —because uv me." Big, white

tears rolled helplessly down Lena's cheeks. Andy did not answer. He had said “don’t’’ so many times. He took her hands and held them against him, through the iron wicket that separated them. “ It’s a mistake, little girl,” he said softly. “ The boys won’t go back on me. Don’t worry. They say I done wrong to go away—but—thought—it was best. There ain’t a man in the woods really believes I done it. Don’t worry. The boys won’t go back on me.” He bent close to the bar and kissed her hands again and again through the eold iron. But the belief held Lena in a vide. .She could see nothing but Andy dead, land, because she knew only the forest, she saw him day and night, just before her, hanging from a great pine, swaying in the wind, beaten upon by the rain, sniffed at by the little creatures that scuttle through the night. It was always before her. A week liter, when Lena stood in the dock, she looked out beyond the heads of the jury and saw it there moving gently in the win'd. With her eyes fixed on It, in a dull voice, Lena gave her testimony. She was like a person walking toward a fixed point in his sleep. When she had finished, the faintest, little smile quirked the lips of the prosecuting attorney. So vividly had the girl painted the old man's harshness, his brutal temper, his stingy habits; so clearly had she drawn the flat monotony of her life, with its one glaring streak of brightness, her love for Andy Forman and his great love for her, that she had left the lawyer little to do. In her dull dead voice she told how the old man had struck her, and how she had fled through the trees to Andy's cabin. Skilfully led, she described Andy’s fury, and how she had clung to him to keep him from going to settle with old Nicholas Carlton then and there. How they sat till late on the steps of Andy's cabin, until she was sure that the old man was asleep, and Andy had brought her back. She had not looked to see if the old man was in, but had gone straight to bed. The next morning old Nicholas was found murdered by the well. She had left the attorney very little to do. Very cleverly, bit by bit,' out of the words with which Lena 'had built the story of her life, he fashioned a cell for Andy Forman. With a sweeping gesture of his plump, white hand, lie tore aside the curtain of sentimental misinterpretation and exposed the hideous skeleton of the truth behind. “ And remember, gentlemen of the jury, she did not even shed a tear. You saw her. She stood there 'beside the form of the old man, who had been father and mother to her. without whom she might have been—who knows what—and she did —not—even—shed a tear.” With the faintest ciatch in Ills own voice, as if the unshed tear were struggling to be shed by someone, lie stopped. The stiffness went out of Jim Mitchell's shoulders. He hunched forward. Lena sat motionless, staring at Andy. Andy stared before him. The judge gave the case to the jury, looking slowly over the twelve men, strangers who had been brought from far back in the hills, to decide the guilt of Andy Forman. Silence shut down on the court like a lid on a box. In half an hour the jury filed in. Neither Lena nor Andy moved. Jim Mitchell 'clutched the sides of his chair. The judge took the verdict from the foreman, read it. twitched off his glass by a motion of his nose, and stared out over the heads of those below him. Tiien he crossed bis hands on his stomach, announced the verdict, “Guilty' of murder in the second degree," anil sentenced Andy Forman to imprisonment for life. Jim Mitchell began to tremble like an old person in a chill. *’ My God !” he cried aloud, “his fat her lived to bp eighty-eight.” 111. “You can have the pie ami the meat. All 'but tlie bread. 1 can’t work on nothing.” Andy Forman’s voice had the same quiet stillness that it had had five years before, when lie had said good-bye to Lena under the trees in the rain. But his eyes had changed. The man no longer looked out. The wide spaces were no longer in his eyes. It was «s if ho bad built a wall about his soul and never dared’ to glance beyond it. The little, shrivelled figure before him stroked .its grey jaw 'Wlith. a thin forefinger. In the broad grey and liluck stripes, the little rouud-riiouldered man

looked like some repulsive insect rubbing its head with its at-tenae. “ What kind of pie do vou s'pose it’ll be?” “ Peach. I asked the cook.” K I like peach.” The little man’s small, Tound eyes twitched back and forth, like tiny steel plates on pivots. “ All the meat and the pie and the corfeesugajr?” Andy Forman nodded. The little man continued to scratch his jaw thoughtfully. “ Well —” Andy {Forman’s hands clenched and his face went white. The little man stepped back quickly. “0(h, well, all right. I’ll do it this time (for sure.” Andy’s hands loosened. “ You’ve fooled me so many times,” lie said softly, “ but I’m gettin’ tired of it.” “ I'll git it this time.” The little man looked about nervously. ‘‘ How do I know 'wfhat you want with it’ Cut yer throat maybe. Well, go on cut. I’ll git it an’ put it ” The tittle man dropped his voice as if the stones of the great wall could hear, in that place—‘‘under the bush—you know.” Then he shuffled away, dragging his feet as if they were weighted. Andy Forman crossed the yard and stopped for a moment before a window high up in a thick stone wall. Behind the bars the sun caught the smooth roundness of a green glass bottle. Andy stopped only a moment and then went on. For two long years Andy Forman had worked with quiet persistence bribing the beetle-like ilittle creature with the tobacco Jim Mitchell sent each month and with food. At first the little man had demanded only the dessert on Sundays and holidays but when he realised how much Andy wanted the green glass bottle his price had gone up. Now he had all Andy’s sugar, and his Sunday meat and all the chance extras. Again and again he had broken his promise. Andy paid and waited. To Andy Forman the green glass bottle had come to be like a long desired woman to a lover. He knew every shadow, every glint of it. He knew it when the hot summer sun touched its polished sides to gold, when it was almost black in the winter greyness. He knew it when it was a clear, light- green, like a, happy woman laughing; and when it was a thick, deep green, like a woman in sorrow. In the two years that Andy had paid and waited it had come to live. It was more real than the grey-striped men with whom he worked and ate. It was human. It. shared tire universe alone with Lena and Jim. The big man trembled as he swung his pick, gradually working his way to the upper end of the quarry. If the little man had disappointed him again! Even after he had reached the edge and could have touched the bush, he went on bringing down huge blocks of the soft, red stone, afraid to look. At last he bent suddenly, thrusting his hand in under the bush that grew on the very edge. As his fingers touched the smooth, cool side of the green glass bojttle, Andy Forman’s whole body broke out itf clammy sweat. With another stroke of his pick he brought down a huge slab of the soft, red stone that crumbled into a protecting mound between himself and the rest of the gang. Bending quickly, he drew a paper from his -boot and thrust it into the bottle. Stepping .behind the projecting mass of the quarry side, he l»eat in the cork against tire rock, raised his arm and Hung the bottle into -the -sea. Before it struck he was swinging his pick again. As it bobbed merrily away, Andy Forman drew a deep breath. ‘‘You’ll do it fur me,” he whispered softly. “I know yer will.” Men had failed him, but the green glass bottle would not fail. Twjce before Andy Forman had written out a petition. The first the warden had torn up befoye his eyes. That was just after he had been punished for beating the man who had stolen his cool spot under the wall. 11l that world of monotony and grey stone it was not a small tiling to lose ths cool spot under the wall. The .second time, a year later, the petition had gone. He had dropped it among the other dead, white oblongs that went out in the prison mailbag. He had heard nothing. Now he had given it to a friend. Out there in the warm sunlight, under the clean winds, the green glass bottle was carrying his message. Squic day someone would find it- Then-—the five years had not killed Andy Forman’s faith. IVith one jerk of his nrin Andy For man had thrown, down the wull he Lad built about his soul. Every night,

strntehed out in the narrow Madness of his cell, he left the prison and went north into 'the pines to Lena. The old outlook came baek into his eyes. He talked no more 'than he had ever done to the other- prisoners, but sometimes ho stood and smiled quietly to himself. He did not write to Lena what he had done. He would surprise her. Hour after hour in the darkness, breaking stone on the edge of the bluff, working in the jute mill, Andy Forman planned it over and over. Sometimes he came on Lena early in the morning, when the forest was silent, the pines tipped with the gold of the coming sun. Sometimes he came in the heat of noon, when all was still but tense with hidden passion. Hut best of all, he liked to steal upon her in the cool dusk, when she sat on the cabin step, idle, her hands in her lap, the hound at her feet, gazing into the darkening pines. Then, just before the coining of the night, the restlessness went out of the sea, it accepted the coming darkness with a low, patient murmur. The birds were at rest, all the little buzzing, whirring creatures of the sunlight were still. In that short half hour of coming night even the leaves

ceased from their tireless rustle- There woiuld be only Lena and himself alone in the forest. Nevertheless, each day, Andy Forman said to himself: “It may take a long time.” With the words he made a case about his hopes so that the passing weeks might not injure them. Within, like delicate plants, they grew. So utterly alone did Andy Forman live with his ho-pes, that two months later, when the little man came mysteriously and touched his arm, beckoning him to a quiet corner, Andy Forman had no thought of the bottle. ‘•You got it dirt cheap,” whispered the little man. “If you do the square thing, you'll remember me when you git out.” “What?” The last word caught Andy's understanding. The rest he had not grasped. The eyes of the little man glinted. “Ain't you—heard?” Suddenly the big man reached for the little creature. "What?” The word whistled in hie throat. “What are yer sayin’?” The little man dropped quickly back a step.

“I got some noos you'll be mighty glad to hear- I’l1 —I'll tell—it to. you fur yer—dinner meat. It's boiled beef.” The little man swallowed as if already he felt the sweet juiee trickling. ‘‘An’ I like boiled beef —almost better than anything.” “What?” Andy Forman's lips twitched. “For God's sake ” The little man climbed upon lib toes. "They've found the bottle,” he croaked. “It’s in the papers.” "If—yer—kiddin’ me”—Andy Forman's voice trembled pitifully—“l'll kill yer!” "I ain’t kiddin’ you—you —big brute,” tire little man spluttered, stepping down upon his heels again. "I—kin—prove it.” "Do it.” “Let me go. I can't when you got me tight.” Safe from Andy’s dutches, the little man stepped back, eoeked his small head to one side, and blinked from his round, small eyes. "You sure got it dirt eheap.” And then, drawing a paper from the front of his jacket, he pushed it into Andy's hand. "There —an’ if you don’t remember a fellow whin you—git ” The little man did not finish, but scuttled away. .Andy took the paper and passed round the corner of the building. When he was quite alone he stopped and smoothed it out. He read it carefully from the great black headlines through to the end. When he had finished he read it again. Altogether he read it four times. Then he put the paper carefully under his stripes and read the words printed on the air before him. "Lena,” he whispered. “Oh, Lena.” And then Andy Forman stood stone still in the prison yard and shook his fist at the world. ‘‘Da- n ver,” he cried aloud, “Da n yer all—yer skulkin’ cowaids.” A guard touched 'him on the shoulder. “None of that.” Andy Forman went bask across the yard with his head down. Once. his eyes filled with tears so that he had to stop and wipe them on the stripes of his sleeve. For the first time in free years Andy Forman saw clearly tin 1 threads of the web in which he Had been caught. He, who had always felt so big and strong and free alone with his work and his love for Lena in the clean out-of-doors, had been a bit of waste, caught in the revolving belt of sordid ambition, cowardice and lust of money. He had gotten in the way of a machine. It had ground him to bits ami Hung him aside. Six years before in a hidden corner of the northern hills many thousands of dollars had been made by a few men, very suddenly, very silently. More thousands were in sight. A veritable golden river was waiting to cascade down from the northern forests into the pockets of half a dozen men. Suddenly the river had been dammed. One big’, slow’ lumberman stood in the way. He was poor, he was ignorant. He was a person of no importance, except for a scrap of knowledge that he had come upon quite unexpectedly. Special trains with company officials hurried north to persuade him. The Governor's brother tried) to frighten him and then swore in 'helpless rage. Andy Forman looked steadily’ through the smoke of his cob pipe and told the Governor's brother to go to Three months later old Nicholas Carlton had been found dead near the well in the clearing, just beyond) the caCbin where he had lived with Lena, for twenty years. On the side of his head there was an ugly wound. Old Nicholas Carlton had worked for the Governor s brother for many years. For the first time in five years Andy Forman understood. The paper put it together like the blocks of a puzzle. He could see clearly the threads running from his lonely cabin among the pines to the big city, to the offices of the lumber trust, where lean, sharp-faced men played with God's forests. Tire paper made it all very clear. Now there was a new’ Governor. And the green glass bottle had been found. Tliat night, in the darkness of his cell, Andy Forman tried helplessly like a. child and Lena came and took his head on her breast and comforted him. As ]jassersby stop to look at a spot where some awful catastrophe has happened, so the men passing lockstep before the window, glanced up at the place wlrere the green glass bottle bad -food. They watched Andy with a mixture of curiosity ami respect. For five years they had lived with him, a number like themselves. Now in one day he hail Ixs'omc a person, a distinct individual. He had a name. It was in all the

papers. Unconsciously they used thir name when they spoke of * him among themselves. Ami they scarcely spoke otf anything ch-e. Many men had worked out their terms and gon*, ’some good

men had laid- their terms shortened. Andy Forman hud tlarowin a green glass Imttle into the sea ayd lie. was to he pardoned altogether.' Andy Forman, the big. silent man who Lad always held aloof, who had never been one of them, had performed a miracle. They" looked up iwonderingly, enviously respect fully. All except the tittle man. In the heart of the little man hatred of Andy grew from h<vir to hour. For two years he had tormented the big man as he would. lie had promised the green glass bottle and broken his promise and always Andy had paid the price. With all his heart the little man had despised Andy. He 'Was so big. so quiet, so stupidly honest. Often the little man had laughed to think how he had made a green glass 'bottle a source of income for two yours. Now he felt that all the time Andy had been mocking him. It was he himself who had been the fool. The small round eyes of the little man blurred with angry tears. Andy would have promised anything and 'he' was so stupid he would have paid it —a pound of tobacco a week for the fifteen 'remaining years of the little man’s term. All the possible, privileges that might have been his danced before the little man ■with gnawing clearness. Each time, that he passed- Andy and Andy smiled at him in his still, kind way, tine fingers of the little man curled and uncurled helplessly. It was Sunday. On Monday Andy Forman would be a .free man. For the last time he sat at the long- table in the great dining room. Suddenly he smiled and slipped his dinner meat and i'is allowance of sugar under his plate, citer in the afternoon he came for a moment on the little man crossing the flagged yard alone. Andy stopped and smiling held out the meat and sugar ■which he had wrapped in a. bit of newspaper. The little man stopped too, but lie did not take the package. Tfe stood looking up lat the big .fellow before him. liis small head cricked knowingly to one Side. W ell yer—mighty lucky—ain’t you?" There was a drawling sneer in the little man’s high voice. “M-i-g-h-t-y—lucky. Tint some folks is born that way I guess.” The smile died slowly in Andy's eyes. I don t know, he spoke quietly. “I never done it yer know. It seems like it wasn’t much luck to git in at all.” ■/The little man burst into a cackle of laughter. ..“Aw go on. Yer giftin’ out so it don’t .matter whether or no you ever done it an’ I ain’t expectin' a full confession, but yer don’t suppose any of the Lots believes it do ver? You got a pull. AVe -ain’t.” ' . For a moment the look flared l in Andy’s eyes, -the same look with'which he had turned on the thief, who had stolen his cool place under the -wall and then lied. It passed. lie looked- at the little creature pityingly. The look infuriated the little man. Ite leaned close. His head dropped between his shoulders. “Well—if you didn’t—then she did. It was one of the two of yer.” Jake a poisonous thing protecting itself within its shell he hissed the words up into" Andy’s face. “And—believe me -if you git cut—she’ll git—” From the 'window of the office -the waiden saw the big man bend, 'lift the little one. twirl him aloft twice and fling him across the yard. When the 'warden reached the little man he was dead. Up among Hie -pines Lena «at in. Iter cheap black stating dully into the clean, green spaces “An’ he give him his meal an' his sugar— —” She kept repeating it as it it were a litany with which she 'were begging the mercy of God.