Book: The Rainbow Trail

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"What is your name?" asked Judge Stone, glancing up from a paper
he held.

"Mary Danton."

"Family or married name?"

"My husband's name was Danton."

"Was. Is he living?"

"No."

"Where did you live when you were married to him?"

"In St. George, and later here in Stonebridge."

"You were both Mormons?"

"Yes."

"Did you have any children by him?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Two."

"Are they living?"

"One of them is living."

Judge Stone bent over his paper and then slowly raised his eyes to
her face.

"Are you married now?"

"No."

Again the judge consulted his notes, and held a whispered colloquy
with the two men at his table.

"Mrs. Danton, when you were arrested there were five children found
in your home. To whom do they belong?"

"Me."

"Are you their mother?"

"Yes."

"Your husband Danton is the father of only one, the eldest, according
to your former statement. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Who, then, is the father--or who are the fathers, of your other
children?"

"I do not know."

She said it with the most stony-faced calmness, with utter disregard
of what significance her words had. A strong, mystic wall of cold
flint insulated her. Strangely it came to Shefford how impossible
either to doubt or believe her. Yet he did both! Judge Stone showed
a little heat.

"You don't know the father of one or all of these children?" he
queried, with sharp rising inflection of voice.

"I do not."

"Madam, I beg to remind you that you are under oath."

The woman did not reply.

"These children are nameless, then--illegitimate?"

"They are."

"You swear you are not the sealed wife of some Mormon?"

"I swear."

"How do you live--maintain yourself?"

"I work."

"What at?"

"I weave, sew, bake, and work in my garden."

"My men made note of your large and comfortable cabin, even luxurious,
considering this country. How is that?"

"My husband left me comfortable."

Judge Stone shook a warning finger at the defendant.

"Suppose I were to sentence you to jail for perjury? For a year? Far
from your home and children! Would you speak--tell the truth?"

"I am telling the truth. I can't speak what I don't know. . . . Send
me to jail."

Baffled, with despairing, angry impatience, Judge Stone waved the
woman away.

"That will do for her. Fetch the next one," he said.

One after another he examined three more women, and arrived, by various
questions and answers different in tone and temper, at precisely the
same point as had been made in the case of Mrs. Danton. Thereupon the
proceedings rested a few moments while the judge consulted with his
assistants.

Shefford was grateful for this respite. He had been worked up to an
unusual degree of interest, and now, as the next Mormon woman to be
examined was she whom he had loved and loved still, he felt rise in
him emotion that threatened to make him conspicuous unless it could be
hidden. The answers of these Mormon women had been not altogether
unexpected by him, but once spoken in cold blood under oath, how
tragic, how appallingly significant of the shadow, the mystery, the
yoke that bound them! He was amazed, saddened. He felt bewildered.
He needed to think out the meaning of the falsehoods of women he knew
to be good and noble. Surely religion, instead of fear and loyalty,
was the foundation and the strength of this disgrace, this sacrifice.
Absolutely, shame was not in these women, though they swore to shameful
facts. They had been coached to give these baffling answers, every
one of which seemed to brand them, not the brazen mothers of
illegitimate offspring, but faithful, unfortunate sealed wives. To
Shefford the truth was not in their words, but it sat upon their
somber brows.

Was it only his heightened imagination, or did the silence and the
suspense grow more intense when a deputy led that dark-hooded, white-
clad, slender woman to the defendant's chair? She did not walk with
the poise that had been manifest in the other women, and she sank into
the chair as if she could no longer stand.

"Please remove your hood," requested the prosecutor.

How well Shefford remembered the strong, shapely hands! He saw them
tremble at the knot of ribbon, and that tremor was communicated to him
in a sympathy which made his pulses beat. He held his breath while
she removed the hood. And then there was revealed, he thought, the
loveliest and the most tragic face that ever was seen in a court-room.

A low, whispering murmur that swelled like a wave ran through the
hall. And by it Shefford divined, as clearly as if the fact had
been blazoned on the walls, that Mary's face had been unknown to
these villagers. But the name Sago Lily had not been unknown;
Shefford heard it whispered on all sides.

The murmuring subsided. The judge and his assistants stared at Mary.
As for Shefford, there was no need of his personal feeling to make the
situation dramatic. Not improbably Judge Stone had tried many Mormon
women. But manifestly this one was different. Unhooded, Mary appeared
to be only a young girl, and a court, confronted suddenly with her
youth and the suspicion attached to her, could not but have been
shocked. Then her beauty made her seem, in that somber company, indeed
the white flower for which she had been named. But, more likely, it
was her agony that bound the court into silence which grew painful.
Perhaps the thought that flashed into Shefford's mind was telepathic;
it seemed to him that every watcher there realized that in this
defendant the judge had a girl of softer mold, of different spirit,
and from her the bitter truth could be wrung.

Mary faced the court and the crowd on that side of the platform.
Unlike the other women, she did not look at or seem to see any one
behind the railing. Shefford was absolutely sure there was not a man
or a woman who caught her glance. She gazed afar, with eyes strained,
humid, fearful.

When the prosecutor swore her to the oath her lips were seen to move,
but no one heard her speak.

"What is your name?" asked the judge.

"Mary." Her voice was low, with a slight tremor.

"What's your other name?"

"I won't tell."

Her singular reply, the tones of her voice, her manner before the
judge, marked her with strange simplicity. It was evident that she
was not accustomed to questions.

"What were your parents' names?"

"I won't tell," she replied, very low.

Judge Stone did not press the point. Perhaps he wanted to make the
examination as easy as possible for her or to wait till she showed
more composure.

"Were your parents Mormons?" he went on.

"No, sir." She added the sir with a quaint respect, contrasting
markedly with the short replies of the women before her.

"Then you were not born a Mormon?"

"No, sir."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen or eighteen. I'm not sure."

"You don't know your exact age?"

"No."

"Where were you born?"

"I won't tell."

"Was it in Utah?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long have you lived in this state?"

"Always--except last year."

"And that's been over in the hidden village where you were arrested?"

"Yes."

"But you often visited here--this town Stonebridge?"

"I never was here--till yesterday."

Judge Stone regarded her as if his interest as a man was running
counter to his duty as an officer. Suddenly he leaned forward.

"Are you a Mormon NOW?" he queried, forcibly.

"No, sir," she replied, and here her voice rose a little clearer.

It was an unexpected reply. Judge Stone stared at her. The low buzz
ran through the listening crowd. And as for Shefford, he was astounded.
When his wits flashed back and he weighed her words and saw in her face
truth as clear as light, he had the strangest sensation of joy. Almost
it flooded away the gloom and pain that attended this ordeal.

The judge bent his head to his assistants as if for counsel. All of
them were eager where formerly they had been weary. Shefford glanced
around at the dark and somber faces, and a slow wrath grew within him.
Then he caught a glimpse of Waggoner. The steel-blue, piercing
intensity of the Mormon's gaze impressed him at a moment when all
that older generation of Mormons looked as hard and immutable as iron.
Either Shefford was over-excited and mistaken or the hour had become
fraught with greater suspense. The secret, the mystery, the power, the
hate, the religion of a strange people were thick and tangible in that
hall. For Shefford the feeling of the presence of Withers on his left
was entirely different from that of the Mormon on his other side. If
there was not a shadow there, then the sun did not shine so brightly
as it had shone when he entered. The air seemed clogged with nameless
passion.

"I gather that you've lived mostly in the country--away from people?"
the judge began.

"Yes, sir," replied the girl.

"Do you know anything about the government of the United States?"

"No, sir."

He pondered again, evidently weighing his queries, leading up to the
fatal and inevitable question.

Still, his interest in this particular defendant had become visible.

"Have you any idea of the consequences of perjury?"

"No, sir."

"Do you understand what perjury is?"

"It's to lie."

"Do you tell lies?"

"No, sir."

"Have you ever told a single lie?"

"Not--yet," she replied, almost whispering.

It was the answer of a child and affected the judge. He fussed
with his papers. Perhaps his task was not easy; certainly it was
not pleasant. Then he leaned forward again and fixed those deep,
cavernous eyes upon the sad face.

"Do you understand what a sealed wife is?"

"I've never been told."

"But you know there are sealed wives in Utah?"

"Yes, sir; I've been told that."

Judge Stone halted there, watching her. The hall was silent except
for faint rustlings and here and there deep breaths drawn guardedly.
The vital question hung like a sword over the white-faced girl.
Perhaps she divined its impending stroke, for she sat like a stone
with dilating, appealing eyes upon her executioner.

"Are you a sealed wife?" he flung at her.

She could not answer at once. She made effort, but the words would not
come. He flung the question again, sternly.

"No!" she cried.

And then there was silence. That poignant word quivered in Shefford's
heart. He believed it was a lie. It seemed he would have known it if
this hour was the first in which he had ever seen the girl. He heard,
he felt, he sensed the fatal thing. The beautiful voice had lacked
some quality before present. And the thing wanting was something
subtle, an essence, a beautiful ring--the truth. What a hellish
thing to make that pure girl a liar--a perjurer! The heat deep
within Shefford kindled to fire.

"You are not married?" went on Judge Stone.

"No, sir," she answered, faintly.

"Have you ever been married?"

"No, sir."

"Do you expect ever to be married?"

"Oh! No, sir."

She was ashen pale now, quivering all over, with her strong hands
clasping the black hood, and she could no longer meet the judge's
glance.

"Have you--any--any children?" the judge asked, haltingly. It was a
hard question to get out.

"No."

Judge Stone leaned far over the table, and that his face was purple
showed Shefford he was a man. His big fist clenched.

"Girl, you're not going to swear you, too, were visited--over there by
men . . . You're not going to swear that?"

"Oh--no, sir!"

Judge Stone settled back in his chair, and while he wiped his moist
face that same foreboding murmur, almost a menace, moaned through
the hall.

Shefford was sick in his soul and afraid of himself. He did not know
this spirit that flamed up in him. His helplessness was a most hateful
fact.

"Come--confess you are a sealed wife," called her interrogator.

She maintained silence, but shook her head.

Suddenly he seemed to leap forward.

"Unfortunate child! Confess."

That forced her to lift her head and face him, yet still she did not
speak. It was the strength of despair. She could not endure much
more.

"Who is your husband?" he thundered at her.

She rose wildly, terror-stricken. It was terror that dominated her,
not of the stern judge, for she took a faltering step toward him,
lifting a shaking hand, but of some one or of some thing far more
terrible than any punishment she could have received in the sentence
of a court. Still she was not proof against the judge's will. She
had weakened, and the terror must have been because of that weakening.

"Who is the Mormon who visits you?" he thundered, relentlessly.

"I--never--knew--his--name.

"But you'd know his face. I'll arrest every Mormon in this country
and bring him before you. You'd know his face?"

"Oh, I wouldn't. I COULDN'T TELL! . . . _I_--NEVER--SAW HIS FACE--
IN THE LIGHT!"

The tragic beauty of her, the certainty of some monstrous crime
to youth and innocence, the presence of an agony and terror that
unfathomably seemed not to be for herself--these transfixed the
court and the audience, and held them silenced, till she reached
out blindly and then sank in a heap to the floor.




XI. AFTER THE TRIAL


Shefford might have leaped over the railing but for Withers's
restraining hand, and when there appeared to be some sign of kindness
in those other women for the unconscious girl Shefford squeezed
through the crowd and got out of the hall.

The gang outside that had been denied admittance pressed upon Shefford,
with jest and curious query, and a good nature that jarred upon him.
He was far from gentle as he jostled off the first importuning fellows;
the others, gaping at him, opened a lane for him to pass through.

Then there was a hand laid on his shoulder that he did not shake off.
Nas Ta Bega loomed dark and tall beside him. Neither the trader nor
Joe Lake nor any white man Shefford had met influenced him as this
Navajo.

"Nas Ta Bega! you here, too. I guess the whole country is here. We
waited at Kayenta. What kept you so long?"

The Indian, always slow to answer, did not open his lips till he drew
Shefford apart from the noisy crowd.

"Bi Nai, there is sorrow in the hogan of Hosteen Doetin," he said.

"Glen Naspa!" exclaimed Shefford.

"My sister is gone from the home of her brother. She went away alone
in the summer."

"Blue Canyon! She went to the missionary. Nas Ta Bega, I thought I
saw her there. But I wasn't sure. I didn't want to make sure. I
was afraid it might be true."

"A brave who loved my sister trailed her there."

"Nas Ta Bega, will you--will we go find her, take her home?"

"No. She will come home some day."

What bitter sadness and wisdom in his words!

"But, my friend, that damned missionary--" began Shefford,
passionately. The Indian had met him at a bad hour.

"Willetts is here. I saw him go in there," interrupted Nas Ta Bega,
and he pointed to the hall.

"Here! He gets around a good deal," declared Shefford. "Nas Ta Bega,
what are you going to do to him?"

The Indian held his peace and there was no telling from his inscrutable
face what might be in his mind. He was dark, impassive. He seemed a
wise and bitter Indian, beyond any savagery of his tribe, and the
suffering Shefford divined was deep.

"He'd better keep out of my sight," muttered Shefford, more to himself
than to his companion.

"The half-breed is here," said Nas Ta Bega.

"Shadd? Yes, we saw him. There! He's still with his gang. Nas Ta
Bega, what are they up to?"

"They will steal what they can."

"Withers says Shadd is friendly with the Mormons."

"Yes, and with the missionary, too."

"With Willetts?"

"I saw them talk together--strong talk."

"Strange. But maybe it's not so strange. Shadd is known well in
Monticello and Bluff. He spends money there. They are afraid of him,
but he's welcome just the same. Perhaps everybody knows him. It'd be
like him to ride into Kayenta. But, Nas Ta Bega, I've got to look out
for him, because Withers says he's after me."

"Bi Nai wears a scar that is proof," said the Indian.

"Then it must be he found out long ago I had a little money."

"It might be. But, Bi Nai, the half-breed has a strange step on your
trail."

"What do you mean?" demanded Shefford.

"Nas Ta Bega cannot tell what he does not know," replied the Navajo.
"Let that be. We shall know some day. Bi Nai, there is sorrow to
tell that is not the Indian's. . . . Sorrow for my brother!"

Shefford lifted his eyes to the Indian's, and if he did not see sadness
there he was much deceived.

"Bi Nai, long ago you told a story to the trader. Nas Ta Bega sat
before the fire that night. You did not know he could understand your
language. He listened. And he learned what brought you to the country
of the Indian. That night he made you his brother. . . . All his
lonely rides into the canyon have been to find the little golden-
haired child, the lost girl--Fay Larkin. . . . Bi Nai, I have found
the girl you wanted for your sweetheart."

Shefford was bereft of speech. He could not see steadily, and the
last solemn words of the Indian seemed far away.

"Bi Nai, I have found Fay Larkin," repeated Nas Ta Bega.

"Fay Larkin!" gasped Shefford, shaking his head. "But--she's dead."

"It would be less sorrow for Bi Nai if she were dead."

Shefford clutched at the Indian. There was something terrible to
be revealed. Like an aspen-leaf in the wind he shook all over. He
divined the revelation--divined the coming blow--but that was as far
as his mind got.

"She's in there," said the Indian, pointing toward hall.

"Fay Larkin?" whispered Shefford.

"Yes, Bi Nai."

"My God! HOW do you know? Oh, I could have seen. I've been blind.
. . . Tell me, Indian. Which one?"

"Fay Larkin is the Sago Lily."

. . . . . . . . . .

Shefford strode away into a secluded corner of the Square, where in
the shade and quiet of the trees he suffered a storm of heart and
mind. During that short or long time--he had no idea how long--the
Indian remained with him. He never lost the feeling of Nas Ta Bega
close beside him. When the period of acute pain left him and some
order began to replace the tumult in his mind he felt in Nas Ta Bega
the same quality--silence or strength or help--that he had learned
to feel in the deep canyon and the lofty crags. He realized then
that the Indian was indeed a brother. And Shefford needed him. What
he had to fight was more fatal than suffering and love--it was hate
rising out of the unsuspected dark gulf of his heart--the instinct to
kill--the murder in his soul. Only now did he come to understand Jane
Withersteen's tragic story and the passion of Venters and what had made
Lassiter a gun-man. The desert had transformed Shefford. The elements
had entered into his muscle and bone, into the very fiber of his heart.
Sun, wind, sand, cold, storm, space, stone, the poison cactus, the
racking toil, the terrible loneliness--the iron of the desert man,
the cruelty of the desert savage, the wildness of the mustang, the
ferocity of hawk and wolf, the bitter struggle of every surviving
thing--these were as if they had been melted and merged together and
now made a dark and passionate stream that was his throbbing blood.
He realized what he had become and gloried in it, yet there, looking
on with grave and earnest eyes, was his old self, the man of reason,
of intellect, of culture, who had been a good man despite the failure
and shame of his life. And he gave heed to the voice of warning, of
conscience. Not by revengefully seeking the Mormon who had ruined
Fay Larkin and blindly dealing a wild justice could he help this
unfortunate girl. This fierce, newborn strength and passion must be
tempered by reason, lest he become merely elemental, a man answering
wholly to primitive impulses. In the darkness of that hour he mined
deep into his heart, understood himself, trembled at the thing he
faced, and won his victory. He would go forth from that hour a man.
He might fight, and perhaps there was death in the balance, but hate
would never overthrow him.

Then when he looked at future action he felt a strange, unalterable
purpose to save Fay Larkin. She was very young--seventeen or eighteen,
she had said--and there could be, there must be some happiness before
her. It had been his dream to chase a rainbow--it had been his
determination to find her in the lost Surprise Valley. Well, he had
found her. It never occurred to him to ask Nas Ta Bega how he had
discovered that the Sago Lily was Fay Larkin. The wonder was, Shefford
thought, that he had so long been blind himself. How simply everything
worked out now! Every thought, every recollection of her was proof.
Her strange beauty like that of the sweet and rare lily, her low voice
that showed the habit of silence, her shapely hands with the clasp
strong as a man's, her lithe form, her swift step, her wonderful
agility upon the smooth, steep trails, and the wildness of her upon
the heights, and the haunting, brooding shadow of her eyes when she
gazed across the canyon--all these fitted so harmoniously the
conception of a child lost in a beautiful Surprise Valley and growing
up in its wildness and silence, tutored by the sad love of broken Jane
and Lassiter. Yes, to save her had been Shefford's dream, and he had
loved that dream. He had loved the dream and he had loved the child.
The secret of her hiding-place as revealed by the story told him and
his slow growth from dream to action--these had strangely given Fay
Larkin to him. Then had come the bitter knowledge that she was dead.
In the light of this subsequent revelation how easy to account for his
loving Mary, too. Never would she be Mary again to him! Fay Larkin
and the Sago Lily were one and the same. She was here, near him, and
he was powerless for the present to help her or to reveal himself.
She was held back there in that gloomy hall among those somber Mormons,
alien to the women, bound in some fatal way to one of the men, and now,
by reason of her weakness in the trial, surely to be hated. Thinking
of her past and her present, of the future, and that secret Mormon
hose face she had never seen, Shefford felt a sinking of his heart,
a terrible cold pang in his breast, a fainting of his spirit. She
had sworn she was no sealed wife. But had she not lied? So, then,
how utterly powerless he was!

But here to save him, to uplift him, came that strange mystic insight
which had been the gift of the desert to him. She was not dead. He
had found her. What mattered obstacles, even that implacable creed
to which she had been sacrificed, in the face of this blessed and
overwhelming truth? It was as mighty as the love suddenly dawning
upon him. A strong and terrible and deathly sweet wind seemed to fill
his soul with the love of her. It was her fate that had drawn him;
and now it was her agony, her innocence, her beauty, that bound him
for all time. Patience and cunning and toil, passion and blood, the
unquenchable spirit of a man to save--these were nothing to give--life
itself were little, could he but free her.

Patience and cunning! His sharpening mind cut these out as his
greatest assets for the present. And his thoughts flashed like light
through his brain. . . . Judge Stone and his court would fail to
convict any Mormon in Stonebridge, just the same as they had failed
in the northern towns. They would go away, and Stonebridge would fall
to the slow, sleepy tenor of its former way. The hidden village must
become known to all men, honest and outlawed, in that country, but
this fact would hardly make any quick change in the plans of the
Mormons. They did not soon change. They would send the sealed wives
back to the canyon and, after the excitement had died down, visit them
as usual. Nothing, perhaps, would ever change these old Mormons but death.

Shefford resolved to remain in Stonebridge and ingratiate himself
deeper into the regard of the Mormons. He would find work there, if
the sealed wives were not returned to the hidden village. In case the
women went back to the valley Shefford meant to resume his old duty
of driving Withers's pack-trains. Wanting that opportunity, he would
find some other work, some excuse to take him there. In due time he
would reveal to Fay Larkin that he knew her. How the thought thrilled
him! She might deny, might persist in her fear, might fight to keep
her secret. But he would learn it--hear her story--hear what had
become of Jane Withersteen and Lassiter--and if they were alive, which
now he believed he would find them--and he would take them and Fay out
of the country.

The duty, the great task, held a grim fascination for him. He had
a foreboding of the cost; he had a dark realization of the force he
meant to oppose. There were duty here and pity and unselfish love,
but these alone did not actuate Shefford. Mystically fate seemed
again to come like a gleam and bid him follow.

When Shefford and Nas Ta Bega returned to the town hall the trial had
been ended, the hall was closed, and only a few Indians and cowboys
remained in the square, and they were about to depart. On the street,
however, and the paths and in the doorways of stores were knots of
people, talking earnestly. Shefford walked up and down, hoping to
meet Withers or Joe Lake. Nas Ta Bega said he would take the horses
to water and feed and then return.

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