From the Valley of the Missing | Page 6

we say we'll help."
"Kids," muttered Lon moodily.
"Live kids?" asked Eli, in great surprise.
"Yep, live ones. What do I want with dead ones? Will ye help?"
"Can't see no good a swipin' kids. What do ye want with 'em?"
"I'll tell ye if ye sit up and listen to me."

Crabbe dropped his hooked arm and leaned against the wall. Eli lighted
a pipe. A mysterious change had passed over Silent Lon's face. The
blue eyes glowed out from under a massive brow, and a mouth cruel
and vindictive set firm-jawed over decayed teeth.
"I'll tell ye this much for all time, Lem Crabbe: that ye lied when ye
said that no woman could love no man--ye lied, I say!"
So fierce had he become that the man with the hook drew back into the
corner and sat staring sullenly. Eli puffed more vigorously on his pipe.
Lon went on:
"I had a woman oncet," said he, "and she were every bit mine. And she
were little--like this."
The big fellow measured off a space with his hand and, straightening
again, stood against the wall of the scow, his head reaching almost to
the ceiling.
"She were mine, I say, and any man what says she weren't--"
"Where be she?" interrupted Lem curiously.
"Dead," replied Lon, "as dead as if she'd never been alive, as dead as if
she'd never laid ag'in' my heart when I wanted her! God! how I wanted
her!"
"But were she a woman?" asked Lem meditatively.
"Yep, she were a woman, and I married her square, I did!"
Lon stirred his dank black hair ferociously, standing it on end with
horny fingers. "I loved her, Lem Crabbe," he continued hoarsely. "I
loved her, that I know! And ye can let that devilish grin ride on yer lips
when I say it and I don't give a hell; but--but if ye say that she didn't
love me, if ye so much as smile when I say that she died a callin' me,
that she went away lovin' me every minute, I--I'll rip offen yer hooked
arm and tear out yer in'ards with it!"

He was leaning against the wall no longer. As he spoke, he came closer
to the crouching canalman, his eyes straining from their sockets in livid
hate. But he halted, and presently began to speak in a voice more
subdued.
"But she's dead, and I'm goin' to get even. He killed her, he did, 'cause
he wouldn't let me see her, and he's got to go the same way I went! He's
got to tear his hair and call God to curse some 'un he won't know who!
He's got to want his kids like as how I've been wantin' mine--"
"Ye ain't had no kids, Lon," his brother broke in scoffingly.
"I would a had if he'd a kept his hands to hum and let me see her. But
she were so little an' young-like an' afeard, and I telled her that night--I
telled her when she whispered that she were a goin' to have a baby, and
said as how she couldn't stand bein' hurt--I says, 'Midge darlin', do it
hurt the grass to grow jest 'cause the winds bend it double? Do it hurt
the little birds to bust out of their shells in the springtime?' And she
knowed what I meant, that not even what she were a thinkin' of could
hurt her if I was there close by."
His deep voice sank almost to a whisper, a hard, heavy sob closing his
throat. He shook himself fiercely and continued:
"I took her up close--God! how close I tooked her up! And I telled her
that there wasn't no pain big 'nough to hurt her when I were there--that
even God's finger couldn't tech her afore it went through me. And she
fell to sleep like a bird, a trustin' me, 'cause I said as how there wasn't
goin' to be no hurt. And all the time I knowed I were a lyin'--I knowed
that she'd suffer--"
His voice trailed into silence, the muscles of his dark face twitching
under the gnawing heart-pain; but after a time he conquered his feelings
and went on:
"Then they comed and took me away for stealin' jest that there week
and sent me up to Auburn prison, and they wouldn't let me stay with
her. And I telled the state's lawyer, Floyd Vandecar, this; I says,

'Vandecar, ye be a good man, I be a thief, and ye caught me square, ye
did. My little Midge be sick like women is sick sometimes, and she
wants me, like every woman wants her man jest then, an' if ye'll let me
see her, to stay a bit, I'll go up for twice my time.'