The Valley of Fear: Chapter 5
Chapter 5
If anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo's
popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and
acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge
should have done something which brought him before the
magistrate was a new record in the annals of the society.
Already he had earned the reputation of a good boon companion, a
cheery reveller, and withal a man of high temper, who would not
take an insult even from the all-powerful Boss himself. But in
addition to this he impressed his comrades with the idea that
among them all there was not one whose brain was so ready to
devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would be more capable
of carrying it out. "He'll be the boy for the clean job," said
the oldsters to one another, and waited their time until they
could set him to his work.
McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that
this was a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a
fierce bloodhound in leash. There were curs to do the smaller
work; but some day he would slip this creature upon its prey. A
few members of the lodge, Ted Baldwin among them, resented the
rapid rise of the stranger and hated him for it; but they kept
clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as to laugh.
But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another
quarter, one which had become even more vital to him, in which he
lost it. Ettie Shafter's father would have nothing more to do
with him, nor would he allow him to enter the house. Ettie
herself was too deeply in love to give him up altogether, and yet
her own good sense warned her of what would come from a marriage
with a man who was regarded as a criminal.
One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him,
possibly for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw
him from those evil influences which were sucking him down. She
went to his house, as he had often begged her to do, and made her
way into the room which he used as his sitting-room. He was
seated at a table, with his back turned and a letter in front of
him. A sudden spirit of girlish mischief came over her--she was
still only nineteen. He had not heard her when she pushed open
the door. Now she tiptoed forward and laid her hand lightly upon
his bended shoulders.
If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but
only in turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he
turned on her, and his right hand was feeling for her throat. At
the same instant with the other hand he crumpled up the paper
that lay before him. For an instant he stood glaring. Then
astonishment and joy took the place of the ferocity which had
convulsed his features--a ferocity which had sent her shrinking
back in horror as from something which had never before intruded
into her gentle life.
"It's you!" said he, mopping his brow. "And to think that you
should come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find nothing
better to do than to want to strangle you! Come then, darling,"
and he held out his arms, "let me make it up to you."
But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear
which she had read in the man's face. All her woman's instinct
told her that it was not the mere fright of a man who is
startled. Guilt--that was it--guilt and fear!
"What's come over you, Jack?" she cried. "Why were you so scared
of me? Oh, Jack, if your conscience was at ease, you would not
have looked at me like that!"
"Sure, I was thinking of other things, and when you came tripping
so lightly on those fairy feet of yours--"
"No, no, it was more than that, Jack." Then a sudden suspicion
seized her." Let me see that letter you were writing."
"Ah, Ettie, I couldn't do that."
Her suspicions became certainties. "It's to another woman," she
cried. "Iknow it! Why else should you hold it from me? Was it
to your wife that you were writing? How am I to know that you
are not a married man--you, a stranger, that nobody knows?"
"I am not married, Ettie. See now, I swear it! You're the only
one woman on earth to me. By the cross of Christ I swear it!"
He was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not
but believe him.
"Well, then," she cried, "why will you not show me the letter?"
"I'll tell you, acushla," said he. "I'm under oath not to show
it, and just as I wouldn't break my word to you so I would keep
it to those who hold my promise. It's the business of the lodge,
and even to you it's secret. And if I was scared when a hand
fell on me, can't you understand it when it might have been the
hand of a detective?"
She felt that he was telling the truth. He gathered her into his
arms and kissed away her fears and doubts.
"Sit here by me, then. It's a queer throne for such a queen; but
it's the best your poor lover can find. He'll do better for you
some of these days, I'm thinking. Now your mind is easy once
again, is it not?"
"How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a
criminal among criminals, when I never know the day that I may
hear you are in court for murder? 'McMurdo the Scowrer,' that's
what one of our boarders called you yesterday. It went through
my heart like a knife."
"Sure, hard words break no bones."
"But they were true."
"Well, dear, it's not so bad as you think. We are but poor men
that are trying in our own way to get our rights."
Ettie threw her arms round her lover's neck. "Give it up, Jack!
For my sake, for God's sake, give it up! It was to ask you that
I came here to-day. Oh, Jack, see--I beg it of you on my bended
knees! Kneeling here before you I implore you to give it up!"
He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.
"Sure, my darlin', you don't know what it is you are asking. How
could I give it up when it would be to break my oath and to
desert my comrades? If you could see how things stand with me
you could never ask it of me. Besides, if I wanted to, how could
I do it? You don't suppose that the lodge would let a man go
free with all its secrets?"
"I've thought of that, Jack. I've planned it all. Father has
saved some money. He is weary of this place where the fear of
these people darkens our lives. He is ready to go. We would fly
together to Philadelphia or New York, where we would be safe from
them."
McMurdo laughed. "The lodge has a long arm. Do you think it
could not stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?"
"Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany, where
father came from--anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!"
McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. "Sure, it is the second
time I have heard the valley so named," said he. "The shadow
does indeed seem to lie heavy on some of you."
"It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose that Ted
Baldwin has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears you,
what do you suppose our chances would be? If you saw the look in
those dark, hungry eyes of his when they fall on me!"
"By Gar! I'd teach him better manners if I caught him at it!
But see here,little girl. I can't leave here. I can't--take
that from me once and for all. But if you will leave me to find
my own way, I will try to prepare a way of getting honourably out
of it."
"There is no honour in such a matter."
"Well, well, it's just how you look at it. But if you'll give me
six months, I'll work it so that I can leave without being
ashamed to look others in the face."
The girl laughed with joy. "Six months!" she cried. "Is it a
promise?"
"Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the
furthest we will leave the valley behind us."
It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was
something. There was this distant light to illuminate the gloom
of the immediate future. She returned to her father's house more
light-hearted than she had ever been since Jack McMurdo had come
into her life.
It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the
society would be told to him; but he was soon to discover that
the organization was wider and more complex than the simple
lodge. Even Boss McGinty was ignorant as to many things; for
there was an official named the County Delegate, living at
Hobson's Patch farther down the line, who had power over several
different lodges which he wielded in a sudden and arbitrary way.
Only once did McMurdo see him, a sly, little gray-haired rat of a
man, with a slinking gait and a sidelong glance which was charged
with malice. Evans Pott was his name, and even the great Boss of
Vermissa felt towards him something of the repulsion and fear
which the huge Danton may have felt for the puny but dangerous
Robespierre.
One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo's fellow boarder, received a
note from McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott, which informed
him that he was sending over two good men, Lawler and Andrews,
who had instructions to act in the neighbourhood; though it was
best for the cause that no particularsas to their objects should
be given. Would the Bodymaster see to it that suitable
arrangements be made for their lodgings and comfort until the
time for action should arrive? McGinty added that it was
impossible for anyone to remain secret at the Union House, and
that, therefore, he would be obliged if McMurdo and Scanlan would
put the strangers up for a few days in their boarding house.
The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack.
Lawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained,
clad in an old black frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and
ragged, grizzled beard gave him a general resemblance to an
itinerant preacher. His companion Andrews was little more than a
boy, frank-faced and cheerful, with the breezy manner of one who
is out for a holiday and means to enjoy every minute of it. Both
men were total abstainers, and behaved in all ways as exemplary
members of the society, with the one simple exception that they
were assassins who had often proved themselves to be most capable
instruments for this association of murder. Lawler had already
carried out fourteen commissions of the kind, and Andrews three.
They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about their
deeds in the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful
pride of men who had done good and unselfish service for the
community. They were reticent, however, as to the immediate job
in hand.
"They chose us because neither I nor the boy here drink," Lawler
explained. "They can count on us saying no more than we should.
You must not take it amiss, but it is the orders of the County
Delegate that we obey."
"Sure, we are all in it together," said Scanlan, McMurdo's mate,
as the four sat together at supper.
"That's true enough, and we'll talk till the cows come home of
the killing of Charlie Williams or of Simon Bird, or any other
job in the past. But till the work is done we say nothing."
"There are half a dozen about here that I have a word to say to,"
said McMurdo, with an oath. "I suppose it isn't Jack Knox of
Ironhill that you are after. I'd go some way to see him get his
deserts."
"No, it's not him yet."
"Or Herman Strauss?"
"No, nor him either."
"Well, if you won't tell us we can't make you; but I'd be glad to
know."
Lawler smiled and shook his head. He was not to be drawn.
In spite of the reticence of their guests, Scanlan and McMurdo
were quite determined to be present at what they called "the
fun." When, therefore, at an early hour one morning McMurdo
heard them creeping down the stairs he awakened Scanlan, and the
two hurried on their clothes. When they were dressed they found
that the others had stolen out, leaving the door open behind
them. It was not yet dawn, and by the light of the lamps they
could see the two men some distance down the street. They
followed them warily, treading noiselessly in the deep snow.
The boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon they
were at the crossroads which is beyond its boundary. Here three
men were waiting, with whom Lawler and Andrews held a short,
eager conversation. Then they all moved on together. It was
clearly some notable job which needed numbers. At this point
there are several trails which lead to various mines. The
strangers took that which led to the Crow Hill, a huge business
which was in strong hands which had been able, thanks to their
energetic and fearless New England manager, Josiah H. Dunn, to
keep some order and discipline during the long reign of terror.
Day was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly making
their way, singly and in groups, along the blackened path.
McMurdo and Scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in sight
of the men whom they followed. A thick mist lay over them, and
from the heart of it there came the sudden scream of a steam
whistle. It was the ten-minute signal before the cages descended
and the day's labour began.
When they reached the open space round the mine shaft there were
a hundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing on
their fingers; for it was bitterly cold. The strangers stood in
a little group under the shadow of the engine house. Scanlan and
McMurdo climbed a heap of slag from which the whole scene lay
before them. They saw the mine engineer, a great bearded
Scotchman named Menzies, come out of the engine house and blow
his whistle for the cages to be lowered.
At the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a
clean-shaved, earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head.
As he came forward his eyes fell upon the group, silent and
motionless, under the engine house. The men had drawn down their
hats and turned up their collars to screen their faces. For a
moment the presentiment of Death laid its cold hand upon the
manager's heart. At the next he had shaken it off and saw only
his duty towards intrusive strangers.
"Who are you?" he asked as he advanced. "What are you loitering
there for?"
There was no answer; but the lad Andrews stepped forward and shot
him in the stomach. The hundred waiting miners stood as
motionless and helpless as if they were paralyzed. The manager
clapped his two hands to the wound and doubled himself up. Then
he staggered away; but another of the assassins fired, and he
went down sidewise, kicking and clawing among a heap of clinkers.
Menzies, the Scotchman, gave a roar of rage at the sight and
rushed with an iron spanner at the murderers; but was met by two
balls in the face which dropped him dead at their very feet.
There was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an
articulate cry of pity and of anger; but a couple of the
strangers emptied their six-shooters over the heads of the crowd,
and they broke and scattered, some of them rushing wildly back to
their homes in Vermissa.
When a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return to
the mine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of
morning, without a single witness being able to swear to the
identity of these men who in front of a hundred spectators had
wrought this double crime.
Scanlan and McMurdo made their way back; Scanlan somewhat
subdued, for it was the first murder job that he had seen with
his own eyes, and it appeared less funny than he had been led to
believe. The horrible screams of the dead manager's wife pursued
them as they hurried to the town. McMurdo was absorbed and
silent; but he showed no sympathy for the weakening of his
companion.
"Sure, it is like a war," he repeated. "What is it but a war
between us and them, and we hit back where we best can."
There was high revel in the lodge room at the Union House that
night, not only over the killing of the manager and engineer of
the Crow Hill mine, which would bring this organization into line
with the other blackmailed and terror-stricken companies of the
district, but also over a distant triumph which had been wrought
by the hands of the lodge itself.
It would appear that when the County Delegate had sent over five
good men to strike a blow in Vermissa, he had demanded that in
return three Vermissa men should be secretly selected and sent
across to kill William Hales of Stake Royal, one of the best
known and most popular mine owners in the Gilmerton district, a
man who was believed not to have an enemy in the world; for he
was in all ways a model employer. He had insisted, however, upon
efficiency in the work, and had, therefore, paid off certain
drunken and idle employees who were members of the all-powerful
society. Coffin notices hung outside his door had not weakened
his resolution, and so in a free, civilized country he found
himself condemned to death.
The execution had now been duly carried out. Ted Baldwin, who
sprawled now in the seat of honour beside the Bodymaster, had
been chief of the party. His flushed face and glazed, bloodshot
eyes told of sleeplessness and drink. He and his two comrades
had spent the night before among the mountains. They were
unkempt and weather-stained. But no heroes, returning from a
forlorn hope, could have had a warmer welcome from their
comrades.
The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts of
laughter. They had waited for their man as he drove home at
nightfall, taking their station at the top of a steep hill, where
his horse must be at a walk. He was so furred to keep out the
cold that he could not lay his hand on his pistol. They had
pulled him out and shot him again and again. He had screamed for
mercy. The screams were repeated for the amusement of the lodge.
"Let's hear again how he squealed," they cried.
None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a
killing, and they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the
Vermissa men were to be relied upon.
There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had driven
up while they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent
body. It had been suggested that they should shoot them both;
but they were harmless folk who were not connected with the
mines, so they were sternly bidden to drive on and keep silent,
lest a worse thing befall them. And so the blood-mottled figure
had been left as a warning to all such hard-hearted employers,
and the three noble avengers had hurried off into the mountains
where unbroken nature comes down to the very edge of the furnaces
and the slag heaps. Here they were, safe and sound, their work
well done, and the plaudits of their companions in their ears.
It had been a great day for the Scowrers. The shadow had fallen
even darker over the valley. But as the wise general chooses the
moment of victory in which to redouble his efforts, so that his
foes may have no time to steady themselves after disaster, so
Boss McGinty, looking out upon the scene of his operations with
his brooding and malicious eyes, had devised a new attack upon
those who opposed him. That very night, as the half-drunken
company broke up, he touched McMurdo on the arm and led him aside
into that inner room where they had their first interview.
"See here, my lad," said he, "I've got a job that's worthy of you
at last. You'll have the doing of it in your own hands."
"Proud I am to hear it," McMurdo answered.
"You can take two men with you--Manders and Reilly. They have
been warned for service. We'll never be right in this district
until Chester Wilcox has been settled, and you'll have the thanks
of every lodge in the coal fields if you can down him."
"I'll do my best, anyhow. Who is he, and where shall I find
him?"
McGinty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from the
corner of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram on a
page torn from his notebook.
"He's the chief foreman of the Iron Dike Company. He's a hard
citizen, an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and
grizzle. We've had two tries at him; but had no luck, and Jim
Carnaway lost his life over it. Now it's for you to take it
over. That's the house--all alone at the Iron Dike crossroad,
same as you see here on the map--without another within earshot.
It's no good by day. He's armed and shoots quick and straight,
with no questions asked. But at night--well, there he is with
his wife, three children, and a hired help. You can't pick or
choose. It's all or none. If you could get a bag of blasting
powder at the front door with a slow match to it--"
"What's the man done?"
"Didn't I tell you he shot Jim Carnaway?"
"Why did he shoot him?"
"What in thunder has that to do with you? Carnaway was about his
house at night, and he shot him. That's enough for me and you.
You've got to settle the thing right."
"There's these two women and the children. Do they go up too?"
"They have to--else how can we get him?"
"It seems hard on them; for they've done nothing."
"What sort of fool's talk is this? Do you back out?"
"Easy, Councillor, easy! What have I ever said or done that you
should think I would be after standing back from an order of the
Bodymaster of my own lodge? If it's right or if it's wrong, it's
for you to decide."
"You'll do it, then?"
"Of course I will do it."
"When?"
"Well, you had best give me a night or two that I may see the
house and make my plans. Then--"
"Very good," said McGinty, shaking him by the hand. "I leave it
with you. It will be a great day when you bring us the news.
It's just the last stroke that will bring them all to their
knees."
McMurdo thought long and deeply over the commission which had
been so suddenly placed in his hands. The isolated house in
which Chester Wilcox lived was about five miles off in an
adjacent valley. That very night he started off all alone to
prepare for the attempt. It was daylight before he returned from
his reconnaissance. Next day he interviewed his two
subordinates, Manders and Reilly, reckless youngsters who were as
elated as if it were a deer-hunt.
Two nights later they met outside the town, all three armed, and
one of them carrying a sack stuffed with the powder which was
used in the quarries. It was two in the morning before they came
to the lonely house. The night was a windy one, with broken
clouds drifting swiftly across the face of a three-quarter moon.
They had been warned to be on their guard against bloodhounds; so
they moved forward cautiously, with their pistols cocked in their
hands. But there was no sound save the howling of the wind, and
no movement but the swaying branches above them.
McMurdo listened at the door of the lonely house; but all was
still within. Then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a
hole in it with his knife, and attached the fuse. When it was
well alight he and his two companions took to their heels, and
were some distance off, safe and snug in a sheltering ditch,
before the shattering roar of the explosion, with the low, deep
rumble of the collapsing building, told them that their work was
done. No cleaner job had ever been carried out in the
bloodstained annals of the society.
But alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out
should all have gone for nothing! Warned by the fate of the
various victims, and knowing that he was marked down for
destruction, Chester Wilcox had moved himself and his family only
the day before to some safer and less known quarters, where a
guard of police should watch over them. It was an empty house
which had been torn down by the gunpowder, and the grim old
colour sergeant of the war was still teaching discipline to the
miners of Iron Dike.
"Leave him to me," said McMurdo. "He's my man, and I'll get him
sure if Ihave to wait a year for him."
A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so
for the time the matter ended. When a few weeks later it was
reported in the papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an
ambuscade, it was an open secret that McMurdo was still at work
upon his unfinished job.
Such were the methods of the Society of Freemen, and such were
the deeds of the Scowrers by which they spread their rule of fear
over the great and rich district which was for so long a period
haunted by their terrible presence. Why should these pages be
stained by further crimes? Have I not said enough to show the
men and their methods?
These deeds are written in history, and there are records wherein
one may read the details of them. There one may learn of the
shooting of Policemen Hunt and Evans because they had ventured to
arrest two members of the society--a double outrage planned at
the Vermissa lodge and carried out in cold blood upon two
helpless and disarmed men. There also one may read of the
shooting of Mrs. Larbey when she was nursing her husband, who had
been beaten almost to death by orders of Boss McGinty. The
killing of the elder Jenkins, shortly followed by that of his
brother, the mutilation of James Murdoch, the blowing up of the
Staphouse family, and the murder of the Stendals all followed
hard upon one another in the same terrible winter.
Darkly the shadow lay upon the Valley of Fear. The spring had
come with running brooks and blossoming trees. There was hope
for all Nature bound so long in an iron grip; but nowhere was
there any hope for the men and women who lived under the yoke of
the terror. Never had the cloud above them been so dark and
hopeless as in the early summer of the year 1875.
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