The Dividing Line

The Dividing Line By Eva Navone "There's no one but Dan Slocum," said Sally Murdock, her lips tightening. "I must ask- him, Henry. I can't do anything more." She stooped to fill the stove, and the firelight glowed on her delicate face. On the bed in the corner a wild-eyed man arose on his el- bow. "You shan't go — to him!" cried Henry Murdoch. "How can you think of it? That brute — that gorilla!" Sally was calm and her pale lips were firm. "I can't help it. He's the only man within reach." She covered the stove and came distractedly into the middle of the room. The gath- ering twilight softened the crude cabin of the recent settlers, with its disorder of distress and its table by the window, stand- ing as it had been left after Sally's hurried meal. "In a case of life and death one doesn't choose. Dan must be human — some- where." A weak wail came from the cot near the stove, and the woman's face contracted. "I can't see Benny die!" "You're over-anxious, Sally," said her husband, though anguish crossed his face. "You'd only make matters worse. Dan will curse you. And the cold night, with rain coming! Will exposure do the child any good? Besides, you'd be leaving me here alone and helpless." "I'll put everything within your reach, dear." She was al- ready busy with that duty. "I hate to leave you; but what else can I do? I know you'll be brave and patient." Her husband's face retained its hard, stubborn look. "I haven't told you, but the day I won the lawsuit he threatened to kill me if he ever found me on his land." "He won't kill me," declared Sally, borne on the exaltation of necessity. "He'll rejoice in your distress. He'll insult you. If he con- sents to go with you, it would only be to do you and the child some evil. You mustn't go!" Murdoch sank down on his bed. From Benny came the pathetic cry of a child in pain. Sally went to the cot and picked up the bundle of bare legs, freckled face and patched clothes that was her small son. She carried him to his father. "Look at him," she said. "Can you lie there and have him suffer through the night? Without help he won't live till I can reach Tacoma by the boat tomorrow night. I

THE DIVIDING LINE 897 know it ! Let me go, Henry." In tears she knelt at his bedside, her hand reaching across the boy to grasp Henry's bony fingers. Murdoch turned his hollow eyes on the child, and ran his hand gently over the quivering little form. He said nothing, but his face showed a profound struggle. Sally rose and pinned a faded shawl across her shoulders. Her movements were jerky, and she looked about the room as if she could not recall what she had to do. Henry looked up. "What are you putting on your shawl for?" Unsteadily she went to the table, selected food and placed it with a pitcher of water on a chair beside the bed. "I'm going. I can't see him die." "But it's useless. Dan will laugh at you — curse you." Sally's eyes flashed anger. "Do you think a curse or a laugh will stop me?" Again Murdoch struggled to his elbow. "Is it possible you don't know Dan Slocum? And it's going to be a bad night, with cold and rain, and rough water on the Sound. No man could row that distance in darkness and such weather." Sally stood still and looked at her husband. The whimper- ing of the child had ceased, and only the crackling fire was heard while he glared at her. Determined, Sally went again to the table and got together bread and meat, which she thrust into the pockets of the house-dress she wore. From the cot she took a blanket, lifted the boy from the bed and wrapped him in it. In helpless anger her husband looked on. "If I didn't have a broken leg you wouldn't defy me!" "I'm sorry, Henry. If you weren't helpless, I'd not have to go against your will: you'd do what I'm going to ask Dan to do." It had become too dark to see Murdoch's expression, but his wife knew that it must have been terrible. He lay down and turned his face to the wall. "I'll never forget this," he said bitterly. Sally gathered Benny in her arms. "You dou't seem to — realize. I'm doing right. Goodby." She paused at the door. "And don't worry, Henry. I'll be back on the boat tomorrow." As Murdoch heard the door open he started up. "If you're going, take your coat!" But she was already hurrying down the path. In her dis- traction she had not thought of herself; she had picked up the shawl which she was accustomed to putting on for her short errands out of doors. Through the thick dusk she made her way across the un-

898 IMPROVEMENT ERA even clearing, stumbling over clods. Wild blackberry-vines clutched her flying skirt; more than once ferns and underbrush tripped her. She came to the boundary fence, over which her husband and Dan Slocum had all but broken each other's heads. Until now she had sympathized with her husband, but as she scrambled through the fence with her burden, tearing her clothes and hands on the barbed wire, property-rights became trivial in the face of a great need. She felt that Dan, too, must see that there was a time when dividing-lines went down. Benny had sunk into unconsciousness; that was more ter- rifying than his pitiful cries. She staggered and her progress was slower. Slocum's ground was unfamiliar, and once she fell into a puddle. She managed to protect the child, but her own garments were splashed. Logs and briers hindered her. It was too dark to pick a way; she had to push on blindly. Panting and almost exhausted, she approached Slocum's cabin, squatting among black stumps and wild bushes. She knocked on the wall twice before a tousled head surlily greeted her from the one window. "What's wanted?" The voice was a bear's growl. Struggling for breath, Sally gasped: "I'm Sally Murdoch. I want help — for little Benny. I'm afraid he's going to die." The light of the kerosene lamp behind Dan set his square head in an aureole. Surprise and anger showed on his stern face. "Henry Murdoch's wife, eh?" Childishly he rubbed his eyes as if he had been dozing before his fire. "You know Henry's in bed, crippled. And I must get Benny to Tacoma tonight. Something has come on him sud- denly—I don't know what it is. I must see the doctor." His manner barely human, Slocum leaned on the window ledge. "You can't. The boat won't come by till tomorrow afternoon." It was a stupid remark, for Sally knew as well as he. "That's why I came." She struggled to shift her wearing burden. "You've got a rowboat." Dan muttered oaths under his breath, and leaned out to peer down at the bedraggled woman. "It isn't possible!" Her delicate face looked up out of the darkness. "Any- thing's possible when you're needing." Like an ill-tempered dog he shook his head. "It isn't like rowing across the straits or down to Walton's Landing. Ta- coma's a long way off." Benny's dying, man! I'll go, too — I've got strong arms and I'll take my turn." She was suddenly wild with despera- tion. "In normal times there are dividing lines — what can be

THE DIVIDING LINE 899 done, and what can't. There's a boundary line, too, when it comes to what one may ask — " With a snort of disdain he checked her. "Wait," he growled, and withdrew from the window. There was a bumping within, the door squeaked as it was thrown open, and Slocum's powerful figure, with dark unkempt hair and reddish beard, red-shirted, his corduroy trousers thrust into the tops of heavy boots lurched down the steps. He held the lamp well up and rumbled to himself. His face was a bat- tleground of hatred and whatever humane instincts were in him. Her features working, Sally approached. On the bottom step Slocum paused. He was as rugged as stone; Sally as fragile as the ferns about them. A gust of wind sucked the flame up the chimney, washing it with smoke. Dan twisted his head rather than shook it. "You're ex- cited, woman. No use. Take the boat tomorrow." Sally regarded him imploringly and began to tremble — to weep. She had not meant to, for she despised tears; but ex- haustion and dread broke her restraint. "Tomorrow will be too late!" "Well, well!" he roughly said. "Let's see." Still holding the lamp high, he reached his gnarled hand out toward the bundle in the woman's arms. She aided his fumbling effort at turning back the blanket from the pallid little face. From arm's-length Dan peered over, and Sally saw his surliness re- lax. "Take the lamp." He thrust it into her hand, clumsily took the child from her and went up the steps and into the cabin, Sally following. She set the lamp on his table. The child whimpered. Dan looked down keenly at him. The whimper became a wail, and Benny struggled and called for his mother. Timidly she approached, her eyes puzzling and beseeching. "Leave him be," commanded the man. "You're worn out now." Benny, becoming aware of the ferocious face bending over him, and of the deep rumbling voice, showed terror. "Keep still, sonny; it's all right." She touched his brow. Benny closed his eyes to shut out the horror. Sally took a glance round the room. Slocum's cabin was rougher than hers, and more meagerly furnished. Where hers made some truce with comfort, his contained merely the frank implements of a rude life. It was starkly a place where no woman was. Dan's attention was on her. "Why didn't you put on some warm clothes?"

900 IMPROVEMENT ERA She looked down; her nervous slender hands passed over the front of her dress and pulled the old shawl together. "I didn't think. I'm all right." "Sit down," said Dan. With a quick upward glance she obeyed, and he returned the boy to her arms. He stumped about, rummaging among the garments which hung on the walls, his heavy step jarring the timbers of the cabin. He got into a heavy coat and threw another across a chair. From his bunk he took a blanket, and lifted a lantern from its peg behind the stove and lighted it. All was done in silence, his face set in grim unfriendliness. Sally watched him, and, convinced now that he meant to help her, began to croon over the child. Sourly Dan pulled on his shapeless hat and stood awk- wardly, lantern in hand. "If you're going to Tacoma you'd bet- ter come on," he snapped. She started and wiped her eyes, into which weak tears of reaction had come. His face became almost blank as he set the lantern on the table, picked up the coat from the chair and brought it to her. "Put it on," said he, and reached for the child, this time more carefully. Without speaking, Sally rose and obeyed. "You carry the lantern and the blanket," he gruffly ordered. He puffed out the lamp and stalked to the door. Down the steps he clumped ahead of her while she pulled the squeak- ing door shut and followed. Dan's immense coat had a way of slipping off her shoulders and encumbering her feet. She caught it up and hurried to walk beside him, anxiously seek- ing to handle the lantern in the best way to light his progress. The narrowness of the path made her walking uncomfortable. "Stay behind; I can see," he said. She kept slightly to one side, so that the light should still seek out the dim way ahead of his feet. Her thought of Henry, helpless and angry on his bed, and of his warning that Dan would only do injury, returned. But as she crept along behind Dan's massive figure she was timid, yet not afraid; unable to comprehend him, but upborne by trust. Every time he spoke, the rumble of his voice made her start, but she was not afraid — not even of the savage light burning in his dark eyes. Suddenly he halted and faced her. "Who's taking care of your husband?" "Nobody. I left everything handy." He was absorbed in swift and searching reflection. "Set the lantern down and take the child."

THE DIVIDING LINE 901 She did so, wondering. "Wait here," he commanded, and plunged off the trail. Instantly the darkness engulfed him, but for a time she heard him crashing through the shrubs. Those sounds died, and Sally stood trembling in a vast silence, with only a small circle of light on the ground at her feet. Had Slocum gone to do in- jury to her husband? That was a foolish thought, but this was a night of doubt. At last came the sound of a heavy boot kicking a door in the distance and Dan's rough voice calling some one. A thinner masculine voice gave a faint muffled an- swer. There came the scraping of a shaky, dragging door, and sharp indistinguishable words, followed by the sickening sound of a blow on flesh, the sodden fall of something heavy and soft, a strangled moan, a hoarse voice bellowing, "Get up, you ," with curses. Muffled speech ensued, then silence, and Sally's heart was driving wild blood into her storming ears. Murdoch's cabin was too far away; the man whom Dan was engaging could not be he. She sank down on a log. With the abruptness of an apparition Slocum stood before her. "I'll take him," and Benny was again in his arms before Sally could quite comprehend. "Pick up the lantern and come on," he impatiently commanded. Down the muddy path toward the water Dan plowed; Sally, struggling with her unshaped terror, picked her way behind him. The night was like dusky velvet, in which trees and shrub- bery were merely blacker masses, for the sky was overcast, threatening rain; but sometimes a star forced a ray through. At last Sally heard the lapping of water, and at the edge of the beach they stopped. Dan's boat lay rhythmically grating against a crude landing. They stepped jerkily into it. "Sit in the stern," he directed, and roughly steadied her to the seat. After placing the boy on her lap he used remarkable deftness in wrapping the blanket about her feet and knees, and then swung the tiller to her free hand. "You'll have to steer. Do you know how?" She nodded, gazing into his face, upon which the full lan- tern light now shone. He did not have the look of a man who might have recently slain a fellow-being. He quickly turned, made sure that the oars were aboard, fumbled with the painter, and pushed off. Like a clumsy New- foundland dog he floundered to the thwart and took up the oars. Under his prodigious arms the boat shot out into the Inlet for a heading down the Sound. A part of Sally's brain, detached from her maternal anguish, ^ave consideration to her companion. He was very strange,

902 IMPROVEMENT ERA and, though repelling he fascinated her. Perhaps he was afraid, yet brave. Was courage not that? With amazement and thank- fulness she looked on his strength as he faced her above the faint glow from the bottom of the boat. By love of her child she was set apart from fear, but if she had been in Dan's place her flesh would have tingled with an apprehension almost child- ish; for the dark night, the long and treacherous waterway ahead, the ominous sky, held tangible menaces. If a storm should come up and send the water tumbling they might never reach the city ; they might lose their way ; Dan's strength might give out. It would certainly be a hard night. She thought that beneath his savagery Dan must cherish a sort of fierce delight in the struggle. Deep in his isolated heart, in which lived hat- red for her husband, he must be glad to do and risk for her and her child. Yet the bulky smudge which was Slocum held her fright- ened into silence. Once he growled back at her to mind her steering, and she bent her attention to his sharp directions. Though he was doing his best to help her he wanted no speech with her; she was the wife of the man he would kill if — At last she must break the silence. Benny's stillness alarmed her more than his crying had. "The moon will be up directly,"' she said. They were the first words she had spoken. Dan looked toward the east and made no response. The air was cold but soft. Dark clouds were racing above them, although fortunately the surface of the water was breath- less. Before long the waning moon came, a yellow disk push- ing up above the line of the Cascades. Often Dan glanced at it climbing the sky, sliding behind hurrying clouds, and looking at itself in the quivering mirror of the Sound. After a time he rested on his oars, slumped in his seat and breathed heavily. "Let me row," Sally offered. He raised his head to look at her. "Do you know how?" "A little." "Not strong enough. Keep your kid warm. Mind your steering." Two silent hours passed. One by one he peered round at the projecting spits of land, each so like the others that at times he had to stop and study the landscape to get his bearings. She had already discovered that he depended more on his rowing than on her steering to maintain his direction. She had lost all sense of orientation; it made their situation the more weird and distressing to her. Completely lost and in this man's hands, she had not imagined that the journey would hold so much ache and terror. Once she saw that Dan himself had mistaken the way — or had it been she with an unwary slip of the tiller? —and the bottom dropped out of her universe. But he onlv

THE DIVIDING LINE 902 brightened into alertness, studied the surroundings and put about. Her heart grew sick with the delay, and she leaned for- ward with tense concern, as if she would send the force of her eagerness to help him. At last he picked up the course again. "Was that my fault — getting lost?" she timidly asked. His answer was a meaningless grunt. Before long he began to rest oftener and sag more deeply. Across the moon heavier clouds scurried. Rain began to fall. In the midst of their discomfort Sally thought of the food she had thrust into her pockets. "I've brought something to eat," she called. "Rest awhile." He obeyed while she strug- gled with her wrappings. Keeping very little of the food for herself, she passed the rest to him. He accepted it without thanks and ate greedily in noisy gulps, like a starved dog. "How's the boy?" he asked. With a start Sally noted that his voice was different and wavering. "He moves sometimes, but he doesn't speak — Benny, child, don't you know your mother? — Yes? Now — " Slocum suddenly changed to his brutal note: "Let him alone. Do you want to start him howling?" Angrily he took up the oars. It was a long and dreary task for both. Sally knew that Dan was suffering, and that even his great strength was wear- ing down alarmingly. She was eager to help, but recalled the scorn with which he had refused her offer. "You're using yourself up for us," she finally was forced to say. "I hadn't any idea it would be so hard and take so long. Please, please, let me try!" "Stay where — you are," Dan panted. "This is a man's job." "Rest a little more, then," she pleaded. "Time's valuable," he protested. "Benny's whimpering." "How are you standing it?" She was trying to hush the child. Dan merely shrugged. "Are you cold?" "What's the use of talking?" he snarled in a sudden out- burst of resentful impatience, and began pulling dully on the oars. Sally's heart contracted. She could not understand how she had found the temerity to ask so much of this man. It hadn't been for herself; she would rather have died than make him suffer so much for her. She wondered if he understood — if he knew the fierceness and the unselfish cruelty of a moth- er's heart.

904 IMPROVEMENT ERA The boat stumbled on, and Sally sat dumb with despair. She no longer strained her eyes ahead; she was reduced to a shivering, suffering heap, and held the tiller uncertainly. "What's the matter?" Dan shot at her, making her start. "Mind your steering." She doggedly bent to it. Dan struggled on. It seemed to her almost morning, but in reality it was only a little while after midnight that lights began to blink cheer- fully at them afar through the drizzling rain. "Thank God, there's Tacoma ahead!" cried Sally, and raised the child higher in her arms. Dan grunted. Slocum's boat crept along the piling under the shadow cast by the dock from an arc-light some distance back from the water. Sally was eagerly noting the electric points stretching up the heights of Tacoma from the beach-levels of the Sound. After a trying delay — there was something strange in the un- steady slowness with which Dan searched the piles — a ladder was found. With intolerable tardiness and fumbling Dan tied his craft to a pile. The climb to the dock-floor was short, but Sally marveled at the time required by Dan to make in, in the chilling mist to which the drizzle had fallen. As he emerged above the stringer which anchored the heavy planking he looked about, fixed his attention on something toward shore and hoarsely bellowed: "Hi, there!" A muffled answer came. "Telephone for an ambulance! Sick child — mother — hos- pital! Hurry!" The only audible response was the uncanny flinging back of his voice by warehouses, but he appeared to be satisfied. With incredibly slow caution he drew himself up on the dock, lurched dangerously near the edge, steadied himself, turned, lay flat on his stomach and called to Sally as he hung his long arms down toward the boat: "Hold him up." That was not easy, and was terrifying, for she had no prac- ticed footing in a swaying boat. Dan seized the child when she had waveringly raised him, and squirmed back with him beyond her vision. She grasped a ladder-rung, hoping that Dan would reappear and assist her, and fearing to attack her dark and slippery task unaided; but he did not; and a heavy fall, followed by a strange stillness and then a piercing scream from Benny, sent sufficiency to her quivering body. She clutched, clung, slipped, fought blindly and finally floundered breath- less over the stringer. Benny his wrappings dragged away, sat staring in whimpering terror at the big bulk of a man sprawled

THE DIVIDING LINE 805 silent and still on his back, his hat fallen, the white pinched face — hardly recognizable as Dan Slocum's— upturned to the irridescent arc-lighted mist. Exhausted by her many anxieties and her long stumbling walk from Walton's Landing, where she had left the steamer, Sally, two days away from her helpless husband, flung the. door open and stood eagerly before him. He started up on his el- bow his eyes wide. "Sally! Where's Benny?" Her hand went to her breast and she sank to the floor be- side his bed. She took his hand while she looked with a brave smile into his face. "All right," she said, almost panting. "There was a small operation. I left him at the hospital, and came as soon as I dared to see how you — " She glanced around — at the neat bed, at the perfectly ap- pointed table alongside it, at the stove with its comforting fire and something savory cooking on the top- — in a moment she had taken in a rounded care equal to her own. "Henry, who has been taking care of you?" "Siwash Pete." Henry was smiling into her face and ca- ressing her cold trembling hands. "Pete!" Sally began struggling to her feet as she tore at her wraps. "How did he — ?" The grim old Indian himself, silent, kindly, startled her as he humbly confronted her in the door, which he softly closed. "Pete! It was you who came and took care of my husband?" He nodded. Sally was confused; her warm, sweet lips fell apart. "Who told you I was going away? It was dark and your shack is off the path — you couldn't have seen me going from Slocum's to the water." Dan Slocum tell me. T'ree ni' ago, w'en he tek you Tah- co-mah." He recalled something, and covered the left side of his face with an expansive paw. Nothing escaped Sally. She darted to him, snatched his hand down, and discovered a swollen and discolored jaw. "What did that?" she demanded, gripping the hand she had dislodged, and groping in the fog of her recollections. The Siwash drew away and struck an attitude with a dignity that failed to mask his embarassment. "Dan Slocum, he leaf you on trail He come my shack. He wake me, kick my door, bel- low like bull. Me come door. He say, 'Hen'y Muddoch leg broke. His wife, seek chile, me tek Tah-co-mah dis ni . Her be gone two-t'ree day. You go tek care Muddoch teel her come back, damn 'im!'" The Siwash exploded the expletive, and paused. "Me come."

906 IMPROVEMENT ERA "But your face, Pete! How was it hurt?" "MJe fall," but his eyes wavered under hers. "Tell me the truth, Pete!" - His dignity went upon the winds, and he turned and rocked toward the stove. She pursued him. "Tell me the truth!" As he stirred something that simmered pleasantly he said: "Me * sleepy, tire'. Me say, 'No can go. Seek.' — Him hit me jaw, knock me down. Cuss me — Me come." The Siwash gently rubbed his jaw with his left hand. With a glowing face Sally smilingly approached her hus- band's bed. "Dan was wonderful, Henry — a knight from an old book on chivalry. Have you heard how he is? He collapsed on the dock, unconscious, when we reached Tacoma. It had been an awful trip. I took him in an ambulance to the hospital with Benny. They said he was a sick man, but he escaped yes- terday. Has he come home?" Murdoch avoided her eyes. "Ask Pete. He's taking care of both Dan and me." She went to the Siwash and seized his arm. "How is Dan?" This time the old man was steady. "Vair seek. Vair weak. Een bed." Pete tapped his skull. "He say all time, 'Sal-lee, Sal-lee, eef her come nuss me leetle bit me get well ker-week. Don' you tell her, Pete, damn you!" Sally was touched and thrilled. She turned to her wonder- ing husband, a radiance about her. "You see, Henry, there is no dividing line after all, when it comes to the common things of humanity." Swiftly she donned her wraps in the glow of the adoration in Murdoch's face. He weakly expostulated: "Surely you're not going to him, dear! You're worn out with the strain and loss of rest." "I've never felt more able to help than now," she smilingly returned. She caught his hand and kissed it, and, though there were tears in her eyes, they were merely a part of her exaltation. She looked with a passionate yearning at her husband, kissed him and turned to the door, having seen that he no longer hated Slocran. "Poor little Benny, I know he's crying for me. I know you want me, too. But now I must go to Dan Slocum. I'll see you in the morning. And after this we won't think so much of the boundary line." San Francisco, Cal.