“I'm afraid I ran short of time today,” Owen said, trying to pry his son loose.
“Did you bring some gum drops?”
“No, I didn't,” Owen said shortly. “Now let go of my leg.”
The small boy's face began to break up at the harshness in his father's voice. With sudden gentleness Owen said, “I'm sorry, Lonnie, but I couldn't get around to everything today, I'll make it up to you next time.”
Elizabeth's gaze darted from the face of her son to that of her husband. Quickly she said, “Your daddy's busy, Lonnie. Don't bother him now.” She moved the bewildered boy to the door and out of the kitchen.
Owen said, “Elizabeth, I need a can of lye, some yellow soap, and a pan of hot water.”
His wife frowned in surprise. “What on earth for, Owen?”
“Never mind, just get them for me, will you?” He turned and walked stiffly to the bedroom, where he changed into his work clothes. Elizabeth had the things laid out for him when he came back to the kitchen. He gathered them up without saying another word and took them out to the barn.
An almost uncontrollable anger choked him as he attacked the job before him. One word, three feet high, was painted in brazen yellow along the full length of the wagon bed. Owen tried not to look at it as he stirred the full can of lye into the pan of hot water, as he shaved the yellow soap into the lye water and mixed it with the stub of a broom until the rich suds slopped over on the ground. Then he lifted the foaming mixture to the wagon bed and began scrubbing the first letter with the broom stub.
He worked furiously, as though it were a matter of life and death, and under the savage scrubbing the giant letter C slowly began to disappear. When the C was completely obliterated, he attacked the letter O, then the W, working along the entire length of the wagon bed. Letter by letter, the glaring yellow-painted word COWARD disappeared from the surface of the weathered plank's.
At last he was through and stood panting, with sweat dripping from his forehead. The word was no longer there, but it still maddened him when he thought of it. While his back was turned someone had painted it there. The painter had been afraid to say the word to his face!
Slowly his rage deserted him and left him only sickness. These upright citizens who paint dirty words while a man is not looking—were they the ones he had once fought to protect? How could they have the gall to expect him to protect them now?
A good deal of Owen's anger had disappeared in the savagery of his work. But within him was something more dangerous than anger—a cold bitterness that threatened to destroy every principle he had ever believed in. Giving in to this bitterness would mean that he had thrown away the best, strongest, most productive years of his life, for it would mean that civilization was not worth saving or fighting for. It would prove that government by the people was as senseless in theory as it too often was in practice, for the people themselves were obsessed by greed and selfishness and cowardice and incapable of governing themselves. It would indicate that any form of law was idiocy.
If he accepted this conviction, born in bitterness, he must also accept the following truth, that his own ideals were idiocies. Owen Toller was not an unintelligent man; he had not risked his life a hundred times as a law- enforcement officer without reason or principle. But now a war raged within his own mind and conscience.
That night, after the children had been put to bed, Owen sat beside the flickering light of a coal-oil lamp, staring hard and unseeing at the printed page of the
At last, after a long wordless hour, Owen put aside the paper and seemed to notice his wife for the first time. “Iguess I haven't been easy to live with,” he said soberly. “I'm sorry.”
Elizabeth glanced up from her work, but there was nothing for her to say.
“I've been doing some thinking,” Owen said quietly. “I guess I've been trying to keep things from you, and that's not right.”
Elizabeth made herself smile. “You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.”
“I want to. You've got a right to know how we stand in the community.” He shook his head. “I'm afraid it isn't good. You heard what Arch Deland said the other day, and today I found out that it's true. They're beginning to hate me, Elizabeth. Today while I was marketing on Main Street one of them painted something on the wagon bed. The word was 'coward,' and the letters were three feet high and spread out the length of the wagon. The paint was yellow.”
Elizabeth sat in shocked silence.
“So that's the way it is,” he said tightly. “They're worked up like people going to a lynching or a witch burning. To hide their own cowardice, they had to find a goat, and I'm it.”
His wife made a small sound in her dry throat. “Owen, are you sure it's as bad as you say?”
“I'm sure. I saw it in the faces of people who have been my friends for years. They aren't worth protecting!” he said angrily. “Even if they had put me in the sheriff's office, I think I'd quit, because they simply aren't worth the bother. But they aren't the ones who have to pay because of a gang like the Brunners. Oh, they might beat their breasts when a load of freight comes late, but it's people like the Ransoms that suffer. And the hillpeople too. I've known them, and they're no worse than any other people. That boy that brought the wounded girl here— maybe he was a gang member, but he wasn't truly bad.”
Restlessly Owen came to his feet, paced the length of the small parlor. He strode to the front door and stood looking out at the night.
“I don't know....” he said at last. “Maybe they're all right. Ben McKeever, Judge Lochland, the man who painted 'coward' on my wagon bed. If the railroad brought a spur line in here it would bring work and settle the country and maybe there wouldn't be any room left for people like the Brunners. Maybe McKeever was right about all that. And maybe Judge Lochland was right when he said the Brunners' stock in trade was hate, which they peddled to the hillpeople.”
Owen turned away from the door, frowning deeply.
“Elizabeth, Judge Lochland said it was a fact of history that civilization has managed to advance, despite fear
