How was Tira? Raven asked after Nan had seen her at the window, and she
did not spare him. Pale, she said, paler than ever, a shadow of herself.
But Nan had faith that her courage would hold. It was like the winter
and the spring. Tenney stood for the forces of darkness, but the spring
had to come in the end. Also she owned that her great reason for
believing in Tira's endurance was that Tira was not alone. She had, like
Old Crow, her sustaining symbol. She had, whatever the terrifying
circumstance of her daily life, divine companionship. She had her Lord,
Jesus Christ.
"I believe," said Raven abruptly, one day when they were tramping the
snowy road and she was answering the panic of his apprehensive mind,
"you swear by Old Crow's book."
"I do," said Nan simply, "seem to be hanging on to Old Crow. I've read
it over and over. And it does somehow get me. Picture writing! And human
beings drawing the lines and half the time not getting them straight!
But if there's something to draw, I don't care how bad the drawing is.
If there's actually something there! There is, Rookie. Tira's got hold
of it because she's pure in heart. It's something real, and it'll see
her through."
Raven was not content with its seeing her through until he could be told
what the appointed end was likely to be. If Tira was to fight this
desperate battle all her mortal life, he wasn't to be placated by the
rewarding certainty of a heavenly refuge at the end.
"I can never," he said, "get over the monstrous queerness of it all.
Here's a woman that's got to be saved, and she's so infernally obstinate
we can't save her. When I think of it at night, I swear I'm a fool not
to complain of the fellow in spite of her, and then in the morning I
know it can't be done. She'd block me, and I should only have got her in
for something worse than she's in for now."
"Yes," said Nan, "she'd block you. Wait, Rookie. Something will happen.
Something always does."
Yes, Raven thought, something always does, and sometimes, in country
tragedies, so brutal a thing that the remorseful mind shudders at itself
for not preventing it. But Nan, equably as she might counsel him, was
herself apprehensive. She expected something. She had a sense of waiting
for it. Dick must be prepared. He must be found on their side. Whatever
the outcome, Raven must not suffer the distrust and censure of his own
house.
Dick had been reading to her by the fire while Raven was taking Amelia
for a sober walk. Nan wished Dick wouldn't read his verse to her. It
made her sorry for him. What was he doing, a fellow who had seen such
things, met life and death at their crimson flood, pottering about in
these bizarre commonplaces of a literary jog-trot? They sounded right
enough, if you stood for that kind of thing, but they betrayed him, his
defective imagination, his straining mind. He didn't see the earth as it
was. He was so enamored of metaphorical indirection that he tried to see
everything in the terms of something else. But to-day she had her own
thoughts. She sat staring into the fire, her cheeks burned by the
leaping heat, and Dick, looking up at her, stopped on an uncompleted
line.
"You haven't," he said, "heard a word."
"Not much of it," said Nan. She looked at him disarmingly. When her eyes
were like that, Dick's heart was as water. "I was thinking about Tira."
He had to place this. Who was Tira?
"Oh," said he, "the Tenney woman. Jack needn't have dragged you into
that. It's a dirty country story."
"Not dirty," said Nan. "You'd love it if you'd thought of it yourself.
You'd write a play about it."
Dick frowned.
"Well, I didn't think of it," said he, "and if I had, I shouldn't be
eating and sleeping it as you and Jack are. Whatever's happening up
there, it isn't our hunt. It's hers, the woman's. Or the authorities'.
The man ought to be shut up."
Nan began telling him how it all was, how they wanted definitely to do
the right thing and how Tira herself blocked them. Dick listened,
commended the drama of it, and yet found it drama only.
"But it's a beastly shame," he commented, "to have this come on Jack
just now when he isn't fit."
Nan had her sudden hot angers.
"Do you mean to tell me," she countered, "you believe that now, now
you've lived with him and seen he's exactly what he used to be, only
more darling--you believe he's broken, dotty? Heavens! I don't know what
you'd call it."
Dick did not answer. He scarcely heard. One word only hit him like a
shot and drew blood.
"Stop that!" he ordered.
They faced each other with eyes either angry or full of a tumultuous
passion an onlooker would have been puzzled to name.
"Stop what?"
"Calling him darling. I won't have it."
Nan found this truly funny, and broke into a laugh.
"Do you know," she said, "how every talk of ours ends? Rookie! It always
comes round to him. I call him darling and you won't have it. But you'll
have to."
"No," said Dick, "I won't have it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
You little devil! I believe you do it to work me up. That's all right if
it stopped there. But it won't. Some day he'll hear you and then----!"
She was flaming again.
"Hear me? Hear me call him darling? Why, he's heard it so often it's no
more to him than your calling him Jack. But if he asked me what I meant
by it! do you know what would happen then?"
"What would?"
"Then," said Nan enigmatically, "I should tell him, that's all."
She would say no more, though he hurled questions at her, and hardly
remembered afterward what they were. He was of an impression that he
begged her to love him, to marry him, though Dick, prodigal as he was of
great words in his verse, scarcely believed he used them in the direct
address of love-making. But certainly he did beg her, and Nan was gentle
with him, though always, like Tira, as she remembered afterward,
repeating, "No! no!" At the end, his passion softened into something
appealing, as if they were together considering the sad case he found
himself in and he depended on her to help him through.
"Nan," he said, in the boyish way she loved, "don't you see it's got to
be in the end? We've always been together. We're always going to be.
Don't you see, old Nan?"
Nan smiled at him, brilliantly, cruelly, he thought. But she was sorry
for him, and it was only a show of cruelty. It came out of her kindness,
really. Dick mustn't suffer so for want of her. Bully him, abuse him,
anything to anger him and keep him from sheer weak, unavailing regret.
Nan had a great idea of what men should be: "tough as a knot," she
thought, seasoned all through. If they whimpered, she was aghast.
"No," she said again, with the brilliant smile, "no! no! I can't. I
won't. Not unless"--and this, too, was calculated cruelty--"unless
Rookie tells me to."
They sat staring at each other as if each wondered what the outcome was
to be. Nan was excitedly ready for it. Or had the last word been
actually said? But Dick altogether surprised her. He got up and stood
looking down at her in a dignity she found new to him.
"When you come to me," he said, "you'll come because I ask you. It won't
be because any other man tells you to."
He walked past her, out of the room. Did he, Nan wondered, in her
ingenuous surprise, look a very little like Rookie? When he was twenty
years older, was he going to look as Rookie did now? His expression,
that is. For, after all, there was Dick's nose.
And in these days what of Tira? She, too, was on an edge of nervous
apprehension. Tenney was about the house a great deal. He still made
much of his lameness, though never in words. Every step he took seemed
an implication that a cane was far from sufficient. He needed his
crutch. And as the period of his silence lengthened, Tira was driven by
her fear to another greater fear: that she might mention it herself.
What if she should tell him how the crutch, leaning there at the foot of
the bed, had seemed to her a weapon, not a crutch? What if she appealed
to his pity and even played a part with him, dwelling on her woman's
weakness of nature, her tremors, deprived of the protection that should
be hers? Artifice was foreign to her. Yet what was there, short of
implicating Raven, she would not do for the child? But a glance at
Tenney's face, the tightness of reserve, the fanatical eyes, closed her
lips, and they moved about together dumbly at their common tasks. As she
grew paler and the outline of her cheek the purer over the bones
beneath, he watched her the more intently, but still furtively. One
forenoon when the sky was gray and a soft snow fell in great flakes that
melted as they came, he went haltingly up to the shed chamber and came
down with his gun. He was not a huntsman, and when they moved into the
house it had been left there with a disorder of things not likely to be
needed. He drew a chair to the table and then addressed her almost
urbanely. He wanted, she guessed, to call her attention in some explicit
way.
"You git me some kind of a rag," he bade her. "I'm goin' to clean up
this old musket. You might's well hand me that oiler, too, off'n the
sink shelf. I can't git about any too well."
She brought him the cloth and the oiler and went away to the sink again,
determined not to be drawn into any uneasiness of questioning. But it
fascinated her, the sight of him bending to his task, and her will
weakened. In spite of herself, she went over to the table and stood
looking down at him. Presently he glanced up at her and smiled a little
in a way she did not like. It seemed to imply some recognition of a
common knowledge between them. He had, the look said, more than the
apparent reason for what he was doing. The oiling of the gun was not
all. Something at the back of his mind was more significant than this
act of his hands, and this something, the look said, she also knew. All
through the moment of her gazing down at him Tira was telling herself
she must not speak. Yet she spoke:
"You goin' gunnin'?"
"I dunno but I be," he returned, his eyes again on his work. "I've had
it in mind quite a spell, an' I dunno's there's any reason for puttin'
on't off."
"What you goin' after, Isr'el?" she asked, against her will, and he was
silent for what seemed so long, that she pursued: "You goin' rabbitin'?"
"No," said Tenney. "I dunno's I be. What's the use o' shootin' down
four-footed creatur's? T'other ones'll do well enough for me."
Again he glanced up at her and her look of frozen horror evidently
warned him against terrifying her unduly. She must be shaken enough to
obey him, not to fight.
"You look kinder peaked," he said, with what she found a false air of
interest. "You don't git out enough. Mebbe you'd ought to git out
nights. I've been noticin' how peaked you look, an' I thought mebbe I'd
git the old musket loaded up an' go out an' shoot ye a pa'tridge. Tempt
your appetite, mebbe, a mite o' the breast."
"I dunno," said Tira, speaking with difficulty through her rigid misery,
"as you'd ought to, so near nestin' time. I dunno's as it's the season
to kill."
"All seasons are the same to me," said Tenney. "When it's time to kill,
then kill, I say. Kill!"
He spoke the word as if he loved it, and Tira walked away from him into
the bedroom, and stretched herself on the bed, her hand on the sleeping
child. When it was time to get dinner she came out again and found him
reading his paper by the stove. He had set the gun away in a corner. But
directly after dinner he shaved at the little glass by the kitchen
window and told her, again with the air of abundant explanation she
found foreign to him, that he was going to the street, to get the colt
shod. The colt did need to be shod. She knew that. Perhaps this time he
was actually going.
"You want to take along the eggs?" she said, and he assented.
He asked her, too, for a list of groceries she needed. He would have to
wait his turn at the blacksmith's. He might be a long time. She need not
expect him before dark. She might as well go out, he told her, and
again:
"You're lookin' peaked. You need the air."
She heard him drive briskly out of the yard, but she would not, for some
reason she did not herself know, go to the window to look after him. It
was all a plan, she told herself. She was not to be taken in by it. She
would force herself to sit down to her sewing. She would not leave the
house while he was gone. If he wanted to tempt her out, to trap her, let
him have his will. It was better, she thought, with a moment's satirical
comment, for him to be driving off on a fictitious mission than roaming
the neighborhood with a gun in his hand. She glanced involuntarily at
the corner where the gun had stood not many minutes before he left the
house. It was gone. Then she knew. She threw down her work, went to the
telephone, and called Raven. He was there, and she felt her heart answer
wildly when, at her first word, he broke in:
"Is it you?" Not her name, only the intimacy of the significant word.
"The hut?" he added.
"Up there," said Tira, breathless. "Both of you. I've got to see you
both. Come quick."
She got her cloak and threw it down again, remembering it was what she
was used to wearing and that Tenney would most certainly recognize her
outline in it, even though a long way off. Grandmother Tenney's black
blanket shawl was in the parlor chest of drawers, that and her hood,
disfiguring ancientry of dress. She ran into the parlor, snatched them
out, tied on the black knitted hood and, not unfolding the shawl,
wrapped it about her shoulders. The baby was in his cradle, and she gave
him one glance. If he waked, he would cry. Let him cry. But she did lock
the door behind her, and put the key on the sill, a place Tenney would
know. Half way down the path, she went back, took the key again and
dropped it into her apron pocket. Tenney might come, but he should not
go into the house and find the child alone. Lest he should come the way
he went, she took the back road, and there, when she was about to turn
into the wood road, she heard sleigh-bells behind her, the horse going,
as her ear told her, "step and step." But she was actually on the wood
road when the driver whipped up and the bells came clashingly. She did
not turn to look. It was not Tenney. She would have known his bells. The
horse drew up, the driver called to him a peremptory and jovial word,
and she knew the voice. It was Eugene Martin's, and instinct told her to
stop and face him. He stepped out of the sleigh and threw the robe, with
a quick motion, over the horse. Then he came on to her, smiling,
effusively cordial, and Tira waited. A pace away he took off his hat and
made her an exaggerated bow. He was carefully dressed, but then he was
always that, according to his lights. Only Tira, who knew him so well,
all his vain schemes of personal fitness, judged this to be a day of
especial preparation. For what? He took the step between them and put
out both hands.
"If this ain't luck!" he beamed. "How are you, girl? I made up my mind
I'd see you, but I hadn't an idea you'd be on the road."
Tira rolled her hands in her apron, as if they were cold. His extended
hands she did not seem to see.
"I ain't waitin' for you," she said quietly, her eyes on his. "You
better go right straight along about your business an' leave me to
mine."
"I ain't done right, Tira," said Martin, with the specious warmth she
knew. "I did try to git you in bad with Tenney, but don't you know what
that sprung from? I'm jealous as the devil. Don't you know I be?"
"You've no call to be jealous nor anything else," said Tira steadily.
"You an' me are as fur apart"--she hesitated for a word, and her eyes
rested for a moment on one of the tall evergreens moving slightly in the
breeze. "We couldn't any more come together than I could climb up to the
pick o' that pine tree."
He still regarded her solicitously. He was determined not to abandon his
part.
"Ain't somebody come betwixt us?" he demanded, with that vibration of
the voice once so moving to her. "You can't deny it. Can you now?"
"Nobody's come betwixt us," said Tira. "If you was the only man on this
earth to-day, I'd run from you as I would a snake. I hate you. No, I
don't. I look on you as if you was the dirt under my feet."
But as she said it she glanced down, wistfully troubled, as if she
begged forgiveness of the good earth. The quick anger she knew in him
flared like a licking flame. He threw his arms about her and held her to
him as tightly, it seemed to her, as if he were hostile to the very
breath within her body. And she was still, not only because he gripped
her so but because she had called upon that terrible endurance women
recognize within themselves. He kissed her, angry, insulting kisses she
could bear more patiently than the kisses of unwelcome love. But as his
lips defiled her face, he was suddenly aware that it was wet. Great
tears were rolling down her cheeks. He laughed.
"Cryin'?" he jeered. "Poor little cry-baby! wipe her eyes."
While he held her with one arm, the other hand plunged into her apron
pocket and brought out her handkerchief. It also touched the key. His
instincts, she knew, had a scope of devilish cunning, and at once he
knew what key it was. He laughed. Looking off through the trees, he had
seen what gave him another clue.
"Smoke!" he called, as if he shouted it to an unseen listener who might
not have been clever enough to guess. "Smoke from that shack Raven lazes
round in same as Old Crow did afore him. That's where you were goin'.
The wood road all broke out for you. I might ha' known it when I see
that. Go along, my lady. He'll be there waitin' for you. Go along. But
jest for the fun o' the thing, you leave the key with me."
She answered with a desperate wrench; but though one of her hands
reached the pocket where the key lay, she could only twitch the fingers,
and while he laughed softly he pulled the tie of her apron and,
releasing her with a little push, snatched the apron from her, rolled it
and thrust it into his pocket. She sprang at him, but he gave her
another push that sent her staggering and ran laughing to the sleigh.
"So long!" he called back at her.
She recovered herself and started after him. But the horse plunged
forward and Martin was shouting at her jovially, in what words she did
not hear. She only knew, through the bewilderment of her despair, that
the tone was merciless.
She stood there a moment, looking after him, and realizing that he had
forced her into a corner from which there was no possible way out. But
then another fear beat in her numbed brain. She had not accomplished the
task for which she came here. Martin and his trick must wait. That other
need was more important. There was the hut and its welcoming smoke and
there Raven must be looking for her. She started running along the snowy
path, reached the door, found it unlocked and went in.