"Though I hev never hed nuthin' agin you-uns, Mis' Lar'bee, an' I hope
ye won't lay it up agin me, marm. I knowed 't war mighty safe,--'kase
you-uns warn't the sort ter harbor evil-doers 'gainst the law an' sech
ez that,--hevin' been powerful well 'quainted with yer husband whenst
he war a boy; an' this hyar dep'ty war so powerful partic'lar, an' I
didn't see how ter git out'n it, an'"--The crumbs in his throat and
the scruples in his heart combined to choke his utterance, and as the
climax came in a paroxysm of coughing, Mrs. Larrabee turned to the
officer.
"I got nobody hyar wuss'n yerse'f, sher'ff," she drawled, with a slow
smile.
"Waal, now, Mis' Lar'bee," said the officer, probably mindful of
political hopes, "ef ever ye want ennything of me, ye jes' lemme know.
I wanter show ye how I'll remember this hyar squar meal ter-night. I
ain't one o' them ez can't remember dinner till it's dinner time agin."
He smiled gallantly upon her from under his superabundance of brows.
Then he turned to Espey. "I been so well treated it makes me plumb bold
ter ax another favior. I want ye ter git on yer horse an' ride with me
ter set me in the road ter Tems's. Nare one o' these men air 'quainted
with the way."
His dark eyes hardened under his sinister black brows, and Espey, who
had taken heart of grace, felt his hope of escape annihilated in the
instant. His eyes were fastened with a fixed stare on the officer's
face; his nerves were all a-quiver; his heart seemed to stand still;
a cold, insidious thrill crept along the fibres of his skin. The
conviction seized him that the conversation which had seemed so
incidental was merely a blind devised for the purpose of getting him
apart from the women and children, that he might be captured with less
ado or less danger to the bystanders, perhaps further from the chance
of rescue. He thought of rescue, himself, of Jerusha's husband blind
drunk in the shed-room, of Jasper away at the Lost Time mine. Through
some other sense than that of conscious sight he was aware of the
movements of the deputy's comrades: that one, seated in the chair, was
carefully examining his revolver; that the other was standing beside
the door with his hand on the latch. But Espey's eyes never quitted
the face of the sheriff, who apparently took note of this fixed,
unresponsive gaze.
"Air he deef?" he demanded of Mrs. Larrabee, and was about to repeat
his demand in a louder key, when his hostess interposed.
"No deefer than them in gineral be who ain't willin' ter hear," she
muttered. "Go saddle yer critter, Jack. 'Twon't take ye long." Then,
in a lower aside, "Ye'll jes' hev ter guide 'em ez fur ez Tems's,
ennyhow."
Her insistence constrained him; and indeed no alternative was definite
to his mind. He turned with a bewildered, submissive mien toward the
door.
The chill midnight air, blowing freshly on his face as he held it
open and the draught rushed through, revived him like the very breath
of freedom. The obvious opportunity flashed through his mind like an
inspiration. He could give them the slip while saddling the horse.
He would have the start of them even if by only a few paces. Let him
but once get foot in the stirrup again, with the kindly shield of the
darkness about him, and he would give them a good run through this
pathless mountain wilderness. He caught up his saddle that lay upon the
floor, and made for the door again with a sudden eager alacrity.
He heard an abrupt clanging noise, as one hears a sound in sleep,
muffled, unreal, distant. It was only when he saw one of the men stoop
and rise again and follow him that he realized what had happened. One
of the stirrup irons had fallen from the saddle, unbuckled perhaps in
the unwarranted juvenile curiosity of the meddling youngsters of the
house. The deputy sheriff also followed. "I'll put that on agin whilst
ye air a-ketchin' an' a-bridlin' of the nag," he said.
Espey heard the loud, strident tones of his hasty farewells as he took
leave of Mrs. Larrabee,--he evidently intended to return no more,--and
then he was by the young man's side in the barn, followed by his two
companions. For the horse was not in the pasture lot; he had repaired
to the shelter of the barn, and had stretched himself on his bed of
straw. At the first indication of the prospect of journeying the roan
struggled up, and, with a sound of greeting that was almost articulate,
came out from the stall, ready and willing to be saddled and bridled.
Espey experienced a sort of animosity toward the creature for his
unreasoning alacrity. He was even denied the poor respite which the
usual delay in catching the horse might have given.
In his numbing, silent despair as he buckled the girth and slipped
the bridle over the horse's head and the bit into his mouth, he took
no definite heed of his surroundings, and yet they were all impressed
upon his consciousness. He noted, uncaring, how the horse tossed up
his head askance at the stranger's touch, when one of the men laid his
hand on the powerful shoulder and opined that he must be a "toler'ble
good goer." He was aware, somehow, of the blue-black, translucent gloom
of the air, and the differing darkness with its effect of solidity,
of the fodder stack looming close by, of the fantastic roof of the
little log cabin against the stars, and of a vague sense of motion
where the invisible smoke curled up from the chimney, faring off into
the dense shadow of the foliage of the great trees. The door was still
open, and the yellow light fell far out into the darkness; in the
interior he could see the gaunt, tall form of Mrs. Larrabee walking
back and forth, and in her arms the baby, who had been roused by the
falling of the spur. The child needed little tenderness, in his robust
self-sufficiency, and was elderly indeed for such infantile coddling.
His fat legs stuck far out of her arms, and his bawling objections to
the interruption of slumber attested temper rather than delicacy. Espey
realized how her heart would go out to a real trouble,--how she would
feel for him if she only knew! Somehow the thought of that fictitious
anguish of sympathy soothed him for the moment, and he was resigned to
say to himself that it was best as it was. She could have done naught.
He was no child like the others to cling to her in a sort of fervid
faith in her omnipotence. No; resistance would only have endangered her
and hers. And so he was strengthened to put his foot in the stirrup
and ride away, with the sheriff at his right hand, and the other men
close behind, all looking alertly forward into the gloom. The roan
horse, fresh from slumber, was beginning to feel his hay and corn,
snuffing the quickening wind, pulling on the bit, and forging on at a
more speedy gait. The other men noticed this, for now and again, with a
touch of the spur, they closed up, and the roan horse was in the centre
of the squad.