CRISIS
Lockwood returned in depression to the turpentine camp, and spent the
rest of that idle Sunday in anxiety and self-reproach. He seemed to
have muddled things badly. He had blundered into a condition of open
war with the Powers. He had given Hanna every opportunity to stack all
the cards against him. His usefulness was destroyed. He might as well,
he thought, revert to his first plan of settling it with Hanna at the
pistol’s point. But what, then, of Louise? Gunpowder would hardly
solve the situation as it stood now.
He was sorry that he had proposed that Louise meet him on the bayou.
It would be the wildest folly. He did not think that she would come.
But she might come. All the next forenoon he kept as close to the
bayou shore as he could. More than once he tore down to the water,
imagining that he heard the boat’s engine. They were false alarms, and
he felt deeply relieved when afternoon came, and she had not appeared.
All the next day he was in a tension of dread and expectancy, and the
next one after. But days passed; a week passed, and he ceased to look
for the boat. He wondered in vain what she was doing. He began to be
afraid that she would not come, and he could not imagine any safe
means of getting into touch with her.
Twice or thrice he passed the Power automobile on the road, but Louise
was never in it. He met Hanna once, who gave him an ironically
deferential bow. He thought of using the telephone at the commissary
store, which was connected with the Power house. It was a rural wire
that ran to Bay Minette. You could get connections with Mobile—with
New York, for that matter, if you waited long enough.
Craig had once rung up New Orleans to get a quotation on rosin, though
it had taken him nearly all day to get through. The telephone was in
the Powers’ hall; its use could be heard all over the house; but if he
could ever happen to know that Louise was alone there he resolved to
try it.
Once, indeed, he was lucky enough to espy the big car speeding
westward with Hanna and the three Power men aboard. He hastened back
to the camp, but to his disgust the commissary store was full of
loungers, turpentine men and farmers, talking, smoking, laughing close
beside the telephone. He waited an hour, and then gave it up.
But the very next morning, before ten o’clock, he heard the
unmistakable _thud_-_thud_ of a gasoline engine on the water. He was
two hundred yards inland, but he dashed at a gallop down to the bayou,
and saw the motor boat moving slowly up the mud-colored channel, with
Louise at the wheel, anxiously scanning the shore.
Dismounting, he caught her attention and signaled her where to steer
inland. The boat came alongside a big, half sunken log. He took her
hand and helped her out. He almost yielded to the impulse to draw her
close to him, but her face showed that this was no time for sentiment.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. “What is it? Has anything happened?”
“I didn’t mean to come. I had to. I was afraid—I didn’t know what to
do,” she said, breathing fast. “It was the only chance. I knew
everybody was going out in the car this morning. I was to go, too, but
I made an excuse. It’s that oil well, you know. Papa and the boys are
going to buy more of the stock.”
“How much more?”
“Perhaps twenty or thirty thousand dollars.”
Lockwood whistled softly.
“But I understood that no more was on the market.”
“Yes. But a member of the company has just died—so Mr. Hanna says—and
his shares are to be sold. He showed us the letter. They want one
hundred and twenty dollars a share now. Mr. Hanna said he could get
two hundred dollars, but he wanted to let his friends in first. There
are about three hundred shares, and the boys are wild to have them.”
“I see,” said Lockwood dryly. “But nothing has been done yet?”
“They talked it all over last night. Mr. Hanna didn’t urge it much,
but he said it was the chance of a lifetime; he thinks the shares may
be worth five hundred dollars in a year or two. I said all I could
against it, but it didn’t do any good. The boys don’t think a woman
knows anything of business, but they do think a great deal of your
opinion, and I wish you’d give them some advice.”
“Well, there’s only one thing I could say—that I don’t believe the
stock is worth a cent, that I don’t believe there is any oil well at
all, and perhaps not even any company. But I couldn’t say that without
some definite information to back it up.”
“Of course, Hanna would deny everything you said, and I suppose papa
and the boys would take his word,” said Louise in distress. “That man
seems to have bewitched them all. Wish he had never come here. He
tormented me so in New Orleans——”
“In New Orleans!” Lockwood exclaimed.
She hesitated, clasping and unclasping her hands. Then she looked at
him frankly.
“He was a nightmare to me. He persecuted me—followed me. That was
partly why I left and came here—to get away from him.”
“Ah!” said Lockwood, with a long breath between his teeth. “And he
followed you here?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. He came up on the boat and stopped a day
or two at Ferrell’s. He was supposed to be looking for a chance to buy
timberlands. Tom brought him home to dinner, and asked him to stop
with us. I was terrified when I saw him. I nearly told papa what I
knew of him—but then the boys would probably have shot him, and so I
didn’t know what to do, and said nothing.
“But Hanna behaved well. The first chance he got, he apologized to me
very nicely for all the past; he said he was afraid he had been a
nuisance, but that he wouldn’t trouble me any more. And I must say he
didn’t—not till——”
“That day on the bayou?” asked Lockwood.
“Yes. You saw it. I had to put him ashore. He was trying to be
persuasive. But I’m not a bit afraid of him, in that way. I can take
care of myself, and he knows it. But you know what he’s been doing to
the boys. He began to teach them to mix new drinks from the first, and
he gave Tom a tip on the cotton market that cleared eight hundred
dollars, and after that they were willing to let him have the handling
of everything we had. Now this oil stock business has come up.”
“It’s Hanna’s big coup,” said Lockwood. “He’s decided to stop
gathering chicken-feed and make some real money.”
“But what can we do?” cried Louise hopelessly. Lockwood took a sudden
resolution.
“Listen, Miss Louise!” he said. “I didn’t intend to tell you now, but
Hanna is no stranger to me, either; and I didn’t come to Rainbow
Landing by chance, any more than he did. Hanna is a high-class
swindler, a mere confidence man. I ought to know. He got my confidence
and robbed me of everything I had in the world.”
They had stopped walking and stood facing one another, oblivious of
everything but the intensity of these mutual confidences.
“It was years ago,” Lockwood went on. “I’ve been after him ever since.
I’ve been through horrors in that time, but I didn’t mind them. I had
only one idea. I was going to find Hanna and kill him.”
“Oh!” Louise murmured, but she did not flinch. The idea of such a
vendetta was not unfamiliar to Miss Power’s Alabaman experience.
“I tracked him to New Orleans—that was when I met you. Then I traced
him up the river. I nearly shot him the first day I was here, but I
didn’t have my escape ready. Then, I saw you; I heard something of
your family, of Hanna’s doings. I guessed something of his game, and I
made up my mind to wreck it first. And then——”
“What then?”
“Then—what shall I say?” exclaimed Lockwood. “I got work here. I met
you and your people. Something changed in me. I hadn’t valued my life
a particle, but lately it’s come to seem that there might perhaps be
something in living after all. I’m as determined as ever to break
Hanna, but I don’t believe now that I’d be willing to ruin all the
rest of my life for the sake of killing him. In fact, I think I’ve
found something stronger in life than hate.”
She had been looking at him intently; now she dropped her eyes,
coloring. Then she turned slowly and began to walk again.
“You mustn’t ruin your life,” she said gently. “It’s worth a great
deal. Your coming here has meant a great deal to—to all of us. It has
saved us, perhaps, from dreadful things. You have a great deal to live
for, I know. As for Hanna—I don’t blame you for wanting to break him
or even kill him; but if what you say is true, you should be able to
put him in prison, and that ought to satisfy you.”
Prison! That word came like an icicle into Lockwood’s hot
indiscretions. A terror seized him. He could not be thankful enough
that he had not confessed further.
“I think, perhaps, we can do that,” he answered her. “But there’s just
one thing to do now. I must go to Pascagoula and find out the truth of
this oil company.”
“Would you really do that? But it’s too much to ask you. Why couldn’t
Tom go?”
“Tom’s going would give the whole thing away. Besides, I’m afraid it
needs some one with more than Tom’s experience of crooked business to
probe this. No, I’ll go myself. You needn’t be grateful. Remember,
this is my quarrel, too.”
“But I’m more than grateful,” she exclaimed. “But I don’t think you
need go to Pascagoula. The office of the oil company is in
Mobile—Maury Building, Royal Street, Room 24. I remember the address.”
Lockwood made a note of it.
“The real struggle will come when I try to expose Hanna,” he warned
her. “He’ll fight. See if you can’t prepare your father’s mind a
little; possibly hint at Hanna’s behavior in New Orleans.”
“I’ll do all I can—and wait for you to come back!” she promised. Her
eyes met his, full of gratitude and confidence. In Lockwood’s heart
there was a sudden uprush of something vital and sweet, that washed
away almost the last of the old black bitterness. He held her hand
somewhat tightly as he took his leave, and suppressed a great many
words that came into his mouth. For the present they were allies—no
more.