THE GIRL AND THE MAN
The twilight of dawn was brightening over the clearing when Akerley
was suddenly awakened by the grip of fingers on his injured
shoulder. He could not have leapt back to consciousness more swiftly
and violently if a knife had been driven into him. He sat up with a
jerk and opened his eyes in the same instant of time; and fear shone
visibly in his eyes for a fraction of a second. The look of fear
gave place to one of relief, and that changed in a wink to an
expression of polite and embarrassed surprise.
A girl stood beside the bed, staring at him wide-eyed. Her lips were
parted and she breathed hurriedly.
“Get up,” she whispered. “You must hide in the woods. Grandfather is
coming. Climb out the window and run.”
He swung his feet to the floor and stood up before her.
“But why should I run and hide?” he asked.
She placed her hands on his breast and pushed him backward until he
brought up against the wall beside the open window.
“He will kill you,” she replied. “He has his rifle. Get out, quick,
and hide in the woods. Please go! And watch the house. And I’ll tell
you later. Crawl away. Don’t let him see you.”
“But why does he want to shoot me?”
“Go! Go! I don’t want you to be killed!”
“I am not afraid of any old man with a rifle!”
The girl’s eyes blazed and the color faded out of her cheeks. She
raised her right hand as if she would strike him in the face.
Daunted and bewildered, Akerley turned quickly and slipped out of
the window into the dew-wet grass. He moved toward the edge of the
woods by the shortest line, on his hands and knees, without pausing
once to look back. Upon reaching the shelter of bushes and round
spruces along the front of the forest, he lay flat and turned and
surveyed the house and clearing. His shoulder hurt him, and he felt
angry and hungry and generally abused; but his mind was soon
diverted from himself by the sudden appearance of a tall old man
within fifteen or twenty paces of where he lay.
The old man stared at the house from beneath the brim of a wide and
weather-stained felt hat. Abundant white whiskers showed with
startling distinctness against the breast of his dark shirt. He held
a rifle in his right hand, at the short trail. After standing
motionless for half a minute, he stooped almost double and advanced
toward the house with long strides. He reached the porch and
vanished from view through the back door.
“She was right,” soliloquized Akerley. “The old bird is out for
blood and no mistake. He certainly has his nerve with him—if he
still thinks I’m a devil.”
He lay still, watching the house. The minutes dragged past; and his
hunger and the soreness of his shoulder again attracted his
attention. Presently the girl appeared in the doorway, paused there
for a moment and then stepped out onto the porch with her
grandfather close at her heels. The old man was in the act of
passing her when she turned swiftly and halted him, and stayed him
with a grip of both hands on the front of his shirt. Akerley,
watching intently, again forgot his discomfort and hunger. He knew
something of the strength of those small hands.
“I hope she’ll pull out his blasted whiskers,” he muttered.
The two were evidently of different opinions on some matter of
importance. The old man seemed to be all for leaving the porch
immediately, and the girl for having him remain there. He waved his
left hand violently. He waved his right hand, in which the steel of
the rifle-barrel shone blue. She continued to cling to the front of
his shirt. It was plain to be seen that they argued the point hotly.
He side-stepped toward the edge of the porch and she pulled him back
sharply to his former ground. He struggled to get away and she
struggled to retain her hold on him. He broke away suddenly and fell
backwards off the edge of the raised floor. It was a drop of about
two feet. The rifle flew from his grasp as he struck the ground. He
lay on his back for a few seconds, then turned over and raised
himself to his hands and knees. From that position he got slowly to
his feet. He stood facing Akerley’s hiding-place for a moment,
swaying uncertainly, then staggered forward a few paces, reeled
suddenly, fell heavily on his face and lay still. The girl sprang
down from the porch and knelt beside him.
Akerley saw the girl make several attempts to get the old man to his
feet. He left his cover after the third unsuccessful attempt and
approached the yard. He was half-way to the porch when the girl
raised her head and saw him. She signalled him to make haste; and he
immediately broke into a run.
“He is hurt!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “He is unconscious. He
has not opened his eyes since he fell. There’s no doctor this side
of Boiling Pot. What am I to do?”
“He is stunned, that’s all,” replied Akerley. “He breathes right
enough, and his heart is working away like a good one. Very likely
he knocked the back of his head on a stone or something when he
crashed. We had better carry him in-doors, I think, and pour some
water over him.”
Akerley lifted him by the shoulders, the girl gathered him up by the
knees, and so they carried him into the house and laid him on his
own bed. Akerley asked if there were any brandy or whiskey on the
premises.
“Not for him!” she cried. And then, in a lower tone, “There is some
brandy, but I have hidden it from him,” she continued. “It is the
worst thing in the world for him, for it inflames his temper; and I
think it is his temper that is the matter with him, mostly. He has
been like that twice before, and both times he was in a terrible
rage.”
“Pleasant company, I don’t think,” remarked Akerley. “But the
trouble isn’t entirely bad temper this time, Miss MacKim. Here’s the
bump where he assaulted something hard with the back of his skull.
It doesn’t seem serious—but he is very old, I suppose.”
The girl investigated the bump with her fingers.
“I’ll bathe that,” she said. “See, he looks better already. It was
foolish of me to be afraid. Please get out of sight before he opens
his eyes. Get your breakfast now, please, and make as little noise
about it as possible; and I’ll keep him here until you have
finished, even if he recovers consciousness in the meantime.”
“Does he still think I am a devil?” he asked.
“Yes—and that it is his sacred duty to kill you,” she replied. “He
was terrified at first; but he is not at all afraid of you now. The
very thought of you, and of the way you frightened him when you
rushed down from the sky, fills him with fury.”
“But am I to hide from him always?”
“Always? Did you come here to settle for life?”
“My machine is smashed and I have dismantled it; and I need a rest.”
“You will not get much rest with Grandfather hunting you all the
time; and there are other and more usual ways of leaving here than
by aëroplane. But go now—quick!”
Akerley left the room and closed the door behind him. He lit a fire
in the stove stealthily, boiled water and made tea. He did not fry
bacon, for fear that the smell of it might start the old man into
action again; so he breakfasted on bread and butter and jam. He was
about to light a cigarette—the last one in his case—when the girl
appeared from the old man’s bedroom. She came very close to him,
with a finger on her lip for warning.
“He has come around, but he is very weak and shaken,” she whispered.
“He seems quite dazed, just as he did the other times; but he will
soon recover his wits and energy, you may be sure. He may be like
this all day, or perhaps only for a few hours; and then he’ll be out
with the rifle again, looking for you. What have you done with your
aëroplane?”
Akerley eyed her steadily and thoughtfully before replying.
“I have hidden the parts here and there,” he said. “I’ll show you,
any time you say. One plane is badly smashed, but not hopelessly. I
may mend it some day; but just now the important thing for me is to
have all the parts out of sight.”
“So that Grandfather can’t find them and destroy them?” she queried.
“That is one reason,” he replied. “The fact is, I should not like
any one from outside to find any trace of the old bus around here.
It might prove very awkward for me. The less known about me and the
machine the better for me, Miss MacKim. If I tell you why I’ll put
myself at your mercy—which I shall do sometime when we can talk in
more security. Now I think I had better milk and do the chores.”
“Are you in danger?” she whispered.
“I shall be glad to explain my position to you, as far as possible,
at the first opportunity,” he answered, smiling. “But there are
other things to do now that need to be done quick—the milking, for
one—and if I could get hold of your grandfather’s ammunition I’d
extract the charge from every cartridge. Then I’d feel less uneasy.
My nerves are not in the best shape, as it is.”
She went to the front door with him and instructed him to keep out
of line of the old man’s window, not to bring the milk to the house
but to leave it on the floor of the larger barn, and to remain in
the barn until he saw her again.
“And I’ll bring you every rifle-cartridge I can find,” she
concluded.
He thanked her and started off to attend to the cows; but before he
had gone a dozen paces he turned and came back to where she still
stood on the threshold.
“I had forgotten the milk-pails,” he explained.
After milking and turning the cows out, he fed the pigs. He could
not feed the calves, for he had not brought their breakfast of
hay-tea and skimmed milk from the house. He retired to the barn then
and gave his mind to very serious and painful thought.
“What’s the use?” he exclaimed, at last. “Thinking won’t undo what’s
already done. The past is out of my hands—and I hope to heaven it is
buried! I can only help myself in the future.”
The girl found him a few minutes later. She carried a small basket
containing sixty cartridges.
“These are all I could find,” she said. “I took them from the box in
his room, and from behind the clock, and from the rifle and even
from his pockets. He is feeling much stronger already.”
She took up the pails of milk and was about to go when Akerley
begged her to wait a minute. He produced a knife of parts from a
pocket and with one of its numerous attachments pried the bullet out
of a cartridge and extracted the explosive charge. Then he refixed
the bullet in the empty shell and handed it to the girl.
“Please put that in his rifle,” he said. “Nothing will go off but
the cap when he pulls the trigger on that. I’ll have the rest of
them fool-proof in a couple of hours.”
She complimented him on his cleverness, told him not to budge from
the barn until her return, and went away with the milk and the
harmless cartridge. He was very busy throughout the next two hours.
He counted the seconds of the third hour, paced the dusty floor and
looked out every minute.
She came at last, with his dinner in a basket covered with a linen
napkin. Everything looked as right as could be to him then—and he
did not know why. He thought it was because he felt hungry. His
pleasure lit his eyes upon beholding her and sounded in his voice
when he welcomed her; and these things did not escape her notice and
at once pleased and puzzled her.
[Illustration: “THEY SAT SIDE BY SIDE ON A SMALL HEAP OF STRAW.”]
They sat side by side on a small heap of straw in a corner of the
threshing-floor, and she set out the dinner at their feet—sliced
cold chicken, bread and butter, pickles, two large wedges of
Washington pie and a pitcher of hot coffee.
“I left Grandfather eating his in bed, so I’ll have mine with you,”
she said.
She told him that the old man had recovered sufficiently to demand
his rifle, and that she had placed the chargeless cartridge in the
breech before giving it to him.
“He still thinks it was a devil who lit in the oats,” she ran on,
“so if you intend to stay here for some time we must think of a way
of leading him to believe that you are not the person who came down
from the sky. You must get some other clothes, and a pack, and walk
into the clearing as if you had come in all the way from Boiling Pot
on foot. I may be able to fix over some of his things so that he
won’t recognize them. Haven’t you a hat? And is that your only coat?
You must have been very cold up in the air.”
“I have a cap and a wool-lined leather coat,” he replied. “They are
both hidden away with the engine of the poor old bus; and if I am
wise I will hide this one, too.”
She looked at him curiously, and he returned her gaze gravely.
“This is a military coat, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, a khaki service jacket.”
“You are a soldier, then.”
“An officer of the Royal Air Force.”
“I knew you were a soldier when I saw you asleep in the chair
yesterday. I knew by that ribbon.”
She placed the tip of a finger on the left breast of his jacket, and
he kinked his neck and looked down at it.
“The Legion of Honor. So you have seen that ribbon before.”
“I have it—the cross and ribbon. It belonged to my Grandfather
MacKim. He won it in the Crimean War.”
“That old boy?”
“No, not that one. His name is Javet, Gaspard Javet—and he was never
a soldier. What are the other ribbons?”
“One is the Military Cross and the others are service medals. But
tell me about your Grandfather MacKim, please.”
“Not now. I am the questioner to-day. You came here without being
invited, so I have a right to ask you questions. It is my duty to do
so.”
“Of course it is. It is one of your duties as a hostess. Ask away,
and I’ll tell you the truth or nothing.”
“Very well. Are you in great danger?”
“I don’t know. If people from the outside don’t find me or learn
that I am here I shall be safe enough for the present—except from
your grandfather; and I am not seriously afraid of him.”
“But you ran away from something or someone! You flew away! What
were you afraid of, to make you fly away? You are not a coward. What
are you afraid of?”
“Of disgrace for one thing.”
“Have you done a disgraceful deed?”
“No—but you wouldn’t understand. My nerves are not quite right—and I
lost my temper. I struck a senior officer.”
“And you are a soldier! And the king has decorated you!”
“Any soldier would have done it. You would have done it yourself,
under the same circumstances. It was about a friend of mine who is
dead. Those swankers who have never seen the whites of the enemies’
eyes don’t understand. He lied about him! I got out and up, and flew
and lost myself, and when my petrol was done I made a landing to
your light—and here I am.”
“Did you kill him?”
“I don’t know. I hope not. I didn’t wait to see. My nerves aren’t
right yet. I hit him with my fist. Any man in my place with an ounce
of blood in him would have done what I did. But I’m afraid that
won’t help me much if they find me, even if he was only knocked out
for the count.”
“Listen! It is Grandfather shouting for me. I must go, or he may get
out of bed to look for me. You stay here.”
“For how long?”
“Until I come back—which will be as soon as I can get away. I’ll
take these cartridges. Climb into a mow, and if you hear anyone
coming hide under the hay.”
“I am in your hands. You believe what I have told you?”
“Yes, everything.”
“Even that you would have done it yourself?”
“Yes, I believe that. There!—he is shouting again!”
“Will you bring me something to smoke? I haven’t a cigarette left.”
“Yes, yes,” she cried, and ran from the barn.