FIRE AND FROST
Douglas took a long breath. Uncle Eb swung to him.
“Wha’d ye do with him?” he hoarsely asked.
In guarded tones Douglas outlined the ruse which had saved Steve. As he
finished he strode out to the side of the road and looked down it. The
two man-hunters still were in sight, plodding along without a backward
look.
“By mighty! Ye’ve got a head onto ye like a tack, son,” congratulated
Eb, who had followed. “Right after I told them fellers to look into the
hawg-pen I nigh got a shock--it come to me ye might of hid the boy into
thar. Thank Gawd ye was here--I dunno what I’d done without ye----”
“All right. Now listen. You go back and get Steve under cover again
quick. Those fellows may not be so well convinced as they seem to be,
and they might double back after they’re out of sight. I’m going to
follow them up now and see if they keep on going. I’ll be back.”
As he spoke, Bill and Ward faded from sight around a little curve. He
strode away after them. Uncle Eb hastened to the barn.
Along the straight open stretch of road--perhaps forty yards from
house to curve--Douglas traveled at a half-lope. As he went, a smile
grew on his mouth, culminating in a chuckle.
“Hammerless Hampton, you’re an obstructionist, a conspirator against
the majesty of the law, a disreputable character all around,” he
told himself. “And sooner or later--probably sooner--you’re going to
get yourself in bad. When Brooklyn Bill gets back to the river, for
instance, he may query New York and learn that you’re disowned by the
_Whirl_, and so on. And then what?”
Instead of growing serious at the thought of that possibility, however,
he laughed all the more as he imagined Bill’s lurid language on
learning that he had been duped. He was still laughing when he reached
the bend. But there, in one instant, his face froze.
A few rods farther on stood the pair of officers. Their backs were
toward him, their shoulders touched, their burly bodies blocked the
narrow way. Beyond their legs showed a skirt.
The skirt was jerking about, and under it bare ankles moved quickly,
as if the woman or girl were struggling to get away. The shoulders of
one of the men, too, moved as if his hands were gripping an active
prisoner. Then the men swung apart an instant, and in the space between
them gleamed sunlit red hair.
Douglas bounded forward, his feet making little noise in the soft sand.
Before the intent couple heard him he was upon them. Straight between
them he plunged, shoving them violently asunder. From the girl broke
a cry. She was Marion, and both her wrists were clutched in the heavy
fists of Bill.
“Hey! Ya big bum, whatcha doin’?” Bill blared furiously. Ward’s face
too was dark with anger over the thump he had received, and one hand
hung menacingly at his hip.
“I’ll show you mighty sudden what I’m doing! Let her go!”
Bill released the girl--but not in obedience to the command. He did
it because he wanted to use his hands on Douglas more than on her.
Ugly-jawed, he stepped forward.
Douglas stepped back, handed his gun to Marion, and fronted Bill with
fists poised for the first parry and counter-punch. Marion sprang
aside, face ablaze with wrath, gun up. Ward, seeing Douglas give up the
weapon to her and stand bare-handed, relaxed from his tense poise and
swiftly grew cool.
Bill shot a vicious punch at the blond man’s chin--a straight drive
which would have downed his man if it had landed. But Douglas ducked to
the left and snapped a retaliating right for the beefy jaw. It halted
short--his wrist caught and held by Ward. Now Ward yanked him back.
“Two to one, eh?” raged Douglas. “All right----”
“No!” clipped Ward. Gripping the blond man’s arms, he swung himself
between the antagonists. “Let up! Same goes for you, Bill! Cut it!”
With a powerful shove he sent Douglas staggering backward, at the same
time releasing his hold.
“That’ll be about all!” he snapped. “Drop this where it is.”
“I’m not dropping it!” panted Douglas. “Man-handling girls may get by
down where you come from, but it doesn’t go with me. Officers? Pah! You
cheap thugs----”
“That’ll do!” Ward repeated. “You listen to me a minute.”
His steady gaze, his resolute tone, his quiet authority, had their
effect. Despite himself, Douglas respected the man. He stood still.
“I ain’t blamin’ you,” Ward continued evenly. “You act like a man.
But the girl brought it on herself--and she ain’t hurt a bit. Bill
oughtn’t have grabbed her, maybe, but that’s his way. I don’t like it
myself--him and me have had words about that kind of stuff before--but
the girl ain’t hurt and she wouldn’t be hurt, whether you butted in
or not. We only asked her somethin’ about the road, and she sassed us
and tried to shove Bill off into the ditch. He grabbed her hands and
told her to learn some manners, and then she tried to fight him, so
naturally he hung onto her. That’s all there is to it. I’d drop it, if
I was you.”
Douglas looked at her. True enough, she showed no sign of hurt,
except perhaps to her vivid temper. Ward’s straightforward manner was
convincing. So were the memories of his own denunciation by the girl on
the night when he had met her and of her fiery fight that morning to
regain her sketch. And so were the words of Marion herself.
“You big hog!” she flared, holding the gun pointed at Bill as if aching
to use it. “You better git outen the Traps and stay out! My manners are
good enough for me and my folks, and if you wasn’t brought up to give
other folks half of the road you can’t learn me anything. You keep on
actin’ like you started, and somebody’ll shoot some manners into _you_,
I shouldn’t wonder. I’ve got a good mind to do it my own self!”
Under the lash of her tongue, the blaze of her eyes, and the menace
of the twin muzzles yawning at his midriff, Bill blinked rapidly and
stepped backward. Ward too looked uneasy--for an angry woman and a gun
make a decidedly dangerous combination; the more so, because the woman
may shoot without actually realizing what she is doing.
“That gun loaded?” he muttered to Douglas.
“Sure. But the safety’s on and she doesn’t know the mechanism. Of
course, she might accidentally slip it, and then--your pal wouldn’t
look very good. I’d advise you two to make tracks down the road
and keep on making them. And one word more to you, Ward. You talk
straight, and I’ll let this drop for now; but you’d better pick another
running-mate before you go again among hill people. This man might do
as a Bowery cop or a prison guard, but he’s no good in wildcat country.”
Ward nodded about a quarter of an inch, as if he agreed, and studied
his mate with a slightly disgusted look. Then he shrewdly appraised the
girl behind the gun. When he spoke again there was a little twinkle of
admiration in his eye.
“Wildcat country’s right. Don’t blame you for hangin’ around this neck
of the woods, Hampton. Don’t blame you a-tall. Well, so long. Bill!”
The last word crackled. Bill, still edging away from the gaping
muzzles, obeyed Ward’s thumb-jerk along the road. Passing Douglas, he
paused to glower hatefully into the slitted blue eyes watching him.
Then he shuffled onward.
Not until they had rounded another turn did Douglas take his unswerving
gaze from their backs. Then, as he relaxed, he realized that Ward had
shown no suspicion over his sudden appearance; recalled, too, the
twinkle and the parting remarks. The man had thought he and Marion had
a tryst. Could he have looked back through the trees, however, and
studied the girl, he would have begun to wonder.
Douglas, too, wondered as he looked at her. The snap of anger had
vanished from her eyes, the flush from her cheeks, the girlishness from
her figure. The gray orbs watching him now were cold as ice--ice with a
smouldering flame far below its surface. Her face and her poise were as
stony as any upright bowlder standing under Dickie Barre. From one hand
hung his gun, its muzzles now buried in the sand. Straight, forbidding,
she stood looking fixedly at him. And, though he was not expecting any
thanks for what he had done, he stood staring blankly back at her. This
was a girl whom he never had seen before.
“Well! What’s wrong?” he puzzled. “Seems to be a sudden frost.”
Unspeaking, she lifted the gun and held it toward him. He took it,
peered at it as if seeking on it the cause of her hauteur, looked up
and found her turning away. She took half a dozen steps toward the
Wilham home, straight as an Indian, proud as a princess, before he
moved. Then he began striding after her. At once she stopped.
“Thought you was goin’ the other way,” she said pointedly.
“Did you? Well, I’m going this way now.”
“I’d ruther you’d go on to where you started for.”
His mouth tightened a little.
“I would,” he coolly informed her, “but I told Uncle Eb I’d come back.”
“Oh. Then I’ll wait. Go ’long.”
Again he stared. As before, she met him eye to eye, cold and
uncompromising.
“What’s wrong, Marion?” he repeated. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? I should think you might, if you’d think back a little
ways. Now I don’t want to walk with you.”
His chin lifted. “Oh. I see. It’s Steve. All right. But if he’s still
at Uncle Eb’s I’ll tell him you’re coming. I won’t be there long.”
She started.
“No--what--how’d you know he’s--what you got to do with Steve?”
“Ask Steve. He’ll tell you all about it. Good-day.”
With that he was off. She stood motionless, watching his receding
shoulders, her head lifted at the same proud angle. But, as he
disappeared around the curve from which he had sprung to her rescue,
that haughty head slowly drooped. She set her teeth into one red lip.
The clear gray eyes became blurred with tears.
Beyond the curve, Douglas stalked rapidly on. Into the Wilham yard he
marched with never a backward glance, and, after a quick look toward
the barn, up into the open doorway of the house. Uncle Eb, cheek
bulging with a chunk of bread-and-cheese, nodded to him from the table
where he was devouring his belated cold lunch.
“Shet the door,” he suggested. Douglas closed it. “Them fellers gone?”
“They’re on their way. They’re sore at each other now, as well as at
Sanders. Where’s our friend?”
“Down cellar. Ther’s a winder he can git out by if he has to. What’s
them fellers mad ’bout now?”
Douglas briefly told him. Uncle Eb stopped chewing, looked at him
keenly, cackled out all at once, then wondered: “Why didn’t Marry come
’long with ye?”
“I don’t know. Said she didn’t want to walk with me. So I jest walked
right ’long by my own self.”
The old man looked quizzically at him, then cackled again.
“Ye’re a-gittin’ to talk like ye b’longed into the Traps,” he chuckled.
“An’ after what ye done this afternoon, boy, ye do b’long! ’Most
anybody with the right kind of a heart round here would a-helped that
pore misfortunit boy, but ’tain’t every feller from outside, like
you, would a-done it. An’ that Marry gal--she prob’ly thinks ye’re a
detective, like the rest. She’ll soon know diff’rent.”
“Never mind. But now, Uncle Eb, I don’t like to ask questions that
don’t concern me, but just what did Steve do that sent him to the pen?”
Uncle Eb hesitated, chewed hard, swallowed, and gulped a noisy drink of
cold coffee.
“The wust thing into the world, son--he got caught. He never done no
harm, but gittin’ caught for a thing is ’nough, whether ye done it or
not. S’posin’ we let him talk for hisself.”
He stamped twice on the floor. A couple of minutes later a door
silently opened and Steve stepped up from the cellar stairs. After one
glance he leaped to Douglas’ side and gripped his hand.
“Hamp!” he gulped. “Ye’re a white man! I ain’t a-goin’ to forgit this.
Jest wait till I git my chance to pay ye some way----”
“Oh, forget it! Man alive, I don’t want any pay. If you owe anything to
anybody it’s to Uncle Eb, not to me. I just blundered in and had a lot
of fun with those fellows. Uncle Eb’s the one to thank.”
“I ain’t a-forgittin’ Uncle Eb--he knows it. But the way ye took
holt----”
“All right, all right, let it slide. But now, if you don’t mind telling
me, what’s it all about? What are those fellows after you for? Don’t
tell me if you don’t want to.”
“Why, don’t ye know? Wal, if that ain’t---- Ye jest went ahead an’
helped me anyways, huh? My Gawd! I didn’t s’pose there was sech folks
into the world.
“It’s this way, Hamp. We pick a lot o’ berries round here into the
summer--not right here into the Traps, but ’way over to Long Pond an’
miles an’ miles further ’long the mount’ins--an’ sell ’em to dealers.
An’ other fellers come from down b’low to do the same--it’d take a hull
army to pick ’em all, they’re so thick. Some o’ them fellers are pretty
hard. An’ when some of us folks from here was pickin’ round Three-Mile
Post, I fit with the Bump boys--three of ’em, brothers, that lived down
’bout a mile outside o’ the Wall over yender, onto the road to Paltz.
“Wal, they licked me--three of ’em, all bigger’n me. They licked me
bad. Course, I was crazy mad, an’ I swore to Gawd I’d come down outen
the Traps some day an’ buckshoot ’em, an’ burn their house an’ I dunno
what all. But there was four weeks more o’ pickin’, an’ the Bumps went
somewheres else, an’ I got cooled off, an’ by the time I got back here
to the Traps I’d made up my mind to leave ’em ’lone. An’ I did.
“Wal, it run ’long awhile, an’ huntin’ season come, an’ then one night
Snake Sanders got me full o’ licker an’ says we’ll go down b’low an’
git us some coons--he knowed where we could git a passel of ’em. I’d
oughter knowed better’n to go anywheres with him, but I was fool ’nough
to go ’long, an’ he gimme more licker, an’ we tromped an’ tromped, an’
I had more licker, an’ so on. An’ then, fust thing I knowed, we was
nigh a house an’ barn, an’ our coon-dog warn’t nowheres round, an’ I
was gittin’ awful drunk. An’ Snake says, ‘Lay down awhile an’ ye’ll
feel better.’ An’ I laid down.
“Then, next I knowed, my gun blew off--_bung bung!_--an’ men was
runnin’ an’ hosses screechin’ an’ the barn was all afire, a-blarin’ out
all round so ’twas light as day. An’ Snake was gone, an’ all to once I
see ’twas the Bump place that was afire, an’ somethin’ told me to git.
So I run as fast as ever I could, never takin’ my gun or nothin’. But
bimeby I was way up the road, an’ it was all dark, an’ I got tired an’
set down to rest. An’ then the licker got a-holt o’ me an’ I went off
to sleep.
“Wal, that was the end o’ me. They found me a-layin’ into the road an’
they pounded me ’most to death an’ drug me out an’ tried me for arson
an’ ’tempted murder an’ I dunno what all. I didn’t have no more chance
than a baby chipmunk into a hawk’s nest. I couldn’t prove nothin’, and
they wouldn’t b’lieve nothin’, an’ they got proof o’ what I’d swore to
do to them Bumps, an’--they gimme the limit.
“An’ these three years I been doin’ time an’ gittin’ knocked round
an’--oh Gawd! An’ Snake, he’s been a-settin’ up here laffin’ at me an’
the Bumps--he was ag’in ’em, I dunno what for, an’ he used me to git
all the blame for burnin’ up their place an’ their hosses an’ pigs
an’ shootin’ Charlie Bump--Charlie he got buckshot into him an’ the
hull place was burnt--an’ I got the limit--but I’ll git him--I’ll git
him----”
He was growing incoherent, his eyes glazing with concentrated hate and
fury. Douglas thumped him repeatedly on the shoulder and broke in on
his talk.
“All right, Steve, all right! Buck up, now! Your turn’s coming--take a
grip on yourself! Keep your head until those bulls leave, and lie low.”
The youth gritted his teeth and swallowed hard.
“I’m a-layin’ low,” he asserted hoarsely. “I’m a-keepin’ my head an’ my
grip. I ain’t a-goin’ back to no pen. But when oncet I git to a gun----”
He swallowed again and pawed with one lean hand at his throat. Douglas
nodded, his own face sombre. Uncle Eb cleared his throat like a gunshot.
“I don’t hold with shootin’ yer enemies,” he erupted. “I never yit
shot at a man, an’ I don’t b’lieve into it. Still an’ all, I dunno
as I blame ye much. But ye got to lay lower than ever now, an’ lay
somewheres else. Snake sent them fellers here--they as good as said
so--an’ they’ll be back, I bet. Come dark, I’ll take ye over into the
rocks. I got some old clo’es an’ a hoss-blankit ye can wrop up into,
an’ I’ll send ye food right ’long reg’lar if Marry’ll take it--she’s
spryer than I be.”
“And I’ll be going now,” Douglas added. “I’m keeping her waiting. She’s
down the road, Steve--wouldn’t walk with me. Take care of yourself--and
of her. So long.”
Before Steve or Uncle Eb could reply he was out of the house. Across
the road he went, pausing a moment to beckon to the stubborn little
red-haired figure which now, walking very slowly, was approaching from
the curve. She made no answering signal, gave no sign that she saw him.
Climbing over the stone wall beyond, he marched away across-lots, face
set stiffly toward the frowning wall of Dickie Barre and the invisible
Clove Road.