THE SUN BREAKS THROUGH
Three days of raw chill, leaden cloud, and numbing wind rolled past.
No more rain fell, but, except by fitful gleams, no sun shone. Through
each gray day the dying leaves fluttered limply down, carpeting the
damp ground thicker and thicker with yellow and crimson and brown.
Through each black night a few hardy survivors of the former myriad of
katydids quacked despairingly, and here and there a cricket sounded a
mournful call to comrades which no longer answered him. Bleak November
was drawing near.
In those gray days Hammerless Hampton ranged the roads, the fields, and
the forest, implacably hunting the man or men who had struck in the
dark at the lay figure representing himself. Time and again he visited
the Oaks house and the Sanders shack. But never did he find his quarry
there. Time and again he was asked, with suspicion verging on anger,
why he kept “a-pesterin’ round.” But he never told.
The manner of both Nigger Nat’s woman and Snake Sanders’ woman became
sullenly hostile. Yet, though their attitude toward him was basically
the same, there was a difference. In the shrewish face and the snappish
answers of the former was revealed worriment for the missing man.
In the lowering countenance and the dogged replies of the latter was
clumsy untruth. The man who studied them both knew that Snake, though
always absent when he came, was present at certain other times; while
Nat had never come home.
Of Marion he saw little. When he did see her it was at her own door,
and few words passed between them. He knew, though, that her active
brain was surmising more or less accurately why he was hunting her
father, and in her sober face he saw grave concern. But the rankling
irritation of the other two women was never visible in her voice or
manner. Whether her sympathies were with him or with her own kin he did
not know.
He did not confine his questioning, however, to these three. Though
he felt it to be useless--and, indeed, found it so--to ask any of the
clansmen for information regarding the two whom he sought, he quizzed
every man he met. The only result was to cause keen interest in his
movements and to spread throughout the mountain bowl the word that he
was “a-huntin’ Nat an’ Snake with blood into his eye.”
Even Uncle Eb gave him no aid. But this time it was not clannishness
nor habitual taciturnity regarding his neighbors that made fruitless
the younger man’s call on him. He really knew nothing of either of the
rascally pair.
“Nor I don’t want to,” he added bluntly. “If ther’s anybody into the
world I don’t want to know nawthin’ ’bout, it’s them fellers. No, I
take that back, now I think onto it. Ther’s one thing I’d like awful
well to know ’bout ’em--that they was both dead. But that’s too good to
come true.”
The old man was standing in his doorway at the time, and his manner
was even more jerky than usual. Douglas, outside, was conscious of the
frank scrutiny of two women at a near-by window--Uncle Eb’s wife and
spinster daughter, both intelligent-looking but decidedly plain of
feature. Uncle Eb, too, seemed aware of listening ears, for he left his
stoop and walked to the road, out of hearing. He asked no question,
but his move was an obvious invitation to tell why Nat and Snake were
wanted. And, briefly, Douglas did.
“The varmints!” Eb muttered fiercely. “The murderin’ snakes! They’d
oughter be shot! Only for ye bein’ away they’d got ye. They’re a-layin’
low now ’cause they know ye’re a-trackin’ ’em. By mighty, boy, ye must
have a good angel a-watchin’ out for ye, sendin’ ye out that day an’
all! Ye’d oughter change yer bed now--mebbe change yer house too. I
ain’t soop’stitious, but ther’ ain’t no good luck into that house o’
Jake’s.”
Douglas wavered, half minded to tell him of his previous change in
sleeping quarters and of the mysterious missive of warning. But he held
his tongue. Such disclosures would do no good. Instead, he shifted the
subject.
“Maybe so, but I’m not moving out yet. By the way, I saw those two
detectives the other day. They say they’ll get what they’re after.”
Uncle Eb scowled. After a glance around he whispered:
“Son, I’m right worried. This is turrible weather for that boy to lay
up into the rocks. He ain’t tough now--he was into the pen three year,
ye know, an’ that weakens a feller--specially us hill fellers that’s
used to lots o’ air. I dasn’t bring him back down here--I dasn’t go
nigh him--for fear them detectives’ll git to him; they been round here
two-three times, a-watchin’ an’ a-layin’ low. But I wisht he could git
under cover some’rs. I hear he’s got a misery onto his chest already.”
The younger man frowned in concern. Comfortably clad though he was,
he felt the raw bite of the air; his ungloved fingers, in fact, were
partly numbed. And Steve, cowering among those clammy bowlders, unable
to risk a fire--why, the boy was barefoot!
“D’ye s’pose, now, ye could toll them fellers out o’ the Traps for
good?” Eb suggested hopefully. “Ye fooled ’em deef, dumb an’ blind that
time they was right onto his back. Mebbe ye could----”
He paused. Douglas reluctantly shook his head.
“Afraid not. They know now that I’m on Steve’s side. It wouldn’t work.
But--I’ll see if I can think of something.”
Dubious as the answer was, Eb’s face showed some relief.
“Do that, son! Think o’ sumpthin’--anythin’--an’ then go do it. I been
a-thinkin’ till I’m all jumpy like, an’ it don’t git me nowheres. Mebbe
I’d oughter let him shift for himself, seein’ he ain’t no relation o’
mine, but I can’t keep my mind offen the boy. He was borned unlucky, ye
might say, an’ he never had much of a chance, an’--I’m right sorry for
him.”
“Born unlucky? How do you mean?”
Uncle Eb glanced sidewise at him; pulled at one end of his walrus
mustache; spat loudly, looked at his windows, and spoke--but did not
answer.
“I got to be gittin’ in. I’m a-gittin’ cold. Uh--do what ye can for the
pore feller. G’by.”
Hastily he lumbered houseward. Douglas stared, laughed shortly at the
awkward rebuff, and sauntered away, unoffended. He knew the old man’s
tongue had been clutched by the hand of habit--the habit of telling no
tales about others; and, in a way, he honored the old fellow for it.
What mattered Steve’s birth, anyway? The real crux was the problem of
his immediate future.
All the way back to his abiding-place that problem bothered him. Night
was not far off now, and the cold was increasing. Looking up at the
chill gray cliffs of Dickie Barre as he passed along the road, he
shivered. What a cheerless refuge for a half-clad boy! Skulking there
alone in a black hole night after night, numbly waiting day after day,
subsisting on cold food smuggled to him by stealth, dreading every
sound, with a growing “misery onto his chest”--he was in a worse prison
than the one from which he had escaped. Beside him, its grisly fingers
perhaps already touching his lungs, lurked the dread spectre of the
hills--Pneumonia. And he, Hampton, though he lived in a haunted house,
had shelter and stove and warmth--and more room than he needed. All at
once he nodded sharply. He knew what he would do.
Before night set in he worked a little while at his back door, which
opened hard and creaked loudly. With his camp-ax he trimmed its edges,
and with gun-oil he lubricated the rusty hinges, until it could swing
easily and silently. After barring it he turned to the window of his
sleeping-room, which hitherto had been wedged so that it would admit
fresh air but nothing else. On this also he labored for a time. When it
would rise with smooth speed he locked it with a short stake and turned
his attention to preparing supper.
“Maybe to-morrow night we’ll have company,” he informed the emptiness.
“Maybe.”
An hour later he was asleep on his aromatic couch, and the whole house
was given up to darkness and silence.
As the black hours wore on, the boards above his head dully gave notice
that the ha’nt was prowling back and forth on its softly thumping
bare heels. Perhaps his subconscious self knew of the movement, but
it did not arouse his sleeping senses--it was only the usual nightly
occurrence. Out in the main room beyond his closed door, too, something
moved about: a silent, hideous, unhuman thing which paused awhile
beside the wooden barrier, then glided elsewhere; a thing which opened
no doors or windows, which neither entered the house nor left it, but
which presently was gone. Of this, too, he knew nothing. The weird
sough of the sepulchral pines behind the house, the proximity of the
mound holding all that was left of the man who had been done to death
here, the steel-slashed rent in the corn-husk mattress beyond the
wall--none of these things troubled him. Tranquilly he slept until
morning light smote softly on his lids and woke him to a new day.
Sun and warmth flooded the Traps when, after breakfast, he emerged into
the open. After the grayness and the numbness of the past few days,
the change was magical. But for the thinly clad branches above and
the sodden wind-blown leaves below, it would have seemed mid-August
instead of late October. In the hot air flies buzzed, bees hummed,
and a resounding chorus throbbed from crickets and katydids defiantly
informing the world that they were not yet dead. And from all sides
drifted the damp fragrance of forest mould and of grass-ground drying
in the heat.
But, as a wandering breeze floated from the region of a bush-bound
little brook beyond the road, it bore into the pleasant aroma of plant
life a vague taint.
Douglas, inhaling the freshness of the morning, half sensed that slight
odor and glanced around. But then the breeze died and he forgot it.
Drawing another great lungful of air, he struck off up the road toward
the Oaks place.
Before he reached it the sound of chopping came to him. As he entered
the yard he found a figure slugging away at a chopping-block with an ax
which seemed dull. It wore a man’s hat, but it also wore a dress. The
hat fell off as he approached, and the sun glowed red in the tumbled
hair suddenly revealed. At the sound of his step the girl wheeled
sharply and, panting and flushed, looked at him.
“No, he ain’t home,” she said before he could speak. “You can run right
’long up to Lou’s.”
She turned from him, picked up another stick of fire-wood, swung the ax
dexterously, and split the fagot clean. Something about her words and
manner gave him a sudden glimpse of her side of that pride-wall which
had stood between them: the side which he had supposed to bear the
face of Steve, but which now seemed to hold something else. He stepped
forward and closed one hand over the ax-helve.
“Look here, Marion,” he said quietly, “I don’t like that.”
“’Tain’t much to me what you like,” she retorted, though with little
heat. “Jest travel ’long.”
“When I’m ready.” He kept his grip on the handle. “But let’s settle
this now. You’ve been acting offish for quite awhile--ever since the
day we talked about art and--and so on, up the brook. I’ve been too
bull-headed to ask you why. But I’m asking you now, straight and
square; and asking you, too, why you keep intimating that Lou is a
particular friend of mine. Now speak up, man to man.”
With steady directness she looked up at him. Wide gray eye and clear
blue eye searched each other to the depths. And then, man to man,
straight from the shoulder, she spoke out.
“I heard ’bout you huggin’ her under the bridge. ’Tain’t any of my
business, only----”
“What’s that? _Hugging?_”
“Yes, sir, huggin’. And pretty hard, too. And that wasn’t much more’n
an hour after--after”--she flushed crimson--“after you--made me--fight
to git my picture. The only difference it makes to me is this: you
couldn’t have much respect for yourself to do it, or for me either.
’Course, I’m only Nigger Nat’s girl, and folks ain’t got much respect
for him or anybody of his, but--but that’s different.”
“I should think so!” he agreed crisply. “Those dirty little gossips who
spied us made a fine tale of it, didn’t they! Well, now, here’s the
exact truth.”
And the exact truth of that incident he gave her. He omitted only to
tell of the woman’s clumsy attempt to lure him and of her appeal for
silver from the lost mine; and these parts he left out only because of
innate chivalry toward even such drab womanhood as Lou’s.
“So that’s all there is to it,” he concluded. “I tried to help her out
but only got her into a worse mess, thanks to lying tongues. Now you
can believe me or those kids, just as you like.”
A little longer the gray eyes held his. Then they fell, and on her lips
dawned the first smile he had seen there in many a long day.
“I’m--I’m glad you come visitin’ this mornin’, even if you are mad at
my pop,” she said softly. “But have we both got to keep holdin’ this
ax?”
“No,” he smiled. “I can hold it alone. Let go.” She obeyed.
“Now I didn’t come hunting your pop to-day,” he went on, “although I’m
on the lookout for him all the time, and---- Tell me, do you care much
about your pop?”
“Well, he’s the onliest pop I’ve got,” she naively reminded him. “But I
don’t care much about him. He’s awful ornery.”
“Quite right. He’s all of that. But we’ll forget him for now. I came
over to-day to ask you to take me to--a friend of ours.” She looked up
quickly. “Uncle Eb tells me he’s sick, and I want to see him. Will you
guide me?”
Dubiously she looked all about. Her whispered reply was hardly audible.
“We’ve got to go careful. The detective fellers, they’re a-watchin’ all
round--mebbe they’re up into some of these trees right now. But--can
you help him some way?”
“I’m going to try.”
“All right, we’ll go. Cut me a little more wood while I take this into
the house. Mom, she’s abed yet; she don’t feel good this mornin’. But
she ain’t real sick. We’ll go pretty quick.”
With another smile at him she gathered up wood and hastened in. And
Hammerless Hampton set his gun against the wall and looked around,
marveling at the brightness of the sun and the sweetness of the air
and the cheeriness of the birds. Even the harsh cries of the bluejays
in the woods sounded musical. In all the Traps at that moment he could
perceive not one discordant note of sound or color. Indeed, something
disagreeable seemed magically to have vanished from the world, and it
was good to be alive.
And something had vanished: something nebulous, intangible, yet real
and rock-hard: the two-sided wall of Pride. And Douglas, feeling that
all was well with the universe, began lustily swinging the ax in the
service of the girl who was glad he had come visiting.