Billy was doing some rapid thinking while he stood motionless in the
bushes. It seemed a half hour, but in reality it was but a few seconds
before he heard a low whistle. The men piled rapidly into the car with
furtive looks on either side into the dark.
Billy gave a wavering glance toward the looming house in the darkness
where the motionless figure had been left. Was it a dead man lying there
alone, or was he only doped. But what could he do in the dark without
tools or flash? He decided to stick with the machine, for he had no
desire to foot it home, and anyway, with his bicycle he would be far
more independent. Besides, there was the perfectly good automobile to
think about. If the man was dead he couldn't be any deader. If he was
only doped it would be some time before he came to, and before these
keepers could get back he would have time to do something. Billy never
doubted his responsibility in the matter. It was only a question of
expediency. If he could just “get these guys with the goods on them,” he
would be perfectly satisfied.
He made a dash for his seat at the back while the car was turning, and
they were off at a brisk pace down the mountain, not waiting this time
to double on their tracks, but splashing through the Creek only once and
on up to the road again.
Like an uneasy fever in his veins meantime, went and came a vision of
that limp inert figure of the man being carried into the haunted
house as it stood out in the flare of the flash light, one arm hanging
heavily. What did that hand and arm remind him of? Oh--h! The time when
Mark was knocked cold at the Thanksgiving Day Football game last year.
Mark's hand and arm had looked like that--he had held his fingers like
that--when they picked him up. Mark had the base-ball hand! Of course
that rich guy might have been an athlete too, they were sometimes. And
of course Mark was right now at home and in bed, where Billy wished
he was also, but somehow the memory of that still dark “knocked cold”
attitude, and that hanging hand and arm would not leave him. He frowned
in the dark and wished this business was over. Mark was the only living
soul Billy felt he could ever tell about this night's escapade, and he
wasn't sure he could tell him, but he knew if he did that Mark would
understand.
Billy watched anxiously for a streak of light in the East, but none had
come as yet. The moon had left the earth darker than darkness when it
went.
He tried to think what he should do. His bicycle was lying in the bushes
and he ought to get it before daylight. If they went near the station he
would drop off and pick it up. Then he would scuttle through the woods
and get to the Crossroads, and beat it down to the Blue Duck Tavern.
That was the only place open all night where he could telephone. He
didn't like to go to the Blue Duck Tavern on account of his aunt. She
had once made him promise most solemnly, bringing in something about his
dead mother, that he would never go to the Blue Duck Tavern. But this
was a case of necessity, and dead mothers, if they cared at all, ought
to understand. He had a deep underlying faith in the principle of what
a mother--at any rate a dead mother--would be like. And anyhow, this
wasn't the kind of “going” to the Tavern his aunt had meant. He was
keeping the spirit of the promise if not the letter. In his code the
spirit meant much more than the letter--at least on this occasion.
There were often times when he rigidly adhered to the letter and let the
spirit take care of itself, but this was not one.
But if, on the other hand they did not take Pat all the way back to the
crossing by the station it would be even better for him, for the road on
which they now were passed within a quarter of a mile of the Blue Duck
Tavern, and he could easily beat the car to the state line, by dropping
off and running.
But suddenly and without warning it became apparent that Pat was to be
let out to walk to the station crossing, and Billy had only a second to
decide what to do, while Pat lumbered swearing down from the car. If he
got off now he would have to wait till Pat was far ahead before he dared
go after his wheel, and he would lose so much time there would be no use
in trying to save the car. On the other hand if he stayed on the car he
was liable to be seen by Pat, and perhaps caught. However, this seemed
the only possible way to keep the car from destruction and loss, so he
wriggled himself into his seat more firmly, tucked his legs painfully
up under him, covered his face with his cap, and hid his hands in his
pockets.
“You've plenty of time,” raged Pat, “You've only a little five miles
run left. It's a good half hour before light. You're a pair of cowards,
that's whut ye are, and so I'll tell Sam. If I get fired fer not being
there fer the early milk train, there'll be no more fat jobs fer youse.
Now be sure ye do as you're told. Leave the car in the first field
beyond the woods after ye cross the state line, lift yer flash light
and wink three times, count three slow, and wink three times more. _Then
beat it!_ And doncha ferget to go feed that guy! We don't want he should
die on us.”
The engine began to mutter. Pat with a farewell string of oaths rolled
off down the road, too sleepy to look behind, and Billy held his breath
and ducked low till the rolling Pat was one with the deep gray of the
morning.
The first streak of light was beginning to show in the East, and the
all-night revellers at the Blue Duck were in the last stages of going
home after a more than usually exciting season, when Billy like the
hardened promise-breaker he felt himself to be, boldly slid in at the
door and disappeared inside the telephone booth behind the last row of
tables in the corner. For leave it to a boy, even though he be not a
frequenter of a place, to know where everything needful is to be found!
He had to wait several minutes to get the Chief of Police in Economy,
and while he waited two gaunt habitues of the Tavern slid into seats at
the table to the left of the booth, ordered drinks and began to discuss
something in a low tone. Billy paid no heed till he happened to hear his
friend's name:
“Yep, I seen Mark come in with Cherry early in the evening. He set right
over there and gotter some drink. The girl was mad because he wouldn't
get her what she wanted to drink. I happened to be settin' direckly in
front and I heard her gassin' about it. She tossed her head and made her
eyes look little and ugly like a pig, and once she got up to go, and he
grabbed her hands and made her set down; and just set there fer sometime
alookin' at her hard an' holdin' her han's and chewin' the rag at her.
I don't know what all they was sayin,' fer he talked mighty low, an'
Ike called me to take a hand in the game over tother side the room, so
I didn't know no more till I see him an' Cherry beatin' it out the side
door, an' Dolphin standin' over acrost by the desk lampin' 'em with his
ugly look, an' pretty quick, Dolph he slid out the other door an' was
gone quite some time. When he come back Cherry was with him, laughin'
and makin' eyes, and vampin' away like she always does, an' him an' her
danced a lot after that--”
A voice on the end of the wire broke in upon this amazing conversation,
and Billy with difficulty adjusted his jaded mind, to the matter in
hand:
“'Z'is the Chief? Say, Chief, a coupla guys stole a
machine--Holes-Mowbrays--license number 6362656-W--Got that? New York
tag. They're on their way over to the State Line beyond the Cross Roads.
They're gonta run her in the field just beyond the woods, you know.
They're gonta give a flash light signal to their pal, three winks, count
three slow, and three winks more, and then beat it. Then some guy is
gonta wreck the machine. It's up to you and your men to hold the machine
till I get the owner there. He don't know it's pinched yet, but I know
where to find him, an' he'll have the license and can identify it.
Where'll I find you? Station House? 'Conomy? Sure! I'll be there soon's
I get'im. What's that? I? Oh, I'm just a kid that happened to get wise.
My name? Oh rats! That don't cut any ice now! You get on yer job! They
must be almost there by now. I gotta beat it! Gub-bye!”
Billy was all there even if he had been up all night. He hung up with
a click, for he was anxious to hear what the men were saying. They had
finished their glasses and were preparing to leave. The old one was
gabbling on in a querrilous gossipy tone:
“Well, it'll go hard with Mark Carter if the man dies. Everybody knows
he was here, and unless he can prove an alibi--!”
They were crawling reluctantly out of their haunts now, and Billy could
catch but one more sentence:
“Well, I'm sorry fer his ma. I used to go to school with Mrs. Carter
when we were kids.”
They were gone out and the room suddenly showed empty. The waiter was
fastening the shutters. In a moment more he would be locked in. Billy
made a silent dash among the tables and slid out the door while the
waiter's back was turned. The two men were ambling slowly down the road
toward Economy. Billy started on a dead run. His rubber soled shoes made
no echo and he was too light on his feet to make a thud. He disappeared
into the grayness like a spirit. He had more cause than ever now for
hurry. Mark! Mark! His beloved Mark Carter! What must he do about it?
Must he tell Mark? Or did Mark perhaps know? What had happened anyway?
There had evidently been a shooting. That Cherry Fenner was mixed up in
it. Billy knew her only by sight. She always grinned at him and said:
“Hello, Billee!” in her pretty dimpled way. He didn't care for her
himself. He had accepted her as a part of life, a necessary evil. She
wore her hair queer, and had very short tight skirts, and high heels.
She painted her face and vamped, but that was her affair. He had
heretofore tolerated her because she seemed in some way to be under
Mark Carter's recent protection. Therefore he had growled “Ello!” grimly
whenever she accosted him and let it go at that. If it had come to
a show down he would have stood up for her because he knew that Mark
would, that was all. Mark knew his own business. Far be it from Billy to
criticize his hero's reasons. Perhaps it was one of Mark's weaknesses.
It was up to him. That was the code of a “white man” as Billy had
learned it from “the fellas.”
But this was a different matter. This involved Mark's honor. It was up
to him to find Mark!
Billy did not take the High road down from his detour. He cut across
below the Crossroads, over rough ground, among the underbrush, and
parting the low growing trees was lost in the gloom of the woods. But he
knew every inch of ground within twenty miles around, and darkness
did not take away his sense of direction. He crashed along among the
branches, making steady headway toward the spot where he had left his
bicycle, puffing and panting, his face streaked with dirt, his eyes
bleared and haggard, his whole lithe young body straining forward and
fighting against the dire weariness that was upon him, for it was not
often that he stayed up all night. Aunt Saxon saw to that much at least.
The sky was growing rosy now, and he could hear the rumbling of the milk
train. It was late. Pat would not lose his job this time, for he must
have had plenty of time to get back to the station. Billy wormed himself
under cover as the train approached, and bided his time. Cautiously,
peering from behind the huckleberry growth, he watched Pat slamming the
milk cans around. He could see his bicycle lying like a dark skeleton of
a thing against the gravel bank. It was lucky he got there before day,
for Pat would have been sure to see it, and it might have given him an
idea that Billy had gone with the automobile.
The milk train came suddenly in sight through the tunnel, like a lighted
thread going through a needle. It rumbled up to the station. There was a
rattling of milk cans, empty ones being put on, full cans being put off,
grumbling of Pat at the train hands, loud retorts of the train hands,
the engine puffed and wheezed like a fat old lady going upstairs
and stopping on every landing to rest. Then slamming of car doors, a
whistle, the snort of the engine as it took up its way again out toward
the rosy sky, its headlight weird like a sick candle against the dawn,
its tail light winking with a leer and mocking at the mountains as it
clattered away like a row of gray ducks lifting webbed feet and flinging
back space to the station.
Pat rolled the loaded truck to the other platform ready for the Lake
train at seven, and went in to a much needed rest. He slammed the door
with a finality that gave Billy relief. The boy waited a moment more
in the gathering dawn, and then made a dash for the open, salvaging his
bicycle, and diving back into the undergrowth.
For a quarter of a mile he and the wheel like two comrades raced under
branches, and threaded their way between trees. Then he came out into
the Highroad and mounting his wheel rode into the world just as the sun
shot up and touched the day with wonder.
He rode into the silent sleeping village of Sabbath Valley just as the
bells from the church chimed out gently, as bells should do on a Sabbath
morning when people are at rest, “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”
Sabbath Valley looked great as he pedalled silently down the street.
Even the old squeak of the back wheel seemed to be holding its breath
for the occasion.
He coasted past the church and down the gentle incline in front of the
parsonage and Joneses, and the Littles and Browns and Gibsons. Like a
shadow of the night passing he slid past the Fowlers and Tiptons and
Duncannons, and fastened his eyes on the little white fence with the
white pillared gate where Mrs. Carter lived. Was that a light in the
kitchen window? And the barn that Mark used for his garage when he was
at home, was the door open? He couldn't quite see for the cyringa bush
hid it from the road. With a furtive glance up and down the street he
wheeled in at the driveway, and rode up under the shadow of the green
shuttered white house.
He dismounted silently, stealthily, rested his wheel against the trunk
of a cherry tree, and with keen eyes for every window, glanced up to
the open one above which he knew belonged to Mark's room. Strong grimy
fingers went to his lips and a low cautious whistle, more like a bird
call issued forth, musical as any wild note.
The white muslin curtains wavered back and forth in the summer breeze,
and for a moment he thought a head was about to appear for a soft
stirring noise had seemed to move within the house somewhere, but the
curtains swayed on and no Mark appeared. Then he suddenly was aware of a
white face confronting him at the downstairs window directly opposite
to him, white and scared and--was it accusing? And suddenly he began to
tremble. Not all the events of the night had made him tremble, but now
he trembled, it was Mark's mother, and she had pink rims to her eyes,
and little damp crimples around her mouth and eyes for all the world
like Aunt Saxon's. She looked--she looked exactly as though she had not
slept all night. Her nose was thin and red, and her eyes had that awful
blue that eyes get that have been much washed with tears. The soft waves
of her hair drooped thinly, and the coil behind showed more threads of
silver than of brown in the morning sun that shot through the branches
of the cherry tree. She had a frightened look, as if Billy had brought
some awful news, or as if it was his fault, he could not tell which, and
he began to feel that choking sensation and that goneness in the pit of
his stomach that Aunt Saxon always gave him when she looked frightened
at something he had done or was going to do. Added to this was that
sudden premonition, and a memory of that drooping still figure in the
dark up on the mountain.
Mrs. Carter sat down the candle on a shelf and raised the window:
“Is that you Billy?” she asked, and there were tears in her voice.
Billy had a brief appalling revelation of Mothers the world over. Did
all Mothers--women--act like that when they were _fools_? Fools is what
he called them in his mind. Yet in spite of himself and his rage and
trembling he felt a sudden tenderness for this crumply, tired, ghastly
little pink rimmed mother, apprehensive of the worst as was plain to
see. Billy recalled like a flash the old man at the Blue Duck saying,
“I'm sorry for his ma. I used to go to school with her.” He looked at
the faded face with the pink rims and trembling lips and had a vision of
a brown haired little girl at a desk, and old Si Appleby a teasing boy
in the desk opposite. It came over him that some day he would be an old
man somewhere telling how he went to school--! And then he asked:
“Where's Mark? Up yet?”
She shook her head apprehensively, withholdingly.
Billy had a thought that perhaps some one had beat him to it with news
from the Blue Duck, but he put it from him. There were tears in her eyes
and one was straggling down between the crimples of her cheeks where it
looked as if she had lain on the folds of her handkerchief all night.
There came a new tenderness in his voice. This was _Mark's_ mother, and
this was the way she felt. Well, of course it was silly, but she was
Mark's _mother_.
“Man up the mountain had n'accident. I thought Mark ud he'p. He always
does,” explained Billy awkwardly with a feeling that he ought to account
for his early visit.
“Yes, of course, Mark would like to help!” purred his mother comforted
at the very thought of every day life and Mark going about as usual,
“But--” and the apprehension flew into her eyes again, “He isn't home.
Billy, he hasn't come home at all last night! I'm frightened to death!
I've sat up all night! I can't think what's happened--! There's so many
hold-ups and Mark will carry his money loose in his trousers pocket--!”
Billy blanched but lied beautifully up to the occasion even as he would
have liked to have somebody lie for him to Aunt Saxon:
“Aw! That's nothing! Doncha worry. He tol' me he might have t'stay down
t'Unity all night. There's a fella down there that likes him a lot, an'
they had somekinduva blowout in their church last night. He mightuv had
ta take some girl home out of town ya know, and stayed over with the
fella.”
Mrs. Carter's face relaxed a shade:
“Yes, I've tried to think that--!”
“Well, doncha worry, Mizz Carter, I'll lookim up fer ya, I know 'bout
where he might be.”
“Oh, thank you Billy,” her face wreathed in wavering smiles brought
another thought of school days and life and how queer it was that grown
folks had been children sometime and children had to be grown folks.
“Billy, Mark likes you very much. I'm sure he won't mind your knowing
that I'm worried, but you know how boys don't like to have their mothers
worry, so you needn't say anything to Mark that I said I was worried,
need you? You understand Billy. I'm not _really_ worried you know. Mark
was always a good boy.”
“Aw sure!” said Billy with a knowing wink. “He's a prince! You leave it
t'me, Mizz Carter!”
“Thank you, Billy. I'll do something for you sometime. But how's it come
you're up so early? You haven't had your breakfast yet have you?”
She eyed his weary young face with a motherly anxiety:
“Naw, I didn't have no time to stop fer breakfast,” Billy spoke
importantly, “Got this call about the sick guy and had to beat it. Say,
you don't happen to know Mark's license number do you? It might help
a lot, savin' time 'f'I could tell his car at sight. Save stoppin' to
ast.”
“Well, now, I don't really--” said the woman ruminatively, “let me see.
There was six and six, there were a lot of sixes if I remember--”
“Oh, well, it don't matter--” Billy grasped his wheel and prepared to
leave.
“Wait, Billy, you must have something to eat--”
“Aw, naw, I can't wait! Gotta beat it! Might miss 'im!”
“Well, just a bite. Here, I'll get you some cookies!”
She vanished, and he realized for the first time that he was hungry.
Cookies sounded good.
She returned with a brimming glass of milk and a plate of cookies. She
stuffed the cookies in his pockets, while he drank the milk.
“Say,--” said he after a long sweet draught of the foaming milk, “Ya,
aint got enny more you cud spare fer that sick guy, have ya? Wait, I'll
save this. Got a bottle?”
“Indeed you won't, Billy Gaston. You just drink that every drop. I'll
get you another bottle to take with you. I got extra last night 'count
of Mark being home, and then he didn't drink it. He always likes a drink
of milk last thing before he goes to bed.”
She vanished and returned with a quart of milk cold off the ice. She
wrapped it well with newspapers, and Billy packed it safely into the
little basket on his wheel. Then he bethought him of another need.
“Say, m'y I go inta the g'rage an' get a screw driver? Screw loose on
m'wheel.”
She nodded and he vanished into the open barn door. Well he knew where
Mark kept his tools. He picked out a small pointed saw, a neat little
auger and a file and stowed them hurriedly under the milk bottle. Thus
reinforced without and within, he mounted his faithful steed and sped
away to the hills.
The morning sun had shot up several degrees during his delay, and
Sabbath Valley lay like a thing new born in its glory. On the belfry a
purple dove sat glistening, green and gold ripples on her neck, turning
her head proudly from side to side as Billy rode by, and when he topped
the first hill across the valley the bells rang out six sweet strokes
as if to remind him that Sunday School was not far off and he must hurry
back. But Billy was trying to think how he should get into that locked
house, and wondering whether the kidnappers would have returned to
feed their captive yet. He realized that he must be wary, although his
instinct told him that they would wait for dark, besides, he had hopes
that they might have been “pinched.”
Nevertheless he approached the old house cautiously, skirting the
mountain to avoid Pleasant Valley, and walking a mile or two through
thick undergrowth, sometimes with difficulty propelling the faithful
machine.
Arrived in sight he studied the surroundings carefully, harbored his
wheel where it would not be discovered and was yet easily available, and
after reconnoitering stole out of covert.
The house stood gaunt and grim against the smiling morning. Its
shuttered windows giving an expression of blindness or the repellant
mask of death. A dead house, that was what it was. Its doors and windows
closed on the tragedy that had been enacted within its massive stone
walls. It seemed more like a fortress than a house where warm human
faces had once looked forth, and where laughter and pleasant words had
once sounded out. To pass it had always stirred a sense of mystery and
weirdness. To approach it thus with the intention of entering to find
that still limp figure of a man gave a most overpowering sense of awe.
Billy looked up with wide eyes, the deep shadows under them standing out
in the clear light of the morning and giving him a strangely old aspect
as if he had jumped over at least ten years during the night. Warily he
circled the house, keeping close to the shrubbery at first and listening
as a squirrel might have done, then gradually drawing nearer. He noticed
that the down stairs shutters were solid iron with a little half moon
peep hole at the top. Those upstairs were solid below and fitted with
slats above, but the slats were closed of all the front windows, and all
but two of the back ones, which were turned upward so that one could
not see the glass. The doors, both back and front, were locked, and
unshakable, of solid oak and very thick. A Yale lock with a new look
gave all entrance at the front an impossible look. The back door was
equally impregnable unless he set to work with his auger and saw and
took out a heavy oak panel.
He got down to the ground and began to examine the cellar windows. They
seemed to be fitted with iron bars set into the solid masonry. He went
all around the house and found each one unshakable, until he reached the
last at the back. There he found a bit of stone cracked and loosened
and it gave him an idea. He set to work with his few tools, and finally
succeeded in loosening one rusted bar. He was much hindered in his work
by the necessity of keeping a constant watch out, and by his attempts to
be quiet. There was no telling when Link and Shorty might come to feed
their captive and he must not be discovered.
It was slow work picking away at the stone, filing away at the rusty
iron, but the bars were so close together that three must be removed
before he could hope to crawl through, and even then he might be able to
get no further than the cellar. The guy that fixed this house up for a
prison knew what he was about.
Faintly across the mountains came the echo of bells, or were they in the
boy's own soul? He worked away in the hot sun, the perspiration rolling
down his weary dirty face, and sometimes his soul fainted within him.
Bells, and the sweet quiet church with the pleasant daily faces about
and the hum of Sunday School beginning! How far away that all seemed
to him now as he filed and picked, and sweated, and kept up a strange
something in his soul half yearning, half fierce dread, that might have
been like praying only the burden of its yearning seemed to be expressed
in but a single word, “Mark! Mark!”
At last the third bar came loose and with a great sigh that was almost
like a sob, the boy tore it out, and cleared the way. Then carefully
gathering his effects, tools, milk bottle and cap together, he let them
down into the dungeon-like blackness of the cellar, and crept in after
them, taking the precaution to set up in place the iron bars once more
and leave no trace of his entrance.
Pausing cautiously to listen he ventured to strike a match, mentally
belaboring himself at the wasteful way in which he had always used his
flash light which was now so much needed and out of commission. The
cellar was large, running under the whole house, with heavy rafters and
looming coal pits. A scurrying rat started a few lumps of coal in the
slide, and a cobwebby rope hung ominously from one cross beam, giving
him a passing shudder. It seemed as if the spirit of the past had arisen
to challenge his entrance thus. He took a few steps forward toward a dim
staircase he sighted at the farther end, and then a sudden noise sent
his heart beating fast. He extinguished the match and stood in the
darkness listening with straining ears. That was surely a step he heard
on the floor above!