"I get afraid when you leave me alone this way at night."
The big man, Tolliver, patted his wife's head. His coarse laughter was
meant to reassure, but, as he glanced about the living-room of his
remote and cheerless house, his eyes were uneasy. The little boy, just
six years old, crouched by the cook-stove, whimpering over the remains
of his supper.
"What are you afraid of?" Tolliver scoffed.
The stagnant loneliness, the perpetual drudgery, had not yet conquered
his wife's beauty, dark and desirable. She motioned towards the boy.
"He's afraid, too, when the sun goes down."
For a time Tolliver listened to the wind, which assaulted the frame
house with the furious voices of witches demanding admittance.
"It's that----" he commenced.
She cut him short, almost angrily.
"It isn't that with me," she whispered.
He lifted the tin pail that contained a small bottle of coffee and some
sandwiches. He started for the door, but she ran after him, dragging at
his arm.
"Don't go! I'm afraid!"
The child was quiet now, staring at them with round, reflective eyes.
"Joe," Tolliver said gently, "will be sore if I don't relieve him on
time."
She pressed her head against his coat and clung tighter. He closed his
eyes.
"You're afraid of Joe," he said wearily.
Without looking up, she nodded. Her voice was muffled.
"He came last night after you relieved him at the tower. He knocked, and
I wouldn't let him in. It made him mad. He swore. He threatened. He said
he'd come back. He said he'd show us we couldn't kick him out of the
house just because he couldn't help liking me. We never ought to have
let him board here at all."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I was afraid you'd be fighting each other in the tower; and it didn't
seem so bad until dark came on. Why didn't you complain to the railroad
when--when he tried to kiss me the other night?"
"I thought that was finished," Tolliver answered slowly, "when I kicked
him out, when I told him I'd punish him if he bothered you again. And
I--I was a little ashamed to complain to the superintendent about that.
Don't you worry about Joe, Sally, I'll talk to him now, before I let him
out of the tower. He's due to relieve me again at midnight, and I'll be
home then."
He put on his great coat. He pulled his cap over his ears. The child
spoke in a high, apprehensive voice.
"Don't go away, papa."
He stared at the child, considering.
"Put his things on, Sally," he directed at last.
"What for?"
"I'll send him back from the tower with something that will make you
feel easier."
Her eyes brightened.
"Isn't that against the rules?"
"Guess I can afford to break one for a change," he said. "I'm not likely
to need it myself to-night. Come, Sonny."
The child shrank in the corner, his pudgy hands raised defensively.
"It's only a little ways, and Sonny can run home fast," his mother
coaxed.
Against his ineffective reluctance she put on his coat and hat. Tolliver
took the child by the hand and led him, sobbing unevenly, into the
wind-haunted darkness. The father chatted encouragingly, pointing to two
or three lights, scattered, barely visible; beacons that marked
unprofitable farms.
It was, in fact, only a short distance to the single track railroad and
the signal tower, near one end of a long siding. In the heavy,
boisterous night the yellow glow from the upper windows, and the red and
green of the switch lamps, close to the ground, had a festive
appearance. The child's sobs drifted away. His father swung him in his
arms, entered the tower, and climbed the stairs. Above, feet stirred
restlessly. A surly voice came down.
"Here at last, eh?"
When Tolliver's head was above the level of the flooring he could see
the switch levers, and the table, gleaming with the telegraph
instruments, and dull with untidy clips of yellow paper; but the detail
that held him was the gross, expectant face of Joe.
Joe was as large as Tolliver, and younger. From that commanding
position, he appeared gigantic.
"Cutting it pretty fine," he grumbled.
Tolliver came on up, set the child down, and took off his overcoat.
"Fact is," he drawled, "I got held back a minute--sort of unexpected."
His eyes fixed the impatient man.
"What you planning to do, Joe, between now and relieving me at
midnight?"
Joe shifted his feet.
"Don't know," he said uncomfortably. "What you bring the kid for? Want
me to drop him at the house?"
Tolliver shook his head. He placed his hands on his hips.
"That's one thing I want to say to you, Joe. Just you keep away from the
house. Thought you understood that when you got fresh with Sally the
other night."
Joe's face flushed angrily.
"Guess I was a fool to say I was sorry about that. Guess I got to teach
you I got a right to go where I please."
Tolliver shook his head.
"Not to our house, if we don't want you."
The other leered.
"You so darned sure Sally don't want me?"
Impulsively Tolliver stepped forward, closing his fists.
"You drop that sort of talk, or----"
Joe interrupted, laughing.
"One thing's sure, Tolliver. If it came to a fight between me and you
I'd be almost ashamed to hit you."
Through his passion Tolliver recognized the justice of that appraisal.
Physically he was no match for the younger man.
"Things," he said softly, "are getting so we can't work here together."
"Then," Joe flung back, as he went down the stairs, "you'd better be
looking for another job."
Tolliver sighed, turning to the table. The boy played there, fumbling
with the yellow forms. Tolliver glanced at the top one. He called out
quickly to the departing man.
"What's this special, Joe?"
The other's feet stumped on the stairs again.
"Forgot," he said as his head came through the trap. "Some big-wigs
coming through on a special train along about midnight. Division
headquarters got nothing definite yet, but figure we'll have to get her
past thirty-three somewheres on this stretch. So keep awake."
Tolliver with an increasing anxiety continued to examine the yellow
slips.
"And thirty-three's late, and still losing."
Joe nodded.
"Makes it sort of uncertain."
"Seems to me," Tolliver said, "you might have mentioned it."
"Maybe," Joe sneered, "you'd like me to stay and do your job."
He went down the stairs and slammed the lower door.
Tolliver studied the slips, his ears alert for the rattling of the
telegraph sounder. After a time he replaced the file on the table and
looked up. The boy, quite contented now in the warm, interesting room,
stretched his fingers towards the sending key, with the air of a culprit
dazzled into attempting an incredible crime.
"Hands off, Sonny!" Tolliver said kindly. "You must run back to mother
now."
He opened a drawer beneath the table and drew out a polished
six-shooter--railroad property, designed for the defense of the tower
against tramps or bandits. The boy reached his hand eagerly for it. His
father shook his head.
"Not to play with, Sonny. That's for business. If you promise not to
touch it 'till you get home and hand it to mama, to-morrow I'll give you
a nickel."
The child nodded. Tolliver placed the revolver in the side pocket of the
little overcoat, and, the boy following him, went down stairs.
"You run home fast as you can," Tolliver directed. "Don't you be afraid.
I'll stand right here in the door 'till you get there. Nothing shall
hurt you."
The child glanced back at the festive lights with an anguished
hesitation. Tolliver had to thrust him away from the tower.
"A nickel in the morning----" he bribed.
The child commenced to run. Long after he had disappeared the troubled
man heard the sound of tiny feet scuffling with panic along the road to
home.
When the sound had died away Tolliver slammed the door and climbed the
stairs. He studied the yellow slips again, striving to fix in his mind
this problem, involving the safety of numerous human beings, that would
probably become his. He had a fear of abnormal changes in the schedule.
It had been impressed upon every signalman that thirty-three was the
road's most precious responsibility. It was the only solid Pullman train
that passed over the division. This time of year it ran crowded and was
erratic; more often than not, late. That fact created few difficulties
on an ordinary night; but, combined with such uncertainty of schedule,
it worried the entire division, undoubtedly, to have running, also on an
uncertain schedule, and in the opposite direction on that single track,
an eager special carrying important men. The superintendent, of course,
would want to get those flashy trains past each other without delay to
either. That was why these lonely towers, without receiving definite
instructions yet, had been warned to increase watchfulness.
Tolliver's restlessness grew. He hoped the meeting would take place
after Joe had relieved him, or else to the north or south.
It was difficult, moreover, for him to fix his mind to-night on his
professional responsibility. His duty towards his family was so much
more compelling. While he sat here, listening to every word beaten out
by the sounder, he pictured his wife and son, alone in the little house
nearly a half a mile away. And he wondered, while he, their only
protector, was imprisoned, what Joe was up to.
Joe must have been drunk when he tried to get in the house last night.
Had he been drinking to-night?
The sounder jarred rapidly.
"LR. LR. LR."
That was for the tower to the north. It was hard to tell from Joe's
manner. Perhaps that would account for his not having called attention
to the approaching presence of the special on the division.
Pound. Pound. Pound. The hard striking of the metal had the effect of a
trip-hammer on his brain.
"Allen reports special left Oldtown at 9.45."
Joe had certainly been drinking that night last week when he had got
fresh with Sally.
"Thirty-three still losing south of Anderson."
He jotted the words down and sent his O.K.'s while his head, it seemed
to him, recoiled physically from each rapid stroke of the little brass
bar.
Sonny, sent by his mother, had come to tell him that night, panting up
the stairs, his eyes wide and excited. Tolliver had looked from the
window towards his home, his face flushed, his fists clenched, his heart
almost choking him. Then he had seen Joe, loafing along the road in the
moonlight, and he had relaxed, scarcely aware of the abominable choice
he had faced.
"NT. NT. NT."
His own call. Tolliver shrank from the sharp blows. He forced himself to
a minute attention. It was division headquarters.
"Holding twenty-one here until thirty-three and the special have
cleared."
Twenty-one was a freight. It was a relief to have that off the road for
the emergency. He lay back when the striking at his head had ceased.
It was unfortunate that Joe and he alone should be employed at the
tower. Relieving each other at regular intervals, they had never been at
the house together. Either Tolliver had been there alone with his wife
and his son--or Joe had been. The two men had seen each other too
little, only momentarily in this busy room. They didn't really know each
other.
"LR. LR. LR."
Tolliver shook his head savagely. It had been a mistake letting Joe
board with them at all. Any man would fall in love with Sally. Yet
Tolliver had thought after that definite quarrel Joe would have known
his place; the danger would have ended.
It was probably this drinking at the country inn where Joe lived now
that had made the man brood. The inn was too small and removed to
attract the revenue officers, and the liquid manufactured and sold there
was designed to make a man daring, irrational, deadly.
Tolliver shrank from the assaults of the sounder.