Mrs. Brenner would not give up.
"You saw your pa this afternoon, Tobey?" she coached him softly.
He nodded.
"Where'd you see him?" she breathed.
He frowned. "I--I saw pa----" he began, straining to pierce the cloud
that covered him.
"Blood! Blood!" shrieked old Mrs. Brenner. She half-rose, her head
thrust forward on her shriveled neck.
Tobey paused, confused. "I dunno," he said.
"Did he give you the pretty bright thing? And did he give you the ax--"
she paused and repeated the word loudly--"the ax to bring home?"
Tobey caught at the word. "The ax?" he cried. "The ax! Ugh! It was all
sticky!" He shuddered.
"Did pa give you the ax?"
But the cloud had settled. Tobey shook his head. "I dunno," he repeated
his feeble denial.
Munn advanced. "No use, Mrs. Brenner, you see. Tobey, you'll have to
come along with us."
Even to Tobey's brain some of the strain in the atmosphere must have
penetrated, for he drew back. "Naw," he protested sulkily, "I don't want
to."
Dick Roamer stepped to his side. He laid his hand on Tobey's arm. "Come
along," he urged.
Mrs. Brenner gave a smothered gasp. Tobey woke to terror. He turned to
run. In an instant the men surrounded him. Trapped, he stood still, his
head lowered in his shoulders.
"Ma!" he screamed suddenly. "Ma! I don't want to go! Ma!"
He fell on his knees. Heavy childish sobs racked him. Deserted,
terrified, he called upon the only friend he knew.
"Ma! Please, Ma!"
Munn lifted him up. Dick Roamer helped him, and between them they drew
him to the door, his heart-broken calls and cries piercing every corner
of the room.
They whisked him out of Mrs. Brenner's sight as quickly as they could.
The other men piled out of the door, blocking the last vision of her
son, but his bleating cries came shrilling back on the foggy air.
Mart closed the door. Mrs. Brenner stood where she had been when Tobey
had first felt the closing of the trap and had started to run. She
looked as though she might have been carved there. Her light breath
seemed to do little more than lift her flat chest.
Mart turned from the door. His eyes glittered. He advanced upon her
hungrily like a huge cat upon an enchanted mouse.
"So you thought you'd yelp on me, did you?" he snarled, licking his
lips. "Thought you'd put me away, didn't you? Get me behind the bars,
eh?"
"Blood!" moaned the old woman in the corner. "Blood!"
Mart strode to the table, pulling out from the bosom of his shirt a
lumpy package wrapped in his handkerchief. He threw it down on the
table. It fell heavily with a sharp ringing of coins.
"But I fooled you this time! Mart wasn't so dull this time, eh?" He
turned toward her again.
Between them, disturbed in his resting-place on the table, the big
bruised yellow butterfly raised himself on his sweeping wings.
Mart drew back a little. The butterfly flew toward Olga and brushed her
face with a velvety softness.
Then Brenner lurched toward her, his face black with fury, his arm
upraised. She stood still, looking at him with wide eyes in which a
gleam of light showed.
"You devil!" she said, in a little, whispering voice. "You killed that
man! You gave Tobey the watch and the ax! You changed shoes with him!
You devil! You devil!"
He drew back for a blow. She did not move. Instead she mocked him,
trying to smile.
"You whelp!" she taunted him. "Go on and hit me! I ain't running! And if
you don't break me to bits I'm going to the sheriff and I'll tell him
what you said to me just now. And he'll wonder how you got all that
money in your pockets. He knows we're as poor as church-mice. How you
going to explain what you got?"
"I ain't going to be such a fool as to keep it on me!" Mart crowed with
venomous mirth. "You nor the sheriff nor any one won't find it where I'm
going to put it!"
The broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of
exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you, Mart!"
she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you for Tobey!
You didn't think I could do it, did you? I'll show you! You're trapped,
I tell you! And I done it!"
She watched Mart swing around to search the room and the blank window
with apprehensive eyes. She sensed his eerie dread of the unseen. He
couldn't see any one. He couldn't hear a sound. She saw that he was wet
with the cold perspiration of fear. It would enrage him. She counted on
that. He turned back to his wife in a white fury. She leaned toward him,
inviting his blows as martyrs welcome the torch that will make their
pile of fagots a blazing bier.
He struck her. Once. Twice. A rain of blows given in a blind passion
that drove her to her knees, but she clung stubbornly, with rigid
fingers to the table-edge. Although she was dazed she retained
consciousness by a sharp effort of her failing will. She had not yet
achieved that for which she was fighting.
The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood drove
the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering feet. Her
rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only friend she
recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across the table. She
stood swaying in a petrified terror for a moment. Then with a thin wail,
"He's killing her!" she ran around them and gained the door.
With a mighty effort Olga Brenner lifted her head so that her face,
swollen beyond recognition, was turned toward her mother-in-law. Her
almost sightless eyes fastened themselves on the old woman.
"Run!" she cried. "Run to the village!"
The mad woman, obedient to that commanding voice, flung open the door
and lurched over the threshold and disappeared in the fog. It came to
Mart that the woman running through the night with her wail of terror
was the greatest danger he would know. Olga Brenner saw his look of sick
terror. He started to spring after the mad woman, forgetful of the
half-conscious creature on her knees before him.
But as he turned, Olga, moved by the greatness of her passion, forced
strength into her maimed body. With a straining leap she sprawled
herself before him on the floor. He stumbled, caught for the table, and
fell with a heavy crash, striking his head on a near-by chair. Olga
raised herself on her shaking arms and looked at him. Minute after
minute passed, and yet he lay still. A second long ten minutes ticked
itself off on the clock, which Olga could barely see. Then Mart opened
his eyes, sat up, and staggered to his feet.
Before full consciousness could come to him again, his wife crawled
forward painfully and swiftly coiled herself about his legs. He
struggled, still dizzy from his fall, bent over and tore at her twining
arms, but the more he pulled the tighter she clung, fastening her
misshapen fingers in the lacing of his shoes. He swore! And he became
panic-stricken. He began to kick at her, to make lunges toward the
distant door. Kicking and fighting, dragging her clinging body with him
at every move, that body which drew him back one step for every two
forward steps he took, at last he reached the wall. He clutched it, and
as his hand slipped along trying to find a more secure hold he touched
the cold iron of a long-handled pan hanging there.
With a snarl he snatched it down, raised it over his head, and brought
it down upon his wife's back. Her hands opened spasmodically and fell
flat at her sides. Her body rolled over, limp and broken. And a low
whimper came from her bleeding lips.
Satisfied, Mart paused to regain his breath. He had no way of knowing
how long this unequal fight had been going on. But he was free. The way
of escape was open. He laid his hand on the door.
There were voices. He cowered, cast hunted glances at the bloody figure
on the floor, bit his knuckles in a frenzy.
As he looked, the eyes opened in his wife's swollen face, eyes aglow
with triumph. "You'll swing for it, Mart!" she whispered faintly. "And
the money's on the table! Tobey's saved!"
Rough hands were on the door. A flutter of breath like a sigh of relief
crossed her lips and her lids dropped as the door burst open to a tide
of men.
The big yellow butterfly swung low on his golden wings and came to rest
on her narrow, sunken breast.