Lemuel Huntington, as has been suggested, was not a forceful
character. Even in this desperate moment when the strength of his
life’s mania was being directed to gain that which would make the
fulfillment of that mania possible, he lacked the stubbornness of
will, the blind conquering egoism, to win his demands at all costs.
He had never had occasion to present such a furious front to his
daughter before. That he was doing it now, exerted a disconcerting
influence upon him, embarrassed him, made him a little uncertain as
to the fairness of his methods.
On the other hand, he had never even so much as suspected the
existence of a broad strain of high-spiritedness in Dot’s nature and
that firmness of purpose which he himself did not have. The
launching of his threat roused her like the sting of a whip. Her
terror vanished and left her cold. She strode up close to him now
and let her eyes burn into his.
“Father! Another word from you, and I’ll leave the house. And I’ll
never come back!”
He did not answer. He looked at her in a queer, dumb frenzy. Then
slowly, amazement, incredulity, indecision grew on his face. He had
never seen her so dreadfully calm, so white before. She had never
threatened such a fearful thing before! A long minute dragged by.
From out in the darkness came the weird shriek of a predacious
nighthawk. Presently, he turned away from her, walked back to his
chair, and began filling with clumsy, trembling fingers his
forgotten pipe. His mouth was distorted with what seemed to be some
forlorn grief; his breath broke from his lungs in low distressful
gasps.
It grew very quiet. The old clock on the shelf ticked tiredly. Some
time afterward he heard a sob and, glancing around, saw Dot leaning
against the wall, her face buried in her hands. Thereupon he put
down his pipe and went over and took her in his arms. Hungrily he
held her to his breast, and there was in his eyes the reflection of
the fierce struggle that was taking place in his soul.
“Your poor, lonesome leetle heart,” he said, in a voice that shook
with sobs. “I didn’t aim to act so cussed, darlin’. God knows, I
wouldn’t do nuthin’ to hurt you, Dot! You know yore dad’d do
anythin’ to make you happy. Don’t you, honey? I’d go through fire
an’ brimstone, I’d die for your daughter, Emily, like I always
said,” he added, his face turned to the rafters under the roof.
Some time afterward, as he lighted his candle to go to his room and
kissed her good night, he reassured her gently. “I jest git so
disapp’inted with myse’f, dearie. Yore poor ma an’ me used to plan
so many big things for our leetle gal. I’ve wanted to do so much for
you an’ I ain’t done nuthin’. Anyway, Dot, we’ll ferget all about
this here Billy Gee. It ain’t worth quarrelin’ over, it ain’t worth
it, hon.”
Dot lingered in the kitchen until she was sure he had gone to bed.
Then she began hurried preparations to spirit her outlaw patient out
of the house. Filling a bottle with hot coffee, she threw some bread
and meat into a paper bag. After this she tiptoed to her room,
stealthily unlocked the door, closed it behind her, and lit the
candle on the bureau.
One glance, and she saw that her bed was empty, the window open.
Billy Gee was gone; so were his saddlebags!
For an instant she stood perplexed. But she breathed easier, vastly
relieved that he had thus chosen to steal out of the house without
her aid. Stepping over to the window she flashed the candle outside
and listened into the quiet night. There was no sign of him, no
sound. He must have found his way into the hayloft, she told
herself, recalling the fact that she had described the location of
his new hiding place to him that afternoon. But from reflecting on
his weak condition she became more and more concerned about him,
resolving finally to investigate his whereabouts and take him the
food.
It was only a matter of four feet from the window sill to the
ground, and a far safer means of exit from the house at this late
hour, particularly after her father’s furious outburst, so
unexpected and ominous. She put out the light and let herself down
noiselessly into the strip of garden outside, and flitted off like a
shadow for the barn. With a subdued little cough to herald her
coming to the fugitive, she climbed the short flight of steps to the
loft and struck a match.
He was there, standing knee-deep in the loose hay, spectral,
sinister, a six-shooter glinting in his hand. At sight of her, he
lowered the weapon and clutched a tie beam for support. Ere the
match went out, she reached his side.
“I was leary it’d go hard on you if he ketched me in there, so I
sneaked out,” he explained in low tones. “I heerd it all an’ I’m
sorry I got you in so much trouble. I’m goin’ to resk it, to-night.”
“No, no! You mustn’t,” she whispered quickly. “The plains are alive
with posses. You’d never escape.”
He chuckled softly. “Wunst I git a-goin’, I’ll be orright. The
moon’s comin’ up, an’ I got folks livin’ handy.”
“Here’s something for you to eat. You must be terribly hungry—weak.”
She thrust the bottle and the paper bag into his hand as she spoke.
“I’d counted on you staying till you were stronger—three days,
anyway. You’d be perfectly safe here. I’d see that you were. Why
don’t you?”
“Yore dad’s too sespicious. He’ll start huntin’ me up; you see if he
don’t.” He broke off, resuming: “I—I won’t ever ferget what you’ve
done for me, Miss Huntington. An’ you wouldn’t give me away, would
you? An’ you’re desp’rate for money. I ain’t ever had anybody give
me such a square deal—chuck over a fortune to help——” His voice
trailed off into silence.
“You poor, wounded wild animal!” said Dot gently. “Even a coyote is
better off than you. Can’t you understand? Don’t you know any
different? Is it so much easier to be bad, so much more pleasing to
have a pack of legalized killers always on your heels? Or don’t you
care?” She paused and added: “Do you really want to repay me for
everything I’ve done for you?”
Through a square hole under the eaves, the first white beams of the
moon were just struggling in. She could see the man’s face
indistinctly; the white bandage around his head.
“I do. Say it! Anythin’ you want done, Miss Huntington,” he nodded.
“Then, quit this miserable life. Be a man. Go far away, where no one
will ever recognize you, and start fresh. Be honorable—somehow. You
can do it, if you want to. But will you? To pay me back?” There was
a strange, dramatic note in her voice.
He caught her hand suddenly, fervently. “I’ll do it, Miss
Huntington. Listen! You turned down ten thousand dollars; you stuck
by me. I’m goin’ to show you what I kin do for you. Some of these
days you’re goin’ to hear from me.”
“I’m so glad,” she breathed. “I’d be so proud to know that I helped
remake the wild animal, Billy Gee, into a God-fearing human being.”
A short, heavy silence fell. From somewhere in the ground floor of
the barn, a board expanding with the cool night air snapped sharply.
“I come up here to take a coupla these old blankets, sence I can’t
lug my saddle; it’s too heavy,” he announced, after a little while.
“Would you mind fixin’ ’em for me?”
She found them half folded, made a neat roll of them, and looped
them for slinging over the shoulders with strips she tore from her
calico apron. As she prepared to leave him, he spoke again.
“Miss Huntington, I’d sorter like you to know that I ain’t near’s
bad as they tell it around. I ain’t never killed a man—wounded ’em,
yes, an’ only jest when I had to. An’ with all I’ve got away with,
I’m next thing to broke this minute. That’s honest——”
“But you held up the paymaster’s car last night, didn’t you?” she
interrupted.
“Yes’m. But I didn’t hold onto the money, bein’ wounded, an’
Warburton——”
“What was in your saddlebags that you said you couldn’t afford to
lose?”
“My mother’s pitcher, some clothes, an’ a lot of leetle doodads I’m
keepin’. I always have ’em along with me. But I want to tell you
ag’in that I ain’t fergettin’ yore kindness. You’re goin’ to hear
from me, Miss Huntington, some time. An’—an’ I hope you’ll be proud,
like you jest said.”
Dot crept down the steps shortly afterward, shut the barn door
behind her, and darted across the moonlit yard. Climbing back into
her room she cautiously lowered the window. Then, with a sigh of
relief and satisfaction, she went to bed. For the remainder of the
night, she lay wide-eyed, snug in the bewitching embraces of romance
and imagination.
Following her departure, Billy Gee remained in the hayloft for a
long interval and leisurely ate the food she had brought him.
Periodically, he looked at his watch by the aid of a moonbeam
streaming in through a crack in the boards. When one o’clock came,
he got carefully to his feet, took up the roll of blankets, and
started downstairs.
From far out on Soapweed Plains, rose the wail-bark of a foraging
coyote. There was no other sound. That semiarid land lay mute and
mysterious and teaming with tragic potentialities.
“Creepy,” he muttered under his breath. “Reckon I’m a leetle
flighty—leaked too much blood.”
He reached the ground floor and noiselessly made his way toward the
rear door of the barn, heading for the field and his horse. As he
fumbled in the dark for the hasp an invisible figure emerged from
under the steps back of him. He felt the sharp dig of a six-shooter
between his shoulders. A voice hissed in his ear.
“Steady, pardner! Make a move, an’ I’ll kill you!”
In a twinkling, he was stripped of his guns. Then his captor—Lemuel
Huntington—unhasped the barn door and herded him outside and down a
narrow lane between two corrals, until they stood in the open field.
“Turn yore face to the moon, an’ let’s git a squint of you, Billy
Gee,” said Lemuel. He studied the outlaw a few seconds. “So my gal
was passin’ up ten thousand dollars for the likes of you, eh? Well,
I won’t! Now, listen clost an’ don’t make no mistake about what I
tell you! Me an’ you’s goin’ on into Geerusalem right off, see?
Warburton wants you dead or ’live, an’ it’s up to you how you care
to be deelivered to him. I don’t. Savvy! Now, march acrosst to them
hosses!”