TUSK
Early that same morning as Jess approached the place where Dale was
"laying out" near Tusk's cabin, he stopped a moment, listening; then
gave the clear call of a quail. After waiting several minutes he
whistled again, and as still no answer came he proceeded with extreme
caution.
The sun was not yet up, but in the sky were bars of red that reached
high above the mountains, and by this light he saw the watcher, face
down upon the rocks, asleep. Nature, his god, had commanded, and he
obeyed. Jess smiled, then noiselessly sat down to wait.
Noon came. The sheriff ate part of his lunch, lit his pipe, and settled
back for a longer wait. He felt an infinite relief to see this strange
man sleeping, for in his gruff make-up had grown a concern for the
mountaineer approaching affection. Now he swore softly to himself that,
even though Potter should come, he would let him pass rather than wake
Dale.
But also during the morning his interest had been held by another thing.
Idly facing the east, his gaze wandering over the scarred knobs or their
wooded crests, he had gradually become aware of an occasional movement
on a spur far up the side of Snarly. Squinting his eyes he could
distinctly make out something, but whether it were man or beast he could
not be sure. Certainly it moved more as a restless bear whose cub,
doubtless unable to master the climb, whined somewhere below. He turned
this over in his mind.
It was three o'clock when Dale stirred. The sheriff smiled as he watched
Nature gradually remove her bandage from the sleeper, who now, instantly
awake, sprang up in dismay.
"Gawd! What time is it?"
Jess held out his watch.
"I must a-slept eighteen hours," the mountaineer gasped, as though such
a thing were scarcely in the range of possibility.
"An' real glad I am, too, Dale! We ain't lost nothin' by it, an' it's
done you a heap of good. Here's a bite to eat!"
Dale attacked it ravenously, then took a deep breath and stretched.
"I feel like a catamount! Come on, Jess--where'll we hunt?"
"I was jest thinkin'! Whilst you slept, I seen somethin' looked like a
bar up on that-ar spur!"
Dale wheeled and watched the place for several minutes.
"I don't see nothin'," he said, at last.
"'Cause it ain't been over to our side yet, that's why! But it's thar,
all right--or, leastwise, it was thar!"
"Jess," the mountaineer spoke quickly, "last spring I saw him there,
too. Come on! Maybe--but I don't reckon it could be, if you thought it
was a bear!"
"I don't neither; but thar ain't no tellin'! It's 'bout the only place
we _ain't_ been! I'll tie the dawg heah, so's if it is a b'ar he won't
git cut up none!"
After a hard two-hour climb they reached a ledge seeming to run on a
level with the spur, followed it a few hundred feet and, cautiously
parting the branches, looked out. There was still too much foliage to
permit them to see, and they crept nearer; this time coming to the base
of the spur itself. But Jess, who was slightly in advance, drew back and
silently cocked his rifle--an act which any mountaineer would rightfully
interpret as a command for absolute silence. Together, now, they edged
forward.
Barefooted, crawling aimlessly about on his hands and knees, wagging his
head from side to side and mumbling, was Tusk--in truth, enough like a
bear to excuse the sheriff's former uncertainty. He seemed to have no
intimation of the watchers who had, in their surprise, advanced far
enough to be in full view. Indeed, twice he crawled within ten feet of
them, all the while wagging his head in a way that, were he able to see
at all, must surely have disclosed them.
"Is he drunk?" Dale whispered, but Jess solemnly shook his head.
"Nope, he ain't drunk--leastways, that ain't the main trouble! He's
plumb crazy with a fever, an' damn nigh starved to death! Look at his
face an' cracked lips! I don't know as we'd orter take 'im down to
town, Dale;--maybe it's ketchin'!"
"Not take him! Not take him!" Dale cried in an angry voice. "Well, _I_
ain't afraid of nothin' ketchin'! He won't get away from me again, I
tell you!"
"Who said I was afeerd of ketchin' somethin'?" the sheriff answered,
with a black frown. "I was thinkin' of other folks! Didn't you never try
thinkin' a leetle bit of other folks, jest to see how it 'ud feel,
Dale?"
A deep growl from Tusk made them turn again. He was quite still now, and
listening; while his eyes, seeing but not seeing, stared at them, and
his brows puckered as though trying to call back some hazy memory.
"Good Lawd," Jess whispered, "look at his foot an' leg! It must be
blood-pisen, or gang-green, or somethin' like that, Dale!--that, an' a
burnin' fever, an' not any too much sense at best, poh devil! Why, he
don't know whar he's at! Tusk," the tender-hearted officer stepped out
and called to him, "we've come up to help you some!"
A spasm of terror crossed the unfortunate man's face; but then he gave a
curious sort of laugh and began to crawl awkwardly toward the point of
the spur.
"Set down thar, Tusk," the sheriff called again, this time making ready
to follow. "Set down, now, till I git out to you!"
Tusk laughed. A child crawling over a nursery floor might so have
laughed if playfully chased by its nurse. But this misshapen hulk of
humanity did not possess even the wisdom of a child. He only laughed and
crawled faster, looking back with an expression of mischievous cunning
and extreme delight.
Jess saw the imminent danger of Tusk's direction. With one movement he
uncocked his rifle and laid it on the ground, then sprang out upon the
spur. He did not ask Dale to follow, for somehow it was borne in on him
that the mountaineer, having come expressly to wreak vengeance, was
making a concession now in remaining neutral.
"Wait thar!" he yelled. "Wait, you fool, afore you pitch over the side!"
The sheriff was running, as well as one could run on such an uncertain,
dizzy place, for Tusk had given another cry of hysterical delight and
was crawling with all his speed, looking over his shoulder at this new
play-fellow who seemed to enter so readily into a game.
"For Gawd's sake," the sheriff screamed. "Stop, Tusk!--Stop!--Oh, my
Lawd!"
He was alone upon the spur, his face averted. Dale came slowly out and
joined him; listening, also, in the solitude of this wild place to the
deep rumble of water far below them, where it rushed into the earth
carrying all things to some mysterious subterranean sea. There had been
no cry from Tusk as he fell, for doubtless he had thought the plunge but
a continuation of the game.
Without speaking, Jess turned and picked up two old shoes which lay in
grotesque attitudes on the rock. These he placed side by side, and with
them a few scattered remnants of corn bread, an empty whiskey bottle and
an old hat. It was a pathetic attempt to do something--to leave the
disordered man's house in order; and he smiled quietly when Dale brought
a cob pipe, a knife and a twist of "long green" tobacco, which he had
found.
Silently, then, they made the descent and trudged homeward; Jess solemn,
Dale excitedly happy. But the mountaineer was not going to Arden just
yet;--first he must tell Jane that henceforth she could come without
fear and help him with his lessons.
"Wall," the sheriff said, after another hour of walking, "if you're
goin' to Flat Rock I'd better leave you heah, an' make my way to Arden.
Our hunt's ended, right enough; an' Gawd have mercy on his poh, ign'rant
soul!"
They shook hands, and once more the mountaineer hurried on.