Allston, at first, was not inclined to take the situation seriously.
The scene, like an act of melodrama, was not sufficiently motivated to
convince him. Here was a dark, scowling figure of a man on horseback
planted squarely in the middle of the moonlit road--a villain made to
order. Clinging to his arm, Allston felt the tight grip of Roxie’s warm
fingers--the heroine if one wished so to consider her. And he--well, it
looked as though he were cast for the part of hero. But he did not know
his lines.
Had this been France and a year ago, he would have been quick enough to
react to the danger. The world was at war then and he was tuned up to
it. Often enough on night patrol he had walked straight into the heart
of even grimmer drama than this and played his rôle like a veteran,
with life the penalty of a miscue.
But he had left all that behind him. The world was now at peace. It
was surprising how quickly he had been able to forget that trees meant
possible ambush and that moonlight in open spaces was a source of
deadly danger. Men no longer were enemies and beautiful young women no
longer needed rescuers. Civilization had reasserted her rights and bade
men walk once again relaxed and at their ease.
Even at this moment, Allston viewed the scene more as an effective
picture than anything else. Bud, lank and lean, made rather a striking
figure of the solitary horseman type. He had jerked up the mare’s
head, and she, a bit frightened by the figures in the shadows, pricked
forward her ears and snorted impatiently. In the silver light the two
were rather spooky. As they stood there, silent and immobile now, it
would not have greatly surprised Allston if it developed that the rider
had no head.
But Roxie Kester knew better. The man before her was no apparition.
He was a grim reality. And his silence did not imply passiveness. She
understood the meaning of that slight forward bend of his head and the
significance of that quietly moving arm creeping towards the gun at
his hip. And she knew better than anything else the interpretation Bud
would place upon the presence of this stranger by her side. Her wildly
beating heart--beating like a frightened bird at the approach of a
hostile hand--told her that.
Yet for a moment she also stood transfixed. She like the two men
resembled a figure cut out of black paper. It was as though the night
birds had also come to this conclusion, for softly, here and there in
the trees and bushes roundabout, they ventured forth once more into
cooing calls.
Roxie was the first to speak. She moved forward a step, and thereby,
without any realization on Allston’s part of what she was doing, placed
herself between the two men.
“Hullo, Bud,” she said.
“Hullo, Roxie,” he answered.
“I’m goin’ hum ’cause ma’s sick,” she explained.
“Yo’ ma’s sick?”
“Little Tom Culley--he sent word.”
“Needed a stranger ter show the way, I reckon?”
“He’s a frien’ o’ Miss Wilmer,” she answered almost eagerly.
“Then,” said Bud, deliberately--“then he oughter stay with Miss Wilmer.
It ain’t healthy in these hills--fer strangers.”
Bud had reached his gun. He brought it forward, at this point, rather
ostentatiously, and rested it on the pummel of his saddle.
“Bud!” cried Roxie.
But Allston, in the meanwhile, had reached his own gun. He had no
desire to force any issue here unless it proved necessary. His
instinct, however, warned him that he could no longer keep himself in
the background. His temper, moreover, had been pricked by the studied
insolence of Bud’s reference to strangers. When he acted, he acted
quickly. With his raised automatic he jumped forward.
“Throw down that gun,” he ordered.
Bud made a motion and Allston fired. He was a sure shot and he had
learned well his lesson that when any firing is to be done, it is well
to fire first. He aimed at the weapon in Bud’s hand and the gun spun
out of the lean fingers into the bushes. The mare jumped and Roxie
screamed. The birds in the woods became instantly hushed. With an oath
Bud checked his horse and turned as though to ride the two down. But
the automatic was still leveled and the brown eyes behind it quite
untroubled.
“Steady there,” warned Allston.
“You ugly, pink-cheeked hornyhead,” choked Bud, “I’ll cut yer heart out
fer that.”
“Steady,” repeated Allston.
“It ain’t healthy here fer strangers, particular when they messes in
somethin’ that don’t concern ’um.”
“But when it does concern them?” questioned Allston.
Bud turned from Allston to Roxie. She shrank closer to her protector
which exasperated Bud still more.
“Like ’um pink-cheeked and white-fingered, don’ cha,” he growled.
Allston lost the last remnant of his patience at that. He pulled the
girl to the side of the road.
“Now,” he commanded, “you move on.”
Helpless Bud turned his horse in the direction of the Kester house.
“Not that way--this,” ordered Allston pointing to his rear.
His voice was metallic. His words were as decisive as a military order.
Men from Gibraltar to Timbuktu recognize that quality.
Bud swung his horse and with an oath cantered past the two. Allston
stood facing in the same direction until assured by the receding
clatter of the hoofs merging into the forest silence that the man did
not pull up when out of sight. Then he thrust his automatic back in his
pocket.
Almost impatiently, he turned to the girl. He found her bright eyes
upraised to his. Her pretty face was flushed with excitement--and
something more. In the tender, softening light of the moon--lovers’
light--he caught an expression which brought the color to his own
cheeks. He breathed a little faster as he allowed his eyes to meet
her eyes. Her lips were tight as though she were deliberately making
them tight to imprison her tongue. Her head was a little back--a quite
unconscious pose of silent supplication. Her body was lax. Her arms
hung loosely by her side--the long, slender arms of a girl.
To Allston at the moment she seemed almost a product of the
forest, like some delicate fern bred in the wild, but possessing
an exquisiteness beyond the reach of the most skilled florists;
possessing, too, the sturdiness that Nature gives, but which the
hothouse sacrifices. Again she reminded him of some of those young
women of France at once so intensely human and so instinctively
spiritual. There were such faces, passed in the day’s grim work, which
still haunted him. So, he felt, this face before him always would haunt
him.
The moonlight--the moonlight! The silence--the silence! The hush of a
stilled world with all harsh things made beautiful by night! The girl
with eager, motionless lips, one with the growing things that bid a man
take as he finds!
Allston shook himself free from the spell, breathing deeply.
“Come,” he said, “it--it is time we went on.”
Slowly, like a drooping flower, Roxie’s head lowered. Her limp arms
stiffened. Her lips tightened even more. She fell into step by his side
as he led the way at a faster pace than before along the mountain road
leading to her home.
Where the circuitous path ended in a clearing before her house, Allston
left her.
“I guess you’re safe enough now, Roxie.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered.
“And I hope you won’t find your mother very sick. If you think there’s
anything more I can do--”
“No, sir,” she broke in hurriedly, “I reckon there ain’t--isn’t.”
“Then we’ll see you in the morning?”
“I’ve gotter git yo’ breakfast.”
“Not if your mother needs you.”
“I’ve gotter git yo’ breakfast.”
“We can manage somehow.”
“I’ve gotter cook you hot muffins. Miss Wilmer she cain’t do that.”
“Can’t she?” he smiled. “Then we must manage without them.”
“No, sir. I gotter do that.”
“Well, we’ll see. If you don’t come I’ll call here in the morning.”
She looked frightened.
“I reckon yer better not,” she decided.
“Eh?”
“Yer better not.”
“But I will,” he replied.
“Please, Mister Allston--that Bud--”
Allston shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“I’ll let him do the worrying.”
“Only yer don’t know Bud. He don’t ferget.”
“That ought to be in my favor--if he doesn’t forget,” he suggested.
“But you don’t think for a moment he’s going to keep me off the road?”
“No,” she answered instantly. “That’s why I’m afeard fer you.”
There was almost a mother light in her eyes. Impulsively Allston took
one of her warm hands in his.
“You’re a good little girl,” he said tenderly. “But you’ve got worries
enough of your own without including me. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” she answered.
Her voice was as cooing low and sweet as that of a night bird. He
dropped her hand and started to retrace his steps. Once he turned. He
found her looking after him.
“Good-night,” he called back. “Don’t worry.”
But Roxie stood there, never moving until she could no longer hear even
the lightest trace of his footsteps. Then she lifted her eyes to the
stars. They smiled back at her. She thought they were like his eyes.
Only they were so high--so dizzily far away. They were above the house,
above the trees, above even the heights of Caterpillar Ridge, above
Green Mountain, which was the highest place she knew about. They were
almost as high as God. He lived there among them. And yet the preacher
said that He was always near--right around us everywhere. So the stars
must be nearer than they looked. So perhaps the eyes of the Prince
might be nearer than they seemed. Things could be far away and yet very
near. That was confusing. Also it was comforting. The puzzled frown
left her face as she pushed open the door and went in.
She found her mother busy about her normal tasks and showing no
evidence of illness. But the sight, instead of bringing her relief,
roused a new fear.
“Tom Culley said yuh was tuk sick,” explained Roxie, as her mother
observed her entrance with as much surprise as she ever showed about
anything. Her emotions had ceased to be more than the ghostly relics
of emotions long since dead. She had exhausted them years before.
Resignation had taken their place.
“I ain’t sick,” she answered with a slow shake of her head. “How cum
Tom Culley to say thet?”
Her pale eyes squinting from a meager, desiccated face, white as wax,
listlessly met the quick young eyes of her daughter.
The answer was clear enough to Roxie. It explained the presence of Bud
Childers in the middle of the road. The girl turned towards the door.
“I’m a-goin’ back,” she said.
“Goin’ back?”
But Roxie sprang for the latch. If Bud Childers had laid for her such a
plot as this, the incident would not end there. He would be waiting for
Allston to return. She threw open the door and ran out into the night;
straight down the rocky mountain road. And as she ran, she called his
name.
“Mister Allston! Mister Allston!”
There was no answer. Allston, far ahead, was walking fast.