KATE GETS A SHOCK
Late that afternoon a stable boy from Kitchen's barn appeared at
Belle's, making inquiries for Doctor Carpy. Kate heard Belle at the
door answering and asking questions, but the messenger was not able to
answer any questions; his business was to ask only. When Kitchen
himself came over a little later there was more talk at the door, this
time in low tones that left Kate in ignorance of its purport. But the
moment Kitchen went away, Belle, never equal to hiding an emotion,
passed with compressed lips and set face through the room in which Kate
sat sewing. Kate looked up as Belle walked toward the kitchen and
noticed the tense expression--fortunately she asked no questions.
After some vigorous moments in the kitchen, evidenced by the sound of a
creaking bread-board, sharp blows at the stove lids and an unabashed
slamming of the stewpans, Belle passed again through the room carrying
a plate covered with a napkin, and evidently going somewhere.
Kate felt compelled to take notice: "Where you bound for, Belle?" she
asked.
"Not far. But if I don't get back, don't wait supper," was the only
answer. The manner rather than the matter of it puzzled Kate as she
bent over her work. But the next moment she was alone and thinking
about her own troubles.
Half an hour passed rapidly on her sewing--for Kate's fingers were
quick--and Belle returned more perturbed than when she left. She gave
Kate hardly a chance to question her.
"Why didn't you eat your supper?" she demanded.
Kate answered unconcernedly: "I wasn't hungry--it isn't late, is it?"
Without answering the question Belle asked another. "Kate," she said,
unpinning her hat as she spoke, "how long you going to stay here?"
A less sensitive person than Kate could hardly have mistaken the import
of the question. She flushed as she looked up. "Why, surely no longer
than you want me, Belle," she answered, as evenly as she could; but her
voice showed her surprise. Belle stood before her, a statue of
implacability and Kate, in growing astonishment, rose to her feet:
"What is it? What has happened?" she asked, then as her wits worked
fast: "Doesn't my father wish you to keep me?"
"I'm not thinking about what your father wants. Things are getting too
thick here for me." Kate made no effort to interrupt. "I don't say I
don't like you, Kate--I've always treated you right, or tried to,"
continued Belle, laboring under evident excitement. "But it's no use
shutting our eyes any longer to facts. You're Barb Doubleday's
daughter and Barb Doubleday is making war all the time on my friends
and hiring men to assassinate them, and it doesn't seem right to me and
it won't to other people, me sheltering Barb Doubleday's daughter with
such things going on----"
"But, Belle----"
Belle raised her voice one key higher: "You needn't tell me, I know.
Now they're trying to murder Jim Laramie and they've close to done it,
this day----"
Belle had received and accepted strict injunctions of secrecy on the
next point she disclosed, but her feelings were not to be denied. And
she was not prepared for the question that Kate, stung by the
accusation, flung at her: "What do you mean?"
"I mean he's lying near here bleeding to death this minute and Doctor
Carpy in Medicine Bend."
In tones broken with anger and excitement, Belle told the disconnected
story as it had come to her in jerks and nods and oaths from McAlpin at
the barn, and in the little she had pulled out of Laramie himself when
she took food to him. Then came in terribly heated words the brunt of
her anger at Kate. "You knew," she said, pointing her finger at Kate,
standing stupefied. "You knew where Jim Laramie hid Hawk. Nobody else
did know--not even Lefever or Sawdy knew--I didn't know till you told
me. Now, after they've burned his cabin, they set a death watch there
at the bridge on Laramie. How did they know there was such a place if
you didn't tell 'em?"
Stunned by the fire of Belle's wrath, Kate, breathless, tried to
collect her senses. It was only her anger at the final implication
that cleared them. But even as her words of indignant denial reached
her lips, her utterance was paralyzed by the recollection that
unwittingly she had told her father of the night she was thrown into
Laramie's retreat. Yet even this did not check her resentment.
"Who accuses me of telling them?" she demanded. "Who says I conspired
to murder anyone--did Mr. Laramie say so?"
She shot the question at Belle in a furious tone. Her eyes flashed in
a way that confounded her accuser.
"I'm asking you how they found out," retorted Belle, but in spite of
herself on the defensive.
Kate's face was set and her eyes were on fire. All the anger that a
woman could feel centered in her words and manner. "Answer my question
before you say another word." She confronted Belle without yielding.
"Did Jim Laramie accuse me in any way of anything?"
"Oh, you needn't be so high and mighty," flustered Belle. "I'll answer
your question; no. Now you answer mine, will you?"
"How can _I_ answer how they found out? I will not say another word
until I see Mr. Laramie--where is he?"
"You can't see him--nobody knows he is here--he won't talk to you."
Kate paid no attention to her words: "He'll have to tell me that
himself," she returned. "If he is near here--he must be at Kitchen's."
Belle could say nothing to check or swerve her. Taking up her hat and
ignoring all warnings, Kate walked straight over to the barn. She
found McAlpin at the stable door: "I want you to take a message for me
to Mr. Laramie," she said, speaking low and collectedly. "Ask him if
he will see Kate Doubleday for just two minutes."
McAlpin, in all his devious career, had never passed through more or
quicker stages of astonishment, confusion, poise and evasion than he
did in listening to those words. But at pulling his wits together,
McAlpin was a wonder. By the time Kate had finished, his innocent
question was ready: "Where is he?"
"He is here. I must see him at once."
"But I ain't seen him myself for a week. He's not here. Who told you
he's here?"
"Belle," persisted Kate calmly, "told me he _is_ here. I must see him.
Don't deceive me, McAlpin--do just as I ask you, no more, no less."
"No more, no less, sure," grumbled the Scotchman. "You gives me one
kind of orders--the boss gives me another kind. I can't do no more, I
can't do no less. I can't do nothin'--I've got a family to support and
all this damned rowing going on, a man's job is no safer nowadays in
this country than his head!"
But words were not to save him. Kate persisted. She would not be put
off. McAlpin, swearing and protesting, could in the end only offer to
go see whether he could by any chance find Laramie. After a long trip
through the winding alleys of the big barn--for Kate watched the
baseball cap and crazy vizor as long as she could follow it--then
complete disappearance for a time, McAlpin came back to Kate, immovable
at the office door, his face wreathed with a surprised smile.
He spoke, but his eyes were opened wide and his words were delivered in
a whisper; mystery hung upon his manner: "Come along," he nodded,
indicating the interior. "Only say nothing to nobody. He's
hit--there's all there is to it. Here's all I know, but I don't know
all: About three hours ago Ben Simeral was riding up the Crazy Woman
when he seen a man half dropping off his horse, hat gone, riding head
down, slow, with his rifle slung on his arm. Simmie seen who it
was--Jim Laramie. He looked at horse 'n' man 'n' says: 'Where the hell
you bin?' 'Where the hell 'a' you been,' Laramie says, pretty short.
'Ridin' all over this'--excuse my rough language, Kate--'blamed
country, lookin' f'r to tell you Van Horn and Stone's out o' jail!'
"Laramie seen then from the ol' man's horse how he'd been ridin' 'n'
softened down a bit. 'So I heard, Simmie,' he says. 'Who'd you hear
it from?' says Simmie. 'Direct, Simmie,' he says. 'Did they pot y',
Jim?' 'Nicked my shoulder, I guess.' 'Where you goin'?' 'To town.'
'Man,' says Simmie, 'you've lost a lot o' blood.' 'Got a little left,
Simmie.'
"Then John Fryin' Pan c'm along. Simmie tried to ride to town with
Laramie--f'r fear he'd fall off his horse. Laramie wouldn't let
neither of 'em do a thing. 'This is my fight,' he says. But Simmie
and John Fryin' Pan scouted along behind and Simmie rode in ahead near
town to tell me Laramie was comin'. God! He was a sight when he rode
into this barn. He tumbled off his horse right there"--McAlpin pointed
to a spot where fresh straw had been sprinkled--"just like a dead man.
I helped carry him upstairs," he whispered. "I'll take y' to him. But
y' bet your life"--the grizzled old man stopped and turned sharply on
his companion--"y' bet your life some o' them niggers bit the dust
some'eres this morning. This way."
Kate, pacing McAlpin's rapid step breathlessly, hung on his
half-muttered words: "He's bleedin' to death," continued McAlpin;
"that's the short of it, and that blamed doctor down at Medicine Bend.
I don't think much o' that man. Can't none of us stop it. Where's
this goin' to end?"
He led her by roundabout passages, up one alley and down another, and
at last opened the door of an old harness room, waited for Kate to
follow him inside and, closing the door behind her, spoke: "I didn't
want you to have to climb a barn ladder," he said, explaining.
"There's the stairs." He pointed in the semi-darkness and led her
toward the flight along the opposite wall. At the top of this flight
light fell from a square opening in the hay-mow.
"Walk up them stairs--I lifted the trap-door f'r ye. He's right up
there at the head of the steps. When y' come down, open _this_ door at
the foot, here. It's a blind door; don't show on the other side. See,
it's bolted. It takes you right into the office. We keep it bolted
from the inside, so no trouble can't come, see?" He unbolted and
opened the door a crack to show her, closed and rebolted it. Then
starting her up the stairs, McAlpin jerked the crazy vizor on his
forehead into a fashion once more simulating child-like frankness and
disappeared by the way he had come.