“You go on with the corn,” Wully said to John at breakfast. “I’m
taking Chirstie over to mother’s.” John made no comment. Chirstie
looked as if she had had fever unusually severe the day before, and
naturally she would be better cared for at the McLaughlins’. John
suspected nothing. He wasn’t especially observant. Talking still of
the celebration, he didn’t see Wully watching his wife, covertly
watching the way her eyes turned hauntedly toward any slight sound
out of doors. Wully went through with the prayers as usual. “Prosper
us in our duties this day!” he implored, with unaccustomed fervency.
John went away to his work. Chirstie and the baby got into the wagon,
where Wully had slyly hidden his gun--he had to conceal his sterner
purpose from her. He said to her simply that he had made Peter get
out once, and he could do it again. He saw no use in saying how much
more thoroughly he intended doing it this time.
They scarcely spoke, riding away together, man and wife. Sitting
there, so close to him, she seemed so dear ... so dear ... and life
so precious.... Why should he have to endanger it now just when he
was beginning to appreciate it, for the sake of that man’s villainy!
The poignant silence struggled and surged about them, his rage, her
fear, their love fighting together with no relief in expression, her
beseeching, warning eyes searching the face he tried to keep averted.
No one at his mother’s had heard of Peter’s return. That was proved
by the fact that no one began talking about it. Chirstie had had
fever the day before, Wully announced to them shortly. He was worried
about her. He had to go over to the store, and he thought she had
better be left where she could have some care. He said he and John
could “bach it” a few days. She spoke up sharply and demanded that
he come for her by evening at least. He had to promise that much, to
keep her from exciting suspicion. It was plain she meant to take no
denial. Her eyes implored him to be careful.
Lightened of his encumbrances, he drove away. He was praying that
circumstances might be made to serve him, so that he could get his
task over secretly. If not, then Peter would find that no woman could
help him now! He drove straight along towards his aunt’s, grimly, not
having to nurse his wrath, having only to restrain it. He wasn’t made
for anger, as he knew. It had even as a little boy always made him
ill. It had exhausted him now. He felt limp. And he must be strong
and calm for what was coming. He let his horses take their own gait.
The heat of the sun, after the rain of the night, was making the
country one great steam bath. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
He came to the McTaggerts’ corner. John had seen that man so far
home the night before. If John had known then all that story, what a
chance he would have had. Thank God he hadn’t known! But when he did
know, to-day, now, in a few hours, he would stand by Wully with what
a sincere strength! Of course John couldn’t be expected to stay and
look after the farm while Wully was taken--where? Maybe Andy would do
that. And Chirstie would have to stay at his mother’s until--what?
His happiness was scarcely more now than a sickening faint memory. He
could do what he had to do. The McLaughlins could always do that. And
do it well!
He could see the little Keith house now. He drove on towards it.
There was no one working in the hayfield. There was no one hoeing
corn. No sign of life but a tethered colt in the path. He drove up,
and got out of the wagon. He tied his steaming horses to the barn. He
hadn’t taken his gun into his hands yet, when the door opened, and
his aunt came out.
She was ready for some work in the garden apparently. She wore a kind
of sunbonnet made by sewing a ruffle of old calico part way round a
man’s old cap, to protect her neck from the sun. She saw Wully, and
her face lightened with a greeting.
“Is it you, Wully!” she exclaimed. “And how’s Chirstie the day? We
missed you yesterday. She had too much fever, I doubt----”
“She’s better. She’s at mother’s. Where’s everybody?”
“Your uncle’s at the McNairs’.”
Trying to hide that skunk, was she!
“I want to see Peter!”
“What Peter?” she asked with a start.
“Your Peter!”
“My Peter!”
“Yes!” She needn’t think she could work that!
“Did you think he was here, Wully?” she asked, hurt.
“John saw him last night,” he cried accusingly.
“What John?”
“Our John! He saw him last night!”
“Saw who?”
“Saw your Peter!” Could it be----
“Saw my Peter!”
“He came home with him last night as far as the McTaggerts’!”
“Last night!”
“Yes!”
“With my Peter!”
“Yes!” stammered Wully.
Peter had never got home. There was no doubt about that.
Libby Keith was standing transfixed there. Her gray face began
working.
Suddenly she put her hand up to her head, and gave a moan.
“He’s destroyed! He never got to me!”
She started and ran past Wully in the path, and had climbed into his
wagon before he could stop her. She gave his hitched horses such a
slap with the lines that they plunged strongly. He sprang to get them
before they broke away. He jumped to his place and seized the lines.
“You can’t go with me!” he shouted at her. He couldn’t throw her out
of the wagon, and the horses were all he could manage, thanks to her
excitement. As if in obedience to the thoughts of the humans behind
them, they were racing down the path towards the McCreaths’, over
which Wully had just come.
“You can’t come with me!” he cried again.
She never heeded him.
“He’ll have stopped at the McCreaths’!” she said, moaning. Moaning
... and making little sounds of speed to his team, which couldn’t
possibly have been tearing ahead more madly. She sat rocking back and
forth, and making sounds which unmanned him, overwrought as he was
by his own excitement and hatred. Through the steaming slough they
plunged and splashed. He didn’t care now how quickly they came to
their destination. He gave up trying to control the horses. Anything
to get away from that noise she was making, that anguished crooning.
Never was a man with murder in his heart so undone by the grief he
intended augmenting.
The sandy-haired bewhiskered McCreath had stopped still in his
dooryard to watch the runaway team coming up. When he saw who it was,
he dropped the hoe in his hand, and came on out down the path to meet
the evident crisis. Wully pulled up the panting horses, and before
they had stopped, Libby Keith cried to the man approaching,
“Where is he? Where’s my Peter?”
At first he could not understand so impossible a question. She
scrambled perilously down, and started on a run for the house, with
him following.
“Where is he?” she cried again, turning on him. Then McCreath
understood. She was mad, the poor body. He said gently;
“He isn’t _here_, you know, Libby. Peter isn’t _here_.”
“He _is_!” she cried. “He’s come! They seen him!”
Wully had followed them. McCreath turned to him, and got a nod in
confirmation. They were at the door, now, and Mrs. McCreath had come
that far to see what the disturbance was. McCreath cried heartily to
his wife;
“Peter’s home, Aggie!”
Tears sprang quickly to Aggie’s eyes.
“Where _is_ he!” Libby cried at the same moment.
“He’s not _here_, you know,” McCreath repeated kindly.
“Not here!” Libby repeated.
“John saw him last night,” Wully cried angrily.
“Where?” they all demanded.
John had seen him at O’Brien’s, and as far on the way home as the
McTaggerts’ corner. And they had supposed he must have turned in at
the McCreaths’ when the storm came up.
“He’s at the McTaggerts’, then!” McCreath seemed sure of it. But
Libby Keith couldn’t wait till the words were out of his mouth. She
was down the path again, and climbing up into the wagon, and the
McCreaths were following her, breathing out their congratulations.
They didn’t know when any news had pleased them as much as that. They
were that glad for her. They were shouting after the galloping team
in vain.
And again he had to sit by her, as she went on again, crooning and
whimpering, making noises like a shot rabbit. He would drive his
horses till they fell in their tracks to get away from that torture.
On the corner, where the little path from the Keiths’ joined the
wider road, the McTaggerts were building a house. Three men were
working on the roof of it, and from the vantage of the height they
watched the team flying towards them. They speculated about it. They
came down.
“Where’s my Peter?” she shouted to them before they could hear her.
She kept shouting it as she climbed down.
They stared at her.
_They_ hadn’t seen anything of her Peter.
They had to go all over _that_ again. John McLaughlin had seen him
at this corner last night. Where was he now?
Wully wouldn’t be balked. Libby Keith wouldn’t be cheated. The
McTaggerts stood looking at the two blankly.
Where was Jimmy McTaggert, who had been drinking with Peter last
night? He ought to know.
Jimmy McTaggert was wakened from the sleep that followed his holiday
spree, and dragged to the light of the morning, half clothed.
He remembered nothing. Wully turned from him wrathfully. Where
was his older brother? Let Gib be brought. Gib wouldn’t have been
too drunk to remember. Gib was in a far field. A boy went for him
horseback. They made Libby sit down. They stood around dazed. Wully
went on explaining what he knew again and again. It seemed hours
before Gib appeared.
There stood Gib before them, telling the truth, and making it
believed. They had come with John from O’Brien’s to be sure, and at
the corner John had ridden on home, and Peter had turned and gone
walking down the path towards home. That was all that Gib knew about
it. Peter had walked right along, not staggering, or seeming drunk.
The men stood looking blankly at one another, fumbling among
possibilities, in quietness--for one second.
Then Libby cried out.
“He’s fallen! He’s destroyed!” She started down the path, towards the
road calling him, making a more terrible sound than ever--a stronger
sound.
“Lammie!” she cried. “Where are you? Mother’s coming!” Some place
between that corner and her home she thought him lying helpless,
dying maybe. Lying drunk, the men thought, and nodded significantly
to each other. It flashed through Wully’s bewildered mind that he had
probably started back towards Chirstie. Or maybe back to O’Brien’s,
someone suggested. Mrs. McTaggert was running after Libby Keith. The
men started to help her search. In decency they could do no less.
They tried to soothe her. He would be sleeping somewhere. Had she
looked in her own barn? Could it be, they wondered vaguely, thinking
of her other children, that had happened ... anything tragic?
Wully had to join them. After all, she was mad, stark mad and
shrieking over the prairies, and she wasn’t a McTaggert that they
should have to care for her. She was his father’s sister, and he must
see what became of her. Down the road she ran, calling out to her
son, and commanding them. They were to go for her husband. They were
to get her brothers, her neighbors, to send men on horses to look for
him. Some of them turned back to obey her. Wully ran along with her.
Beating along both sides of the road they went, tramping down the
grasses, calling him--calling till Wully felt tears running down
his face. Not that he pitied her. He cursed her. He was saying to
himself, “God damn you, stop that noise!” And to her, habit-bound
as he was, and shrinking from the pain of her voice, “Let _me_ do
the shouting, Auntie! Let me call for you!” He didn’t know his voice
when he lifted it. So how could Peter know who was begging him for
an answer! Oh, if only he might come across him there, fallen, and
make an end of this horror! Sometimes he stayed a distance from her
in this wild hope. Sometimes he had to support her to keep her from
falling. Down through the slough they went, splashing and bedraggled.
Mrs. McTaggert, with a baby in her arms, followed as best she might.
The slough was shallow where the path crossed it, but how deep the
waters might be on either side, no one knew. Libby Keith stretched
out her arms dramatically towards them.
“Lammie! Mother’s coming!” she implored.
Mrs. McTaggert sobbed. But she sobbed only like a woman. Not like a
....