THE REUNION
"Belle-Ann!" His voice was husky and quavering. Her hands were closed
within his mighty pressure.
They were looking into each other's face. The boy with incredulous,
wondering eyes, reflecting a heart full to the brim with adoration; she,
palpitating, her dimples aflush, her bosom lifting, her delicious red
mouth ajar. And in the exquisite domains of those azure-tinted orbs lay
the lucid litany of a wondrous, beautiful parable. Those two
violet-stained eyes were misty with the text of a miracle that nestled
in her heart, the tendrils of which she meant to train with care around
the boy's mountain soul. In wordless, panting silence they studied each
other's happy face for a long minute.
"I knew that was you-all up thah on Eagle Crown. Were you-all looking
for me, Lem?" she questioned in a half-whisper, predicating an affection
that had its inception back in the child days of yore.
"I was up thah a lookin' fo' yo', Belle-Ann--th' same's I bin a lookin'
every hour since yo'-all went away," he assured her, dropping her hands
and with a movement to take her into his arms and kiss her bowed,
smiling mouth.
Belle-Ann quickly threw back, with a tolerant ripple of mirth, thwarting
his intent with the guise of a half-coquettish, half-mischievous
challenge. But her purpose in this denial was tenfold deeper than
girlish byplay. Her motive was infinitely more profound than to
tantalize. She meant to withhold that priceless first kiss as a leverage
to undo that which she had done. She meant to hold that first embrace as
a reward for the reversal of the godless compact, the tenure of which
she had long since penitently recanted.
Nevertheless, Lem was quick to divine the import of her act. He fell
back a pace, abashed and crestfallen.
"Thet's so," he said sorrowfully, "I hain't kilt th' revenuer yet,
Belle-Ann--but I 'low I tried hard enough, Belle-Ann,--Johnse Hatfield
shot em through th' haid three weeks back--but all we ever found o' him
wus a hat, an' a rifle, an' a barrel o' blood--he must hev jest flopped
his arms an' flew up in th' sky--daid er alive--he hain't on
Hellsfork--he----"
Here Buddy rushed up, perspiring and breathing hard. He seized the
girl's hand and hung on with a tenacity that bade fair to incumber her
forevermore. The boy was too full to speak. His lips only trembled as he
gazed up at her. When with endearing terms she pressed his thin little
form to her and kissed him, the tears welled up and obscured his hard
little eyes. Although these were tributes of joy from his stormy,
suspicious heart, it was the first signs of tears any one had seen him
manifest since old Cap Lutts had lain white and still, amid the flowers
on God's acre. Then while Buddy fondled and admired the salient, superb
horse with his fire-rimmed eyes and slender legs, the other two sat down
on a rectangular stone, all coated in liverwort, upon which they had
lolled many times in days agone. And here they communed with happy,
hurried words.
"But Lem," Belle-Ann was saying, "you are all dressed up--but for your
beautiful locks, you look really citified--perhaps you-all was on your
way to visit some young lady--am I right?--come now,"--she laughed
coyly.
"Belle-Ann, ef yo' had come 'bout half hour later--yo' wouldn't a found
me--I wus jest a startin' out on my way below t' look fo' yo',
Belle-Ann.--I wus 'lowin' t' scour th' whole earth fo' yo'--I told Buddy
an' Slab thet I'd never come back till I seed yore face jest onct,
anyways--I wus goin' t' spend th' balance of my life lookin' fo' yo',
Belle-Ann."
"Lem--didn't I cross my heart that day and pledge you that I'd come
back?"
"Yes--but I wus afeerd thet somethin' had happened t' yo'-all,
Belle-Ann,--then I togged myself up an' fixed to go below--then I
thought I'd go up on th' Crown an' take a last look at the spot
where I saw yo' last a wavin' at me, and pretty soon I seed
somethin'--an'--an'--Gawd'll Moughty--thah yo' wus a wavin' right at
me--then I sho' did make time a gettin' down off'n thah--an' as I run
down th' trail--thet ornery Sap McGill jumped out an' tried t'
shoot----"
With a fear-fraught half-scream, Belle-Ann had bounded to her feet.
"Sap McGill--McGill, here?" she cried out incredulously. Her bosom
heaved with excitement, and her eyes were wide and starry with a sudden
new-born terror. "Oh!--don't tell me that McGill is up heah--on this
side of Hellsfork!"
Then it was, with bated breath and hurried, fear-laden words, that she
implored Lem to hide somewhere. When she finished, all the blithesome,
pulsing happiness that had dwelt in her beautiful face a few moments
previously had vanished.
Lem got quickly to his feet and stood eyeing her bloodless countenance
in a trance of blank incomprehension.
"Tell me--tell me quick, where is McGill now?" she panted, her hat
dropping from her nerveless hands and falling at her feet.
"Why--Belle-Ann--I left em a layin' on his back up at th' loop."
"Did you kill him?"
"Naw--I didn't hev time--I wanted t' meet yo'-all--I left Buddy a
guardin' em."
There was pitiable, livid dread in her face now. Her pathetic mouth
dropped woefully. She stood, with fingers interlocked helplessly, in the
grip of a seething apprehension. Buddy, who did not understand the real
cause of Belle-Ann's distress, stood with two clinched fists, and a look
of awful destruction aglow in his eyes.
"Didn't I say yo' oughter kilt em--didn't I tell yo'?" he cried in
piping, admonishing tones. Lem had not moved a muscle, though the girl's
whiteness was communicated to his mask-like visage. Now he frowned upon
Buddy.
"What ded yo' leave em fer?" he said.
"McGill will kill you, Lem," muttered the girl, beside herself with the
violence of this sudden new fear that overpowered her. "If he isn't dead
now--I know that he is lurking along the trail to kill you, Lem!--Oh,
it's awful!--It's so disheartening to live such lives--what can we
do?--I--I----" With her hands to her face she burst into sudden tears,
precluding all speech.
Just as suddenly was Lem Lutts electrified with a quick determination.
He grabbed Buddy's rifle.
"I'll trail em down ef he's gone, Belle-Ann--I'll sho' kill em now."
With a swift movement Belle-Ann clutched Lem's sleeve tenaciously to
detain and dissuade him. But his eyes shone with a maniacal fire as he
jerked away from her and ran back up the trail with strides that carried
him far ahead of the nervous horse that had taken affright and had
bolted and was now galloping up the rock-strewn path in Lem's wake. Deaf
to Belle-Ann's appealing voice urging him to come back, Lem only yelled
back over his shoulder:
"I'll sho' kill em now!"
The horse soon swerved off from the trail and plunged down toward the
valley amidst the brush, with Buddy in pursuit. Belle-Ann ran now along
after Lem as swiftly as her trembling, weak limbs would carry her.
When Lem Lutts reached the loop he halted, struck dumb with the
spectacle before his gaze. McGill lay just as he had left him more than
an hour before. Apparently he had not moved a finger.