Judith of the Cumberlands Part 22

"I would come, Judith, becaze I love you an' you love me--but Creed, he won't," said the boy.

"You tell him Little Buck," she whispered huskily, terror and shame warring in her face, "tell him that I do love him. Tell him I said for G.o.d's sake to come--if he loves me."

The child's eyes slowly filled. He dropped them and stood staring at the ground, saying nothing because of the blur. Finally:

"I'll tell him that--ef you say I must," he whispered. And loving, tender Judith, in her desperate preoccupation, never noted what she had done to her little sweetheart.

Chapter XVII

The Old Cherokee Trail

"The supper's all ready for you boys," Judith called in to Wade whose whistle sounded from his own room. "Hit's a settin', kivered, on the hearth; the coffee-pot's on the coals. Would you-all mind to wait on yo'selves, an' would you put the saddle on Selim for me? I'm goin' over to Lusks'. I'll eat supper there; I may stay all night; but I'll be home in the mornin' soon to git you-all's breakfast."

"Why--why, pap 'lowed----"

"Well, Uncle Jep ain't here. Ef you don't want to----"

"Oh, that's all right Judith. Of course it's all right. But you say you're goin' to ride to Lusks'?--to ride?" hesitated Wade uneasily.

Judith flung up her head and stared straight at him with angry eyes.

"Yes," she said finally, "when I leave this place for over night I'd ruther know whar my hoss is at. I'll take him along."

"Oh,--all right," her cousin hastened to agree; "I never meant to make you mad, Jude. Of course I'd jest as soon saddle up for you. I don't wonder you feel thataway. I never like to have anybody use my ridin'

critter."

Judith had made her point. She let it pa.s.s, and went sombrely on with her preparation for departure. Wade still hesitated uneasily. Finally he said deprecatingly,

"Ef ye don't mind waitin' a minute I'll eat my supper, an' ride over with ye--I was a-goin' after supper anyhow; I want to see Lacey Rountree ef he's not gone back home yit."

"I'll be glad to have ye," answered Judith quietly. "I don't mind waitin'." And Wade, plainly relieved, hurried out to the stables.

They rode along quietly in the late summer afternoon; the taciturn habit of the mountain people made the silence between them seem nothing strange. Arrived at the Lusks', both girls came running out to welcome their visitor. She saw Wade's sidelong glance take note of the fact that Grandpap Lusk led away Selim to the log stable. Lacey Rountree was gone home to the Far Cove, and Wade lingered in talk with Grandpap Lusk a while at the horse-block, then got on his mule and, with florid good-byes, rode back home, evidently at rest as to Judith.

The evening meal was over. Judith helped Cliantha and Pendrilla prepare a bit of supper for herself, aided in the clearing away and dish-washing, and after they had sat for a while with Granny Lusk and the old man in the porch, listening to the whippoorwills calling to each other, and all the iterant insect voices of a July night, went to their own room.

"Girls," said Judith softly, drawing the two colourless little creatures to the bed, and sitting down with one on each side of her, "girls," and her voice deepened and shook with the strain under which she laboured, "I want you to let me slip out the back door here, put my saddle on Selim, and go home, quiet, without tellin' the old folks. I was goin' home by daylight in the mornin' anyhow, to get the boys' breakfast," as the girls stared at her in wordless surprise. "I've got a reason why I'd ruther go now--and I'd ruther the old folks didn't know. Will ye do this for me?"

The sisters looked at each other across their guest's dark eager face, and fluttered visibly. They would have been incapable of deceit to serve any purpose of their own; they were too timid to have initiated any actions not in strict accordance with household laws; but the same gentle timidity which made them subservient to the rules of their world, made them also abject worshippers at the shrine of Judith's beauty and force and fire.

"Sh.o.r.e, sh.o.r.e," they both whispered in a breath.

"I hate to have ye go Jude--" began Cliantha; but Pendrilla interrupted her.

"An' yit ef Jude would ruther go--and wants to slip out unbeknownst, why we wouldn't say nothin' about it, and jest tell granny and grandpap in the mornin' that she left soon to git the boys' breakfast."

They watched her pa.s.s quietly out the back door and toward the log stable, their big blue eyes wide with childish wonder and interest.

Judith with her many suitors, moving in an atmosphere of romance, was to them a figure like none other, and she was now in the midst of tragic doings; the glamour that had always been upon her image was heightened by the last week's occurrences. They turned back whispering and shut the door.

Thus it was that Judith found herself on Selim, moving, free from suspicion or espionage, toward the point below Foeman's Bluff where she had sent word to Creed to meet her.

The big oaks shouldered themselves in black umbels against the horizon; pointed conifers shot up inky spires between them. The sky was only greyish black, lit by many stars, and Judith trembled to note that their dim illumination might almost permit one to recognise an individual at a few paces distance. Without misadventure she came to the spot designated, urged Selim in under the shadow of a tree, dismounted, and stood beside him waiting. Would Creed come? Would Huldah persuade him that the message was only a decoy? Would he come too late? Would some of the boys intercept him, so that he should never come at all?

At the last thought she started and leaned out recklessly to search the dark path with desperate eyes. Perhaps she had better venture forward and meet him. Perhaps after all it would be possible for her to get closer to Nancy Card's. Then in the midst of her apprehensions came the sound of shod hoofs.

She had chosen this point for two reasons: first the old trail she meant to follow down the mountain pa.s.sed in close to the spot; and second it was the last place they would expect Bonbright to approach; his way to it would never be guarded. But of course she ran the risk of Blatch himself or some of his friends and followers appearing. And now she held her breath in intense anxiety as the trampling came nearer.

There appeared out of the dense shadow of the bluff a man walking and leading a mule by its bridle. She knew the mule, because she got the silhouette of it against the sky, and directly after she saw that the man who led it was tall, with a bandaged head, which he carried in a manner unmistakable, and one shoulder gleaming white--she guessed that that was because his coat was off where the bandages lay under his white shirt and over the wound in his shoulder. It was Creed. With a throb of unspeakable thankfulness she realised that she had till now dreaded that if he came at all Huldah would be with him. She moved out from the dense shadow.

"Whar--whar's Huldy?" she questioned before she would trust herself to believe. But Creed, full of the wonder of her message, dropped the mule's bridle and came toward her his uninjured arm outstretched. He put the inquiry by almost impatiently.

"Huldah? She went on down to Hepzibah soon Sat.u.r.day morning," he said. "O Judith, did you mean it--that word you sent me by Little Buck?"

He came swiftly up to her, s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand eagerly, pressing it hard against his breast, leaning close in the twilight to study her face.

"You couldn't mean it," he hurried on pa.s.sionately, tremulously, "not now; you just pity me. Little Buck cried when he told me what you said, honey. He was jealous. But he needn't have been--need he Judith? You just pity me."

Creed's manner and his words were instant rea.s.surance to Judith's womanly pride. But immediately on the relaxation of that pain rose clamouring her anxiety for his safety--his life.

"Yes, yes, Creed," she murmured vehemently. "I did mean it--I sure meant every word of it. But we got to get right away from here. Do ye reckon ye can stand it to ride as far as the foot of the mountain? Ye got to go--and I'm here to take ye."

They drew out of the path and into the deep blackness beneath the trees.

There was but a hundredth chance that anybody would be pa.s.sing here, or watching this point, yet that hundredth chance must be guarded against.

Poor Creed, he detained her, he clung to her hands hungrily, and invoked the sound of her voice. So much hate had daunted him, the strength and sweetness of her presence, the warm tenderness of her tones, were like balm to his lacerated spirit.

"I couldn't go to-night--dear----" he faltered, abashed that the first word he uttered to her must be a denial. "You're mighty sweet and good to offer to take me--I don't know what I have ever done that you should risk this for me--but I'm to have a chance to talk to your Uncle Jephthah at moonrise to-night, and I can't turn my back on that. He's a fair-minded man and I'll make this thing right yet."

Judith shuddered. "Don't you never believe it," she urged in a panting whisper. "Uncle Jep hadn't a thing on earth to do with that word goin' to you. He's left home. I can't find him nowhars, or I'd have went straight to him and begged him to help me out when I found what the boys was aimin' to do. Hit was Blatch planned it all. I tell ye Creed, Blatch Turrentine is alive--you never killed him when you flung him over the bluff--and while he lives you can't stay here. He's bound to kill ye."

"Have you seen Blatch, yourself, Judith?" Creed asked quickly.

"Oh, laws, no. He's a layin' out in the woods somewheres, aimin' to make Uncle Jep believe you killed him. But I heard him plain enough--I heard him and the boys fix it all up--hid out from Uncle Jep down in the grain-room. There's to be seven of 'em a-waitin' down by the big hollow, and when they git you betwixt them an' the sky at moonrise they're all promised to shoot at once, so that nary man dast to go back on the others when you're killed."

Wounded, appalled, the young fellow drew back from her and clung to the saddle of the old mule, with a boyish desire to hide his face against the arm which he threw over it.

"How they hate me!" he breathed at last. "Oh, I've failed--I've failed. I meant so well by them all--and I've got nothing but their hate. But I won't run. I never ran from anything yet. I'll stay here and take what comes."

Perhaps in his extremity the despair of this speech was but an unconscious reaching out for Judith's expressed affection, the warmth and consolation of her love. If this were so, the movement brought him what he craved. In terror she laid hold upon him, holding to his unwounded arm, pressing her cheek upon his shoulder, making her protest in swift pa.s.sionate sentences.

"What good will it do for you to get yourself killed--tell me that? Every one of them men will be murderers, when you've stayed and seen it through. Lord, what differ is it whether sech critters as them love you or hate you? 'Pears to me I would ruther have their ill-will as their good-will. Don't you have no regards for them that is good friends to you? _I_ care. _I_ understand what it was you was tryin' to do. I thort it was fine. Air you goin' to break my heart by stayin' here to git yourself killed? Oh, don't do it, Creed. You let me take you out of the mountains, or I'll never know what it is to sleep in peace."

His arm slipped softly round her waist and drew her close against his side, so close that the two young creatures, standing silent in the midst of the warm summer night, could almost hear the beating of each other's heart. In spite of their desperate situation they were tremulously happy.

"I thank my G.o.d for you, Judith," murmured Creed, bending to lay his cheek timidly against hers. "Never was a man in trouble had such a sweet helper. It's mighty near worth it all to have found you. Maybe you never would have cared for me at all if this hadn't come about--if I hadn't needed you so bad."