Once to Every Man Part 10

There was no progress made or satisfaction gained from Young Denny's short nod. Again the little man bore it as long as he was able.

"Figurin' on bein' gone quite a spell?" he ventured again.

And again the big-shouldered figure nodded a silent affirmative. Old Jerry drew himself up with an air of injured dignity at that inhospitable slight; he even took one step backward toward the door; but that one step, in the face of his consuming curiosity, was as far as he could force himself to go.

"I--I kinda thought you might be leavin'. Why, I--kinda suspicioned it this morning when I seen you ridin' townward with the Jedge."

The boy stuffed the last article into the bulging bag and turned. Old Jerry almost believed that the lack of comprehension in Young Denny's eyes was real until he caught again that hint of amus.e.m.e.nt behind it.

But when Denny started toward him suddenly, without so much as a word, the old man retreated just as suddenly, almost apprehensively, before him.

"You say you was expectin' me," he faltered unsteadily, "but--but if there wa'n't anything special you wanted to see me about, I--I reckon I better be joggin' along. I just kinda dropped in, late's it was, to tell you there wa'n't no mail, and to say--to tell you----"

He stopped abruptly. He didn't like the looks of Denny Bolton's eyes.

They were different than he had ever seen them before. If their inscrutability was not actually terrifying, Old Jerry's active imagination at that moment made it so. And never before had he noted how huge the boy's body was in comparison with his own weazened frame.

He groped stealthily behind him and found the door catch. The cool touch of the metal helped him a little.

"I--I may be a trifle late--jest a trifle," he hurried on, "but I been hustlin' to git here--that is, ever sense about five o'clock, or thereabouts. There's been something I been wantin' to tell you. I--I jest wanted to say that I hoped it wa'n't anything I might have said or--or kinda hinted at, maybe, nights down to the Tavern, that's druv you out. That's a mighty mean, gossipy crowd down there, anyway, always kinda leadin' a man along till he gits to oversteppin' hisself a little."

It was the first declaration of his own shortcomings that he had ever voiced, an humble confession that was more than half apology born of that afternoon's travail of spirit; but somehow it rang hopelessly inadequate in his own ears at that minute. And yet Young Denny's head came swiftly forward at the words; his eyes narrowed and he frowned as though he were trying to believe he had heard correctly. Then he laughed--laughed softly--and Old Jerry knew what that laugh meant. The boy didn't believe even when he had heard; and his slow-drawled, half-satirical question more than confirmed that suspicion.

"Wasn't at all curious, then, about this?" he inquired, with a whimsical twist to the words.

He touched his chin with the tips of his fingers. Old Jerry's treacherous lips flew open in his eagerness, and then closed barely in time upon the admission that had almost betrayed him.

He was sorry now, too, that he had even lingered to make his apology.

That disturbing glint was flaring brighter than ever in Young Denny's eyes. Merely because he was afraid to turn his back to pa.s.s out, Old Jerry stood and watched with beadily attentive eyes while the boy crossed and took a lantern from its peg on the wall behind the stove and turned up the wick and lighted it. That unexplained preparation was as fascinating to watch as its purport was veiled.

"You must be just a little curious about it--just a little bit?" Denny insisted gravely. "I thought you'd be--and all the others, too. That's why I was waiting for you--that and something in particular that I did want to ask you, after I'd made you understand."

If the first part of his statement was still tinged with mirth, the second could not possibly have been any more direct or earnest.

Without further explanation, one hand grasping his visitor's thin shoulder, he urged him outside and across the yard in the direction of the black bulk of the barn. The rain was still coming down steadily, but neither of them noticed it at that moment. Old Jerry would have balked at the yawning barn door but for that same hand which was directing him and urging him on. His apprehension had now turned to actual fright which bordered close on panic, and he heard the boy's voice as though it came from a great distance.

"----two or three things I'd like to have you understand and get straight," Denny was repeating slowly, "so that--so that if I asked you, you could see that--someone else got them straight, too."

Old Jerry was in no mental condition to realize that that last statement was untinged by any lurking sarcasm. He was able to think of but one thing.

The hand upon his shoulder had loosened its grip. Slowly the little man turned--turned with infinite caution, and what he considered was a very capable att.i.tude of self-defense. And for a moment he refused to believe his own eyes--refused to believe that, in place of the threat of sudden death which he had expected, Young Denny was merely standing there before him, pointing with his free hand at a dark, almost damp stain upon the dusty woodwork behind the stalls. It flashed through his brain then that Denny Bolton had not merely gone the way of the other Boltons--it was not the jug alone that had stood in the kitchen corner, but something far worse than that.

"I got to humor him," he told himself, although he was shivering uncontrollably. "I got to keep a grip on myself and kinda humor him."

And aloud, in a voice that was little more than a whisper, he murmured:

"What--what is it?"

"Couldn't you guess--if you had to?"

Denny made the suggestion with appalling calm. Old Jerry clenched his teeth to still their chattering.

"Maybe I could--maybe I could;" and his voice was a little stronger.

"I--I'd say it was blood, I reckon, if anyone asked me."

Without a word the boy set the lantern down and walked across the barn to lay one hand upon the flank of the nervous animal in the nearest stall.

"That's what it is," he stated slowly; and again he touched the wound on his chin gingerly. "From this," he went on. "I came in last night to feed--and I--I forgot to speak to Tom here, and it was dark. He--he laced out and caught me--and that's where I landed, there against the wall."

The servant of the "Gov'mint" nodded his comprehension--he nodded it volubly, with deep bows that would have done credit to a dancing master, lest his comprehensions seem in the least bit veiled with doubt. He even clicked his tongue sympathetically, just as the plump newspaper man had done.

"Quite a tap--quite a tap!" he said as soothingly as his uncertain tongue would permit; but he took care to keep a safe distance between himself and his guide when Denny stooped and lifted the lantern and led the way outside.

Now that he was free from that detaining hand upon his shoulder, he contemplated the advisability of a sudden dash for the buggy and flight behind the fat white mare. Nothing but the weakened condition of his own knees and a lack of confidence in her ability to carry him clear kept him from acting instantly upon that impulse. And then the summoning voice of the great blurred figure which had been zigzagging across the gra.s.s before him checked him at the very moment of decision.

Young Denny had stopped beside a sapling that stood in a direct line with the kitchen window, and was pointing down at a heap of broken crockery that lay at its foot.

"And if anyone was to ask you," he was deliberately inquiring, "what do you suppose you would say that had been?"

Old Jerry knew! He knew without one chance for doubt; but never before had the truth seemed more overwhelmingly dreadful or surcharged with peril. A dozen diplomatic evasions flashed through his mind, and were all condemned as inadequate for that crisis. He knew that candor was his safest course.

"Why, I--I'd say it looked mighty like a--a broken jug," he quavered, with elaborate interest. "Jest a common, ordinary jug that's kinda got broke, somehow. Yes, sir-e-e, all broke up, as you might say!"

His shrill cackle of a voice caught in his throat, and grew husky, and then broke entirely. Even Young Denny, absorbed as he was in his methodical exhibition of all the evidence, became suddenly aware that the little figure beside him was swallowing hard--swallowing with great, noisy gulps, and he lifted the lantern until the yellow light fell full upon the twitching face below him, illuminating every feature. And he stared hard at all that the light revealed, for Old Jerry's face was very white.

"Jest a little, no-account jug that's got busted," the shrill, bodiless voice went chattering on, while its owner recoiled from the light. "Busted all to pieces from hittin' into a tree!" And then, rea.s.suringly, on a desperate impulse: "But don't you go to worryin'

over it--don't you worry one mite! I'm goin' to fix it for you. Old Jerry's a-goin' to fix it for you in the morning, so's it'll be just as good as new! You run right along in now. It's kinda wet out here--and--and I got to be gittin' along toward home."

Absolute silence followed the promise. Young Denny only lowered the lantern--and then lifted it and stared, and lowered it once more.

"Fix it!" he echoed, his voice heavy with wonder. "Fix it?"

Then he noted, too, the chattering teeth and meager, trembling body, and he thought he understood.

"You'd better come along in," he ordered peremptorily. "You come along inside. I'll rake up the fire and you can warm up a bit. I--I didn't think, keeping you out here in the rain. Why, you'll feel better after you've had a little rest. You ought not to be out all day in weather like this, anyway. You're too--too----"

He was going to say too old, but a quick thought saved him. Old Jerry did not want to accompany him; he would have done almost anything else with a light heart; but that big hand had fallen again upon his shoulder, and there was no choice left him.

Young Denny clicked the door shut before them and pulled a chair up before the stove with businesslike haste. After he had stuffed the fire-box full of fresh fuel and the flame was roaring up the pipe, he turned once more and stood, hands resting on his hips, staring down at the small figure slumped deep in its seat.

"I didn't understand," he apologized again, his voice very sober.

"I--I ought to have remembered that maybe you'd be tired out and wet, too. But I didn't--I was just thinking of how I could best show you--these things--so's you'd understand them. You're feeling better now?"

Furtively, from the corners of his eyes, Old Jerry had been watching every move while the boy built up the fire. And now, while Denny stood over him talking so gravely, his head came slowly around until his eyes were full upon that face; until he was able to see clearly, there in the better light of that room, all the solicitude that had softened the hard lines of the lean jaw. It was hard to believe, after all that he had pa.s.sed through, and yet he knew that it could not be possible--he knew that that voice could not belong to any man who had been nursing a maniacal vengeance behind a cunningly calm exterior.

There was no light of madness in those eyes which were studying him so steadily--studying him with unconcealed anxiety. Old Jerry could not have told how it had come about; but there in the light, with four good solid walls about him, he realized that a miracle had taken place. Little by little his slack body began to stiffen; little by little he raised himself. Once he sighed, a sigh of deeper thankfulness than Young Denny could ever comprehend, for Young Denny did not know the awfulness of the peril through which he had just pa.s.sed.

"G.o.dfrey" he thought, and the exclamation was so poignantly real within him that it took audible form without his knowledge. "G.o.dfrey 'Lisha, but that was a close call! That's about as narrer a squeak as I'll ever hev, I reckon."

And he wanted to laugh. An almost hysterical fit of laughter straggled for utterance. Only because the situation was too precious to squander, only because he would have sacrificed both arms before confessing the terror which had been shaking him by the throat, was he able to stifle it. Instead, he removed his drenched and battered hat and pa.s.sed one fluttering hand across his forehead, with just the shade of unsteadiness for which the affair called.

"Yes, I'm a-feelin' better now," he sighed. "G.o.dfrey, yes, I'm a sight better already! Must 'a' been just a little touch of faintness, maybe.

I'm kinda subject to them spells when I've been overworked. And I hev been a little mite druv up today--druv to the limit, if the truth's told. Things ain't been goin' as smooth's they might. Why--why, they ain't n.o.body'd believe what's been crowded into this day, even if I was to tell 'em!"