Sunlight Patch Part 46

The sheriff poured his libation, swallowed it, and wiped his long mustache on the back of his hand. Then he said: "U-um! A-ah!" Whereupon Zack poured another and pa.s.sed it to him. Old Zack did not understand the drift of things in the least, but he did know that this thirty-year-old bourbon of the Colonel's was a tremendously potent mollifier in all times of stress. Jess held the gla.s.s fondly up to the light, and was more careful now to brush away his mustache. It evidently dawned on him that the flavor of the first "three fingers" had been neglected through haste.

"I don't remember Tyse," he said at length, reaching for one of Zack's store cigars. "When was that?"

"Three years before," Dale answered.

"Three yeahs befoh Tusk?"

"No, three years before Bill."

"Wall, I'll be--heah, Zack, give me another snifter!" Jess nervously drank it, handed back the gla.s.s and looked at Dale. "In my jedgment, the statters of limintation is clean busted on that case, too. But I'll jest tell you as a friend, that if you go resurrectin' any moh of them man slaughters--I don't care if they're older'n the 'sa.s.sination of Garfield--I'll hang you for bein' a plain d.a.m.n fool." With this he uttered a loud guffaw, but once more grew sober and laid his hand on Dale's shoulder: "Don't you go killin' no moh fellers 'round heah! I do mean that! Leastwise, don't do it while you're stayin' at the Cunnel's.

It ain't right to his folks, an' I won't stand for it!"

"Then Tusk'd better keep away," the mountaineer grumbled.

"Wall, if the Cunnel don't want him 'round, I can mighty easy give him a tip to vamoose--but you let me 'tend to it, understand? Now," he chuckled, "I'd better git back an' unlock Brent from them steps!"

So it was that, when he mounted and rode away, his mind was distinctly on Brent and the caressing quality of the Colonel's thirty-year-old bourbon, and not at all concerned with the mission which had taken him to Arden.

Dale stood looking after him, but not thinking. He stood in a sort of ferment of happy thrills and deepest sorrow. The bars that had momentarily been put up between him and his pasture of learning, now lay again at his feet. He could pa.s.s through at will, any time he desired.

But what of Jane? Would she be there to welcome, to help him?--to take his hand again and lead him into the cool places, into the mazy shadows, through vista after vista of appealing outlook? He turned back to the library and, with hesitation, stepped through the low window.

The room was empty. His eyes glanced down at the book which she had torn from his hand and flung away. He saw that it had fallen, sprawled and awkward, and was leaning drunkenly against the legs of the dictionary stand. Across from it, by a deep leather chair, lay, also on the floor, a dainty handkerchief, moist and pressed into a little ball. Each of these held him with an esoteric charm; but his eyes remained upon the tear-moistened, scented linen as though at any moment it might begin to accuse him. He was afraid to touch it, and afraid to touch the book. He felt that he had obtruded an unwelcome presence upon these two mute evidences of pa.s.sion which seemed now to be drawn momentarily apart for breath before re-engaging in the fray. In this strained expectancy the measured ticking of the old clock in the corner was startlingly loud.

One might have counted a hundred, and then, as quietly as he came, he tiptoed out, crossed the porch and pa.s.sed on through the trees.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

OUT OF THE DYING DAY

When the sheriff turned away, Jane had for an instant closed her eyes in a prayer of happy thankfulness; but then a torture, a tearing and racking mortification because she had proved herself so weak before the mountain man so strong--and in contrast to Brent! (ah, G.o.d, what sacrifice would he not make for her!)--thrust its claws into her sensitive nature, and she blindly fled to the long room whose musty silence promised solitude. At the far end of this she threw herself straight out upon a sofa, and for more than an hour buried her face in its linen coverlet. Her brows were drawn into a frown as she wilfully shut out the image of Brent, for something sterner must first be faced.

Something must be done to re-establish Dale's faith in her, or she must forever abandon him to other hands and other influences. Today--now--she must act. And this left her helpless, because she could find no way. His nature had made a complete revolution in that moment of crisis before the sheriff came; his words had carried her beyond her understanding of him! She did not know this new Dale, and how could she re-establish faith with a stranger?

But at any hazard it must be tried. Were she to fail him, he would be like a compa.s.s with no magnetic pole--spinning, vacillating. Suppose he should go spinning off from his now safe orbit? And then suppose he should come rushing back to her for help?--could she ever again enter those former halls of confidence with this new, strange man, as he had grown to be?

This was the price, she told herself, of having been weaker than he; of having behaved more ign.o.bly! The contemplation of it sapped her self-a.s.surance, and as self-a.s.surance vanished there began to enter a new feeling which she unwillingly recognized as fear.

She was not afraid of Dale--not the man! No personal element had ever existed between them. But she was most decidedly afraid of the far-reaching consequences which might be wrought by her failure to hold him steadfast. For if he could rise to a place whose height had dazzled her, why should she not in his eyes have sunk as astonishingly low? By what incentive would he then come again for guidance? How could she have the effrontery to offer it?

Between remorseless reasonings and the stings of wounded pride, she pressed her face still deeper into the old sofa.

It must have been an hour later when she sprang up and looked anxiously at the darkening windows. She had formed no definite plan, but her dominant impulse was to act before he should have a night to a.n.a.lyse, to settle, to censure. Stopping at the first wall mirror she made a few touches to her hair and searched her face for signs of tears; then pa.s.sed out, closing the heavy door with a firmness which might have meant all fears were shut within.

At the library she hesitated, experiencing a momentary relief when it was found to be deserted. She went to the porch but it, too, was vacant; and as far as she could see out through the grounds no one stirred. Yet, as her search continued, her self-a.s.surance came bounding back, and when she started across the gra.s.s to an old arbor, where he had sometimes been known to go at this hour, she became once more the courageous, dauntless mountain girl.

He was there, just as she suspected. Through the gathering shadows he could be seen leaning heavily against one of the upright posts, his shoulders stooped, and his face set upon the west which was a fiery red.

Going softly along the tanbark path, and stopping within a pace of him, she waited to see if he would turn; then asked:

"Were you watching the sunset?"

He answered "Yes," but it might have come from someone else, so little did he seem to realize her presence.

"Was it beautiful?" she asked again.

"I don't know; I didn't see it."

"It is leaving a wonderful sky," she ventured, trying to come gracefully to the things she wanted to say.

"Yes," he murmured, after another pause. "A kind of sky that makes me sad--a sort of sadness very far from tears. I don't know what I mean;--I don't reckon anyone knows what I mean!"

Her eyes did not leave their watchful gaze upon his shoulders. It might have been that she expected to see him change again; to see him begin another transformation back to the old Dale--for surely this was not the schoolboy speaking now! And she wished he might come back, for then she could talk to him. Again she was reminded of the precious minutes pa.s.sing. It would be easier to open with an attack.

"I shouldn't think you could be anything else but sad after the way you've behaved," she said slowly, wondering if he would submit.

But he only murmured:

"I did all I could to pay the debt;--I thought I was doing my duty!"

If there were a qualm of conscience in the girl's heart she ruthlessly murdered it, and evenly replied:

"Yes, I am proud of you for that. It was other things I meant."

He turned now, and slowly questioned her with his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't want you to know about Tusk, and when you took me by surprise that way, I reckon I acted rough! Who'd a-thought we were born enemies!--an' after all you've done to help me!

But I tried, Gawd knows I tried, to pay the debt!"

A wave of pity thrilled her, but her voice was proportionately accusing as she said:

"All you've tried can not atone for what you did."

"I know," he buried his face in his hands. "That was ignorance, an' I'm payin' for it by havin' you turn away an' snap my future like a fiddle string! Oh, how could my hand a-struck yoh people--even in black ignorance!"

Her mental claws, which had bared at the approach of this interview, now softly began to find their padded coverings. The anxious antic.i.p.ation which had armed her against an untested foe, now left but a sympathy straining to take possession; because her instinct said there was to be no resisting force, and the crushed att.i.tude of the man before her plainly told that she was still the unlowered, the unapproachable being in his eyes. With her pride unhurt, her belligerency was unessential.

For a moment more she continued to let him suffer. She might have relieved it now--she even wanted to--but the old savage spirit was still unappeased, and a devil of the feud days made her ask:

"Where are you going, and what are you intending to make of your life?"

She might have expected some outburst as a result of this, for she shrank slightly back; but he did not move. He seemed too crushed, and pressed his hands more violently against his face, murmuring from the depths of inordinate suffering:

"Oh, Gawd! That you an' I should be enemies!--that we were born to be enemies!"

"Yes, I know," she faltered, looking away; for the sight of his grief had conquered. "It's hard to believe--wretchedly hard--that you and I should have been born to hate and destroy each other;--and that you, with the hand I've so patiently taught to write, killed--him!" He groaned. "But, Dale," she stepped closer, "I've just been facing facts, and believe that our strong wills can adjust it all;--that through our old feud may come a truer understanding, a surer sympathy, than enters often into this _comedie humaine_. Those are the real things which make life worth while; not inherited hatreds because our ancestors were at war! It may be hard to forgive, furiously hard; but certainly it is wrong to keep such ghastly things alive! The world is such a wide marvel of the beautiful out-of-doors to wander in!--there is so much to do and learn and see and be!--so much to read and think about and live for!--so much of the glories of life--that surely you and I can be given the boon of forgetfulness and the bounty of friendship! Go back to the house, pick up the book I threw away, and look at the last line you read!--then rub your eyes, and pretend you've just awakened from an ugly dream!"

He was slowly drawing his hands down from his face, and looking as though this itself might be a dream. In bewilderment he asked: