The Red Debt Part 5

But all this was now a remote contingency in the face of his unbridled pa.s.sion for Belle-Ann, and it was with a sense of bravado that he realized it was a mere matter of time before the calamity of exposure would overtake him.

But against the advent of this unerring nemesis, he banked on at least a few weeks, and probably a few months, during which, he told himself, he might win out and have Belle-Ann ensconced safely in some big city, far removed from the arm of the law and the limits of Kentucky.

After that he did not care.

He had cast the die, and had staked his life upon the outcome. If by any ill luck the outcome demanded his life, he stood ready to pay the toll.

That Lem Lutts should never get Belle-Ann he had fully determined.

He regretted that Peter Burton had not killed Lem long ago, as he had always hoped.

He would have risked the chance and steered Burton up to the Lutts still, but he could not do so for the ample reason that he did not know where it was. He had known, so long as he had remained a mountaineer in good standing; but old Captain Lutts had moved the still in the early stages of Orlick's mysterious sojourns, and the faction had not since volunteered to tell him its whereabouts, and he was loath to jeopardize his own skin in looking for it.

However, while Orlick was serving Burton, he had served himself doubly.

The smooth, unruffled manner in which his plans were unfolding up to date filled him with high glee, and his spirits soared to the skies.

Wild and desolate as this wilderness country is, it is nevertheless almost impossible for an outsider to invade its precincts without his presence being mysteriously communicated to the denizens of the hills.

Whenever an invasion is accomplished secretly it is invariably engineered by some traitor who knows every nook and cranny in the mountains.

But Orlick had determined to double-cross Burton and circ.u.mvent his plan, if Belle-Ann manifested any substantial symptom of requiting his suit for her hand or yielded to his persuasions.

To-day as Orlick halted in the shade of a poplar to rest his spent horse, he rolled a cigarette contemplatively with a half smile on his lips. If Belle-Ann favored him, he told himself that he would remove every seeming obstacle that promised to come between them. This was a compact ratified with himself when he rolled the cigarette and smiled; and if he could not win her, he would at least deprive her of Lem Lutts, through the medium of a quick, desperate coup, the details of which he had already confided to Burton.

As Orlick lit his cigarette, cast the match away, and hooked his right leg over the saddle-horn, he gave himself up to the favorite meditation upon which his fancy had fed for months. With a vain-glorious grunt he regarded his new trooper's outfit.

He was exuberantly conscious of the great roll of bank-notes bulging in his pocket. And, too, it was all easy money. He confessed this as he muttered above his breath:

"Dead easy--easier 'n easy!"

In truth, he had never imagined that one man could get hold of so much money so easily as he had done since his lucky affiliations with a certain one-eyed gentleman known as Red Herron, who engineered a nocturnal business in Louisville.

Money was a necessary adjunct, especially to a lover, and lent an atmosphere of reality to this lover's stock of artifices.

Moreover, Orlick nurtured a robust desire to see Belle-Ann's physical beauty adorned and enhanced with smart attire in emulation of the handsome girls that met his admiring eyes in the streets of Louisville.

Orlick's fancy, furthermore, had the hardihood to picture his wedding tour, with Belle-Ann as his wife.

Their trip on a luxurious Pullman train to Omaha! Ah, how the people would stare at this lovely, stylish girl--his wife! And he had the money in his pocket at this moment, and knew where to get more.

So excited was he by this scintillating dream of requited love that, as if to hasten to its glorious reality, he threw his foot suddenly into the stirrup, rolled the spur against the horse's ribs, and proceeded toward the Lutts abode, flushed with a mighty confidence.

Nearing the cabin, Orlick's brow grew black as he thought that Lem Lutts's possible presence at home might thwart his conquest.

A young hound, with a fore-leg bandaged in splints, lay in the shade near the horse-block. The dog, emitting barks of alarm, sidled up on three legs and sniffed suspiciously.

The Lutts' dogs knew Orlick well enough, but they had always met him with growls of distrust, and had never become reconciled to his presence.

Orlick cast his eyes about, but he saw no signs of the family. He stripped the horse; and, picking up a cob, made shift to clean the animal's hind quarters, where the lather had congealed into hard, salty cakes, while his eyes were searching the premises for the object of his visit.

Leaving the horse to follow his own will, Orlick sat down on the bench and waited.

He remained there for a full half-hour, in compliance with ethics of the mountains, which prescribes that a caller shall wait at a distance, especially where there are womenfolk, until invited to advance.

When the dogs bark and the inmates fail to appear there is all the more reason why he should wait.

With the peculiar instinct a horse has for locating water, Orlick's animal had taken himself off at a brisk trot toward the log stable.

Missing his horse, Orlick looked about and caught a fleeting glimpse of him through the vista of trees, and, knowing that if he got to the water in his heated condition he would founder, Orlick dashed away in pursuit.

Thus it happened that he came unexpectedly upon Belle-Ann, who stood at the horse-trough, urging Orlick's animal away from the water. Orlick stopped short, regarded her confusedly; then, removing his trooper's hat, executed a bow and smirked copiously.

His heart thumped wildly in that instant. Each time he saw Belle-Ann he vowed mentally that she was more beautiful than before. The sight of her invariably threw him into a state of nervous flurry, and drove from his mind the pretty things he had previously decided to say to her.

Small wonder then that he stood abashed before her. Never in all his travels had he seen her equal.

"Yo' wusn't jest a lookin' fo' me--eh--Belle-Ann?" he managed to say awkwardly. She scanned him deprecatingly.

"No--I jest wusn't," she agreed. "Th' boys hain't home, Orlick," she added pointedly, seating herself upon an inverted wagon-bed near by.

Orlick sauntered over and sat down, too, now regaining his poise.

"I didn't know I wus comin', either--till a short spell 'fore I started," he said tentatively.

Belle-Ann eyed the horse, now standing under a poplar, too tired to crop.

"Yo' must hev started frum th' ocean, didn't yo'?" she asked, with a gesture toward the animal.

"Aw--he's soft, Belle-Ann. I 'lowed I'd rest em up a bit--till th' boys c.u.m," he ended lamely.

"Why don't yo'-all buy a mountain hoss? Thes hoss wasn't cut out fo'

thes country," observed Belle-Ann.

"Mabby hit's 'cause I hain't aimin' t' stay in thes country, Belle-Ann."

She shot a quick look at him. He met her eyes and noted a glint of suspicion in them, so he hurried to forestall any utterance in reference to his mysterious sojourns the past two years.

"Yo' see, I'm layin' off t' git married, Belle-Ann," he explained, watching her oval features narrowly; "an' when I do, I 'low t' settle down below, whar th' folks stan's t' give a honest man a chanst."

Belle-Ann turned wondering eyes upon him.

She had never before heard anything coming from Orlick but arrogant self-praise; hence she marveled at his meek voice and doleful aspect.

"Whut makes yo' look so sorry--air yo're gal so powerful ugly?" Try as she would, she could not restrain a sudden burst of mirth, and she laughed outright.

Now, if Belle-Ann's accents were soothing and captivating in speech, verily, her laugh rivaled the rippling sweetness of the lute. It trailed across Orlick's mood like a tonic and fired his face with a hot flush of antic.i.p.ation.

"Ugly!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed--"ugly--no, Belle-Ann. She air th' all-fired'st purttiest gal in all Kentucky--an' she hain't fer away, either, I 'low!"

Saying this, he came perilously near to overrunning the ethics of the mountains and seizing her in his arms and smothering her with his kisses.

With an effort he restrained himself.