Trading Jeff and his Dog Part 34

"Your description. "Til the sun lightens the topmost twigs on the big pines.' Not exactly poetry, but it has a poetic spirit. Well, if we're going to be here all night, we should do something besides glare at each other."

He slid out of the pack, laid it on the table and stretched. Then he stifled a yawn. He'd had no sleep last night and evidently he'd get none tonight, but more than once he'd had to stay awake as long, and he could do it again.

"If you be weary," Barr indicated the bunks, "you might sleep."

"Thanks," Jeff declined, "but I'm afraid I'd have bad dreams. Besides, this may be my last chance to talk with you. What'll we talk about, Barr?"

Barr broke out suddenly, "I can't plumb ya. Can't plumb ya a'tall!"

Jeff said smoothly, "It's easy. I'm not a complex person. I'll tell you my life story if you want to hear it. Won't cost you a cent."

"I swan!" Barr e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I could like ye a lot if'n I didn't--"

"If you didn't think I was a policeman? Sorry I can't change your mind on that subject. But I'm not."

Barr's eyes searched Jeff's. "Why'd the boy say it?"

Jeff shrugged. "If I knew why boys say things, I'd be a lot smarter than I am."

"But ya did tell the boy ya'd find out who kil't Blazer?"

"Yup."

"Yet, now ye got the chanst, you'd pa.s.s it by?"

"This is a chance? I don't want to kill anybody. I never promised Dan anything except that we'd find his father's murderer. Afterwards I was going to turn him over to the law."

Barr wrinkled his brows. "But ye be no policeman?"

"I'm not," Jeff said flatly. "Barr, what had you intended to do with me?"

It was Barr's turn to shrug. "Shoot ya."

"And in your opinion, that was right?"

Barr said fiercely, "A body don't stop to think should he tromp on its haid does he find a pizen snake on his h'arthstone!"

Jeff lapsed into silence. His life story he had offered in jest, but he understood Barr's. His ancestors had been among the first to come to America, and they had come because there wasn't room enough for them in Europe. But neither had there been room enough in America's scattered colonies for people so fierce, reckless and proud. They had either left the settlements of their own accord or been driven out. They had wanted above all to live by their own personal inclinations and not by rules which they had little part in making. Always they had sought the wildest and most inaccessible places because only there could they live as they must.

Barr Whitney typified this wild independence, which couldn't possibly endure. Sooner or later even the hill clans must submit to the forward march of civilization and Jeff hoped that the advancing juggernaut would not crush them completely. The spirit they represented always had been and always would be necessary to free people. Probably the older ones would go down fighting; certainly they would never learn that they must bend themselves to others. Perhaps their children, or their children's children, would.

Jeff shrugged. That was to come. This was now, and neither civilization nor anything else had as yet tamed Barr Whitney. Jeff rubbed a hand on his trousers.

"You ail?" Barr asked.

"My hand's twitching."

"The oil of shunk an' the grease of b'ar, mixed two of one to one of the other, an' cooked on a hick'ry fire when the moon's near horn points to water, will drive out ary itch."

Jeff grinned. "Can't wait for the moon's near horn to point to water, and besides I don't want a cure. When my hand twitches, I'm lucky."

Pete moved so swiftly that he seemed in one split second to be sitting on his chair and then, magically, to be standing with his rifle at half raise. But quick as he was, Barr was quicker. His rifle cracked, a lock of hair detached itself from Pete's head to float softly to the floor, and before the sound died Barr had levered another cartridge into the chamber. He spoke as casually as though he had just shot at a squirrel.

"Next'un's goin' through your haid, Pete. Si' down."

Pete sat. Barr grinned. Jeff dared let himself think of the prospect that awaited.

Tomorrow morning, side by side and at exactly the same time, Jeff and Pete would be allowed to leave the cabin. Jeff pulled his stomach in, as though he could already feel Pete's slug ripping through it. Again he pondered escaping, but all he could think of was what he had already considered.

If he ran, one of the waiting Whitneys would shoot him down when he came off the ridge. There was little chance of doing anything tonight; Barr was along to see that he didn't. He couldn't protect himself with paper bullets. Jeff had a wild notion of whirling as they stepped out the door, smashing Pete over the head with the muzzle of his shotgun, and trying to claim him as prisoner. But that was a very wild plan which had almost no chance of success. Pete was far too quick and far too expert a rifleman.

Jeff put such thoughts behind him. No man could do anything well if he tried to do more than one thing at a time, and first things must be first. He shivered.

"How about a fire, Barr?"

"Lay a blaze if'n ye want. Thar's wood in the box."

Jeff laid a fire, lighted it and stood with his back to the fireplace as flames crackled. He looked at a darkened window and had a curious thought that this night would never end. It should, he decided, have pa.s.sed long ago. But when he looked at his watch, it was only half past nine.

He should be hungry but he wasn't. They'd eaten in Johnny Blazer's cabin, and now he was too nervous to eat. After a very long interval, he looked again at his watch.

It was a quarter to ten.

Jeff glanced at his pack and created mental images of the goods it contained. There were knives, fishing tackle, a half dozen new mouth organs, fiddle strings, gay ribbons, scissors, needles--He had bought only what the hill people wanted, and among all of it he could not think of a single article that would help him now.

Jeff set his jaw. Maybe, if there was something to do, time would not drag so slowly and, besides, he could think better when he was busy.

"Play cards?" he invited.

"No." Barr shook his head.

"Oh, come on!"

Barr tipped his head toward Pete, who sat motionless, with his rifle across his lap. Unmoving, he missed nothing and was ready at a split second notice to take advantage of anything that offered.

"Take his rifle away," Jeff urged. "You can still watch him."

"A body has the right to keep his rifle."

"He sure is nursing it." Jeff felt reckless. "How about sitting in, Pete? We don't have to shoot each other before morning."

Pete refused to answer. Jeff pulled his chair to the table and tried to entertain himself with solitaire. But he was too tense and strained to concentrate, and when he found himself adding the four of hearts to the seven of spades, he shoved the cards across the table and let them lay there. Restlessly he threw another chunk of wood on the fire and turned to Barr.

With no noise, and almost without effort, Barr rose. His eyes were alert and his face was intent. He backed, so that while continuing to command the cabin and the two in it, he could control the door, too. There was a rasping scratch on the door and Barr said softly, "See what's thar. See who's a'visitin'."

Jeff opened the door and Pal panted in. His ears were flat and his tail hang-dog as, giving Barr a wide berth and glancing suspiciously at Pete, he went to the far end of the cabin and stood. Not knowing whether or not he was to be punished for leaving Granny's, he looked expectantly at his master. Jeff laughed and twitched his fingers.

"Come here, you old flea cage."