Westerfelt Part 23

"No, he intimated he couldn't marry me, on--on account of my misfortune. Oh, don't let's talk about it. He and I understand each other. He loves me, but we're not engaged."

Mrs. Floyd leaned against the mantel-piece. Her face had become hard and stern. Harriet started to leave the room, but Mrs. Floyd suddenly stepped between her and the door.

"He intimated that _that_ would keep him from marrying you? My Lord--the coward!"

"Mother, don't--don't say that!"

"I thought he was a _man_! Why, he is lower than a brute."

Harriet disengaged herself from her mother's grasp, and pa.s.sed on to the door. She turned on the threshold.

"I have no time to quarrel with you about him," she said, with a sigh; "you can have your opinion, nothing on earth will change mine. He loves me. I am going to see him now, and nothing you can say or do will prevent me."

Her shoes rattled loosely on the bare floor and on the stairs as she went down to the street.

During the night the sycamore-trees had strewn the ground with half-green, half-yellow leaves, and the tops of the fences were white with frost. Martin Worthy was taking down the shutters at the store and calling through the window to his wife, who was uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g them on the inside. A farmer had left his team in front of the bar, and she saw him taking his morning drink at the counter and heard Buck Hillhouse giving him an exaggerated report of the visit of the Whitecaps. The eastern sky was yellowing, and a peak of the tallest mountain cut a brown gash in the coming sunlight. At the fence in front of Bufford Webb's cottage a cow stood lowing for admittance, and a milking-pail hung on the gate.

As Harriet pa.s.sed, Mrs. Webb came out with a bucket of "slop" for the pig in a pen near the fence. She rested it on the top rail to speak to Harriet, but the hungry animal made such a noise that she hastened first to empty the vessel into the trough.

"Good-morning," she said, going quickly to the gate and wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n; "did you-uns heer the racket last night?"

"Yes," answered Harriet.

"I didn't sleep a wink. We could see 'em frum the kitchen winder.

It's a outrage, but I'm glad they did no rail harm."

The girl pa.s.sed on. She found Washburn in front of the stable oiling a buggy. He had placed a notched plank under an axle and was rapidly twirling a wheel.

"Where is Mr. Westerfelt?" she asked.

He raised his eyes to the window in the attic. "Up thar lyin' down.

He's not in bed. He jest threw hisself down without undressing."

"Is he asleep?"

"I don't know, Miss Harriet, but I think not."

"Did they hurt him last night, Mr. Washburn?"

"Why, no, Miss Harriet, not a single bit."

She caught her breath in relief. "I thought maybe they had, and that he was not going to acknowledge it. Are--are you sure?"

"As sure as I could be of anything, Miss Harriet; I believe he is a truthful man, an' he told me they didn't lay the weight of a finger on 'im. You kin go up an' ax 'im. He ain't asleep; he looked too worried to sleep when he got back. He walked the floor the balance o' the night. Seems to me he's been through with enough to lay out six common men."

Harriet did not answer. She turned into the office and went up the stairs to Westerfelt's room. Round her was a dark, partially floored s.p.a.ce containing hay, fodder, boxes of sh.e.l.led corn, piles of corn in the husk, and bales of cotton-seed meal. She rapped on the door-facing, and, as she received no response, she called out:

"Mr. Westerfelt, come out a minute."

She heard him rise from his bed, and in a moment he stood in the doorway.

"Oh, it's you!" he cried, in a glad voice. "I was afraid you were not well. I--"

"I am all right," she a.s.sured him. "But I simply couldn't rest till I saw you with my own eyes. When I heard they let you off I was afraid it was a false report. Sometimes, when those men do a bad thing they try to cover it up. Oh, Mr. Westerfelt, I am so--so miserable!"

He caught her hands and tried to draw her into his room out of the draught which came up the stairs, but she would not go farther than the door.

"No, I must hurry back home" she said. "Mother did not want me to come anyway; she didn't think it looked right, but I was so--so worried."

"I understand." He was feasting his eyes on hers; it was as if their hunger could never be appeased. "Oh, I'm so glad you come I've had you on my mind--"

But she interrupted him suddenly. Looking round at the bleak room and its scant furniture, she said: "I--I thought may be I could persuade you now to come back to your room at the hotel, where mother and I could wait on you. You do not look as well as you did, Mr. Westerfelt."

He smiled and shook his head.

"It's mighty good of you to ask me," he returned, "but this is good enough for me, and I don't want to be such a bother. The Lord knows I was enough trouble when I was there."

A look of sharp pain came upon her sensitive face for an instant, then she said; "I wish you wouldn't talk that way; you weren't one bit of trouble."

He looked away from her. He was, indeed, not at his best. His beard had grown out on his usually clean-shaven face and his cheeks looked sallow and sunken. He was tingling all over with a raging desire to throw his arms about her and tell her how he loved her and longed to make her his wife, but suddenly a mind-picture of Toot Wambush rose before him. He saw her deliberately lying to the officers to save him from arrest, and--worse than all--he saw her in the arms of the outlaw's father sobbing out a confession of her love. He told himself then, almost in abject terror of some punishment held over him by G.o.d Himself, that Mrs. Dawson's prayers would be answered--if--if he gave way. "No," he commanded himself, "I shall stand firm. She's not for me, though she may love me--though she does love me now and would wipe out the past with her life. A woman as changeable as that would change again." Then a jealous rage flared up within him, and he laid a threatening hand on either of her shoulders and glared into her eyes.

"I told you last night I'd never bring up a certain subject again, but--"

"Then you'd better not," she said, so firmly, so vindictively, that his tongue was stilled. "I came here out of kindness; don't you dare--don't you insult me again, Mr. Westerfelt."

"Oh, do forgive me! I--" But she had shaken off his hands and moved nearer the stairway.

"You made a promise last night," she reminded him, "and I did not dream you had so little respect for me as to break it so soon."

He moved towards her, his hands outstretched imploringly, but a sound from below checked him. Some one was speaking to Washburn in the office. Then footsteps were heard on the stairs, and Mrs. Bradley, followed by Luke, waddled laboriously up the steps. She was wiping her eyes, which were red from weeping. She glanced in cold surprise at Harriet, and pa.s.sing her with only a nod, went to Westerfelt and threw her arms around his neck. Then with her head on his breast she burst into fresh tears.

"You pore, motherless, unprotected boy," she sobbed. "I can't bear it a bit longer. Me 'n' Luke wus the cause o' yore comin' to this oncivilized place anyway, an' you've been treated wuss 'an a dog. Ef Luke had one speck o' manhood left in him, he'd--"

Bradley advanced from the door, and drew his wife away from Westerfelt.

"Don't act so daddratted foolish," he said. "No harm hain't been done yet--no _serious_ harm." Still holding her hand, he turned to Westerfelt; "They've tried to do you dirt, John, I know, but them boys will be the best friends on earth to you now. Ef you ever want to run fer office all you got to do is to announce yorese'f. Old Hunter wus down at Bill Stone's this mornin' as we pa.s.sed buyin' his fine hoss to replace yore'n."

"I reckon they've run Toot Wambush clean off," put in Mrs. Bradley, looking significantly at Harriet. She expected the girl to reply, but Harriet only avoided her glance. Mrs. Bradley rubbed her eyes again, put her handkerchief into her pocket, and critically surveyed the damp, bedraggled dress of the girl.

"It's mighty good of you to come down to see 'im all by yourself so early," she said; "some gals wouldn't do sech a thing. The report is out that you notified John of what the band intended to do."

Harriet nodded, and looked as if she wanted to get away.

"It wus mighty good of you, especially as you an' Toot are sech firm friends," went on Mrs. Bradley; "but it's a pity you wusn't a little sooner with yore information."

"She told me in plenty of time," corrected Westerfelt. "It was my fault that I didn't get away. I didn't go when Miss Harriet told me to."

His reply did not please Mrs. Bradley, as she showed by her next remark. "I'd think you'd be afeerd o' makin' Toot madder at you 'n he already is," she said to Harriet.