The Call of the Cumberlands Part 16

"Yes, Samson," was all she said.

The boy rose.

"I reckon I'd better be gettin' along," he announced.

The girl suddenly reached out both hands, and seized his coat. She held him tight, and rose, facing him. Her upturned face grew very pallid, and her eyes widened. They were dry, and her lips were tightly closed, but, through the tearless pupils, in the firelight, the boy could read her soul, and her soul was sobbing.

He drew her toward him, and held her very tight.

"Sally," he said, in a voice which threatened to choke, "I wants ye ter take keer of yeself. Ye hain't like these other gals round here. Ye hain't got big hands an' feet. Ye kain't stand es much es they kin.

Don't stay out in the night air too much--an', Sally--fer G.o.d's sake take keer of yeself!" He broke off, and picked up his hat.

"An' that gun, Sally," he repeated at the door, "that there's the most precious thing I've got. I loves. .h.i.t better then anything--take keer of hit."

Again, she caught at his shoulders.

"Does ye love hit better'n ye do me, Samson?" she demanded.

He hesitated.

"I reckon ye knows how much I loves ye, Sally," he said, slowly, "but I've done made a promise, an' thet gun's a-goin' ter keep hit fer me."

They went together out to the stile, he still carrying his rifle, as though loath to let it go, and she crossed with him to the road.

As he untied his reins, she threw her arms about his neck, and for a long while they stood there under the clouds and stars, as he held her close. There was no eloquence of leave-taking, no professions of undying love, for these two hearts were inarticulate and dizzily clinging to a wilderness code of self-repression--and they had reached a point where speech would have swept them both away to a break-down.

But as they stood, their arms gripping each other, each heart pounding on the other's breast, it was with a pulsing that spoke in the torrent their lips dammed, and between the two even in this farewell embrace was the rifle which stood emblematical of the man's life and mission and heredity. Its cold metal lay in a line between their warm b.r.e.a.s.t.s, separating, yet uniting them, and they clung to each other across its rigid barrel, as a man and woman may cling with the child between them which belongs to both, and makes them one. As yet, she had shed no tears. Then, he mounted and was swallowed in the dark. It was not until the thud of his mule's hoofs were lost in the distance that the girl climbed back to the top of the stile, and dropped down. Then, she lifted the gun and pressed it close to her bosom, and sat silently sobbing for a long while.

"He's done gone away," she moaned, "an' he won't never come back no more--but ef he does come"--she raised her eyes to the stars as though calling them to witness--"ef he does come, I'll sh.o.r.e be a-waitin'.

Lord G.o.d, make him come back!"

CHAPTER XIII

The boy from Misery rode slowly toward Hixon. At times, the moon struggled out and made the shadows black along the way. At other times, it was like riding in a huge caldron of pitch. When he pa.s.sed into that stretch of country at whose heart Jesse Purvy dwelt, he raised his voice in song. His singing was very bad, and the ballad lacked tune, but it served its purpose of saving him from the suspicion of furtiveness. Though the front of the house was blank, behind its heavy shutters he knew that his coming might be noted, and night-riding at this particular spot might be misconstrued in the absence of frank warning.

The correctness of his inference brought a brief smile to his lips when he crossed the creek that skirted the orchard, and heard a stable door creak softly behind him. He was to be followed again--and watched, but he did not look back or pause to listen for the hoofbeats of his unsolicited escort. On the soft mud of the road, he would hardly have heard them, had he bent his ear and drawn rein. He rode at a walk, for his train would not leave until five o'clock in the morning. There was time in plenty.

It was cold and depressing as he trudged the empty streets from the livery stable to the railroad station, carrying his saddlebags over his arm. His last farewell had been taken when he left the old mule behind in the rickety livery stable. It had been unemotional, too, but the ragged creature had raised its stubborn head, and rubbed its soft nose against his shoulder as though in realization of the parting--and unwilling realization. He had roughly laid his hand for a moment on the muzzle, and turned on his heel.

He was all unconscious that he presented a figure which would seem ludicrous in the great world to which he had looked with such eagerness. The lamps burned murkily about the railroad station, and a heavy fog cloaked the hills. At last he heard the whistle and saw the blazing headlight, and a minute later he had pushed his way into the smoking-car and dropped his saddlebags on the seat beside him. Then, for the first time, he saw and recognized his watchers. Purvy meant to have Samson shadowed as far as Lexington, and his movements from that point definitely reported. Jim Asberry and Aaron Hollis were the chosen spies. He did not speak to the two enemies who took seats across the car, but his face hardened, and his brows came together in a black scowl.

"When I gits back," he promised himself, "you'll be one of the fust folks I'll look fer, Jim Asberry, d.a.m.n ye! All I hopes is thet n.o.body else don't git ye fust. Ye b'longs ter me."

He was not quite certain yet that Jim Asberry had murdered his father, but he knew that Asberry was one of the coterie of "killers" who took their blood hire from Purvy, and he knew that Asberry had sworn to "git" him. To sit in the same car with these men and to force himself to withhold his hand, was a hard bullet for Samson South to chew, but he had bided his time thus far, and he would bide it to the end. When that end came, it would also be the end for Purvy and Asberry. He disliked Hollis, too, but with a less definite and intense hatred.

Samson wished that one of the henchmen would make a move toward attack.

He made no concealment of his own readiness. He removed both overcoat and coat, leaving exposed to view the heavy revolver which was strapped under his left arm. He even unb.u.t.toned the leather flap of the holster, and then being cleared for action, sat glowering across the aisle, with his eyes not on the faces but upon the hands of the two Purvy spies.

The wrench of partings, the long raw ride and dis-spiriting gloom of the darkness before dawn had taken out of the boy's mind all the sparkle of antic.i.p.ation and left only melancholy and hate. He felt for the moment that, had these men attacked him and thrown him back into the life he was leaving, back into the war without fault on his part, he would be glad. The fierce activity of fighting would be welcome to his mood. He longed for the appeas.e.m.e.nt of a thoroughly satisfied vengeance. But the two watchers across the car were not ordered to fight and so they made no move. They did not seem to see Samson. They did not appear to have noticed his inviting readiness for combat. They did not remove their coats. At Lexington, where he had several hours to wait, Samson bought a "snack" at a restaurant near the station and then strolled about the adjacent streets, still carrying his saddlebags, for he knew nothing of the workings of check-rooms. When he returned to the depot with his open wallet in his hand, and asked for a ticket to New York, the agent looked up and his lips unguardedly broke into a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt. It was a good-humored smile, but Samson saw that it was inspired by some sort of joke, and he divined that the joke was--himself!

"What's the matter?" he inquired very quietly, though his chin stiffened. "Don't ye sell tickets ter New York?"

The man behind the grilled wicket read a spirit as swift to resent ridicule as that of d'Artagnan had been when he rode his orange-colored nag into the streets of Paris. His face sobered, and his manner became attentive. He was wondering what complications lay ahead of this raw creature whose crudity of appearance was so at odds with the compelling quality of his eyes.

"Do you want a Pullman reservation?" he asked.

"What's thet?" The boy put the question with a steadiness of gaze that seemed to defy the agent to entertain even a subconsciously critical thought as to his ignorance.

The ticket man explained sleeping- and dining-cars. He had rather expected the boy to choose the day coach, but Samson merely said:

"I wants the best thar is." He counted out the additional money, and turned gravely from the window. The sleeping-car to which he was a.s.signed was almost empty, but he felt upon him the interested gaze of those few eyes that were turned toward his entrance. He engaged every pair with a pair very clear and steady and undropping, until somehow each lip that had started to twist in amus.e.m.e.nt straightened, and the twinkle that rose at first glance sobered at second. He did not know why an old gentleman in a plaid traveling cap, who looked up from a magazine, turned his gaze out of the window with an expression of grave thoughtfulness. To himself, the old gentleman was irrelevantly quoting a line or two of verse:

"' ... Unmade, unhandled, unmeet-- Ye pushed them raw to the battle, as ye picked them raw from the street--'"

"Only," added the old gentleman under his breath, "this one hasn't even the training of the streets--but with those eyes he'll get somewhere."

The porter paused and asked to see Samson's ticket. Mentally, he observed:

"Po' white tras.h.!.+" Then, he looked again, for the boy's eyes were discomfortingly on his fat, black face, and the porter straightway decided to be polite. Yet, for all his specious seeming of unconcern, Samson was waking to the fact that he was a scarecrow, and his sensitive pride made him cut his meals short in the dining-car, where he was kept busy beating down inquisitive eyes with his defiant gaze.

He resolved after some thought upon a definite policy. It was a very old policy, but to him new--and a discovery. He would change nothing in himself that involved a surrender of code or conviction. But, wherever it could be done with honor, he would concede to custom. He had come to learn, not to give an exhibition of stubbornness. Whatever the outside world could offer with a recommendation to his good sense, that thing he would adopt and make his own.

It was late in the second afternoon when he stepped from the train at Jersey City, to be engulfed in an unimagined roar and congestion. Here, it was impossible to hold his own against the unconcealed laughter of the many, and he stood for an instant glaring about like a caged tiger, while three currents of humanity separated and flowed toward the three ferry exits. It was a moment of longing for the quiet of his ancient hills, where nothing more formidable than blood enemies existed to disquiet and perplex a man's philosophy. Those were things he understood--and even enemies at home did not laugh at a man's peculiarities. For the first time in his life, Samson felt a tremor of something like terror, terror of a great, vague thing, too vast and intangible to combat, and possessed of the measureless power of many hurricanes. Then, he saw the smiling face of Lescott, and Lescott's extended hand. Even Lescott, immaculately garbed and fur-coated, seemed almost a stranger, and the boy's feeling of intimacy froze to inward constraint and diffidence. But Lescott knew nothing of that. The stoic in Samson held true, masking his emotions.

"So you came," said the New Yorker, heartily, grasping the boy's hand.

"Where's your luggage? We'll just pick that up, and make a dash for the ferry."

"Hyar hit is," replied Samson, who still carried his saddlebags. The painter's eyes twinkled, but the mirth was so frank and friendly that the boy, instead of glaring in defiance, grinned responsively.

"Right, oh!" laughed Lescott. "I thought maybe you'd brought a trunk, but it's the wise man who travels light."

"I reckon I'm pretty green," acknowledged the youth somewhat ruefully.

"But I hain't been studyin' on what I looked like. I reckon thet don't make much difference."

"Not much," affirmed the other, with conviction. "Let the men with little souls spend their thought on that."

The artist watched his protege narrowly as they took their places against the forward rail of the ferry-deck, and the boat stood out into the cras.h.i.+ng water traffic of North River. What Samson saw must be absolutely bewildering. Ears attuned to hear a breaking twig must ache to this hoa.r.s.e shrieking of whistles. To the west, in the evening's fading color, the sky-line of lower Manhattan bit the sky with its serried line of fangs.

Yet, Samson leaned on the rail without comment, and his face told nothing. Lescott waited for some expression, and, when none came, he casually suggested:

"Samson, that is considered rather an impressive panorama over there.

What do you think of it?"

"Ef somebody was ter ask ye ter describe the shape of a rainstorm, what would ye say?" countered the boy.

Lescott laughed.