The Re-Creation of Brian Kent Part 14

The girl's answer sent a new thought like a hot iron into Brian Kent's tortured brain. He caught Judy's arm in quick and fearful excitement.

"Judy!" he gasped, imploringly, "Judy, do you--? does Auntie Sue know--?

does she know that I--?"

"How could she help knowin'? She ain't no fool. An' I done heard that there Sheriff an' the deteckertive man tellin' her 'bout you an' the bank. An' the Sheriff, he done give her a paper what he said told all 'bout what you-all done, an' she must er burned the paper, or done somethin' with hit, 'cause I couldn't never find hit after that night.

An' what would she do that for? And what for did she make me promise not ter ever say nothin' ter you-all 'bout that there money letter? An' why ain't she said nothin' to you 'bout the letter from the bank not comin', if she didn't know hit was you 'stead of them what done got the money?"

The girl paused for a moment, and then went on in a tone of reverent wonder: "An' to think that all the time she could a-turned you-all over to that there Sheriff an' got the money-reward to pay her back what you-all done tuck."

Brian Kent was as one who had received a mortal hurt. His features were distorted with suffering. With eyes that could not see, he looked down at the ma.n.u.script to which he still unconsciously clung; and, again, he fingered the pages of his work as though some blind instinct were sending his tormented soul to seek relief in the message which, during the happy months just past, he had written for others.

And the deformed mountain girl, who stood before him with twisted body and old-young face, grew fearful as she watched the suffering of this man whom she had come to look upon as a superior being from some world which she, in her ignorance, could never know.

"Mr. Burns," she said at last, putting out her hand and plucking at his sleeve, "Mr. Burns, you-all ain't got no call ter be like this. You-all ain't plumb bad. I knows you ain't, 'count of the way you-all have been ter me an' 'cause you kept pap from hurtin' me, an' 'cause you are takin' care of Auntie Sue like you're doin'. Hit ain't no matter 'bout the money, now, 'cause you-all kin take care of her allus."

Brian looked up from the ma.n.u.script in his hand, and stared dumbly at the girl, as if he failed to hear her clearly.

"An' just think 'bout your book," Judy continued pleadingly. "Think 'bout all them fine things you-all have done wrote down for everybody ter read,--'bout the river allus a-goin' on just the same, no matter what happens, an' 'bout Auntie Sue an'--"

She stopped, and drew away from him, frightened at the look that came into the man's face.

"Don't, Mr. Burns! Don't!" she half-screamed. "'Fore G.o.d, you-all oughten ter look like that!"

The man threw up his head, and laughed,--laughed as the wild, reckless and lost Brian Kent had laughed that black night when, in the drifting boat, he had cursed the life he was leaving and had drunk his profane toast to the darkness into which he was being carried.

Raising the ma.n.u.script, which represented all that the past months of his re-created life had meant to him, and grasping it in both hands, he shook it contemptuously, as he said, with indescribable bitterness and the reckless surrendering of every hope: "'All them fine things that I have wrote down for everybody ter read.'" He mimicked her voice with a sneer, and laughed again. Then: "It's all a lie, Judy, dear;--a d.a.m.ned lie. Auntie Sue is a saint, and believes it. She made me believe it for a little while,--her beautiful, impossible dream-philosophy of the river. The river,--h.e.l.l!--the river is as treacherous and cruel and false and tricky and crooked as life itself! And I am as warped and twisted in mind and soul as you are in body, Judy, dear. Neither of us can help it. We were made that way by the river. To h.e.l.l with the whole impossible mess of things!" With a gesture of violent rage, he turned toward the river, and, taking a step forward, lifted the ma.n.u.script high above his head.

Judy screamed, "Mr. Burns, don't!"

He paused an instant, and, turning his head, looked at her with another laugh.

"'Fore G.o.d, you da.s.sn't do that!" she implored.

And then, as the man turned his face from her, and his arms went back above his head for the swing that would send the ma.n.u.script far out into the tumbling waters of the rapids, she leaped toward him, and, catching his arm, hampered his movement so that the book fell a few feet from the sh.o.r.e, where the water, checked a little in its onward rush to the cliff by the irregular bank, boiled and eddied among the rocky ledges and huge boulders that r.e.t.a.r.ded its force. Another leap carried the mountain girl to the edge of the bank, where she crouched like a runner ready for the report of the starter's pistol, her black, beady eyes searching the stream for the volume of ma.n.u.script, which had disappeared from sight, drawn down by the troubled swirling currents.

The man, watching her, laughed in derision; but, while his mocking laughter was still on his lips, the boiling currents brought the book, again, to the surface, and Brian saw the girl leave the bank as if thrown by a powerful spring. Straight and true she dived for the book, and even as she disappeared beneath the surface her hands clutched the ma.n.u.script.

For a second, Brian Kent held his place as if paralyzed with horror.

Then, as Judy's head appeared farther down the stream, he ran with all his strength along the bank to gain a point a little ahead of the swimming girl before he should leap to her rescue.

But Judy, trained from her birth on that mountain river, knew better than Brian what to do. A short distance below the point where she had plunged into the stream, a huge boulder, some two or three feet from the sh.o.r.e, caused a split in the current, one fork of which set in toward the bank. Swimming desperately, the girl gained the advantage of this current, and, just as Brian reached the spot, she was swept against the bank, where, with her free hand, she caught and held fast to a projecting root. Had she been carried past that point, nothing could have saved her from being swept on into the wild turmoil of the waters at Elbow Rock.

It was the work of a moment for Brian to throw himself flat on the ground at the edge of the bank and, reaching down, to grasp the girl's wrist. Another moment, and she was safe beside him, his ma.n.u.script still tightly held under one arm.

Not realizing, in his excitement, what he was doing, Brian shook the girl, saying angrily: "What in the world do you mean, taking such a crazy-fool chance as that!"

She broke away from him with: "Well, what'd you-all go an' do such a dad burned fool thing for? Hit's you-all what's crazy yourself--plumb crazy!"

Brian held out his hand: "Give me that ma.n.u.script!"

Judy clutched the book tighter, and drew back defiantly. "I won't.

You-all done throwed hit away onct. 'Tain't your'n no more, nohow."

"Well, what do you purpose to do with it?" said the puzzled man, in a gentler tone.

"I aims ter give hit ter Auntie Sue," came the startling reply. "I reckon she'll know what ter do. Hit allus was more her'n than your'n, anyhow. You done said so yourself. I heard you only last night when you-all was so dad burned tickled at gittin' hit done. You-all ain't got no right ter sling hit inter the river, an', anyway, I ain't a-goin' ter let you."

"Which sounds very sensible to me," came a clear voice from a few feet distant.

Judy and Brian turned quickly, to face a young woman who stood regarding them thoughtfully, with a suggestion of a smile on her very attractive face.

CHAPTER XIV.

BETTY JO CONSIDERS.

The most careless eye would have seen instantly that the newcomer was not a native of that backwoods district. She was not a large woman, but there was, nevertheless, a full, rounded strength, which saved her trim and rather slender body from appearing small. Neither would a discriminating observer describe her by that too-common term "pretty."

She was more than that. In her large, gray eyes, there was a look of frank, straightforward interest that suggested an almost boyish good-fellows.h.i.+p, while at the same time there was about her a general air of good breeding; with a calm, self-possessed and businesslike alertness which, combined with a wholesome dignity, commanded a feeling of respect and confidence. Her voice was clear and musical, with an undertone of sympathetic humor. One felt when she spoke that while she lacked nothing of intelligent understanding and sympathetic interest, she was quite ready to laugh at you just the same.

When the two stood speechless, she said, looking straight at Brian: "It seems to me, sir, that the young lady has all the best of the argument.

But I really think she should have some dry clothes as well."

She turned to the dripping and dishevelled Judy: "You poor child. Aren't you cold! It is rather early in the season for a dip in the river, I should think. Let me take whatever you have there, and you make for the house as fast as you can go,--the run will warm you."

As she spoke, she went to the mountain girl, holding out her hand to take the ma.n.u.script, and smiling encouragingly.

But Judy backed away, her stealthy, oblique gaze fixed with watchful surprise on the fair stranger.

"This here ain't none of your put-in," and her shrill drawling monotone contrasted strangely with the other's pleasing voice. "Where'd you-all happen from, anyhow? How'd you-all git here?"

"I came over the bluff by the path," answered the other. "You see, I left the train from the south at White's Crossing because I knew I could drive up from there by the river road quicker than I could go by rail away around through the hills to Thompsonville, and then make the drive down the river from there. When I reached Elbow Rock, I was in such a hurry, I took the short cut, while the man with my trunk and things went by the road over Schoolhouse Hill, you know. I arrived here just as this gentleman was pulling you from the water."

Before Brian could speak, Judy returned with excitement: "I know who you-all be now. I ought ter knowed the minute I set eyes on you. You-all are the gal with that there no-'count name, an' you've come ter work for him, there,"--she pointed to Brian,--"a-helpin' him ter write his book, what ain't his'n no more, nohow, 'cause he done throwed hit away,--plumb inter the river."

"I am Miss Williams," returned the other. "My 'no-'count name,' I suppose, is Betty Jo." She laughed kindly. "Perhaps it won't seem so 'no'count' when we are better acquainted, Judy. Won't you run along to the house, and change to some dry clothes? You will catch your death of cold if you stand here like this."

"How'd you-all know I was Judy?"

"Why, Auntie Sue wrote me about you, of course."

"An' you knowed me 'cause I'm so all crooked an' ugly, I reckon," came the uncompromising return.

Betty Jo turned to Brian: "You are Mr. Burns, are you not, for whom I am to work?"

Brian made no reply,--he really could not speak. "And this,"--Betty Jo included Judy, the ma.n.u.script, and the river in a graceful gesture,--"this, I suppose, is the result of what is called 'the artistic temperament'?"

Still the man could find no words. The young woman's presence and her reference to his work brought to him, with overwhelming vividness, the memory of all to which he had so short a time before looked forward, and which was now so hopelessly lost to him. He felt, too, a sense of rebellion that she should have come at such a moment,--that she could stand there with such calm self-possession and with such an air of competency. Her confidence and poise in such contrast to the chaotic turmoil of his own thoughts, and his utter helplessness in the situation which had so suddenly burst upon him, filled him with unreasoning resentment.