Judith put out both hands blindly toward him whispering,
"And I love you. I don"t want nothin" but to be with you an" help you, an" take keer of you. I"ll never leave you."
For a moment the young fellow felt only the dizzy rapture of her frank confession. In that instant he saw himself accepting her sacrifice, taking her in his arms; in antic.i.p.ation he tasted the sweetness of her lips. Then pure reason, that shrew who had always ruled his days, spoke loud, as the bitterness of his situation rolled back upon him.
"No--no!" he cried. "Judith--honey--I can"t do that. Why, I"d be robbing you of everything in the world. Your kin would turn against you. Your farm would be lost to you, I reckon--I don"t know when I"ll be able to go back and claim mine."
In the moment of strained silence that followed this speech, with a sense of violent painful revulsion the girl pushed him back when he would timidly have clung to her. What woman ever appreciated prudence in a lover? It is not a lover"s virtue. Her farm--her farm! He could listen to her confession of love for him, and speculate upon the chances of her losing her farm by it! She had one shamed, desperate instant when she would have been glad to deny the words she had spoken. Then Creed, reading her anger and despair by the light of his own sorrows, said brokenly:
"You feel--you"re offended at me now--but Judith, you wouldn"t love me if I had taken you at your word, and ruined all your chances in life.
I--Judith--dear--I"ll make this thing right yet. I"ll come back--and you"ll forgive me then."
With a sudden flaring up of strength he took quiet mastery of the situation. He kissed her tenderly, but sadly, not such a kiss as either could ever have imagined their first would be.
"I love you too well to let you wed a man that"s fixed like I am--a man that"s made such a failure of life--a fugitive--a fellow that has nothing to offer you, and no more standing with your people than a hound dog. I love you better than I do myself or my comfort--or even my life."
In anguished silence Judith received the caress; dumb with misery she got to her horse. Creed stood looking up at her for their last words, when, with a rattle and clang, the train from the North swept in and halted.
Selim jibed and fought the bit as any sensible mountain horse feels himself ent.i.tled to do under similar circ.u.mstances; but Judith heeded him almost not at all.
"My Lord--who"s that?" she cried, staring toward the lighted train where the figure of a man mounted the platform.
"What is it?" queried Creed.
"Hit looked like Blatch," whispered the girl; "but I reckon it couldn"t a-been."
"Blatch!" echoed Creed, all on fire in an instant--where now was her poor invalid whose head she had pillowed, of whom she had thought to take care? "Blatch Turrentine!--Good-bye, honey--you mustn"t be seen with me.
If Blatch is here I"ve got to find and face him. You see that, don"t you?--You understand."
And he turned and left her so. Oh, these men, with their quarrels and their nice points of honour--while a woman"s heart bleeds under the scuffling feet!
She watched him hurry to the train, his staggering step advertising how unfit he was for any such attempt, watched him mount the platform where she had seen the man that looked like Blatch; and then the conductor swung his lantern, the wheels began to revolve, she half cried out, and Selim at the end of his patience, bolted with her and never stopped running till he had topped the rise above the village.
Here, with some ado, she got him quieted, brought to a standstill, got off and tightened the girth, for the saddle was slipping dangerously. She climbed on once more, mounting from a fallen tree, and was moving again up the trail when, down toward Garyville, someone called her name.
"Judith!"
She did not turn her head. She knew to whom the voice belonged. As he rode up to her:
"What you doin" here, Blatch Turrentine?" she demanded fiercely, "an"
what"ll the boys say to you for slippin" away from "em to-night?"
He took her inferred knowledge of all his enterprises without a word of comment. Bringing his mule up closer to her where she sat on Selim he answered:
"The boys know whar I"m at. We got word last evenin" that the man I sell to was waitin" for me in Garyville. He don"t know n.o.body but me in the business, and n.o.body but me could do the arrent. I hauled a load down, an" I would have been back in plenty time, ef I hadn"t met you and Bonbright right thar whar that old Cherokee trail comes into the Garyville road."
Judith started, her face burned in the darkness, but she said nothing.
Blatch peered curiously at her as he went on:
"I reckon you never took notice of the waggon that was under the bluff thar by the turn, but that was my waggon, and I was a-settin" on it. I wheeled myse"f round, when I seed "twas Bonbright, and follered you two down to Garyville, and put up my mules."
Again he peered sharply at her.
"Jude," as she still sat silent, "I won"t tell the boys what kept me--I won"t tell them nary thing about you. I"ll just let on that I happened to see Bonbright at Garyville."
"You tell what you"re a mind to," said Judith bitterly. "I don"t keer what you say."
Blatchley took the retort coolly. But his light grey eyes narrowed under the black brows.
"Bonbright seemed mightily upsot," he commented. "Went off on the train an" left his mule a-standin"."
_Went off on the train!_ Judith"s heart leaped, then stood still.
"Ye needn"t werry about it--I had Scomp put it up, "long o" my other "n.
He"ll send "em both up a Wednesday. I reckon it ain"t to be wondered at Bonbright was fl.u.s.tered. Who do you "low he went with on the railroad train? Jude, air you so easy fooled as to think it was a new notion for him to go to Garyville? Didn"t he name it to you that it was a better place than Double Springs?"
Leaning close and watching her face, he saw in it confirmation.
"Sh.o.r.e. They was a little somebody on the railroad train waitin" to go on with him--after he"d done kissed you good-bye--and _left_ you!"
Judith sat, head up, staring at him. Her less worthy nature was always instantly roused by this man"s approach. Savage resentment, jealousy, hate, stirred in her crushed spirit; they raised their heads; their movement crowded out grief and humiliation. It must be true--she had proposed Double Springs, and he had said Garyville would be better. He had refused in so many words her offer of herself. He had kissed her----
"No!--no!--no!" she cried to the man before her, "don"t you look at me--don"t you speak to me."
"Why, Judith," he protested, hanging on Selim"s flank and talking to her as she whirled the sorrel into the road and put him at the slope at a pace which that petted animal very much resented, "why Judith, ef one feller goes back on you thataway you be mad at him--he"s the one to be mad at. Here"s me, I stand willin" to make it up. Creed Bonbright has shamed you--he"s left you; but you could make him look like a fool if you would only say the word--and you and me would----"
"Now you go back!" Judith turned upon him as one speaks to a dog who is determined to follow. "I ain"t nary "nother word to say to you. Leave me alone!"
"But Judith, hit ain"t safe for you to be ridin" up here in the night time, thisaway," Blatch insisted. "Lemme jest go along with you----"
"I"ll be a mighty heap safer alone than I"d be with you," Judith told him, urging Selim ahead, "and anybody that knows you well will say so.
You--go--back."
Chapter XIX
Cast Out
Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning light of early dawn.
The moon, a ghastly wraith, was far down in the west, the east had not yet taken any hint of rose flush, but held that pallid line of greyish white that precedes sunrise.
She clambered across the Gulch, her tired horse stumbling with drooping head over the familiar stones, and rode slowly up to the home place. The huddle of buildings looked gaunt, deserted, inhospitable. There was light here enough to see the life which in daytime made all homelike, but which now, quenched and hidden, left all desolate, forbidding. As sleep takes on the semblance of death, so the sleeping house took on the semblance of desertion. The chickens were still humped on their perches in the trees, the cows had not come up to the milking-pen, their calves lay in a little bunch by the fence fast asleep. To the girl"s heavy heart it seemed a spot utterly forlorn in the chill, sad, ironic half-light of the slow-coming morning.
She rode directly to the barn, unsaddled, and put her horse out. As she was coming back past her uncle"s cabin, she saw the old man himself sitting in the door. He was fully dressed; his hat lay on the doorstone beside him, and against the jamb leaned Old Sister. He looked up at her with a sort of indifferent, troubled gaze.
"So you got back, Jude," he said quietly.