He had never let go her hand, nor stopped the anguished moving of his body.
"I didn"t want over much to kill him," he was again saying. "As I laid there behind a log, watchin" him foolin" around, I almost wanted to creep away. An" when he turned his back to go in the cabin, my finger"d hardly pull the trigger--it reminded me so much of that time I laid my sights on the back of old Bill Whitly"s head--"
"What?" she screamed, springing back in a perfect agony of horror.
"What?"
He stared at her, amazed and even frightened by this new, this terribly new, ring in her voice. She was raising her hands slowly to her throat, and shrinking away--shrinking back against the wall as though he were some loathsome thing upon which she had suddenly and unexpectedly come.
"What"s the matter?" he cried, forgetting his own feelings in this new alarm.
"Did--you--kill--Bill--Whitly?"
"Yes," he answered, not understanding. "Why?"
The room was sickeningly quiet, except for her breathing. He could have almost sworn her eyes were crackling and snapping as they stared at him.
"Why?" she repeated. "Can you ask any one of my name in the mountains, why?"
"I never thought," he whispered in a terrified voice, "you belonged to _those_ Whitlys!" And as he looked more closely at her face the truth slowly crept into his brain. Pa.s.sionately his hands went out to her, as he took a trembling step forward: "My Gawd, my Gawd, Miss Jane! Don"t tell me that I done _that_! Don"t tell me it war _yoh_ Pappy!"
The telephone was on the wall of this room. Keeping the long table between them, she crossed quickly and turned the little crank.
Recognizing the town operator"s voice she frantically called:
"Miss Gregget, this is Jane Whitly!--well, never mind the name!--this is Colonel May"s house!" She was numb, and fearful of those pa.s.sionate hands which might any instant drag her from the instrument. "Tell the sheriff to come quick!" she screamed. "Dale Dawson has killed Tusk Potter!"
With this she sprang about, her back to the wall and at bay, to receive the infuriated mountaineer"s charge. But he had not moved. He stood just where she had left him; looking at her, now again swaying his body in that tense, sullen motion. And suddenly she began to laugh, leaning forward in a crouching att.i.tude, her hands clenched close to her knees.
"You didn"t think, when you laid my Pappy across our door sill, that he"d be avenged by a girl, did you!"
He only looked at her, staring in a dull, hopeless sort of way that would have struck pity into the heart of anyone not so blinded by pa.s.sion.
"You didn"t think, did ye," she taunted, with direful malice darting from her eyes, and a.s.suming the mountain dialect so her words would carry a sharper sting, "that Dale Dawson could be headed off, did ye!
Yo" sorry life of ignorance never went so fur as ter reckon that poh, ole Bill Whitly, shot down from behind, "d be so sure in gittin"
vengeance, did ye! Ye thought my Pappy war the last of his line, jest as you"re the last of yourn!" Her laugh now became quite uncontrollable, but between gasps she still fired taunts at him. "Didn"t reckon yo" G.o.d Natur" could raise some-un weaker"n ye ter crush ye out! Didn"t reckin hit war likely the last Dawson "d be fetched down by the last Whitly--"n" her a gal!"
As she descended to this, he arose. The next time she looked at him through laughter and blinding tears, he was standing straight and still, gazing calmly back at her. There was no motion to his body now, and his hands were hanging inertly open at his sides. Slowly he crossed to her and, with a dignity that was commanding, said:
"There"ll be one left on my side, and that"ll just balance your"s. It"s the one who patched up that truce--that truce what ain"t been broke by any one of us, till now! But she"s blind, an" maybe don"t count for much!"
Ah, the blind sister! She had forgotten her. The blind sister; that physically helpless one whose spiritual strength had put into motion this big, hulking frame of purpose, with its absorbing brain, to square his shoulders before the world and succeed! A softness, a womanly tenderness, came knocking at the door of Jane"s heart, but she would not hear. Dale looked down at her resentful face; but he felt no awe of her now--this was the kind he understood!
"The mountains are so full of Whitlys, that I never thought of placin"
you as Bill"s girl--I don"t remember even knowin" that he had a girl!
Why"d you take me in school?"
"How did I know who killed him!" she answered, in a hard, dry voice.
Intently they stood, staring deep into each other"s eyes;--these two products of a feud whose bitterness had long outlived the cause which gave it birth. His face was not two feet away, and the pupils which clung now eagerly to her own were charged with a force that held her almost hypnotized. Through them she began to see another being, another soul, a transfigured man. Their dilations seemed to be drawing aside and again closing the curtains, letting her peep into the secrets behind his mobile face. Her cheeks were burning more furiously than ever, drying up the recent tears to faint, tell-tale stains; and her lips were parted, showing teeth still set with anger. But her eyes--those eyes which were seeing new things in him--they, by a dewy radiance she did not know was there, contradicted much of the storm and pa.s.sion.
CHAPTER x.x.x
"I"LL PAY THE DEBT!"
After several minutes the transfigured man before her spoke again:
"I"ll pay the debt," he said, in a low tone of finality. "I"ll wait here till the sheriff comes. Up to now there hasn"t been a force in all Gawd"s world that could "ve come "tween me an" the things you"re teachin". I didn"t care about Potter. He was in the way. I"ve got no sorrows about anythin" since that day I drew sights on yoh Pappy"s head, an" now. Ruth said she an" I owed a debt to the State for what they"d done for her, an" we couldn"t be beholden to it; so I was goin" to pay all that back by bein" the biggest man of my time, by goin" back in those mountains, just as Lincoln would a-done, an" bringin" my people out to light--by emanc.i.p.atin" all of "em from the ignorance that"s been makin" "em slaves! But I reckon the first payment comes to you. You"ve a right to it, an" I"ll stay here till you get all the revenge you want!"
"Don"t," she whispered huskily. "Don"t talk to me! I don"t know what I"ve done!"
"You"ve done," he answered for her, "just what yoh Pappy"s been callin"
on you to do;--just as I did once what my Granny called on me to do. I reckon we"re quits, now!"
"Oh, no, Dale!" she suddenly cried, looking up at the clock. "It isn"t right! Go, while you have a chance! Go! Go!" She even tried to push him toward the door. "Go somewhere and begin your lessons again, and make yourself big in spite of things! Go now, before they come after you!"
"I can"t," he answered simply. "I wish I could. But that feller there,"
he pointed to a volume of Plutarch, "wrote that Cato said the soul of a lover lives in the body of another. How can I go?"
A tremor pa.s.sed over her at his new, this personal att.i.tude. It arose from no feeling of gratification, rather from a subtle repulsion. Yet so frantically was she seeking arguments to make him save himself, that she impulsively answered:
"But did we not also read of Kosciusko, who left his native Poland solely on account of love? And do you not know what a gallant soldier he made for freedom and humanity?"
"He loved just one," Dale murmured, waving his hand toward the shelves of books, "but my soul is in all of these."
A blush overspread her face for having momentarily misunderstood, but this was no time for embarra.s.sments. He had not noticed it, and his voice was saying calmly:
"He was lucky enough to die fightin", for that"s a heap easier"n the thickenin" of a rope, or the dry rot down in those stone walls. Still, every man"s got to take his medicine, an" I"m goin" to swaller mine a-smilin"!"
"Dear Christ," she cried, pressing her hands to her cheeks and stepping farther back from him, "what have I done? Into what has this man turned?"
Through the silence that followed, from far out on the pike, a sound of galloping horses faintly reached their ears. Each stood for a moment listening, and then suddenly she flew at him.
"Dale, run for it! Out the back way, and I"ll help you! Go far, anywhere, Dale, and make good--but escape! When it"s safe for you to come back I"ll send word--but hurry! Hurry! They"re almost at the lane!"
"I can"t go," he said, smiling at her, "till you"re paid up--drop of blood for drop of blood!"
A cry burst from her lips--a cry exquisite of all her mental agony. He could not resist it, and his hand went quickly to her shoulder.
"Don"t--oh, don"t touch me!" she implored him. "Listen, only listen! I"m half crazed by everything, and this is the last, the very last time I"ll have a chance to speak to you for--who can tell? So listen! I want you to go, at once--fly now! You can take any of the horses--reach the mountains and hide! I"ll send you things--anything! Don"t make me suffer," she fairly screamed at him, "but go! Oh, what crucifixion I"ve brought you to! Great G.o.d above, what crucifixion--and after you have done so wonderfully well! Spare me, Dale, I can"t endure it! Your life must not go out, and suddenly lose its purpose, because of a human vengeance that is worthless!"
He spoke more hurriedly, for the hors.e.m.e.n were in the lane and coming fast:
"Nothing is worthless that calls a man to do his duty like a man! An"
I"d be worse"n a coward to turn back from a duty to the very person who"s taught me what duty is!"