Ladybird, Page 2

  The old dog heaved a deep sigh as if he, too, were listening.

  The sick woman paused for breath then went on, her words very low.

  “That night I slipped out—of the house—when he—was asleep. We were married in a little out of the way church—I pasted the marriage certificate and license—into the Bible—You’ll find it—” She paused as if her task were almost done then hurried on. “When—we got out here—we found—this was a place of—outlaws.”

  “Outlaws!” said Fraley, startled. “What does that mean?”

  “It means—that every man for miles around—has committed some crime—and is afraid—to go back—where he—came from.”

  Fraley turned her startled eyes toward the open door and her faraway mountains.

  “Was—my—father—” she faltered at last.

  “No! No! I told you he was innocent—”

  “Why didn’t he get away then?”

  “He couldn’t—child—even if he had had money—which he hadn’t—not a cent. The men here wouldn’t let him go. They would have shot us all first! Your father—knew too much. There were—too many—notorious criminals on this mountain. There—wouldn’t have been—a chance for the three of us—You see—we didn’t find it all out—not till after you came. You were five months old—the day—your father—told me.”

  A chill hand seemed to be clutching the girl’s throat as she stared unseeingly at the spot of sunshine on the floor beside the old brown dog.

  “We tried—to think of some way—but your father—knew too much. He’d been out with the other men—rustling cattle—He’d have been implicated with them in their crime—of course. At first he didn’t understand. At first he thought it was cattle that belonged to them. He was green, you know, and didn’t understand. The man who brought him out here had made great promises. He had expected to go back rich—someday. I had thought how proud I would be to show my father I had been right about Angus. I thought he would—be a—successful man and we would go home—rich!”

  The old dog stirred and snapped at a bug that crept in the doorway, and the sick woman looked around with a start.

  “It’s all right, Mother, no one is coming,” said the girl with a furtive look out the door.

  The mother struggled on with her story. “When your father—found out, when he saw he, too, had been stealing, and there was no hope—to get away—it seemed he just gave up—and let go. He said we had to live—and there was no other—way. He had always been wild—you know—and it seemed as though—he kind of got used to things—and fitted right in with the others after a while. When I cried and blamed him—then he took to drinking hard—and after—that—he didn’t care, though sometimes he was—very fond—of you. But when he got liquor, then he didn’t care.”

  “Drinking didn’t make it any better!” said the fierce young voice.

  “No—it didn’t,” went on the dreary voice. ”No—and then he brought the men—here. I couldn’t help it—I tried. But I saw they had some kind—of a hold—on him. He was afraid!”

  The dog made a quick dash out the door after a rabbit that had shot by, and the woman stopped and looked up sharply.

  “Listen!” she said, gripping the firm young hand in an icy clasp. “I must say the rest quick!” She was half lifted from her pillow with her frightened eyes turned toward the door. “I might go—or they might come—any minute now. Listen! I had a brother. He went to New York. He was Robert Fraley. You must find him! He loved me. Angus had people, too, but they were ashamed of him. They were rich but it’s all written down. You must get out of here at once. Promise me! I can’t die till you promise.”

  “I promise!”

  “Promise you won’t wait, not even for any burying.”

  “But, Mother!”

  “No ‘but,’ Fraley! They’ll bury me deep all right, don’t worry. They’ll want me out of their sight and mind. Many’s the time I’ve told them about the wrath of God—Oh I know they’ve had me in their power since I was sick. I had to shut up. But when I’m gone they’ll take it out on you! Fraley, my girl, they can’t hurt my dead body. No matter what happens God will know how to find it again at the resurrection. But they can do terrible things to you, my baby! You’re safer dead than here alive, if it comes to that. Now promise me. Promise!”

  Fraley choked back the racking sobs that came to her throat and promised. The woman sank back and closed her eyes. It seemed she hardly breathed. The girl thought she was asleep and kept quite still, but after a time the stillness frightened her, and she lifted her trembling hand and touched the cold cheek. Her mother opened her eyes.

  “I’ve been praying,” she murmured. “I’ve put you in His care.”

  There was a flicker of a smile on the tired lips, and the cold hand made a feeble attempt at a pressure on the warm, vivid one it held.

  After that she seemed to sleep again.

  The girl, worn with sorrow and apprehension, sank in her cramped position on the floor into a troubled sleep herself, and the old dog, padding softly back from the hunt with delicate tread, slunk silently down near her, closing sad eyes and sighing.

  Tired out, the girl slept on, past the noon hour, into the afternoon, never knowing when the cold hand grew moist with death damp, never seeing the shadow that crept over the loved face, the faint breaths, slow and farther between, as the dying soul slipped nearer to the brink.

  The dog, hungry, patient, sighed and sighed again, closed his eyes and waited, understanding perhaps what was passing in the old cabin, his dog heart aching with those he loved.

  The shadows were changing on the mountaintops, and the long rays of the setting sun were flinging across the cabin floor, laying warm fingers on the old brown dog, bright fingers on the gold of the girl’s hair, and a glory of another world on the face of the passing soul. Suddenly the dying eyes opened, and with a gasp, the woman clutched at the young relaxed hand that lay in hers.

  “Fraley! Child! The old Bible!” The words were almost inarticulate except to loving ears, but the girl started awake and put her warm young arms around her mother.

  “Yes, Mother. I’ll keep it. I’ll always keep it! I’ll not forget. I’ll never let anyone take it from me.”

  Her words seemed to pierce the dying ears, and a smile trembled feebly on the white lips. For a long moment she lay in Fraley’s young arms, as if content, like a nestling child. Then, with superhuman strength, the dying woman lifted herself, and a light broke into her face, a light that made her look young and glad and well again, as her child could never remember her having looked.

  “He’s come for me!” she cried joyously, as if it were an honor she had not expected, and then, her eyes still looking up as if hearing a voice, said, “He’s going to keep you safe! Good-bye! Till you come!”

  With the smile still on her lips, she was gone. The girl, stunned, dazed with her sorrow yet understanding that the great mystery of passing was over, laid her back on the flabby pillow and gazed on the face so changed, so rested in spite of its frailty, its wornness; that face already taking on itself the look of a closed and uninhabited dwelling. She watched the glory fade into stillness of death, wrote it down, as it were, in her secret heart, to recall all through her life, and then, as sometimes when she had watched the sunset dropping behind the mountain and all the world grow dark, she knew it was over, and she sank down on her knees beside all that remained that was dear to her in the great world and broke into heartbroken sobs.

  The dog came and whined around her, nosing her face and licking her hands, but she did not feel him. Her heart seemed crushed within her. All that had passed between herself and her mother during that long, terrible, beautiful parting had faded for the time, and she was throbbing with one fearful thought. She was gone, gone, gone beyond recall! For the moment, there was no future, nothing to do but to lie broken and cry out her terrible pain. It seemed as though the pent-up torrent obliterated everything else.

  Then, suddenly, a low, menac
ing growl beside her startled her back to the present. She lifted her face and turned quick frightened eyes toward the neglected watch she had been keeping, and her heart stood still. There in the door, silhouetted dark against the bloodred light of the setting sun, stood Brand Carter, her mother’s enemy and hers!

  Chapter 2

  It was incredible that a girl could have grown to Fraley’s years in this wilderness, this mountain fastness of wickedness, so fine and sweet and unsoiled as this girl was. Nobody but God would ever know at what expense to herself the mother had been able to guard her all her years, especially the last few months since her father died.

  Like the matchless beauty of the little white flower that grows in the darkness of a coal pit and, protected by some miraculous quality with which its petals are endowed that will not retain the soil, lifts its starry whiteness amid the smut, so the child had grown into loveliness, unstained.

  And now the frail hand that had shut her from the gaze of unholy eyes more times than she would ever know, the strong soul that in a weak body had protected her from dangers unspeakable, was gone; cold, silent, still, it could no more protect her. The time that her mother had warned her against had come and caught her unawares! She had been merely weeping! She sprang to her feet in a terror she had never felt before. There had been times in the past when she had been deathly frightened but never like this. Her very heart stood still and would not beat. Her breath hurt her in her lungs; her eyes seemed bursting as she gazed; her mind would not function. He had come. It was too late! It was useless to flee!

  Then, with sudden realization, she glanced toward the silent form on the cot beside her with an instinct to protect her who could no longer protect herself. But the majesty in that dead face brought the realization that the dead need no protection. She caught her breath in one quick gasp and tried to think.

  But even that glance had been enough to break the spell that rested on the room. The man’s eyes went to the dead face, too, and with an oath, he made a move to come forward.

  The old dog gave a low growl and sprang with fangs exposed, but a cruel boot caught him midway and sent him sprawling outside the door, where for a second, he lay stunned by the well-aimed blow.

  “Ugh! Croaked at last!” said the man, coming close to the cot, peering down at the dead face, lifting a waxen eyelid roughly, and glaring into the dead eye. “Well, she took long enough about it.”

  Then he turned to the trembling girl, who, with enraged eyes, watched him.

  “Now, young’un, you git out and milk the cow and git us a good supper. The men are coming, and we’re hungry. See? Now, git!”

  He seized her in a rough grip and flung her through the door, almost into the arms of another man who had just sprung from his horse and was coming toward the cabin. He was a young man with an evil face and lustful eyes. Pierce, they called him, Pierce Boyden, lately come to the wilderness. Fraley hated him and feared him.

  “Here, you Pierce, come in here! We gotta get rid of this old woman. Give us a hand.”

  Then, turning to the other three men who drove up, he gave his orders.

  “Pete, you stand there with your gun and watch that girl while she milks that cow and gits us some grub. Whist, you and Babe get your shovels and be quick about it.”

  Fraley darted around the house to where the cow stood waiting to be milked. Every word that was spoken stung its terrible meaning into her frightened soul. Scarcely knowing what she did, she went at the task, a task from which her mother had saved her as long as she could. The angry voice of Brand rang from the house where he was moving around—roughly shoving a chair across the floor, flinging the old tin cup against the wall in his anger. She shuddered as she thought of what the men were doing. Her precious mother!

  The tears that had been flowing seemed to sting backward in her eyes. Her cheeks scorched dry, her heart came choking to her throat. Her hands were numb and could scarcely hold the pail in place. The milk was going everywhere.

  The voice of Brand, drunker than usual, sailed out into the twilight from the open doorway. “You, Pete! Stay there till I come back. If she starts to run, shoot her in the feet, then she can’t go fur!” He laughed a terrible haw, haw, and then she could hear the awful procession going down to the mountain.

  She knew what they were doing. She could hear the ring of a shovel against a rock. It seemed that every clod they turned fell across her quivering heart.

  Pete, with his gun, stood guard at the corner of the house. Pete, the silent one with the terrible leering eyes of hate. Pete who never smiled, not even when he was drunk. And now he was drunk! Oh, why had she lost her senses? Why had she not gone before they came, as her mother had meant her to do?

  The old dog hobbled to her and began to lick the tears from her face, and she felt comforted and less afraid. She whispered to him to lie down, and he obeyed her, sneaking into a shadow behind the cow.

  Pete stalked nearer and gruffly bade her to hurry. She managed to finish her milking, though her hands still felt more dead than alive, and stumbled into the house. The old dog slunk after her and hid in the bushes near the door. The shadows were growing long and deep on the grass and on the mountains across the dark valley where they had taken—No! It was not her mother! Merely the worn-out dress with which she was done! Hadn’t mother tried to make her understand that?

  She tried to take a deep breath and hold her shoulders up as she marched around the room, tried not to see the empty space where the cot had stood. Tried not to think, tried just to get the supper and get the men to eating. They were hungry now, and they would not bother her until they were fed, if she fed them quickly.

  She started the coffee boiling and put some salt meat on to cook. She fried a large skillet of potatoes and mixed up the crude corn bread. The familiar duties seemed to take her hours, and all the while her heart was listening in terror for the sound of returning feet. Pete had come into the house and was sitting in the corner with his gun aimed toward her. She shuddered when she looked at him, not so much because of the gun as because of the cunning look in his eyes, and once as she glanced up because she could not keep her eyes away from his shadowy corner he laughed, a horrid cackle, almost demonical. Pete, who never even smiled! It was as if he had her in his power. As if he was gloating over it. She would rather Brand had left almost any of the men than Pete. There was something about him that did not seem quite human.

  Feverishly she worked, her head throbbing with her haste, setting out the old table with the tin plates, the cracked cups. She could hear the men’s voices. They were coming back up the mountain now. They were singing one of those terrible songs about hanging somebody by the roadside, the one that had always made her mother turn pale.

  Fraley sprang to the stove and broke eggs into the hot fat beside the meat. She would give them such a supper as would make them forget her for the moment.

  The corn bread was ready, smoking hot on the table as the men came noisily in. Brand watched her as he towered above the rest, his evil eyes gloating, she thought, with the same look that had been in Pete’s eyes. She brought the coffee pot and set the frying pan with its sizzling meat and eggs in the middle of the table, and the men, with drunken satisfaction, sat down and drew up their chairs. They were joking among themselves about their task just completed, in words that froze her heart with sorrow and horror. But she was glad to have their attention for the moment taken from herself.

  They were all busy with the first mouthfuls now like hungry wolves, too busy to spring.

  She turned stealthily, and her foot touched something. It was the old tin cup that Brand had kicked away in his anger. With quick instinct, she stooped and picked it up. She might need it. Some bits of dry bread that were on the shelf as she passed she swept into it, and hiding the cup in the scant gathers of her cotton dress, she made a stealthy movement toward the door of the room that had been her refuge from the terrors of the world ever since she could remember.

  The men did not n
otice her. They were eating.

  Silently, as unobtrusively as she could move, she glided to the door and slipped within. They had not seemed to notice she was gone. She pushed the bolt quickly. It was a large bolt, and her mother had kept it well oiled so that it would move quickly and silently if need be. There was a bar, too, that slipped across the bottom of the door. That, too, her mother had cunningly, crudely arranged. Probably it would not endure long in a united attack, but it was a brief hindrance, at least. It she only dared draw the old trunk across the door! But that would make a noise.

  Stealthily, she moved in the dark little room that was scarcely larger than a closet. With fingers weak with fear, she lifted the loose board beneath the cot and pulled out the woolen bag. Suppressing the quick sob at the thought of her mother, she opened the flap of the bag and stowed away the tin cup and bread, then standing on tiptoe, she lifted the bag to the little high window over the bed and pushed it softly over the sill. As it fell she listened breathlessly. What if the men should hear it drop, or Larcha the old dog should begin to bark, and the men should go out to look around!

  Softly, she took down the old coat that had hung on a peg in the wall ever since her father died and put it on. The men were talking loudly now. Two of them seemed to be fighting over something that a third had said. It would perhaps come to blows. It often did. She welcomed the noise. It would cover her going. But as she stepped upon her little bed, her heart suddenly froze in her breast! What was the terrible thing they were saying? It was about herself they were fighting. They were saying unspeakably awful things. For an instant, she seemed paralyzed and could not move. Then fear set her free, and she was stung into action. It was not an easy matter to climb from the creaky little cot to the high narrow windowsill above without making a particle of noise, and she was trembling in every nerve.