Part 18 (2/2)

I have since searchingly asked myself whether, at that time, any mean thought entered my mind as to the possibilities which might open for me if Weighborne died. I set it down in justification, though it may rather be attributable to the excitement of the moment than to inherent guilelessness, that that phase of the matter did not occur to me. Had I entertained such speculations they must have been short lived, for when we arrived at the cabin and made an examination, and when later by relayed telephone messages we brought the doctor, it was to learn that the patient would have to lie in bed for perhaps a week or two, but need fear no grave consequences. His wound had narrowly missed the heart, but the margin was sufficient. My own injury proved to be a mere flesh scratch and a bandage did for it all that was needful.

I was rather surprised at the almost lethargic calmness with which the household greeted our disordered homecoming. Preparations for supper went on with little interruption. There was no excited demand from those who had stayed at home, for the full story, and even the children seemed uninquisitive. Only the aged woman showed a flash of unexpected fire as she demanded, ”Didn't ye git nary one of _them_?”

”We got Rat-Ankle,” drawled an unshaven lout with a revolting note of placid satisfaction.

”That's better'n not gettin' nary one,” commended the old woman. Her voice revealed the hereditary source of Marcus' ability for sincere hating.

I looked at her aged, monkey-like face and the intensity of her beady eyes with wonderment. There was vindictiveness there but no fear, no excitement even, except the excitement of hate--and yet this old woman was the same who could not be induced to travel on a railroad train for fear of an accident.

It was several hours later that the doctor arrived. He was much like the men among whom he lived. If he had once been otherwise long a.s.sociation had roughened him to their own similitude. He entered with a wordless nod and went straight to the bed where the injured man lay unconscious.

After a silent examination he opened his worn and faded saddle-bags and proceeded taciturnly but capably with his work. He asked no questions and Marcus volunteered no explanation. At last he rose and said, ”He ain't in no great danger if he keeps quiet. Have you got a little licker in the house, Calloway?”

Before the fireplace he poured generously from a stoneware jug into a tin cup, but instead of tossing down his white whiskey at a gulp he sipped it slowly, while he gave directions to the lawyer or shouted them loudly into the ear of the old woman. The only allusion to the ambuscade came from her.

”Our folks got Rat-Ankle,” she announced somewhat triumphantly. ”But they didn't see nary other face of them that lay-wayed 'em.”

”Don't pay no attention to Mother,” said Marcus more hastily than I had before heard him speak; ”at times she gets childish.”

The physician nodded.

Then it was that I, in an ignorance which had not learned the valuable art of general distrust, volunteered a remark for which my host, so soon as we were alone, rebuked me sternly.

”Mrs. Marcus is mistaken as to that,” I said. ”Just as the volley was fired, I recognized Curt Dawson.”

The voice of Calloway Marcus again cut in with an interruption. ”Oh, I reckon you're mistaken about that, Mr. Deprayne. I understand Dawson is across the Virginia line.”

”I'm sure enough,” I persisted, failing entirely to catch my host's effort to silence me, ”to swear to it in court.”

”Mr. Deprayne is a stranger here,” deprecated the lawyer. ”He isn't familiar enough with our people to be certain in these matters.”

Again the doctor nodded and, taking up his saddle-bags, went out. As soon as he had bidden him farewell, Marcus returned. He walked over and stood before me with a face that was deeply troubled. Except for his mother, too deaf to hear his low-pitched voice, and Weighborne, whose initial unconsciousness had pa.s.sed under medical administrations into a profound sleep, we were alone.

”Sir,” he said patiently, ”I can't be angry with you because you don't understand what you have done. Perhaps I should have warned you. I sent for Richardson because he was the only doctor within many hours' riding, but I don't confide in him. He will carry straight to Garvin your announcement that you have recognized his gun-man. You have given away a secret I might have used to great advantage. Sir, you have tremendously complicated matters.”

He dropped his hands at his sides with a weary gesture, half-despair.

”However, it's done now,” he added, ”it's no use to deplore it--but, for G.o.d's sake, be more careful in the future.”

When Weighborne recovered consciousness he spoke to me once more of his wife. He was afraid that an exaggerated report of the affair would leak through to the Lexington papers, and he wished to allay her anxiety. The duty of this rea.s.surance devolved on me, but the complicated system of telephoning spared me the torture of felicitating her. The message was relayed through disinterested voices before it reached her ears. As it eventuated Weighborne's precaution was a wise one since the news filtered that same night to a newspaper correspondent at the railroad town. This scribe so well utilized his information that the papers of the next morning carried scare-heads over a story of bloodshed and ma.s.sacre which accorded to both of us desperate wounds and ludicrously lauded us as heroes.

It cannot be said for Weighborne that he proved a docile patient. He had all the energetic man's aversion to inactive days in bed, and he greatly preferred, if he must submit to such an exigency, that it be in his own bed and among more plentiful conveniences, than could be afforded here.

But to move him over twenty semi-perpendicular miles was p.r.o.nounced impossible and to that decree he had to submit.

I, who, despite my newspaper peril, was not even bedridden, continued the daily rides to tracts marked for inspection, and discussed the day's work with him in the evening.

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