Part 25 (1/2)
”Do anything you blame please,” he said, more by way of humoring her than from faith in her stratagem. He felt strong enough to face his destiny, to meet it in a way worthy of his mother's people.
Alida seemed under a spell in her preparations for the night. Each thing she did as she had done it in her dream the night before; it was as if she were constrained by a power greater than her will to fulfil a sinister prophecy. Yet now and then she would stop and wonder if she might not break the spell by doing things differently from the way she had dreamed them. Her hand grasped the k.n.o.b of the door uncertainly, and she swung it to and fro on its creaking hinges, while her mind seemed likewise to sway hither and thither. Should she fasten the door and push the bureau against it, as it had been in the dream, or should she leave door and windows gaping wide for them? And then, as one who walks and does familiar things in sleep, she shut the door and turned the key. Jim smiled at her, but she could no longer look at him. One of the children wailed fretfully from the room beyond. Sleep had become a scourge in the stifling heat. One by one she lowered the windows and nailed them down; then she dragged the brown bureau against the door, took the brace of six-shooters from the wall, and sat down with Jim to wait.
”What are you going to do with them toys?” he asked, as he saw her examine the chambers of one of the six-shooters.
”You ain't going to let yourself be caught like a rat in a hole, are you?”
she reproached him.
”'Ain't we agreed that it's best to keep onpleasant family matters from the kids?” He smiled at her bravely. ”The remembrance of what we're antic.i.p.atin' ain't going to help young Jim to get to Congress when his time comes, nor it ain't going to help the girls get good husbands, either. This here country ain't what it was in the way of liberality since it's got to be a State.”
”Sh-sh-s.h.!.+” she said. ”Is that the range-cattle stampedin' after water, or is it-” They listened. The furniture in the room crackled; there was not a fibre of it to which the resistless heat had not penetrated. On the range the cattle bellowed in their thirst-torture; in the intervals of their cries sounded something far off, but regular as the thumping of a s.h.i.+p's screw. The woman did not need an answer to her question. The steady trampling of hoofs came m.u.f.fled through the dead air, but the sound was unmistakable. She put her arms about the man's neck and crushed him to her with all her woman strength. ”Oh, Jim, you've been a good man to me!”
”Steady-steady.” He strained her close to him. ”They'd be, by the sound of them, on the straight bit of road now, before the turn. Soon we'll hear their hoofs ring hollow as they cross the plank bridge.”
His plainsman's faculty was as keen as ever; his calculation of the hors.e.m.e.n's distance was made as though he were the least concerned. All Alida's courage had gone, with the dread thing at hand. She clung to him, dazed.
”They're sober, all right enough.”
”How do you know?”
”They'd be cursing and bellowing if they were drunk.”
The hoofs rang hollow on the little plank bridge that crossed the ditch about a stone's-throw from the door. Not a word was said either within or without. The lynchers seemed to have drilled for their part; there was no whispering, no deferring to a leader. On they came, so close that Jim and Alida could hear the creaking of their saddles. There was the clank of spurs and the straining of leather as they dismounted, then some one knocked at the door till the warped boards rattled.
Jim could feel the thudding of Alida's heart as she clung to him, but when the knock was repeated a new courage came to her, and she left Jim and went on her knees close to the outer wall.
”Jim, is that you?” she called, and now every sense was trained to battle; her voice had even a sleepy cadence, as if she had been suddenly roused.
”That won't do at all, Miz Rodney. We know you got Jim in there, just as certain as we're out here, and we want him to come out and we'll do the thing square, otherwise he can take the consequences.”
Jim opened his mouth to speak, but she, still on her knees beside the wall, gained his silence by one supplicating gesture. There was a sleepy, fretful cry from the room beyond-the noise had roused one of the children.
”Sh-sh, dear,” she called. ”It's only a bad dream. Go to sleep again; mother is here.”
Through the warped door came sounds of the whispering voices without, drowned by the shrieking bellow of the cattle. There was not a breath of air in the suffocating room. Jim bent towards Alida:
”I'm goin out to 'em. They'll do it square, over on the cotton-woods; this rumpus'll only wake the kids.”
But she shook her head imploringly, putting her finger to her lips as a sign that he was not to speak, and he had not the heart to refuse, though knowing that she made a desperate situation worse.
”Gentlemen”-she spoke in a low, distinct voice-”Jim ain't here. He's been away from home five days. There's no one here but me and the children; you've woke them up and frightened them by pounding on the door. I ask you to go away.”
”If he ain't in there, will you let us search the house?” It was Henderson that spoke, Henderson, foreman of the ”x.x.x” outfit.
”I can't have them frightened; please take my word and go away.”
”Whas er matter, muvvy?” called Judith, sleepily. Young Jim was by this time crying l.u.s.tily. Only Topeka said nothing. With the precocity of a frontier child, she half realized the truth. She tried to comfort little Jim, though her teeth chattered in fear and she felt cold in the hot, still room. Then Judith called out, ”Make papa send them away.”