Part 56 (1/2)

”Thin you better go on off,” Ellie said. ”I'm no sort uv comp'ny t'day.”

She flung herself onto the bed, burying her face in the quilt. She was sobbing.

Old Nathan bit his lower lip as he stepped out of the cabin. ”Hit warn't the world I made, hit's jest the one I live in.”

”Leastways when ye go fis.h.i.+n',” the mule grumbled from the porch rail, ”thur's leaves t' browse.”

Wouldn't hurt him t' go see Madame Taliaferro with his own eyes, he reckoned.

Inside the cabin the girl cried, ”Oh why cain't I jes' die, I'm so miser'ble!”

For as little good as he'd done, Old Nathan guessed he might better have stayed to home and saved himself and his mule a ride back in the dark.

The sky was pale from the recently set sun, but the road was in shadows. They would be deeper yet by the time the cunning man reached the head of the track to his cabin. The mule muttered a curse every time it clipped a hoof in a rut, but it didn't decide to balk.

The bats began their everlasting refrain, ”Dilly, dilly, come and be killed,” as they quartered the air above the road. Thet peepin' nonsense was enough t' drive a feller t' distraction-er worse!

Just as well the mule kept walking. This night, Old Nathan was in a mood to speak phrases that would blast the bones right out of the durned old beast.

Somebody was coming down the road from Oak Hill, singing merrily. It took a moment to catch actual phrases of the song, ” . . . went a-courtin', he did ride . . .” and a moment further to identify the voice as Bully Ransden's.

” . . . an' pistol by his side, uh-huh!”

Ransden came around the next bend in the trail, carrying not the bottle Old Nathan expected in his free hand but rather a stringer of bullheads. He'd left the long cane pole behind somewhere during the events of the evening.

”Hullo, mule,” Ransden's horse whinnied. ”Reckon I ate better'n you did t'night.”

”Hmph,” grunted the mule. ”Leastways my master ain't half-shaved an' goin' t' ride me slap inter a ditch 'fore long.”

”Howdy, feller,” Bully Ransden caroled. ”Ain't it a fine ev'nin'?”

Ransden wasn't drunk, maybe, but he sure-h.e.l.l didn't sound like the man he'd been since he grew up-which was about age eleven, when he beat his father out of the cabin with an ax handle.

”Better fer some thin others, I reckon,” Old Nathan replied. He clucked the mule to the side, giving the horseman the room he looked like he might need.

Ransden's manner changed as soon as he heard the cunning man's voice. ”So hit's you, is it, old man?”

he said.

He tugged hard on his reins, twisting his mount across the road in front of Old Nathan. ”Hey, easy on!”

the horse complained. ”No call fer thet!”

”D'ye figger t' spy on me, feller?” Ransden demanded, turned crossways in his saddle. He shrugged his shoulders, straining the velvet jacket dangerously. ”Or-”

Bully Ransden didn't carry a gun, but there was a long knife in his belt. Not that he'd need it. Ransden was young and strong enough to break a fence rail with his bare hands, come to that. He'd do the same with Old Nathan, for all that the cunning man had won his share of fights in his youth- And later. It was a hard land still, though statehood had come thirty years past.

”I'm ridin' on home, Cullen Ransden,” Old Nathan said. ”Reckon ye'd do well t' do the same.”

”By G.o.d,” said Ransden. ”By G.o.d! Where you been to, old man? Hev you been sniffin' round my Ellie?

By G.o.d, if she's been-”

The words echoed in Old Nathan's mind, where he heard them an instant before they were spoken.

The power that poured into the cunning man was nothing that he had summoned. It wore him like a cloak, responding to the threat Bully Ransden was about to voice.

”-slippin' around on me, I'll wring the b.i.t.c.h's-”

Old Nathan raised both hands. Thunder crashed in the clear sky, then rumbled away in diminis.h.i.+ng chords.

The power was nothing to do with the cunning man, but he shaped it as a potter shapes clay on his wheel. He spread his fingers. The tree trunks and roadway glowed with a light as faint as foxfire. It was just enough to throw each rut and bark ridge into relief, as though they were reflecting the pale sky.

”Great G.o.d Almighty!” muttered Bully Ransden. His mouth fell open. The string of small fish in his left hand trembled slightly.

”Ye'll do what to thet pore little gal, Bully Ransden?” the cunning man asked in a harsh, cracked voice.

Ransden touched his lips with his tongue. He tossed his head as if to clear it. ”Reckon I misspoke,” he said; not loud but clearly, and he met Old Nathan's eyes as he said the words.

”Brag's a good dog, Ransden,” Old Nathan said. ”But Hold-fast is better.”

He lowered his arms. The vague light and the last trembling of thunder had already vanished.

The mule turned and stared back at its rider with one bulging eye. ”Whut in tar-nation was that?” it asked.

Bully Ransden clucked to his hose. He pressed with the side, not the spur, of his right boot to swing the beast back in line with the road. ”Don't you think I'm afeerd t' meet you, old man,” he called; a little louder than necessary, and at a slightly higher pitch than intended.

Ransden was afraid; but that wouldn't keep him from facing the cunning man, needs must- As surely as Old Nathan would have faced the Bully's fists and hobnailed boots some moments earlier.

The rus.h.i.+ng, all-mastering power was gone now, leaving Old Nathan shaken and as weak as a man wracked with a three-days flux. ”Jest go yer way, Ransden,” he muttered, ”and I'll go mine. I don't wish fer any truck with you.”

He heeled the mule's haunches and added, ”Git on with ye, thin, mule.”

The mule didn't budge. ”I don't want no part uv these doins,” it protested. ”Felt like hit was a dad-blame thunderbolt sittin' astride me, hit did.”

Ransden walked his nervous horse abreast of the cunning man. ”I don't know why I got riled no-how,”

he said, partly for challenge but mostly just in the brutal banter natural to the Bully's personality. ”Hain't as though you're a man, now, is it?”

He spurred his horse off down the darkened trail, laughing merrily.

Old Nathan trembled, gripping the saddle horn with both hands. ”Git on, mule,” he muttered. ”I hain't got the strength t' fight with ye.”

Faintly down the road drifted the words, ”Froggie wint a-courtin', he did ride . . .”

Bright midday sun dappled the white-painted boards of the Isiah Chesson house. It was a big place for this end of the country, with two rooms below and a loft. In addition, there was a stable and servant's quarters at the back of the lot. How big it seemed to Madame Francine Taliaferro, late of New Orleans, was another matter.

”Whoa-up, mule,” Old Nathan muttered as he peered at the dwelling. It sat a musket shot down the road and around a bend from the next house of the Oak Hill settlement. The front door was closed, and there was no sign of life behind the curtains added to the windows since the new tenant moved in.