Part 22 (1/2)

”If you got the s.p.u.n.k of a chipmunk you and me'll take a peek at that there packet. I bet you it's thousand-dollar bills--more'n a billion million dollars, likely.”

Kloon's dogged silence continued. Leverett licked his dry lips. His rifle lay on his knees. Almost imperceptibly he moved it, moved it again, froze stiff as Kloon spat, then, by infinitesimal degrees, continued to edge the muzzle toward Kloon.

”Jake?”

”Aw, shut your head,” grumbled Kloon disdainfully. ”You allus was a dirty rat--you sneakin' trap robber. Enough's enough. I ain't got no use for no billion million dollar bills. Ten thousand'll buy me all I cal'late to need till I'm planted. But you're like a hawg; you ain't never had enough o' nothin' and you won't never git enough, neither,--not if you wuz G.o.d a'mighty you wouldn't.”

”Ten thousand dollars hain't nothin' to a billion million, Jake.”

Kloon squirted a stream of tobacco at a pitcher plant and filled the cup. Diverted and gratified by the accuracy of his aim, he took other shots at intervals.

Leverett moved the muzzle of his rifle a hair's width to the left, s.h.i.+vered, moved it again. Under his soggy, sun-tanned skin a pallor made his visage sickly grey.

”Jake?”

No answer.

”Say, Jake?”

No notice.

”Jake, I wanta take a peek at them bills.”

Merely another stream of tobacco soiling the crimson pitcher.

”I'm--I'm desprit. I gotta take a peek. I gotta--gotta----”

Something in Leverett's unsteady voice made Kloon turn his head.

”You gol rammed fool,” he said, ”what you doin' with your----”

The loud detonation of the rifle punctuated Kloon's inquiry with a final period. The big, soft-nosed bullet struck him full in the face, spilling his brains and part of his skull down his back, and knocking him flat as though he had been clubbed.

Leverett, stunned, sat staring, motionless, clutching the rifle from the muzzle of which a delicate stain of vapour floated and disappeared through a rosy bar of suns.h.i.+ne.

In the intense stillness of the place, suddenly the dead man made a sound; and the trap-robber nearly fainted.

But it was only air escaping from the slowly collapsing lungs; and Leverett, ashy pale, shaking, got to his feet and leaned heavily against an oak tree, his eyes never stirring from the sprawling thing on the ground.

If it were a minute or a year he stood there he could never have reckoned the s.p.a.ce of time. The sun's level rays glimmered ruddy through the woods. A green fly appeared, buzzing about the dead man. Another zig-zagged through the suns.h.i.+ne, lacing it with streaks of greenish fire. Others appeared, whirling, gyrating, filling the silence with their humming. And still Leverett dared not budge, dared not search the dead and take from it that for which the dead had died.

A little breeze came by and stirred the bushy hair on Kloon's head and fluttered the ferns around him where he lay.

Two delicate, pure-white b.u.t.terflies--rare survivors of a native species driven from civilization into the wilderness by the advent of the foreign white--fluttered in airy play over the dead man, drifting away into the woodland at times, yet always returning to wage a fairy combat above the heap of soiled clothing which once had been a man.

Then, near in the ferns, the withering fronds twitched, and a red squirrel sprung his startling alarm, squeaking, squealing, chattering his opinion of murder; and Leverett, shaking with the shock, wiped icy sweat from his face, laid aside his rifle, and took his first stiff step toward the dead man.

But as he bent over he changed his mind, turned, reeling a little, then crept slowly out among the pitcher-plants, searching about him as though sniffing.

In a few minutes he discovered what he was looking for; took his bearings; carefully picked his way back over a leafy crust that trembled under his cautious tread.