Part 16 (1/2)
”Ye said ye wasn't mad with me ... thet night ... under ther tree ...
but yit ye said, too ... hit war all a sort of dream ... like es ef ye warn't plum sh.o.r.e.”
”Yes, Cal?”
”Since then ye've jest kinderly pitied me, I reckon ... an' been plum charitable.... I've got ter know.... War ye mad at me when ye pondered hit in ther daylight ... stid of ther moons.h.i.+ne?”
The girl's pale face flushed to a laurel-blossom pink and her voice was a ghost whisper.
”I hain't nuver been mad with ye, Cal.”
”Could ye--” he halted and spoke in a tense undernote of hope that hardly dared voice itself--”could ye bend down ter me an' kiss me ...
ergin?”
She could and did.
Then with her young arms under his head and her own head bowed until her lips pressed his, the dry-eyed, heart-cramping suspense of these anxious days broke in a freshet of unrestrained tears.
She had not been able to cry before, but now the tears came flooding and they brought such a balm as comes with rain to a parched and thirsting garden.
For a s.p.a.ce the silence held save for the tempest of sobs that were not unhappy and that gradually subsided, but after a little the rapt happiness on the man's face became clouded under a thought that carried a heavy burden of anxiety and he seemed groping for words that were needed for some dreaded confession.
”When a man fust falls in love,” he said, ”he hain't got time ter think of nuthin' else ... then all ther balance of matters comes back ... an'
needs ter be fronted. Thar's things I've got ter tell ye, Dorothy.”
”What matters air them, Cal? I hain't thought of nuthin' else yit.”
”Ye didn't know nuthin' erbout me when I come hyar ... ye jest tuck me on faith, I reckon....”
He halted abruptly there, and his face became drawn into deep lines.
Then he continued dully: ”When I crossed over ther Virginny line ... a posse was atter me--they sought ter hang me over thar ... fer murder.”
He felt her fingers tighten over his in spasmodic incredulity and saw the stunned look in her eyes, but she only said steadily, ”Go on ... I knows ye _hed_ ter do hit. Tell me ther facts.”
He sketched for her the grim narrative of that brief drama in the log cabin beyond the river and of the guilt he had a.s.sumed. He told it with many needful pauses for breath, but refused to stop until the story had reached its conclusion, and as she listened, the girl's face mirrored many emotions, but the first unguarded shock of horror melted entirely away and did not return.
”Ef ye'd acted any other fas.h.i.+on,” came her prompt and spirited declaration when the recital reached its end, ”I couldn't nuther love ye ner esteem ye. Ye tuck blame on yoreself ter save a woman.”
For a time she sat there gazing out through the window, her thoughts busy with the grim game in which this man whom she loved had been so desperately involved. She knew that he had spoken the whole truth ...
but she knew, too, that over them both must hang the unending shadow of a threat, and after a little she acknowledged that realization as she said with a new note of determination in her voice:
”Thar hain't no p'int in our waitin' over-long ter be wedded. Folks thet faces perils like we does air right wise ter git what they kin outen life--whilst they kin.”
”We kain't be wedded none too soon fer me,” he declared with fervour.
”Albeit yore grandpap's got ter be won over fust. He's right steadfast to Bas Rowlett, I reckon.”
As anxiously as Dorothy followed the rise and fall in the tide of her lover's strength it is doubtful if her anxiety was keener than that of Bas Rowlett, who began to feel that he had been cheated.
Unless something unforeseen altered the trend of his improvement, Cal Maggard would recover. He would not keep his oath to avenge his way-laying before the next full moon because it would require other weeks to restore his whole strength and give back to him the use of his gun hand, but the essential fact remained that he would not die.