_ CHAPTER VII
From down there at the boom as the blackest hours of the night passed, Halloway and Brent sat rubber-coated on the raft watching the inflamed redness that was wiping out all that end of the village. The age-seasoned frame houses there huddled close enough for the hot contagion to sweep them with typhoon speed and they went up in spurts like pitch barrels. The wind was high enough to romp ruthlessly with spark and blaze, until even the effort at fire-fighting had been abandoned. Happily the bluster had settled to a constant gale out of the south-west and the fire-tide rolled with it to the edge and not the core of the town and when it lapped at the reeking woods it hissed out in defeat.
Alexander had withdrawn to her improvised shack and wrapped herself in her blanket. Brent gazed with a sort of hypnotized intentness on the wildness of the picture before him--an orgy of fire, wind and water. Through the wet mountains the wind shrieked and buffetted until ancient trees, made brittle by long freezing, went down. At his back, beyond the boom, sounded the dirge of the swollen waters running out. That was like the wail of a maniac exhausted by his ravings. The stage was dropping as rapidly as it had risen. Ahead, tossing a mane of smoke and a spume of spark, reveled the demoniac spirit of Fire. Brent shuddered but Halloway struck a match just then for his dead pipe under the protection of his coat lapel and in the brief flare Brent saw that his eyes were agleam, feral and animal-like, and that his lips were wolfishly drawn back from his teeth.
"This is elemental!" Halloway burst out suddenly. "I glory in it. I've been sitting here drunker than any moonshine guzzler back there at that tavern to-night. Drunk on the wild wine of the elements--drunk from the skulls of Valhalla. Great God, I love it!"
Brent rose at last and sought refuge under the insufficient roof of one of the shacks, for a down-pour had come with the wind and in key with all the extravagance of the night's mood, it was a cloud-burst.
The city man tossed restlessly and once looking out across the stretch of the rafted logs, he saw a single figure stripped to the skin in the sheeted down-pour of cold rain. He saw it only when the lightning flashed with the spectral effect of beauty. It stood straight with back-flung shoulders and head upturned into the rain like some wild high-priest of storm worship. When a flare, brighter than the others limned the whole prospect into a dazzling instant, the features burst into clarity with eyes glowing like madness, and lips parted in wild exaltation.
"He'll have a chill before morning," growled Brent, but his astonishment at the hardihood of such a shower-bath would have been more severely taxed had he been able to see behind the screening walls of Alexander's shack.
For if the colossal man standing there as God made him, reveling in the sluicing of icy sheets of water, was a picture for a painter's delight, the figure of the woman, sheltered from any eye, but likewise stripped to the flesh was one almost as heroic and far lovelier. Alexander too, was availing herself of that strong tonic which would have brought collapse to a weakling. She stood tall, beautiful, a Diana with her wet and flowing hair loosed about her white shoulders and her bosom rising and falling to the elation of the storm-bath.
The hurricane passed in the forenoon of that day leaving the ridges wet and inert, with the dejection of spent violence, but from gray clouds that hung in trailing wisps along the upper slopes a steady rain sobbed down. After breakfast Bud Sellers who had after all not availed himself of Alexander's permission to spend the night on the raft, came aboard and diffidently approached the girl.
He wore a hang-dog air but in his eyes was that same wistfulness of unspoken worship. Brent knew that he was trying to explain to Alexander his torture of self accusation because of the disaster born of his moment of drunken frenzy.
The girl stood looking at him, entirely oblivious to the devotion that was clear-writ in his eyes. While he talked she accorded him a hearing, but with lips tight pressed and the unforgettable picture in her mind of the stricken man who might even now be dead. He might have passed, with the pain of uncertainty clouding his last moments as to the success or failure of her venture.
With that burden on her heart it was difficult to listen to apologies and explanations. She knew that Bud would have burned his body to a crisp last night if need be in the effort to save her from a similar fate, but that only irritated her. She had not called for help. She had not needed help and this rush of volunteers to her rescue was, after all, only a denial of the principle for which she so militantly fought; the postulate that when she played a man's game she wished to be treated as a man, asking no favors.
Brent and Halloway overheard a little of what was said, for the two voices rose in inflection, under the urge of his earnestness and her feeling.
"I don't act pi'zen mean when I'm sober, Alexander--an' I strives not ter drink, knowin' full well thet hit plum crazes me-- Hit don't seem like no common thirst-- Hit comes on me like a plague and hit masters me ther same as spells or fits----. God, He knows I'd es lief hev raised my hand ergin my own daddy, ef I hed one, es erginst yore paw--I war frenzied."
"I don't know what made ye do hit, but I knows what ye done, Bud," said Alexander and her rich voice trembled under the tautness of her effort at control. "Ef a man kain't holp goin' mad like a dog--an' seekin' ter slay folks, I reckon he----" It was on her tongue to say that he ought to pay the mad-dog's penalty but she checked herself shortly and went on with less cruelty, "I reckon he's a right dangerous sort of feller ter hev 'round."
"All I asks, Alexander," he pleaded, "air thet ye gives me ther chanst ter make amends. Ef I feels ther cravin' masterin' me ergin, I'll go ter town an' git ther police ter lock me up in ther jail-house an' keep me thar, tell I comes back ter my senses."
"Hit hain't a thing ye kin handily make amends fer," she reminded him, "but I've done pledged myself ter let hit go unavenged and I knows too, thet I'm beholden ter ye fer last night. None-the-less----" The color paled from her cheeks and she shook her head. "None-the-less until I gits back home--an' knows whether my paw is livin' or dead----" her words came very slowly and with an effort, "I kain't say thet thar won't be black hatred in my heart erginst ye."
He nodded somewhat miserably. "No, I don't hardly reckon ye kin tutor yore feelin's no different," he acknowledged as he turned away, but from that moment he had dedicated himself to a vasselage out of which he hoped to salvage no personal reward.
When she had watched him tramp up the muddy slope from the bank to the street, Alexander lifted her chin and tossed her head, as if to shake away some cobwebbing thought from the brain. Then with an energetic step she came over and without preamble announced, "Mr. Brent, I don't aim ter tarry hyar no longer then ther soonest time I kin git out. Let's me an' you talk business."
Brent nodded. "Is it confidential? Do you want me to send this man away?" he inquired, with a mischievous glance at the giant whose eyes, save when they dropped before her own, remained fixed on the girl with a devouring intentness.
Alexander shook her head. "What fer?" she demanded. "I reckon we hain't got no need of whisperin' erbout our transactions."
She paused for an instant and went on. "Paw an' you measured up that timber back yon, didn't ye? An' ye agreed on ther price too, didn't ye?"
"We settled both points. I have a memorandum, but----"
"I knows what ye aims ter say," interrupted Alexander. "Ye means ter name hit ter me thet them logs hain't all hyar because some of 'em busted loose comin' through ther gorge. What I wanted ter ask ye is thet you an' me should measure up thet raft now an' figger out what's gone, so thet I kin tell paw----" She halted as abruptly as though a blow on the mouth had broken off the utterance and a paroxysm of pain crossed her face. The ever present dread had struck back that there might be no father to whom she could report. With a swift recovery, though, she finished. "So thet I kin fotch tidin's back home es ter how much we gits."
When these reckonings had been made Brent inquired: "Do you understand the terms of this contract between your father and myself?"
Her reply was guarded. "We've done talked hit over."
"It was agreed," the buyer told her, "that I was to accept this stuff and pay for it at some point from which I could deliver it in the Bluegrass either by rail or navigable water. If you like, I'm ready to pay now."
He had seen Alexander under some trying circumstances and never with any hint of breakdown, yet just now he wondered if unexpected good tidings were not about to accomplish what bad news could not--carry out the dam of her own hard-schooled repression on a flood of tears. Her eyes became suddenly misty and her lips trembled. She started to speak, then gulped and remained silent. But gradually the color flowed back into her cheeks, as pink as the laurel blossom's deep center, and once more she gave her head that characteristic toss as though in contempt for her moment of weakness.
"Mr. Brent, I hain't seekin' no favors an' I don't want nothin' but my dues. I didn't know ye stood obleeged ter pay us 'twell ther logs went down ter ther lowlands, but----" Though her words were slowly, even tediously enunciated they seemed to come with difficulty. "But ef I could take thet money back thar--an' tell him hit war all settled up----" The fullness of what that meant to her gained in force because she got no further with her explanation and Brent said with a brusqueness, affected to veil his own sympathy: "Come on, let's go to the bank."
The bank at Coal City is a small box of brick, with two rooms. At the front the cashier's grating stands. At the rear is a bare chamber furnished with a small stove, a deal table and a few hickory-withed chairs. It is here that directors meet and hinterland financiers negotiate. Into this sanctum Brent led Alexander Macedonia McGivins, and for no particular reason, save that no one had forbidden it, Halloway accompanied them.
The timber buyer scribbled his calculations on the back of an envelope and submitted the results to the girl, who gravely nodded her satisfaction.
"Then," said Brent with an air of relief, "there remain only two things more. I shall now draw you a check for four thousand and ninety-one dollars and fifty cents, and you will sign a receipt."
Halloway was sitting in the background where he could indulge in all the staring he liked, and since Alexander had swum into his ken, that had become a large order. As Brent finished, the girl who had been sitting at the table with a pen in her hand, suddenly pushed back her chair and into her eyes came an amazed disappointment--a keen anxiety. For a moment she looked blankly at the man who was opening his check book. She suddenly felt that she had been confronted with a financial problem that lay beyond her experience and one which she deeply distrusted. It was as though affairs hitherto simple, except for physical dangers, had run into a channel of subtler and therefore more alarming complication.
None of this escaped Halloway's lynx-like gaze but to Brent who was smoothing out the folded check, it went unobserved.
Suddenly Alexander bent forward, her cheeks coloring with embarrassment and caught at the signer's wrist as spasmodically as though it were a death warrant to which he meant to set his signature.
"Don't write me no check!" she exclaimed somewhat desperately, then, covered with confusion she added, "I don't aim ter insult ye none--but I don't know much erbout fotched-on ways. I wants ter tote thet thar payment back home--in real money."
Except with Brent, Halloway had never thus far broken out of character. Having assumed to be a mountain lumberman, he had consistently talked as one--acted as one.
Now he came out of his chair as though a mighty spring had uncurled under him, and slapped an outspread hand to his forehead.
"Great jumping Jehosaphat!" he exclaimed, and turning in her chair, the young woman studied him in perplexity. But Halloway's slip was brief and his recovery instant. Since Brent sat there staring in speechless bewilderment at Alexander, the giant launched himself into the breach.
"Tote four thousand dollars in silver an' paper an' gold across them trails in saddle bags!" His voice suddenly mounted into domineering vehemence. "Tote hit over wild an' la'relly mountings with this hyar country full of drunken scalawags thet would do murder for a ten dollar bill! Hev ye done gone plum bereft of reason?"
Alexander's first confusion of manner had come from the fear that her refusal of a check might seem tainted with the discourtesy of suspicion. Now in the face of actual opposition it stiffened instantly into hostility. The perplexity died from her face and her eyes blazed. For a moment she met the excited gaze of the man who towered over her and then in a coldly scornful voice she spoke, not to him, but to Brent. "I reckon ye war right, Mr. Brent, when ye asked me whether I wanted this man sent way. Thar hain't no need of his tarryin' hyar."
"Just a moment, Alexander," smiled Brent, enjoying in spite of himself his friend's discomfiture. "We'll pack him off, if you say so, but first hear what we both have to say. He's right. With this gang of scoundrels in and about town it would be madness to carry that much money. The size of this deal will set tongues wagging. When you start out everyone will know it. You'd never get home alive."
"I don't know nothin' about checks an' sometimes banks bust," she obdurately insisted. "I wants ter show my paw cash money. Ef he 'lows I'm man enough ter do his business thet's enough, hain't it?"
"A rifle-gun in ther la'rel hes done overcome plenty of men afore ye," asserted Halloway with the deep boom of sullenness in his voice. "Ye hain't no army of men, I reckon."
They wrestled with her in argument for the better part of an hour but she was as immovable as the bed-rock of her mountains.
Brent even raised the point, despite the withering contempt with which he knew she would greet it, that he might decline to recognize her authority to act for her father but from a hip pocket of her trousers she produced a worn wallet and from the wallet she extracted a general and properly attested power of attorney to transact all business.
"I hed ter hev thet," she announced coolly, "because so many damn fool men 'lowed thet a woman couldn't do business."
The end of it was that Brent himself cashed his check, and counted out in specie and currency a sum large enough to become in effect a price on her head. When the money had been done up in heavy paper, sealed by the cashier with wax, and identified with her own signature, she consented to permit it to lie in the safe overnight since the roads were not yet passable, though even then she cannily inquired of the bank employe: "I reckon ye hain't got no objection ter my countin' hit up afresh afore I sets out, hev ye?"
Later that day Lute Brown, who it may be said in passing, had served a term in state prison for house-breaking, dropped casually into the bank and asked the cashier to "back a letter" for him, since writing was not one of his own strong points. The cashier was obliging, and in as much as gossip was usually sparse in that community went on the while chatting with the president of the institution, who had just come in.
"True as text," said the cashier, while Lute Brown waited. "She wouldn't take no check. She was plum resolved to have her money in cash--and she aims to hire a mule and start out soon to-morrow morning toting it along with her."
"I'd hate to undertake it," said the president briefly and the cashier agreed: "Me an' you both. Why she wouldn't even hear of takin' no bodyguard along with her."
Later in the day Lute Brown addressed a caucus attended by a half dozen men, including Jase Mallows.
That meeting took place behind closed doors and though a general accord of purpose prevailed there was some dissension as to detail.
"We kain't skeercely shoot her outen hand es she rides along," demurred a conscientious objector, who, however, fully endorsed the plan of lightening her financial burden. "She's a woman, fer all her brashness in her callin' herself a man."
The virtuous sentiment was not popularly received. It might even have been scoffed into limbo had not Jase Mallows leaned forward, twirling his mustache, and made himself heard.
"Ye're damn right hit won't do ter kill her. I aims ter wed that gal some day, an' afore I'd see her lay-wayed an' kilt, I'd tell this hull story ter ther town marshall."
An ominous growl went up at that but Jase continued staunchly.
"Howsomever we needn't hev no fallin' out over that. I've got a plan wharby she kin be robbed without hurtin' her an' wharby atter ye've done got ther money, I kin 'pear ter rescue her an' tek her offen yore hands."
As he outlined his guileful proposition the scowls of his listeners gave way to grins of full approval and admiration.
"Who's goin' ter diskiver what route she rides?" demanded one of those annoyingly exact persons who mar all great dreams by the injection of practicalities.
Again Jase laughed. "Thar hain't but one way she kin go--hit'll be days afore any other route's fordable. She's got ter fare past Crabapple post office an' through Wolf-pen gap."
That afternoon Brent went to the telegraph office. He wanted to wire his concern that the timber was safe and the deal closed, but while still a short distance from the railroad station, which was also the telegrapher's office, he saw Lute Brown go into the place and fell to wondering what business carried him hither. So he timed his entrance and sauntered in just as the fellow was turning away from the operator's chair.
Brent himself lounged about idly, because the man at the table had opened his key and begun sending. Neither Brown nor the operator gave any indication of interest in the arrival of a third person.
To neither of them did it occur that Brent was versed in the Morse code, and Brent volunteered no information on the subject.
None the less he was listening and as the dots and dashes fell into letters and the letters into words, he read, as if from a book, this message:
"Woman starts out in morning with bundle by way of Crabapple post office. Lute."
Brent filed his own message and passed the time of day with the operator, but when he was outside he cursed the need of slow walking as he made his way to the rafts. Alexander was not there. No one had seen her for two hours and, from her shack, both pack and rifle had been removed.
Halloway's face when Brent found him and told him his story, first blackened into the thunder cloud darkness, then as suddenly paled into dread.
"By God, Brent," he whispered hoarsely, catching the other's arm in a grip that almost broke it, "what if she suspects us too--and has already set out to give us the slip? She hasn't a chance to get through before these outlaws intercept her. She'd have to stop--somewhere this side the gap--and go on in the morning."
"Come on," snorted Brent, "we've got to go to the livery stable and see if she's hired a mule."
"If she's seeking to give us the slip, she's probably changed that plan too--and set out on foot. It's a safe bet, though, that she didn't go without her precious money. Let's try the bank."
They went, Brent needing to strike a sort of dog-trot to hold the long striding pace of the other.
The bank was closed for the day. _