Part 9 (1/2)
A man on horseback might have overtaken him, but with the handicap of Red Hoss' flying start against the pursuing forces no number of men afoot possibly could hope to do so.
At the end of the second mile, and still going strong, the fugitive bethought him to part with his red coat. He already had run out from under his uniform cap, but a red coat with a double row of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and bra.s.s-topped epaulettes on it flas.h.i.+ng next morning across a bland autumnal landscape would be calculated to attract undesired attention.
So without slackening speed he took it off and cast it behind him into the darkness. Figuratively speaking, he breathed easier when he crossed the state line at or about five A.M. As a matter of fact, though, he was breathing harder. Some hours elapsed before he caught up with his panting.
Traveling in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, he reached home too late for the wedding. Still, considering everything, he hardly would have cared to attend anyhow. Either he would have felt embarra.s.sed to be present or else the couple would, or perhaps all three. On such occasions nothing is more superfluous than an extra bridegroom. The wedding in question was the one uniting Melissa Grider and Homer Holmes. It was generally unexpected--in fact, sudden.
The marriage took place on a Wednesday at high noon in the office of Justice of the Peace Dycus. Red Hoss arrived the same afternoon, shortly after the departure of the happy pair for Cairo, Illinois, on a honeymoon tour. All along, Melissa had had her heart set on going to St. Louis; but after the license had been paid for and the magistrate had been remunerated there remained but thirty-four dollars of the fund she had been safeguarding, dollar by dollar, as her other, or regular, fiance earned it. So she and Homer compromised on Cairo, and by their forethought in taking advantage of a popular excursion rate they had, on their return, enough cash left over to buy a hanging lamp with which to start up housekeeping.
Late that evening, while Red Hoss still wrestled mentally with the confusing problem of being engaged to a girl who just had been married to another, a disquieting thought came abruptly to him, jolting him like a blow. Looking back on events, he was reminded that the sequence of painful misadventures which had befallen him recently dated, all and sundry, from that time when he was coming back down the Blandsville Road after delivering Mr. d.i.c.k Bell's new cow and acquired a fresh hind foot of a graveyard rabbit. He had been religiously toting that presumably infallible charm against disaster ever since--and yet just see what had happened to him! Surely here was a situation calling for interpretive treatment by one having the higher authority. In the person of the venerable Daddy Hannah--root, herb and conjure doctor--he found such a one.
Before going into consultation the patriarch forethoughtedly collected a fee of seventy-five cents from Red Hoss. At the outset he demanded two dollars, but accepted the six bits, because that happened to be all the money the client had. This formality concluded, he required it of Red Hoss that he recount in their proper chronological order those various strokes of ill fortune which lately had plagued him; after which Daddy Hannah asked to see the talisman which coincidentally had been in the victim's owners.h.i.+p from beginning to culmination of the enumerated catastrophes. He took it in his wrinkled hand and studied it, sides, top and bottom, the while Red Hoss detailed the exact circ.u.mstances attending the death of the bunny. Then slowly the ancient delivered his findings.
”In de fust an' fo'mos' place,” stated Daddy Hannah, ”dis yere warn't no reg'lar graveyard rabbit to start off wid. See dis li'l' teeny black spot on de und'neath part? Well, dat's a sho' sign of a witch rabbit. A witch rabbit he hang round a buryin' ground, but he don't go inside of one--naw, suh, not never nur nary. He ain't dare to. He stay outside an'
frolic wid de ha'nts w'en dey comes fo'th, but da's all. De onliest thing which dey is to do when you kills a witch rabbit is to cut off de haid f'um de body an' bury de haid on de north side of a log, an' den bury de body on de south side so's dey can't jine together ag'in an'
resume witchin'. So you havin' failed to do so, 'tain't no wonder you been havin' sech a powerful sorry time.” He started to return the foot to its owner, but s.n.a.t.c.hed it back.
”Hole on yere a minute, boy! Lemme tek' nuther look at dat thing.” He took it, then burst forth with a volley of derisive chuckling. ”Huh, huh, well ef dat ain't de beatenes' part of it all!” wheezed Daddy Hannah. ”Red Hoss, you sho' muster been in one big hurry to git away f'um dat spot whar you kilt your rabbit and ketched your charm. Looky yere at dis yere shank j'int! Don't you see nothin' curious about de side of de leg whar de hock sticks out? Well den, cullid boy, ef you don't, all I got to say is you mus' be total blind ez well ez monst'ous ignunt. Dis ain't no lef' hind foot of no rabbit.”
”Whut is it den?”
”It's de right hind foot, dat's whut 'tis!” He tossed it away contemptuously.
After a long minute Red Hoss, standing at Daddy Hannah's doorstep with his hands rammed deep in pockets, which were both empty, spoke in tones of profound bitterness. He addressed his remarks to s.p.a.ce, but Daddy Hannah couldn't help overhearing.
”Fust off, I gits fooled by de right laig of de wrong rabbit. Den a man-eatin' mule come a-browsin' on me an' gnaw a suit of close right offen my back. Den I runs into a elephint in a fog an' busts one of Mist' Lee Farrell's taxiscabs fur him an' he busts my jaw fur me. Den I gits tuk advantage of by a fool lion dat can't chamber his licker lak a gen'l'man, in consequence of which I loses me a fancy job an' a chunk of money. Den Melissa, she up an'--well, suh, I merely wishes to say dat f'um now on, so fur ez I is concerned, natchel history is a utter failure.”
CHAPTER IV
IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN TO-MORROW
”Sorry, ma'am,” said the Pullman conductor, ”but there's not a bit of s.p.a.ce left in the chair car, nor the sleeper neither.”
”I'm sorry too,” said the young woman in the tan-colored tailor-mades.
She was smartly hatted and smartly spatted; smart all over from toque-tip to toe-tip. ”I didn't know until almost the last minute that I'd have to catch this train, and trusted to chance for a seat.”
”Yes'm, I see,” commiserated the man in blue. ”But you know what the rush is this time of year, and right now on top of all that so many of the soldiers getting home from the other side and their folks coming East to meet 'em and everything. I guess though, miss, you won't have much trouble getting accommodated in one of the day coaches.”
”I'll try it,” she said, ”and thank you all the same.”
She picked up her hand bag.
”Wait a minute,” he suggested. ”I'll have my porter carry your valise on up to the other cars.”
Men of all stations in life were rather given to offering help to Miss Mildred Smith, the distinguished interior decorator and--on the side--amateur investigator for Uncle Sam with a wartime record for services rendered which many a professional might have envied. Perhaps they were the more ready to offer it since the young woman seemed so rarely to need it.
This man's reward was a brisk little nod.
”Please don't bother,” she said. ”This bag isn't at all heavy, and I'm used to traveling alone and looking out for myself.” She footed it briskly along the platform of the Dobb's Ferry station. At the door of the third coach back from the baggage car a flagman stopped her.