Part 33 (1/2)
”Fer why does ye say thet?”
Out of Dorothy's wide eyes was blazing upon him torrential fury and contempt. Yet she did not give him her truest reasons in her answer. She had no longer any fear of him for herself, but she trembled inwardly at the menace of his treachery against her man.
”I says. .h.i.t,” she answered, still in that level, ominously pitched voice that spoke from a heart too profoundly outraged for gusty vehemence, ”because, now thet I knows ye, I don't need n.o.body ter fight ye fer me.
He trusts ye an' thinks ye're his friend, an' so long es ye don't lift no finger ter harm him I'm willin' ter let him go on trustin' ye.” She paused, and to her ears with a soothing whisper came the rustle of the crisp leaves overhead. Then she resumed, ”Ef he ever got any hint of what's come ter pa.s.s terday, I mout es well try ter hold back a flood-tide with a splash-dam es ter hinder him from follerin' atter ye an' trompin' ye in ther dirt like he'd tromple a rattlesnake.... But he stands pledged ter peace an' I don't aim ter bring on no feud war ergin by hevin' him break hit.”
”Ef him an' me fell out,” admitted Bas with wily encouragement of her confessed belief, ”right like others would mix inter hit.”
”But ef _I_ kills ye hit won't start no war,” she retorted. ”A woman's got a right ter defend herself, even hyar.”
”Dorothy, I've done told ye I jest lost my head in a swivet of wrath.
Ye're jedgin' me by one minute of frenzy and lookin' over a lifetime of trustiness.”
”Ef I kills ye hit won't start no war,” she reiterated, implacably, ignoring his interruption, ”an' betwixt ther two of us, I'm ther best man--because I'm honest, an' ye're as craven as Judas was when he earned his silver money. Ye needn't hev no fear of my tellin' Cal, but ye've got a right good cause ter fear _me_!”
”All right, then,” once more the hypocritical mask of dissimulation fell away and the swarthy face showed black with the savagery of frustration.
”Ef ye won't hev hit no other way, go on disgustin' me--but I warns ye thet ye kain't hold out erginst me. Ther time'll come when ye won't kick an' fly inter tantrums erginst my kisses ... ye'll plum welcome 'em.”
”Hit won't be in this world,” she declared, fiercely, as her eyes narrowed and the hand that held the knife crept out from under the ap.r.o.n.
The man laughed again.
”Hit'll be right hyar on y'arth,” he declared with undiminished self-a.s.surance; ”you an' me air meant ter mate tergither like a pair of eagles, an' some day ye're goin' ter come inter my arms of yore own free will. I reckon I kin bide my time twell ye does.”
”Eagles don't mate with snakes,” she shot out at him, with a bosom heaving to the tempest of her disgust. Then she added: ”I don't even caution ye ter stay away from this house. I hain't afeared of ye, an' I don't want Cal ter suspicion nothin'--but don't come hyar too often ...
ye fouls ther air I breathes whenever ye enters. .h.i.t.”
She paused and brushed her free arm across her lips in shuddering remembrance of his kiss, then she continued with the tone of finality:
”Now I've told ye what I wanted ter tell ye ... ef need arises ergin, I'm goin' ter kill ye ... this matter lays betwixt me an' you ... an'
n.o.body else hain't agoin' ter be brung inter hit.... Does ye onderstand thet full clear?”
”Thet's agreed,” he gave answer, but his voice trembled with pa.s.sion, ”an' I've done told _you_ what I wants ye ter know. I loves ye an' I'm goin' ter hev ye. I don't keer no master amount how hit comes ter pa.s.s, but sooner or later I gits me what I goes atter--an' from now on I'm goin' atter _you_.”
He turned and walked insolently away and the girl, with the strain of necessity removed, sank back weakly against the cool solidity of the walnut trunk. Except for its support she would have fallen, and after awhile, hearing Elviry's voice singing off at the back of the house and realizing that she was not watched, she turned weakly and spread her outstretched hands upward in embrace against the rough wood, as a frightened child might throw its arms about a protecting mother.
When Sam Opd.y.k.e had been taken from the courtroom to the ”jail-house”
that his wrath might cool into submissiveness, and when later he had been held to the grand jury, he knew in his heart that ahead of him lay the prospect of leaving the mountains. The hated lowlands meant to him the penitentiary at Frankfort, and with Jim Rowlett and Parish Thornton united against him, this was his sure prospect.
The two men who had shared with him the sensational notability of that entrance and the deflated drama of that exit had gone home rankling under a chagrin not wholly concerned with the interests of the defendant.
Enmities were planted that day that carried the infection of bitterness toward Harpers and Doanes alike, and the resentful minority began taking thought of new organization; a thought secretly fanned and inflamed by emissaries of the resourceful Bas Rowlett.
Back in the days following on the War of Secession the word Ku Klux had carried a meaning of both terror and authority. It had functioned in the mountains as well as elsewhere through the South, but it had been, in its beginnings, a secret body of regulators filling a void left by the law's failure, and one boasting some colour of legitimacy.