3stalwarts (117 page)

After supper Fortune went out. He said that he would walk on to the Delta House— it was but a mile down— and find a pinochle game. “My luck ought to be smart after to-day,” he said. “I’ll strip Davis dry. You can pick me off the towpath in the morning.” He smiled at them, sitting at the table, with the lamplight on them. His face looked older and friendly to both of them. “So long,” he said.

Dan dozed in his chair, his weariness still on him, while Molly cleared the supper things. She glanced at him from time to time and gave him a tender smile. Then she interrupted her work to get him his pipe, filling and lighting it for him. He puffed at the tight-wadded load for a while; but his lungs were still sore, and the effort of making the pipe draw was too hard on them. So he grinned and put it down… .

The striking of the clock made him open his eyes at the little prancing horse. “When it strikes I think he’s crossed a bridge maybe.” That was what Samson Weaver had said.

Molly was standing at his side. She stood very straight.

“Don’t you think you’d ought to go to bed, Dan?”

He smiled at her.

“I guess that’s right.”

Then they both started. A horse was trotting swiftly along the towpath. They glanced at each other, seeing the same thing in each other’s eyes.

She put her hand under his arm, helping him to get up.

“I’m going up, Molly.”

She brought him his hat and sweater without speaking.

On deck they found a white moon shining. The smell of frost was on the air. It was very still. The light of the night lantern made a faint light on the old boards of the deck.

On the towpath stood a grey horse, dark with sweat, breathing in deep steady pants. But his head was up. The rider dismounted slowly.

“Henderson’s pretty close after me,” he said in a dry voice. “Can you put up this horse and hide us till he goes by?”

Dan felt Molly take his arm.

“No,” she whispered.

He thought of the roads and the men watching.

“Yeanh.”

The gang was still out. He saw Gentleman Joe stagger when he tried to walk.

“I’ll take the brown horse out,” he said. “You can take him into the pasture back of them bushes. I’ll blanket your horse alongside of my black.”

Calash tried to take down the bars of the pasture.

“I can’t do it,” he said. “One of them got my arm.”

They noticed then that his left arm was tied up with two handkerchiefs.

“You do it,” Dan said to Molly.

He took the grey in and put the blanket on over his saddle. In the far corner a man would have to look twice to see it. The horse was as tall as the brown and his grey legs might be mistaken for white stockings. The brown came out good-humoredly and went into the pasture with the fugitive.

It was still in the cabin again. Dan and Molly sat opposite each other before the stove without speaking. The clock ticked quickly.

After a minute or two their ears caught the murmur of running horses on the towpath. It grew swiftly, and beats made out a rhythm. Then the jingle of bits, the scrape of shoes, and the long hard breathing. Men spoke.

“Sarsey Sal,” one read.

“Harrow’s boat. Jeepers! He’s the man beat Klore. I’d like to look at him.”

Feet pounded on the deck. Henderson came in, fat, puffing slightly, a dead cigar tilted in the corner of his mouth. His red cheeks were smooth as ever, but there was a hot light in his brown eyes. As he pushed the pot hat back on his head, they could see that his mind was only on business.

“Seen Calash come this way?”

“Yeanh,” said Dan. “He come on the towpath five minutes ago.”

“That right?” Henderson jerked his question at Molly.

She nodded.

“Did he come aboard?”

“No,” said Dan.

“Better look,” Henderson grunted to the men peering curiously through the door. Dan saw the long pale moustaches of one of the deputies, and a stir of air brought him a smell of violets.

“How many horses?”

“Four,” said Dan. “One a heavy team.”

“Take the lantern,” said Henderson.

The deputy was gone a minute.

“All right,” he said when he came back.

“Come on,” said Henderson. In a minute they were gone.

When Molly and Dan came out on deck again, Gentleman Joe was leading the brown horse out of the pasture. Dan brought the grey off the boat and took his own horse aboard. By the time he had the stable hatch closed down, Gentleman Joe was mounted.

“Thanks,” he said. “I owe you a lot.”

He sat staring up the towpath, a tired man. His coat hung limp against his horse’s flanks, the brim of his hat slouched, and the words came past his lips with a drag, as if each one hurt him.

“Where’re you going now?” Dan asked him.

“I guess I’ll keep on back of them and try to slip through when they turn back at the Kill.”

“Everybody’s turned out there. I seen ‘em when we come down.”

“Maybe I can break through.”

“There’s a couple of men along the towpath waiting with shotguns.”

The man sighed.

“I ought to have got out last winter. Damn Henderson. Who’d’ve thought a little fat man like him?”

“Whyn’t you cut back?”

“No use. A water rat couldn’t get by them.”

“They’ll be coming back this way,” Dan said.

The man sighed again. Then he drew up his shoulders. The horse, feeling the movement, lifted his head and tested the ground under his hoofs.

“I tell you. I’ll cut across to the Watertown road. The guard won’t be so heavy. It’s only a couple of miles cross-lots. The horse can jump.”

“Yeanh.”

“So long.”

“Good-bye.” And again Dan had not seen his face.

Calash turned his horse at the bars, and he cleared them from a standing jump. The tall figure atop him seemed to have lost its weariness. It sat straight as the horse went away at an easy lope.

Dan went back to the boat, but on deck he turned to look west to the Watertown road. Against the sky he could see the low hill it passed before taking the climb up Tug Hill. There was the place to watch. He sat down with his back to the cabin. Molly came out with a blanket and sat down beside him and spread it over both of them.

“I hope he gets away,” Dan said.

“He’s got a chance.”

He felt drowsy in spite of the cold air, and a great content settled over him. At last the canal and Molly belonged to him. The tired figure of the highwayman hung in his mind; the same tired-looking body that he had himself. But he had seen the horse clear the fence, and Gentleman Joe headed for freedom. Only the man had had to go alone.

Affectionately he put his arm over Molly’s shoulders and felt her draw in to him. They listened to the ripple against the boat and the small sounds of water washing the bankside grass.

“Dan.”

The light of the night lantern came to them feebly, barely tracing her profile. Her eyes were dark to the moonlight.

“Yeanh, Molly.”

He felt her straighten up under his arm. For a bit she was silent.

“We’ll get into Rome tomorrow,” he said. “You and me both, and then …”

He felt her hard warm palm in his.

“Dan, if Mr. Butterfield gets word you can take that job double, will you take it?”

He paused, feeling his way.

“No,” he said. “No, I’m going to stay on the canal. You and me are going to stay together, now, ain’t we?”

“It’s a good job, Dan, isn’t it?”

He drew a deep breath.

“Yes. It is a good job. Mr. Wilder has one of the best dairies in the county. Blooded cattle.”

She caught the thrill in his voice; his hand moved in hers.

“I’m going to stay here,” he said. “Boating’s the thing for me, with you along. You ain’t changed your mind? You wouldn’t come with me?” he asked suddenly.

“No, Dan. I’ve not changed my mind. I’d hinder you to come. I wouldn’t have no heart in it; and then, after a while, you’d lose yours.”

“It’s best staying here,” he said gloomily.

“Sometimes it’s best for two people to hurt each other, Dan.”

“What do you mean? It don’t mean us. We’re going in to Rome tomorrow. It ain’t like him—” he pointed to the low hill by the Watertown road. “I wonder will he get through.”

“Sometimes it’s best, Dan.”

He scarcely heard her.

“You love me, Dan?”

“Yeanh,” he said, turning to grin at her.

Her face lay in shadow against his shoulder.

“You won’t forget it, Dan?”

Her low voice was husky.

“Forget it? Say, tomorrow I’m going to ask you again.”

She seemed to draw comfort from that and pressed closer to him… .

Far away, against the low hill, points of light flashed. They heard the raps of rifle shots.

Neither spoke, but Dan felt suddenly tired as he went below. He could not sleep. For hours he heard the water by his head, running in a ripple on the planks. A rat splashed in the mud… .

Slow hoofs on the towpath; men’s voices; a snatch of laughter; a voice hailing him— so they came back. They had come across lots, three of them on their horses, leading a horse, not a grey horse, but one which carried Gentleman Joe.

They laid him on the cabin roof and spread a blanket over him.

“We’re tuckered out,” they said. “Can we sleep in your cabin?”

“Yeanh,” Dan said.

They threw themselves like logs on the floor— men he had never seen.

“Special depities,” they introduced themselves. “Just farmers,” they said proudly.

“Where’d you get him?” Dan asked.

“He come through the Watertown road. Henderson took us over there. He’s gone to bring in his men now. He told us to take him into Rome. George, here, shot him.”

“Yeanh,” said an old man, with lean strong hands and bright eyes. “It was a running shot. He came right across from me in the shadow, and I feared I’d miss him. But I always was good with a rifle. Shot a running fox when I was eight.”

“What was he wanted for?”

“How do we know?” the spokesman said. “Two thousand dollars— that’s what for. George got him— it’s his’n.”

“Well, I won’t forget the man that stood with me,” said the old fellow. “I’m no undertaker.”

“Something he did out West. One of them states. Train or something.” The man yawned. “Me, I’m right tuckered.”

Very weary, Dan went back to his bunk… .

He woke in the breath of dawn. He was still tired. Beyond the curtain, the men snored heavily. Now and then a boot scraped on the floor as one of them turned in his sleep. Molly had got up, but Dan saw his clothes neatly spread on the foot of the bunk ready for him. He heard a fire snapping in the stove. She must have been quiet not to wake the men.

He got up and dressed and went into the cabin. She was not there; but the room was warm with the fire, and the coffee kettle was beginning to boil. Dan went on deck to find her.

As he turned round at the head of the stairs, his eyes fell on a stiff, blanketed figure stretched out on the cabin roof. The dim light of daybreak washed it with a pale light, bringing out a shadow between the rigid legs and under the left arm. The blanket had settled during the night, till now it shaped him.

For a long time Dan stared at it, not moving. He thought of how he had seen him, in action, riding his grey horse. Whenever Dan felt the canal come close to him, he had seen this man. He had had grace, beside which the determination of the fat marshal was turned into something drab. Now he lay here on Dan’s boat in the early morning… . Perhaps, after all, he had escaped …

Always Dan had seen him at night, with his face in darkness. Something to draw him on, it had been; something to know, like his first embarrassed interest in the canal folk themselves. At last he had only to lift the blanket from it.

Very slowly Dan reached forward and drew the blanket from the face. For a minute he looked down at it in the morning light as it grew stronger, little by little, as if it were afraid to come— and as he looked he felt the lean dawn wind on his cheeks.

It was dead grey. The skin was stretched on the cheeks and down each side of the broad nose. The bitter thin lips drew back from snuff-stained teeth. The eyes were open, rolled upward, but Dan caught an edge of the cold grey. It was ugly, cruel, mean.

Dan let the blanket fall back and stood looking over the meadows where the grey light followed the shadows.

He had seen Gentleman Joe. He had looked for him wherever he went, like the canal folk and the farmers who shot him for the reward he represented, without knowing really why. He had felt a secret kinship for him, and built it up. Only the fat marshal, who went round about his business with the methodicalness of a grocer weighing sugar, had known. Molly had once seen him… .

There was a dull ache in Dan’s heart, and he looked round for Molly, wondering why she had not greeted him. But the boat was bare. He went to the stable, where the black horse scrambled to his feet, nickering gently. But the stable held only the two teams. He came on deck again and looked across the meadows. But the only things alive were the shadows. He went down the towpath, and there he found her narrow tracks.

He followed them down until he came to the landing before the Delta House. It stood gaunt and bare in the grey light, its windows curtained, a trace of smoke climbing its chimneys from the dying fires. The tracks ended on the wharf, but away ahead he heard the clink of trace chains. Arid then in the shadow of the steps he saw Fortune Friendly sitting, silent, his black eyes watching him, and he knew… .

“Set down, Dan,” said the ex-preacher, quietly.

Dan sat down.

“She’s gone.”

“Yeanh,” said Fortune. “She come down with her bag and went aboard the Nancy. I heard her waking Mrs. Gurget and pretty soon they put out.”

“Did she tell you where she was going?”

“No. I was setting here. I’d never held such cards. I missed a thousand aces by one on the last hand; I couldn’t sleep: So I was setting here. She just went aboard.”

“I wonder where she’ll go.”

“Maybe back to Lucy Cashdollar’s for a spell.”

“Yeanh.”

They sat side by side, hearing the water wash the dock.

“Where’U you go?”