Tess of the Storm Country Part 15

In an instant, the first real fear she had ever felt swept over her and she drew back into the shadows. As a child she had fled from this man because he tantalized her; as a woman she dreaded him more than any reptile that came from the earth.

The man, hearing footsteps, raised his head; the silence continuing, he dropped it again, thinking he had been mistaken, and resumed his former position of waiting.

Tessibel wondered if she should go bravely forward--insist that the shanty was hers, and that he should go away. The mud cellar was between her and the waiting man, and as she peered closer to see if Ben were still there one brilliant tangle of hair fell over her shoulder. Ben Letts caught the movement and Tessibel knew it.

Alert as a young deer, she turned and fled back up the lane. Daddy's boots impeded her speed and one after the other she kicked them off. She could hear the man running after her, shouting his rage into her tingling ears. He was gaining upon the girl and commanded her to stop.

"If I get my claws on ye once," he growled, "it'll be bad for ye."

Tessibel heard and flew faster. There was no one to help her and her only salvation lay in her own two st.u.r.dy little legs and bruised feet.

She reached the tracks but did not dare run the ties--she might trip in the darkness, and nothing could save her from her enemy. Her eyes, strained with convulsive fright, lifted one moment to the sky, and her glance fell directly upon the giant pine whose branches formed the image of her fantastic G.o.d. Her lips fell apart with a gasp--she fancied her Deity sent her an a.s.surance of aid.

"G.o.ddy--G.o.ddy," was her pet.i.tion, "for the love of yer Christ ... and the student."

Suddenly out upon the air rang the voice of one of Tessibel's friends.

The brindle bulldog from Kennedy's farm had heard the unequal race. With short tail raised, his fat neck bristling with stubby hair, he started for the tracks, as Tess did for the fence when she heard his growl. As the girl came on and on, the dog bounded along the ground toward her.

Tess opened her lips and spoke sharply--and a pleased bark came in response.

G.o.d had heard and answered her. One wild leap in the air, and the sound of tearing clothes as her already tattered skirt came in contact with the barbed wire--and Tess was crouching down in the safe-keeping of the brindle bull. The dog whirled frantically around, licking her face. Fear weakened her tongue--she could not speak--only little spasmodic sobs burst from the parted lips. She caught the huge dog to her breast and waited.

Ben Letts was on the tracks; she could hear his big chest heaving with fast-coming breath. He halted on the other side of the fence.

Pete scented an enemy and straightened out his strong muscles like whip cords, a hoa.r.s.e growl coming from between his jaws.

Ben leaned over the fence with an oath.

"Ye'd better come away from him," he grunted threateningly. "Ye air thinking the brute can save ye--but I'll put a bullet through his pate."

Tessibel knew that the man had no rifle with him; and by the time he could get one she and the dog would be far away. Her mind worked fast under the pressure.

"What do you want, Ben Letts?" she demanded.

"I just wanted to talk to yer," wheedled the man. "Come over the fence, will ye?"

"Ye can talk to me here," sullenly replied Tess. "I don't want to hear none of yer dum gab."

"It air somethin' nice--it air candy," feigned Ben. Then the tones hardened in the coa.r.s.e voice, and he ended:

"Ye can't stay always with the brute."

"To-night I can, and in the day I ain't afeared--I don't want no candy."

The brindle bulldog lifted his head again and sent a low snarl in the direction of the fisherman--Ben in his rage had come too close to the fence. The animal's warning sent him back. Months before, Pete had buried his teeth in the man's hand and Ben would bear the marks to his grave.

"Ye go home, Ben Letts," insisted Tess. "Ye ain't no business here. Go home to yer mammy."

"I'm a-goin' to stay, just the same," rejoined Ben, sitting down upon the tracks.

Tessibel wound her arms around the dog's neck, banking the red curls under her cheek for a pillow. It was good to rest with her friend.

Between the fence wires she could see the branches of the pine tree, its shadowy arms creating odd figures across the light streaks in the sky.

What a wonderful being the student's G.o.d was! He had listened to the cry of a squatter and had saved her.

"Yer daddy ain't a-comin' home," Ben Letts broke in upon her meditations.

"He air," retorted Tess. "He air the nextest time I go for him."

"It air a lie," insisted the fisherman, "ye comes with me to the minister and I'll make yer an hones' woman. Ye'll have to cut that mop and settle down like a woman should. Do ye hear?... Tessibel, I says an hones' woman!"

Tessibel s.h.i.+fted her head from Pete's neck and sat up.

"Ye says as how--ye and--me--will go to the minister?"

"Yep."

"And we air to be--married ... eh?"

"Yep."

"How about--the--brat--and--and--and Satisfied's girl?"

Myra's secret had slipped from her. Ben's silence invited her to proceed.

"Yer brat air sick to his grave, he air," said she mournfully, a tear settling in her voice, making its sweetness rough, "and Myry air a-dyin'

of a broken heart.... If yer wants to make an hones' woman, make her one, that air what I says, I does. And ye broke her arm on the ragged rocks! Ye did! And then yer comes--and talks about bein' hones'," the musical voice rose to a cry. "Ye can't make a woman hones' for ye ain't hones' yerself."

Without a sound Ben rose from the tracks, reached for a stone and whirled it through the fence at Tessibel. The stone missed her, but struck the dog. Trembling with rage, Pete lifted his great body with a low, vicious growl.

Tessibel sprang from the ground, whilst another stone hurtled through the air, catching her curls in its flight. Then she lifted the lower wire of the barbed fence. Pete crouched, and wiggled his flattened body through. Ben hadn't expected this--he turned and ran. The skurrying legs of the dog carried him quickly on after the fisherman. While Ben, screeching like a great night owl, hooted out his fear of the maddened dog, and yelled for Tess to call him off.

The girl did not speak, only waited, waited until a louder cry from the hunted man a.s.sured her that Pete had gripped him. Tessibel scarcely dared breathe; her friend, G.o.d's earthly instrument, sent to save her, and her mortal enemy were in deadly combat.

Ben's cries had ceased, but the listening girl could hear the two bodies as they turned over and over beyond on the tracks--and rolled into the ditch. Her feet were nearly frozen but she gathered them under her skirt and dumbly waited.

Then came no sound--there was nothing but a deathly silence in the dim shadows near the land.

Would she ever see either Ben or the dog again? There was no danger that Pete would--

"Ben," she called loudly, leaning over the fence. No answer came from the deep trench by the railroad bed.

"Pete, Pete, come to Tessibel, come to Tessibel."

Out of the blackness came the dog, his head hanging low, the angry sparkle in his eyes quenched.

Tess raised the wire once more for Pete's body to wriggle under. The girl shouted anxiously for Ben but no answer came to her call.

Crouching beside Pete, Tessibel reasoned out a way of escape: if she took the brindle bulldog to the hut with her, she would be safe from Ben were he lurking about. She propped the lower wire of the fence high with a stick so that Pete could reach Kennedy's barn on the hill again when she sent him home. Together the girl and the bristling Pete slid silently to the railroad tracks, Tessibel holding tightly to the dog's collar. Some fifty feet beyond he twisted his heavy neck, set forth his huge jaw, and refused to move.

Beside the track was a long dark object--it was undeniably, unquestionably quiet. Tess tugged at the dog's collar and dragged him resisting from the spot.