The Secret of the Storm Country Part 55

Tess stood with swift-coming breath, her back to the door, waiting.

Frederick must leave before she dared speak to Andy. It seemed an eternity ere the sound of the retreating footsteps died away, and she knew he was gone.

Then she started across the room, haltingly. Strange, how difficult it was to walk, and how giddy her head felt! What was it that had happened?

What was going to happen a thousand times worse? Frederick's brutality left her bruised and broken. His threats twisted themselves through the tangled tumult of her thoughts and his sinister suggestions stunned and stupefied her.

Frederick had come and gone! She remembered that. Her skin still burned where his hot lips had touched her. He had told her he loved her, had begged her to say she loved him! Love? Yes, she had loved him--she did love him, but her love lay low, its structure, like a squatter's hut, she had seen, shattered on the sand by a storm.

Tess put a stick of wood in the stove, and a second later forgot she'd done it.

Ebenezer Waldstricker came into her mind vaguely ... vindictive and violent. Her hand went suddenly to her face. He was going to send her to a reform school, going to take her from the shanty for years! How powerful he was! Frederick had said Waldstricker's hands were stronger than G.o.d's. What strong hands he must have--those hands descending upon her defenseless, desolate life.

Andy was peering through the hole. Tessibel collapsed into Daddy Skinner's chair.

"Brat," he said in a whisper, "I'm comin' down!"

Tess mechanically got up and barred the door.... Then she returned to her seat. The dwarf was already squatted beside it, his eyes fastened on the girl in eloquent silence. His chin sank between his knees. Then the two of them sat.... The crackling of the freshly burning wood and the ticking of the clock were the only sounds in the room.

"I heard what the man said 'bout Waldstricker's hands bein' stronger'n G.o.d's," reflected Andy, aloud, presently. Then he raised his body a little from the floor that he might look into the girl's face. "Say, brat, has old Eb got any marks on his hands?"

Tess shook her head, brown eyes sombrous with suffering.

"No," she denied. "His hands are big an' white an' long an' soft."

Andy pondered a minute.

"They ain't no marks of nails on 'em, air there, kid?" he demanded, solemnly.

The pursed, hurt lines around Tessibel's mouth softened a little.

"No," she murmured wearily, again. "No, Andy."

The dwarf reached and took one of the girl's hands. It lay on his own quite limply.

"Look at me, brat, dear."

The red-brown eyes moved toward the upturned face.

"Tessibel, will ye think of this one little thing?

"The Christ's holdin' his hands over the hull world, givin' everybody peace; you an' me, too, brat-kid. Waldstricker's hands ain't dragged me back to Auburn, an' G.o.d's hands has kept me here.... You showed me that from the beginnin', eh, brat?... It's sure, ain't it?"

He hunched himself nearer her, his face beautiful with faith.

"Ain't it true, kid?"

"Sure! Sure, it air true!" faltered Tessibel.

"Then if G.o.d's hands kept me here in the shanty 'gainst all Waldstricker could do, can't they keep you here, huh?"

Tessibel's head lifted suddenly. What was Andy saying about hands--Waldstricker's and--and--With her free fingers she brushed the dampened curls from her forehead. Waldstricker's hands! Oh, incomparable memory! How could she have forgotten the hands of the Christ! They had brought Daddy Skinner from the shadow of the rope. She had forgotten the power of those hands.... Hands of peace--hands of love! As shadows fade before the majestic advance of the sun, so under the inrush of divine light did the agonized expression fade from Tessibel's eyes. The menacing figure of Waldstricker slipped away like a gliding night-serpent, and Tess got to her feet.

"Andy," she breathed, bending over him. "Oh, Andy, darling! Ye're telling me Jesus can keep me from bein' sent to that awful place? Ain't that what ye're tryin' to show me?"

The dwarf scrambled up, reaching forth his hands.

"And he sure can, brat," he made answer. "Waldstricker can't pull ye out of this hut when G.o.d's holdin' ye in."

Andy was smiling his rare, boyish smile. A large lump rose in Tessibel's throat.

"I air goin' to ask G.o.d to hold me here, Andy," she choked brokenly.

So when night closed the grey eyes of the winter day, and darkness descended on the Skinner shanty, a red-haired squatter girl and a wee dwarf knelt in the glow of the hut lamp and pet.i.tioning lips framed in whispers a simple prayer for their protection.

The next day pa.s.sed, quiet in the shanty and over the s.h.i.+ning span of frozen water. Waldstricker had not come. Tess crept into bed sighing with relief. Andy rolled himself in his blankets and slept.

The morning arrived crisply cold, bleakly grey. Tess s.h.i.+vered as she broke the ice for water. Would this day bring Waldstricker? Then, as that harrowing thought flitted through her mind, another exultant, smiling flash took its place. Tessibel's head reared with a proud uplift. No human power could set aside the majestic promise of Heaven that she might stay in the hut. Smilingly, she opened the shanty door and cheerfully answered the dwarf's, "How d'y' do, brat dear?"

But the next few hours were laden with a sense of approaching calamity, that sense which ties the tongue in apprehension. Andy was perched on the ladder while Tess sat just below in the wooden rocker.

Suddenly, from far up the lane, the sound of wheels grating on the snow, could be heard plainly. Both man and girl stared white-faced at each other for perhaps thirty seconds.

"They're comin', but they can't take ye, Brat," muttered Andy. "You'll stay in this shanty the same 's if you was nailed to the floor."

Then, he sought his place under the straw tick, and as nearer and louder came the clatter of the horses hoofs, the more quiet grew the Skinner hut.

Tessibel stood in the middle of the kitchen, her hand pressing down the beatings of her heart. Somebody was approaching! There were footsteps on the dry snow!

Directly the crunching sound ceased, a loud knock fell on the door.

Tessibel lifted the bar, and at her faint, "Come in," the door flung back on its hinges and Ebenezer Waldstricker stepped over the threshold.

Another man, seemingly by common consent, waited outside. Waldstricker came to a halt at the sight of the squatter girl. Even in her mourning, and ashen pale, she looked glorious. Her burnished, unmanageable hair clung like a golden mantle about her. She had lifted heavy lashes and was looking him straight in the face.

Ebenezer, suddenly, felt a wild desire to strike, but he dared not touch her, nor dared he go forward one step. Her advancing motherhood crowned her with unapproachable dignity, and the man muttered an imprecation under his breath. To have her appear in court so austerely lovely would be to lose his case. He had expected she would plead, cry, perhaps scream. What should he say to break that steady calm? He did not know what a day and night of communion with the Infinite had done for the squatter girl. He did not understand that beneath her were everlasting arms, that her life was held in the hollow of a hand more powerful than his own.

"I believe, my girl," said he, without preliminaries, "I told you when the church took action against you, you'd be sent to some place where girls of your cla.s.s go, didn't I?"

Tess didn't move by so much as a wink. She seemed simply to have grown deaf and dumb. How could she answer when she had not heard? She was staring back into the man's bold, dark eyes. Her silence was like a spark to his inflammatory temper.

"Aren't you going to answer me, Miss?" His rasping voice aroused Tess from her trance.

"I didn't hear what you said," she told him, still very calm.

"I said," replied Ebenezer, arrogantly, "you're going to be sent to a reform school."

"Today?" asked Tess, breathing deeply, now fully possessed of her senses.

"Yes, today." Then he remembered Madelene.... he had made her a promise.

"But I'll help you to get out after a while, if you tell me who--who brought you to this condition." He threw out both hands disdainfully toward her. Waldstricker's white hands, hands stronger than G.o.d's! Who had dared say it?