The Wrong Woman Part 3

Her great danger lay in being questioned: this must be avoided.

But strangely--and its strangeness grew upon her--he did not ask such questions. He did not seem to have the least interest in her family, her history, or the object of her journey. He asked where she was going, a conventional question, perfunctorily put. His remarks all seemed somewhat conventional. Even these she had sometimes to evade and direct into other channels; and naturally a conversation, conducted solely with the idea of concealing her affairs, did not prosper. He began to say less. Finally he did not talk at all. He simply listened. His quiet way of waiting for her to continue bore in upon her as if it were some new quality of silence.

To meet the situation she returned to the subject of her adventure; she recounted that day's travels with endless inconsequential comment and explanation. If she paused, he made some obvious observation and waited. Janet, rather than face awkward pauses, silences which she could hardly support, would take up her travels again. She talked on because there seemed no way to stop. His way of waiting for her to continue seemed quite in keeping with that deliberateness which she had already noted. What to make of it she did not know. It might be that he was simply satisfied with the sound of her voice. Or possibly he had not the least care as to her past or future. Simply disinterest!

This latter feeling--despite the state of affairs was so desirable--touched her in some deep part of her being.

She told herself he was full of studious design; but whenever he looked straight at her and repeated her words in his quiet, well-modulated tones, she found her better judgment softly set aside, and all put in obeyance [Transcriber's note: abeyance?]. At such times a pleasant feeling pa.s.sed over her; all her speculations and apprehensions were sunk in the atmosphere of his presence. It was a soothing effect, a personal influence which extended about him and pervaded her part of the air. As she talked on and on, and he gave her attention, she felt it more and more, as if she were sitting, not merely in his presence but within the circle of his being. It was as if, with her eyes shut, she could have entered his company and felt its atmosphere like entering a room.

She had not been able to see any way of getting the immediate future into her own hands. Whenever she thought of bringing the story to an end, her mind confronted her with the question, What next? Something certainly would be next. With all her talking, she confined herself to the details of that one day's experience. It seemed capable of indefinite expansion; there would never be any end unless she made it.

Having supported herself in conversational flight so long, she began to feel that anything was better than suspense. She must do something.

With this in mind she ceased and looked out into the night. The stars, a vast audience, had all taken their places. She leaned forward and began removing the dishes from her napkins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The stars, a vast audience, had all taken their places]

"It is time for me to be going," she said.

He sat up straight--as suddenly erect as if he had been caught sleeping in the saddle.

"Going! Going where?"

"I'm going--on my way."

"Why, town is seventeen miles from here!"

"Oh, I can walk if--if I only knew the way."

"And hear the coyotes? And no light!"

Getting his small heels directly under him, he rose to six feet and looked directly down on her. It was as if he had ascended to the top of his stature to get a full view of such a proposition. "Pshaw!" he said. "Stay right here. I 'll fix you up all right."

Without pausing for further parley, or even looking to her for a.s.sent, he turned and went into the shack. From the inside of this sleeping-place there came sounds of energetic house-cleaning: pieces of property came tumbling out of the door--an old saddle-blanket, a yellow slicker, a pair of boots, a tin bucket. Finally a branding-iron bounded back from the heap and fell rattling on the door-sill; then there was a sound of wiping and dusting out. Janet sat silent, her hands in her lap. In a little while he came crawling backwards out of the door and brushed the acc.u.mulated dirt off the door-sill with a light blue s.h.i.+rt. He went in again, and after a moment appeared with the red blanket, which he shook so that it made loud reports on the air and then carried to the fire for inspection, and to find the long and short of it.

"I guess there is n't any head or foot to this, is there?" He smiled dryly as if this comment pleased him; and without expecting an answer he went into the shack with it and busied himself again.

"There, now!" he remarked as he came out. "You can fix up the little things to suit yourself. And if there's anything else, just let me know and I 'll do it for you."

"I am very much obliged to you," she said, rising.

"Oh, that's all right--no trouble at all. And now, if you will just excuse me, I 'll go and finish up around the place. If you want to go to bed before I get through, you will find a candle in the top bunk. I have n't got an extra lantern."

So saying he took his leave. He put three of the coyote lanterns on their poles at the corners of the pen, unwrapped the red cloth from the fourth and used it to light his way over to the shed. He came back, wrapped the red around it again, and hoisted it to its place at the top of the pole. A watchful ram _baaed_ awesomely as it rose.

Janet's shoe had been hurting her unmercifully. She had not been able to compose herself in any way without in some degree sitting on her foot; and it had kept up a throbbing pain. As she stood up, it seemed to reach new heights of aching and burning. She decided that she had better take possession of the shack at once; so she got the candle and lit it at the fire. The first thing she did upon entering was to remove her shoes. The relief was a luxury. The door had no means of locking; the wooden latch lifted from the outside. Having latched it, she sat down on the edge of the bunk.

Her shack! But after a little this inward exclamation began to take the form of a question. Suddenly she rose and looked at the top bunk.

The blue blanket was still there. She was very tired. After sitting a while in thought, she put the corner of the red blanket over her feet and lay down, letting the candle burn. She was sleepy as well as tired; but she kept her eyes upon the door. It was really his place, not hers. And that made it all so different--after all.

Of all our protectors, there is none whose rumorous presence is more potent than the Spirit of the Threshold. His speech is a whisper, and before his airy finger even the desperado quails. Thus doors are stronger than they seem, and a house, if there is no other need of it, is an excellent formality. The accusing Spirit stands aside only for the owner.

Janet kept her eyes half open, watching that ancient mark between Mine and Thine.

CHAPTER IV

Janet, opening her eyes upon daylight, sat up drowsily and looked about. How long she had been sleeping she had not the least idea. Her windowless chamber, all shot through with sunlight, presented a surprising array of cracks, and the slanting beams told her that the sun was well up. Her watch had stopped.

In the absence of toilet conveniences she arranged her hair as best she could; and having adjusted her skirt-band and smoothed out the wrinkles, she put her hand to the latch. Her attention was caught by certain sunlit inscriptions on the pine siding--verses signed by the pencil of Pete Harding, Paducah, Kentucky. Mr. Harding showed that he had a large repertoire of ribald rhyme. And he had chosen this bright spot whereon to immortalize his name. She opened the door and went out.

Mr. Brown was nowhere to be seen. The flock, all eyes, turned in a body and stared at her. Presently she went to look for him. He was not in the storm-shed, nor anywhere down the slope, nor in the gully.

She walked slowly round the shack and scanned the prairie in all directions. The face of nature was quite innocent of his presence.

The dog, too, was gone.

As she came back to her starting place, the sheep again regarded her in pale-eyed expectation. A ewe emitted her one doleful note; another gave hers, sadly. The fire had been burning quite a while; it had made a good bed of coals on which the kettle was steaming briskly. She put on the coffee and prepared breakfast; and as he still continued to be absent, she sat down and ate alone. Then she put up a lunch and stowed it in the pocket of her slicker. Its weight had diminished considerably from what it was the day before, and as it did not now have to be done up in the form of a bundle it could be carried in a more convenient way. She folded the slicker lengthwise and threw it across her shoulder.

He had pointed out to her the direction in which the road lay at its nearest point. She walked up and down restlessly. After much indecision and aimless casting about, she turned suddenly toward her own quarter of the horizon and set forth on her journey. But having proceeded a fair distance she slackened her pace and came to a stop; and again she strolled up and down, looking occasionally in the direction of the knoll. Finally, she returned to it and resumed her meditations, less impatient.

After a long time, or so it seemed to her, she looked up and saw him coming. He carried a rope, the long noose of which he was making smaller to fit the coil on his arm. As he reached the shack he threw down the coil and lifted his hat.

"Good-morning, Miss Janet"--he used the Southern form of address--"are you all ready to leave us?"

"Yes; I thought I ought to get as early a start as possible. I made the coffee right away. I did not know but you might be back in a little while."

"Oh, I had breakfast long ago. I went out to see if I could get your horse for you. But I did n't catch sight of him. I hunted for him longer than I realized. It is quite a distance for you to walk, and I thought we might fix up some way for you to ride."

"That was very kind of you, Mr. Brown. I shall be quite able to walk.

It was only necessary for me to be shown the direction."

"The road is over that way," he said, indicating its position with his arm. "Keep in that direction a while and you will strike a wagon-trail. Then follow that and it will bring you right out on the road. After you get to the road, you will find a house about a mile to the right. That is, if you intend to go that way."

"I am from Merrill, Mr. Brown. I am on my way to the county-seat. For the past week I have been teaching school a few miles from Merrill. It is the little white schoolhouse near Crystal Spring."

"A teacher!" he exclaimed.

"I can hardly claim to be a teacher," she answered. "The girl who has that school was called home by the death of her brother. I have only been subst.i.tuting. I am on my way to Belleview to take a teacher's examination."

As Janet offered this conscientious information, Steve Brown looked in vain for any allusion to her secretiveness of the night before. In her bearing there was not the least vestige of arts and airs, nor any little intimation of mutual understanding; she simply looked up with wide-open eyes and told it to him. This honesty, quite as if she owed it, gave Steve a new experience in life; and he gazed into eyes that charmed him by the clarity of their look.

"You are going to the court-house to get a certificate!" he remarked.

"I do not belong here in Texas," she said, continuing her story. "I am from Ohio. I am stopping with the Dwights, down at Merrill. But for the past week I have been stopping at a farmer's in order to be nearer the school."

"Will you be going back to Ohio, possibly?"

"It might be that I shall go back. But it all depends. I may get a school if I pa.s.s."

She stepped forward to take leave of him. But just at that moment he thrust both hands deep into his pockets and bent his gaze intently upon the ground, his brows knit together. She waited.