The Law Of Hemlock Mountain Part 17

Then Spurrier started a little as from outside a human voice sounded above the chorus of the frogs and whippoorwills.

"Hallo," it sung out. "Hit's Blind Joe Givins. Kin I come in?"

A few minutes later into the lamplight of the room shambled the beggar of the disfigured face, whom Spurrier had last seen at the town of Waterfall, led by a small, brattish boy. His violin case was tightly grasped under his arm, and his free hand was groping.

"I'd done sot out ter visit a kinsman over at ther head of Big Wolfpen branch," explained the blind man, "but ther boy hyar's got a stone bruise on his heel an' he kain't handily go on, ter-night. We wonder could we sleep hyar?"

Spurrier bowed to the law of the mountains, which does not deny shelter to the wayfarer, but he s.h.i.+vered fastidiously at the unkempt raggedness of his tramp-like visitor, and he slipped into his pocket the papers in his hand.

That night before Spurrier's hearth, as in elder times before the roaring logs of some feudal castle, the wandering minstrel paid his board with song and music; his voice rising high and tremulous in quaint tales set to measure.

But on the next morning the boy set out on some mission in the neighborhood and left his charge to await his return, seated in a low chair, and gazing emptily ahead.

Spurrier went out to the road in response to the shout of a pa.s.sing neighbor, and left his papers lying on the table top, forgetful of the presence of the sightless guest, who sat so negligibly quiet in the chimney corner.

When he entered the room again the blind man had risen from his seat and moved across to the hearth. On the threshold the householder halted and stood keenly eyeing him while he groped along the mantel shelf as if searching with wavering fingers for something that his eyes could not discover--and the thought of the papers which he had left exposed caused an uneasy suspicion to dart into Spurrier's mind.

Any eye that fell on that list would have gained the key to his whole strategy and intent, but, of course, this man could not see. Still Spurrier cursed himself for a careless fool.

"I was jest seekin' fer a match," said Joe Givins as a slight sound from the other attracted his attention. "I aimed ter smoke for a leetle spell."

The host struck a match and held it while the broken guest kindled his pipe, then he hurriedly glanced through his papers to a.s.sure himself that nothing had been disturbed--and though each sheet seemed as he had left it, the uneasiness in Spurrier's mind refused to be stilled.

Presumably this bat-blind ragam.u.f.fin was no greater menace to the secrecy of his plans than a bat itself would have been, yet a glimpse of this letter would have been so fatal that he asked himself anxiously, "How do I know he's not faking?" The far-fetched apprehension gathered weight like a snowslide until suddenly out of it was born a grim determination.

He would make a test.

Noiselessly, while the ugly face that had been mutilated by a blasting charge gazed straight and sightlessly at him, Spurrier opened the table drawer and took from it a heavy calibered automatic pistol. It was a deadly looking thing and it needed no c.o.c.king; only the silent slipping forward of a safety catch. In this experiment Spurrier must not startle his guest by any ominous sound, but he must satisfy himself that his sight was genuinely dead.

"I thought," said the host in a matter-of-fact voice as he searchingly studied the other face through narrowed lids, "that when sight went, the enjoyment of tobacco went with it." As he spoke he raised and leveled the c.o.c.ked pistol until its muzzle was pointed full into the staring face. Deliberately he set his own features into the baleful stamp of deadly threat, until his expression was as wicked and ugly as a gargoyle of hatred.

If the man were by any possibility shamming it would take cold nerve to sit there without any hint of confession as this unwarned demonstration was made against him--a demonstration that seemed genuine and murderous. For an instant Spurrier fancied that he heard the breath rasp in the other's throat, but that, he realized, must have been fancy. The face itself altered no line of expression, flickered no eyelid. It remained as it had been, stolid and blank, so that the man with the pistol felt ashamed of his suspicion.

But Spurrier rose and leaned across the table slowly advancing the muzzle until it almost touched the bridge of the nose, just between the eyes he was so severely testing. Still no hint of realization came from the threatened guest. Then the voice of the blind man sounded phlegmatically:

"That's what folks say erbout terbaccy an' blind men--but, by crickety, hit _ain't so_."

John Spurrier withdrew his pistol and put it back in the drawer.

"I guess," he said to himself, "he didn't read my letters."

CHAPTER X

Across a tree-shaded public square from the courthouse and "jail house" at Carnettsville stood a building that wore the dejected guise of uncomforted old age, and among the business signs nailed about its entrance was the s.h.i.+ngle bearing the name of "Creed f.a.ggott, Atty. at Law."

The way to this oracle's sanctum lay up a creaking stairway, and on a brilliant summer day not long after Spurrier had entertained his blind guest it was climbed by that guest in person, led by the impish boy whose young mouth was stained with chewing-tobacco.

This precocious child opened the door and led his charge in and, from a deal table, Creed f.a.ggott removed his broganned feet and turned sly eyes upon the visitors, out of a cadaverous and furtive face.

"You don't let no gra.s.s grow under your feet, do you, Joe?" inquired the lawyer shortly. "When the day rolls round, you show up without default or miscarriage." He paused as the boy led the blind man to a chair and then facetiously capped his interrogation. "I reckon I don't err in surmisin' that you've come to collect your pension?"

The blind man gazed vacantly ahead. "Who, me?" he inquired with half-witted dullness.

"Yes, you. Who else would I mean?"

"Hit's due, ain't hit--my money?"

"Due at noon to-day and noon is still ten minutes off. I'm not sure the company didn't make a mistake in allowing you such a generous compensation for your accident." There was a pause, then f.a.ggott added argumentatively: "Your damage suit would have come to naught, most likely."

"Thet ain't ther way ye talked when I lawed ther comp'ny," whined the blind man. "Ye 'peared to be right ambitious ter settle outen co'te in them days, Mr. f.a.ggott."

"The company didn't want the thing hanging on. They got cold feet.

Well, I'll give you your check."

"I'd ruther have hit in cash money--silver money," stipulated the recipient of the compromise settlement. "I kin count _thet_ over by ther feel of hit."

f.a.ggott snorted his disgust but he deposited in the outstretched palm the amount that fell due on each quarterly pay day, and the visitor thumbed over every coin and tested the edges of all with his teeth.

After that, instead of rising to go, he sat silently reflective.

"That's all, ain't it," demanded the attorney, and something like a pallid grin lifted the lip corners in the blind man's ugly face.

"Not quite all," replied Joe Givins as he shook his head. "No, thar's one other leetle matter yit. I'd love ter hev ye write me a letter ter ther comp'ny's boss-man in Looeyville. I kinderly aims ter go thar an'

see him."

This time it was the attorney who, with an incredulity-freighted voice, demanded: "Who, you?"

"Yes, sir. Me."

"The Louisville manager," announced f.a.ggott loftily, "is a man of affairs. The company conducts its business here through its local counsel--that's me."

"Nevertheless an' notwithstandin', I reckon hit'll kinderly pleasure ther boss-man ter talk ter _me_--when he hears what I've got ter tell him."

A light of greed quickened in the shyster's narrow eyes. It was possible that Blind Joe had come by some sc.r.a.p of salable information.

It had been stipulated when his damage suit was settled, that he should, paradoxically speaking, keep his blind eyes open.

"See here, Joe," the attorney, no longer condescending of bearing, spoke now with a wheedling insistence, "if you've got any tidings, tell 'em to me. I'm your friend and I can get the matter before the parties that hold the purse strings."

Joe Givins stretched out a wavering hand and groped before him. "Lead me on outen hyar, boy," he gave laconic command to his youthful varlet. "I'm tarryin' overlong an' wastin' daylight."

"What's daylight to you, Joe?" snapped f.a.ggott brutally, but recognizing his mistake he, at once, softened his manner to a mollifying tone. "Set still a spell an' let's have speech tergether--an' a little dram of licker."

Ten minutes of nimble-witted fencing ensued between the two sons of avarice, and at their end the blind man stumped out, carrying in his breast pocket a note of introduction to a business man in Louisville--whose real business was lobbying and directing underground investigations--but the lawyer was no wiser than he had been.

And when eventually from the murky lobby of the Farmers' Haven Hotel, which sits between distillery warehouses in Louisville, the shabby mountaineer was led to the office building he sought, he was received while more presentable beings waited in an anteroom.

It chanced that on the same day John Spurrier spoke to d.y.k.e Cappeze of Glory.