“Isom don’t know about it,” said Joe.
“You’ll tell him!”
“No.”
Relief flickered in her face. She leaned forward a little, eagerly, as if to speak, but said nothing. Joe shrank back from her, his hand pressing heavily upon the table.
“I never meant to tell him,” said he slowly.
She sprang toward him, her hands clasped appealingly.
“Then you’ll let me go, you’ll let me go?” she cried eagerly. “I can’t stay here,” she hurried on, “you know I can’t stay here, Joe, and suffer like he’s made me suffer the past year! You say Morgan won’t come––”
“The coward, to try to steal a man’s wife, and deceive you that way, too!” said Joe, his anger rising.
“Oh, you don’t know him as well as I do!” she defended, shaking her head solemnly. “He’s so grand, and good, and I love him, Joe–oh, Joe, I love him!”
“It’s wrong for you to say that!” Joe harshly reproved her. “I don’t want to hear you say that; you’re Isom’s wife.”
“Yes, God help me,” said she.
“You could be worse off than you are, Ollie; as it is you’ve got a name!”
“What’s a name when you despise it?” said she bitterly.
“Have you thought what people would say about you if you went away with Morgan, Ollie?” inquired Joe gently.
“I don’t care. We intend to go to some place where we’re not known, and––”
“Hide,” said Joe. “Hide like thieves. And that’s what you’d be, both of you, don’t you see? You’d never be comfortable and happy, Ollie, skulking around that way.”
“Yes, I would be happy,” she maintained sharply. “Mr. Morgan is a gentleman, and he’s good. He’d be proud of me, he’d take care of me like a lady.”
“For a little while maybe, till he found somebody else that he thought more of,” said Joe. “When it comes so easy to take one man’s wife, he wouldn’t stop at going off with another.”
“It’s a lie–you know it’s a lie! Curtis Morgan’s a gentleman, I tell you, and I’ll not hear you run him down!”
“Gentlemen and ladies don’t have to hide,” said Joe.
“You’re lying to me!” she charged him suddenly, her face coloring angrily. “He wouldn’t go away from here on the say-so of a kid like you. He’s down there waiting for me, and I’m going to him.”
“I wouldn’t deceive you, Ollie,” said he, leaving his post near the door, opening a way for her to pass. “If you think he’s there, go and see. But I tell you he’s gone. He asked me to shut my eyes to this thing and let you and him carry it out; but I couldn’t do that, so he went away.”
She knew he was not deceiving her, and she turned on him with reproaches.
“You want to chain me here and see me work myself to death for that old miserly Isom!” she stormed. “You’re just as bad as he is; you ain’t got a soft spot in your heart.”
“Yes, I’d rather see you stay here with Isom and do a nigger woman’s work, like you have been doing ever since you married him, than let you go away with Morgan for one mistaken day. What you’d have to face with him would kill you quicker than work, and you’d suffer a thousand times more sorrow.”
“What do you know about it?” she sneered. “You never loved anybody. That’s the way with you religious fools–you don’t get any fun out of life yourselves, and you want to spoil everybody else’s. Well, you’ll not spoil mine, I tell you. I’ll go to Morgan this very night, and you can’t stop me!”
“Well, we’ll see about that, Ollie,” he told her, showing a little temper. “I told him that I’d keep you here if I had to tie you, and I’ll do that, too, if I have to. Isom––”
“Isom, Isom!” she mocked. “Well, tell Isom you spied on me and tell the old fool what you saw–tell him, tell him! Tell him all you know, and tell him more! Tell the old devil I hate him, and always did hate him; tell him I’ve got out of bed in the middle of the night more than once to get the ax and kill him in his sleep! Tell him I wish he was dead and in hell, where he belongs, and I’m sorry I didn’t send him there! What do I care about Isom, or you, or anybody else, you spy, you sneaking spy!”
“I’ll go with you to the road if you want to see if he’s there,” Joe offered.
Ollie’s fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable womanhood had divested her of all awe in his eyes. He spoke to her now as he would have reasoned with a child.
“No, I suppose you threatened to go after Isom, or something like that, and he went away,” said she. “You couldn’t scare him, he wouldn’t run from you. Tomorrow he’ll send me word, and I’ll go to him in spite of you and Isom and everything else. I don’t care–I don’t care–you’re mean to me, too! you’re as mean as you can be!”
She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears, lifting her arm to her face and hiding her eyes in the bend of her elbow. Her shoulders heaved; she sobbed in childlike pity for herself and the injury which she seemed to think she bore.
Joe put his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t take on that way about it, Ollie,” said he.
“Oh, oh!” she moaned, her hands pressed to her face now; “why couldn’t you have been kind to me; why couldn’t you have said a good word to me sometimes? I didn’t have a friend in the world, and I was so lonesome and tired and–and–and–everything!”
Her reproachful appeal was disconcerting to Joe. How could he tell her that he had not understood her striving and yearning to reach him, and that at last understanding, he had been appalled by the enormity of his own heart’s desire. He said nothing for a little while, but took her by one tear-wet hand and led her away from the door. Near the table he stopped, still holding her hand, stroking it tenderly with comforting touch.
“Never mind, Ollie,” said he at last; “you go to bed now and don’t think any more about going away with Morgan. If I thought it was best for your peace and happiness for you to go, I’d step out of the way at once. But he’d drag you down, Ollie, lower than any woman you ever saw, for they don’t have that kind of women here. Morgan isn’t as good a man as Isom is, with all his hard ways and stinginess. If he’s honest and honorable, he can wait for you till Isom dies. He’ll not last more than ten or fifteen years longer, and you’ll be young even then, Ollie. I don’t suppose anybody ever gets too old to be happy any more than they get too old to be sad.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do, Joe,” she sighed.
She had calmed down while he talked. Now she wiped her eyes on her veil, while the last convulsions of sobbing shook her now and then, like the withdrawing rumble of thunder after a storm.
“I’ll put out the light, Ollie,” said he. “You go on to bed.”
“Oh, Joe, Joe!” said she in a little pleading, meaningless way; a little way of reproach and softness.
She lifted her tear-bright eyes, with the reflection of her subsiding passion in them, and looked yearningly into his. Ollie suddenly found herself feeling small and young, penitent and frail, in the presence of this quickly developed man. His strength seemed to rise above her, and spread round her, and warm her in its protecting folds. There was comfort in him, and promise.
The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor with a smile. It is a comforting faculty that has come down from the first mother to the last daughter; it is as ineradicable in the sex as the instinct which cherishes fire. Ollie was primitive in her passions and pains. If she could not have Morgan, perhaps she could yet find a comforter in Joe. She put her free hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were loose and trembling.
“If you’d be good to me, Joe; if you’d only be good and kind, I could stay,” she said.
Joe was moved to tenderness by her ingenuous sounding plea. He put his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way. She was very near him then, and her small hand, so lately cold and tear-damp, was warm within his. She threw
her head back in expectant attitude; her yearning eyes seemed to be dragging him to her lips.
“I will be good to you, Ollie; just as good and kind as I know how to be,” he promised.
She swayed a little nearer; her warm, soft body pressed against him, her bright young eyes still striving to draw him down to her lips.
“Oh, Joe, Joe,” she murmured in a snuggling, contented way.
Sweat sprang upon his forehead and his throbbing temples, so calm and cool but a moment before. He stood trembling, his damp elf-locks dangling over his brow. Through the half-open door a little breath of wind threaded in and made the lamp-blaze jump; it rustled outside through the lilac-bushes like the passing of a lady’s gown.
Joe’s voice was husky in his throat when he spoke.
“You’d better go to bed, Ollie,” said he.
He still clung foolishly to her willing hand as he led her to the door opening to the stairs.
“No, you go on up first, Joe,” she said. “I want to put the wood in the stove ready to light in the morning, and set a few little things out. It’ll give me a minute longer to sleep. You can trust me now, Joe,” she protested, looking earnestly into his eyes, “for I’m not going away with Morgan now.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Ollie,” he told her, unfeigned pleasure in his voice.
“I want you to promise me you’ll never tell Isom,” said she.
“I never intended to tell him,” he replied.
She withdrew her hand from his quickly, and quickly both of them fled to his shoulders.
“Stoop down,” she coaxed with a seductive, tender pressure of her hands, “and tell me, Joe.”
Isom’s step fell on the porch. He crashed the door back against the wall as he came in, and Joe and Ollie fell apart in guilty haste. Isom stood for a moment on the threshold, amazement in his staring eyes and open mouth. Then a cloud of rage swept him, he lifted his huge, hairy fist above his head like a club.
“I’ll kill you!” he threatened, covering the space between him and Joe in two long strides.
Ollie shrank away, half stooping, from the expected blow, her hands raised in appealing defense. Joe put up his open hand as if to check Isom in his assault.
“Hold on, Isom; don’t you hit me,” he said.
Whatever Isom’s intention had been, he contained himself. He stopped, facing Joe, who did not yield an inch.
“Hit you, you whelp!” said Isom, his lips flattened back from his teeth. “I’ll do more than hit you. You–” He turned on Ollie: “I saw you. You’ve disgraced me! I’ll break every bone in your body! I’ll throw you to the hogs!”
“If you’ll hold on a minute and listen to reason, Isom, you’ll find there’s nothing at all like you think there is,” said Joe. “You’re making a mistake that you may be sorry for.”
“Mistake!” repeated Isom bitterly, as if his quick-rising rage had sunk again and left him suddenly weak. “Yes, the mistake I made was when I took you in to save you from the poorhouse and give you a home. I go away for a day and come back to find you two clamped in each other’s arms so close together I couldn’t shove a hand between you. Mistake––”
“That’s not so, Isom,” Joe protested indignantly.
“Heaven and hell, didn’t I see you!” roared Isom. “There’s law for you two if I want to take it on you, but what’s the punishment of the law for what you’ve done on me? Law! No, by God! I’ll make my own law for this case. I’ll kill both of you if I’m spared to draw breath five minutes more!”
Isom lifted his long arm in witness of his terrible intention, and cast his glaring eyes about the room as if in search of a weapon to begin his work.
“I tell you, Isom, nothing wrong ever passed between me and your wife,” insisted Joe earnestly. “You’re making a terrible mistake.”
Ollie, shrinking against the wall, looked imploringly at Joe. He had promised never to tell Isom what he knew, but how was he to save himself now without betraying her? Was he man enough to face it out and bear the strain, rush upon old Isom and stop him in his mad intention, or would he weaken and tell all he knew, here at the very first test of his strength? She could not read his intention in his face, but his eyes were frowning under his gathered brows as he watched every move that old Isom made. He was leaning forward a little, his arms were raised, like a wrestler waiting for the clinch.
Isom’s face was as gray as ashes that have lain through many a rain. He stood where he had stopped at Joe’s warning, and now was pulling up his sleeves as if to begin his bloody work.
“You two conspired against me from the first,” he charged, his voice trembling; “you conspired to eat me holler, and now you conspire to bring shame and disgrace to my gray hairs. I trust you and depend on you, and I come home––”
Isom’s arraignment broke off suddenly.
He stood with arrested jaw, gazing intently at the table. Joe followed his eyes, but saw nothing on the table to hold a man’s words and passions suspended in that strange manner. Nothing was there but the lamp and Joe’s old brown hat. That lay there, its innocent, battered crown presenting to Joe’s eyes, its broad and pliant brim tilted up on the farther side as if resting on a fold of itself.
It came to Joe in an instant that Isom’s anger had brought paralysis upon him. He started forward to assist him, Isom’s name on his lips, when Isom leaped to the table with a smothered cry in his throat. He seemed to hover over the table a moment, leaning with his breast upon it, gathering some object to him and hugging it under his arm.
“Great God!” panted Isom in shocked voice, standing straight between them, his left arm pressed to his breast as if it covered a mortal wound. He twisted his neck and glared at Joe, but he did not disclose the thing that he had gathered from the table.
“Great God!” said he again, in the same shocked, panting voice.
“Isom,” began Joe, advancing toward him.
Isom retreated quickly. He ran to the other end of the table where he stood, bending forward, hugging his secret to his breast as if he meant to defend it with the blood of his heart. He stretched out his free hand to keep Joe away.
“Stand off! Stand off!” he warned.
Again Isom swept his wild glance around the room. Near the door, on two prongs of wood nailed to the wall, hung the gun of which Joe had spoken to Morgan in his warning. It was a Kentucky rifle, long barreled, heavy, of two generations past. Isom used it for hawks, and it hung there loaded and capped from year’s beginning to year’s end. Isom seemed to realize when he saw it, for the first time in that season of insane rage, that it offered to his hand a weapon. He leaped toward it, reaching up his hand.
“I’ll kill you now!” said he.
In one long spring Isom crossed from where he stood and seized the rifle by the muzzle.
“Stop him, stop him!” screamed Ollie, pressing her hands to her ears.
“Isom, Isom!” warned Joe, leaping after him.
Isom was wrenching at the gun to free the breech from the fork when Joe caught him by the shoulder and tried to drag him back.
“Look out–the hammer!” he cried.
But quicker than the strength of Joe’s young arm, quicker than old Isom’s wrath, was the fire in that corroded cap; quicker than the old man’s hand, the powder in the nipple of the ancient gun.
Isom fell at the report, his left hand still clutching the secret thing to his bosom, his right clinging to the rifle-barrel. He lay on his back where he had crashed down, as straight as if stretched to a line. His staring eyes rolled, all white; his mouth stood open, as if in an unuttered cry.
* * *
CHAPTER VII
DELIVERANCE
Joe, stunned by the sudden tragedy, stood for a moment as he had stopped when he laid his hand on Isom’s shoulder. Ollie, on the other side of the fallen man, leaned over and peered into his face.
In that moment a wild turmoil of hopes and fears leaped in her hot brain. Was it deliverance, freedom? Or
was it only another complication of shame and disgrace? Was he dead, slain by his own hand in the baseness of his own heart? Or was he only hurt, to rise up again presently with revilings and accusations, to make the future more terrible than the past. Did this end it; did this come in answer to her prayers for a bolt to fall on him and wither him in his tracks?
Even in that turgid moment, when she turned these speculations, guilty hopes, wild fears, in her mind, Isom’s eyelids quivered, dropped; and the sounding breath in his nostrils ceased.
Isom Chase lay dead upon the floor. In the crook of his elbow rested a little time-fingered canvas bag, one corner of which had broken open in his fall, out of which poured the golden gleanings of his hard and bitter years.
On the planks beneath his shoulder-blades, where his feet had come and gone for forty years, all leached and whitened by the strong lye of countless scrubbings at the hands of the old wife and the new, his blood ran down in a little stream. It gathered in a cupped and hollowed plank, and stood there in a little pool, glistening, black. His wife saw her white face reflected in it as she raised up from peering into his blank, dead eyes.
“Look at his blood!” said she, hoarsely whispering. “Look at it–look at it!”
“Isom! Isom!” called Joe softly, a long pause between his words, as if summoning a sleeper. He stooped over, touching Isom’s shoulder.
There was a trickle of blood on Isom’s beard, where the rifle ball had struck him in the throat; back of his head that vital stream was wasting, enlarging the pool in the hollowed plank near Ollie’s foot.
“He’s dead!” she whispered.
Again, in a flash, that quick feeling of lightness, almost joyful liberty, lifted her. Isom was dead, dead! What she had prayed for had fallen. Cruel, hard-palmed Isom, who had gripped her tender throat, was dead there on the floor at her feet! Dead by his own act, in the anger of his loveless heart.
“I’m afraid he is,” said Joe, dazed and aghast.
The night wind came in through the open door and vexed the lamp with harassing breath. Its flame darted like a serpent’s tongue, and Joe, fearful that it might go out and leave them in the dark with that bleeding corpse, crossed over softly and closed the door.
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