The Bondboy

  CHAPTER VI

  BLOOD

  Joe had debated the matter fully in his mind before going in to supper.Since he had sent her tempter away, there was no necessity of takingOllie to task, thus laying bare his knowledge of her guilty secret. Hebelieved that her conscience would prove its own flagellant in the daysto come, when she had time to reflect and repent, away from thedebauching influence of the man who had led her astray. His blame wasall for Morgan, who had taken advantage of her loneliness anddiscontent.

  Joe now recalled, and understood, her reaching out to him for sympathy;he saw clearly that she had demanded something beyond the capacity ofhis unseasoned heart to give. Isom was to blame for that condition ofher mind, first and most severely of all. If Isom had been kind to her,and given her only a small measure of human sympathy, she would haveclung to him, and rested in the shelter of his protection, contentagainst all the world. Isom had spread the thorns for his own feet, inhis insensibility to all human need of gentleness.

  Joe even doubted, knowing him as he did, whether the gray old miser wascapable of either jealousy or shame. He did not know, indeed, what Isommight say to it if his wife's infidelity became known to him, but hebelieved that he would rage to insanity. Perhaps not because the stingof it would penetrate to his heart, but in his censure of his wife'sextravagance in giving away an affection which belonged, under the formof marriage and law, to him.

  Joe was ashamed to meet Ollie at the table, not for himself, but forher. He was afraid that his eyes, or his manner, might betray what heknew. He might have spared himself this feeling of humiliation on heraccount, for Ollie, all unconscious of his discovery, was bright andfull of smiles. Joe could not rise to her level of light-heartedness,and, there being no common ground between them, he lapsed into hisold-time silence over his plate.

  After supper Joe flattened himself against the kitchen wall where he hadsat the night before on the bench outside the door, drawing back intothe shadow. There he sat and thought it over again, unsatisfied toremain silent, yet afraid to speak. He did not want to be unjust, forperhaps she did not intend to meet Morgan at all. In addition to thisdoubt of her intentions, he had the hope that Isom would come very soon.He decided at length that he would go to bed and lie awake until heheard Ollie pass up to her room, when he would slip down again and wait.If she came down, he would know that she intended to carry out her partof the compact with Morgan. Then he could tell her that Morgan would notcome.

  Ollie was not long over her work that night. When Joe heard her doorclose, he took his boots in his hand and went downstairs. He had lefthis hat on the kitchen table, according to his nightly custom; themoonlight coming in through the window reminded him of it as he passed.He put it on, thinking that he would take a look around the road in thevicinity of the gate, for he suspected that Morgan's submissive goingmasked some iniquitous intent. Joe pulled on his boots, sitting in thekitchen door, listening a moment before he closed it after him, andwalked softly toward the road.

  A careful survey as far as he could see in the bright moonlight,satisfied him that Morgan had not left his horse and buggy around thereanywhere. He might come later. Joe decided to wait around there andsee.

  It was a cool autumn night; a prowling wind moved silently. Overhedgerow and barn roof the moonlight lay in white radiance; the dustyhighway beyond the gate was changed by it into a royal road. Joe feltthat there were memories abroad as he rested his arms on the gate-post.Moonlight and a soft wind always moved him with a feeling of indefiniteand shapeless tenderness, as elusive as the echo of a song. There was asoothing quality in the night for him, which laved his bruisedsensibilities like balm. He expanded under its influence; the tumult ofhis breast began to subside.

  The revelations of that day had fallen rudely upon the youth'sdelicately tuned and finely adjusted nature. He had recoiled in horrorfrom the sacrilege which that house had suffered. In a measure he feltthat he was guilty along with Ollie in her unspeakable sin, in that hehad been so stupid as to permit it.

  But, he reflected as he waited there with his hand upon the weatheredgate, great and terrible as the upheaval of his day-world had been, thenight had descended unconscious of it. The moonlight had brighteneduntroubled by it; the wind had come from its wooded places unhurried forit, and unvexed. After all, it had been only an unheard discord in theeternal, vast harmony. The things of men were matters of infinitesimalconsequence in nature. The passing of a nation of men would not disturbits tranquillity as much as the falling of a leaf.

  It was then long past the hour when he was habitually asleep, and hisvigil weighed on him heavily. No one had passed along the road; Morganhad not come in sight. Joe was weary from his day's internal conflictand external toil. He began to consider the advisability of returning tobed.

  Perhaps, thought he, his watch was both futile and unjust. Ollie did notintend to keep her part in the agreement. She must be burning withremorse for her transgression.

  He turned and walked slowly toward the house, stopping a little wayalong to look back and make sure that Morgan had not appeared. Thus hestood a little while, and then resumed his way.

  The house was before him, shadows in the sharp angles of its roof, itswindows catching the moonlight like wakeful eyes. There was a calm overit, and a somnolent peace. It seemed impossible that iniquitous desirescould live and grow on a night like that. Ollie must be asleep, said he,and repentant in her dreams.

  Joe felt that he might go to his rest with honesty. It would be welcome,as the desire of tired youth for its bed is strong. At the well hestopped again to look back for Morgan.

  As he turned a light flashed in the kitchen, gleamed a moment, went outsuddenly. It was as if a match had been struck to look for somethingquickly found, and then blown out with a puff of breath.

  At once the fabric of his hopes collapsed, and his honest attempts tolift Ollie back to her smirched pedestal and invest her with at least apart of her former purity of heart, came to a painful end. She waspreparing to leave. The hour when he must speak had come.

  He approached the door noiselessly. It was closed, as he had left it,and within everything was still. As he stood hesitating before it, hishand lifted to lay upon the latch, his heart laboring in painful lungesagainst his ribs, it opened without a sound, and Ollie stood before himagainst the background of dark.

  The moonlight came down on him through the half-bare arbor, and fell inmottled patches around him where he stood, his hand still lifted, as ifto help her on her way. Ollie caught her breath in a frightened start,and shrank back.

  "You don't need to be afraid, Ollie--it's Joe," said he.

  "Oh, you scared me so!" she panted.

  Each then waited as if for the other to speak, and the silence seemedlong.

  "Were you going out somewhere?" asked Joe.

  "No; I forgot to put away a few things, and I came down," said she. "Iwoke up out of my sleep thinking of them," she added.

  "Well!" said he, wonderingly. "Can I help you any, Ollie?"

  "No; it's only some milk and things," she told him. "You know how Isomtakes on if he finds anything undone. I was afraid he might come intonight and see them."

  "Well!" said Joe again, in a queer, strained way.

  He was standing in the door, blocking it with his body, clenching thejamb with his hands on either side, as if to bar any attempt that shemight make to pass.

  "Will you strike a light, Ollie? I want to have a talk with you," saidhe gravely.

  "Oh, Joe!" she protested, as if pleasantly scandalized by the request,intentionally misreading it.

  "Have you got another match in your hand? Light the lamp."

  "Oh, what's the use?" said she. "I only ran down for a minute. We don'tneed the light, do we, Joe? Can't you talk without it?"

  "No; I want you to light the lamp," he insisted.

  "I'll not do it!" she flared suddenly, turning as if to go to her room."You've not got any right to boss me around in my own house!"

  "I don'
t suppose I have, Ollie, and I didn't mean to," said he, steppinginto the room.

  Ollie retreated a few steps toward the inner door, and stopped. Joecould hear her excited breathing as he flung his hat on the table.

  "Ollie, what I've got to say to you has to be said sooner or latertonight, and you'd just as well hear it now," said Joe, trying to assureher of his friendly intent by speaking softly, although his voice wastremulous. "Morgan's gone; he'll not be back--at least not tonight."

  "Morgan?" said she. "What do you mean--what do I care where he's gone?"

  Joe made no reply. He fumbled for the box behind the stove and scraped aslow sulphur match against the pipe. Its light discovered Ollieshrinking against the wall where she had stopped, near the door.

  She was wearing a straw hat, which must have been a part of her bridalgear. A long white veil, which she wore scarf-wise over the frontdisplay of its flowers and fruits, came down and crossed behind herneck. Its ends dangled upon her breast. The dress was one that Joe neverhad seen her wear before, a girlish white thing with narrow ruffles. Hewondered as he looked at her with a great ache in his heart, how so muchseeming purity could be so base and foul. In that bitter moment hecursed old Isom in his heart for goading her to this desperate bound.She had been starving for a man's love, and for the lack of it she hadthrown herself away on a dog.

  Joe fitted the chimney on the burner of the lamp, and stood in judicialseriousness before her, the stub of the burning match wasting in alittle blaze between his fingers.

  "Morgan's gone," he repeated, "and he'll never come back. I know allabout you two, and what you'd planned to do."

  Joe dropped the stub of the match and set his foot on it.

  Ollie stared at him, her face as white as her bridal dress, her eyesbig, like a barn-yard animal's eyes in a lantern's light. She wasgathering and wadding the ends of her veil in her hands; her lips wereopen, showing the points of her small, white teeth.

  "Isom--he'll kill me!" she whispered.

  "Isom don't know about it," said Joe.

  "You'll tell him!"

  "No."

  Relief flickered in her face. She leaned forward a little, eagerly, asif to speak, but said nothing. Joe shrank back from her, his handpressing 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'tstay here," she hurried on, "you know I can't stay here, Joe, and sufferlike 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 headsolemnly. "He's so grand, and good, and I love him, Joe--oh, Joe, I lovehim!"

  "It's wrong for you to say that!" Joe harshly reproved her. "I don'twant 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 withMorgan, 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 ofyou, 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 agentleman, and he's good. He'd be proud of me, he'd take care of me likea lady."

  "For a little while maybe, till he found somebody else that he thoughtmore of," said Joe. "When it comes so easy to take one man's wife, hewouldn't stop at going off with another."

  "It's a lie--you know it's a lie! Curtis Morgan's a gentleman, I tellyou, 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 coloringangrily. "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 thedoor, opening a way for her to pass. "If you think he's there, go andsee. But I tell you he's gone. He asked me to shut my eyes to this thingand let you and him carry it out; but I couldn't do that, so he wentaway."

  She knew he was not deceiving her, and she turned on him withreproaches.

  "You want to chain me here and see me work myself to death for that oldmiserly Isom!" she stormed. "You're just as bad as he is; you ain't gota soft spot in your heart."

  "Yes, I'd rather see you stay here with Isom and do a nigger woman'swork, like you have been doing ever since you married him, than let yougo away with Morgan for one mistaken day. What you'd have to face withhim would kill you quicker than work, and you'd suffer a thousand timesmore 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 oflife yourselves, and you want to spoil everybody else's. Well, you'llnot spoil mine, I tell you. I'll go to Morgan this very night, and youcan't stop me!"

  "Well, we'll see about that, Ollie," he told her, showing a littletemper. "I told him that I'd keep you here if I had to tie you, and I'lldo that, too, if I have to. Isom----"

  "Isom, Isom!" she mocked. "Well, tell Isom you spied on me and tell theold fool what you saw--tell him, tell him! Tell him all you know, andtell 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 onceto get the ax and kill him in his sleep! Tell him I wish he was dead andin hell, where he belongs, and I'm sorry I didn't send him there! Whatdo I care about Isom, or you, or anybody else, you spy, you sneakingspy!"

  "I'll go with you to the road if you want to see if he's there," Joeoffered.

  Ollie's fall from the sanctified place of irreproachable womanhood haddivested her of all awe in his eyes. He spoke to her now as he wouldhave 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 runfrom you. Tomorrow he'll send me word, and I'll go to him in spite ofyou and Isom and everything else. I don't care--I don't care--you'remean to me, too! you're as mean as you can be!"

  She made a quick tempestuous turn from anger to tears, lifting her armto her face and hiding her eyes in the bend of her elbow. Her shouldersheaved; she sobbed in childlike pity for herself and the injury whichshe 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'tyou have been kind to me; why couldn't you have said a good word to mesometimes? I didn't have a friend in the world, and I was so lonesomeand tired and--and--and--everything!"

  Her reproachful appeal was disconcerting to Joe. How could he tell herthat he had not understood her striving and yearning to reach him, andthat at last understanding, he had been appalled by the enormity of hisown heart's desire. He said nothing for a little while, but took her byone tear-wet hand and led her away from the door. Near the table hestopped, still holding her hand, stroking it tenderly with comfortingtouch.

  "Never mind, Ollie," said he at last; "you go to bed now and don't thinkany more about going away with Morgan. If I thought it was best for yourpeace and happiness for you to go, I'd step out of the way at once. Buthe'd drag you down, Ollie, lower than any woman you ever saw, for theydon't have that kind of women here. Morgan isn't as good a man as Isomis, 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 orfifteen years longer, and you'll be young even then, Ollie. I don'tsuppose anybody ever gets too old to be happy a
ny more than they get tooold 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 thewithdrawing 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 littleway of reproach and softness.

  She lifted her tear-bright eyes, with the reflection of her subsidingpassion in them, and looked yearningly into his. Ollie suddenly foundherself feeling small and young, penitent and frail, in the presence ofthis quickly developed man. His strength seemed to rise above her, andspread round her, and warm her in its protecting folds. There wascomfort in him, and promise.

  The wife of the dead viking could turn to the living victor with asmile. It is a comforting faculty that has come down from the firstmother to the last daughter; it is as ineradicable in the sex as theinstinct which cherishes fire. Ollie was primitive in her passions andpains. If she could not have Morgan, perhaps she could yet find acomforter in Joe. She put her free hand on his shoulder and looked upinto his face again. Tears were on her lashes, her lips were loose andtrembling.

  "If you'd be good to me, Joe; if you'd only be good and kind, I couldstay," she said.

  Joe was moved to tenderness by her ingenuous sounding plea. He put hishand 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 seemedto be dragging him to her lips.

  "I will be good to you, Ollie; just as good and kind as I know how tobe," he promised.

  She swayed a little nearer; her warm, soft body pressed against him, herbright 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 andcool but a moment before. He stood trembling, his damp elf-locksdangling over his brow. Through the half-open door a little breath ofwind threaded in and made the lamp-blaze jump; it rustled outsidethrough 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 dooropening to the stairs.

  "No, you go on up first, Joe," she said. "I want to put the wood in thestove 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," sheprotested, looking earnestly into his eyes, "for I'm not going away withMorgan now."

  "I'm glad to hear you say that, Ollie," he told her, unfeigned pleasurein 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 tohis 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 wallas he came in, and Joe and Ollie fell apart in guilty haste. Isom stoodfor a moment on the threshold, amazement in his staring eyes and openmouth. Then a cloud of rage swept him, he lifted his huge, hairy fistabove his head like a club.

  "I'll kill you!" he threatened, covering the space between him and Joein two long strides.

  Ollie shrank away, half stooping, from the expected blow, her handsraised in appealing defense. Joe put up his open hand as if to checkIsom 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 youto the hogs!"

  "If you'll hold on a minute and listen to reason, Isom, you'll findthere's nothing at all like you think there is," said Joe. "You'remaking a mistake that you may be sorry for."

  "Mistake!" repeated Isom bitterly, as if his quick-rising rage had sunkagain and left him suddenly weak. "Yes, the mistake I made was whenI took you in to save you from the poorhouse and give you a home. Igo away for a day and come back to find you two clamped in eachother'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 youtwo if I want to take it on you, but what's the punishment of the lawfor what you've done on me? Law! No, by God! I'll make my own law forthis case. I'll kill both of you if I'm spared to draw breath fiveminutes more!"

  Isom lifted his long arm in witness of his terrible intention, and casthis glaring eyes about the room as if in search of a weapon to begin hiswork.

  "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 hadpromised never to tell Isom what he knew, but how was he to save himselfnow without betraying her? Was he man enough to face it out and bear thestrain, rush upon old Isom and stop him in his mad intention, or wouldhe weaken and tell all he knew, here at the very first test of hisstrength? She could not read his intention in his face, but his eyeswere frowning under his gathered brows as he watched every move that oldIsom made. He was leaning forward a little, his arms were raised, like awrestler waiting for the clinch.

  Isom's face was as gray as ashes that have lain through many a rain. Hestood where he had stopped at Joe's warning, and now was pulling up hissleeves as if to begin his bloody work.

  "You two conspired against me from the first," he charged, his voicetrembling; "you conspired to eat me holler, and now you conspire tobring shame and disgrace to my gray hairs. I trust you and depend onyou, and I come home----"

  Isom's arraignment broke off suddenly.

  He stood with arrested jaw, gazing intently at the table. Joe followedhis eyes, but saw nothing on the table to hold a man's words andpassions suspended in that strange manner. Nothing was there but thelamp and Joe's old brown hat. That lay there, its innocent, batteredcrown presenting to Joe's eyes, its broad and pliant brim tilted up onthe farther side as if resting on a fold of itself.

  It came to Joe in an instant that Isom's anger had brought paralysisupon 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. Heseemed to hover over the table a moment, leaning with his breast uponit, gathering some object to him and hugging it under his arm.

  "Great God!" panted Isom in shocked voice, standing straight betweenthem, his left arm pressed to his breast as if it covered a mortalwound. He twisted his neck and glared at Joe, but he did not disclosethe 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 hestood, bending forward, hugging his secret to his breast as if he meantto defend it with the blood of his heart. He stretched out his free handto keep Joe away.

  "Stand off! Stand off!" he warned.

  Again Isom swept his wild glance around the room. Near the door, on twoprongs of wood nailed to the wall, hung the gun of which Joe had spokento Morgan in his warning. It was a Kentucky rifle, long barreled, heavy,of two generations past. Isom used it for hawks, and it hung thereloaded and capped from year's beginning to year's end. Isom seemed torealize when he saw it, for the first time in that season of insanerage, 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 rifleby 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 Joecaught 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 oldIsom's wrath, was the fire in that corroded cap; quicker than the oldman's hand, the powder in the nipple of the ancient gun.

  Isom fell at the report, his left hand still clutching the secret thingto his bosom, his right clinging to the rifle-barrel. He lay on his backwhere he had crashed down, as straight as if stretched to a line. Hisstaring eyes rolled, all white; his mouth stood open, as if in anunuttered cry.