“How do you like it up here on solid ground, fellow?” Will asked.
“It’s all right.”
“But you’d rather be back home in the swamp, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
He looked again at Darling Jill. She was smiling at him then, and he dared to smile back at her.
“Well, I’ll declare,” Ty Ty said, leaning back in his chair. “Just look at him and Darling Jill carry-on, would you, folks!”
Up until then Ty Ty had not for a moment considered Dave a human being. Since the night before, Ty Ty had looked upon him as something different from a man. But it dawned upon him when he saw Darling Jill’s smile that the boy was actually a person. He was still an albino, though, and he was said to possess unearthly powers to divine gold. In that respect, Ty Ty still held him above all other men.
“What would your wife say, fellow, if she saw you here making eyes at Darling Jill?” Will asked him.
“She’s pretty,” the boy said simply.
“Who? Your wife?”
“No,” he answered quickly, looking at Darling Jill. “She is.”
“I don’t reckon you’re the first one to say that, fellow, but she’s hard to get unless she’s the one who’s doing the getting. There’re too many after her now, to make her come easy. See that fat man over there in the corner? Well, he’s after her, for one. He’s been trying God-knows-how-long, but he hasn’t got her yet himself. You’ll have to go some to get her, fellow, I’m telling you.”
Pluto looked uneasily at the tall slim boy sitting in the straight-backed chair in the center of the room. He did not like the way Darling Jill made eyes at Dave, either. That kind of a beginning brought a dangerous ending.
“It’s only fair to set the boy straight at the start, seeing as how he’s a male and women are females,” Ty Ty said. “I’ve had the side of my barn kicked off just because I was careless enough to lead a stud horse into the wind when I should have led him with the wind.”
“Talking don’t help much,” Will broke in. “If you’ve got a rooster, he’s going to crow.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Ty Ty continued. “I know what I’m about. Now, see that girl sitting in the middle? That’s Buck’s wife and her name is Griselda and, if I do say so myself, God never made a finer-looking woman in His day. But leave her alone. Then the other one, there, with the dimples is Rosamond. She’s Will’s wife. Leave her alone, too. And the one you’re looking at is Darling Jill. She’s nobody’s wife yet, but that don’t make her free for the asking, and I’m trying my best to make her marry Pluto. Pluto is the fat man in the corner. He’s running for sheriff this year. I may let you off to vote for him when the time comes.”
“It’s no use telling him to leave Darling Jill alone.” Will said. “It’s a waste of words to say that. Just look at them make eyes at each other.”
“I wasn’t going to mention it, but since you brought it up, I reckon he might just as well know that I can’t stop Darling Jill from what she sets her head on. She’s as crazy as hell sometimes, and about nothing.”
While Dave and Darling Jill were looking at each other, Ty Ty fell to talking again. His voice was not raised, but everyone in the room heard what he said.
“I reckon God was pretty good to me. He favored me with the finest-looking daughters and daughter-in-law a man could hope for. I reckon I’ve been lucky not to have had any more trouble than I’ve had. I get to thinking sometimes that maybe it’s not all for the best. I think a lot about maybe having trouble with such pretty girls in the house. But so far, I’ve been spared that misery. Darling Jill acts crazy as hell sometimes, and about nothing. But we’ve been living on the lucky side of the road so far.”
“Now, Pa,” said Griselda, “please don’t start that again.”
“I ain’t ashamed of nothing,” Ty Ty said heatedly. “I reckon Griselda is just about the prettiest girl I ever did see. There ain’t a man alive who’s ever seen a finer-looking pair of rising beauties as she’s got. Why, man alive! They’re that pretty it makes me feel sometimes like getting right down on my hands and knees like these old hound dogs you see chasing after a flowing bitch. You just ache to get down and lick something. That’s the way, and it’s God’s own truth as He would tell it Himself if He could talk like the rest of us.”
“You don’t mean to sit there and say you’ve seen them, do you?” Will asked, winking at Griselda and Rosamond.
“Seen them? Why, man alive! I spend all my spare time trying to slip up on her when she ain’t looking to see them some more. Seen them? Man alive! Just like a rabbit likes clover! And when you’ve seen them once, that’s only the start. You can’t sit calm and peaceful and think about nothing else till you see them again. And every time you see them it makes you feel just a little bit more like that old hound dog I was talking about. You’re sitting out there in the yard somewhere all calm and pleased and all of a sudden you’ll get a notion in your head. You sit there, telling it to go away and let you rest, and all the time there’s something getting up inside of you. You can’t stop it, because you can’t put your hands on it; you can’t talk to it, because you can’t make it hear. And so it gets up and stands right there on the inside of you. Then it says something to you. It’s that same old feeling again, and you know you can’t stop it now to save your soul. You can sit there all day long, till it’s squeezed almost to death, but it won’t leave you. And that’s when you go stepping around the house on your toes trying to see something. Man alive! And don’t I know what I mean!”
“Aw, now, Pa,” Griselda said, blushing. “You promised to stop talking like that about me.”
“Girl,” he said, “you just don’t know how I’m praising you in my talk. I’m saying the finest things a man can say about a woman. When a man gets that ache to get right down on his hands and knees, and lick--well, girl, it just makes a man--aw, shucks, Griselda.”
Ty Ty fumbled in his pocket until he found a twenty-five cent piece. He laid it in Griselda’s hand.
“Take that and buy yourself a pretty the next time you’re in the city, Griselda. I wish I had more to give you.”
“Now, listen here,” Will said, winking at Rosamond and Griselda. “You’re giving yourself away. If you don’t watch out, you won’t get a chance to see Griselda again like that. She’ll keep out of your way after this, if you don’t be quiet.”
“That’s where you’re wrong son,” Ty Ty said. “I’ve lived a heap longer than you have, and I know a little more about the ways of women. Griselda won’t be after keeping me from seeing her the next time, or any time. She won’t come right out now and say so, but just the same, she’ll be pleased like all get-out when I do see her the next time. She knows good and well I appreciate what I saw. Now, ain’t that the truth, Griselda?”
“Aw, now, Pa!”
“See there? Didn’t I tell you the whole truth. She’ll be in that room over there with the door wide open some of these days before long, and I’ll be standing there looking at her for all I’m worth. A girl like her has a right to show off, too, if she wants to. I wouldn’t blame her a bit if she did. Why, man alive! That’s a sight for sore eyes!”
“Now, Pa, please stop,” Griselda said, hiding her face in her hands. “You promised to stop saying that.”
Ty Ty had been so busy talking he had not noticed that Darling Jill had got up and was pulling Dave by the hands to the door. He jumped to his feet in an instant when he saw the albino between him and the door. He jerked the shotgun off the chair-seat and pointed it at Dave.
“No, you don’t!” he shouted. “Get back in the room where you were, now.”
“Wait a minute, Pa,” Darling Jill said, running to him and putting her arms around his neck. “Pa, just leave us alone for a little while. He isn’t going to run away. We’re only going out on the back porch to get a drink and sit in the cool. He wouldn’t run away. You wouldn’t run away, would you, Dave?”
“No, you
don’t!” Ty Ty said, not so firmly.
“Now, Pa,” Darling Jill said, hugging him tighter.
“Now, I don’t know about that.”
“You wouldn’t run away, would you, Dave?”
The boy shook his head vigorously. He was afraid to speak to Ty Ty, but if he had dared, he would have begged to be allowed to go with Darling Jill. He continued to shake his head, hoping.
“I don’t like the looks of it,” Ty Ty said. “When he gets out there in the dark with nobody to guard him, all he has to do is plunge off the porch, and he’s gone for good. We couldn’t ever find him out there in the dark. I wouldn’t like to take that risk. I don’t like the looks of it.”
“Let him go with her,” Will said. “That’s not what they’re going for. He won’t try to get away. He sort of likes it here now a little since Darling Jill has come home. Isn’t that right, fellow?”
The boy nodded his head, trying to make them believe he was not interested in running away. He kept on nodding his head until Ty Ty laid the gun down on the chair-seat.
“I still don’t like the looks of it,” Ty Ty said, “but i’ll have to let you go for a little while. But I’ll tell you something to remember. If you do run off, it’ll be hell to pay when I catch you again. I’ll forge some chains around your legs and bar you in the barn so tight you’ll never get another chance to leave. I aim to keep you till you locate that lode for me. You’d better not try fooling with me, because when I get mad, I stay mad.”
Darling Jill drew him out of the room, pulling him by the hands. They went through the dark hall to the back porch. The water bucket was empty, and they went to the well. Dave drew the water and poured it into the bucket.
“Don’t you like me better than you do your wife?” Darling Jill asked him, hanging to his arm.
“I wish I had married you,” he said, his hands trembling beside her. “I didn’t know there was a girl so beautiful anywhere in the country. You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. You’re so soft, and you talk like a bird-song, and you smell so good--”
They sat down on the bottom step. Shivers went over Darling Jill while she listened to Dave. She had never heard a man talk like that.
“Why are you white all over?” she asked him.
“I was born that way,” he said slowly. “I can’t help looking like I do.”
“I think you are wonderful-looking. You don’t look like any man I’ve ever met, and I’m glad you are so different.”
“Would you marry me?” he asked huskily.
“You’re already married.”
“I don’t want to stay that way now. I want to marry you. I like you so much and I think you are so beautiful.”
“We wouldn’t have to get married, if you like me a lot.”
“Why?”
“Just because.”
“But I couldn’t do everything I wanted to.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’d be a little afraid. They might beat me, or something. I don’t know what they’d do to me.”
“It was a shame for Pa to tie you up with ropes and bring you up here,” she said. “But I’m glad he did.”
“I am too, now. I wouldn’t run away if I had a chance. I’m going to stay so I can see you all the time.”
Darling Jill moved closer to him, putting her arm around his waist and placing her head on his shoulder. He grabbed her madly.
“Would you like to kiss me?”
“Would you let me?”
“Yes, I would like it.”
He kissed her, squeezing her to him. She could feel the swell of his muscles when his body touched hers and pressed so tightly.
Presently he picked her up and started across the yard. He ran with her in the dark, not knowing where he was going.
“Where are we going?”
“Out here so they can’t bother us,” he said. “I don’t want them to come and make me go back to the barn yet.”
He walked with her to the end of the yard and sat down with her on his lap under one of the water-oak trees. She could not bear to have him release her, and she locked her arms around him.
“When we find the gold, we’ll take some of it and go away together,” Darling Jill said. “You would do that, wouldn’t you, Dave?”
“You bet I would. I’d go now, if you’d go.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered. “I don’t care what happens. I’ll do anything you ask me to.”
“Why do they call you Darling Jill?” he asked after a long silence.
“When I was a little girl, everybody called me ‘Darling,’ and my name is Jill. When I grew up, they still called me that. Now everyone calls me Darling Jill.”
“It’s a perfect name for you,” he said. “I couldn’t think of a better name to call you. You are a darling.”
“Kiss me again,” she asked.
Dave bent over and drew her up until his lips touched hers. They lay on the ground unmindful of anything else in the world. The pressure of his arms and the swelling of his muscles made her tremble again and again.
Ty Ty and Will came out on the back porch looking for them. Ty Ty called, and then he swore. Will went back for a lantern, running into the house telling Ty Ty not to scare the boy away by his shouts. When he came back with the smoking lantern, Ty Ty grabbed it and started across the yard, running back and forth in all directions. He shouted to Will, swearing at Dave and Darling Jill, and looking everywhere as fast as his feet would carry him.
Rosamond and Griselda came out of the house and stood by the well looking out in the darkness.
“I knew it,” Ty Ty kept saying over and over again. “I knew it all the time.”
“We’ll find him,” Will said. “They didn’t go far.”
“I knew it, I just knew it. My white-haired boy is gone for fair.”
“I don’t believe he ran off,” Will protested. “I’ll bet a pretty he’s only lying low till you stop scaring him to death. When they left the room, they weren’t trying to run off. He was more for going out in the dark so he could have a good time with her than he was for running off. Just look for her, and you’ll find him at the same time. She had her mind made up to have him, and she’s the one who took him off wherever it is they’ve gone.”
“I knew it, I just knew it was going to happen. My whitehaired boy is gone for fair.”
Rosamond and Griselda called from the well.
“Have you found him yet, Pa?”
Ty Ty was so busy searching for the albino he did not stop to answer.
“They’re out here somewhere,” Will said. “They’re not far off.”
Ty Ty dashed around the house, making a complete circle of it, barely missing the black mouth of the crater. He skirted the big hole by inches, almost falling into it in his blind haste.
Once around the house, he struck out across the yard, running at random. When he got out near the water-oak trees, the light from the smoking lantern suddenly revealed the snow-white hair of Dave. Ty Ty ran nearer and saw them both sprawled on the ground. Neither of them was aware of his presence, even though the yellow light flickered in Darling Jill’s eyes and twinkled like two stars when her eyelids blinked.
Will saw Ty Ty standing still with the smoking lantern and he knew they had been found. He ran to see why Ty Ty was not calling him, and Rosamond and Griselda came behind.
“Did you ever see such a sight?” Ty Ty said, looking around at Will. “Now, ain’t that something?”
Will waited until Griselda got there, pointing down at Dave and Darling Jill. They stood silently for a moment, trying to see in the yellow lantern light.
Ty Ty suddenly found himself turned around and being pushed towards the house.
He whirled around.
“What’s the matter with you girls, Rosamond?” he said, stumbling with the lantern. “What makes you push me like that?”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Pa, you and Will, standing here looking at them. Go on a
way, both of you, now.”
Ty Ty found himself standing beside Will several yards from them.
“Now, look here,” he protested; “I don’t like to be shoved around like a country-cousin. What’s the matter with you girls, anyhow?”
“Shame on you, Pa, you and Will,” Griselda said. “You were standing here looking all the time. Now, go on off and stop looking.”
“Well, I’ll be a suck-egg mule,” Ty Ty said. “I wasn’t doing a thing in the world but standing there. And here you girls come running up and say, ‘Shame on me.’ I ain’t done a blessed thing to be ashamed of. What’s wrong with you Griselda and Rosamond?”
Will and Ty Ty moved away, walking slowly towards the house. Just before reaching the well, Ty Ty stopped and looked back.
“Now, what in God’s name did I do wrong?”
“Women don’t like men to stand around and see one of them getting it,” Will said. “That’s why they raised such a howl about you being there. They only wanted to get me and you away.”
“Well, dog my cats,” Ty Ty said. “Is that what was going on back there! I never would have known it, Will, I declare I wouldn’t. I only thought they was lying there hugging one another. That’s the truth if I know it. I couldn’t see a thing in that pale light.”
Chapter X
They had been at work since sunrise in the new crater, and at eleven o’clock the heat was blistering. Buck and Shaw had little to say to Will. They had never been able to get along together, and even the prospect of turning up a shovelful of yellow nuggets any moment did not serve to bind them any closer. If Buck had had his way, Will would never have been sent for in the first place. All the gold that was turned up was going into their own pockets, anyway; if Will should try to take some, they would die fighting before they would allow him to share in it.
Will leaned on his shovel and watched Shaw pick the clay. He laughed a little, but neither Buck nor Shaw paid the least attention to him. They went on as though he were nowhere near.