CHAPTER XXVISNAKE STRIKES
“Snake Sandershas kilt his woman!”
Aghast, Douglas stood in his dark doorway, staring down into the upturned face of Marion. Around them the dusk was thickening into night, and in the shadow of his porch it was dim indeed; but through the gloom the eloquent gray eyes and the hushed voice spoke the same shocked horror, pity, and wrath that stirred in his own soul.
“Killed her? Killed Lou Brackett?” he repeated slowly.
“Yes. She ain’t dead yet, but she can’t live long. Poor woman, it’d been a lot better for her if she’d missed that tree—she wouldn’t be sufferin’ now. But then, there wouldn’t be a proof against him if she had. Where you been all day? You must be the only one into the Traps that ain’t heard. I was down here twice—I wanted to tell you so’s you’d look out. They ain’t caught Snake yet, and he might—well, you better watch out.”
She turned, sweeping the darkling road with her eyes. Nothing moved there. No sound came, except the doleful sigh of a cold night breeze.
“Come in.” He moved back. “I want to know all about this. The fire’s going—I was just getting supper. Come in and keep warm.”
For an instant she hesitated, instinctively dreading entrance into the sinister house where her father and Jake Dalton had met nameless doom. But then, realizing that Douglas had lived here for weeks without harm, she followed him in. Her moving feet made an unwonted noise on the boards—the patter of leather-heeled shoes, which the gnawing chill had at last compelled her to don. The sombre echo of the sound in the bare room halted her again.
“Ain’t you got a light?” she requested. “I—I don’t like this place, so dark and holler.”
“I’ll light up. Take this chair.” The one chair in the place came rumbling toward her, and she sank on it as he worked on the lamp. When the white flame was lighting up the room he set the illuminator on the table and turned to her, neglecting to draw the burlap window-curtains which he had made some time ago.
“I was up in the rocks all day,” he explained. “Found something, too, that may help to catch Snake. But now tell me all about it.”
“Well, this is what I hear, and it’s what Lou said her own self after she got so’s she could talk. Snake took her up on top the Big Wall last night and throwed her off——”
“Good God! Threw her off the Wall?”
“That’s right. Snake ain’t been to home much lately—you know that—but he’s come in a few times, and then he was so ugly to her she dasn’t go lookin’ round to find out where he was when he was away. He told her if she stepped a foot away from the house he’d know about it, and he’d fix her so’s she wouldn’tbe able to walk or talk any more, and if anybody come a-huntin’ him she’d got to say she didn’t know where he was, and so on. But last night he come in ’long toward dark, and he was laughin’ fit to kill. And he said he’d got an awful good joke onto the detectives.
“She asked him what ’twas, of course, and he wouldn’t tell her. But he said he’d show her if she’d hurry up to the top of the Wall. He said the detectives had got into the rocks down under the Wall, and when she could see what they were up to she’d ’most die laughin’. But she’d have to come and see it her own self.
“Well, Lou, she—she ain’t very bright, you know. And she was so glad to see him good-natured and so curious about this joke onto the detectives, she went right ’long up there with him. And he went right to the edge and looked round a little, and then he says: ‘There! See ’em, right up under here? It’s a-gittin’ dark down there, but look close and you’ll make ’em out. Ain’t that funny, now?’
“Lou, she couldn’t see anything but rocks. But he kept a-tellin’ her she was too far back, so she edged up closer and closer, still a-lookin’. Then all of a sudden she heard Snake laugh again, and he had sneaked behind her, and that laugh scairt her. She looked round quick, and he was grinnin’ like death. And before she could move he shoved her off. The murderin’ copperhead! He’d brought her up there jest to kill her.”
Her fingers, twining and intertwining over one kneewhile she talked, gripped hard. Unable longer to sit still, she sprang up.
“D’you know where he is? If you do, git him quick! Lou wasn’t a friend to me—she hated me—but he’s got to be kilt for what he done! He——”
“Go on,” he broke in. “Tell me all of it. Then I’ll see what we can do.”
“Yes—yes, that’s right. Well, Lou would have been kilt right quick, only for one thing. There was a tree part-way down, growin’ right off the face of the wall, the way they do sometimes—a hemlock, stickin’ out on a slant. And Lou struck right into it. She was fallin’ awful fast, and she hit it so hard it—it hurt her terrible; and the tree tore off from the little ledge, and it went ’long down with her. She landed into the rocks, of course. But that tree had stopped her enough so that the rocks didn’t kill her.
“She laid there a long time, and when she got her senses back it was all dark. But then a light showed right close by, and what d’you s’pose she saw? Snake! Snake, with an ax into one hand and a lantern into the other, a-lookin’ for her!
“He must have seen that tree stop her, and he’d come down through the Gap and worked ’long through the rocks to be sure she was dead. He was a-callin’ to her, and sayin’ he’d help her, and so on. But she kept dead still. She was into a shadow beside one of the rocks, and he went right by her. She never moved till he quit lookin’ and come back, swearin’ at her and the dark and everything. And then when she was sure he was gone, she started crawlin’.”
She stopped again, her hands clenched. Douglas, visioning that awful scene at the base of the night-bound crags, stood with jaw set. Presently she resumed the tragic narrative.
“I dunno how she could do it, but she did—she crawled down through the rocks and over pretty near to the road. It took her more’n half the night to do it—it was ’most two o’clock into the mornin’ when they found her. She couldn’t git any further, and she laid there a-cryin’ and a-screamin’—— Oh, why does God let a devil like Snake live? Seems like He ain’t much good to let sech things be!
“But anyway, there was two fellers out coon-huntin’, and the dogs had run a coon up that way, and they found Lou. It was Tom Malley and Joe Weeks—they live ’way ’long on the Paltz road, and they’d drove up this way to hunt. They went and got their wagon and put Lou in and took her down to the Malley place, and while Tom’s folks did what they could he put for the doctor, ’way over to Paltz. The doctor, he says she might live a few days, but that’s all. She’s awful tough, like all the Bracketts—they die hard. But she can’t live; she’s hurt too bad.”
“And she was able to tell about it?”
“Yes, a little to a time. And Missus Malley, Tom’s wife, she was sharp enough to have it all wrote down. There’s quite a family of ’em, the Malleys, and the oldest boy is quick at writin’, folks say; and she made him set there by the bed and write down every word Lou said. The doctor said that was a right smartthing to do, and the detectives said so too. They didn’t have to ask her——”
“The detectives? Did they go down there?”
“One of ’em did. T’other stayed here. They’re both here now. Tom Malley was so mad he drove up here this mornin’ and told everybody he come across about it, and he met the detectives, and one of ’em went back with him—the quiet one that don’t look so much like a bulldog.”
“Ward. He’s the brains of the combination. And I suppose nobody else around here is doing anything but talk about it.”
“Ain’t they? You’re the only one, Mister Hammerless Hampton, that ain’t! Our fellers are kind of rough, mebbe, some of ’em, but they don’t set still after a thing like this! Every gun into the Traps is out after Snake, ’ceptin’ yours and mine. And mine’s been waitin’ for him ever since pop got kilt.”
“So has mine,” he reminded her. “What are the boys doing?”
“They’re a-watchin’ every way out of the Traps. They know he ain’t gone—they ’most caught him this afternoon, up to his house. He didn’t know about Lou bein’ alive and found, I s’pose, and he was gittin’ his stuff together as if he was goin’ somewheres—gun and food and oil and so on—— What would he want oil for, I wonder? Anyway, he skinned out of a back winder when they jumped in at the door. Job Clark shot at him, but he missed, and Snake got into the woods and they lost him. But the house is bein’ watched now, and so’s every road and trail. He’s gothis gun, though, and if you’re a-goin’ to stay in to-night you’d better lock up tight. He might come and git you. And now I’d better go home.”
“Wait. I’ll go along with you. But let me figure on this thing first.”
For a silent minute or two he fixedly regarded the blank wall. As steadily, she watched him. Soon he nodded.
“That’s the best way,” he said, half to himself. “I’d like to get him single-handed, but if he should get me instead—nobody else would know where he was hanging out. Yep, I’ll take some of the boys with me.” Turning his gaze to her, he announced decisively: “By to-morrow noon Snake will be dead or in a trap he can’t squirm out of. I found his hole to-day, and as soon as daylight comes I’ll get some of the fellows together and we’ll bottle him up. No use trying it to-night—I couldn’t find the place myself in the dark. But if all the trails are watched he can’t go anywhere else, and getting him will be easy. All we have to do is to sit around like a bunch of terriers watching a rat-hole, and when he comes out—nothing to it!”
“Where? Where is it?” she demanded. “Are you sure it’s his place? Mebbe—mebbe some of the boys——”
“No, it’s none of the boys,” he smiled. “The boys have cleaned up all their places lately—hid everything somewhere, so the detectives wouldn’t see too much if they went poking around. And I know this is Snake’s place because his jug is there—green paint on one side—remember?I’ll tell you all about it some other time. But now—say, here’s an idea! I’ll try to get those detectives both up there, and while we know where they are you go to Steve and try to make him leave that cold hole of his and find a better place. If he wants to make a run for it and leave the Traps awhile, nobody’ll stop him——”
A shake of the head negatived his budding plan.
“He won’t run, and he won’t change, and he won’t listen to sense,” she declared. “He’s more set and wild than ever now. He’s got to git Snake, he says, ’fore somebody else does. I hadn’t ought to told him, mebbe. But I did tell him—I went to him jest now and told him ’bout Lou and all. I jest got back from there—I ain’t even been home yet. I wish I’d kept still. He’s crazy as a coot. He swore he’d come out and git Snake his own self, detectives or no detectives, and he’d take pop’s gun to do it with. I had an awful time quietin’ him down. He’s sick again, too—his lung’s bad some more.”
“Good Lord! Sick again?”
“Yes, sick again. He looks awful bad. I dunno if he—— But I’d better git ’long home. He’s so wild about Snake he might come and git that gun, sick or no sick.”
“But you said you quieted him down.”
“Mebbe I did. I hope so. I told him he couldn’t have that gun ’cause I had to have it my own self, and that made him shut up. But he wouldn’t promise to stay where he was—he wouldn’t say yes or no or nothin’. And he’s so bull-headed when he gitshis mind set, he might—— Well, I’m a-goin’. G’by.”
As she turned doorward, he stopped her with a swiftly formed decision.
“Just a minute more, Marion. I’m going with you, as I said before; and I’m going to stay. My job to-night is going to be standing guard at your house. Then you and your mother can get a good sound sleep. It isn’t Steve I’m thinking about—it’s Snake. If he intends to call on anybody to-night it’s more likely to be on you than on me. So if you don’t mind my sitting on your steps——”
The sentence never was finished. Nor was the plan ever carried out.
As Douglas turned to step toward his hat, coat, and gun, the front door jumped inward.
Snake Sanders, shotgun leveled at his hip, evil face aflame, stood in the room.