XXII
Wolfe crumpled on the icy doorstep. With the palm of one of his half frozen hands he beat against the door. The only answer he had was the dull rattle of the wooden latch. He struggled upward, seized the coonhide latch-string, and gave it a nervous jerk. The door creaked slowly inward. There was no person in the cabin. Wolfe entered on his hands and knees, reached a crude chair beside the hearth, and drew himself into it with difficulty.
A fire burned brightly in the wide stone fireplace, and in a corner of the room lay a little heap of wood with particles of snow still clinging to it; the cabin had not long been deserted, certainly. After he had rested for a few minutes, Wolfe went first to the door at the rear and then to the door at the front, and looked for his wife's footprints in the snow outside. He recognized only the footprints of Cat-Eye Mayfield and himself.
More anxious than ever, he leaned weakly against the jamb, put his cupped hands to his mouth, and shouted.
"Tot! Tot!"
The rockbound hills sent her name back to him in echoes that were worse than maddening.
"Tot!" he called again; and again came the echo,Tot!
Once more he called, and this time the voice that floated back to him was a little broken. He felt that he was about to fall. He crept dizzily to his chair, pushed it closer to the fire and climbed into it, and put out his hands and feet to warm them.
As the cold's numbness left him, his mind became clearer. He began to look about him. Tot's spare clothing lay nicely folded on a shelf beside his own, as usual. Tot's rifle was not in its place over the smoked log mantel. Every cent of their savings and the other money was gone. The bed was rumpled badly on one side. A few scattered bits of food and an unwashed frying-pan on the rough dining-table gave it a distinctly untidy appearance. These tokens offered Wolfe scant reason to hope that his wife was safe. All manner of fearful possibilities came to torture his already over-wrought brain. Perhaps——
His thoughts were broken into rudely by the sounds of masculine footsteps in the crusty snow beyond the doorstep. A rasping voice began to sing a snatch of foolish song:
"Sally she had a dream last night;It was a pow'ful droll one.She dremp' she had a petticoatMade o' her mammy's old one!"
"Sally she had a dream last night;It was a pow'ful droll one.She dremp' she had a petticoatMade o' her mammy's old one!"
"Sally she had a dream last night;It was a pow'ful droll one.She dremp' she had a petticoatMade o' her mammy's old one!"
"Sally she had a dream last night;
It was a pow'ful droll one.
She dremp' she had a petticoat
Made o' her mammy's old one!"
Wolfe switched his gaze toward the open doorway. Cat-Eye Mayfield entered and stamped the snow from his run-over cowhide boots noisily. In one hand he carried the rusty, old-fashioned, muzzle-loadingshotgun that he had lost a few evenings before.
"And so ye got back, did ye?" he said hoarsely; he was suffering from a severe cold in his throat. "I told ye it wouldn't take more'n three days o' good, hard crawlin' like a lizard, didn't I?"
"Where's my wife?" Wolfe demanded.
Mayfield laughed gratingly. It was not forced. Wolfe's anxiety delighted him. He dropped into the other homemade chair and trained the shotgun across his lap, straight at Wolfe's face.
"Where's my wife?"
"Now you jest be keerful 'at ye don't start somethin' 'at ye cain't stop," Mayfield warned, at the same time thumbing back the old muzzle-loader's hammer. It was a clumsy thing. "I'll tell ye whar yore wife is at, Little Buck, in my own good time, and not a minute afore; please git that, will ye?
"I reckon," he went on forthwith, "you're a-wonderin' what I've done about the rifles and the money, hain't ye? Well, I broke Tot's rifle, and throwed it in the lake; I hid yore rifle whar I hid the money. This here old shotgun is all the weapon I want fo' you. I hain't a-wantin' to kill ye. It would end yore mis'ry too soon. I want ye to suffer a long time, and I'm a-goin' to make ye suffer a long time! The' hain't nary grain o' lead in this here old gun. The' hain't nothin' but powder—six loads o' powder, all tamped in tight wi' clay. You couldn't never guess what I'm a-goin' to do with it, so I'll tell ye.
"I'm a-goin' to shoot ye in the face wi' powder, and black it fo' good jest like a nigger's, and put yore eyes out—atter I've told ye what I've got to tell ye. Fust off, you're a-goin' to spend the rest o' yore days a-wanderin' in Doe River Wilderness as blind as a bat, a-eatin' leaves and grass and roots—keerful ther, Little Buck Wolfe, or I'll shoot right now!"
His voice rang with hatred and—insanity! But Wolfe was in no condition to take note of the latter. Wolfe was sitting up straight, his eyes glittering, his hands gripping the sides of his homemade chair as though they would crush the wooden splints. For a moment he seemed about to defy the threatening shotgun and attack its owner in spite of his badly injured leg.
But the wicked eagerness he saw in Mayfield's lean face caused him to relax. He did not doubt that Mayfield would pull the trigger at the slightest provocation. It would be best to wait. If he waited, there might be a chance——
"Tell me about Tot," he said unsteadily. "And if you've harmed her, Cat-Eye——"
"Now don't go so dang fast," broke in Mayfield, crossing his lanky legs without in the least spoiling the shotgun's aim. "I hain't even laid the weight o' my little finger on Tot. I shorely hain't. I managed my revenge another way. It was right cute, too! Well, here's the whole thing. Little Buck; and ef ye tries to git at me whilst I'm a-tellin' it, I'll shoot—and when I shoot, black goes yore face and out goes yore eyes. I hopes ye onderstand me.
"All right," he ran on, enjoying every moment of it. "When I got here, it was sev'ral hours atter night, and the moon it was a-shinin' as bright as day. The' was a light in the cabin window here—to show you the way home, I reckon. I hides myself ahind of a tree, and watches fo' a little while. Tot she'd come to the door every few minutes, and look out. Once she must ha' imagined she'd heerd you a-comin', acause she runs out in the woods a-callin' you.
"'Little Buck, whar are you at, honey?' she says. 'Do come on, honey; you must be half froze,' she says, jest the same as ef you was a kid! Bah!
"But the only answer she got was none. So she goes back in the house here, whar she sets down and cries, jest like wimmen will, ye know—now you be keerful thar, Little Buck. You can see, shorely, I'm mighty nigh it a-dyin' to shoot.
"Well," he continued, "I done already had everything planned out to a fare-you-well finish afore I got here. I took yore rifle down to the aidge o' the lake thar at the big beech, and laid it down half in the water and half out. I throwed yore hat out in the lake, and it floated jest like I'd figgered it would float. I doubles up yore coat, and puts it inside o' my shirt. I hides yore ca'tridge-belt in a clump o' laurel. Then I picks up a great, big rock from the lake's bank and holds it up above my head in both hands, and waits fo' a lull in the wind.
"When the wind it had lulled a little I throwed the big rock out in the lake. It made a pow'ful noisy splash jest like I'd wanted it to do. And 'en I commenced a-bellerin' as loud as I could beller and not bust a lung wide open.
"'Swim Little Buck swim! Kick wi' yore feet and paddle wi' yore hands! Swim! Swim!' I bellers. 'It's pow'ful deep and ef ye don't swim,' I bellers, 'you're shore to drownd!'
"And 'en I kicked in the water wi' one foot, and bellered a little more.
"Well, Tot she comes jest a-flyin' from the cabin here, which was edzactly what I'd looked fo' her to do. What makes some wimmen so dang foolish about one man when the world's full o' menfolks was allus more'n I could onderstand. And in the bright moonlight I could see 'at her face was as white or whiter'n the snow onder her feet. Her hands they was both stretched out in front o' her.
"'Little Buck,' she says, bad skeered, 'whar are you at, honey—whar are you at? says she.
"I goes to meet her, o' course. And I acted as ef I was shore turrible bad excited.
"'He fell in the lake!' I tells her. 'He slipped and fell in the lake! Le's git a rope, or a long pole, and mebbe we can git him out afore he's drownded!' Haw—haw—haw!
"I had—keerful, Little Buck; you cain't slip on me!—had already spotted a pole. I picks it up and runs back to the big beech, and holds it out over the water.
"'Ketch a-holt o' this here, Little Buck!' I squalls. 'Ketch a holt o' this here!' Then I stoops and looks out over the black lake. 'He's done went down,' I says to Tot, who was a-standin' aside o' me a-wringin' her hands. 'Pore boy; I cain't see nothin' but his hat a-floatin' out thar,' I says.
"'And you pushed him in, you brute!' says Tot, all a-sobbin'. 'Go in and try to git him out, Cat-Eye!' she says.
"'I didn't push him in,' says I; 'but I'll do all I can to git him out. It may gi' me my death o' cold,' I says, 'but I wouldn't mind anything fo' yore sake, little gyurl!'
"Keerful thar——
"And wi' that, I yanks off my old ragged coat and throws it and my old ragged hat to the snow, and dives right in head-foremos'. The water it wasn't so awful cold, it a-bein' nothin' but a monst'ous big spring—springs is allus cold in the summer and warm in winter, y' know—but it made me hoarse in my talk, as ye've done noticed, I reckon. I've been a-doctorin' my throat the best I could; but I'm still hoarse——"
"Never mind stretching it out like that!" Wolfe interrupted angrily. "Go on with it!"
Mayfield grinned a broad, evil grin. He was enjoying to the fullest his hour of triumph.
"Why," he leered, "you're danged anxious to have it over with and git yore face burnt black and yore eyes burnt out, hain't ye?
"All right; as I said, I dived into the lake and found 'at the water wasn't so cold atter all. I paddled and kicked ontel I'd worked my way deep down in the lake. Thar I took yore coat out from the inside o' my shirt, ketched it by the bottom, and let myself come back to the top o' the water. The minute my head pops up into the wind, it mighty nigh freezes off, o' course. How I spluttered and puffed and blowed! Tot was a-standin' on the bank onder the beech; she was a-leanin' out toward me.
"'Did ye find him?' she says, anxious-like. 'Did ye find Little Buck fo' me? Oh,' she says, 'don't ye dare to tell me you never found him, Cat-Eye!'
"I swims to Tot, and reaches yore coat up to her.
"'He'd lodged ag'in a rock ledge down thar,' I tells her, wi' my teeth a-chatterin' from the cold wind. 'I ketched him by the bottom o' the coat; but he slipped out of it, and rolled off o' the rock ledge, and sunk on down, hundreds o' feet in 'at black hole! He's gone, pore little gyurl,' I says. 'He's gone forever. What a pity it was he couldn't swim!' I says.
"And Tot she stands thar a-starin' at me wi' them 'ar big, fine, purty blue eyes o' her'n filled wi' the tarment o' hell itself. I'll own up 'at I did feel jest a bit mean over what I was a-doin'—you ta' keer, or I'll pull the trigger and put out yore blasted eyes! Don't you make nary 'nother move like as ef ye was a-goin' to jump at me, neither; do ye onderstand me?
"Well, I crawls a-drippin' out in that turrible cold wind, and says to Tot, 'AsI'm jest about to freeze to death,' says I, 'I reckon I'd better run to the fire.'
"Git his hat fo' me,' begs Tot.
"I jumps in the lake and brings her yore hat. She wanted to know ef I'd done every blessed thing I could do to save ye, and I swore I shorely had. I went to the house, and stirred up the fire, and stood afore it, a-turnin' fust one side to it and 'en t'other. Tot she didn't foller me to the house. I watched her through a window. She stood out thar in the awful cold, wi' yore wet coat and hat pressed to her bosom, fo' two solid hours afore she moved a single inch.
"And I says to myself, I says, 'Mebbe I hain't a-gittin' even and square wi' you fo' a-turnin' me down and a-takin' that 'ar light-headed artickle you took fo' a husband! Mebbe I hain't a-gittin' even and square wi' you!' I says to myself. I——"
"You yellow-hearted scoundrel!" Wolfe exploded.
"Ta' keer! Ta' keer!" Mayfield cautioned. "You hain't in no p'sition to be a-callin' me ugly names. I never did like to be called ugly names, and I hain't a-goin' to put up with it."
Wolfe sank back in his chair. "All right," he said, "get the rest of it out of you."
"Well," the other pursued, "I knowed wimmen was scatter-brained and foolish when they was in love. I know the wimmenfolks and their ways, y' see. I'd figgered it out 'at Tot she would drownd herself to be wi' you in death. Wimmen's awful crazy when they're in love. And 'specially these here mountain wimmen. You know how they loves when they loves at all. So as I watched Tot through the window, I shorely expected to see her jump in the lake and go down. But she didn't. She fin'ly come to the house and set down afore the fire. Yore coat and hat was still in her arms, and they was froze stiff now—yore coat and hat was. Her face it was all pinched and blue wi' the cold.
"When she'd warmed up a little, she says to me, 'Tell me how it happened.'
"'It was this a-way,' says I. 'Little Buck he follered me over to a creek, and ketched me thar. He was a-bringin' me in, and we was a-walkin' along aside o' the lake, and his foot slipped on the ice. You know all o' the rest,' I says.
"'You pushed him in, you brute!' she says to me. 'You pushed him in, you brute!'
"'That's pow'ful foolish talk, little gyurl,' says I. 'You hain't got no right to 'cuse me o' sech a thing, atter I resked my life a-tryin' to git him out. It makes me feel plum' bad,' I says.
"But she stuck to it 'at I was the cause o' yore death, and all the argyfyin' I could do didn't change her notions a dang bit. And fin'ly I tells her this here:
"'Have it yore way, like wimmenfolks allus does,' I says. 'You can shoot me ef ye want to. I promise ye I won't raise a hand to keep ye from it,' I was jest a-bluffin', ye onderstand.
"'The only reason I hain't already shot ye,' Tot says, 'is 'at I'm afeard blood on my soul, even the blood of a rattlesnake like you, might keep me from a-goin' to Little Buck when I die. Even the blood of a snake is red,' says she.
"And I won't never fo'git how she looked when she told me that. Ef it hadn't ha' been fo' my hate fo' you, Little Buck Wolfe, I'd ha' quit right thar, shorely.
"Well, I laid down on the floor afore the fire, and soon drapped off to sleep. When I woke up, daylight was a-breakin'. Tot she was still a-settin' thar a-holdin' yore wet clo'es to her bosom. Her breath it was a-comin' wheezy and quick, and she had a scratchy sawt o' cough; her eyes they was as bright as coals o' fire, and her face was a-burnin' wi' fever.
"You contemptible devil!" cried Wolfe, every nerve in his body at taut as a violin string.
"Keerful now!" said Mayfield, his finger feeling for the trigger. "You hain't in any p'sition to be a-callin' me ugly names."
Wolfe quieted himself by a supreme effort. "Tell the rest," he urged.
It was all very plausible, just the thing, in fact, for Mayfield to do. Therefore, it did not occur to Wolfe that the wretch had lied to him—and the wretch hadn't.
"The' hain't a dang bit o' use in a-bein' so allfired fidgety," said Mayfield. "I'll git to the p'int in my own good time. I'm a-holdin' it off a purpose to see you wriggle. It's the biggest kind o' fun to me, to see you wriggle like a worm in hot ashes.
"All right. Well, as soon as it was broad daylight, Tot she gits up and goes out to the bank o' the lake whar she thought you'd went in at. I watched her throughthe window. I seed her stoop down clost to the water and pick up yore rifle, which I'd laid thar to fool her. She made shore it was yore'n, and took it to her bosom wi' yore coat and hat. Atter a little while o' standin' thar a-starin' down into the lake, she comes back to the house. She was a-staggerin' now; she was as wild as a rabbit in her head, jest plum' delirrus, and she commenced a-talkin' to you.
"'Little Buck,' she says, 'whar are you at, honey? I want you now,' she says. 'Why don't you answer me, Little Buck? Whar are you at? Why don't you come to me? Why don't you come to yore Tot?' she says; and she sobs a little at the last.
"And I knowed as I listened to her a-talkin' that a-way 'at my big vict'ry was at hand. Then I heerd her say, reel soft, this here:
"'I remember—I remember, now. How lonesome you must be down in that black hole without me!' she says—ta' keer thar, Little Buck Wolfe, ta' keer!
"Tot she goes to the table and puts down yore rifle, hat and coat. She takes a little Bible-book from the mantel, and puts it in her bosom. I watches her clost. She went out to the big beech aside o' the lake. I follered her, a-keepin' whar she wouldn't notice me. She turned her burnin' eyes uppards, and raised both arms. I seed the light o' the risin' sun sparkle on the di'mont o' the ring 'at was on her finger. Her copper-colored hair it looked like gold. I bit the inside o' my mouth ontel it bled, acause I was somehow afeard.
"'I'm a-comin' to ye, honey,' she says delirruslike. 'It's better to lay down thar in that etarnal night wi' you 'an to live on in this lonesome, lonesome world. Open yore arms fo' me, Little Buck,' says she, 'like ye used to—I'm a-comin' to be wi' you, my own!' she says.
"And she walked straight down in the water and went onder; and the last I seed o' her was one little, white hand——"
"One little, white hand—" Wolfe interrupted in a terrible voice. He could govern himself no longer—he straightened on his sound leg and sprang, his hands before his eyes to protect them from the powder. There was an oath from the lips of Mayfield, and immediately afterward came a great flash and a great roar. Wolfe found himself groping in a stifling white cloud of powder smoke—but he had not been burned in the least degree!
He dropped to his hands and knees and peered under the slowly-lifting cloud. He saw Cat-Eye Mayfield lying supine on the floor, with the old shotgun across his narrow chest. He crept forward, meaning to kill the unspeakable reptile with his bare hands—meaning to strangle the wicked life out.
When he reached Mayfield, he saw that the shotgun, which had been loaded beyond its power of resistance, had split for eight inches at the breech—and Mayfield's lean face was burned as black as that of an Ethiopian; his eyes were perfectly and incurably blind! The monster of his own foul brain's creation had turned upon him.
Wolfe uttered a cry that makes the finest description puny. He seized the other's slender throat in a viselike grip. The blind eyes stared toward him. Then he recalled the words of Tot.
"Even the blood of a snake is red."
His hands left Mayfield's neck. He rose and limped out of the cabin, and went to the big beech that stood beside Tot's beautiful Lake of Peace. There he saw many of his wife's small footprints in the snow——
Lying in the edge of the water, he found a dark blue shawl that she had been wont to wear about her shoulders when the weather was cold. Beside it lay a tortoise-shell comb. A branch that hung low over the lake had kept for him a few strands of hair that was of the color of dark copper. He wrung the water from the shawl and put it, with the other little treasures, on the snow beside him. Almost he wished, now, that he had killed Mayfield——
A sudden weird, skittering shriek split the air like a knife. He turned his head quickly. Through the mist of his sorrow he saw blind Cat-Eye Mayfield rushing toward the lake. Mayfield's thin lips were parted and jerking; his blackened face was contorted and hideous. No man may be himself when he has suffered as young Wolfe had suffered; Wolfe laughed thickly, oddly, mimicking the hoarse laugh that was Mayfield's.
"Haw-haw-haw!"
The sightless man fell to his hands and knees and began to grope for the edge of the lake. Soon he had found it. Then he straightened and turned his hideous face—a singular thing, and inexplicable—as squarely toward Little Buck Wolfe as though he had eyes to see him.
"I'm a-goin' to give up what the' is left o' me to make you suffer more!" Mayfield gibbered. "I'm a-goin' to lay down thar in 'at black hole wi' her—wi' Tot Singleton—I'm a-goin' to be buried in the same grave wi' her, yore wife, and he'p yeself ef ye can!"
Yes, the man was insane. Hatred had absorbed all his faculties.
Wolfe stood like a work in bronze, and stared. Mayfield ran into the water, cursing as he went, and sank like a stone, down, down, down to darkness eternal. Wolfe even went whiter as he watched the bubbles and lessening ripples that marked the spot where the worst man in the world had died that his devilish triumph might be a little greater.
His lips moved, and it was to say this, brokenly, "My cup—of bitterness—is brimming. Why, my God, why?"
He made his way back to the lonesome cabin. He threw the burst shotgun out to the snow, which hid it mercifully, and tossed Mayfield's slouch hat into the fire.
There was a little of sweet, sad comfort in handling the things that had been his wife's. When he could no longer bear to look upon them, he pushed a chair to the cabin's front doorway and sat down, unmindful of the cold, and absently watched the chilled sun sink behind the snowy forest.
A great silence was about him. There was not even a wind to sigh in the tops of the giant hemlocks. It was quite as though he were the sole inhabitant of some lost, dead world.