“Now.” Sam slapped his leg again. “There’s a lad! Eye right on the main issue!” Sam chuckled, winking at Jean. “Make a team, you an’ me. We might even go west together, that’s what.”
“I can see that!” Fud sneered. “Sam, you’re talkin’ fool talk.” Sam lifted a thick, admonishing finger. “Don’t take the boy lightly, Fud. Nobody in town is friendly to him, slurring his mother like they do, figuring his father no good, ready to clap the boy in the workhouse. No, sir! The boy’s with us, aren’t you, boy?”
“I hear things,” Jean agreed, “an’ folks don’t pay me much mind.” Sam puffed on his pipe, his mind far away. The fire crackled on the hearth and the man in the bunk turned over, moving uneasily in his sleep, like a cat. Jean’s ears strained into the darkness, striving to hear sounds he did not wish to hear. Was Rob safely out of earshot? How much time had passed? “While you’re doin’ this plannin’,” Fud’s voice was sarcastic, “s’pose you figure what we’ll do with him while we’re gone. You goin’ to leave him loose?” Sam shook his head regretfully. “Not that I don’t trust you, boy, but for safety’s sake we’ll lock the door.”
Outside the wind was lifting. Sam got out a deck of worn playing cards and shuffled them. The man on the bunk fumbled at his face with a lax hand, and then his eyes opened and he lay for several minutes adjusting himself to the scene, his eyes continually returning to Jean. He was younger than the others, a lean, savage young man with dark hollows beneath his eyes and a yellowish cast to his face. He sat up finally, watching Sam handle the cards. Fud gestured Jean from the chair and sat down himself. The younger man, scratching his ribs and yawning, joined them.
“You slept long enough,” Fud commented.
The young man turned his black eyes on Fud but made no comment. Sam began dealing the cards and Jean guessed that Sam was wary of this man. Fud he treated with casual contempt but there was something about this young man no one in his right mind would treat casually.
“Who’s the boy?” he asked suddenly, without looking up from his cards. Sam explained, taking his time and attempting to make all the details clear. The young man did not look up nor did he interrupt, he just listened. “We got to have information,” Sam finished, “and we can’t keep showing up in town. Certainly not you, nor me with this scar. There’s men in town will remember how I come by this scar.”
“They’ve never seen me.”
“They know your family, Ring. They saw your father and brother, and you’re like them as can be.”
Jean’s head nodded wearily, then jerked awake. The others still played cards. Sam glanced at him kindly, then nodded his head toward the corner. “Take a rest, boy, you’ll need it.”
There was nothing he could do. Wherever Rob Walker was, all was in his hands now, and Jean was terribly tired. His head no sooner touched the blanket than he was asleep.
A long time later he opened his eyes and the house was dark. He listened, but he heard no sound of snoring or breathing. Carefully, he sat up and looked around in the darkness. He was alone … the stone house was empty but for himself. Rising quickly he went to the door. It was fastened on the outside. The earthen floor was packed hard, like cement, and he knew the stones of the house were sunk deep into the ground. Even if he had something with which to dig it would require hours to make a hole big enough for him to crawl out. The window was solidly boarded and too small, anyway. When he had exhausted all the possibilities of escape he sat down on the floor and stared at the small opening left by the knothole. Outside it was still night, but he must have slept a good long while. Soon it would be growing light.
4
When Rob Walker reached Mill Creek Road he was sobbing with fear and exhaustion. The ridge had proved to be a wild tangle of bramble, broken rock and wind-wracked pines. Under the white light of the moon it lay lonely and desolate and nowhere could he find the path which Jean had mentioned once, months ago. Ghostly shadows of sentinel pines loomed about him, and he began scrambling over the jagged rocks and pushing through the brush toward the road. Branches tore at his clothing and twice he fell, skinning the side of his face on a rock. Briars snagged his clothing, yet he pushed on, knowing Jean was in danger, that he must bring help.
When at last he reached the road he was out of breath, his skin scratched and bruised, his clothing torn. The road lay wide and white in the moonlight with the black wall of the swamp on his right, on his left a rail fence bordering a pasture. Beyond the pasture was Mill Creek itself, and the air was damp and cool. He started to run, his short legs making hard work of it. Already breathless from his scramble over the ridge, pain stabbed at his side, but within him was a terrible fear that made a lie of his weariness. He had no idea of the hour. It had been late afternoon when they started to follow the stranger, and dark when they lay outside the cabin. To circle around and climb the ridge must have taken at least an hour, for he had crept some distance before he trusted the noise not to reach the men in the cabin, and it had taken another hour to creep by the cabin. It must have taken him at least two hours to reach the road, maybe more: he had stopped many times to catch his breath and listen for sounds in the night.
It was the first time he had been away from home after dark and his folks would be frightened. They were not lenient, and it was understood he must either be in the house or his own yard before dark. Finally, unable to run farther, he began to walk. He wanted nothing so much as to stop, to sit down, to lie down. Never had he been so utterly exhausted. This morning his mother had put out a clean shirt for him and now it was soaked with sweat, bloodstained and torn by brambles.
Far up the road he glimpsed a light. That would be the old Chancel house, and not a quarter of a mile beyond was the tavern, and only a little farther, a few steps only, was his own home. At last he ran up the path and burst into the door.
His mother started to her feet, her face tear-stained, and his father, who had been pacing the floor as he always did when worried, turned sharply, ready to scold. When he saw Rob’s face and the condition of his clothing the words died unspoken.
“What is it, son? What’s wrong?”
The story spilled out in sobbing gasps, and for the moment he forgot that he had been forbidden to go into the swamp or to associate with Jean LaBarge. His father listened, his eyes on Rob’s face, seeing more than was being said. He knew his own son, and sometimes had wondered about the boy. Now he saw courage there, and if there was fear also, it was fear for Jean. Rob had always been frightened of his father, a quiet, stern man. Suddenly, for the first time, he felt they were on common ground. His father asked no foolish questions, wasted no time on angry complaints.
“You can take us back there? Do you know the way?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Three men, you said? And Jean thought they were the Carters?”
“Yes.”
“Come.” Walker put his hand on his son’s arm. “We’ll go to the tavern.” “But can’t you take care of it without him?” Rob’s mother protested. “The child hasn’t eaten and look at his clothes! He …”
“He will have to come with me. Anyway,” Rob’s father added, “it is his story and I believe he had better tell it.”
Side by side they walked to the tavern. Rob had rarely been inside, only when he and Jean had slipped in to listen to stories being told, when some traveler was there from the west, or going west. It was a large room, low-raftered and smoky. On the right was a huge fireplace and near it a dozen men sat about a worn black table with mugs of beer or rum, smoking their pipes. The place had a dark, rich smell that was always exciting, and the glint of light on burnished copper. As they entered, all eyes swung to them. Across the table Captain Hutchins lifted his level blue eyes and looked at Rob, then nodded to Rob’s father. “Hutchins,” Walker said abruptly, “my son has something to tell you.” Rob began to speak, hesitantly at first, and then remembering Jean he spoke more boldly and swiftly, telling the story from the beginning. He repeated what conversation they had overheard from within the stone house, and Jean’s whispered report that three men were inside. Captain Hutchins listened without speaking, his eyes never leaving Rob’s. When Rob finished, Walker got to his feet and knocked out his pipe.