Chapter XXIV: A Projected Excursion

“Don’t interrupt,” ordered Dorothy peremptorily. Like the rest of us, she was eager for the end of the nurse’s tale. “You can talk about her good looks later; we want to hear what happened next. Go on, Miss Christie!”

And Miss Christie went on, rather less sadly, I thought.

“Well, I’d have been up there yet, I reckon, if last fall my stepfather hadn’t wanted me to get m-married.” She blushed. “There was a man, Calvin Collender, whom they called ‘Cal Col.’ He used to work with my stepfather. Since prohibition, you see, my stepfather had been making corn whisky faster than ever. He bought up corn from all over the mountains and put up a bigger still, and they used to smuggle it out some way and sell it down in the settlements. He used to come back with his pockets just bulging with money, all in gold; he had no faith in paper money, and he’d bury the gold somewhere. Why, he must have made thousands and thousands of dollars--is making it yet, I suppose. And this Collender, this Cal Col, was his chief helper, a tall, thin man, with a sharp nose and a short chin, like those mountaineers have, and little, mean-looking eyes. He was lots older than I; he was a widower, too. And my stepfather kept after me and after me. He said I ought to be grateful; that it wasn’t every man would marry a woman like me, who’d had book learning and knew things it wasn’t fitting for a woman to know.

“I couldn’t stand that. It was bad enough with Roaring Lafe, but to go to this other man, this Cal Col, who wasn’t even brave, I couldn’t! I remembered my poor mother, and how she’d just faded away, and I thought it was better to die right then. And Lafe Rutledge was a _man_; you had to respect him, in spite of all his terrible ways. But this Cal Col was just like a creeping, crawly snake, afraid of my stepfather, afraid of the law, afraid of everything, even of me, I think. He used to look at me sideways, with those dry, bright little eyes, just like a rattlesnake. And I knew he’d beat me if he dared.

“So one night last winter I just ran away, down the mountain all alone. It began to snow while I was climbing down toward Asheville, and I was so glad! I knew the dogs couldn’t follow me then. My stepfather had a dozen bloodhounds. And I got clear away, somehow, and bought a veil to put over my face; then I took the train and came right here to Pinelands; I didn’t know what else to do. If I went back to Raleigh, I knew my stepfather would find me.

“And I got off the train here and went to a hotel. It was in the winter, you see, and the town was full of tourists from the North; nobody noticed one more. I phoned to Doctor Gaskell, and he came right away and told me about this place. Miss McGregor had asked him to find a nurse for her that very day.

“So he recommended me, and I got the place and came to Fort House. I’ve been here ever since. Perhaps you’ve wondered why I kept so close in the house and never went anywhere? Or, perhaps, you just thought I was too sleepy and sluggish to want to go out. But I saw that man Satterfield downtown one day, and I didn’t dare show myself after that, for I’d seen him on the Devil’s Branch, at my stepfather’s, twice. He had something to do with disposing of the liquor they made; I don’t know what.

“I couldn’t change my name, you see, because I’m a registered nurse and have to have a license. But my stepfather has never lived out of the mountains, and he doesn’t know anything about registration and all that; so I wasn’t afraid he’d trace me through the State board. I kept right close in the house and hoped Satterfield wouldn’t see me or think of my being the same one, if he heard my name. Nobody much knew my name, anyhow, I kept so quiet. People just thought of me as that stupid nurse up at Fort House.

“And I lived in fear that some day my stepfather would find me out, or come here and kill Doctor Gaskell anyway, as he’d threatened; and I think I’d have gone crazy if it weren’t for this stupid, sleepy feeling I always had. I suppose it was a disease, as you said, Doctor Somers, but I think it saved my reason.

“And at last he did find me out. Was it any wonder I was frightened, Mr. Uhlman, when you came in that night and said you’d seen Roaring Lafe Rutledge on Doctor Gaskell’s porch, threatening to ‘settle with him before sunup?’ And now you know why I ran right out without stopping to explain. I went over to the doctor’s house, right across the road, and told him my stepfather was here, and I begged him to hide, or have him arrested.

“He only laughed, for he was never afraid of my stepfather. But he did promise not to go to the hotel and see him. And then, next morning, you found him out there--dead! I thought right away it must have been my stepfather who did it, and I suppose I fainted. I was almost glad”--she looked at Dorothy in wistful apology--“when they said Doctor Parker had done it by accident. The--the other seemed so terrible; to think he’d been killed because of me! And then, afterward, when the solicitor made it look like murder, I didn’t know what to do. And I hoped you-all could prove it was Satterfield who was guilty, or anybody in that gang except my stepfather, and for any reason except because of me. And it seemed harder and harder”--her beautiful, appealing eyes were fixed upon Somers once more, as in mute explanation of her difficulty--“harder than ever to have to tell all this, and to have to admit that I was only a poor, uneducated girl from the mountains, without any relatives in the world that I know of except my stepfather.”

She stopped and bent her fair head, sobbing desolately. Somers patted her shoulder. “You poor child!” he said, his casual tones suddenly deeper, softer, charged with sympathy. She looked up at him adoringly, with the wistful, worshiping gaze one sees in a dog’s eyes. But he seemed blind to its significance.

“Don’t you fret any more,” he went on. “You needn’t marry this Cal Col fellow or any other man. And if Lafe comes roaring round here, he’ll get into trouble. I’m not afraid of him, either!”

“Oh, you don’t know him. He’s terrible--just terrible! Sometimes I wonder if he’s quite human. If he comes for me, I’ll just have to go back, that’s all, and marry Cal Col, if he says so. I--I can’t have anybody else murdered for me.”

“Humph!” said Somers. “I begin to feel that I ought to have a bit of a chat with this Mr. Rutledge!”

“Oh, no, no, no!” The girl’s voice rang sharp with fear; she clutched at his arm. “He--he’d kill you, too!”

“I think not.” Somers freed his arm gently and rose. “But look here, Anne, if Rutledge knew you were here, why hasn’t he come after you? I don’t believe his business with Gaskell had anything to do with you; I don’t believe he knows where you are at all. Satterfield admitted that Doctor Gaskell had found out about their whisky-smuggling business; he said his mysterious chieftain had ordered Gaskell killed for that. If Rutledge is this leader whom Satterfield’s so afraid of--and it looks that way--he ordered the killing because Gaskell knew too much. You hadn’t a thing to do with it. And then he came down here to do it himself; wouldn’t trust Satterfield, I suppose.”

He began to pace the floor; six long, loose strides this way, a turn, and six more back. On the hearthrug he stopped.

“It’s plain enough now. Gaskell was murdered by the moonshiners for fear he’d break up the business. And Rutledge did the killing. Now all we’ve got to do is round up Roaring Lafe and fetch him down here to stand trial. Once he’s safe in jail, Satterfield will probably get over his fright enough to testify against him; nobody looks quite as dangerous, once he’s been quietly arrested and locked up.”

Anne Christie cried out upon him. “Oh, no, no! You mustn’t, you can’t! You’ll be killed! And, anyhow”--plucking up courage at the thought--“it wouldn’t do any good; you can’t find anybody to serve a warrant on Roaring Lafe. The sheriff wouldn’t go up on Devil’s Branch for anything, and, if he did, nobody could find Lafe Rutledge, once he’d taken to the laurel.”

“Humph!” said Somers. “You’re forgetting something.” He touched the star on his breast. “I’m a perfectly good deputy sheriff myself. I can serve a warrant. Even if that is another county, I guess we can stretch a point of law. Maybe the sheriff over there will deputize me, too.”

He cut her further protests short. “It’s getting late; why, it’s after midnight! We’ll all go to bed and make our plans in the morning.”