Then I'll Come Back to You.

by Larry Evans.

CHAPTER I

I DON'T MIND IF I DO!

That year no rain had fallen for a score of days in the hill country.

The valley road that wound upward and still upward from the town of Morrison ran a ribbon of puffy yellow dust between sun-baked, brown-sodded dunes; ran north and north, a tortuous series of loops on loops, to lose itself at last in the cooler promise of the first bulwark of the mountains. They looked cooler, the distant wooded hills; for all the shimmering heat waves that danced and eddied in the gaps and glanced, shaft-like, from the brittle needles of the pines which sentineled the ridges, they hinted at depths to which the sun's rays could not penetrate; they hinted at chasms padded with moss, shadowed and dim beneath chapel arches of spruce and hemlock, even chilly with the spray of spring-fed brooks that brawled in miniature rocky canyons. And they made the gasping heat of the valley a little more unendurable by very contrast.

Since early afternoon Caleb Hunter had been sitting almost immobile in the shade of the trellis which flanked the deep verandas of his huge white, thick-pillared house on the hill above the river. It was reminiscent of another locality--the old Hunter place on the valley road. When Caleb Hunter's father had come north, back when his loyalty to a flag and his pity for a gaunt and lonely figure in the White House had been stronger than bonds of blood, he had left its counterpart down on the Tennessee. Afterward, with one empty sleeve pinned across his breast, he had directed with the other hand the placing of the columns.

And finally, when he had had to leave this home in turn, along with its high, white painted walls and glossy green shutters, he had pa.s.sed down to his son his inborn love of the warmth, his innocent delight in indolence--and an unsurpa.s.sed judgment of mint. The mint bed still lay where he had located it, to the west of the house, moist and fragrant in the shadow.

Caleb Hunter had been drowsing contentedly since early afternoon, his chin on his chest and the bowl of his pipe drooping down over his comfortably bulging, unb.u.t.toned waistcoat. The lazy day was in his blood and even the whine of the sawmills on the river-bank, a mile or more to the south, tempered as it was by the distance to the drone of a surly b.u.mble-bee, still vaguely annoyed him. Tiny dots of men in flannel shirts of brilliant hue, flashing from time to time out across the log-choked s.p.a.ce between the booms, caught his eye whenever he lifted his head, during the pa.s.sage of a green-sprayed gla.s.s from the veranda rail to his lips, and almost reminded him of the unnatural alt.i.tude of the mercury. He, without being a.n.a.lytical about it, would have preferred it without the industry and the noise, even softened as both were by the distance.

Morrison had changed since Caleb Hunter's father topped with the white-columned house that hill above the river. In those days it had been little more than a sleepy, if conservatively prosperous and self-sufficient, community, without industry of any sort, or, it might be added, ambition or seeming need of one. The Basin where the river widened and ran currentless a mile or two from bank to bank, in Caleb's father's time for weeks and weeks on end often had showed no more signs of activity than a dawdling fisherman or two who angled now and then and smoked incessantly. And now even the low-lying foothills in which the elder Hunter had tried to see from homesick eyes a resemblance to the outguard of his own c.u.mberlands were no longer given over to pasturage. They had taken on an entirely different aspect.

The northern streets of the town were still dotted with the homes of those families who had been content with just the shade and the silence and the sheen of the river, and an ample though inaugmented income.

But the outside world, ignoring the lack of an invitation too long in the coming, had in the last year or so grown in to meet it more than half way. From the Hunter verandas a half-dozen red-roofed, brown-shingled bungalows, half camps and half castles, were visible across the land stretches where the cattle had grazed before. And just beyond Caleb Hunter's own high box hedge, Dexter Allison's enormous stucco and timber "summer lodge" sprawled amid a round dozen acres of green lawn and landscape gardening, its front to the river.

To Dexter Allison's blame or credit--the nature of the verdict depending entirely upon whether it was rendered by the older or the newer generation--was laid the transformation of Morrison, the town proper. Caleb Hunter had known Allison at college, where the latter had been prominent both because of the brilliance of his wardrobe and the reputed size of his father's steadily acc.u.mulating resources.

Since that time seven-figure fortunes such as the younger Allison had inherited, had become too general to be any longer spectacular. But Dexter Allison's garments had always retained their insistent note.

Hunter himself had sold Allison the ground upon which the stucco house stood; he had heartily agreed that it was an ideal spot for a loafing place--and the fishing was good, too! Now whenever Caleb thought of those first conferences which had preceded the sale, and recalled Allison's accentuation of the natural beauties of the spot, Caleb allowed himself to smile.

The fishing was still far above reproach, a little further back country--and Dexter Allison owned the sawmills that droned in the valley. His men drove his timber down from the hills in the north; his men piled the yellow planks upon his flat cars which ran in over his spur line that had crept up from the south. His hundreds and hundreds of rivermen already trod the sawdust-padded streets of the newer Morrison that had sprung into being beyond the bend; they swarmed in on the drives, a hard-faced, hard-shouldered horde, picturesque, proficient and profane. They brought with them color and care-free prodigality and a capacity for abandonment to pleasure that ran the whole gamut of emotions, from raucous-roared chanties to sudden, swift encounters which were as silent as they were deadly. And they spent their money without stopping to count it.

The younger generation of the older Morrison was quick to point out the virtues of this vice. And after a time, when the older generation found that the rivermen preferred their own section of the town, ignoring as though they had never existed the staid and sleepy residential streets above, they heaved a sigh of partial relief and tried to forget their proximity.

Little more than a year had been required for that transformation. The boards of some of the newer shacks down river were still damp with pitch. And twice during that period Dexter Allison had come into the hills to take up a transitory abode in the stucco house which had been quite six months in the building:--once, two years before, when he had disappeared into the mountains upon a prolonged fishing trip, to return fishless but with an astonishing ma.s.s of pencilled data and contour maps; and the second time for an even longer stay, a year ago when the mill was being erected.

Since then the stucco and timber place had been closed, with no one but a doddering old caretaker and a gardener or two about the premises, until early that last hot August week. On Monday Caleb Hunter had noticed that the blinds had been thrown open to the air; on Wednesday, from his point of vantage upon the porch, he had watched a rather astounding load of trunks careen in at the driveway, piloted by a mill teamster who had for two seasons held the record for a double-team load of logs and was making the most of that opportunity to prove his skill.

And the next morning the tumult raised by a group of children racing over the shorn lawns had awakened him; he had descended to be hailed by Dexter Allison's own booming ba.s.s from behind the intervening high box hedge.

It was the hottest day of the hottest fortnight that the hill country had known in years. The very temperature gave color to Allison's statement that the heat had driven them north from the sh.o.r.e--him and his wife and Barbara, their daughter of ten, and the half-dozen or more guests whose trunks, coming on the next day, made an even more imposing sight than had Allison's own. And yet as he sat there in the shadow, methodically pulling upon his pipe, Caleb Hunter smiled from time to time, reminiscently. He last of all would have been the one to admit that the owner of the big stucco place and the mills, and--yes, of the newer Morrison itself--had not given a good account of the talents and tens of talents which had been pa.s.sed down to him. But the use of so much evasion, where no evasion at all seemed necessary, rather puzzled as well as amused Caleb; and yet, after all, this merely branded him as old-fashioned, so far as the newer business methods were concerned which were crowding into Morrison. Allison's way of going about a thing made him think of the old valley road that wound north in its series of loops on loops; and yet, reflecting upon that parallel, he had to admit to himself, too, that the road achieved final heights which, in a straightaway route across country would have necessitated more than a few wearisome and heart-breaking grades.

The comparison pleased Caleb. He was nodding his head over it as he buried his nose in the mint-sprayed gla.s.s again, when a haze of dust to the north caught his vagrant attention. Quite apparently it was raised by a foot-traveler, and the latter were not frequent upon that road, especially foot-travelers who came from that direction. Trivial as it was, it piqued his interest, and he lay back and followed it from lazily half-closed eyes. It topped a rise and disappeared--the dust cloud--and reappeared in turn, but not until it had advanced to within a scant hundred yards of him could he make out the figure which raised it. And then, after one sharp glance, with a quick intake of breath, he rose and went a trifle hastily out across his own lawn toward the iron picket fence that bordered the roadside. He went almost hurriedly to intercept the boy who came marching over the brow of the last low hill.

Caleb Hunter, particularly in the last year or so, had seen many a strange and brilliant costume pa.s.s along that wilderness highway, but as he hung over the front gate he remembered that none of them had ever before drawn him from his deep chair in the shadow. For him none of them had ever approached in sensationalism the quite unbelievable garb of the boy who came steadily on and on--who came steadily nearer and nearer.

With a little closer view of him the watching man understood the reason for the dense cloud of dust above the lone pedestrian. For when the boy raised his feet with each stride, the man-sized, hob-nailed boots which encased them failed to lift in turn. Indeed, the toes did clear the ground, but the heels, slipping away from the lean ankles, dragged in the follow-through. And the boy's other garments, save for his flannel shirt and flapping felt hat, were of a size in keeping with the boots.

His trousers had once been white cotton drill, but the whiteness had long before given up the unequal struggle against grime and grease and subsided to a less conspicuous, less perishable grey. They had been cut off just below the knees and, unhemmed, hung flapping with every step he took above a stretch of white-socked, spindly shanks. But it was the coat he wore which held Caleb spellbound. It was of a style popularly known as a swallowtail, faced with satin as to lapels and once gracefully rounded to a long, bisected skirt in the rear. The satin facings were gone and the original color of the fabric, too, had faded to a shiny, bottle-green. But the long skirts--at least all that was left of them--still flapped bravely, as did the trousers. For they, like the nether garments, had been cut off, with more regard for haste than accuracy, so that the back of the coat cleared the ground by a good foot and a half. The sleeves, rolled back from two slender, browned wrists, were cuffed with a six-inch stretch of striped, soiled lining.

For a time Caleb had been at a loss to make out the object which the boy carried upon one shoulder, balanced above a blanket tight-rolled and tied with string. Not until the grotesque little figure was within a dozen paces of him did he recognize it, and then, at the same moment that he caught a glimpse of an old and rusted revolver strapped to the boy's narrow waist, he realized what it was. The boy was toting a double-springed steel trap, big enough it seemed to take all four feet of any bear that ever walked--and it was beautifully dull with oil!

Caleb stood and stared, mouth agape. A moment or two earlier he had had to fight off an almost uncontrollable desire to roar with laughter, but that mood had pa.s.sed somehow as the boy came nearer. For the latter was not even aware of his presence there behind the iron fence; he was walking with his head up, thin face thrust forward like that of a young and overly eager setter with the bird in plain sight. The world of hunger in that strained and staring visage helped Caleb to master his mirth, and when, at a tentative cough from him, the small figure halted dead in his tracks and wheeled, even the vestige of a smile left the wide-waisted watcher's lips. Then Caleb had his first full view of the boy's features.

There were wide, deep shadows beneath the grey eyes, doubly noticeable because of the heavy fringe of the lashes that swept above them; there was a pallid, bluish circle around the thin and tight-set lips. And the lean cheeks were very, very pale, both with the heat of the sun and a fatigue now close to exhaustion. But the eyes themselves, as they met Caleb's, were alight with a fire which afterward, when he had had more time to ponder it, made him remember the pictured eyes of the children of the Crusades. They fairly burned into his own, and they checked the first half-jocular words of greeting which had been trembling upon his lips. His voice was only grave and kindly when he began to speak.

"You--you look a trifle tired, young man," he said then. "Are you--going far?"

The boy touched his lips delicately with the point of his tongue. His gravity more than matched that of his questioner.

"Air--air thet the--city?"

The words were soft of accent and a little drawling; there was an accompanying gesture of one thumb thrown backward over a thin shoulder.

But Caleb had to smile a little at the breathless note in the query.

"The city?" he echoed, a little puzzled. "The city! Well, now--I----"

and he chuckled a bit.

The boy caught him up swiftly, almost sharply.

"Thet's--ain't thet Morrison?" he demanded.

And then Caleb had a glimmer of comprehension. He nodded.

"Yes," he answered quietly. "That's the city. That's Morrison down there."

The shoulders of the ancient coat lifted and fell with a visible sigh as the strange little figure turned again, head keenly forward, to gaze hungrily down at the town in the valley. And Caleb translated that long-drawn breath correctly; without stopping to reason it out, he knew that it meant fulfillment of a dream most marvelous in antic.i.p.ation, but even more wonderful in its coming true. Words would have failed where that single breath sufficed. The man remained quiet until the boy finally turned back to him, eased the heavy trap to his other shoulder and wet his lips once more.

"I thought it war," he murmured, and a thread of awe wove through the words. "I thought it est nach.e.l.ly _hed_ to be! Haow--haow many houses would you reckon they might be daown--daown in thet there holler?"

The owner of the white-columned house gave the question its meed of reflection.

"Well, I--I'd say quite a few hundred, at least."

The odd little figure bobbed his head.

"Thet's what Old Tom always sed," he muttered, more to himself than to his hearer. "An'--an' I guess I ain't never rightly believed him till naow." And then: "Is--is New Yor-rk any bigger?" he asked.

The man at the picket fence smiled again, but the smile was without offense.

"Well, yes," he answered. "Yes, considerably bigger, I should judge.

Twice as large, at least, and maybe more than that."

The boy did not answer. He just faced about to stare once more. And then the miracle came to pa.s.s. Around a far bend in Dexter Allison's single spur track there came careening an ashmatic switch engine with a half-dozen empty flats in tow. With a brave puffing and blowing of leaky cylinder heads, it rattled across an open s.p.a.ce between piles of timber in the mill-yard and disappeared with a shrill toot of warning for unseen workmen upon the tracks ahead. The boy froze to granite-like immobility as it flashed into view. Long after it had pa.s.sed from sight he stood like a bit of a fantastic figure cut from stone. Then a tremor shook him from head to foot, and when it came slowly about Caleb saw that his small face was even whiter than it had been before beneath its coat of tan and powdery dust.

He swallowed hard, and tried to speak--and had to swallow again before the words would come.

"Gawd--I--may--die!" ho broke out falteringly then. "There goes a injine! A steam injine--wan't it?"

Long afterward, when he had realized that the boy's life was to bring again and again a repet.i.tion of that sublime moment of realization--a moment of fulfillment unspoiled by surfeit or sophistication or a blunted capacity to marvel, which Caleb had seen grow old and stale even in the children he knew, he wondered and wished that he might have known it himself, once at least. Years of waiting, starved years of antic.i.p.ation, he felt after all must have been a very little price to pay for that great, blinding, gasping moment. But at the time, amazed at the boy's white face, amazed at the hushed fervor in the words he forgot,--he spoke before he thought.

"But haven't you ever seen an engine before?" he exclaimed.

As soon as the question had left his lips he would have given much to have had it back again; but at that it failed to have the effect which he feared too late to check. Instead of coloring with hurt and shame, instead of subterfuge or evasion, the boy simply lifted his eyes levelly to Caleb's face.