She looked at him challengingly. 'Shad Hark – you goan stand there and tell me you
'I ain't fixing to stand here and tell you nothing about it. You ner nobody else.'
'But you did find it, didn't you, Shad?'
'Shut up on it.' He turned away slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. 'Where's Dorry?'
'She stayed up to home to keep Mr. Ferris busy while I come down here.'
'Busy how?'
Her eyes sparked at that, and he liked the way she looked.
'I'll kindly thank you to know my folks is to home, Shad Hark,' she said coldly. Shad grinned.
'Why you always flying off at me thataway? Did I even pull your pigtails en something when you was little?' he wanted to know.
Margy looked down at her bare feet, then she looked at his beltline. 'Dorry says you'n her fixing to run away. Says you got that money hid, and when you git it you'n her goan be long gone.'
'She did, huh?'
That Dorry. Had everything figured out as nice as a dress pattern. Well, she was right, but was it safe to trust Margy? He supposed so, anyway, it looked as though he'd have to trust someone.
'Is that what you got against me?'
She looked at his eyes. 'You're a thief. And now you're fixing to steal my sister.'
He caught her wrist, not to hurt, but to give emphasis to his denial.
'You got no call to brand me thief 'less you know fen certain I got that money out a the Money Plane. And if your sis has it in mind to tag after me, that's her idee.'
'Shad -' her voice was low, 'you love Dorry?'
Love? Well, did he? He hadn't really thought about that, ever, about anyone. You always say 'I love you' to the girls you get in the bull-grass and the hay, but they expect that, whether they believe it on not, because it's part of the game. You accept a brother like Holly just because he is your brother; and it was impossible to love the old man; and he'd never really known his mother So who had he ever loved? He knew the driving something he felt for Dorry was a far cry from love, from the true meaning of the word. He'd learned that from the books Iris Culver had given him. It had baffled him at first, but later he'd begun to understand.
'Shore,' he said. 'Shore I love her.' It didn't hurt to lie a little, did it? There wasn't any sense in getting Margy mad again, was there? And anyway, this something that made him hunger after Dorry -you might as well call it love.
'And you goan marry with her?'
Was he? He hadn't thought of that either, no more he bet than Dorry had. 'Yeah. If'n she wants me.'
Margy nodded, looking away, looking at the cabin again.
'Well,' she murmured, 'she's her own woman. I got no call to try and cut acrost on her. Got her an idee she wants out a this swamp, wants big things out a life.'
'Well, you cain't blame her none fen that. So do I.'
Margy said nothing to that. She said, 'She wants you to meet her at the old Colt place tomonry night at nine. She says you to git out of here now because Mr. Ferris is fixing to come at you tonight. I guess that's all.'
Shad looked around at the cabin. Funny, now that he had to leave he realized he was going to miss the old scow. It wasn't such-a-much, but it had its comfort.
'Look a-here, Margy, you see anyone tail you down here? You see Jort Camp er Sam Parks about in the woods?'
'No. Why should I? Why should they want to come after me?'
He shrugged. 'Lots of them damn fools ben moseying after me all day. I kin shake'em when I want, but I just got a notion that Sam is tagging me like a man's shadow at high noon.'
'Well, if he be, you'll never shake him. You know Sam.'
Shad grinned. 'You don't know Shad.'
'Well -' she said, looking at the deck again. 'Well -'
'Well -' Shad said, helping her look.
Now that it was time to say goodbye and there was nothing else to be said, they were embarrassed. He looked across at her without raising his head. She was a cute little thing. He reckoned that was the word for her. Cute. Perky nose, big-eyed, shy-lipped. Not a sex box like her sister, like most. And suddenly he had the absurd compulsion to put his arms around her; not to get fresh or gay with her, just hold her protectively; wrap her in cellophane and put her away for himself.
'Well -' she said, and she started edging toward the door. Shad put out his hand. 'Friends?'
She looked up at him, her eyes enormous and very brown but not coquettish on shy. 'Yes.' And she took his hand.
'Thanks fer helping me – us, Margy.'
She nodded. 'You'll take care of her, Shad? You won't hurt her ner run out'n her? She – she's kind of flighty someways, needs have people help her.'
'I'll be good to her, Margy. I promise it.'
She opened the door but didn't go all the way out. She looked up at him. 'Good luck, Shad,' she said.
He watched her go in the dark, then stepped back and closed the door, stared at it for a moment.
'I'm shone God going to need it,' he said.
There was no sense in hanging around waiting for trouble, because trouble waited for no one. He got out his carbine and wrapped it as well as he could in his denim jacket running the barrel up one sleeve, folding the nest night about the stock, trigger-guard and bolt action. Then he tied the lace of the right boot to the lace of the left and looped the clodhoppers about
his neck. He cocked his felt hat on his head and looked at the cabin again. The old ball-dialled clock oven the bunk was still holding its own, still proclaiming the time to be 5:32.
He shrugged, blew out the lamp and made for the door.
The lamplight still bright in his eyes, he found himself standing night-blinded on the porch. He closed his eyes, waited, and then opened them and looked at the backwater. Moonlight. That was going to give Sam a big edge.
He looked at the dark line of underbrush, backed up by the reaching black woods, and sensed the presence of Sam Parks, felt the woods colt's eyes boning out of the night. But the only way he could be certain was to trick him. You just didn't catch Sam off base unless you could surprise him, and that took some doing because Sam wasn't human in the woods.
Shad moved abruptly. He wheeled around the corner of the cabin, went quickly along the gangplank and out onto the bank, heading upsiough. Git your walking legs out, Sam, he said. We got us some rambling to do.
Jort Camp saw Shad come off the shantyboat and knew he didn't stand a waddle-bottomed bear's chance of tailing him without Shad knowing about it within five-six minutes.
'Kin you holt to him?' he whispered to Sam.
The corners of Sam's lips punched into his cheeks like a cat's grin. 'Shone's water's wet,' he said.
'Then git. I'll double back on that air Ferris fella and see what he's up to. We got to keep him shed of Shad. I ain't about to have
'See you back to your place,' Sam said. He glided into his familiar crouch, feeling wildly elated now that there was action he could handle. The fidgets, the self-torture of his abject morality, all were left behind in the bush. Sam was all business. Quicken than a wolf could sneeze and recover he was gone.
Jort grinned. 'Damn old fox,' he muttered.
He'd been thunderstruck an hour ago when he'd seen Mr. Ferris arrive at Mears' place. He hadn't counted on that happening quite so soon. Now that Mr. Ferris was in the picture, he and Sam would have to look spry. That Ferris fella had come along to get the eighty thousand out of Shad.
And later when Margy had slipped out of the rear of the house and ran for the woods, Jort had understood that too, Sam had told him that Dorry had shacked up with Shad the night before, and that first thing the next morning she had run off for Tonkville and had returned that afternoon in a new dress. Yeah, that took a lot of guesswork, he reckoned not. Now she'd sent her little sister down to the backwater to warn Shad about that Ferris fella. So Jort had tagged after her just to be sure.
