Edward O'Brien - The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story

"We'll take no chances, your Honor."

She turned away quietly, and Rawling shivered at this cool fury. The rattles made his spine itch, and suddenly his valley seemed like a place of demons. The lanterns circling on the lawn seemed like frail glow-worms, incredibly useless, and he leaned on the window-pane listening with fever to the rain.

"All right," said Bill when he had heard. "'Phone the sheriff. The man's dangerous, sir. I doctored a cut he had the other day, and he tells me he can see at night. That's a lie, of course, but he's light on his feet, and he's a devil. I've seen some rotten curs in the hospitals, but he's worse."

"Really, Billy, you sound as fierce as Onnie. She wanted a gun."

The handsome young man bit a lip, and his great body shook.

"This is San," he said, "and the men would kill any one who touched you, and they'd burn any one who touched San. Sorry if I'm rude."

"We mustn't lose our heads." Rawling talked against his fear. "The man's drunk. He'll never get near here, and he's got four miles to come in a cold rain. But—"

"May I sleep in San's room?"

"Then he'll know. I don't want him to, or Ling, either; they're imaginative kids. This is a vile mess, Billy."

"Hush! Then I'll sleep outside his door. I will , sir!"

"All right, old man. Thanks. Ling can sleep in Pete's room. Now I'll 'phone Mackintosh."

But the sheriff did not answer, and his deputy was ill. Rawling shrugged, but when Varian telephoned that there were thirty men searching, he felt more comfortable.

"You're using the wires a lot, Dad," said Sanford, roaming in. "Anything wrong? Where's Ling to sleep?"

"In Pete's room. Good-night, Godson. No, nothing wrong."

But Sanford was back presently, his eyes wide.

"I say, Onnie's asleep front of my door and I can't get over her. What's got into the girl?"

"She's worried. Her snake's bells are going, and she thinks the house'll burn down. Let her be. Sleep with me, and keep my feet warm, Sonny."

"Sure," yawned Sanford. "'Night, Billy."

"Well," said Bill, "that settles that, sir. She'd hear anything, or I will, and you're a light sleeper. Suppose we lock up as much as we can and play some checkers?"

They locked the doors, and toward midnight Cameron rapped at the library window, his rubber coat glistening.

"Not a print of the wastrel loon, sir; but the lads will bide out the night. They've whusky an' biscuits an' keep moving."

"I'll come out myself," Rawling began, but the smith grunted.

"Ye're no stirrin' oot yer hoos, Robert Rawling! Ye're daft! Gin you met this ganglin' assassinator, wha'd be for maister? San's no to lack a father. Gae to yer bit bed!"

"Gosh!" said Bill, shutting the window, " he's in earnest. He forgot to try to talk English even. I feel better. The hog's fallen into a hole and gone to sleep. Let's go up."

"I suppose if I tell Onnie San's with me, she'll just change to my door," Rawling considered; "but I'll try. Poor girl, she's faithful as a dog!"

They mounted softly and beheld her, huddled in a blanket, mountainous, curled outside Sanford's closed door, just opposite the head of the stairs. Rawling stooped over the heap and spoke to the tangle of blue-shadowed hair.

"Onnie Killelia, go to bed."

"Leave me be, your Honor. I'm—"

Sleep cut the protest. The rattles sounded feebly, and Rawling stood up.

"Just like a dog," whispered Bill, stealing off to a guest-room. "I'll leave my door open." He patted the revolver in his jacket and grinned affectionately. "Good-night, Boss."

Rawling touched the switch inside his own door, and the big globe set in the hall ceiling blinked out. They had decided that, supposing the cockney got so far, a lightless house would perplex his feet, and he would be the noisier. Rawling could reach this button from his bed, and silently undressed in the blackness, laying the automatic on the bedside table, reassured by all these circling folk, Onnie, stalwart Bill, and the loyal men out in the rain. Here slept Sanford, breathing happily, so lost that he only sighed when his father crept in beside him, and did not rouse when Rawling thrust an arm under his warm weight to bring him closer, safe in the perilous night.

The guest-room bed creaked beneath Bill's two hundred pounds of muscle, and Ling snored in Peter's room. Rawling's nerves eased on the mattress, and hypnotic rain began to deaden him, against his will. He saw Percival sodden in some ditch, his knife forgotten in brandy's slumbers. No shout came from the hillside. His mind edged toward vacancy, bore back when the boy murmured once, then he gained a mid-state where sensation was not, a mist.

He sat up, tearing the blankets back, because some one moved in the house, and the rain could be heard more loudly, as if a new window were open. He swung his legs free. Some one breathed heavily in the hall. Rawling clutched his revolver, and the cold of it stung. This might be Onnie, any one; but he put his finger on the switch.

"Straight hover—hover the way it was," said a thick, puzzled voice. "There, that one! 'Is bloody barth!"

The rattles whirred as if their first owner lived. Rawling pressed the switch.

"Your Honor!" Onnie screamed. "Your Honor! Master San! Be lockin' the door inside, Master San! Out of this, you! You!"

Rawling's foot caught in the doorway of the bright hall, and he stumbled, the light dazzling on the cockney's wet bulk hurling itself toward the great woman where she stood, her arms flung cruciform, guarding the empty room. The bodies met with a fearful jar as Rawling staggered up, and there came a crisp explosion before he could raise his hand. Bill's naked shoulder cannoned into him, charging, and Bill's revolver clinked against his own. Rawling reeled to the stair-head, aiming as Bill caught at the man's shirt; but the cockney fell backward, crumpling down, his face purple, his teeth displayed.

"In the head!" said Bill, and bent to look, pushing the plastered curls from a temple. The beast whimpered and died; the knife rattled on the planks.

"Dad," cried Sanford, "what on—"

"Stay where you are!" Rawling gasped, sick of this ugliness, dizzy with the stench of powder and brandy. Death had never seemed so vile. He looked away to the guardian where she knelt at her post, her hands clasped on the breast of her coarse white robe as if she prayed, the hair hiding her face.

"I'll get a blanket," Bill said, rising. "There come the men! That you, Ian?"

The smith and a crowd of pale faces crashed up the stairs.

"God forgie us! We let him by—the garden, sir. Alec thought he—"

"Gosh, Onnie!" said Bill, "excuse me ! I'll get some clothes on. Here, Ian—"

"Onnie," said Sanford, in the doorway—"Onnie, what's the matter?"

As if to show him this, her hands, unclasping, fell from the dead bosom, and a streak of heart's blood widened from the knife-wound like the ribbon of some very noble order.

Young Burnaby was late. He was always late. One associated him with lateness and certain eager, impossible excuses—he was always coming from somewhere to somewheres, and his "train was delayed," or his huge space-devouring motor "had broken down." You imagined him, enveloped in dust and dusk, his face disguised beyond human semblance, tearing up and down the highways of the world; or else in the corridor of a train, biting his nails with poorly concealed impatience. As a matter of fact, when you saw him, he was beyond average correctly attired, and his manner was suppressed, as if to conceal the keenness that glowed behind his dark eyes and kept the color mounting and receding in his sunburnt cheeks. All of which, except the keenness, was a strange thing in a man who spent half his life shooting big game and exploring. But then, one imagined that Burnaby on the trail and Burnaby in a town were two entirely different persons. He liked his life with a thrust to it, and in a great city there are so many thrusts that, it is to be supposed, one of Burnaby's temperament hardly has hours enough in a day to appreciate all of them and at the same time keep appointments.