Ladybird (4 page)

Breathlessly on she climbed, not pausing now to look back, and at last she reached it.

As she swung herself up in the branches, she remembered the old dog who had followed her. Where was he? Had he gone back? Much as she loved him and wanted his company on her journey, she realized now that she should have shut him in the cow shed where he could not have followed her. Now, if he lingered at the foot of the rock, he would give away her hiding place to the enemy!

For an instant she paused, but the ring of horses’ hoofs on the rock-strewn path she had just left warned her that she had no time to spare. They were hot-foot on her track. Possibly it was Pete, and it might be he had searched out her haunt. Pete had a way of appearing at the shack of late when everybody thought he had gone afar. Pete might have seen her going to her tree.

The thought sent the blood hurrying through her veins with feverish rapidity. Her hands almost refused to hold on to the branches, so frightened was she. She tried to think if this tree was no longer a refuge, where could she go? It was too late to go back, to hope to get down this sheer rock on the other side and make the valley before she would be heard, even though the dark did hide her. It would be folly. She would be dashed to pieces in the dark, for the way down the precipitous incline was dangerous even in the daytime when one could pick and choose a cranny for a footing, step by step. It was a long and slow and fearsome descent. To make it in the dark, and in haste, would be impossible. To go back to where she had begun to descend to this rock would be to meet the enemy face-to-face. There was nothing for it but to climb to the topmost limbs and wait. Yet, if it was Pete and he should find her, he would not hesitate to cut down the tree! She would be at his mercy!

In terror she climbed to heights she had never ventured before until she clung at the very top of the great tree, enveloped in its resinous plumes. Even in the light of day it would have been hardly discoverable that the tree was inhabited, so thick were the branches. It had been Fraley’s playhouse in her childhood and her refuge in many a time of fear. But she had always guarded her goings so that she thought no one but her mother knew of her whereabouts. Now, however, in this, her most trying crisis, she began to wonder whether perhaps some of the men might not have spied upon her.

Clinging to the old pine, her arms around its rough trunk, her feet curled into the crotch of the slender branch upon which her weight rested, the woolen bag her mother had made dragging heavily from her shoulder, she waited, her heart beating wildly.

If it had been daytime, she could have almost looked into the eyes of her pursuer, though his horse’s feet traveled ground far above where the tree stood, for the treetop was almost on a level with him. But she could see nothing now but the black night ahead of her and a high line of dim starry sky far above the mountain. But she knew by the sound that her pursuers were almost opposite her and that a moment more would tell her whether they had discovered her trail, for now if they guessed where she was they would turn abruptly down the mountain toward her. And, oh, what had become of Larcha, the old dog? If he only would have sense enough not to whine!

Suddenly a sound broke on her startled ear, like the hurtling of some heavy object through small branches and dry sticks, a rush, a low menacing growl, followed by curses and the sound of a plunging horse, rearing and stumbling on the slippery hillside.

Instantly her forest-trained ears understood. It was almost as if she could see what was being enacted before her in the dark. Old Larcha, the dog, had tried to help. He had cunningly stolen above the trail where the enemy was coming and, at the right instant, had plunged down upon the horse and his rider, and had dared to attack in defense of the girl he loved, and had been intelligent enough to try to mislead her pursuer into making chase higher up the mountain, and so covering her hiding place.

Instantly she knew, now, even if she had not heard the rough curses, that it was Pete who rode that horse. Larcha had always shown deep dislike to him and fear in his presence. It had been a joke among the men to send Larcha to Pete and hear him growl. And Pete had been cruel to the dog, kicking him brutally whenever opportunity offered, throwing stones at him without provocation, pointing the gun at him. The dog would always hide when he came around. Fraley had often noticed how the hair would rise on the brown back and how the dog would lift his upper lip and show his teeth whenever the man came in sight. He would always disappear, hiding for hours together, until his enemy had left the place. Larcha had cause of his own, now, to fight her pursuer. Yet Fraley knew he would have done this even without the personal cause. Since she was a little child, Larcha had been her one playmate and comrade whenever she strayed away from her mother. Larcha was the only friend she had left in the world. And now that friend was offering up himself for her. For Fraley had little doubt what Pete would do to the dog. The answer to her fear came sharp and quick in a shot that rang out over the mountain, followed by the dull thud of a body falling on the ground and rolling a few paces.

Then into the night came the sound of curses and of other horses riding and cries.

A sharp little light shot out from the rider of the horse and twinkled over the ground until it focused on a dark, huddled object at the foot of a tree. Pete had recently come from a surreptitious visit to the outside world and had brought back with him a number of little flashlights. Yes, there was no question but that her pursuer was Pete and that, if he wanted to, he would shoot her as readily as he had shot Larcha. At least he would shoot to disable, perhaps not to kill.

The other horses were coming on, Brand’s big roan stumbling with his lame foot, and two others. They would surround her now. Oh, if she could only be sure they would kill her. The awful words she had heard the men speak a few moments before still rang, menacing, in her ears.

One of the horses caught his foot in a root and, stumbling, began to slide down a steep place. His rider was evidently thrown forward. There was a sound of struggling and more curses as the horse righted himself and the drunken rider remounted.

A consultation in low tones followed. Fraley could catch a word now and then. Pete was laughing that awful cackle of triumph, telling of Larcha’s attack and finish. She held her breath and clung to the tree with arms that were numb with tensity, expecting momentarily that the wicked little flashlight would play upon her face and reveal her to her enemies.

Then she heard Brand cry out: “Which way did the dog come? Up there? We’ll soon have her then. She can’t make time uphill. All set?”

The four horses wheeled and went up the mountain, directly away from where she clung in midair.

Larcha’s ruse had worked. He had not died in vain.

F
raley’s head reeled as she clung to the tree and listened to the receding hoofbeats. She could feel the old tree sway under her; she had climbed so near to the top that her anchorage seemed very uncertain. She had a feeling that she was high above the world, held somehow in the hollow of God’s hand, and she laid her white face against the rough old trunk and closed her eyes. It seemed as if she scarcely dared to breathe yet, lest the men return, much less could she think of descending from her stronghold.

The searchers climbed higher and higher, until they were silhouetted for a moment against the distant bit of starry sky, and then disappeared down on the other side of the mountain. They had gone to search for her among their own kind, thinking she had taken refuge with someone. Their voices, which at first had been loud and clear, floating back in angry snatches, were suddenly shut off as they dropped from view. She drew a deep breath of relief.

But they would come back! When they failed to find her there, they would come this way again and search. It was not safe to go down now. There was no other spot for hiding that she knew of within miles, and she dared not venture into the unknown while they were yet hot on her trail. Besides, she knew that her progress would be slow indeed, for she must go cautiously. Well had she learned that there were many other men hiding within these strange mountain strongholds, who would be no safer companions than the ones from whom she would escape. Indeed, the way before her seemed as beset as the way behind.

How good it would have been if the shot that had stilled old Larcha’s barking had reached her own heart and sent her out of a world that was only full of sorrow and terror.

As the immediate fear of the men died away and strength began to return to the girl’s tired limbs and steadiness to her heart, she began to think about the dog. Had he died at once, or was he lying there in pain and wondering why she did not come to him? Her last defender, the only one in the world left who loved her, and he was stilled probably forever! There had not been a whimper from him since that shot and the dull thud that followed. And she had thought that he would go with her on her long, strange journey! Now she must go alone. It seemed hours that she clung there to her frail support high in the old pine. The night shut down more darkly. The stars flicked little pricks in the strip of the sky above the mountains more distinctly, and a thread of a moon came up and hung like a silver toy in the east, far off to the right. She shrank even from the bit of light it gave, lest her enemy might return. She dared not try to run away yet.

She tried to make a plan for her going, but somehow everything seemed all mixed up. She could not be sure which way the men would return. Also, there were cabins hidden deeply among the spurs of the foothills where dangerous characters lived. These she must avoid, although she had not even a very definite idea where they were located. There were paths that her mother had always warned her against in a general way, and yet they lay, some of them, between her and the great east that she must seek. Arriving each time from her round of problems, she would just close her eyes and pray,
Oh God, You show me the way, please! You go with me!

It was hours later that she was startled into alertness again.

Voices had suddenly risen on the night air, detached, drunken voices, booming up along the horizon as if they had just emerged from another world.

She shifted her hands on the resinous tree and found them stiff and painful with their long clinging. She changed her position and shrank closer to the tree. The men were coming back!

Terror seized her once more with its iron grip. She peered fearfully up at the strip of sky. She could see a slow procession of four, silhouetted against the brightness, riding crazily, but they were not coming toward her. They were going along the ridge of the mountain toward the cabin, drooping and swaying on their horses. They had been somewhere with their kind and were debauched with drink. How well she knew their attitude! How familiar were the noisy curses that floated back to her!

“Well—l–l–let ’er—go!” stuttered Brand as he righted himself after a turn in the saddle to look back. “S–s–she c–c–an’t git fur before m–morning. We’ll round ’er up with Shorty’s hounds. Good sport. What say, boys?”

A drunken chorus followed, and the voices drowned themselves behind the cow shed then appeared behind the slammed door of the cabin. How often she had wakened in the night and heard them! Only now she was alone and in their power!

She waited while the night grew wide and still. No more sounds came from the cabin. Then she began to ease herself slowly down to the lower branches, listening at every move. Her hearing, trained in the open, was attuned to the noises of the night. She was not afraid of the creatures that lived in the forest, that hid and stirred and stole abroad in the dark for prey. She felt herself akin to them as she stood at last with her feet again upon the ground and listened. She could tread the forest aisles as silently as they. She could go like a shadow of the night. She could make herself a part of the black background and shrink into it at the first approach of alarm.

Stealthily, for she was aware that the men might have left one of their number in hiding to watch the surrounding country, she crept from the shelter of the great rock on which the old pine grew and, turning, gave one glance back and up at it. If she succeeded in escaping, she would probably never see it again. She would not conceive of herself ever coming willingly back to that place, so she looked her farewell with eyes that were blurred with grateful tears. That tree had been her true friend.

Adjusting the bag that seemed almost to have worn a groove in her slender shoulder, she went softly, swiftly forward until she reached the higher ground where the horses had stood.

There lay the old dog right across her path. She stumbled and almost fell over him, his body still warm. Dear old Larcha! He had died for her! Or had he? Perhaps he was not dead after all? She must not stay for even such a defender, but might she not carry him with her, a little way at least? If she left him here he would be prey for wild beasts. She could not bear to think of old Larcha, suffering perhaps, deserted. A little farther on was the river. She could see the gleam of it in the faint light of the little new moon. Perhaps down there she could minister to the old dog, and he might get up and go with her after all.

With sudden hope, she stooped and picked him up and started toward the stream. But it was a heavy tug, and more than once her heart failed her, for she began to realize that he was dead. The inert way the body lay in her weary young arms told her so.

At last, near the water’s edge, she laid him down and looked at him. There was no hope. She had known that even before she stooped, for the chill of his body had been growing upon her. She knew, too, that she could not carry him farther. She must save her own strength.

Sadly picking him up once more, she waded out into the water and dropped him in.

“Dear Larcha,” she whispered softly as the water closed over the faithful head, “I’ll never forget you!”

Then she turned and waded down the pebbly bed of the stream.