Rainbow Cottage (8 page)

When she set down his pie on the pine counter and turned to go for the coffee, he caught her wrist and held her with a fierce grip.

“You meet me tonight outside, down by the water tank, as soon as you get done here, see? No more monkey shines. I’ve got something important to tell you. If you don’t come on time, you’ll be sorry. There are plenty more girls I can put on this job at this counter in your place if you don’t do what I say. Then where would you be? You can’t be so choosy. You have to be nice to the one that gives you your job, see?”

Sheila’s heart stood still in horror. Her lips turned white, and she felt suddenly cold all over. It seemed to her that the earth was giving way under her feet. She looked the man straight in his wicked eyes for an instant, trying to keep from trembling. She seemed to know by instinct that she must not let him see how frightened she was.

His grip on her wrist was hurting her. There would be a cruel mark there tomorrow she knew, for her flesh turned black and blue very easily.

“You’re hurting me,” she said coldly, steadily, without struggling, and wondered at herself for being able to do it. She thought,
This is the way my mother has had to go through hard things sometimes. I shall have to be brave as she was. Somehow she was protected. Somehow I will be
.

“I’ll hurt you worse!” laughed the man, setting his fingers deeper in her frail young flesh. “Do you understand? I shan’t let go till you answer me!”

“I understand!” said Sheila, still in that cold, steady voice, though inwardly her spirit was quailing with fear.

Then, just as she felt that she should sink down on the floor and cry out with the pain if it lasted another second, she heard Mrs. Higgins’s voice calling her, her footsteps coming to the doorway.

With an oath, the man flung her hand from him and called after her as she vanished into the kitchen. “Remember! I mean it!”

As she entered the kitchen, Mrs. Higgins demanded a platter for the meat she was frying. Mechanically Sheila brought it to her and then turning, swiftly sped up the back stairs on feet that were as silent as they were swift.

“Where you going?” called Mrs. Higgins. “It’s almost time for the train.” But Sheila was out of hearing.

She was mounting the second-story stairs to the little back cupboard of a bedroom, the only place in the world now that she could call her own. She had glanced at the clock as she left the kitchen. Could she make it? Ten minutes to the train, her only hope now!

For days she had been getting ready to go away sometime, but she had not intended to go until she had earned a little more money. She wanted to be able to stop somewhere and buy decent clothes. Not since her father went away over three years before had she had any new ones. She knew by the people who stopped to eat at the restaurant that she was very shabby and out of date, and people who stopped off at such an unpromising junction were not themselves likely to be over-stylish.

But now there was no time to think about clothes.

As she sped up the stairs, her thoughts flew lightning fast. Her suitcase, an old valise of ancient days that her father had discarded, was ready as far as necessities were concerned. She had always put away everything including her comb and brush when she went downstairs to work because there was no lock on her door and she dared not trust Mrs. Higgins’s ten-year-old daughter. She did not like to have her hairbrush used, nor any of her things handled over; therefore, she had carefully put them away and been thankful that her mother had saved the rusty key to the valise.

A box of books in the corner, for the last few days nailed shut, was all the rest of the worldly goods that she possessed. There would not be time for her to open it and get out even the ones she prized most. Her father’s name was on the box. Perhaps someday she could send for it, if she ever dared. Not if Buck were in those parts, she was sure.

She was thankful that she had taken out the little sandalwood box containing the few things her mother had said she must never part with—papers and letters of her father’s—and put them in the satchel before she closed the box of books. She would not have dared to leave them behind.

All this went through her mind as she mounted to her room, tearing off as she went the big calico apron she wore over her neat gingham dress. Mrs. Higgins’s voice was ringing petulantly behind her, but she must not listen to it, or her sense of duty to Mrs. Higgins would perhaps make her hesitate until it was too late.

She slipped inside her room and shut the door softly. There was no key. There was no one to come up for her except Mrs. Higgins, and she could not leave the meat she was frying. Unless—horrible thought! What if she should ask Buck to come up and get her? The thought filled her with terror and sent her to working frantically.

It was dark in the room except for the light that came into her little attic window from the luminousness of the sky after sunset, for the window faced west. But she did not need light. It was all the better in the dark, for then anyone seeking her would see no light from the crack under the door and would think she was not there. She would not even light the candle. She knew exactly where everything was. She groped to the nail on the back of the closet door where her hat and an old blue serge coat and skirt of her mother’s hung, the only decent thing she owned to travel in. She flung on the skirt over her gingham dress, put her arms into the sleeves of the coat, pulled down the old hat over her head, and was ready to leave.

Behind the box of books in the corner was a clothesline, saved from the wreckage of home, intended to strengthen the weakness of the box that held the books when she came to the point of moving somewhere. But now there was no time to think of books.

She felt behind the box and unrolled the rope, thankful that it was a new strong one. Would it be long enough to reach? But there was no time to think of such hazards now. She was desperate. She had seen enough in the eyes of the man who threatened her to make her take a last risk.

So she felt for the handle of the old valise. There was another thing: that handle might break. But that, too, could not be reckoned with now. There was no time to cut the rope and reinforce it.

She slipped the rope through the handle and drew it in a long loop until the rope was halfway through the handle. Then she tiptoed to her window and carefully, breathlessly, swung the valise out, letting it down slowly to the roof of the second-floor annex. When it touched and seemed to rest firmly, she drew a breath of relief and then began to pull the rope up again gently, hand over hand. If it should catch and refuse to come out of the handle what should she do? But it came easily back into her hand the full length. She gave one swift mental glance around her room. The bed was next to the little window where she meant to make her exit. Was that the train she heard in the distance? Oh! Swiftly she flung the rope around the stout little bedpost of the old cord bed, glad that it was strong, wondering if it would hold, and then carefully crept through the window, both ends of the rope knotted around her waist lest it slip from her frightened, unaccustomed hands. At last she was out and trembling on the edge, her fingers gripped fearsomely to the windowsill.

It was only the distant sound of an oncoming train that gave her courage to let go of her hold, one hand after the other, and grip the rope instead; and then slowly, trembling, she let herself down to the roof below.

It wasn’t a long distance, but it seemed mountains high, and at the last the rope went so swiftly through her tired fingers that her hands were bruised and burning.

The roof she was on was steeply sloped. If she dared sit down and slide, it would not be far to drop to the ground from the lower edge. But she must let her valise down first.

Her fingers shook as she untied the rope and began to pull it again. Oh, suppose the bed had got too near the window frame and the rope would catch? There was no knot in the end. It ought to come free.

It seemed a long anxious time, and once the rope did hitch, but her vigorous pull got it loose, and the last end came cavorting down like a lash and struck her in the face.

But there was no time to nurse the stinging cheek. The train was distinctly nearer now and in the clear evening atmosphere sounded even nearer than it was. She must get down from the roof in the next four or five minutes or all was lost. A vision of the ugly face, leering eyes and fulsome lips under the hateful black mustache, nerved her on.

Creeping carefully over to the north edge of the lean-to, dragging the valise cautiously with her, inch by inch, she slipped the rope again through the old handle and let the valise down to the ground. Her heart beat wildly when it was safe in the grass and weeds, just under Ma Higgins’s bedroom window. Nobody was in that room now, she was sure, so nobody would have seen it.

Quickly she drew the rope up again and applied herself to the final problem of how she was to get down to the ground herself. There was a chimney at the south edge of the roof, but its girth was so great that she feared her rope would not be long enough to span it and yet swing her low enough to drop. Besides, she would have to pass the kitchen windows and door if she dropped over there in order to get back to her valise. Then, too, how would she ever swing the rope around that wide chimney and get hold of the other end? She couldn’t put it over because its top soared up almost as high as the top of the main house. There was nothing for it but to drop from the lower edge of the roof and risk a sprained ankle or worse.

So, with the rope quickly coiled over her arm, she half slid, half crept down the steep incline.

Three feet from the edge, she was startled by the whistle of the train only two miles down the track. There was no time to waste in caution. She must catch that train or all would be lost. It was her only hope. She knew it would be of no use to appeal to Mrs. Higgins for help because Buck was her overseer and could turn her out of the job at the restaurant also if he chose. There was no one nearer than ten miles upon whom she had the slightest claim and that was a woman who had once been kind to her mother. She was old and poor. She could do nothing to protect her. Since the teacher of Sheila’s school had died two years before, Sheila and her mother had been strangely by themselves. The people about there who would have been friendly were not to their taste and they had held aloof. Those whom they would have liked to know looked askance at them because of Moira’s singing at the dance hall. So they had kept apart from humankind, and Sheila had no friend to turn to now in her distress. She
must
catch this train.

Desperately, she slid down the rest of the way to the edge, swung herself hurriedly over, holding on with a nervous grip, gave one dizzy look at the space below her unable to calculate the distance in the dim twilight, told herself she must remember to bend her knees and spring on her toes to break the jar of the fall, as they used to tell them to do in a school jumping, then she closed her eyes and dropped.

There was an instant of dizzy fright, and the ground came much sooner than she had expected. She gave a weak little spring from the ground and then dropped again in a heap, stunned for a second or two, strangely weak and trembling, stupid with fright and the shock of the fall. But the steady oncoming of the train brought her back to her senses again, and she stumbled to her feet. She had a bruised feeling all over and felt dizzy. She wondered vaguely if she could have struck her head against the house as she dropped. But she managed to crawl around the corner of the lean-to to where her valise lay and then dragging it softly, crept on under two more windows and down behind some big bushes that bordered the track. If she could only get across to the other side before it was too late! For people would be coming out on the platform, and it might even be that Buck would be there now awaiting the coming of the train. He often did that. And she could not hope to escape notice if she tried to cross close to the house.

Breathless, she rushed along through the weeds and tall grass, carrying the valise that seemed to her shaking arms to weigh a ton. She dared not look behind toward the Junction House till she was under shelter of the bushes. Then a quick glance told that she had been right. There were people out there. Mr. Higgins with the mailbags. Tony, the man from the nearest ranch. A woman from over at the cabaret, her mother’s old rival! She would tell Buck at once if she saw her. No, she dared not risk going across in front of the train even though there was plenty of time, for the brightness of the headlight from the engine would show her clearly in silhouette, and all eyes were turned in that direction with nothing else to do but look.

No, she must wait till the train had passed and then rush across and back along the other side of the track behind the train. She remembered that there was a pretty steep bank built of cinders on the other side of the track. It would be hard to climb up with her baggage. Perhaps she would have to tie the rope to her valise again and swing it up after she was on the step of the train. Oh, she would have to hurry, hurry! The train stopped only ten minutes for supper. She was not safe even yet.

The train swept along, blinding her with its brilliant light, taking her breath with its near swiftness, and pelting her with a tornado of dust, cinders, and stinging particles of hard earth. She had to stand with down-bent head and closed eyes till it was past. And then it seemed to have gone so much farther up the platform than usual tonight, and she had all that long way to go back to get to it.

As soon as she could get her breath, she scrambled up the steep embankment, crouched a moment, and then gripping her valise, dashed across the track like a shadow and slid down the other side, getting her shoes full of big, painful cinders. She dared not run up the track, for then she would be in full sight of everyone, and there seemed to be many passengers tonight, more than usual.

But when she reached the firm ground, she found the going hard, for there were little unexpected hillocks, and twice in her haste she fell and bruised herself.