If he had to be interrupted at that moment there was no man whom Lockwood would rather have seen. Young Jackson came on slowly; he was wearing his gay summer clothes, with his hands clenched in his coat pockets, perhaps on a pistol, and his face looked wretched and haggard.
He gave Lockwood a glance of mingled doubt and defiance, and turned upon his sister.
“What you doin’ here, Louise?” he said. “You better go back to the house.”
She hesitated, speechless, looking from one to the other of them in terror.
“Yes, you’d better go, Miss Power,” Lockwood put in. “I want to have a talk with your brother. He’s just the man I wanted to see—about the things we were discussing. Don’t be afraid. It’ll be all right.”
Louise still hesitated, not reassured, and then started without a word up the pathway. Lockwood saw her looking nervously over her shoulder till she was out of sight.
“Now what’s all this about? How come I find you here like this with my sister?” demanded Jackson, trying to be aggressive.
“Say, Jackson, do you want your sister to marry Hanna?” Lockwood asked.
“Nuther him nor you! What’s that got to do with it? I heard of the dirty trick you tried to work on him down in Mobile.”
“And you believed it?”
“’Course we did. Why not? Tom’d shoot you on sight if he saw you. Good thing it was me come down here ’stead of him.”
“Well, it was all a d—d lie,” said Lockwood. He looked the boy over with a smile. He felt too exultant, too excited in that moment to have the slightest resentment. In spite of his bravado Jackson looked like a defiant and frightened schoolboy, and Lockwood half smiled at him with sympathy and liking.
“Sit down on that log,” he said. “I want to talk to you. You young devil, what sort of scrape have you been getting into now? Of course, I knew you on the road last night. What did you try to hold us up for? You didn’t need the money.”
The boy sat down heavily on the log and took his hands out of his pockets. His aggressiveness evaporated suddenly.
“I reckon you’ve got the whip hand of me,” he said sullenly. “’Course I knowed you knew me when you turned me loose. Well, how much do you want? Seems like I’ve got to buy off the hull earth.”
“You haven’t got to buy me, anyway. Who have you got to buy off? I don’t want anything. I’m in this as your friend, and I believe you need one mighty bad. See here! I’m going to tell you something. For over three years I’ve been looking for Hanna to kill him.”
Jackson glanced up doubtfully, but with a flash of interest—possibly of sympathy.
“What’s Hanna done to you?” he asked.
“Everything. He got all I had in the world, just as he’s trying to do to you. He got me sent to prison on the top of it.”
Once more Lockwood told the story of his wrongs and his long hunt for vengeance.
“Now I’ve got the brute cornered,” he finished, after describing his escape from the house boat. “I’ve spoiled his game, and he knows it. You talk to your sister. Take her opinion. She’s seen a bit of the world. You don’t want Hanna to skin you alive, do you? Will you back me up?”
“I reckon you’ve both got me—you an’ Hanna,” said Jackson wearily. “I reckon it looked bad to you, last night, didn’t it? It wasn’t as bad as it looked, though. My gun wasn’t loaded. I didn’t want to hold up that thar car.”
“Then what the deuce did you do it for?”
Jackson scrutinized him with gloomy, boyish eyes, eyes so like those of his sister that they moved Lockwood’s heart.
“Say, Lockwood, I always kinder took to you,” he said. “I couldn’t hardly believe them yarns Hanna told about you. I dunno hardly who to believe now. But I reckon I might as well tell you. Looks to me like it’s got so bad now that it won’t end till somebody’s killed—you or me or Hanna or Blue Bob.”
“So Blue Bob is in it,” Lockwood remarked.
“Sure. It’s him is at the bottom of it. He made me do that holdup. You know I used to run with Bob’s gang a whole lot, when we was pore an’ lived up the river. I was up to most any sort of devilment them days—didn’t have no more sense. Them boys sure was a rough crew. They used to raid warehouses along the river. But I never was in any of that.
“I reckon,” he went on after a dubious pause, “you’ve mebbe heerd about Jeff Forder gettin’ killed. You ain’t? It was three years ago, an’ they ain’t never yet found out who killed him. Jeff was a lazy, no-’count piny-woods squatter from ’cross the river, an’ we was all playin’ poker on Bob’s boat. The boys had considerable money that night an’ I was a-winnin’ it. Jeff had brung over a gallon of corn liquor, an’ liquor always did make Jeff right mean. First thing I remember, Jeff an’ me got to cussin’ over a pot, an’ the next thing was that everybody’s guns was all a-goin’ off at once. An’ there was Jeff laid out stiff.
“I dunno who shot him. I know I pulled my gun an’ blazed like all the rest. They all said it was me. I reckon likely it was. Anyways, they told me to get outer the State an’ lay low. Bob said he’d keep it dark. I went an’ hid in the swamps for a week, an’ most starved, an’ then went home. Nobody never was indicted for that killin’. Bob told me they sunk the body in the river, and it was all safe. Mebbe I’d never had no trouble if we hadn’t come into that money.
“After that, Bob kept hangin’ round. He touched me up for a hundred dollars. I didn’t mind givin’ it to him. Shucks! Bob was an old friend, an’ he’d got me outer a scrape, an’ what’s a hundred dollars? But then he touched me up again, an’ he kept right on. At last I kicked, an’ then he told me right out that he knew I killed Jeff Forder, an’ I just nachrilly had to give him what he wanted.”
“So you’ve been buying him off ever since?”
“I sure have. He must have got two or three thousand outer me, all together.”
“Did Hanna know anything about this?”
“Yes, he did. I dunno how. But he always stood by me. He helped me get money outer the old man on some excuse or another, when I had to pay Bob. Hanna surely helped me a whole lot. Bob used to come and blow the horn for me to go down an’ meet him in the woods, and I had to blow back. Lots of times I used to get Hanna to go to meet Bob ’stead of me, ’cause I was afraid to be seen near that cursed boat. Yes, Hanna sure helped me a whole lot there.”
“Yes, I reckon he did!” said Lockwood with irony. “I’ll bet Hanna got his rake-off on that blackmail. But how did all this bring you to hold up Craig’s car?”
“Why, Bob blowed for me yesterday and said he’d got to have a thousand dollars. It was the last time, he said. They was all goin’ to Mobile, an’ then way up the Warrior River, an’ clear outer the Alabama for good. I was sure glad to hear it. But I didn’t have no thousand dollars. I couldn’t raise it that day noways. Then Bob put me up to stoppin’ the car. He said Williams was all alone, with twelve hundred dollars on him, and it’d be dead easy. I was that desperate I didn’t care much whether I got the money or Williams shot me. I ain’t seen Bob since. I dunno what’s goin’ to happen when he finds I ain’t got the thousand dollars, but I’m right in a corner now, an’ I’ll fight.”
“That’s the talk!” cried Lockwood. “I’ll see you through. Don’t be afraid. That river gang would never lay any information against you. They’re scared themselves of—why, look here!” he exclaimed, as a flash of opportune memory came back to him. “I believe I’ve got it! Did you carry an automatic pistol the night of that killing?”
“No, I had a .38 Smith & Wesson.”
“Then I’ll bet you never shot anybody. It seems that you were all drunk. You don’t know what happened. But here’s what I heard on Bob’s boat.” He repeated the snatches of accusation and recrimination he had overheard.
“That’s right! Bob did have an automatic. He gave it to me afterward. But I never knowed that it was an automatic bullet that killed Jeff,” said Jackson. “Lord! if that’s only so! I’d be a free man again. I’ve felt the rope around my neck for three years.”
“I’m sure it’s so. Bob gave you the automatic afterward, you said. He’d have sworn that you’d had it all the time.”
“I’ll kill him for that!” Jackson burst out hotly.
“No, we don’t want him killed. But you can bluff him now; you’ve got the cards. He’s got no hold over you. Tell him so. Get it all over.”
“Bob was expectin’ me to blow for him to-day,” said Jackson. “If I don’t call him, he’ll sure come after me.”
“Call him up to-night, then. Do you know where he is? Is it far?”
“Not so very far. I could make him hear. But say! If I’m goin’ to meet Bob’s gang, you’ve got to come with me. There’s liable to be shootin’.”
“I’m afraid there is sure to be shooting as soon as Bob sees me,” said Lockwood. He shrunk from going aboard that fatal house boat again. “All right; I’ll go along. But I’d better keep back where they won’t see me unless it’s necessary.”
“Bring a gun,” the boy advised. “And what about Hanna?”
“There’ll be no trouble with Hanna, if you stand by me. He’ll have to give up all he’s got from you. He’s got the money put away somewhere. Everything’ll be all right then.”
“What do you get out of it?” the boy grinned a little. “I reckon I know what you’re hopin’ to get.”
“I reckon you do.”
“Well, if it all turns out as you say, you’ll sure deserve to get it.” He reflected, dismissing this triviality from his mind. “I s’pose we might as well do as you say, an’ get it over. I could meet you here at the motor boat. No, we’d better take the car. The road’s bad, but I could drive it with my eyes shut, I’ve been over it that often. The place is only about two miles, an’ I’ll blow for Bob from there.”
“Can you meet me somewhere? I can’t come here.”
“I’ll get you at the camp. The road goes down that way. I’ll be there about nine o’clock. And say!” he added, with a last suspicion, “if there’s anything crooked about this, you an’ me don’t both come back alive!”
Lockwood was waiting a long time before nine o’clock, walking slowly up the trail as he waited, until he reached the main road. He was afraid that Jackson would not come after all. He was relieved and almost surprised when he saw the lights of the car glaring down the road toward him.
“Glad you come up here,” said Jackson, stopping. “We’ll do better to go round a little. This woods is no good after a rain.”
They went straight down the road, with its sand almost hard and dry again after a day of blazing sun. Jackson drove at a recklessly fast pace, smoking a cigarette, watching the road that glowed and vanished under the lamp rays. A little mist was rising.
“I had trouble to get away,” said Jackson. “Sis wanted to know where I was goin’. I wouldn’t tell her. Reckon she thought it was a poker game somewhere. Hanna saw me, too, but he didn’t say nothin’.”
They passed a group of buildings, a deserted house and small barn. To the left a dim opening appeared among the pines, apparently a mere trail.
“Here’s where we turn off,” said the driver. “Lucky it’s a sandy road.”
For a few hundred yards they went between pines, mostly scarred with Craig’s turpentine mark. The wheels splashed through a tiny, unbridged creek. The pines gave way to cypress and sycamore and bay trees, tall black shapes whose branches almost met over the roadway. The wheels ran noiselessly on the stoneless ground. The sky seemed black as the earth; there was nothing but the long bars of brilliance cast through the haze by the lamps, falling on unending tree trunks, peeled white trunks, dark trunks overrun with creepers, tall spikes of bear grass, jungles of titi.
Lockwood lost all knowledge of where he was going. The trail wound and curved, but young Power seemed to know it like the palm of his hand. Then the road rose a little. Lockwood caught the ghostly gleam of trees marked with the turpentine gash, and Jackson stopped the car.
“We’re close there now,” he said. “Reckon we’ll leave the car here. Better turn her round, though,” he added. “An’ I’ll leave the engine runnin’. We might want to get away right quick.”
There was a little open ground at one side, and he ran the car off the trail and turned it around. They left it behind a clump of small pines, and groped forward on foot. Within fifty yards the road widened. There was a breath of cooler air. A wide-open space lay ahead. As he advanced he saw that it was the dark expanse of the river.
There was a clear space of perhaps half an acre on the shore, closed on three sides by dense woods, except where the road entered. It was a small, seldom-used landing where cotton and sirup were occasionally shipped, and a square, board warehouse stood on high posts close to the water.
“This here’s where I generally meet ’em,” said Jackson in a low voice. “Reckon Bob’s got his boat not fur away. I’ll give him a blow.”
From his pocket he produced the hunter’s horn, put it to his mouth and blew a long, melodious blast that echoed for several minutes from far-away over the woods. They listened. Away down the river a deep, distant roar came as if in answer. Jackson laughed.
“Guess that ain’t him. That’s the boat comin’ up. Forgot she was due to-night. Hark! There he is!”
A mile or two away—Lockwood could not guess the distance—another horn blew musically, rising, falling, dying into silence.
“All right. Bob’ll be here right soon,” said the boy. “Better fix what we’re a-goin’ to do.”
Lockwood walked back to the dark warehouse.
“I’ll stay back here,” he said. “I’ll hear and see what goes on, and I’ll be by you in a second if you need me. Just let Blue Bob know that he’s done fooling you, and he’ll give in.”
Jackson nodded somewhat dubiously, and walked out into the open space before the warehouse, while Lockwood leaned against the corner of the building, and they waited.
Miles away again they heard the roar of the river steamer. Looking down, Lockwood caught a glimpse of her searchlight over the trees, like sheet lightning on the sky. The river surged past at his feet, running strong with the recent rains. Drift of plank and timber went dimly by. Fifteen or twenty minutes passed nervously. They seemed an hour. Jackson had lighted a cigarette, and walked up and down as he smoked, invisible but for the moving spark of fire. Then there was a faint, low call from the edge of the woods. The boy stopped sharply, answered it; and then a trail of moving shapes came out into the clearing. Bob had brought his whole boat’s crew.
Jackson stepped forward to meet them. There was a low mutter.
“No, I ain’t got it,” he heard Jackson say.
There was an explosion of oaths. Some one went back to the woods, came back with something, struck a match, and instantly there was a flare of light. He had stuck the match into a turpentine cup half full of gum, and it burned with the fierce flare of a torch, rolling black smoke and casting a red glow on the woods and the three sinister figures that fronted young Power.
Lockwood stepped farther back behind the building. He could not come near enough now to hear ordinary talk, but he could at any rate see. The four men had their heads together, talking rapidly. He saw Jackson gesticulate defiance. The group surged apart. Tensely ready, Lockwood drew his automatic, and then—he did not know how it happened—half a dozen shots seemed to crash at once.
Jackson jumped back, his hand spouting flashes. Some one knocked over the turpentine cup. Darkness fell, except for the burning streams of liquid gum that flowed over the sand. Lockwood leaped out of his ambush. As he did so, swift as machine-gun fire, four shots flashed from the edge of the woods. In the flashes he saw Hanna’s face plainly behind the pistol. Jackson spun round and dropped. He struggled to get up, tumbled again and lay still.
Lockwood had instantly turned his own pistol on the ambushed murderer, now invisible. He fired three—four times into the darkness where he had seen Hanna’s face, running forward as he fired, into the light of the gun that smoked and flamed on the ground. He had forgotten the river men for a moment, till he heard a roar of amazement and fury from Blue Bob.
The next moment the darkness was criss-crossed by gun flashes, springing from shadowy hands. Lockwood found himself firing wildly at those leaping flames. Something knocked the pistol out of his grasp with a shock that almost paralyzed his arm. At the same instant there was a fierce burn on the top of his shoulder.
He dropped to his knees, confused and stunned. He groped dimly with his left hand for the pistol. A clump of weeds caught from the creeping fire and flared suddenly high. In the swift illumination he saw Jackson’s body lying still with outflung arms, the face unrecognizable with blood. He saw the river pirates ten yards back, and they saw him. There was a simultaneous crash of pistol shots. Sand flew into his face. He made a dive back toward the warehouse, and the brief blaze of the weeds went out.
Lockwood dodged around to the rear of the building in the pitch dark. He heard Bob shouting to relight the gum cup; and then the loose ground caved under his feet, and he plunged unexpectedly. Water went over him. The swift inshore eddy dragged him out, rolling him over and over. Half blinded and dazed, he saw a great flare of light arising on the shore; the torch had been lighted again. Instinctively he ducked under, holding his breath. Coming up, the bulk of the warehouse shut off the light. He was getting his wits back now, and he struck out, aiding the swift current with his arms and legs.
His right arm was still numbed, however, and of little use. His wet clothing weighted him heavily. Desperately anxious to get out of pistol range of shore, he swam with all his strength, and then something went over him in the dark, crushing him down, scratching his face.
He fought his way up through a tangle of wet twigs, clutched a large branch, and found himself clinging to the branchy top of a dead tree that was drifting fast down the stream. Dimly distinguishing its outline, he worked himself along to the trunk, got his head and shoulders on it, and rested.
He heard the deep, distant bellow of the river steamer again. On the shore, now a hundred yards away, he saw a group of men bending over something on the earth, in the lurid glare of the gum torch. He could not see whether Hanna was among them; he thought not.
The scene went out of sight as the current swept him behind a wooded point. It was the end of poor Jackson. If he were not shot dead he would be presently finished; and his body, too, would go rolling down the Alabama eddies. It meant the end of Hanna, too. Lockwood had a vague plan of heading a lynching party, if he ever got ashore. But Hanna’s downfall had cost too much.
The tree drifted and swirled about on the twisting currents. He clung to it for life, for he felt now that he would surely go to the bottom if he let go. Twice again he heard the tremendous nearing blast of the steamboat, and occasionally saw the wavering, white ray of her searchlight playing among the treetops. He was numbed and cold and half stupefied; and clung to the treetop with the instinct of desperation.
He was roused suddenly. A blinding glare like the sun was turned into his eyes. It shifted; down the next curve below he saw the white bulk of the steamer, magnified by the mist, like a vast mass of incandescence, poking out the long tentacle of her searchlight. She glowed all over with electric light, reflected from her white paint, and on either side she carried the low, black bulk of a loaded barge.
Lockwood thought of trying to signal, but they could not see him without turning the searchlight on him again. The crash of her stern paddles drowned the shout he set up. She might pass him—she might run him down—she might grind him up in her paddles. He could do nothing to affect his destiny. He watched the white bulk looming larger, hearing the increasing crash of her machinery.
For a moment he thought she was going right over him. The bluff prow seemed aimed straight at his head. Then she veered a little. He could see the pilot high in his glass box; he caught the red flash from her furnace on the lower deck; and then she surged ponderously by, and the bow of the left-hand barge brushed smashing through the twigs of his tree.
He made a scrambling leap. The side of the barge was not two feet out of water, and he caught the rough planking, held on, and dragged himself aboard. Nobody was on the barge. He dropped behind the heaped crates and barrels and lay there.
The boat crashed and wallowed up the river. He saw the warehouse at that fatal landing as they passed it. No light showed there now. The tragedy was over. He fancied the murderous scattering in the darkness. In an hour Blue Bob’s house boat would be driving full speed for Mobile. He did not care about Blue Bob, but he was determined that this should be the end of Hanna’s rope.
Within fifteen minutes the boat blew for Rainbow Landing, still two or three miles away. Lockwood’s head was clearing, his strength coming back. He lay quietly in the dark behind the freight until the boat rounded in to the warehouse opposite the scarlet-striped bluff. When the gangplank was down he made his way through the roustabouts and went ashore, without any one having detected his stolen ride.