He gave Lockwood a glance of mingled2 doubt and defiance3, 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 reassured4, and then started without a word up the pathway. Lockwood saw her looking nervously5 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 exultant6, too excited in that moment to have the slightest resentment7. In spite of his bravado8 Jackson looked like a defiant9 and frightened schoolboy, and Lockwood half smiled at him with sympathy and liking10.
“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 sullenly11. “’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 hull12 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 mighty13 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 vengeance14.
“Now I’ve got the brute15 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 scrutinized16 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 yarns17 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 warehouses18 along the river. But I never was in any of that.
“I reckon,” he went on after a dubious20 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 squatter21 from ’cross the river, an’ we was all playin’ poker22 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 indicted23 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 irony24. “I’ll bet Hanna got his rake-off on that blackmail25. 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 Warrior26 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 opportune27 memory came back to him. “I believe I’ve got it! Did you carry an automatic pistol the night of that killing28?”
“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 accusation29 and recrimination he had overheard.
“That’s right! Bob did have an automatic. He gave it to me afterward30. 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 bluff31 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 crooked32 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 deserted33 house and small barn. To the left a dim opening appeared among the pines, apparently34 a
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