The Bondboy Part 23

"I mean Isom," said Sol.

"Isom?" said she, relieved. "Why didn't Joe come after me?" Before Sol could adjust his program to meet this unexpected exigency, she demanded: "Well, what's the matter with Isom?"

"Dead," said Sol, dropping his voice impressively.

"You don't mean--well, shades of mercy, Isom dead! What was it--cholera-morbus?"

"Killed," said Sol; "shot down with his own gun and killed as dead as a dornix."

"His own gun! Well, sakes--who done it?"

"Only one man knows," said Sol, shaking his head solemnly. "I'll tell you how it was."

Sol started away back at the summons to jury service, worked up to the case in which he and Isom had sat together, followed Isom then along the road home, and galloped to overtake him. He arrived at his gate--all in his long and complete narrative--again, as he had done in reality the night past; he heard the shot in Isom's house; he leaped to the ground; he ran. He saw a light in the kitchen of Isom's house, but the door was closed; he knocked, and somebody called to him to enter. He opened the door and saw Isom lying there, still and b.l.o.o.d.y, money--gold money--all over him, and a man standing there beside him. There was n.o.body else in the room.

"Shades of mercy!" she gasped. "Who was that man?"

Sol looked at her pityingly. He put his hand to his forehead as if it gave him pain to speak.

"It was your Joe," said he.

She sighed, greatly lightened and relieved.

"Oh, then Joe he told you how it happened?" said she.

"Ma'am," said Sol impressively, "he said they was alone in the kitchen when it happened; he said him and Isom had some words, and Isom he reached up to pull down the gun, and the hammer caught, and it went off and shot him. That's what Joe told me, ma'am."

"Well, Sol Greening, you talk like you didn't believe him!" she scorned.

"If Joe said that, it's so."

"I hope to G.o.d it is!" said Sol, drawing a great breath.

If Sol had looked for tears, his eyes were cheated; if he had listened for screams, wailings, and moanings, his ears were disappointed. Sarah Newbolt stood straight and haughtily scornful in her kitchen door, her dark eyes bright between their snapping lids.

"Where's Joe?" she asked sternly.

"He's over there," said Sol, feeling that he had made a noise like a peanut-bag which one inflates and smashes in the palm in the expectation of startling the world.

"Have they took him up?"

"Well, you see, Bill Frost's kind of keepin' his eye on him till the inquest," explained Sol.

"Yes, and I could name the man that put him up to it," said she.

"Well, circ.u.mstantial evidence--" began Sol.

"Oh, circ.u.mstance your granny!" she stopped him pettishly.

Mrs. Newbolt emptied her pan among the scrambling fowls by turning it suddenly upside down. That done, she reached behind her and put it on the table. Her face had grown hard and severe, and her eyes were fierce.

"Wouldn't believe my boy!" said she bitterly. "Are you going over that way now?"

"Guess I'll be ridin' along over."

"Well, you tell Joe that I'll be there as quick as shank's horses can carry me," she said, turning away from the door, leaving Sol to gather what pleasure he was able out of the situation.

She lost no time in primping and preparing, but was on the road before Sol had gone a quarter of a mile.

Mrs. Newbolt cut across fields, arriving at the Chase farm almost as soon as Sol Greening did on his strawberry roan. The coroner had not come when she got there; Bill Frost allowed Joe to come down to the unused parlor of old Isom's house to talk with her. Frost showed a disposition to linger within the room and hear what was said, but she pushed him out.

"I'll not let him run off, Bill Frost," said she. "If he'd wanted to run, if he'd had anything to run from, he could 'a' gone last night, couldn't he, you dunce?"

She closed the door, and no word of what pa.s.sed between mother and son reached the outside of it, although Bill Frost strained his ear against it, listening.

When the coroner arrived in the middle of the forenoon he found no difficulty in obtaining a jury to inquire into Isom's death. The major and minor male inhabitants of the entire neighborhood were a.s.sembled there, every qualified man of them itching to sit on the jury. As the coroner had need of but six, and these being soon chosen, the others had no further pleasure to look forward to save the inquiry into the tragedy.

After examining the wound which caused Isom's death, the coroner had ordered the body removed from the kitchen floor. The lamp was still burning on the table, and the coroner blew it out; the gold lay scattered on the floor where it had fallen, and he gathered it up and put it in the little sack.

When the coroner went to the parlor to convene the inquest, the crowd packed after him. Those who were not able to get into the room cl.u.s.tered in a bunch at the door, and protruded themselves in at the windows, silent and expectant.

Joe sat with his mother on one hand, Constable Frost on the other, and across the room was Ollie, wedged between fat Mrs. Sol Greening and her bony daughter-in-law, who claimed the office of ministrants on the ground of priority above all the gasping, sympathetic, and exclaiming females who had arrived after them.

Ollie was pale and exhausted in appearance, her face drawn and bloodless, like that of one who wakes out of an anesthetic after a surgical operation upon some vital part. Her eyes were hollowed, her nostrils pinched, but there was no trace of tears upon her cheeks. The neighbors said it was dry grief, the deepest and most lasting that racks the human heart. They pitied her, so young and fair, so crushed and bowed under that sudden, dark sorrow.

Mrs. Greening had thrown something black over the young widow's shoulders, of which she seemed unaware. It kept slipping and falling down, revealing her white dress, and Mrs. Greening kept adjusting it with motherly hand. Sitting bent, like an old woman, Ollie twisted and wound her nervous hot fingers in her lap. Now and then she lifted her eyes to Joe's, as if struggling to read what intention lay behind the pale calm of his face.

No wonder she looked at him wild and fearful, people said. It was more than anybody could understand, that sudden development of fierce pa.s.sion and treachery in a boy who always had been so shy and steady. No wonder she gazed at him that way, poor thing!

Of course they did not dream how far they were from interpreting that look in the young widow's eyes. There was one question in her life that morning, and one only, it seemed. It stood in front of the future and blocked all thought of it like a heavy door. Over and over it revolved in her mind. It was written in fire in her aching brain.

When they put Joe Newbolt on the witness-stand and asked him how it happened, would he stand true to his first intention and protect her, or would he betray it all?

That was what troubled Ollie. She did not know, and in his face there was no answer.

Sol Greening was the first witness. He told again to the jury of his neighbors the story which he had gone over a score of times that morning. Mrs. Newbolt nodded when he related what Joe had told him, as if to say there was no doubt about that; Joe had told her the same thing. It was true.

The coroner, a quick, sharp little man with a beard of unnatural blackness, thick eyebrows and sleek hair, helped him along with a question now and then.

"There was n.o.body in the room but Joe Newbolt when you arrived?"

"n.o.body else--no livin' body," replied Sol.

"No other living body. And Joe Newbolt was standing beside the body of Isom Chase, near the head, you say?"

"Yes, near Isom's head."

"With his hat in his hand, as if he had just entered the room, or was about to leave it?"