At the top of the ridge, looking down into the Hollow, Ben suddenly remembered.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “A man—a revenuer, Speer—was shot down the road here, night before last.”

  He turned and looked squarely at Currier. There was no doubt that Nate had left the Hollow before Ben had heard the two shots, and that he had only imagined he had seen two dark figures crossing through the cornfield. Nathan Currier turned quickly and stared at him, his mouth dropping open. He wetted his snuff-stained lips. Ben did not understand the horror in his eyes until he made out the whispered syllables.

  “Whar’s Julie?”

  He knew then that Nate Currier was afraid, for Julie; and he sensed for the first time that it was Old Doss he feared.

  “She’s all right. At least she was yesterday.”

  Currier sat erect in the seat, moistening his lips, his hands trembling. They went down the hill and clear of the trees overhanging the path into the open road in front of the cabin gate. Ben heaved a sigh of relief as he jammed on the brakes. Julie Currier was standing on the porch. He heard her cry of delight as she flew down the steps and across the courtyard, starry-eyed and breathless, to meet her grandfather. The old man leaned back a moment in the seat, then struggled blindly with the door. Ben opened it.

  “Good-by, Mr. Currier,” he said.

  CHAPTER 18

  He parked the car at the foot of the hill and walked up the cleared trail to join the detail. If he had been less preoccupied with the four people down in the cabin yard he would have noticed that the CCC boys were quieter today. The shouting and wisecracking were gone. A curious uneasiness seemed to hang over them. Sisky was not there. Ben did notice that and wondered where he was. He did not see the questioning earnestness in Dave Phinney’s blue eyes or the curious glance that Mike Shannon gave him as he came up.

  It was nearly lunch time when he stopped to look at an oddly-shaped knotty branch that Phinney was lopping off a big branch near the butt of the tree. He stooped and picked it up. It occurred to him that it would make an offering for the Currier fire. When the detail knocked off for lunch he went down the hill with it under his arm.

  Kilgore thwacked the ground with his tail and looked at him hopefully. Nathan Currier and Old Doss were sitting on the porch, Young Doss was nowhere in sight. Julie was coming up from the spring house. They met at the bottom of the steps. The color deepened in her pale lovely face and she smiled. Ben was acutely aware of the two pairs of ancient eyes watching them. He looked down at the jug of cold buttermilk in her hand.

  “Hello, Julie,” he said. “Carry it for you?”

  She shook her head quickly and hurried past him to the kitchen porch.

  Ben held out the heavy cedar knot. “I brought this down for your fire,” he said.

  The old man made no move to take it. He sat perfectly still, staring at Ben with strange hostile eyes. For a moment Ben wondered if the morning’s event had really happened, not four hours ago. Then he looked past Nate Currier and saw Old Doss shift his colorless eyes from the piece of wood he was whittling and rest them for an instant on him with silent concentrated hatred. In that moment’s glance there was all the venom of a nest of copperheads.

  Ben tossed the cedar knot onto the pile of wood on the ground against the rough stone chimney and brushed off his hands.

  “My mistake, I guess,” he said. He started down the steps. Before he had moved Nate Currier’s slow voice stopped him. He looked up again. The same hostile eyes were fixed steadily on him.

  “I’m an ig-norant man, Mr. Davidge,” Nathan Currier was saying. “I only got one book. I reckon you ain’t never seed hit, have ye?”

  Ben looked at him curiously. “I don’t know. What is it?”

  “Julie, git my book.”

  Ben heard her quick step on the bare cabin floor and looked up expectantly. Old Doss’s mouth hardened to a thin bitter line. He got slowly to his feet. As Julie started to come through the door he thrust her back and took the book out of her hands. He handed it to Nate and leaned back against the pine door frame, silent, hardly human, Ben thought; more like an evil scarecrow come to life. Ben flushed, realizing that there must have been some kind of eager anticipation in his own eyes. He looked at Nate Currier. He had taken a pair of thick-lensed spectacles with heavy silver rims from a battered tin case in his pocket and put them on. He turned the pages of the tattered blue-covered book with awkward unaccustomed fingers until he came to the place he wanted.

  “I reckon you kin read that, Mr. Davidge?” he asked. He handed Ben the book. There was no smile on Ben’s face as he saw it was McGuffey’s Fifth Reader and read the title of the story Nathan Currier held open to him. It was called “Meddlesome Tom.” Ben read it through with Nate Currier’s glittering eyes fastened on his face. He had heard the story before. Theodore Roosevelt had used the part about Meddling Sally in an early campaign. The moral was simple. There is nothing but grief for people who meddle in other people’s business. It was Nathan Currier’s way of telling him to mind his own business and let theirs alone.

  Ben read it carefully, wondering about it and the old man’s sudden change. Was it because of his hopeless and unfortunate trip to the workshop the night before? Because he had cut Julie loose? Or was it the letter taken out of the manila envelope in Speer’s pocket?

  He closed the book and handed it back, meeting the old man’s sardonic glance with a steady gaze.

  “They was an eddicated woman here from th’ East last spring,” Nathan said. “I showed her that book, an’ when she left she said, ‘I thought you said you was an ig-norant man.’ ”

  Ben smiled.

  “I never thought you were an ignorant man, Mr. Currier,” he said quietly. “I thought you were an honest one.”

  The smile on Currier’s face faded to slow angry surprise. Ben turned and strode across the dirt yard. He was annoyed not so much at Currier’s having put him neatly in his place with a moral tale out of a blue-backed speller as at himself for laying himself open to such treatment. This was the sort of a joke that would go the length of the valley in two days. And it wasn’t that he minded that so much. What had Nate Currier heard since he got out of the car and went into the cabin? How was it going to affect Julie Currier . . . before Saturday night? He remembered the promise he had made to her here by the gate.

  He laughed suddenly in spite of himself. The night before he had been routed with a shotgun pressed into his spinal column, now with a blue-backed speller thrust into his hands. It would now appear, he thought ruefully, that in setting out to help the Currier girl he had succeeded in making enemies of all three of the Curriers.

  Outside the gate he lighted his pipe and strolled down to the spring under the sycamore tree. The gourd cup had fallen to the ground. He picked it up to rinse it off and stopped, listening. A car was coming over the ridge above the cabin. He turned back. It was probably someone from Norris to look over the cedar again. He stood in the road waiting. The long dried form of Old Doss was moving deliberately through the field towards the shop. Ben glanced at the cabin. Nate Currier was sitting on the porch, Julie standing beside him. Both of them were looking up, waiting for the car to come out of the wooded hill road.

  Ben recognized the old Buick before he saw who was in it. As it stopped at the incline by the gate Loftus and another man got out. They came towards him.

  “Howdy,” Loftus said. “Mr. Davidge, make you acquainted with Mr. Wade, from Washington. He’s come out thisaway t’ see about Mr. Speer.”

  Loftus spat thoughtfully between his solidly planted feet. Ben shook hands with a middle-aged, sandy-haired man with cold eyes. He had a firm jaw and a quiet manner, much like the dead Treasury agent’s.

  “I been tellin’ him you an’ Speer was right friendly,” Loftus said. “I reckon maybe you can tell him what happened better’n any a’ th’ rest of us.”

  Ben looked at him. He wondered if he was being taken for another ride, or if the blue-backed speller was making him as suspicious as all the rest of them.

  He watched Loftus take the chain off the gate post and turned back to meet the cool scrutiny of the Treasury agent standing beside him. Mr. Wade had very bright and very sharp eyes, and there was no gleam of friendliness in them.

  “You’re a forester with the CCC,” he said. He had a flat indefinite accent that placed him anywhere above the Mason-Dixon line. “Cold,” Ben thought. He nodded.

  “You found Speer?”

  “Down the road here, by the spring.”

  “Shot in the back, from behind a tree?”

  Ben pointed down the road to the oak. “He fell backwards in the ditch there, by that dead stalk of ironweed.”

  The icy eyes shifted from Ben’s face to the tree, across the road, back across the yellow field to the workshop. He hesitated a moment and nodded at it.

  “Been down there?”

  “Last night. Somebody was down there with a shotgun. Old Doss is my guess. I came away.”

  A cold light flickered in the agent’s eyes for an instant. “Who’s Old Doss?”

  “The old man’s brother. It might have been Young Doss, only I think he’d have fired. The Curriers don’t like meddlers. They told me so again this morning.”

  Wade nodded. “Most of these people don’t.”

  “By the way,” Ben said coolly, “would you mind telling me what the devil’s down there? Loftus says there’s no still here, the Curriers are temperance.”

  “So he said.”

  “Then what was Speer after? Or was he a meddler too?”

  Wade looked at him. He had an abrupt trick of darting his bleak gray eyes from side to side without changing the position of his head that gave him an alert watchful air. There was something abnormally impersonal about him.

  “Where’s the letter of instructions he gave you?”

  So Loftus knew that too, Ben thought. Crafty old fox.

  “He took it back again. The envelope was in his pocket when I found him.”

  Wade’s lips hardened.

  “Did Loftus tell you about that?”

  “No.”

  Wade’s answer was brief and final. Ben got the idea. His job was to supply information, not to ask for it.

  “How long have you been down here?”

  “A little over six months.”

  “Where from?”

  “Philadelphia.”

  The agent looked sharply at him. Ben thought he looked a little surprised.

  “You know Pete Hromanik?”

  Ben had not thought before that it was to be a social chat. He shook his head. “No. Friend of yours?”

  A sudden flicker lighted Mr. Wade’s face again. It seemed to be the nearest he came to showing amusement.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. The eyes darted around, focused steadily on Ben. “Your home’s in Philadelphia?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Look here,” he said abruptly. “Did Speer expect to get killed down here? What did he give me the letter for?”

  Wade looked at him silently for several seconds. “You know as much about it as I do,” he said curtly. “The letter ought to tell us.”

  Ben flushed. “I tell you it’s gone.”

  “Then I guess we won’t ever know.”

  Wade looked down the road, at the workshop, up at the cabin.

  “What about the Curriers?” Ben said doggedly. “Are you going to take ’em in?”

  The agent turned back. “Not till I find out whether they killed Speer or not.”

  “Loftus told me I’d be the only man in the county that didn’t know they did.”

  “That’s what a fellow named Kilgore told me. If they did we’ll get them. We’ve got laws with teeth in ’em now. It’s closed season on Federals,”

  Wade hesitated a moment. “What makes you think they shot him?”

  “Doss Currier and his father were the only ones around. Nathan was in Knoxville.”

  Wade shook his head coolly. He hesitated again.

  “What about this half-wit. Can he shoot?”

  Ben stared at him. “I shouldn’t think so,” he said. He realized instantly that he had no reason for thinking anything about it, one way or another.

  “You don’t think so?” The light flickered in Wade’s eyes again. “Well, Kilgore tells me he’s a crack shot. One of the best in the county.”

  “I didn’t know it,” Ben said stiffly. “Anyway, he can’t shoot with a guitar. He didn’t have a gun when I saw him, a little while before.”

  “A little while before what?”

  The Treasury agent spoke sharply. Ben flushed. There was something about Wade’s manner that made everything he said not only incriminating but downright stupid.

  “Before Speer was shot. I was here in the Hollow. I saw Edrew. I didn’t see Speer.”

  “You were here? In the Hollow? Where were you?”

  Ben told him. When the two shots sounded in the night he was in his car at the top of the ridge.

  Wade nodded. “And you’re the man who just told me Old Doss and his son were the only people around here,” he said sardonically. “Seems to me you spend a lot of time down here yourself, Mr. Davidge. Who else did you see?”

  Ben flushed angrily. Wade did not appear to notice it. His eyes had shifted to the cabin porch, where Nathan Currier and Loftus were talking. Julie was standing for a moment by the kitchen door. She went in as Ben followed the agent’s glance.

  “Who else did you see?”

  “Miss Currier. A fellow from camp. His name is Raymond Sisky.”

  Wade darted a quick glance at him.

  “Anybody else?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “No. There might have been somebody else. I wasn’t sure. I thought at first it was Nate Currier, before I knew he was in Knoxville.”

  The semblance of a wintery smile showed in Wade’s eyes for an instant. He looked at his watch. “I’ll be getting on,” he said. “See you tonight. I’m staying at Loftus’s place.”

  He started towards the cornfield road.

  “If you’re going to that workshop, I’d like to come along,” Ben said.

  Wade stopped and turned back. “It wouldn’t interest you,” he said. He went on and turned again. “It’s not a still. Speer knew that.”

  He nodded coolly and went on through the corn. Ben stared after him a moment. He grinned. “O.K., brother,” he thought. “But don’t you go passing me any secret letters.”

  He heard a voice calling him and turned. Loftus was leaning against the Curriers’ gate, beckoning to him. He went down the little gravel slope.

  “I been talkin’ t’ Nate,” Loftus said slowly. “I was tellin’ him you was friendly with this feller Speer, an’ you didn’t mean no harm by last night.”

  He shook his head soberly and spat through the rails.

  “Law me, Mr. Davidge, I reckon you sure ought t’ know by now folks up thisaway ain’t cravin’ t’ have people prowlin’ round all night. Seems like you ought t’ know better’n that. Well, I was talkin’ to him, an’ I reckon if I was you I’d go ’long an’ have a cup a’ buttermilk with ’em. I don’t reckon you’ll get airy thing stronger.”

  Ben grinned. “I had that dog set on me once,” he said. “No, thanks.”

  Loftus chuckled. “That Kilgore’s a smart dawg,” he said. He spat again. “Well, suit yerself. Reckon I’ll go up an’ look at that there tree while I’m waitin’ fer Mr. Wade. Comin’ along?”

  Ben looked at the cabin. Julie was standing on the porch looking down at them.

  “No,” he said.

  Loftus chuckled again. “Julie’s shurnuff gittin’ right purty,” he said. “Some’d say a mite scrawny.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Ben crossed the dirt yard between the corn crib and the low stable. Julie was standing on the porch, the sun shining on her smooth gold hair. Her eyes were deeply troubled. So were Nathan Currier’s.

  “Set down, Mr. Davidge,” he said. “We’ll be friendly with ye.”

  It was very direct and simple, and it contrasted oddly with the black suspicion and hostility of less than an hour before. Ben wondered if Old Doss would relent as easily as his brother had done.

  “Thank you,” he said. He sat down on the top step. The spare wiry figure of the United States Treasury agent was half-way down the lane to the workshop.

  “Hit was mighty nice of ye to bring down that there knot,” Nate Currier said slowly. “Hit makes a right purty fire, less’n a body was t’ feel he didn’t have no heart burnin’ hit, hit’s stood thar so long.”

  Ben nodded, puffing tranquilly at his pipe. None of them spoke for a while.

  “If they say Old Doss kilt the revenuer,” Nate said abruptly, “they ain’t sayin’ th’ truth.”

  Ben looked at him, surprised.

  “He never done hit, Mr. Davidge.”

  Ben glanced at Julie. She was standing with hands folded in front of her, looking out across the cornfield. He wondered what she was thinking. When she felt his eyes on her she looked down without smiling. Her eyes were shuttered, remote.

  “Old Doss he says he was most to the end a’ the road when he hear’d th’ shots,” Nate Currier said. His voice rose and fell, harsh and grating.

  Ben grinned suddenly. “Didn’t know he could talk,” he said.

  “He don’t talk much. Don’t never talk t’ strangers.”

  “Uncle Doss doesn’t like strangers much,” Julie said.

  Nate Currier shook his head slowly. “He never kilt th’ revenuer.”

  No one spoke again for a moment. The bees in the honeysuckle hummed drowsily, a chicken, encouraged by the silence, came hopping up the steps and wandered into the house. Both Julie and her grandfather were completely at ease. Only civilization made people unfit for silence, Ben thought. He wanted to ask, What about Young Doss? but it didn’t seem quite the thing. After all, Wade had strongly suggested that he could keep out.

  “Have you decided anything about leaving the Hollow, Mr. Currier?” he asked.

  Nate shook his head.

  Ben wondered if he could ask whether Julie was to be allowed to go to Philadelphia. He supposed that was probably out.

 

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