22. Slick At That
From his talent for details Parker made a note of the fact that Currle had refused to shake his hand. It armed him additionally for the interview.
"I'm about as glad to see you," he added pleasantly, "as you to see me."
He held himself ready for any manner of retort, whether of speech or action. But Currie's reproach centered first upon the girl.
"It's the government spy you're so wrapped up in that you didn't hear me the first time I called, is it? Coming up, I heard the champing of a horse, but I wouldn't have believed, without I'd caught you breathing inside air with such as - as yon - that it was the one-eyed nag I heard Sal Shortoli stung him a-plenty for. I nigh sprained a good team to get back and help your pappy handle him, and here I find you - in this of all places "
"And here you find me 'tending strictly to what's my own business and my pappy's, not yours," interrupted Vernaluska, in a voice, with a look, that warned him. "If you-all have got any manners, ot even any respect for orders "
She paused, her eyes held on the mallet of his fist.
It relaxed, fingers straightening, and hung more like a hand at his side.
''I may not be strong on manncFS," he admitted, "but you have taught me how to wait."
"To wait for what?" she demanded sharply.
His irides expanded as from some bold, preconceiyed scheme. "For two things, Verney. One is you. The other is Mr. Slick Parker, if he's still around when I get ready to attend to him."
"Mr. Parker has been telling me" - she chose to disregard the menace of his words and look - "that we-all are mistaken in his calling. He says it is only his private and particular business that is holding him in the Blue Ridge."
"It looks like that - mighty private, and damn particular," said the hillbilly, scowling.
"Ease off on him a mite. Rex," she said In a changed, coaxing way. "He's trying to be friendly - has done opened the way for me to make you a better offer for your mountain."
"His mountain?" queried Parker.
She nodded. "Crumbly Bald, that I'm christened after. I was telling you yesterday about how it came down to Rex through his father, who never would let my dad buy it because of an old spite between them. I'm asking Rex, as a personal favor, to sell to us what ain't - isn't any use on earth to him."
In the Interest of his opposition, Currle chose to disregard the presence of the outsider.
"And I'm doing you a personal favor to flat refuse," he declared. "Your pap's a mite off or he wouldn't want to buy the worthless stone-pile, and you know it. I've got an idea that his hope of taking over my title is all he lets me stick around here for. You don't know a real friend when you've got one, Verney Metcalf. Hell's fire, don't you reckon I'd be glad enough to sell It for money if It was robbing any one but you, Hon?"
But Vernaluska insisted, and brought to bear the battery of her smiles as she stepped closed to the obstinate owner.
"Dad may be a mite off in wanting it," she said, her voice sweetening, "but since he does want it so much that he's sworn to me he'll quit stilling after he gets it - Listen, Rexey, I offer you five hundred dollars for Grumbly Bald, and here's something to bind the bargain."
Currie's eyes widened as she produced from the pocket of her dress a bank-note and fluttered it temptingly.
"Do you mean to say you took that from "
"I've sold the first of what you've always said were no-account jugs - sold it for sure-enough money," she interrupted, with a triumphant look. "If I can sell one, don't you reckon I can sell many? There are rich folks over AshevIUe and Blltmore ways, folks that buy what they fancy and don't care particular about the price. I'm going over there soon with all Solomon can pack, and do some thrifty peddling. I'll have you paid off in such a jiffy you won't know what's been happening."
"You'll jiffy yourself Into jail - that's what'll happen!"
There was no doubting Currie's antagonism toward her offer, although his eyes lit strangely as her face lifted to his and the hand fondling the watch-chain that spanned his vest-front grew additionally nervous. Lie reached out, caught the fluttering sleeve of her waist between his powerful thumb and forefinger, pinched the cloth until his knuckles showed white.
"Verney-girl, what you ask ain't good for you to have," he continued his appeal in a lowered, husky voice. "When my one idea is to get you out of here, you want to go and dog-chain yourself to a mountain ! Don't you know that when the blowoff comes, you'll be grabbed by the law same as your men folks?"
"Why won't you see what I'm getting at, Rex?" she insisted. "Nary one of us will be grabbed if you sell us the Bald. Dad wants to raise goats on it, and he's sworn himself to me, I keep telling you, to quit stilling forever as soon as "
"You don't think he actually would? How soon?"
An arrested, uneasy look for a moment blotted the ardor of his face. But before she, surprised, could frame a reply, he was expanding the reason for his refusal to sell to her.
"Tom's idea of goats is plumb foolish. Not enough brush grows on the Bald to feed a dozen woolly grubbers. He wants it in the hope of getting shut of me, him thinking I ain't good enough to travel hitched with you. He's a mite silly, Verney, and you might as well face it. No ma'am - the answer is no! My own pappy wouldn't sell the old growling pile of stones to yours. He asked me to keep a hold on it, and I reckon I'll be bounden to oblige him, unless "
"Unless some acceptable outside purchaser comes along? Say, Currie, will you sell me that mountain for five hundred cash?"
Parker spoke from inspiration. Possession of Mount Vernaluska had, all In a flash of thought, become his dominant desire.
In the others the proposition aroused apparent astonishment. Currie dropped the girl's sleeve. The two sprang apart and faced him.
"You don't mean " she began.
"What the hell do you-uns want of it?" demanded the hillbilly.
"I want to own It." Parker spoke convincingly, despite his quiet voice and tired smile. "Five hundred - on the spot."
Antagonistically the countryman stared at the New Yorker a moment; considered cravingly the girl whom he had elected "to save"; nodded with sudden decision.
"You're on," he said.
"But, Rex, you wouldn't sell It out of my hands?" Vernaluska's voice was a wail, her clutch on his arm that of despair. "If you do, you've no leave ever to think of me again."
Currie laughed in a hard way. "I'll be thinking all the same. I'm set on getting you away from here, and I generally get what I'm set on. If the slick's got the cash the Bald is his."
Pride seemed to outrun her protest. She withdrew to her work-bench; from a seat there watched the transaction.
With his left hand Parker drew a checkbook from one pocket and a fountain pen from another; painstakingly, with his right, began to write a check on his New York bank.
But Currie made objection. "A bit of paper hand-writ by yourself - do you reckon I'd take that? You said cash."
"North Carolina would take care of any man who gave you a bad check," said Parker, "but - Well, here's a New York draft which you'll have no trouble changing Into gold."
From his wallet he selected one of the drafts which he carried against emergency, and endorsed it to Currle. On the back of a blank check he penned a comprehensive receipt which would protect his new interest until a formal deed might be handed over. Both of these and the pen he handed the hillbilly. He realized a return of his cordial dislike when Currle, after pocketing the draft and signing the receipt, returned it and the pen with a frank sneer.
"So-ho, there's graft enough in revenulng," he said, "that you can deal out a five-century chunk without missing it - and for a pile of rocks that ain't worth one crumble of salt! Looks plain he's meaning to settle hereabouts, Verney, until he finds the Metcalf still. Likely now you'll mark what I've told you "
"I'll mark a nary thing you've ever told me, Rex Currle," flashed the girl, rising and stepping up to him. "You didn't mark what I told you, that my hope of the Bald was all I've been working toward. You needn't ever think of me again. Take your five hundred and "
"And you, honey - I'll take you, too, never fear. You know I wouldn't ever go without you. You're a mite riled up now because "
"Which or whether, get out of my sight!"
At her vehemence all his suavity seemed to desert him.
"You - you order me out before " He stammered, his face flared, his breath came hard. "You want to be alone with him - to hear more of his soft-soap - to tell him, maybe "
The girl watched him, at first apprehensive lest he was about to end In a physical attack the contest with the stranger who, from the day of arrival, had outwitted him. She knew that he was still hurting with chagrin over his failure to ship Parker back to the railroad, the tale of which, spread among the wets at the Gap, had made him the subject of none too subtle jests. From that she could estimate how her benefit of doubt toward his enemy must enrage him. But this apprehension vanished in a greater one. She saw the look of crafty consideration in his face, saw that some new resolve had brought him self-control.
"All right," he snapped. "Since I ain't wanted ni go."
With which he turned on his heel and started down the sheer trail that led to the falls.
Vernaluska crossed to the bank, peered over It, listened to make sure that he really had forded the stream, mounted his horse and started at a hard pace through the woods on the far side.
Parker stood watching her. Despite the manner of the hillbilly's departure, he felt that he had won.
"I'm some slick at that!" v/as his self-congratulation.
Tiring of the wait, he followed the girl and noticed a high, suspicious look to the back of her shoulders. He spoke her name; then, as she did not turn, caught her hand.
She, snatching her fingers away as though a dog had bitten them, faced him. The strength she had shown before Currie was gone. Her lips were quivering, her eyes wet.
"I could have wheedled him In time," she accused in a broken voice. "I can do anything with Rex, and I hadn't hardly started on him. Why did you go and spoil my last chance of getting dad and Sandy within the law?"
He met her attack with a smile, a hopeful, remindful smile.
"I did it," said he, "to buy the judge."
Something In the look of him changed her confusion into hope.
"You bought it from Rex," she asked in the faint voice of one afraid to believe, "so that I - that we
"So that you can buy it from me. I prefer myself to Currle as your landlord. I hope that you'll come to prefer me, too."
"Will you clinch what you say, stranger? Will you take this down on the bargain and give me one of them - one of those receipts?"
Again she drew out the greenback which Parker had paid her only a few minutes before. She eyed him as intently as he eyed it; a return of sickening doubt shov/ed in her face as she noted his dislike for it. For what seemed a long time, he considered.
"I will take it if you'll never call me stranger' again," he stipulated at last. "I won't feel at home in your mountains until somebody calls me 'Cal.' "
"It seems like the new landlord of Grumbly Bald ought to be made to feel at home, don't it, Cal?"
He marked the flush which accompanied her naYve acquiescence, just before she hurried back to her jug-house. To its former resting-place in his billfold he returned the note which she had thrust into his hand; wrote a second receipt on a check-back, followed her, gravely handed it over.
"0h, to think - to think that what IVe worked for so long is going to be !"
The last of an ultra-sophisticated race felt a vicarious thrill from her joy lilt.
"It's a little out of my past line, this helping in the regeneration of two thirst-quenchers - namely, your brother and dad," he made comment. "But one's idea of what is and what isn't a worthy cause may change. I'm with you in this. To it I pledge my heart, my hand - my mountain."
He noticed that she had unpinned a small brooch from her dress, a purple stone framed by a flat, gold band; that the red-bronze head drooped with abashment as she held it out to him and said:
"Would you-uns be too proud to wear this in your tie? It would look like a stickpin, once it's in. I - I'm aiming to do you a favor when I ask."
"Proud?" Parker murmured. "It will make me almost too proud to wear it."
Himself as embarrassed as a schoolboy permitted to wear his first sweetheart's "friendship" ring, he took the pin and examined it.
"My pappy had it set over at the county-seat for my last birthday. Amethysts are my birth-stones, you know. What's more, they used to be considered a remedy for - for your kind of trouble."
"That's so. I've heard it or read about it somewhere before," Parker encouraged her. "The noun amethyst is of Greek extraction, made up of words meaning *not' and *to intoxicate.' The ancients held that wine drunk from an amethystine cup could not make the drinker drunken."
"I wouldn't trust It against our popskull/' warned the girl. "But I've been thinking it might help you. Leastwise, it can do no harm for you to wear my pm.
"You've been thinking of ways to help me?"
With an almost reverent touch, Calvin Parker pinned the country-craft brooch in his cravat.
"I want you to go now," she was saying In a more apologetic tone than he as yet had heard from her. "I - I'm kind of scared to have you stayV
"Scared, Verne?"
In a rush of words she sought to excuse and Impress upon him her nervousness. "It's smart-headed to be scared - sometimes. You've got to look out for Rex Currie. He hates you, I keep telling you. His mind Is plumb set on getting me, but he's wait-* Ing for something - I don't know what. If I'm scared of his love, you-all had best be scared of his hate."
"You're not very complimentary to me," Parker objected. "I consider myself as good a man as Currie any day."
For just a minute she touched the hand that had seemed so repulsive a short while back. "YouVe as good, yes. But not as bad."
"As good, but not as bad." The reminder of the mountain girl's words some thirty minutes later was emphatic, to say the least.
Parker had turned from the main road Into the narrow trail that led toward his cabin on the rim. His thoughts on the symbolic pin, he had dropped the rein upon which his one-eyed mount was so dependent and lifted his hands to make sure it was fastened securely.
"Weak indeed will be your power, little talisman," he addressed it in thought, "if again I fall!"
An explosion as of a small cannon's discharge almost deafened him. Past his left shoulder zipped a hall of shot. Teetotaler sprang further Into the trallslde underbrush, toward which he had quartered from mid-road.
When Parker had righted the terrorized beast, he found himself staring Into the double barrels of a shotgun, evidently the source of the cannonade. But the attack was not repeated, since the holder of the weapon, much In evidence, proved to be inanimate - the hardwood fork of a hickory that marked a trail turn.
"It's hard to enjoy nature, ain't it, old boss, when even the trees want our lives?" Parker deplored somewhat grimly.
Dismounting, he investigated the mantrap - shotgun fixed to cover trail, hair triggers, improvised lanyard of cord so strung that advance of man and beast must fire the double charge. Except for the lapse of discipline which had allowed Teetotaler to sidle from the road's center, Parker's head or chest In all probability would have received the hall of slugs. And except for the amethystine brooch that discipline would have been maintained.
So, Parker commented to himself, it had been this rather elaborate conception, rather than Verne's dismissal, which had removed the hillbilly's presence from their midst !