Romance Classics (38 page)

Ruth looked up at him sharply.

“For goodness’ sake, Wayde,” she protested, an edge of impatience touching her voice, “you’re the master here. Why don’t you assert yourself? You don’t have to put up with her bad behavior.”

“For the length of time I usually stay, it scarcely seemed worthwhile,” Wayde admitted frankly. “Knowing I couldn’t fire her, and that we could easily get engaged in a brawl that would make things even more unpleasant, I just ignored it. But now that I’m planning to make the Hill my permanent home …”

Lynn gasped, and Ruth smiled warmly.

“I’m so glad, Wayde dear,” she said eagerly. “I felt sure you would reach that decision eventually. After all, it’s a fine old house and the surroundings are beautiful. And until you put down roots somewhere and establish yourself, you’ll never be really happy.”

“Thanks for making that possible.” Wayde’s words were addressed to Ruth, but his eyes sought Lynn’s face, and there was an eager hope there that caused Ruth’s eyes to widen.

Larry Holland lay flat on his stomach, screened from view of the big old house behind a thick, low-growing bank of boxwood. From this vantage point, he could see the drive and the whole side of the house. He could see the door that led into the gun room, and it was on this door that his eyes lingered longest. That gun he had seen the night Sheriff Tait had brought him here was the most beautiful, the most tempting, the most tantalizing thing he had ever seen. His hands curled with the itch to touch the short, polished barrel; the gleaming brown-gold wood of the stock, with its intricately tooled silver trim. It was such a gun as Larry had never seen before, such a gun as he knew he could never hope to own, but one that more than anything else in the world he wanted to touch.

Throughout the morning he watched the comings and goings along the drive, and it was close to noon before he saw Wayde come out of the house, get into that beautiful car and drive away. Larry’s eyes glowed with envy and hatred as he listened to the purr of the powerful motor and saw the car slip down the drive and out of sight.

He watched as Fitch went back into the house. From where he lay, he could glimpse the service quarters of the house and knew that the servants would soon be having their lunch. Tensely he waited; and then, wriggling his way through the hedge, slipping across the drive as silently as a shadow, he reached the side of the house and the door into the gun room.

His heart was beating so hard that for a moment he stood still, wondering if it was only in his own ears that the noise could be heard. Fitch had gone back into the house through this door; it therefore didn’t seem likely that Fitch had locked the door. If he had — well, there were other ways of getting in.

Holding his breath, he let his hand touch the doorknob, turned it an infinitesimal inch at a time, scarcely daring to breathe lest he make some sound. But here in the big old house, door hinges didn’t squeak, and in a matter of seconds he had the door open enough to slip inside and ease it shut behind him.

His eyes went straight to that beautiful gun that had haunted him since he had first seen it. He slipped forward, lifted it from its place, caressed it between loving hands. But just touching it, holding it, wasn’t enough. He knew he had to shoot it! Nothing else would ease the burning hunger within him.

Swiftly he slid open the drawer in the shelf beneath the gun and found a small box of cartridges that his experience told him were meant for this gun. He slipped the box into his pocket, turned and crept out of the house as silently as he had managed his entrance.

He scarcely dared to breathe until he had managed to cross the drive and once more was hidden behind the boxwood. There he stopped for a moment to gloat over the gun, to caress it and to load it. Then, carrying it very carefully, he slipped down the hill and into the woods between the Hill and the farmland.

Once inside the woods, he felt safe and stopped to look about him with eager eyes. The gun was poised, ready to shoot at the first thing that moved.

A tiny brown thing flickered across the woods in front of him, and he knew it to be a chipmunk. Instantly the gun spoke, and the brown flash vanished. Larry hastily reloaded and raced in the direction of the disappearing flash. In his eager haste he tripped over a root, fell sprawling, and the gun went off again. The recoil knocked him backward, and the gun flew out of his hand.

He lay for a moment, dazed by the fall. Then he tried to sit up and felt a numbing pain in his shoulder. He put up his hand, touched his shoulder and stared stupidly at the red wetness on his hand.

The numbness was gone now, and a red fire of agony swirled over him, as the thick redness spread from his shoulder and over his chest. Panic followed hard on the heels of his realization that he was shot. Whimpering like a terrified animal, he crawled toward where the gun lay, its shining stock seeming the one bright thing in the dark world of pain in which he swirled.

In the brief moment when his hands closed on the gun, he foresaw what was going to happen. He knew he was badly hurt; that when it was learned he’d stolen the gun and had accidentally shot himself, they would lock him up somewhere.

Wildly he kicked the gun away from him. He had to have help or he’d die! And the thought lent him a strength he had not known he possessed. He managed to get to his feet, feeling the blood seeping from his wound, terror fogging his senses so that it almost wiped out the agony of his torn shoulder.

The highway, he sobbed to himself. Make it to the highway. Somebody will be passing. Somebody will get you to a doctor. Come on, kid — get moving! Get moving! You don’t have to die here alone in the woods, do you?

It was as though a voice outside himself urged him on, as he stumbled and staggered, going down to his knees at last, but crawling on, clawing his way toward the highway and help. It seemed to him that hours passed before at last he was able to claw his way out of a thicket and slip down into the ditch beside the road. He lay there spent and gasping until he heard the welcome sound of a car, and then he managed to lift himself enough to make himself seen.

There was the scream of too hastily applied brakes, and then men’s voices. With a final animal-like whimper deep in his throat, Larry let a black flood of unconsciousness slide over him as hands lifted him, and above his head voices mingled, and then he went completely under the black tide.

The news that Larry Holland had been shot by Wayde McCullers for trespassing on his land rocked the town of Oakville; but in Rivertown it was a sensation that wiped out every other subject. Larry had gasped out the words in the emergency operating room at the Mill clinic. He’d been on McCullers land with his slingshot, and McCullers had shot him in cold blood, without giving him a chance to run!

In Oakville there was some skepticism; not much, but a little. But in Rivertown, there was a complete acceptance of Larry’s accusation, and within a matter of hours after the boy had been brought to the Clinic, Jim Holland had sworn out a warrant for Wayde McCullers’ arrest on a charge of aggravated assault and intention to murder.

The news reached Lynn and Ruth when Judge Carter and Steve came home that evening. Lynn was stunned, incredulous.

“Oh, it’s not true!” she cried. “It can’t be true! Why, Wayde would never do a thing like that! It’s simply preposterous. The boy’s lying!”

Ruth looked at her swiftly and then at the Judge.

Judge Carter was studying Lynn gravely, and Steve, too, was frowning at her uncertainly.

Lynn looked from one to the other, and her eyes flashed.

“We are Wayde’s friends,” she reminded them passionately, “probably the only friends he has here. Surely we aren’t going to accept the word of a juvenile delinquent against Wayde!”

“How is Larry?” asked Ruth quietly.

“His condition is critical. It was a bad wound. Didn’t miss the heart by more than an inch or two, and he lost a lot of blood,” said the Judge heavily. “That makes the crime charged against McCullers even worse: that he would shoot the boy like that, and then walk off to leave him in the woods to die, as though he’d been an animal.”

Lynn looked fiercely from one to the other.

“You
know
Wayde wouldn’t do that! He
couldn’t!”
she cried hotly.

“Jim swore out the warrant, and pointed out that Wayde had allowed the boy to drive his car and then had changed his mind and ordered Sheriff Tait to pick him up the minute he crossed the county line,” said the Judge gravely.

“Oh, Wayde told me about that,” Lynn insisted swiftly. “The boy lied about that, just as he’s lying about this!”

“That’s a pretty serious charge you’re making against the boy, Lynnie,” the Judge pointed out gravely. “If he dies …”

Lynn caught her breath and felt her heart slow its angry beat.

“He — may?” she whispered faintly.

“He’s got a fifty-fifty chance, the Clinic staff says,” Judge Carter answered slowly. “As things stand now, the charge against Wayde is not
too
serious. But if the boy dies, then it will be murder.”

“Murder!”
Lynn’s voice was a thin gasp, and she turned swiftly.

“Lynn! Where are you going?” Ruth demanded as Lynn reached the door.

“Up to the Hill to see Wayde, of course, to tell him we don’t any of us believe he’s guilty,” Lynn said shakily, and looked swiftly from one to the other. “We
don’t,
do we?”

“McCullers isn’t at the Hill, Lynn,” Judge Carter said heavily.

Lynn turned back.

“Then where is he?” she asked, and held her breath.

“In jail, Lynn,” said Judge Carter. Lynn put both shaking hands over her mouth, her eyes enormous in her pallid face. “Sheriff Tait served the warrant as soon as Jim swore it out.”

“Then I’ll go down to the jail,” Lynn cried out.

“Not the city jail here in Oakville, Lynn. Wayde’s in the county jail at the county seat,” Steve spoke for the first time. “Sheriff Tait felt he’d be safer there.”

“Safer?” Lynn whispered, cringing slightly.

“The people in Rivertown are pretty worked up about this, Lynn,” Steve told her with merciful frankness. “And the jail here isn’t too stout. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a riot here, or a lynching.”

Lynn’s lips moved but she could not repeat the hideous word. Her eyes could only move from Steve’s face to her father’s and then to her mother’s. They were watching her, as distressed as she.

“It’s an ugly word, Lynnie,” Judge Carter said gently. “But Jim’s got a lot of friends in Rivertown, and they’ve been doing a lot of talking, dangerous talking. Sheriff Tait was wise to take Wayde into protective custody.”

“Protective custody,” Lynn repeated as though she had never heard the word before and had no idea what it meant.

“For his own protection, darling, until the boy rallies,” the Judge told her gravely.

Lynn drew a long hard breath and tilted her chin at a defiant angle.

“May I borrow your car, Mother?” she asked.

“Now what kind of question is that, honey?” answered Ruth and added anxiously, “Why? Where are you going?”

“Over to the county seat, of course, to see Wayde.”

“Oh, Lynn, do you think you should?” protested Ruth.

“Don’t you?” Lynn asked her.

“But, darling, surely …”

“It’s no use arguing, Mother,” Lynn refused to listen. “He’s got to know that he has friends here.”

Steve said quickly, “You mustn’t go alone, Lynn. I’ll drive you.”

His tone, the kindness in his eyes touched her so deeply that she could only speak his name in a thick, choked voice as she turned toward the door.

They drove for a few miles in silence, and then Steve said with a harshness so unexpected that she could only stare at him blankly, “You’ve got to promise me something, Lynn, or I’ll turn the car around and take you straight home.”

“What is it, Steve?” she managed at last, and thought Steve looked like a stranger, his jaw set hard, his face cold and gray and rigid, his bleak eyes looking straight ahead.

“You’ve got to promise me, Lynn, that whatever happens, you won’t ask your father to defend Wayde McCullers when he comes to trial,” said Steve in that strained, harsh tone she had never heard from him before.

“But, Steve, Dad will
want
to.”

“That’s what I mean. He’ll want to, but we mustn’t allow it,” Steve cut in swiftly. “I’m counting on you, Lynn. Your father’s not equal to the strain of a long, difficult trial as this is sure to be. Whether the boy lives or dies, the trial will be bitter, prolonged. And your father is much too frail to stand up under that.”

Lynn said at last, her voice shaken, “You’re right, Steve. I can see that now. But you’ll be able to handle the defense …”

“I can’t afford to get involved, Lynn.”

The words were so brutally flat that Lynn stared at him, bewildered.

“You can’t afford …” she repeated incredulously, certain that she couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly. “But I’m sure Wayde would be quite generous about a fee.”

“I don’t mean that, Lynn,” Steve said sharply. “Look at it from my angle, Lynn. I hope to practice law in Oakville for many years. I’ve got to have the respect and the confidence of the people here and in the surrounding area. They are all so dead set against McCullers that if I defended him, they’d never trust me again. I’d be an outcast. McCullers is an outsider — a foreigner, really. No, Lynn, I couldn’t afford it.”

Lynn was listening to him as though all this were happening in some dreadful nightmare.

“Steve, he’s innocent,” she wailed despairingly.

“You don’t know that, Lynn; neither do I. Let him bring one of his fine lawyers down from New York to defend him.”

“And you know that would be the very worst thing he could possibly do,” Lynn said through her teeth. “Oakville is already down on him; if he brought down a famous lawyer for his defense — why, he might just as well plead guilty.”

“I’m not sure that wouldn’t be the best thing he could do,” Steve said grimly.

Lynn gave a small, frightened wail.

“But he’s not, Steve. He couldn’t be. Nothing could make me believe it. You must know it, too! You like him, don’t you?”