CHAPTER VIII

Bud Childers, however, did exist. He existed more intensely than ever. From the moment he met Allston and Roxie together he had burned like a man with a fever.

It was a dangerous fever--a fever bred of baffled desire, of jealousy, of hate. Since he had been old enough to stand on his two feet and fight back, he had never been bullied as Allston had bullied him. Always he had been able to leave his mark even if meeting defeat in the end. But in the last ten years he had never until now met defeat.

To this humiliating reversal Allston had added the insult of humbling him before Roxie. How Bud ever found his way back to Big Laurel Cove that night he never knew, for if ever a man was blind with rage it was he; literally blind. He saw nothing of the rocky road over which he traveled, but he took it at a gallop, cursing the mare and digging his heels into her sides whenever she paused. He turned her into the barn all dripping with lather as she was and never removed her saddle. Then he stumbled to his house and locked himself in.

He had not waited for Allston that evening nor attempted to trail him home. He knew better than that. He must see straight and have a steady hand when he met the man again. In the condition he was then in he could not have been sure of his aim at ten feet. And he meant to be sure--next time.

But the process of calming down was no simple one. Hour after hour he paced his cabin floor until finally, exhausted, he tumbled into a heap on his bed and slept. When he awoke it was the same thing all over again. And yet slowly, out of this jumble of emotions, two finally detached themselves or perhaps absorbed the others; hate--black hate--of this man Allston, and love--fire-like love--of Roxie Kester.

Or perhaps his passion resolved itself, in the final analysis, into the single passion of love. For Love is the mother of every passion, and mother-like shelters all her brood, even those which turn against her and eat away at her heart. A man may hate beyond the possibility of loving, but a man may love and yet hate at one and the same time.

If Bud had desired Roxie before, he desired her with a fervor a hundred times as strong now. There were moments when she drove every other desire out of his head and heart--even all thought of Allston. Whenever he was able to let himself go utterly, she washed away even those crimson spots that danced before his eyes. It was then as though just he and she were alone in the world. Yet they knew not loneliness. Two only they might be out of hundreds of millions, but it was the hundreds of millions who were alone, not they. Because they would be up here on this mountain-side where the trees were many and friendly, where the birds and squirrels would be their playmates by day; where, by night, the stars and planets would be their fellows. Bud was never as definite as that, but something of the sort he sensed whenever he thought of her. She was more one with such things than she was with folk--even as he was. He had always been able to get along up here. The trees and the denizens among them had never interfered with him. Forest creatures let a man alone. And he, in his way, had always been kind to them. He had a feel for them. Animals were not afraid of him, though often enough he lost his temper and abused them, and, when necessary, killed them without emotion. But he spent weeks nursing an injured chicken back to health and kept an old gray horse for years after she was quite useless. No dog had ever come to his shack for food and gone away hungry, though many a man had done so.

Bud had a notion that it was not man who was basic, but Nature. This new love of his--for it was new, a development of his initial desire--was one with Nature. It had to do with elemental things. Had he been religious he might have said it had to do with God. But after that, to have been consistent, he would have had to say this black hate had to do with the Devil.

He might not have been far wrong at that. Whenever it pounced upon him he was like one possessed. It bred murder in his heart--the lust to kill. A dozen times his eyes had burned with evil satisfaction at the picture of Allston in his death agonies. He had heard the bark of his own pistol and seen the man crumple up, falling to this side and that, his eyes rolling, his face writhing with pain. Leeringly he had looked on, watching to the last gasp.

Only one thing had stayed his hand as long as this. He wanted Allston to die, but he himself wanted to live. Never before had he considered himself when in such a mood. He had always moved recklessly. This new element made him move cautiously. To die would be to lose Roxie in another way. To have her, he must live. He needed years to satisfy himself with her. He might need years to satisfy her with him.

Life--the ability to see, hear, and feel her--he must retain. He must not jeopardize a second of it. When he shot, it must be from ambush with no traces left. He must await his opportunity--perhaps contrive it.

The opportunity came sooner than he expected and with no contriving. It came one afternoon when in descending the mountain road, his keen nostrils caught a new scent in the still air. It was tobacco smoke, but not of his kind. It was neither plug nor Bull Durham, but something more pungent. He had caught the same spicy aroma once or twice when the summerers were loafing around the post-office waiting for the mail--the men in white flannels and immaculate shirts. It was the kind that only pink-cheeked strangers smoked.

Bud stiffened like a pointing bird dog. He stood so, listening, for almost a full minute. He regulated even his breathing. Then slowly he moved his hand back to his big-calibred revolver until his fingers gripped the handle. The feel of it calmed his twitching muscles.

A light breeze coming out of the woods on his left, where a branch of the stream which ran by his shack had its source, gave him his direction. He knew every foot of those woods as he did for miles around his place. He knew even the little cove where a man would be likely to stop to rest.

Carefully Bud moved one foot, looking to see where to rest it, lest a crackling twig give warning. So step by step he made his way among the trees--taking a half-hour to go a few hundred yards. But when, through the branches, he made out clearly the form of Allston sitting on the ground, he felt the time well spent--even though, to his surprise, he discovered that the man was not alone. He saw red for a second as he caught sight of a woman’s skirt. Then, as he discerned who the other was, he steadied. There was only one woman in the world who had the power to stay his fingers on the trigger. And that one was not Wilmer Howe.