Margy nodded, looking away, looking at the cabin again.
"Well," she murmured, "she's her own woman. I got no call to try and cut acrost on her. Got her an idee she wants out a this swamp, wants big things out a life."
"Well, you cain't blame her none fen that. So do I."
Margy said nothing to that. She said, "She wants you to meet her at the old Colt place tomonry night at nine. She says you to git out of here now because Mr. Ferris is fixing to come at you tonight. I guess that's all."
Shad looked around at the cabin. Funny, now that he had to leave he realized he was going to miss the old scow. It wasn't such-a-much, but it had its comfort.
"Look a-here, Margy, you see anyone tail you down here? You see Jort Camp er Sam Parks about in the woods?"
"No. Why should I? Why should they want to come after me?"
He shrugged. "Lots of them damn fools ben moseying after me all day. I kin shake'em when I want, but I just got a notion that Sam is tagging me like a man's shadow at high noon."
"Well, if he be, you'll never shake him. You know Sam."
Shad grinned. "You don't know Shad."
"Well -" she said, looking at the deck again. "Well -"
"Well -" Shad said, helping her look.
Now that it was time to say goodbye and there was nothing else to be said, they were embarrassed. He looked across at her without raising his head. She was a cute little thing. He reckoned that was the word for her. Cute. Perky nose, big-eyed, shy-lipped. Not a sex box like her sister, like most. And suddenly he had the absurd compulsion to put his arms around her; not to get fresh or gay with her, just hold her protectively; wrap her in cellophane and put her away for himself.
"Well -" she said, and she started edging toward the door. Shad put out his hand. "Friends?"
She looked up at him, her eyes enormous and very brown but not coquettish on shy. "Yes." And she took his hand.
"Thanks fer helping me – us, Margy."
She nodded. "You'll take care of her, Shad? You won't hurt her ner run out'n her? She – she's kind of flighty someways, needs have people help her."
"I'll be good to her, Margy. I promise it."
She opened the door but didn't go all the way out. She looked up at him. "Good luck, Shad," she said.
He watched her go in the dark, then stepped back and closed the door, stared at it for a moment.
"I'm shone God going to need it," he said.
There was no sense in hanging around waiting for trouble, because trouble waited for no one. He got out his carbine and wrapped it as well as he could in his denim jacket running the barrel up one sleeve, folding the nest night about the stock, trigger-guard and bolt action. Then he tied the lace of the right boot to the lace of the left and looped the clodhoppers about
his neck. He cocked his felt hat on his head and looked at the cabin again. The old ball-dialled clock oven the bunk was still holding its own, still proclaiming the time to be 5:32.
He shrugged, blew out the lamp and made for the door.
The lamplight still bright in his eyes, he found himself standing night-blinded on the porch. He closed his eyes, waited, and then opened them and looked at the backwater. Moonlight. That was going to give Sam a big edge.
He looked at the dark line of underbrush, backed up by the reaching black woods, and sensed the presence of Sam Parks, felt the woods colt's eyes boning out of the night. But the only way he could be certain was to trick him. You just didn't catch Sam off base unless you could surprise him, and that took some doing because Sam wasn't human in the woods.
Shad moved abruptly. He wheeled around the corner of the cabin, went quickly along the gangplank and out onto the bank, heading upsiough. Git your walking legs out, Sam, he said. We got us some rambling to do.
Jort Camp saw Shad come off the shantyboat and knew he didn't stand a waddle-bottomed bear's chance of tailing him without Shad knowing about it within five-six minutes.
"Kin you holt to him?" he whispered to Sam.
The corners of Sam's lips punched into his cheeks like a cat's grin. "Shone's water's wet," he said.
"Then git. I'll double back on that air Ferris fella and see what he's up to. We got to keep him shed of Shad. I ain't about to have him walk off with that eighty thousand."
"See you back to your place," Sam said. He glided into his familiar crouch, feeling wildly elated now that there was action he could handle. The fidgets, the self-torture of his abject morality, all were left behind in the bush. Sam was all business. Quicken than a wolf could sneeze and recover he was gone.
Jort grinned. "Damn old fox," he muttered.
He'd been thunderstruck an hour ago when he'd seen Mr. Ferris arrive at Mears' place. He hadn't counted on that happening quite so soon. Now that Mr. Ferris was in the picture, he and Sam would have to look spry. That Ferris fella had come along to get the eighty thousand out of Shad.
And later when Margy had slipped out of the rear of the house and ran for the woods, Jort had understood that too, Sam had told him that Dorry had shacked up with Shad the night before, and that first thing the next morning she had run off for Tonkville and had returned that afternoon in a new dress. Yeah, that took a lot of guesswork, he reckoned not. Now she'd sent her little sister down to the backwater to warn Shad about that Ferris fella. So Jort had tagged after her just to be sure.
And he had another idea going, maybe he ought to have a quiet little chat with Dorry Means. It was just possible that hot little piece had already found out from Shad where he had the money hid. Yeah, and she could do it, too. It was shore God's laughter the way some fellas let a little bit of fluff drag 'em around on a leash.
Shad went along the bank for a while, then abruptly darted left into the bush, going at it in a running crouch. He went ploughing through the brambles with catclaws picking after him vindictively, disputing his passage; held to his course for nearly one hundred yards, then cut left again, dodging among the paw-paws, and crossed back on his own trail, coming to light under a tupelo bush where he could see the glimmer of the backwater through the shrubbery.
He held his breath, listened. Something was rustling the dead leaves off to his right but there was the sweet, pungent scent of mink along with it, so that was nothing. He gave Sam another minute and then shook his head. Nope. If Sam's out here, then he's already swung around in back of me again. Son-o-bitch is harder to lose than a tick on a doe's butt.
Far off a night-running hound cut loose and fified the woods with round-note blues. Then a pack joined him, and in a moment all the hounds were wailing as if they were going to be paid for it. Shad decided to put the baying to good advantage, to cover his own noise. He shoved up and went humpbacked through the bush again.
He came out on the bank and approached the weir. The leading-off silver shoulder of falling water was spilling in monotonous, uniform splashing. Shad stepped onto the ankle-deep rocks and started picking his way across, not too carefully. Gaining the far shore he went at the bush as though he meant business, as though he meant to be long gone. But he wasn't. He went twenty-some feet into the leafy darkness and then cut back to the screened fringe of the bank.
But three-four minutes passed and there was no sign of Sam or anyone else. Don't it just beat all? The little bastard's skipped up-slough and crossed where she shallows. Bet my money he's sitting five yards off laughing at me right now. He stood up and started north.
He broke into a fast run, skimming through chokeberry, catclaw and smilax, cutting up his trail, first night, then left and straight on, and then left again, and brought up panting and stumbling just where he wanted to be, in a boulderdeep glen lorded over by an old lichen-skinned oak. The oak had a hollow hide-hole and Shad had known about it since boyhood. It was just possible that this was one hollow tree in the woods that Sam wasn't acquainted with. He doubted it though, but it didn't really matter. He dropped to his knees and shoved the denim-wrapped carbine and his boots inside the black opening. Then he pushed up and got out of there fast.