Charley raised the shotgun. Sayre clutched his arm. “Wait,” she breathed. “Seems to be the turkeys this time. Let’s be sure.”
Charley shook off his sister’s hold, but obeyed.
Both watching pairs of eyes fixed themselves upon the further side of the turkey yard where it bordered the weedgrown ditch. There the one lone cottonwood tree of the whole locality, a small one and young, stood sharply outlined in the far corner. Sayre had purposely laid out her turkey yard to include that tree. One low, gray-black limb stretched out far enough above the top line of the wire-meshed fence to mingle the foliage of its farther end with the top growth of the ditch’s scrub willow, tumbleweed, and tangled wild sweet clover.
Every here and there the bare portion of that limb’s length was blotched now by dark, huddled, inert forms: some clearly revealed in the moonlight; others, partially hidden by the shadows of the tree’s thickly leaved upper branches. Under the tree and surrounding it, ran the square, two-railed rack which Sayre had built as an additional outdoor roost for young turkeys. These rails were even more thickly populated with huddled forms than were the tree’s bare limbs.
In the silence of the night the whole scene was peaceful to complete tranquillity. Even the noises in the brush had ceased.
Suddenly they came again, more distinct, less guarded than before. Up from the brush toward the leafy end of the cottonwood limb that reached over the fence top shot a long, swift, pole-like line. For seconds it wavered in the air as if there were some management trouble at its hidden end. Once a new sound broke through that of the brush’s agitation, lasting just long enough to be distinguishable as the muffled ejaculation of a human voice, more suggestive of terror than of impatience.
Sayre hugged her arms to her sides to control her trembling. “Hear that voice, Chuck? Was it Frank’s? Can you see what he’s doing?”
“Keep quiet,” admonished Charley’s whisper, “till we’re sure of his game.”
There was a noticeable shaking now toward the leafy end of the cottonwood limb. Presently, more swiftly than it had traveled upward, the long, pole-like line shot down and disappeared. The crushing sounds in the brush increased.
To the excited Sayre inactivity was becoming almost unendurable. But Charley did not move, still centering his gaze on the turkey yard’s far corner.
There that long, pole-like line was coming into view again, more slowly this time as if more carefully aimed, and lower down. It reached the upper line of the fence, crossed it, lowered its inner end until that end had inserted itself deliberately among the shapeless, inert forms that blocked the lower rail of the turkey rack.
Charley had now seen all he wanted. Steadying the old shotgun against his shoulder, he let it bang forth into the night.
“Don’t hit him.” Terror quavered in Sayre’s voice.
“I’m not going to hit him.” Wasn’t that just like a girl, not to notice that he had not even aimed the gun in the direction of the turkey yard? “But I’m letting him know I’m on to him. Look there.”
The long, pole-like line had lost its guidance. For an instant it wavered in uncertain balance on the fence top, then dropped into a stiff, slanting line, whose farther end had evidently found a resting place on the ditch bank. Its nearer end was thrust obliquely up above the turkey-yard fence with one of the previously inert forms of the rack’s rail now dangling from it, in a frenzied activity of flapping wings and gesticulating legs and feet.
Charley rushed out from his hiding place. His attention was not on the ensnared turkey. “Look, Sayre. There he goes. That streak in the shrubbery where it’s crushing down on the other side of the ditch bank. He can’t keep that pace up long, stooping over, too. Some of those tangled weeds’ll be sure to trip him. Come on. Let’s see the fun.”
“Maybe he’s not alone.”
“Yes, he is. On this errand. There’s not another fellow ’round here who’d play such a trick—on a girl.”
Charley had reached the turkey yard by this time, Sayre close at his heels. He headed straight for the cottonwood tree, laid his gun on the ground, swept and pushed a line of sleepy young turkeys off the upper rail of the rack, stepped up on it, shinned up the tree trunk to that first outstretching limb, wiped and dragged that, too, clean of its interfering occupants, and perched himself, astraddle, well out along the limb’s length. From this vantage point his eye followed the crushing line of movement in the ditch bank shrubbery. Some person was evidently plowing rapidly through it on all fours.
All about was noise in plenty now. The birds whom Charley had so ruthlessly routed from their roosts were coming alive with the stirring of heavy bodies, the stretching of wings, the alighting thuds of quickly spread feet. Some of the birds reached the ground heavily; others, in short easy flights. They swayed there groggily on legs not yet ready to run. But aroused at last, they began one after another to squawk and shrill their protests.
Presently into a lull in this clamor came a succession of other distant sounds. The slosh of a slipping footstep. A heavy, crackling fall. A splash. A quickly smothered exclamation.
Charley’s laugh rang out clear and wide. “Get wet, Lumpy? Too bad. ’Tisn’t good for dough.”
“Charley!” cautioned Sayre perfunctorily in a big whisper from below.
There was no muting in Charley’s answering tones. “Oh, he can’t fire up over my calling him Lumpy tonight, Sayre. He’d give himself away. Want me to fish you out, Hoskins?”
“You might use this fish pole and grappling hook he’s left behind,” came unexpectedly and full-voiced from Sayre.
Her first thought had been not for the thief, but for the bronze turkey poult, dangling in frenzy at the propped pole’s upthrust end. Placing her toes carefully in the open meshes of the fence she had climbed far enough to grasp the pole at the fence line. Then stepping down again, by a series of hand-over-hand pulls she had lowered the pole into the yard, released its victim, examined that victim in grave concern, and begun a hasty inventory of her other birds.
Her words brought her brother swinging down to her side to bend his attention, not upon the turkeys, but upon the pole.
“It’s a beauty. A steel one, awful strong. But the end joints aren’t here. Instead he’s bound a grappling hook to it. To get those birds around the neck while they were roosting. Of all the slick, lousy tricks! Did it kill that last one, Sayre? He got the first one all right, off the far end of that limb, from under the overhanging leaves.”
“No, the poor thing isn’t dead. But I had such a fright. I thought it was my prize turkey cockerel. It looks like it. I thought I could always tell that bird. And I can’t see it anywhere.”
Charley was still absorbed in the pole. “If we keep this, Sayre, it may pay for the poult he got.”
“Not if it was my prize cockerel,” Sayre wailed. “Surely he couldn’t have been smart enough to get that bird right off! Only—where is it?” Sayre rambled on as she continued her distressed search, “Mr. Kitchell said it was as perfect a young bird as he’d ever seen. Had us point out all its points to him just a few days ago when he took all us turkey raisers on a visiting tour of each other’s projects. Frank Hoskins did it the best of anybody. I thought he was showing off before Rene. He’d brought her along with him.
“Mr. Kitchell said he knew that bird would make a prize cockerel that I could exhibit. I meant it to make my flock famous, so I could get top prices for breeders and eggs on my continuation project with my turkeys next year. And I can’t—”
“Don’t worry, Sayre. It’ll probably turn up in the morning. Maybe it’s roosting inside. Let’s get back to the house where we can get a good look at this pole. There won’t be another thief around here tonight.”
Their father’s wizened figure in his patched pajamas met them at the house door. “Is that you, Sayre? And Charley? At home? What does all this mean?”
They told him in a breath. Soon all three were bending together under the kitchen lamp in an examination of t
he pole.
“There’re initials on it—F. M. H. What’s Frank Hoskins’ middle name, Sayre?”
“Foster. But his father’s isn’t. It’s Martin. Franklin Martin Hoskins.”
“Give the pole to me.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Cinch an end to this stealing. Now I’ve got to go. Precious few winks I’ll get in before milking time as it is. Just the same I didn’t come home tonight for nothing.”
Late as she went to bed Sayre was up at dawn to visit her turkey yard. There her worst fear was confirmed: the prize turkey cockerel poult was nowhere to be found. Dad, of course, knew that fact when he went to the store that day, and he had not been there long before many other people also knew it.
At home again he announced to his daughter over the supper table, “Charley was in the store this afternoon. Brought the pole. Gave it back to Mr. Hoskins.”
Sayre tied Hitty’s bib, and handed the child a piece of bread spread thick with cottage cheese, “Here, darling. Now please don’t talk.” Then Sayre swayed upright once more on her own chair, leaned forward toward Dad, her face alert. “Yes?” she murmured eagerly. It was plain that Dad had a story.
“It was just before closing time. I never saw more people in the store. Even Nels Hansen was there. It’s the first time since the water users’ meeting. And Charley gave that pole back right before everybody.”
“Yes?” Sayre’s impatience breathed again.
“They’d all heard about the fishing for your turkeys, Sayre. Everybody had been talking about it. How it was your very best bird that was got, the one you had expected so much from.”
“Did they say Frank Hoskins got it?”
“Nobody said a word about who they thought got it. They were just discussing how mean it was to steal from a girl as plucky and hard-working as you. A lot of them had seen you working on the roofs of your poultry houses last spring in overalls with hammer and nails just like a boy.
“They said Mr. Kitchell’s letting you enroll in that vocational Ag class had been a fine thing for the whole school. A good joke on the agricultural boys, too, making them work like beavers to keep from getting too far behind a girl at a kind of work it had always been supposed was meant for boys. Nobody was forgetting, either, that young Hoskins happens to be one of those agricultural boys.
“Then Charley came in. He took that pole right up to Mr. Hoskins. Told him how he’d got it. Said that none of us thought for a moment that Mr. Hoskins himself knew anything about its use, but that it ought to be returned. He spoke kind of loud. But he was as nice and polite as could be. Didn’t even hint a thing that Mr. Hoskins could really take offense at.”
“Oh, why didn’t I go into town this afternoon!”
“Everybody in the store wanted to see that rod and hear Charley’s story. Mr. Hoskins couldn’t explain a thing. Said he hadn’t used that pole for a long time. It wasn’t the trout pole he takes fishing in the mountain streams near here. It’s a stouter one. Uses it when he goes to the Park to fish in Yellowstone Lake.
“I felt sorry for the man. He knew well enough what people were thinking even if they didn’t say it. He couldn’t stand up before those people proud all over about his boy, the way I can about my children. His boy was a shame to him.
“It wasn’t real kind of Charley, though,” Dad reflected sagely after a moment, “to give the rod back that way. Nor real tactful, either, when Mr. Hoskins is my employer.”
8
The Fight
The next afternoon Sayre went to town. Mr. Hansen had promised to drive her home. That was why, her errands done, she was loitering near the waiting Hansen truck when young Nels suddenly appeared from behind her. Appear was all that this sturdy sixteen-year-old did do except to call out as he spun around again, “Tell my father I’ll be back soon. There’s a fight on.” The boy waved indefinitely in the direction back of the high school building. “Charley and Fra—”
Before young Nels had finished speaking, he was outdistanced. The streak which was Sayre Morgan was shooting at a speed many a quarter-miler might have envied across the intervening space toward the rapidly gathering crowd in Ole Larsen’s big pasture. She was acting without thought, guided only by that protective maternal instinct which ever since her mother’s death had been the ruling passion of her life.
When she reached the pasture she did not look at that crowded, intense circle she found there carefully enough to identify any of its members. Intuition told her it was composed largely of high school boys without the presence of teachers, plus a generous sprinkling of town stragglers, all male. She scarcely looked at it even when she herself had sped into its outer fringe and was squeezing her way into its thicker portion with the aid of her hard, brown hands on interfering backs and arms.
She did not look definitely at the two forms struggling and swaying in bitter embrace in the center of that inner cleared space. She only darted toward them as they sprang apart. Her first clear impression was one of powerlessness as her hard, brown little hand closed over the big muscles of Charley’s arm in a blind attempt to pull him away. It was the sound of her own voice that awakened her to acute consciousness. “Charley Morgan,” it was saying, “you quit that fighting right away!”
That awful impulsiveness of hers, what a fool it had made of her! She knew instantly, too, that there was nothing she could have done which would displease Charley more. Then something confused her. A weight had fallen against her head. Yet her next emotion was one of such surprise and pride that once more she lost realization of herself.
Charley must have stopped for an instant. For she felt the grip of his hands on her shoulders pushing her back into the crowd. That grip was strong and firm, but it was neither rough nor angry. It was like his voice when he spoke, steeled and steady. “You’re to keep entirely out of this, Sayre. Understand?”
She did not need to answer.
Was this Charley? Good-natured, likable, easy-going Charley whom, because of his changeableness of purpose, she had always thought she had to manage?
A mingled feeling of remorse and pride helped to support her through the whole dazed dizziness of the next quarter-hour. For if Charley had ceased fighting momentarily at her interference, Frank Hoskins had not. In the one confused instant when she had been in that ring, Frank’s huge hand had fallen sidewise on her head in a blow which had left her blurred of vision, a little sick, and feeling somehow very far away. She was glad of Mr. Hansen’s supporting hand as it led her to a place in the front row of the spectator circle. There she took up her stand, dimly yet firmly resolved to atone to Charley for what she had just done to disgrace him, by standing unmoved through whatever was to come.
There was a feeling of unreality concerning everything about her. With utter indifference she heard someone hiss as she staggered under Mr. Hansen’s guiding hand. Then some one called out, “Stop that. Sayre Morgan had no business there.”
Another voice added, “No place for a girl.”
And still another, “She’s always butting into boys’ affairs where girls don’t belong. Like in the part-time Ag class!”
At first, too, she was even in a way indifferent to those two partially stripped figures which once more had become the center of everyone’s strained attention. They were at one another again, side-stepping, advancing, retreating, rushing forward. Swinging blows this way and that. Locking each other in powerful grips that somehow broke apart again, only to be renewed after fierce onslaughts.
To Sayre none of it meant anything very distinct. She could not see clearly; her head swam so. Sometimes Frank, sometimes Charley, appeared to her to have two heads, four arms, four shadowy, never-still legs. She could not always tell which was Charley. Both were just a blurred, swirling mass. There were moments, too, when she could see neither of them. Mr. Hansen’s big form, jumping heavily in and out around the boys, interfered. The shouts and comments of the crowd came to her as if from far away. They seemed silly. Awok
e no response in her.
Nevertheless she knew through it all an agony of apprehension which was very real. The spectacle was dreadful to her, like the action of dogs or of wild beasts. There was blood flowing. She could not tell whose. She wanted it to stop. She wanted the whole fight to stop. She hated the crowd for standing there looking on. She hated Charley for taking part in it. But above everything else she hated that great brute, Frank Hoskins.
Little by little her vision cleared. She began to see both boys distinctly. They were apart now, at either end of the ring. Charley was swaying a little, staggering. Oh, was he going to fall? No, he was recovering. It was Frank Hoskins who was staggering. Coming at Charley groggily as if he were not quite able to manage his big feet. But his big arm was still powerful. Sayre held her breath as she saw it shoot out at Charley. Felt infinite relief when it hit nothing. For Charley was not there. He was at Frank’s other side, aiming a blow of his own.
Suddenly Sayre was exultant. She found herself shouting with the crowd. “I’m as much a beast as any of them,” she thought. “And I don’t care!”
Did she want the fight to stop? No, she didn’t. Not until Charley had won. The whole thing was disgusting. She was ashamed of Charley. She was ashamed of herself. Just the same, “Charley’s simply got to whip Frank Hoskins.”
Then almost before she knew it, she saw Frank’s big body crumple heavily to the ground. Charley was standing over it. “Had enough?” she heard Charley pant.
Frank’s bloody face looked dazed. “He feels,” Sayre thought, “just the way I felt a little while ago, only a whole lot more so.” Still she distinctly saw his head wobble an assent to Charley’s question.
The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack Page 110
