THE SEARCH
Burnett wiped his hand across his
eyes to efface the vision which so unexpectedly impeded
his official progress. It was the sight of a girl,
nestled on a cot, and over the pillow upon which her
head rested was strewn in a wild, magnificent disarray,
a profusion of tawny curls, such as he never had seen.
For a moment the corpulent deputy from Auburn, the
terror of all the criminals in the country around,
forgot his delegated obligation to the state.
Tessibel Skinner’s two slender arms huddled a
small, speckled hoot owl; and as in a dream, Burnett
noted the girl’s red lips touched the bird affectionately
in a hasty little caress. Another thing he noted
was the unflinching and prolonged questioning glance
with which the red-brown eyes met his. Tess couldn’t
speak a word at first, now that she was actually face
to face with the man after Andy. He was even
sterner than she had imagined he would be.
Quite gravely she considered his big
frame from head to foot, took hasty account of the
firm setting of his jaw, and the deep, clean-cut lines
from his eyes to his chin. Then, she smiled a
rare, enchanting smile, the deepening dimples around
the red moist lips suffusing the deputy warden with
a warm, welcoming glow.
“I heard ye talkin’ to
Daddy, mister,” she said, gulping. “I
air awful glad ye came in to see me too. I’d
a been hurt if ye’d gone without my gettin’
a peep at ye.”
During each infinitesimal space of
time, Burnett stood in the sunshine of Tessibel’s
smile, his austere churlishness was slipping from him
like a loosened garment. As if forced by an unseen
hand, he took one step nearer her.
“Set down, sir,” invited
Tess, clutching the owl with one hand, and making
an elaborate sweep with the other. “That
air Daddy’s chair ye air awful handsome
and big, but the chair’ll hold ye all right.”
Burnett caught his breath and sank
into the indicated seat. He’d intended
to turn that shanty over from top to bottom, to rip
it almost to the ground. But the sight of the
red-headed sprite on the cot fondling a woodland owl,
and the effect of her smile upon the beating of his
heart, dissolved his rage and stayed his action.
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
was all he said, and Tess smiled again. She didn’t
mind if he swore. The one thing she desired was
to get rid of him as soon as possible. She was
conscious of the gyrations of Andy Bishop curled in
the straw under her slender body, and she knew her
curls were shrouding a face distorted with anxiety.
“Are you sick, kid?” questioned
Burnett, when he could draw a natural breath.
“Well, ye see,” acknowledged
Tess, “I ain’t ’xactly sick, but
I got my ankle all packed up. Sometimes girls
hurt their ankles an’ they have to put a rag
’round ’em.”
Tessibel was very careful not to say
she’d hurt hers in this explanation to Burnett’s
question.
“An’ then ye see, sir,”
she pursued, “if ye turn yer foot over an’
can’t walk, ye have to go to bed a spell, huh?”
“Well, I should say so!”
asseverated Burnett, mustering the manner he always
used with ladies. “Say, by George, I didn’t
know Orn Skinner had a pretty kid like you.”
“My, didn’t ye?”
gurgled Tess, with shy lids drooping and her color
mounting. “I thought everybody in the hull
world knew I were Daddy’s brat. He air
had me fer ever so long. I been growed up
for a lot of years.” She shifted the owl
in her arms. “This owl air named Deacon....
Want to pet ’im a minute, huh?”
The warden threw back his head and
roared. He felt as if he’d been hung up
for days by the thumbs that this girl had
mercifully cut the ropes and let him down once more
to peace and happiness.
“No, thanks, I’ll let
you keep your pet,” he laughed good-humoredly.
“Queer play fellow for a girl, that’s my
opinion.”
After a few more compliments, through
which Tessibel flirted her way into the big man’s
regard, the officer rose to his feet.
“Little lady, I came here for
a specific reason,” he announced. Unquenchable
mischief shone upon him from smiling, enquiring eyes.
“Oh,” giggled Tess, “anyway, I air
awful glad ye come.”
The grim lips of the deputy curled
upward again. Tess adored his mouth twisted at
the corners like that.
“I might as well get it over
first as last,” ventured Burnett. “But
I’m more’n anxious you shouldn’t
be mad at me. The fact is we’ve traced a
man down from Auburn ”
Tessibel interrupted him, startled;
at least she acted so.
“From Auburn!” she gasped.
“Yes, ma’am, a murderer!
Andy Bishop. Little man like this,” the
warden explained, measuring a short space from the
floor. “By some means or other he wriggled
his way out of prison ”
Tessibel’s lips trembled and
she turned her eyes away. Old memories rushed
over her, memories of the cold winter when she’d
been alone in the shack.
“An’ ye thought ’cause
Daddy’d been up there once, the man must a run
right straight here, huh?” she accused, with
a sob in her voice.
“Well, I’ll admit till
I saw you I thought I thought, but now ,”
a negative gesture with his hand finished his answer.
Tessibel turned withering, tear-wet eyes on her visitor.
“I ‘spose ye air thinkin’
my Daddy even had something to do with his flyin’
the coop?” she flared up. “Air that
it?”
“No! No! I didn’t
think that at all,” the under-warden made haste
to deny. “I just couldn’t think that
about your father.”
Tessibel dimpled, suddenly glowing like a vivid poppy.
“Thank ye,” she whispered,
wiping away the tears. “Why! My Daddy
wouldn’t do nothin’ bad for anythin’
in the world. He’s the best old Daddy livin’.”
“Of course he is,” vouched
the warden, placatingly, “but what I want to
know is would you mind, or would it hurt your feelings The
fact is, I came to search this house.”
Tess had expected this, and without
demurring, flashed forth,
“Ye mean ye want to go ‘round
it, don’t ye, lookin’ in all the corners
an’ places; air that it, sir?”
Burnett acknowledged this by a nod.
“Sure, search it if ye want
to, I don’t mind. Ye’ll ’scuse
me not gettin’ up, won’t ye? There
ain’t much to search, but ye can go in the garret
if ye want to. It air only a cubby hole; even
the weest man in the hull world couldn’t stand
up in it.”
Andy stirred perceptibly beneath her.
“Then there air Daddy’s
room,” Tess continued, “an’ this
room air the kitchen an’ the dinin’ room
an’ the parlor, an’ all the other rooms....
An’ an’ it air my room, too.”
“My God, but you’re a cute kid!”
he chuckled.
Tessibel’s laugh rang out deliciously
fresh and free, and Burnett caught it up and sent
it back in one loud guffaw. Then the girl lifted
one of her curls and spread it out to its extreme
length. Tess had been born possessing all the
arts of her sex, and used them effectively, upon an
occasion like this.
“I wish my ankle wasn’t
wrapped up,” she smiled hospitably. “I’d
show ye ’round the shanty myself. Ye noticed
the hedge when ye come in, didn’t ye? Well I
planted that an’ all the flowers and
this owl belongs to me an’ I keep ’im
in the garret, an’ I almost
got a dog once, but not quite! Job Kennedy owns
’im, an his name air Pete, but he likes to live
here better’n he does to Job’s.”
Tess gasped for breath and flushed rosily. “But
I air keepin’ ye, sir,” she excused, “an
I mustn’t do that. You go on and look in
Daddy Skinner’s room an’ then
ye go up in the garret, an’ then ye can look
behind the chairs an’ behind the stove, an’
ye can look under the bed ”
She paused dramatically and held up a warning finger.
“Please don’t scare none
of my bats nor my uther owls in the garret. They
be awful nice bats an’ awful nice owls too!
Ye wouldn’t hurt ’em, would ye, mister?”
“I won’t do anything you
don’t want me to, kid,” the infatuated
man promised. “Honest, I won’t search
the house if you say not.”
“Oh, sure, search it,”
insisted Tess. “Then ye’ll be pretty
sure there ain’t nobody hidin’ ’round.”
Burnett walked toward Daddy Skinner’s room.
“I wouldn’t mind havin’
a daughter like you,” he vowed, looking back.
“I got two nice boys to home, but I tell you
a man misses a lot in the world, if he doesn’t
have a girl. Why, kiddie, I’ve had a better
time in the past five minutes than I’ve had
in the past five years.” He paused, his
hand on the latch of the door into Daddy Skinner’s
room.
Tessibel gurgled and giggled, and
giggled and gurgled, as if she hadn’t a care
in the world although she felt a paralyzing pain in
her heart for the dwarf beneath her. Then she
threw a mischievous glance into the man’s face
and offered,
“While ye air searchin’
the shanty, I’ll sing to ye, huh?”
“Now, can ye sing?” interrogated Burnett,
smilingly.
“Oh, Golly, sir, I been singin’
since I weren’t no bigger’n this owl,”
replied Tess. “I’ll begin now.”
She knew Andy must be numb with fright
and the weight of her body, and remembered how many
times when he had been kept in the garret long periods
together, while people were coming and going, and danger
ran high, she had sung to him it had soothed
his pains, allayed his agony.
So as Burnett disappeared from sight
into the little back room, Tessibel began to sing
the old, but ever newly encouraging song,
“Rescue the Perishin’;
Care for the Dyin’.”
And in the fleeting moment during
which the officer from Auburn was searching Daddy’s
room, her hand went backward quickly and reassuring
fingers touched the dwarf’s face concealed by
her curls, and still she sang,
“Rescue the Perishin’;
Care for the Dyin’.”
Then Tess felt Andy’s body relax
and heard the faintest possible sigh.
When Burnett came forth unsuccessful
but cheerful, her fingers were toying with her curls,
and she broke off her song, question him with her
eyes.
“There ain’t a soul in
there,” laughed the man. “I might
a’known Bishop wasn’t around here; in
fact, I did know it the minute I looked at you, kid.
Now, just as a matter of law and order, I’ll
take a peep in the garret and under the bed, and then
I’m done ... Say, you got some voice, ain’t
you, kid?”
“It can holler good and loud,” grinned
Tess.
“And you’re some religious,
I bet, according to the hymn you’ve been singin’,”
went on the warden. “Now ain’t you?”
Tess sobered instantly. She was
always very careful not to be irreverent about sacred
things.
“You can bet your boots, I air
some awful religious,” she acquisced
earnestly. “I’ve knowed about God
and Jesus ever so long.”
“That’s nice,” responded
Burnett, becoming grave in his turn.
Oh, would he never go! Would he never finish?
When Burnett walked toward the ladder, she sighed
dolefully.
“Does your foot hurt you, kid?” he asked,
glancing over his shoulder.
“Nope,” faltered Tess.
“I guess I were a thinkin’ what’d
happen to the little man when ye get ’im.”
The warden was trying the strength of the ladder.
“Oh, I’ll hike him back
up state quicker’n scat when I get my fingers
on ’im,” said he, his head disappearing
in the hole in the ceiling.
In less than thirty seconds he was
down again and had taken a squint under the bed.
“There isn’t any dwarf
under there either,” he said, amusement in his
tones. He stretched forth his hand, reaching down
to the girl on the cot.
“Now, don’t hold nothing
against me, kiddie, for comin’ here, will ye?
Just shake hands with a feller and say it’s all
right, eh?”
Tessibel lifted the owl high in the
air and opened her fingers. There was a small
ghostly flutter and in another instant Deacon had
disappeared into the garret.
She gave the warden both her hands,
and for the little minute Burnett stood by the bed
holding them in his and assuring her of his good will.
Tessibel sent up a prayer of thanksgiving. Her
little Andy, Daddy Skinner’s friend, was saved!
When Burnett reached the door, he
looked back at her. The girl’s lips were
parted in a brilliant, farewell smile. He whirled
about and came toward her again.
“Kid,” he said huskily,
“I’m a hard-headed old cuss, harder’n
brass tacks. I been made so by just such men
as Andy Bishop ” He paused, and during
his short hesitation, pregnant with meaning, Tessibel
kept her eyes on him. “I was wonderin’,
little one,” he finished, shame-faced, “when
you say your prayers, if you’d pipe one for me.
I need it, so help me God, I do.”
In another moment he was at the door,
and in response to the hasty glance he sent her, Tess
flung him a misty, loving smile.
“Sure, sir, sure I will,”
she called, “an’ thank ye for bein’
so kind.”
Burnett strode out; Tessibel rolled
off the dwarf’s body to one side of the cot,
and Andy gave an audible grunt.
“I air gee-danged glad that
air over,” sighed Tess. And as she lay very
still, the warden’s hearty voice came floating
to her.
“That’s a mighty fine girl you got, Skinner.”
Tess also heard her father’s
husky reply. “Bet yer life, she air....
Good day to ye, sir.”
Shortly after, the anxious listeners
in the shanty heard the click of the horse’s
shoes and the rumble of the departing wheels on the
stones amid the wagon’s creaking complaints
against the steepness of the hill.