第11章 PIGEON PLACE(3)

I don't 'member.He didn't do it--he didn't killed no snakes fornever."Dr.Fenneben gave little heed to this prattle.His eyes were on the pigeons cleaving the air with short,graceful flights.

Presently he felt the soft touch of baby curls against his hand,and little Bug had fallen asleep with his drooping head on Fenneben's lap.

The Dean gently placed the tired little one in an easy position,and rested his shoulder against the tree.

"That must be Pigeon Place,"he mused."Every town has its odd characters.This is one of Lagonda Ledge's little mysteries.

Dennie finds it a pathetic one.How graceful those pigeons are!"And his thoughts drifted to a far New England homestead where pigeons used to sweep about an old barn roof.

A fuzzy gray rabbit flashed across the road,followed by a Great Dane dog in hot chase.

"Bug's bunny!I hope the big murderer will miss it,"Fenneben thought.

The roadside bushes half hid him.As the crashing sound of the huge dog through the underbrush ceased he noticed a woman coming leisurely toward him.

Her arms were full of bitter-sweet berries and flaming autumn leaves.

She wore no hat and Fenneben saw that her gray hair was wound like a coronal about her head.Before he could catch sight of her face a heavy staggering step was beside him,and old Bond Saxon,muttering and shaking his clenched fists,passed beyond him toward the woman.

Lloyd Fenneben's own fists clenched,but he sat stone still.

The woman seemed to melt into the bushes and obliterate herself entirely,while the drunken man stalked unsteadily on toward where she had been.

Then shaking his fists vehemently at the pigeons,he skulked around the bend in the road.

As soon as he was out of sight the woman emerged from the bushes,with autumn leaves hiding her crown of hair.She hastened a few rods toward the man watching her,then disappeared through a vine-covered gateway into a wilderness of shrubbery,beyond which the pigeons were cooing about their cotes.

As she closed the gate,she caught sight of Lloyd Fenneben,leaning motionless against the gray bole of the elm tree.

But she was looking through a tangle of purple oak leaves and twining bitter-sweet branches,and Fenneben was unconscious of being discovered.

"A woman never could whistle,"he smiled,as he listened,"but that call seems to do for the dog,all right."The Great Dane was tearing across lots in answer to the trill of a woman's voice.

"She is safe now.But what does it all mean?Is there a wayside tragedy here that calls for my unraveling?"Attracted by some subtle force beyond his power to check,he turned toward the river and looked steadily at the still overhanging shrubbery.Just below him,where the current turns,the quiet waters were lapping about a ledge of rock.

Between that ledge and himself a tangle of bushes clutched the steep bank.He looked straight into the tangle.

just plain twig and brown leaf,giving place as he stared,for two still black human eyes looking balefully at him as a snake at its prey.Lloyd Fenneben could not withdraw his gaze.

The two eyes--no other human token visible--just two cruel human eyes full of human hate were fixed on him.

And the fascination of the thing was paralyzing,horrible.He could not move nor utter a sound.Bug Buler woke with a little cry.

The bushes by the riverside just rippled--one quiver of motion--and the eyes were not there.Then Fenneben knew that his heart,which had been still for an age,had begun to beat again.

Bug stared up into his face,dazed from sleep.

"Where's my Vic?Who's dot me?"he cried.

"We came to hunt the bunny.He's gone away again.Shall we go back home?"The gentle voice and strong hand soothed the little one.

"It's dettin'told.Let's wun home."Bug cuddled against Fenneben's side and hugged his hand."I love you lots,"he said,looking up with eyes of innocent trust.

"Yes,let's run home.There is a storm in the air and the sun is hidden from the valley."He stooped and kissed the little upturned face.

"Thank heaven for children!"he murmured."Amid skulking,drunken men and strange,lonely women,and cruel eyes of unknown beings,they lead us loving-wise back home again."Behind the vine-covered gate a gray-haired,fair-faced woman watched the two as they disappeared down the road.

And the blood-red sun out on the west prairie sank swiftly into a blue cloudbank,presaging the coming of a storm.