The long and short of it was the French-Canadian was sparking the school teacher. And everybody talked about it, of course; they said it was a shame; they said if she didn’t have sense enough to see what kind of a man he was, someone should tell her.
I have often wondered since what would have happened if anybody _had_ gone to that woman with stories of Black Jean. I know I’d never dared to, because, without knowing why, I was afraid of her. I guess maybe that is why the others didn’t, either.
There was no mistaking she was encouraging to Black Jean. She didn’t seem to object in the slightest to his attentions, and I can see them yet: her, little and pretty and in a white dress, and Black Jean lingering there with his bears, dirty, and towering head and shoulders above her.
* * * * *
Black Jean kept coming and people went on talking, and finally somebody said she had been to Split Hill.
And one day I began to understand it, too. It was the time she was punishing some pupils. Three of them were lined up before her, and she started along whacking the outstretched hands with a stout ruler. Right in front of where I was sitting stood Ben Anger. He was the smallest of the lot and was trembling like a leaf.
Her first clip at him must have raised a welt on his hands, because he whimpered. She hit him again, and he closed his fingers. At that she caught up the jackknife he’d been whittling at his desk with and pried at his fingers until the blood came.
Sitting where I was, I saw her face while she was at it. It had the expression of a female devil. I didn’t say anything to my folks about that; but I wasn’t surprised when word came next week that we were to have a new teacher--the little one had gone to live with Black Jean.
Well, there was more talk--talk of rail-riding the pair of them out of the district. But nothing was done, and one evening, a month later, there was a rap at our door and the French-Canadian staggered in. He was carrying the school teacher in his arms.
“What has happened?” my father demanded.
“Dat dam’ leetle bear,” snarled Black Jean--“She try to keel Madam.”
He laid the woman on the bed. She looked pretty badly cut up, and we sent for the doctor. Mother would only let her stay in the house that night, being shocked at the way she was living with the French-Canadian.
It turned out she wasn’t much hurt, and father kept trying to find out just what had happened. But he couldn’t. _I_ knew, however. Most of my time, when I wasn’t in school or running errands for the folks, I was spending watching that couple, and only that afternoon I had seen her stick a hot poker into the side of the smaller bear and wind it up into his fur until he screamed. And the bear must have bided his time and gone for her--those brutes were just like folks.
Next morning Black Jean came and got his woman, and I stole out and followed. I knew there would be more to it. I was right. The two of them went into the cabin, and pretty soon I heard a rumpus and out comes Black Jean with the smaller bear and behind them the woman. She was carrying a cowhide whip.
The French-Canadian had a chain looped about each forepaw of the animal, and, pulling it under a tree, he tossed the free end of the chain over a stout branch and yanked the bear off his feet. Then he wound the end of the chain about the trunk of the tree and sat down. So the bear hung, his feet trussed, and squirming and helpless.
And there in that clear day and warm sunshine, the woman started at the bear with the whip. She lashed it until it cried like a child. Black Jean watched the proceedings and grinned.
“Bah!” he shouted, after the woman had begun to tire. “She t’ink you foolin’. Heet harder. Heet the eyes!”
Again the woman went at it and kept it up until the bear quit moaning, and its head drooped and its body got limp. I was feeling sick at the sight, and I stole away.
But next morning, when I crawled back, there was the bear still hanging. It was dead.
* * * * *
That woman was a fair mate for Black Jean.
She kept him working steady over here to this kiln--most any night you could see the reflection of the blaze--and it was something to watch Black Jean when he was feeding his fire with the light playing on that copper piece and making it look like a big red eye flashing in the night. I saw it many times.
And it was noticed that Black Jean wasn’t getting drunk any more, and he wasn’t wrestling the one-eyed bear any more. He had good reason for that. I began to believe Black Jean was afraid of that brute.
But he made it work for him in the kiln, using the whip, and it was a curious animal, growling and snarling most of the time, as it pulled and lifted big sticks of wood and lugged them to the kiln.
When Black Jean wasn’t working he was over at the cabin where he would follow the woman around like a dog. She could make him do anything. She was getting thinner and crosser, and I was more afraid of her than ever I was of Black Jean.
Once she caught me watching her from my spying-place in a tree. She had been petting the one-eyed bear, rubbing his snout and feeding him sugar. She ran to the house and got a rifle and, my friends, I came down out of that tree lickety split.
When I reached the ground she didn’t say a word--just let her eyes rest on mine. After that I was more careful.
* * * * *
Then something happened.
I was hoeing corn one afternoon in a field next the road when I spied a woman coming along from the village. She was big and blowsy and was wearing a shawl. I knew she was headed for Black Jean’s, because she climbed through the fence on his side of the road.
Keeping her in sight, I followed along my side and crossed over when I came to a place where she couldn’t see me. I followed her because I knew she was the woman who had come to Black Jean when he first landed in the district. She walked up to the cabin, and I was wondering who she would find home, when out comes Black Jean.
“_Sacre!_” he exclaimed, putting one hand to his eye. “Spik queeck! Ees it Marie?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “I have come back.”
Black Jean looked around fearfully.
“Wat you want?” he demanded.
“I’d like to know who knocked your eye out,” she laughed.
Black Jean did not laugh.
“You steal hunder’ dollar from me an’ run ’way,” he snarled. “_Bagosh!_ You give me dat monee.”
“You fool!” said the woman. “You think I don’t know where you got that money? You killed--”
A sound of rustling leaves in the wood nearby interrupted.
“_Ssh!_” hissed Black Jean, his face blanching. “For de love o’ God, nod so loud.”
He listened a moment; then his expression grew crafty. His teeth showed, and he went close to the woman and said something and started into the cabin.
The next instant I knew someone else had seen them. It was no other than the little ex-school teacher--and she was running away! I lay still a moment, scared out of my wits. Then I went home.
“Did you see Black Jean’s wife?” my mother asked.
“You mean the school teacher woman?” I said.
“Yes,” my mother said. “Who else?”
“I did,” I said, “a while ago.”
“I mean just now,” said my mother, breathing quick. “She rushed in here, right into the house, and before I could stop her she snatched your father’s rifle from the wall and ran out.”
* * * * *
I didn’t wait to hear more.
I set off through the fields for Black Jean’s. Before I had run half the distance, I heard shooting, and it was father’s rifle--I knew the sound of her only too well.
When I got to my spying-place it was all quiet at Black Jean’s. I could not see a thing stirring about the cabin.
Then I thought of mother and started home. Father had gone over to the Cove that morning, with a load of wheat for the Yankee’s mill, and wasn’t to get back until late. So mother and I waited.
It was nearly one o’clock in the morning when we heard father’s wagon, and I rushed outside.
“Hello, son,” he exclaimed. “You’re up late. And here’s mother, too.”
Father listened to what we told him, without saying a word.
“Well,” he said, when we had finished. “I don’t really see anything to worry about. Black Jean can take care of himself. Look there!”
He was pointing over here to this limekiln.
“Jean’s had her loaded for a week,” said father, “waiting for better weather.”
Later, in the house, my father said: “It is none of our business, anyway.”
And in a little he added, as if worried some: “But I am going over there after my rifle.”
* * * * *
The following Sunday--three days later--father and I went to Black Jean’s to get the rifle.
The door of the cabin opened, and the little woman came out. She was carrying the rifle. Somehow, she looked thin and old and her hands were like claws. But her eyes were bright and as sharp as the teeth of a weazel trap.
“I suppose,” she said, as cool as a cucumber and as sweet as honey, “you have come after the rifle.”
“That is what,” said my father, sternly.