“What you goin’ to do? Tell me!”
“Teach that snake to keep away from your place.”
“No! Listen to me. That’s jest what they’d like. You go trompin’ into there with a gun and makin’ a row, and you’d git it—into the back! You keep out. Let ’em come to you if they want, but you keep out of Nigger Nat’s. You’ll only make it worse for me if you go there—me and Steve too.”
The last words stopped him. Frowning, he rubbed his chin and considered.
“Nobody knows I know you—I ain’t told,” she went on. “Mebbe I might want a friend all to once, and so might Steve. A friend that nobody knowed about might be worth a lot. And till then, I’d git ’long a lot easier if pop and Snake didn’t s’picion things.”
Slowly he nodded. Again their eyes met and held, and the frank pleading in the gray ones softened the chilled-steel glimmer of the blue.
“All right, Marion. I’ll mind—this time. But only if you promise to come to me any time you need help.”
The tapering fingers gave his arm a quick pressure. Then she stood back.
“I promise you. Now you better go ’long—I’ve got to go home pretty quick, and I’ll have to go by my own self. Go on up the crick, as if I wasn’t here.”
He nodded and turned away. But he turned back.