“Now, ma’am, that hain’t possible. Can’t roust men out of bed and send ’em traipsin’ all over jest on account of a woman gittin’ upset. You go back to bed. Nothin’ hain’t goin’ to happen. Nothin’ ever does.” He hung up the receiver.
It was obvious. Carmel knew. There was collusion between the sheriff’s office and whoever had set a party of drunken irresponsibles upon her. No evidence was needed to demonstrate this to her. It was, and she stored the fact away in her mind vengefully.
“Where’s Tubal? Where’s Mr. Pell?” she asked Simmy.
“Dunno. Hain’t seen nuther of ’em. Nobody never sees nobody when they need them.... Oh, what we goin’ to do? What we goin’ to do?”
He ran into the back room—the composing room—as if he hoped to find some workable course of action lying there ready to be picked up. He was frightened. Carmel could not remember ever having seen a boy quite so terrified. Perhaps the ink blotches on his face made him seem paler than he actually was! But he stayed. The way was open for him to desert her, but the thought did not seem to occur to him. Ignorant, not overly bright, there nevertheless glowed in Simmy a spark of loyalty, and Carmel perceived it and, even in that anxious moment, treasured it.
Presently he came out of the press room, eyes gleaming with terror, shock head bristling, dragging after him, by its barrel, Tubal’s automatic shotgun.
“By gum! The’ shan’t nobody tetch you, Lady, ’less ’n it’s over my dead body.” His voice quavered as he spoke, but Carmel knew her one defender would remain stanch so long as the breath of life remained in him.
“Simmy,” she said, “come here.”
He came and stood beside her chair. His head was scarcely higher than Carmel’s, seated in her chair.
“Simmy,” she said, “you do like me, don’t you?”