TRUSTED LIKE THE FOX

LIFE Or DEATH

For the next three days, I hung between life and death. I knew it, and I didn't care.

I wouldn't have lasted a day if it hadn't been for Caleb. He scarcely left my side, and when I developed a fever, he sat over me with an ice bag and kept right by me until the fever broke.

There was a time when the fever was at its height, that, as I lay burning and in pain, I suddenly saw Perry in the room.

He had the same bewildered expression on his face that I had seen when he had caught me before the open safe. I tried to speak to him, but the words didn't come out. After a while, he went away. I didn't see him again. That was when I nearly died.

Later, Caleb told me he had given me up, then the fever broke, and I
began to get better.

It wasn't until the seventh day that I was able to talk about Eddy and the Mexican.

"They cleared out the till," Caleb told me, "and they took the gas money and most of the food."

I wondered about the safe. I wondered if Eddy had found it and had opened it, but I didn't mention it to Caleb.

"It seems to me you're going to pull out of this now," he went on.

He looked thin and tired, and there were dark smudges under his eyes that told of loss of
sleep. "It was a near thing. You are lucky."

"You saved my life, Caleb," I said.
"Well, that makes the score even. Thanks."

"What did you expect me to do—let you croak?" He grinned. "It's been pretty rugged, keeping the place going and nursing you, but now I reckon I can catch up on some sleep."

I had been out of action for eight days and nights. During that time, Delphina hadn't been near me. I wondered if she had made any headway with Caleb during
that time.

"How are you and Delphina making out?" I asked.
He shrugged.

"I scarcely see her. I've been too busy looking after you." It was too glib. He didn't look at me. I knew he was lying.

"I've warned you, Caleb. She's dangerous."

"She isn't cutting any ice with me, and she never will," he said.

There was a long pause while we looked at each other. Then abruptly he asked, "What really
happened to Perry?"

I wouldn't have told him unless I was sure she had made an impression on him. I was desperate enough to try to scare him off by telling him the truth.

"She murdered him, and I was fool enough to bury him."

I saw his eyes go suddenly blank the way they always went when he heard something he didn't want to hear.

"She murdered her first husband too," I went on. "She's a killer, Caleb, so watch out."

"Do you realise what you are saying?" he asked, leaning forward, his face tight and hard.

"I know what I'm saying: I'm warning you."

He stood up.

"I don't want to hear any more of this. Can't you see it puts me on a spot?"

"You've got to be warned, Caleb. You don't know her the way I know her."

He moved to the door.

"I guess I'd better get back to work. I'll be in again. You take it easy."

Without looking at me, he went away.

Well, he knew now. He would be on his guard. She wouldn't fool him as easily as she had fooled Perry and me.

But I didn't know I was already too late with my warning. I found that out the following night.

Caleb had moved his bed into the sitting room to give me more room.

He had told me if I wanted anything to call him, but if it wasn't urgent, he would be glad to get some sleep. That was understandable. I said I would be all right and for him not to worry about me.

Since I had told him about Perry's death, I knew it wasn't the same between us, and I knew it could never be the same with us again. It was in the atmosphere rather than in his attitude.

He had always been poker-faced, and now he was even more so.

Neither of us mentioned Delphina. From time to time, I saw her from the window, moving from the lunch room to the house. She continued to keep away from
me.

It was on the following night that I realised my warning had come too late.

Around midnight, Caleb shut up the lunch room and turned off the light. I had seen Delphina go to the house a few minutes after eleven o'clock. The lights were
out in the house by the time Caleb came into the cabin.

He opened my bedroom door silently and stood there, listening.
I turned off my light some time ago. I made no sound

"Are you awake, John?"

His whisper was so soft that I scarcely heard it.

I stayed motionless, not saying anything. Then I heard the door shut softly.

I waited, hoping that what I knew was going to happen wouldn't happen, but of course, it did. For a few tense minutes, I lay looking out of the window, then I
saw Caleb come out of the shadows.