BLACK SMITH’S BARGAIN
In spite of the exertion of all her power of will, which was not small,
Elizabeth found her step lagging as she went through the woods. The
strenuous efforts of the last days and her abbreviated hours of sleep
had naturally exhausted her. She had to sit down often to rest. As she
did so, she looked first to this side, now to that. She was certain
that she was watched each moment. Once she called, “I know you are
there! Don’t hide like a coward, but come out!”
There was no answer, though Black Smith, appointed over her for the
night, and now following her, heard her plainly. Black Smith had not
slept at his post as had her guardian of the night before.
When she approached the old woman’s cabin she could hear no sound. She
would go in and get the will and carry it with her.
But she did not enter the cabin. On the step lay one of the cross dogs
of the mountaineers, who, when she spoke to him, rose and growled
fiercely. She backed out of the thicket.
At the forks she took the right-hand road. She had gone only a short
distance when she heard behind her the sound of footsteps, and turned
and looked toward the bend round which she had come. Black Smith had
decided to accompany her instead of stalking her.
“Stop!” he called.
Elizabeth stood still, recognizing him at once from the description of
Colonel Thomas.
“What do you want with me?”
Black Smith grinned at her.
“It ain’t no use to come here unless you got the paper.”
Elizabeth backed against the tree, appalled by the savage aspect of
Smith.
“I have no paper that would be of any value to you.”
Black Smith came closer.
“You made out a paper,” he insisted. “We heard tell of it. You can’t
keep things secret from the mountain people. You’ve got to get it for
us.”
“That was a will made for the sick old woman,” explained Elizabeth.
“She was afraid that her son would take her money for a gun and she
would not have decent burial. I made a will for her.”
“There was other things on it!”
“There was nothing else on it!”
“She says there was.”
“Then she doesn’t tell the truth!”
Black Smith came still closer. The odor of liquor was strong on his
breath.
“Well, then, git the paper! No paper should be written by strangers in
the settlement of the mountain people. There’s those of us can write.
If papers is to be writ we can write them. An’ we can read what is on
papers that has been writ. You fetch this paper an’ we’ll tell what’s
on it.”
Elizabeth hesitated. The old woman could hardly be made more miserable
than she was. She would go and get the paper now and Herbert should be
free.
Black Smith was impatient with her delay. He looked at her menacingly.
“Look here. Your brother ain’t gettin’ much to eat while you’re
foolin’! He sets all the time an’ cries for his mammy, that’s what he
does! We know his kind, an’ we have no use for such folks among the
mountain people. We know what else was on that paper beside a will, an’
you know.”
“I’ve told you all that was on it!” Elizabeth’s answer was almost a
scream. “You and your mountain people are wicked!”
The man scowled still more heavily. It seemed to Elizabeth that the
time for delay was past. She was about to say, “Come on, I’ll find it
for you!”
Then Smith’s words halted her.
“Your brother can find place in the grave with his gran’pappy, that he
can. The mountain people didn’t take nothin’ from him, I can tell you!”
Elizabeth’s hands pressed close upon the coarse bark of the tree
against which she leaned. The pressure hurt, but she wished it to hurt.
It seemed to her that physical pain would help her to clearness of
thought. Once she feared that she was going to faint, then strength
came back. Was she to hear even from these evil lips mockery and
reproach for John Baring? Had these been his friends? Had he, perhaps,
hidden here among them, had he taken refuge with them? They, too, were
enemies of their country--one of them had fired upon the flag! Did John
Baring die here, was he, perhaps, killed by them after some quarrel?
Was it he who, in the old woman’s words, had been “shot and buried”?
Was there any truth in anything they said?
“It ain’t a hundred yards away where he lays,” said Black Smith. “He
went counter to the mountain people, an’ see what become of him! Will
you give me the paper?”
Elizabeth bent her head. John Baring had ruined the lives of many of
his kin; he should not destroy Herbert’s. Again she determined that she
would give them the paper and provide so that the old woman should have
the decent burial that she craved, and then they would obey the advice
of friend and foe and go away.
That is, they would go, if it were not too late. She did not believe
that they would starve Herbert, or that he sat crying for her. But he
might be ill.
“I will--” began Elizabeth.
Then, suddenly, Elizabeth stopped. The arching trees seemed to contract
into the ceiling of a low room, she smelled not the fresh, living,
woodsy odors about her, but the odor of dry wood, of old beams and
broad ceiling-boards, dried for fifty years under a roof. She saw
herself rising on tiptoe to read, and she heard Herbert’s voice.
“I have built this house the best I know. God bless those that go in
and out.”
For a moment Elizabeth saw more than the writing, she seemed to look
into a pair of sad and steady eyes. Once more in a rush of confused
emotions a wave of semi-unconsciousness passed over her and she found
herself pressing her hands again hard against the rough bark of the
old tree. Her eyes, staring at Black Smith, looked wild. She saw a
scene of which she often dreamed, the old house surrounded by armed and
mounted men. She heard the creak of wagons, the steady, rhythmic beat
of marching troops, the cries of the wounded, already being carried to
the rear, the throng and press which filled the steep and narrow road.
She saw the clear blue moonlight over the wide plain, and the flaring
torchlight at hand; she seemed to see John Baring standing in his
doorway, looking at it all, hearing a question, a demand which could
not be put off. It may have been that his wife stood beside him with
her baby in her arms.
“I have built this house the best I know.” He had intended to live here
long years, to die here decades from now--perhaps that intention went
through his mind.
But he had not been given a long time for dreaming. He must decide at
once. There was probably a heavy hand on his shoulder, a harsh voice at
his ear.
“Here is a horse for you! We must know another way to Gettysburg and
that quickly!”
Then Elizabeth awoke. This was not the time for dreaming, for trying to
reconstruct the mental processes of John Baring!
“I cannot think,” she said to herself. “There is something in the back
of my mind, but I cannot get at it!”
“I’ll give you one more minute, missy, to decide what you’re goin’ to
do.”
Black Smith drew from his pocket a giant silver watch and looked at it.
Elizabeth looked down at the ground, then steadily up at Black Smith.
There was in her blue eyes a hard expression. Thus had she looked
when she had refused to sell her vegetables to the rude woman in
Chambersburg. Thus had she looked also when she had first heard of John
Baring’s crime. From some ancestor she had inherited a stubborn will.
Her affection, her common sense, her pride, directed that she free
Herbert promptly and that they go away as soon and as quietly as they
could. But to neither affection nor common sense nor pride would she
yield. She would have made a thorough-going early Christian martyr.
“How do I know that after I have given you the paper you will let him
go?” she asked. “I might get the paper and you might not be satisfied
with it and refuse to bring him.”
Black Smith looked at her warily. He rather admired this finesse and he
had no fear that she would go away.
“The mountain people keep their word,” said he. “You set on that rock
an’ I’ll bring him an’ others.” Suddenly he grinned. “If you ain’t
here, of course you know what happens to your baby boy. An’ don’t you
come after me!”
“I shan’t come after you,” promised Elizabeth.
Once Black Smith stopped and looked back at her. Then he went on.
Elizabeth could not see that he followed any road.
When he was out of sight she hid her face for a moment in her hands;
then she looked up.
“It will be a little while until they come back,” said she to herself.
“Then they will try to catch me. They will think I have gone down to
the house and they will hunt and by that time--”
She rose and looked down the side of the mountain.
“I had old Joe to lead the other day,” said she. “And I had some
respect for my bones and my clothes and I went round obstacles instead
of going over them. Now--”
She looked back over her shoulder. The woods had closed absolutely
behind Black Smith. She believed that the settlement of the mountain
people must be some distance away, else sounds would have penetrated
to her ears. It was a desperate chance, but she took it. She started
recklessly, not back to the comparatively open ground, but in a direct
line downward. She fell and she picked herself up; she caught her dress
in briars and pulled it loose without any mercy on the cloth or without
any care for the appearance which she would soon present. She stopped
but once, and then merely to listen. There was no sound in the woods of
any pursuit, there was scarcely a song of a bird. Again she plunged on.
She did not think of John Baring, she scarcely thought of Herbert. She
was a desperate creature, who forgets all but the goal, even the reason
for the race.
After a while she stopped again, panting. Her hair had come unfastened
and she braided it as she waited. Then she listened intently, not
now in terror for sign of pursuit, but in hope of another sound. She
had descended a long distance and she had kept well to the left. She
should hear before long an automobile horn blown warningly on the long
descent, or the chug, chug of a machine climbing the hill.
But as yet there was nothing. She drew a deep breath and went on. Again
she stopped and listened. She heard no sound, but she saw before her
an open field. She had gone down through the spur of woods which ran
out from the main forest and in a moment she was in the weedy fields
of John Baring’s property, the old house far above her, and in a few
moments more she stood panting by the roadside.
There she waited. She did not walk on toward Gettysburg, because here
on this comparatively level strip at the foot of a short curve the
drivers would have slackened their speed and it would be easy for a car
to stop. But no car came. She held her breath as she listened.
When, at last, she heard a distant horn, she stepped out toward the
road. She heard also laughing voices above the sound of the horn. As
the car came round the curve she lifted her hand.
“Will you take me to Gettysburg?” she cried. “I have--” But the riders
did not stop to hear what she had. They were young; it may have been
that her appearance frightened them. They did not even answer, but
sailed on. One young man stood up in the car and looked back at her.
Elizabeth shrank against the fence.
Then she heard a different sound, this time the throb of an engine
rapidly climbing the hill. Here there would be no use to ask. But when
the car came into view, long and low and powerful and occupied by a man
alone, she walked out into the road.
The driver stopped with a grinding of brakes, his machine turned a
little to one side. It was to be gathered from his expression that he
believed himself to be halted by a madwoman.
Elizabeth laid her hand across her heart. Consciousness seemed to be
going once more. If he would not listen she would despair.
“I am not crazy,” she explained earnestly. “I am in great trouble. I
tried to get some people to take me to Gettysburg to get the officers,
but they would not stop. Perhaps if you would wait here and help me I
could get a ride.”
“What is your trouble?” asked the man.
Elizabeth could not answer. Her blue eyes rested upon him in anguish.
The stranger called to her to stand out of the way and began to turn
his car. She watched him incredulously as he opened the door.
“Get in. Where do you want to go in Gettysburg?”
“I want to see Colonel Thomas,” she explained. Already the car seemed
to be leaping down the hill. “I live up here and the mountaineers have
threatened to do us harm. They hold a fancied wrong against us and they
have carried off my brother.”
The stranger stared. The story was, indeed, fantastic beyond belief.
“What mountaineers?”
“They’re people that have always lived up here far back in the woods.
They’re outlaws. I had been warned by them, but I couldn’t believe
they’d do what they threatened.”
“Whom will Colonel Thomas get to help you?”
“There are State police in this neighborhood,” said Elizabeth.
“Good,” said the stranger.
They had reached the level plain, and the machine seemed to leap into a
speed greater than that at which they had come down the hill. Elizabeth
told, gasping, a few of the details of her trouble. The stranger
glanced at her in amazement, no longer doubting her sanity. He leaned
over his wheel, watching the road with a trained eye.
“I’ll take the constabulary up,” he offered.