[Illustration: 9116]
IS breakfast over, Pete shouldered his grubbing-hoe, an implement shaped
like an adze, and made his way through the dewy undergrowth of the wood
to an open field an eighth of a mile from his cabin. There he set to
work on what was considered by farmers the hardest labor connected with
the cultivation of the soil. It consisted of partly digging and partly
pulling out by the roots the stout young bushes which infested the
neglected old fields.
Pete was hard at work in the corner of a ten-rail worm-fence, when,
hearing a sound in the wood, which sloped down from a rocky hill
quite near him, he saw a farmer, who lived in the neighborhood, pause
suddenly, even in a startled manner, and stare steadily at him.
“Oh!” Pete heard him exclaim; “why, you are Carson Dwight's new man,
ain't you, from Darley?”
“Yes, suh, dat me,” the negro replied. “Mr. Hillyer, de overseer fer
my boss, set me on dis yer job. I want ter clean it up ter de branch by
Sadday.”
“Huh!” The man approached nearer, eying the negro closely from head to
foot, his glance resting longer on Pete's hip-pocket than anywhere else.
“Huh! I heard down at the store just now that you'd left--throwed up
your job, I mean--an' gone clean off.”
“No, I hain't throwed up no job,” the negro said, his slow intelligence
groping for the possible cause of such a report. “I been right here
since my boss sent me over, en I'm gwine stay lessen he sen' fer me
ter tek care o' his hosses in town. I reckon you heard er Marse Carson
Dwight's fine drivin' stock.” The farmer pulled his long brown beard,
his eyes still on Pete's face; it was as if he had not caught the boy's
last remark.
“They said down at the store that you left last night, after--that you
went off last night. A man said he seed you at the nigger blow-out on
Hilton's farm about one o'clock, and that after it was over you turned
towards--I don't know--I'm just tellin' you what they said down at the
store.”
“I _was_ at dat shindig,” Pete said. “I walked fum here dar en back
ergin.”
“Huh, well”--the farmer's face took on a shrewd expression--“I must
move on. I'm lookin' fer a brown cow with a white tail, an' blaze on 'er
face.” As the man disappeared in the wood, Pete was conscious of a
sense of vague uneasiness which somehow seemed to be a sort of augmented
recurrence of the feeling left by the warning of his early visitor.
“Dat white man certainly act curi's,” Pete mused, as he leaned on
the handle of his hoe and stared at the spot where the farmer had
disappeared in the woods. “I'll bet my hat he been thinkin', lak Uncle
Rich' said dey would, dat I had er hand in dat bloody business. Po'
Miz Johnson--I reckon dey layin' 'er out now. She certney was good. I
remember how she tol' me at de spring de day I come here ter try en be a
good, steady boy en not mek dem white men pounce on me ergin. Po' 'oman!
Seem lak er gre't pity. I reckon Abe Johnson got what was comin' ter
'im, but it look lak even Sam Dudlow wouldn't er struck dat good'oman
down. Maybe he thought he had ter--maybe she cornered 'im; but I dunno;
he's er tough nigger--de toughest I ever run ercross, en I've seed er
lots um.”
Pete leaned on the fence, wiped his perspiring brow with his bare hand,
snapped his fingers like a whip to rid them of the drops of sweat, and
allowed his thoughts to merge into the darker view of the situation. He
was really not much afraid. Under grave danger, a negro has not so great
a concern over death as a white man, because he is not endowed with
sufficient intelligence to grasp its full import, and yet to-day Pete
was feeling unusual qualms of unrest.
“Dar's one thing sho,” he finally concluded; “dat white man looked
powerful funny when he seed me, en he said he heard I'd run off. I'll
bet my hat he's makin' a bee-line fer dat sto' ter tell 'em whar I is
right now. I wish one thing. I wish Marse Carson was here; he'd sen' 'em
'bout deir business mighty quick.”
With a shrug of indecision, the boy set to work. His back happened to be
turned towards the store, barely visible over the swelling ground in the
distance, and so he failed to note the rapid approach across the meadow
of two men till they were close upon him. One was Jeff Braider, the
sheriff of the county, a stalwart man of forty, in high top-boots, a
leather belt holding a-long revolver, a broad-brimmed hat, and coarse
gray suit; his companion was a hastily deputized citizen armed with a
double-barrelled shot-gun.
“Put down that hoe, Pete!” the sheriff commanded, sharply, as the negro
turned with it in his hand. “Put it down, I say! Drop it!”
“What I gwine put it down for?” the negro asked, in characteristic tone.
“Huh! I got ter do my work.”
“Drop it, and don't begin to give me your jaw,” the sheriff said.
“You've got to come on with us. You are under arrest.”
“What you 'rest me fer?” Pete asked, still doggedly.
“You are accused of killing the Johnsons last night, and if you didn't
do it, I'm here to say you are in the tightest hole an innocent man ever
got in. King and I are going to do our level best to put you in safety
in the Gilmore jail so you can be tried fairly by law, but we've got to
get a move on us. The whole section is up in arms, and we'll have hard
work dodging 'em. Come on. I won't rope you, but if you start to run
we'll shoot you down like a rabbit, so don't try that on.”
“My Gawd, Mr. Braider, I didn't kill dem folks!” Pete said, pleadingly.
“I don't know a thing about it.”
“Well, whether you did or not, they say you threatened to do it, and
your life won't be worth a hill of beans if you stay here. The only
thing to do is to get you to the Gilmore jail. We may make it through
the mountains if we are careful, but we've got to git horses. We can
borrow some from Jabe Parsons down the road, if he hasn't gone crazy
like all the rest. Come on.”
“I tell you, Mr. Braider, I don't know er thing 'bout dis,” Pete said;
“but it looks ter me lak mebby Sam Dudlow--”
“Don't make any statement to me,” the officer said, humanely enough in
his rough way. “You are accused of a dirty job, Pete, and it will take
a dang good lawyer to save you from the halter, even if we save you from
this mob; but talkin' to me won't do no good. Me'n King here couldn't
protect you from them men if they once saw you. I tell you, young man,
all hell has broke loose. For twenty miles around no black skin will
be safe, much less yours. Innocent or guilty, you've certainly shot off
your mouth. Come on.”
Without further protest, Pete dropped his hoe and went with them.
Doggedly, and with an overpowering and surly sense of injury, he
slouched along between the two men.
A quarter of a mile down a narrow, private road, which was traversed
without meeting any one, they came to Parsons' farm-house, a one-story
frame building with a porch in front, and a roof that sloped back to
a crude lean-to shed in the rear. A wagon stood under the spreading
branches of a big beech, and near by a bent-tongued harrow, weighted
down by a heap of stones, a chicken-coop, an old beehive, and a
ramshackle buggy. No one was in sight. No living thing stirred about the
place, save the turkeys and ducks and a solitary peacock strutting
about in the front yard, where rows of half-buried stones from the
mountain-sides formed the jagged borders of a gravel walk from the fence
to the steps.
The sheriff drew the gate open and, according to rural etiquette,
hallooed lustily. After a pause the sound of some one moving in the
house reached their ears. A window-curtain was drawn aside, and later a
woman stood in the doorway and advanced wonderingly to the edge of the
porch. She was portly, red of complexion, about middle-aged, and dressed
in checked gingham, the predominating color of which was blue.
“Well, I'll be switched!” she ejaculated; “what do you-uns want?”
“Want to see Jabe, Mrs. Parsons; is he about?”
“He's over in his hay-field, or was a minute ago. What you want with
him?”
“We've got to borrow some hosses,” the sheriff answered. “We want
three--one fer each. We're goin' to try to dodge them blood-thirsty
mobs, Mrs. Parsons, an' put this feller in jail, whar he'll be safe.”
“_That_ boy?” The woman came down the steps, rolling her sleeves up.
“Why, that boy didn't kill them folks. I know that boy, he's the son of
old Mammy Linda and Uncle Lewis Warren. Now, look here, Jeff Braider,
don't you and Bill King go and make eternal fools o' yourselves. That
boy didn't no more do that nasty work than I did. It ain't _in_ 'im. He
hain't that look. I know niggers as well as you or anybody else.”
“No, I _didn't_ do it, Mrs. Parsons,” the prisoner affirmed. “I didn't!
I didn't!”
“I know you didn't,” said the woman. “Wasn't I standin' here in the door
this mornin' and saw him git up an' go out to git his wood and cook his
breakfast? Then I seed 'im shoulder his grubbin'-hoe and go to the field
to work. You officers may think you know it all, but no nigger ain't
agoin' to stay around like that after killin' a man an' woman in cold
blood. The nigger that did that job was some scamp that's fur from the
spot by this time, and not a boy fetched up among good white folks like
this one was, with the best old mammy and daddy that ever had kinky
heads.”
“But witnesses say he threatened Abe Johnson a month ago,” argued
Braider. “I have to do my duty, Mrs. Parsons. There never would be any
justice if we overlooked a thing as pointed as that is.”
“Threatened 'im?” the woman cried; “well, what does that prove? A nigger
will talk back an' act surly on his death-bed if he's mad. That's all
the way they have of defendin' theirselves. If Pete hadn't talked some
after the lashin' he got from them men, thar'd 'a' been some'n' wrong
with him. Now, you let 'im loose. As shore as you start off with that
boy, he'll be lynched. The fact that you've got 'im in tow will be all
them crazy men want. You couldn't get two miles in any direction from
here without bein' stopped; they are as thick as fleas on all sides, an'
every road is under watch.”
“I'm sorry I can't take yore advice, Mrs. Parsons,” Braider said, almost
out of patience. “I've got my duty to perform, an' I know what it is a
sight better than you do.”
“If you start off with that boy his blood will be on yore head,” the
woman said, firmly. “Left alone, and advised to hide opt till this
excitement is over, he might stand a chance to save his neck; but with
you--why, you mought as well stand still and yell to that crazy gang to
come on.”
“Well, we've got to git horses to go on with, and yours are the
nearest.”
“Huh! you won't ride no harmless nigger to the scaffold on _my_ stock,”
the woman said, sharply. “I know whar my duty lies. A woman with a
thimbleful of brains don't have to listen to a long string of testimony
to know a murderer when she sees one; that boy's as harmless as a baby
and you are trying your level best to have him mobbed.”
“Well, right is on my side, and I can take the horses if I see fit in
the furtherance of law an' order,” said Braider. “If Jabe was here he'd
tell me to go ahead, an' so I'll have to do it anyway. Bill, you stay
here on guard an' I'll bridle the horses an' lead 'em out.”
A queer look, half of anger, half of definite purpose, settled on the
strong, rugged face of the woman, as she saw the sheriff stalk off to
the barn-yard gate, enter it, and let it close after him.
“Bill King,” she said, drawing nearer the man left in charge of the
bewildered prisoner, who now for the first time under the words of his
defender had sensed his real danger--“Bill King, you hain't agoin' to
lead that poor boy right to his death this way--you don't look like that
sort of a man.” She suddenly swept her furtive eyes over the barn-yard,
evidently noting that the sheriff was now in the stable. “No, you
hain't--for I hain't agoin' to _let_ you!” And suddenly, without warning
even to the slightest change of facial expression, she grasped the end
of the shot-gun the man held, and whirled him round Like a top.
“Run, boy!” she cried. “Run for the woods, and God be with you!” For an
instant Pete stood as if rooted to the spot, and then, as swift of foot
as a young Indian, he turned and darted through the gate and round the
farm-house, leaving the woman and King struggling for the possession of
the gun. It fell to the ground, but she grasped King around the waist
and clung to him with the tenacity of a bull-dog.
“Good God, Mrs. Parsons,” he panted, writhing in her grasp, “let me
loose!”
There was a smothered oath from the barn-yard, and, revolver in hand,
the sheriff ran out.
“What the hell!--which way did he go?” he gasped.
But King, still in the tight embrace of his assailant, seemed too badly
upset to reply. And it was not till Braider had torn her locked hands
loose that King could stammer out, “Round the house--into the woods!”
“An' we couldn't catch 'im to save us from--” Braider said. “Madam, I'll
handle you for this! I'll push this case against you to the full limit
of the law!”
“You'll do nothin' of the kind,” the woman said, “unless you want to
make yourself the laughin'-stock of the whole community. In doin' what
I done I acted fer all the good women of this country; an' when you
run ag'in we'll beat you at the polls. Law an' order's one thing,
but officers helpin' mobs do their dirty work is another. If the boy
deserves a trial he deserves it, but he'd not 'a' stood one chance in
ten million in your charge, _an' you know it_.”
At this juncture a man emerged from the close-growing bushes across the
road, a look of astonishment on his face. It was Jabe Parsons. “What's
wrong here?” he cried, excitedly.
“Oh, nothin' much,” Braider answered, with a white sneer of fury. “We
stopped here with Pete Warren to borrow your horses to git 'im over the
mountain to the Gilmore jail, an' your good woman grabbed Bill's gun
while I was in the stable an' deliberately turned the nigger loose.”
“Great God! what's the matter with you?” Parsons thundered at his wife,
who, red-faced and defiant, stood rubbing a small bruised spot on her
wrist.
“Nothin's the matter with me,” she retorted, “except I've got more sense
than you men have. I know that boy didn't kill them folks, an' I didn't
intend to see you-all lynch 'im.”
“Well, I know he did!” Parsons yelled. “But he'll be caught before
night, anyway. He can't hide in them woods from hounds like they've got
down the road.”
“Your wife 'lowed he'd be safer in the woods than in the Gilmore jail,”
Braider said, with another sneer.
“Well, he _would_. As for that,” Parsons retorted, “if you think that
army headed by the dead woman's daddy an' brothers would halt at a puny
bird-cage like that jail, you don't know mountain men. They'd smash the
damn thing like an egg-shell. I reckon a sheriff has to _pretend_ to act
fer the law, whether he earns his salary or not. Well, I'll go down the
road an' tell 'em whar to look. Thar'll be a picnic som 'er's nigh here
in a powerful short while. We've got men enough to surround that whole
mountain.”