Gravely restraining their protests until the visitor should have spoken,
yet heavy-hearted with premonition, the elder and younger Falkins led
the way up the flagstone path to the porch. Had the head of the house of
Montagu strolled casually in, his hands still red with murder, for an
afternoon call at the strong-hold of the Capulets, his advent could
hardly have been more unexpected or unwelcome. The Honorable McAllister
Falkins and his son were mountaineers, and to the mountaineer the
voluntary arrival of a guest under the roof-tree is a mandate to
consideration so long as he remains there.
The Deacon disposed himself in a heavy split-bottomed rocker, and for a
time a survey of the landscape seemed to absorb him.
The house sat in its yard overlooking the twisting road and the steep
banks of the middle fork of Kentucky River. For that unlettered land it
was a mansion, with its two-story height and painted weather-boarding.
Its glazed, green-shuttered windows gave it a certain dignity. Instead
of puncheon floors, there were carpets and such furniture as one might
have seen in the outer world, mingled strangely with old-fashioned
reminders of pioneer life. At one end of the porch leaned a discarded
spinning wheel, and an arm's length away stood the phonograph with
which the two Falkins men had been soothing their anxieties with the
strains of "Il Trovatore."
Off to the side of the house stretched an orchard in whose shadowed rim
of lingering locust bloom ranged a trim line of ancient "bee gums." It
was a simple and rambling farmhouse, but in a country of squalid
habitations it partook of a certain grandeur, and one must needs go far
to find a more ruggedly magnificent outlook, over park-like stretches of
patriarchal timber, palisading river-banks and towering mountains, than
that commanded from its verandah.
For a few moments the Deacon sat in his rocker with as little seeming
realization of his unwelcomeness as though he were an old friend and
constant visitor. He sat upright, his hat lying on the floor at his side
and his hands resting on his large-boned knees. Both the men of the
Falkins house acknowledged anew how unusual and commanding was that
face, and how difficult it was to recognize upon it any hall-mark of
crime or villainy. The dark eyes were steadfastly gentle, and even under
the long drooping mustache the lips held a sort of dreamer's curve.
Finally, the visitor spoke.
"The more I study about it, the more I'm afraid that Saturday can't
hardly pass by without trouble."
McAllister Falkins rose from his chair and paced the porch. At last, he
paused before Black Pete Spooner, and began steadily:
"I don't know why you have come to me." The old gentleman's voice was
self-contained, though his eyes bored accusingly into those of his
visitor. "I certainly shall express no criticism until you have said in
full whatever you came here to say. You must know that I have always
held aloof from feud-bickerings. You must know that I have always
counseled impartially and truly such men as have come to me from both
factions. But above all you must know that, if there is bloodshed in
Jackson on Saturday, no other thing will be so directly responsible for
it as your reappearance in the county. Your presence and Falerin's death
will be the twin causes. If you seek to avoid a holocaust, you are
pursuing a strange course."
While Falkins talked, the Deacon listened attentively, acknowledging the
force of each remark with a grave nod of his head. At the end of the
speech he sat awhile with his brows judicially drawn, then answered:
"There's a heap of truth and good sense in all that. I don't expect you
to take my word on any matter, but I'm here to propose doin' things, not
just sayin' things. I think there is one way to keep these boys from
mischief, if you two men and me can act together." He paused after that
a moment, then his voice came deeply resonant and full of warning. "And
I tell you that whether I'm at the North Pole or right here, unless we
three do get together, there's goin' to be hell in Jackson next
Saturday."
He held them both with so steady and guileless a gaze that for a moment
both of the advocates of peace and law wondered if they were not
actually talking with a convert; wondered half-convinced, despite all
they knew of his history. Henry Falkins filled his pipe in silence, and
then, as the three settled themselves in their chairs, Black Pete began
again:
"You men both know what a bad name I had when I left these mountains. I
was guilty of several crimes to start with, and my reputation did the
rest. Whatever meanness broke loose got laid to my door. I'm not
complainin'. Enough of them accusations were true to give fellers
license to suspect me in the balance. Then I went away."
"With the understanding that you were to stay away," interrupted
McAllister Falkins.
The Deacon nodded his head.
"I'm comin' to that," he answered with tranquillity. "Anyhow, I went
away, and I've come back with just one hatred left."
"What is that?" demanded Henry Falkins. This man with one hatred was
more to be feared than another with many.
"Hatred of lawlessness and the sort of meanness that assassinates and
quarrels," was the quiet and surprising response.
There was no offer to argue or deny, and after a moment he went on.
"That sounds a little funny from my lips, I reckon, but all I ask is a
chance to prove it."
"And simply going away wrought this conversion?" It was the elder man
who put the question, and his voice was frank in its scepticism.
The Deacon shook his head.
"No, not only that. It's a long story, and there's no need for tellin'
it all. But some of my time out West I was prospectin' in Old Mexico. I
was took down with fever, and they nursed me at a monastery. I caught on
to considerable Spanish, and--well, to cut it short--I got religion. But
as far as my past record goes, maybe just because I've got the name of
being so mean and troublesome, there are some men here-abouts that would
hearken to my counsel when they wouldn't listen to a better man."
He paused and sat staring absently across the river, but his eyes were
taking in everything, and, as he turned his grave glance on his
auditors, he was keenly studying their faces.
"What plan did you have to propose?" inquired Henry Falkins.
"It's this way," came the prompt reply. "There are just two men in this
country that can talk to a Spooner an' a Falkins alike an' be hearkened
to by both. You are the two men. But there are a few Spooners that won't
even listen to you--and they are the meanest of the lot. It's the
meanest men that make the most trouble--and these are the men that will
listen to me. If we three are in town Saturday--"
"If you are in town Saturday, mingling with the Spooners and inflaming
the Falkinses, the entire state militia couldn't maintain order," broke
out old McAllister with vehement heat.
"Now, wait a minute!" And not for one minute, but ten, the returned
exile talked. As they listened, the father and son saw unfold a plan of
unexampled boldness and danger, particularly of danger to its proposer,
but as it outlined and developed itself they began to see also a dawn of
hope. The very effrontery of the thing might carry it through peril to
success.
"I won't equivocate," responded the head of the Falkins family with
blunt directness. "If you are honest, you deserve to be treated frankly,
and, if you are not honest, there is no use in flattering you. It's not
my way to flatter men. You have always been a plausible talker, and you
have cloaked many criminal acts under that plausibility. On the other
hand, I can't see anything which you could gain in this matter by
deceit. On its face it looks fair enough--and if you come through alive,
it may bring peace to the county."
Again the Spooner leader nodded gravely.
"That's worth taking a chance for, ain't it?" he inquired.
"Have you talked to any of your people?" demanded the old man as he
agitatedly paced his verandah.
"No--I haven't seen a soul except those in my own house--and you. I
didn't want it known yet that I was in the county. But in the next two
nights I'm goin' to have speech with a half-dozen Spooners, an' they'll
be a half-dozen of the strongest men."
McAllister Falkins considered for a time, and put a pertinent question.
"Can you and your half-dozen hold the Spooner crowd in check? Saturday
will be the fourth of July. There will be heavy drinking in Jackson. Can
you answer for your rank and file?"
For just an instant, the grave face of the dark-haired giant lost its
impassivity and something like a snort of contempt escaped his lips.
"When you drive sheep," he demanded curtly, "do you consult the fool
beasts? Give me the sheep-men an' the sheep-dogs, an' I'll pretty nigh
tell you where the sheep are going to."
The visitor rose and stood looking from the eyes of one to those of the
other.
"We will both be in Jackson on Saturday," said McAllister Falkins.
"Me, too," said the giant. "But I'll be there unbeknownst until the
minute comes for me to show myself."
The Deacon had taken up his hat and reached the top step of the porch.
There he turned and, looking at the younger man, suggested:
"I was goin' to advise that you didn't go, Henry. Your father can do
what's got to be done."
"Why?" demanded the son sharply. "You arrange that my father shall take
his life into his hands in an effort to quiet a frenzied mob, and then
suggest that I let him go alone? Why?"
The visitor seemed to sympathize with the sentiment.
"That's right," he conceded. "After all, you've got to go. I don't think
Mr. Falkins is runnin' much risk. I don't think there's a man in these
parts that would harm him or let him be harmed. But it's a little
different with you. Little Newt Spooner has been pardoned out of the
penitentiary. I guess you knew that?"
"So I heard. What has that to do with me?"
"Well, he's a mean little devil, that boy is, an' he's holdin' it up
against you that your testimony busted his alibi."
"Now, Spooner," Old Mack spoke quietly but with an ominous force, "you
have just said you could herd your sheep. If you can't handle the
youngest and blackest of them, we might as well abandon the bigger
experiment. If through this boy any harm comes to my son, I give you the
fairest warning that for once I shall take the law in my own hands--and
kill you."
Henry Falkins laughed.
"Father," he said, "there's no occasion to excite yourself. I'm not
troubled about Newt."
But there was no spark of resentment in the Deacon's face. His eyes lost
none of their thoughtful gentleness. He held out his hand and spoke
deliberately:
"If Newt hurts Henry, Mr. Falkins, you can hold me accountable. If
either of you men were hurt by one of my family, my life wouldn't be
worth two bits. I reckon you know that, and you know that I know it.
I'll see to little Newt, but it wouldn't hardly have been honest not to
tell Henry that the boy is nursin' a grudge." He turned and went down to
the stile and turned his mule back for the twenty miles that lay between
the house of McAllister Falkins and the section of Troublesome where the
Spooners held dominion.
The Deacon had much to think of. He had come back from the West because
he was homesick; because as the warden had told Newt: "Every mountain
man that goes away drifts back to the mountains. God knows why they do
it, but they do." As long as Jake Falerin influenced his tribe from
Winchester Black Pete's return would be impossible. As long as the
Honorable Cale Floyd lived, his influence would reach back and bear
fruit in the mountains. For those reasons the Deacon had staged the
shooting in Winchester. Now, with the brain and counsel of Jake Falerin
stilled, he saw, in a great peace movement, a chance to beguile the
lesser leaders of his foes. Having satisfied his private designs, it was
nothing to him that others with equally strong grievances must pocket
them and sit silent under the truce he meant to make. For a time he
intended that this truce should be honestly kept, but later--
The Deacon was thinking several moves ahead. Yet he, who could dictate
to a fierce faction, stood in fear of little Newt. He had stopped him
once, and had promised the boy his future assistance. Newt wanted one of
the only two men in the country who must not be killed; whose
assassination would bring down the wrath of the state and flood the
county with soldiers, and make even a timid judiciary more afraid to
shield than to punish. Yet, how to stop this boy puzzled Black Pete to
such an extent that, as he rode, his brow was deeply corrugated.
Inwardly he cursed bitterly the ladies who had sympathized and the
Governor who had pardoned. It would have been much better to let the
troublesome prisoner rot in the penitentiary.
The Deacon was not riding the county roads back to Troublesome. He was
taking a shorter and steeper trail, which led over the mountains. Travel
by this way was slow and arduous, but it was an isolated way and offered
a better route for a man who wished to ride unseen.
At a point where the narrow trail doubled sharply around the shoulder of
a hill-top and where the soft earth deadened the hoofbeats of his horse,
he came unexpectedly on a walking figure. The mounted man had come
around the angle so unwarnedly that he seemed to rise from nowhere. The
walking figure had made an instinctive dive for the cover of the
roadside brush and tangle, and then, with a realization that it was too
late to escape detection, had halted and stood with his bare feet
planted in the soft mud of the road and his face slowly blackening. The
man on foot was Newt Spooner. He was once more dressed in mountain jeans
and butternut, and at his side his swinging right hand clutched a
repeating rifle.
The Deacon drew his horse to a standstill with an amicable nod.
"Howdy, Newt?" he greeted. The boy made no response, and shifted his
weight from foot to foot, while his eyes kindled with growing fury.
About a little roadside puddle fluttered a small flock of white and
lemon butterflies, disturbed by human invasion, and on a branch overhead
a squirrel ran out and stopped cautiously.
"There's a squirrel, Newt," suggested the Deacon casually. "I reckon
you're squirrel-huntin', ain't you?"
But the boy did not answer, and the Deacon knew why. He was thirteen
miles from home, and was stalking bigger game than squirrels.