"Yes, I started with a shaking chill. I'm afraid, every minute, I'll go
out of my head. Oh, Smith, Oliver's alive! He's alive, he's alive, and
I've come to save his poor wife from a fate worse than death!"
"Gholson, you are out of your head."
"Oh, yes, yes, yes! and yet I know what I'm saying, I know what I'm
saying!"
"You do not! Gholson, Oliver's been food for worms these four months. I
know he wasn't dead at Gilmer's; but he died--now, let me tell
you--he--"
"Smith, I know the whole story and you know only half!"
"No, no! I know all and you know only half; I have seen the absolute--"
"Proofs? no! you saw things taken from the body of another man in
Oliver's clothes! Oliver swapped places with him on the boat going down
to the city so's he could come back to these parts without being hung by
the Yankees; swapped with a sick soldier, one of a pair that wanted to
desert; swapped names, clothes, bandages, letters, everything. It was
that soldier that died of the congestive chill and was buried by your
mother with his face in a blanket--as, like enough, mine will be before
another day is done--Oh, Lord, Lord! my head will burst!"
"Gholson, you're mistaken yet! That soldier came to my mother--"
"No, he never! the other one went to her, in cahoots with Oliver, and
worked the thing all through so's to have the news of Oliver's death, so
called, come back here to the Yankees and us; and to his wife, so's she
_would_ marry Ned Ferry to her everlasting shame, and people would say
they was served right when he killed 'em at last! O--oh! Smith,--"
"Listen to me!" I had tried twice to interrupt and now I yelled; "was it
Oliver, and a new gang, that Quinn fought last night, and have you got
him at Union Church?"
"Quinn didn't know it, for Oliver got away, but they got the Yankee
deserter, and brought him in when everybody was asleep but me, and I
cross-examined him. Oh, my friend, God's arm is not shortened that he
cannot save! He maketh the wrath of the wicked to praise him! The man
was dying then, but thank God, I choked the whole truth out of him with
a halter over a limb, and then for three mortal hours I couldn't start
because the squad that took him out to--Who--who is that?"
The Colonel moved from under the bridge, spurred up the bank, and turned
to us with a murderous smile. "Howdy, Gholson." The smile grew. "Had to
stay with the hanging-squad to keep his mouth shut, you was going to
say, wa'n't you? But you knew Captain Ferry would be delayed waiting for
Quinn, too; yes. Does any one know this now besides us three; no! Good,
we're well met! Smith and me are going to Union Church, and you'd better
go with us; I've got a job that God A'mighty just built you two saints
and me for; come, never mind Gallatin, Ferry's not there, and when he
gets there Heaven ain't a-going to stop that wedding, and hell sha'n't."
Gholson had barely caught his breath to demur when old Dismukes, roaring
and snarling like a huge dog, whipped out his revolver, clutched the
sick man's bosom, and hanging over him and bellowing blasphemies, yelled
into his very teeth "Come!"
We galloped. A courier from the brigade-camp met us, and the Colonel
scribbled a purely false explanation of our absence, begging that no
delay be made because of it. As the man left us, who should come up from
behind us but Harry, asking what was the matter. "Matter enough for you
to come along," said the Arkansan, and we went two and two, he and
Gholson, Harry and I. We reached camp at sundown, and stopped to feed
and rest our horses and to catch an hour's sleep. Gholson's fatigue was
pitiful, but he ate like a wolf, slept, and awoke with but little fever.
The Colonel kept him under his eye, forcing on him the honors of his
own board, bed and bottle, and at nine we galloped again.
Between eleven and twelve the Colonel, Harry and I were in a dense wood,
moving noiselessly toward a clearing brilliantly lighted by the moon. I
was guide. A few rods back in the woods Gholson was holding our horses
and with cocked revolver detaining a young mulatto woman from whom the
Colonel had extorted the knowledge which had brought us to this spot.
The clearing was fenced, but was full of autumn weeds. Near the two
sides next us, tilted awry on its high basement pillars, loomed an old
cotton-gin house, its dark shadows falling toward us. A few yards beyond
towered and gleamed a white-boled sycamore, and between the two the
titanic arms of the horse-power press widened broadly downward out of
the still night sky. The tree was the one which old Lucius Oliver had
once pointed out to me at dawn.