Kinnard Towers had spent that evening in his house at the distance of a
furlong from the stockaded structure wherein the drama of his
authorship was to be staged and acted. The cast, from principals to
supernumeraries, having been adequately rehearsed in lines and
business, his own presence on the scene would be not only unnecessary
but distinctly ill advised, and like a shrinkingly modest playwright,
he remained invisible. The plot was forcible in its direct simplicity.
A chance disturbance would spring out of some slight pretext--and
Henderson, the troublesome apostle of innovation, would fall, its
accidental and single victim. When death sealed his lips the only
version of the affair to reach alien ears would be that dictated by
Towers himself: the narrative of a regrettable brawl in a rough saloon.
Against miscarriage, the arrangements seemed airtight, and there was
need that it should be so for, desirable as was the elimination of
Jerry's activities, that object would not have warranted recklessly
fanning into active eruption the dormant crater of Stacy animosities.
However, with Lone Stacy in duress and Turner Stacy in hiding beyond
the state border, the hereditary foes were left leaderless--and would
hardly rise in open warfare. Moreover, Kinnard meant to insure himself
against contingencies by hastening to such prominent Stacys as might be
in communication with the absentees and avowing, with deep show of
conviction that, of all the turbulent affairs which had ever come to
focus in his tavern, nothing had so outraged him as this particular
calamity. He would appear eager for active participation in hunting
down and punishing the malefactors.
Of course, a scape-goat might be required, perhaps more than one, but
there were men who could be well enough sacrificed to such a diplomatic
necessity.
So during the first part of that evening, Kinnard sat comfortably by
his hearth, smoking his pipe with contemplative serenity the while he
waited for the rattle of firearms, which should announce the climax of
the drama. He allowed to drop on his knees the sheaf of correspondence
which had come to his hand through the courtesy of his nephew in the
legislature. These papers bore the caption: C. and S. E. Railways
Company: "_In Re_--Cedar Mountain extension," and they contained meaty
information culled from underground and confidential sources.
Across the hearth from him, with bare feet spread to the blaze, sat the
well-trusted Tom Carmichael--sunk deep in meditation, though his eyes
were not entirely serene--nor cloudless of apprehension.
"'Pears like ther show ought ter be startin' up," complained Towers
restively. "Ye seed 'em go inter ther Quarterhouse, ye said?"
Tom nodded.
"I watched 'em from ther shadders of ther roadside. They went in all
right. They're inside now."
After a brief pause the lieutenant demanded querulously, "Ye've done
tuck inter account thet ther killin' of this feller from Looeyville's
goin' ter stir up them furriners down below, hain't ye, Kinnard? I
wouldn't be none astonished ef they sent them damn' milishy soldiers up
hyar ergin."
"Ease yore mind, Tom." Towers spoke with the confidence of the
strategist who has, in advance, balanced the odds of campaign. "Ther
railroad will kick up hit's heels--an' snort like all hell--but ther
Co'te sets _hyar_--an' I carries ther Co'te in my breeches pocket."
After a moment he added, "The only people I'm a-fear'd of air ther
Stacys--an' I've done arranged _thet_."
At last across the frosty, sound-carrying distance, came the spiteful
crack of pistols, and Kinnard Towers leaned attentively forward in his
chair.
"Them damn' fools air bunglin' hit, some fashion," he broke out
wrathfully. "Thar hain't no sort of sense in a-stringin' hit out so
long."
A momentary diminuendo of the racket was followed by the sharp,
repeated bark of a rifle, which brought the intriguer violently to his
feet.
"Hell's fiddle!" he ejaculated in sudden alarm. "They hain't finished
hit up yit! I cautioned 'em special not ter use no rifle-guns--jest
pistols, accidental like."
Hatless and coatless, he rushed out and made for the Quarterhouse,
disquieted and alarmed by the din of a howling chorus which sounded
more like uncertain battle than orderly and definite assassination.
Before his panting, galloping haste brought him to the stockade he
caught, above the confused pandemonium, a yell of: "Bear Cat Stacy!
_Git_ him! Git 'em both!"
"Good God!" he muttered between grinding teeth. "Good God, them fools
air startin' ther war ergin! I've got ter stop hit!"
If Bear Cat fell within the four walls of that house to-morrow would
dawn upon a country-side disrupted in open warfare. So Kinnard appeared
in the door, his face distorted with an ashen fury and sought, too
late, to assume again the role of pacifist and rescuer.
As Bear Cat had gone stumbling out, bearing his burden of wounded and
misused humanity, two men started forward keyed for pursuit.
"We kin still git 'em from ther brush," hazarded one, but with a biting
sarcasm the chieftain wheeled on the volunteer.
"Stand where ye're at, ye fool! Ye've done flung away ther chanst--an'
plunged us all inter tribulation! Hain't I got no men thet hain't
damned bunglers?"
He stood panting in a rage like hydrophobia.
"Thet Bear Cat, he hain't mortal noways!" whined a disheveled youth who
nursed a limp arm. "I seed his chest square on my pistol sights, not
two yards' distant, an' I shot two shoots thet hed a right ter be
deadeners--but ther bullets jest bounced offen him. Ye kin bleed him a
leetle, but ye kain't in no fashion _kill_ him."
Kinnard Towers stood looking about the debris of the place where
shattered bottles on the shelves and grotesque figures cluttering the
floor bore testimony to the hurricane that had swept and wrecked it.
"Them fools war mortal enough," he disdainfully commented. "I reckon
ye'd better take a tally an' see what kin be done fer 'em."
* * * * *
Under stars that were frostily clear, Bear Cat Stacy rode doggedly on,
gripping in his arms the limp and helpless figure of Jerry Henderson.
Beneath his shirt he was conscious of a lukewarm seeping of moisture as
if a bottle had broken in an inner pocket and he recognized the leakage
as waste from his own arteries.
Within his skull persisted a throbbing torture, so that from time to
time he closed his eyes in futile effort to ease the blinding and
confusing pain. With both arms wrapped about the insensible figure
before him, and one hand clutching his pistol, rather from instinct
than usefulness, he went with hanging reins. A trickle of blood filled
his eyes and, having no free hand, he bent and dabbed his face against
the shoulder of his human burden. Through all his joints and veins he
could feel the scalding rise of a fever wave like a swelling tide. To
his imagination this half-delirious recognition of sanity-consuming
heat became an external thing which he must combat with will-power. So
long as he could fight it down from engulfing and quenching his brain,
he told himself, he could go on. Failing in that, he would be drowned
in a steaming whirlpool of madness.
The stark and shapeless ramparts of the hills became to his disordered
senses hordes of crowding Titans, pressing in ponderously to smother
and bury him. He felt that he must fend them off; hold back from
crushing and fatal assault the very mountains and the pitchiness of
death--for a while yet--until his task was finished.
Above all he must think. No man could defeat death, but, for a
sufficient cause and with dauntless temper of resolution, a man might
postpone it. He must win Blossom's battle before he fell. He swayed
drunkenly in his saddle and gasped in his effort to breathe as a hooked
fish gasps, out of water.
It seemed that on his breast lay all the massiveness of the rock-built
ranges and at his reason licked fiery tongues of lunacy so that he had
constant need to remind himself of his mission.
There was some task that he had set out to accomplish--but it wavered
into shadowy vagueness. There were scores of mountains to be pushed
back and a heavy, sagging thing which he carried in his arms, to be
delivered somewhere--before it was too late.
His mind wandered and his lips chattered crazy, fever-born things, but
to his burden he clung, with a grim survival of instinctive purpose.
Sometimes an inarticulate and stifled sound came stertorously from the
swollen lips of the weltering body that sagged across the horse's
withers--but that was all, and it failed to recall the custodian from
the nightmare shades of delirium.
But the night was keenly edged with frost and as the plodding mount
splashed across shallow fords its hooves broke through a thin rime of
ice. That same cold touch laid its restoring influence on Turner
Stacy's pounding temples. His eyes saw and recognized the setting of
the evening star--and something lucid came back to him. To him the
evening star meant Blossom. He remembered now. He was taking a
bridegroom to the woman he loved--and the bridegroom must be delivered
alive.
Jerking himself painfully up in his saddle, he bent his head. "Air ye
alive?" he demanded fiercely, but there was no response. He shifted his
burden a little and held his ear close. The lips were still breathing,
though with broken fitfulness.
His fever would return, Bear Cat told himself, in intermittent waves,
and he must utilize to the full the available periods of reason.
Henderson would bleed to death unless his wounds were promptly
staunched. Liquor must be forced down his throat if he were to last to
Brother Fulkerson's house with life enough to say "I will."
Since the dawn when Bear Cat had given his pledge to Blossom he had
always carried a flask in his pocket. He had done so in order that his
fight should be one without any sort of evasion of issues: in order
that the thirst should be met squarely and that whenever or wherever it
attacked him he would have to face and conquer it with the knowledge
that drink was at hand.
Now he felt for that flask and found that in the melee it had been
shattered.
Rough and almost perpendicular leagues intervened between here and
Brother Fulkerson's and there must immediately be some administration
of first aid. The instinct of second nature came to Bear Cat's aid as
he groped for his bearings.
Over this hill, a half mile through the "roughs," unless it had been
moved of late, lay Dog Tate's blockade still. Slipping back of his
saddle, onto the flanks of his mount, Turner lowered Henderson until he
hung limp after the fashion of a meal-sack between cantle and pommel.
He himself slid experimentally to the ground, supporting himself
against the horse while he tested his legs. He could still stand--but
could he carry a man as heavy as himself?
"A man kin do whatsoever he's obleeged ter do," he grimly told himself.
"This hyar's a task I'm plumb decreed ter finish."
The fever had temporarily subsided. His brain felt preternaturally
clarified by the contrast, but the hinges of his knees seemed frail and
collapsible.
He hitched the horse, and hefting the insensible man in his arms,
staggered blindly into the timber.
Dog's place was hedged about with the discouragement of thickets as
arduous as a _cheval de frise_, but Bear Cat's feet groped along the
blind path with a surety that survived from a life of wood-craft. Once
he fell, sprawling, and it was a little while before he could conquer
the nausea of pain sufficiently to rise, gather up his weighty burden,
and stumble on again.
"I'll hev abundant time ter lay down an' die ter-morrow," he growled
between the clamped jaws that were unconsciously biting the blood out
of his tongue. "But I've got ter endure a spell yit--I hain't quite
finished my job."
At last he lifted his voice and called guardedly out of the thickets.
"This is Bear Cat Stacy--I'm bad wounded an' I seeks succor!"
There was no reply, but shortly he defined a shadow stealing cautiously
toward him and Dog Tate stood close, peering through the sooty dark
with amazement welling in his eyes.
The gorge which Dog had chosen for his nefarious enterprise was a
"master shut-in" between beetling walls of rock, fairly secure against
discovery and now both the moonshiner and his sentinel brought their
lanterns for an inquiry into this unexpected visit.
At first mute astonishment held them. These two figures were bruised,
torn and blood-stained, almost beyond semblance to humanity. In the
yellow circlet of flare that the lantern bit out of the darkness, they
seemed gory reminders of a slaughter-house. But much of the blood that
besmeared Bear Cat Stacy had come from his weltering burden.
"I hain't got overly much time fer speech, Dog," gasped Turner between
labored breaths. "We've got ter make Brother Fulkerson's afore we gives
out.... Strip this man an' bind up his hurts es well es ye kin.... Git
him licker, too!"
They staunched Henderson's graver wounds with a rough but not undeft
speed, and when they had forced white liquor between his lips the
faltering heart began to beat with less tenuous hold on the frayed
fringes of life.
"Ef he lives ter git thar hit's a God's miracle," commented Dog. He
passed the whiskey to Bear Cat, who thrust it ungraciously back as he
repeated, with dogged reiteration. "He's got ter last twell mornin'.
He's _got_ ter."
When the prostrate figure stirred with a flicker of returning
consciousness Turner's eyes became abruptly keen and his words ran
swiftly into a current of decisiveness:
"Dog, yore maw war a Stacy--an' yore paw was kilt from ther la'rel. I
reckon ye suspicions who caused his death?"
A baleful light glimmered instantly into the moonshiner's pupils; the
light of a long-fostered and bitter hate. His answer was breathed
rather than spoken.
"I reckon Kinnard Towers hired him killed.... I was a kid when he died,
but my mammy give me his handkerchief, dipped in his blood ... an' I
tuck my oath then." He paused a moment and went on more soberly: "I've
done held my hand ... because of ther truce ... but I hain't nowise
forgetful ... an' some day----"
Bear Cat leaned forward and laid an interrupting hand on the shoulder
of the speaker, to find it trembling.
"Hearken, Dog," he said. "Mebby yore time will come sooner then ye
reckoned. I wants thet afore sun-up ter-morrow word should go ter every
Stacy in these-hyar hills, thet I've done sent out my call, an' thet
they shell be ready ter answer hit--full-armed. I wants thet ye shall
summons all sich as ye hev ther power ter reach, ter meet fer counsel
at my dwellin'-house ter-morrow mornin' ... an' now I wants ter hev
private speech with this-hyar man--" he jerked his head toward
Henderson--"afore he gits past talkin'."
With a nod of comprehension the moonshiner and his helper slipped out
of sight in the shadows, and kneeling at Jerry's side, Bear Cat again
raised a cup of white whiskey to his lips.
The odor of the stuff stole seductively into his own nostrils, but he
raised his eyes and saw again the evening star, not rising but setting.
"Blossom's star!" he groaned, then added, "Ye don't delight in me none,
little gal! Thar hain't but one thing left thet I kin do fer ye--an' I
aims ter see hit through."
With insupportable impatience he bent, waiting for a steadier light of
consciousness to dawn in that other face. Every atom of his own will
was focused and concentrated in the effort to compel a response of
sensibility. Finally Henderson's eyes opened and the wounded man saw
close to him a face so fiercely fixed that slowly, under its tense
insistence, fragments of remembrance came driftingly and disjointedly
back to him.
"Kin ye hear me?" demanded Bear Cat Stacy with an implacably ringing
voice. "Does ye understand me?" And the other's head moved
faintly--almost imperceptibly.
"Then mark me clost because I reckon both of us hes got ter stand afore
many hours facin' Almighty God--an' hit don't profit us none ter mince
words."
Through the haze of a brain still fogged and reeling, Henderson became
aware of a hatred so bitter that it dwarfed into petulance that of the
murder horde at the Quarterhouse.
"Ye come hyar ... an' we tuck ye in." The tone rose from feebleness to
an iron steadiness as it continued. "When I come inter ther
Quarterhouse I 'lowed ye'd done turned traitor an' joined Kinnard
Towers ... but since they sought ter kill ye, mayhap I war
misguided.... Thet don't make no difference, now, nohow." He paused and
struggled for breath.
"Ye tuck Blossom away from me ... ye made her love ye because she
hadn't never knowed ... an eddicated man afore.... All my days an'
nights I'd dreamed of her.... Ter make her happy, I'd gladly hev laid
down my life ... but I war jest a rough mounting man ... an' then she
seed _you_."
Henderson's lips moved in a futile effort as Bear Cat halted, gasping.
His hand wavered in a weak gesture of protest--as against an unjust
charge. But Bear Cat's voice leaped suddenly. "Don't stop me! Thar
hain't much time left! You an' me needs ter go ter God's jedgment seat
with our jobs finished.... I don't censure Blossom none ... hit war es
rightful thet she should want a _real_ life ... es fer ther flowers ter
want sunshine.... But _you_! Ye stole her love--an' then abandoned
her."
Henderson's eyes were eloquent with a denial--but the darkness hid
it--and his lips refused utterance, while the other talked on,
feebleness muting the accusing voice to a lower timbre.
"She warn't good enough fer _you_--her thet war too good fer any man!
But perchance ye may be wiser dyin' then livin'." The weak utterance
mounted into inexorable command.
"Now ye're a-goin' ter make good afore ye dies.... She trusted ye ...
an--" Turner broke suddenly into a deep sob of agony. "I don't know how
fur ye taxed her trust ... but I knows she told me she had full faith
in ye, an' faith like thet don't stop ter reckon up costs. Now she's
sickenin' away--an' thet trust is broke ... an' I reckon her heart's
broke, too."
Henderson moistened his lips and with a supreme effort succeeded in
whispering almost inaudibly, "That's a lie."
"A lie is hit? She gave ye her lips," went on the burning indictment.
"An' in these hills when a woman like Blossom gives her lips ter a man,
she gives him her soul ter keep.... Ye're a mountain man yoreself ...
ye knows full well what mountain folks holds.... Ye hain't got no
excuse of ign'rance ter hide behind. Ye knows thet withouten ye weds
her, folks will tell lies an' she won't never be able ter hold up her
head--ner smile again."
"Stacy--" Henderson had rallied a little now, but he sagged back and at
first got no further than the name. With another struggle, he added,
"I ... I'm dying----"
"Mebby so. I hopes ye air ... but fust ye're a-goin' over thar with me
... an', because she'll be happier ef she thinks ye come of yore own
free will.... I hain't a-goin' ter tell her ... thet I dragged ye thar
... like a sheep-killin' dog.... Ye're a-goin' ter let her think thet
her hero has done come back ter her ... _dee_spite death hitself."
"But--but----"
The young mountaineer broke out with something half sob and half
muffled roar.
"Hell, thar hain't no but! I'm tellin' ye what ye air a-goin' ter do!
With God's aid I aims ter keep ye alive thet long ... an' atter thet--I
hain't takin' no heed what comes ter pass."
"Was ... that ... why you ... saved me?" The words were barely audible.
"What else would hit be? Did ye reckon hit war love for ther man thet
hed done stole everything I counted dear--ther traitor thet betrayed my
roof-tree? Did ye 'low thet hit war fer yore own sake I war openin' up
ther war ergin, deespite ther fact that I knows hit'll make these hills
run red with ther blood of my kith an' kin?"
Abruptly Bear Cat came to his feet and shouted into the darkness.
Henderson saw two figures detach themselves from the inky void and come
forward.
Then as they lifted him he swooned with pain.