Luke Towers, the father of Kinnard, had been one of those fierce and
humorless old feudists of primal animosities and exploits as engagingly
bold as the feats of moss-trooping barons. The "Stacy-Towers" war had
broken into eruption in his day. No man remembered to just what origin
it was traceable--but it had, from its forgotten cause, flared,
guttered, smoldered and flared again until its toll of lives had
reached a scattering summary enumerated in scores and its record had
included some sanguinary highlights of pitched battle. The state
government had sought to regulate its bloodier phases with the
impressive lesson of troops and Gatling guns, but that had been very
much like scourging tempestuous seas with rods.
Courts sat and charged panels, with a fine ironic mask of solemnity.
Grand juries were sworn and listened with an equal mockery of owlish
dignity. Deputies rode forth and returned with unserved subpoenas.
Prosecutions collapsed, since no law unbacked by public sanction in its
own jurisdiction can prevail. Stacys and Towers, alike fierce in
private quarrel and jealous of their right of personal settlement,
became blankly ignorant in the witness chair; welded by their very
animosities into a common cause against judge and jury.
There had been, among that generation of Stacys, no such outstanding
figure as old Mark Towers, the indomitable lion of the hills. Kinnard
had followed Mark, bringing to the succession no such picturesque
savagery--but still a bold spirit, tempered by craft. In lieu of the
sledge blow he favored the smiling face with the dirk unsheathed behind
his back. Times were altering and to him mere leadership meant less
than enough. He was also covetous of wealth, in a land of meagerness.
To clan loyalty as an abstract principle he must have added such
obedience as comes only from fear--and men must know that to thwart him
was dangerous. Upon that principle, he had built his dominance until
men shaped even their court testimony to the pattern of his
requirements. At first the Stacy clan had challenged his autocracy, but
twenty years before, the truce had been made and, since no Stacy leader
had arisen of sufficient caliber to wrest from him the ascendency of
his guile and bold wits, he had triumphed and fattened in material
wealth.
The farm that he had "heired" from his father, with its few fallow
acres of river bottom, had spread gradually but graciously into
something like a domain.
He might now have moved his household to a smoother land and basked in
the security of fair affluence--but an invisible bond chains the
mountain-born to mountain environment. Highland nostrils shut
themselves against lowland air. Highland lips spit out as flat and
stale that water which does not gush from the source of living brooks.
There were enemies here who hungered for his life--a contingency which
he faced with open-eyed realization--enemies actuated by grievances
apart from feud cleavage. Three attempts upon his life, he had already
survived. Some day he would not escape. But that eventuality was more
welcome, despite its endless threat, than an ease that carried with it
surrender of his rude ascendency and the strong intoxication of petty
might.
For several years now he had been hearing tales of a Stacy youth who
bore the ear-marks of leadership, and from whom, some day, he might
expect a challenge of power. If such a test came, he must combat a
younger and fierier adversary when his own prime had passed.
Elsewhere in the hills waves of transition were encroaching on the old
order of lethargic ignorance. The hermit blindfold was being loosened
from eager eyes--and men like himself were being recognized and
overthrown. So far the rock-built ridges of Cedar Mountain had been a
reef, protecting his own locality--but the advent of Jerry Henderson
had bespoken the imminence of a mounting tide--and whispered the
warning of deluge.
The elimination of Jerry had seemed imperative, but the result promised
disaster--since the wounding of Bear Cat had threatened the
wrath-glutting of the Stacys.
There was only one method of discounting that danger. Bear Cat had come
single-handed to his stronghold--he must now go single-handed, or
escorted only by his customary body-guard, into the heart of Stacy
territory, disavowing responsibility for the attack. He must, by that
convincingly reckless device, appear to demonstrate that he trusted
himself among them and expected in turn to be trusted by them.
He hoped with a fair degree of confidence that Jerry Henderson had not
reached the minister's alive--or that at all events he had not been
able to talk with a revealing fluency.
So the guileful old wolf had set out to ride boldly through an aroused
and hostile country, facing a score of parlous contingencies.
As he rode, he heard the rallying cry and its full portent in no wise
escaped his just appraisal. It caused him to spur on faster, however,
for the ugliness of the situation made it the more imperative that he
should reach Lone Stacy's house in time to present himself as an ally
before he was sought out as an enemy.
But when he had sent his message ahead by a neutral bearer, Kinnard
Towers slowed down and watched the stream of horsemen that flowed past
him: all men with scowling eyes responding to the cry which meant war:
all men who passed without attack, only because, as yet, the summons
had not been explained.
"By ther godlings!" muttered the Towers chieftain, with a bitter humor,
"I didn't know thar was sich a passel o' Stacys in ther world. They'll
stand a heap of thinnin' out!"
"An' as shore es hell's hot," growled Black Tom Carmichael with a dark
pessimism brooding in his eyes, "they'll _do_ right-smart thinnin' out
their own selves--once they gits stirred up."
* * * * *
By the time the sun had fully dissipated the early mists, the door yard
of Lone Stacy's house was dotted with little groups of men, and from
the wide doors of the barn more faces looked expectantly out. Along the
sandy creek-bed of the road, where a flock of geese waddled and hissed,
other arrivals stamped their feet against the cold of the
frost-stiffened mud, and rammed chapped hands into trouser pockets.
They talked little, but waited with an enduring patience. They were
determined men, raggedly clothed and bearded; incurious of gaze and
uncommunicative of speech--but armed and purposeful. They were men who
had left their beds to respond to the call of their clan.
Slowly Bear Cat circulated among the motley crowd, exchanging
greetings, but holding his counsel until the tide of arrivals should
end. It was a tatterdemalion array that he had conjured into conclave
with his skittering whoop along the hill-tops. There were lads in jeans
and veterans in long-tailed coats, green of seam and fringed of cuff.
They carried rifles of all descriptions from modern repeaters to
antiquated squirrel guns, but, in the bond of unshrinking stalwartness,
they were uniform.
To hold such a headstrong army--mightily leaning toward violence--in
leash needed a firm hand, and an unbending will. Old fires were
kindling in them, ignited by the cry that had been a match set to
tinder and gunpowder.
It was, all in all, a parlous time, but no one caught any riffle of
doubt in Turner Stacy's self-confident authority as he passed from
group to group, explaining the vital need of forbearant control until
Kinnard Towers had come, spoken and departed. The Stacy honor was at
stake and must be upheld. His morning hurricane of passion had left him
alertly cool and self-possessed--but there was battle-light in his
eyes.
In grim expectancy they waited, while nerves tightened under the heavy
burden of suspense. Turner had sternly commanded cold sobriety, and the
elders had sought to enforce it, but here and there in hidden places
the more light-headed passed flasks from hand to hand and from mouth to
mouth.
Such was the crowd into which Kinnard Towers eventually rode, with his
double body-guard, and even his tough-fibred spirit must have
acknowledged an inward qualm of trepidation, though he nodded with a
suave ease of bearing as he swung himself from his saddle at the gate.
The urbane blue eyes under the straw-yellow brows were not unseeing,
nor were they lacking in a just power of estimate. They noted the
thunder-cloud quiet--and did not like it, but, after all, they had not
expected to like it.
As Bear Cat came forward the Towers chieftain began unctuously. "How
air Mr. Henderson? Air he still alive?"
"He war last time I heered," was the curt reply.
Towers nodded with the air of one whose grave anxiety has been allayed,
but under the meditative quality of his Sabbath calm he was wishing
that he could learn, without asking, whether Jerry had been able to
talk. A great deal depended on that--but making the best of affairs as
he found them, he broached his mission.
"This hyar trouble came up in my place--an' hit's made me mighty
sore-hearted," he avowed. "But I've got ther names of every man thet
war thar when I come in--an' I rid over hyar ter proffer ye my aid in
runnin' down ther matter and punishin' them thet's guilty." He paused,
and feeling the unmasked distrust with which his assurance was greeted,
added:
"I reckon yore father's son wouldn't hardly want no _illegal_
punishment."
Bear Cat declined to meet diplomacy in kind.
"Ye reckons thet my father's son aims ter stand out fer a truce thet's
kept on one side an' broke on ther t'other. Air thet what ye means?"
Kinnard Towers felt his cheek-bones grow red and hot with anger at the
taunt, but he blunted the edge of acerbity and parried in sober
dignity.
"Ef I'd aimed ter bust ther truce I wouldn't hardly hev interfered ter
save ye, fust in Marlin Town and then ergin last night. I rid over hyar
with ther roads full of Stacys ter hold counsel with ye. I aimed ter
tell ye all I knowed and find out what _you_ knowed, so thet betwixt us
we could sift this matter ter ther bottom."
"Whatever ye've got ter say ter me, ye kin say ter these men, too," was
the tartly unconciliating reply. "I've pledged ye safety twell ye rides
back home. I aims ter say some things myself--an' I reckon most of 'em
won't pleasure ye none." The speaker's eyes flared as he added, "But
from this day forwards either you or me air goin' ter run things in
these hills an' ther t'other one of us won't hardly hev standin' room
left."
"I reckon," said Kinnard Towers,--and now the ingratiating quality that
had sugar-coated his address dissolved into frank enmity,--"I reckon ef
thet's ther road ye elects ter travel, thar hain't scarcely any avail
in my tarryin' hyar. I mout es well say farewell an' tell hell with ye!
Yore paw wouldn't hardly be so malicious an' stiff-necked. Ye don't
need ter be told thet I've got numerous enemies hyar in these
mountings, too--an' thet more'n once they've marked me down fer death."
The younger man's attitude was that of unmasked distrust, yet of
patience to listen to the end. Kinnard Towers, hirer of assassins
though he was, spoke with a certain dignity that savored of sound
logic. "Moreover, ye knows right well thet when I rid over hyar with
yore war-whoop skitterin' from hill-top ter hill-top, an' yore men
trapesin' along highways an' through ther timber trails, I traveled, in
a manner of speakin', with my neck in a halter. I was willin' ter risk
ther shot from the la'rel because, in a fashion, you an' me holds ther
lives an' ther welfare of our people in ther hollers of our hands. I
fared hither seekin' peace; aimin' ter stand side by side with ye in
huntin' down ther men thet sought ter murder you an' yore friend from
down below."
A crimson flush mantled on the full jowl and bull-like neck. The voice
shook with antagonism. "But I didn't come over hyar ter _sue_ fer
peace--an' the day hain't dawned yit when any man kin order me ter
leave ther mountings whar I belongs."
"By God in heaven!" Bear Cat Stacy leaned forward and his words cracked
like flame in green wood. "Ye says ye stands fer law--an' ye' makes
slaves of ther men thet runs ther co'tes of law! Ye says ye stands fer
ther people an' ye fosters thar ign'rance and denies 'em roads an'
schools. Ye sacrifices everything fer yore own gain--an' ther profit of
yore boot-lickers thet seeks ter run blockade stills. Wa'al ef thet's
law, I'm goin' ter start ter-day makin' war on ther law. I'm goin' ter
see what an outlaw kin do! I aims ter give thet message to them thet's
gathered hyar this afternoon--an' as soon as I'm done talkin' I'm goin'
ter commence actin'. Atter ter-day thar'll be decent Towerses alongside
of me and worthless Stacys 'longside of _you_!" His voice fell--then
leaped again to passion. "I reckon ther time's ripe. Let's go now an'
talk with 'em. I've jest been a-waitin' fer ye ter get hyar."
Deeply perplexed and depressed with the foreboding of one who fights
enemies shadowy and ill-defined, yet forced, since he had come so far,
to go forward, Kinnard Towers followed, as Bear Cat led the way to a
huge rock which afforded a natural rostrum.
"Men," cried Turner Stacy when a semi-circle of lowering faces had
pressed close and attentive about the shallow eminence, "last night Mr.
Henderson an' me come sore wounded from ther Quarterhouse, whar a
murder hed done been hatched: a murder thet partly failed. I sent out
messengers ter call ye tergether fer counsel as ter whether ther truce
hed been busted. I hain't found out yit fer sartain whether hit has er
not--an' until we knows fer sure we're still held in our bonds of
peace. Meanwhile I've done give my hand ter Kinnard Towers hyar, in my
name an' yourn, thet he kin ride home, safe. If he speaks ther truth
he's entitled ter respect. If he lies thar'll be time a plenty an' men
a plenty ter deal with him hereafter. Kinnard aims ter talk ter ye, an'
I wants thet ye hearken till he gits through."
The hereditary foeman, who knew that he was being pilloried in bitter
disbelief, stood with an erect calmness as he was introduced. His face
held an almost ministerial tranquillity, though his sense apprised him
of the hush that goes ahead of the storm. He saw the green patches of
the pines against the unaltered blue of the sky and the dull sparkle
awakened by the sunlight on the barrels and locks of fiercely-caressed
firearms.
As he moved a pace forward a chorused growl of truculent hatred was his
reception, but that was a demonstration for which he was prepared--and
against which he had steeled himself. He was less accustomed to making
public pleas than to giving orders in cloistered privacy--but he was a
lord of lies, and deeply versed in the prejudices upon which he hoped
to play.
"I come over hyar this day," he declared by way of preface, "of my own
free will--an' unsolicited by any man. I come open-eyed an' chancin'
death, because I knowed I'd done kept ther compact of ther peace--an' I
trusted myself ter ther upstandin' honesty of ther Stacys ter do
likewise. Ef harm overtakes me hit'll be because I trusted thet honesty
over-much."