When the Jews heard of a Messiah coming as a king they made ready to
acclaim him, but when they found him a moralist commanding the
sacrifice of their favorite sins, they surrendered him to Pilate and
cried out to have Barrabas freed to them.
That afternoon Turner Stacy, the apostate leader, saw his kinsmen
breaking into troubled groups of seething debate. The yeast of surprise
and palpable disappointment was fermenting in their thoughts. They had
come prepared to follow blindly the command of a warrior--and had
encountered what seemed to them a noisy parson.
Those who saw in the young man a bigger and broader leadership than
they had expected were those who just now said little. So some regarded
him with silent and pitying reproach while others scowled openly and
spat in disgust--but all dropped away and the crowd melted from
formidable numbers to lingering and unenthusiastic squads. They had not
even attached serious importance to his threat upon blockading--it was
mere bumptiousness indicating his mercurial folly.
In every indication he read utter repudiation by his clan. His eager
but limited reading had taught him that every true leader, if he is far
enough in advance of those he leads, must bear this bitter brunt of
misunderstanding, but he was young and a freshly inspired fanatic, and
that meant that he was in this respect, humorless--but he was not
beaten.
Standing somewhat apart with a satirical smite drawing his lips, Bear
Cat watched them ride away, and when most of them had gone his uncle,
Joe Stacy, came over and stood by his side.
"Ontil ter-day, Turner," he said with a note of deep sorrow in his
voice, "I 'lowed ye hed ahead of ye a right hopeful future. I 'lowed
ye'd be a leader--but ye kain't lead men contrarywise ter doctrines
thet they fed on at thar mothers' breasts. I've always kind of hed ther
notion thet someday ye'd go down thar ter Frankfort an' set in ther
legislature ... but ter-day ye've done flung away ther loyalty of men
that bragged about ye an' war ready ter die, follerin' ye."
"I reckon they kin find plenty of men ter lead 'em _thet_ way,--round
an' round in circles thet don't git nowhars," came the defiant
response. "Thet hain't ther sort of leadership I craves."
"Hit hain't thet I holds no love fer blockade 'stillin'," explained the
older man seriously. "I got my belly full a long time back--an' quit.
Ef ye could stomp hit out, I'd say do hit--but ye kain't. Ye hain't
jest seekin' ter t'ar out stills--ye're splittin' up yore own blood
inter factions an' warfare. Thar hain't nothin' kin come outen hit all,
save fer ye ter be diskivered some day a-layin' stretched out in a
creek-bed road, with a bullet bored through yore body."
Bear Cat only shook his head with stubborn insistence. "Ye don't raise
no crop," he declared, "twell ye've done cl'ared ther ground, an' ef
ther snags goes deep hit takes dynamite."
"Then I kain't dissuade ye? Ye aims ter go ahead with hit?"
"I aims ter go ahead with hit twell I finishes my job or gets kilt
tryin'."
"Then thar hain't nuthin' left ter do but bid ye farewell. Ye've done
made yoreself a hard bed. In a fashion I honors ye fer hit, but I
pities ye, too. Ye've done signed yore own doom."
"I thanks ye," said Bear Cat gravely. "But I hain't askin' pity yit."
In the yard where so many feet had been tramping there was now total
emptiness. The flock of geese still waddled and squawked down by the
creek, but by the gate Bear Cat stood alone--a man who had forfeited
his heritage.
The sun was setting and the ache of recent wounds and fatigue was
accentuated by the rawness of approaching twilight. Beyond the trickle
of prattling water, went up the frowning and unchanging hills, bleak
and sinister with their ancient contempt for change. Bear Cat Stacy
threw back his head.
"They don't see nothin' in me but brag an' foolishness," he bitterly
admitted, "but afore God I aims ter show 'em thet thar's more in me
then thet!"
Already a plan for the first chapter of his undertaking had fully
evolved itself and it was a thing which must be launched to-night--but
first he meant to make a sad pilgrimage. He would not go in, but he
would stand outside Blossom's window--perhaps for the last time.
Something drew him there--a compelling force and he remained an hour.
When he turned away cold beads of nervous sweat stood on his temples.
Suddenly he saw two figures cross the road and plunge furtively into
the laurel, and they moved as men move who have a nefarious intent.
They were Dog Tate and Joe Sanders; the men to whom, last night, he had
fled for succor, and at once he divined their purpose.
Bear Cat, too, turned into the timber and, by hurrying over the broken
face of the slopes, intercepted their more cautious course. But when he
stood out in the path and confronted them, it was no longer into
friendly faces that he looked.
"Dog, I wants ter hev speech with ye," he said quietly, and the
moonshiner, who had instinctively thrust forward his rifle, stood with
a finger that trembled in impatience while it nursed the trigger.
"Don't hinder me, Bear Cat," he barked warningly, "I'm in dire
haste--an' I've got severe work ahead of me."
"I knows right well what thet work air, Dog." The young man spoke
calmly. "I reckon hit's a thing ye gave me yore pledge not many hours
back ye'd put by twell another day an' I hain't freed ye from thet
bond."
"Who air _you_ ter talk of pledges?" The friend of last night savagely
snarled his question with a scorn that shook his voice. "You thet this
day broke yore faith with yore blood ter line up with raiders an'
revenuers!"
Bear Cat's face whitened with an anger which he rigidly repressed.
"Ye succored me last night when I needed ye sore," came the steady
response, "an' I'm willin' ter look over these hardships of speech, but
a pledge given is a pledge thet's got ter stand till hit's done been
given back."
Tate's eyes were blazing with a dangerous passion and his rage made his
words come pantingly:
"Hit's too late fer preachin' texts, Bear Cat. We believed in ye
yestiddy. Ter-day we spits ye outen our mouths. Ye kain't call us ter
war one day an' send us back home, unsatisfied, ther next. My pappy's
kerchief's right hyar in my pocket now--an' ther blood thet's on hit
calls out ter me louder then yore fine palaverin's!"
Bear Cat Stacy's rifle had been swinging in his hand. He made no effort
to raise it.
"When ye calls me a traitor ter my blood, ye lies, Dog," he said with a
hard evenness of tone. "I reckon ye knows what hit means ter hold a
bitter hate--I've done read thet much in yore face, but I holds a
deeper an' blacker hate then ye ever dreamt of--an' I've done put hit
aside--fer a reason thet meant more ter me then _hit_ did."
Through the excitement that made the other's chest heave Turner
recognized a bewildered curiosity and he went on.
"I hain't never stood by afore an' suffered no man ter give me names
like you've jest called me. I reckon I won't hardly never do hit
ergin--but I owes ye gratitude fer last night an' I'm goin' ter owe ye
more. Ye hain't a-goin' ter lay-way Kinnard Towers this night, Dog.
Ye're a-goin' along with me ter do what I bids ye."
"Like hell I am!" snarled Tate, though in the next breath, without
realizing the anti-climax of his question, he added, "Why am I?"
"Because I've got a bigger aim then sneakin' murders an' I aims ter hev
men like you holp me. Because when we finishes our job yore children
air goin' ter dwell in safety." He talked on fervently and despite
himself the man with his finger on the trigger listened.
It all seemed very fantastic and radical to Dog Tate, yet there was
such a hypnotic power in the voice and manner that he lowered his
cocked rifle.
"Bear Cat," he said with a sort of bewilderment, "thet talk sounds
powerful flighty ter me, but if ye air outen yer right mind I reckon I
kain't kill ye--an' ef thar's a solitary grain of sense in what ye says
God knows I'd like ter hev ye show hit ter me."
The shadows lengthened across the valleys and the peaks grew cloudily
somber as Bear Cat Stacy talked. He was trying for his first convert
and his soul went into his persuasiveness. He had himself done first
what he asked of others. His still was destroyed for a bigger aim. It
was a new and more effective warfare which required certain sacrifices.
A slow grin of sardonic amusement spread eventually over the face of
Dog Tate. He put down his rifle.
"Then ye means thet hit hain't a-goin' ter be jest preachin'? Kinnard
hain't goin' ter escape scot-free? Because I've always figgered he
belonged ter me."
"So many men figgers thet," retorted Stacy dryly, "thet in ther time of
final reckonin' thar won't be enough of him ter go round. I aims ter
hang him in Marlin Town, with his own jedge passin' sentence on him."
Dog Tate drew a clay pipe from his pocket and kindled it. His eyes
glowed with a pleasurable anticipation.
"Wa'al, now, es ter thet blockade still of mine," he drawled
reflectively. "My old woman's been faultin' me erbout hit fer a long
spell, an' seekin' ter prevail on me ter quit. She 'lows hit'll cost
more'n hit comes ter afore we gits through an' I misdoubts she hain't
fur wrong." He chewed on the pipe-stem yet a while longer, then
suddenly he announced: "I reckon thet still don't owe me nothin' much.
Hit's about wore out anyhow. Let's go over thar an' bust her up--an'
straightway start hell a-poppin'."
Bear Cat Stacy glanced keenly at Joe Sanders who had remained a pace or
two apart, holding his counsel with a face that bore no index to his
sentiments. "Air you with us, too, Joe?" he demanded. "This-hyar
business hain't a-goin' ter be no frolic. We don't want no men thet
don't aim ter go through with hit."
Joe scratched his head, speaking cautiously. "I works fer wages myself.
Dog hires me--albeit I'd ruther do any other fashion of labor.
Howsoever, I don't aim ter make common cause with no revenuers. I
hain't no Judas priest."
"Revenuers--hell!" exploded Bear Cat Stacy. "I don't make no common
cause with 'em nuther. I'm willin' ter let ther govern_ment_ skin hits
own skunks."
For so portentous a decision, Joe Sanders gave a disproportionately
laconic reply. "All right then. Ye kin count me in es fur es ye goes."
It was a night of fitful moonlight, breaking through a scud of windy
clouds, only to be swallowed again, when by the flare of a lantern the
three men stood over the ruins of what had been a crude distillery--its
erstwhile proprietor grinning sardonically as he surveyed the
completeness of his vandalism.
"I reckon thet finishes ye up, old whiskey-snake," he commented in grim
obituary. "I boughten thet piece of copper offen a feller thet murdered
a revenuer ter save hit--so hit's due fer punishment."
"Thet's all right so far es hit goes," Bear Cat reminded him crisply,
"but hit don't go far enough. We've got more work ter do yit. When men
wakes up ter-morrer, they've got ter hev proof thet I've started out in
earnest." Around the fire the three squatted on their heels, and talked
in low voices.
"I knows of three more stills sca'cely more'n a whoop an' a holler
distant from hyar es ye mout say," volunteered Joe Sanders. "I hain't
settin' hit out fer gospel fact, but I've heered hit norated round
about, thet Mark Tapper don't even try ter molest these stills on
account of a deal he's made with Kinnard."
"Wa'al, Kinnard hain't got no bit in _my_ mouth," growled Dog. "Whar
air these places at, Joe?"
Sanders was now innoculated with the spirit of crusade--not so much as
a reform as a new and impudent adventure--and his lips parted in a
contented grin that showed his uneven teeth.
"A couple on 'em air closed down fer ther time-bein'," he enlightened,
"but ther worms air thar. By ter-morrer Kinnard'll jest about hev
passed on a warnin' an' they'll be watched, but ter-night hit's cl'ar
sleddin'. A man kin bust 'em up single handed an' nuver be suspicioned.
Hit'll tek all three of us tergether ter manage ther third one though,
because _thet_ still b'longs ter little Jake Kinnard an' Jake or his
law-kin Mat Branham'll be on watch--mebby both of 'em."
Bear Cat's eyes brightened at this prospect of immediate action.
"Little" Jake, so dubbed after mountain custom because his father still
lived and bore the same given name, was a nephew of Kinnard Towers, and
despite his diminutive title prided himself on his evil and murderous
repute. He was a "notched-gun" man and high in his uncle's favor.
"Air they runnin' thet kittle in ther same place es they used to a year
back?" demanded Turner, and Joe nodded as he replied. "Ther same
identical spot. Hit's, as a man mout say, right in ther shadder of ther
Quarterhouse hitself."
Bear Cat Stacy was on his feet and his words came with the animation of
a daring plan already formulated.
"Now hearken.... You two boys look atter them idle stills.... I aims
ter manage this t'other one--by myself."
Dog Tate raised a hand in remonstrance, but Turner beat down argument
with a contemptuous laugh. "I'm in haste because I'm a-wearied," he
explained, "an' thet's ther speediest way ter git through an' lay down.
I'll be at yore house afore sun-up, an' I reckon ye kin hide me out
thar fer a few hours while I sleeps, kain't ye?"
"I kin take keer of ye--ef ye gits thar alive," affirmed the first
recruit. "But hit looks severely dubious ter me."
Turner tightened his belt, but as he was leaving he wheeled to direct:
"This worm of your'n an' ther t'other two hes got ter be hangin' in
ther highway by daylight. I aims ter hang Jake Kinnard's right up
erginst ther stockade of ther Quarterhouse."
As he scuttled through the dark timber the moon broke out at intervals,
making of the road a patch-work of shadow and light. Last night he was
hiding out only from the revenue agent and his informers. To-night he
had flung his challenge to the vested rights of tradition and forfeited
clan sponsorship. Every hand was against him.
His way carried him past the Quarterhouse itself and near the
hitching-rack he halted, crouched low against the naked briars and dead
brush-wood. Among the several beasts fastened there was a gray horse
more visible than its darker companions, which he recognized as
belonging to Black Tom Carmichael. Yet Black Tom had been otherwise
mounted to-day when he had ridden away from Little Slippery with
Kinnard Towers.
Obviously the fresh animal stood saddled for a new journey--probably a
mission of general warning. Bear Cat drew back into the invisibility of
the steep hillside to watch, and it was only a short time before the
door of Kinnard's own house, on the opposite slope, opened. Towers
himself he only glimpsed, for the chieftain did not make a practice of
offering himself as a target by night, framed in lighted doorways.
But Black Tom came down the path to mount and ride away, and Bear Cat
struck off at right angles through the woods. The horseman must follow
the road he had taken to the next crossing, and the pedestrian could
reach the place more quickly by the footpath. Having arrived, he lay
belly-down on a titanic bowlder in time to hear the cuppy thud of
unshod hooves on the soft road and, a little later, to see Black Tom
dismount and hitch.
Carmichael turned into the woodland trail without suspicion. He was on
territory which should be safe, and he walked with a noisy carelessness
that swallowed up what little sound Turner Stacy could not avoid as he
followed.
By the simple device of playing shadow to the man in front Bear Cat
drew so near to the still that he could both see and hear, though the
last stage of the journey through the interlocked thickets he
accomplished with such minute caution that Black Tom sat by the fire
with a tin cup of white liquor in his hand before his follower lay
ensconced a stone's throw away. It was a nest of secrecy, buried from
even a near view by the tops of felled hemlock which would hold their
screen of foliage throughout the winter.
Edging the narrow circle of firelight, walls of rock and naked trees
were sketched flat and grotesque against the inky void beyond them. Two
figures in muddied overcoats huddled close to the blaze, and Black Tom
was reciting the events of the day over on Little Slippery.
"They didn't p'intedly aim ter harm Bear Cat Stacy last night--he jest
run inter ther ruction. Hit war ther furriner thet Kinnard wanted
kilt."
"Drink all ye craves an' tell me ther whole story," amicably invited
"Little" Jake Kinnard.
"I aimed ter warn ye erbout this Bear Cat's threat ter rip out
stills--albeit we deems hit ter be mostly brash talk," Carmichael
explained. "We didn't invite no trouble with ther Stacys. Kinnard fixed
hit with Mark Tapper ter hev old Lone jailed so thet ther thing could
he done easy like--an' peaceable--but Bear Cat come a-beltin' back an'
hit went awry."
The simmering fury of his blood boiled over in Turner's veins while he
listened. All the duplicity of to-day now stood revealed and positive.
All his suspicions were proven. With two quick shots from his rifle he
could put an end to both these assassins, but he remained rigid. "No,
by God," he mused. "I aims ter do hit on ther gallows-tree--not from
ambush."
After a period Black Tom rose, making ready to leave, and now Turner
Stacy had need to hasten. The point at which he wished to await
Kinnard's second in command was the outer end of a narrow defile which
served as a sort of gateway to the place. Centuries of trickling
water-tongues had licked it out of the rock walls and it was so narrow
that two men could not pass through it abreast.
But Carmichael paused for further converse on the edge of his
departure, and Turner wailed for some minutes, shivering because he had
taken off his coat, before his ears told him of the approach of a
single pair of heavy feet.
The scudding raggedness of the clouds had been swept into wider tatters
now and the moon was steadier though still not brightly clear. Bear Cat
stooped, like a crouching panther, just outside the elbow of the rock
wall, holding his coat as a _matador_ holds the flag in the course of a
charging bull. Then a bulky figure emerged and there followed a sweep
of heavy cloth; an attempted outcry which ended in a stifled gurgle,
and Carmichael went down, borne under the impact of an unexpected
onslaught, with his breath smothered in an enmeshing tangle.
For a moment Bear Cat knelt on the prostrate figure which had been
stunned by its heavy fall, twisting the coat about the face and throat;
then, experimentally, he eased the suffocation--and there was no hint
of attempted outcry.
A few minutes later Black Tom opened his eyes and peered through the
darkness. To his dizzy eyes matters seemed confused. His mouth was
securely gagged and, at his back, his wrists were so stiffly pinioned
that when he struggled to free them he felt the nasty bite of
metal--evidently a buckle.
Above him he made out a pair of eyes that glittered down on him with an
unpleasant truculence.
"Git up an' come on," ordered a voice. "Ye'll hev ter excuse me fer
takin' yore rifle-gun an' pistol."
Slowly Tom rose and went, prodded into amenability by the muzzle of a
rifle in the small of his back. When he had been thus goaded to the
point where his horse was hitched his captor stripped saddle, bridle
and halter of their straps and ropes, and set the beast free. Some of
the commandeered tethers he employed to truss his prisoner up in a
manner that left him as helplessly immovable as a mummy.
"Now I reckon ye'll hev ter wait fer me a leetle," said Bear Cat with
brutal shortness. "Thar's still one more back thar ter attend ter."
Carrying with him bridle-reins and stirrup-straps, he disappeared again
into the defile. Creeping for the second time with the best of his
Indian-like stealth to the edge of the fire-lighted clearing, he saw
Jake Kinnard standing, with his eyes on the embers, ten feet away from
the rifle that was propped against a tree.
With a leap that sounded crashingly in the dead bushes Turner
catapulted himself into the lighted area, and as the moonshiner
wheeled, his hand going instinctively out toward his weapon, he found
himself covered from a distance of two yards.
"Hands overhead!--an' no noise," came the sharp warning, and had he
been inclined to disobey the words there was an avid glitter in the
eyes of the sudden visitor discouraging to argument.
"Lay down betwixt them two saplin's thar," was the next order, and
foaming with futile rage, Jake glanced about wildly--and discreetly did
as he was told.
Ten minutes later Turner rose from his knees, leaving behind him a man
gagged and staked out, Indian fashion, with feet harnessed to one
tree-trunk and hands to another.
Lying mute and harrowed with chagrin, he saw his copper coil battered
into shapelessness and his mash vat emptied upon the ground. Then he
saw Bear Cat Stacy disappear into the shadows, trophy-laden.
Dawn was near once more before Turner reached the Quarterhouse, and
from the hitching-rack the last mount had been ridden away. Before him,
still muffled against outcry, plodded Black Carmichael, seething with a
fury which would ride him like a mania until he had avenged his
indignities--but for the moment he was inoffensive.
At the place where the gray horse had been tethered, Turner lashed the
rider. Above his head to an over-arching sycamore branch, he swung a
maltreated coil of copper tubing. Then he turned, somewhat wearied and
aching of muscle, into the timber again.
"I reckon now," he said to himself, "I kin go over thar an' lay down."