Amos and his steed made their way along a narrow passage, growing wider,
however, and taller, but darker, and with many short turns--an
embarrassment to the resisting brute's physical conformation.
Suddenly there was a vague red haze in the dark, the sound of voices,
and an abrupt turn brought man and horse into a great subterranean
vault, where dusky distorted figures, wreathing smoke, and a flare of
red fire suggested Tartarus.
'Hy're, Amos!' cried a hospitable voice.
A weird tone repeated the words with precipitate promptness.
Again and again the abrupt echoes spoke; far down the unseen blackness
of the cave a hollow whisper announced his entrance, and he seemed
mysteriously welcomed by the unseen powers of the earth.
He was not an imaginative man nor observant, but the upper regions were
his sphere, and he had all the acute sensitiveness incident to being out
of one's element. Even after he had seated himself he noted a far,
faint voice crying, 'Hy're, Amos!' in abysmal depths explored only by
the sound of his name.
And here it was that old Groundhog Cayce evaded the law, and ran his
still, and defied the revenue department, and maintained his right to do
as he would with his own.
'Lord A'mighty, air the corn mine, or no?' he would argue. 'Air the
orchard mine, or the raiders'? An' what ails me ez I can't make whisky
an' apple-jack same ez in my dad's time, when him an' me run a sour mash
still on the top o' the mounting in the light o' day, up'ards o' twenty
year, an' never hearn o' no raider. Tell me that's agin the law,
nowadays! Waal, now, who made that law? I never; an' I ain't a-goin' ter
abide by it, nuther. Ez sure ez ye air born, it air jes' a Yankee trick
fotched down hyar by the Fed'ral army. An' if I hed knowed they war
goin' ter gin tharse'fs ter sech persecutions arter the war, I dunno how
I'd hev got my consent ter fit alongside of 'em like I done fower year
fur the Union.'
A rude furnace made of fire-rock was the prominent feature of the place,
and on it glimmered the pleasing rotundities of a small copper still.
The neck curved away into the obscurity. There was the sound of gurgling
water, with vague babbling echoes; for the never-failing rill of an
underground spring, which rose among the rocks, was diverted to the
unexpected purpose of flowing through the tub where the worm was coiled,
and of condensing the precious vapours, which dripped monotonously into
their rude receiver at the extremity of the primitive fixtures.
The iron door of the furnace was open now as Ab Cayce replenished the
fire. It sent out a red glare, revealing the dark walls; the black
distances; the wreaths of smoke, that were given a start by a short
chimney, and left to wander away and dissipate themselves in the wide
subterranean spaces; and the uncouth, slouching figures and illuminated
faces of the distillers. They lounged upon the rocks or sat on inverted
baskets and tubs, and one stalwart fellow lay at length upon the ground.
The shadows were all grotesquely elongated, almost divested of the
semblance of humanity, as they stretched in unnatural proportions upon
the rocks.
Amos James's horse cast on the wall an image so gigantic that it seemed
as if the past and the present were mysteriously united, and he stood
stabled beside the grim mastodon whom the cave had sheltered from the
rigours of his day long before Groundhog Cayce was moved to seek a
refuge.
The furnace door clashed; the scene faded; only a glittering line of
vivid white light, emitted between the ill-fitting door and the unhewn
rock, enlivened the gloom. Now and then, as one of the distillers moved,
it fell upon him, and gave his face an abnormal distinctness in the
surrounding blackness, like some curiously cut onyx.
'Waal, Amos,' said a voice from out the darkness, 'I'm middlin' glad ter
see you-uns. Hev a drink.'
A hand came out into the gleaming line of light extending with a
flourish of invitation a jug of jovial aspect.
'Don't keer ef I do,' said Amos politely.
He lifted the jug, and drank without stint. The hand received it back
again, shook it as if to judge of the quantity of its contents, and
then, with a gesture of relish, raised it to an unseen mouth.
'Enny news 'round the mill, Amos?' demanded his invisible pot companion.
'None ez I knows on,' drawled Amos.
'Grind some fur we-uns ter-morrer?' asked Ab.
'I'll grind yer bones, ef ye'll send 'em down,' said Amos
accommodatingly. 'All's grist ez goes ter the hopper. How kem you-uns
ter git the nightmare 'bout'n the raiders? I waited fur Sol an' the
corn right sharp time Wednesday mornin'; jes' hed nuthin' ter do but ter
sot an' suck my paws, like a b'ar in winter, till 't war time ter put
out an' go ter the gaynder-pullin'.'
'Waal'--there was embarrassment in the tones of the burly shadow, and
all the echoes were hesitant as Groundhog Cayce replied in Ab's stead:
'Mirandy Jane 'lowed ez she hed seen a strange man 'bout'n the spring,
an' thought it war a raider--though he'd hev been in a mighty ticklish
place fur a raider, all by himself. Mirandy Jane hev fairly got the
jim-jams, seein' raiders stiddier snakes; we-uns can't put no dependence
in the gal. An' mam, she drempt the raiders hed camped on Chilhowee
Mounting. An' D'rindy, she turned fool: fust she 'lowed ez we-uns would
all be ruined ef we went ter the gaynder-pullin', an' then she war
powerful interrupted when we 'lowed we wouldn't go, like ez ef she
wanted us ter go most awful. I axed this hyer Pa'son Kelsey, ez rid by
that mornin', ef he treed enny raiders in his mind. An' he 'lowed none,
'ceptin' the devil a-raidin' 'roun' his own soul. But 'mongst 'em we-uns
jest bided away that day. I wouldn't hev done it, 'ceptin' D'rindy tuk
ter talkin' six ways fur Sunday, an' she got me plumb catawampus, so ez
I didn't rightly know what I wanted ter do myself.'
It was a lame story for old Groundhog Cayce to tell. Even the
hesitating echoes seemed ashamed of it. Mirandy Jane's mythical raider,
and mam's dream, and D'rindy's folly--were these to baffle that
stout-hearted old soldier?
Amos James said no more. If old Cayce employed an awkward subterfuge to
conceal the enterprise of the rescue, he had no occasion to intermeddle.
Somehow, the strengthening of his suspicions brought Amos to a new
realization of his despair. He sought to modify it by frequent reference
to the jug, which came his way at hospitably short intervals. But he had
a strong head, and had seen the jug often before; and although he
thought his grief would be alleviated by getting as drunk as a 'fraish
b'iled ow_el_,' that consummation of consolation was coy and tardy. He
was only mournfully frisky after a while, feeling that he should
presently be obliged to cut his throat, yet laughing at his own jokes
when the moonshiners laughed, then pausing in sudden seriousness to
listen to the elfin merriment evoked among the lurking echoes. And he
sang, too, after a time, a merry catch, in a rich and resonant voice,
with long, dawdling, untutored cadences and distortions of
effect--sudden changes of register, many an abrupt crescendo and
diminuendo, and 'spoken' interpolations and improvisations, all of
humorous intent.
The others listened with the universal greedy appetite for
entertainment which might have been supposed to have dwindled and died
of inanition in their serious and deprived lives. Pete Cayce first
revolted from the strain on his attention, subordination, and
acquiescence. It was not his habit to allow any man to so completely
absorb public attention.
'Look-a-hyar, Amos, fur Gawd's sake, shet up that thar foolishness!' he
stuttered at last. 'Thar's n-no tellin' how f-f-fur yer survigrus
bellerin' kin be hearn. An' besides, ye'll b-b-bring the rocks down on
to we-uns d-d'rectly. They tell me that it air dangerous ter f-f-f-fire
pistols an' jounce 'round in a cave. Bring the roof down.'
'That air jes' what I'm a-aimin' ter do, Pete,' said Amos, with his
comical gravity. 'I went ter meetin' week 'fore las', an' the pa'son
read 'bout Samson; an' it streck my ambition, an' I'm jes' a-honin' ter
pull the roof down on the Philistine.'
'Look-a-hyar, Amos Jeemes, ye air the b-b-banged-est critter on this
hyar m-mounting! Jes' kem hyar ter our s-still an' c-c-call me a
Ph-Ph-Philistine.'
The jug had not been stationary, and as Pete thrust his aggressive face
forward the vivid, quivering line of light from the furnace showed that
it was flushed with liquor, and that his eyes were bloodshot. His gaunt
head, with long, colourless hair, protruding teeth, and homely,
prominent features, as it hung there in the isolating effect of that
sharp and slender gleam--the rest of his body cancelled by the
darkness--had a singularly unnatural and sinister aspect. The light
glanced back with a steely glimmer. The drunken man had a knife in his
hand.
'Storp it, now!' his younger brother drawlingly admonished him. 'Who be
ye a-goin' ter cut?'
'Call m-m-me a Philistine! I'll bust his brains out!' asseverated Pete.
'Ye're drunk, Pete,' said old Groundhog Cayce, in an explanatory manner.
There was no move to defend the threatened guest. Perhaps Amos James was
supposed to be able to take care of himself.
'Call me a Ph-Philistine--a Philistine!' exclaimed Pete, steadying
himself on the keg on which he sat, and peering with wide, light eyes
into the darkness, as if to mark the whereabouts of the enemy before
dealing the blow. 'Jes' got insurance--c-c-c-call me a Philistine!'
'Shet up, Pete. I'll take it back,' said Amos gravely. '_I'm_ the
Philistine myself; fur pa'son read ez Samson killed a passel o'
Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, an' ez long ez ye be talkin' I
feel in an' about dead.'
Amos James had bent close attention to the sermon, and had brought as
much accurate information from meeting as was consistent with hearing so
sensational a story as Samson's for the first time. In the mountains men
do not regard church privileges as the opportunity of a quiet hour to
meditate on secular affairs, while a gentle voice drones on antiquated
themes. To Amos, Samson was the latest thing out.
Pete did not quite catch the full meaning of this sarcasm. He was
content that Amos should seem to recant. He replaced his knife, but sat
surly and muttering, and now and then glancing toward the guest.
Meantime that vivid white gleam quivered across the dusky shadows; now
and then the horse pawed, raising martial echoes, as of squadrons of
cavalry, among the multitudinous reverberations of the place, while his
stall-companion, that the light could conjure up, was always noiseless;
the continuous fresh sound of water gurgling over the rocks mingled with
the monotonous drip from the worm; occasionally a gopher would skud
among the heavily booted feet, and the jug's activity was marked by the
shifting for an interval of the red sparks which indicated the glowing
pipes of the burly shadows around the still.
The stories went on, growing weird as the evening outside waned, in
some unconscious sympathy with the melancholy hour--for in these sunless
depths one knew nor day nor night--stories of bloody vendettas, and
headless ghosts, and strange provisions, and unnamed terrors. And Amos
James recounted the fable of a mountain witch, interspersed with a wild
vocal refrain:
Cu-vo! Cu-vo! Kil-dar! Kil-dar! Kil-dar!
Thus she called her hungry dogs that fed on human flesh, while the winds
were awhirl, and the waning moon was red, and the Big Smoky lay in
densest gloom.
The white line of light had yellowed, deepened, grown dull. The furnace
needed fuel. Ab suddenly leaned down and threw open the door. The flare
of the pulsing coals resuscitated the dim scene and the long
dun-coloured shadows. Here in the broad red light were the stolid,
meditative faces of the distillers, each with his pipe in his mouth and
his hat on his head; it revealed the dilated eye and unconsciously
dramatic gesture of the story-teller, sitting upon a barrel in their
midst; the horse was distinct in the background, now dreaming and now
lifting an impatient fore-foot, and his gigantic stall-mate, the
simulacrum of the mastodon, moved as he moved, but softly, that the
echoes might not know--the immortal echoes, who were here before him,
and here still.
And behind all were the great walls of the vault, with its vague
apertures leading to unexplored recesses; with many jagged ledges,
devoted to shelf-like usage, and showing here a jug, and here a
shot-pouch, and here a rat--fat and sleek, thanks to the plenteous waste
of mash and grain--looking down with a glittering eye, and here a bag of
meal, and here a rifle.
Suddenly Amos James broke off.
'Who's that?' he exclaimed, and all the echoes were sharply
interrogative.
There was a galvanic start among the moonshiners. They looked hastily
about--perhaps for the witch, perhaps for the frightful dogs, perhaps
expecting the materialization of Mirandy Jane's raider.
Amos had turned half-round and was staring intently beyond the still.
The man lying on the ground had shifted his position; his soft brown hat
was doubled under his head. The red flare showed its long, tawny,
tangled hair, of a hue unusual enough to be an identification. His
stalwart limbs were stretched out at length; the hands he thrust above
his head were unmanacled; as he moved there was the jingle of spurs.
'Why, thar be Rick Tyler!' exclaimed Amos James.
'Hev ye jes' fund that out?' drawled the man on the ground, with a
jeering inflection.
'W-w-w-whyn't ye lie low, Rick?' demanded Pete aggressively. 'Ef ever
thar war a empty cymblin', it's yer head. Amos an' that thar thin-lipped
sneak ez called hisself a dep'ty air thick'n thieves.'
There was no hesitation in Amos James's character. He leaned forward
suddenly and clutched Pete by the throat, and the old man and Solomon
were fain to interfere actively to prevent that doughty member of the
family from being throttled on the spot.
Pending the interchange of these amenities, Rick Tyler lay motionless on
the ground; Ab calmly continued his task of replenishing the fire; and
Ben asked, in a low monotone, the favour of leaving the furnace-door
open for a 'spell, whilst I unkiver the kag in the corner, an' fill the
jug, an' kiver the kag agin keerful, 'kase I don't want no rat in mine.'
When Pete, with a scarlet face and starting eyes and a throat full of
complicated coughs and gurgles, was torn out of the young miller's
strong hands, old Groundhog Cayce remonstrated:
'Lord A'mighty, boys! Can't ye set an' drink yer liquor sociable,
'thout clinchin' that-a-way? What did Pete do ter ye, Amos?'
'Nuthin'; he dassent,' said the panting Amos.
'Did he hurt yer feelin's?' asked the old man with respectful sympathy.
'Yes, he did,' said Amos, admitting vulnerability in that tender
aesthetic organ.
'Never none--now--koo--koo!' coughed Pete. 'He hev got no
f-f-f-feelin's, koo--koo! I hev hearn his own m-mam say so a-many a
time.'
'He 'lowed,' said Amos, his black eyes flashing indignantly, his face
scarlet, the perspiration thick in his black hair, 'ez I'd tell the
deputy--kase he war toler'ble lively hyar, an' I got sorter friendly
with him when I hed ter sarve on the posse--ez I seen Rick Tyler hyar.
Mebbe ye think I want two hundred dollars--hey!'
He made a gesture as if to seize again his late antagonist.
'A-koo, koo, koo!' coughed Pete, moving cautiously out of reach.
All the echoes clamoured mockingly with the convulsive sound, and thus
multiplied they gave a ludicrous suggestion of the whooping cough.
'I dunno, Mr. Cayce,' said Amos, with some dignity, addressing the old
man, 'what call ye hev got ter consort with them under indictment for
murder, an' offenders agin the law. But hevin' seen Rick Tyler hyar in
a friendly way along o' you-uns, he air ez safe from me ez ef he war
under my own roof.'
Rick Tyler drew himself up on his elbow, and turned upon the speaker a
face inflamed by sudden passion.
'Go tell the dep'ty!' he screamed. 'I'll take no faviors from ye, Amos
Jeemes. Kem on! Arrest me yerse'f!' He rose to his feet, and held out
his bruised and scarred hands, smiting them together as if he were again
handcuffed. The light fell full on his clothes, tattered by his briery
flight, the long dishevelment of his yellow hair, his burning face, and
the blazing fury in his brown eyes. 'Kem on! Arrest me yerse'f--ye air
ekal ter it. I kin better bide the law than ter take faviors from
you-uns. Kem on! Arrest me!'
Once more he held out his free hands as if for the manacles.
Their angry eyes met. Then, as Amos James still sat silent and
motionless on the barrel, Rick Tyler turned, and with a gesture of
desperation again flung himself on the ground.
There was a pause. Two of the moonshiners were arranging to decant some
liquor into a keg, and were lighting a tallow dip for the purpose. In
the dense darkness of the recess where they stood it took on a large and
lunar aspect. A rayonnant circle hovered attendant upon it; the shadows
about it were densely black, and in the sharp and colourless contrasts
the two bending figures of the men handling the keg stood out in
peculiar distinctness of pose and gesture. The glare of the fire in the
foreground deepened to a dull orange, to a tawny red, even to a dusty
brown, in comparison with the pearly, luminous effect of the candle. The
tallow dip was extinguished when the task was complete. Presently the
furnace door clashed, the group of distillers disappeared as with a
bound, and that long, livid line of pulsating light emitted by the
ill-fitting door cleft the gloom like a glittering blade.
'I s'pose ye don't mean ter be sassy in 'special, Amos, faultin' yer
elders, talkin' 'bout consortin' with them under indictment,' said old
Groundhog Cayce's voice. 'But I dunno ez ye hev enny call ter sot
yerse'f up in jedgmint on my actions.'
'Waal,' said Amos, apologetic, 'I never went ter say nuthin' like
faultin' nohow. Sech ez yer actions I leaves ter you-uns.'
'Ye mought ez well,' said the elder, unconsciously satiric. 'The Bible
'lows ez every man air a law unto hisself. An' I hev fund I gits peace
mos'ly in abidin' by the law ez kems from within. An' I kin see no
jestice in my denyin' a rifle an' a lot o' lead an' powder ter a
half-starvin' critter ter save his life. Rick war bound ter starve, hid
out, ef he hed nuthin' ter shoot deer an' wild varmints with, bein' ez
his rifle war tuk by the sher'ff. I knows no law ez lays on me the
starvin' o' a human. An' when that boy kem a-cropin' hyar ter the still
this evenin', he got ez fair-spoke a welcome, an' ez much liquor ez he'd
swaller, same ez enny comer on the mounting. I dunno ez he air a
offender agin the law, an' 'tain't my say-so. I ain't a jedge, an' thar
ain't enough o' me fur a jury.'
This lucid discourse, its emphasis doubled by the iterative echoes, had
much slow, impersonal effect as it issued from the darkness. It was to
Amos James, accustomed to rural logic, as if reason, pure and simple,
had spoken. His heart had its own passionate protest. Not that he
disapproved the loan of the rifle, but he distrusted the impulse which
prompted it. To find the hunted fugitive here among the distillers added
the force of conviction to his suspicions of a rescue and its
instigation.
The personal interest which he had in all this annulled for a moment his
sense of the becoming, and defied the constraints of etiquette.
'How'd Rick Tyler say he got away from the sher'ff, ennyhow?' he
demanded bluntly.
'He warn't axed,' said old Groundhog Cayce quietly.
A silence ensued, charged with all the rigours of reproof.
'An' I dunno ez ye hev enny call ter know, Amos Jeemes,' cried out Rick,
still prone upon the ground. 'That won't holp the sher'ff none now. Ye'd
better be studyin' 'bout settin' him on the trail ter ketch me agin.'
The line of light from the rift in the furnace door showed a yellow
gleam in the blackness where his head lay. Amos James fixed a burning
eye upon it.
'I'll kem thar d'rec'ly an' tromp the life out'n ye, Rick Tyler. I'll
grind yer skull ter pieces with my boot-heel, like ez ef ye war a
copper-head.'
'Laws-a-massy, boys, sech a quar'lin', fightin' batch ez ye be! I fairly
gits gagged with my liquor a-listenin' ter ye--furgits how ter swaller,'
said Groundhog Cayce, suddenly fretful.
'Leave Rick be, Amos Jeemes,' he added, in an authoritative tone. And
then, with a slant of his head toward Rick Tyler, lying on the ground,
'Hold yer jaw down thar!'
And the two young men lapsed into silence.
The spring, rising among the barren rocks, chanted aloud its prescient
sylvan song of the woodland ways, and the glancing beam, and the
springing trout, and the dream of the drifting leaf, as true of tone and
as delicately keyed to the dryadic chorus in the forest without as if
the waters that knew but darkness and the cavernous sterilities were
already in the liberated joys of the gorge yonder, reflecting the sky,
wantoning with the wind, and swirling down the mountain side. The
spirits dripped from the worm, the furnace roared, the men's feet grated
upon the rocks as they now and then shifted their position.
'Waal,' said Amos at last, rising, 'I'd better be a-goin'. 'Pears like
ez I hev wore out my welcome hyar.'
He stood looking at the line of light, remembering desolately Dorinda's
buoyant, triumphant mood. Its embellishment of her beauty had smitten
him with an afflicted sense of her withdrawal from all the prospects of
his future. He had thought that he had given up hope, but he began to
appreciate, when he found Rick Tyler in intimate refuge with her
kindred, how sturdy an organism was that heart of his, and to realize
that to reduce it to despair must needs cost many a throe.
'I hev wore out my welcome, I reckon,' he repeated dismally.
'I dunno what ails ye ter say that. Ye hev jes' got tired o' comin'
hyar, I reckon,' said old man Cayce. 'Wore out yer welcome--shucks!'
'Mighty nigh wore me out,' said Pete, remembering to cough.
'Waal,' said Amos, slightly salved by the protestations of his host, 'I
reckon it air time I war a-puttin' out, ennyhow. Jes' set that thar
furnace door on the jar, Pete, so I kin see ter lay a-holt o' the
beastis.'
The door opened, the red glow flared out, the figures of the moonshiners
all reappeared in a semicircle about the still, and as Amos James took
the horse's bridle and led him away from the wall the mastodon vanished,
with noiseless tread, into the dim distance of the unmeasured past.
The horse's hoofs reverberated down the cavernous depths, echoed,
re-echoed, multiplied indefinitely. Even after the animal had been led
through the tortuous windings of the passage his tramp resounded through
the gloom.