THE DUKE AT BAY
After that outburst Presson went away by himself to sulk. Young Thornton
made no further protest. He stared at his grandfather, trying to
comprehend what it meant--this bitterness, this savage resentment, this
arbitrary authority that took no heed of his own wishes. He had always
known a calm, kindly, sometimes caustic, but never impatient Thelismer
Thornton. This old man, surly, domineering, and unreasonable, was new to
him. And after a little while, worried and saddened, he went away. His
presence seemed to stir even more rancor as the moments passed.
Presson understood better, but could not forgive the bullheadedness that
seemed to be wrecking their political plans. His own political training
had taught him the benefits of compromise. He was angry at this old man
who proposed to go down fighting among the fallen props of a lifetime of
power. And even though Presson now understood better some of the motives
that prompted the Duke to force young Harlan out into the world, his
political sensibilities were more acute than his sympathy.
Therefore the beleaguered lord of Canibas was left to fight it out
alone.
He stood at the end of the porch and listened to the menacing sounds of
the village.
He glared down the long street and grunted, "Grinding their knives,
eh?"
Evidently the centrifugal motion of the political machine down there was
violent enough to throw off one lively spark. A man came up the road at
a brisk gait, stamped across the yard, and went direct to the Duke, who
waited for him at the far end of the porch. He did not glance at Presson
or at Harlan Thornton.
"Did you ever _see_ anything like it, did you ever _hear_ anything like
it, Honor'ble?" the new arrival demanded with heat. "They're goin' to
make a caucus out of it--a _caucus_!"
The man had a lower jaw edged with a roll of black whisker, a jaw that
protruded like a bulldog's. With the familiarity of the long-time
lieutenant, he pecked with thumb and forefinger at the end of a cigar
protruding from his chief's waistcoat-pocket. He wrenched off the tip
between snaggy teeth. He spat the tip far.
"Yes, sir, by jehoshaphat, a caucus!"
Chairman Presson's ear had caught the sound of politics. He felt that he
was entitled, ex officio, to be present at any conference. He hurried to
the end of the porch.
"We ain't had a caucus in this district for more'n forty years," stated
the new arrival, accepting the chairman as a friend of the cause.
"Except as the chairman catches the seckertery somewhere and then
hollers for some one to come in from the street and renominate the
Honor'ble Thornton. But, dammit, this is going to be a _caucus_." The
word seemed suddenly to have acquired novel meaning for him. "They must
have been pussy-footin' for a month. You could have knocked me down with
your cigar-butt, Squire, when I got in here to-day and found how she
stood. If it hadn't been for War Eagle Ivus and his buck sheep breakin'
out, they'd have ambuscaded ye, surer'n palm-leaf fans can't cool the
kitchen o' hell. But even as it is--hoot and holler now, and
tag-gool-I-see-ye, they say they've got you licked, and licked in the
open--that's what they say!" The man's tone was that of one announcing
the blotting-out of the stars.
"Walt Davis bragged about it," said the old man, outwardly calm, but
eyes ablaze. "It must be a pretty sure thing when he's got the courage
to crawl out from under the wagon and yap."
"Good God!" blurted the chairman of the State Committee, "you don't mean
to tell _me_!"
"It's the ramrodders! They've been up here, one or two of the old cock
ones, workin' under cover," stated the unswerving one. "About once in so
often the people are ripe to be picked. They've mebbe had drought,
chilblains, lost a new milch cow, and had a note come due--and some one
that's paid to do it tells 'em that it's all due to the political
ring--and then they begin to club the tree! But standing here spittin'
froth about it ain't convertin' the heathern nor cooperin' them that
imagine vain things. Now here's what _I've_ done, grabbin' in so's to
lose no time. I--"
"No, just tell me what the _other_ side has done," commanded the Duke.
"First place, they've got names in black and white of enough Republicans
to down you in caucus. They've got 'em, them ramrodders have! I've
hairpinned the truth out o' the cracks! They've been sayin' that you've
only wanted your office so as to dicker and trade, and make yourself and
them in your political bunch richer; they're showin' figgers to prove
that much; sayin' you brag you carry our district in your vest-pocket;
sayin' everything to stir up the bile that's in every man when you know
how to stir for it. Furthermore, Squire, the fact that you're gettin'
out yourself and proposin' to put your grandson in gives 'em their
chance to say a lot. Next place, this is goin' to be a _caucus_. It
ain't any imitation. They're goin' to use a marked check-list."
"_What?_" roared the Honorable Thelismer, jarred out of his baleful
calm.
"Yes, sir! They've pulled the town clerk into camp and have had him mark
a list. And you can imagine who they picked out as Republican voters in
this town! And they'll stand and challenge every one else till their
throats are sore. You and me has cut up a few little innocent tricks in
politics in our time, Squire, but we never framed anything quite as tidy
as this for a steal. If your friend, here, is in politics, he--"
"I'm Presson, chairman of the State Committee," explained that
gentleman. The Duke of Fort Canibas was too much absorbed to make
presentations.
"Hell! That so?" ripped out the other, frankly astonished. "Well, I'm
glad you're here. You ought to be able to help us out."
Presson was not cheerful or helpful. "They're slashing this whole State
open from one end to the other with their devilish reform hullabaloo,"
he said.
"I hear there _is_ quite a stir outside," agreed the agitator, blandly.
He looked the chairman up and down with interest. "You may call me
Sylvester--Talleyrand Sylvester. Yankee dickerer! Buy and sell
everything from a clap o' thunder to a second-hand gravestone. It brings
me round the country up here, and so I've been the Squire's right-hand
man in the political game, such as there's been of it." He turned his
back on the pondering Duke and continued, sotto voce: "I reckon if he'd
stayed in himself, Colonel, they wouldn't have had the courage to tackle
him. They might have hit him with that whole stockin'ful of mud they've
been collectin', and he wouldn't have staggered. But when they go to hit
the young feller, there, with it, he's down and out."
"Eh!" barked the magnate of Canibas, catching the last words. "I am?
Not by a--" He broke off, ashamed of wasting effort in mere boasts.
"Presson," he went on, evidently now intent on proceeding according to
the plan that he had been meditating, "you've got your own interest in
seeing me keep this district in line, haven't you?"
"You're the head of our row of bricks," bleated the chairman. "We've got
to keep you standing--got to do it."
"Then we'll get busy." The old man threw back his shoulders. "Carrying a
caucus the way we've probably got to carry this one at the last gasp
isn't going to be a genteel entertainment." He tapped a stubby finger on
the honorable chairman's shirt-front. "I'm going to raise some very
particular hell." He turned to his lieutenant. "The boys right in the
village, here, our own bunch, are all right, of course, Sylvester?"
"Stickin' to you like pitch in a spruce crack, as usual. It's the
outsiders from the other sections in the district. They hadn't known
what a caucus was till them ramrodders got after 'em."
"Can't they be handled now that they're in here?"
"Have been lied to already too skilful and thorough. Me and Whisperin'
Urban and a few others of the boys blew the haydust out of their ears,
and tried to inject the usual--but they can't hold any more. They've got
to be unloaded first--and there ain't time to do it."
"And you're pretty sure they can swing the organization when the caucus
is called?" demanded the Duke.
"Two to one--and our men ain't got a smell on that check-list they've
doctored. Why, they've even got _me_ marked 'Socialist.' You can imagine
what they've done to the rest of the boys. It's one o'clock now." (He
had looked at four watches, one after the other, a part of his
dickerer's stock-in-trade.) "In an hour and fifteen minutes they'll be
organized and votin' by check-list. I ain't a man to give up easy,
Squire, but I swear it looks as though they had us headed so far on the
homestretch that we ain't near enough to trip 'em or bust a sulky wheel
on 'em."
"You've got more than an hour's leeway." It was a soft lisp of sound
that startled the group. The man had come by devious ways through the
gullies of the Thornton field, around the corner of "The Barracks," and
upon the porch. Those who knew him declared that "Whispering Urban" Cobb
never walked by the straight way when there was a crooked one by which
he could dodge around.
"No, they can't get a-goin' at no two o'clock," he assured them. A
drooping gray mustache curtained his mouth, drooping gray eyebrows
shaded his eyes, and he crowded very close to them and whispered, "I've
stole the call for the caucus, and they'll hunt for it about half an
hour, and then they'll have to round the committee up and get 'em to
sign another, and have constables swear that the other call was
posted--and, well, they won't get going much before four."
The Duke looked at him indulgently.
"I took it on myself to do it. I reckoned you might need the extra time,
seein' that they was tryin' to spring a trap on you."
He took the cigar that the Duke offered him in lieu of praise.
"Bein' sure of that much time--if you'll see to it that they're regular
about the call!" Mr. Cobb cocked inquiring eye at the old man.
"I'll see to it," stated Thornton, grimly.
"Well, then, bein' sure of that time, I'll--Mr. Thornton, would you
object if I was to start in this afternoon on the contract of clearing
up that slash where you operated on Jo Quacca last winter? Of course,
this ain't just the best kind of weather for bonfires, but--the fire
will certainly burn!" His whispering voice gave the suggestion ominous
significance.
The Hon. Thelismer Thornton stared for a moment at Cobb, and then looked
up at the heights that shimmered in the beating sun.
"You may start in, Cobb," he said at last. His perception of what the
man meant came instantly. He had hesitated while he figured chances.
"Take fifty of those men out behind there," his thumb jerked over his
shoulder. "Give every man a shovel, and see that it doesn't get away
from you. More smoke than fire, see!"
Mr. Cobb hastened away.
The duller comprehension of the chairman of the State Committee had not
grasped the significance of the conversation.
"I'd let business wait till politics are finished, Thelismer," he
chided.
"There is such a thing as running the two on a double track," returned
Mr. Thornton, serene but non-committal. He whirled on Sylvester, his
mien that of the commander-in-chief disposing his forces in the face of
the enemy: "Talleyrand, you'll find fifty more quedaws out there after
Cobb takes his pick. Take them down to Aunt Charette's and have her set
out her best. And keep 'em well bunched and handy!"
He reached through an open window and filled the pockets of his crash
suit with cigars from a box on a stand.
"Now, Luke," he invited, blandly, "let's go to a legislative district
caucus. I haven't bothered to attend one for a good many years, but this
one on the docket now gives signs of being interesting."
They walked down the dusty road toward the village. The State chairman
was silent, with the air of a man pondering matters he does not
understand; but the Hon. Thelismer Thornton beamed upon all he met.
Having a certainty to deal with, and a tangible enemy in sight, he
seemed at ease. He felt like one who has recovered from dizzying blows
and is on trail of the enemy who dealt them. He was himself again.
A few of those he met he greeted with especial cordiality. To some he
gave cigars, not with the air of one seeking favor, not with the cheap
generosity of the professional politician, but with the manner of one
taking paternal interest in the conduct of a good child. It was an act
that seemed to go with his handclasp and smile. He caught the State
chairman looking at him rather doubtfully on one of these occasions.
"The folks understand this thing up here," he said. "When those chaps
were young ones I used to give them a stick of candy. Now that they are
grown up I hand 'em a cigar--got into the habit and can't stop. Or else
I send 'em around to Aunt Charette's and have it put on my account.
Wicked performance, I suppose, and so the old ladies tell me. But I was
born in the old rum-and-molasses times, Luke, when the liquor thing sort
of run itself, and didn't give so many cheap snoozers a job on one side
or the other."
"What's this Aunt Charette's you're talking about?" asked the chairman.
"An institution!" The Duke enjoyed the puzzled stare the little man
rolled up at him. "I reckon you think you've solved the liquor question
in this prohibition State at that hotel bar of yours, Luke. I've solved
it in my own way up here. Aunt Charette's is an institution that I've
founded. Come and look at it."
He led the way off the main street. There was a cottage at the end of a
lane, tree-embowered, neat with fresh white paint and blinds of vivid
green. An old man sat in an arm-chair under one of the trees. He wore
gold earrings and an old-style coat with brass buttons.
"Uncle Charette," explained the Duke, as they passed him. "Simply a lawn
ornament."
He led the way into the house without knocking.
"And this is Aunt Charette," he volunteered. In the centre of the
spotless fore-room a ponderous woman rocked in her huge chair and
knitted placidly. She was a picture of peaceful prosperity in black silk
gown and gold-bowed spectacles.
"And here's the nature of Aunt Charette's institution." He pointed to an
open cupboard in which there were many bottles.
"Oh! your local liquor agency," hazarded the chairman.
"No, sir! Aunt Charette's own dispensary for the ills of the mind and
fatigues of the body, and run according to my own notions. It beats your
bar and white jackets, Luke, or that solemn farce of cheap liquors and
robber prices of the State agency system. You come in here, if you are
not a drunkard or a minor or a pauper--and Aunt Charette knows 'em
all--and you go to the cupboard and get your drink, or you go out there
in the store-room and get your bottle, and hand the change to Aunt
Charette and walk away. No other rumshop tolerated in the section, and
pocket peddlers run out of town on a rail! No treating, no foolishness,
no fraud. Pays her fine twice a year without going to court, the same as
you. And no extras!" He smiled at the chairman significantly.
"No extras, eh!" mused Mr. Presson, enviously. "You must have a
different crowd of county officers than we've got down our way."
"Perhaps so," admitted the old man, and then he allowed himself a bit of
a boast; "but the secret is, you see, this little institution is
something I've taken under my own wing."
It was an ill-starred moment for that honest boast. There came a
thumping of feet in the hall. The man who burst in was flushed and
sweating and excited.
"I'm glad you're here, Squire," he panted. "You're just in the nick o'
time. They're going to jump on the old lady."
"Who's going to jump?"
"High Sheriff Niles and his posse. They ain't more'n ten rods behind,
jigger wagon and all."
The Duke of Fort Canibas stared a moment at the herald. Aunt Charette
raised her eyes to her protector with the air of one secure under the
wings of a patron saint, and went on knitting.
"Gad!" hissed the State chairman. "They certainly do mean you this time,
Thelismer! Discrediting your pull in county politics an hour before your
caucus! Some one is showing brains!"
Thornton did not answer.
"How in blazes have they pulled over the sheriff?" demanded Presson. But
the old man merely stared at the door.
High Sheriff Niles entered at that moment. He stood on the threshold and
scowled. He was a stocky man, who had been a butcher. His face was
blotched by ruddiness resembling that of raw meat. Behind his cockaded
silk hat pressed the faces of his aids. The little yard was filled with
men who peered in at the windows. A big truck wagon was creaking as its
horses backed it to the door.
"What are you after here, Niles?" demanded Thornton. "After this stock
of rum."
The Duke took another swing across the room, licked his lips, and set
his extinguished cigar hard between his teeth. He was striving to
control the wrath that came boiling up into his purple face and blazing
eyes.
"There's the warrant!" The sheriff clapped the paper across his palm.
"Take the stuff, boys!" He waved his hand at the cupboard.
"But the most of it's in the cellar," shrilled the voice of a tattler in
the hallway. "There's where she keeps it!"
"I don't need any advice," growled the sheriff. His men trudged into the
room and made for the cupboard.
Now at last Aunt Charette understood that her stores were threatened.
She did not leave her chair. She fumbled frantically at her big bag that
hung at her waist.
"Non, non!" she cried. "Yo' may not to'ch! I have pay! I have pay for
nex' sax month."
She flapped a paper at the sheriff. He took it perfunctorily. "That's
all right, old woman, but it hasn't got anything to do with my business
here. I'm after your stuff on a warrant." He gave back the paper and
started for the stairs leading to the cellar.
"But I have pay," she vociferated. "You tell them I have pay, M'sieu'
Thornton! You' told me if I have pay twice in ye'r I have de
privilege--de privilege!"
The sheriff turned and grinned over his shoulder into the convulsed face
of the Honorable Thelismer.
"There's a lot of bargains in politics, marm," he stated, dryly, "that
takes more'n two to put 'em through when the pinch comes." He enjoyed
the discomfiture that her artless confession brought to the Duke. The
old man looked him up and down. That this Niles whom he himself had
helped into office, who had been taking private toll from the liquor
interests of the county as his predecessors had before him, a procedure
condoned by the party leaders of whom the Honorable Thelismer was
one--that this person should whirl on him in such fashion was a
performance that Thornton could not yet fully understand. But there was
the fact to contend with. A man he had helped to elevate was engaged in
humiliating him in the frankly wondering gaze of his own community.
Those who peeped in at doors and windows were not, all of them, enemies.
There were friends who sympathized and were astonished. Their murmurings
told that.
"You infernal Hereford bull!" roared Thornton; "don't you dare to slur
me before my people. You're making this raid because I haven't buttered
you with ten-dollar bills to keep your hands off. You've taken 'em from
all the other rumsellers--but this isn't one of your regular
rumshops."
"That's right, Squire. Give it to him," muttered men at door and
windows.
"We all know how the sheriff's office is run in this county." This
statement was made by Talleyrand Sylvester, who came thrusting through
the jam of the hall into the fore-room. "Squire," he whispered,
hoarsely, "I've brought down them quedaws as you told me to. They're
outside. Say the word and we'll light on that old steer in the
plug-hat!"
For an instant there was a glint in the old man's eyes which hinted that
the word would be given. But the impulse was merely the first reckless
one of retaliation. Assault on law, even as represented by such an
unworthy executive as he knew Niles to be, would make too wicked a story
for slander to handle. Slander would be busy enough as it was.
He pushed the eager Sylvester to one side.
"Let me see your warrant, Niles," he requested. The officer passed it
over, with a touch of sudden humility in his demeanor. "I'm only doing
my duty as it's laid out by the statutes," he muttered. He quailed under
the old man's eyes. He did not like the sound of the mumbling at the
windows nor relish the looks of the men who had just come flocking into
the yard at the heels of Sylvester.
"'Twas sworn out and passed to me," stated the sheriff.
"Sworn out on complaint of Tom Willy." He looked above the document and
saw in the doorway the man who had cried information regarding the
liquor in the cellar. "Tom Willy, the cheapest drunkard we've got in the
town, taking sneaking revenge because he has been shut off from
privileges here that decent men haven't abused! But I tell you,
gentlemen, even Tom Willy isn't as cheap as the men who have sneaked
behind him and prodded him on to do this. There's some one behind him,
for Tom Willy hasn't got brains enough nor sprawl enough to do this all
by himself."
He gave the warrant back to the sheriff. He had recovered his
self-possession. He was again their Duke of Fort Canibas, who could
retire with dignity even from such a position as this. "Go ahead and
train with your crowd, Sheriff Niles," he drawled, sarcastically--"Tom
Willy, and whoever they are behind him that are too ashamed to show
themselves!"
He started for the door, Luke Presson at his heels. Aunt Charette, not
exactly understanding, realized that the protecting aegis was departing.
"But I have pay!" she wailed. "You have de power, M'sieu' Thornton! They
take my properties!"
He patted the shiny silk of the old woman's shoulder as he passed her.
"Keep your sitting, Aunt Charette," he advised, "and let them take it.
It will be a good investment for you--leave it to me."
He lighted a fresh cigar out-of-doors.
"Luke," he declared quietly between puffs, "this is developing into
quite a caucus day--take all trimmings. I'm glad you are here to look
on!"