THE NEW SHERIFF
As Eddring and Blount sat engaged in conversation after dinner that
same evening, they were interrupted by a sudden disturbance in the
hall. "Stan' aside, you-all," cried a pompous voice. "You wanteh
hindeh a officah o' de law?"
Hurrying footfalls followed, and presently the face of old Bill,
Colonel Blount's faithful bear-hunter, appeared at the door, "Hit's
dat fool new sheriff, Mas' Cunnel," he explained, "Mose Taylor. Why,
he says he got a wah'nt fo' you. I tol' him like enough you was
busy."
"Let him come in, Bill, let him come right along in," said Calvin
Blount, suavely. "Mose Taylor, eh? That's our new sheriff," said he
to Eddring. "He's our joke. Hell of a joke, ain't it?"
Presently there came to the door the form of the new sheriff, large,
portly and pompous. Taylor was a mulatto who long had entertained
political ambitions. The realization of one of his ambitions seemed
for this present moment to give him no especial happiness. On his
face stood beads of sudden perspiration. His office had never before
seemed to him quite so serious as it did at this moment. At his waist
he wore a belt supporting a pair of heavy revolvers with highly
ornamented handles--a present from certain admirers to one who was
looked upon as fit to do much for the elevation of his race. The new
sheriff did not at that moment seem to think of these revolvers. As
Mose Taylor entered the door he cast his glance backward, over his
shoulder. It did not encourage him to see his cowardly posse of black
followers gathered in a huddle at the edge of the overflowed lawn,
beside their boat. They were waiting to see what would happen to
their leader; and their leader now heartily wished that he had
remained with them.
"Come on in, Mose," said Blount, with honey-like sweetness. "Come in
and take a chair." The man sidled in. "Sit down," said Blount,
"_sit down!_ Sit down on it good; that chair ain't hot;" and the
sheriff suddenly obeyed. "I always like to see the sheriff of
Tullahoma County feeling easy-like in my house. Now, tell me, damn
you, what you want around here?"
"Cunnel Blount, sah--well, I got a papah, a wah'nt from co'te, f-fo'
you, sah. I--I--I--didn't think you was quite so well, sah."
"Uh-huh! So that's why you came, eh? I reckon you'd be mighty glad if
I was a heap sicker, wouldn't you?"
"I dunno, sah."
"What's your warrant for, Mose?" said Calvin Blount, still quietly.
"Stealing hogs this time, or killing somebody's cows, maybe? Out with
it. Now, damn you, can't you read your own warrant?"
"Well, sah, you-all know there wuz some killin'--my wah'nt--"
"Yes, we-all _do_ know there was some killing, a little of it, the
_beginning_ of it, a _part_ of it. Now, tell me, have you the
nerve--are you _fool_ enough to come down here and try to arrest any
of us white gentlemen for what we did a few days ago? Now talk. Tell
me!" Blount's face took on its red fighting-hue.
"Wait!" cried Eddring, speaking to Blount, "this is an officer of the
law. This is the law." He rose and stepped between the two, even as
the sheriff fumbled in his pocket for the paper which had lately been
the bolster of his courage, the warrant which in grim jest had been
issued by the court of that county to its duly instituted executive
officer.
Blount's face was an evil thing to see. At a grasp he caught from a
belt which hung at the head board of the bed a well-worn revolver
whitened where long friction on the scabbard had worn away the
bluing. "Out of the way, Eddring," he cried. "Get your head out of
the way, man!" His pistol sight followed steadily here and there,
searching for a clean opening at its victim, now partly protected by
Eddring as the latter sprang between them. Blount sat on the edge of
the bed, his crippled arm fast at his side, his unshaven face aflame,
his red eye burning in an unspeakable rage as it shone down the
pistol-barrel, grimly hunting for a vital spot on the body of the man
beyond him.
"Get out, quick," cried Eddring, and pushed the man through the door.
He sprang to Blount and pushed him in turn back upon the bed.
"It's the law!" he reiterated.
"The law be damned!" cried Calvin Blount. "Let me up! Let me at him!
_Him_--to come around here to arrest _me_-that damned nigger! You,
Bill!" he called out, raising his voice. "Throw him off my place. Kill
him!" He struggled furiously with Eddring in his effort to gain the
door.
The new sheriff of Tullahoma County was ashen in color when he
emerged into the hall; and then it was only to look into the muzzle
of a rifle, held steadily by old Bill. There ambled up to Bill's
side, also, Jack, and between them they laid hold of the sheriff of
the county and pushed him out of the house and across the lawn,
administering meanwhile to his body repeated deliberate and energetic
kicks, and thus enthusiastically propelling him into the very
presence of his waiting posse, who raised never a hand to resent
these indignities to one who had been their chosen representative for
the advancement of their race.
"I'll see 'bout dis yer, I will!" cried the sheriff, as at last he
got clear and took refuge in the boat which lay waiting at the edge
of the lawn. "I'll have you-all up for 'sistin' a officah, dat's whut
I will."
"'Sistin' a officah! Who! _You?"_ said Bill. The scorn in his voice
was infinite. "Say, you low-down scoun'rel, you say very much mo' an'
I'll blow yoh head off. You're on our _lan'_, does you know dat? Now
you git _off_, right soon."
The officer of the law retreated as far as he could into the boat.
"You thought Cunnel Blount was all 'lone in bed, too weak to move,
didn't you?" resumed Bill. "Why, blame you, you couldn't 'rest
Colonel Calvin Blount, not if he was _daid!_ Go 'long dah, now!"
Mose Taylor, the grim jest, the sardonic answer of the whites of
Tullahoma County to those who deal fluently with questions of which
they know but little, was fain to take Bill's sincere advice. Behind
the shelter of the first clump of trees, he folded his arms into a
posture as near resembling that of Napoleon as he could assume. He
frowned heavily. "Huh!" said he savagely, looking from one to another
of the crew who made his "posse." "Huh!" he said again, and yet
again, "Huh!" A cloud sat on his soul. It seemed to him that persons
like himself, earnestly engaged in settling the race problem, ought
not to have such difficulties cast in their way.
Meantime, in the house, Eddring still confronted the rage of Colonel
Blount.
"You," panted Blount. "You! I thought you were one of us."
"I am, I am!" cried Eddring. "I was with you in what you did. I tried
to get to you. It had to be done. But somewhere, Cal, we must stop.
We've got to pull up. We can't fight lawlessness with worse
lawlessness. We must begin with the law."
A bitter smile was his answer. "Is that sort of sheriff the
foundation that you lay?" said Calvin Blount, panting, as at length
he threw his six-shooter upon the bed. "Let me tell you, then, the
law is never going to stand. That's no law for the Delta."
Eddring sunk his face between his hands. "Cal," he said, "we've got
to begin. This country is being ruined, and perhaps it is partly our
own fault. Now, I am guilty as you. are; but I say, we have got to
give ourselves up to the law."
"Give myself up? Why, of _course_ I will. I was going up directly,
soon as I got well, to talk it over with the judge, and arrange for a
trial. All this has got to be squared up legally, of course. But
that's a heap different from sending a nigger sheriff down here to
arrest Cal Blount in his own house. Why, I'm one of the oldest
citizens in these here bottoms. I've carried my end of the log for
fifty years, with black and white. Why, if I should go in with
that fellow, where'd be my reputation? I'd have a heap of show of
living down here after that, wouldn't I? Why, my neighbors'd kill me,
and do me a kindness at that."
"But we must begin," said Eddring, insistently, once more. "There
must be some law. We'll go in and surrender. I'll take your case."
"You mean you'll be my lawyer at the trial?"
"Yes, I'll defend you. But as for you and me, we're for the state,
after all. We've got to prosecute this entire system which prevails
down here to-day. We're growing more and more lawless all over the
South, all over America. Now, we don't want that. We don't believe in
it. Then what can we do? How can we get to the bottom of this thing?
Cal, I reckon you and I are brave enough to begin."
Even as they were speaking, they heard a knock at the door, and Miss
Lady once more stood looking in hesitatingly upon these stern-faced
men. Upon her own face there was horror, terror.
"I don't know what to do!" she cried, her hands at her temples. "I
don't know where to go. You tell me this is my home, and I have
nowhere else to go, but this is a _terrible_ place. Why, I have
just heard about what happened--about Delphine and those others. Why,
sir,"--this to Eddring,--"you knew it all the time. You saw. You
knew!"
"Yes," said Eddring, "that is why I would not let you walk down that
little path on the island. I didn't want you to know--we didn't want
you ever to know."
"Yes, Miss Lady," affirmed Blount, "we knew. We didn't want you to
know."
"But is there no law?" she cried. "Why do you do these things? The
punishment is for the officers, for the courts, and not for you. Why,
how can I _look_ at you without shivering?"
"What shall we do, Miss Lady?" asked Blount, coldly. "What's the
right thing to do? Listen. We've done this thing for _you_. You're a
white girl. The white women of this country--if we _didn't_ do these
things, what chance would you and your like have in this country? Now,
we've done it for you, and we'll finish the way you say. You're to
decide. Shall we go in and surrender? Shall we be tried? Remember, it
is our own lives at stake, then."
"We will go in, and we will meet our trial," said John Eddring,
rising and interrupting, even as Miss Lady buried her face in her
hands. "We will begin, right here."