And so while Bad Rufe Tolliver was waiting for death, the trial of the
Red Fox went on, and when he was not swinging in a hammock, reading his
Bible, telling his visions to his guards and singing hymns, he was in
the Court House giving shrewd answers to questions, or none at all, with
the benevolent half of his mask turned to the jury and the wolfish snarl
of the other half showing only now and then to some hostile witness for
whom his hate was stronger than his fear for his own life. And in jail
Bad Rufe worried his enemy with the malicious humour of Satan. Now he
would say:
“Oh, there ain't nothin' betwixt old Red and me, nothin' at all--'cept
this iron wall,” and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall
with the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox's
hammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say to his guard outside:
“Course I don't read the Bible an' preach the word, nor talk with
sperits, but thar's worse men than me in the world--old Red in thar' for
instance”; and then he would cackle like a fiend and the Red Fox would
writhe in torment and beg to be sent to another cell. And always he
would daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and ask him questions in the
night, and his devilish instinct told him the day that the Red Fox, too,
was sentenced to death--he saw it in the gray pallour of the old man's
face, and he cackled his glee like a demon. For the evidence against
the Red Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief witness against Rufe
Tolliver--John Hale sat as chief witness against the Red Fox. He could
not swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old man pick up, but
it was something that glistened in the sun, and a moment later he
had found the shell in the old man's pocket--and if it had been fired
innocently, why was it there and why was the old man searching for it?
He was looking, he said, for evidence of the murderer himself. That
claim made, the Red Fox's lawyer picked up the big rifle and the shell.
“You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the night you spent at his
home that this rifle was rim-fire?”
“He did.” The lawyer held up the shell.
“You see this was exploded in such a rifle.” That was plain, and the
lawyer shoved the shell into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out,
and held it up again. The plunger had struck below the rim and near the
centre, but not quite on the centre, and Hale asked for the rifle and
examined it closely.
“It's been tampered with,” he said quietly, and he handed it to the
prosecuting attorney. The fact was plain; it was a bungling job and
better proved the Red Fox's guilt. Moreover, there were only two such
big rifles in all the hills, and it was proven that the man who
owned the other was at the time of the murder far away. The days of
brain-storms had not come then. There were no eminent Alienists to prove
insanity for the prisoner. Apparently, he had no friends--none save the
little old woman in black who sat by his side, hour by hour and day by
day.
And the Red Fox was doomed.
In the hush of the Court Room the Judge solemnly put to the gray face
before him the usual question:
“Have you anything to say whereby sentence of death should not be
pronounced on you?”
The Red Fox rose:
“No,” he said in a shaking voice; “but I have a friend here who I would
like to speak for me.” The Judge bent his head a moment over his bench
and lifted it:
“It is unusual,” he said; “but under the circumstances I will grant
your request. Who is your friend?” And the Red Fox made the souls of his
listeners leap.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
The Judge reverently bowed his head and the hush of the Court Room grew
deeper when the old man fished his Bible from his pocket and calmly read
such passages as might be interpreted as sure damnation for his enemies
and sure glory for himself--read them until the Judge lifted his hand
for a halt.
And so another sensation spread through the hills and a superstitious
awe of this strange new power that had come into the hills went with it
hand in hand. Only while the doubting ones knew that nothing could save
the Red Fox they would wait to see if that power could really avail
against the Tolliver clan. The day set for Rufe's execution was the
following Monday, and for the Red Fox the Friday following--for it was
well to have the whole wretched business over while the guard was there.
Old Judd Tolliver, so Hale learned, had come himself to offer the little
old woman in black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived, and had
tried to get her to go back with him to Lonesome Cove; but it pleased
the Red Fox that he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of white--cap
and all--as emblems of the purple and fine linen he was to put on above,
and the little old woman stayed where she was, silently and without
question, cutting the garments, as Hale pityingly learned, from a white
table-cloth and measuring them piece by piece with the clothes the old
man wore in jail. It pleased him, too, that his body should be kept
unburied three days--saying that he would then arise and go about
preaching, and that duty, too, she would as silently and with as little
question perform. Moreover, he would preach his own funeral sermon on
the Sunday before Rufe's day, and a curious crowd gathered to hear him.
The Red Fox was led from jail. He stood on the porch of the jailer's
house with a little table in front of him. On it lay a Bible, on the
other side of the table sat a little pale-faced old woman in black with
a black sun-bonnet drawn close to her face. By the side of the Bible lay
a few pieces of bread. It was the Red Fox's last communion--a communion
which he administered to himself and in which there was no other soul
on earth to join save that little old woman in black. And when the old
fellow lifted the bread and asked the crowd to come forward to partake
with him in the last sacrament, not a soul moved. Only the old woman who
had been ill-treated by the Red Fox for so many years--only she, of
all the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one instant turned her face
toward him. With a churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread over
toward her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she reached for it.
Bob Berkley was on the death-watch that night, and as he passed Rufe's
cell a wiry hand shot through the grating of his door, and as the boy
sprang away the condemned man's fingers tipped the butt of the big
pistol that dangled on the lad's hip.
“Not this time,” said Bob with a cool little laugh, and Rufe laughed,
too.
“I was only foolin',” he said, “I ain't goin' to hang. You hear that,
Red? I ain't goin' to hang--but you are, Red--sure. Nobody'd risk his
little finger for your old carcass, 'cept maybe that little old woman o'
yours who you've treated like a hound--but my folks ain't goin' to see
me hang.”
Rufe spoke with some reason. That night the Tollivers climbed the
mountain, and before daybreak were waiting in the woods a mile on the
north side of the town. And the Falins climbed, too, farther along the
mountains, and at the same hour were waiting in the woods a mile to the
south.
Back in Lonesome Cove June Tolliver sat alone--her soul shaken and
terror-stricken to the depths--and the misery that matched hers was in
the heart of Hale as he paced to and fro at the county seat, on guard
and forging out his plans for that day under the morning stars.