“MISTER SHERIFF,” ordered the judge, “bring Pressley G. Harper to the
bar.”
Judge Priest, as I may have set forth before, had two habits of
speech--one purposely ungrammatical and thickly larded with the
vernacular of the country crossroads--that was for his private walks and
conversations, and for his campaignings; but the other was of good and
proper and dignified English, and it he reserved for official acts and
utterances. Whether upon the bench or off it, though, his voice had that
high-pitched, fiddle-string note which carried far and clearly; and on
this day, when he spoke, the sheriff roused up instantly from where he
had been enjoying forty winks between the bewhittled arms of a tilted
chair and bestirred himself. He hurried out of a side door. A little,
whispering, hunching stir went through the courtroom. Spectators
reclining upon the benches, partly on their spines and partly on their
shoulderblades, straightened and bent forward. Inside the rail, which
set apart the legal goats from the civic sheep, a score of eyes were
fixed speculatively upon the judge's face, rising above the top of
the tall, scarred desk where he sat; but his face gave no dew to his
thoughts; and if the mind back of the beneficent, mild blue eyes was
troubled, the eyes themselves looked out unvexed through the steel-bowed
spectacles that rode low on the old judge's nose.
There was a minute's wait. The clerk handed up to the judge a sheaf of
papers in blue wrappers. The judge shuffled through them until he found
the one he wanted. It was the middle of the afternoon of a luscious
spring day--the last day of the spring term of court. In at the open
windows came spicy, moist smells of things sprouting and growing, and
down across the courthouse square the big star-shaped flowers of the
dogwood trees showed white and misty, like a new Milky Way against a
billowy green firmament.
A minute only and then the sheriff reëntered. At his side came a man.
This newcomer must have been dose to seventy years--or sixty-five,
anyway. He was long and lean, and he bore his height with a sort of
alert and supple erectness, stepping high, with the seemingly awkward
gait of the man trained at crossing furrows, yet bringing his feet down
noiselessly, like a house-cat treading on dead leaves. The way he moved
made you think of a deerstalker. Strength, tremendous strength, was
shown in the outward swing of the long arms and the huge, knotty hands,
and there was temper in the hot, brown eyes and in the thick, stiff crop
of reddish-gray hair, rising like buckwheat stubble upon his scalp. He
had high cheekbones and a long, shaven face, and his skin was tanned
to a leathery red, like a well-smoked ham. Except for the colors of his
hair and eyes, he might have passed for half Indian. Indeed, there was
a tale in the county that his great-grandmother was a Shawnee squaw. He
was more than six feet tall--he must have been six feet two.
With the sheriff alongside him he came to the bar--a sagged oaken
railing--and stood there with his big hands cupped over it. He was newly
shaved and dressed in what was evidently his best.
“Pressley G. Harper at the bar,” sang out the clerk methodically.
Everybody was listen-ing.
“Pressley G. Harper,” said the judge, “waiving the benefit of counsel
and the right of trial by jury, you have this day pleaded guilty to an
indictment charging you with felonious assault in that you did, on the
twenty-first day of January last, shoot and wound with a firearm one
Virgil Settle, a citizen of this county. Have you anything to say why
the sentence of the law should not be pronounced upon you?”
Only eying him steadfastly, the confessed offender shook his head.
“It is the judgment of this court, then, that you be confined in the
state penitentiary for the period of two years at hard labor.”
A babbling murmur ran over the room--for his sins old Press Harper was
catching it at last. The prisoner's hands gripped the oaken rail until
his knuckles nails showed white, and it seemed that the tough wood
fibers would be dented in; other than that he gave no sign, but took
the blow braced and steady, like a game man facing a firing squad. The
sheriff inched toward him; but the judge raised the hand that held the
blue-wrappered paper as a sign that he had more to say.
“Pressley G. Harper,” said the judge, “probably this is not the time or
the place for the court to say how deeply it regrets the necessity of
inflicting this punishment upon you. This court has known you for many
years--for a great many years. You might have been a worthy citizen. You
have been of good repute for truthfulness and fair dealing among your
neighbors; but you have been beset, all your life, with a temper that
was your abiding curse, and when excited with liquor you have been a
menace to the safety of your fellowman. Time and time again, within the
recollection of this court, you have been involved in unseemly brawls,
largely of your own making. That you were generally inflamed with drink,
and that you afterward seemed genuinely penitent and made what amends
you could, does not serve to excuse you in the eyes of the law. That you
have never taken a human life outright is a happy accident of chance.
“Through the leniency of those appointed to administer the law you have
until now escaped the proper and fitting consequences of your behavior;
but, by this last wanton attack upon an inoffensive citizen, you
have forfeited all claim upon the consideration of the designated
authorities.”
He paused for a little, fumbling at the bow of his spectacles.
“In the natural course of human events you have probably but a few more
years to live. It is to be regretted by all right-thinking men that you
cannot go to your grave free from the stigma of a prison. And it is a
blessing that you have no one closely related to you by ties of blood
or marriage to share in your disgrace.” The old judge's high voice grew
husked and roughened here, he being himself both widowed and childless.
“The judgment of the court stands--two years at hard labor.”
He made a sign that he was done. The sheriff edged up again and touched
the sentenced man upon the arm. Without turning his head, Harper shook
off the hand of authority with so violent a shrug that the sheriff
dodged back, startled. Then for the first time the prisoner spoke.
“Judge, Your Honor,” he said quietly, “jest a minute ago you asked me
if I had anything to say and I told you that I had not. I've changed my
mind; I want to ask you something--I want to ask you a mighty big favor.
No, I ain't askin' you to let me off--it ain't that,” he went on more
quickly, reading the look on the judge's face. “I didn't expect to
come clear in this here case. I pleaded guilty because I was guilty and
didn't have no defense. My bein' sorry for shootin' Virge Settle the way
I did don't excuse me, as I know; but, Judge Priest, I'll say jest this
to you--I don't want to be dragged off to that there penitentiary like a
savage dumb beast. I don't want to be took there by no sheriff. And what
I want to ask you is this: Can't I go there a free man, with free limbs?
I promise you to go and to serve my time faithful--but I want to go by
myself and give myself up like a man.”
Instantly visualized before the eyes of all who sat there was the
picture which they knew must be in the prisoner's mind--the same picture
which all or nearly all of them had seen more than once, since it came
to pass, spring and fall, after each term of court--a little procession
filing through the street to the depot; at its head, puffed out with
responsibility, the sheriff and one of his deputies--at its tail more
deputies, and in between them the string of newly convicted felons,
handcuffed in twos, with a long trace-chain looping back from one pair
to the next pair, and so on, binding all fast together in a clanking
double file--the whites in front and the negroes back of them,
maintaining even in that shameful formation the division of race; the
whites mainly marching with downcast heads and hurrying feet, clutching
pitiably small bundles with their free hands--the negroes singing
doggerel in chorus and defiantly jingling the links of their tether;
some, the friendless ones, hatless and half naked, and barefooted after
months of lying in jail--and all with the smell of the frowsy cells upon
them. And, seeing this familiar picture spring up before them, it seemed
all of a sudden a wrong thing and a very shameful thing that Press
Harper, an old man and a member of a decent family, should march thus,
with his wrists chained and the offscourings and scum of the county
jail for company. All there knew him for a man of his word. If old Press
Harper said he would go to the penitentiary and surrender himself they
knew he would go and do it if he had to crawl there on his knees. And so
now, having made his plea, he waited silently for the answer.
The old judge had half swung himself about in his chair and with his
hand at his beard was looking out of the window.
“Mister Sheriff,” he said, without turning his head, “you may consider
yourself relieved of the custody of the defendant at the bar. Mister
Clerk, you may make out the commitment papers.” The clerk busied himself
with certain ruled forms, filling in dotted lines with writing. The
judge went on: “Despite the irregularity of the proceeding, this court
is disposed to grant the request which the defendant has just made.
Grievous though his shortcomings in other directions may have been,
this court has never known the defendant to break his word. Does the
defendant desire any time in which to arrange his personal affairs? If
so how much time?”
“I would like to have until the day after tomorrow,” said Harper. “If I
kin I want to find a tenant for my farm.”
“Has the commonwealth's attorney any objection to the granting of this
delay?” inquired the judge, still with his head turned away.
“None, Your Honor,” said the prosecutor, half rising. And now the judge
was facing the prisoner, looking him full in the eye.
“You will go free on your own recognizance, without bond, until the
day after tomorrow,” he bade him. “You will then report yourself to the
warden of the state penitentiary at Frankfort. The clerk of this court
will hand you certain documents which you will surrender to the warden
at the same time that you surrender yourself.”
The tall old man at the rail bowed his head to show he understood, but
he gave no thanks for the favor vouchsafed him, nor did the other old
man on the bench seem to expect any thanks. The clerk's pen, racing
across the ruled sheets, squeaked audibly.
“This consideration is granted, though, upon one condition,” said the
judge, as though a new thought had just come to him. “And that is, that
between this time and the time you begin serving your sentence you do
not allow a drop of liquor to cross your lips. You promise that?”
“I promise that,” said Harper slowly and soberly, like a man taking a
solemn oath.
No more was said. The clerk filled out the blanks--two of them--and
Judge Priest signed them. The clerk took them back from him, folded them
inside a long envelope; backed the envelope with certain writings, and
handed it over the bar rail to Harper. There wasn't a sound as he stowed
it carefully into an inner pocket of his ill-fitting black coat; nor,
except for the curiously light tread of his own steps, was there a sound
as he, without a look side-wise, passed down the courtroom and out at
the doorway.
“Mister Clerk,” bade Judge Priest, “adjourn the present term of this
court.”
As the crowd filed noisily out, old Doctor Lake, who had been a
spectator of all that happened, lingered behind and, with a nod and a
gesture to the clerk, went round behind the jury-box and entered the
door of the judge's private chamber, without knocking. The lone occupant
of the room stood by the low, open window, looking out over the green
square. He was stuffing the fire-blackened bowl of his corncob pipe with
its customary fuel; but his eyes were not on the task, or his fingers
trembled--or something; for, though the pipe was already packed to
overflowing, he still tamped more tobacco in, wasting the shreddy brown
weed upon the floor.
“Come in, Lew, and take a chair and set down,” he said. Doctor Lake,
however, instead of taking a chair and sitting down, crossed to the
window and stood beside him, putting one hand on the judge's arm.
“That was pretty hard on old Press, Billy,” said Doctor Lake.
Judge Priest was deeply sensitive of all outside criticism pertaining
to his official conduct; his life off the bench was another matter. He
stiffened under the touch.
“Lewis Lake,” he said--sharply for him--“I don't permit even my best
friends to discuss my judicial acts.”
“Oh, I didn't mean that, Billy,” Doctor Lake made haste to explain. “I
wasn't thinking so much of what happened just now in the court yonder. I
reckon old Press deserved it--he's been running hog-wild round this town
and this county too long already. Let him get that temper of his roused
and a few drinks in him and he is a regular mad dog. Nobody can deny
that. Of course I hate it--and I know you do too--to see one of the old
company--one of the boys who marched out of here with us in '61--going
to the pen. That's only natural; but I'm not finding fault with your
sending him there. What I was thinking of is that you're sending him
over the road day after tomorrow.”
“What of that?” asked the judge.
“Why, day after tomorrow is the day we're starting for the annual
reunion,” said Doctor Lake; “and, Billy, if Press goes on the noon
train--which he probably will--he'll be traveling right along with the
rest of us--for a part of the way. Only he'll get off at the Junction,
and we--well, we'll be going on through, the rest of us will, to the
reunion That's what I meant.”
“That's so!” said the judge regretfully--“that's so! I did forget all
about the reunion startin' then--I plum' forgot it. I reckin it will be
sort of awkward for all of us--and for Press in particular.” He paused,
holding the unlighted and overflowing pipe in his hands absently, and
then went on:
“Lewis, when a man holds an office such as mine is he has to do a lot of
things he hates mightily to do. Now you take old Press Harper's case. I
reckin there never was a braver soldier anywhere than Press was. Do you
remember Brice's Crossroads?”
“Yes,” said the old doctor, his eyes suddenly afire. “Yes, Billy--and
Vicksburg too.”
“Ah-hah!” went on the old judge--“and the second day's fight at
Chickamauga, when we lost so many out of the regiment, and Press came
back out of the last charge, draggin' little Gil Nicholas by the arms,
and both of them purty nigh shot to pieces? Yes, suh; Press always was
a fighter when there was any fightin' to do--and the fightin' was
specially good in them days. The trouble with Press was he didn't quit
fightin' when the rest of us did. Maybe it sort of got into his blood.
It does do jest that sometimes, I judge.”
“Yes,” said Doctor Lake, “I suppose you're right; but old Press is in
a fair way to be cured now. A man with his temper ought never to touch
whisky anyhow.”
“You're right,” agreed the judge. “It's a dangerous thing, licker
is--and a curse to some people. I'd like to have a dram right this
minute. Lew, I wish mightily you'd come on and go home with me tonight
and take supper. I'll send my nigger boy Jeff up to your house to tell
your folks you won't be there until late, and you walk on out to my
place with me. I feel sort of played out and lonesome--I do so. Come on
now. We'll have a young chicken and a bait of hot waffles--I reckin that
old nigger cook of mine does make the best waffles in the created world.
After supper we'll set a spell together and talk over them old times
when we were in the army--and maybe we can kind of forget some of the
things that've come up later.”
The noon accommodation would carry the delegation from Gideon K. Irons
Camp over the branch line to the Junction, where it would connect with a
special headed through for the reunion city. For the private use of the
Camp the railroad company provided a car which the ladies of the town
decorated on the night before with draped strips of red and white
bunting down the sides, and little battle-flags nailed up over the two
doors. The rush of the wind would soon whip away the little crossed
flags from their tack fastenings end roll the bunting streamers up into
the semblance of peppermint sticks; but the car, hitched to the tail
end of the accommodation and surrounded by admiring groups of barelegged
small boys, made a brave enough show when its intended passengers came
marching down a good half hour ahead of leaving-time.
Considering the wide swath which death and the infirmities of age had
been cutting in the ranks all these years, the Camp was sending a good
representation--Judge Priest, the commandant; and Doctor Lake; and Major
Joe Sam Covington; and Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, who never missed a reunion;
and Corporal Jake Smedley, the color-bearer, with the Camp's flag furled
on its staff and borne under his arm; and Captain Shelby Woodward--and
four or five more. There was even one avowed private. Also, and not
to be overlooked on any account, there was Uncle Zach Matthews, an
ink-black, wrinkled person, with a shiny bald head polished like old
rosewood, and a pair of warped legs bent outward like saddlebows.
Personally Uncle Zach was of an open mind regarding the merits and the
outcome of the Big War. As he himself often put it:
“Yas, suh--I ain't got no set prejudices ary way. In de spring of '61
I went out wid my own w'ite folks, as body-sarvant to my young marster,
Cap'n Harry Matthews--and we suttinly did fight dem bluebellies up hill
and down dale fer three endurin' years or more; but in de campaignin'
round Nashville somewhars I got kind of disorganized and turn't round
someway; and, when I sorter comes to myself, lo and behole, ef I ain't
been captured by de Fed'rul army! So, rather'n have any fussin' 'bout
it, I j'ined in wid dem; and frum den on till de surrender I served on
de other side--cookin' fer one of their gin'els and doin' odd jobs round
de camp; but when 'twas all over I come on back home and settled down
ag'in 'mongst my own folks, where I properly belonged. Den, yere a few
years back, some of 'em tum't in and done some testifyin' fer me so's I
could git my pension. Doctor Lake, he says to me hisse'f, he says;
'Zach, bein' as de Yankee Gover'mint is a passin' out dis yere money so
free you might jess as well have a little chunk of it too!' And he--him
and Mistah Charley Reed and some others, they helped me wid my papers;
and, of course, I been mighty grateful to all dem gen'l'men ever since.”
So Uncle Zach drew his pension check quarterly, and regularly once a
year went to the reunion as general factotum of the Camp, coming home
laden with badges and heavy with small change. He and Judge Priest's
Jeff, who was of the second generation of freedom, now furnished a touch
of intense color relief, sitting together in one of the rearmost seats,
guarding the piled-up personal baggage of the veterans.
Shortly before train-time carriages came, bringing young Mrs. McLaurin,
little Rita Covington and Miss Minnie Lyon--the matron of honor, the
sponsor and the maid of honor respectively of the delegation. Other
towns no larger would be sure to send a dozen or more sponsors and maids
and matrons of honor; but the home Camp was proverbially moderate in
this regard. As Captain Woodward had once said: “We are charmed and
honored by the smiles of our womanhood, and we worship every lovely
daughter of the South; but, at a reunion of veterans, somehow I do love
to see a veteran interspersed here and there in among the fair sex.”
So now, as their special guests for this most auspicious occasion,
they were taking along just these three--Rita Covington, a little
eighteen-year-old beauty, and Minnie Lyon, a tall, fair, slender,
pretty girl, and Mrs. Mc-Laurin. The two girls were in white linen, with
touches of red at throat and waist; but young Mrs. McLaurin, who was
a bride of two years' standing and plump and handsome, looked doubly
handsome and perhaps a wee mite plumper than common in a tailor-made
suit of mouse-gray, that was all tricked out with brass buttons and
gold-braided cuffs, and a wide black belt, with a cavalry buckle.
That the inspired tailor who built this costume had put the stars of a
major-general on the collar and the stripes of a corporal on the sleeve
was a matter of no consequence whatsoever. The color was right, the fit
of the coat was unflawed by a single wrinkle fore or aft, and the brass
buttons poured like molten gold down the front. Originally young Mrs.
McLaurin had intended to reserve her military suit for a crowning
sartorial stroke on the day of the big parade; but at the last moment
pride of possession triumphed over the whisperings of discretion, and so
here she was now, trig and triumphant--though, if it must be confessed,
a trifle closely laced in. Yet she found an immediate reward in the
florid compliments of the old men. She radiated her satisfaction visibly
as Doctor Lake and Captain Woodward ushered her and her two charges
aboard the car with a ceremonious, Ivanhoeish deference, which had come
down with them from their day to this, like the scent of old lavender
lingering in ancient cedar chests.
A further martial touch was given by the gray coats of the old men, by
the big Camp badges and bronze crosses proudly displayed by all, and
finally by Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, who, true to a habit of forty years'
standing, was wearing the rent and faded jacket that he brought home
from the war, and carrying on his shoulder the ancient rusted musket
that had served him from Sumter to the fall of Richmond.
The last of the party was on the decorated coach, the last ordinary
traveler had boarded the single day-coach and the conductor was
signaling for the start, when an erect old man, who all during the
flurry of departure had been standing silent and alone behind the
protecting shadow of the far side of the station, came swiftly across
the platform, stepping with a high, noiseless, deerstalker's tread, and,
just as the engine bleated its farewell and the wheels began to turn,
swung himself on the forward car. At sight of two little crossed flags
fluttering almost above his head he lifted his slouch hat in a sort of
shamed salute; but he kept his face turned resolutely away from those
other old men to the rear of him. He cramped his great length down into
a vacant seat in the daycoach, and there he sat, gazing straight ahead
at nothing, as the train drew out of the station, bearing him to his
two years at hard labor and these one-time comrades of his to their
jubilating at the annual reunion.
As for the train, it went winding its leisurely and devious way down the
branch line toward the Junction, stopping now and then at small country
stations. The air that poured in through the open windows was sweet
and heavy with Maytime odors of blossoming and blooming. In the tobacco
patches the adolescent plants stood up, fresh and velvet-green. Mating
red birds darted through every track-side tangle of underbrush and
wove threads of living flame back and forth over every sluggish, yellow
creek; and sparrowhawks teetered above the clearings, hunting early
grasshoppers. Once in a while there was a small cotton-patch.
It was warm--almost as warm as a summer day. The two girls fanned
themselves with their handkerchiefs and constantly brushed cinders
off their starched blouses. Mrs. Mc-Laurin, buttoned in to her rounded
throat, sat bolt-upright, the better to keep wrinkles from marring the
flawless fit of her regimentals. She suffered like a Christian martyr of
old, smiling with a sweet content--as those same Christian martyrs are
said to have suffered and smiled. Judge Priest, sitting one seat to the
rear of her, with Major Covington alongside him, napped lightly with his
head against the hot red plush of the seat-back. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby
found the time fitting and the audience receptive to his celebrated and
more than familiar story of what on a certain history-making occasion
he heard General Breckinridge say to General Buckner, and what General
Buckner said to General Breckinridge in reply.
In an hour or so they began to draw out of the lowlands fructifying in
the sunlight, and in among the craggy foothills. Here the knobs stood
up, like the knuckle-bones of a great rough hand laid across the
peaceful countryside. “Deadenings” flashed by, with the girdled,
bleached tree-trunks rising, deformed and gaunt, above the young
corn. The purplish pink of the redbud trees was thick in clumps on the
hillsides. The train entered a cut with a steep fill running down on one
side and a seamed cliff standing close up on the other. Small saplings
grew out of the crannies in the rocks and swung their boughs downward so
that the leaves almost brushed the dusty tops of the coaches sliding by
beneath them.
Suddenly, midway of this cut, there came a grinding and sliding of the
wheels--the cars began creaking in all their joints as though they would
rack apart; and, with a jerk which wakened Judge Priest and shook the
others in their seats, the train halted. From up ahead somewhere, heard
dimly through the escape of the freed steam, came a confusion of shouted
cries. Could they be nearing the Junction so soon? Mrs. McLaurin felt
in a new handbag--of gray broadcloth with a gold clasp, to match her
uniform--for a powder-rag. Then she shrank cowering back in her place,
for leaping briskly up the car steps there appeared, framed in the open
doorway just beyond her, an armed man--a short, broad man in a flannel
shirt and ragged overalls, with a dirty white handkerchief bound closely
over the bridge of his nose and shielding the lower part of his face. A
long-barreled pistol was in his right hand and a pair of darting, evilly
disposed eyes looked into her startled ones from under the brim of a
broken hat.
“Hands up, everybody!” he called out, and swung his gun right and left
from his hip, so that its muzzle seemed to point all ways at once.
“Hands up, everybody--and keep 'em up!”
Behind this man, back to back with him, was the figure of another man,
somewhat taller, holding similar armed dominion over the astounded
occupants of the day-coach. This much, and this much only, in a flash
of time was seen by Uncle Zach Matthews and Judge Priest's Jeff, as,
animated by a joint instantaneous impulse, they slid off their seat
at the other end of the car and lay embraced on the floor, occupying a
space you would not have believed could have contained one darky--let
alone two. And it was seen more fully and at greater length by the gray
veterans as their arms with one accord rose stiffly above the level of
their heads; and also it was seen by the young matron, the sponsor and
the maid of honor, as they huddled together, clinging to one another
desperately for the poor comfort of close contact. Little Rita
Covington, white and still, looked up with blazing gray eyes into the
face of the short man with the pistol. She had the palms of both her
hands pressed tightly against her ears. Rita was brave enough--but she
hated the sound of firearms. Where she half knelt, half crouched, she
was almost under the elbow of the intruder.
The whole thing was incredible--it was impossible! Train robberies had
passed out of fashion years and years before. Here was this drowsing,
quiet country lying just outside the windows, and the populous Junction
only a handful of miles away; but, incredible or not, there stood the
armed trampish menace in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder with an
accomplice. And from outside and beyond there came added evidence to the
unbelievable truth of it in the shape of hoarse, unintelligible commands
rising above a mingling of pointless outcries and screams.
“Is this a joke, sir, or what?” demanded Major Covington, choking with
an anger born of his own helplessness and the undignifiedness of his
attitude.
“Old gent, if you think it's a joke jest let me ketch you lowerin' them
arms of yourn,” answered back the yeggman. His words sounded husky,
coming muffled through the handkerchief; but there was a grim threat
in them, and for just a breathless instant the pistol-barrel stopped
wavering and centered dead upon the major's white-vested breast.
“Set right still, major,” counseled Judge Priest at his side, not firing
his eyes off the muffled face. “He's got the drop on us.”
“But to surrender without a blow--and we all old soldiers too!” lamented
Major Covington, yet making no move to lower his arms.
“I know--but set still,” warned Judge Priest, his puckered glance
taking toll sideways of his fellow travelers--all of them with chagrin,
amazement and indignation writ large upon their faces, and all with arms
up and palms opened outward like a calisthenic class of elderly gray
beards frozen stiff and solid in the midst of some lung-expanding
exercise. Any other time the picture would have been funny; but now it
wasn't. And the hold-up man was giving his further orders.
“This ain't no joke and it ain't no time for foolin'. I gotter work fast
and you all gotter keep still, or somebody'll git crippled up bad!”
With his free hand he pulled off his broken derby, revealing matted red
hair, with a dirty bald spot in the front. He held the hat in front of
him, crown down.
“I'm goin' to pass through this car,” he announced, “and I want
everybody to contribute freely. You gents will lower one hand at a
time and git yore pokes and kettles--watches and wallets--out of yore
clothes. And remember, no monkey business--no goin' back to yore hip
pockets--unless you wanter git bored with this!” he warned; and he
followed up the warning with a nasty word which borrowed an added
nastiness coming through his rag mask.
His glance flashed to the right, taking in the quivering figures of the
two girls and the young woman. “Loidies will contribute too,” he added.
“Oh!” gasped Mrs. McLaurin miserably; and mechanically her right hand
went across to protect the slender diamond bracelet on her left wrist;
while tall Miss Lyon, crumpled and trembling, pressed herself still
farther against the side of the car, and Rita Covington involuntarily
clutched the front of her blouse, her fingers closing over the little
chamois-skin bag that hung hidden there, suspended by a ribbon about her
throat. Rita was an only daughter and a pampered one; her father was
the wealthiest man in town and she owned handsomer jewels than an
eighteen-year-old girl commonly possesses. The thief caught the meaning
of those gestures and his red-rimmed eyes were greedy.
“You dog, you!” snorted old Doctor Lake; and he, like the major,
sputtered in the impotence of his rage. “You're not going to rob these
ladies too?”
“I'm a-goin' to rob these loidies too,” mimicked the thief. “And you,
old gent, you'd better cut out the rough talk.” Without turning his
head, and with his pistol making shifting fast plays to hold the car in
subjection, he called back: “Slim, there's richer pickin' here than we
expected. If you can leave them rubes come help me clean up.”
“Just a second,” was the answer from behind him, “till I git this bunch
hypnotized good.”
“Now then,” called the red-haired man, swearing vilely to emphasize
his meaning, “as I said before, cough up! Loidies first--you!” And he
motioned with his pistol toward Mrs. McLaurin and poked his hat out at
her. Her trembling fingers fumbled at the clasp of her bracelet a moment
and the slim band fell flashing into the hat.
“You are no gentleman--so there!” quavered the unhappy lady, as a small,
gemmed watch with a clasp, and a silver purse, followed the bracelet.
Bessie Lyon shrank farther and farther away from him, with sobbing
intakes of her breath. She was stricken mute and helpless with fear.
“Now then,” the red-haired man was addressing Rita, “you next. Them
purties you've got hid there inside yore shirt--I'll trouble you for
them! Quick now!” he snarled, seeing that she hesitated. “Git 'em out!”
“I ca-n't,” she faltered, and her cheeks reddened through their dead
pallor; “my waist--buttons--behind. I can't and I won't.”
The thief shifted his derby hat from his left hand to his right, holding
it fast with his little finger hooked under the brim, while the other
fingers kept the cocked revolver poised and ready.
“I'll help you,” he said; and as the girl tried to dodge away from him
he shoved a stubby finger under the collar of her blouse and with a hard
jerk ripped the lace away, leaving her white neck half bare. At her cry
and the sound of the tearing lace her father forgot the threat of the
gunbarrel--forgot everything.
“You vile hound!” he panted. “Keep your filthy hand off of my daughter!”
And up he came out of his seat. And old Judge Priest came with him, and
both of them lunged forward over the seatback at the ruffian, three feet
away.
So many things began to happen then, practically all simultaneously,
that never were any of the active participants able to recall exactly
just what did happen and the order of the happening. It stood out
afterward, though, from a jumble of confused recollections, that young
Mrs. McLaurin screamed and fainted; that Bessie Lyon fainted quietly
without screaming; and that little Rita Covington neither fainted nor
screamed, but snatched outward with a lightning quick slap of her hand
at the fist of the thief which held the pistol, so that the bullet,
exploding out of it with a jet of smoke, struck in the aisle instead of
striking her father or Judge Priest. It was this bullet, the first and
only one fired in the whole mix-up, that went slithering diagonally
along the car floor, guttering out a hole like a worm-track in the wood
and kicking up splinters right in the face of Unde Zach Matthews and
Judge Priest's Jeff as they lay lapped in tight embrace, so that they
instantly separated and rose, like a brace of flushed blackbirds, to the
top of the seat in front. From that point of vantage, with eyes popped
and showing white all the way round, they witnessed what followed in the
attitude of quiveringly interested onlookers.
All in an instant they saw Major Covington and Judge Priest struggling
awkwardly with the thief over the intervening seatback, pawing at him,
trying to wrest his hot weapon away from him; saw Mrs. McLaurin's head
roll back inertly; saw the other hold-up man pivot about to come to
his bleaguered partner's aid; and saw, filling the doorway behind this
second ruffian, the long shape of old man Press Harper, as he threw
himself across the joined platforms upon their rear, noiseless as a
snake and deadly as one, his lean old face set in a square shape of
rage, his hot red hair erect on his head like a Shawnee's scalplock, his
gaunt, long arms upraised and arched over and his big hands spread like
grapples. And in that same second the whole aisle seemed filled with
gray-coated, gray-haired old men, falling over each other and impeding
each other's movements in their scrambling forward surge to take a hand
in the fight.
To the end of their born days those two watching darkies had a story to
tell that never lost its savor for teller or for audience--a story of
how a lank, masked thief was taken by surprise from behind; was choked,
crushed, beaten into instant helplessness before he had a chance to aim
and fire; then was plucked backward, lifted high in the arms of a man
twice his age and flung sidelong, his limbs flying like a whirligig as
he rolled twenty feet down the steep slope to the foot of the fill. But
this much was only the start of what Uncle Zach and Judge Priest's Jeff
had to tell afterward.
For now, then, realizing that an attack was being made on his rear, the
stockier thief broke Judge Priest's fumbling grip upon his gun-hand and
half swung himself about to shoot the unseen foe, whoever it might
be; but, as he jammed its muzzle into the stomach of the newcomer and
pressed the trigger, the left hand of old Harper closed down fast upon
the lock of the revolver, so that the hammer, coming down, only pinched
viciously into his horny thumb. Breast to breast they wrestled in that
narrow space at the head of the aisle for possession of the weapon. The
handkerchief mask had fallen away, showing brutal jaws covered with a
red stubble, and loose lips snarled away from the short stained teeth.
The beleaguered robber, young, stocky and stout, cursed and mouthed
blasphemies; but the old man was silent except for his snorted breathing
and his frame was distended and swollen with a terrible Berserker lust
of battle.
While Major Covington and Judge Priest and the foremost of the others
got in one another's way and packed in a solid, heaving mass behind the
pair, all shouting and all trying to help, but really not helping at
all, the red ruffian, grunting with the fervor of the blow, drove his
clenched fist into old Harper's face, ripping the skin on the high
Indian cheekbone. The old man dealt no blows in return, but his right
hand found a grip in the folds of flesh at the tramp's throat and the
fingers closed down like iron clamps on his wind.
There is no telling how long a man of Harper's age and past habits might
have maintained the crushing strength of that hold, even though rage had
given him the vigor of bygone youth; but the red-stubbled man, gurgling
and wriggling to be free, began to die of suffocation before the grip
weakened. To save himself he let go of the gunbutt, and the gun fell and
bounced out of sight under a seat. Bearing down with both hands and
all his might and weight upon Harper's right wrist, he tore the other's
clasp off his throat and staggered back, drawing the breath with sobbing
sounds back into his bursting lungs. He would have got away then if he
could, and he turned as though to flee the length of the car and escape
by the rear door.
The way was barred, by whooping, panting old men, hornet-hot. Everybody
took a hand or tried to. The color-bearer shoved the staff of the flag
between his legs and half tripped him, and as he regained his feet
Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, jumping on a seat to get at him over the bobbing
heads of his comrades, dealt him a glancing, clumsy blow on the shoulder
with the muzzle of his old musket. Major Covington and Judge Priest were
still right on him, bearing their not inconsiderable bulk down upon his
shoulders.
He could have fought a path through these hampering forces. Wrestling
and striking out, he half shoved, half threw them aside; but there
was no evading the gaunt old man who bore down on him from the other
direction. The look on the face of the old warlock daunted him. He
yelled just once, a wordless howl of fear and desperation, and the yell
was smothered back into his throat as Harper coiled down on him like a
python, fettering with his long arms the shorter, thicker arms of
the thief, crushing his ribs in, smothering him, killing him with a
frightful tightening pressure. Locked fast in Harper's embrace, he went
down on his back underneath; and now--all this taking place much faster
than it has taken me to write it or you to read it--the old man reared
himself up. He put his booted foot squarely on the contorted face of the
yeggman and twisted the heel brutally, like a man crushing a worm, and
mashed the thief's face to pulp. Then he seized him by the collar of his
shirt, dragged him like so much carrion back the length of the car, the
others making a way for him, and, with a last mighty heave, tossed him
off the rear platform and stood watching him as he flopped and rolled
slackly down the steep grade of the right-of-way to the gully at the
bottom.
All this young Jeff and Uncle Zach witnessed, and at the last they began
cheering. As they cheered there was a whistle of the air and the cars
began to move--slowly at first, with hard jerks on the couplings; and
then smoother and faster as the wheels took hold on the rails', and the
track-joints began to click-clack in regular rhythm. And, as the train
slid away, those forward who mustered up the hardihood to peer out of
the windows saw one man--a red-haired, half-bald one--wriggling
feebly at the foot of the cut, and another one struggling to his feet
uncertainly, meanwhile holding his hands to his stunned head; and,
still farther along, a third, who fled nimbly up the bank and into the
undergrowth beyond, without a backward glance. Seemingly, all told,
there had been only three men concerned in the abortive holdup.
Throughout its short length the train sizzled with excitement and
rang with the cries of some to go on and of others to go back and make
prisoners of the two crippled yeggs; but the conductor, like a wise
conductor, signaled the engineer to make all speed ahead, being glad
enough to have saved his train and his passengers whole. On his way
through to take an inventory of possible damage and to ascertain the
cause of things, he was delayed in the day-coach by the necessity of
calming a hysterical country woman, so he missed the best part of what
was beginning to start in the decorated rear coach.
There Mrs. McLaurin and tall Miss Lyon were emerging from their fainting
fits, and little Rita Covington, now that the danger was over and past,
wept in a protecting crook of her father's arm. Judge Priest's Jeff was
salvaging a big revolver, with one chamber fired, from under a seat.
Eight or nine old men were surrounding old Press Harper, all talking
at once, and all striving to pat him on the bade with clumsy, caressing
slaps. And out on the rear platform, side by side, stood Sergeant Jimmy
Bagby and Corporal Jake Smedley; the corporal was wildly waving his silk
flag, now unfurled to show the blue St. Andrew's cross, white-starred
on a red background, waving it first up and down and then back and forth
with all the strength of his arms, until the silk square popped and
whistled in the air of the rushing train; the sergeant was going through
the motions of loading and aiming and firing his ancient rusted musket.
And at each imaginary discharge both of them, in a cracked duet, cheered
for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy!
Just about then the locomotive started whistling for the Junction;
outlying sheds and shanties, a section house and a water-tank or
so began to flitter by. At the first blast of the whistle all the
lingering fire of battle and victory faded out of Harper's face and he
sat down heavily in a seat, fumbling at the inner breast pocket of his
coat. There was a bloody smear high up on his cheek and blood dripped
from the ball of his split thumb.
“Boys, there's some fight left in us yet,” exulted Captain Shelby
Woodward, “and nobody knows it better than those two scoundrels back
yonder! We all took a hand--we all did what we could; but it was you,
Press--it was you that licked 'em both--single-handed! Boys,” he roared,
glancing about him, “won't this make a story for the reunion--and
won't everybody there be making a fuss over old Press!” He stopped
then--remembering.
“I don't go through with you,” said old Press, steadily enough. “I git
off here. You fellers are goin' on through--but I git off here to wait
for the other train.”
“You don't do no such of a thing!” broke in Judge Priest, his voice
whanging like a bowstring. “Press Harper, you don't do no such of a
thing. You give me them papers!” he demanded almost roughly. “You're
goin' right on through to the reunion with the rest of us--that's where
you're goin'. You set right where you are in this car, and let little
Rita Covington wipe that there blood off your face and tie up that thumb
of yours. Why, Press, we jest naturally couldn't get along without you
at the reunion. Some of us are liable to celebrate a little too much and
maybe git a mite overtaken, and we'll be needin' you to take care of us.
“You see, boys,” the old judge went on, with a hitch in his voice,
addressing than generally, “Press here is under a pledge to me not
to touch another drop of licker till he begins servin' the sentence I
imposed on him; and, boys, that means Press is goin'' to be a temperance
man for the balance of his days--if I know anything about the pardonin'
power and the feelin's of the governor of this state!”
So, as the accommodation ran in to the Junction, where crowds were
packed on the platform and pretty girls, dressed in white, with touches
of red at throat and belt, waved handkerchiefs, and gimpy-legged old
men in gray uniforms hobbled stiffly back and forth, and the local band
blared out its own peculiar interpretation of My Old Kentucky Home,
the tall old man with the gashed cheek sat in his seat, his face
transfigured with a great light of joy and his throat muscles clicking
with the sobs he was choking down, while little Rita Covington's fingers
dabbed caressingly at his wound with a handkerchief dipped in ice water
and a dozen old veterans jostled one another to shake his hand. And they
hit him on the back with comradely blows--and maybe they did a little
crying themselves. But Sergeant Jimmy Bagby and Corporal Jacob Smedley
took no part in this. Out on the rear platform they still stood, side by
side, waving the flag and firing the unfirable musket harder and faster
than ever; and, as one waved and the other loaded and fired, they
cheered together:
“'Rah for Jefferson Davis, the Southern Confederacy--and Pressley G.
Harper!”