ALL were smoking and silent. Several spoke from the shadows as Rome
stepped on the porch, and Rufe Stetson faced him a moment in the
doorway, and laughed.
“Seem kinder s'prised?” he said, with a searching look. “Wasn't lookin'
for me? I reckon I'll s'prise sev'ral ef I hev good-luck.”
The subtlety of this sent a chuckle of appreciation through the porch,
but Rome passed in without answer.
Isom lay on his bed within the circle of light, and his face in the
brilliant glow was white, and his eyes shone feverishly. “Rome,” he
said, excitedly, “Uncle Rufe's hyeh, 'n' they laywayed him, 'n'----”
He paused abruptly. His mother came in, and at her call the mountaineers
trooped through the covered porch, and sat down to supper in the
kitchen. They ate hastily and in silence, the mother attending their
wants, and Rome helping her. The meal finished, they drew their chairs
about the fire. Pipes were lighted, and Rufe Stetson rose and closed the
door.
“Thar's no use harryin' the boy,” he said; “I reckon he'll be too puny to
take a hand.”
The mother stopped clearing the table, and sat on the rock hearth close
to the fire, her withered lips shut tight about a lighted pipe, and her
sunken eyes glowing like the coal of fire in its black bowl. Now and
then she would stretch her knotted hands nervously into the flames, or
knit them about her knees, looking closely at the heavy faces about her,
which had lightened a little with expectancy. Rufe Stetson stood before
the blaze, his hands clasped behind him, and his huge figure bent in
reflection. At intervals he would look with half-shut eyes at Rome, who
Sat with troubled face outside the firelight. Across the knees of Steve
Marcum, the best marksman in the mountains, lay the barrel of a new
Winchester. Old Sam Day, Rufe's father-in-law and counsellor to the
Stetsons for a score of years, sat as if asleep on the opposite side of
the fireplace from the old mother, with his big square head pressed down
between his misshapen shoulders.
“The time hev come, Rome.” Rufe spoke between the puffs of his pipe, and
Rome's heart quickened, for every eye was upon him. “Thar's goin' to
be trouble now. I hear as how young Jasper hev been talkin' purty tall
about ye--'lowin' as how ye air afeard O' him.”
Rome felt his mother's burning look. He did not turn toward her nor
Rufe, but his face grew sullen, and his voice was low and harsh.
“I reckon he'll find out about that when the time comes,” he said,
quietly-too quietly, for the old mother stirred uneasily, and
significant glances went from eye to eye. Rufe did not look up from the
floor. He had been told about Rome's peculiar conduct, and, while the
reason for it was beyond guessing, he knew the temper of the boy and
how to kindle it. He had thrust a thorn in a tender spot, and he let it
rankle. How sorely it did rankle he little knew. The voice of the woman
across the river was still in Rome's ears. Nothing cuts the mountaineer
to the quick like the name of coward. It stung him like the lash of
an ox-whip then; it smarted all the way across the river and up the
mountain. Young Jasper had been charging him broadcast with cowardice,
and Jasper's people no doubt believed it. Perhaps his own did--his
uncle, his mother. The bare chance of such a humiliation set up an
inward rage. He wondered how he could ever have been such a fool as to
think of peace. The woman's gossip had swept kindly impulses from his
heart with a fresh tide of bitterness, and, helpless now against its
current, he sullenly gave way, and let his passions loose to drift with
it.
“Whar d' ye git the guns, Rufe?” Steve was testing the action of the
Winchester with a kindling look, as the click of the locks struck softly
through the silence.
“Jackson; 'way up in Breathitt, at the eend of the new road.”
“No wonder y'u've been gone so long.”
“I had to wait thar fer the guns, 'n' I had to travel atter dark comm'
back, 'n' lay out'n the bresh by day. Hit's full eighty mile up thar.”
“Air ye shore nobody seed ye?”
The question was from a Marcum, who had come in late, and several
laughed. Rufe threw back his dusty coat, which was ripped through the
lapel by a bullet.
“They seed me well 'nough fer that,” he said, grimly, and then he looked
toward Rome, who thought of old Jasper, and gave back a gleam of fierce
sympathy. There were several nods of approval along with the laugh that
followed. It was a surprise--so little consideration of an escape so
narrow--from Rufe; for, as old Gabe said, Rufe was big and good-natured,
and was not thought fit for leadership. But there was a change in him
when he came back from the West. He was quieter; he laughed less No one
spoke of the difference; it was too vague; but every one felt it, and it
had an effect. His flight had made many uneasy, but his return, for that
reason, brought a stancher fealty from these; and this was evident now.
All eyes were upon him, and all tongues, even old Sam's, waited now for
his to speak.
“Whut we've got to do, we've got to do mighty quick,” he began, at last.
“Things air changin'. I seed it over thar in Breathitt. The soldiers
'n' that scar-faced Jellico preacher hev broke up the fightin' over
thar, 'n' ef we don't watch out, they'll be a-doin' it hyeh, when we
start our leetle frolic. We hain't got no time to fool. Old Jas knows
this as well as me, 'n' thar's goin' to be mighty leetle chance fer
'em to layway 'n' pick us off from the bresh. Thar's goin' to be fa'r
fightin' fer once, thank the Lord. They bushwhacked us dunn' the war,
'n' they've laywayed us 'n' shot us to pieces ever sence; but now, ef
God A'mighty's willin', the thing's a-goin' to be settled one way or
t'other at last, I reckon.”
He stopped a moment to think. The men's breathing could be heard, so
quiet was the room, and Rufe went on telling in detail, slowly, as if to
himself, the wrongs the Lewallens had done his people. When he came to
old Jasper his voice was low, and his manner was quieter than ever.
“Now old Jas have got to the p'int whar he says as how nobody in this
county kin undersell him 'n' stay hyeh. Old Jas druv Bond Vickers out'n
the mount 'ins fer tryin' hit. He druv Jess Hale away; 'n' them two air
our kin.”
The big mountaineer turned then, and knocked the ashes from his pipe.
His eyes grew a little brighter, and his nostrils spread, but with a
sweep of his arm he added, still quietly:
“Y' all know whut he's done.”
The gesture lighted memories of personal wrongs in every breast; he had
tossed a fire-brand among fagots, and an angry light began to burn from
the eyes that watched him.
“Ye know, too, that he thinks he has played the same game with me; but
ye don't know, I reckon, that he had ole Jim Stover 'n' that mis'able
Eli Crump a-hidin' in the bushes to shoot me”--again he grasped the torn
lapel; “that a body warned me to git away from Hazlan; n' the night I
left home they come thar to kill me, 'n' s'arched the house, 'n' skeered
Mollie n' the leetle gal 'most to death.”
The mountaineer's self-control was lost suddenly in a furious oath. The
men did know, but in fresh anger they leaned forward in their chairs,
and twisted about with smothered curses. The old woman had stopped
smoking, and was rocking her body to and fro. Her lips were drawn in
upon her toothless gums, and her pipe was clinched against her sunken
breast. The head of the old mountaineer was lifted, and his eyes were
open and shining fiercely.
“I hear as how he says I'm gone fer good. Well, I have been kinder
easy-goin', hatin' to fight, but sence the day I seed Rome's dad thar
dead in his blood, I hev had jes one thing I wanted to do. Thar wasn't
no use stayin' hyeh; I seed that. Rome thar was too leetle, and they was
too many fer me. I knowed it was easier to git a new start out West,
'n' when I come back to the mount'in, hit was to do jes-whut
I'm--going--to--do--now.” He wheeled suddenly upon Rome, with one huge
hand lifted. Under it the old woman's voice rose in a sudden wail:
“Yes; 'n' I want to see it done befoh I die. I hain't hyeh fer long, but
I hain't goin' to leave as long as ole Jas is hyeh, 'n' I want ye all to
know it. Ole Jas hev got to go fust. You hear me, Rome? I'm a-talkin' to
you; I'm a-talkin' to you. Hit's yo' time now!”
The frenzied chant raised Rome from his chair. Rufe himself took up the
spirit of it, and his voice was above all caution.
“Yes, Rome! They killed him, boy. They sneaked on him, 'n' shot him to
pieces from the bushes. Yes; hit's yo' time now! Look hyeh, boys!”
He reached above the fireplace and took down an old rifle--his
brother's--which the old mother had suffered no one to touch. He held
it before the fire, pointing to two crosses made near the flash-pan.
“Thar's one fer ole Jim Lewallen! Thar's one fer ole Jas! He got Jim,
but ole Jas has got him, 'n' thar's his cross thar yit! Whar's yo' gun,
Rome? Shame on ye, boy!”
The wild-eyed old woman was before him. She had divined Rufe's purpose,
and was already at his side, with Rome's Winchester in one hand and a
clasp-knife in the other. Every man was on his feet; the door was open,
and the boy Isom was at the threshold, his eyes blazing from his white
face. Rome had strode forward.
“Yes, boy; now's the time, right hyeh before us all!”
The mother had the knife outstretched. Rome took it, and the scratch of
the point on the hard steel went twice through the stillness--“one more
fer the young un;” the voice was the old mother's--then twice again.
The moon was sinking when Rome stood in the door alone. The tramp of
horses was growing fainter down the mountain. The trees were swaying in
the wind below him, and he could just see the gray cliffs on the other
shore. The morning seemed far away; it made him dizzy looking back to it
through the tumult of the day. Somewhere in the haze was the vision of
a girl's white face--white with distress for him. Her father and her
brother he had sworn to kill. He had made a cross for each, and each
cross was an oath. He closed the door; and then he gave way, and sat
down with his head in both hands. The noises in the kitchen ceased. The
fire died away, and the chill air gathered about him. When he rose, the
restless eyes of the boy were upon him from the shadows.
X
IT was court-day in Hazlan, but so early in the morning nothing was
astir in the town that hinted of its life on such a day. But for the
ring of a blacksmith's anvil on the quiet air, and the fact that nowhere
was a church-spire visible, a stranger would have thought that the
peace of Sabbath overlay a village of God-fearing people. A burly figure
lounged in the porch of a rickety house, and yawned under a swinging
sign, the rude letters of which promised “private entertainment” for
the traveller unlucky enough to pass that way. In the one long, narrow
main street, closely flanked by log and framed houses, nothing else
human was in sight. Out from this street, and in an empty square, stood
the one brick building in the place, the court-house, brick without,
brick within; unfinished, unpencilled, unpainted; panes out of the
windows, a shutter off here and there, or swinging drunkenly on one
hinge; the door wide op en, as though there was no privacy within--a poor
structure, with the look of a good man gone shiftless and fast going
wrong.
Soon two or three lank brown figures appeared from each direction on
foot; then a horseman or two, and by and by mountaineers came in groups,
on horse and on foot. In time the side alleys and the court-house square
were filled with horses and mules, and even steers. The mountaineers
crowded the narrow street: idling from side to side; squatting for a
bargain on the wooden sidewalks; grouping on the porch of the rickety
hotel, and on the court-house steps loitering in and out of the one
store in sight. Out in the street several stood about a horse, looking
at his teeth, holding his eyes to the sun, punching his ribs, twisting
his tail; while the phlegmatic owner sat astride the submissive beast,
and spoke short answers to rare questions. Everybody talked politics,
the crop failure, or the last fight at the seat of some private war; but
nobody spoke of a Lewallen or a Stetson unless he knew his listener's
heart, and said it in a whisper. For nobody knew when the powder would
flash, or who had taken sides, or that a careless word might not array
him with one or the other faction.
A motley throng it was--in brown or gray homespun, with trousers
in cowhide boots, and slouched hats with brims curved according to
temperament, but with striking figures in it; the patriarch with long,
white hair, shorn even with the base of the neck, and bearded only
at the throat-a justice of the peace, and the sage of his district; a
little mountaineer with curling black hair and beard, and dark, fine
features; a grizzled giant with a head rugged enough to have been
carelessly chipped from stone; a bragging candidate claiming everybody's
notice; a square-shouldered fellow surging through the crowd like a
stranger; an open-faced, devil-may-care young gallant on fire with
moonshine; a skulking figure with brutish mouth and shifting eyes.
Indeed, every figure seemed distinct; for, living apart from his
neighbor, and troubling the law but little in small matters of dispute,
the mountaineer preserves independence, and keeps the edges of his
individuality unworn. Apparently there was not a woman in town. Those
that lived there kept housed, and the fact was significant. Still, it
was close to noon, and yet not a Stetson or a Lewallen had been seen.
The stores of Rufe and old Jasper were at the extremities of the town,
and the crowd did not move those ways. It waited in the centre, and
whetted impatience by sly trips in twos and three to stables or side
alleys for “mountain dew.” Now and then the sheriff, a little man with a
mighty voice, would appear on the courthouse steps, and summon a witness
to court, where a frightened judge gave instructions to a frightened
jury. But few went, unless called; for the interest was outside; every
man in the streets knew that a storm was nigh, and was waiting to see it
burst.
Noon passed. A hoarse bell and a whining hound had announced dinner
in the hotel. The guests were coming again into the streets. Eyes were
brighter, faces a little more flushed, and the “moonshine” was passed
more openly. Both ways the crowd watched closely. The quiet at each end
of the street was ominous, and the delay could last but little longer.
The lookers-on themselves were getting quarrelsome. The vent must come
soon, or among them there would be trouble.
“Thar comes Jas Lewallen!” At last. A dozen voices spoke at once. A
horseman had appeared far down the street from the Lewallen end. The
clouds broke from about the sun, and a dozen men knew the horse that
bore him; for the gray was prancing the street sidewise, and throwing
the sunlight from his flanks. Nobody followed, and the crowd was
puzzled. Young Jasper carried a Winchester across his saddle-bow, and,
swaying with the action of his horse, came on.
“What air he about?”
“He's a plumb idgit.”
“He mus' be crazy.”
“He's drunk!”
The wonder ceased. Young Jasper was reeling. Two or three Stetsons
slipped from the crowd, and there was a galloping of hoofs the other
way. Another horseman appeared from the Lewallen end, riding hastily.
The new-comer's errand was to call Jasper back. But the young dare-devil
was close to the crowd, and was swinging a bottle over his head.
“Come back hyeh, Jas! Come hyeh!” The new-comer was shouting afar off
while he galloped. Horses were being untethered from the side alleys.
Several more Lewallen riders came in sight. They could see the gray
shining in the sunlight amid the crowd, and the man sent after him
halted at a safe distance, gesticulating; and they, too, spurred
forward.
“Hello, boys!” young Jasper was calling out, as he swayed from side to
side, the people everywhere giving him way.
“Fun to-day, by ----! fun to-day! Who'll hev a drink? Hyeh's hell to the
Stetsons, whar some of 'em 'll be afore night!”
With a swagger he lifted the bottle to his lips, and, stopping short,
let it fall untouched to the ground. He had straightened in his saddle,
and was looking up the street. With a deep curse he threw the Winchester
to his shoulder, fired, and before his yell had died on his lips horse
and rider were away like a shaft of light. The crowd melted like magic
from the street. The Stetsons, chiefly on foot, did not return the
fire, but halted up the street, as if parleying. Young Jasper joined his
party, and they, too, stood still a moment, puzzled by the irresolution
of the other side.
“Watch out! they're gittin' round ye! Run for the court-house, ye
fools!-ye, run!” The voice came in a loud yell from somewhere down the
street, and its warning was just in time.
A wreath of smoke came about a corner of the house far down the street,
and young Jasper yelled, and dashed up a side alley with his followers.
A moment later judge, jury, witnesses, and sheriff were flying down the
court-house steps at the point of Lewallen guns; the Lewallen horses,
led by the gray, were snorting through the streets; their riders,
barricaded in the forsaken court-house, were puffing a stream of fire
and smoke from every window of court-room below and jury-room above.
The streets were a bedlam. The Stetsons were yelling with triumph. The
Lewallens were divided, and Rufe placed three Stetsons with Winchesters
on each side of the courthouse, and kept them firing. Rome, pale and
stern, hid his force between the square and the Lewallen store. He
was none too quick. The rest were coming on, led by old Jasper. It was
reckless, riding that way right into death; but the old man believed
young Jasper's life at stake, and the men behind asked no questions when
old Jasper led them. The horses' hoofs beat the dirt street like
the crescendo of thunder. The fierce old man's hat was gone, and his
mane-like hair was shaking in the wind. Louder-and still the Stetsons
were quiet-quiet too long. The wily old man saw the trap, and, with
a yell, whirled the column up an alley, each man flattening over his
saddle. From every window, from behind every corner and tree, smoke
belched from the mouth of a Winchester. Two horses went down; one
screamed; the other struggled to his feet, and limped away with an empty
saddle. One of the fallen men sprang into safety behind a house, and one
lay still, with his arms stretched out and his face in the dust.
From behind barn, house, and fence the Lewallens gave back a scattering
fire; but the Stetsons crept closer, and were plainly in greater
numbers. Old Jasper was being surrounded, and he mounted again, and all,
followed by a chorus of bullets and triumphant yells, fled for a wooded
slope in the rear of the court-house. A dozen Lewallens were prisoners,
and must give up or starve. There was savage joy in the Stetson crowd,
and many-footed rumor went all ways that night.
Despite sickness and Rome's strict order, Isom had ridden down to the
mill. Standing in the doorway, he and old Gabe saw up the river, where
the water broke into foam over the ford, a riderless gray horse plunging
across. Later it neighed at a gate under Wolf's Head, and Martha
Lewallen ran out to meet it. Across under Thunderstruck Knob that
night the old Stetson mother listened to Isom's story of the fight with
ghastly joy in her death-marked face.