The comfort and safety of a Southern man's guests comes before his
own. They are a part of him and more, and with grace he acknowledges
it. Even the Cracker makes you feel instantly what is in his heart.
What indignity, what insults, what injury had been visited upon Howard
Byng's guests by these outlaws when they took the boat was a matter
sure of a reckoning. Without my restraint I am certain he would have
shot down each renegade without compunction.
When they vacated the boat and furtively searched for hostile signs I
warned him again. Howard was right, the two older men made a
"bee-line" for the demolished still, rolled a stump, lifted a rock and
eagerly drank from the hidden jug. The younger one stood amid the
wreck cursing the law. He brushed the jug aside, when offered him, and
went down into the crater blasted out by my dynamite. He was joined by
the older men, evidently planning night covering from the wreck, for
the weather began to threaten in the east.
Byng's eyes glowed when I nervously touched the wires to the battery,
exploding the planted charge. Dirt and débris shot high in the air as
he ran swiftly to the spot where our outlaws were safely buried for
the time being.
We dug them out one at a time and secured their hands and feet. They
were not hurt, just surface cuts, that bled. Howard worked with the
rapidity and fierceness of a demon. I could see he had worked out a
plan. Then the two old men begged for whiskey.
"Give it to them; they'll be easier to handle," I suggested.
He gave each the jug and while they drank glared at the younger man,
the leader. He looked at the threatening clouds. It would soon be
dark. He sat down where he could see the young leader's face, whose
wolfish eyes were balls of animal fire. Howard Byng was the Georgia
Cracker again, grim, determined and terrible.
"Eph Bradshaw," he began, with set jaw, "I know you. I never tried to
hurt you. I knew you was moonshinin' here but let you alone. You hev
hurt me and you hev got ter pay. Them wimmen you put outen that boat
were my wimmen. Decent moonshiners nevah hurt wimmen. What did you do
with 'em?" he asked, suppressed, but now actually a savage.
Bradshaw looked at the eighteen-inch steel rod I had put between his
manacled hands and feet instead of a chain. Finally compelled by
Byng's savage sense of injury, he blurted, "They hev our boat; we only
tuk ut."
"What did you do with the wimmen?"
Bradshaw's eyes burned fiercer.
"Eph Bradshaw," began Byng, getting up, "if you don't tell what you
done with them wimmen, my wimmen, I'll cut yer tongue out and feed
your carcass to the dogs and buzzards."
The moonshiner believed that I would protect him as my prisoner. I
could not possibly have saved him from Howard Byng, maddened by
apprehension that his women folk had been injured or worse. Every
corpuscle in his swarthy, rugged body was aflame, his face fiendishly
illuminated.
With terrible determination, he took out a hunting knife, opened and
dropped it within reach, threw the manacled moonshiner on his back,
placed his boot on his neck, then, with his pistol barrel he pried his
mouth open, deftly pulling out the outlaw's tongue. Dropping pistol
for knife he pressed the keen edge against it and hissed, "Now will
yer tell?"
Although savage and game, the moonshiner gave in.
Whatever can be said against appealing to Judge Lynch in the South or
elsewhere, one thing stands out on close analysis--that this court is
seldom appealed to except for one thing. Womenfolk are sacred and the
least disrespect, or violation of their rights, is sufficient cause
for the summary taking of life.
Bradshaw knew with whom he had to deal and that Byng would not wait
long for his answer. A few seconds and his life would go out forever.
"We just put 'em out," he panted, as soon as he came erect and had
regained his breath.
"Where did you put 'em out?" shouted the fiercely burning Howard Byng.
"On the island. We didn't hurt 'em."
"What did you do to the man with 'em?"
Bradshaw lapsed again into sullenness until Byng moved toward him
menacingly.
"We threw him in the river because he fit us fur the boat. It's our
boat."
"You put two lone wimmen on Alligator Island and not a house fur ten
miles, and threw the man in the river 'cause he wanted to take care of
'em?" Byng paused, that he might resist the vengeance that surged
within him.
"Eph Bradshaw," said he, solemnly, "I'm going to look fur them wimmen,
an' if a hair on their heads is hurt, I'll have yer heart. I'll smash
yer skull like I would a snake." The moonshiner shrunk back and
shivered.
Byng walked down to the boats. The tide had left them on the mud. He
then gazed at the clouding sky as he returned to me.
"I'm goin' to get them wimmen. I wouldn't stay on Alligator Island a
night like this for half of Georgia. A rain is cumin' from the
northeast and it'll be nasty. You'll have the tide after midnight to
let you out with these fellers. You can bring 'em, can't you?"
"Either dead or alive," I replied.
Byng went back to the boats, and tied the oars inside the skiff. Then,
as though the boat was a cockleshell, he picked it up from the mud,
letting the center seat rest on his shoulders, and started, rifle in
hand, down through high swamp grass toward the river, three miles
away.
"You'll find me along this side of the island somewhere when the tide
brings you there," he called back out of the darkness.
I moved my manacled moonshiner to the highest part near their lookout
stump, chained the two together, and began a watch that would end with
a flood tide, eight or ten hours later. I knew what a northeast rain
was like in Georgia--bad lightning and thunder. What would become of
Mrs. Potter, little more than a girl with no knowledge of woods, and
the frail, nervous Norma, who had been so carefully and lovingly
shielded by doting parents. Then I thought of the grief and distress
of her mother and father awaiting their return, with neither Byng nor
myself there to offer advice and consolation.
I hoped devoutly Byng would find the girls and get them home before
any serious shock should result from their exposure. Then I blamed
myself for allowing the Purdues to use the moonshiners' boat.
Nothing happened before the flood tide when I got my prisoners in
their boat and started. The storm was bad, the rain came in sheets. I
got alongside the island about three in the morning, when the storm
abated somewhat. Hugging the shore closely I found Howard's skiff. It
told me the whole story. He had been unsuccessful, those girls had
been on the island all night exposed to that fearful storm without
shelter, and possibly worse.
I ran in beside the skiff, stopped my motor and listened. I heard
nothing but owls that seemed to have a voice in the deadly stillness
like human beings in sore distress. I examined the skiff again. It was
empty with the exception of the oars. I shouted time and again at the
top of my voice, only to be answered by spectral owls. I could not
leave my prisoners, so had to await for daybreak, at the first sign of
which I took them ashore and chained them to a tree.
I then removed my boots to pour the water out, as they had been full
since it began to rain. The prisoners begged for moonshine. They
looked pitiful enough, wet to the skin, dirty and bloody. I gave them
some, then filled a flask and started. The island was not wide and I
went to the lower end and back, shouting repeatedly, without results.
When I did find them at the extreme upper end, Howard Byng presented a
sorry spectacle, this wild Cracker man, with eyes bloodshot, clothed
only with pants and shirt, for he had given the girls everything else.
He had found them in the night, completely prostrated. Mrs. Potter was
paralyzed with fear and could only moan, Norma was shocked into
hysterics, lying with her head on Mrs. Potter's lap. They were in
white summer attire and their soaked clothes clung to their bodies.
At the sight of me and daylight and several swallows of moonshine,
Mrs. Potter revived enough to give serious attention to Norma, now in
sort of a deathlike coma. By vigorous rubbing and finally a stimulant,
she revived. Howard carried her in his arms, talking to her as he
would a child, telling her she would "soon be home to mamma," while I
steadied Mrs. Potter toward the boat, a half mile away. Until Norma
was delivered safely home she was his woman.
At sight of the prisoners Mrs. Potter clung to me and groaned. Howard
heard and tried to keep Norma from seeing them, but did not succeed.
Her scream would have pierced any man's heart.
Mrs. Potter realized her sister's danger, braced herself, but was
unable to do much more than wring her hands, moan and caress the young
girl. It was an unpleasant experience, and I never want to go through
it again. I know how to handle men, but drenched, starved, hysterical
women were a sorry puzzle to me, to say nothing of the three prisoners
upon whose delivery my reputation was staked.
Howard's problem was greater--he still held in his arms a slight,
nervous child, less than fifteen, paralyzed with fear and exposure,
who had again lapsed into a state of coma with attendant convulsions
caused by the sight of the authors of her sad plight.
I was not wrong when I anticipated a scene upon our arriving home. I
may have been rude to Mrs. Purdue, when she indignantly and weepingly
demanded an explanation. I told her there was not a doctor within
twenty miles and she had better take care of her children first, and
ask for explanations later. Byng did not get off so well. The "Purdue
man" finally came in with a bad bump on his head, and a story
calculated to excuse his desertion. He had been hit with an oar, for
which I felt glad, for I saw cowardice in his face, and I always did
hate a deserter.
By the time I got my men in the hands of a marshal, and on the way to
Atlanta, matters had straightened out. Mamma and Papa Purdue were
quite normal again. Then it was that I thought I detected a subtle
change in the atmosphere.