“Ter go ’way at all.”
“Well,” said Harshaw, easily, with another demonstration of somnolence,
“I’ll stay just as long as you like; you’re a clever lot of fellows, and
I’ll be contented enough, I’ll be bound. Your sitting up all night is the
only fault I’ve got to find with you.”
They apparently submitted this answer from one to the other, and each
silently canvassed it.
“Ye know too much,” said “hongry Jeb.”
“I’ll know more if I stay. I’ll find out whether you _are_ moonshining
now, sure enough, and where the still is.”
“That’s jes’ what I hev been tellin’ ye!” cried Mrs. Marvin’s shrill
voice from the ladder.
“Shet up, M’ria!” exclaimed Marvin, before “hongry Jeb” could interpose
his pacifying “Shet up, Sam.”
“Waal,” resumed Marvin, in angry perturbation, “it’s mighty
ill-convenient, yer nosin’ us out this way, up hyar, an’ many a man fixed
like me an’ Jeb would fling ye off’n a bluff, ez ef ye hed fell thar, an’
turn yer mare loose.”
Once more Harshaw’s rich, round laughter jarred the room.
“I’m in earnest,” said Marvin, sternly. “That’s what most men would do.”
“Oh no, they wouldn’t,” said Harshaw, cavalierly.
“Why wouldn’t they?” demanded Marvin, his curiosity aroused by this
strange indifference.
“Because these fellows I was hunting with will be sure to find this
place, and _they_ would know I wouldn’t go fall off a bluff of my own
accord, after such a good supper as I had here, and such a good bed.
They wouldn’t know I wasn’t allowed to sleep in it, though, on account of
a long-jawed couple like you two.”
He looked the picture of unconcern,—as if he had not really credited
their words.
“They couldn’t track ye hyar,” argued Jeb; “ground too dry in the evening
fur yer critter’s huffs to make enny mark.”
“Bless your bones!” cried Harshaw, contemptuously, “I broke a path
nigh a yard wide in the brush, and I blazed every oak-tree I met with
my hunting-knife,—look and see how hacked it is,—and I cut my name on
the first beech I came across. Think I was going to get lost in this
wilderness without leaving any way for my friends to find me? They know
pretty well where they left me. As soon as it’s light enough they’ll be
on my track.”
He lied seldom, but with startling effect. The verisimilitude of his
invention, which had flashed upon him at the last moment, carried
conviction. The other two men looked at each other in consternation.
This they thought was the secret of his ease of mind. This was the
reason that he was willing to abide with them as long as they listed.
These mysterious friends, these lurking hunters, might materialize at
any moment when day should fairly dawn. The moonshiners asked with eager
curiosity the names of the party. Marvin knew none of them, for it was a
new region to him, and his vocation restricted his social opportunities.
He had sprung up from the bed, and stood holding his ragged beard with
one hand, and gazing with perplexed eyes at the recumbent lawyer. The
frightful deed that he and his confederates had contemplated, that
had seemed their only safe recourse,—to fling the intruder over a
precipice, and to leave his mare grazing near, as if in his search he had
fallen,—had a predestined discovery through the craft of the man who had
marked the devious trail of his footsteps to their door. The moonshiner
trembled, as he stood so near this pitfall into which he had almost
stumbled.
There had been a stir on the ladder; clumsy feet descended the rickety
rungs. The movements below continued; there sounded the harsh scraping
of a shovel on the rude stones of the hearth, and presently the newly
kindled flames were crackling up the chimney; the flickering tallow dip
was not so bright that the lines of light in the crevices of the flooring
might not indicate how the room below was suddenly illumined. A smell of
frying bacon presently pervaded the midnight.
“By Gosh!” cried Marvin, rousing himself from his brown study with a
quick start, “air M’ria demented, ter set out a-cookin’ o’ breakfus’ in
the middle o’ the night?”
He turned himself suddenly about, and started down the ladder. “Hongry
Jeb,” looking after him with a keen anxiety, rose abruptly, took the
candle, and, holding it above his lean, cadaverous face, vanished by slow
degrees through the trap-door, feeling with his feet for each round of
the ladder before he trusted his weight upon it. Harshaw lifted himself
upon his elbow, watching the gradual disappearance. His face was pink
once more; the flesh that had seemed ten minutes since to hang flabbily
upon it was firm and full; his opaque blue eyes were bright; the last
feeble, ineffective rays of the vanishing candle showed his strong white
teeth between his parted red lips, and his triumphant red tongue thrust
out derisively.
Then he fell back on his pillow and tried to sleep. He felt, however, the
pressure of the excitement; his pulses, his nerves, could not so readily
accord with his calm mental conclusions, his logical inference of safety.
The tension upon his alert senses was unrelaxed. The stir below-stairs
made its incisive impression now, when he hardly cared to hear, as
before, when he had strained every faculty to listen. He knew that it
was Mrs. Marvin who had first devised the solution of the difficulty;
she had already set about its execution while she advocated the measure,
and insisted and argued with the men, who were disposed to canvass
alternatives, and doubt, and wait. Often her shrill voice broke from the
bated undertone in which they sought to conduct the conference, or she
whispered huskily, with vibrant distinctness, hardly less intelligible.
“Ye an’ Jeb take him,” she urged. “Let the t’others go an’ hide round
’bout the still. When the hunters git hyar they’ll find me an’ Mose an’
the chillen, an’ I’ll tell ’em my old man be gone with Mr. Harshaw,
a-guidin’ him down the mounting. They’ll never know ez thar be enny
moonshinin’ a-goin’ on hyar-abouts,—nuthin’ ter show fur it.”
She clashed her pans and pots and kettles, in the energy of her
discourse, and Harshaw lost the muttered objection.
“Ef ye don’t,” she persisted, in her sibilant whisper,—“ef ye kill him,
fling him off’n the bluff or sech,—they’ll find the body, sure!”
A chill ran through the listener as he bent his ear.
“The buzzards or the wolves will fust, an’ them men’ll track him ter our
door, an’ track _ye_ ter the spot.”
The rain pelted on the roof; the flames roared up the chimney; the
frying meat sputtered and sizzled, and the coffee dissipated a beguiling
promissory odor. One of the men—the lawyer thought it was “hongry
Jeb”—suggested in a dolorous whisper that they could depend in no degree
on Harshaw’s promise of secrecy. No man regarded an enforced pledge as
sacred.
“Them’s all _old_ offenses, ennyhows,” argued the woman. “But this hyar,
what ye men air a-layin’ off ter do”—
“‘Ye _men_’!” sneered her husband. “_Ye_ war the bouncin’est one o’ the
whole lay-out fur doin’ of it.”
“But, Lord A’mighty,” she protested, “who’d ever hev thunk o’ sech a
smart thing ez markin’ his trail ter the very door? He mus’ be the devil.
Smart enough, ennyways!”
She clashed her pots and pans once more, and moved about heavily across
the floor.
“I ain’t misdoubtin’ but what he _air_ a big man whar he hails from, an’
they sets store by him, an’ they’d be mighty apt ter stir round powerful
arter him ef he was los’. An’ this would be a new offense,—sure ter git
fund out. An’ Lord knows, we-uns hev been runned mighty nigh ter the
jumpin’-off place from the face o’ the yearth, an’ I want ter be let ter
set down, an’ ketch my breath, an’ see Philetus grow an’ git hearty, an’
let me hev a chance ter die in peace.”
Once more Jeb’s rumbling voice rose along the stairway.
“Shet up, Jeb!” she cried. “Ye hev jes’ been a-settin’ thar all the
night a-shakin’ yer head, an’ a-lowin’ ye wisht he hed done suthin’ mean
ter ye, so ez in gittin’ rid o’ him yer feelins wouldn’t be hurt. Now
yer feelins air safe, an’ ye ain’t got no mo’ thankfulness ’n that thar
cross-eyed, mangy hound fur the loan o’ a pipe.”
The mystery of cerebration; the strange, unmeasured force which works
in uncomprehended methods to unforeseen results; the subtle process
now formulating, and now erasing, an idea, like the characters of a
palimpsest, was never so potently present to Harshaw as in contemplating
the inspiration, the lucky thought, that had given him back to life,
to hope, to sheer identity. He took himself to task, knowing that the
obvious, the natural, the simple suggestion had lain all the evening in
his mind, waiting the effective moment. He reproached himself that he
should have suffered the agony of fright which he had endured. “I might
have known,” he argued within himself, in his bluff vanity, “that _I_’d
come out all right.”
He fell asleep, presently, and when he was roused he rose with so genuine
a reluctance that the last lurking doubt which Marvin and “hongry Jeb”
had entertained vanished, as he went yawning down the ladder.
“I hate ter hev ter turn ye out’n my house ’fore day,” Marvin remarked,
“but ye know I’m hunted like a b’ar, or suthin’ wild, an’ I can’t be
expected ter show manners like folks. Me an’ Jeb air a-goin’ ter take ye
pretty fur off, so ez ye kin never find yer way back, an’ by daylight
ye’ll be set in yer road. I’m hopin’ yer friends won’t git hyar; ef they
does, I don’t want ’em ter kem in, an’ ef they hain’t got no reason ter
stop I reckon they’ll go on. I’m powerful sorry ye kem along.”
“Though ye be toler’ble good com’p’ny, an’ we-uns ain’t got nuthin’ agin
you-uns,” remarked “hongry Jeb,” politely.
“’Kase,” continued Marvin, in a sing-song fashion, as he sat down at his
table, on which the corn-dodgers and bacon smoked, “’kase we-uns air
hunted an’ driv by the law,—ez ’lows we sha’n’t still our own corn ef we
air a mind ter,—we hev been afeard ye’d tell ’bout’n we-uns an’ whar we
air hid.”
“What for?” demanded Harshaw, with an incidental manner. He too was
seated at the board; one elbow was on it, and he passed his hand over his
eyes and yawned as he spoke. “So as to be dead sure to get beat like hell
the next time I run for anything? An informer is mighty unpopular, no
matter what he has got to tell. And make the biggest kind of hole in my
law practice?”
“That’s a fac’,” said Jeb, impressed with the logic of this proposition.
“The favor of Cherokee and Kildeer counties is the breath of my political
life, and you don’t catch me a-fooling with it by letting my jaw wag too
slack,” continued Harshaw.
Philetus, the only member of the family that had gone to bed, slumbered
peacefully in a small heap under the party-colored quilts. The dancing
firelight revealed his yellow head, and again it was undistinguishable in
the brown shadow. The pullet and Mose sat on a bench at one side of the
fire, and the moonshiners tilted their chairs back on the hind legs, and
watched the bright and leaping flames, which were particularly clear, the
fire being rekindled upon a warm hearth and in a chimney already full of
hot air. The occasional yawning of the group gave the only indication
of the hour. The sharp-faced woman sat in her chair, with folded arms,
and ever and anon gazing at her guest, who had so strangely commended
himself. His clever ruse to insure being followed by his friends had
induced infinite admiration of his acumen.
“I reckon ef ye wanted ter go ter Congress or sech, thar wouldn’t be
nuthin’ ter hender,” she said slowly, contemplating him.
She was a simple woman, and he a wise man. He flushed with pleasure to
hear his cherished thought in another’s words. He bore himself more
jauntily at the very suggestion. He toyed with his knife and fork as he
protested.
“There’s a mighty long road to travel ’twixt me and Congress.”
“Waal, you-uns kin make it, I’ll be bound,” she said.
And he believed her.
As he rose from the table, at the conclusion of the meal, he took out his
purse.
“Nare cent,” said Marvin hastily. “We-uns hev been obligated by yer
comp’ny, an’ air powerful pleased ter part in peace.”
Harshaw insisted, however, on leaving his knife for Philetus, and
expressed regret that one of the blades was broken.
“He can’t cut hisself with that un, nohow,” said the anxious mother, in
graciously accepting it.
Harshaw divined that she might have valued it more if all the blades had
been in like plight. She placed it carefully on the high mantelpiece,
where, it was safe to say, Philetus would not for some years be able to
attain it.
Harshaw never forgot that ride. As the light flickered out from the door
into the black midnight, vaguely crossed with slanting lines of rain,
to the rail-fence where his mare stood, saddled, the pistols in the
holster, he experienced an added sense of confidence in his own methods
and capacities, and an intense elation that so serious an adventure had
terminated with so little injury.
When he was in the saddle he looked back at the little house, crouching
in the infinite gloom of the night and the vast forests that overhang
it, with no fierce recollection of his trepidation, of his deadly
and imminent peril. In conducting himself with due regard for the
representations he had made, his mental attitude had in some sort adapted
itself to his manner, and he felt as unconcerned, as easy, as friendly,
as he looked. He hallooed back a genial adieu to the household standing
in the doorway, in the flare of the fire. Philetus, roused by the noise
to the sense of passing events, appeared in the midst, rubbing his eyes
with both hands. The group gave the guest godspeed, the dogs wagged
their tails. As Harshaw rode out of the inclosure, the vista of the room
seemed some brilliant yellow shaft sunk in the dense darkness. And then
he could see nothing: the rain fell in the midst of the black night; he
felt it on his hands, his face, his neck; he turned up the collar of
his coat; he heard the hoofs of his mare splashing in the puddles, and
he marveled how the beast could see or follow Jeb, who, mounted on the
smaller of Marvin’s two mules, led the way, while Marvin himself brought
up the rear. He could only trust to the superior vision of the animal,
and adjust himself to the motion which indicated the character of the
ground they traversed: now through tangles and amongst rocks; now coming
almost to a halt, as the mare stepped over the fallen bole of a tree; now
a sudden jump, clearing unseen obstructions; now down hill, now up; now
through the rushing floods of a mountain torrent. Harshaw’s buoyant mood
maintained itself; his bluff voice sounded in the midst of the dreary
rainfall, and his resonant, gurgling laugh over and again rang along the
dark, wintry fastnesses. His geniality was communicated to the other men,
and the conversation carried on at long range was animated and amicable.
“I wonder what’s become of those scamps I was hunting with,” he
remarked. “I just know that shed of pine branches they fixed has leaked
on ’em this night. I’ll bet they’re wallowin’ in mud.” He experienced a
certain satisfaction in the thought. They had not been so badly scared
as he, but at all events the camp hunters could not be happy under these
circumstances.
How vast, how vast was the wilderness! Unseen, it gave an impression of
infinite space. The wind clashed the bare boughs above his head. The
pines wailed and groaned aloud. The commotion of the elements, the many
subordinate, undetermined sounds, the weird, tumultuous voices of the
forest, rising often to a terrible climax, had a mysterious, overpowering
effect. It was a relief to detect a familiar note in the turmoil, even if
it were the howl of a wolf, or the distant crash of a riven tree. How his
mare plunged and floundered!—her head and neck now high before him, till
he almost fell back upon her haunches, and now diving down so low that he
had much ado to keep from slipping over the pommel.
“Well, Marvin,” said Harshaw, once more on level ground, “if you and Jeb
will come down to my farm and visit me, I’ll promise you one thing,—I
won’t turn you out of the house at midnight in a down-pour like this—ha!
ha! ha! Confound you, old lady,”—to the mare, as she stumbled,—“stand up,
can’t you?”
“You-uns oughtn’t ter set us down that-a-way,” said Marvin, grieved at
the reflection on his hospitality.
“Lord A’mighty!” exclaimed “hongry Jeb,”—his tones from out of the
darkness were vaguely yearning,—“talkin’ ter me ’bout ever kemin’ ter
see ennybody at thar farm! Ye mought ez well ax that thar wolf ez we-uns
hearn a-hollerin’ yander, ‘Jes’ kem an’ set awhile, Mister Wolf, an’ eat
supper at my farm.’ I wouldn’t dare no mo’ ter show my muzzle in the
settle_mints_ ’n he would his’n. The law ’lows both o’ us air pests an’
cumberers o’ the groun’, an’ thar’s a price on his head ez well ez mine.
The law ’lows we air both murderers.”
There was a pause, while the thud of the horses’ hoofs was barely heard
on the dank, soft mould. Then the voice of “hongry Jeb” seemed to detach
itself from kindred dreary voices of the rain and the winds and the
woods, and become articulate.
“That’s edzac’ly whar it hurts my feelins. The wolf air enough mo’ like
the revenuers, a-seekin’ who they may devour. I oughter played the sheep,
I reckon, an’ gin ’em my blood stiddier lead; but I’m human,—I’m human,”
insistently. “An’ when a feller with a pistol draws a bead on me, I jes’
naterally whips up my rifle an’ bangs too. An’ he war a pore shot an’ I
war a good un, an’ he got the wust o’ it.”
The horses surged through the ford of an invisible torrent, stumbling
among the rolling bowlders and struggling out on the other bank, and
then they could hear again the monotonous falling of the multitudinous
raindrops; the dreary wind took up its refrain, and the melancholy voice
of Jeb began anew.
“’Twould hev been self-defense, ef I hedn’t been engaged in a unlawful
act, preferrin’ ter squeege the juice out’n my apples, an’ bile an’
sell it, ’n ter let ’em rot on the groun’. I war a fool. I ’lowed the
apples war mine. Me an’ my dad an’ my gran’dad hed owned the orchard an’
the lan’ sence the Injun went. But ’twarn’t my apples,—b’long ter the
governmint. I ain’t never shot at no man ez didn’t shoot at me fust. But
’tain’t self-defense fur me. I’m got ter play sheep.”
The woful tenor of this discourse seemed to anger Marvin suddenly.
“Waal, I wish ye war slartered _now_!” he broke out. “I’d jes’ ez lief
listen ter that thar wolf conversin’ by the hour. What ails ye, Jeb, ter
git set a-goin’ so all-fired lonesome an’ doleful?”
“Lord, nuthin’,” said Jeb amenably, from the van of the procession. “I
ain’t lonesome nor doleful, nuther. When Mr. Harshaw ’lowed suthin’
’bout my kemin’ ter see him on his farm, it jes’ reminded me sorter ez
when I war young, afore my diff’unce with the governmint, I used ter
be a powerful lively boy, an’ knowed plenty o’ folks, an’ went about
mightily,—never lived like I does now. I war sorter o’ a vagrantin’
boy,—used ter consort with boys in the valley, an’ they’d kem up ter the
cove an’ bide an’ go huntin’, an’ I’d go down ter thar farms; an’ that’s
how it kem I knowed whar ye live on Ow_el_ Creek. Powerful good land some
of it air,—mellow, rich sile; some cherty hillsides, though. None o’ them
boys hev turned out like me. Why, I used ter know Jeemes Gwinnan ez well
ez the road ter mill, an’ Jim’s a jedge a-gracin’ the bench, an’ I’m—a
wolf!”
Harshaw experienced a sudden quickening of interest. “You knew Gwinnan?”
“Lord, yes; ez well ez the bark knows the tree. Jeemes war a fine shot,
an’ he liked huntin’ fust-rate. He hedn’t his health very well, an’ his
mother, bein’ a widder-woman, war more’n naterally foolish ’bout’n him,
an’ war always lookin’ fur him ter die. So she’d keep him out’n doors ez
well ez she could. But he’d kerry his book along, an’ read, ’thout he war
a-huntin’. So she let him kem whenst he war jes’ a boy, an’ go huntin’ in
the mountings along o’ the men growed. An’ it done him good. He war ez
fine a shot ez I ever see.”
A wonderful thing was happening in the woods,—the familiar miracle of
dawn. The vast forests were slowly asserting dim outlines of bole and
branch, lodgment for the mist which clothed them in light and fleecy
illusions of foliage. A gray revelation of light, rather the sheer values
of distinctness than a realized medium, was unfolding before the eye.
The serried slants of rain fell at wider intervals, and the equestrian
form of Jeb became visible,—lank, lean, soaked with rain, his old white
hat shedding the water from its brim in rivulets upon his straight and
straggling hair. As he jogged along on the little mule, whose long
ears seemed alternately to whisk off the shades of night, he seemed
a forlornly inadequate individual to have had a “diff’unce with the
governmint.”
“Jim’s what reminded me of how I war fixed in life,” he went on, more
cheerfully. “An’ this hyar whole trip air what reminded me o’ Jim. I
guided him—mus’ hev been fourteen year ago, or mo’—through jes’ sech a
rainy night ez this, an’ through these hyar very woods—naw, sir! more
towards the peak o’ Thunderhead.”
“I dunno ez ye hev got enny call ter be so durned pertic’lar ’bout the
percise spot,” said Marvin, significantly.
“That’s a fac’,” said Jeb, good-naturedly. “I guided him through the
mountings an’ over the line inter the old North State.”
“What in hell did he want to go there for, in the rain and the dead of
the night?” asked Harshaw. His breath was quick; he felt that he panted
on the brink of a discovery. Now plunge!
“’Kase, stranger, he war obleeged ter, sorter like you-uns,” said Jeb
enigmatically.
He looked back over his shoulder, with perhaps some stirring doubt, some
vague suspicion, at the man who followed; but Harshaw, now lifting a hand
to thrust a branch from across the path, now adjusting the bridle about
the mare’s head, seemed so careless, so casual, in his curiosity that Jeb
was reassured as to the innocuousness of his gossip, and went on.
“Ye see, them fellers he consorted with—huntin’, an’ a-pitchin’ o’
quates, an’ a-foot-racin’, an’ sech—war mostly powerful servigrus,
gamesome folks; an’ some o’ ’em war gin ter toler’ble wild ways, an’
Jeemes—his mother never keered much what he done, so ez he’d quit
stickin’ so all-fired constant ter his law-books, ’kase he war a-studyin’
law by that time in old Squair Dinks’s law-office in Colbury—he war ’bout
twenty-two year old—he war mixed up in a deal o’ them goin’s-on. An’
from one little thing an’ another he hed some ill-will started agin him
wunst in a while. Him an’ Eph Saunders hed a fallin’-out wunst. Eph war
a tremenjious strong man, an’ he kep’ flingin’ words at Jeemes. Sence
Jeemes hed tuk ter studyin’ o’ law an’ sech, an’ ’peared right hearty, he
tuk up with town ways powerfill, an’ went ter meet’n a-Sunday nights,
escortin’ the gals, an’ dressed hisself like a plumb peacock. An’ whenst
Eph ’tended circus in Colbury he met up with Jeemes, who hed a lot o’ his
gal cousins along. An’ Eph war drunk, an’ Jim gin him a push aside, an’
Eph, he fell on the groun’. Waal, sir, it like ter killed Eph,—ter be
knocked down by a man o’ Jeemes’s weight! Jim couldn’t hev done it ef Eph
hedn’t been drunk. Eph jes’ mourned like Samson arter his hair war cut
off. Ye’d hev ’lowed he war _de_-sgraced fur life! An’, like Samson, he
warn’t a-goin’ ter bide stopped off an’ done fur. He kep’ a-sendin’ all
sorts o’ words ter Jeemes; an’ ez Jeemes never wanted no fuss with Eph,
he kep’ out’n his way for a while. An’ Eph, he ’lowed ez Jim war afeard
an’ a-hidin’. Waal, sir, that hustled up Jeemes’s feelins mightily.
He jes’ wanted ter keep out’n his mother’s hearin’, though; she war a
powerful chicken-hearted, floppy kind o’ woman,—skeered at everything.
Then Jeemes, he sent Eph word ez he warn’t a-goin’ ter be beat inter a
jelly fur nuthin’ by a man twict his size; but he war a-kemin’ up ter
settle him with his rifle. An’ Eph, he sent word he’d meet him at the big
Sulphur Spring, thar on that spur o’ the mounting nigh Gran’dad’s Creek.
Ef Jeemes so much ez dared ter cross the foot-bredge over Gran’dad’s
Creek, an’ set his foot on the t’other side, Eph swore he’d shoot him
dead. An’ Eph, he sent word ter come Chewsday an hour by sun, an’ bring
his friends ter see fair play.”
“Laws-a-massy!” exclaimed Marvin, in the fervor of reminiscence, “I kin
jes’ see that thar spot,—that thar old foot-bredge in the woods, an’ the
water high enough ter lap the under side o’ the log; ’twar hewn a-top,
an’ made toler’ble level footin’. An’ me an’ Jeb dodgin’ in the laurel,
fur fear Eph would shoot ’fore Jeemes crost.”
“Jeemes seemed toler’ble long a-crossin’,” Jeb resumed,—“I ’member that;
an’ he stopped at the furder eend, an’ lifted his rifle ter his shoulder
ter be ready ter shoot. An’ thar stood Eph, a-sightin’ him keerful ez he
kem”—
“You were both there?” said Harshaw, hastily.
“Lord, yes,” said Jeb. “Jeemes hed stayed at my dad’s house the night
afore. An’ he never brung none o’ his town friends,—afeard o’ word
gittin’ ter his mother. So me an’ Sam,—Sam, he lived nigh me,—we-uns went
along.”
“Did he kill Eph?” demanded Harshaw, the query swift with the momentum of
the wish.
“Waal, not edzac’ly,” drawled Jeb. “That’s whar the funny part kem in.
Eph, he knowed ef Jeemes shot fust he war a dead man,—mighty few sech
shots ez Jeemes,—but he warn’t a-goin’ ter murder him by shootin’ him
afore he put his foot on the groun’ an’ tuk up the dare. So he waited,
an’ Jeemes stopped short right at the aidge o’ the bredge.”
“Lord, I ’members how he looked!” cried Marvin. “He had tuk off his coat
an’ vest, though we-uns hed tole him that thar b’iled shirt o’ his’n war
a good mark for Eph, ez looked jes’ the color o’ the clay-bank ahint him,
in them brown jeans clothes. Jim’s straw hat war drawn down over his
eyes; he war jes’ about the build o’ his ramrod,—slimmest, stringiest
boy!—ez delikit-lookin’ ez a gal. One thing Eph called him, ez riled him
wuss ’n all, war ‘Miss Polly.’”
“He hev widened out mightily sence then, though he ain’t got no fat ter
spare yit,” put in Jeb.
“An’ then, suddint,” resumed Marvin, “he jes’ stepped his foot right on
the groun’. In that very minute Eph’s gun flashed. An’ I seen Jeemes
standin’ thar, still sightin’. An’ then Eph, he drapped his gun, an’ held
his hands afore his face, an’ yelled out, ‘Shoot, ef ye air a-goin’ ter
shoot! I ain’t a-goin’ ter stan’ hyar no longer.’ An’ Jeemes, he looked
ez scornful”—
“I never seen a boy’s looks with sech a cuttin’ aidge ter ’em,”
interpolated Jeb.
“An’ Jeemes, he say, ‘I ain’t a-wastin’ powder ter-day. I never ’lowed ez
skunks war game.’ An’ he drapped his gun.”
“Yes sir!” exclaimed Jeb, “he jes’ hed that much grit,—ter stan’ up ez a
shootin’ mark fur Eph Saunders, an’ prove he warn’t afeard o’ nothin’. He
did sir!”
“Why, look here, my good friends!” cried the lawyer. “That was a duel. It
was a cool, premeditated affair. They met by previous appointment, and
fought with deadly weapons and with witnesses. It was a duel.”
“Mebbe so,” said Jeb, indifferently and uncomprehendingly. “I call it
clean grit.”
“Waal,” went on Marvin, “I run across the bredge lookin’ fur Eph’s
bullet. I said, ‘Whar’d it go?’ An’ by that time Eph an’ them low down
Kitwin boys war slinkin’ off. An’ sez Jeemes, ‘Don’t let ’em know it. I
don’t want my mother ter hear ’bout it. She air fibble an’ gittin’ old.’
An’ thar I seen the breast o’ his shirt war slow a-spottin’ with blood.
Waal, sir, that’s how kem me an’ Jeb an’ him rid over the mountings inter
North Carolina, whar he hed some kinsfolks livin’ ’mongst the hills.”
“Ye see,”—Jeb again took up his testimony,—“he didn’t want the news ter
git ter his mother afore he got well, ’kase he war delikit, an’ she war
always a-lookin’ fur him ter die; an’ Eph never knowed Jim war shot, an’
couldn’t kerry the tale down ter Colbury. Waal, we-uns war all young an’
toler’ble bouncin’ fools, I tell ye, an’ we sorter got light on that fac’
whenst we-uns sot out ter ride with a man with a gun-shot wound—I furgits
’zac’ly whar the doctor say the bullet went in—miles an’ miles through
the mountings; an’ the dark kem on an’ the rain kem down, an’ Jeemes got
out’n his head. An’ this ride with you-uns air what reminded me o’ it.”
“_I_ ain’t out of my head!” cried Harshaw, with covert meaning. “You bet
your immortal soul on that!”
“Naw,”—Jeb admitted the discrepancy,—“but the rain, an’ the ride, an’ the
mountings, an’ the darksomeness.”
“Lord! a body wouldn’t hev b’lieved how Jeemes’s pride war hurt ter be
called afeard!” exclaimed Marvin. “I ’low he’d hev let Eph chop him up in
minch meat ter prove he warn’t. He air prouder of hisself ’n enny man I
ever see. Thar’s whar his soul is—in his pride.”
“I’m glad ter hear it,” said Harshaw, so definitely referring to an
occult interpretation of his own that the old white hat, bobbing along
in front of him, turned slowly, and he saw the lank, cadaverous face
below it, outlined with its limp wisps of black hair against the nebulous
vapors. So strong an expression of surprise did Jeb’s features wear
that Harshaw hastily added, “A man that ain’t got any pride ain’t worth
anything.”
“Ef he hev got ennything ter be proud of,” stipulated melancholy Jeb.
The day had fully dawned; the rain, the mists, the looming forests,
had acquired a dull verity in the stead of the vague, illusory shadows
they had been. Nevertheless, the muddy banks of the creek down which
the mare slided, her legs rigid as iron; the obstructions of the
ford,—rocks, fallen limbs of trees, floating or entangled in intricacies
of overhanging bushes,—were all rendered more difficult, for Harshaw
mechanically controlled the reins instead of trusting to the mare’s
instinct; as he sawed on the bit, while she threw back her head, foaming
at the mouth, he brought her to her knees in the midst of the stream.
The water surged up about the great boots which he wore drawn over his
trousers to the knee, and the mare regained her footing with snorting
difficulty. There were no expletives, and Jeb looked back in renewed
surprise.
“Ye mus’ be studyin’ powerful hard, stranger,” he commented, “not ter hev
seen that thar bowlder.”
“Yer beastis war a-goin’ ter take slanchwise across the ruver whar thar
warn’t nuthin’ ter hender, till ye in an’ about pulled the jaw off’n
her,” Marvin said, as Harshaw pushed through the swollen flood and up the
opposite bank. His flushed face was grave; his eyes were intent; he rode
along silently. He was indeed thinking.
He was thinking that if what they had told him were true—and how could
he doubt it?—Gwinnan in taking the official oath had committed perjury;
he was disqualified for the judicial office, and liable to impeachment.
Harshaw was vaguely repeating to himself and trying to remember the
phraseology of the anti-dueling oath exacted of every office-holder in
the State of Tennessee,—an oath that he had not directly or indirectly
given or accepted a challenge since the adoption of the Constitution of
1835.
Under what pretext, what secret reservation or evasion, had Gwinnan been
able to evade this solemn declaration? Or had he adopted the simple
expedient of swallowing it whole? Harshaw wondered, remembering all the
acerbities of Gwinnan’s canvass and election, that the old story had not
before come to light. But it was a section of frequent feuds and bloody
collisions, the subject was trite and unsuggestive, and the details of an
old fight might seem to promise no novel developments. How odd that he,
of all men, should stumble on it, in view of its most signal significance!
Auxiliary facts pressed upon his attention. Nothing that could be now
urged against an official was so prejudicial as the crime of dueling.
The episode of Kinsard’s boyish demonstration attested the temper of
the public. With much difficulty had his friends shielded him by its
ambiguity; and indeed only because it was a meaningless folly, without
intention or result, had it proved innocuous. Even Kinsard, fire-eater as
he was, had been forced to accept their interpretations of its harmless
intent, and to subside under the frown of public displeasure. The more
lenient members of the House had had cause to regret their clemency,
the disapproval of their constituents being expressed in no measured
manner by the local journals. But no ambiguity was here; this was the
accomplished fact, this the clue that long he had sought. Even if the
House should decline to act in the matter, Gwinnan could be removed by
judicial proceedings. He would think it out at his leisure. How lucky,
how lucky was this ride!
The rain had ceased at last. They were among the minor ridges that lie
about the base of the Great Smoky. They had ridden many a mile out of
their way,—Harshaw could not say in what direction,—so that he might
not easily retrace his steps. The mists still hung about them when they
turned from the almost imperceptible path, which Jeb had followed with
some keen instinct or memory, into a road,—a rough wagon track. Bushes
were growing in its midst, bowlders lay here and there; its chief claim
to identification as a highway being its occasional mud-puddles, of
appalling depth and magnitude, and its red clay mire, fetlock deep at
least.
Harshaw roused himself suddenly, as the two moonshiners intimated their
intention of parting company with him.
“Thar’s yer way, stranger,” said Marvin, pausing on the rise and pointing
down the road. It was visible only a few rods in the mist, dreary and
deserted, with deep ditches, heavily washed by the rain, on either hand;
it might seem to lead to no fair spaces, no favored destination where
one might hope to be. But Harshaw drew up his mare, and gazed along it
with kindling eyes. His felt hat drooped in picturesque curves about his
dense yellow hair, soaked like his beard, to a darker hue. His closely
buttoned coat had a military suggestion. His heavy figure was imposing on
horseback. He flushed with sudden elation. Alack! he saw more trooping
down that prosaic dirt road than the mist, hastily scurrying; than the
progress of the wind in the swaying of the stunted cedars, clinging
to the gashed and gully-washed embankments; than the last trickling
stragglers of the storm.
He did not notice, or he did not care, that the two men had remarked his
silence, his evident absorption. He glanced cursorily at them, as they
sat regarding him,—one on the little lank mule, his partner on the big
lean one, both drenched, and forlorn, and poverty-stricken, and humble
of aspect. The politician’s mare, perhaps recognizing the road down
into Kildeer County, where she had spent the first frisky years of her
toilsome pilgrimage, showed a new spirit, and caracoled as Harshaw rode
up to the two men to offer his hand.
“Farewell, stranger,” they said; and in the old-fashioned phrase of the
primitive Plain People, “Farewell,” he replied.
They stood looking after him, hardly understanding what they lacked,
what they had expected, as the mare, with a mincing, youthful freshness,
cantered a little way along the grassy margin of the road, above the
rivulets in the ditches, surging twelve or fourteen feet below.
Presently Harshaw paused, yet unobscured by the mist which had gathered
about him, and glanced over his shoulder,—not to thank them for such aid
and comfort as they had given him.
“Gentlemen,” he said, a little ill at ease because of the restive mare,
“I must thank you for the story you told me. You don’t know how much
good it did me. A pretty little story, with a pretty little hero. A very
_pretty_ little story, indeed.”
He bent his roseate, dimpled smile upon them, and waved his hand
satirically; with a bound the mare disappeared in the mist, leaving the
grave, saturnine mountaineers staring after him, and listening to the
measured hoof-beat of his invisible progress till it died in the distance.
Then they looked at each other.
“Sam,” said Jeb, when they had turned again into their fastnesses, where
they could ride only in single file, “I dunno ef we-uns done right las’
night. This worl’ would be healthier ef that man war out’n it.”
“I ain’t misdoubtin’ that none,” replied Marvin. “’Peared ter me powerful
comical, the way he took off down the road, an’ I ain’t able ter study
out yit what he meant. My gran’mam always ’lowed ez them ez talks in
riddles larnt thar speech o’ the devil, him bein’ the deceivin’ one. But
’twarn’t healthy fur we-uns ter kill him, even ef we could hev agreed ter
do it. I reckon them hunters _would_ hev tracked him. An’ I don’t b’lieve
he war no spy nor sech.”
“Nor me nuther,” said “hongry Jeb,” well enough satisfied with the
termination of the adventure, “though I ain’t likin’ him now ez well ez I
done a-fust.”
They liked him still less, and all their old suspicions returned with
redoubled force, upon reaching home, when the afternoon was well
advanced. For no hunters had yet appeared, and the lurking moonshiners,
becoming surprised because of this, had tracked Harshaw’s way to the
house by the broken brush, the hairs from the mane and tail of the
mare, a bit of his coat clutched off by the briers, the plain prints of
the mare’s hoofs along a sandy stretch protected from the rain by the
beetling ledges of a crag. There were many oak-trees along this path,—not
one blazed by a hunting-knife. They understood at last his clever lie.
And Marvin upbraided M’ria:—
“Thar air more constancy in the ways o’ the wind, an’ mo’ chance o’
countin’ on ’em, ’n that thar woman. Fust he mus’ be dragged out straight
an’ kilt,—flunged off’n the bluff,—else we-uns would all go ter jail, an’
Philetus be lef’ ter starve ’mongst the painters, ez wouldn’t keep him
comp’ny, but would eat him up. Then when the man limbered his jaw an’ sot
out ter lyin’, she gits so all-fired skeered, she hed breakfus’ cooked
for we-uns ter journey ’fore I could sati’fy my mind ’bout nuthin’. Ef
the truth war knowed, we’d all be safer ef M’ria were flunged over the
bluff.”
And Maria, staring at the line of oak-trees, all undesecrated by the
knife, could not gainsay it.
She could only wring her hands, and rock herself to and fro, and revolve
her troublous fears, and grow yet more wan and gaunt with her prescient
woes for them all—and for Philetus.