UPON THE ALTAR
The following morning, being Saturday, Cap Lutts held a conclave in the
cavern that concealed the illicit still. When the conference was over
half a dozen men were scattered about the mountain to watch for the
approach of the law, which now seemed likely.
Not until late in the day did Lutts and the boys reach the clearing and
the gospel-house. By the time they had placed the last window casement
and hung the church door nightfall was near at hand.
As the old man sat rigid on a log in the clearing, at an angle where he
could view the church--front, side, and bell-crowned roof--he was filled
with a profound, soul-satisfying joy.
Beside him sat Lem and little Bud; and the family of three regarded the
church in silent admiration, for all was now ready for the great
dedication to-morrow.
The sun had turned from yellow to a crimson glory as it made for a niche
in the haze-shrouded peaks. The billows of emerald, capped with frothy
banks of blossoms that tumbled down from the savage heights above, grew
somber as the shadows reached out and wrapped their arms about Moon
mountain.
Silhouetted across the clearing, the little church contributed a quaint
design.
In the cool laurel thickets a hidden chorus arose. A redbird dipped
through space from across the creek, and his florid wings shed a flash
of blood as he forded a shaft of fleeting sunlight.
The long-drawn cry of a she-panther echoed up from the shaggy maw of the
ravine, answered straightway by the quick, broken squall of her mate,
betraying an early forage plot. With magic minstrelsy issuing from the
thickets the wilderness evening drifted in.
With common impulse the two boys awoke from their reverie and looked up
at their father.
The joy of a moment since had gone from his eyes. As he stared in blank
pathos at the church a face rose up and blotted out the vision of the
belfry--the smiling face of his dead wife.
"Ef Maw had lived t' see thes, Lem!" deplored the old man in a faint
voice.
"Yes, ef Maw had lived, pap!" echoed Lem.
"Ef Maw had lived!" repeated the small voice at the end of the log.
"Leastways, Maw's better off 'n we-uns, boys," consoled Cap Lutts,
"'cause she air up thar whar they hain't no sorry--ner pain--ner
fightin' an' killin'--an' I 'low as how Maw air a lookin' down on hit
all now--on th' gawspel-house an' on we-uns, boys. An' say, boys, mebby
yo' pore good Maw hain't glad like--eh? Why, I kin jest see her now--I
kin see Maw now jest as plain--a smilin' an' a smilin'--an' whar----"
"Yes--so kin I," interrupted Lem reflectively.
"I kin see Maw now," supplemented little Bud.
Suddenly a look shot into the old man's eyes like the florid tongue of
flame at the muzzle of a gun. Instantly it was communicated to the two
brothers. If the volcanic fires reflected in the eyes of the men were
terrible, the molten, satanic hatred that crossed the countenance of
little Bud was appalling because of his tender years. Each knew of what
the other was thinking. Each recalled that hillside fight when Big Pete
Burton had again struggled to do his duty and a misdirected bullet had
killed Maw Lutts.
The old man kicked viciously at a root, then pointed to the belfry.
"I kin see Maw jest this minnut," he resumed, "a smilin' an' a smilin'
an' a walkin' 'mong th' folks an' a shakin' han's like she done down
Sandy thet air time th' ridin' pahson stuck fo' two weeks. I kin jest
heer her now a tellin' 'em as how Gawd an' we-uns walcums every pizen
sinnah in thes end o' Kaintucky--an' as how th' spurrut o' Gawd 'll he'p
we-uns an' stop all th' fightin' an' killin' an' cheatin' an' lyin' an'
cussin' an' chawin' 'mong th' weemanfolk.
"Jes' wait till Sabbath day--an' thet's to-morry; jest wait till th'
ridin' pahson cum t' ded'cate th' gawspel-house--I bets yo'll see a
rousin', whoppin', boostin', prayin' 'vival--yo' sho' will, boys,"
promised the old man in the heat of growing anticipation as he wafted
the rebellious hair backward with a jerk of his head.
"Aw--my soul!" ejaculated little Bud.
"An' I kin tell yo' a heap sight more, boys; I kin," promised the old
man, rubbing his huge hands together gloatingly. "One day nigh yo'll see
th' steers a pullin' a real slappin' new organ machine into th'
clearin'--yo'll see th' steers cum jest in 'twix' yon two spruces an'
pull jest roun' thar, an' stop jest a frontin' th' do'r!"
At this moment the long, ominous blast of a cow-horn echoed across the
ravine with startling import, and the utterance failed and died in the
old man's throat.
Immediately the faint note of a bell reached their ears, followed by a
second horn-call, strong and clear, farther up the gulch. The three rose
to their feet simultaneously, and the old man felt instinctively about
him for something that was not there. For the first time in his career
his groping hands encountered neither stock nor steel. The rifle was
absent!
A pallor overspread his face. With head reared like a bull elk he
listened to the portentous sounds of mountain warfare that floated into
his brain.
The pallor was not from fear. It was the mantle of chagrin--he had
forgotten for the moment where he had rested the rifle. He stood
befuddled, but alert.
His gun gone, he felt that a part of his big body had suddenly been
dismembered. The thought that he had been such a fool seemed to lock his
two feet to the ground.
Again the blare of the horn followed the notes of the bell.
"Sompin's sho' bust loose, boys!" growled the old man as the three
listened through several tense seconds. In his extremity he wondered if
he could coax the lost information out of the lad behind him.
"Han' hit heah, Lem! han' me hit!" Without turning his head he thrust
both hands behind him, his working fingers begging for the gun.
The boy, as innocent of the whereabouts of the weapon as his father,
only muttered and pointed toward the rim of the clearing. The next
second came the crackling noise of dead brush, then the sound of a rush
to the left.
The old man clenched his teeth as a horse mouths the bit, and his
birdlike eyes snapped when he saw the disheveled figure of a girl burst
through the wall of laurel that bordered the clearing. She halted for an
instant, then dashed toward them.
"Hit's Belle-Ann!" cried the awe-stricken Bud.
The girl fairly leaped over the space that intervened. Her black curls
streamed in the wind. She was wild-eyed and panting. Her bare legs were
bleeding from brush scratches, and the tatters of her torn skirt were
weighted with burs.
"He's cum! He's got through, he air! He's a cumin' now! Go! Go! Run,
Lem! Run away!" she cried in a choking riot of fear, throwing her body
against Lem and fairly pushing him before her.
"Whar's yo' gun, pap? Whar's yo' gun? Run, Lem! Fo' Gawd's sake, run
away! He's follerin' right ahin' o' me--thah! thah! thah!" she screamed
in her terror, pointing, heaving, gazing with charmed stare at the spot
where she had emerged from the thicket.
Despairing, horrified at the stunned inactivity of the Lutts men, the
frantic girl grabbed little Bud by one arm and half dragged, half
carried him across the clearing. Together they disappeared into the
undergrowth.
Then, rousing suddenly, stung to action, the old man remembered his gun
and started for the church, while Lem fell prostrate and lay close
behind the log on which they had been seated.
Old Lutts had no more than gained the threshold of the sanctuary when a
giant figure, with heaving chest, sprang into the open behind the church
and just to the right. It was Peter Burton, and the surprise was full
and complete, for his rifle was leveled at the old man's blue
shirt-front as he called:
"None of your damned nonsense now, Lutts! I've got you at last, and I
want you alive! Stand where you are!"
His voice rang triumphantly as he hurried nearer, and he leered and
cried:
"Maybe I'll take you down Blue Grass this time, eh? Well, I guess yes!"
Cap Lutts hesitated for just the fraction of a second.
In that fleeting time a horde of impossibilities raced through his
brain. The downfall that had haunted him for years was at hand.
Fear of death was beyond his comprehension, but the sting of defeat was
agonizing.
Then, glaring defiance and hatred, he whirled about and fled into the
church, and there he leaped toward the altar. With a feline bound the
big revenue detective was through the door and into the church after
him.
And now the old man had gained the pulpit itself, and was reaching for
the rifle he had left leaning against the wall.
Through the little church an ear-splitting crash rang out that fairly
rocked the walls!
In the pulpit the war-scarred moonshiner drew gently, deliberately
backward, leaving the rifle untouched. Straightening up with strange
majesty, he turned half around, and the malevolence melted away and left
his face empty of all hatred.
His eyes grew very soft, gazing upward at something beyond this world;
his lips moved in soundless speech.
Then, abruptly, his legs crumpled beneath him. He sagged and swayed for
an instant; there was a ghastly, ragged, spongy gap between his
shoulders.
Then, with a crash, the mighty form sank to the altar, and lay there
motionless upon its back, legs close together, the arms stretched
straight outward from the body.
Burton mopped his wet features and eyed his awful work without emotion.
A little the hard-breathing man-hunter pondered. Then, having taken a
fresh quid of tobacco, he levied upon his strength and lifted the body
from the pulpit, and placed it upon a bench. He wiped the blood from his
clothes and shoes and, rolling his handkerchief into a ball, tossed it
away.
He stared at the pulpit for a time.
The red blood had crawled upward and touched the old man's hoary crown.
It had traveled downward toward his heavy boots. It had followed the
coat-sleeves of his two sprawling arms.
And now that the body had been taken away, the vermilion imprint of a
ragged, dripping cross was clearly etched upon the smooth pine of the
unpainted altar.
* * * * *
When the crash of the gun had died away, Lem raised his head and peered
over the log toward the church, expecting to see his father emerge. He
waited several seconds. He wondered why the old man did not call. He
yearned for his own gun now, inside the church.
Then he lay down behind the log again with a sober fear creeping upon
him. Then he remembered whose son he was, and almost snickered aloud at
his fears. The boy could not conceive any odds that his father, Cap
Lutts, could not vanquish. His thoughts flew backward to the valorous
achievements of his parent.
Now he crawled to the end of the log and peered again toward the church
door. He told himself that the old man would come out of that door where
he had gone in. He knew that the old man would come out of the church
dragging the revenuer after him--hauling the thing as he had seen him
haul a half-dead, struggling bear.
Lem lay on his stomach and waited.
Presently he spied a yellowish-white vapor trailing out of the church
door into the lifeless air. Instinct told him that it was not his
father's gun that had spoken. He started to his feet.
A terrible, sickening apprehension filtered into his numbed senses.
Then, weaponless and forgetful of the prowess of the uncanny man-tiger
within, the boy grabbed a huge wooden mallet near by and rushed inside.
As he ran toward the altar his fire-shot eyes swept the church for the
old man. He saw only the towering hulk of the hated Burton standing
erect, with hands in his trousers-pockets, calmly eyeing his approach.
When Lem reached the altar he halted short, dumb, fear-stricken,
trembling. He stared at the bloody cross. He whirled around.
His eyes fell upon the still form on the bench, and he knew. With an
inarticulate scream he fell one step backward and aimed a terrific,
deadly blow at the unblinking, fishy eyes of the animal-headed thing
before him.
Some minutes later Lem Lutts crouched upon a bench, hunched up, naked to
the waist, broken, bleeding, panting, heaving, piteously weeping, his
chin down till it touched his bare, lacerated breast.
Without, amidst the darkling shades of night, the she-panther crept from
the gloomy haunting depths of the ravine, up to the very rim of the
clearing. Up-reared, with her bowed fore-legs upon a scrub cedar stump,
the big cat's spotted lips parted and she cried out a tremulous
portentous wail across the dusk. Then came the sound of the pattering of
padded jungle feet as she skulked back to her lair down in the bristling
bowels of the shadow-peopled gulch.
The man of iron who stood scowling over the conquered, broken youth,
felt a compelling loneliness picking upon his steely nerves.
"Come, Lutts! Let's hike out of here," ordered the detective as he
pulled the stupefied boy to his feet.
He half dragged Lem to the door of the church, saying:
"I guess I'll take you down to Frankfort. Mebby when you're there a
while you'll tell where that damn whisky shop is you've been running up
here the last hundred years."
Near to the door in the dim light, a few scant feet to one side, the boy
caught sight of a long, vertical streak of yellow rope crossing the dark
background of the gloom. Then it was that, with a lightning-like
quickness, Lem lunged sidewise and fastened his fingers like dog's teeth
upon the length of hemp suspended from the belfry. With a growl of rage
Burton sprung upon him.
He rained blow after blow down upon the boy's head and body, torrents of
resounding smashes, awful, crushing, killing blows.
The terrific struggle, with the bell-rope for a prize, set the new bell
ringing, and the reverberations carried for miles up and down Hellsfork.
Its frantic utterances resounded across the hills like the screams of a
woman.
In despair the revenuer ceased his beating, and his fingers, reeking
with the boy's blood, found Lem's neck.
His terrible hands garroted Lem's throat flat and stopped his breath.
With all his mighty strength, the revenuer choked him until the lad's
face blackened and his tongue and eyes started.
Then, with a great heave upward, he shook his victim as a terrier shakes
an old boot, and cast him away and stood panting in the dark and cursing
breathlessly.
The damage was done. The revenuer knew that he could count himself lucky
to get away alive now, far less drag a prisoner; even at that moment
desperate men were hurrying to answer the call of that church-bell.
Burton fled into the night toward the spot where he knew that Jutt
Orlick awaited him.