DEDICATED WITH HIS BLOOD
Out into that troublous, tempestuous night a hundred alarmed militant
mountaineers rushed down through the jungle shadows, over a score of
savage, rugged trails. Onward they hastened, down toward the startling
night-cry of the bell which they knew emanated from the new church on
Hellsfork. That choking, desperate bell-scream had raked across their
senses like the cracking of a hundred rifles. To them its importunities
had resolved into the sanguine roar of a fusillade. It had aroused in
them an audacious, desperate quickness to kill. They rushed hither,
prepared to sprinkle the white-clover with their blood, and die there in
the churchyard, or vanquish whatever the menace might be.
They pictured an assault on the church by the McGills or the revenuers,
and in their fancy saw old Cap Lutts, his great figure in the forefront,
spouting soft-nosed bullets from his hot rifle! The ringing of the bell
inspired those on-coming loyal mountain hearts with a red-eyed animal
fierceness, and lent a lightness to their heavy feet that brought them
to the church within the hour.
Men and boys, and indeed a few women, with weapons of all sorts,
descended on the church, wild and panting with the lust of conflict.
When Lem Lutts opened his dazed eyes the place was half filled with
frenzied people. Belle-Ann knelt beside him, bathing his wounds and
uttering in her soothing, low drawl, little phrases of encouragement and
condolence.
Buddy's hard little visage protruded out of the lantern light like a
ghostly mask done in white marble.
Lem finally got to his feet and staggered toward the altar. A dozen
lanterns were scattered about the church. The shaggy band stood around
gazing at their dead leader. Crazed with rage, they stood and wept,
walked aimlessly and cursed, or knelt and prayed.
To a man they were for beating the mountains for the revenuers; but Lem
held them back. He climbed upon the altar, and little Bud scrambled up
beside him, hugging his father's rifle which he had hungrily recovered.
With the realization that Lem was now their leader, the Moon mountain
men crowded up toward the pulpit, eager for his words.
Lem pointed one unsteady hand to the bloody cross at his feet, and the
other to the dead form of his father stretched on the first bench. He
raised his bruised, torn face upward; then, in a voice that was terrible
in its calmness, he said the only prayer he knew, while the grief torn
host fixed their eyes upon him and drank in every word:
"God Almoughty, plead thou my cose with them thet strive agin we-uns.
Lay a han' on yore shiel' an' buckler an' stan' up t' he'p we-uns. Let
'em be confound' an' put t' shame, fo' they hev privily laid thar net t'
destroy me withouten a cose--even withouten a cose hev they made a pit
fo' my soul. Let th' sudden destruction cum on our'n enemy onawares, an'
his net thet he hev laid privily keech hisse'f, thet he mought fall int'
his own mischief his ownse'f. Ahmen!"
And a great volume of vibrant amens rose from the hot hearts present.
Lem talked from the altar for an hour; exhorting the clan to stick
together and cleave to the tenets of his dead father. All through the
discourse little Bud kept close to his brother on the pulpit, steadying
the long rifle with one caressing hand and not once did a word escape
him; his eyes were glued to his brother's face.
Finally, Lem wound up his appeal with a stern adjuration. His calmness
deserted him at the end, and his voice soared to a frenzied pitch that
carried it through the open windows, far out into the brooding night.
"Yo'-all heer me? Yo'-all heer me?" he shouted in vibrant tones. "Not a
bein' o' yo'-all darst lift a han' t' harm the revenuer--not a han', yo'
heer? He air my houn'-dog t' kill.
"He belongs t' me, an' ef yo'-all ketch em, yore t' han' him t' me, ole
Cap Lutts's boy whut stan's heah frontin' his pap's daid body, a callin'
on yo'-all t' see jestus done! I'll bring th' skunk heah, my men, an'
kill em heah--heah whar he kilt my pap!"
His mouth fairly frothed as with both clenched fists he beat his breast.
Bud beat his own thin chest and wrenched his peaked face into a terrible
grimace, but said never a word.
The watchers relapsed into dumb, stunned silence and waited with their
dead--waited for the saddest of all days; a day crowned with a grievous
memory that followed them through life.
No Sabbath born to the mountains had ever dawned as this one. The early
morning was charged with a sepulchral mist, impinging upon the senses
like sounds vocal, telling of some great sorrow hanging on the crest of
the world.
The first chill light saw the gospel-house holding its dead to its
breast--the venerable sire that begot it. The dawn-breath floated down
from the blue-wooded ridges to the clearing and stooped to kiss the
pallid belfry.
And all the blossoms bowed down their tremulous heads and shed their
dew-tears amidst the chanting of spirit-voices. The tumultuous cry of
the cascade, wont to rant in the ragged throat of Hellsfork, was now
hushed to a repining monotone.
The first beam of sunlight, pallid as a candle ray, parted the vapor
shroud enveloping the gospel-house, and a dolorous ring-dove mourning on
the pinnacle of a dead sycamore tolled her triple-noted angelus across
the clearing in measured, solemn accents.
Before the day had fairly broken, an exodus of humanity had begun, bound
for Hellsfork. For weeks and months the day of dedication had been
discussed throughout the mountains. Hour after hour the rock-strewn
highways of the hills were traversed by travel-worn crusaders. This
stream of human souls converged at the church clearing, filling it up
like the gradual rise of a tide.
They came on mule-back, on horse-back, in buck-boards. They came singly
and in twos and threes.
Bed-ridden cripples were borne hither by their loved ones, that the
great preacher might lay hands upon their infirmities and implore the
merciful God to alleviate their sufferings. The halt and the maimed were
come to sue for absolution and to be made whole again.
One misshapen hunchback--a veritable Quasimodo--with stubby bowed legs,
abnormal arms, and ape-like visage, carried his helpless offspring
eighteen miles to this sanctuary; begging prayers to relieve the
creature's torture.
Every man and boy of them was armed in some fashion, and by high noon
the clearing was filled with a multitude of people, sorrow-torn, racked
with abject grief.
Over in Southpaw the enemy gazed down from the heights upon this
spectacle in amazement. As young Sap McGill stood on a crag and watched,
his eyes met a sight unlike any which the ranges of Kentucky had ever
witnessed.
His old arch enemy's strength in death was a force that appalled him. It
was only now that he fully realized the peculiar far-reaching power
wielded by old Cap Lutts throughout his lifetime. The dead monarch had
always ruled his followers through strength and love. Fear had never
been a dictator. He repelled his enemies through a will and courage that
never flinched, and elicited from them a meed of awesome respect.
The church was wofully inadequate and would not hold a twentieth of the
mass. A great abundance of live laurel was cut and piled beneath a tree
in the church clearing. And hundreds of eager hands hurried into the
byways of the vale and returned with arms heaped with blossoms. These
tender tributes were carefully placed on the couch of laurel until it
rose to a great bier of fragrant petals.
Tender hands removed the old man's body from the church and laid him in
this laurel-thatched casket of many-hued flowers.
Later, a great yellow mule paced out of the west, bearing a tall figure
garbed in black, and the voices were hushed to a murmur and the
church-bell began its tolling.
When the circuit rider reached the clearing the mass of awed humanity
parted and opened an aisle leading to the mammoth bier, where smiling
death reposed, cradled amidst billows of blossoms. The parson had been a
lifelong friend of old Cap Lutts.
His towering figure moved on toward the bier and his clean-shaven
features were drawn in a terrible sorrow. When his anguished eyes rested
upon the still form, a great sob convulsed him; and like an echo the
pent-up achings burst in a horde of throats; subdued, piteous weeping
ebbed and rolled over the dead hero of the host.
Two benches had been carried from the church and placed near the dead
man. One was for the parson; on the other sat Lem and Bud and Belle-Ann.
Little Bud crouched like a shrunken, lifeless thing. Belle-Ann's
beautiful eyes were swollen and her heart wrung dry of tears.
Lem's eyes, too, were dry as bone; not a single tear had he shed. For
hours he sat staring over the heads of the people, and on his bruised
and swollen face was stamped a grief more soul-searing than words or
tears could tell.
At eventide a cortege reaching from the church to the cabin bore the old
man to the barren orchard, and there they laid him beside Maw Lutts. Old
Cap Lutts, monarch of Moon mountain, had passed out of feudal history,
and beyond Federal jurisdiction; his church on Hellsfork had been
dedicated with his blood!