Up on Eagle Crown, dim crest of his benighted world, Buddy Lutts' small shape made a vague shadow, fusing with the dawn-mists that dipped and lifted and swathed the peaks like a nun's veil. The boy crawled far out on this majestic point that divided night from day. On one side the sun had poised its jewelled lance against the east. On the other, the vanquished morning moon was hiding his pallid face amidst the naked peaks.
Buddy crawled farther along the dew-chilled brink of the ledge like a young, lean catamount whelp. Here he sprawled at full length upon his stomach with his thin face propped up between his hands. Here, alone on the sanctum-rock of Eagle Crown, he lay, his moody eyes gazing beneath and across the limitless expanse of purple fog.
There was a great ache in his heart, and he was lonelier than any boy could well be and live. By and by he discerned the top of the church belfry floating on the sea of fog like a buoy, and the mere sight of this replenished the fires of vengeance that had reduced his puerile being to a hard cinder of hate.
No human foot had ventured across the door block of that death place since that serene Sabbath morning, more than a year since, when they had lifted the dead body of his father off the virgin altar and laid him on the pyramid of flowers built up in the clearing by the hundreds who had come to witness the dedication of the church. Although this deed stood foremost and fresh and even more vivid now in his memory, still, the calendar day of its enactment, seemingly, held a grim unforgettable spot on the apex of a grievous avalanche of immeasurable vengeance.
The boy wearily withdrew his truculent gaze and his eyes softened with an unutterable sadness as he fixed them on the tops of the apple trees, behind the log barn, grouped about the two sodden graves of his father and mother—both dead at the hands of the despised law. His heart was dead to all else save one hope—to avenge the death of his parents and his brother Lem, whom he now believed to have been murdered by Sap McGill. He would not count his young life amiss with all its hardships and heart-aches, if only he could see the dawn of this triumphant day for which he lived. He was hoping and waiting and watching—waiting evermore.
It seemed that the torturous days, weeks and months that he wandered through the hills furtively and alone, waiting and watching since his father's killing and since Lem and Belle-Ann had slipped away and out of his life, was time enough to make a decrepit, aged man. An insufferable loneliness had wrapped its tentacles around his being, and had, like a cruel tourniquet, crushed all the joy out of his soul. At times in retrospective indulgence he felt that his soul could not endure. Tears might have alleviated the misery within him, but Buddy's grievous repining and loneliness was of a tearless brand.
Buddy Lutts was a boy in size and in years only, for it was with an adult stoicism that he valiantly fought this creeping madness. In his weaker moments this brooding would seize him and drag him back to the brink of utter hopelessness and despair; but always his purpose would fly to his rescue and beckon a renewed promise, and he would awake out of these lethargies armed with a buoyant sense of patience and inspired with a mighty will to wait and watch.
In these periodical relapses it was his wont to humor his fevered fancy with lurid and extravagant sequences to his protracted term of espionage. Among these vagaries was a pet dream representing the revenuer and Sap McGill creeping upon him in single file; whereupon, he fired and his single ball tore both their hearts out and made him dance and clap his hands with sheer joy, and he was merrier than any orphan had ever been before him. His conscience acquitted him blithely, and his spirits soared skyward.
Deprived of these monopolistic creations of reprisal to alleviate the tension of his hate, the bonds of his perverse reason would have burst asunder and left him bereft.
But now again, there arose a cheering prophecy in the advent of spring. Since Lem Lutts had dropped out of the mountain so mysteriously, the bitter nights and days had rolled into weary months. And the brooding months had waxed into riotous winter tempests and had dragged in endless, eternal deluges of ice and snow, adding cold agony to Buddy's already misanthropic heart. But finally the crows rode up on the soft winds out of the South, and a benign sun broke the grip of these frost-bound hills, and gradually emptied their pockets of snow. The ridges and coves, and the emerald hulks of the mountains smiled gratefully back. And through this expanse of tangled scenic splendor, the rhododendrons and laurels wove a banner of multicolored tones. The sassafras and poplar and dogwood bloomed and the cascade sang a new ode. The calling of the lark came up from the lowland, mingled with the blatant scream of jay-birds in the orchard. And the warble of the blue-birds filled the odoriferous somnolent air.
Buddy lay motionless out on the crag with his thoughts, and watched the sun unveil the spurs below him. Then he divided his gaze between the distant splash of water that marked Boon's Ford, shining back like the glint of a sun-perch, and the yellow length of trail across Hellsfork that marked the path to Sap McGill's stronghold. Then he twisted his head around unconsciously, and his eyes caressed the rifle that rested behind him—his father's rifle. And an inarticulate muttering answered the reiterated avowal in his heart, inspired each time he looked at this, his father's rifle—a sacred relic bequeathed to him and vested with a stupendous responsibility. He reasoned that now as he was the last of the Luttses, he was rightfully the Captain of the faction. In view of this heritage he argued that he should at least have a voice in the counsel of the clan.
But Johnse Hatfield had a smooth, persuasive mien with him, and while he and all the men facetiously recognized young Buddy as their "Captain," they had, through Johnse, kept Buddy artfully in the background. The disgruntled boy did not relish this lack of due recognition and these periods of inaction. He did not favor postponements. Time and again he had appealed to Johnse Hatfield to issue a call and muster every man and boy in the Moon mountains range, and cross Hellsfork and storm the McGills, win or lose. Ultimately, Johnse always twisted this sanguine project away from him, through flattery and cajolery; making amendments bit by bit, until Buddy's pet scheme had petered down to another postponement to which he readily acquiesced at the time. But always his truant acumen told him later that Johnse Hatfield did not consider him "fitten."
This morning Buddy crawfished backward away from the brink of the overhanging rock. He threw the rifle-strap over his shoulder, and as he made the dangerous descent, there was etched on his grim little face the outlines of some new, inexorable resolution.
The type of man who now stood as dictator and leader by proxy, of the Lutts' faction in the Moon mountain range, was an individual possessing a peculiarly complex and many-sided nature. In stature Johnse Hatfield was of medium height. He was deep-chested and thick of neck, but his legs were straight and incongruously slender in comparison with his shoulders. His face was a mask of black, close-cropped hair, save the complete exposure of the mouth.
The hair growth halted below the lower lip and, from constant biting or use of the shears, the hair on his upper lip held aloof; hence, the mouth, thick-lipped and wide and tilted upward at the corners, bore the aspect of one perpetual smile. But, oddly enough, the eyes were a total and surprising antonym of this smiling mouth. They were markedly small, close set, and of a singular amber hue, glinting like needle points and carrying the fire of direct and instant demand. Thus, these closely coupled, unwinking eyes contradicted and specifically denied the smiling, placatory, diplomatic mouth so prominent across his black visage.
It was said of Johnse Hatfield that at the moment marking his advent into the world he had interrupted his mother who was working a pump-gun from behind a grind-stone, in her will to help the men-folks repulse an attack upon their home cabin. She claimed that she "sho' wud a fetched thet 'onery Tod McCoy," whose head she was angling for behind a turnip mound, "ef little Johnsie hed a waited an' hadn't bin so all-fired anxious t' git hisse'f into th' rumpus."
As a lad Johnse had carried arms with his notorious father and brothers against the McCoys. Then he had drifted up Hazard way and had, through blood relationship, become entangled in the French-Eversole war. Eight years since he had come up to Moon mountain to visit "Maw" Lutts, who was a blood cousin, and he never went back.
While his life had been practically one prolonged fight, there was, nevertheless, a commiserating, gentle side to his nature. This incorruptible fealty and trustworthiness was an element that had attracted old Cap Lutts, and in time Johnse Hatfield had become the old man's first lieutenant. He had since served gallantly through many fierce sorties with the McGills and the revenuers.
Johnse's friends pretended that he was a source of deep anxiety to them when near the water, because if he unfortunately fell in, there was enough lead in him to take him to the very bottom and keep him there.
Hatfield had a smattering of education, and was reputed as upstanding as a mountain fighter could well be. Certainly, Johnse did not stand up and invite hot pellets of lead. He did not scorn a rock or a tree any more than did his opposing belligerents. But throughout his life the value of his given word was equal to a fulfillment. Those who bargained for this man's word felt that on the spot where Johnse defaulted they would find his dead body.
When Lem Lutts had disappeared so inexplicably from the mountains, Hatfield had, after a hasty search, hied himself out and visited every calaboose and county jail in the surrounding country. He knew the cunning of Burton, the revenuer, well enough, but little did he anticipate such a flagrant irregularity as the transfer of a "moonshiner" to the capital of the State, with a dozen counties separating the place of offense. Such a procedure was depriving a defendant of all constitutional rights, and an effrontery to county jurisprudence, the enormity of which Hatfield could not ascribe to the power of even the wily, murderous revenuer.
After getting authentic information from the offices of the six Federal commissioners in the eastern district, and finding, to his deep chagrin, absolutely no trace of Lem Lutts, Johnse returned, and calling fifty men, he instituted a search that lasted for weeks. He beat every mountain side up to its crest. He scoured every cave and cove, and creek bottom. There was not a square yard of rock or earth or tangled brush that had escaped his search for Lem. But they did not find Lem's bones, and finally, Hatfield had resumed the regular routine amidst daily conjectures and prophecies, and dire maledictions from the men, directed toward the McGills.
While Johnse made no outward preparations for hostilities, his mind was busy. This disappearance of Lem Lutts was not a closed incident to be relegated to forgetfulness. On the contrary, as the months passed, the temper of the Lutts' faction waxed to such a stage of suppressed fury that Hatfield knew it was only a matter of time, and a brief time at that, before he would be compelled to head a massacre over in Southpaw. It was while Johnse was making preparations after careful deliberations, to force a fight with the McGills and square for the supposed annihilation of Lem Lutts, that an unlooked-for incident occurred which hastened the conflict, but changed the site of battle.
Prior to the death of old Cap Lutts, he had moved his distillery to a new site. Some fifty yards distant from the blind mouth of a cave he drilled a hole downward through forty feet of rock and earth and into a cave. Then he ran a channel pipe up through this hole and directly over the outlet he built a two-room cabin. This pipe was merged into the structure behind the fireplace in the cabin and continued upward some feet to where it opened out into the chimney proper; wherefore all the pungent odors and smoke from the distillery in the cave beneath the cabin followed this pipe and issued into the atmosphere through the chimney in a most natural manner.
Nothing short of destruction of the cabin could have disclosed the presence of this ingenious device. Moreover, in the improbable event that prying eyes had been permitted to scrutinize these premises, it is highly doubtful that the mouth to the cave would have been discovered after the most minute and careful search. Because the entrance to this underground region was barely spacious enough to admit one man on his hands and knees.
Furthermore, this entrance would be wholly and snugly closed by a huge boulder several tons in weight, or more than twenty men could displace. This great rock had the innocent appearance of a hundred other rocks all about it, and was so trussed up and balanced that one man could knock the prop out with a single blow, thereby releasing it and allowing it to drop back with its concave side fitting over the mouth of the cave in a manner that defied detection. When this precaution was resorted to, it required the labor of thirty men and two steers to truss it up again.
It was here in this cabin that Johnse Hatfield kept "bachelor's hall" and maintained a "residence."
When Buddy Lutts climbed down from his solitary reverie on Eagle Crown, he made for Johnse Hatfield's cabin as straight as crooked trails that "back tracked" themselves could take him.
When he arrived at the "still," the "night force" was just crawling out of the cave to repair to their respective shacks. Buddy stepped within the cabin and cast about for Johnse. He stepped toward the adjoining room, but halted inquiringly, when he saw Hatfield's broad back and the profile of a man he did not know.
Johnse looked behind him, got to his feet, and as he closed the door between, tossed a meaning gesture to Buddy, who rolled into a split-bottom chair to wait, opposite a row of ten Winchester rifles along the wall.
The men from the cave now pushed into the cabin. They all wore holsters with twin Colts, but had stepped in to get their rifles. As they lagged about, got their guns, and straggled out again, they all in turn had an indulgent look or a playful nudge or respectful pleasantry for "little Cap Lutts." Their manner, however, made it plain that they did not expect any effervescent response from Buddy.
Bud was known to be not a voluble lad. Some had ventured that "little Cap wus jest a pinch tuck in th' haid," but down in their rough hearts they pitied and loved him, for who knew better than they the train of barb-tipped circumstances that had crushed down upon this boy to harrow his young life with their eating misery?
Hatfield soon appeared, followed by the strange man, who continued out the door without words. Johnse faced Buddy.
"Howdy, little Cap—how's pickin's?"
Buddy sat speechless with the newcomer in his mind, and questioning eyes upon Johnse's face, but Hatfield volunteered no enlightenment, and his hairy mask with its naked, smiling lips and frowning eyes was unreadable.
"Foller me in, Buddy—I'm aimin' to kick up some breakfast 'bout now—maybe yo'll have a snack, eh?"
Bud did not open his mouth, but his pale eyes followed Johnse as he began hacking at a raw shoulder of pork. Buddy knew Johnse, and Johnse knew Buddy, and the boy knew that there was something particular in Johnse's mind. And Hatfield knew just as well what Buddy would say as if the boy had already condescended to speak. After a minute's unbroken silence, Johnse said:
"What ded yo' say, Buddy, eh? Ded yo' say yo'd have a hank o' corn bread, an' a slab o' po'k, eh?"
"Naw," answered the boy sullenly.
With the knife poised Johnse cast a covert look at Bud. Then he laid the knife down gently, threw his wide hat down on the red oil-cloth table cover, and sprawled down on a chair in front of the boy. With one hand he reached out and squeezed Buddy's shoulder solicitously, and pretending not to know what was coming, he inquired in his inimitable soft, smooth voice:
"What ails yo', little Cap—hain't yo' feelin' peert like thes nice mornin', eh?"
Buddy's lips were tightly compressed and his eyes, which had not wandered from Johnse's face, were now eloquent with reproach. Johnse waited.
"I 'low yo' haint a treatin' me right, Johnse Hatfield."
The man simulated a profound density.
"Whut—whut—hain't a treatin' yo' right?—Why now, Buddy—now—come now." Johnse forced a soft placatory laugh. "Come now, little chap—whut hev I done t' yo'—eh?"
Bud straightened up with a jerk and his mouth began to twitch with the heat of some vehement words that stood just behind his lips, but Hatfield quickly forestalled him as he intended to do.
"Now—now—don't git riled, little Cap—why, haint I tuk th' best care uv yo' as I know how—an' every month after I've paid th' men, don't I bring yo'-all half o' whuts leftin'—every month since Lem's bin gone I han' over yore part reg'ler—an' last month wus better 'n any—why, I give yo' fifty-one dollars last month, Buddy—whut yo' got to pester yo'—eh?"
At Hatfield's first words, the boy had settled back in his chair, plainly disgusted.
"Whut do ail yo' anyways, Buddy—eh?"
When Buddy straightened up again, Johnse relaxed in his seat and expressed a willingness to listen by plucking his beard with two fingers and a glint of amusement in his small eyes.
"Johnse Hatfield," began the boy vigorously, "ef yo'-all wusn't honest, I 'low we-uns wouldn't a hed yo' heah—thet ain't whut I'm aimin' at—hit hain't—yo' alers treated me like pap ded—yo' alers ac'ed like a dad t' me—only one thing, Johnse Hatfield—jest one thing—I air a tellin' yo'."
He had slid out of his chair and was now holding an admonitory finger up to Hatfield's face.
"Only one thing, Johnse Hatfield—an' yo' done me pesky on thet, yo' ded."
Hatfield regarded the end of Buddy's finger for a moment—then softly inquired:
"How ded I do yo' pesky, Buddy?"
"Hain't I th' onlyest Lutts?" he fairly yelled, falling back a step, with head tilted backward, and an unmistakable note of pride trembling through his piping voice.
"Shore."
"Warn't ole Cap Lutts my dad?" he demanded.
"Shore."
"Then who air leader by rights—who air th' head o' th' people—who air Cap'in heah in Moon?"
While Johnse was gathering response with slow deliberation, the boy held his ground with unswerving eyes, the while tapping his own little thin chest with his finger tips, and with an emphasis that boded no denial.
Hatfield perceived that to argue with him now would be like taking a bone from a starved dog.
"Why, Buddy!" placated Johnse, "ded I ever 'low yo' warn't?"
"But yo' don't think I'm fittin'—yo' don't—yo' don't think I'm fittin'!" he shouted hotly.
Mentally Johnse told himself that it was time to launch what he held in reserve and end Buddy's turbulent tirade, which was carrying the boy to the verge of distress. Hatfield's attachment to old Cap Lutts had been fused with a ligature of fealty little short of blind idolization, and it did his soul good to watch this outburst of virility and aggression that flamed up in the boy, reflecting the blood and stamina of the old man. And Hatfield loved this little human tiger that had come to-day to arraign him with the iron gusto of a born ruler and all the plenipotent fire of a vice king and despot.
"I hain't fittin'—I hain't fittin'—be I?" he reiterated vociferously.
"Shore, yo're fittin', Buddy. Course yo're a little feller yet,—shore yo're fittin'—ef ary hillbilly says yo' hain't—why, I'll turn his face down out o' these mountains, I will—yo' never heard me say yo' wusn't fittin', Buddy, eh?"
"Naw, but leastways yo' ac' hit Johnse Hatfield—yo' ac' hit—yo' do. You won't listen t' me."
"I alers listen t' yo', boy," contradicted Johnse quickly.
"Well, yo' listen, but yo' don't heed—yo' don't," he stormed.
"Whut do yo'-all want me to do?" petitioned Johnse naïvely.
"Tear em up—tear em up—tear em up!" he cried, with an arm stretched toward the south. "Hain't I begged yo' t' tear em up—hain't I begged yo' fo' a yeer t' tear em up—hain't I prayed t' yo' t' wade in an' make em pay fer killin' Lem? Gawd'll Mighty——"
Here the boy's fury broke all bounds of self-restraint and he tore up and down and across the puncheon floor, bandishing his two fists, distraught and choked with an avalanche of impassioned, inarticulate words. After a minute he went on.
"Th' men won't foller me 'cause I air a boy—an' I hev begged yo' t' git em fo' killin' pore Lem. Don't I know they kilt Lem—don't I know they kilt Lem an' tuk em across Hellsfork an' made a hole fo' em in Southpaw? Efen yo' wus afeered I'd know whut t' do—but yo' hain't askeert, yo' hain't. Ef th' ole Scratch wus t' cum in thet door now t' git yo', Johnse Hatfield, yo'd smack em over and wring his neck—yo' hain't askeert—yo' got some tuther reason ahidin' out—yo' air—an' I don't 'low t' swoller hit no longer! Whut ud my pore daid pap say—an' maw—an' pore Lem, whut Sap McGill kilt an' hid away?—we cyan't keech th' revenure—he's gone—but we kin keech Sap—Johnse Hatfield—efen yo' don't heed me now—so he'p me Gawd—I'll fire yo'—I'll fire yo'—karnsarn yo', I will—I'm a tellin' yo'—I hates t' do hit,—but I'll pay yo' anything I owes yo'—an' I'll fire yo' shor'n hell."
The boy pulled his eyes slowly off Johnse's face and, sagging with passion, backed against the wall and turned his quivering face to the logs. Hatfield stood up and pulling his Colt gun twirled it lovingly and laughed like a man who had won something.
Buddy started and twisted a look over his shoulder. Then he turned about and fairly crept back upon the man, and looked searchingly up into his face. There was a timbre in Johnse's laugh that told the boy something. There was a note in that laugh that mated with a solitary hope in his own heart. It sounded like a knock for which he had been listening for ages.
"Whut—Johnse—whut?" The boy's whisper trembled and he laid two pleading hands on Johnse's sleeves and peered eagerly up into the man's eyes.
Hatfield grabbed Buddy's wrist and dragged him outside the cabin. Still holding him, he pointed the gun down across Hellsfork and over to where the balmy, warm sunshine made soft, dreamful pictures in black and white amid the tinted spurs and ridges of Southpaw.
"Buddy," he said, with profound, succinct accents, "yo' 'lowed I wus layin' back—but I wusn't, little Cap—I bin busy all th' time—an' now I got th' gates o' hell open fo' em—an' Tuesday when co't meets down at th' Junction, we'll drive em in with th' ole Scratch."
Overwhelmed, Buddy stared open-mouthed at Johnse, but he could not mistake. He knew that Johnse spoke true, and not waiting for further details, he broke loose and capered in a circle. He tossed his hat up in an abandonment of joy and kicked it about when it came down. He grasped a big rock in his exuberance, and tossed it several feet, astounding Johnse with his strength, and he rung Johnse's hand, too overjoyed for words.
Johnse returned to the kitchen, lighted a fire, and while the corn bread was warming he busied himself slicing the pork.
"Ded yo' say yo'd hev a pinch o' breakfast, Buddy?" he invited.
"Shore," answered Buddy. "I didn't 'low I was so hungry—lemme he'p yo' git th' snack, Johnse—I cud eat a bilt owl."
When the corn bread and the cane-molasses and the pork and black coffee were all on the table, the two sat down to the repast together, and Johnse proceeded to take Buddy into his confidence.
"Yo' hain't t' open yore haid, Buddy—nary a word, yo' heah?"
With his mouth full, Bud nodded understandingly. "Yo' seed thet feller whut went out o' heah? Thet's Plunkett—he's bin a spyin' down at th' Junction fo' me, goin' on fo' months now. I brought em up from Hazard jest fo' thet purpose. I tol' em to git a job at Hank Eversole's store ef he hed to work fo' nothin'. Well—Eversole doddled along with em fo' two weeks—then th' old sore-eyed dog offered Plunkett twenty dollars a month an' Plunkett tuk hit, yo' bet—he'd a tuk ten dollars, 'cause I bin a payin' em twenty-five a month out o' my proceeds from thes works, Buddy. I'm a goin' t' tell yo' all frum th' start, an' 'fore I finish yo'll be surprised. Yo' see, Bud—I alers knowed thet some skunk traitor led th' revenure on to yore pap, an' I alers hed a mind who hit wus, but I never said nothin'. I wus so shore I wus right thet three times I hed my gun on em—then somethin' told me maybe I wus mistaken—an' I let em go—but I learnt this mornin' thet I'm right——"
Buddy gulped, dropped his tin cup of coffee, and strained forward over the table.
"Who—who, Johnse—who?" he blurted, straining his ears as though a river separated him from the answer.
"Jest yo' set down an' eat yo' meal—yo' jest wait til I git to thet—I'm aimin' t' tell hit all as hit comes along—eat yo' breakfast'—I learnt thes mornin' thet I wus right," Johnse went on evenly. "Thet was Plunkett heah thes mornin'—I saved his life down at Hazard one night ten years ago, an' Plunkett 'ud take a message to hell fo' me an' git an answer—besides, I pay em—an' I don't want yo' to shoot em—he air apt to slip up here any time now, day or night—I give em the countersign and to' th' men to let em up—an' I want yo' to look sharp 'fore yo' go t' pullin'—yo' mought slide th' pork thes way, Buddy. Plunkett air worth all I pay em, an' more too—an' I'd starve myse'f fo' ten years jes t' git th' information he's brung me."
Buddy had suspended eating, and, conscious that he dare not interrupt Hatfield now, he sat tight-lipped and listened like an image, with one hand gripping the other and holding it down under the table.
Johnse proceeded with his recital with a deliberation that grated insufferably on the boy's nerves and made him shiver with impatience and excitement.
"Maybe yo' rec'lect Buddy, when Don Perry wus laywayed on Pigeon Creek two months arter yo' pap wus kilt? Sap McGill an' Pete an' Stump Allen done thet job. An' now we cum t' th' main louse, Buddy. It was Jutt Orlick that led th' revenure t' th' church when yo' dad wus kilt, an' last night down at th' Junction, jest as Mart Harper started home, Sap McGill stepped out o' old Eversole's store an' Jutt Orlick out o' th' blacksmith shop opposite an' fired on Mart an' kilt him 'fore he could wink two eyes. An' down at old Eversole's Post-office ther's a passell of letters writ to Lem—old Eversole an' Sap an' Orlick tore th' letters open an' read 'em, an' Orlick hid 'em in th' store. Thet's bin mor'n three months ago. Plunkett learned that fo' sho', but hain't never heard one word 'bout Lem. Maybe McGill didn't git Lem, maybe Orlick done hit—but we'll charge 'em with hit, anyway; besides, hits more'n time to collect fo' their other divilment. Now yo' jest keep yo' haid shut—don't even peep, Buddy, 'cause ef th' men heer all thes news they won't wait—they'll bust out an' spile my plans. Jest keep quiet an' leave hit t' me, an' Mistah Hatfield 'll show yo', Buddy, whut cums o' laywayers an' traitors—an' yo'll hev a chanct t' see with yore own eyes how sich sinners crowds up t' git their crimes washed away with their own blood. I never kilt a man in my life lessen hit wus t' save my own life er some tuther body's life—I kilt 'em a fighten'—I never laywayed—thet's 'bout all I got t' say on th' subject—damn nigh enough, hain't hit?"
Johnse pushed his tin plate away, settled back and wiped his mouth on the corner of a blue handkerchief he had knotted around his neck. He lifted his eyes to Buddy's chair, but the boy had left the table. Johnse looked around and beheld a solemn pantomime that he well understood and which he did not interrupt. Buddy had slipped noiselessly into the adjoining room, where he occupied the center of the floor. He stood there swaying, his lips moving mutely, and his two invoking hands lifted upward.
A bird's-eye view of Junction City would inspire even a jaded wayfarer to continue on and forfeit what measure of scruffy, uncouth hospitality its lazy, primitive confines might hold for him. On high, it looked, physically, like a monstrous spoiled egg, dropped from a great height, and halted in its desolation and turned back by a narrow, swift river that wrapped itself half around the town like a horseshoe. Its ill complexion was clay-yellow, and its adornments were pitted and streaked with a somber, sickly, worm-eaten gray. The very atmosphere that permeated this hole between the hills was at once forbidding, repellent and sinister. And up from the mad throat of the river, choked against the boulders in mid-stream, there issued a warning which never died.
From eminences of the hills that crowded this town into a mere ragged plot, the most prominent institutions observable were the Courthouse and the graveyard, with the second look favoring the latter.
One marvelled at the population of this habitat of the dead, sprawling on the side of a hill. Their countless pale hands thrust up out of the ground, seemed to have frightened the river, for here it turned sharply and dodged away between the mountains.
The Courthouse was in the upper end of the town. It was framed and roofed with clapboards. In front, a crude attempt of hypostyle was visible in the two huge pillars of poplar logs that supported a balcony. The structure bellied out at the sides and oddly, at each corner of the roof, two mansard windows projected like ears, while above all a pigmy dome arose covered with unpainted tin. Withal, from afar the Courthouse looked like a decrepit bull dog squatting amidst a scattered litter of pups. The dome of this temple of justice looked up askew at the sun with the bluish-yellow glaze of a blind eye.
Topographically, young Sap McGill and old Hank Eversole owned this town. Morally and spiritually they were paupers, and their souls were as pitted and yellow and gray as the town looked to be. Moreover, the McGills "said" they owned five thousand acres in the Southpaw range abutting Hellsfork, where they lived. Their verbal deed to these acres was sustained by a cavalcade of rifle men and a squad of wary, creeping bush-whackers.
Old McGill and old Eversole had fought the Lutts faction for twenty years, but old Lutts had ever proved a most formidable antagonist, and when he brought the fearful Johnse Hatfield up to Moon mountain as aide, there was both renewed caution and consternation in the McGill camp. Then, when old Cap Lutts finally killed the elder Sap McGill on Hellsfork, one Sunday morning, they foresaw an eclipse that would bedim their day of power and their impotent chagrin and rage was unbounded. Where his father had left off, young Sap then took up the feud with a re-enforced vengeance.
Then one day when the tidings came down to Junction City that the old King of Moon mountain had been killed by a revenuer, the exultation of the McGill faction was unconfined. Following closely upon this, a traitor sneaked down from Hellsfork and whispered to old Eversole the news of the arrest and spiriting away of Lem Lutts. The accrued glee of Eversole and young Sap with this opportune turn of affairs reached a stage that demanded expression. Wherefore, they celebrated with a public barbecue on the Courthouse lawn, and great rejoicing was mingled with sanguine prophecies, and the drunker Sap became the louder his avowals to annihilate the Lutts faction.
Eversole and young Sap plotted, then, to waylay Lem Lutts as soon as he was released from prison, and during the interval they killed three of the Lutts' sympathizers, and took Jutt Orlick into the fold. But throughout this apparent upperhand in the war, Sap and Eversole had an apprehension that grew day by day, and of which they exchanged serious comments.
The very silence of Hatfield, the man who now marshalled the Lutts faction, was significant and alarming. If old Cap Lutts' war-name was an awesome enunciation, the name of Johnse Hatfield was equally fearful. His name was scoffed at in public, but secretly he was a haunting bugbear to these murder partners.
In one respect, Hatfield was unlike old Cap Lutts. Lutts would fight so long as the enemy was in sight and then quit. All the old man wanted was to be left alone and unmolested. But not so with this Hatfield. He had the reputation of following his enemy up, and he did it with a confidence and deliberation that was little short of uncanny. He had been literally shot to pieces in other family wars, but always survived and always followed. It was the shadow of this relentless Nemesis that filled Sap and Eversole with a nervous unrest. These two conspirators not only owned practically all the realty in Junction City, but they, moreover, owned and controlled the Judge of the Court, the County prosecutor, and the Sheriff, and through Sap McGill old Eversole was the dictator supreme in Junction City.
He was postmaster and the post-office occupied one corner of his merchandise store. In the event that any citizen appeared lax or half-hearted in his partisanship, Eversole would accost him with a leering, soft-spoken reminder, which mild petition pounded more like the pungent echo of a gun-crack than a voice, and the delinquent always heeded.
In a sense, old Hank Eversole was a philanthropist of no mean generosity. Anybody could get a tombstone out of old Hank. These ornaments were a sort of hobby of his. If the deceased's relatives could not pay cash, he procured one and took a mortgage on the stone. If they rejected all overtures on the pay plan, he furnished one and placed it at his own expense, and gave it gratis. He maintained that plain boards were a disgrace to a well-ordered graveyard, and not meant for Junction City.
It was the second Tuesday in May, and the sun shone brightly and the air was scented with the mingled odors of spring. Junction City had taken on a sudden new life. The May term of circuit court was in session and the activity and life astir here was more animated than that which attended a court term for many a year, for the reason that there was a murder trial in progress.
In this festering crime-stained town, where hired assassination brewed under contract by day, and was returnable at night with its toll of blood, a murder was not a sensational episode, but a real murder trial was. Here the chief conspirators, who had made the Judge and the Prosecutor and the Sheriff, had the law by the throat; and they dumped the offal of their deeds into subservient arms of the law, and burdened and shackled it with collusions it dare not drop. Wherefore, the law winked and connived with these murder lords in brazen malfeasance inflicted upon the commonwealth, and trials assumed all the aspects of a hurried laugh-provoking comedy, despite the grim fact that its elements involved human life. The swearing out of warrants had long since fallen obsolete. In times past, charges had been made and warrants issued, but when the day of trial arrived, there were no witnesses at hand, and the prosecuting witness was usually the farthest distant.
Thus, it transpired that the trial which opened the circuit court at Junction City on this May day was to the denizens a memorable one. Although the trial itself, which was never finished, was not a factor in what followed, still, this trial was remembered as having opened a day that ended with a scrambled, tragic event which ground the McGill-Eversole combination to a pulp, and marked an era of new political and social ethics in Junction City.
Three months since a young German named Daum, and hailing from below, made his optimistic appearance in the town. After alighting upon a four-room shack that seemingly suited his wife, he cast about to locate the landlord. As there was only one landlord in Junction City, Daum found his way into old Hank Eversole's store. Daum was even more than loquacious—he was effervescent, and in no time old Hank had pumped him dry. Daum claimed that he would receive ten thousand dollars from Germany six months hence,—that he wished to fish and hunt and live as cheaply as possible until his money arrived.
Old Eversole finally decided that the newcomer was simply a harmless, dumb Dutchman, and before Daum left the store, old Hank had given him a receipt for six months' rent paid in advance. The German paid cash for his groceries at Eversole's store, and hunted and fished to his heart's content, while his young, round-faced wife made baby clothes on the porch.
Withal, Daum was not an undesirable citizen until the end of the first month, when apparently tiring of fishing and looking at the hills and in response to his native thrift, he took to himself a quick notion to make some money. A week after this economic inspiration the energetic German had converted the front room of his shack into a general store.
Notwithstanding that the display he scattered on his porch was a melancholy exhibit compared to that of old Eversole, it was sufficiently competitive to lead old Hank's footsteps directly to Daum's establishment. Old Eversole was not as irate as his temperament might suggest. He was, in truth, stirred with a deep amusement as he wended his way Daumward and pictured how this presuming German would leave the town in haste after this first interview.
When Daum understood the purport of this un-neighborly call, he explained that he had never intended to remain in Junction City a day after he obtained his money from Germany, but protested that, insomuch as he had paid his rent for six months and being in a free land, he would do business until that time.
The interview opened mildly enough, but ended with a mandate from old Hank, commanding Daum to close up his store within the limit of six hours. Whereupon Daum grew very angry, and as old Eversole swaggered out, Daum hurled his determination and sentiments after old Hank in a few wrathful, terse words.
"Mit you I vont nuddings—I standt py mine piziness—to hell mit you also—ulch!"
At daybreak the following morning Daum's wife was in her garden with a sprinkling can when she espied one Steve Barlow, a loafer around Eversole's store, sneaking out of her woodshed and slipping away along the picket fence hemming the potato patch. She pondered curiously upon the man's actions and, her suspicions giving way to fear, she returned to the house, but Daum had already gone after his usual morning fry of fish. The wife, then impelled by an apprehension that grew momentarily, followed after him; and found her husband stark dead at the end of the street.
After the burial, the widow departed from Junction City, fully bent upon devoting her forthcoming estate to the trailing down of her husband's slayer. The day she left old Eversole sent word by Plunkett, his "clerk," that he would erect a tombstone for her husband, and that she could pay for it later or not, just as she chose. Ten days later, the widow Daum appeared in Junction City accompanied by a lawyer named Logan. Logan was a man with a state-wide reputation as a criminal practitioner, and old Hank Eversole pricked up both his ears.
Logan proceeded to the Sheriff's office with his client and swore a warrant for Steve Barlow. The warrant was issued with reluctance; the entire court personnel being loud in their defense of Barlow. But there was a grim directness and aggression about this Blue-grass lawyer, that with his inconceivable temerity and a reputation which awed even their callow senses, they pretended at last to agree to catch and try Barlow.
Logan visited the Courthouse the next day and found the Eversole-McGill faction had done just what he thought they would do, and precisely what he wanted them to do. Logan's youth had been spent in the hills, and he knew the proclivities of these mountain men. They had hedged Barlow with a formidable and insurmountable alibi.
Logan then made a concession, and stated that while he meant to try the case, he would suggest that Barlow, if he be apprehended, be admitted to bail. He said that he realized that this procedure was a trifle irregular in such cases, but that if the townspeople were so morally certain that the alibi would stand, he did not wish to impose the hardship of several weeks in jail upon the defendant.
To this generous proposition they agreed with pleasure and alacrity. And the next day Steve Barlow was "apprehended" and quickly released, pending trial the second Tuesday in May. Then the astute Logan took to hunting, and incidentally watching for a chance to catch Barlow alone. He had acquainted himself with Barlow's history and felt that he could wean him over. Barlow was an ignorant vagabond with no permanent home, living from hand to mouth, and a crinkling tool in the hands of old Eversole.
After four days' prowling around the adjacent hills, Logan surprised Barlow in a by-path across the river. The lawyer opened the interview by handing Barlow a new twenty-dollar gold certificate, which the lout took eagerly with an idiotic grin, before he even inquired what it was for, and Logan knew he had him.
At the end of an hour's persuasion Barlow confessed and agreed to make a clean breast of the affair in court. Logan in turn promised to give him one hundred dollars in money, and help him out of town.
Barlow said that old Hank Eversole gave him ten dollars for killing Daum, and promised him a month's board beside. That night Logan left town and took Barlow with him. Just what became of Steve Barlow was a matter of divided conjecture to the idlers around Eversole's store. Some 'lowed that Steve had just "mosied" off and would be on hand trial day. Others ventured that he had "done leapt his bail."
However, Barlow's disappearance was a matter of small concern to old Hank. If Steve did not show up, Hank knew that he would never pay the bond and would be a month's board in to boot. If he did show up, he would "cum cl'ar" with the alibi concocted for him.
In the meantime, rumors of the determined stand taken in this case by the noted Blue-grass lawyer, Logan, had spread throughout the hills, and added to the usual interest of court days a morbid impetus that brought the people down to Junction City in droves. And be it said, that among these mountain folk, there were not a few who would hail with joy and secret plaudits any visitation of reprisal that would put a dent in the tyrannical reign of the Eversole-McGill combine, under which they had suffered and been coerced beneath an iron heel.
The dent was delivered on this May day when the sun was bright and made pictures against the mountain sides, traced in pigments of emerald and white and carmine. And the buoyant air was charged with the stirring odors of spring and rife with rapturous bird voices. The town was agog with armed mountaineers of every age. They all arrived early and during the hours preceding the opening of court they swapped news that had accrued since last court week, while their dogs fought the hostile canines of Junction City, mingling snarls and yelps with the braying of mules and the neighing of horses.
Old Hank Eversole was resplendent in a new pair of light store trousers and a maroon shirt, and his rubicund face was illuminated as he divided his smirks between the groups outside and the high festivities back in his noisome bar where Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick were the star, hilarious spirits.
When the sheriff leaned out the Courthouse window and rang a blatant bell, all within earshot made for the Courthouse. In a remarkably short time the court room was filled to overflowing, leaving scores who had been less sprightly on the outside, unable to find standing room. Before anybody could get fairly settled the Court announced that Logan had sent word that he could not be in court until four o'clock, and that they would proceed with the minor business on docket and hold court until five o'clock.
Whereupon the jury and more than half the eager spectators, who crowded the court room, having no interest other than the murder trial of Barlow, now straggled outside, disgruntled and thirsty. In the interval that followed many wagers were laid and hinged upon the appearance or non-appearance of Steve Barlow. The odds favored Barlow's absence, but promptly at four o'clock there was a great stir among this motley, impatient throng.
A two-horse rockaway hove in sight, drew up and stopped at the outer limits of the Courthouse yard. The curtains of the vehicle were closely drawn and Logan, who was riding outside with the driver, alighted and opened the carriage door, whereupon three men climbed out, leaving a fourth man inside. Two were newspaper men from Frankfort, one from Lexington, and the fourth man was Steve Barlow.
Logan exchanged a few brief words with Barlow, who sat back smoking a stogie as unconcerned as if he were simply waiting to kill somebody. His animal brain was of too low an order to know fear, or his senses too dull to impress him with the danger that imperiled his life in the forthcoming hour.
The advent of Logan and the strangers was quickly passed around, followed by a wild pell-mell rush for the court room. When the Court rapped for order and the shuffling of feet and mumble of voices died down, the prosecutor directed the sheriff to call Steve Barlow, out on bail, and all the witnesses in the case, and in turning about, stole a covert, triumphant look at old Eversole, who stood near the Judge's bench with Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick at his elbow. Here some of the jurymen exchanged meaning looks. When the sheriff's joculatory utterances failed to produce Barlow, the prosecutor arose and, turning to Logan, said:
"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan, that you got all your witnesses here for nuthin'—but I reckon Steve Barlow has done leapt his bail."
Logan rose up with a slow, deliberate movement, and as he addressed the Court, his eyes were upon old Eversole.
"I have little need for witnesses in this case," he began, "moreover, the man who is charged with the commission of this deed has not forfeited his bond, and I mean to show by his sworn confession that, while it was by his hand that Daum was deprived of his life, it was through bribery and threats imposed upon him by another man—a man whose deeds are black and numerous—that prompted him to do this murder. I mean to lay the burden of this crime upon this instigator who prevailed upon an illiterate, half-witted unfortunate, who had no grievance, to sneak out and do an inoffensive man to death—a wanton act from which his own coward's hands shrunk. Mr. Somber, bring Steve Barlow into the court room."
The quiet of the next few moments was not unlike the stillness of a tomb. As the reporter started to crowd his way out in compliance with Logan's request to bring Barlow in, his footsteps echoed like a great noise. Old Eversole's face had lost its flush and he stared open-mouthed over the heads of the astonished jury, and the people, toward the front door. Jutt Orlick and Sap McGill then whispered to each other with scowling faces, which precipitated a general babble throughout the room. Midway to the door Plunkett, Eversole's "clerk," thrust a note into the reporter's hand, and the latter immediately turned back and handed the paper to Logan.
The attorney glanced over the sheet, then stood up and addressed the Court, who was too dazed to rap for order. But at the sound of Logan's voice there was instant quiet.
"I have just been handed a message, and while it is not addressed to me personally, it appears to concern all present. If the Court pleases, I will read it aloud."
The judge, who had been gazing inanely about the room, nodded his acquiescence. Then Logan proceeded to read the note in loud, resonant tones:
"I hereby warn all men who don't 'low to fight fer the McGills to clear out of town within five minutes—I hev arrive. Johnse Hatfield."
Fire or an earthquake could not have precipitated greater confusion and consternation than ensued at the name of Johnse Hatfield. The McGill partisans shrank away from the windows with exclamations and curses, while scores of non-combatants fought to get out of the rear door.
Old Eversole's face now was the hue of gray moss. The unprecedented nerve of Hatfield in sending a warning into a house of armed enemies was significant, and indicated that he held a strong hand. Above the disorder McGill was shouting some incoherent commands. Jutt Orlick forced his way to the end of the long room and thrust his head cautiously out of a side window. Then he jumped out the window and started on a run for Eversole's store. Before he had gone ten feet, there was a rifle crack and Orlick dashed back to the shelter of the Courthouse with his palm full of blood, streaming from his left ear. With the tail of his eye, he caught sight of Buddy Lutts in the door of the blacksmith's shop, jerking his rifle up for another shot. A hand reached out and jerked Buddy back out of the door just as a dozen shots fired from the Courthouse windows pierced the boards of the shop. Then Johnse Hatfield's face showed for the fraction of a second as he yelled across:
"Cum on out—yo' wild hawgs!"
This sally was answered by another volley from the Courthouse. Hatfield had knocked every sixth board off the north side of the old shop, which afforded ample firing space. No one dared reach out and close the shutters of the Courthouse, and he could now see them piling benches up on their ends in front of the windows.
The blacksmith shop, being diagonally across, commanded both front and side view of the Courthouse. Before he sent his terse warning into the court room, Hatfield had detailed a dozen men to go around and get a position corresponding with that of the blacksmith shop, which would command the rear and north side of the building. But there had been delay in working their way to this position unseen. Suspecting this move, the McGills were cautious about showing themselves, but as time passed and as the attack came only from the south side and front, they decided to venture an attempt at flanking the shop that held their foes.
It was at this juncture, when a handful of men had dropped out the north windows of the Courthouse, that the Hatfields gained a lumber pile a hundred yards distant and greeted the maneuvering enemy with a volley of lead. Two of the McGills dropped into the grass, and the remainder limped and scrambled back into the Courthouse, while those inside instantly sent fifty or more shots toward the lumber pile, killing one of the Hatfields.
For three hours the McGills were bottled up in the Courthouse, save those who had not gained entrance and were on the outside when the attack began. Some of these were trying their hand at sharp-shooting now, while others disappeared with the non-combatants. The women of the town had dragged their children inside and fastened the shutters and barred the doors of their houses. From some of these houses a towel or white rag appeared hanging at the end of a stick thrust out the window.
For the past hour the shots from the surrounded Courthouse had dwindled down to spasmodic outbursts and Hatfield knew that the McGills were saving their ammunition, as they had not anticipated a siege. But Johnse Hatfield had come into this fight with the forethought of a trained military man. Every Hatfield man had an extra bag tied to his belt crammed full of cartridges. Moreover, Hatfield had stationed two mule wagons just beyond the hill. One of these wagons was to transport his dead and the other the wounded. Furthermore, with these wagons there awaited, with all his paraphernalia, a surgeon whom Hatfield had brought up from Hazard.
As night came on and a brief half-moon illuminated the South road, the crucial hour for which Hatfield had waited was at hand. He dispatched a messenger around to the detachment behind the lumber in the rear of the Courthouse, telling them to leave three men there and for the others to work their way back to the South road. And the envoy Hatfield chose to deliver this important message was none other than Buddy Lutts.
Although the air-line distance through to the lumber pile from the shop was less than five hundred yards, it was a full hour before Buddy crept back between the old wagons in the yard and told Hatfield that the men were waiting. Then Hatfield left three men in the shop and with the others joined the waiting squad. Lining these men up, he now marched them openly up the moonlit road toward the Courthouse. When they came into view, they fired a volley simultaneously into the Courthouse, and Hatfield yelled out derisively:
"I reckon yo' got enough—yo' pack o' laywayin' wild-hawgs!"
Then he retreated down the road at a brisk trot, followed by his sixteen men, Buddy Lutts galloping at his heels. There was a great stir within the Courthouse now. They had plainly heard Hatfield's jeering words above the patter and echoes of his last string of shots, and had espied his men turn and start down the road on a run. There was a noisy scramble and commotion now, as the McGills made haste to avail themselves of this apparent chance to get outside and pursue and fight their enemy, but with due precaution they waited until several volunteers had slipped out and made a hasty reconnoiter of the lumber pile and the blacksmith shop.
The three Hatfield men had crawfished back into a dense dewberry patch, while the three in the shop had crawled into the loft and hidden among the miscellaneous rubbish. As there was no more shooting, and as the Hatfields could be seen in the moonshine fleeing down the white road, the McGills decided to overtake them and wipe them from the earth, and the Courthouse now quickly disgorged its mob of eager, infuriated militants.
Regardless of ownership, men unhitched and mounted the first horse or mule they came upon. Old Eversole dashed across the street and banged on his store door for admittance. His women folks having barred and bolted the doors, he called loudly for his clerk, but Plunkett had disappeared. Presently a woman admitted him at the saloon door. He rushed into the bar and gulped down a glass of liquor—then, gathering all the cartridges he had in the place, he ran out and distributed them among the men.
Sap McGill and Orlick were astride their own mounts, and McGill was crying for the men to make greater haste. McGill rode a light dun animal, and Orlick a powerful dappled gray with a bobbed tail. With thirty-odd horsemen and twoscore or more rifle men afoot, they now dashed after their fleeing opponents, who made a dark splotch in the moonlit road far ahead.
This road ran straight until it reached the graveyard, where it made a short, sharp turn to the left, looping around the base of a hill that jutted outward. This abrupt turn in the road was directly opposite, and midway of the front length of the graveyard, which was elevated some fifteen feet above the road-bed and occupied the slope. Hatfield's horses were hitched just around the bend in the road. When the sixteen men were mounted, he ordered them back along the rail fence for a distance of fifty yards.
Buddy Lutts, clinging to his ready rifle, was eternally at Hatfield's heels. Johnse had ordered him back three times; now he took him by the collar and fairly dragged the protesting boy back and told the men to keep him there. Buddy's peaked face was flushed with a look that partially expressed the wild exultation that obsessed him. Hatfield mounted his piebald mare and, advancing, drew in close to the clay bank that jutted into the road, and here he waited, tense and rigid.
When he heard the clattering hoofbeats thundering down toward the graveyard, he urged his horse a few yards nearer the point, then with a Colt gun in either hand, his habitually smiling lips broke into a brutal grin, and his little reddish eyes snapped murderously.
The stillness was quickened again, on the brink of this Waterloo, with the stuttering wail of a screech-owl watching from the dead yard. Always wary, the McGill cavalcade drew up short at the bend and waited for their panting horde behind. Then they pushed boldly around the bend.
It was just then that the indescribable, tragic scene took place that stamped its grim memory ineffaceably in these mountains, and made a crimson stain on feudal history, known ever afterward, as the "graveyard massacre."
When Johnse Hatfield saw the noses of the McGill horses, he uttered a wild yell of triumph that pierced the far-reaching hills, and called up an invocation to the mute tombs above.
"Now drive 'em in, boys—drive th' wild hawgs in with th' old Scratch!" he yelled.
And in a trice, Hatfield had turned that hillside graveyard into a seething crucible, whose moulten maw opened and sucked the living in with the impotent smothered dead. Seemingly, every soul tethered in the confines of that silent dead-plot came to quick ghostly life, and pushed up out of the ground into the moonlight, wielding a lance of darting, destructive lightning. Up from a hundred sodden graves, a hundred human forms sprang, and the tombstones belched out liquid death. And the May night was ruptured with a deluge of gun-shots, and harried with a chaos of curses, and death-groans, and the frenzied squealing of horses. And the air was rife with a pungent odor, not unlike brimstone, as over this seething disaster the powder vapor lifted and arose against the moon mist, studded and starred with spurting tongues of alternate flame, and twisted an ephemeral arch that, seemingly, framed the gates of hell.
The McGills afoot had some show at seeking cover and retreat, but not so the horsemen. They became inextricably jammed into the narrow turn in the road, and the harder they struggled to turn about, or go forward, the more entangled they became. To jump from their mounts in this instant of turmoil and surprise meant sure death.
Into this struggling, tangled mass of plunging, besmeared horses, and fighting, snarling, bleeding men, Johnse Hatfield had plunged his own horse, followed by his ferocious riders, now blind-mad with the lust of battle. And all the while the lead rained down from the graveyard without cessation.
Hatfield had only one object in view now. He knew that the old coward, Eversole, was not there. He had seen the sheriff go down, and knew that he was under the horses. In the rise and fall of the conflict, he could not locate Sap McGill, but he did see Orlick, and Orlick saw him at the same time, and tried vainly and frantically to force his horse out of the mêlée.
As Hatfield forged his way nearer and nearer, Orlick raised his pistol and fired at him. But at that instant a horse reared between them, and the animal received the ball in the head and fell back against Johnse's mount, knocking it to its knees. When Hatfield saw Orlick again, he was on the outer edge of the combat, and would have been away had not a man seized Orlick's bridle and held on. Johnse saw him fire in the man's face, and saw the man's head disappear.
Free at last, Orlick turned and drove his horse up the road toward town like the wind. Hatfield now stabbed his horse cruelly, and forced it up, over and through the fighting mass, and followed Orlick, leaving the battle behind. But Orlick's horse was a swift and powerful animal, and Hatfield lost ground.
All this while Buddy Lutts had been busy. He had climbed to the top of a clay bank, forty feet above, and was sharp-shooting with telling effect. Looking down in the moon mist upon the struggle, it was hard for him to distinguish the enemy from his own people, but every time he saw a man break away and run back toward the town, he knew it to be a McGill and he fired with careful aim.
It was while thus engaged that the boy discerned Orlick's big gray leap out and gallop toward town. Buddy raised his rifle and pulled the trigger, but there was no report. His gun was empty. While he was fumbling nervously in his haste to reload, he saw the piebald break out and dash up the road, and he knew that Johnse was after Orlick. When Buddy had loaded the rifle, he crept along the brow of the hill and started to run after Hatfield. He had not gone far when he came unexpectedly upon four men. The boy, startled, jerked his rifle to his shoulder, when the men in his path threw up their hands, one holding a white handkerchief above his head and calling upon the boy not to shoot.
Ignoring their friendly overtures, Buddy circled around them and ran onward at top speed toward town. The men were Logan and the three newspaper reporters, following the progress of the fight at the risk of their lives. Johnse Hatfield already had five bullets in his body and was bleeding profusely, but he spurred ahead unmindful of his wounds, keeping the fleeing gray in sight.
When Orlick turned the corner and vanished, Johnse called upon his mare for all the speed that was in her. As he made the corner and swerved to the right past Eversole's store, old Hank jumped out and fired upon him. The ball broke Johnse's left arm and his pistol slipped from a nerveless hand to the ground.
Undaunted, and without slacking his pace, Hatfield wheeled in the saddle and fired two quick shots with his right. He saw old Eversole pitch headlong into the horse-trough. Because of a line of trees that cast a black shadow along the main street, he could not now see Orlick's gray, but he could hear the tattoo of the horse's hoofs. Determined to overtake this traitor, Hatfield urged his mare to her utmost. In a few seconds the big gray came out into the moonlight again, and Hatfield saw that Orlick was headed for the river.
As Hatfield divined Orlick's intentions, a savage joy stirred within him and mitigated the torture of a shattered arm and other bodily wounds. He knew that if Orlick attempted to ford that swift, roaring river that he (Hatfield) would get the shot for which he thirsted and, as he spurred his horse after Orlick and felt his strength fast failing him, he fought this weakness off with a mighty will, buoyed up with the thought of how he would at last take toll from this traitor for his part in the killing of old Captain Lutts.
As Johnse flew along, he saw the gray disappear down the river bank. The next minute he was surprised to see the horse plunging back up into sight. Then the horse pivoted and went down again. Then back up the bank he lunged a second time, and Hatfield could hear Orlick cursing the animal, and he knew that for some reason the horse had balked and would not take to the water.
A shock of delight instilled new strength into Hatfield, whose blood had been ebbing away for the past three-quarters of an hour. At this particular spot on the river bank there were no trees, and the rim of the river was destitute of rocks sufficiently large to offer protection for a man's form. But, standing back from the road and some four hundred feet distant from the river bank, there was a deserted old shack with sagging porch and dismantled windows. And just outside the broken picket fence at the near corner of the yard there stood a huge chestnut tree with a thick body.
While Orlick was wrangling with his refractory horse, his actions made it plain to Hatfield that he had marked that tree. Then, evidently despairing of controlling the stubborn animal, he slid to the ground, obviously bent upon making the shelter of the chestnut. Hatfield now bore down upon him, swerving to the right of the road to thwart Orlick's attempt to reach the tree. Whereupon Orlick ran back and along the bank, and dropped in the high weeds.
Hatfield, weak and totally exhausted from pain and loss of blood, now stopped his horse and fell out of the saddle. He gripped his Colt and tottered toward the spot where he had last seen Orlick, but he knew that Orlick would not be on that exact spot. He knew that the man was bellying away like a snake through the grass somewhere. Knowing that he would not last much longer, and desperate in his eagerness to flush Orlick, he stumbled recklessly about through high weeds with his gun out before him and his eyes darting here and there.
Suddenly Orlick jumped up fifty feet to the right in the direction of the chestnut tree and fired. Hatfield also fired at the same time. The two reports seemed to consolidate and make a single echo that quivered across the river. Hatfield pulled the trigger again, but it only clicked emptily and did not respond. Orlick was still upright, but motionless. Hatfield wondered why he did not shoot. Orlick's shot had struck him in the arm that already hung useless and limp at his side. He stood watching him curiously. Then he saw Orlick thrust his gun in its holster and sit down on the ground, as if to rest. He held this position for several seconds—then lay back slowly, flat on his back.
Hatfield suspected Orlick of treachery and hastily proceeded to break his gun with his good hand. This he contrived to do, and while he was fumbling for cartridges, of which he had a countless number, a blinding faintness seized him and, thinking that he was falling backward into the river, he threw up his good arm suddenly to catch his balance. The gun flew out of his grasp and rolled down the embankment.
The next instant he fell forward and lay still on his face in the weeds.