'why Have You Brought Me Here?', 0342
“Here, please,” said the Judge gently, as though he were about to answer that question, and as she passed Hale she seemed to swerve her skirts aside that they might not touch him.
“Swear her.”
June lifted her right hand, put her lips to the soiled, old, black Bible and faced the jury and Hale and Bad Rufe Tolliver whose black eyes never left her face.
“What is your name?” asked a deep voice that struck her ears as familiar, and before she answered she swiftly recalled that she had heard that voice speaking when she entered the door.
“June Tolliver.”
“Your age?”
“Eighteen.”
“You live—”
“In Lonesome Cove.”
“You are the daughter of—”
“Judd Tolliver.”
“Do you know the prisoner?”
“He is my foster-uncle.”
“Were you at home on the night of August the tenth?”
“I was.”
“Have you ever heard the prisoner express any enmity against this volunteer Police Guard?” He waved his hand toward the men at the portholes and about the railing—unconsciously leaving his hand directly pointed at Hale. June hesitated and Rufe leaned one elbow on the table, and the light in his eyes beat with fierce intensity into the girl's eyes into which came a curious frightened look that Hale remembered—the same look she had shown long ago when Rufe's name was mentioned in the old miller's cabin, and when going up the river road she had put her childish trust in him to see that her bad uncle bothered her no more. Hale had never forgot that, and if it had not been absurd he would have stopped the prisoner from staring at her now. An anxious look had come into Rufe's eyes—would she lie for him?
“Never,” said June. Ah, she would—she was a Tolliver and Rufe took a breath of deep content.
“You never heard him express any enmity toward the Police Guard—before that night?”
“I have answered that question,” said June with dignity and Rufe's lawyer was on his feet.
“Your Honour, I object,” he said indignantly.
“I apologize,” said the deep voice—“sincerely,” and he bowed to June. Then very quietly:
“What was the last thing you heard the prisoner say that afternoon when he left your father's house?”
It had come—how well she remembered just what he had said and how, that night, even when she was asleep, Rufe's words had clanged like a bell in her brain—what her awakening terror was when she knew that the deed was done and the stifling fear that the victim might be Hale. Swiftly her mind worked—somebody had blabbed, her step-mother, perhaps, and what Rufe had said had reached a Falin ear and come to the relentless man in front of her. She remembered, too, now, what the deep voice was saying as she came into the door:
“There must be deliberation, a malicious purpose proven to make the prisoner's crime a capital offence—I admit that, of course, your Honour. Very well, we propose to prove that now,” and then she had heard her name called. The proof that was to send Rufe Tolliver to the scaffold was to come from her—that was why she was there. Her lips opened and Rufe's eyes, like a snake's, caught her own again and held them.
“He said he was going over to the Gap—”
There was a commotion at the door, again the crowd parted, and in towered giant Judd Tolliver, pushing people aside as though they were straws, his bushy hair wild and his great frame shaking from head to foot with rage.
“You went to my house,” he rumbled hoarsely—glaring at Hale—“an' took my gal thar when I wasn't at home—you—”
“Order in the Court,” said the Judge sternly, but already at a signal from Hale several guards were pushing through the crowd and old Judd saw them coming and saw the Falins about him and the Winchesters at the port-holes, and he stopped with a hard gulp and stood looking at June.
“Repeat his exact words,” said the deep voice again as calmly as though nothing had happened.
“He said, 'I'm goin' over to the Gap—'” and still Rufe's black eyes held her with mesmeric power—would she lie for him—would she lie for him?
It was a terrible struggle for June. Her father was there, her uncle Dave was dead, her foster-uncle's life hung on her next words and she was a Tolliver. Yet she had given her oath, she had kissed the sacred Book in which she believed from cover to cover with her whole heart, and she could feel upon her the blue eyes of a man for whom a lie was impossible and to whom she had never stained her white soul with a word of untruth.
“Yes,” encouraged the deep voice kindly.
Not a soul in the room knew where the struggle lay—not even the girl—for it lay between the black eyes of Rufe Tolliver and the blue eyes of John Hale.
“Yes,” repeated the deep voice again. Again, with her eyes on Rufe, she repeated:
“'I'm goin' over to the Gap—'” her face turned deadly white, she shivered, her dark eyes swerved suddenly full on Hale and she said slowly and distinctly, yet hardly above a whisper:
“'TO KILL ME A POLICEMAN.'”
“That will do,” said the deep voice gently, and Hale started toward her—she looked so deadly sick and she trembled so when she tried to rise; but she saw him, her mouth steadied, she rose, and without looking at him, passed by his outstretched hand and walked slowly out of the Court Room.
The miracle had happened. The Tollivers, following the Red Fox's advice to make no attempt at rescue just then, had waited, expecting the old immunity from the law and getting instead the swift sentence that Rufe Tolliver should be hanged by the neck until he was dead. Astounding and convincing though the news was, no mountaineer believed he would ever hang, and Rufe himself faced the sentence defiant. He laughed when he was led back to his cell:
“I'll never hang,” he said scornfully. They were the first words that came from his lips, and the first words that came from old Judd's when the news reached him in Lonesome Cove, and that night old Judd gathered his clan for the rescue—to learn next morning that during the night Rufe had been spirited away to the capital for safekeeping until the fatal day. And so there was quiet for a while—old Judd making ready for the day when Rufe should be brought back, and trying to find out who it was that had slain his brother Dave. The Falins denied the deed, but old Judd never questioned that one of them was the murderer, and he came out openly now and made no secret of the fact that he meant to have revenge. And so the two factions went armed, watchful and wary—especially the Falins, who were lying low and waiting to fulfil a deadly purpose of their own. They well knew that old Judd would not open hostilities on them until Rufe Tolliver was dead or at liberty. They knew that the old man meant to try to rescue Rufe when he was brought back to jail or taken from it to the scaffold, and when either day came they themselves would take a hand, thus giving the Tollivers at one and the same time two sets of foes. And so through the golden September days the two clans waited, and June Tolliver went with dull determination back to her old life, for Uncle Billy's sister had left the house in fear and she could get no help—milking cows at cold dawns, helping in the kitchen, spinning flax and wool, and weaving them into rough garments for her father and step-mother and Bub, and in time, she thought grimly—for herself: for not another cent for her maintenance could now come from John Hale, even though he claimed it was hers—even though it was in truth her own. Never, but once, had Hale's name been mentioned in the cabin—never, but once, had her father referred to the testimony that she had given against Rufe Tolliver, for the old man put upon Hale the fact that the sheriff had sneaked into his house when he was away and had taken June to Court, and that was the crowning touch of bitterness in his growing hatred for the captain of the guard of whom he had once been so fond.
“Course you had to tell the truth, baby, when they got you there,” he said kindly; “but kidnappin' you that-a-way—” He shook his great bushy head from side to side and dropped it into his hands.
“I reckon that damn Hale was the man who found out that you heard Rufe say that. I'd like to know how—I'd like to git my hands on the feller as told him.”
June opened her lips in simple justice to clear Hale of that charge, but she saw such a terrified appeal in her step-mother's face that she kept her peace, let Hale suffer for that, too, and walked out into her garden. Never once had her piano been opened, her books had lain unread, and from her lips, during those days, came no song. When she was not at work, she was brooding in her room, or she would walk down to Uncle Billy's and sit at the mill with him while the old man would talk in tender helplessness, or under the honeysuckle vines with old Hon, whose brusque kindness was of as little avail. And then, still silent, she would get wearily up and as quietly go away while the two old friends, worried to the heart, followed her sadly with their eyes. At other times she was brooding in her room or sitting in her garden, where she was now, and where she found most comfort—the garden that Hale had planted for her—where purple asters leaned against lilac shrubs that would flower for the first time the coming spring; where a late rose bloomed, and marigolds drooped, and great sunflowers nodded and giant castor-plants stretched out their hands of Christ, And while June thus waited the passing of the days, many things became clear to her: for the grim finger of reality had torn the veil from her eyes and let her see herself but little changed, at the depths, by contact with John Hale's world, as she now saw him but little changed, at the depths, by contact with hers. Slowly she came to see, too, that it was his presence in the Court Room that made her tell the truth, reckless of the consequences, and she came to realize that she was not leaving the mountains because she would go to no place where she could not know of any danger that, in the present crisis, might threaten John Hale.
And Hale saw only that in the Court Room she had drawn her skirts aside, that she had looked at him once and then had brushed past his helping hand. It put him in torment to think of what her life must be now, and of how she must be suffering. He knew that she would not leave her father in the crisis that was at hand, and after it was all over—what then? His hands would still be tied and he would be even more helpless than he had ever dreamed possible. To be sure, an old land deal had come to life, just after the discovery of the worthlessness of the mine in Lonesome Cove, and was holding out another hope. But if that, too, should fail—or if it should succeed—what then? Old Judd had sent back, with a curt refusal, the last “allowance” he forwarded to June and he knew the old man was himself in straits. So June must stay in the mountains, and what would become of her? She had gone back to her mountain garb—would she lapse into her old life and ever again be content? Yes, she would lapse, but never enough to keep her from being unhappy all her life, and at that thought he groaned. Thus far he was responsible and the paramount duty with him had been that she should have the means to follow the career she had planned for herself outside of those hills. And now if he had the means, he was helpless. There was nothing for him to do now but to see that the law had its way with Rufe Tolliver, and meanwhile he let the reawakened land deal go hang and set himself the task of finding out who it was that had ambushed old Dave Tolliver. So even when he was thinking of June his brain was busy on that mystery, and one night, as he sat brooding, a suspicion flashed that made him grip his chair with both hands and rise to pace the porch. Old Dave had been shot at dawn, and the night before the Red Fox had been absent from the guard and had not turned up until nearly noon next day. He had told Hale that he was going home. Two days later, Hale heard by accident that the old man had been seen near the place of the ambush about sunset of the day before the tragedy, which was on his way home, and he now learned straightway for himself that the Red Fox had not been home for a month—which was only one of his ways of mistreating the patient little old woman in black.
A little later, the Red Fox gave it out that he was trying to ferret out the murderer himself, and several times he was seen near the place of ambush, looking, as he said, for evidence. But this did not halt Hale's suspicions, for he recalled that the night he had spent with the Red Fox, long ago, the old man had burst out against old Dave and had quickly covered up his indiscretion with a pious characterization of himself as a man that kept peace with both factions. And then why had he been so suspicious and fearful when Hale told him that night that he had seen him talking with a Falin in town the Court day before, and had he disclosed the whereabouts of Rufe Tolliver and guided the guard to his hiding-place simply for the reward? He had not yet come to claim it, and his indifference to money was notorious through the hills. Apparently there was some general enmity in the old man toward the whole Tolliver clan, and maybe he had used the reward to fool Hale as to his real motive. And then Hale quietly learned that long ago the Tollivers bitterly opposed the Red Fox's marriage to a Tolliver—that Rufe, when a boy, was always teasing the Red Fox and had once made him dance in his moccasins to the tune of bullets spitting about his feet, and that the Red Fox had been heard to say that old Dave had cheated his wife out of her just inheritance of wild land; but all that was long, long ago, and apparently had been mutually forgiven and forgotten. But it was enough for Hale, and one night he mounted his horse, and at dawn he was at the place of ambush with his horse hidden in the bushes. The rocks for the ambush were waist high, and the twigs that had been thrust in the crevices between them were withered. And there, on the hypothesis that the Red Fox was the assassin, Hale tried to put himself, after the deed, into the Red Fox's shoes. The old man had turned up on guard before noon—then he must have gone somewhere first or have killed considerable time in the woods. He would not have crossed the road, for there were two houses on the other side; there would have been no object in going on over the mountain unless he meant to escape, and if he had gone over there for another reason he would hardly have had time to get to the Court House before noon: nor would he have gone back along the road on that side, for on that side, too, was a cabin not far away. So Hale turned and walked straight away from the road where the walking was easiest—down a ravine, and pushing this way and that through the bushes where the way looked easiest. Half a mile down the ravine he came to a little brook, and there in the black earth was the faint print of a man's left foot and in the hard crust across was the deeper print of his right, where his weight in leaping had come down hard. But the prints were made by a shoe and not by a moccasin, and then Hale recalled exultantly that the Red Fox did not have his moccasins on the morning he turned up on guard. All the while he kept a sharp lookout, right and left, on the ground—the Red Fox must have thrown his cartridge shell somewhere, and for that Hale was looking. Across the brook he could see the tracks no farther, for he was too little of a woodsman to follow so old a trail, but as he stood behind a clump of rhododendron, wondering what he could do, he heard the crack of a dead stick down the stream, and noiselessly he moved farther into the bushes. His heart thumped in the silence—the long silence that followed—for it might be a hostile Tolliver that was coming, so he pulled his pistol from his holster, made ready, and then, noiseless as a shadow, the Red Fox slipped past him along the path, in his moccasins now, and with his big Winchester in his left hand. The Red Fox, too, was looking for that cartridge shell, for only the night before had he heard for the first time of the whispered suspicions against him. He was making for the blind and Hale trembled at his luck. There was no path on the other side of the stream, and Hale could barely hear him moving through the bushes. So he pulled off his boots and, carrying them in one hand, slipped after him, watching for dead twigs, stooping under the branches, or sliding sidewise through them when he had to brush between their extremities, and pausing every now and then to listen for an occasional faint sound from the Red Fox ahead. Up the ravine the old man went to a little ledge of rocks, beyond which was the blind, and when Hale saw his stooped figure slip over that and disappear, he ran noiselessly toward it, crept noiselessly to the top and peeped carefully over to see the Red Fox with his back to him and peering into a clump of bushes—hardly ten yards away. While Hale looked, the old man thrust his hand into the bushes and drew out something that twinkled in the sun. At the moment Hale's horse nickered from the bushes, and the Red Fox slipped his hand into his pocket, crouched listening a moment, and then, step by step, backed toward the ledge. Hale rose:
“I want you, Red!”
The old man wheeled, the wolf's snarl came, but the big rifle was too slow—Hale's pistol had flashed in his face.
“Drop your gun!” Paralyzed, but the picture of white fury, the old man hesitated.
“Drop—your—gun!” Slowly the big rifle was loosed and fell to the ground.
“Back away—turn around and hands up!”
With his foot on the Winchester, Hale felt in the old man's pockets and fished out an empty cartridge shell. Then he picked up the rifle and threw the slide.
“It fits all right. March—toward that horse!”
Without a word the old man slouched ahead to where the big black horse was restlessly waiting in the bushes.
“Climb up,” said Hale. “We won't 'ride and tie' back to town—but I'll take turns with you on the horse.”
The Red Fox was making ready to leave the mountains, for he had been falsely informed that Rufe was to be brought back to the county seat next day, and he was searching again for the sole bit of evidence that was out against him. And when Rufe was spirited back to jail and was on his way to his cell, an old freckled hand was thrust between the bars of an iron door to greet him and a voice called him by name. Rufe stopped in amazement; then he burst out laughing; he struck then at the pallid face through the bars with his manacles and cursed the old man bitterly; then he laughed again horribly. The two slept in adjoining cells of the same cage that night—the one waiting for the scaffold and the other waiting for the trial that was to send him there. And away over the blue mountains a little old woman in black sat on the porch of her cabin as she had sat patiently many and many a long day. It was time, she thought, that the Red Fox was coming home.
And so while Bad Rufe Tolliver was waiting for death, the trial of the Red Fox went on, and when he was not swinging in a hammock, reading his Bible, telling his visions to his guards and singing hymns, he was in the Court House giving shrewd answers to questions, or none at all, with the benevolent half of his mask turned to the jury and the wolfish snarl of the other half showing only now and then to some hostile witness for whom his hate was stronger than his fear for his own life. And in jail Bad Rufe worried his enemy with the malicious humour of Satan. Now he would say:
“Oh, there ain't nothin' betwixt old Red and me, nothin' at all—'cept this iron wall,” and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wall with the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox's hammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say to his guard outside:
“Course I don't read the Bible an' preach the word, nor talk with sperits, but thar's worse men than me in the world—old Red in thar' for instance”; and then he would cackle like a fiend and the Red Fox would writhe in torment and beg to be sent to another cell. And always he would daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and ask him questions in the night, and his devilish instinct told him the day that the Red Fox, too, was sentenced to death—he saw it in the gray pallour of the old man's face, and he cackled his glee like a demon. For the evidence against the Red Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief witness against Rufe Tolliver—John Hale sat as chief witness against the Red Fox. He could not swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old man pick up, but it was something that glistened in the sun, and a moment later he had found the shell in the old man's pocket—and if it had been fired innocently, why was it there and why was the old man searching for it? He was looking, he said, for evidence of the murderer himself. That claim made, the Red Fox's lawyer picked up the big rifle and the shell.
“You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the night you spent at his home that this rifle was rim-fire?”
“He did.” The lawyer held up the shell.
“You see this was exploded in such a rifle.” That was plain, and the lawyer shoved the shell into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out, and held it up again. The plunger had struck below the rim and near the centre, but not quite on the centre, and Hale asked for the rifle and examined it closely.
“It's been tampered with,” he said quietly, and he handed it to the prosecuting attorney. The fact was plain; it was a bungling job and better proved the Red Fox's guilt. Moreover, there were only two such big rifles in all the hills, and it was proven that the man who owned the other was at the time of the murder far away. The days of brain-storms had not come then. There were no eminent Alienists to prove insanity for the prisoner. Apparently, he had no friends—none save the little old woman in black who sat by his side, hour by hour and day by day.
And the Red Fox was doomed.
In the hush of the Court Room the Judge solemnly put to the gray face before him the usual question:
“Have you anything to say whereby sentence of death should not be pronounced on you?”
The Red Fox rose:
“No,” he said in a shaking voice; “but I have a friend here who I would like to speak for me.” The Judge bent his head a moment over his bench and lifted it:
“It is unusual,” he said; “but under the circumstances I will grant your request. Who is your friend?” And the Red Fox made the souls of his listeners leap.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
The Judge reverently bowed his head and the hush of the Court Room grew deeper when the old man fished his Bible from his pocket and calmly read such passages as might be interpreted as sure damnation for his enemies and sure glory for himself—read them until the Judge lifted his hand for a halt.
And so another sensation spread through the hills and a superstitious awe of this strange new power that had come into the hills went with it hand in hand. Only while the doubting ones knew that nothing could save the Red Fox they would wait to see if that power could really avail against the Tolliver clan. The day set for Rufe's execution was the following Monday, and for the Red Fox the Friday following—for it was well to have the whole wretched business over while the guard was there. Old Judd Tolliver, so Hale learned, had come himself to offer the little old woman in black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived, and had tried to get her to go back with him to Lonesome Cove; but it pleased the Red Fox that he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of white—cap and all—as emblems of the purple and fine linen he was to put on above, and the little old woman stayed where she was, silently and without question, cutting the garments, as Hale pityingly learned, from a white table-cloth and measuring them piece by piece with the clothes the old man wore in jail. It pleased him, too, that his body should be kept unburied three days—saying that he would then arise and go about preaching, and that duty, too, she would as silently and with as little question perform. Moreover, he would preach his own funeral sermon on the Sunday before Rufe's day, and a curious crowd gathered to hear him. The Red Fox was led from jail. He stood on the porch of the jailer's house with a little table in front of him. On it lay a Bible, on the other side of the table sat a little pale-faced old woman in black with a black sun-bonnet drawn close to her face. By the side of the Bible lay a few pieces of bread. It was the Red Fox's last communion—a communion which he administered to himself and in which there was no other soul on earth to join save that little old woman in black. And when the old fellow lifted the bread and asked the crowd to come forward to partake with him in the last sacrament, not a soul moved. Only the old woman who had been ill-treated by the Red Fox for so many years—only she, of all the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one instant turned her face toward him. With a churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread over toward her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she reached for it.
Bob Berkley was on the death-watch that night, and as he passed Rufe's cell a wiry hand shot through the grating of his door, and as the boy sprang away the condemned man's fingers tipped the butt of the big pistol that dangled on the lad's hip.
“Not this time,” said Bob with a cool little laugh, and Rufe laughed, too.
“I was only foolin',” he said, “I ain't goin' to hang. You hear that, Red? I ain't goin' to hang—but you are, Red—sure. Nobody'd risk his little finger for your old carcass, 'cept maybe that little old woman o' yours who you've treated like a hound—but my folks ain't goin' to see me hang.”
Rufe spoke with some reason. That night the Tollivers climbed the mountain, and before daybreak were waiting in the woods a mile on the north side of the town. And the Falins climbed, too, farther along the mountains, and at the same hour were waiting in the woods a mile to the south.
Back in Lonesome Cove June Tolliver sat alone—her soul shaken and terror-stricken to the depths—and the misery that matched hers was in the heart of Hale as he paced to and fro at the county seat, on guard and forging out his plans for that day under the morning stars.
Day broke on the old Court House with its black port-holes, on the graystone jail, and on a tall topless wooden box to one side, from which projected a cross-beam of green oak. From the centre of this beam dangled a rope that swung gently to and fro when the wind moved. And with the day a flock of little birds lighted on the bars of the condemned man's cell window, chirping through them, and when the jailer brought breakfast he found Bad Rufe cowering in the corner of his cell and wet with the sweat of fear.
“Them damn birds ag'in,” he growled sullenly.
“Don't lose yo' nerve, Rufe,” said the jailer, and the old laugh of defiance came, but from lips that were dry.
“Not much,” he answered grimly, but the jailer noticed that while he ate, his eyes kept turning again and again to the bars; and the turnkey went away shaking his head. Rufe had told the jailer, his one friend through whom he had kept in constant communication with the Tollivers, how on the night after the shooting of Mockaby, when he lay down to sleep high on the mountain side and under some rhododendron bushes, a flock of little birds flew in on him like a gust of rain and perched over and around him, twittering at him until he had to get up and pace the woods, and how, throughout the next day, when he sat in the sun planning his escape, those birds would sweep chattering over his head and sweep chattering back again, and in that mood of despair he had said once, and only once: “Somehow I knowed this time my name was Dennis”—a phrase of evil prophecy he had picked up outside the hills. And now those same birds of evil omen had come again, he believed, right on the heels of the last sworn oath old Judd had sent him that he would never hang.
With the day, through mountain and valley, came in converging lines mountain humanity—men and women, boys and girls, children and babes in arms; all in their Sunday best—the men in jeans, slouched hats, and high boots, the women in gay ribbons and brilliant home-spun; in wagons, on foot and on horses and mules, carrying man and man, man and boy, lover and sweetheart, or husband and wife and child—all moving through the crisp autumn air, past woods of russet and crimson and along brown dirt roads, to the straggling little mountain town. A stranger would have thought that a county fair, a camp-meeting, or a circus was their goal, but they were on their way to look upon the Court House with its black port-holes, the graystone jail, the tall wooden box, the projecting beam, and that dangling rope which, when the wind moved, swayed gently to and fro. And Hale had forged his plan. He knew that there would be no attempt at rescue until Rufe was led to the scaffold, and he knew that neither Falins nor Tollivers would come in a band, so the incoming tide found on the outskirts of the town and along every road boyish policemen who halted and disarmed every man who carried a weapon in sight, for thus John Hale would have against the pistols of the factions his own Winchesters and repeating shot-guns. And the wondering people saw at the back windows of the Court House and at the threatening port-holes more youngsters manning Winchesters, more at the windows of the jailer's frame house, which joined and fronted the jail, and more still—a line of them—running all around the jail; and the old men wagged their heads in amazement and wondered if, after all, a Tolliver was not really going to be hanged.
So they waited—the neighbouring hills were black with people waiting; the housetops were black with men and boys waiting; the trees in the streets were bending under the weight of human bodies; and the jail-yard fence was three feet deep with people hanging to it and hanging about one another's necks—all waiting. All morning they waited silently and patiently, and now the fatal noon was hardly an hour away and not a Falin nor a Tolliver had been seen. Every Falin had been disarmed of his Winchester as he came in, and as yet no Tolliver had entered the town, for wily old Judd had learned of Hale's tactics and had stayed outside the town for his own keen purpose. As the minutes passed, Hale was beginning to wonder whether, after all, old Judd had come to believe that the odds against him were too great, and had told the truth when he set afoot the rumour that the law should have its way; and it was just when his load of anxiety was beginning to lighten that there was a little commotion at the edge of the Court House and a great red-headed figure pushed through the crowd, followed by another of like build, and as the people rapidly gave way and fell back, a line of Falins slipped along the wall and stood under the port-holes-quiet, watchful, and determined. Almost at the same time the crowd fell back the other way up the street, there was the hurried tramping of feet and on came the Tollivers, headed by giant Judd, all armed with Winchesters—for old Judd had sent his guns in ahead—and as the crowd swept like water into any channel of alley or doorway that was open to it, Hale saw the yard emptied of everybody but the line of Falins against the wall and the Tollivers in a body but ten yards in front of them. The people on the roofs and in the trees had not moved at all, for they were out of range. For a moment old Judd's eyes swept the windows and port-holes of the Court House, the windows of the jailer's house, the line of guards about the jail, and then they dropped to the line of Falins and glared with contemptuous hate into the leaping blue eyes of old Buck Falin, and for that moment there was silence. In that silence and as silently as the silence itself issued swiftly from the line of guards twelve youngsters with Winchesters, repeating shot-guns, and in a minute six were facing the Falins and six facing the Tollivers, each with his shot-gun at his hip. At the head of them stood Hale, his face a pale image, as hard as though cut from stone, his head bare, and his hand and his hip weaponless. In all that crowd there was not a man or a woman who had not seen or heard of him, for the power of the guard that was at his back had radiated through that wild region like ripples of water from a dropped stone and, unarmed even, he had a personal power that belonged to no other man in all those hills, though armed to the teeth. His voice rose clear, steady, commanding:
“The law has come here and it has come to stay.” He faced the beetling eyebrows and angrily working beard of old Judd now:
'we'll Fight You Both!', 0370
“The Falins are here to get revenge on you Tollivers, if you attack us. I know that. But”—he wheeled on the Falins—“understand! We don't want your help! If the Tollivers try to take that man in there, and one of you Falins draws a pistol, those guns there”—waving his hand toward the jail windows—“will be turned loose on YOU, WE'LL FIGHT YOU BOTH!” The last words shot like bullets through his gritted teeth, then the flash of his eyes was gone, his face was calm, and as though the whole matter had been settled beyond possible interruption, he finished quietly:
“The condemned man wishes to make a confession and to say good-by. In five minutes he will be at that window to say what he pleases. Ten minutes later he will be hanged.” And he turned and walked calmly into the jailer's door. Not a Tolliver nor a Falin made a movement or a sound. Young Dave's eyes had glared savagely when he first saw Hale, for he had marked Hale for his own and he knew that the fact was known to Hale. Had the battle begun then and there, Hale's death was sure, and Dave knew that Hale must know that as well as he: and yet with magnificent audacity, there he was—unarmed, personally helpless, and invested with an insulting certainty that not a shot would be fired. Not a Falin or a Tolliver even reached for a weapon, and the fact was the subtle tribute that ignorance pays intelligence when the latter is forced to deadly weapons as a last resort; for ignorance faced now belching shot-guns and was commanded by rifles on every side. Old Judd was trapped and the Falins were stunned. Old Buck Falin turned his eyes down the line of his men with one warning glance. Old Judd whispered something to a Tolliver behind him and a moment later the man slipped from the band and disappeared. Young Dave followed Hale's figure with a look of baffled malignant hatred and Bub's eyes were filled with angry tears. Between the factions, the grim young men stood with their guns like statues.
At once a big man with a red face appeared at one of the jailer's windows and then came the sheriff, who began to take out the sash. Already the frightened crowd had gathered closer again and now a hush came over it, followed by a rustling and a murmur. Something was going to happen. Faces and gun-muzzles thickened at the port-holes and at the windows; the line of guards turned their faces sidewise and upward; the crowd on the fence scuffled for better positions; the people in the trees craned their necks from the branches or climbed higher, and there was a great scraping on all the roofs. Even the black crowd out on the hills seemed to catch the excitement and to sway, while spots of intense blue and vivid crimson came out here and there from the blackness when the women rose from their seats on the ground. Then—sharply—there was silence. The sheriff disappeared, and shut in by the sashless window as by a picture frame and blinking in the strong light, stood a man with black hair, cropped close, face pale and worn, and hands that looked white and thin—stood bad Rufe Tolliver.
He was going to confess—that was the rumour. His lawyers wanted him to confess; the preacher who had been singing hymns with him all morning wanted him to confess; the man himself said he wanted to confess; and now he was going to confess. What deadly mysteries he might clear up if he would! No wonder the crowd was eager, for there was no soul there but knew his record—and what a record! His best friends put his victims no lower than thirteen, and there looking up at him were three women whom he had widowed or orphaned, while at one corner of the jail-yard stood a girl in black—the sweetheart of Mockaby, for whose death Rufe was standing where he stood now. But his lips did not open. Instead he took hold of the side of the window and looked behind him. The sheriff brought him a chair and he sat down. Apparently he was weak and he was going to wait a while. Would he tell how he had killed one Falin in the presence of the latter's wife at a wild bee tree; how he had killed a sheriff by dropping to the ground when the sheriff fired, in this way dodging the bullet and then shooting the officer from where he lay supposedly dead; how he had thrown another Falin out of the Court House window and broken his neck—the Falin was drunk, Rufe always said, and fell out; why, when he was constable, he had killed another—because, Rufe said, he resisted arrest; how and where he had killed Red-necked Johnson, who was found out in the woods? Would he tell all that and more? If he meant to tell there was no sign. His lips kept closed and his bright black eyes were studying the situation; the little squad of youngsters, back to back, with their repeating shot-guns, the line of Falins along the wall toward whom protruded six shining barrels, the huddled crowd of Tollivers toward whom protruded six more—old Judd towering in front with young Dave on one side, tense as a leopard about to spring, and on the other Bub, with tears streaming down his face. In a flash he understood, and in that flash his face looked as though he had been suddenly struck a heavy blow by some one from behind, and then his elbows dropped on the sill of the window, his chin dropped into his hands and a murmur arose. Maybe he was too weak to stand and talk—perhaps he was going to talk from his chair. Yes, he was leaning forward and his lips were opening, but no sound came. Slowly his eyes wandered around at the waiting people—in the trees, on the roofs and the fence—and then they dropped to old Judd's and blazed their appeal for a sign. With one heave of his mighty chest old Judd took off his slouch hat, pressed one big hand to the back of his head and, despite that blazing appeal, kept it there. At that movement Rufe threw his head up as though his breath had suddenly failed him, his face turned sickening white, and slowly again his chin dropped into his trembling hands, and still unbelieving he stared his appeal, but old Judd dropped his big hand and turned his head away. The condemned man's mouth twitched once, settled into defiant calm, and then he did one kindly thing. He turned in his seat and motioned Bob Berkley, who was just behind him, away from the window, and the boy, to humour him, stepped aside. Then he rose to his feet and stretched his arms wide. Simultaneously came the far-away crack of a rifle, and as a jet of smoke spurted above a clump of bushes on a little hill, three hundred yards away, Bad Rufe wheeled half-way round and fell back out of sight into the sheriff's arms. Every Falin made a nervous reach for his pistol, the line of gun-muzzles covering them wavered slightly, but the Tollivers stood still and unsurprised, and when Hale dashed from the door again, there was a grim smile of triumph on old Judd's face. He had kept his promise that Rufe should never hang.
“Steady there,” said Hale quietly. His pistol was on his hip now and a Winchester was in his left hand.
“Stand where you are—everybody!”
There was the sound of hurrying feet within the jail. There was the clang of an iron door, the bang of a wooden one, and in five minutes from within the tall wooden box came the sharp click of a hatchet and then—dully:
“T-H-O-O-MP!” The dangling rope had tightened with a snap and the wind swayed it no more.
At his cell door the Red Fox stood with his watch in his hand and his eyes glued to the second-hand. When it had gone three times around its circuit, he snapped the lid with a sigh of relief and turned to his hammock and his Bible.
“He's gone now,” said the Red Fox.
Outside Hale still waited, and as his eyes turned from the Tollivers to the Falins, seven of the faces among them came back to him with startling distinctness, and his mind went back to the opening trouble in the county-seat over the Kentucky line, years before—when eight men held one another at the points of their pistols. One face was missing, and that face belonged to Rufe Tolliver. Hale pulled out his watch.
“Keep those men there,” he said, pointing to the Falins, and he turned to the bewildered Tollivers.
“Come on, Judd,” he said kindly—“all of you.”
Dazed and mystified, they followed him in a body around the corner of the jail, where in a coffin, that old Jadd had sent as a blind to his real purpose, lay the remains of Bad Rufe Tolliver with a harmless bullet hole through one shoulder. Near by was a wagon and hitched to it were two mules that Hale himself had provided. Hale pointed to it:
“I've done all I could, Judd. Take him away. I'll keep the Falins under guard until you reach the Kentucky line, so that they can't waylay you.”
If old Judd heard, he gave no sign. He was looking down at the face of his foster-brother—his shoulder drooped, his great frame shrunken, and his iron face beaten and helpless. Again Hale spoke:
“I'm sorry for all this. I'm even sorry that your man was not a better shot.”
The old man straightened then and with a gesture he motioned young Dave to the foot of the coffin and stooped himself at the head. Past the wagon they went, the crowd giving way before them, and with the dead Tolliver on their shoulders, old Judd and young Dave passed with their followers out of sight.