The boy raised a hand. "Fer God's sake don't narrate them things," he implored. "They sots me on fire. My grandsires hev been satisfied hyar fer centuries an' all my folks sees in me, fer dreamin' erbout things like thet, is lackin' of loyalty."
Henderson found his interest so powerfully engaged that he talked on with an excess of enthusiasm.
"But back of those grandsires were other grandsires, Turner. They were the strongest, the best and the most American of all America; those earlier ancestors of yours and mine. They dared to face the wilderness, and those that got across the mountains won the West."
"Ours didn't git acrost though," countered the boy dryly. "Ours was them thet started out ter do big things an' failed."
Henderson smiled. "A mule that went lame, a failure to strike one of the few possible passes, made all the difference between success and failure in that pilgrimage, but the blood of those empire-builders is our blood and what they are now, we shall be when we catch up. We've been marking time while they were marching, that's all."
"Ye've done been off ter college yoreself, hain't ye, Mr. Henderson?"
"Yes. Harvard."
"Harvard? Seems ter me I've heered tell of hit. Air hit as good as Berea?"
The visitor repressed his smile, but before he could answer Bear Cat pressed on:
"Whilst ye're up hyar, I wonder ef hit'd be askin' too master much of ye ef—" the boy paused, gulped down his embarrassment and continued hastily—"ef ye could kinderly tell me a few books ter read?"
"Gladly," agreed Henderson. "It's the young men like you who have the opportunity to make life up here worth living for the rest."
After a moment Bear Cat suggested dubiously: "But amongst my folks I wouldn't git much thanks fer tryin'. Ther outside world stands fer interference—an' they won't suffer hit. They believes in holdin' with their kith an' kin."
Again Henderson nodded, and this time the smile that danced in his eyes was irresistibly infectious. In a low voice he quoted:
"The men of my own stockThey may do ill or well,But they tell the lies I am wonted to,They are used to the lies I tell.We do not need interpretersWhen we go to buy and sell."
"The men of my own stockThey may do ill or well,But they tell the lies I am wonted to,They are used to the lies I tell.We do not need interpretersWhen we go to buy and sell."
"The men of my own stock
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wonted to,
They are used to the lies I tell.
We do not need interpreters
When we go to buy and sell."
Bear Cat Stacy stood looking off over the mountain sides. He filled his splendidly rounded chest with a deep draft of the morning air,—air as clean and sparkling as a fine wine, and into his veins stole an ardor like intoxication.
In his eyes kindled again that light, which had made Henderson think of volcanoes lying quiet with immeasurable fires slumbering at their hearts.
Last night the boy had fought out the hardest battle of his life, and to-day he was one who had passed a definite mile-post of progress. This morning, too, a seed had dropped and a new life influence was stirring. It would take storm and stress and seasons to bring it to fulfilment, perhaps. The poplar does not grow from seed to great tree in a day—but, this morning, the seed had begun to swell and quicken.
What broke, like the fledgling of a new conception, in Bear Cat's heart, was less palpably but none the less certainly abroad in the air, riding the winds—with varied results.
That an outside voice was speaking: a voice which was dangerous to the old gods of custom, was the conviction entertained, not with elation but with somber resentment in the mind of Kinnard Towers. Upon that realization followed a grim resolve to clip the wings of innovation while there was yet time. It was no part of this crude dictator's program to suffer a stranger, with a gift for "glib speech," to curtail his enjoyment of prerogatives built upon a lifetime of stress and proven power.
Back of Cedar Mountain, where there are few telephones, news travels on swift, if unseen wings. Henderson had not been at Lone Stacy's house twenty-four hours when the large excitement of his coming, gathering mythical embellishment as it passed from mouth to mouth, was mysteriously launched.
Wayfarers, meeting in the road and halting for talk, accosted each other thus:
"I heer tell thar's a man over ter Lone Stacy's house thet's done been clar ter ther other world an' back. He's met up with all character of outlanders."
Having come back from "ther other world" did not indeed mean, as might be casually inferred, that Henderson had risen from his grave; relinquishing his shroud for a rehabilitated life. It signified only that he had been "acrost the waters"—a matter almost as vague. So the legend grew as it traveled, endowing Jerry with a "survigrous" importance.
"Folks says," went the rumor, "thet he knows ways fer a man ter make a livin' offen these-hyar tormentin' rocks. Hev ye seed him yit?"
Having come to the house of Lone Stacy, it was quite in accordance with the custom of the hills that he should remain there indefinitely. His plans for acquiring land meant first establishing himself in popular esteem and to this end no means could have contributed more directly than acceptance under a Stacy roof.
With the younger Stacy this approval was something more: it savored of hero-worship and upon Henderson's store of wisdom, Bear Cat's avid hunger for knowledge feasted itself.
Henderson saw Blossom often in these days and her initial shyness, in his presence, remained obdurate. But through it he caught, with a refreshing quality, the quick-flashing alertness of her mind and he became anxious to win her confidence and friendship.
And she, for all her timidity, was profoundly impressed and fed vicariously on his wisdom—through the enthusiastic relaying of Bear Cat Stacy's narration.
When conversation with Jerry was unavoidable, Turner noted that she was giving a new and unaccustomed care to her diction, catching herself up from vernacular to an effort at more correct forms.
"Blossom," he gravely questioned her one day, "what makes ye so mindful of yore P's and Q's when ye hes speech with Jerry Henderson?"
"I reckon hit's jest shame fer my ign'rance," she candidly replied, forgetting to be ashamed of it now that the stranger was no longer present.
"And yit," he reminded her, "ye've got more eddication now then common—hyarabouts."
"Hyarabouts, yes," came the prompt retort, touched with irony. "So hevyou. Air ye satisfied with hit?"
"No," he admitted honestly. "God knows I hain't!"
One evening Kinnard Towers entered the saloon at the Quarterhouse and stood unobserved at the door, as he watched the roistering crowd about the bar. It was a squalid place, but to the foreign eye it would have been, in a sordid sense, interesting. Its walls and the eight-foot stockade that went around it were stoutly builded of hewn timbers as though it had been planned with a view toward defense against siege.
A few lithographed calendars from mail-order houses afforded the sole note of decoration to the interior. The ordinary bar-mirror was dispensed with. It could hardly have come across the mountain intact. Had it come it could scarcely have survived.
The less perishable fixtures of woodwork and ceiling bore testimony to that in their pitted scars reminiscent of gun-play undertaken in rude sport—and in deadly earnest. The shutters, heavy and solid, had on occasion done service as stretchers and cooling boards. Vilely odorous kerosene lamps swung against the walls, dimly abetted by tin reflectors, and across the floor went the painted white line of the state border. At the room's exact center were two huge letters. That east of the line was V. and that west was K.
The air was thick with the reek of smoke and the fumes of liquor. The boisterousness was raucously profane—the general atmosphere was that of an unclean rookery.
As the proprietor stood at the threshold, loud guffaws of maudlin laughter greeted his ears and, seeking the concrete cause, his gaze encountered Ratler Webb, propped against the bar, somewhat redder of eye and more unsteady on his legs than usual. Obviously he was the enraged butt of ill-advised heckling.
"Ye hadn't ought ter hev crossed Bear Cat," suggested a badgering voice. "Then ye wouldn't hev a busted nose. He's a bad man ter fool with. Thar war witches at his bornin'."
"I reckon Bear Cat knows what's healthful fer him," snarled Webb. "When we meets in ther highway he rides plumb round me."
The speaker broke off and, with a sweeping truculence, challenged contradiction. "Air any of you men friends of his'n? Does airy one of ye aim ter dispute what I says?" Silence ensued, possibly influenced by the circumstance that Ratler's hand was on his pistol grip as he spoke, so he continued:
"Ef I sought ter be a damn' tale-bearer, I could penitenshery him fer blockadin' right now, but thet wouldn't satisfy me nohow. I aims ter handle him my own self."
Again there was absence of contradiction near about the braggart, though ripples of derisive mirth trickled in from the outskirts.
Ratler jerked out his weapon and leaned against the bar. As he waved the muzzle about he stormed furiously: "Who laughed back thar?" And no one volunteered response.
Webb squinted hazily up at one of the reflector-backed lamps. "Damn thet light," he exclaimed. "Hit hurts my eyes." There followed a report and the lamp fell crashing.
For a brief space the drunken man stood holding the smoking weapon in his hand, then he looked up and started, but this time he let the pistol swing inactive at his side and the truculent blackness of his face faded to an expression of dismay.
Kinnard Towers stood facing him with an unpleasant coldness in his eyes.
"I reckon, Ratler," suggested the proprietor, "ye'd better come along with me. I wants ter hev peaceable speech with ye."
In a room above-stairs Kinnard motioned him to a chair much as a teacher might command a child taken red-handed in some mad prank.
"Ratler, hit hain't a right wise thing ter talk over-much," he volunteered at last. "Whar air thet still ye spoke erbout—Bear Cat Stacy's still?"
Webb cringed.
"I war jest a-talkin'. I don't know nuthin' erbout no sich still."
What means of loosening unwilling tongues Kinnard Towers commanded was his own secret. A half hour later he knew what he wished to know and Ratler Webb left the place. Upon his Ishmaelite neck was firmly fastened the collar of vassalage to the baron of the Quarterhouse.
On the day following that evening Towers talked with Black Tom Carmichael.
"This man Henderson," he said musingly, "air plumb stirring up ther country. I reckon hit'd better be seen to."
Black Tom nodded. "Thet oughtn't ter be much trouble." But Towers shook his blond head with an air of less assured confidence.
"Ter me hit don't look like no easy matter. Lone Stacy's givin' him countenance. Ef I war ter run him outen these parts I reckon ther Stacys would jest about swarm inter war over hit."
"What does ye aim ter do, Kinnard?"
"So far I'm only bidin' my time, but I aims ter keep a mighty sharp eye on him. He hain't made no move yit, but he's gainin' friends fast an' a man's obleeged ter kinderly plan ahead. When ther time's ripe he's got ter go." Towers paused, then added significantly, "One way or another—but afore thet's undertook, I 'lows ter git rid of his protectors."
"Thet's a mighty perilous thing ter try, Kinnard," demurred the lieutenant in a voice fraught with anxiety. "Ye kain't bring hit ter pass without ye opens up ther war afresh—an'thistime they'd hev Bear Cat ter lead 'em."
But Towers smiled easily.
"I've got a plan, Tom. They won't even suspicion I knows anything about events. I'm goin' ter foller Mr. Henderson's counsel an' do things thernewway, 'stid of ther old."
CHAPTER VIII
Hendersonfound Brother Fulkerson a preacher who, more by service and example and comforting the disconsolate than by pulpit oratory, held a strong influence upon his people, and commanded their deep devotion.
His quiet ministry had indeed been heard of beyond the hills and even in the black days of feudal hatred, dead lines had been wiped out for him so that he came and went freely among both factions, and no man doubted him.
Kindly, grave and steadfast, Henderson found him to be, and possessed of a natively shrewd brain, as well. Blossom was usually at the Fulkerson house when Jerry called, but she fitted silently in the background and her eyes regarded him with that shy gravity, in which he found an insurmountable barrier to better acquaintance.
One morning as he passed the Fulkerson abode he found the girl alone by the gate—and paused there.
The season's first tenderness of greenery along the slopes had ripened now to the sunburned and freckled warmth of midsummer, but the day was young enough for lingering drops of the heavy dew to remain on the petals of the morning-glories and the weed stalks along the roadside. Between the waxen delicacy and rich variety of the morning-glory petals and the bloom of the girl, Jerry fell musingly to tracing analogies.
The morning-glory is among the most plebeian of flowering things, boasting no nobility except a charm too fragile to endure long its coarse companionship with smart-weed and mullen, so that each day it comes confidently into being only to shrink shortly into disappointed death.
Blossom, too, would in the course of nature and environment, have a brief bloom and a swift fading—but just now her beauty was only enhanced by the pathos of its doom.
"Blossom," he smilingly suggested, "I'd like to be friends with you, just as I am with Turner. I'm not really an evil spirit you know, yet you seem always half afraid of me."
The girl's lashes drooped shyly, veiling her splendid eyes, but she made no immediate response to his amenities, and Henderson laughed.
"It's all the stranger," he said, "because I can't forget our first meeting. Then you were the spirit of warfare. I can still seem to see you standing there barring the path; your eyes ablaze and your nostrils aquiver with righteous wrath."
For an instant, in recollection of the incident, she forgot her timidity and there flashed into her face the swift illumination of a smile.
"Thet war when I 'lowed ye war an enemy. Folks don't show no—I mean don't show any—fear of thar enemies. Leastways—at least—mountain folks don't."
He understood that attitude, but he smiled, pretending to misconstrue it.
"Then I'm not dangerous as an enemy? It's only when I seek to be a friend that I need be feared?"
Her flush deepened into positive confusion and her reply was faltering.
"I didn't mean nothin' like thet. Hit's jest thet when I tries ter talk with ye, I feels so plumb ign'rant an'—an' benighted—thet—thet——" She broke off and the man leaning on the fence bent toward her.
"You mean that when you talk to me you think I'm comparing you with the girls I know down below, isn't that it?"
Blossom nodded her head and added, "With gals—girls I mean—that wears fancy fixin's an' talks grammar."
"Sit down there for a minute, Blossom," he commanded, and when she had enthroned herself on the square-hewn horse-block by the gate he seated himself, cross-legged at her feet.
"Grammar isn't so very hard to learn," he assured her. "And any woman who carries herself with your lance-like ease, starts out equipped with more than 'fancy fixin's.' I want to tell you about a dream I had the other night."
At once her face grew as absorbed as a child's at the promise of a fairy story.
"I dreamed that I went to a very grand ball in a city down below. The ladies were gorgeously dressed, but late in the evening an unknown girl came into the room and everybody turned to look at her, forgetting all the rest of the party." He paused a moment before adding, "I dreamed that that girl was you."
"What did they all hev ter say about me?" she eagerly demanded.
"To be perfectly frank—you see it was a dream—most of them just exclaimed: 'My God!'"
"I don't hardly censure 'em," admitted Blossom. "I reckon I cut a right sorry figger at that party."
Henderson laughed aloud.
"But don't you see, that wasn't it at all. They were all breathless with admiration. You had the things they would have given all their jewels for—things they can't buy."
For a little space she looked at him with serious, pained eyes, suspicious of ridicule, then the expression altered to bewilderment, and her question came in a lowered voice.
"Things I hev thet they lacks? What manner of things air them—I mean——those?"
"The very rare gifts of originality and an elfin personality," he assured her. "Besides that you have beauty of the freshest and most colorful sort."
For a moment Blossom flushed again shyly, then she lifted one hand and pointed across the road.
"See thet white flower? Thet's wild parsely. I always calls it the pore relation to the elder bush—but it's jest got to stay a pore relation—always—because it started out thet way."
Henderson, as the summer progressed, discovered an absurd thought lurking in his mind with annoying pertinacity. He could not for long banish the fanciful picture of Blossom Fulkerson transplanted—of Blossom as she might be with fuller opportunities for development. There is an undeniable fascination in building air-castles about the Cinderella theme of human transformations and the sight of her always teased his imagination into play.
That these fantasies bore any personal relation to himself he did not admit or even suspect. Readily enough, and satisfactorily enough he explained to himself that he, who was accustomed to a life of teeming activities, was here marooned in monotony. All things are measurable by contrasts, and in her little world, Blossom stood out radiantly and exquisitely different from her colorless sisters. When he had crossed Cedar Mountain again and boarded a railroad train, more vital things would engage him, and he would promptly forget the beautiful little barbarian.
One hot afternoon in late July Jerry Henderson sat in the lounging-room of his club in Louisville. The windows were open and the street noises, after the still whispers of the mountains, seemed to beat on his senses with discordant insistence. Down the length of the broad, wainscoted hall he saw a party of young men in flannels and girls in soft muslins passing out and he growled testily.
"All cut to a single pattern!" he exclaimed. "All impeccably monotonous!" Then he irrelevantly added to himself, "I'm allowing myself to become absurd—I expect its the damned heat. Anyhow she's Bear Cat Stacy's gal!"
As Jerry sat alone he was, quite unconsciously, affording a theme of conversation for two fellow clubmen in the billiard-room.
"I see Jerry Henderson has reappeared in our midst," commented one. "I wonder what titanic enterprise is engaging his genius just now."
"Give it up," was the laconic reply. "But whatever it is, I'm ready to wager he'll emerge from it unscathed and that everybody who backs him will be ruined. That's the history of his buccaneer activities up to date."
"What's his secret? Why don't his creditors fall on him and destroy him?" inquired the first speaker and his companion yawned.
"It's the damned charm of the fellow, I suppose. He could hypnotize the Shah of Persia into Calvinism."
For a moment the speakers fell silent, watching a shot on the pool-table, then one of them spoke with languid interest.
"Whatever we may think of our friend Henderson, he's a picturesque figure, and he's running a most diverting race. He's always just a jump behind a billion dollars and just a jump ahead of the wolf and the constable."
While this conversation proceeded, a heavy-set and elderly gentleman, with determined eyes, entered the club. It was President Wallace of the C. and S-E Railways, and palpably something was on his mind.
Glancing in at the reading-room, and seeing Henderson there, he promptly disposed himself in a heavily cushioned chair at his side and inquired:
"Well, what have you to report?"
"Very little so far," rejoined Henderson with his suavest smile. "You see, there's a man up there who has an annoying capacity for seeing into things and through things. On the day of my arrival he put his finger on my actual purpose in coming."
"You mean Kinnard Towers, I presume." The railroad president drummed thoughtfully on the table-top with his fingers. "I was afraid he would try to hold us up."
Jerry nodded. "He pretends to be unalterably opposed to innovation, but I fancy he really wants to be let in on the ground floor. He has decided that unless he shares our loot, there is to be no plundering."
"Possibly," the railroad magnate spoke thoughtfully, "we'd better meet his terms. The damned outlaw has power up there and we stand to win—or lose—a little empire of wealth."
Henderson's closed fist fell softly but very firmly on the table. His tone was smooth and determined. "Please leave me in command for a while, Mr. Wallace. I mean to beat this highbinder at his own favorite game. If we yield to him he'll emasculate our profits. You gave me five years when we first discussed this thing. In that time I can accomplish it."
"Take seven if you need them. It's worth it."
Sitting in the smoking-car of the train that was transporting him again from civilization to "back of beyond," Jerry Henderson found himself absorbed in somewhat disquieting thoughts.
He gazed out with a dulled admiration on the fertility of blue-grass farms where the land rolled with as smooth and gracious a swell as a woman's bosom. Always heretofore the Central Kentucky mansions with their colonial dignity and quiet air of pride had brought an eager appreciation to his thoughts—the tribute of one who worships an aristocracy based on wealth.
But now when he saw again the tangled underbrush and outcropping rock of the first foothills, something in him cried out, for the first time since boyhood, "I'm going home!" When the altitudes began to clamber into the loftiness of peaks, with wet streamers of cloud along their slopes, the feeling grew. The sight of an eagle circling far overhead almost excited him.
Jerry Henderson was a soldier of fortune, with Napoleonic dreams, and finance was his terrain of conquest. To its overweening ambition he had subordinated everything else. To that attainment he had pointed his whole training, cultivating himself not only in the practicalities of life but also in its refinements, until his bearing, his speech, his manners were possibly a shade too meticulously perfect; too impeccably starched.
Where other men had permitted themselves mild adventures in love and moderate indulgence in drink, he had set upon his conduct a rigid censorship.
His heart, like his conduct, had been severely schooled, for upon marriage, as upon all else, he looked with an opportunist's eye.
His wife must come as an ally, strengthening his position socially and financially. She must be a lady of the old aristocracy, bringing to his house cultivated charm and the power of wealth. She must be fitted, when he took his place among the financially elect, to reign with him.
So it was strange that as he sat here in the smoking-car he should be thinking of an unlettered girl across Cedar Mountain, and acknowledging with a boyish elation that on the way to Lone Stacy's house he would pass her cabin, see her—hear the lilting music of her laugh.
And when Cedar Mountain itself rose before him he swung his way with buoyant stride, up one side and down the other of the range.
Blossom was not in sight when at last he reached the Fulkerson cabin, but the door stood open and Henderson approached it stealthily. He paused for a moment, pondering how conspicuously the small house contrasted with the shabbiness of its neighborhood. It was as trim as a Swiss chalet, reflecting the personality of its mistress. Door frames and window casings were neatly painted—and he knew that was Bear Cat's labor of love. The low hickory-withed chairs on the porch were put together with an approach to a craftsman's skill—and he knew that, too, was Bear Cat's labor of love.
As he reached the porch he saw the girl herself sitting just within, and a broad shaft of sun fell across her, lighting the exquisite quality of her cheeks and the richness of her hair. She was bending studiously over a book, and her lips were drooping with an unconscious wistfulness.
Then, as his shadow fell, Blossom looked up and, in the sudden delight with which she came to her feet, she betrayed her secret of a welcome deeper than that accorded to a friendly but casual stranger.
They were still very much engrossed in each other when half an hour later Bear Cat Stacy appeared without warning in the door. For just a moment he halted on the threshold with pained eyes, before he entered.
The two men walked home together and, along the way, the younger was unaccountably silent. His demeanor had relapsed into that shadow of sullenness which it had often worn before Henderson's coming.
Finally Jerry smilingly demanded an explanation and Bear Cat Stacy turned upon him a face which had suddenly paled. He spoke with a dead evenness.
"We've been honest with each other up to now, Mr. Henderson, an' I demands thet ye be honest with me still."
"I aim to be, Turner. What is it?"
The younger man gulped down a lump which had suddenly risen in his throat, and jerked his head toward the house they had just left.
"Hit's Blossom. Does ye aim ter—ter co'te her?"
"Court her! What put such an idea into your head?"
"Never mind what put hit thar. I've got ter know! Blossom hain't never promised ter wed me, yit, but——" He broke off and for a little while could not resume though his face was expressive enough of his wretchedness. Finally he echoed: "I've got to know! Ef she'd rather marryyou, she's got a license ter choose a-tween us. Only I hadn't never thought of thet—an'——." Once more he fell silent.
"My God, Turner," exclaimed Jerry, with a sudden realization of the absurdity of such an idea, "I could have no thought of marrying her."
"Why couldn't ye?" For an instant the gray eyes narrowed and into them came a dangerous gleam. "Hain't she good enough—fer you or any other man?"
Jerry Henderson nodded with grave assent.
"She's good enough for any man alive," he declared. "But I can't think of marriage at all now. All my plans of life prohibit that." Bear Cat Stacy drank in the clear air in a long breath of joyous relief.
"That's all I needs ter know," he said with entire sincerity. "Only," his voice dropped and he spoke very gently, "only, I reckon ye don't realize how much yore eddycation counts with us thet wants hit an' hain't got hit. Don't let her misunderstand ye none, Mr. Henderson. I don't want ter see her hurt."
CHAPTER IX
Marlin Townlies cradled in the elbow of the river and about its ragged edges the hills stand beetling, hemming it in.
Had it been located in Switzerland, it would have been acclaimed in guide-book and traveler's tales for the sheer beauty of its surroundings.
Hither, when the summer had spent its heat and the hard duties of the farmer had relaxed, flocked the men and women and the children of the country side for that annual diversion which combined with the ardor of religious pilgrimage a long-denied hunger for personal intercourse and excitement. Then, in fine, came "big-meeting time."
The clans gathered from "'way over on t'other side of nowhars." They trooped in from communities which the circuit rider visited so rarely that it was no disgrace for a man and a maid to dwell together as man and wife until a child had been born to them before opportunity came to have the marriage rites solemnized. They flocked from localities so remote that in them sometimes the dead lay buried without funeral until an itinerant minister chanced by to hold obsequies over all delinquent graves in common. It is even told how occasionally a widowed husband wept over the mortal remains of his first and second wife—at a sermon held for both.
So while the magnet which draws them out of their deep-burrowed existence is the Camp-meeting with its hymns and discourse, the occasion holds also the secular importance of county-fair and social conclave.
Brother Fulkerson left his cabin before daylight one morning for the journey to town, riding his old mare, with his daughter on a pillion behind him. With them started Lone Stacy, Bear Cat and Henderson, though since these three must travel with only two mules, the younger men followed the ancient custom of "riding and tying"—alternating in the saddle and on foot.
The air held the heady bouquet of autumn now with the flavor of cider presses and of ripened fox-grapes for the delight of the nostril and the dreamy softness of hazy horizons for the eye.
Oak and poplar flaunted their carnival color along the hillsides. Maples threw out scarlet and orange banners against the sedate tone of the pines and cedars. Among the falling acorns of the woods, mast-fed razor-backs were fattening against the day of slaughter, when for a little while the scantily supplied cabin-dwellers would be abundantly provisioned with pork and cider.
Bear Cat's eyes dwelt steadfastly on Blossom, and Jerry Henderson's turned toward her oftener than he meant them to. There was, in the air, a pervasive holiday spirit.
Roads usually so bare of travel were full now, full with a rude procession of wayfarers; men trudging along with trailing families at their heels; calico-clad women riding sideways on bony steeds, sometimes bizarre in fanciful efforts at finery; tow-headed children with wide-staring eyes.
Then at last they were in Marlin Town, rubbing shoulders with all the narrow mountain world. There was Kinnard Towers riding among his rifle-armed henchmen. He sat stiff in his saddle, baronially pleased as men pointed him out,—and Jerry thought it a safe wager that Kinnard had not come as a convert to the mourners' bench.
Towers nodded affably and shouted his salutation in passing.
But among all the strange types foregathered here with a tone of the medieval about them and over them, none were more fantastic than the two preachers who were to conduct the revival. Brother Fulkerson and his party encountered this pair as they passed the Court-house. Both were tall, cadaverous and preternaturally solemn of visage. Both wore rusty Prince Albert coats faded to a threadbare green. One had a collar and no necktie; the other a necktie and no collar. Between the frayed bottoms of shrunken trousers and the battered tops of crude brogans each showed a dusty and unstockinged shank.
"Who are these preachers we're going to hear?" inquired Jerry Henderson, and Brother Fulkerson shook his head dubiously.
"I heer tell thet they're some new sect," was the guarded reply. "I don't hold with them none, myself."
"They are sensational exhorters, I take it," hazarded Jerry, and again the preacher from across the mountain tempered his criticism with charity:
"Folks say so. I don't aim ter jedge 'em though—leastways not till I've sat under th'ar discourse first."
But Bear Cat was restrained by no such inhibition and his voice was openly scornful.
"They're ther sort of preachers thet keeps folks benighted. All they teaches is superstition an' ign'rance."
"Son," suggested Lone Stacy with a grave consideration, "I wouldn't hardly condemn 'em unheard, ef I was you. They claims ter be preachers of God's word, an' thar's room, a-plenty, fer all sorts an' sects."
But the younger man's eyes glowed with that tawny fire of militant rebellion, which was awakening in him against all the shackling influences of mental lethargy.
"They don't believe in book larnin'," went on Bear Cat contemptuously, "because they says thar hain't no Holy Ghost in hit. They harangues so long es thar wind holds out, an' all they keers about is how many takes a big through at meetin'."
Jerry smiled at the characterization. He had seen men and women "take big throughs," that hysterical—and often ephemeral declaration of conversion which measures its over-wrought zeal by the vehemence of outcry and bodily contortion with which the convert comes through to the mourners' bench.
Later in the day Henderson and Bear Cat, returning from the livery stable, were walking single-file along the narrow plank that served as a sidewalk, when they encountered a young man, blood-shot of eye and malevolent of expression. Either Bear Cat Stacy who was in advance or the newcomer must step down into the mud and surrender the right-of-way. If pedestrians so situated are friends, each will be prompt of courtesy. If they are enemies, ethics require that the weaker will must yield and the stronger hold to its rights.
Now Henderson perceived that the two were confronting each other rigidly. Over Turner's shoulder he could see the bleary eyes of the other smolder with a wrath that he knew meant blood-lust as Bear Cat waved his hand in an imperious gesture which commanded as plainly as words, "Give me the road!"
It was a brief and tense situation, but it was being publicly observed and he who surrendered would be branded in street-corner gossip with cowardice.
Passers-by, across the way, halted and held their breath. The more timid glanced about for shelter should gun-play ensue, but after an instant Ratler Webb turned grudgingly aside and stepped down into the outer road. Bear Cat Stacy walked on, stiffly erect, and he did not turn his head for a backward glance.
Ratler halted where he stood, dangerously snarling, and his hand fumbled for a moment under his coat. He challengingly swept the faces of all men in sight, and murmurs of laughter, which had broken out in sheer relief at a relaxed tension, died as abruptly as they had begun. Every pair of eyes became studiously inattentive.
Through the crowds that overflowed the town moved one figure who seemed more the Ishmaelite than even the disgraced Ratler.
Men who had, in the past, plotted against each other's lives to-day "met an' made their manners" with all outward guise of complete amity, yet this one figure walked ungreeted or recognized only with the curt nod which was in itself a modified ostracism. It must be said of him that he bore the baleful insistence of public enmity with a half-contemptuous steadiness in his own eyes, and a certain bold dignity of bearing. Mark Tapier—mongrelized by mountain pronunciation into Tapper—was the revenue officer and behind him, though operating from remote distance, lay the power of Washington.
To comprehend the universal hatred of the backwoods highlander for the "revenue" one must step back from to-day's standard of vision into the far past and accept that prejudice which existed when as legalistic a mind as Blackstone said: "From its original to the present time, the very name of excise has been odious to the people of England," and when Dr. Johnson defined the term in his dictionary as: "A hateful tax levied upon commodities ... by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."
Such a "wretch" was Mark Tapper in the local forum of public thought; a wretch with an avocation dependent upon stealth and treachery of broken confidences; profiting like Judas Iscariot upon blood-money.
Yet before the first day of "Big Meeting time" had progressed to noon, Mark Tapper sat in close and secret conference with the strongest and most typical exponent of the old order of the hills.
Into the side door of the Court-house strolled Kinnard Towers at ten-thirty in the morning. From the jailer, who was his vassal, he received the key which unlocked the small study giving off from the Circuit Court-room—the judge's chamber—now vacant and cobwebbed.
In this sanctum of the law's ostensible upholding, surrounded by battered volumes of code and precedent, the man who was above the law received first Jud White, the town marshal.
"I reckon sich a gatherin' of folks es this hyar sort of complicates yore job, Jud," he began blandly. "I thought I ought to tell ye thet Ratler Webb's broguein' round town gittin' fuller of licker an' hostility every minute thet goes by."
The town marshal scowled with a joyless foreboding.
"Mebby," he tentatively mused, "hit moutn't be a bad idee ter clap him in ther jail-house right now—afore he gits too pizen mean ter handle."
But with judicial forbearance Kinnard Towers shook his head. "No, I wouldn't counsel ye ter do thet. Hit wouldn't be hardly lawful. I've done instructed Black Tom Carmichael ter kinderly keep an eye on him." After a moment he casually added: "Thar's bad blood betwixt Ratler an' young Bear Cat Stacy. Hit would sarve a better purpose fer ye ter keep a heedful watch on Bear Cat."
The town marshal's face fell. He felt that to him was being assigned a greater share than his poor deserts in the matter of safe-guarding the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.
Towers caught the crestfallen frown and repressed a twinkle of amusement.
"What's ther matter, Jud? Air ye a-settin' on carpet tacks?" he inquired with even, good humor. "Or air ye jest plain skeered at ther idee of contraryin' Bear Cat Stacy?"
"No, I hain't skeered of Bear Cat," lied the officer, reddening. "Ef he breaches ther peace terday I aims ter jail him fer hit ther same es anybody else." He paused, then broke out with fervor: "But he's a mighty good man ter leave alone, Kinnard. He's ther best man ter leave alone I ever met up with, an' thet's God's own blessed truth."
Towers laughed. "Well, son, I aims ter be kinderly keepin' in touch with Bear Cat Stacy myself, an' ef any ruction rises a-tween ye, I'll be thar ter straighten hit out. So, if need be,—why, jest treat him like anybody else—as ye says—an' don't be narvous about hit."
Ten minutes after the dejected exit of Jud White, Mark Tapper, the Revenuer, entered the front door of the Courthouse and shouldered his way aggressively among loungers who eyed him with hostile vindictiveness. Passing unchallenged between several rifle-bearers in the upper area, he entered the judge's office, where Towers sat expectantly waiting.
Kinnard opened the interview by drawing forth his wallet and counting sundry bank notes into Tapper's extended palm.
"Kinnard," suggested the federal sleuth irritably, "it was clearly understood between us that you were going to limit those stills you're interested in—not develop them into a damned syndicate."
Towers frowned a little. "Ther more thar is of 'em ther more ye gits, don't ye?"
"Yes, and where my revenue, from your hush money, increases a picayune, my peril increases—vastly. One tip to the government, and I'm ruined."
"Oh, pshaw, Mark," urged Towers conciliatingly, "hit's jest an exchange of leetle favors a-tween us. There's some fellers I've got ter kinderly protect an' thar's some information ye needs ter hev in yore business—so 'stid of wagin' war on one another we trades tergether. Thet's all."
For a few moments the revenue officer restlessly paced the room, then, halting before the desk, he rapped sharply with his knuckles. "Since I let myself in for this folly of selling you protection I'm not damned fool enough to try to threaten you. You can hurt me worse than I can hurt you—and have me assassinated to boot—but unless we can arrange things more to my liking, I'll get myself transferred to another district—and you'll have to begin all over again."
Towers did not at once answer. When he did it was with the air of one tendering the olive branch of peace.
"Set down, Mark, an' let's be reasonable. If so be thar's dissatisfaction I reckon we kin fix matters. Right now I've got a bigger project in mind thanthet—an' I needs yore aid. This here Jerry Henderson stands mightily in my light an' I aims ter be rid of him. He hain't got no money invested hyar. He kin go without no loss ner trouble. He don't even hev ter put out ther fire an' call ther dawg. He sets by Lone Stacy's fire an' he hain't got no dawg."
"If you mean a watch-dog he doesn't need one—so long as the Stacys choose to protect him."
Towers slowly nodded. "Thet's right, but with Lone Stacy and Bear Cat moved away fer a leetle spell, hit would be as easy as old shoes."
"And how do you aim to move them?"
"Thet's whar you comes in, Mark. Lone's runnin' a blockade still over on Little Slippery."
The revenuer leaned forward with as unreceptive a stare as though his companion had graciously proffered him the gift of a hornet's nest.
"Hold on," he bluntly protested, "I have no evidence of that—and what's more, I don't want any."
"Air you like ther balance of 'em hyarabouts?" came Kinnard's satiric inquiry. "Air ye skeered ter tackle Bear Cat Stacy?"
Mark Tapper replied with entire sincerity.
"Yes, I'm afraid to tackle him—and I'm brave enough to admit it. Once in a century a man like that is born and he's born to be a master. I warn you betimes, Kinnard,leave him alone! Play with a keg of blasting powder and a lighted match if you like. Tickle a kicking mule if you've a mind to, butleave Bear Cat alone!" The minion of the federal law rose from his chair and spoke excitedly. "And if you're hell-bent on starting an avalanche, do it for yourself—don't try to make me pull it down on my own head, because I won't do it."
Kinnard Towers leaned back in the judge's swivel chair and laughed uproariously.
"Mark, right sensibly at times, ye shows signs of human discernment. I hain't seekin' no open rupture with this young tiger cat my own self. I aims ter show in this matter only es his friend.Youhain't overly popular with them Stacys nohow an' I've got hit alldeevised, ter plumb convince 'em thet ye're only actin' in ther lawful discharge of yore duty."
"That will be very nice—if you succeed," commented the proposed catspaw dryly.
"I aims ter succeed," came the prompt assurance. "I aims ter demonstrate thet thar war so much talkin' goin' round thet ye war plumb obleeged ter act an' thet thar hain't no profit in resistin'. I'll tell 'em hit's a weak case atter all. They won't harm ye. Ye hain't a-goin' ter arrest ther boy nohow—jest ther old man."
"And leave Bear Cat foot-loose to avenge his daddy! No thank you. Not for me."
Again Towers smiled. "Now don't be short-sighted, Mark. Bear Cat won't be hyar neither."
"Why won't he be here? Because you'll tell him to go?"
"I won't need ter say a word. His daddy'll counsel him ter leave fer a spell an' hide out—so thet he kain't be tuck down ter Looeyville fer a gover'mentwitness."
"When am I supposed to perform this highly spectacular stunt?" inquired Mark Tapper.
"I aims ter hev ye do hit this afternoon."
"This afternoon—with every foot of street and sidewalk full of wild men, ready to pull me to pieces!" The revenuer's face was hot with amazement. "Besides I have no evidence."
"Ye kin git thet later," Towers assured him calmly. "Besides we don't keer a heap if ye fails ter convict. We only wants 'em outen ther way fer a while. Es fer ther crowds, I'm fixed ter safeguard ye. I've got all my people hyar—ready—an' armed. I aims ter run things an' keep peace in Marlin Town terday!"
CHAPTER X
Onthe river bank at the outskirts of Marlin Town that afternoon so primitive was the aspect of life that it seemed appropriate to say in Scriptural form: "A great multitude was gathered together." The haze of Indian summer lay veil-like and sweetly brooding along the ridged and purple horizon. The mountainsides flared with torch-like fires of autumnal splendor—and the quaint old town with its shingled roofs and its ox-teams in the streets, lay sleepily quiet in the mid-distance.
Toward the crudely constructed rostrum of the two preachers in long-tailed coats, strained the eyes of the throng, pathetically solemn in their tense earnestness. Men bent with labor and women broken by toil and perennial child-bearing; children whose faces bore the stupid vacuity of in-bred degeneracy; other children alert and keen, needing only the chance they would never have. It was a sea of unlettered humanity in jeans and calico, in hodden-gray and homespun—seeking a sign from Heaven, less to save their immortal souls than to break the tedium of their mortal weariness.
Henderson stood with folded arms beside the preacher whose pattern of faith differed from that of the two exhorters he had come to hear. Blossom's cheeks were abloom and her eyes, back of their grave courtesy, rippled with a suppressed amusement. To her mind, her father exemplified true ministry and these others were interesting quacks, but to Bear Cat, standing at her elbow, they were performers whose clownish antics savored of charlatanism—and who capitalized the illiteracy of their hearers. Lone Stacy was there, too, but with a mask-like impassiveness of feature that betrayed neither the trend nor color of his thought.
Not far distant, though above and beyond the press of the crowd, stood the Towers chief, and his four guardians, and shifting here and there, sauntered others of his henchmen, swinging rifles at their sides and watchful, through their seeming carelessness, for any signal from him. Once for a moment Henderson caught a glimpse of Ratler Webb's skulking figure with a vindictive glance bent upon Bear Cat—but in another instant he had disappeared.
The first of the exhorters had swung into the full tide of his discourse. His arm swung flail-like. His eyes rolled in awe-provoking frenzy. His voice leaped and fell after the fashion of a troubled wind and through his pauses there came back to him the occasional low wail of some almost convinced sinner. Gradually, under this invocation of passionate phrase and "holy-tone," the tide of crowd-psychology was mounting to hysteria.
Between sentences and phrases the preacher interlarded his sermon with grunts of emotion-laden "Oh's" and "Ah's."
"Fer them thet denies ther faith, oh brethren—Oh! Ah! ther pits of hell air yawnin' wide an' red! Almighty God air jest a-bidin' His time afore He kicks 'em inter ther ragin', fiery furnace an' ther caldrons of molten brimstone, Oh! Ah!"
The speaker rolled his eyes skyward until only their whites remained visible. With his upflung fingers clawing talon-wise at the air he froze abruptly out of crescendo into grotesque and motionless silence.
Through the close-ranked listeners ran a shuddering quaver, followed by a sighing sound like rising wind which in turn broke into a shrieking chorus of "Amens!" and "Hallelujahs!"
The simple throng was an instrument upon which he played. Their naive credulity was his keyboard. Joel Fulkerson's eyes were mirrors of silent pain as he looked on and listened. "Lord God," he said in his heart, "I have toiled a lifetime in Thy service and men have hardened their hearts. Yet to these who harangue them in the market-place, they give ear—ay, and shed abundant tears."
Then the long-coated, long-haired preacher having exhausted the dramatic value of the pause, launched himself afresh.
"Ther Lord hes said thet ef a man hes faith, even so sizeable es a mustard seed, he shell say ter thet mounting, 'move' an' hit'll plumb move! Oh-Ah!"
Once more the tone dwindled to a haunting whisper, then vaulted into sudden thunder.
"Brethren, Ihevsich faith! Right now I could say ter thet thar mounting thet's stood thar since ther commencement of time, 'Move,' an' hit would roll away like a cloud afore ther wind! Right now afore ye all, I could walk down ter thet river an' cross hits deep waters dry-shod!"
Jerry Henderson, looking with amusement about the overwrought crowd, saw no spirit of skepticism on any untutored face, only a superstitiously deep earnestness everywhere.
Now even the hysterical "Amens!" which had been like responses to a crazed litany were left unspoken. The hearers sat in a strained silence; a voicelessness of bated breath—as if awed into a trance. That stillness held hypnotically and long.
Then like a bomb bursting in a cathedral came a clear voice, frankly scornful and full of challenge from somewhere on the fringe of the congregation.
"All right—let's see ye do hit! Let's see ye walk over ther waters dry-shod!"
Petrified, breathlessly shocked, men and women held for a little space their stunned poses, so that a margin of silence gave emphasis to the sacrilege. Then, gradually gathering volume, from a gasp to a murmur, from a murmur to a sullen roar, spoke the voice of resentment. Some indignant person, wanting full comprehension and seeking only a Biblical form of expression, shouted loudly: "Crucify him!" and following that, pandemonium drowned out individual utterances.
Kinnard Towers did not share in the general excitement. He only bit liberally from his tobacco plug and remarked: "I reckon Bear Cat Stacy's drunk ergin." But Bear Cat Stacy, standing at the point from which he had interrupted the meeting, looked on with blazing eyes and said nothing.
"Now ye've done gone an' made another damn' fool of yourself!" whispered his father hoarsely in his ear. "Ye've done disturbed public worship—an' as like es not hit'll end in bloodshed."
Turner made no reply. His fingers were tense as they gripped biceps equally set. The fury of his face died into quiet seriousness. If the howling mob destroyed him he had, at least, flung down the gauntlet to these impostors who sought to victimize the helplessness of ignorance.
About him surged a crowd with shuffling feet and murmuring undertones; a crowd that moved and swayed like milling cattle in a corral, awaiting only leadership for violence. Then abruptly a pistol shot ripped out, followed instantly by another, and the edges of the throng began an excited eddying of stampede.
The babel of high voices, questioning, volunteering unreliable information, swelling into a deep-throated outcry, became inarticulate. The first impression was that some one in a moment of fanaticism had conceived himself called upon to punish sacrilege. The second had it that Bear Cat Stacy himself, not satisfied with his impious beginnings, was bent on carrying his disturbance to a more sweeping conclusion. Neither assumption was accurate.
A few moments before Bear Cat's outbreak, Kinnard Towers had whispered to Black Tom Carmichael, indicating with a glance of his eye the skulking figure of Ratler Webb, "Watch him."
Nodding in response to that whisper, Black Tom had strolled casually over, stationing himself directly behind Bear Cat. His face wore a calm benignity and his arms were crossed on his breast so peacefully that one would hardly have guessed the right hand caressed the grip of an automatic pistol and that the pistol had already been drawn half free from its hidden holster.
It happened that Ratler's hand, in his coat pocket, was also nursing a weapon. Ratler was biding his time. He had read into every face a contemptuous mockery for his surrender of the road to Turner Stacy that morning. In his disordered brain a fixed idea had festered into the mandate of a single word: "Revengeance."
Then when Bear Cat had drawn down on himself the wrath of an outraged camp-meeting Ratler thought his opportunity knocked. The crowd began to shift and move so that the focus of men's impressions was blurred. Availing himself of that momentary confusion, he stole a little nearer and shifted sidewise so that he might see around Black Tom Carmichael's bulking shoulders. He glanced furtively about him. Kinnard Towers was looking off abstractedly—another way. No one at front or back seemed to be noticing him.
Ratler Webb's arm flashed up with a swiftness that was sheer slight-of-hand and Black Tom's vigilant eye caught a dull glint of blue metal. With a legerdemain superlatively quick, Carmichael's hand, too, flashed from his breast. His pistol spoke, and Ratler's shot was a harmless one into the air. When the startled faces turned that way Ratler was staggering back with a flesh wound and Black Tom was once more standing calmly by. On the ground between his feet and Bear Cat Stacy's, as near to the one as the other, lay a smoking pistol.
"Bear Cat's done shot Ratler Webb!" yelled a treble voice, and again the agitated crowd broke into a confused roar.
Turner bent quickly toward Blossom and spoke in a tense whisper. "Leave hyar fer God's sake. This hain't no place feryouright now!"
The girl's eyes leaped into instant and Amazonian fire and, as her chin came up, she answered in a low voice of unamenable obduracy:
"So long esyoustays, I stays, too. I don't aim ter run away."
The crowd was edging in, not swiftly but sullenly and there were faces through whose snarls showed such yellow fangs as suggested a wolf pack. Here and there one could see the flash of a drawn pistol or the glint of a "dirk-knife."
Then, coming reluctantly, yet keyed to his hard duty by the consciousness of Kinnard Towers' scrutiny, Jud White, the town marshal, arrived and laid a hand on Bear Cat's shoulder.
"I reckon," he said, licking his lips, "ye'll hev ter come ter ther jail-house with me, Bear Cat."
"What fer, Jud?" inquired Turner quietly, though the tawny fire was burning in his eyes. "I didn't shoot them shoots."
"Folks ses ye did, Bear Cat."
"Them folks lies."
A sudden crescendo of violent outcry interrupted their debate. Through it came shouts of: "Kill ther blasphemer!" "String him up!"
With a sudden flash of sardonic humor in his eyes Bear Cat suggested softly: "I reckon, Jud, hit's yore duty ter kinderly protect yore prisoner, hain't hit?"
A cold sweat broke out over the face of the town officer and as he stood irresolute, the crowd, in which mob passion was spreading like flames in dry grass, swayed in a brief indicision—and in that moment Brother Fulkerson stood forward, raising his arms above his head.
"Brethren," he cried in a voice that trembled, "I implores ye ter listen ter me. I hain't never lied ter ye afore now, an' unless my labors hev been fer naught, I des'arves ter be h'arkened to."
Curiosity prevailed and the din subsided enough to let the evangelist be heard.
"I was standin' right hyar by Bear Cat Stacy when them shots war fired," Fulkerson went on earnestly, "an' I swears ter ye, with Almighty God fer my witness, thet he didn't hev nothin' more ter do with hit then what I did."
As he paused a sarcastic voice from the crowd demanded: "Will ye swear he didn't aim ter break up ther meetin' neither?"
"Let me answer that question," shouted Bear Cat Stacy, stepping defiantly forward.
There was peril in that interruption, and the young man knew it. He realized that only a savage, cat-and-mouse spirit of prolonging excitement had, so far, held in leash the strained wrath of a crowd worked already to frenzy. But the mountaineer loves oratory of any sort, and a lynching need not be hurried through. They would have listened to Brother Fulkerson—but would they givehima hearing?
For a moment Bear Cat stood there, sweeping them with a gaze that held no fear and a great deal of open scorn. The effrontery of his attitude, the blaze of his eyes and even the rumors of his charmed life were having their effects. Then he spoke:
"Any man thet charges me with blasphemin' lies! Brother Fulkerson hes done toiled his life away amongst ye—an' ye skeercely heeds his preachin'. I believes these fellers thet calls themselves God's sarvents ter be false prophets. Instid of the light of knowledge, they offers ye ther smoke of ign'rance. They hev 'lowed thet they kin work miracles. Ef they kin, why don't they? Ef they kain't they lies an' sich a lie as thet air blasphemy. I called on 'em ter make good thar brag—an' now I calls on 'em ergin! Let's see a miracle."
He ended and, as the voice of the crowd rose once more, this time a shade less unanimous in tone, a strange thing happened. About Bear Cat Stacy and the town marshal appeared a little knot of rifle-armed men, and coming to their front, Kinnard Towers bellowed:
"Men! Listen!"
They looked at his face and his guns—and listened.
"I was standin' whar I could see this whole matter," asserted Towers. "Bear Cat Stacy never drawed nor fired no weepin. My friend Tom Carmichael shot Ratler Webb indeefense of his life. Ratler shot a shoot, too. I counsels ther town marshal not ter jail Bear Cat Stacy, an' I counsels ther rest of ye ter settle down ergin ter quiet. Mebby Bear Cat oughtn't ter hev interrupted ther preachin', but whoever aims ter harm him must needs take him away from me!"
Over the sea of faces ran a wave of amazement sounding out in a prolonged murmur. Here was the incredible situation of a Towers leader vouching for and protecting a Stacy chieftain. Feudal blood tingled with the drama of that realization.
Varied excitements were breaking the drab monotony of life to-day for Marlin Town! A voice shouted, "I reckon Ratler needs a leetle shootin' anyhow," and the sally was greeted with laughter. The tide had turned.
On Bear Cat's face, though, as he wheeled to his powerful rescuer was a mingling of emotions; surprise blended with a frown of unwillingly incurred obligation.
"I'm obleeged ter ye, Kinnard Towers," he said dubiously, "but I reckon I could hev keered fer myself. I hain't seekin' ter be beholden ter ye."
The florid man laughed. "Ye hain't none beholden ter me, son," was his hearty disclaimer. "A man likes ter testify ter ther truth when he sees somebody falsely accused, thet's all."
Brother Fulkerson and his daughter started back to Little Slippery that same evening, meaning to spend the night with friends a few miles from town. After bidding them farewell at the edge of the town, Henderson and Bear Cat strolled back together toward the shack tavern where Jerry had his quarters. The younger man's eyes were brooding, and suddenly he broke out in vehement insurgency:
"I reckon I was a fool down thar by ther river—but I couldn't hold my peace deespite all my effort. Hyar's a land dry-rottin' away in ign'rance—an' no man raisin' his voice fer its real betterment." His tone dropped and became gentle with an undernote of pain. "I looked at Blossom, standin' thar, with a right ter ther best thar is—an' I could foresee ther misery an' tribulation of all this makin' her old in a few years. I jest had ter speak out."
Henderson only nodded. He, too, had been thinking of Blossom, and he realized that wherever he went, when he left the hills, there was going to be an emptiness in his life. He was not going to be able to forget her. The shield which he had always held before his heart had failed to protect him against the dancing eyes of a girl who could not even speak correct English—the tilted chin of a girl who would not flee from a mob.
"Turner," he said, drawing himself together with an effort, "come over to the hotel with me. I'm going down to Louisville for a few days, and I want you to help me make out a list of books for Blossom and yourself."
Turner's eyes lighted. One man at least sought to be, in so far as he could, a torch-bearer.
As they sat talking of titles and authors the boy's face softened and glowed with imagination. Off through the window the peaks bulked loftily against the sunset's ash-of-rose. Both men looked toward the west and a silence fell between them, then they heard hurried footsteps and, without knocking, Jud White the town marshal, flung open the door.
"Bear Cat," he announced briefly, "yore paw bade me fotch ye ter him direct. The revenue hes got him in ther jail-house, charged with blockadin'."
CHAPTER XI
Underthe impact of these tidings Turner Stacy came to his feet with a sudden transformation of bearing. The poetic abstraction which had, a moment ago, been a facial mirror for the sunset mysticism, vanished to be harshly usurped by a spirit of sinister wrath.
For several seconds he did not speak, but stood statuesquely taut and strained, the line of his lips straight and unbending over the angle of a set jaw.
The yellow glow of the sinking sun seemed to light him as he stood by the window into a ruddy kinship with bronze, awakening a glint of metallic hardness on cheekbone, temple and dilated nostril. It was the menacing figure of a man whose ancestors had always settled their own scores in private reprisal and by undiscounted tally, and one just now forgetful of all save his heritage of blood.
Then the strained posture relaxed and Bear Cat Stacy inquired in a tone of dead and impersonal calm:
"Mr. Henderson, hev ye got a gun?"
As Jerry shook his head, Bear Cat wheeled abruptly on Jud White: "Lend me yore weepin, Jud," he demanded with a manner of overbearing peremptoriness.
"I'd love ter obleege ye, Bear Cat," haltingly parried the officer, "but I kain't hardly do hit—lawfully."
Volcanic fires burst instantly in the eyes where they had been smoldering, until from them seemed to spurt an outpouring of flame and the voice of command was as explosive as the rending thunders that release a flow of molten lava.
"Don't balk me, Jud," Stacy cautioned. "I'm in dire haste. Air ye goin' ter loan me thet gun of yore own free will or hev I got ter take hit offen ye?"
The town marshal glanced backward toward the exit, but with leopard swiftness Bear Cat was at the door, barring it with the weight of his body, and his breath was coming with deep intake of passion. After an irresolute moment, White surrendered his automatic pistol.
But as Turner gripped the knob, Jerry Henderson laid a deterring hand on his shoulder. "Just a moment, Bear Cat," he said quietly. Somewhat to his surprise the younger man paused and, as he turned his face questioningly to the speaker, some part of its fury dissolved.
"This is a time, Turner, when it's mighty easy to make a mistake," went on the promoter earnestly. "If your father sent for you, it's pretty certain that he wants to speak to you before you take any step."
"Thet's identically what he bade me caution ye, Bear Cat," echoed White. "He 'lowed thar'd be time enough fer reprisal later on."
"Mr. White," Henderson demanded as he turned and fronted the marshal with a questioning gaze, "before he goes over there, I want you to give me your hand that this isn't a scheme to get Bear Cat Stacy in the jail under false pretenses, so that he can be more easily arrested."
"An' answer thet honest," Turner warned vehemently, "because ef I don't walk outen thet jail-house es free es I goes inter hit, you won't never leave hit alive yoreself, Jud. How comes hit ther revenue didn't seek ter arrest me, too?"
"So holp me Almighty God, men," the voice of the officer carried conviction of its sincerity. "I came over hyar only bearin' tidin's from Lone Stacy. I hain't aidin' no revenue. I heered Mark Tapper 'low thet he hedn't no charge ter mek ergin ye jest now."
"In that case," declared Henderson, assuming the rôle of spokesman, "we'll both go with you to the jail. Bear Cat will give me the gun, since he can't go in unsearched, and you will remain with me, unarmed, as a hostage until he comes out."
"Thet satisfies me, all right," readily agreed the town marshal.
The jail-house at Marlin Town squats low of roof and uncompromising in its squareness to the left of the Courthouse; hardly more than a brick pen, sturdily solid and sullenly unlovely of façade.
When father and son met in the bare room where one rude chair was the only furnishing save for a tin basin on a soap-box, the fire of renewed wrath leaped in Turner's eyes and he spoke with a tremor of voice:
"I reckon ye knows full well, pap, thet I don't aim ter let ye lay hyar long. I aims ter tek ye outen hyar afore sun-up—ef I hes ter take ye single-handed!"
The sunset was fading and in the bleak cell there was a grayness relieved only by the dim light from a high, barred slit that served as a window. The two men had to peer intently at each other through widened pupils to read the expression of lips and eyes.
Old Lone Stacy smiled grimly.
"I'm obleeged ter ye, son." His response was quiet. "An' I knows ye means what ye says, but jest now ye've got ter letmedecide whether hit's a fit time ter wage war—or submit."
"Submit!" echoed the son in blank amazement. "Ye don't aim ter let 'em penitenshery ye ergin, does ye?"
Laying a soothing hand on the arm that shook passionately, the senior went on in a modulated voice.
"I've done studied this matter out, son, more ca'mly then you've hed time ter do yit—an' I discerns how ye kin holp me best. Sometimes hit profits a man more ter study ther fox then ther eagle."
The boy stood there in the half light, finding it bitter to stomach such passive counsel, but he gulped down his rising gorge of fury and forced himself to acquiesce calmly, "I'm hearkenin' ter ye."
"Ther revenue 'lowed thet he war plumb obleeged ter jail me," went on the elder moonshiner evenly, "because tidin's hes done reached ther men up above him."
"I aims ter compel Mark Tapper ter give me ther names of them damn' tale-bearers," exploded Bear Cat violently, "an' I'm a-goin' ter settle with him an' them, too, in due course."
But again Lone Stacy shook his head.
"Thet would only bring on more trouble," he declared steadfastly. "Mark Tapper made admission thet he hes a weak case, an' he said thet ef I went with him peaceable he wouldn't press hit no further then what he war compelled ter. He 'lowed he hedn't no evidenceerginstyou. I don't believe he's seed our still yit an' ef ye heeds my counsel, he won't never see hit."
"What does ye counsel then? I'm a-listenin'."
Lone Stacy's voice cast off its almost conciliating tone and became one of command. "I wants thet ye shell ride back over thar es fast es a beast kin carry ye—an' git thar afore ther revenue. I wants thet ye shell move thet still into a place of safe concealment erginst his comin', I wants thet 'stid of tryin' ter carcumvent him ye sha'n't be thar at all when he comes."
"Not be thar?" The words were echoed in surprise, and the older head bowed gravely.
"Jist so. Ef they don't find ther copper worm ner ther kittle—an' don't git ye ter testify ergin me, I've still got a right gay chanst ter come cl'ar."
"Does ye 'low," demanded the son with deeply hurt pride, "that anybody this side of hell-a-poppin' could fo'ce me ter give testimony ergin my own blood?"
Again the wrinkled hand of the father fell on the shoulder of his son. It was as near to a caress as his undemonstrative nature could approach.
"I wouldn't hev ye perjure yoreself, son—an' without ye did thet—ye'd convict me—ef ye was thar in Co'te."
Turner glanced up at the narrow slit in the brick wall through which now showed only a greenish strip of pallid sky. His lips worked spasmodically. "I come over hyar resolved ter sot ye free," he said slowly, "ter fight my way outen hyar an' take ye along with me—but I'm ready ter heed yore counsel."