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CHAPTER XVIII
A CHAT WITH A DICTATOR

Inside Judge Garvin's store we came upon a group of slovenly loungers. Had my mind been free enough of its own troubling thoughts to spare a remnant of interest, I should have found this new and strange scheme of things engrossing. I was in a scrap of America which the onrushing tide of world advancement had left stranded and forgotten. Here a people of unmixed British stock lived primitive lives, fought feudal wars, and shrined every virtue high except regard for human life.

These four narrow walls in part epitomised that life. The shelves back of the counters displayed what things they held essentials: rough crockery, coarse calicoes, canned goods, barrels of brown sugar, brogans, stick candy and ammunition.

About a small stove loafed some eight or ten men and several "hound-dogs." The shoulders of these men slouched; their hands were chapped and coarse; their clothes muddied, but when they walked it was with something of the catamount's softness, and their eyes were alert.

Behind the counter stood a man of fifty. I knew, without waiting for Weighborne's greeting, that this must be Garvin. There was something pronounced yet hard to define which gave him the outstanding prominence of a master among minions.

He was a large man and inclined to stoutness. His hair and moustache were sandy and his florid face was marked with a purplish tracery of veins in which the blood appeared to bank and stand currentless. His neck was grossly heavy and bovine, but his forehead was broad and his eyes disarmingly frank and blue. His mouth, too, fell into the kindly lines of a perpetual smile.

His clothing was rough and his neck collarless, but one forgot this and noted only the suavity of his bearing and the ingratiating quality of his voice. Such was the man who should have gone long ago to death or imprisonment for the orders he had issued to his assassins.

"Judge Garvin," said my companion, "my name's Weighborne. I met you once in the court-house. You probably don't remember me."

The gigantic reprobate smiled affably.

"Sure, I remember you," he affirmed. "I mighty seldom forget a man." He came out from his place of office behind the counter and proffered his hand. It was not, like those of his henchmen, a calloused hand.

I had leisure to glance about the faces of the group as this colloquy occurred. They had been stolidly silent, gazing at us with unconcealed curiosity. When Weighborne introduced himself there was no overt display of interest, and yet unless I was allowing my imagination to run away with me I sensed from that moment forward that the lazy indolence of the atmosphere was electrified. The men lounged about in unchanged attitudes and from time to time spat on the hot stove, yet each of them was carefully appraising us.

"I reckon you gentlemen came up to look over this here coal and timber project?" Garvin's voice seemed to hold only a politely simulated interest in our affairs.

Weighborne nodded.

"Do you think, Judge, as a man in good position to gauge the sentiment of the people, that we shall have their sympathy in our efforts?"

I studied Garvin's face closely, but if there was a spark of interest in his eyes, my eyes could not detect it. He smiled noncommittally and shook his head.

"Well, now, as to that," he replied judicially, "I couldn't hardly say."

"We want to develop the coal and timber interests of the section," summarized Weighborne briefly. "It will mean railroad facilities, better schools and fuller enforcement of the law."

Garvin nodded in a fashion of reserved approval. There was no betrayed hint of his perfect understanding that it meant other things as well: an end of "Garvinism," a period to his baronial powers; the imminent danger which lurked for him in courts no longer afraid to try, and witnesses no longer terrified into perjury.

"That sounds purty promisin'," he agreed. "It sounds purty good."

"Then why would the people not coöperate?"

Garvin gave the question deliberate consideration.

"Well, now," he finally said, "that ain't such an easy question to answer just right off. The people hereabouts have been livin' purty much the same way fer nigh onto a hundred years. They're satisfied."

"Are they satisfied with a reign of terror?" Weighborne was treading the thin ice of local conditions. I fancied he was trying to force Garvin into committing himself, but it was a dangerous experiment.

"What's anybody terrified about?" inquired the Judge with entire blindness.

Weighborne, totally checkmated by this childlike query, changed ground and laughed.

"Oh, we hear a good deal of talk down below," he explained, "about the shot from the laurel and all that sort of thing."

Judge Garvin laughed heartily.

"Oh, pshaw!" he exclaimed in high good-humor. "There ain't nothin' in all that. Them newspapers down below's jest obliged to have somethin' to talk about. We're all neighbors up here. We're simple sort of folks. Sometimes we has our little arguments, but – " the lips still smiled genially; he paused and his voice was like a benediction as he went on – "but I hope we ain't got in no such serious fix that we needs regulatin' from outside. They do say that most of them fellers that got killed needed killin' pretty bad. I've lost two brothers, but I ain't kickin'."

Weighborne saw that a withdrawal from debate would be advisable, but that this withdrawal must not seem precipitate.

"However, as a matter of argument," he suggested, "is any man competent to decide that his enemy needs killing?"

The judge went into his trousers-pocket and produced a twist of tobacco into which he bit generously before replying.

"Well," he drawled, "your enemy's the man that's goin' to decide whether you need killin'. Why don't it work both ways?"

Weighborne made no reply. One cannot argue with a set opinion. The loungers were saying nothing, but their eyes dwelt admiringly on their spokesman. At last Garvin smilingly inquired:

"You'd have to condemn rights-of-way, I reckon?"

"Only where we couldn't make individual trades," answered my companion.

"That procedure ain't apt to be no ways popular," reflected Judge Garvin.

"You gentlemen understand I ain't criticisin'," he assured us when we made no reply. "If condemnation suits are brought in my co'te I ain't got no personal interests to serve. I'm jest namin' it to you, because you asked about the people's notions, that's all."

"At least," fenced Weighborne, "you yourself see the advantages of development?"

It was putting a question which was almost a challenge to this leader of the old, lawless order whose baronial power we threatened. He answered it with no flicker of visible interest in his pleasant drawl.

"Well, as to that, what little property I've got would be benefited, but as an officer of the law, I reckon it wouldn't hardly be proper for me to take no sides." A moment later he hospitably added, "If there's any courtesy I can show you gentlemen just call on me. Where are you goin' to stop at?"

I gazed on this lord of lies with compelled fascination. Under a crude exterior and a suavity which gave the impression of stupid good-nature he was masking bitter and intense feeling. Here was a tyrant talking with men who represented the new order and he knew as well as we that if we succeeded his carefully built scheme must topple. Our success and his could not both have life. One must perish. The power that had enriched him, a power built on murder and stealth, must go from him, leaving him only the contempt of his fellows – or he must thwart our designs. One might have expected such dissimulation in a polished diplomat moving the strategic pieces of the chessboard of some European power, but here it seemed inconceivable.

"We are on our way over to the Calloway Marcus place," explained my companion in a casual voice.

There was no change of expression on the face of the storekeeper, though the name was one he venomously hated. One or two of the more unguarded loungers scowled in silence.

"How did you calc'late to git thar?" asked Garvin. "It's all of two miles an' they're rough miles – mostly straight up an' down."

"I suppose we shall have to walk," said Weighborne.

"I'd like to take you over thar," said the judge thoughtfully, "I sure would, but the fact is me and Cal Marcus ain't got much in common an' – well, you understand how it is?"

We thanked him for his solicitude and at the same moment one of the henchmen drew him aside and spoke in a low voice. Garvin came back and addressed us again.

"Curt Dawson says Cal Marcus went past here this mornin', goin' to'rds town. It's an hour by sun now – he'd ought to be comin' back this way before long."

I have spoken at length of Garvin and have given only collective notice to the group of mountaineers who loafed about the dingy store, because aside from their more savage qualities they were much like the indolent loungers one may see in any cross-roads grocery. Even viewed as feudists, and I was so new to the country that I was inclined to discount the somber and murderous stories of their ways, they were still merely the members of a human wolf pack and much alike. Only this shrewd leader stood out in personal relief.

But to this generalizing there must be one exception, and that was to be found in the person of Curt Dawson. Until he came forward and drew his chief aside, I had not noticed him and he had not emerged from his seat in a darkened corner while we had chatted. When he did come forth it was with a step at once indolent and suggestive of power. His movements were all unhurried, even graceful, but every flexing and tensing of his muscles carried a hint of potential swiftness and power. His face was unshaven and dissolute, but it retained a keen and instinctive intelligence. His gray eyes had a light in them that seemed to come from some inner source.

Curt Dawson could hardly have been more than thirty and was in the full prime of his youthful strength, hard as hickory and in the same rough fashion as the pines among which he had grown, commanding in appearance and pungent in personality. I found my eyes dwelling on him, and later on this scrutiny bore results. No one who had once seen this young desperado could fail to recognize him on second meeting. His manner of addressing the judge carried the assurance of the confidential man, and a certain arrogance of demeanor.

We had left our bags outside and I took up a position near the door where I could watch the twisting ruts of the drab road. We talked, as we waited, of the outside world and Garvin astonished me by his grasp on general affairs.

At last Marcus arrived and his coming made a strange picture which dwells still in my mind. The western sky was all ash of rose and the higher clouds were dark masses edged with gold. The hills were gray and frowning ramparts with bristling crests. Against this setting, around the shoulder of the mountain, appeared a grotesque cortège.

A half-score of rough men mounted on unkempt horses came slowly and gloomily into view. They maintained, as they rode, the slovenly formation of a hollow square and across their pommels lay repeating rifles. The battered rims of their felt hats drooped over sharp-featured faces.

The only unarmed member of the group rode at the center of the square. He was tall and unspeakably gaunt. One looked at his worn and rugged face and thought of the earlier portraits of Abraham Lincoln; the portraits of lean and battling days. The collar of his threadbare overcoat was upturned, but at the opening one had the glimpse of a narrow black necktie slipped askew. The clean-shaven line of his mouth was set in relentless determination.

The bodyguard rode with hanging reins, and each right hand lay in counterfeited carelessness on the lock of its rifle.

"Thar he comes now," commented Garvin. "You must excuse me if I don't go out to introduce you. He's a bitter kind of feller. You understand how it is."

At Weighborne's signal his attorney halted and the men of the bodyguard drew rein, keeping their places about him. We walked out to the middle of the road, and while we talked to the rawboned, life-battered man in the center of the hollow square, his attendants shouted greetings to the loungers on the porch of the store. These greetings partook of the nature of pleasantries and the only note of frank hostility came from the throats of the hounds. They bristled and growled with an instinct which was softened by no artificial code of hypocrisy. Still, so long as the halt lasted, the two parties kept their eyes alertly fixed on each other. It needed little penetration to discover that the geniality was shallow and temporary, like that between the outposts of hostile armies lying close-camped, across an interval soon to be closed in battle.

"You made a very unfortunate mistake in stopping here," said Marcus to Weighborne, in a low voice. He nodded to two mountaineers who rode on the far side of the cavalcade. They slipped from their saddles and allowed us to mount in their stead while they trudged alongside, carrying our bags.

As we started forward, Weighborne answered.

"I didn't halt at Garvin's place from choice. The wagon could go no further. I don't suppose there was any actual danger, and after all I wanted to see how he would talk."

Marcus nodded and drew his mouth tighter.

"It turns out all right," he said, "but don't do it again."

After a moment's silence he burst out bitterly.

"No danger! My God, man, do you suppose I ride like this – surrounded by armed men, because it pleases my pride?" He swept his talon-like hand around him in a circle. "Look at them! Do you reckon I do that for pomp and display? Do you suppose any man likes to say good-bye to his children when he leaves home with the thought in his mind that it may be a last good-bye?"

"Is it as bad as that?" I questioned with the stranger's incredulity.

He turned his hunted eyes on me. "Worse," he said briefly. "I dare not go unguarded from my house to my barn, sir. Keithley used to carry his two-year-old child into court in his arms. Even they would not shoot a baby. One day he went without the child. That day he died."

I looked at the face which was turned toward me. It was a face from which had been whipped the knowledge of how to smile. We rode for a half-mile in silence with only the cuppy thud of hoofs on the soft earth, the creaking of stirrup leather and the clink of bit rings.

"Why," I asked at last, "don't you leave such a country and establish yourself where you can have security?"

His angular chin came up with a jerk. His eyes flashed.

"Go away?" he repeated. "Do you think a man wants to be driven from the country where he and his parents and his children were born? Besides, sir, my mother belongs to the old order. I was the first to be educated. She still smokes her pipe in the chimney-corner. She is of the mountains. She must stay here." He paused, then his words began again dispassionately, and gathered, as he talked, the fiery resonance of the instinctive orator.

"If the men who love war, leave lawless countries, who in God's name is to do the work? The order is changing. What does Kipling say about the men who blaze trails?

 
"'On the sand-drift, on the veldt-side, in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.'
 

"These men have made a mockery of the law. It is my desire to punish them with the law. It is my purpose to do so unless they kill me first. Why am I representing your company? For the fee? No, sir!.. God knows I need the fee, but I shall also have a bigger compensation. When the new order comes I shall see Garvin's power crumple. I shall send him to the gallows or to the penitentiary. That will be my reward." His voice was again passionate. "The filthy assassin realizes my motive and he sees in you my allies. Watch him, and safeguard your steps."

CHAPTER XIX
A VOLLEY FROM THE LAUREL

When we reached the attorney's house the reality of feud conditions gained corroboration from a hundred small details. Like Garvin's, it stood in an area stripped of trees and undergrowth. It was a large cabin of logs and to its original two rooms rambling additions had from time to time been made. Everywhere a note of the poor and primitive stood out in uncouth nakedness. The men of the guard were all impoverished kinsmen, who lived like parasites upon the lawyer's strained and meager bounty. Several of them slept on pallets in a loft gained by a ladder, and others dwelt in near-by cabins. The room turned over to us served as guest chamber and parlor, and here alone in the house was there any hint of concession to appearances. Through the cracks of its uncarpeted floor chilly gusts of wind swept upward, and sent us hovering quail-like as close as possible to the stone hearth of the broad chimney place. A huge four-post bed in one corner was decorated with stiff pillows upon which purple paper showed through coverings of coarse lace; patches of newspaper stopped the widest wall cracks. A cheap cottage organ stood at one side and rush-bottomed chairs completed the furnishings. A small cuddy-hole housed the attorney and his wife. His mother, an ancient crone-like woman of withered, leathery face, and all her brood of grandchildren slept in two beds in the large, murky room which also accommodated dining table, cook stove and pantry accessories.

One saw a profusion of firearms, and unlike the make-shift of less important things these were modern and effective. Before lamp-lighting came the barring of heavy shutters, and as time passed we grew accustomed to other evidences of that caution which was daily routine with these people living in a practical state of siege. We were fed, in relays, by the flickering light of a coal-oil lamp. The women declined to partake of food until we were through, and busied themselves incessantly between stove and table. As we withdrew to the draughty room which was ours for sleeping, but common ground until bedtime, the retainers shuffled into the places about the table which we had just vacated, for supper, eating, as suited henchmen, after their betters.

We were not a merry party as we huddled in a semi-circle around the hearth where the blaze burned our faces while the gusty air chilled our backs. Weighborne and Marcus argued over an opened copy of Kentucky Reports. The old woman, with a face shriveled like that of an aged monkey, crouched in her chair and sucked with toothless gums at a clay pipe.

When an hour had thawed the shyness of the mountain folk into general conversation and I had been forced to tell many traveler's tales, Marcus arose and with a rough tenderness wrapped a shawl around the shivering shoulders of the old woman.

"My mother," he said with no note of apology, "has never been to Louisville or traveled on a railroad train. She is afraid of accidents." He turned and shouted into her deaf ear, "Mother, Mr. Deprayne here has crossed the ocean. He's been to the Holy Land."

The old woman lifted her wrinkled eyes and gazed at me, in wonderment.

"Well, Prov-i-dence!" she exclaimed. It was her single contribution to the evening's conversation.

Once a dog barked, and with silent promptness two or three of the younger men melted out into the night to reconnoiter.

The visitor proved to be only a neighbor seeking to borrow some farm implement and he announced himself from afar with proper assurance that he came as a friend. We heard his voice drawing nearer and shouting: "It's me. I'm a-comin' in."

I was for the most part a listener, offering few contributions to the talk. I was thinking of other matters, but before the evening came to an end I had heard, in plain unvarnished recital, stories which began to make the spirit of the vendetta comprehensible. I spoke of Curt Dawson and asked our host for a biography. The mountain lawyer's rugged face grew dark with feeling.

"I have twice prosecuted him," he said bitterly. "And in the chain of evidence I wove around him there was no weak link, but a conviction would have been a personal defiance of Garvin. That required courage. Each time the foreman of the panel came in with perjury on his lips and reported 'not guilty.'" He paused and then went on. "When Keithley fell in the court-house yard, and while the rifle smoke was still curling from a jury-room window, I rushed into the place and I found this boy there. He was wiping gun grease from his hands, and he testified that he had heard the shot while passing and had come in to detect the assassin. Of course, he was the murderer. He has other crimes of the same type to his damnable discredit. He is Garvin's principal gun-fighter. Garvin has never fired a shot in accomplishment of his crimes. His men have all been slain by proxy. Curt Dawson has become so notorious that of late Garvin has kept him as much as possible out of sight. I am a little surprised that he mentioned Dawson's name to you. He has of late rather pursued the policy of holding ostensibly aloof, and he might have inferred that you would repeat the circumstances to me." Marcus rose and paced the cabin floor for a few turns, then came back and took his seat once more in the circle about the fire.

"You mean," suggested Weighborne, "that the implication of Dawson was coming too close to identifying the master hand?"

The lawyer nodded. "It is well understood that Dawson is merely a part of Garvin. That makes it unwise to give him great prominence. If he has been called back it means something."

"And you think that something is – ?" Weighborne left the question unfinished.

"I think that when the buzzards come there is apt to be carrion." The thin, close lips of the attorney closed tightly.

"I have always understood that this man is to be my executioner some day. Maybe the time is closer at hand than I anticipated."

"Is this fellow totally illiterate or has he, like Garvin, a shrewd knowledge of things?" I inquired.

"He has had only scant and primary schooling, but he has learned a great deal that is not in books. He has seen the outer world as a railroad brakeman and when still a boy went to the Klondike… Let me impress this on you both. At any time you see him don't fail to tell me at once the full particulars … I had supposed him to be in Virginia. If he's here now he will bear some watching."

The two hours between early supper and early bedtime dragged along tediously. The old woman sat dozing and nodding while two of the retainers sang to the accompaniment of the cottage organ, strange songs, half-folk lore, in weird, nasal voices that rose high and shrill. This singing was without musical effect, for the mountaineer alters his voice in song and unconsciously adopts the tradition of the Chinese stage, achieving a thin falsetto. It was a relief when the men climbed their ladder and our host bade us good-night.

Early morning found me awake, but already someone had hospitably kindled our fire, and when we went out on to the porch, where a tin basin and gourd dipper supplied the only bathing facilities, a small tow-headed boy was there before us with hot, water in a saucepan. The mountaineer is averse to cold water and sparing with hot. It was presumed that we shared this prejudice.

Frost still hung thick on the stubble and the mists lingered in the valleys when we climbed into our saddles and trailed out to inspect one of the tracts in which we were interested.

I was not a happy man nor one bearing a blithe spirit, for my own discoveries crowded too closely and heavily on my heart, to be lightened by the mere novelty of fresh surroundings. Yet even in my shadowed state of mind, I could not help drinking in the splendidly unpolluted air with deep breaths that made my lungs feel new. From frost-rimmed earth to infinity it seemed to stretch in clean and filtered clarity. The mountains were no longer ragged piles of chocolate and slate. The fresh vigor of morning had folded them in the softening dyes of a dozen inspiriting colors. Distance merged the leafless trees into veil-like masses of dove browns and grays where shadows of violet lurked and deepened. The woods wore a brave, if ragged, coat of russet and burgundy and orange with a strong hint of that purple which is the proper garb of kings and hills. As we rode along ridges we looked down into vast basins of variegated country, rough but essentially beautiful. On the lips of the young day was a silent bugle-call of color. Above and about us the high-piled barriers of the mountains clambered steeply into space where the sky was blue and tuneful.

I understood why Marcus had so resentfully repudiated the suggestion of turning his back on this country. I knew that a man whose eyes had first opened on such scenes would not wish that their last gaze should be exiled. Rough and hard as life among these peaks might be, there brooded a spirit here which would make flight impossible. The roots of the laurel would hold the native son planted where his life had come to bud and leaf. The eagle's brood would not go down to seek the easy security of prim orchards and smooth meadows.

We rode sometimes for hours on end without seeing a cabin. Then we would come upon a rude habitation of logs and pause to pass greetings with a gaunt man in butternut brown, and would catch a glimpse of tow-headed children and slatternly women.

So civil were all these salutations; so at variance with any idea of violence that the elaborate precautions of Marcus (the very fashion in which we were now riding armed and en cortège) began to assume a ludicrous grotesquerie.

Of course, I argued with myself, the attorney knew his own country and I did not, yet I was morally certain that Weighborne and I could have gone about our business unescorted and as secure as though we were inspecting suburban lots under the guidance of a real-estate dealer. I suggested something of the sort to Marcus and his only response for the moment was a grim smile. Then he patiently began to explain.

"At this moment," he said, "Jim Garvin knows just where we are and just what we're doing. We have spoken to three men. Of that three at least two have notified the store of our passing. There is a 'phone at Chicken Gizzard, you know."

It seemed rather too exaggerated a system of espionage for probability.

"And telephoning in this country," went on the attorney, "is not so simple a matter as you might suppose. We have no general system and no universal exchange. There are telephones or 'boxes' as they are locally called, connecting three or four houses into separate groups. A telephone message from my house to Lexington, for example, would have to be repeated and relayed through a half-dozen 'boxes' before it reached its destination."

And yet during all that day's ride and all of the next three days there was never, to my eye, an indication that any man interested himself in our goings or comings. On the fourth day it was otherwise.

We had covered some twenty-five or thirty miles since breakfast over roads that were full of climbs and other places where there were no roads at all. Our spent horses plodded wearily, though the sun hung close enough over the western highlands to warn us that, unless we increased our pace, we should be benighted.

We were riding with our ever-present squad of gunmen and our road dipped to the valley where we should cross that branch of Chicken Gizzard which bounded the Marcus place at the back. We shook our jaded mounts into a shambling trot and reached it at that hour which ushers in the short November dusk. The woods were still and the bark of a belated squirrel going home from forage broke the silence with a seeming of noisiness.

The creek was shallow and fordable, but to reach the crossing it was necessary to follow a dizzy bridle path steeply downward and in single file, between thick growing saplings and laurel. Back of the mountains the sky held a pale afterglow against which the higher timber sketched itself starkly. The body of the woods was a dark mass out of which only the white-barked sycamores showed themselves with any clearness of individuality.

Beyond the ribbon of water lay Marcus's rotting and weed-choked division fence. The smoke from his chimney, and the glint at the crack of a lighted window were visible a half-mile distant.

Our front horses had splashed fetlock deep into the water and halted the cavalcade to drink when a sudden staccato outbreak ripped the silence. Three thin jets of rifle fire blinked out with acrid sharpness from the laurel through which we had just come. The men who had ambushed us must have lain so close to our passing line that we might almost have touched them from our saddles as we rode down the declivity.

There was instantly a confused, snorting, splashing stampede for the cover of the opposite shore. I, who chanced to be riding third in line, followed my two leaders and made the timber in safety. I slid from my saddle and found refuge in a tangle of drift at the roots of a sycamore which overhung the water. My armament was limited to an automatic pistol, small enough for the pocket, and it hardly warranted intrusion into a debate with repeating rifles. As chance would have it, just as our cavalcade had halted, and the instant before the volley was fired, I had half-turned in my saddle to gaze back, at the two-color effect of the slate-gray hills and lemon sky. Every other face was looking forward, and I alone saw a figure standing above, in the brief illumination of a rifle flash. It was the figure of Curt Dawson. Those of our party who found themselves in the rear and hampered, in their escape, by the confusion ahead, dismounted in the stream and began maneuvering to the opposite shore at an angle which gave them protection behind the bodies of their mounts. As they came they fired with random aim at the points from which had spurted the ambuscading fire. But over the hill had settled a sudden and profound quiet. The darkness had spoiled markmanship which was presumably selected for its efficiency.