Читать книгу: «When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry», страница 19

CHAPTER XXIV

When the door fell in, Bear Cat Stacy stepped across the splintered woodwork, unarmed save for the holstered pistol in his belt. He made a clear target for at his back was the red and yellow glare of blazing flambeaux. Yet no finger pressed its trigger because the mad uselessness of resistance proclaimed itself. Like flood-water running through a broken dyke, a black and steady stream flowed around him into the house, lining the walls with a mourning border of unidentified human figures.

Their funereal like had never before been seen in the hills, and they seemed to come endlessly with an uncanny silence and precision.

They were not ghosts but men; men draped in rubber ponchos or slickers that fell, glinting with the sheen of melted snow, to their knees. Their black felt hats were pointed into cones and under the brims their eyes looked out through masks of black cloth that betrayed no feature. Except for Bear Cat Stacy himself and George Kelly, who were both unmasked, no man was recognized – and no voice sounded to distinguish its possessor.

The mauling of the battering ram on the rear door ceased and a pulseless quiet followed save for the tramp-tramp of feet as yet other spectral and monotonously similar figures slipped through the door and fell into enveloping ranks along the walls, and for the woman's half-smothered hysteria of fright.

Angered by her disconcerting sobs, Jim Towers seized his wife's shoulder and shook her brutally. "Damn ye, shet up afore I hurts ye," he snarled, and, as he finished, Bear Cat Stacy's open hand smote him across the lips and brought a trickle of blood. Into the eyes of the trapped man came an evil glitter of ineffectual rage, and from an upper room rose the wail of awakened children.

"Go up sta'rs, ma'am, an' comfort ther youngsters," Turner quietly directed the woman. "No harm hain't a-goin' ter come ter you – ner them." Then, wheeling, he ripped out a command to the huddled prisoners.

"Drap them guns!"

When the surrendered arms had been gathered in, Stacy drew his captives into line and nodded to George Kelly, who stepped forward, his face working with a strong emotion. One could see that only the effect of acknowledged discipline stifled his longing to leap at the throat of Jim Towers.

"Kin ye identify any one man or more hyar, es them thet burned down yore dwellin' house? If ye kin, point him out."

Walking to a position from which he directly confronted Towers, Kelly raised a finger unsteady with rage and thrust it almost into the face itself. Then the hand grew steady and remained accusingly poised.

There was a moment of silence, tensely charged, which Bear Cat's voice broke with a steady precision of judicial inquiry.

"What proof hev ye got ter offer us?"

"Make him lift up his right foot an' show ther patch thet he's got on ther sole an' ther nails on ther heel," demanded Kelly eagerly, but at that Stacy shook his head.

"No. Fust ye tell us what manner of shoe hit war – then we'll see ef ye're right."

George Kelly described a print made by a shoe, home-mended with a triangular patch, and with a heel from whose circle of hobs, two were missing. "Now," snapped Bear Cat. "Let's see thet shoe. Tek hit off."

Reluctantly the man whose house had been invaded stooped and unlaced his brogan.

Stacy wheeled abruptly to face one of the lines against the wall. "You men thet seen them foot-prints, atter thet fire, step ter ther fore."

A quartette of figures detached themselves and formed a squad facing the captives and when the shoe had been passed from hand to hand along their line Turner went forward with his inquisition. From no other throat came a syllable of sound.

"I wants every man thet's willin' ter take oath thet he recognizes thet sole – as ther same one thet made them prints – ter raise his right hand above his head. Ef he hain't p'intedly sure, let him keep his arms down, an' ef he misdoubts hit's ther same identical shoe, let him hold up his left hand."

In prompt unison four right hands came up, and, having testified, the mute witnesses fell back again to their places against the walls.

"Does ye reecognize anybody else, thet war thar?" Kelly was questioned and without a falter of doubt he again thrust an index finger forward close to the blanching face of Charlie Reverdy.

Jim Towers stood bracing himself with a stiff-necked effort at defiance. He was caught by an overwhelming force of his enemies – and no help was at hand. No rescue was possible and he expected death, as in similar circumstances, he would have inflicted it. But the sneer which he forced to his lips could not out-testify the sickly green of his pallor as he awaited his sentence.

When the identification of Reverdy had been also corroborated by similar procedure, Bear Cat turned once more to confront Towers.

"Hev ye any denial ter make? Hev ye anything ter say?"

"All I've got ter say," was the insolent retort, "air thet ye kin go ter hell. Finish up yore murder … ye kain't affright me none."

"Burnin' down dwellin' houses air a grave matter," pursued Stacy with a grim calm. "Hangin' hain't none too severe fer any man thet would foller hit. So we hyarby sentences ye ter death – but we suspends ther sentence. We don't aim ter hang ye – leastways not yit." After a pause freighted with deep anxiety for the accused he added, "All we aims ter do with ye air ter tie ye on bare-backed mules thet's right bony an' slavish ter ride, an' ter tek ye acrost ther line inter Virginny." The tone in which the edict was pronounced bore inexorable and sincere finality.

"But from thar on, both of ye air ter leave ther mountings an' never come back ter this community ergin. An' ef ye does undertake ter come back, we swears afore Almighty God ter kill ye both – an' onless ye both gives yore solemn oath ter faithfully obey this command – we'll kill ye now an' hyar."

There was no choice. Grudgingly the pair accepted exile, which after all was a more lenient punishment than they had expected or deserved. Towers was permitted to take leave of his family, but it is doubtful if the woman regarded that parting as an unmixed affliction.

Slowly the culprits were escorted out to see in the darkness of the forests other black shapes that wavered fantastically and dreadfully under the flare and sputter of pine torches. At the middle of a long column, twisting like a huge snake along deserted roads, they were escorted into banishment.

The other men in the house were held prisoners until dawn. Then each, blindfolded and in custody of a separate squad, was taken to a point distant from his home – and liberated.

The morning came with a crystal clarity and hills locked in a grip of ice, but the army whose marching song had startled sleeping cabins into wakefulness had dissolved as though its ghostly existence could not survive the light of day. Yet behind that appearance and disappearance had been left an impression so profound that the life of the community would never again be precisely what it had been before.

A new power had arisen, inexplicable and mysterious – but one that could no longer be ignored.

With bated breath, around their hearth fires, the timorous and ignorant gossiped of witchcraft, and sparking swains were already singing to the accompaniment of banjo and "dulcimore" ballads of home-made minstrelsy, celebrating the unparalleled achievements of the young avenger of wrong-doings and his summary punishment of miscreants. They sang of the man who:

 
"Riz outen ther night with black specters at his back,
Ter ther numbers of scores upon scores,
An' rid straightway ter ther dwellin' house of Bad Jim Towers,
Who treemored es they battered down ther doors."
 

More than one mountain girl bent forward listening with heightened pulses as the lad who had come "sweet-heartin'" her shrilled out his chorus.

 
"So his debt fer thet evil Jim Towers hed ter pay,
Fer they driv him outen old Kaintuck, afore ther break of day.
All sich es follers burnin' down a pore man's happy home,
Will hev ter reck ther Bear Cat's wrath an' no more free ter roam."
 

And perhaps as the lass listened, she wondered if her own home-spun cavalier might not be going straight from her door to one of those mysterious meetings where oath-bound men gathered in awful and spectral conclave.

Sometimes, too, it was not only a song but an actual sight as well, which made the flesh creep along the scalp. Sometimes out of the distances came, first low and faint, then swelling into fulness that chorus of male voices along the breeze, and after it came the sight of a long serpent of light crawling the highways.

Through doors opened only to slits wondering eyes peered out into the blackness while that mysterious procession passed, seemingly an endless line of torches shining on black horsemen riding in single file.

When the singing ended and the night-riders went in silence they were even more awe-inspiring and ghost-like than before – and, except by remembering that the man of the house was absent, no woman could guess who any member of the train might be, for they passed with hat brims bent low and black masks coming down to their black slickers, and even their horses were swathed in flowing coverings of the same inky disguise. They were torch-lit silhouettes riding the night, but when they passed, those who saw them knew that some task was being accomplished in which the law had failed and that somewhere black dread would deservedly strike.

Kinnard Towers himself, racking his brain, took a less romantic view, but one of equal concern.

"Hit's done got beyond a hurtful pest now," he grumbled to Black Tom as the two of them sat over their pipes. "Ther longer he goes on unchecked ther more an' more fools will flock ter him. He's gittin' ther people behind him an' hit's a-spreadin' like hawg cholera amongst young shoats."

"Does ye 'low they're all Stacys – or air thar some of our own kin mixed in with 'em?" queried Tom anxiously, and because he, too, had been pondering that vexing question, the Towers leader shook his head moodily.

"Thar hain't no possible way of tellin'. They seems ter possess a means of smellin' a man thet hain't genu-winely fer 'em an' sich-like kain't git inter no meetin's ter find out nothin'."

He puffed out a cloud of smoke and sought to comfort himself with specious optimism. "I reckon folks is misled as ter numbers, though. A few folks ridin' in ther night-time with noise an' torches looks like a whole passel."

"They acts like a whole passel, too," supplemented Black Tom, who had a blunt and unrelieved fashion of speaking his mind. "What does ye aim ter do erbout hit all?"

The florid man brought his great fist down on the table and his bull-like neck swelled with anger.

"I aims ter keep right on twell I gits this damned young night-rider hisself. Ther minute he dies ther rest of hit'll fall in like a roof without no ridge-pole."

He paused, then went on musingly: "I wouldn't be amazed none if Fulkerson's gal knows whar he's at right frequent. I've done deevised a means ter hev her lead somebody ter him some time when he's by hisself. Ratler Webb seed him walkin' alone in ther woods only yistiddy."

"Why didn't Ratler git him then?"

Kinnard ground his teeth. "Why don't none of 'em ever git him? He claims he hed a bad ca'tridge in his rifle-gun an' hit snapped on him. Folks calls him Bear Cat an' hit 'pears like he's got nine lives in common with other cats. We've got ter keep right on till we puts an end ter all of em."

Black Tom was so inconsiderate as to burst in a raucous laugh of ridicule. "Hit usen't ter be so damn' hard ter kill one man," was his unfeeling comment.

About that time Kinnard's man-pack developed a strong disinclination to take bold chances of falling in with the black army of torches. They moved about their tasks with such constraint that their quarry had a correspondingly greater freedom and latitude. And moonshiners no longer boasted defiance, but dug in and became infinitely secretive. In spite of all these precautions, however, day after day saw new trophies hanging along way-side branches until there were few left to hunt out.

One afternoon, walking alone through the woods, Bear Cat Stacy stooped at the edge of a "spring branch" to quench his thirst, and as he knelt he saw floating past him yellow and broken grains of corn. Cautiously and invisibly he followed the stream upward, worming himself along until he lay looking in upon the tiny plant of a typical illicit still. Its fire was burning under the mash kettle and back far enough to escape the revealing light was a bark roofed, browse-thatched retreat in which sat an old man, reflectively smoking.

As Bear Cat looked on, a startled surprise came into his expression and his face worked spasmodically as if in pain. He wished he might not have seen the floating evidence which had brought him here and confronted him with the hardest tug-of-war between sincerity and blood-loyalty that he had yet encountered.

The man huddled there in his rabbit-warren retreat was old Turner Stacy, brother of Bear Cat's father and the uncle for whom he had himself been named. Bear Cat had not even suspected that this kinsman was operating such a plant. The elder Turner Stacy was a fierce and close-mouthed fellow whose affairs were confided to no one.

Bracing himself for an ordeal, Bear Cat emerged from his concealment and walked forward.

At sight of an unannounced visitor the old man's hand went quickly out toward the rifle lying at his side, but as he recognized the face, he rose without it and stood silently glowering.

"Uncle Turner," began the nephew seriously, "I hain't hardly willin' ter use fo'ce erginst ye – but ye knows what hit would sound like fer folks ter fling hit up erginst me thet I'm favorin' my own blood. I wants thet ye give me yore hand ter quit."

For a moment the aged face worked with passion, its white beard bristling and its eyes flaming.

"Who do ye think ye air – God Almighty?" came the angry question. "Who give ye license ter come brow-beatin' yore elders? Yore own paw's in jail now because somebody betrayed him… I wonder war hit you!"

The young man recoiled as though an unexpected blow in the face had stunned him.

"My God," he exclaimed in a low voice, "I didn't never expect ter hear a kinsman charge me with sich infamy. I reckon I've got ter look over hit though. Ye're my father's brother an' ye're right aged." He paused and then his voice changed to one crisp and peremptory.

"I reckon ye knows I've got ther power ter compel ye as I've compelled others. Does ye aim ter destroy thet thing yoreself, – now, – or does ye want thet I brings fo'ce?"

There ensued a half hour of storm, but at its end the older Stacy bowed to necessity. He, too, knew of the black army, and though he swore like a baffled pirate into his beard he capitulated. Bear Cat left a demolished place, carrying with him a fresh trophy, but he went with a heavy heart.

It would have surprised him had he known that, left alone, his uncle's wrath had turned suddenly to amusement for some private joke of his own.

As the old man watched the retreating figure he chuckled and mumbled to himself.

"Hit's right good fortune thet he came this week 'stid of next," he soliloquized as he refilled his pipe's bowl, still smiling. "I'm glad he didn't know I'd done ordered me a brand-new worm – an' thet hit's due ter get hyar right soon."

As he puffed at the home grown tobacco, the elder Turner Stacy added: "I reckon, though, I'd better pick out a fresh spot afore I sets ther new one up."

Since Blossom had realized her neglect of Turner's mother that day in the grave yard she had sought to make amends by many small attentions and frequent visits.

One afternoon as she came into the house, she found Mrs. Stacy, who had been bed-ridden with a deep cold, dressing herself with weak and trembling hands. The girl's face became instantly stern.

"I told ye not ter rise from yore bed ter-day," she began and the other woman dropped into a chair in pure feebleness.

"I don't seem ter hev no stren'th lef' in me," she complained. "Seems like I've got a thousand bones inside me – an' all on 'em achin'."

"You must go back to bed, straightway. I'll brew ye somethin' hot an' kiver ye up, an' read ter ye twell ye goes ter sleep."

But Mrs. Stacy responded with a short laugh that rasped bitterly.

"Turney air a hidin' out ter-night in thet small cavern whar ye tuck Mr. Henderson oncet. I've done carried him victuals over thar twict since he's been livin' like a varmint in the woods. I war jest makin' ready ter sot out ergin. Ther riders hain't a-meetin' ter-night an' he's thar all by hisself."

"Whar's George Kelly?" demanded Blossom quickly, for she was to some degree initiated in the operating methods of Turner and his followers.

"He's done fared over inter Virginny ter visit his wife. She's ailin'."

"But I don't understand. What does Turner need?"

The mother trembled with a sudden access of the terror she had been fighting back. Her voice rose shrilly and broke: "He needs ter be fore-warned. His enemies hev diskivered whar he's at – an' they aims ter trap him thar ter-night."

The color went out of the girl's face as she questioned tensely. "How – how did ye hear tell of this?"

"A leetle while back I heered a shout outside, an I riz' up an' went ter ther door. Thar wasn't nobody in sight, but I found this hyar letter stuck thar with a pin. Whosoever hit war thet left hit, hed done went away." She held out a clenched, talon-like hand and opened it, and on a small sheet of ruled paper, printed out unevenly, Blossom read the anonymous message: "I can't be seen giving you this letter because I'm accounted to be Kinnard's man. They knows where Bear Cat is hiding to-night and are planning according. Git him warned straightway. – A Friend."

"Thet's all I knows," moaned the mother, "but thar hain't nobody with him – an' he don't suspicion nothin'."

The girl was already throwing her discarded shawl about her shoulders.

"You go right back ter bed. I reckon ye kin trust me ter warn him." Her eyes were full of warlike fire. "I kin go quicker then you, an' I won't pause till I've got thar an' told him."

"Ye'll fare right back again, won't ye?" quavered the sick woman. "An' fotch me tidin's – thet he got away safe."

Blossom had been a little stoop-shouldered of late with that carelessness of carriage that comes from grief, but now again she was lance-like in her straightness and vibrant with the determination of a Valkyr.

"I'll come back ter ye," she vowed and then she burst out: "I reckon this day I kin pay back some leetle part of ther debt I owes to Turney. God knows he's done enough fer me!"

She went over the steep path with the light fleetness of some wild thing – and of course she did not know that after her, unseen and silent as a shadow, followed a slouching figure, using her as a guide. She did not know either that, as she left the more traveled ways and turned abruptly into the thicketed forest, that figure was joined by two others, or that one of them, after a few whispered words, struck off to communicate with more distant members of the hidden pack.

A wild haste drove her for she knew that Turner trusted the secrecy of that cave, known, as he thought, only to his friends. Every moment she could gain for him would mean a distance put between him and his peril.

Several times she paused just long enough to look about and assure herself that she was not being followed – and then went forward again, falsely reassured by the silence and seeming emptiness of the wintry woods.

Pantingly she came to the mouth of the cave. Before it lay a small plateau, gashed across by a gulch that went down a sheer hundred feet and littered with piles of broken and gigantic rock. The opening to the grotto itself was tucked back between these great bowlders, and for that reason had remained so nearly undiscovered. Just outside the fissure, she halted and gave the old signal of the owl's call. Thrice she repeated it, and then as she stood with her hands pressed to her heart, she saw a face appear, and a moment later Bear Cat had thrust himself lengthwise out of the bottle neck, and stood at her side, his face glowing with surprised delight for her coming.

"Blossom!" he cried. "What brought ye?" and in his voice throbbed the rebirth of wild hope for the miracle which, he had told himself, would never come back into his life.

But Blossom laid a sobering hand on his arm and talked rapidly.

"Thar's dire need of haste an' little time fer speech. Yore enemies know you're here an' ter-night they're comin' ter hem ye in – an slay ye. Fer God's sake go – swiftly!"

The man's face, which had softened into tenderness, stiffened. He gulped down his disappointment and said simply, "I'm obleeged ter ye, Blossom," then went into the black cranny. The girl could see the dim glow of his electric torch flashing there, but as she waited she heard something from the other direction which made her heart miss its beat; the sound of furtively guarded voices somewhere in the litter of bowlders. Instantly she, too, disappeared into the fissure.

"They're hyar a'ready," she panted. "I've done come too late. Thar hain't but ther one way out, neither, is thar?"

For an instant Turner Stacy stood immovable, listening as his thumb slid back the hammer of his rifle.

"Thar hain't but one way you kin go out," he told her – "ther same way ye come in."

His face was grim and hurriedly he went on: "But hyar of late I diskivered a leetle hole jest big enough ter crawl through – way back at ther end of a small gulch. Thar's a tree-top nigh by – but ye hes ter dive fer hit offen ther edge of ther clift – and trust God ter aid ye when ye seeks ter ketch hold of a limb. I reckon mebby I mout go out thet way – ef I war by myself."

But Blossom's eyes had lighted with a sudden hope.

"Ye've got ter try hit, then, Turney," she declared staunchly. "Take yore pistol an' leave me yore rifle. I'll make 'em think ye're still hyar fer a spell anyhow."

"Does ye reckon I'd go away an' leave ye hyar ter them wolves?" questioned the man scornfully, and with palms against his chest, as if she would push him bodily back to the one chance of escape, she spoke urgently:

"In thet leetle hole thar, one gun kin hold back a whole mob an' ef ye gits away I reckon ye kin git some friends an' come back, kain't ye?"

"Ef I kin make Pinnacle Rock an' light a fire thar – I kin hev a score of men hyar in two hours' time – but two hours – " He broke off with a groan.

"Then do hit. I kin hold 'em back longer then thet. Ef they does git in, I'll pretend ye jest left by ther backway. They won't harm me nowhow."

He doubted that, but he knew that his staying meant ultimate death for both of them, and that once outside he had a chance to rally his forces for her rescue. For a little longer his reluctance to abandon her even temporarily held him in quandary, then realizing that it offered the only hope, he seized her fingers in a tight grasp and whispered:

"Farewell – then. God be with ye twell I gits back."

He worked his way along a twisting passage hitherto known only to spiders and bats until at length he could see a yellow shred of westering sky through a narrow rent in the blackness. As he edged his body through the rift he heard a rifle shot reverberating brokenly through the twisting tunnels, followed by a dogged spatter of response – or was it only echo? He ground his teeth and poised himself precariously on a foothold, inches wide, and treacherously insecure. He measured the distance to a hickory branch that the wind rocked and between its support and himself was emptiness. The scaly bark of the limb for which he must leap was near the top of a tree whose roots were planted fifty feet lower.

Turner gathered his muscles into elastic readiness – and plunged outward. There was an instant of terrific uncertainty, then he swung pendulum-like, upon a support that sagged and gave under his weight as he hooked his knees about the branch and drank in a deep breath of thanksgiving.

Blossom, kneeling unseen and partly protected by a sandstone barricade, had been peering out at the broken gulches which were already filling with a dusky gray. She must keep those alley ways clear and there were two of them. A twilight depression gnawed at her heart.

Finally she saw a furtive and leering face thrust slowly and cautiously around the angle of stone. Her pulses pounded, but her rifle was trained, and her hands unshaking. For the first time since Henderson's murder, something like a thrill warmed her veins. Now she could hit back and avenge and take a man's chance of death in doing it. Then the man, bent on reconnaissance, ventured a forward step. He had not come quite far enough to see the opening itself though he knew that it must be hidden somewhere among those bowlders. He peered with lynx-like eagerness – ready to leap back if need be – and Blossom pressed her trigger. Without a groan the figure wilted down and lay in grotesque shapelessness between the rocks.

The fusillade which came in response was random and ineffective, and the girl, nerved to battle, found the long and anxious silence which ensued a purgatory of suspense. At the end she knew they would attempt to overwhelm defense in a charge and the passing minutes ate like decay into the tissue of her courage. Then what she dreaded came. They were making a rush through both alleys at once. If they succeeded in crossing the twenty feet of open danger, they could spread out on each side of the cave's mouth, themselves safe by reason of the angle, and seal the place up like a tomb.

Yet the first assault broke into demoralized flight under her fierce welcome of fire and two other assailants fell wounded. Once more soundless minutes dragged by in interminable suspense – then as the second charge was launched, Blossom's rifle jammed its mechanism and became dead in her hands. She threw it down and ran toward the passage at the back. As it narrowed until she had to go on hands and knees, she heard voices inside the cave – and then for the first time her nerves snapped and she fainted.