Читать книгу: «When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry», страница 8

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

Under the 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 let me decide 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 evidence erginst you. 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."

"Then ride over home es fast es ye kin go – an' when ye've told yore maw what's happened, an' hid ther still, take Lee along with ye an' go cl'ar acrost inter Virginny whar no summons sarver kain't find ye. Stay plumb away from hyar till I sends ye word. Tell yore maw where I kin reach ye, but don't tell me. I wants ter swear I don't know."

Bear Cat hesitated, then his voice shook with a storm of protest.

"I don't delight none thet ye should go down thar an' sulter in jail whilst I'm up hyar enjoyin' freedom."

The older man met this impetuous outburst with the stoic's fine tranquillity.

"When they tuck me afore," he said, "I left yore maw unprotected behind me an' you was only a burden on her then. Now I kin go easy in my mind, knowin' she's got you." The prisoner's voice softened. "She war a mighty purty gal, yore maw, in them times. Right sensibly Blossom Fulkerson puts me in mind of her now."

Lone Stacy broke off with abruptness and added gruffly: "I reckon ye'd better be a-startin' home now – hit's comin' on ter be nightfall."

As Turner Stacy went out he turned and looked back. The cell was almost totally dark now and its inmate had reseated himself, his shoulders sagging dejectedly. "I'll do what he bids me now," Bear Cat told himself grimly, "but some day thar's a-goin' ter be a reckonin'."

On his way to the livery stable he met Kinnard Towers on foot but, as always, under escort. Still stinging under the chagrin of an hereditary enemy's gratuitous intervention in his behalf and a deep-seated suspicion of the man, he halted stiffly and his brow was lowering.

"Air these hyar tidin's true, Bear Cat? I've heerd thet yore paw's done been jailed," demanded Kinnard solicitously, ignoring the coldness of his greeting. "Kin I holp ye in any fashion?"

"No, we don't need no aid," was the curt response. "Ef we did we'd call on ther Stacys fer hit."

Towers smiled. "I aimed ter show ye this a'tternoon thet I felt friendly, Turner."

The manner was seemingly so sincere that the young man felt ashamed of his contrasting churlishness and hastened to amend it.

"I reckon I hev need ter ask yore pardon, Kinnard. I'm sore fretted about this matter."

"An' I don't blame ye neither, son. I jest stopped ter acquaint ye with what folks says. This hyar whole matter looks like a sort of bluff on Mark Tapper's part ter make a good showin' with ther government. He hain't hardly got nothin' but hearsay ter go on – unless he kin make you testify. Ef ye was ter kinderly disappear now fer a space of time, I reckon nothin' much wouldn't come of hit."

"I'm obleeged ter ye Kinnard. Paw hes don' give me ther same counsel," said Bear Cat, as he hurried to the stable where he parted with Jerry Henderson after a brief and earnest interview.

It was with a very set face and with very deep thoughts that Bear Cat Stacy set out for his home on Little Slippery. He rode all night with the starlight and the clean sweep of mountain wind in his face, and at sunrise stabled his mount at the cabin of a kinsman and started on again by a short cut "over the roughs" where a man can travel faster on foot.

When eventually he entered the door of his house his mother looked across the dish she was drying to inquire, "Where's yore paw at?"

He told her and, under the sudden scorn in her eyes, he flinched.

"Ye went down thar ter town with him," she accused in the high falsetto of wrath, "an' ye come back scot free an' abandoned him ter ther penitenshery an' ye didn't raise a hand ter save him! Ef hit hed of been me I'd hev brought him home safe or I wouldn't of been hyar myself ter tell of hit!"

Bear Cat Stacy went over and took the woman's wasted hands in both of his own. As he looked down on her from his six feet of height there came into his eyes a gentleness so winning that his expression was one of surprising and tender sweetness.

"Does ye 'low," he asked softly, "that I'd hev done thet ef he hadn't p'intedly an' severely bid me do hit?"

He told her the story in all its detail and as she listened no tears came into her eyes to relieve the hard misery of her face. But when he had drawn a chair for her to the hearth and she had seated herself stolidly there, he realized that he must go and remove the evidence which still remained back there in the laurel thickets. He left her tearless and haggard of expression, gazing dully ahead of her at the ashes of the burned-out fire; the gaunt figure of a mountain woman to whom life is a serial of apprehension.

When he came back at sunset she still sat there, bending tearlessly forward, and it was not until he had crossed the threshold that he saw another figure rise from its knees. Blossom Fulkerson had been kneeling with her arms about the shrunken shoulders – but how long, he did not know.

"Blossom," he said that evening as he was starting away into banishment across the Virginia boundary, "I don't know how long I'm a-goin' ter be gone, but I reckon you knows how I feels. I've done asked Mr. Henderson ter look atter ye, when he comes back from Louisville. He aims ter see ter hit that paw gits ther best lawyers ter defend him while he's thar."

"I reckon then," replied the girl with a faith of hero-worship which sent a sharp paroxysm of pain into Bear Cat's heart, "thet yore paw will mighty sartain come cl'ar."

They were standing by the gate of the Stacy house, for Blossom meant to spend that night with the lone woman who sat staring dully into the blackened fireplace. To the lips of the departing lover rose a question, inspired by that note of admiration which had lent a thrill to her voice at mention of Jerry Henderson, but he sternly repressed it.

To catechize her love would be disloyal and ungenerous. It would be a wrong alike to her whom he trusted and to the man who was his loyal friend – and hers. But in his heart, already sore with the prospect of exile, with the thought of that dejectedly rocking figure inside and the other figure he had left in the neutral grayness of the jail cell, awakened a new ache. He was thinking how untutored and raw he must seem now that his life had been thrown into the parallel of contrast with the man who knew the broad world of "down below" and even of over-seas. If to Blossom's thinking he himself had shrunken in stature, it was not a surprising thing – but that did not rob the realization of its cutting edge or its barb.

"Blossom," he said, as his face once more became ineffably gentle, "thar's ther evenin' star comin' up over ther Wilderness Ridges." He took both her hands in his and looked not at the evening star but into the eyes that she lifted to gaze at it. "So long es I'm away – so long es I lives – I won't never see hit withouten I thinks of you. But hit hain't only when I see hit thet I thinks of ye – hit's always. I reckon ye don't sca'cely realize even a leetle portion of how much I loves ye." He fell for a space silent, his glance caressing her, then added unsteadily and with an effort to smile, "I reckon thet's jest got ter be a secret a-tween ther Almighty, Who knows everything – an' me thet don't know much else but jest thet!"

She pressed his hands, but she did not put her arms about him nor offer to kiss him, and he reflected rather wretchedly that she had done that only once. Though it might be ungenerous to think of it, save as a coincidence, that one time had been before Jerry Henderson had been on the scene for twenty-four hours.

Bear Cat Stacy, with the lemon afterglow at his back and only the darkness before his face, was carrying a burdened spirit over into old Virginia, where for the first time in his life he must, like some red-handed murderer, "hide out" from the law.

Kinnard Towers felt that his plans had worked with a well-oiled precision until the day after Lone Stacy's arrest, when he awoke to receive the unwelcome tidings that Jerry Henderson had taken the train at four o'clock that morning for Louisville.

For a moment black rage possessed him, then it cleared away into a more philosophical mood as his informant added, "But he 'lowed ter several folks thet he aimed ter come back ergin in about a week's time."

On that trip to Louisville Jerry Henderson saw to it that old Lone Stacy should face trial with every advantage of learned and distinguished counsel.

Jerry and President Williams of the C. and S. – E. Railways knew, though the public did not, that the expenses of that defense were to be charged up to the road's accounts under the head of "Incidentals —in re Cedar Mountain extension."

Old Lone had been an unconscious sponsor during these months and his friendship warranted recognition, not only for what he had done, but also for what he might yet do.

But the promoter's stay in the city was not happy since he found himself floundering in a quandary of mind and heart which he could no longer laugh away. He had heretofore boasted an adequate strength to regulate and discipline his life. Such a power he had always regarded as test and measure of an ambitious man's effectiveness. Its failure, total or partial, was a flaw which endangered the metal and temper of resolution.

On these keen and bracing days, as he walked briskly along the streets of the city, he found himself instinctively searching for a face not to be found; the face of Blossom Fulkerson and always upon realization followed a pang of disappointment. Unless he watched himself he would be idiotically falling in love with her, he mused, which was only a vain denial that he was already in love with her.

It was in their half-conscious pervasiveness, their dream-like subtlety, that these influences were strongest. When they emerged into the full light of consciousness he laughed them away. Such fantasies did not fit into his pattern of life. They were suicidally dangerous. Yet they lingered in the fairy land of the partially realized.

He wished that her ancestors had been among those who had won through to the promised land of the bluegrass, instead of those who had been stranded in the dry-rot of the hills. In that event, perhaps, her grandmothers would have been ladies in brocade and powdered hair instead of bent crones dipping snuff by cabin hearth-stones. All their inherent fineness of mind and charm, Blossom had – under the submerging of generations. The most stately garden will go to ragged and weed-choked desolation if left too long untended.

But he could hardly hope to make his more fashionable world see that. The freshness of her charm would be less obvious than the lapses of her grammar; the flash of her wit less marked than her difficulties with a tea-cup.

Blossom, too, of late had been troubled with a restlessness of spirit, new to her experience. Until that day last June upon which so many important things had happened the gay spontaneity of her nature had dealt little with perplexities. She had acknowledged a deep and unsatisfied yearning for "education" and a fuller life, but even that was not poignantly destructive of happiness.

Then within a space of twenty-four hours, Henderson had made his appearance, bringing a sense of contact with the wonder-world beyond the purple barriers; she had prayed through the night for Turner and he had come to her at dawn with his pledge – and finally, she had confessed her love.

In short she had matured with that swift sequence of happenings into womanhood, and since then nothing had been quite the same. But of all the unsettling elements, the disturbing-in-chief was Jerry Henderson. He had flashed into her life with all the startling fascination of Cinderella's prince, and matters hitherto accepted as axiomatic remained no longer certain.

"Gittin' education" had before that meant keeping pace with Turner's ambition. Now it involved a pathetic effort to raise herself to Henderson's more complex plane.

She had sought as studiously as Jerry himself to banish the absurd idea that this readjustment of values was sentimental, and she had as signally failed.

These changes in herself had been of such gradual incubation that she had never realized their force sufficiently to face and analyze them – yet she had sent young Stacy away without a caress!

"I'm jest the same as plighted to Bear Cat," she told herself accusingly, because loyalty was an element of her blood. "I ain't hardly got ther right to think of Mr. Henderson." But she did think of him. Perhaps she was culpable, but she was very young. Turner had seemed a planet among small stars – then Jerry had come like a flaming comet – and her heart was in sore doubt.

When, on his return, Henderson dropped from the step of the rickety day-coach to the cinder platform of the station at Marlin Town, he met Uncle Israel Calvert who paused to greet him.

"Wa'al howdy, stranger," began the old man with a full volumed heartiness, then he added swiftly under his breath and with almost as little movement of his lips as a ventriloquist. "Don't leave town withouten ye sees me fust – hit's urgent. Don't appear ter hev much speech with me in public. Meet me at ther Farmers' Bank – upsta'rs – one hour hence."

Jerry Henderson recognized the whispered message as a warning which it would be foolhardiness to ignore. Probably even as he received it he was under surveillance, so instead of setting out at once on foot, he waited and at the appointed time strolled with every appearance of unconcern into the Farmers' Bank.

At the same time Black Tom Carmichael happened in to have a two-dollar bill changed into silver, and overheard the cashier saying in a matter-of-fact voice, "Thar's been some little tangle in yore balance, Mr. Henderson. Would ye mind steppin' up to the directors' room an' seein' ef ye kin straighten it out with the bookkeeper. She's up thar."

With a smile of assent Henderson mounted the narrow stairs and Black Tom lighted his pipe and loafed with inquisitive indolence below.