Part 3
Although the Swamp was not a day older when Aaron, the Son of Ben Ali, became a key-bearer, the frolic over the headless bird was far back of Aaron's time. Older! The Swamp was even younger, for it was not a Swamp until old age had overtaken it--until centuries had made it fresh and green and strong. The Indians had camped round about, had tried to run its mysteries down, and had failed. Then came a band of wandering Spaniards, with ragged clothes, and tarnished helmets, and rusty shields, and neighing horses--the first the Swamp had ever seen. The Spaniards floundered in at one side--where the trumpet vine tried to marry the black-jack tree--and floundered out on the other side more bedraggled than ever. This was a great victory for the Swamp, and about that time it came to know and understand itself. For centuries it had been "organizing," and when it pulled De Soto's company of Spaniards in at one side and flung them out at the other, considerably the worse for wear, it felt that the "organization" was complete. And so it was and had been for years and years, and so it remained thereafter--a quiet place when the sun was above the trees, but wonderfully alert and alive when night had fallen.
The Swamp that Aaron knew was the same that the Indians and Spaniards had known. The loblolly pine had grown, and the big poplars on the knoll had expanded a trifle with the passing centuries, but otherwise the Swamp was the same. And yet how different! The Indians had not found it friendly, and the Spaniards regarded it as an enemy; but to Aaron it gave shelter, and sometimes food, and its mysteries were his companions. Jack-o'-the-Lantern showed him the hidden paths when the mists of night fell darker than usual. He became as much a part of the Swamp as the mysteries were, entering into its life, and becoming native to all its moods and conditions. And his presence there seemed to give the Swamp new responsibilities. Its thousand eyes were always watching for his enemies, and its thousand tongues were always ready to whisper the news of the coming of an alien. The turkey buzzard, soaring thousands of feet above the top of the great pine, the blue falcon, suspended in the air a mile away, the crow, flapping lazily across the fields, stood sentinel during the day, and the Swamp understood the messages they sent. At night the Willis-Whistlers were on guard, and their lines extended for miles in all directions, and the Swamp itself was awake, and needed no warning message. Sometimes at night the sound of Randall's trumpet fell on the ear of the Swamp, or the voice of Uncle Fountain was heard lifted up in song, as he went over the hills to his fish-baskets in the river; and these were restful and pleasing sounds. Sometimes the trailing cry of hounds was heard. If in the day, Rambler, the track dog, would listen until he knew whether the cry came from Jim Simmons's "nigger dogs," from the Gossett hounds, or from some other pack. If at night, the Swamp cared little about it, for it was used to these things after the sun went down.
Mr. Coon insisted on gadding about, and it served him right, the Swamp insisted, when the hounds picked up his drag--as the huntsmen say--and brought him home with a whirl. He was safe when he got there, for let the hounds bay at the door of his house as long as they might, no hunter with torch and axe would venture into the Swamp. They had tried it--oh, many times.
_But the door was locked, and the key Was safely kid in a hollow tree._
If it was merely Cousin Coon who lived up the river, well and good. It would teach the incurable vagrant a lesson, and the Swamp enjoyed the fun. The Willis-Whistlers stopped to listen, the mysteries hid behind the trees, and Jack-o'-the-Lantern extinguished his torch as the hounds came nearer with their quavering cries. Was it Mr. Coon or Cousin Coon? Why, Cousin Coon, of course. How did the Swamp know? It was the simplest thing in the world. Wasn't there a splash and a splutter as he ran into the quagmire? Wasn't there a snap and a snarl when the partridge-pea vine caught his foot? Did he know the paths? Didn't he double and turn and go back the way he came, to be caught and killed on dry land? Would Mr. Coon of the Swamp ever be caught on dry land? Don't you believe it! If cut off from home, he would run to the nearest pond and plunge in. Once there, was there a hound that would venture to take a bath with him? The Swamp laughed at the thought of such a thing. Aaron smiled, the White Pig grunted, and Rambler grinned. Cousin Coon is no more, but Mr. Coon is safe at home and the Swamp knows it.
_Good luck to all who know the way, By crooked path and clinging vine! For them Night's messengers shall stay, For them the laggard moon shall shine._
But it was not always that aliens and strangers were unwelcome. Occasionally in the still hours between midnight and dawn the Swamp would open its doors to Gossett's Riley. He had no key and he had never come to know and feel that the Swamp was something more than a mixture of mud and water, trees, canes, vines, and all manner of flying, creeping, and crawling things. To him the Swamp was merely a place and not a Thing, but this was ignorance, and the Swamp forgave it for various reasons, forgave it and pitied him as he deserved to be pitied. And yet he had qualities out of the common, and for these the Swamp admired him. He was little more than a dwarf, being "bow-legged and chuckle-headed," as Susy's Sam used to say, and was called Chunky Riley, but he was very much of a man for all that. At a log-rolling there was not a negro for miles around who could pull him down with the handstick. Aaron could do it, but Aaron was not a negro, but an Arab, and that is different. Chunky Riley was even stronger in limb and body than Aaron, but Aaron used his head, as well as body and limb--and that also is different. Riley was not swift of foot, but he could run far, as Gossett's hounds well knew. More than that, he could go on all-fours almost as fast as he could run on two legs, and that was something difficult to do.
The Swamp found Chunky Riley out in a very curious way. The first time he came to bring a message to Aaron he waited for no introduction whatever. The Willis-Whistlers warned him, but he paid no attention to their warning; the mysteries whispered to him, but his ears were closed. He searched for no path, and was blind to all the signals. He blundered into the Swamp and floundered toward the knoll as the Spaniards did. He floundered out of the quagmire near where the White Pig lay. He had the scent and all the signs of an alien, and the White Grunter rushed at him with open mouth. The Swamp was now angry from centre to circumference, and poor Chunky Riley's ending would have been swift and sudden but for the fact that he bore some undeveloped kinship to the elements that surrounded him.
As the White Pig rushed forward with open mouth, Chunky Riley caught a vague glimpse of him in the darkness, gave one wild yell, leaped into the air, and came down a-straddle of the Grunter's back. This was more than the White Pig had bargained for. He answered Riley's yell with a loud squeal, and went tearing through the swamp to the place where Aaron dwelt. The big owl hooted, Rambler howled, and Jack-o'-the-Lantern threw down his torch and fled. The Swamp that had been angry was amazed and frightened. What demon was this that had seized the White Grunter and was carrying him off? What could the rest hope for if so fierce a creature as the White Pig could be disposed of in this fashion? Even Aaron was alarmed at the uproar, for Chunky Riley continued to yell, and the White Pig kept up its squealing.
It was well that the Grunter, when he came to Aaron's place, ran close enough to a tree to rub Chunky Riley off his back, otherwise there is no telling what would have happened. It was well, too, that Chunky Riley called loudly for Aaron when he fell, otherwise he would have been made mincemeat of; for as soon as the White Pig was relieved of his strange burden, his anger rose fiercer than ever, and he came charging at Chunky Riley, who was lying prone on the ground, too frightened to do anything more than try to run to a tree on all-fours. Aaron spoke sharply to the White Pig.
"Shall I use a club on you, White Grunter? Shall I make bacon of you? You heard him call my name."
The White Pig paused. His small eyes glittered in the dark, and Chunky Riley heard his tusks grate ominously. He knew the creature was foaming with rage.
"Ooft! Your name, Son of Ben Ali?" said the White Pig in language that Chunky Riley thought was merely a series of angry grunts and snorts. "Ooft! I heard him call for Aaron, and how long has it been since I heard you say to the Red Chatterer in the hickory-tree that there were a thousand Aarons, but only one Son of Ben Ali? Ooft-Gooft! Am I a horse to be ridden? Humph! No man could ride me--it is what you call a Thing. Umph! let it ride you and then talk about clubs. Ooft!"
"Is dat Aaron?" Chunky Riley ventured to inquire. "Ef 't is, I wish you'd be good enough ter run dat ar creetur 'way fum here, kaze I ain't got no knack fer bein' chaw'd up an' spit out, an' trompled on, an' teetotally ruint right 'fo' my own face."
"What's your name?" inquired Aaron.
"You ought ter know me, but I dunner whedder you does er not. I'm name Riley--dey calls me Chunky Riley fer short."
Aaron was silent for a moment, as if trying to remember the name. Presently he laughed and said: "Why, yes; I know you pretty well. Come, we'll kindle a fire."
"No suh--not me! Not less'n you'll run dat ar wil' hog off. He mo' servigrous dan a pant'er. Ef I hadn't er straddled 'im des now he'd 'a' e't me bodaciously up an' dey wouldn't 'a' been nothin' lef' but de buttons on my cloze, an' nobody in de roun' worl' would 'a' know'd dey wuz buttons."
Aaron laughed while speaking to the White Pig: "Get to bed, Grunter. It is the Lifter--the man that is as strong in the back as a horse."
"Gooft-ooft! Let him ride you out as he rode me in--ooft! He's no man! Gooft! No bed for me. When a horse is ridden, he must eat, as I've heard you say, Son of Ben Ali. Gooft-ooft!"
The White Pig, still grinding his tusks together, turned and trotted off into the darkness, and presently Aaron and Chunky Riley heard him crashing through the canes and reeds. Then Aaron kindled his fire.
"Why did you come?" inquired the Son of Ben Ali when the two had made themselves comfortable.
"Des ter fetch word dat Marster wuz layin' off ter git atter you wid Simmons's nigger-dogs 'fo' long."
"All the way through the dark for that? When did you come to like me so well?"
"Oh, 't ain't 'zackly dat," replied Chunky Riley frankly. "I hear um talkin' 'bout it when marster an' dat ar Mr. Simmons wuz walkin' out in de hoss lot. I wuz in de corn crib, an' dey didn't know it, an' I des sot dar an' lis'n at um. An' den dis mornin' I seed dat ar little Marse Abercrombie, an' he say, 'Go tell Aaron quick ez you kin.'"
"The child with the crutches?" queried Aaron.
"De ve'y same," replied Chunky Riley. He paused awhile and then added: "I'd walk many a long mile fer dat white chil', day er night, rain er shine."
He gazed in the flickering fire a long time, waiting for Aaron to make some comment. Hearing none, he finally turned his eyes on his companion. Aaron was looking skyward, where one small star could be seen twinkling through the ascending smoke from the fire, and his lips were moving, though they framed no words that Chunky Riley could hear. Something in the attitude of the Son of Ben Ali disturbed the negro.
"Well, I done what I come ter do," he said, making a pretense of stretching himself and yawning, "an' I speck I'd better be gwine." The Son of Ben Ali still kept his eye fixed on the twinkling star. "What pesters me," Chunky Riley went on, "is de idee dat dat ar wil' hog went 'zackly de way I got ter go. I don't want ter hatter ride 'im no mo' less'n I got a saddle an' bridle."
"Come!" exclaimed Aaron suddenly, "I'll go with you. I want to see the Little Master."
"De dogs'll fin' yo' track sho, ef dey start out to-morrer," suggested Chunky Riley.
The only response the Son of Ben Ali made to this suggestion was to say: "Take the end of my cane in your hand and follow it. We'll take a short cut."
Chunky Riley had queer thoughts as he followed his tall conductor, being led as if he were a blind man; but he said nothing. Presently (it seemed but a few minutes to Chunky Riley) they stood on the top of a hill.
"Look yonder!" said Aaron. Away to the left a red light glimmered faintly.
"What dat?" asked the superstitious negro.
"The light in the Little Master's window."
"How came it so red, den?" inquired Chunky Riley.
"Red curtain," replied Aaron curtly.
"Well, de Lord he'p us! Is we dat close?" cried Chunky Riley.
"Your way is there," said the Son of Ben Ali; "this is mine."
The negro stood watching Aaron until his tall form was lost in the darkness.
III.
WHAT CHUNKY RILEY SAW AND HEARD
Left alone, Chunky Riley stood still and tried to trace in his mind the route he and Aaron had followed in coming from the Swamp. But he could make no mental map--and he knew every "nigh-cut" and by-path for miles around--that would fit in with the time it had taken them to reach the spot where he now stood. He looked back toward the Swamp, but the night covered it, and he could see nothing. Then he looked around him, to see if he knew his present whereabouts. Oh, yes, that was easy; every foot of ground was familiar.
The hill on which he had stood had been given over to scrub pines. The hill itself sloped away to the Turner old fields. But still he was puzzled, and still he scratched his head, for he knew that the Swamp was a good four miles away--nearly five--and it seemed to him that he and Aaron had been only a few minutes in making the journey. So he scratched his head and wondered to himself whether Aaron was really a "conjur' man."
It was perhaps very lucky for Chunky Riley that he stopped when he did. If he had kept on he would have run into the arms of three men who were going along the plantation path that led from Gossett's negro quarters to the Abercrombie Place. The delay that Chunky Riley made prevented him from meeting them, but it did not prevent him from hearing the murmur of their voices as he struck into the path. They were too far off for Chunky Riley to know whether they were white or black, but just as he turned into the path to go to Gossett's the scent of a cigar floated to his nostrils. He paused and scratched his head again. He knew by the scent of the cigar that the voices he heard belonged to white men: but who were they? If they were the "patterollers" they'd catch Aaron beyond all question; it would be impossible for him to escape.
So thought Chunky Riley, and so thinking, he turned and followed the path towards the Abercrombie Place. He moved rapidly but cautiously. The scent of the cigar grew stronger, the sound of men's voices fell more distinctly on his ear. Chunky Riley left the path and skirted through the low pines until he came to the fence that inclosed the spring lot. He knew that if he was heard, the men would think he was a calf, or, mayhap, a mule; for the hill on which Aaron had left him was now a part of a great pasture, in which the calves and dry cattle and (between seasons) the mules were allowed to roam at will.
Coming to the fence, Chunky Riley would have crossed it, but the voices were louder now, and he caught a glimpse of the red sparks of lighted cigars. Creeping closer and closer, but ever ready to drop on the ground and run away on all-fours, Chunky Riley was soon able to hear what the men were saying. He knew the voices of his master and young master, Mr. Gossett--Old Grizzle, as he was called--and George, and he rightly judged that the strange voice mingling with theirs belonged to Mr. Jim Simmons, who, with a trained pack of hounds,--"nigger dogs" they were called,--held himself at the service of owners of runaway negroes.
Mr. Simmons's average fee was $15--that is to say when he was "called in time." But in special cases his charge was $30. When Chunky Riley arrived within earshot of the group, Mr. Gossett was just concluding a protest that he had made against the charge of $30, which he had reluctantly agreed to pay for the capture of Aaron.
"You stayed at my house to-day, you'll stay there to-night, and maybe you'll come back to dinner to-morrow. There's the feeding of you and your dogs. You don't take any account of that at all."
Mr. Gossett's voice was sharp and emphatic. His stinginess was notorious in that region, and gave rise to the saying that Gossett loved a dollar better than he did his wife. But he was no more ashamed of his stinginess than he was of the shabbiness of his hat.
"But, Colonel," remonstrated Mr. Jim Simmons, "didn't you send for me? Didn't you say, 'Glad to see you, Simmons; walk right in and make yourself at home'? You did, fer a fact." He spoke with a drawl that irritated the snappy and emphatic Mr. Gossett.
"Why, certainly, Simmons; certainly I did. I mentioned the matter to show you that your charges are out of all reason in this case. All you have to do is to come here with your dogs in the morning, skirt around the place, pick up his trail, and there you are."
"But, Colonel!" insisted Mr. Jim Simmons with his careless, irritating drawl, "ain't it a plum' fact that this nigger's been in the woods a month or sech a matter? Ain't it a plum' fact that you've tracked him and trailed him with your own dogs?--and good dogs they are, and I'll tell anybody so. Now what do you pay me fer? Fer catching the nigger? No, sirree! The nigger's as good as caught now--when it comes to that. You pay me fer knowing how to catch him--that's what you pay me fer. You send fer the doctor. He comes and fumbles around a little, and you have to pay the bill whether he kills or cures. You don't pay him fer killing or curing; you pay him fer knowing how to fumble around. It's some different with me. If I don't catch your nigger, you button up your pocket. If I do catch him you pay me $30 down, not fer catching him, but fer knowing how to fumble around and catch him."
The logic of this argument, which was altogether lost on Chunky Riley, silenced Mr. Gossett, but did not convince him. There was a long pause, as if all three of the men were wrestling with peculiar thoughts. Finally Mr. Gossett spoke:--
"It ain't so much the nigger I'm after, but I want to show Abercrombie that I can't be outdone. He's laughing in his sleeve because I can't keep the nigger at home, and I'll be blamed"--here his voice sank to a confidential tone--"I'll be blamed if I don't believe that, between him and that son of his, they are harboring the nigger. Yes, sir, harboring is the word."
Mr. Jim Simmons threw down his lighted cigar with such energy as to cause the sparks to fly in all directions. A cigar was an unfamiliar luxury to Mr. Simmons, and he had had enough of it.
"Addison Abercrombie harboring a nigger!" exclaimed Mr. Simmons. "Why, Colonel, if every man, woman, and child in the United States was to tell me that I wouldn't believe it. Addison Abercrombie! Why, Colonel, though you're his next-door neighbor, as you may say, you don't know him half as well as I do. You ought to get acquainted with that man."
"Humph! I know him well enough, I reckon," responded Mr. Gossett. "I went to school with him. Folks get to know one another at school. He was always stuck up, trying to hold his head higher than anybody else because his daddy had money and a big plantation. I made my prop'ty myself; I earned every dollar; and I know how it came."
"But, Colonel!" Mr. Jim Simmons insisted, "Addison Abercrombie would hold his head high if he never seen a dollar, and he'd have the right to do it. Him harbor niggers? Shucks, Colonel! You might as well tell me that the moon ain't nothing but a tater pudding."
"What do you see in the man?" Mr. Gossett asked with some irritation in the tones of his voice.
There was a pause, as though Mr. Simmons was engaged in getting his thoughts together. Finally he said:--
"Well, Colonel, I don't reckon I can make it plain to you, because when I come to talk about it I can't grab the identical idee that would fit what I've got in my mind. But I'll tell you what's the honest truth, in my opinion--and I'm not by myself, by a long shot--Addison Abercrombie is as fine a man as ever trod shoe leather. That's what."
"Humph!" grunted Mr. Gossett.
"Yes, sirree!" persisted Mr. Simmons, warming up a little. "It makes no difference where you see him, nor when you see him, nor how you see him, you can up and say: 'The Lord has made many men of many minds, and many men of many kinds, but not sence Adam has he made a better man than Addison Abercrombie.' That's the way I look at it, Colonel. I may be wrong, but if I am I'll never find it out in this world."
Plainly, Mr. Gossett was not prepared to hear such a tribute as this paid to Addison Abercrombie, and he winced under it. He hemmed and hawed, as the saying is, and changed his position on the fence. He was thoroughly disgusted. Now there was no disagreement between Mr. Gossett and Mr. Abercrombie,--no quarrel, that is to say,--but Gossett knew that Abercrombie regarded him with a feeling akin to contempt. He treasured in his mind a remark that Abercrombie had made about him the day he bought Aaron from the negro speculator. He never forgot nor forgave it, for it was an insinuation that Mr. Gossett, in spite of his money and his thrifty ways, was not much of a gentleman.
On this particular subject Mr. Gossett was somewhat sensitive, as men are who have doubts in their own minds as to their standing. Mr. Gossett had an idea that money and "prop'ty," as he called it, made a gentleman; but it was a very vague idea, and queer doubts sometimes pestered him. It was these doubts that made him "touchy" on this subject.
"What has this great man ever done for you, Simmons?" Mr. Gossett asked, with a contemptuous snort.
"Not anything, Colonel, on the top of the green globe. I went to him once to borrow some money, and he wanted to lend it to me without taking my note and without charging me any interest. I says to him, says I, 'You'll have to excuse me.'"
"That was right; you did perfectly right, Simmons. The man was trying to insult you."
"But, Colonel, he didn't go about it that way. Don't you reckon you could tell when anybody was trying to insult you? That was the time I come to you."
"I charged you interest, didn't I, Simmons?"
"You did, Colonel, fer a fact."
"I'm this kind of a man, Simmons," remarked Mr. Gossett, with a touch of sincere pride and gratification in his voice. "When I do business with a man I do business. When I do him a favor it must be outside of business. It's mixing the two things up that keeps so many people poor."
"What two things, Colonel?" gravely inquired Simmons.
"Why the doing of business and--er--the doing of favors."
"Oh, I see," said Mr. Simmons, as if a great light had been turned on the matter. Then he laughed and continued: "Yes, Colonel, I borrowed the money from you and just about that time the fever taken me down, and if it hadn't 'a' been fer Addison Abercrombie the note I give you would have swallowed my house and land."
"Is that so?" inquired Mr. Gossett.