Part 29

When he was in the saddle he looked back at the little house, crouching in the infinite gloom of the night and the vast forests that overhang it, with no fierce recollection of his trepidation, of his deadly and imminent peril. In conducting himself with due regard for the representations he had made, his mental attitude had in some sort adapted itself to his manner, and he felt as unconcerned, as easy, as friendly, as he looked. He hallooed back a genial adieu to the household standing in the doorway, in the flare of the fire. Philetus, roused by the noise to the sense of passing events, appeared in the midst, rubbing his eyes with both hands. The group gave the guest godspeed, the dogs wagged their tails. As Harshaw rode out of the inclosure, the vista of the room seemed some brilliant yellow shaft sunk in the dense darkness. And then he could see nothing: the rain fell in the midst of the black night; he felt it on his hands, his face, his neck; he turned up the collar of his coat; he heard the hoofs of his mare splashing in the puddles, and he marveled how the beast could see or follow Jeb, who, mounted on the smaller of Marvin’s two mules, led the way, while Marvin himself brought up the rear. He could only trust to the superior vision of the animal, and adjust himself to the motion which indicated the character of the ground they traversed: now through tangles and amongst rocks; now coming almost to a halt, as the mare stepped over the fallen bole of a tree; now a sudden jump, clearing unseen obstructions; now down hill, now up; now through the rushing floods of a mountain torrent. Harshaw’s buoyant mood maintained itself; his bluff voice sounded in the midst of the dreary rainfall, and his resonant, gurgling laugh over and again rang along the dark, wintry fastnesses. His geniality was communicated to the other men, and the conversation carried on at long range was animated and amicable.

“I wonder what’s become of those scamps I was hunting with,” he remarked. “I just know that shed of pine branches they fixed has leaked on ’em this night. I’ll bet they’re wallowin’ in mud.” He experienced a certain satisfaction in the thought. They had not been so badly scared as he, but at all events the camp hunters could not be happy under these circumstances.

How vast, how vast was the wilderness! Unseen, it gave an impression of infinite space. The wind clashed the bare boughs above his head. The pines wailed and groaned aloud. The commotion of the elements, the many subordinate, undetermined sounds, the weird, tumultuous voices of the forest, rising often to a terrible climax, had a mysterious, overpowering effect. It was a relief to detect a familiar note in the turmoil, even if it were the howl of a wolf, or the distant crash of a riven tree. How his mare plunged and floundered!—her head and neck now high before him, till he almost fell back upon her haunches, and now diving down so low that he had much ado to keep from slipping over the pommel.

“Well, Marvin,” said Harshaw, once more on level ground, “if you and Jeb will come down to my farm and visit me, I’ll promise you one thing,—I won’t turn you out of the house at midnight in a down-pour like this—ha! ha! ha! Confound you, old lady,”—to the mare, as she stumbled,—“stand up, can’t you?”

“You-uns oughtn’t ter set us down that-a-way,” said Marvin, grieved at the reflection on his hospitality.

“Lord A’mighty!” exclaimed “hongry Jeb,”—his tones from out of the darkness were vaguely yearning,—“talkin’ ter me ’bout ever kemin’ ter see ennybody at thar farm! Ye mought ez well ax that thar wolf ez we-uns hearn a-hollerin’ yander, ‘Jes’ kem an’ set awhile, Mister Wolf, an’ eat supper at my farm.’ I wouldn’t dare no mo’ ter show my muzzle in the settle_mints_ ’n he would his’n. The law ’lows both o’ us air pests an’ cumberers o’ the groun’, an’ thar’s a price on his head ez well ez mine. The law ’lows we air both murderers.”

There was a pause, while the thud of the horses’ hoofs was barely heard on the dank, soft mould. Then the voice of “hongry Jeb” seemed to detach itself from kindred dreary voices of the rain and the winds and the woods, and become articulate.

“That’s edzac’ly whar it hurts my feelins. The wolf air enough mo’ like the revenuers, a-seekin’ who they may devour. I oughter played the sheep, I reckon, an’ gin ’em my blood stiddier lead; but I’m human,—I’m human,” insistently. “An’ when a feller with a pistol draws a bead on me, I jes’ naterally whips up my rifle an’ bangs too. An’ he war a pore shot an’ I war a good un, an’ he got the wust o’ it.”

The horses surged through the ford of an invisible torrent, stumbling among the rolling bowlders and struggling out on the other bank, and then they could hear again the monotonous falling of the multitudinous raindrops; the dreary wind took up its refrain, and the melancholy voice of Jeb began anew.

“’Twould hev been self-defense, ef I hedn’t been engaged in a unlawful act, preferrin’ ter squeege the juice out’n my apples, an’ bile an’ sell it, ’n ter let ’em rot on the groun’. I war a fool. I ’lowed the apples war mine. Me an’ my dad an’ my gran’dad hed owned the orchard an’ the lan’ sence the Injun went. But ’twarn’t my apples,—b’long ter the governmint. I ain’t never shot at no man ez didn’t shoot at me fust. But ’tain’t self-defense fur me. I’m got ter play sheep.”

The woful tenor of this discourse seemed to anger Marvin suddenly.

“Waal, I wish ye war slartered _now_!” he broke out. “I’d jes’ ez lief listen ter that thar wolf conversin’ by the hour. What ails ye, Jeb, ter git set a-goin’ so all-fired lonesome an’ doleful?”

“Lord, nuthin’,” said Jeb amenably, from the van of the procession. “I ain’t lonesome nor doleful, nuther. When Mr. Harshaw ’lowed suthin’ ’bout my kemin’ ter see him on his farm, it jes’ reminded me sorter ez when I war young, afore my diff’unce with the governmint, I used ter be a powerful lively boy, an’ knowed plenty o’ folks, an’ went about mightily,—never lived like I does now. I war sorter o’ a vagrantin’ boy,—used ter consort with boys in the valley, an’ they’d kem up ter the cove an’ bide an’ go huntin’, an’ I’d go down ter thar farms; an’ that’s how it kem I knowed whar ye live on Ow_el_ Creek. Powerful good land some of it air,—mellow, rich sile; some cherty hillsides, though. None o’ them boys hev turned out like me. Why, I used ter know Jeemes Gwinnan ez well ez the road ter mill, an’ Jim’s a jedge a-gracin’ the bench, an’ I’m—a wolf!”

Harshaw experienced a sudden quickening of interest. “You knew Gwinnan?”

“Lord, yes; ez well ez the bark knows the tree. Jeemes war a fine shot, an’ he liked huntin’ fust-rate. He hedn’t his health very well, an’ his mother, bein’ a widder-woman, war more’n naterally foolish ’bout’n him, an’ war always lookin’ fur him ter die. So she’d keep him out’n doors ez well ez she could. But he’d kerry his book along, an’ read, ’thout he war a-huntin’. So she let him kem whenst he war jes’ a boy, an’ go huntin’ in the mountings along o’ the men growed. An’ it done him good. He war ez fine a shot ez I ever see.”

A wonderful thing was happening in the woods,—the familiar miracle of dawn. The vast forests were slowly asserting dim outlines of bole and branch, lodgment for the mist which clothed them in light and fleecy illusions of foliage. A gray revelation of light, rather the sheer values of distinctness than a realized medium, was unfolding before the eye. The serried slants of rain fell at wider intervals, and the equestrian form of Jeb became visible,—lank, lean, soaked with rain, his old white hat shedding the water from its brim in rivulets upon his straight and straggling hair. As he jogged along on the little mule, whose long ears seemed alternately to whisk off the shades of night, he seemed a forlornly inadequate individual to have had a “diff’unce with the governmint.”

“Jim’s what reminded me of how I war fixed in life,” he went on, more cheerfully. “An’ this hyar whole trip air what reminded me o’ Jim. I guided him—mus’ hev been fourteen year ago, or mo’—through jes’ sech a rainy night ez this, an’ through these hyar very woods—naw, sir! more towards the peak o’ Thunderhead.”

“I dunno ez ye hev got enny call ter be so durned pertic’lar ’bout the percise spot,” said Marvin, significantly.

“That’s a fac’,” said Jeb, good-naturedly. “I guided him through the mountings an’ over the line inter the old North State.”

“What in hell did he want to go there for, in the rain and the dead of the night?” asked Harshaw. His breath was quick; he felt that he panted on the brink of a discovery. Now plunge!

“’Kase, stranger, he war obleeged ter, sorter like you-uns,” said Jeb enigmatically.

He looked back over his shoulder, with perhaps some stirring doubt, some vague suspicion, at the man who followed; but Harshaw, now lifting a hand to thrust a branch from across the path, now adjusting the bridle about the mare’s head, seemed so careless, so casual, in his curiosity that Jeb was reassured as to the innocuousness of his gossip, and went on.

“Ye see, them fellers he consorted with—huntin’, an’ a-pitchin’ o’ quates, an’ a-foot-racin’, an’ sech—war mostly powerful servigrus, gamesome folks; an’ some o’ ’em war gin ter toler’ble wild ways, an’ Jeemes—his mother never keered much what he done, so ez he’d quit stickin’ so all-fired constant ter his law-books, ’kase he war a-studyin’ law by that time in old Squair Dinks’s law-office in Colbury—he war ’bout twenty-two year old—he war mixed up in a deal o’ them goin’s-on. An’ from one little thing an’ another he hed some ill-will started agin him wunst in a while. Him an’ Eph Saunders hed a fallin’-out wunst. Eph war a tremenjious strong man, an’ he kep’ flingin’ words at Jeemes. Sence Jeemes hed tuk ter studyin’ o’ law an’ sech, an’ ’peared right hearty, he tuk up with town ways powerfill, an’ went ter meet’n a-Sunday nights, escortin’ the gals, an’ dressed hisself like a plumb peacock. An’ whenst Eph ’tended circus in Colbury he met up with Jeemes, who hed a lot o’ his gal cousins along. An’ Eph war drunk, an’ Jim gin him a push aside, an’ Eph, he fell on the groun’. Waal, sir, it like ter killed Eph,—ter be knocked down by a man o’ Jeemes’s weight! Jim couldn’t hev done it ef Eph hedn’t been drunk. Eph jes’ mourned like Samson arter his hair war cut off. Ye’d hev ’lowed he war _de_-sgraced fur life! An’, like Samson, he warn’t a-goin’ ter bide stopped off an’ done fur. He kep’ a-sendin’ all sorts o’ words ter Jeemes; an’ ez Jeemes never wanted no fuss with Eph, he kep’ out’n his way for a while. An’ Eph, he ’lowed ez Jim war afeard an’ a-hidin’. Waal, sir, that hustled up Jeemes’s feelins mightily. He jes’ wanted ter keep out’n his mother’s hearin’, though; she war a powerful chicken-hearted, floppy kind o’ woman,—skeered at everything. Then Jeemes, he sent Eph word ez he warn’t a-goin’ ter be beat inter a jelly fur nuthin’ by a man twict his size; but he war a-kemin’ up ter settle him with his rifle. An’ Eph, he sent word he’d meet him at the big Sulphur Spring, thar on that spur o’ the mounting nigh Gran’dad’s Creek. Ef Jeemes so much ez dared ter cross the foot-bredge over Gran’dad’s Creek, an’ set his foot on the t’other side, Eph swore he’d shoot him dead. An’ Eph, he sent word ter come Chewsday an hour by sun, an’ bring his friends ter see fair play.”

“Laws-a-massy!” exclaimed Marvin, in the fervor of reminiscence, “I kin jes’ see that thar spot,—that thar old foot-bredge in the woods, an’ the water high enough ter lap the under side o’ the log; ’twar hewn a-top, an’ made toler’ble level footin’. An’ me an’ Jeb dodgin’ in the laurel, fur fear Eph would shoot ’fore Jeemes crost.”

“Jeemes seemed toler’ble long a-crossin’,” Jeb resumed,—“I ’member that; an’ he stopped at the furder eend, an’ lifted his rifle ter his shoulder ter be ready ter shoot. An’ thar stood Eph, a-sightin’ him keerful ez he kem”—

“You were both there?” said Harshaw, hastily.

“Lord, yes,” said Jeb. “Jeemes hed stayed at my dad’s house the night afore. An’ he never brung none o’ his town friends,—afeard o’ word gittin’ ter his mother. So me an’ Sam,—Sam, he lived nigh me,—we-uns went along.”

“Did he kill Eph?” demanded Harshaw, the query swift with the momentum of the wish.

“Waal, not edzac’ly,” drawled Jeb. “That’s whar the funny part kem in. Eph, he knowed ef Jeemes shot fust he war a dead man,—mighty few sech shots ez Jeemes,—but he warn’t a-goin’ ter murder him by shootin’ him afore he put his foot on the groun’ an’ tuk up the dare. So he waited, an’ Jeemes stopped short right at the aidge o’ the bredge.”

“Lord, I ’members how he looked!” cried Marvin. “He had tuk off his coat an’ vest, though we-uns hed tole him that thar b’iled shirt o’ his’n war a good mark for Eph, ez looked jes’ the color o’ the clay-bank ahint him, in them brown jeans clothes. Jim’s straw hat war drawn down over his eyes; he war jes’ about the build o’ his ramrod,—slimmest, stringiest boy!—ez delikit-lookin’ ez a gal. One thing Eph called him, ez riled him wuss ’n all, war ‘Miss Polly.’”

“He hev widened out mightily sence then, though he ain’t got no fat ter spare yit,” put in Jeb.

“An’ then, suddint,” resumed Marvin, “he jes’ stepped his foot right on the groun’. In that very minute Eph’s gun flashed. An’ I seen Jeemes standin’ thar, still sightin’. An’ then Eph, he drapped his gun, an’ held his hands afore his face, an’ yelled out, ‘Shoot, ef ye air a-goin’ ter shoot! I ain’t a-goin’ ter stan’ hyar no longer.’ An’ Jeemes, he looked ez scornful”—

“I never seen a boy’s looks with sech a cuttin’ aidge ter ’em,” interpolated Jeb.

“An’ Jeemes, he say, ‘I ain’t a-wastin’ powder ter-day. I never ’lowed ez skunks war game.’ An’ he drapped his gun.”

“Yes sir!” exclaimed Jeb, “he jes’ hed that much grit,—ter stan’ up ez a shootin’ mark fur Eph Saunders, an’ prove he warn’t afeard o’ nothin’. He did sir!”

“Why, look here, my good friends!” cried the lawyer. “That was a duel. It was a cool, premeditated affair. They met by previous appointment, and fought with deadly weapons and with witnesses. It was a duel.”

“Mebbe so,” said Jeb, indifferently and uncomprehendingly. “I call it clean grit.”

“Waal,” went on Marvin, “I run across the bredge lookin’ fur Eph’s bullet. I said, ‘Whar’d it go?’ An’ by that time Eph an’ them low down Kitwin boys war slinkin’ off. An’ sez Jeemes, ‘Don’t let ’em know it. I don’t want my mother ter hear ’bout it. She air fibble an’ gittin’ old.’ An’ thar I seen the breast o’ his shirt war slow a-spottin’ with blood. Waal, sir, that’s how kem me an’ Jeb an’ him rid over the mountings inter North Carolina, whar he hed some kinsfolks livin’ ’mongst the hills.”

“Ye see,”—Jeb again took up his testimony,—“he didn’t want the news ter git ter his mother afore he got well, ’kase he war delikit, an’ she war always a-lookin’ fur him ter die; an’ Eph never knowed Jim war shot, an’ couldn’t kerry the tale down ter Colbury. Waal, we-uns war all young an’ toler’ble bouncin’ fools, I tell ye, an’ we sorter got light on that fac’ whenst we-uns sot out ter ride with a man with a gun-shot wound—I furgits ’zac’ly whar the doctor say the bullet went in—miles an’ miles through the mountings; an’ the dark kem on an’ the rain kem down, an’ Jeemes got out’n his head. An’ this ride with you-uns air what reminded me o’ it.”

“_I_ ain’t out of my head!” cried Harshaw, with covert meaning. “You bet your immortal soul on that!”

“Naw,”—Jeb admitted the discrepancy,—“but the rain, an’ the ride, an’ the mountings, an’ the darksomeness.”

“Lord! a body wouldn’t hev b’lieved how Jeemes’s pride war hurt ter be called afeard!” exclaimed Marvin. “I ’low he’d hev let Eph chop him up in minch meat ter prove he warn’t. He air prouder of hisself ’n enny man I ever see. Thar’s whar his soul is—in his pride.”

“I’m glad ter hear it,” said Harshaw, so definitely referring to an occult interpretation of his own that the old white hat, bobbing along in front of him, turned slowly, and he saw the lank, cadaverous face below it, outlined with its limp wisps of black hair against the nebulous vapors. So strong an expression of surprise did Jeb’s features wear that Harshaw hastily added, “A man that ain’t got any pride ain’t worth anything.”

“Ef he hev got ennything ter be proud of,” stipulated melancholy Jeb.

The day had fully dawned; the rain, the mists, the looming forests, had acquired a dull verity in the stead of the vague, illusory shadows they had been. Nevertheless, the muddy banks of the creek down which the mare slided, her legs rigid as iron; the obstructions of the ford,—rocks, fallen limbs of trees, floating or entangled in intricacies of overhanging bushes,—were all rendered more difficult, for Harshaw mechanically controlled the reins instead of trusting to the mare’s instinct; as he sawed on the bit, while she threw back her head, foaming at the mouth, he brought her to her knees in the midst of the stream. The water surged up about the great boots which he wore drawn over his trousers to the knee, and the mare regained her footing with snorting difficulty. There were no expletives, and Jeb looked back in renewed surprise.

“Ye mus’ be studyin’ powerful hard, stranger,” he commented, “not ter hev seen that thar bowlder.”

“Yer beastis war a-goin’ ter take slanchwise across the ruver whar thar warn’t nuthin’ ter hender, till ye in an’ about pulled the jaw off’n her,” Marvin said, as Harshaw pushed through the swollen flood and up the opposite bank. His flushed face was grave; his eyes were intent; he rode along silently. He was indeed thinking.

He was thinking that if what they had told him were true—and how could he doubt it?—Gwinnan in taking the official oath had committed perjury; he was disqualified for the judicial office, and liable to impeachment. Harshaw was vaguely repeating to himself and trying to remember the phraseology of the anti-dueling oath exacted of every office-holder in the State of Tennessee,—an oath that he had not directly or indirectly given or accepted a challenge since the adoption of the Constitution of 1835.

Under what pretext, what secret reservation or evasion, had Gwinnan been able to evade this solemn declaration? Or had he adopted the simple expedient of swallowing it whole? Harshaw wondered, remembering all the acerbities of Gwinnan’s canvass and election, that the old story had not before come to light. But it was a section of frequent feuds and bloody collisions, the subject was trite and unsuggestive, and the details of an old fight might seem to promise no novel developments. How odd that he, of all men, should stumble on it, in view of its most signal significance!

Auxiliary facts pressed upon his attention. Nothing that could be now urged against an official was so prejudicial as the crime of dueling. The episode of Kinsard’s boyish demonstration attested the temper of the public. With much difficulty had his friends shielded him by its ambiguity; and indeed only because it was a meaningless folly, without intention or result, had it proved innocuous. Even Kinsard, fire-eater as he was, had been forced to accept their interpretations of its harmless intent, and to subside under the frown of public displeasure. The more lenient members of the House had had cause to regret their clemency, the disapproval of their constituents being expressed in no measured manner by the local journals. But no ambiguity was here; this was the accomplished fact, this the clue that long he had sought. Even if the House should decline to act in the matter, Gwinnan could be removed by judicial proceedings. He would think it out at his leisure. How lucky, how lucky was this ride!

The rain had ceased at last. They were among the minor ridges that lie about the base of the Great Smoky. They had ridden many a mile out of their way,—Harshaw could not say in what direction,—so that he might not easily retrace his steps. The mists still hung about them when they turned from the almost imperceptible path, which Jeb had followed with some keen instinct or memory, into a road,—a rough wagon track. Bushes were growing in its midst, bowlders lay here and there; its chief claim to identification as a highway being its occasional mud-puddles, of appalling depth and magnitude, and its red clay mire, fetlock deep at least.

Harshaw roused himself suddenly, as the two moonshiners intimated their intention of parting company with him.

“Thar’s yer way, stranger,” said Marvin, pausing on the rise and pointing down the road. It was visible only a few rods in the mist, dreary and deserted, with deep ditches, heavily washed by the rain, on either hand; it might seem to lead to no fair spaces, no favored destination where one might hope to be. But Harshaw drew up his mare, and gazed along it with kindling eyes. His felt hat drooped in picturesque curves about his dense yellow hair, soaked like his beard, to a darker hue. His closely buttoned coat had a military suggestion. His heavy figure was imposing on horseback. He flushed with sudden elation. Alack! he saw more trooping down that prosaic dirt road than the mist, hastily scurrying; than the progress of the wind in the swaying of the stunted cedars, clinging to the gashed and gully-washed embankments; than the last trickling stragglers of the storm.

He did not notice, or he did not care, that the two men had remarked his silence, his evident absorption. He glanced cursorily at them, as they sat regarding him,—one on the little lank mule, his partner on the big lean one, both drenched, and forlorn, and poverty-stricken, and humble of aspect. The politician’s mare, perhaps recognizing the road down into Kildeer County, where she had spent the first frisky years of her toilsome pilgrimage, showed a new spirit, and caracoled as Harshaw rode up to the two men to offer his hand.

“Farewell, stranger,” they said; and in the old-fashioned phrase of the primitive Plain People, “Farewell,” he replied.

They stood looking after him, hardly understanding what they lacked, what they had expected, as the mare, with a mincing, youthful freshness, cantered a little way along the grassy margin of the road, above the rivulets in the ditches, surging twelve or fourteen feet below.

Presently Harshaw paused, yet unobscured by the mist which had gathered about him, and glanced over his shoulder,—not to thank them for such aid and comfort as they had given him.

“Gentlemen,” he said, a little ill at ease because of the restive mare, “I must thank you for the story you told me. You don’t know how much good it did me. A pretty little story, with a pretty little hero. A very _pretty_ little story, indeed.”

He bent his roseate, dimpled smile upon them, and waved his hand satirically; with a bound the mare disappeared in the mist, leaving the grave, saturnine mountaineers staring after him, and listening to the measured hoof-beat of his invisible progress till it died in the distance.

Then they looked at each other.

“Sam,” said Jeb, when they had turned again into their fastnesses, where they could ride only in single file, “I dunno ef we-uns done right las’ night. This worl’ would be healthier ef that man war out’n it.”

“I ain’t misdoubtin’ that none,” replied Marvin. “’Peared ter me powerful comical, the way he took off down the road, an’ I ain’t able ter study out yit what he meant. My gran’mam always ’lowed ez them ez talks in riddles larnt thar speech o’ the devil, him bein’ the deceivin’ one. But ’twarn’t healthy fur we-uns ter kill him, even ef we could hev agreed ter do it. I reckon them hunters _would_ hev tracked him. An’ I don’t b’lieve he war no spy nor sech.”

“Nor me nuther,” said “hongry Jeb,” well enough satisfied with the termination of the adventure, “though I ain’t likin’ him now ez well ez I done a-fust.”