CHAPTER VIII. A MEETING AT NIGHT
Dick heard above the thundering hoofbeats only a single shout, and then,as he glanced backward, the house was lost in the moonlight. When hesecured his own horse he had noticed that all the empty stalls were nowfilled, no doubt by the horses of the young Leffingwells and Kerins,but he was secure in his confidence that none could overtake the one herode.
He felt of that inside pocket of his vest. The precious dispatch wasthere, tightly pinned into its hidden refuge, and as for himself,refreshed, warm, and strong after food, rest, and sleep, he felt equalto any emergency. He had everything with him. The stout saddle bags werelying across the saddle. He had thrust the holster of pistols into them,but he took it out now, and hung it in its own place, also across thesaddle.
Although he was quite sure there would be no pursuit--the elderLeffingwells would certainly keep their sons from joining it--he senthis great horse straight ahead at a good pace for a long time, theroad being fairly good. His excitement and rapid motion kept him fromnoticing at first the great bitterness of the cold.
When he had gone five or six miles he drew his horse down to a walk.Then, feeling the intensity of the cold as the mercury was far belowzero, he dismounted, looped the reins over his arms, and walked a while.For further precaution he took his blanket-roll and wrapped the twoblankets about his body, especially protecting his neck and ears.
He found that the walking, besides keeping him warmer, took all thestiffness out of his muscles, and he continued on foot several miles. Hepassed two brooks and a creek, all frozen over so solidly that the horsepassed on them without breaking the ice. It was an extremely difficulttask to make the animal try the ice, but after much delicate coaxing andurging he always succeeded.
He saw two more cabins at the roadside, but he did not think of askinghospitality at either. The night was now far advanced and he wishedto put many more miles between him and the Leffingwell home before hesought rest again.
He mounted his horse once more, and increased his speed. Now thereaction came after so much exertion and excitement. He began to feeldepressed. He was very young and he had no comrade. The loneliness ofthe winter night in a country full of dangers was appalling. It seemedto him, as his heart sank, that all things had conspired against him.But the moment of despair was brief. He summoned his courage anew androde on bravely, although the sense of loneliness in its full powerremained.
The moonlight was quite bright. The sky was a deep silky blue, in whichmyriads of cold stars shone and danced. By and by he skirted for a whilethe banks of a small river, which he knew flowed southward intothe Cumberland, and which would not cross his path. The rays of themoonlight on its frozen surface looked like darts of cold steel.
He left the river presently and the road bent a little toward the north.Then the skies darkened somewhat but lightened again as the dawn beganto come. The red but cold edge of the sun appeared above the mountainsthat he had left behind, and then the morning came, pale and cold.
Dick stopped at a little brook, broke the ice and drank, letting hishorse drink after him. Then he ate heartily of the cold bread and meatin his knapsack. Pitying his horse he searched until he found a littlegrass not yet killed by winter in the lee of the hill, and waited untilhe cropped it all.
He mounted and resumed his journey through a country in which thehills were steadily becoming lower, with larger stretches of level landappearing between them. By night he should be beyond the last low swellof the mountains and into the hill region proper. As he calculateddistances his heart gave a great thump. He was to locate Buell somedistance north of Green River, and his journey would take him close toPendleton.
The boy was torn by great and conflicting emotions. He would carryout with his life the task that Thomas had assigned to him, and yet hewished to stop near Pendleton, if only for an hour.
Yes an hour would do! And it could not interfere with his duty! ButPendleton was a Southern stronghold. Everybody there knew him, and theyall knew, too, that he was in the service of the North. How could hepass by without being seen and what might happen then? The terribleconflict went on in his mind, and it was stilled only when he decided toleave it to time and chance.
He rode that day almost without interruption, securing an ample dinner,where no one chose to ask questions, accepting him at his own statementof himself and probably believing it. He heard that a small Southernforce was to the southward, probably marching toward Bowling Green,where a great Confederate army under Albert Sidney Johnston was said tobe concentrated. But the news gave him no alarm. His own road was stillleading west slightly by north.
When night came he was in the pleasant and fertile hill country, dottedwith double brick houses, and others of wood, all with wide porticos,supported by white pillars. It looked smiling and prosperous even inwinter. The war had done no ravages here, and he saw men at work aboutthe great barns.
He slept in the house of a big farmer, who liked the frank voice andeyes of the lad, and who cared nothing for any errand upon which hemight be riding. He slept, too, without dreams, and without awakeninguntil the morning, when he shared a solid breakfast with the family.
Dick obtained at the farmhouse a fresh supply of cold food for hissaddle bags, to be held against an emergency, although it was likely nowthat he could obtain all he needed at houses as he passed. Receiving thegood wishes of his hosts he rode on through the hills. The intensecold which kept troops from marching much really served him, as thedetachments about the little towns stayed in their camps.
The day was quite clear, with the mercury still well below zero, but hisheavy clothing kept him warm and comfortable. His great horse showed nosigns of weariness. Apparently his sinews were made of steel.
Noon came, but Dick did not seek any farmhouse for what was calleddinner in that region. Instead he ate from his saddle bags as he rodeon. He did not wish to waste time, and, moreover, he had taken hisresolution. He would go near Pendleton. It was on his most direct route,but he would pass in the night.
As the cold twilight descended he came into familiar regions. Like allother young Kentuckians he was a great horseman, and with Harry Kentonand other lads of his age he had ridden nearly everywhere in a circuitof thirty miles around Pendleton.
It was with many a throb of the heart that he now recognized familiarscenes. He knew the fields, the forests and the houses. But he was gladthat the night had come. Others would know him, and he did not wish tobe seen when he rode on such an errand. He had been saving his horse inthe afternoon, but now he pushed him forward at a much faster gait. Thegreat horse responded willingly and Dick felt the powerful body workingbeneath him, smooth and tireless like a perfect machine.
He passed nobody on the road. People hugged their fires on such a coldnight, and he rode hour after hour without interruption. It was nearlymidnight when he stopped on a high hill, free of forest, and looked downupon Pendleton. The wonderful clearness of the winter night helped him.All the stars known to man were out, and helped to illuminate the worldwith a clear but cold radiance.
Although a long distance away Dick could see Pendleton clearly. Therewas no foliage on the trees now, and nearly every house was visible.The great pulse in his throat throbbed hard as he looked. He saw thesteeples of the churches, the white pillars of the court house, and offto one side the academy in which he and Harry Kenton had gone to schooltogether. He saw further away Colonel Kenton's own house on anotherhill. It, too, had porticos, supported by white pillars which gleamed inthe moonlight.
Then his eyes traveled again around the half circle before him. Theplace for which he was looking could not be seen. But he knew that itwould be so. It was a low house, and the evergreens about it, the pinesand cedars would hide it at any time. But he knew the exact spot, and hewanted his eyes to linger there a little before he rode straight for it.
Now the great pulse in his throat leaped, and something like a sob camefrom him. But it was not a sob of unhappiness. He clucked to his horseand tur
ned from the main road into a narrower one that led by the lowhouse among the evergreens. Yet he was a boy of powerful will, anddespite his eagerness, he restrained his horse and advanced very slowly.Sometimes he turned the animal upon the dead turf by the side of theroad in order that his footsteps might make no sound.
He drew slowly nearer, and when he saw the roof and eaves of the lowhouse among the evergreens the great pulse in his throat leaped so hardthat it was almost unbearable. He reached the edge of the lawn thatcame down to the road, and hidden by the clipped cone of a pine he saw afaint light shining.
He dismounted, opened the gate softly, and led his horse upon the lawn,hitching him between two pines that grew close together, concealing himperfectly.
"Be quiet, old fellow," he whispered, stroking the great intelligenthead. "Nobody will find you here and I'll come back for you."
The horse rubbed his nose against his arm but made no other movement.Then Dick walked softly toward the house, pulses beating hard and pausedjust at the edge of a portico, where he stood in the shadow of a pillar.He saw the light clearly now. It shone from a window of the low secondstory. It came from her window and her room. Doubtless she was thinkingat that very moment of him. His throat ached and tears came into hiseyes. The light, clear and red, shone steadily from the window and madea band across the lawn.
He picked a handful of sand from the walk that led to the front doorand threw it against the window. He knew that she was brave and wouldrespond, but waiting only a moment or two he threw a second handfulfully and fairly against the glass.
The lower half of the window was thrown open and a head appeared, wherethe moonlight fell clearly upon it. It was the head of a beautifulwoman, framed in thick, silken yellow hair, the eyes deep blue, and theskin of the wonderful fairness so often found in that state. The facewas that of a woman about thirty-seven or eight years of age, andwithout a wrinkle or flaw.
"Mother!" called Dick in a low voice as he stepped from the shadow ofthe pillar.
There was a cry and the face disappeared like a flash from the window.But he had only a few moments to wait. Her swift feet brought her fromthe room, down the stairway, and along the hall to the door, which shethrew open. The next instant Mrs. Mason had her son in her arms.
"Oh, Dick, Dicky, boy, how did you come!" she exclaimed. "You were hereunder my window, and I did not even know that you were alive!"
Her tears of joy fell upon his face and he was moved profoundly. Dickloved his beautiful young mother devoutly, and her widowhood had boundthem all the more closely together.
"I've come a long distance, and I've come in many ways, mother," hereplied, "by train, by horseback, and I have even walked."
"You have come here on foot?"
"No, mother. I rode directly over your own smooth lawn on one of thebiggest horses you ever saw, and he's tied now between two of the pinetrees. Come, we must go in the house. It's too cold for you out here. Doyou know that the mercury is about ten degrees below zero."
"What a man you have grown! Why, you must be two inches taller than youwere, when you went away, and how sunburned and weather-beaten you are,too! Oh, Dicky, this terrible, terrible war! Not a word from you inmonths has got through to me!"
"Nor a word from you to me, mother, but I have not suffered so much sofar. I was at Bull Run, where we lost, and I was at Mill Spring, wherewe won, but I was unhurt."
"Perhaps you have come back to stay," she said hopefully.
"No, mother, not to stay. I took a chance in coming by here to see you,but I couldn't go on without a few minutes. Inside now, mother, yourhands are growing cold."
They went in at the door, and closed it behind them. But there wasanother faithful soul on guard that night. In the dusky hail loomed agigantic black figure in a blue checked dress, blue turban on head.
"Marse Dick?" she said.
"Juliana!" he exclaimed. "How did you know that I was here?"
"Ain't I done heard Miss Em'ly cry out, me always sleepin' so light, an'I hears her run down the hail. An' then I dresses an' comes an' sees youtwo through the crack o' the do', an' then I waits till you come in."
Dick gave her a most affectionate greeting, knowing that she was as trueas steel. She rejoiced in her flowery name, as many other colored womenrejoiced in theirs, but her heart inhabited exactly the right spot inher huge anatomy. She drew mother and son into the sitting-room, wherelow coals still burned on the hearth. Then she went up to Mrs. Mason'sbedroom and put out the light, after which she came back to thesitting-room, and, standing by a window in silence, watched over the twoover whom she had watched so long.
"Why is it that you can stay such a little while?" asked Mrs. Mason.
"Mother," replied Dick in a low tone, "General Thomas, who won thebattle at Mill Spring, has trusted me. I bear a dispatch of greatimportance. It is to go to General Buell, and it has to do with thegathering of the Union troops in the western and southern parts of ourstate, and in Tennessee. I must get through with it, and in war, mother,time counts almost as much as battles. I can stop only a few minuteseven for you."
"I suppose it is so. But oh, Dicky, won't this terrible war be oversoon?"
"I don't think so, mother. It's scarcely begun yet."
Mrs. Mason said nothing, but stared into the coals. The great negress,Juliana, standing at the window, did not move.
"I suppose you are right, Dick," she said at last with a sigh, "but itis awful that our people should be arrayed so against one another. Thereis your cousin, Harry Kenton, a good boy, too, on the other side."
"Yes, mother, I caught a glimpse of him at Bull Run. We came almost faceto face in the smoke. But it was only for an instant. Then the smokerushed in between. I don't think anything serious has happened to him."
Mrs. Mason shuddered.
"I should mourn him next to you," she said, "and my brother-in-law,Colonel Kenton, has been very good. He left orders with his people towatch over us here. Pendleton is strongly Southern as you know, butnobody would do us any harm, unless it was the rough people from thehills."
Colonel Kenton's wife had been Mrs. Mason's elder sister, and Dick, ashe also sat staring into the coals, wondered why people who were unitedso closely should yet be divided so much.
"Mother," he said, "when I came through the mountains with my friends westopped at a house in which lived an old, old woman. She must havebeen nearly a hundred. She knew your ancestor and mine, the famous andlearned Paul Cotter, from whom you and I are descended, and she alsoknew his friend and comrade, the mighty scout and hunter, Henry Ware,who became the great governor of Kentucky."
"How strange!"
"But the strangest is yet to be told. Harry Kenton, when he went east tojoin Beauregard before Bull Run, stopped at the same house, and whenshe first saw him she only looked into the far past. She thought it wasHenry Ware himself, and she saluted him as the governor. What do youthink of that, mother?"
"It's a startling coincidence."
"But may it not be an omen? I'm not superstitious, mother, but whenthings come together in such a queer fashion it's bound to make youthink. When Harry's paths and mine cross in such a manner maybe it meansthat we shall all come together again, and be united as we were."
"Maybe."
"At any rate," said Dick with a little laugh, "we'll hope that it does."
While the boy was not noticing his mother had made a sign to Juliana,who had crept out of the room. Now she returned, bearing food upon atray, and Dick, although he was not hungry, ate to please his mother.
"You will stay until morning?" she said.
"No, mother. I can't afford to be seen here. I must leave in the dark."
"Then until it is nearly morning."
"Nor that either, mother. My time is about up already. I could neverbetray the trust that General Thomas has put in me. My dispatchesnot only tell of the gathering of our own troops, but they containinvaluable information concerning the Confederate concentration whichGeneral Thomas learned from his s
couts and spies. Mother, I think agreat battle is coming here in the west."
She shuddered, but she did not seek again to delay him in his duty.
"I am proud," she said, "that you have won the confidence of yourgeneral, and that you ride upon such an important errand. I should havebeen glad if you had stayed at home, Dick, but since you have chosen tobe a soldier, I am rejoiced that you have risen in the esteem of yourofficers. Write to me as often as you can. Maybe none of your letterswill reach me, but at least start them. I shall start mine, too."
"Of course, mother," said Dick, "and now it's time for me to ride hard."
"Why, you have been here only a half hour!"
"Nearer an hour, mother, and on this journey of mine time means a lot. Imust say good-bye now to you and Juliana."
The two women followed him down the lawn to the point where his horsewas hitched between the two big pines. Mrs. Mason patted the horse'sgreat head and murmured to him to carry her son well.
"Did you ever see a finer horse, mother?" said Dick proudly. "He's thevery pick of the army."
He threw his arms around her neck, kissed her more than once, spranginto the saddle and rode away in the darkness.
The two women, the black and the white, sisters in grief, and yet happythat he had come, went slowly back into the house to wait, while theboy, a man's soul in him, strode on to war.
Dick was far from Pendleton when the dawn broke, and now he had fullneed of caution. His horse was bearing him fast into debatable ground,where every man suspected his neighbor, and it remained for force aloneto tell to which side the region belonged. But the extreme delicacy ofthe tension came to Dick's aid. People hesitated to ask questions, lestquestions equally difficult be asked of them in return. It was a greattime to mind one's own business.
He rode on, fortune with him for the present, and his course was stillwest slightly by north. He slept under roofs, and he learned that inthe country into which he had now come the Union sympathizers were morenumerous than the Confederate. The majority of the Kentuckians, whatevertheir personal feelings, were not willing to shatter the republic.
He heard definitely that here in the west the North was gathering armiesgreater than any that he had supposed. Besides the troops from the threestates just across the Ohio River the hardy lumbermen and pioneerswere pouring down from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Huntersin deerskin suits and buffalo moccasins had already come from the farNebraska Territory.
The power of the west and the northwest was converging upon his state,which gave eighty thousand of its men to the Northern cause, while halfas many more went away to the Southern armies, particularly to the oneunder the brilliant and daring Albert Sidney Johnston, which hunga sinister menace before the Northern front. One hundred and twentythousand troops sent to the two armies by a state that contained butlittle more than a million people! It was said at the time that asKentucky went, so would go the fortunes of the Union and in the end itwas so.
But these facts and reckonings were not much in Dick's mind just then.He was thinking of Buell's camp and of the message that he bore. Againand again he felt of that little inside pocket of his vest to see thatit was there, although he knew that by no chance could he have lost it.
When he was within fifteen miles of Buell's camp a heavy snow began tofall. But he did not mind it. The powerful horse that had borne him sowell carried him safely on to his destination, and before the sundownof that day the young messenger was standing before General Don CarlosBuell, one of the most puzzling characters whom he was to meet in thewhole course of the war. He had found Thomas a silent man, but he foundBuell even more so. He received Dick in an ordinary tent, thanked himas he saluted and handed him the dispatch, and then read General Thomas'message.
Dick saw before him a shortish, thickset man, grim of feature, who didnot ask him a word until he had finished the dispatch.
"You know what this contains?" he said, when he came to the end.
"Yes, General Thomas made me memorize it, that I might destroy it if Iwere too hard pressed."
"He tells us that Johnston is preparing for some great blow and hegives the numbers and present location of the hostile forces. Valuableinformation for us, if it is used. You have done well, Mr. Mason. Towhat force were you attached?"
"A small division of Pennsylvania troops under Major Hertford. They wereto be sent by General Thomas to General Grant at Cairo, Illinois."
"And you would like to join them."
"If you please, sir."
"In view of your services your wish is granted. It is likely thatGeneral Grant will need all the men whom he can get. A detachment leaveshere early in the morning for Elizabethtown, where it takes the trainfor Louisville, proceeding thence by water to Cairo. You shall go withthese men. They are commanded by Colonel Winchester. You may go now, Mr.Mason."
He turned back to his papers and Dick, thinking his manner somewhatcurt, left his tent. But he was pleased to hear that the detailwas commanded by Colonel Winchester. Arthur Winchester was a man offorty-one or two who lived about thirty miles north of Pendleton. He wasa great landowner, of high character and pleasant manners. Dick had methim frequently in his childhood, and the Colonel received him with muchwarmth.
"I'm glad to know, Dick," he said familiarly, "that you're going withus. I'm fond of Pendleton, and I like to have one of the Pendleton boysin my command. If all that we hear of this man Grant is true, we'll seeaction, action hot and continuous."
They rode to Elizabethtown, where Dick was compelled to leave his greathorse for Buell's men, and went by train to Louisville, going thenceby steamer down the Ohio River to Cairo, at its junction with theMississippi, where they stood at last in the presence of that generalwhose name was beginning to be known in the west.
The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign Page 10