by John Fox
XIV
But June did not go home. Hale anticipated that resolution of hers andforestalled it by being on hand for breakfast and taking June over tothe porch of his little office. There he tried to explain to her thatthey were trying to build a town and must have law and order; that theymust have no personal feeling for or against anybody and must treateverybody exactly alike--no other course was fair--and though June couldnot quite understand, she trusted him and she said she would keep on atschool until her father came for her.
"Do you think he will come, June?"
The little girl hesitated.
"I'm afeerd he will," she said, and Hale smiled.
"Well, I'll try to persuade him to let you stay, if he does come."
June was quite right. She had seen the matter the night before justas it was. For just at that hour young Dave, sobered, but still on theverge of tears from anger and humiliation, was telling the story of theday in her father's cabin. The old man's brows drew together and hiseyes grew fierce and sullen, both at the insult to a Tolliver and at thethought of a certain moonshine still up a ravine not far away and theindirect danger to it in any finicky growth of law and order. Still hehad a keen sense of justice, and he knew that Dave had not told all thestory, and from him Dave, to his wonder, got scant comfort--for anotherreason as well: with a deal pending for the sale of his lands, theshrewd old man would not risk giving offence to Hale--not until thatmatter was settled, anyway. And so June was safer from interferencejust then than she knew. But Dave carried the story far and wide, andit spread as a story can only in the hills. So that the two people mosttalked about among the Tollivers and, through Loretta, among the Falinsas well, were June and Hale, and at the Gap similar talk would come.Already Hale's name was on every tongue in the town, and there, becauseof his recent purchases of town-site land, he was already, aside fromhis personal influence, a man of mysterious power.
Meanwhile, the prescient shadow of the coming "boom" had stolen over thehills and the work of the Guard had grown rapidly.
Every Saturday there had been local lawlessness to deal with. The spiritof personal liberty that characterized the spot was traditional. Herefor half a century the people of Wise County and of Lee, whose borderwas but a few miles down the river, came to get their wool carded, theirgrist ground and farming utensils mended. Here, too, elections were heldviva voce under the beeches, at the foot of the wooded spur now knownas Imboden Hill. Here were the muster-days of wartime. Here on Saturdaysthe people had come together during half a century for sport andhorse-trading and to talk politics. Here they drank apple-jack andhard cider, chaffed and quarrelled and fought fist and skull. Here thebullies of the two counties would come together to decide who was the"best man." Here was naturally engendered the hostility between thehill-dwellers of Wise and the valley people of Lee, and here was foughta famous battle between a famous bully of Wise and a famous bully ofLee. On election days the country people would bring in gingercakesmade of cane-molasses, bread homemade of Burr flour and moonshine andapple-jack which the candidates would buy and distribute through thecrowd. And always during the afternoon there were men who would try toprove themselves the best Democrats in the State of Virginia by resortto tooth, fist and eye-gouging thumb. Then to these elections sometimeswould come the Kentuckians from over the border to stir up the hostilitybetween state and state, which makes that border bristle with enmity tothis day. For half a century, then, all wild oats from elsewhere usuallysprouted at the Gap. And thus the Gap had been the shrine of personalfreedom--the place where any one individual had the right to do hispleasure with bottle and cards and politics and any other the right toprove him wrong if he were strong enough. Very soon, as the Hon. SamBudd predicted, they had the hostility of Lee concentrated on them assiding with the county of Wise, and they would gain, in additionnow, the general hostility of the Kentuckians, because as a crowd ofmeddlesome "furriners" they would be siding with the Virginians in thegeneral enmity already alive. Moreover, now that the feud threatenedactivity over in Kentucky, more trouble must come, too, from thatsource, as the talk that came through the Gap, after young DaveTolliver's arrest, plainly indicated.
Town ordinances had been passed. The wild centaurs were no longerallowed to ride up and down the plank walks of Saturdays with theirreins in their teeth and firing a pistol into the ground with eitherhand; they could punctuate the hotel sign no more; they could not rideat a fast gallop through the streets of the town, and, Lost Spirit ofAmerican Liberty!--they could not even yell. But the lawlessness of thetown itself and its close environment was naturally the first objectivepoint, and the first problem involved was moonshine and its faithfulally "the blind tiger." The "tiger" is a little shanty with an ever-openmouth--a hole in the door like a post-office window. You place yourmoney on the sill and, at the ring of the coin, a mysterious arm emergesfrom the hole, sweeps the money away and leaves a bottle of whitewhiskey. Thus you see nobody's face; the owner of the beast is safe, andso are you--which you might not be, if you saw and told. In every littlehollow about the Gap a tiger had his lair, and these were all bearded atonce by a petition to the county judge for high license saloons,which was granted. This measure drove the tigers out of business, andconcentrated moonshine in the heart of the town, where its devoteeswere under easy guard. One "tiger" only indeed was left, run by around-shouldered crouching creature whom Bob Berkley--now at Hale'ssolicitation a policeman and known as the Infant of the Guard--dubbedCaliban. His shanty stood midway in the Gap, high from the road, setagainst a dark clump of pines and roared at by the river beneath.Everybody knew he sold whiskey, but he was too shrewd to be caught,until, late one afternoon, two days after young Dave's arrest, Halecoming through the Gap into town glimpsed a skulking figure with ahand-barrel as it slipped from the dark pines into Caliban's cabin. Hepulled in his horse, dismounted and deliberated. If he went on down theroad now, they would see him and suspect. Moreover, the patrons of thetiger would not appear until after dark, and he wanted a prisoner ortwo. So Hale led his horse up into the bushes and came back to a covertby the roadside to watch and wait. As he sat there, a merry whistlesounded down the road, and Hale smiled. Soon the Infant of the Guardcame along, his hands in his pockets, his cap on the back of his head,his pistol bumping his hip in manly fashion and making the ravines echowith his pursed lips. He stopped in front of Hale, looked toward theriver, drew his revolver and aimed it at a floating piece of wood. Therevolver cracked, the piece of wood skidded on the surface of the waterand there was no splash.
"That was a pretty good shot," said Hale in a low voice. The boy whirledand saw him.
"Well-what are you--?"
"Easy--easy!" cautioned Hale. "Listen! I've just seen a moonshiner gointo Caliban's cabin." The boy's eager eyes sparkled.
"Let's go after him."
"No, you go on back. If you don't, they'll be suspicious. Get anotherman"--Hale almost laughed at the disappointment in the lad's face at hisfirst words, and the joy that came after it--"and climb high above theshanty and come back here to me. Then after dark we'll dash in and cinchCaliban and his customers."
"Yes, sir," said the lad. "Shall I whistle going back?" Hale noddedapproval.
"Just the same." And off Bob went, whistling like a calliope and noteven turning his head to look at the cabin. In half an hour Hale thoughthe heard something crashing through the bushes high on the mountainside, and, a little while afterward, the boy crawled through the bushesto him alone. His cap was gone, there was a bloody scratch across hisface and he was streaming with perspiration.
"You'll have to excuse me, sir," he panted, "I didn't see anybody butone of my brothers, and if I had told him, he wouldn't have let ME come.And I hurried back for fear--for fear something would happen."
"Well, suppose I don't let you go."
"Excuse me, sir, but I don't see how you can very well help. You aren'tmy brother and you can't go alone."
"I was," said Hale.
"Yes, sir, but not now."
> Hale was worried, but there was nothing else to be done.
"All right. I'll let you go if you stop saying 'sir' to me. It makes mefeel so old."
"Certainly, sir," said the lad quite unconsciously, and when Halesmothered a laugh, he looked around to see what had amused him. Darknessfell quickly, and in the gathering gloom they saw two more figures skulkinto the cabin.
"We'll go now--for we want the fellow who's selling the moonshine."
Again Hale was beset with doubts about the boy and his ownresponsibility to the boy's brothers. The lad's eyes were shining,but his face was more eager than excited and his hand was as steady asHale's own.
"You slip around and station yourself behind that pine-tree just behindthe cabin"--the boy looked crestfallen--"and if anybody tries to get outof the back door--you halt him."
"Is there a back door?"
"I don't know," Hale said rather shortly. "You obey orders. I'm not yourbrother, but I'm your captain."
"I beg your pardon, sir. Shall I go now?"
"Yes, you'll hear me at the front door. They won't make any resistance."The lad stepped away with nimble caution high above the cabin, and heeven took his shoes off before he slid lightly down to his place behindthe pine. There was no back door, only a window, and his disappointmentwas bitter. Still, when he heard Hale at the front door, he meant tomake a break for that window, and he waited in the still gloom. He couldhear the rough talk and laughter within and now and then the clink of atin cup. By and by there was a faint noise in front of the cabin, and hesteadied his nerves and his beating heart. Then he heard the door pushedviolently in and Hale's cry:
"Surrender!"
Hale stood on the threshold with his pistol outstretched in his righthand. The door had struck something soft and he said sharply again:
"Come out from behind that door--hands up!"
At the same moment, the back window flew open with a bang and Bob'spistol covered the edge of the opened door. "Caliban" had rolled fromhis box like a stupid animal. Two of his patrons sat dazed and staringfrom Hale to the boy's face at the window. A mountaineer stood in onecorner with twitching fingers and shifting eyes like a caged wild thingand forth issued from behind the door, quivering with anger--young DaveTolliver. Hale stared at him amazed, and when Dave saw Hale, such a waveof fury surged over his face that Bob thought it best to attract hisattention again; which he did by gently motioning at him with the barrelof his pistol.
"Hold on, there," he said quietly, and young Dave stood still.
"Climb through that window, Bob, and collect the batteries," said Hale.
"Sure, sir," said the lad, and with his pistol still prominently in theforeground he threw his left leg over the sill and as he climbed in hequoted with a grunt: "Always go in force to make an arrest." Grim andserious as it was, with June's cousin glowering at him, Hale could nothelp smiling.
"You didn't go home, after all," said Hale to young Dave, who clenchedhis hands and his lips but answered nothing; "or, if you did, you gotback pretty quick." And still Dave was silent.
"Get 'em all, Bob?" In answer the boy went the rounds--feeling thepocket of each man's right hip and his left breast.
"Yes, sir."
"Unload 'em!"
The lad "broke" each of the four pistols, picked up a piece of twine andstrung them together through each trigger-guard.
"Close that window and stand here at the door."
With the boy at the door, Hale rolled the hand-barrel to the thresholdand the white liquor gurgled joyously on the steps.
"All right, come along," he said to the captives, and at last young Davespoke:
"Whut you takin' me fer?"
Hale pointed to the empty hand-barrel and Dave's answer was a look ofscorn.
"I nuvver brought that hyeh."
"You were drinking illegal liquor in a blind tiger, and if you didn'tbring it you can prove that later. Anyhow, we'll want you as a witness,"and Hale looked at the other mountaineer, who had turned his eyesquickly to Dave. Caliban led the way with young Dave, and Hale walkedside by side with them while Bob was escort for the other two. The roadran along a high bank, and as Bob was adjusting the jangling weaponson his left arm, the strange mountaineer darted behind him and leapedheadlong into the tops of thick rhododendron. Before Hale knew what hadhappened the lad's pistol flashed.
"Stop, boy!" he cried, horrified. "Don't shoot!" and he had to catchthe lad to keep him from leaping after the runaway. The shot had missed;they heard the runaway splash into the river and go stumbling across itand then there was silence. Young Dave laughed:
"Uncle Judd'll be over hyeh to-morrow to see about this." Hale saidnothing and they went on. At the door of the calaboose Dave balked andhad to be pushed in by main force. They left him weeping and cursingwith rage.
"Go to bed, Bob," said Hale.
"Yes, sir," said Bob; "just as soon as I get my lessons."
Hale did not go to the boarding-house that night--he feared to faceJune. Instead he went to the hotel to scraps of a late supper and thento bed. He had hardly touched the pillow, it seemed, when somebodyshook him by the shoulder. It was Macfarlan, and daylight was streamingthrough the window.
"A gang of those Falins are here," Macfarlan said, "and they're afteryoung Dave Tolliver--about a dozen of 'em. Young Buck is with them, andthe sheriff. They say he shot a man over the mountains yesterday."
Hale sprang for his clothes--here was a quandary.
"If we turn him over to them--they'll kill him." Macfarlan nodded.
"Of course, and if we leave him in that weak old calaboose, they'll getmore help and take him out to-night."
"Then we'll take him to the county jail."
"They'll take him away from us."
"No, they won't. You go out and get as many shotguns as you can find andload them with buckshot."
Macfarlan nodded approvingly and disappeared. Hale plunged his face ina basin of cold water, soaked his hair and, as he was mopping his facewith a towel, there was a ponderous tread on the porch, the door openedwithout the formality of a knock, and Devil Judd Tolliver, with his haton and belted with two huge pistols, stepped stooping within. His eyes,red with anger and loss of sleep, were glaring, and his heavy moustacheand beard showed the twitching of his mouth.
"Whar's Dave?" he said shortly.
"In the calaboose."
"Did you put him in?"
"Yes," said Hale calmly.
"Well, by God," the old man said with repressed fury, "you can't git himout too soon if you want to save trouble."
"Look here, Judd," said Hale seriously. "You are one of the last menin the world I want to have trouble with for many reasons; but I'm anofficer over here and I'm no more afraid of you"--Hale paused to letthat fact sink in and it did--"than you are of me. Dave's been sellingliquor."
"He hain't," interrupted the old mountaineer. "He didn't bring thatliquor over hyeh. I know who done it."
"All right," said Hale; "I'll take your word for it and I'll let himout, if you say so, but---"
"Right now," thundered old Judd.
"Do you know that young Buck Falin and a dozen of his gang are over hereafter him?" The old man looked stunned.
"Whut--now?"
"They're over there in the woods across the river NOW and they want meto give him up to them. They say they have the sheriff with them andthey want him for shooting a man on Leatherwood Creek, day beforeyesterday."
"It's all a lie," burst out old Judd. "They want to kill him."
"Of course--and I was going to take him up to the county jail right awayfor safe-keeping."
"D'ye mean to say you'd throw that boy into jail and then fight themFalins to pertect him?" the old man asked slowly and incredulously. Halepointed to a two-store building through his window.
"If you get in the back part of that store at a window, you can seewhether I will or not. I can summon you to help, and if a fight comes upyou can do your share from the window."
The old man's eyes
lighted up like a leaping flame.
"Will you let Dave out and give him a Winchester and help us fight 'em?"he said eagerly. "We three can whip 'em all."
"No," said Hale shortly. "I'd try to keep both sides from fighting, andI'd arrest Dave or you as quickly as I would a Falin."
The average mountaineer has little conception of duty in the abstract,but old Judd belonged to the better class--and there are many ofthem--that does. He looked into Hale's eyes long and steadily.
"All right."
Macfarlan came in hurriedly and stopped short--seeing the hatted,bearded giant.
"This is Mr. Tolliver--an uncle of Dave's--Judd Tolliver," said Hale."Go ahead."
"I've got everything fixed--but I couldn't get but five of thefellows--two of the Berkley boys. They wouldn't let me tell Bob."
"All right. Can I summon Mr. Tolliver here?"
"Yes," said Macfarlan doubtfully, "but you know---"
"He won't be seen," interrupted Hale, understandingly. "He'll be at awindow in the back of that store and he won't take part unless a fightbegins, and if it does, we'll need him."
An hour later Devil Judd Tolliver was in the store Hale pointed out andpeering cautiously around the edge of an open window at the wooden gateof the ramshackle calaboose. Several Falins were there--led by youngBuck, whom Hale recognized as the red-headed youth at the head of thetearing horsemen who had swept by him that late afternoon when he wascoming back from his first trip to Lonesome Cove. The old man grittedhis teeth as he looked and he put one of his huge pistols on a tablewithin easy reach and kept the other clenched in his right fist. Fromdown the street came five horsemen, led by John Hale. Every man carrieda double-barrelled shotgun, and the old man smiled and his respect forHale rose higher, high as it already was, for nobody--mountaineeror not--has love for a hostile shotgun. The Falins, armed only withpistols, drew near.
"Keep back!" he heard Hale say calmly, and they stopped--young Buckalone going on.
"We want that feller," said young Buck.
"Well, you don't get him," said Hale quietly. "He's our prisoner. Keepback!" he repeated, motioning with the barrel of his shotgun--and youngBuck moved backward to his own men, The old man saw Hale and anotherman--the sergeant--go inside the heavy gate of the stockade. He saw aboy in a cap, with a pistol in one hand and a strapped set of books inthe other, come running up to the men with the shotguns and he heard oneof them say angrily:
"I told you not to come."
"I know you did," said the boy imperturbably.
"You go on to school," said another of the men, but the boy with the capshook his head and dropped his books to the ground. The big gate openedjust then and out came Hale and the sergeant, and between them youngDave--his eyes blinking in the sunlight.
"Damn ye," he heard Dave say to Hale. "I'll get even with you fer thissome day"--and then the prisoner's eyes caught the horses and shotgunsand turned to the group of Falins and he shrank back utterly dazed.There was a movement among the Falins and Devil Judd caught up his otherpistol and with a grim smile got ready. Young Buck had turned to hiscrowd:
"Men," he said, "you know I never back down"--Devil Judd knew that, too,and he was amazed by the words that followed-"an' if you say so, we'llhave him or die; but we ain't in our own state now. They've got the lawand the shotguns on us, an' I reckon we'd better go slow."
The rest seemed quite willing to go slow, and, as they put their pistolsup, Devil Judd laughed in his beard. Hale put young Dave on a horse andthe little shotgun cavalcade quietly moved away toward the county-seat.
The crestfallen Falins dispersed the other way after they had takena parting shot at the Hon. Samuel Budd, who, too, had a pistol in hishand. Young Buck looked long at him--and then he laughed:
"You, too, Sam Budd," he said. "We folks'll rickollect this on electionday." The Hon. Sam deigned no answer.
And up in the store Devil Judd lighted his pipe and sat down to thinkout the strange code of ethics that governed that police-guard. Hale hadtold him to wait there, and it was almost noon before the boy with thecap came to tell him that the Falins had all left town. The old manlooked at him kindly.
"Air you the little feller whut fit fer June?"
"Not yet," said Bob; "but it's coming."
"Well, you'll whoop him."
"I'll do my best."
"Whar is she?"
"She's waiting for you over at the boarding-house."
"Does she know about this trouble?"
"Not a thing; she thinks you've come to take her home." The old man madeno answer, and Bob led him back toward Hale's office. June was waitingat the gate, and the boy, lifting his cap, passed on. June's eyes weredark with anxiety.
"You come to take me home, dad?"
"I been thinkin' 'bout it," he said, with a doubtful shake of his head.
June took him upstairs to her room and pointed out the old water-wheelthrough the window and her new clothes (she had put on her old homespunagain when she heard he was in town), and the old man shook his head.
"I'm afeerd 'bout all these fixin's--you won't never be satisfied aginin Lonesome Cove."
"Why, dad," she said reprovingly. "Jack says I can go over whenever Iplease, as soon as the weather gits warmer and the roads gits good."
"I don't know," said the old man, still shaking his head.
All through dinner she was worried. Devil Judd hardly ate anything, soembarrassed was he by the presence of so many "furriners" and by thewhite cloth and table-ware, and so fearful was he that he would beguilty of some breach of manners. Resolutely he refused butter, and atthe third urging by Mrs. Crane he said firmly, but with a shrewd twinklein his eye:
"No, thank ye. I never eats butter in town. I've kept store myself," andhe was no little pleased with the laugh that went around the table. Thefact was he was generally pleased with June's environment and, afterdinner, he stopped teasing June.
"No, honey, I ain't goin' to take you away. I want ye to stay rightwhere ye air. Be a good girl now and do whatever Jack Hale tells ye andtell that boy with all that hair to come over and see me." June grewalmost tearful with gratitude, for never had he called her "honey"before that she could remember, and never had he talked so much to her,nor with so much kindness.
"Air ye comin' over soon?"
"Mighty soon, dad."
"Well, take keer o' yourself."
"I will, dad," she said, and tenderly she watched his great figureslouch out of sight.
An hour after dark, as old Judd sat on the porch of the cabin inLonesome Cove, young Dave Tolliver rode up to the gate on a strangehorse. He was in a surly mood.
"He lemme go at the head of the valley and give me this hoss to githere," the boy grudgingly explained. "I'm goin' over to git minetermorrer."
"Seems like you'd better keep away from that Gap," said the old mandryly, and Dave reddened angrily.
"Yes, and fust thing you know he'll be over hyeh atter YOU." The old manturned on him sternly.
"Jack Hale knows that liquer was mine. He knows I've got a still overhyeh as well as you do--an' he's never axed a question nor peeped aneye. I reckon he would come if he thought he oughter--but I'm on thisside of the state-line. If I was on his side, mebbe I'd stop."
Young Dave stared, for things were surely coming to a pretty pass inLonesome Cove.
"An' I reckon," the old man went on, "hit 'ud be better grace in you tostop sayin' things agin' him; fer if it hadn't been fer him, you'd belaid out by them Falins by this time."
It was true, and Dave, silenced, was forced into another channel.
"I wonder," he said presently, "how them Falins always know when I goover thar."
"I've been studyin' about that myself," said Devil Judd. Inside, the oldstep-mother had heard Dave's query.
"I seed the Red Fox this afternoon," she quavered at the door.
"Whut was he doin' over hyeh?" asked Dave.
"Nothin'," she said, "jus' a-sneakin' aroun' the way he's al'aysa-doin'. Seemed like he
was mighty pertickuler to find out when you wascomin' back."
Both men started slightly.
"We're all Tollivers now all right," said the Hon. Samuel Buddthat night while he sat with Hale on the porch overlooking themill-pond--and then he groaned a little.
"Them Falins have got kinsfolks to burn on the Virginia side and they'dfight me tooth and toenail for this a hundred years hence!"
He puffed his pipe, but Hale said nothing.
"Yes, sir," he added cheerily, "we're in for a hell of a merry time NOW.The mountaineer hates as long as he remembers and--he never forgets."