by John Fox
XXVIII
And so while Bad Rufe Tolliver was waiting for death, the trial of theRed Fox went on, and when he was not swinging in a hammock, reading hisBible, telling his visions to his guards and singing hymns, he was inthe Court House giving shrewd answers to questions, or none at all, withthe benevolent half of his mask turned to the jury and the wolfish snarlof the other half showing only now and then to some hostile witness forwhom his hate was stronger than his fear for his own life. And in jailBad Rufe worried his enemy with the malicious humour of Satan. Now hewould say:
"Oh, there ain't nothin' betwixt old Red and me, nothin' at all--'ceptthis iron wall," and he would drum a vicious tattoo on the thin wallwith the heel of his boot. Or when he heard the creak of the Red Fox'shammock as he droned his Bible aloud, he would say to his guard outside:
"Course I don't read the Bible an' preach the word, nor talk withsperits, but thar's worse men than me in the world--old Red in thar' forinstance"; and then he would cackle like a fiend and the Red Fox wouldwrithe in torment and beg to be sent to another cell. And always hewould daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and ask him questions in thenight, and his devilish instinct told him the day that the Red Fox, too,was sentenced to death--he saw it in the gray pallour of the old man'sface, and he cackled his glee like a demon. For the evidence againstthe Red Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief witness against RufeTolliver--John Hale sat as chief witness against the Red Fox. He couldnot swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old man pick up, butit was something that glistened in the sun, and a moment later hehad found the shell in the old man's pocket--and if it had been firedinnocently, why was it there and why was the old man searching for it?He was looking, he said, for evidence of the murderer himself. Thatclaim made, the Red Fox's lawyer picked up the big rifle and the shell.
"You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the night you spent at hishome that this rifle was rim-fire?"
"He did." The lawyer held up the shell.
"You see this was exploded in such a rifle." That was plain, and thelawyer shoved the shell into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out,and held it up again. The plunger had struck below the rim and near thecentre, but not quite on the centre, and Hale asked for the rifle andexamined it closely.
"It's been tampered with," he said quietly, and he handed it to theprosecuting attorney. The fact was plain; it was a bungling job andbetter proved the Red Fox's guilt. Moreover, there were only two suchbig rifles in all the hills, and it was proven that the man whoowned the other was at the time of the murder far away. The days ofbrain-storms had not come then. There were no eminent Alienists to proveinsanity for the prisoner. Apparently, he had no friends--none save thelittle old woman in black who sat by his side, hour by hour and day byday.
And the Red Fox was doomed.
In the hush of the Court Room the Judge solemnly put to the gray facebefore him the usual question:
"Have you anything to say whereby sentence of death should not bepronounced on you?"
The Red Fox rose:
"No," he said in a shaking voice; "but I have a friend here who I wouldlike to speak for me." The Judge bent his head a moment over his benchand lifted it:
"It is unusual," he said; "but under the circumstances I will grantyour request. Who is your friend?" And the Red Fox made the souls of hislisteners leap.
"Jesus Christ," he said.
The Judge reverently bowed his head and the hush of the Court Room grewdeeper when the old man fished his Bible from his pocket and calmly readsuch passages as might be interpreted as sure damnation for his enemiesand sure glory for himself--read them until the Judge lifted his handfor a halt.
And so another sensation spread through the hills and a superstitiousawe of this strange new power that had come into the hills went with ithand in hand. Only while the doubting ones knew that nothing could savethe Red Fox they would wait to see if that power could really availagainst the Tolliver clan. The day set for Rufe's execution was thefollowing Monday, and for the Red Fox the Friday following--for it waswell to have the whole wretched business over while the guard was there.Old Judd Tolliver, so Hale learned, had come himself to offer the littleold woman in black the refuge of his roof as long as she lived, and hadtried to get her to go back with him to Lonesome Cove; but it pleasedthe Red Fox that he should stand on the scaffold in a suit of white--capand all--as emblems of the purple and fine linen he was to put on above,and the little old woman stayed where she was, silently and withoutquestion, cutting the garments, as Hale pityingly learned, from a whitetable-cloth and measuring them piece by piece with the clothes the oldman wore in jail. It pleased him, too, that his body should be keptunburied three days--saying that he would then arise and go aboutpreaching, and that duty, too, she would as silently and with as littlequestion perform. Moreover, he would preach his own funeral sermon onthe Sunday before Rufe's day, and a curious crowd gathered to hear him.The Red Fox was led from jail. He stood on the porch of the jailer'shouse with a little table in front of him. On it lay a Bible, on theother side of the table sat a little pale-faced old woman in black witha black sun-bonnet drawn close to her face. By the side of the Bible laya few pieces of bread. It was the Red Fox's last communion--a communionwhich he administered to himself and in which there was no other soulon earth to join save that little old woman in black. And when the oldfellow lifted the bread and asked the crowd to come forward to partakewith him in the last sacrament, not a soul moved. Only the old woman whohad been ill-treated by the Red Fox for so many years--only she, ofall the crowd, gave any answer, and she for one instant turned her facetoward him. With a churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread overtoward her and with hesitating, trembling fingers she reached for it.
Bob Berkley was on the death-watch that night, and as he passed Rufe'scell a wiry hand shot through the grating of his door, and as the boysprang away the condemned man's fingers tipped the butt of the bigpistol that dangled on the lad's hip.
"Not this time," said Bob with a cool little laugh, and Rufe laughed,too.
"I was only foolin'," he said, "I ain't goin' to hang. You hear that,Red? I ain't goin' to hang--but you are, Red--sure. Nobody'd risk hislittle finger for your old carcass, 'cept maybe that little old woman o'yours who you've treated like a hound--but my folks ain't goin' to seeme hang."
Rufe spoke with some reason. That night the Tollivers climbed themountain, and before daybreak were waiting in the woods a mile on thenorth side of the town. And the Falins climbed, too, farther along themountains, and at the same hour were waiting in the woods a mile to thesouth.
Back in Lonesome Cove June Tolliver sat alone--her soul shaken andterror-stricken to the depths--and the misery that matched hers was inthe heart of Hale as he paced to and fro at the county seat, on guardand forging out his plans for that day under the morning stars.