The Way of a Man Part 43

There was no second sound. The signal was alone, single; ominous.

"Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!" cried Colonel Sheraton; swinging his hands aloft, tears rolling down his old gray cheeks. "_It is war_! Now we may find forgetfulness!"

CHAPTER XLIII

THE RECKONING

So it was war. We drew apart into hostile camps. By midwinter South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, had withdrawn from the Union. There arose two capitals, each claiming a government, each planning war: Was.h.i.+ngton and Richmond.

As for me, I had seen the flag on our far frontiers, in wide, free lands. It was a time when each must choose for himself. I knew with whom my own lot must be cast. I pledged myself to follow the flag of the frontier, wherever it might go.

During the winter I busied myself, and when the gun of Sumpter came on that sad day of April, I was ready with a company of volunteers who had known some months of drill, at least, and who had been good enough to elect me for their captain. Most of my men came from the mountains of Western Virginia, where geography made loyalty, and loyalty later made a State. I heard, remotely, that Colonel Meriwether would not join the Confederacy. Some men of Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky remained with the older flag. Both the Sheratons, the old Colonel and his son Harry, were of course for the South, and early in January they both left home for Richmond. On the other hand, again, our friend Captain Stevenson stood for the Federal government; and so I heard, also indirectly, did young Belknap of the Ninth Dragoons, Regulars, a gallant boy who swiftly reached distinction, and died a gallant man's death at s.h.i.+loh later on.

My mother, all for peace, was gray and silent over these hurrying events. She wept when she saw me in uniform and belt. "See," she said, "we freed our slaves long ago. We thought as the North thinks. This war is not for the Society of Friends." But she saw my father's blood in me again, and sighed. "Go, then," she said.

All over the country, North and South, came the same sighed consent of the women, "Go, then." And so we went out to kill each other, we who should all have been brothers. None of us would listen. The armies formed, facing each other on Virginia soil. Soon in our trampled fields, and broken herds, and ruined crops, in our desolated homes and hearts, we, brothers in America, learned the significance of war.

They crossed our little valley, pa.s.sing through Alexandria, coming from Harper's Ferry, these raw ninety-day men of McDowell and Patterson, who thought to end the Confederacy that spring. Northern politics drove them into battle before they had learned arms. By midsummer all the world knew that they would presently encounter, somewhere near Mana.s.sas, to the south and west, the forces of Beauregard and Johnston, then lying within practical touch of each other by rail.

My men, most of them young fellows used to horse and arms, were brigaded as infantry with one of the four divisions of McDowell's men, who converged along different lines toward Fairfax. For nearly a week we lay near the front of the advance, moving on in snail-like fas.h.i.+on, which ill-suited most of us Virginians, who saw no virtue in postponing fight, since we were there for fighting. We scattered our forces, we did not unite, we did not entrench, we did not advance; we made all the mistakes a young army could, worst of all the mistake of hesitancy.

It was not until the twentieth of July that our leaders determined upon a flanking movement to our right, which was to cross Bull Run at the Sudley Ford. Even so, we dallied along until every one knew our plans.

Back of us, the battle opened on the following day, a regiment at a time, with no concert, no _plan_. My men were with this right wing, which made the turning movement, but four brigades in all. Four other brigades, those of Howard, Burnside, Keyes and Schenck, were lost somewhere to the rear of us. Finally, we crossed and reached the left flank of the Confederates under Beauregard, and swung south along Bull Run. Our attack was scattering and ill-planned, but by three o'clock of the next day we were in the thickest of the fighting around the slopes which led up to the Henry House, back of which lay the Confederate headquarters.

I saw the batteries of Rickett and Griffin of our Regulars advance and take this height against the steadily thickening line of the Confederates, who had now had full time to concentrate. There came a hot cavalry charge upon the Zouave regiment on my left, and I saw the Zouaves lie down in the woods and melt the line of that charge with their fire, and save the battery for a time. Then in turn I saw that blunder by which the battery commander allowed c.u.mmings' men--the Thirty-third Virginia, I think it was--deliberately to march within stone's throw of them, mistaken for Federal troops. I saw them pour a volley at short range into the guns, which wiped out their handlers, and let through the charging lines now converging rapidly upon us. Then, though it was but my first battle, I knew that our movement must fail, that our extended line, lying upon nothing, supported by nothing, must roll back in retreat along a trough road, where the horses and guns would mow us down.

Stuart's men came on, riding through us as we broke and scattered.

Wheat's Louisiana Tigers came through our remnants as well. We had no support. We did not know that back of the hill the Confederate recruits were breaking badly as ourselves, and running to the rear. We were all new in war. We of the invading forces caught the full terror of that awful panic which the next day set the North in mourning, and the South aflame with a red exultation.

All around us our lines wavered, turned and fled. But to some, who knew the danger of the country back of us, it seemed safer to stay than to run. To that fact I owe my life, and at least a little satisfaction that some of us Virginians held our line for a time, even against those other Virginians who came on at us.

We were scattered in a thin line in cover of heavy timber, and when the pursuit came over us we killed a score of their men after they had pa.s.sed. Such was the confusion and the madness of the pursuit, that they rolled beyond our broken line like a wave, scarce knowing we were there.

Why I escaped I do not know, for I was now easily visible, mounted on a horse which I had caught as it came through the wood riderless. I was pa.s.sing along our little front, up and down, as best I could in the tangle.

The pursuit went through us strung out, scattered, as disorganized as our own flight. They were practically over us and gone when, as I rode to the right flank of the remaining splinter of my little company, I saw, riding down upon us, a splendid soldier, almost alone, and apparently endeavoring to reach his command after some delay at the rear. He was mounted on a fine horse--a great black animal. His tall figure was clad in the gray uniform of the Confederates, with a black hat sweeping back from his forehead. He wore cavalry boots and deep gauntleted gloves, and in all made a gallant martial figure as he rode.

A few of our men, half witless with their terror, crossed his path. I saw him half rise, once, twice, four times, standing in the stirrups to enforce his saber cuts, each one of which dropped a man. He and his horse moved together, a splendid engine of ruthless, butchery.

"Look out, Cap!" I heard a squeaking voice behind me call, and looking down, I saw one of my men, his left arm hanging loose, resting his gun across a log with his right. "Git out 'o the way," he repeated. "I'm goin' to kill him." It was that new-made warrior, Andrew Jackson McGovern, who had drifted back into our valley from some place, and joined my company soon after its organization. I ordered the boy now to drop his gun. "Leave him alone!" I cried. "He belongs to me."

It was Gordon Orme. At last, fate had relented for me. My enemy was at hand. No man but Orme could thus ride my old horse, Satan. Now I saw where the horse had gone, and who it was that owned him, and why Orme was here.

I rode out to meet him. The keenness of the coming, encounter for the time almost caused me to forget my anger. I seem never to have thought but that fate had brought me there for that one purpose. He saw me advance, and whirled in my direction, eager as myself; and presently I saw also that he recognized me, as I did him.

This is to be said of Gordon Orme, that he feared no man or thing on earth. He smiled at me now, showing his long, narrow teeth, as he came, lightly twirling his long blade. Two pistols lay in my holsters, and both were freshly loaded, but without thought I had drawn my sword for a weapon, I suppose because he was using his. He was a master of the sword, I but a beginner with it.

We rode straight in, and I heard the whistle of his blade as he circled it about his head like a band of light. As we joined he made a cut to the left, easily, gently, as he leaned forward; but it came with such swiftness that had it landed I doubt not my neck would have been shorn like a robin's. But at least I could ride as well as he or any other man. I dropped and swerved, pulling out of line a few inches as we pa.s.sed. My own blow, back-handed, was fruitless as his.

We wheeled and came on again, and yet again, and each time he put me on defense, and each time I learned more of what was before me to do. My old servant, Satan, was now his servant, and the great black horse was savage against me as was his rider. Wis.h.i.+ng nothing so much as to kill his own rival, he came each time with his ears back and his mouth open, wicked in the old blood l.u.s.t that I knew. It was the fury of his horse that saved me, I suppose, for as that mad beast bored in, striving to overthrow my own horse, the latter would flinch away in spite of all I could do, so that I needed to give him small attention when we met in these short, desperate charges. I escaped with nothing more than a rip across the shoulder, a touch on the cheek, on the arm, where his point reached me lightly, as my horse swerved away from the encounters. I could not reach Orme at all.

At last, I know not how, we clashed front on, and his horse bore mine back, with a scream fastening his teeth in the crest of my mount, as a dog seizes his prey. I saw Orme's sword turn lightly, easily again around his head, saw his wrist turn gently, smoothly down and extend in a cut which was aimed to catch me full across the head. There was no parry I could think, but the full counter in kind. My blade met his with a shock that jarred my arm to the shoulder.

I saw him give back, pull off his mad horse and look at his hand, where his own sword was broken off, a foot above the hilt. Smiling, he saluted with it, reigning back his horse, and no more afraid of me than if I were a child. He did not speak, nor did I. I pulled up my own horse, not wis.h.i.+ng to take the advantage that now was mine, but knowing that he would not yield--that I must kill him.

He did so at his own peril who took Orme for a dullard. I watched him closely. He saluted again with his broken sword, and made as though to toss it from him, as indeed he did. Then like a flash his hand dropped to his holster.

I read his thought, I presume, when he made his second salute. His motion of tossing away the sword hilt gave me the fraction of time which sometimes is the difference between life and death. Our fire was almost at the same instant, but not quite. His bullet cut the epaulet clean from my left shoulder; but he did not fire again, nor did I. I saw him straighten up in his saddle, precisely as I had once seen an Indian chieftain do under Orme's own fire. He looked at me with a startled expression on his face.

At that moment there came from the edge of the woods the crack of a musket. The great horse Satan pitched his head forward and dropped limp, sinking to his knees. As he rolled he caught his rider under him. I myself sprung down, shouting out some command toward the edge of the wood, that they should leave this man to me.

Whether my men heard me or not I do not know. Perhaps they heard rather the hoa.r.s.e shouts of a fresh column in gray which came up in the pursuit, f.a.gged with its own running. When these new men pa.s.sed me all they saw was a bit of wood torn with shot and ball, and in the open two figures, both dusty and gray, one helping the other from what seemed to be a fall of his horse. Scenes like that were common. We were not disturbed by the men of either side. We were alone presently, Gordon Orme and I.

I stooped and caught hold of the hind leg of the great black horse, and even as I had once turned a dead bull, so now I turned this carca.s.s on its back. I picked up the fallen rider and carried him to the woods, and there I propped his body against a tree. Slowly he opened his eyes, even pulled himself up more fully against the support.

"Thank you, old man," he said. "The horse was deucedly heavy--spoiled that leg, I think." He pointed to his boot, where his foot lay turned to one side. "I suffer badly. Be a good fellow and end it."

I answered him by tossing down one of his own pistols, both of which I had secured against need. He looked at it, but shook his head.

"Let's talk it over a bit first," he said. "I'm done. I'll not make any trouble. Did you ever know me to break parole?"

"No," said I, and I threw down the other weapon on the ground. "In mercy to us both, Orme, die. I do not want to kill you now; and you shall not live."

"I'm safe enough," he said. "It's through the liver and stomach. I can't possibly get over it."

He stared straight ahead of him, as though summoning his will.

"_Swami_!" I heard him mutter, as though addressing some one.

"There, that's better," he said finally. He sat almost erect, smiling at me. "It is _Asana_, the art of posture," he said. "I rest my body on my ribs, my soul on the air. Feel my heart."

I did so, and drew away my hand almost in terror. It stopped beating at his will, and began again! His uncanny art was still under his control!

"I shall be master here for a little while," he said. "So--I move those hurt organs to ease the flow. But I can't stop the holes, nor mend them.

We can't get at the tissues to sew them fast. After a while I shall die." He spoke clearly, with utter calmness, dispa.s.sionately. I never saw his like among men.

I stood by him silently. He put his own hand on his chest. "Poor old heart," he said. "Feel it work! Enormous pumping engine, tremendous thing, the heart. Think what it does in seventy years--and all for what--that we may live and enjoy, and so maybe die. What few minutes I have now I owe to having trained what most folk call an involuntary muscle. I command my heart to beat, and so it does."

I looked down at a strange, fascinating soul, a fearsome personality, whose like I never knew in all my life.

"Will you make me a promise?" he said, smiling at me, mocking at me.

"No," I answered.

"I was going to ask you, after my death to take my heart and send it back to my people at Orme Castle, Gordon Arms, in England--you know where. It would be a kindness to the family." I gazed at him in a sort of horror, but he smiled and went on. "We're mediaeval to-day as ever we were. Some of us are always making trouble, one corner or the other of the world, and until the last Gordon heart comes home to rest, there's no peace for that generation. Hundreds of years, they've traveled all over the world, and been lost, and stolen, and hidden. My father's is lost now, somewhere. Had it come back home to rest, my own life might have been different. I say, Cowles, couldn't you do that for me? We've nearly always had some last friend that would--we Gordons."

"I would do nothing for you as a favor," I answered.