The Raid of The Guerilla and Other Stories Part 6

The visitor glanced down at the substantial foot-gear of the contractor, fitting somewhat snugly, and thereafter he became more out of countenance than before and manifested some haste to get away. Hoxer said to himself that his anxiety whetted his apprehension. He had given his visitor no cause for suspicion, and doubtless the man had evolved none. Hoxer was glad that he was due and overdue to be gone from the locality. He felt that he could scarcely breathe freely again till he had joined the gang of Irish ditchers now establis.h.i.+ng themselves in a new camp in the adjoining county, where the high stage of the river gave him employment in fighting water. He made up his mind, however, that he would not take the train thither. He dreaded to be among men, to encounter question and speculation, till he had time to regain control of his nerves, his facial expression, the tones of his voice. He resolved that he would quietly drift down the river in a rowboat that had been at his disposal during his employment here, and join his force already settled at their destination, without running the gauntlet of inspection by the neighborhood in a more formal departure. He had already bidden farewell to those few denizens of the Bend with whom his a.s.sociations had been most genial. "And I'll clear out now, as I would have done if nothing had happened."

He said no more of his intention of departure, but when night had come he fastened the door of the little shanty, in which were still some of the rude belongings of his camping outfit, with the grim determination that it should not soon be opened again. How long the padlock should beat the summons of the wind on the resounding battens he did not dream!

It was close on midnight when he climbed the steep interior slope of the levee and stood for a moment gazing cautiously about him. The rowboat lay close by, for one might embark from the summit of the levee. It was a cloudy night, without a star. A mist clung to the face of the waters on the Arkansas side, but on the hither sh.o.r.e the atmosphere was clear, for he could see at a considerable distance up the river the fire of a "levee-watch," the stage of the water being so menacing that a guard must needs be on duty throughout the night. The leaping flames of the fire cast long lines of red and yellow and a sort of luminous brown far into the river, where the reflection seemed to palpitate in the pulsations of the current. No other sign of life was in the night scene, save in the opposite direction, amidst the white vapors, the gem-like gleam of a steamer's chimney-lights, all ruby and emerald, as a packet was slowly rounding the neighboring point. Hoxer could hear the impact of her paddles on the water, the night being so still. He had seated himself in the middle of the rowboat and laid hold on the oars when his foot struck against something soft on the bottom of the craft, partly under the seat in the stern. It was his bundle, he thought, containing the spoiled clothing that he had worn in the swamp, and which he intended to sink in mid-stream. His nerve was shaken, however; he could not restrain a sudden exclamation-this must have seemed discovery rather than agitation. It was as a signal for premature action. He was suddenly seized from behind, his arms held down against his sides, his hands close together. The bundle in the stern rose all at once to the stature of a man. The touch of cold metal, a sharp, quick click,-and he was captured and handcuffed within the s.p.a.ce of ten seconds.

A terrible struggle ensued, which his great strength but sufficed to prolong. His wild, hoa.r.s.e cries of rage and desperation seemed to beat against the sky; back and forth the dark riparian forests repeated them with the effect of varying distance in the echoes, till all the sombre woods seemed full of mad, frantic creatures, shrieking out their helpless frenzy. More than once his superior muscle sufficed to throw off both the officers for a moment, but to what avail? Thus manacled, he could not escape.

Suddenly a wild, new clamor resounded from the sh.o.r.e. In the dusky uncertainty, a group of men were running down the bank, shouting out to the barely descried boatmen imperative warnings that they would break the levee in their commotion, coupled with violent threats if they did not desist. For the force with which the rowboat dashed against the summit of the levee, rebounding again and again, laden with the weight of three ponderous men, and endowed with all the impetus of their struggle, so eroded the earth that the waves had gained an entrance, the initial step to a creva.s.se that would flood the country with a disastrous overflow. As there was no abatement of the blows of the boat against the embankment, no reply nor explanation, a shot from the gun of one of the levee-watch came skipping lightsomely over the water as Hoxer was borne exhausted to the bottom of the skiff. Then, indeed, the sheriff of the county bethought himself to shout out his name and official station to the astonished group on sh.o.r.e, and thus, bullet-proof under the aegis of the law, the boat pulled out toward the steamer, lying in mid-stream, silently awaiting the coming of the officer and his prisoner, a great, towering, castellated object, half seen in the night, her broadside of cabin lights, and their reflection in the ripples, sparkling through the darkness like a chain of golden stars.

They left no stress of curiosity behind them; naught in the delta can compete in interest with the threatened collapse of a levee in times of high water. Before the rowboat had reached the steamer's side, its occupants could hear the great plantation-bell ringing like mad to summon forth into the midnight all available hands to save the levee, and, looking back presently, a hundred lanterns were seen flickering hither and thither, far down in the dusk-no illusion this, for all deltaic rivers are higher in the centre than their banks-where the busy laborers, with thousands of gunny-sacks filled with sand, were fighting the Mississippi, building a barricade to fence it from the rich spoils it coveted.

The packet, which, as it happened, was already overdue, had been telephoned by the officers at her last landing, and a number of men stood on the guards expectant. Hoxer had ceased to struggle. He looked up at the steamer, his pallid face and wide, distended eyes showing in the cabin lights, as the rowboat pulled alongside. Then as the sheriff directed him to rise, he stood up at his full height, stretched his manacled hands high above his head, and suddenly dived into deep water, leaving the boat rocking violently, and in danger of capsizing with the officers.

A desperate effort was made to recover the prisoner, alive or dead-all in vain. A roustabout on the deck declared that in the glare of the steamer's search-light, thrown over the murky waters, he was seen to come to the surface once, but if he rose a second time it must have been beneath the great bulk of the packet, to go down again to the death awaiting him in the deeps.

On the bank a little dog sat through suns.h.i.+ne and shadow in front of the door of the shack of the contractor of the levee-construction gang, and awaited his return with the patient devotion of his kind. Sometimes, as the padlock wavered in the wind, he would c.o.c.k his head briskly askew, forecasting from the sound a step within. Sometimes the grief of absence and hope deferred would wring his humble heart, and he would whimper in an access of misery and limp about a bit. But presently he would be seated again, alertly upright, his eyes on the door, for the earliest glimpse of the face that he loved. When the overflow came at last the shacks of the construction gang were swept away, and the little dog was seen no more.

UNA OF THE HILL COUNTRY

The old sawmill on Headlong Creek at the water-gap of Chilhowee Mountain was silent and still one day, its habit of industry suggested only in the ample expanse of sawdust spread thickly over a level open s.p.a.ce in the woods hard by, to serve as footing for the "bran dance" that had been so long heralded and that was destined to end so strangely.

A barbecue had added its attractions, unrivalled in the estimation of the rustic epicure, but even while the shoats, with the delectable flavor imparted by underground roasting and browned to a turn, were under discussion by the elder men and the sun-bonneted matrons on a shady slope near the mill, where tablecloths had been spread beside a crystal spring, the dance went ceaselessly on, as if the flying figures were insensible of fatigue, impervious to hunger, immune from heat.

Indeed the youths and maidens of the contiguous coves and ridges had rarely so eligible an opportunity, for it is one of the accepted tenets of the rural religionist that dancing in itself is a deadly sin, and all the pulpits of the country-side had joined in fulminations against it. Nothing less than a political necessity had compa.s.sed this joyous occasion. It was said to have been devised by the "machine" to draw together the largest possible crowd, that certain candidates might present their views on burning questions of more than local importance, in order to secure vigorous and concerted action at the polls in the luke-warm rural districts when these measures should go before the people, in the person of their advocates, at the approaching primary elections. However, even the wisdom of a political boss is not infallible, and despite the succulent graces of the barbecue numbers of the ascetic and jeans-clad elder worthies, though fed to repletion, collogued unhappily together among the ox-teams and canvas-hooded wagons on the slope, commenting sourly on the frivolity of the dance. These might be relied on to cast no ballots in the interest of its promoters, with whose views they were to be favored between the close of the feast and the final dance before sunset.

The trees waved full-foliaged branches above the circle of sawdust and dappled the sunny expanse with flickering shade, and as they swayed apart in the wind they gave evanescent glimpses of tiers on tiers of the faint blue mountains of the Great Smoky Range in the distance, seeming ethereal, luminous, seen from between the dark, steep, wooded slopes of the narrow water-gap hard by, through which Headlong Creek plunged and roared. The princ.i.p.al musician, perched with his fellows on a hastily erected stand, was burly, red-faced, and of a jovial aspect. He had a brace of fiddlers, one on each side, but with his own violin under his double-chin he alone "called the figures" of the old-fas.h.i.+oned contradances. Now and again, with a wide, melodious, sonorous voice, he burst into a s.n.a.t.c.h of song:

"Shanghai chicken he grew so tall, In a few days-few days, Cannot hear him crow at all--"

Sometimes he would intersperse jocund personal remarks in his Terpsich.o.r.ean commands: "Gents, forward to the centre-back-swing the lady ye love the best." Then in alternation, "Ladies, forward to the centre-back--" and as the mountain damsels teetered in expectation of the usual supplement of this mandate he called out in apparent expostulation, "Don't swing him, Miss-he don't wuth a turn."

Suddenly the tune changed and with great gusto he chanted forth:

"When fust I did a-courtin' go, Says she 'Now, don't be foolish, Joe,'"

the tempo rubato giving fresh impetus to the kaleidoscopic whirl of the dancers. The young men were of indomitable endurance and manifested a crude agility as they sprang about clumsily in time to the sc.r.a.ping of the fiddles, while their partners shuffled bouncingly or sidled mincingly according to their individual persuasion of the most apt expression of elegance. Considered from a critical point of view the dance was singularly devoid of grace-only one couple ill.u.s.trating the exception to the rule. The youth it was who was obviously beautiful, of a type as old as the fabled Endymion. His long brown hair hung in heavy curls to the collar of his b.u.t.ternut jeans coat; his eyes were blue and large and finely set; his face was fair and bespoke none of the mid-day toil at the plow-handles that had tanned the complexion of his compeers, for Brent Kayle had little affinity for labor of any sort. He danced with a light firm step, every muscle supplely responsive to the strongly marked pulse of the music, and he had a lithe, erect carriage which imparted a certain picturesque effect to his presence, despite his much creased boots, drawn over his trousers to the knee, and his big black hat which he wore on the back of his head. The face of his partner had a more subtle appeal, and so light and willowy was her figure as she danced that it suggested a degree of slenderness that bordered on attenuation. Her unbonneted hair of a rich blonde hue had a golden l.u.s.tre in the sun; her complexion was of an exquisite whiteness and with a delicate flush; the chiseling of her features was peculiarly fine, in clear, sharp lines-she was called "hatchet-faced" by her undiscriminating friends. She wore a coa.r.s.e, flimsy, pink muslin dress which showed a repet.i.tious pattern of vague green leaves, and as she flitted, lissome and swaying, through the throng, with the wind a-flutter in her full draperies, she might have suggested to a spectator the semblance of a pink flower-of the humbler varieties, perhaps, but still a wild rose is a rose.

Even the longest dance must have an end; even the stanchest mountain fiddler will reach at last his limit of endurance and must needs be refreshed and fed. There was a sudden significant flourish of frisky bowing, now up and again down, enlisting every resonant capacity of horsehair and catgut; the violins quavered to a final long-drawn sc.r.a.pe and silence descended. Dullness ensued; the flavor of the day seemed to pall; the dancers scattered and were presently following the crowd that began to slowly gather about the vacated stand of the musicians, from which elevation the speakers of the occasion were about to address their fellow-citizens. One of the disaffected old farmers, gruff and averse, could not refrain from administering a rebuke to Brent Kayle as crossing the expanse of sawdust on his way to join the audience he encountered the youth in company with Valeria Clee, his recent partner.

"Ai-yi, Brent," the old man said, "the last time I seen you uns I remember well ez ye war a-settin' on the mourner's bench." For there had been a great religious revival the previous year and many had been p.r.i.c.ked in conscience. "Ye ain't so tuk up now in contemplatin' the goodness o' G.o.d an' yer sins agin same," he pursued caustically.

Brent retorted with obvious acrimony. "I don't see no 'casion ter doubt the goodness o' G.o.d-I never war so ongrateful nohow as that comes to." He resented being thus publicly reproached, as if he were individually responsible for the iniquity of the bran dance-the scape-goat for the sins of all this merry company. Many of the whilom dancers had pressed forward, crowding up behind the old mountaineer and facing the flushed Brent and the flower-like Valeria, the faint green leaves of her muslin dress fluttering about her as her skirts swayed in the wind.

"Ye ain't so powerful afeard of the devil now ez ye uster was on the mourner's bench," the old man argued.

"I never war so mighty afeard of the devil," the goaded Brent broke forth angrily, for the crowd was laughing in great relish of his predicament-they, who had shared all the enormity of "shaking a foot" on this festive day. Brent flinched from the obvious injustice of their ridicule. He felt an eager impulse for reprisal. "I know ez sech dancin' ez I hev done ain't no sin," he bl.u.s.tered. "I ain't afeared o' the devil fur sech ez that. I wouldn't be skeered a mite ef he war ter-ter-ter speak right out now agin it, an' I'll be bound ez all o' you uns would. I-I-look yander-look!"

He had thrown himself into a posture of amazed intentness and was pointing upward at the overhanging boughs of a tree above their heads. A squirrel was poised thereon, gazing down motionless. Then, suddenly-a frightful thing happened. The creature seemed to speak. A strange falsetto voice, such as might befit so eerie a chance, sounded on the air-loud, distinct, heard far up the slope, and electrifying the a.s.semblage near at hand that was gathering about the stand and awaiting the political candidates.

"Quit yer foolin'-quit yer foolin'," the strange voice iterated. "I'll larn ye ter be afeared o' the devil. Long legs now is special grace."

So wild a cry broke from the startled group below the tree that the squirrel, with a sudden, alert, about-face movement, turned and swiftly ran along the bough and up the bole. It paused once and looked back to cry out again in distinct iteration, "Quit yer foolin'! Quit yer foolin'!"

But none had stayed to listen. A general frantic rout ensued. The possibility of ventriloquism was unknown to their limited experience. All had heard the voice and those who had distinguished the words and their seeming source needed no argument. In either case the result was the same. Within ten minutes the grounds of the famous barbecue and bran dance were deserted. The c.u.mbrous wagons, all too slow, were wending with such speed as their drivers could coerce the ox-teams to make along the woodland road homeward, while happier wights on horseback galloped past, leaving clouds of dust in the rear and a grewsome premonition of being hindmost in a flight that to the simple minds of the mountaineers had a pursuer of direful reality.

The state of a candidate is rarely enviable until the event is cast and the postulant is merged into the elect, but on the day signalized by the barbecue, the bran dance, and the rout the unfortunate aspirants for public favor felt that they had experienced the extremest spite of fate; for although they realized in their superior education and sophistication that the panic-stricken rural crowd had been tricked by some clever ventriloquist, the political orators were left with only the winds and waters and wilderness on which to waste their eloquence, and the wisdom of their exclusive method of saving the country.

Brent Kayle's talent for eluding the common doom of man to eat his bread in the sweat of his face was peculiarly marked. He was the eldest of seven sons, ranging in age from eleven to twenty years, including one pair of twins. The parents had been greatly pitied for the exorbitant exactions of rearing this large family during its immaturity, but now, the labor of farm, barnyard and woodpile, distributed among so many stalwart fellows of the same home and interest was light and the result ample. Perhaps none of them realized how little of this abundance was compa.s.sed by Brent's exertions-how many days he spent dawdling on the river bank idly experimenting with the echoes-how often, even when he affected to work, he left the plow in the furrow while he followed till sunset the flight of successive birds through the adjacent pastures, imitating as he went the fresh mid-air cry, whistling in so vibrant a bird-voice, so signally clear and dulcet, yet so keen despite its sweetness, that his brothers at the plow-handles sought in vain to distinguish between the calls of the earthling and the winged voyager of the empyreal air. None of them had ever heard of ventriloquism, so limited had been their education and experience, so sequestered was their home amidst the wilderness of the mountains. Only very gradually to Brent himself came the consciousness of his unique gift, as from imitation he progressed to causing a silent bird to seem to sing. The strangeness of the experience frightened him at first, but with each experiment he had grown more confident, more skilled, until at length he found that he could throw a singularly articulate voice into the jaws of the old plow-horse, while his brothers, accustomed to his queer vocal tricks, were convulsed with laughter at the bizarre quadrupedal views of life thus elicited. This development of proficiency, however, was recent, and until the incident at the bran dance it had not been exercised beyond the limits of their secluded home. It had revealed new possibilities to the young ventriloquist and he looked at once agitated, excited, and triumphant when late that afternoon he appeared suddenly at the rail fence about the door-yard of Valeria Clee's home on one of the spurs of Chilhowee Mountain.

It was no such home as his-lacking all the evidence of rude comfort and coa.r.s.e plenty that reigned there-and in its tumble-down disrepair it had an aspect of dispirited helplessness. Here Valeria, an orphan from her infancy, dwelt with her father's parents, who always of small means had become yearly a more precarious support. The ancient grandmother was sunken in many infirmities, and the household tasks had all fallen to the lot of Valeria. Latterly a stroke of paralysis had given old man Clee an awful annotation on the chapter of age and poverty upon which he was entering, and his little farm was fast growing up in brambles.

"But 't ain't no differ, gran'dad," Valeria often sought to rea.s.sure him. "I'll work some way out."

And when he would irritably flout the possibility that she could do aught to materially avert disaster she was wont to protest: "You jes' watch me. I'll find out some way. I be ez knowin' ez any old owel."

Despite her slender physique and her recurrent heavy tasks the drear doom of poverty with its multiform menace had cast no shadow on her ethereal face, and her pensive dark gray eyes were full of serene light as she met the visitor at the bars. A glimmer of mirth began to scintillate beneath her long brown lashes, and she spoke first. "The folks in the mountings air mighty nigh skeered out'n thar boots by yer foolishness, Brent"-she sought to conserve a mien of reproof. "They 'low ez it war a manifestation of the Evil One."

Brent laughed delightedly. "Warn't it prime?" he said. "But I never expected ter work sech a scatteration of the crowd. Thar skeer plumb tarrified me. I jes' set out with the nimblest, an' run from the devil myself."

"Won't them candidates fur office be mighty mad if they find out what it war sure enough?" she queried anxiously. "They gin the crowd a barbecue an' bran dance, an' arter all, the folks got quit of hevin' ter hear them speak an' jaw about thar old politics an' sech."

"Them candidates air hoppin' mad fur true," he admitted. "I been down yander at Gilfillan's store in the Cove an' I hearn the loafers thar talkin' powerful 'bout the strange happening. An' them candidates war thar gittin' ready ter start out fur town in thar buggy. An' that thar gay one-though now he seems ez sober ez that sour one-he said 't warn't no devil. 'Twar jes' a ventriloquisk from somewhar-that's jes' what that town man called it. But I never said nuthin'. I kep' powerful quiet."

Brent Kayle was as vain a man as ever stood in shoe leather-even in the midst of his absorption in his disclosure he could not refrain from a pause to reflect on the signal success of his prank and laugh and plume himself.

"But old Gilfillan he loves ter believe ez the devil air hotfoot arter other folks with a pitchfork, an' he axed how then did sech a man happen ter be in the mountings 'thout none knowin' of it. An' that candidate, the gay one, he say he reckon the feller kem from that circus what is goin' ter show in Shaftesville ter-morrer-mebbe he hearn 'bout the bran dance an' wanted ter hev some fun out'n the country folks. That candidate say he hed hearn dozens o' ventriloquisks in shows in the big towns-though this war about the bes' one he could remember. He said he hed no doubt this feller is paid good money in the show, fur jes' sech fool tricks with his voice-good money!"

Valeria had listened in motionless amazement. But he had now paused, almost choking with his rush of emotion, his excitement, his sense of triumph, and straight ensued a certain reluctance, a dull negation, a prophetic recoil from responsibility that clogged his resolve. His eyes roved uncertainly about the familiar domestic scene, darkening now, duskily purple beneath the luminous pearly and roseate tints of the twilight sky. The old woman was a-drowse on the porch of the rickety little log-cabin beneath the gourd vines, the paralytic grandfather came hirpling unsteadily through the doorway on his supporting crutch, his pipe shaking in his shaking hand, while he muttered and mumbled to himself-who knows what?-whether of terror of the future, or regret for the past, or doubt and despair of to-day. The place was obviously so meagre, so poverty-bitten, so eloquent of the hard struggle for mere existence. If it had been necessary for Brent Kayle to put his hand to the plow in its behalf the words would never have been spoken-but "good money" for this idle trade, these facile pranks!

"Vallie," he said impulsively, "I'm going ter try it-ef ye'll go with me. Ef ye war along I'd feel heartened ter stand up an' face the crowd in a strange place. I always loved ye better than any of the other gals-shucks!-whenst ye war about I never knowed ez they war alive."

Perhaps it was the after-glow of the sunset in the sky, but a crimson flush sprang into her delicate cheek; her eyes were evasive, quickly glancing here and there with an affectation of indifference, and she had no mind to talk of love, she declared.

But she should think of her gran'dad and gran'mam, he persisted. How had she the heart to deprive them of his willing aid? He declared he had intended to ask her to marry him anyhow, for she had always seemed to like him-she could not deny this-but now was the auspicious time-to-morrow-while the circus was in Shaftesville, and "good money" was to be had to provide for the wants of her old grandparents.

Though Valeria had flouted the talk of love she seemed his partisan when she confided the matter to the two old people and their consent was accorded rather for her sake than their own. They felt a revivifying impetus in the thought that after their death Valeria would have a good husband to care for her, for to them the chief grief of their loosening hold on life was her inheritance of their helplessness and poverty.

The courthouse in Shaftesville seemed a very imposing edifice to people unaccustomed to the giddy heights of a second story. When the two staring young rustics left the desk of the county court clerk and repaired to the dwelling of the minister of the Methodist Church near by, with the marriage license just procured safely stowed away in Brent's capacious hat, their anxieties were roused for a moment lest some delay ensue, as they discovered that the minister was on the point of sitting down to his dinner. He courteously deferred the meal, however, and as the bride apologetically remarked after the ceremony that they might have awaited his convenience were it not for the circus, he imagined that the youthful couple had designed to utilize a round of the menagerie as a wedding tour. The same thought was in the minds of the metropolitan managers of the organization when presently the two young wildings from the mountain fastness were ushered into their presence, having secured an audience by dint of extreme persistence, aided by a mien of mysterious importance.

They found two men standing just within the great empty tent, for the crowd had not as yet begun to gather. The most authoritative, who was tall and portly, had the manner of swiftly disposing of the incident by asking in a peremptory voice what he could do for them. The other, lean and languid, looked up from a newspaper, in which he had been scanning a flaming circus advertis.e.m.e.nt, as he stood smoking a cigar. He said nothing, but concentrated an intent speculative gaze on the face of Valeria, who had pulled off her faint green sun-bonnet and in a flush of eager hopefulness fanned with the slats.

"Ventriloquist?" the portly man repeated with a note of surprise, as Brent made known his gifts and his desire for an engagement. "Oh, well-ventriloquism is a chestnut."

Then with a qualm of pity, perhaps, for the blank despair that settled down on the two young faces he explained: "Nothing goes in the circus business but novelty. The public is tired out with ventriloquism. No mystery about it now-kind of thing, too, that a clever amateur can compa.s.s."

Brent, hurled from the giddy heights of imminent achievement to the depths of nullity, could not at once relinquish the glowing prospects that had allured him. He offered to give a sample of his powers. He would like to bark a few, he said; you couldn't tell him from a sure enough dog; he could imitate the different breeds-hound-dog, bull-pup, terrier-but the manager was definitely shaking his head.

Suddenly his partner spoke. "The girl might take a turn!"

"In the show?" the portly man said in surprise.