Part 17 (2/2)
CHAPTER XIX
A VOLLEY FROM THE LAUREL.
When we reached the attorney's house the reality of feud conditions gained corroboration from a hundred small details. Like Garvin's, it stood in an area stripped of trees and undergrowth. It was a large cabin of logs and to its original two rooms rambling additions had from time to time been made. Everywhere a note of the poor and primitive stood out in uncouth nakedness. The men of the guard were all impoverished kinsmen, who lived like parasites upon the lawyer's strained and meager bounty. Several of them slept on pallets in a loft gained by a ladder, and others dwelt in near-by cabins. The room turned over to us served as guest chamber and parlor, and here alone in the house was there any hint of concession to appearances. Through the cracks of its uncarpeted floor chilly gusts of wind swept upward, and sent us hovering quail-like as close as possible to the stone hearth of the broad chimney place. A huge four-post bed in one corner was decorated with stiff pillows upon which purple paper showed through coverings of coa.r.s.e lace; patches of newspaper stopped the widest wall cracks. A cheap cottage organ stood at one side and rush-bottomed chairs completed the furnis.h.i.+ngs. A small cuddy-hole housed the attorney and his wife. His mother, an ancient crone-like woman of withered, leathery face, and all her brood of grandchildren slept in two beds in the large, murky room which also accommodated dining table, cook stove and pantry accessories.
One saw a profusion of firearms, and unlike the make-s.h.i.+ft of less important things these were modern and effective. Before lamp-lighting came the barring of heavy shutters, and as time pa.s.sed we grew accustomed to other evidences of that caution which was daily routine with these people living in a practical state of siege. We were fed, in relays, by the flickering light of a coal-oil lamp. The women declined to partake of food until we were through, and busied themselves incessantly between stove and table. As we withdrew to the draughty room which was ours for sleeping, but common ground until bedtime, the retainers shuffled into the places about the table which we had just vacated, for supper, eating, as suited henchmen, after their betters.
We were not a merry party as we huddled in a semi-circle around the hearth where the blaze burned our faces while the gusty air chilled our backs. Weighborne and Marcus argued over an opened copy of Kentucky Reports. The old woman, with a face shriveled like that of an aged monkey, crouched in her chair and sucked with toothless gums at a clay pipe.
When an hour had thawed the shyness of the mountain folk into general conversation and I had been forced to tell many traveler's tales, Marcus arose and with a rough tenderness wrapped a shawl around the s.h.i.+vering shoulders of the old woman.
”My mother,” he said with no note of apology, ”has never been to Louisville or traveled on a railroad train. She is afraid of accidents.”
He turned and shouted into her deaf ear, ”Mother, Mr. Deprayne here has crossed the ocean. He's been to the Holy Land.”
The old woman lifted her wrinkled eyes and gazed at me, in wonderment.
”Well, Prov-i-_dence_!” she exclaimed. It was her single contribution to the evening's conversation.
Once a dog barked, and with silent promptness two or three of the younger men melted out into the night to reconnoiter.
The visitor proved to be only a neighbor seeking to borrow some farm implement and he announced himself from afar with proper a.s.surance that he came as a friend. We heard his voice drawing nearer and shouting: ”It's me. I'm a-comin' in.”
I was for the most part a listener, offering few contributions to the talk. I was thinking of other matters, but before the evening came to an end I had heard, in plain unvarnished recital, stories which began to make the spirit of the vendetta comprehensible. I spoke of Curt Dawson and asked our host for a biography. The mountain lawyer's rugged face grew dark with feeling.
”I have twice prosecuted him,” he said bitterly. ”And in the chain of evidence I wove around him there was no weak link, but a conviction would have been a personal defiance of Garvin. That required courage.
Each time the foreman of the panel came in with perjury on his lips and reported 'not guilty.'” He paused and then went on. ”When Keithley fell in the court-house yard, and while the rifle smoke was still curling from a jury-room window, I rushed into the place and I found this boy there. He was wiping gun grease from his hands, and he testified that he had heard the shot while pa.s.sing and had come in to detect the a.s.sa.s.sin.
Of course, he was the murderer. He has other crimes of the same type to his d.a.m.nable discredit. He is Garvin's princ.i.p.al gun-fighter. Garvin has never fired a shot in accomplishment of his crimes. His men have all been slain by proxy. Curt Dawson has become so notorious that of late Garvin has kept him as much as possible out of sight. I am a little surprised that he mentioned Dawson's name to you. He has of late rather pursued the policy of holding ostensibly aloof, and he might have inferred that you would repeat the circ.u.mstances to me.” Marcus rose and paced the cabin floor for a few turns, then came back and took his seat once more in the circle about the fire.
”You mean,” suggested Weighborne, ”that the implication of Dawson was coming too close to identifying the master hand?”
The lawyer nodded. ”It is well understood that Dawson is merely a part of Garvin. That makes it unwise to give him great prominence. If he has been called back it means something.”
”And you think that something is--?” Weighborne left the question unfinished.
”I think that when the buzzards come there is apt to be carrion.” The thin, close lips of the attorney closed tightly.
”I have always understood that this man is to be my executioner some day. Maybe the time is closer at hand than I antic.i.p.ated.”
”Is this fellow totally illiterate or has he, like Garvin, a shrewd knowledge of things?” I inquired.
”He has had only scant and primary schooling, but he has learned a great deal that is not in books. He has seen the outer world as a railroad brakeman and when still a boy went to the Klondike.... Let me impress this on you both. At any time you see him don't fail to tell me at once the full particulars ... I had supposed him to be in Virginia. If he's here now he will bear some watching.”
The two hours between early supper and early bedtime dragged along tediously. The old woman sat dozing and nodding while two of the retainers sang to the accompaniment of the cottage organ, strange songs, half-folk lore, in weird, nasal voices that rose high and shrill. This singing was without musical effect, for the mountaineer alters his voice in song and unconsciously adopts the tradition of the Chinese stage, achieving a thin falsetto. It was a relief when the men climbed their ladder and our host bade us good-night.
Early morning found me awake, but already someone had hospitably kindled our fire, and when we went out on to the porch, where a tin basin and gourd dipper supplied the only bathing facilities, a small tow-headed boy was there before us with hot, water in a saucepan. The mountaineer is averse to cold water and sparing with hot. It was presumed that we shared this prejudice.
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