Part 38 (1/2)
”I hain't askin' ye whether ye've rid with 'em heretofore or not, Pete,”
the other man significantly reminded him. ”I'm only askin' ye ter give me yore hand ye won't nuver do hit ergin. We're goin' ter bust up thet crowd an' penitenshery them thet leads 'em. I hate ter hev ye mixed up, when thet comes ter pa.s.s. Will ye give me yore hand?”
Readily the young member of the secret brotherhood pledged himself, and Parish, ignorant of how deeply he had become involved in the service of Bas Rowlett, thought of him only as young and easily led, and hoped that an ugly complication had been averted.
When Joe Bratton, the Kentucky sheriff, came to the house in the bend of the river to take his prisoner to the Virginia line, he announced himself and then, with a rude consideration, drew off.
”I'll ride ter ther elbow of ther road an' wait fer ye, Parish,” he said, awkwardly. ”I reckon ye wants ter bid yore wife farewell afore ye starts out.”
Already those two had said such things as it is possible to say. They had maintained a brave pretence of taking brief leave of each other; as for a separation looking to a speedy and certain reuniting. They had stressed the argument that, when this time of ordeal had been relegated to the past, no cloud of fear would remain to darken their skies as they looked eastward and remembered that behind those misty ranges lay Virginia.
They had sought to beguile themselves--each for the sake of the other--with all the tricks and chimeras of optimism, but that was only the masquerade of the clown who laughs while his heart is sick and under whose toy-bright paint is the gray pallor of despair.
That court and that jury over there would follow no doubtful course. Its verdict of guilty might as well have been signed in advance, and, while the girl smiled at her husband, it seemed to her that she could hear the voice of the condemning judge, inquiring whether the accused had ”aught to say why sentence should not now be p.r.o.nounced” upon him.
For, barring some miracle of fate, the end of that journey lay, and in their hearts they knew it with a sickness of certainty, at the steps of the gallows. The formalities that intervened were little more than the mummeries of an empty formula with which certain men cloaked the spirit of a mob violence they were strong enough to wreak.
Parish Thornton halted at the stile, and his eyes went back lingeringly to the weathered front of the house and to the great tree that made a wide and venerable roof above the other roof. The woman knew that her husband was printing a beloved image on his heart which he might recall and hold before him when he could never again look upon it. She knew that in that farewell gaze and in the later, more loving one which he turned upon her own face, he was storing up the vision he wanted to keep with him even when the hangman's cap had shut out every other earthly picture--when he stood during the seconds that must for him be ages, waiting.
Then the hills reeled and spun before Dorothy Thornton's eyes as giddily as did the fallen leaves which the morning air caught up in little whirlwinds. Their counterfeit of cheer and fact.i.tious courage stood nakedly exposed to both of them, and the man's smile faded as though it were too flippant for such a moment.
Dorothy caught his hand suddenly in hers and led him back into the yard where the roots of the tree spread like star points which had their ends under the soil and deep in the rock of which those mountains were built.
”Kneel down, Cal,” she whispered, chokingly, and when they had dropped side by side to postures of prayer, her voice came back to her.
”Lord G.o.d of Heaven an' y'arth,” trembled the words on her bloodless lips, ”he hain't goin' so fur away but what Yore power still goes with him ... keep him safe. Good Lord ... an' send him back ter me ergin ...
watch over him thar amongst his enemies ... Amen.”
They rose after their prayer, and stood for a little while with their hearts beating close in a final embrace, then Dorothy took out of her ap.r.o.n pocket a small object and handed it to him.
”I nigh fergot ter give hit ter ye,” she said, ”mebby hit'll prove a lucky piece over thar, Cal.”
It was the small basket which he had carved with such neat and cunning workmans.h.i.+p from the hard sh.e.l.l of a black walnut ... a trinket for a countryman's watch chain--and intrinsically worthless.
”Hit's almost like takin' ther old tree along with ye,” she faltered with a forced note of cheer, ”an' ther old tree hain't nuver failed us yit.”
Joe Bratton and his prisoner rode with little speech between them until they came to those creek bottom roads that crossed at Jake Crabbott's store, and there they found awaiting them, like a squad of cavalry, some eight or ten men who sat with rifles across the bows of their saddles.
Aaron Capper and Hump Doane were there in the van, and they rode as an escort of friends.
When their long journey over ridge and forest, through gorge and defile, came to its end at the border, the waiting deputation from Virginia recognized what it was intended to recognize. East of the state line this man might travel under strict surveillance, but thus far he had come with a guard of honour--and that guard could, and would, come further if the need arose.
CHAPTER XXVII
Parish Thornton had used all his persuasion to prevent Dorothy's going with him to Virginia. He had argued that the solace of feeling her presence in the courtroom would hardly compensate for the unnerving effect of knowing that the batteries of the prosecution were raining direct fire on her as well as on himself.
Twice, while he had waited the summons that must call him to face his ordeal, the attorney who was to defend him had come over into Kentucky for conference, and it was to the professional advice of this lawyer, almost clairvoyant in his understanding of jury-box psychology, that Dorothy had at last yielded.
”We'll want to have you there later on,” he had told the wife. ”Juries are presumed to be all logic; in fact, they are two-thirds emotion--and if you appear for the first time in that courtroom at precisely the right moment with your youth and wholesomeness and loyalty, your arrival will do more for your husband than anything short of an alibi. I'll send for you in due season--but until I do, I don't want you seen there.”