XIV.
It was a fine sensation for the group of gossips that always seemed an essential appurtenance to the blacksmith shop at the cross-roads when, this bright morning, the sheriff of the county, an infrequent and unfamiliar apparition, rode up to the open doors, and drew rein under the branches of the overhanging oak-tree. So broadly spreading were these branches that not even the diminishing shadow, ever waning as the day waxed on to noon, had bereft the space beneath of its gray-green gloom and its sense of dew. A wagon, one wheel lying tire-less on the ground, and a stout stave lashed crutch-like in its place, stood near by in the full yellow glare, with a reduced cartoon of itself, sadly out of drawing, on the sand beneath it, supplemented by a caricature of two men who sat upon its pole. The interior of the shop looked dark and cool, and the blacksmith's father, bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves in a rickety chair by the door, caught the softening effect of its twilight in his aged and minutely wrinkled face. Two or three dim figures were indistinct within; upon a bench outside a couple of loafers smoked, while still another utilized as a seat the roots of the tree. The shadow of its foliage played on the clapboards of the roof, long ago broken here and there, and still unmended, for the rain and the snow were welcome to wreak their worst, drizzling through upon the republican simplicity of the "dirt floor" within. Hardly a curl of smoke ascended from the chimney, and as the officer cast his eye along the two red clay winding roads, both of a most irresponsible and vagrant-like aspect, as if they had no goal in expectation, there was no other sign of habitation in sight; the woods closed in, limiting the prospect; here and there mountains rose, seeming, as always, nearer than reality warrants; and it was a most sequestered, slumberous spot to which the sheriff had betaken his brisk individuality and the energetic potentiality of his official presence.
So welcome a break in the monotony had not occurred for many a day. A sentiment of gratitude merely for his company pervaded the by-standers. They looked for no developments more striking than the detail of the ordinary news from the town, some good-natured raillery back and forth, and the intimation of his errand, which perchance might touch the summoning of jurors or witnesses in some of the more remote districts of his bailiwick; and each idler was devoutly glad that the allurements of plough and harrow and hoe had not availed to keep him at work and at home on this momentous occasion, which might not be duplicated for months. But when the officer's hard face and unsmiling eyes betokened the more serious import of his visit, there ran through the assembly a keen thrill of curiosity and expectancy.
The sheriff, not perhaps all indifferent to the flutter his advent roused, flung the reins over his horse's head and dismounted.
"News?" He echoed the question that had been coupled with the salutation, and glanced loweringly about. "News enough. Murder!"
He spoke the word with a melodramatic unction, dropping his voice. He was a tall, well-built man, of a large frame, implying bone and muscle rather than fat, and promising most stalwart possibilities; and if the somewhat imposing strut, which was his favorite method of locomotion, savored of pride, it also invited attention to the many reasons which had justified him in indulging that sentiment. He turned with the blacksmith to the eager examination of the hoof of his horse which had cast a shoe, and was going a trifle lame. As the smith, this colloquy over, set about repairing the disaster, the officer, taking off his hat, lent himself with an air of consideration to heed the clamorous inquiries.
"It's a tough job, an' I ain't s'prised if I have you all on a posse 'fore night." He shook his head with serious intimations as he seated himself on an empty inverted barrel just outside the door. "Ye, Phineas!" he broke off, admonishing the smith, who had paused in paring the horse's hoof, which he held between his knees upon his leather apron, his stooping posture unchanged, his bushy eyebrows lifted as he looked up from under them in expectant curiosity at the officer. "Ye jes' perceed with yer rat-killin'. I'm in a hurry ter git away from hyar! An' I'm a-goin' ter ketch them buzzardy rascals, ef I hev ter go ter Texas." He nodded with the word as if he expressed the limits of the known globe.
"I'll be bound ye do, sher'ff!" cried the blacksmith's father, with an eagerness to bring himself to the great man's notice and impress his own importance—a characteristic of local magnates other than rural. He had seized upon the first opportunity, and thus the matter of his speech was less cogent than he would fain have had it. "Ye needn't be borryin' trouble thinkin' they air hid well. Town-folks git out'n thar depth mighty quick whenst they take ter the mountings. I be a old man now, turned sixty, an' I hev knowed a power o' sher'ffs, through not many bein' re-'lected, an' they don't hev no trouble ketchin' town malefactors ez takes ter the woods."
The sheriff bent his eyes upon the toe of his big spurred boot as his long leg swung it before him. A sarcastic smile curved his shaven lips. It seemed for a moment as if he would not speak. Then, with that respect for the old so habitually shown among the mountaineers, he said, "These are mounting folks—mounting folks, Mr. Bakewell."
The smith dropped the horse's hoof, the knife clattering upon the ground, and straightened his bent back. "In the name o' goodness," he cried, overcome with curiosity, "who hev been kilt?"
The sheriff, albeit his enjoyment of the frenzied interest of which he was the centre showed in every line of his gloomy, important face, was dominated by his official conscience. He pointed to the implement on the ground.
"Pick up that thar contraption an' go to work," he said, sternly. "Gimme a horse ter ride on, or the law will take arter you, with a sharp stick, too."
The smith bent down to his work once more, his eyes fixed, nevertheless, on the officer's face instead of the hoof between his knees; the horse turned slowly his head, and looked back with evident surprise at these dallying and unprecedented proceedings.
The sheriff resumed: "Mounting men, 'cordin' ter the ante-mortem statement."
"Air—air he dead?" said one of the men on the wagon pole, leaning suddenly forward.
"Persumed ter be, hevin' been buried," replied the officer, his sarcastic mien unchecked now by the mandates of decorum.
"Mighty fool ter run agin the mounting folks, hey?" said the old man, reflectively rubbing his pointed chin, and with the air of tempering his regrets, as if he thought that, with this foolhardy temerity, the blood of the unknown was presumably upon his own head.
"He war a-travellin' peaceable along the road," said the sheriff, suddenly entering upon the pleasure of narrative; "bound fur the Spondulix Silver Mine, on the t'other side o' Big Injun Mounting. An' the weather bein' so durned hot, an' the moon nigh the full, he rid at night, like mos' folks do, ye know, the road bein' no lonesomer sca'cely 'n by day, an' he hed fire-arms. And he hed suthin' else; he hed 'bout fifteen hundred dollars ter kerry, ez nobody but the head men o' the mine an' him knowed 'bout. Thar's the riddle of it!" He paused, the lids drooping meditatively over his thoughtful eyes as if he sought to pierce the mystery.
"Fifteen hundred dollars!" exclaimed the old man, as if he could hardly credit the existence of so many in company; he had seen few of this welcome denomination at a time. His look, unguarded for the moment, implied suspicion that the sheriff was drawing the long-bow.
"'Twar ter pay off the hands an' some o' the expenses o' the gear an' sech—they war behindhand some," continued the sheriff. "Thar ain't no express nor railroad nor nuthin', 'ceptin' jes' the mail-rider, an' they 'lowed 'twar safer in this man's hands, special ez they 'lowed ez nobody knowed nuthin' 'bout it, 'ceptin' him an' them. Mus' hev got out somehows, though." He lifted his eyes, scanning each of the group in turn as if to note the impression. "Fur he 'lowed he rid along feelin' ez free an' favored ez ef 'twar broad daylight, an' his horse travelled well, an' didn't feel the weather none, an' though he war a stranger ter the kentry, he never thunk o' sech a thing ez danger till he got 'bout two mile past Doctor Ganey's house; he war on the top o' a hill, a-beginnin' ter go down, an' the moon war ez bright ez day, an' him a-whistlin' of a dancin' chune, whenst he tuk up a notion ez thar war suthin' movin' down in the road on the level; sorter 'peared ter him one minit 'twar men, an' the nex' minit he 'lowed 'twar jes' the wind in a pack o' bushes—sumach an' blackberries an' such—ter one side o' the road. He halted fur a minit, an' didn't see nuthin', nor hear nuthin'; so he rid on, an' whenst he reached the levels thar started up in the midst o' the road—he 'lowed it 'peared ter him ez hell hed spewed 'em out all of a suddenty, fur he couldn't see whar they kem from—a gang o' 'bout half a dozen mounting fellers. He 'lowed he hed never seen 'em afore, an' they didn't know him, fur they called him 'stranger.' Every man pursented a pistol at him, an' look whar he would, 'twar down a muzzle. But they war all a-laffin' at him, an' purtendin' not ter be so fur on the cold side o' friendly; they kep' callin' out, claimin' his horse, 'lowin' he hed stole it from them, an' tellin' him he hed ter gin it up, an' march afoot, an' grinnin', an' axin' him ef he didn't know they hung horse-thieves, an' sayin' they war a-goin' ter make him git down on his knees an' thank them fur his life; an' he war a-declarin' an' a-protesting an' though he had drawed his pistol, he hadn't fired it. An' ez they war a-tryin' ter pull him out'n the saddle, one sly rascal cut the girth, an' an idee kem ter him ez the whole consarn lurched; he slipped his feet out'n the stirrups, an' let saddle an' saddle-bags drap ter the ground, fur he 'lowed they meant ter kill him, sure, an' that way he got loosed fur a second, an' in that second he whirled his horse round an' galloped along the road, leadin' the gang that fired arter him at every jump. One bullet went through his lung—lef' lung I b'lieve Doctor Ganey say. I ain't sure now whether 'twar lef', or right, or middle, or what not; leastwise Doctor Ganey pulled a tur'ble long face whenst the man had eluded the horse-thieves an' got inter his hands."
"Dun'no' which war the fryin'-pan an' which war the fire, myself," commented old Bakewell.
"But he tole the man at fust he wouldn't die," continued the sheriff.
"But I could hev tole him he would whenst he called Doctor Ganey," chuckled the sexagenarian.
The officer looked somewhat surprised, for the "valley folks" thought a trifle better of science expressed in drugs than did the mountaineers, who presumed them to be the spontaneous production of the apothecary shop, and thus opposed to nature, expressed in herbs. He was, however, country-bred, hailing originally from one of the mountain spurs, and had been transplanted to the town only by the repeated success of his political schemes, resulting in his election to the office of sheriff on more than one occasion. The rural standpoint medically was thus perfectly comprehensible to him; and, being in full health, entirely independent of aught that Doctor Ganey might or might not know, he himself leaned to facile disparagement.
"Folks in Colbury 'lowed Doctor Ganey ought not ter hev let him be brung ter town nex' day in the cool o' the mornin' on a spring bed an' in a spring wagon; though he war turrible anxious ter be sure ter make a ante-mortem statement; the robbers hed got the saddle-bags an' money, ye see, an' he didn't want folks ter think 'twar him ez stole it."
There was a momentary pause, broken only by the sharp staccato sound of the hammer within the shop, beating into shape the shoe that must be fitted to the hoof; the horse outside turned his glossy neck, holding up the unshod hind foot a trifle from the ground, and looked through the door into the dark interior of the forge, where the smith's figure was to be dimly discerned in the scanty flicker of the smouldering fire; the animal watched the process with a definite anxiety and interest that seemed to bespeak a desire to superintend its proper performance. His resignation to human guidance evidently arose more from the constraint of circumstance than reliance on man's superior wisdom. More than once the blacksmith stopped to listen, and afterward the matters at the forge went awry; outside one could hear him muttering surly comments upon the inanimate appurtenances, especially when he dropped the hot iron once in taking it from the coals, letting it slip through the inadequate grasp of the tongs, and requested it to go to a hotter place even than the fire, and there to be infinitely and inimitably "dad-burned." All of which had as little effect as such objurgations usually do upon the insensate offender; but the ebullitions seemed to serve, like thunder, to clear the atmosphere, and to enable the smith better to resign himself to the terrible deprivation of the sheriff's talk, lost in the reverberations of his own hammer and the sibilant singing of the anvil.
Outside, the sound hardly impinged upon the privilege of conversation. The sheriff's lip was curling; he hastily shifted one leg over the other, and this posture enabled him to eye the toe of his boot, with which he seemed to have confidences in some sort, reverting to it in moments when at a loss, as if its contemplation in some incomprehensible way refreshed his memory.
"Waal, the bosses o' the consarn—shucks! mighty knowin' cusses—they would hev it 'twar some folks down yander neighborin' the mines. I won't say who, and I won't say what," he interpolated, with a sudden recollection of a seemly official reticence; "but ez 'twar thought the man wouldn't die, an' all war keen ter git holt o' the money agin, I hed ter go fust an' air thar s'picions, ez arter a-chasin' an' a-racin' an' keepin' secret an' mighty dark turned out nuthin' at all. Fust one man an' then t'other showed up in a different place that night. Every one! I lef' word with my dep'ty, Ben Boker, who 'twas I wanted looked arter, an' he tuk sick with the bilious fever the very day I lef', an' air a-bed yit; so I hev got behindhand with this job, an' I hope the folks won't lay it up agin me."
"Waal," said the old man, leaning forward, his hard hands clasped, a smile upon his wrinkled face, a slender sunbeam sifting through the boughs of the oak-tree, touching the thick tufts of gray hair on his brow, and brightening them to a whiter lustre, "I'll be bound old man Ganey warn't behindhand with his job," and he lifted his heavy eyebrows and chuckled softly.
"Naw, sir," said the officer, respectfully. "The doctor's job tuk off day before yestiddy mornin' 'fore daybreak. The doctor 'lowed ef he could make sunup he mought last through till evenin'. But he had seen his las' sunrise."
"Ez ef Dr. Ganey knowed sech," exclaimed the old man. "He 'pears ter me ez ef his foolishness grows on him. Ye'll die whenst yer time kems, an' it'll kem mighty quick ef ye hev in Ganey. An' yit," with a nodding head and narrowing eyes, "thar be them ez fairly pins thar hopes o' salvation on ter the wisdom, that air foolishness, o' that old consarn. Thar's a valley man, Shattuck, ez hev been 'bidin' fur a while with Len Rhodes in the cove, a-holpin' him 'lectioneer, an' whenst Len fell down a-dancin'—mus' hev been drunk—at the Pettingill infair, an' seemed ter bump his head a passel, an' shed some blood, nuthin' would do this Shattuck but Ganey mus' be sent fur. He threatened old man Pettingill with the gallus ef Rhodes should die."
"Old Zack Pettingill! Why, he's one of my bes' friends, an' a better man never lived," interrupted the officer, although he lent an attentive ear, for Rhodes was of the opposite party, and the sheriff was a candidate for re-election.
"Yes, sir"—the old man redoubled his emphasis—"though Phil Craig war in the house a-bathin' the wounds an' a-bindin' 'em up with yerbs ter take the soreness out. An' ef ye'll b'lieve me he cavorted so ez old Zack Pettingill, though an obstinate old sinner, hed ter gin up, an' put Steve Yates on his bes' horse, an' send seventeen miles fur Ganey. It all 'peared so onreasonable an' so all-fired redic'lous ez I couldn't holp but b'lieve ez this hyar Shattuck hed some yerrand o' his own ter send Yates on, special ez Dr. Ganey never kem."
"P'litical bizness—bribery an' sech," suggested the sheriff, acrimoniously, for each man was phenomenally eager for the success of the whole ticket. So closely were the opposing factions matched, so high ran party spirit in this section, that his own candidacy, albeit for a far different office, made him in some sort Rhodes's opponent.
"Mought hev been electioneerin'. I hev always 'lowed, though, whenst ye fund out whar Steve Yates be now, ye'll find out what Shattuck sent him fur, though some say Yates jes' hed a quar'l with his wife, an' hed run away from her."
The officer's color suddenly changed; it beat hot in his bronzed cheeks; it seemed even to deepen in his eyes, that were of too light a tint ordinarily. He pushed his hat back from his brow, where the beads of perspiration had started in the roots of his brown hair.
"Hain't Yates kem back yet?" he asked, breathlessly.
"Hide nor hair hev been seen o' him since that night."
"What night?" demanded the officer.
"Night o' the Pettingill infair, o' course," rejoined the old man, tartly; "an' that war the second day o' July—a Friday it war; they oughter hev got the weddin' over 'fore Friday. Them young folks can't expec' no luck."
"They can't hev none worse'n they hev hed, 'cordin' ter my view, a-marryin' one another. The Lord's been toler'ble hard on 'em a'ready, I'm thinkin'."
This observation came from one of the men perched on the pole of the broken wagon, reputed to be a rejected suitor of the bride, and a defeated rival of the groom. The opportunity for the ridicule of sentimental woe in which the rustic delights was too good to be lost, and under the cloak of the raillery the sheriff unobtrusively drew out a note-book and casually referred to it. The night of the second of July—a Friday night—the agent of the Spondulix Mine was waylaid by horse-thieves, lost his saddle and the treasure in his saddle-bags in the fracas, and received in his flight such wounds that he died thereof within a few weeks. The officer had closed the book and returned it to his pocket before the attention of the party had reverted to him anew.
"What sorter man air this hyar Shattuck?" he asked, casually, as he held a huge plug of tobacco between his teeth, from which he gnawed, with an admirable display of energy, a fragment for present use. "What sorter man?"
"Waal," said old Bakewell, narrowing his eyes and pursing his mouth critically, as he glanced absently down at a brilliant patch of sunshine, gilded and yellow in the midst of the dark olive-green shadow of the oak-tree, "I dun'no' what ter say 'bout'n a man ez goes roun' payin' folks ter dig in Injun mounds fur a lot o' bowls an' jars an' sech like, whenst fur the money he could buy better ones right down yander at the store."
The officer had faced about on the barrel and sat bolt-upright, a hand on either knee, his amazement looking alertly out of his light-gray eyes.
"He hev quit that, though, lately," the smith struck in, dropping the hoof to which he had tentatively applied the shoe and standing still, half supporting himself with his hand on the shoulder of the animal, who once more turned his head with a slow, deprecatory motion, and gazed back upon the displeasing and seemingly incompetent doings of this dilatory workman. "Baker Anderson—he's a half-grown boy ez hev been 'bidin' at Mis' Yates's of a night ter keer fur the house agin lawless ones an' sech—he kem hyar this mornin' ter git his plough sharpened, an' he 'lows ez this hyar Shattuck say he wants ter dig up the bones of the Leetle People, buried nigh the ruver on Fee Guthrie's lan'. An' Steve favored it; but Mis' Yates 'lowed she'd shoot him ef he tampered with the Leetle People's bones, an' Baker 'lows ez that war why Steve lef' her."
"The Leetle People!" echoed the sheriff in a dazed tone, as if he hardly believed his ears.
"Lord A'mighty, Tawmmy Carew! Hain't ye never heard 'bout a lot o' small-sized people, no bigger'n chil'n, ez hed this kentry 'fore the Injun kem—'bout the time o' the flood, I reckon." Old Bakewell hardily hazarded this speculation, which had about as much justification of probability as the conclusions of many other scientists of more pretensions. "Hev ye got yer growth ez a man, an' lived ter be 'lected sher'ff o' the county, an' ter thrive on the hope o' bein' 'lected agin, an' yit air ez green ez a gourd?—so green ez never ter hev hearn tell o' the Leetle Stranger People?" demanded the old man, scornfully.
Thus adjured, the sheriff, for his credit's sake, was fain to refresh his memory. "'Pears like I useter know some sech old tale ez that, but I had nigh forgot it," he said, mendaciously, the lie staring irrepressibly out of his widely opened, astonished eyes. "I never 'lowed it war true."
"But it air true," said the smith, the shoe and hammer hanging listlessly in one hand, while the other, leaning heavily on the horse's back, sufficed to transfer much of his weight to the animal. "They air the nighest neighbors Mis' Yates hev got. An' though Steve an' this man Shattuck agreed so mighty well, Mis' Yates couldn't abide the idee o' diggin' up the Leetle People's bones, an' swore she'd shoot ennybody ez tried it. An', by hokey"—with a sudden excitement in his eyes—"she done it! Las' night, Baker say, this man an' Rhodes war thar in the pig buryin'-ground—he calls them humans 'pigs'—an' she gin 'em two toler'ble fair shots. Shoots toler'ble well fur a 'oman. Baker say the bullet cut through Shattuck's hair good fashion."
"Waal, that's agin the law," said the sheriff, with his bitter, implacable official expression; "assault with intent to kill."
"Oh, shet up, Tawmmy," the old man admonished him from the vantage-ground of his age and experience. "What else air fire-arms manufactured fur?"
Beyond this cogent reasoning "Tawmmy's" speculation could not go. Nevertheless, he was sworn to administer the law, albeit thrice proven a foolish device of fools, and his brow did not relax. It was with a dark frown, indeed, that he contemplated the mental image of Mrs. Yates, because he felt that it behooved women so to order their walk and conversation as to keep without the notice of the law, since it was infinitely unpalatable to him to enforce it where they were concerned, making him, rather than the culprit, the sufferer, and forcing him to endure many unclassified phases and extremes of mental anguish. He protested at times that they ought to be exempted from the operations of the law. "They ain't got no reason, nohow," he gallantly asseverated. "An' what sorter figure does a big man cut arrestin' a leetle bit of a 'oman? An' no jury ain't goin' ter convict 'em, ef they kin git around it, an' no jedge ain't goin' ter charge agin 'em, ef he kin holp himself. The law jes' devils the sher'ff with 'em; he hev got ter go through all the motions fur nuthin'. They say Jedge Kinnear air a out an' out 'oman's jedge. An' no man, even in civil cases, hev got a chance agin enny 'oman or enny minor chil'n, gals 'specially, in his court. Waal, now, I'm a man's sher'ff. An' I want the wimmin an' chil'n ter keep out'n my way, an' I'll keep out'n theirn."
Shattuck, however, and especially as connected with Rhodes, offered a prospect more in keeping with his professions and views of his office. "What do he want ter dig up thar bones fur?" he demanded. "That air agin the law, too."
"Fur the hist'ry o' the kentry, Baker say," the smith suggested; the phrase seemed to have a sort of coherency that commended it generally.
But the sheriff shook his head. "I hev studied the history o' the kentry," he asserted, capably. "I hev 'tended school, an' the Leetle People hain't got nuthin' ter do with the hist'ry o' the kentry. I read 'bout the Injun war, an' the Revolutionary war, an' the Mexican war, an' this las' leetle war o' ourn, an' the Leetle People warn't in none of 'em."
He was silent for a moment, looking at the ground, his head tilted askew, a wistful expression on his face, so did the mystery baffle him.
The light taps of the hammer sounding on the air as the smith drove in the last nail were suddenly blended with the quick hoof-beats of a galloping horse, and Guthrie, mounted on Cheever's famous roan, came into view along the vista of the road, reining up under the tree as he recognized the sheriff.
It was a scene remembered for many a day, reproduced as the preamble of the fireside tale recited for years afterward by the by-standers. The sheriff, standing with his hand on the forelock of the captive charger, his head a trifle bent, listened with a languid competent smile as if he had known before all that the horseman recounted; Guthrie himself, pale from the loss of blood, his hair hanging upon his shoulders, his face, so fierce, so austere, framed by his big black hat, his spurs jingling on his high boots, his pistols and formidable knife in his belt, began to take to their accustomed eyes the changed guise which afterward attended his personality when they told of the part he bore and of all that befell him. The only exclamations came from the spectators, as they pressed close about the two restive horses. They fell back amazed and impressed by the official coolness when all was done, and the sheriff turned calmly aside.
"Come, Guthrie," he only said, "you may ride with me to-day."
And with this he put his foot in the stirrup.
"'COME, GUTHRIE,' HE ONLY SAID."