HATFIELD OVERTAKES THE TRAITOR
By and by, Hatfield opened his eyes to find that his horse was nosing his face with his warm, rough lips as if bent on waking him up. Johnse lifted his aching eyes toward the moon. He calculated that he had lain there fully an hour or more. His left arm held him in an agony of torture. His whole body was racked with shooting pains traversing from his head down and back again. His smiling lips were now cracked and bloodless. Gladly he would have exchanged the life left in him for a cup of water. All the events of this night filtered back into his consciousness. He felt instinctively for his guns; then recalled what had become of them.
Remembering where he had seen Orlick lie down in the weeds, he wondered if he was still there. Impelled by a consuming curiosity to know what had become of this hated enemy, he struggled up and, dragging his dead, limp arm along, he hobbled on his knees and one hand toward the chestnut trees. At the end of a few tortuous minutes, which seemed hours of suffering, he saw the bottom of Orlick's feet.
Orlick must have heard this ominous, heavy breathing, for suddenly he raised on his elbow and looked.
"Aw—hell!" gasped Hatfield. "I 'lowed yo' wus daid—yo' wild hawg."
His voice carried a volume of reproach and disgust.
"Where yo'-all bin—hain't I got ez much right to cum back ez yo' hev?" snarled his weak, wounded foe.
"Naw, yo' hain't—yo' hain't never had no right on earth," growled Hatfield in tones that dwindled feebly to a malevolent hiss. "Traitors like yo' hain't hardly fittin' fo' hell—yo he'pt kill Cap Lutts, didn't yo'—eh?—didn't yo'—eh? An' yo' he'pt kill Mart Harper, didn't yo'—eh? An' yo' spied fer Sap and them fellers thet kilt Don Perry, didn't yo'—eh? An' thet hain't all, yo' bin a traitin' up Moonway fo' five year—I'm goin' t' finish yo' now—I'll finish yo'—jest wait til I git my breath an' I'll settle yo', shor'n hell."
Hatfield's head dropped down in the grass and he lay panting.
Orlick then struggled to his knees, impelled by some cryptic terror that imparted to him a measure of astounding vitality, and crawled away toward the deserted shack like a turtle. Hatfield, determined not to lose sight of him, crawled along tenaciously ten feet in the rear.
The ground under the chestnut tree and along the picket fence of the old shack had been stamped and worn bare by roving stock. When Orlick reached this bare spot, he tumbled flat and inert. In a few minutes more Hatfield came up, spent and heaving and unable to go another foot. He fell prone with his good arm stretched out and his clutching fingers within twelve inches of Orlick's throat. Orlick's body was in the shadow of the chestnut tree, but his head and neck were plainly visible in the moonlight. He turned his face and looked wearily at the impotent hand that was reaching for him—then his dull eyes followed the arm down to the dark visage with its smiling marble-white lips, and he wagged his head indifferently. Hatfield spoke again between teeth that gritted down upon the agony of his wounds:
"Coward—what yo' a runnin' fo'?"
He got no response.
"Wait 'til I rest a minute, an' I'll finish yo', shore—leastways, I plugged yo' gud—eh?"
Orlick's bloodless lips moved now.
"Yo' don't look so damn peert," he groaned back.
"Yo' didn't do hit—by Gad—yo' hit me in th' arm, an' hit was already busted—ha!—ha!—I didn't feel what yo' done," Hatfield laughed weakly, but derisively. "Leastways, yo' won't be a traitin' up in Moon again so soon. I plugged yo' gud, eh?" he ended jeeringly, venting a sound that in health would have mounted to a loud laugh, but which was only a faint gurgle in his throat.
"An' yo' 'lowed yo'd git Belle-Ann, eh? Yo' mouse-dog—yo' 'lowed Belle-Ann 'ud parley with sich as yo'—eh? Ef I wusn't so tired I'd laugh 'til I'd bust—say, skunk—yo' 'lowed I didn't know—but I knowed all 'long—I had my eye on yo'—yo' karnsarned wild hawg. I was a watchin' yo'—say—yo' 'member when yo' grabbed Belle-Ann in th' yard thet time—I was ahind th' corn crib, an' I hed a bead on yo'—I'd a kilt yo' then pint-blank ef Belle-Ann hadn't bin so clost—I started after yo', an' when yo' let her loose I got ahind the wagon-bed an' waited. Say—Belle-Ann give yo' the run, didn't she—eh? Didn't she run yo'—eh? Say, louse—Belle-Ann wouldn't spit on yo', she wouldn't—not her. Did she run yo'—eh? Gawd'll Moughty!—I wish I could laugh gud an' plenty—I'm aimin' to finish yo' in a minute—when I rest—then yo' he'pt kill her pap—an' I reckon yo' he'pt kill Lem—eh?"
Orlick now seemed to be beyond all fear of the hand with its menacing fingers that wriggled toward him, and the malicious dying face below. A half grin touched Orlick's pallid lips and curled into the symbol of a pleasing memory as he said:
"I—I—'low—peaches'll be 'round—'fore Lem air——"
This amazing insult threw Johnse into a fit of rage. He mumbled curses, but could not budge. The fingers within a foot of Orlick's neck worked convulsively and rigorously. A siege of coughing choked his maledictions and blood issued from his mouth. His fingers clawed into the soil and closed and, with a mighty effort, he tossed the dirt into Orlick's face. Presently he again found breath and words.
"I'm a cummin' after yo' now—now, I'm a cummin'—I'll guzzle yo' now——" but he did not move.
"Why don't yo' shoot?" inquired Orlick, with no show of concern.
"Why don't yo' shoot—skunk—coward?" wheezed Hatfield through clinched teeth.
"Lend me a cart'age an' I'll shore 'commodate yo'," returned Orlick.
"Yo' shove thet gun down an' I'll shore help yo' 'long a pinch," suggested Johnse, struggling vainly to drag his body just a foot that his hand might close upon Orlick's throat.
The facilities for wreaking final vengeance upon each other was a disjunctive irony divided equally between them. Neither had sufficient strength or vitality left for bodily combat, and Orlick possessed the gun, while Hatfield had the cartridges. Had fate favored one, at that instant, with the possession of both, he could not have possibly missed, with their faces less than four feet apart.
"Say—skunk—we'll draw fo' em both—heer me?" suggested Hatfield. "I got th' cart'ages—we'll draw—I know yore a traitor—but I got t' take a chanct on yo'—we'll draw—heer me? Ef I win, yo' shove me the gun—ef yo' win, I'll shove yo' a cart'age—damn yo'—"
"Damn yo'—I'll take yo' up," agreed Orlick thickly.
While these two helpless belligerents lay in the moonlight, slowly bleeding to death and scowling at each other, Johnse, at length, laid his fingers on a twig which he broke into two parts, attended with infinite pain. Then where his hand lay he clawed up more dirt into a minute mound. Into this he stuck the long stick and beside it the short one. Then he pulled them out again and hissed a scathing reprimand at Orlick.
"Yore a lookin'—traitor——!"
Orlick slowly averted his face.
A brief silence ensued, broken only by the roar of the river and the wheezing of their breaths. Again Johnse stammered:
"Now draw—draw now, coward—take yore pick—heer me?—draw——"
Over in the road a roving hound squatted his gaunt shape, and lifting his muzzle up to the moon, howled long and piteously.
In the meantime Buddy Lutts had dodged along, avoiding the road until he reached a narrow plot of underbrush that separated him from the first row of frame houses. Here he lay and watched for a chance to proceed along the road. He could not see the road directly beneath him, but through an aperture he held a diagonal view of the highway for a distance of some fifty yards.
Like projections of a cinematograph, he saw the forms of men flitting past this moonlit gap, running toward town. But he could not distinguish the pursued from the pursuers. He also saw some horses gallop past with empty saddles. One of these derelicts stopped short, framed in the light of the gap, and turned to cropping at the roadside with reins dragging about his hoofs. Far behind him the noise of the conflict echoed back in desultory, straggling shots. These reports emanated also from a remote quarter of the tobacco field opposite where Buddy lay, and from the direction of the Courthouse.
The boy instinctively knew that the real battle was over; he knew that his people had crushed and annihilated the main body of the McGill forces in less than ten minutes, at the gate of the fated graveyard. He furthermore knew that the tail of this fight was backing toward the town, where it would quiver and stir, and would not die until sunrise. It had dwindled down to a "bush-whacking" contest. It was now a nocturnal game of hide-and-seek, with death lurking in the shadows and behind every object that offered refuge.
As the boy lay concealed, watching and listening with his rifle beside him, his untaught soul was profoundly exercised with the triumph of this victory. In truth, he would have been almost happy had he not been assailed with a sudden, acute apprehension concerning Hatfield. He had seen Johnse's horse tear up the road after Orlick, but he had not, as yet, seen any signs of Hatfield's returning. At the rate the two were going, he deemed it time for Johnse to be on his way back.
Buddy debated as to whether he should continue on beneath the shadows of the trees which skirted the rear gardens and out-buildings of the frame houses just ahead. He was now deeply perturbed about Hatfield. After a minute's deliberation, he quickly arrived at a determination to face the dangers presented at every turn and push onward and look for Johnse.
With this quest firmly in mind, he reasoned that to pass behind the houses was, on that hand, taking a great risk. He knew that every house in Junction City was in darkness, barred and bolted, with shutters closed and blinds drawn, the inmates not daring so much as to peep out. But he did not know what these back yards held for him.
In hours of strife, mountaineers can never be found in their houses with the women, but they are often found near their homes, hiding out. Besides, Buddy knew that he could not mislead the sagacious senses of the ever-present hounds. Growing more anxious momentarily, he at length decided that it was less perilous to take the open road, where he could at least see around him, and rely upon the wayside shadows for protection.
To this end, the boy crept out of his concealment, making his way noiselessly down the slope through the brush tangle and saplings. He crept down to the corner of a house which had no enclosed front yard, and looked furtively up and down the street. The road was apparently clear now, save the vague outlines of a few wandering horses. Buddy slipped across the highway, to the vista of sable shadows that followed the rail fence and then, in a half-stooping posture, ran toward the main street as fast as his legs could propel him.
As he hastened along with his eyes furtively ahead, a sow jumped out from the thistles in a fence corner and gave Buddy an awful fright. He finally reached the Courthouse square, and hiding behind a wagon, cast his eyes around in every direction. The Courthouse doors and windows were open, and the building was plainly deserted. A sepulchral stillness pervaded the square, and there was no visible sign of the conflict which, the boy knew, was still smouldering, for the night wind still carried the muffled sounds of rifle-shots from the South, and from the distant end of the street westward.