JACK BRACKEN
Jack Bracken was comfortably fixed in his underground home. There was every comfort for living. It was warm in winter and cool in summer, and in another apartment adjoining his living room was what he called a kitchen in which a spring of pure water, trickling down from rock to rock, formed in a natural basin of whitest rock below.
“Jack,” said the old man, “won't you tell me about yo'self an' how you ever got down to this? I knowed you as a boy, up to the time you went into the army, an' if I do say it to yo' face, you were a brave hon'rble boy that never forgot a frien' nor—”
“A foe,” put in Jack quickly. “Bishop, if I cu'd only forgive my foes—that's been the ruin of me.”
The old man was thoughtful a while: “Jack, that's a terrible thing in the human heart—unforgiveness. It's to life what a drought is to Nature—an' it spiles mo' people than any other weakness. But that don't make yo' no wuss than the rest of us, nor does robbery nor even murder. So there's a chance for you yet, Jack—a mighty fine chance, too, sence yo' heart is changed.”
“Many a time, Jack, many a time when the paper 'ud be full of yo' holdin' up a train or shootin' a shar'ff, or robbin' or killin', I'd tell 'em what a good boy you had been, brave an' game but revengeful when aroused. I'd tell 'em how you dared the bullets of our own men, after the battle of Shiloh, to cut down an' carry off a measley little Yankee they'd hung up as a spy 'cause he had onct saved yo' father's life. You shot two of our boys then, Jack.”
“They was a shootin' me, too,” he said quietly. “I caught two bullets savin' that Yankee. But he was no spy; he was caught in a Yankee uniform an'—an' he saved my father, as you said—that settled it with me.”
“It turned our boys agin you, Jack.”
“Yes, an' the Yankees were agin me already—that made all the worl' agin me, an' it's been agin me ever since—they made me an outlaw.”
The old man softened: “How was it, Jack? I knowed you was driven to it.”
“They shot my father—waylaid and killed him—some home-made Yankee bush-whackers that infested these hills—as you know.”
The Bishop nodded. “I know—I know—it was awful. 'But vengeance is mine—I will repay'—saith the Lord.”
“Well, I was young, an' my father—you know how I loved him. Befo' I c'ud get home they had burned our house, killed my sick mother from exposure and insulted my sisters.”
“Jack,” said the old man hotly—“a home-made Yankee is a 'bomination to the Lord. He's a twin brother to the Copperhead up north.”
“My little brother—they might have spared him,” went on the outlaw—“they might have spared him. He tried to defen' his mother an' sisters an' they shot him down in col' blood.”
“'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord,” replied the old man sadly.
“Well, I acted as His agent that time,”—his eyes were hot with a bright glitter. “I put on their uniform an' went after 'em. I j'ined 'em—the devils! An' they had a nigger sarjent an' ten of their twenty-seven was niggers, wearin' a Yankee uniform. I j'ined 'em—yes,—for wasn't I the agent of the Lord?” He laughed bitterly. “An' didn't He say: 'He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.' One by one they come up missin', till I had killed all but seven. These got panicky—followed by an unknown doom an' they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at midnight an' agin like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at noonday. They separated—they tried to fly—they hid—but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He fled to California.”
“It was awful, Jack—awful—God he'p you.”
“Then a price was put on my head. I was Jack Bracken, the spy and the outlaw. I was not to be captured, but shot and hung. Then I cut down that Yankee an' you all turned agin me. I was hunted and hounded. I shot—they shot. I killed an' they tried to. I was shot down three times. I've got bullets in me now.
“After the war I tried to surrender. I wanted to quit and live a decent life. But no, they put a bigger price on my head. I came home like other soldiers an' went to tillin' my farm. They ran me away—they hunted an' hounded me. Civilization turned ag'in me. Society was my foe. I was up ag'in the fust law of Nature. It is the law of the survival—the wild beast that, cowered, fights for his life. Society turned on me—I turned on Society.”
“But there was one thing that happen'd that put the steel in me wuss than all. All through them times was one star I loved and hoped for. I was to marry her when the war closed. She an' her sister—the pretty one—they lived up yander on the mountain side. The pretty one died. But when I lost faith in Margaret Adams, I lost it in mankind. I'd ruther a seen her dead. It staggered me—killed the soul in me—to think that an angel like her could fall an' be false.”
“I don't blame you,” said the old man. “I've never understood it yet.”
“I was to marry Margaret. I love her yet,” he added simply. “When I found she was false I went out—and—well, you know the rest.”
He took a turn around the room, picked up one of little Jack's shoes, and cried over it.
“So I married his mother—little Jack's mother, a mountain lass that hid me and befriended me. She died when the boy was born. His granny kep' him while I was on my raids—nobody knowed it was my son. His granny died two years ago. This has been our home ever sence, an' not once, sence little Jack has been with me, have I done a wrong deed. Often an' often we've slipt up to hear you preach—what you've said went home to me.”
“Jack,” said the old man suddenly aroused—“was that you—was it you been puttin' them twenty dollar gol' pieces in the church Bible—between the leds, ever' month for the las' two years? By it I've kep' up the po' of Cottontown. I've puzzled an' wonder'd—I've thought of a dozen fo'ks—but I sed nothin'—was it you?”
The outlaw smiled: “It come from the rich an' it went to the po'. Come,” he said—“that's somethin' we must settle.”
He took up the lantern and led the way into the other room. Under a ledge of rocks, securely hid, sat, in rows, half a dozen common water buckets, made of red cedar, with tops fitting securely on them.
The outlaw spread a blanket on the sand, then knelt and, taking up a bucket, removed the top and poured out its contents on the blanket. They chuckled and rolled and tumbled over each other, the yellow eagles and half eagles, like thoroughbred colts turned out in the paddocks for a romp.
The old man's knees shook under him. He trembled so that he had to sit down on the blanket. Then he ran his hand through them—his fingers open, letting the coins fall through playfully.
Never before had he seen so much gold. Poor as he was and had ever been—much and often as he had suffered—he and his, for the necessities of life, even, knowing its value and the use he might make of it, it thrilled him with a strange, nervous longing—a childish curiosity to handle it and play with it.
Modest and brave men have looked on low-bosomed women in the glitter of dissipative lights with the same feeling.
The old man gazed, silent—doubtless with the same awe which Keats gave to Cortez, when he first looked on the Pacific and stood
“Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”
The outlaw lifted another bucket and took off the lid. It also was full. “There are five mo',” he said—“that last one is silver an' this one—” He lifted the lid of a small cedar box. In it was a large package, wrapped in water-proof. Unravelling it, he shoved out packages of bank bills of such number and denomination as fairly made the old preacher wonder.
“How much in all, Jack?”
“A little the rise of one hundred thousand dollars.”
He pushed them back and put the buckets under their ledge of rocks. “I'd give it all just to have little Jack here agin—an'—an'—start out—a new man. This has cost me ten years of outlawry an' fo'teen bullets. Now I've got all this an'—well—a hole in the groun' an' little Jack in the hole. If you wanter preach a sermon on the folly of pilin' up money,” he went on half ironically, “here is yo' tex'. All me an' little Jack needed or cu'd use, was a few clothes, some bac'n an' coffee an' flour. Often I'd fill my pockets an' say: 'Well, I'll buy somethin' I want, an' that little Jack will want.' I'd go to town an' see it all, an' think an' puzzle an' wonder—then I'd come home with a few toys, maybe, an' bac'n an' flour an' coffee.”
“With all our money we can't buy higher than our source, an' when we go we leave even that behind,” he added.
“The world,” said the old man quaintly, “is full of folks who have got a big pocket-book an' a bac'n pedigree.”
“Do you know who this money belongs to?” he asked the outlaw.
“Every dollar of it,” said Jack Bracken. “It come from railroads, banks and express companies. I didn't feel squirmish about takin' it, for all o' them are robbers. The only diff'r'nce betwix' them an' me is that they rob a little every day, till they get their pile, an' I take mine from 'em, all at onct.”
He thought awhile, then he said: “But it must all go back to 'em, Jack. Let them answer for their own sins. Leave it here until next week—an' then we will come an' haul it fifty miles to the next town, where you can express it to them without bein' known, or havin' anybody kno' what's in the buckets till you're safe back here in this town. I'll fix it an' the note you are to write. They'll not pester you after they get their money. The crowd you've named never got hot under a gold collar. A clean shave will change you so nobody will suspect you, an' there's a good openin' in town for a blacksmith, an' you can live with me in my cabin.”
“But there's one thing I've kept back for the las',” said Jack, after they had gone into the front part of the room and sat down on the deer skins there.
“That sword there”—and he pointed to the wall where it hung.
The Bishop glanced up, and as he did so he felt a strange thrill of recognition run through him—“It belongs to Cap'n Tom,” said Jack quietly.
The old man sprang up and took it reverently, fondly down.
“Jack—” he began.
“I was at Franklin,” went on Jack proudly. “I charged with old Gen. Travis over the breastworks near the Carter House. I saw Cap'n Tom when he went under.”
“Cap'n Tom,” repeated the old man slowly.
“Cap'n Tom, yes—he saved my life once, you know. He cut me down when they were about to hang me for a spy—you heard about it?”
The Bishop nodded.
“It was his Company that caught me an' they was glad of any excuse to hang me. An' they mighty nigh done it, but Cap'n Tom came up in time to cut me down an' he said he'd make it hot for any man that teched me, that I was a square prisoner of war, an' he sent me to Johnson Island. Of course it didn't take me long to get out of that hole—I escaped.”
The Bishop was silent, looking at the sword.
“Well, at Franklin, when I seed Cap'n Tom dyin' as I tho'rt, shunned by the Yankees as a traitor——”
“As a traitor?” asked the old man hotly—“what, after Shiloh—after he give up Miss Alice for the flag he loved an' his old grand sire an' The Gaffs an' all of us that loved him—you call that a traitor?”
“You never heard,” said Jack, “how old Gen'l Travis charged the breastworks at Franklin and hit the line where Cap'n Tom's battery stood. Nine times they had charged Cap'n Tom's battery that night—nine times he stood his ground an' they melted away around it. But when he saw the line led by his own grandsire the blood in him was thicker than water and——”
“An' whut?” gasped the Bishop.
“Well, why they say it was a drunken soldier in his own battery who struck him with the heavy hilt of a sword. Any way I found the old Gen'l cryin' over him: 'My Irish Gray—my Irish Gray,' he kept sayin'. 'I might have known it was you,' and the old Gen'l charged on leaving him for dead. An' so I found him an' tuck him in my arms an' carried him to my own cabin up yonder on the mountain—carried him an'——”
“An' whut?”—asked the old man, grasping the outlaw's shoulder—“Didn't he die? We've never been able to hear from him.”
Jack shook his head. “It 'ud been better for him if he had”—and he touched his forehead significantly.
“Tell me, Jack—quick—tell it all,” exclaimed the old man, still gripping Jack's shoulder.
“There's nothin' to tell except that I kept him ever sence—here—right here for two years, with little Jack an' Ephrum, the young nigger that was his body servant—he's been our cook an' servant. He never would leave Cap'n Tom, followed me offen the field of Franklin. An' mighty fond of each other was all three of 'em.”
The old man turned pale and his voice trembled so with excitement he could hardly say:
“Where is he, Jack? My God—Cap'n Tom—he's been here all this time too—an' me awonderin'—”
“Right here, Bishop—kind an' quiet and teched in his head, where the sword-hilt crushed his skull. All these years I've cared for him—me an' Ephrum, my two boys as I called 'em—him an' little Jack. An' right here he staid contented like till little Jack died last night—then—”
“In God's name—quick!—tell me—Jack—”
“That's the worst of it—Bishop—when he found little Jack was dead he wandered off—”
“When?” almost shouted the old man.
“To-day—this even'. I have sent Eph after him—an' I hope he has found him by now an' tuck him somewhere. Eph'll never stop till he does.”
“We must find him, Jack. Cap'n Tom alive—thank God—alive, even if he is teched in his head. Oh, God, I might a knowed it—an' only to-day I was doubtin' You.”
He fell on his knees and Jack stood awed in the presence of the great emotion which shook the old man.
Finally he arose. “Come—Jack—let us go an' hunt for Cap'n Tom.”
But though they hunted until the moon went down they found no trace of him. For miles they walked, or took turn about in riding the old blind roan.
“It's no use, Bishop,” said Jack. “We will sleep a while and begin to-morrow. Besides, Eph is with him. I feel it—he'll take keer o' him.”
That is how it came that at midnight, that Saturday night, the old Bishop brought home a strange man to live in the little cabin in his yard.
That is how, a week later, all the South was stirred over the strange return of a fortune to the different corporations from which it had been taken, accompanied by a drawling note from Jack Bracken saying he returned ill-gotten gain to live a better life.
It ended laconically:
“An' maybe you'd better go an' do likewise.”
The dim starlight was shining faintly through the cracks of the outlaw's future home when the old man showed him in.
“Now, Jack,” he said, “it's nearly mornin' an' the old woman may be wild an' raise sand. But learn to lay low an' shoe hosses. She was bohn disapp'inted—maybe because she wa'n't a boy,” he whispered.
There was a whinny outside, in a small paddock, where a nearby stable stood: “That's Cap'n Tom's horse,” said the old man—“I mus' go see if he's hungry.”
“I've kept his horse these ten years, hopin' maybe he'd come back agin. It's John Paul Jones—the thoroughbred, that the old General give him.”
“I remember him,” said Jack.
The great bloodlike horse came up and rubbed his nose on the old man's shoulder.
“Hungry, John Paul?”
“It's been a job to get feed fur him, po' as I've been—but—but—he's Cap'n Tom's. You kno'—”
“An' Cap'n Tom will ride him yet,” said Jack.
“Do you believe it, Jack?” asked the old man huskily “God be praised!”
That Saturday night was one never to be forgotten by others beside Jack Bracken and the old preacher of Cottontown.
When Helen Conway, after supper, sought her drunken father and learned that he really intended to have Lily and herself go into the cotton mills, she was crushed for the first time in her life.
An hour later she sent a boy with a note to The Gaffs to Harry Travis.
He brought back an answer that made her pale with wounded love and grief. Not even Mammy Maria knew why she had crept off to bed. But in the night the old woman heard sobs from the young girl's room where she and her sister slept.
“What is it, chile?” she asked as she slipped from her own cot in the adjoining little room and went in to Helen's.
The girl had been weeping all night—she had no mother—no one to whom she could unbosom her heart—no one but the old woman who had nursed her from her infancy. This kind old creature sat on the bed and held the girl's sobbing head on her lap and stroked her cheek. She knew and understood—she asked no questions:
“It isn't that I must work in the mill,” she sobbed to the old woman—“I can do that—anything to help out—but—but—to think that Harry loves me so little as to give me up for—for—that.”
“Don't cry, chile,” said Mammy soothingly—“It ain't registered that you gwine wuck in that mill yit—I ain't made my afferdavit yit.”
“But Harry doesn't love me—Oh, he doesn't love me,” she wept. “He would not give me up for anything if he did.”
“I'm gwine give that Marse Harry a piece of my mind when I see him—see if I don't. Don't you cry, chile—hold up yo' haid an' be a Conway. Don't you ever let him know that yo' heart is bustin' for him an' fo' the year is out we'll have that same Marse Harry acrawlin' on his very marrow bones to aix our forgiveness. See if we won't.”
It was poor consolation to the romantic spirit of Helen Conway. Daylight found her still heart-broken and sobbing in the old woman's lap.