THE ATONEMENT
And now no one stood between the prisoner and death but the old preacher and the tall man in the uniform of a Captain of Artillery. And death it meant to all of them, defenders as well as prisoners, for the mob had increased in numbers as in fury. Friends, kindred, brothers, fathers—even mothers and sisters of the dead were there, bitter in the thought that their dead had been murdered—white men, for one old negress.
In their fury they did not think it was the law they themselves were murdering. The very name of the law was now hateful to them—the law that had killed their people.
Slowly, surely, but with grim deadliness they laid their plans—this time to run no risk of failure.
There was a stillness solemn and all-pervading. And from the window of the jail came again in wailing uncanny notes:—
“I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger,
I can tarry, I can tarry but a night—”
It swept over the mob, frenzied now to the stillness of a white heat, like a challenge to battle, like the flaunt of a red flag. Their dead lay all about the gate of the rock fence, stark and still. Their wounded were few—for Jack Bracken did not wound. They saw them all—dead—lying out there dead—and they were willing to die themselves for the blood of the old woman—a negro for whom white men had been killed.
But their wrath now took another form. It was the wrath of coolness. They had had enough of the other kind. To rush again on those bales of cotton doubly protected behind a rock fence, through one small gate, commanded by the fire of such marksmen as lay there, was not to be thought of.
They would burn the jail over the heads of its defenders and kill them as they were uncovered. A hundred men would fire the jail from the rear, a hundred more with guns would shoot in front.
It was Jud Carpenter who planned it, and soon oil and saturated paper and torches were prepared.
“We are in for it, Bishop,” said Captain Tom, as he saw the preparation; “this is worse than Franklin, because there we could protect our rear.”
He leaped up on his barricade, tall and splendid, and called to them quietly and with deadly calm:
“Go to your homes, men—go! But if you will come, know that I fought for my country's laws from Shiloh to Franklin, and I can die for them here!”
Then he took from over his heart a small silken flag, spangled with stars and the blood-splotches of his father who fell in Mexico, and he shook it out and flung it over his barricade, saying cheerily: “I am all right for a fight now, Bishop. But oh, for just one of my guns—just one of my old Parrots that I had last week at Franklin!”
The old man, praying on his knees behind his barricade, said:
“Twelve years ago, Cap'n Tom, twelve years. Not last week.”
The mob had left Richard Travis for dead, and in the fury of their defeat had thought no more of him. But now, the loss of blood, the cool night air revived him. He sat up, weak, and looked around. Everywhere bonfires burned. Men were running about. He heard their talk and he knew all. He was shot through the left lung, so near to his heart that, as he felt it, he wondered how he had escaped.
He knew it by the labored breathing, by the blood that ran down and half filled his left boot. But his was a constitution of steel—an athlete, a hunter, a horseman, a man of the open. The bitterness of it all came back to him when he found he was not dead as he had hoped—as he had made Jack Bracken shoot to do.
“To die in bed at last,” he said, “like a monk with liver complaint—or worse still—my God, like a mad dog, unless—unless—her lips—Helen!”
He lay quite still on the soft grass and looked up at the stars. How comfortable he was! He felt around.
A boy's overcoat was under him—a little round-about, wadded up, was his pillow.
He smiled—touched: “What a man he will make—the brave little devil! Oh, if I can live to tell him he is mine, that I married his mother secretly—that I broke her heart with my faithlessness—that she died and the other is—is her sister.”
He heard the clamor and the talk behind him. The mob, cool now, were laying their plans only on revenge,—revenge with the torch and the bullet.
Jud Carpenter was the leader, and Travis could hear him giving his orders. How he now loathed the man—for somehow, as he thought, Jud Carpenter stood for all the seared, blighted, dead life behind him—all the old disbelief, all the old infamy, all the old doubt and shame. But now, dying, he saw things differently. Yonder above him shone the stars and in his heart the glory of that touch of God—the thing that made him wish rather to die than have it leave him again to live in his old way.
He heard the mob talking. He heard their plans. He knew that Jud Carpenter, hating the old preacher as he did, would rather kill him than any wolf of the forest. He knew that neither Tom Travis nor the old preacher could ever hope to come out alive.
The torches were ready—the men were aligned in front with deadly shotguns.
“When the fire gets hot,” he heard Jud Carpenter say, “they'll hafter come out—then shoot—shoot an' shoot to kill. See our own dead!”
They answered him with groans, with curses, with shouts of “Lead us on, Jud Carpenter!”
“When the jail is fired from the rear,” shouted Carpenter, “stay where you are and shoot; they've no chance at all. It's fire or bullet.”
Richard Travis heard it and his heart leaped—but only for one tempting moment, when a vision of loveliness in widow's weeds swept through that soul of his inner sight, which sees into the future. Then the new light came back uplifting him with a wave of joyous strength that was sweetly calm in its destiny—glad that he had lived, glad that this test had come, glad for the death that was coming.
It was all well with him.
He forgot himself, he forgot his deadly wound, the bitterness of his life, the dog's bite—all—in the glory of this feeling, the new feeling which now would go with him into eternity.
For, as he lay there, he had seen the bell's turret above the jail and his mind was quick to act.
He smiled faintly—a happy smile—the smile of the old Roman ere he leaped into the chasm before the walls of Rome—leaped and saved his countrymen. He loved to do difficult things—to conquer and overcome where others would quit. This always had been his glory—he understood that. But this new thing—this wanting to save men who were doomed behind their barricade—this wanting to give what was left of his life for them—his enemies—this was the thing he could not understand. He only knew it was the call of something within him, stronger than himself and kin to the stars, which, clear and sweet above his head, seemed to be all that stood between him and that clear Sweet Thing out, far out, in the pale blue Silence of Things.
He reached out and found his rifle. In his coat pocket were cartridges. His arms were still strong—he sprang the magazine and filled it.
Then slowly, painfully, he began to crawl off toward the jail, pulling his rifle along. No one saw him but, God! how it hurt!... that star falling ... scattering splinters of light everywhere ... so he lay on his face and slept awhile....
When he awoke he flushed with the shame of it: “Fainted—me—like a girl!” And he spat out the blood that boiled out of his lips.
Crawling—crawling—and dragging the heavy rifle. It seemed he would never strike the rock fence. Once—twice, and yet a third time he had to sink flat on the grass and spit out the troublesome blood....
The fence at last, and following it he was soon in the rear of the jail. He knew where the back stair was and crawled to it. Slowly, step by step, and every step splotched with his blood, he went up. At the top he pushed up the trap-door with his head and, crawling through, fell fainting.
But, oh, the glory of that feeling that was his now! That feeling that now—now he would atone for it all—now he would be brother to the stars and that Sweeter Thing out, far out, in the pale blue Silence of Things.
Then the old Travis spirit came to him and he smiled: “Dominecker—oh, my old grandsire, will you think I am a Dominecker now? I found your will—in the old life—and tore it up. But it's Tom's now—Tom's anyway—Dominecker! Wipe it out—wipe it out! If I do not this night honor your blood, strike me from the roll of Travis.”
Around him was the belfry railing, waist high and sheeted with metal save four holes, for air, at the base, where he could thrust his rifle through as he lay flat.
He was in a bullet proof turret, and he smiled: “I hold the fort!”
Slowly he pulled himself up, painfully he stood erect and looked down. Just below him was the barricade of cotton bales, its two defenders, grim and silent behind them—the two wounded ones lying still and so quiet—so quiet it looked like death, and Richard Travis prayed that it was not.
One of them had given him his death wound, but he held no bitterness for him—only that upliftedness, only the glory of that feeling within him he knew not what.
He called gently to them. In astonishment they looked up. Thirty feet above their heads they saw him and heard him say painfully, slowly, but oh, so bravely: “I am Richard Travis, Tom, and I'll back you to the death.... They are to burn you out ... but I command the jail, both front and rear. Stay where you both are ... be careful ... do not expose yourselves, for while I live you are safe ... and the law is safe.”
And then came back to him clear and with all sweetness the earnest words of the old preacher:
“God bless you, Richard Travis, for He has sent you jus' in time. I knew that He would, that He'd touch yo' heart, that there was greatness in you—all in His own time, an' His own good way. Praise God!”
Travis wished to warn the mob, but his voice was nearly gone. He could only sink down and wait.
He heard shouts. They had formed in the rear, and now men with torches came to fire the jail. Their companions in front, hearing them, shouted back their approval.
Richard Travis thrust his rifle barrel through the air hole and aimed carefully. The torches they carried made it all so plain and so easy.
Then two long, spiteful flashes of flame leaped out of the belfry tower and the arm of the first incendiary, shot through and through—holding his blazing torch, leaped like a rabbit in a sack, and the torch went down and out. The torch of the second one was shot out of its bearer's hand.
Panic-stricken, they looked up, saw, and fled. Those in front also saw and bombarded the belfry with shot and pistol ball. And then, on their side of the belfry, the same downward, spiteful flashes leaped out, and two men, shot through the shoulder and the arm, cried out in dismay, and they all fell back, stampeded, at the deadliness of the spiteful thing in the tower, the gun that carried so true and so far—so much farther than their own cheap guns.
They rushed out of its range, gathered in knots and cursed and wondered who it was. But they dared not come nearer. Travis lay still. He could not speak now, for the blood choked him when he opened his mouth, and the stars which had once been above him now wheeled and floated below, and around him. And that Sweeter Thing that had been behind the stars now seemed to surround him as a halo, a halo of silence which seemed to fit the silence of his own soul and become part of him forever. It was all around him, as he had often seen it around the summer moon; only now he felt it where he only saw it before. And now, too, it was in his heart and filled it with a sweet sadness, a sadness that hurt, it was so sweet, and which came with an odor, the smell of the warm rain falling on the dust of a summer of long ago.
And all his life passed before him—he lived it again—even more than he had remembered before—even the memory of his mother whom he never knew; but now he knew her and he reached up his arms—for he was in a cradle and she bent over him—he reached up his arms and said: “Oh, mother, now I know what eternity is—it's remembering before and after!”
Visions, too—and Alice Westmore—Alice, pitying and smiling approval—smiling,—and then a burning passionate kiss, and when he would kiss again it was Helen's lips he met.
And through it all the great uplifting joy, and something which made him try to shout and say: “The atonement—the atonement—”
Clear now and things around him seemed miles away.
He knew he was sinking and he kicked one foot savagely against the turret to feel again the sensation of life in his limb. Then he struck himself in his breast with his right fist to feel it there. But in spite of all he saw a cloud of darkness form beyond the rim of the starlit horizon and come sweeping over him, coming in black waves that would rush forward and then stop—forward, and stop—forward and stop.... And the stops kept time exactly with his heart, and he knew the last stop of the wave meant the last beat of his heart—then forward ... for the last time.... “Oh, God, not yet!... Look!”
His heart rallied at the sight and beat faster, making the black waves pulse, in the flow and ebb of it.... The thing was below him ... a man ... a ghostly, vengeful thing, whose face was fierce in hatred ... crawling, crawling, up to the rock fence—a snake with the face ... the eyes of Jud Carpenter....
And the black wave coming in ... and he did so want to live ... just a little ... just a while longer....
He pushed the wave back, as he gripped for the last time his rifle's stock, and he knew not whether it was only visions such as he had been seeing ... or Jud Carpenter really crouching low behind the rock fence, his double-barrel shotgun aimed ... drawing so fine a bead on both the unconscious defenders ... going to shoot, and only twenty paces, and now it rose up, aiming: “God, it is—it is Jud Carpenter ... back—back—black wave!” he cried, “and God have mercy on your soul, Jud Carpenter....”
And, oh, the nightmare of it!—trying to pull the trigger that would not be pulled, trying to grip a stock that had grown so large it was now a tree—a huge tree—flowing red blood instead of sap, red blood over things, ... and then at last ... thank God ... the trigger ... and the flash and report ... the flash so far off ... and the report that was like thunder among the stars ... the stars.... Among the stars ... all around him ... and Alice on one star throwing him a kiss ... and saying: “You saved his life, oh, Richard, and I love you for it!” A kiss and forgiveness ... and the two walking out with him ... out into the dim, blue, Sweet Silence of Things, hand in hand with him, beyond even the black wave, beyond even the rim of the rainbow that came down over all ... out—out with music, quaint, sweet, weird music—that filled his soul so, fitted him ... was he ...
“I'm ... a pilgrim ... I'm a stranger,
I can tarry—I can tarry but a night.”
In the early dawn, a local company of State troops, called out by the governor, had the jail safe.
It was a gruesome sight in front of the stone wall where the deadly fire from Jack Bracken's pistols had swept. Thirteen dead men lay, and the back-bone of lynching had been broken forever in Alabama.
It was the governor himself, bluff and rugged, who grasped Jack Bracken's hand as he lay dying, wrapped up, on a bale of cotton, and Margaret Adams, pale, weeping beside him: “Live for me, Jack—I love you. I have always loved you!”
“And for me, Jack,” said the old governor, touched at the scene—“for the state, to teach mobs how to respect the law. In the glory of what you've done, I pardon you for all the past.”
“It is fitten,” said Jack, simply; “fitten that I should die for the law—I who have been so lawless.”
He turned to Margaret Adams: “You are lookin' somethin' you want to say—I can tell by yo' eyes.”
She faltered, then slowly: “Jack, he was not my son—my poor sister—I could not see her die disgraced.”
Jack drew her down and kissed her.
And as his eyes grew dim, a figure, tall and in military clothes, stood before him, shaken with grief and saying, “Jack—Jack, my poor friend—”
Jack's mind was wandering, but a great smile lit up his face as he said: “Bishop—Bishop—is—is—it Cap'n Tom, or—or—Jesus Christ?” And so he passed out.
And up above them all in the belfry, lying prone, but still gripping his rifle's stock which, sweeping the jail with its deadly protruding barrel, had held back hundreds of men, they found Richard Travis, a softened smile on his lips as if he had just entered into the glory of the great Sweet Silence of Things. And by him sat the old preacher, where he had sat since Richard Travis's last shot had saved the jail and the defenders; sat and bound up his wound and gave him the last of his old whiskey out of the little flask, and stopped the flow of blood and saved the life which had nearly bubbled out.
And as they brought the desperately wounded man down to the surgeon and to life, the old governor raised his hat and said: “The Travis blood—the Irish Gray—when it's wrong it is hell—when it's right it is heaven.”
But the old preacher smiled as he helped carry him tenderly down and said: “He is right, forever right, now, Gov'nor. God has made him so. See that smile on his lips! He has laughed before—that was from the body. He is smiling now—that is from the soul. His soul is born again.”
The old governor smiled and turned. Edward Conway, wounded, was sitting up. The governor grasped his hand: “Ned, my boy, I've appointed you sheriff of this county in place of that scallawag who deserted his post. Stand pat, for you're a Conway—no doubt about that. Stand pat.”
Under the rock wall, they found a man, dead on his knees, leaning against the wall; his gun, still cocked and deadly, was resting against his shoulder and needing only the movement of a finger to sweep with deadly hail the cotton-bales. His scraggy hair topped the rock fence and his staring eyes peeped over, each its own way. And one of them looked forward into a future which was Silence, and the other looked backward into a past which was Sin.