Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

“Wish you could,” answered Still, devoutly. “But don’t you go too fast. They ain’t the sort to drive easy. They was taken up late. And if you push ’em too hard there’ll be trouble.”

Leech sneered. He wished Allen would do something so he might get his hand on him.

“You don’t mean nothin’ to you? ’Cause if he got his hand on you first——”

“No—I ain’t afraid of him. He ain’t such a fool as to do anything to me. I am the Government of the United States!” The Provost puffed out his bosom, and with a look of satisfaction glanced at himself in a mirror.

“He ain’t afeared of the Gov’ment or nothin’ else. I wish he was,” declared Still, sincerely.

“Well, he’d better be,” asserted Leech. “As soon as I get things straight, I mean to make him give an account of himself.”

Someone soon gave an account of himself. A considerable party of the men of the negro troop, under command of a sergeant, was “raiding,” one afternoon, in the upper end of the county, when an incident occurred which had a signal effect on both the company and the county. They had already “raided” several places on their tour and were on their way home, their saddle-bows ornamented with the trophies of their rapacity: from sheep to ladies’ bonnets, when toward sunset they stopped near the edge of the Red Rock plantation, at a roadside store, of which Mr. Andy Stamper had recently become the owner. Mr. Stamper was absent, and the store was in charge of his agent, an old soldier named Michael.

The men demanded liquor. They took all they wanted, and called in a number of negroes and made them drunk also. Old Waverley, who had come to the store to make some little purchases, was sitting on a block, smoking. Him they tried to induce to drink too, and when he declined, they hustled him a good deal and finally kicked him out into the road. He was a “worthless old fool who didn’t deserve to be free,” they said. Then in their drunken folly they began to talk of going to Red Rock and ordering supper before returning to camp. It would be a fine thing to take possession of that big house and have supper, and they would raid Stamper’s also on the way. They knew all about both places, and declared that they ought both to be burnt down. Meantime, they demanded more liquor, which the store-keeper seemed suddenly ready to furnish. He made a sign to old Waverley, and the latter slipped off and took a path through the woods. The nearest place was a little homestead on the roadside, belonging to a man named Deals; but there was no one there but a woman; her husband had gone up to Mr. Stamper’s, she told Waverley. So warning her as to the squad of negroes, the old man set out as hard as he could for home. Before he was through the woods, however, he met Rupert, riding down to the store on his colt, a handsome gray, and to him he gave notice, telling him that the store-keeper was doing what he could to hold the men there. Rupert wheeled his horse, and was off like a shot, and when Waverley emerged from the woods, he saw the boy a half mile away, dashing up—not to Red Rock; but to the Stamper place, which stood out, off to one side, clear on its little hill, a straight column of smoke going up in the still evening air. It seemed to the old man that there were a number of horses standing about in the yard, and it occurred to him to wonder if the soldiers could possibly have gotten there already. If so, his young master would be in danger of being hurt. But if the horsemen were soldiers they did not remain long; for in a few minutes Waverley saw a number of men mount and the whole party ride rapidly away down the hill, with Rupert on his gray colt among them. Waverley caught one more glimpse of the riders as they disappeared at a gallop in the wood, going in the direction of the store, and then he hurried on to Red Rock, where he found everything quiet.

Jacquelin was ill in bed that day, and Steve Allen had left the house about noon. Rupert had gone to the store for the mail. Waverley did not tell anything about having seen Rupert go off with the men from Stamper’s; but he turned and hurried back to the store, thinking now only of Rupert. He had not gone far when he heard a shot or two fired, and then on a sudden a dozen or more. The old fellow broke into a run. When he reached the edge of the woods from which he could see the Deals’s homestead he stopped appalled.

A half dozen negroes lay on the ground dead or dying, and a half dozen young white men, among them Captain McRaffle, were engaged either reloading their pistols or talking. Rupert was sitting on his horse at a little distance.