So it was something of a shock to his confidence when he heard that he, Black Tom Carmichael and Sam Carlyle had been indicted for conspiracy to commit murder. Even that he regarded as merely an annoyance, for as one of the grand jurors had hastened to assure him: "Hit war jest a sort of a formality, Kinnard. We knowed ther little jury would cl'ar you-all an' hit looked more legal-like ter let hit come up fer trial."
But the bringing of those indictments was really a tribute to the dawning power of Kinnard's enemies. The thing was intended as a compromise by which the grand jury should satisfy the Stacys and the petit jury should mollify Towers by acquitting him later.
Kinnard knew that Sam Carlyle had gone to Oklahoma, and that without him any prosecution must fail – but he did not know that the prosecution had already located him there and taken steps to extradite him.
Then one day, Bear Cat received a summons by mail to meet George Sidney in Frankfort, and since secrecy was the essence of the plan they had already discussed in embryo, he went in a roundabout way through Virginia and came back into Kentucky at Hagen. He was absent for a week and toward its end he found himself, under the escort of the Louisville lawyer, standing in the private office of the chief executive himself. Turner had never seen a city before. He had never met a man of such consequence, but the governor himself brought to the interview a dignity no more unabashed.
"This is the young man of whom I spoke, governor," said Sidney. "He has given his community the nearest approach it has known to placing sobriety and humanity above lawlessness. There are two men down there who run things. Towers owns the courts and – maintains feudalism. This young man heads an organization of night-riders – and challenges Towers. It's the young against the old: the modern spirit against the ancient habit."
The governor subjected Bear Cat Stacy to an inquisitorial scrutiny – which was met with a glance as undeviating.
"I am told that it has been impossible in your country," he began, "to enforce the attendance of witnesses and even of defendants at court. I am also told that you believe you can alter this."
Turner nodded gravely. "I kin fetch 'em in – dead or alive," he said with bold directness. "All I needs air ter be told who ter git."
"Dead witnesses," remarked the chief executive, "are very little use to any tribunal. If these men are your avowed enemies and in your power, why have you held your hand?"
Bear Cat flushed and though he spoke quietly there was the bell-like ring of ardor in his voice. "My power hain't ther law," he said. "I aims fer sich betterment as kain't come save by law: a betterment that kin last when I'm dead an' gone."
"This is the case, governor," interposed the lawyer. "The courts there are a bitter jest. Kinnard Towers operates a stronghold which is a pest-spot and breeding-nest of crime and debauchery. There is one agency only that can drag him out of it. That agency this man represents – and heads."
"Then if you are sent out, during this session of court," inquired the executive, "you agree to bring in whatever men are called to attendance?"
"Dead or alive – yes," reiterated Stacy with inflexible persistency.
"Unfortunately," smiled the great man, "the legislature, in its wisdom, has vested in me no power to instruct any citizen to deprive other citizens, however undesirable, of their lives. Whoever undertakes such an enterprise must do so on his own responsibility – and, despite the worthiness of his motive, he faces a strong chance of the death penalty."
There was a brief pause, as the lawyer and his protegé rose to depart, and the governor shook Bear Cat's hand. "You are a picturesque person, Mr. Stacy. I hope to hear more of you." Then as a quizzical twinkle wrinkled the corner of his eyes he added: "I almost think it is a pity that I have no power to authorize your wading in free-handed – but it's not within my official scope."
Bear Cat was standing straight and looking with searching gravity into the face of the governor. There seemed an odd variance between the words and the spirit back of the words, and then he saw the tall man with the distinguished face engage his glance with something intangibly subtle – and he saw one dignified eye deliberately close leaving its mate open. The governor of the commonwealth had winked at him – and he understood the perplexing variance between words and spirit.
Outside, in a corridor of the state building, Bear Cat laid a hand on Sidney's arm.
"When ther time comes," he said shortly, "I'll be ready. I wants thet ye should hev hit give out in Marlin Town, thet ye sought ter persuade me, but that I wouldn't hev nuthin' more ter do with aidin' state co'tes then I would with revenuers." And that was the message that percolated through the hills.
When Turner returned home he went first to Blossom's cabin, his heart full of thoughts of her and sympathy for her loneliness. Old days there swarmed into memory, and just to see her, even now that he counted for so little, meant a great deal to him. But in the road, at first sight of the house, he halted in astonishment – for the chimney was smokeless – and when he hurried forward his dismay grew into something like panic as he found the windows blankly shuttered and the door nailed up.
Hastening to his own house, he demanded in a strained voice of fright. "Whar air she, maw? Whar's Blossom at?"
The old woman rose and took from the mantel-shelf a folded sheet of paper which she handed him without a word of explanation, and with shaking fingers he opened and read it.
"Dear Turney," she said, and her round chirography had run wild as weeds with the disturbed mood of that composition, "I can't bear it here any longer. I'm going away – for always. Jerry left a little money and the lawyers have paid it to me. It's not much, but it's enough. These mountains are beautiful – but they are full of misery – and memories that haunt me day and night. You have been more than good to me and I'll always pray for you. I don't know yet where I'll go. With love, Blossom."
Turner sagged into a chair by the hearth-stone and the paper dropped from his inert fingers. His face became very drawn and he silently licked lips which burned with a dry feverishness.
The special session of court convened in Marlin Town with a quiet that lacked any tang of genuine interest. These fiascos had come before and passed without result. Since Bear Cat Stacy had permitted it to be understood that he would hold aloof, no strength would challenge the sway of Kinnard Towers, save a "fotched on" judge and a few white-faced lawyers who wore stiff collars. They had not even brought tin soldiers this time nor dignified the occasion with a Gatling gun.
Towers himself remained comfortably at the Quarterhouse, and if he had about him a small army of men its protection of rifle-muzzles pointed toward Little Slippery rather than Marlin Town. A posse would come, of course, since even his own courts must follow the forms and pretenses of the statutes made and provided, but their coming, too, would be a formality.
Outside a late winter storm had turned into a blizzard and though he did not often spend his evenings at the bar, Kinnard was to-night leaning with his elbow on its high counter. His blond face was suave and his manner full of friendliness, because men who were anxious to display their solicitude were coming in to denounce the farce of the trial inagurated by "furriners" and to proclaim their sympathy. It was all incense to his undiminished dominance, thought Towers, and it pleased him to meet such amenities with graciousness.
"Any time now – any time at all," he laughed, "them turrible deputy sheriffs air liable ter come bustin' through thet door, and drag me off ter ther jail-house." As he uttered this pleasantry, the assembled cohorts shouted their laughter. It was as diverting as to hear a battle-scarred tom-cat express panic over a mouse. "Howsoever, I hain't a shettin' no doors. They all stands open," added Kinnard.
Then, even as he spoke, the telephone jangled. It was a neighborhood wire which connected only a few houses in a narrow radius, but the voice that sounded through the receiver was excited. The proprietor of the lawless stronghold listened and made some unruffled reply, then turned to his audience a smiling face on which was written amusement.
"Well, boys," he genially inquired, "what did I tell ye? Thar's a scant handful of deputy sheriffs a-ridin' over hyar right now. They're within a measured mile of this place at ther present minute."
A low hum of voices rose in apprehensive notes, but Kinnard lifted his hand.
"You men needn't feel no oneasiness, I don't reckon," he assured them. "They hain't got nothin' erginst ther balance of ye. Hit's jest me they aims ter drag off ter ther calaboose – an' es I said afore, I'm leavin' my doors wide open."
As an indication of his confidence he ordered his bartender to fill all glasses, and beamed benignly on the recipients of his hospitality, while he awaited the minions of the law.
"They hed ought ter be hyar by now, them turrible fellers," he suggested at length, and as if in answer to his speech a sound of heavy steps sounded just outside the door.
A small posse stamped into the room, and the excellent jest of the entire situation became more pointed as men noted with what a shamefaced bearing they presented themselves.
"Kinnard," began the chief-deputy in an embarrassment which almost choked him, "I've got ter put ye under arrest. You an' Tom Carmichael thar, both. Ye're charged with murder."
The crowd wanted to laugh again, but because of their curiosity they desisted. Towers himself stepped back two paces.
"Gentlemen," he said blandly, "ye'll hev ter git papers fust from ther governor of Virginny." He swept his hand toward the white line on the floor. "Ye hain't hardly got no license ter foller me outen old Kaintuck. Thar's ther leetle matter of a state line lyin' atween us."
They had all known that Towers would handle the situation with a triumph of resource, and a subdued murmur of applause and adulation rose from many bewhiskered lips, as the posse withdrew slowly to the threshold over which it had entered.
Then they became deadly quiet, for a voice had spoken from the Virginia door. "Hold on!"
They wheeled and saw a single figure there, unarmed, and hands began going to holsters.
"Virginny and Kaintuck looks right-smart alike ter me," said Bear Cat Stacy with the level voice of one who has long waited his moment and finds it at hand. "Will ye all lay down yore arms, and surrender ther men we wants – or will ye stand siege an' have this pest-house burnt down over yore heads? I'll wait outside for an answer."
The amazement of the moment had held them gripped in tableau as he spoke, but when he stepped swiftly back, a dozen pistols spat and barked at him, and then, louder than the firing, they heard a circle of song – compassing the stockaded building on all sides – a giant chorus that swelled in the frosty air: "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord."
Kinnard Towers' self-assurance fell away from him. His hand was unsteady as he raised it and said huskily; "Boys, we needs must fight."
CHAPTER XXVII
T he volume of the singing out there and the flare of the ruddy torches, left no doubt as to the substantial strength of the force which had swept aside such legal technicalities as state jurisdiction.
When Bear Cat had trusted himself so recklessly on the threshold while the opposite door still stood open, the spectral figures with masked faces could have streamed in, wave on wave, to smother out any up-flaming spirit of resistance, but in doing that there would have been hand-to-hand conflict, in which the innocent must pay as heavy and ultimate a penalty as the guilty.
So Turner had withdrawn, and permitted the barring of the doors – though he knew that the structure had the solid strength of square-sawed oak and that the besieged scores were fully armed. Now from the outside he hammered on the massive panels with a rifle butt.
"Ef ye wants ter send a man out hyar ter parley with me," he shouted through the heavy barrier, "I gives ye my pledge that he kin go back safe. Ef ye don't see fit ter do thet, we've got ter believe thet ye're all one stripe, resistin' arrest, and we aims ter set this hell-house ter ther torch."
"Let me have five minutes ter study erbout hit," Towers gave answer, then he turned to the men inside. "Go upsta'rs, Tom," he directed swiftly, "an' look out. Let me know how many thar seems ter be of 'em."
Carmichael, peering out of dark windows above, saw against the snow, innumerable sable figures bulking formidably in the red flare of blazing pine fagots. Other torches burned with a menacing assurance of power beyond them along the road, and far up the distant slopes glittered reinforcements of scattered tongues of flame.
The figures nearest at hand stood steady with an ominous and spectral stillness, and their ghostliness was enhanced by the fitful torch-light in which the whole picture leaped and subsided with a phantom uncertainty of line and mass.
Black Tom came back and shook his head. "Hit hain't no manner of use," he announced. "We mout es well give up. I reckon we kin still come cl'ar in co'te."
But the old lion, whose jaws and fangs had always proved strong enough to crush, was of no mind to be caged now.
"Come cl'ar! Hell's blazes!" he roared with a livid face. "Don't ye see what's done come ter pass? He'll take these damn' outlaws over thar an' no jury won't dast ter cl'ar us. If we quits now we're done."
Towers leaped, with an astonishing agility to the counter of the bar and raised his clenched fists high above his head.
"Men!" he thundered, "hearken ter me! Don't make no mistake in thinkin' thet ef ye goes out thar, ye'll hev any mercy showed ye. This is ther finish fight betwixt all ther customs of yore blood – an' this damn' outlaw's new-fangled tyranny! He don't aim jest ter jail me an' Tom – he aims ter wipe out every mother's son thet's ever been a friend ter me.
"We've got solid walls around us now – but any man thet goes out thar, goes straight ter murder. Es fer me I don't aim ter be took alive – air ye of ther same mind? Will ye fight?"
His flaming utterance found credence in their befuddled minds. They could not conceive of merciful treatment from the man they had hounded and sought for months to murder from ambush. Inside at least they could die fighting, and nods of grim assent gave their answer.
"Ther stockade hain't no good now," Towers reminded them. "They're already inside hit, but from them upsta'r winders we kin still rake 'em severe an' plentiful whilst they're waitin' fer our answer. Let them winders be filled with men, but don't let no man shoot till he heers my pistol – then all tergether – an' give 'em unshirted hell."
So, answering the reprieve with deceit, the block house, which had, for a generation, been an infamous seat of power, remained silent until a pistol snapped out and then from every window leaped spiteful jets of powder lightning and the solid roar of a united volley. That was the answer and as a light clatter of sliding breech bolts followed the crescendo, its defenders went on shooting, more raggedly now, as fast as each man could work his repeater. A chorused bellow of defiance was hurled outward as they fired.
Yet from out there came no response of musketry and, after all, the deceitful effort to convert the period of parley into a paralyzing blow had failed. Few flambeaux had been blazing in the space between the stockade and the house itself, and the ponderous eight-foot wall of logs built to make the place a fortress had become a protection for the besiegers so that only a few scattered figures fell. Then, with amazing unanimity of action, the torches were thrust down and quenched in the snow.
But Bear Cat Stacy himself had remained flattened against the door, too close to be seen from any window, and at his feet was a can of kerosene.
The glow from a match-end became first a slender filament of flame which widened to a greedy blanket as it lapped at the oil and spread crackling up the woodwork of the door's frame. Then, gathering a swift and mighty force, it laid a frenzied and roaring mantle of destruction upon the integrity of the walls themselves.
From inside came a chorused howl of bitter wrath and despair, and as Bear Cat turned and ran for it, crossing the space between door and stockade, he went through a hail of lead – and went with the old charm still holding him safe.
The Quarterhouse was strong enough to laugh at rifles, but to flame it was tinder-like food. The roar and crackle of its glutting soon drowned the howls of its imprisoned victims. Maddened with the thought that, having refused parley, their lives were forfeit unless they could cut their way out, they raved like dying maniacs. The glare reddened and inflamed the skies and sent out a rain of soaring sparks that was seen from many miles away.
The Virginia door was obliterated in a blanket of flame, but abruptly the Kentucky door vomited a stream of desperate men, running and shooting as they came. Then, for the first time, the cordon of rifles that held them in its grip gave voice.
Between the house-door and the stockade, figures fell, grotesque in the glare, and those that did not fall wheeled and rushed back within the blazing walls. But in there was an unendurable furnace. They shouted and raved, choking with the suffocation of foul smoke waves like the demoralized shapes of madmen in some lurid inferno.
Then standing at the one door which still afforded a chance of exit, Kinnard Towers for the last time raised his arms.
"Throw down yore guns, men, an' go out with yore hands up," he yelled, seeking to be heard above the din of conflagration. "Myself, I aims ter stay hyar!"
A few caught the words and plunged precipitately out, unarmed, with hands high in surrender; and others, seeing that they did not fall, followed with a sheep-like imitation – but some, already struggling with the asphyxiation that clawed at their throats, writhed uneasily on the floor – and then lay motionless.
Kinnard Towers, with a bitter despair in his eyes, and yet with the leonine glare of defiance unquenched, stood watching that final retreat. He saw that at the stockade gate, they were being passed out and put under guard. It was in his own mind, when he had been left quite alone to walk deliberately out, fighting until he fell.
About him the skies were red and angry. His death would come with a full and pyrotechnic illumination, seen of all men, and it would at least be said of him that he had never yielded.
So picking up a rifle from the floor, he deliberately examined its magazine and efficiency. After that he stepped out, paused on the doorstep, and fired defiantly at the open gate of the stockade.
There was a spatter of bullets against the walls at his back, but he stood uninjured and defiantly laughing. Without haste he walked forward. Then a tall figure, with masked face came running toward him and he leveled the rifle at its breast. But he was close to the gate now, and the man plunged in, in time to strike his barrel up and bear him to the ground.
Outside the stockade stood, herded, the prisoners, and at their front, the posse of deputies brooded over Kinnard Towers and Tom Carmichael, both shamefully hand-cuffed.
Bear Cat Stacy looked over his captives who, taking their cue from Towers himself, remained doggedly silent.
"You men," he said crisply, "all save these two kin go home now – but when ther co'te needs ye ye've got ter answer – an ye've got ter speak ther truth."
As they listened in surprised silence Turner's voice became sterner: "Ef ye lies ter ther High co'te thar's another co'te thet ye kain't lie ter. Now begone."
Then Bear Cat turned to the tall figure that had defeated Kinnard's determination to die uncaptured.
"We've done seed ther manner of yore fightin'," he said in the voice of one who would confer the accolade. "Now let's see what manner of face ye w'ars. I reckon we don't need ter go masked no longer, anyhow."
The mountaineer ripped off his hat and the black cloth which had covered his face – and Turner Stacy stood looking into the eyes of Lone Stacy, his father. For an instant he leaned forward incredulously, and his voice was strangely unsteady.
"How did ye git hyar," he demanded.
"They kept puttin' off my trial – ontil I reckon they wearied of hit," was the grave response. "Day before yistiddy ther jedge dismissed my case."
"But no man hain't nuver been with us afore without he was oath-bound – how did ye contrive hit?"
The old man smiled. "Dog Tate 'lowed I could take ther oath an' all ther rest of ther formalities in due time. He fixed me up an' brought me along. This hyar war a matter thet I was right interested in."
"I 'lowed," Turner's voice fell to a more confidential note, "I 'lowed ye mout be right wrathful at all I've been doin' since ye went away. Ye used ter berate me fer not lovin' blockadin'."
There was a momentary silence. The bearded man, somewhat thinner and more bent than when he had gone away to prison, and the son with a face more matured by these weeks and months, stood gazing into each other's eyes. To the reserve of each, outspoken sentiment came hard and even now both felt an intangible barrier of diffidence.
Then Lone Stacy answered gruffly, but there was an unsteadiness of feeling under his laconic reply.
"I've done showed ye how wrathful I air. I'm tolable old – but I reckon I kin still l'arn."
Even when Kinnard Towers sat a prisoner in the courtroom which he had dominated, and heard Sam Carlyle, seeking to save his own neck by turning traitor, tell the lurid story of all his iniquities, an unbending doggedness characterized his attitude. As his eyes dwelt on the henchman who was swearing away his life, they burned so scornfully that the witness twisted and fidgeted and glanced sidewise with hangdog shame.
When the jury trooped in and stood lined solemnly before the bench, he gazed out of the window where the hills were beginning to soften their slaty monotone with a hint of tender green. He did not need to hear them respond to the droning inquiries of the clerk, because he had read the verdict in their faces long before.
But when they had, for greater security, removed him to the Louisville jail and had put him in that row of cells reserved for those whose lives are forfeit to the law, it is doubtful whether that masklike inexpressiveness truly mirrored an inward phlegm.
There was an electric lamp fixed against the iron bars of the death corridor, turned inward like a spot-light of shame which was never dimmed either day or night – and there was a warden who paced the place, never leaving him unwatched – and Kinnard Towers had lived in places where eagles breed and where the air is wild and bites the lungs with its tang of freedom.
It was June again – June full-bosomed and tuneful with the over-spilling melody of birds. Over the tall peaks arched a sky of such a pure and colorful blue that it, too, seemed to sing – and the little clouds that drifted placidly along were like the lazy sails of pleasure craft, floating in high currents. Along the dimmest and most distant ridges lay a violet mist that was all ash-of-dreams – but near at hand, whether on the upper levels of high hills or down in the shadowed recesses, where the small waters trickled, everything was color – color, bloom and song.
The rhododendron, which the mountaineer calls laurel, was abloom. The laurel, which is known in hill parlance as ivy, was gay with pink-hearted blossom. The mountain magnolia flaunted its great petals of waxen while and the wild rose nodded its frail face everywhere.
But these were details. Over the silver tinkle of happy little brooks was the low but infinite harping of the breeze, and over the glint of golden flecks on mossy rock, was the sweep of sunlight and shadow across the majesty of towering peaks and the league-wide spread of valleys.
The hills were all singing of summer and rebirth, but as Bear Cat Stacy went riding across them his eyes were brooding with the thought of dreams that had not come true.
Many of them had come true, he told himself, in their larger aspects – even though he found himself miserably unsatisfied. There was a large reward in the manner of men and women who paused in their tasks of "drappin' an' kiverin'" along the sloping cornfields to wave their hats or their hands at him and to shout cheery words.
Those simple folk looked upon him as one who had led them out of bondage to a wider freedom, instilling into them a spirit of enterprise.
One farmer halted his plow and came to the fence as Bear Cat was riding by.
"I heers tell," he began, "thet ther whole world, pretty nigh, air at war an' thet corn's goin' ter be wuth money enough, this crop, ter pay fer haulin' hit."
Stacy nodded. "I reckon that's right," he said.
"An' I heers thet, deespite all contrary accounts, ther railroad aims ter come in hyar – an' pay fa'r prices."
Turner smiled. "They had ter come round to it," he answered. "There are more tons of coal in Marlin county than there are dollars in Jefferson county, and Jefferson county is the richest in the state."
The farmer rested his fore-arms on the top rail of the fence and gazed at the young man on horseback.
"I reckon us folks are right-smart beholden ter ye, Bear Cat," he suggested diffidently. "With a chief like you, we'll see prosperity yit."
"We don't have no chiefs here," declared the young man with a determined setting of his jaw. "We're all free and equal. The last chief was Kinnard Towers – and he's passed on."
"None-the-less, hit wouldn't amaze me none ter see ye git ter be the president of this hull world," declared the other with simple hero-worship. "Whar are ye ridin' ter?"
"I'm going over into Fletcher county to see that school there. I'm hopin' that we can have one like it over here."
The farmer nodded. "I reckon we kin manage hit," he affirmed.
Turner had heard much of that school to which Matthew Blakey had taken his three children – so much that all of it could hardly be true. Now he was going to see for himself.
But his thoughts, as he rode, were beyond his control and memories of Blossom crowded out the more impersonal things.
At last he came to a high backbone of ridge. From there he ought to be able to catch his first glimpse of the tract which the school had redeemed from overgrown raggedness into a model farm, but as yet the dense leafage along the way cut off the view of the valley.
Then he came to a more open space and reined in his horse, and as he looked out his eyes widened in astonishment.
Spreading below him, he saw such even and gracious spaces of cultivation as were elsewhere unknown to the hills.
Down there the fences were even and the fields smooth, but what astonished him most were the buildings. Clustered over a generous expanse of hill and valley, of field and garden all laid out as though some landscape gardener had made it a labor of love, were houses such as he had dreamed of – houses with dignity of line and proportion, with architectural beauty of design.
Everything, even at that distance, could be seen to be substantially designed for usefulness, and yet everything combined with that prime object of service the quality of art.
He was looking down on a tiny village, uncrowded and nestling on the varied levels of an undulating valley, and he counted out a dozen houses, recognizing some of them – the tiny hospital on its hill – the model dairies at one edge – the saw-mill sending out its fragrance – the dormitories with sleeping porches and the school-buildings themselves. This was what he had visioned – and yet he realized how cramped had been his dream as he urged his tired horse forward and listened to the whistle of a bob-white in the stubble.
"Ef Blossom could know that we're goin' ter have a school like this over there!" he breathed to himself. Then as he rode along the twisting descent of road, between park-like forest trees and masses of rhododendron, and dismounted before a large house he saw a broad porch with a concrete foundation, and easy chairs and tables littered with magazines and books. From the door came a lady, smiling to greet him. It was Miss Pendleton, the woman who from small beginnings had built here in the wilderness such an achievement, and as she came to the stairs she held out her hand.
"I've been greatly interested in your letters, Mr. Stacy," she said, "and I don't see why we can't repeat over there what we have done here. We have grown from very small beginnings – and now I want to show you around our premises – unless you are too tired."
With wonderment that grew, he followed her, and a swarm of happy-faced children went with them; children keen of eye and rosy of cheek, and when they had inspected together the buildings where the pupils were taught from books, and the dairies and gardens where they were taught by practice, the lady showed him into a log house as artistic and charming as a swiss chalet and said: "This will be your abiding place while you're here. I'll send one of the boys to see that you have everything you need – and later on I'll introduce you to a lady who is much interested in your plans for a school on Little Slippery and who can discuss the details."
Left alone on the porch of his "pole-house," Bear Cat sat gazing upward to the American flag that floated from a tall staff before his door, and as he did so a small boy with clear and intelligent eyes came and said: "I've done been named ter look atter ye."
In the young face was none of that somber shyness which shadows the faces of many mountain children. Turner put his hand on the boy's head. "Thank you, son," he said slowly. "Haven't I seen you before somewhar?"