Lewis Rand Part 53

"Oh, _my_ young marster! Oh, _my_ young marster!" wailed Eli. "De kindes' an' de bes'! Oh, Lawd hab mercy!"

"It was just dawn, sir, and we went down the road--we were on horseback--quite a good bit of miles. There wasn't any sign until we came to where Indian Run crosses the road; but on the further side, where there's a strip of rocks, you know, sir--"

The speaker stopped short. "They found him there, Fair," finished Major Edward.

The young man turned squarely to the old. "Thank you, sir. You are the man for me. Was he--is he badly hurt?"

"There's nothing can ever hurt him more, my dear. It is you, and we with you, who must suffer now. They found him--they found him dead, Fair."

There was a silence; then, "Ludwell--Ludwell dead?" said Cary. "I don't believe you, Major Churchill."

He turned, walked to a bench that ran along the wall, and sat down.

"Eli, get up from there and stop that camp-meeting wailing! Mr. Wilson, you perhaps do not yet know my brother's horse--black with a white star.

Colonel d.i.c.k, they've got hold of the wrong end of some d.a.m.ned rigmarole or other--"

"I didn't know the horse, sir," replied Wilson, not without gentleness, "for I've been out of the county for a long time, and your brother used to ride a bay. But I knew your brother, sir."

"That's what I said, too, Fair," groaned Colonel Churchill from the steps. "I said it was all a d.a.m.ned mistake. But I was wrong. You listen to Edward. Edward, tell him all!"

"Yes, d.i.c.k. It is true, Fair, d.a.m.nably, devilishly true. He had been dead for hours, Fair."

"Joe White's something of a doctor, sir," put in Wilson. "Joe said he would have been lying there since before the storm."

Fairfax Cary drew a gasping breath "Lying there, suffering, through the storm and darkness? Thrown? Ill and fallen from his horse? Major Edward, don't play with me!" He started up. "Where is he now?"

"We left him there, sir, just as he was, with Joe White to guard him. My son, he undertook to rouse the nearest people. I happened to know, sir, that the sheriff was staying overnight near Red Fields, and I sent him there first. I told the coroner myself, and then I came as hard as I could ride to Greenwood, where I heard that you were here--"

"It was thought best not to move him at once, Fair. They are intelligent men, and they were right." The Major's hand closed around the other's wrist. "He did not suffer, Fair. He was not thrown. He was shot--shot through the heart!"

"And there, by G.o.d," came from the steps Colonel d.i.c.k's deep voice, "there, at least, there's something to be done! But oh, my poor boy, my poor boy!"

Unity came from the doorway, took her lover's hands, and pressed them to her lips. "Fair," she whispered, "Fair!"

He kissed her on the forehead. "There, dear! We won't sit under the catalpa tree this morning. Eli! get the horses."

"They have been ordered, Fair," said the Colonel. "We'll go together, you and Edward and I."

The little rocky strand above the stream upon the river road lay half in sun and half in shade. After the storm the air was crystal. Birds sang in the forest trees, and the stream laughed as it slid over ledges into deep pools. The sky was blue, the day brilliant, a cool wind rustled through the laurels, and the wet earth sent out odours of mould and trodden leaf. Perhaps a score of men and boys, engaged in excited talk and in as close a scrutiny of one quiet figure as a line which the sheriff had drawn would permit, turned at the sound of rapid hoofs and watched the Churchills and Fairfax Cary, with Wilson and Eli, come down to the stream.

"Back, all of you, men!" ordered the sheriff, in a low voice. "That is Mr. Fairfax Cary"; then turned to a spectator or two of importance: "Mr.

Morris, Mr. Page--I hope you'll be so good as to meet them with me? This is a dreadful thing!"

The Fontenoy party splashed through Indian Run and dismounted. It was not an ungentle people, and the little strand, from the woods to the water, was now free from intruding figures. Only the sheriff, the coroner, and the two planters, old friends and neighbours, remained, and these joined the Churchills. Fairfax Cary walked alone to his brother's side and stood, looking down.

Ludwell Cary lay peacefully. One arm was outstretched, the head a little back, the face quiet, with nothing in it of wrath or fear or pain. The storm had not hurt him. There was little disarray. It was much as though he had thrown himself down there, beside the water, with a sigh for the pleasure of rest. The younger Cary waited motionless for the blood to come back to his heart and the mist before his eyes to clear. It cleared; he saw plainly his brother, guide, and friend, and with a cry he flung himself down and across the body.

The men at the water's edge turned away their faces. The rudest unit of the small throng beneath the trees put up a sudden hand and removed his cap, and his example was followed. It had been a known thing, the comradeship of these brothers, and there were few in the county more loved than the Carys.

Moments pa.s.sed. The sheriff spoke in a low voice to Mr. Morris, whereupon the latter whispered to Colonel Churchill. "Edward," said the Colonel, "time's being lost. Hadn't you better try to get him away?"

Major Edward moved along the bank to the two forms and stood in silence, gazing with twitching lips at the dead man's countenance, so impa.s.sive, cold, remote, alien now from all interests of this flesh, quite indifferent to love or to hate, supremely careless as to whether his story were ever told. The Major put his hand to his fierce old eagle eyes, and took it away wet with tears, slow, acrid, and difficult. He stooped and touched the living man. "Fair,--come, Fair!"

The other moved slightly, but did not offer to rise. Major Edward waited, then touched him again. "Fair, we want to mark closely how he lies, and then we want to take him to Greenwood. He has been here long, you know."

His words elicited only a low groan, but presently Cary lifted himself from the body, remained for a moment upon his knees, then rose to his feet. "Yes, to Greenwood," he said. "He lay here last night in the wind and rain, and I was warm and happy--I was asleep and dreaming! Why did I leave him at Elm Tree? If I had been with him--"

His face changed, startlingly. He stooped with rapidity, looked at and touched the dark stain upon the coat, straightened himself, and turned violently upon the Major and the little group which had now approached.

"Who?" he demanded in a voice that rose to a hoa.r.s.e cry. "Who?"

Colonel Churchill answered him. "We don't know, Fair, but by the living G.o.d, we'll find out!" and the sheriff, "We've no clue yet, sir, but if 'twas plain murder--and it looks that way, for your brother wasn't armed--then I reckon the man who did it will as soon find his ease in h.e.l.l as in old Virginia!"

The farmer who had been first upon the ground spoke from the edge of the group. "I never heard a soul in this county say a hard word of Mr.

Cary. I shouldn't ha' thought, barring politics, that he had an enemy."

"Ha!" said Major Edward, but not loudly.

The sheriff spoke again. "Mr. Fairfax Cary, we've got a kind of litter here, made of branches, and we'd best be going on. The sooner the law has its hand on this, the better. Shall we lift him now, sir?"

All were by this time gathered about the form on the earth, and the throng at the edge of the wood had also come nearer. Fairfax Cary, who had looked at each speaker in turn, now again bent his eyes upon his brother. That still figure, so fixed, so uncaring in the midst of harsh emotion, had apparently no accusation to make, was there only to state the all-inclusive fact, "I am in death, who, yesterday, could move and speak, could feel joy and grief, like you and these."

The little knot of men, who had been gazing at the dead as at the chief actor in a drama, began to look, instead, at Fairfax Cary, and to look the more steadily for their first glance. They saw a curious thing; they witnessed a transformation. Had he, like Proteus, slipped before their eyes into another shape, the vital change had hardly been more marked.

He had been, even this morning, a young man, handsome and gallant, with a bright eye, a most happy manner, a charm and spirit wholly admirable.

All Albemarle knew and liked him under that aspect. The men about him had seen grief and horror and rage, each exhibited strongly out of a strong nature. They now saw, from out of youth and the war of emotions, the man emerge. He came slowly but steadfastly, a man with a set purpose, which he was like to pursue through life. The growth of years took place almost at once, though not the growth that would have been but for this releasing stroke. Latencies in the backward and abysm of inheritance that would not have stirred under a less tremendous stimulus stirred under this, grew, and pushed aside the gay and even life that might have been. The growth was rapid and visible, as visible the sharp turn from every former shining goal to one which, an hour before, the runner had not seen. The men who watched him somewhat held their breath.

The change that was wrought was profound. The man who was stretched upon the earth looked now the younger of the two. He seemed also to have given something of the calmness of his state, for Fairfax Cary no longer grieved with voice or gesture or convulsion of feature. He was quiet, pale, and resolute, and he now spoke to the sheriff evenly enough. "Yes, Mr. Garrett, we'll take him home. Where is the litter?"

Four men brought it forward. Ludwell Cary was lifted by his brother and Colonel Churchill and laid reverently upon the stretcher of branches where the green leaves nodded above his quiet face. The little procession formed and, with the younger Cary walking beside the litter, crossed the shallow ford and moved slowly up the winding river road.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

GREENWOOD

The murder, by an unknown hand, of Ludwell Cary, shot through the heart, beside Indian Run, as he rode from Malplaquet to Greenwood, became the overwhelming topic of interest in Albemarle, and a chief subject far and wide throughout the great state. His kinsmen and connections were numerous, and he had himself been a man widely known, by many greatly liked, and by a few well loved. There arose from town and country a cry of grief and wrath, a great wave of sympathy for the one man left of all the Greenwood Carys, solitary now in the old brick house behind the line of oaks, and a loud demand for the speedy discovery and apprehension of the murderer. Indignation was high, the Court House and the Court House yard crowded on the morning of the inquest, the verdict brought in by the coroner's jury received by the county at large with incredulous disappointment. Death at the hands of a person unknown.

No evidence was produced in the court room which threw any clear light upon the commission of the deed, its motive, or its perpetrator. There were ample accounts of the capture of the horse, the finding of the body, its position, and the nature of the wound,--medical opinion in addition that death had been instantaneous, and probably received before the breaking of the storm. If there had been any telltale track or mark in the soil of the river road, the continued and beating rain had made the way impossible to read. Witnesses from Malplaquet told of Ludwell Cary's setting forth that morning, and Forrest, the blacksmith, vouched for his pa.s.sing the forge, alone. Men from the mill at the ford swore to his pausing to answer their questions as to the trial of Aaron Burr, and to his riding on--by the main road. Here arose the confusion. They were certain that Mr. Cary had taken the main road. They thought so then, and they did not see yet how they were mistaken. They told the next man who came riding by that he had taken that road--the main road.

It was not the next man,--boatmen and others had pa.s.sed going up country,--but when Mr. Rand came up, they told him that Mr. Cary was on the road before him--the main road. Yes, sir, it was Mr. Rand and his negro boy, and he could speak for it that Mr. Cary was supposed to be riding to Greenwood by the usual road--the main road. The river road was after all very little shorter, and everybody knew that it was mortal bad.

Lewis Rand was called. He testified that he had left Richmond upon the third, having with him a negro boy known as Young Isham. The night of the sixth he had slept at the Cross Roads Tavern and gone on the next morning, pa.s.sing Malplaquet about nine. His horse loosening a shoe, he stopped at Forrest's forge, and there learned from the smith that there was considerable travel, and that Mr. Cary of Greenwood had pa.s.sed some time before. "You remember, Forrest? I asked you if Mr. Cary had mentioned which road he would take at the ford, and you answered that he had not, but that you supposed the main road the other had been very bad all summer. Again, at the mill below the ford where I paused to ask for water, the miller, remarking on the travel home from Richmond, informed me that Mr. Cary had pa.s.sed not long before. I asked him which road Mr.

Cary had taken, the main road or the river road. He answered--or the men behind him answered, I cannot now remember which--'The main road.'"

"Ay, that's what we said, and what we thought," interjected the miller.

"It was thus my impression, gained first at the forge," continued the witness, "that Mr. Cary was before me upon the main road. Until then, knowing him to have left Richmond several days before me, I had supposed him at Greenwood. I was not averse to a word with him on certain matters, and I rode rapidly, hoping to overtake him--"