The Code of the Mountains Part 15

Then, while they stood tensed of muscle and blazing of eye, old McAllister Falkins stepped between the ringleaders, and held up his arms. At his side stood his son Henry, and on the quiet of indrawn and tight-held breaths the elder's words broke with almost as staccato a sharpness as that which would have come from the lips of the guns.

CHAPTER XIII

For years no man had heard McAllister Falkins speak except in the smooth and cultivated parlance of the lowlands. In Congress he had been accounted silver-tongued, yet now, by some stress of excitement, when the white-haired patriarch lifted up his voice, words came tumbling from his lips, not in measured phrases but in the crude cascading force of vernacular.

Henry Falkins had felt instinctively that the greater danger for his father lay toward the guns of the Spooners, since it was hardly likely, even in so impa.s.sioned a crisis, that a Falkins rifle would turn on a Falkins breast. Acting in response to that belief, he had stepped between the old man and Red Newton, and the two men stood back to back, while the tableau held, each of them unarmed.

And as old McAllister raised his clenched hands and roared out in a voice that carried, "Stop hit, ye d.a.m.n' fools!" he found his snapping eyes gazing into a pair that looked down into his own, though he stood an even six feet in his socks. The eyes of the protagonist were not snapping like his own, but smoldering dangerously with hatred and resolve. The entire face was black and rigid, from its unkempt locks of jet to its high outstanding cheekbones and clamped under jaw. The right hand that had raised the pistol still held it, but instead of pressing it to the breast of his enemy, young Jake now found it trained on the venerated man whom he must not injure, and with slow unwillingness the muzzle drooped.

"What deviltry air this?" thundered McAllister Falkins, addressing himself to the young ringleader. "What hes happened to the breed of Falkinses thet a man what gave his hand in contract breaks his bond? Air the Falkinses turned liars and pledge-busters?"

"Why hain't ye a-talkin' ter them other fellers, too?" demanded young Jake with that nasal shrillness which excitement brings to the mountain tongue. "Does ye see any more guns over hyar then amongst them murderers?"

At the epithet, a murmur ran ominously along the opposite side of the path, but there were men there to quiet it at the raising of Henry Falkins' hand; men representing the Deacon, whose influence, though unseen, was powerful enough to hold his people leashed.

"Never mind why I don't talk to them." The resonant voice of Old Mack rang like a bell, and, now that the first death-freighted instant had pa.s.sed, he spoke again without dialect. "I'm talking to you now. You-all gave me your pledge that you would hear me out without a breach of peace. You tried to break that pledge. You drew first. I saw you. I am talking to you now, and I speak as the oldest man in the county who bears the name of Falkins. I speak as the man who has the right, if he chooses, to be the head of the Falkins family, and I am talking to you who are a young cub of a boy and whose name is not even Falkins--and by G.o.d, sir, I mean to be listened to!"

Sentence mounted on sentence with growing stress of pa.s.sionate force, and then came a new silence as the old man stood there, weaponless and rigid, glaring into the face of the younger, who, with pistol half-raised, burned slowly from the nape of his sinewy neck to the top of his forehead in an angry wave of color. But suddenly at his back young Jake felt, rather than heard, a low murmur, and he knew, as it grew and traveled among his clansmen, that at a word from this gray-beard, his people would repudiate the young pretender and follow the aged and rightful leader into war, or--which was a more stressful test--into peace.

While this question of family supremacy was argued on the Falkins' side of the path, the Spooners stood silent, intruding no evidence of interest. They simply waited.

"You have a.s.sumed to be the leader of the Falkinses," went on the old man. "By what authority? Tell me that!"

"My pap war the head of our kith an' kin," retorted Jake hotly; "an' I'm his son. He's done been murdered, an' I hain't the sort of a Falkins that sets still an' lets them things go on."

And so capricious is the spirit of a mob that at that statement, as though they had been momentarily misled, a new murmur of concurrence in the sentiment rose from the Falkins side and one or two voices--well in the protected rear--shouted, "No, and we hain't nuther!"

"Silence!" roared old McAllister again. "Let's talk about one thing at a time. You gave me your hand to wait until I had had my say, and you tried to break your bond. When I have had my say, you men can talk about what you are going to do. If you make a move before I've uttered my final word--either you men over there--" with a wave of the hand to the right, "or you over there--" with a wave to the left--"you stamp both crowds with the brand of perjury. And, when I talk, the first thing I shall demand is that the Falkinses either change their names or get a grown man with brains in his head to lead them."

The speaker paused, and the crowd waited, tense and breathless, but now the rifles again hung at their bearers' sides, or rested with grounded stocks. Then young Jake inquired in a sneering drawl:

"Wall, why don't ye begin yore speech?"

"I'm going to, but first I'm going to ask your uncle, Job Falerin, and Jim Falerin and Mark McDonald to come out here."

Slowly three men worked their way to the front of the crowd.

"Men," instructed McAllister Falkins, with the decisiveness of a general officer who has no doubt of instant obedience for his commands, "take that boy's gun away from him until I'm through." For a moment they hesitated, and the boy himself tightened his grip on his weapon until his knuckles showed in white spots.

McAllister Falkins caught the wrist and held it; without a word the three elder kinsmen surrounded and disarmed the young insurgent.

Instantly, McAllister Falkins wheeled to face the Spooners.

"Jim Spooner, Joe Belmear, Jerry Sparvin!" He ripped out the names rapidly and crisply. "Do you do likewise with Red Newton and Buddy Spooner."

But the two defendants had been reading the signs, and, as their kinsmen came forward, they voluntarily surrendered their weapons.

"Now," went on the old man, "I'm going to ask you boys on both sides of the road to show me one more evidence of good faith. Let all the men in the front of this crowd carry back their guns and stack them at the rear. Then let them come forward again. Don't let us have any rifles or pistols at the front."

Rather wondering at their ready compliance, yet under the force of something like a spell and also with a sense of immense relief, the crowd began shifting and jostling, and when it again fell quiet not a barrel or stock was visible.

Slowly old McAllister ascended the court-house steps and stood looking down.

"Now," he announced quietly, "I want those same three Falkins men and those same three Spooners, still armed, to come up here and stand on either side of me. I wish to have the honor of their services as my escort and body guard."

As he spoke the last words the old orator smiled, and through the crowd, humorless and grim as it was, ran a murmur of responsive laughter at the ludicrous jest of this old lion asking personal protection. Yet he had drawn impartially from both elements, and the men named stepped to their places with alacrity.

Then the old man began to speak.

The mountaineer has few pleasures, and except for feudal warfare, few excitements. He loves the fulminations of public speaking and the stirring influences of the forensic. McAllister Falkins they believed to be the greatest of all orators, and no interrupting sound broke the thread of his speech. He praised the good in both factions and denounced their mutual lawlessness. He pleaded with the Falkinses, as with members of his own family, to await patiently the process of law in the trials of Red Newton and Buddy Spooner. If they were guilty, they should be hanged. If they had acted in self-defense, they had the right to Spooner forgiveness as well as vindication at the hands of the jury. He hazarded no opinion as to the facts. He only begged all men to wait and see, and while they waited that their leaders should shake hands and maintain as a sacred thing the truce so plighted. But it was the fashion of his saying these things which in the end availed, for he knew his hearers and played on their emotions as a pianist plays on the keys of a familiar instrument.

"Why," he cried at last, "in the good days when we all came, Spooners and Falkinses alike, out of the mother state, facing our common enemies in the wilderness, we came as comrades and as friends. When we quarreled, we settled it in the honest way of men with fist and skull.

Then we shot from cover only upon wild beast and Indian, never upon our neighbor. We lived the lives of men, and died G.o.d-fearing deaths."

He paused. He had been heard with a rapt attention, but he knew that the difficult part of his speech lay yet ahead, and, as he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, the voice of young Jake Falerin flung challengingly up at him the first interruption.

"We can't be friends with Black Pete Spooner a-stirrin' up strife in these mountings." And after that came cries of "Where is Black Pete?"

and "Tell us about the Deacon!"

"Black Pete Spooner is in the mountains, and he is here in town,"

replied the orator quietly, though he found it difficult to make so portentous an announcement calmly. "But he declares he is here in the interests of peace, and is willing to let you, not only Spooners, but Spooners and Falkinses alike, judge whether or not he can stay. If you decide against him he is ready to go. He asks only that you hear him out, and I ask only that every man of you give me his hand on it, that until he has spoken no one will attack him. I have never had dealings with the Deacon. I have never trusted him, but now I ask you as a personal favor to hear him; holding your hands and paroling him in the interval to my care and in my custody."

There was no immediate response. A moody silence settled over the Falkins men, as though the favorite patriarch had asked too much, but McAllister Falkins turned questioningly to Job and Jim Falerin and Mark McDonald, standing at his side. These three amba.s.sadors looked out over the sea of upturned faces with the scrutiny of weather-prophets studying the clouds. After that, for a moment they whispered together, and at last Job, as the senior, stepped forward and declared in a clear voice:

"The Falkins boys is willin' ter hear what the Deacon's got ter say.

They're willin' to give their hands thet if they thinks he's a-lyin', as he gene'lly is, they'll hold him safe twell the train leaves fer Winchester termorrow mornin'--provided the Spooners keep faith."

"That's all I ask," a.s.sented McAllister Falkins, and he held out his hand. Slowly and solemnly, in the order of their ages, Job, Jim and Mark shook it, pledging their kinsmen. The whole proceeding, so medieval and rude, yet so characteristic, struck young Henry Falkins with a grip of the dramatic.

But that moment of drama was to be followed by another and tenser one, for the elderly speaker turned toward the court-house door at his back, and raised his hand; and in response to the signal the tall and dignified figure of the Deacon appeared for a moment framed there, and came forward to take his place at the side of his sponsor.

They knew he was coming, were expecting him; had agreed to hear him speak, and yet, when they actually saw him, it was with something like a shock to the Falkins element, so that, despite the bondage of their pledge, a low chorused growl ran from throat to throat. Many of their younger clansmen had never seen this man of whom such black tales were told. None of the older men had seen him in recent years.

His name and his repute stood as a t.i.tle of ruthless power, of guile and murder. It was a name with which children were frightened into obedience in log-cabins, up and down the creeks where Falkinses and Falerins dwelt.

And for a s.p.a.ce Black Pete said nothing. He stood looking down, his broad shoulders drawn back, his hat at the familiar forward tilt, his long chin raised, and in his steady eyes the contemplative half-dreamy look of a pastor gazing down on his flock. Perhaps he was thinking of that other scene when another man had stood, just as he did now, on an elevation at the front of a court-house. That man had fallen at his order. The Deacon knew that to one-half of his auditors he was a man "marked down" and a truce-breaker, but his face mirrored no such recognition, no apprehension, and, when he began to speak, his voice went out to the far edge of the crowd, though it went in such soft modulation that it did not seem loud to those who stood nearest.

He declared that he was not attempting to defend his past. His present mission was reparation. He told with a homely and convincing force, yet with modesty and humbleness, of his experiences and conversion. He had come back only to ask permission to stay; and, if permitted to do so, his influences would hereafter be for peace.

McAllister and Henry Falkins would testify that it was at his suggestion that these speeches had been made. He had talked with the Spooner leaders, and could also speak for them. He was ready to establish a truce of two years' duration, and he hoped at the end of that time it might be made permanent. He did not hope to be believed without proof.

He therefore offered himself as a hostage, and hereby placed himself in the custody of the three Falkinses, who stood upon the court-house steps. He would go unarmed to their houses as often as required, and keep in touch with them--as a probationer. He took all the chances that such a course involved--and took them willingly, he said, since, if he could bring peace to men who should live as neighbors and friends, his own life was a little thing. It was a masterful bit of hypocritical eloquence, of _argumentum ad hominem_; but it was made to simple and illiterate hearers. At its end, he turned dramatically, drew from its holster his heavy-calibered revolver, and presented it, grip foremost, to Job Falerin. An almost awed silence fell on the audience. Across the street, windows began to open cautiously and female heads to peer out.

The long, unbroken quiet had rea.s.sured the town. Curiosity was overcoming caution. From the hotel, a short distance away, two traveling salesmen, who had heretofore remained indoors, ventured to take a walk of investigation. Then with an audacity that only a born leader would have risked, the Deacon made a suggestion to his custodians and with them went down the stairs, not among the Spooners, but among the Falkinses. He walked like a revival convert being accepted into fellowship. He offered his hand to young Jake with the declaration:

"Jake, I aims to see that the trials for your pappy's killin' are on the dead square."

After a moment of hesitation and to the astonishment of everyone, the young feudist accepted and shook the proffered hand, which, though he did not know it, had directed the a.s.sa.s.sination of his sire. In about ten minutes, the three Falkins men and their hostage returned to the steps, where McAllister and Henry still waited, and in final ceremony the three Spooners gravely shook hands with the three Falkinses. Upon that signal, the clear s.p.a.ce of the pathway overflowed, and the men on both sides mingled. Flasks appeared, and enemy drank with enemy. The truce was signed. Henry Falkins heard one old man from far back in the hills say to another, equally old, to whom he had not spoken in years: