The Jucklins Part 9

"No," I said, my hand still under the hammers. "You must not."

He looked hard at me for a moment and then suffered me to take the gun.

The fire was now dying, and, looking to the left, whence the firing had come, I saw two of the Aimes boys standing under a tree.

"Bill, I could kill both of them," Alf said, in a sorrowful voice.

"I know, my dear boy, but you must not. You would always regret it. We will let the law take charge of them to-morrow."

"Not to-morrow, Bill, but to-night. To-morrow they will be gone."

"All right; just as you say. Where is the nearest officer?"

"A deputy sheriff lives about two miles from here, off to the right of our road home. Come on."

We came into the road after making a circuit through the woods, and hastened onward. And we must have gone nearly half the distance to the deputy's house when we heard the Aimes boys coming behind us, drunk and whooping. "They think we are burnt up," said Alf; "but we'll show them.

Let's get aside into the bushes, and when they come along we'll let them have it."

"We will get aside into the bushes," said I, "but we will not let them have it. Come over this side. Let me have your gun."

He let me take the gun, and as he stood near me, waiting for the ruffians to pa.s.s, I thought that he made an unseemly degree of noise, merely to attract their attention so that he might have an opportunity to fire at them. "Keep still, Alf," I whispered.

They came down the road, singing a bawdy song. For a moment I was half inclined to give Alf his gun, but that early lesson, the waylaying of Bentley, restrained me. We heard the scoundrels talking between their outbursts of song. "Piece of roast hog wouldn't go bad jest about now, Scott. I feel sorter gnawish after my excitement of the evenin'."

"Wall, if you air hongry and hanker atter hog, why don't you go back yander and git a piece that we've jest roasted?"

Alf's hand closed about the barrels of his gun, and strongly he pulled, but I loosened his grip and whispered: "Let them go. There is no honor and very little revenge in shooting a brute."

"I reckon you are right," he replied, but he did not whisper, and out in the road there was a quick scuffling of feet and then a halt. I threw one arm about Alf and pressed one hand over his mouth.

"What was that, Scott?"

"I didn't hear nothin'."

"Thought I heared somebody a-talkin'."

"Yes, you thought like Young's n.i.g.g.e.rs--thought buck-eyes was biscuits.

Come on, boys. We'll go over and wake old Josh up and git more licker."

They pa.s.sed on, and when I had given Alf the opportunity to speak he said: "Good. They are going over to a negro's house and we'll get there about the time they do, and if we can't get anybody but the deputy to help us we'll have to kill one or two of them. Now keep up with me."

Off through the woods he went at a trot, leaping logs and splashing through a brook where it was broad; and I kept well up with him. Already my mind had ceased to dwell upon the narrowness of our escape; I was thinking of Guinea as she had stood, shielding the light with her hand.

CHAPTER VIII.

We were not long in reaching the house of the deputy sheriff. A loud call brought him out to the fence. And when we had quickly told him what was wanted, he whistled to express his gratification or his surprise and I fancied that I saw his hair bristling in the moonlight, for he had come out bareheaded.

"Now let me think a minute, boys," said he. "I have been an officer long enough to know that it ain't much credit to take a fellow after he's dead--most anybody can do that. What we want is to capture them and to do that we've got to have more men. Alf, I tell you what you do. You and your friend slip over to old Josh's and keep watch to see that they don't get away, and I'll ride as fast as I can and get General Lundsford and your daddy. What do you say?"

"I say it's a first-rate plan," Alf answered. "I don't think the General would like to be left out and I know that father wouldn't. Come on, Bill."

The negro's house was not far away, and hastening silently through the woods we soon came within sight of it, on the side of a hill, at the edge of a worn-out field. We softened our foot-steps as we drew near unto the cabin, and we could hear the ruffians within, singing, swearing, dancing. We halted at the edge of the woods, within ten feet of the door, and listened. "Let us slip up and take a peep at them,"

said Alf; and carefully we climbed over the old fence, taking care not to break any of the rotting rails lest we might sound an alarm. We made not the slightest noise, but just as we were within touching distance of the cabin, a dog sprang from behind a box in the chimney corner. I don't know how much noise it might have been his intention to make or whether he belonged to the stealthy breed of curs whose delight it is to make a silent lunge at the legs of a visitor, but I do know that he made not a sound, for I grabbed him by the throat and the first thing he knew his eyes were popping out between their fuzzy lids. I choked him until I thought he must be dead, and then, with a swing, I threw him far over the fence into the woods. We listened and heard him scrambling in the dried leaves and then he was still. The cabin was built of poles and was old. Many a rain had beaten against the "c.h.i.n.king" and we had no trouble in finding openings through which we could plainly see all that went forward within. Just as I looked in I heard the tw.a.n.g of a banjo, and I saw the old negro sitting on the edge of a bed, picking the instrument, while two white men were patting a break-down and two others were trying to dance. At the fire-place a negro woman was frying meat and baking a hoe-cake.

"Generman," said the negro, tw.a.n.ging his strings and measuring his words to suit his tune, "don't want right now to be so pertinence--be so pertinence; but, yes, I'd like to know, hi, hi, hi, yes, like to know whut you gwine gimme fur dis yere, yes, whut you gwine gimme fur all dis yere?"

The patting ceased instantly, and the two men danced not another shuffle, and one of them, Scott, I afterward learned, cried out: "What, you old scoundrel, air you dunnin' us already?"

"Oh, naw, sah, skuze me," said the old negro, "I ain't doin' dat, fur I dun tole you dat I didn' want ter be pertinence, but dar's some things, you know, dat er pusson would like ter un'erstan', an' whut I gwine git fur all dis yere is one o' 'em. I has gib you licker an' I has gib you music, an' wife, dar, is cookin' supper fur you, an' it ain' no mo' den reason dat I'd wanter know whut we gwine git fur it."

"Well, we'll pay you all right enough," replied Scott Aimes. "You've always treated us white, and you are about the only man in this neighborhood that has."

"I thankee, sah," the negro rejoined; "yas, I thankee, sah, fur I jest wanted ter be satisfied in my mine, an' I tell you dat when er pusson is troubled in his mine he's outen fix sho nuff. Hurry up dar, Tildy, wid you snack, fur deze genermen is a-haungry."

"I hope she won't get it ready any too soon," I whispered to Alf, and he, with his face close to mine, replied: "You can trust an old negro woman for that. It won't take Parker very long to ride over to the General's house, and they can pick up father on the way back."

"Won't your mother and--and Guinea be frightened?"

"Not much. They've seen the old man go out on the war path more than once. Let's see what they are doing now."

Scott had taken the banjo and was turning it over, looking at it. We saw him take out a knife and then with a tw.a.n.g he cut the strings. "Good Lawd!" exclaimed the negro, and his wife turned from the fire with a look of sorrow and reproach, for the distressful sound had told her accustomed ear that a calamity had befallen the instrument. "Now jest look whut you done!" the negro cried, and his wife, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n, looked at Scott Aimes and said: "Ef dat's de way you gwine ack, I'll burn dis yere braid an' fling dis yere meat in de fire. Er body workin' fur you ez hard ez I is, an' yere you come er doin' dat way. It's er shame, sah, dat's whut it is. It's er plum shame, I doan kere ef you is white an me black."

Scott roughly tossed the banjo into a corner and laughed. "Sounds a blamed sight better in death than in life," said he.

"But who gwine pay fur dat death music?" the negro asked.

"Pay for it!" Scott turned fiercely upon the negro and Alf caught up his gun. "Wait!" I whispered.

"Pay for it!" Scott raved. "Why you infernal old scoundrel, do we have to pay every time we turn round? But we'll make it all right with you,"

he added, turning away; and Alf lowered his gun.

"I hopes ter de Lawd you will," said the woman, "fur we needs it bad enough."

"You do?" Scott replied. "Well, you'd better be thankful that we don't blow on you for sellin' whisky without license."

"Dar ain' no proof o' de fack dat I has sol' none ter-night," said the old negro, shaking his head.

"What's that?" Scott demanded, wheeling round.

"Skuze me, sah, nothin' er tall. Jest er pa.s.sin' de time o' de day, sah."

"Didn't I tell you that we would pay you for everything we got?"

"Yas, sah, an' you's er generman, sah; yas, I thanks you fur gwinter pay me."