The Long Lane's Turning Part 28

CHAPTER x.x.xV

SANCTUARY

In his little cabin, close by a big log-walled bungalow on a lonely slope of the Blue Ridge, now snugly frozen in by its winter snows, old "Jubilee Jim" lay in a deep sleep. The moonlight, paling before the coming dawn, came through the single window, lighting dimly the seamed black face on the pallet, the sacks of flour and beans in the corner, a side of bacon hung against the wall and strings of dried red-peppers and bunches of herbs suspended from the rafters. On the floor before the fire-place, in which a few red embers still glowed, snored a yellow hound, gaunt and long of limb.

There was no other house within miles of the place, but solitariness was a habit with Jubilee Jim, and he did not miss human companionship.

Ten years before, the man who had chosen that wild spot and had built the bungalow for occasional summer outings with his chosen comrades, in which they might shoot and fish and live in primitive, health-giving fashion, has ensconced the old negro there as general cook and care-taker. He had built himself a tight little cabin close at hand and remained there year in and year out to guard the building against the frequent forest fires. In his pottering negro way he was a Jack of many trades, in the summer cultivating a little cleared patch of "garden truck" back of his cabin and in winter trapping small game, and of evenings poring over his Bible, spelling out the words laboriously--a gift he had learned many years before from some country "missioner." Three or four times a year, leaving the lean hound in possession, he trudged ten miles to the nearest village for what supplies he needed. But on these occasions he felt no temptation to remain with his kind, toiling back contentedly to his little cabin, his hound, and his Bible.

Suddenly, in the tense frozen silence, the great hound stirred and lifted his head with a low guttural growl. His master woke and turned on the creaking couch.

"He-e-sh!" he said impatiently. "Whut fo' yo' want ter mek dat noise en steal mah sleep!"

At the remonstrance the lean tail thumped the board floor, but another louder growl, deep and menacing, came from the s.h.a.ggy throat. The old negro lifted himself and listened.

"Sumpen out dar!" muttered Jubilee Jim, straining his ears, for now he caught the sound that had p.r.i.c.ked the acuter hearing of the animal--a curious, struggling sound like something wallowing in heavy snowdrifts.

"Sumpen _big_!" Jubilee Jim's wrinkled face looked puzzled in the moonlight and his eyes rolled to the wall where, on two wooden pegs, sat an old-fashioned shot-gun. "Don' reck'n et's er bar!" he whispered to the hound. "Ain't ben no bar eroun' hyuh en mawn thuhty yeahs!" He got up and set his ear to the crack of the door. As he bent his stooped frame, something lunged against the wall outside, and at the sound the hound's bristles rose and he sent forth a fierce, rumbling bay that rattled the window.

"Et's er _man_!" said Jubilee Jim. He turned hastily to the rough-hewn table and lighted a lantern; then snapping a chain into the dog's collar and tethering him to the wall, he went to the door and lifted its heavy bar. It opened inward and there half stumbled, half fell across the threshold a snowy figure that collapsed at his feet.

"Mah Lawd!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old man. "What he doin' hyuh?"

With a sharp word to the leaping, raging hound, he dragged the rec.u.mbent body inside, shut the door, and lighted a bundle of pine knots in the fire-place. In the bright yellow light that flooded the cabin he knelt down and examined the man who lay there. He drew off the frosty fur cap from the close-clipped head. The coat was stiff with frost so that he had trouble to unb.u.t.ton and remove it, and the shoes were broken. He took a knife and carefully cut them off from the feet, noticing with quick pity that one ankle was swollen to twice its natural size.

"Reck'n yo' mos' froze ter def!" said Jubilee Jim. "En starved too!"

He rummaged on a shelf, found an iron skillet containing some broth and set it close to the blazing wood. Then, he drew the limp figure upon his couch and began to remove the clothing, now wet and clinging.

As he opened the shirt, however, he started back with an exclamation.

Well he knew what that jacket with its black and yellow-grey stripes meant! Had he not often seen the sullen chain-gang breaking stone on the mountain roads? The man who lay before him was a criminal in desperate flight in stolen garments! He could tie him fast, unconscious and helpless as he was, and leave the dog to guard him, while he went down to the town for officers. But as he thought, something else came to his mind. "Sick en in prison, en ye visited me!" he muttered. "De Good Man he say dat. Dis hyuh man done been in prison, en he moughty sick too. What dee Good Man do, Ah wondah?

Reck'n he ain' gwine lock him up, not 'treckly, nohow!"

He saw a crimson stain that spread over the stripes. He touched it--it was blood.

Five minutes later, in the warming cabin, he was examining an opened wound in the shoulder of the insensible man. He washed it carefully and bound it up with some of the medicinal herbs that hung from the rafters. This done, he took the skillet from the fire-place and with a spoon forced a little of the hot liquid, drop by drop, between the clenched teeth. Under these ministrations a semblance of life began to return to the exhausted frame, and with it the chilled body rushed into a fever. The head began to roll from side to side and the lips to mutter indistinguishably.

The hound had grown quiet now, and released from the chain, came to sniff at the bunk. All at once he flung up his great head with a low howl, then, crouching, licked the nerveless hand that hung down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: All at once the hound flung up his great head with a low howl, then, crouching, licked the nerveless hand that hung down]

Jubilee Jim looked in startled amaze, then seized the lantern and held it close. "Who dis hyuh?" he said.

As if at the challenge, the eyes in the white face opened and for a single instant consciousness flickered there. "Jube--" said a weak voice, "you--old--scoundrel--" Then the eyes closed and the mutterings recommenced.

The lantern rattled on the floor, as the old negro fell upon his knees by the pallet. "Et's him!" he cried. "Dee Lawd he'p! Et's Ma.r.s.e Harry hese'f!" He leaned and looked, with a painful bewilderment, at the striped garments, the smooth, clipped scalp. "Huccome he got dem close on?" he said to himself, half-fearfully. He stood a moment looking from them to the pallet, then hastily rolled the sodden things into a bundle and thrust it out of sight behind one of the sacks on the floor.

Late the next afternoon the smoke from the stone chimney of the big bungalow rose in a pale spiral into the keen windless air. Inside a leaping fire of chestnut wood burned on the huge hearth and Harry lay on a comfortable, blanket-covered couch in the corner. All day long Jubilee Jim had watched beside him, as he tossed in delirium, now and then touching the hot hand, laying cooling cloths on the fevered wound, or feeding him with a spoon. He had not dared go down the mountain to fetch a doctor, fearing to leave his patient so long alone.

All day, as he watched, his slow brain had been busy with the strangeness of that arrival--most of all with the mystery of the striped clothes. To his simple intelligence, unvexed by the complexities of life in communities, evil and good stood out in sharp and irreconcilable contradistinction, and the garments were a harrowing symbol. But deep in him was that profound, unreasoning belief--the South's touching legacy of ante-bellum days--that trust and confidence that is dog-like and unswerving.

Towards evening, when the sick man became easier and he lay more quietly, though his fever ran high, Jubilee Jim opened the door, and stood looking out onto the lone, frosty hillside. The sun was going down amid a flutter of scarlet scarfs and the marbled pines stood in sombre cl.u.s.ters outlined like sentinels above the pansied twilight of the snowy valley. At length he knelt down and with gnarled hands clasped and eyes still on the colourful sky, he said:

"O Lawd, Ah don' know what mek Ma.r.s.e Harry come hyuh lak dis. But yo'

knows what he done fo' ole Jube. Keep him yeahs en yeahs, feed him, en when he so sick he gwine die, tek en git er doctah en cure him up.

When ah so old ah ain' no good no mo' he gimme dee lan' up hyuh fo' tuh live on. Don' do nuffin cep'n watch dee house, en when he come sometimes Ah cooks fo' him--das all! Ah don' know whaffuh he have on dem wicked clo's--don' keer nuth'n erbout dat. Kase, Lawd, Ma.r.s.e Harry ain' ben fo' tuh do nuth'n _bad_. Dey tek yo' darlin' son, dee Book says, en put er crown o' tho'ns on he beautiful haid, en he ain' done nuth'n 'tall cep'n good. Ah don' keer what Ma.r.s.e Harry have on; Ah reck'n when he come lak dis, Yo' gwine he'p me he'p him--kase das what he done fo' me!"

As the earnest voice ceased, another spoke behind him. "Jube!"

The old man rose hastily and came to the couch. "Yo' knows me ergen, Ma.r.s.e Harry?"

"Yes, Jube. When--did I get here?"

"Dis mawnin', suh, befo' sun-up."

"Was any one else here?"

"No, Ma.r.s.e. Ain' ben n.o.body up hyuh sence dee fust snow-fall."

Sevier was silent a moment, his eyes fixed on the black, affectionate face. "Jube--bring me the things I--had on."

The other crossed the room and came back with a suit which he laid on the blanket.

Sevier shook his head feebly. "Not those. The--others."

Jubilee Jim hesitated, then turned and left the room. When he came back the striped garments were in his hands.

"Do you--know what--those are?"

The faithful, old face turned a little away. "Ah reck'n dem am some new-fangelly fishin'-close," he said, after a pause.

A faint flicker of a smile touched the sick man's face. He understood.

"Put them--into--the fire."

Sevier watched him, as he obeyed. He was very weak and his blood, poisoned from the opened wound, was throbbing with fever. He was preserving consciousness only by a great effort, but his gaze held Jubilee Jim's steadily.

"Jube, I want--no one to--know when I--came, or that I--am here--at all ... _No one_ ... Do you--understand?"

"Yas, suh."

"I'm going--to be--sick. But--no matter--how sick I--no one is to--be brought here ... not a doctor ... nor--any one." Harry's strength was failing now, and the words trailed into indistinctness.

"Yas, Ma.r.s.e Harry."

"I ... trust you ... Jube!"

That was all. He was gone again into the fevered delirium.