The Raid of The Guerilla and Other Stories Part 1

The Raid of The Guerilla and Other Stories.

by Charles Egbert Craddock.

THE RAID OF THE GUERILLA

Judgment day was coming to Tanglefoot Cove-somewhat in advance of the expectation of the rest of the world. Immediate doom impended. A certain noted guerilla, commanding a reckless troop, had declared a stern intention of raiding this secluded nook among the Great Smoky Mountains, and its denizens could but tremble at the menace.

Few and feeble folk were they. The volunteering spirit rife in the early days of the Civil War had wrought the first depletion in the number. Then came, as time wore on, the rigors of the conscription, with an extension of the limits of age from the very young to the verge of the venerable, thus robbing, as was said, both the cradle and the grave. Now only the ancient weaklings and the frail callow remained of the male population among the women and girls, who seemed mere supernumeraries in the scheme of creation, rated by the fitness to bear arms.

So feeble a community of non-combatants might hardly compa.s.s a warlike affront calculated to warrant reprisal, but the predominant Union spirit of East Tennessee was all a-pulse in the Cove, and the deed was no trifle.

"'T war Ethelindy's deed," her grandfather mumbled, his quivering lips close to the k.n.o.b of his stick, on which his palsied, veinous hands trembled as he sat in his arm-chair on the broad hearth of the main room in his little log cabin.

Ethelinda Brusie glanced quickly, furtively, at his pondering, wrinkled old face under the broad brim of his white wool hat, which he still wore, though indoors and with the night well advanced. Then she fixed her anxious, excited blue eyes once more on the flare of the fire.

"Lawd! ye jes' now f'und that out, dad?" exclaimed her widowed mother, busied in her evening task of carding wool on one side of the deep chimney, built of clay and sticks, and seeming always the imminent prey of destruction. But there it had stood for a hundred years, dispensing light and warmth and cheer, itself more inflammable than the great hickory logs that had summer still among their fibres and dripped sap odorously as they sluggishly burned.

Ethelinda cast a like agitated glance on the speaker, then her gaze reverted to the fire. She had the air of being perched up, as if to escape the clutching waves of calamity, as she sat on a high, inverted splint basket, her feet not touching the puncheons of the rude floor, one hand drawing close about her the red woollen skirt of her dress. She seemed shrunken even from her normal small size, and she listened to the reproachful recital of her political activity with a shrinking dismay on her soft, roseate face.

"Nuthin' would do Ethelindy," her granny lifted an accusatory voice, still knitting briskly, though she looked rebukingly over her spectacles at the cowering girl, "when that thar Union dee-tachmint rid into Tanglefoot Cove like a rat into a trap--"

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Brusie, "through mistakin' it fur Greenbrier Cove."

"Nuthin' would do Ethelindy but she mus' up an' offer to show the officer the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of the mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca'cely one o' the boys left in the Cove would know now."

"Else he'd hev been capshured," Ethelinda humbly submitted.

"Yes"-the ruffles of her grandmother's cap were terrible to view as they wagged at her with the nodding vehemence of her prelection-"an' you will be capshured now."

The girl visibly winced, and one of the three small boys lying about the hearth, sharing the warm flags with half a dozen dogs, whimpered aloud in sympathetic fright. The others preserved a breathless, anxious silence.

"You-uns mus' be powerful keerful ter say nuthin' 'bout Ethelindy's hand in that escape of the Fed'ral cavalry"-the old grandfather roused himself to a politic monition. "Mebbe the raiders won't find it out-an' the folks in the Cove dun'no' who done it, nuther."

"Yes, bes' be keerful, sure," the gran-dame rejoined. "Fur they puts wimmin folks in jail out yander in the flat woods;" still glibly knitting, she jerked her head toward the western world outside the limits of the great ranges. "Whenst I war a gal I war acquainted with a woman what pizened her husband, an' they kep' her in jail a consider'ble time-a senseless thing ter do, ter jail her, ter my mind, fur he war a shif'less no-'count fool, an' n.o.body but her would hev put up with him ez long ez she did. The jedge an' jury thunk the same, fur they 'lowed ez she war crazy-an' so she war, ter hev ever married him! They turned her loose, but she never got another husband-I never knowed a man-person but what was skittish 'bout any onhealthy meddlin' with his vittles."

She paused to count the st.i.tches on her needles, the big shadow of her cap-ruffles bobbing on the daubed and c.h.i.n.ked log walls in antic mimicry, while down Ethelinda's pink cheeks the slow tears coursed at the prospect of such immurement.

"Jes' kase I showed a stranger his path--"

"An' two hundred an' fifty mo'-spry, good-lookin' youngsters, able to do the rebs a power o' damage."

"I war 'feared they'd git capshured. That man, the leader, he stopped me down on the bank o' the creek whar I war a-huntin' of the cow, an' he axed 'bout the roads out'n the Cove. An' I tole him thar war no way out 'ceptin' by the road he had jes' come, an' a path through a sorter cave or tunnel what the creek had washed out in the spur o' the mounting, ez could be travelled whenst the channel war dry or toler'ble low. An' he axed me ter show him that underground way."

"An' ye war full willin'," said Mrs. Brusie, in irritation, "though ye knowed that thar guerilla, Ackert, hed been movin' heaven an' earth ter overhaul Tolhurst's command before they could reach the main body. An' hyar they war cotched like a rat in a trap."

"I was sure that the Cornfeds, ez hed seen them lope down inter the Cove, would be waitin' ter capshur them when they kem up the road agin-I jes' showed him how ter crope out through the cave," Ethelinda sobbed.

"How in perdition did they find thar way through that thar dark hole?-I can't sense that!" the old man suddenly mumbled.

"They had lanterns an' some pine-knots, grandad, what they lighted, an' the leader sent a squad ter 'reconnoitre,' ez he called it. An' whilst he waited he stood an' talked ter me about the roads in Greenbrier an' the lay o' the land over thar. He war full perlite an' genteel."

"I'll be bound ye looked like a 'crazy Jane,'" cried the grandmother, with sudden exasperation. "Yer white sun-bonnet plumb off an' a-hangin' down on yer shoulders, an' yer yaller hair all a-blowsin' at loose eends, stiddier bein' plaited up stiff an' tight an' personable, an' yer face burned pink in the sun, stiddier like yer skin ginerally looks, fine an' white ez a pan o' fraish milk, an' the flabby, slinksy skirt o' that yaller calico dress 'thout no starch in it, a-flappin' an' whirlin' in the wind-shucks! I dun'no' whut the man could hev thought o' you-uns, dressed out that-a-way."

"He war toler'ble well pleased with me now, sure!" retorted Ethelinda, stung to a blunt self-a.s.sertion. "He keered mo' about a good-lookin' road than a good-lookin' gal then. Whenst the squad kem back an' reported the pa.s.sage full safe for man an' beastis the leader tuk a purse o' money out'n his pocket an' held it out to me-though he said it 'couldn't express his thanks.' But I held my hands behind me an' wouldn't take it. Then he called up another man an' made him open a bag, an' he s.n.a.t.c.hed up my empty milk-piggin' an' poured it nigh full o' green coffee in the bean-it be skeerce ez gold an' nigh ez precious."

"An' what did you do with it, Ethelindy?" her mother asked, significantly-not for information, but for the renewal of discussion and to justify the repet.i.tion of rebukes. These had not been few.

"You know," the girl returned, sullenly.

"I do," the glib grandmother interposed. "Ye jes' gin we-uns a sniff an' a sup, an' then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an' shook the rest of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an' sot out an' marched yerself through the laurel-I wonder nuthin' didn't ketch ye! howsomever naught is never in danger-an' went ter that horspital camp o' the rebels on Big Injun Mounting-smallpox horspital it is-an' gin that precious coffee away to the enemies o' yer kentry."

"n.o.body comes nor goes ter that place-h.e.l.l itself ain't so avoided," said Mrs. Brusie, her forehead corrugated with sudden recurrence of anxiety. "n.o.body else in this world would have resked it, 'ceptin' that headin' contrairy gal, Ethelindy Brusie."

"I never resked nuthin'," protested Ethelinda. "I stopped at the head of a bluff far off, an' hollered down ter 'em in the clearin' an' held up the kittle. An' two or three rebs war out of thar tents in the clearin'-thar be a good sight o' new graves up thar!-an' them men war hollerin' an' wavin' me away, till they seen what I war doin'; jes' settin' down the kittle an' startin' off."

She gazed meditatively into the fire, of set purpose avoiding the eyes fixed upon her, and sought to justify her course.

"I knowed ez we-uns hed got used ter doin' 'thout coffee, an' don't feel the need of it now. We-uns air well an' stout, an' live in our good home an' beside our own h'a'th-stone; an' they air sick, an' pore, an' cast out, an' I reckon they ain't ever been remembered before in gifts. An' I 'lowed the coffee, bein' onexpected an' a sorter extry, mought put some fraish heart an' hope in 'em-leastwise show 'em ez G.o.d don't 'low 'em ter be plumb furgot."

She still gazed meditatively at the fire as if it held a scroll of her recollections, which she gradually interpreted anew. "I looked back wunst, an one o' them rebs had sot down on a log an war sobbin' ez ef his heart would bust. An' another of 'em war signin' at me agin an' agin, like he was drawin' a cross in the air-one pa.s.s down an' then one across-an' the other reb war jes' laffin' fur joy, and wunst in a while he yelled out: 'Blessin's on ye! Blessin's! Blessin's!' I dun'no' how fur I hearn that sayin'. The rocks round the creek war repeatin' it, whenst I crossed the foot-bredge. I dun'no what the feller meant-mought hev been crazy."

A tricksy gust stirred at the door as if a mischievous hand twitched the latch-string, but it hung within. There was a pause. The listening children on the hearth sighed and shifted their posture; one of the hounds snored sonorously in the silence.

"Nuthin' crazy thar 'ceptin' you-uns!-one fool gal-that's all!" said her grandmother, with her knitting-needles and her spectacles glittering in the fire-light. "That is a pest camp. Ye mought hev cotch the smallpox. I be lookin' fur ye ter break out with it any day. When the war is over an' the men come back to the Cove, none of 'em will so much as look at ye, with yer skin all pock-marked-fair an' fine as it is now, like a pan of fraish milk."

"But, granny, it won't be sp'ilt! The camp war too fur off-an' thar warn't a breath o' wind. I never went a-nigh 'em."

"I dun'no' how fur smallpox kin travel-an' it jes' mulls and mulls in ye afore it breaks out-don't it, S'briny?"

"Don't ax me," said Mrs. Brusie, with a worried air. "I ain't no yerb doctor, nor nurse tender, nuther. Ethelindy is beyond my understandin'."

She was beyond her own understanding, as she sat weeping slowly, silently. The aspect of those forlorn graves, that recorded the final ebbing of hope and life at the pest camp, had struck her recollection with a most poignant appeal. Strangers, wretches, dying alone, desolate outcasts, the terror of their kind, the epitome of repulsion-they were naught to her! Yet they represented humanity in its helplessness, its suffering, its isolated woe, and its great and final mystery; she felt vaguely grieved for their sake, and she gave the clay that covered them, still crude red clods with not yet a blade of gra.s.s, the fellowship of her tears.

A thrill of masculine logic stirred uneasily in the old man's disused brain. "Tell me one thing, Ethelindy," he said, lifting his bleared eyes as he clasped his tremulous hands more firmly on the head of his stick-"tell me this-which side air you-uns on, ennyhow, Ethelindy?"

"I'm fur the Union," said Ethelinda, still weeping, and now and then wiping her sapphire eyes with the back of her hand, hard and tanned, but small in proportion to her size. "I'm fur the Union-fust an' last an' all the time."

The old man wagged his head solemnly with a blight of forecast on his wrinkled, aged face. "That thar sayin' is goin' ter be mighty hard ter live up to whilst Jerome Ackert's critter company is a-raidin' of Tanglefoot Cove."

The presence of the "critter company" was indeed calculated to inspire a most obsequious awe. It was an expression of arbitrary power which one might ardently wish directed elsewhere. From the moment that the echoes of the Cove caught the first elusive strain of the trumpet, infinitely sweet and clear and compelling, yet somehow ethereal, unreal, as if blown down from the daylight moon, a filmy lunar semblance in the bland blue sky, the denizens of Tanglefoot began to tremulously confer together, and to skitter like frightened rabbits from house to house. Tanglefoot Cove is some four miles long, and its average breadth is little more than a mile. On all sides the great Smoky Mountains rise about the cuplike hollow, and their dense gigantic growths of hickory and poplar, maple and gum, were aglow, red and golden, with the largesse of the generous October. The underbrush or the jungles of laurel that covered the steeps rendered outlet through the forests impracticable, and indeed the only road was invisible save for a vague line among the dense pines of a precipitous slope, where on approach it would materialize under one's feet as a wheel track on either side of a line of frosted weeds, which the infrequent pa.s.sing of wagon-beds had bent and stunted, yet had not sufficed to break.

The blacksmith's shop, the centre of the primitive civilization, had soon an expectant group in its widely flaring doors, for the smith had had enough of the war, and had come back to wistfully, hopelessly haunt his anvil like some uneasy ghost visiting familiar scenes in which he no more bears a part;-a minie-ball had shattered his stanch hammer-arm, and his duties were now merely advisory to a clumsy apprentice. This was a half-witted fellow, a giant in strength, but not to be trusted with firearms. In these days of makeweights his utility had been discovered, and now with the smith's hammer in his hand he joined the group, his bulging eyes all a-stare and his loose lips hanging apart. The old justice of the peace, whose office was a sinecure, since the war had run the law out of the Cove, came with a punctilious step, though with a sense of futility and abated dignity, and at every successive note of the distant trumpet these wights experienced a tense bracing of the nerves to await helplessly the inevitable and, alas! the inexorable.

"They say that he is a turrible, turrible man," the blacksmith averred, ever and anon rubbing the stump of his amputated hammer-arm, in which, though bundled in its jeans sleeve, he had the illusion of the sensation of its hand and fingers. He suddenly shaded his brow with his broad palm to eye that significant line which marked the road among the pines on the eastern slope, beyond the Indian corn that stood tall and rank of growth in the rich bottom-lands.

Ethelinda's heart sank. All unprescient of the day's impending event, she had come to the forge with the sley of her loom to be mended, and she now stood holding the long shaft in her mechanical clasp, while she listened spell-bound to the agitated talk of the group. The boughs of a great yellow hickory waved above her head; near by was the trough, and here a horse, brought to be shod, was utilizing the interval by a draught; he had ceased to draw in the clear, cold spring water, but still stood with his muzzle close to the surface, his lips dripping, gazing with unimagined thoughts at the reflection of his big equine eyes, the blue sky inverted, the dappling yellow leaves, more golden even than the sunshine, and the glimmering flight of birds, with a stellular light upon their wings.

"A turrible man?-w-w-well," stuttered the idiot, who had of late a.s.sumed all the port of coherence; he s.n.a.t.c.hed and held a part in the colloquy, so did the dignity of labor annul the realization of his infirmity, "then I'd be obleeged ter him ef-ef-ef he'd stay out'n Tanglefoot Cove."