The Red Acorn Part 25

"An' when a shadder falls acrost the winder Of my room, When I am workin' my app'inted task, I lift my head to watch the door an' ask If he is come; An' the angel answers sweetly In my home: 'Only a few more shadders An' He will come.'"

"Aunt Debby, honey," said Fortner, rousing himself from a nap in his chair, "thet thar lead's burnin'. Better run yer bullets."

She started as if waked from a trance, pressed her slender thin hands to her eyes for an instant, and then taking the molds up in her left hand she raised the ladle with her right, filled them from it, knocked the molded b.a.l.l.s out by a tap on the floor, and repeated the process with such dexterous quickness that she had made fifty bullets before harry realized that she was fairly at work.

"Ye men hed better lay down an' git some sleep," she said, as she replaced the molds and ladle on the shelf. "Ye'll need all yer strength to-morrer. I'll neck these bullets, an' git together some vittles fur the trip, an' then I'll lay down a while. We orter start airly--soon arter daybreak."

They did start early the next morning, with Aunt Debby riding upon the roads that wound around the mountain sides, while Fortner led the men through the shorter by-paths.

Noon had pa.s.sed some hours, and yet they had come across no signs of wagons. Aunt Debby was riding along a road cut out of the rocks about mid-way up the mountain. To her right the descent was almost perpendicular for a hundred feet or more to where a creek ran at the bottom of a cliff. To her left the hill rose up steeply to a great height. Fortner and the others saw Aunt Debby galloping back, waving the red handkerchief which was her signal of the approach of a wagon. After her galloped a Rebel Sergeant, with revolver drawn shouting to her to stop or he would fire. Abe Bolton stepped forward impulsively to shoot the Rebel, missed his footing, and slid down the hill, landing in the road with such force as to jar into unintelligibility a bitter imprecation he had constructed for the emergency. He struck in front of the Sergeant, who instantly fired at Aunt Debby's mare, sending a bullet through the faithful animal, which sank to her knees, and threw her rider to the ground. Without waiting to rise, and he was not certain that he could, Abe fired his musket, but missed both man and horse. He scrambled to his feet, and ran furiously at the Rebel with raised gun. The Sergeant fired wildly at him, when Bolton struck the animal a violent blow across the head. It recoiled, slipped, and in another instant had fallen over the side of the road, and crushed his rider on the rocks below. Five of the wagon-guard who were riding ahead of the wagon galloped forward at the sound of the shots. Fortner, Edwards and Harry Glen fired into these, and three saddles were emptied. The remaining two men whirled their horses around, fired wildly into the air, and dashed back upon the plunging team, with which the driver was vainly struggling. The ground quivered as the frightened animals struck together; they were crushed back upon their haunches, and beat one another cruelly with their mighty hoofs. Wagon, horses and men reeled on the brink an agonizing instant; the white-faced driver dropped the lines and sprang to the secure ground; the riders strained with the energy of deadly fear to tear themselves loose from their steeds, but in vain.

Then the frantic mess crashed down the jagged rocks, tearing up the stunted cedars as if they were weeds, and fell with a sounding splash on the limestone bed of the shallow creek.

Fortner, Glen and Edwards came down as quickly as possible, the latter spraining his ankle badly by making a venturesome leap to reach the road first. They found a man that Fortner had shot at stone dead, with a bullet through his temple. The other two had been struck in the body.

Their horses stood near, looking wonderingly at their prostrate masters.

Bolton was rubbing his bruises and abrasions, and vituperating everything, from the conduct of the war to the steepness of Kentucky mountains. Aunt Debby had partially recovered from the stunning of her fall, and limped slowly up, with her long riding-skirt raised by one hand. Her lips were compressed, an her great gray eyes blazed with excitement.

They all went to the side of the road, and looked down at the crushed and bleeding ma.s.s in the creek.

"My G.o.d! that's awful," said Henry, with a rising sickness about his heart, as the excitement began subsiding.

"Plenty good enuf fur scoundrels who rob poor men of all they hev," said Fortner fiercely, as he re-loaded his rifle. "Hit's not bad enuf fur thieves an' robbers."

"Hit's G.o.d's judgement on the wicked an' the opporessor," said Aunt Debby, with solemn pitilessness.

"Hadn't we better try to get down there, and help those men out?"

suggested Harry. "Perhaps they are not dead yet."

"Aunt Debby, thet thar hoss thet's rain' his head an' whinnyin'," said Fortner, with sudden interest, "is Joel Sprigg's roan geldin', sho's yore bo'n, honey." He pointed to where a shapely head was raised, and almost human agony looked out of great liquid eyes. "Thet wuz the finest hoss in Laurel County, an' they've stole 'im from Joel. Hit'll 'bout break his heart, fur he set a powerful sight o'store on thet there beast. Pore critter! hit makes me sick ter see 'im suffer thet-a-way!

I've a mind ter put 'im outen his misery, but I'm afeered I can't shoot 'im, so long ez he looks at me with them big pitiful eyes o' his'n. They go right ter my heart."

"You'd better shoot him," urged Aunt Debby. "Hit's a si ter let an innocent critter suffer thet-a-way."

Fortner raised his rifle, and sent a bullet through the mangled brute's brain.

Aunt Debby's eyes became fixed on a point where, a mile away down the mountain, a bend in the road was visible through an opening in the trees.

"Look out," she said, as the echoes of the shot died away, "thar comes a hull lot on 'em."

They looked and saw plainly a large squad of cavalry, with a wagon behind.

"We must get outen heah, an' thet quick," said Fortner decisively.

He caught one of the horses and shortened a stirrup to make the saddle answer for a side-saddle. "Heah, Aunt Debby, let me help ye up, honey.

Now Bolton and Edwards, I'll help ye on these ere other critters. Now skeet out ez fast ez the hosse's legs will tote ye. Don't spar 'em a mite. Them fellers'll gin ye to the devil's own chase ez soon ez they get heah, an' see what's bin done. Glen and me'll go acrost the mounting, an' head 'em off on t'other side. Don't come back ef ye heah shootin', but keep straight on, fur we kin take keer o' this crowd without enny help. Glen, you sa.s.shay up the mounting thar ez fast ez the Lord'll let ye. I'll be arter ye right spry."

All sped away as directed. Fortner had been loading his gun while speaking. He now rammed the bullet home, and withdrawing his rammer walked over to the cliff beside which the teamster was cowering.

"O, Mister Fortner, don't kill me--please don't!" whined the luckless man, getting awkwardly upon his knees and raising his hands imploringly.

"I swar ter G.o.d I'll never raise a hand agin a Union man agin ef ye'll only spar my life."

"Kill ye, Pete Hoskins!" said Fortner with unfathomable contempt. "What consete ye hev ter think yer wuth the powder an' lead. I hain't no bullets ter waste on carr'on."

He struck the abject fellow a couple of stinging blows on the face with the ramrod, replaced it in the thimbles, and sprang up the rocks just as the head of the cavalry appeared around the bend of the road a few rods away.

Overtaking Harry shortly, he heard about the same time the Rebels on the road below strike into a trot.

"They know hit all now," he said, "an' hev started in chase. Let's jog on lively, an' get ter whar we kin head 'em off."

Night had fallen in the meantime, but the full moon had risen immediately, making it almost as light as day.

After half an hour's fast walking, the two Unionists had cut across the long horseshoe around which the Rebels were traveling, and had come down much ahead of them on the other side of the mountain, and just where the road led up the steep ascent of another mountain.

There was a loneliness about the spot that was terrible. Over it hung the "thought and deadly feel of solitude." The only break for miles in the primeval forest was that made for the narrow road. House or cabin there was none in all the gloomy reaches of rocks and gnarled trees. It was too inhospitable a region to tempt even the wildest squatter.

The flood of moonlight made the desolation more oppresive than ever, by making palpable and suggestive the inky abysses under the trees and in the thickets.

Fortner looked up the road to his right and listened intently.

A waterfall mumbled somewhere in the neighborhood. The pines and hemlocks near the summit sighed drearily. A gray fox, which had probably just supped off a pheasant, sat on a log and barked out his gluttonous satisfaction. A wildcat, as yet superless, screamed its envy from a cliff a half a mile away.

"I can't heah anything of Aunt Debby an' the others," said Fortner, at length; "so I reckon they're clean over the mounting, an' bout safe by this time. Them beasts are purty good travelers, I imagine, an' they hain't let no gra.s.s grow in under the'r hufs."

"But the Rebels are coming, hand over hand," said Harry, who had been watching to the left and listening. "I hear them quite plainly. Yes, there they are," he continued, as two or three galloped around a turn in the road, followed at a little interval by others.

The metallic clang of the rapid hoof-beats on the rocks rang through the somber aisles of the forest. Noisy fox and antiphonal wildcat stopped to listen to this invasion of sound.

"Quick! let's get in cover," said Fortner.

"Ye make fur thet rock up thar," said Fortner to Harry, pointing to a spot several hundred yards above them, "and stay thar tell I come. Keep close in the shadder, so's they won't see ye."

"It seems to me that I ought to stay with you,' said Harry, indecisively.

"No; go. Ye can't do no good heah. One's better nor two. I'll be up thar soon. Go, quick."

There was no time for debate, and Harry did as bidden.

Fortner stepped into the inky shadow of a large rock, against which he leaned. The great broad face of the rock, gray from its covering of minute ash-colored lichens, was toward the pursuers, and shone white as marble in the flood of moonlight. The darkness seemed banked up around him, but within his arm's length it was as light as day. The long rifle barrel reached from the darkness into the light, past the corner of the rock against which it rested. The bright rays made the little "bead"

near the muzzle gleam like a diamond, and lighted up the slit as fine as a hair in the hind-sight. Three little clicks, as if of twigs breaking under a rabbit's foot, told that the triggers had been set and the hammer raised.

The hors.e.m.e.n, much scattered by the pursuit, clattered onward. In ones and twos, with wide intervals between, they reached along a half-mile of the road. Two--the best mounted--rode together at the head. Two hundred yards below the great white rock, which shone as innocent and kindly as a fleecy Summer cloud, a broad rivulet wound its way toward the neighboring creek. The blown horses scented the grateful water, and checked down to drink of it. The right-hand rider loosened his bridle that his steed might gratify himself. The other tightened his rein and struck with his spurs. His horse "gathered," and leaped across the stream. As the armed hoofs struck sparks from the smooth stones on the opposite side, the rider of the drinking horse saw burst out of the white rock above them a gray cloud, with a central tongue of flame, and his comrade fell to the ground.

His immediate reply with both barrels of his shotgun showed that he did not mistake this for any natural phenomenon. The sound of the shots brought the rest up at a gallop, and a rapid fire was opened on the end of the rock.

But the instant Fortner fired he sprang back behind the rock, and then ran under its cover a little distance up the mountain side to a dense laurel thicket, in which he laid down behind a log and reloaded his rifle. He listened. The firing had ceased, and a half-dozen dismounted men were carefully approaching the spot whence he had sent the fatal shot. He heard the Captain order a man to ride back and bring up the wagon, that the body of the dead man might be put in it. As the wagon was heard rumbling up, the dismounted men reported to the Captain that the bushwhacker had made good his escape and was no longer behind the rock.

"Well, he hasn't gone very far," said the Captain with a savage oath.

"He can't have got any distance away, and I'll have him, dead or alive, before I leave this spot. The whole gang of Lincolnite h.e.l.lhounds are treed right up there, and not one of them shall get away alive." He put a bone whistle to his lips, and sounded a shrill signal. A horseman trotted up from the rear in response to the call, leading a hound with a leash. "Take the dog up to that rock, there, Bill," said the Captain, "and set him on that devil's trail. Five more of you dismount, and deploy there on the other side of the road. All of you move forward cautiously, watching the dog, and make sure you 'save' teh whelp when he is run out."