The Red Debt Part 22

To this generous proposition they agreed with pleasure and alacrity. And the next day Steve Barlow was "apprehended" and quickly released, pending trial the second Tuesday in May. Then the astute Logan took to hunting, and incidentally watching for a chance to catch Barlow alone.

He had acquainted himself with Barlow's history and felt that he could wean him over. Barlow was an ignorant vagabond with no permanent home, living from hand to mouth, and a crinkling tool in the hands of old Eversole.

After four days' prowling around the adjacent hills, Logan surprised Barlow in a by-path across the river. The lawyer opened the interview by handing Barlow a new twenty-dollar gold certificate, which the lout took eagerly with an idiotic grin, before he even inquired what it was for, and Logan knew he had him.

At the end of an hour's persuasion Barlow confessed and agreed to make a clean breast of the affair in court. Logan in turn promised to give him one hundred dollars in money, and help him out of town.

Barlow said that old Hank Eversole gave him ten dollars for killing Daum, and promised him a month's board beside. That night Logan left town and took Barlow with him. Just what became of Steve Barlow was a matter of divided conjecture to the idlers around Eversole's store. Some 'lowed that Steve had just "mosied" off and would be on hand trial day.

Others ventured that he had "done leapt his bail."

CHAPTER XVII

CIRCUIT COURT

However, Barlow's disappearance was a matter of small concern to old Hank. If Steve did not show up, Hank knew that he would never pay the bond and would be a month's board in to boot. If he did show up, he would "c.u.m cl'ar" with the alibi concocted for him.

In the meantime, rumors of the determined stand taken in this case by the noted Blue-gra.s.s lawyer, Logan, had spread throughout the hills, and added to the usual interest of court days a morbid impetus that brought the people down to Junction City in droves. And be it said, that among these mountain folk, there were not a few who would hail with joy and secret plaudits any visitation of reprisal that would put a dent in the tyrannical reign of the Eversole-McGill combine, under which they had suffered and been coerced beneath an iron heel.

The dent was delivered on this May day when the sun was bright and made pictures against the mountain sides, traced in pigments of emerald and white and carmine. And the buoyant air was charged with the stirring odors of spring and rife with rapturous bird voices. The town was agog with armed mountaineers of every age. They all arrived early and during the hours preceding the opening of court they swapped news that had accrued since last court week, while their dogs fought the hostile canines of Junction City, mingling snarls and yelps with the braying of mules and the neighing of horses.

Old Hank Eversole was resplendent in a new pair of light store trousers and a maroon shirt, and his rubicund face was illuminated as he divided his smirks between the groups outside and the high festivities back in his noisome bar where Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick were the star, hilarious spirits.

When the sheriff leaned out the Courthouse window and rang a blatant bell, all within earshot made for the Courthouse. In a remarkably short time the court room was filled to overflowing, leaving scores who had been less sprightly on the outside, unable to find standing room. Before anybody could get fairly settled the Court announced that Logan had sent word that he could not be in court until four o'clock, and that they would proceed with the minor business on docket and hold court until five o'clock.

Whereupon the jury and more than half the eager spectators, who crowded the court room, having no interest other than the murder trial of Barlow, now straggled outside, disgruntled and thirsty. In the interval that followed many wagers were laid and hinged upon the appearance or non-appearance of Steve Barlow. The odds favored Barlow's absence, but promptly at four o'clock there was a great stir among this motley, impatient throng.

A two-horse rockaway hove in sight, drew up and stopped at the outer limits of the Courthouse yard. The curtains of the vehicle were closely drawn and Logan, who was riding outside with the driver, alighted and opened the carriage door, whereupon three men climbed out, leaving a fourth man inside. Two were newspaper men from Frankfort, one from Lexington, and the fourth man was Steve Barlow.

Logan exchanged a few brief words with Barlow, who sat back smoking a stogie as unconcerned as if he were simply waiting to kill somebody. His animal brain was of too low an order to know fear, or his senses too dull to impress him with the danger that imperiled his life in the forthcoming hour.

The advent of Logan and the strangers was quickly pa.s.sed around, followed by a wild pell-mell rush for the court room. When the Court rapped for order and the shuffling of feet and mumble of voices died down, the prosecutor directed the sheriff to call Steve Barlow, out on bail, and all the witnesses in the case, and in turning about, stole a covert, triumphant look at old Eversole, who stood near the Judge's bench with Sap McGill and Jutt Orlick at his elbow. Here some of the jurymen exchanged meaning looks. When the sheriff's joculatory utterances failed to produce Barlow, the prosecutor arose and, turning to Logan, said:

"I'm sorry, Mr. Logan, that you got all your witnesses here for nuthin'--but I reckon Steve Barlow has done leapt his bail."

Logan rose up with a slow, deliberate movement, and as he addressed the Court, his eyes were upon old Eversole.

"I have little need for witnesses in this case," he began, "moreover, the man who is charged with the commission of this deed has not forfeited his bond, and I mean to show by his sworn confession that, while it was by his hand that Daum was deprived of his life, it was through bribery and threats imposed upon him by another man--a man whose deeds are black and numerous--that prompted him to do this murder. I mean to lay the burden of this crime upon this instigator who prevailed upon an illiterate, half-witted unfortunate, who had no grievance, to sneak out and do an inoffensive man to death--a wanton act from which his own coward's hands shrunk. Mr. Somber, bring Steve Barlow into the court room."

The quiet of the next few moments was not unlike the stillness of a tomb. As the reporter started to crowd his way out in compliance with Logan's request to bring Barlow in, his footsteps echoed like a great noise. Old Eversole's face had lost its flush and he stared open-mouthed over the heads of the astonished jury, and the people, toward the front door. Jutt Orlick and Sap McGill then whispered to each other with scowling faces, which precipitated a general babble throughout the room.

Midway to the door Plunkett, Eversole's "clerk," thrust a note into the reporter's hand, and the latter immediately turned back and handed the paper to Logan.

The attorney glanced over the sheet, then stood up and addressed the Court, who was too dazed to rap for order. But at the sound of Logan's voice there was instant quiet.

"I have just been handed a message, and while it is not addressed to me personally, it appears to concern all present. If the Court pleases, I will read it aloud."

The judge, who had been gazing inanely about the room, nodded his acquiescence. Then Logan proceeded to read the note in loud, resonant tones:

"I hereby warn all men who don't 'low to fight fer the McGills to clear out of town within five minutes--I hev arrive. Johnse Hatfield."

Fire or an earthquake could not have precipitated greater confusion and consternation than ensued at the name of Johnse Hatfield. The McGill partisans shrank away from the windows with exclamations and curses, while scores of non-combatants fought to get out of the rear door.

Old Eversole's face now was the hue of gray moss. The unprecedented nerve of Hatfield in sending a warning into a house of armed enemies was significant, and indicated that he held a strong hand. Above the disorder McGill was shouting some incoherent commands. Jutt Orlick forced his way to the end of the long room and thrust his head cautiously out of a side window. Then he jumped out the window and started on a run for Eversole's store. Before he had gone ten feet, there was a rifle crack and Orlick dashed back to the shelter of the Courthouse with his palm full of blood, streaming from his left ear.

With the tail of his eye, he caught sight of Buddy Lutts in the door of the blacksmith's shop, jerking his rifle up for another shot. A hand reached out and jerked Buddy back out of the door just as a dozen shots fired from the Courthouse windows pierced the boards of the shop. Then Johnse Hatfield's face showed for the fraction of a second as he yelled across:

"c.u.m on out--yo' wild hawgs!"

This sally was answered by another volley from the Courthouse. Hatfield had knocked every sixth board off the north side of the old shop, which afforded ample firing s.p.a.ce. No one dared reach out and close the shutters of the Courthouse, and he could now see them piling benches up on their ends in front of the windows.

The blacksmith shop, being diagonally across, commanded both front and side view of the Courthouse. Before he sent his terse warning into the court room, Hatfield had detailed a dozen men to go around and get a position corresponding with that of the blacksmith shop, which would command the rear and north side of the building. But there had been delay in working their way to this position unseen. Suspecting this move, the McGills were cautious about showing themselves, but as time pa.s.sed and as the attack came only from the south side and front, they decided to venture an attempt at flanking the shop that held their foes.

It was at this juncture, when a handful of men had dropped out the north windows of the Courthouse, that the Hatfields gained a lumber pile a hundred yards distant and greeted the maneuvering enemy with a volley of lead. Two of the McGills dropped into the gra.s.s, and the remainder limped and scrambled back into the Courthouse, while those inside instantly sent fifty or more shots toward the lumber pile, killing one of the Hatfields.

For three hours the McGills were bottled up in the Courthouse, save those who had not gained entrance and were on the outside when the attack began. Some of these were trying their hand at sharp-shooting now, while others disappeared with the non-combatants. The women of the town had dragged their children inside and fastened the shutters and barred the doors of their houses. From some of these houses a towel or white rag appeared hanging at the end of a stick thrust out the window.

For the past hour the shots from the surrounded Courthouse had dwindled down to spasmodic outbursts and Hatfield knew that the McGills were saving their ammunition, as they had not antic.i.p.ated a siege. But Johnse Hatfield had come into this fight with the forethought of a trained military man. Every Hatfield man had an extra bag tied to his belt crammed full of cartridges. Moreover, Hatfield had stationed two mule wagons just beyond the hill. One of these wagons was to transport his dead and the other the wounded. Furthermore, with these wagons there awaited, with all his paraphernalia, a surgeon whom Hatfield had brought up from Hazard.

As night came on and a brief half-moon illuminated the South road, the crucial hour for which Hatfield had waited was at hand. He dispatched a messenger around to the detachment behind the lumber in the rear of the Courthouse, telling them to leave three men there and for the others to work their way back to the South road. And the envoy Hatfield chose to deliver this important message was none other than Buddy Lutts.

Although the air-line distance through to the lumber pile from the shop was less than five hundred yards, it was a full hour before Buddy crept back between the old wagons in the yard and told Hatfield that the men were waiting. Then Hatfield left three men in the shop and with the others joined the waiting squad. Lining these men up, he now marched them openly up the moonlit road toward the Courthouse. When they came into view, they fired a volley simultaneously into the Courthouse, and Hatfield yelled out derisively:

"I reckon yo' got enough--yo' pack o' laywayin' wild-hawgs!"

Then he retreated down the road at a brisk trot, followed by his sixteen men, Buddy Lutts galloping at his heels. There was a great stir within the Courthouse now. They had plainly heard Hatfield's jeering words above the patter and echoes of his last string of shots, and had espied his men turn and start down the road on a run. There was a noisy scramble and commotion now, as the McGills made haste to avail themselves of this apparent chance to get outside and pursue and fight their enemy, but with due precaution they waited until several volunteers had slipped out and made a hasty reconnoiter of the lumber pile and the blacksmith shop.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GRAVEYARD Ma.s.sACRE

The three Hatfield men had crawfished back into a dense dewberry patch, while the three in the shop had crawled into the loft and hidden among the miscellaneous rubbish. As there was no more shooting, and as the Hatfields could be seen in the moonshine fleeing down the white road, the McGills decided to overtake them and wipe them from the earth, and the Courthouse now quickly disgorged its mob of eager, infuriated militants.

Regardless of ownership, men unhitched and mounted the first horse or mule they came upon. Old Eversole dashed across the street and banged on his store door for admittance. His women folks having barred and bolted the doors, he called loudly for his clerk, but Plunkett had disappeared.

Presently a woman admitted him at the saloon door. He rushed into the bar and gulped down a gla.s.s of liquor--then, gathering all the cartridges he had in the place, he ran out and distributed them among the men.

Sap McGill and Orlick were astride their own mounts, and McGill was crying for the men to make greater haste. McGill rode a light dun animal, and Orlick a powerful dappled gray with a bobbed tail. With thirty-odd hors.e.m.e.n and twoscore or more rifle men afoot, they now dashed after their fleeing opponents, who made a dark splotch in the moonlit road far ahead.

This road ran straight until it reached the graveyard, where it made a short, sharp turn to the left, looping around the base of a hill that jutted outward. This abrupt turn in the road was directly opposite, and midway of the front length of the graveyard, which was elevated some fifteen feet above the road-bed and occupied the slope. Hatfield's horses were hitched just around the bend in the road. When the sixteen men were mounted, he ordered them back along the rail fence for a distance of fifty yards.

Buddy Lutts, clinging to his ready rifle, was eternally at Hatfield's heels. Johnse had ordered him back three times; now he took him by the collar and fairly dragged the protesting boy back and told the men to keep him there. Buddy's peaked face was flushed with a look that partially expressed the wild exultation that obsessed him. Hatfield mounted his piebald mare and, advancing, drew in close to the clay bank that jutted into the road, and here he waited, tense and rigid.

When he heard the clattering hoofbeats thundering down toward the graveyard, he urged his horse a few yards nearer the point, then with a Colt gun in either hand, his habitually smiling lips broke into a brutal grin, and his little reddish eyes snapped murderously.

The stillness was quickened again, on the brink of this Waterloo, with the stuttering wail of a screech-owl watching from the dead yard. Always wary, the McGill cavalcade drew up short at the bend and waited for their panting horde behind. Then they pushed boldly around the bend.