The Red Debt Part 23

It was just then that the indescribable, tragic scene took place that stamped its grim memory ineffaceably in these mountains, and made a crimson stain on feudal history, known ever afterward, as the "graveyard ma.s.sacre."

When Johnse Hatfield saw the noses of the McGill horses, he uttered a wild yell of triumph that pierced the far-reaching hills, and called up an invocation to the mute tombs above.

"Now drive 'em in, boys--drive th' wild hawgs in with th' old Scratch!"

he yelled.

And in a trice, Hatfield had turned that hillside graveyard into a seething crucible, whose moulten maw opened and sucked the living in with the impotent smothered dead. Seemingly, every soul tethered in the confines of that silent dead-plot came to quick ghostly life, and pushed up out of the ground into the moonlight, wielding a lance of darting, destructive lightning. Up from a hundred sodden graves, a hundred human forms sprang, and the tombstones belched out liquid death. And the May night was ruptured with a deluge of gun-shots, and harried with a chaos of curses, and death-groans, and the frenzied squealing of horses. And the air was rife with a pungent odor, not unlike brimstone, as over this seething disaster the powder vapor lifted and arose against the moon mist, studded and starred with spurting tongues of alternate flame, and twisted an ephemeral arch that, seemingly, framed the gates of h.e.l.l.

The McGills afoot had some show at seeking cover and retreat, but not so the hors.e.m.e.n. They became inextricably jammed into the narrow turn in the road, and the harder they struggled to turn about, or go forward, the more entangled they became. To jump from their mounts in this instant of turmoil and surprise meant sure death.

Into this struggling, tangled ma.s.s of plunging, besmeared horses, and fighting, snarling, bleeding men, Johnse Hatfield had plunged his own horse, followed by his ferocious riders, now blind-mad with the l.u.s.t of battle. And all the while the lead rained down from the graveyard without cessation.

Hatfield had only one object in view now. He knew that the old coward, Eversole, was not there. He had seen the sheriff go down, and knew that he was under the horses. In the rise and fall of the conflict, he could not locate Sap McGill, but he did see Orlick, and Orlick saw him at the same time, and tried vainly and frantically to force his horse out of the melee.

As Hatfield forged his way nearer and nearer, Orlick raised his pistol and fired at him. But at that instant a horse reared between them, and the animal received the ball in the head and fell back against Johnse's mount, knocking it to its knees. When Hatfield saw Orlick again, he was on the outer edge of the combat, and would have been away had not a man seized Orlick's bridle and held on. Johnse saw him fire in the man's face, and saw the man's head disappear.

Free at last, Orlick turned and drove his horse up the road toward town like the wind. Hatfield now stabbed his horse cruelly, and forced it up, over and through the fighting ma.s.s, and followed Orlick, leaving the battle behind. But Orlick's horse was a swift and powerful animal, and Hatfield lost ground.

All this while Buddy Lutts had been busy. He had climbed to the top of a clay bank, forty feet above, and was sharp-shooting with telling effect.

Looking down in the moon mist upon the struggle, it was hard for him to distinguish the enemy from his own people, but every time he saw a man break away and run back toward the town, he knew it to be a McGill and he fired with careful aim.

It was while thus engaged that the boy discerned Orlick's big gray leap out and gallop toward town. Buddy raised his rifle and pulled the trigger, but there was no report. His gun was empty. While he was fumbling nervously in his haste to reload, he saw the piebald break out and dash up the road, and he knew that Johnse was after Orlick. When Buddy had loaded the rifle, he crept along the brow of the hill and started to run after Hatfield. He had not gone far when he came unexpectedly upon four men. The boy, startled, jerked his rifle to his shoulder, when the men in his path threw up their hands, one holding a white handkerchief above his head and calling upon the boy not to shoot.

Ignoring their friendly overtures, Buddy circled around them and ran onward at top speed toward town. The men were Logan and the three newspaper reporters, following the progress of the fight at the risk of their lives. Johnse Hatfield already had five bullets in his body and was bleeding profusely, but he spurred ahead unmindful of his wounds, keeping the fleeing gray in sight.

When Orlick turned the corner and vanished, Johnse called upon his mare for all the speed that was in her. As he made the corner and swerved to the right past Eversole's store, old Hank jumped out and fired upon him.

The ball broke Johnse's left arm and his pistol slipped from a nerveless hand to the ground.

Undaunted, and without slacking his pace, Hatfield wheeled in the saddle and fired two quick shots with his right. He saw old Eversole pitch headlong into the horse-trough. Because of a line of trees that cast a black shadow along the main street, he could not now see Orlick's gray, but he could hear the tattoo of the horse's hoofs. Determined to overtake this traitor, Hatfield urged his mare to her utmost. In a few seconds the big gray came out into the moonlight again, and Hatfield saw that Orlick was headed for the river.

As Hatfield divined Orlick's intentions, a savage joy stirred within him and mitigated the torture of a shattered arm and other bodily wounds. He knew that if Orlick attempted to ford that swift, roaring river that he (Hatfield) would get the shot for which he thirsted and, as he spurred his horse after Orlick and felt his strength fast failing him, he fought this weakness off with a mighty will, buoyed up with the thought of how he would at last take toll from this traitor for his part in the killing of old Captain Lutts.

As Johnse flew along, he saw the gray disappear down the river bank. The next minute he was surprised to see the horse plunging back up into sight. Then the horse pivoted and went down again. Then back up the bank he lunged a second time, and Hatfield could hear Orlick cursing the animal, and he knew that for some reason the horse had balked and would not take to the water.

A shock of delight instilled new strength into Hatfield, whose blood had been ebbing away for the past three-quarters of an hour. At this particular spot on the river bank there were no trees, and the rim of the river was dest.i.tute of rocks sufficiently large to offer protection for a man's form. But, standing back from the road and some four hundred feet distant from the river bank, there was a deserted old shack with sagging porch and dismantled windows. And just outside the broken picket fence at the near corner of the yard there stood a huge chestnut tree with a thick body.

While Orlick was wrangling with his refractory horse, his actions made it plain to Hatfield that he had marked that tree. Then, evidently despairing of controlling the stubborn animal, he slid to the ground, obviously bent upon making the shelter of the chestnut. Hatfield now bore down upon him, swerving to the right of the road to thwart Orlick's attempt to reach the tree. Whereupon Orlick ran back and along the bank, and dropped in the high weeds.

Hatfield, weak and totally exhausted from pain and loss of blood, now stopped his horse and fell out of the saddle. He gripped his Colt and tottered toward the spot where he had last seen Orlick, but he knew that Orlick would not be on that exact spot. He knew that the man was bellying away like a snake through the gra.s.s somewhere. Knowing that he would not last much longer, and desperate in his eagerness to flush Orlick, he stumbled recklessly about through high weeds with his gun out before him and his eyes darting here and there.

Suddenly Orlick jumped up fifty feet to the right in the direction of the chestnut tree and fired. Hatfield also fired at the same time. The two reports seemed to consolidate and make a single echo that quivered across the river. Hatfield pulled the trigger again, but it only clicked emptily and did not respond. Orlick was still upright, but motionless.

Hatfield wondered why he did not shoot. Orlick's shot had struck him in the arm that already hung useless and limp at his side. He stood watching him curiously. Then he saw Orlick thrust his gun in its holster and sit down on the ground, as if to rest. He held this position for several seconds--then lay back slowly, flat on his back.

Hatfield suspected Orlick of treachery and hastily proceeded to break his gun with his good hand. This he contrived to do, and while he was fumbling for cartridges, of which he had a countless number, a blinding faintness seized him and, thinking that he was falling backward into the river, he threw up his good arm suddenly to catch his balance. The gun flew out of his grasp and rolled down the embankment.

The next instant he fell forward and lay still on his face in the weeds.

CHAPTER XIX

HATFIELD OVERTAKES THE TRAITOR

By and by, Hatfield opened his eyes to find that his horse was nosing his face with his warm, rough lips as if bent on waking him up. Johnse lifted his aching eyes toward the moon. He calculated that he had lain there fully an hour or more. His left arm held him in an agony of torture. His whole body was racked with shooting pains traversing from his head down and back again. His smiling lips were now cracked and bloodless. Gladly he would have exchanged the life left in him for a cup of water. All the events of this night filtered back into his consciousness. He felt instinctively for his guns; then recalled what had become of them.

Remembering where he had seen Orlick lie down in the weeds, he wondered if he was still there. Impelled by a consuming curiosity to know what had become of this hated enemy, he struggled up and, dragging his dead, limp arm along, he hobbled on his knees and one hand toward the chestnut trees. At the end of a few tortuous minutes, which seemed hours of suffering, he saw the bottom of Orlick's feet.

Orlick must have heard this ominous, heavy breathing, for suddenly he raised on his elbow and looked.

"Aw--h.e.l.l!" gasped Hatfield. "I 'lowed yo' wus daid--yo' wild hawg."

His voice carried a volume of reproach and disgust.

"Where yo'-all bin--hain't I got ez much right to c.u.m back ez yo' hev?"

snarled his weak, wounded foe.

"Naw, yo' hain't--yo' hain't never had no right on earth," growled Hatfield in tones that dwindled feebly to a malevolent hiss. "Traitors like yo' hain't hardly fittin' fo' h.e.l.l--yo he'pt kill Cap Lutts, didn't yo'--eh?--didn't yo'--eh? An' yo' he'pt kill Mart Harper, didn't yo'--eh? An' yo' spied fer Sap and them fellers thet kilt Don Perry, didn't yo'--eh? An' thet hain't all, yo' bin a traitin' up Moonway fo'

five year--I'm goin' t' finish yo' now--I'll finish yo'--jest wait til I git my breath an' I'll settle yo', shor'n h.e.l.l."

Hatfield's head dropped down in the gra.s.s and he lay panting.

Orlick then struggled to his knees, impelled by some cryptic terror that imparted to him a measure of astounding vitality, and crawled away toward the deserted shack like a turtle. Hatfield, determined not to lose sight of him, crawled along tenaciously ten feet in the rear.

The ground under the chestnut tree and along the picket fence of the old shack had been stamped and worn bare by roving stock. When Orlick reached this bare spot, he tumbled flat and inert. In a few minutes more Hatfield came up, spent and heaving and unable to go another foot. He fell p.r.o.ne with his good arm stretched out and his clutching fingers within twelve inches of Orlick's throat. Orlick's body was in the shadow of the chestnut tree, but his head and neck were plainly visible in the moonlight. He turned his face and looked wearily at the impotent hand that was reaching for him--then his dull eyes followed the arm down to the dark visage with its smiling marble-white lips, and he wagged his head indifferently. Hatfield spoke again between teeth that gritted down upon the agony of his wounds:

"Coward--what yo' a runnin' fo'?"

He got no response.

"Wait 'til I rest a minute, an' I'll finish yo', sh.o.r.e--leastways, I plugged yo' gud--eh?"

Orlick's bloodless lips moved now.

"Yo' don't look so d.a.m.n peert," he groaned back.

"Yo' didn't do hit--by Gad--yo' hit me in th' arm, an' hit was already busted--ha!--ha!--I didn't feel what yo' done," Hatfield laughed weakly, but derisively. "Leastways, yo' won't be a traitin' up in Moon again so soon. I plugged yo' gud, eh?" he ended jeeringly, venting a sound that in health would have mounted to a loud laugh, but which was only a faint gurgle in his throat.

"An' yo' 'lowed yo'd git Belle-Ann, eh? Yo' mouse-dog--yo' 'lowed Belle-Ann 'ud parley with sich as yo'--eh? Ef I wusn't so tired I'd laugh 'til I'd bust--say, skunk--yo' 'lowed I didn't know--but I knowed all 'long--I had my eye on yo'--yo' karnsarned wild hawg. I was a watchin' yo'--say--yo' 'member when yo' grabbed Belle-Ann in th' yard thet time--I was ahind th' corn crib, an' I hed a bead on yo'--I'd a kilt yo' then pint-blank ef Belle-Ann hadn't bin so clost--I started after yo', an' when yo' let her loose I got ahind the wagon-bed an'

waited. Say--Belle-Ann give yo' the run, didn't she--eh? Didn't she run yo'--eh? Say, louse--Belle-Ann wouldn't spit on yo', she wouldn't--not her. Did she run yo'--eh? Gawd'll Moughty!--I wish I could laugh gud an'

plenty--I'm aimin' to finish yo' in a minute--when I rest--then yo'

he'pt kill her pap--an' I reckon yo' he'pt kill Lem--eh?"

Orlick now seemed to be beyond all fear of the hand with its menacing fingers that wriggled toward him, and the malicious dying face below. A half grin touched Orlick's pallid lips and curled into the symbol of a pleasing memory as he said:

"I--I--'low--peaches'll be 'round--'fore Lem air----"