The Red Debt Part 24

This amazing insult threw Johnse into a fit of rage. He mumbled curses, but could not budge. The fingers within a foot of Orlick's neck worked convulsively and rigorously. A siege of coughing choked his maledictions and blood issued from his mouth. His fingers clawed into the soil and closed and, with a mighty effort, he tossed the dirt into Orlick's face.

Presently he again found breath and words.

"I'm a c.u.mmin' after yo' now--now, I'm a c.u.mmin'--I'll guzzle yo'

now----" but he did not move.

"Why don't yo' shoot?" inquired Orlick, with no show of concern.

"Why don't yo' shoot--skunk--coward?" wheezed Hatfield through clinched teeth.

"Lend me a cart'age an' I'll sh.o.r.e 'commodate yo'," returned Orlick.

"Yo' shove thet gun down an' I'll sh.o.r.e help yo' 'long a pinch,"

suggested Johnse, struggling vainly to drag his body just a foot that his hand might close upon Orlick's throat.

The facilities for wreaking final vengeance upon each other was a disjunctive irony divided equally between them. Neither had sufficient strength or vitality left for bodily combat, and Orlick possessed the gun, while Hatfield had the cartridges. Had fate favored one, at that instant, with the possession of both, he could not have possibly missed, with their faces less than four feet apart.

"Say--skunk--we'll draw fo' em both--heer me?" suggested Hatfield. "I got th' cart'ages--we'll draw--I know yore a traitor--but I got t' take a chanct on yo'--we'll draw--heer me? Ef I win, yo' shove me the gun--ef yo' win, I'll shove yo' a cart'age--d.a.m.n yo'--"

"d.a.m.n yo'--I'll take yo' up," agreed Orlick thickly.

While these two helpless belligerents lay in the moonlight, slowly bleeding to death and scowling at each other, Johnse, at length, laid his fingers on a twig which he broke into two parts, attended with infinite pain. Then where his hand lay he clawed up more dirt into a minute mound. Into this he stuck the long stick and beside it the short one. Then he pulled them out again and hissed a scathing reprimand at Orlick.

"Yore a lookin'--traitor----!"

Orlick slowly averted his face.

A brief silence ensued, broken only by the roar of the river and the wheezing of their breaths. Again Johnse stammered:

"Now draw--draw now, coward--take yore pick--heer me?--draw----"

Over in the road a roving hound squatted his gaunt shape, and lifting his muzzle up to the moon, howled long and piteously.

In the meantime Buddy Lutts had dodged along, avoiding the road until he reached a narrow plot of underbrush that separated him from the first row of frame houses. Here he lay and watched for a chance to proceed along the road. He could not see the road directly beneath him, but through an aperture he held a diagonal view of the highway for a distance of some fifty yards.

Like projections of a cinematograph, he saw the forms of men flitting past this moonlit gap, running toward town. But he could not distinguish the pursued from the pursuers. He also saw some horses gallop past with empty saddles. One of these derelicts stopped short, framed in the light of the gap, and turned to cropping at the roadside with reins dragging about his hoofs. Far behind him the noise of the conflict echoed back in desultory, straggling shots. These reports emanated also from a remote quarter of the tobacco field opposite where Buddy lay, and from the direction of the Courthouse.

The boy instinctively knew that the real battle was over; he knew that his people had crushed and annihilated the main body of the McGill forces in less than ten minutes, at the gate of the fated graveyard. He furthermore knew that the tail of this fight was backing toward the town, where it would quiver and stir, and would not die until sunrise.

It had dwindled down to a "bush-whacking" contest. It was now a nocturnal game of hide-and-seek, with death lurking in the shadows and behind every object that offered refuge.

As the boy lay concealed, watching and listening with his rifle beside him, his untaught soul was profoundly exercised with the triumph of this victory. In truth, he would have been almost happy had he not been a.s.sailed with a sudden, acute apprehension concerning Hatfield. He had seen Johnse's horse tear up the road after Orlick, but he had not, as yet, seen any signs of Hatfield's returning. At the rate the two were going, he deemed it time for Johnse to be on his way back.

Buddy debated as to whether he should continue on beneath the shadows of the trees which skirted the rear gardens and out-buildings of the frame houses just ahead. He was now deeply perturbed about Hatfield. After a minute's deliberation, he quickly arrived at a determination to face the dangers presented at every turn and push onward and look for Johnse.

With this quest firmly in mind, he reasoned that to pa.s.s behind the houses was, on that hand, taking a great risk. He knew that every house in Junction City was in darkness, barred and bolted, with shutters closed and blinds drawn, the inmates not daring so much as to peep out.

But he did not know what these back yards held for him.

In hours of strife, mountaineers can never be found in their houses with the women, but they are often found near their homes, hiding out.

Besides, Buddy knew that he could not mislead the sagacious senses of the ever-present hounds. Growing more anxious momentarily, he at length decided that it was less perilous to take the open road, where he could at least see around him, and rely upon the wayside shadows for protection.

To this end, the boy crept out of his concealment, making his way noiselessly down the slope through the brush tangle and saplings. He crept down to the corner of a house which had no enclosed front yard, and looked furtively up and down the street. The road was apparently clear now, save the vague outlines of a few wandering horses. Buddy slipped across the highway, to the vista of sable shadows that followed the rail fence and then, in a half-stooping posture, ran toward the main street as fast as his legs could propel him.

As he hastened along with his eyes furtively ahead, a sow jumped out from the thistles in a fence corner and gave Buddy an awful fright. He finally reached the Courthouse square, and hiding behind a wagon, cast his eyes around in every direction. The Courthouse doors and windows were open, and the building was plainly deserted. A sepulchral stillness pervaded the square, and there was no visible sign of the conflict which, the boy knew, was still smouldering, for the night wind still carried the m.u.f.fled sounds of rifle-shots from the South, and from the distant end of the street westward.

CHAPTER XX

IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY

Buddy knew that Hatfield would be compelled to return southward by the same route he had gone. But here the boy was confronted with the problem of the route Orlick had led his pursuer, when the two had reached the square. It was gravely essential that he decide quickly upon some action, for the boy realized fully that his life was in jeopardy every moment he lingered here in the midst of the enemy.

While he hoped vainly to catch sight of some of his own people, and appealed to his judgment to point out to him the direction Hatfield had taken, he suddenly discerned two men trotting down the middle of the road, running close together with rifles at ready position. Buddy fell down flat on the ground and watched through the spokes of the wagon wheels.

The men halted at Eversole's store, and looked up at the windows overhead. Then they whistled softly. Then they went around to the front of the store, and Buddy heard them knock several times on the closed door. Evidently getting no response, they turned about, and the next instant Buddy heard a loud, profane exclamation and saw them pulling something out of the horse-trough. At this distance, in the semi-darkness, Buddy could not distinguish what the object was they labored over, and did not then know it was the dead body of old Eversole.

As the boy was straining his eyes, now for the moment half forgetful of his perilous whereabouts, he was suddenly electrified by voices behind him. He shrank close to the ground, and casting a look in the rear, observed the forms of three men approaching along the South road. Now acutely alive to his danger, Buddy's eyes swept the shadows to the left, the only avenue open for retreat. His searching eyes lit upon a rockaway carriage, with the tongue propped up, standing at the roadside some two hundred feet distant. He crawfished cautiously toward this lone vehicle, dragging his rifle after him through the dust of the road. When the three men had advanced and were on a direct line ahead, bringing the wagon in between, and thereby screening him, the boy darted safely to the shadow of the carriage and peered out at the men, who now quickened their pace toward the two at the horse-trough.

Thinking that the carriage would afford a reasonably safe hiding place for the moment, Buddy decided to climb inside, where he could peep out at the five men in front of Eversole's store, and at the same time watch the highway for Johnse Hatfield. The boy knew that, if he could remain unseen long enough, it was only a question of time ere some of his own faction would come upon the scene, affording him protection and a.s.sistance in seeking Hatfield.

Now bent upon secreting himself inside the carriage until the way was clear, and, in the meantime, determine what was the most likely route Orlick had taken to escape Hatfield's vengeance, Buddy opened the carriage door, but fell back, amazed and startled, as the limp body of a dead man tumbled out upon him. Recovering quickly from this surprise, Buddy took a look at the face. The body lolled half out of the vehicle, one arm and the head hanging down between the wheels. Although the face was outward, it was at the same time downward past the step of the vehicle, and in this inverted position the boy could not have recognized his best friend in the wan moonlight.

He shot a swift look around him and across toward Eversole's store--then laying his rifle on the ground, he lifted the dead man's head up and scrutinized it closely. As Buddy had never known Steve Barlow, the face was strange to him, and he was in the act of easing his gruesome burden down, when soft sounds like m.u.f.fled footsteps startled him. They were close to him, seemingly coming from the opposite side of the carriage.

Without waiting an instant or even looking a second time, Buddy jerked his hands free, grabbed his gun, and made a headlong dive across the plank-walk and sprawled against the picket fence, at bay, but with gun pointed toward the carriage and ready to die fighting and take a toll for his own life.

His little heart beat wildly for the next few seconds. Affrighted, he had dropped his burden so suddenly that its weight had jerked the other arm outside, and now the inverted dead face swung to and fro, and gesticulated between the wheels in the moonlight. Then under and behind this grim pantomime, the boy could discern the vague outlines of legs in the dense shadow cast by the carriage.

Buddy did not court shots from the front, but he had always dreaded a shot in the back, and he knew that the McGills would show no quarter, not even to a boy, much less a Lutts boy. In reality, it was less than fifteen seconds that Buddy lay with finger in the trigger-guard, staring at that veiled, menacing shadow stirring near at hand, but it seemed very much longer to the boy. He could not endure the suspense, and just as he began to crawfish stealthily along the fence, a riderless, unshod horse stepped leisurely from the gloom and walked noiselessly through the thick dust.

Buddy heaved a long breath and leaned back against the fence. The horse was a light dun, with black mane and tail. He wore a saddle and the reins dragged. The animal stopped and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears in Buddy's direction, then strolled over in the Courthouse yard, champing his bit noisily, a preface which Buddy thought the horse had previously omitted with mischievous intent.

In an instant Buddy was all action. He slipped across to a tree and peered toward the store. The five men appeared to be carrying something, as nearly as Buddy could make out, into Eversole's side gate. Now was his time to leave this spot. Here he committed a very boyish and extremely indiscreet act. The dun horse stood idly by, waiting for some one to ride him. The empty saddle invited Buddy to mount, with an insistence that the boy could not resist, in the stress of the moment, and his earnest desire to get away quickly. The animal being unshod and the dust being dense, his chances of escape looked favorable, while the men were in Eversole's yard.

Without another moment's deliberation, Buddy succ.u.mbed to this sudden impulse. Wherefore, he pulled his gun strap over his head and thrust his arms through, making the weapon fit snugly at his back, and in a jiffy he was in the saddle.

He reached up to an overhanging bough and possessed himself of a keen switch and, wheeling the dun horse, was ready for a dash down the road.

As a precaution, he urged the horse up close into the shadow of the Courthouse to make sure the men had disappeared. The horse, eager to be away, was prancing now and rattling his bit noisily. As Buddy leaned out from the saddle, with his eyes fixed intently on the store, a shot echoed up from the distant river, and oddly enough, Buddy determined in that instant to take toward the river, instead of the north road. But in that same instant a disastrous thing happened which sent Buddy afoot down that river road faster than he had intended to go, and sorely worsted.

When he turned his head, a man was standing at the horse's head with a firm hold on the bridle. Without a word, the man led the horse out of the shadows into the moonlight. This man was hatless, and his head was swathed about with bandages, and his right arm was trussed up in a sling. When he lifted his face and scowled up at Buddy, a shiver traversed the boy's spine and made the perspiration start in his hair.

Buddy could not mistake. It was the evil, murderous visage of Sap McGill. The boy was in the hands of the enemy at last. The hand that held the rein also clutched a pistol. Dropping the rein, McGill pulled Buddy off the horse.

"So besides bein' a Lutts--yore a hoss thief t' boot, air ye?--well--by-d.a.m.n!"

Sap cursed Buddy eloquently and long. Buddy said not a word. He felt that his time had come. He only gazed fixedly at the ugly face over him, convulsed and working with pa.s.sion. McGill jerked the boy around and called out loudly toward the store:

"Hey--Stump--yo', Stump--c.u.m out!"