Westerfelt Part 17

"All right. Plenty o' room." Westerfelt came down-stairs just as Washburn opened the big doors.

"h.e.l.lo!" said the revenue officer who had addressed him on the mountain; "you see we made quick time; we found 'em right whar you left 'em."

"I see."

Washburn, who was under the skirt of a saddle unbuckling a girth, glanced at Westerfelt in surprise as he lifted the saddle from the horse and carried it into the stable. The two moonshiners exchanged quick glances and sullenly muttered something to each other.

Westerfelt, intent on getting the business over that he might go to bed, failed to observe these proceedings. When the officers had taken their prisoners on towards the jail, Washburn, who, with a lantern, was putting the horses into stalls, turned to Westerfelt.

"My Lord! Mr. Westerfelt," he said, "I hope you didn't give them fellers away."

"Never dreamt of such a thing. What do you mean?"

"I 'lowed you had by what that feller said just now."

"What did he say?"

"Why, he said they'd ketched the men right whar you left 'em, an'--"

"Well, what of that?" Westerfelt spoke impatiently. "I did pa.s.s the whiskey wagon. The revenue men asked me if I'd seen them, and I simply refused to answer. They didn't get anything out of me."

"That's just what I'd 'a' done, but I wish you'd 'a' set yorese'f right jest now, fer them fellers certainly think you give 'em away, an'

they'll tell the gang about it."

"Well, I didn't, so what does it matter?"

Washburn took out the bowl of his lantern and extinguished the light as they entered the office.

"It makes a man mighty unpopular in the Cohutta Valley to interfere with the moonshiners," he answered. "Whiskey-makin' is agin the law, but many a family gits its livin' out o' the stuff, an' a few good citizens keep the'r eyes shet to it. You see, Mr. Westerfelt, the gang may be a little down on you anyway sence your difficulty with Wambush.

Did you know that he wus a sort of a ring-leader amongst 'em?"

"Yes."

"Well, you mark my word, that feller'd swear his chances of heaven away to turn them mount'in men agin you."

"Most of them are good-hearted fellows" replied Westerfelt. "They won't harm me."

Washburn sat down on his bed, pulled off his shoes, and dropped them on the puncheon floor.

"But he's got the'r ear, an' you hain't, Mr. Westerfelt. He'd grab at a chance like this an' you'd never be able to disprove anything.

Toot's got some unprincipled friends that 'ud go any length to help him in rascality."

The next morning before the revenue men had left with their prisoners and the confiscated whiskey for the town where the trial before an inspector was to take place, a number of mountaineers had gathered in the village. They stood about the streets in mysterious groups and spoke in undertones, and now and then a man would go to the jail window and confer with the prisoners through the bars. Several men had been summoned to attend the trial as witnesses, and others went out of curiosity or friendship for the accused.

That evening, as John Westerfelt was pa.s.sing through the hall of the hotel to the dining-room, he met Harriet Floyd. She started when she saw him, and he thought she acted as if she wanted to speak to him, but just then some other boarders entered, and she turned from him abruptly. She sat opposite him at the table a few moments later, but she did not look in his direction.

On his return to the stable after supper, Washburn gave him a letter.

He recognized Sue Dawson's handwriting on the envelope.

"Is it a order?" asked Washburn, thinking it concerned the business.

"No, no; from a--a friend." Westerfelt lighted a candle at the wick of Washburn's lantern and went up to his room. He put the candle on a little table and sat down by it.

"I'll never read another line from that woman," he said. "I can't.

She'll run me crazy! I've suffered enough."

He threw the letter unopened on the table, and clasped his hands over his knee and sat motionless for several minutes. Then he picked up the letter and held one corner of it in the candle-flame. It ignited, and the blue blaze began to spread over the envelope. Suddenly he blew it out and tore the letter open. The margin of the paper was charred, but the contents were intact. It ran:

"JOHN WESTERFELT,--I heard you Come Nigh meeting yore Death. The Lord let you live to make you Suffer. The worst pain is not in the body But in the Soul. You will likely live a long time and never git over yore guilty suffering. The Report has gone out that some gal over thar tuk care of you while you wus down in Bed. Well, it would be jest like you to try yore skill on her. G.o.d Help her. I dont know her, nor nothin about her, but she ort ter be warned. Ef she loved you with all Her soul you would pick a Flaw somehow. Mark my words. You will live to See Awful Shapes when n.o.body else does. Yore h.e.l.l Has begun. It will Go on for everlastin and everlastin.

"SUE DAWSON."

He put the letter into his pocket and went to the window and drew down the shade. Then he locked the door and placed the candle on the mantel-piece and stood an open book before it, so that his bed was in the shadow. He listened to hear if Washburn was moving below, then knelt by the bed and covered his face with his hands. He tried to pray, but could think of no words to express his desires. He had never been so sorely tried. Even if he could school himself to forgetting Harriet's old love and the act of deceitfulness into which her love had drawn her, could he ever escape Mrs. Dawson's persecutions? Would she not, even if he won and married Harriet, pursue and taunt him with the girl's old love, as she had Clem Dill? And how could he stand that--he, whose ideal of woman and woman's constancy had always been so high?

He rose, sat on the edge of the bed, and clasped his hands between his knees. The room was in darkness except the spot of light on the wall behind the book. Below he heard the horses crunching their corn and hay. He took from his pocket Sue Dawson's letters and the one from Sally and wrapped them in a piece of paper. Then he looked about for a place to hide them. In a corner overhead he saw a jutting rafter, and behind it a dark niche where the shingles sloped to the wall. It was too high for him to reach from the floor, so he placed the table beneath the spot, and, mounting it, pushed the packet tightly into the corner. Then he stepped down and removed the table, cautiously, that Washburn might not hear him, and sat on the bed again. He remained there motionless for twenty minutes. Suddenly a rat ran across the floor with a sc.r.a.p of paper in its mouth. He stared at the place where the rat had disappeared as if bewildered, then rose, placed the table back against the wall, secured the packet, and put it into his pocket.

Chapter XII

Westerfelt knew he could not sleep, and, seeing the moonlight shining through his window, he decided to take a walk. He went below.

Washburn sat in a little circle of candle-light mending a piece of harness.

"Has the hack come in yet?" asked Westerfelt, remembering that he had paid little attention to business that day.

"Yes," answered Washburn; "it's down at the store unloadin' the mail."

"I thought I heard it turn the corner. Any pa.s.sengers?"

"No; Buck said a family, one woman and five children, wus ready to start by the Cohutta road to Royleston, but the report about the Whitecaps t'other night skeerd 'em out of it, so they went by train to Wilks, an' through that way. This outlawin' will ruin the country ef it hain't stopped; n.o.body'll want to settle heer."

"I'll be back soon," said Westerfelt, and he went out.

The November air was dry and keen as he walked briskly towards the mountains. The road ran through groves of stunted persimmon and sa.s.safras bushes, across swift-bounding mountain streams, and under natural arbors of wild grapes and muscadine vines. In a few minutes Westerfelt reached the meeting-house on a little rise near the roadside.

It had never been painted, but age and the weather had given it the usual grayish color. Behind it, enclosed by a rail fence, was the graveyard. The mounds had sunk, the stones leaned earthward, and the decaying trellises had been pulled down by the vines which clambered over them.

It was a strange thing for Westerfelt to do, but, seeing the door open, he went into the church. Two windows on each side let in the moonlight. The benches were unpainted, and many of them had no backs.

Westerfelt stood before the little pulpit for a moment and then turned away. Outside, the road gleamed in the moonlight as it stretched on to the village. A glimpse of the graveyard through the window made him shudder. It reminded him of a grave he had never seen save in his mind. It was past midnight. He would go back to his bed, though he felt no inclination to sleep.

As he approached the stable, walking in the shadow of the trees on the side of the street, he saw a woman come out of the blacksmith's shop opposite the stable. For a moment she paused, her face raised towards the window of his room, and then retreated into the shop.

It was Harriet Floyd. He stepped behind a tree and watched the door of the shop. In a moment she reappeared and looked up towards his window again. He thought she might be waiting to see him, so he moved out into the moonlight and advanced towards her.

"Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed, excitedly. "I've been waiting to see you. I--I must tell you something, but it won't do to stand here; somebody will see us. Can't we?--come in the shop a minute."