When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry Part 18

"So long es _you_ stays, I stays, too. I don't aim ter run away."

The crowd was edging in, not swiftly but sullenly and there were faces through whose snarls showed such yellow fangs as suggested a wolf pack.

Here and there one could see the flash of a drawn pistol or the glint of a "dirk-knife."

Then, coming reluctantly, yet keyed to his hard duty by the consciousness of Kinnard Towers' scrutiny, Jud White, the town marshal, arrived and laid a hand on Bear Cat's shoulder.

"I reckon," he said, licking his lips, "ye'll hev ter come ter ther jail-house with me, Bear Cat."

"What fer, Jud?" inquired Turner quietly, though the tawny fire was burning in his eyes. "I didn't shoot them shoots."

"Folks ses ye did, Bear Cat."

"Them folks lies."

A sudden crescendo of violent outcry interrupted their debate. Through it came shouts of: "Kill ther blasphemer!" "String him up!"

With a sudden flash of sardonic humor in his eyes Bear Cat suggested softly: "I reckon, Jud, hit's yore duty ter kinderly protect yore prisoner, hain't hit?"

A cold sweat broke out over the face of the town officer and as he stood irresolute, the crowd, in which mob pa.s.sion was spreading like flames in dry gra.s.s, swayed in a brief indicision--and in that moment Brother Fulkerson stood forward, raising his arms above his head.

"Brethren," he cried in a voice that trembled, "I implores ye ter listen ter me. I hain't never lied ter ye afore now, an' unless my labors hev been fer naught, I des'arves ter be h'arkened to."

Curiosity prevailed and the din subsided enough to let the evangelist be heard.

"I was standin' right hyar by Bear Cat Stacy when them shots war fired," Fulkerson went on earnestly, "an' I swears ter ye, with Almighty G.o.d fer my witness, thet he didn't hev nothin' more ter do with hit then what I did."

As he paused a sarcastic voice from the crowd demanded: "Will ye swear he didn't aim ter break up ther meetin' neither?"

"Let me answer that question," shouted Bear Cat Stacy, stepping defiantly forward.

There was peril in that interruption, and the young man knew it. He realized that only a savage, cat-and-mouse spirit of prolonging excitement had, so far, held in leash the strained wrath of a crowd worked already to frenzy. But the mountaineer loves oratory of any sort, and a lynching need not be hurried through. They would have listened to Brother Fulkerson--but would they give _him_ a hearing?

For a moment Bear Cat stood there, sweeping them with a gaze that held no fear and a great deal of open scorn. The effrontery of his att.i.tude, the blaze of his eyes and even the rumors of his charmed life were having their effects. Then he spoke:

"Any man thet charges me with blasphemin' lies! Brother Fulkerson hes done toiled his life away amongst ye--an' ye skeercely heeds his preachin'. I believes these fellers thet calls themselves G.o.d's sarvents ter be false prophets. Instid of the light of knowledge, they offers ye ther smoke of ign'rance. They hev 'lowed thet they kin work miracles. Ef they kin, why don't they? Ef they kain't they lies an'

sich a lie as thet air blasphemy. I called on 'em ter make good thar brag--an' now I calls on 'em ergin! Let's see a miracle."

He ended and, as the voice of the crowd rose once more, this time a shade less unanimous in tone, a strange thing happened. About Bear Cat Stacy and the town marshal appeared a little knot of rifle-armed men, and coming to their front, Kinnard Towers bellowed:

"Men! Listen!"

They looked at his face and his guns--and listened.

"I was standin' whar I could see this whole matter," a.s.serted Towers.

"Bear Cat Stacy never drawed nor fired no weepin. My friend Tom Carmichael shot Ratler Webb in _dee_fense of his life. Ratler shot a shoot, too. I counsels ther town marshal not ter jail Bear Cat Stacy, an' I counsels ther rest of ye ter settle down ergin ter quiet. Mebby Bear Cat oughtn't ter hev interrupted ther preachin', but whoever aims ter harm him must needs take him away from me!"

Over the sea of faces ran a wave of amazement sounding out in a prolonged murmur. Here was the incredible situation of a Towers leader vouching for and protecting a Stacy chieftain. Feudal blood tingled with the drama of that realization.

Varied excitements were breaking the drab monotony of life to-day for Marlin Town! A voice shouted, "I reckon Ratler needs a leetle shootin'

anyhow," and the sally was greeted with laughter. The tide had turned.

On Bear Cat's face, though, as he wheeled to his powerful rescuer was a mingling of emotions; surprise blended with a frown of unwillingly incurred obligation.

"I'm obleeged ter ye, Kinnard Towers," he said dubiously, "but I reckon I could hev keered fer myself. I hain't seekin' ter be beholden ter ye."

The florid man laughed. "Ye hain't none beholden ter me, son," was his hearty disclaimer. "A man likes ter testify ter ther truth when he sees somebody falsely accused, thet's all."

Brother Fulkerson and his daughter started back to Little Slippery that same evening, meaning to spend the night with friends a few miles from town. After bidding them farewell at the edge of the town, Henderson and Bear Cat strolled back together toward the shack tavern where Jerry had his quarters. The younger man's eyes were brooding, and suddenly he broke out in vehement insurgency:

"I reckon I was a fool down thar by ther river--but I couldn't hold my peace deespite all my effort. Hyar's a land dry-rottin' away in ign'rance--an' no man raisin' his voice fer its real betterment." His tone dropped and became gentle with an undernote of pain. "I looked at Blossom, standin' thar, with a right ter ther best thar is--an' I could foresee ther misery an' tribulation of all this makin' her old in a few years. I jest had ter speak out."

Henderson only nodded. He, too, had been thinking of Blossom, and he realized that wherever he went, when he left the hills, there was going to be an emptiness in his life. He was not going to be able to forget her. The s.h.i.+eld which he had always held before his heart had failed to protect him against the dancing eyes of a girl who could not even speak correct English--the tilted chin of a girl who would not flee from a mob.

"Turner," he said, drawing himself together with an effort, "come over to the hotel with me. I'm going down to Louisville for a few days, and I want you to help me make out a list of books for Blossom and yourself."

Turner's eyes lighted. One man at least sought to be, in so far as he could, a torch-bearer.

As they sat talking of t.i.tles and authors the boy's face softened and glowed with imagination. Off through the window the peaks bulked loftily against the sunset's ash-of-rose. Both men looked toward the west and a silence fell between them, then they heard hurried footsteps and, without knocking, Jud White the town marshal, flung open the door.

"Bear Cat," he announced briefly, "yore paw bade me fotch ye ter him direct. The revenue hes got him in ther jail-house, charged with blockadin'."

CHAPTER XI

Under the impact of these tidings Turner Stacy came to his feet with a sudden transformation of bearing. The poetic abstraction which had, a moment ago, been a facial mirror for the sunset mysticism, vanished to be harshly usurped by a spirit of sinister wrath.

For several seconds he did not speak, but stood statuesquely taut and strained, the line of his lips straight and unbending over the angle of a set jaw.

The yellow glow of the sinking sun seemed to light him as he stood by the window into a ruddy kins.h.i.+p with bronze, awakening a glint of metallic hardness on cheekbone, temple and dilated nostril. It was the menacing figure of a man whose ancestors had always settled their own scores in private reprisal and by undiscounted tally, and one just now forgetful of all save his heritage of blood.

Then the strained posture relaxed and Bear Cat Stacy inquired in a tone of dead and impersonal calm:

"Mr. Henderson, hev ye got a gun?"

As Jerry shook his head, Bear Cat wheeled abruptly on Jud White: "Lend me yore weepin, Jud," he demanded with a manner of overbearing peremptoriness.

"I'd love ter obleege ye, Bear Cat," haltingly parried the officer, "but I kain't hardly do hit--lawfully."

Volcanic fires burst instantly in the eyes where they had been smoldering, until from them seemed to spurt an outpouring of flame and the voice of command was as explosive as the rending thunders that release a flow of molten lava.

"Don't balk me, Jud," Stacy cautioned. "I'm in dire haste. Air ye goin'

ter loan me thet gun of yore own free will or hev I got ter take hit offen ye?"

The town marshal glanced backward toward the exit, but with leopard swiftness Bear Cat was at the door, barring it with the weight of his body, and his breath was coming with deep intake of pa.s.sion. After an irresolute moment, White surrendered his automatic pistol.