"Ded yo' say yo'd hev a pinch o' breakfast, Buddy?" he invited.

"Sh.o.r.e," answered Buddy. "I didn't 'low I was so hungry--lemme he'p yo'

git th' snack, Johnse--I cud eat a bilt owl."

When the corn bread and the cane-mola.s.ses and the pork and black coffee were all on the table, the two sat down to the repast together, and Johnse proceeded to take Buddy into his confidence.

"Yo' hain't t' open yore haid, Buddy--nary a word, yo' heah?"

With his mouth full, Bud nodded understandingly. "Yo' seed thet feller whut went out o' heah? Thet's Plunkett--he's bin a spyin' down at th'

Junction fo' me, goin' on fo' months now. I brought em up from Hazard jest fo' thet purpose. I tol' em to git a job at Hank Eversole's store ef he hed to work fo' nothin'. Well--Eversole doddled along with em fo'

two weeks--then th' old sore-eyed dog offered Plunkett twenty dollars a month an' Plunkett tuk hit, yo' bet--he'd a tuk ten dollars, 'cause I bin a payin' em twenty-five a month out o' my proceeds from thes works, Buddy. I'm a goin' t' tell yo' all frum th' start, an' 'fore I finish yo'll be surprised. Yo' see, Bud--I alers knowed thet some skunk traitor led th' revenure on to yore pap, an' I alers hed a mind who hit wus, but I never said nothin'. I wus so sh.o.r.e I wus right thet three times I hed my gun on em--then somethin' told me maybe I wus mistaken--an' I let em go--but I learnt this mornin' thet I'm right----"

Buddy gulped, dropped his tin cup of coffee, and strained forward over the table.

"Who--who, Johnse--who?" he blurted, straining his ears as though a river separated him from the answer.

"Jest yo' set down an' eat yo' meal--yo' jest wait til I git to thet--I'm aimin' t' tell hit all as. .h.i.t comes along--eat yo'

breakfast'--I learnt thes mornin' thet I wus right," Johnse went on evenly. "Thet was Plunkett heah thes mornin'--I saved his life down at Hazard one night ten years ago, an' Plunkett 'ud take a message to h.e.l.l fo' me an' git an answer--besides, I pay em--an' I don't want yo' to shoot em--he air apt to slip up here any time now, day or night--I give em the countersign and to' th' men to let em up--an' I want yo' to look sharp 'fore yo' go t' pullin'--yo' mought slide th' pork thes way, Buddy. Plunkett air worth all I pay em, an' more too--an' I'd starve myse'f fo' ten years jes t' git th' information he's brung me."

Buddy had suspended eating, and, conscious that he dare not interrupt Hatfield now, he sat tight-lipped and listened like an image, with one hand gripping the other and holding it down under the table.

Johnse proceeded with his recital with a deliberation that grated insufferably on the boy's nerves and made him shiver with impatience and excitement.

"Maybe yo' rec'lect Buddy, when Don Perry wus laywayed on Pigeon Creek two months arter yo' pap wus kilt? Sap McGill an' Pete an' Stump Allen done thet job. An' now we c.u.m t' th' main louse, Buddy. It was Jutt Orlick that led th' revenure t' th' church when yo' dad wus kilt, an'

last night down at th' Junction, jest as Mart Harper started home, Sap McGill stepped out o' old Eversole's store an' Jutt Orlick out o' th'

blacksmith shop opposite an' fired on Mart an' kilt him 'fore he could wink two eyes. An' down at old Eversole's Post-office ther's a pa.s.sell of letters writ to Lem--old Eversole an' Sap an' Orlick tore th' letters open an' read 'em, an' Orlick hid 'em in th' store. Thet's bin mor'n three months ago. Plunkett learned that fo' sho', but hain't never heard one word 'bout Lem. Maybe McGill didn't git Lem, maybe Orlick done hit--but we'll charge 'em with hit, anyway; besides, hits more'n time to collect fo' their other divilment. Now yo' jest keep yo' haid shut--don't even peep, Buddy, 'cause ef th' men heer all thes news they won't wait--they'll bust out an' spile my plans. Jest keep quiet an'

leave hit t' me, an' Mistah Hatfield 'll show yo', Buddy, whut c.u.ms o'

laywayers an' traitors--an' yo'll hev a chanct t' see with yore own eyes how sich sinners crowds up t' git their crimes washed away with their own blood. I never kilt a man in my life lessen hit wus t' save my own life er some tuther body's life--I kilt 'em a fighten'--I never laywayed--thet's 'bout all I got t' say on th' subject--d.a.m.n nigh enough, hain't hit?"

Johnse pushed his tin plate away, settled back and wiped his mouth on the corner of a blue handkerchief he had knotted around his neck. He lifted his eyes to Buddy's chair, but the boy had left the table. Johnse looked around and beheld a solemn pantomime that he well understood and which he did not interrupt. Buddy had slipped noiselessly into the adjoining room, where he occupied the center of the floor. He stood there swaying, his lips moving mutely, and his two invoking hands lifted upward.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MURDER PARTNERS

A bird's-eye view of Junction City would inspire even a jaded wayfarer to continue on and forfeit what measure of scruffy, uncouth hospitality its lazy, primitive confines might hold for him. On high, it looked, physically, like a monstrous spoiled egg, dropped from a great height, and halted in its desolation and turned back by a narrow, swift river that wrapped itself half around the town like a horseshoe. Its ill complexion was clay-yellow, and its adornments were pitted and streaked with a somber, sickly, worm-eaten gray. The very atmosphere that permeated this hole between the hills was at once forbidding, repellent and sinister. And up from the mad throat of the river, choked against the boulders in mid-stream, there issued a warning which never died.

From eminences of the hills that crowded this town into a mere ragged plot, the most prominent inst.i.tutions observable were the Courthouse and the graveyard, with the second look favoring the latter.

One marvelled at the population of this habitat of the dead, sprawling on the side of a hill. Their countless pale hands thrust up out of the ground, seemed to have frightened the river, for here it turned sharply and dodged away between the mountains.

The Courthouse was in the upper end of the town. It was framed and roofed with clapboards. In front, a crude attempt of hypostyle was visible in the two huge pillars of poplar logs that supported a balcony.

The structure bellied out at the sides and oddly, at each corner of the roof, two mansard windows projected like ears, while above all a pigmy dome arose covered with unpainted tin. Withal, from afar the Courthouse looked like a decrepit bull dog squatting amidst a scattered litter of pups. The dome of this temple of justice looked up askew at the sun with the bluish-yellow glaze of a blind eye.

Topographically, young Sap McGill and old Hank Eversole owned this town.

Morally and spiritually they were paupers, and their souls were as pitted and yellow and gray as the town looked to be. Moreover, the McGills "said" they owned five thousand acres in the Southpaw range ab.u.t.ting h.e.l.lsfork, where they lived. Their verbal deed to these acres was sustained by a cavalcade of rifle men and a squad of wary, creeping bush-whackers.

Old McGill and old Eversole had fought the Lutts faction for twenty years, but old Lutts had ever proved a most formidable antagonist, and when he brought the fearful Johnse Hatfield up to Moon mountain as aide, there was both renewed caution and consternation in the McGill camp.

Then, when old Cap Lutts finally killed the elder Sap McGill on h.e.l.lsfork, one Sunday morning, they foresaw an eclipse that would bedim their day of power and their impotent chagrin and rage was unbounded.

Where his father had left off, young Sap then took up the feud with a re-enforced vengeance.

Then one day when the tidings came down to Junction City that the old King of Moon mountain had been killed by a revenuer, the exultation of the McGill faction was unconfined. Following closely upon this, a traitor sneaked down from h.e.l.lsfork and whispered to old Eversole the news of the arrest and spiriting away of Lem Lutts. The accrued glee of Eversole and young Sap with this opportune turn of affairs reached a stage that demanded expression. Wherefore, they celebrated with a public barbecue on the Courthouse lawn, and great rejoicing was mingled with sanguine prophecies, and the drunker Sap became the louder his avowals to annihilate the Lutts faction.

Eversole and young Sap plotted, then, to waylay Lem Lutts as soon as he was released from prison, and during the interval they killed three of the Lutts' sympathizers, and took Jutt Orlick into the fold. But throughout this apparent upperhand in the war, Sap and Eversole had an apprehension that grew day by day, and of which they exchanged serious comments.

The very silence of Hatfield, the man who now marshalled the Lutts faction, was significant and alarming. If old Cap Lutts' war-name was an awesome enunciation, the name of Johnse Hatfield was equally fearful.

His name was scoffed at in public, but secretly he was a haunting bugbear to these murder partners.

In one respect, Hatfield was unlike old Cap Lutts. Lutts would fight so long as the enemy was in sight and then quit. All the old man wanted was to be left alone and unmolested. But not so with this Hatfield. He had the reputation of following his enemy up, and he did it with a confidence and deliberation that was little short of uncanny. He had been literally shot to pieces in other family wars, but always survived and always followed. It was the shadow of this relentless Nemesis that filled Sap and Eversole with a nervous unrest. These two conspirators not only owned practically all the realty in Junction City, but they, moreover, owned and controlled the Judge of the Court, the County prosecutor, and the Sheriff, and through Sap McGill old Eversole was the dictator supreme in Junction City.

He was postmaster and the post-office occupied one corner of his merchandise store. In the event that any citizen appeared lax or half-hearted in his partisanship, Eversole would accost him with a leering, soft-spoken reminder, which mild pet.i.tion pounded more like the pungent echo of a gun-crack than a voice, and the delinquent always heeded.

In a sense, old Hank Eversole was a philanthropist of no mean generosity. Anybody could get a tombstone out of old Hank. These ornaments were a sort of hobby of his. If the deceased's relatives could not pay cash, he procured one and took a mortgage on the stone. If they rejected all overtures on the pay plan, he furnished one and placed it at his own expense, and gave it gratis. He maintained that plain boards were a disgrace to a well-ordered graveyard, and not meant for Junction City.

It was the second Tuesday in May, and the sun shone brightly and the air was scented with the mingled odors of spring. Junction City had taken on a sudden new life. The May term of circuit court was in session and the activity and life astir here was more animated than that which attended a court term for many a year, for the reason that there was a murder trial in progress.

In this festering crime-stained town, where hired a.s.sa.s.sination brewed under contract by day, and was returnable at night with its toll of blood, a murder was not a sensational episode, but a real murder trial was. Here the chief conspirators, who had made the Judge and the Prosecutor and the Sheriff, had the law by the throat; and they dumped the offal of their deeds into subservient arms of the law, and burdened and shackled it with collusions it dare not drop. Wherefore, the law winked and connived with these murder lords in brazen malfeasance inflicted upon the commonwealth, and trials a.s.sumed all the aspects of a hurried laugh-provoking comedy, despite the grim fact that its elements involved human life. The swearing out of warrants had long since fallen obsolete. In times past, charges had been made and warrants issued, but when the day of trial arrived, there were no witnesses at hand, and the prosecuting witness was usually the farthest distant.

Thus, it transpired that the trial which opened the circuit court at Junction City on this May day was to the denizens a memorable one.

Although the trial itself, which was never finished, was not a factor in what followed, still, this trial was remembered as having opened a day that ended with a scrambled, tragic event which ground the McGill-Eversole combination to a pulp, and marked an era of new political and social ethics in Junction City.

Three months since a young German named Daum, and hailing from below, made his optimistic appearance in the town. After alighting upon a four-room shack that seemingly suited his wife, he cast about to locate the landlord. As there was only one landlord in Junction City, Daum found his way into old Hank Eversole's store. Daum was even more than loquacious--he was effervescent, and in no time old Hank had pumped him dry. Daum claimed that he would receive ten thousand dollars from Germany six months hence,--that he wished to fish and hunt and live as cheaply as possible until his money arrived.

Old Eversole finally decided that the newcomer was simply a harmless, dumb Dutchman, and before Daum left the store, old Hank had given him a receipt for six months' rent paid in advance. The German paid cash for his groceries at Eversole's store, and hunted and fished to his heart's content, while his young, round-faced wife made baby clothes on the porch.

Withal, Daum was not an undesirable citizen until the end of the first month, when apparently tiring of fishing and looking at the hills and in response to his native thrift, he took to himself a quick notion to make some money. A week after this economic inspiration the energetic German had converted the front room of his shack into a general store.

Notwithstanding that the display he scattered on his porch was a melancholy exhibit compared to that of old Eversole, it was sufficiently compet.i.tive to lead old Hank's footsteps directly to Daum's establishment. Old Eversole was not as irate as his temperament might suggest. He was, in truth, stirred with a deep amus.e.m.e.nt as he wended his way Daumward and pictured how this presuming German would leave the town in haste after this first interview.

When Daum understood the purport of this un-neighborly call, he explained that he had never intended to remain in Junction City a day after he obtained his money from Germany, but protested that, insomuch as he had paid his rent for six months and being in a free land, he would do business until that time.

The interview opened mildly enough, but ended with a mandate from old Hank, commanding Daum to close up his store within the limit of six hours. Whereupon Daum grew very angry, and as old Eversole swaggered out, Daum hurled his determination and sentiments after old Hank in a few wrathful, terse words.

"Mit you I vont nuddings--I standt py mine piziness--to h.e.l.l mit you also--ulch!"

At daybreak the following morning Daum's wife was in her garden with a sprinkling can when she espied one Steve Barlow, a loafer around Eversole's store, sneaking out of her woodshed and slipping away along the picket fence hemming the potato patch. She pondered curiously upon the man's actions and, her suspicions giving way to fear, she returned to the house, but Daum had already gone after his usual morning fry of fish. The wife, then impelled by an apprehension that grew momentarily, followed after him; and found her husband stark dead at the end of the street.

After the burial, the widow departed from Junction City, fully bent upon devoting her forthcoming estate to the trailing down of her husband's slayer. The day she left old Eversole sent word by Plunkett, his "clerk," that he would erect a tombstone for her husband, and that she could pay for it later or not, just as she chose. Ten days later, the widow Daum appeared in Junction City accompanied by a lawyer named Logan. Logan was a man with a state-wide reputation as a criminal pract.i.tioner, and old Hank Eversole p.r.i.c.ked up both his ears.

Logan proceeded to the Sheriff's office with his client and swore a warrant for Steve Barlow. The warrant was issued with reluctance; the entire court personnel being loud in their defense of Barlow. But there was a grim directness and aggression about this Blue-gra.s.s lawyer, that with his inconceivable temerity and a reputation which awed even their callow senses, they pretended at last to agree to catch and try Barlow.

Logan visited the Courthouse the next day and found the Eversole-McGill faction had done just what he thought they would do, and precisely what he wanted them to do. Logan's youth had been spent in the hills, and he knew the proclivities of these mountain men. They had hedged Barlow with a formidable and insurmountable alibi.

Logan then made a concession, and stated that while he meant to try the case, he would suggest that Barlow, if he be apprehended, be admitted to bail. He said that he realized that this procedure was a trifle irregular in such cases, but that if the townspeople were so morally certain that the alibi would stand, he did not wish to impose the hardship of several weeks in jail upon the defendant.