"Come up here, you-all!" he turned and shouted toward the gulf. He swung his lantern far out over the crevice. "Look at that," he said quietly.
"Thar"s whar yo" man got away from ye." He handed the lantern to Wade, and swung himself lightly down where Creed had fallen.
"Better let me go, Pap," said Wade, and Judith mutely stared after the old man as he disappeared into the dark.
For fifteen minutes or more the watchers on the cliff waited and trembled, straining ears and eyes. In that time they were joined by those from the foot of the bluff, all but Stribling, who, the boys said, had "gone on home." Then they heard sounds of clambering in the cleft, and the old man"s face appeared in the well of inky shadow, pale, the black eyes burning, the great black beard flowing backward to join the darkness behind him. Wade held his lantern high. It lit a circle of faces on which terror, anger, and distress wrought. Judith could scarcely look at her uncle, and a great trembling shook her limbs, so that she laid hold of a little sapling by which she stood, and closed her eyes.
"Well," said the old man on a falling note, and his voice sounded hollowly from the cleft, "well, I reckon this does settle it--whether Blatch is hurt or no. How many of ye was a-workin" in the still to-night?"
"I was," quavered Jim Cal; "me and Taylor Stribling and Buck Shalliday.
Blatch had left a run o" whiskey that had to be worked off, and when he didn"t come I turned in to "tend to it--why, Pap?"
"Ef Bonbright wanted to find out about the still he sh.o.r.e made it, that"s all," answered Jephthah. "Ye can see right into it from whar he went. Ef you-all boys wants to stay out o" the penitentiary I reckon Creed Bonbright"s got to leave the Turkey Tracks mighty sudden," and he swung himself heavily to the level of the cliff.
"That"s what I say," whispered Jim Cal, pasty pale and quivering. "We"ve got it to do."
Old Jephthah looked darkly upon his sons.
"Well, settle it amongst ye, how an" when. I"ll neither meddle nor make in this business. I don"t know how all o" this come about, nor what you-all an" Blatch Turrentine air up to. You"ve made an outsider o" me, an" an outsider I"ll stay. Ef ye won"t tell me the truth, don"t tell me no lies. Come on, gals."
He strode into the homeward trail, the four girls falling in behind his tall figure. Judith was sick with misery and uncertainty; the Lusk girls looked back timidly at Andy and Jeff; even Huldah was mute.
Chapter XI
The Warning
Five o"clock Friday morning found Creed, pale, hollow-eyed, a strip of Nancy"s home-made sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek, but otherwise composed and as usual, at the pine table in his little shack, working over the references which applied to the case he was to try that morning. But an hour later brought old Keziah Provine to the door to borrow the threading of a needle with white thread.
"I hearn they had an interruption," she began, pushing in past Nancy and the two children, "but thar--you kin hear anything these days and times.
They most gen"ally does find trouble at these here play-parties, that"s why I"m sot agin "em."
Poor old soul, it was not on account of her rheumatic legs, her toothless jaws, nor her half-blind eyes that she objected to play-parties, of course.
"I got no use for "em," she pursued truthfully, "specially when they"re started up too close to a blockade still. They named it to me that Creed had done killed one of the Turrentine boys--is that so?"
"No," returned Nancy stoutly. "By the best of what I kin git out o"
Creed, him and Blatch was walkin" along, an" Blatch missed his footin"
and fell off o" Foeman"s Bluff. Creed tried to he"p him, an" fell an" got scratched some. I reckon the Turrentines"ll tell it different, but that"s what I make out from what Creed says."
"Lord, how folks will lie!" admired Keziah, piously. "Now they tell that Blatch was not only killed up, but that some one--Creed, or some o" them that follers him--tuck the body away befo" they could git to it. They say they was blood all over the bushes, an" a great drug place whar Blatch had been toted off. One feller named a half-dug hole sorter like a grave; but thar! I never went over to see for myse"f, an" ye cain"t believe the half o" what ye hear."
"Well, I"d say not," snapped Nancy. "Not ef hit was sech a pack o" lies as that."
Thread in hand old Keziah lingered till Arley Kittridge came with his mother"s baking-pan and request for a little risin". Arley it seemed had been commissioned to find out what he could on behalf of the Kittridge family. And so it went till breakfast-time.
How these things travel in a neighbourhood where there is no telephone, postman, milkman, nor morning paper, and where the distances are considerable, is one of the mysteries of the mountains--yet travel they do, and when time came for court to open Creed found that he had a crowd which would at any other juncture have been highly gratifying.
Every man that came in glanced first at the cut on his cheek, swiftly noted the pale face, sunken, purple-rimmed eyes, the scratched hands, then looked hastily away. Several made proffers of an alliance with him, being at outs with the Turrentines. All reiterated the story of the missing body.
"You done exactly right," old Tubal Kittridge told him. "With a man like Blatchley Turrentine, hit"s. .h.i.t first or git hit. I wonder he ever let ye git as far as Foeman"s Bluff; but if you made good use o" yo" time, I reckon you found out what you aimed to," and he winked laboriously at poor Creed"s crimsoning countenance.
"I wasn"t trying to find out anything, Mr. Kittridge. Blatch forced the quarrel upon me. I was on my way home at the time."
"Well, a lee-tle out of yo" way, wasn"t ye?" objected Kittridge, slightly offended at not being offered Bonbright"s confidence.
The case on the docket, one that had interested Creed deeply, being the curious matter of a mountain creek which in the spring storms had changed its direction, scoured off a good field and flung it to the opposite side of the road, thus giving it to a new owner, dragged wearily. Who cared about the question of a few rods of mountain land, even if it had raised good tobacco, when the slayer of one of the bullies of the neighbourhood sat before them--a man who had not only killed his victim but had, within fifteen minutes, hidden all traces of the body--and the opening of a new feud was taking place before their eyes?
At noon Creed, in despair, adjourned his court, setting a new date for trial, explaining that this Turrentine matter ought to be looked into, and he believed it was not a proper day for him to be otherwise engaged.
Then he sought old Tubal Kittridge.
"There"s something I want you to do for me," he said.
"Sh.o.r.e--sh.o.r.e; anything in the world," Kittridge agreed eagerly.
"Aunt Nancy won"t hear of my going over to the Turrentines"," hesitated Creed. "I looked for them to be here--some of them--long before this."
"Huh-uh; ah, Law, no--they won"t come in the daytime," smiled Kittridge.
Creed looked annoyed.
"They will be welcome, whenever they come," he a.s.serted. "What I want you to do is to go to Jephthah Turrentine and say to him that I thought I ought to go over, and that I"ll do so now if he wants me to--or I"ll meet him here at the office, or anywhere he says."
"Huh-uh--uh!" Old Tubal shook his head, his eyes closed in quite an ecstasy of negation. "You cain"t git Jep Turrentine in the trap as easy as all that," he said half contemptuously. "Why, he"d know what you was at a leetle too quick."
Bonbright looked helpless indignation for a moment, then thought better of it and repeated:
"I want you to go and tell him that I"m right here, ready to answer for anything I"ve done, and that I would like to talk to him about it. Will you do it?"
"Oh,--all right," agreed Kittridge in an offended tone. "There"s plenty would stand by ye; there"s plenty that would like to see the Turrentines run out of the country; but if ye want to fix it some new-fangled way I reckon you"ll have to." And to himself he muttered as he took the road homeward, "I say go to the Turrentines with sech word at that! That boy must think I"m as big a fool as he is."
At the Turrentine home life dragged on strangely. Jephthah in his own cabin, busied himself overhauling some harness. The boys had been across at the old place, presumably making a thorough inspection of the scene of the trouble. Judith went mechanically about her tasks, cooking and serving the meals, setting the house in order. Only once did she rouse somewhat, and that was when Huldah Spiller flounced in and flung herself tempestuously down in a chair.
"How you come on, Judy?" inquired the red-haired damsel.
"About as usual," returned Judith coldly, and would fain have added, "none the better for seeing you."
"I jest had to run over and see how you was standin" it," Huldah pursued vivaciously. "I cried all night--didn"t you?"
"What for?" inquired Judith angrily.
"Oh--I don"t know. I"m jest thataway. Git me started an" thar"s no stoppin" me. But then I"ve knowed Creed so mighty long--him an" me was powerful good friends, and my feelin"s is more tenderer than some folks"s anyhow."
"Huldy," said Judith in a tone so rigidly controlled that it made the other jump, "ef you"ll jest walk yo"self out of here I"ll be obliged to you. I"ve stood all I can. I don"t want to say anything plumb bad to you, but ef you set thar an" talk to me like that for another minute I will."