The Code of the Mountains

At last, the walk ended, ended at the door-step of the cheerless cabin, and there as Minerva crossed the stile stood her step-mother, on the threshold with her arms akimbo and a clay pipe clamped between her teeth.

"M'nervy," she said in a rasping tone, in which dwelt no note of welcome, "I've done put yore b'longin's under Sis's bed. Thar hain't no more pegs ter hang things on an' Newty's done fared back from down b'low. He's a-goin' ter lay down on ther bed you've been usin'."

The girl halted before the door.

"Who's Newty?" she asked. The boy's name had not been often mentioned since she had come over here, and she had forgotten the ragged lad she had known years before, when instead of being a murderer he was only a small shaver with sullen eyes and a tongue which he did not often use.

"Newty's my oldest boy," enlightened the elder woman briefly. "He's been a sojournin' in Frankfort." Then in a tone of absolute commonplace she added: "He's been in ther penitenshery."

Minerva Rawlins stood silent, but her cheeks blazed wrathfully. So, beside the horrors of uncongeniality under this roof, she was now to be turned out of her own bed to make way for an arrival from the state prison.

Long ago she had learned to set a seal upon her lips and to endure in silence what things must be borne, but into her eyes flashed an insurgent gleam, and the hag-like woman in the doorway caught it and scowled.

"I reckon Newty's got a license ter dwell in this-hyar house," she belligerently asserted. "He was born hyar, an' he didn't come in hyar taggin' along with no widderer. Newty hain't no step-child."

The speaker turned and disappeared into the general murk of the interior, and the girl followed her without comment, but with a suddenly born hatred for the man who had come from a cell back to the family which she must call her own.

When Newt Spooner crossed the stile that afternoon, breathing deeply the healing of the mountain air, he paused and scowled. Coming across the yard from the "Spring-branch" with a bucket of water was the slender figure of a girl. She was not his sister, but another girl whom he did not recognize. She seemed to be about eighteen, and she was pretty, with the transient bloom of mountain young womanhood, often as vivid and as short-lived as that of the morning glory. But the thing which most perplexed Newt, as he stood resentfully wondering how many other invaders he was to encounter at the cabin, was the fact that her calico dress was neater and her whole appearance more suggestive of civilized self-respect than that of the other women of the household.

She was not barefooted, but wore shoes and stockings, and instead of being lost in loose sack or slip-shod mother-hubbard, her slight waist was trimly belted.

While Newt stared at her, she, too, looked up and saw him. For a moment she seemed startled at the black-visaged apparition, but after a moment she coolly returned his glance, and disappeared into the house.

When the boy later on went to the door, the westering sun sent a long golden shaft into the primitive interior, down which the dust motes danced, although the corners remained somberly obscure. In the room were only the "women-folks"; his mother sitting huddled over her pipe; his sister lying idly stretched on one of the beds with an ill-natured frown in her eyes, and the strange girl. The strange girl sat, not near the cold hearth, where now there was no fire, but in the sun, and the sun fell upon and sparkled in her brown hair and awakened dull glints like the luster of polished mahogany. She was holding her lips rather tightly drawn, as in self-repression, and there was a mistiness about her eyes that hinted at unshed tears.

"I reckon," Newt's mother was saying in a spitefully hard voice, as the boy's figure darkened the door, "ye thinks sence ye went off ter school and got ter consartin' with them fotched-on teachers, thet ye're better'n what we be."

The girl made no reply, but she bent over the sewing in her lap, and her fingers trembled. Mrs. Rawlins looked up and, with a jerk of her head, announced for the benefit of her son:

"This here air Clem's gal, Minervy. I married a widderer." The last sentence was snapped out in a tone of deep complaining, from which one might infer that in the train of marrying a widower followed many melancholy consequences.

At that the girl raised her face and into it swept a sudden flush of anger. She looked challengingly at Newt and her eyes told him that, if she was silent under the shrewish heckling of the woman, she was quite ready to give him battle. But the boy had no intention of insulting her. He did not know that already she was finding herself in that most pathetic of all positions, the status of being just enough educated to be unplaced at home, and too little educated to be placed elsewhere. She had been thrown, by her father's second marriage, under the persecutions of a shrew, a jealous step-sister, and a century-old imbecile. She looked at Newt and reflected that his arrival added a murderer to the group. "Clem's gal" was longing for that different and more wholesome life over there at the college. But Newt had seen the look in her eyes and recognized that she like himself was here among people who offered no friendship. It was a rude bond of sympathy, and though she was "Clem's gal," and, in consequence, of the enemy, he rose to her defense.

"I reckon," he remarked sullenly, "she hain't no more tee-totally tickled about yore a-marryin' of a widderer then what you be."

The girl's eyes were lifted with an amazed expression from the calico dress upon which she was working, and her face swiftly softened. But Newt, a stranger to tender emotions, and bent on presenting to every man and woman a face of defiance, gave no further sign of sympathy.

He went to the bed which had been assigned to him, and threw himself on his back, from which position he lay scowling up at the smoked rafters and resting.

Presently, his mother began again her querulous bickering. The conversation was one-sided, and the boy, lying silent in his dark corner, noted that Minerva merely bent her head as one may bend it against the buffeting of gusty wind or rain. But he was himself less long suffering, and so he raised his voice with the dictatorial authority of a man rebuking a quarreling harem.

"Mammy," he ordered curtly, "I'm plumb sick an' tired o' heerin' all this-hyar blamed fursin', an' I wants ye ter shet up. If Clem's gal is a willin' ter endure all thet jawin', I hain't."

For an hour there was no sound in the cabin except the low, monotonous voice of Newt's sister, crooning an ancient "ballet" that once was sung in Scotland before the Pilgrims landed in the western world.

About sunset that afternoon, Newt came upon the Rawlins girl milking near the barn. When she raised her head from the flank of the cow and saw him standing a short distance away, a sudden stream of color came flooding to her cheeks and temples. He had not yet heard her speak a word, but now after stammering a moment she said:

"Hit was mighty good of ye, Newt, ter take up fer me. I'm much obliged."

The acknowledgment was somewhat difficult to make. This black sheep of her acquired family stood for all the things that the knightly Henry Falkins had deplored in speaking of the lawless spirit of the mountains. He was the sullen impersonation of the murder-spirit which shoots from ambush. He had come from prison and it was Mercy, not Justice, that had opened the iron gates to set him free. She did not know that the testimony of Falkins had put him there, or that Newt's set purpose was revenge, but she had shaped her heart to despise him, and he had in a rough way stood forth her champion. Perhaps, after all, he too had been a victim of conditions bigger and blacker than his own nature.

Newt's scowl darkened. He was not accustomed to gratitude and in it found embarrassment.

"Huh!" he growled. "Hit warn't nothin'. I jest natcherly hates ter heer so much damn' naggin'. Why don't ye jaw back at 'em? Air ye sceered?"

The girl shook her head. "I ain't here much," she said, "an' I reckon thar's enough squabblin' in this house without me joinin' in."

"Well, thet's yore business," commented the ex-convict, "but if I was you I'd stand up to 'em." He turned on his heel and left her.

To the house of McAllister Falkins "furriners" from the outside world came as to an oasis in a desert, or perhaps, more properly speaking, as to the tent of a great sheik set in the oasis, for the father of young Henry Falkins was "the grand old man of the mountains."

His forefathers had come from Virginia with the ideas of the old chivalric régime. It was the tradition that when the first Falkins set his face to the unbroken west, he had brought with his pioneer outfit a retinue of negroes, a string of race-horses and a coop of fighting cocks. The game birds and the gamer horses had not been game enough to survive the hardships of the wilderness road, but the main stem of the Falkins stock had retained its stamina and refused through a century to degenerate. Collateral branches had one by one lapsed into the semi-barbarism of a cruelly isolated life. Nephews and cousins bearing the same name had succumbed to intermarriage and degeneracy, yet the main stem had grown straight. Old McAllister Falkins was a college man and a lawyer who did not practise. Though he was the foremost bearer of the name which stood linked with that of Spooner as giving title to a feud that had bathed the country in bloodshed for generations, neither he nor his direct ancestors nor his direct descendant had ever been drawn into its vortex. In some miraculous fashion he had been able to stand aside, admired by his tempestuous kinsmen; respected even by the equally vindictive Spooners. To have raised a hand against "Old Mack" Falkins would have been to defy both clans. To have raised a hand against his son would not have occurred to any Spooner other than young Newt, mad with rage and private hatred. Old McAllister Falkins had represented his district in Congress, by a vote of both factions, and his retirement had been voluntary. It was his hope that his son, too, might become the shepherd of these wild, goat-like sheep, and wield an influence for peace. Now, both father and son were deeply disquieted at the menace of a fresh up-flaring. The death of Falerin would fire the Falkins clansmen, and if that dreaded intriguer, Black Pete, showed his face in the hills it was difficult to see how calamitous days could be averted. As yet the Deacon had not appeared save in Winchester, but on Friday the Clark County court was to hear a motion for bail, made by the two defendants, and, if it were granted, Saturday would see them back in Jackson – and then the deluge! Saturday is a day for gathering at the county seat and for drinking white liquor. The Falkinses would without doubt be there, too, in force, ready to recognize and resent insult, and the town would be much like a powder-magazine used as a smoking-room. McAllister Falkins had advised such of the Falkins leaders as he could reach to keep the clan out of Jackson, or, if that were impossible, to hold the dogs of passion and carousal in leash. He meant to be there in person to aid in the work of pacification. If only Red Newton and the Deacon did not reappear, like Mohammedan prophets among wild tribesmen, the dangerous day might yet dawn and spend itself without bloodshed.

While the two enlightened men of the name were sitting one afternoon on the porch of their house, discussing these matters, they saw a horseman riding down the road which looped over the mountain. The traveler sat his saddle with straight shoulders and his height approached the gigantic. Before he had reached the palings of the yard fence, the angle of his black hat and the tilt of his chin proclaimed him the Deacon.

Old McAllister Falkins rose with a suppressed exclamation of dismay, and Henry bit off an oath.

Black Pete Spooner rode along at an easy amble, and outside the fence he drew rein and sang out in a grave and utterly unembarrassed voice:

"Gentlemen, may I alight and have speech with you?"

The two Falkinses rose and walked down to meet the unexpected visitor, uncertain what attitude to take in the face of such stupendous effrontery. The dark giant offered his hand, and said:

"I reckon you gentlemen are a little surprised to see me, and I guess when you know why I came you'll be still more surprised."

CHAPTER X

Gravely restraining their protests until the visitor should have spoken, yet heavy-hearted with premonition, the elder and younger Falkins led the way up the flagstone path to the porch. Had the head of the house of Montagu strolled casually in, his hands still red with murder, for an afternoon call at the strong-hold of the Capulets, his advent could hardly have been more unexpected or unwelcome. The Honorable McAllister Falkins and his son were mountaineers, and to the mountaineer the voluntary arrival of a guest under the roof-tree is a mandate to consideration so long as he remains there.

The Deacon disposed himself in a heavy split-bottomed rocker, and for a time a survey of the landscape seemed to absorb him.

The house sat in its yard overlooking the twisting road and the steep banks of the middle fork of Kentucky River. For that unlettered land it was a mansion, with its two-story height and painted weather-boarding. Its glazed, green-shuttered windows gave it a certain dignity. Instead of puncheon floors, there were carpets and such furniture as one might have seen in the outer world, mingled strangely with old-fashioned reminders of pioneer life. At one end of the porch leaned a discarded spinning wheel, and an arm's length away stood the phonograph with which the two Falkins men had been soothing their anxieties with the strains of "Il Trovatore."

Off to the side of the house stretched an orchard in whose shadowed rim of lingering locust bloom ranged a trim line of ancient "bee gums." It was a simple and rambling farmhouse, but in a country of squalid habitations it partook of a certain grandeur, and one must needs go far to find a more ruggedly magnificent outlook, over park-like stretches of patriarchal timber, palisading river-banks and towering mountains, than that commanded from its verandah.

For a few moments the Deacon sat in his rocker with as little seeming realization of his unwelcomeness as though he were an old friend and constant visitor. He sat upright, his hat lying on the floor at his side and his hands resting on his large-boned knees. Both the men of the Falkins house acknowledged anew how unusual and commanding was that face, and how difficult it was to recognize upon it any hall-mark of crime or villainy. The dark eyes were steadfastly gentle, and even under the long drooping mustache the lips held a sort of dreamer's curve. Finally, the visitor spoke.

"The more I study about it, the more I'm afraid that Saturday can't hardly pass by without trouble."

McAllister Falkins rose from his chair and paced the porch. At last, he paused before Black Pete Spooner, and began steadily:

"I don't know why you have come to me." The old gentleman's voice was self-contained, though his eyes bored accusingly into those of his visitor. "I certainly shall express no criticism until you have said in full whatever you came here to say. You must know that I have always held aloof from feud-bickerings. You must know that I have always counseled impartially and truly such men as have come to me from both factions. But above all you must know that, if there is bloodshed in Jackson on Saturday, no other thing will be so directly responsible for it as your reappearance in the county. Your presence and Falerin's death will be the twin causes. If you seek to avoid a holocaust, you are pursuing a strange course."

While Falkins talked, the Deacon listened attentively, acknowledging the force of each remark with a grave nod of his head. At the end of the speech he sat awhile with his brows judicially drawn, then answered:

"There's a heap of truth and good sense in all that. I don't expect you to take my word on any matter, but I'm here to propose doin' things, not just sayin' things. I think there is one way to keep these boys from mischief, if you two men and me can act together." He paused after that a moment, then his voice came deeply resonant and full of warning. "And I tell you that whether I'm at the North Pole or right here, unless we three do get together, there's goin' to be hell in Jackson next Saturday."

He held them both with so steady and guileless a gaze that for a moment both of the advocates of peace and law wondered if they were not actually talking with a convert; wondered half-convinced, despite all they knew of his history. Henry Falkins filled his pipe in silence, and then, as the three settled themselves in their chairs, Black Pete began again:

"You men both know what a bad name I had when I left these mountains. I was guilty of several crimes to start with, and my reputation did the rest. Whatever meanness broke loose got laid to my door. I'm not complainin'. Enough of them accusations were true to give fellers license to suspect me in the balance. Then I went away."

"With the understanding that you were to stay away," interrupted McAllister Falkins.

The Deacon nodded his head.

"I'm comin' to that," he answered with tranquillity. "Anyhow, I went away, and I've come back with just one hatred left."

"What is that?" demanded Henry Falkins. This man with one hatred was more to be feared than another with many.

"Hatred of lawlessness and the sort of meanness that assassinates and quarrels," was the quiet and surprising response.

There was no offer to argue or deny, and after a moment he went on.

"That sounds a little funny from my lips, I reckon, but all I ask is a chance to prove it."

"And simply going away wrought this conversion?" It was the elder man who put the question, and his voice was frank in its scepticism.

The Deacon shook his head.

"No, not only that. It's a long story, and there's no need for tellin' it all. But some of my time out West I was prospectin' in Old Mexico. I was took down with fever, and they nursed me at a monastery. I caught on to considerable Spanish, and – well, to cut it short – I got religion. But as far as my past record goes, maybe just because I've got the name of being so mean and troublesome, there are some men here-abouts that would hearken to my counsel when they wouldn't listen to a better man."

He paused and sat staring absently across the river, but his eyes were taking in everything, and, as he turned his grave glance on his auditors, he was keenly studying their faces.

"What plan did you have to propose?" inquired Henry Falkins.

"It's this way," came the prompt reply. "There are just two men in this country that can talk to a Spooner an' a Falkins alike an' be hearkened to by both. You are the two men. But there are a few Spooners that won't even listen to you – and they are the meanest of the lot. It's the meanest men that make the most trouble – and these are the men that will listen to me. If we three are in town Saturday – "

"If you are in town Saturday, mingling with the Spooners and inflaming the Falkinses, the entire state militia couldn't maintain order," broke out old McAllister with vehement heat.

"Now, wait a minute!" And not for one minute, but ten, the returned exile talked. As they listened, the father and son saw unfold a plan of unexampled boldness and danger, particularly of danger to its proposer, but as it outlined and developed itself they began to see also a dawn of hope. The very effrontery of the thing might carry it through peril to success.

"I won't equivocate," responded the head of the Falkins family with blunt directness. "If you are honest, you deserve to be treated frankly, and, if you are not honest, there is no use in flattering you. It's not my way to flatter men. You have always been a plausible talker, and you have cloaked many criminal acts under that plausibility. On the other hand, I can't see anything which you could gain in this matter by deceit. On its face it looks fair enough – and if you come through alive, it may bring peace to the county."

Again the Spooner leader nodded gravely.

"That's worth taking a chance for, ain't it?" he inquired.

"Have you talked to any of your people?" demanded the old man as he agitatedly paced his verandah.

"No – I haven't seen a soul except those in my own house – and you. I didn't want it known yet that I was in the county. But in the next two nights I'm goin' to have speech with a half-dozen Spooners, an' they'll be a half-dozen of the strongest men."

McAllister Falkins considered for a time, and put a pertinent question.

"Can you and your half-dozen hold the Spooner crowd in check? Saturday will be the fourth of July. There will be heavy drinking in Jackson. Can you answer for your rank and file?"

For just an instant, the grave face of the dark-haired giant lost its impassivity and something like a snort of contempt escaped his lips.

"When you drive sheep," he demanded curtly, "do you consult the fool beasts? Give me the sheep-men an' the sheep-dogs, an' I'll pretty nigh tell you where the sheep are going to."

The visitor rose and stood looking from the eyes of one to those of the other.

"We will both be in Jackson on Saturday," said McAllister Falkins.

"Me, too," said the giant. "But I'll be there unbeknownst until the minute comes for me to show myself."

The Deacon had taken up his hat and reached the top step of the porch. There he turned and, looking at the younger man, suggested:

"I was goin' to advise that you didn't go, Henry. Your father can do what's got to be done."

"Why?" demanded the son sharply. "You arrange that my father shall take his life into his hands in an effort to quiet a frenzied mob, and then suggest that I let him go alone? Why?"

The visitor seemed to sympathize with the sentiment.

"That's right," he conceded. "After all, you've got to go. I don't think Mr. Falkins is runnin' much risk. I don't think there's a man in these parts that would harm him or let him be harmed. But it's a little different with you. Little Newt Spooner has been pardoned out of the penitentiary. I guess you knew that?"

"So I heard. What has that to do with me?"

"Well, he's a mean little devil, that boy is, an' he's holdin' it up against you that your testimony busted his alibi."

"Now, Spooner," Old Mack spoke quietly but with an ominous force, "you have just said you could herd your sheep. If you can't handle the youngest and blackest of them, we might as well abandon the bigger experiment. If through this boy any harm comes to my son, I give you the fairest warning that for once I shall take the law in my own hands – and kill you."

Henry Falkins laughed.

"Father," he said, "there's no occasion to excite yourself. I'm not troubled about Newt."

But there was no spark of resentment in the Deacon's face. His eyes lost none of their thoughtful gentleness. He held out his hand and spoke deliberately:

"If Newt hurts Henry, Mr. Falkins, you can hold me accountable. If either of you men were hurt by one of my family, my life wouldn't be worth two bits. I reckon you know that, and you know that I know it. I'll see to little Newt, but it wouldn't hardly have been honest not to tell Henry that the boy is nursin' a grudge." He turned and went down to the stile and turned his mule back for the twenty miles that lay between the house of McAllister Falkins and the section of Troublesome where the Spooners held dominion.

The Deacon had much to think of. He had come back from the West because he was homesick; because as the warden had told Newt: "Every mountain man that goes away drifts back to the mountains. God knows why they do it, but they do." As long as Jake Falerin influenced his tribe from Winchester Black Pete's return would be impossible. As long as the Honorable Cale Floyd lived, his influence would reach back and bear fruit in the mountains. For those reasons the Deacon had staged the shooting in Winchester. Now, with the brain and counsel of Jake Falerin stilled, he saw, in a great peace movement, a chance to beguile the lesser leaders of his foes. Having satisfied his private designs, it was nothing to him that others with equally strong grievances must pocket them and sit silent under the truce he meant to make. For a time he intended that this truce should be honestly kept, but later —