Books: The Red Acorn
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John McElroy >> The Red Acorn
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But the instant Fortner fired he sprang back behind the rock, and
then ran under its cover a little distance up the mountain side
to a dense laurel thicket, in which he laid down behind a log and
reloaded his rifle. He listened. The firing had ceased, and a
half-dozen dismounted men were carefully approaching the spot whence
he had sent the fatal shot. He heard the Captain order a man to
ride back and bring up the wagon, that the body of the dead man might
be put in it. As the wagon was heard rumbling up, the dismounted
men reported to the Captain that the bushwhacker had made good his
escape and was no longer behind the rock.
"Well, he hasn't gone very far," said the Captain with a savage
oath. "He can't have got any distance away, and I'll have him, dead
or alive, before I leave this spot. The whole gang of Lincolnite
hellhounds are treed right up there, and not one of them shall
get away alive." He put a bone whistle to his lips, and sounded
a shrill signal. A horseman trotted up from the rear in response
to the call, leading a hound with a leash. "Take the dog up to
that rock, there, Bill," said the Captain, "and set him on that
devil's trail. Five more of you dismount, and deploy there on
the other side of the road. All of you move forward cautiously,
watching the dog, and make sure you 'save' teh whelp when he is
run out."
The men left their saddles and moved forward with manifest reluctance.
They had the highly emotional nature usual in the poor white of the
South, and this was deeply depressed by the weird loneliness that
brooded over everything, and the bloodshed they had witnessed.
Their thirst for vengeance was being tempered rapidly by a growing
superstitious fear. There was something supernatural in these
mysterious killings. Each man, therefore, only moved forward as
he felt the Captain's eye on him, or his comrades advanced.
The dog, after some false starts, got the scent, and started to
follow Fortner's footsteps.
"He's done tuck the trail, Cap'n," called back one of the men.
"All right," answered the officer, "don't take your eyes off of
him for a second till he trees the game."
But the logs and rocks and the impenetrable darkness in the shadows
made it impossible to follow the movements of the hound every
moment. Only Fortner was able to do this. He could see the great
greenish-yellow eyes burn in the pitchy-depths and steadily draw
nearer him. They entered the laurel thicket, and the beast growled
as he felt the nearness of his prey.
"Wolf must be gitten close ter him," said one of the men.
Fortner laid his rifle across the log, and drew from his belt a long
keen knife. He stirred slightly in doing this, and in turning to
confront the dog. The hound sprang forward with a growl that was
abruptly ended, for Fortner's left hand shot out like an arrow, and
caught the loose folds of skin on the brute's neck, and the next
instant his right, armed with the knife, descended and laid the
animal's shoulder and neck open with a deep cut. But the darkness
made Fortner mistake his distance. He neither caught the dog
securely, nor sent the knife to his heart, as he intended, and
the hound tearing away, ran out into the moonlight, bleeding and
yelping. Before he reached his human allies Fortner had silently
sped back a hundred yards, to a more secure shelter, so that the
volley which was poured into he thicket only endangered the lives
of the chipmunks denizened there. The mounted men rode forward and
joined those on foot, in raking the copse with charges of buckshot.
Away above Fortner and Harry rose yells and the clatter of galloping
horses. Before they could imagine what this meant a little cavalcade
swept by at a mad gallop, yelling at the tops of their voices, and
charging directly at the Rebels below. In front were Aunt Debby,
Bolton and Edwards, riding abreast, and behind them three men in
homespun.
The Rebels seemed totally unnerved by this startling apparition.
The dismounted ones flung themselves on their horses and all fled
away at a gallop, without attempting to make a stand and without
taking thought of their wagon. As they scurried along the opposite
mountain-side Fortner and Harry fired at them, but without being
able to tell whether their shots took effect.
The pursuit was carried but a little distance. The wagon was
secured and taken up the mountain. A little after midnight the
summit was passed, and Fortner led the way into an opening to the
right, which eventually brought up at a little level spot in front
of a large cave. The horses where unhitched and unsaddled, a fire
built, cedar boughs gathered to make a bed on the rocky floor of
the cave, and they threw themselves down upon this to sleep the
sleep of utter weariness.
In the meantime Harry had learned taht the new comers were cousins
of Fortner's, who, being out on a private scouting expedition, had
been encountered by Aunt Debby and the others, near the summit of
the mountain, and had started back with them to the assistance of
Fortner. The sound of firing had so excited them that the suggestion
of a charge by Kent Edwards was eagerly acceded to.
"It must be near three o'clock," said Kent, looking up at the
stars, as he came back stealthily from laying the saddle blanket,
which was the only covering he and Abe had, upon the sleeping form
of Aunt Debby, "and my downy couch still waits for me. My life-long
habits of staid respectability have been greatly shaken recently."
Abe groaned derisively.
An inspection, the next morning of the wagon's load, showed it to
be mainly made up of hams, shoulders and sides, plundered from the
smokehouses visited. With these were a number of guns, including
several fine rifles, and all the ammunition that could be found
along the route.
A breakfast was made of slices of ham broiled on the ends of
sticks, and then a consultation was held as to the plans for the
day's operations.
The result of this was a decision that Aunt Debby and one of the
newcomers should go back and inform the neighborhood of what had
taken place, gather a party to remove the dead from the creek and
bury them, to keep the water from being poisoned, and recover what
property might be found with the first wagon. Kent Edwards, Abe
Bolton, and two of the new comers would scout down toward London,
to ascertain the truth of the rumor that Zollicoffer had evacuated
the place, and retired to Laurel Bridge, nine miles south of it.
Fortner and Harry Glen would take the wagon to Wildcat Gap, report
what had been done, and explain to their commander the absence of
the enlisted men.
---
"Shade of King Solomon," said Kent to Abe, after their party had
ridden for two or three hours through the mountains toward London.
"I wonder if there is any other kind of worldly knowledge that
I know as little about as I did of scouting when we started out?
My eyes have been opened to my own ignorance. I used to have the
conceit that we two could play a fair hand at any game of war they
could get up for our entertainment. But these Kentuckians give
me points every hundred yards that I never so much as dreamed of.
Theirs is the wisdom of serpents when compared with our dove-like
innocence."
"I like dove-like innocence," interrupted Abe.
"But did you ever see anybody that could go through the country
as these fellows can? It's just marvelous. They know every short
cut to every point, and they know just where to go every time to
see way ahead without being seen themselves. It would puzzle the
sharpest Rebel bushwhacker to get the drop on them."
"I don't know as I want to learn their way of doing," said Abe
crustily. "It looks like sneaking, on a big scale, that's all.
And I'm ashamed of this laying round behind a log or a rock to
pop a man over. It ain't my style at all. I believe in open and
above-board fighting, give and take, and may the best man win."
"So do I, though I suppose all's fair in war. But when we scout we
give them the same chance to knock us over that they give us when
they scout. I'll admit it looks very much like murder to shoot men
down that way, for it does not help either side along a particle.
But these Kentuckians have a great many private injuries to avenge,
and they can't do it any other way."
All the people of the region were intensely Union, so it was not
difficult to get exact information of the movements of the Rebels,
and as the scouts drew near London they became assured that not
only all of Zollicoffer's infantry, but his small parties of cavalry
had retreated beyond the town. Our scouts therefore, putting Edwards
and Bolton to the front, that their blue uniforms might tell the
character of the party, spurred into a gallop, and dashed into
London, to be received with boundless enthusiasm.
"Somebody ought to ride back to Wildcat immediately," said Kent,
after they had enjoyed their reception a little while, "and report
this to the General."
All assented to this position.
"It is really the duty of myself and comrade here to do it," said
Kent, shifting uneasily in his chair, to find a comfortable place
to sit upon; "but as we have been for two days riding the hardest-backed
horses over roads that were simply awful, and as previous to that
time we had not taken any equestrian exercise for several years,
there are some fundamental reasons--that is, reasons lying at the
very base of things, (he shifted again)--why we should not be called
upon to do another mile of horseback riding until Time has had an
opportunity to exercise his soothing and healing influence, so to
speak. Abe, I believe I have stated the case with my usual happy
combination of grace and delicacy?"
"You have, as usual, flushed a tail-race of big words."
"In short," Kent went on ("Ah, thank you. That is delicious. The
best I ever drank. Your mountain stills make the finest apple
jack in the world. There must be something in the water--that you
don't put in. It's as smooth as new-made butter. Well, here's to
the anner of Beauty and Glory.) In short, as I was saying when you
hospitably interrupted me, we are willing to do anything for the
cause, but unless there is some other way of riding, the most painful
effort I could make for our beloved country would be to mount that
horse again, and ride another hundred yards. To be messenger of
this good news would be bliss; what prevents it is a blister."
The crowd laughed boisterously.
"Mister," said one of the Kentuckians who accompanied them, with
that peculiar drawling inflection of the word that it were hopeless
to attempt to represent in print, "ef ye want ter send some one
in yer places me an' Si heah will be powerful glad ter go. Jes'
git a note ter the Jineral at Wildcat ready while we saddle fresh
beasts, an' we'll hev hit in his hands afore midnight."
The proposition was immediately accepted, and in a little while the
Kentuckians were speeding their way back to Gen. Schoepf, with a
letter giving the news, and signed: "Kent Edwards, Chief of Scouts."
That evening a party of young men who had followed the Rebel
retreat some distance, brought in a wagon which had been concealed
in an out-of-the-way place, and left there. It was loaded mainly
with things taken from the houses, and was evidently the private
collection of some freebooting subordinate, who did not intend
that the Southern Confederacy should be enriched by the property.
Hence, probably, the hesitation about taking it along with the
main train. It was handed over to Kent as the representative of
the United States, who was alone authorized to take charge of it.
Assisted by Abe he started to make an inventory of the contents.
A portly jug of apple jack was kept at hand, that there might not
be any suffering from undue thirst during the course of the operation,
which, as Kent providently remarked, was liable to make a man as
dry as an Arizona plain.
The danger of such aridity seemed to grow more imminent continually,
judged by the frequency of their application to the jug. It soon
became more urgent than the completion of the inventory. Frequent
visits of loyal Kentuckians with other jugs and botles, to drink
to the renewed supremacy of the Banner of Beauty and Glory, did not
diminish Kent's and Abe's apprehensions of ultimate thirst. Their
clay seemed like some other kinds, which have their absorptive
powers strengthened by the more they take up. They belonged to a
not-unusual class of men whom it takes about as long to get thoroughly
drunk as it does to heat up an iron-furnace, but the condition that
they achieve then makes the intoxication of other and ordinary men
seem a very mild and tame exhilaration.
By noon the next day this process was nearing its completion. A
messenger galloped into town with the information that the Union
forces were coming, and would arrive in the course of an hour or
two.
"Shash so?" said Kent, straightening himself up with a crushing
dignity that always formed a sure guage of the extent to which
inebriation had progressed. "Shash so? Troops 'she United States
'bout to enter shis lovely metropolis wish all pomp and shircumshtance
'reassherted 'thority. 'Shtonishin' event; wonderful 'casion.
Never happened 'fore; probably never'll happen again. Ought to be
'propriately celebrated, Abe!"
That gentleman made a strong effort to control joints which seemed
unmanageable, and succeeded in assuming a tolerable erectness,
while he blinked at his companion with stolid gravity.
"Abe, shis ish great 'casion. Greatest in she annalsh of she country.
We're only represhentatives Government in she town. Burden whole
shing fallsh on us. Understand? We musht do everyshing. Understand?
Country 'spects every man to do his duty. Undershtand?"
Abe sank down on a bench, leaned his head against the wall, and
looked at his companion with one eye closed wearily.
"Yesshir," Kent resumed, summoning up a new supply of oratorical
energy, and an official gravity beneath which his legs trembeled.
"Name shis town's London. Shame name's big town 'cross ocean. Lots
history c'nected wish name. Shtacks an' cords of it. Old times
when King went out t'meet him, wish shtyle pile on bigger'n a
haystack. Fact. Clothes finer'n a peacock. Tendered him keys,
freed'm city. All shat short shing. Ver' impreshive shpectacle.
Everybody felt better'n for improvin' sight. Undershtand? We'll
be Lord Mayor and train for shis London. We can rig out right
here. Our trouseau's here in shis hair trunk."
"Shall we get anyshing t' drink?" inquired Abe making a temporary
collection of his wits with a violent effort.
"Abe!" the freezing severity of Kent's tone and manner would have
been hopelessly fatal to early vegetables. "Abe you've many good
qualities--more of 'em shan any man I know. but a degrading passion
fur shtrong drink is ruinin' you. I'm your besht fren, an' shay
it wish tearsh in m' eyes. Lemme beg o' you t' reform ere it ish
too late. Beware of it, my fren, beware of it. It shtingeth like
a serpent, an' biteth like a multiplier--I mean an adder. You
haven't got my shuperb self-control, an' so yer only shafety lies
in total abstinence. Cheese it, my fren, cheese it on she sheductive
but fatal lush."
"Are we goin' out t' meet she boysh?" inquired Abe.
"Shertainly we are. Yesshir. An' we're goin' out ash I proposed.
Yer a shplendid feller, Abe," continued Kent, with lofty patronage.
"A shplendid feller, an' do great credit t' yer 'portunities.
But y' haven't had my 'dvantages of mingling constantly in p'lite
s'ciety, y'know. Rough diamond, I know, 'nall that short o' shing,
but lack polish an' easy grace. So I'll be th' Lord Mayor, an'
y'll be th' train. Undershtand?"
He lurched forward, and came near falling over the chair, but recovering
he stiffened up and gazed on that useful article of furniture with
a sternness that implied his belief that it was a rascally blackleg
trying to insinuate itself into the circle of refinement and chaste
elegance of which he was the particular ornament.
"Come," he resumed, "le's bedizen ourselves; le's assume th'
shplendor 'propriate t' th' 'casion."
When the troops marched in in the afternoon, the encountered at the
head of the crowd that met them at the crossing of the creek just
ouside of town, a man who seemed filled with deep emotion, and
clothed with strange fancies. He wore a tall silk hat of antique
patter, carefully brushed, which he protected from the rays of the
sun with a huge blue cotton umbrella. A blue broadcloth coat, with
gilt buttons, sat jauntily over a black satin vest, and nankeen
trousers. A pair of gold spectacles reposed in magisterial dignity
about half way down his nose, and a large silver-headed cane in the
left hand balanced the umbrella in the right. By the side of the
man with rare vestments stood another figure of even more limpness
of general bearing, whose garb consisted of a soldier's uniform
pantaloons and woolen shirt--none too clean--set off by a black
dress-coat, and white linen vest.
As the head of the column came up he in the blue broadcloth pulled
off his hat and spectacles, and addressed himself to speech:
"Allow me, shir, to welcome you with hoshpitable hands to a bloody--no,
let me tender you, shir, the liberties of our city, and reshoice
shat she old banner which has braved she battle, hash---"
The column had stopped, and the Captain commanding the advance
was listening patiently to what he supposed was the address of an
enthusiastic, but eccentric old Kentuckian, when one of the sharp-eyed
ones in the company shouted out:
"I declare, it's Kent Edwards and Abe Bolton."
The yell of laughter and applause at the ludicrous masquerade
shook the hills. The Colonel rode up to see what occasioned it.
He recognized his two men, and his face darkened with anger.
"You infernal rascals," he shouted, "you have been off plundering
houses, have you, in place of being with your company. I'll stop
this sort of thing mighty sudden. This regiment shall not degrade
itself by plundering and robbing, if I have to shoot every man in
it. Captain, arrest those men, and keep thim in close confinement
until I can have them tried and properly punished."
Chapter XVII. Alspaugh on a Bed of Pain.
This is the very ecstacy of love,
Whose violent property foredoes itself.
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As often as any passion under Heaven
That does afflict our natures.--Hamlet
Endurance is made possible by reason of the element of divisibility.
Metaphysical mathematicians imagine that there is possibly a "fourth
dimension," by the existence of which many hitherto inexplicable
phenomena may be explained. They think that probably this fourth
dimension is SUCCESSION OF TIME.
So endurance of unendurable things is explainable on the ground
that but a small portion of them has to be endured in any given
space of time.
It is the old fable of the clock, whose pendulum and wheels stopped
one day, appalled by the discovery that they would have to move
and tick over three million times a year for many wearisome years,
but resumed work again when reminded that they would only have to
tick ONCE each second.
So it was with Rachel Bond.
The unendurable whole of a month's or a week's experience was endurable
when divided in detail and spread over the hours and days.
She was a woman--young and high-natured.
Being a woman she had a martyr-joy in affliction that comes in the
guise of duty. Young, she enjoyed the usefulness and importance
attached to her work in the hospital. High-natured, she felt a keen
satisfaction in triumphing over daily difficulties and obstacles,
even though these were mainly her own feelings.
Though months had gone by it seemed as if no amount of habituation
could dull the edge of the sickening disgust which continually assailed
her sense and womanly instincts. The smells were as nauseating,
the sights as repulsive, the sounds of misery as saddening as the
day when she first set foot inside the hospital.
From throbbing heart to dainty finger-tip, every fiber in her maidenly
body was in active rebellion while she ministered to the rough and
coarse men who formed the bulk of the patients, and whose afflictions
she could not help knowing were too frequently the direct result
of their own sins and willful disobedience of Nature's laws.
One day, when flushed and wearied with the peevish exactions of a
hulking fellow whose indisposition was trifling, she said to Dr.
Denslow:
"It is distressing to find out how much unmanliness there is in
apparently manly men."
"Yes," answered the doctor, with his customary calm philosophy;
"and it is equally gratifying to find out how much real manliness
there is in some apparently unmanly men. You have been having an
experience with some brawny subject?"
"Yes. If the fellow's spirit were equal to his bone and brawn,
he would o'ertop, Julius Caesar. Instead, he whimpers like a
school-girl."
"That's about the way it usually goes. It may be that my views
are colored by my lacking three or four inches of six feet, but I
am sometimes strongly inclined to believe that every man--big or
little--is given about the same amount of will or vital power, and
the bigger and more lumbering the body he has to move with it, the
less he accomplishes, and the sooner it is exhausted. You have
found, I have no doubt, that as a rule the broad-chested, muscular
six-footers, whose lives have ever passed at hard work in the open
air, groan and sigh incessantly under the burden of minor afflictions,
worry every one with their querulousness, moan for their wives,
mothers, or sweethearts, and the comforts of the homes they have
left, and finally fret and grieve themselves into the grave, while
slender, soft-muscled boys bear real distress without a murmur, and
survive sickness and wounds that by all rules ought to prove fatal."
"There is certainly a good deal in that; but what irritates me now
is a display of querulous tyranny."
"Well, you know what Dr. Johnson says: 'That a sick man is a
scoundrel.' There is a basis of truth in that apparent cruelty.
It is true that 'scoundrel' is rather a harsh term to apply to a
man whose moral obliquities have not received the official stamp
in open court by a jury of his peers. The man whose imprudences
and self-indulgences have made his liver slothful, his stomach
rebellious, and wrecked his constitution in other ways, may--probably
does--become an exasperating little tyrant, full of all manner of
petty selfishness, which saps the comfort of others, as acid vapors
corrode metals, but does that make him a 'scoundrel?' Opinions
vary. His much enduring feminine relatives would probably resent
such a query with tearful indignation, while unprejudiced outsiders
would probably reply calmly in the affirmative."
"What is the medical man's view?" asked Rachel, much amused by this
cool scrutiny of what people are too often inclined to regard as
among the "inscrutable providences."
"I don't speak in anything for the profession at large, but my own
private judgement is that any man is a scoundrel who robs others
of anything that is of value to them, and he is none the less so
when he makes his aches and pains, mostly incurred by his gluttony,
passions or laziness, the means of plundering others of the comforts
and pleasures which are their due."
Going into the wards one morning, Rachel found that Lieutenant
Jacob Alspaugh had been brought in, suffering from what the Surgeon
pronounced to be "febrile symptoms of a mild type, from which he
will no doubt recover in a few days, with rest, quiet and proper
food.
It is possibly worth while to note the coincidence that these
symptoms developed with unexpected suddenness in the midst of
earnest preparations by the Army of the Cumberland, for a terrible
grapple at Perryville with the Rebel Army of the Tennessee.
Alspaugh recognized Rachel at once, much to her embarrassment, for
her pride winced at playing the role of nurse before an acquaintance,
especially when that acquaintance was her father's hired-man, whom
she knew too well to esteem highly.
"O, Miss Rachel," he groaned, as she came to his cot in response
to his earnest call, "I'm so glad to see you, for I'm the sickest
man that ever came into this hospital. Nothin' but the best o'
care 'll carry me through, and I know you'll give it to me for the
sake of old times," and Jacob's face expressed to his comrades the
idea that there had been a time when his relations with her had
been exceedingly tender.
Rachel's face flushed at the impudent assumption, but she overcame
the temptation to make a snubbing answer, and replied quietly:
"No, Jacob, you are not so sick as you think you are." ("She calls
him 'Jacob,'" audibly commented some of those near, as if this
was a confirmation of Jakes insinuation.) "The Surgeons say," she
continued, "that your symptoms are not at all bad, and that you'll
be up again in a few days."
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