Chapter XXVIII: Rutledge Talks

The mountain men whirled. Roaring Lafe ceased his advance to look over a burly shoulder. In the doorway of the cabin stood the quiet, gray man, the revenue agent. Beside and behind him were armed men; rifle barrels bristled in all of the shack’s windows. The moonshiners were surrounded, outnumbered, helpless. With one accord they dropped their guns and raised resigned hands above their heads, all but Roaring Lafe. Bellowing, he sprang toward the door, the window, only to turn back from ready gun muzzles. Then his bearded face horribly contorted, his foam-flecked lips twitched back from long, yellow teeth, and he sprang full at Somers’ throat.

“I’ll tote yuh to death along of me, anyhow,” he said. “You spyin’ sneak!”

The revenue agent cried out, and I sprang forward. But in that crowded room none dared shoot, for the mountaineers milled already, crouching for a dash. I hovered over the whirling bulk of the raging moonshiner, seeking to fire without endangering Somers’ lank, convulsively thrashing limbs.

It was over in an instant. The slender physician, overwhelmed, fell sprawling, apparently helpless, his left hand feeling along the other’s huge arm. A mere touch, it seemed, upon that mass of muscle, a strangled roar, and Rutledge’s right arm dropped helplessly.

Somers twisted in his grip and freed a hand still holding the heavy pistol, which Anne Christie had given him. I gasped.

But he did not fire. Instead, the pistol’s lying barrel tapped his huge adversary neatly across the base of the skull, and Roaring Lafe Rutledge relaxed. His great arms all abroad, he settled slowly upon his back, inert as a pole-axed steer.

The physician rose, feeling gingerly of his throat. “It’s all in knowing where to hit ’em,” he said hoarsely.

The captured mountaineers eyed him admiringly. “Well, dog my cats!” exclaimed the man called Hank. “Fust time ever I seed anybody best Roarin’ Lafe! I wouldn’t ’a’ believed it.”

“Come, men,” ordered the government agent briskly. “Round these fellows up and search ’em. You, Bailey, Gaines, and Lipkowitz, stick around. We’ve made a clean sweep, I think; but pick up anybody else who comes in here, and in the morning destroy that still. You know where it is, Gaines, and now come along down. You can ride the horses tied outside there. Somers, you and your friends had better come with us.”

The revenue men moved swiftly. Soon a little heap of pistols and knives lay on the floor beside the guns dropped by their prisoners.

“Take charge of these weapons, Bailey,” ordered the chief again. “You others, rope these chaps and come along.”

It was done forthwith, and we all set out, the gray-haired man in front, carrying an electric belt lamp, behind him the seven prisoners in single file, the right wrist of each handcuffed. Each empty cuff was knotted to a long rope at four-foot intervals, so that they made a long line, fastened securely together. Revenue officers with ready rifles marched on either side, while Somers, Peter, and I dragged wearily behind.

I soon saw why the prisoners were fastened thus oddly, for we plunged straight down the mountainside, on foot, in a long line. The slope was so steep that we all had to clutch at the close-growing trees, climbing as if down a steep ladder. The prisoners made heavy weather of it; their shackled arms were hampered, and the rope, which bound them together, was continually catching and retarding them. But, with both hands secured, they could never have negotiated that dizzying slant; and, unless all had been fastened together, one or more would surely have been able to make an escape on that dark, wooded mountainside which they knew so well.

As it was, after what seemed an age of sliding and scrambling down grades, which just missed being perpendicular, we reached a little clearing on comparatively level ground, all breathless and scratched, our clothes half torn off. We had come ten miles, I suppose. Already dawn was gray in the east, and I, for one, was exhausted. I hailed the motor cars which awaited us with a prayer of silent thanksgiving.

My comrades seemed almost as tired as I, and the gray-haired revenue agent turned a drawn, haggard face to the early light.

“We’re well out of that!” he said. “A couple more hours up there might have seen an attempt at rescue. Roaring Lafe has plenty of friends on the mountain.”

Rutledge had preserved a somber silence ever since he returned to consciousness. He stood with bent head, his magnificent physique apparently unwearied by our forced march. Now and again he turned a queer, almost admiring look upon Somers.

He did not reply to the government man’s remark, but the fellow called Cal Col laughed jeeringly.

“Yah!” he said. “Lafe Rutledge hain’t got no friends in th’ mountains _now_, no more’n he has kinfolks! They’s plenty will be glad that he’s done cotched--roarin’ an bullyin’ round like he done!” His snaky eyes were filled with malevolence.

“Shut up!” ordered one of his guards and slapped him across the sneering mouth. I think we were all disgusted by his haste to vilify his fallen leader.

“Yessir, cap’n, I kin tell you-all lots o’ things. I’d have turned up all this moonshinin’ an’ blockadin’ meanness long ago, on’y I done bin a-scaret o’ Lafe Rutledge.” He fawned upon the government man, crooked teeth showing in a repulsive, insinuating smile.

Rutledge smiled bitterly, but did not speak. I wondered what his thoughts might be; if he regretted now that he had once tried to force his stepdaughter into a marriage with this--this reptile?

At the end of a rough wagon track stood three motor cars, a couple of flivvers and a light express truck, covered with wire gratings at either end. Into this the officers urged their prisoners, still bound together, and padlocked the grated door behind them. The truck made a tolerable substitute for a Black Maria, even if its passengers had to seat themselves upon the floor. An armed man took his place beside its driver and faced backward to watch the prisoners.

“Drive on, Brownell,” ordered the gray man. “And, remember, you in there, we’re coming right behind, with half a dozen rifles trained on that truck every minute!”

We three piled into one of the flivvers, and the rest of the government men followed, filling every seat, clinging precariously to the running boards.

That was a wild drive down the mountainside, though we went slowly enough, perforce. But there was no more than a track, rough and uneven, winding among stumps and fallen trees; huge roots and boulders lay athwart it, so that we were shaken like corn in a popper, and I wondered how these cars had ever been made to climb so high, when the going down seemed about to wreck them at every turn. The mountaineers, huddled on the floor of that truck, must have suffered cruelly, with no seats to which they might cling; but no murmur escaped them. Only Cal Col kept up a constant wail, until the man nearest him struck him heavily across the mouth, silencing him effectually.

At last we were down, without having broken either a spring or any of our bones, and by seven o’clock our odd procession pulled up before the Asheville city prison. The government agent clambered stiffly out. “I’ll make a deal with the chief of police to take care of these birds until we can bring them before the commissioner,” said he. “Doctor Somers, I’m greatly obliged to you and your friends. It was risky, of course, to use you men as decoys, but, thanks to you, we caught the whole gang together. You brought in their sentinels for us, and we had a clear field. You might have been killed, of course, but it came out very well. Can I do anything in return?”

Somers nodded. “Why, yes. You can turn that man Rutledge over to me, as a regularly appointed deputy sheriff of Carabas County. He’s wanted over there. I’ll get a warrant first and serve it. You’ll keep him safe until then?”

The other bowed a grim head. “Oh, yes, and for the next twenty years, at least!”

While we talked, the prisoners were being unloaded, to the curious delight of a rapidly gathering crowd. Old Rutledge descended ponderously, his eyes upon Somers. Meeting that odd, almost friendly regard, the lanky doctor started.

“Here, man,” he said excitedly. “You can do this: Give me a chance for a quiet talk with Rutledge now. Maybe I can get something out of him.”

The revenue agent agreed readily, and in ten minutes we faced the huge mountaineer in the little office of the jail. A stalwart officer stood on either side of him, pistol in hand; for Roaring Lafe was too notorious to be guarded carelessly.

Doctor Somers leaned toward him impulsively. “Look here, Rutledge! There’s a friend of mine in jail, over there in Pinelands, waiting his trial. He was married the other day, and his bride is waiting for him, crying her eyes out. You’re an old man; won’t you help them?”

The moonshiner looked back at him squarely, his bright old eyes curiously wistful and soft. “I hain’t havin’ no truck ’ith furriners,” he answered slowly, “but I’ll do whut I kin for _you_, stranger. Yore th’ fust one ever bested Roaring Lafe yit; I cain’t tell now how yuh done hit. Whut kin I do?”

“Confess!” said Somers swiftly. “You might as well; we’ve got you anyway. Confess, and let poor old Parker out now, instead of keeping him until you’re tried.”

Rutledge laughed hoarsely. “Confess? W’y, stranger, hain’t no need o’ me confessing hardly. They done cotched me, still an’ all!”

“Yes, for blockading, I know, but not for murder.”

“Murder? What-all ye talkin’ ’bout, stranger? I ain’t done no killin’ meanness--not in Carabas County.”

“I’m talking about the murder of Doctor Gaskell,” said Somers impatiently. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t know that! We can prove it on you, only it’ll take longer.”

Roaring Lafe stared at us. “But I hain’t done no killin’ in Pinelands,” he repeated. “I’m a-tellin’ ye th’ truth, stranger,” he declared, not without a certain rude dignity. “Don’t ye go fer t’ call Lafe Rutledge a liar, suh!”

And then, seeing our puzzlement, he leaned forward confidentially. “I’ll tell ye,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll tell you-all th’ whole thing. I did aim for t’ kill Gaskell, account o’ this here.” His wide gesture indicated his guards, his handcuffs, the jail. “He done found out more’n he’d oughter, an’ I sont word Satterfield was t’ fix ’im, lessen he sh’d do whut he done. An’ ’en I come down t’ Pinelands my own se’f. We’d had dealin’s oncet, Gaskell an’ me, an’ I didn’t aim t’ do no meanness lessen I jist hadda. I went to ’is house, an’ I done sont ’im word to tell I aimed t’ settle ’ith him come sunup. An’ I went to his house that night, aimin’ for to waylay ’im, come mornin’, like I said. Satterfield was there, an’ I sont ’im back, aimin’ t’ do th’ job my own self. Well, after while--long mebbe a hour afore sunup--out come Gaskell ’ith ’is doctor bag an’ sot out th’oo th’ pines acrost th’ big road. I follered after ’im, ’ith my pistol gun ready. He traveled ’long th’oo them pines an’ into th’ bresh, an’ me after ’im, ontwel I--I seen th’ ha’nt. An’ ’en I lit out a-runnin’. Yessuh!”

He stopped, curiously shamefaced, and stared at Somers, with a sort of sulky defiance.

“You--you saw a haunt--a ghost?”

“Uh-huh!” The tough-souled old reprobate nodded violently, so that his patriarchal beard wagged again. “Yassuh! I seen th’ ha’nt, all white, like in a shroud, an’ blue smoke like brimstone ’round about, an’ eyes a-flamin’ dreadful--an’ I shore did light a shuck outa there. Gentlemen, hush! I don’t aim t’ have no truck ’ith ghosteses.”

His big, bold face was all twisted with superstitious awe; the hand which clutched his beard was trembling. There could be no doubt that he spoke the truth. Whatever loose newspaper or waving sheet had wrought upon his ignorant fancy, he was fully convinced that he had encountered a spirit, and had been driven by it from his intended crime.

“And you didn’t shoot Gaskell? Did you see anybody else there? Was Satterfield gone?”

“Nossuh--yassuh. I aimed fer to shoot ’im, but I plumb didn’t! I jist tuck my foot in my hand an’ lit a-runnin’. Ner I didn’t see nobody, neither. I didn’t look round, lessen th’ ha’nt was a-follerin’ of me; but Satterfield, he’d done gone back up th’ hill long afore that.”

Somers groaned aloud. I could have wept. Weary as I was, I had been buoyed up by hope until now. I had borne with all this strain and fatigue, exulting within myself that now, at last, Lewis would be freed. This blow was too much. The room whirled before me; Somers’ face blurred, grew monstrously big, then receded from my sight. I heard his voice faintly:

“Well, then, in Heaven’s name, who _did_ kill Gaskell?”

Rutledge’s reply sounded fainter yet, a hoarse whisper, trembling with superstitious dread. “I reckon hit musta been th’ ha’nt!”

“The ghost!” Somers’ voice was reflective, almost convinced. “I believe you’re right, Rutledge; it must have been the ghost!”

The words seemed to come from an immense distance; they rang in my ears like a knell. “Poor Somers!” I thought. “He’s gone crazy; he’s off his head about this thing, just like the rest of us!”

Then I lost consciousness.