13 Aftermath

A raw and cold autumn dawn succeeded Groveton’s most eventful night. Clouds hid the sun. A drizzle of chilling rain came slowly down. The largest tobacco warehouse—and the tobacco within it—was totally consumed. Jerome Arnett, bruised and frightened, was inside his own home, and resolutely refused to come forth. Harry Beauchamp stood looking at the shattered Herald building, knowing that his ruined press lay beneath heaps of half burned timbers. The Groveton men who pursued the raiders far into the hills had come back, three or four of them with slight wounds, but confident that they had given far better than they had received.

A hand was laid upon Harry’s shoulder as he gazed at what was left of the Herald building. He turned mechanically and saw Christopher Lucas.

“You raised that insurance to twelve thousand, didn’t you Harry?” said the old banker.

“Yes,” replied Harry and suddenly a great flood of relief poured over him. He had not thought once of the insurance.

“And there are presses to be bought exactly like the one under the coals there?” continued the old banker.

“Of course.”

“Use my name as security when you telegraph for it.”

“And that will be in the next five minutes!” exclaimed Harry Beauchamp, his whole mind and body leaping at once into active life. Without another word, he strode away toward the telegraph office, and the shrewd old eyes of Christopher Lucas followed him.

“He’s too good an asset to be lost to Groveton,” said the president of the First National Bank to himself.

Harry Beauchamp’s paralysis had been only momentary. It had been the effect of a stunning blow received by youth, but now the same quality of youth made a complete and almost instant recovery. He telegraphed at once to New York for a new press, referring the matter to Mr. Lucas’ bank as security for payment. Then he wired to the largest newspaper in Louisville for permission to bring out the Herald on its presses, until he could secure one of his own. Affirmative answers to both came within a few hours, and in the afternoon Harry, Dick Flynn, Jim Steptoe and a reporter took the train for Louisville. Already Harry was planning in his mind how he should write the account of the “Great Groveton Outrage” for the next morning issue of the Herald. He was no longer depressed. He was energetic and warlike.

While he was gone, some old friends, grave but nevertheless drawing comfort from the presence of one another, reassembled in the office of the County Clerk and discussed the tragic event that had come to pass in Groveton. It was still raw and cold without, and the fire was very consoling.

“I’m powerful sorry it happened” said Ransome, “but I reckon one thing’s true; Groveton is right in the middle of the public eye.”

Professor Ross laughed.

“You make me think of Si Powers and the Battle of Stone River,” he said. “It was before the main fight, when the skirmishing was going on. Si was an ambitious fellow, and he crawled to the top of a little hillock, where he began to blaze away at the other side. His firing was so conspicuous that about a hundred of the opposing skirmishers opened out on him, as he lay there behind a rock. But he escaped their bullets somehow or other, and, at last crawled back safe. ‘Well Si’ said our Captain, ‘you’re a brave fellow; you were the focus of all eyes.’ ‘What I wuz wishin’ for mighty hard captain’ said Si ‘was less focus an’ more rock.’”

“I hear that they shot Mr. Newton’s stovepipe hat right off the top of his head,” continued the clerk, “and a powerful fine hat it was, that must have cost at least ten dollars in Chicago.”

“It’s so,” said Judge Braxton “I’ve seen the hat.”

“It only goes to prove,” continued the clerk, “that a man ought to have judgment. They talk about genius and such things, but I reckon that judgment can stack up against the whole lot. The idea of a man putting on a tall, shiny stovepipe hat, and going out in the street, when there are Night Riders about popping at things. It was offering too big a temptation, and the Bible ain’t hard on them that are tempted too great, and fall. If I’d had a rifle and a mask I might have taken a shot myself, and not thought it much of a sin.”

“Is it true that he has left for Chicago and will not return to Groveton?” asked the Professor.

“It’s true that he’s gone, and I think also it’s true that he will not come back,” replied Judge Braxton. “I was at the station today, when he was leaving, and he said to me: ‘er really, I did not know that life could be so exciting in such a small place. I can stand almost anything but bullets, and er—really I must go’. So he went.”

“And so we lose our millionaire,” said the clerk, “The only one that Groveton ever really had a fair chance at. We had him, but we couldn’t hold him.”

Mr. Beauchamp glanced covertly at Judge Braxton. It seemed to him that the Judge looked relieved. He knew that he felt relieved himself. Mr. Beauchamp, despite his unworldliness, was not deficient in perception.

“I spo’se Mr. Newton will give us a terrible name,” continued the garrulous clerk “and here’s Groveton too, with her newspaper office and biggest tobacco warehouse burned. We’ll be pointed at all over the United States as a dreadful example. I spo’se the old boys out in the county will say that our youngsters were rushing things too much, trying to organize and civilize and build up too fast, and they had to remind ’em they couldn’t have things their own way all at once.”

“That’s just it,” said Judge Braxton. “Things like this raid are the old Kentucky and the new coming into conflict. I’m an old Kentuckian myself, but I suppose that I’m divided between two camps, because I’ve got a lot of sympathy for the youngsters, like Harry and Charlie and Tom. Besides they’re going to win. People that fight according to the rules, laid down by science, always do.”

“Have they any idea who were in the raid?” asked the Professor.

“They wore masks,” said the Clerk, “but there’s been a tall lot of good guessing. People say too that many mountaineers were in that crowd. Some of them are fighting the railroad from pure contrariness and cussedness, and it would give ’em just the chance they wanted to pump a little lead into Groveton and then get away.”

“Well, I must be going,” said the Judge, and he left the hospitable office. The cause of his going was a sudden glimpse of his daughter Cynthia on the far side of the square. The view now was unobstructed. All the leaves were gone from the trees, and the grass was thin and brown.

Walking swiftly, the Judge overtook Cynthia, and the two walked on together. It was in the Judge’s mind to ask her two or three questions and he approached them deftly. He proceeded through the events of the raid, alluded to what was called in Groveton Mr. Newton’s narrow escape, and then made an apparently casual remark about the general belief that Mr. Newton had gone away to stay. Cynthia knew perfectly well what information her father was seeking, and she was willing to furnish it.

“No, I don’t think he’s coming back,” she said. “In fact, he told me that he would not when he said good bye.”

“If a man were deeply interested in anything,” said Judge “Braxton, ”He wouldn’t run away from it, merely because of a stray bullet.”

“No, ” said Cynthia, “he wouldn’t, he would need something else.”

The Judge, satisfied with his information, turned into a tobacco store to examine a new pipe, and Cynthia went on alone. Her recollection of Mr. Newton was not wholly unpleasant. He had come to say good bye, and he had asked her if there would ever be any possibility of her changing her mind. Wnen she had said none whatever, he had accepted the decree in rather manly fashion, and had gone away. She was thinking softly of him, as of one who was unhappy.

But while the Judge was critically examining the new pipe a messenger came to him demanding that he ride in haste. The messenger was unknown to Judge Braxton—and he knew pretty nearly everybody in that section—a bent, lantern-jawed type of a man with straggling tow locks, a man of the mountains, rather than Groveton.

“A fellow wants to see you Judge” he said, “He’s kinsfolks uv mine, an’ he wants to see you bad.”

“Then why don’t he come to Groveton and see me?” said the Judge.

“He can’t, Judge. He’s ”been hurt, “but he needs you pow’ful ”bad. ”

“What’s your name?”

“Tom Sampson.”

“It’s new to me. I judge by your looks you’re from the hills.”

“Yes, Judge, east of Groveton.”

“And what’s the name of this man who has been hurt, and who you say needs me so badly.”

“I don’t think he’d like to tell it Judge, but you’d be doin’ a good deed to see him.”

Judge Braxton, in the course of his long and variegated practice, had grown used to queer calls and hurry calls, and he could not resist the man’s entreaties. He had a soft heart, and, if a fellow-being was suffering and needed him, then he must go. He sent for his horse and the two rode away into the hills.

They were rather silent on the journey, the messenger like most of the hill people being taciturn, while the Judge was absorbed in his thoughts, which were principally of the raid on Groveton. His tolerant nature had been really shocked by the affair, and he foresaw that a good cause might be injured much by a bad deed.

They rode seven or eight miles, and were in one of the most sterile stretches of the hills. Here Sampson turned from the main road, and led the way into what was nothing more than a bridle path. Although they were soon hidden in the almost leafless but deep woods the Judge rode fearlessly behind his guide. A mile farther, and they stopped at a double log cabin in the lee of a hill.

“This is my home, an’ the man’s in here,” said Sampson.

They dismounted. Two or three wary children disappeared in the thickets, but the man led the way inside, where a tall gaunt woman with a red hankerchief tied around her head—Sampson’s wife—received them.

It was an ordinary mountain cabin, and it took Judge Braxton’s eyes a few moments to become used to the dusky interior. Then he saw a high four-post bed in the corner and lying upon the bed a sallow high-cheeked man, ghastly white, whom Judge Braxton recognized at once, one Henry Carter whose acquital on the charge of shooting he had secured three or four years before.

“Carter!” he said, “What’s the matter with you?”

The man smiled a faint sickly smile but did not answer. It was Sampson’s wife who spoke up.

“A bullet has gone clean through his shoulder,” she said, “an’ all ’cause he was meddlin’ in what wuz no business o’ his. He never raised any terbacker.”

“Sh—sh,” said Sampson warningly, but the tall gaunt woman was not afraid.

“O’ course,” she continued. “He wuz the one that would ketch it, bein’ ez it wuz no business o’ his, an’ he had the least sense of the lot.”

The Judge’s acute mind saw the whole truth in an instant. It was definitely known that one of the raiders had been shot from his horse, but had been carried off by the others. He looked at Carter’s poor, weak, foolish face, and he appreciated the truth spoken by Sampson’s wife, the mountain woman.

“Carter!” he exclaimed, “Why didn’t you stay in the mountains?”

“You saved me once, an’ what I want to know now is won’t you defen’ me ag’in in case anything comes o’ this?”

“But you were there?” Said Judge Braxton.

“Yes, I know I wuz thar, but I want to help the down-trod, who are ground into the earth by them plutocrats. Dave—”

“Stop,” said Judge Braxton, “I don’t want to hear the name of anybody who told you anything or whose leadership you followed. I’ve taken your case, and I’ll defend you a second time, but don’t say anything that will incriminate yourself, or anybody else to me.”

“Thank you, Jedge, thank you,” said the man gratefully. “I knowed you’d help a poor fellow who’s always in hard luck. That’s one reason I asked you to come, an’ another is on account o’ somebody that you like.”

His voice was suddenly lowered to a whisper, the tone of one who wishes to communicate a significant warning. Judge Braxton leaned forward, greatly interested.

“I want you, Judge, to tell Harry Beechum to look out, to look out for hisself! and to look out good! He mustn’t take any risks!”

The Judge knew that Carter was in deadly earnest, and he was alarmed for Harry. He wished to know more.

“Is that all you can tell, Carter?” he asked. “Who threatens Harry Beauchamp?”

“Judge, I can’t say any more. I can’t tell on the men that ’ve rid with, an’ that hev trusted me. But you tell Harry Beechum to look out!”

“I will,” said the Judge. He saw that Carter was growing feverish, and that it was useless to ask him any more questions. “Now you rest easy, Henry, and if they come for you I’ll defend you, and I’ll get you off too. You were led into this by stronger and worser men.

Thank you Judge,“ repeated the man gratefully.

The Judge rose and left the cabin. Sampson followed. The Judge really meant what he said, when he promised to procure Carter’s acquittal in case of his indictment. His sympathies were stirred. He knew that the man, in his weakness, had been used by others, and he had already been greatly punished.

“Has any doctor been to see him?” he said to Sampson, when they were outside.

“Yes, old Doc Sandidge from over on the creek wuz here yistiddy. He took one look at Hank’s shoulder, an’ said ‘I must git the bullet out!’ But when he looked at the other side of the shoulder he said: ‘It’s already out!’ That bullet wuz a-whoopin’ when it hit Hank, an’ it went clean through him. Doc Sandidge says Hank’s in bad. I’m ’lowin’ from what the Doc says, Judge, that thar may never be no chance o’ Hank ever goin’ into Court.”

The two men looked at each other significantly.

“Growin’ weaker an’ fever risin’,” said Sampson.

“If Sandidge sends in a bill,” said Judge Braxton, “You just pass it on to me. What did you tell him had happened?”

“I talked a lot uv foolishness about an accident. I said me an’ Hank wuz out huntin’ squirrels an’ I said somethin’ about my gun goin’ off too quick. I didn’t fool Doc Sandidge, not fur a minute. He says to me, ‘Tom, the next time you an’ Hank goes huntin’ squirrels, don’t you take a 45 Winchester, it’s too light for sech big game, you take a cannon!’ But the Doc always minds his own business.”

“That’s so,” said the Judge, and he added as he rode away: “Let me know if anything happens.” As he turned into the main road he said angrily to himself: “I wish we’d never heard of tobacco in this state!” A mile further on he saw wisps of smoke coming from the roof of a tobacco barn, set back a few hundred yards from the roadside. He entered the narrow private road at once, reached the barn, and dismounted. Other wisps of smoke escaped as he opened the door, but he quickly closed it behind him.

“Hello, Judge! Yes I’m firin’ an’ she’s curin’ up beautiful!”

It was a farmer named Hicks who greeted him, and the farmer’s grown son also stood by. The interior of the barn was high, with long poles, crossing from side to side, and rising in tiers above one another. The tobacco sticks rested thickly on these poles, and from the sticks themselves hung the great tobacco stalks, packed as closely together as was possible without crushing. The entire interior of the barn, from a distance of eight or ten feet, was filled upward with hanging tobacco. The floor was earthen, and long trenches had been hollowed out. In these, smothered fires of wood were burning.

“Yes, Judge” said Hicks cheerfully. “We’re settin’ up with the baby.”

The long task of curing, carried on day and night, had now begun, and it was a delicate operation. Upon the skill and watchfulness of the farmer and his son the quality of the tobacco would greatly depend. Hicks was probably forty-two or forty-three years of age, but he looked at least fifty five. His face was full of wrinkles, and the permanent stoop had already come into his shoulders.

“Yes, I think you’ll have a fine crop,” said Judge Braxton, “but do you think tobacco is really worthwhile, Mr. Hicks?”

Hicks rubbed one leathery cheek with one leathery hand in a thoughtful way.

“I’ve never had time to reckon it up, Judge,” he said. “I’ve just got to have the tobacco. Thar’s my debts always come crowdin’ at me, an’ tobacco is the only thing I kin meet ’em with. I guess that when a bear runs at a man he’ll shoot with whatever gun he has. He ain’t got time to look fur a finer one. But I think, Judge, tobacco will be a lot higher next year. I’m in the Band uv Justice an’ I ain’t goin’ to sell, none uv us is goin’ to sell till the word is give.”

“The Band of Justice is all right,” said Judge Braxton, “but the Night Riders go too far. Groveton is too big a place to be mobbed.”

“I hear things wuz purty lively thar the other night,” said Hicks, “but I don’t know nobody who had anything to do with it. The Town Marshal and the Sheriff hev been aroun’ lookin’ fur people, but they ain’t found nobody.”

“Have you seen Dave Strong in the last day or two?” asked Judge Braxton.

Hicks looked sharply at the Judge.

“No,” he replied,“ I ain’t seen him. But, say, Judge, you are not takin’ any part in these things are you? You are not lookin’ fur Dave Strong fur any particular reason are you?”

“No,” replied Judge Braxton, “I am not, but you know all the talk that’s passing about as well as I do, Mr. Hicks, and my advice to you is to keep out of this business. Stay here and fire your tobacco.”

“I reckon you’re about right Judge,” said Hicks. “Here, John, smother them coals. We don’t want the blaze flarin’ up like that. I mean to cure up at least one hogshead uv White Burley that’ll bring thirty dollars a hundred.”

The Judge rode back to Groveton, feeling very helpless. The excitement in the town had not died. Many people stood before the burned buildings, and some ventured the prediction that Groveton would hear from the Night Riders again. Harry Beauchamp’s Herald, printed in Louisville, had come down, filled with fiery denunciations of lawlessness, and it was reported that his new press would arrive in Groveton, in a few days. The merchants and professional men of Groveton supported him, but the farmers did not hesitate to attack him. They said that he had become a friend of the plutocrats. “Plutocrat” was now a favorite word with them; it had an ominous sound, and it might mean anything hateful.

Judge Braxton, three days later, was on his way from his home to his office, when a man coming up silently behind, tapped him on the shoulder. It was Sampson.

“I’ve just come to tell ye, Judge,” said Sampson, “that Hank won’t need ye to defend him.”

“You mean—?”

“Yes, Judge, that’s jest what I mean. No court will ever trouble him about how he happened to git that bullet through him. Old Doc Sandidge came back, an’ done his best, but he said the shock an’ inflammation wuz too much.”

“Poor Hank!” said Judge Braxton. “He was the least to blame!”

“I guess he wuz what the Lord made him. It didn’t ever look ez ef he could he’p hisself.”

Harry Beauchamp and his staff returned in the following week to Groveton, the new press having arrived a few days before, and having been installed, as the first one was, by Tom Kidd. Sufficient repairs had also been made to the building to keep out rain and cold, and the Herald was once more printed in its birthplace and home.

Further outrages had occurred in the Dark Tobacco Region. Several men who persisted in selling tobacco to the trust, against the warnings of the Band of Justice, were whipped severely, and several more barns filled with tobacco were burned. Nor had evidence been procured against a single Night Rider. The country everywhere was in sympathy with them, and it also gave a pretext for the old jealousy between town and country to reassert itself. Officials from Groveton, seeking evidence, were confronted always by a solid wall of ignorance. “Yes they had heard there were masked men riding about, but they hadn’t seen ’em, nor had they seen anybody else, who had seen ’em. Dave Strong was out at his creek farm and when the officers went to see him they found him ”firing“ tobacco. There was no evidence, but everybody in Groveton, including the officials, had his opinion.

Harry Beauchamp thundered against lawlessness. His sense of order had received a terrible blow in the raid on Groveton and the burning of his building.

But the commercial effect of the raid was to help Harry, a point which it is due him, however to say, that he considered but little. His actual material loss was covered by the insurance, paid promptly, and the further prominence, given to the Herald by the affair, brought in a stream of distant advertisements. When he took stock of his finances at the end of a month he was amazed to find that he was able to make another payment to Christopher Lucas.

The first thing that he did when he came out of his absorption, was to go to the house of Judge Braxton. He had met Cynthia often about the streets, and he had realized, to his deep and intense satisfaction, that Herbert Newton was gone to stay.

Winter had now come, and winter in any part of Kentucky can be long and cold. A chill wind blew down from the blue crests of the distant mountains, and flakes of snow were flying. The boughs of the bare trees on the lawn rustled dismally. Yet Harry was not unhappy. Cold weather always increased his vital energy, and the blood of youth was high. To do his work that he loved and to do it with his whole strength always gave him a deep sense of satisfaction.

Judge Braxton had followed the term of the Circuit Court to another county, but Cynthia was at home. Harry, if he needed an excuse for calling, had one in the fact that she was still writing a few book notices for the Herald now and then, and he was taking to her three or four novels just arrived from the New York publishers.

Cynthia received him in the large parlor, in which a great wood fire was burning—Judge Braxton was old-fashioned in some respects, and clung to wood fires whenever possible. It was very home-like and cheerful there with the blaze throwing warm, red shadows on the carpet, and lingering now and then like a beam of light on Cynthia’s wonderful black hair. It seemed to Harry that she had grown recently very much graver, very much more of a woman.

He sat down before the fire and they talked a little of the books, although both were thinking of other things, and both knew it. Harry spoke at last of Herbert Newton.

“I am afraid” he said, “that he left with a poor opinion of us.”

Cynthia was silent. Harry did not know whether the slight increase of red in her cheeks came from the glow of the firelight.

“I’m sorry that the raid upon Groveton happened while he was here,” he continued, “and I’m sorrier still to confess that we haven’t yet been able to discover and punish anybody for it.”

“These people believe they have been wronged, and perhaps they did not know any other way in which to express themselves,” said Cynthia.

“But one cannot condone arson and attempted murder.”

“No,” she said. She knew that he was right. Yet she had large sympathies for the tobacco growers. There was another pause and Harry again was the first to break it.

“A man named Carter died of a wound that he received in the raid” he said, “but before he died he sent me a message.”

Cynthia suddenly clasped her hands nervously. She too knew of this message. Her father incidentally had let slip a word or two, and she had made him tell the rest.

“Harry!” she said, speaking impulsively. “His word to you was to be careful, to look out, and he knew! You will be careful, will you not?”

He knew that one of Cynthia’s great qualities was courage, but he saw that she was now tremulous and apprehensive. It was he who was in danger, and a glow came into his own eyes.

“I scarcely know what to watch for,” he said.

“Keep away from the mountains. Do not go there!”

“You would not have me be afraid of anybody?”

“No, I would not, ”but you ought to to be ready, you ought to be armed. Do you carry a revolver, Harry?”

It was a question she had asked him once before—in the hills. But the look of tremulous apprehension was gone from her face. Birth, blood, the inherited instinct were in command now.

“No,” replied Harry, “I won’t carry a pistol, I’ve preached so much against the habit in Kentucky that I must practice a little of what I preach.”

He spoke lightly as if he would make a joke of it, but she remained intensely in earnest.

“Not when your life is threatened?” she said.

“It’s scarcely as bad as that.”

Yet he remembered the bullet that had whistled past his face on the night of the raid.

“And I cannot keep away from the mountains,” he continued. “I’ve taken two or three oil leases over there. I did it under compulsion from Tom Kidd, who says that before long they will enable me to erect a larger building, and to put in a color press, if I want it. The railroad will be complete early in the spring.”

“No,” she said, “I would not have you to keep away from the mountains. I would not have you to do anything that would cause people to say you are afraid. But do be careful, Harry! Remember Carter’s warning!”

The flush in her cheeks deepened. Harry Beauchamp’s heart stirred within him. She was jealous of his honor, she was apprehensive, and for him. He was not sentimental. No woman except Cynthia Braxton had ever caused his pulse to move a single beat the faster, but he knew that she and she alone would always have the power. For him womanhood was concentrated in her. Words rushed to his lips, but he checked them there. It would not be fair to her, who had yet scarcely tasted of life.

“I’ll remember it, Cynthia,” he said, trying to speak lightly. “I value myself a lot now, perhaps a good deal too much. You’ll give me those book notices in a couple of days, won’t you?”

“Earlier, perhaps,” she said, and Harry went out. From the window she watched him crossing the lawn, tall, slender, and active, full of life and energy. But the skies had grown darker, and the flakes of snow were beginning to fall steadily.

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