16 The Wilderness Call

I went again, and more than once, to the house of Judge Wharton, although I took care to see Alicia only in the company of Mrs. Guthrie or Mrs. Wharton. Despite the unconscious heights from which she looked down I would not have the taint of gossip to touch her, and I took every precaution. It may be that she was talked about at the capital, nevertheless, but it did not come to my ears nor to hers, and if one is ignorant of such a thing it does not exist, so far as one is concerned.

I wished to discharge all the social duties of my place, and at regular intervals I gave receptions at the Governor’s mansion, assisted by Mrs. Guthrie, Mrs. Wharton or other ladies in Frankfort, and I enjoyed them. I repeat that I have the social instinct, I like to see well-bred and handsome people together; I like the lights, the music, the bright dresses of the women and good talk. Alicia usually came with the Whartons and Mrs. Guthrie, and her manner and bearing were irreproachable. Although a wife, living apart from her husband, she radiated such an air of purity that she was thoroughly established in the good graces of Frankfort, and if gossip touched her, as I have no doubt it did, because in every community there are foul-minded people, it was done obscurely and with caution.

Just before giving one of these receptions I heard that Harrison was at the capital, and I promptly sent him an invitation. He appeared on the appointed evening rather early, a distinguished figure, his pale, thin face lighted up with keenness and intelligence. Although I believed that he had set afloat during the campaign the story about my mysterious disappearance, I reflected how little cause he had to like me, and I did not cherish hostility.

“It’s kind of you to ask me here,” he said, when I gave him the formal welcome.

“It is your right to come,” I said.

“I wanted to be asked,” he said. “You can guess why. It’s the old story of the moth and the flame. I cannot stay away from Alicia Grey forever.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him about Pauline Harmon, but I restrained the impulse, and when Alicia came I saw him watching her at a distance with eager eyes. Presently he went up to her and spoke. Of course I did not hear the words, nor did I seek or wish to hear them, but I knew that she replied coldly, because his face fell, and soon he withdrew to another room. I saw him regarding me later with a look of intense dislike and suspicion. I read his mind. He believed that if I were out of the way he might win. It was a curious fact, but always he seemed to regard Grey as a negligible quantity. I felt anger then toward him, not because of his dislike, not because of the injustice that he did me, but because of the greater injustice that he did Alicia.

That evening was a memorable one in my life, because of the conjunction of persons and events.. At so inopportune a moment an affair threatening for some time came suddenly to a head. All the world knows that the blood feud still lingers in the wild mountains that crowd the Eastern part of our State; in the wildest of them all the Kents and the Horners had been fighting throughout the winter, and there had been several deaths, all assassinations. I had kept an eye upon the matter, expecting the local authorities to cope with it, but fearing that they would fail, and ready in an emergency to send the militia.

That night while I was among my guests a telegram was handed to me. It came from the railroad station nearest to the scene of conflict, and said that a pitched battle had occurred two days before between the Kents and Horners, resulting in three deaths on each side.

I had asked to be excused while I read the telegram, and when I had read it I felt a flush of anger on my face. It was disgraceful that such things could be happening in Kentucky in the twentieth century, and I resolved to stop it, if all the power lodged in my hands had to be directed to the effort. Alicia was near me as I read, and she noticed my expression.

“I hope it’s nothing bad,” she said.

“Only that some of our people in the mountains persist in murdering each other,” I rejoined. “And I suppose the State will have to murder some of them to make them quit the habit.”

“Do they know better?” she asked.

“They should,” I replied, and then I slipped away to my private room, where I sent telegrams to militia companies at Louisville and Lexington to start at once for the mountains. When the messengers were gone with the dispatches, I sat for a few moments sombre and thoughtful. What could the militia do? Preserve the peace while they were there, and as soon as they came away the old bushwhacking and midnight assassination would be resumed. Witnesses in fear for their lives would not dare to testify and the courts would be terrorized.

It was a disgrace, a very deep one, and then came to me the thought to go with the militia. I might look into this trouble, probe it to the very bottom, and find out for myself the best cure. Surely, too, they would pay some respect to the Governor.

I decided in an instant. I would go. Nothing in the State was worthier of my attention, and relieved by the resolve I went back to my guests. I said nothing until after the refreshments were served, and then Alicia was the first whom I told.

“I am going away from Frankfort to-morrow,” I said.

She looked at me in much surprise, but she said somewhat lightly:

“Why, you can’t go; you are the Governor.”

“That’s just why I’m going,” I said. Then I told her of my intentions and she approved it. “But don’t get shot,” she added. Again she spoke lightly, but I thought I saw anxiety in her tone, and it was not unpleasant to believe that it was for me. The next to whom I told my plan was Judge Wharton, and he, too, commended my purpose.

“These things give us an evil name,” he said. “They are the deeds of a very small minority, but we are responsible for them nevertheless.”

I told no others, and I asked these two to say nothing, but as soon as all my guests were gone I ordered Seth to pack, in order that I might leave early the next morning. He was to go with me, and he was filled with trembling delight at the prospect. To his uneducated mind our mountains were higher than the Himalayas and fairly swarmed with wild men, who, nevertheless, were armed with the most modern breech-loading guns, with which they fired at the innocent traveller from every bush.

“Do you think we’ll get back alive, Governor?” he asked, shuddering again with that sense of dangerous delight—Seth was no coward.

“I think it probable,” I replied.

It is but a brief run from Frankfort to Lexington, and I stopped at the latter city, where the militia companies that I intended to take with me were to meet. The Louisville company had already come down in the night, and as an after-thought, intending to search the mountains thoroughly, I had ordered a third from Winchester, for which we should have to wait a few hours. I went at once to the camp of the Louisville company, and to my great astonishment the first man whom I saw was Harrison, in a lieutenant’s uniform.

“You did not know that I was an officer in this company, Mr. Clarke,” he said quietly, “and I had almost forgotten it myself. But when your call was sent to Louisville last night our captain telegraphed me in Frankfort, and I came on to Lexington, where my uniform and other equipment met me.”

I was not sure that I wanted Harrison with us on this journey. His keen, and ironical eye might see many things which others would overlook, and it is not pleasant to feel that one is watched by the man whose criticism he dislikes most. But I told him in the usual formal manner that I was glad he was going, and he added:

“Other old friends of yours are in the company. There is Mr. Timothy Applegate, a second lieutenant in this company, and Mr. Connor, late a member of the Legislature, and also an officer in this company.”

I saw them, a little later, Applegate, inflated with pride in his uniform, and the thought of active service; and Connor, also proud of his gold lace, but silent, even sullen. I paid no more notice to either than was necessary, and then, after a brief inspection, I left the camp.

The Winchester company arrived at noon, and we left a half hour later on a special train for the railroad station whence we were to start for the long journey among the mountains to the seat of war. We ran for a while through the beautiful Bluegrass region and then entered the hills, where we made our camp of the first night.

Before we started the next morning, straggling mountaineers came in, drawn by the sight of the troops and the knowledge of our mission. I questioned several as closely as their natural taciturnity would let me. No fresh outbreak had occurred in the last few days and the most potent weapon for peace had been the influence of the great preacher and revivalist.

“The great preacher and revivalist?” I said.

Oh, yes, didn’t I know of him. He’d been stirring up all the mountains over a range of a hundred miles. His like had never been heard before in those parts. He fairly shook the souls of men. He knew how to get right into the hearts of all kinds of people. He might be preaching to a thousand men, and every one of them would think that he was preaching to him alone. He was trying to bring the Kents and the Horners together, and make them quit fighting, and if he couldn’t do it nobody could. They were quite frank in the latter statement, implying that if religion failed, the arms of the State would be useless, and I was not offended.

But I was pleased at the thought of this powerful ally; we could preserve the peace while we were in the mountains, but no longer, and he might be able to continue it after we came away.

“What is the name of this minister?” I asked.

“The Reverend Elias Peabody.”

I sat for a moment, dumb. It had never occurred to me that it could be he, and yet what more natural than that it should be he, Elias, my old comrade of the stripes and the cell? In the press of matters nearer and more personal he had almost passed out of my mind lately, but the same chance that brought us together first was now bringing us together again. It was indeed a singular decree of fate. He would not dream that the Governor of Kentucky, coming at the head of his little army, was Charlie Johnson who had been a convict with him. How could he?

“Mr. Peabody is doing a good work,” I said to the mountaineers. “Now that you give his name I recall it, and I know that he is an honest and able man.”

My tribute to the minister seemed to impress them and to raise me in their esteem; it was to my credit to appreciate Elias Peabody and I was not offended at the prestige that came to me from the lustre borrowed of him.

We broke camp quickly and started on the long trail through the mountains, in warlike panoply, but with little thought of things warlike in our hearts. It was more like a great and happy excursion and the officers permitted a certain laxity of discipline that encouraged the tendency to lightness of heart. I dismounted from my horse after a while and walked with the lads. I marked Lieutenant Timothy Applegate in a uniform as gorgeous as marching orders would allow, and I marked also the surly Connor who would not let his eye meet mine. Harrison, silent and watchful, was at the head of his men, and I knew that he was a most capable officer.

The trail grew rougher and wilder, and perforce we went more slowly, but the beauty of the day did not abate. The highest peaks swam in a blue haze and the deepest valleys were misty and green. Now and then a guide blew a note on a trumpet, and mellow and sweet it rolled away in echo after echo, until it died in a faint sigh under the horizon. We met no one. Either the mountaineers, for reasons of their own, wished to avoid the troops or the country was but little inhabited. Now and then we saw a cabin snuggling among the trees, but no one came forth to welcome us.

“They look upon it as an invading army,” said Harrison to me.

“But it is not,” I replied with some emotion, “we come to make peace not war.”

At noon we built fires again by the side of a clear stream and cooked our dinner. I had all the officers at my table which was merely a wide board spread on the grass, and a pleasant dinner it was with appetites sharpened by the keen air of the mountains. Harrison was there, rather silent, but his taciturnity was more than atoned for by the conversational powers of his friend, Applegate, whom the wilderness and our poetical situation moved more or less to poetical emotion. Connor was also with us, but he had nothing to say, taking his dinner in sullen silence. I judged that he still regarded me with malevolence, and would do me harm if an easy opportunity came.

We had finished dinner and were preparing to resume the march when the figure of a horseman appeared on a hill far in front of us, but a vivid black silhouette nevertheless against a dazzling blue sky. The man remained there motionless for a few moments, evidently watching us, and then came at a rapid pace down the valley toward our camp. As he drew nearer I thought I saw something familiar in the figure of the rider. Surely I knew those heavy shoulders, and the head covered with thick black hair.

“It’s our friend, Mr. Bucks, late member of the Legislature,” said Harrison.

When he came nearer it was unmistakably he, and I remembered then that we were now marching across the county which he had represented in the House.

“I think our friend Bucks is more or less a member of the Horner clan,” said Harrison.

I recalled the same impression and as it affected me unpleasantly, I turned away, resolved not to notice him unless his presence demanded notice. But Harrison came to me ten minutes later and said that Mr. Bucks insisted on seeing me on business of importance. Everything was packed and we were just about to start, but I told Harrison to bring the man. I was standing by a great tree when he came. I noticed at once that his swarthy face was flushed and he was clinching and unclinching his hands, both, signs of anger. I resolved at once that I would take no insolence from him.

“Governor,” he exclaimed, “what is the meaning of this?”

“Of what?” I asked in the dryest tone I could command.

“Of these troops, armed men marching over the soil of a peaceful county?”

“Well,” I replied in the same tone, “I’m the Governor of this State, and this little army is here for reasons sufficient to me. It is not necessary to explain them to you.”

The crimson blood burned through his dark face, and his eyes flamed with the headlong anger of the tribesman.

“But these are peaceful counties!” he exclaimed, “you have no right to come here with troops.”

“They don’t seem to be very peaceful,” I said, “when a half dozen men have been murdered; and I have an absolute right to come here. Moreover I intend to put these counties under martial law.”

He burst into imprecations and I ordered his arrest at once—it was a thing I was loth to do, owing to my former personal difficulty with him—but I knew that I must take a high hand in the beginning. Under my orders Applegate and two men seized him and searched him—they found on his person a revolver and a knife, both of which were confiscated.

“You have forced this action, Mr. Bucks,” I said, “I have heard that you are one of the Horner clansmen and we have certainly found evidence here that you go prepared to do violence. You will be under arrest as long as it is necessary.”

Bucks raged, but he was forced to submit. Again I say it was a thing I disliked to do, but in view of the situation I could see no other course. There was, too, a certain grim but not unpleasant irony in the reflection that Bucks had ridden straight into a trap, and then had closed the trap with his own hand.

“You are to keep him under strict guard,” I said to Applegate, “I make him your personal charge, but you are not to treat him with any discourtesy unless he compels it.”

Then we resumed the march, but I kept away from Bucks. I did not wish to appear as one who, taking advantage of his power, exulted over an enemy.

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