The prisoner trembled in his excitement. Expressions of delight and triumph bubbled to his lips. “A surprise, by Gawd! Now—now, you’ll see!”
The sentry stolidly swung his carbine to his shoulder. He sighted carefully along the barrel until it pointed at the prisoner’s head, about at his nose. “Well, I’ve got you, anyhow. Remember that! Don’t move!”
The prisoner could not keep his arms from nervously gesturing. “I won’t; but—”
“And shut your mouth!”
The three comrades of the sentry flung themselves into view. “Pete—devil of a row!—can you—”
“I’ve got him,” said the sentry calmly and without moving. It was as if the .barrel of the carbine rested on piers of stone. The three comrades turned and plunged into the darkness.
In the orchard it seemed as if two gigantic animals were engaged in a mad, floundering encounter, snarling, howling in a whirling chaos of noise and motion. In the barn the prisoner and his guard faced each other in silence.
As for the girl at the knothole, the sky had fallen at the beginning of this clamor. She would not have been astonished to see the stars swinging from their abodes, and the vegetation, the barn, all blow away. It was the end of everything, the grand universal murder. When two of the three miraculous soldiers who formed the original feedbox corps emerged in detail from the hole under the beam and slid away into the darkness, she did no more than glance at them.
Suddenly she recollected the head with silver eyes. She started forward and again applied her eyes to the knothole. Even with the din resounding from the orchard, from up the road and down the road, from the heavens and from the deep earth, the central fascination was this mystic head. There, to her, was the dark god of the tragedy.
The prisoner in gray at this moment burst into a laugh that was no more than a hysterical gurgle. “Well, you can’t hold that gun out for ever! Pretty soon you’ll have to lower it.”
The sentry’s voice sounded slightly muffled, for his cheek was pressed against the weapon. “I won’t be tired for some time yet.”
The girl saw the head slowly rise, the eyes fixed upon the sentry’s face. A tall, black figure slunk across the cow stalls and vanished in back of old Santo’s quarters. She knew what was to come to pass. She knew this grim thing was upon a terrible mission, and that it would reappear again at the head of the little passage between Santo’s stall and the wall, almost at the sentry’s elbow; and yet when she saw a faint indication as of a form crouching there, a scream from an utterly new alarm almost escaped her.
The sentry’s arms, after all, were not of granite. He moved restively. At last he spoke in his even, unchanging tone: “Well, I guess you’ll have to climb into that feedbox. Step back and lift the lid.”
“Why, you don’t mean—”
“Step back!”
The girl felt a cry of warning arising to her lips as she gazed at this sentry. She noted every detail of his facial expression. She saw, moreover, his mass of brown hair bunching disgracefully about his ears, his clear eyes lit now with a hard, cold light, his forehead puckered in a mighty scowl, the ring upon the third finger of the left hand. “Oh, they won’t kill him! Surely they won’t kill him!” The noise of the fight in the orchard was the loud music, the thunder and lightning, the rioting of the tempest which people love during the critical scene of a tragedy.
When the prisoner moved back in reluctant obedience, he faced for an instant the entrance of the little passage, and what he saw there must have been written swiftly, graphically in his eyes. And the sentry read it and knew then that he was upon the threshold of his death. In a fraction of time, certain information went from the grim thing in the passage to the prisoner, and from the prisoner to the sentry. But at that instant the black formidable figure arose, towered, and made its leap. A new shadow flashed across the floor when the blow was struck.
As for the girl at the knothole, when she returned to sense she found herself standing with clenched hands and screaming with her might.
As if her reason had again departed from her, she ran around the barn, in at the door, and flung herself sobbing beside the body of the soldier in blue.
The uproar of the fight became coherent, inasmuch as one party was giving shouts of supreme exultation. The firing no longer sounded in crashes; it was now expressed in spiteful crackles, the last words of the combat, spoken with feminine vindictiveness.
Presently there was a thud of flying feet. A grimy, panting, red-faced mob of troopers in blue plunged into the barn, became instantly frozen to attitudes of amazement and rage, and then roared in one great chorus: “He’s gone!”
The girl who knelt beside the body upon the floor turned toward them her lamenting eyes and cried: “He’s not dead, is he? He can’t be dead?”
They thronged forward. The sharp lieutenant who had been so particular about the feedbox knelt by the side of the girl and laid his head against the chest of the prostrate soldier. “Why, no,” he said, rising and looking at the man. “He’s all right. Some of you boys throw some water on him.”
“Are you sure?” demanded the girl, feverishly.
“Of course! He’ll be better after a while.”
“Oh!” said she softly, and then looked down at the sentry. She started to arise, and the lieutenant reached down and hoisted rather awkwardly at her arm.
“Don’t you worry about him. He’s all right.”
She turned her face with its curving lips and shining eyes once more toward the unconscious soldier upon the floor. The troopers made a lane to the door, the lieutenant bowed, the girl vanished.
“Queer,” said a young officer. “Girl very clearly worst kind of rebel, and yet she falls to weeping and wailing like mad over one of her enemies. Be around in the morning with all sorts of doctoring—you see if she ain’t. Queer.”
The sharp lieutenant shrugged his shoulders. After reflection he shrugged his shoulders again. He said: “War changes many things; but it doesn’t change everything, thank God!”
March 15, 1896
[Saint Paul Pioneer Press, p. 24.]
* The Little Regiment.
A FREIGHT CAR INCIDENT
[A Texas Legend]
“Remember that time, Major?” said the railroad man.
“You bet I do,” rejoined the major.
“Go ahead and tell it,” said the others.
The major lifted his glass, and carefully scrutinized the bright liquid.
“Well, Tom’s line, you see, was just being put through the interior of the State at that time, and one day he asked me to go out with him to some little town which he was going to open up with an auction sale of lots, and free beer and sandwiches for the people, and all that, you know. Well, I went along, and there was a big freight car loaded down with kegs and provisions. Everybody was having a great time. Tom got ill during the sale, so he went into a little shanty to lie down, while I went over to the freight car to get some ice to put on his head. I was in the car scouting around after ice when, all of a sudden, someone slammed the door to, and made the inside of the car as dark as pitch. Then somebody in the darkness began to swear like a pirate, and I heard him swing his revolver loose. I began to see the game then.
It seems that there was a fellow around there that a good many people wanted to kill, and they said they were going to kill him that day at the sale, too. Somebody had pointed him out to me during the morning, and I had heard him brag, so I recognized this voice in the darkness. I think he decided they had slammed the door on him so that when he opened it to come out they could get a good fair chance to make a sieve of him. The way that man swore was positively frightful. He wasn’t very good company, either. I stood still so long that I felt the bones in my legs creak like old timbers, and I didn’t breathe any harder than a canary bird. He went on swearing at a great rate. I began to think of Tom and his pain, wishing he had died rather than I had come for that ice.
At last I found that I had got to move. There wa
s no help for it. My legs refused to support me in this position any longer. My head was growing dizzy, and if I didn’t change my attitude I would fall down. I hadn’t remained motionless for so very long either, but in a darkness where a man can’t tell whether he is standing on his feet or his ears, the faculty of balance isn’t much to be counted on. My heart stopped short when I felt myself sway, but I shifted one foot quickly, and there I was again. But that accursed foot had made a squeak.
The fellow listened for a moment, and then he yelled: “Who th’ hell is in here?”
I didn’t say a word, but just dropped down to the floor as easy as a sack of oats.
He listened for a time, and then bellowed out again: “Who’s in here?” I supposed he figured that it wasn’t one of his enemies, or they would have got him while he was swearing to himself over in the corner.
“Who’s in here, by Gawd! Com along now, galoot, an’ speak up er I’ll begin t’ bore leetle holes in yeh! Who er yeh, anyhow? Whistle some, naw, by Gawd, er I’ll fair eat yeh!”
He was beginning to get mad as a wildcat. I could fairly hear that fellow lashing himself into a rage and getting more crazy every minute. All the kegs were up in his corner, and when I felt around with one hand I couldn’t find a thing to get behind. Every second I expected to hear him begin to work his gun, and if you have ever lain in the darkness and wondered at what precise spot the impending bullet would strike, you know how I felt. So, when he yelled out again: “Who er yeh?” I spoke up and said: “It’s only me.”
“Thunder!” cried he, in a roar like a bull, “Who’s me? Give me yer hull damn name an’ pedigree, mister, if yeh ain’t fond of a reg’lar howling, helling row!”
“I’m from Houston,” said I.
“Houston,” said he, with a snort. “An’ what er yeh doin’ here, stranger?”
“I came out to the sale,” I told him.
“Hum,” said he; and then he remained still for some time over in his end of the car.
I was congratulating myself that I ran no more chance of trouble with this fiend, and that the whole thing was now a mere matter of waiting for some merciful fate to let me out, when suddenly the fellow said: “Mister!”
“Sir?” said I.
“Open that there door!”
“Er—what?”
“Open that there door!”
“Er—the door of the car?”
He began to froth at the mouth, I think. “Sure!” he roared. “Th’ door t’ th’ car! There hain’t fifty doors here, be ther! Slid ’er open, or else, mister, you be a goner, sure!” And then he cursed my ancestors for fifteen generations.
“Well—but—look here,” said I. “Ain’t—look here—ain’t they going to shoot as soon as anybody opens that door? It—”
“None ’a yer damned business, stranger!” the fellow howled. “Open that there door, er I’ll everlastin’ly make er ventilator of yeh. Come on, now! Step up!” He began to prowl over in my direction. “Where are yeh? Come on now, galoot! Where are yeh? Oh, jest lemme lay my ol’ gun ag’in yeh, an’ I’ll fin’ out! Step up!”
This cat-like approach in the darkness was too much for me. “Hold on,” said I; “I’ll open the door.”
He gave a grunt and paused. I got up and went over to the door.
“Now, stranger,” the fellow said, “es soon es yeh open the door, jest step enside an’ watch Luke Burnham peel th’ skin off er them skunks.”
“But, look here—” said I.
“Stranger, this hain’t no time t’ arger! Open th’ door!”
I put my hand on the door and prepared to slide my body along with it. I had hoped to find it locked, but unfortunately it was not. When I gave it a preliminary shake it rattled easily, and I could see that there was going to be no trouble in opening the door.
I turned toward the interior of the car for one last remonstrance. “Say, I haven’t got anything to do with this thing. I’m just up here from Houston to go to the sale—”
But the fellow howled again: “Stranger, er you makin’ a damn fool o’ me? By the—”
“Hold on,” said I. “I’ll open the door.”
I got all prepared, and then turned my head. “Are you ready?”
“Let ’er go!”
He was standing back in the car. I could see the dull glint of the revolvers in each hand.
“Let ’er go!” he said again.
I braced myself and put one hand out to reach the end of the door; then, with a groan, I pulled. The door slid open, and I fell on my hands and knees in the end of the car.
“Hell!” said the fellow. I turned my head. There was nothing to be seen but blue sky and green prairie and the little group of yellow board shanties with a red auction flag and a crowd of people in front of one of them.
The fellow swore and flung himself out of the car. He went prowling off toward the crowd, with his guns held barrels down and with his nervous fingers on the triggers. I followed him at a respectful distance.
As he came near to them he began to walk like a cat on wet pavements, lifting each leg a way up. “Where is he? Where is th’ white-livered skunk what slammed thet door on me? Where is he? Where is he? Let ’im show hisself! He dassent! Where is he? Where is he?”
He went among them, bellowing in his bull fashion, and not a man moved. “Where’s all these galoots what was goin’ t’ shoot at me? Where be they? Let ’em come! Let ’em show theirselves! Let ’em come at me! Oh, ther’s them here as has got guns hangin’ to ’em; but let ’em pull ’em! Let ’em pull ’em onc’t! Jest let ’em tap ’em with their fingers, an’ I’ll drive a stove hole through every last one ’a their low-down hides! Lessee a man pull a gun! Lessee! An’ lessee th’ man what slammed th’ door on me! Let ’im projuce hisself, th’ —,” and he cursed this unknown individual in language that was like black smoke.
But the men with guns remained silent and grave. The crowd for the most part gave him room enough to pitch a circus tent. When the train left, he was still roaring around after the man who had slammed the door.
“And so they didn’t kill him, after all,” said someone at the end of the narrative.
“Oh, yes; they got him that night,” said the major, “in a saloon somewhere. They got him all right.”
April 12, 1896
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 19.]
THE LITTLE REGIMENT*
I
The fog made the clothes of the men of the column in the roadway seem of a luminous quality. It imparted to the heavy infantry overcoats a new color, a kind of blue which was so pale that a regiment might have been merely a long, low shadow in the mist. However, a muttering, one part grumble, three parts joke, hovered in the air above the thick ranks, and blended in an undertoned roar, which was the voice of the column.
The town on the southern shore of the little river loomed spectrally, a faint etching upon the gray cloud masses which were shifting with oily languor. A long row of guns upon the northern bank had been pitiless in their hatred, but a little battered belfry could be dimly seen still pointing with invincible resolution toward the heavens.
The enclouded air vibrated with noises made by hidden colossal things. The infantry tramplings, the heavy rumbling of the artillery, made the earth speak of gigantic preparation. Guns on distant heights thundered from time to time with sudden, nervous roar, as if unable to endure in silence a knowledge of hostile troops massing, other guns going to position. These sounds, near and remote, defined an immense battleground, described the tremendous width of the stage of the prospective drama. The voices of the guns, slightly casual, unexcited in their challenges and warnings, could not destroy the unutterable eloquence of the word in the air, a meaning of impending struggle which made the breath halt at the lips.
The column in the roadway was ankle-deep in mud. The men swore piously at the rain which drizzled upon them, compelling them to stand always very erect in fear of the drops that would sweep in under their coat collars. The fog was as cold a
s wet clothes. The men stuffed their hands deep into their pockets, and huddled their muskets in their arms. The machinery of orders had rooted these soldiers deeply into the mud precisely as almighty nature roots mullein stalks.
They listened and speculated when a tumult of fighting came from the dim town across the river. When the noise lulled for a time they resumed their descriptions of the mud and graphically exaggerated the number of hours they had been kept waiting. The general commanding their division rode along the ranks, and they cheered admiringly, affectionately, crying out to him gleeful prophecies of the coming battle. Each man scanned him with a peculiarly keen personal interest, and afterward spoke of him with unquestioning devotion and confidence, narrating anecdotes which were mainly untrue.
When the jokers lifted the shrill voices which invariably belonged to them, flinging witticisms at their comrades, a loud laugh would sweep from rank to rank, and soldiers who had not heard would lean forward and demand repetition. When were borne past them some wounded men with gray and blood-smeared faces, and eyes that rolled in that helpless beseeching for assistance from the sky which comes with supreme pain, the soldiers in the mud watched intently, and from time to time asked of the bearers an account of the affair. Frequently they bragged of their corps, their division, their brigade, their regiment. Anon they referred to the mud and the cold drizzle. Upon this threshold of a wild scene of death they, in short, defied the proportion of events with that splendor of heedlessness which belongs only to veterans.
“Like a lot of wooden soldiers,” swore Billie Dempster, moving his feet in the thick mass, and casting a vindictive glance indefinitely. “Standing in the mud for a hundred years.”
“Oh, shut up!” murmured his brother Dan. The manner of his words implied that this fraternal voice near him was an indescribable bore.
“Why should I shut up?” demanded Billie.
“Because you’re a fool,” cried Dan, taking no time to debate it; “the biggest fool in the regiment.”