When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry

As he strode forward to welcome the stranger, he absently tore the crumpled sheet of paper to bits and consigned it to the winds.

"I am George Sidney," announced the man who was sliding from his saddle, stiff-limbed from a long ride. "I'm trying to effect the punishment of your son-in-law's murder, and I've come to your house."

"Ye're welcome," said the evangelist simply, and there was no riffle of visible misgiving in his eyes. "Come right in an' set ye a cheer."

Two days later Mr. Sidney rode away again, but in an altered frame of mind. He had met Bear Cat Stacy and was disposed to talk less slightingly of outlaws. He had even seen a thing that had made the flesh creep on his scalp and given to his pulses such a wild thrill as they had not known since boyhood. He had watched a long line of black horsemen, masked and riding single-file with flambeaux along a narrow road between encompassing shadows. He had heard the next day of a "blind tiger" raided, and of an undesirable citizen who had been sentenced to exile – though related by blood ties to the leader of the vigilance committee.

It was sitting in the lounging-room of his Louisville Club a week later that he unfolded his morning paper and read the following item – and the paper dropped from his hand which had become suddenly nerveless.

"Joel Fulkerson," he read, after the first shock of the head-lines, "a mountain evangelist, whose work had brought him into prominence even beyond the hills of Marlin County, was shot to death yesterday while riding on a mission of mercy through a thickly wooded territory. Since, even in the bitterest feud days, Fulkerson was regarded as the friend of all men and all factions, it is presumed that the unknown assassin mistook him for some one other than himself."

George Sidney took an early train to Frankfort, and that same day sat in conference with the governor.

"It's a strange story," said the chief executive at length, "and the remedy you suggest is even stranger – but this far I will go. If you swear Renshaw off the bench, I will name a temporary judge and set a special term of court, to convene at once. The rest comes later, and we will take it up as we reach it."

Once more, just after that, Bear Cat Stacy stood again with Blossom by a new-made grave, but this time he came openly. Those kinsmen who saw him there were of one mind, and had he spoken the word, they would have followed him through blood to vengeance. But Stacy, with the hardest effort of his life, held them in check. It would mar the peaceful sleep of that gentle soul whom they were laying to rest, he thought, to punish bloody violence with other bloody violence – and in his mind a more effective plan was incubating.

All that he would tell the grim men who met in conclave that night, ready to don their masks and fare forth, was that this was, above all others, an occasion for biding their time. "But I pledges ye faithful," he declared in a voice that shook with solemn feeling, "ye won't hev need ter grow wearied with waitin'…"

No Towers watchmen came in these days to Turner's house. They contented themselves with keeping a vindictive vigil along the creeks and tributaries where they were numerically stronger. Each day Turner came to watch over Blossom with the quiet fidelity of a great dog. There was little enough that he could do, but he came and looked at her with hungry eyes out of a hungry heart, speaking no word of his own love, but listening as she talked of her father. He sought in a hundred small ways to divert her thoughts from the grim thing that had twice scarred her life and taken the light out of her eyes. As he trudged back to his house, where he had again taken up his residence, after these visits, he walked with a set jaw and registered oaths of reprisal to take a form new to the hills.

As the days passed it was reported that on the motion of the commonwealth, alleging bias and prejudice, Judge Renshaw had vacated the bench, and that the governor had named a pro-tem. successor from another district – and called a special term of court, to sit at Marlin Town.

Kinnard Towers heard that news with a smile of derision. "Let 'em bring on thar jedges an' soldiers," he said complacently. "Ther law still fo'ces 'em ter put native names in ther jury wheel an' I reckon no grand jury thet dwells hyar-abouts won't hardly indict me ner no petty jury convict me."

So it was something of a shock to his confidence when he heard that he, Black Tom Carmichael and Sam Carlyle had been indicted for conspiracy to commit murder. Even that he regarded as merely an annoyance, for as one of the grand jurors had hastened to assure him: "Hit war jest a sort of a formality, Kinnard. We knowed ther little jury would cl'ar you-all an' hit looked more legal-like ter let hit come up fer trial."

But the bringing of those indictments was really a tribute to the dawning power of Kinnard's enemies. The thing was intended as a compromise by which the grand jury should satisfy the Stacys and the petit jury should mollify Towers by acquitting him later.

Kinnard knew that Sam Carlyle had gone to Oklahoma, and that without him any prosecution must fail – but he did not know that the prosecution had already located him there and taken steps to extradite him.

Then one day, Bear Cat received a summons by mail to meet George Sidney in Frankfort, and since secrecy was the essence of the plan they had already discussed in embryo, he went in a roundabout way through Virginia and came back into Kentucky at Hagen. He was absent for a week and toward its end he found himself, under the escort of the Louisville lawyer, standing in the private office of the chief executive himself. Turner had never seen a city before. He had never met a man of such consequence, but the governor himself brought to the interview a dignity no more unabashed.

"This is the young man of whom I spoke, governor," said Sidney. "He has given his community the nearest approach it has known to placing sobriety and humanity above lawlessness. There are two men down there who run things. Towers owns the courts and – maintains feudalism. This young man heads an organization of night-riders – and challenges Towers. It's the young against the old: the modern spirit against the ancient habit."

The governor subjected Bear Cat Stacy to an inquisitorial scrutiny – which was met with a glance as undeviating.

"I am told that it has been impossible in your country," he began, "to enforce the attendance of witnesses and even of defendants at court. I am also told that you believe you can alter this."

Turner nodded gravely. "I kin fetch 'em in – dead or alive," he said with bold directness. "All I needs air ter be told who ter git."

"Dead witnesses," remarked the chief executive, "are very little use to any tribunal. If these men are your avowed enemies and in your power, why have you held your hand?"

Bear Cat flushed and though he spoke quietly there was the bell-like ring of ardor in his voice. "My power hain't ther law," he said. "I aims fer sich betterment as kain't come save by law: a betterment that kin last when I'm dead an' gone."

"This is the case, governor," interposed the lawyer. "The courts there are a bitter jest. Kinnard Towers operates a stronghold which is a pest-spot and breeding-nest of crime and debauchery. There is one agency only that can drag him out of it. That agency this man represents – and heads."

"Then if you are sent out, during this session of court," inquired the executive, "you agree to bring in whatever men are called to attendance?"

"Dead or alive – yes," reiterated Stacy with inflexible persistency.

"Unfortunately," smiled the great man, "the legislature, in its wisdom, has vested in me no power to instruct any citizen to deprive other citizens, however undesirable, of their lives. Whoever undertakes such an enterprise must do so on his own responsibility – and, despite the worthiness of his motive, he faces a strong chance of the death penalty."

There was a brief pause, as the lawyer and his protegé rose to depart, and the governor shook Bear Cat's hand. "You are a picturesque person, Mr. Stacy. I hope to hear more of you." Then as a quizzical twinkle wrinkled the corner of his eyes he added: "I almost think it is a pity that I have no power to authorize your wading in free-handed – but it's not within my official scope."

Bear Cat was standing straight and looking with searching gravity into the face of the governor. There seemed an odd variance between the words and the spirit back of the words, and then he saw the tall man with the distinguished face engage his glance with something intangibly subtle – and he saw one dignified eye deliberately close leaving its mate open. The governor of the commonwealth had winked at him – and he understood the perplexing variance between words and spirit.

Outside, in a corridor of the state building, Bear Cat laid a hand on Sidney's arm.

"When ther time comes," he said shortly, "I'll be ready. I wants thet ye should hev hit give out in Marlin Town, thet ye sought ter persuade me, but that I wouldn't hev nuthin' more ter do with aidin' state co'tes then I would with revenuers." And that was the message that percolated through the hills.

When Turner returned home he went first to Blossom's cabin, his heart full of thoughts of her and sympathy for her loneliness. Old days there swarmed into memory, and just to see her, even now that he counted for so little, meant a great deal to him. But in the road, at first sight of the house, he halted in astonishment – for the chimney was smokeless – and when he hurried forward his dismay grew into something like panic as he found the windows blankly shuttered and the door nailed up.

Hastening to his own house, he demanded in a strained voice of fright. "Whar air she, maw? Whar's Blossom at?"

The old woman rose and took from the mantel-shelf a folded sheet of paper which she handed him without a word of explanation, and with shaking fingers he opened and read it.

"Dear Turney," she said, and her round chirography had run wild as weeds with the disturbed mood of that composition, "I can't bear it here any longer. I'm going away – for always. Jerry left a little money and the lawyers have paid it to me. It's not much, but it's enough. These mountains are beautiful – but they are full of misery – and memories that haunt me day and night. You have been more than good to me and I'll always pray for you. I don't know yet where I'll go. With love, Blossom."

Turner sagged into a chair by the hearth-stone and the paper dropped from his inert fingers. His face became very drawn and he silently licked lips which burned with a dry feverishness.

The special session of court convened in Marlin Town with a quiet that lacked any tang of genuine interest. These fiascos had come before and passed without result. Since Bear Cat Stacy had permitted it to be understood that he would hold aloof, no strength would challenge the sway of Kinnard Towers, save a "fotched on" judge and a few white-faced lawyers who wore stiff collars. They had not even brought tin soldiers this time nor dignified the occasion with a Gatling gun.

Towers himself remained comfortably at the Quarterhouse, and if he had about him a small army of men its protection of rifle-muzzles pointed toward Little Slippery rather than Marlin Town. A posse would come, of course, since even his own courts must follow the forms and pretenses of the statutes made and provided, but their coming, too, would be a formality.

Outside a late winter storm had turned into a blizzard and though he did not often spend his evenings at the bar, Kinnard was to-night leaning with his elbow on its high counter. His blond face was suave and his manner full of friendliness, because men who were anxious to display their solicitude were coming in to denounce the farce of the trial inagurated by "furriners" and to proclaim their sympathy. It was all incense to his undiminished dominance, thought Towers, and it pleased him to meet such amenities with graciousness.

"Any time now – any time at all," he laughed, "them turrible deputy sheriffs air liable ter come bustin' through thet door, and drag me off ter ther jail-house." As he uttered this pleasantry, the assembled cohorts shouted their laughter. It was as diverting as to hear a battle-scarred tom-cat express panic over a mouse. "Howsoever, I hain't a shettin' no doors. They all stands open," added Kinnard.

Then, even as he spoke, the telephone jangled. It was a neighborhood wire which connected only a few houses in a narrow radius, but the voice that sounded through the receiver was excited. The proprietor of the lawless stronghold listened and made some unruffled reply, then turned to his audience a smiling face on which was written amusement.

"Well, boys," he genially inquired, "what did I tell ye? Thar's a scant handful of deputy sheriffs a-ridin' over hyar right now. They're within a measured mile of this place at ther present minute."

A low hum of voices rose in apprehensive notes, but Kinnard lifted his hand.

"You men needn't feel no oneasiness, I don't reckon," he assured them. "They hain't got nothin' erginst ther balance of ye. Hit's jest me they aims ter drag off ter ther calaboose – an' es I said afore, I'm leavin' my doors wide open."

As an indication of his confidence he ordered his bartender to fill all glasses, and beamed benignly on the recipients of his hospitality, while he awaited the minions of the law.

"They hed ought ter be hyar by now, them turrible fellers," he suggested at length, and as if in answer to his speech a sound of heavy steps sounded just outside the door.

A small posse stamped into the room, and the excellent jest of the entire situation became more pointed as men noted with what a shamefaced bearing they presented themselves.

"Kinnard," began the chief-deputy in an embarrassment which almost choked him, "I've got ter put ye under arrest. You an' Tom Carmichael thar, both. Ye're charged with murder."

The crowd wanted to laugh again, but because of their curiosity they desisted. Towers himself stepped back two paces.

"Gentlemen," he said blandly, "ye'll hev ter git papers fust from ther governor of Virginny." He swept his hand toward the white line on the floor. "Ye hain't hardly got no license ter foller me outen old Kaintuck. Thar's ther leetle matter of a state line lyin' atween us."

They had all known that Towers would handle the situation with a triumph of resource, and a subdued murmur of applause and adulation rose from many bewhiskered lips, as the posse withdrew slowly to the threshold over which it had entered.

Then they became deadly quiet, for a voice had spoken from the Virginia door. "Hold on!"

They wheeled and saw a single figure there, unarmed, and hands began going to holsters.

"Virginny and Kaintuck looks right-smart alike ter me," said Bear Cat Stacy with the level voice of one who has long waited his moment and finds it at hand. "Will ye all lay down yore arms, and surrender ther men we wants – or will ye stand siege an' have this pest-house burnt down over yore heads? I'll wait outside for an answer."

The amazement of the moment had held them gripped in tableau as he spoke, but when he stepped swiftly back, a dozen pistols spat and barked at him, and then, louder than the firing, they heard a circle of song – compassing the stockaded building on all sides – a giant chorus that swelled in the frosty air: "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord."

Kinnard Towers' self-assurance fell away from him. His hand was unsteady as he raised it and said huskily; "Boys, we needs must fight."