Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

  CHAPTER XXXV

  CAPTAIN ALLEN FINDS RUPERT AND BREAKS THE LAW

  When Steve Allen stepped across his threshold he caught the gleam ofsomething white lying on the floor just inside the door-sill. He pickedup the slip of paper and, striking a light, looked at it. The writingon it was in a cramped backhand that Steve did not know and couldhardly read. At last, however, he made it out:

  “Your friend is in jail here on charge of murder. Will be taken to cityto-night for trial.” It had been signed, “A Friend,” but this had beenmuch scratched over and was almost illegible. Steve read the wordsagain and again. Suddenly he left his office and walked quickly aroundthe back part of the court-green, looking in all the corners and darkplaces. It had occurred to him that he had heard someone retreating ashe approached his office. Everything, however was quiet, and the onlysound he heard was that of a horse galloping on the road some distanceaway. As he stood still to listen again it died away. In a few minuteshe had called his friend Helford into his office and laid before himhis information. Helford received it coldly—thought it might be atrick to throw them off the track and obtain delay. He argued thateven if it would have been possible for Rupert Gray to be put in jailright under their noses, he could not have been kept there all daywithout its being discovered. Steve was of a different opinion. Perdue,the jailer, was a creature of Leech’s and Still’s. Something assuredhim that the information was true, and he laid his plans accordingly.The men who were at the county seat were requested to wait, withoutbeing told what was the reason; riders were sent off to call in thesearchers who were still engaged, a rendezvous near the village beingappointed. Steve, leaving the men present under charge of Helford, rodeoff as if to continue the search; but a short distance down the road heturned, and, riding back by another way, tied his horse and returned tothe court-green. He entered at the rear, walked up to the jail and rangthe bell. After some delay a man peeped at him through the wicket andasked who it was. Steve gave his name, and said he wanted to see theprisoner who had been brought in the night before. The man hesitateda second, then said there was no such prisoner there. He took a halfstep backward to close the shutter, but Steve was too quick for him. Hewas sure from the jailer’s manner that he was lying to him. The nextsecond there was a scraping sound on the grating and the man found apistol-barrel gleaming at him through the bars, right under his nose.

  “Stir, and you are a dead man,” said Steve. “Open the door.”

  “I ain’t got the keys.”

  “Call for them. Don’t stir! I’ll give you till I count five:one—two—three——”

  “Here they are, sir.” The pistol-barrel was shining right in his face,and Steve’s eyes were piercing him through the bars. He unlocked thedoor, and Steve stepped in.

  “Take me to Mr. Gray’s cell instantly, and remember a single word fromyou means your death.” Steve expected to be taken to one of the frontrooms in which the prisoners of better condition were usually kept;but his guide went on, and at length stopped at the door of one ofthe worst cells in the place, where the most abandoned criminals wereusually confined. Two negro prisoners, in another cell, seeing CaptainAllen, howled at him in glee through their bars.

  “You don’t mean to say that you’ve put him in here?” Steve asked,sternly.

  “That’s orders,” said the man, and added, explanatorily, as he fumbledat the lock. “You see, he was pretty wild when they brought him here.”

  “Don’t defend it,” said Steve, in a voice which brought the turnkey upshaking.

  “No, suh—no, suh—I ain’ defendin’ it. I jest tellin’ you.” Heunlocked the door.

  “Walk in,” said Steve, and, pushing the other ahead, he stepped inbehind him and took his light. It was so dark that he could not atfirst make out anything inside; but after a moment a yet darker spot inthe general gloom became dimly discernible.

  “Rupert?” Steve called. At the voice the dark shadow stirred. “RupertGray?”

  There was a cry from the dark corner.

  “Steve! Oh, Steve! Steve!”

  “Come here,” said Steve, who was keeping close beside the jailer.

  “I can’t. Oh, Steve!”

  “Why not?—Over there!” he said, with emotion to the jailer, to walkbefore him.

  “I’m chained.”

  “What!” The young man turned and caught the jailer by the shoulder, andwith a single twist of his powerful arm sent him before him spinninginto the corner of the room. Stooping, Steve felt the boy and the chainby which he was bound to a great ring in the wall. The next second hefaced the keeper.

  “Dog!”

  For a moment the man thought he was as good as dead. Steve’s eyesblazed like coals of fire, and he looked like a lion about to spring.The man began to protest his innocence, swearing with a hundred oathsthat he had nothing to do with it; that it was all Leech’s doings—hisorders and other men’s work. He himself had tried to prevent it.

  Steve cut him short.

  “Liar, save yourself the trouble. What are their names? Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve gone, I don’t know where. They went away thismornin’ before light.”

  “Get the key and unlock that chain.”

  The man swore that he did not have it—the men had taken it with them.

  Steve reflected a moment. He had no time to lose.

  “Oh, Steve! never mind me,” broke in Rupert, his self-possessionrecovered. “Go—I’m not worth saving. Oh, Steve! if you only knew! Ihave done you an irreparable injury. I don’t mind myself, but——” Hisvoice failed him and his words ended in a sob. “I’m not crying becauseI’m here or am afraid,” he said, presently. “But if you only knew——”

  Steve Allen leant down over him and, throwing his arm around him,kissed him as if he had been a child.

  “That’s all right,” he said, tenderly, and whispered something whichmade the boy exclaim:

  “Oh, Steve! Steve!” The next moment he said, solemnly, “I promise youthat I will never touch another drop of liquor again as long as I live.”

  “Never mind about that now,” said Steve.

  “But I want to promise. I want to make you that promise. It would helpme, Steve. I have never broken my word.”

  “Wait until you are free,” said Steve, indulgently. He turned to thekeeper, who still stood cowering in the corner.

  “Come—walk before me.” As they left the cell he said to him: “In ahalf-hour two hundred men will be here. These doors will go like paper.If they find that boy chained and you are here, your life will not beworth a button. Nothing but God Almighty could save you.” He left himat the front door and went out. A number of men were already assemblingabout the jail. It transpired afterward that old Waverley had seenSteve enter the jail, and, fearing that he might not get out again, hadtold Andy Stamper, who had just arrived. As Steve came out of the doorAndy stepped up to him.

  “We were going in after you,” he said.

  Steve took him aside and had a talk with him, telling him the state ofthe case and putting him in charge until his return.

  “If Perdue wants to come out, let him do so,” he said, as he left him.As he walked across the green he fell in with Waverley, who gave anexclamation of joy.

  “I sutney is glad to see you. I was mighty feared dee’d keep you indyah.” He was very full of something he wanted to tell him. Steve didnot have time to listen then, but said he wanted him, and took himalong.

  “Well, jes’ tell me dis, Marse Steve; is you foun’ my young marster?”

  “Yes, we have.”

  “Well, thank Gord for dat!” exclaimed old Waverley. “Whar is he?”

  Steve pointed back to the jail. “In there.”

  The old man gave an outcry.

  “In dyah! My young marster? My marster and mistis’ son! Go way, MarseSteve—you jokin’; don’t fool me ’bout dat.”

  “He’s in there, and in chains; and I want you to cut them off him,”said Steve.
/>   The old man broke out into a tirade. He ended:

  “Dat I will! De’s a blacksmiff shop yonder. I’ll git a hammer and colechisel d’rectly.” He started off. When he arrived, the shop had alreadybeen levied on for sledges and other implements.

  The crowd was beginning to be excited. Steve took charge at once. Hespoke a few words in a calm, level, assured tone; stated the fact ofRupert Gray’s arrest by Leech’s order, not for his own offence, butmore for that of others, of his imprisonment in irons in the jail, andof his own intention to take him out. And he declared his belief thatit was the desire of those assembled, that he should command them, andexpressed his readiness to do so.

  The response they gave showed their assent.

  Then they must obey his orders.

  They would, they said.

  “The first is—absolute silence.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” came from all sides.

  “The second is, that we will release our friend, but take no otherstep—commit no other violence than that of breaking the doors andtaking him out.”

  “Oh, h—l! We’ll hang every d——d nigger and dog in the place,” brokein a voice near him. Steve wheeled around and faced the speaker. He wasa man named Bushman, a turbulent fellow. As quick as thought the pistolthat had been shining under Perdue’s nose a little before was gleamingbefore this man’s eyes.

  “Step out and go home!” Steve pointed up the road.

  The man began to growl.

  “Go,” said Steve, imperiously, and the crowd applauded.

  “That’s right, send him off.” They opened a path through which theruffian slunk, growling, away.

  “Now, men, fall in.”

  They fell in like soldiers, and Steve marched them off to the spot hehad appointed as the place for others to join them.

  The rendezvous was in a pine forest a little off the road, and only aquarter of a mile or so back of the village. Near the road the pineswere thick, having sprung up since the war; but here, in a space ofsome hundreds of yards each way, the trees, the remnants of a formergrowth, were larger and less crowded, leaving the ground open andcovered with a thick matting of “tags,” on which the feet fell asnoiselessly as on a thick carpet, and where even the tramp of horsesmade hardly a sound. It was an impressive body assembled there in thedarkness, silent and grim, the stillness broken only by the muffledstamping and tramping of a restless horse, by an almost inaudiblemurmur, or an order given in a low, quiet tone. By a sort of soldierlyinstinct the line had fallen into almost regimental form, and, fromtime to time, as new recruits came up, directed by the pickets on theroads outside, they, too, fell into order.

  Just as they were about to move, a horseman galloped up, and a murmurwent through the ranks.

  “Dr. Cary!”

  Whether it was surprise, pleasure, or regret, one at first couldscarcely have told.

  “Where is Captain Allen?” asked the Doctor, and pushed his way tothe head of the line. A colloquy took place between him and Steve insubdued but earnest tones, the Doctor urging something, Steve replying,while the men waited, interested, but patient. The older man wasevidently protesting, the other defending. At length Dr. Cary said:

  “Well, let me speak a word to them.”

  “Certainly,” assented Steve, and turned to the men.

  “Dr. Cary disagrees with us as to the propriety of the step we areabout to take and urges its abandonment. He desires to present hisviews. You will hear him with the respect due to the best and wisestamong us.” He drew back his horse, and the Doctor rode forward andbegan to speak.

  “First, I wish you to know that I am with you, heart and soul—forbetter, for worse; flesh of your flesh, and bone of your bone. Nextto my God and my wife and child, I love my relatives and neighbors.Of all my relatives, perhaps, I love best that boy lying in yonderjail, and I would give my life to save him. But I could not kneel tomy God to-night if I did not declare to you my belief—my profoundconviction—that this is not the way to go about it. I know that thewrongs we are suffering cry to God, but I urge you to unite with me intrying to remedy them by law, and not by violence. Let us unite andmake an appeal to the enlightened sense of the American people, ofthe world, which they will be forced to hear. Violence on our side isthe only ground which they can urge for their justification. It is aterrible weapon we are furnishing them, and with it, not only can theydefeat us now, but they can injure us for years to come.”

  He went on for ten or fifteen minutes, urging his views with impressiveforce. Never was a stronger appeal made. But it fell on stony ears. Thecrowd was touched by him, but remained unchanged. It had resolved, andits decision was unaltered. When he ended, there was, for a moment, alow murmur all through the ranks, which died down, and they looked totheir captain. Steve did not hesitate. In a firm, calm voice he said:

  “For the first time in my life almost, I find myself unable to agreein a matter of principle with the man you have just heard. At the sametime, this may be only my personal feeling, and, recognizing the forceof what he has said, I wish all who may think as he does to fall out ofline. The rest will remain as they are. If all shall leave, feeling asI do I shall still undertake to rescue Rupert Gray. Those who disagreewith me will ride forward.”

  There was a rustle and movement all down the ranks, but not a manstirred from his place. As the men looked along the line and took inthe fact, there went up a low, suppressed sound of gratification andexultation.

  “Silence, men,” said the captain. He turned his horse to face Dr. Cary.

  “Dr. Cary, I beg you to believe that we all recognize the wisdom ofyour views and their unselfishness, and we promise you that no violenceshall be offered a soul beyond forcing the doors and liberating theboy.”

  A murmur of assent came from the ranks. Dr. Cary bowed.

  “I shall wait at the tavern,” he said, “to see if my services may be ofany use.”

  Steve detailed two men to conduct him through the guards, and he rodeslowly away.

  A few minutes later Captain Allen gave the order, and, wheeling, thecolumn marched off through the dusk.

  Steve had made the men disguise themselves by tying strips of cottonacross their faces. He himself wore no mask. When he arrived at thejail he learned from Andy Stamper that Perdue had taken advantage ofthe hint given him and had escaped.

  “I had hard work at first to git him out,” said Andy. “I had to go upto the door and talk to him; but when he found what was comin’, he wasglad enough to go. I let him slip by, and last I seen of him, he wascuttin’ for the woods like a fox with the pack right on him. If he keptup that lick he’s about ten miles off by this time.”

  The breaking into the jail was not a difficult matter. It meantonly a few minutes’ work bursting open the outer door with a heavysledge-hammer, and a little more in battering down the iron innerdoors. During the whole time the crowd without was as quiet as thegrave, the silence broken only by the orders given and the ringingblows of the iron hammers. But it was very different inside. The two orthree negroes confined within were wild with terror. They all thoughtthat the mob was after them, and that their last hour was come; andthey who an hour before had hooted at the visitor, yelled and prayedand besought mercy in agonies of abject terror. When the squad detailedby Steve passed on to the cell in which Rupert was confined and beganto break down the door, these creatures quieted a little, but even thenthey prayed earnestly, their faces, ashy with fear in the glare of thetorches, pressed to the bars and their eyeballs almost starting fromtheir sockets. When the door gave way the low cry that came up from theparty sent them flying and trembling back into the darkness of theircells.

  It took a considerable time to cut the irons that bound the prisoner,who, under the excitement of the rescuing party’s entrance, had beenoverjoyed, but a moment later had keeled over into Andy Stamper’s arms.Under the steady blows of the old blacksmith’s hammer, even that wasat length accomplished, and the rescuers moved out bearing Rupert withthem. As they emer
ged from the building with the boy in their arms,the long-pent-up feeling of the crowd outside burst forth in one wildcheer, which rang through the village and was heard miles away on theroads. It was quickly hushed; the crowd withdrew into the woods, and ina few minutes the jail was left in the darkness as silent as the desert.

  The news of the assault on the jail and the liberation of the prisonerthrilled through the County next morning, and the thrill extended farbeyond the confines of the section immediately interested. The partyof detectives who were waiting to take their prisoner to the city madetheir way by night through the country to a distant station, to takethe cars; and Leech and McRaffle, who had come on the morning train tomeet them, deemed it prudent to catch it on its way back and return tothe city.

  Ruth, the morning after her visit to the court-house and the rescue ofRupert, was in a state of great unrest. Finally she mounted her horseand paid a visit to Blair Cary. They were all in intense excitement.Ruth herself was sensible of constraint; but she had an object in viewwhich made it necessary to overcome it. So she chatted on easily,almost gayly. At length she made an excuse to get Blair off by herself.In the seclusion of Blair’s room the secret came out. Ruth, on herpart, learned that Rupert was to be sent off; Blair did not knowwhere. One difficulty was the want of means to send him. This Ruth haddivined. With a burning face, she told Blair she had a great favor toask of her; and when Blair wonderingly assented, she took from herpocket a roll of money—what seemed to Blair an almost vast amount. Itwas her own, she said; and the favor was: that Blair would help her toget that money to Rupert without anyone knowing where it came from.She wanted Rupert to go out to the West and join Reely Thurston there.Blair demurred at this. Captain Thurston was an army officer, andRupert was——. She paused. Ruth flushed. She would be guaranty thatThurston would stand his friend.

  There was also another thing which Blair discovered, though she didnot tell Ruth that she had done so. She simply rose and kissed her.This discovery decided her to accept Ruth’s offer. It seemed to drawRuth nearer to her and to make her one with themselves. So she toldRuth where Rupert was. He was at that time at the house of Steve’s oldmammy, Peggy. He was to be conducted out of the County that night.Whether he could be persuaded to go to Captain Thurston, Blair did notknow; but she promised to aid Ruth so far as to suggest it, and tryto persuade him to do so. There were two difficulties. One was thatshe might be watched, and it might lead to Rupert’s re-arrest. She didnot state what the other was. But Ruth knew. She, too, could divinethings without their being explained. If, however, Blair could not meetJacquelin Gray, there was no reason why Ruth herself could not. And shedetermined to go. Suddenly Blair changed. She, too, would go. She couldnot let Ruth go alone.

  That evening, toward dusk, old Peggy was “turning about” in her littleyard, when the sound of horses’ feet caught her ear. As quick asthought the old woman ran to her door and spoke a few words to some oneinside, and the next moment the back door opened and a figure sprangacross the small cleared space that divided the cabin from the woods,and disappeared among the trees. In a little while the riders appearedin sight, and when the old negress turned, to her surprise, they weretwo ladies. When they took off their veils, to old Peggy’s stillgreater astonishment, they were Miss Blair and the young lady who hadvisited her with her young master the evening of the rain-storm.

  The old woman greeted them pleasantly, but when they said they wantedto see Rupert Gray, her suspicions returned again.

  “He ain’t heah,” she said, shortly. “What you want wid him?” Her eyesgleamed with shrewdness.

  “We want to see him.”

  “Well, you won’ see him heah.”

  They began to cajole.

  “Can’t you trust me?” asked Blair.

  But old Peggy was firm.

  “I don’ trus’ nobody. I ain’ got nothin’ ’t all to do wid it. Why n’tyou go ax Marse Steve?” she asked Ruth, suddenly. Ruth’s face flushed.

  The dilemma was unexpectedly relieved by the appearance of Ruperthimself. From his covert he had recognized the visitors, and could notresist the temptation to join them. Old Peggy was in a great state ofexcitement at his appearance. She began to scold him soundly for hisimprudence. But the boy only laughed at her.

  Blair and Ruth took him aside and began to broach the object of theirvisit. At first he was obstinate. He would not hear of the plan theyproposed. In fact, he was not going away at all, he declared. He wouldnot be run out of the County. He would stay and fight it out, and letthem try him, if they wished to get all they wanted. He showed the buttof a pistol, with boyish pride.

  In this state of the case, Ruth began to plead with him on hisbrother’s account, and Blair, as her argument, took Steve. They saidhe was bound in honor to go, if they wished it. Ruth deftly put in aword about Thurston, and the opportunity the trip would give Rupertto see the world. He could join in the campaigns against the Indiansout there, if he wished; and, finally, she begged him to go and joinThurston, as a favor to her.

  These arguments at length prevailed, and Rupert said he would go.

  As his friends were soon to come for him, the girls had to leave, whichthey did after binding old Peggy over with many solemn promises notto breathe to a single soul a word of their visit. “If she does,” saidRupert, “I’ll come back here and make her think the Ku Klux are afterher.” The old woman laughed at the threat.

  “Go ’way from heah, boy! What you know ’bout Ku Klux? You done told toomuch ’bout ’em now.”

  This home-thrust shut Rupert up. Blair put into his hand the packagethat Ruth had given her and kissed him good-by, and he turned to Ruth.

  Ruth said, as she took his hand, “Rupert, I am going to ask you togrant me that favor you once promised me you would grant.”

  The boy’s eyes lit up.

  “I will do it.”

  “I want you to promise me you will not drink any more.”

  “I promise,” he said, softly, and bent over and kissed her hand. As hestood up, the girl leant forward and kissed him. He turned to Blairand, throwing his arms around her neck, suddenly burst into tears.

  “Oh, Blair, Blair,” he sobbed, “I can’t go.”

  The girls soothed him, and when they left a little later he was calmand firm.

  Within a little time other detectives came, and some who were not knownas detectives performed the functions of that office. But no trace ofthe rescued boy was found. The nearest approach to a clew was a reportthat Andy Stamper and old Waverley, a short time after the breakinginto the jail, took a long journey with Andy’s covered wagon intoanother State, “selling things,” and that Steve Allen and several othermen were about the same time in the same region, and even rode with thewagon for some days.

  However, this was not traced up. And it illustrates the times, thattwo accounts of the affair of the rescue were published and givencirculation: one that the prisoner was rescued by his friends, theother that he was taken from the jail by a band of Ku Klux outlawsand murdered, because he had confessed to having taken part in some oftheir outrages and had given information as to his accomplices. Thiswas the story that was most widely circulated in some parts of thecountry and was finally accepted.