The Deserter, and Other Stories: A Book of Two Wars

by Harold Frederic

  CHAPTER VII.

  ANOTHER CHASE AFTER MOSE.

  Asa Whipple and the deputy marshal gazed in a dumbfounded way at eachother through a cruel minute of silence, broken only by the echoingstrokes of Job's axe out in the undergrowth beyond. It was the thirdman who first found his tongue; and Asa, looking dumbly at him, sawthat he was no other than Nelse Hornbeck.

  "Downright cur'ous that we should 'a' happened to hit on you like this,ain't it?" Nelse began. "If we'd ben tryin' to find you, we'd never 'a'done it in this born world! Norm and me, you see, we've ben fishin' upPanther River three days, and then we followed up the South Branchoutlet, and I'd ben figgerin' on makin' a camp by the lake there, an'workin' down the other branch; but the flies were pretty bad, and Normhere, he took a fancy to this 'ere outlet, and our oil of tar was aboutgive out, and so I----"

  "Oh, shut up!" broke in the deputy marshal, impatiently. "Look here,Asa Whipple, is that straight what you're telling me--that Mose hasstarted off to give himself up?"

  The old man rose from the log and stood erect. He had never seemed sotall before in his life, and he looked down upon the more lithe andsinewy figure of the deputy marshal almost haughtily.

  "No, not to give himself up. 'To jine his regiment,' was what I said."

  Norman Hazzard snorted out an angry laugh.

  "Were there ever two such simpletons under one roof?" he cried. "'Jinehis regiment!' Why, man, I tell you, they'll simply take him and shoothim! They can't do anything else, even if they wanted to. That's theregulations. He can't jine anything, except what the newspapers callthe 'silent majority.' Do you mean to tell me--a man of your age--youdidn't know _that_?"

  "All I know is," said Asa, doggedly, "that Mose seen his duty, and hedone it. He left his regiment because there was nothin' doin', and somemean Dutchman who had a spite agin him wouldn't let him git a furlough,and he was scairt to death about me,--and you know as well as I do thatif he hadn't come just as he did I'd been a gone coon,--and then hecome off up in here, and we follered him, and there was so much to do,fixin' up this new place, that we hadn't time to do much thinkin' aboutwhat was right and what was wrong till only this mornin' I happened togit hold o' that paper there, and it seems the war's about ten timesworse than ever, and when Mose came in and I showed it to him, and heread it through, he jest give me a look, and says he, 'You're right. Iain't got no business here. I'm off.' And off he went. That's all; andI'm proud of him."

  The deputy marshal groaned. "Don't I tell you they won't have him? Theminute they lay eyes on him he's a dead man. I don't believe thePresident himself could save him."

  "Why don't you save him yourself?" put in a new voice, abruptly.

  Mr. Hazzard turned and beheld Job, who had come up with his axe and ahuge armful of wood. He threw these down, brushed his sleeve, andnodded to the deputy marshal.

  "How'd do, Norm," he said now. "Why don't you go and stop himyourself?"

  Hazzard half-closed one of his eyes, and contemplated Job with aquizzical expression. "Hello, youngster!" he remarked. "You're lookin'after these loons, heh? Well, I wonder you didn't put a veto on thistomfoolery. You're the only party in this camp that seems to have anysense."

  "They wouldn't have listened to me," rejoined Job. "They were both toored-hot about the thing to listen to anybody. I thought it wasfoolishness myself, but they didn't ask me, and so I went and choppedwood and minded my own business. But it'd be different with you. If youcould manage to overtake Mose, he'd listen to you. You can catch him ifyou run."

  The deputy marshal on the instant had tossed aside his rod, and washurriedly getting off his basket and pack.

  "I'll have a try for it, anyway," he said. "But it'd be jest like Moseto put his back up and refuse to come, even after I'd caught him."

  "Tell him his father wants him to come back," suggested Job. "That'llfetch him. Here, Asa," the boy continued, "give us that ring there.Norm can take that and show it to him as a sign that you've changedyour mind. That's the way they do it in the story-books. That's allrings are for, accordin' to them."

  "But I don't know as I hev changed my mind," old Asa beganhesitatingly, but with his fingers on the ring.

  "Well, you'll have time to do that while Norm's gone," commented Job.

  With grave insistence he took the old rubber ornament from Asa's handand gave it to Hazzard. "Keep on this side of the outlet," he added."There's a clear path most of the way. You can get down the big fallsby the stones if you go out close to the stream. You'll catch him easythis side of the Raquette."

  The deputy marshal wheeled and started down the clearing on along-stride, loping run, like a greyhound. Almost as they looked he waslost to sight among the trees beyond.

  It occurred to Nelse Hornbeck now to relieve himself of his pack andaccoutrements, and to make himself otherwise at home. He lighted hispipe, and stretched himself out comfortably on the roots of a stump bythe doorway.

  "Well," he remarked after a little, "I allus said I'd ruther have apack of nigger bloodhounds after me than Norm Hazzard if I'd doneanything that I wanted to git away for. But of course this isdifferent. I don't know how much good he'll be tryin' to catch a manthat ain't done anything. I s'pose it would be different, wouldn't it?But then of course he could pretend to himself that Mose had donesomething--and for that matter, all he's got to do is to play that Moseis still a deserter; and of course if you come to that, why, he _is_a deserter."

  "He ain't nothing of the kind!" roared old Asa, with vehemence.

  "Well, of course, Asy, if you say so," Nelse hastened to get in, with apacific wave of his pipe, "I don't pretend to be no jedge myself inmilitary affairs; I dessay you're right. Of course Mose is in oneplace, and the army's in another, but that don't prove that it wasn'tthe army that deserted Mose, does it? I'm a man of peace myself, and Idon't set up to be no authority on these p'ints."

  "Well, then, what are you talkin' about?" interposed Job, severely."Don't you see old Asa's upset and nervous about Mose? Tell us aboutthings you know something about. How's old Teachout?"

  "Well, now, cur'ous enough," said Nelse, thoughtfully, "that's jest oneof the things I don't know about at all, and nobody else knows,either--that is, this side o' Jordan. 'Lishe Teachout's ben dead ofinflammation o' the lungs now--le's see--up'ards of a month. Why, cometo think of it, Asy, why, yes, he ketched his cold goin' out to attendthe sheriff's sale at your old place, and that daughter of his that runaway with the lightnin'-rod agent--you remember?--she's come in for thehull property, and they say she's goin' to sell it and live down in NewYork. I guess she'll scatter the money right and left. And 'Lisheworked hard for it, too!"

  Old Asa cast a ruminant glance over the little shanty, and the clearingfull of warm sunshine, and the broad belt of stately dark firs beyondrustling their boughs in soft harmony with the tinkle of the streambelow, and swaying their tall tops gently against the light of brightblue overhead. Then he drew a long, restful breath.

  "There's things a heap sight better than money in this world," he said.

  Mose had started out on his impulsive errand buoyantly enough. He madehis way down the side hill to the outlet with a light, swinging step,and pushed along on the descent of the creek-bed, leaping from boulderto boulder, and skirting the pools with the agility of a practisedwoodsman, almost as if his mission were a joyful one.

  At the outset, indeed, his ruling sensation was one of relief. He hadhad four months and more of solitude here in the woods, from New Year'sthrough till the weary winter broke at last, in which to think over hisperformance.

  He could not bring himself to regret having come home; the thought thatit had saved his father's life settled _that_. But side by side withthis conclusion had grown up an intense humiliation and disgust for thenecessities which had forced upon him this badge of "deserter." Grantedthat they were necessities, the badge was an itching and burning brandnone the less.

  The excitement and change involved in the coming of Asa and Job haddrawn his attention away from
this for a time, but the sore remainedunhealed. With the chance occurrence of the newspaper, and the sight ofits effect upon his father, the half-forgotten pain reasserted itselfwith such stinging force that the one great end in life seemed to be toescape from its intolerable burden.

  In this mood of shame and self-reproach, Mose had jumped with hoteagerness at the notion of returning to the ranks, and rushed withunthinking haste to put it into effect.

  As the thought came to him now that perhaps this haste had also beenunfeeling, he unconsciously slackened the pace at which he wasdescending the ravine. His father was once more in good health andvigor, no doubt, and was as eager as he himself about having the odiumof desertion washed from the family name, if not more eager than he;but Mose began to wish that they had talked it over a little more--thathe had made his leave-taking longer and less abrupt.

  The war seemed to have become a much bloodier and deadlier thing thanhe had known it. That paper had spoken of a full hundred thousand menhaving been lost between the Wilderness and Cold Harbor. It was quitelikely that he now, as he swung along down the waterway, was going tohis death. In his present mood this had no personal terrors for him,but it did cast a chill shadow over his thoughts of his father.

  They two had chosen their own life together--with all the views andaims of other men's lives put quite at one side. Their happiness hadnot been in making money, in getting fine clothes, or houses, or lands,but just in being together, with the woods and the water and the skyabout them.

  Oddly enough, Mose remembered now, for the first time almost since hisescape from the lines at Brandy Station, that if it had not been forthat wretched Teachout mortgage, he need never have gone to the war atall. The draft would have exempted him, as the only support of an agedfather. That seemed at first sight to justify him in leaving as he did,and he walked still more slowly now to think this over.

  But no, nothing justified him. Perhaps his father's suffering conditionexcused him in some measure--gave him the right to say that under thecircumstances he would do the same thing again; but that wasn't ajustification.

  So Mose worried his perplexed mind with the confusing moral problemsuntil in sheer self-defence he had to shake them all off, root andbranch, and say to himself, "At any rate I'm on my way back; I'mstarted, and I'll go."

  He had halted, as he grasped this solution of the puzzle, to drawbreath and look about him. He stood on a jutting spur of naked granite,overhanging the steep, shelving hillside, and commanding a vastpanorama of sloping forest reaches, with broken gleams here and thereof the Raquette waters way below, and with range upon range of fir-cladmountain cones rising in basins beyond.

  It dawned upon him, as his glance wandered over this stupendousprospect, that he had heard at intervals a curious noise in the woodsover at his left, as of some big body making its way through theunderbrush in haste. If he had had a gun with him he reflected now thathe might have investigated the matter.

  The sounds seemed more like those made by a bear than by adeer--perhaps more like a moose than either. Mose had never had thefortune to see a moose. It would be just his luck, he thought, with ahalf-grin, to see one now, when he had no gun, and was quitting thewoods forever.

  Hark! there was the noise again, below and ahead of him now, but stillto the left. He thought he almost saw a dark object push through thebushes, hardly a dozen yards away.

  Mose leaped lightly down upon the moss at the base of his perch, andcrept cautiously along under the ledge of rock, the cover of whichwould protect him quite to within a few feet of these bushes. Reachingthis point, he lifted his head to look.

  His astonished gaze rested upon no moose or bear, or other denizen ofthe wild wood, but took in at point-blank instead the lean and leatherycountenance of Deputy Marshal Norman Hazzard. It in no wise lessenedMose's confusion to note that this unlooked-for countenance wore asomewhat sardonic grin.

  "Well, Mose," Mr. Hazzard observed, "I learnt last winter that a sternchase was a long chase, and I thought this time I'd make a slicker jobof it by headin' you off, and gittin' 'round in front. See?"

  "Yes, I see," said Mose, mechanically; but in truth he felt himselfquite unable to see at all. This sudden intrusion of the officer of thelaw between him and his patriotic resolve, this apparition of the manwho had hunted him into the wintry woods with a revolver, seemed tochange and confuse everything.

  There rose in him the impulse to throw himself fiercely upon the deputymarshal; then, oddly enough, he was conscious of a chuckling sense ofamusement instead.

  "Guess I got the laugh on you this time, Norm," he said. "You've hadyour hull trip for nothin'. I'm on my way now, of my own motion, tojine my regiment, or enlist somewhere else, I don't care which."

  Mr. Hazzard ostentatiously drew a revolver from his pocket.

  "I ain't got any handcuffs with me," he remarked, "but you'll do wellto bear in mind that I ain't at all shy about firin' this here, ifthere's any need for it."

  "But I tell you I'm goin' of my own accord!" Mose expostulated. "If youhad a hull battery of twelve-pounders with you, I couldn't do no more'nthat, could I? You can come along down with me if you like--the hullway--only there's no use o' your bein' disagreeable and goin' roundpullin' revolvers."

  The deputy marshal did not put up the weapon, and the grin on his facegrew deeper.

  "Nobody, to look at you," said he, "would think you'd give an officerlike me more trouble than any other man in the district. I had aboutthe hottest run on record to chase you safely into the woods here. Andnow, by gum, here I've had to gallop myself all out of breath, barkin'my shins and skinnin' my elbows in a rough-and-tumble scoot through theunderbrush, all to keep you from makin' a fool of yourself agin! It'senough to make a man resign office."

  Mose stared at the speaker--puzzled by the smile even more than by thisunintelligible talk.

  "See here," Norman Hazzard went on, "I represent Uncle Sam, don't I?Well, then, Uncle Sam has to be pretty rough on fellows that shirk, andrun away, and behave mean--but he's got a heart inside of him all thesame. He knows about you, and he understands that while you did a verybad thing, you did it from first-rate motives. So he says to himself,'Now if that fellow Mose comes around and pokes himself right under mynose, I'll be obliged to shoot him jest for the effect upon the others;but if he's only got sense enough to lay low, and keep on my blindside, why, I won't hurt a hair of his head.' _Now_ do you see?"

  "You mean that I'm to stay here?" asked Mose, in bewilderment.

  "I mean that you're a dead man if you don't," replied Hazzard. "Ofcourse my business is to arrest you, and take you back to be shot. ButI ain't workin' at my trade this week--I'm fishin'. And so I tell youto come back with me, and cook us some trout for supper and shut up,that's all."

  "But my father," stammered Mose, "he was as sot on my goin' back as Iwas--this 'deserter' business has been a-stickin' in his crop allwinter."

  "No, it's all right," said Hazzard. "I've explained it to him. Here'sthe ring you give him--to show that he understands it. The fact is, heand you ain't got any business to live outside the woods. You're bothtoo green and too soft to wrastle 'round down amongst folks. They cheatyou out of your eye-teeth, and tromple you underfoot, and drive you tothe poorhouse or the jail. Jest you and Asa stay up here where youbelong, and don't you go down any more, foolin' with that buzz-saw thatthey call 'civilization.'"

  Then the two men turned and began together the ascent of the outlet.

  That is the story. A good deal of it I heard from Mose Whipple's ownlips, at different times, years after the war, when we sat around thehuge fire in front of his shanty in the evening, with the big starsgleaming overhead, and the barking of the timber wolves coming to usfrom the distant mountain side, through the balmy night silence.

  Generally Ex-Sheriff Norman Hazzard was one of our fishing party, andhe never failed to joke with Mose about the time when he fired tenshots at a running target, and missed every one.

  I picked up from their numerous conv
ersations too,--for Mose, like allthe old-time Adirondack guides, would rather talk any time than cleanfish or chop fire-wood,--that Asa lived to be a very old Asa indeed,and that young Job Parshall, whom Hazzard took away with him, sawthrough school, and then set up in business, was already being talkedof for supervisor in his native town.

  A DAY IN THE WILDERNESS.