Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries (11 page)

“Late,” said Abner.

The man spread out his hands with a gesture of resignation.

“You mean that my misfortune has dishonored my father?”

“No,” said Abner, “that is not what I mean; by a misfortune no man can be dishonored—neither his father nor his father's father.”

“What is it you mean, then?” said the man.

“Smallwood,” said Abner, “is it not before you; where you in your ownership allowed the fence around this grave to rot I have rebuilt it, and where you allowed the weeds to grow up I have cut them down?”

It was the truth. Abner had put up a fence and had cleaned the graveyard. Only the myrtle and cinquefoil covered it. I thought the sheriff would be ashamed at that, but his face brightened.

“It is disaster, Abner, that brings' a man back to his duties to the dead. In prosperity we forget, but in poverty we remember.”

“The Master,” replied Abner, “was not very much concerned about the dead; nor am I. The dead are in God's keeping! It is our duties to the living that should move us. Do you remember, Smallwood, the story of the young man who wished to go and bury his father?”

“I do,” said Smallwood, “and I have always held him in honor for it.”

“And so, too, the Master would have held him, but for one thing.”

“What thing?” said Smallwood.

“That the story was an excuse,” replied Abner.

I saw the light go out of the man's face and his lips tremble; and then he said what I was afraid he would say.

“Abner,” he said, “if you are determined to gouge this thing out of me, why here it is: I cannot bear to live in this community any longer. I am ashamed to see those upon whom I have brought misfortune—Elnathan Stone, and your brother Rufus, and Adam Greathouse. I have made up my mind to leave the country forever, but I wanted to see the place where my father was buried before I went, because I shall never see it again. You don't understand how a man can feel like that; but I tell you, when a man is in trouble he will remember his father's roof if he is living, and his father's grave if he is dead.”

I was so mortified before this confession that Abner's heartless manner had forced out of the man that I reached over and caught my uncle by the sleeve. My horse stood by Abner's chestnut, and I hoped that he would yield to my importunity and ride on; but he turned in his saddle and looked first at me and then down upon the sheriff.

“Martin,” he said, “thinks we ought to leave you to your filial devotions.”

“It is a credit to the child's heart,” replied the man, “and a rebuke to you, Abner. It is a pity that age robs us of charity.”

Abner put his hands on the pommel of his saddle and regarded the sheriff.

“I have read St. Paul's epistle on charity,” he said, “and, after long reflection, I am persuaded that there exists a greater thing than charity—a thing of more value to the human family. Like charity, it rejoiceth not in iniquity, but it does not bear all things or believe all things, or endure all things; and, unlike charity, it seeketh its own…. Do you know what thing I mean, Smallwood? I will tell you. It is Justice.”

“Abner,” replied the man, “I am in no humor to hear a sermon.”

“Those who need a sermon,” said Abner, “are rarely in the humor to hear it.”

“Abner,” cried the man, “you annoy me! Will you ride on?”

“Presently,” replied Abner; “when we have talked together a little further. You are about to leave the country. I shall perhaps never see you again and I would have your opinion upon a certain matter.”

“Well,” said the man, “what is it?”

“It is this,” said Abner. “You appear to entertain great filial respect, and I would ask you a question touching that regard: What ought to be done with a man who would use a weapon against his father?”

“He ought to be hanged,” said Smallwood.

“And would it change the case,” said Abner, “if the father held something which the son had intrusted to him and would not give it up because it belonged to another, and the son, to take it, should come against his father with an iron in his hand?”

The sheriff's face became a land of doubt, of suspicion, of uncertainty and, I thought, of fear.

“Abner,” cried the man, “I do not understand; will you explain it?”

“I will explain this thing which you do not understand,” replied Abner, “when you have explained a thing which I do not understand. Why was it that you came here last night and again this morning? That was two visits to your father's grave within six hours. I do not understand why you should make two trips—and one upon the heels of the other.”

For a moment the man did not reply; then he spoke. “How do you know that I was here last night? Did you see me come or did another see and tell you?”

“I did not see you,” replied Abner, “nor did any one tell me that you came; but I know it in spite of that.”

“And how do you know it?” said Smallwood.

“I will tell you,” said Abner. “On the road this morning I observed two horse-tracks leading this way; they both turned in at the same crossroads and they both came to this place. One was fresh, the other was some hours old—it is easy to tell that on a clay road. I compared those two tracks and the third returning track, and presently I saw that they had been made by the same horse.”

Abner stopped and pointed down toward the beech woods.

“Moreover,” he continued, “your horse, hidden among those trees, is worn out and asleep. Now you live only some twenty miles away—that journey this morning would not have so fatigued your horse that he would sleep on his feet; but to make two trips—to go all night—to travel sixty miles—would do it.”

The sheriff's head did not move, but I saw his eyes glance down. The glance did not escape Abner and he went on.

“I saw the crowbar in the grass there some time ago,” he said; “but what has the crowbar to do with your two trips?”

I, too, saw now the iron bar. It was the thing that had glittered in the sun.

The man threw back his shoulders; he lifted his face and stood up. There came upon him the pose and expression of one who steps out at last desperately into the open.

“Yes,” he said, “I was here last night. It was my horse that made those tracks in the road and it is my horse that is hidden in the woods now. And that is my crowbar in the grass… And do you want to know why I made those two trips, and why I brought that crowbar, and why I hid my horse?… Well, I'll tell you, since there is no shame in you and no decent feeling, and you are determined to have it…. You can't understand, Abner, because you have a heart of stone; but I tell you I wanted to see my father's grave before I left the country forever. I was ashamed to meet the people over here and so I came in the night. When I got here I saw that the heavy slab over my father's grave had settled down and was wedged in against the coping. I tried to straighten it up, but I could not… Well, what would you have done, Abner—gone away and left your father's tomb a ruin?… No matter what you would have done! I went back twenty miles and got that crowbar and came again to lift and straighten the stone over my father's grave before I left it…. And now, will you ride on and leave me to finish my work and go?”

“Smallwood,” Abner said presently, “how do you know that your house was robbed before it was burned? Might it not be that the county revenues were burned with the house?”

“I will tell you how I know that, Abner,” replied the man. “The revenues of the county were all in my deerskin saddle-pockets, under my pillow; when I awoke in the night the house was dark and filled with smoke. I jumped up, seized my clothes, which were on a chair by the bed, and ran downstairs; but, first, I felt under the pillow for my saddle-pockets—and they were gone.”

“But, Smallwood,” said Abner, “how can you be certain that the money was stolen out of your saddle-pockets if you did not find them?”

“I did find them,” replied the sheriff; “I went back into the house and got the saddle-pockets and brought them out—and they were empty.”

“That was a brave thing to do, Smallwood,” said Abner—“to go back into a burning house filled with smoke and dark. You could have had only a moment.”

“You speak the truth, Abner,” replied the sheriff. “I had only a moment—the house was a pot of smoke. But the money was in my care, Abner. There was my duty—and what is a man's life against that!”

I saw Abner's back straighten and I heard his feet grind on the iron of his stirrups.

“And now, Smallwood,” he said, and his voice was like the menace of a weapon, “will you tell me how it was possible for you to go into a house that was dark and filled with smoke, and thus quickly—in a moment—find those empty saddle-pockets, unless you knew exactly where they were?”

I saw that Abner's question had impaled the man, as one pierces a fly through with a needle; and, like a fly, the man in his confusion fluttered.

“Smallwood,” said Abner, “you are a thief and a hypocrite and a liar! And, like all liars, you have destroyed yourself! You not only stole this money but you tried to make your father an accomplice in that robbery. To conceal it, you hid it in this dead man's house. And, behold, the dead man has held his house against you! When you came here last night to carry away the money you found that the slab over your father's grave had fallen and wedged itself in against the limestone coping, and you could not lift it; and so you went back for that crowbar… But who knows, you thief, what influence, though he be dead, a just man has with God! I came in time to help your father hold his house—and against his son, with a weapon in his hand!”

I saw the man cringe and writhe and shiver, as though he were unable to get out of his tracks; then the power came to him, and he vaulted over the fence and ran. He ran in fear down the hill and
across the brook and into the wood; and a moment later he came out with his tired horse at a gallop.

Abner looked down from the hilltop on the flying thief, but he made no move to follow.

“Let him go,” he said, “for his father's sake. We owe the dead man that much.”

Then he got down from his horse, thrust the crowbar under the slab over the grave and lifted it up.

Beneath it were the sheriff's deerskin saddle-pockets and the stolen money!

It was a strange scene that we approached. Before a crossroad leading into a grove of beech trees, a man sat on his horse with a rifle across his saddle. He did not speak until we were before him in the road, and then his words were sinister.

“Ride on!” he said.

But my Uncle Abner did not ride on. He pulled up his big chestnut and looked calmly at the man.

“You speak like one having authority,” he said.

The man answered with an oath.

“Ride on, or you'll get into trouble!”

“I am accustomed to trouble,” replied my uncle with great composure; “you must give me a better reason.”

“I'll give you hell!” growled the man. “Ride on!”

Abner's eyes traveled over the speaker with a deliberate scrutiny.

“It is not yours to give,” he said, “although possibly to receive. Are the roads of Virginia held by arms?”

“This one is,” replied the man.

“I think not,” replied my Uncle Abner, and, touching his horse with his heel, he turned into the crossroad.

The man seized his weapon, and I heard the hammer click under his thumb. Abner must have heard it, too, but he did not turn his broad back. He only called to me in his usual matter-of-fact voice:

“Go on, Martin; I will overtake you.”

The man brought his gun up to his middle, but he did not shoot. He was like all those who undertake to command obedience without having first determined precisely what they will do if their orders are disregarded. He was prepared to threaten with desperate words, but not to support that threat with a desperate act, and he hung there uncertain, cursing under his breath.

I would have gone on as my uncle had told me to do, but now the man came to a decision.

“No, by God!” he said; “if he goes in, you go in, too!”

And he seized my bridle and turned my horse into the crossroad; then he followed.

There is a long twilight in these hills. The sun departs, but the day remains. A sort of weird, dim, elfin day, that dawns at sunset, and envelops and possesses the world. The land is full of light, but it is the light of no heavenly sun. It is a light equal everywhere, as though the earth strove to illumine itself, and succeeded with that labor.

The stars are not yet out. Now and then a pale moon rides in the sky, but it has no power, and the light is not from it. The wind is usually gone; the air is soft, and the fragrance of the fields fills it like a perfume. The noises of the day and of the creatures that go about by day cease, and the noises of the night and of the creatures that haunt the night begin. The bat swoops and circles in the maddest action, but without a sound. The eye sees him, but the ear hears nothing. The whippoorwill begins his plaintive cry, and one hears, but does not see.

It is a world that we do not understand, for we are creatures of the sun, and we are fearful lest we come upon things at work here, of which we have no experience, and that may be able to justify themselves against our reason. And so a man falls into silence when he travels in this twilight, and he looks and listens with his senses out on guard.

It was an old wagon-road that we entered, with the grass growing between the ruts. The horses traveled without a sound until we began to enter a grove of ancient beech trees; then the dead leaves cracked and rustled. Abner did not look behind him, and so he did
not know that I came. He knew that someone followed, but he doubtless took it for the sentinel in the road. And I did not speak.