The Edge of the Shadow

by Melville Davisson Post

　　IT WAS A LAND of strange varieties of courage. But, even in the greathills, I never saw a man like Cyrus Mansfield. He was old and dying whenthis ghastly adventure happened; but, even in the extremity of life,with its terrors on him, he met the thing with his pagan notions of thepublic welfare, and it is for his own gods to judge him.

　　It was a long afternoon of autumn. The dead man lay in the whitewashedcabin staring up at the cobwebbed ceiling. His left cheek below the eyewas burned with the brand of a pistol shot. The track of a bullet ranalong the eyebrow, plowing into the skull above the ear. His grizzledhair stood up like a brush, and the fanaticism of his face wasexaggerated by the strained postures of death.

　　A tall, gaunt woman sat by the door in the sun. She had a lapful ofhoney locust, and she worked at that, putting the pieces together in asort of wreath. The branches were full of thorns, and the inside of thewoman's hand was torn and wounded upon the balls of the fingers and thepalm, but she plaited the thorns together, giving no heed to her injuredhand.

　　She did not get up when my Uncle Abner and Squire Randolph entered. Shesat over her work with imperturbable stoicism.

　　The man and woman were strangers in the land, preempting one ofMansfield's cabins. Their mission was a mystery for conjecture. And nowthe man's death was a mystery beyond it.

　　When Randolph inquired how the man had met his death, the woman got up,without a word, went to a cupboard in the wall, took out a duelingpistol, and handed it to him. Then, she spoke in a dreary voice; "He wasmad. 'The cause,' he said, 'must have a sacrifice of blood.'"

　　She looked steadily at the dead man. "Ah, yes," she added, "he was mad!"Then she turned about and went back to her chair in the sun before thedoor.

　　Randolph and Abner examined the weapon. It was a handsome duelingpistol, with an inlaid silver stock and a long, octagon barrel of hard,sharp-edged steel. It had been lately fired, for the exploded percussioncap was still on the nipple.

　　"He was a poor shot," said Randolph; "he very nearly missed."

　　My uncle looked closely at the dead man's wound and the burned cheekbeneath it. He turned the weapon slowly in his hand, but Randolph wasimpatient.

　　"Well, Abner," he said, "did the pistol kill him, or was it the fingerof God?"

　　"The pistol killed him," replied my uncle. "And shall we believe thewoman, eh, Abner?"

　　"I am willing to believe her," replied my uncle. They looked about thecabin. There was blood on the floor and flecked against the wall, andstains on the barrel of the pistol, as though the man had staggeredabout, stunned by the bullet, before he died. And so the woundlooked-not mortal on the instant, but one from which, after some time, aman might die.

　　Randolph wrote down his memorandum, and the two went out into the road.

　　It was an afternoon of Paradise. The road ran in a long endless ribbonwestward toward the Ohio. Negroes in the wide bottom land wereharvesting the corn and setting it up in great bulging shocks tied withgrapevine. Beyond on a high wooded knoll, stood a mansion-house withwhite pillars.

　　My uncle took the duelling pistol out of his pocket and handed it to theJustice of the Peace.

　　"Randolph," he said, "these weapons were made in pairs; there should beanother. And," he added, "there is a crest on the butt plate."

　　"Virginia is full of such folderols," replied the Justice, "and boughtand sold, pledged and traded. It would not serve to identify the deadman. And besides, Abner, why do we care? He is dead by his own hand; hisrights and his injuries touch no other; let him lie with his secrets."

　　He made a little circling gesture upward with his index finger.

　　"'Duncan is dead,'" he quoted. "'After life's fitful fever he sleepswell.' Shall we pay our respects to Mansfield before we ride away?"

　　And he indicated the house like a white cornice on the high cliff abovethem.

　　They had been standing with their backs to the cabin door. Now the womanpassed them. She wore a calico sunbonnet, and carried a little bundletied up in a cotton handkerchief. She set out westward along the roadtoward the Ohio. She walked slowly, like one bound on an interminablejourney.

　　Moved by some impulse they looked in at the cabin door. The dead man layas he had been, his face turned toward the ceiling, his handsgrotesquely crossed, his body rigid. But now the sprigs of honey locust,at which the woman worked, were pressed down on his unkempt grizzledhair. The sun lay on the floor, and there was silence.

　　They left the cabin with no word and climbed the long path to themansion on the hill.

　　Mansfield sat in a great chair on the pillared porch. It was wide andcool, paved with colored tiles carried over from England in a sailingship.

　　He was the strangest man I have ever seen. He was old and dying then,but he had a spirit in him that no event could bludgeon into servility.He sat with a gray shawl pinned around his shoulders. The lights andshadows of the afternoon fell on his jaw like a plowshare, on his big,crooked, bony nose, on his hard gray eyes, bringing them into reliefagainst the lines and furrows of his face.

　　"Mansfield," cried Randolph, "how do you do?"

　　"I still live," replied the old man, "but at any hour I may be ejectedout of life."

　　"We all live, Mansfield," said my uncle, "as long as God wills."

　　"Now, Abner," cried the old man, "you repeat the jargon of the churches.The will of man is the only power in the universe, so far as we can findout, that is able to direct the movings of events. Nothing else thatexists can make the most trivial thing happen or cease to happen. Noimagined god or demon in all the history of the race has ever influencedthe order of events as much as the feeblest human creature in an hour oflife. Sit down, Abner, and let me tell you the truth before I cease toexist, as the beasts of the field cease."

　　He indicated the great carved oak chairs about him, and the two visitorssat down.

　　Randolph loved the vanities of argument, and he thrust in:

　　"I am afraid, Mansfield," he said, "you will never enjoy the pleasuresof Paradise."

　　The old man made a contemptuous gesture.

　　"Pleasure, Randolph," he said, "is the happiness of little men; big menare after something more. They are after the satisfaction that comesfrom directing events. This is the only happiness: to crush out everyother authority-to be the one dominating authority-to make events takethe avenue one likes. This is the happiness of the god of the universe,if there is any god of the universe."

　　He moved in his chair, his elbows out, his fingers extended, his bonyface uplifted.

　　"Abner," he cried, "I am willing for you to endure life as you find itand say it is the will of God, but, as for me, I will not be cowed intosubmission. I will not be held back from laying hold of the lever of thegreat engine merely because the rumble of the machinery fills other menwith terror."

　　"Mansfield," replied my uncle, in his deep, level voice, "the fear ofGod is the beginning of wisdom."

　　The old man moved his extended arms with a powerful threshing motion,like a vulture beating the air with its great wings.

　　"Fear!" he cried. "Why, Abner, fear is the last clutch of the animalclinging to the intelligence of man as it emerges from the instinct ofthe beast. The first man thought the monsters about him were gods. Ourfathers thought the elements were gods, and we think the impulse movingthe machinery of the world is the will of some divine authority. Andalways the only thing in the universe that was superior to these thingshas been afraid to assert itself. The human will that can change things,that can do as it likes, has been afraid of phantasms that never yet metwith anything they could turn aside."

　　He clenched his hands, contracted his elbows, and brought them down withan abrupt derisive gesture.

　　"I do not understand," he said, "but I am not afraid. I will not bebeaten into submission by vague, inherited terrors. I will not besubservient to things that have a lesser power than I have. I will notyield the control of events to elements that are dead, to laws that areunthinking, or to an influence that cannot change.

　　"Not all the gods that man has ever worshiped can make things happentomorrow, but I can make them happen; therefore, I am a god above them.And how shall a god that is greater than these gods give over thedominion of events into their hands?"

　　"And so, Mansfield," said Abner, "you have been acting just now uponthis belief?"

　　The old man turned his bony face sharply on my uncle.

　　"Now, Abner," he said, "what do you mean by this Delphic sentence?"

　　For reply, my uncle extended his arms toward the whitewashed cabin.

　　"Who is the dead man down there?"

　　"Randolph can tell you that," said Mansfield.

　　"I never saw the man until today," replied the Justice.

　　"Eh, Randolph," cried the old man, "do you administer the law and have amemory like that? In midsummer the justices sat at the county seat. Haveyou forgot that inquisition?"

　　"I have not," said the Justice. "It was a fool's inquiry. One of Nixon'sNegro women reported a slave plot to poison the wells and attack thepeople with a curious weapon. She got the description of the weapon outof some preacher's sermon-a kind of spear. If she had named someimplement of modern warfare, we could have better credited her story."

　　"Well, Randolph," cried the old man, "for all the wisdom of yourjustices, she spoke the truth. They were pikes the woman saw, and notthe spears of the horsemen of Israel. Did you notice a stranger whoremained in a corner of the courtroom while the justices were sitting?He disappeared after the trial. But did you mark him, Randolph? He liesdead down yonder in my Negro cabin."

　　A light came into the face of the Justice.

　　"By the Eternal," he cried, "an abolitionist!"

　　He flipped the gold seals on his watch fob; then he added, with thatlittle circling gesture of his finger: "Well, he has taken himself awaywith his own hands."

　　"He is dead," said Mansfield, thrusting out his plowshare jaw, "as allsuch vermin ought to be. We are too careless in the South of thesevicious reptiles. We ought to stamp them out of life whenever we findthem. They are a menace to the peace of the land. They incite the slavesto arson and to murder. They are beyond the law, as the panther and thewolf are. We ought to have the courage to destroy the creatures.

　　"The destiny of this republic," he added, "is in our hands."

　　My Uncle Abner spoke then: "It is in God's hands," he said.

　　"God!" cried Mansfield. "I would not give house room to such a god! Whenwe dawdle, Abner, the Yankees always beat us. Why, man, if this thingruns on, it will wind up in a lawsuit. We shall be stripped of ourproperty by a court's writ. And instead of imposing our will on thisrepublic, we shall be answering a little New England lawyer withrejoinders and rebuttals."

　　"Would the bayonet be a better answer?" said my uncle.

　　"Now, Abner," said Mansfield, "you amuse me. These Yankees have nostomach for the bayonet. They are traders, Abner; they handle the sharesand the steel-yard."

　　My uncle looked steadily at the man.

　　"Virginia held that opinion of New England when the King's troopslanded," he said. "It was a common belief. Why, sir, even Washingtonriding north to the command of the Colonial army, when he heard of thebattle of Bunker Hill, did not ask who had won; his only inquiry was,'Did the militia of Massachusetts fight?' It did fight, Mansfield, withimmortal courage."

　　My Uncle Abner lifted his face and looked out over the great valley,mellow with its ripened corn. His voice fell into a reflective note.

　　"The situation in this republic," he said, "is grave, and I am full offear. In God's hands the thing would finally adjust itself. In God'sslow, devious way it would finally come out all right. But neither you,Mansfield, nor the abolitionist, will leave the thing to God. You willrush in and settle it with violence. You will find a short cut of yourown through God's deliberate way, and I tremble before the horror ofblood that you would plunge us into."

　　He paused again, and his big, bronzed features had the serenity of somevast belief.

　　"To be fair," he said, "everywhere in this republic, to enforce the laweverywhere, to put down violence, to try every man who takes the law inhis own hand, fairly in the courts, and, if he is guilty, punish himwithout fear or favor, according to the letter of the statute, to keepeverywhere a public sentiment of fair dealing, by an administration ofjustice above all public clamor-in this time of heat, this is our onlyhope of peace!"

　　He spoke in his deep, level voice, and the words seemed to be concretethings having dimensions and weight.

　　"Shall a fanatic who stirs up our slaves to murder," said Mansfield, "betried like a gentleman before a jury?"

　　"Aye, Mansfield," replied my uncle, "like a gentleman, and before ajury! If the fanatic murders the citizen, I would hang him, and if thecitizen murders the fanatic, I would hang him too, without one finger'sweight of difference in the method of procedure. I would show NewEngland that the justice of Virginia is even-eyed. And she would emulatethat fairness, and all over the land the law would hold against theunrestraint that is gathering."

　　"Abner," cried Mansfield, "you are a dawdler like your god. I know aswifter way."

　　"I am ready to believe it," replied my uncle. "Who killed the madabolitionist down yonder?"

　　"Who cares," said the old man, "since the beast is dead?"

　　"I care," replied Abner.

　　"Then, find it out, Abner, if you care," said the old man, snapping hisjaws.

　　"I have found it out," said my uncle, "and it has happened in so strangea way, and with so curious an intervention, that I cannot save the Statefrom shame."

　　"It happened in the simplest way imaginable," said Randolph. "The foolkilled himself."

　　It was not an unthinkable conclusion. The whole land was wrought up tothe highest tension. Men were beginning to hold their properties andtheir lives as of little account in this tremendous issue. The countrywas ready to flare up in a war, and to fire it the life of one man wouldbe nothing. A thousand madmen were ready to make that sacrifice of life.That a fanatic would shoot himself in Virginia with the idea that theslave owners would be charged by the country with his murder and so thewar brought on, was not a thing improbable in that day's extremity ofpassion. To the madman it would be only the slight sacrifice of his lifefor the immortal gain of a holy war.

　　My uncle looked at the Justice with a curious smile.

　　"I think Mansfield will hardly believe that," he said.

　　The old man laughed.

　　"It is a pretty explanation, Randolph," he said, "and I commend it toall men, but I do not believe it."

　　"Not believe it!" cried the Justice, looking first at my uncle and thenat the old man. "Why, Abner, you said the woman spoke the truth!"

　　"She did speak it," replied my uncle.

　　"Damme, man!" cried the Justice. "Why do you beat about? If you believethe woman, why do you gentlemen disbelieve my conclusion on her words?"

　　"I disbelieve it, Randolph," replied my uncle, "for the convincingreason that I know who killed him."

　　"And I," cried Mansfield, "disbelieve it for an equally convincingreason-for the most convincing reason in the world, Randolph,"-and hisbig voice laughed in among the pillars and rafters of his porch-"becauseI killed him myself!"

　　Abner sat unmoving, and Randolph like a man past belief. The Justicefumbled with the pistol in his pocket, got it out, and laid it on theflat arm on his chair, but he did not speak. The confession overwhelmedhim.

　　The old man stood up, and the voice in his time-shaken body was Homeric:

　　"Ho! Ho!" he cried. "And so you thought I would be afraid, Randolph, anddodge about like your little men, shaken and overcome by fear." And hehuddled in his shawl with a dramatic gesture.

　　"Fear!" And his laugh burst out again in a high staccato. "Even thedevils in Abner's Christian hell lack that! I shot the creature,Randolph! Do you hear the awful words? And do you tremble for me, lest Ihang and go to Abner's hell?"

　　The mock terror in the old man's voice and manner was compelling drama.He indicated the pistol on the chair arm.

　　"Yes," he said, "it is mine. Abner should have known it by the Mansfieldarms."

　　"I did know it," replied my uncle.

　　The old man looked at the Justice with a queer ironical smile; then hewent into the house.

　　"Await me, Randolph," he said. "I would produce the evidence and makeout your case."

　　And prodded by the words, Randolph cursed bitterly.

　　"By the Eternal," he cried, "I am as little afraid as any of God'screatures, but the man confounds me!"

　　And he spoke the truth. He was a justice of the peace in Virginia whenonly gentlemen could hold that office. He lacked the balance and theability of his pioneer ancestors, and he was given over to the vanityand the extravagance of words, but fear and all the manifestations offear were alien to him.

　　He turned when the old man came out with a rosewood box in his hand, andfaced him calmly.

　　"Mansfield," he said, "I warn you. I represent the law, and if you havedone a murder, I will get you hanged."

　　The old man paused, and looked at Randolph with his maddening ironicalsmile.

　　"Fear again, eh, Randolph!" he said. "Is it by fear that you wouldalways restrain me? Shall I be plucked back from the gibbet and Abner'shell only by this fear? It is a menace I have too long disregarded. Youmust give me a better reason."

　　Mansfield opened the rosewood box and took out a pistol like the one onthe arm of Randolph's chair. He held the weapon lightly in his hand.

　　"The creature came here to harangue me," he said, "and like the genie inthe copper pot, I gave him his choice of deaths."

　　He laughed, for the fancy pleased him.

　　"In the swirl of his heroics, Abner, I carried him the pistol yonder, tothe steps of my portico where he stood, and with this other and myfather's watch, I sat down here. 'After three minutes, sir,' I said, 'Ishall shoot you down. It is my price for hearing your oration. Firebefore that time is up. I shall call out the minutes for yourconvenience.'

　　"And so, I sat here, Abner, with my father's watch, while the creatureranted with my pistol in his hand.

　　"I called out the time, and he harangued me: The black of the Negroshall be washed white with blood!' And I answered him: 'One minute,sir!'

　　"'The Lord will make Virginia a possession for the bittern!' was hissecond climax, and I replied, 'Two minutes of your time are up!'

　　"'The South is one great brothel,' he shouted, and I answered, 'Threeminutes, my fine fellow,' and shot him as I had promised! He leaped offinto the darkness with my unfired pistol and fled to the cabin where youfound him."

　　There was a moment's silence, and my uncle put out his arm and pointeddown across the long meadow to a grim outline traveling far off on theroad.

　　"Mansfield," he said, "you have lighted the powder train that God, atHis leisure, would have dampened. You have broken the faith of the worldin our sincerity. Virginia will be credited with this man's death, andwe cannot hang you for it!"

　　"And why not?" cried Randolph, standing up. He had been prodded intounmanageable anger. "The Commonwealth has granted no letters of marque;it has proclaimed no outlawry. Neither Mansfield nor any other has apatent to do murder. I shall get him hanged!"

　　My uncle shook his head.

　　"No, Randolph," he said, "you cannot hang him."

　　"And why not?" cried the Justice of the Peace, aroused now, and defiant."Is Mansfield above the law? If he kills this madman, shall he have awrit of exemption for it?" "But he did not kill him!" replied my uncle.Randolph was amazed. And Mansfield shook his head slowly, his faceretaining its ironical smile.

　　"No, Abner," he said, "let Randolph have his case. I shot him."

　　Then he put out his hand, as though in courtesy, to my uncle. "Be atpeace," he said. "If I were moved by fear, there is a greater near methan Randolph's gibbet. I shall be dead and buried before his grand jurycan hold its inquisition."

　　"Mansfield," replied my uncle, "be yourself at peace, for you did notkill him."

　　"Not kill him!" cried the man. "I shot him thus!" He sat down in hischair and taking the pistol out of the rosewood box, leveled it at animaginary figure across the portico. The man's hand was steady and thesun glinted on the steel barrel.

　　"And because you shot thus," said Abner, "you did not kill him. Listen,Mansfield: the pistol that killed the Abolitionist was held upside downand close. The brand on the dead man's face is under the bullet hole. Ifthe pistol had been held as usual, the brand would have been above it.It is a law of pistol wounds: as you turn the weapon, so will the brandfollow. Held upside down, the brand was below the wound."

　　A deepening wonder came into the old man's ironical face. "How did thecreature die, then, if I missed him?" Abner took up the weapon on thearm of Randolph's chair. "The dead man did not shoot in Mansfield'sfantastic duel," he said. "Nevertheless this pistol has been fired. Andobserve there is a smeared bloodstain on the sharp edges of the barrel.I think I know what happened..

　　"The madman with his pistol, overwrought, struggled in the cabin yonderto make himself a 'sacrifice of blood' and so bring on this war. Someoneresisted his mad act-someone who seized the barrel of the pistol and inthe struggle also got a wounded hand. Who in that cabin had a woundedhand, Randolph?"

　　"By the living God!" cried the Justice of the Peace. "The woman whoplaited thorns! It was a blind to cover her injured band!"

　　Abner looked out across the great meadows at a tiny figure far off,fading into the twilight of the distant road that led toward the Ohio.

　　"To cover her injured hand," he echoed, "and also, perhaps, who knows,to symbolize the dead man's mission, as she knew the saw it! The heartof a woman is the deepest of all God's riddles!"