A Twilight Adventure

by Melville Davisson Post

　　IT WAS A STRANGE scene that we approached. Before a crossroad leadinginto a grove of beech trees, a man sat on his horse with a rifle acrosshis saddle. He did not speak until we were before him in the road, andthen his words were sinister.

　　"Ride on!" he said.

　　But my Uncle Abner did not ride on. He pulled up his big chestnut andlooked 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. Arethe roads of Virginia held by arms?"

　　"This one is," replied the man.

　　"I think not," replied my Uncle Abner, and, touching his horse with hisheel, 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. Heonly 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 waslike all those who undertake to command obedience without having firstdetermined precisely what they will do if their orders are disregarded.He was prepared to threaten with desperate words, but not to supportthat threat with a desperate act, and he hung there uncertain, cursingunder his breath.

　　I would have gone on as my uncle had told me to do, but now the man cameto 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 hefollowed.

　　There is a long twilight in these hills. The sun departs, but the dayremains. A sort of weird, dim, elfin day, that dawns at sunset, andenvelops and possesses the world. The land is full of light, but it isthe light of no heavenly sun. It is a light equal everywhere, as thoughthe 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 usuallygone; the air is soft, and the fragrance of the fields fills it like aperfume. The noises of the day and of the creatures that go about by daycease, and the noises of the night and of the creatures that haunt thenight begin. The bat swoops and circles in the maddest action, butwithout a sound. The eye sees him, but the ear hears nothing. Thewhippoorwill 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 thesun, and we are fearful lest we come upon things at work here, of whichwe have no experience, and that may be able to justify themselvesagainst our reason. And so a man falls into silence when he travels inthis 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 betweenthe ruts. The horses traveled without a sound until we began to enter agrove 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. Heknew that someone followed, but he doubtless took it for the sentinel inthe road. And I did not speak.

　　The man with the cocked gun rode grimly behind me. I did not knowwhither we went or to what end. We might be shot down from behind a treeor murdered in our saddles. It was not a land where men took desperatemeasures upon a triviality. And I knew that Abner rode into somethingthat little men, lacking courage, would gladly have stayed out of.

　　Presently my ear caught a sound, or, rather, a confused mingling ofsounds, as of men digging in the earth. It was faint, and some distancebeyond us in the heart of the beech woods, but as we traveled the soundincreased and I could distinguish the strokes of the mattock, and thethrust of the shovel and the clatter of the earth on the dry leaves.

　　These sounds seemed at first to be before us, and then, a little later,off on our right hand. And finally, through the gray boles of the beechtrees in the lowland, I saw two men at work digging a pit. They had justbegun their work, for there was little earth thrown out. But there was agreat heap of leaves that they had cleared away, and heavy cakes of thebaked crust that the mattocks had pried up. The length of the pit lay atright angles to the road, and the men were working with their backstoward us. They were in their shirts and trousers, and the heavy mottledshadows thrown by the beech limbs hovered on their backs and shoulderslike a flock of night birds. The earth was baked and hard; the mattockrang on it, and among the noises of their work they did not hear us.

　　I saw Abner look off at this strange labor, his head half turned, but hedid not stop and we went on. The old wagon-road made a turn into the lowground. I heard the sound of horses, and a moment later we came upon adozen men.

　　I shall not easily forget that scene. The beech trees had been deadenedby some settler who had chopped a ring around them, and they stood gauntwith a few tattered leaves, letting the weird twilight in. Some of themen stood about, others sat on the fallen trees, and others in theirsaddles. But upon every man of that grim company there was the air andaspect of one who waits for something to be finished.

　　An old man with a heavy iron-gray beard smoked a pipe, puffing out greatmouthfuls of smoke with a sort of deliberate energy; another whittled astick, cutting a bull with horns, and shaping his work with the nicestcare; and still another traced letters on the pommel of his saddle withhis thumbnail.

　　A little to one side a great pronged beech thrust out a gray arm, andunder it two men sat on their horses, their elbows strapped to theirbodies and their mouths gagged with a saddlecloth. And behind them a manin his saddle was working with a colt halter, unraveling the twine thatbound the headpiece and seeking thereby to get a greater length of rope.

　　This was the scene when I caught it first. But a moment later, when myuncle rode into it, the thing burst into furious life. Men sprang up,caught his horse by the bit and covered him with weapons. Some onecalled for the sentinel who rode behind me, and he galloped up. For amoment there was confusion. Then the big man who had smoked with suchdeliberation called out my uncle's name, others repeated it, and thepanic was gone. But a ring of stern, determined faces were around himand before his horse, and with the passing of the flash of action therepassed no whit of the grim purpose upon which these men were set.

　　My uncle looked about him.

　　"Lemuel Arnold," he said; "Nicholas Vance, Hiram Ward, you here!"

　　As my uncle named these men I knew them. They were cattle grazers. Wardwas the big man with the pipe. The men with them were their renters anddrovers.

　　Their lands lay nearest to the mountains. The geographical position madefor feudal customs and a certain independence of action. They were onthe border, they were accustomed to say, and had to take care ofthemselves. And it ought to be written that they did take care ofthemselves with courage and decision, and on occasion they also tookcare of Virginia.

　　Their fathers had pushed the frontier of the dominion northward andwestward and had held the land. They had fought the savage single-handedand desperately, by his own methods and with his own weapons. Ruthlessand merciless, eye for eye and tooth for tooth, they returned what theywere given.

　　They did not send to Virginia for militia when the savage came; theyfought him at their doors, and followed him through the forest, and tooktheir toll of death. They were hardier than he was, and their hands wereheavier and bloodier, until the old men in the tribes of the Ohio Valleyforbade these raids because they cost too much, and turned the warparties south into Kentucky.

　　Certain historians have written severely of these men and their ruthlessmethods, and prattled of humane warfare; but they wrote nursing theirsoft spines in the security of a civilization which these men's handshad builded, and their words are hollow.

　　"Abner," said Ward, "let me speak plainly. We have got an account tosettle with a couple of cattle thieves and we are not going to beinterfered with. Cattle stealing and murder have got to stop in thesehills. We've had enough of it."

　　"Well," replied my uncle, "I am the last man in Virginia to interferewith that. We have all had enough of it, and we are all determined thatit must cease. But how do you propose to end it?"

　　"With a rope," said Ward.

　　"It is a good way," replied Abner, "when it is done the right way."

　　"What do you mean by the right way?" said Ward.

　　"I mean," answered my uncle, "that we have all agreed to a way and weought to stick to our agreement. Now, I want to help you to put downcattle stealing and murder, but I want also to keep my word."

　　"And how have you given your word?"

　　"In the same way that you have given yours," said Abner, "and as everyman here has given his. Our fathers found out that they could not managethe assassin and the thief when every man undertook to act for himself,so they got together and agreed upon a certain way to do these things.Now, we have indorsed what they agreed to, and promised to obey it, andI for one would like to keep my promise."

　　The big man's face was puzzled. Now it cleared.

　　"Hell!" he said. "You mean the law?"

　　"Call it what you like," replied Abner; "it is merely the agreement ofeverybody to do certain things in a certain way."

　　The man made a decisive gesture with a jerk of his head.

　　"Well," he said, "we're going to do this thing our own way."

　　My uncle's face became thoughtful.

　　"Then," he said, "you will injure some innocent people."

　　"You mean these two blacklegs?"

　　And Ward indicated the prisoners with a gesture of his thumb.

　　My uncle lifted his face and looked at the two men some distance awaybeneath the great beech, as though he had but now observed them.

　　"I was not thinking of them," he answered. "I was thinking that if menlike you and Lemuel Arnold and Nicholas Vance violate the law, lessermen will follow your example, and as you justify your act for security,they will justify theirs for revenge and plunder. And so the law will goto pieces and a lot of weak and innocent people who depend upon it forsecurity will be left unprotected."

　　These were words that I have remembered, because they put the danger oflynch law in a light I had not thought of. But I saw that they would notmove these determined men. Their blood was up and they received themcoldly.

　　"Abner," said Ward, "we are not going to argue this thing with you.There are times when men have to take the law into their own hands. Welive here at the foot of the mountains. Our cattle are stolen and runacross the border into Maryland. We are tired of it and we intend tostop it.

　　"Our lives and our property are menaced by a set of reckless desperatedevils that we have determined to hunt down and hang to the first treein sight. We did not send for you. You pushed your way in here; and now,if you are afraid of breaking the law, you can ride on, because we aregoing to break it-if to hang a pair of murderous devils is to break it."

　　I was astonished at my uncle's decision.

　　"Well," he said, "if the law must be broken, I will stay and help youbreak it!"

　　"Very well," replied Ward; "but don't get a wrong notion in your head,Abner. If you choose to stay, you put yourself on a footing witheverybody else."

　　"And that is precisely what I want to do," replied Abner, "but asmatters stand now, every man here has an advantage over me."

　　"What advantage, Abner?" said Ward.

　　"The advantage," answered my uncle, "that he has heard all the evidenceagainst your prisoners and is convinced that they are guilty."

　　"If that is all the advantage, Abner," replied Ward, "you shall not bedenied it. There has been so much cattle stealing here of late that ourpeople living on the border finally got together and determined to stopevery drove going up into the mountains that wasn't accompanied bysomebody that we knew was all right. This afternoon one of my menreported a little bunch of about a hundred steers on the road, and Istopped it. These two men were driving the cattle. I inquired if thecattle belonged to them and they replied that they were not the owners,but that they had been hired to take the drove over into Maryland. I didnot know the men, and as they met my inquiries with oaths andimprecations, I was suspicious of them. I demanded the name of the ownerwho had hired them to drive the cattle. They said it was none of mydamned business and went on. I raised the county. We overtook them,turned their cattle into a field, and brought them back until we couldfind out who the drove belonged to. On the road we met Bowers."

　　He turned and indicated the man who was working with the rope halter.

　　I knew the man. He was a cattle shipper, somewhat involved in debt, butwho managed to buy and sell and somehow keep his head above water.

　　"He told us the truth. Yesterday evening he had gone over on theStone-Coal to look at Daniel Coopman's cattle. He had heard that somegrazer from your county, Abner, was on the way up to buy the cattle forstockers. He wanted to get in ahead of your man, so he left home thatevening and got to Coopman's place about sundown. He took a short cut onfoot over the hill, and when he came out he saw a man on the oppositeridge where the road runs, ride away. The man seemed to have beensitting on his horse looking down into the little valley where Coopman'shouse stands. Bowers went down to the house, but Coopman was not there.The door was open, and Bowers says the house looked as though Coopmanhad just gone out of it and might come back any moment. There was no oneabout, because Coopman's wife had gone on a visit to her daughter, overthe mountains, and the old man was alone.

　　"Bowers thought Coopman was out showing the cattle to the man whom hehad just seen ride off, so he went out to the pasture field to look forhim. He could not find him and he could not find the cattle. He cameback to the house to wait until Coopman should come in. He sat down onthe porch. As he sat there he noticed that the porch had been scrubbedand was still wet. He looked at it and saw that it had been scrubbedonly at one place before the door. This seemed to him a little peculiar,and he wondered why Coopman had scrubbed his porch only in one place. Hegot up and as he went toward the door he saw that the jamb of the doorwas splintered at a point about halfway up. He examined this splinteredplace and presently discovered that it was a bullet hole.

　　"This alarmed him, and he went out into the yard. There he saw a wagontrack leading away from the house toward the road. In the weeds he foundCoopman's watch. He picked it up and put it into his pocket. It was abig silver watch, with Coopman's name on it, and attached to it was abuckskin string. He followed the track to the gate, where it entered theroad. He discovered then that the cattle had also passed through thisgate. It was now night. Bowers went back, got Coopman's saddle horse outof the stable, rode him home, and followed the track of the cattle thismorning, but he saw no trace of the drove until we met him."

　　"What did Shifflet and Twiggs say to this story?" inquired Abner.

　　"They did not hear it," answered Ward; "Bowers did not talk before them.He rode aside with us when we met him."

　　"Did Shifflet and Twiggs know Bowers?" said Abner.

　　"I don't know," replied Ward; "their talk was so foul when we stoppedthe drove that we had to tie their mouths up."

　　"Is that all?" said Abner.

　　Ward swore a great oath.

　　"No!" he said. "Do you think we would hang men on that? From what Bowerstold us, we thought Shifflet and Twiggs had killed Daniel Coopman anddriven off his cattle; but we wanted to be certain of it, so we set outto discover what they had done with Coopman's body after they had killedhim and what they had done with the wagon. We followed the trail of thedrove down to the Valley River. No wagon had crossed, but on the otherside we found that a wagon and a drove of cattle had turned out of theroad and gone along the basin of the river for about a mile through thewoods. And there in a bend of the river we found where these devils hadcamped."

　　"There had been a great fire of logs very near to the river, but none ofthe ashes of this fire remained. From a circular space some twelve feetin diameter the ashes had all been shoveled off, the marks of the shovelbeing distinct. In the center of the place where this fire had burnedthe ground had been scraped clean, but near the edges there were sometraces of cinders and the ground was blackened. In the river at thispoint, just opposite the remains of the fire, was a natural washout orhole. We made a raft of logs, cut a pole with a fork on the end anddragged the river. We found most of the wagon iron, all showing theeffect of fire. Then we fastened a tin bucket to a pole and fished thewashout. We brought lip cinders, buttons, buckles and pieces of bone."

　　Ward paused.

　　"That settled it, and we came back here to swing the devils up."

　　My uncle had listened very carefully, and now he spoke.

　　"What did the man pay Twiggs and Shifflet?" said my uncle. "Did theytell you that when you stopped the drove?"

　　"Now that," answered Ward, "was another piece of damning evidence. Whenwe searched the men we found a pocket-book on Shifflet with a hundredand fifteen dollars and some odd cents. It was Daniel Coopman'spocketbook, because there was an old tax receipt in it that had slippeddown between the leather and the lining.

　　"We asked Shifflet where he got it, and he said that the fifteen dollarsand the change was his own money and that the hundred had been paid tohim by the man who had hired them to drive the cattle. He explained hispossession of the pocketbook by saying that this man had the money init, and when he went to pay them he said that they might just as welltake it, too."

　　"Who was this man?" said Abner.

　　"They will not tell who he was."

　　"Why not?"

　　"Now, Abner," cried Ward, "why not, indeed! Because there never was anysuch man. The story is a lie out of the whole cloth. Those two devilsare guilty as hell. The proof is all dead against them."

　　"Well," replied my uncle, "what circumstantial evidence proves, dependsa good deal on how you get started. It is a somewhat dangerous road tothe truth, because all the signboards have a curious trick of pointingin the direction that you are going. Now, a man will never realize thisunless he turns around and starts back, then he will see, to hisamazement that the signboards have also turned. But as long as his faceis set one certain way, it is of no use to talk to him, he won't listento you; and if he sees you going the other way, he will call you afool."

　　"There is only one way in this case," said Ward.

　　"There are always two ways in every case," replied Abner, "that thesuspected person is either guilty or innocent. You have started upon thetheory that Shifflet and Twiggs are guilty. Now, suppose you had startedthe other way, what then?"

　　"Well," said Ward, "what then?"

　　"This, then," continued Abner. "You stop Shifflet and Twiggs on the roadwith Daniel Coopman's cattle, and they tell you that a man has hiredthem to drive this drove into Maryland. You believe that and start outto find the man. You find Bowers!"

　　Bowers went deadly white.

　　"For God's sake, Abner!" he said.

　　But my uncle was merciless and he drove in the conclusion.

　　"What then?"

　　There was no answer, but the faces of the men about my uncle turnedtoward the man whose trembling hands fingered the rope that he waspreparing for another.

　　"But the things we found, Abner?" said Ward.

　　"What do they prove," continued my uncle, "now that the signboards areturned? That somebody killed Daniel Coopman and drove off his cattle,and afterward destroyed the body and the wagon in which it was hauledaway...But who did that?...The men who were driving Daniel Coopman'scattle, or the man who was riding Daniel Coopman's horse, and carryingDaniel Coopman's watch in his pocket?"

　　Ward's face was a study in expression. "Ah!" cried Abner. "Remember thatthe signboards have turned about. And what do they point to if we readthem on the way we are going now? The man who killed Coopman was afraidto be found with the cattle, so he hired Twiggs and Shifflet to drivethem into Maryland for him and follows on another road."

　　"But his story, Abner?" said Ward.

　　"And what of it?" replied my uncle. "He is taken and he must explain howhe comes by the horse that he rides, and the watch that he carries, andhe must find the criminal. Well, he tells you a tale to fit the factsthat you will find when you go back to look, and he gives you Shiffletand Twiggs to hang."

　　I never saw a man in more mortal terror than Jacob Bowers. He sat in hissaddle like a man bewildered.

　　"My God!" he said, and again he repeated it, and again.

　　And he had cause for that terror on him. My uncle was stern andruthless. The pendulum had swung the other way, and the lawless monsterthat Bowers had allied was now turning on himself. He saw it and hisjoints were unhinged with fear.

　　A voice crashed out of the ring of desperate men, uttering the changedopinion.

　　"By God!" it cried, "we've got the right man now."

　　And one caught the rope out of Bowers' hand.

　　But my Uncle Abner rode in on them.

　　"Are you sure about that?" he said.

　　"Sure!" they echoed. "You have shown it yourself, Abner."

　　"No," replied my uncle, "I have not shown it. I have shown merelywhither circumstantial evidence leads us when we go hotfoot after atheory. Bowers says that there was a man on the hill above DanielCoopman's house, and this man will know that he did not kill DanielCoopman and that his story is the truth."

　　They laughed in my uncle's face.

　　"Do you believe that there was any such person?"

　　My uncle seemed to increase in stature, and his voice became big anddominant.

　　"I do," he said, "because I am the man!"

　　They had got their lesson, and we rode out with Shifflet and Twiggs to alegal trial.