John McElroy - Si Klegg, Book 5

"Good, the old man's goin' to take the grub out to 'em himself," thought the Deacon with relief. "He'll be easy to manage. No need o' shootin' him."

He hurried back to his covert, and then shpped unseen down to where he had selected for his ambush. The old man drove the buckboard around to the front of the house, and the negresses, obeying the shrill orders of the old woman, brought out pones of smoking cornbread, and buckets, tin pans and crocks containing the meat, potatoes, turnips and other food, and loaded them on to the buckboard. The fragrance of the food reached the Deacon's nostrils, and made his mouth water and fond anticipations rise as to the good it would do the boys.

"I'll have that grub, and the boys shall have it," he determined, "or there'll be an Injianny Deacon pretty badly used up."

The old man mounted into the seat, gathered up the rope lines, and chirruped to the horse to start.

When he came opposite, the Deacon jumped out, seized the reins, and pointing his revolver at him, commanded sternly:

"Git down from there, and git down quick."

The old man dropped the lines, and for an instant gazed at him with scared eyes.

"Why, yo' robber, what d'yo' mean?" he gasped.

"Git down from there, and git down quick!" repeated the Deacon.

"Why, this is highway robbery, threats, puttin' in bodily fear, attempted murder, hoss-stealin'."

"Hain't no time to argy law with you," said the Deacon impatiently. "This ain't no court-room. You ain't in session now. Git down, and git down quick!"

"Help! help! murder! robbery! thieves!" shouted the old man, at the top of his voice.

The negresses, who had been watching their master depart, set to screaming, and the old woman rushed back into the house and blew the horn. The Deacon thrust his revolver back into the holster, caught the old man with his sinewy hand, tore him from the seat, and flung him into the fence-corner. He sprang into the seat, turned the horse's head toward Chattanooga, and hit him a sharp cut with a switch that lay in the wagon.

"I've got about three miles the start," he said as he rattled off. "This horse's young and fresh, while their's probably run down. The road from here to the main road's tollably good, and I think I kin git there before they kin overtake me."

At the top of the hill he looked back, and saw the rebels coming out. Apparently they had not understood what had happened. They had seen no Yankees and could not have seen the Deacon's tussle with the old man. They supposed that the holler simply meant for them to come in and get their dinner, instead of having it taken out to them. All this passed through the Deacon's mind, and he chuckled over the additional start it would give him.

"They won't find out nothin' till they git clean to the house," he said. "By that time I'll be mighty nigh the main road. My, but wouldn't I like to have as many dollars as they'll be mad when they find the Yankee trick that's bin played on 'em, with their dinner hauled off into the Union camp."

He rattled ahead sharply for some time, looking back at each top of a hill for his pursuers. They did not come in sight, but the main road to Chattanooga did, and then a new trouble suggested itself.

"I won't never dare haul this load uncovered through camp," he said to himself. "The first gang o' roustabout teamsters that I meet'll take every spoonful of the vittles, and I'd be lucky if I have the horse and wagon left. I must hide it some way. How? That's a puzzler."

At length a happy idea occurred to him. He stopped by a cedar thicket, and with his jack-knife cut a big load of cedar boughs, which he piled on until every bit of food was thoroughly concealed. This took much time, and as he was finishing he heard a yell on the hill behind, and saw a squad of rebels riding down toward him. He sprang to the seat, whipped up his horse, and as he reached the main road was rejoiced to see a squad of Union cavalry approaching.

"Here, old man," said the Lieutenant in command; "who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"I'm a nurse in the hospital," answered the Deacon unhesitatingly. "I was sent out here to get some cedar boughs to make beds in the hospital. Say, there's some rebels out there, comin' down the hill. They saw me and tuk after me. You'll find 'em right over the hill."

"That's a pretty slick horse you're driving," said the Lieutenant. "Looks entirely too slick to belong to Chattanooga. It's a much better horse than mine. I've a notion—"

"Say, them rebels are just over the hill, I tell you," said the Deacon in a fever of apprehension of losing his steed. "They'll be on top of you in a minute if you don't look out."

"Right over the hill, did you say?" said the Lieutenant, forgetting for the moment the horse. "Attention, there, boys. Look out for the rebels. Advance carbines—Forward—trot! I'll come back directly and take another look at that horse."

The squad trotted up the hill in the direction the Deacon had pointed, and as he drove off as fast as he could he heard the spatter of exchanging shots.

Late in the evening, as he drove off the pontoon into Chattanooga and turned to the right toward his corn-crib he muttered over to himself:

"They say that when a man starts down the path of sin and crime the road seems greased for his swift progress. The other day I begun with petty larceny and chicken stealin'. To-day it's bin highway robbery, premeditated murder, horse stealin', grand larceny, and tellin' a deliberate lie. What'll I be doin' this time next week? I must git that old man's horse and buckboard back to him somehow, and pay him for his vittles. But how'm I goin' to do it? The army's terribly demoralizin'. I must git Si back home soon, or I won't be fit to associate with anybody outside the penitentiary. How kin I ever go to the communion table agin?"

SI AND SHORTY were on the anxious lookout for the Deacon when he arrived, and not a little worried lest something might have befallen him.

Si's weakness made him peevish and fretful, and Shorty was not a great deal better.

"It's an awful risk to have an old man and a civilian come down here into camp," Si complained. "And he oughtn't to go about alone. He's always been used to mingling with the quiet, honest, respectable people. Up home the people are as honest as the day is long. They're religious and peaceable, and Pap's never knowed no other kind. He wouldn't harm nobody for the world, and none o' them'd harm him. He's only a child among these toughs down here. I wisht one of us was able to be with him all the time."

"That father o' yours is certainly quite an innocent old party," Shorty answered, consolingly, "and the things he don't know about army life'd make more'n a pamphlet. But he has a way of wakin' up to the situation that is sometimes very surprisin'. I wisht I was able to go about with him, but I think he's fully able to take care o' himself around in camp. There's always somebody about who won't see an old man and a citizen imposed on. But what I'm afraid of is that he's wandered out in the country, huntin' for somethin' for us to eat, and the guerrillas've got him."

And he and Si shuddered at the thought of that good old man in the hands of the merciless scoundrels who infested the mountains and woods beyond the camps.

"Yes," mourned Si, "Pap's likely to mosey out into the country, jest like he would on Bean Blossom Crick, and stop at the first house he come to, and set down with 'em on the porch, and talk about the weather, and the crops, and the measles in the neighborhood, and the revivals, and the price o' pork and corn, and whether they'd better hold their wheat till Spring, and who was comin' up for office, and all the time the bushwhackers'd be sneakin' up on him, an' him know no more 'bout it than where the blackbirds was roostin'. He's jest that innocent and unsuspiciouslike."