Fighting Byng: A Novel of Mystery, Intrigue and Adventure, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  Howard Byng stayed with me all that season--about eight months, andwas a constant surprise. I helped him a little and taught him to reada newspaper and got rid of some of his negro dialect. He was faithfuland true--a willing slave if such a term could be applied to afree-born man.

  Wonderful in woodcraft, he knew just where to pitch camp to get waterand avoid it. One bee meant a bee's nest nearby, and we had wild honeyall the time. He knew just where to go and pull a 'possum out of atree, we had wild turkey, and occasionally a young bear or deer. Andwork--he was worth any two men I ever had. He developed like astarving crop fertilized and watered. In the clean-cut, powerful,willing, cheerful "axe-man" no one could have recognized the GeorgiaCracker I found hauling turpentine sap with a mule eight monthsbefore. Well barbered and tailored he would have presented a handsomeappearance. I was sorry enough when the time came to part with him.

  At that time we were on the bank of the Altamara river. All of theother men had been paid but I kept Howard to pack up. The tent andoutfit were to be shipped to Savannah. One day I queried:

  "Howard, what are you going to do with your money?" He had asked me tokeep his monthly vouchers and give him spending money as needed.

  "How much money have I got coming, Mistah Wood?" he asked, coming nearwhere I sat making out my final reports, using the mess table in thecenter of the big tent for a desk.

  "You have more than a thousand dollars," I replied without looking up.

  "A thousand dollars--sure enough money?" he exclaimed with delight,yet astonished and a little bit doubtful.

  "Yes--you can go to any bank and get it in gold, if you desire."

  "Why--a thousand dollars--I never expected to have that much money inmy whole life--ah--ah reckon I'll let you keep it fer me, Mistah Wood.I got no use for money now."

  "I'm afraid I can't keep it for you, Howard," I replied. "I am goingback to Washington, and will enter another branch of the service."

  "You can't keep it for me, Mistah Wood?"

  "No--that wouldn't do, you must learn to take care of it yourself."

  "What can I do with ut?" he finally asked, troubled and thoughtful, asI mentioned going away.

  He amused me with his simplicity. Half in jest I said, "Buy up some ofthis stump land--it will make you rich some day."

  "If I had some of this good-for-nothing land what would I do with ut?"he asked, feigning astonishment and going over to the edge of the tentwhich had been opened all around. Looking out as far as he could seewas a scraggly growth of pine among stumps as thick, black andforbidding as midnight in a swamp of croaking frogs.

  "This land's no better than the turpentine country--what would suchcussed stuff be worth if I had ut?" he asked again. "Why, they ain'ta house for miles--all of it is God-fo'saken," he insisted before Icould reply.

  "Howard, you must use your imagination--those stumps are full ofturpentine and rosin, and after you get them out you have river-bottomland that will raise cotton as high as your shoulders for a hundredyears--and right out there is deep tide-water, to take it to any partof the world."

  "Yes, I know, but how you goin' to get the stumps out?" he askedquickly, still looking out.

  "Blow them out with dynamite--pull them out, that's easy."

  "Yes--but how am I going to get the turpentine and rosin outen thestumps after I blow 'em up?" he came back at me.

  "Boil it out, and then sell the wood or make paper out of it. Youought to be able to work that out," I replied, smiling.

  Howard Byng looked out a little longer and without replying resumedpacking the dishes and kitchen outfit in a big chest, while I went onwith my writing. Finally he came opposite the table and surprised meby saying:

  "Do you heah them little frogs yapin'--and do you heah them bigbullfrogs bawlin', and do you see them buzzards flyin', and doan youknow them stumps is in water where it's full of rattla's? This ain'tno good country fur a white man where dey is bullfrogs and littlefrogs, vermin of all sorts and buzzards, and where you got to eatquinine three times a day."

  "Think it over, Howard, it may be better than you imagine."

  We finally got a boat as far as Brunswick. Howard insisted on goingwith me to Savannah where I would turn in my camp outfit. He had neverbeen out of the woods before. His surprise and delight at being in acity for the first time was refreshing. This nineteen-year-oldturpentine woods boy had never been farther than a country store,never had seen a locomotive, and to him cities had been mere dreams.

  To him the one, and only, three-story block in the place was askyscraper. He saw big steamers and sailing ships for the first time,and acres of long wharfs loaded with naval stores, sawed timber andcotton he could scarcely believe as real until he actually touchedthem with his hands.

  With my help he bought a good suit of clothes, shoes and hat, thefirst he ever owned. The barber did the rest and his delight knew nobounds. His raven hair and skin were perfect, and he would have beentaken for a college athlete until he talked, his speech being adistinct shock. During these two or three days he seemed transportedand almost forgot I was about to leave him.

  When the time came his sorrow was distressing. He took no pains todisguise it, and lapsed into the Cracker boy, timid, and out of hiselement. He breathed hard and struggled.

  "Mistah Wood, you leavin' makes me want to run back to the pine woods,and I guess I will," he said, standing on the wharf looking up at mysteamer.

  "Howard, every man must work out his own problems," said I. "For me toattempt to advise would be to rob you of your own inspiration. Youwill know what you want to do before long, but don't take too big ajump at once. I believe there is good metal in you which will soonshow itself, if you don't force it." I was sorry for the boy andthought for the moment I had made a mistake in bringing him out of thewoods. I didn't believe anything could be accidental; his meeting mewas not, I felt certain.

  "Ain't there somethin' I can do to be with you? You know I'm willin'to do anything," he asked in a distinctly broken voice.

  "No, Howard--for two reasons. I am going into another department andam uncertain where they will send me, and such a move, were itpossible, might be harmful to you. Go to work at something here, andread--study for five years, then you may be able to go in the bigworld, and become somebody."

  "Do you mean I must go back to the turpentine country?" he asked, withmoistening eyes, as though asking that sentence be passed upon him.

  "It doesn't matter where you go, Howard, or what you do, honestly, ifyou will get a lot of books to read and study them. Read the lives ofLincoln and Horace Greeley, who started out of the woods. Books andstudy are the keys to the great outside world. If you would be morethan a laborer with your hands--study, my boy," I advised, putting myhand on his broad shoulders.

  "I'm goin' to do it, suh--I'm goin' to do it sho'," he repeated as hefollowed me to the gangplank.

  And there he stood on the end of the wharf until the ship was out ofsight, occasionally waving his arms. For a time I was actuallydisturbed by the pathos of the boy's conduct. I knew that in ourcountry there were still thousands more like him not yet reached byour woeful educational system, especially in some parts of the South.

  My work in the Excise Department was new to me and kept me very busyfor the next five years. Howard Byng had practically passed out of mymind. One day the chief informed me that there was a lot of"moonshine" whiskey coming down the Altamara River in SouthernGeorgia, that the still was in the center of an immense cut-overswamp, and anyone approaching it could be seen from far away. Alsothat revenue officers usually came away hurriedly with bullet holes intheir hats and clothing, and without the Swamp Angels who had formedthe habit of not paying the federal tax on distilled liquors. Hewanted to know if I would undertake to bring them in, saying that, asI hadn't many failures to my credit I could afford to stand one. Butwhat he really meant to convey was that the case had become a stenchto the department's nostrils, and that I must go well prepared toclean things
up.

  I found the county was as big as Rhode Island and without a railroad;the county seat a village, and the sheriff a picturesque character. Hesaid he could give minute directions to locate this "still," but sofar as he was concerned "pussenly" he had just been re-elected andwanted to serve out his term, "sheriffing" being the best paid job inthe county, and that his family needed the money. He was strongly ofthe belief an attempt on his part to capture the gang would be adirect bid for the undertaker and a successor.

  "But, now suh, don't misunderstand," he continued. "Those three orfour fellows up there in the 'cut-over' ain't no _friends_ of mine."

  The "still" was up the river about thirty miles, and then off threemiles, in a creek that was almost dry, except at high tide.

  He helped me procure a flat-bottomed rowboat, to which I attached anelectric propeller which I thought would send it along quietly--oarsare much too noisy--and I started out at night, expecting to get atthe mouth of the creek at high tide, which would be about midnight.

  After going up the river some twenty miles, I saw a light ahead on theleft bank that soon grew into a row of lights,--and electric lights,too. I thought it must be a packet coming down, but packets on thatriver were small, primitive affairs and again, as I drew closer I sawthat the lights were not moving, but located on the bank that raised alittle at that point. I thought it strange the sheriff did not mentionthis landmark. As I came abreast of it, I could see it was some kindof a factory, but decided to look it over, "if I come back," which thesheriff had cast doubt upon.

  For a few miles above something about the contour of the bank puzzledme for a time. I was conscious of the fact that memory and geographyare often linked together. Unerringly I could think of a hotel by namewhen I reached a town, not having thought of it before in years. Evena telephone number I could recall when the geography was right. Havingdiscussed this mental phenomena with others I found I was not alone inpossession of this freak of the brain.

  After passing that factory I reclined in the bow of the boat, lulledby the rhythmic, noiseless motion of the little screw propeller; theleft bank suddenly became familiar. Then, as though a door in mymemory had suddenly opened I knew it was here, on this same AltamaraRiver, that I broke camp five years before, and the memory offorgotten Howard Byng stood before me, with the vividness ofyesterday. I had expected to hear good things of him some time. Icould recall his broken voice asking me to take him with me, feel hiswringing hand-shake, bidding me good-bye; perhaps I magnified theabandon in his last wave of the hand as he stood on the end of thewharf watching me leave, disheartened and disconsolate as a lostsoul. Then like a wave of nausea came the thought that he might bewith this very gang I was going after. I believed he would be a forcewherever he was. The time and place synchronized.

  But here was my landmark to enter the creek, calling for extremecaution. I had ample notice that this gang was bold and would shoot tokill, if necessary. I didn't mind the danger much, but I did fearfailure. The creek was as crooked as a ram's horn and the "still" wasat the very end of it, in a dug-out on a little knoll in the low land.

  I felt I was near the end of it when the fog came, making the darknight almost black. I had to feel my way in the slough creek that hadnarrowed now to six or eight feet through high grass.

  I knew when I had reached the end, for I drew alongside the scow-likeboat described to me, and often seen on the river, but there wasneither sound, light, nor sign of life. I took my time and wascareful. I sat very quietly in the boat for a few minutes, listeningand going over again my plan of action, then I felt about their boatcautiously. It was motor-driven and might carry a ton.

  Stepping out on the oozy bank, I began to crawl through the wet andclammy fog in the direction given by the sheriff, but could seenothing and was forced to feel my way along. My rifle and bag, slungover my shoulder, made progress slow and I noticed the ground wasrising a little, further identifying the locality.

  When I came up to a big stump the oppressive graveyard stillness wasbroken for the first time by a sound like a man breathing. I crawled alittle more and listened. Surely it came from human lungs. There couldbe no mistake. It was the stuporous breathing of a drunk.

  I hitched forward again and vision became clearer. The noise came frominside the stump evidently hollow. Straining my vision I learned thatit was about four feet high and one side of it missing. Then I madeout the dim outlines of a man sitting inside. I cautiously felt forhis form with my hand, then quickly jerked back and away.

  I had touched a naked foot, a human foot--but the heavy breathingcontinued. It was their lookout, their sentinel--of whom I had beenwarned--and he was evidently stupified by the product from the"still," a moonshiner's great weakness.

  I could trace the long-barreled squirrel rifle standing close besidehim and I waited cautiously for other signs of life. None came. Itouched his foot again. No move. Ready to throttle him on the instant,I pressed the foot again slightly, and then the other one. The "swampjuice" was squarely on the throne. The fellow was inanimate.

  I was able to manacle his feet without awakening him, then took awayhis rifle and began to manacle his hands and his feet. Soon they wereironed--and he still slept.

  My success emboldened me. One man was harmless even if he made anoutcry but I still walked cautiously, trying to locate the "still"house in the cave. I was confronted with a collection of uprootedstumps, a circular barricade, but in a moment I caught the slightestflicker of light. I was sure then, and moved silently along toward thelayout. I knew there must be an entrance, and I now plainly detectedthe fumes of charcoal and the mash tub. The next thing in order was toget inside.

  Following the circle of stumps I came to the entrance, a ditch thatled down to the floor level of the place. Time was speeding and I wasafraid the stupified sentinel might awaken and give an alarm. SilentlyI worked up to a narrow door crudely made of upright board planks. Bigcracks enabled me to see the interior. There were two men. The olderwas sitting asleep against the wall, the younger man moving about. Icould see his outline plainly by the light of a candle. His figureseemed familiar. He opened the furnace door to put more charcoal underthe still--I could see his face. Howard Byng! His hair was longagain, his face, smooth when I last saw it, was now covered with abushy black beard. God only knows how I regretted the work ahead ofme. If I had only declined this job! The thought brought a coldsweat.