_ CHAPTER XVII. BOB YANCY FINDS HIMSELF
Mr. Yancy awoke from a long dreamless sleep; heavy-lidded, his eyes slid open. For a moment he struggled with the odds and ends of memory, then he recalled the fight at the tavern, the sudden murderous attack, the fierce blows Slosson had dealt him, the knife thrust which had ended the struggle. Therefore, the bandages that now swathed his head and shoulders; therefore, the need that he should be up and doing--for where was Hannibal?
He sought to lift himself on his elbow, but the effort sent shafts of pain through him; his head seemed of vast size and endowed with a weight he could not support. He sank back groaning, and closed his eyes. After a little interval he opened them again and stared about him. There was the breath of dawn in the air; he heard a rooster crow, and the contented grunting of a pig close at hand. He was resting under a rude shelter of poles and bark. Presently he became aware of a slow gliding movement, and the silvery ripple of water. Clearly he was no longer at the tavern, and clearly some one had taken the trouble to bandage his hurts.
At length his eyes rolling from side to side focused themselves on a low opening near the foot of his shakedown bed. Beyond this opening, and at some little distance, he saw a sunbonneted woman of a plump and comfortable presence. She was leaning against a tub which rested on a rude bench. At her back was another bark shanty similar to the one that sheltered himself, while on either hand a shoreless expanse of water danced and sparkled under the rays of the newly risen sun. As his eyes slowly took in the scene, Yancy's astonishment mounted higher and higher. The lady's sunbonnet quite hid her face, but he saw that she was smoking a cob-pipe.
He was still staring at her, when the lank figure of a man emerged from the other shanty. This man wore a cotton shirt and patched butternut trousers; he way hatless and shoeless, and his hair stood out from his head in a great flaming shock. He, too, was smoking a cob-pipe. Suddenly the man put out a long arm which found its way about the lady's waist, an attention that culminated in a vigorous embrace. Then releasing her, he squared his shoulders, took a long breath, beat his chest with the flat of his hands and uttered a cheerful whoop. The embrace, the deep breath, and the whoop constituted Mr. Cavendish's morning devotions, and were expressive of a spirit of thankfulness to the risen sun, his general satisfaction with the course of Providence, and his homage to the lady of his choice.
Swinging about on his heel, Cavendish passed beyond Yancy's range of vision. Again the latter attempted to lift himself on his elbow, but sky and water changed places before his eyes and he dropped down on his pillow with a stifled sigh. He seemed to be slipping back into the black night from which he had just emerged. Again he was at Scratch Hill, again Dave Blount was seeking to steal his nevvy--incidents of the trial and flight recurred to him--all was confused, feverish, without sequence.
Suddenly a shadow fell obliquely across the foot of his narrow bed, and Cavendish, bending his long body somewhat, thrust his head in at the opening. He found himself looking into a pair of eyes that for the first time in many a long day held the light of consciousness.
"How are you, stranger?" he demanded, in a soft drawl.
"Where am I?" the words were a whisper on Yancy's bearded lips.
"Well, sir, you are in the Tennessee River fo' certain; my wife will make admiration when she hears you speak. Polly! you jest step here."
But Polly had heard Cavendish speak, and the murmur of Yancy's voice in reply. Now her head appeared beside her husband's, and Yancy saw that she was rosy and smiling, and that her claim to good looks was something that could not well be denied.
"La, you are some better, ain't you, sir?" she cried, smiling down on him.
"How did I get here, and where's my nevvy?" questioned Yancy anxiously.
"There now, you ain't in no condition fo' to pester yo'self with worry. You was fished up out of the Elk River by Mr. Cavendish," Polly explained, still smiling and dimpling at him.
"When, ma'am--last night?"
"You got another guess coming to you, stranger!" It was Cavendish who spoke.
"Do you mean, sir, that I been unconscious for a spell?" suggested Yancy rather fearfully, glancing from one to the other.
"It's been right smart of a spell, too; yes, sir, you've laid like you was dead, and not fo' a matter of hours either--but days."
"How long?"
"Well, nigh on to three weeks."
They saw Yancy's eyes widen with a look of dumb horror.
"Three weeks!" he at length repeated, and groaned miserably. He was thinking of Hannibal.
"You was mighty droll to look at when I fished you up out of the river," continued Mr. Cavendish. "You'd been cut and beat up scandalous!"
"And you don't know nothing about my nevvy?--you ain't seen or heard of him, ma'am?" faltered Yancy, and glanced up into Polly's comely face.
Polly shook her head regretfully.
"How come you in the river?" asked Cavendish.
"I reckon I was throwed in. It was a man named Murrell and another man named Slosson. They tried fo' to murder me--they wanted to get my nevvy--I 'low they done it!" and Yancy groaned again.
"You'll get him back," said Polly soothingly.
"Could you-all put me asho'?" inquired Yancy, with sudden eagerness.
"We could, but we won't," said Cavendish, in no uncertain tone.
"Why, la!--you'd perish!" exclaimed Polly.
"Are we far from where you-all picked me up?"
Cavendish nodded. He did not like to tell Yancy the distance they had traversed.
"Where are you-all taking me?" asked Yancy.
"Well, stranger, that's a question I can't answer offhand. The Tennessee are a twister; mebby it will be Kentucky; mebby it will be Illinoy, and mebby it will be down yonder on the Mississippi. My tribe like this way of moving about, and it certainly favors a body's legs."
"How old was your nevvy?" inquired Polly, reading the troubled look in Yancy's gray eyes.
"Ten or thereabouts, ma'am. He were a heap of comfort to me," and the whisper on Yancy's lips was wonderfully tender and wistful.
"Just the age of my Richard," said Polly, her glance full of compassion and pity.
Mr. Cavendish essayed to speak, but was forced to pause and clear his throat. The allusion to Richard in this connection having been almost more than he could endure with equanimity. When he was able to put his thoughts into words, he said:
"I shore am distressed fo' you. I tried to leave you back yonder where I found you, but no one knowed you and you looked so near dead folks wouldn't have it. What parts do you come from?"
"No'th Carolina. Me and my nevvy was a-goin' into west Tennessee to a place called Belle Plain, somewhere near Memphis. We have friends there," explained Yancy.
"That settles it!" cried Cavendish. "It won't be Kentucky, and it won't be Illinoy; I'll put you asho' at Memphis; mebby you'll find yo' nevvy there after all."
"That's the best. You lay still and get yo' strength back as fast as you can, and try not to worry--do now." Polly's voice was soft and wheedling.
"I reckon I been a heap of bother to you-all," said Yancy.
"La, no," Polly assured him; "you ain't been."
And now the six little Cavendishes appeared on the scene. The pore gentleman had come to--sho! He had got his senses back--sho! he wa'n't goin' to die after all; he could talk. Sho! a body could hear him plain! Excited beyond measure they scurried about in their fluttering rags of nightgowns for a sight and hearing of the pore gentleman. They struggled madly to climb over their parents, and failing this--under them. But the opening that served as a door to the shanty being small, and being as it was completely stoppered by their father and mother who were in no mood to yield an inch, they distributed themselves in quest of convenient holes in the bark edifice through which to peer at the pore gentleman. And since the number of youthful Cavendishes exceeded the number of such holes, the sound of lamentation and recrimination presently filled the morning air.
"I kin see the soles of his feet!" shrieked Keppel with passionate intensity, his small bleached eye glued to a crack.
He was instantly ravished of the sight by Henry.
"You mean hateful thing!--just because you're bigger than Kep!" and Constance fell on the spoiler. As her mother's right-hand man she had cuffed and slapped her way to a place of power among the little brothers.
Mr. Cavendish appeared to allay hostilities.
"I 'low I'll skin you if you don't keep still! Dress!--the whole kit and b'ilin' of you!" he roared, and his manner was quite as ferocious as his words.
But the six little Cavendishes were impressed by neither. They instantly fastened on him like so many leeches. What was the pore gentleman saying?--why couldn't they hear, too? Then they'd keep still, sure they would! Did he say he knowed who throwed him in the river?
"I wonder, Connie, you ain't able to do more with these here children. Seems like you ought to--a great big girl like you," said Mr. Cavendish, reduced to despair.
"It was Henry pickin' on Kep," cried Constance.
"I found a crack and he took it away from me! drug me off by the legs, he did, and filled my stomach full of slivers!" wailed Keppel, suddenly remembering he had a grievance. "You had ought to let me see the pore gentleman!" he added ingratiatingly.
"Well, ain't you been seein' him every day fo' risin' two weeks and upwards?--ain't you sat by him hours at a stretch?" demanded Mr. Cavendish fiercely.
Sho--that didn't count, he only kept a mutterin'--sho!--arollin' his head sideways, sho! And their six tow heads were rolled to illustrate their meaning. And a-pluckin' at a body's hands!--and they plucked at Mr. Cavendish's hands. Sho--did he say why he done that?
"If you-all will quit yo' noise and dress, you-all kin presently set by the pore gentleman. If you don't, I'll have to speak to yo' mother; I 'low she'll trim you! I reckon you-all don't want me to call her? No, by thunderation!--because you-all know she won't stand no nonsense! She'll fan you; she'll take the flat of her hand to you-all and make you skip some; I reckon I'd get into my pants befo' she starts on the warpath. I wouldn't give her no such special opportunity as you're offerin'!" Mr. Cavendish's voice and manner had become entirely confidential and sympathetic, and though fear of their mother could not be said to bulk high on their horizon, yet the small Cavendishes were persuaded by sheer force of his logic to withdraw and dress. Their father hurried back to Yancy.
"I was just thinkin', sir," he said, "that if it would be any comfort to you, we'll tie up to the bank right here and wait until you can travel. I'm powerfully annoyed at having fetched you all this way!"
But Yancy shook his head.
"I'll be glad to go on to Memphis with you. If my nevvy got away from Murrell, that's where I'll find him. I reckon folks will be kind to him and sort of help him along. Why, he ain't much mo' than knee high!"
"Shore they will! there's a lot of good in the world, so don't you fret none about him!" cried Polly.
"I can't do much else, ma'am, than think of him bein' lonesome and hungry, maybe--and terribly frightened. What do you-all suppose he thought when he woke up and found me gone?" But neither Polly nor her husband had any opinion to venture on this point. "If I don't find him in Memphis I'll take the back track to No'th Carolina, stoppin' on the way to see that man Slosson."
"Well, I 'low there's a fit comin' to him when he gets sight of you!" and Cavendish's bleached blue eyes sparkled at the thought.
"There's a heap mo' than a fit. I don't bear malice, but I stay mad a long time," answered Yancy grimly:
"You shouldn't talk no mo'," said Polly. "You must just lay quiet and get yo' strength back. Now, I'm goin' to fix you a good meal of vittles." She motioned Cavendish to follow her, and they both withdrew from the shanty.
Yancy closed his eyes, and presently, lulled by the soft ripple that bore them company, fell into a restful sleep.
"When he told us of his nevvy, Dick, and I got to thinkin' of his bein' just the age of our Richard, I declare it seemed like something got in my throat and I'd choke. Do you reckon he'll ever find him?" said Polly, as she busied herself with preparations for their breakfast.
"I hope so, Polly!" said Cavendish, but her words were a powerful assault on his feelings, which at all times lay close to the surface and were easily stirred.
Under stress of his emotions, he now enjoined silence on his family, fortifying the injunction with dire threats as to the consequences that would descend with lightning--like suddenness on the head of the unlucky sinner who forgot and raised his voice above a whisper. Then he despatched a chicken; sure sign that he and Polly considered their guest had reached the first stage of convalescence. _