The Red Debt: Echoes from KentuckyMacDonald, Everett
General
The Red Debt: Echoes from Kentucky
MacDonald, Everett
Kentucky -- Fiction
"Don't you know when I first saw you on that rock training that hawk to
sit up, you kind of scared me?" He expelled a volume of tobacco juice.
"You scared me some, Mr. Lutts. I thought you was fixing to ring a
church bell on me."
He let loose of Lem's rifle and it fell behind him. He held his own,
pistol-fashion, under his arm, with his finger in the guard, as he
stepped nearer and shook a huge menacing fist in the boy's pallid face.
"You'll have a swell chance ringing anything on me again unless you've
got a church bell in your pocket. You pulled a swell trick on me that
night, didn't ye? You thought the bunch that galloped down to your
dog-house would get me that night, didn't ye? Young man, I'm going to
bust this gang of thieves up here, or I'll drink Hellsfork dry! And
you--you--you're not only carrying on your daddy's business----"
A blinding, reckless fury that fired Lem with the strength and savagery
of a tiger propelled his body through the air like a catapult. He landed
on the revenuer's neck and with his naked hands he tried to kill him.
He learned speedily why Burton had not fired, for a second man who had
been concealed behind the boulders, together with Jutt Orlick, sprang
out and upon him. These two heavyweights soon overpowered and handcuffed
the boy, while Orlick lay with gloating eyes, peering out at the scene.
Burton rolled Lem over on his back, and left him to exhaust the
maledictions he was heaping upon their heads.
As Lem scrambled to his feet, Burton launched forth as he deftly cut the
leather thong and relieved Lem of his cow-horn.
"Lutts--your family owes the government a million dollars and then some.
And you're going to pay in some shape or form--you're in the hands of
the law now. You ain't monkeyin' with these county people. You're on
your way to Frankfort now--and I think I'll be able to send you to
Atlanta for a while. Eh, Tom?"
Burton turned to his perspiring companion.
"Sure--they say the punk tastes like cake down there, too."
"Now, Lutts," resumed the revenuer with his bullying insolence, "you've
got one chance, and if you could see what's ahead of you, you'd take it
quick! You lead us to that layout of yours and you're free. Otherwise,
you're going to jail for a year anyway. I got the evidence all right.
What you going to do about it?"
Lem's brain was busy.
If he had been sure that there were only the two of them he would have
been only too eager to comply with Burton's proposition--because he knew
that these two men would never again report for duty. But how was he to
know how many men Burton had hiding to trail them.
Upon second thought Lem declined to put his own people in jeopardy.
"Well," growled Burton, "don't be afraid to talk. Are you going to lead
me to that liquor hole?"
"Yo' kin blow my brains out first," replied Lem scornfully and
emphatically.
"Well, fool, you're on your way. Tom, let's get busy. Bring his gun."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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