Between the dusk and the dark of this night a lone horseman halted on a cattle path which led to low lands, and in the midst of the hollow was a broad, low barn. Even by that uncertain light the traveler could see that one end of the structure had fallen in. He shook out a white strip of cloth which he had kept in his pocket until this time, he tied the rag around his left arm close to the shoulder, peered about him as though he feared this simple action might have been seen, and rode his horse to the barn.
It was a gingerly progress. Coming a little closer, he saw that a faint light was burning in the barn. It made the structure seem huger than before and vastly more ruinous. At this discovery he checked his horse completely and studied the place.
At length, as though summoning his resolution, he pulled his sombrero so low that it quite covered the upper part of his face and raised the flap of his neckerchief so that it equally concealed his mouth and chin. This done, he pushed on briskly.
Not until he had dismounted before the great door of the barn did his former diffidence return. He slipped to the door and pressed his ear against a crack, but he could hear nothing.
Finally he knocked in a peculiar manner. Twice close together, a pause, and then three short raps. With this, the big door was seen to move slowly, a voice said softly from within: “Who's there in need?”
“A friend in need,” he said in a low and hurried voice.
“Come in. And bring the hoss.”
He now pushed the door wide open, so that Gus Norman could see, far in the interior of the huge, empty mow of the building, a scattered group of men and their horses around a single lantern.
Gus Norman went in, leading his horse, and looked sharply at the doorman. The latter was similarly disguised by means of a lowered hat and raised neckcloth, but now he lifted his hat for an instant.
“Sam!” said Gus Norman. Then: “What's up?”
But the doorman made a gesture commanding silence and Gus went on toward the group.
They were equipped, like him, each with masklike neckcloth and each with the strip of white cloth around the left arm, close to the shoulder. None of them seemed eager to stand close to the lantern, but each had drawn back beside his horse so that he was wrapped in the shadows as with a cloak. There was a general turning of heads toward the newcomer, but no one spoke. And Gus Norman seemed as undesirous of having the others know his face as he was eager to learn their own. He paused at a considerable distance from the lantern and leaned silently against the shoulder of his horse.
There were twenty men present, so far as he could count, and each was armed to the teeth. Now and then one of them spoke softly to a restive horse, but these deep murmurs only accentuated the common silence.
Presently, after an intermission of some five or ten minutes, another horseman advanced from the door, leading his mount, and this time the doorman, Sam Norman, came with the last arrival. He went gravely to the middle of the empty space from which the lantern light had driven the others, and he looked from side to side.
“I've counted as you come in,” he said, “and they's no one left out. Every Norman that's old enough to carry a gun and shoot from a hoss is here.” He kept his voice so low that there was a general cautious approach from all sides to hear him. “Now,” he said, “I've done my duty. I've kept the door that I was called on to keep, and him that's to speak next, according to custom, let him step out—the man that called this meeting of the family.”
He waited, turning slowly from side to side, but no one stirred.
Finally a voice called guarded from the rear circle: “The leader can't speak till the roll is called. Call the roll, doorman.”
“Right,” and Sam Norman nodded. He closed his eyes, as if to summon the list into his mind, and then began calling the names—first names only. One by one there was a deep murmur of “Here!” from the listeners.
When this was finished, the doorman paused again and looked expectantly about, but still no one spoke or moved.
“Brothers,” said Sam Norman, “him that called this meeting has got to stand out. Fifteen years has gone since the last meeting was called by these signs, and they's some here that knows the signs but never seen a meeting before. And I've been hoping that they would never come such a meeting as long as I lived. Him that called us, let him talk now.”
Still only the heavy silence prevailed. There was a restless movement, then a murmur through the circle.
“Someone may of known the signs and called us for a joke.”
“Brother,” said the doorman sternly, “him that made that joke'll never make another. Still, him that called the meeting is wrong, because the law stands that they was never to be another called until a Norman was killed by wrong. That law was made while we was still living in Kentucky—before some of you was born. And they ain't any Norman been killed by numbers or by wrong since we come to the West. Remembering all that, let him that called the meeting stand out and say why he called it.”
So intently had the circle attended these words that no one noticed, near the beginning of the speech, that the big door of the barn had been softly opened, and another member had come in. But now this stranger approached, leading a horse. The figure was in every respect like those of the others, but there was a general murmur, a general movement of weapons at its approach.
Sam Norman went farther than the rest. He whipped out a revolver and went a few steps to meet the newcomer.
“A friend in need,” answered the other faintly.
“Halt, friend. The number's been counted, and it's full up, and every face has been seen by me. Halt, I say!”
For the other, abandoning the horse, had refused to halt and had come straight on—a slender, short figure of boyish outline, and now, in the immediate circle of the lantern light, the hat was snatched off and hair tumbled across the shoulders of a girl. The neckerchief was lowered, and the circle found itself looking into the face of May Norman. Her father uttered an exclamation of dismay.
“That law,” said the girl, “was spoke wrong. The meeting can be called for any Norman that's killed by wrong. And it can be called for any man that dies for the Normans. And that's why this meeting is here. That's why the signs was sent. They's a man dead, brothers!”
She was a pale, round-faced girl, all her features diminutive except the mouth and chin. Her tone was a disagreeably harsh nasal. Neither in voice nor in face was she attractive, but there was an air of such dignity about her, and the raising of her hand was so solemn, that for a moment no one replied.
Then, from her father: “What man is dead?”
“What man is dead?” she cried, turning fiercely on him. “D'you stand there and ask me that? Well, speak up, Gus Norman. You tell 'em what man is dead that died for us!”
Gus Norman stirred, advanced a step, then shook his head.
At that she cried out: “It's Jud Boone that's dead fighting for our cause. I was the price that bought him to fight for us. You know that, Dad. The rest of you know it. He fought and died, and I seen him put in the ground. I waited while you was trailing him, but when I seen you all stop the trail, I called this meeting. It's my right, because I'm the one that was most hurt by a killing. Now I call for the law of the family to help me!”
She swayed them with her vehemence.
Yet her own father said: “He died, but he was killed in a fair fight.”
“Does that change it?” she answered hotly. “If he was one of us and fought his own fight, it would be different. But he wasn't one of us. He fought our fight. Where was you-all when a man was wanted to face Charlie Valentine? You wasn't home. You was away. They wasn't nobody would do it. Then you went out and got a better man than you—you got Jud Boone. And Jud come and fought your fight and done what was asked of him—and now he's dead. He's dead! And I'm here calling to you and saying I want a death for a death!”
Her shrill voice filled the great spaces of the barn.
And in the pause, while the echo whispered back from distant recesses, she added: “I want Jess Dreer!”
Every man stood with his head bowed, thoughtful. At length Gus Norman came forward and stood beside the girl.
“She's right,” he said gloomily, turning his hairy, wolfish face from man to man. “It means a feud, maybe. And maybe it don't. Dreer is an outlaw. We got a right to hunt him. And May is right. Come in, brothers. We need your heads, all of 'em. Step in and show your faces. This ain't work that'll be done tonight, but the plans for it has got to be laid. Sam, you're the doorman. Take charge.”
Without a word the circle closed. And the hats were raised, the neckerchief flaps lowered from mouth and chin. Many a time in the past there had been gatherings such as these in the hills of Kentucky—the same dark, lean faces, the same bright eyes and savage mouths. The tie of blood was law to them—a deathless fealty to one another, a suspicion of all strangers.
Each, as he came into the circle of the lantern light, took the hand of May Norman and spoke the solemn formula: “Your cause is my cause; my hand is your hand.”
And the younger men spoke the phrase eagerly. Something they had learned and spoken in whispers before. But all the older men, who had one time spoken the phrase aloud, were grave and downhearted.
