Special Messenger

She laughed, stepping nearer, the muddy skirt of her habit lifted.

“I must get to Reynolds’s corps to-night,” she said confidingly. “I came through the lines three days ago; their cavalry have followed me ever since. I can’t shake them off; they’ll be here by morning—as soon as there’s light enough to trace my horse.”

She looked back at the blue woods thoughtfully, patting her horse’s sleek neck.

He followed her glance, then his narrowing eyes focused on her as she turned her head toward him again.

“What name?” he asked harshly, hand to his large ear.

She smiled, raising her riding whip in quaint salute; and in a low voice she named herself demurely.

There was a long silence.

“Gosh!” he muttered, fascinated gaze never leaving her; “to think that you are that there gal! I heard tell you was young, an’ then I heard tell you was old an’ fat, ma’am. I guess there ain’t many has seen you to take notice. I guess you must be hard run to even tell me who ye be?”

She said quietly: “I think they mean to get me this time. Is there a clear road anywhere? Even if I leave my horse and travel afoot?”

“Is it a hangin’ matter?” he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.

Presently he said: “The hull blame country’s crawlin’ with rebel cavalry. I was to Mink Creek, an’ they was passin’ on the pike, wagons an’ guns as fur as I could see. They levied on Swamp Holler at sunup; they was on every road along the State line. There ain’t no road nor cow path clear that way.”

“And none the other way,” she said. “Can’t you help me?”

He looked at her gravely, then his small eyes swept the limited landscape.

“A hangin’ matter,” he mused, scratching his gray head reflectively. “An’ if they ketch you here, I guess I’ll go to Libby, too. Hey?”

He passed his labor-worn hand over his eyes, pressing the lids, and stood so, minute after minute, buried in thought.

“Waal,” he said, dropping his hand and blinking in the ruddy glow from the west, “I guess I ain’t done nothin’ fur the Union yet, but I’m a-goin’ to now, miss.”

He looked around once more, his eyes resting on familiar scenery, then he set down milking stool and pail and shuffled out to where her horse stood.

“Guess I’ll hev to hitch your hoss up to that there buckboard,” he drawled. “My old nag is dead two year since. You go in, miss, an’ dress in them clothes a-hangin’ onto that peg by the bed,” he added, with an effort. “Use ’em easy; they was hers.”

She entered the single room of the cabin, where stove, table, chair, and bed were the only furniture. A single cheap print gown and a sunbonnet hung from a nail at the bed’s foot, and she reached up and unhooked the garment. It was ragged but clean, and the bonnet freshly ironed.

Through the window she saw the old man unsaddling her horse and fitting him with rusty harness. She closed the cabin door, drew the curtain at the window, and began to unbutton her riding jacket. As her clothing fell from her, garment after garment, that desperate look came into her pale young face again, and she drew from her pocket a heavy army revolver and laid it on the chair beside her. There was scarce light enough left to see by in the room. She sat down, dragging off her spurred boots, stripping the fine silk stockings from her feet, then rose and drew on the faded print gown.

Now she needed more light, so she opened the door wide and pushed aside the curtain. A fragment of cracked mirror was nailed to the door. She faced it, rapidly undoing the glossy masses of her hair; then lifting her gown, she buckled the army belt underneath, slipped the revolver into it, smoothed out the calico, and crossed the floor to the bed again, at the foot of which a pair of woman’s coarse, low shoes stood on the carpetless floor. Into these she slipped her naked feet.

He was waiting for her when she came out into the yellow evening light, squatting there in his buckboard, reins sagging.

“There’s kindlin’ to last a week,” he said, “the ax is in the barn, an’ ye’ll find a bin full o’ corn meal there an’ a side o’ bacon in the cellar. Them hens,” he added wistfully “is Dominickers. She was fond o’ them—an’ the Chiny ducks, too.”

“I’ll be kind to them,” she said.

He rested his lean jaw in one huge hand, musing, dim-eyed, silent. Far away a cow bell tinkled, and he turned his head, peering out across the tangled pasture lot.

“We called our caow Jinny,” he said. “She’s saucy and likes to plague folks. But I don’t never chase her; no, ma’am. You jest set there by them pasture bars, kinder foxin’ that you ain’t thinkin’ o’ nothin’, and Jinny she’ll come along purty soon.”

The girl nodded.

“Waal,” he muttered, rousing up, “I guess it’s time to go.” He looked at her, his eyes resting upon the clothing of his dead wife.

“You see,” he said, “I’ve give all I’ve got to the Union. Now, ma’am, what shall I tell our boys if I git through?”

In a low, clear voice she gave him the message to Reynolds, repeating it slowly until he nodded his comprehension.

“If they turn you back,” she said, “and if they follow you here, remember I’m your daughter.”

He nodded again. “My Cynthy.”

“Cynthia?”

“Yaas, ’m. Cynthy was her name, you see; James is mine, endin’ in Gray. I’ll come back when I can. I guess there’s vittles to spare an’ garden sass–”

He passed his great cracked knuckles over his face again, digging hastily into the corners of his eyes, then leaned forward and shook the rusty reins.

“Git up!” he said thoughtfully, and the ancient buckboard creaked away into the thickening twilight.

She watched him from the door, lingering there, listening to the creak of the wheels long after he had disappeared. She was deadly tired—too tired to eat, too tired to think—yet there was more to be done before she closed her eyes. The blanket on the bed she spread upon the floor, laid in it her saddle and bridle, boots, papers, map, and clothing, and made a bundle; then slinging it on her slender back, she carried it up the ladder to the loft under the roof.

Ten minutes later she lay on the bed below, the back of one hand across her closed eyes, breathing deeply as a sleeping child—the most notorious spy in all America, the famous “Special Messenger,” carrying locked under her smooth young breast a secret the consequence of which no man could dare to dream of.

Dawn silvering the east aroused her. Cockcrow, ducks quacking, the lowing of the cow, the swelling melody of wild birds—these were the sounds that filled her waking ears.

Motionless there on the bed in the dim room, delicate bare arms outstretched, hair tumbled over brow and shoulder, she lay, lost in fearless retrospection—absolutely fearless, for courage was hers without effort; peril exhilarated like wine, without reaction; every nerve and contour of her body was instinct with daring, and only the languor of her dark eyes misled the judgment of those she had to deal with.

Presently she sat up in bed, yawned lightly, tapping her red lips with the tips of her fingers; then, drawing her revolver from beneath the pillow, she examined the cylinder, replaced the weapon, and sprang out of bed, stretching her arms, a faint smile hovering on her face.

The water in the stream was cold, but not too cold for her, nor were the coarse towels too rough, sending the blood racing through her from head to foot.

Her toilet made, she lighted the fire in the cracked stove, set a pot of water boiling, and went out to the doorstep, calling the feathered flock around her, stirring their meal in a great pan the while her eyes roamed about the open spaces of meadow and pasture for a sign of those who surely must trace her here.

Her breakfast was soon over—an ash cake, a new egg from the barn, a bowl of last night’s creamy milk. She ate slowly, seated by the window, raising her head at intervals to watch the forest’s edge.

Nobody came; the first pink sunbeams fell level over the pasture; dew sparkled on grass and foliage; birds flitted across her line of vision; the stream sang steadily, flashing in the morning radiance.

One by one the ducks stretched, flapped their snowy wings, wiggled their fat tails, and waddled solemnly down to the water; hens wandered pensively here and there, pecking at morsels that attracted them; the tinkle of the cow bell sounded pleasantly from a near willow thicket.

She washed her dishes, set the scant furniture in place, made up the bed with the clean sheet spread the night before, and swept the floor.

On the table she had discovered, carefully folded up, the greater portion of a stocking, knitting needles still sticking in it, the ball of gray yarn attached. But she could not endure to sit there; she must have more space to watch for what she knew was coming. Her hair she twisted up as best she might, set the pink sunbonnet on her head, smoothed out the worn print dress, which was not long enough to hide her slim bare ankles, and went out, taking her knitting with her.

Upon the hill along the edges of the pasture where the woods cast a luminous shadow she found a comfortable seat in the sun-dried grasses, and here she curled up, examining the knitting in her hands, eyes lifted every moment to steal a glance around the sunlit solitude.