The Call of the Cumberlands by Charles Neville Buck

C >> Charles Neville Buck >> The Call of the Cumberlands

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

"Men," he roared, "listen ter me! This here hain't no time fer squabblin'
amongst ourselves. We're all Souths. Tamarack Spicer has done gone ter
Hixon, an' got inter trouble. He's locked up in the jail-house."

"We're all hyar," screamed old Caleb's high, broken voice. "Let's go
an' take him out."

Samson's anger had died. He turned, and held a whispered conversation
with McCager, and, at its end, the host of the day announced briefly:

"Samson's got somethin' ter say ter ye. So long as he's willin' ter
stand by us, I reckon we're willin' ter listen ter Henry South's boy."

"I hain't got no use for Tam'rack Spicer," said the boy, succinctly,
"but I don't 'low ter let him lay in no jail-house, unlessen he's got a
right ter be thar. What's he charged with?"

But no one knew that. A man supposedly close to the Hollmans, but in
reality an informer for the Souths, had seen him led into the jail-yard
by a posse of a half-dozen men, and had seen the iron-barred doors
close on him. That was all, except that the Hollman forces were
gathering in Hixon, and, if the Souths went there _en masse_, a
pitched battle must be the inevitable result. The first step was to
gain accurate information and an answer to one vital question. Was
Tamarack held as a feud victim, or was his arrest legitimate? How to
learn that was the problem. To send a body of men was to invite
bloodshed. To send a single inquirer was to deliver him over to the
enemy.

"Air you men willin' ter take my word about Tamarack?" inquired
Samson. But for the scene of a few minutes ago, it would have been an
unnecessary question. There was a clamorous assent, and the boy turned
to Lescott.

"I wants ye ter take Sally home with ye. Ye'd better start right away,
afore she heers any of this talk. Hit would fret her. Tell her I've had
ter go 'cross ther country a piece, ter see a sick man. Don't tell her
whar I'm a-goin'." He turned to the others. "I reckon I've got yore
promise thet Mr. Lescott hain't a-goin' ter be bothered afore I gits
back?"

Wile McCager promptly gave the assurance.

"I gives ye my hand on hit."

"I seed Jim Asberry loafin' round jest beyond ther ridge, es I rid
over hyar," volunteered the man who had brought the message.

"Go slow now, Samson. Don't be no blame fool," dissuaded Wile McCager.
"Hixon's plumb full of them Hollmans, an' they're likely ter be full of
licker--hit's Saturday. Hit's apt ter be shore death fer ye ter try ter
ride through Main Street--ef ye gits thet fur. Ye dassent do hit."

"I dast do anything!" asserted the boy, with a flash of sudden anger.
"Some liar 'lowed awhile ago thet I was a coward. All right, mebby I
be. Unc' Wile, keep the boys hyar tell ye hears from me--an' keep 'em
sober." He turned and made his way to the fence where his mule stood
hitched.

When Samson crossed the ridge, and entered the Hollman country, Jim
Asberry, watching from a hilltop point of vantage, rose and mounted the
horse that stood hitched behind a near-by screen of rhododendron bushes
and young cedars. Sometimes, he rode just one bend of the road in
Samson's rear. Sometimes, he took short cuts, and watched his enemy
pass. But always he held him under a vigilant eye. Finally, he reached
a wayside store where a local telephone gave communication with
Hollman's Mammoth Department Store.

"Jedge," he informed, "Samson South's done left the party et ther
mill, an' he's a-ridin' towards town. Shall I git him?"

"Is he comin' by hisself?" inquired the storekeeper.

"Yes."

"Well, jest let him come on. We can tend ter him hyar, ef necessary."
So, Jim withheld his hand, and merely shadowed, sending bulletins, from
time to time.

It was three o'clock when Samson started. It was near six when he
reached the ribbon of road that loops down into town over the mountain.
His mule was in a lather of sweat. He knew that he was being spied
upon, and that word of his coming was traveling ahead of him. What he
did not know was whether or not it suited Jesse Purvy's purpose that he
should slide from his mule, dead, before he turned homeward. If
Tamarack had been seized as a declaration of war, the chief South would
certainly not be allowed to return. If the arrest had not been for feud
reasons, he might escape. That was the question which would be answered
with his life or death.

The boy kept his eyes straight to the front, fixed on the
philosophical wagging of his mule's brown ears. Finally, he crossed the
bridge that gave entrance to the town, as yet unharmed, and clattered
at a trot between the shacks of the environs. He was entering the
fortified stronghold of the enemy, and he was expected. As he rode
along, doors closed to slits, and once or twice he caught the flash of
sunlight on a steel barrel, but his eyes held to the front. Several
traveling men, sitting on the porch of the hotel opposite the court-
house, rose when they saw his mule, and went inside, closing the door
behind them.

The "jail-house" was a small building of home-made brick, squatting at
the rear of the court-house yard. Its barred windows were narrow with
sills breast-high.

The court-house itself was shaded by large oaks and sycamores, and, as
Samson drew near, he saw that some ten or twelve men, armed with
rifles, separated from groups and disposed themselves behind the tree
trunks and the stone coping of the well. None of them spoke, and Samson
pretended that he had not seen them. He rode his mule at a walk,
knowing that he was rifle-covered from a half-dozen windows. At the
hitching rack directly beneath the county building, he flung his reins
over a post, and, swinging his rifle at his side, passed casually along
the brick walk to the jail. The men behind the trees edged around their
covers as he went, keeping themselves protected, as squirrels creep
around a trunk when a hunter is lurking below. Samson halted at the
jail wall, and called the prisoner's name. A towsled head and surly
face appeared at the barred window, and the boy went over and held
converse from the outside.

"How in hell did ye git into town?" demanded the prisoner.

"I rid in," was the short reply. "How'd ye git in the jail-house?"

The captive was shamefaced.

"I got a leetle too much licker, an' I was shootin' out the lights
last night," he confessed.

"What business did ye have hyar in Hixon?"

"I jest slipped in ter see a gal."

Samson leaned closer, and lowered his voice.

"Does they know thet ye shot them shoots at Jesse Purvy?"

Tamarack turned pale.

"No," he stammered, "they believe you done hit."

Samson laughed. He was thinking of the rifles trained on him from a
dozen invisible rests.

"How long air they a-goin' ter keep ye hyar?" he demanded.

"I kin git out to-morrer ef I pays the fine. Hit's ten dollars."

"An' ef ye don't pay the fine?"

"Hit's a dollar a day."

"I reckon ye don't 'low ter pay hit, do ye?"

"I 'lowed mebby ye mout pay hit fer me, Samson."

"Ye done 'lowed plumb wrong. I come hyar ter see ef ye needed help,
but hit 'pears ter me they're lettin' ye off easy."

He turned on his heel, and went back to his mule. The men behind the
trees began circling again. Samson mounted, and, with his chin well up,
trotted back along the main street. It was over. The question was
answered. The Hollmans regarded the truce as still effective. The fact
that they were permitting him to ride out alive was a wordless
assurance of that. Incidentally, he stood vindicated in the eyes of his
own people.

When Samson reached the mill it was ten o'clock. The men were soberer
than they had been in the afternoon. McCager had seen to that. The boy
replaced his exhausted mule with a borrowed mount. At midnight, as he
drew near the cabin of the Widow Miller, he gave a long, low
whippoorwill call, and promptly, from the shadow of the stile, a small
tired figure rose up to greet him. For hours that little figure had
been sitting there, silent, wide-eyed and terrified, nursing her knees
in locked fingers that pressed tightly into the flesh. She had not
spoken. She had hardly moved. She had only gazed out, keeping the vigil
with a white face that was beginning to wear the drawn, heart-eating
anxiety of the mountain woman; the woman whose code demands that she
stand loyally to her clan's hatreds; the woman who has none of the
man's excitement in stalking human game, which is also stalking him;
the woman who must only stay at home and imagine a thousand terrors
--and wait.

A rooster was crowing, and the moon had set. Only the stars were left.

"Sally," the boy reproved, "hit's most mornin', an' ye must be plumb
fagged out. Why hain't you in bed?"

"I 'lowed ye'd come by hyar," she told him simply, "and I waited fer
ye. I knowed whar ye had went," she added, "an' I was skeered."

"How did ye know?"

"I heered thet Tam'rack was in the jail-house, an' somebody hed ter go
ter Hixon. So, of course, I knowed hit would be you."

CHAPTER XII

Lescott stayed on a week after that simply in deference to Samson's
insistence. To leave at once might savor of flight under fire, but when
the week was out the painter turned his horse's head toward town, and
his train swept him back to the Bluegrass and the East. As he gazed out
of his car windows at great shoulders of rock and giant trees, things
he was leaving behind, he felt a sudden twinge of something akin to
homesickness. He knew that he should miss these great humps of
mountains and the ragged grandeur of the scenery. With the rich
smoothness of the Bluegrass, a sense of flatness and heaviness came to
his lungs. Level metal roads and loamy fields invited his eye. The
tobacco stalks rose in profuse heaviness of sticky green; the hemp
waved its feathery tops; and woodlands were clear of underbrush--the
pauper counties were behind him.

A quiet of unbroken and deadly routine settled down on Misery. The
conduct of the Souths in keeping hands off, and acknowledging the
justice of Tamarack Spicer's jail sentence, had been their answer to
the declaration of the Hollmans in letting Samson ride into and out of
Hixon. The truce was established. When, a short time later, Tamarack
left the country to become a railroad brakeman, Jesse Purvy passed the
word that his men must, until further orders, desist from violence. The
word had crept about that Samson, too, was going away, and, if this
were true, Jesse felt that his future would be more secure than his
past. Purvy believed Samson guilty, despite the exoneration of the
hounds. Their use had been the idea of over-fervent relatives. He
himself scoffed at their reliability.

"I wouldn't believe no dog on oath," he declared. Besides, he
preferred to blame Samson, since he was the head of the tribe and
because he himself knew what cause Samson had to hate him. Perhaps,
even now, Samson meant to have vengeance before leaving. Possibly,
even, this ostentatious care to regard the truce was simply a shrewdly
planned sham meant to disarm his suspicion.

Until Samson went, if he did go, Jesse Purvy would redouble his
caution. It would be a simple matter to have the boy shot to death, and
end all question. Samson took no precautions to safeguard his life, but
he had a safeguard none the less. Purvy felt sure that within a week
after Samson fell, despite every care he might take, he, too, would
fall. He was tired of being shot down. Purvy was growing old, and the
fires of war were burning to embers in his veins. He was becoming more
and more interested in other things. It dawned upon him that to be
known as a friend of the poor held more allurement for gray-haired age
than to be known as a master of assassins. It would be pleasant to sit
undisturbed, and see his grandchildren grow up, and he recognized, with
a sudden ferocity of repugnance, that he did not wish them to grow up
as feud fighters. Purvy had not reformed, but, other things being
equal, he would prefer to live and let live. He had reached that stage
to which all successful villains come at some time, when he envied the
placid contentment of respected virtues. Ordering Samson shot down was
a last resort--one to be held in reserve until the end.

So, along Misery and Crippleshin, the men of the factions held their
fire while the summer spent itself, and over the mountain slopes the
leaves began to turn, and the mast to ripen.

Lescott had sent a box of books, and Samson had taken a team over to
Hixon, and brought them back. It was a hard journey, attended with much
plunging against the yokes and much straining of trace chains. Sally
had gone with him. Samson was spending as much time as possible in her
society now. The girl was saying little about his departure, but her
eyes were reading, and without asking she knew that his going was
inevitable. Many nights she cried herself to sleep, but, when he saw
her, she was always the same blithe, bird-like creature that she had
been before. She was philosophically sipping her honey while the sun
shone.

Samson read some of the books aloud to Sally, who had a child's
passion for stories, and who could not have spelled them out for
herself. He read badly, but to her it was the flower of scholastic
accomplishment, and her untrained brain, sponge-like in its
acquisitiveness, soaked up many new words and phrases which fell again
quaintly from her lips in talk. Lescott had spent a week picking out
those books. He had wanted them to argue for him; to feed the boy's
hunger for education, and give him some forecast of the life that
awaited him. His choice had been an effort to achieve _multum in
parvo_, but Samson devoured them all from title page to _finis_
line, and many of them he went back to, and digested again.

He wrestled long and gently with his uncle, struggling to win the old
man's consent to his departure. But Spicer South's brain was no longer
plastic. What had been good enough for the past was good enough for the
future. He sought to take the most tolerant view, and to believe that
Samson was acting on conviction and not on an ingrate's impulse, but
that was the best he could do, and he added to himself that Samson's
was an abnormal and perverted conviction. Nevertheless, he arranged
affairs so that his nephew should be able to meet financial needs, and
to go where he chose in a fashion befitting a South. The old man was
intensely proud, and, if the boy were bent on wasting himself, he
should waste like a family head, and not appear a pauper among strangers.

The autumn came, and the hills blazed out in their fanfare of splendid
color. The broken skyline took on a wistful sweetness under the haze of
"the Great Spirit's peace-pipe."

The sugar trees flamed their fullest crimson that fall. The poplars
were clear amber and the hickories russet and the oaks a deep burgundy.
Lean hogs began to fill and fatten with their banqueting on beechnuts
and acorns. Scattered quail came together in the conclave of the covey,
and changed their summer call for the "hover" whistle. Shortly, the
rains would strip the trees, and leave them naked. Then, Misery would
vindicate its christener. But, now, as if to compensate in a few
carnival days of champagne sparkle and color, the mountain world was
burning out its summer life on a pyre of transient splendor.

November came in bleakly, with a raw and devastating breath of
fatality. The smile died from horizon to horizon, and for days cold
rains beat and lashed the forests. And, toward the end of that month,
came the day which Samson had set for his departure. He had harvested
the corn, and put the farm in order. He had packed into his battered
saddlebags what things were to go with him into his new life. The sun
had set in a sickly bank of murky, red-lined clouds. His mule, which
knew the road, and could make a night trip, stood saddled by the stile.
A kinsman was to lead it back from Hixon when Samson had gone. The boy
slowly put on his patched and mud-stained overcoat. His face was sullen
and glowering. There was a lump in his throat, like the lump that had
been there when he stood with his mother's arm about his shoulders, and
watched the dogs chase a rabbit by his father's grave. Supper had been
eaten in silence. Now that the hour of departure had come, he felt the
guilt of the deserter. He realized how aged his uncle seemed, and how
the old man hunched forward over the plate as they ate the last meal
they should, for a long while, have together. It was only by sullen
taciturnity that he could retain his composure.

At the threshold, with the saddlebags over his left forearm and the
rifle in his hand, he paused. His uncle stood at his elbow and the boy
put out his hand.

"Good-by, Unc' Spicer," was all he said. The old man, who had been his
second father, shook hands. His face, too, was expressionless, but he
felt that he was saying farewell to a soldier of genius who was
abandoning the field. And he loved the boy with all the centered power
of an isolated heart.

"Hadn't ye better take a lantern?" he questioned.

"No, I reckon I won't need none." And Samson went out, and mounted his
mule.

A half-mile along the road, he halted and dismounted. There, in a
small cove, surrounded by a tangle of briars and blackberry bushes,
stood a small and dilapidated "meeting house" and churchyard, which he
must visit. He made his way through the rough undergrowth to the
unkempt half-acre, and halted before the leaning headstones which
marked two graves. With a sudden emotion, he swept the back of his hand
across his eyes. He did not remove his hat, but he stood in the drizzle
of cold rain for a moment of silence, and then he said:

"Pap, I hain't fergot. I don't want ye ter think thet I've fergot."

Before he arrived at the Widow Miller's, the rain had stopped and the
clouds had broken. Back of them was a discouraged moon, which sometimes
showed its face for a fitful moment, only to disappear. The wind was
noisily floundering through the treetops. Near the stile, Samson gave
his whippoorwill call. It was, perhaps, not quite so clear or true as
usual, but that did not matter. There were no other whippoorwills
calling at this season to confuse signals. He crossed the stile, and
with a word quieted Sally's dog as it rose to challenge him, and then
went with him, licking his hand.

Sally opened the door, and smiled. She had spent the day nerving
herself for this farewell, and at least until the moment of leave-
taking she would be safe from tears. The Widow Miller and her son soon
left them alone, and the boy and girl sat before the blazing logs.

For a time, an awkward silence fell between them. Sally had donned her
best dress, and braided her red-brown hair. She sat with her chin in
her palms, and the fire kissed her cheeks and temples into color. That
picture and the look in her eyes remained with Samson for a long while,
and there were times of doubt and perplexity when he closed his eyes
and steadied himself by visualizing it all again in his heart. At last,
the boy rose, and went over to the corner where he had placed his gun.
He took it up, and laid it on the hearth between them.

"Sally," he said, "I wants ter tell ye some things thet I hain't never
said ter nobody else. In the fust place, I wants ye ter keep this hyar
gun fer me."

The girl's eyes widened with surprise.

"Hain't ye a-goin' ter take hit with ye, Samson?"

He shook his head.

"I hain't a-goin' ter need hit down below. Nobody don't use 'em down
thar. I've got my pistol, an' I reckon thet will be enough."

"I'll take good keer of hit," she promised.

The boy took out of his pockets a box of cartridges and a small
package tied in a greasy rag.

"Hit's loaded, Sally, an' hit's cleaned an' hit's greased. Hit's ready
fer use."

Again, she nodded in silent assent, and the boy began speaking in a
slow, careful voice, which gradually mounted into tense emotion.

"Sally, thet thar gun was my pap's. When he lay a-dyin', he gave hit
ter me, an' he gave me a job ter do with hit. When I was a little
feller, I used ter set up 'most all day, polishin' thet gun an' gittin'
hit ready. I used ter go out in the woods, an' practise shootin' hit at
things, tell I larned how ter handle hit. I reckon thar hain't many
fellers round here thet kin beat me now." He paused, and the girl
hastened to corroborate.

"Thar hain't none, Samson."

"There hain't nothin' in the world, Sally, thet I prizes like I does
thet gun. Hit's got a job ter do ... Thar hain't but one person in the
world I'd trust hit with. Thet's you.... I wants ye ter keep hit fer
me, an' ter keep hit ready.... They thinks round hyar I'm quittin', but
I hain't. I'm a-comin' back, an', when I comes, I'll need this hyar
thing--an' I'll need hit bad." He took up the rifle, and ran his hand
caressingly along its lock and barrel.

"I don't know when I'm a-comin'," he said, slowly, "but, when I calls
fer this, I'm shore a-goin' ter need hit quick. I wants hit ter be
ready fer me, day er night. Maybe, nobody won't know I'm hyar....
Maybe, I won't want nobody ter know.... But, when I whistles out thar
like a whippoorwill, I wants ye ter slip out--an' fotch me thet gun!"

He stopped, and bent forward. His face was tense, and his eyes were
glinting with purpose. His lips were tight set and fanatical.

"Samson," said the girl, reaching out and taking the weapon from his
hands, "ef I'm alive when ye comes, I'll do hit. I promises ye. An',"
she added, "ef I hain't alive, hit'll be standin' thar in thet corner.
I'll grease hit, an' keep hit loaded, an' when ye calls, I'll fotch hit
out thar to ye."

The youth nodded. "I mout come anytime, but likely as not I'll hev ter
come a-fightin' when I comes."

Next, he produced an envelope.

"This here is a letter I've done writ ter myself," he explained. He
drew out the sheet, and read:

"Samson, come back." Then he handed the missive to the girl. "Thet
there is addressed ter me, in care of Mr. Lescott.... Ef anything
happens--ef Unc' Spicer needs me--I wants yer ter mail thet ter me
quick. He says as how he won't never call me back, but, Sally, I wants
thet you shall send fer me, ef they needs me. I hain't a-goin' ter
write no letters home. Unc' Spicer can't read, an' you can't read much
either. But I'll plumb shore be thinkin' about ye day an' night."

She gulped and nodded.

"Yes, Samson," was all she said.

The boy rose.

"I reckon I'd better be gettin' along," he announced.

The girl suddenly reached out both hands, and seized his coat. She
held him tight, and rose, facing him. Her upturned face grew very
pallid, and her eyes widened. They were dry, and her lips were tightly
closed, but, through the tearless pupils, in the firelight, the boy
could read her soul, and her soul was sobbing.

He drew her toward him, and held her very tight.

"Sally," he said, in a voice which threatened to choke, "I wants ye
ter take keer of yeself. Ye hain't like these other gals round here. Ye
hain't got big hands an' feet. Ye kain't stand es much es they kin.
Don't stay out in the night air too much--an', Sally--fer God's sake
take keer of yeself!" He broke off, and picked up his hat.

"An' that gun, Sally," he repeated at the door, "that there's the most
precious thing I've got. I loves hit better then anything--take keer of
hit."

Again, she caught at his shoulders.

"Does ye love hit better'n ye do me, Samson?" she demanded.

He hesitated.

"I reckon ye knows how much I loves ye, Sally," he said, slowly, "but
I've done made a promise, an' thet gun's a-goin' ter keep hit fer me."

They went together out to the stile, he still carrying his rifle, as
though loath to let it go, and she crossed with him to the road.

As he untied his reins, she threw her arms about his neck, and for a
long while they stood there under the clouds and stars, as he held her
close. There was no eloquence of leave-taking, no professions of
undying love, for these two hearts were inarticulate and dizzily
clinging to a wilderness code of self-repression--and they had reached
a point where speech would have swept them both away to a break-down.

But as they stood, their arms gripping each other, each heart pounding
on the other's breast, it was with a pulsing that spoke in the torrent
their lips dammed, and between the two even in this farewell embrace
was the rifle which stood emblematical of the man's life and mission
and heredity. Its cold metal lay in a line between their warm breasts,
separating, yet uniting them, and they clung to each other across its
rigid barrel, as a man and woman may cling with the child between them
which belongs to both, and makes them one. As yet, she had shed no
tears. Then, he mounted and was swallowed in the dark. It was not until
the thud of his mule's hoofs were lost in the distance that the girl
climbed back to the top of the stile, and dropped down. Then, she
lifted the gun and pressed it close to her bosom, and sat silently
sobbing for a long while.

"He's done gone away," she moaned, "an' he won't never come back no
more--but ef he does come"--she raised her eyes to the stars as though
calling them to witness--"ef he does come, I'll shore be a-waitin'.
Lord God, make him come back!"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21