Mountain Blood Part 12

As he mentally revolved the proposal Gordon could find no palpable objection: the options, the timber, was obviously standing fallow, with no means of transportation to a market, in exchange for ready money. Lettice would easily see the sense in the deal; besides, he had brought in her name only for form's sake--he, Gordon Makimmon, held the deciding vote in the affairs of his home.

"I don't rightly see anything against it," he admitted finally.

"Good!" Simmons declared with satisfaction; "an able man, you can see as far as the next through a transaction. I'll have the county clerk go over the options, bring you the result in a couple of weeks. Don't disturb yourself; yours is the time for pleasures, not papers."

"Hey, Gord!" a voice called thinly from without; "here's your dog."

Gordon rose and made his way to the platform before the store, where the Stenton stage had stopped. A seat had been removed from the surrey, its place taken by a large box with a square opening, covered with heavy wire net at one end, and a board fitted movably in grooves at the other. There were mutters incredulous, ironic, from the awaiting group of men; envy was perceptible, bitterness "... for a dog. Two hundred! Old Pompey hollered out of the dirt."

"There he is, Gord," the driver proclaimed; "and fetching that dog palace'll cost you seventy-five cents." The box was shifted to the platform; and, while Gordon unfastened the slide, the men gathered in a curious, mocking circle.

The slide was raised, the box sharply tilted, and a grotesquely clumsy and grave young dog slid out. There was a hoa.r.s.e uproar of gibing laughter, backs and knees were slapped, heavy feet stamped. The dog stood puzzled by the tumult: he had a long, square, s.h.a.ggy head, the color of ripe wheat; clear, dark eyes and powerful jaw; his body was narrow, covered with straight, wiry black hair; a short tail was half raised, tentative; and his wheat colored legs were ludicrously, inappropriately, long and heavy.

He stood patiently awaiting, evidently, some familiar note, some rea.s.suring command, in that unintelligible human clamor. Gordon regarded him through half-closed, indifferent eyes. "Here, doggy," a hoa.r.s.e, persuasive voice called; a hand was stretched out to him. But, as he reached it, "Two hundred dollars!" the voice exclaimed, and the hand gave the animal a quick, unexpected thrust. The dog sprawled back, and fell on the point of his shoulder. He rose swiftly to his feet without a whimper, standing once more at a loss in the midst of the inexplicable animosity.

He watched them all intently, with wrinkles in his serious young brow.

When, from behind, another hand thrust him sharply upon his jaw, he rose as quickly as possible, swaying a little upon the inappropriate legs.

Another suddenly knocked his hind legs from under him, and he sat heavily upon his haunches. The laughter ran renewed about the circle.

The sum of money that had been expended upon that single dog--a dog even that could neither hunt rabbits nor herd sheep--had, it appeared, engendered a bitter animosity, a personal spite, in the hearts of the men on the store platform. They were men to whom two hundred dollars was the symbol of arduous months of toil, endless days of precariously rewarded labor with the stubborn, inimical forces of nature, with swamp and rock and thicket. Two hundred dollars! It was the price of a roof, of health, of life itself.

A hard palm swung upon the dog's ribs, and, in instant response, he fell upon his side. He rose more slowly; stood isolated, obviously troubled. He drew back stumbling from a menacing gesture; but there was no cringing visible in his immature, ill-proportioned body; his tail drooped, but from weariness, discouragement; his head was level; his eyes met the circle of eyes about him.

Gordon took no part in the baiting; he lit a cigar, snapped the match over his shoulder, carelessly watched his newest acquisition. A heavy, wooden-soled shoe shoved the dog forward. And Buckley Simmons, in an obvious improvement upon that manoeuver, kicked the animal behind the ear.

The forelegs rose with the impact of the blow, and the body struck full length upon the platform, where it lay dazed. But, finally, the dog got up insecurely, wabbling; a dark blot spread slowly across the straw-colored head.

No one, it was evident, was prepared for the sudden knifelike menace of Gordon Makimmon's voice as he bent over the dog and wiped the blood upon his sleeve.

"Kick him again, Buck," he said; "kick him again and see how funny it'll be."

"Why, Gordon," Buckley Simmons protested, "we were all stirring him up a little; you didn't say anything--"

Makimmon picked the dog up, holding him against his side, the awkward legs streaming down in an uncomfortable confusion of joints and paws. "I paid two hundred dollars for this dog," he p.r.o.nounced, "as a piece of dam'

foolishness, a sort of drunken joke on Greenstream. But it's no joke; the two hundred was cheap. I've seen a lot of good men--I'm not exactly a peafowl myself--but this young dog's better'n any man I ever stood up to; he's got more guts."

He abruptly turned his back upon the gathering, and descended to the road, carrying the limp, warm body all the way home.

II

It was his own home to which he returned, the original dwelling of the Makimmons in Greenstream. He could not, he had told Lettice, be comfortable anywhere else; he could not be content with it closed against the living sound of the stream, or in strange hands. Some changes had been made since his marriage--another s.p.a.ce had been enclosed beyond the kitchen, a chamber occupied by Sim Caley and his wife, moved from the outlying farm where Lettice had spent her weeks of "retreat" throughout the pa.s.sing summers. The exterior had been painted leaden-grey, and a shed transformed into a small, serviceable stable. But the immediate surroundings were the same: the primitive sweep still rose from the well, a cow still grazed in the dank gra.s.s; the stream slipped by, mirroring its stable banks, the foliage inexhaustibly replenished by nature; beyond the narrow valley the mountain range shut out the rising sun, closed Greenstream into its deep, verdurous gorge.

High above, the veil of light was still rosy, but it was dusk about Gordon Makimmon's dwelling. Lettice, in white, with a dark shawl drawn about her shoulders, was standing on the porch. She spoke in a strain of querulous sweetness:

"Gordon, you've been the longest while. Mrs. Caley says your supper's all spoiled. You know she likes to get the table cleared right early in the evening."

"Is Mrs. Caley to have her say in this house or am I? That's what I want to know. Am I to eat so's she can clear the table, or is she to clear the table when I have had my supper?"

"When it suits you, Gordon, of course. Oh, Gordon! whatever are you carrying?"

"A dog!"

"I didn't know you wanted a dog." An accent of doubt crept into her voice, a hesitation. "I don't know if I want a dog around ... just now, Gordon."

"He won't do any harm; he's only a young dog, anyhow. Ain't you a young dog, a regular puppy? But, Lettice, he's got the grit of General Jackson; he stood right up against the crowd at the store."

"Still, Gordon, right now--"

"I told you he wouldn't do any harm," the man repeated in irritated tones; "he will be with me most of the time, and not around the house. You're getting too cranky for living, Lettice." He set the dog upon his feet.

"What I'll call him I don't know; he's as gritty as--why, yes, I do, I'll call him General Jackson. C'm here, General."

The dog still wavered slightly. He stood intently regarding Gordon. "Here, here, General Jackson." After another long scrutiny he walked slowly up to Gordon, raised his head toward the man's countenance. Gordon Makimmon was delighted. "That's a smart dog!" he exclaimed; "smarter'n half the people I know. He's got to have something to eat. Lettice, will you tell Mrs.

Caley to give General something to eat, and nothing's too good for him, either."

Lettice walked to the door of the kitchen and transmitted Gordon's request to the invisible Mrs. Caley. The latter appeared after a moment and stood gazing somberly at the man and dog. She was a tall, ungainly woman, with a flat, s.e.xless body and a deeply-lined face almost the color of her own salt-raised bread. "This is General Jackson," Gordon explained out of the settling dark; "he'd thank you for a panful of supper. Come on, General, come on in the kitchen. No, Mrs. Caley won't bite you; she'll give us something to eat."

The room next to the kitchen, that had been Clare's, had been stripped of its furnishing, and a glistening yellow pine table set in the middle, with six painted wood chairs. The table was perpetually spread on a fringed red or blue cloth; the center occupied by a large silver-plated castor, its various rings filled with differently shaped bottles and shakers. At the end where Lettice sat heavy white cups and saucers were piled; at Gordon's place a knife and fork were propped up on their guards. On either side were the plates of Simeon and Mrs. Caley. Each place boasted a knife and formidable steel fork--the spoons were a.s.sembled in a gla.s.s receptacle--and a napkin thrust into a ring of plaited hair plainly marked with the sign of the respective owner.

Mrs. Caley silently put before Gordon a pinkish loin of pork, boiled potatoes and a bowl of purple, swimming huckleberries; this she fortified by a vessel of gravy and section of pie. There was tea. "Where's Lettice?"

Gordon demanded. Apparently Mrs. Caley had not heard him. "Lettice," he raised his voice; "here's supper."

"I don't want anything to eat, thank you, Gordon," she returned from another room.

"You ought to eat," he called back, attacking the pork. Then he muttered, "--full of ideas and airs. Soft."

III

Beyond the dining room was their bedroom, and beyond that a chamber which, for years in a state of deserted, semi-ruin, Gordon had had newly floored and rendered weather-proof, and now used as a place of a.s.semblage. He found Lettice there when he had finished supper.

She was sitting beside a small table which held a lighted lamp with a shade of minute, woven pieces of various silks. Behind her was a cottage organ, a ma.s.s of fretted woodwork; a wall pierced by a window was ornamented by a framed photograph of a woman dead and in her coffin. The photograph had faded to a silvery monotony, but the details of the rigid, unnatural countenance, the fixed staring eyes, were still clear. Redly varnished chairs with green plush cushions and elaborate, thread antimaca.s.sars, a second table ranged against the wall, bearing a stout volume ent.i.tled "A Cloud of Witnesses," and a cheap phonograph, completed the furnishing.

It was warm without, but Lettice had shut the window, the shawl was still about her shoulders. She was sewing upon a small piece of white material.

"Here, General, here," Gordon commanded, and the dog followed him seriously into the room. "Pat him, Lettice, so's he'll get to know you,"

he urged.

"I don't think I want to," she began; but, at her husband's obvious impatience, she experimented doubtfully, "Here, puppy."

"Can't you call him by his name?" he interrupted. "How ever'll he come to know it?"

"I don't want to call him at all," she protested, a little wildly. "I don't like him to-night; perhaps to-morrow I will feel different."