The Call of the Cumberlands Part 4

"Sometimes, stranger," he said, "I 'lows that I hain't much interested in nothin' else."

That there dwelt in the lad something which leaped in response to the clarion call of beauty, Lescott had read in that momentary give and take of their eyes down there in the hollow earlier in the afternoon.

But, since then, the painter had seen the other and sterner side, and once more he was puzzled and astonished. Now, he stood anxiously hoping that the boy would permit himself further expression, yet afraid to prompt, lest direct questions bring a withdrawal again into the sh.e.l.l of taciturnity. After a few moments of silence, he slowly turned his head, and glanced at his companion, to find him standing rigidly with his elbows resting on the top palings of the fence. He had thrown his rough hat to the ground, and his face in the pale moonlight was raised.

His eyes under the black mane of hair were glowing deeply with a fire of something like exaltation, as he gazed away. It was the expression of one who sees things hidden to the generality; such a light as burns in the eyes of artists and prophets and fanatics, which, to the uncomprehending, seems almost a fire of madness. Samson must have felt Lescott's scrutiny, for he turned with a half-pa.s.sionate gesture and clenched fists. His face, as he met the glance of the foreigner was sullen, and then, as though in recognition of a brother-spirit, his expression softened, and slowly he began to speak.

"These folks 'round hyar sometimes 'lows I hain't much better'n an idjit because--because I feels that-away. Even Sally"--he caught himself, then went on doggedly--"even Sally kain't see how a man kin keer about things like skies and the color of the hills, ner the way ther sunset splashes the sky clean acrost its aidge, ner how the sunrise comes outen the dark like a gal a-blushin'. They 'lows thet a man had ought ter be studyin' 'bout other things."

He paused, and folded his arms, and his strong fingers grasped his tensed biceps until the knuckles stood out, as he went on:

"I reckon they hain't none of them thet kin hate harder'n me. I reckon they hain't none of 'em thet is more plumb willin' ter fight them thet's rightful enemies, an' yit hit 'pears ter me as thet hain't no reason why a man kain't feel somethin' singin' inside him when Almighty G.o.d builds hills like them"--he swept both hands out in a wide circle-- "an' makes 'em green in summer, an' lets 'em blaze in red an' yaller in ther fall, an' hangs blue skies over 'em an' makes ther sun shine, an'

at night sprinkles 'em with stars an' a moon like thet!" Again, he paused, and his eyes seemed to ask the corroboration which they read in the expression and nod of the stranger from the mysterious outside world. Then, Samson South spread his hands in a swift gesture of protest, and his voice hardened in timbre as he went on:

"But these folks hyarabouts kain't understand thet. All they sees in the laurel on the hillside, an' the big gray rocks an' the green trees, is breshwood an' timber thet may be hidin' their enemies, or places ter hide out an' lay-way some other feller. I hain't never seen no other country. I don't know whether all places is like these hyar mountings er not, but I knows thet the Lord didn't 'low fer men ter live blind, not seein' no beauty in nothin'; ner not feelin' nothin' but hate an'

meanness--ner studyin' 'bout nothin' but deviltry. There hain't no better folks nowhar then my folks, an' thar hain't no meaner folks nowhar then them d.a.m.ned Hollmans, but thar's times when hit 'pears ter me thet the Lord Almighty hain't plumb tickled ter death with ther way things goes hyar along these creeks and coves."

Samson paused, and suddenly the glow died out of his eyes. His features instantly reshaped themselves into their customary mold of stoical hardness. It occurred to him that his outburst had been a long one and strangely out of keeping with his usual taciturnity, and he wondered what this stranger would think of him.

The stranger was marveling. He was seeing in the crude lad at his side warring elements that might build into a unique and strangely interesting edifice of character, and his own speech as he talked there by the palings of the fence in the moonlight was swiftly establishing the foundations of a comradeship between the two.

"Thar's something mighty quare about ye, stranger," said the boy at last, half-shyly. "I been wonderin' why I've talked ter ye like this. I hain't never talked that-away with no other man. Ye jest seemed ter kind of compel me ter do hit. When I says things like thet ter Sally, she gits skeered of me like ef I was plumb crazy, an', ef I talked that- away to the menfolks 'round hyar they'd be sartain I was an idjit."

"That," said Lescott, gravely, "is because they don't understand. I do."

"I kin lay awake nights," said Samson, "an' see them hills and mists an' colors the same es ef they was thar in front of my eyes--an' I kin seem ter hear 'em as well as see 'em."

The painter nodded, and his voice fell into low quotation:

"'The scarlet of the maple can shake me like the cry "Of bugles going by.'"

The boy's eyes deepened. To Lescott, the thought of bugles conjured up a dozen pictures of marching soldiery under a dozen flags. To Samson South, it suggested only one: militia guarding a battered courthouse, but to both the simile brought a stirring of pulses.

Even in June, the night mists bring a touch of chill to the mountains, and the clansmen shortly carried their chairs indoors. The old woman fetched a pan of red coals from the kitchen, and kindled the logs on the deep hearth. There was no other light, and, until the flames climbed to roaring volume, spreading their zone of yellow brightness, only the circle about the fireplace emerged from the sooty shadows. In the four dark corners of the room were four large beds, vaguely seen, and from one of them still came the haunting monotony of the banjo.

Suddenly, out of the silence, rose Samson's voice, keyed to a stubborn note, as though antic.i.p.ating and challenging contradiction.

"Times is changin' mighty fast. A feller thet grows up plumb ign'rant ain't a-goin' ter have much show."

Old Spicer South drew a contemplative puff at his pipe.

"Ye went ter school twell ye was ten year old, Samson. Thet's a heap more schoolin' then I ever had, an' I've done got along all right."

"Ef my pap had lived"--the boy's voice was almost accusing--"I'd hev lamed more then jest ter read an' write en figger a little."

"I hain't got no use fer these newfangled notions." Spicer spoke with careful curbing of his impatience. "Yore pap stood out fer eddycation.

He had ideas about law an' all that, an' he talked 'em. He got shot ter death. Yore Uncle John South went down below, an' got ter be a lawyer.

He come home hyar, an' ondertook ter penitentiary Jesse Purvy, when Jesse was High Sheriff. I reckon ye knows what happened ter him."

Samson said nothing and the older man went on:

"They aimed ter run him outen the mountings."

"They didn't run him none," blazed the boy. "He didn't never leave the mountings."

"No." The family head spoke with the force of a logical climax. "He'd done rented a house down below though, an' was a-fixin' ter move. He staid one day too late. Jesse Purvy hired him shot."

"What of hit?" demanded Samson.

"Yore cousin, Bud Spicer, was eddicated. He 'lowed in public thet Micah Hollman an' Jesse Purvy was runnin' a murder partnership.

Somebody called him ter the door of his house in the night-time ter borry a lantern--an' shot him ter death."

"What of hit?"

"Thar's jist this much of hit. Hit don't seem ter pay the South family ter go a-runnin' attar newfangled idees. They gets too much notion of goin' ter law--an' thet's plumb fatal. Ye'd better stay where ye b'longs, Samson, an' let good enough be."

"Why hain't ye done told about all the rest of the Souths thet didn't hev no eddication," suggested the youngest South, "thet got killed off jest as quick as them as had hit?"

CHAPTER V

While Spicer South and his cousins had been sustaining themselves or building up competences by tilling their soil, the leaders of the other faction were basing larger fortunes on the profits of merchandise and trade. So, although Spicer South could neither read nor write, his chief enemy, Micah Hollman, was to outward seeming an urbane and fairly equipped man of affairs. Judged by their heads, the clansmen were rougher and more illiterate on Misery, and in closer touch with civilization on Crippleshin. A deeper scrutiny showed this seeming to be one of the strange anomalies of the mountains.

Micah Hollman had established himself at Hixon, that shack town which had pa.s.sed of late years from feudal county seat to the section's one point of contact with the outside world; a town where the ancient and modern orders brushed shoulders; where the new was tolerated, but dared not become aggressive. Directly across the street from the court-house stood an ample frame building, on whose side wall was emblazoned the legend: "Hollman's Mammoth Department Store." That was the secret stronghold of Hollman power. He had always spoken deploringly of that spirit of lawlessness which had given the mountains a bad name. He himself, he declared, believed that the best a.s.sets of any community were tenets of peace and brotherhood. Any mountain man or foreigner who came to town was sure of a welcome from Judge Micah Hollman, who added to his t.i.tle of storekeeper that of magistrate.

As the years went on, the proprietor of the "Mammoth Department Store"

found that he had money to lend and, as a natural sequence, mortgages stored away in his strong box. To the cry of distress, he turned a sympathetic ear. His infectious smile and suave manner won him fame as "the best-hearted man in the mountains." Steadily and unostentatiously, his fortune fattened.

When the railroad came to Hixon, it found in Judge Hollman a "public- spirited citizen." Incidentally, the timber that it hauled and the coal that its flat cars carried down to the Bluegra.s.s went largely to his consignees. He had so astutely antic.i.p.ated coming events that, when the first scouts of capital sought options, they found themselves constantly referred to Judge Hollman. No wheel, it seemed, could turn without his nod. It was natural that the genial storekeeper should become the big man of the community and inevitable that the one big man should become the dictator. His inherited place as leader of the Hollmans in the feud he had seemingly pa.s.sed on as an obsolete prerogative.

Yet, in business matters, he was found to drive a hard bargain, and men came to regard it the part of good policy to meet rather than combat his requirements. It was essential to his purposes that the officers of the law in his county should be in sympathy with him.

Sympathy soon became abject subservience. When a South had opposed Jesse Purvy in the primary as candidate for High Sheriff, he was found one day lying on his face with a bullet-riddled body. It may have been a coincidence which pointed to Jim Asberry, the judge's nephew, as the a.s.sa.s.sin. At all events, the judge's nephew was a poor boy, and a charitable Grand Jury declined to indict him.

In the course of five years, several South adherents, who had crossed Hollman's path, became victims of the laurel ambuscade. The theory of coincidence was strained. Slowly, the rumor grew and persistently spread, though no man would admit having fathered it, that before each of these executions star-chamber conferences had been held in the rooms above Micah Hollman's "Mammoth Department Store." It was said that these exclusive sessions were attended by Judge Hollman, Sheriff Purvy and certain other gentlemen selected by reason of their marksmanship.

When one of these victims fell, John South had just returned from a law school "down below," wearing "fotched-on" clothing and thinking "fotched-on" thoughts. He had amazed the community by demanding the right to a.s.sist in probing and prosecuting the affair. He had then shocked the community into complete paralysis by requesting the Grand Jury to indict not alone the alleged a.s.sa.s.sin, but also his employers, whom he named as Judge Hollman and Sheriff Purvy. Then, he, too, fell under a bolt from the laurel.

That was the first public accusation against the bland capitalist, and it carried its own prompt warning against repet.i.tion. The Judge's High Sheriff and chief ally retired from office, and went abroad only with a bodyguard. Jesse Purvy had built his store at a cross roads twenty-five miles from the railroad. Like Hollman, he had won a reputation for open -handed charity, and was liked--and hated. His friends were legion. His enemies were so numerous that he apprehended violence not only from the Souths, but also from others who nursed grudges in no way related to the line of feud cleavage. The Hollman-Purvy combination had retained enough of its old power to escape the law's retribution and to hold its dictatorship, but the efforts of John South had not been altogether bootless. He had ripped away two masks, and their erstwhile wearers could no longer hold their old semblance of law-abiding philanthropists. Jesse Purvy's home was the show place of the country side. To the traveler's eye, which had grown accustomed to hovel life and squalor, it offered a reminder of the richer Bluegra.s.s. Its walls were weather-boarded and painted, and its roof two stories high.

Commodious verandahs looked out over pleasant orchards, and in the same enclosure stood the two frame buildings of his store--for he, too, combined merchandise with baronial powers. But back of the place rose the mountainside, on which Purvy never looked without dread. Twice, its impenetrable thickets had spat at him. Twice, he had recovered from wounds that would have taken a less-charmed life. And in grisly reminder of the terror which clouded the peace of his days stood the eight-foot log stockade at the rear of the place which the proprietor had built to shield his daily journeys between house and store. But Jesse Purvy was not deluded by his escapes. He knew that he was "marked down." For years, he had seen men die by his own plotting, and he himself must in the end follow by a similar road. Rumor had it that he wore a shirt of mail, certain it is that he walked in the expectancy of death.

"Why don't you leave the mountains?" strangers had asked; and to each of them Purvy had replied with a shrug of his shoulders and a short laugh: "This is where I belong."

But the years of strain were telling on Jesse Purvy. The robust, full- blooded face was showing deep lines; his flesh was growing flaccid; his glance tinged with quick apprehension. He told his intimates that he realized "they'd get him," yet he sought to prolong his term of escape.

The creek purled peacefully by the stile; the apple and peach trees blossomed and bore fruit at their appointed time, but the householder, when he walked between his back door and the back door of the store, hugged his stockade, and hurried his steps.

Yesterday morning, Jesse Purvy had risen early as usual, and, after a satisfying breakfast, had gone to his store to arrange for the day's business. One or two of his henchmen, seeming loafers, but in reality a bodyguard, were lounging within call. A married daughter was chatting with her father while her young baby played among the barrels and cracker boxes.