The Tempering Part 28

That was an unshakeable determination, and when, in obedience to the edict, Boone had not come back for a week, Cyrus asked his daughter briefly:

"When do you an' Boone aim ter be wedded?"

The girl flinched again, but her voice was steady as she replied:

"We--don't--never aim to be."

The old fellow's features stiffened into the stern indignation of an affronted Indian chief. He took the pipe from between his teeth as he set his shoulders, and that baleful light, that had come rarely in a life-span, returned to his eyes.

"Ef he don't aim ter wed with ye," came the slow p.r.o.nouncement, "thar hain't no fashion he kin escape an accountin' with me."

For a moment Happy did not speak. It seemed to her that the raising of such an issue was the one thing which she lacked present strength to face; but after a little she replied, with a resolution no less iron-strong because the voice was gentle:

"Unless ye wants ter break my heart fer all time--ye must give me your pledge to--keep hands off."

After a moment she added, almost in a whisper:

"He's asked me--and I've refused to marry him."

"You--refused him?" The voice was incredulous. "Why, gal, everybody knows ye've always thought he was a piece of the moon."

"I still think so," she made gallant response. "But I wants ye to--jest trust me--an' not ask any more questions."

The father sat there stiffly gazing off to the far ridges, and his eyes were those of a man grief-stricken. Once or twice his raggedly bearded lips stirred in inarticulate movements, but finally he rose and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Little gal," he said in a broken voice, "I reckon I've got ter suffer ye ter decide fer yoreself--hit's yore business most of all--but I don't never want him ter speak ter me ergin."

So Boone went out upon the hustings with none of the eager zest of his antic.i.p.ations. That district was so solidly one-sided in political complexion that the November elections were nothing more than formalities, and the real conflict came to issue in the August primaries.

But with Boone's announcement as candidate for circuit clerk, old animosities that had lain long dormant stirred into restive mutterings.

The personnel of the "high court" had been to a considerable extent dominated by the power of the Carrs and Blairs.

Now with the news that Boone Wellver, a young and "wishful" member of the Gregory house, meant to seek a place under the teetering clock tower of the court house, anxieties began to simmer. Into his candidacy the Carrs read an effort to enhance Gregory power--and they rose in resistance. Jim Blair, a cousin of Tom Carr, threw down his gauntlet of challenge and announced himself as a contestant, so that the race began to a.s.sume the old-time cleavage of the feud.

On muleback and on foot, Boone followed up many a narrowing creek bed to sources where dwelt the "branch-water folk." Here, in animal-like want and squalor, the crudest of all the uncouth race lived and begot offspring and died. Here where vacuous-eyed children of an inbred strain stared out from the doors of crumbling and windowless shacks, or fled from a strange face, he campaigned among the illiterate elders and oftentimes he sickened at what he saw.

Yet these people of yesterday were his people--and they offered him of their pitiful best even when their ignorance was so incredible that the name of the divinity was to them only "somethin' a feller cusses with"--and he felt that his campaign was prospering.

One day, however, when he returned to his own neighbourhood after an absence across the mountain, he seemed to discover an insidious and discouraging change in the tide--a shifting of sentiment to an almost sullen reserve. An intangible resentment against him was in the air.

It was Araminta Gregory who construed the mystery for him. She had heard all the gossip of the "grannies," which naturally did not come to his own ears.

"I'm atellin' ye this, Boone, because _somebody_ ought ter forewarn ye,"

she explained. "Thar's a story goin' round about, an' I reckon hit's hurtin' ye. Somebody hes done spread ther norration thet ye hain't loyal ter yore own blood no more.--They're tellin' hit abroad thet ye've done turned yore back on a mountain gal--atter lettin' her 'low ye aimed ter wed with her." She paused there, but added a moment later: "I reckon ye wouldn't thank me ter name no names--an', anyhow, ye knows who I means."

"I know," he said, in a very quiet and deliberate voice. "Please go on--and, as you say, it ain't needful to call no names."

"These witch-tongued busybodies," concluded the woman, her eyes flaring into indignation, "is spreadin' hit broadcast thet ye plumb abandoned thet gal fer a furrin' woman--thet wouldn't skeercely wipe her feet on ye--ef ye laid down in ther road in front of her!"

Boone's posture grew taut as he listened, and it remained so during the long-ensuing silence. He could feel a furious hammering in his temples, and for a little time blood-red spots swam before his eyes. But when at length he spoke, it was to say only, "I'm beholden to you, Araminty. A man has need to know what his enemies are sayin'."

It was one of those sub-surface attacks, which Boone could not discuss--or even seem to recognize without bringing into his political forensics the names of two women--so he must face the ambushed accusation of disloyalty without striking back.

In Marlin Town, one court day, Jim Blair was addressing a crowd from the steps of the court house, and at his side stood Tom Carr, his kinsman.

Boone was there, too, and when that speech ended he meant to take his place where his rival now stood, and to give back blow for blow. At first Jim Blair addressed himself to the merits of his own candidacy, but gradually he swung into criticism of his opponent, while the opponent himself listened with an amused smile.

"Ther feller that's runnin' erginst me," confessed the orator, "kin talk ter ye in finer phrases then I kin ever contrive ter git my tongue around. I reckon when he steps up hyar he'll kinderly dazzle ye with his almighty gift of speech. I've spent my days right hyar amongst ye in slavish toil--like ther balance of you boys--hev done. My breeches air patched--like some o' yourn be. He's done been off ter college, l'arnin'

all manner of fotched-on lore. He's done been consortin' with ther kind of folks thet don't think no lavish good of us. He's done been gettin'

every sort of notion savin' them notions thet's come down in our blood from our fore-parents--but when he gits through spell-bindin' I wants ye all ter remember jest one thing: I'll be plumb satisfied if I gits ther vote of every man thet w'ars a raggedy shirt tail and hes a patch on the seat of his pants. _He's_ right welcome ter ther balance."

Boone joined in the salvo of laughter that went up at that sally, but the mirth died suddenly from his face the next moment, for the applause had gone to Blair's head like liquor and fired him to a more philippic vein of oratory.

"I reckon I might counsel this young feller ter heed ther words of Scripture an' 'tarry a while in Jericho fer his beard ter grow.' Mebby by thet day an' time he mout l'arn more loyalty fer ther men--yea, an'

fer ther _women_, too--of his own blood and breed!"

Once more the red spots swam before Boone Wellver's eyes, but for a hard-held moment he kept his lips tight drawn. There was a tense silence as men held their breath, waiting to see if the old Gregory spirit had become so tamed as to endure in silence that d.a.m.ning implication; but before Blair had begun again Boone was confronting him with dangerously narrow eyes, and their faces inches apart.

Blair was a short, powerfully built man with sandy hair and a red jowl swelling from a bull-like neck. Standing on the step below, Boone's eyes were level with his own.

"Either tell these men what you mean," commanded the younger candidate in a voice that carried its ominous level to the farthest fringe of the small crowd, "or else tell 'em you lied! Wherein have I been disloyal to my blood?"

"You'll hav yore chancet ter talk when I gits through here," bellowed Blair. "Meanwhile, don't break in on me."

"Tell 'em what you mean--or take it back--or fight," repeated Boone, with the same fierce quietness.

It was no longer possible to ignore the peremptory challenge, and the speaker was forced into the open. But he was also enraged beyond sanity and he shouted out to the crowd over the shoulders of the figure that confronted him, "Ef he fo'ces me ter name ther woman I'll do hit.

Hit's--"

But the name was never uttered. With a lashing out that employed every ounce of his weight and strength, Boone literally mashed the voice to silence, and sent the speaker b.l.o.o.d.y-mouthed down the several steps into the dust of the square.

Despite his middle-aged bulk, Jim Blair had lost none of his catlike activity, and while the more timid members of the crowd, in antic.i.p.ation of gunplay, hastily sought cover or threw themselves p.r.o.ne to the ground, he came to his feet with a revolver ready-drawn and fired point-blank. But, just as of two lightning bolts, one may have a shade more speed than the other, so Boone was quicker than Jim. He struck up the murderous hand, and the two candidates grappled. An instant later, Boone stood once more over a prostrate figure, that was this time slower in recovering its feet. Wellver broke the pistol and emptied it of its cartridges, then contemptuously he threw it down beside its owner in the dust of the court house yard.

But as he turned, Tom Carr was standing motionless at arm's length away, and Boone was looking into Tom's levelled revolver.

"Ye hain't quite done with this matter yet," snarled that partisan, as his eyes snapped malignantly. "Ye've still got me ter reckon with. Throw up them hands, afore I kills ye!"

Boone did not throw them up. Instead, he crossed them on his breast and remained looking steadily into the pa.s.sionate face of the black-haired leader of Asa's enemies.

"Shoot when you get ready, Tom; I haven't got a gun on me," he said calmly. "But if you shoot--you'll be breaking the truce--that you pledged your men to, when you and Asa shook hands. If the war breaks out afresh, today, it will be your doing." Other hands now were fondling weapons out there in front of the two; men who were mixed between Gregory and Carr sympathies and who were rapidly filtering themselves out of a conglomerate ma.s.s into two sharply defined groups.

"Hain't ye a'ready done bust thet truce--jest now?" demanded Tom, and Boone shook his head.

Again there was a purposeful ring in his voice.

"No, by G.o.d--I handled a liar--like he ought to be handled--and if there are any Gregories out there that wouldn't do the same--I hope they'll line up with _you_!"