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WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY
[Illustration: You're agoing to marry me and we're goin' to dwell
thar--together]
WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY
BY
CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
_Author of_
"THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS," etc.
Illustrations by
GEORGE W. GAGE
NEW YORK
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1918, by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
_OTHER BOOKS_
_By_
CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY
THE LIGHTED MATCH
THE PORTAL OF DREAMS
THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS
THE BATTLE CRY
THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS
DESTINY
THE TYRANNY OF WEAKNESS
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
TO
M. F.
WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY
CHAPTER I
A creaking complaint of loose and rattling boards rose under the old
mountaineer's brogans as he stepped from the threshold to the porch.
His eyes, searching the wooded mountain-side, held at first only that
penetration which born woodsmen share with the hawk and ferret, but
presently they kindled into irascibility as well.
He raised his voice in a loud whoop that went skittering off across the
rocky creek bed where Little Slippery crawled along to feed the trickle
of Big Slippery ten miles below, and the volume of sound broke into a
splintering of echoes against the forested crags of the Old Wilderness
Ridges.
"You, Turner!" bellowed the man with such a bull-like roar as might
have issued from the chest of a Viking. "You, Turner, don't ye heer me
a-callin' ye?"
A woman, rawboned and crone-like before her time under the merciless
forcing of drudgery, appeared in the door, wiping reddened hands on a
coarse cotton apron.
"I reckon he'll be hyar, presently, paw," she suggested in a
high-pitched voice meant to be placating. "I reckon he hain't fared far
away."
The hodden-gray figure of the man turned to his wife and his voice, as
it dropped to conversational pitch, held a surprisingly low and
drawling cadence.
"What needcessity did he hev ter go away a-tall?" came his interrogation.
"He knowed I aimed ter hev him tote thet gryste acrost ther ridge ter
the tub-mill, didn't he? He knows that hits perilous business ter leave
corn like that a-layin' 'round, don't he--_sprouted corn_!"
A flash of poignant anxiety clouded the woman's eyes. Corn sprouted in
the grain before grinding! She knew well enough what that
meant--incrimination in the eyes of the Government--trial, perhaps, and
imprisonment.
"Ye 'lowed a long while since, Lone," she reminded him with a trace of
wistfulness in her voice, "that ye aimed ter quit makin' blockade
licker fer all time. Hit don't pleasure me none ter see ye a-follerin'
hit ergin. Seems like thar's a curse on hit from start ter finish."
"I don't foller hit because I delights in hit," he retorted grimly.
"But what else is thar ter do? I reckon we've got ter live
somehow--hain't we?" For an instant his eyes flared with an upleaping
of rebellion; then he turned again on his heel and roared "Turner--you,
Turner!"
"Ther boy seemed kinderly fagged out when he come in. I reckon he aimed
ter slip off and rest in ther shade somewhars fer a lettle spell afore
ye needed him," volunteered the boy's mother, but the suggestion failed
to mollify the mounting impatience of the father.
"Fagged! What's fagged him? I hain't never disc'arned nothin' puny
about him. He's survigrous enough ter go a-snortin' an' a-stompin' over
ther hills like a yearlin' bull, a-honin' fer battle. He's knowed from
God's Blessin' Creek ter Hell's Holler by ther name of Bear Cat Stacy,
hain't he? Bear Cat Stacy! I'd hate ter take my name from a
varmint--but it pleasures him."
"I don't sca'cely b'lieve he seeks no aimless quarrels," argued the
mother defensively. "Thar hain't no _meanness_ in him. He's jest like
you was, Lone, when ye was twenty a-goin' on twenty-one. He's full o'
sperrit. I reckon Bear Cat jest means thet he's quick-like an' supple."
"Supple! Hell's torment! Whar's he at now? He's jest about a-layin'
somewhar's on his shoulder-blades a-readin' thet everlastin' book
erbout Abe Lincoln--You, Turner!"
Then the figure of a young man appeared, swinging along with an
effortless stride down the steep grade of the mountain which was richly
mottled with the afternoon sun. He came between giant clusters of
flowering laurel, along aisles pink with wild roses and white with the
foaming spray of elder blossoms; flanked by masses of colossal rock,
and every movement was a note of frictionless power.
Like his father, Turner Stacy measured a full six feet, but age and the
yoke of hardship had not yet stooped his fine shoulders nor thickened
his slenderness of girth. His face was striking in its clear chiseling
of feature and its bronzed color. It would have been arrestingly
handsome but for its marring shadow of surliness.
In one hand he held a battered book, palpably one used with the
constancy and devotion of a monk's breviary, and a forefinger was still
thrust between the dog-eared pages. "Lincoln: Master of Men,"--such was
the title of the volume.
As Turner Stacy arrived at the house, his father's uncompromisingly
stern eyes dwelt on the book and they were brimming with displeasure.
"Didn't ye know I hed work for ye ter do terday?"
The boy nodded indifferently.
"I 'lowed ye hed ther power ter shout fer me when ye war ready, I
wasn't more'n a whoop an' a holler distant."
The mother, hovering in the shadowed interior of the house, listened
silently, and a little anxiously. This friction of unbending temper
between her husband and son was a thing to which she could never quite
accustom herself. Always she was interposing herself as a buffer
between their threats of clashing wills.
"Turner," said the elder man slowly, and now he spoke quietly with an
effort to curb his irascibililty, "I knows thet boys often-times gits
uppety an' brash when they're a-growin' inter manhood. They've got thar
growth an' they feel thar strength an' they hain't acquired neither
sense ner experience enough ter realize how plumb teetotally much they
_don't_ know yit. But speakin' jedgmatically, I hain't never heered
tell of no Stacy afore what hain't been loyal ter his family an' ther
head of his house. 'Pears like ter me hit pleasures ye beyond all
reason ter sot yoreself crost-wise erginst me."
The boy's eyes grew somberly dark as they met those of his father with
undeviating steadiness. An analyst would have said that the outward
surliness was after all only a mask for an inner questioning--the
inarticulate stress of a cramped and aspiring spirit.
"I don't know as ye hev any rightful cause fer ter charge me with bein'
disloyal," he answered slowly, as if pondering the accusation. "I
hain't never aimed ter contrary ye."
Lone Stacy paused for a moment and then the timbre of his voice
acquired the barb of an irony more massive than subtle.
"Air yore heart in torment because ye hain't ther Presi_dent_ of ther
country, like Abe Lincoln was? Is _thet_ why ye don't delight in
nothin' save dilitary dreams?"
A slow, brick-red flush suffused the brown cheeks of Bear Cat Stacy,
and his answer came with a slowness that was almost halting.
"When Abraham Lincoln was twenty years old he warn't no more Presi_dent_
then what I be. Thar hain't many Lincoln's, but any feller kin have
ther thing in him, though, thet carried Lincoln up ter whar he went.
Any feller kin do his best and want ter do some better. Thet's all I'm
aimin' after."
The father studied his son's suddenly animated eyes and inquired drily,
"Does this book-l'arnin' teach ye ter lay around plumb ind'lent with
times so slavish hard thet I've been pintedly compelled ter start ther
still workin' ergin, despite my a-bein' a Christian an' a law-lover:
despite my seekin' godliness an' abhorin' iniquity?"
There was in the sober expression of the questioner no cast of
hypocrisy or conscious anomaly, and the younger man shook his head.
"I hain't never shirked no labor, neither in ther field ner at ther
still, but----" He paused a moment and once more the rebellious light
flared in his eyes and he continued with the level steadiness of
resolution. "But I hates ter foller thet business, an' when I comes of
age I aims ter quit hit."
"Ye aims ter quit hit, does ye?" The old mountaineer forgot, in the
sudden leaping of wrath at such unfilial utterances, that he himself
had a few minutes before spoken in the same tenor. "Ye aims ter defy
me, does ye? Wa'al even afore ye comes of age hit wouldn't hardly hurt
ye none ter quit _drinkin'_ hit. Ye're too everlastin' good ter _make_
blockade licker, but ye hain't none too good ter lay drunk up thar with
hit."
This time the boy's flush was one of genuine chagrin and he bit off the
instinctive retort that perhaps a realization of this overpowering
thirst was the precise thing which haunted him: the exact urge which
made him want to break away from a serfdom that held him always chained
to his temptation.
"Ye thinks ye're too much like Abe Lincoln ter make blockade licker,"
went on the angry parent, "but ye hain't above rampagin' about these
hills seekin' trouble an' raisin' up enemies whar I've done spent my
days aimin' ter consort peaceable with my neighbors. Hit hain't been
but a week since ye broke Ratler Webb's nose."
"Hit come about in fair fight--fist an' skull, an' I only hit him
oncet."
"Nobody else didn't feel compelled ter hit him even oncet, did they?"
"Mebby not--but he was seekin' ter bulldoze me an' he hurt my feelin's.
I'd done laughed hit off twic't."
"An' so ye're a-goin' on a-layin' up trouble erginst ther future. Hit
hain't ther _makin'_ of licker thet's laid a curse on these hills.
Hit's _drinkin'_ hit. Ef a man kin walk abroad nowadays without totin'
his rifle-gun an' a-dreadin' ther shot from the la'rel, hit's because
men like me hev sought day an' night ter bring about peace. I counseled
a truce in ther Stacy-Towers war because I war a Christian an' I didn't
'low thet God favored bloodshed. But ther truce won't hardly last ef ye
goes about stirrin' up ructions.
"Bear Cat Stacy!" stormed the older man furiously as his anger fed upon
itself. "What air a bear cat anyways? Hit's a beast thet rouses up from
sleep an' crosses a mountain fer ther pure pleasure of tearin' out some
other critter's throat an' vitals. Hit's a varmint drove on by ther
devil's own sperit of hatefulness.
"Even in ther feud days men warred with clean powder an' lead, but
sich-like fightin' don't seem ter satisfy ye. Ye hain't got no use fer
a rifle-gun. Ye wants ter tear men apart with yore bare hands an' ter
plumb rend 'em asunder! I've trod ther streets of Marlin Town with ye,
an' watched yore eyes burnin' like hot embers, until peaceable men drew
back from ye an' p'inted ye out ter strangers. 'Thar goes ther Bear
Cat,' they'd whisper. 'Give him ther whole road!' Even ther town
marshal walked in fear of ye an' war a-prayin' ter God Almighty ye
wouldn't start nothin'."
"I don't never seek no fight." This time Turner Stacy spoke without
shame. "I don't never have no trouble save whar I'm plumb _obleeged_
ter hev hit."
"Thet's what Kinnard Towers always 'lowed," was the dry retort, "though
he's killed numerous men, and folks says he's hired others killed,
too."
The boy met the accusing glance and answered quietly:
"Ye don't favor peace no more than what I do."
"I've aimed ter be both God-fearin' an' law-abidin'," continued the
parent whose face and figure might have been cast in bronze as a type
of the American pioneer, "yet ye censures me fer makin' untaxed
licker!" His voice trembled with a repressed thunder of emotion.
"I've seed times right hyar on this creek when fer ther most part of a
whole winter we hurted fer salt an' thar warn't none to be had fer love
nor money. Thar warn't no money in these hills nohow--an' damn'-little
love ter brag about. Yore maw an' me an' Poverty dwelt hyar
tergether--ther three of us. We've got timber an' coal an' no way ter
git hit ter market. Thar's jest only one thing we kin turn inter money
or store-credit--an' thet's our corn run inter white licker."
He paused as if awaiting a reply and when his son volunteered none he
swept on to his peroration. "When I makes hit now I takes numerous
chances, an' don't complain. Some revenuer, a-settin' on his hunkers,
takin' life easy an' a-waitin' fer a fist full of blood money is liable
ter meet up in ther highway with some feller thet's nursin' of a grudge
erginst me or you. Hit's plumb risky an' hits damn'-hard work, but hit
hain't no wrong-doin' an' ef yore grandsires an' yore father hain't
been above hit, I rekon _you_ hain't above hit neither."
Turner Stacy was still standing on the porch, with one finger marking
the place where he had left off reading his biography of Lincoln--the
master of men.
Born of a line of stoics, heir to laconic speech and reared to stifle
emotions, he was inarticulate and the somberness of his eyes, which
masked a pageantry of dreams and a surging conflict in his breast,
seemed only the surliness of rebellion.
He looked at his father and his mother, withered to sereness by their
unrelenting battle with a life that had all been frostbite until even
their power of resentment for its injustice had guttered out and dried
into a dull acceptance.
His fingers gripped the book. Abraham Lincoln had, like himself,
started life in a log house and among crude people. Probably he, too,
had in those early days no one who could give an understanding ear to
the whispering voices that urged him upward. At first the urge itself
must have been blurred of detail and shadowy of object.
Turner's lips parted under an impulse of explanation, and closed again
into a more hopelessly sullen line. The older man had chafed too long
in heavy harness to comprehend a new vision. Any attempt at
self-expression would be futile.
So the picture he made was only that of a headstrong and wilful junior
who had listened unmoved to reason, and a mounting resentment kindled
in the gaze of the bearded moonshiner.
"I've done aimed ter talk reason with ye," barked the angry voice, "an'
hit don't seem ter convince ye none. Ef ther pattern of life I've sot
ye hain't good enough, do ye think ye're better than yore maw, too?"
"I didn't never say ye warn't good enough." The boy found himself
freezing into defiant stiffness under this misconstruction until his
very eagerness to be understood militated against him.
"Wa'al, I'll tell ye a thing I don't talk a heap about. Hit's a thing
thet happened when ye was a young baby. I spent two y'ars in prison
then fer makin' white whiskey."
"You!" Turner Stacy's eyes dilated with amazement and the older face
hardened with a baleful resentment.
"Hit warn't jest bein' put in ther jail-house thet I kain't fergit ner
fergive so long as I goes on livin'. Hit war ther _reason_. Ye talks
mighty brash erbout ther sacredness of ther Revenue laws--wa'al, listen
ter me afore ye talks any more." He paused and then continued, as if
forcing himself to an unwelcome recital.
"I've always borne the name hyarabouts of bein' a law-abidin' citizen
and a man thet could be trusted. I'd hoped ter bring peace to the
mountings, but when they lawed me and sent me down to Looeyville fer
trial, ther Govern_ment_ lawyer 'lowed thet sence I was a prominent
citizen up hyar a-breakin' of the law, they had ought to make a sample
of me. Because my reputation was good I got two y'ars. Ef hit hed been
bad, I mout hev come cl'ar."
The son took an impulsive step forward, but with an imperious wave of
the hand, his father halted him and the chance for a sympathetic
understanding was gone.
"Hold on! I hain't quite done talkin' yit. In them days we war livin'
over ther ridge, whar Little Ivy heads up. You thinks this hyar's a
pore fashion of dwellin'-house, but _thet_ one hed jest a single room
an' na'ry a winder in all hits four walls. You're maw war right ailin'
when they tuck me away ter ther big Co'te an' she war mighty young,
too, an' purty them days afore she broke. Thar warn't no man left ter
raise ther crops, an' _you_ ra'red like a young calf ef ye didn't git
yore vittles reg'lar.
"I reckon mebby ye hain't hardly got no proper idee how long two y'ars
kin string out ter be when a man's sulterin' behind bars with a young
wife an' a baby thet's liable ter be starvin' meanwhile! I reckon ye
don't hardly realize how I studied down thar in prison about ther snow
on these Godforsaken hillsides an' ther wind whirrin' through ther
chinks. But mebby ye _kin_ comprehend this hyar fact. _You'd_ hev
pintedly starved ter death, ef yore maw hedn't rigged up a new still in
place of ther one the Govern_ment_ confiscated, an' made white licker
all ther time I was down thar sarvin' time. _She_ did thet an' paid off
ther interest on the mortgage an' saved a leetle mite for me erginst
ther day when I come home. Now air ye sich a sight better then yore maw
was?"
A yellow flood of sunlight fell upon the two figures and threw into a
relief of high lights their two faces; one sternly patriarchal and
rugged, the other vitally young and spare of feature.
Corded arteries appeared on Bear Cat's temples and, as he listened, the
nails of his fingers bit into the flesh of his palms, but his father
swept on, giving him no opportunity to reply.
"My daddy hed jest shortly afore been lay-wayed an' killed by some
Towers murderer, an' his property had done been parceled out amongst
his children. Thar wasn't but jest fourteen of us ter heir hit an'
nobody got much. When they tuck me down ter ther big Co'te I had ter
hire me a lawyer--an' thet meant a mortgage. Yore maw hedn't, up ter
then, been used ter sich-like slavish poverty. She could hev married
mighty nigh any man in these parts--an' she tuck me.
"Whilst I war a-layin' thar in jail a-tormentin' myself with my
doubtin' whether either one of ye would weather them times alive, _she_
was a-runnin' ther still hyar in my stead. Many's the day she tromped
over them hills through ther snow an' mud with _you_ a-whimperin' on
her breast an' wropped in a shawl thet she needed her own self. Many's
ther night she tromped back ergin an' went hongry ter bed, so's _you_
could have plenty ter eat, when thar warn't sca'cely enough ter divide
betwixt ye. But them things _she_ did in famine days, _you're_ too
sanctified ter relish now."
Turner Stacy trembled from head to foot. It seemed to him that he could
see that grim picture in retrospect and despite his stoic's training
his eyes burned with unshed tears. Loyalty to kith and kin is the
cornerstone of every mountain man's religion, the very grail of his
faith. Into his eyes blazed a tawny, tigerish light, but words choked
in his throat and his father read, in his agitation, only a defiance
which was no part of his thought.
"Now, see hyar," he went on with mounting autocracy, "I've done told ye
things I don't oftentimes discuss. I've done reasoned with ye an' now I
commands ye! Ye hain't of age yit and until ye do be, ye've got to do
as I bids ye. Atter that, ef ye aims to turn yore back on yore family
ye can do hit, an' I reckon we can go our two ways. That's all I got to
say to ye. Now pick up that sack of gryste an' be gone with hit."
The boy's face blackened and his muscles tautened under the arrogant
domineering of the edict. For a moment he neither spoke nor stirred
from his place, though his chest heaved with the fulness of his
breathing. The elder man moved ominously forward and his tone was
violently truculent.
"Air ye goin' ter obey me or do I hev ter _make_ ye? Thar's a sayin'
thet come acrost ther waters thet no man kin lick his own daddy. I
reckon hit still holds good."
Still the son remained as unmoving as bronze while his eyes sustained
unflinchingly the wrathful gaze of a patriarchal order. Then he spoke
in a voice carefully schooled to quietness.
"As to thet sayin'," he suggested evenly, "I reckon mebbe hit mought be
disproved, but I hain't aimin' to try hit. Ye've done said some
right-hard things to-day an' some thet wasn't hardly justified--but I
aims ter fergit 'em."
Suddenly, by virtue of a leaping light in his eyes, the boy in jeans
and hodden-gray stood forth strangely transfigured. Some spirit
revelation seemed to have converted him into a mystifying incarnation
of latent, if uncomprehended power. It was as startling as though a
road-side beggar had tossed aside a drab cloak and hood of rags and
revealed beneath it, the glitter of helmet and whole armor.
"I aims ter fergit hit all," he repeated. "But don't seek ter fo'ce me
ner ter drive me none--fer thet's a thing I kain't hardly suffer. As
fur as a man kin go outen loyalty I'll go fer _you_--but I've got ter
go in my own fashion--an' of my own free will. Ye've done said that I
went erbout seekin' trouble an' I hain't got no doubt ye believes what
ye says albeit most of hit's false. Ye says I lays drunk sometimes.
Thet's true an' hit's a shameful thing fer a man ter admit, but hit's a
thing I've got ter fight out fer myself. Hit don't profit neither of us
fer ye ter vilify me."
He broke off abruptly, his chest heaving, and to Lone Stacy it seemed
that the air was electrically charged, as with the still tensity that
goes, windless and breathless, before the bursting of thunder heads
among the crags. Then Bear Cat spoke again somewhat gropingly and with
inarticulate faultiness, as though a flood pressure were seeking egress
through a choked channel. The words were crude, but back of them was a
dammed-up meaning like the power of hurricane and forest fire. "Thar's
somethin' in me--I don't know how ter name it--thar's somethin' in me
sort of strugglin' an' a-drivin' me like a torment! Thet weakness fer
licker--I hates hit like--like all hell--but I hain't _all_ weakness!
Thet thing, whatever hit be--sometimes jest when hit seems like hit
ought ter raise me up--hit crushes me down like the weight of ther
mountings themselves."
He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the house where he deposited
his book on the mantel-shelf and from behind the door swung a grain
sack to his shoulder. Then he left the house.
Lone Stacy turned to his wife and lifted his hands with a gesture of
baffled perplexity as he inquired, "Does ye understand ther boy? He's
our own blood an' bone, but sometimes I feels like I was talkin' ter a
person from a teetotally diff'rent world. Nobody round hyar don't
comprehend him. I've even heered hit norated round amongst foolish
folks thet he talks with graveyard ha'nts an' hes a witch-craft charm
on his life. Air he jest headstrong, maw, or air he so master big thet
we kain't comprehend him? No man hain't never called me a coward, but
thar's spells when I'm half-way skeered of my own boy."
"Mebby," suggested the woman quietly, "ef ye gentled him a leetle mite
he wouldn't contrary ye so much."
Lone Stacy nodded his head and spoke with a grim smile. "Seems like
I've got ter be eternally blusterin' at him jest ter remind myself thet
I'm ther head of this fam'ly. Ef I didn't fo'ce myself ter git mad, I'd
be actin' like he was my daddy instid of me bein' his'n."