Before Henderson had come that night, Blossom had been trying to study,
but the pages of her book had developed the trick of becoming blurred.
Two faces persisted in rising before her imagination; one, the
reproachful countenance of Bear Cat, whom she ought to love
whole-heartedly; the other, that of Henderson, whom she told herself
she admired only as she might admire the President of the United States
or the man who had written the dictionary--with distant and respectful
appreciation.
"He says I'm all right," she mused, "but I reckon he _knows_ in his
heart that I ain't good enough fer him--ner fer his folks."
Tears sprang into her eyes at the confession, and her reasoning went
upon the rocks of illogic. "In the first place," she irrelevantly
argued, "I'm in love with Bear Cat--an' in the second to think about
Mr. Henderson would be right smart like crying for the moon."
Then Henderson had come; had come asking refuge from danger. He had
declared his love with tumultuous force--and it seemed to Blossom that,
after all, the moon was hers without crying for it.
When she had fed him in silence, because of the possibility of lurking
spies outside, they sat, unmindful of passing hours, before the roar of
the stone hearth and as the man's arms held her close to him she let
her long lashes droop over her eyes and surrendered her hair and lips
to his kisses.
They had no great need of words, but sometimes she raised her lids and
gazed steadfastly into his face, and as the carmine flecks of the blaze
lighted her cheeks, the eyes were wide and unmasked, with a full, yet
proud, surrender.
He thought that for this gift of flower-like beauty and love the
abandonment of his stern opportunism was a cheap exchange. His eyes,
too, were glowing with an ardent light and both were spared the irony
of realization that afterward impulse must again yield to the
censorship of colder considerations. There is nothing more real than an
impossible dream--while it endures.
Once the girl's glance fell on a home-made doll, with a coarse wig of
horse-hair, propped on the mantel-shelf. It was one of those crude
makeshifts which mountain children call poppets, as our
great-grandfathers' great-grandmothers called them puppets.
A shadow of self-accusing pain crossed Blossom's face. "Turney whittled
that poppet fer me outen hickory wood when I was a jest a leetle gal,"
she whispered remorsefully, then added: "Turney 'lowed ter wed me some
day."
Henderson reassured her with irrefutable logic.
"Turner wouldn't have you disobey your heart, Blossom. Only you must be
sure what your heart commands."
"I _am_ sure. I'm plumb dead-sartain sure!" she vehemently responded,
though still in a suppressed voice.
They sat before the fire, alertly wakeful, in the shadow of impending
danger until the first pale hint of dawn. Then Blossom went out with
water pails, ostensibly busied about her early tasks but really on a
journey of investigation.
Returning, satisfied of temporary safety, she said briefly and
authoritatively: "Come on, hit won't do fer ye ter tarry hyar. They'll
come back, sartain sure. Thar's a leetle cave back thar in ther rocks
that's beknownst only to Turner an' me. Hit's dry an' clean an' thar's
sweet water runnin' through hit. I'll fotch ye yore victuals every
day--an' when the s'arch fer ye lets up a leetle, I'll guide ye acrost
inter Virginny whar ye kin strike the railroad without goin' back to
Marlin Town."
"If I were you, Blossom," suggested the man as they slipped out of the
house before full daylight, "I wouldn't tell Brother Fulkerson anything
about my hiding place. These men who seek my life are probably
influential. If your father can truthfully deny any knowledge of my
being near, it will save him embarrassment. I don't want to make
enemies for him--and you."
The girl pondered this phase of the situation judicially for a moment,
then nodded gravely: "I reckon thet's ther wisest way," she agreed.
For three days Blossom carried food across the steeps to the hidden
man, then late one cold night, when again her father was away on some
mission of kindness which would keep him from home for twenty-four
hours or more, she appeared at the mouth of the cave and signaled to
the refugee.
She had decided that the moment had arrived for making the dash with
him across the Virginia border, and since she knew every foot of the
way, it would be better to travel in the cover of darkness.
It was a long and tedious journey, and the girl led the way tirelessly
through frost-rimed thickets with a resilient endurance that seemed
incompatible with her slenderness.
When the rising sun was a pale disk like platinum, they had arrived on
the backbone of a high ridge and the time had come for parting.
Below them banks of white vapor obliterated the valleys. Above them, in
the misty skies, began to appear opalescent patches of exquisite color
and delicacy. About them swept and eddied clean and invigorating
currents of frosted air.
For a little while reluctant of leave-taking, they stood silent, and
the argent shield of the sun burst into fiery splendor. Then the
heights stood out brilliant and unveiled.
"I reckon," said Blossom falteringly, "hit's come time to bid ye
farewell."
The man took her hands in his and held them lingeringly; but with a
sudden and passionate gesture Blossom withdrew them and threw her arms
about his neck.
"But ye hain't a-goin' fer always? Ye aims ter come back ter me ergin
in good time, don't ye?"
For a little while he held her tightly clasped with his lips pressed to
her soft hair, then he spoke impetuously:
"I aims ter come back ter ye right soon."
"Ye mustn't come twell hit's safe, though," she commanded, and after
that she asked softly: "Now thet we're plighted I reckon ye don't
forbid me ter tell my pappy, does ye?"
Henderson's muscles grew suddenly rigid and beads of sweat moistened
his forehead in spite of the frosty tang of the morning air.
The words brought back a sudden and terrifying realization; the renewed
conflict of a dilemma. He was going out into the other world, leaving
the dead reckoning of the primal for the calculated standards of
modernity. He was plighted to a semi-illiterate! Yet as her breath came
fragrantly from upturned lips against his temples, all that went down
under a wave of passionate love.
"No, Blossom," he advised steadily, "don't tell him yet. There are
things that must be arranged--things that are hard to explain to you
just now. Wait until I come back. I've got to study out this attack
from ambush so that I can know whom I'm fighting and how to fight. It
may take time--and if I write to you, naming a place,--will you come to
me?"
Gravely and with full trust she nodded her head. "I'll come
anywhars--an' any time--to you," she told him, and the man kissed her
good-bye.
* * * * *
Turner Stacy's longing to see Blossom had driven him to the imprudence
of breaking the restrictions of exile. After traveling by night and
hiding by day it happened that he was breasting a ridge just at sunrise
one morning on his way to her house, when his alert gaze caught an
indistinct movement through the hazy half-light of the dawn. He could
make out only that two figures seemed coming west along the mist-veiled
path and that they appeared to be the figures of a man and a woman.
Surprised to encounter travelers at so remote a spot at that hour, he
edged cautiously into the underbrush and lay flat on a huge rock which
overlooked the path from a low eminence at its right.
They had halted just beyond the range of hearing, but when with
mountain suddenness, like a torn curtain, the half-light became
full-light he froze into a petrified astonishment which seemed to have
clutched and squeezed all the vitality out of his heart, and to have
left his blood currentless.
The abrupt revelation of light had fallen on the bright hair of Blossom
Fulkerson and the dark uncovered head of Jerry Henderson; and before
the monstrous incredibility of the situation could be fully grasped,
the girl, to whom he had bade farewell as his acknowledged sweetheart,
had thrown her arms around the neck of the man to whose loyal care he
had confided her, and that man was kissing her with a lover's ardor!
What their words might be he could not tell--but their clinging embrace
said enough--and Blossom was giving her lips with eager willingness.
[Illustration: What their words might be he could not tell--but their
clinging embrace said enough]
Bear Cat lay for a moment, sick, dizzy and motionless while a groan,
which never reached his lips, spasmodically shook his chest and
shoulders. Succeeding that paralyzed instant, a fever of unspeakable
fury surged over him and while all the rest of his body stretched
unstirring, his arms slipped forward and the muzzle of his rifle crept
over the ledge of rock. But that, too, was only a response to instinct
and the thumb halted in the act of cocking the hammer. His vengeance
called not only for satisfaction but for glutting.
Henderson must die face to face with him, not by the stealth of
ambuscade, but by open violence to be administered with bare
hands--realizing the cause of his punishment--dying by inches!
But as he was on the point of rising to confront them, something
arrested him: the stupor of a man whose mind and heart had trusted so
implicitly that they could not yet fully credit even the full
demonstration of his eyes. This must, despite all its certainty, be
some hallucination--some wide-eyed nightmare!
While the spell of his stunned heart held him in the thrall of
inaction, Henderson and Blossom parted with slow reluctance and took up
their opposite direction of journey.
Left alone, like a man sitting, shaken and demoralized, upon the broken
debris of a wrecked universe, Turner stared ahead with a dull
incredulity. But inaction was foreign to his nature and after a while
he rose unsteadily to his feet. He turned and started at a swift stride
which broke presently into a dog-trot along the way Henderson had
taken; then he hesitated, halted and wheeled in his tracks.
"No!" he exclaimed. "No, by God, ef I meets up with _him_ the way I
feels now, I'll kill him afore he has ther chanst ter speak with me. I
kain't govern myself. I aims ter let _her_ tell hit to me her own
self!"
So he altered his direction and went plunging westward.
A short route through broken rock and tangled brush enabled him to cut
ahead of Blossom's course so that, turning an abrupt angle in the
trail, the girl found him standing before her with clenched hands and a
face so set and pale that she started back. It seemed to her that,
instead of himself, it was his ghost which confronted her.
With a slow and stifled outcry, at the apparition, she carried her
hands to her face, then broke into convulsive sobs.
"I didn't aim ter eavesdrop, Blossom," said Turner, his sternness
wavering before her tears. "But I seed ye givin' yore lips ter Jerry
Henderson back thar. Hit seems ter me like I kin almost discern the
stain of thet kiss soilin' em now. I reckon I ought rightfully ter hev
speech with him fust--but I knowed I'd kill him ef I did--an' so I held
my hand twell I'd done seed _you_."
They were both trembling, and the girl's hands came slowly away from a
face pitifully agitated. Her voice was a whisper.
"Ye mustn't censure me, Turney," she huskily protested. "I'm
plighted--ter _him_."
"Plighted!" The word broke from the man as explosively as an oath, then
after a moment's silence she heard him saying, in a slow and stunned
fashion: "I 'lowed thet ye war all but plighted to _me_."
"I knows--I knows, Turney," she pleaded desperately. "I wants thet ye
should understand. I thought thet I loved ye--I _do_ love ye better
then ef ye war my own blood brother--but I didn't know afore now ther
kind of love thet--thet----"
"Thet Jerry Henderson's done stole from me," he finished for her, in a
voice she had never before heard on his lips. "Atter all I did make a
mistake. Hit _war_ him I should hev spoke with fust--an' I reckon hit
hain't too late ter overtake him yit."
Her hands were clinging to his arms. "No, Turney," she sought to
explain. "He didn't know hit an' I didn't know hit either, when ye
left. Neither one of us wouldn't hev sought ter lie ter ye."
Bear Cat Stacy was only partly conscious of what she was saying. Before
his eyes swam red spots of fury which blinded him. If there was any
vestige of truth in his ugly suspicion that Blossom was being deceived
or played with, the responsible man, trusted friend and admired
preceptor though he had been, was Bear Cat's to kill--and must die!
So he stood, tensely strained of attitude and ashen of cheek while a
murder light kindled afresh in his eyes, and Blossom seemed the
wavering shape of a dream: the dream of every hope his life had
known--now utterly unattainable. Her fingers were clutching his taut
arms yet she seemed suddenly withdrawn from his world, leaving it void.
But she was talking earnestly, beseeching, and with the strained effort
of one striving to separate lucid voices from the chaotic din of a
delirium, he gave painstaking heed. She told the story of Jerry's
narrow escape from death and of her conducting him to a place of safe
departure. Part of it only he understood through the crashing
dissonance of tempest which still confused his brain.
The volcanic fires within him that were destined to bring earthquake
and transition were licking consumingly at the gates of his
self-control.
His whole life had been builded on a single dream: the dream of her
love--and she had promised it. For that he had fought the one enemy
that had ever mastered him, and had conquered. For that he had shaped
his life. Now he had been robbed of everything!
"Don't ye see how hit is, Turney?" she pleaded. "Hit wasn't his fault
ner hit wasn't my fault.... Hit jest had ter be! Ye sees how hit is,
don't ye?"
"Yes, I sees--how hit is!" The response came dully, then with a nearer
recovery of a natural tone he went on. "Anyways I reckon ye've got ther
right ter decide atween us. I reckon yore heart's yore own ter give or
withhold. Hit war ter me that ye pledged yoreself first. Yore first
kiss was mine--an' ye suffered me ter hope an' believe." There was a
strained pause, then he added: "But even ef I could hold yer erginst
yore free will, I wouldn't seek ter do hit."
Blossom's contrite wretchedness was so sincere and her sympathy so
inarticulate that his face presently changed. The bitter and accusing
sternness died gradually out of it and after a grief-stricken moment
gave way to a great gentleness--such a gentleness as brought a
transformation and stamped his lips and brow with a spirit of
renunciation.
"Thar was murder in my heart, jest at first, little gal," he assured
her softly, "but I reckon atter all hit's a right-pore love thet seeks
ter kill a man fer gainin' somethin' hit's lost hitself. He kin take ye
down thar whar life means sich things as ye desarves ter enjoy. With me
ye'd have ter endure ther same hardships thet broke my mother down. I
wants above all else thet ye should be happy--an' ef I kain't make ye
happy----" He paused abruptly with a choked throat and demanded: "When
does ye aim ter wed?"
The girl flushed. She did not think Turner would accord a sympathetic
understanding to her lover's somewhat vague attitude on that point, so
she only answered. "He 'lows ter write ter me--ef so be he kain't come
back soon."
"Write ter ye!" The militant scorn snapped again in his eyes, burning
away their softness as a prairie fire consumes dry grass, in its first
hot breath. "Write ter ye! No, by Almighty God in Heaven, ye says ye're
plighted ter wed him! Ye've done suffered him ter hold ye in his arms.
Mountain men comes ter fotch thar brides ter church--they don't send
fer 'em ter journey forth an' meet 'em. In these hills of old Kaintuck
men come to thar women! He's got ter come hyar an' claim ye ef he has
ter fight his way acrost every league of ther journey--an' ef he
_don't_----!" But Bear Cat broke off suddenly with a catch in his
voice.
"I've got full trust, Turney," she declared, and her eyes showed it, so
that the man forced himself to calmness again, and went on in a level
voice.
"I aims ter see thet ye hes what ye wants, Blossom, ef I hes ter plumb
tear ther hills down level by level ter git hit fer ye. I must be
a-farin' back inter Virginny," he announced a moment later with a
curtness meant to bulwark him against a fresh outburst of feeling.
Blossom raised her hands as if to detain him, then let them drop again
with a pathetic gesture. Bear Cat picked up his hat which had fallen to
the ground and stood crushing its limp brim in his clenched fingers.
Finally he said, without anger, but very seriously: "I wants thet ye
should give me back my pledge--erbout drinkin'. Ye knows why I give hit
ter ye--an' now----"
"Oh, Turner," she interrupted protestingly, "don't ask thet!"
"I'm obleeged ter ask hit, Blossom," he obdurately answered. "I reckon
mebby I kin still win my fight with licker--but I mustn't be beholden
by a bond thet's lost hits cause."
Tearfully she nodded her head. "I'll free ye if ye demands hit," she
conceded, "but I aims ter go on a-prayin'."
* * * * *
Jerry Henderson was not a scoundrel in a general sense nor had he
hitherto been a weakling, but for once he was the self-governed man who
has lost control of his life and fallen victim to vacillation. Surging
waves of heart-hunger made him want to go recklessly back; to fight his
way, if need be, through all the Towers' minions to Blossom's side and
claim her as his promised bride.
Other and perhaps saner waves of tremendous misgiving beat with steady
reiteration against those of impulse. He must live out most of his days
among people to whom such an alliance would be stripped of all
illusion; would resolve itself into nothing more than a mesalliance.
For both of them it would eventuate in wreck--and so Blossom heard
nothing from him and she tasted first fear, then despair.
At last Kinnard Towers either learned or guessed the truth; that
Blossom had hidden Henderson out in the absence of her father and had
aided his escape. He saw to it that the report gained wide currency in
a land avid for gossip.
Whatever the condition of his love affairs, Jerry came up short against
the realization that he could not indefinitely abandon his business. He
must, in some way, demonstrate that he was not being effectively put to
flight by feudal threats and so he carried his perplexities to Lone
Stacy, who was awaiting trial in the Louisville jail, and unbosomed
himself in a full and candid recital.
The bearded moonshiner, gaunter than ever and with the haunted eyes of
a caged eagle, listened with grave courtesy but with a brow that
gradually knitted into an expression half puzzled and half sinister.
"I reckon Bear Cat'll feel right-sensibly broke up," he said slowly.
"Ye've done cut him out with his sweetheart, endurin' his absence from
home, and ther two of 'em's growed up without no other notion then thet
of bein' wed some day."
Henderson was on the point of self-justification, but before he could
speak the prisoner went thoughtfully on: "Howsoever, a gal's got a
rather as to her sweet-heartin'--an' ef ye won her fa'r an'
above-board, I reckon Turner kin be fa'r-minded, too. I was thinkin' of
somethin' else, though. From what ye tells me hit looks like es ef all
these things, my jailin' an' yore lay-wayin', is jest pieces of one
pattern. Hit looks like _I_ was brought down hyar so thet Kinnard
Towers could git _you_. Ef I'd a-knowed erbout his warnin' ye off thet
night ye came, I mout hev guessed hit afore now."
He rose and paced the floor of the room where prisoners were permitted
to receive guests bearing special permits--under the chaperonage of a
turnkey. Suddenly he halted and his eyes flared, though his voice
remained low and tense.
"I'm a Christian an' a man of peace," he said ominously, "but ef what I
suspicions air true I don't aim ter submit ter hit. Does ye want ter go
back thar ter Little Slippery?"
"I do, indeed," replied Henderson eagerly. "And soon!"
"All right then. Ther Stacys hev still got some power acrost Cedar
Mounting an' they aims ter exercise hit. I'll straightway send a letter
ter my brother, Joe Stacy. Ef ye gits offen ther train in Marlin Town
one week from terday, he'll be thar ter meet ye--an' he'll hev enough
men thar with rifle-guns ter see ye through safe--an' hold ye safe,
too."
"Joe Stacy," repeated Henderson, "I've never met him, have I?"
"I don't hardly believe ye hes. He dwells on Skinflint, but he'll know
_you_ when he sees ye."
Later that same day the turnkey, who had from time to time received
certain courtesies from Mark Tapper, repeated the conversation to that
officer, and within forty-eight hours a messenger relayed it verbally
to Kinnard Towers.
"Ef thar's any way ter head off thet letter ter Joe, now," reflected
the backwoods master of intrigue, "an' thet bodyguard don't show up--I
reckon we kin still compass what we failed in, ther first time."
* * * * *
To the house in Virginia where Bear Cat was temporarily established
came Lew Turner, a distant kinsman on an enterprise of cattle trading.
The meeting was a coincidence though a natural one, since their host
was a man who had migrated from Little Slippery and had long been known
to both. Shortly the two sat alone in conversation, and Bear Cat
demanded news from home.
"Wa'al thar hain't no welcome tidings ter give ye. They keeps puttin'
off yore paw's trial jest ter frazzle him out, fer one thing," began
the newcomer lugubriously. "Then Henderson come back from down below
an' some fellers aimed ter lay-way him, so he sought refuge in Brother
Fulkerson's dwellin'-house when ther preacher warn't thar. Blossom tuck
him in outen charity an' the two of 'em spent ther night thar all alone
by tharselves. Hit didn't become gin'rally known till after he'd got
away safe, but then ther gossips started in tongue-waggin'."
"Hold on, Lew! By God Almighty, ye've done said too much," Bear Cat
broke out with a dangerous note of warning, his eyes narrowing into
slits of menacing glitter.
The man from home hastily hedged his statement. "Hit warn't no fashion
Blossom's fault. He'd done faithfully promised ter wed with her."
Bear Cat Stacy had risen eruptively out of his chair. He bent over the
intervening table, resting on hands in which the knuckles stood out
white. "Go on!" he commanded fiercely. "What next?"
"Thet's erbout all, save thet since thet time she's done been pinin'
round like somebody sickenin' ter her death. Es fer ther preacher, he
just clamps his mouth shet an' won't say nothin' at all. Howsoever, he
looks like he'd done been stricken."
Bear Cat straightened up and passed a hand across his forehead. He was
rocking unsteadily on his feet as he reached for his hat.
"Whar air ye a-goin', Bear Cat?" asked the kinsman, with a sudden fear
for the consequences of his narrative.
"Whar am I 'goin'? God, He knows! Wharever Jerry Henderson's at,
_thar's_ whar I'm 'goin'--an' no man hed better seek ter hinder me!"