PIPE-SMOKE--AND POWDER-SMOKE
Dawn swept across the Shawangunks.
From the far-off crests of the Berkshires light leaped athwart the
silvery Hudson and smote the frowning cliffs of the Great Wall of the
Wallkill Valley: a grim gray precipice stretching mile after mile to
the northeast, towering eight hundred feet upward from the lower lands;
unscalable, impenetrable save at one small high gap--the Jaws of the
Traps, whence in other days the redskin had slipped forth in bloody
foray on the settlers below, and where in turn the white man had lurked
in retaliatory ambush. Through that gap now wormed the sandy road of
the descendants of those pioneers, and along that road at this early
hour passed nothing more sinister than dawn-sheen and morning breeze.
At the top of the crag-wall the light sped across the forested gulf
of the Traps itself, with its tiny scattered farmhouses and its rocky
clearings and mysterious by-paths, to strike against more cliffs--the
glacier-gouged wall of Minnewaska, holding in its stony setting a
tiny jewel of an upland lake; and the fissured butte of Dickie Barre,
father of gigantic bowlders and guardian of unknown caverns. And as the
dayshine flung itself against those forbidding ledges and then fled
on westward, the following breeze also threw against them a wave of
sound--the dry quacking chorus of myriads of katydids.
All through the moonless September night those queer insects had ground
out their tuneless song, so monotonous and so steady that the ears of
other living things had long since become dulled to it. But now, swept
by the dawn-wind in among the echoing crevices and cañons, it seemed
suddenly redoubled in volume. Upon the senses of native bird and beast
it made slight impact, for they were well used to it; but on the nerves
of a long, blanketed figure lying in a narrow passage between towering
stone walls it struck like the clatter of an alarm-clock. His towsled
blond head moved, his long-lashed lids lifted, and his blue eyes darted
about in inspection of his surroundings.
Beside his head lay a shotgun, its muzzle pointing outward, its
safety-catch off, ready for instant use. Beyond the slit of an entrance
showed nothing but more rocks and a labyrinthine tangle of trees and
brush. Behind, the sheer wall of Dickie Barre alone was visible across
a roomy space open to the sky. The only sounds were the everlasting
quack of the insects and the subdued _yarrup_ of some invisible
yellowhammer flitting about in search for a breakfast.
He yawned, stretched, and sat up. The blanket dropped from his chest,
and he stared blankly at it. Then his gaze shot toward the cliff beyond.
“Well, you ought to be spanked hard, you little bunch of wilfulness!”
he muttered. “Sneaked in here after I was asleep and spread this
blanket over me, didn’t you? And you needed both of ’em yourself--it’s
clammy up here at night. And walking on that bad foot, too!”
But his eyes belied his growling tone as he arose and tiptoed to the
end of the passage. As they swept the farther wall and dwelt on the
little huddle of gray blanket beside the charred embers of the fire
they softened still more. Obviously the girl muffled under that stout
sheet of wool was sleeping as peacefully on her mattress of fragrant
hemlock tips as if at home in her own bed.
“These mountain girls are as tough as rawhide,” he thought. “Imagine a
city girl going through what she did last night without a whine! And
sleeping like that under a rock. And----”
His hand strayed to a shirt pocket and fingered some crumbled shreds of
tobacco.
“And saving some smokes for me and stubbing over here on a sprained
ankle to give me half the bedding. Would any of those flossy dolls in
New York--or Chi or San Fran or N’Orleans--do that? Humph!”
Softly he stepped along the little shelf where last night he had set
lamp and gun; sank to a comfortable squat, his back against the wall;
filled and lit his pipe. Thereafter he squatted a few minutes smoking
and musing.
“‘Nigger Nat’s girl,’” he thought. “Daddy a drunken yellow mongrel,
mother a hard-tongued half-breed. How in thunder can a pair like that
produce such a witching wildcat as Marion Oaks? Her skin’s brown, but
the brown is only sun-tan, or my eyes are liars. And that hair and
those eyes! How come?”
A flirt of active wings drew his gaze away for a moment. On a limb of a
plucky young pine growing from the face of the cliff above, a pair of
inquisitive yellowhammers had paused to spy and gossip. Their bright
eyes peered knowingly downward, and as they bobbed and bowed their
restless heads the black crescents under their creamy throats vied for
notice with the brilliant red splashes behind their crowns. Up and down
the branch they hopped, murmuring fussily over this most scandalous
event--a man and a girl shamelessly occupying an outdoor boudoir, just
as if they were as free of convention as the birds themselves. The man
smiled up at them and waved a hand in acknowledgment of their sharp
scrutiny. Instantly they winnowed away on whispering wings, to perch
again farther on and renew their eager watch. Douglas resumed his
puffing and puzzling.
“Must be a throwback of heredity,” he decided. “There are such things
as red-headed niggers. Saw one in Detroit once. The white strain in
her folks cropped out strong when she was born. Must be tough for
a girl to be white and yet have the tainted blood in her veins. No
self-respecting white man could marry her, of course. But it’s a dirty
shame that you have to be cursed by your ancestors, little Miss Marion.
You haven’t a chance. You’ll become the ‘woman’ of some ignorant brute
down below, and before you’re thirty you’ll be old and gaunt and
broken-spirited.”
He flipped the ash from the top of his pipe-bowl and puffed on.
“And yet your mind is that of a white girl--and a thoroughbred, too,”
he silently asserted. “The tobacco and the blanket prove that. And
you despise your mongrel people. You run away up here to your little
secret ‘playhouse,’ and there you dream yourself to sleep, as you did
yesterday. And there’s poetry in you, too. Let’s see, what was that you
said--‘If all the dead men here should rise they’d shake the hills with
their tramping!’”
His gaze grew absent, as through the smoke he visioned an army of
musket-bearing pioneers, shaggy-haired and deerskin-clad, and of
fierce-faced Indians carrying bow and tomahawk, marching along the
ancient trails. They passed, those long-dead fighting men, and in their
wake strode whiskered mountaineers of a later day, gripping shotgun
and rifle, watching one another in distrust--the victims of bullet and
buckshot hurled from the masking thickets of rhododendron, the men who
had died at the hands of their neighbors. Crag and crevasse echoed to
the tread of their ghostly feet, and the cliffs quivered in unison. Out
through the Jaws of the Traps they swung into the eye of the rising
sun. The caverns ceased to echo. The man found himself staring at a
gray blanket and listening to the rasping clack of the katydids.
With a long sigh he arose and knocked out his pipe against his thigh.
“Oh, well,” he muttered. “The past is past, the present is here, and
the future is rolling closer every minute. Poor little kid, with your
dreams and your picture-words! I’m sorry for you. But all I can do is
to cook some more grub for you and take you home. Then we’ll each have
to gang our ain gait.”
He moved toward the dead fire, still stepping softly. But half-way
across the rocky rubble he halted short, struck by a sudden memory.
“By thunder!” he exclaimed. “I wonder if----”
Back into his mind had come a fragment of a tale told months ago in New
York by a chance acquaintance--a man from up-State.
“Yessir,” he heard the voice saying, “there’s queer things back in the
hills--stories that’s never been told much. These fellers I’m thinkin’
about, now: they were the hardest crowd you’d ever want to meet. They
were bad whites and bad Indians and bad niggers, all in this one gang
and livin’ in back of a long mountain wall with only one way into it.
Outlaws? Yessir, and worse’n that. Land pirates, I’d call ’em. Cut your
throat and never even wipe off the knife afterward.
“Well, sir, they’d come out of this here hole-in-the-wall I’m tellin’
about, and they’d waylay folks drivin’ along the roads, the rich folks
in coaches and so on. And they’d kill the men travelers and strip ’em
clean. And they’d carry off the women and hold ’em for ransom. And if
the ransom wasn’t paid the women never got out. They had to stay there
and be the women of that gang. If they were extry good-lookin’ maybe
they never got a chance to be ransomed. More’n one fine lady went into
that hole in the hills and never was heard of again. Yessir. That’s
right.
“Oh, yes, it was a long while ago. Good many years before our time.
After the Revolution, maybe--it was pretty rough in lots of places
round here then, and these fellers could fight off a whole army by
guardin’ that gap of theirs. What ever become of ’em I don’t know.
But the descendants of that gang and the women prisoners are livin’
there yet--outlaw white blood and high-toned white blood and nigger
and Indian blood all mixed up together--and I’ve heard tell that some
of ’em are handsome, especially the women. No, I never was in there
myself----”
The memory-voice died and was lost. Vainly he racked his brain for
more of the tale. Where did that man say the place was? In these
Shawangunks? Farther south in the Ramapos? Up north in the Catskills,
or far beyond in the Adirondacks? No answer came. The rest of the
story, its beginning and end, were lost in the fog of many such chance
conversations at odd moments and in odd places.
But he was sure that the locale of that legend was somewhere in the
mountains of New York State. And out there across the Traps was a long
mountain wall with but one way of entrance. And this girl’s father and
mother were of mongrel blood, and----
“By the Lord Harry, it fits!” he exclaimed aloud. “If this isn’t the
place it ought to be. And there’s been a lady--a real, high-bred
lady--in your family not many generations ago, Miss Marion, or I’m a
Chinaman!”
The surrounding rocks reverberated with his words. The blanket before
him moved quickly. Out from it rose dancing gray eyes, glowing cheeks,
and laughing red lips.
“Mornin’, Mister Detective!” she caroled. “Are you talkin’ into your
sleep, or did you find a drink somewheres? You’re foolish, sounds like.”
Somewhat sheepish, he stood a moment without reply. His eyes dwelt on
the wealth of tumbled hair, now glowing like forest-fire in the clean
light of the new day: no pale sandy tresses, but rich, vivid, Titian
red. Nowhere in it showed dark streak or telltale kink.
“Listen,” he countered. “Did you ever hear of a crowd of men--white and
red and black--who went out through the Gap over yonder and brought in
women and made slaves of them?”
At once her friendly face turned cold.
“You’re huntin’ into the wrong place,” she told him, lifting her chin.
“Our fellers don’t do that. You better look somewheres else.”
“Oh, shucks! Can’t you get rid of that idea that I’m hunting somebody?
These desperadoes were all dead long before we were born. But haven’t
you heard some such story from the old folks?”
After watching his frank face a moment she shook her head.
“No, never heard tell of such a thing. If they’re all dead, what’s the
good of worryin’ about ’em anyway?”
He shrugged and moved on toward the charred sticks, meanwhile turning
the conversation into another channel.
“How’s the ankle?”
She probed under the blanket, threw the covering aside, pushed herself
up, and took a tentative step.
“Why, by mighty, mister! You’re a reg’lar doctor! It’s sore, but it
ain’t half as bad as ’twas. It hurt terrible last night when I----”
She stopped abruptly, but her eyes went to the entrance.
“When you came and covered me up? Serves you right. That was the most
foolish thing--but I thank you, just the same.”
Her lips opened, but for a moment no word came. Her eyes still were
fixed on the narrow slit, and a little frown of concentration furrowed
her brow. He pivoted and squinted against the glare of the rising sun
now darting in at that crack. Then she spoke--low and tense.
“Where’s your gun? Layin’ there?”
“Yes.”
“Go git it!”
He sprang for the passage, where the weapon still lay beside his
discarded blanket. As he moved he heard a badly balanced stone outside
grate under the weight of a moving body.
In a bounding rush he was across the open cavern and between the
bowlders. With a swoop he snatched up his gun. His clutching hand
closed with one finger inside the trigger-guard.
Before he realized that he was pressing the little curved lever,
the gun jumped violently backward. A thundering report smashed out.
Powder-gas stung his throat. The firearm fell with a sullen _clack_ on
the stones beside his feet.
Vaguely his deafened ears received the echo of the shot roaring along
the farther wall of the Traps, a mile away. He felt, rather than heard,
something fall among the rocks outside.
Grabbing the gun again, he slipped forward to the entrance. At the
corners of the upstanding bowlders he halted short, staring at a
huddled form which had collapsed among the prone blocks beyond.
Only the head and upper torso of the stranger were visible, his lower
body and legs lying behind a slanting stone. But clear in the sunlight
showed a wan, pinched young face, swarthy-skinned, with close-cropped
black hair. Along the stone under the head crept a red trickle.
Suddenly Douglas was thrown aside. From behind him Marion darted,
wild-eyed. From her pale lips broke a sharp cry: “Steve!”
Across the stones she struggled. Beside the youth she dropped. Then she
turned to Douglas a face startling in its white wrath.
“You--murderin’--hound!” she choked. “You’ve kilt him!”