On my right rose a jagged wall of rock, hundreds of feet high and bare
of vegetation save for a few dwarfed and wind-swept pines. On my left
gaped the wide mouth of what seemed to be a bottomless ravine. Between
the two was a ledge not more than six feet wide, along which "Jef'son
Davis," my mountain horse, was slowly and thoughtfully making his
difficult way. Occasionally from the pit's depths a hawk or
turkey-buzzard rose, startling me with the flapping of its strong
wings, and several times the feet of Jef'son Davis dislodged a bit of
rock which rattled across the ledge, slipped over the side, and
started on a downward journey whose distance I dared not estimate.
For more than an hour I had not met a human being. I had not seen a
mountain cabin or even a nodding plume of smoke. I had not heard the
bark of a dog, the tinkle of a cow-bell, nor any other reassuring and
homely testimony that I was in a world of men. Yet I knew that
somewhere around me must be lurking figures and watchful eyes, for I
was in the stronghold of the Morans and the Tyrrells, and the Morans
and Tyrrells were on the war-path, and therefore incessantly on guard.
This journey through the Virginia mountains to "write up family feuds"
was the result of an inspiration recently experienced by Colonel
Cartwell, our editor-in-chief. He was sure I could uncover "good
dramatic stuff."
"They're potting at each other every minute down there," he explained
to me when he sent me off on the assignment. "Give their time to it.
Morans and Tyrrells are the worst. Tyrrell has killed six Morans. Get
his story before the Morans get him. See? And find out what it's all
about, anyway."
According to the map I had made that morning under the direction of
the postmaster of Jayne's Crossroads, I knew I must be even now within
a mile of the cabin of the Morans.
"'Tain't healthy travelin' fo' men," that gentleman had volunteered
languidly, "but I reckon a lady's safe 'nuff, 'specially ef yo' leave
the jou'ney to the hawse. Jef'son Davis, he knows ev'ry inch of that
thar trail. All yo' got t' do is t' give Jef'son his haid."
Jef'son Davis was having his head, and he had thus far been true to
his trust. At a certain point on the trail I was to look for huge
boulders in a strange position, with a big and lonely cedar standing
guard near them. At the right of this cedar was an almost hidden
trail, which, followed for twenty minutes, would lead me to the Moran
cabin. I was not to be alarmed if a bullet whispered its sinister
message in my ear. To kill women was no part of the Moran traditions,
and a fatality to me would be a regrettable incident, due wholly, if
it occurred at all, to the impulsive nature of Samuel Tyrrell, who had
formed the careless habit of firing at moving objects without pausing
to discover what they were. It was because of this eccentricity, I
gathered, that the sympathy of the mountain people lay largely with
Moran--who, moreover, though both men were the last of their
respective lines, was a boy of twenty-two, while Tyrrell was well on
in middle life.
I rode slowly along the trail, which, clear in the high lights of the
noonday sun, was now widening and turning to the right. The ravine
appeared to be growing more shallow. Flashes of red haw and scarlet
dogwood began to leap out at me from the edges. Presently, beyond the
turn, I discovered the boulders, silhouetted sharply against the soft
October sky. Near them was the lonely cedar, and after twice passing
it I found the side-trail, and rode peacefully down its dim corridor.
There was nothing to mark the Moran home, and that, too, I almost
passed before I noticed it, a strongly built log cabin, backed against
the side of a hill, and commanding from its three barred windows the
approaches on every side. As I rode up, the door opened and an old
woman in a homespun dress stood before me. Her shoulders sagged under
the burden of seventy-five years, but the flame of an unconquerable
spirit burned in the keen black eyes set bead-like in her withered
little brown face. This, I knew, was Betsy Moran, who had helped to
bury her husband, four sons, and a grandson, all killed by the
Tyrrells, and who was said finally to have seized a gun herself and
added at least one Tyrrell to the row in the family burial-lot.
"How do you do?" I asked, cheerfully. "May I come in and rest for a
few moments?"
Her face did not soften, nor did she speak, but there was neither
suspicion nor fear in her steady regard; it held merely a
dispassionate curiosity. I slipped from the back of Jef'son Davis and
hesitated, looking around for a post or tree to tie him to, and the
old woman, stirred to a quick instinct of hospitality, looked
uncertainly behind her into the cabin. At the same instant a young
giant appeared behind her, pushed her lightly to one side, and strode
toward me with a nod of greeting. Then, taking the bridle-rein from my
hand, and still in silence, he led the horse away. Evidently the
Morans were not a talkative family.
Wholly forgetting the old woman, I stared after him. Here, obviously,
was young "Shep," the last of the Morans; and from the top of his
curly black hair to the boot-soles six feet two inches below it, he
looked extremely well able to take care of himself. He was powerfully
built, and he moved with the natural grace of the superb young animal
he was. He wore a rough homespun blue shirt, open at the neck, and a
pair of corduroy trousers tucked into high boots. From the swing of
his back as he strode off with Jef'son Davis I should hardly have been
surprised to see him throw that weary animal across his mighty
shoulders.
When he had disappeared I walked thoughtfully to the cabin door,
meeting again the level gaze of my hostess. A sudden gleam in her eyes
and a quick lift of her white head showed me she had caught my
unconscious tribute to the strength and beauty of the young man, who
was not only the last of her line, but, according to mountain
traditions, the "apple of her eye."
"Come 'long in," she said, quietly; and she added as I crossed her
threshold, "Ef yo' rid 'crost th' Gap, yo' mus' be mi-i-ghty ti'ed."
[Illustration: IT WAS YOUNG "SHEP," THE LAST OF THE MORANS]
She pushed a chair in front of the great fireplace which filled one
side of the cabin, and I dropped gladly into it and took off my hat,
while she bustled about with hospitable enterprise, heating water and
rattling tea-cups. Suddenly she disappeared, and in another instant I
heard the despairing, final squawk of an unfortunate hen. I knew that
within the hour it would be served to me in a strange dish in which
the flavors of burnt feathers and of tough, unseasoned meat would
struggle for recognition, and I sighed. But the great logs burning in
the old fireplace were good to watch, and their warmth was
comforting, for the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud and an autumn
wind had begun to whine around the cabin and in the big chimney.
There were only five pieces of furniture in the room--a narrow,
home-made wooden bed occupying one corner, a large spinning-wheel, a
pine table, a rough log settle, and the chair in which I sat. At the
right of the fireplace a ladder led to a trap-door which evidently
opened into a low attic--young Moran's quarters, I assumed. Just
outside the open door stood a low, flat-topped tree-trunk, holding a
tin basin full of water; a homespun towel on a nail below it testified
mutely to its past usefulness. While I was regarding these, the master
of the house reappeared, plunged his black head into the basin, flung
the water in a spray over his face and hands, wiped them on the towel,
and entered the cabin, ready for dinner. His immediate impulse was to
attend to the fire, and as he approached it he cast a side glance at
me, as shy and curious as that of some half-tamed creature of the
open. When he had put on another log he spoke without looking at me,
his brown cheeks flushing with the effort.
"Done fed th' critter," he announced, laconically.
I thanked him, and mercifully kept my eyes on the fire. For a time he
remained there, too, with occasional darting glances at me, which
finally, as I seemed unaware of them, settled into a steady and close
inspection. I realized what a strange, new type I presented to him--a
young woman from New York, wearing a riding-habit and riding-boots,
trim and slim and tailor-made. His glance lingered a long time on my
hair and my hands. There was nothing offensive about it. At first
merely curious, it had finally become reflective and friendly. At last
I began to talk to him, and after several false starts he was able to
respond, sprawling opposite me on the big settle, his hands clasped
behind his curly head, his legs extended toward the fire, while I told
him of New York and answered his extraordinary questions.
It had seemed somehow fitting that the sun should go behind a cloud
when I entered this tragic home; but for a long time there was no
intimation in our talk of the other shadows that lay over the cabin,
of the bloody trail that led to it, of the tragic row of graves on the
hill beside it, or of the bullets that had whispered the failure of
their mission in this boy's ears. We were a fairly cheerful company as
we drew up to the pine table when the old woman announced dinner, and
even the stoic calm of her face relaxed over the story of some of my
experiences on the trail with Jef'son Davis. She did the honors of her
house a little stiffly, but with dignity; and always, except when she
was thus engaged, her black eyes focused on the face of her grandson
and clung there, fixed. Her contribution to our talk consisted of two
eloquent sentences:
"Sometimes we got but'r," she remarked, as we sat down, "sometimes we
hain't. T'day we hain't."
We had, however, the expected chicken, with corn bread and tea, and in
the perfect flowering of his hospitality, young Shep Moran heaped
these high upon my plate, and mourned when I refused to devour the
entire repast. He was chatting now with much self-possession, while
under his talk and his occasional shy but brilliant smile his
grandmother expanded like a thirsty plant receiving water. He had, he
told me proudly, learned to read, and he owned two books--the Bible
and some poems by a man named Whittier. He knew most of the poems "by
hea't." He had never ridden on a railroad-train, but he could ride any
animal that traveled on four legs, and he had heard a fiddle played
upon during his one expedition out into the great world--his solitary
visit to Jayne's Crossroads, two years before.
When dinner was over he smoked a clay pipe before the fire, and
gradually his talk grew more intimate. He and his grandmother were
going to leave the cabin, he said, and live on the other side of the
mountain. A man had offered him a job in some coal-mines that were
being opened up. But he could not go yet--there was something he had
to do first. The shadow over the cabin seemed to deepen as he spoke. I
knew what he had to do--he had to kill Samuel Tyrrell, who had killed
his father. His uncles, his brother, and Samuel Tyrrell's sons had
killed one another. There were only himself and Samuel Tyrrell left.
He turned and looked at me. His whole expression had changed--his brow
was somber, his eyes brooding, his lips drawn back from his teeth in
an odd, unconscious snarl. Quite naturally he took it for granted that
I knew of him and his feud.
"Sam Tyrrell, he'd--" he hesitated, then added under his breath, as he
glanced at the old woman moving toward the cupboard with her
dishes--"he'd even shoot at gran ef he ketched 'er on the trail."
I rose and put on my hat. Before my eyes my mountain demigod had
suddenly been transformed into a young beast, lusting for blood. I
felt that I must get away from the oppression of the place. He made no
comment, but picked up his hat and went for my horse. When he returned
he was leading Jef'son Davis and riding his own horse, a rough-coated
mountain animal which, powerful though it was, seemed hardly up to the
huge bulk astride it. With a jerk of his head, he checked my protest
and the little cry that broke from his grandmother's lips.
"I'm jes' gwine ter th' bend," he told her, "t' p'int aout th' trail
t' Clapham's. She's gwine t' stay all night thar. Look fo' me home
'fore sundown."
The grandmother cast a quick glance at me, then dropped her eyes. The
fire seemed to have flickered and died out. Her steps dragged. In an
instant she had become a feeble, apprehensive old woman.
"Don't you take Shep no furder 'n th' bend," she quavered. "Will yuh?"
I met her look squarely. "You may be sure I will not," I promised, and
we rode away.
Young Moran's horse proved better than he looked. With the greatest
ease and lightness he carried his rider along the trail, a little in
advance of me where it was narrow, and close beside me when it widened
out. As we rode, the young man became all boy again. He knew every
mountain tree and shrub, every late plant that had raised a brave head
above the pall of autumn leaves, every bird whose note sounded near us
or which winged its flight above us. He pointed out the bright yellow
blossoms of the evening primrose, the bursting pods of the milkweed,
the "purty look" of asters, gentian, and white everlasting against the
somber background of the hills. He was delighted when we flushed a
covey of quail, and at one point he stopped abruptly to show me the
old swimming-hole which he and his brother had used, and on the banks
of which, he added grimly, his brother had been killed by Tyrrell's
eldest son. At this memory the shadow fell upon him again, and it was
while we were riding on in a silence broken only by the padded
hoof-beats of the horses that we heard a shot. Something from the
underbrush at our right went humming past me, clipped a leaf from an
overhanging bough above my companion's head, and sped onward to its
harmless finish. Moran's horse, jerked back on its haunches by the
rider's powerful grip on the bridle, stopped, trembling. Jef'son Davis
shied violently, only to be caught and steadied by the instantaneous
grasp of Moran's right hand. In the same second the young man himself
was transformed from the simple, gentle nature-lover of the trail to a
half-human spirit of hatred and revenge.
"The polecat!" he hissed. "I know whar he is. I'll _git_ him this
time!" With a quick swing he turned his horse. "Thar's your trail," he
called back over his shoulder. "Straight on tuh th' bend--then go
left."
He put his horse at a low but sharp incline on the right, and the
animal scrambled up it with straining muscles and tearing hoofs that
sent back a shower of stones and earth. In another moment horse and
rider were out of sight.
It had all happened so suddenly that I had felt no fear. Now, left
alone, it seemed incredible that it should have happened at all.
Outwardly, everything was as it had been a moment before. The soft
haze of the October atmosphere still lay over the silent hills; the
reassuring whir of crickets was in the air. Jef'son Davis, happy in
the comfort of a lax bridle, was eagerly cropping the leaves from an
overhanging tree-branch. Yet within pistol-shot of this spot an
assassin had crouched. Even now he and his enemy were perhaps having
their last struggle.
With a deep breath, I gathered up the bridle and rode back at full
speed along the trail over which I had come. When I drew near the
Moran cabin I checked Jef'son Davis's pace and proceeded at a gentle
canter. I did not wish to alarm Betsy Moran, but the door flew open
while I was still some distance away, and the old woman hurried to
meet me. Almost as soon as I had jumped from the saddle she was beside
me, her eyes staring into mine with the question she dared not ask.
"Nothing serious has happened," I said, quickly, "but--" As I
hesitated, she finished the sentence.
"They're arfter each othe'?" she said, dully. "They're shootin'?"
I nodded. Without another word, she turned and entered the cabin. I
tethered my horse to a tree and followed her. There was nothing of
helpless age about her now. Instead there was something horrible in
her silence, something appalling in the preparations she at once began
to make. She had gone through it all before--many, many times. She was
ready to go through it again whenever the hour struck, and she had
developed a terrible efficiency.
She filled the great kettle with water. She turned down the covers of
the bed. From a closet in the wall she brought out linen and bandages,
a few bottles, and several bundles of herbs, of which she began to
make some sort of brew. At last she came and sat by the fire, crouched
over it, waiting and listening. Occasionally she rose, went to the
door, and looked out. Once or twice she whimpered a little, but she
did not speak.
Darkness came. Several times I rose and put fresh logs on the fire. I
found and lit a candle, to help out the firelight. It had become
impossible to sit longer in that dim room, with its shadows and its
memories, watching the terrible patience of the mountain woman and
picturing a dead man, or a wounded one, lying helpless near the trail.
"Can't I ride somewhere and get some one?" I suggested once.
"No," the old woman answered, curtly. Half an hour later she added,
more gently, and as if there had been no interval between her words:
"They ain't no doctor in thirty miles. Ef Shep gits home, I kin tend
t' him."
It was after ten o'clock before we heard a sound outside. I jumped to
my feet, but the old woman was before me. Hurrying to the door, she
flung it wide, and, shielding the candle with her hand, peered out
into the blackness. Then, with a little cry, she handed the candle to
me and ran forward. In the darkness something was crawling toward us,
something that stumbled and rose and stumbled again. It collapsed just
as it reached us, and fell near the threshold.
Someway, together, we dragged the last of the Morans into his home,
and closed the door between him and his mountain world. His great body
seemed to fill the cabin as it lay upon the floor, the arms and legs
sprawling in incredible helplessness, the boots and trousers covered
with mud, the blue shirt torn and blood-stained. Seizing one of her
bottles, the old woman forced some of its contents between the boy's
teeth, and as she did so he opened his eyes. For a moment he stared at
her, at me, and around the cabin, dim in the flickering light of logs
and candle. Then a gleam lit up his black eyes. His lips drew back
over his teeth in a hideous, wolflike grin.
"He's done daid, gran," he choked out. "I got 'im!"
The old woman, who had been bending above him, dropped the bottle and
sat back suddenly, flinging her lean arms above her head in a movement
of wild exultation. A high cackle of joy broke from her. Then,
remembering his need, she bent over him again and tried to force him
to take more of the liquor; but he frowned it away, his stiff tongue
seeking to form words.
"I--watched--him--die," he finally articulated,
"'fo'--ever--I--tho't--o'--home!"
He closed his eyes and lapsed into unconsciousness. The old woman
rocked above him.
"He's daid," she crooned. "He's daid, daid, daid!"
For a moment I thought it was her grandson she meant, but I saw that
she was continuing her ministrations, accompanying them with this
reassurance to those deaf ears. For a long time the hideous lullaby
went on, while she washed the wound in the boy's breast and checked
its flow of blood, bandaging it as skilfully as any surgeon could have
done the work. She let me help her now--keeping cold compresses on
his hot head, for he was moaning with pain and fever, and giving him
from time to time the medicine she had brewed. We could not move his
great body, but we made him as comfortable as we could on the floor,
and worked over him there while the night wore on, and the cries of
prowling animals came to us from the mountainside.
Toward dawn the fever subsided. The boy's high color faded, and he
hardly seemed to breathe. In my inexperience I was not sure whether
these were good or bad signs, and I had no indication from Betsy
Moran, whose face never changed as she hung above him. At sunrise she
rose and went to the door, motioning to me to accompany her. There,
following the direction indicated by her pointing, shaking old finger,
I saw on the side of the hill, at the left of the cabin, six low
mounds marked by six great boulders. For a long time the mountain
woman looked at them in silence. Then she turned to me.
"He's daid," she whispered, with a kind of fierce delight. "_Tyrrell's
daid._ Here's the e-end."
She leaned against the jamb of the door, staring up at the row of
mounds defined against the desolate mountain by the first clear rays
of the sun. A light breeze lifted the loose locks of her white hair
and blew them about her face. In her eyes shone the wild exultation
that had burned there the night before, when her boy had gasped out
his message.
"Mrs. Moran," I asked, quietly, "how many Tyrrell graves are there?"
She answered me somberly, almost absently. "Five," she said. Then, on
a sudden memory, her shriveled arm went up in a gesture of triumph.
"_Six!_" she corrected herself, exultantly. "Be six in th' Tyrrell lot
t'-morrer."
Six in the Tyrrell lot to-morrow. Six in the Moran lot to-day--perhaps
seven there to-morrow. And why? Unconsciously I uttered the word
aloud, and the hills seemed to fling back the ironic question. Beside
me the old woman stirred, thinking I was speaking to her. As if the
words had touched a hidden spring, her confidence gushed forth, and as
she talked she lifted her hands and began to twist into the tiny knob
of hair at the back of her head the white locks that blew about her
eyes.
"'Twas fo'ty yeahs back," she said, at last, almost to herself. "Come
Christmas, hit's fo'ty yeahs back. Er yearlin' o' ourn had tooken up
with neighbor cattle, an' Tyrrell, he done claimed hit. They was
always polecats, th' Tyrrells. Words come o' that, an' licks follered
clost. At las' Tyrrell, he shot Amos--my man. 'Twa'n't long fo' Jep,
my oldest, Shep's father, he killed Tyrrell. That's th' sta't of it.
Now we've come t' th' e-end," she finished, and drew a long breath.
"He's daid--Tyrrell's daid. Shep, he seen 'um die."
She led the way back into the cabin, and stopped at the foot of the
ladder. "Go up thar," she said, almost gently. "Git some sleep. I
reckon ye're perished fo' it."
I protested, but in vain. It finally became plain that for some reason
she wished to be rid of me. She brought me a cup of some dark liquid
and urged me to drink it. It was not tempting in appearance or flavor,
but I drank it down. Then, as she still waited, I ascended the ladder
and found myself in Shep's room--a tiny attic, its rafters hung with
drying herbs, its pallet on the floor surprisingly clean, its one
narrow window covering the Tyrrell trail. I had not expected to sleep,
but I did--slept while the day mounted to high noon and waned to a
gorgeous autumnal sunset.
I was awakened by the sound of hoof-beats, of men's voices, of many
steps on the floor of the room below. For an instant I lay in puzzled
silence, staring at the rafters above my head. Then, as memory
awakened in its turn, I rose hurriedly and began to dress, my fingers
shaking with excitement and nervousness. I understood the meaning of
those pawing hoofs, of those heavy steps and rough voices, and as I
dressed I listened. But all I caught was the tramp of feet, the scrape
of furniture dragged across the floor, the whinnying of horses,
impatient in the rising evening wind. Once I heard the old woman's
voice, but I could distinguish only the word "sheriff." Soon I heard
the heavy steps pass out of the house, and the creak and rattle of
saddles and bridles as the visitors mounted their horses and rode
away. They went slowly. They had arranged, I assumed, some sort of
litter for the wounded man. In the room below there was absolutely no
sound.
For a moment I hesitated. How could I go down and face that stricken
old creature to whom life had just given this final turn of its
relentless screw? Then, very slowly, I descended the ladder, my back
to the room, afraid to move my eyes for fear of the scene they might
rest upon. It was not until I stood on the cabin floor that I dared to
look around me.
The living-room was swept and in perfect order. The last reflection of
the setting sun lay in a brilliant line across its immaculate floor.
The door was open, affording a view of the long trail, along which the
horsemen could be seen, riding slowly in single file. The kettle hung
on the crane, the table was set for supper, and in the center of this
peaceful scene my hostess sat alone, knitting a blue yarn sock.
Slowly she looked up at me. "Ef yo' slep' well," she said, quietly,
"mou't be yer ready t' eat?"
She rose, laid down the blue sock, and began to move about the room.
Speechless, I stared at her. I had thought the night before that,
coming from her, no evidence of self-control could surprise me. But
this uncanny poise filled me with a sort of awe. I dared not even ask
a question. She had erected between us the barrier of her primitive
dignity, her terrible courage. I could no more pass it than I could
have broken through the thick walls of her cabin.
She placed the chair at the table, and in silence I sat down. She
poured tea for me, and cut a wedge of corn bread, but I could not eat.
After a few moments I gave up the effort, rose, and took my hat from
the nail on which it hung. She watched me as I drew on my gloves. The
action seemed to recall something to her.
"Shep," she said, casually, "he had t' borry yo' critter. Ye'll git it
back soon's he kin send it."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, startled. "But--but was he able to ride--with his
wound?"
She looked at me, her eyes showing the scorn of the primitive woman
for such softness. "Lordy! Hawseback's same's a cradle to Shep," she
muttered.