THE GUARD OF THE STONE GATEWAY
At the very moment when Marion was wondering and worrying about her pal,
Florence was learning how truly one might trust the providence of God.
Being cornered, with the grizzled giant before her accusing her of “might
nigh killing” little Hallie, and with the beady-eyed individual, whom she
feared most of all, blocking the door before her, and with Bud Wax, whom
she had always thought of as a member of the enemy’s clan, groaning with
pain in the corner, she had reached the point of utter distraction when
of a sudden the man in the doorway spoke.
He had just been told that little Hallie had returned home, “might nigh
killed.”
“T’ain’t so!” he exclaimed, looking first at the one-armed giant and then
at Florence. “Hain’t narry a word of truth in what you just been saying,
Job Creech. Them thar folks never hurt Hallie. They never teched one hair
on her head. They was plumb kind an’ gentle with her. I been watchin’. I
knowed whar she was. She was so pert and contented hit were a shame to
tote her away.”
Nothing could have more surprised Florence than this speech; nothing
could have more quickly released her pent-up powers and set her brain
working on the needs of the moment.
“Hain’t nobody been totin’ Hallie back,” grumbled the giant. “This here
fureign lady brung her back.”
Florence did not hear this speech. She was already bending over the
silently sobbing child. After loosening her clothes, she chafed her cold
hands and feet until a warm red glow returned to them; then, picking her
up, she placed her on the bed and covered her in home woven blankets. In
less than a minute Hallie fell into a peaceful sleep.
“She’ll be all right when she wakens,” Florence smiled reassuringly at
the younger woman, who she thought might be the little girl’s mother.
“When she wakes up she may even recognize you all. I hope so.”
The woman stared at her as if she had spoken to them in a foreign
language.
Disregarding this, she turned to the man at the door. “This boy has
broken his arm,” she said, nodding at Bud. “It will have to be set. Have
you anything that will do for splints?”
“I reckon thar’s right smart of shakes outen the shed.”
“Will you get me some?”
The man disappeared.
After a search she found in the corner an old, faded calico dress which
was quite clean.
“This will do for binding,” she said, looking at the women. “You don’t
mind if I use it?”
“’T’ain’t no account noways.”
“All right. Thanks.”
She was obliged to hurt Bud severely while getting the bone in place and
binding it, but the boy uttered never a groan.
By the time this task was completed, finding herself quite shaky and
weak, Florence somehow made her way to a splint-bottomed chair by the
fire. Fresh fuel had been put on. In spite of the deluge of water that
now and again came dashing down the chimney, the fire burned brightly.
The thunder storm was now in full progress. Florence was surprised at
noting this.
So preoccupied had she been with her errands of mercy that she had
neither heard nor seen anything of it until this moment.
Strange indeed were her thoughts as she sat there staring at the fire. At
times it was the fire itself that held her attention. Led on by the
challenge of wind and storm, it went roaring and laughing up the chimney,
for all the world as if it meant to dispel the damp and cold from every
cabin in the mountains. A moment later, slapped squarely in the face by a
deluge of rain, it shrunk down within itself until the whole cabin was in
darkness.
“It—it’s given up,” Florence would whisper to herself with a half sob.
“But no! There it is rising from its own blackened ruins to roar with
cheer again.
“It’s like life,” she told herself. And, indeed, how like her own life it
was. Only a few days before she had been fired with hope and desire to be
of service to these mountain people. Now, with hopes drowned and courage
well nigh gone, she waited only to battle her way through the coming
trial and the election that seemed certain defeat. A lump rose in her
throat at the thought.
But again, as the fire battling its way once more up the chimney flung
free its challenge to the elements, she was driven to believe that
courage, hope and desire to serve would again burn brightly in her heart.
“Hope!” she whispered. “What hope can there be? The election is lost! The
winter school a thing of the past. How can it be otherwise? And yet I do
hope!”
These thoughts passed. She had become suddenly conscious of her immediate
surroundings. She was well within the natural stone gateway through which
entrance had been forbidden heretofore. She was in the midst of a strange
and mysterious people, in the very cabin of their leader. Of this last
she felt sure.
She recalled with a sudden shock the weird tales she had heard told of
these people, of the peddler with his rich pack of linens and box of
jewelry, and of the one-armed fiddler who had passed this way to be seen
no more.
“And now I am here,” she whispered, her limbs trembling with terror. “And
on such a night!”
Even as she spoke there came such a rolling crash of thunder as set the
dishes in the little wall cupboard rattling and brought a huge cross-log
on the fire down with a thud and sputter that sent sparks flying
everywhere. She caught the rush of water outside, not alone the constant
beating of the rain, but louder and more terrifying than that, the mighty
rush and roar of a cataract. Swollen to twenty times its natural size,
Laurel Creek had become a mighty Niagara.
Turning about, she allowed her gaze to sweep the room. In one corner on a
bed little Hallie slept peacefully. In the opposite corner the man with
the hooked nose had thrown himself across the other bed. The two women
had vanished, probably into the other room of the cabin. In the corner,
with head pillowed on his uninjured arm, Bud Wax slept.
“He doesn’t look to be such a bad fellow,” Florence told herself. And so
he didn’t. On his face there was such an expression as one might expect
to find upon the countenance of one who, having lived through a long and
hard fought battle for self and self interests, had at last found peace
in service for another.
Florence read the look pictured there, but she could not account for it.
She could not guess why the boy was there at all, nor why he had made the
attack that had resulted in the broken arm. It was all very strange and
puzzling.
Strangest of all was the thing the one-armed giant was engaged in at that
particular moment. On a small chair that emphasized his hugeness, with
head bent low and lips constantly moving, he sat whispering over an old
Bible, spelling out the words one by one. As the fire regained courage to
do its best, lighting up his aged face with a sort of halo, the girl
thought she had never seen upon any face before a look so restful,
benevolent and benign.
At that moment a hand touched her shoulder. She turned about and found
herself looking into the wrinkled face of the old woman.
“Thought y’ might like to lay down a spell,” she said, jerking her thumb
toward a door that led to the other room.
Without a word Florence followed her and, fifteen minutes later, buried
beneath a pile of home woven coverlids, she lay lost in dreamless sleep.
* * * * * * * *
Marion sat upon a bed of moss well up the side of Big Black Mountain.
Three days had passed since the mysterious disappearance of Florence and
little Hallie, three days of tormenting anxiety. Every creek and runway
had been searched, but to no purpose. They had vanished as completely as
they might had the earth swallowed them up.
Only one spot remained to be searched—the head of Laurel Creek, beyond
the natural gateway.
“They can’t have gone up there,” Mrs. McAlpin had said in a tone of deep
conviction. “Florence knew well enough the reputation of those strange
people. Nothing could have induced her to pass that forbidden barrier.”
Not satisfied with this, Marion had gone to Ransom Turner about it.
“Hit’s past reason!” he said emphatically. “Them’s the killingest folks
in the mountains. That’s a fact, though they’ve never been made to stand
trial. She’d never dare to go up there. An’ besides, if hit were best to
go there to search, you’d have to git you up half the men in these here
mountains, and there’d sure be a big fight right thar.”
So the other hillsides had been searched and the tongues of local
gossipers had wagged incessantly. Bitter enemies had it that, seeing
herself defeated in the coming election and being ashamed or afraid to
stand trial for carrying concealed weapons, the girl had fled in the
night and had taken the child with her to the “Outside.” All this, they
argued, was known well enough by Mrs. McAlpin and Marion, but they did
not care to admit it.
In spite of all this, Ransom Turner and Marion had continued, almost
against hope, to carry on the election fight. Black Blevens had sent word
to Lige Howard up on Pounding Mill Creek that his mortgage would be
foreclosed if he and his three boys did not promise to come down on
election day and vote for him as trustee. Ransom Turner, on hearing this
had sent word to Lige that his mortgage would be taken care of—that he
was to vote for the best man.
Mary Anne Kelly, a niece of Black Blevens, who lived down at the mouth of
Ages Creek, sent word to her fiance, Buckner Creech, that if he did not
vote right she would break her engagement. That had put Buckner on the
doubtful list. Pole Cawood’s wife, who was a daughter of Black Blevens,
threatened to leave him and his four small children if he did not vote
for her father.
“Such,” said Marion, rubbing her forehead with a groan, “is a school
election in the Cumberlands. Nothing is too low or mean if only it helps
to gain an advantage. We have fought fair, and lost, as far as I can see.
Ransom says we will lack ten or twelve votes, and he doesn’t know where
we can find a single other one.”
And yet, with the cheerful optimism of youth, the girl still hoped
against hope and looked forward with some eagerness the coming of
to-morrow and the election.
Needless to say, with worry over Florence and Hallie, and interest in the
election, she had found neither time nor interest for further exploration
of the attic nor a search for Jeff Middleton’s treasure.
* * * * * * * *
Strange were the circumstances that had held Florence within the
forbidden gates these three long days.
She had wakened with a start on the morning following the storm and her
strange experiences in the cabin. The sun, streaming through a small
window, had awakened her. At first she had been utterly unable to account
for her strange surroundings. Then, like a flash, it all came to her. The
aged giant, Bud Wax with his arm in a sling, the women, the other man,
little Hallie, the storm,—all the strange and mysterious doings of the
night flashed through her mind and left her wondering.
The very window through which the sunlight streamed suggested mystery.
Whence had it come? These mysterious people who lived beyond the stone
gateway had come from below, had travelled up Laurel Creek and had not
come back to the settlement. Where had the glass for the window come
from? Had it been taken from some older cabin? This log cabin seemed
quite new. Had these strange people some hidden trail to the outside
world? Ransom Turner had said there was no mountain pass at the head of
Laurel Branch. Could it be possible that he was wrong?
All the wondering was cut short by thought of little Hallie. How was she?
Had consciousness returned? Perhaps she needed care at this very moment.
With this thought uppermost in her mind, Florence sprang from her bed,
drew on her outer garments, then pushed open the door that led to the
other room.
She found Hallie feverish, and somewhat delirious. Upon discovering this,
without begging leave of her strange host and with not one thought for
her own safety, she set herself about the task of bringing the bloom of
health back to the child’s cheek.
The people about her brought the things she asked for, then stood or sat
quietly about as they might had she been a doctor.
During the course of the day some twenty men and women, and quite as many
children, came to peek shyly in at the door, or to enter and sit
whispering together.
“More people in this neighborhood than one would think,” was Florence’s
mental comment.
A day came and went. Hallie improved slightly. The next day she was so
much better that Florence took time for a stroll out of doors. It was
then that she received something of a shock. Having wandered down the
creek trail until she was near to the stone gateway, she saw a tall,
gaunt, young mountaineer step out into the path. With a rifle over his
arm, he began to pace back and forth like a sentry on duty.
“I—I wonder—” she whispered to herself, “if he would let me pass?”
She had no desire to leave without taking Hallie, she did not try, but
deep in her heart was the conviction that for some strange reason she was
virtually a prisoner within those gates.
At once her mind was rife with speculation. Who were these people? What
had they to fear from contact with the outside world? Were they
moonshiners? She had heard much of mountain moonshine stills before she
came to the Cumberlands. If they were moonshiners, where had they sold
the product of their stills?
“No, it couldn’t be that,” she shook her head.
Were they a band of robbers? If so, whom did they rob? She thought of the
peddler and the one-armed fiddler, and shuddered.
Still, as she thought of it now, she had seen very little in these cabins
that could have come from a peddler’s pack. The bare-topped wooden tables
were innocent of linen. Towels were made of coarse, hand-woven linen. The
women wore no jewelry such as might have come from a peddler’s black box.
“It’s all very strange and mysterious,” she said with a shake of her
head.
Only one thing came to her clearly as she returned to the cabin—she must
remain beside little Hallie until she was out of danger.
“After that—what?”
This question she could not answer.