Gray Pendleton, hearing from a house-servant of the death of Steve
Hawn, hurried over to offer his help and sympathy, and Martha Hawn, too
quick for Jason's protest, let loose the fact that the responsibility
for that death lay between the two. To her simple faith it was Jason's
aim that the intervening hand of God had directed, but she did not know
what the law of this land might do to her boy, and perhaps her motive
was to shield him if possible. While she spoke, one of her hands was
hanging loosely at her side and the other was clenched tightly at her
breast.
"What have you got there, mammy?" said Jason gently. She hesitated, and
at last held out her hand--in the palm lay a misshapen bullet.
"Steve give me this--hit was the one that got him, he said. He said
mebbe you boys could tell whichever one's gun hit come from."
Both looked at the piece of battered, blood-stained lead with
fascinated horror until Gray, with a queer little smile, took it from
her hand, for he knew, what Jason did not, that the night before they
had used guns of a different calibre, and now his heart and brain
worked swiftly and to a better purpose than he meant, or would ever
know.
"Come on, Jason, you and I will settle the question right now."
And, followed by mystified Jason, he turned from the porch and started
across the yard. Standing in the porch, the mother saw the two youths
stop at the fence, saw Gray raise his right hand high, and then the
piece of lead whizzed through the air and dropped with hardly more than
the splash of a raindrop in the centre of the pond. The mother
understood and she gulped hard. For a moment the two talked and she saw
them clasp hands. Then Gray turned toward home and Jason came slowly
back to the house. The boy said nothing, the stony calm of the mother's
face was unchanged--their eyes met and that was all.
An hour later, John Burnham came over, told Jason to stay with his
mother, and went forthwith to town. Within a few hours all was quickly,
quietly done, and that night Jason started with his mother and the body
of Mavis's father back to the hills. The railroad had almost reached
the county-seat now, and at the end of it old Jason Hawn and Mavis were
waiting in the misty dawn with two saddled horses and a spring wagon.
The four met with a handshake, a grave "how-dye," and no further
speech. And thus old Jason and Martha Hawn jolted silently ahead, and
little Jason and Mavis followed silently behind. Once or twice Jason
turned to look at her. She was in black, and the whiteness of her face,
unstained with tears, lent depth and darkness to her eyes, but the eyes
were never turned toward him.
When they entered town there were Hawns in front of one store and one
hotel on one side of the street. There were Honeycutts in front of one
store and one hotel on the other side, and Jason saw the lowering face
of little Aaron, and towering in one group the huge frame of Babe
Honeycutt. Silently the Hawns fell in behind on horseback, and on foot,
and gravely the Honeycutts watched the procession move through the town
and up the winding road.
The pink-flecked cups of the laurel were dropping to the ground, the
woods were starred with great white clusters of rhododendron,
wood-thrushes, unseen, poured golden rills of music from every cool
ravine, air and sunlight were heavy with the richness of June, and
every odor was a whisper, every sound a voice, and every shaking leaf a
friendly little beckoning hand--all giving him welcome home. The boy
began to choke with memories, but Mavis still gave no sign. Once she
turned her head when they passed her little log school-house where was
a little group of her pupils who had not known they were to have a
holiday that day, and whose faces turned awe-stricken when they saw the
reason, and sympathetic when Mavis gave them a kindly little smile. Up
the creek there and over the sloping green plain of the tree-tops hung
a cloud of smoke from the mines. A few moments more and they emerged
from an arched opening of trees. The lightning-rod of old Jason's house
gleamed high ahead, and on the sunny crest of a bare little knoll above
it were visible the tiny homes built over the dead in the graveyard of
the Hawns. And up there, above the murmuring sweep of the river, and
with many of his kin who had died in a similar way, they laid "slick
Steve" Hawn. The old circuit rider preached a short funeral sermon,
while Mavis and her mother stood together, the woman dry-eyed, much to
the wonder of the clan, the girl weeping silently at last, and Jason
behind them--solemn, watchful, and with his secret working painfully in
his heart. He had forbade his mother to tell Mavis, and perhaps he
would never tell her himself; for it might be best for her never to
know that her father had raised the little mound under which his father
slept but a few yards away, and that in turn his hands, perhaps, were
lowering Steve Hawn into his grave.
From the graveyard all went to old Jason's house, for the old man
insisted that Martha Hawn must make her home with him until young Jason
came back to the mountains for good. Until then Mavis, too, would stay
there with Jason's mother, and with deep relief the boy saw that the
two women seemed drawn to each other closer than ever now. In the early
afternoon old Jason limped ahead of him to the barn to show his stock,
and for the first time Jason noticed how feeble his grandfather was and
how he had aged during his last sick spell. His magnificent old
shoulders had drooped, his walk was shuffling, and even the leonine
spirit of his bushy brows and deep-set eyes seemed to have lost
something of its old fire. But that old fire blazed anew when the old
man told him about the threats and insults of little Aaron Honeycutt,
and the story of Mavis and Gray.
"Mavis in thar," he rumbled, "stood up fer him agin me--agin ME. She
'lowed thar wasn't a Hawn fitten to be kinfolks o' his even by
marriage, less'n 'twas you."
"ME?"
"An' she told me--ME--to mind my own business. Is that boy Gray comin'
back hyeh?"
"Yes, sir, if his father gets well, and maybe he'll come anyhow."
"Well, that gal in thar is plum' foolish about him, but I'm goin' to
let you take keer o' all that now."
Jason answered nothing, for the memory of Gray's worshipping face, when
he went down the walk with Marjorie at Gray's own home, came suddenly
back to him, and the fact that Mavis was yet in love with Gray began to
lie with sudden heaviness on his mind and not lightly on his heart.
"An' as fer little Aaron Honeycutt--"
Over the barn-yard gate loomed just then the huge shoulders of Babe
Honeycutt coming from the house where he had gone to see his sister
Martha. Jason heard the shuffling of big feet and he turned to see Babe
coming toward him fearlessly, his good-natured face in a wide smile and
his hand outstretched. Old Jason peered through his spectacles with
some surprise, and then grunted with much satisfaction when they shook
hands.
"Well, Jason, I'm glad you air beginnin' to show some signs o' good
sense. This feud business has got to stop--an' now that you two air
shakin' hands, hit all lays betwixt you and little Aaron."
Babe colored and hesitated.
"That's jus' whut I wanted to say to Jason hyeh. Aaron's drinkin' a
good deal now. I hears as how he's a-threatenin' some, but if Jason
kind o' keeps outen his way an' they git together when he's sober,
hit'll be easy."
"Yes," said old Jason, grimly, "but I reckon you Honeycutts had better
keep Aaron outen his way a leetle, too."
"I'm a-doin' all I can," said Babe earnestly, and he slouched away.
"Got yo' gun, Jason?"
"No."
"Well, you kin have mine till you git away again. I want all this feud
business stopped, but I hain't goin' to have you shot down like a
turkey at Christmas by a fool boy who won't hardly know whut he's
doin'."
Jason started for the house, but the old man stayed at the stable to
give directions to a neighbor who had come to feed his stock. It
sickened the boy to think that he must perhaps be drawn into the feud
again, but he would not be foolish enough not to take all precaution
against young Aaron. At the yard fence he stopped, seeing Mavis under
an apple-tree with one hand clutching a low bough and her tense face
lifted to the west. He could see that the hand was clenched tightly,
for even the naked forearm was taut as a bowstring. The sun was going
down in the little gap, above it already one pale star was swung, and
upon it her eyes seemed to be fixed. She heard his step and he knew it,
for he saw her face flush, but without looking around she turned into
the house. That night she seemed to avoid the chance that he might
speak to her alone, and the boy found himself watching her covertly and
closely, for he recalled what Gray had said about her. Indeed, some
change had taken place that was subtle and extraordinary. He saw his
mother deferring to her--leaning on her unconsciously. And old Jason,
to the boy's amazement, was less imperious when she was around,
moderated his sweeping judgments, looked to her from under his heavy
brows, apparently for approval or to see that at least he gave no
offence--deferred to her more than to any man or woman within the boy's
memory. And Jason himself felt the emanation from her of some new power
that was beginning to chain his thoughts to her. All that night Mavis
was on his mind, and when he woke next morning it was Mavis, Mavis
still. She was clear-eyed, calm, reserved when she told him good-by,
and once only she smiled. Old Jason had brought out one of his huge
pistols, but Mavis took it from his unresisting hands and Jason rode
away unarmed. It was just as well, for as his train started, a horse
and a wild youth came plunging down the riverbank, splashed across, and
with a yell charged up to the station. Through the car window Jason saw
that it was little Aaron, flushed of face and with a pistol in his
hand, looking for him. A sudden storm of old instincts burst suddenly
within him, and had he been armed he would have swung from the train
and settled accounts then and there. As it was, he sat still and was
borne away shaken with rage from head to foot.