The Warning
Five o'clock Friday morning found Creed, pale, hollow-eyed, a strip of
Nancy's home-made sticking plaster over the cut on brow and cheek, but
otherwise composed and as usual, at the pine table in his little shack,
working over the references which applied to the case he was to try that
morning. But an hour later brought old Keziah Provine to the door to
borrow the threading of a needle with white thread.
"I hearn they had an interruption," she began, pushing in past Nancy and
the two children, "but thar--you kin hear anything these days and times.
They most gen'ally does find trouble at these here play-parties, that's
why I'm sot agin 'em."
Poor old soul, it was not on account of her rheumatic legs, her toothless
jaws, nor her half-blind eyes that she objected to play-parties, of
course.
"I got no use for 'em," she pursued truthfully, "specially when they're
started up too close to a blockade still. They named it to me that Creed
had done killed one of the Turrentine boys--is that so?"
"No," returned Nancy stoutly. "By the best of what I kin git out o'
Creed, him and Blatch was walkin' along, an' Blatch missed his footin'
and fell off o' Foeman's Bluff. Creed tried to he'p him, an' fell an' got
scratched some. I reckon the Turrentines'll tell it different, but that's
what I make out from what Creed says."
"Lord, how folks will lie!" admired Keziah, piously. "Now they tell that
Blatch was not only killed up, but that some one--Creed, or some o' them
that follers him--tuck the body away befo' they could git to it. They say
they was blood all over the bushes, an' a great drug place whar Blatch
had been toted off. One feller named a half-dug hole sorter like a grave;
but thar! I never went over to see for myse'f, an' ye cain't believe the
half o' what ye hear."
"Well, I'd say not," snapped Nancy. "Not ef hit was sech a pack o' lies
as that."
Thread in hand old Keziah lingered till Arley Kittridge came with his
mother's baking-pan and request for a little risin'. Arley it seemed had
been commissioned to find out what he could on behalf of the Kittridge
family. And so it went till breakfast-time.
How these things travel in a neighbourhood where there is no telephone,
postman, milkman, nor morning paper, and where the distances are
considerable, is one of the mysteries of the mountains--yet travel they
do, and when time came for court to open Creed found that he had a crowd
which would at any other juncture have been highly gratifying.
Every man that came in glanced first at the cut on his cheek, swiftly
noted the pale face, sunken, purple-rimmed eyes, the scratched hands,
then looked hastily away. Several made proffers of an alliance with him,
being at outs with the Turrentines. All reiterated the story of the
missing body.
"You done exactly right," old Tubal Kittridge told him. "With a man like
Blatchley Turrentine, hit's hit first or git hit. I wonder he ever let ye
git as far as Foeman's Bluff; but if you made good use o' yo' time, I
reckon you found out what you aimed to," and he winked laboriously at
poor Creed's crimsoning countenance.
"I wasn't trying to find out anything, Mr. Kittridge. Blatch forced the
quarrel upon me. I was on my way home at the time."
"Well, a lee-tle out of yo' way, wasn't ye?" objected Kittridge, slightly
offended at not being offered Bonbright's confidence.
The case on the docket, one that had interested Creed deeply, being the
curious matter of a mountain creek which in the spring storms had changed
its direction, scoured off a good field and flung it to the opposite side
of the road, thus giving it to a new owner, dragged wearily. Who cared
about the question of a few rods of mountain land, even if it had raised
good tobacco, when the slayer of one of the bullies of the neighbourhood
sat before them--a man who had not only killed his victim but had, within
fifteen minutes, hidden all traces of the body--and the opening of a new
feud was taking place before their eyes?
At noon Creed, in despair, adjourned his court, setting a new date for
trial, explaining that this Turrentine matter ought to be looked into,
and he believed it was not a proper day for him to be otherwise engaged.
Then he sought old Tubal Kittridge.
"There's something I want you to do for me," he said.
"Shore--shore; anything in the world," Kittridge agreed eagerly.
"Aunt Nancy won't hear of my going over to the Turrentines'," hesitated
Creed. "I looked for them to be here--some of them--long before this."
"Huh-uh; ah, Law, no--they won't come in the daytime," smiled Kittridge.
Creed looked annoyed.
"They will be welcome, whenever they come," he asserted. "What I want you
to do is to go to Jephthah Turrentine and say to him that I thought I
ought to go over, and that I'll do so now if he wants me to--or I'll meet
him here at the office, or anywhere he says."
"Huh-uh--uh!" Old Tubal shook his head, his eyes closed in quite an
ecstasy of negation. "You cain't git Jep Turrentine in the trap as easy
as all that," he said half contemptuously. "Why, he'd know what you was
at a leetle too quick."
Bonbright looked helpless indignation for a moment, then thought better
of it and repeated:
"I want you to go and tell him that I'm right here, ready to answer for
anything I've done, and that I would like to talk to him about it. Will
you do it?"
"Oh,--all right," agreed Kittridge in an offended tone. "There's plenty
would stand by ye; there's plenty that would like to see the Turrentines
run out of the country; but if ye want to fix it some new-fangled way I
reckon you'll have to." And to himself he muttered as he took the road
homeward, "I say go to the Turrentines with sech word at that! That boy
must think I'm as big a fool as he is."
* * * * *
At the Turrentine home life dragged on strangely. Jephthah in his own
cabin, busied himself overhauling some harness. The boys had been across
at the old place, presumably making a thorough inspection of the scene of
the trouble. Judith went mechanically about her tasks, cooking and
serving the meals, setting the house in order. Only once did she rouse
somewhat, and that was when Huldah Spiller flounced in and flung herself
tempestuously down in a chair.
"How you come on, Judy?" inquired the red-haired damsel.
"About as usual," returned Judith coldly, and would fain have added,
"none the better for seeing you."
"I jest had to run over and see how you was standin' it," Huldah pursued
vivaciously. "I cried all night--didn't you?"
"What for?" inquired Judith angrily.
"Oh--I don't know. I'm jest thataway. Git me started an' thar's no
stoppin' me. But then I've knowed Creed so mighty long--him an' me was
powerful good friends, and my feelin's is more tenderer than some folks's
anyhow."
"Huldy," said Judith in a tone so rigidly controlled that it made the
other jump, "ef you'll jest walk yo'self out of here I'll be obliged to
you. I've stood all I can. I don't want to say anything plumb bad to you,
but ef you set thar an' talk to me like that for another minute I will."
"Oh, you po' thing!" cried Huldah, jumping to her feet. "I declare to
goodness I forgot all about you an' Blatch. Here I've been carryin' on
over Creed Bonbright--and you mighty near a widder. You po' thing!"
Judith faced around with such blazing eyes from the biscuits she was
moulding that Huldah beat a hasty retreat, dodged out of the door, and
ran up the slope. At Jim Cal's cabin she paused and looked about her
uncertainly. Iley had the toothache, and for various reasons was proving
a poor audience for her younger sister's conversation. The day had been a
trying one to Huldah's excited nerves, a sad anti-climax after the
explosions of the night before. It was five o'clock. The men were all
over at the old place. If she but had an excuse to follow them, now. Why,
the whole top of the Bald above Foeman's Bluff, and the broad shelf below
it, were covered with huckleberry bushes! She put her head in at the
door. Iley looked up from the hot brick which she was wrapping in a wet
cloth with ten drops of turpentine on it preparatory to applying the same
to her cheek above the swollen tooth.
"Ef you say 'Creed Bonbright'--or 'kill'--or 'Blatch Turrentine,'--to me,
I vow I'll hit ye," she warned shrilly. "I ain't never raised hand on ye
yet sence ye was a woman grown, but do it I will!"
"I wasn't goin' to say nothin' about nothin'," asserted Huldah
sweepingly. "I was jest goin' to ax did ye want any huckleberries, and
git a pail to pick some."
She sought out a small tin lard bucket as she spoke, and Iley's silence
presumably assenting, within twenty minutes was picking away eagerly on
the Bald above the bluff.
Below her stretched meadows drunk with sun--breathless. A rain crow
called from time to time "C-c-c-cow! cow! cow!" The air was still heavy
with faint noon-day smells, the sky tarnished with heat.
"I wonder where in all creation them boys has got theirselves to," she
ruminated as she peered about, dragging green berries and leaves into her
bucket, for which Mrs. Jim Cal would afterward no doubt scold her
soundly. "'Pears to me like I hearn somebody talkin' somewhars."
She pushed cautiously down to the edge of the rocks where the bushes grew
scatteringly, pretending to herself that she wanted a bit of wild
geranium that flourished in a crevice far below the top. Setting down her
pail she threw herself on her face, her arms over the edge, and reached.
But the fingers hung suspended, opened in air, her mouth open too, and
she listened greedily to faint sounds of men's voices.
"I'll bet it's old Ab Foeman's hideout that nobody but him and the
Cherokees knowed of," she muttered to herself. "Some one's found it
and--Lord, look at that!"
From the bushes below her, coming apparently out of the living rock
itself, crept Andy, and then Jeff Turrentine. Now she could see the
narrow, door-like opening of the cave which had given them up, and
realised how, from below, it passed for a mere depression in the rock.
Huldah drew back silently, inch by inch, and instinctively pulled her
black calico sunbonnet over her red curls as she crouched down among the
huckleberry bushes. When she looked again Andy and Jeff had disappeared,
but she could see the head and shoulders of a man who still lay at the
cave's mouth--and that man was Blatch Turrentine!
At first she shuddered, thinking that she had come upon the dead body;
then she noted a tiny trail of smoke, and, by craning a little farther
around, saw that Blatchley lay at ease with a pipe in his mouth,
smoking.
"The triflin', low-down, lyin' hound!" she muttered to herself. "I'm
a-goin' this very minute and tell Creed Bonbright."
She hesitated, glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the
Turrentine cabin, then bent dubiously and set up her overturned bucket.
Not a berry had spilled from it, yet the sight of its mishap gave her an
idea. Quietly slipping through the bushes till she was far enough away to
dare run, she hurried home to the cabin.
"Iley," she gasped, as soon as she put her head in at the door, "I upsot
my berry pail and lost most of the fruit. Can you make out with that?"
and she set the little bucket on the table.
"I reckon I'll have to, ef you've got so work-brickle ye won't pick any
more," returned Iley.
"I would--I'd git ye all ye need," protested Huldah with unexpected
meekness, "but I'm jest obliged to go over to--" she had all but said
Creed Bonbright's, but she caught herself in time and concluded lamely.
"I jest have obliged to run down to Clianthy Lusk's and see can she let
me have her crochet needle for to finish up my shawl."
She delayed for no criticism or demur on Iley's part, but was off with
the last word, and once out of sight of Jim Cal's cabin she took a short
cut through the woods and ran; but in spite of her best efforts darkness
began to gather before she won to the high road, for the evening had
closed in early, thick and threatening; a mountain thunder-storm was
brewing. Opposite a tempestuous, magnificent sunset, there had reared in
the eastern sky a tremendous thunder-head, a palace of a thousand snowy
domes, turning to gold, and then flushing from base to crown like a
gigantic many-petalled rose. It swept steadily up and over, hiding the
sky, and leaving the earth in almost complete darkness. There were low
rolls of thunder, at first mellow and almost musical, crashing always
louder and stronger as they came nearer. The wind thrashed and yelled
through the tossing forest; and as she approached the Card cabin she
heard the banging of barn shutters, the whipping of tree boughs against
the windows. There were the first spears of rain flung at roof and door;
and it was in the torrent itself which followed fast that Huldah beat
upon that closed door, giving her name and demanding entrance. Within,
Creed Bonbright sprang up from where he sat with a book in his hand, his
eyes fixed on vacancy, and would have answered her, but Old Nancy put a
hasty palm over his lips.
"Hush--for God's sake," she whispered.
They stood in the lighted cabin, all on foot by this time, and listened
intently, tall Creed, the little grey-haired woman clinging to him and
restraining him, Doss with his light eyes goggling, and Little Buck and
Beezy hand in hand, studying their grandmother's face, not their
father's.
"Who is it?" quavered Nancy. "I'm all alone in here, and I'm scared to
let wayfarers in."
"It's me--Huldy Spiller--Aunt Nancy," called back the voice in the rain.
"Well, I vow! You know how things air, Huldy--what do ye want, chile?"
"I want Creed Bonbright. I've got something to tell him."
"Thar--ye see now," breathed the old woman, turning toward Creed. Then
she raised her voice.
"He ain't here, honey," she lied unhesitatingly.
"Why don't ye go to his office--that's whar he stays at."
"Oh, for the Lord's sake--Aunt Nancy!" came back the girl's shrill,
terrified tones. "I've done been to the office; I know in reason Creed
ain't there, or he'd a-answered me. Please let me in; I'm scared some of
the Turrentines'll come an' ketch me."
At this Creed strode to the door, Nancy dragging back on his arm and Buck
and Beezy seconding her with all their small might, while Provine
spluttered ineffectually in the background.
"Hit's a lie," hissed Nancy. "She's a decoy. Ef you open that thar do'
with the light on ye, they'll shoot ye over her shoulders. Hit was did to
my man thataway in feud times. Don't you open the do' Creed."
"Why, Aunt Nancy," remonstrated Creed, almost smiling, "this isn't like
you. There's nothing but a girl there in the rain. Keep out of range if
you're scared. I'm sure going to open that door."
[Illustration: "They stood in the lighted cabin and listened intently."]
As he made ready to do so Nancy flew back to the table and blew out the
light, and the next minute Huldah Spiller, dripping like a mermaid, was
standing in the middle of the darkened room, and Doss Provine, breathing
short, was barring the door behind her.
"Who's here?" gasped the girl peering about the gloom. "What air you-all
a-goin' to do to me?"
Nancy relighted the lamp and set it on the table, and Huldah discovered
with a long-drawn sobbing sigh of relief that there was no one save the
immediate family present.
"I came quick as I could," she began in the middle of her story, grasping
Creed by the arm and shaking him in the violence of her emotion and
insistence. "Blatch Turrentine's alive. Andy and Jeff have got him hid
out. I seed him myse'f with my own eyes, in a hideout thar below Foeman's
Bluff, not more'n a hour ago. I'll bet he aims to layway you, ef he
cain't git ye hung for murderin' of him. You got to git out o' here. It
was as much as my life was worth to come over and tell ye. I'm afraid to
go back. I'm goin' right on down to Hepzibah and stay thar."
"Come up closeter to the fire," commanded Nancy, who had watched the girl
keenly throughout her recital. "Doss, put some sticks on and git a little
blaze so she can dry herself. Huldy, you're a good girl to come over and
warn Creed--when was you aimin' to go to Hepzibah?" She looked up from
the hearth where she knelt with the frankest inquiring gaze.
"To-night--right now," half whimpered Huldah. "I'm scared to go back. I'm
scared to be here on the mountain at all."
"And did ye aim to have Creed go along of ye?" old Nancy questioned
mildly.
"Yes--yes--he'd better," agreed Huldah hysterically. "Hit's the onliest
way for him now."
Nancy caught Creed's eye above the girl's drenched head, and shook her
own warningly. Leaving Doss to look after the newcomer, she drew the
young justice into the kitchen.
"Whatever ye do," she warned him hastily, "don't you put out with that
red-headed gal in the dark. Things may be adzackly as she says--looks to
me like she thinks she's a-speakin' the truth; but then agin the
Turrentines might a' sent her for to draw you out. They wouldn't like to
shoot ye in my cabin, 'caze they know me and my kinfolks would be apt to
raise a fuss; but halfway down the mountain with this sweetheart of
Wade's--huh-uh, boy; I reckon they could tell their own tale then, of how
you come by yo' death. Don't you go with her."
"I wasn't aiming to, Aunt Nancy," said Creed quietly. "As soon as I heard
that Blatch Turrentine was alive, I intended to go right over and have a
talk with old Jephthah. He's a fair-minded man, and if he is informed
that his nephew is living I think he and I can come to terms."
"Fa'r-minded man!" echoed Nancy contemptuously. "Jephthah Turrentine a
fa'r-minded man! Well, Creed, ef I hadn't no better eye for a fat chicken
than you have for a fa'r-minded man, you wouldn't enjoy yo' dinner at my
table as well as you do. I say fa'r-minded! This thing has got into a
feud, boy, and in a feud you cain't trust nobody--_nobody_!"
Creed went back into the room, and Nancy reluctantly followed him. Huldah
was getting dry and warm, and that fluent tongue of hers was impatiently
silent. As soon as she saw the returning pair she began to repeat again
the details of her information--how she had glimpsed the hidden man
through the bushes, how she knew in reason he could be none other than
Blatch. Nancy exchanged a glance of intelligence with Creed.
"Ye see!" she murmured, aside. "Ef she _ain't_ a decoy they've sont, she
don't know nothin' for sartin."
"I'm scared of all the Turrentines," Huldah declared. "They're awful
folks. From the old man down to Jude, they scare me. I reckon Jude's had
a big hand in this," she went on excitedly. "Her and Blatch is goin' to
wed shortly, and she'd be shore to know any meanness he was into. I'll be
glad to git shet of sech. When you're ready to be a-steppin' Creed, I
am."
She looked up at the young fellow with a sort of unwilling worship.
"I don't aim to go with you, Huldah," he said gently. "You love Wade
Turrentine, and Wade loves you; you was to be wedded this fall. I don't
aim for any affairs of mine to part you two."
The girl hung her head, painfully flushed, her eyes full of tears.
"I don't care nothin' about Wade," she choked. "Him and me has----"
"I reckon you've quarrelled" said Creed, sympathetically. "That needn't
come to anything. I'm going over and talk to Jephthah Turrentine
to-morrow morning, and I want you to come with me!"
"No," said Huldah getting to her feet and looking strangely at him. "The
rain's about done now; the moon'll be comin' up in half a hour--I'm
a-goin' on down to Hepzibah, like I said I was. Ef Wade Turrentine wants
me, he knows whar to come for me. Ef he thinks of me as he said he did
the last time we had speech together--w'y, I never want to put eyes on
his face again. Oh--Creed, I wish't you'd come with me!"
"But it was me you quarrelled about," remonstrated Bonbright with that
sudden clear vision which ultra-spiritual natures often show, and that
startling forthrightness of speech which amazes and daunts the
mountaineer. "I'm the last man you ought to leave the mountain with,
Huldah, if you want to make up with Wade."
"How--how did you know?" whispered the girl, staring at him. "Well,
anyhow, I ain't never a-goin' back thar."
She could not be prevailed on to go to bed with Aunt Nancy, when Doss
Provine and the children were asleep, and Creed had gone to his quarters
in the little office building, but sat by the fire all night staring into
the embers, occasionally stirring them or putting on a stick of wood. At
the earliest grey of dawn she waked Nancy, bidding the elder woman fasten
the door after her. Declining in strangely subdued fashion her hostess's
offer of hot coffee, she stepped noiselessly out and, with a swift look
about, dived into the steep short-cut trail which led almost straight
down the face of Big Turkey Track, from turn to turn of the main road.
A cloud clung to the Side; the foliage of only the foremost trees emerged
from its blur, and these were dimmed and flatted as though a soft white
veil were tangled among their leaves. Into this white mystery of dawn the
girl had vanished.
Nancy looked curiously after her a moment, then glanced swiftly about as
Huldah had done, her eyes dwelling long on Creed's little shack, standing
peaceful in the morning mists. Softly she turned back, and closed and
barred the door.