Cast Out
Judith reached the Top in the grey, disillusioning light of early dawn.
The moon, a ghastly wraith, was far down in the west, the east had not
yet taken any hint of rose flush, but held that pallid line of greyish
white that precedes sunrise.
She clambered across the Gulch, her tired horse stumbling with drooping
head over the familiar stones, and rode slowly up to the home place. The
huddle of buildings looked gaunt, deserted, inhospitable. There was light
here enough to see the life which in daytime made all homelike, but which
now, quenched and hidden, left all desolate, forbidding. As sleep takes
on the semblance of death, so the sleeping house took on the semblance of
desertion. The chickens were still humped on their perches in the trees,
the cows had not come up to the milking-pen, their calves lay in a little
bunch by the fence fast asleep. To the girl's heavy heart it seemed a
spot utterly forlorn in the chill, sad, ironic half-light of the
slow-coming morning.
She rode directly to the barn, unsaddled, and put her horse out. As she
was coming back past her uncle's cabin, she saw the old man himself
sitting in the door. He was fully dressed; his hat lay on the doorstone
beside him, and against the jamb leaned Old Sister. He looked up at her
with a sort of indifferent, troubled gaze.
"So you got back, Jude," he said quietly.
"Yes, Uncle Jep," she returned as quietly.
He made no comment on her riding skirt which she held up away from the
drenching dew. He asked no questions as to where she had been, or what
her errand. She noted that he looked old and worn.
"I'm mighty sorry it happened," he began abruptly, quite as though he was
continuing a conversation which they had intermitted but a few moments,
"mighty sorry; but I don't see no other way. I've studied a heap on it.
Folks that stirs up trouble, gits trouble. I----"
He broke off and sat brooding.
"I'm glad you ain't mad at me for the part I've tuck in it," Judith began
finally.
"Don't tell me." He raised a hasty, protesting hand. "I don't want to
know nothin' about it. All is, _I_ couldn't have things according to my
ruthers, and they had to go as they must. Hit ain't what a man means that
makes the differ--hit's what he does that we count. Them that stirs up
trouble, finds trouble."
"I reckon so, Uncle Jep," said the girl, drooping as she stood.
"They ain't been a roof between my head and the sky sence I left this
house," the old man's big voice rumbled on monotonously, hollowly. "I
tromped the ridges over to'ds Yeller Old Bald. I left mankind and their
works behind me, and I have done a power of thinking; but I can't make
this thing come out no other way."
He ceased and sat looking down. The girl could fancy his solitary meals
where he cooked what he had killed and ate it, to lie down under the sky
and sleep. Women are denied this fleeing to the desert to be alone with
God and their sorrow. She envied him the privilege. She had no heart to
repeat to him Creed's statements that he was not a spy. That was all
past--wiped out by the parting between her and her lover.
"Yes, Uncle Jep," she uttered low, and with bent head she moved
dejectedly on toward the house.
Here all the boys were sleeping noisily after their vigils of the night
before. About three o'clock, or a little after, they had come home to
find their father turning in at the gate. With their disappointment fresh
upon them they broke through his command of silence, and Wade told him
how they and Blatch had planned the ambush, how Blatch had been called
away, how they had waited in the hollow for Creed, who had promised to
"come and talk to them," how he had never come, but how Arley Kittridge a
few minutes ago had ridden up to notify them that Bonbright was gone from
Nancy Card's, and that the mule was gone with him. None of the watchers
could say what direction he took, except to give earnest assurances that
he had not left by any trail leading down the mountain. "He's bound to be
over here somewhars," Wade concluded, "and Blatch not havin' got back
from Garyville, they two has met somewhars."
The old man listened in silence, and when his son had made an end offered
neither comment nor reply. He passed over without a word the revelation
of the deceit about Blatch's supposed killing. It was as though, weary
and foredone, he dismissed the young fellows to the logic of events--to
life itself--for response, explanation, or punishment.
Judith changed her dress, bathed her pale face, and set about preparing
breakfast. And that was a strange meal when she had finally put it on the
table and bidden them to it. The sons sat in their places like chidden
schoolboys, furtively studying their father's ravaged visage, looking at
each other and muttering requests or replies. They were all aware of the
ugliness of their several offences. Creed's strange disappearance,
Blatch's failure to return, the utter collapse of their errand, these had
shaken them terribly.
About a third of the way through the meal Jim Cal shuffled in.
"Do you mind givin' me some breakfast, Jude?" he asked humbly. "Iley an'
the chaps is all sound asleep. I hate to wake 'em, an' I never was no
hand to do for myse'f."
"Set and welcome," said Judith, mechanically placing a chair for the one
who had been most resolute of all that Creed must die. So it was that
they were all seated about the board when Blatch Turrentine, without a
word, made his appearance in the door. Without moving his head Jephthah
turned those sombre eyes of his upon his nephew, and regarded him
steadily. The younger man stopped where he was on the threshold.
"So ye ain't dead?" inquired his uncle finally.
"I reckon that ain't news to you, is it?" asked Blatch, making as though
to come in and take his place at the table.
For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the hospitality of the
mountaineer, warred in old Jephthah's heart with deep, strong resentment
against this man. Then he said without rising,
"Yes, hit's news. But you may take it that hit's news I ain't heard. I
reckon we'll just leave it that you _air_ dead. The lease on the ground
over thar runs tell next spring. I'll not rue my bargain, but no son of
mine sets his foot on yo' land and stays my son, and you don't put yo'
foot in this house again. You give it out that you was dead--stay dead."
"Oh, I see," said Blatch. "Yo' a-blamin' the whole business on me, air
ye? Well, that's handy. What about them fine fellers that's settin' at
meat with ye now? I reckon the tale goes that I led 'em into all their
meanness."
Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit of cornbread in his pudgy
fingers; Wade glanced up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in
leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look.
"Blatch," began the head of the house temperately, even sadly, "yo' my
brother's son. Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap of store
by him. Sam's been gone more than ten year, and in that time I've aimed
to do by you as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit was something
I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit hit's been paid out. Yo' Sam's son, but
also yo' a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had to show up in
ye. My boys is neither better nor worse than others, but when I say that
I don't aim to have you walk with 'em, I say what is my right. What I
owed yo' daddy, and my dead brother, has been paid out--hit's been paid
plumb out."
Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the dismissal hardily. Perhaps he
had been more or less prepared for it, knowing as he would have phrased
it that his uncle wanted but half a chance to break with him. He was
aware, too, that the secret of his illicit traffic was safe in the old
man's hands, and that indeed Jephthah would strain a point to defend him
for the name's sake if for nothing else.
"All right," he said, "ef them's yo' ruthers, hit suits me. What do
you-all boys say?--I reckon Unc' Jep'll let ye speak for yo'selves--this
one time."
"I say what pap says," came promptly from Wade. And, "Jeff an' me thinks
it's about time pap's word went with his boys," put in the younger and
more emotional Andy.
"All right, all right," agreed Blatch in some haste, finding the battle
to go thus sweepingly against him. "I wont expect no opinions from you,
podner, tell you've had time to run home an' ax Iley what air they. Ye
ain't named Judith, Unc' Jep," he went on, glancing to where the girl
knelt on the hearthstone dishing up corn pones from the Dutch oven.
"Cain't she come over and visit me when she has a mind?"
"Judith's her own mistress. She can use her ruthers," returned Jephthah
briefly, "but I misdoubt that you'll be greatly troubled with her
company."
"Help me git my things out of the cupboard thar, Jude, won't ye?" asked
Blatch civilly enough.
Without reply, without glancing at him, Judith preceded him into the
fore-room, opened the doors and sought out his clean clothing, making it
into a neat pile on the table.
"You come over and see me sometimes, won't ye, Judy?" whispered the tall
man as he bundled these up. "I won't tell who I seen you with."
Judith looked at him with wordless contempt. Her own pain was so great
that even anger was swallowed up in it.
"Tell anybody you're a mind to," she said listlessly. "I ain't
a-carin'."
"I may git word of him, Jude," persisted Blatch as he was departing. "Ef
I do would you wish to hear it? Ef you say yes, I'll send ye notice."
Again she glanced at him with that negligent disdain. What could he do to
her now who had lost all? She was beyond the reach of his love or his
malice.