“Ain’t sech agin the law, Reuben?”
She always called him by his name, rather than the sobriquet his pranks
had earned. He was unfamiliar with himself thus dignified, and it gave
him an added sense of importance.
“Yes, but ’tain’t nuthin’ but ten dollar fine, mebbe, an’ a few days in
jail,”—she gasped,—“_ef_ they ketches me.”
He looked at her with a swift, crafty brightness that was wonderfully
like the little creature whose name he bore.
“I wouldn’t keer fur that, though,” he added after a pause. “Bein’ in
jail fur rollickin’ roun’ the kentry jes’ fur fun ain’t a disgrace, like
fur stealin’ an’ sech. What pesters me so is studyin’ ’bout the old man
and his mill, plumb ruined. Lord! Lord! I’d gin my mare an’ hogs an’ gun
ef it hed never happened!”
She stood meditative and motionless against the leafy background, all
dark and restful verdure close at hand, opening into a vista of luminous
emerald lightened in the distance to a gilded green where the sunshine
struck aslant with a climax of gold.
“I reckon ye think so, Reuben, but ye wouldn’t,” she said at last, with
her fatal candor.
He winced. He was both hurt and angry as he rejoined, “An’ why wouldn’t
I?”
“Why, ye be ’bleeged ter know ef ye war ter gin the old man yer mare an’
gun an’ hogs, he’d be more ’n willin’ ter gin it up agin ye. The mill
stones air thar yit under the water, an’ he could sell that truck o’
yourn an’ build ez good a shanty ez he hed afore,—better, ’kase ’twould
be new.”
He looked down at her, tapping his heavy boot with the hickory switch in
his hand.
“Ye ain’t changed none, since we war promised to marry,” he said slowly.
“Then ye war forever a-jawin’ an’ a-preachin’ at me ’bout what I done an’
what I oughter do, same ez the rider. Ye talk ’bout jewty ez brash ez ef
_ye_ never hed none, same ez he does ’bout religion. He ain’t hurt with
_that_, ef ye watch him fresk ’round when they air pourin’ him out a dram
or settin’ out the table. That’s sech grace ez he hev got, but he kin
talk powerful sober ter other folks; jes’ like you-uns. I’m sorry I ever
tole ye about it, enny ways. I’m sorry I met up with ye this mornin’”—
The girl’s face was as visibly pained as if he had cruelly struck her.
He went on tumultuously, aggregating wrath and a sense of injury and a
desire of reprisal with every word.
“I’m sorry I ever seen ye! Ye ’mind me o’ that thar harnt o’ a Herder on
Thunderhead the folks tells about Ef ye happen ter kem upon him suddint,
an’ don’t turn back but ketch his eye, that year air withered. Nuthin’ ye
plant will grow, an’ ef the craps air laid by they won’t ripen. He can’t
kill ye; he jes’ spiles yer chance. An’ ye ’minds me o’ him.”
“Oh, Reuben!” the girl cried, in deprecation.
“Ye do,—ye do! I tole ye, ’kase I lowed mebbe ye mought holp me,—more
fool me!—leastways ye mought be sorry. Shucks! And now I’m sorry I tole
ye.”
He struck the mare suddenly and slowly rode past. He glanced back once.
If Alethea had been looking wistfully after him he might have paused.
He expected it; he had even listened for her to call. The light fell
with a rich tinge on her golden hair and her delicate profile as she
reached up to adjust the rope on the long horns of the dun-colored ox.
The vacillating color of the leaves shoaling in the wind and the sunshine
seemed the more fantastic for the sober hue of her brown gown and the
crude red clay path. Even when the ox resumed his journey she did not
once look back, and presently the fluctuating leaves hid her from sight.
Mink’s gust of temper had served to divert him for the moment from the
contemplation of his perplexities. Now they reasserted themselves.
Before, however, he had seen no hope of extrication. But Alethea’s words
had given him something. He began to appreciate the necessity of a
definite plan of action. If he should go up to Piomingo Bald he would be
taken at the herders’ cabin by the officers of the law. His home could be
no refuge. He felt a respite essential. He craved the time to think of
Alethea’s suggestion, to canvass the ground, to judge what was possible.
At last he dismounted and turned his mare out; even here he could hear
the occasional jangling bells of the herds, and the animal would soon
follow the familiar sound. He took his way on foot down the mountain and
through Eskaqua Cove. “The news’ll travel slower ’n me,” he said.
He hardly felt hunger; he did not realize his fatigue. The red clay roads
were vacant, the few daily passers were not yet astir. He avoided, as far
as he might, the possibility of meeting them by taking short cuts over
the mountains and through valleys. His instinct was to remove himself
from his accustomed haunts. Nevertheless, he had no definite intention
of hiding, for after traversing Hazel Valley, he struck boldly into the
county road that leads up the eastern slope of Big Injun Mountain. He
had no thought of resisting arrest. He walked along meditatively, hardly
conscious even of the company of his shadow climbing the mountain with
him, until he suddenly found that it had skulked away and he was bereft
of this vague similitude of a comrade. For the sun was already west of
Big Injun. A pensive shade lay far down the slope, but below there was
again the interfulgent play of sunshine itinerant with the wind among the
leaves.
Once he sat down on a rock close by the road, with his head in his hands
and his elbows on his knees, and sought again to adjust his course to
the best interests of conscience and policy. A woman with a bag of fruit
on her back passed him presently. He replied to her “howdy;” then after
a time rose and trudged up and up the road. He had known repentance
before, for he was plastic morally. But in his experience there had been
no perplexity. It seemed to him, with the urgency of decision and the
turmoil of doubt pressing upon him, that it was happier to be resolutely
reckless. The harassments of uncertainty had affected his nerves, and he
gave a quick start when the abrupt jangle of a bell smote the air. On
the opposite side of the road, among the great craggy steeps, there was
a wide, low niche in the face of the cliff, with a beetling roof and a
confusion of rocks and bushes below. Sheep had climbed into it; some were
standing looking down at him, now and then stirring and setting the bell
to clanking fitfully; others lay motionless in the shadowy nook. He was
about to go on; suddenly he turned and began to scale the huge fragments
of rock to the niche in the cliff.
“Ye clar out,” he said to the sheep as they scuttled away at his
approach; “ye hev got the very spot I want.”
They huddled together as he crept in; two or three hastily ran out upon
the rocks,—only a little frightened, for they began presently to nibble
the grass growing in the rifts. He lay down, pillowing his head upon
his arm, and turning his eyes on the scene without. He could see far
below into the depths of Hazel Valley, with hill and dale in undulatory
succession. The light glanced here and there on the minute lines of a
zigzag fence; on a field in which the stark and girdled trees stood in
every gaunt attitude of despair; on a patch striped with green where
tobacco grew in orderly ranks,—all amongst the dense forests, upon
which these tiny suggestions of civilization seemed only some ephemeral
incident, ineffective, capable of slightest significance. Beyond, the
wooded mountains rose in the densities of unbroken primeval wilderness,
with irregular summit-lines, with graduating tones from bronze-green to
blue-gray, with a solemnity that even the sunshine did not abate. Still
further, the Great Smoky, veiled with mist and vague with distance,
stood high against the sky,—so high that but for the familiar changeless
outline it must have seemed the fiction of the clouds.
The sheep came back and crowded about him,—he lay so still. Once he was
conscious of their motion; he intended to rouse himself in a moment and
drive them off. And once afterward he was vaguely aware of the tinkle of
the bell. Then he heard no more.
The afternoon wore on. The sunlight deepened to orange and burned to red.
The mountains were all garbed in purple. The sky above that splendid
summit-line of the Great Smoky caught the reflection from the west and
was delicately roseate. Cow-bells were clanking in Hazel Valley, faintly,
faintly. A star, most serene, was at the zenith.
The sheep in the dark niche of the crags stirred, and huddled together
again, and were quiet. The moon came and looked coyly in, as if she
sought Endymion. The face of the mountaineer, its reckless spirit all
spent, was gentle and young in the soft, shy light.
All at once he was awake. The sheep were crowding timorously about him. A
voice broke with sudden discord into the harmonies of the night.
“Nuthin’ but sheep, I reckon.”
There was a great scuffling among the rocks and bushes, and Mink ventured
to lift his head.
He saw the mist-filled valley below; the glister of the moon in the skies
above; the infinite expanse of mountain forms all along the background;
and in the stony road on the verge of the precipice an equestrian group
standing motionless in shadow and sheen.
He recognized the sheriff of the county among them, and the constable
from Piomingo Cove was in the act of clambering up the rocks.