Cumberland Vendetta

John Fox

Description

pubOne.info present you this new edition. THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret refuge now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in the woods. The primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked over the red coals; the slice of bacon and the little bag of meal were hung high against the rock wall; and the two stepped from the cavern into a thicket of rhododendrons.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819945062
• Langue: English

Extrait

A CUMBERLAND VENDETTA
By John Fox Jr.
TO MINERVA AND ELIZABETH
I
THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; itwas a secret refuge now against hunger or darkness when they werehunting in the woods. The primitive meal was finished; ashes wereraked over the red coals; the slice of bacon and the little bag ofmeal were hung high against the rock wall; and the two stepped fromthe cavern into a thicket of rhododendrons.
Parting the bushes toward the dim light, they stoodon a massive shoulder of the mountain, the river girding it farbelow, and the afternoon shadows at their feet. Both carried guns—the tall mountaineer, a Winchester; the boy, a squirrel riflelonger than himself. Climbing about the rocky spur, they kept thesame level over log and bowlder and through bushy ravine to thenorth. In half an hour, they ran into a path that led up home fromthe river, and they stopped to rest on a cliff that sank in a solidblack wall straight under them. The sharp edge of a steepcorn-field ran near, and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalksand hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks atprayer. In the sunlight across the river the corn stood thin andfrail. Over there a drought was on it; and when driftingthistle-plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalkhad withered blades and an empty sheath. Everywhere a look of vaguetrouble lay upon the face of the mountains, and when the wind blew,the silver of the leaves showed ashen. Autumn was at hand.
There was no physical sign of kinship between thetwo, half-brothers though they were. The tall one was dark; theboy, a foundling, had flaxen hair, and was stunted and slender. Hewas a dreamy-looking little fellow, and one may easily find hislike throughout the Cumberland-paler than his fellows, from stayingmuch indoors, with half-haunted face, and eyes that are deeplypathetic when not cunning; ignorantly credited with idiocy anduncanny powers; treated with much forbearance, some awe, and alittle contempt; and suffered to do his pleasure-nothing, or muchthat is strange-without comment.
“I tell ye, Rome, ” he said, taking up the thread oftalk that was broken at the cave, “when Uncle Gabe says he's afeardthar's trouble comm', hit's a-comm'; 'n' I want you to git me aWinchester. I'm a-gittin' big enough now. I kin shoot might' nighas good as you, 'n' whut am I fit fer with this hyeh old pawpawpop-gun? ”
“I don't want you fightin', boy, I've told ye. Y'uair too little 'n' puny, 'n' I want ye to stay home 'n' take keero' mam 'n' the cattle-ef fightin' does come, I reckon thar won't betriuch. ”
“Don't ye? ” cried the boy, with sharp contempt—“with ole Jas Lewallen a-devilin' Uncle Rufe, 'n' that blackheadedyoung Jas a-climbin' on stumps over thar 'cross the river, n'crowin' n' sayin' out open in Hazlan that ye air afeard o him? Yes;'n' he called me a idgit. ” The boy's voice broke into a whimper ofrage.
“Shet up, Isom! Don't you go gittin' mad now. You'llbe sick ag'in. I'll tend to him when the time comes. ” Rome spokewith rough kindness, but ugly lines had gathered at his mouth andforehead. The boy's tears came and went easily. He drew his sleeveacross his eyes, and looked up the river. Beyond the bend, threehuge birds rose into the sunlight and floated toward them. Close athand, they swerved side-wise.
“They hain't buzzards, ” he said, standing up, hisanger gone; “look at them straight wings! ”
Again the eagles swerved, and two shot across theriver. The third dropped with shut wings to the bare crest of agaunt old poplar under them.
“Hit's a young un, Romey, ” said the boy, excitedly.“He's goin' to wait thar tell the old uns come back. Gimme thatgun! ”
Catching up the Winchester, he slipped over theledge; and Rome leaned suddenly forward, looking down at theriver.
A group of horsemen had ridden around the bend, andwere coming at a walk down the other shore. Every man carriedsomething across his saddle-bow. There was a gray horse among them—young Jasper's— and an evil shadow came into Rome's face, andquickly passed. Near a strip of woods the gray turned up themountain from the party, and on its back he saw the red glint of awoman's dress. With a half-smile he watched the scarlet figure ridefrom the woods, and climb slowly up through the sunny corn. On thespur above and full in the rich yellow light, she halted, halfturning in her saddle. He rose to his feet, to his full height, hishead bare, and thrown far back between his big shoulders, and,still as statues, the man and the woman looked at each other acrossthe gulf of darkening air. A full minute the woman sat motionless,then rode on. At the edge of the woods she stopped and turnedagain.
The eagle under Rome leaped one stroke in the air,and dropped like a clod into the sea of leaves. The report of thegun and a faint cry of triumph rose from below. It was goodmarksmanship, but on the cliff Rome did not heed it. Something hadfluttered in the air above the girl's head, and he laughed aloud.She was waving her bonnet at him.
II
JUST where young Stetson stood, the mountains racingalong each bank of the Cumberland had sent out against each other,by mutual impulse, two great spurs. At the river's brink theystopped sheer, with crests uplifted, as though some hand at thelast moment had hurled them apart, and had led the water throughthe breach to keep them at peace. To-day the crags looked seamed bythwarted passion; and, sullen with firs, they made fit symbols ofthe human hate about the base of each.
When the feud began, no one knew. Even the originalcause was forgotten. Both families had come as friends fromVirginia long ago, and had lived as enemies nearly half a century.There was hostility before the war, but, until then, littlebloodshed. Through the hatred of change, characteristic of themountaineer the world over, the Lewallens were for the Union. TheStetsons owned a few slaves, and they fought for them. Peace foundboth still neighbors and worse foes. The war armed them, andbrought back an ancestral contempt for human life; it left them aheritage of lawlessness that for mutual protection made necessarythe very means used by their feudal forefathers; personal hatredsupplanted its dead issues, and with them the war went on. TheStetsons had a good strain of Anglo-Saxon blood, and ownedvalley-lands; the Lewallens kept store and made “moonshine”; sokindred and debtors and kindred and tenants were arrayed with oneor the other leader, and gradually the retainers of both settled onone or the other side of the river. In time of hostility theCumberland came to be the boundary between life and death for thedwellers on each shore. It was feudalism born again.
Above one of the spurs each family had its home; theStetsons, under the seared face of Thunderstruck Knob; theLewallens, just beneath the wooded rim of Wolf's Head. The eavesand chimney of each cabin were faintly visible from the porch ofthe other. The first light touched the house of the Stetsons; thelast, the Lewallen cabin. So there were times when the one couldnot turn to the sunrise nor the other to the sunset but with acurse in his heart, for his eye must fall on the home of hisenemy.
For years there had been peace. The death of RomeStetson's father from ambush, and the fight in the court-housesquare, had forced it. After that fight only four were left-oldJasper Lewallen and young Jasper, the boy Rome and his uncle, RufeStetson. Then Rufe fled to the West, and the Stetsons werehelpless. For three years no word was heard of him, but the hatredburned in the heart of Rome's mother, and was traced deep in hergrim old face while she patiently waited the day of retribution. Itsmouldered, too, in the hearts of the women of both clans who hadlost husbands or sons or lovers; and the friends and kin of eachhad little to do with one another, and met and passed with watchfuleyes. Indeed, it would take so little to turn peace to war that thewonder was that peace had lived so long. Now trouble was at hand.Rufe Stetson had come back at last, a few months since, and hadquietly opened store at the county-seat, Hazlan-a little town fivemiles up the river, where Troubled Fork runs seething into theCumberland-a point of neutrality for the factions, and consequentlya battle-ground. Old Jasper's store was at the other end of thetown, and the old man had never been known to brook competition. Hehad driven three men from Hazlan during the last term of peace forthis offence, and everybody knew that the fourth must leave orfight. Already Rufe Stetson had been warned not to appear outsidehis door after dusk. Once or twice his wife had seen skulkingshadows under the trees across the road, and a tremor ofanticipation ran along both banks of the Cumberland.
III
A FORTNIGHT later, court came. Rome was going toHazlan, and the feeble old Stetson mother limped across the porchfrom the kitchen, trailing a Winchester behind her. Usually he wentunarmed, but he took the gun now, as she gave it, in silence.
The boy Isom was not well, and Rome had told him toride the horse. But the lad had gone on afoot to his duties at oldGabe Bunch's mill, and Rome himself rode down Thunderstruck Knobthrough the mist and dew of the early morning. The sun was comingup over Virginia, and through a dip in Black Mountain thefoot-hills beyond washed in blue waves against its white disk. Alittle way down the mountain, the rays shot through the gap uponhim, and, lancing the mist into tatters, and lighting thedew-drops, set the birds singing. Rome rode, heedless of it all,under primeval oak and poplar, and along rain-clear brooks andhappy waterfalls, shut in by laurel and rhododendron, and singingpast mossy stones and lacelike ferns that brushed his stirrup. Onthe brow of every cliff he would stop to look over the trees andthe river to the other shore, where the gray line of a path ranaslant Wolf's Head, and was lost in woods above and below.
At the river he rode up-stream, look