Backwoods Girl

by Peggy Gaddis

  “Well, reckin ain’t no use us settin’ hyer all night,” said Marthy briskly, and rose to clear the table.

  Jim rose to help her, and Marthy was scandalized. “You men folks set,” she said firmly. “This hyer’s woman’s work. I ain’t never let a man he’p me clear a table tier wash dishes in my life.”

  She bustled them out of the room and into the store, and Storekeeper grinned uneasily at Jim. “You want to be keerful, Mister,” he warned, a twinkle in his eyes. “It’s took us mountain men a sight o’ time to convince women it ain’t fitten fer us to do women’s chores. We don’t want no flatland furriners comin’ up hyer breakin’ up our trainin’.”

  Jim laughed, and for a while the two men sat and smoked, while Storekeeper rambled on with his fantastic mountain legends. It was after ten when Jim was once more in his cabin, ready for bed, but too restless to sleep. His thoughts were busy with Cindy, and with Lorna, too—a combination that was not conducive to sleep.

  Lorna was heady, exciting, stimulating. Cindy was young, guileless’ and innocent — and, he could not help feeling — in great danger. Storekeeper had insisted no one would harm Cindy, but with this fantastic legend of gold hidden on her place, how could anyone be sure?

  Jim knocked out his final pipe at last and promised himself that somehow he would try to see Cindy again, perhaps to warn her. Perhaps even to plan some sort of protection for her. So that it was Cindy, not Lorna, who was last in his thoughts when he finally fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  The cabin was snug and warm against the bitter wind sweeping down over the mountain. Cindy pushed aside her weaving frame and stood up, stretching muscles cramped by the long hours of bending above the frame. She walked to the big iron pot hung on a rack above the cheerful hearth fire and swung it around so she could lift the lid and stir the contents slightly.

  Seth, asleep on the hearth, lifted his great head and sniffed. Cindy smiled down at him, bending to pat his head fondly. “Dinner’ll be ready right soon, Seth boy,” she told him softly. “Sure smells good, too, don’t it? They’s a ham-bone in there you’re sure gonna like a lot.”

  The dog stiffened and came up on his front quarters, his ears cocked, a low growl in his throat even before the loud call came from outside.

  “Hellooo!” the voice repeated, and with a single lithe movement, Cindy had the gun, always left hanging above the fireplace, in her hands. Seth was at the door, sniffing, his hackles raised. “Hello Cindy. It’s me, Enoch.”

  The dog looked up at Cindy and whined, remembering from the long ago that voice that had once been loved and familiar, and that now he was not sure he should accept as a friend.

  Cindy stood rigid, the gun held slackly in her hands while the call came again, and then with her heart thumping in her throat, she ran to the door and swung it open.

  Enoch stood well away from the veranda, a gun in his hand, a game-bag slung over his shoulder. He was bareheaded, his coonskin cap held in a work-roughened hand, and the cold wind ruffled his yellow hair as his eager eyes took her in swiftly.

  “Howdy, Cindy.” His voice was warm and eager. “Maw had a hankerin’ fer a mess o’ squirrel meat, so I thought I’d stop by an’ see did you feel like fixin’ you a squirrel stew.”

  “That was neighborly o’ you, Enoch.” Cindy’s voice was not quite steady. “Come in an’ set a spell in the warm, can’t ye?”

  “Sure would love to, Cindy,” Enoch said happily, and laid the game bag on the porch, his gun beside it and came into the house.

  Seth stood tense, watching him, and Cindy spoke softly to the dog. As though her voice released the uneasiness that had gripped him, Seth leaped forward, tail wagging, dropping down on his front paws, his rear up-ended and shaken by the hard wagging of his thick tail.

  Enoch bent and caressed the dog roughly, talking to him in a soft, murmuring voice, before he straightened and looked at Cindy.

  “Mighty proud t’ see ye ag’in, Cindy. You’re lookin’ right pert,” he said awkwardly.

  “Oh, I’m fine, Enoch. I’m allus fine,” she answered eagerly, and asked, “I hope your Maw’s keepin’ well?”

  “She’s be’n porely lately. A misery in her back but she still gits about,” said Enoch, and for a moment they were silent, just looking at each other. Naked hunger was in his eyes, so that her own fell before that gaze, and the color rose beneath her smooth skin.

  “Effen you ain’t et, Enoch,” she said hurriedly, “I got a nice mess turnip-sallet cookin’ with a ham-hock an’ corn pone. They’s a heap o’ it. I’d be right proud to fix ye a plate.”

  “Sure sounds good, an’ I’m hungrier ‘n a wolf,” said Enoch happily.

  “Then pull up a chair an’ set,” Cindy invited him. “These hyer is some o’ the greens I put up last fall. They sure was good then. I sure hope I canned ‘em good.”

  “I ain’t afeard ye didn’t. You’re a right good hand at puttin’ things up, Cindy.”

  “Reckin anybody that was learned by Granny’d be good at anything,” Cindy told him, going busily from the hearth fire to the table, until the meal was spread and ready. “You want to wash up, Enoch, they’s a kettle o’ water on the stove in the kitchen.”

  He nodded and went into the kitchen, where she heard him splashing lustily, and when he came back, the table was ready.

  “Set, Enoch,” she invited, warmly hospitable.

  Settled at the table, as they loaded their plates to satisfy the hearty appetites of healthy youth, he watched her with a look that devoured her as they ate, and the dog sat happily watching them. These were two people Seth knew and loved best, yet they were so seldom together.

  “Seth’s lookin’ good,” said Enoch awkwardly.

  “Oh, I take good keer o’ him. He’s my best friend,” said Cindy simply. “I dunno what I’d do ‘thout Seth.”

  Enoch lowered his eyes to his plate. “I worry ‘bout you, Cindy.” The words seemed to come without volition, and Cindy looked up at him, her eyes widening.

  “You ain’t got no cause to worry ‘bout me, Enoch. I’m all right,” she told him. “You trained Seth an’ give him to me. You learned me to use Black Billy. Granny learned me to fend for myself. I’m fine.”

  “That city feller that was up hyer,” said Enoch awkwardly, feeling carefully for his words, “he seems a right nice feller.”

  “You seen him?”

  “I talked to him when he was headin’ fer the Crick,” Enoch admitted, and looked straight at her. “Reckin him an’ that there city woman that comes to the Crick so much is right good friends. Maw says she thinks mebbe the city feller come hyer account of that Miss Blake.”

  Startled, Cindy turned the thought over in her mind. “Well, reckin mebbe it could be,” she said reluctantly.

  “Storekeeper an’ Marthy’s puffin’ it ‘round that them two come up hyer to hunt the Injun gold,” said Enoch quietly.

  Cindy caught her breath, and her dark eyes went wide. “Oh, no, Enoch!” she gasped.

  “I dunno nuthin’ ‘bout it, o’ course, but yestiddy when Maw went down to set a spell with Marthy, she heard all about it,” said Enoch. “Marthy claims the city feller stayed all night in Miss Blake’s cabin fust night he was down to the Crick.”

  Cindy’s face was aflame, and her eyes would not meet his. “Reckin flatland furriners has idees that ain’t like our’n,” she said painfully.

  “Sin’s sin, Cindy, whuther it’s flatland furriners ‘er mountain folks.”

  Cindy thrust back her chair and moved away from him, her back towards him, her slender young body rigid. Enoch watched her for a moment, and then he stood up and crossed to where she stood. He was within inches of her, but he did not touch her.

  “Cindy, honey—.” His young voice came thick and rough. “It near ‘bout kills me to see you like this.
You know how I’m a-wantin’ you, Cindy. Wantin’ you bad sometimes it seems like I can’t stand it no more.”

  “Your Maw—.” The words seemed to be torn painfully from her throat.

  Enoch’s face was white and strained. “Yeah, I know. Maw says she’ll kill herself effen I marry you, and she’ll do it, too.”

  “She’s a right strong-minded woman, Enoch. I reckin mebbe she might.”

  “But, Cindy, honey, how’m I gonna stand it, not havin’ you when I’m a-wantin’ you so bad it’s like tearin’ me to pieces? I ain’t never wanted a woman before. I’m plumb crazy wantin’ you—.” Enoch’s powerful arms gathered her close, and for a moment she resisted him. The dog stirred and growled deep in his throat, uneasy, bewildered.

  Then Cindy turned in Enoch’s arms, and her own arms went hard about him. Her young, firm body was pressed against him so hard that it seemed she was trying to make herself a part of him. His arms were a crushing strength, against which she would have been powerless, had she had any thought of resistance. But she did not, and it was proved by her own arms holding him close, her soft, tremulous mouth lifted for the hard, bruising down-drive of his.

  Held close in his arms, his mouth burning on hers, she was shaken like a young sapling in a strong wind. His hands were groping, seeking, caressing her ardently, until her body throbbed like a violin-string. He was bearing her backward towards the bed in a corner, when suddenly strength and a measure of sanity came back to her. Because in her near surrender her body had gone limp, because of his driving for that surrender, his arms had loosened a little as he drew her towards the bed. So it was that when she suddenly wrenched herself away from him, he was unable to hold her. He could only stand staring at her stupidly, his big body shaken by the frustration of his intense desire.

  Swiftly, so that he had no way of guessing her intention, she had reached the corner where the gun stood and now she menaced him with it, her beautiful face white and set.

  “Git!” she told him furiously.

  “Cindy, honey!” he pleaded, and took an incautious step towards her, his arms extended.

  “I said git, an’ I meant Git out!” Her voice was low, shaken, but the hands that held the gun, the barrel pointed towards his midriff, were steady as a rock. “I’ll blow you t’ pieces jest as free as I would a snake, Enoch Hayden. You ain’t no frien’ o’ mine. You jest want me t’ be bad so’s you can strut like a barnyard rooster. Well, you ain’t gonna do it. Ain’t no man never gonna lay a hand on me like that!”

  “Cindy, I love you!”

  “You lie! You jest want me—like Seth wants a bitch that’s in heat!” Her voice was shaken with a storm of despair and grief that whipped him like a lash. “Git outen my house, an’ don’t you never put your foot hyer again ‘s long ‘s you live, Enoch Hayden.”

  The dog was up now, growling, looking from one to the other, showing his preference by coming closer to the girl, standing between her and the man, this man who had once been his friend.

  “I wouldn’t hurt you none, Cindy,” Enoch pleaded, but she did not answer him. She merely motioned him towards the door.

  He went through it at last, stumbling slightly on the threshold, as though his eyes were glazed. The door slammed shut behind him the instant he was out of it, and he heard the stout wooden bar fall into place. He picked up the game bag and his own gun and plodded heavily across the door yard, out of sight down the trail.

  Cindy stood with her back pressed hard against the closed door until long after Enoch had vanished. Then, moving slowly and heavily, she crossed to the fireplace, hung the gun once more on the two pegs that had been built into the stone chimney by her great-grandfather, for no other purpose than to hold a gun handy for instant use.

  With the dog at her heels, whining softly now and then in puzzlement and distress, she went out of the cabin and down a narrow path at the back until she came out in a small apple orchard. The young trees, stripped of leaves, twisted by the wind, grew out of one of the very few spots where the soil was deep enough above the stones and gravel to allow anything to grow.

  Beneath one of the trees in the middle of the small orchard, was a tiny mound of earth.

  Cindy stood above it, oblivious to the bitter wind that tugged at her hair and whipped her limp skirts about her. Her face was terrible in a bitterness far too old for her few years, and suddenly she dropped down on her knees beside the tiny mound. Her hands touched it as gently as though it had been a sleeping child.

  “I ain’t no good, little ‘un.” She spoke softly, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “I ain’t no manner o’ count. I ain’t lovin’ Enoch. But I—wanted him, like no decent gal ever wants a man she don’t love. I wanted to go to bed with him. I’m a shameless, good for nothin’ somebody, little ‘un. I know it ain’t fer me to love nobody, ner hope no decent feller would ever want to marry me. What makes me be so bad, little ‘un? Mebbe if you’d a’lived—.”

  She caught her breath, and a sob tore its way from her throat. She slid forward until she lay face down across the little grave, the cold earth against her young, strong body.

  Her bitterness, the desolation of her pain was to deep for the easy comfort of tears as she lay there, unconscious of the cold, the big dog standing beside her, whining low in his throat, bewildered, yet knowing this human he worshipped so single-heartedly was in terrible distress as he guarded her, waiting, shivering in the cold wind that whipped across the small plateau.

  CHAPTER 9

  Jim sat on the big flat rock in the thickening darkness, thinking himself several different kinds of a fool to be waiting like this for Lorna’s arrival when he was not at all sure what time she would come. She had promised to leave Atlanta Friday, after her office closed. The drive from Atlanta to Marshallville should not take more than two hours, taking into consideration the after-five traffic she would have to battle leaving the city.

  Jim had no idea what the bus schedule was, but he had arrived at the bus stop a little before seven. Now, almost an hour later, he was still waiting, shivering in the cold wind, the powerful flashlight in his hand. When at last he saw the feeble lights of the bus showing above the hill beyond which lay Marshallville, he stood up, cramped and frozen. He walked forward as the bus ground to a shuddering halt so that when Lorna stepped from it, he would be standing in the feeble light shed by the vehicle. In that way she would not be startled by having him emerge suddenly from the darkness.

  “Well, forevermore!” she gasped, and then she laughed as he guided her up the steep climb from the so-called road after the bus lumbered on its way. “How long have you been waiting, you blessed goof? What are you doing, auditioning for pneumonia?”

  “Nope,” said Jim happily, tucking her hand through his arm, and using the beam of the flashlight to mark the way ahead of them. “I’ve been waiting for my girl. We had a date, remember?”

  “So we did,” Lorna laughed and moved ahead of him when the trail became too narrow for them to walk arm-in-arm. “What have you been doing with yourself all week?”

  “Oh, this and that,” Jim said. “According to Storekeeper, I’ve been destroying the stern discipline of the mountain husbands, who have, over the years, impressed upon their wives the fact that chopping wood, building fires, and such was women’s work.”

  “You mean you’ve been doing chores for Marthy? I can imagine Storekeeper wouldn’t care too much for that. You’ll make her expect him to do them when you return to town,” said Lorna, over her shoulder.

  “Oh, well, we needn’t face that problem for awhile yet,” Jim assured her. “I’m beginning to like it up here. Rugged, but very quiet and peaceful.”

  “Stagnation usually is, I’ve heard.” Lorna’s voice was not amused, and she was moving faster away from him.

  When they came in sight of her cabin and she saw the lighted windows, she paused and look
ed back at him. “That was nice of you, Jim.” Her voice was warm. “I’ve never before arrived here to see the cabin anything but dark and deserted.”

  “It’s so cold, I thought it might be nice if I warmed the place up and left the lights burning while I went to meet you,” Jim told her, and followed her up the steps and into the cabin.

  She looked swiftly around the warm, lighted room, and then she lifted her head and sniffed. “Jim, you haven’t been cooking something?” she demanded.

  “That’s spaghetti sauce you smell,” he told her, grinning. “It makes its presence felt even after the pot has been taken from the fire, but I couldn’t help that. It has to smell, or it isn’t right.”

  Lorna turned swiftly to him and was in his arms for a moment, kissing him lightly before she drew herself from his arms.

  “Spaghetti is wickedly fattening and I do have to watch my figure,” she told him. “But for tonight, all diet rules are off.”

  They made a game of dining, but despite her attempted gaiety, he realized that the shadow in her eyes did not lift. When the meal was over, and they came back into the living room, he looked down at her where she half-lay, half-sat in a deep chair and asked quietly, “What’s wrong, Lorna?”

  She made a weary little gesture. “Practically everything,” she admitted. “It’s been a hellish week at the office. I suppose, being a lawyer, you couldn’t help me plot a perfect crime by which I could dispose of my immediate superior without getting a murder rap?”

  “I hardly think I’d be fit to get you off in case you rubbed out the gentleman,” he said. “My record wouldn’t indicate that, do you think?”

  Lorna said sharply, “If you’re going to brood about one lost case for the rest of your life—.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a bore.”

  “Well, frankly, you are!” she snapped. “Suppose every time a doctor lost a patient, he decided to stop practicing medicine?”