Backwoods Girl

by Peggy Gaddis

  Lorna studied him in growing anger. He had walked out on Cindy, leaving her to suffer the tortures of the damned. Being a woman herself, having been abandoned once as he had abandoned Cindy, Lorna knew what it had meant to Cindy. But now he was going blandly back. He was ready to stoop a bit from his high-minded position to marry Cindy. He had not suffered at all, and it was damned unfair.

  “Aren’t you being noble?” she purred venomously.

  Startled, Jim frowned at her. “Noble? That’s a crack I don’t get,” he said.

  “Don’t you?” She smiled sweetly at him, her green eyes bright with malice. “You listened to Cindy’s pitiful little confession, and because you were so pure and virtuous yourself, you walked out on her. Now that you’ve had time to think things over, and you decided that just possibly Cindy may know where the gold is hidden, you’ve decided you’re going back. You may even marry her.”

  “There’s no may about that,” he cut in.

  “Oh, isn’t there? It hadn’t occurred to you that maybe by now Cindy may not want to marry you,” she pointed out gently.

  “She will,” Jim stated so flatly, so surely that Lorna yearned to fling herself at him, her claws extended like a cat.

  “Oh, maybe,” she drawled. “But she seems to have consoled herself very nicely in your absence.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “What do you think I mean?” she drawled, smiling with that bright, mocking malice shining in her eyes. “I mean that while you’re away Enoch is still there, and Enoch’s pretty crazy about her.”

  “Enoch has always been pretty crazy about her, but Cindy’s not in love with him,” Jim said sharply.

  “Oh, love.” Lorna’s shrug dismissed it as something of extreme unimportance. “Love’s a pretty little spun-sugar word, well thought of in certain circles, I admit, but up there on Old Hungry, there are many other things far more important. Such as companionship, for instance. What else could you expect?

  “Except for that hideous, brutal experience she had when she was just a child, the Book of Sex has always been closed to Cindy. Then you changed all that. You taught her that sex could be a hell of a lot of fun. You woke her up to a craving that’s desperately important. You’re not there, but Enoch is—a big, lusty young bull of a man who speaks Cindy’s own language and who has been in Cindy’s words a-hankerin’ after her for a long long time.”

  Lorna regretted the hasty words the instant they left her mouth. She had not intended to go that far, yet she seemed to be driven by some outside force to wound, to hurt, to lash out at Jim McCurdy. She had come to his apartment, furious with him, burning to torment him, because since she had heard Cindy’s story he had come to represent all selfish manhood to her, the manhood that had once dealt her a shattering blow from which she had not yet recovered. One thing she had determined. Jim must realize the extent of the torture to which he had put Cindy. He must be made to realize it by undergoing the same treatment himself.

  Before she realized she was doing it, Lorna deliberately, viciously thrust out at him again. “Yes, Mr. McCurdy, Cindy’s been working real hard at forgetting you—working right in Enoch Haney’s arms.”

  “You’re lying!”

  Lorna shrugged. “I’m only warning you that you may have a most unpleasant surprise when you get back to Ghost Creek. Enoch, if he’s half the man Cindy seems to think he is—and who should know better now than Cindy?—he’ll be waiting for you with a loaded shotgun. If you’ve got five cents worth of brains, you’ll stay away from there and let her find what happiness she can with a man on her own level, a man who won’t want to educate her and change her, a man who likes her and finds her completely satisfying, just as she is.”

  She saw the torment in his eyes and was fiercely glad that she had been able to deal him a sharp, stinging blow in return for his treatment of Cindy.

  His face was grey and twisted with pain, and she saw, with delight, the anguish in his eyes as she turned gracefully towards the door.

  “Think it over, pal, and you’ll see I’m right,” she told him sweetly, and went out and closed the door behind her.

  Outside she stood for a long moment, her hands over her face, her body shaking. She had not meant to turn him away from Cindy. She had only meant to hurt him, to make him less smug and sure of Cindy’s welcome. But knowing the depths of Cindy’s love for him, she was appalled at the realization of how thoroughly she had driven home the hitter truths to him. Would he be big enough to go to Cindy, in spite of all that Lorna had flung at him? Or would he accept Lorna’s assurance that Cindy was better off without him?

  You fool! she told herself bitterly, knowing the futility of going back to recant her words. She had done her work too well, by far. Now all she could do was try to reassure herself that, in the final analysis, she had been right, that Enoch and Cindy, being creatures of the same world, the same background and upbringing, would be better off together. Yet, Cindy’s love for Jim was so deep and so honest—. Lorna beat her gloved hands soundlessly together in an agony of indecision, hating herself for that moment of venom that had led her much farther than she had meant to go.

  Behind her in the apartment she could not hear a sound, but she knew the building was modern, well-built and practically soundproof. There was nothing for her to do but go away, not knowing whether she had betrayed Cindy’s confidence and driven Jim irretrievably away, or whether she had managed only to convince him more than ever that his love for Cindy was genuine.

  CHAPTER 15

  It was very early and very cold. The sun had just thrown its first scarf of pale-gold above the top of Old Hungry, and Enoch paused, as he always did at this point on the trail, to look up at the solid-grey cabin where Cindy lived. Then he started and his eyes widened, because no thin wisp of blue smoke appeared from the top of the old rock-and-dirt chimney. Not a sign of life showed. At this hour of the morning, Enoch knew that Cindy would ordinarily have been up long ago. The cow would be milked, the chickens fed, and she would be busy at her loom.

  A feather-wing of icy cold touched him as he started hurrying along the trail to the cabin. Outside it he paused and knocked loudly, lifting his voice, calling her name. Inside the cabin he heard Seth’s low growl, and then a sharp, anxious deep-throated bark. But no sound from the girl.

  Enoch moved quickly to a window, and peered in. Cindy lay on her bed, .43 still beneath the thick covers that terror clawed at him, and he banged even harder at the door. Only Seth’s growling answered him, and the girl did not move.

  With the butt of his gun, and all his hard, young strength behind it, Enoch pounded against the door until, at last, just when he was about to give up hope, the stout bar fell, and the door plunged open.

  Seth was up, standing between Enoch and the bed, but as his ears caught the sound and his nose the scent of Enoch, he whined. The hostility went out of him.

  “Take it slow. Seth. You know me. I ain’t gonna hurt her,” Enoch soothed the dog as he approached the bed and bent over the girl. “Cindy, honey, it’s me, Enoch. Whut’s ailin’ you, honey?”

  As though his well-remembered voice reached down to the depths of unconsciousness where she lay, the girl stirred and moaned faintly. Enoch heard the hard, laborious sound of her breathing.

  Her face was burning hot, but her body was shaking as with a chill. Enoch went swiftly to work, building a fire, while the dog paced with him, looking up at him, as though sharing his anxiety. When the fire was roaring and the bitter cold of the room was beginning to retreat a little, Enoch poured liquid from a stout jug in the kitchen, added hot water from the kettle swung on a crane above the fire, and raising the girl’s head against his shoulder, he fed the steaming aromatic concoction to her, one sip at a time, until at last the cup was empty.

  It seemed to him that her breathing was less painful when he put her back agai
nst her pillow, and his hands chafed hers anxiously, until at last some faint touch of color came to her face. Her heavy eyelids lifted, her eyes focusing dully on him.

  “Enoch,” she whispered in a breath of sound.

  “Sure, honey, it’s me, Enoch,” he soothed. “How long you been like this, honey?”

  “I—don’t recollect, not rightly.” she panted in a frail whisper that clutched at his heart. “Seems like it’s been a right long time. Reckon I got cold doin’ the milkin’. Reckon mebbe it was last night. I dunno. I come in, and seemed like I couldn’t git warm. So I went to bed to kinda thaw out, and that’s all I rec’llect.”

  “Don’t try to talk, honey. Jest lay there and rest,” he urged her. “Seth ain’t been fed,” she whispered. “They’s vittles in the cupboard.”

  “You ain’t got to worry about a thing, honey, ‘cept jest gettin’ well, fast as you kin. Enoch’s hyer. I’ll take keer o’ everything,” he soothed her tenderly. He held her until her eyelids fluttered down, and her breathing grew slightly easier.

  He looked down at the dog, put out a rough hand and patted the faithful head. “Reckin I better see ‘bout gettin’ you some vittles, boy,” he said softly, as he rose and tiptoed clumsily into the kitchen.

  Seth padded with him and fell on the food with such vigorous appetite that Enoch was frightened. Seth would not be all that hungry just from missing one meal. How long had Cindy lain here like this, sick, and helpless and alone? It made Enoch’s stomach curl into a hard knot just thinking about it.

  He got the milk bucket and went out to the stable, tucked under a shelf of rock, backed by the mountainside itself. He knew from one look at Bessie’s udder that she had not been milked the day before and her distressed lowing added further proof of that. He talked to her gently as he milked, and when he had finished, he fed her and the patient mule. The chickens were scrambling for the feed he had strewn for them when he went back into the house.

  Cindy was still sleeping, but she was warm now. Enoch added more wood to the fire and came and stood beside her, looking down at her, his young face hard and grim. Then with a sudden, decisive gesture he turned to the dog. “You stay right here with her, Seth,” he ordered. “And don’t let nobody in but me. You hear?”

  The dog studied him intently with faithful, intelligent eyes, and Enoch knew that Seth understood and would obey.

  Enoch let himself out of, the cabin, pulled the door shut and fastened it from the outside. Then, carrying his gun slung under his arm, he went striding purposefully down the trail to his own home.

  As he came into the house, his mother, rocking before the fire, knitting, looked up at him eagerly. “Did ye git us some meat fer the pot, son?” she asked. “I got my mouth all set fer some wild vittles.”

  “Git yore things on, Maw,” ordered Enoch in a tone his mother had never heard him use before to her. “I want you to git up to Cindy’s place soon’s you kin. She’s powhaful sick, an’ she needs a woman.”

  Jennie stared at him, as though he had lost his mind.

  “An’ whut’s it t’me if that trollop—?” she began when she had mastered her astonishment.

  Enoch took a threatening step towards her, his eyes blazing. “Don’t never let me hear you say that word ag’in Cindy agi’n, long ‘s you live, Maw.” His voice was low, not quite steady.

  “Don’t ye dast talk t’me like that, boy!” she blazed.

  “I’m a-tellin’ yet, Maw, Cindy’s mighty sick. Looks to me like it mought be the pneumonnv, I dunno. But I do know she’s awful sick, an’ you gotta git up there an’ look after her,” he said. “Account o’ jest as soon as she’s able, I’m aimin’ to marry up with her, effen she’ll have me.”

  Jennie gave a furious squawk of indignation. “I done tole you whut I’d do—,” she began furiously.

  “Yeah, I know. Well, effen you wanna throw yourself in the crick, then you’ll have to do it. I’m aimin’ to marry Cindy, effin I kin. Now, air you gonna take keer o’ her, or do I have to go git Marthy?”

  Jennie was wide-eyed, appalled. This could not possibly be Enoch, her subdued, easily-controlled son; the awkward, overgrown boy who had always been docile and obedient as a child. This was a man! His resemblance to his father, whom Jennie had loved as she had never loved anyone before or since, startled and delighted her, though she would have died under torture before she would have admitted it.

  “I ain’t got no time fer foolishment, Maw,” Enoch said sharply. “Cindy’s up there all by her lone self, an’ she’s a-needin’ help. Effen you’re goin, you’re gonna have to take your foot in your hand an’ step smart—er I’m a-goin’ after Marthy.”

  “Well, sakes alive, give a body time to git her shawl,” she snapped. “Ain’t no use me gittin’ the pneumonny, too, tryin’ to git up thar and look atter the gal-young-’un.”

  Enoch drew a long, deep breath and smiled. “Thanks, Maw,” he said quietly.

  “Thanks nuthin’!” snapped Jennie, once more assuming the ascendancy over him. “Ain’t nobody so rotten-mean they ain’t willin’ to he’p out when they’s sickness, no matter who it is thet’s sick. Let’s us git started, boy.”

  She struck out down the path to the gate and up the trail, with Enoch on her heels. He felt a child-like sense of relief that his mother was taking charge. Since babyhood he had relied on her, and now, in his moment of newfound manhood, he was still relying on her. But he told himself as he followed her up the steep trail, he was going on being a man, now that he had for once broken his mother’s hold on him. He was going to marry Cindy, if she would have him!

  Enoch thought of Jim McCurdy, the slick city fellow who had been seeing so much of Cindy. He told himself that he had nothing to fear from Jim. City people thought the mountains were fun, and mountain folks quaint, but they were not marrying up with the mountain folk. Furthermore, Cindy was a mountain gal. She would not want to live in the flatlands, and Jim McCurdy sure as hell would not want to live in the mountains. Jim was gone now, and good riddance to him.

  “Whar do y’think ye’re goin’?”

  Enoch almost trod on Jennie as she paused at the door of the cabin and turned belligerently on him. “This hyer’s woman’s work, an’ ain’t no man got no right to be a stickin’ his nose inside o’ this hyer cabin ‘til I says so.”

  “Yessum,” said Enoch and grinned at his mother.

  Jennie eyed him sharply. Was he going to slip back into the childish, subservient manner of old? Was that brief flash of manhood, that had reminded her so poignantly of his pappy, going to die out so soon? His pappy had been a hellion, but, law, law, he had been a man!

  Jennie went briskly into the cabin, closed the door smartly in her son’s face, and a moment later Enoch heard her bustling about inside. His anxious heart relaxed. His mother was a master-hand with the sick. Cindy would be all right now, he told himself. Whistling, he went out to chop more wood for the fire and to assure himself that the chores were all attended to.

  Inside the cabin, Cindy shrank as Jennie bent over her, but Jennie was briskly matter-of-fact as she examined the girl, listened to her breathing and nodded.

  “I though Enoch—,” stammered Cindy faintly.

  “Ain’t fittin fer a man to be a-lookin’ atter a gal sick as ye be,” interrupted Jennie. “Whar-at’s yore Granny’s yarb-chist?”

  “In the kitchen,” Cindy answered.

  “Gotta fix a good poultice fer that chest o your’n,” said Jennie and stalked out to the kitchen.

  As she affixed the hot, stinging, foul-smelling poultice to Cindy’s chest, Jennie looked down at her severely. “I ain’t likin’ you no better ‘n I ever did,” she said sternly. “But it ain’t Christian not to do whut you kin fer somebody whut’s ailin’.”

  “I’m right obliged to you,” said Cindy.

  Jennie sniffed disda
infully and tossed her head. Despite her unpleasantness when, near noon, Jennie went to the door and swung it open, Cindy watched her gratefully.

  “You, Enoch?” Jennie called sharply.

  Enoch stepped into view from the corner of the house where he had been shielding himself from the bitter wind. “How is she, Maw?” he asked.

  “Why, she’s got herself a real good cold an’ seems like it’s a-tryin’ to get itself set on her lungs, only me an’ her granny’s medicine ain’t aimin’ to let it,” said Jennie crisply. “You hightail it on down home an’ git us some vittles, an’ I’ll fix us a snack t’eat.”

  “They’s meat in the smokehouse an’ plenty o’ canned stuff, too,” Cindy protested.

  Jennie glanced at her and dismissed her. “Me an’ Enoch ain’t aimin’ to eat you outen house an’ home, gal. We got vittles, too. Git, now, Enoch!” she ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Enoch happily and set off down the trail at a dog-trot.

  “Fool boy’s aimin’ to kill hisself, gallopin’ along like that,” sniffed Jennie and closed the door again.

  Jennie was in her element, in a place where she was needed, where she could give orders and know they would be instantly obeyed. When Seth inadvertently got under her feet, she brushed him indignantly aside and Seth looked up at her, also recognizing her authority, and scrambled hastily away.

  CHAPTER 16

  Jim had done a great deal of hard thinking by the time he boarded the train for Marshallville. All night after Lorna had left him, he had sat thinking, smoking cigarette after cigarette, until his mouth tasted foul and dry, and the oversized ashtray was spilling over.

  He visualized Enoch, as Lorna had described him, a big, lusty young bull of a man. It was quite true that Cindy and Enoch were of the same world, that they could make a reasonably good life together, provided old Jennie would allow them to marry. Enoch had shown signs of rebelling, of straining hard at his mother’s tight grip. It was quite conceivable that Enoch would break away entirely, beneath the spur of his love and his physical desire for the girl, in spite of his mother’s oft-repeated threat.