Blood Feud

by David Robbins

  “He talked sense into me.”

  “How so?”

  It was Chace who answered. “I’m still leaving at first light. I’d be obliged if you’d spare some food for me to take on the trail.”

  “As if I wouldn’t,” Erna said, and put her hands on her hips. “I’m dead set against this. What if I flat-out say you can’t go? Will you still go anyway?”

  “I have to, Ma.”

  Erna bowed her head. “Oh God,” she said softly.

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Don’t do that,” Erna said.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  Chace stepped over and hugged her. “Ma, I don’t rightly know what that means. I don’t want you to worry, is all.”

  “How can I not? I’m your mother.” Erna pushed away and went to the counter.

  Just then Cassie came out of her bedroom and stood with her arms folded, staring hard at her twin.

  “What?”

  “You know.”

  Chace turned to Jed and said half jokingly, “Is it me, or are the women in this house ready to thump me with canes?”

  “It’s not you, grandson,” Jedediah Shannon said. “They know death is in the air.”

  9

  Chace was up before the rooster crowed. Slipping out of his nightshirt, he pulled on his britches and shrugged into his shirt. He strapped on the cartridge belt and stuck the sheath and toothpick at the small of his back. Taking the Spencer down from the pegs, he patted it. The night before, he had thrown things he’d need into a burlap sack and left it next to the bed, and now he hefted the bag over his shoulder and walked out of his bedroom.

  All three were waiting for him. Erna was at the counter, filling a pouch.

  Jedediah was at the table, tapping his fingers. Cassie was over by the front door wearing a pall of gloom on her usually sunny face.

  “You’re all up early.” Chace went to the table and set the sack down. “Say what you have to say and I’ll be on my way.”

  Jed bent toward him. “Any chance you’ve changed your mind about me tagging along?”

  “I thought we had that worked out.”

  Jed glanced at Erna, who chose that moment to come over carrying the pouch. “I fixed you some eats. Jerky, mainly. Plus some bread and a few cans of beans.”

  Chace slung the pouch crosswise over his chest so that it hung on his left hip. “I’m obliged.”

  Erna’s lower lip quivered and suddenly she threw her arms around him and held him close. “Oh God,” she said. “I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  “I have it to do,” Chace said. Wet drops trickled down his neck. He ran a hand over her hair. “Quit your fussing. I’ll be fine. I’m not Pa.”

  Erna drew back, her eyes flashing. “That’s a terrible thing to say, and him maybe dead.”

  “No maybe about it,” Chace replied. “He’d have been back by now if he was still breathing.”

  “Oh . . . you!” Erna exclaimed, and covering her face with her hands, she burst out bawling.

  Jed came around the table and enfolded her in his arms, saying, “There, there.” Over her shoulder he gave Chace a hard look. “See what you’ve done, boy?”

  Chace picked up the sack and stepped to the door. He went out without glancing back and didn’t say anything to the shadow he acquired until after he had gone into the barn for the bridle and then around to the corral. “You’re not coming, if that’s what is on your mind.”

  “I want to see you off,” Cassie said, “and to tell you something.”

  Chace waited with his hand on the gate.

  “I know I can’t talk you out of it. No one can. Once you take a notion into your head you’re more stubborn than a mule.” Cassie touched a finger to his cheek. “Don’t let anything happen to you. I couldn’t stand it. If you die I won’t want to live.”

  “That’s silly.”

  Cassie gripped his chin almost fiercely. “Don’t interrupt. We’re twins. Two made as one, as you put it once. And that’s true. I feel closer to you than to any human being on God’s green earth. We’re joined in our hearts and our minds now and forever.”

  Chace went to open the gate, but she held on to him.

  “So don’t tell me I’m being silly when I say that if you die, I’ll take my own life rather than go on without you.”

  “Cassie, damn it,” Chace said.

  “I can’t help my feelings. We are what we are. Other folks might laugh. Normal folks might think it strange, us being so close. But they’re not us. They don’t have a twin. They have no idea what it’s like.”

  “I’ll be back. I promise.”

  Cassie’s eyes were misting. She let go.

  Enoch came when Chace whistled. Chace slipped the bridle on and brought the mule around to the front of the barn, where he draped a worn saddle blanket over the mule’s back and swung his old saddle up and over. He tied the sack to the saddle horn and started to lift his leg to the stirrup.

  “Don’t I at least get a hug?”

  Chace slowly lowered his leg and turned. He opened his arms and Cassie stepped into them and clung to him as if she were drowning and he was a log.

  “I hate this,” she whispered, and smothered a sob. “I hate us being apart.”

  “In a week I’ll be back and we can get on with our lives.”

  “That long?”

  “Maybe longer.”

  “Oh God.”

  Chace pried her fingers off and gently pushed her back. “I can’t stand around hugging you all day.” He forked leather and lifted the reins. “Take care of Scarlet. She’ll be up and around soon and she’ll need someone to take her mind off things.”

  “She should look after herself,” Cassie said sullenly. “This is her fault. Traipsing off to Harkey Hollow thataway.”

  “She’s powerful fond of blackberries,” Chace said. He leaned down and put his hand on Cassie’s head. “Just as I’m powerful fond of you.” He smiled and jabbed his heels. She called his name but he didn’t look back. He rode down the lane and came to the fork that would take travelers to Wareagle to the east or to Siloam Spring to the west. Chace took neither. He went straight across the road and into the woods. For a quarter of an hour he made steadily north. A willow with a wide trunk caught his eye. He rode under a low branch and drew rein. Dawing his legs up under him, he looped an arm over the branch and in another moment was straddling it. Enoch stayed where he was.

  Chace gripped a higher limb to steady himself. He leaned against the trunk, the Spencer in his lap, and let his leg dangle. Time crawled to the buzz of a cicada. A cardinal alighted and took quick wing when it noticed him. A mockingbird sang. Chace was watching a fuzzy caterpillar when the dull thud of hooves intruded.

  A saddle creaked, and Chace said, “Up here.”

  A study in consternation, Jedediah had reined up next to Enoch and was scouring the forest. He slapped his leg and swore. “I should have guessed. But your mule was standing here so long, I thought ...” He didn’t say what he thought.

  Chace swung from the limb to the saddle and slipped his bare feet into the stirrups. “I’m disappointed.”

  “It’s your ma’s doing,” Jed said. “Last night she made me promise. I am to follow you and lend a hand if you need it.”

  “We’ve been all through this. Go back. Tell her I shook you off. Stay with them until I come back.”

  Jed frowned and twisted and slid his hand into a saddlebag. He groped inside and pulled out a silver flask. Opening it, he took a long swig. “Ahhhh. I needed that.” He smiled contentedly.

  “What’s that?” Chace asked.

  “What does it look like?” Jed wagged the flask. “My affliction. I’ve held off as long as I can. Any longer and I’ll come down with the shakes.”

  “I’d never have guessed.”

  “I hide it real well, don’t I?” Jed chuckled and treated himself to another swallow. “I’ve alway
s liked liquor but a lot more so since your grandmother died. Some days all I do is drink. It helps numb the pain.” He took a long pull at the flask, his throat bobbing.

  “You shouldn’t drink around the women.”

  Jed made a show of peering into the woods. “You see any hereabouts?” He chortled. “Don’t worry. I’ll sneak off and do it in private like I usually do.” He drank more and held the flask out to Chace. “How about you, boy? To fortify you for what you’ve got to do.”

  “I don’t need no fortification.”

  “No. Of course you don’t. At your age you think you don’t need anyone or anything. But you’re wrong. We’re none of us hard as iron as much as we might like to make believe we are.”

  “I don’t do make believe, neither.”

  Jed sipped and squinted at him. “No. That’s right. Come to think of it, you never were one for playing and acting the fool. From as far back as I can recollect you’ve been serious as hell.” He swallowed and smacked his lips. “You need to learn to savor life.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?”

  Jed held the flask so it caught the rays of the sun and gleamed like spun silver. “Now that you ask, yes. Some folks would accuse me of getting drunk just to get drunk. But I like getting drunk. I like the burning when I swallow and the warmth in my belly and how light-headed I get. But most of all I like how for a short while I can forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  “The hurt of losing your grandmother.” Jed raised the flask on high. “To the sweetest and best gal who ever drew breath, my wonderful Mary.”

  “Was she a whiskey funnel, too?”

  Jed lowered his arm so fast he smacked it against his saddle. “If you weren’t my kin I’d shoot you for that. But no, she wasn’t. Oh, she’d take a nip now and again, but only to please me.”

  “Then she wouldn’t like what you’ve become.”

  “Watch yourself, boy,” Jed warned. “I’ve barely had half this flask. You’ve no call to accuse me of being worse than I am.”

  “You’re swaying,” Chace said.

  “I’m what?”

  Chace pointed. “You’re swaying in your saddle, Grandpa. Any more of that red-eye and you’re liable to fall and break your bones.”

  “Ridiculous,” Jed said with ripe scorn. “After a bottle or two maybe I get tipsy but not on no half a flask.” He looked down at the ground and his eyebrows pinched. “Damn. Then again, maybe you’re right. Either the ground’s moving or I am.”

  “I have no more time for this.” Chace reined to the east and said over his shoulder, “Don’t follow me again. Next time I’ll shoot your horse out from under you.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” Jed hollered.

  There was more but Chace didn’t listen. He brought the mule to a trot for half a mile and then stopped and watched his back trail for a good twenty minutes.

  Satisfied his grandfather wasn’t trailing him, he made a beeline for the distant high ridge that separated Shannon country from Harkey territory. By sunset he was halfway to the crest. Instead of making camp he pushed on until along about ten, when he reached the top. In all directions stretched a sea of ink broken by scattered points of light. A cluster to the south was Wareagle.

  Chace made a cold camp. He sat with his back to his saddle and the Spencer across his legs and munched on jerky. Above him a host of stars sparkled. Twice shooting stars cleaved the firmament with streaks of fire. Now and again coyotes yipped. A wolf wailed a lupine lament. Owls hooted and crickets chirped.

  The woods were alive with the cries of predators and prey.

  “I reckon I like this more than just about anything,” Chace said to Enoch. The mule went on dozing.

  Soon Chace joined him.

  A pink streak marked the impending dawn when Chace was again under way. He rode slower than the day before and stopped regularly to rise in the stirrups and scan the countryside. Toward the middle of the morning he was threading through a stand of saplings when voices brought him to a halt. Dismounting, he wrapped the reins around a tree and advanced on foot.

  Two men had shot a doe and were butchering her. Both had the Harkey dark hair and dark beards and dark eyes, and wore clothes that had seen better days. They had set down their rifles to cut the doe up.

  The biggest held up the heart, which was dripping with blood. “You want first bite, cousin?”

  “You go ahead,” said the other.

  The big one sank his teeth into the ripe flesh and hungrily bit off a piece. Chewing lustily, he said with his mouth full, “Nothing beats deer hearts unless it’s bear hearts.”

  “I like hog hearts myself,” the cousin said. “They don’t taste much like ham, though, like you figure they would.”

  Chace set down the Spencer. He drew the Arkansas toothpick, held it against his pant leg, and started to rise. Then he sank back down. He looked at the toothpick and at the backs of the men and he frowned and slid the toothpick back into its sheath. Soundlessly, he crept to Enoch.

  The sun was straight overhead when Chace stopped to rest the mule. He sat on a small boulder with the Spencer across his legs and gazed at the blue vault overhead. “We need to talk, you and me.”

  A bluebird flew past, chirping.

  “My ma believes. My pa did, too, some anyway, more because of her than because of you. The parson sure believes. He goes on and on about you every single Sunday. Those like him and my ma say we shouldn’t do what I’m about to do on account of it don’t sit right with you. But I’ve been thinking and thinking, and I want you to hear me out.”

  Several turkey vultures were soaring circles high in the air, their red heads bright in the sun.

  “The question I have is, why?” Chace said to the sky. “Why did you let them do to Scarlet what they done? Why didn’t you stop my pa from going off and getting himself killed? Why did you let that damn drunk paw my sister? If you’re up there, and you’re as the parson says you are, then it makes no sense. Either he’s lying or you’re not at all like everyone thinks you are or you’re not there at all.”

  The vultures wheeled over the clearing, and him.

  Chace raised the Spencer and took a bead on one but only grinned and lowered the rifle again.

  “You can’t love us and let a girl be raped. You can’t love us and let my pa and his brothers be killed for doing what was right. Or how about my aunt’s infant, taken in the night and they don’t know what killed it? So much of that goes on.”

  Chace ran his gaze from one end of the blue to the other. “Is that your notion of love? The parson says so. Me, I think if you’re up there, you don’t care. I think you look down on us and don’t give a good damn if we die bloody or screaming or puking our guts out. But here’s your chance to prove me wrong. Give me a sign. Show me I shouldn’t do to the Harkeys as they’ve done to us. Anything will do. Have one of those buzzards fall dead at my feet. Make the ground shake. Send a dove like you did with Noah. Anything. Anything at all.”

  Chace stared at the sky until eventually he sighed and said, “I didn’t think so.”

  10

  Chace was deep in Harkey land. In most respects it was no different from Shannon country: rolling mountains, thick woods laced by gurgling streams, and plenty of wildlife.

  Another landmark—a mountain with a notch at the top—rose to the north and Chace reined to the north-east.

  The valley was exactly as Jedediah had described: narrow, with a small creek and a cabin made of stone and logs. Chace didn’t try to hide. He made straight to the homestead as calmly and as casually as if it were his own.

  A big dog came out of the shadows and commenced to bark. A woman appeared, wiping her hands on an apron. She wasn’t armed, but she showed no fear as Chace came to a stop.

  He smiled a bright smile. “Nice place you have here, ma’am.”

  “Who might you be, boy, and what do you want?” she demanded.

  “I’m Chace Shannon. I’m looking for my
pa, Buck Shannon. This Ezriah Harkey’s home?”

  “That it is,” the woman said, “but he ain’t here. He went off yesterday morning and won’t be back until the day after tomorrow. I’m his wife.”

  “What might your name be, ma’am?” Chace asked, still smiling.

  “Woman.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Folks call me Woman ’cause I want them to.”

  “How peculiar.”

  “There’s a lot of strange things in this world, boy. You’re too young to have seen them yet.”

  “I’m a fast learner, ma’am,” Chace said, and gazed about him, his smile a fixture. “Was my pa here, then?”

  “He was, boy,” Woman said. “Him and his brothers. They visited and talked with my Ezriah and then they went off to home. That’s the last I saw of them.”

  “They never got there. They should have been back long ago.”

  Woman shrugged. “Maybe they stopped over to Wareagle. Maybe they got drunk and got themselves whores. Men do that.”

  “Not my pa,” Chace said. “He’s not a whore man. He loves my ma too much to touch another female.”

  “So you may think, boy. But when a man can, he will. Men have no control over their peckers. It’s the first thing a female learns.”

  Chace’s smile widened. “Why, ma’am, you are a delight of frank talk. I’ve never heard a lady say ‘pecker’ before.”

  “So young and so innocent.” Woman smiled and beckoned. “Tell you what. Why don’t you climb down and come on in? You must be tuckered out after your long ride. I’ll fix you a bite to eat, and my special tea. How would that be?”

  “I’d be grateful, ma’am.” Chace alighted and arched his back and held the Spencer at his side. He took a step and the big dog growled.

  “Quiet,” Woman snapped. “Go lie down.”

  With a hostile glance at Chace, the dog obeyed.

  “He sure is a big one, ma’am.”

  “We keep him around to ward off bears and such,” Woman said. “When he gets old we’ll get another and I’ll cut him up and use him in my medicine.” Woman stepped to the doorway.