by John Fox
XXIV
Very slowly June walked up the little creek to the old log where she hadlain so many happy hours. There was no change in leaf, shrub or tree,and not a stone in the brook had been disturbed. The sun dropped thesame arrows down through the leaves--blunting their shining points intotremulous circles on the ground, the water sang the same happy tuneunder her dangling feet and a wood-thrush piped the old lay overhead.
Wood-thrush! June smiled as she suddenly rechristened the bird forherself now. That bird henceforth would be the Magic Flute to musicalJune--and she leaned back with ears, eyes and soul awake and her brainbusy.
All the way over the mountain, on that second home-going, she hadthought of the first, and even memories of the memories aroused by thatfirst home-going came back to her--the place where Hale had put hishorse into a dead run and had given her that never-to-be-forgottenthrill, and where she had slid from behind to the ground and stormedwith tears. When they dropped down into the green gloom of shadow andgreen leaves toward Lonesome Cove, she had the same feeling that herheart was being clutched by a human hand and that black night hadsuddenly fallen about her, but this time she knew what it meant. Shethought then of the crowded sleeping-room, the rough beds and coarseblankets at home; the oil-cloth, spotted with drippings from a candle,that covered the table; the thick plates and cups; the soggy bread andthe thick bacon floating in grease; the absence of napkins, the eatingwith knives and fingers and the noise Bub and her father made drinkingtheir coffee. But then she knew all these things in advance, and thememories of them on her way over had prepared her for Lonesome Cove. Theconditions were definite there: she knew what it would be to facethem again--she was facing them all the way, and to her surprise therealities had hurt her less even than they had before. Then had come thesame thrill over the garden, and now with that garden and her new roomand her piano and her books, with Uncle Billy's sister to help do thework, and with the little changes that June was daily making in thehousehold, she could live her own life even over there as long as shepleased, and then she would go out into the world again.
But all the time when she was coming over from the Gap, the way hadbristled with accusing memories of Hale--even from the chatteringcreeks, the turns in the road, the sun-dappled bushes and trees andflowers; and when she passed the big Pine that rose with such friendlysolemnity above her, the pang of it all hurt her heart and kept onhurting her. When she walked in the garden, the flowers seemed not tohave the same spirit of gladness. It had been a dry season and theydrooped for that reason, but the melancholy of them had a sympathetichuman quality that depressed her. If she saw a bass shoot arrow-likeinto deep water, if she heard a bird or saw a tree or a flower whosename she had to recall, she thought of Hale. Do what she would, shecould not escape the ghost that stalked at her side everywhere, so likea human presence that she felt sometimes a strange desire to turn andspeak to it. And in her room that presence was all-pervasive. The piano,the furniture, the bits of bric-a-brac, the pictures and books--all wereeloquent with his thought of her--and every night before she turnedout her light she could not help lifting her eyes to her once-favouritepicture--even that Hale had remembered--the lovers clasped in eachother's arms--"At Last Alone"--only to see it now as a mocking symbol ofhis beaten hopes. She had written to thank him for it all, and notyet had he answered her letter. He had said that he was coming overto Lonesome Cove and he had not come--why should he, on her account?Between them all was over--why should he? The question was absurd inher mind, and yet the fact that she had expected him, that she so WANTEDhim, was so illogical and incongruous and vividly true that it raisedher to a sitting posture on the log, and she ran her fingers over herforehead and down her dazed face until her chin was in the hollow of herhand, and her startled eyes were fixed unwaveringly on the running waterand yet not seeing it at all. A call--her step-mother's cry--rang up theravine and she did not hear it. She did not even hear Bub coming throughthe underbrush a few minutes later, and when he half angrily shouted hername at the end of the vista, down-stream, whence he could see her, shelifted her head from a dream so deep that in it all her senses had forthe moment been wholly lost.
"Come on," he shouted.
She had forgotten--there was a "bean-stringing" at the house thatday--and she slipped slowly off the log and went down the path,gathering herself together as she went, and making no answer to theindignant Bub who turned and stalked ahead of her back to the house. Atthe barnyard gate her father stopped her--he looked worried.
"Jack Hale's jus' been over hyeh." June caught her breath sharply.
"Has he gone?" The old man was watching her and she felt it.
"Yes, he was in a hurry an' nobody knowed whar you was. He jus' comeover, he said, to tell me to tell you that you could go back to New Yorkand keep on with yo' singin' doin's whenever you please. He knowed Ididn't want you hyeh when this war starts fer a finish as hit's goin'to, mighty soon now. He says he ain't quite ready to git married yit.I'm afeerd he's in trouble."
"Trouble?"
"I tol' you t'other day--he's lost all his money; but he says you've gotenough to keep you goin' fer some time. I don't see why you don't gitmarried right now and live over at the Gap."
June coloured and was silent.
"Oh," said the old man quickly, "you ain't ready nuther,"--he studiedher with narrowing eyes and through a puzzled frown--"but I reckon hit'sall right, if you air goin' to git married some time."
"What's all right, Dad?" The old man checked himself:
"Ever' thing," he said shortly, "but don't you make a fool of yo'selfwith a good man like Jack Hale." And, wondering, June was silent. Thetruth was that the old man had wormed out of Hale an admission of thekindly duplicity the latter had practised on him and on June, and hehad given his word to Hale that he would not tell June. He did notunderstand why Hale should have so insisted on that promise, for it wasall right that Hale should openly do what he pleased for the girl he wasgoing to marry--but he had given his word: so he turned away, but hisfrown stayed where it was.
June went on, puzzled, for she knew that her father was withholdingsomething, and she knew, too, that he would tell her only in hisown good time. But she could go away when she pleased--that was thecomfort--and with the thought she stopped suddenly at the corner of thegarden. She could see Hale on his big black horse climbing the spur.Once it had always been his custom to stop on top of it to rest hishorse and turn to look back at her, and she always waited to wave himgood-by. She wondered if he would do it now, and while she lookedand waited, the beating of her heart quickened nervously; but herode straight on, without stopping or turning his head, and June feltstrangely bereft and resentful, and the comfort of the moment beforewas suddenly gone. She could hear the voices of the guests in the porcharound the corner of the house--there was an ordeal for her aroundthere, and she went on. Loretta and Loretta's mother were there, andold Hon and several wives and daughters of Tolliver adherents fromup Deadwood Creek and below Uncle Billy's mill. June knew that the"bean-stringing" was simply an excuse for them to be there, for shecould not remember that so many had ever gathered there before--at thatfunction in the spring, at corn-cutting in the autumn, or sorghum-makingtime or at log-raisings or quilting parties, and she well knew themotive of these many and the curiosity of all save, perhaps, Loretta andthe old miller's wife: and June was prepared for them. She had borroweda gown from her step-mother--a purple creation of home-spun--she hadshaken down her beautiful hair and drawn it low over her brows, andarranged it behind after the fashion of mountain women, and when shewent up the steps of the porch she was outwardly to the eye one of themexcept for the leathern belt about her slenderly full waist, her blacksilk stockings and the little "furrin" shoes on her dainty feet. Shesmiled inwardly when she saw the same old wave of disappointment sweepacross the faces of them all. It was not necessary to shake hands, butunthinkingly she did, and the women sat in their chairs as she went fromone to the other and each gave her a limp hand and a grave "howdye,"th
ough each paid an unconscious tribute to a vague something about her,by wiping that hand on an apron first. Very quietly and naturally shetook a low chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them, went towork. Nobody looked at her at first until old Hon broke the silence.
"You haint lost a spec o' yo' good looks, Juny."
June laughed without a flush--she would have reddened to the roots ofher hair two years before.
"I'm feelin' right peart, thank ye," she said, dropping consciously intothe vernacular; but there was a something in her voice that was vaguelyfelt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that was in her erectbearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight intotheir own--a strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings andthose shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye intime covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that wasbeyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother alone talked at first, andthe others, even Loretta, said never a word.
"Jack Hale must have been in a mighty big hurry," quavered the oldstep-mother. "June ain't goin' to be with us long, I'm afeerd:" and,without looking up, June knew the wireless significance of the speechwas going around from eye to eye, but calmly she pulled her threadthrough a green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmatical shake ofher head:
"I--don't know--I don't know."
Young Dave's mother was encouraged and all her efforts at good-humourcould not quite draw the sting of a spiteful plaint from her voice.
"I reckon she'd never git away, if my boy Dave had the sayin' of it."There was a subdued titter at this, but Bub had come in from the stableand had dropped on the edge of the porch. He broke in hotly:
"You jest let June alone, Aunt Tilly, you'll have yo' hands full if youkeep yo' eye on Loretty thar."
Already when somebody was saying something about the feud, as June camearound the corner, her quick eye had seen Loretta bend her head swiftlyover her work to hide the flush of her face. Now Loretta turned scarletas the step-mother spoke severely:
"You hush, Bub," and Bub rose and stalked into the house. Aunt Tilly wasleaning back in her chair--gasping--and consternation smote the group.June rose suddenly with her string of dangling beans.
"I haven't shown you my room, Loretty. Don't you want to see it? Comeon, all of you," she added to the girls, and they and Loretta with oneswift look of gratitude rose shyly and trooped shyly within wherethey looked in wide-mouthed wonder at the marvellous things that roomcontained. The older women followed to share sight of the miracle,and all stood looking from one thing to another, some with their handsbehind them as though to thwart the temptation to touch, and all sayingmerely:
"My! My!"
None of them had ever seen a piano before and June must play the "shinycontraption" and sing a song. It was only curiosity and astonishmentthat she evoked when her swift fingers began running over the keys fromone end of the board to the other, astonishment at the gymnastic qualityof the performance, and only astonishment when her lovely voice set thevery walls of the little room to vibrating with a dramatic love songthat was about as intelligible to them as a problem in calculus, andJune flushed and then smiled with quick understanding at the dry commentthat rose from Aunt Tilly behind:
"She shorely can holler some!"
She couldn't play "Sourwood Mountain" on the piano--nor "Jinny gitAroun'," nor "Soapsuds over the Fence," but with a sudden inspirationshe went back to an old hymn that they all knew, and at the end she wonthe tribute of an awed silence that made them file back to the beans onthe porch. Loretta lingered a moment and when June closed the piano andthe two girls went into the main room, a tall figure, entering, stoppedin the door and stared at June without speaking:
"Why, howdye, Uncle Rufe," said Loretta. "This is June. You didn't knowher, did ye?" The man laughed. Something in June's bearing made him takeoff his hat; he came forward to shake hands, and June looked up into apair of bold black eyes that stirred within her again the vague fears ofher childhood. She had been afraid of him when she was a child, and itwas the old fear aroused that made her recall him by his eyes now. Hisbeard was gone and he was much changed. She trembled when she shookhands with him and she did not call him by his name Old Judd came in,and a moment later the two men and Bub sat on the porch while the womenworked, and when June rose again to go indoors, she felt the newcomer'sbold eyes take her slowly in from head to foot and she turned crimson.This was the terror among the Tollivers--Bad Rufe, come back from theWest to take part in the feud. HE saw the belt and the stockings andthe shoes, the white column of her throat and the proud set of hergold-crowned head; HE knew what they meant, he made her feel thathe knew, and later he managed to catch her eyes once with an amused,half-contemptuous glance at the simple untravelled folk about them, thatsaid plainly how well he knew they two were set apart from them, and sheshrank fearfully from the comradeship that the glance implied andwould look at him no more. He knew everything that was going on in themountains. He had come back "ready for business," he said. When he madeready to go, June went to her room and stayed there, but she heard himsay to her father that he was going over to the Gap, and with a laughthat chilled her soul:
"I'm goin' over to kill me a policeman." And her father warned gruffly:
"You better keep away from thar. You don't understand them fellers." Andshe heard Rufe's brutal laugh again, and as he rode into the creek hishorse stumbled and she saw him cut cruelly at the poor beast's ears withthe rawhide quirt that he carried. She was glad when all went home, andthe only ray of sunlight in the day for her radiated from Uncle Billy'sface when, at sunset, he came to take old Hon home. The old miller wasthe one unchanged soul to her in that he was the one soul that could seeno change in June. He called her "baby" in the old way, and he talked toher now as he had talked to her as a child. He took her aside to ask herif she knew that Hale had got his license to marry, and when she shookher head, his round, red face lighted up with the benediction of arising sun:
"Well, that's what he's done, baby, an' he's axed me to marry ye," headded, with boyish pride, "he's axed ME."
And June choked, her eyes filled, and she was dumb, but Uncle Billycould not see that it meant distress and not joy. He just put his armaround her and whispered:
"I ain't told a soul, baby--not a soul."
She went to bed and to sleep with Hale's face in the dream-mist ofher brain, and Uncle Billy's, and the bold, black eyes of Bad RufeTolliver--all fused, blurred, indistinguishable. Then suddenly Rufe'swords struck that brain, word by word, like the clanging terror of afrightened bell.
"I'm goin' to kill me a policeman." And with the last word, it seemed,she sprang upright in bed, clutching the coverlid convulsively. Daylightwas showing gray through her window. She heard a swift step up thesteps, across the porch, the rattle of the door-chain, her father'squick call, then the rumble of two men's voices, and she knew as wellwhat had happened as though she had heard every word they uttered. Rufehad killed him a policeman--perhaps John Hale--and with terror clutchingher heart she sprang to the floor, and as she dropped the old purplegown over her shoulders, she heard the scurry of feet across the backporch--feet that ran swiftly but cautiously, and left the sound of themat the edge of the woods. She heard the back door close softly, thecreaking of the bed as her father lay down again, and then a suddensplashing in the creek. Kneeling at the window, she saw strange horsemenpushing toward the gate where one threw himself from his saddle, strodeswiftly toward the steps, and her lips unconsciously made soft, little,inarticulate cries of joy--for the stern, gray face under the hat ofthe man was the face of John Hale. After him pushed other men--fullyarmed--whom he motioned to either side of the cabin to the rear. By hisside was Bob Berkley, and behind him was a red-headed Falin whom shewell remembered. Within twenty feet, she was looking into that grayface, when the set lips of it opened in a loud command: "Hello!" Sheheard her father's bed creak again, again the rattle of the door-chain,and then old Judd stepped on the porch with a revolver in each hand.
"Hello!" he answered sternly.
"Judd," said Hale sharply--and June had never heard that tone from himbefore--"a man with a black moustache killed one of our men over in theGap yesterday and we've tracked him over here. There's his horse--and wesaw him go into that door. We want him."
"Do you know who the feller is?" asked old Judd calmly.
"No," said Hale quickly. And then, with equal calm:
"Hit was my brother," and the old man's mouth closed like a vise. Hadthe last word been a stone striking his ear, Hale could hardly have beenmore stunned. Again he called and almost gently:
"Watch the rear, there," and then gently he turned to Devil Judd.
"Judd, your brother shot a man at the Gap--without excuse or warning. Hewas an officer and a friend of mine, but if he were a stranger--we wanthim just the same. Is he here?"
Judd looked at the red-headed man behind Hale.
"So you're turned on the Falin side now, have ye?" he saidcontemptuously.
"Is he here?" repeated Hale.
"Yes, an' you can't have him." Without a move toward his pistol Halestepped forward, and June saw her father's big right hand tighten on hishuge pistol, and with a low cry she sprang to her feet.
"I'm an officer of the law," Hale said, "stand aside, Judd!" Bub leapedto the door with a Winchester--his eyes wild and his face white.
"Watch out, men!" Hale called, and as the men raised their guns therewas a shriek inside the cabin and June stood at Bub's side, barefooted,her hair tumbled about her shoulders, and her hand clutching the littlecross at her throat.
"Stop!" she shrieked. "He isn't here. He's--he's gone!" For a moment asudden sickness smote Hale's face, then Devil Judd's ruse flashed to himand, wheeling, he sprang to the ground.
"Quick!" he shouted, with a sweep of his hand right and left. "Up thosehollows! Lead those horses up to the Pine and wait. Quick!"
Already the men were running as he directed and Hale, followed byBob and the Falin, rushed around the corner of the house. Old Judd'snostrils were quivering, and with his pistols dangling in his hands hewalked to the gate, listening to the sounds of the pursuit.
"They'll never ketch him," he said, coming back, and then he droppedinto a chair and sat in silence a long time. June reappeared, her facestill white and her temples throbbing, for the sun was rising on days ofdarkness for her. Devil Judd did not even look at her.
"I reckon you ain't goin' to marry John Hale."
"No, Dad," said June.