Hell Fer Sartain and Other Stories Part 2

Stranger, you furriners don't nuver seem to consider that a woman has always got the devil to fight in two people at once! Hit's two agin one, I tell ye, an' hit hain't fa'r.

That's what I said more'n two year ago, when Rosie Branham was a-layin'

up thar at Dave Hall's, white an' mos' dead. An', G.o.d, boys, I says, that leetle thing in thar by her sh.o.r.ely can't be to blame.

Thar hain't been a word agin Rosie sence; an', stranger, I reckon thar nuver will be. Fer, while the gal hain't got hide o' kith or kin, thar air two fellers up hyeh sorter lookin' atter Rosie; an' one of 'em is the shootin'es' man on this crick, I reckon, 'cept one; an', stranger, that's t'other.

Rosie kep' her mouth shet fer a long while; an' I reckon as how the feller 'lowed she wasn't goin' to tell. Co'se the woman folks got hit out'n her--they al'ays gits whut they want, as you know--an' thar the sorry cuss was--a-livin' up thar in the Bend, jes aroun' that bluff o'

lorrel yander, a-lookin' pious, an' a-singin', an' a-sayin' Amen louder 'n anybody when thar was meetin'.

Well, my boy Jim an' a lot o' fellers jes went up fer him right away.

I don't know as the boys would 'a' killed him EXACTLY ef they had kotched him, though they mought; but they got Abe s.h.i.+vers, as tol' the feller they was a-comin'--you've heard tell o' Abe-an' they mos' beat Abraham s.h.i.+vers to death. Stranger, the sorry cuss was Dave. Rosie hadn't no daddy an' no mammy; an' she was jes a-workin' at Dave's fer her victuals an' clo'es. 'Pears like the pore gal was jes tricked into evil. Looked like she was sorter 'witched--an' anyways, stranger, she was a fightin' Satan in HERSELF, as well as in Dave. Hit was two agin one, I tell ye, an' hit wasn't fa'r.

Co'se they turned Rosie right out in the road I hain't got a word to say agin Dave's wife fer that; an' atter a while the boys lets Dave come back, to take keer o' his ole mammy, of co'se, but I tell ye Dave's a-playin' a purty lonesome tune. He keeps purty shy YIT. He don't nuver sa'nter down this way. 'Pears like he don't seem to think hit's healthy fer him down hyeh, an' I reckon Dave's right.

Rosie? Oh, well, I sorter tuk Rosie in myself. Yes, she's been livin'

thar in the shack with me an' my boy Jim, an' the-- Why, thar he is now, stranger. That's him a-wallerin' out thar in the road. Do you reckon thar'd be a single thing agin that leetle cuss ef he had to stan' up on Jedgment Day jes as he is now?

Look hyeh, stranger, whut you reckon the Lawd kep' a-writin' thar on the groun' that day when them fellers was a-pesterin' him 'bout that pore woman? Don't you jes know he was a writin' 'bout sech as HIM--an'

Rosie? I tell ye, brother, he writ thar jes what I'm al'ays a-sayin'.

Hit hain't the woman's fault. I said it more'n two year ago, when Rosie was up thar at ole Dave's, an' I said it yestiddy, when my boy Jim come to me an' 'lowed as how he aimed to take Rosie down to town to-day an' git married.

"You ricollect, dad," says Jim, "her mammy?"

"Yes, Jim," I says; "all the better reason not to be too hard on Rosie."

I'm a-lookin' fer 'em both back right now, stranger; an' ef you will, I'll be mighty glad to have ye stay right hyeh to the infair this very night. Thar nuver was a word agin Rosie afore, thar hain't been sence, an' you kin ride up an' down this river till the crack o' doom an'

you'll nuver hear a word agin her ag'in. Fer, as I tol' you, my boy, Jim is the shootin'es' feller on this crick, I reckon, 'cept ONE, an', stranger, that's ME!

THE SENATOR'S LAST TRADE

A drove of lean cattle were swinging easily over Black Mountain, and behind them came a big man with wild black hair and a bushy beard. Now and then he would gnaw at his mustache with his long, yellow teeth, or would sit down to let his lean horse rest, and would flip meaninglessly at the bushes with a switch. Sometimes his bushy head would droop over on his breast, and he would snap it up sharply and start painfully on.

Robber, cattle-thief, outlaw he might have been in another century; for he filled the figure of any robber hero in life or romance, and yet he was only the Senator from Bell, as he was known in the little Kentucky capital; or, as he was known in his mountain home, just the Senator, who had toiled and schemed and grown rich and grown poor; who had suffered long and was kind.

Only that Christmas he had gutted every store in town. "Give me everything you have, brother," he said, across each counter; and next day every man, woman, and child in the mountain town had a present from the Senator's hands. He looked like a brigand that day, as he looked now, but he called every man his brother, and his eye, while black and l.u.s.treless as night, was as brooding and just as kind.

When the boom went down, with it and with everybody else went the Senator. Slowly he got dusty, ragged, long of hair. He looked tortured and ever-restless. You never saw him still; always he swept by you, flapping his legs on his lean horse or his arms in his rickety buggy here, there, everywhere--turning, twisting, fighting his way back to freedom--and not a murmur. Still was every man his brother, and if some forgot his once open hand, he forgot it no more completely than did the Senator. He went very far to pay his debts. He felt honor bound, indeed, to ask his sister to give back the farm that he had given her, which, very properly people said, she declined to do.

Nothing could kill hope in the Senator's breast; he would hand back the farm in another year, he said; but the sister was firm, and without a word still, the Senator went other ways and schemed through the nights, and worked and rode and walked and traded through the days, until now, when the light was beginning to glimmer, his end was come.

This was the Senator's last trade, and in sight, down in a Kentucky valley, was home. Strangely enough, the Senator did not care at all, and he had just enough sanity left to wonder why, and to be worried.

It was the "walking typhoid" that had caught up with him, and he was listless, and he made strange gestures and did foolish things as he stumbled down the mountain. He was going over a little knoll now, and he could see the creek that ran around his house, but he was not touched. He would just as soon have lain down right where he was, or have turned around and gone back, except that it was hot and he wanted to get to the water. He remembered that it was nigh Christmas; he saw the snow about him and the cakes of ice in the creek. He knew that he ought not to be hot, and yet he was--so hot that he refused to reason with himself even a minute, and hurried on. It was odd that it should be so, but just about that time, over in Virginia, a cattle dealer, nearing home, stopped to tell a neighbor how he had tricked some black-whiskered fool up in the mountains. It may have been just when he was laughing aloud over there, that the Senator, over here, tore his woollen s.h.i.+rt from his great hairy chest and rushed into the icy stream, clapping his arms to his burning sides and shouting in his frenzy.

"If he had lived a little longer," said a const.i.tuent, "he would have lost the next election. He hadn't the money, you know."

"If he had lived a little longer," said the mountain preacher high up on Yellow Creek, "I'd have got that trade I had on hand with him through. Not that I wanted him to die, but if he had to--why--"

"If he had lived a little longer," said the Senator's lawyer, "he would have cleaned off the score against him."

"If he had lived a little longer," said the Senator's sister, not meaning to be unkind, "he would have got all I have."

That was what life held for the Senator. Death was more kind.

PREACHIN' ON KINGDOM-COME

I've told ye, stranger, that h.e.l.l fer Sartain empties, as it oughter, of co'se, into Kingdom-Come. You can ketch the devil 'most any day in the week on h.e.l.l fer Sartain, an' sometimes you can git Glory everlastin' on Kingdom-Come. Hit's the only meetin'-house thar in twenty miles aroun'.

Well, the reg'lar rider, ole Jim Skaggs, was dead, an' the bretherin was a-lookin' aroun' fer somebody to step into ole Jim's shoes. Thar'd been one young feller up thar from the settlemints, a-cavortin' aroun', an' they was studyin' 'bout gittin' him.

"Bretherin' an' sisteren," I says, atter the leetle chap was gone, "he's got the fort.i.tood to speak an' he sh.o.r.ely is well favored. He's got a mighty good hawk eye fer spyin' out evil--an' the gals; he can outholler ole Jim; an' IF," I says, "any IDEES ever comes to him, he'll be a h.e.l.l-rouser sh.o.r.e--but they ain't comin'!" An', so sayin', I takes my foot in my hand an' steps fer home.

Stranger, them fellers over thar hain't seed much o' this world. Lots of 'em nuver seed the cyars; some of 'em nuver seed a wagon. An' atter jowerin' an' noratin' fer 'bout two hours, what you reckon they said they aimed to do? They believed they'd take that ar man Beecher, ef they could git him to come. They'd heerd o' Henry endurin' the war, an' they knowed he was agin the rebs, an' they wanted Henry if they could jes git him to come.

Well, I snorted, an' the feud broke out on h.e.l.l fer Sartain betwixt the Days an' the Dillons. Mace Day shot Daws Dillon's brother, as I rickollect--somep'n's al'ays a-startin' up that plaguey war an'

a-makin' things frolicsome over thar--an' ef it hadn't a-been fer a tall young feller with black hair an' a scar across his forehead, who was a-goin' through the mountains a-settlin' these wars, blame me ef I believe thar ever would 'a' been any mo' preachin' on Kingdom-Come.

This feller comes over from Hazlan an' says he aims to hold a meetin'

on Kingdom-Come. "Brother," I says, "that's what no preacher have ever did whilst this war is a-goin' on." An' he says, sort o' quiet, "Well, then, I reckon I'll have to do what no preacher have ever did." An' I ups an' says: "Brother, an ole jedge come up here once from the settlemints to hold couht. 'Jedge,' I says, 'that's what no jedge have ever did without soldiers since this war's been a-goin' on.' An', brother, the jedge's words was yours, p'int-blank. 'All right,' he says, 'then I'll have to do what no other jedge have ever did.' An', brother," says I to the preacher, "the jedge done it sh.o.r.e. He jes laid under the couht-house fer two days whilst the boys fit over him.

An' when I sees the jedge a-makin' tracks fer the settlemints, I says, 'Jedge,' I says, 'you spoke a parable sh.o.r.e.'"

Well, sir, the long preacher looked jes as though he was a-sayin' to hisself, "Yes, I hear ye, but I don't heed ye," an' when he says, "Jes the same, I'm a-goin' to hold a meetin' on Kingdom-Come," why, I jes takes my foot in my hand an' ag'in I steps fer home.

That night, stranger, I seed another feller from Hazlan, who was a-tellin' how this here preacher had stopped the war over thar, an' had got the Marc.u.ms an' Braytons to shakin' hands; an' next day ole Tom Perkins stops in an' says that WHARAS there mought 'a' been preachin'

somewhar an' sometime, thar nuver had been PREACHIN' afore on Kingdom-Come. So I goes over to the meetin' house, an' they was all thar--Daws Dillon an' Mace Day, the leaders in the war, an' Abe s.h.i.+vers (you've heerd tell o' Abe) who was a-carryin' tales from one side to t'other an' a-stirrin' up h.e.l.l ginerally, as Abe most al'ays is; an'

thar was Daws on one side o' the meetin'-house an' Mace on t'other, an'

both jes a-watchin' fer t'other to make a move, an' thar'd 'a' been billy-h.e.l.l to pay right thar! Stranger, that long preacher talked jes as easy as I'm a-talkin' now, an' hit was p'int-blank as the feller from Hazlan said. You jes ought 'a' heerd him tellin' about the Lawd a-bein' as pore as any feller thar, an' a-makin' barns an' fences an'

ox-yokes an' sech like; an' not a-bein' able to write his own name--havin' to make his mark mebbe--when he started out to save the world. An' how they tuk him an' nailed him onto a cross when he'd come down fer nothin' but to save 'em; an' stuck a spear big as a corn-knife into his side, an' give him vinegar; an' his own mammy a-standin' down thar on the ground a-cryin' an' a-watchin' him an' he a-fergivin' all of 'em then an' thar!

Thar nuver had been nothin' like that afore on Kingdom-Come, an' all along I heerd fellers a-layin' thar guns down; an when the preacher called out fer sinners, blame me ef the fust feller that riz wasn't Mace Day. An' Mace says, "Stranger, 'f what you say is true, I reckon the Lawd 'll fergive me too, but I don't believe Daws Dillon ever will," an' Mace stood thar lookin' around fer Daws. An' all of a sudden the preacher got up straight an' called out, "Is thar a human in this house mean an' sorry enough to stand betwixt a man an' his Maker"?

An' right thar, stranger, Daws riz. "Naw, by G.o.d, thar hain' t!" Daws says, an' he walks up to Mace a-holdin' out his hand, an' they all busts out cryin' an' shakin' hands--Days an' Dillons--jes as the preacher had made 'em do over in Hazlan. An' atter the thing was over, I steps up to the preacher an' I says:

"Brother," I says, "YOU spoke a parable, sh.o.r.e."

THE Pa.s.sING OF ABRAHAM s.h.i.+VERS

"I tell ye, boys, hit hain t often a feller has the chance o' doin' so much good jes by DYIN'. Fer 'f Abe s.h.i.+vers air gone, sh.o.r.ely gone, the rest of us--every durn one of us--air a-goin' to be saved. Fer Abe s.h.i.+vers--you hain't heerd tell o' ABE? Well, you must be a stranger in these mountains o' Kaintuck, sh.o.r.e.

"I don't know, stranger, as Abe ever was borned; n.o.body in these mountains knows it 'f he was. The fust time I ever heerd tell o' Abe he was a-hollerin' fer his rights one mawnin' at daylight, endurin' the war, jes outside o' ole Tom Perkins' door on Fryin' Pan. Abe was left thar by some home-gyard, I reckon. Well, n.o.body air ever turned out'n doors in these mountains, as you know, an' Abe got his rights that mawin', an' he's been a-gittin' 'em ever sence. Tom already had a houseful, but 'f any feller got the bigges' hunk o' corn-bread, that feller was Abe; an' ef any feller got a-whalin', hit wasn't Abe.