When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry Part 28

nights I'd dreamed of her.... Ter make her happy, I'd gladly hev laid down my life ... but I war jest a rough mounting man ... an' then she seed _you_."

Henderson's lips moved in a futile effort as Bear Cat halted, gasping.

His hand wavered in a weak gesture of protest--as against an unjust charge. But Bear Cat's voice leaped suddenly. "Don't stop me! Thar hain't much time left! You an' me needs ter go ter G.o.d's jedgment seat with our jobs finished.... I don't censure Blossom none ... hit war es rightful thet she should want a _real_ life ... es fer ther flowers ter want suns.h.i.+ne.... But _you_! Ye stole her love--an' then abandoned her."

Henderson's eyes were eloquent with a denial--but the darkness hid it--and his lips refused utterance, while the other talked on, feebleness muting the accusing voice to a lower timbre.

"She warn't good enough fer _you_--her thet war too good fer any man!

But perchance ye may be wiser dyin' then livin'." The weak utterance mounted into inexorable command.

"Now ye're a-goin' ter make good afore ye dies.... She trusted ye ...

an--" Turner broke suddenly into a deep sob of agony. "I don't know how fur ye taxed her trust ... but I knows she told me she had full faith in ye, an' faith like thet don't stop ter reckon up costs. Now she's sickenin' away--an' thet trust is broke ... an' I reckon her heart's broke, too."

Henderson moistened his lips and with a supreme effort succeeded in whispering almost inaudibly, "That's a lie."

"A lie is. .h.i.t? She gave ye her lips," went on the burning indictment.

"An' in these hills when a woman like Blossom gives her lips ter a man, she gives him her soul ter keep.... Ye're a mountain man yoreself ...

ye knows full well what mountain folks holds.... Ye hain't got no excuse of ign'rance ter hide behind. Ye knows thet withouten ye weds her, folks will tell lies an' she won't never be able ter hold up her head--ner smile again."

"Stacy--" Henderson had rallied a little now, but he sagged back and at first got no further than the name. With another struggle, he added,

"I ... I'm dying----"

"Mebby so. I hopes ye air ... but fust ye're a-goin' over thar with me ... an', because she'll be happier ef she thinks ye come of yore own free will.... I hain't a-goin' ter tell her ... thet I dragged ye thar ... like a sheep-killin' dog.... Ye're a-goin' ter let her think thet her hero has done come back ter her ... _dee_spite death hitself."

"But--but----"

The young mountaineer broke out with something half sob and half m.u.f.fled roar.

"h.e.l.l, thar hain't no but! I'm tellin' ye what ye air a-goin' ter do!

With G.o.d's aid I aims ter keep ye alive thet long ... an' atter thet--I hain't takin' no heed what comes ter pa.s.s."

"Was ... that ... why you ... saved me?" The words were barely audible.

"What else would hit be? Did ye reckon hit war love for ther man thet hed done stole everything I counted dear--ther traitor thet betrayed my roof-tree? Did ye 'low thet hit war fer yore own sake I war openin' up ther war ergin, deespite ther fact that I knows. .h.i.t'll make these hills run red with ther blood of my kith an' kin?"

Abruptly Bear Cat came to his feet and shouted into the darkness.

Henderson saw two figures detach themselves from the inky void and come forward.

Then as they lifted him he swooned with pain.

CHAPTER XVI

Dog Tate had left his mash kettle unguarded that night, putting clan loyalty above individual interest as he hastened off to stir into action the dwellers of the Stacy cabins, and to dispatch other night-riders upon the same mission. But he sent Joe Sanders, his a.s.sistant, to convoy the wounded men along their road. They went at a labored and snail-like pace, Sanders walking on one side of the horse, supporting the swooning figure it bore, while Turner Stacy trudged at the other saddle skirt. Sometimes Bear Cat plodded on with fair erectness, setting his teeth against weariness and pain, but at other times the intermittent waves of fever rose scaldingly until, in a blind fog, he dragged shuffling feet, clinging grimly the while to pommel and stirrup-leather as his head sagged forward between his shoulders.

Sometimes, too, he mumbled incomprehensible things in a voice that was weirdly unnatural. From time to time there was a halt to make sure that the life spark still flickered, though tenuously and gutteringly, in the breast of the inert thing lashed to the saddle.

When they had been on the road for three hours Bear Cat and Sanders, by a common impulse, strained their ears through what had been silence, except for the wail of the high-riding breeze among the pine crests.

Now faint, and far away, hardly more than a hint of sound, they could hear something else, and it lifted Turner out of his reek of nightmare and semi-delirium so that his eyes cleared and his head came up. It was as though a bugle had sounded a note of martial encouragement through the mists of despair.

Joe Sanders spoke shortly, half to his companion and half to himself.

"Hit kinderly seems like Dog Tate's rousin' em up. I reckon ther war's on now all right an' it's liable ter be uns.h.i.+rted h.e.l.l."

Blossom had been sitting until late that evening with her hands lying listlessly in her lap and her eyes staringly fixed on the blaze of her hearth. Their amber pools were darkened with jaded misery and her cheeks were pale. Their graciousness of youthful curve had been somewhat flattened, as her whole life had been flattened. Only her hair, awakened into halo-brightness by the blaze of the logs, spoke of that old vividness of color that had been a sort of delicate gorgeousness and even that nimbus had the suggestion of the glow about the head of a saint who has achieved sanct.i.ty through suffering.

"He swore he aimed ter come back ter me right soon," she repeated to herself. "I wouldn't have him imperil himself--but he mout have writ me a letter." Her instinct told her what had happened with a fulness of realization from which there was no escape. It was only because she had pretended her Cinderella dream to be a fact, that she had not all along recognized it for an impossible fairy tale. The Jerry Henderson who had promised her marriage was only a temporary Jerry: a man swept off his feet by the stress and freshet of crisis. The mountain blood in his veins had welled up to flood tide and swept away the dams of his superimposed cultivation. He had relapsed into her life--for a little while--just as his ardent tongue had relapsed into her uncouth vernacular.

Now the more permanent Jerry, awakened by his return to city conditions, was standing aloof, regarding that experience with self-contemptuous regret: thinking of it as a lapse into savagery. It had been an impetuous thing of the flesh to which his mind denied permanent sanction. The dream was over now--but she could not forget it.

Her fingers twisted themselves tightly together and she rose and leaned wearily against the mantel-shelf. As her eyes, clouded with misery, traveled about the tidy room, its every note spoke of Bear Cat Stacy.

He had fas.h.i.+oned, for her comfort, all the furnis.h.i.+ngs that made it a place different from the rooms of other mountain cabins.

On the Pelion of her own misery she heaped the Ossa of self-condemnation. She saw again the stricken look in Turner's eyes as he had set out for Virginia after hearing the news that had cut the foundation from under all his own life-dream. She remembered, too, the gentleness with which, placing thought of her above self, he had made his renunciation.

"Oh, G.o.d," she murmured, "why air hit thet we kain't love best of all ther folks thet loves us most? Turney would hev walked through ther Valley of Death fer me--an' I've got ter break my heart fer a man thet don't hold me good enough ter wed."

Yet even now she was making excuses for the lover who had neither come nor written. The first bond between Turner and herself had been their common revolt against a life of squalid ignorance and emptiness. That revolt had carried them into the no-man's land of discontent without bringing them to the other side: the line of real attainment upon which Jerry stood secure.

Her father came once to the door, but did not enter it. His bearded face was more soberly patriarchal than ever. He had long struggled against violence in his efforts to shepherd a wild and turbulent flock.

He had pleaded for the Christ-law of forgiven sins, but in his veins ran the unforgetting blood of warring generations. There had been times of late when he had felt that he would need G.o.d's help and restraint should he ever meet the man who had broken his daughter's heart.

"I reckon thar hain't sca'cely nothin' I kin say ter console her," he mused as he turned away from the door.

At length when the fire had burned low Blossom went to bed and lay wide-eyed for other hours.

Through the harping wind in the evergreens sometimes came the high, wild note of southward-winging ducks and geese--refugees from winter.

Henceforth her life was all to be winter. Neither the freshly green and tuneful things of springtime nor the gorgeousness and fragrance of autumn could amend or temper its lethargy.

She had tossed until nearly dawn, and the house lay deadly quiet. If sleep came near her it was only to veer away again for each sputter of a dying ember brought her, with a start, into tenser wakefulness.

Then came another sound, and her nervous little body tightened into the dismay of panic. Unmoving, holding her breath between pressed lips, she strained her ears. There was no mistake--she had heard it again.

It was a wild note riding the wind, and now for the first time it became more than a legend in her experience. From babyhood she had heard of this night noise, long silenced by the truce, and had trembled at its portentousness. She had from childhood heard her father thank G.o.d that men were no more roused by it from their sleep: that it was one accursed thing which belonged to the past. Now it had found resurrection!

As she lay listening it sounded once more, nearer than before, a shout suggestive of a wild-cat's wail that quavered and rose and dwindled and rose again. That clan-signal of the Stacys along the ridges meant war--open and unmitigated war.

It was not merely a demonstration of inimical feeling but a definite summons. The man of that blood who heard it needed no particulars. He had his orders. Straightway he must arm and rally.

From her father's room came a deeply anguished groan and the muttering of a prayer. He, too, had been awakened and realized that the "war" had broken out afresh.

It was useless to try to sleep now. Blossom rose and threw fresh f.a.gots on the fire. She dressed and sat with her fingers twisting and her lips trembling.

Once she stifled a scream at the rush of hoof-beats and the scatter of gravel along the road, but the commotion went by in hot haste and silence closed down again.