Читать книгу: «When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry», страница 12

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 assistant, 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 unshirted hell."

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 sanctity 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 fashioned, for her comfort, all the furnishings 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, God," 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 God'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 God 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 fagots 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.

Eventually an abrupt shout sounded imperatively from just beyond the door – a voice which Blossom did not recognize, and as she came to her feet she heard her father's stern challenge, "Who's out thar?"

"Hit's Joe Sanders – an' I'm in haste!"

Despite the urgency of word and tone the preacher hesitated to demand:

"What business brings ye hyar in ther dead of night-time?"

"I've got Bear Cat Stacy an' Mr. Henderson. They're both sore wounded. Fer God's sake, hasten!"

With a swiftness of motion that outstripped her father's, Blossom flung herself forward and with feverish fingers was sliding the bar from its sockets.

But while the preacher stood waiting, his lips drew themselves into an unbending line and his shaggy brows lowered. Inwardly he was praying: "Almighty God, I beseeches Ye ter strengthen me in this hour ter fergive mine enemies – fer Thou knowest thar's murder in my heart!"

As the girl threw the door wide, she saw what seemed to be three figures locked in a close embrace.

The trio lurched rather than stepped into the lighted area, and, shrinking back horrified, Blossom saw Brother Fulkerson close his house, his face marked, as she had never before seen it, with a grim unwelcome.

Sanders carried in his arms a figure whose limbs fell in grotesque inertia. Its clothing was torn by briars and bullets; matted with mire and blood. Its face was half hidden by a rough bandage made from Jerry's own handkerchief, upon which the stains had turned from red to dull brown, except at the spots where the crimson had been renewed by an unstaunched trickle.

Bear Cat stumbled across the threshold unaided, but as he halted, blinking at the light, he reeled drunkenly and propped his disheveled body against the wall. That was for a moment only and at its end he drew himself into something nearer uprightness and swept his hand across his brow. He had not carried the matter this far to fail at the finish.

"Lay thet man on a bed," he panted with fierce earnestness. "Thar hain't no time ter waste … he's nigh death … an' he's come hyar ter be wedded."

Brother Fulkerson answered in a voice of bewilderment, tinged, too, with protest.

"Thar hain't sca'cely no life in him. Hit's too late fer marryin'."

"Not yit hit hain't … hit will be ef ye tarries!" Turner ripped out his words with the staccato snap of rifle fire. His own feebleness seemed to drop away like the hat he flung to one side. His eyes burned with tawny fire and a positive fury of haste. For hours, he felt he had been holding death in abeyance by a sheer grapple of resolution, and now men paused to parley and make comment. An impulse of insane wrath besieged him. He must be obeyed – and the moments were flying – the sands running out.

"Hasten now – an' talk afterwards," he burst out.

They laid Jerry on Blossom's bed, its coverings magically smoothed into comfort by her flying hands, and Joe Sanders once more pressed his pocket flask to the white lips.

The girl, buoyed up, beyond her strength, by the moment's need and the mettle of her blood, swiftly and capably eased the posture of the wounded man, loosened his heavy boots and rushed from the room to prepare fresh bandages. The stunning impact of despair would come later. Now every fighting chance must be preserved to him.

While she was still out of the room, Henderson's eyes opened in a fluttering and precarious consciousness, to find other eyes fixed on them with flaming intensity.

The basilisk gaze was fabulously reputed to bring death, but Turner Stacy was reversing its hypnotism to compel life.

"Where – am I?" whispered Jerry; and the answer was as peremptory as predestination.

"Ye're at Blossom's house – ter git married – an,' by God, ye've got ter last thet long. She's got ter believe ye come of yore own free will – see thet she does!"

The half-insensible eyes ranged vaguely about the place. The weak fingers plucked absently at the coverlet, and then essayed a gesture. The promoter seemed rallying his failing faculties for a supreme effort though his voice was hardly audible.

"But – Stacy – you don't – under – stand."

Bear Cat brought his face close; a face with belligerently out-thrust chin and fiercely narrowed eyes. Henderson must consent before Blossom returned to divine with her quick intuition that her dying lover balked in the shadow of death.

"Don't explain nothin' ter me. Save yore breath ter say 'I will.' Thet's all ye hev need ter utter now – an' hits need enough."

In his overwrought singleness of purpose Turner forgot that this man was beyond any force of threat or coercion. As he spoke so dictatorially he believed himself, too, to be facing death with equal certainty, though more slowly, and what he had sworn to do must first be done.

Yet there was such an inescapable compulsion in the ernest fixity of his pale face and burning eyes that the outstretched figure felt its own declining will merged and conquered.

"Hit's ther only decent thing thet's left fer ye ter do," went on the strained but inflexible voice. "Ye took her heart fer yore own – an' broke hit. Ye've got ter let her have yore name an' ther consolation of believin' thet ye came ter her … honest, fightin' back black death hitself!"

Sometimes between sleep and waking come fugitive thoughts that seem crystal-clear, but that elude definite memory. Such a process enacted itself in the mind of the dying man. Doubt and complications were dissolved into simplicity – and acquiescence.

Faintly he nodded his head and even tried to hold out his hand to be shaken. Perhaps Bear Cat was too excited to recognize that proffer of amenity. Possibly his own bitterness was yet too black for forgiveness – at all events he turned away without response to seek out Joel Fulkerson, who had disappeared.

"Ye've got ter hasten, Brother Fulkerson," he hurriedly urged. "Jerry Henderson's done come back ter give his name ter Blossom afore he dies an' death hain't far off."

The old evangelist was bending over a medicine chest. It was a thing which a visiting surgeon had once given him and in the use of which he had developed an inborn skill that had before now saved lives and ameliorated suffering. He straightened up dubiously and faced the younger man.

"Turney," he said grimly, "ef they don't wed, folks hyarabouts'll always look askance at my little gal with a suspicion thet I'm confident is as false as hell hitself – but God made ther state of matrimony holy – an' I'm his servant – onlessen they both enters inter hit free-minded hit wouldn't be nothin' but a blasphemy. Air they both of one mind?"

Turner stiffened to a ramrod straightness. His hands clenched themselves into hard fists and his nostrils quivered.

"Brother Fulkerson, ye're a godly man," he declared with suppressed passion, "an' I hain't never sought ter dispute ye ner defy ye afore now – but thar hain't no time ter argyfy. Willin'ly or unwillin'ly ye're a-goin' ter wed them two – right hyar – an' now! He plighted his troth ter her. He's got a mighty brief chanct ter fulfill his pledge an' leave her thinkin' she gave her love ter a true man. He's come acrost hyar, shot like a bob-white – jest fer thet. I've fought off death my own self ter-night – jest fer thet! Ef God has spared both of us this long, I reckon He done hit – jest fer thet! I'll answer ter Him at ther jedgment-seat, ef so be I'm wrong."

For an irresolute moment the father hesitated, then he said briefly, "Come on."

Turner wheeled, bracing himself for the bitterest ordeal of all. He must be the spokesman for a rival whom he hated beyond superlatives – and in order that Blossom might keep her dream, which was all she could now hope to salvage out of life, he meant to tell a lie which would for all time enshrine that detestable traitor. None the less, when he had drawn her aside, he spoke with great gentleness, perjuring himself with knightly self-effacement.

He took both her hands in his own and looked with a tender consideration into her forlorn eyes, gulping down the choke that rose in his throat and threatened his power of speech. Though her gaze was fixed on his face she seemed hardly to see him, so stiff and trance-like was her posture and so tight-drawn and expressionless her features. If he could soften that paralysis of grief it was worth a self-sacrificing lie.

"Blossom," he began softly, "Mr. Henderson fell inter a murder trap an' I got thar too late … ter fotch him out unharmed. Betwixt us we did come through, though, with ther breath still in our bodies … an' he made me pledge myself ter git him hyar in time … ter wed with ye afore he died."

He saw the eyes widen and soften as if the tight constriction of heart and nerve had been a little eased. Into them came even a pale hint of serenity and pride – pride for the splendid vindication of a hero whom she had tried to believe true and had been compelled to doubt. Even the bleak dreariness of widowhood could not tarnish that memory: her ideal instead of being shattered was canonized!

"I knowed he'd prove true," she loyally declared. "Despite everything I jest knowed hit deep down in my heart!"

A pallid thinning of the darkness was discernible over the eastern ridges as Brother Fulkerson, who had administered his most powerful restoratives, thrust back his medicine chest. His face became mysteriously grave as he joined the hands of his daughter and the man whose fingers were limp in their enfeebled clasp. Across the quilted four-poster stood Bear Cat Stacy, as erectly motionless as bronze. His unblinking eyes and lips, schooled into firm stoicism, might have suggested some young Indian brave going, set of purpose, to his torture. The lamp flared and sputtered toward the end of its night-long service and the fire had dwindled to an ashen desolation.

At the foot of the bed, and depressed with a dull sense of awe, was Joe Sanders, fingering his hat-brim and shifting his weight from foot to foot.

The old preacher of the hills, ordained in no recognized school of divinity, had for this occasion put aside the simple formula that the mountains knew and substituted for it such fragments as he remembered from the Church of England's more stately ritual. It was a service that he had heard infrequently and long ago, but it had stirred him with its solemn beauty and God would forgive any unmeant distortions since the intent was reverent.

"Dearly Beloved, we're gathered together hyar in ther sight of God A'mighty an' in the face of this hyar company … to j'ine tergither this-hyar man an' this-hyar woman." There exact memory failed him and his voice broke in a pathetic quaver. Bear Cat Stacy bit his tongue until he could taste the blood in his mouth as he held his gaze rigidly fixed above the heads of the little group. God alone knew how bitter were the broken dreams in his heart, just then.

"I require an' charge ye both, as ye will answer at ther dreadful day of jedgment – " the holy words were still illusive and memory tricky – "thet ef either one of ye knows any – any – cause why ye kain't rightfully be j'ined tergither in matrimony … ye do now confess hit."

The pause which ensued lay upon the small company with oppressive weight. Joe Sanders coughed and nervously cleared his throat.

"Wilt thou have this-hyar woman fer thy wedded wife? Wilt thou love her, comfort her an' keep her in sickness an' in health?"

For a moment there was dead and unresponsive silence. A cold fear smote upon them all that death had intervened. Then Bear Cat, bringing his eyes back from their fixity, bent abruptly; so abruptly that his movement seemed a thing of violent threat.

"Don't ye hear?" he demanded in a strained whisper. "Speak whilst thar's breath left. Say 'I will.' Say hit speedily!"

Recalled by that sharp challenge out of his sinking consciousness, Jerry Henderson stirred and murmured faintly, "I will."

"Wilt thou have this-hyar man fer thy wedded husband ter serve, honor an' obey – "

But before the interrogation came to its period Blossom Fulkerson broke in with a prideful and willing avowal, "I will! I will!"

Turner Stacy felt icy moisture on his temples. His world seemed rocking as he stood straight again with wooden immobility.

"I pronounces ye man an' wife."

Bear Cat turned away, walking with the stiff fashion of an automaton. He could feel a stringent tightness like paralysis at his heart – and his limbs seemed unresponsive and heavy. Then to his ears came, on the morning breeze, that same call to arms that had stiffened Blossom into a paralysis of fear. His cramped posture relaxed, and to himself he said, "I reckon I hain't quite through yit!"