Читать книгу: «The Wiving of Lance Cleaverage», страница 16

CHAPTER XXII.
THE SPEECH OF PEOPLE

AND now gossip began to weave a confusing veil of myth around the deserted man, such as time and idle conjecture spread about a deserted house. One day, visitors to the cabin in the Gap would find the place apparently forsaken and untenanted; the next, Lance would be seen plodding with bent shoulders at the plow, making ready a patch to plant with turf oats for winter pasture, lifting his head to answer nobody's hail, barely returning a greeting. It was evident that in his times of activity he worked with a fury of energy at the carrying forward of the farm labor, the improvements he and Callista had planned in the home. Plainly these were dropped as suddenly as entered upon when his mood veered, and he shut himself up in the cabin, or was out with his rifle on the distant peaks of White Oak, in the ravines of Possum Mountain, or beating the breaks of West Caney. He made more than one trip to the Settlement, too, where he was known to be trying to get Dan Bayliss to buy back Cindy for him. Always a neat creature, careful of his personal appearance, a certain indefinite forlornness came to show itself upon him now – a touch of the wild. He was thin, often unshaven, and his hair straggled long on his coat collar. But the soul that looked out of Lance's eyes, a bayed, tormented thing, was yet unsubdued. No doubt he was aghast at the whole situation; but willing to abase himself or cry "enough," he was not.

Ola Derf, true to her word, left the Turkey Tracks the day after her unsuccessful attempt at an interview with Lance. When it came to be said that he had sold to the coal company, not only the mineral rights of his land but the acres themselves, and that he was going West, rumor of course coupled the two names in that prospective hegira. There were those who would fain have brought this word to Callista, hoping thereby to have something to report; but the blue fire of Callista's eye, the cutting edge of her quiet voice, the carriage of that fair head of hers, warned such in time, and they came away without having opened the subject.

It was Preacher Drumright who officially took the matter up, and set out, as he himself stated, "to have the rights of it." His advent at the Gentry place greatly fluttered Octavia, who knew well what to expect, and had grown to dread her daughter's inflexible temper. The inevitable chickens were chased and caught; Callista set to work preparing the usual preacher's dinner. Ajax was fence mending in a far field; Octavia entertained the guest in the open porch, since, though it was now mid-October, the day was sunny, and your mountaineer cares little for chill in the air. Drumright's sharp old eyes followed the graceful figure in its journeyings from table to hearth-stone; they stared thoughtfully at the bright, bent head, relieved against the darkness of the cavernous black chimney. Finally he spoke out, cutting across some mild commonplace of Octavia's.

"Callisty, come here," he ordered brusquely.

The young woman put a last shovelful of coals back on the lid of the Dutch oven whose browning contents she had just been inspecting, and then came composedly out, wiping her hands on her apron, to stand before the preacher quite as she used when a little girl.

"I hear you've quit yo' husband – is that so?" Drumright demanded baldly.

Callista kept her profile to him and looked absently away toward the distant round of yellow Old Bald, just visible against an unclouded sky. The color never varied on the fair cheek, and the breath which stirred her blue cotton bodice was light and even. When she did not reply, the old man ruffled a bit, and prompted her.

"I ax you, is it true?"

She drew up her shoulders in the very faintest possible shrug, as of one who releases a subject scarce worth consideration.

"You said you'd heard," she returned indifferently. "I reckon you can follow your ruthers about believing."

Drumright's long, rugged face crimsoned with rising rage. His lean, knotted hands twitched as he started forward in his seat. He could have slapped the delicate, unmoved, disdainful face before him.

"To yo' preacher, that's nothin' less than a insult," he stated, looking from one woman to the other.

"Well, Sis won't let nobody name this to her," Octavia broke in hurriedly. "An' I ort to have warned you – "

"Warned me!" snorted the preacher. "Callisty won't let this and that be named! Well, if she was my gal, she'd git some things named to her good and plenty."

Callista bent to pick up, from the porch floor, an acorn that had fallen with a sharp rap from the great oak over their heads; she tossed it lightly out into the grass, then she made as though to return to her cooking.

"Hold on!" Drumright admonished her. "I ain't through with you yet. This here mammy o' yourn sp'iled you till them that ort to give you good advice is scared to come within reach. But I ain't scared. I've got a word to say. This man Cleaverage has got property – and a right smart. Hit's been told all around that he's sold out to the coal company and is goin' West with – well, they say he's goin' West. Now, havin' a livin' wife and a infant child, he cain't make no good deed without you sign; and what I want to know is, has he axed you to sign sech? Ef he has, I hope you had the sense to refuse. Ef he comes to you with any sech, I want you to send for me to deal with him – you hear? Send for me."

The rasping voice paused. Drumright was by no means through with his harangue, but he stopped a moment to arrange his ideas. He dwelt with genuine comfort on the thought of being called in to have it out once for all with Lance Cleaverage. Then Callista's voice sounded, clear and quiet.

"Mr. Drumright," she said, "if you're never sent for till I do the sending, you'll stay away from this house the rest of yo' days. I'm a servant here, a-workin' for my livin' and the livin' of my child. Them that my grandfather and my mother bids to this house, I cook for and wait on; but speak to you again I never will. Mammy, the dinner's ready; if you don't mind putting it on the table, I'll go out and see is the baby waked up."

With this she stepped lightly down and walked across to her own cabin.

Drumright turned furiously upon Octavia. She, at least, was a member of his church, and bound to take his tongue-lashings meekly. What he found to say was not new to her, and she accepted it with tears of humiliation; but when he wound up with declaring that she had brought all this about by giving her daughter to an abandoned character, even she plucked up spirit to reply.

"You may be adzactly right in all you say," she told the harsh, meddlesome old man; "but I've got the first thing to see about Lance Cleaverage that I couldn't forgive. What him and Sis fell out about I don't know, and she won't tell me; but as to blamin' it all on Lance, that I'll never do."

Then she dished up and set before her irate guest a dinner which might have soothed a more perverse temper. Ajax Gentry came in from his fence mending, and, with the advent of the man, Drumright's tone and manner softened. He made no further reference to Callista's personal affairs, nor to the castigation she ought to receive. The two old men sat eating and talking – the slow grave talk of the mountaineer – about crops and elections and religion. Callista did not come back from the little cabin, whence presently the sound of her loom made itself heard. At this point Drumright ventured a guarded suggestion to his host, in the matter of her affairs. He was met with a civil but comprehensive negative.

"No, sir, I shall not make nor meddle," Grandfather Gentry told the preacher, as he stood finally at the roadside, looking up at that worthy mounted on his mule for departure. "Callista is my only grandchild, and I've always thought a heap of her. She is welcome in my house. If she had done worse, I should still be willing to roof her; but I reckon it's best to tell you here and now, Mr. Drumright, that I have no quarrel with Lance Cleaverage, and no cause to meddle in his affairs. I take him to be a good deal like I was at his age – sort o' uneasy when folks come pesterin' around asking questions – and I don't choose to be one of them that goes to him that-a-way."

The season wore on toward winter. There was frost, and after it a time of exquisite, mist-haunted Indian summer, the clean, wooded Cumberland highlands swimming in a dream of purple haze, that sense of waiting and listening brooding over all. Then again the days were cold enough to make the fire welcome, even at noon, and Callista piled the hearth in her outside cabin room and set the baby to play before it. She had run down to the chip pile for an apronful of trash to build the blaze higher (the vigorous, capable young creature made light work, these days, of getting her own fuel), when she was aware of two people mounted on one mule stopping at the gate. She paused a moment, shading her eyes with her hand, while Rilly Trigg slid down and Buck Fuson swung himself leisurely to earth.

Above the irregular line of the brown-gold trees, beginning to be dingy with the late storms, the sky was high, cloudless, purple-blue. The sweet, keen air lifted Callista's bright hair and tossed it about her face.

"Howdy, Callisty. Me and Buck jest stopped apast to say good-bye," Rilly announced, joining her beside the chopping block, and bending to fill her own hands with the great hickory chips.

"And where was you and Buck a-goin'?" smiled Callista, after she had greeted the young fellow, who tied his mule and came following the girl over to her.

"Buck and me was wedded this morning." Rilly made her announcement with a mantling color, as they all turned in at the cabin door. "We're goin' down to Hepzibah for a spell. Looks like a man cain't git nothin' to do here, and Buck's found work in the Settlement."

Callista looked at them with a steady smile.

"I hope you-all will be mighty happy," she said in a low tone.

Rilly, suddenly overtaken by the embarrassment of making such an announcement to Callista in her present situation, sat down on the floor beside the baby and began to hug him ecstatically.

"Ain't he the sweetest thing?" she cried over and over again. "He ain't forgot me. He ain't a bit afraid of me. Last time him an' me was together I had to make up with him mighty careful. I reckon he sees more strangers and more comin' and goin' over here."

Callista's beautiful mouth set itself in firm lines as she took her chair beside the hearth, motioning Buck to one opposite. Rilly glanced nervously from one to the other, and again looked embarrassed.

"Derf, he's opened his store down in the Settlement," she returned hastily to her own affairs, for the sake of saying something, "and he offered Buck a job with him; but I jest cain't stand that old Flent Hands, and so I told Buck."'

"What has Flenton got to do with it?" inquired Callista in a perfunctory tone.

"Why, him an' Derf's went partners," Buck explained. "Didn't you know about it? Flent's to run the town store, an' Derf this'n up here."

Rumor in the Turkey Tracks now declared with a fair degree of boldness that Flenton Hands was getting, or was to get, for Callista a divorce from her husband, and that then they would be married and live in the Settlement. Lance's wife looked her visitor very coolly in the face as she answered,

"I certainly know nothing of Flenton Hands's comings or goings. The man made himself mighty unpleasant here. Hit's not my house, and not for me to say who shall be bidden into it; but I did finally ax Gran'pappy would he speak to Flent Hands and tell him please not to visit us any more. I hate to do an old neighbor that-a-way," she added, "but looks like there are some things that cain't be passed over."

A swift glance of satisfaction flashed between the newly wedded pair. Rilly rose and went timidly to Callista, putting a hesitant arm about the other's neck.

"We come a-past yo' house this morning, Callisty, honey," she whispered, her cheek against the older girl's. "I – Buck an' me wanted to see him; and we hoped – we thort – "

Not unkindly Callista pushed the clinging arm away and looked straight into Rilly's eyes, overflowing with tears.

"You're not thinkin' what you say, Rilly," she told the girl, almost sharply. "You never come a-past no house of mine. You are in the only house I've got on earth right now, and this belongs to Grandfather Gentry. I stay here on sufferance, and work for what I get. I've got no home but this."

"Oh, Callisty – you're so hard-hearted!" Rilly protested. "We come a-past, and he was thar, an' he never hid from us, like he does from most, nor shet the do' in our faces. He let us set on the porch a spell. Oh, honey, he looks mighty porely. Ain't you never scared about what he might do? Heap o' folks tells tales about him now; but he came out jest as kind – jest like he used to be – Oh, Callisty!"

Callista's face was very pale; it looked pinched; she sat staring straight ahead of her, with the air of one who endures the babble of a forward child.

"Rilly," she said finally, when the other had made an end, "you've named something that I don't allow anybody to name in my hearing. If you and me are going to be friends, you've said your last word about it to me."

"Well, – I have, then," returned the visitor half angrily. She searched in a small bag she carried hung on her arm and brought out something. "I've said my last word, then," she repeated. "But – I brung you this."

"This" proved to be a late rose marked by frost, its crimson petals smitten almost to black at their edges. Callista knew where it had grown, she recalled the day that she and her bridegroom had planted it. The root came from Father Cleaverage's place; Lance had brought it to her; and he had helped her well, and watered the little bush afterward.

Rilly cast the blossom toward her with a gesture half despair, half reproach. It lodged in her clasped hands a moment, and she looked down at it there. Memory of that October day, the tossing wind that blew her hair in her eyes, the familiar little details of the dooryard, Lance with his mattock and spade, the laughter and simple speech, the bits of foolish jest and words of tenderness – these took her by the throat and made her dumb. She knew that now the cabin which fronted that dooryard was desolate. She could not refuse to see Lance's solitary figure moving from house to fence to greet these two. Somehow she guessed that it was he who had plucked the rose and given it to the girl – that would be like Lance.

The blossom slipped from her fingers and dropped to the floor. Young Ajax, cruising about seeking loot, discovered it with a crow of rapture, seized upon it and began, baby fashion, to pull it to pieces.

The three watched with fascinated eyes as the fat little fingers rent away crimson petal after petal, till all the floor was strewn with their half withered brightness.

"Well," said Rilly, discouraged, getting to her feet, "I reckon you an' me may as well be goin', Buck."

CHAPTER XXIII.
BUCK FUSON'S IDEA

DOWN in Hepzibah, Flenton Hands and Derf had rented a store building close under the shadow of the Court House. Furtive grins were exchanged among those who knew; since it was expected that, the Derf store on Little Turkey Track Mountain being a depot for wildcat whiskey, the Derf Hands store in the Settlement would be a station along the line of that underground railway always necessary for the distribution of the illicit product. At last Flenton Hands seemed about to give some shape to that cloud of detraction which, with certain of his neighbors, had always hung over his name. As the separation between Lance Cleaverage and his wife continued, and appeared likely to be permanent; as Hands felt himself in so far justified in his hopes concerning Callista, his terror of the man whose word was out against him increased and became fairly morbid. This it was which drove him to Hepzibah, where the strong arm of the law could reach, where there were such things as peace warrants, and where fortunately, just at present, Lott Beason, the newly elected sheriff, was his distant cousin and an old business partner, who still owed him money.

To Sheriff Beason, then, Hands went, with the statement that he would like to be a constable, so that, as an officer of the law, any attack Lance made on him might appear at its gravest.

"Constable," debated Beason. "That ain't so everlastin' easy; but I can swear you in as one of my deputies, and a deputy sheriff can pack a gun – you git you a good pistol, Flent, and don't be ketched without it. Yes, you might as well have a peace warrant out against the feller, too. I tell you, down in the Settlement here we don't put up with such. You stay pretty close to town for a spell, Flent. Hit's the safest place."

Hands got out his peace warrant, he armed himself with a pistol, as is right and proper for an officer of the law. He followed Beason's final suggestion as well, and stayed pretty close to town. Lance Cleaverage was far away on Little Turkey Track Mountain. The sense of security which Hands drew from all these precautions loosened his tongue. Wincing at remembrance of his former terror, he boasted of the favor with which Cleaverage's wife regarded him; he let pass uncontradicted the statement that he had broken up that family, and added the information that he was going to get a divorce for Callista and marry her.

Buck Fuson, working in the woolen mill, had rented a tiny shack where the newly married pair were keeping house. One evening when he came home, Orilla met him with a rather startling story. She had been down to Derf's store to buy molasses and bacon for supper.

"They was all in the back end of the room behind the boxes and the piles of things, Buck," she told her husband. "The old Injun, he waited on me; and when he went back with my bucket, Injun-like, he never give them the word as to who nor what was a-listenin', and they just kept on talkin' re-dic'lous. Flenton was a-braggin', an' after what Callista's said to me and you, I knowed good an' well that every word he spoke was a lie. Emmet Provine bantered him to sell him that Cindy filly that Lance used to own, an' give to Callista. An' Flent said no, he wouldn't sell her for nothin'; he was a-goin' to keep the filly an' git the woman, too. He let on like he was shore goin' to marry Callista – talked like they wasn't sech a man as Lance Cleaverage in the world. Then Derf peeked around and ketched sight of me, and they all hushed. But I heard what I heard."

Buck ate awhile in silence and with a somewhat troubled countenance.

"I reckon I've got to send word to Lance," he said finally, looking up. "Lance Cleaverage never was one of the loud-talkin', quarrelin' kind; but he sure don't know what it is to be scared; and I'm sartain he would take it kindly to be told of this."

"An' yit I don't know," Rilly debated timidly from across the table. "Looks like you men are always killin' each other up for nothin' at all. 'Course, ef I thought Flent would be the one to git hurt – but like as not it would be Lance. No, honey, I wouldn't send him no word."

"You don't need to," smiled Buck rather grimly. "I have my doubts whether he'd take the word from a gal o' yo' size; but I'm sure a-goin' to lay for him or Sylvane and tell 'em what I know. I'd thank anybody to do the same by me."

During the rest of the meal Buck seemed to be in deep thought; Rilly watched him anxiously.

It was the next Saturday afternoon that Lance was down doing some trading. About dusk Fuson, coming home from his work, found him on the street corner preparing to get his wagon from the public yard and make a night ride up the mountain. In these days Lance made most of his journeyings after dark, shunning the faces of his neighbors.

"I was sorter watchin' for ye, Lance," said his friend. "I wanted to talk to ye – to tell ye somethin'."

Lance shot a swift glance at Fuson; but he answered promptly, and with seeming indifference:

"All right, Buck; come on down to Dowst's with me."

They walked side by side down to the tiny, dingy, deserted office of the wagon yard. Here a small stove, crammed with the soft coal of the region till the molten, smoky stuff dripped from the sagging corners of the gaping door to its firebox, made the room so intolerably warm that the window was left open. On a high desk rudely constructed of plank, an ill-tended kerosene lamp flared and generated evil odors. From nails upon the wall hung harness and whips, horse blankets, and one or two articles of male wearing-apparel. A dog-eared calendar over the desk gave the day of the month to the blacksmith when he was forced at long last to make out bills.

Alone together, safe from interruptions, the two young fellows faced each other for a moment in constrained silence. Then, hastily, awkwardly, halting and hesitating for a word now and again. Buck gave the information which he thought was due.

"Now, that's what was said," he finally made an end when he had repeated all that Rilly heard, and all that he himself had since gathered from various sources, of Flenton Hands's boasting concerning Callista Cleaverage.

Something agonized in Lance's gaze, something which looked out desperately interrogating, brought Buck to himself with a gasp.

"Rilly and me knowed every word was lies," he hastened to add. "We come a-past the Gentry place to see Callisty as we was on our way down here – you remember, Lance, that day we was at yo' house. Flenton Hands was named betwixt us, and Callisty she said that she didn't know nothing about the man nor his doings. She said she'd went to her gran'pappy and axed him to warn Flent off the place, becaze she wouldn't have the sort of talk be held."

Noting the sudden relief which showed in Lance's countenance, Fuson added, half doubtfully,

"'Course you might pay no attention to it, seein' it's all lies."

The quiet Lance flashed a sword-like look at him that was a revelation.

"Oh, no," he said. "The thing has got to be stopped. The only question is, how soon and how best can I get at Flenton Hands and stop it?"

"Lance," began the other with some hesitation, "I'm a-livin' right here in the Settlement, and aim so to do from this on. If you can git through without bringin' my name in, I'd be obliged to you. If you need me, I'm ready. If you don't need me, it'll save hard feelin's with the man that keeps the store I trade at, and with all his kin and followin'."

"All right," agreed Lance briefly. "I won't give any names – there's no need to."

"Well, I been a studyin' on this thing right smart, and I had sorter worked it out in my mind for you to hear the talk yo'self – just happen in and hear Mr. Hands. Don't you reckon that'd be the best way?" suggested Fuson.

"Yes – good as any," assented Lance. "I'm not lookin' for much trouble with Flent Hands. Here, Jimmy," he called to the sleepy boy who came yawning in, "you take my black horse out of the wagon, and put a saddle on him – you've got one here, haven't you? Put a saddle and a riding bridle on him, and tie him in the vacant lot across from Derf & Hands's store about half-past eight o'clock. I'll bring the saddle back when I'm through with it."

"All right," Jimmy roused himself to assure Lance. "I'll have Sate thar on time. Pap's got a saddle an' bridle o' yo' brother Taylor's here, Fuson. Lance can take 'em back."

As the two friends came out shoulder to shoulder, Buck said quietly,

"Derf, he's got it in for you, too."

Lance nodded.

"Derf ain't never forgive me because he robbed me of money," he added, well aware that his indifference to Ola had given the father perhaps greater offence.

They walked for a little time in silence; then Fuson said a little wistfully,

"I 'lowed I ort to tell you."

"Hit was what a friend should do," Lance agreed with him, putting out a hand.

Presently the other spoke again, out of the dark.

"I wish't thar was time to git word to Sylvane and your father," he hesitated. "Looks like we've got too few on our side."

"Huh-uh, Buck," came back Lance's quiet, positive tones. "This thing is between me and Flent. There it'll stay, and there we'll settle it. I'm not saying that I don't think Pappy and Sylvane would stand by me. They would. My father is one of the best men that God ever made, and he's a religious man; but I know how he'd feel about such as this – I don't need to go ask him. The most I hate in it is that it's bound to bring sorrow to him, whichever way it turns. He's mighty tender hearted."

Fuson debated a moment, but finally forbore to mention having sent word to Sylvane, and being in hourly expectation of the lad's coming. They went to Fuson's home for a belated supper. Rilly found them preoccupied and unusually silent. With big, frightened eyes she waited on them, serving her best, noting that they paid little attention to anything saving the strong cups of coffee provided. The young host glanced from time to time uneasily through the window, and when the meal was over got up, and, telling his wife that they were going down town for a spell, followed his guest out into the dark. Rilly ran after them to the door of the little shanty, and stood breathing unevenly and staring in the direction of their retreating footsteps.

"I hope to the Lord they don't nothing awful happen," she muttered over and over with chattering teeth. "I wonder will Buck be keerful. I wish't they was something I could do. I wish't I could go along. Oh, women do shore have a hard time in this world!" and she retired, shivering, to her bright little kitchen, where the lamp flared and the disordered table mutely suggested her clearing and washing the dishes.