CHAPTER IIThe Hamlet Blood Camp
Faraway from the great press of population and the busy throngs, in that part of the beautiful Appalachian country, better known to the tourist as “The Land of the Sky,†in the very evening shadows of Mt. Mitchell itself, the mighty Snake lifts its domes. Standing alone and a little above the surrounding mountains, with its sharp peaks pushed up into the eternal blue a little more than six thousand feet, it has for fifty years smiled down upon a little hamlet at its base, and that hamlet is Blood Camp.
A dozen weatherbeaten houses, an unpretentious store, post-office and blacksmith shop was Blood Camp fifty years ago. With few changes, a few faces missing, and a proportionate increase in the number of graves in the little chestnut grove on the hill, Blood Camp is about the same today. In fact, it had been freely circulated “out in the world,†as Granny Green would say, by a commercial traveler, that Blood Camp was finished. For three decades he had traveled through the hamlet, and during the time had failed to hear the sound of a saw or a hammer,—hence it must be a “finished†town.
However, that may be, there had been some wonderful changes in the life of Blood Camp since the death of Lucky Joe. Immediately following the burial of Lucky Joe, there had been organized the Sunday-school in the school-house by Waffington, who put the school in the hands of a faithful few and departed. At the end of the year, a freshly made grave that lay along by the side of Lucky Joe’s told the story of the mother’s brokenheart and death. The two sons disposed of all the things that could be found, saw their little sister Gena bound out to old Jase Dillenburger, and departed for the West. Old Granny Green, fortune-teller, conjurer and real local paper, had recently been found dead near her pigsty. Some of the careless ones of the neighborhood had said that “It was sint on ’er. Beca’se she kept bitin’ dawgs, an’ dawged peoples hogs all ’er life.â€
Lately the constable with his deputies had come up from the lower settlements and locked up the little store by order of its creditors. The people considered this the greatest blow of all to the neighborhood. For twenty years the dilapidated store had stood on the state line, half in Tennessee and half in North Carolina, with an open door for all Blood Camp. The same lean and hungry face of Slade Pemberton, the store-keeper, had for a score of years looked across the box-lid counter, and dispensed to the natives brown sugar, coffee, tobacco, snuff and “plow pints.†The store had been the undisputed meeting-place for all Blood Camp for years. Hence they found it hard to give up their old resort. But since the officers of the law had closed and locked the door, the fathers of Blood Camp resignedly retreated to the shade of the big apple tree by the blacksmith shop, there to play marbles and engage in idle talk on Saturdays and Sundays. Old Jase Dillenburger had openly rebelled against the closing of the store. He had been the bosom companion of Lucky Joe, and together they had “moonshined†at night and quietly disposed of the whiskey at the store during the day,—hence the reason that old Jase liked to linger around the store. In the event that an officer from Tennessee tried to serve a warrant on him, he went into the North Carolina end of the store, andvici versa. But the new rendezvousat the blacksmith shop was situated wholly in Tennessee, which fact made old Jase a little uneasy.
“Don’t like this changen bizness much,†he growled, as he came up under the apple tree and took his place with the others. “Gimme a chaw terbacker, Fen Green,†he continued. Then biting off a large piece from the offered tobacco and handing it back he finished, “Heve you put up any rocks to your mammy’s grave yet, Fen? You orter tend to it, Fen, ’fore you fergit it. Some didn’t like yer mammy—some sed she talked too much, but I liked her—an’ you ort to tend to it ’fore you fergit it, Fen.â€
“Think maby I will, Jase,†replied Fenton Green. “How’s Genie a-gitten along, Jase? How’s she a-liken her new home by this time?â€
“Oh, she’ nearly tickled to deth to git to live with me an’ Ann. You know, Fen, thet we haint got no children nor nothin’ to bother, an’ she’s smart too, Fen. Why, she haint but thirteen agoin on fourteen, an’ she can bild fires, an’ cut wood, an’ milk, an’ drag fodder, an’ cook—an’ I left her a-cuttin’ wood when I come down here this mornin’. Oh, she’s a fine gal, an’ you look sharp now, Fen. Of course she takes a few spells a-cryin’ an’ awantin’ to go to them dang brothers away out yander in the West. But I knock that out with about three licks, an’ she’s all right agin. I’ll make a woman outen her, Fen, I will. Lucky an’ her mammy is both gone. Course we can’t help thet. An’ them two boys is gone, an’ I’m dang glad they aire. Genie will be fourteen nex’ spring, an’ a mighty fine hand she’ll make next summer with a corn-hoe in my new-ground field up yander under the peak. An’ another thing, Fen. She’s got a mighty good home, ef I do say so myself.â€
The marble game ended. The heavy shadows of night began to hang under the peaks of the mighty Snake, andthe crowd dispersed. After the others had gone, old Jase arose, ran his huge fingers through his red mop, stretched his great limbs, and looked up the mountainside towards his home. Then giving a last stroke to his woolly red beard, he began the ascent.
Hundreds of nights had been spent by Lucky and old Jase in the moonshining business. In a little secret cove upon the side of the mighty Snake, Lucky would keep the still going while old Jase with his rifle kept the watch for the government raiders. But since the imprisonment of Lucky Joe, and finally his death, the old still up in the cove had been idle for a long time. There was not another man in all Blood Camp that old Jase Dillenburger was willing to take in partnership. But the smell of the mash in his nose and the longing for the old business had led him lately to resume the operation of the still alone.
This very night we see him slowly climbing up the mountainside towards his home. The eye follows him through the twilight as he slowly ascends. But before the eye can wink again, he quickly turns to the left and is lost in the woods. No human eye sees him as he emerges from between two huge boulders just under the dome of the mighty Snake, and drops down into the little cove by the still. He begins his operations for the night, moving about with apparent ease. Removing the burlap covering from the still and brushing aside the dead leaves which had been spread in heaps over the coverings as a blind, he proceeded to build a fire under the copper boiler with great satisfaction.
“Pale moon tonight,†he drawled out as he walked over to his gun, and again examining the magazine before replacing it against the oak. Taking a small keg from the hollow of a moss-covered log, he pulled out the corncob stopper, placed in the hole a funnel filledwith charcoal, and put it in place under the end of the worm. Hours dragged slowly away as the still boiled. Old Jase sat at the base of a giant oak, with his gun across his lap, staring into the furnace of fire, thinking, reflecting. Just now he was reviewing some of the grewsome scenes of the past that he knew so well. Yes, there was the first hold-up that Lucky Joe and he had ever made. It was the stage filled with summer guests for Blowing Rock. How clear tonight is the voice of the lady from Pennsylvania still ringing in his ears, as she begged and pleaded with him—but he struck her down with the others. Then the bullet that went through his leg! Drawing up his leg he put his hand on the scar for the thousandth time as he growled out:
“Not well yit. Never has healed up jist right, noway. Mighty sore and tender yit fur twenty year healin’â€â€”then he went on with his thoughts.
It was old Jase in the first place that had suggested to Lucky Joe that they engage in the hazardous business of moonshining whiskey. It was old Jase who laid the plan for the hold-up of the stage. In fact, his cunning brain had laid the plans for all the heinous crimes that had been attributed to the Blood Camp folks. Yet the fingers of the law had failed to apprehend him and take hold upon him.
“Oh, well,†he said, pulling himself up with the aid of his gun and peering about, “Joe’s gone. The ol’ woman’s gone. Them dang boys is gone, an’ I’m mighty glad they aire. Nobody left to do nothin’ but me. I’m agettin’ too ol’ to steal corn an’ pack up this mountain to this still. I guess thet I’ll have to quit—still’en.†He stood by the little furnace and looked long into the dying fire, then continued, “Ef thet Genie wern’t agettin almost too big to manage in a bizness like still’en, I’d make her keep the fire agoin’ under this still every nightwhile I kept the watch. Ef she wuz jist a leetle younger, ef she wuz jist a leetle younger! Well, she’s mine by law, an’ I’ll make’er do it yit. She’s got to do as I say—I’ll mak’er do it yit!â€
He went to the side of the big oak, made a hasty observation and saw that a new day was now at hand. He hurriedly threw a little damp earth into the furnace to make sure that the fire would go out, replaced the coverings on the still, returned the keg to its place in the hollow log, and made for home.