That night Belle-Ann indited a letter to her father, dwelling upon the kindness of Miss Worth, who had proposed to give her a higher education. She told of her delightful visit to Lexington and of the beautiful present Colonel Tennytown had given to her. She asked again, as she always did, if he had heard anything from Lem.
She also ventured another letter to Lem. During the past winter she had written several letters to him; as yet, she had received no answer to these. However, she supposed they were still uncalled for. She knew that Lem could write sufficiently legible for her to decipher it, but she also remembered the fact that the nearest post-office was thirty miles distant from Moon mountain. Moreover, she knew Lem was not accustomed to visiting Junction City, because he never received any mail, and because the denizens of Junction City were rank sympathizers with the McGill faction.
And always she yearned for sight of Lem's honest face. Not a day passed but what she cherished thoughts of home. When she was apparently in her gayest mood, Lem's tall shadow stood in the background waiting for her—always waiting. While occupied in her tensest study hours, down in her subconsciousness lay a memory that stirred like a thing having life. And ever more overshadowing this dominating vision of Lem Lutts was the haunting presence of the revenuer. From her waking hours these thoughts trailed into the night to pollute her dreams and, not infrequently, pilfer her sleep away.
Oft times, in the presence of others, she would abruptly lower her book or suspend anything at hand, only to come out of an ill reverie, to find her eyes fixed blankly at nothing, and her lip in the grip of her upper teeth. These uncontrollable abstractions had caused her many embarrassments and had grown upon her, as the months slipped by, instead of diminishing.
Now that she stood on the threshold of a new life, a mystic, fascinating world, the vague dreams of which had gesticulated and beckoned to her childish fancy in the hills, foretelling its beautiful emoluments of which she now had dazzling, palpitating glimpses—she was dismayed at her own disquietude. She had made very many dear friends. She had an array of beautiful clothes. She was forgivably conscious, without vanity, that she was an unusually beautiful girl. The refinements of education for which she had an inbred craving were filtering into her brain with the mellow, rich residue of a rare wine. The whole atmosphere that enveloped her was charged with all the pedagogic influences and wholesome blithesomeness calculated to inspire a girl of her temperament to utter happiness.
But Belle-Ann was not happy. The fear that had eroded its path into her being stood over her young life to menace and alloy every new-born pleasure. Her soul trembled now lest the revenuer had killed Lem instead. Then her life would not only be broken, but the revenuer would still live on to project his hated shadow across her heart, and her agony would go on and on with another and more potential impetus.
When the human heart throbs against the barbs of an eating agony through a measure of years, there comes a time when the soul staggers and cries out.
One night Miss Worth awoke and following a habit, she got up and slipped across the hall, bent on seeing if Belle-Ann were sitting up in bed with her books, as was her wont.
She opened the door softly. As there was no light in the girl's room, she was about to close the door and go to bed when she caught a sound that half startled her. Quickly and noiselessly she stepped over the threshold. A shaft of moonlight fell athwart the bed. It was empty. She cast a searching glance about the room. At the window-seat she saw a mass of black curls above the white of a night robe.
Crouching on the floor, her face buried in her arms, alone in this small hour, Belle-Ann was crying in the half gloom. Alone with some great grief that was undoing her. Her shoulders shook with its racking on-coming. Then again, its vortex of agony swept across her lips in piteous supplicatory sobs, vibrating in the stillness like the bleating of a dazed, lost creature enmeshed in the tentacles of some merciless destroyer.
Motionless, Miss Worth stood for a minute, her mind divided by two opposing conjectures. One, a deplorable apprehension that this girl she had come to love so dearly was assailed by some new sudden visitation of suffering. The other, a keen, pungent joy that perhaps that for which she herself had striven and labored for months was coming to pass. Maybe after all the blighting soul-fistula she had so deftly and tirelessly probed for had burst and its poisonous feculence was now eddying away.
Until a month ago Belle-Ann had, with the natural reluctance and reserved suspicion of the mountain-born, withstood and parried all of Miss Worth's gentle approaches to discover her secret woe. The mountain spirit nurtures a bitter antipathy for revelations. Then a day came when this dear friend broke through the barrier, and Belle-Ann poured out her whole life to Miss Worth. There was no detail or memory that she did not vividly picture before Miss Worth's understanding. Then Miss Worth, knowing where to look, reached out with all the potent power of her subjugating diplomacy to extirpate the roots of this melancholy plant that grew and threatened to overrun a beautiful soul.
Miss Worth hurried across the room and spoke her name. With distress undisguised, Belle-Ann lifted her tear-wet face.
"Oh!—I can't—I cannot endure it longer," she declared between the tremulous sobs that convulsed her.
Miss Worth knelt beside the girl and with her arms around her, she talked in soothing undertones. For almost an hour the two sat clinging together. Not a minute had Miss Worth's voice ceased. As the girl huddled, listening tensely, the tears ceased and dried on her distressed face. Presently, she arose and walked aimlessly around the room.
"But you-all don't believe as we do," she said. "Our people are shot down in their own yards, and when we call upon the law, the law only turns the assassin loose. Then the law itself comes to kill. Oh—Oh, dear Miss Worth—you can never understand—you can never know what this is. Only we up thah who suffer these things know its sting. Who could go on and live without redress and not strike back? If you had suffered this as I have—if you could see what I have—if you could see now—this minute—what I see—thah—thah——" she ended in stifling utterances, as she stared at a spot of moonlight that had strayed across the floor.
Now, totally oblivious to her whereabouts, and utterly unconscious of Miss Worth's presence, she fell to her knees on the floor, stretching her arms out over the pallid beam, in benediction, and lowered her hands to fondle the face that her fevered fancy held there; and to touch the still, immobile bosom with its bullet-spot. And again her grief broke loose beyond restraint and she sobbed aloud. A great lump had brought an ache into Miss Worth's throat, and she, too, was crying. She lifted the girl up and led her back to the window-seat. Here she whispered solace to her for a time.
Finally, Miss Worth arose and left Belle-Ann at the window. When she reached the door she turned back.
"Remember, dearest," she said, "Know ye the truth and the truth shall make ye free. I'll be waiting up for you—I shall not retire until you come. If you see the light—come to me—I'll be waiting and praying, too."
After a time Belle-Ann arose wearily to retire. Then she laid her troubled head on the pillow and closed her tear-wet eyes and finally dropped into a restive sleep. And in this furtive slumber a titanic, stirring dream came to her. The ethereal universe convulsed and burst asunder, and opened up to her startled vision a celestial theatre of glory that gripped her heart with its untold resplendence.
And roundabout, leagues high, gloss-buffed walls of amethyst, and gleaming pillars of pearl girded this splendor. And above this scintillating heavenly realm an amphitheatre of sinuous clouds circulated, charged with pigments and prismed lustres; shot, lanced and plumed with a woof of multi-colors that no tongue could tell; and out from this spectacle of molten glory, a multitudinous horde emerged, trooping through its liquid opalescence.
And the angels reveled, flapping their wings in the starlight to the throbbing rhythm of ten thousand silver lutes. And out beneath the proscenium arch of this fantastic gilded dream, an archangel rode and a beloved face looked down upon the girl. It was a chaste, smiling face; a sacrament of love, replete with amity and forgiveness.
And the knowing eyes were diademed with a specific message. And the vision bore straight down to earth upon her; and she lifted up her arms to meet it. And the whir of its pinions awoke her. She slipped out of bed and stood erect, her bosom lifting and her eyes looking through the dark after this receding apparition.
And there as she stood alone in that small hour of the night, a great Presence came into the room and an unseen hand reached out and touched her soul.
Beside the little white bed Belle-Ann bent her knee and bowed down her head until the curls spread out on the coverlet. And lo! a sword of divine light dipped down and penetrated the cryptic catacomb hidden in her heart and pierced its gnawing, pillaging tenant, and killed her ill, uncouth creed; and drove her lingering sorrow out, purging her being free of the chaotic fires of revenge-thirst that was slowly but surely searing her soul.
And when she rose up, a plenipotent strength of understanding had lifted her crying spirit out and up to a sanctuary of truth; and she stood in the early hour of coming day, serene and triumphant, with the lustre of a conquering light in her purposeful eyes, and faced a new world.
It was dawn. Amid a theatre of opalescent clouds reefed in the east, the sun diffused its glory, and shaped rubescent coral columns, edging its facade with azure and gold. The air was rife with the musks of the blossomed mountain-sides, and a medley of bird-music emanated from a hundred species, flitting and flapping their wet wings in the morning dew.
Belle-Ann tapped gently on Miss Worth's door. She stepped lightly into the room. Miss Worth was wide awake and paused, struck with the pure radiance of the girl's face.
"At last!" ejaculated Miss Worth triumphantly. She kissed and hugged Belle-Ann in the exuberance of her joy and enthusiasm. Belle-Ann's eyes were clear and wide with a new light. The mote that had floated in their depths was gone for all time. And Miss Worth saw before her the most charming character and perfect specimen of young girlhood that fortune had ever led her to. "At last—you understand now, Belle-Ann?" she said, drawing her over to the edge of her bed.
"Yes, I do understand, Miss Worth," answered the girl, her face dimpled with smiles that betokened the calm and serenity of a new-found peace and faith.
"I understand, deahest Miss Worth," she repeated, "but I don't understand how I understand—it is all so deeply mysterious—so wonderful—to think of these wasted years! Oh!—if I could only see Lem!"
"And now," observed Miss Worth, "is it right for Lem to kill the man?" pursued Miss Worth tentatively. Belle-Ann arose quickly from the bed, spurred by the thought that she now miraculously regarded as a two-edged wrong, and a direct offense against God.
"Oh!" she exclaimed regretfully, "how could I ever have thought it right—how could I? It's ignorance—it's downright ignorance—I see it all plainly now, my deah, sweet, true friend. I see it all just as you-all promised me long ago that I would see it—instead of lightening Lem's sorrows I was adding to them—I was making his burden harder to endure—I was dragging him down to misery, not knowing any better—it's terrible, Miss Worth—it's pure blind ignorance—I can't believe now that I did that. I'm guilty—guilty—guilty—if Lem kills the revenuer, I, too, am guilty, for I will now tell you, Miss Worth, I not only asked Lem to kill the man, as I told you-all—but I demanded it against Lem's love for me—offered a prize—a reward for the revenuer's dead body. Lem begged to kiss me on parting—I wouldn't even kiss him good-by—he kissed my hair, not my lips—I can see him now standing up thah holding out his arms to me—I was mad for the sight of that officer, dead. If Lem kills him it will be I who helped to chain an anchor of crime to Lem's poor wretched life—to drag him down. I did nothing to uplift him,—nothing to incite him to look for bright things in the future—my whole heart was aflame with revenge. Oh! what a miserable thing it is! I was mad; weak-spirited; blind with ignorance—and to think that I boasted of it to you! As I stand heah now, I can't believe I did that monstrous thing. And Lem up thah, his eyes and thoughts fixed downward—down on the trail of revenge, a path that leads to eternal unhappiness. I can't wait, Miss Worth—I won't rest until I see Lem. I hope nothing has happened to him. I'll lead him out of it all. I'll show him the way to life as God meant us to live. I'll lead him out, just as you, my deahest, kindest friend—just as you have led me away from the pit around which I had beaten a path with all of my foolish years of life—you led me away from a seething pit of misery, Miss Worth; a cauldron into which I would surely have tumbled, soul and all, in time. Now—now—it's different; now—it's all changed—life looks like a beautiful picture to me now. But, oh!—how I pity the benighted sufferers up thah in the mountains—if there was only a way to show them—to show them the emoluments of life with the misery of feudal hate eliminated."
Too much overcome with sheer joy to speak, Miss Worth listened to Belle-Ann's earnest declarations and watched her smiling, confident, beautiful features with a sense of having, just here, achieved one of the greatest conquests of her missionary life.
Belle-Ann walked to the window, a new exquisite incarnation of girlhood. With a thankful, gracious heart, ready and primed for the wonders of which she now had a divine intuition, she gazed across to the mountain summits, touched with the iridescent vapors, figured by the rising sun. She watched the veil-like mist gradually rise over the river where it lingered like a film of bluish wood smoke. She listened to the clamorous carols of the birds, and there was a song in her heart and inwardly she was stirred with all the inspirations that accompany the placidity of a spirit untroubled and immaculate. The chapel chimes suddenly pealed out their morning anthems, and its music tinkled sweetly across the senses of the girl whose soul was throbbing in perfect attune.
From the sublimity of her momentary reverie, Miss Worth's gentle voice aroused Belle-Ann.
"Belle-Ann," she said, "would a bit of news before breakfast be distasteful?"
The girl cast a quick, expectant look toward Miss Worth, whose face was symbolical of still another revelation.
"I can bear anything," answered Belle-Ann. "I can now appreciate more than ever any glad news—life can hold no sorrow now that I cannot endure bravely—don't hesitate to tell me—I am unafraid."
"Well—it is not by any means fearful news, my dear; on the contrary, it's the most delightful surprise imaginable—the only thing I fear is that you will not forgive us for what will doubtless present itself to your mind as a rank conspiracy."
Belle-Ann laughed and squeezed the hand that crept into hers.
"When you are concerned, you are forgiven anything in advance—you-all couldn't commit anything, Miss Worth, that I could hold against you a second," she assured, laughingly.
The older woman fell pensive for a moment.
"Belle-Ann—I have known this for a long time—Colonel Tennytown asked me to acquaint you with this when I thought fit—I think the proper time is now at hand—Colonel Tennytown was your mother's father, Belle-Ann."
"Oh!—Miss Worth!" ejaculated the girl with a noticeable catch in her voice. "My grandfather—you-all can't mean that Colonel Tennytown is my really grandfather?" she pressed hastily, overwhelmed by this unlooked-for surprise.
"Yes, truly—Colonel Tennytown is your own grandfather, Belle-Ann, and I am happy and proud that you have such a man for your grandfather—he is going to come and claim you, my dear, and you are not to rebel when he tells you about your legacy—you have an inheritance—it is rightfully yours by every moral and legal tenure—it was your mother's—although her proud, relentless temperament spurned it while she lived. It now devolves upon you, Belle-Ann; you have been rich all along and did not know it—money matters need never trouble your dear little head. You recall that first visit to Lexington? Well, we took you out to the Colonel's home purposely for his maiden sister to see you. You know they wanted to be sure of you, Belle-Ann,—they wanted to feel certain, dear, that they would like you. And dear old Miss Malinda was more than charmed with your beauty and personality—she confided to me afterwards that she begged the Colonel to go directly and bring you there to live permanently. Belle-Ann, you look like you do not believe this good fortune," she ended abruptly.
Out of a daze the girl awake, and impulsively threw her arms around Miss Worth and kissed her until she laughingly protested. As Belle-Ann dressed for breakfast, she pondered upon the ways of Providence and wondered what unseen happening would come next to take its place in her life. She moved about in a state of bewilderment. She struggled to compose herself; this great good luck thrust upon her so suddenly seemed visionary. She, whose life heretofore had been lonesome and isolated, and overshadowed with unhappiness.
This abrupt intervention of a kind fate bore the atmosphere of a fairy romance. It was difficult to comprehend off-hand, that all this was meant for her. So that it was only gradually that she gathered the grace of its realization, and then her fancy waxed busy. A glamorous vista of possibilities were opened up to her. She saw before her salient, new-born contemplation, scores of day-dreams that had invaded her girlhood, resolve themselves now into a semblance of approaching tangible realities.
With superb, delicate touches she added to these mental pictures with the prolific imagery and exquisite mastery that only a vivacious, high-spirited girl can conjure. And paramount above all these fantastic castles were the benefits set aside to be bestowed upon Lem and Buddy and her father and even poor old Slab—they who had been fellow-sufferers in a war of strife and aching misery that had seemed interminable.
With the tail of her eye, Belle-Ann caught a parting glimpse of her profile in the mirror. She noted with a little laugh that her lips were moving. All unconsciously she was repeating over and over the phrase that drifted to and fro through her half-incredulous mind:
"A grandfather—an inheritance—Belle-Ann Benson—with a legacy?"
Colonel Tennytown, who had been called to New York on business, had now returned to Lexington. To-day, when Miss Worth returned to the school she imparted to Belle-Ann that she had received a message from the Colonel stating that he would be up to see them in the evening. He had been absent for two weeks and Belle-Ann had not seen him since she had learned that he was her grandfather.
With a lingering, tender embrace, twilight untwined her nebulous arms from the sable-lustre mantle of night and parted with a promise.
The tryst place had been the dim, infinite dome of the world. Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane subjects. His ancient serfs, patrolling the heavens at his behest, all a-glitter, trembled in his presence. And between the limits of these fire-touched planets, the milky-highroad developed like a mystic wand leading across a vast ethereal universe, and trailing adown into immeasurable cyclopic spaces, fading away between the gigantic vapor-tombs and ghost biers of a thousand dead centuries.
And all the soul-stirring agencies of rapturous nature pulsed and glowed down upon the night-world of mankind. A neutral moon whose fixed face, young yet, unsmiled and uncreased with the joys and woes upheld by the supplicant ages, seemed now to soften with mellow sympathy upon a girl-heart below. Could even a stoic moon look upon this girl unmoved? Belle-Ann leaned listlessly against the bronze rail that girded the fountain, gazing with expectant eyes, along the moonlit path leading to the seminary.
The Chapel bells chimed out their angelus across the fantasmal gloaming, tinkling through the girl's mood in utter harmony with the music of her soul, and the supernal smiles that lingered about her cupid lips. Beneath the enchanting rays of the moon, Belle-Ann's wraith-like, relaxed form looked even taller. Arrayed in a vision of delicate blue silk and lace, clinging to the pronounced curves of her subtle outlines, she presented an unforgettable picture; a rare hellenism of feminine beauty. A type to ravish the senses. The shimmering blackness of the girlish curls that crowded around her small features, contrasted adorably with her eburnean skin, natural as the purity of rose petals, soft and fine-textured, from which the mountain tan had long since vanished.
A bouquet of great roses was pinned at her bosom, and the musk of calcanthus was in her curls. Her lips parted and she hummed a soft ditty. The sweet dulcet timbre of her voice was a mellowed sound wafted straight from the realms of Dixie. Her whole palpable self irradiated and pulsed with the subtle witchery and glamour of the South.
As she stood in the half-shadow of the fountain gazing intently along the hedge-hemmed path, a sudden gladness stirred her as she discerned what her eyes had sought. Two vague forms descended from the porch, coupled perilously near together. Then, as they halted beneath the dappled shadows of the rose-tree, Belle-Ann fancied she saw a white sleeve against a sable shoulder. It may have been the trick of her imagination, but it seemed that the man stooped his head and lingered over the white-clad figure.
She knew it was Colonel Tennytown and Miss Worth who tarried there. Belle-Ann had known all evening that he would seek her out. She had not laid eyes on him since the Sunday preceding that memorable dawn when Miss Worth had revealed his relationship. But now with a heart full to the brim with gratitude she awaited his coming, and to acknowledge her grandfather.
Presently, the Colonel's tall figure emerged from the shadows and came toward her. With his broad hat in his hand he halted before her and smilingly bowed in courtly grace. As Belle-Ann looked straight into his eyes, her face was now all aflush with pleasure and the baffling dimples were at play.
"Belle-Ann," Colonel Tennytown began gently, with a strange new exultation noticeable in his tones, "I have come to ask you to do me a favor—a very great kindness—do you deem me deserving of a kindness in view of my grim shortcomings?"
"Isn't it singular, Colonel Tennytown," interjected Belle-Ann laughingly, "that when I saw you coming down thah, I thought how happy I'd be if I had the power to do you-all some kindness?"
"Ah!" rejoined the Colonel, "now we have it—happily, you possess a naturally charitable spirit, Belle-Ann," he said. He had never called her Belle-Ann before. His Southern chivalry had never permitted him to diverge from the prefix of Miss to her surname. "As you now know all, Belle-Ann," he continued, "I wish you, henceforth and onward, to call me grandfather—I beg you to forgive me for my seeming tardiness in coming to the front to acknowledge my granddaughter—my approach has doubtless appeared to you masked in a form of deception, and now that I am here to inflict the brazen audacity of a complete confession, you can plainly see, Belle-Ann, that I am in need of your uttermost indulgence. The truth is, I regret to say, that we never knew of your existence until you came here to school when my esteemed friend, Reverend Peterson, made me acquainted with the fact.
"Then, the moment I laid eyes on you my heart melted and my soul went out to you—I instantly saw in you purity and beauty—indeed you are even more beautiful than your mother was, Belle-Ann—your mother whose sole offense was her stubborn refusal to marry the man whom we thought best fitted for her; and then she ran away and married a mountaineer far beneath her station, doubtless a good man—but practically a stranger, and one to whom she gave her life, and her duty, but not her heart.
"We struggled for years to reconcile her, pledging absolute forgiveness, but her blood told, Belle-Ann—the blood of her father—her high-bred spirit met our pleadings with unbroken stoic silence. She lost herself completely—the grand young man who had just been elected to the state senate of Kentucky, and who loved her, declined from that day and died a broken man. The remorse that gnawed at my heart for years, Belle-Ann, has left its scars—is a skein of secret, silent woe, untold, my dear little girl—a blight across the old man's life that no language is sufficiently adequate to reveal.
"Bah!—what an awful lesson I have had—and then I found you. You were sent by a kind Providence to assuage my great sorrow, Belle-Ann. You see—my daughter—we wished to be certain that you inherited your mother's lovable traits. I did not wish to take a step which might, perforce, have to be retraced later; to be plain, we sought to make sure that we liked you, and I can say to-night that we do like you, Belle-Ann—we do more than that, we all love you—we do more than love you; we idolize you; we worship you; we all adore you. Will you adopt us? Will you take me with all my arrant failings and use me as best you can for a grandfather?"
He dropped his hat on the grass and stood erect before her in the moonlight the image of a southern nobleman, holding his hands out to her. All throughout his earnest words she had been deeply and happily moved. Her bosom rose and fell, riding the roses pinned over her heart. Her star-like eyes were misty, and there was pathos in her sweet treble utterance as she thrust her two hands into his waiting palms.
"Col—grandpa," she corrected, "it is a proud distinction to claim you for my grandfather—I feel wholly unworthy. I feet almost like an interloper—I owe you so much—I shall struggle with all my heart to take and fill my mother's place."
The Colonel stooped and pressed his lips to her forehead and kissed the curls near the little wreath of flowers.
"Belle-Ann," he went on, a new line of serious thought suggested to him, "you must promise me one more thing—in fact, if you don't promise, it will disrupt my plan of years—it will—well—it will place me in a very unhappy position."
"What is it, grandpa?" she quizzed through her smiles.
"Well—you see—that is—of course it's a secret," he ended lamely, with a furtive look toward a dim white figure beneath the trees. "As I said before—it's like this——Oh!—plague—take it!—to-night I asked Miss Worth to marry me, and she said she would if she could; but that she couldn't unless you promised to come immediately with us to Lexington and make your home with us—so you see where the whole thing hinges. Will you do me this favor, Belle-Ann?" he pressed anxiously.
Belle-Ann could not restrain herself and laughed outright.
"Don't look so solemn, Grandpa—go tell Miss Worth I said to marry you by all means—I'll do my part."
There was a boyish ring in the Colonel's laugh as he picked his hat up off the grass and with Belle-Ann's arm through his, started toward the porch.
"But—Grandpa," protested Belle-Ann, as her lovely face suddenly sobered, and a grave note crept into her voice, "I must go up to Moon mountain before I think of anything else—some hearts up thah are beating against my return—but I'll promise to come back heah, in three days, Grandpa."
Colonel Tennytown stopped short on the path.
"Ah!—now we have it," he exclaimed. "I know all about those folks. Tell me, my dear, plainly—do you love that boy, Lem?"
Belle-Ann's cheeks turned visibly crimson in the moonlight as she looked up quickly upon this unexpected query.
"I might—might learn to—Grandpa," she murmured grudgingly.
"Now," said the Colonel decisively, "you shall start up there Monday morning—and you tell that Lem Lutts for me that I want a good, steady, dependable man. I'll give him charge of my entire stock farm—seven hundred acres—and three hundred head of the best horse-blood on the face of the earth. I'll train Lem and make him manager. If he will, he can go to school and polish himself up first. And that little Buddy Lutts—you tell him I'll give him a pony all for his own, and keep him in clothes and spending money if he'll come down to Lexington and go to school once in awhile."
"Now, I want to ask you, Belle-Ann—about that old negro chap, Slab. Is the lobe of his left ear missing?"
"Oh, yes—yes!" exclaimed the mystified girl.
"And is he a very long, narrow gentleman?"
"Surely—he's quite tall——"
"Did you ever hear him sing 'Kitty Wells'?"
Belle-Ann clapped her hands in childish glee.
"I've heard that song every night all my life, Grandpa; how did you-all know Slab, Grandpa?"
"Ah! now we have it—when Miss Worth mentioned him, telling me things about him as you had told her, I would always say that he is the same old Slab—and I'll bet the best horse I've got that he is the same. He belonged to my uncle who lived on the plantation adjoining my father's. Slab was asleep in the shade of a porch one day when I, a boy of seven years, meaning to startle him, slipped up and held a snapping turtle close to his face. When I started to arouse him with one hand, the turtle suddenly shot his neck out and gabbed old Slab by the ear. Then Slab woke up. You ask him about that; and you ask him if he remembers the time old Hickamohawk ran away with him—and you bring him down here with you. Just tell him that Amos Tennytown wants him and he'll come—bring the whole family—there's room for us all, Belle-Ann."
She had listened to his warm-hearted suggestions with growing enthusiasm that sent her blood bounding, as she pictured the surprise and gladness the Colonel's message would inspire in those lonely, isolated hearts up on Hellsfork.
"Grandpa," observed the girl, out of her unutterable joy and gratitude, "God made your heart awful big."
"And God made you the gentlest and most beautiful of all granddaughters, my dear," he answered gallantly. "Monday I will have here the best single-foot saddle beast in this country for you to ride, and I will send a man to escort you, who will guarantee your safety."
"Oh, Grandpa! I don't wish him to go any further than Boon's Ford. He can turn back thah. I feel sure Lem and Buddy and Slab will come back with me."
"Just as you will, Belle-Ann," he agreed, and the two mingled their mutual, uncontrollable outbursts of ecstasy as they joined the figure lingering amid the mystic vacillating shadows of the rose-tree.
All through these wretched months, Lem Lutts had weltered in jail. During the first hideous weeks of his incarceration he thought his reason would not serve him longer. He felt that he would surely go mad. Night after night he stood with dull, hopeless eyes at his cell door, his fingers twined around the mercilessly cold iron bars, gazing across the dim corridor at the blank stone wall.
When "Creeping Jesus" glided up to his cell door like a phantom, and flashed his lantern upon Lem, he found him hour after hour wide awake, his eyes burning and starry with the unquenchable fire of a throbbing, wild, mad unrest. The keepers wondered how he kept alive, considering the amount of food he took and the sleep he had.
Belle-Ann's face was ever before him. Her beautiful vision floated evermore through the dark confines of his cell. Many times he had scribbled letters to Belle-Ann, with fond hopes that some word from her would come back to him, not knowing that these missives had never reached the outside of the jail.
He had lolled upon the iron cot through the soul-wrenching hours of countless nights, staring up through the black toward the concrete ceiling. His groping mind saw no solution written in the dark. Merciless assumptions in default of proofs had opened the great loathsome cage whose maw had gulped his body.
True—he had helped his father work the "still" that his great-grandfather had worked with a free conscience. That was all—the "still" that the despised law had never yet unearthed. The aspect of the law conformed with the teachings of his father. It fitted unto the sights that his own eyes had beheld. Where was its equity? He had seen his own relation shot down in cold, cruel blood. This law had never come forward to punish the wrong and champion the right. This law only hovered like a python above its prey, and struck when it had advantage.
The law was a mangy, fanged reptile—a monster that bit the honest rights of the people out of their hearts; then clawed and rolled and mauled their bodies. He had heard that God inspired the wise men who made the law. Surely, the Almighty had not lent His seal to this curse. The God that Maw Lutts had told him about—He, who would some day make all things right in Kentucky—was not a party to this law that had finally taken the lives of his parents and had taken him. It was all the evil, godless work of men. It was the plot of a city faction. He was in the hands of a gang. In the last days of his jail life, the boy's philosophy had reduced the blame to a unit, until it fixed the whole responsibility upon a single man—"Big Pete" Burton—leader of the gang.
The boy, who had never in his life before been outside the limits of the Cumberland, had gone to jail, on that eventful day, innocent. He came out guilty. The mountain tinge had long since deserted his cheek and left it jail-hued. The simple-souled eyes now shone with the flinty stare, the designing needle-glints, the relentless play from eye to eye that traverses the orbs of the jail-man. He came out guilty, not of that which he had knowingly already done, but guilty of the added thing now stored away in the core of his being that he meant to do.
The heart-breaking midnight loneliness and the nerve-stabbing "third degree" had not sucked the fire from his feudal veins. His religion now measured by his capacity for revenge, Lem Lutts came out of prison, his young heart and soul and strength obsessed by a sacred quest. His suspicions ratified in jail, he came out tarnished and arrayed against the world. In the centre of this flaming theatre of vengeance there ever stalked one leading figure, one solitary actor—a huge animal-headed man flaunting a frayed precept, called law—the monster law-man reaching for the rights and the blood of the people—he of the shadow-built body and the charmed life—that fearless ghost-spawn who never backed away from the mouth of a gun—he who always plunged toward the flame and the smoke and fought in the open—he whose skin was tattooed by the Winchester stencil of the mountaineer; but who still lived, and pursued, and fought on—the man who forged always onward with uncanny precision, ever stalking the hillman, ever reaching for his sanctum with merciless, untiring law-biting fury.
The vision of this supernatural man, who had killed his parents, stood in front of the boy's life and blocked his untamed spirit with taunts. Loyal to inherited instincts; guided by the influence of environment; handicapped by ignorance; fanatically brave in his peculiarly educated understanding of justice, and property rights—the boy saw only this man. This hated enemy had not deserted him in jail. "Big Pete" had visited him time and time again. He had coaxed, abused, threatened, cajoled. He had even "manhandled" Lem, but never an utterance had crossed the boy's lips to betray. Finally, they had put him in the dungeon. When he emerged from the "black hole of Calcutta," he was thinner, chalk-hued, and benumbed of brain, but unrelenting, and "Big Pete" knew there was a demerit across his record. He did not make an informer.
To-day they had released Lem Lutts in disgust. The revenuer, Burton, was on hand with that same despicable stare, and followed him from the warden's office to the street.
"I'll get you yet, Lutts," predicted the detective. "I'll bust that gang, and I'll send you to Atlanta the next time. I'll bust you, or I'll get you like I did your—your——" his temerity broke. "I'll get you all right—I'll be on your trail in a week." To this gentle benediction he added a gentle push as emphasis.
Slight as the push was, Lem lost his balance and went to his knees, his hat falling to the walk. When he gained his feet and faced about, the officer stared in dumb amazement at the savage figure before him. Lem's stoicism had left him. His immobile features yielded to the volcanic hatred within. His light eyes glinted like full sockets of quicksilver. The froth fermented and bubbled off his twitching lip.
"Yes—yes—yo' houn' dog!—yo' kilt my pap, an' my maw—yo' did!" he shrieked out in a riot of rage. "Yore 'lowing t' git hain't a gittin', hit hain't'—yo' kin 'low, an' 'low, an' 'low—thet hain't a gittin'—yore a pesky coward—yore a damn woman-killer—an' th' day'll cum when we'uns 'll run th' cow-brutes acrossin' yore snaky ole grave, we will! An' our'n hawgs'll root parsley offin' yore ole houn'-dawg grave, they will—yo' kilt my pap an' my maw, yo' did—an' hits we'uns what'll make a stinkin' hole fo' yore ole carcass,—what'll run the wild skunks out o' th' mountains—a hole what'll make th' buzzards puke.
"Yo' kilt my pap an' my maw—yo' he-skunk!—an' ef they's a God up in th' clouds, He'll see yore ole bones a-burnin' up in hell 'fore long—He will."
He bleated out his imprecations, his frothy, distraught utterances tumbling together and stifling his speech. His wrist-band became loosened, and he stretched a sleeveless, naked arm high over his bared head to solemnize an oath that had sealed itself in his tempestuous heart. The sullen officer scowled at him, speechless; then grimly, silently, turned his back upon the lava of this mountain boy's impotent frenzy.
Panting and dazed, Lem walked in a circle around his hat, which lay on the walk. Finally picking it up, he backed away from some curious eyes that had gathered, and ambled off toward the Kentucky river. Near two hundred miles from Moon mountain, forlorn, soul-sick, friendless, moneyless, but free, with one steadfast, consuming purpose fixed in his heart,—an organic purpose which he kept protected with prayerful importunities to Providence that it might not go amiss!
When Lem got his bearings, he started cross-country afoot. At the end of the ninth day he found himself on the skirts of the Big Sandy country. With that tireless wolf-gait, he put the rugged miles behind him. All through the moonless night he tramped with eager eyes fixed toward the east where the hills piled higher and higher, and penciled a sable, ragged border against the paling, myriad stars.
At length the atmosphere grew heavy and a flume of languid clouds straggled up where they hung upon the distant mountain peaks, pregnant with pulsing heat lightning. When, in the loneliness of that weird hour, the darkest epoch between night and morning, Lem beheld, silhouetted against the incessant flashes of lightning, the sombre dome of Moon mountain—that sullen watch-dog of the Cumberland—he pushed ahead unmindful of fatigue, while out of the wreckage of his battered soul, and aggrieved senses, there rose up a semblance of his old self as he lessened the distance between him and his beloved home.
Before the sun was up, and while the transparent jewels still trembled on the damp face of the wilderness, Lem was on the last half of his climb. He forged onward, his head aflutter with a multiplicity of anticipation that precedes the sight of a long absent home. Presently he espied a thin column of smoke aloft, which he knew issued from his own cherished habitat. He pulsed with a savage delight. With the pungent odors of a horde of familiar, endeared growing things in his nostrils, he throbbed with the salient, rabid joy of an escaped jungle animal back again to its own. In a vortex of ecstasy he viewed the wild, enchanting scenes developing through a film of early morning mist.
When finally Lem reached the narrow twist where the trail jutted out and clung to the dew-damp breast of the mountain, he halted and dropping his torn shoes, which he had carried in his hand the past hour, he gazed along the ragged channel of a blind gulch that bit into the base of the mountain. The tree-fringed mouth of this gulch framed a picture below that entranced him. Upheld on the grass-grown palm of the distant clearing, he saw the squatty outlines of the meeting-house.
Like a blow from a bludgeon the tragic details of that unforgettable tragedy hissed and rankled anew in his brain;—that red, accursed half-hour amid the naked shadows of a lugubrious dusk, with death at his elbow; the cry of the panther in his ears, and a ghost that breathed and scowled and cursed over him.
Motionless, he looked at that wooden magnet below with a rapt, breathless stare. When he seized his damaged shoes and started onward, two stinging tears, hot with the acme of bitterness, fell off his chin, through his open shirt-front, and rolled across the white scars that dappled his breast.
When he made the next turn he was in full view of the cabin. He saw the blue-black martins, swirling around and chattering over their box. He heard the crowing of the cocks, and the see-saw music of the guineas behind the log barn. He saw the red steers reluctant to leave their warm wallow in the be-dewed stable yard. He placed his fingers to his mouth and gave two shrill whistles. In an instant his father's spotted hound bounded from behind the cabin, followed by four other obstreperous dogs. While the dogs were yapping and mobbing him with their boisterous welcome, Slab appeared at the cabin door, followed by Bud half-dressed.
"Hallaluyah! hallaluyah! hallaluyah!" shouted the old negro, gesticulating joyously and shambling pell-mell down the descent.
On the backward path to the cabin there followed a noisy and gladsome reunion. Hanging to his brother's arm, Buddy kept crying crazily:
"Lem hain't daid—Lem hain't daid—air yo', Lem?"
While Lem ate his breakfast, he told his own sad story and, in turn, Bud and the negro poured into his ears the happenings of the past months. Nor did Buddy omit a single detail of these events. He began with the trapping of a brown bear, and ended with the rehearsal of that terrible fight at Junction City, as he exhibited the scars of that sanguine combat.
"I air ole Cap Lutts' boy—hain't I, Lem?" he ended pridefully, probing for his brother's commendation.
"Yo' sho' air, Buddy—an' I air powerful happy t' own yo' fo' my brother—yo' kin show pap's blood in yore veins any day—I 'low yo' kin hold th' mounting some day," lauded Lem, with an affectionate slap, "an' yore brother Lem'll git thet onery low-down Sap McGill fo' shootin' a boy—fo' shootin' my brother. He'll answer—same's th' revenuer. I was thinkin' o' leavin' fo' a spell, Buddy, but I'll not leave heah, as long as God Almoughty holds th' clouds over these hills, an' my heart beats—I'll not leave til' I kill 'em both—I won't—I won't leave."
Worn and weary as he was, Lem did not wait to rest. He bathed his aching, swollen feet, and slipping on a pair of cow-hide moccasins, he hastened away with Buddy, to surprise Johnse Hatfield, and the faithful men at the still. And as he passed Eagle Crown, his eyes sought its lofty apex and his heart throbbed with a deep yearning. The vision of the absent girl who had gone out of his life and carried with her every fibre of joy that had hitherto woofed his existence—now stood before him with a vividness and insistency that eclipsed all previous visitations.
In a measure, the surprise was turned upon himself, for they heard a shot and came suddenly upon Johnse Hatfield on the trail, crouching behind a boulder, his rifle still smoking, and peering keenly over into the laurel thicket below. When he looked up and beheld Lem, back again alive and well, he almost collapsed. Then the wild joy of Johnse's greeting merged swiftly into a grimmer enthusiasm as he said:
"I plugged em at last, Lem."
"Who?"
"Th' revenuer—I jest plugged em," enlightened Johnse.
"Burton?" cried Lem, unwilling to believe the news.
"Shore," returned Johnse, "I stopped 'em thes time—I did."
"Air yo' sho' he's kilt?" eagerly, as the three crouched behind the boulder.
"He air," assured Johnse emphatically. "I kin tell the way a feller flops his wings when he air kilt an' when he air jest hurted—he war a snakin' round—an' I 'low he war a spyin' on yore house—he looked up an' seen me a watchin'—then he pulled on me—but I fired quicker'n him—I got em shore thes time, Lem."
"Gawd'll Moughty!" muttered Lem, under his breath, "air thet cuss back thes quick—a houndin' me agin, thes soon?—but he tol' me he'd do hit—he said he wouldn't parley any——"
"Who tol' yo?"
"Burton."
"When—yo' hain't meanin' thet yo' talked to that devil?"
"I been in his jail all thes time."
For a moment Hatfield's face was a picture of dismay. He was dumb and plainly beyond any expression. Presently Johnse spoke.
"I see thar game—course thar's a traitor, but I 'low it hain't Orlick—they wanted t' beat yo'-all back, thinkin' yo' wouldn't be a lookin' fer 'em so soon—an' he war a spyin' on yore house, aimin' t' foller yo'-all to th' still—then raid us—but I changed his tune."
"I hope yo' hain't kilt em—'cause he belongs to Cap Lutts's boy—to me——"
"I kilt em, Lem—I had t'."
Lem still stared incredulously at Hatfield's grim, bearded face.
"Come 'long, Johnse!" exclaimed Lem decisively. "I 'low yo' believe yo' kilt em—but yo' can't lead me t' his daid body—yo' can't," declared Lem dubiously. Gripping his Winchester, Lem started away down the trail on a run, with Hatfield and little Bud loping along after him.
When they arrived within sight of the place indicated by Hatfield as the spot where he had seen the revenuer's head disappear, the trio fell upon their knees, and crept cautiously along, with rifles ready and eyes alert. In a dense clump of laurel brush between two great dun rocks, they came upon a tan felt hat lying in a wide circle of dark blood. A few paces away lay a silver-mounted Winchester rifle. Lem knew the gun; the instant he laid eyes on the piece, he knew it was the property of Pete Burton, the revenuer. The front of the hat, just above the band, was slit open for six inches or more, as if cut with a knife. Lem's eyes glowed like fire-balls, as he examined the gun and passing it to Bud to carry, he turned upon Hatfield, who stood speechless eyeing the blood.
"Yo' said yo'd show me his daid body, Johnse—do yo' see hit?" Lem emitted a bitter, derisive laugh.
Hatfield's hairy visage was the picture of dumb bewilderment.
"Johnse Hatfield," began Lem solemnly, "could any man thet Gawd'll Moughty made human lose all thet blood and not stay heah, on thes spot?—eh? I kin tell from his hat yore bullet swiped em 'long th' forehead,—yo' hain't kilt em—yo'll never kill em—I'll never kill em—nobuddy'll ever kill em, Johnse Hatfield!—ef he wus a human bein' my pap would a got em 'long 'go—Johnse, when yo'-all kills a eagle yo' takes a bead on em pint-blank first, don't yo'?—sho'—yo' don't shoot at his shadder skimmin' along on th' ground under him, do yo'?—no. But when yo' shoot at this cussed revenuer yo' mought as well shoot at his shadder's fer's killin' him goes—he air a ghost. But I'll never stop tryin' t' git em anyways—I feel that I'll never git em—leastways hits soothin' t' be always a tryin'—cum 'long, Johnse."
They twisted in and out through the laurel and rhododendrons, between bald rocks, mighty and pigmy, and over crumbling logs coated with liverwort. Through walls of tangled thorn brush; out and along paths beaten by the wild razorbacks, and down, always downward, the three followed the erratic zigzag trail of blood for four miles. Down to the very water's brink of Boon Creek, where they lost it.
They traversed both sides of the creek up and down for miles with no signs of the lost trail. Hour after hour they searched until night came upon them, and they returned home, with the uncanny feeling that the wounded revenuer was likely to rise up out of the ground, or step out of the granite heart of some boulder at any moment.
At dawn the following day, thirty armed men gathered at the cabin. Lem spread them out, beginning at the canyon of Hellsfork, and they beat the rugged country systematically, working upward. Each day at sunrise they resumed the search where they left off until the eighth day, when they left all growth and foliage behind and came high up amid the naked, forbidding peaks of the range; precincts to discourage a mountain goat, much more a wounded man. They were rewarded with no signs of the revenuer.
They disbanded, and Lem Lutts returned to the cabin, melancholy and morose. This futile hunt for his elusive arch enemy was prophetic of some strange, dawning evolution. He felt the tang of it in his blood. He saw it lettered in the patchwork of the shadows that tried to wrap their arms about him. Amid the swaying branches of the trees the sympathetic night winds lisped incoherently, and tried to tell him something. The feral night-hawks dropped their shrill cries ominously down from the sky; utterances seemingly meant for him. From down in the jungle realms of the deserted church the faint whimpering of a panther whelp floated up to his attuned ears, like the sobbing of a tired child, carrying the warning of an oracular omen he could not deny.
The tree-frogs piped the spirit of this premonition to him with a monotonous insistency that filled the boy's soul with an alien, restive turbulence not comprehensible. The katydid purled its mysterious cadence. To his keen interpretations all the subtle, nocturnal elements of nature united upon one portentous theme. A significant, adjuring symphony; the prelude of some miraculous happening that stood very close to his life; inspiring him with a wild, palpitating unrest that puzzled his reason and stirred him like the touch of an unseen hand.
A week after his abandoned search for the ghost-like revenuer, Lem's haunting broodings resolved themselves into a quick, sudden action.
One morning, when Bud and Slab justly supposed Lem was still asleep, he appeared at the witch-elm horse-block with Johnse Hatfield's piebald mare. He gave to the mystified Bud and Slab a few brief instructions, absolutely distinct from any inkling of his intentions, and rode away through the chill mist and disappeared westward. He came back at nightfall of the fourth day with a bulky package strapped to his saddle. When he carried this bundle inside the cabin and exhibited its contents, Bud and Slab looked on in open-mouthed wonderment.
There was a fine blue-serge suit of store clothes, shirts, linen collars, ties, socks, underwear, tan shoes, and a direct insult to the etiquette of mountain head-gear—a slick derby hat, which Buddy regarded with open scorn; but which he speedily forgot when Lem unwrapped a lesser package and presented his brother with a pearl-gray, wide-brimmed Stetson hat for himself, and half dozen soft shirts, all of which were grotesquely over-sized. Lem also gave Slab a half dozen flannel shirts, two of which were a brilliant red, and which filled the old negro's mouth with a score of assorted exclamations that left small doubt of his gratitude and appreciation. Lem was non-communicative until after supper. Then it was that he called Buddy and Slab out to the horse-block and took them into his confidence, after Slab had sung "Kitty Wells."
"Now—Buddy," Lem was saying with profound emphasis, "to-morry yo'll be th' man o' th' house, understan'?—an' yo' got t' be a man—and run things like a man—'cause yore brother Lem'll be gone away from heah to-morry, Buddy—do yo' 'low yore brother kin trust yo'-all, Buddy?—eh, kin he trust yo'?"
Bud stood with a solemn, peaked face, into which had suddenly crept an apprehensive, wistful look. He had lost no time in donning his new things. Although his skinny little boy's figure was undersized, he had on a man's shirt; likewise a man's hat. He had in his grasp a man's rifle, a gun that had belonged to a very great man; undeniably the greatest man that had ever lived. That look of dull puerile doubt vanished instantly as the realization dawned upon him that his brother was now about to honor him with a man's commission. He straightened valiantly as he looked full into his brother's steadfast eyes and said:
"I reckon ole Cap Lutts o' Moon mountain was my pap, Lem—same's he was yo'n."
Lem bestowed a beaming look of pride upon him.
"I jest hoped yo'd say thet, Buddy—yore a game lad, an' yo' kin show pap's blood in yore veins any day."
"Air yo' a goin' fer off, Lem?" questioned Bud. Slab edged nearer, his old ears eager for the project.
Lem reached out and laid a hand on his little brother's thin shoulder, as with a jerk he tossed his chestnut hair backward.
"Buddy," he said in measured tones, "to-morry I'm a goin' away—I cyan't tell how fer—I mought be gone a week—I mought be gone a month—mebby a year—mebby ten years—I mought never cum back, Buddy—but when I do cum back—yo'll know thet I seed Belle-Ann."
This intelligence jarred Buddy's hard, tight-lipped mouth ajar and fired his cold, misanthropic heart with a vibrant yearning. How he would love to see Belle-Ann! Slab slid gently off the witch-block like a turtle, and rubbed his gnarled old hands together in hearty approval.
"When yo'-all see Lem agin, Buddy," repeated Lem, "yo'll know I seed Belle-Ann—I air agoin' below, an' I air agoin' t' find Belle-Ann ef th' trail leads aroun' th' worl'—I aim t' see her face onct mo'—jest onct mo' 'fore I die——
"Ef I see her, I'll cum back heah t' Moon mountain, an' never leave 'til yo' all lay me down 'side maw an' pap—ef I don't cum back—yo'll know thet I'm still a lookin' fo' our'n deah little Belle-Ann—er I'm daid."
"Mebby yo'll find her, Lem," predicted Buddy, "an' mebby she'll cum back home long o' yo'." An unwonted smile lingered on his countenance for a brief moment in this anticipation. Then Slab with deep solemnity advanced a sorceristic theory, drawn from his prognostic acumen.
"Lemmy—Lemmy," he began in a confidential, sibilant, half-whisper, "las' night—las' night," he peered cautiously into the gloom, peopled with gesticulating shadows. "Las' night er han' recht out an' tech me on ma foot—an' I wake up—an' er li'lle voice say, 'Slab, git up'—an' I git up—an' th' li'lle voice say, awful soft an' low like, 'Slab,' it say, 'Slab look out'—an' I peek ma haid out—an' thar set Mr. Owl—not er onery li'lle screech owl, what snoops wif de debil—but er big, yaller, honest ole owl, whut de Obeah-spirit send t' tell Slab er message, whut de good Lord hev in mind whut's gwine t' happen. Dah set Mr. Owl up in de daid cedar, wif de big moon right ahind him—den I snuck out an' slip up t' de daid cedar, an' stand jist as still, an' wait t' see ef owl say somethin'—'cause ef owl say first—den dat means bad—but ef owl wait fo' me t' say first—den dat means good—so I stand jist as still—an' owl he don't say nuffin'—an' I wait agin, an' owl he don' open he mouf—den I fix my hands, an' I say—'hoo! hoo! hoo!' an' jist ez quick ez lighten' Mr. Owl he say 'hoo!—hoo! hoo!' Den I say 'hoo! hoo! hoo!' seban times, an' ebery time Mr. Owl he answer me—den when I say 'hoo!—hoo!—hoo!' de las' time—Mr. Owl he flop his wings an' goed away—den I knowed shore dat somethin' gwine t' drap—den I looks 'round an' finds er li'lle bitty Obeah-stone—er li'lle white stone, wif er li'lle black speck on hit—an' I fetches hit heah an' lays hit down on de witch-block right heah—an' I turned 'round an' started back t' bed, when somethin' whispered ahind me—den I jump 'round—but I warn't skeert—an' dah she were—dah she were, Lemmie—dah she were settin' up on dis witch-block right whar I put de Obeah-stone,—dah set our li'lle Belle-Ann lookin' at Slab—I seed her just ez plain, Lemmie—jest ez plain ez I see you des minit—all dressed up white ez snow—an' all dem curls er hangin' down roun' her shoulders, an' her li'lle mouf wus er smilin' at me—an' her beau'ful eyes wus er lookin' right at me—an' I drap down on ma knees—right heah—right heah, whar I stan' now—an' I hollers out: 'Hallelujah!—I allers tol' dem dat yo'd cum back, li'lle gal'—an' she stretch her hands out ter me—an' I bust out er cryin'—I couldn't he'p hit—I bust out er cryin'—an' I heer her voice just ez plain ez I heer ma own now,—I heer her voice like er nightengale's voice,—she say, 'Whar's Lem—whar's Lem—whar's Lem?—yo' Slab—whar's Lem?—blow de horn fo' Lem,—yo' Slab—blow de horn fo' Lem'—an' I git up off ma knees an' go t' tech her han' an' she warn't dah—she goed away jist ez quick ez lighten'—an' I look an' de li'lle Obeah-stone I lay on dat witch-block wus goed away, too—Lemmie—dat means dat we's gwine t' see li'lle Belle-Ann 'fore a great spell—yore due t' find li'lle Belle-Ann, Lemmie,—yo'll sho' see her—Buddy'll see her—Slab's ole eyes'll see her—yo' know, Lemmie,—de good Lord hev His pertic'ler ways t' tell good folks 'bout all des things—He kindy tells dem 'forehand—so's dey hearts won't break—so's dey'll hev c'urage, an' trus' in Him—Slab knows He do—Slab knows."
The following day Lem Lutts arrayed himself in his newly purchased store clothes and prepared to face a strange, unfriendly world of which he knew little. Not a week, not a day, scarcely an hour had elapsed since Belle-Ann had gone to Proctor that thoughts of her were not uppermost in his mind. Indeed, it was the sustaining hope of seeing her that had held his unhappy being together. It was seemingly a wretched measure of years since that unforgettable day when he had kissed the little scar that crossed the part in her curls, when she had stood before him and crossed her heart, and pledged him that she would surely come back to him. But the day of her return, as he had marked it in his mind, a scintillating goal, promising an epoch of luxuriant life, had come, and long since passed. He had, while in prison, written half a dozen crude letters addressed to Belle-Ann at Beattyville. His credulous mind had always supposed that these missives had reached their destination. As he had never received any reply to his letters, he had deducted that either the subtle influence of education and society had taken hold of her, weaning her heart away from all thoughts of the mountains, or that some unforeseen circumstance beyond her will had kept her silent. If it developed that he could not find her at the school, he had determined, next, to go down into the Big Sandy camps and hunt up her father.
In accordance with his sudden inception of this extended sojourn, he was quick to realize that to mingle with the proud inhabitants of the strange land, into which he sallied, he would be handicapped, and doubtless be put to a retarding disadvantage by appearing among them in the crude garb of a mountaineer. He had gleaned this bit of wisdom while in prison. A credulous, guileless spirit can learn more of the world in a city jail in one month, than he can learn in twenty years out on the Godhead, in the geodetic domains allotted him by Providence. Therefore, Lem had with rare forethought equipped himself in a manner not unpleasing, and calculated to ward off disdain and ridicule. However, he had postponed having his luxuriant locks shorn to the last minute, deciding to sacrifice them when he struck the first big town. So that now he looked a bit incongruous, his shining black derby contrasting oddly enough with his long, curling hair.
Lem had bidden Slab farewell, and after spending a time up in the Orchard beside the two mounds, he climbed up to Eagle Crown, his favorite, endeared refuge, to take what might be his last survey of the wild kingdom he loved so well. When he reached that dizzy height, he sat down to gain his breath. As he did so, his eyes fell upon a small, round object at his feet.
Instantly he picked it up, and with a reminiscent smile pressed it fondly to his lips. It was a button off Belle-Ann's gingham gown.
Buddy in his impatience had wandered on down the trail toward the loop, where he had been waiting for Lem for well on to an hour, for he meant to accompany his brother as far as Boon's ford before taking leave. He had sauntered along idly and had reached a point opposite the gap in the spur, where he could look back and view the open trail, when a young badger suddenly ambled out in the path and stood regarding him curiously, with its pink snout working inquiringly. Buddy had no wish for the young badger, but, boy-like, he could not resist shying a rock at it, and at least inspire the creature with some sense of respect.
With a grin, he stepped over toward a spruce log half hidden beneath the foliage of laurel and wild dewberry bushes. As he stooped down and took up a small rock, a sight met his eyes that electrified him, causing him to forget the little animal and to drop the stone as if it had been an ember. In an instant he had his rifle at readiness. The object upon which he had his eyes riveted would never have been detected by a lay mind. But Buddy's little greenish eyes, versed in woodcraft, knew instantly that the two round holes he had glimpsed meant the presence of a shotgun! If there is anything that the mountain-born hates worse than a revenuer, it is a shotgun. They regard this mongrel weapon with a deep, cordial loathing not to be reconciled. The sight of a shotgun in the mountains is always a forerunner of deviltry and treachery.
Bud looked around furtively, then he leaned over and with infinite caution parted the laurel. He recoiled, stung with amazement.
Sap McGill lay close up against the log, with an empty whiskey flask in his relaxed palm! The boy drew back and his brain began to work with great rapidity. The last time he had seen Sap he was tumbled in the road by a bullet at Junction City. McGill was now in ambush; hidden here, bent upon a killing, and had involuntarily fallen into a drunken slumber, overcome by liquor, as evidenced by the empty bottle. Then suddenly Buddy deducted a hypothesis that decided him irrevocably. McGill could be in waiting for no one other person than his (Buddy's) brother. McGill was hidden here waiting for Lem to come down the trail, when he would rise up and send two loads of buckshot into the back of Lem's head. Buddy's lips tightened fiercely. With a quick, deft movement he reached over and, taking the shotgun by the muzzle, drew it noiselessly out to him. Swiftly he broke the gun, extracted the two shells and placed them in his pocket. He then carefully replaced the gun in the position he had found it, and stealthily secreted himself behind a boulder less than thirty feet distant. Here he lay down on his stomach with his rifle trained through a crevice, over the spot where McGill lay.
To Buddy's tense nerves the minutes seemed like long hours. He lay so long in this one position, not daring to move to another shelter, that a dull aching began to traverse his arm, which he feared would jeopardize his aim. This was the only position he could command here, where he could see the log held by McGill and at the same time hold a direct aim. From where Bud lay he could see the open trail through the gap for a distance of fifty yards without stirring.
But for McGill to get a glimpse of the path it was necessary for him to thrust his head far out from his place of concealment. Just at a time when Bud thought that he must surely risk a change in his position, a half-dozen razorbacks trotted up from behind. When they saw Bud lying on the ground in plain view, they uttered a series of affrighted grunts, and dashed ahead, two of them swerved and jumped over the very log that hid McGill, and must have come perilously near to jumping squarely upon him. The next instant McGill's head was thrust stealthfully out of the laurel, his eyes fixed intently on the scrub cedars that jutted out into the trail leading down from the Lutts cabin. As McGill waited to waylay Lem, his life in these minutes hinged upon a seemingly irrelevant and insignificant act.
The moment that McGill broke his gun and discovered that it had been tampered with, he would naturally replace the shells. And the instant that he replaced the shells, Buddy Lutts meant to send a rifle ball into his brain.
On the eve of leaving his sequestered haunts in the hills, none but the omniscient Providence could tell for how long, Lem Lutts was loath to turn his eyes toward the blue-grass country. So it was that he lingered, feasting his gaze upon the panoramic view that lay beneath Eagle Crown, every spur and nook and cove and gulch of which he had been familiar with all his life. With a heaviness weighing his heart, but a determination unabated, he swept his eyes over the purple distance with one last farewell, and turning started his descent. His head had disappeared downward when suddenly, as if in response to a voice, he halted and, not knowing his own purpose precisely, he climbed back and stood up on the ledge, sending his gaze afar to the glistening patch of water that marked the Boon Creek ford; immortalized in his soul, with the last beckonings of her whom he adored with a flaming, compelling, deathless love that eclipsed and obliterated all else in life. His gaze dwelt here for a full minute. Then he turned half-way, then looked quickly back. Something there had attracted him. With his hand half raised, he pushed to the brink of the precipice. He now discerned the burnished coat of a blood-bay horse standing in the ford. Lem's mouth dropped ajar. As he strained his eyes downward, his breath paused with the miraculous thought that slowly filtered into his brain. From this vast, hazy height he could not determine whether the equestrian was male or female. But an exciting intuition seized his senses as he descried some object flashing methodically in the sunlight.
Unmistakably the distant rider was waving to him!
Then the signal changed to something white, flaunting against the azure space, and Lem's heart smote his ribs with a great bound of suffocating joy, as the influx of a scintillating realization obsessed him, and he started down that perilous descent faster than he had ever gone in his life.