Читать книгу The Tempering - Charles Neville Buck - Страница 5

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McCalloway's house had been chinked and sealed within a few weeks and now he was living under its roof. Boone had been out there often, and one day when he went on to Asa Gregory's cabin his mind was unsettled with the ferment of conflicting standards. Heretofore Asa had been his sole and sufficient hero. Now there were two, and it was dawning upon him, with a travail of dilemma, that between the essentials of their creeds lay an irreconcilable divergence.

As the boy reached his kinsman's doorstep in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, Asa's "woman" came out and hung a freshly scoured dish-pan on a peg. In her cheeks bloomed a colour and maturity somewhat too full-blown for her twenty years. Asa had married the "purtiest gal" on five creeks, but the gipsy charm of her dark, provocative eyes would die. Her lithe curves would flatten to angularity and the lustre fade out of her hair's burnished masses with a few seasons of drudgery and child-bearing.

"Howdy, Booney," she said in greeting, and, without removing his hat, he demanded curtly, "Whar's Asa at?"

"He ain't come in yit." A suggestion of anxiety sounded through the voice of Araminta Gregory. It was an apprehension which experience failed to mitigate. She had married Asa while he stood charged with homicide. The threat of lurking enemies had shadowed the celebration of wedding and infare. She had borne his child while he sat in the prisoner's dock. Now she was weaning it while he went abroad under bond. One at least knew when the High Court sat, but one could neither gauge nor calculate the less formal menace that lurked always in the laurel—so one could only wait and endeavour to remain clear eyed.

It was twilight before the man himself came in, and he slipped so quietly across the threshold into the uncertain light of the room that Boone, who sat hunched before the unkindled hearth, did not hear his entrance. But in the door-frame of the shed kitchen the wife's taut sense of waiting relaxed in a sigh of relief. Until tomorrow at least the silent fear was leashed.

An hour later, with the heavy doors protectingly barred, the man and the boy who considered himself a man took their seats at the rough table in the lean-to kitchen, but Araminta Gregory did not sit down to meat with them. She would take her place at table when the lordlier sex had risen from it, satisfied, since she was only a woman. She did not even know that the custom whose decree she followed lacked universal sanction, and, not knowing it, she suffered no discontent.

From the hearth where the woman bent over crane and frying-pan, her face hot and crimson, the red and yellow light spilled out into the primitive room, catching, here, the bright colour of drying pepper-pods strung along the rafters—there the duller glint of the house-holder's rifle leaning not far from his hand. With the flare, the shadows of the corners played a wavering hide-and-seek.

Asa ate in abstracted silence, intent upon his side-meat and "shucky-beans," but the boy, who was ordinarily ravenous, only dallied with his food and his freckled face wore the set of a preternatural solemnity.

"Don't ye love these hyar molasses no more, Booney?" inquired Araminta, to whose mind such an unaccustomed abstinence required explanation, and the boy started with the shock of a broken revery and shook his head.

"I don't crave no more of 'em," he replied shortly. Once again his thoughts enveloped him in a silence which he finally broke with a vehement interrogation.

"Asa, did ye ever heer anybody norrate thet hit's cowardly ter shoot an enemy from ther bresh?"

Asa paused, his laden knife suspended midway twixt platter and mouth. For an instant his clear-chiseled features pictured only surprise for the unexpected question—then they hardened as Athenian faces hardened when Plato "corrupted the youth with the raising up of new gods."

"Who's been a'talkin' blamed nonsense ter ye, Boone?" he demanded in a terse manner tinctured with sharpness.

The boy felt his cheeks grow suddenly hot with a quandary of embarrassment. To McCalloway he stood pledged to keep inviolate the confidence of their conversations, and it was only after an awkward pause that he replied with a halting lameness:

"Hit hain't jist p'intedly what nobody's been a'tellin' me. I ... I seed in a book whar hit said somethin' ter thet amount." Suddenly with an inspirational light of augmented authority, he added, "The Circuit-rider hisself read outen ther Scriptures suthin' 'bout not doin' no murder."

Asa carried the knife up to his lips and emptied its blade. Having done so, he spoke with a deliberate and humourless sincerity.

"Murder's a right ugly word, Boone, an' one a feller ought ter be kinderly heedful erbout usin'. Barrin' ther Carrs an' Blairs an' sich-like, I don't know nobody mean enough ter foller murderin'. Sometimes a man's p'intedly fo'ced into a killin', but thar's a heap of differ betwixt them two things."

The grave face of the boy was still clouded with his new-born misgivings, and reading that perplexity, his kinsman went on:

"Myself I've done been obleeged ter kill some sev'ral men. I plum deplores hit. I wouldn't hold no high notion of anybody thet tuck ther life of a feller-bein' without he was plum obleeged ter do hit—ner of no man thet didn't ef hit war his cl'ar duty. Hit's done been ther rise of fifty y'ars now since ther war first started up betwixt us an' ther Carrs. Hit warn't none of my doin', but ever since then—off an' on—my kinsfolk an' yourn hes done been shot down from ther la'rel—an' we've done hit back an' sought ter hold ther score even—or a leetle mite better. I've got my choice atween bein' run away from ther land whar I was born at or else"—he let his hand drop back with a simple gesture of rude eloquence until its fingers rested on the leaning rifle—"or else I hev need ter give my enemies ther only style of fightin' thet will avail. Seems like ter me hit'd be right cowardly ter run away."

To the boy these principles had never before needed defence. They had been axioms, yet now he parried with a faltering demurrer:

"Ther books says that, down below, when fellers fights, they does hit in ther open."

"Alright. Thet's ther best way so long as both of 'em air in ther open. But ef one stands out in ther highway an' tother lays back in ther timber, how long does ye reckon ther fight's a'goin' ter last? A man may love ter be above-board—but he's got ter be practical."

It was the man now who sat forgetful of his food, relapsing into a meditative silence. The leaping fire threw dashes of orange high-lights on his temple and jaw angle and in neither pattern of feature nor quality of eye was there that degenerate vacuity which one associates with barbarous cruelty.

His wife, turning just then from the hearth, saw his abstraction—and understood. She knew what tides of anxious thought and bitter reminiscence had been loosed by the boy's questioning, and her own face too stiffened. Asa was thinking of the malign warp and woof which had been woven into the destiny of his blood and of the uncertain tenure it imposed upon his own life-span. He was meditating perhaps upon the wrinkled crone who had been his mother; "fittified" and mumbling inarticulate and unlovely vagaries over her widowed hearth.

But Araminta herself thought of Asa: of the dual menace of assassination and the gallows, and a wave of nauseating terror assailed her. She shook the hair resolutely out of her eyes and spoke casually:

"La! Asa, ye're lettin' yore vittles git plum cold whilst ye sets thar in a brown study." Inwardly she added with a white-hot ferocity of passion, "Ef they lay-ways him, or hangs him, thank God his baby's a man-child—an' I'll know how ter raise hit up ter take a full accountin'!"

But as the man's face relaxed and he reached toward the biscuit plate his posture froze into an unmoving one—for just an instant. From the darkness outside came a long-drawn halloo, and the poised hand swept smoothly sidewise until it had grasped the rifle and swung it clear of the floor. The eye could hardly have followed Asa's rise from his chair. It seemed only that one moment found him seated and the next standing with his body warily inclined and his eyes fixed on the door, while his voice demanded:

"Who's out thar?"

"Hit's me—Saul Fulton. I wants ter have speech with ye."

As the householder stepped forward, Araminta blocked his way, and spoke in hurried syllables, with her hands on his two shoulders. "Hit hain't sca'cely heedful fer ye ter show yoreself in no lighted doorway in ther night time, Asa. Thet's how yore uncle died! I'll open hit an' hev a look, first, my own self."

The husband nodded and stood with the cocked rifle extended, while the wife let down the bar and ushered in a visitor who entered with something of a swagger and the air of one endowed with a worldly wisdom beyond the ordinary.

In raw-boned wiriness and in feature, Saul Fulton was typically a mountaineer, but in dress and affectation of manner he was a nondescript aping the tawdrily and cheaply urban. His dusty hat sat with an impudent tilt on crisp curls glossed with pomade and his stale cigar-butt tipped upward, under a rakish moustache.

Fulton was the sort of mountaineer by whom the outer world misjudges and condemns his race. He had left the backwoods to dwell among "furriners" as a tobacco-raising tenant on a Bluegrass farm, and there he had been mongrelized until he was neither wolf nor house-dog but a thing characterized by the vices of each and the virtues of neither. In him highland shrewdness had deteriorated into furtive cunning, and mountain self-respect had tarnished into the dull discontent of class hatred. But when he came to the hills, clad in shoddy finery to visit men in honest homespun, he bore himself with a cocksure dare-deviltry and malapert condescension. Saul was Asa Gregory's cousin, and since Asa's family still held to the innate courtesies of the barbarian, they received him unquestioningly, fed him, and bade him "Set ye a cheer in front of the chimley-place."

"I heer tell," suggested Asa with casual interest, "thet politics is waxin' middlin' hot down thar in ther settlemints."

After the mountain fashion the host and Boone had kicked off their heavy shoes and spread their bare toes to the warmth of the blaze. Saul, as a man of the world, refrained from this gaucherie.

"Hell's red fire an' Hell's black smoke—hit hain't only ter say politics this time." The response came with oracular impressiveness while the speaker twirled his black moustache. "Hit savours a damn sight more of civil war!"

"I heered ther Democrat candidate speak at Marlin Town," contributed Asa with tepid interest. "I 'lowed he hed a right hateful countenance—cruel-like, thet is ter say."

Here spoke the estimate of partisanship, but Saul straightened in his chair and his eyes took on a sinister glitter.

"Thet's ther identical thing thet brought me hyar ter ther hills. I come ter bear tidin's ter upstandin' men like you. We're goin' ter need ye, an' onlessen we all acts tergether our rights air goin' ter be everlastin'ly trompled in ther dust."

Gregory crumpled a handful of "natural leaf" and filled his pipe-bowl. His gesture was as lazy and easy as that of a purring cat. "Oh, pshaw, Saul," he deprecated, "I don't take no master interest in politics nohow. I always votes ther Republican ticket because I was raised up ter do thet—like most everybody else in these mountings."

"But I'm a'tellin' ye this time thet hain't agoin' ter be enough ter do!" The visitor leaned forward and spoke with impassioned tenseness. "I've been dwellin' down thar amongst rich folks in ther flat Bluegrass country an' I knows what I'm sayin'. Ther Democrat air es smart es Satan's circuit-rider. Y'ars back he jammed a crooked law through ther legislater jest a'lookin' forward ter this time an' day. Now he's cocked an' primed ter steal ther office, like he stole ther nomination, an' human freedom will be dead an' buried for all time in ther State of old Kaintuck."

Into Gregory's eyes as he listened stole an awakening light of interest and indignation. Up here among the eyries of eagles the threat of tyranny is hateful beyond words, and its invocation is a conjure spell of incitement. But at once Asa's face cleared to an amused smile as he inquired, "How does he aim ter compass all thet deviltry—ef ther people votes in ther other feller?"

The momentum of his own philippics had brought Saul Fulton to his feet. Down there where one party had been split in twain and the other had slipped all leash of decorum's restraint, he had been virulently inoculated with the virus of hate, and now, since his memory was tenacious, he swept, without crediting quotations, into a freshet of argument that echoed every accusation and exaggerated every warning of that merciless campaign.

For a half hour he talked, with the fiery volubility of a prophet inciting fanatics to a holy war, while his simple audience listened, yielding by subconscious stages to his bitter text. At last he came to the point toward which he had been progressing.

"Down thar ther purse-proud Demmycrats calls us folks blood-thirsty barbarians. Ter th'ar high-falutin' fashion o' thinkin' we're meaner than ther very dirt under th'ar feet. Even ther niggers scorns us an' calls us 'pore white trash.' When this man once gits in power he aims ter make us feel ther weight of his disgust an' ter rule us henceforth with bayonets an' milishy muskets. Afore this matter ends up thar's liable ter be some shovellin' of graveyard dirt."

"Looks right smart like hit mout be needful," acquiesced Gregory; and Saul knew that he had won a convert to action.

The insidious force of the visitor's appeal to mountain passion had stolen into the veins of his hearers until it was not strange that their eyes narrowed and their lips compressed into lines of ominous straightness.

"Now this air what I come hyar ter name ter ye, Asa." Saul reseated himself and waved his cigar stub impressively. "Troublesome days air a'comin' on an' us mountain men hev need ter lay by our own private grievances an' stand tergether fer a spell."

Asa's face darkened, with the air of a man who has discovered the catch in an outwardly fair proposition.

"What air ye a'drivin' at?" he demanded shortly, and his visitor hastened to explain.

"I wants thet all ther good Republicans in this deestrict shell send a telegram ter our candidate thet we've done made a truce to our enmities hyar at home, an' thet we all stands shoulder ter shoulder, Gregories an' Carrs, Fultons an' Blairs alike, ter defend our rights es freemen."

Asa Gregory rose slowly and stood on his hearth with his feet wide apart and his head thrown back. From straight shoulders to straight legs he was as unmoving, for a space, as bronze, but when he spoke his voice came out of his deep chest with the resonance of low and far-reaching thunder.

"Saul," he began, with a guarded deliberation, "I stands indicted before ther High Co'te fer ther killin' of old man Carr. Ther full four seasons of ther year hain't rolled round yit sence I buried my daddy out thar with a Carr bullet drilled through his heart. Ther last time any man preached a truce ter us Gregorys we agreed ter hit—an' my daddy was lay-wayed an' shot ter death whilest we war still a'keepin' hit plum faithful. Ther man thet seeks ter beguile me now with thet same fashion of talk comes askin' me ter trust my life an' ther welfare of my woman an' child ter ther faithless word of liars!"

His voice leaped suddenly out of its difficult timbre of restraint and rang echoing against the chinked timbers of the walls.

"I've done suffered grievously enough already by trustin' ter infamy. From now on I'll watch them enemies thet's nighest me fust—an' them thet's further off atterwards. My God A'mighty, ef ye warn't my own blood kin, I couldn't hardly suffer ye ter tarry under my roof atter ye'd give voice ter sich a proffer!"

Araminta Gregory had listened from the kitchen door but now she swept to her husband's side and turned upon her visitor the wrath of blazing eyes and a heaving bosom.

"We hain't askin' no odds of nobody," she flared in a panting transport of fury. "Asa kin safeguard his own so long es he hain't misled with lyin' an' false pledges."

"Don't fret yoreself none, Araminty," said the man, reassuring her with a brusque but not ungentle hand on her trembling arm. Then he turned with regained composure to Saul, as he inquired: "Does ther Carrs proffer ter drap tha'r hell-bent detarmination ter penitenshery me or hang met?"

Somewhat dubiously Fulton shook his head in negation.

"I reckon they 'low ye'd only mistrust 'em ef they proffered thet. All they proposes is thet ontil this election's over an' sottled—not jest at ther polls, but sottled fer good an' all—thar won't be no hand raised erginst you ner yourn. I reckon ye kin bide yore time thet long, an' when this racket's over ye'll be plum free ter settle yore own scores." He paused, then added insinuatingly, "Every week a trial's put off hit gits harder fer ther prosecution. Witnesses gits scattered like an' men kinderly disremembers things."

Asa Gregory, confronted with a new and complicated problem, sank back into his seat and his attitude became one of deep meditation. He glanced at the bowl of his dead pipe, leaned forward and drew a burning fagot from the fire for its relighting; then, at length, he spoke with a judicial deliberation.

"This hyar's a solid Republican deestrick. We don't need no truce ter make us vote ther ticket."

The messenger from the outer world shook a dubious head. "Votin' ther ticket hain't enough. Thar's ergoin' ter be a heap of fancy mathematics in tallyin' thet vote all over ther State. Up hyar we've got ter make up fer any deefault down below. We kain't do thet without we all stands solid. Ef thar's any bickerin' them crooks'll turn hit ter account, but ef we elects our man he hain't ergoin' ter fergit us."

"So fur es thet goes," mused Asa, "I hain't a'seekin' no favours from ther Governor."

"Why hain't ye?" Saul lowered his voice a little for added effect. "Ye faces a murder trial, don't ye? I reckon a Republican Governor, next time, mout be right willin' ter grant ye a pardon ef ye laid by yore own grievances fer ther good of ther party—hit wouldn't be no more'n fa'r jestice."

"What guaranty does these enemies of mine offer me?" inquired Asa coolly. "Does they aim ter meet me half way?"

"Hit's like this," Saul spoke now with undisguised excitement: "Ther boys air holdin' a rally ternight over at ther incline.... A big lawyer from Loueyville is makin' a speech thar.... They wants thet I shell fotch ye back along with me—an' thet ye shan't tote no rifle-gun ner no weepin' of airy sort. Tom Carr'll be thar too—unarmed."

At the name Asa Gregory flinched as if he had been smitten in the face, but the messenger went persuasively on:

"Thar'll be es many of our folks thar es his'n. They'll be consortin' tergither plum peaceable—twell ye walks inter ther room. Them Gregories an' them Carrs air all armed. Hit's jest you an' Tom thet hain't. When we comes inter ther place, Tom'll start down ther aisle to'rds ye—an' you'll start up to'rds Tom." The speaker paused, and Asa prompted in a low, restrained voice, though his face was chalky pale with smothered emotion: