CHAPTER XIII
The blossom had passed from the laurel and rhododendron and the June freshness had freckled into rustiness before the day came when Dorothy Harper and Cal Maggard were to be married, and as yet the man had not been able to walk beyond the threshold of the house, and to the people of the neighbourhood his face had not become familiar.
Once only had Cal been out of doors and that was when leaning on the girl's arm he had gone into the dooryard. Dorothy did not wish the simple ceremony of their marriage to take place indoors, but that when Uncle Jase, the justice of the peace, joined their hands with the words of the simple ritual, they should stand under the shade of the tree which, already hallowed as a monument, should likewise be their altar.
So one afternoon, when the cool breath of evening came between sunset and dusk, they had gone out together and for the first time in daylight he stood by the broad-girthed base of the walnut's mighty bole.
"See thar, Cal," breathed the girl, as she laid reverent fingers upon the trunk where initials and a date had been carved so long ago that now they were sunken and seamed like an old scar.
"Them letters an' dates stands fer ther great-great-great gran'mammy thet wrote ther book – an' fer ther fust Kenneth Thornton. They're our fore-parents, an' they lays buried hyar. Hit's all in ther front pages of thet book upsta'rs in ther chist."
The ground on which they stood was even now, for the mounds so long ago heaped there had been levelled by generations of time. Later members of that house who had passed away lay in the small thicket-choked burial ground a hundred yards to the side.
"Hit's a right fantastic notion," complained old Caleb who had come out to join them there, "ter be wedded outdoors under a tree, stid of indoors under a roof," but the girl turned and laid a hand on his arm, and her eyes livened with a glow of feeling and tenderness.
"Hit was right hyar thet we diskivered we loved one another," she said, softly, "an' ef ye'd ever read thet book upstairs I reckon ye'd onderstand. Our foreparents planted this tree hyar in days of sore travail when they'd done come from nigh ter ther ocean-sea at Gin'ral George Washington's behest, an' they plum revered hit from thet time on."
She paused, looking up fondly into the magnificent fulness of branches where now the orioles had hatched their brood and taught the fledglings to fly, then her eyes came back and her voice grew rapt.
"Them revolutionary folk of our own blood bequeathed thet tree ter us – an' we heired hit from 'em along with all thet's good in us. They lays buried thar under hit, an' by now I reckon hits roots don't only rest in ther ground an' rock thet's underneath hit – but in ther graves of our people theirselves. Some part of them hes done passed inter thet old tree, I reckon, ter give virtue ter hits sap an' stren'th. Thet's why thar hain't no other place ter be married at."
The July morning of their wedding day dawned fresh and cloudless, and from remote valleys and coves a procession of saddled mounts, ox-carts, and foot travellers, grotesque in their oddly conceived raiment of festivity, set toward the house at the river's bend. They came to look at the bride, whose beauty was a matter of local fame, and for their first inquisitive scrutiny of the stranger who had wooed with such interest-provoking dispatch and upon whom, rumour insisted, was to descend the mantle of clan leadership, albeit his blood was alien.
But the bridegroom himself lay on his bed, the victim of a convalescent's set-back, and it seemed doubtful whether his strength would support him through the ceremony. When he attempted to rise, after a night of returned fever, his muscles refused to obey the mandates of his will, and Uncle Jase Burrell, who had arrived early to make out the license, issued his edict that Cal Maggard must be married in bed.
But at that his patient broke into defiant and open rebellion.
"I aims ter stand upright ter be wed," he scornfully asserted, "ef I don't nuver stand upright ergin! Ask Dorothy an' her gran'pap an' Bas Rowlett ter come in hyar. I wants ter hev speech with 'em all together."
Uncle Jase yielded grudgingly to the stronger will and within a few minutes those who had been summoned appeared.
Bas Rowlett came last, and his face bore the marks of a sleepless night, but he had undertaken a role and he purposed to play it to its end.
In after days, days for which Bas Rowlett was planning now, he meant that every man who looked back on that wedding should remember and say of him: "Bas, he war thar – plum friendly. Nobody couldn't be a man's enemy an' act ther way Bas acted." In his scheme of conspiracy the art of alibi building was both cornerstone and arch-key.
Now it pleased Cal, even at a time when other interests pressed so close and absorbingly, to indulge himself in a grim and sardonic humour. The man who had "hired him killed" and whom in turn he meant to kill stood in the room where he himself lay too weak to rise from his bed, and toward that man he nodded his head.
"Good mornin', Bas," he accosted, and the other replied, "Howdy, Cal."
Then Maggard turned to the others. "This man, Bas Rowlett," he said, "sought to marry Dorothy hisself. Ye all knows thet, yet deespite thet fact when I come hyar a stranger he befriended me, didn't ye, Bas?"
"We spoke ther truth ter one another," concurred Rowlett, wondering uneasily whither the conversational trend was leading, "an' we went on bein' friends."
"An' now afore ye all," Maggard glanced comprehensively about the group, "albeit hit don't need no more attestin', he's goin' ter prove his friendship fer me afresh."
A pause followed, broken finally from the bed.
"I kain't stand up terday – an' without standin' up I couldn't hardly be rightfully wedded – so Bas air agoin' ter support me, and holp me out thar an' hold me upright whilst I says ther words … hain't ye, Bas?"
The hardly taxed endurance of the conspirator for a moment threatened to break in failure. A hateful scowl was gathering in his eyes as he hesitated and Maggard went on suavely: "Anybody else could do hit fer me – but I've got ther feelin' thet I wants ye, Bas."
"All right," came the low answer. "I'll aim ter convenience ye, Cal."
He turned hastily and left the room, and bending over the bed Uncle Jase produced the marriage license.
"I'll jest fill in these blank places," he announced, briskly, "with ther names of Dorothy Harper an' Cal Maggard an' then we'll be ready fer ther signatures."
But at that Maggard raised an imperative hand in negation.
"No," he said, shortly and categorically, "I aims ter be married by my rightful name – put hit down thar like hit is – Kenneth Parish Thornton – all of hit!"
Caleb Harper bent forward with a quick gesture of expostulation.
"Ef ye does thet, boy," he pleaded, "ye won't skeercely be wedded afore ther officers will come atter ye from over thar in Virginny."
"Then they kin come," the voice was obdurate. "I don't aim ter give Almighty God no false name in my weddin' vows."
Uncle Jase, to whom this was all an inexplicable riddle, glanced perplexedly at old Caleb and Caleb stood for the moment irresolute, then with a sigh of relief, as though for discovery of a solution, he demanded:
"Did ye ever make use of yore middle name – over thar in Virginny?"
"No. I reckon nobody don't skeercely know I've got one."
"All right – hit belongs ter ye jist as rightfully as ther other given name. Write hit down Parish Thornton in thet paper, Jase. Thet don't give no undue holt ter yore enemies, boy, an' es fer ther last name hit's thicker then hops in these parts, anyhow."
In all the numbers of the crowd that stood about the dooryard that day waiting for the wedding party to come through the door one absence was recognized and felt.
"Old Jim Hewlett didn't come," murmured one observant guest, and the announcement ran in a whisper through the gathering to find an echo that trailed after it. "I reckon he didn't aim ter countenance ther matter, atter all."
Then the door opened and Dorothy came out, with a sweet pride in her eyes and her head high. At her side walked the man whose face they had been curiously waiting to see.
They acknowledged at a glance that it was an uncommon face from which one gained feeling of a certain power and mastery – yet of candour, too, and fearless good nature.
But the crowd, hungry for interest and gossip, breathed deep in a sort of chorused gasp at the dramatic circumstance of the bridegroom leaning heavily on the arm of Bas Rowlett, the defeated lover. Already Uncle Jase stood with his back to the broad, straight column whose canopy of leafage spread a green roof between the tall, waving grass that served as a carpet and the blue of a smiling sky.
Through branches, themselves as heavy and stalwart as young trees, and through the myriads of arrow-pointed leaves that rustled as they sifted and shifted the gold flakes of sunlight, sounded the low, mysterious harping of wind-fingers as light and yet as profound as those of some dreaming organist.
The girl, with her eyes fixed on that living emblem of strength and tranquillity, felt as though instead of leaving a house, she were entering a cathedral – though of man-built cathedrals she knew nothing. It was the spirit which hallows cathedrals that brought to her deep young eyes a serenity and thanksgiving that made her face seem ethereal in its happiness – the spirit of benediction, of the presence of God and of human sanctuary.
So she went as if she were treading clouds to the waiting figure of the man who was to perform the ceremony.
When the clear voice of the justice of the peace sounded out as the pair – or rather the trio – stood before him at the foot of the great walnut, the astonishment which had been simmering in the crowd broke into audible being again and with a rising tempo.
The tone with which old Jase read the service was full and sonorous and the responses were clear as bell metal. On the fringe of the gathering an old woman's whispered words carried to those about her:
"Did ye heer thet? Jase called him Parish Thornton – I thought he give ther name of Cal Maggard!"
Even Bas Rowlett, whose nerves were keyed for an ordeal, started and almost let the leaning bridegroom fall.
The loft of old Caleb's barn had been cleared for that day, and through the afternoon the fiddles whined there, alternating with the twang of banjo and "dulcimore." Old Spike Crooch, who dwelt far up at the headwaters of Little Tribulation, where the "trails jest wiggle an' wingle about," and who bore the repute of a master violinist, had vowed that he "meant ter fiddle at one more shin-dig afore he laid him down an' died" – and he had journeyed the long way to carry out his pledge.
He had come like a ghost from the antique past, with his old bones straddling neither horse nor mule, but seated sidewise on a brindle bull, and to reach the place where he was to discourse music he had made a "soon start" yesterday morning and had slept lying by the roadside over night.
Now on an improvised platform he sat enthroned, with his eyes ecstatically closed, the violin pressed to his stubbled chin, and his broganned feet – with ankles innocent of socks – patting the spirited time of his dancing measure.
Outside in the yard certain young folk who had been reared to hold dancing ungodly indulged in those various "plays" as they called the games less frowned upon by the strait-laced. But while the thoughtless rollicked, their elders gathered in small clumps here and there and talked in grave undertones, and through these groups old Caleb circulated. He knew how mysterious and possibly significant to these news-hungry folk had seemed the strange circumstance of the bridegroom's answering, in the marriage service, to a name he had not previously worn and he sought to draw, by his own strong influence, the sting of suspicion from their questioning minds.
But Bas Rowlett did not remain through the day, and when he was ready to leave, old Caleb followed him around the turn of the road to a point where they could be alone, and laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
"Bas," he said, feelingly, "I'd hate ter hev ye think I hain't a-feelin' fer ye terday. I knows right well ye're sore-hearted, boy, an' thar hain't many men thet could hev took a bitter dose like ye've done."
Rowlett looked gloomily away.
"I hain't complainin' none, Caleb," he said.
"No. But I hain't got master long ter live – an' when Jim an' me both passes on, I fears me thar'll be stressful times ahead. I wants ye ter give me yore hand thet ye'll go on standin' by my leetle gal an' her fam'ly, Bas. Else I kain't die satisfied."
Bas Rowlett stood rigidly and tensely straight, his eyes fixed to the front, his forehead drawn into furrows. Then he thrust out his hand.
"Ye've done confidenced me until now," he said simply, "ye kin go on doin' hit. I gives ye my pledge."
CHAPTER XIV
Among the men who danced at that party were Sim Squires and Pete Doane, but when they saddled and mounted at sunset, they rode divergent ways.
Each of the two was acting under orders that day, and each was spreading an infection whose virus sought to stir into rebirth the war which the truce had so long held in merciful abeyance.
Aaron Capper, who was as narrow yet as religious as an Inquisition priest, had always believed the Thorntons to be God's chosen and the Doanes to be children of Satan. The bonds of enforced peace had galled him heavily. Three sons had been killed in the battle at Claytown and he felt that any truce made before he had evened his score left him wronged and abandoned by his kinsmen.
Now Sim Squires, mounted on a swift pacing mare, fell in beside Aaron, his knee rubbing the knee of the grizzled wayfarer, and Sim said impressively:
"Hit looks right bodaciously like es ef ther war's goin' ter bust loose ergin, Aaron."
The other turned level eyes upon his informant and swept him up and down with a searching gaze.
"Who give ye them tidin's, son? I hain't heered nothin' of hit, an' I reckon ef ther Harpers war holdin' any council they wouldn't skeercely pass me by."
"I don't reckon they would, Aaron." Sim now spoke with a flattery intended to placate ruffled pride. "Ther boys thet's gittin' restive air kinderly lookin' ter you ter call thet council. Caleb Harper hain't long fer this life – an' who's goin' ter take up his leadership – onless hit be you?"
Aaron laughed, but there was a grim complaisance in the tone that argued secret receptiveness for the idea.
"'Peared like hit war give out ter us terday thet this hyar young stranger war denoted ter heir thet job."
"Cal Maggard!" Sim Squires spat out the name contemptuously and laughed with a short hyena bark of derision. "Thet woods-colt from God-knows-whar? Him thet goes hand in glove with Bas Rowlett an' leans on his arm ter git married? Hell!"
Aaron took refuge in studied silence, but into his eyes had come a new and dangerously smouldering darkness.
"I'll ponder hit," he made guarded answer – then added with humourless sincerity, "I'll ponder – an' pray fer God's guidin'."
And as Sim talked with Aaron that afternoon, so he talked to others, even less conservative of tendency, and Pete Doane carried a like gospel of disquiet to those whose allegiance lay on the other side of the feud's cleavage – yet both talked much alike. In houses remote and widely scattered the security of the longstanding peace was being insidiously undermined and shaken and guns were taken furtively out and oiled.
But in a deserted cabin where once two shadowy figures had met to arrange the assassination of Cal Maggard three figures came separately now on a night when the moon was dark, and having assured themselves that they had not been seen gathering there, they indulged themselves in the pallid light of a single lantern for their deliberations.
Bas Rowlett was the first to arrive, and he sat for a time alone smoking his pipe, with a face impatiently scowling yet not altogether indicative of despair.
Soon he heard and answered a triple rap on the barred door, and though it seemed a designated signal he maintained the caution of a hand on his revolver until a figure entered and he recognized the features of young Peter Doane.
"Come in, Pete," he accosted. "I reckon ther other feller'll git hyar d'reck'ly."
The two sat smoking and talking in low tones, yet pausing constantly to listen until again they heard the triple rap and admitted a third member to their caucus.
Here any one not an initiate to the mysteries of this inner shrine would have wondered to the degree of amazement, for this newcomer was an ostensible enemy of Bas Rowlett's whom in other company he refused to recognize.
But Sim Squires entered unhesitatingly and now between himself and the man with whom he did not speak in public passed a nod and glance of complete harmony and understanding.
When certain subsidiary affairs had been adjusted – all matters of upbuilding for Rowlett's influence and repute – Bas turned to Sim Squires.
"Sim," he said, genially, "I reckon we're ready ter heer what ye've got on yore mind now," and the other grinned.
"Ther Thorntons an' Harpers – them thet dwells furthest back in ther sticks – air a doin' a heap of buzzin' an' talkin'. They're right sim'lar ter bees gittin' ready ter swarm. I've done seed ter that. I reckon when this hyar stranger starts in ter rob ther honey outen thet hive he's goin' ter find a tol'able nasty lot of stingers on his hands."
"Ye've done cautioned 'em not ter make no move afore they gits ther word, hain't ye – an' ye've done persuaded 'em ye plum hates me, hain't ye?"
Again Sim grinned.
"Satan hisself would git rightfully insulted ef anybody cussed an' damned him like I've done you, Bas."
"All right then. I reckon when ther time comes both ther Doanes and Harpers'll be right sick of Mr. Cal Maggard or Mr. Parish Thornton or Mr. Who-ever-he-is."
They talked well into the night, and Peter Doane was the first to leave, but after his departure Sim Squires permitted a glint of deep anxiety to show in his narrow and shifty eyes.
"Hit's yore own business ef ye confidences Pete Doane in yore own behalf, Bas," he suggested, "but ye hain't told him nuthin' erbout me, hes ye?"
Bas Rowlett smiled.
"I hain't no damn fool, Sim," he reassured. "Thar don't nobody but jest me an' you know thet ye shot Cal Maggard – but ye war sich a damn disable feller on ther job thet rightly I ought ter tell yore name ter ther circuit-rider."
"What fer?" growled the hireling, sulkily, and the master laughed.
"So's he could put hit in his give-out at meetin' an shame ye afore all mankind," he made urbane explanation.
* * *
July, which began fresh and cool, burned, that year, into a scorching heat, until the torrid skies bent in a blue arch of arid cruelty and the ridges stood starkly stripped of their moisture.
Forests were rusted and freckled and roads gave off a choke of dust to catch the breath of travellers as the heat waves trembled feverishly across the clear, hot distances.
Like a barometer of that scorched torpor, before the eyes of the slowly convalescing Thornton stood the walnut tree in the dooryard. A little while ago it had spread its fresh and youthful canopy of green overhead in unstinted abundance of vigour.
Now it stood desolate, with its leaves drooping in fever-hot inertia. The squirrel sat gloomily silent on the branches, panting under its fur, and the oriole's splendour of orange and jet had turned dusty and bedraggled.
When a dispirited wisp of breeze stirred in its head-growth its branches gave out only the flat hoarseness of rattling leaves.
One morning before full daylight old Caleb left the house to cross the low creek bed valley and join a working party in a new field which was being cleared of timber. He had been away two hours when without warning the hot air became insufferably close and the light ghost of breeze died to a breathless stillness. The drought had lasted almost four weeks, and now at last, though the skies were still clear, that heat-vacuum seemed to augur its breaking.
An hour later over the ridge came a black and lowering pall of cloud moving slowly and bellying out from its inky centre with huge masses of dirty fleece at its margin – and in the little time that Dorothy stood in the door watching, it spread until the high sun was obscured.
The distant but incessant rumbling of thunder was a chorussed growling of storm voices against a background of muffled drum-beat, and the girl said, a shade anxiously, "Gran'pap's goin' ter git drenched ter ther skin."
While the inky pall spread and lowered until it held the visible world in a gray-green corrosion of gloom the stillness became more pulseless. Then with a crashing salvo of suddenness the tempest broke – and it was as though all the belated storms of the summer had merged into one armageddon of the elements.
A rending and splintering of timber sounded with the shriek of the tornado that whipped its lash of destruction through the woods. The girl, buffeted and almost swept from her feet, struggled with her weight thrown against the door that she could scarcely close. Then the darkness blotted midday into night, and through the unnatural thickness clashed a frenzy of detonations.
Out of the window she and her husband seemed looking through dark and confused waters which leaped constantly into the brief and blinding glare of such blue-white instants of lightning as hurt the eyes. The walnut tree appeared and disappeared – waving arms like a high-priest in transports of frenzy, and adding its wind-song to the mighty chorus.
The sturdily built old house trembled under that assaulting, and when the first cyclonic sweep of wind had rushed by the pelting of hail and rain was a roar as of small-arms after artillery.
"Gran'pap," gasped Dorothy. "I don't see how a livin' soul kin endure – out thar!"
Then came a concussion as though the earth had broken like a bursted emery wheel, and a hall of white fire seemed to pass through the walls of the place. Dorothy pitched forward, stunned, to the floor and at the pit of his stomach Cal Maggard felt a sudden sickness of shock that passed as instantly as it had come. He found himself electrically tingling through every nerve as the woman rose slowly and dazedly, staring about her.
"Did hit strike … ther house?" she asked, faintly, and then with the same abruptness as that with which darkness had come, the sky began to turn yellowish again and they could see off across the road through the amber thickness of returning daylight.
"No," her husband said, hesitantly, "hit warn't ther house – but hit was right nigh!"
The girl followed his startled gaze, and there about the base of the walnut tree lay shaggy strips of rent bark.
Running down the trunk in the glaring spiral of a fresh scar two hand-breadths wide went the swath along which the bolt had plunged groundward.
For a few moments, though with a single thought between them, neither spoke. In the mind of Dorothy words from a faded page seemed to rewrite themselves: "Whilst that tree stands … and weathers the thunder and wind … our family also will wax strong and robust … but when it falls – !"
Cal rose slowly to his feet, and the girl asked dully, "Where be ye goin'?"
"I'm goin'," he said as their eyes met in a flash of understanding, "ter seek fer yore gran'pap."
"I fears me hit's too late…" Her gaze went outward and as she looked the man needed no explanation.
"Ef he's – still alive," she added, resolutely, with a return of self-control, "ther danger's done passed now. Hit would kill ye ter go out in this storm, weak as ye be. Let's strive ter be patient."
Ten minutes later they heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a man drenched with rain standing there, whose face anticipated their questions.
"Me and old Caleb," he began, "was comin' home tergither … we'd got es fur as ther aidge of ther woods …" he paused, then forced out the words, "a limb blew down on him."
"Is he … is he…?" The girl's question got no further, and the messenger shook his head. "He's dead," came the simple reply. "The other boys air fotchin' him in now."