Produced by David Garcia and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY [Illustration: You're agoing to marry me and we're goin' to dwell thar--together] WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY BY CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK _Author of_ "THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS," etc. Illustrations by GEORGE W. GAGE NEW YORK W. J. WATT & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1918, by W. J. WATT & COMPANY _OTHER BOOKS_ _By_ CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK THE KEY TO YESTERDAY THE LIGHTED MATCH THE PORTAL OF DREAMS THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS THE BATTLE CRY THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS DESTINY THE TYRANNY OF WEAKNESS PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. TO M. F. WHEN 'BEAR CAT' WENT DRY CHAPTER I A creaking complaint of loose and rattling boards rose under the old mountaineer's brogans as he stepped from the threshold to the porch. His eyes, searching the wooded mountain-side, held at first only that penetration which born woodsmen share with the hawk and ferret, but presently they kindled into irascibility as well. He raised his voice in a loud whoop that went skittering off across the rocky creek bed where Little Slippery crawled along to feed the trickle of Big Slippery ten miles below, and the volume of sound broke into a splintering of echoes against the forested crags of the Old Wilderness Ridges. "You, Turner!" bellowed the man with such a bull-like roar as might have issued from the chest of a Viking. "You, Turner, don't ye heer me a-callin' ye?" A woman, rawboned and crone-like before her time under the merciless forcing of drudgery, appeared in the door, wiping reddened hands on a coarse cotton apron. "I reckon he'll be hyar, presently, paw," she suggested in a high-pitched voice meant to be placating. "I reckon he hain't fared far away." The hodden-gray figure of the man turned to his wife and his voice, as it dropped to conversational pitch, held a surprisingly low and drawling cadence. "What needcessity did he hev ter go away a-tall?" came his interrogation. "He knowed I aimed ter hev him tote thet gryste acrost ther ridge ter the tub-mill, didn't he? He knows that hits perilous business ter leave corn like that a-layin' 'round, don't he--_sprouted corn_!" A flash of poignant anxiety clouded the woman's eyes. Corn sprouted in the grain before grinding! She knew well enough what that meant--incrimination in the eyes of the Government--trial, perhaps, and imprisonment. "Ye 'lowed a long while since, Lone," she reminded him with a trace of wistfulness in her voice, "that ye aimed ter quit makin' blockade licker fer all time. Hit don't pleasure me none ter see ye a-follerin' hit ergin. Seems like thar's a curse on hit from start ter finish." "I don't foller hit because I delights in hit," he retorted grimly. "But what else is thar ter do? I reckon we've got ter live somehow--hain't we?" For an instant his eyes flared with an upleaping of rebellion; then he turned again on his heel and roared "Turner--you, Turner!" "Ther boy seemed kinderly fagged out when he come in. I reckon he aimed ter slip off and rest in ther shade somewhars fer a lettle spell afore ye needed him," volunteered the boy's mother, but the suggestion failed to mollify the mounting impatience of the father. "Fagged! What's fagged him? I hain't never disc'arned nothin' puny about him. He's survigrous enough ter go a-snortin' an' a-stompin' over ther hills like a yearlin' bull, a-honin' fer battle. He's knowed from God's Blessin' Creek ter Hell's Holler by ther name of Bear Cat Stacy, hain't he? Bear Cat Stacy! I'd hate ter take my name from a varmint--but it pleasures him." "I don't sca'cely b'lieve he seeks no aimless quarrels," argued the mother defensively. "Thar hain't no _meanness_ in him. He's jest like you was, Lone, when ye was twenty a-goin' on twenty-one. He's full o' sperrit. I reckon Bear Cat jest means thet he's quick-like an' supple." "Supple! Hell's torment! Whar's he at now? He's jest about a-layin' somewhar's on his shoulder-blades a-readin' thet everlastin' book erbout Abe Lincoln--You, Turner!" Then the figure of a young man appeared, swinging along with an effortless stride down the steep grade of the mountain which was richly mottled with the afternoon sun. He came between giant clusters of flowering laurel, along aisles pink with wild roses and white with the foaming spray of elder blossoms; flanked by masses of colossal rock, and every movement was a note of frictionless power. Like his father, Turner Stacy measured a full six feet, but age and the yoke of hardship had not yet stooped his fine shoulders nor thickened his slenderness of girth. His face was striking in its clear chiseling of feature and its bronzed color. It would have been arrestingly handsome but for its marring shadow of surliness. In one hand he held a battered book, palpably one used with the constancy and devotion of a monk's breviary, and a forefinger was still thrust between the dog-eared pages. "Lincoln: Master of Men,"--such was the title of the volume. As Turner Stacy arrived at the house, his father's uncompromisingly stern eyes dwelt on the book and they were brimming with displeasure. "Didn't ye know I hed work for ye ter do terday?" The boy nodded indifferently. "I 'lowed ye hed ther power ter shout fer me when ye war ready, I wasn't more'n a whoop an' a holler distant." The mother, hovering in the shadowed interior of the house, listened silently, and a little anxiously. This friction of unbending temper between her husband and son was a thing to which she could never quite accustom herself. Always she was interposing herself as a buffer between their threats of clashing wills. "Turner," said the elder man slowly, and now he spoke quietly with an effort to curb his irascibililty, "I knows thet boys often-times gits uppety an' brash when they're a-growin' inter manhood. They've got thar growth an' they feel thar strength an' they hain't acquired neither sense ner experience enough ter realize how plumb teetotally much they _don't_ know yit. But speakin' jedgmatically, I hain't never heered tell of no Stacy afore what hain't been loyal ter his family an' ther head of his house. 'Pears like ter me hit pleasures ye beyond all reason ter sot yoreself crost-wise erginst me." The boy's eyes grew somberly dark as they met those of his father with undeviating steadiness. An analyst would have said that the outward surliness was after all only a mask for an inner questioning--the inarticulate stress of a cramped and aspiring spirit. "I don't know as ye hev any rightful cause fer ter charge me with bein' disloyal," he answered slowly, as if pondering the accusation. "I hain't never aimed ter contrary ye." Lone Stacy paused for a moment and then the timbre of his voice acquired the barb of an irony more massive than subtle. "Air yore heart in torment because ye hain't ther Presi_dent_ of ther country, like Abe Lincoln was? Is _thet_ why ye don't delight in nothin' save dilitary dreams?" A slow, brick-red flush suffused the brown cheeks of Bear Cat Stacy, and his answer came with a slowness that was almost halting. "When Abraham Lincoln was twenty years old he warn't no more Presi_dent_ then what I be. Thar hain't many Lincoln's, but any feller kin have ther thing in him, though, thet carried Lincoln up ter whar he went. Any feller kin do his best and want ter do some better. Thet's all I'm aimin' after." The father studied his son's suddenly animated eyes and inquired drily, "Does this book-l'arnin' teach ye ter lay around plumb ind'lent with times so slavish hard thet I've been pintedly compelled ter start ther still workin' ergin, despite my a-bein' a Christian an' a law-lover: despite my seekin' godliness an' abhorin' iniquity?" There was in the sober expression of the questioner no cast of hypocrisy or conscious anomaly, and the younger man shook his head. "I hain't never shirked no labor, neither in ther field ner at ther still, but----" He paused a moment and once more the rebellious light flared in his eyes and he continued with the level steadiness of resolution. "But I hates ter foller thet business, an' when I comes of age I aims ter quit hit." "Ye aims ter quit hit, does ye?" The old mountaineer forgot, in the sudden leaping of wrath at such unfilial utterances, that he himself had a few minutes before spoken in the same tenor. "Ye aims ter defy me, does ye? Wa'al even afore ye comes of age hit wouldn't hardly hurt ye none ter quit _drinkin'_ hit. Ye're too everlastin' good ter _make_ blockade licker, but ye hain't none too good ter lay drunk up thar with hit." This time the boy's flush was one of genuine chagrin and he bit off the instinctive retort that perhaps a realization of this overpowering thirst was the precise thing which haunted him: the exact urge which made him want to break away from a serfdom that held him always chained to his temptation. "Ye thinks ye're too much like Abe Lincoln ter make blockade licker," went on the angry parent, "but ye hain't above rampagin' about these hills seekin' trouble an' raisin' up enemies whar I've done spent my days aimin' ter consort peaceable with my neighbors. Hit hain't been but a week since ye broke Ratler Webb's nose." "Hit come about in fair fight--fist an' skull, an' I only hit him oncet." "Nobody else didn't feel compelled ter hit him even oncet, did they?" "Mebby not--but he was seekin' ter bulldoze me an' he hurt my feelin's. I'd done laughed hit off twic't." "An' so ye're a-goin' on a-layin' up trouble erginst ther future. Hit hain't ther _makin'_ of licker thet's laid a curse on these hills. Hit's _drinkin'_ hit. Ef a man kin walk abroad nowadays without totin' his rifle-gun an' a-dreadin' ther shot from the la'rel, hit's because men like me hev sought day an' night ter bring about peace. I counseled a truce in ther Stacy-Towers war because I war a Christian an' I didn't 'low thet God favored bloodshed. But ther truce won't hardly last ef ye goes about stirrin' up ructions. "Bear Cat Stacy!" stormed the older man furiously as his anger fed upon itself. "What air a bear cat anyways? Hit's a beast thet rouses up from sleep an' crosses a mountain fer ther pure pleasure of tearin' out some other critter's throat an' vitals. Hit's a varmint drove on by ther devil's own sperit of hatefulness. "Even in ther feud days men warred with clean powder an' lead, but sich-like fightin' don't seem ter satisfy ye. Ye hain't got no use fer a rifle-gun. Ye wants ter tear men apart with yore bare hands an' ter plumb rend 'em asunder! I've trod ther streets of Marlin Town with ye, an' watched yore eyes burnin' like hot embers, until peaceable men drew back from ye an' p'inted ye out ter strangers. 'Thar goes ther Bear Cat,' they'd whisper. 'Give him ther whole road!' Even ther town marshal walked in fear of ye an' war a-prayin' ter God Almighty ye wouldn't start nothin'." "I don't never seek no fight." This time Turner Stacy spoke without shame. "I don't never have no trouble save whar I'm plumb _obleeged_ ter hev hit." "Thet's what Kinnard Towers always 'lowed," was the dry retort, "though he's killed numerous men, and folks says he's hired others killed, too." The boy met the accusing glance and answered quietly: "Ye don't favor peace no more than what I do." "I've aimed ter be both God-fearin' an' law-abidin'," continued the parent whose face and figure might have been cast in bronze as a type of the American pioneer, "yet ye censures me fer makin' untaxed licker!" His voice trembled with a repressed thunder of emotion. "I've seed times right hyar on this creek when fer ther most part of a whole winter we hurted fer salt an' thar warn't none to be had fer love nor money. Thar warn't no money in these hills nohow--an' damn'-little love ter brag about. Yore maw an' me an' Poverty dwelt hyar tergether--ther three of us. We've got timber an' coal an' no way ter git hit ter market. Thar's jest only one thing we kin turn inter money or store-credit--an' thet's our corn run inter white licker." He paused as if awaiting a reply and when his son volunteered none he swept on to his peroration. "When I makes hit now I takes numerous chances, an' don't complain. Some revenuer, a-settin' on his hunkers, takin' life easy an' a-waitin' fer a fist full of blood money is liable ter meet up in ther highway with some feller thet's nursin' of a grudge erginst me or you. Hit's plumb risky an' hits damn'-hard work, but hit hain't no wrong-doin' an' ef yore grandsires an' yore father hain't been above hit, I rekon _you_ hain't above hit neither." Turner Stacy was still standing on the porch, with one finger marking the place where he had left off reading his biography of Lincoln--the master of men. Born of a line of stoics, heir to laconic speech and reared to stifle emotions, he was inarticulate and the somberness of his eyes, which masked a pageantry of dreams and a surging conflict in his breast, seemed only the surliness of rebellion. He looked at his father and his mother, withered to sereness by their unrelenting battle with a life that had all been frostbite until even their power of resentment for its injustice had guttered out and dried into a dull acceptance. His fingers gripped the book. Abraham Lincoln had, like himself, started life in a log house and among crude people. Probably he, too, had in those early days no one who could give an understanding ear to the whispering voices that urged him upward. At first the urge itself must have been blurred of detail and shadowy of object. Turner's lips parted under an impulse of explanation, and closed again into a more hopelessly sullen line. The older man had chafed too long in heavy harness to comprehend a new vision. Any attempt at self-expression would be futile. So the picture he made was only that of a headstrong and wilful junior who had listened unmoved to reason, and a mounting resentment kindled in the gaze of the bearded moonshiner. "I've done aimed ter talk reason with ye," barked the angry voice, "an' hit don't seem ter convince ye none. Ef ther pattern of life I've sot ye hain't good enough, do ye think ye're better than yore maw, too?" "I didn't never say ye warn't good enough." The boy found himself freezing into defiant stiffness under this misconstruction until his very eagerness to be understood militated against him. "Wa'al, I'll tell ye a thing I don't talk a heap about. Hit's a thing thet happened when ye was a young baby. I spent two y'ars in prison then fer makin' white whiskey." "You!" Turner Stacy's eyes dilated with amazement and the older face hardened with a baleful resentment. "Hit warn't jest bein' put in ther jail-house thet I kain't fergit ner fergive so long as I goes on livin'. Hit war ther _reason_. Ye talks mighty brash erbout ther sacredness of ther Revenue laws--wa'al, listen ter me afore ye talks any more." He paused and then continued, as if forcing himself to an unwelcome recital. "I've always borne the name hyarabouts of bein' a law-abidin' citizen and a man thet could be trusted. I'd hoped ter bring peace to the mountings, but when they lawed me and sent me down to Looeyville fer trial, ther Govern_ment_ lawyer 'lowed thet sence I was a prominent citizen up hyar a-breakin' of the law, they had ought to make a sample of me. Because my reputation was good I got two y'ars. Ef hit hed been bad, I mout hev come cl'ar." The son took an impulsive step forward, but with an imperious wave of the hand, his father halted him and the chance for a sympathetic understanding was gone. "Hold on! I hain't quite done talkin' yit. In them days we war livin' over ther ridge, whar Little Ivy heads up. You thinks this hyar's a pore fashion of dwellin'-house, but _thet_ one hed jest a single room an' na'ry a winder in all hits four walls. You're maw war right ailin' when they tuck me away ter ther big Co'te an' she war mighty young, too, an' purty them days afore she broke. Thar warn't no man left ter raise ther crops, an' _you_ ra'red like a young calf ef ye didn't git yore vittles reg'lar. "I reckon mebby ye hain't hardly got no proper idee how long two y'ars kin string out ter be when a man's sulterin' behind bars with a young wife an' a baby thet's liable ter be starvin' meanwhile! I reckon ye don't hardly realize how I studied down thar in prison about ther snow on these Godforsaken hillsides an' ther wind whirrin' through ther chinks. But mebby ye _kin_ comprehend this hyar fact. _You'd_ hev pintedly starved ter death, ef yore maw hedn't rigged up a new still in place of ther one the Govern_ment_ confiscated, an' made white licker all ther time I was down thar sarvin' time. _She_ did thet an' paid off ther interest on the mortgage an' saved a leetle mite for me erginst ther day when I come home. Now air ye sich a sight better then yore maw was?" A yellow flood of sunlight fell upon the two figures and threw into a relief of high lights their two faces; one sternly patriarchal and rugged, the other vitally young and spare of feature. Corded arteries appeared on Bear Cat's temples and, as he listened, the nails of his fingers bit into the flesh of his palms, but his father swept on, giving him no opportunity to reply. "My daddy hed jest shortly afore been lay-wayed an' killed by some Towers murderer, an' his property had done been parceled out amongst his children. Thar wasn't but jest fourteen of us ter heir hit an' nobody got much. When they tuck me down ter ther big Co'te I had ter hire me a lawyer--an' thet meant a mortgage. Yore maw hedn't, up ter then, been used ter sich-like slavish poverty. She could hev married mighty nigh any man in these parts--an' she tuck me. "Whilst I war a-layin' thar in jail a-tormentin' myself with my doubtin' whether either one of ye would weather them times alive, _she_ was a-runnin' ther still hyar in my stead. Many's the day she tromped over them hills through ther snow an' mud with _you_ a-whimperin' on her breast an' wropped in a shawl thet she needed her own self. Many's ther night she tromped back ergin an' went hongry ter bed, so's _you_ could have plenty ter eat, when thar warn't sca'cely enough ter divide betwixt ye. But them things _she_ did in famine days, _you're_ too sanctified ter relish now." Turner Stacy trembled from head to foot. It seemed to him that he could see that grim picture in retrospect and despite his stoic's training his eyes burned with unshed tears. Loyalty to kith and kin is the cornerstone of every mountain man's religion, the very grail of his faith. Into his eyes blazed a tawny, tigerish light, but words choked in his throat and his father read, in his agitation, only a defiance which was no part of his thought. "Now, see hyar," he went on with mounting autocracy, "I've done told ye things I don't oftentimes discuss. I've done reasoned with ye an' now I commands ye! Ye hain't of age yit and until ye do be, ye've got to do as I bids ye. Atter that, ef ye aims to turn yore back on yore family ye can do hit, an' I reckon we can go our two ways. That's all I got to say to ye. Now pick up that sack of gryste an' be gone with hit." The boy's face blackened and his muscles tautened under the arrogant domineering of the edict. For a moment he neither spoke nor stirred from his place, though his chest heaved with the fulness of his breathing. The elder man moved ominously forward and his tone was violently truculent. "Air ye goin' ter obey me or do I hev ter _make_ ye? Thar's a sayin' thet come acrost ther waters thet no man kin lick his own daddy. I reckon hit still holds good." Still the son remained as unmoving as bronze while his eyes sustained unflinchingly the wrathful gaze of a patriarchal order. Then he spoke in a voice carefully schooled to quietness. "As to thet sayin'," he suggested evenly, "I reckon mebbe hit mought be disproved, but I hain't aimin' to try hit. Ye've done said some right-hard things to-day an' some thet wasn't hardly justified--but I aims ter fergit 'em." Suddenly, by virtue of a leaping light in his eyes, the boy in jeans and hodden-gray stood forth strangely transfigured. Some spirit revelation seemed to have converted him into a mystifying incarnation of latent, if uncomprehended power. It was as startling as though a road-side beggar had tossed aside a drab cloak and hood of rags and revealed beneath it, the glitter of helmet and whole armor. "I aims ter fergit hit all," he repeated. "But don't seek ter fo'ce me ner ter drive me none--fer thet's a thing I kain't hardly suffer. As fur as a man kin go outen loyalty I'll go fer _you_--but I've got ter go in my own fashion--an' of my own free will. Ye've done said that I went erbout seekin' trouble an' I hain't got no doubt ye believes what ye says albeit most of hit's false. Ye says I lays drunk sometimes. Thet's true an' hit's a shameful thing fer a man ter admit, but hit's a thing I've got ter fight out fer myself. Hit don't profit neither of us fer ye ter vilify me." He broke off abruptly, his chest heaving, and to Lone Stacy it seemed that the air was electrically charged, as with the still tensity that goes, windless and breathless, before the bursting of thunder heads among the crags. Then Bear Cat spoke again somewhat gropingly and with inarticulate faultiness, as though a flood pressure were seeking egress through a choked channel. The words were crude, but back of them was a dammed-up meaning like the power of hurricane and forest fire. "Thar's somethin' in me--I don't know how ter name it--thar's somethin' in me sort of strugglin' an' a-drivin' me like a torment! Thet weakness fer licker--I hates hit like--like all hell--but I hain't _all_ weakness! Thet thing, whatever hit be--sometimes jest when hit seems like hit ought ter raise me up--hit crushes me down like the weight of ther mountings themselves." He wheeled suddenly and disappeared into the house where he deposited his book on the mantel-shelf and from behind the door swung a grain sack to his shoulder. Then he left the house. Lone Stacy turned to his wife and lifted his hands with a gesture of baffled perplexity as he inquired, "Does ye understand ther boy? He's our own blood an' bone, but sometimes I feels like I was talkin' ter a person from a teetotally diff'rent world. Nobody round hyar don't comprehend him. I've even heered hit norated round amongst foolish folks thet he talks with graveyard ha'nts an' hes a witch-craft charm on his life. Air he jest headstrong, maw, or air he so master big thet we kain't comprehend him? No man hain't never called me a coward, but thar's spells when I'm half-way skeered of my own boy." "Mebby," suggested the woman quietly, "ef ye gentled him a leetle mite he wouldn't contrary ye so much." Lone Stacy nodded his head and spoke with a grim smile. "Seems like I've got ter be eternally blusterin' at him jest ter remind myself thet I'm ther head of this fam'ly. Ef I didn't fo'ce myself ter git mad, I'd be actin' like he was my daddy instid of me bein' his'n." CHAPTER II The afternoon was half spent and the sun, making its way toward the purpled ridges of the west, was already casting long shadows athwart the valleys. Along a trail which wound itself in many tortuous twists across forested heights and dipped down to lose itself at intervals in the creek bed of Little Slippery, a mounted traveler rode at a snail-like pace. The horse was a lean brute through whose rusty coat the ribs showed in under-nourished prominence, but it went sure-footedly up and down broken stairways of slimy ledges where tiny waterfalls licked at its fetlocks and along the brinks of chasms where the sand shelved with treacherous looseness. The rider, a man weather-rusted to a drab monotone, slouched in his saddle with an apathetic droop which was almost stupor, permitting his reins to flap loosely. His face, under an unclean bristle of beard, wore a sleepy sneer and his eyes were bloodshot from white whiskey. As he rode, unseeing, through the magnificent beauty of the Cumberlands his glance was sluggish and his face emotionless. But at last the horse halted where a spring came with a crystal gush out of the rhododendron thickets, and then Ratler Webb's stupefaction yielded to a semi-wakefulness of interest. He rubbed a shoddy coat-sleeve across his eyes and straightened his stooped shoulders. The old horse had thrust his nose thirstily into the basin with evident eagerness to drink. Yet, after splashing his muzzle about for a moment he refused refreshment and jerked his head up with a snort of disgust. A leering smile parted the man's lips over his yellow and uneven teeth: "So ye won't partake of hit, old Bag-o'-bones, won't ye?" he inquired ironically. "Ye hain't nobody's brag critter to look at, but I reckon some revenue fellers mought be willin' to pay a master price fer ye. Ye kin stand at ther mouth of a spring-branch an' smell a still-house cl'ar up on hits headwaters, kain't ye?" For a while Webb suffered the tired horse to stand panting in the creek bed, while his own eyes, lit now with a crafty livening, traveled up the hillside impenetrably masked with verdure, where all was silence. Somewhere up along the watercourse was the mash-vat and coil which had contaminated this basin for his mount's brute fastidiousness: an illicit distillery. This man clad in rusty store clothes was not inspired with a crusading ardor for supporting the law. He lived among men whose community opinion condones certain offenses--and pillories the tale-bearer. But above the ethical bearing of local standards and Federal Statutes, alike, loomed a matter of personal hatred, which powerfully stimulated his curiosity. He raised one hand and thoughtfully stroked his nose--recently broken with workman-like thoroughness and reset with amateurish imperfection. "Damn thet Bear Cat Stacy," he muttered, as he kicked his weary mount into jogging motion. "I reckon I'll hev my chance at him yit. I'm jest a-waitin' fer hit." A half-mile further on, he suddenly drew rein and remained in an attitude of alert listening. Then slipping quietly to the ground, he hitched his horse in the concealment of a deep gulch and melted out of sight into the thicket. Soon he sat crouched on his heels, invisible in the tangled laurel. His place of vantage overlooked a foot-path so little traveled as to be hardly discernible, but shortly a figure came into view around a hulking head of rock, and Ratler Webb's smile broadened to a grin of satisfaction. The figure was tall and spare and it stooped as it plodded up the ascent under the weight of a heavy sack upon its shoulders. The observer did not move or make a sound until the other man had been for several minutes out of sight. He was engaged in reflection. "So, thet's how ther land lays," he ruminated. "Bear Cat Stacy's totin' thet gryste over to Bud Jason's tub-mill on Little Ivy despite ther fact thet thar's numerous bigger mills nigher to his house. Thet sack's full of _sprouted_ corn, and he dasn't turn it in at no _reg'lar_ mill. Them Stacys air jest about blockadin' up thet spring-branch." He spat at a toad which blinked beadily up at him and then, rising from his cramped posture, he commented, "I hain't plumb dead sartin yet, but I aims ter be afore sun-up ter-morrer." Bear Cat Stacy might have crossed the ridge that afternoon by a less devious route than the one he followed. In so doing he would have saved much weariness of leg and ache of burdened shoulder, but Ratler Webb's summing up had been correct, and though honest corn may follow the highways, sprouted grain must go by blinder trails. When he reached the backbone of the heights, he eased the jute sack from his shoulders to the ground and stretched the cramp out of his arms. Sweat dripped from his face and streamed down the brown throat where his coarse shirt stood open. He had carried a dead weight of seventy pounds across a mountain, and must carry back another as heavy. Now he wiped his forehead with his shirt-sleeve and stood looking away with a sudden distraction of dreaminess. A few more steps would take him again into the steamy swelter of woods where no breath of breeze stirred the still leafage, and even in the open spaces the afternoon was torridly hot. But here he could sweep with his eyes league upon league of a vast panorama where sky and peak mingled in a glory of purple haze. Unaccountably the whole beauty of it smote him with a sense of undefined appreciation and grateful wonderment. The cramp of heart was eased and the groping voices of imagination seemed for the time no longer tortured nightmares of complaint. There was no one here to censor his fantasies and out of the gray eyes went their veiling sullenness and out of the lips their taut grimness. Into eyes and lips alike came something else--something touched with the zealousness of aspiration. "Hit's right over thar!" he murmured aloud but in a voice low pitched and caressing of tone. "I've got ter get me money enough ter buy thet farm offen Kinnard Towers." He was looking down upon a point far below him where through a cleared space flashed the shimmer of flowing water, and where in a small pocket of acreage, the bottom ground rolled in gracious amenability to the plow and harrow. Again he nodded, and since he was quite alone he laughed aloud. "She 'lows thet's ther place whar she wants ter live at," he added to himself, "an' I aims ter satisfy her." So after all some of his day-dreams were tangible! He realized that he ought to be going on, yet he lingered and after a few moments he spoke again, confiding his secrets to the open woods and the arching skies--his only confidants. "Blossom 'lowed yestiddy she was a-goin' over ter Aunt Jane Colby's this mornin'. 'Pears like she ought ter be passin' back by hyar about this time." Cupping his hands at his lips, he sent out a long whoop, but before he did that he took the precaution of concealing his sack of sprouted grain under a ledge. Then he bent listening for an answer--but without reward, and disappointment mantled in his gray eyes as he dropped to the age-corroded rock and sat with his hands clasped about his updrawn knees. It was very still there, except for the industrious hammering of a "peckerwood" on a decayed tree trunk, and the young mountaineer sat almost as motionless as his pedestal. Then without warning a lilting peal of laughter sounded at his back and Turner came to his feet. As he wheeled he saw Blossom Fulkerson standing there above him and her eyes were dancing with the mischievous delight of having stalked him undiscovered. "It's a right happy thing fer you, Turner Stacy, that I didn't aim ter kill ye," she informed him with mock solemnity. "I've heered ye brag thet no feller hereabouts could slip up on ye in the woods, unbeknownst." "I wasn't studyin' erbout nobody slippin' up on me. Blossom," he answered calmly. "I hain't got no cause ter be a-hidin' out from nobody." She was standing with the waxen green of the laurel breaking into pink flower-foam at her back and through the oak and poplar branches showed scraps of blue sky--the blue of June. A catch came into Turner's voice and he said somewhat huskily, "When they christened ye Blossom they didn't misname ye none." Blossom, he thought, was like a wild-rose growing among sun-flowers. When the evening star came up luminous and dewy-fresh over the darkening peaks, while twilight still lingered at the edges of the world, he always thought of her. But the charm was not all in his own eye: not all the magic endowment of first love. The mountain preacher's daughter had escaped those slovenly habits of backwoods life that inevitably coarsen. Her beauty had slender strength and flower freshness. Now she stood holding with one hand to the gnarled branch of a dogwood sapling. A blue sunbonnet falling back from her head left the abundance of her hair bared to the light so that it shimmered between brown and gold. She was perhaps sixteen and her heavily lashed eyes were brownish amber and just now full of a mirthful sparkle. "Ye seemed ter be studyin' about somethin' almighty hard," she insisted teasingly. "I thought for a minute that mebbe ye'd done growed thar." Turner Stacy smiled again as he looked at her. In his eyes was unveiled and honest worship. "I was a'studyin' about you, Blossom. I don't know no way ter do that save almighty hard. Didn't ye hear me whoop?" The girl's head nodded. "Why didn't ye answer me?" "I aimed ter slip up on ye, if I could, Turner, but I didn't low it would be so plumb easy.--You made believe that yore ears could hear the grass a-growin'." The youth took a sudden step toward her and stood close, so close that her breath touched his face fragrantly as she looked up with a witching mockery in her eyes. His heart fluttered with the clamor of impulse to seize her in his arms, but his half-lifted hands dropped to his sides. He was not quite twenty-one and she was only sixteen, and the code of the mountains is strict with the simplicity of the pioneer. A woman gives her lips in betrothal or, giving them lightly, drops to the caste of a light woman. So the boy drew back with a resolute jerk of his head. "I was a-studyin' erbout some day, Blossom," he said, "when thar's a-goin' ter be a dwellin'-house down thar. Not a house of warped timbers whar the hawgs scratch their backs under the floors--but a _real_ house. Mebby by thet day an' time thar'll be a highway men kin travel without torment." As he paused, at a loss for power of architectural enlargement, the girl sighed. "Then I reckon ye don't hardly 'low ter raise thet house in my lifetime, Turner," she teased. "I'll most likely be too old ter visit ye thar afore a highway gits built." But he shook his head. "I aims ter speed up ther comin' of sich things," he announced with the splendid effrontery of youth. "Hit hain't been so long since ther fust wagon crossed Cedar Mountain. We're liable to see balloons comin' afore we die." "Aunt Jane Colby was tellin' me about that first wagon to-day at dinner," Blossom assented. "She says one old man asked folks whether it was true or whether he was fitified. He said: 'What manner of _contrivance_ air thet? Hit's got four wheels an' one pair's bigger then t'other pair, an' two of 'em goes round faster then t'other two an' the Lord A'mighty only knows how hit manages ter keep up with hitself.'" They both laughed with young condescension for the old-fashioned and then Turner went on, haltingly by reason of callow diffidence. "Ef thet house couldn't be reared in time fer _you_ ter come to hit, Blossom--hit wouldn't be no manner of use ter me a-tall." "Does ye aim ter make me a present of a house?" she challenged and again the provocative allurement of her swept him so that the smooth sinews of his arms tightened as if with physical effort. "I means thet someday--when I've done something worth doin' an' when ye're a leetle bit older yoreself, Blossom, you're agoin' ter marry me, an' we're goin' ter dwell thar--together." The girl's cheeks reddened furiously and for a moment she made no response, then she declared with a stout self-assertion designed to mask her confusion, "I reckon I'll hev somethin' ter say about thet." "Ye'll have _everything_ ter say about hit, Blossom, but"--there was a purposeful ring in his voice that hinted at ultimate victory--"but some day I aims ter persuade ye ter say, 'yes.'" Her cheeks were brightly pink and she pretended to be engrossed in the demeanor of a squirrel that chattered quarrelsomely at them from a nearby poplar. Turner Stacy dropped his voice until it was very soft. "I kin bide my time an' wait twell ye're ready, Blossom, but if ye don't _never_ say hit, I don't hardly see how I kin go on livin'." "I'm right glad ef ye likes me, Turner," she demurely assured him. "We've growed up together an' ef ye was to go away somewhar's an' leave me, I reckon I'd nigh die of lonesomeness." Distrust of effusiveness was bred in his bone. Laconic utterance was his heritage, and now that his heart demanded expression and his eyes kindled with the dreamer's fire, he stood struggling against the fettering of his tongue. Then abruptly, tumultuously he burst out, talking fast. "I hain't got ther gift of speech, Blossom; I only knows thet hit hain't enough ter jest have ye miss me ef I went away. I knows thet when ye stands thar with ther sun on yore hair hit would be springtime fer me, even ef thar war snow on ther hillsides an' ice in ther creek. I knows thet I'm standin' hyar on solid rock. Yore paw says these-hyar hills were old when ther Alps hadn't riz up yit outen ther waters, but when I looks at ye, Blossom, this mountain's shakin' under me ... an' yore face is ther only thing thet's steady afore my eyes." He broke off with something like a choke in his throat and Blossom was trembling a little under that first impact of new emotion that comes with the waking of the senses. Then she remembered the stories of his escapades and her eyes clouded. Her hand fell flutteringly on his arm. "If--if ye cares thet much about me, Turner, I wish--I don't aim ter nag ye--but I wish ye'd promise me thet ye won't give men cause ter say ye drinks too much." Turner's brow contracted and his lips stiffened. The defensive mask which seemed sullen because it was his idea of impassiveness set itself again, but he nodded. "Thet's a fair thing," he said slowly at last. "Drinkin' hain't hardly a thing a gal kin understand noways. I hain't jest a common drunkard, Blossom. Thar's times though when I feels es ef I war a-livin' in a jail-house--an' seekin' ter git free. Thar's su'thin' in me--I don't know jest what--thet's always fightin'. These hyar hills with their ign'rance an' dirt an' poverty seems ter be on top of me 'stid of underneath me. Thet's when I drinks too much. Fer a little spell I seems ter dream I'm free." A few minutes later the girl started down the "yon" side of the wooded slope, going with a light step and humming a ballade that had come across the sea with the beginnings of America, and the boy looked after her with a passionate tenderness that was far from stoical. If most of his dreams were intangible and misty, this, his greatest and brightest dream, was at least clear and vivid. When he could no longer see the flash of her blue dress between the interlacing branches he turned, and drawing his sack of sprouted corn out of its hiding place, hefted it to his shoulders. He would have to hurry now to finish his task and get back by dusk. CHAPTER III Old man Bud Jason stood at the door of his tub-mill, leaning on the long hickory staff which he always carried. He stood gauntly tall even now that his once-broad shoulders sagged and his mane of hair was white, and from his lips came a querulous mumbling as though he were awaiting some one tardy of arrival. At last, though, he gave a grunt of relief when the thicket far above him stirred and the figure of Bear Cat Stacy appeared, bending under his load of grist. He turned then into the shack and drew out a sack of meal from the bottom of a pile, and as he finished this task a shadow fell across the door. Turner Stacy let his burden fall and availed himself of the opportunity to drop into a sitting posture on the step of the shanty, resting his back against a post. His broad chest heaved and a profound sigh of relief broke from his panting lips. The old miller stood regarding him for a little while without words, then broke into volcanic utterance: "Hell's banjer! May God Almighty holp a country whar a young pa'r of shoulders like your'n don't find no worthier use than man-powerin' good corn acrost ther ridges ter turn hit inter bad licker." Turner Stacy glanced up with mild surprise for the sentiment. "I hain't nuver heered ye cavil with a man's license ter use his own corn as he sees fit, afore, Bud," was his casual reply, and the white-bearded one wagged his head and laughed tremulously after the fashion of the old. "I reckon ye don't mistrust me none, Bear Cat, even ef I does hit now, but here of late I've cogitated a heap whilst I've been a-settin' hyar listenin' ter ther creak of that old mill. Seems almost like ther wheel was a-lamentin' over hits job. Thar bein' sich a sight of wickedness in ther community whar my grand-children hes got ter be reared up is a powerful solemn thing fer me ter study over, an' I've jes erbout concluded thet whilst ther whiskey-makin' goes on ther killin's an gin'ral wickedness won't hardly diminish none." Furrows of dubious thought etched themselves on the young man's forehead. "Ef ye feels thet-a-way, Bud, why does yer consent ter grind corn fer blockaders?" he demanded, and the reply was prompt: "I don't grind hit only fer a few men thet I'm beholden to." Pausing a moment, he became more specific. "Yore paw stood over my body onct when I'd done been shot outen my saddle, an' fought off numerous enemies single-handed, thereby savin' me from death in ther creekbed. I couldn't hardly deny him ther use of my mill even ef his corn _hes_ got sprouts in ther grain two inches long, now, could I?" The boy looked abstractedly away, then suddenly blurted out: "I disgusts blockadin', too, Bud, but pap 'lows hit's ther only way ter mek a livin' hyarabouts." "Lots of folks argues hit out in like fashion, but I don't hold with 'em." The speaker rapped the boards with his long staff and spoke with conviction. "What these mountings needs air a mite of l'arnin' an' a leetle common sense an' a heap of good roads. Ef prosperity ever comes ter these hills, sonny, hit'll come along a highway--an' so long as stills don't thrive none along highways, hit looks mightily like a sorry chance." After a thoughtful pause he added, "Hit won't never change, so long es hits only furriners thet aims ter alter hit. Revenuers kain't do nothin'. Damn thar skunk hides anyhow! They're our mortal enemies." The old man drew himself up as if he were seeing a vision and his eyes held an almost fanatical gleam. "But mark down my words! Some day thar'll rise up a mountain man--a man thet hain't never met up with fear an thet's as steadfast as ther hills he sprung from. _Thet_ man will change hit all, like ther sun changes fog. I wisht I mout live ter see thet day." "Hit'll tek a powerful towerin' man ter bring sich things ter pass," mused the listener and the oracle declared vehemently: "Hit teks a powerful towerin' man ter lead any fight ter victory, whether hit's a-guidin' ther Children of Israel outen thar bondage or our benighted children outen thars." Suddenly the miller laid a trembling hand on the boy's arm and demanded in a hushed voice: "Why shouldn't hit be you, Bear Cat? Folks says ye bears a charmed life, thet thar hain't enough lead in ther mountings ter kill ye. I heered Kinnard Towers say with my own ears, thet hit war a God's blessin' ther feud ended afore ye got yore growth--an' Kinnard don't fear many. When a man thet's hardly nothin' but a saplin' of a boy bears a repute like thet--hit must denote thet thar's power in him beyond ther common!" The boy stood silent for a moment and slowly his brow drew into a black scowl. "I reckon, Bud, one reason air this," he said bitterly, "thet I'm accounted ter be a drunkard my own self an' like as not, one sich reason es thet air plenty." Turner glanced up to the bristling ridge which he must climb. Already the west was kindling into a flare of richness and the skyline hills were dyed with ashy purple. "I've done over-tarried," he said abruptly, as he lifted his sack from the floor, but his face wore a glow which was not altogether from the sinking sun. "I reckon I'd better be on my way--but I hain't denyin' thet I've done hed thoughts like your'n myself, Bud." But young Stacy had not gone far when that sense of intensified woodcraft which Blossom had derided caused him to halt dead in his tracks. The sound that had first arrested him had been nothing more than a laugh, but, in it, he had recognized a quality that bespoke derisive hostility and a thickness that indicated drink. He had left the place empty except for Old Bud Jason and no one could have reached it, unannounced by normal sounds, so soon unless the approach had been achieved by stealth. Bear Cat Stacy put down his sack and worked his way back, holding the concealment of rock and laurel; guarding each footfall against the betrayal of a broken twig--and, as yet, denied a view of the tub-mill. But his cars were open and doing duty for his eyes. "Wa'al," came the miller's voice in a wrathful tremolo, "what business brings ye hyar es ef ye war aimin' ter lay-way somebody? Folks gin'rally comes hither upstandin'--an' open." This time the voice of the new arrival was sneeringly truculent: "Does they come thet-a-way when they fotches in sprouted corn thet they dastn't take elsewhere?" Bear Cat stiffened as he recognized the voice of Ratler Webb, whom he had not met since their encounter in which a nose had been broken. He knew that in the breast of this man, hitherto unchallenged as neighborhood bully, an ugly and dangerous grudge was festering. Now it seemed that the old miller, because of friendship for the Stacys was to be heckled, and Bear Cat's wrath boiled. He heard Bud Jason inquiring in tones no longer querulous but firmly indignant: "Is thet all ye come fer? Ter blackguard me?" Ratler answered in a voice savoring more of highwayman's coercion than request. "I was jest a-funnin' with ye, Old Bud, but I'd be mighty obleeged ter ye fer a leetle dram of licker. My bottle's nigh empty an' I've got a far way ter travel yit." Turner Stacy had now arrived at a point from which he could see around the hulking shoulder of sandstone and the picture which met his eye was not reassuring. The miller stood barring the door to his shack and the visitor, inflamed of eye, a little unsteady on his feet, confronted him with a swagger of lawless daredeviltry. "I hain't got no licker. I don't never use hit," replied Jason curtly. "So ef thet's all thet brought ye hyar, ye've already
{'title': "When 'Bear Cat' Went Dry by Charles Neville Buck", 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}