CHAPTER VIII

When the pitchiness of night closed in until it seemed that the mountains moved up and huddled closer together, Newt was on well-remembered roads and did not pause. In an hour or two the moon would be up, and he would reach the cabin which he called home.

With the coming of the moon the hills underwent a wizardry of beauty which was lost on the boy. First, silvery threads of light began to weave along the bristling ridges of the east and opalescent flecks to glimmer overhead. Then a soft blue-gray light filtered down the slopes; throwing the shoulders of the mountains into relief and bathing the lowlands in a luminous mist. The waters of Troublesome caught the glint and the frogs boomed out from ba.s.s to treble, while back in the timbered slopes the whippoorwills set up a plaintive chorus.

Ahead of him Newt saw his destination. A cabin of logs stood darkly at the side of the road, marking his journey's end. Though the moon struck across the small hard-tramped yard, the house threw its shadow forward and was itself a block of darkness from which shone no light. That was because there was no light to shine, except what came from the fireplace, and because there was no window through which it might show.

But Newt needed no illumination. He knew every wretched detail by heart.

There was one room only, except for the lean-to shed, which served as kitchen and dining-room, and that was reached by going outside and walking around the corner of the house. The one room was pictured on his mind almost as clearly as he trudged toward its door-step as it could be when he entered it. Through the slabs of the puncheon floor the wind came in gusty weather. In each of the four corners was a large double bed with feather mattresses, for the family, when he had left home, had numbered six. About the log walls on pegs driven into the c.h.i.n.king would be hanging such articles of clothing as were not in use, except such other articles as were thrust in disorder under the beds. Unless the family had "lain down" they would be huddling about the hearth with their shoes off, for even in June when the night chill came it was customary to kindle an evening fire. Always in the past, his great grandfather, old Luke Spooner, had sat at the right-hand corner of that hearth, mumbling into his long white beard. Newt wondered if he would still be there. He had been almost a centenarian when they took the grandson away to the penitentiary; his sight almost gone, his hearing almost gone, his brain wasted to a remnant of nightmare brooding, but his physical vitality holding out like a spent and stubborn fortress.

Once he had been among the most feared of feudists, tireless, unafraid, vindictive and honest. He would hardly be there now, reflected Newt. He must have died by this time. One member of his family only would he greet with any feeling akin to welcome. His father had in his rough way been fond of him, and Newt in an equally wolfish fashion had reciprocated the feeling. It had never been expressed in words or demonstration, for of these things the mountaineer is as chary as a grizzly. Often in the long warfare of quarreling and bickering between his father and mother, which Newt regarded as a natural and universal incident of family life, his "pappy" had taken his side and rescued him from a "whopping."

Newt thought he would be glad to see his father.

He crossed the stile, hewn in rough steps from a poplar stump, and strode over to the broken mill-stone that served as a door-step. He shouted, "I'm a-comin' in," and pushed at the door. It was barred. That was a sign of the troublesome condition of the times. The mountaineer shouts an announcement of his coming from a distance to avoid the seeming of surrept.i.tiousness, but, having reached the threshold, does not knock.

"Who's thet?" called a high-pitched, irritable voice from the interior.

It was his mother's voice, and Newt replied:

"Hit's me, Mammy. Let me in."

No outburst or murmur of surprise broke from the cabin at the announcement of the prodigal's return. He heard only the rasping of a bar being drawn from its sockets, and then the door swung in. Newt entered, and with no offer to embrace his mother cast an appraising glance about the place, which the logs on the hearth revealed in a wavering light. The corners of the room were darkly shadowed, but the semicircle about the fireplace was red and yellow from the flames. The rafters were smoke-blackened, and an odor hung between the walls like that in a house used for curing hams.

About the fire sat the family group, but none of them rose to welcome him. At the right hand corner sat old Luke. He was not dead then, after all, though just now he was sleeping with his bearded, mummy-like face fallen forward and his long hickory staff resting between his knees.

Newt's younger brother, "Little Luke," grown since he had left home from a boy of thirteen to a gawky and angular young cub of sixteen, and his sister, who had been twelve and was now fifteen, stared at him in shy silence. His mother who was only a little more than forty had all the seeming of sixty. She was bent and slovenly. But of his father he saw nothing, though a man sat in the remaining chair, and when this interloper leaned forward, holding down his beard with his forefinger as he spat at the ashes, Newt recognized Clem Rawlins, a distant kinsman.

Clem's presence surprised him little, for it would have been quite natural for Clem or any other man who found himself benighted to stop and "stay all night."

His mother came forward, and invited:

"Take my cheer, Newt. I'll set on the bed."

Newt dropped into the seat, and inquired:

"Where's pappy?"

"Daid," was his mother's laconic reply.

"When did he die?"

Clem Rawlins answered in a deep, drawling voice:

"He failed tol'able fast-like after ye left, Newt. He had the weak treemers, an' died erbout cawn-plantin' time a-follerin' of yore goin'

down below."

The boy said nothing. He sat mutely scowling into the fire.

A constrained silence fell on the gathering, which was at last broken by the boy's mother in a tone of dubious embarra.s.sment.

"With yore old gran-pap on my hands, Newt, an' yore pap daid an' Little Luk kind of puny-like, I couldn't hardly git along withouten some man on the place an' so--" She paused again, then added with a note half-apology, half-defiance: "An' so I married Clem. I was plumb driv ter hit."

She knew that the boy had never liked his kinsman, Clem Rawlins, but now Newt sat with his brow drawn and his gaze fixed on the embers, making no response. Clem waited stolidly, puffing at his pipe, though he, too, would be glad when the moment of explanation was ended. At last, the boy dismissed the topic with the curt comment:

"I reckon thet's yore business."

After a while, he rose and went to the corner of the room where once his few belongings had been kept. He evidently failed to find that for which he sought, for he came back to the fire and demanded:

"Whar's my rifle-gun?"

His mother was still sitting on the edge of the bed. She had filled her clay pipe and lighted it with a coal from the fire. Once more her voice carried the note of anxious embarra.s.sment, and she tried to give it also an ingratiating quality, as she replied.

"Well, ye see, Newty, atter yore pappy died we had a heap of trouble.

'Peared like the good Lord hed done plumb forgot us in his provi-_dence_. The hail kilt all the cawn, an' the hawgs died off like es ef they was blighted, an' so--" She paused, and the boy finished for her in a voice very metallic, though not reproachful.

"So ye went an' sold my rifle-gun. Is thet what ye war a-tryin' ter say?"

"Thet's. .h.i.t," she acknowledged. Then in exculpation she went on: "Ye see, Newt, I wouldn't 'a' done hit, only I didn't reckon ye'd want hit no more. We didn't hardly 'low ye'd ever come back hyar noways."

Newt Spooner rose from his chair and stood facing them. His fists were tight-clenched at his sides. The spurting blaze of the slowly dying fire sent his shadow wavering out across the semicircle of light.

"You-all didn't 'low I'd need my rifle-gun no more," he repeated slowly, with forced restraint. "Ye didn't hardly reckon I'd ever come back hyar-abouts. Ye 'lowed I wuz buried alive in thet d.a.m.ned penitentiary whar ye let me go without a-holpin' me none. Ye 'lowed I'd jest stay thar an' rot." He paused and his breath came heavily. Then his utterance quickened. "Well, ye 'lowed plumb wrong. I'm hyar an' thar's a thing I'm hyar ter do, an' hit's a thing thet calls fer a gun. Ye done married this-hyar man. Thet's yore business an' his'n. 'Pears like ter me ye mout 'a' done a sight better, but I hain't got no call ter say nothin'

erbout thet."

With a vague idea of placating both sides of what might become a family rupture, the woman suggested in a milder tone than usual:

"I mout 'a' done a sight wusser, too, Newt."

The boy sniffed.

"I don't hardly see how," he retorted. "Now I've done been robbed of my gun. What's become of my pappy's gun?"

His mother hesitated, then confessed:

"I done give it ter Clem."

The son nodded his head.

"Thet's what I 'lowed. Now thet gun b'longs ter me. I've done lawfully heired hit from my pap." He turned suddenly to Clem Rawlins, and his voice rang out in sharp and peremptory outburst.

"Go git hit!"

Rawlins rose in quick obedience, and went to his own corner whence he fetched the repeating rifle that had been the elder Spooner's.

Newt stood before the fireplace, testing and loading the magazine, while his mother looked on in anxious scrutiny.

Then the centenarian across the hearth roused up, lifting his ancient and withered face, in which the jaw muscles worked loosely and flabbily.

"Who air thet feller?" he demanded in a quavering, accusing voice, gazing up without recognition at the tall, spare figure which towered over him.