A Cumberland Vendetta | Page 3

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ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END*
Prepared by David Reed [email protected] or [email protected]
A Cumberland Vendetta by John Fox Jr.
TO MINERVA AND ELIZABETH
A Cumberland Vendetta
I
THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret refuge
now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in the woods.
The primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked over the red coals;
the slice of bacon and the little bag of meal were hung high against the
rock wall; and the two stepped from the cavern into a thicket of
rhododendrons.
Parting the bushes toward the dim light, they stood on a massive
shoulder of the mountain, the river girding it far below, and the
afternoon shadows at their feet. Both carried guns-the tall mountaineer,
a Winchester; the boy, a squirrel rifle longer than himself. Climbing
about the rocky spur, they kept the same level over log and bowlder
and through bushy ravine to the north. In half an hour, they ran into a
path that led up home from the river, and they stopped to rest on a cliff
that sank in a solid black wall straight under them. The sharp edge of a
steep corn-field ran near, and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks
and hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer.
In the sunlight across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over there
a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the
noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an
empty sheath. Every-where a look of vague trouble lay upon the face of
the mountains, and when the wind blew, the silver of the leaves showed
ashen. Autumn was at hand.
There was no physical sign of kinship between the two, half-brothers
though they were. The tall one was dark; the boy, a foundling, had

flaxen hair, and was stunted and ~lender. He was a dreamy~looking
little fellow, and one may easily find his like throughout the
Cumberland -paler than his fellows, from staying much indoors, with
half-haunted face, and