Call of the Cumberlands | Page 9

a-wantin' ter suspicion ye, Samson, but I know how ye feels about yore pap. I heered thet Bud Spicer come by hyar yistiddy plumb full of liquor, an' 'lowed he'd seed Jesse an' Jim Asberry a-talkin' tergether jest afore yore pap was kilt." He broke off abruptly, then added: "Ye went away from hyar last night, an' didn't git in twell atter sun-up--I just heered the news, an' come ter look fer ye."
"Air you-all 'lowin' thet I shot them shoots from the laurel?" inquired Samson, quietly.
"Ef we-all hain't 'lowin' hit, Samson, we're plumb shore thet Jesse Purvy's folks will 'low hit. They're jest a-holdin' yore life like a hostage fer Purvy's, anyhow. Ef he dies, they'll try ter git ye."
The boy flashed a challenge about the group, which was now drawing rein at Spicer South's yard fence. His eyes were sullen, but he made no answer.
One of the men who had listened in silence now spoke:
"In the fust place, Samson, we hain't a-sayin' ye done hit. In the nex' place, ef ye did do hit, we hain't a-blamin' ye--much. But I reckon them dawgs don't lie, an', ef they trails in hyar, ye'll need us. Thet's why we've done come."
The boy slipped down from his mule, and helped Lescott to dismount. He deliberately unloaded the saddlebags and kit, and laid them on the top step of the stile, and, while he held his peace, neither denying nor affirming, his kinsmen sat their horses and waited.
Even to Lescott, it was palpable that some of them believed the young heir to clan leadership responsible for the shooting of Jesse Purvy, and that others believed him innocent, yet none the less in danger of the enemy's vengeance. But, regardless of divided opinion, all were alike ready to stand at his back, and all alike awaited his final utterance.
Then, in the thickening gloom, Samson turned at the foot of the stile, and faced the gathering. He stood rigid, and his eyes flashed with deep passion. His hands, hanging at the seams of his jeans breeches, clenched, and his voice came in a slow utterance through which throbbed the tensity of a soul-absorbing bitterness.
"I knowed all 'bout Jesse Purvy's bein' shot.... When my pap lay a-dyin' over thar at his house, I was a little shaver ten years old ... Jesse Purvy hired somebody ter kill him ... an' I promised my pap that I'd find out who thet man was, an' thet I'd git 'em both--some day. So help me, God Almighty, I'm a-goin' ter git 'em both--some day!" The boy paused and lifted one hand as though taking an oath.
"I'm a-tellin' you-all the truth.... But I didn't shoot them shoots this mornin'. I hain't no truce-buster. I gives ye my hand on hit.... Ef them dawgs comes hyar, they'll find me hyar, an' ef they hain't liars, they'll go right on by hyar. I don't 'low ter run away, an' I don't 'low ter hide out. I'm agoin' ter stay right hyar. Thet's all I've got ter say ter ye."
For a moment, there was no reply. Then, the older man nodded with a gesture of relieved anxiety.
"Thet's all we wants ter know, Samson," he said, slowly. "Light, men, an' come in."
CHAPTER IV
In days when the Indian held the Dark and Bloody Grounds a pioneer, felling oak and poplar logs for the home he meant to establish on the banks of a purling water-course, let his axe slip, and the cutting edge gashed his ankle. Since to the discoverer belongs the christening, that water-course became Cripple-shin, and so it is to-day set down on atlas pages. A few miles away, as the crow flies, but many weary leagues as a man must travel, a brother settler, racked with rheumatism, gave to his creek the name of Misery. The two pioneers had come together from Virginia, as their ancestors had come before them from Scotland. Together, they had found one of the two gaps through the mountain wall, which for more than a hundred miles has no other passable rift. Together, and as comrades, they had made their homes, and founded their race. What original grievance had sprung up between their descendants none of the present generation knew--perhaps it was a farm line or disputed title to a pig. The primary incident was lost in the limbo of the past; but for fifty years, with occasional intervals of truce, lives had been snuffed out in the fiercely burning hate of these men whose ancestors had been comrades.
Old Spicer South and his nephew Samson were the direct lineal descendants of the namer of Misery. Their kinsmen dwelt about them: the Souths, the Jaspers, the Spicers, the Wileys, the Millers and McCagers. Other families, related only by marriage and close association, were, in feud alignment, none the