"I"ve heard of him."
"Most everybody in these mountains has. He"s the feller that"s always causin" trouble. Him and Joe Falin agreed to go West last fall to end the war. Joe was killed out thar, and now Rufe claims Joe don"t count now an" he"s got the right to come back. Soon"s he comes back, things git frolicksome agin. He swore he wouldn"t go back unless another Falin goes too. Wirt Falin agreed, and that"s how they made peace to-day. Now Rufe says he won"t go at all--truce or no truce. My wife in thar is a Tolliver, but both sides comes to me and I keeps peace with both of "em."
No doubt he did, Hale thought, keep peace or mischief with or against anybody with that face of his. That was a common type of the bad man, that horseman who had galloped away from the gate--but this old man with his dual face, who preached the Word on Sundays and on other days was a walking a.r.s.enal; who dreamed dreams and had visions and slipped through the hills in his mysterious moccasins on errands of mercy or chasing men from vanity, personal enmity or for fun, and still appeared so sane--he was a type that confounded. No wonder for these reasons and as a tribute to his infernal shrewdness he was known far and wide as the Red Fox of the Mountains. But Hale was too tired for further speculation and presently he yawned.
"Want to lay down?" asked the old man quickly.
"I think I do," said Hale, and they went inside. The little old woman had her face to the wall in a bed in one corner and the Red Fox pointed to a bed in the other:
"Thar"s yo" bed." Again Hale"s eyes fell on the big Winchester.
"I reckon thar hain"t more"n two others like it in all these mountains."
"What"s the calibre?"
"Biggest made," was the answer, "a 50 x 75."
"Centre fire?"
"Rim," said the Red Fox.
"Gracious," laughed Hale, "what do you want such a big one for?"
"Man cannot live by bread alone--in these mountains," said the Red Fox grimly.
When Hale lay down he could hear the old man quavering out a hymn or two on the porch outside: and when, worn out with the day, he went to sleep, the Red Fox was reading his Bible by the light of a tallow dip. It is fatefully strange when people, whose lives tragically intersect, look back to their first meetings with one another, and Hale never forgot that night in the cabin of the Red Fox. For had Bad Rufe Tolliver, while he whispered at the gate, known the part the quiet young man silently seated in the porch would play in his life, he would have shot him where he sat: and could the Red Fox have known the part his sleeping guest was to play in his, the old man would have knifed him where he lay.
X
Hale opened his eyes next morning on the little old woman in black, moving ghost-like through the dim interior to the kitchen. A wood-thrush was singing when he stepped out on the porch and its cool notes had the liquid freshness of the morning. Breakfast over, he concluded to leave the yellow mule with the Red Fox to be taken back to the county town, and to walk down the mountain, but before he got away the landlord"s son turned up with his own horse, still lame, but well enough to limp along without doing himself harm. So, leading the black horse, Hale started down.
The sun was rising over still seas of white mist and wave after wave of blue Virginia hills. In the shadows below, it smote the mists into tatters; leaf and bush glittered as though after a heavy rain, and down Hale went under a trembling dew-drenched world and along a tumbling series of water-falls that flashed through tall ferns, blossoming laurel and shining leaves of rhododendron. Once he heard something move below him and then the crackling of brush sounded far to one side of the road. He knew it was a man who would be watching him from a covert and, straightway, to prove his innocence of any hostile or secret purpose, he began to whistle. Farther below, two men with Winchesters rose from the bushes and asked his name and his business. He told both readily.
Everybody, it seemed, was prepared for hostilities and, though the news of the patched-up peace had spread, it was plain that the factions were still suspicious and on guard. Then the loneliness almost of Lonesome Cove itself set in. For miles he saw nothing alive but an occasional bird and heard no sound but of running water or rustling leaf. At the mouth of the creek his horse"s lameness had grown so much better that he mounted him and rode slowly up the river. Within an hour he could see the still crest of the Lonesome Pine. At the mouth of a creek a mile farther on was an old gristmill with its water-wheel asleep, and whittling at the door outside was the old miller, Uncle Billy Beams, who, when he heard the coming of the black horse"s feet, looked up and showed no surprise at all when he saw Hale.
"I heard you was comin"," he shouted, hailing him cheerily by name.
"Ain"t fishin" this time!"
"No," said Hale, "not this time."
"Well, git down and rest a spell. June"ll be here in a minute an" you can ride back with her. I reckon you air goin" that a-way."
"June!"
"Sh.o.r.e! My, but she"ll be glad to see ye! She"s always talkin" about ye.
You told her you was comin" back an" ever"body told her you wasn"t: but that leetle gal al"ays said she KNOWED you was, because you SAID you was. She"s growed some--an" if she ain"t purty, well I"d tell a man! You jes" tie yo" hoss up thar behind the mill so she can"t see it, an" git inside the mill when she comes round that bend thar. My, but hit"ll be a surprise fer her."
The old man chuckled so cheerily that Hale, to humour him, hitched his horse to a sapling, came back and sat in the door of the mill. The old man knew all about the trouble in town the day before.
"I want to give ye a leetle advice. Keep yo" mouth plum" shut about this here war. I"m Jestice of the Peace, but that"s the only way I"ve kept outen of it fer thirty years; an" hit"s the only way you can keep outen it."
"Thank you, I mean to keep my mouth shut, but would you mind--"
"Git in!" interrupted the old man eagerly. "Hyeh she comes." His kind old face creased into a welcoming smile, and between the logs of the mill Hale, inside, could see an old sorrel horse slowly coming through the lights and shadows down the road. On its back was a sack of corn and perched on the sack was a little girl with her bare feet in the hollows behind the old nag"s withers. She was looking sidewise, quite hidden by a scarlet poke-bonnet, and at the old man"s shout she turned the smiling face of little June. With an answering cry, she struck the old nag with a switch and before the old man could rise to help her down, slipped lightly to the ground.
"Why, honey," he said, "I don"t know whut I"m goin" to do "bout yo"
corn. Shaft"s broke an" I can"t do no grindin" till to-morrow."
"Well, Uncle Billy, we ain"t got a pint o" meal in the house," she said.
"You jes" got to LEND me some."
"All right, honey," said the old man, and he cleared his throat as a signal for Hale.
The little girl was pushing her bonnet back when Hale stepped into sight and, unstartled, unsmiling, unspeaking, she looked steadily at him--one hand motionless for a moment on her bronze heap of hair and then slipping down past her cheek to clench the other tightly. Uncle Billy was bewildered.
"Why, June, hit"s Mr. Hale--why---"
"Howdye, June!" said Hale, who was no less puzzled--and still she gave no sign that she had ever seen him before except reluctantly to give him her hand. Then she turned sullenly away and sat down in the door of the mill with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.
Dumfounded, the old miller pulled the sack of corn from the horse and leaned it against the mill. Then he took out his pipe, filled and lighted it slowly and turned his perplexed eyes to the sun.
"Well, honey," he said, as though he were doing the best he could with a difficult situation, "I"ll have to git you that meal at the house. "Bout dinner time now. You an" Mr. Hale thar come on and git somethin" to eat afore ye go back."
"I got to get on back home," said June, rising.
"No you ain"t--I bet you got dinner fer yo" step-mammy afore you left, an" I jes" know you was aimin" to take a snack with me an" ole Hon."
The little girl hesitated--she had no denial--and the old fellow smiled kindly.
"Come on, now."
Little June walked on the other side of the miller from Hale back to the old man"s cabin, two hundred yards up the road, answering his questions but not Hale"s and never meeting the latter"s eyes with her own. "Ole Hon," the portly old woman whom Hale remembered, with bra.s.s-rimmed spectacles and a clay pipe in her mouth, came out on the porch and welcomed them heartily under the honeysuckle vines. Her mouth and face were alive with humour when she saw Hale, and her eyes took in both him and the little girl keenly. The miller and Hale leaned chairs against the wall while the girl sat at the entrance of the porch. Suddenly Hale went out to his horse and took out a package from his saddle-pockets.
"I"ve got some candy in here for you," he said smiling.
"I don"t want no candy," she said, still not looking at him and with a little movement of her knees away from him.
"Why, honey," said Uncle Billy again, "whut IS the matter with ye? I thought ye was great friends." The little girl rose hastily.
"No, we ain"t, nuther," she said, and she whisked herself indoors. Hale put the package back with some embarra.s.sment and the old miller laughed.
"Well, well--she"s a quar little critter; mebbe she"s mad because you stayed away so long."
At the table June wanted to help ole Hon and wait to eat with her, but Uncle Billy made her sit down with him and Hale, and so shy was she that she hardly ate anything. Once only did she look up from her plate and that was when Uncle Billy, with a shake of his head, said:
"He"s a bad un." He was speaking of Rufe Tolliver, and at the mention of his name there was a frightened look in the little girl"s eyes, when she quickly raised them, that made Hale wonder.