by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XIII A TENSE SITUATION
It was mysterious, haunting, spectral. "Like going down into the tomb ofsome ancient Egyptian king," Florence told herself as, with candle heldwell out before her, and every step carefully poised, she made her waydown the long stone stairway.
Black walls of coal were on either side. Before these the mine propsstood like grim sentinels. The shadows of these, cast by the flickeringlight of the candle, appeared to take on life as they leaped, swaying anddancing, against the dusky walls.
Suddenly the girl caught her breath. A puff of air had all butextinguished her candle.
"And it came from below, not from above!" she breathed.
Scarcely had she made this astonishing discovery when she rounded a curvein the stairway and came in sight of a square of light. This distantillumination, the natural light of day, coming from the outside, seemedto beckon her on.
Then of a sudden it all came to her. "A tunnel!" she exclaimed. "Not theentrance to a mine, but a tunnel, a tunnel through this narrow peak ofthe mountain. Oh, joy! I've found the way out!"
In her eagerness she plunged down the stone stairway at a rate whichthreatened to send her pitching headlong. But sure-footed athlete thatshe was, she kept her balance and in another moment, panting, quite outof breath, she threw herself upon a huge flat rock that, lighted by thelast rays of the setting sun, seemed a nugget of pure gold.
The scene her eyes gazed upon was of matchless beauty. The crests of themountains, still beamed upon by the setting sun, glowed like so manydomes of fire, while farther down the lower hillsides and valleys wereshrouded in impenetrable shadows broken only by the silver thread of astream that idled down a valley.
Suddenly the girl sprang to her feet. The whole thing had come to her ina flash. Wishing to be left alone, the mysterious people at the head ofLaurel Branch had cut a pass through the solid mountain peak at a narrowplace. They alone knew of it. Through this pass they carried the producefrom their rough little farms to the coal mines far, far below. Therethey bartered them for shoes, salt, calico, and whatever their meagerexistence demanded.
"And this," she told herself, "is the way the missing peddler and theone-armed fiddler have gone. Being wanderers by profession, they havegone through this pass and never been seen again by the people at themouth of Laurel Branch.
"And that," she exclaimed, quite overcome by the thought, "that meansthat these people at the head of Laurel Branch are honest folks. They arenot robbers and murderers. I had hoped it might be so. It did not seempossible that old Job could sit there by the fire, spelling out the wordsof his Bible, then lay the grand old Book aside to go out robbing andkilling."
Then the girl did a strange thing. Relighting her candle, she picked herway over the rocks back to the entrance to the tunnel, then slowly, withthoughtful mind and careful tread, began ascending the stone stairway.She was going back.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime, down at the mouth of Laurel Branch, in the heart of thelaurel thicket, the low murmur of voices increased in volume. They werecoming--the clan was gathering. Gaunt old men with white beards werethere, men who had fought in the Civil War; middle-aged men who hadpacked a gun in the Anson-Rankin feud of twenty years before; andbeardless boys who had never fired a shot except at squirrel or possum.One name was on every tongue, that of Florence Ormsby.
As for Florence, while the night shadows darkened she was making her waydown the mountain trail, back to the cabin of old Job, the one-armedgiant.
Once there, she threw off her hat and coat and drew up a chair to thefire.
"Et?" the giant asked from his corner.
The girl shook her head.
"Want a snack?"
Another shake, then again silence.
For a long while the nickel alarm clock above the mantel raced againsttime and its constant tick-tick was the only sound that disturbed theSabbath-like stillness.
At last the aged giant cleared his throat with surprising difficulty,then spoke:
"I reckon it peers plumb quare to you all that we all stay up here inthese here mountains this away?"
Florence did not answer. She merely bent forward with an air of greatexpectancy on her face.
"Hit might be quare. Then again it mightn't. Listen, Miss, hit's likethis."
Then for fifteen minutes, in his inimitable mountain dialect and drawl,the old man poured into her eager ears a story of such bitter battlingfor life, such a tale of feud fighting, as she had never before dreamedof hearing from human lips.
There were tales of stalwart men shot down on their very doorsteps, ofbattles in the night, of men carried from their homes to be seen no more.
All this had happened somewhere in the mountains, back of Big BlackMountain, beyond Poor Fork, over Pine Mountain, then back and still back.
When there remained but a remnant of what had once been a powerfulfamily, the old giant, having heard of this vacant land at the head ofLaurel Branch, had at last persuaded his followers to come here to live.And that there might be no more battles and bloodshed, they had shutthemselves completely out from other people of the mountains. Only by asecret passage had they come and gone, to trade and barter in the valleybelow.
How strange life is! Even as this old man was telling of their longsearch for peace and how at last they had found it, forty men and boys,grim, determined mountain folks with rifles in hand, were marching uponthe stone gateway which had heretofore held them back. It was RansomTurner's clan.
"And what's this I hearn tell about?" the old giant exclaimed in arumbling tone of anger. "What about them sorry people at the mouth of thecrick takin' you up fer gun totin'?"
Florence started. So intense had been her interest in the story that shehad quite forgotten her own troubles.
"They--they're to try me to-morrow," she faltered.
"Fer gun totin'?"
"Yes."
"A woman? Fer gun totin'!" he mused. "Mounting folks have come tew that!
"And this 'lection, this school 'lection," he rumbled with a suddenchange of subject. "How do you reckon about that?"
"That is to-morrow, too, and it's lost."
"So I hearn tell," the old man mused. "So I hearn tell. But you can'talways reckon right about these here things, kin you?"
There was almost jocular freedom in the old man's tones, something quitedifferent from his Moses-like dignity of other times.
Again his tone changed. It was tender now.
"You've been mighty nice and a right smart help to us with little Hallie.I reckon she's might nigh well now. I reckon as how you might--"
The old man paused as if reluctant to say the words that had forced theirway to his lips. Leaving the sentence unfinished, he fumbled about in thecorner for a poker. Having found it, he gave the fire such a jabbing assent the sparks dancing by thousands up the chimney.
There were watchers who saw those sparks soaring skyward and wondered atthem--forty watchers, the men of Ransom Turner's clan.
At that very moment, too, the guard behind the stone gateway, catchingthe shuffle of feet behind the thicket of paw-paws that grew just outsidethe gate, caught his breath hard and, shifting his rifle to the otherarm, dropped back into the deeper shadows.
"As I was about to remark," the old man turned to Florence with a look ofresolution on his face, "'t'ain't no mite o' sense in keepin' you here,not narry 'nother minute. There's little Hallie, she's might nigh well.There's that sorry trial to-morrow, an' that 'lection. They'll be ailingfer you down there at the mouth of the creek, plumb ailin', so it'sfittin' that you'd go. You tell Zeb Howard down thar by the gate that Isent you, and I reckon he'll let you by."
Florence caught her breath. She had heard the old man's story. She wasfree. She might go. For a moment, as a wild bird, made captive for a dayand then set free hesitates before his first free flight, she sat therein silence. Then, as if impelled by the sense of impendi
ng peril and agreat need, she rose and hurried away.
Need enough there was, too. Her fleet feet could not cover that distancetoo quickly, for at that moment hot words were passing thick and fastbefore the stone gateway.
As she paused in her sudden flight she caught the sound of these angryvoices. At first indistinct, then growing louder as she rounded a curve,she caught fragments of sentences:
"Narry a step."--"Hit are!"--"Hit are not!"--"Drop down the barrel ofthat ar gun!"--"Hit's plumb unnatural!"
Then, having caught a hint of the meaning of it all, she paused to strainher ears to catch the lowest word. At that moment there came the ominousclick of a cartridge being thrown into its place in a rifle barrel. Thissound came from within the gate.
"The guard," she whispered.
"I tell you all plain," there came from the same spot a second later, "weall don't mean you all narry bit of harm. You all go on back down thatcrick. The land down thar belongs to you all. Up here it's ourn. Don'tlet's have any trouble."
"'An' I'm tellin' you, stranger," came in an equally insistent voice, "weall are goin' through. You are got someone up that we want and are goin'to git!"
"Hain't narry one up yonder that's not aimin' to stay."
"Come on, boys!" Florence caught these words spoken in low tones by avoice that sounded familiar. The voice was terrifying in its seriousness."We got to go in thar. Hain't no other way. When I say the word startcomin' on an' firin' as you come. He can't git all of us. Mebby he won'tget airy one. 'T'ain't no use a talkin' to him nohow."
Florence caught her breath. Her heart paused for a second, then wentracing. Her knees trembled. She had heard much of mountain feud fights.Now she was about to witness one. Worse than that, she must be directlyin the path of the bullets. At realization of this she wanted to flee,but her feet would not obey her. So there she stood as if rooted to thespot.
Though her feet were still, her brain was racing. She had recognized thevoice of the last speaker, Ransom Turner. A good man does not start afeud fight over a trifle. Why had they come? Who was this person they hadcome to demand? Was it a friend, or some outlaw fleeing from justice? Shedid not have long to wait.
"Just a minute, strangers," came in calm tones from within the gates."You kin get me maybe--seem's how there's a army of you--but count on it,I'll get a lot of you first. I'm the shootinest man as I reckon has mostever made a crop on Laurel Branch. But I'm plumb peaceably minded, too.Hain't rarin' up fer no killin'. Now what I wants to know is, who mightthat air person be that you all come after?"
"You know well enough," drawled Ransom Turner. "But so's you'll knowagin', I'll tell you. Hit's our teacher, Florence Ormsby."
Florence Ormsby! The girl's own name sounded strange to her. So they wererisking their lives to save her! And she was an outsider! A great wave ofdizziness came over her. She fought it off. She tried to speak. Hertongue clung to the roof of her mouth. Powerless to move, she stood theregasping.
"Come on, boys! 'T'ain't no use foolin' further."
The grim tones of the doughty little leader loosed the girl's tongue.Then, with tones that were little less than shrieks, she cried:
"Ransom! Ransom Turner! Don't! Don't do it! I'm here. It's all right. I'mcoming out."
After this shouted speech that awoke shrill echoes along the mountainside, there fell a moment of breathless silence, such a silence as isperhaps seldom felt save on a battlefield after the declaration of atruce.
Then, in a tone that told of deeper emotional struggle, there came fromRansom Turner's lips:
"Are you shore, Miss Florence? Are hit all right?"
"Quite all right," she said in as steady a tone as she could command."See! I am coming down."
Moving quietly, she passed the last tall pine, the last clump ofrhododendrons within the gate, then the massive portals, and a momentlater found herself among her own people, free.
Free! How good it seemed! And yet, as between two silent mountaineers shewalked back to the settlement and the whipsawed house, she felt theburdens of these simple people come back to her shoulders like a crushingweight.
"To-morrow," she whispered. "The trial and the election, and then what?"
Later that night, after a joyous reunion and a splendid supper in thewhipsawed cabin, she lay once more in her own bed, staring up at theceiling where the flashes of a dying fire played. Then it was that shenoted something strange. The board they had once taken from the ceilingthat they might get into the attic had been once more removed, thenreplaced. She knew this, for this time it had been put back with the endsreversed.
Vaguely her mind played with this thought. Who had been up there? Whathad they found? Georgia gold? Confederate gold?
She wondered about the election; her trial; Bud Wax. Wondered a littleabout Marion, who had gone down the branch to stay all night withPatience Madden, the oldest girl in their school. Was she sleeping safelyin Patience's cabin? In this strange community no one seemed quite safe.
She wondered a little about the deed for the Powell coal land and thecommission they were to receive--sometime. When would that be? Shewondered if she would ever see any of the men who had kidnapped her. Hermental picture of them was very vivid.
"If I ever saw them again I would know them," she told herself.
At that she turned over and fell asleep.
The adventures of the night for Florence were done; for Marion they werenow about to begin.
