But Joe Ed had surprised her. Fiercely protective and loyal, he had announced that, the following night, he would stand with her under the tree in the Dabneys’ yard, and have Preacher Adkins marry them—right in front of old Lafe. Ilis child must bear his name, the boy said proudly and tenderly, and he hoped it would be a fawn-eyed little girl exactly like Florella.
All this old Preacher Adkins related to the two members of the posse, while they took turns digging a grave for Joe Ed Jennings—at the foot of the big white oak under which he was to have been married. Florella stood numbly by, watching and no longer crying, like a trapped animal at last resigned to its bitter fate.
But, regarding her, the old lay-preacher suddenly remembered a story from his school days, a myth, a legend. Walking over to the girl, he took her hand quietly and led her over to the tree, where the two pitying neighbors were just patting the last spadeful of dirt over Joe Ed’s crude grave.
“Daughter,” the old preacher said, “I’ve heard tell of queens in the old days marrvin’ a sword that belonged to some feller that’d been killt in battle. Now, Joe Ed, he’d want you should go ahead and take his name—so I’m goin’t’ make out like this-here tree is Joe Ed, him bein’ buried underneath it. I want you two men,” he faced the gravediggers solemnly, “to witness this-here marryin’—of Joe Ed Jennings and Florella Dabney.” He raised his eyes humbly. “If hit’s a wrong thing I’m doin’, punish me, Lord. If hit’s right, bless this-here ceremony!”
There in the moonlit night, the old preacher proceeded with that strange proxy wedding of a girl to a tree. The two members of the posse stood by, wide-eyed and amazed, as they heard Reverend Adkins repeat the familiar words of the marriage ceremony. Heard Florella’s sobbing replies. And then heard— was it only wind in the great tree towering above them? Or was it—? Both men later swore that what they heard sounded like a whispering voice. A man’s voice, Joe Ed’s, coming from the depths of those thick green branches. But (as Hettie remarked dryly) it had been a hysterical night, and hysteria can play weird tricks on the human senses numerous times.
“Well? That isn’t all?” I demanded as my car lurched madly into Holy Creek’s third crossing and plunged wetly out again. “What happened to the girl? With her father in prison, who looked after her while—? Was the child all right?”
“Slow down, you idiot!” Hettie snapped at me pleasantly, clinging to the car door on her side. “Yes, of course, the child was all right. A little girl. I had Welfare send a doctor out here, when we got the message that Florella was in labor. She had been living on in her father’s cabin, quite alone—for the simple reason that all her relatives and all of Joe Ed’s were afraid to come near the place!”
I frowned, puzzled. “Why?”
“Because of the tree,” Hettie said, blandly. “Word got around that it was haunted. That Joe Ed had ‘gone into that oak’ and —well, that it was alive. Sentient, that is. That it—didn’t behave like a tree any more. I must say—look out for that rock, you goose! Want to wreck this thing?—I must say some of the things that happened were—odd, to say the least!”
I slowed down obediently, picking my way over the rocky road. Anything to keep Hettie on the story that had so captured my imagination!
“What things?” I demanded. “Anybody can hear voices in the wind. Leaves rustling. Branches rubbing together.”
“But,” Hettie drawled, “just anybody can’t see a tree catch a live rabbit, or a dove that has lit on a branch of it. Just anybody can’t—”
“What?” I gaped at her. “I never heard of anything so ridiculous!” My attempted laugh sounded flat, however, even to my own ears. “How on earth could—?”
“Don’t ask me,” Hettie said cheerfully. “All I know' is, the lower branch of that big white oak kept Florella supplied with meat. Rabbits, doves, once a possum. They—they got choked, someway. Got their necks caught in the twigs. She’d find them there, all ready to be cooked and eaten. The way any good mountaineer might trap to feed his family. So she got to believing—that he caught them. Joe Ed had quite a reputation as a hunter and trapper.”
“Good Lord!” I tried to laugh again. “You’re not hinting—? The poor kid,” I broke off pityingly. “But an experience like that would naturally affect her mind. Living there all alone, too, with a baby!”
“Then,” Hettie went on pleasantly, “there was the fall day,
real cold, when a neighbor woman dropped in. Nosy old sister Just wanted to say something spiteful to Florella about the baby. When she was leaving, though—well,” Hettie chuckled, “it seems her coat got tangled in a tree branch that dipped down over the gate. It yanked the coat right off her back, the way she told it. She lit out of there, screaming bloody-murder, and told everybody that Joe Ed took her coat for Florella! When the girl tried to return it to her, she wouldn’t touch it. Said it wasn’t her best coat, anyhow, and she wasn’t going to argue with a tree!”
“Oh no!” I shook my head, laughing—but still trying to ignore a small shiver that kept running down my spine. “These mountain people are awfully superstitious, aren’t they? Naturally, it was just the woman’s fear that made her think—”
“Maybe,” Hettie said dryly, “but it wasn’t fear that snatched my new hat off last spring, when I happened to walk under that tree. Checking up on Florella—she’s a hardship case, of course. Yessir,” she said in a queer tone. “Big limb swooped down and snatched that bonnet right off my head. I couldn’t reach it, and Florella couldn’t climb up and get it. Too soon after the baby’s arrival; poor girl was still kind of weak. But the way she giggled, and started talking to that tree like it was a person! Honestly, it made my flesh crawl, she was so matter of fact about it! ‘Joe Ed, you rascal,’ she said, ‘give Miss Hettie back her bonnet, now! I don’t need no fancy clothes. Me and the baby’s doin’ just fine.’ ” Hettie peered at me, sheepishly. “Way she said it made me feel like—like a selfish old turkey-gobbler! Besides, a hat like that was too pretty' for an old hatchet-face like me. But it did give me a turn, I’ll have to admit! When— she gulped slightly, “when I told Florella she could have the hat, it—it immediately fell out of the tree. Plop! Right smack on that girl’s head! I must say,” she added crossly, “it was very becoming. Probably the first one she ever owned, poor little thing! Lafe was a stingy- old coot; Florella’s mother never had a rag she didn’t weave herself!”
I turned the steering wheel sharply to avoid a raccoon ambling across the trail. Then I peered at Hettie.
“Go on,” I said grimly. “Tell me how the tree shed its wood in stacks, so Florella wouldn’t have to chop any!”
Hettie chuckled. “Oh, no. Mountain men take it for granted that their wives must work like mules. All they do is feed ’em, shelter ’em, and protect ’em—with an occasional pretty thrown in when they feel in a generous mood. That’s what Florella expected from her tree-husband, and that’s what she got. Though I suppose a psychologist would say her delusion gave her a sense of security' that merely made her able to fend for herself. Lots of people need a crutch for their self-confidence—if it’s only a lucky coin they carry around. Coincidence and superstition, hm?”
“Well,” my friend smiled, “I am obliged to you for the lift. We had a message that Kirby Marsh, a farmer who lives near the Dabney place, got in a fight with somebody and crawled home, pretty' banged up. His wife is bedridden, so they’ll need help if he’s seriously injured. You were a life-saver to bring me. This is the turn”; she broke off abruptly, grinning at me with a sly twinkle in her eye. “The Dabney farm is just around this bend.”
I slowed down, feeling again that cold shiver run down my spine as we rounded the curve. An old cabin of square-hewn logs perched on the mountainside a few yards above the road, with the usual well in the yard and the usual small truck-garden in back. A huge white oak towered over the gate of a sagging rail fence. Its sturdy trunk leaned a bit toward the house in a curiously protective manner, shading the worn front stoop with
its thick dark-green foliage.
I braked the car outside the gate, and Hettie grinned at my expression.
“There it is,” she announced dryly. “There’s where the girl lives who married a tree. And that’s the tree. That’s him."
I got out of the coupe and walked warily to the gate. Hettie climbed out stiffly, and called, in her pleasantly harsh voice:
“Hello? Hello the house?" in traditional mountain stvle.
There was no answer, but all at once I saw a quilt pallet spread under the oak Hettie had indicated as “lum." A fair haired baby girl was sprawled on the folded quilt, gurgling and cooing. She looked to be about two years old, with the sturdy good health of most mountain children, despite their skimpy diet and constant exposure to the elements.
I stood watching her for a moment, charmed by the picture she made. Then I frowned.
“She’s too young to be left alone,” I muttered. “Where’s her mother?”
“Oh, out picking blackberries, I guess.” Hettie shrugged. “Josie’s all right, though. Her father’s minding her,” she added with another impish grin at my expression. “Hello!” she called again. “Florella!”
At that moment a lovely slender girl came running around the house, her feet bare, her dark hair flying. There was a sprig of laurel over her ear, and blackberry' stains on her brown fingers. I stared at her, thinking how like a dryad she looked— wild, free, and happily unafraid.
“Oh! Howdy, Miss Hettie!” she greeted my friend warmly. “Come in and set. Who’s that with ye? Kinfolk?”
Hettie introduced me as a school chum, with no mention of the fact that I wrote stories of the supernatural for my bread and butter. We entered the gate, and Hettie stooped over to pat the baby, proffering a peppermint from the endless supply she always seems to carry around. I fidgeted beside her, at a loss for conversation with this pretty, normal-looking young mother who, from all Hettie had told me, was as crazy as a coot. Once, nervously, I started as a limb of the great tree under which we stood brushed my shoulder, plucking at my scarf. On impulse. I took it off and gave it to the girl, who beamed and thanked me shyly, then tied it proudly around her own neck. I caught Hettie's eye at that moment—and flushed as she grinned, winked, and glanced up at the giant tree.
Then she turned to Florella, lovelier than ever in my blue chiffon scarf—and with no more madness in her face than in mine.
“I got word that Kirby Marsh was hurt in a fight,” my friend said conversationally. “Anybody over there looking after his wife and kids? Heard the doctor came, and took Kirby to the hospital with concussion and a sprained shoulder. Must have been some fight, to have—”
Hettie broke off, noticing the girl’s sudden expression of regret beyond the politeness expected of a neighbor. Florella ducked her head suddenly, with a rueful little smile.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said simply. “He come over here to our place late last night, and went to pesterin’ me. Oh, not that Kirby ain’t a real nice feller,” she apologized for her neighbor gently, “exceptin’ when he’s likkered up. I told him to leave go o’ me,” she added with wifely dignity. “Told him Joe Ed wouldn’t like it. But he wouldn’t listen. So I run out to Joe Ed, with it a-stormin’ awful. He’d been a’bangin’ on the roof, to warn Kirby, but he likely thought ’twas only the wind.”
I gulped, racked with pity, and threw a glance at my friend.
“Then—?” Hettie prompted softly, in an odd tone. “You ran out into the yard? Kirby ran after you, and—?”
“And Joe Ed, he whanged him over the head,” the girl finished, half apologetic, half proud, as any other woman might speak of a husband who had stoutly defended her honor. “He like to busted Kirby’s skull wide open. But he hadn’t ought to ’ve tried to kiss me,” she defended primly. “Ought he, Miss Hettie? And me a married woman with a young’un!”
“No, dear,” Hettie answered, in the gentlest voice I have ever heard her use. ‘*No—Joe Ed did the right thing. I don’t think Kirby was badly injured, but somebody has to look after his folks while he’s in the hospital. Did you go over and see his wife today?”
“Yes ma’am,” the girl said quietly. “But they wouldn’t let me in. I reckon, on account they was scared. I mean, of Joe Ed. But he wouldn’t hurt nobody less’n they was botherin’ me or the baby! He’s real good-hearted.”
“Yes," my friend said softly. “I understand. Well—don’t worry about it, dear. Next time Kirby will know better! I rather imagine,” she chuckled, “that this experience will keep him sober for some time!”
The girl nodded shyly, and bent to pick up the child. But small Josie toddled away from her and ran around the great tree to where a low limb dipped almost to the ground.
“Pa!” she chirped suddenly, holding up her chubby arms to the giant oak. “Fing baby! Fing high, Pa!”
Florella laughed, shaking her head mildly and calling: “No! No, now, Joe Ed—you’re liable to drop that young’un! Don’t ye—”
But as I stared, that low limb dipped down as under unseen pressure. The child, Josie, seized it and, as I gasped at the spectacle, was tossed ten feet off the ground, as if a gust of wind had blown the branch skyward, it had scooped up the baby, swinging her high above us. Then, as gently, it let her down again, while the young mother shook her head again in laughing reproof. My scalp crawled at her matter-of-fact, unselfconscious manner.
“Joe Ed’s always a-doin’ that,” she said pleasantly. “She loves it. Why, Miss Hettic!” she broke off, pouting as I sidled pointedly back toward the gate, “I thought you-all would stay for dinner! Joe Ed caught me a rabbit, and I was just fixin' to fry it real nice and brown. Cain’t ye stay?”
But I was out the gate and climbing into my car by that time, shaking my head covertly and beckoning for flettie to come away. For some reason—which I will always firmly deny —my teeth were clicking like castanets. And I kept glancing up nervously at that tall spreading oak tree, brooding over the little mountain cabin, and the woman and child who lived there alone.
A lone—?
“Pitiful case, isn’t it?” Hettie murmured cheerfully, as she climbed into the car and waved goodbye to Florella Dabney— or “Mrs. Joe Edward Jennings,” as she was listed in the Welfare files. “I mean,” my friend expanded, “the way that poor girl lives, with her baby. From hand to mouth, and the prey of —well, men like Kirby. She’d be so lonely and frightened if it weren’t for that pathetic delusion of hers. And she’s got the child to believing it now! Guess you noticed her swinging on that tree—she called it ‘Pa!’ Stout branch, to pick up a child that heavy, wasn’t it?” She drawled carelessly. “Wind blew it, I guess—like the other night, when it whacked Kirby Marsh over the head. Awful windy up here on Old Baldv.” She peeked at me slyly, lips twitching.
I glared at her and stepped on the gas, aware of the cold perspiration that had sprung out on my forehead. Because it was not windy. It was close and very still—and beside me, Hettie was chuckling softly as I glanced back at the barren little farm. Except for one low limb of that giant oak tree—again tossing that happy child playfully into the air while its mother looked on; lifting it gently, like a man’s strong protective arms—not a leaf was stirring as far as we could see over the rugged mountainside.
Twister
BOB CLAYTON turned his head left and right to relax the tense muscles of his neck. He flexed fingers cramped from gripping the steering-wheel, glanced side-wise at his wife huddled wearily in the car seat beside him. Slowing the small coupé to a standstill, he glanced at his wrist-watch, then ahead at the darkening ribbon of highway.
"I knew we should have stopped at that last town,” he growled irritably. “What was it—Saltersburg? Now it’s beginning to drizzle, the windshield wiper has quit on us, and we have only one headlight— miles from nowhere! Well, this honeymoon jaunt was your idea, not mine!”
Switching on the overhead light, he pored over the rumpled road map, scowling. Beside him, his young bride stretched
, yawned, and ran a caressing hand over the Scotty in her lap. Being a wise wife, she risked no reply but continued to gaze sleepily at the fireflies lighting the dark fields on either side of the highway.
Clayton frowned as he squinted at the marked route. Tossing the map aside, he trod viciously on the starter and drove on again with a jerk. Myra Clayton, tactfully, pretended not to hear his muttered profanity.
"Thirty miles at least to Evansboro, the next town,” her husband lashed out disgustedly. "Myra—darling, I hate the
thought of spending our wedding night in a cheap tourist camp.” His frown cleared slightly, and he smiled at his wife, reached over to pat the terrier in her lap. "Oh, well,” he shrugged, "you take a nap, dear, and I'll just keep driving until we reach a decent hotel.”
He sat back with a yawn, eyes fixed on the highway ahead. At the pressure of his foot the coupé leaped forward, spearing the gathering dusk with its single headlight. Myra snuggled closer and rested her head on a tweed shoulder. Humming a popular song in duet, they drove on as night settled softly over the countryside.
The highway was singularly deserted. There was no sound except the purr of the motor and the whisper of tires on wet cement. A fine rain misted the windshield. Vapor rose from the hot pavement, giving everything an eery unreal quality. Bullfrogs croaked dismally from the roadside ditches as though warning them of a nameless peril that followed close behind or lurked just around the next curve. Myra Clayton closed her eyes...
Half in Shadow Page 20
