Chapter II

I had heard of him: a mountain buck; very big, very good-looking. He never worked except to make a little corn that he could turn into whiskey. As soon as I saw Evvie I asked her how she had happened to marry Judd.

“I was goin’ to the post-office,” she said, “with a letter to Mis’ Waters, tellin’ her to send the money an’ I’d come right on, when I met Judd an’ he walked along the road with me an’ begged me not to send the letter. He said I’d find it hard out there with strange folks who wouldn’t keer nothin’ fer me, an’ I’d better let him look after me right. I was kinder afraid to go so fur from home, an’ Judd--he talked good.”

“Where was Cleve?” I asked.

“He was over in Asheville workin’. He was goin’ to meet me an’ put me on the Knoxville train. He lost his job, goin’ to the train fer a week. I wrote to tell him I wasn’t comin’, but Judd lost the letter an’ forgot to tell me about it. Cleve got another job though. Anybody’ll give Cleve work.”

“And Judd has been as good as his talk, I suppose?”

Evvie swung her head to one side as if she forbade it to droop.

“It’ll be all right soon as we git to ourse’vs. We’re livin’ with poppie an’ mommie now, an’ they’s so many young-uns at home Judd gits pouty sometimes. I kain’t fix good things to eat where they’s so many, an’ Judd’ll leave the table when he don’t like what’s on it.”

Notwithstanding Evvie’s hopes, it was nearly a year before they got to “therse’vs.” Her parents, with a home already overflowing with small, unprofitable humanity, would have sheltered the young pair and their expected baby indefinitely and without a murmur, preferring to break their already bowed backs than breach the highland custom of welcome for all; but Judd was growing restless for his old occupation, and Evvie wanted her baby to be born in her own home.

So she said; but I knew that she was frightened, and would have chosen to stay with her mother if she could have given up the hopes she had built on getting Judd to herself.

Mrs. Kane, with her heart breaking over Evvie, took what relief she could from the exodus.

“I could stand Judd,” she told me, “ef it wasn’t fer his poutin’. The Merlins don’t pout. We git mad and blow off, and that’s all of it. Judd’ll hang on an’ pout till my bones git sore. I was gittin’ so edgy it’s jest as well they’re gone.”

I went once to see Evvie after she had moved. There was a trail down the western side of the ridge on which I lived that would bring me to Judd’s cabin at the end of four miles; and there was a wagon-road down the eastern side which would take me eleven miles around the foot of the ridge. I chose the trail and went down alone.

On the ridge top the sun had seemed to be of eternal brightness; but I descended strangely into an unlit world. The intervale below me was much narrower than the usual valley where a settlement lies; and it was almost cut in halves by a huge spur that, at its foot, was bounded on either side by a stream of water. The two streams, Nighthawk Branch and Mossy Creek, united at the toe of the spur. I took the trail up Mossy Creek, as I had been told to do, and walked along in sound of the water, but getting no glimpse of it through the smothering laurel. It was the first time that water running behind green leaves had left me untouched by a mysterious joy; the first time that I had ever thought of the laurel as sombre. Its dark radiance seemed like a challenge from Nature ready to spring and regain an inimical kingdom. I was half in sympathy with the Highlander who regarded it merely as a thing to fight or let contemptuously alone. My old admiration for the Greeks came rushing back. What a redoubtable imagination it was that, in the credulous youth and fear-time of the world, could draw all terror from the forest and people it with creatures of play and light!

The trail led me into a cove, away from the quavering incantation of the water, but the laurel went darkly with me, heavily mingled with kalmia that choked the trees and wrenched at their life with its curling arms.

“The shack’s on northy land,” Mrs. Kane had said to me, “an’ the la’r’l is so blustery it ’ud tangle a wild hog.”

I knew why the original settler had chosen such a spot, in spite of his aversion to “thicketty patches.” In the stifling coves it would take a most resolute official to find a hidden “still.” This made the place equally desirable in the eyes of the latest tenant, Judd. I had known Evvie only on sunny hilltops, and I wondered what “living under the mountain,” as the natives put it, had done to her spirit. I recalled Mrs. Kane’s remark after a first visit to Evvie. “Seemed like I had to keep wipin’ at the shadders all the time I’s there.” Evvie must be very tired, I thought, of wiping at the shadows.

The trees rose more freely and I came to a clearing. On a hill opposite me, which faced the east, was a cornfield, two or three acres in size. This, thanks to a low gap in the near-by ridge, received a few hours of morning sunlight. In the hollow below stood the shack where Evvie lived. I found her in bed with one of Judd’s sisters in sullen attendance.

“She’s in bed ’bout ever’ other day,” the sister said, “an’ Judd’s always havin’ to come over the branch fer one of us to wait on her.”

“I can git up to-morr’ sure,” said Evvie, but the faint remark only sent her attendant’s nose a little higher.

Evvie was strange to see. Her eyes, dark and burning, clung devouringly to a face that had already lost all flesh.

“Where is Judd?” I asked.

The sister was silent, but Evvie flushed and said he had gone to try to kill her a squirrel. “I ain’t eat nothin’ all day,” she said. “I been thinkin’ ’bout the devil tryin’ to ketch Amos Britton one night last week.”

I thought her delirious, but her companion gloatingly explained that the devil had indeed made an effort to capture Amos alive.

“It’s ’cause he killed Wes Baxter in a fight a year ago, an’ ain’t never said he was sorry. He went huntin’ with Jim Webster Thursday night, an’ something took after ’em, they couldn’t tell what. Jim got away an’ run home, but Amos got behind a tree to shoot it, an’ it knocked his gun down an’ run him round an’ round the tree fer hours. Then all at onct daylight was comin’ in, an’ the thing wa’n’t there. Amos says it run on two feet, near as he could make out, an’ kep’ flappin’ a tail. He’s so skeered he ain’t been out of his house sence he got home.”

“Do you reckon it ’uz the devil, Mis’ Dolly?” asked Evvie, as if sanity hung on my answer.

“Not at all, Evvie. The man was drunk probably.”

“No, he wa’n’t drunk,” interposed the sister. “It run him round an’ round the tree, an’ he could feel its breath on his neck, hot as fire.”

I moved toward the water-bucket, and courtesy demanded that she should go to the spring for fresh water. With her disappearance the room lost its spirit of combat. With swimming head and drowning struggle--how far were we from the Greeks and the bright gods of the woods?--I did what I could to reassure Evvie.

“I ain’t afeard when Judd’s here,” she said. “Judd ain’t afeard of anything. He’ll stay at home more when the baby’s here. Don’t men always think a lot o’ their babies, Mis’ Dolly?”

I lied vigorously, and Evvie was smiling when the sister-in-law returned. And she was smiling when I left, for I had promised that her mother would come next day to stay for a week.

I reached home about dark, saddled a mule and rode to the Kane farm. From there I went to see Jane Drake. Yes, Jane would take care of the Kane household--but “not more’n till Saturday ’count o’ meetin’ at Stecoa”--and let Mrs. Kane go to Evvie.

This done, I returned to nursing my canteloupe patch on the ridge, which that one year was a delicious success. But even under the spell of so rare a triumph, life was hardly tolerable on my peaks, with Evvie awaiting her fate in the shadows below. So I ordered the small telescope that I had wanted for a decade. Though treated later with superior scorn by my astronomer friends, it did serve as a transport to regions where nothing mattered. And when I resumed earthly relationships Evvie’s boy was two weeks old.

In the more remote hollows of the mountains birth goes the indifferent way of nature: gliding as the seasons for the most part, but too often ruthless, confounding as storm. Evvie, so fragile and so young, barely lived. I went once more to the shack, going down the mountain with Mrs. Kane and little Tommie, taking old Bill, the mule, to help us climb back. Mrs. Mason, senior, met us at the door. When the customary greetings were over--greetings that never, under any circumstances, are hurried in the mountains--the mother-in-law put in her very just complaint.

“Law, I’m glad ye got here! I kain’t spen’ my time waitin’ on a girl ’at won’t try to set up, an’ her baby two weeks old. Won’t eat nothin’ nuther, makes no difference what I fix. I baked her some light bread, an’ put ’lasses on it, an’ some butter I brought from home, an’ she won’t tech it. She’ll not git well till she tries to, an’ I kain’t wait round fer her to make up her mind. All my own work’s to do, an’ I got to be at it. You know how it is, Mis’ Kane. You kain’t stay here all the time no more’n I can.”

As on my first visit, I asked “Where is Judd?” and I received the same information. “He’s gone out to kill a squirrel.”

Evvie, who was lying with her eyes shut, said with startling vigor: “He’s been gone since yisterday.”

Judd’s mother looked toward the bed, and her eyes snapped. “You kain’t expect a man to lay round home ferever waitin’ fer a woman to git up. I’ve had ten young-uns an’ I never stayed in bed more’n nine days with ary one of ’em. In two weeks I was out in the crap, if it was crap-time, doin’ my part.”

There was a big crack in the cabin near Evvie’s bed. Her eyes sought the opening in a manner that told me she often found mental escape that way. It was obvious that her last hope was crushed. The baby had come, but had wrought no miracle. She knew, and all present there knew, that Judd was out on a bootlegging adventure; but it was not to be admitted in look or speech.

Evvie gazed through the crack, seeing nothing but the face of a hill that seemed about to fall on to the cabin. She stared as if her eyes would tunnel through it, and a delirious flare came over her face.

“Take that hill away, mommie,” she said, in a fret.

Mrs. Kane surprised me. “I kain’t take hit away, Evvie--but I can take you over hit,” she said, making aspirates in her clear determination.

“Can you set up on ol’ Bill? Tommie’ll ride behind you an’ hold you on. I’ll tote the baby, Mis’ Dolly’ll lead Bill, an’ we’ll get you home.”

Evvie hardly knew there was a baby, but she caught at the word home--“Oh, mommie, I can set up!”

“Set up an’ ride a mule!” cried Mrs. Mason. “An’ me here niggerin’ fer ye, an’ ye makin’ out ye couldn’t move!”

I made no protest; for I recalled an incident of the days before Evvie’s marriage. She was ill, and her mother had sent hurriedly for me. I went, accompanied by a friend from the region of grand opera and fever-thermometers, who happened to be in the highlands. She applied her thermometer and found that Evvie’s fever was running high. We fumbled about with improvised ministrations until Evvie asked for a “flitter.” Mrs. Kane was mainly worried because the child had eaten nothing since the day before, and when I saw her face light up at Evvie’s request, I hastily withdrew with my friend.

“Why did you leave?” she asked. “The child may be killed. Her mother may be ignorant enough to give her that fritter, or whatever she calls it.”

“Yes, she is going to get the flitter, and that is why I left. I had to take your disruptive civilized mind off the current. I want Evvie to live.”

The next day my friend returned to the patient, expecting, I am sure, to find a house in mourning. Evvie was sitting on the porch stringing beans. Mrs. Kane’s face was luminous.

“Evvie got better right away,” she explained, “soon as she et them three flitters I give her.”

Remembering that result, and seeing the glaze of resolution on her mother’s face, I meekly became a party to the process of getting Evvie out of the hollow. We formed under Mrs. Kane’s direction: I first, leading the mule, and Evvie in the saddle, leaning back on Tommie’s shoulder, quite safe with his strong little arms about her waist. Mrs. Kane followed, carrying the baby. And so Evvie came home.