Everett MacDonald

“ Then a sudden revelation dawned upon Lem Lutts. He felt instinctively that Sap was not dead, although he could not have been whiter and more inert had he been so.
To make certain Lem cautiously shrank back, and taking care not to make the slightest sound, he worked his way around to the opposite side and gained a position where he could see McGill's face. Like a shadow he stepped out from behind a boulder and looked at Sap.
What he saw almost caused him to laugh outright. Sap was far from being dead. He was wholly conscious and wholly alive, but ludicrously quiet. ”

“ Miss Virginia Worth, in charge of the Chapel, was as agreeably impressed with Belle-Ann as the girl was pleased with the charming teacher. Miss Worth was a woman of thirty-seven, with an abundance of perfectly white hair and the fresh, smooth face of a girl of twenty. Upon this benign, wholesome countenance there dwelt an ever-present sympathy and love for mankind. In her gray eyes was a look of succor that beckoned suffering to her. Oddly enough, a woman of private wealth, she had made the uplift of the mountain folk her life work. ”

“ And thus he took up this three-step march, the while the ugly visage of the revenuer projected itself against the gloom, and he saw Burton's dog-grin. He saw him smear the sweat off his leering face, and fancied he heard his vaunting words of triumph to the commissioner, gloating over the killing of Lem's father, and the taking of himself.
And here, while Lem paced to and fro, he forgot all else save his thirst for revenge. And through these walls he heard dim voices from two graves in the hills urging him onward, and he invoked God to give him strength to endure. ”

“ The moment that McGill broke his gun and discovered that it had been tampered with, he would naturally replace the shells. And the instant that he replaced the shells, Buddy Lutts meant to send a rifle ball into his brain.
On the eve of leaving his sequestered haunts in the hills, none but the omniscient Providence could tell for how long, Lem Lutts was loath to turn his eyes toward the blue-grass country. So it was that he lingered, feasting his gaze upon the panoramic view that lay beneath Eagle Crown, every spur and nook and cove and gulch of which he had been familiar with all his life. ”

“ A veil of azure morning mist lingered at the apex of Henhawk's knob. A young eagle—aggressively bold in his youth—sallied forth into the mystic dawn, setting himself high on Eagle Crown rock, and surveyed the dim world with a challenge in his blinkless agate eye. The air was fragrant with the perfume of a thousand blossoms.
Splashes of crimson and gold dappled the east, and a great sun shot its lances of molten glory beyond the mountain-tops.
Before the sun showed half its russet disk the deputy sheriff sat his horse at the witch-elm block in front of the Lutts cabin, preparatory to departure. ”

“ From the first, it was this benevolent woman's smile that drew Belle-Ann to her—a look that reminded the girl keenly of Maw Lutts' perennial smile, and spread an aftermath that carried her back to days of utter happiness.
Ill things of the soul are oft concealed through the measures of a lifetime. Thus, when its tenancy is predestined,—but when a spirit is unmated to evil, its odious residue gravitates like cork to the surface and speedily floats in the eyes. ”

“ Belle-Ann sat upon the witch-elm block and strained her eager eyes upward. Aloft there on Eagle Crown she could see Lem against the moon-laved night. Now she could discern his figure full—now his upper half. Again his head only would make a blot. Moving—always moving. She divined the terrible struggle going on in his breast, in his will to renounce the hurtful creed that heredity had written in his blood, and she realized that the conflict was all for her own sake. She measured the boy's love and honor with ample adoration. ”

“ He pointed through the buff halo cast from the lantern. There against the south wall of the room some of the benches could be dimly discerned overturned,—others twisted and broken and scattered in a mass of wreckage—while one balanced perilously on the casement as though a hand had sought to take it out through the window.
"Who yo' 'low done thet?" inquired Buddy in a tremulous whisper, clinging timorously to Belle-Ann's skirts.
"I don't 'low any human bein' done hit," predicted Lem in faint undertones that faltered with a creeping, choking apprehension. ”

“ As young Sap McGill stood on a crag and watched, his eyes met a sight unlike any which the ranges of Kentucky had ever witnessed.
His old arch enemy's strength in death was a force that appalled him. It was only now that he fully realized the peculiar far-reaching power wielded by old Cap Lutts throughout his lifetime. The dead monarch had always ruled his followers through strength and love. Fear had never been a dictator. He repelled his enemies through a will and courage that never flinched, and elicited from them a meed of awesome respect. ”

“ Down where nature has unfurled a grassy, level land and men walk in the open and can see each other's faces? Down thah, Lem, where hearts beat uncontaminated beyond the maelstrom of feudal hate, and where all men are brothers—down in the land of hope—hope that makes a song of life—in the land of hope, Lem,—a cloudless, sunshiny fairy world—where dreams come true?
"You said you would love to go to Lexington to my grandfather, but you won't leave the mountains until you have killed the revenuer and Sap McGill. Is that evidence that you love me, Lem? ”

“ It seemed that the torturous days, weeks and months that he wandered through the hills furtively and alone, waiting and watching since his father's killing and since Lem and Belle-Ann had slipped away and out of his life, was time enough to make a decrepit, aged man. An insufferable loneliness had wrapped its tentacles around his being, and had, like a cruel tourniquet, crushed all the joy out of his soul. ”

“ Belle-Ann filled up the whole of Lem's wild, humble life. Without her the future held no hope. Without hope he wanted to die. His vain effort to dislodge the scourge within his soul, goaded him to maniacal thoughts.
Then, in an unlooked-for instant, an awful wrong shaped itself to a determination. He would hurl his tortured self over the cliff. He told himself that he was not fearful of the fall. In proof thereof, he rushed to the jagged brink of the ledge and looked down into hazy moonlit space and was unafraid. ”

“ Buddy had no wish for the young badger, but, boy-like, he could not resist shying a rock at it, and at least inspire the creature with some sense of respect.
With a grin, he stepped over toward a spruce log half hidden beneath the foliage of laurel and wild dewberry bushes. As he stooped down and took up a small rock, a sight met his eyes that electrified him, causing him to forget the little animal and to drop the stone as if it had been an ember. In an instant he had his rifle at readiness. The object upon which he had his eyes riveted would never have been detected by a lay mind. ”

“ She heard his inarticulate utterance, as with a fervent cry he called out to God, from his dire distraught heart.
Belle-Ann's white bosom heaved and caught a sob of salient joy as she darted up the trail toward Eagle Crown. She would fly to his side now. Lem needed her now. He needed her, who was a part of his life, there to succor him in this the blackest bereft hour of his existence. She knew that God had heard his abandoned supplications. She knew that God was reaching down to him a staff of righteous strength. ”

“ You were sent by a kind Providence to assuage my great sorrow, Belle-Ann. You see—my daughter—we wished to be certain that you inherited your mother's lovable traits. I did not wish to take a step which might, perforce, have to be retraced later; to be plain, we sought to make sure that we liked you, and I can say to-night that we do like you, Belle-Ann—we do more than that, we all love you—we do more than love you; we idolize you; we worship you; we all adore you. Will you adopt us? ”

“ Although grievously late, he had now moulded this double dream into a tangible reality; for now before him, in the center of the clearing at the frowsy, feudal base of Moon mountain, and just where the rabid waters of Hellsfork leaped like live, wild things in their down-grade race across forty-odd rugged miles of Kentucky, this grizzled hillman viewed in sober, pious exultation, the product of his log church, all but finished.
A church is an acquisition strangely alien to this mountain-piled country, where the strategy of family wars and illicit distilling is religiously pursued. ”

“ The satin lustre of her curls was moist and her bosom lifted, palpitating with the advent of the new, great joyous thing that stood upon the threshold of her life to enter and spread its felicity and untold bliss.
All oblivious, Lem was kneeling amidst this new-found grace, and the quiet of a peace that cometh only to the righteous. Belle-Ann had suffered its pangs. She had reaped its peace. She knew the pathology of the pestilent revenge-sore that blights the lives of men. And she experienced all that Lem felt. ”

“ For the first time Lem's face lost a measure of its despair. His eyes lighted up with the advent of an emollient hope, and a half-smile touched his lips.
"Come 'long, Belle-Ann," he agreed, "let's do thet." And a prayer mounted in Belle-Ann's breast as she called to Buddy to come along and bring a lantern. Then hand in hand they wound their way down the moonlit mountain-side toward the deserted church. And up from the girl's heart a spa of hope was abubble. The joy of life was again strong upon her. ”

“ He was in the act of reaching up when, at a slight sound, he turned and looked straight into the round, black end of a rifle, less than six feet from his chest!
Down at the stock was the big bull-dog face of the ghost-man, leering at him triumphantly.
The peculiar, erratic impulses of the psychological moment are ever puzzling and insoluble. Lem gazed calmly, almost unconcernedly, down upon Peter Burton. Indeed, at this instant, there was no more evidence of excitement in Lem's face and mien, than had the revenuer been a venturesome fox squirrel gamboling about. ”

“ Lem and Buddy, collecting their befuddled senses, made their way forward. The hideous mass of bones and blood and rags now lay quite still on the altar. Through a short interval the two watched it for signs of life. Presently, Lem prodded it with his rifle. It gave way, yielding and inert, and now Lem took the lantern down from the hook at the rope's end and, advancing dubiously, he held the lantern over the awful spectacle and dared a look. That look sufficed. What had once been the revenuer lay sprawled athwart the bloody cross—dead. ”

“ Her curls were shaking and trembling with the chill that swept over her body. She, Belle-Ann Benson, who could, in days gone by, have watched with interest and pleasure the killing of an enemy, and smile. But now the subtle crack of that gun-shot rived into her senses like a withering scourge. Had the bullet pierced her own vitals she could not have suffered thus. All through the after years of her life the reverberation of that sharp, little gun-noise hung about her ears, and she could never think of this scene without a shudder. ”

“ With a vicious jerk he turned the horse's head around and spurred the animal so cruelly that it reared and plunged away down the steep, rocky trail at a gallop that threatened disaster to both horse and rider. And above the jumbled clatter of the horse's shod hoofs the echoes of Orlick's wild, defeated laugh came back to Belle-Ann's ears.
She lingered a while at the horse-block, and pondered soberly upon the advisability of acquainting the old man and Lem with Orlick's visit. There could be only one consequence if she did this. ”

“ The great dining room was a spot that awed Belle-Ann with its intrinsic resplendence. The mahogany and the dazzling array of silver and mirrors and prismed chandeliers and greenery held this demure mountain girl entranced. She caught herself wondering what Lem would say, if he could look in upon her at this moment, and behold her dressed in "Blue-grass style," being entertained in this mystic realm of a grandee, the opulence of which even her own active fancy had never pictured. ”

“ She loved her straightway from the minute that she had held her small, shapely hand, and listened to the timbre of that shy, dulcet voice. She had never seen eyes tinted like these. She marvelled at her curls. Her perfect delicate, Grecian features filled Miss Worth with a lasting wonder.
Through the Reverend Peterson she heard the tragic history of the girl's comely mother, but she could not conceive a heredity sufficiently generous to give the beauty made adorably manifest in this girl of the hills. In every movement her natural artless grace was as a rhythm of poetry. ”

“ We struggled for years to reconcile her, pledging absolute forgiveness, but her blood told, Belle-Ann—the blood of her father—her high-bred spirit met our pleadings with unbroken stoic silence. She lost herself completely—the grand young man who had just been elected to the state senate of Kentucky, and who loved her, declined from that day and died a broken man. The remorse that gnawed at my heart for years, Belle-Ann, has left its scars—is a skein of secret, silent woe, untold, my dear little girl—a blight across the old man's life that no language is sufficiently adequate to reveal. ”