xt708k74ts3h https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt708k74ts3h/data/mets.xml MacDonald, Everett. 1916  books b92-232-31280811 English G.W. Dillingham Co., : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Oberhardt, William. Red debt  : echoes from Kentucky / by Everett MacDonald ; illustrations from original drawings of William Oberhardt. text Red debt  : echoes from Kentucky / by Everett MacDonald ; illustrations from original drawings of William Oberhardt. 1916 2002 true xt708k74ts3h section xt708k74ts3h 












THE RED DEBT

 























    BY THE SAME AUTHOR


GOLIATH 'S BRIDE

THE APOSTLE ON EHELLSFORK

A GHOST' S VENGEANCE

THE REDEMPTION COIF ZACK MCCOY

MR, HARTEM' S SPECULATION

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WeU-  duse meoea      y        for aranda by the Nr1i", 11,-," t

     (. . . use me as best you can for a grandfather"

 




HE RED DEBT


        ECHQOE
        FROM
        KENTUCKY


        BY
 Everett MacDonald



ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS
            or
     WILLIAM OBERHARDT













       G. W. )ILLI(GHAM      CO.
               ..EW  YORK

 






The Red Debt



     COPYRIGHT, 1916,
           BY
G. W. DILLINGHIAM COMPANr



                 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED









                 PUBLISHED APRIL, 1916









         PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
INOTYPE COMPOSITION, ELECTROTYPES, PRESSWORK AND BINDING
                          B'l
            The .J. J. Little & Thes Company
                425-4.35 ItLst 241th Street
                    New 1'ro-k City
                        N. Y.

 



















WITH U:N1TTE;RABLE LOVE I DEDICATE
       THIS VOLUME TO

       MV totHer

              THE A UTHOR

 This page in the original text is blank.

 





CONTENTS



  CTUP&SI
     I A Mighty Man         .
     II Belle-Ann Benson
   III The Traitor . . . . . .
   IV  An Ultimatum.
   V  Orlick's money Spurned
   VI Upon the Altar
   VII Dedicated with his Blood
   VIII "Lessen he kilhl the Revenuer"
   IX  Orlick works Evril  .
   X  In Prison. . . .
   XI A Friend in Need   . . .
   XII The Stigma.
 XIII  Rubric Drops
 XIV  "The onlyest I.utts"
 XV  Buddy forces an Issue
 XVI The Murder Pa brtners
 XVII Circuit Court
 XVIII The Graveyard. Massacre
 XIX   Hatfield overtakes the Traitor
 XX   In the Hands of the Enemy
 XXI " Draw-now--Coward!"
 XXII The Mission School .
XXIII Belle-Ann visits Lexington
XXIV   The Guest of a, Grandee
XXV   Know Ye the Truth    .
XXVI Belle-Ann has a Vision . .
                     vPU



          12
 .  .   12
         20
       32
         44
. .  .   55
   .     66
 .  .   73
         83
   ..   93
. .  .  106
        115
 . . 124
. . . 132

. ., 151
. . . 160
. . . 168
. . . 176
        184
        191
   . l 198
, . . 206
. . . 213
. . . 224
,   . X 230

 


Viii              CONTENTS
   OHAP"R                                   PAGN
   XXVII A Grandfather  .  . .  .  . . .   . 236
 XXYIII A Confession   . .  . .  .  .  . . 241
 XXIX   The Red Debt . .   . .  .  . .  . 247
   XXX   The Shooting of Peter Burton       254
   XXXI In which Slab prophesies......       260
   XXXII The Near Assassin . .  .  . .  .  . 266
 XXXIII Belle-Ann comes back.  .  . .  . . 272
 XXXIT The Reunion ......                .277
 XXXV   The Downfall of Sap McGill..  . . 282
 XXXVI Belle-Ann's Recanted Creed.  .  . . 288
 XXXVII The Ghost-Man . .    .  . .  .  . . 296
 XXXVIII   The Haunted Church . .  . .  .  . 305
 XXXIX   The Flight .  . . .   . .  .  . . 314
     XL  His Rock of Ages.  . .  . .   . . 321
     XLI In which Providence takes a Hand . . 329

 








          LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
                                              so PACE
                                              PRONG]
   . . use me as best you can for a grandfather'"
   (See page 243). . . . . . .Frontispiece

"Yo' know where they be ". . . . . . . . 51

"He kilt my maw-he ded-an' he kilt my pap" . . 97

"Who air th' head o' th' people-who air Cap'in heah
  in Moon" .. . . . . . . . . . . 144

"Hit air God's buryin' now" . . . . . . . 330

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       THE READ DEBT


                   CHAPTER I

                A MIGHTY MAN

N       r o imagery can adequately picture the profoimd
        grandeur and wide wild beauty of these Ken-
        tucky highlands. At the age when its purity
        was whitest, a great moon hung midway be.
tween Southpaw peak and Moon mountain, Its divine
splendor, unalloyed with any tithe of partisanship,
laved with a mystic luster these two primeval ranges
that had scowled Impenitently at each other, behind
their mask of flowers and tinseled verdure, across the
lethal gulch separating them, for fifty blood-touched,
feudal years.
  This wondrous effulgence purged every exposed
crevice, naked rock and open cove with its chastity.
On the ground underneathi the patch-quilt of virgin
petals and emerald leafage, it peopled a theatre of tnmi-
matedl pictures. And the coppice pooled the shad-
ows, creating a hippodron e of transitory carlcatui'es,
fanciful, grotesque and fearful. Each sullen mos-X
hooded boulder flung its distorted, exaggerated image
down and fixed a creeping mummy hard by.
  Still another white beacon leaned over the hills
Where, like a stellar flambeau, the lcad-star frejibled
                         1

 

The Red Debt



and sputtered, kindled just on the apex of Henhawk's
knob. The chasm that furrowed between and, topo-
graphically, held these two warring communities apart,
sunk its rock-lined bed sheer two hundred feet below.
Through this sinuous adamantine artery the head wa-
ters of Hellsfork dashed in rampant flight, beating
themselves into a madness against a troup of gigantic,
orange-tinctured boulders polished glassy by the tor-
rents Nature had unloosed at the beginning of time.
  The onrushing wavelets leaped like furious crea-
tures at these menacing things which evermore preyed
upon their foaming, impotent wrath; shaping crystal
goblets that bubbled over and burst, and flung show-
ers of magical frothy flowers aloft. From across the
silvery expanse of spectral mist that overhung the
mountains, near and afar, a hundred voices of the wil-
derness night were calling.
  That this barnacle of blood-lust should leech itself
upon the fair face of a modern civilization; that in.
this nineteen hundred and twelve epoch of obeisant
civism, hedged about with emollient Christian cul-
ture-such a vast stratum of malignant strife should
coil here, hidden amidst a congress of Nature's sub-
lime artistry, is an irony at once awesome and hope-
lessly insoluble. Nevertheless, immured upon natural
ramifications on the shoulder of Moon mountain, old
Cap Lutts, a strategist and mountain despot of kingly
renown, dominated as the head of an irnplacable dy-
nasty that boded ill to inimical invaders; be it agents
of the government or spies of the shaggy Southpaw
clan where Sap McGill, who had stepped into his fa-
ther's war shocs at the end of their last fatal encounter



2

 

A Alighty Man



with Cap Lutts, now marshalled his horde of bush-
whackers, bent upon the speedy annihilation of the
Lutts folk, kith and kin.
  Supported on a platform-like plot projecting from
the hip of Mcoon mountain, the domicile of old Lutts
stood out in the moonlight, traced in silver brocade
against a somber ribbon of scrub timber that girded
the waist of the mountain.
  From the Lutts abode the eye travele(1 for railes
along the gorge to the right. To the left the chasm
cut deeper into the hills, until it ended in the valley
where Boon Creek and Hellsfork intersected; where
the paw--paws and the ferns, the weeping willows and
the familiar, unnamed flHwers were luxuriant.
  Straight ahead, traversing the dry bed of a blind
gulch, a train of pigmy peaks, left dun and nakel by
a river (lead a thousand years, rose up and bared their
serried spurs like hound's teeth.
  On the opposite side of Hellsfork, lifted the stupen-
d(us Southpaw range-the stronghold of the enemvy-
rearing its savage peaks higher and higher, piling
upward and onr ard until they pierced the myl)riad
stars; then tumbled downward into the russet realms
of lilac mist.
  Beyond the Lutts cabin and towering above It, a
single m-nonster boulder jutted outward from the per-
pendicular wall of granite and hung perilously over
sheer space. Thils freakish rock, known as Eagle
rovown, looked like a ragged punctuation pause in a
folk-lore story; a relic tossed on high by some leg-
endary, boastful giant.
  The wonder was how Cap Lutts gained its fo.-bid-



3

 

The Red Debt



ding lofty piatforrn, for surely there was no visible
means of ascent. Howlrbeit, Eagle Crown had been
the old man's retreat for sixty-odd years. This im-
perishable shelf of granite offered him sanctuary when
travail and sorrow, that weighted his life, pressed hard
upon him, There he ha- spent his moodly hours since
boyhood, There his father and his great-grandfather
had gone to be allone. And there to-night, high up
and alone, his majestic form was silhouetted plainly
against the sky.
  A mighty man, this Lutts. At seventy-six he stood
six feet seven inches-straight as an arrow; a seasoned
ball-bearing pyramid of dig bones, mounted with iron-
fibered muscles; and a drop of chilled steel for a fight-
ing heart. In the premises of peace, this same heart
swelled up to proportions of compassion and generosity
that named him father of all the community north
of Hellsfork-a man whoi never failed his people; one
to whom they hurried with their woes when they
needed material help, succor, sympathy and pro-
tection.
  From this height, tie old man fondly turned his
eyes downward toward the clearing that now held his
sacred treasurea log church. There, high up toward
heaven, in the profundity of his loneness, only God
knew this somber, silent man's thought-this feud-
hunted, law-hounded manr whose soul brimmed with his
own religion; whose being was wrapped about with
that which he took for the right; whose heart spurned
all that he thought wrong.
  His so-called bandit-spirit was insulated with the
convictions of his own peculiar faith. His every utter-



4

 

                 A Mighty Man                  5

ance and deed were tempered with the tenets of a
unique creed handed down by his mountain fore-
fathers. In his heart there :rnurmured a runic Cadence,
the language of which was only interpreted by the
omrnpotert, all-merciful Over-soul.
  Why the menacing hand of an outer world was lifted
against him was a problem he had long since d 
spaired of solving. Fondlyr now he gazed down to-
ward the spot where the new cedar clapboards of the
mieeting-house shimmered Like a disk of true gold be-
neath the moon's whiteness; beckoning to him with
an insistence that stirred his stoic heart to its depths.
  A tbender look softened the old man's opaque masi-
like features, as fumbling in his shirt-pocket and
ringing forth a worn tintype picture of a woman,
swathed in buckskin, he held it to the moon's rays
and for a full minute peered tenderly at the kindly
pictured eyes and smiling lips. Then, clasping tlh.e
tintype reverently between his two mighty hands, he
learled against the natural buttress at his back, and
his great head, crowned with its hoary white mane, wfz
bowed down.
  "To-morry-to-morry," he whispered, and he knew
that the picture smiled forgivingly and happily back
to him.
  With the proceeds of moonshine whiskey, backed by
the brawn of heredity and a righteous purpose, old Cap
Lutts had at last realized ;he dream of two lives--
his own and that of his dead wife, Maw Lutts. AI.-
though grievously late, he had now moulded this dotl-
ble dream into a tangible reality; for now before himn,
in the center of the clearing at the frowsy, feudal base

 
The Red Debt



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 Ken-
tucky, this grizzled hill-man 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. Never-
theless, he and Maw Lutts had dreamed in unison for
years and had longed for the cul-mination of this ex-
travagant, divine purpose.
  Formerly, it had appeared to him that the propitious
hour in their furtive existence had not arrived, al-
though daily he had clearly foreseen it in the rising
sun of the morrow. Always with the firmn intention
to do, he had added postponement to delay, and an-
other broken promise on the creased brow of Maw
Lutts and another prayer in her sorrowing heart.
  However, the belated church was finally upon the
perilous premises. Then with the poignant achings
that many desirable citizens had felt before him, the
old man had gone to the orchard like a penitent truce-
breaker, where on his knees in supplicant whispers he
had unfolded his tardy atonement anid laid it like a
tarnished sceptre at the woman's mute, unseeing
grave-sicde.
  Since the majority of native adults were babies, the
magic name of Cap Lutts was mouthed in every cabin
on the border range. He held the novel status where
popularity was abreast with notoriety. Lorng since
the populace had heard of his intention to build a



6

 

A. Mio'htv Alan



ch urch. Looking across the epitome of delay, they told
themselves that this was the first pledge the old man
had ever made, which he had not kept, so now the re-
deeming news of Cap Liutts' finished meeting-house
and the day of dedication had penetrated the remotest
habitants of the mountains. This intelligence had (gone
hither to friend and enemy, pious and wicked alike,
with the same mysterious agency and puzzling rapid-
ity that characterizes w inged warnings of the on-
coining revenuer.
  E]very man and woman. in the district, big enough
to pull a trigger, knew that he held. a certain latent
stock in this meeting-house. It came like an unknown
heritage suddenly delivered. While some would, sur-
reptitiously, have exchanged their interest for a ni!us-
tard plaster, they knew [hat it was not negotiable.
Thev lied aloud, but in their hearts they knew that
sooner ot later they would follow that magnetic spark
Luttsward. They knew that they would either cross
the hypnotic threshold of [hat sanctuary into the halo
of sacred enlightenment, or halt without in the dark-
ness of superstition and feudal malice and spend their
ammunition to help crush it.
  There was no intermedialte platform. There was no
neutral grand-stand wherein the indifferent could take
refuge. The populace stood either for or against. Even
the lethargic, voteless clay-eaters sat up and took no-
tice like a nest of snakes in the sunshine. The rela-
tives and friendly factions representing the prospective
congregation, did homage to Cap Lutts and clamored
to make the church a success. The enemy over in
Southpaw had already advanced the prophecy that



7

 
The Red Debt



they would take the meeting-house. But the flapping
of feudal wings did not perturb this veteran hawk of
the hills. His one apprehension was of the common
enemy, the "revenuer."
  There was now but one day between the new church
and its dedication. In secret service circles, clown in
Frankfort, it had long been mooted that the pet aim
of Peter H. Burton was to capture 01(1 Cap Lutts.
  Burton had, during his service, previously (captured
many members of the Lutts faction. The commission-
ers were ready enough to bind them over, but trials
never carried a conviction. Burton had even juggled
cases, alternately, on venue writs, between the six
Federal Courts in the Eastern District, but the Lutts
blood invariably cropped up, stealthful and rich in
sympathy, in the precincts of the petit jury room.
Acquittal followed acquittal.
  But now Burton, feeling himself close upon the heels
of the King of M'oonshiners, altered his procedure and,
armed with a premature change of venue to Frank-
fort, he hunted Lutts with a renewed zeal, keen and
pleasurable.
  Indeed, the younger attaches of the office regarded
Cap Lutts as an historic myth. In jest, knowing Bur-
ton's affinity for wildcat skins, they hinted that the
Lutts in question was merely a wraith-pilot pointing
toward new skins-a. favorite platitude upon which to
stage another hunting vacation. But to Chief Bur-
ton, the subject of this jest was far removed from jok-
ing premises; mainly for the adequate reason that he
himself, like many of his predecessors, had eyed old



8

 

A Mighty AMan



Cap Lutts more than oi:ce. His corporeal being had
felt Lutts' lead.
  Although the astute Burton had toiled a part of each
season for eleven consecutive years on the border trail
of this subtle law-breaker-, Lutts had as yet never seen
the county calaboose, or the barriers of a blue-grrass
jail. Burton had surpri,.ed him time and again, but
inventory of these encounters always told the same
trite story.-the moonshuiner had simply melted intf
absence.
  After the smoke of scine of these sorties, Burton
haed either limped or loped away with hopes moint-
ing over a trail of blood. But these red splotches never
led to the man. This feud leader and distilling chief-
tain of the range still reigned and the stereotyped
report to headquarters was simply dated and signed
with open blanks, a form to apprise headquarters that
the officer was still alive.
  TUnder pressure the coi nty authorities periodically
sought old Lutts. The times when they did find Lim,
they merely flirted nutually with the faction and sub-
sided harmlessly.
  With the completion of the meeting-house, Cap
Lutts had attained his goal; nor had hie suffered the
nei-hboring denizens of tire foothills to raise an a-xte,
or donate a single clapbcard toward the erection of
this infantile sanctuary. It was an enshrined mo1nu-
ment to Maw Lutts. It was a mural hanginig against
Moon inountain, the place of her birth and the scene, of
her death. It was her own cherished endowment to
t1he rifle-toting, tobacco-swallowing, snuff-chewing con--
munity. It was Maw Lutts's and his individual, hDly



9

 

10The Red Debt



triumph. All Cap Lutts expected of the people was, he
told them:
   "T' cum when th' ridin' pahson rid up t' ded'cate th'
gawspel-house; an' tote thar sins t' th' altar, an' do-
nate 'em at th' cross t' be wyshed 'way with th' blood
uv Calv'ry-an' keep on a comin' thet they mought
be clean an' onspotted an'-Gawd an' my gun'll damn
ary hill-billy what diarst lift a han' to hendJer."
  The church represented months of hard toil, in-
terrupted only when Cap Lutts fled up to the rock-
ribbed pockets of the mountain or down into some
untrodden ravine t o escape Burton, the revenuer.
Even in such intervals, the old man had sallied out into
the night like the crag-panther, when the noon had
turned white; and climbed high, with rifle ready and
the hollow-flanked hound at his heels, to visit the clear-
ing and gloat in solitude beneath the trembling stars
over the progress o his sacred enterprise.
  The church itself stood on "squatted" soil. Crowned
with rhododendrons and laurel blossoms, it reared its
exotic head in defiant challenge to Satan, like a single
star upon the horizon of feudal gloom.
  The level space had cost Lutts nothing but labor.
The logs had cost him nothing but work. With his
own hands and crude appliances of the back forests he
had split, shaperi and trimmed eleven thousand cedar
clapboards; but when it came to interior finish he
was extravagant and fastidious.
  The white-pine tongue-and-grooved boards that he
used to make the platform and the altar, the window
and door plates; and the wide, smooth planks turned
into benches, all represented cash-and cash was a



i0

 

A _,Mighty -Man



rarity in the sterile Moon mountain district. And,
too, the new gold-hued bell, which now nestled in its
cotlike belfry, about to utter its virgin exhortation
across those Godless hills, cost money.
  Cap Lutts had paid this money ungrudgingly, for
it was his own. Had be not, together with his son
Lem, and Slab, the negro, and the two red steers,
plowed the slanting plot that hung on the hi: of
the mountain and sown the grain, and tilled it, and
reaped it, and carried it to the hidden still, where
he had brewed it into money
  It was Lutts's own scant, hard-earned dollars that
had bought the boards, the nails, and the bell.
  True, it was not a regular church bell; but it was
the largest farm bell he could procure and it had
taken the steers five hot days to go to Flat Gap Junc-
tion and haul back the bell, and the nails, and the
polished boards and glass.



11

 







CHAPTER II



             BELLE-ANN BENSON

B     ENEATH Eagle Crown the four-room cabin
       reposed in a shelter of spruce-pine, hem-
       lock and cedar. Its plot was covered with
       countless quaint flowers and its rock-hemmed
path to the horse-block in front was lined with pink
wild roses and forge;,-me-nots. Here the creeping ivy
and honeysuckle ran wild.
  Although the mound of Maw Lutts, in the scrub
orchard behind the log barn, was green again for the
third time, her be] oved flowers had come back to
earth each year with reassuring, tender messages for
Belle-Ann Benson, who had adopted them and had
nourished and tended and cherished them with a pa-
thetic devotion.
  Belle-Ann knew their language well. And when
they died-more than at any other season-the kindly,
smiling face of old Maw Lutts followed the girl all
through the chilly fall days.
  It was Belle-Ann who had folded Maw Lutts's two
hands, one upon the other, back on that terrible day.
It was Belle-Ann whom the men found after the bat-
tle, crouching in despair over the dear, still form
lying in the yard, and crying out to God for Him to
make the mute lips speak back to her.
                        12

 


Belle-Ann Benson



  Belle-Ann had never knowni her own mother, but
she had found a mother in MANXaw Lutts. So it was
Belle-Ann who fed the martins, and encouraged the
wild birds, and the ta-me squirrels Maw Lutts had
loved.
  The Lutts family now consisted of the old man, two
hoys, the adopted girl and an ol01 iierro who had fled
fromn Lexington when a boy, in the first clays of the
Rebellion, and who subseqluently nadI found sanctuary
at the Lutts abode. He had been permitted to re-
main because no form of persuasion could induce him
to leave the premnises, once fed, and had the distinc-
tion of being the only negro on Helisfork.
  Belle-Ann was a (laupghter by proxy, since her own
mother had dlied in her b .byhood and Maw Lutts had
opened her heart an(l homne to the child. Belle-Ann
was now some months past sixteen and her unuusual
physical beauty was note(l throughout the mountain
community an(l womlere(l a.t by the few strangers who
chancel to reach the isolated cabin on Moon mountain.
  To-niigaht the girl droFped a wooden bucket and
gourd after watering the plants, and walked briskly
over the carpet of shalows, stepped out uncler the
radiant, moon and stood gazing intently up to E.tgle
Crown,, where she saw the magnified outlines of Cap
Lutts against the sky.
  Near by a huge witch-elm butt, sawed into three
steps, shaped a horse-block. Ipox the topmost step
(of the block she seated herself. Her brow puckered
-lightly and she waited with an expectant air. E7-en
the pale moonlight revealed her marked loveliness.
  Her form was tall for sixzteen, with that subtle grace



13

 

The Red Debt



wholly undefinable. Clinging about her head and
mantling her shoulders, a mass of natural curls clus-
tered in riotous abundance, shimmering like polished
ebony in the moon's rays.
  Her features were chiseled with a delicate, hellenic
touch, and sweetly oval. Her thin nose was straight
and short and small; and her red mouth told of un-
fathomable depths of enmotion. Her wide, limpid eyes
were like two blue patches of early June sky.
  Her sleeves were short of her dimpled elbows, and
her skirt reached scarce below her knees. Her grace-
ful legs were bare, but her little feet were incased in
neat, cowhide moccasins with the hair on, laced and
thonged about her round ankles.
  A great measure of the girl's physical beauty h i
been transmitted by her mother, who had been a genii.'
bue-gra3s woman, of noted beauty and lineage, and
who had in a fit of pique, married the picturesque trap-
per of the Cumberlands and Lrieed herself in her un-
loved husband's wilderness existence.
  Many pathetic tales were told of the great-hearte(I
Tom-John Benson's patient struggle to make his wife
happy; but the most beautiful woman the mountain
people had ever seen had pined away and had gone
to an early end.
  Belle-Ann's father now worked for a lumber com-
pany, down on the Big Sandy. It was only now that
he had saved sufficient money to send Belle-Ann to
the mission school at Proctor, and so fulfil his wife's
last request.
  Belle-Ann had heard the news only three hours ago.
  Jutt Orlick, returning from one of his mysterious,



14

 

                Belle-AInni Benson               15
periodical visits abroad, had stopped to say that her
father had sent word thlat he would come for her the
following week and take her to the school at Proctor.
And Orlick, whom the girl distrusted, had not departed
without the usual flattery she always half resented.
  As Belle-Ann sat on the horse-block her little heart
was prey to many emotions, and she was well-nigh
reduced to tears.
  Imnpatient to tell the tidings, she was waiting for
the boys, who had been away since early morning. and
for the old man to come down from his lofty station.
From the cabin door a v.ague, lank shape came toward
her through the shadows.
  "Yo', Slab!" she called.
  "Heah me!" responded an old treble voice from
the dappled path.
  WXhen Slab reached the horse-block, although he
said nothing to the girl, he took a posture that indi-
cated pointedly that he expected something of her;
and she slipped from the horse-block and sat down n on
the big grapevine family bench a few feet distant.
  Here a blind hound appeared and, feeling his way
slowly and uncertainly, laid his old muzzle in the
girl's lap and raised his sightless eyes to where he
knew her face must be.
  Then Slab took Belle-Ann's place on the witch-elm
block and produced his beloved instrument-a cross
between guitar and banjo, self-made of gut and a
gourd. Just as he had dDne every fair night for years,
he was ready to sing his favorite song.
  He maintained vigorously that if he sat elsewhere

 

The Red Debt



than on the horse-block the banjo fell bewitched and
refused to answer its master's fingers.
  Tentatively, he plucked the strings; then launched
abruptly into the song he had rendered for years-
a sad and stirring melody, telling the early love-story
that had been his before the days of emancipation:

     "You ask what makes this darky weep,
        Why he, like others, is not gay
      What makes the tears roll down his cheek,
        From early morn till clcse of day
      My story, darkies, you shall hear,
        For in my memory fresh it dwells,
      'Twill cause you then to drop a tear
        On the grave of my sweet Kitty Wells."

  When the notes had died away Belle-Ann spoke up:
  "Slab, ef pap er th' boys don't cum short now, I'll
blow th' horn, I reckon."
  "No-no, honey; doan yo' blow dat horn. Yo' let
dat horn blow itse'f if it's got t' blow; but doan you
blow it, honey. Yo' jist let pap be-he'll cum heah
soon. 'Sides, ain't Slab heah wif yo', honey-ain't
Slab heah"
  The old negro picked the strings with a preface to
the second verse of "Kitty Wells," his condolence be-
ing entirely lost on Belle-Ann.
  As he gathered a solemn breath to begin, the dis-
consolate girl, sitting on the vine-bench in the moon-
light, raised a protesting hand and stopped him.
  "Slab, ef I don't blow th' horn I jest got t' cry."
  Slab settled the banjo jerkily between his long, thin
legs and rolled indulgent eyes upon her.



16

 

Belle-Ann Benson



  "Now, looky heah, honey; yo' ain't gwine t' take
on so, is you Yo' oughter be tickled inter a keniption
fit, yo' ought, 'stead of actin' up. Why, honey, jist
give praise to de good Lord dat yo' at las' got de chanst!
Yo'll cum back home powerful smart an' edicated. like
my missus wus 'fore de war.
  "An' when a li'le gal gits edication, she naturally gits
purttier; an' if yo' gits purttier dan yo' is now-why,
honey, yo'll shore cum back er angel! Now, doan be
pesticatin'. Smile up, smile up! Gwine t' school ain't
gwine t' kill nobudy."
  As Slab concluded these cheering words, he poised
his banjo again and as his lips parted the girl stopped
him with a gesture.
  "Slab, air thes my heart heah-right heah" she
queried, pressing a hand upon her breast.
  "Sho', honey!" Slab assured her testily, striving to
disguise his own impatience. "Now, tell me why yo'
ax dat-jist tell Slab what fer yo' ax sich er sorry ques-
tion noways"
  "Slab, I 'low my heart '11 burst in two when I got
t' go 'way!" she returned unsteadily, her black-fringed
lids blinking bravely to keep back the mist that, would
creep across the violet of her eyes.
  Slab gazed at her speechless, and heaved a hopeless
sigh.
  Tenderly, Belle-Ann lifted the blind hound's reluc-
tant head from her lap, stepped nearer to the old negro,
and held a profound, exacting finger close to his face.
  "Slab, will yo' promise me somethin' I kin trust
yo'all, Slab, ef yo' promise ag'inst the witch. Will vo
promise Belle-Ann sornethin', Slab" urged the girl,



17

 

18               'ii;. lfed Debt
and her sweet bell-voice fell subdued and imploring.
  Slab's mouth opened slowly and he hesitated. He
would have died for Belle-Ann; but he was much
opposed to dragging in the witch, because he feared to
make his sacred witch a party to any contract that
carried the slightest chance of rupture, and thereby
hold him to eternal reprisal.
  "Will yo' promise thes, Slab" the girl urged
solemnly.
  "Air yo' sho' I kin do it, honey" he probed, loose-
lipped and with eyes that rolled wider.
  "Sho' yo' kin!"
  "'iz yo' say I kin do it, me promises," he assented
dubliously.
  "Cross yo' heart on th' witch-block!" she (lemanded.
  He solemnized the pledge with a gnarled and bony
hand, and the girl's eyes welled full and her throat
pained.
  "'Slab, yo' must promise to be good to ol' Ben heah-
feed ern an' bed em reg'lar, but don't give em no
cracklin's. An', Slab, yo' must promise to pick the
flowers every Sabbath, jest like I alers do-yo' knows
the ones well's I do-pertic'lar th' for-get-me-nots over
yon by th' grindstone. Yo' must pick 'em in th'
mornin' early, Slab-every Sabbath-an' put 'em on
MIaw Lutts's grave. Will yo' fergit"
  A deep breath relieved Slab's tenseness as he agreed
effusively.
  "Lord, goodness! Yo' jist leave it t' Slab, honey!
He do dat ebry single Sabbaf!"
  "An', Slab, when hit gits cold an' th' leaves air gone
an' th' flowers air all daid, yo' must pick th' geraniums

 

Belle-Ann Benson



outer th' boxes inside an' put 'em on Maw's grave--
an' when hit gits powerful cold an' snows hard an' th'
snow gits piled up on Maw's grave-would yo' care--
would yo' go, Slab, an'-an'-an'-push hit off--
an')"
  Her petitions thickened, tumbled together in her
aching throat, and refused to cross her trembling lips.
  She turned away quickly. At the log bench she sank
slowly down with her black head in her arm. The
heavy curls clustered around her face and caressed her
neck. She sobbed in soft, whimpering outbursts.
  The blind hound thrust his nose questioningly into
her lap, licking her free hand, and caught the tea's
from her young heart warm upon his gray face. lie
whined aloud and reached for her wet cheek.
  The old negro fumbled at random and did not speak.
  Turning, he looked upward to where Cap Lutts sat
in the flood of moonlight on the palm of rock; as silent
and motionless as the inanimate pillar of granite un-
der him. Slab's eyes wandered (lown to the trail ar.d
he spoke hastily to the distressed girl.
  "Honey, heah cum Cie boys!"



19

 






CHAPTER III



                 THE TRAITOR

B       ELLE -A:NN  jumped instantly to her feet,
       looked, brushed her eyes with her hand, and
       hastened to meet them, her curls bobbing and
       her bare legs and arms gleaming in the
moon's luster.
  Little Bud turned off toward the cabin, but Lem's
tall figure came straight ahead.
  "Lem," she cried excitedly, "I go