Home from the Hill (21 page)

Theron and his father and Verne Luttrell, his tenant, stopped, panting, and turned upon each other's faces the cold, intense white light, like distilled moonlight, of the carbide lamps, giant Cyclops eyes gleaming out of the forehead of each. The light drained the faces of all color and all but the shallowest depth. They stood listening for a moment, then agreed without words which direction the sound was from and set off at a lope through the trees that danced in the bobbing lights.

This coon had made fools of them, dogs as well as men, from early evening, had led them cursing through swamps and canebrakes, then backtracked and led them through the same ones again, had crossed water so many times that the hounds were in a frenzy of confusion, then got so far ahead of them that he doubled and crossed his own scent, and would have been in the next county before the dogs came out of their maze had the wind not taken a shift. Apparently he had allowed himself to be treed at midnight for his own amusement; for the moment that Verne Luttrell had stopped chopping and stood aside to let the tree fall, the coon was sitting in the top of the tree looking like a robber trapped in the glare of searchlights, the big black spots under his eyes like a robber caught with his mask slipped down; and then, when the tree crashed and the dogs closed in for the fight, yelping and squirming, he was nowhere to be found.

Now, as they tore through a gulley and scrambled up the bank, the barking grew louder and more excited, and when they started across the moonlit clearing to the woods Verne Luttrell commenced calling, “Hold im, Prince. Hold im, Queen. Hold im, Champ.” And the hounds reached such a pitch that their barks became whines of helpless excitement.

It was a dead slippery-elm and one layer of dogs was straining up the trunk, pawing and leaping, while another layer climbed up their backs, a pushing, squirming, howling double layer of dogs. When Verne Luttrell approached they fell back, though reluctantly, and made a circle at a little distance from the tree trunk, all a-tremble and whimpering pitifully with excitement and unable to hold their ground. Verne Luttrell fell on his knees and examined the tree bole. “Hit's holler,” he said. “He's up inside. We'll smoke im out.”

Theron brought an armload of trash. Verne Luttrell said, “You'll have to git more'n that. We'll have to fill this ole tree with smoke enough to stay while we chop her down. Else that old coon's liable to come out and git a breath of fresh air an duck back in again.”

The fire was slow to take; there was no draw and no smoke came out at the top. The Captain said, “My! He
is
fat, ain't he?”

At the first stroke of the axe the dogs began to hop up and down in place like dancers in a ring. Then, as Verne Luttrell rested between strokes, Theron heard, above the clamor of the dogs, the deep sound of claws against wood as the coon began to move. It was a tight squeeze and at one point the clawing became desperate. Then the old brown and white head with the glittering, intelligent eyes peering over the black domino came slowly over the edge of the tree trunk into the beam of light, and the fat, lazy-looking body followed.

The dogs were old, well-trained, and knew the sound of the final axe stroke on a hollow tree. They watched, almost silent now in strained expectancy, and those in the way of the fall moved aside exactly enough while the others closed ranks and narrowed their ring as Verne Luttrell stepped back.

The tree fell with a dry, splintery crash. There was a spray of dirt exploded from the ground, the rip and crack of dead branches shattering, a howl from the dogs. Then, in a sudden hush, a readjustment of carbide lamps revealed nine eager but wary hounds and an unperturbed, ready, fat old coon who stood on his hind legs slowly circling, his front paws cocked like a boxer's, revolving on his tail inside the flexible, undulating, spotted dog-ring which surged cautiously in as his back was turned and bulged swiftly out again as his front came round.

“Git im, dawg!” said Verne Luttrell.

The one called Queen, acknowledged the leader, went in to the chorus of the others. There was a blur of spots and stripes, a sudden puff of fur loosened upon the air, a yelp, and Queen, with one long ear slit through and streaming blood, howled ignominiously out of the ring.

At the smell of blood the pack closed in. It became a snarling, yelping, spotted pinwheel, swelling and contracting, until suddenly it slowed, came into focus, and there in the center of things, in the circle of light, lay the one called Champ, his throat slit wide, kicking feebly while the last of his dark blood flowed upon the ground. Meanwhile the coon, with no more thought of him, had resumed that slow circle, only spiraling slightly now to move the ring away from this obstacle to his defence.

“Git im, dawg!” said Verne Luttrell, whose pup Champ had been, in a tone from which the sport was gone.

The circle closed again, and again the coon had the best of it. At last Verne Luttrell raised his voice above the din and called, “Hold, dawg! Steady! Steady!” Which did no good at all. The din continued, the struggle spun like a top, slowing occasionally to reveal the coon still in that slow, steady, unhurried circling, as though he had been doing just that all along and never been involved in the ruckus. Another hound, one of the Captain's, was bleeding now.

Verne Luttrell came and took the .22 from Theron. But Captain Wade stopped him, saying, “Let's let him go.”

“Let im go?” said Verne. “Let im go! Hell, he don't want to go nowhere. Let im go! That was my hound he killed, not one of yourn. And he was my best one, too.”

“Well, I'll give you one of mine. For a wedding present,” said the Captain.

And even in that cold light, Theron saw, or rather remembered later, that Verne Luttrell colored at this allusion to his marriage. “I don't want one of yourn. Which one?”

“Whichever you say,” said the Captain. “But let the coon go. He has outsmarted us all night and he has outfought us. Call off the dogs—or rather, beat them off—while we still have some of them left. I got lots of dogs, but not many coons like that to run them on.”

At the back of Verne's house the men drank in turn from a gourd dipper and washed in the same water with a slab of rancid lye soap, then dried on the faded floursack towel. The thick curly smoke of a kindling fire rose from the chimney, and as Verne Luttrell, the last to wash, was flinging out the dirty water, a sleepy-faced young woman, wearing only a cotton slip, barefooted and uncombed, appeared around the smokehouse carrying a scant load of stovewood which she rested upon her swollen belly. Then Theron understood Verne's embarrassment when congratulated upon his recent marriage.

This house had been found for him just two weeks before when Verne, son of a Hunnicutt tenant (his bride the daughter of another) had told the Captain of his sudden need for a home of his own. Everything in it—or perhaps it was the everything that was not—bespoke the haste with which the Luttrell household had been established, from the bride's dowry of faded and ill-fitting window curtains and mismatched crockery and the six quart mason jars of her mama's canned pears on the shelf above the sink, to the new husband's patrimony of a ludicrously domestic-looking mail-order padded armchair. The furnishings had the look of having been herded together at the point of a shotgun. There were signs of one of those meagre country bridal showers, and country honesty had lavished upon the bride the things she showed evident need for, with the result that the kitchen towels were actually a dozen new baby-diapers.

The hunters sat in the kitchen without speaking while griddlecakes sputtered on the stovelids and the coffeepot boiled over to nobody's concern. Opal was readying herself. Nothing was said until the men were at the table, when, as she poured the thick coffee, Opal, now dressed and rather pretty though overpainted, said, “You coulda told me you was going.”

Verne Luttrell said nothing. He finished spreading oleo on his griddlecakes, ran his coffeecup over with sugar, and swilled loudly from the saucer. There was a quarrel between them and, thought Theron, they lacked the breeding to conceal it before strangers. He could guess what the quarrel was. There was a whine in her voice which betokened a consciousness of guilt, a whimper of entreaty and a look in her eyes like that of a punished dog. No doubt what kind of marriage Verne Luttrell's had been, and no doubt it chafed him still, and apparently he was still taking it out on her.

“Bring me the coffeepot,” said Verne in the tone in which he commanded his dogs.

Shamed before strangers, she flared up. “Talk like that, mister, and you can jist git it fer yourself.” She gave as saucy a shake to her hips as her big belly would allow and a toss of her curls that seemed meant to show off those charms which others might yet appreciate if he did not.

His domination in his new household had been challenged, and in front of male guests. “Do as I tell you, Opal,” he said.

His tone was such as to put a stop to her sauciness. “Now, Verne,” she whined, “you stop picking on me. Ain't you as much to blame for things as me?”

And then the aspect of his marriage that was really troubling Verne Luttrell came out. “Am I?” he said.

It was the first time he had voiced that particular suspicion. This was apparent from the deliberate way he brought it out, and from her reaction. She had a subtle instinct: if she felt outraged or hurt she did not show it; instead she seized upon his doubt as a weapon. She gave him a slow, teasing, sidelong look, and said, “Don't you jist wish you knew?”

The mistake she made was in not realizing that though this was the first time he had spoken it, it was far from the first time in these past few weeks that this suspicion had crossed his mind. It had beaten a regular path across it, as she realized just one instant after she had spoken. In his eyes she saw leap up the fire on which she had thrown fuel, and in an impulse of terror she shrank back, shrank towards the nearest protection—which in another instant, with a smile of reassurance and daring, she realized, was the most providential she could have found: his boss. She darted behind the Captain's chair like a child dodging behind a parent from a brother's blow, and like a child, smiled a dare, a taunt from her place of protection.

The Captain sat for a moment looking intently at his plate, like Theron himself waiting embarrassedly for this scene to terminate, uncomfortable in the position she had placed him in. Suddenly he got to his feet, almost upsetting the young woman, and stepped aside. He cast a look of annoyance at her, and as she impulsively darted behind him to hide from Verne again, shot her a look more forbidding than the one which had first frightened her in her husband's eyes. She froze. Verne Luttrell ceased to be an actor in his own drama, and became a spectator to the one between his wife and his guest. All became aware of him when he sat down noisily. He stared. Then he became aware of his plate and stared at that. He picked up his fork and mechanically conveyed to his mouth the last large bite of griddlecakes, chewed, ran his tongue around the inside of his lips, raised his coffeecup to his mouth and found it empty and seemed to recall then that the start of all this had been his demand to be served more coffee. His wife meanwhile had ventured on her own away from her unwilling protector, and, emboldened by what she understood to be his cowardice, stood gazing down upon her husband with a look of contempt. Verne pushed back his chair, rose, and passing her on his way to the range, knocked his wife sprawling on the floor with the back of his hand, and, returning, skirted her with a minimum of extra steps where she lay stunned, slowly rubbing her bruised and reddened cheek.

Verne filled his coffeecup and looked at the Captain as though daring him to interfere. And though it was what any sane man would have done, and though Theron himself could not have said what else he expected of him, his father's prudence and caution, as signified in his reaching for the pot and pouring himself a cup of coffee with never a glance at the woman on the floor, caused Theron one of the first moments of disappointment in him he had ever felt.

29

Life! It was treacherous, just as older people were always saying it was. One day it was so pleasant. Full of parties and picnics and all that a girl could want: crowds of abject, adoring boys, and a papa so remote it was as if her world contained none to be bothered with at all. Then: denial. Frustration. Dismay.

Yet, though it embarrassed her to have to admit it while at the same moment enjoying these more sober emotions, this sudden opposition of her father's did not displease Libby. She had fought. She had threatened what she would do if he went downstairs and did what he said he would. But even in the heat of the battle she had realized how dull it had become always to have your own way in everything. She had had whatever she wanted; she discovered that what she had really wanted was something to want. A little frustration was a delightful new toy. Of course she did not mean to
be
frustrated. But what piquancy it added to life to be opposed once and then to go ahead in exciting secrecy and be in love (this time
really)
with a boy of whom her father disapproved. It was the classic situation, and she felt a thrill of kinship with all the storied lovers.

But, though she felt that way, and though she had girl friends with whom she occasionally spent the night, and they, delighted to be a party to the cause of a clandestine romance thwarted by an unsympathetic papa, might think that they were the happiest lovers in the world, Theron took no pleasure in it, spoiled her pleasure in it.

They were unable to appear in public places together or go on group outings, were always alone together, and quickly dropped their social selves and came to know one another's real self. She saw that even their good times together pressed like a bandage upon the unhealed wound to his pride. How could he find romance in the secrecy of an affair that was so because he had been disapproved of? He was hurt, and she was shamed. She came to know his rigid, romantic, boyish code of honor—came to love him for it. How could she have taken pleasure in something which not only questioned that honor that he so stiffly prized, but utterly denied it? To her too, then, this deceitfulness began to cast over their relation a shadow of seeming guilt that was not romantic, but ugly and oppressive. A few weeks' practice in the shifts and dodges of secrecy—often humiliating, often downright intolerable in their complicated pettiness, and now insulting to her feelings for her lover and, she was sure, to the feelings he had for her—and what had begun as interest quickened by opposition deepened into affection tried by common troubles. What had begun as an expression of willfulness led to a glad surrender of will. She discovered the pleasure of giving in. She wanted to give in to him, and it never occurred to him that she should not. He was thoughtful and tender, he was chivalrous, protective, kind, but he was the man, and there was never any question who was to make their decisions. It would have surprised her father most unpleasantly, for he ascribed it to his own sudden belated act of authority, to know just whom he had to thank for the change in his daughter from a self-willed, spoiled and stubborn girl to a quieter, sadder, serious young woman. It would have surprised him too to know whom he had to thank for his daughter's apparent resignation to his act. For she had learned from Theron that to take his side openly against her father would not do. It was a mark of that old-fashioned masculine pride, so new and so attractive to her, of some ancient code that bound men, even enemies, together, that he would allow no woman to take up his cudgels in a fight. It was another mark of the same old-fashioned ways that he could not encourage a child to take sides against a father. On matters such as these—and for this too she was learning to love him—he was stiff and solemn, even sententious. The truth was, Libby's feeling for her father was not deep. And certainly it was not deepened by Theron's generosity towards him, nor deepened by his ignorance of that generosity. What this did instead was deepen her admiration of Theron.