8. Popper Of Popskull
Rather early for him next morning, Parker was tramping the declivities and twists of a rutted, ocher road that led into the mountains. Ahead, urged by intermittent prods from a stick manipulated by his black guide, plodded an equally black mule, laden to pack-a-back capacity with luggage and a supply of provisions sufficient to last several weeks. The Gap, seething to its village limits from the excite>ment of the evening before, lay a few miles behind; their destination, an unoccupied hill cabin, several ahead.
The newest perplexity of the many that had complicated his reception at Dismal was the morning's inexplicable change in the demeanor of Cotton Eye Lee. From their first step out of the village, the negro had made plain his aversion to entering upon the expedition. His manner bore not a distantcousinly relationship to that of the day before. He was silent to taciturnity, his ill-assorted eyes shifting uneasily from road to brush, from survey of the back-track to an even closer scrutiny of the green velour shadows along the road ahead. No tinkle of coin in the pocket, no bait of improvised verbal monstrosities that must have been strange to his ears, humanized his mood.
"What do you suspect Is after us, Cotton?" Parker once demanded.
"It ain't that I'm scared none, cap'n, but I can't seem to help a omnltlous feeling that this here ain't no expedition for a thirsty nigger."
The panorama slowly unwinding diverted the color-convert. Indeed, Spring was holding a campmeeting In the Blue Ridge ! New green was the text, majestically read from the roofs of pines and chestnut-oaks, from the walls of ferns, from the anterooms of the stream which showed dimly now and then. The hymns were announced and sung In sudden bursts of clustering pink azalea, In whole gardens of white-centered iris. In the sun-touched, ghost-whlte flowers of the sour-wood tree. In the flash of a pair of cardinal birds that streaked like the spirit's cry from tree to tree - In the chats, finches, and tanagers that fluttered their throats in one universal psan. Prayer - staying, serious, the groundwork of the service - was the red clay underfoot.
Truly a soul-reaching evangelist this to whom Spencer Pope had sent him! Yesterday the hue of the ground had filled the sinner with Irritation; today, modulated by the aromatic dimness of the woods. It soothed him, seemed symbolic. He would pursue the red path, yes; but a dull red path, toned down to comparative sobriety by the temperate colors In the heart of the hills. As soon as he could locate the proper fountain he would store his cabin on the mountain rim with the liquor which hitherto had been his enemy, there to make It his friend.
Such pleasing thoughts were interrupted by the necessity of hurrying after his guide from where he had loitered at the crossing of the watercourse.
The negro stood as a bizarre forefront figure against a Japanesque background of sllmsy pines, festooned with cones. Patently, he was unconscious of the picture he made, uncaring as to the background. He was staring down at a green, freshcut branch lying In the exact center of the road.
The Intensity of his expression, his manner of rolling his eyes, the saliva that trickled, unheeded, from the corners of his mouth - all aroused curiosity.
''Never see laurel before?" asked Parker. "What's so startling about this specimen?"
The acqulsltory gleam of the day before showed in the black face.
"Specimen - specimen," he muttered.
A certain relief came to Parker that he could still tempt the guide v/Ith tidbits from his vocabulary.
"Yes," he urged. "What Is so confounding about this tenuous offshoot of the Rhododendron viaximumf
"Cap'n, this here ain't no specimen, no more than Its a maximum offshoot." Cotton Eye's voice was husky. "This here. If you-all Insist on amplification - this here Is a sign!"
"A sign - sign of what?"
"Yes, sir, plain as chalk letters on a school-board. It's a kind of prognostication that" - up and down the road he glanced before finishing In a rasped whisper - "that soothing sirup be located In the near-by, close-up proximity."
As the stranger showed only continued Inquiry, the negro Insisted.
"Soothing sirup - can't you'uns get me, noway? The sign works like this; you trapse Into the brush the direction she points; then maybe you come upon another slip of laurel and trapse the direction she points; then maybe another and another. By and by you meets a man that's got something you-uns wants and you -
"You mean -
"Popskull!"
In Parker's Interruption had been gasped more of hope and fear than the ebony informant could have been expected to understand. The single word of whispered reassurance, therefore, called forth a spasm of joy like that which Rex Currie had Interrupted the day before. Higher and higher chortled his voice, startling the birds, seeming to breeze the trees. Dimly conscious of his guide's word-laden protests, he paid no heed.
"I specimen you-all had best shut up. 'Twon't get you nothing, telling the whole world your pleasureables. Land sakes, cap'n. If you-uns don't quiet down, we'd best be throwing mud outen here! It ain't safe, I tell you, for a stranger to be projecting around a sign."
Cotton Eye glanced apprehensively up the mountain road, then: "LInky day, now we're done for! If It ben't Old Tom Metcalf himself, and looking pizener than a snake ! He's done hearn you - he's seen us at the sign!"
Three of the warning words, rather than the urgency of their tone, silenced Parker. Already he was Interested In Old Tom Metcalf.
"Howdy. Might I ask where be you-all heading?" Their discoverer put the deep-voiced question.
"You might."
Young to old, the humor, the succinctness, the curiosity were returned.
This man, Parker reminded himself, was the immediate forbear of the girl named for a mountain. He saw a supertype of mountaineer, of height and weight that spoke for great strength. Although looking the redoubtable Metcalf of his reputation, he was unpretentiously garbed in the denim overalls of the region, suspended by a single gallus; a calico shirt lay open over his hairy chest; his black slouch hat was pulled down to the line of his bushy white brows.
Across the hollow of his left arm a repeating rifle rested with a suggestion of readiness. The hand that gripped its butt was brown, knotted, powerful.
One glance at his face - tufted around the ears with thick, tawny hair - and the rest of him was taken for granted. Unusual in that it was shaved of beard or mustache, its characteristics showed boldly - blue, quizzical eyes; a straight, clear-cut nose; jaws square in their set; mouth wide and flexible, at the moment twisted in a smile somewhat grim.
"I have rented a cabin for the summer on what they call Fallaway Rim," Parker was saying. He gestured toward the perturbed black, who had retreated to the side of the grass-cropping mule, as if to a haven. "Cotton Eye Lee, here, is my guard of honor."
"Mighty dry company youVe picked, and not overburdened with honor, yon nigger. I know him - he pretended once to work on my place."
"He was picked for me," continued Parker, with a grin for the fullness of his meaning. "But he returns to the Gap as soon as he has honored and jguarded me to my destination."
"And you, stranger, what did you say your name was?"
Parker had not said and knew it, so he supplied the Information.
*Trom out North, be you?"
"Direct from Manhattan Island. I came to hunt - well, several things."
The mountaineer completed his survey of the other's person, then turned with an estimating expression toward the pack carried by the mule.
"I reckon," he returned. Pausing, he lifted his eyes to sweep the mountain range of balds and domes, knobs, and ridges. "You'll likely find hunting dangerous, unless you've done learned our game laws. I'm a hunter my own self, but no poacher."
Parker took a forward step and spoke directly: "I've never been called a poacher, either, and so far I've kept out of jail. My hunting will be confined to things I'm entitled to."
"It's better that way, Mr. Man. See to it you ain't prejudiced none In your own favor."
"I'd have to be some prejudiced," laughed Parker, "to withstand a certain local frankness which has jolted me repeatedly ever since the stage dumped me into a muddy ditch. It was your daughter, by the way who graciously dragged me out."
"Verney? She didn't mention it to home."
The curt return was accompanied by a truth-probing look from under the frowning brows.
"Our meeting was rather unconventional. Possibly she does not consider me a legitimate acquaintance, but I continue to feel very much In her debt.
You are to be congratulated, Mr. Metcalf, on having such a humane and handsome daughter."
Although Parker's speech was advised by previous experience with proud parents and spoken sincerely enough, it seemed to be unfortunate. The old man's scowl deepened and he was about to depart in displeasure. Almost did he tread upon the laurel "sign." But in time he turned.
"Verney is Verney yerabouts," he said, "and ain't pleased by common praise from strangers. You-all had best be right careful that the game you hunt wears fur, fin, or feathers. Else, you won't be safe nohow or even comfortable!"
With no ceremony of farewell, not even a backward glance, Tom Metcalf strode by the trail whence he had appeared back into the woods.
The man from "out North" felt that his number had been taken. He stood staring after the Ridger, pondering new words of warning.
Only fur, fin, and feathers was he permitted to hunt by the unwritten law of the region; otherwise he'd be penalized for poaching!
His mind was seeing the tint of copper tresses, the pure lines of a profile cameoed against plush shadows. Yonder lay the twig upon the road, a character of a sign-language. It recalled certain gypsy patterans which he had encountered on a longago walking trip through Brittany. It pointed away from yesterday and the anti fervor of Aunt Hootie, with her medicine dropper and eye-cup.
His glance was drawn from it at the suggestion of Cotton Eye Lee, who had approached in apolegtic manner, now that the cause of his retreat had retreated.
"He's done warned us-uns - Old Tom himself, the most prodigious popper of popskull in the whole of both the Carolinas!"
But in the very moment of tacit submission, a certain Bacchanalian protested; so did an artist religious. Both bore the same name - Calvin Parker.
Still regarding the twig, in fancy selecting the tubes he would squeeze for that truly wondrous shade of Titian hair, the "furriner" finished his Interrupted laugh.
"Glory be!" He borrowed expression from her of the dropper. "I've just discovered something about myself, Cotton; I'm a poacher at heart."