29. Come To Grips
But Parker did not reward the curious. He betook himself from the scene as unobtrusively as he had come.
The small gratification drawn from the presence of Currie in Sandyred's side-show was due to an obvious deduction. Since the hillbilly was there he. could not be "projecting" elsewhere for the removed still and the girl over whose possession he seemed to have some definite scheme. It was enough that his presence in Dismal gave Parker time to clear his head and body from the poison he had drunk, before demanding the payment It was now his turn to collect.
With evening, from Fallaway Rim, he lifted devout eyes to the juror hills and, his right hand upraised, again took the oath:
"0h, nature's jury, hear one more mortal plea! If again I blunder In my testimony, may you fall upon me with your might, may you crush me with your weight of ages, forever and ever. Amen."
The peace of their absolute justice came over him and soothed him into heavy sleep. The first tiptoe of dawn did not surprise him. Already he was awake, his mind settled over what first to do. The most direct course to aid the Metcalfs seemed to be in a renewal of his effort at an alliance with them.
In view of his spectacular acceptance of young Sandy's challenge, he had new argument toadvance. He would Insist himself Into "terms" with the household. That It was the third time ought to help. He would offer anew to lend them manpower in the disposal of that last "batch." Working with them, he could watch over Verne - could warn them with personal force against trusting Rex Currle, should the Impressionable Sandyred try to reinstate his hillbilly friend In the good graces of the old man. Speed In getting the lawbreakers beyond danger of arrest should be his first concern. Afterward, he would demand recompense, with compound Interest, for the personal Indignities he had suffered.
The hour that found him In the saddle was one which often had served as an end to days of his past - never as a beginning. Riding at a good pace along the road to the Metcalf place, he felt significance In the fact that Summer, In mature beauty, had redeemed the profuse suggestion of Spring.
He was nearing trall's-end In the out-curving turn of the main road, where the mountain girl had surprised him that day of the presentation of the jug, when the sound of hoof-beats on either side caused him to dismount and draw his horse Into concealment.
The first sight from his cover brought temptation. It was of Verne, riding her mule, her expression fresher, more vigorous than the early morn. He wanted desperately to hurry forward in greeting after the long deprivation, to ask her about the return of his note unread - perhaps to let her guess from his face, although she was not yet to hear, the hammering of his heart at the sudden, vivid, desirable sight of her.
His second glance in the other direction brought restraint. A horseman had been about to round the curve, but now turned into the woods, evidently to let her pass, himself unseen.
So it came about that a small procession of three riders was formed and headed, through devious ways and byways, toward that mountain known as Grumbly Bald. On account of the exact distances maintained, the last of them had the advantage of knowledge.
Because Rex Currie saw fit thus surreptitiously to trail the girl of his choice, the out-Norther saw fit to follow both. Half an hour later, a fourth rider found cause for uneasiness in the manifold hoof-prints, as he followed closely the path of the three.
Vernaluska Metcalf had started ahead of her men-folk because of her anxiety to delay not an hour longer than necessary the completion of their last illicit distillation. The sooner it was attended the better. Then, too, the new site of the still made unconventional hours the safest.
Sandyred had returned from the carnival somewhat after midnight in such high spirits that he had awakened the family to tell of the alleged slick's fall from responsibility, his own side-show of the antic colt, and the substantial sum accrued from the merchandising of his talent. Although realizing that the boy would wish to lie late abed, she had prepared his breakfast with her own and finally succeeded in arousing him to her need of his help at the still. After the bead had been drawn, she promised, he might sleep away the rest of the day.
Her father's caprice had ruled In the selection of the new danger-spot - a move made advisable by his open break with Currle and pointed by the rational note from one so strangely persistent in trying to blind them if, indeed, he was their foe. Early on the morning following the receipt of Parker's warning, the natural cave beneath the girl's pottery storehouse had been stripped of all distilling apparatus, and the hole in the rocks, which had carried the smoke of so many illicit fires up through the chimney of her oven, had been filled with clay. With Vernaluska scouting the road ahead and Sandy riding guard behind, Old Tom had accomplished removal to the hastily built structure that was waiting on the Grumbly Bald property, to be his when the additional payments had been made.
After finding a sheltered place for Solomon and tying him to a tree, the girl removed her shoes and stockings and made her way up the bed of the stream which left no tracks for prying eyes. Just before reaching the windowless shack on the ledge she turned into the rhododendron thicket along the opposite side, which had been selected as the likeliest hiding-place.
A hee-haw from Solomon caused her to pause and strain her ears for sounds foreign to the purl of the brook or the whispering of trees. Hearing nothing, she reassured herself that the mule's salute was no respecter of persons and that the disturber, if human, was doubtless her sleepy-head brother. She proceeded to the task which she had taken upon herself to allow the old man a rest.
The still-house itself was a mere enclosure of freshly cut logs, roofed with bark. It held the still - a vessel with a closed head, connected with a spiral tube called a "worm" and surrounded by a jacket through which cold water was constantly piped; also the furnace, roughly constructed of boulders.
The purpose of the "house" was more to conceal the glare when a wood fire was burning than for the protection of the blockaders from the weather. Further back lay the "lair," a thatch of browse, where the operators rested when there was nothing to do except wait upon the "cooking."
Several precautions against discovery had been taken by the outlaw patriarch, alive to all the wiles of his kind. Two great hemlock-trees had been felled in such a way that their tops served to aid the brush in the masking, a service which they would perform as long as their tops remained green.
Around the whole was a dead-line of peculiar Blue Ridge construction - a veritable cheveaux de frise, although to the Metcalfs known as the "stop'em-short" - contrived of laurel cut into spikes, entangled, with the points slanting outward, in brush bound together by cables of wild grape and vining shrubs.
In the making of this batch, sworn to be Old Tom's last, the corn had been sprouted by a warmwater, percolating process, ground into sweet meal at their own tub-mill, turned into "beer" after due fermentation, and sent through the still, to come out as "singlings." This was now being redistilled, or "doubled," into marketable liquor.
The fact that the doubling process required more skill than any of the several connected with the making of blockade accounted for the girl's anxiety. Too much distillation would result in pure alcohol, while too little meant rank liquor that would lack the strength necessary to quench regional thirsts. Always had Old Tom Metcalf scorned to resort to a "thumplng-chest," by which singllngs may be made drinkable. He despised that trick of his Illicit trade as much as he did the sort of liquor thus produced. With a small vial as Instrument, the "bead" must now be taken at Intervals - the test depending on the irrldescent bubbles that would rise when the vial was tilted.
Vernaluska felt quite equal to the delicate task, but needed some one to feed the furnace; therefore her awakening of last night's celebrant. The Metcalf store of "bumbllngs" had been quite exhausted in the draft upon it caused by the general cessation of the industry after enforcement of the new State laws. Knowing the contracts which the old man had undertaken to fill and the iron of his determination, she realized that his illegal career would not cease until the present distillation was run off to his fancy.
She set to work. Although it was said of her redoubtable parent that he could make the best bush whisky in all the Carolinas with his eyes shut, her double task of taking the bead and feeding the furnace would give her plenty to do. She had stooped to tuck the ends of a bundle of dry saplings over the coals in the fire-box, when the sound of voices not far away caused her to return them to the floor and straighten Into a tense, listening attitude.
"What new cuss work are you up to, Currie?"
"A brand that's going to get cusseder if you don't stop in your tracks and have it out with me."
She heard the two sentences complete in two voices she knew. Her heart hammering uncomfortably, she stole on soundless bare feet out of the still-house and began wriggling through the brush toward the branch, whence had sounded the demand and retort. Her anxiety lest the still had been discovered was assuaged on seeing that those who had been following her, whether knowingly or on affairs of their own, had passed the rhododendron copse without suspicion and climbed the stream to the ledge on which stood the deserted Currie shack. Well under cover, she picked her way to a point from which she could both see and hear.