“Sally! O-oh, Sally! I’m a-goin’ now.” Jim Gantt pushed back the limp brim of his rusty felt hat and turned colourless eyes toward the cabin.
A young woman came from around the corner of the house. From each hand dangled a bunch of squawking chickens. She did not speak until she had reached the wagon.
“Now, Jim, you ain’t a-goin’ to let them fellers down in Andalushy git you inter no blind tiger, air you?” The question came in a hopeless drawl; hopeless, too, her look into the man’s sallow face.
“I ain’t tetched a drop in more’n three months, has I?” Jim’s answer was in a sullen key.
“No, Jim, you bin doin’ right well lately.” She tossed the chickens into the wagon, thoughtless of the hurt to their tied and twisted legs. “They’re worth two bits apiece. That comes to two dollars, Jim. Don’t you take a nickel less’n that.”
Jim gave a listless pull at the cotton rope that served as reins.
“Git up thar, mule!” he called, and the wagon creaked off on wobbling wheels down the hot, dusty road.
The woman looked scornfully at the man’s humped-over back for a full minute, turned and walked to the house, a hard smile at her mouth.
Sally Gantt gave no heed to her drab surroundings as she crossed the short stretch from road to cabin. All her twenty-two years had been spent in this far end of Alabama, where one dreary, unkempt clearing in the pine-woods is as dismal as the next. Comparisons which might add their fuel to her smouldering discontent were spared her. Yet, unconsciously, this bare, grassless country, with its flat miles of monotonous pine forests, its flatter miles of rank cane-brake, served to distil gall, poisoning all her thoughts.
The double cabin of Jim Gantt, its two rooms separated by a “dog-trot”—an open porch cut through the centre of the structure—was counted a thing of luxury by his scattered neighbours. Gantt had built it four years before, when he took up the land as his homestead, and Sally for his wife. The labour of building this cabin had apparently drained his stock of energy to the dregs. Beyond the necessary toil of planting a small patch of corn, a smaller one of sweet potatoes, and fishing in the sluggish waters of Pigeon Creek, he now did nothing. Sally tended the chickens, their one source of money, and gave intermittent attention to the half-dozen razor-back hogs, which, with the scrubby mule, comprises their toll of live-stock.
As the woman mounted the hewn log that answered as a step to the dog-trot, she stopped to listen. From the kitchen came a faint noise; a sound of crunching. Sally went on silent feet to the door. On the table, littered with unwashed dishes, a cat was gnawing at a fish head—a gaunt beast, its lean flanks covered with wiry fur except where ragged scars left exposed the bare hide. Its strong jaws crushed through the thick skull-bone of the fish as if it were an empty bird’s egg.
Sally sprang to the stove and seized a pine knot.
“Dog-gone your yaller hide!” she screamed. “Git out of hyar!”
The cat wheeled with a start and faced the woman, its evil eyes glittering.
“Git, you yaller devil!” the woman screamed again.
The cat sprang sidewise to the floor. Sally sent the jagged piece of wood spinning through the air. It crashed against the far wall, missing the beast by an inch. The animal arched its huge body and held its ground.
“You varmint, I’ll git you this time!” Sally stooped for another piece of wood. The cat darted through the door ahead of the flying missile.
“I’ll kill you yit!” Sally shouted after it. “An’ he kain’t hinder me neither!”
She sat down heavily and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
It was several minutes before the woman rose from the chair and crossed the dot-trot to the sleeping-room. Throwing her faded sun-bonnet into a corner, she loosened her hair and began to brush it.
Sally Gantt was neither pretty nor handsome. But in a country peopled solely by pine-woods crackers, her black hair and eyes, clear skin and white teeth, made her stand out. She was a woman, and young. To a man, also young, who for two years had seen no face unpainted with the sallow hue of chills and fever, no eyes except faded blue ones framed by white, straggling lashes, no sound teeth, and the unsound ones stained always by the snuff stick, she might easily appear alluring.
With feminine deftness Sally re-coiled her hair. She took from a wooden peg a blue calico dress, its printed pattern as yet unbleached by the fierce suns. It gave to her slender figure some touch of grace. From beneath the bed she drew a pair of heavy brogans; a shoe fashioned, doubtless, to match the listless nature of the people who most use them, slipping on or off without hindrance from lace or buckle. As a final touch, she fastened about her head a piece of blue ribbon, the band of cheap silk making the flash in her black eyes the brighter.
Sally left the house and started across the rubbish-littered yard. A short distance from the cabin she stopped to look about her.
“I’m dog-tired of it all,” she said fiercely. “I hates the house. I hates the whole place, an’ more’n all I hates Jim.”
She turned, scowling, and walked between the rows of growing corn that reached to the edge of the clearing. Here began the pinewoods, the one saving touch nature has given to this land. Beneath the grateful shade she hastened her steps. The trees stood in endless disordered ranks, rising straight and bare of branch until high aloft their spreading tops caught the sunlight.
A quarter of a mile brought her to the lowland. She went down the slight decline and stepped within the cane-brake. Here gloom closed about her. The thickly growing cane reached to twice her height. Above the cane the cypress spread its branches, draped with the sad grey moss of the South. No sun’s ray struggled through the rank foliage to lighten the sodden earth beneath. Sally picked her way slowly through the swamp, peering cautiously beyond each fallen log before venturing a further step. Crawfish scuttled backward from her path to slip down the mud chimneys of their homes. The black earth and decaying plants filled the hot, still air with noisome odours. Thousands of hidden insects sounded through the dank stretches their grating calls. Slimy water oozed from beneath the heavy soles of her brogans, green and purple bubbles were left in each footprint, bubbles with iridescent oily skins.
As she went around a sharp turn she was caught up and lifted clear from the ground in the arms of a young man—a boy of twenty or therabout.
“Oh, Bob, you scairt me—you certainly air rough!” Without words he kissed her again and again.
“Now, Bob, you quit! Ain’t you had enough?”
“Could I ever have enough? Oh, Sally, I love you so!” The words trembled from the boy.
“You certainly ain’t like none of ’em ’round hyar, Bob.” There was some pride in Sally’s drawling voice. “I never seed none of the men folks act with gals like you does.”
“There’s no other girl like you to make them.” Then, holding her from him, he went on fiercely: “You don’t let any of them try it, do you?”
Sally smiled up into his glowing eyes.
“You knows I don’t. They’d be afeard of Jim.”
The blood rushed to the boy’s cheeks, his arms dropped to his side; he stood sobered.
“Sally, we can’t go on this way any longer. That’s why I asked you to come to the river to-day.”
“What’s a-goin’ to stop us?” A frightened look crossed the woman’s face.
“I’m going away.”
She made a quick step toward him.
“You ain’t lost your job on the new railroad?”
“No. Come down to the boat where we can talk this over.”
He helped her down the bank of the creek to a flat-bottomed skiff, and seated her in the stern with a touch of courtesy before taking the cross seat facing her.
“No, I haven’t lost my job,” he began earnestly, “but my section of the road is about finished. They’ll move me to another residency farther up the line in about a week.”
She sat silent a moment, her black eyes wide with question. He searched them for some sign of sorrow.
“What kin I do after you air gone?”
There was a hopeless note in her voice; it pleased the boy.
“That’s the point: instead of letting them move me, I’m going to move myself.” He paused that she might get the full meaning of his coming words.
“I’m going away from here to-night, and I’m going to take you with me.”
“No, no! I dasn’t!” She shrank before his steady gaze.
He moved swiftly across to her. Throwing his arms around her, he poured out his words.
“Yes! You will! You must! You love me, don’t you?”
Sally nodded in helpless assent.
“Better than anything in this world?”
Again Sally nodded.
“Then listen. To-night at twelve you come to the river. I’ll be waiting for you at the edge of the swamp. We’ll row down to Brewton. We can easily catch the six-twenty to Mobile, and, once there, we’ll begin to live,” he finished grandly.
“But I can’t! Air you crazy? How kin I git away an’ Jim right in the house?”
“I’ve thought of all that; you just let him see this.” He drew a bottle from beneath the seat. “You know what he’ll do to this; it’s the strongest corn whisky I could find.”
“Oh, Bob! I’m a-scairt to.”
“Don’t you love me?” His young eyes looked reproach.
Sally threw both arms about the boy’s neck and drew his head down to her lips. Then she pushed him from her.
“Bob, is it so what the men-folks all say, that the railroad gives you a hundred dollars every month?”
He laughed. “Yes, you dear girl, and more. I get a hundred and a quarter, and I’ve been getting it for two years in this God-forsaken country, and nothing to spend it on. I’ve got over a thousand dollars saved up.”
The woman’s eyes widened. She kissed the boy on the mouth.
“They ’lows as how you’re the smartest engineer on the road.”
The boy’s head was held high.
Sally made some mental calculations before she spoke again.
“Oh, Bob, I jes’ cain’t. I’m a-scairt to.”
He caught her to him. A man of longer experience might have noted the sham in her reluctance.
“My darling, what are you afraid of?” he cried.
“What air we a-goin’ to do after we gits to Mobile?”
“Oh, I’ve thought of everything. They’re building a new line down in Texas. We’ll go there. I’ll get another job as resident engineer. I have my profession,” he ended proudly.
“You might git tired, and want to git shed of me Bob.”
He smothered her words under fierce kisses. His young heart beat at bursting pressure. In bright colours he pictured the glory of Mobile, New Orleans, and all the world that lay before them to love each other in.
When Sally left the boat she had promised to come. Where the pine-trees meet the cane-brake he would be waiting for her, at midnight.
At the top of the bank she turned to wave.
“Wait! Wait! called the boy. He rushed up the slope.
“Quit, Bob, you’re hurtin’ me.” She tore herself from his arms and hastened back along the slimy path. When she reached the pinewood she paused.
“More’n a thousand dollars!” she murmured, and a slow, satisfied smile crossed her shrewd face.
The sun, now directly over the tops of the trees, shot its scorching rays through the foliage. They struck the earth in vertical shafts, heating it to the burning point. Not a breath stirred the glistening pine-needles on the towering branches. It was one of those noon-times which, in the moisture-charged air of southern Alabama, makes life a steaming hell to all living things save reptiles and lovers.
Reaching the cabin, Sally went first to the kitchen room. She opened a cupboard and, taking the cork from the bottle, placed the whisky on the top shelf and closed the wooden door.
She crossed the dog-trot to the sleeping-room; a spitting snarl greeted her entrance. In the centre of the bed crouched the yellow cat, its eyes gleaming, every muscle over its bony frame drawn taut, ready for the spring. The woman, startled, drew back. The cat moved on stiff legs nearer. Unflinchingly they glared into each other’s eyes.
“Git out of hyar afore I kill yer! You yaller devil!” Sally’s voice rang hard as steel.
The cat stood poised at the edge of the bed, its glistening teeth showing in its wide mouth. Without an instant’s shift of her defiant stare, Sally wrenched a shoe from her foot. The animal with spread claws sprang straight for the woman’s throat. The cat and the heavy brogan crashed together in mid-air. Together they fell to the floor; the cat landed lightly, silently, and bounded through the open door.
Sally fell back against the log wall of the cabin, feeling the skin at her throat with trembling fingers.…
“Jim! Oh-h, Jim!” Sally called from the cabin. “Come on in, yer supper’s ready.”
“He ain’t took nothin’ to drink to-day,” she thought. “It’s nigh three months now, he’ll be ’most crazy.”
The man took a few sticks of wood from the ground, and came on dragging feet through the gloom. As Sally watched his listless approach she felt in full force the oppressive melancholy of her dismal surroundings. Awakened by the boy’s enthusiastic plans, imagination stirred within her. In the distance a girdled pine stood clear-cut against the horizon. Its bark peeled and fallen left the dead, naked trunk the colour of dried bones. Near the stunted top one bare limb stretched out. Unnoticed a thousand times before, to the woman it looked to-night a ghostly gibbet against the black sky.
Sally shuddered and went into the lighted kitchen.
“I jes’ kilt a rattler down by the wood-pile.” Jim threw down his load and drew a splint-bottomed chair to the table.
“Ground-rattler, Jim?”
“Naw, sir-ee! A hell-bendin’ big diamond-back.”
“Did you hurt the skin?” Sally asked quickly.
“Naw. I chopped his neck clean, short to the haid. An’ I done it so durn quick his fangs is a-stickin’ out yit, I reckon.”
“Did he strike at you?”
“Yes, sir-ee, an’ the pizen came out of his mouth jes’ like a fog.”
“Ah, you’re foolin’ me!”
“No, I ain’t neither. I’ve heard tell of it, bit I never seed it afore. The ground was kinda black whar he lit, an’ jes’ as I brought the axe down on him, thar I seed a little puff like, same as white steam, in front of his mouth.”
“How big was he, Jim?”
“ ’Leven rattle an’ a button.”
“Did you skin him?”
“Naw, it was too durn dark, but I hung him high up, so’s the hawgs won’t git at him. His skin ’ll fotch of’ bits down at Andalushy.”
“Ax ’em six, Jim, them big ones gittin’ kinda skeerce.”
Jim finished his supper in silence; the killing of the snake had provided more conversation than was usual during three meals among pine-woods people.
As Sally was clearing away the dishes, the yellow cat came through the door. Slinking close to the wall, it avoided the woman, and sprang upon the knees of its master. Jim grinned into the eyes of the beast and began stroking its coarse hair. The cat set up a grating purr.
Sally looked at the two for a moment in silence.
“Jim, you gotta kill that cat.”
Jim’s grin widened, showing his tobacco-stained teeth.
“Jim, I’m a-tellin’ you, you gotta kill that eat.”
“An’ I’m a-tellin’ you I won’t.”
“Jim, it sprung at me to-day, an’ would have hurt me somethin’ turrible if I hadn’t hit it over the haid with my shoe.”
“Well, you must ’a’ done somethin’ to make him. You leave him alone an’ he won’t pester you.”
The woman hesitated; she looked at the man as yet undecided; after a moment she spoke again.
“Jim Gantt, I’m axin’ you for the las’ time, which does you think more’n of, me or that snarlin’ varmint?”
“He don’t snarl at me so much as you does,” the man answered doggedly. “Anyway, I ain’t a-goin’ to kill him; an’ you gotta leave him alone, too. You jes’ min yer own business an’ go tote the mattress out on the trot. It’s too durn hot to sleep in the house.”
The woman passed behind him to the cupboard, reached up, opened wide the wooden door, and went out of the room.
Jim stroked the cat, its grating purr growing louder in the stillness.
A minute passed.
Into the dull eyes of the man a glitter came, and grew. Slowly he lifted his head. Farther and farther his chin drew up until the cords beneath the red skin of his neck stood out in ridges. The nostrils of his bony nose quivered, he sniffed the hot air like a dog straining to catch a distant scent. His tongue protruded and moved from side to side across his lips.
Standing in the darkness without, the woman smiled grimly.
Abruptly the man rose. The forgotten cat fell, twisted in the air, and lighted on its feet. Jim wheeled and strode to the cupboard. As his hand closed about the bottle, the gleam in his eyes became burning flames. He jerked the bottle from the shelf, threw his head far back. The fiery liquor ran down his throat. He returned to his seat; the cat rubbed its ribbed flank against his leg, he stooped and lifted it to the table. Waving the bottle in front of the yellow beast he laughed:
“Here’s to yer—an’ to’ad yer!” and swallowed half a tumblerful of the colourless liquid.
Sally dragged the shuck mattress to the dog-trot. Fully dressed, she lay waiting for midnight.
An hour went by before Jim shivered the empty bottle against the log wall of the kitchen. Pressing both hands hard upon the table, he heaved himself to his feet, upsetting the candle in the effort. He leered at the flame and slapped his bare palm down on it. The hot, melted wax oozed up, unheeded, between his fingers. Clinging to the table top, he turned himself toward the open door, steadied his swaying body for an instant, then lurched forward. His shoulder crashed against the door-post, his body spun half-way round. The man fell flat upon his back, missing the mattress by a yard. The back of his head struck hard on the rough boards of the porch floor. He lay motionless, his feet sticking straight up on the door-sill.
The yellow cat sprang lightly over the fallen body and went out into the night.…
Wide-eyed, the woman lay, watching. After moments of tense listening the sound of faint breathing came to her from the prone figure. Sally frowned. “He’s too no ’count to git kilt,” she said aloud, and turned on her side. She judged, from the stars, it was not yet eleven. Drowsiness came; she fell into uneasy slumber.
Out in the night the yellow cat was prowling. It stopped near the wood-pine. With extended paw, it touched lightly something that lay on the ground. Its long teeth fastened upon it. The cat slunk off toward the house. Without sound it sprang to the floor of the dog-trot. Stealthily, its body crouched low, it started to cross through the open way. As it passed the woman she muttered and struck out in her sleep. The cat flattened to the floor. Near the moving arm, the thing it carried fell from its teeth. The beast scurried out across the opening.
The night marched on to the sound of a million voices calling shrilly through the gloom.
The woman awoke. The stars glowed pale from a cloudy midnight sky. She reached out her right hand, palm down, to raise herself from the bed, throwing her full weight upon it. Two needle points pierced her wrist. A smothered cry was wrung from her lips. She reached with her left hand to pluck at the hurt place. It touched something cold, something hard and clammy, some dead thing. She jerked back the hand. A scream shivered through the still air. Pains becoming instantly acute, unbearable, darted through her arm. Again she tried to pull away the torturing needle points. Her quivering hand groped aimlessly in the darkness. She could not force herself, a second time, to touch the dead, clinging thing at her wrist. Screaming, she dragged herself to the man.
“Jim, I’m hurt, help me! Help me!”
The man did not move.
“Jim, wake up! Help me!” she wailed uselessly to the inert man.
The terrifying pain spurted from wrist to shoulder. With her clenched left hand she beat against the man’s upturned face.
“You drunken fool, help me! Take this thing away!”
The man lay torpid beneath her pounding fist.…
Along the path to Pigeon Creek, where the pine-woods run into the crane-brake, a boy waited; waited until the eastern sky grew from black to grey. Then with cautious tread he began to move, his face turned toward the cabin. As he neared the clearing the grey in the east changed to red. He left the woods and entered the field of corn. His footfalls made no sound on the earth between the furrows.
At the cabin he drew close against the wall and listened. A man’s heavy breathing reached his straining ears. Slowly he moved toward the opening in the middle of the house. Above the breathing he heard a grating noise; between the deep-drawn breaths and the grating, another sound came to him; a harsh, rhythmic scratching.
The edge of the sun rose abruptly above the flat earth, sending light within the opening.
The boy thrust his head around the angle. A yellow cat was sitting at the foot of the mattress. From its throat grating purrs came in regular measure; between each purr the beast’s spread claws clutched and released the stiff ticking.
Beyond lay the man.
Between the cat and the man, stretched across the shuck bed, was the woman; her glassy eyes staring up into the grinning face of the cat. From her shoulder, reaching out toward the boy, was a livid, turgid thing; a hand and arm, puffed beyond all human shape. From the swollen wrist, its poisoned fangs sunk deep into an artery, hung the mangled head of a snake.
The swaying corn blades whipped against the boy’s white face as he fled between the rows.