TRAGEDY OF BLOOD

a novel by Gary Canup

Part One, Chapter 1

Quint and Marty and Lucas Nici, all armed with rifles and accompanied by an armed band of their allies, emerged from the wilderness that surrounded the Nici homestead. They were bringing back from the field a procession of five captives. The hands of the captives were tied behind their backs and they were all bound together at intervals by a length of thick rope knotted around their necks. Quint and Marty prodded them along with their rifles, taking particular delight in tormenting the captive at the head of the procession, Tamora Groth, a handsome middle-aged woman who swore and kicked at them with her bare dirty feet. Now and then they had to give an additional rough push to her sons, Dimmy and Myron, who seemed to be lagging behind out of dread, miserable and terrified over what they foresaw as their impending fate. The face of her eldest son, Arbus, reflected concern for his mother and profound indignation over her mistreatment at the hands of their captors. Last of all came the Groths' big black farmhand, Aaron Moore; no stranger to the ropes and chains of white men, Aaron appeared stoic and utterly indifferent.

Quint and Marty brought the procession of captives to a halt in front of their log house, and Lucas tossed onto the porch the bundle of captured rifles and pistols. Two Nici allies set down at the end of the porch a litter on which lay a body covered with a burlap blanket. With the exception of shade trees and shrubbery near the house itself, all foliage within a hundred-yard radius of the place had been cut down, mostly for firewood, but also for reasons of defense, the grounds kept cleared of everything that might provide cover for murderous Groths bent on sneaking up in a surprise attack.

"Pa!" Quint called. "Hey Pa, come on out and see what we brung yeh!"

"Yeah, Pa!" Marty joined. "Come on out and see!"

In a moment, the heavy oaken door swung open, and Andrew Nici, hatless and unarmed, stepped out onto the porch. He was followed by his older brother Mark, who carried a rifle and who wore a hat and who closed the door behind them.

Andrew stepped to the fore. He saw his eldest sons Quint and Marty accompanied by a band of their adventurous young friends. He darkly surveyed the faces of the captives. Noticing, then, something out of the corner of his eye, he glanced over and beheld the blanketed body, and his countenance fell. Everyone in attendance could hear the floorboards of the porch creak beneath his boots as he gravely went over and knelt beside the covered corpse. That part of the burlap blanket which covered the head was stained with a gummy rust-colored blotch, and the flies that were feasting on that stain rose in an angry swarm as he lifted the blanket and gazed into the lifeless features of his son, Mute. Mute was staring at the roof of the porch, except that his right eye where the bullet had entered was gone.

The old man averted his gaze even as he lowered the blanket again. It took him a while to control his grief. In the meantime, a pair of shutters flew open and his fifteen-year-old daughter Lavinia peered out, her face full of curiosity and concern. Dimmy and Myron Groth stared at her dully. When her eyes fell on the body over which her father was grieving, she wept and buried her face in her hands, until Andrew's elderly aunt, whom they all simply referred to as the Old One, tenderly ushered the girl away from the window and closed and latched the shutters in order to shield the girl's innocent eyes from the sight of what was to come.

At last old Andrew collected himself and struggled to his feet. Returning to his central position on the porch, he once again surveyed the faces of the captives, jaw muscles working sternly. Their mountain valley was so isolated that there were no law enforcement officers, nor were there courts of law to settle disputes among mountaineers, so the inhabitants took it upon themselves to punish wrongs, whether real or imagined.

"What happened?" Andrew asked his sons. "We heard all the shootin."

"These three sumbitches here attacked us while we was workin in the fields, Pa," Quint replied bitterly, indicating Arbus and Dimmy and Myron Groth. "They shot at us from the woods at the edge a the field. We done took kiver behind the fallen mules and returned fire as bestest we could, managed to hold em off till our neighbors arrived."

"That's when the yellabellies took to their heels," Marty put in, "so we chased em through the woods and captured em at the ford afore they could git back acrost the river to their own side."

"We tied em up," Quint continued, "then us and our allies, we counterattacked their place and captured the bitch and her nigger here."

"They done kilt Mute in the original attack," Marty said.

Andrew looked at the captives. "This here the last a the Groths then?" he asked.

"The very last a em, Pa," Quint replied, triumphantly. "The rest is in the ground, where they durn well belong."

So this was all that was left of the once formidable Groth clan, Andrew brooded. A mother and three sons. He lowered his eyes to the bundle of captured rifles and pistols at his feet. "These here their guns?"

"They's ourn now, Pa," Quint replied. "They's the guns we took off em."

"They ain't got none left, then? This here's all they had?"

"That's it," Quint assured him.

"Yeh done searched their house?"

"House and barn, Pa. They ain't got no more guns. They been totally disarmed." Quint glared at a still defiant-looking Tamora Groth. "C'mon, Pa, let's kill em! Let's kill em all right now, afore they git any more of us!"

"Yeah, Pa!" Marty joined. "We ain't never gonna have us no peace, and we ain't never gonna feel safe, till the last a these here Groths is dead!"

"We ain't gonna kill em," Andrew decided quietly.

"But Pa!" they protested.

"I said we ain't gonna kill em," he repeated.

"Then if yeh ain't gonna kill all these fine peace-lovin Groths fer killin us all these years, at least give us the proudest one, so we can sacrifice him to git justice fer Mute."

"Quint's right, Pa," Marty said. "Mute's ghost'll walk and haunt us ferever, cryin fer justice, till we give him what he wants and what he needs to finally lay down and rest in peace."

Andrew wearily thought it over. "Which one would yeh sacrifice?" he asked.

"That one." Quint pointed to Arbus Groth. Arbus and Tamora looked at each other.

Andrew continued to think it over. He needed to make peace with the Groths, had been trying to end this feud for decades, but he needed to keep peace within his family as well. If he let all the captives go without getting justice for Mute, Quint and Marty and his brother Mark would never forgive him for it. He wearily came to a decision. "I give him to yeh then. Take him out behind the barn. Make it quick."

"No, Andrew!" Tamora begged, dropping to her knees in desperate tears. "Please don't kill my son! He's the bestest son I ever had and I love him as dearly as you loved Mute! All Arbus ever done was fight to pertect the honor of his family like Mute would a done! Please don't let em kill him! Please be merciful!"

"Calm yersef, madam, and pardon me. But my boy lays there dead, kilt by you Groths, and his brothers ask fer a sacrifice. They ask only fer justice. To this yer son is marked, and die he must. I truly am sorry. Take him behind the barn and make it quick."

"No!" Tamora cried.

Quint and Marty removed the rope from around Arbus's neck and, with his hands still tied behind his back, led him off in the direction of the barn.

"No, Arbus! Don't go with em!" Tamora shouted. She struggled to her feet and made to follow her son but the rope around her neck, together with the clutches of Nici allies, restrained her. She turned her desperate eyes to Andrew. "Please, Andrew! Call em back! It ain't too late!" With frantic eyes she watched Quint and Marty lead her son behind the barn and turned to Andrew again. "Andrew, please! Stop em! They's gonna murder my boy!"

Quint and Marty soon reappeared and casually walked back towards the others, Quint using a rag to wipe the blood from his knife.

"No!" Tamora wailed, falling to her knees again.

"It's done," Andrew pronounced, wearily. "Mute and Arbus is at rest now. They's done with the troubles a this world. This here feud's gone on long nuff. Forty years is long nuff. Tamora Groth, if I let the rest a yeh go, do yeh swear on the heads a yer survivin sons never agin to harm us Nicis?"

Still on her knees in the dirt, head bowed and hands tied behind her back, the woman could only weep.

"Let me remind yeh that yer completely disarmed, completely outnumbered, and yeh ain't got no allies while we, as yeh can see, got many; and if yeh ever agin harm one of us Nicis I'll do what my sons here been a-beggin me to do and I'll do it without no remorse nor hesitation. Understand?"

"Yes," Tamora muttered, barely audible in her grief.

"Then as fur as I'm consarned, this here feud's over fer good this time. Remove them ropes, let em go home in peace. Yeh two boys fetch the body a yer brother and take it on home. Give him honorable burial, as we aim to do with Mute."

Dimmy and Myron Groth lost no time in scrambling behind the barn and reappearing lugging the body of their older brother ignominiously by the arms and legs, the head dangling like a cherry, the eyes and mouth wide open, the throat cut. Both Dimmy and Myron were relieved that they had not been the ones chosen for the sacrifice and they could not get away from there fast enough.

"Arbus!" Tamora cried, gazing piteously after the body.

"Take er on home," Andrew ordered the black man.

"Arbus," Tamora wept.

Aaron Moore tenderly helped the grief-stricken woman to her feet and hurriedly ushered her away before the kinfolk of Andrew Nici could prevail upon the foolish old man to change his mind.

Andrew watched them disappear in the wilderness. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he turned and looked into his elder brother's face, where misgivings lay.

"Andrew," Mark said, shaking his head. "I ain't so shore lettin em go was the wise thing to do."

"Oh?" Andrew said.

"If yeh want to end this here feud, that's fine. So do I. So do all a us. But it peers to me the surest way to end a feud is to put a end to the folks yer a-feudin with."

"Not you, too," Andrew groaned.

"It's much too risky to trust yer enemies to live with yeh in peace without ever agin harmin no more a yer loved ones," Mark explained defensively.

"Would you a been able to put em all to death, a mother and her three sons, right there in front a our neighbors?"

"Maybe not," Mark admitted, after reflection.

"Course yeh wouldn'ta. And when it came right down to it, neither would a Quint and Marty. That wouldn't a been justice, that would a been slaughter."

"All I know is I'd feel a helluva lot better with no Groths around."

Andrew turned to his youngest son. "What bout you, Lucas? Yer the thinker in the family. Yeh also reckon I made a mistake?"

The youth looked troubled and indecisive. "I don't know, Pa. I can see Uncle Mark's point of view. But I can see your point of view, too. I reckon I don't know what to think."

Andrew smiled and fondly patted the boy on the cheek.

Next day they buried Mute.

Mark and Andrew constructed a wooden coffin. The Old One wove a shroud. Lucas fashioned a crude wooden cross on which he carved: Mute Nici, 1856-1875. Quint and Marty dug yet another grave in the old family cemetery in the shade of the majestic oak. Lavinia picked a bouquet of flowers and tearfully dropped it into the open grave upon the dirt-sprinkled coffin as the rest of the family stood mournfully about, the men with hats in hand.

And Andrew eulogized the boy by saying: "He'll be the last one of us to die in that wretched feud."