TRAGEDY OF BLOOD

a novel by Gary Canup

Chapter 6

Lavinia was as excited as she had ever been in her fifteen years of life. Her father had invited her along on the upcoming trip to Bass Valley, to give her what she wanted, a chance to see Greg Bass again. It would be a journey exciting enough in itself, navigating down the scenic river, but to think that Greg would be waiting at the end of it! It was more excitement than a girl could bear! Ever since the Basses' visit she had been endeavoring, with Lucas's help, to recall the methods the old hermit had employed in their teaching, for she intended to practice those methods; if she could somehow teach herself how to teach others then she would be able to teach the Basses' little ones how to read and write, and if Greg was so impressed that she could read and write, how impressed would he be if she somehow managed to teach his brothers and sisters? Mr. and Mrs. Bass too would be impressed and the achievement would ingratiate her with all of them and probably make her the leading candidate to win a cherished spot in Greg's affections and perhaps even a place at his side as his future wife! Ah, to be both a teacher and the wife of Greg Bass! Could a simple mountain girl ever be happier?

Andrew and Mark sat at the table in the main room, awaiting lunch. Mark was whittling a mug out of a section of cedar limb, the cedar shavings littering the table. Andrew sat staring out the window at the well, where his last three surviving sons had just returned from the fields. Shirtless and well-formed, Quint and Marty were pouring water over their heads and robustly flipping the wet hair out of their eyes, their rifles leaning nearby. Young Lucas stood aloof in his sweaty shirt, awaiting his turn at the well.

"Lucas don't peer to have the same zest fer life that Quint and Marty do," Andrew observed.

"He's always been a quiet moody boy," Mark responded, as if in the youth's defense. "He thinks a lot."

"Maybe he thinks too much; he broods too much on our past. And I reckon he still misses Robert."

"Him and Robert was mighty close," Mark said. "Only natural he miss him."

"It ain't jist that, though. He never peered to be as close to Quint and Marty after Robert's death, like he deliberately distanced hissef from em. Yeh'd reckon Robbie's death would a pulled him closer to his older brothers."

"He seems mighty close to Vinnie, though."

"Everybody's close to Vinnie. She's that kind a girl."

"I love her, too," the Old One cut in in her papery voice from the hearth, "but I'd love her a whole lot more if she'd come and hep me git these here vittles on the table."

"Right," Andrew said, getting to his feet. "I'll fetch her fer yeh." He went down the hallway and rapped on her door. "Vinnie?"

"Yeah, Pa?"

He opened the door and stuck his head in. She sat at the rough-hewn desk the old hermit had left her, the desk strewn with papers and books, a pencil in her hand and another behind her ear, and she turned from her efforts to teach herself how to teach and smiled at him. "The boys is back from the fields," he informed her. "Yeh wanna come and hep the Old One git lunch on the table?"

"Sure thing, Pa, be right there." She began to put her materials away.

Andrew returned to the main room and reseated himself at the table. "She's in there studyin agin," he told his brother proudly.

"That girl's gonna be the bestest teacher these here mountains'll ever see," Mark predicted.

Lucas ambled into the room in his sweaty shirt and hung his rifle at the gun rack.

"Hello, Luke," his father said.

"Hi, Pa." The morose youth took his seat at the table.

"How's that new cultivator workin?"

"Just fine, Pa."

"Good. That's good to hear. It sartenly is a time saver. All yeh got to do is hitch it to the mule and make shore the mule don't trample the corn, jist lead her straight on down the middle atween rows and the cultivator does the rest."

The youth said nothing to this.

"Shore beats the old way a doin it," Mark put in, "havin to break up the soil and uproot all them weeds with a hoe. Beats it by a long sight."

"Those metal stakes work real good, Pa," Lucas contributed at last.

"Good, good. I figgered they might. Yes, the old wooden ones done wore out too fast and warn't sharp nuff."

"This here the second time we cultivated the fields so fur?" Mark asked.

"Yes," Andrew replied. "We won't have to do it no more this greenup. Once the corn reaches bout mid-thigh, it can compete with weeds jist fine fer food and sunlight. It won't need no more hep from us."

There was the sound of boots on the porch and laughter and loud voices as Quint and Marty entered the room. "All I can tell yeh is it's a good thing mules lift their tails fust," Quint was saying. "That way yeh knows when to skedaddle."

Marty guffawed and they hung their rifles at the gun rack, their hair still wet from the dousing they had given themselves, but they had smoothed it back with their fingers and had put their shirts back on for the lunch table. Their pistols and Bowie knives were still holstered at their belts.

Lavinia had entered the room and was setting the table.

"Hey, what yeh say there, Little Sis?" Quint fondly rubbed her head.

"How's it goin there, Little Teach?" Marty did the same.

"Hey, watch it, you guys, you'll mess up my hair," she protested, but with a self-

satisfied little grin. She loved it whenever her oldest brothers gave her attention. "And we'll have no more talk about mules liftin their tails at the table," she warned haughtily.

"Yes, ma'am," Quint chortled. "Hey, what's this here?" he pulled a pencil from behind her ear.

"Hey, gimme that!" she demanded with an embarrassed smile. "I done forgot it was there."

Quint played keepaway for a good fifteen seconds but finally she snatched the pencil out of his hand and hurried it back to her room then quickly returned. They all took their seats at the table. After grace they commenced to eat. There was much conversation and passing around of plates and bowls.

"I been thinkin bout committin some a the fields to oats next year," Andrew announced. "Summer's harvest time fer oats, and we could be harvestin the oats while the corn's a-growin. Also we could rotate the oats with the corn to hep keep the soil fertile and free a insect pests. What yeh boys think bout that?"

"Sounds right smart, Pa," Marty said.

"We been growin way too much corn, much moren we know what to do with. I been thinkin bout increasin our stock a hogs and feedin the surplus to them. Hogs thrive on corn."

"Hey, Pa," Quint said. "A few a the folks this here side a the river's havin a dance in a coupla weeks. Yeh know, the Thompsons, the Rikers, the Thurlows. Marty and me, we was sorta invited — yeh know, by the Thurlow girls. All right if we go?"

"Since when do yeh boys dance?"

"Marjorie and Constance sorta offered to show us how next weekend. Can we go, Pa? Thurlows' granddaddy's got a fiddle."

"Don't see why not. Sounds like fun. I never learnt how mysef, and I always regretted it. Yer ma was sich a graceful mover."

"Them Thurlow girls," Uncle Mark said. "Yeh reckon they're as good-lookin a-dancin as they are a-standin still?"

"I reckon we're gonna find out," Quint said.

"Do Marjorie and Constance wear pretty dresses and such?" Lavinia wondered.

"Usually they do, Vin," Quint replied, "yeh know, with ruffles and bows and sich. Their ma's a plumb good seamstress."

"Yeh reckon she'd make me a dress someday?" Lavinia wondered, spooning at her bowl of stew.

"I'll ax her fer yeh next time I see her," Quint said.

Andrew Nici contemplated his family. Quint and Marty soon would be getting married, and as a wedding present he would give them land of their own to farm a few miles downstream. And Lucas and Lavinia would someday marry too, and they would all begin to have children who in turn would have children and so on and on in a branching posterity that would populate this valley for generations to come. And he for the remainder of his days would preside over them all as convivial patriarch, and they would gather here at the homeplace for holidays and birthdays and anniversaries, and there would be yard games and taffy pulls and storytelling around a bonfire at night and bobsledding at Christmas time. It was a wonderful future that he envisioned for himself, with no more foreseeable impediments to that future, now that the feud was over, and his lone regret was that Flora and Robert and Mute and all the others who had perished would not be around to share it with them.

After lunch, Andrew said: "Well, Vinnie, yeh ready to go down to the river and put in some work on the raft?"

She swiped at her lips with a napkin and jumped to her feet. "Ready, Pa!"

Andrew and Lavinia were the only ones who went down to the work site every day. They were accompanied, on an alternating basis, by either Quint and Marty, or Lucas and Mark, the other pair staying behind to guard the Old One and the house. Today it was Quint and Marty's turn to stay behind. While Andrew and Mark and Lucas loaded the wagon with their tools and other materials, Quint and Marty hitched the mules to the wagon. Andrew and Mark climbed up onto the wagon seat, Andrew taking the reins, and Mark wielding his ever-present rifle, and Lucas and Lavinia climbed into the back where Lucas settled down in a rear corner with his rifle.

"I still say we could finish the raft a lot faster if all of us worked on it at the same time," Andrew said. "I don't think this guardin of the house is necessary no more."

Quint just smiled and slapped the haunch of one of the mules to set them in motion. He and the others respectfully disagreed, felt safer with the Old One and the house under guard, and insisted they continue the precaution at least a little while longer. The wagon rolled slowly towards the wilderness. Quint and Marty, and the Old One in the shade of the porch, returned Lavinia's spirited wave and the girl did not stop waving until the wagon entered the narrow rutted lane that cut through the wilderness. This time of year the wilderness was dense and shady and cool, the sun, high in the sky, showing, if it showed at all through the thick foliage, as a cluster of yellow sparkles sending long pencillike beams through the leafage that shifted in the breeze. The wagon creaked languidly down the rugged lane. Lavinia stood gripping the side of the wagon and playing a game of reaching for low-hanging branches that passed lazily by.

"Hey, Luke, wanna see who can grab the most apples and stuff like we used to do when we was kids?"

On hearing no reply, she glanced back at her morose brother, who sat in the opposite corner holding his rifle and staring broodingly into the wilderness. She edged along the back of the wagon and settled down beside him and draped her arm around him companionably in an effort to cheer him up.

"Hey, Luke! How's my beau?"

After a moment he looked at her and managed a pensive smile. "I reckon you'll have to put that question to Greg Bass."

"No, Luke. You're my beau. So how the heck are yeh?"

"You know what this reminds me of, Vin? Riding in the back of the wagon through the woods like this? It reminds me of the days when you and me and Robert and Mute used to go down to the old hermit's hut to receive our lessons."

"That was fun," Lavinia remembered.

"Only we're missin a couple of students now."

"Come on, Luke. I hate to see you all down in the mullygrubs like this."

"It wasn't too long ago they were both still with us," Lucas said.

"I know you miss em, Luke. I miss em, too. We all do. But there ain't nothin we can do about it. They're up in heaven now with Ma and all the rest. Pa ended the feud, that's all he can do. Please try to cheer up. Please?"

He looked into his sister's earnest little face, which he was sure now reflected the sorrow in his own, perhaps even moreso as she appeared on the brink of tears. He envied the girl her simple unblemished innocence, and he smiled and fondly rubbed her head. He would indeed make an effort to cheer up, for Vinnie's sake.

Eventually the wagon rolled to a halt in the work site at the river and Lavinia as usual was the first one out of the wagon and she ran over to inspect the raft which, she saw to her relief, was exactly as they had left it the day before, no parts had floated away. The menfolk were in the process of chopping down trees and sawing away branches and lashing the logs together to form a flotation base. The base itself was barely underway. About ten feet from the raft she squatted and gazed at the project, absently fiddling with a stick, her mind creating an image of how the raft would appear in its state of completion. When finished that raft would take her downriver to Bass Valley where she would get to see Greg again. She imagined him once again tenderly taking her hand and gazing into her eyes with his sky-blue own and saying: "Thank you, Lavinia. Thank you for giving my brothers and sisters the wonderful gift of literacy. For that achievement I hope you will do me the honor of becoming my wife." Lavinia giggled and blushed over the audacity of such a fantasy, turned to see whether any of the others had overheard, then returned her dreamy eyes to the raft. O, to become a teacher and the wife of Greg Bass! Nothing in the world could make her happier!

The menfolk unloaded their tools and materials and went to work. With his rifle slung across his back, Mark chopped at a tree. With his rifle within easy reach, Lucas sawed the branches off an already felled tree. And even Andrew, hitching the mules to a log to have it dragged over to the raft, perhaps out of long habit could not help but dart an occasional wary glance into the dark and tangled depths of the wilderness, as though watching for the stealthy approach of Groths. He still needed to remind himself that the feud was over, that the Groths would be unable to rearm and therefore unable to continue the hostilities even if they were of a mind to, that wary glances into the wilderness were no longer necessary, and he bent to his work without further qualms.

None of them was aware of the two pairs of eyes watching them from across the river.