TRAGEDY OF BLOOD

a novel by Gary Canup

Chapter 9

The atmosphere inside the woodshed was not unlike that of an upright coffin — taller and wider and deeper than a coffin, but dark and stuffy like one. The only light was that which crawled beneath the door, along with a loathsome traffic of roaches and other bugs to which the prisoner had long grown inured. Who knew why they chose to come in, but any fool could understand why they hastened to get out again: the air inside was thick and oppressive with a scarcely breathable stench emanating primarily from the unlidded chamber pot in the opposite corner containing not only her solid and liquid waste but also her vomit. Resting on her filthy pallet of straw in her soiled and reeking smock, she listlessly waved away a fly that had been tormenting her and that appeared large and black for an instant in the strip of dusty sunlight beneath the door before taking mercy on her and flying out.

The only way to get through her imprisonment without losing her sanity was to think about Robbie and their brief time of happiness together, even though the memories never failed to bring tears to her eyes.

On a late afternoon in early spring she was picking berries in the wilderness on her own side of the river when she noticed larger juicier berries on the other side, and even though Ma had warned her never to cross the river, for the Nicis would only kill her if they caught her, she reckoned it likely they were all at home eating supper by now, so she decided to risk crossing over to pick a few. She made her way through the wilderness to the ford where the river flattened and widened and sheened over a bed of pebbles and flowed around sun-bleached rocks and gathering her skirt above her knees and gripping her basket she waded through the shallow but swiftly moving stream, the rocks a keen discomfort beneath her bare feet.

Through the wilderness on the other side she hurried to the small clearing where the berries grew in bright-red juicy abundance and hastily commenced picking and dropping them into her basket, all the while darting fearful glances in every direction. She had been picking for maybe ten minutes when she heard a timid "Hi" and spun around with a gasp to find a boy with a rifle hesitating at the edge of the clearing.

"Hi," he tried again, with his bashful smile.

But she could only gape at him, too petrified either to move or to reply, holding her basket to her bosom like a shield.

His expression became aggrieved. "Please don't be afeared," he begged. "I ain't gonna hurt yeh none, I swear."

"I ain't afeared," she told him.

"Yeh ain't?"

"Nope." She shook her head briskly.

"Yeh shore do look like yar."

"Well," she gulped. "I ain't."

"I'm right glad to hear it," he smiled with relief, "cause I shore ain't no one to be afeared of, that's fer shore."

"Who are yeh anyways?"

"My name is Robert Nici."

"You a Nici? Yeh aim to kill me then?"

"Course not," he said. "That wouldn't be very neighborly, now would it?"

"Listen, I'm sorry I'm a-trespassin, I'll git off yer land right now if yeh'll let me."

"Yeh ain't trespassin none — "

"Then I'm sorry I'm a-stealin yer berries, I was pickin em fer an ailin brother but yeh can have em if yeh want em," and she proffered the basket hopefully as if doing so in exchange for her very life.

"No, yeh keep em fer yersef. Yeh picked em, so they're yers. Yeh cain't steal somethin that's a-growin wild. Yeh keep em fer yer ailin brother, and I hope they make him well agin."

Gradually, and with deep perplexity, she lowered the basket. Could this really be a Nici then? He didn't seem such a monster. Nonetheless when he took an innocent step towards her she shrank back with another frightful gasp, glancing down at his rifle.

"Is this what yer afeared of then? Well, heck, let me put it way over here, on the ground, where it cain't hurt no one. I was jist usin it to hunt rabbit anyways. Would yeh like me to hep yeh pick yer berries? I don't mind. I'd be glad to hep."

He approached rather tentatively this time and this time she did not retreat, just kept a wary eye on him as he started picking berries, some of which rivaled the size of hen's eggs, and dropping them into her wicker basket with audible thumps. This boy was not even close to the image of the fearsome Nici that her ma long ago had planted in her head. He was, in fact, quite gentlemanly and kind, utterly unmenacing. And she thought him rather cute, too. After a while she timidly resumed picking berries alongside him.

"These here berries are so plump and juicy," he spoke up again, as if encouraged by her growing trust, "I reckon I'd cross a river to get em mysef. Bet yeh saw em way over there, huh? Or maybe yeh smelled em. Berries like these here fill the air with their sweet smell."

"Yeh really a Nici then?" she asked him skeptically.

"My kin call me Robbie. Yeh can too, if yeh like." After a sidelong glance at her, he went on picking berries. "So what might yer name be?" he cunningly inquired.

She replied, after some hesitation: "Julie."

"Julie's a right pretty name. What's yer last name then, Julie?"

She thought it prudent not to reveal her full identity just yet.

"Is it, by any chance, Groth?"

"What makes yeh reckon that?"

"Cause yeh come from the other side of the river, and cause yeh looked so afeared when yeh found out I'm a Nici." He glanced at her encouragingly, but she maintained a determined silence. "It's all right with me if yer a Groth. Fact is, I been wantin to meet one a yeh. My brother Lucas and me we got this theory that the Groths is jist like us."

She maintained a stubborn silence.

"I'm downright astonished to find out yeh Groths eat berries," Robert said. "After listenin to my kin all my life, I thought all yeh et was the flesh of us Nicis." He chuckled uneasily and gave her a glance. She did not seem too pleased with the topic, so he quickly changed it. "So, yer brother's ailin, huh?"

"He's sick a awful lot," she acknowledged. "He's downright frail."

"What's his name?"

"Alan."

"Shore hope yeh don't ketch what he's got."

"Oh, yeh don't need to worry bout me none. I'm real tough. I never git sick."

Robert smiled. After they had filled the basket nearly to overflowing, he said: "There, yer brother oughta git well agin after he eats all them there."

"I thank yeh kindly."

"Anytime yeh wanna come over and pick some more or anything else jist come right on over. I'll probly be watchin from my secret place, and I'll jist come on over and hep yeh pick some more, Julie."

She smiled gratefully. She was convinced that this boy was utterly harmless and trustworthy and felt nearly comfortable in his presence now. And she liked the way he pronounced her name.

"So yeh say yeh got a secret place somewheres?"

"Yes, about a hundred yards upstream. It's a small glade where I go a lot to sit and think and look at the river. I seen yeh crossin the ford from there. That's how I knowed yeh was over here."

"Is it a pretty place?"

"Very pretty." He looked at her coyly. "Would yeh like to see it?"

"All right."

The boy looked surprised, but happy. "Then come on, I'll show yeh the way."

"What bout yer rifle?"

"I'll jist leave it here. I reckon it'll still be here when I git back."

So they set out together, Nici and Groth, through a wilderness that was dense and dusky now with approaching evening. He kept them on a course that roughly paralleled the river, which they could hear, at this point, but could not see. They swished aside branches and went around thickets before reaching a deep dry gully whose steep bank Robert slid down with ease and stood dusting his britches and waiting for her to follow, but she eyed the treacherous slope with trepidation.

"Ordinarily I'd slide right down," she braved. "But I'm a-wearin this here dress, and I'm a-carryin this here basket a berries."

"Right," said Robert, looking foolish. He clambored back up the slope and gallantly took her hand. "I got to remember I ain't with one a my brothers or my tomboy sister," he said with a blush.

He helped her gently down the slope, then assisted her with equal care up the opposite side, which was somewhat easier to negotiate.

They continued through the wilderness until at last the foliage opened on a small clearing overlooking the river which sparkled in the waning sunlight in a way that made it breathtakingly beautiful, and Robert was beaming and watching her face as she saw that the cozy little glade was adorned with a cascading profusion of blossoms whose fragrance filled the air.

"So what yeh think?" he asked.

"It's more than jist pretty, it's downright beautiful!" she gasped.

"I knew yeh'd like it," Robert grinned. "My little sister likes flowers, too."

"Look at em! Jist look at em all! I ain't never seen sich a sight a flowers. They're all colors and all kinds and all around!"

"They jist started bloomin a few days ago," he informed her. "Right here on this log is where I was a-settin when I seen yeh cross the river. See? Yeh can see the ford through all these branches here."

She craned her neck and spotted the ford and continued to gaze around.

"Would yeh like to set?" he invited.

"Thanky."

They sat down on the log and she placed the basket of berries between them to serve as a sort of chaperone. They nibbled berries and watched the river and listened to the gurgle of the current along the bank. She had never seen the Groth side from the Nici point of view before.

"I'm afeared I cain't stay long," she lamented, observing the sky. "I got to leave when the sun tetches the mountains."

Robert saw, to his dismay, that the fiery orb hung just above the dark green mantle of trees that cloaked the shoulder of the mountain.

"Julie?" he said, his mood suddenly somber now— he had something to say and since there was so little time, he could not worry whether or not it sounded awkward — "Yestiddy at dusk, when I was a-settin here, I thought I seen a girl in the woods acrost the river, but when I went up behind a bush at the edge a the river fer a closer look, she was gone. I reckoned she warn't nothin but a ghost, and it got me to thinkin maybe it was the ghost a some poor Groth girl us Nicis kilt a long time ago. It made me feel powerful sad, like at night when I cain't sleep, I lay there a-starin out the winder at our graveyard, and sometimes I imagine I can see the ghost a my ma wanderin real lonesome like amongst the crosses, lookin at the names a all the folks that's been kilt since she was buried there. Anyways, I reckon I came here today hopin I'd see the ghost a that poor girl agin."

"It warn't no ghost, Robbie. It was me. I was huntin fer berries over there yestiddy, too."

Robert nodded sadly. "I was hopin yeh'd turn out to be real."

"Oh, I'm real, all right."

"I ain't ordinarily this talkative with girls," he confessed. "I don't never know what to say. I git all tongue-tied and red in the face and such. My two oldest brothers, Quint and Marty, they're always a-makin fun a me on account of it."

"Yeh ain't havin no trouble talkin to me," she noticed.

"Yer right easy to talk to, Julie. When I was hidin behind the bushes watchin yeh pick them berries, I almost didn't come out to say nothin on account of my shyness, but somethin forced me to, and now I'm glad it did."

She stared across the river at the shadowy wilderness, raising a berry to her lips and saying reflectively behind the berry: "So yeh see ghosts too, huh? I thought I was the only one. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle a the night, I think I see the ghost a my pappy standin beside my bed lookin down at me." She slowly nibbled the berry.

"How long's yer pappy been gone?"

"Bout ten years."

"Didje love him?"

"I did. Most a the folks in this here holler didn't keer much fer him, and he made us a heap a enemies, but he was always kind to me."

Robert hesitated. "Was he kilt by us?"

"He was," she said without a hint of accusation.

The boy shook his head mournfully. "I'm awful sorry," he said. "I'm jist so powerful sorry."

"Warn't yer fault none, Robbie. Yeh was jist a little kid when it happened and so was I."

"I'm sorry bout me bein so gloomy," he said.

"That's all right. I'm gloomy, too. When yer losin yer kin all the time, yeh tend to be gloomy."

"I reckon so," Robert said after a pause.

She glanced at him, then stared across the river. "Yeh got a girlfriend?"

The boy shook his head sadly.

"Ain't yeh never had no sweetheart?"

"No. You?"

She smiled bitterly at the river. "I'm afeared us Groths ain't much in demand," she said. She realized then that she had just admitted for the first time to being a Groth, but it did not seem to matter anymore, neither to him nor to her.

Robert sat there studying his hand, and after a while he muttered, almost to himself: "I don't keer yer last name is Groth. I don't keer one lick."

She looked at the orange sun, which was half sunk now behind the shoulder of the mountain, its rays painting the undersides of nearby clouds crimson and violet. Soon it would be twilight and the charming little glade would be shrouded in shadow. She stared across the river and said with reluctance: "I reckon I best be gittin on home. Ma's bound to git worried." She rose to her feet with the basket. "I thank yeh agin fer heppin me pick all these here berries," she said.

Robert looked up at her with sudden alarm and sprang to his feet. "Can I see yeh agin, Julie?" He seemed panicked that he might never be with her again.

"Shore. If I can git away," she promised.

"Yeh reckon yeh can git away tomorrow afternoon?"

"I'll try."

He smiled with relief. "Lemme walk yeh to the ford." They made their way through the wilderness back to the ford and he said: "If yeh can git away tomorrow, I'll be waitin fer yeh right here."

She smiled and gathered her skirt up above her knees and with the basket held out for balance against the buffeting current of the stream waded through the shallow water of the ford. At the other side she turned and waved. Standing forlornly on the opposite bank, with the setting sun coloring both him and the river blood-red, he returned a somber wave, and she spun and hurried off into the darkening wilderness which even now was alive with the buzz of nocturnal insects.

Robert and Julie met not only the next day but also the day after that and as often as possible in the days that followed until they were so deeply and desperately in love with each other that they did not know what to do. Though they met as often as they could, their meetings were not frequent enough to suit either one of them. As time went by they encountered more and more difficulty inventing excuses to get away. How many times could she go out to gather berries and herbs and nuts and how many times could he go out to hunt rabbit without ever bringing home any game? They sensed that their families were getting suspicious. One morning Julie was cooking breakfast when her mother entered the main room. "Mornin, Ma."

"Mornin," Tamora said.

"How's Alan this mornin?"

"Better, I reckon. He was able to git up on one elbow today."

Julie chuckled.

"Yeh think yer little brother bein ill is funny?"

"No, Ma. I thought yeh was makin a joke."

"Well, I ain't. I don't never joke bout none a yeh young-uns bein sick." She glanced into the skillet. "Say, what yeh makin there?"

"Scrambled eggs with bits a bacon throwed in."

Tamora joined in the making of breakfast. "Goin out and fetchin them berries fer yer ailin brother was a right thoughty thing to do," the woman said, mixing a fresh batch of corn bread. "I reckon they're a-heppin him."

"Yeh want I should go out and fetch some more today?" Julie offered, slyly.

"With that there big basketful yeh done brung home yestiddy, I don't reckon that'll be necessary."

"Oh, I don't mind," Julie said, as casually as possible while stirring the contents of the skillet, "so long as they're a-heppin Alan. And if I bring home moren he can eat, I can turn the rest into jam."

"Yeh got yer chores to do."

"I can go out in the late afternoon after I finish my chores," Julie suggested, still not risking a glance at her ma.

Tamora looked at her shrewdly. "Yeh shore been gone a lot these days," she said. "Yeh ain't meetin no boy out there in them woods, are yeh?"

Julie blushed. "Course not, Ma." She hoped her mother did not notice the blush.

"Yeh better not be. Yeh jist better not be, yeh hear?"

"How could yeh even suggest sich a thing?"

Tamora turned back to the corn-bread mix. "Cause I know what it can lead to and I wanna be shore yeh don't git bigged out a wedlock like I done. Yer pa might not a been the worst man in these here mountains but he done made us a heap a enemies with that temper a his and I wanna be shore yeh make a better match than what I done. There's a couple old men from the holler already axed me fer yer hand in wedlock but I still think that there mountain man Perry Stark is the one fer you. Don't shake yer head, child! It'd be hard to find a better man who don't keer yer a Groth."

"I don't like Perry, Ma. He's a old man too."

"He's twenty-seven."

"I'm sixteen."

"Which means yer way too young to know what's best fer yeh. Yeh listen to yer old ma, she ain't lived this long without larnin a thing or two."

"Ma, can I go out after my chores and pick more berries fer Alan?"

"What fur? He's got nuff."

"Cause yeh said they was a-heppin and he might run out. I'm only thinkin a Alan. Course, if yeh don't want me to. . . ."

"Oh, all right, if yer set on it. Jist be home afore dusk this time."

That late afternoon she and Robert sat side by side on the log in the secret glade, the basket of berries resting on the ground at their feet, no longer serving the role of chaperone between them. She had been enjoying her brief time with him but her spirits had begun to decline noticeably with the sun. The last berry she had selected from the basket she had returned uneaten and she now sat shrouded in twilight with her head down and her hair draping the side of her face. Robert brushed her hair behind her ear so that he could admire her profile.

"What's the matter, Julie? I know somethin's a-troublin yeh."

She did not answer at once. Then slowly she shook her head in an attitude of dismal despair. "I don't want to go back home, Robbie. I hate it there. I don't want to live there no more."

Robert draped his arm around her sympathetically.

"I hate my brothers Dimmy and Myron. They're ignernt and ornery and disgustin. I cain't even tell yeh the things they do, they're too sick. I love my brother Alan — and I reckon I love Ma and Arbus too but I hate the way Ma is always favorin Arbus over the rest of us kids." She paused dispiritedly to smooth a wrinkle in her dress. "No one likes us Groths a tall. Folks treat us like dirt. I don't want to be a Groth no more." She rested her head on his shoulder. "I love you, Robbie, and I want to marry yeh and become a Nici and be respected fer a change. Then everythin'd be wonderful. We could spend all day and all night together and never have to part at sunset like we do now."

"Yeh know I want that too, Julie."

"Then please let's run away together. Please. I don't mean today or tomorry, but soon, real soon, as soon as we can."

"I jist don't think I'm ready fer that yet," he told her.

"Oh, Robbie!" She scooted away from him and sat there sulking and contemplating her hands.

"I love my family, Julie. If I ran away and never saw em agin I'd miss em real horrible like."

"Yeh don't love me," she accused.

"Yeh know that ain't true."

"Then yeh love them moren yeh love me or yeh'd want to run away with me."

"I don't know who I love more," he admitted.

She thought about this bitterly, then said: "What yeh think we're gonna do, Robbie, jist keep on a-sneakin round like this fer the rest a our lives?"

"No," he said miserably.

"I'm tard a all this sneakin round. I'm sick a lyin all the time. I don't feel right bout it. If we keep on meetin here day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, ventchly we're gonna git caught, and that ain't gonna be good fer us a tall. Ma's already startin to git suspicious."

He looked at her with alarm. "How yeh know?"

"Cause this mornin she came right out and axed me if I was meetin some boy out here in the woods."

"What didje tell her?"

"I told her I wasn't. I had to lie to her — agin."

"What yeh reckon's makin her suspicious?"

"Cause I been away from the house so much lately. Not nuff to suit me but nuff fer her to notice. And that ain't all, Robbie. She's pushin this Perry Stark feller on me."

"Who?"

"Perry Stark. He's this mountain man she's tryin to mate me up with. He's a nice nuff feller, I reckon, but he's awful old. He's twenty-seven."

"Golly," Robert said.

"So yeh see, Robbie, we got to run away. We ain't got no future here. I shore ain't gonna wed Perry Stark jist to stop bein a Groth cause I don't love him. I love you and yer all I think bout night and day and if I didn't have these here meetins to look forward to I'd die, but we both know we cain't go on meetin here ferever and ever more."

"I know," Robert said dejectedly.

She looked at him with eyes full of urgency. "Then please let's run away together. Please!"

"I cain't leave my family, Julie. I'm beholden to em. They need me at home. It's plantin season and all."

The girl's shoulders slumped and she said nothing.

"Maybe we don't need to run away," he suggested hopefully. "Maybe by the time we're old nuff to git married, this here feud'll be over, and we can wed right here in this valley."

"That ain't gonna happen."

"It might," he said, without conviction.

"Yeh know durn well it ain't. Even if our families agree to stop killin each other, that don't mean we're ready to start marryin each other. My kinfolk would never allow it and neither would yourn. If we want to git married we got to leave this valley to do it."

"But if we wait four or five years — "

"Like I done told yeh, Robbie, I ain't got four or five years. Ma's pushin that there mountain man on me."

Robert sighed. "I jist wish we could court like normal kids, with a chaperone and all, and not have to sneak round in these here woods like animals."

"But we ain't that lucky so we got to take what we can git . . . Oh, Robbie, let's don't fight no more! Our time together's short nuff without us fightin like this." She slid across the log to his side again.

So that they would no longer have to invent excuses to get away, they took to meeting at night, sneaking off when everyone else was asleep, but now they were too tired to do their work during the day and their families were starting to get suspicious about that.

One night, after discussing their predicament, they went skinny-dipping in the river. The water was warm and soothing and restorative and afterwards they stretched out on the bank at the foot of the glade and fell asleep. When she awoke, the moon was only a few degrees lower in the starry sky, and for a while she listened to the quiet nocturne of the crickets and tree frogs and to the murmur of the current along the bank. Then she glanced over at Robert, who had awakened ahead of her, who lay on his side smiling at her tenderly as though he had been admiring her in her sleep, and she sat up and self-consciously enveloped her updrawn knees with her arms and, resting her chin on her knees, stared at the river with troubled eyes. The other side of the river was black and forbidding and moonlight sparkled on the dark surface of the water like millions of glowworms swimming downstream. They had often discussed how little there was to do in the mountains. Julie felt bored and stifled and confined. She liked to stare at the river which for her represented an avenue of escape. As soon as she had discovered that he could read and write she had prevailed upon him to smuggle books to the secret glade and read to her, first by the light of the setting sun, and now by the light of a candle stub she had brought from home. The books further fueled her dreams of escape. She longed to escape downriver and visit all the remote and colorful places he read to her about. Robert himself had never really cared all that much about the books until her excitement over them had inspired him to read them through her eyes. He softly caressed her smooth white shoulder. "Wanna swim some more?" he suggested in a tone which indicated he was not too enthusiastic about the idea himself.

After a moment she glanced over at him with abstraction, faintly smiled and shook her head and stared at the river again. A sudden sound in the wilderness made Robert sit up with a start and push his frightened gaze into the darkness all around them.

"What's the matter?" she asked without looking at him.

"I thought I heard somethin in the woods."

"I heard it, too. It was jist a acorn or somethin fallin out of a tree."

Robert's gaze continued to probe the wilderness until he felt sufficiently at ease to lie back down again. "I'm gittin awful jumpy," he admitted. "Every little sound out there starts me up."

"Would we really be leavin all that much behind, Robbie, if we left this here valley and never looked back?"

"I'd miss my family," he reminded her, for the hundredth time.

Tonight she was unusually quiet and remote, and he gently induced her to lie back with him in the grass again. Now the moon was the object of her fixed stare.

"What's the matter, Julie? I git the feelin there's somethin yeh ain't tellin me."

Her chin quivered and she pressed her lips together to control it. "I'm jist so afeared a losin yeh," she replied in a small quavering voice. "I'm afeared yeh might stop lovin me."

"Never," he assured her. "Yeh ain't got to worry bout that none."

"I'd die if I couldn't be with yeh, Robbie, not only like this but like husband and wife." And then she added timidly: "And like father and mother."

"I reckon I'd die without you, too," he said. Then suddenly he looked at her. "Julie, what yeh mean, like father and mother?"

A solitary teardrop rolled down her cheek. "Robbie, yeh know what it means when a girl misses her monthly flow?"

"Monthly flow?"

"When she wakes up every mornin with a sickness in her belly?"

"Yeh ill or somethin?" he asked with concern.

"I heard Ma talk bout the symptoms. She's had em plenty a times hersef."

"Julie, what yeh tellin me?" he asked, on the verge of panic.

"I don't know how much longer I can hide it from my ma," she fretted. "Robbie, I reckon you and me is gonna have us a baby."

He stared at her with utter incredulity, and after a while he was able to swallow and say, "Yeh shore? I mean, how do yeh know?"

"Like I said, I got all the signs."

"But I thought we took . . . precautions."

"I reckon the precautions didn't work."

Slowly he sat up and faced the river, his arms wrapped around his updrawn knees.

"Yeh hate me now, right?"

"We tried it jist that once, and now yer bigged?"

"Only takes once, so it peers."

"I don't believe this," he muttered to himself after a while.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. "So go ahead and leave me now, if yeh want. I'll unnerstand. I'll go up in the mountains somewheres and have my baby like a wild animal."

He looked at her. She had uttered the remark so seriously and with such woeful conviction that this indeed would be her fate that he could not help but smile down at her with affection.

She attempted to return his smile, but failed even to meet his eyes.

"Why didn't yeh tell me this afore now, Julie?"

"I didn't tell yeh cause I wasn't shore. I kept on hopin I'd git my flow. And I was afeared yeh'd hate me and never want to see me agin."

"Why would I hate yeh? It wasn't yer fault. It was somethin we done together and I'm glad we done it. I ain't got no regrets."

"So what're we gonna do?" she asked.

He faced the river again and soberly thought it over. "I reckon there ain't nothin to do now but run away."

"Really?" she said.

Robert nodded firmly. "Got to now, ain't no way we can have that there baby here in this valley. Our families'd tear the poor little thing apart. And then they'd tear us apart. Ain't safe fer none of us here now. We got to git fur away somewheres and git married."

"Oh, Robbie," she sat up hopefully. "Yeh mean it? Then yeh really do keer bout me?"

"Course I do. Ain't no doubt bout that and never was." He contemplated awhile. "Yeh know, the more I think bout it, the more I like it. Robert Nici, a father. And Julie Groth — soon to become Julie Nici — a mother."

"Oh, Robbie!" she hugged him warmly.

"Shore, I'm gonna miss my family, but that don't matter now. I got my own family to think bout now. I got to do what's best fer you and the little one. We'll run away soon as we can. I'll git everythin ready, I'll plan it out. We'll say goodbye to this here valley and journey downriver somewheres and see what's down there, I reckon."

She lay back in the clover again. "Yeh don't feel like I trapped yeh or nothin?"

"What yeh mean, trapped? Like I said, I'm glad we done it and I'm glad my mind's finally made up and I'm glad we're a-runnin away together, the three of us. The baby changes everything. I got to think bout the baby now."

While he rambled on, she gazed with deepest affection at the back of his tousled head and softly caressed the fragile wing of one of his shoulder blades that protruded from his boyish back. When she casually felt at her hair to test whether or not it was dry, she accidentally touched one of the clover blossoms which he had picked and with which he had evidently adorned her hair while she was asleep, and she delicately plucked it out and examined it, held the fragrant blossom to her nose, then twiddled it happily between forefinger and thumb. At last they were going to run away from this dreadful feud. And she had a head start on that family she so desperately wanted.

That had been her moment of greatest happiness, and how quickly it had plunged into her time of deepest despair. Inside the dark and malodorous woodshed she languidly shifted on her filthy pallet of straw to a less uncomfortable position, taking care to cradle protectively the innocent life growing inside of her. They had planned to meet two nights later at the secret glade, bringing only the necessities, a bundle of clothing apiece, a tent, a rifle, some ammunition, then depart as soon as it was light enough to travel, journeying along the river by day and sleeping in their tent beside a small romantic fire at night, eating whatever they could hunt and gather and always staying close to the river so that they would have plenty of water for drinking and bathing. But their plans had gone dreadfully wrong. Even though their nocturnal meetings left her dog-tired throughout the day, nausea and worry combined to produce an inability to sleep, with the result that she had fallen into the habit of grabbing a few hours of slumber whenever she could. And one of the side effects of the stomach powder she was secretly taking for nausea was drowsiness. So on the night they were to meet at the secret glade, she overslept from what she had intended to be a mere nap — awoke suddenly to darkness, but also to the sound of the predawn chorus of birds. She was so crippled by morning sickness and so hampered by horrible cramps that it was all she could do to get out of bed. The first thing she did was vomit into her chamber pot. She felt dizzy and weak and the mere prospect of hastily dressing and running off to meet Robert daunted her. There was a soft tapping at her door and she looked up with apprehensiveness. The door came quietly open and she saw to her relief that it was only Alan and her little brother slipped into her room and eased the door shut behind him. She and Alan were very close and had always trusted each other with their little secrets. Alan was the only one in the family who knew about her and Robbie. In fact Alan had accompanied her to the secret glade one night and he and Robbie had gotten along well.

"Julie, what're yeh still doin here?" he whispered nervously. He and his sister had said their tearful farewells last night.

"I overslept, Alan. I got to sleep late last night I was so sick."

"It's almost dawn."

"I know. Could yeh fetch me some a that stomach powder from the main room and a cup a water please?"

"I'll be right back." He slipped from the room again.

Somehow she managed to dress and to drag her bundle of clothing from underneath her bed. She sat on the edge of the bed doubled over with morning sickness with her arms wrapped around her stomach. Alan finally returned with the medicine and she drank it down in one continuous draught. She feebly smiled at him with gratitude.

"Yeh don't look too good, Julie."

"I don't feel too good, Alan. I'm downright sick to my stomach."

"Anythin more I can do fer yeh?"

"No, thanky, I feel a bit better now."

"Why don't yeh wait fer a better mornin to leave?"

"Cause I won't feel no better no other mornin. We got to leave now afore it gits even worse."

"But couldn't yeh at least wait till tonight? Yeh always seem to feel better at night."

"I cain't, Alan, Robbie's a-waitin fer me right now."

"Seems to me yer chances a gittin caught would be less at night cause yeh'll be leavin when everyone else's asleep."

"We cain't travel at night, even with a moon it's too dark."

"But yeh go to the secret glade at night."

"That's different, we know the way."

"Ma and Arbus's already up," he whispered. "How yeh gonna leave without em seein yeh?"

"I'll jist have to climb out the winder. Quit yer worryin, will yeh?"

"I reckon I jist don't want yeh to go," Alan confessed. "I love yeh, Julie."

She looked at him with a melting expression and embraced him warmly. "Yer the only one I'm a-gonna miss," she told him. "I wish I could take yeh with me, but yeh got to stay here fer Ma. She never keered much fer me, but she loves you and Arbus."

"Don't say that, Julie. Yeh know Ma loves yeh, too."

The girl just wiped her eyes.

"It jist ain't gonna be the same round here without yeh," Alan said. "If yeh don't come back in a few years, I'm a-goin out lookin fer yeh, I swear it."

She kissed his forehead. "Hep me out the winder, sweetie," she said.

She drew open the shutters. The birds were singing and it was already starting to get light. She and Robbie should have been leaving the glade about now. Robbie would be so worried. Alan helped her up to the sill and she climbed through with difficulty and, looking every which way, dropped to the ground outside and Alan tossed out her bundle containing her clothes and a few other meager possessions and forlornly returned her hasty wave as she hurried through the twilight towards the fog-enshrouded wilderness, but feeling once more a crippling wave of nausea, she ducked behind the woodshed and dropped to her knees and doubled over and tried to vomit but nothing came out, nothing came out, and rocking wretchedly she waited for the next inevitable wave of nausea. Had she known that pregnancy would make her so miserable she would never have risked it. She had to get moving, whether she felt like it or not, but before she could even begin to climb to her feet again her mother appeared around the woodshed with an upraised stick which she lowered again in bewilderment.

"You?" she said. "From the winder I seen someone sneak behind the shed and I thought it was Dimmy or Myron shirkin their chores agin, but it's you! What yeh doin out here, girl? What yeh doin behind this here woodshed?"

Her mother noticed the bundle of clothing.

"Yeh runnin away? Is that it? Answer me, girl!"

Julie doubled over and vomited onto the ground.

"What's the matter with yeh, yeh sick agin this mornin? How come yer always sick in the mornin?" The woman appeared thunderstruck. "Lordy me! Is it what I think it is? Is it mornin sickness? Yeh been missin yer monthly flow? Tell me, girl! Have yeh? I don't believe it! I don't wanna believe it! Yer bigged, ain't yeh! Yeh think I don't know the signs, many times as I been that way mysef? Who the hell done it to yeh? Who the hell done knocked yeh up? Dimmy?"

"No, Ma!"

"Myron?"

"No!"

"Don't tell me yeh managed to seduce my little Alan! Is that what happened, yeh wanton girl?"

"No, Ma! No!"

The woman looked suddenly appalled. "It wasn't Aaron Moore, was it?"

"Ma, no!"

"Then who the hell was it? Who yeh runnin off to?"

"Ma! Ma!"

"Yeh better tell me, girl! I'll beat it out a yeh with this here stick if I got to! Who yeh runnin away with? Who done bigged yeh?"

"It's Robert Nici!" she blurted defiantly.

"What? I don't believe it!"

"It's true."

"Yeh mean a Nici raped yeh?"

"No, Ma, it wasn't like that a tall. Robbie and me, we met and . . . we're in love, Ma, and we're gonna git married."

"I don't believe what I'm a-hearin!"

"It's true."

"It damn well better not be!"

"But it is."

"So yeh was sneakin off to meet a boy in the woods, jist like I spected! And a Nici, no less! I done warned yeh bout this here, didn't I? Well, yeh ain't gonna have no baby daddied by a Nici! Yer gonna git the damn thing cut out and yer gonna marry Perry Stark and it ain't never gonna be no Nici, not now, not ever, yeh hear!"

"But I love him, Ma!"

"Don't yeh never let me hear yeh say that agin! After all yer kin them Nicis kilt! Yer pa and all the rest!"

"But Robbie ain't like that, Ma, he ain't never harmed a one of us. Yeh don't even know him, yeh got to git to know him fust."

"I don't know him and I don't wanna know him! I don't wanna know the kind a boy that sneaks round with my daughter behind my back and gits her with demon seed. I'd rather see yeh dead than married to a Nici!"

"Then yeh better kill me cause me and Robbie we're a-gonna run away and git married and there ain't nothin yeh can do bout it!"

"Is that right?" her mother said, with a wicked grin. "Yeh think I won't do it? Folks in these mountains've put their daughters to death afore fer shamin their families like this. I done told yeh what I was gonna do if this ever happened to yeh and I'm a-gonna do it. Come on," she seized her daughter's wrist and hoisted the girl to her feet. "I'm a-gonna lock yeh up."

"No!" Julie shrieked. She wrestled free from her mother's grasp and fled leaving her bundle behind.

"Julie! Yeh come back here! I said yeh git back here, girl!"

Julie continued fleeing and, glancing back, saw her mother bent in lumbering pursuit, brandishing the stick, and she ran as fast as her legs and her condition allowed into the wilderness as far as she could and then hid behind a thicket to catch her breath. Her nausea, sufficiently relieved by the vomiting to enable her to run, was now creeping back. Her mother was searching the wilderness for her, calling her name. The calls were getting farther and farther away. She had to get to Robbie, she couldn't wait any longer and she bolted and ran straight into Aaron Moore. She struggled with all her strength but he held her fast in his powerful arms. "Please let me go," she whimpered imploringly. "I won't tell Ma yeh did."

But the farmhand was forever trying to curry favor with Ma and he said, "You mustn't disobey your ma, little miss. It isn't respectful," and he hauled her out of the wilderness and delivered her to her mother who dragged her to the woodshed and flung her inside and closed and barred the door. Julie banged on the door and then slumped back in a corner and wept, too sick and weak to protest any longer.

After a while she heard a voice at the door. "Julie? Yeh all right?"

"Alan," she muttered and went to the door. "Alan, will yeh go to Robbie fer me, please, and tell him what happened? He'll want to come to me but tell him not to, Ma'll have Aaron Moore kill him."

"Yeh all right, Julie?"

"I'm fine, Alan."

"Yeh shore?"

"Yes, please go to Robbie fer me. Tell him . . . tell him I love him."

"Okay," Alan replied.

And the boy was gone.

If she had known that she was sending her little brother off to his death that morning, if she had known that the errand would even be the slightest bit dangerous, she would never have sent him, Alan had been too precious to her, but these mitigating facts did little to assuage her grief and her sense of responsibility for Alan's death that continued to haunt her even now in the woodshed so many months later. She remembered hearing the distant sound of gunshots coming from the direction of the glade, remembered the subsequent activity of her kin who, upon discovering Alan's absence, had grabbed their rifles and had run off; and she remembered their return, Ma temporarily dragging her out of the wood-shed and tearfully forcing her to look at Alan's body with part of his head blown away and blaming her, blaming her for everything. The Nicis had accused Alan of killing Robbie but she would never believe it: Alan would never have done anything that would have hurt her so much. And besides, he and Robbie had met and had gotten along well. A few mornings later she had heard the sounds of distant gunbattle again and had known that her brothers were getting revenge for Alan and that it was all her fault. All her fault, too, according to her mother, was the subsequent execution of Arbus, and her mother had told her sobbingly through the woodshed door that she would never forgive her, that she could stay in the woodshed till she rotted, that her next confinement would be the grave and her mother would not shed a single tear for her. Later, however, the woman had relented, had told her she could come out if she agreed to two conditions, one, to get rid of the baby, and two, to marry Perry Stark, who for reasons her mother could not fathom still wanted to marry her in spite of her "fall." But she would never get rid of her and Robbie's baby and she would never marry Perry Stark no matter how long her mother kept her confined in the stink and heat and darkness of this abominable shed, she loved Robbie and would never love another, she would prove herself as obstinate as her mother even though the conditions inside the woodshed daily tested her resolve.

Listlessly she settled down in a fetal position on her pallet of straw and pillowed her head on her folded hands. Through the narrow gap beneath the door she could see grass and flowers and the occasional shadow of a cloud gliding serenely along the ground, shadows free to roam wherever they pleased, like her thoughts, like her daydreams, if not like herself. Her eyelids grew leaden from watching the hypnotic passing of shadows. She gently closed her eyes and hoped that she would sleep and dream about Robbie coming to rescue her from the misery of this woodshed like one of those knights he used to read to her about and carry her off to a place where they could marry and raise their child in peace, an idyllic place where there would be no hatred, no vengeance, no violence, no feud.