Christy by Catherine Marshall

Author:Catherine Marshall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gilead Publishing
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Later that afternoon I left the quilt-piecing inside the cabin to see how the outside work was progressing. Several of the men had already finished their strips but David still had almost half of his to clear. In a situation like this, especially with a newcomer, I would have thought that those who finished first would lend a hand to the others. No one was making any such gesture to David. Yet I sensed that even if they had offered to help, though David would have been grateful, he would have refused. For gradually, over the last weeks, we had come to recognize the mountain code: no man’s leadership was accepted on someone else’s say-so.

The fact that the American Inland Mission or any other group sent in a man tagged “leader” impressed the highlanders not at all. For them there was but one criterion of leadership: recognized ability and superiority. And for a man this had to include the hands and the brawn as well as the book learning or the glib tongue. It had become increasingly obvious to David that the mountain men would listen to what he had to say from the pulpit only if first he proved himself to them as a man among men. And this would have been all right except that the proving had to be by their standards, not those anywhere else in the world.

I brought David a dipper of cool water, and as he drank thirstily, I was concerned to see that the palm of his right hand was now bloody. His left was almost as bad. When I asked about bandaging it, he shook his head grimly. “Thanks, no. I’d better try to finish this way.” He smiled at my solicitude. “You can doctor me this evening.” Then he picked up his mattock again.

About an hour later, we women heard sounds of a disturbance in the yard. I rushed to the back door, dimly aware of Fairlight just behind me. I thought that I recognized one voice—Bird’s-Eye’s. David was almost at the top of his strip, Bird’s-Eye shouting up at him. His voice was slurred and thick.

“Ain’t been treated so fine today, have ye?” he taunted. “That’s what we think of folks that pester with other folks’ business.” He spat contemptuously on the ground. “You’uns and your religion.” He spat again. “Religion ain’t got nothing to do with blockadin’ or feudin’ or gredges or bushwhackin’ no way. Religion is for women-persons and white-faced weaklin’s and liver-growed babies. You keep your religion inside the cupboard in the church-house where it belongs or I’ll give ye this—”

As he raised his rifle to his shoulder, I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that rose in me. Three rapid shots spattered into the ground at David’s feet; the fourth whistled within inches of his head. Then Bird’s-Eye stood there, brazen and churlish, with his hand cocked tantalizingly over the trigger which would release the fifth cartridge.

David had not jumped—as I had—at the four shots.

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