Blood Feud Read online

  “There were seven of them, but only six took part in ...” Scarlet stopped and tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. “They caught me picking berries in Harkey Hollow.”

  “God in heaven, girl,” Buck said. “What were you thinking?”

  “I know.”

  “We have our own patch right out back of the spring-house.”

  “I know.” Scarlet sniffled.

  “Go on.”

  Scarlet rubbed her arm across her nose. “I tried to run. They got hold of me and tried to force me. I fought them, Pa. Honest I did. But they held me down and took turns.” She bowed her head and tears trickled down her cheeks. “I kicked the big one where it hurts the most and he got so mad, he beat on me, him and his brother. The others hit me but not as much.” She sniffled some more. “One didn’t. He was against it and the big one hit him.”

  “Names, girl,” Buck said. “There are over a hundred Harkeys. I need the names.”

  “The big one was called Rabon and his brother was Woot. They never said the other names.”

  Chace asked, “What about the one who was against it? Did you get his name?”

  “What does he matter?” Buck said.

  “Jimbo,” Scarlet answered. “His name was Jimbo. He stood up for me. He was the only one who did.”

  “I’ll find out the rest,” Chace said.

  Buck jabbed a finger at him. “You’ll do no such thing, boy. This is for grown-ups to handle. Me and my brothers will take care of this.”

  Scarlet rose on her elbows. “What will you do, Pa?”

  Buck patted her hand and smiled. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it. We’ll do what has to be done, is all. They can’t get away with it. Not this, they can’t.”

  “There will be blood,” Chace said.

  Buck let go of Scarlet and glared at his son. “Didn’t you hear me? You’re not to get involved. I’m her pa. It’s for me to do.”

  “I’m her brother.”

  “I said no and that’s final.” Buck fished in his pocket. “How much do we owe you, Doc?”

  “Not a cent,” Witherspoon said. “Not for this.”

  Buck stopped fishing, and nodded. “That’s decent of you. I’m grateful.” He looked down at Scarlet and trembled. “About the other thing. Did they hurt her there, too?”

  “There’s no bleeding, if that’s what you mean,” Doc Witherspoon said. “The thing to watch out for is if she misses her monthly.”

  “Oh God. I didn’t think of that.” Buck swallowed and averted his face for a few moments. When he turned back his features were as hard as flint. “Chace, you go bring the wagon. Your sister can’t walk down the street looking like she does.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Cassie offered, and followed her brother out. As they emerged into the glare of the afternoon sun, she snatched at his arm. “You’re not going to listen to Pa, are you?”

  “No.”

  “You hadn’t oughta. It’s his to do.”

  “She’s my sister.”

  Cassie held him so he couldn’t walk. “I want your word. I want you to promise me you’ll let Pa take care of it.”

  Chace pinched his lips together and exhaled through his nose. “Why are you making such a fuss?”

  “You’re my twin.”

  “That’s no answer.” Chace tried to move, but she still held on. “You’re the only one in the world I’d let do this to me.”

  “Please.”

  Chace stared at the doctor’s door and then at the sky and then at the ground and then at her. “I’ll let Pa handle it.”

  “You will?”

  “I just said so, didn’t I?”

  Cassie beamed and clapped her hands and hugged him. “Thank you. You are the best brother ever.”

  “But,” Chace said.

  “There’s a ‘but’?”

  Chace nodded. “I’ll stay out of it so long as Pa and his brothers get it done, but if they can’t or they won’t, then I’ll put the quietus on the Harkeys who hurt Scarlet myself.”

  “Pa hasn’t said anything about killing.”

  “He should.” Chace made for the wagon and she fell into step beside him.

  “I don’t much like him treating me like I’m a kid. I stopped being a boy when I was eleven.” He glanced meaningfully at her. “You were there.”

  “Pa doesn’t know about that,” Cassie said. “No one does but me. When they found his body they thought he fell. If they knew you had pushed him ...” She gazed down the street at the stable and didn’t finish.

  “He had it coming,” Chace said. “Him wanting you to sit in his lap.”

  “He was drunk. He didn’t know any better.”

  “He knew exactly what he was about. You never should have gone up in the loft.”

  “He said he had licorice.”

  “Enough about him.” Chace stood aside and she climbed onto the seat and he did the same. He let loose the brake lever and raised the reins and flicked them. The mules were sluggish in the heat. He flicked again and brought the wagon to the gate in the picket fence.

  The front door opened and out came Buck carrying Scarlet. A blanket had been thrown over her and covered her to her neck. She averted her face from a passerby as Buck carefully lowered her over. “You can climb in the back with Scarlet,” he said to Chace, and when Chace complied, Buck climbed up and gripped the reins in his callused hands.

  Doc Witherspoon stood at the gate. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to caution you not to do anything foolish?”

  “If by foolish you mean kill them, I haven’t decided yet,” Buck said. “First I mean to beat them half to death.”

  “Just so you don’t end up in prison.” Doc Witherspoon tapped his fingers on the top rail of the picket fence. “You could put them behind bars, you know. Go to the sheriff and file a complaint. Have Scarlet testify in a court of law.”

  “No,” Buck said.

  “No,” Scarlet echoed.

  “Dare I ask why you won’t even consider it?”

  “How long have you been practicing medicine in Wareagle now, Doc?” Buck rejoined.

  “Twenty-one years. I came from Ohio. You know that.”

  “You were born an outsider but you’ve lived among us long enough that our ways are no secret. We don’t run to the law, ever. We don’t hold with courts, neither. This ain’t the North. We tree our own coons and we skin our own bears.”

  “Why not talk to Ezriah Harkey, at least?” Doc Witherspoon suggested. “He’ll have no truck with what those boys did, I guarantee. Could be he’ll punish them himself. Then the truce holds.”

  “They broke it when they hurt Scarlet,” Buck said.

  “The last time there were fourteen dead before the two sides came to their senses. How many have to die this time?”

  “Keep your nose out of it, Doc.” Buck yelled at the mules to get along and turned the wagon back up the street. A man came out of the saloon and waved in greeting, but Buck didn’t wave back.

  “Pa?” Cassie said. When he didn’t reply she touched his arm. “Pa? Are you all right?”

  “I may never be all right again,” Buck said. He patted a pocket and then another. “Have you seen my pipe? I don’t recollect putting it out, but I must have.”

  “The last I saw was when you took it out of your mouth at the doc’s,” Cassie told him.

  Buck checked his back pocket and sighed in relief. “Here it is. I’d hate to lose it. Takes forever to break in a new one.” He pulled the pipe out and set it in his lap and produced his tobacco pouch.

  “Let me,” Cassie said. “You don’t want to run over anybody.” She switched the pipe and pouch to her own lap.

  “I’m obliged.”

  Behind them, Scarlet curled on her side with her arm for a pillow. “Pretty stupid of me, huh, little brother?”

  “It was more stupid of them to do what they done,” Chace said.

  “You stay out of it—you hear? Leave this to Pa.”
/>   “You sound like Cassie.”

  The wagon hit a bump and Scarlet winced. “I care for you. We’re not as close as you and Cassie, but then hardly anyone is, short of being married. Comes of being twins, I guess.”

  Chace didn’t say anything.

  “You two have always been like two peas in a pod,” Scarlet went on. “I remember how when you were little you went everywhere together and did everything together. Pa used to joke that you were joined at the hip.”

  “We have been on occasion,” Chace said.

  “Ask me, you still are.” Scarlet stuck her arm out from under the blanket and held her hand for him to take. “This is my fault. I brought it down on us by being so dumb. Pa wants revenge and then the Harkeys are liable to want revenge for what he does and then our side will want revenge for what they do, and on it will go for years. Just like the last time.”

  “No.”

  “No what?” Scarlet asked.

  “It won’t go on for years. It won’t go on for months.”

  “Is that so? And what’s different about this time from the last?”

  “Me,” Chace said.

  4

  Jedediah Shannon showed up at Buck’s farm shortly after sunrise two days later. His lanky frame was clothed in buckskins nearly as old as he was. Curly gray hair framed a face with as many wrinkles as Methuselah’s. His armament consisted of an old Sharps rifle and a bowie knife. A large leather bag and a bandoleer crisscrossed his chest.

  Buck answered the knock on the cabin door. He blinked and said, “Pa?”

  “Unless it’s my ghost, and I ain’t dead yet,” Jed said. “Are you going to stand there with your jaw on the floor or welcome me in?”

  Buck sheepishly moved and gestured. “You’re always welcome. You know that. It’s a surprise, is all.”

  “It shouldn’t be. You’re my son.” Jed entered and looked around. “Erna keeps this place as cozy as ever, I see.”

  Buck closed the door. “It’s been full near a year. Now you show up out of the blue.”

  “You know what brought me.”

  “How did you find out? Doc Witherspoon is the only other one who knows. I sent for Granger and Fox but didn’t say why I needed them.”

  “A catbird told me. He landed on my pillow and whispered in my ear and here I am.” Jed strode to the table and sat, the Sharps cradled in his arms.

  “Friendly as ever, I see,” Buck drily remarked.

  “Where’s your family? The day’s begun and I don’t see them up and about,” Jed said.

  “Scarlet is in bed like the doc told her. Erna just took her some grits. The twins went out to the chicken coop for eggs. Would you like to join us for breakfast?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Jed stretched out his long legs and propped them on the table. “But first, why in hell didn’t you send word to me? Why did the head of our clan have to hear it from an outsider who’s worried sick blood will be spilled?”

  “I knew it was Witherspoon.” Buck sighed and claimed another chair. “He’s a good doctor but he likes to meddle where he shouldn’t.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  Buck ran a hand through his hair and reached into his pocket for his corncob pipe. He took out his tobacco pouch and loosened the drawstring and pinched tobacco and tamped it in the bowl.

  “You’re stalling,” Jed said.

  Buck ignored him and spent all of a minute lighting his pipe. Then he sat back and contentedly puffed.

  “And you’re not too old for me to wallop.”

  Buck took the pipe from his mouth. “Here, now. I won’t have talk like that. Not in my own house. You come down out of the hills acting high and mighty. Why don’t you ever come just to visit? Why do you only show your face when there’s trouble?”

  “I come when I’m needed. Otherwise I leave you be. If I was invited I would, but you never invite me.”

  Buck was about to stick the pipe back in his mouth but jabbed it at his father instead. “Damn it, Pa. You’re welcome here anytime. You know that. And hell, you haven’t called the clan together in pretty near two years. You’d think it would be more often.”

  “Quit your cussing,” Jed said. “I never cussed out of respect for your ma and I taught you the same.”

  A door at the back opened and out came a woman in her middle years. She wore homespun and had her hair in a bun and a sad expression until she saw their visitor. Then she smiled and came over, and Jed rose and she warmly embraced him. “Jedediah. I knew you’d come.”

  “You did but my own son didn’t. Tells me a lot right there.” Jed kissed her on the cheek. “It warms my cockles to see you again, Erna.”

  Erna sniffed and said, “You’re even sober. I’m honored.”

  Jed colored slightly and sat back down. “I haven’t had a drop since I heard about Scarlet. About rode my horse to death getting here.”

  “Why exactly did you come?” Buck asked.

  “On a list of stupid questions, that’s at the top,” Jed replied. “My granddaughter has been violated. The Harkeys are to blame. I’m here to decide what to do about it.”

  “I’ve already decided,” Buck said. “Me and Granger and Fox are going to pay Ezriah Harkey a visit and demand he turn those who abused my daughter over to us.”

  “That’s your plan?” Jed leaned the Sharps against his chair and folded his hand on the table. “I figured it would be something foolish like that.”

  “Jed, please,” Erna said.

  “What’s foolish about it?” Buck demanded.

  “He’ll be expecting you, for one thing. He’s their patriarch and, like me, the man to go to when there’s a dispute. For another thing, by now those who did it have bragged. The whole Harkey clan is likely to know. Put those two together and if you go in you might not come back out.”

  “Ezriah wouldn’t have me killed when they’re in the wrong.”

  “Wrong, son. That’s exactly why he would. He might not want to, but he will to protect his kin. Plus, that wife of his will egg him on. She’s the most bloodthirsty bitch there ever was.” Jed glanced at Erna. “Sorry. I forgot a lady is present.”

  The front door opened and in walked Chace and Cassie. She was carrying a pail full of eggs. “Grandpa!” she squealed in delight. Shoving the pail at Chace, she ran to the table and threw herself into Jed’s arms as he was rising.

  “Cassie girl,” Jed said huskily. “How’s my favorite person in all the world?”

  “Fine, Gramps.” Cassie kissed him on both cheeks. “I’ve missed you something awful. You don’t visit nearly often enough.”

  “I told him the same thing,” Buck said.

  Erna took the pail from Chace and announced, “I’ll have breakfast ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Jed sat and Cassie sat next to him and held out her hand to Chace, who stood next to her chair. Chace looked at Jed, and Jed looked at him and said, “Been to the stable today, boy?”

  Chace glanced at Cassie.

  “I have a barn,” Buck said. “You can call it a stable if you want. But why would you ask him that?”

  “He knows,” Jed said.

  “Well, it makes no sense to me.” Buck puffed a few times. “And I don’t know as you should be bringing stables up, anyway. Don’t you remember that drunk over to Wareagle? The one who fell out of the hayloft in the stable and broke his fool neck? It was Chace and Cassie who found the body.”

  Erna, about to place a skillet on the cast-iron stove, remarked, “That was awful. They were so young. It must have been terrible for them.”

  “It was, Ma,” Cassie said quickly.

  “It must have been terrible for the drunk, too,” Jed commented. He was looking at Chace when he said it.

  “Enough of this talk of death,” Erna said. “Our hearts are heavy enough over Scarlet.”

  They made small talk about the weather and the crops and kinfolk and Jed informed them that a cougar had killed a calf over to their c
ousin Rufus’s place. The cabin filled with the aromas of cooking food.

  Erna brought a steaming cup of coffee to Jed and gave him sugar and cream.

  “I haven’t had any in so long, I’ve about forgot how it tastes,” Jed said.

  “Maybe you’d like for me to break out a jug instead?” Buck asked. “I bet you haven’t forgotten how shine tastes.”

  “Bucklyn,” Erna said.

  “That’s all right.” Jed sipped and smacked his lips. “I don’t pay him no mind.”

  “Can I ask you something, Grandpa?” Cassie said. “It’s something I’ve been meaning to.”

  “Child, you can ask me anything.”

  “Good.” Cassie leaned on her elbows and gazed at him affectionately. “Why do you live so far back in the woods like you do? All alone? Why don’t you live closer so we can see you more?”

  Buck said, “I’d like to hear that answer myself.”

  Jed swallowed and set the cup on the saucer. “I never made a secret of it, Cassie girl. I like the wilds. I was born and bred in a cabin half this size on Slate Mountain, which didn’t have a name back then. I spent every day of my early years in the woods and it got in my blood. Some would say I’m a hermit, but I’m no such thing. I like to be alone but only because people are an aggravation.”

  “Us, too?”

  “Thunderation, child. Never in a thousand years. Kin is special. You ever hear of me not being there when a Shannon was in need?”

  “No, Grandpa,” Cassie said. “Everyone says you lead the clan as good as anyone.” She patted his hand. “It was you who arranged the truce with Ezriah Harkey, wasn’t it?”

  “That it was,” Jed confirmed. He sat back. “It was twenty years ago, or thereabouts. The killing had gone on for so long, no one could recollect what started it. It might have gone on except I ran into Ezriah in Wareagle.” He grinned wryly. “The settlement is as much to thank for the truce as me or Ezriah.”

  “How’s that?” Buck asked.

  “Wareagle wasn’t there when I was Cassie’s age. It sprung up later. Us Shannons and the Harkeys would sneak in and sneak out, never knowing when the other might take a potshot. One day I went to the general store and over to the pickle barrel, and who should be there but Ezriah Harkey getting a pickle. He looked at me and I looked at him and I said, ‘We’d be laughingstocks if we died over pickles. How about we hold off shooting each other while we eat?’ So we sat on stools and talked while we ate and it turned out he was as sick of the killings as I was. We agreed the bloodletting should stop and called a truce.”