A Cumberland Vendetta
by John Fox Jr.

TO MINERVA AND ELIZABETH

A Cumberland Vendetta

I

THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret
refuge now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in
the woods. The primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked
over the red coals; the slice of bacon and the little bag of meal
were hung high against the rock wall; and the two stepped from
the cavern into a thicket of rhododendrons.

Parting the bushes toward the dim light, they stood on a massive
shoulder of the mountain, the river girding it far below, and the
afternoon shadows at their feet. Both carried guns-the tall
mountaineer, a Winchester; the boy, a squirrel rifle longer than
himself. Climbing about the rocky spur, they kept the same level
over log and bowlder and through bushy ravine to the north. In half
an hour, they ran into a path that led up home from the river, and
they stopped to rest on a cliff that sank in a solid black wall
straight under them. The sharp edge of a steep corn-field ran near,
and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks and hooded ears looked
in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer. In the sunlight
across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over there a drought
was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the noontide of
the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty