In the clouds

by Charles Egbert Craddock

XXIX.

It seemed to Mink Lorey, trudging on toward the mountains, as if they had been suddenly caught up in the clouds. The horizon had fallen from their invisible summits to the levels of the cove, and where the flat stretches of the perspective met the nullities of the enveloping vapors the scene had all the prosaic, denuded desolation of prairie distances. Yearning for the sight of the blue peaks, he felt as if it were in rebuke, in alienation, that they had hidden their faces from him, had drawn the tissues of the air about them and veiled their heads. As the day unfolded hour by hour, as the distance lessened mile by mile, he sought if perchance in a rent of the mist he might not glimpse some dome, the familiar of his early life, unchanged through all the vicissitudes that time had wrought for him. Once he was not sure if it were mountain or cloud outlined in individual symmetry amongst the indeterminate, shapeless masses of vapor. Then the haze thickened, and he lost the semblance, whether of earth or air.

It was before dawn that he had escaped from the haven he had found, and Mrs. Purvine, throughout the day, keeping watch over these snug quarters, guarded an empty nest. After the first deep, dreamless slumber of exhaustion he had silently slipped out, taking his way toward the Great Smoky, the thought of Alethea heavier than all his calamities. He knew naught of the report of his pardon; he hardly cared now what might betide him. He would see her and tax her with her fickle heart, and then he would flee whither he might. Sometimes, as he toiled along, he would raise his arm with a frantic gesture, and again and again his lips moved unconsciously as he forecast in sibilant mutters the words that he would say.

There was little danger at this early hour of meeting any traveler along the deserted road, but he hardly felt safe until he reached the base of the Great Smoky, and was amongst the dense laurel of those mighty forests, still veiled with the mists and effaced from the day. He turned back often, despite the numbing clutch of despair in his heart and the turbulence of his rage, hoping that he might see again Chilhowee with the sunshine on it; with the circuit of birds in the adjacent domains of the sky; with detached flakes of mist, like stole-clad figures, in airy processional pacing the summit to elusive evanescences; with its colors of bronze-green, and anon purple, and, stretching far away, more finely, softly azure than the heaven it touched. Alas, no,—this he might remember. And yet he had chance rencontres with old familiars. A torrent, gray-green, glassy, whitely foaming, darted out from the vapors suddenly, and was suddenly withdrawn into the blank spaces. And was he akin to the balsam firs; could he have met brethren with more joy? Even when they towered undistinguishably above him, they whispered to him a word now and then, and filled the air with the cordial, inspiriting sense of their presence. And what was this? He stood still to listen, staring into the white vagueness of the invisible woods. A fitful, metallic tinkling. Was he so high up the great steeps that already he could distinguish the bells of the herds, or was this a stray? He heard a hoof struck upon the ground presently, the sound of munching teeth, and suddenly a horse’s head was thrust forward amongst the mists, showing a black mane and wide brilliant eyes and the arch of a clay-bank neck.

“Thar ye be, Grasshopper! At it agin, air ye?” Mink called out, with the rancorous formula of an old reproach.

It was a horse that he knew, and knew well,—one of the charges of the herders during the previous summer,—a wild young creature, with a proclivity for breaking bounds and straying. The animal pricked up his ears at the sound of his name, and his eyes met Mink’s with seeming recognition. The young mountaineer reflected that it was he who had usually salted the animals. With a hope of bettering his plight he held out his hand.

“Cobe! Cobe!” he called seductively. The horse looked dubiously at him, as he stood, one hand thrust in his leather belt, his white hat—an old one belonging to Jerry Price, which Mrs. Purvine had loaned him—perched on the back of his head, his red hair limp with the moisture of the damp day. The creature approached gingerly, snuffing at the empty hand. He moved back abruptly, detecting the deception; but Mink had caught him by the halter which he wore, and sprung upon his back.

“Gimme a lift up the mounting, Grasshopper,” suggested Mink placidly.

The stray reared and plunged and kicked, striving to unhorse the rider, who, although without saddle or bridle, contrived to maintain his seat, but could neither govern nor guide the animal, that at last bolted off through the woods, running as rapidly as the nature of the ground would permit. On he went, invading the mists; piercing the invisibilities of the wilderness; up hill and down; among bowlders and gigantic trees, dimly looming; fording streams and standing pools and morasses; pausing to kick and rear and plunge anew, and away once more. Mink waited calmly till the stray should exhaust his energies. This proved longer than he had anticipated. But after several delusive intimations of abating speed the horse fell into a canter, then into a trot, and as Mink pulled on the halter the comity with his rider was renewed once more, and he lent himself to guidance. Looking about him, the young mountaineer could hardly say where he had been carried. Once as the mist shifted he saw through the limbs of stunted trees a great peak, a mile away perhaps, appearing and disappearing elusively among the rifts. He began to understand that he was on the summit of the ridge in the interval between two great uprising domes. Often he must needs lie flat on the horse’s back, lest the low boughs of the ancient dwarfed trees sweep him to the ground; as it was, they played cruel havoc with his old jeans coat, and once snatched his hat away. He drew up with difficulty, and as he clapped it on his head he heard again, in the momentary silence of his horse’s hoofs, the tinkling of bells other than the one which the nomadic Grasshopper wore at his neck. He rode toward the sound. It led him into a limited open space where the trees, struck and burned by the lightnings, had fallen charred upon the earth: two or three cows were pausing to crop in the lush grass, despite the crack of a whip and the call of a herder. Mink recognized the voice of his old comrade, Doaks.