A Maid of the Kentucky Hills

by Edwin Carlile Litsey

The Dryad had come home. I know that I can but poorly describe the scene to-night, but had I possessed pen and paper at that moment my plight would have been the same, or worse. About half of the little woodland court was whitened by the radiance from above, and the other portion was in alternate light and shadow. But even in this portion—which was next to me—a moving form could be plainly seen. The wildest, most bizarre, most graceful dance was in progress. Celeste was all in white; a loose, flowing robe with wing-like sleeves which waved and fluttered from her outstretched arms. Upon her head was a wreath of great, bell-shaped, snowy flowers, and draped loosely about her waist was a garland similarly wrought. They were the exquisite blooms of the jimson weed, that humble plant which grows undisturbed in every country barn lot in Kentucky. Back and forth and around she sped, in the intricate steps of a dance which made me dizzy to behold. Once she passed near my hiding-place—so near that I heard the quick intake of her breath and caught the gleam of her teeth back of her parted lips. I saw the expression on her face, too, as she whirled by, and it was one of purest enjoyment. The Satyr was piping and dancing, too. Weird and fantastic he was, with the tails of his long coat flapping behind, and the sugar-loaf hat atop his head. Time and again he measured the diameter of the glade, turning when he had crossed it to retrace his route. His movements were very much like those of a cake walker on parade. His middle was thrust out, his shoulders back, and his face was turned squarely to the sky. The goat-tuft bobbed and shook with each prancing step, and ever came that wonderful music, which he had taken from music's source.

Charmed into passiveness for the time, I crouched and stared at this strange sight. Then all at once the dancers abandoned the separate figures they had been treading, joined hands, his left in her right, and the Satyr, playing with one hand only, began a flute-like, dreamy movement, to whose bewitching melody they started afresh, an entirely different measure. This continued for a minute or more, not without a degree of stateliness, then, abruptly as a lightning flash, the Satyr sprang away from his partner with a burst of yelling laughter wholly uncivilized, and furiously began the Song of the Storm Wind. I had heard it before, but not as now. As if inspired to newer effort, each began to run. It was half race, half dance now, for even in the seeming carelessness of this rout I detected certain steps executed with regard to time and rhythm. Never had I seen such an extraordinary performance! The very contrast of the participants rendered it unique, but this unconscious revival of rites which had passed away centuries ago lent a deeper and more enigmatical significance to it all. There was nothing unseemly in this revel, if I may call it such. It was simply an expression of their love for the forest which had cradled and nurtured them. In everything but this common affection they were far apart, but in worshiping at Nature's shrine they were one. Each felt the call to the still places, and if we, whom life has cruelly thrust among brick walls and stone streets and steel towers pine for such things until our very souls cry out, how much more should they slip out alone to take their joy of them. That was all it amounted to, and even my jealous eye could find naught at which to carp. Two children had come forth to gambol, nothing more.

The pace set by the Song of the Storm Wind was too furious to continue long. Presently the climax was reached, and Jeff flung himself upon the ground like a tired boy, his thin legs outstretched, his body inclined backward and supported by his arms thrust out behind him. Celeste stopped near me, almost in the center of the moonlighted space, and throwing her arms high she bent her head sideways and gave a deep, happy sigh. I knew it was happy, for her countenance was tenderly aglow. Quickly I advanced and stood before her, both hands outheld.

"Dryad! O little Dryad! I have missed you so!"

A startled look came to her face, but it passed on the instant, and with a low, inarticulate cry she took one step and put her palms on mine.

Another instant both my arms were around her and I was pressing her closer, closer, closer, calling her all the precious names which only lovers know, kissing her face, her warm, sweet lips, her tumbled hair. Her arms went about my neck, her soft young body sank trembling upon my breast. She was mine! What we said the next fifteen minutes does not need transcription. Her words formed the most divine speech which ever fell from mortal lips, but there are fools abroad in the world who would not understand, so I forbear. Then, her arm in mine, we walked toward the Satyr, still in his unconventional attitude of rest. As we drew nearer, I saw that his ugly face bore an expression which indicated that he was scandalized beyond measure at the meeting he had witnessed. I was preparing to hail him jocularly, for my heart beat high with happiness which almost made me dizzy, when his features became convulsed in a look of mortal terror, and I knew that he was gazing at something behind me. I had heard no sound, but intuition now flashed me the needed warning. With the arm linked in hers I flung Celeste forward and from me as far as I could and wheeled at the same instant with the agility and ferocity of a tiger. I knew what I would see, but I was totally unprepared for the truly horrible spectacle which confronted me.

The smith was almost upon us. Bareheaded he came, stark naked to the waist. Barefooted, too, he was. His huge, hairy chest and arms, his bearded face and neck, and the long, unkempt hair of his head, invested him with a certain hideousness which might well have sent a tremor of fear to the stoutest heart. He was gnashing his teeth like a wolf—I could hear them click plainly—and muttering throaty, guttural sounds of wrath. He checked his rush short when I turned and faced him, and stood ten feet away, glaring insanely from me to Celeste, from Celeste to me. His mind was gone; I knew it then. As I waited his attack, he gave vent to a yell which was a fearful mingling of screech and laugh, stooped as though about to charge me, then, with motions so swift I could not comprehend his hellish purpose, he swung a short, thick club which he held and cast it with all his might—at Celeste! It sang fiendishly by my ear, I heard a scream, and there my Dryad was lying on the ground, a crumpled bit of white in the shadow-flecked glade. For a moment the night grew black. The darkness passed. I looked again. Jeff Angel was bending over her. I could not go to her yet. Time to bury my dead when her murderer—A new sound dispelled the numbing lethargy which this devil's blow had thrown upon me. It was Buck laughing. He was bending over, his hands on his knees, and his insane merriment was grating and mechanical. I sprang for him then; silent, grim. He jumped aside with a gibing croak, and, yielding to some reasonless vagary, whirled and ran. I was after him ere he had measured his first leap, for now I was harried by the hounds of Despair and Hate, and my life had been shorn of all aim and purpose but one. That one I knew I would accomplish—knew I must accomplish, or be a curse unto myself forever.

Buck ran with the speed of a greyhound, leaping now and then into the air like a demoniac, and striking out with his fists as he did so. He was never silent. Now he was shrieking his blood-chilling laugh, now shouting disjointed sentences in a voice which had ceased to be human, now singing something which might have been a war-chant of the Huns for all its consonantal slurring and meager scope. Neither did he ever look behind. He had taken the natural lane down which I had come, and down which he had doubtless followed me on unshod, noiseless feet. I put forth my strongest efforts and tried to overtake him. Though I ran steadily and with scientific care, and he expended strength and sacrificed distance during his numerous upward bounds, I could not gain an inch. I doubt if such a pursuit was ever undertaken before. A half-naked, hairy, maniac-giant leading, and a sane man well-nigh as big, whose holiest feelings had been outraged, following. On we swept through the checkered spaces of the forest, our progress accompanied by that rumbling chant suggestive of forgotten ages. I do not know how such things are, but it may have been that the slumbering strain transmitted through many generations from some ancient warrior ancestor who lived and fought when the world was young, had been quickened in the primitive brain when reason left it. He had ceased laughing and mouthing indistinguishable words now, but with every breath there rolled out the sonorous staves of this chant of a remote past.

We reached the base of Bald Knob, and here, instead of holding to the ravine which led around it, Buck swerved into the road leading up. He was going to the Lodge. Well and good. I would as soon end it on the plateau as elsewhere. Through the weeds and vines which choked the ascent we crashed, and as I gained the level in front of the Lodge I saw with joy that I had lessened the distance between us. Buck sped straight toward the open door, and I flew to overtake him, for that which had to be had best occur in the open. In vain. I could not catch this Mercury-footed Vulcan. As I looked to see him disappear within the house, he made a dextrous flank movement and circled it. Instantly I was on his track again. Now he had set his face toward the belt of evergreens which loomed blackly above us in the brilliant moonshine. A dread seized me. Was it his sly intention to reach this shelter first, and hide ere I could come up? I harbored this idea only a second. This being did not fear me. That he had run when I sought to attack him was due solely to some antic twist of his unaccountable mind. Any moment his mood might change. The dense gloom swallowed him, but still, a guide through the darkness, floated back the chant. How he could keep it up under such fearful exertion I could not understand. He must have been made of iron and steel. I pressed on. Bursting through the furthest edge of the encircling band of trees, I saw him once more. He had quit running, as this was practically impossible here, and was toiling up the steep slope silently, for his song had at last ceased. I stood a moment, legs apart, my chest heaving laboredly, for I felt the hard chase. Up went the great figure, grisly in its seeming now—up toward the peak.

A remembrance of that white, crumpled form lying in the glade assailed me poignantly, and starting beneath it as under the touch of white-hot iron, I shouted a frightful curse, and threw myself at the acclivity. I must reach there when he did. I must top the crest at the same time, so that he would have no chance to make a descent on the other side. For a while I ran, though the task was Herculean, goaded as I was into temporary madness by the stinging thought of my lost love. So it was I came within my own length of the climbing demoniac, who never yet had cast a glance behind him, and who even now, though he must have heard my progress, went directly on, without a sign. It was gruesome. In the midst of the inferno wherein my soul burned I recognized the uncanny strangeness of the scene. Night. A wilderness. A towering gray-white peak of earth, and on its slope two crawling specks, one bent on—God knows what!—the other intent on revenge. The law of Moses reigned supreme in my mind that night: forgotten was the law of Christ. Forgotten, or ignored. I knew no law. I was reduced to that simple plane where I was going to claim a life—a base and worthless life in exchange for the pure and priceless one he had taken. The united logic of all the united churches in Christendom or out could not have convinced me that I was wrong.