Backwoods Girl Read online

  So engrossed was Jim that he almost forgot his destination, until finally he sat down to rest in leafy hollow, gouged out by some long-forgotten mountain storm, with towering pines ringing it about. Leaves and pine needles had piled up here until it was like the couch of some woodland creature. Sheltered from the wind by the overhanging cliff above it, and by the trees that hemmed it in, it was almost warm, and he was grateful for the chance to rest city-soft legs and lungs unaccustomed to this high, pure air.

  As far as his eyes could see were the mountains, with here and there a tiny bare patch that marked some mountain family’s fight to raise enough food to keep life in their work-worn bodies. Below him, the silvery sparkle of the creek, racing towards fulfillment in some lowland river, marked the way he had come.

  He smoked a cigarette and very carefully ground out the last tiny spark, and for good measure, dug a tiny hole and pressed damp earth over the stub. As he was about to rise, there was a sudden harsh growl, and the big yellow-brown dog he knew as Seth emerged from below him, and bounded towards him growling, menacing, his yellow eyes blazing.

  A primitive fear caught in Jim’s throat. It was a dog, of course, but it was more than half-wild, and it was his enemy. Jim sensed that the smallest move on his part would bring those murderous jaws straight at his throat.

  He felt beads of cold sweat on his forehead as the dog stood poised, ready to leap at the smallest movement, and Jim spoke very softly, “Good dog, Seth. Good dog. That’s the boy!”

  Seth only growled more deeply, and it seemed to Jim that ages passed before above his head on the shelving rock that partially roofed the sheltered spot where he sat, there was a clear whistle, like the call of a blackbird.

  The dog raised his head, without taking his eyes off Jim, and gave a short bark. The next moment, Cindy was sliding, half-tumbling down the side of the cliff, and was beside Seth, her hand caught in his thick leather collar before she even looked to see what Seth was watching.

  “Why, it’s Mr. McCurdy!” she gasped, and her lovely face was bright with color. “Seth, you know Mr. McCurdy. Ain’t you ‘shamed o’ scarin’ him? Was you scared, Mr. McCurdy?”

  “Out of my wits,” Jim admitted. “I still am, to be honest with you.” Nevertheless, he relaxed somewhat and gave her a warm smile.

  Cindy smiled warmly at him. “I sure am sorry, Mr. McCurdy, but Seth’s allus been trained not to let nobody git too close to the cabin. You ain’t lost ag’in, are you?”

  “Well, no, not exactly,” answered Jim, and was still eying the dog. “Would it be safe for me to stand up?”

  “O’course, Mr. McCurdy,” she laughed, and spoke to the dog. “This hyer’s Mr. McCurdy, Seth. You go smell o’ him, so’s you’ll know him does he come back some time.”

  Jim eyed the dog warily, even as he spoke. “Yes, please do, Seth. I’d like to feel free to visit now and then.”

  Cindy’s big black eyes widened, and she stared at him, while color touched her face, and then, her hand tightening in the dog’s collar, she drew back. “Don’t know’s they’s any reason for you to be comin’ back to see me, Mr. McCurdy,” she said tautly.

  “I’m sorry you don’t, Cindy, because I’d like very much to be your friend, if you’d let me,” said Jim gently.

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Well, why does any man want to be friends with a pretty girl, Cindy?” he asked, puzzled at her manner.

  “I ain’t hankerin’ for no men friends, Mr. McCurdy,” she blazed at him. “Reckin you be’n hearin’ folks talk plenty ‘bout men a-comin’ to m’ place, but it ain’t so! You hear me? It ain’t so!” Her voice was shaking, and the dog stirred beneath her taut hand and growled.

  “Cindy, you poor child! Don’t you know that I wouldn’t hurt you for the world?” he pleaded. “I just wanted to see you, talk to you—.”

  “Talk ‘bout what?”

  He made a little gesture of amusement and defeat. “Whatever interests you, Cindy,” he told her gently. “I have told you about myself, why I am here. It gets pretty lonely—.”

  “Y’got Miss Blake,” she reminded him.

  “Miss Blake goes back to Atlanta on Sunday afternoons.”

  “Yeah,” she admitted and studied him sharply. “She sure is purty, a right nice woman, seems like.”

  “You mustn’t go to visit her, Cindy,” he said impulsively.

  Her smile was thin-lipped and unmirthful. “I ain’t studdyin’ ‘bout visitin’ nobody, no time, nowhere,” she told him.

  “That sounds a bit drastic,” Jim tried for a lighter note.

  “Miss Blake ain’t a-wantin’ me to visit her,” said Cindy. “She’s just believin’ a lot o’ the lies folks are tellin’ ‘bout me knowin’ where the Indian gold is hid. She thinks she’ll be real sweet an’ nice t’ me, an’ I’ll tell her.”

  Momentarily startled at her shrewdness, because he had not expected her to evaluate Lorna’s proffered friendship so clearly, Jim studied the girl for a moment before he spoke. “And you think that may be why I’d like to be friends with you, Cindy?”

  Her own eyes on him were studying him as sharply as he had watched her, and he saw a vague uncertainty in her expression.

  “I dunno,” she admitted at last. “Seems like you ain’t so all-fired greedy ‘bout money, or you wouldn’t ‘a’ turned over all you had to that woman ‘fore you come up hyer.”

  “Thanks, Cindy,” said. Jim. “I appreciate your confidence, and I’d like to give you my sworn word that the Indian gold doesn’t interest me in the least—even if there is any, which I strongly doubt.”

  Her eyes slid away from his with a momentary hesitation, and then she said awkwardly, “Well, reckin I better be a-gittin’ on t’wards home.”

  “May I come with you, Cindy?” he asked humbly.

  She stiffened, and once more her eyes were those of an animal wary of a trap. “Why?” she demanded. “What for?”

  Jim shrugged wearily. “Sorry.” He dismissed the matter. “I just thought that we could be friends, kill a little time by becoming friends, but I can see you don’t want that.”

  “That ain’t so!” she burst out with unexpected vigor. “I’d like more’n anythin’ in the world to have friends, even one friend that didn’t want nothin’ I didn’t want to give. I don’t call friends people like Miss Blake, that believes all them yarns ‘bout the Indian gold an’ men-folks that wants something ain’t no man never gonna git from me. Not never!”

  Jim was touched with a deep pity for her, a tenderness, a compassion that startled even him by its depths. “You poor kid! You’ve been hurt very badly, haven’t you? I’m so sorry.” His tone was warm with the sympathy he felt.

  She looked at him swiftly, as though her hard, rigorous lonely life had geared her to face anything but sympathy and kindness. Jim met her eyes straightly, waiting, as she held her breath, her eyes searching, probing, wanting desperately to believe in the friendship he offered.

  “Reckin y’can come on, if you want to,” she said awkwardly at last. “Seth, this hyer’s a friend. You hear me?”

  Seth looked up at her, whining, and then at Jim. Cindy said quietly, “Put your hand out real gentle-like, Mister. Let him smell it.”

  Jim did as she asked, but with misgivings as the dog bristled and then allowed the hand to come nearer. The dog sniffed the hand, and growled faintly, and looked up at Cindy questioningly.

  Cindy, without taking her eyes from the dog, said very softly, “Now you kin touch his head. Rub behind his ears. Make like you like him a heap.”

  Jim’s hand touched the dog’s head, smooth and velvety despite the roughness of the brown-yellow hair that covered his body. The dog stiffened, but as Jim’s hand began gently to caress the velvety head, the stiffness went out of the dog, and a small quiver went over him as though he had
a puppyish impulse to squirm with delight.

  “See, Seth?” Cindy’s voice was as gentle as though she spoke to a beloved child. “He ain’t gonna harm you, ner me neither. He’s our friend.”

  Jim was oddly touched by the phrase spoken in that gentle voice, and he said quietly, “I am your friend, Cindy, and his, as long as you’ll let me be.”

  Cindy studied him a minute, and then color poured into her face, and her eyes fell shyly before his. Without answering him, she turned and led the way up the steep, shelving cliff towards her cabin, with the dog walking behind her. She paused now and then to look back at Jim, as though to ask whether he was following.

  Jim’s heart was leaping with triumph. It was absurd to be so pleased simply because he was beginning to win the confidence of this wild young thing, and yet he was pleased, tremendously pleased. She was such a lovely creature, and so innocent and vulnerable. As he followed her up the trail and to the cabin, he swore in his heart that he would do nothing to violate that trust she had placed in him. He would never add to her suffering.

  She was waiting for him when he reached the plateau on which the cabin stood. She was flushed arid smiling shyly as he breathed hard and grinned down at her and turned to look at the view spread out before them.

  “And Lorna Blake thinks you’d be happier living in the city,” he marveled aloud.

  “It’s right purty, ain’t it?” Cindy said so eagerly that he realized she would never tire of it, and he could understand that. “It’s allus purty. Rain, er shine, er snow. In spring when things start t’ greenup, it’s mighty sightly.”

  “It must be,” said Jim. “I hope I’m here to see that.”

  Cindy looked up at him swiftly. “I sure hope so,” she said impulsively and then as though she had said more than she had meant to say, she turned hurriedly and opened the door, leading the way into the cabin.

  The fire of logs had died down, and as she bent above the big wood box, Jim said quickly, “Here, let me.”

  Startled, she drew back, and Jim built up the fire expertly, as Cindy stood looking down at him, an odd stirring at her young heart. When Jim, still kneeling, waiting for the fire to catch, turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder, her expression made his own heart leap.

  “What’s the matter, Cindy? Did you think I wouldn’t know how to start a fire?” he laughed.

  “I knew you’d be able to do anythin’ you set your mind to,” she told him simply, and color touched her young face. “I jest ain’t used to havin’ folks do things for me.”

  Before he could speak the pity and compassion that innocent confession aroused in him, she drew back hurriedly. “I’ll fix us somethin’ feat,” she said quickly.

  “Don’t bother, Cindy—.”

  “It ain’t no bother,” she assured him eagerly. “Won’t take me no time a’tall, and I’ll be right proud if you’ll stay an’ eat. It gets awful lonesome eatin’ by m’self.”

  Jim nodded soberly. “It does, doesn’t it?” he agreed.

  “Reckin you wouldn’t know much ‘bout that,” she said and was gone into kitchen before he could answer that.

  The magazines Lorna had brought to her lay in a neat, orderly pile, and as he heard Cindy moving briskly about in the kitchen, Jim examined them, grinning sardonically as he did so. They were about what he would have expected of Lorna—glossy, slick magazines, devoted chiefly to fashion, home decorating and highbrow stories that would be miles above Cindy’s lovely head.

  As Cindy summoned him to the table, she said shyly, “It’s awful rough vittles, Mister.”

  “If we’re going to be friends, Cindy, couldn’t you possibly learn to call me Jim?” he begged as he held her chair for her.

  Puzzled by his action, she hesitated a moment and then realizing his intention, she slipped into the chair and smiled up at him. “Yes, sir, I reckin I could.” She was flushed and radiant. “What I was aimin’ t’ say was if I’d knowed I was gonna have comp’ny I’d have fixed something fancy. Don’t seem like much use, just for me.”

  “It’s fine, Cindy. You’re a wonderful cook.”

  “I ain’t, but I reckin maybe if they was some reason t’be, I might learn,” she answered. “Maybe you’d come some time and lemme know ahead o’ time, so’s I could fix somethin’ special.”

  “Are you going to let me come again, Cindy?” he asked her quietly. “Soon?”

  Her eyes met his, widened, and the color was heightened in her face. “I’d be pleased an’ proud if. you would, Mister—.”

  “Jim!’ he insisted, smiling.

  She nodded, and he was touched and surprised at the change in her. “I meant t’ say Jim, only it seemed right bold,” she confessed.

  “Not between friends, Cindy—and I hope you and I are going to he good friends.”

  “I hope so, too,” she said. “I’d sure like t’ have a friend.”

  “You have one, Cindy. I’m not much of a guy, but I like to think I could be a good friend if you’d let me,” he told her.

  When the meal was over, and he had insisted on helping her with the dishes, they came back to the cabin’s main room, and he paused beside the stack of magazines. “How do you like the magazines Miss Blake brought you, Cindy?” he asked.

  “They’re real purty, an’ the paper’s nice, an’ thick, an’ smooth, an’ the pictures is purty,” she told him and added, her head high, “I can read, an’ cipher, an’ spell, only they’s words I don’t understand. Granny learned me my letters when I weren’t knee-high to Seth. We ain’t got much to read, the almanac and the Wish-Book’s ‘bout all, but I sure like them books Miss Blake brung me. They’re real purty. They’s pictures as purty as all get-out. All colors.”

  Her hand caressed the top magazine, and opened it to a page that showed a picture of a small, charming ranch-type house, with a garden in glowing color surrounding it.

  “I’m a-gonna cut ‘em out and paste ‘em up on the wall,” she told him proudly. “I think they’ll look real nice.’

  “Of course they will,” Jim agreed.

  He watched her lovely face as she pored over the page. She had lost all her self-consciousness now, and he had never seen such beauty. This woman was for him. She had to be his. Nothing less than Cindy would do.

  He was conscious of the leaping of desire within him. She was so alluring in her young, innocent loveliness. Her skin would be velvety and warm to his touch. Her mouth would be soft, and fragrant with the fragrance of youth itself. Suddenly he knew that he wanted her badly, and something of his urgent yearning must have flickered for a moment in his eyes, for he saw her draw back, saw the warm friendliness, the eager trust die out of her eyes, to be replaced by the old savage distrust. He turned from her and swore savagely at himself that he could have alarmed her.

  “Well, I guess I’d better be running along,” he said brusquely. “It’s been nice being with you, Cindy. I hope you’ll let me come and visit again.”

  The tension went out of her, and there was an acute relief for a moment in her eyes as she realized that he was not going to force himself upon her.

  “I reckin I’ll be right proud if you want to visit, Jim,” she told him, but he saw that she stood back, well out of his reach, as she bade him goodbye. Then the door closed between them. He heard the stout wooden bar drop into place behind him, and cursed himself as he started the long, cold walk down the trail to the settlement. She had just begun to trust him, and he had frightened her by letting her see for an instant his need for her.

  Winning her was going to be a long, slow, torturous business, and he would need to exert all the patience he could possibly muster. It was going to be worth it. She would be glorious in love. She was so sweet, so untaught. It was seldom that a man had the rare good fortune to find such a girl, to be the first to initiate her into all the exqui
site intimacies of love. The very thought of it made his blood run hot, but it would take time, and self-control and unlimited patience.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jim could not get Cindy out of his mind, and each night his thoughts were filled with visions of her in his arms, responding to his need, fulfilling the passion that swirled through him. He knew that he could educate her in more ways than the ways of love. She had a good mind. She was mentally alert, and teaching her would be like watering the thirsty soil about the roots of a plant, coaxing it into superb bloom. Cindy, with her beauty and her allure, equipped with the education he could give her, would be superb.

  One morning, on a sudden impulse, Jim set out for Marshallville. Storekeeper, avid-eyed with curiosity, had told him the approximate bus schedule, and Jim did not have to wait long before it came lumbering along and picked him up.

  Marshallville was no more than a mountain village with probably not more than three or four thousand population. Jim was amused at himself for the feeling that it was much larger than he remembered it. Surely, he mused, grinning, just a few weeks in the mountains could not have altered his perspective that much!

  He had made his plans in the night, and so now he went directly to the tiny Western Union office and requested permission to make a long distance call to Atlanta. There he called his former partner.

  “Well, you so-and-so!” said Peter Allen, when he recognized Jim’s voice. “Where the heck are you hiding out? And why the blazes don’t you come on back and get to work? We need you here, my boy!”