When I spoke of it, she said, with never a flicker of expression, 'It belonged to my daughter.'
'Oh! I hope she won't mind.'
'My daughter is dead.' She spoke flatly and turned away. I did not know what to say, so I said nothing at all.
When I was all ready and waiting for Mr. Chantry, both Amy and Alicia stood waiting with me. 'You are very beautiful,' Alicia said. 'You should stay in Philadelphia. '
'I love the mountains, and besides, while Regal is laid up, who would hunt for them?'
'You mean youhunt ? You? You actually kill things?'
'Yes, ma'am. Whatever meat we have is wild meat, shot by me when the boys are away. We have hogs, razorbacks they call them, but they run wild in the forest and we only gather them up to sell them in town. There's no more fun ever than being on a hog or turkey drive, going miles across the hills to the towns.
'That is, it's a sight of fun while the weather's nice, but if it comes on to rain, it can be awful. We have to find a place to pen them for the night. Mostly folks along the way are helpful, but if a body's caught in the forest, it can be right mean.'
There I was standing in my triple skirt with lace mittens and all, that auburn hair which everybody says is beautiful falling over my shoulders, and talking of driving wild hogs and hunting game.
'If I were you,' Amy advised, 'I'd say nothing of driving hogs to the people you may meet tonight. They wouldn't understand.'
'Yes, ma'am, but ever'body in the mountains does what's necessary.'
The United States Hotel served up a supper the like of which I'd never seen, and we had Mumm's champagne to drink, which cost two dollars and a half a bottle!
'Do you have wine in the mountains?' Mr. Chantry asked.
'Some do,' I admitted, 'but mostly folks drink cider or whiskey of their own make. At least, the menfolks do. There's wild grapes in the mountains, and there have been some planted here and there. Some folks have made wine, but not such as this.'
Two dollars and a half a bottle! That was outrageous. In the mountains a body could buy a barrel of whiskey for that price.
'I never paid much mind to it, Mr. Chantry,' I said. 'Womenfolks in the mountains in our time don't touch whiskey. At least, not in public. There are some who like a little nip on the sly, but not me. None of our family were drinkers, although I've heard tell that wild Clinch Mountain bunch would tap the jug once in a while.'
'You must be careful,' Mr. Chantry warned. 'You'll be carrying quite a lot of money, and I shall be surprised if there isn't an attempt to rob you.'
'I came a long way to get this money, and I don't intend to let no thief take it from me. I've got a pistol, and I have my pick.'
'Oh, yes. The pick.' Finian Chantry had a nice smile. 'But be careful. That's a lot of money to most people.'
We had mock turtle soup, boiled bluefish with oyster sauce, tomatoes, and eggplant.
Mr. Chantry asked me about the mountains, so I told him about our cabin in the laurel with pines along the ridge above, the clear cold spring that gave us water, and the hole near the spring where we kept our butter and milk. I told him about hunting game and of the Clinch Mountain boys who were raised on bear meat and poke greens.
'There was a time we could have become rich folk. The land was for the taking, but we taken more to hunting along the ridges than settling in the rich bottomlands. Of a sudden the rich land was gone and all that was left was ridges and high country.'
Across the room a man had been seated facing us. He was a tall man with high cheekbones, a beak of a nose, and thin, tight lips. When I looked over, he was staring at us, and he turned his eyes away, but I had seen the look. He was a hunter.
'Mr. Chantry, there's a man across the room, just beyond the gray-haired man with the two ladies. I figure him for trouble.'
After a moment, Finian Chantry looked over and said, 'You are a very perceptive young lady. That is Felix Horst. James White defended him once ... for murder.'
Chapter 6
We took our time over supper. There was music playing somewhere out of sight-mighty pleasant it was, too. Most folks dined at home, but there were always a few who wished to go out to eat. The waiters went about their business so quietly a body scarcely realized they were about. Meanwhile, I kept an eye on Felix Horst.
It was unlikely his being here was an accident. He had been sent to prison for murder but James White had got the case reopened and contrived to free him. Maybe it was happenstance that he was having supper at the same time and place as me just after I had come into money, but I didn't believe it.
Murder didn't scare me the way it did most folks. Cuttings and shootings were common back in the hills, and we even had a feud of our own, with some killings over the years.
From time to time folks stopped by our table, and Mr. Chantry introduced me as the granddaughter of an old friend. A good many of them were younger men, mighty fetching in their ways.
Three of them sat at a table not far off, but only two paid their respects, as the saying was. The other young man sat with his back to us, very broad in the shoulders, and he looked to be tall, although I did not see him on his feet.
'My nephew, Dorian,' Finian Chantry explained. 'He will not come to our table because we have recently had words and he is a very independent young man.'
Mr. Chantry smiled suddenly, a mischievous glint in his eyes. 'We are much alike, so we do have words occasionally. Lately he has been devoting more time to dancing, riding to hounds, fencing and such things, and not studying law.'
'He is a good shot?'
'Excellent, I believe, and a fine horseman, too. He is a great favorite with the ladies and a bit too sure of himself. Nonetheless, he's a fine lad if a little too formal, too stiff.'
Mr. Chantry glanced at me. 'You mentioned your rifle? Do you shoot?'
'Yes, sir. Pa started me shooting when I was seven. Those brothers of mine had been riding roughshod over me because I was a girl.
'Pa, he said, 'Look, bein' a girl is a mighty fine thing. Don't let those roughneck brothers of yours get the better of you.'
' 'How can I help it? They are older than me and stronger than me.' '
' 'Be better than they are. Learn to shoot better.' '
' 'How can I? Nobody can shoot better than a Sackett!' '
'He laughed at me and said, 'But you're a Sackett too! Just learn to shoot better. Here, I'll teach you!' And he did.'
'And did you beat them?'
'Yes, sir. Most of the time. Only Regal ... he's my uncle, although more like a brother. Regal would not shoot against me. I think he did not want to beat me, seeing I just outshot my brothers.'
'Maybe that is what Dorian needs, to be outshot by a girl.'
'Oh, no! I'd never do that! Regal, he warned me to never let a man know how good I could shoot.'
'Good advice, but don't let it stop you. Dorian's a fine lad. What he needs is seasoning. He needs to be taken down a bit, to travel some rough country.'
Later, when I glanced over to catch a glimpse of him, he had gone. I felt kind of let down. We talked on for a bit and then Mr. Chantry said, 'You surprise me sometimes. You can speak very good English, but sometimes you talk like a mountain girl with no education.'
'Yes, sir, but that's the way with most folks, if you think on it. They talk one way to one person, and another way to others.'
'Ma insisted I learn to talk proper, and at school it was insisted on, but when around the hills, a body gets to talkin' as they do. But it seems to me we all have several ways of talkin' or writin'. Take you, for example, you bein' a lawyer. You have a set of law words you'd use in court but not over supper like this. And when a body writes a
