Not until noon did they learn what the
matter was. Only the night before a Tolliver had shot a Falin and
the Falins had gathered to get revenge on Judd that night. The
warning word had been brought to Lonesome Cove by Loretta
Tolliver, and it had come straight from young Buck Falin himself.
So June and old Judd and Bub had fled in the night. At that hour
they were on their way to the railroad--old Judd at the head of
his clan--his right arm still bound to his side, his bushy beard
low on his breast, June and Bub on horseback behind him, the rest
strung out behind them, and in a wagon at the end, with all her
household effects, the little old woman in black who would wait no
longer for the Red Fox to arise from the dead. Loretta alone was
missing. She was on her way with young Buck Falin to the railroad
on the other side of the mountains. Between them not a living soul
disturbed the dead stillness of Lonesome Cove.
XXXII
All winter the cabin in Lonesome Cove slept through rain and sleet
and snow, and no foot passed its threshold. Winter broke, floods
came and warm sunshine. A pale green light stole through the
trees, shy, ethereal and so like a mist that it seemed at any
moment on the point of floating upward.
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